Why did China just rehearse a Taiwan invasion again?

Folks in Taiwan exhaled overnight as China withdrew its forces after encircling the democratic and self-ruled island with mass military exercises.

Here’s what happened. Early yesterday morning (Monday), Beijing launched a set of joint military drills involving troops from its army, navy, air force, and rocket force (yes, that’s a real thing). They were simulating an assault on Taiwan from multiple directions, and lest anyone be confused about the specifics, a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) spokesperson spelled it all out:

• The troops reportedly focussed on “joint sea-air combat readiness patrol, the blockade and control of key ports and areas, strikes on sea and land targets, and the seizure of comprehensive battlefield control”.

And it wasn’t just talk, either. Taiwan says it spotted 34 naval vessels and 125 military aircraft, potentially marking modern China’s biggest single-day deployment to date.

Why? With these manoeuvres now increasingly routine (more on that below), there’s a solid chance leaders in Beijing are actually just asking themselves ‘why not?’ at this point.

But for a proximate explanation, it’s worth noting that yesterday’s drills came just days after Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, gave his first Taiwan national day speech.

• The date alone (10/10) is touchy for China because it marks the establishment of the Republic of China(ROC) on the mainland in 1911 — Mao’s communists later ousted the ROC in a 1949 civil war that birthed today’s People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the mainland, while the ROC survives as today’s Taiwan.

So with the Communist Party seeing Taiwan’s very existence as unfinished business (even though the Party has never ruled Taiwan), a Beijing spokesperson has sought to justify yesterday’s military drills as “a firm response to Lai Ching-te’s continued fabrication of ‘Taiwan independence’ fallacies and his propagation of separatist agendas”.

So, what did Lai say last week? The short answer: nothing that hasn’t been said before. In fact, by Lai’s standards, his address was notable for its relative lack of sass. Eg:

• Just this past weekend, he questioned how China could be Taiwan’s ‘motherland’if Taiwan’s Republic is actually older than China’s People’s Republic; and
• Last month, he suggested that if China believes it owns Taiwan based on the former Qing Dynasty’s patchy control, shouldn’t Beijing also be pushing to yoink back some of that same dynasty’s land that’s now controlled by Russia?

But Lai’s address didn’t really go there. To the contrary, he actually opened the door to cooperation with Beijing “on addressing climate change, combating infectious diseases, and maintaining regional security to pursue peace and mutual prosperity”. 

And yet of course, notwithstanding all the above, Lai’s address did still remain firm on defending the island’s self-rule, insisting he will “uphold the commitment to resist annexation or encroachment upon our sovereignty.”

So how has the rest of the world responded to all this? Pretty much the same as last time — with strongly-worded statements:

• Washington at least mixed things up a little by pre-empting this year’s PLA spectacle, saying Lai’s speech would be “no justification” for possible military drills
• Then once China kicked off its drills, the US went a step further, calling the war games “provocations” and “unwarranted”, while vowing to “monitor PRC activities and coordinate with allies and partners regarding our shared concerns”
• Meanwhile, the EU, yes, called on “all parties to exercise restraint” 🔥🔥🔥🔥, and
• Russia, increasingly subservient to China as its own Ukraine invasion drags on, simply reported China’s official position word for word via state media.

Which all leaves us roughly where we were before: Taiwan seeking to preserve the fragile status quo in which it has flourished; the PLA now casually rehearsing a full-scale invasion twice a year; and the rest of the world looking on nervously, if it’s looking on at all.

INTRIGUE’S TAKE

How should we interpret all this? One might argue it’s technically not an escalation, because China has now spent the last few years ratcheting things up gradually, so that mass drills after routine political events in Taiwan have now become the new normal.

In fact, China even named these drills ‘Joint Sword-2024B’, which is funny because it named its last drills (after Lai’s inauguration back in May) ‘Joint Sword-2024A’ – ie, even the name seeks to portray it all as a mere continuation rather than escalation.

And that’s kinda the point: this slow ratcheting up of pressure on Taiwan means any single act can start to look unsurprising if not normal, potentially curbing the world’s willingness if not ability to ask whether any of this is even acceptable.

Also worth noting: 

• The US, like most of the international community, doesn’t recognize Taiwan as an independent state. Instead, the US adheres to its own ‘one China policy’, which recognises the mainland government as the sole government of China, though it stops short of endorsing China’s claims over Taiwan (ditto for any Taiwanese claims of formal independence).
• US law obliges the US to provide Taiwan enough defence equipment and services to defend itself. But the US policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ leaves open (by design) the question of whether the US would itself defend Taiwan.