PLA antics targeting Taiwan impede Xi’s goals

FORUM Staff

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), under General Secretary Xi Jinping, is using a recent incident near Taiwan’s Kinmen archipelago as an excuse to escalate coercive gray-zone tactics, analysts say. Beijing’s latest moves follow a pattern of increasing military, economic and psychological pressure aimed at Taiwan, the self-governed island the CCP claims and threatens to annex by force.

“The economic, financial, and supply chain impacts of any instability in the Taiwan Strait would be felt in every country and community that is connected to the global economy,” wrote researchers for the United States-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Xi’s approach echoes previous attempts to bully Taipei, which also have backfired, observers say. With the region’s stability at stake, nations such as Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and the U.S. have increasingly called for maintaining the status quo — including freedoms of navigation — in the economically important Taiwan Strait. Organizations such as the Group of 7 leading industrial nations and the European Union continually underscore the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and encourage the peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues.

“A small but growing number of countries have also conducted military presence operations near Taiwan, and more have sent parliamentary delegations and made public statements in support of preserving the status quo,” noted CSIS.

Analysts say the growing commitments strengthen Taiwan’s resolve to defend its democracy against Xi’s threats.

In the Taiwan Strait about 3 kilometers from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) mainland, the Kinmen islands are unfortunate victims of Beijing’s unwarranted provocations.

Two alleged Chinese criminals drowned during an attempt to evade the Taiwan Coast Guard near the islands in mid-February 2024. Taipei said the men had been fishing from an unmarked speedboat with no registration certificate or registered home port.

Taiwan’s patrols around the islands focus on stopping “a small number of people from mainland China [who] have trespassed in Taiwan’s water to dredge sand, fish with explosive and poisons, dump trash at sea, and engage in other actions harmful to the marine ecosystem,” the Mainland Affairs Council said.

The PRC has ignored calls to prohibit such actions, according to the council, and it responded to the latest incident by protecting and facilitating criminal activity, including by the Chinese coast guard.

“There has also been a significant uptick in terms of both PRC presence and ‘law enforcement’ activity around Taiwan’s outlying islands, as well as in the escalation of PRC rhetoric directed at Taiwan,” John Dotson, deputy director of the Global Taiwan Institute, wrote for The Jamestown Foundationa U.S.-based think tank.

Up to five Chinese coast guard ships, which are under military authority, reportedly entered waters around Kinmen in February and were warned away by Taiwan authorities, Dotson wrote. Chinese coast guard personnel, without a clear legal foundation, also intruded into Taiwan-controlled waters and forcibly boarded a Taiwan tourist boat near the islands.

Beijing is attempting to undermine the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, and its expanded presence in waters around Taiwan imperils regional stability, analysts say.

The CCP frequently uses such gray-zone tactics across the region. Its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has intensified exercises around Taiwan in recent years, regularly sending military aircraft into the island’s air defense identification zone and across the Taiwan Strait median line that served for decades as a boundary to prevent escalation.

Beijing’s economic coercion includes spiking tariffs on or banning Taiwan’s exports and fining Taiwan companies that operate in the PRC.

The CCP ratcheted up cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns to influence the island’s presidential and parliamentary elections in early 2024. State-controlled media also manipulated accounts of the February drowning, calling the illegal vessel a fishing boat and omitting the crew’s attempt to flee, researcher Sze-Fung Lee wrote for the Global Taiwan Institute.

The CCP’s gray-zone actions are likely to continue “in tandem with more overt acts of military intimidation,” Dotson wrote.

Thwarting threats to peace in the Taiwan Strait requires a coalition of partners “meaningfully supporting Taiwan and willing to send credible deterrent signals to China,” according to CSIS researchers. “Building such a coalition is key to deterring conflict and preserving Taiwan’s space to grow as a prosperous and resilient democracy.”