PLA drills aimed at appeasing Chinese nationalists: Scholar
ROC Central News Agency
04/09/2023 08:40 PM
Taipei, April 9 (CNA) China's ongoing military exercises around Taiwan are aimed at appeasing nationalists in China who were upset by the meeting between Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Taiwanese scholar said Sunday.
Wang Chih-sheng (王智盛), secretary-general of the Association of Chinese Elite Leadership (中華亞太菁英交流協會), told media after a forum that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) drills had "a bigger bark than bite" and could be seen as propaganda targeting nationalists.
The PLA started three days of drills Saturday, combining "combat readiness patrol" maneuvers and "united sword" military exercises around Taiwan, in response to Tsai's meeting with McCarthy in California on April 5 (U.S. time) at the end of a 10-day overseas trip.
Wang said the live-fire drills took place mostly in waters off southeastern China's Fuzhou City and Pingtan County, and were rather routine and small-scale.
The scope of the drills fell far short of those launched in August 2022 that targeted six locations around the island after then-U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, he said.
Beijing appeared more restrained this time because it did not want to cause the same backlash from the international community that it received last August, he argued.
Chinese scholar Zhang Chi (張弛), a national security associate professor with the National Defense University of PLA China, said, meanwhile, that the style of the ongoing drills could become a norm in the future, according to Ming Pao, a Chinese-language newspaper in Hong Kong.
Such a model features both "clear targets and flexible military deployments," Zhang was cited by the newspaper as saying.
Another highlight of the drills was the presence of China's newest aircraft carrier, the Shandong, in the Western Pacific Ocean for its first long-range training session, the report said.
It illustrated that China has significantly improved its combat capabilities in far sea operations, according to the newspaper.
(By Lee Ya-wen and Lee Hsin-Yin)
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