WAR China Signals a Military Response to a Taiwan Visit by Pelosi

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
Upping the ante: Key takeaways from China’s major drills around Taiwan
by Gabriel Dominguez
Aug 9, 2022

China’s largest-ever military exercises around Taiwan have not only raised regional tensions — they have also provided analysts with potential insight into how Chinese forces might operate around the self-ruled island in case of a conflict.
At the same time, the multiday maneuvers, launched in retaliation for U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei last week, have resulted in Sino-U.S. ties — widely seen as the defining bilateral relationship of the first half of the 21st century — dropping to a new low.

Here are some of the key political and military takeaways from Pelosi’s controversial trip and Beijing’s ensuing military escalation, both of which have led to what some are referring to as the “Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis.”

‘Talking past each other’
One of the most important political developments seen in recent days has been the breakdown in communications between Washington and Beijing.
“The US and China are seriously talking past each other. This is not just about Pelosi. The U.S. thinks this is about Chinese coercion. The Chinese think this is about a drift from ‘one China’ to ‘one China, one Taiwan.’ That disconnect will lead to a very unstable new baseline,” tweeted Evan Feigenbaum, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Just how fraught Sino-U.S. relations have become can be seen in the series of diplomatic “countermeasures” announced by Beijing targeting several areas of bilateral cooperation prioritized by Washington.
These include Beijing’s cancellation or suspension of talks and cooperation agreements in eight different fields, including climate change, legal assistance in criminal matters, and defense consultations, the last of which are critical, considering the increased risk of a military miscalculation.

A Taiwanese warplane lands at a base in Hualien, Taiwan, on Sunday. | LAM YIK FEI / THE NEW YORK TIMES
Both Washington and Beijing see the latest developments not as a single event but as part of broader trends in the perceived policies of the other, with each side stressing the importance of maintaining the status quo in relation to Taiwan while accusing each other of aiming to change the status quo.
Recent research conducted by the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) suggests China perceives that the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has undertaken a significant shift in its Taiwan policy, resulting in a concerted effort to qualitatively upgrade U.S. relations with the democratic island.
“This perception is the polar opposite of the message that the Biden administration intended to signal to Beijing, namely that U.S. policy on Taiwan has remained unchanged and is completely consistent with the approach of prior administrations,” said Andrew Scobell, a distinguished fellow with USIP’s China program.
The main issue, he said, is that clear signaling and unambiguous messaging have become exceedingly difficult in the current toxic climate of Sino-U.S. relations, which is “rife with mutual suspicion and deep distrust.”

‘Likely only the beginning’
Beijing’s reaction to the Pelosi trip has underscored the political and economic costs China is prepared to impose on Taipei.
According to the China Power Team at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), part of this involves making clear that Taiwan will “bear the brunt of Chinese punishment for closer relations with the United States. Beijing hopes that this will drive a wedge between Taipei and Washington.”
Moreover, the military maneuvers can be interpreted as a message to both the U.S. and its regional allies that Beijing is both capable and determined to exert control over Taiwan and enforce its view of the “One China” principle, which states that it has sovereignty over the island.
For instance, the exercises also involved direct costs for Japan, and to some extent the Philippines, because of operations by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) within waters claimed by these countries, including the launch of five ballistic missiles into Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Tourists visit a scenic area on Pingtan Island, one of mainland China’s closest points to Taiwan, in Fujian province on Saturday. One of China’s exercises was positioned off the island at the narrowest part of the Taiwan Strait. | AFP-JIJI
At the same time, Beijing has shown it is willing to further escalate tensions to deter other countries from getting involved, CSIS experts noted in a recently released report. They also wrote that the PLA exercises led to a rerouting of commercial air and maritime traffic around Taiwan, which Beijing uses to demonstrate “China’s ability to ‘control’ activities near and around Taiwan.”
There are also concerns that the recent exercises, including their intensity and scale, might become the new norm in China’s dealings with Taiwan.
“Beijing aims to use the exercises to establish a new status quo in the Taiwan Strait. China is specifically seeking to erase the notion of the median line that divides the strait and aims to constrain PLA operations west of the line,” wrote the CSIS experts.

“China also seeks to establish a new normal in which the PLA no longer respects Taiwan’s claims to a separate airspace and territorial waters,” the authors said, adding that these exercises are “likely only the beginning of PLA operations close to and above Taiwan.”
This view is shared by retired Australian Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan, who noted that this puts Taiwan, the U.S. and other nations in a quandary.
“To push back on this ‘new normal’ established by the PLA will probably require a higher operational tempo from Taiwanese, Japanese and American forces,” he said. “This is a very dangerous situation because it increases the chances of miscalculations. And historically, many wars have started not because of the calculations of the belligerents but because of miscalculations.”

