Cables From The Diplomatic Frontlines - Taiwan crisis: responding to the unprecedented Chinese incursions and threats.
Taiwan trip fallout: Implications & responding to Chinese provocations and attempts at creating a new status quo.
Given the overall context, Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan can be assessed as a success.
Of course, there were a number of China strategists that warned against an unnecessary escalation vis-à-vis Beijing.
That apparently, it was exceptionally imprudent to trigger Xi Jinping at such a sensitive time - when he is about to seek an unprecedented third term as a President - with reunification of Taiwan being his primary source for legitimacy (to compensate for his rule-bending aspiration for a lengthier reign over China).
But such a precarious context, and high stakes are precisely the very factors that added significance and outsized value to Pelosi’s trip.
Reaffirming America’s commitment to Taiwan at the time when Xi Jinping was not mincing his words about his ultimate objectives (and when on its part, the Pentagon assessed that an attempted invasion was possible in the next two years).
Indeed, the symbolic value is further translated into a real-world concrete impact with the Taiwanese citizens expressing feelings of increased safety after Pelosi’s visit to the island.
And this is no small matter - in fact, this very perception that the US has got their back, is crucial to motivate the Taiwanese to mount an effective resistance (when the time arrives).
And finally, consider the opposite: what message would Washington send if Pelosi was to cancel her trip?
That Xi Jinping gets to successfully bully senior US statesmen into submission?
What message would this send to the Taiwanese, and to our regional and global allies?
That the US lacks resolve and can be intimidated into submission by rising China?
How does that serve America’s national security interests?
All of these NYT op-ed writers and Indo-Pacific strategists must consider the medium to long-term implications of such decisions.
Focusing on extremely short-term and narrow goals of avoiding the conflict here & now, makes a bigger conflict down the line more likely not less.
China’s response.
Firstly, and as predicted by these cables, the Chinese leaders did not respond in any way to directly challenge the US.
There were no attempts to intimidate Pelosi directly - no warnings against her plane, no fighter jet escorts etc.
This is significant: since China maintained that its sovereignty was being violated.
And yet nothing was done to respond directly against the challenger of this sovereignty.
Instead, the Chinese response mainly focused on Taiwan (with incidental encroachments on the exclusive trade zone of a US ally, Japan).
Beijing’s response can be categorized into two buckets: the usual tricks, and unprecedented moves.
Most of the actions - from cyberattacks, export bans on the Taiwanese food, to air space violations, fall under the former bracket.
But then there were also some much more serious and unprecedented measures (undoubtedly, to compensate for a lack of direct response against the US).
The unprecedented.
a. The scale and intensity of violations
Unlike the 1995-96 Taiwan crisis, the areas marked out for live fire drills on this occasion, were significantly closer to Taiwan - encroaching on its territorial water in three different areas.
Unlike the July 1995 live fires (where China fired only six missiles - with one malfunctioning), this time, 16 missiles were fired and four of these have flown over Taiwan - an unprecedented encroachment over Taiwan’s air space.
A record number of PLA aircraft (22) also flew over the median line dividing the Taiwan Strait - also a new record.
b. Encroachment on Japan.
At least five Chinese missiles landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
c. Deliberately broken lines of communication with the Pentagon.
Chinese military officials refused to respond to repeated calls from Pentagon: from both Defense Secretary Austin, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Milley.
In fact, the last direct call between Milley and his counterpart in Beijing, Gen Li Zuocheng, had occurred on July 7.
Although there is no plausible deniability for this conduct, it is also not as extreme as many strategists have claimed: this is because these were not routine training exercises.
The very point was to send a message to Washington - and maintaining cordial communications at the time of this message, would have added a level of civility and predictability - defeating the very purpose of demonstrating Chinese anger.
d. Extension of exercises.
The drills did not end as scheduled - again, deliberate addition of unpredictability and sowing confusion - both serving as tools to add weight to China’s expression of displeasure.
e. Explicit warning of war.
At the conclusion of its exercises on Wednesday, August 10th, Beijing declared that “training and war preparation” will still continue.
War preparation - they are no no longer coy about their ultimate intentions.
In addition, China’s State Council published a revised white paper on China-Taiwan relations.
The previous versions of this document (released in 1993 and 2000) contained crucial promises not to send in troops (or administrative personnel) to Taiwan if Beijing was to take control of the island.
This crucial provision was kept in previous versions to reassure Taiwan of its special autonomy as a special administrative region of China.
Well, not anymore.
In combination, both the declaration that the ‘‘war preparations’’ would continue, and removal of this crucial reassurance, act to signal seriousness of intent.
More specifically, this is Xi’s message to a number of stakeholders:
a) To the CCP - this is getting serious, rally around the flag, and do not even think about causing any hiccups in October’s Congress - I will continue to rule without any term limits: these are unprecedented times calling for unprecedented measures.
b) To the American public: we are dead serious, do you really want your government to engage in a war with us over some faraway island most of you barely know much about?
c) To America’s regional allies: the very same message - get out of the way now. You have been warned: this is your opportunity to get off the bus before it is too late.
Intel collection opportunities.
