China might intensify “gray zone” activities to achieve a “political and strategic breakthrough” in the Indo-Pacific region as the US and Japan hold key elections, a national security official said.
The US presidential election is scheduled for November and Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership election — likely to decide the country’s next prime minister — is scheduled for Sept. 27.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the distraction caused by the elections would embolden Beijing to initiate fresh coercive measures against Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines.
Photo: Reuters
China is focused on using legal and cognitive warfare to maximize the pressure it can create without triggering a military conflict, a strategy Beijing is unlikely to deviate from, they said.
Beijing’s provocative actions near its neighbors are part of a long-standing strategy to penetrate the first island chain, the official said, referring to the string of archipelagos from northeast Japan through Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia.
Strategic competition between the US and China has escalated into a global contest between rivaling alliances, a situation that would not be affected by changes to Washington’s or Toyko’s leadership, they said.
Western economic sanctions and technology restrictions are having an effect even as the Chinese government struggles to contain a deepening economic crisis, the official said.
To regain the initiative, Beijing must make up the economic and technological losses by advancing on other fronts, such as improving its diplomatic and geopolitical posture, they said.
That requires a two-faced strategy of playing a mediator in the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas conflicts, while stepping up its harassment of neighboring countries in increasingly aggressive shows of force, they said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has a political incentive to dispel the perception of China’s diminished power by taking on an assertive foreign policy stance, the official added.
The renewed aggressive posture includes military activities around Taiwan, which have become more frequent, larger in scope, and involve an ever-increasing number and types of platforms, they said.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s display of its capability to reach beyond the first island chain reflects Beijing’s strategic aims to compete with the West, they said.
It was not a coincidence that White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s visit to Beijing last month was followed by an intrusion into Japanese airspace and seas by Chinese craft, they said.
The aggressive behavior was consistent with China’s actions near Taiwan and the Philippines, and spoke to the nature of Sullivan’s visit, which was not a routine diplomatic house call, but a de-risking mission, the official said.
Sullivan likely gave Beijing a clear understanding of Washington’s bottom line, they said.
The US official met Xi, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) and Zhang Youxia (張又俠), vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, but did not meet with Chinese Minister of National Defense Dong Jun (董軍), they said.
Xi’s interactions with the Chinese military have been rife with tension, the official said, adding that “anti-corruption” purges made him fear disloyalty more than it damaged the morale of the armed forces.
The Chinese leader’s authority is “slowly, but surely eroding,” he said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS