When U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, the Standing Committee of the Chinese People’s Congress, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of National Defense, and the Central Taiwan Working Office were the first to state their positions. Overall, the statement is serious and restrained and is principled, but it is the military’s actions that are the substantive response, according to current affairs analyst Lu Yi.
From the night Pelosi arrived in Taipei, the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army plans to conduct a series of joint military operations around Taiwan Island, conduct joint air and sea exercises in the sea and airspaces of the northern, southwest, and southeastern Taiwan Island, with long-range firepower in the Taiwan Strait. For live ammunition, a regular-guided fire test was organized in the eastern waters of Taiwan Island. Then Xinhua News Agency further announced the area map: From 12:00 on August 4 to 12:00 on the 7th, important military exercises will be carried out, and live ammunition will be organized. As far as the scope of the military exercise is concerned, Taiwan will be encircled from six directions and an “all-inclusive banquet”-style live-fire exercise will be conducted.
Compare the differences between the PLA’s 1996 exercise area and the 2022 exercise area. The former is 12 nautical miles away, the latter less than 9 nautical miles most recently (southwest corner). Moreover, this also means that there is no longer a so-called “central line” in the Taiwan Strait, and the Taiwan Air Defense Identification Zone has also been “abolished”. It is believed that such exercises will become normal in the future.
This is the first time that the PLA has designated the waters and airspace around Taiwan as a restricted military zone in the name of “joint military operations”, which objectively puts aircraft and ships entering Taiwan during military exercises at risk and keeps Taiwan’s main shipping routes under control. In addition, it will form a controlled encirclement to Taiwan. “Encircle without fighting” is a good choice for subduing soldiers without fighting.
In fact, the night before Pelosi arrived in Taiwan, the Chinese General Administration of Customs had already announced a ban on imports from more than 100 food companies in Taiwan. According to the official website of the General Administration of Customs of China, of the 107 Taiwanese manufacturers registered in the mainland under the product category of “biscuits, pastries and bread”, 35, or 32%, had their import status suspended, many of them well-known.
According to Taiwanese media citing sources, more than 3,000 products may be banned, and Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs also confirmed the rumors and is expected to work with the Taiwan Council of Agriculture to assess the possible economic losses and study relevant countermeasures.
On August 3, the mainland China authorities announced that they would “immediately suspend the import of grapefruit, lemons, oranges and other citrus fruits, chilled white scallops and frozen mackerel from Taiwan to the mainland”. At the same time, the decision to suspend the export of natural sand to Taiwan”. According to statistics from Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance, Taiwan’s food exports to China in 2021 amounted to about US$1.682 billion. Among them, the largest export is prepared food, with US$646.21 million; the second largest export is live animals and animal products, with US$435.06 million; beverage, wine and vinegar, and plant products, with US$337.33 million and US$231.76 million, respectively. This arrangement is tantamount to an early “rehearsal” of military blockade and siege of Taiwan, and its frequent implementation will paralyze Taiwan’s economy and thus defeat the Taiwan independence forces. If similar “blockade” becomes the norm, Taiwan’s business environment will deteriorate drastically, and a large amount of capital and industries will flee one after another, leaving the economy and people’s livelihood unprotected.
This reminds people of the fact that in 2012, China also effectively dealt with the issue of the Diaoyu Islands with the method of “defeating the enemy without fighting”, and realized the normalized patrol of the waters of the Diaoyu Islands.
2012 marks the 40th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan. But in September of that year, the Noda Cabinet adopted the so-called policy of “nationalizing” the Diaoyu Islands. According to the Japanese media, the Noda government will take eight major measures to strengthen the control over the Diaoyu Islands after the completion of the “purchase of the islands”, which in essence is to further illegally possess the Diaoyu Islands. A few hours later, the Chinese government responded quickly and announced for the first time the baseline of the territorial waters of the Diaoyu Islands and its affiliated islands, declaring to the world that China has sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands. This declaration based on the 1992 Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone lays a legal foundation for China to exercise its sovereignty in the future.
On September 11, Noda’s cabinet continued to move against the tide, bent on signing the “island purchase” contract. The company’s main goal is to provide the best possible service to its customers. The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), established by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), made a submission on the delimitation of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles in the East China Sea.
Since September 2012, Chinese surveillance vessels, fishing boats and other law enforcement vessels have frequently entered the territorial waters of the Diaoyu Islands and implemented eviction measures against Japanese patrol vessels, and such regular patrols have continued.
On July 22, 2013, the China Coast Guard Bureau was officially licensed under the State Oceanic Administration (SOA), and in 2015, China promulgated a white paper on national defense, which for the first time explicitly proposed the “combination of near-shore defense and far-shore defense. On July 4, 2018, the Chinese Coast Guard 2305 fleet cruised within the territorial waters of the Diaoyu Islands. In July 2020, the Japanese side claimed to have spotted Chinese official vessels around the Diaoyu Islands for 100 consecutive days, setting a record for the longest continuous patrol days since Japan nationalized the Diaoyu Islands in September 2012. In addition, since the Noda government “nationalized” the Diaoyu Islands, protests have erupted in hundreds of Chinese cities, sales of Japanese products have plummeted, and tourism to Japan and other human exchange activities have suffered a significant setback.
Of course, Japan could also launch a boycott campaign against Chinese products, but no one in Japan is advocating this. If you don’t buy Chinese products, you can’t get cheap things from daily necessities to clothing and food in restaurants, and many Japanese people will be in trouble because of high prices. Japan is economically powerless against China. The Japanese government nationalized the Diaoyu Islands without taking into account these issues and suffered an economic blow. The forecast for this was insufficient, and the tough Japanese public opinion in advance gradually turned to criticize the reckless actions of the Noda government. Noda also admitted to underestimating the intensity of China’s response and said that he would take all measures to remedy the bilateral relationship.
This is how Beijing handled the “nationalization” of the Diaoyu Islands 10 years ago. It worked well for Japan, not to mention Taiwan.
Although China’s “Taiwan issue” is essentially a game between China and the United States, the core of the issue is still Taiwan’s sovereignty and rule. Just as Japan’s Noda government “nationalized” the Diaoyu Islands and actually promoted China’s normalized cruises, Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan will not only normalize Chinese cruises to Taiwan, but rehearsing military blockades and sieging Taiwan frequently is actually pressing the accelerator button for armed reunification.