Nathan News

China’s 72-hour spectacle of missiles, warships and jet fighters invading Taiwan was designed to create a firewall – a blazing, made-for-TV warning against what Beijing sees as a growing challenge obstinate, supported by Washington, of its claims on the island.

“We maintain a high state of alert, ready for combat at all times, capable of combat at all times,” Zu Guanghong, a captain in the Chinese navy, said in a People’s Liberation Army video of the drills. which were to end on Sunday. “We have the determination and the ability to mount a painful direct attack against any invader who would shatter the unification of the homeland and show no mercy.”

But even if China’s display of military might discourages other Western politicians from emulating Nancy Pelosi, who infuriated Beijing by visiting Taiwan, it also dims hopes of winning the island through negotiations. Beijing’s shock and fear tactics could deepen skepticism in Taiwan about the possibility of reaching a peaceful and lasting settlement with the Chinese Communist Party, especially under Xi Jinping at its helm.

“Nothing will change after the military exercises, there will be one like this and then another,” said Li Wen-te, a 63-year-old retired fisherman in Liuqiu, an island off the coast. southwest Taiwan, less than 10 kilometers from Chinese drills.

“They are as intimidating as ever,” he said, adding a Chinese saying, “dig deep into soft ground,” which means “give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.”

Mr Xi has now shown he is ready to pull out an intimidating military baton in an attempt to push back what Beijing sees as a dangerous alliance between the Taiwanese opposition and US backing. Chinese military drills in six areas around Taiwan, which included joint air and sea drills on Sunday to hone long-range airstrike capabilities, have allowed the military to practice blockading the island in the event of an invasion .

While the exercises were due to end on Sunday in Taiwan, Taiwanese authorities were unsure whether they were over, and the Chinese military did not explicitly declare they were over.

In the face of continued pressure, the political carrots China used to push Taiwan toward unification may carry even less weight. In previous periods of better relations, China has welcomed Taiwan’s investment, agricultural products and artists.

The result could be a deepening of mutual distrust that some experts say could, in the extreme, bring Beijing and Washington into all-out conflict.

“It’s not about to explode tomorrow, but it does increase the overall likelihood of a crisis, conflict or even war with the Americans over Taiwan,” said Kevin Rudd, l former Australian Prime Minister who previously worked as a diplomat in Beijing.

Taiwan has never been ruled by the Communist Party, but Beijing maintains that it is historically and legally part of Chinese territory. Chinese nationalist forces who fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the civil war also long claimed the island was part of a greater China they had ruled.

But since Taiwan became a democracy in the 1990s, a growing number of its residents see themselves as very different in values ​​and culture from the People’s Republic of China. This political skepticism of authoritarian China has persisted, if not deepened, as Taiwan’s economic ties to the mainland have grown.

“The attractiveness of carrots in China’s Taiwanese politics – economic incentives – has now fallen to its lowest level since the end of the Cold War,” said Wu Jieh-min, a political scientist at Academia Sinica, the best research academy in Taiwan.

“The card he currently holds is to lift military threats against Taiwan step by step, and to continue military preparations for the use of force,” he said, “until the day an offensive large-scale military on Taiwan will become a favorable option.”

Since the late 1970s, Deng Xiaoping and other Chinese leaders have tried to get Taiwan to accept unification under a “one country, two systems” framework that promised autonomy in laws, religion, economic policy and other areas as long as the island accepted Chinese sovereignty. .

But in increasingly democratic Taiwan, few see themselves as proud future Chinese citizens. Support for Beijing’s proposals fell even further after 2020, when China imposed a crackdown on Hong Kong, eroding the freedoms promised to the former British colony in its own version of the framework.

Xi has continued to promise Taiwan a “one country, two systems” deal, and he may resume offering economic and political incentives to Taiwan, if he can sway the island’s presidential election in early 2024. .

Taiwan’s current president, Tsai Ing-wen, is due to step down after her second term ends that year. And a potential successor to his Democratic Progressive Party, which rejects the “one China” principle and favors independence, could be more pugnacious towards Beijing.

In the years since that election, Chinese leaders “will probably want to show substantial progress in Taiwan, not necessarily unification, but results there,” said Wang Hsin-hsien, a professor at National Chengchi University. from Taipei who studies Chinese politics. . “Xi Jinping is the kind of man who returns enmity with revenge and returns kindness, but when he takes revenge, he is repaid twice.”

A conundrum hanging over Taiwan is whether Mr. Xi has a timetable in mind. He suggested that his vision of “rejuvenating” China into a prosperous, powerful and comprehensive world power hinges on unification with Taiwan. The rejuvenation, he said, will be achieved by the middle of the century, so some see that time as the outer limit of his Taiwanese ambitions.

“We now have a 27-year-old fuse that can be slow-burning or fast-burning,” said Mr Rudd, the former Australian prime minister who is now president of the Asia Society, citing the mid-century date. . “The time to worry is the early 2030s, because you’re closer to the 2049 countdown zone, but you’re also in Xi Jinping’s political life.”

In an agenda-setting speech on Taiwan politics in 2019, Xi reiterated that China hopes to peacefully unite with Taiwan, but will not rule out armed force.

He also called for exploring ways to update what a “one country, two systems” arrangement for Taiwan would look like, and the Chinese government has assigned academics to the project. Such plans, Xi said, “must fully take into account the realities of Taiwan, and also promote lasting order and stability in Taiwan after unification.”

“I continue to believe that military capability is first and foremost calibrated right now as a deterrent,” said Willian Klein, a former US diplomat stationed in Beijing who now works for FGS Global, a consulting firm, referring to the rise of China. “Their strategy is to reduce the possible universe of outcomes to the point where their preferred outcome becomes a reality.”

But the proposals Chinese scholars have put forward on Taiwan highlight the gap between what Beijing seems to have in mind and what most Taiwanese might accept.

Chinese studies propose sending Chinese officials to maintain control in Taiwan, especially if Beijing takes control by force; others say China must impose a national security law on Taiwan — like the one it imposed on Hong Kong in 2020 — to punish opponents of Chinese rule.

“It must be recognized that governing Taiwan will be much more difficult than Hong Kong, whether in terms of geographic scope or political conditions,” wrote Zhou Yezhong, a prominent law professor at Wuhan University, in a recent post. “Outline for China’s Unification”. which he co-wrote with another scholar.

Taiwanese society, they wrote, must be “re-sinified” to embrace official Chinese values ​​and “fundamentally transform the political environment that has long been shaped by the ideas of ‘Taiwanese independence'”.

Chinese Ambassador to France Lu Shaye said in a TV interview last week that the people of Taiwan have been brainwashed by pro-independence ideas.

“I’m sure that as long as they are re-educated, the Taiwanese public will become patriotic again,” he said in the interview shared on his embassy’s website. “Not under threat, but through rehabilitation.”

Polls of Taiwanese show that very few have an appetite for unification on China’s terms. In the latest opinion poll by National Chengchi University, 1.3 percent of respondents favored unification as soon as possible, 5.1 percent wanted independence as soon as possible. The others mostly wanted a version of the ambiguous status quo.

“I cherish our freedom of speech and don’t want to be unified by China,” Huang Chiu-hong, 47, owner of a shop that sells braided dough fried sticks, a local snack, told Liuqiu , the Taiwanese island. .

She said she tried to see the People’s Liberation Army in action out of curiosity, but saw nothing of a pavilion overlooking the sea.

“It seems some people are worried,” she said. “For me, this is just a small episode of ordinary Taiwanese life.”