Fears of a Ukraine scenario
A key element of repeating such drills is that they would allow the PLA to rehearse a variety of military operations that could form part of a blockade or invasion of the island. This, the CSIS experts noted, includes not only activities directed at Taiwan, but operations to prevent a potential third country intervention in a China-Taiwan conflict.
At the same time, the maneuvers highlighted the increased confidence the PLA has developed in its capabilities to conduct simultaneous operations around Taiwan and its readiness to quickly encircle the island from multiple directions. This is important, as it is still unclear whether the U.S. and its allies would be able to resupply Taiwan in the event of a conflict, which would be much more difficult than NATO’s current ability to do so for Ukraine.
Although islands typically offer the defender an advantage by forcing the attacker to undertake an amphibious landing, they can have downsides as well. Unlike Ukraine, which can be directly provided with weapons and other supplies from neighboring European countries, Taiwan lacks a land border with a friendly country, making a similar arrangement for military support more difficult.

Moreover, at a bit over 36,000 square kilometers, Taiwan is a fraction of the size of Ukraine’s over 600,000 square kilometers, rendering strategies such as trading space for time less viable.
Taiwan is also further removed from many of its allies, meaning that support — including aid for potential refugees — would require more time to arrive and would probably have to go through heavily contested airspace and sea lanes.


Against this backdrop, Ryan noted that if Chinese aggression continues to increase, Taipei may fear a Ukraine scenario where friendly nations would provide moral and possibly material support but no “boots on the ground and at sea,” and where Western publics would lose patience assisting Taiwan in any future blockade or invasion scenario. Things would worsen for Taiwan if the Chinese succeeded in rapidly asserting its superiority in any takeover, he said.
At the same time, imposing a blockade or invading the island would not be easy for China. Although Taiwan has a smaller military, the Chinese would still need to deploy their forces hundreds of kilometers from home ports and airfields, and then sustain these operations over time, Ryan said, even before any landing operation is undertaken.
“It is not clear whether the PLA has the capacity to ensure it can transport the hundreds of thousands of troops needed for any invasion scenario,” he said. “The Taiwan Strait is up to 200 km wide. This is a very significant obstacle for the Chinese, and they would probably take very high casualties in any transit of the strait.”

A glimpse into PLA plans?
Six exercise zones were chosen for the Chinese drills, and analysts say these locations could serve as indications for future PLA operations around the island and possibly even Beijing’s blockade and invasion plans.
Three of these zones intruded into Taiwan’s territorial waters and were alarmingly close to Taiwan’s capital and key cities, while the others were far from the Chinese mainland and beyond the Taiwan Strait, venturing into EEZs also claimed by Japan and the Philippines.
The CSIS experts noted in their report that one of the areas (Zone 1) was positioned off the coast of mainland China’s Pingtan Island at the narrowest part of the Taiwan Strait.


“PLA analysts have noted that operations by this narrow neck could enable China to close off the northern entrance to the Taiwan Strait. This zone was also chosen to intentionally breach and undermine the legitimacy of the ‘median line’ running through the Taiwan Strait, where PLA forces typically operate to the west of the line,” they wrote.
Zones 2 and 3 located to the north and northeast were not only near important ports and coastal areas that military planners believe are suitable for a potential PLA amphibious landing, but also a short distance away from the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands, which China also claims and calls the Diaoyu. From there, the experts said, the PLA would be in a good position to conduct operations against both Taiwan and Japan.

“Control of both zones could make it difficult for the United States or Japan to deploy forces into Taipei from the northeast side and could enable the PLA to blockade Keelung Harbor,” they wrote.
“Moreover, operating from Zones 1, 2, and 3 could allow the PLA to move quickly to seize Taipei from three different directions and may be particularly important if the PLA seeks to engage in a decapitation attack against Taiwan’s leadership,” the authors wrote.
Zone 4, meanwhile, faced two important air force bases and overlapped with Japan’s EEZ around Yonaguni Island. Zone 5, located southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, intruded into the Philippines’ EEZ and would be a critical choke point separating waters within the so-called First Island Chain — which extends from the Kuril Islands to Borneo — from the Philippines Sea and the broader Pacific Ocean, CSIS noted.
Zone 6 was near the cities of Kaohsiung and Zuoying, which are home to important commercial ports and key military bases, as well as beaches and coastal areas suitable for an amphibious invasion.

