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China's military drills around Taiwan aimed at U.S.: Scholar

ROC Central News Agency

01/09/2023 07:00 PM

Taipei, Jan. 9 (CNA) China's latest round of military exercises around Taiwan, including the deployment of over 50 warplanes on Sunday, are likely intended to warn the United States against carrying out some of the Taiwan-related provisions in a recently passed defense bill, a Taiwanese scholar told CNA on Monday.

According to the Ministry of National Defense (MND), 57 Chinese aircraft and four warships were detected in airspace and waters in the general vicinity of Taiwan from 6 a.m. Sunday to 6 a.m. Monday.

Of the total, 28 of the aircraft either crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or entered the southwest perimeter of Taiwan's air defense identification zone (ADIZ), the MND said.

The activity came during China's second round of military exercises focused on Taiwan since U.S. President Joe Biden signed the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law on Dec. 23.

The NDAA authorized US$10 billion in loans to Taiwan to buy U.S. weapons over the next five years, but those loans did not make it into the Consolidated Appropriations Act passed in late December, which authorizes government spending.

According to Chieh Chung (揭仲), an associate research fellow with the National Policy Foundation in Taipei, Sunday's activities had relatively little military value, as many of the aircraft involved turned back soon after crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait.

But they continued Beijing's normalization of such crossings -- helping to erode the line's status as a de facto maritime border -- that began after U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan last August, he said.

Chieh believed the broader goal of the maneuvers was to warn Washington that if it did not respect Beijing's positions on cross-Taiwan Strait matters, the two countries would be unable to build effective "guardrails" for averting conflict.

In the shorter term, China is probably also hoping the moves will deter U.S. federal agencies from following through on some of the provisions supporting Taiwan in the 2023 NDAA, Chieh said.

Meanwhile, Lin Ying-yu (林穎佑), an assistant professor at Tamkang University's Institute of Strategic Studies, said he disagreed with the view, expressed by some analysts, that the Taiwanese public has grown "numb" to China's military incursions, and therefore lacked "crisis awareness."

Rather, Lin argued, "many ordinary Taiwanese and military buffs" closely follow Chinese actions around Taiwan, but are not overly panicked because they understand how Beijing operates.

Asked about the goal of this latest round of military exercises, Lin said they were meant to "normalize" such activities while "simultaneously exerting pressure" on Taiwan and the U.S.

(By Matt Yu and Matthew Mazzetta)

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