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Beijing has just wrapped up large training exercises that focused on blockading Taiwan. The exercises came shortly after provocative statements by the new President of Taiwan Williang Lai Ching-te, and involved the PLA navy, coast guard, and air force, including a newly-rebuilt Liaoning aircraft carrier.
Termed Joint Sword/2024B, they also follow Joint Sword/2024A, which took place following Lai’s inauguration in May. As seen in this image from CCTV, edited by SCMP, PLA exercises have in the last two years involved every quadrant of international water and airspace around Taiwan.
Though none of the exercises entered Taiwan’s territorial sea or airspace, 125 combat sorties were flown by the PLA’s air forces, including some from the deck of the Liaoning, and 34 vessels from the navy and coast guard.
Eastern Theatre Command spokesman Senior Captain Li Xi called them a “stern deterrence to the separatist acts of Taiwan independence forces. It is a legitimate and necessary operation to safeguard state sovereignty and integrity”.
On Wednesday, two days after the exercises took place, Xi Jinping visited the island archipelago of Dongshan in the Taiwan Strait, where many military exercises in the past have been conducted from. His visit included a stop at a museum dedicated to the Chinese Communist Party soldiers who fell during the 1953 failed attempt to take Taiwan from the Kuomintang faction, ruled by Chiang Kai-shek.
6 days earlier, on October 10th, President William Lai gave what was a provocative speech even by the standards of leaders from his DPP party which favors de-facto independence from China. He reiterated that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait were “not subordinate to each other” and that Beijing “had no authority” to represent the island.
Beijing considers all of the people and material on Taiwan, as well as the island itself, to be an inseparable part of China. For the CCP and millions of its supporters, Taiwan is the most dangerous security concern facing China, and the government’s brightest red line is advocating for Taiwanese separatism.
Taiwan is the last vestige of China’s “century of humiliation” in which Western and other imperial powers routinely took territories historically ruled by the Chinese emperors through unequal treaties, including Hong Kong, Macau, Liaoning—known in the West as Manchuria—and parts of the Himalayas bordering India.
Full metal jacket
Quoting Fu Zhengnan, a commentator with the PLA’s Academy of Military Sciences, a CCTV social media account said the drill could turn to war at any time. The exercises simulated a blockade of key ports—a complicated military exercise that would have to involve targeting much of the Taiwan military’s retaliatory capabilities in advance.
The blockade is considered a critical piece of any overall Taiwan strategy, as the island is heavily dependent on imported fuels, particularly liquified natural gas. For this, the Liaoning aircraft carrier sailed to the east of the island which analysts speculated reflected the PLA’s belief that American assistance would be forthcoming.
Chieh Chung, secretary general of the Association of Strategic Foresight, a military think tank in Taipei, told SCMP the Joint Sword exercise “effectively covers all of Taiwan’s external ports, creating a wartime scenario in which Taiwan is completely cut off from the outside world”.
The drills were also a vital acid test for the Liaoning—one of the more aged PLA aircraft carriers—which recently underwent major overhauls.
According to the Taipei Times, the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau reported a dramatic increase in “cognitive warfare” involving “Chinese hacker armies” flooding social media with false reports about domestic unrest, army units failing to respond properly, and external energy deliveries steering clear of the island.
At a recent conference in Washington, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a visiting Taiwanese lawmaker warned that next year would mark the 20th anniversary of the Anti-Secession Law in China, passed in 2005, which allows “non-peaceful” means to be used in the event that entities try to obstruct the eventual reunification of Taiwan with the mainland.
The remarks were given by former Taipei City councilor Vincent Chao, who cited a set of guidelines issued by Beijing’s top legal and law-enforcement bodies in May that detailed legal consequences for “separatists” who could face punishment by death for taking up extreme secessionist acts that “severely endangered the state and the people”.
“We believe that the further weaponization of the Anti-Secession Law is not only possible but likely,” said Chao. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping has already interpreted [the] Anti-Secession Law in a way that none of his successors had in the past”. WaL
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PICTURED ABOVE: The PLA Navy’s Liaoning aircraft carrier, during the Joint Sword/2024B drills. PC: PLA handout.
