The last military exercises that China has carried out for six days with the deployment of dozens of Chinese planes and ships in the Taiwan Strait together with the announcement by Beijing of the suspension of cooperation mechanisms with Washington have increased tension in the already difficult relations between both countries. There seems to be no doubt that Beijing has staged a mock invasion of Taiwan regardless of the fact that the Chinese military response is clearly disproportionate. It provides China with undeniable military experience, especially in the joint field where the different branches of the Chinese Armed Forces participate.
The area of East Asia where these military exercises take place around Taiwan forms one of the four great current world geopolitical dilemmas. In this particular area, it is about resolving the unstable Sino-Japanese geopolitical balance along with the existing disputes in the South China Sea (MCM), the North Korean nuclear conflict and the very future of ancient Formosa.
The other three major geopolitical dilemmas are related to who will achieve world leadership once the United States could lose its role as global hegemon; that is, an actor from the democratic bloc or one from the authoritarian bloc. Another is the Intermarium or rather the Baltic Sea-Black Sea line in the sense of knowing if it will be the EU or Russia who will achieve peace and control of this isthmus; and the third aims to solve the labyrinth of frictions existing in the Middle East where countries and regional and international entities maintain a critical geostrategic competition.
To be realistic, from a strategic and operational point of view, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is not yet ready to carry out an invasion of Taiwan that would constitute one of the largest and most complex military amphibious landing operations in history. world at the same time that it would face a possible conflict with the United States.
It is true that China regards the 36,000 km2 Taiwan as a breakaway province and is committed to reunification, by force if necessary. But it is also true that the Taiwanese leadership claims that it is much more than a province, arguing that it is a sovereign state. Taiwan has its own constitution, democratically elected leaders and a military of about 300,000 strong. Currently the number of countries that recognize Taiwan as a State are 14, including the Vatican.
Current President Tsai Ing-wen, who leads the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) that advocates formal independence from China, was re-elected in 2020. Several months earlier, Hong Kong had suffered major unrest, with protesters protesting Beijing's growing influence. . This situation was experienced in Taipei with alarm and great concern. Also in 2020, the entry into force of a national security law in Hong Kong was interpreted as yet another sign that Beijing was increasingly asserting its authority over the territory. Long gone was the Chinese policy of “one country, two systems”.
It must be borne in mind that, regardless of Chinese interests with respect to Taiwan, China has developed and is developing the old geopolitical doctrine of Friedrich Ratzel's vital space - used by the Nazi regime -, a pattern of coercive and unilateral behavior with claims territorial rights in the South China Sea not endorsed by international law against other claims by coastal states such as Brunei, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Taiwan. Furthermore, Beijing has militarized atolls, reefs and islands for strategic reasons and in support of its illegal territorial claims.
The strategic aim of China's land reclamation activities together with the establishment of naval and air bases on artificial islands scattered by the MCM, especially the Paracelsus and Spratley Islands, provide Beijing with critical footholds for exercise its maritime power projection capacity, in its broadest sense, first around the South China Sea and then extend its expansion towards the Pacific Ocean beyond the First Island Chain or towards the Indian Ocean through the Strait from Malacca..
For Washington, the alliance with Taiwan has an important strategic asset, taking into account the aforementioned claims by Beijing in the MCM and the advantages that control of this area would have in terms of access to hydrocarbon reserves and trade lines. Chinese control of some of the Spratley and Paracelsus islands could certify Beijing's dominance over the MCM, changing the regional order through the privileges and benefits offered by the respective Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs).
On the other hand, the American response to the rise of China constitutes one of its main military objectives in the near future. The speed with which China has built and then militarized a set of artificial islands in the South China Sea in violation of international law is a unilateral decision that increases the risk of conflict in the MCM while threatening regional and international stability.
