There has been an argument that China is likely to take the Dongsha Islands or other surrounding islands of Taiwan first in order to force Taiwan to accept peaceful reunification.
However, Taiwan’s security chief Chen Mingtong said on Nov. 4 that the Chinese mainland has indeed discussed whether to attack Dongsha Islands internally, and the situation in the Taiwan Strait is indeed tenser than in the past, but he again determined that there will be no war across the Taiwan Strait during Tsai Ing-wen’s term as Taiwan’s leader.
Such comment by Taiwan’s security chief has prompted speculation among mainland Chinese netizens as to whether a mole similar to Liu Liankun has once again emerged within China to reveal relevant information to Taiwan.
Liu Liankun was the head of the armament department of the PLA’s General Logistics Department and a major general in the PLA. He was subverted by Taiwan’s military intelligence agency in 1992 and also received the rank of “major general” there. Before his arrest and execution in 1999, Liu provided numerous important pieces of information to Taiwan over a seven-year period, considered the most serious espionage case in the 50 years since the founding of P.R. China.
Recently, the U.S. and Taiwan have been interacting frequently, and Tsai Ing-wen’s government has acknowledged the presence of U.S. troops in Taiwan for the first time. The mainland China government and public opinion are unanimous in pushing the “unification of Taiwan” argument to the forefront, and outsiders believe that the possibility of “armed reunification” by mainland China has increased greatly.
The U.S. Department of Defense’s “Mainland China Military Strength Report” released on November 4 points out that by 2027, China will have the ability to confront U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific region, and that the PLA can take Taiwan’s Dongsha or Taiping Islands under elevated military preparations, and also have the ability to invade Kinmen and Matsu.
Former White House national security advisor Robert O’Brien was interviewed recently and said that mainland China may use force against Taiwan before the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
Ted Carpenter, a U.S. defense expert, said on Nov. 2 that China has released many signals of “patience running out” in recent years in the face of Taiwan’s increasingly clear “rejection of unification,” and the more likely scenario is for the mainland China to launch limited operations on remote islands under Taiwan’s control than to fully take Taiwan.
The Center for a New American Security, a U.S. think tank, reported on October 26 that Taiwan and the U.S. “can find few reliable means (to respond)” to the scenario of a mainland Chinese attack on Dongsha Island.
Dongsha Island is a key point in the Taiwan Strait shipping lane and is of considerable strategic importance. The entire Dongsha Island is about 2.8 kilometers long from east to west and 700 meters wide from north to south, with an area of only 1.8 square kilometers, it is the second-largest natural island among the South China Sea islands, with an airport that can land and take off small aircraft and some transport aircraft.
Despite its small size, Dongsha Island has a prominent geographical location and is a sea and air hub for three “sea lanes”: to the north is the southern exit of the Taiwan Strait, to the east is the western exit of the Bass Strait, and to the south goes straight to Xisha and Zhongsha Islands. Some media have described that whoever occupies the Dongsha Island will control the key points, and the surrounding planes and ships will all be in sight.
Many scholars believe that Dongsha Island also has strategic value to the PLA. If the PLA controls Dongsha Island, it can eliminate the flanking threat in times of war and form a deterrent to the U.S. military. However, there are also views that the strategic value of the Dongsha Islands has declined as China has gained the initiative in the South China Sea.