China is increasing its military pressure on Taiwan through “gray zone” tactics to influence the nation’s presidential election next month, a British academic said on Thursday last week.
Chinese military aggression against Taiwan has been increasing since then-US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August last year, National Public Radio (NPR) reported.
Beijing has been utilizing “gray zone” tactics — gradually wearing the nation down with intimidation and harassment, but avoiding the involvement of the US and its allies, it said.
Photo: Chiang Ying-ying, AP
With the “constant reminder that China has its sights on Taiwan,” the strategy is perceived by some as “practice for a real invasion,” it said.
“Pelosi’s trip also prompted China to look for ways to up the ante over Taiwan,” it added.
Alessio Patalano, a researcher on East Asian warfare and security at King’s College London, told NPR that Beijing “has been committed to push the envelope in terms of what is [an] acceptable level of the use of force underneath open war.”
Military and economic coercion are China’s preferred ways to intimidate Taiwan and attempt to sway the election, Patalano said.
Former chief of the general staff Lee Hsi-ming (李喜明) said that the military activities provide China with opportunities to test its military, as well as Taiwan’s capability to respond, NPR reported.
While Taipei wants to avoid escalating tensions in the Taiwan Strait, it has to “passively respond to this kind of gray zone aggression” to maintain morale, Lee said.
However, Taiwan has limited response capability, as “China just has way more of everything,” he said.
Taiwan has about 169,000 personnel on active duty in its armed forces and 2 million reserve forces, compared with more than 2 million Chinese active-duty personnel, the largest army in the world, it reported.
The increased frequency of China’s military activities, which is not expected to relent leading up to the vote on Jan. 13, is driving up Taiwan’s defense costs and straining its pilots, it added.
Taiwan has pilots on standby at all times to intercept Chinese planes that make incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, a pilot was quoted as saying.
Another pilot said that the air force is working on recruiting more young pilots to give its personnel more time to rest and recover, it said.
“China is trying to scare Taiwanese voters into being more pro-China” through these acts of intimidation, National Chung Hsing University professor of politics Tsui Chin-kuei (崔進揆) told NPR.
However, “gray zone” tactics do not tend to bring about the effects that Beijing desires, Tsui said, citing surveys showing that more than half of Taiwanese supported Pelosi’s visit and under 10 percent considered China a trustworthy partner.
However, China could step up its coercion by conducting more frequent and lengthy military drills around Taiwan, NPR quoted experts as saying.
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