The aggressive Chinese military exercises carried out in front of Taiwan, which betray China's traditional foreign policy of peaceful expansion, are highly significant. This radical change that does not respect what is often called with pride and satisfaction, by the Chinese authorities, as Beijing's modus operandi, indicates the transformation of the use of Chinese soft power, especially through economic measures, by hard power, through performances in the military field, using the terminology of Joseph Nye.
The impact of China's aspirations in East Asia regarding international security is manifested, apart from the conflict with Taiwan and the disputes in the MCM, not only in the Sino-American confrontation in geostrategy in the Western Pacific or in the commercial field but also in the position with Japan, China's main regional geopolitical rival, and in its actions with respect to the North Korean nuclear conflict.
The way in which China addresses and resolves these potential conflict situations will be a sample and an indication of what type of leadership the country of the Great Wall will adopt as a hegemonic power in East Asia or as a great power, in its case, in the international board. The coercive live-fire military exercises that it has just carried out, violating the existing median line of separation in the Taiwan Strait, using hard power creates many misgivings and concerns in the Western Pacific countries.
In the current and foreseeable geopolitics of power, the United States and China will be the main protagonists, accompanied by the European Union and Russia, respectively. As the geopolitical center of gravity of the first half of the 21st century is located in Asia-Pacific, dominance over Taiwan may constitute the first key strategic asset that will modulate the geostrategic chessboard of East Asia that will powerfully influence the new international order that will emerge.
The three Taiwan Strait crises
Since 1949, the relationship between Taiwan and China has been changing from the initial clear distancing to an increase in treatment between the two nations. However, the complex political and legal situation seems far from being resolved and the unification of both territories in a single China continues to be an old, but current, aspiration of the CCP. The double circumstance of being considered part of China and at the same time being a prosperous country, a liberal democracy and with the support of most Western countries, have made Taiwan the perfect point of friction between the People's Republic of China and the US. In fact, there have been three moments in which the tension between the two countries grew to the point of fearing an armed conflict. They are the well-known three Taiwan Strait crises.
First Taiwan Strait Crisis.
The first crisis occurred shortly after the end of the Chinese civil war, in 1954. After the end of the Chinese civil war, the flight of the Kuomintang and its refuge in Taiwan did not make the mainland authorities forget their desire to conquer the entire territory. and totally win. This fact, that of an inconclusive war, is the origin of the tension that has been prolonged over time.
The trigger for the first crisis was the talks that gave rise to the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO[3], in its acronym in English) and in which Taiwan participated. The Beijing authorities would not passively accept the mere possibility of the ROC being recognized in an international forum as an autonomous country of the PRC.
In the international framework described, the Chinese attacks took place on the two islands belonging to Taiwan and located about two miles from China, Matsu and Quemoy. Through these actions, China intended to pressure Taiwan to abandon its attempt to establish itself as a de facto independent country while showing its rejection of this situation to the rest of the SEATO countries. In addition, for China, these islands were Taiwan's first line of defense and were considered its vanguard for a possible reconquest of mainland China; their bombardment was a warning of Taiwan's possible intentions.
On the other hand, the US had deployed the Seventh Fleet in the Taiwan Strait, whose main theoretical objective was to prevent attacks between China and Taiwan, but whose presence was interpreted by China as an offensive maneuver. When President Eisenhower withdrew the American ships upon coming to power in 1953, China saw a window of opportunity open to attack Taiwan without fear of a swift American retaliation. As already indicated, the talks for the creation of SEATO were the excuse for the Chinese attack. The Chinese bombardments on the islands had as a major consequence the death of two American soldiers. The US responded immediately with the deployment of three combat groups in the area. The international tension in the conflict grew, including the threat: the US had, China did not, although this information was unknown, and the USSR had and to what extent it would be willing to support its ideological ally.
The crisis was followed with great international concern, but the main actors expressed in their speeches, and through some of their acts, wills that were different from the real ones, as has been known later. In fact, neither China nor the US wanted to reach an armed conflict, much less the USSR. China's claims were to show its possibilities and ratify its position and determination on the idea of a single China and, although in a risky way, it laid the foundations of its relations with the US for a long period of time and the role of China in the sphere international. Finally, as quickly as it had appeared, the crisis ended with Mao Zedong's statements alluding to China's unwillingness to go to war.
