Beijing is employing a “carrot and stick” strategy that combines engagement with coercion, as Chinese military incursions around Taiwan peaked on the day Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), underscoring that party exchanges would not reduce military pressure, Taiwanese academics said.
During Cheng’s visit to China from Tuesday last week to Sunday, Chinese military aircraft and vessels conducted daily incursions around Taiwan, reaching a peak when Cheng met with Xi on Friday.
That reflects the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) tactic of “applying pressure through engagement and coercion,” said Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), director of the Institute for National Defense and Security Research’s Defense Strategy and Resources Division.
Source: Ministry of National Defense
China on Sunday announced 10 preferential measures for Taiwan to promote exchanges, which added pressure on the “engagement” side, Su said.
Through KMT-CCP cooperation, China aims to weaken Taiwan’s public morale and defenses, he said.
A KMT promotional video claiming that “only with peace can we lie flat” has been ineffective, and its proposed notion of peace is actually surrender, he said.
China continued to dispatch military aircraft and vessels to harass Taiwan during Cheng’s visit, showing that the KMT’s so-called olive branch was actually a smokescreen, Su said.
Talks should not be approached naively, and saying that a threatening party “has a good side” reflects a flawed mindset, and Taiwan should move away from this kind of collective Stockholm syndrome, he said.
Chinese military activity around Taiwan does not fluctuate with political exchanges, but is a long-standing norm, Tunghai University Center for Mainland China and Regional Development Research deputy director Hung Pu-chao (洪浦釗) said.
For China, cross-strait engagement is an ongoing process without a clear endpoint, and military operations are part of its overall Taiwan policy, which would not change because of a single visit, he said.
China is using a “carrot and stick” strategy against Taiwan, providing incentives with exchanges and economic opportunities while maintaining pressure with military activities, Hung said.
Military activity is not just a security measure, but aligned with broader political arrangements, making certain forms of engagement appear more necessary, he added.
The spike in Chinese military activity around Taiwan on the day of the Cheng-Xi meeting is a clear illustration of the “carrot and stick” strategy, Hung said.
China would not reduce military pressure because of party-to-party exchanges, while sustained pressure serves to legitimize the “peaceful” pathway defined by Beijing, he said.
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