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“Support for a military adventure against Taiwan is very strong in Chinese society”

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August 06, 2022

11:00

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A look back at a crisis that has been brewing for 70 years and today threatens the stability of the world.

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It took less than 20 hours, the duration of Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, for the China Sea to ignite. A dozen Dongfeng-type ballistic missiles streaked the skies of Taiwan on Thursday, while hundreds of warships backed by stealth fighters and bombers positioned themselves all around the island, de facto blocking for three days one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world where 90% of the planet’s container ships transit.

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“The objective, explains General Zhang, from the Chinese army’s naval school, on state television, is to show that the People’s Army is capable of controlling all access to the island. of Taiwan, which will be very dissuasive for the secessionist and independence forces. The message is clear: failing to invade Taiwan, Beijing is able to cut the island off from the rest of the planetwhich is confirmed by Meng Xiangqing, professor at the Chinese National Defense University: “These maneuvers are very different from the previous ones. In the past, our exercises against the independence of Taiwan were generally carried out near the mainland. This time , they take place very close to the island of Taiwan. If we consider the six areas of these maneuvers, we see thatit is indeed a question of carrying out an unprecedented encirclement of the island“.

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“China does not yet have the means to seize Taiwan and settle there permanently.”

Valerie Niquet

Asia specialist at the Foundation for Strategic Research.

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“What is true is that the Chinese want to bring Taiwan to heel, explains Valérie Niquet, Asia specialist at the Foundation for Strategic Research. But China does not yet have the means to seize Taiwan and settle there permanently, which would pose far greater logistical problems than those Russia currently faces in Ukraine.

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The deep political and ideological gap between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China, the official name of Taiwan, dates back to the time of the Chinese Civil War, which broke out in 1927 between the nationalist forces of the Kuomintang (KMT) and groups of disparate fighters supporting the Communist Party.

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In 1949, defeated by the Communists of Mao Zedong, the leader of the KMT, Chiang Kai-shek, retreated to the island of Taiwan still under his control. Of the, the Nationalists continue to regard themselves as the legitimate government of all China. Until October 25, 1971, when Beijing became the official capital of China instead of Taipei, the only one recognized by the United Nations.

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It will be necessary to wait eight years, that is to say 1979, so that the United States in turn recognize Beijing as only capital of China. But the US Congress imposes to supply weapons to Taiwan for its self-defense under the “Taiwan Relations Act” which still governs relations between Taipei and Washington today.

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“More than three thousand Pentagon advisers visit Taiwan every year.”

Jean-Pierre Cabestan

CNRS researcher

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Since then, the United States has adopted a so-called “strategic ambiguity” policy with regard to Taipei, refraining from saying whether or not it would intervene militarily to defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion. However, Washington remains the island’s most powerful ally and its main supplier of military equipment. “More than 3,000 advisers from the Pentagon go to Taiwan each year, specifies the sinologist Jean-Pierre Cabestan, researcher at the CNRS. This shows how seriously the United States takes the security of the island.”

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Only 14 countries still recognize Taiwan diplomatically, including the Holy See, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize or even Paraguay, and Beijing is campaigning tirelessly to prevent any international recognition of the island, thus reacting strongly last year when Taiwan opened, for example, an office of representation under his name in Lithuania or during a high profile political visit such as that of Nancy Pelosi.

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“China always pushes the ball a little further to deny international space to Taiwan. We are in a sudden accentuation of what has been practiced for years, with incursions beyond the center line of the Taiwan Strait, but qualitatively very superior. We have to go back to 1993 to find such a dangerous situation”, notes François Godement, adviser for Asia at the Institut Montaigne.

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Why this escalation?

Relations between Beijing and Taiwan soured from 2016 with the election of current President Tsai Ing-wen, in favor of a formal declaration of independence for the island. Taiwan, free, democratic and soon sovereign, a red line for Beijing.

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The Nancy Pelosi-Tsai face-off is therefore seen as implicit support for independence. The calendar also adds to the affront as this month a conclave of Communist Party chiefs gather in the eastern Chinese resort town of Beidahe, the final warm-up for President Xi Jinping before his reappointment for a new five-year term leading the country at the 20th Communist Party Congress this fall.

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But to ensure his victory by acclamation, the president must also save face. Xi has made Taiwan’s reunification with communist China a sacred cause as part of what he calls the great “national regeneration”. “The great regeneration of the Chinese nation will not be an easy task achieved by the fanfare of gongs and drums alone,” he told Party officials last week in Beijing. He even gave a date to achieve this: 2049, on the occasion of the centenary of the People’s Republic.

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“Support for a military adventure against Taiwan is very strong in Chinese society. and has been growing since the first election of Tsai Ing-wen in 2016, continues Jean-Pierre Cabestan. If it reflects the feelings of a part of society, it is also voluntarily heightened by certain more nationalist currents within the Party. This Chinese nationalism is clearly a war factor.”

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“China seems powerful in every corner of the world, but in the end it is challenged in its backyard.”

Jean-Pierre Cabestan

CNRS researcher

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As economic growth falters and the zero covid policy provokes more and more protests in the country, it is urgent for Xi Jinping to rekindle the flame of the Party and the Taiwanese question is a golden opportunity to put the country and the army in battle order.

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But this bellicose adventure across the strait does the reverse only to antagonize a Taiwanese public opinion which remains overwhelmingly favorable to the status quo, neither independence nor submission to the Chinese regime. “It’s the whole paradox of Chinese power, concludes Jean-Pierre Cabestan. China seems powerful in the four corners of the world, but ultimately it is challenged in its own backyard.”

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