China’s extensive live fire drills and utilization of combined arms operations offers an invaluable trove of valuable intel for the Pentagon.
China’s PLA has not fought a major war with a near-peer adversary for decades.
This is a test of their combat readiness, and ability to conduct complex maneuvers:
a) Pentagon will get to analyze all missile launches, identify any operational mishaps (or technical failures) and delays - from this, using AI tools, Pentagon will be able to create models on how the PLA’s navy would operate under real pressure of fighting the most powerful military in the world.
b) In particular, the ability to conduct combined arms will be closely scrutinized.
PLA’s Eastern Theatre Command was established only six years ago, and carries the responsibility for Taiwan.
Its command & control operations, and ability to coordinate air, sea, cyber and space activities will be under microscopic scrutiny.
China deployed dozens of aircraft, 13 ships and launched 16 missiles.
The Pentagon will get to analyze how careful were the PLA commanders in avoiding the possibility of friendly fire.
Were there any close-calls? Any major errors? All of these will most likely be revealed.
c) The precise positioning and forward formation of ships provides additional intel on potential blockade of Taiwan - a crucial info for underwater warfare prep.
In other words, the PLA is running some major risks with these exercises.
There will most likely be some consequential costs associated with Beijing’s decision to live role-play an escalatory scenario.
Of course, China had to conduct such combined arms exercises at some point, it could not avoid these necessary tests forever: that would be akin to being in possession of an F1 race car that has never been tested on a racetrack, and launched into the Grand prix race with a new driver and engine.
One could argue however, that even these drills did not come close to replicating a realistic confrontation scenario: at some point, Beijing will need to test its logistical capacity to transport hundreds of thousands of troops and tonnes of ammo and other supplies across the Taiwan Strait’s choppy waters.
International response.
Was lacking to say the least.
The EU and NATO were nowhere nearly as stern as they should have been - an important early warning indicator of their general willingness to get involved over Taiwan.
Stern communications were also conspicuously lacking from America’s major regional allies: Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea.
(side note: expressions of ‘‘concern’’ would simply not cut it here. But then again, hard to demand more when the US itself was not as stern as it should have been. More on that later below)
In fact South Korea’s President conducted himself poorly - snubbing Pelosi and refusing to meet her in Seoul because he was on a “vacation”.
Beijing surely took note of South Korea’s lack of appetite to confront China over Taiwan..
On the other hand, and predictably, China received some strong support from Russia.
At first, Russians reaffirmed Beijing’s official line around the violation of sovereignty.
Later on however, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov demonstrated some diplomatic masterclass by labeling America’s actions in a contemptuous and denigrating manner:
“I see no other reason to create such an annoyance almost out of the blue. [emphasis added]”
It was a shrewd move to frame America’s conduct as petty vs challenging, and labeling the US as an irritant vs great power that still gets to dominate China.
Since this achieves two major goals:
a) It excuses China’s failure to challenge the US directly: for if it is merely an annoyance, it does not warrant a major response - this helps Beijing to save face.
b) It provides an alibi for Russia not to get too involved in this crisis. If it is not a big issue, and only an annoyance, there is no need for Russia to send its warships for joint exercises (something that Beijing might ask for in the future Taiwan crises).
(side note: one could also argue that Moscow could refuse this outright with no need for an alibi - given China’s refusal to back it up with military aid/supplies for its campaign in Ukraine. But that would only be the case if the relationship was one between equals. This is now an asymmetric relationship where Moscow needs Beijing more than vice versa: as a result, the Kremlin’s reluctance to get involved will (at least in the short to medium term) require more political justification than the other way around).
For its part, Beijing repaid the favor by blaming the US for the current crisis in Ukraine: brazenly claiming that America (a country that publicly warned about Putin’s invasion plans for months) was the “main instigator” of this whole ordeal.
Unfortunately, in this very nonsensical claim, Beijing’s shameless attack propaganda echoes many of their inadvertent co-conspirators amongst the lunatic media personalities (news anchors and journalists, allegedly) in America itself.
US response so far & what to do next.
Before discussing the strategy and the immediate action plans, it is important to emphasize what these recent drills are not: they are not the evidence of China’s plan to embark on an imminent invasion.
Such an endeavor takes enormous logistical preparation.
Just for the first few weeks of an invasion/the opening salvo, (and according to a highly reputable research) China would need to transport hundreds of thousands of troops, more than (approximately) 30 million tonnes of logistical material, and ammo, and over 5 million tonnes of oil for fuel.
China has not come close to assembling even a fraction of this invasion army.
Russia spent full five months to assemble 190k troops into position - a comparatively far less complicated invasion, over a large surface area for penetration - China will have to assemble an invading army of at least 5-6x larger in size, and transported over the choppy and highly contested sea - all the while facing a superior military hardware on the other end.
Even if the PLA was 3-4x as efficient as the military of Russia (in itself, doubtful), the sheer scale of this mission would imply that China would still need at least 2-3 months (very best case scenario) to prepare for an invasion.
At the earliest signs of these preparations, the advanced US intel will be aware: you simply cannot hide an army that large, and a process that complex.
