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A week ago, Taiwan was preparing to hold a Chinese military exercise to “punish” its president, Lai Ching-te, for an overseas trip that included two short visits to the United States. This could have been another show of force by Beijing in response to Taiwanese leaders' assertion of their country's independence.
But what happened next surprised Taipei. Military and national security officials monitored what they described as China's largest naval deployment in nearly 30 years. At the same time, Beijing announced partial restrictions on air traffic in seven regions hugging its coastline from Shanghai to Hong Kong for two days.
There has been no word from the People's Liberation Army, in contrast to the propaganda campaigns accompanying its exercises targeting Taipei.
Taiwan and the United States — the only foreign defender against the China threat Annex it by force If Taipei had resisted unification indefinitely – they might have come to very different conclusions.
On Monday, Taiwan's Ministry of Defense established an emergency response center and conducted rapid preparedness drills. She added: “Regardless of whether they announced training exercises, the threat level facing us is severe.”
However, Washington said that although Chinese military activity in the East China Sea and South China Sea is “elevated” after a broader increase over the past few years, it is “consistent” with levels seen during other large exercises. US officials emphasized that they did not consider this activity a response to Lai's brief visits to Hawaii and Guam.
One senior US official said it was important to distinguish between the coercion campaign in response to the crossing and the kind of “routine, large regional exercises” that appear to have occurred. “They chose not to carry out a pressure campaign in response to the Lae crossing,” the official said.
China They added that they may have decided not to specifically respond to Lai's crossing because he was “out of the limelight.” But it is possible that Beijing did not want to create unrest during the US presidential transition period, or that the moves were linked to political unrest within the People's Liberation Army due to corruption investigations.
The mixed messages highlight the challenge for Taiwan, the United States and its allies in assessing China's intentions and responding to Beijing's use of its increasingly powerful military in a creeping pressure campaign on many of its neighbors.
Observers said China could sow confusion and uncertainty among its adversaries by combining unannounced exercises with conventional exercises. They added that conducting exercises of this size on a more regular basis would make it difficult to monitor preparations for an attack on Taiwan.
Taiwanese national security officials said last week's deployments included nearly 100 ships, two-thirds of which were from the People's Liberation Army Navy and a third from the Coast Guard. The presence, spread across the East and South China Seas as well as waters off Taiwan's east coast in the western Pacific Ocean, extended over 70 days. China did this in part by keeping ships offshore after smaller patrols and exercises in October and November, the officials added. The Taiwanese Ministry of Defense said that the maneuvers included the three coastal theater commands of the People's Liberation Army for the first time.
“We agree that this went far beyond Taiwan, it is proof that they can close the first island chain,” one official said, referring to the chain of islands stretching from Japan to the Philippines that separates China from the Pacific Ocean. “but Gray zone tactics “This poses an increasing threat to us and our neighbors,” he said, referring to military movements that fall below the threshold of war.
The senior US official said that Taiwan may have become very upset because it has greater capabilities than in the past to detect what China is doing. The official added that the United States did not ask Taiwan to retract its rhetoric because it realized that Taipei may have internal political considerations.
Taiwan He stressed that this played a role. “We have decided to more clearly convey what we are seeing this time. Especially when China remains silent, the public needs to know what is going on around us,” a senior official said.
A Western diplomat said Taipei was trying to “awaken public opinion” while Lai sought to bolster the country's defences. “Educating people about PLA training works better than government demands to increase military preparedness.”
The US official said the exercises highlighted the increasingly expansive nature of the PLA's maneuvers away from the Chinese mainland and later in the year into the winter. These changes also had impacts on Japan and the Philippines.
“China has crossed a new line in all its previous maneuvers,” a senior Japanese official said. “Now they have created another new normal: that they can conduct maneuvers of this magnitude without announcement, leaving us all struggling to respond.”
