A day after Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, visited Taiwan, celebrating it as a bulwark of democracy, the island faces three days of military exercises in which Chinese forces may be closing in closer than ever, flexing and honing their abilities to block it.
A barrage of Chinese propaganda said the drills, which were due to begin at noon on Thursday, would serve as punishment for Ms Pelosi’s visit and as a deterrent against opponents of Beijing’s claims to the self-governing island. But more than that, the six exercise areas the People’s Liberation Army has marked out in the seas off Taiwan – one less than 10 miles from its southern coast – could give Chinese forces valuable training, if they one day received the order to encircle and attack the Island.
“They’re definitely going to use this as an excuse to do something that will help them prepare for a possible invasion,” said Oriana Skylar Mastro, a fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, who studies the Chinese army and its potential. attack Taiwan.
“It’s not just about messaging,” she said. “Under the guise of signals, they are basically trying to test their ability to carry out complex maneuvers that are necessary for an amphibious assault on Taiwan.”
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has said he hopes to secure eventual unification with Taiwan through peaceful steps. But like his predecessors, he didn’t rule out force, and China’s military buildup has reached a point where some military commanders and analysts believe an invasion is an increasingly plausible, if still very risky, scenario. .
“I wouldn’t underestimate President Xi’s determination to assert Chinese control” over Taiwan, CIA director William J. Burns told the Aspen Security Forum last month. “I think he is determined to ensure that his army has the capability to undertake such an action, should he decide to go in that direction. I think the chances of that increasing, it seems to us, the further we go into this decade. »
It is still unclear how close Chinese forces will get to Taiwan during the drills. In a possible sign of what to expect, the China Liberation Army Daily said on Thursday that the Eastern Theater Command was organizing its own training operations that included the navy, army air and rocket power, and focused on “joint containment and control”, aggression. at sea and on land, and air dominance operations. Kinmen Island, an island under Taiwanese control just over six miles off the coast of China, reported that on Wednesday evening flying objects of uncertain origin – likely drones – flew overhead.
China is trying to bolster its influence in Taiwan by improving deterrence after Pelosi’s visit, who praised the island’s residents for their resistance to Beijing, several Chinese analysts have said.
“The tendency of outside forces exploiting Taiwan to contain China has become increasingly clear,” said Wu Yongping, a professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing who studies Taiwan, in written responses to questions. “The Chinese government has adopted unprecedented military operations in response to this.”
One of the exercise areas designated by the People’s Liberation Army is off the east coast of Taiwan, at the farthest point from the Chinese mainland. When China staged intimidating military drills off Taiwan during a geopolitical crisis 25 years ago, the People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, didn’t go that far.
“It’s an intentional message meant to highlight the PLA’s increased ability to project power further away from the Chinese mainland, and it’s a visible signal that China can encircle the island. “said Brian Hart, a fellow of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It will also complicate traffic to and around the island from all sides.”
Global Times, a Chinese newspaper with swaggering nationalism, raised the possibility of missiles being fired from the mainland towards this eastern area, passing over Taiwan. “If the Taiwanese army responds, the Liberation Army is quite capable of trapping the turtle in the jar,” Chinese commentator Zhang Xuefeng told the newspaper, using a Chinese saying for easily catching prey.
But Mr Hart said China was unlikely to fire missiles over Taiwan. “It would be extremely escalating,” he said. “They are more likely to fire ship-borne or air-launched missiles into this area without flying missiles over the island.”
After decades of tension and several military crises with China, many in Taiwan have become accustomed to threats. But even if China doesn’t take the most potentially incendiary measures this time around, experts and island officials fear the operations could spark an incident – a collision at sea or in the air, or a misfired missile. – which stirs up tensions. -full crisis.
A monitoring service run by the US Naval Institute reported on Monday that a strike group led by the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan was in the Philippine Sea, some distance east of Taiwan, and that the USS Tripoli, an amphibious assault ship, was also in this area.
“The three parties – the United States, China and Taiwan – should all have a tacit understanding to avoid direct military confrontations,” said Chieh Chung, security analyst at the National Policy Foundation in Taipei. But, he added, “if an incident occurs, it can quickly heat up, triggering a military confrontation beyond the expectations of either side.”