CHAARVI MODI
Since United States (US) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s historic visit to Taipei last month, China has launched a series of unprecedented actions in the Taiwan Strait. If the refuelled aggression is any indication of what is to come, it is safe to assume that Beijing’s resolve to reunify Taiwan with the mainland has only strengthened. Moreover, while experts have previously claimed that this inevitability would likely come to pass in 2027, China’s recent actions suggest that it may have significantly expedited its plans.
Last year, Admiral Philip Davidson, the former head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, predicted that China would attempt to invade Taiwan in six years. Jin Canrong, a Chinese professor of international studies at the Renmin University of China, too, noted that the 2027 deadline has a very symbolic value for the Communist Party, as it marks the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). In fact, Xi has called on the PLA to fully modernise itself by 2027.
However, it was reported earlier this month reported that the PLA has been conducting mock drills against US warships and also preparing to prevent all warships from entering the Taiwan Strait. While the Chinese army has held exercises in the Strait for years, the future-oriented nature of the most recent iteration of drills indicates a more narrowed approach toward choking all foreign aid to the island.
For a week after Pelosi’s visit in early August, the PLA stepped up its incursions into Taiwan’s national territory to an unprecedented level, sending warships, missiles, and fighter jets into the waters and skies around Taiwan. The Defense Post reported on 1 September that the PLA Air Force made 446 incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in August alone, calling it PLA’s “largest and most aggressive exercises since the mid-1990s.” It noted that August’s “monthly total alone was more than the 380 sorties Chinese planes carried out for the whole of 2020.” Chinese planes have made at least 1,068 individual incursions into the Taiwanese ADIZ this year, surpassing 2021’s total of 969.
Apart from unprecedented drills, China also significantly increased defence spending in March, soon after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. The 7.1% rise brought Beijing’s defence budget to a staggering $230.16 billion, the country’s highest budgetary increase in three years. Crucially, this increase comes even as its GDP grew only by 5.5%, its lowest figure in nearly three decades, indicating the sheer importance it has placed on reunification.
Moreover, China has made clear that these moves are out of the ordinary. In a white paper published by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office and its State Council Information Office called “The Taiwan Question and China’s Reunification in the New Era,” Beijing declared that it has “actively and steadily advanced the process of national reunification.”
It emphasised that only through “complete reunification” can the country “avoid the danger of Taiwan being occupied by foreign countries again, defeat the attempts of external forces to contain China, and safeguard national sovereignty.” To this end, it pledged to “resolutely smash” Taiwanese ‘separatist’ forces and oppose any attempts at foreign interference.
Against this backdrop, Taiwan appears more on guard than ever. While speaking to air force personnel at Hualien Air Force Base last week, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen said that having to repeatedly scramble jets in order to monitor Chinese forces during their recent drills had better prepared the island’s armed forces and made their combat skills “more mature.”
Furthermore, she proclaimed last month that Taiwan is ready to combat the possible invasion, saying that the island will “show the world that the people of Taiwan have both the resolve and confidence to safeguard peace, security, freedom and prosperity for ourselves.” “No threat of any kind could shake the Taiwanese people’s resolve to defend their nation, not in the past, not now and not in the future,” Tsai declared.
In fact, the Taiwanese armed forces have been training to counter a Chinese invasion since the onset of Russia’s war on Ukraine, fearing that Beijing may take a leaf out of Moscow’s book. Taiwan has also indicated the urgency of upgrading its arsenal and last week reached a $1.1 billion arms deal with the US that includes 60 anti-ship missiles and 100 air-to-air missiles. In addition, it has increased its defence spending by 13.9% to $19.4 billion, which accounts for almost 15% of the government’s total expenditure.
Former Vice President Annette Lu declared in late August that the island is already “on the brink of war.” “Taiwan must not become a second Ukraine,” she underscored. Similarly, in an interview with The Week, Taiwanese Foreign Minister Jaushieh Joseph Wu said this month that China’s continued drills were pre-meditated. “You can see that China has been preparing for quite some time for a war against Taiwan and we have to be prepared for a possible future attack,” he remarked.
Wu argued that although China has previously ramped up tensions in the Strait, its current activities are indicative of Beijing’s evolving intentions. “This time it is different,” he asserted. “[Beijing] fired missiles over Taiwan and launched large-scale sea and air exercises very close to us. China also launched hybrid warfare, cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns and economic coercion. Moreover, if you look at China’s attempts to alter the status quo across the Taiwan Strait, it is more serious than before,” he said.
In another interview with DW, Wu also expressed alarm at China’s increased willingness to “break” the undeclared median line in the Taiwan Strait, which he said “has been safeguarding peace and stability for decades” and is “an important symbol of status quo across the Taiwan Strait.”
Prominent members of the Taiwanese public, too, have recognised the increased threat of the Chinese invasion. In early September, Taiwanese business tycoon Robert Tsao put forward $32 million of his own income to help train 3.3 million “civilian warriors” over the next three years.
Taking all of this into consideration, it appears that China has brought forward its plans to invade Taiwan. Moreover, unlike what many had suspected, it has been thoroughly undeterred by the staggering military, economic, and diplomatic losses Russia has brought onto itself with its invasion of Ukraine. Chinese officials have repeatedly stressed that Taiwan’s reunification with the mainland is a matter of when, not if. It now appears that that ‘when’ is a lot sooner than most had predicted.
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