China is likely to continue increasing its intimidation of Taiwan while expending “united front” efforts through cognitive warfare, a Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) report said yesterday.
The First-Quarter Report on the Situation in Mainland China cited Chinese Communist Party (CCP) No. 4 official Wang Huning (王滬寧) as saying at a meeting last week that China is to fully implement its “overall strategy” on Taiwan issues.
The strategy refers to what Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) said during the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference’s National Committee meeting and National People’s Congress in March that the CCP would firmly adhere to the “one China” principle and the so-called “1992 consensus,” resolutely opposing foreign interference and Taiwanese independence, the report said.
Photo: Chung Li-hua, Taipei Times
The report said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Qin Gang (秦剛) has said that Taiwanese independence forces are incompatible with peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.
Chinese agencies including the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National People’s Congress’ Foreign Affairs Committee, the Taiwan Work Office of the CCP’s Central Committee and the Chinese Ministry of National Defense issued statements on April 6 criticizing President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) April 5 meeting in the US with US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
The Taiwan Work Office and the Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) sanctioned Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴), the Prospect Foundation and the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats on April 7, the report added.
Beijing conducted three days of combat readiness patrols and “United Sword” operations around Taiwan from April 8, and the Chinese Ministry of Commerce launched an investigation into Taiwan’s trade restrictions on 2,455 Chinese products on April 12, it said.
China is intensifying its “united front” campaign, the report said, citing TAO Director Song Tao’s (宋濤) frequent meetings with Taiwanese to call for adherence to the “one China” principle and the “1992 consensus.”
The TAO lifted a ban on imports of fresh chilled beltfish and frozen Atlantic horse mackerel from Taiwan on March 15, and on April 1 removed requirements for a negative polymerase chain reaction test result within 48 hours before departure for cross-strait flight passengers, the report said.
China is also working to consolidate its “one China” framework internationally, it said.
Xi last month telling French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that “expecting China to compromise on the Taiwan issue is wishful thinking” is an example of Beijing’s effort to strengthen its “one China” framework on the global stage, it said.
Chinese Central Foreign Affairs Commission Director Wang Yi (王毅) in February said that Taiwan has been part of China since ancient times and would never become a country, the report said.
The so-called “1992 consensus,” a term former MAC chairman Su Chi (蘇起) in 2006 admitted making up in 2000, refers to a tacit agreement between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the CCP that there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
The Democratic Progressive Party has never acknowledged the existence of the “1992 consensus” or “one China” consensus.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
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