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.
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
RSS