PLA progress
The exercises, which were monitored by U.S. aircraft and warships operating nearby, also gave an insight into the type of equipment China would use in a Taiwan contingency, including large numbers of aircraft, warships, submarines, as well as ship- and ground-launched missiles.
Moreover, the PLA focused on testing troops’ land attack and sea assault capabilities with joint air and naval operations in the sea and airspace to the north, east and southwest of Taiwan. As CSIS noted, these missions rehearsed clearing paths for amphibious landing forces to launch beach assaults against Taiwan.

Finally, the exercises showed just how much the PLA has advanced not only technologically but also in terms of combat readiness and doctrine, compared with the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis from 1995 to 1996.
Meia Nouwens, a China defense policy and military modernization expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, noted that the PLA has changed considerably in recent years, particularly since it started implementing reforms in 2015.
“The PLA has procured more advanced air, naval and missile capabilities supported by a more efficient and competitive Chinese defense industrial base,” she said.
“Doctrine is focused on fighting in the air, maritime, electromagnetic and space domains. And the PLA has been directed to fight integrated joint operations — across all services and theater commands.”


Ryan has a similar view, arguing that these advanced capabilities have changed the calculus for both Taiwan and other defense planners that might come to the aid of the island.
On the other hand, the integration of more sophisticated Western sensor networks since 1996 means that Western military organizations can better detect Chinese movements pointing toward increased Chinese aggression, including a blockade or invasion.

Given the heightened tensions around Taiwan, Ryan argues that the U.S. and others may seek to establish clearer procedures for encounters in the air or at sea.
“There have been some dangerous events precipitated by unprofessional and unnecessarily aggressive PLA actions. All sides should be seeking to avoid inadvertent clashes between U.S. and Chinese forces that might result in miscalculations and further escalations,” he said.

Cashing in and borrowing upon the "peace dividend" is going to result in reaching for the canned sunshine a lot sooner than any party wants to admit. All of these "war games" and "simulations" the MSM refer to and have shown in "Readers' Digest" form IMHO point to that outcome.
 

northern watch

TB Fanatic
Cashing in and borrowing upon the "peace dividend" is going to result in reaching for the canned sunshine a lot sooner than any party wants to admit. All of these "war games" and "simulations" the MSM refer to and have shown in "Readers' Digest" form IMHO point to that outcome.
Yes, I agree. I can see the DS doing it. A military defeat, would I believe bring the DS down.
 

jward

passin' thru
China’s Saber-Rattling Won’t Make Taiwan Shift Course. And in the briefing Friday, Joel Atkinson explored how Taiwan has remained largely undisturbed by China’s reaction to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei last week.


  • In the aftermath of the visit, China carried out a week of large-scale, live-fire military drills around the island, while also using drones, cyberattacks and misinformation campaigns to “punish” Taiwan for what Beijing describes as an effort to change the status quo in cross-strait relations. But in contrast to the reactions of some Western observers, Taiwan has remained remarkably unruffled. From Taiwan’s point of view, China’s military display is the continuation of a long pattern of behavior by Beijing.

  • After taking office in 2016, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen refused to show sufficient alignment with Beijing’s “one China principle.” Unhappy with this setback to Beijing’s long-held goal of extending its jurisdiction to include Taiwan, Chinese President Xi Jinping doubled down. As one Taiwanese commentator put it, Xi made “the soft, softer”—making it easier for Taiwanese to work, study and invest in China—and the “hard, harder,” meaning more saber-rattling and efforts to diplomatically isolate Taiwan. When Tsai extended an olive branch to Beijing early on and sidelined the more radical independence voices on her side of Taiwanese politics, this didn’t move Beijing, but it did win Tsai some brownie points in Washington.

  • With a new consensus forming in the U.S. on the need to push back on China, Tsai has worked well with both the Trump and Biden administrations. China on the other hand has made remarkable progress in its military capabilities relative to Taiwan and the U.S., while Taiwan appears sluggish in its attempts to keep up. There is no political will to create the kind of mass army that would enable Taiwanese forces to outnumber the People’s Liberation Army on the landing beaches where an invasion would take place. There has also been some friction with the U.S. about who needs to do what to boost deterrence.

  • It is not just Taiwan feeling the increased pressure from Beijing. In particular, the sense of threat and urgency among the so-called Quad countries—Japan, Australia, India and the U.S.—has seen them become increasingly supportive of Taiwan. So, unsurprisingly, as China grows stronger, the combined resistance it faces becomes greater. All of this adds up to one thing: Taiwan is not going to change course. International support for Taiwan is increasing, while China is becoming more totalitarian and less attractive to the Taiwanese than ever.
 

John Deere Girl

Veteran Member
JUST IN - US military jet, carrying a US Senator-Congressional delegation, to arrive in #Taiwan shortly, according to TVBS news.

