China launched three days of military maneuvers around Taiwan on Saturday with the intention of intimidating its authorities shortly after a meeting between the island’s president and a senior US official that angered Beijing. Here’s what you need to know about this operation called “Joint Sword”.
• What is happening around Taiwan?
China has deployed ships, fighter jets and missiles around the island to send a “serious warning against collusion between separatist forces seeking ‘Taiwan independence’ and outside forces”warned an army spokesman, Shi Yi.
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Maneuvers include patrols and “simulated joint precision strikes against key targets” in order to “create a deterrent and total encirclement” Taiwan, according to Chinese state television CCTV.
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Of the “tens” J-18 and J-10C combat aircraft were mobilized for the operation alongside anti-submarine aircraft. Beijing has also deployed its PHL-191 rocket launcher systems and YJ-12B land-based anti-ship missiles, the Chinese newspaper “Global Times” reported.
As of Saturday, the Taiwanese Defense Ministry had detected nine warships and 71 aircraft around the island. On Sunday, he spotted 11 Chinese warships and 70 aircraft taking part in the maneuvers.
• Why has China started such a show of force?
China considers Taiwan (23 million inhabitants) as a province which it has not yet managed to reunify with the rest of its territory since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.
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Beijing opposes any official contact between Taipei and foreign governments under its “one China principle”. This includes Wednesday’s meeting in California between Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen and Speaker of the US House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy. Beijing had promised to react with measures “firm and energetic”.
The Chinese military maneuvers are part of a broader campaign of “pressure against Taiwan”, Ja Ian Chong, associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, told AFP. For him, these “high-level meetings allow Beijing to blame Taipei, Washington, or others”.
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• Why did you choose this weekend to launch these military exercises?
China waited for Tsai Ing-wen to return to Taiwan to kick off « Joint Sword ».
James Char, a Chinese military expert at Nanyang Technology University in Singapore, notes that Beijing also waited for the « fin » of a state visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to launch his exercises. China is trying to ” warm up “ its relations with Europe, he believes, but a military operation against Taiwan “would harm this diplomatic openness”.
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• What other measures has Beijing taken?
In retaliation for Tsai Ing-wen’s visit, Beijing announced that it would ban Taipei’s de facto ambassador to the United States, Hsiao Bi-Khim, from entering China and accused him of“deliberately inciting a confrontation” in the Taiwan Strait.
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The Washington-based Hudson Institute think tank and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library have had their rights to do business with Chinese entities revoked.
• What are the differences with previous escalations of tensions?
These exercises are reminiscent of those undertaken in August 2022 in response to the arrival on the island of Democrat Nancy Pelosi, who then held the position of Kevin McCarthy at the perch of the House.
Beijing had conducted live-fire exercises about ten kilometers from the Taiwanese coast, during a similar encirclement campaign that lasted a week. The Chinese authorities had also suspended fruit and fish imports from the island.
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This time, China has announced live-fire exercises near the coast of Fujian (east), the province facing Taiwan. They are scheduled for Monday.
However, « Joint Sword » seems “not be of the same magnitude as what we saw during Pelosi’s visit”, says Manoj Kewalramani, China expert at the Takshashila Institution in Bangalore. According to him, the visit of the former American official to Taiwan, while Beijing considers the island as part of its territory, was on a whole new level compared to the meeting between Tsai Ing-wen and Kevin McCarthy.
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The economic situation after three years of Covid and Taiwan’s importance in this sector may also have played a role, according to Su Tzu-yun, a military expert at the Taiwan National Defense and Security Research Institute.
“The restoration of air and sea routes around Taiwan this year is very important for the economic recovery of neighboring countries and China itself, so military maneuvers should not be intensified”
Last year’s drills notably disrupted sea freight and air traffic on major trade routes around Taiwan.