Second Taiwan Strait Crisis.
The second crisis in the Taiwan Strait would come soon after, in 1958. In August of that year, China began an offensive against the Taiwanese islands closest to the mainland. After a start of daily and continuous bombardments, they switched to intermittent artillery attacks, alternating the days of attacks, warning the population of the islands and avoiding important targets so that the crisis did not escalate. Clearly, the bombing was used as a political rather than a military tool.
The Chinese maneuver had three objectives. First, the Chinese government verified the American commitment to the defense of Taiwan. Second, it served in some way to draw the attention of the US to the need to hold talks with China and serve as a counterbalance to American power, which had just intervened in Lebanon, demonstrating its world leadership. And, third and last, it reaffirmed the power and importance of the new China in the world. In addition to these three objectives, China achieved a fourth, which was to clarify the position of the USSR. Despite being ideological allies, their alliance began to weaken.
Although the crisis continued for longer, China achieved its goals relatively quickly when it resumed diplomatic talks with the US. However, the tension between the three countries continued for a time to the point of a nuclear threat, as had happened in the first crisis. Despite the fact that it was internationally accepted that China had the support of the Soviet arsenal, as it became known later, the USSR recognized that China had no intention of using such weapons in this conflict.
The final result was more than a thousand deaths, the resumption of talks between the US and China, which would last a short period of time, and the mistrust between these two countries in the medium term, in addition to a greater separation between China and its ideological ally the USSR.
Third Taiwan Strait Crisis.
The third crisis occurred in the 1990s, already in a different framework than the two previous crises. Taiwan was already a modernized, democratic country with, increasingly, international recognition and weight. For its part, China had proposed a unification of both countries under the formula similar to Hong Kong's "one country, two systems." In addition, in the newborn Taiwanese democracy, voices began to be heard advocating for its own national identity and separate from the idea of unification (the recovery of mainland China). This greater international role of Taiwan began to bother China and affect its relations with other countries, such as the US, also a protagonist in this crisis.
Lee Teng-Hui, Taiwan's president since 1988, had begun a series of diplomatic activities to strengthen Taiwan's role globally. The straw that broke the camel's back for China was Lee's visit to his former US university, which took place in 1995. Although unofficial, this visit was an act of protest by Taiwan and with clear criticism of China. Thus, in response, China severed diplomatic relations (which had been normalized since bilateral talks in 1972) with the US and began military missile-firing exercises off China's southeastern coast.
Although talks had already begun to reduce tension with the US, the crisis was delayed when China increased pressure on Taiwan as the elections to the island's Parliament approached, scheduled for December 2, 1995. Despite this fact , the talks achieved a gradual reduction in tension and the recovery of the previous status quo.
The three crises described above represented the three moments of greatest tension between China and Taiwan and represented a demonstration of the US role in Taiwan and its commitment to its defense. These levels of tension have not been experienced since then, despite the fact that there have been numerous moments of tension between the two countries.
In addition to the three crises described, the relationship between the two countries has evolved since the establishment of the Kuomintang in 1950. If the three crises that occurred in the Taiwan Strait are analyzed, it can be seen that the first two were very close to the end of the war civil China and more violent than the third, in 1995. Furthermore, in none of the three, and according to subsequent revelations, has there been a clear will by China to conquer Taiwan.
Over the years, Taiwan's democracy and economic prosperity have been established. China, for its part, has become a great power, for which Taiwan remains an old aspiration. This desire to annex Taiwan has regained importance with the arrival of Xi Jimping to power. To understand this conflict, before analyzing the most current facts, it is necessary to know another series of aspects, such as the internal political situation of Taiwan, its society and the ties that unite both countries.
To be continued…
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