The possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan once again took center stage in the media last month with the military maneuvers of the Chinese Army aimed at punishing Taipei after Lai Ching-te was inaugurated president.
Likewise, the current escalation of tension worsened at the end of May when The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) released a video which uses a mix of computer-generated animation and real footage to show how China would launch an all-out attack on Taiwan.
The 70-second long video begins with real images of the deployment of trucks, warships, land missile batteries and combat fighters. And it continued with a massive launch of missiles that ended up hitting regions in the north, south and east of Taiwan.
At the end of the video, some words appear written in red with the traditional Chinese characters used by Taiwan and they say: “Sacred weapons to end independence”.
According to ‘Newsweek’, several analysts say that China is likely to continue accumulating pressure on the skeptical administration in Beijing, but increase the risk of destabilizing regime failure can prevent the president Xi Jinping pull the trigger.
“Those separatists recently made fanatical statements showing their betrayal of the Chinese nation and their ancestors. They will be nailed to history’s pillar of shame“said Defense Minister Dong Jun in a controversial speech in Singapore on Sunday at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s main defense summit.
The People’s Republic of China claims Taiwan as its territory, despite never having governed there. Xi has said unification is inevitable, through force if necessary. US officials believe that he has ordered that his forces be capable of carrying out an invasion by 2027. However, this does not necessarily mean that this or any other year has been chosen for the undertaking.
“Whether China invades Taiwan depends on Xi Jinping’s will,” he told Newsweek. Hung Tzu-Chieh, research associate at Taiwan’s leading think tank, the Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR). A key factor in his decision is whether the difficult maritime invasion would strengthen his hold on power or fail and risk the fall of his regime.
Xi’s trust in the PLA is also at stakeHung said, pointing to Xi’s dismissal last year of several senior defense officials, including five from the Rocket Force and then-Defense Minister Li Shangfu amid corruption suspicions.
“Given the current situation, it remains difficult to assess whether and when China could invade Taiwan,” Hung said, adding: “However, if Taiwan’s defense capabilities are strengthened, including other countries’ willingness to increase military cooperation with Taiwan, will help boost Taiwan’s deterrence capabilities“.
In his speech last Sunday, Defense Minister Dong blamed the “separatists for Taiwanese independence” and to unidentified foreign forces for undermining peaceful unification as an option. He promised that the PLA would “take decisive measures to curb Taiwan’s independence and ensure that such a plot never succeeds. Any party that tries to keep the two sides of the Strait apart would face self-destruction,” Dong said.
While Beijing characterizes unification opponents as a fringe group in Taiwan, polls in recent years have shown that only about 10% of Taiwanese support unification.
The Chinese Executive maintains that the recognition by the Taiwanese Administration of the so-called “1992 Consensus” is a prerequisite for resuming dialogue across the Taiwan Strait, the Chinese embassy in the United States reaffirmed in a previous statement to Newsweek.
The term, coined years later, referred to a meeting in which Chinese and Taiwanese officials agree that there is only “one China”, leaving the question of which side represented the real China open to interpretation. The government of the Republic of China (Taiwan’s official name) fled to Taiwan in 1949 following its defeat in the Chinese Civil War.
