CChina’s military has launched a record number of air incursions around Taiwan in 2024, as it builds up its ability to launch a full-scale invasion, something a former head of Taiwan’s armed forces said Beijing could be capable of doing within a decade.
Analysts said China’s relentless harassment had taken a toll on Taiwan’s resources but failed to convince them to capitulate, largely because the threat of invasion was still meaningless, for now.
Xi Jinping’s determination to annex Taiwan in what the president calls “reunification” is no secret. He has publicly and loudly promised to bring it under the control of the Communist Party (CCP), integrated into the Chinese motherland, by force if necessary, on several occasions, including recently during his 2025 New Year speech in the nation.
But in an effort to force Taiwan’s hand without resorting to direct military attack, the military – the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) – has targeted it with waves of harassment and intimidation, using no anything from weather balloons to aircraft carriers.
All of this has combined with the pursuit of non-military tactics, including legal and cyber warfare, disinformation campaigns, and the militarization of diplomatic and trade relations.
But until China is capable of a full-scale invasion, such tactics make “no sense” until Taiwan surrenders, a former head of Taiwan’s armed forces told the Guardian. Admiral Lee Hsi-min.
“The overall strategy is to make you capitulate,” Lee said.
The PLA’s tactics focused on Taiwan can be categorized into four types, he said. “Intimidation” tactics included gray zone warfare, such as near-daily incursions into the Taiwan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), “coercive” tactics could be a blockade or quarantine, attacks “ “punitive” included missile bombardments and “conquest” was a full-scale invasion.
The coercive tactics include what Admiral Tang Hua, commander of the Taiwanese navy, told The Economist in October as an “anaconda strategy” by the PLA to squeeze Taiwan, trying to exhaust its response system, to force errors and perhaps trigger a pretext to launch a blockade. .
In several incidents – including last week – underwater communications cables to Taiwan have been cut or damaged, apparently by Chinese ships. Cutting communications is a key element experts say would be part of a blockade or attack.
Lee said this intimidation approach was aimed at deterring Taiwan from declaring independence and had so far been successful. The aim of any coercive and punitive measures would be to force the government or people of Taiwan to capitulate on unification. Lee said the PLA was fully capable of all three types of measures, but had not yet launched a blockade or attack because it was not yet able to implement the fourth: conquest.
“If they don’t have the capacity to carry out a full-scale invasion, then taking one of the first three won’t work,” Lee said. “If Taiwan does not capitulate to this anaconda approach, what could China do? »
U.S. intelligence believes Xi has given the PLA a deadline of 2027 to reach the capability for a full-scale invasion. Lee said no one could predict exactly when they would be ready because it was a dynamic assessment also involving Taiwan’s defensive capabilities and ongoing corruption problems within the PLA, but he believed it would be within a decade.
In the gray zone
In the meantime, training – often in the form of gray zone warfare – continued.
Most of it took the form of air force flights in Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ). Military planes are flying more often, in greater numbers and closer and closer to Taiwan. Each incident forces the Taiwanese military to respond, draining its resources and morale, and eroding warning times, as Taiwan is forced to shrink the territorial space it can practically cover.
In 2022, 1,727 Chinese military aircraft landed in Taiwan’s de facto ADIZ, double the previous year’s total. In 2023, it was a similar number, heavily concentrated in military exercises launched in April and September in alleged retaliation for what he called Taiwan’s “separatist activities,” including a meeting between the president of at the time, Tsai Ing-wen, and senior American officials.
In 2024, there would be more than 3,000.
Ben Lewis, a defense analyst who maintains an open source tally of incursions into the ADIZ, says the 2024 increase is particularly marked given that there have actually been very few over the past year. first part of the year.
Lewis’ data, based on reports from Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, shows a lull in ADIZ incursions in the months leading up to Taiwan’s presidential election in January, which many analysts say era, was likely a decision by Beijing not to risk playing into the Chinese threat narrative. on which the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and its presidential candidate, Lai Ching-te, had campaigned.
Beijing generally links its exercises and activities in the gray zone to perceived provocations, including Taiwan engaging in acts of sovereignty or international diplomacy, or the United States – which has numerous military bases stationed in the region – carry out activities such as freedom of navigation exercises.
After Lai’s inauguration in May, Lewis said there had been an “unprecedented increase” in incursions by the PLA Air Force and Navy, steadily increasing until reaching a peak in July with more than 430 incursions, close to the record recorded in August 2022 during the PLA exercises after. Nancy Pelosi visited the island. There have also been spikes during military exercises.
Due to changes in Taiwan’s Defense Ministry’s reporting methods early last year, it is no longer possible to know what type of PLA aircraft flew, or where. The reduced transparency is a “missed opportunity” by Taiwan to attract international attention, Lewis said. “There is a spectrum and diversity of PLA activities against Taiwan – balloons, drones (like drones), maritime enforcement, ADIZ activities, whatever joint patrols – that can attract attention people and help us learn more about what the APL does. do. But they just don’t share enough.
In addition to ADIZ incursions, the PLA has also demonstrated more sophisticated joint operations, drone encirclements of the island, missile tests, and integration of civilian forces. In its annual report on China’s military developments, the US Department of Defense said the PLA had “long emphasized the importance of joint firepower strikes as a component of large-scale operations” and that it was explicitly linked to an invasion of Taiwan in PLA writings.
Military exercises held in May and October – dubbed Joint Sword 2024 A and B – surrounded the main island of Taiwan with joint exercises from all branches of the PLA and, for the first time, the Coast Guard as well. more militarized. The exercises “really demonstrated the PLA’s ability to increase forces, move people and capture the area of operation,” Lewis said. “That doesn’t mean they can keep it up, but it means they can do it at a good pace.”
Taiwanese officials now expect multiple PLA exercises ostensibly targeting Taiwan each year, but Lewis said Taiwan has managed to “maintain strong control” with their responses each time.
“It takes a lot of professionalism and capability to respond to a major militia exercise surrounding all parts of your island when the purpose of the exercise is to demonstrate how China has capabilities far superior to those of Taiwan” , he declared.
Analysts expect the PLA’s tactics to continue and intensify in 2025. The DPP-led government in Taipei categorically rejects the prospect of Chinese rule, as do a growing majority of Taipei’s population. Taiwan. It seems unlikely that they will capitulate. But Lee said that for now, Beijing has at least achieved its goal of deterring Taiwan from advancing its sovereignty or independence.
“And in the meantime, they can train, prepare or establish their capabilities to achieve the end goal.”
theguardian