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Is China really poised to attack Taiwan?

Is China really poised to attack Taiwan?

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China has stepped up its military maneuvers in waters near Taiwan, including the biggest incursion into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone in 40 years. Their main goal, however, may not be to threaten Taiwan. What exactly is the PLA up to?

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2018
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Is China really poised to attack Taiwan?

By Shuren Koo, Silva Shih
web only

The leaders of Taiwan, the United States, and China have all recently spoken out on Taiwan simultaneously, a rather unusual occurrence.

At an event on Oct. 9 to commemorate the 1911 Revolution that ended China’s last imperial dynasty, Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated China’s basic policies on Taiwan since the Deng Xiaoping era – “peaceful reunification” and “one country, two systems” – and did not broach any new themes. 

A day later in her National Day speech, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen reaffirmed that “our position on cross-strait relations remains the same: We call for maintaining the status quo…and will not act rashly, but there should be absolutely no illusions that the Taiwanese people will bow to pressure.” 

Days earlier on Oct. 5, U.S. President Joe Biden responded to a question at the White House on tensions in the Taiwan Strait by citing a phone call with Xi in early September. “I’ve spoken with Xi about Taiwan. We agree…we’ll abide by the Taiwan agreement. That’s where we are and we made it clear that I don’t think he should be doing anything other than abiding by the agreement.” 

Singing the same tune, but putting the military to work

On those three occasions, the three presidents all maintained their general tone on the issue of Taiwan. 

But just days before those statements were made, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) deployed nearly 150 military aircraft, including jet fighters, bombers, anti-submarine aircraft and early warning aircraft, on repeated missions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from October 1 to 4. It was the largest-ever incursion of its kind. 

Facing this sizable enemy threat, Taiwan Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said at a legislative hearing on October 6 that the situation across the Taiwan Strait was “the grimmest I have seen in more than 40 years of military service.”

The escalation in China’s military actions and the resulting heightening of tensions have inevitably raised the question of whether a war will break out, a question that has even begun to creep into the daily conversations of average Taiwanese.

Yet a closer analysis of the timing of the sorties of PLA aircraft, their routes, and the types of planes flown indicate that Beijing more likely used the maneuvers to make a political statement rather than prepare to launch a war.

One target of its political message couched in a military envelope is the rapid warming of relations between Taiwan and the United States. 

Whenever a specific action or report has surfaced suggesting warmer ties, and the action approaches Beijing’s red line, the PLA has sent military planes on sorties at sea as a form of protest. Among the actions that have triggered PLA responses are U.S. senators visiting Taiwan on a U.S. military transport plane, the U.S. and Taiwan signing an agreement on coast guard cooperation, Taiwan considering changing the name of its representative office in the U.S., and most recently news that U.S. special forces have been in Taiwan to train Taiwan’s military.

An even more important target of the missions has been the steady escalation of American military activity in the Indo-Pacific region.

During the holiday for China’s National Day on October 1, three American and British aircraft carriers and 17 military ships from Japan, Canada, New Zealand, and the Netherlands conducted military exercises near Okinawa and then in Philippine waters. 

In a statement by the British military on October 5, it said it would navigate the South China Sea with ships and aircraft from Japan, the United States, and others in the following two weeks.

“This is probably the first time since the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1996 that we saw these kinds of carrier-based operations,” said Richard Bitzinger, senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore. "And it was also the biggest show of force.”

In fact, from August to the beginning of October, American, British, and other European navies were active in the Indo-Pacific region, conducting joint drills with several navies in the region, including those of Japan, South Korea, India and Southeast Asian nations.

That Beijing deployed a large fleet of planes in response was not a surprise. 

Mark J. Valencia, an adjunct senior scholar at the National Institute for South China Sea Studies in Haikou, China, said in analyzing China’s position that “they [American allies] are assisting the U.S. in threatening China.” 

Chao Chun-shan, an honorary professor at Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of China Studies, argued, however, that both China and the United States are treating Taiwan as a test point, probing the other side’s reactions and fighting for leverage in future negotiations.

“In the future, these activities will become normalized,” Chao believed.

China’s Air Force, Navy Targeting First Island Chain

But China’s top priority in carrying out these military activities is developing its “battlefield management” system to pave the way for more strategic deployments. 
 
That includes gathering information on the atmospheric environment above water and aquatic environment under water in areas on China’s periphery, and on the military capabilities of neighboring countries, including electronic signaling and patterns of military aircraft and warship activity.

