The latest Joint Sword-2024A military exercise conducted by China around Taiwan showed that Beijing intends to make large-scale military drills around the nation a regular development, with the China Coast Guard set to play a more important role in a future blockade, US experts said on Friday.
In an article published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, China Power Project director Bonny Lin (林洋) and fellow researcher Brian Hart analyzed the two-day Joint Sword-2024A, which was launched on Thursday, only three days after President William Lai (賴清德) was sworn in on Monday.
Joint Sword-2024A was the third set of large-scale military exercises China has staged around Taiwan in recent years, following the unprecedented exercises in August 2022, when then-US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, and another round in April last year, when then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) met with then-US House of Representatives speaker Kevin McCarthy during her transit stay in the US.
The two American experts said the latest military drills, which were linked with law enforcement operations, showed several different aspects of China’s approach to Taiwan.
“First, China is likely to continue to employ large-scale military activities around Taiwan to signal its displeasure and punish Taiwan and the United States,” they said.
They said that some experts from Taiwan, the US and China had argued that since the military exercise in April last year, China’s military drills faced diminishing utility in terms of advancing Beijing’s interests against Taiwan.
Photo: AFP / Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army
They said the latest military exercise came after statements made by Lai during his inauguration speech were deemed unacceptable by China.
In his speech, Lai cited the Constitution of the Republic of China (ROC) as saying the ROC and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other.
“Joint Sword-2024A shows that when China needs to demonstrate significant displeasure, the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] and China Coast Guard are readily available actors and are best suited to attract international attention,” the two experts said.
They said such a trend is expected to continue.
“There is a risk moving forward that China could lower the bar to justify exercises against lesser perceived transgressions, particularly if China is pessimistic about the future direction of Taiwan,” they said. “These large-scale exercises also provide valuable opportunities for the PLA and China Coast Guard to train around Taiwan.”
They said that the PLA and China Coast Guard operations are expected to improve China’s ability to blockade Taiwan proper or any of its outlying islands — steps that China could take to intensify pressure significantly on Taiwan.
The article cited Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense as saying there was a total of 16 China Coast Guard vessels around Taiwan and its outlying islands on the first day of the exercises.
The China Coast Guard and other Chinese law enforcement actors are likely to play a bigger role in military and quasi-military operations against Taiwan, the two experts said, adding that greater military-law enforcement cooperation is expected to take place not only in the Taiwan Strait but also in the waters surrounding Taiwan.
They said China did not name the drills that were conducted in August 2022, but called the exercises in April last year “Joint Sword,” and the latest exercises “Joint Sword-2024A.”
“China appears to be routinizing future large-scale PLA exercises intended to punish Taiwan,” they said.
“This most recent exercise was titled Joint Sword-2024A, using the same name as the prior exercise, but affixing a year and a letter,” they added. “This indicates that Beijing has established a new series of exercises with the goal of punishing Taiwan and the United States and suggests China could engage in more than one large-scale exercise per year.”
While China’s Ministry of National Defense described Joint Sword-2024A as “integrated operations inside and outside the island chain,” they said that Chinese operations in eastern Taiwan could be part of this description, and it remained to be seen what additional actions China could take beyond the first island chain.
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