China Unveils New Tactic Against Taiwan

Beijing has unveiled a new tactic on Taiwan, the democratic island it claims as its own, officials and experts say: large-scale drills with no fanfare to normalise a heightened military presence and let the U.S. know that China can act whenever it wants.

For four days this week, Taiwan went on alert in response to what it said was China’s largest massing of naval forces in three decades around Taiwan and in the East and South China Seas.

They say policymakers are leaning towards waiting for more evidence on wages before making a decision.

China’s military said nothing until Friday when it quoted ancient Chinese tactician Sun Tzu’s Art of War, a favourite of the communist republic’s founder Mao Zedong.

“Just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions,” the defence ministry said, a cryptic statement that neither confirmed nor denied that Beijing had been holding military exercises.

The initial silence was a departure from China’s past practice of unleashing a massive propaganda push to coincide with war games around the island.

A senior Taiwan security official this week termed China’s activities as “drills that dare not speak their name”.

China’s “Joint Sword-2024B” war games in October were accompanied by a flood of military and state media graphics and videos lambasting Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te, a person Beijing denounces as a “separatist”. One animation caricatured Lai with devil-like pointed ears.

Lai rejects Beijing’s claims of sovereignty over Taiwan, saying only the island’s people can decide their future.

Security sources had expected China to launch new drills to coincide with Lai’s trip this month to the Pacific, where he stopped over in Hawaii and the U.S. territory of Guam. Beijing opposes any foreign engagements for Taiwan leaders.

“I clearly believe this is the beginning of the ‘mid-stage’ of normalisation,” Chen Kuan-ting, a lawmaker for Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) who sits on parliament’s foreign affairs and defence committee, told Reuters.

“Neighbouring countries have to be aware that if they don’t respond accordingly, they themselves may become the next target.”

Reuters/Ejiofor Ezeifeoma