Taiwan

China claims that the military exercises surrounding Taiwan are an attempt to see how well it can "seize power."

People's Liberation Army diagram showing Taiwan-related drills

The People's Liberation Army said on Friday that China's military maneuvers around Taiwan are intended to see how well it can "seize power" over the island, as its soldiers began a second day of extensive training encircling its democratic neighbor.

Illustration of a Type-52 guided-missile ship used by the People's Liberation Army Navy during the XXX exercise. PLA Illustration

Only a few days have passed since Taiwan swore in its new president, Lai Ching-te, who is publicly despised by Beijing for defending the island's sovereignty and unique identity. These drills are the biggest in more than a year.

Beijing has criticized Lai's inaugural address on Monday, calling it a "dangerous separatist" and condemned him for calling on China to stop intimidating Taiwan, a move that has intensified under Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The PLA, which is far more powerful than Taipei's military, began the drills on Thursday morning by circling Taiwan and its neighboring islands with warships and fighter jets as "a strong punishment for separatist acts of Taiwan independence forces." 

The goal of the exercises, according to the PLA's Eastern Theater Command, is to "test the ability to jointly seize power, launch joint attacks, and occupy key areas." They will continue on both sides of the Taiwan island chain until Friday.

Despite never having ruled the island, China's ruling Communist Party claims Taiwan as part of its sovereignty and has threatened to use force to seize the island if needed.

Most Taiwanese people would not want to live under Chinese rule. However, it is apparent that the island's "inevitable reunification" with the mainland cannot be postponed indefinitely according to Xi, China's most autocratic leader in a generation. 

According to the PLA, the two-day exercises, which involve joint operations of China's army, navy, air force, and rocket force, are taking place in the north, south, and east of Taiwan as well as in the Taiwan Strait, a thin body of water that divides the island from mainland China.

China's Coast Guard, which operates in the vicinity of Taiwan's outer islands of Kinmen, Matsu, Wuqiu, and Dongyin, which are situated just off China's southeast coast, participated in PLA maneuvers for the first time.

Although there was no live gunfire, CCTV on Friday featured footage of PLA personnel positioning mobile artillery and missile systems.

Taiwan's Defense Ministry sent its own air, sea, and land forces in retaliation, denouncing China's military drills as "irrational provocations." 

The Ministry reported that between 6 a.m. on Thursday and 6 a.m. on Friday, it had identified 49 Chinese aircraft, 35 of which had violated the Median Line, an unofficial Taiwan Strait boundary point that Beijing does not acknowledge but had up until recently mostly respected.

The ministry reported that it had spotted seven coast guard vessels and 19 Chinese warships in the vicinity of the Taiwan Strait.

The presidential office of Taiwan stated on Thursday that Taiwan has the "confidence and ability to protect national security" and that it is "regrettable to see China threatening Taiwan's democracy and freedom as well as regional peace and stability with unilateral military provocations." 

On May 23, 2020, a Chinese fighter plane participates in a two-day military exercise around Taiwan, as seen on a big screen in Beijing.

First week in office

After succeeding Tsai Ing-wen, the party's two-term leader, Lai has had a hectic and controversial start to his presidency. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is beginning a record third consecutive term of power.

The senior politician will put his ability to handle relations with Beijing to the test for the first time with the PLA's drills. Beijing has rejected his offer to speak and to resume cross-strait travel and student exchanges.

China's Defense Ministry charged Lai on Friday of "playing with fire" and forcing Taiwan into "a dangerous situation of war."

Ministry spokesman Wu Qian told reporters, "Those who play with fire will burn themselves," employing language China regularly uses for Taiwan's leadership. "We will press forward with our countermeasures until the complete reunification of the motherland is achieved, whenever forces advocating for "Taiwan independence" provoke us."

At home, Lai is dealing with disarray in the legislature, where opposition parties pushing for closer connections to China control the majority and have sought for increased oversight of his administration.

Thousands of people, the majority of whom are young, have protested in the streets against the opposition's attempt to expedite the proposed measures that would increase the power of the parliament.

However, despite Beijing's massive display of power, things carried on as usual in Taiwan, where the 23 million people have grown accustomed to China's military threats despite their increasing frequency and visibility in recent years.

An 88-year-old retiree, who went by the surname Liu, told CNN, "We have confidence and we are not scared of the Chinese Communist Party."

It won't be simple for the Chinese Communist Party to annex Taiwan if they launch an attack. The people of Taiwan do not fear conflict.

The mother, 42, went by the last name Tsai and claimed she had no idea the PLA drills were happening.

"I'm not concerned because I think leaders will put people's pleasure first. I believe that there will be peace," she remarked.

China Coast Guard exercises close to Taiwan.

"Obstructing Taiwan"

State media has increased coverage of China's military drills, which are primarily intended to convey intentions to the country's neighbors while also catering to the country's home audience.

Chinese military analyst Zhang Chi stated to China's official broadcaster CCTV that the PLA's drills were aimed at "practicing a new mode of blockading Taiwan."

Taiwan is a remote island with poor self-sufficiency that is hung in the sea. Taiwan's economy is focused on exports, and imports account for the majority of its energy use. It can quickly descend into economic collapse after being surrounded and blockaded, becoming a dead island, the speaker stated.

The exercises, which are aimed at Taiwan's largest port and a key base for the island's navy, Kaohsiung Port, are essential to the blockade, according to Zhang. In the meantime, he said, exercises to Taiwan's east are intended to simulate shutting off the island's oil imports, the "Taiwan independence" forces' escape routes, and the US and its allies' support network.

The US is required by law to provide Taiwan with armaments so that it can defend itself, and the two countries have close but informal connections.

Zhang added that by penetrating the waters close to Wuqiu and Dongyin, which are strategically significant, the exercises had made "a new breakthrough."

They are regarded by the Taiwanese military as the first lines in defense operations across the Taiwan Strait. The Taiwanese military's operational space was further constrained by this exercise, he claimed.

The presence of the China Coast Guard near and around the outlying islands, according to analysts, is a significant new element of the current maneuvers, which come after earlier encirclement exercises in August 2022 and April 2023.

"It is provocative that the Coast Guard and other forces are pushing into waters near those offshore islands," stated Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the Joint Intelligence Center of US Pacific Command.

He predicted that China would keep up these actions and that they "will become the norm," with Beijing having the ability to at any time transform a drill into an actual military operation.

The nonpartisan Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Craig Singleton, a senior China scholar, stated that China's history of exercises near Taiwan does not portend an impending invasion threat.

In fact, Singleton added, "these exercises help to blur the lines between peace and war, so much so that future exercises could be used as a pretext for an actual invasion."

Still, Singleton and others argue that the exercises are more of a political than a military statement.