Two military things happened in the vicinity of Taiwan after China’s massive military exercise last week, Joint Sword-2024B, undertaken to practice blockading Taiwan.
The first: on October 20, several days after the blockade simulation, American and Canadian ships transited the strait “in what a Chinese military spokesman called an attempt at ‘stirring hype’ and ‘undermining peace and stability.’ ” (Of course, to the extent that intelligible meaning can be extracted from such words, they fairly characterize only the belligerent actions of the aggressor, which is the People’s Republic of China, not the shows of support of the ROC’s allies.)
Such transits by the U.S. are standard. As Military.com reports, “The U.S. Navy, occasionally joined by ships from allied countries, regularly transits the sensitive waterway separating China from Taiwan. Germany sent two warships through the Taiwan Strait last month as it seeks to increase its defense engagement in the Asia-Pacific region.”
The second: on October 22, China conducted live-fire military drills in order, says The New York Times, to turn up the heat on Taiwan (October 22, 2024).
The drills were the latest show of force by China, which claims Taiwan as its territory and has protested Western support for the island….
Taiwan appeared to downplay the significance of the drills. The island’s premier, Cho Jung-tai, told reporters in Taipei on Tuesday that the exercises were a pointless threat.
“No matter the scale of the exercises, there should not be such meaningless shows frequently or near to Taiwan,” he said. “This will only cause sudden and unnecessary tension.”…
China did not give a reason for Tuesday’s live-fire exercises. But Beijing routinely uses smaller-scale exercises to convey dissatisfaction with developments related to Taiwan, and they were probably a response to the Western warships, said Shu Hsiao-huang, a researcher at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a think tank backed by Taiwan’s defense ministry.
China also fired two missiles during its Joint Sword-2024B blockade drill. The Times says (and China itself says) that the Joint Sword operation was launched “in response to a National Day speech by Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te.” Others say that China had scheduled the exercise well before Lai spoke. Of course, the Chinese government presumably knew well in advance that it was gonna be mad at whatever Lai would have to say on National Day.
The Times: “The drills are part of a pressure campaign that has grown in recent years. Chinese jets already regularly fly in skies near Taiwan, testing the island’s defenses. The frequency of such incursions also raises the risk of a conflict, accidental or otherwise, that could draw in the United States.”
