PLA patrols, missile launches ‘new normal’ for Taiwan

SYDNEY — The unprecedented live fire exercises by China, designed to pressure Taiwan and overawe China’s neighbors in the wake of US Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island, are likely to become the “new normal,” a top expert on China’s military says.

After Pelosi landed in Taiwan, China began six days of exercises, with military ships and more than 100 aircraft. The Chinese launched barrages of at least nine ballistic and a host of other shorter-range missiles. Some ships and planes passed close to what would be Taiwanese territorial waters and airspace. Beyond that, few details about specific ships or aircraft formations were available.

Should the exercises continue, one remaining important question to answer may be: Will China fly military aircraft directly over Taiwan? While the barrages of missiles, some of which flew over Taiwan, were threatening — and landed in Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone, prompting condemnation by Japan’s prime minister — they were not the direct military threat to Taiwan that fighters would be.

“Do missile tests which violate Taiwan sovereignty mean that China might overfly AIRCRAFT?” ponders Dean Cheng, one of the premier Western experts on the Chinese military, in an email. “Much riskier, but forcing Taiwan to either intercept or let them fly through. Neither helps Taipei.”

On the missile tests, the Heritage Foundation expert notes this is the first operational test of the relatively new PLA Rocket Forces, which were created in 2015 from the vaunted Second Artillery. “The Chinese are now trying out their new service. Remember that the Second Artillery was a ‘super-branch,’ a branch (within the ground forces) that had near-service level protocol effects. But it was not a service,” he said. “The missile tests over Taiwan establish a new normal. In the future, Chinese missiles may well REGULARLY overfly Taiwan. Thereby increasing tension, increasing pressure on the island. All of which, in the CCP’s estimation, will make Taipei knuckle under.”

The last few days have also marked the first widespread test of China’s new joint operations doctrine under President Xi Jinpeng. However, since there doesn’t seem to have been deployment of the so-called carrier-killer supersonic missiles — the DF-21/26 — during the exercises, analysts haven’t got much strategic level insights into the command and control the PLA relied on.

“If there had been, it might have simulated a multi-approach attack on a carrier battlegroup or surface action group,” Cheng notes. He said it’s especially hard to come to many conclusions about C2 and joint operations because there’s been surprisingly little coverage in the open press about what the aircraft and ships were doing.

While the Chinese issued a statement today suggesting the drills were coming to an end, it’s unclear at press time whether they have. “The Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has recently carried out a series of joint military operations involving troops of multiple services and arms in the waters and airspace off the Taiwan Island, with all tasks accomplished and the troops’ combat capabilities in integrated joint operations effectively verified,” said Senior Colonel Shi Yi, spokesperson for the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), in a written statement released on Wednesday.

A Chinese Ambassador’s Message: ‘No Room For Compromise’

On the political frontlines, the new Chinese ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, made it clear during a speech at the National Press Club in Canberra that Beijing expects his host country to bend to China’s will before lifting punishing sanctions (he calls them tariffs) imposed after Australia had the audacity to press for an investigation into the source of the COVID-19 virus.

“The positive progress in our bilateral relations is encouraging. It’s [an] encouraging start. And, of course, there’s a lot of work to be done,” he said. Everything was on Australia to fix, he clearly implied. And in a clear attempt to try and drive a wedge between the United States and Australia, he said the Lucky Country should not be influenced by other countries. It should, he said, make its decision and policies “free from interference from a third party”.

The ambassador told the audience that, on the subject of Taiwan, “there’s no room for compromise.” The solution is simple: “If every country put their ‘One China’ policy into practice with sincerity, with no compromise, it is going to guarantee the peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

The ambassador did say many of the problems between China and Australia stemmed from policies of the previous Australian government, and said the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries might offer a chance to reset relations. But when asked what China would do in return, he offered no examples or areas where the Asian giant might bend.

During his speech, China released an English language version of a new White Paper on Taiwan, “The Taiwan Question and China’s Reunification in the New Era.” It’s the first White Paper on the topic in 22 years. Most of it comprises detailed historical data trying to demonstrate that Taiwan has pretty much always been part of China.

A particularly charming section offers this view of what the Chinese Communist Party must do to help encourage unification: “Third, we must follow the principles of freeing the mind, seeking truth from facts, maintaining the right political orientation, and breaking new ground, and defend the fundamental interests of the nation and the core interests of the state in formulating principles and policies on work related to Taiwan.”

During his speech the ambassador to Australia said that some Taiwanese would need educating after reunification to ensure “the people in Taiwan have a correct understanding of China.” While it could be a simple reference to China’s propaganda efforts in the region, such phrasing is likely to ring alarm bells, given the large-scale “re-education” efforts underway against the Uihgurs and other Muslim people in China.

The White Paper offers Hong Kong and Macao as an example of how China and Taiwan could work together: “It is a fact that since Hong Kong and Macao returned to the motherland and were reincorporated into national governance, they have embarked on a broad path of shared development together with the mainland, and each complements the others’ strengths. The practice of One Country, Two Systems has been a resounding success.”

That is, of course, a lie. China has violated the agreement with Britain that was supposed to guarantee legal, press and other freedoms for Hong Kong citizens. China didn’t like the enormous demonstrations in the former colony against China’s increasingly oppressive rule, so it pushed through laws and took other actions to stop them. Today, Hong Kong has endured two years of unprecedented negative population growth as people flee the repression.