If the People’s Republic of China, which has not hidden its goal of conquering Taiwan, is conducting drills to bully the Republic of China, this neighbor-country must conduct drills too. At its Jiupeng Military Base in southern Taiwan, the ROC launched an array of missiles in a live-fire drill “in response to growing military pressure from China” (Associated Press, August 20, 2024).
Among the missiles launched were Taiwan’s domestically made Sky Bow III anti-ballistic missiles along with the U.S.-made Patriot PAC II and surface-to-air Standard missiles….
Defense Ministry spokesperson Sun Li-fang said all the missiles launched Tuesday hit their targets.
“This shows our training is very strict and solid,” he said.
Beijing did not immediately react to Taiwan’s drill. China sends military jets and vessels near Taiwan frequently in what critics call an intimidation tactic….
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said early Tuesday it spotted five Chinese military jets and 11 ships close to its shores over the previous 24 hours. One aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, an unofficial demarcation zone between the two sides.
What are we to make of the AP’s agnostic description of why China is doing what it’s doing: “in what critics call an intimidation tactic”? What would the AP reporter call it? Threats aren’t usually wielded in order to reassure those being threatened.
Tensions
Meanwhile, reports Taipei Times, “Two German warships are awaiting orders from Berlin to determine whether they would be the first German naval vessels in decades to pass through the Taiwan Strait next month, at the risk of stoking tensions with Beijing, a German commander said” (August 20, 2024). This would be “the German navy’s first passage through the Strait since 2002.”
Actions taken in self-defense and to show support for allies threatened by China do seem to “stoke tensions” with China, which repeatedly urges the victims of its intimidation and gray-zone tactics to stand down. (“Gray-zone” tactics are verge-of-war tactics. They consist of half-punching you in the face and daring you to punch back. RAND corporation provides a more formal definition: “coercive Chinese government geopolitical, economic, military, and cyber and information operations activities beyond regular diplomatic and economic activities and below the use of kinetic military force.”)
The German warships stoke tensions by waiting for Berlin’s okay.
The ROC stokes tensions by existing.
The United States stokes tensions in the South China Sea region by deploying a mid-range missile system in the Philippines, a deployment that China calls alarming and “destabilizing.”
Vietnam stokes tensions by holding a “joint drill [with the Philippines] in South China Sea to strengthen territorial claims.” According to Ray Powell, a security analyst at Stanford, the two countries “have wisely decided to manage their bilateral dispute amicably so that they can focus on the vastly greater threat posed by China.”