UPDATE - USAF #SPAR 11 has landed. Democratic Senator @EdMarkey leads a US congressional delegation (@RepLowenthal, @DonBeyerVA, and @RepAmata) to #Taiwan.
View: https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1558780669819486208?t=LMIa7LBaji2AyGToZ5lNHQ&s=19
Apparently, our government will just keep instigating China until we are at war.
 

TFergeson

Non Solum Simul Stare

jward

passin' thru

jward

passin' thru

The Upside of Pelosi’s Unwise Taiwan Visit​


Ryan HassAugust 16, 2022​


In the aftermath of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ill-timed trip to Taiwan, China’s leaders were determined not to let a good crisis go to waste. They conducted unprecedented military drills, launching ballistic missiles near Taiwan and dispatching fighters and naval warships across the Taiwan Strait median line in an attention-getting show of force. China also released a white paper, only the third it has ever issued on Taiwan, laying out its terms for achieving unification—peacefully if possible, forcibly if necessary.

China’s reaction is part of a broader pattern. In 2012, Beijing responded to Japan’s nationalization of the Diaoyu Islands (known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands)—an archipelago historically claimed by China, Japan, and Taiwan—by sending coast guard and navy patrols to the area, tactics that have continued and expanded. In 2019, China similarly used a flare-up of tensions along its border with India as a pretext to add to its forces, facilities, and patrols in disputed areas. And the same year, it pointed to student-led protests in Hong Kong as a rationale for dismantling the “one country, two systems” model—which had given Hong Kong a great deal of autonomy—and imposing a national security law to enforce obedience to Beijing.
In the case of Taiwan, Beijing appears to be putting force behind two of its recent assertions. The first is that China does not recognize any median line in the Taiwan Strait. The second is that China has “sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction over the Taiwan Strait.” From Beijing’s perspective, these positions stem from its policy that Taiwan is a part of China. By operating aircraft and naval vessels across the median line of the Taiwan Strait in unprecedented numbers after Pelosi’s visit, Beijing is seeking to establish that its military will no longer be constrained to its half of the Taiwan Strait. And by lobbing ballistic missiles into waters near Taiwan’s commercial ports, Beijing appears to be signaling that from now on, it will act militarily wherever it deems necessary in the Taiwan Strait. Beijing’s firing of multiple missiles into waters within Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone similarly serves as a warning to Tokyo about further involvement in cross-strait affairs.

Stay informed.​


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Some argue that China’s recent actions would have happened sooner or later, regardless of whether Pelosi visited the island. Even if one accepts such debatable logic, Pelosi’s trip created a pretext for China to accelerate its plans. But now that the damage is done, it is imperative to focus on what comes out of this crisis. It is not inevitable that the situation in the Taiwan Strait is locked into a path of permanent deterioration. Taipei’s response has been calm and nonescalatory. With discipline and clarity on objectives, U.S. policymakers might still be able to seize the moment to arrest the slide in cross-strait relations and put Taiwan on a more solid footing.

Case Study​

From Beijing’s vantage point, Pelosi’s visit was a consequence of two broad trends: Taiwan’s drift away from China and the United States’ determined efforts to raise Taiwan’s international profile. China would strongly prefer for the rest of the world to ignore Taiwan so that Beijing can treat the matter as an internal affair and impose its will on Taiwan. Pelosi’s visit offered an opportunity for Beijing to stage an intervention and, in so doing, seek to permanently tilt the status quo in its favor. Washington and Taipei must act smartly to forestall the erosion of Taiwan’s security situation.
For Washington, there is an urgent need to prevent Beijing from establishing a different status quo on Taiwan. To that end, it may be useful to consider how previous U.S. presidents were able to prevent Beijing from taking advantage of incidents in the past. One case study worthy of review is President Barack Obama’s success in forestalling China from conducting land reclamation at Scarborough Shoal, an atoll in the South China Sea claimed by both China and the Philippines, in 2016. Early that year, there was chatter that Beijing might seek to expand its artificial island construction at Scarborough Shoal. If China had proceeded, the United States might have become involved, since it had an alliance commitment with the Philippines.

