Sunday, December 13, 2020

Reunification Through Threats, Intimidation, Finally Conflict : China/Taiwan Relations

"You say it's your garden, but it turns out that it is your neighbour who's hanging out in the garden all the time."
"With that action [land and sea harassment], they [China's People's Liberation Army] are making a statement that it's their garden - and that garden is one step away from your house."
"Time is definitely not on Taiwan's side. It's only a matter of time for them to gather enough strength."
"How do you defend Taiwan? All I can hear is that the United States will intervene. What reason is there to believe that the United States will sacrifice the lives of its own children to defend Taiwan?"
"My best bet is my own strength, to stop people from bullying me."
Admiral Lee Hsi-ming, Taiwan

"[Taiwan's island democracy is under unrelenting pressure from] authoritarian forces."
"Taiwan has been at the receiving end of such military threats on a daily basis."
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen

Taiwanese F-16 fighter jets fly in formation during an inauguration ceremony in Taichung, Taiwan, last month © REUTERS

The Chinese Communist Party politburo in Beijing has successfully concluded one of its goals, the taming of democratic aspirations in Hong Kong; eliminating its resistance to Chinese rule and finalizing its planned capture into Beijing's net. The involvement that Hong Kong pleaded for on the part of world leaders and nations sympathetic to Hong Kong's plight produced ample sympathy and denunciation of China's policies and methodology, but in the end the island state with its democratic inheritance became just another province of China.

The mopping up seen to, a larger, more prominent, even more resistant democracy awaits settling into China's orbit. Self-governing Taiwan has eluded Beijing's overtures, demands and threats and it now braces for conflict, years in the making. Taiwan has been under no illusions that eventually when Beijing deems the time just right, they will see the storming of Chinese troops on Taiwan's beaches. For the present, however, the conflict of actual battle is arrested.

Instead, Beijing turns to constant bullying, harassment, in a concerted effort to wear down resistance. The two-million-strong Chinese People's Liberation Army is engaged in a "grey-zone" warfare consisting of irregular conflict based on too-close-for-comfort threats, meant to exhaust Taiwanese resistance to Chinese hegemony. Threatening forays on land and sea strike out in waves of flights and amphibious leading exercises, naval patrols, cyber attacks and diplomatic isolation.

Menacing flights by PLA warplanes toward Taiwanese airspace are a daily occurrence with occasional multiple sorties occurring in one single day, since mid-September when warplanes have flown over 100 missions, according to flight data taken from Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense. Data that illustrates that when political tensions across the Taiwan Strait peaks, China dispatches greater numbers of aircraft, inclusive of its bombers and fighters.

Chinese warship conducting live-fire drill in South China Sea. (Weibo, PLA Daily photo)

Chinese warship conducting live fire drill in South China Sea near Taiwan Strait Weibo PLA Daily Photo

China has vastly accelerated forces development required by the PLA to eventually conquer the island of 23 million people; the top military priority recognized by Beijing according to both Chinese and Western analysts. Beijing must feel in fairly high fettle of late with Tibet and Xinjiang under tighter control to fend off restiveness, and Hong Kong in a state of suspended animation. The only obstacle remaining to a united China is Taiwan's hold-out status denying the CPC its monopoly on power.

President Xi Jinping made it abundantly clear that Taiwan regarded by Beijing as a Chinese province "must be, will be" unified with China, an achievement he is dedicated to, without ruling out the possibility of force to gain that end. Chinese military this year and government agencies have turned away from decades of "theoretical talk" on taking Taiwan by force; instead debating and working on plans of military action, according to a senior Taiwanese security official engaged in intelligence.

Retired Taiwanese military chief Admiral Lee believes that only the fact that the PLA has not yet achieved overwhelming firepower it would require to overrun the island keeps it from launching a full assault. The military buildup over the past 20 years on the other hand, indicates that the PLA is now "far ahead" of Taiwan. China's Taiwan Affairs Office claims that Beijing is committed to "peaceful reunification" with Taiwan.

On Taiwan's part, it is stepping up naval and air patrols with a mind to improving combat readiness to counter the grey-zone tactics now favoured by China. The military, stated Taiwan's defence ministry in a statement "sticks to the firm stance of 'not provoking and not being afraid of the enemy' and the principle of 'the closer they get to the main island, the more active is our response'."