Even if the US intel did not exist (in a hypothetical parallel universe), plenty of commercial satellite firms like MAXAR would still spot the accumulation of troops.
So then, this is not a warning of an impending invasion - but instead, this is Beijing imposing a new status quo: that it can do whatever it likes around Taiwan.
And if left uncontested, this new status quo would allow China to impose a de facto blockade of Taiwan - by extending the duration and frequency of military drills, and making it unsafe for commercial ships and planes to reach Taiwan.
Even this de facto/semi blockade would be highly damaging to the Taiwanese economy: since the island imports 60% of its food and 98% of its energy needs.
China could then escalate from a de facto blockade to a full-on blockade of Taiwan - placing the burden of response on the US, imposing dilemmas on Washington and its regional allies, and keeping its options open - all in line with the concept of decision-centric warfare.
And under these scenarios, one cannot be so sure about the state of morale amongst the Taiwanese citizens - especially if they see any hesitance in the US and its regional allies.
Witnessing an increasing complacency and lack of resolve from the West, the Taiwanese may after all perceive Beijing’s new status quo as fait accompli: this would further crush their will to fight and resist China’s takeover of Taiwan - either through an outright invasion or through a prolonged compellence strategy, forcing the political leadership in Taipei into submission.
Given all this then, the Biden admin’s response to date has not been effective.
For if Secretary of State, Antony Blinken is correct (which he is) in saying that China’s response was “disproportionate”, why is President Biden merely ‘‘concerned’’, and not active in implementing a tougher response?
(side note: ‘‘concerned’’ is a term that must never be used in relation to Taiwan. That is a State Dept term used for incidents in some remote third world countries - that are not on Washington’s primary radars. Use of this term in relation to China vs Taiwan crisis is dangerous - it implicitly reduces the importance of Taiwan, and consequently, undermines all other stated commitments)
Why is the US going out of its way to accommodate and appease China by postponing the Minuteman III ballistic ICBM tests - a routine exercise that has been scheduled well in advance of PLA’s recent exercises?
How would a routine test raise tensions with China? Especially if plenty of warning and advance notice was already given (and could have been repeated)?
All of these are wrong signals to send - China is unilaterally trying to impose a new status quo, a new normal, and the US must contest these assertively, and with necessary firmness of purpose.
And instead of resorting to inflammatory rhetoric and labeling Xi Jinping as a ‘‘scared bully” (as speaker Pelosi did - a playground insult - and probably untrue - at least the scared part) and then acting in conflict-avoiding, excessively accommodating manner, the US must instead demonstrate iron will and resolve.
Specifically, Washington must:
1) Urgently conduct retaliatory joint-training and live fire drills with Taiwan, Japan and Australia.
In general, both the frequency and scale of such exercises must increase (these are to be conducted in addition to the now well-established Freedom of navigation/FONOP missions in the Taiwan Strait).
South Korea must be approached with care - it is clearly not going to join it at this point, but neither should it get away with a pass: a tough conversation is in order.
(side note: once again, the leverage is asymmetrically on America’s side, and Washington must therefore not repeat the mistakes that it has done in relation to the Gulf states: accepting a free rider situation without pushing for corresponding demands)
2) Continue to pressure China from all angles.
The announcement of high altitude military exercises with India was a great start.
These are going to be held in October - just when Xi Jinping will be facing the pressure of the CCP’s Congress.
(side note: similar exercises have taken place in Uttarakhand before: in 2014, 2016, and 2018 - but all of these were held in the foothills - over 300 km from the border with China - and this upcoming one will be only 100 km away).
And one has to note that India is getting more assertive: issuing demands to Sri Lanka to prevent the entry of a Chinese military ship into its territorial waters (and Sri Lanka duly complied - asking China for a deferral).
There is room to do the same in relation to Pakistan and Philippines - it is essential that the US creates/deepens wedges between Beijing and its neighbors.
(side note: these cables have published longer analyses in relation to the aforementioned individual countries’ importance in encircling China)
3) Increase military support to Taiwan - but also demand more from Taipei.
Taiwan needs to step up.
In 1995, China’s defense budget was only 2x that of Taiwan’s.
Today, it is nearly 20x.
This is an unacceptable disparity.
Given the incredibly high stakes involved, Taiwan is not spending nearly enough on its own defense.
A tough conversation is in order - to be clear, the US must amp up its military aid and supply Taiwan with advanced missiles, air defense systems, and submarines/underwater drones to frustrate Chinese invasion plans.
Taiwan must be transformed into an indigestible porcupine - but also, one that is willing to spend more on its own defense.
Overall then, there must be a price for Beijing’s attempts to create a new normal - otherwise, Xi Jinping (a master in the language of raw power) will sense hesitation, and will be tempted and incentivized to double down and press on his advantage: and averting a major conflict then, will be much harder than taking the necessary preventative measures now.
Indeed the Bolton thing does not help. One wonders about the timing of this info coming out. However, I may be wrong, but I still believe Some deal is better than No deal. Within reason.
Is the Iran nuclear deal dead? You know it’s a tough spot. Even if we bombed their sites, as some here and Bibi would like, we’d never get everything. And we’d again be opening the gates if hell in retaliation.