Obama recognized that the only way to prevent the United States from getting drawn into a conflict with China was to speak directly and discreetly with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Issues involving the Chinese military must be addressed to leaders within the chain of command, and Xi was and is the top link in that chain. Such issues must be handled quietly, too, since doing so gives Chinese leaders room to maneuver and allows them to avoid worrying about being painted as soft for solving a problem with an American counterpart. At the same time, Obama’s negotiating hand was strengthened by the deployment—without public fanfare—of U.S. military assets near Scarborough Shoal.
The situation in the Taiwan Strait is not necessarily on a path of permanent deterioration.
Obama understood that Chinese leaders need to feel that their concerns are being taken seriously in order for them to address our own. And as with every major issue that has been managed or resolved between the United States and China, the Scarborough showdown was handled by two leaders who had built a relationship with each other and who understood each other’s requirements and constraints. Both were capable of elevating diplomacy above politics. They both recognized that strong leaders sometimes need to do hard things to prevent war. Ultimately, China never pursued land reclamation at Scarborough Shoal.
Applying this case study to the current situation in the Taiwan Strait provides a number of lessons. Direct leader-level diplomacy is a requirement to ensure that each side knows the other’s concerns and requirements. Discipline and discretion are the currency of crisis management. Clever arguments without credible deterrence contribute little to managing challenges. And China’s leaders will not take steps to defuse tensions unless they believe their concerns are being heard.

Take Advantage of the Bullying​

These lessons suggest that the situation in the Taiwan Strait is likely not yet ripe for a lowering of tensions. Beijing seems to believe it is making progress in erasing the median line in the strait and establishing a precedent of operating anywhere around Taiwan it sees fit. That said, Beijing’s overreaction to Pelosi’s visit will make it easier for Washington to advance several near-term priorities with Taiwan. For example, Beijing is demonstrating that Taiwan urgently needs to accelerate its efforts to position critical munitions, energy, medicine, and food supplies on the island before conflict breaks out. China’s threatening actions could also offer opportunities for Washington to quietly encourage greater bipartisanship in Taiwan for strengthening fiscal and public support for Taiwan’s defense.
Washington could also harness Beijing’s bullying to push forward coordination with Taiwan on supply chain resilience, agreements on twenty-first-century digital trade issues, and other measures to strengthen economic relations. All these efforts fall well within the bounds of existing U.S. policy. They would also strengthen U.S.-Taiwan ties and put Taiwan on a firmer footing to deal with whatever comes next. It will be important to avoid the emergence of any daylight between Washington and Taipei. Divisions in the relationship would benefit only Beijing.
One issue in need of attention between policymakers in Washington and Taipei is how they define the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. Senior officials in Washington and Taipei have vowed to uphold the status quo, but neither side has provided much clarity on how they identify it. If Washington and Taipei publicly define the status quo narrowly around pushing the Chinese military back across the Taiwan Strait median line in the near term, they risk setting themselves up for failure. Rather than grant Beijing such a perception of progress, Washington and Taipei would be wise to define the status quo around a more principled set of objectives. These could include preserving non-war in the Taiwan Strait, maintaining Taiwan’s political autonomy, steadily strengthening U.S.-Taiwan relations, preventing the Chinese military from operating in Taiwan’s territorial waters or airspace, and continuing to fly, sail, and operate anywhere that international law allows. Washington’s and Taipei’s interests align on these objectives, and both sides remain capable of upholding them.

Hard Truths​

Beijing’s militarized response should also generate momentum for the United States to deepen collaboration with Australia and Japan. Beijing’s operational response offers a road map for what needs to be done to strengthen deterrent conditions. In addition to sustaining a steady military presence in the region, Washington and its allies should advance joint efforts to expand military access, planning, and preparedness for contingencies. Progress along these lines would bolster Washington’s ability to remind Beijing of its own vulnerabilities, not in ways that induce public humiliation but in ways that would prod China’s leaders to consider the risks of pushing too far. The United States and its partners would have more impact on China’s calculus if they did more and said less.

In due time, U.S. officials will also need to explain to their Chinese counterparts how they define unofficial relations with Taiwan. Doing so would invariably fail to satisfy Beijing, but it would set expectations and reassure Beijing that the United States still recognizes limits on the conduct of its relations with Taiwan. As part of such discussions, U.S. officials should underscore that the visibility of the United States’ support for Taiwan will be influenced by the degree of China’s pressure on Taiwan. If China is serious about advancing its goal of peaceful unification, it needs to appeal to Taiwan’s 23 million people, whose opinions will be decisive. U.S. officials should emphasize to their Chinese counterparts that military intimidation will only push the Taiwan public to support leaders and policies that run counter to China’s stated goals.
Even as Washington and Taipei demonstrate that they will not be intimidated into backpedaling on Taiwan’s security, they should also focus on lowering risks, bolstering deterrent capabilities, strengthening Taiwan’s footing, and advancing U.S.-Taiwan relations. Beijing’s overreaction to Pelosi’s visit has created opportunities for progress along these lines. Such opportunities should not be squandered.
 
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