When China’s air and naval forces were relatively weak, it could only watch when American warships were active on its doorstep, but in the past 10 years, the PLA has started to deploy advanced weapons and developed long-range force projection capabilities, indicating that it is narrowing the gap.

This is evident from the type of aircraft the PLA deploys at sea. Its sorties often include Y-8 anti-submarine patrol aircraft, electronic warfare planes, and the KJ500 airborne early warning aircraft. 

(Source: Ministry of National Defense)

The focus now for the PLA is the U.S. military’s first island chain line of defense in the Asia-Pacific region, said Ou Si-fu, a research fellow with the Institute for National Defense and Security Research’s Division of Chinese Politics, Military and Warfighting Concepts and an expert on PLA military aircraft drills.

Ou said a main PLA “battlefield management” goal was to break through the first island chain line of defense in the Asia-Pacific region to be able to control the South China Sea and block strategic deployments of Taiwan’s military.

Achieving that could mean going through the Miyako Strait northeast of Taiwan that cuts between the Japanese islands of Miyako and Okinawa. But that would require the PLA to overcome U.S. forces stationed in Japan and Japan’s Self-Defense Force, an extremely difficult task. The other, relatively easier, route would be through the Bashi Channel separating Taiwan and the Philippines.  

Bashi Channel Emerges as Critical Waterway 

The PLA wants to manage the South China Sea, and the Bashi Channel is the bottleneck through which it can prevent interference from American troops stationed in Guam and Japan. It is also easier to blockade Taiwan from the Bashi Channel than from the waters to its north.

Another advantage is that the Bashi Channel is deeper than the Miyako Strait and suitable for submarine activity, and therefore a place where the PLA can deploy strategic missile submarines in case of war and use it as a launching pad for submarine-launched missiles targeting the continental United States. 

The recent sorties of PLA military aircraft at sea have been concentrated in the southwestern part of Taiwan’s ADIZ specifically to prepare for breaking through the first island chain and preventing Taiwan from achieving air supremacy, experts believe.

The American military’s decision to conduct exercises in waters near the Philippines was to counter the PLA’s ambitions in the area.

Yet even if the PLA’s battlefield management strategy has been, in fact, conceived to prepare for possible military operations in the future, the locations and timing of its exercises indicate that Beijing is still acting in a restrained manner.

Pulling the bow, but not firing the arrow

Ou said the PLA’s most recent military maneuvers have deliberately been held in different areas or at different times than U.S. military activities, revealing self-restraint, and its actions have remained at the level of saber rattling and military intimidation rather than escalating to a war preparation stage, he argued.

In addition, all of its military aircraft activity has remained in international airspace and conducted under the precondition of not interfering with civilian flights.

“It has deployed its forces in its recent military exercises and has pulled the bow taut, but it has not fired the arrow,” Ou said.

In 2016, Xi Jinping said: “It may not be necessary to fight only if we are prepared to fight,” and “we should plan and guide military operations based on national interests.”
 

Based on the PLA’s recent military actions, the use of force against Taiwan would not conform with China’s national interests.

Tamkang University’s Chao explained that war and peace represent two sides of the same coin to China, with military activity equal to political activity. “Only if you are capable of preparing for war can you avoid fighting a war. Only if you use military tactics can you achieve peace,” is how Chao described China’s thinking.

U.S.-China dialogue to decide whether war breaks out

Another consideration is the dizzying number of challenges currently facing China at present that take precedence over Taiwan, including U.S.-China relations, electricity shortages, and the economy. Stabilizing relations with the United States appears to be the highest priority among them. Beijing and Washington are arranging an online summit between Xi and Biden for the end of the year, and they do not want any complications to their plans. 

“Based on historical precedent, as long as the U.S. and China have channels of communication, the Taiwan Strait should not face too big of a problem,” Chao contended.

Yet with the PLA openly deploying its arsenal, Taiwan cannot afford to become complacent, even if not all of the PLA’s military might is targeted at the island.

“Our neighbors are quarreling and we’re stuck in the middle, and bricks and darts are flying around. How can we not be nervous?” is how Defense Minister Chiu described Taiwan’s predicament at the legislative hearing in October. 

As the PLA’s battlefield management plan has become increasingly sophisticated, Taiwan’s military has come under mounting pressure. Chiu estimated that the PLA will have the capability to completely blockade the Taiwan Strait by 2025. 

Dealing with the China challenge and preventing unintended consequences, especially as maneuvers by the PLA in waters and airspace around Taiwan become the new normal, will test the leadership of the countries involved.


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Translated by Luke Sabatier
Uploaded by Jane Chen

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2018
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