THEO VAN GOGH WATCH : Beijing’s Taiwan Strategy And The Recent Escalation
By: Chris King MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis No. 1965 18.5.23
In April 2023, the strategic game between the United States, its Western allies, and the People’s Republic of China reached a high point.
In the first week of April, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen made her first foreign visit since the COVID-19 pandemic, visiting Guatemala and Belize, two of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies in Central America. She travelled to the United States twice. On April 5, Tsai met with U.S. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy in Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-Jeou was on a 12-day visit to China, becoming the first former Taiwanese president to do so. He spoke about the “Republic of China” and about “one China” in Changsha, in China’s Hunan province, and he held talks with Song Tao, the head of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council of China.
While Tsai Ing-Wen met with Speaker McCarthy on April 5, China also welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The main purpose of Macron’s visit to China was to win large purchase contracts and investment agreements from Beijing, while hoping that Beijing would exert influence on Russia to end the war in Ukraine as soon as possible. To Xi Jinping’s apparent satisfaction, Macron also expressed support for Beijing on the Taiwan issue.
Xi treated Macron’s April 5-7 state visit to China with great courtesy, and in an unprecedented gesture, he personally accompanied Macron to Guangzhou – even visiting heads of communist states have not received the honor of being accompanied by Xi outside Beijing. This indicates how much Xi valued Macron’s visit and how much he needs Macron’s support.
In interviews on his flight from Beijing to Guangzhou and back to France, Macron actively cooperated with Xi, attempting to distance France and the European Union from Taiwan by saying that Europe should not intervene in the Taiwan conflict because it could not resolve the “Ukraine crisis” and could not provide a credible position commitment vis-à-vis Taiwan.
On April 8, just hours after Macron left China, Xi Jinping ordered the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to conduct military exercises around Taiwan as a warning in light of Tsai Ing-Wen’s meeting with House Speaker McCarthy. This is the second time that the PLA has carried out a major strategic “deterrent” exercise near Taiwan, the previous time being military exercise to encircle the island last August. This recent exercise focused on the deployment of troops in the early stages of a hypothetical war against Taiwan, and it involved the flexible deployment of troops, the seizure of advantageous positions, the encirclement of Taiwan, and the suppression of enemy troops.
These events must be viewed in the context of the CCP’s overall strategy regarding Taiwan, which consists of the following aspects:
- Wooing Taiwanese politicians and political parties to favor the CCP.
- Tightening the noose around Taiwan militarily.
- Courting foreign support.
This article will provide a brief analysis of each aspect of the CCP’s Taiwan strategy, which has been steadily escalating.
The CCP’s United Front Efforts to Woo Taiwanese Politicians
It is probably not a coincidence that Ma Ying-Jeou visited China at the same time that Tsai Ing-wen visited the United States: For years, the Communist authorities have waged an aggressive United Front campaign against Taiwan’s political establishment, enticing a large number of leading figures from the Kuomintang (KMT) and other blue-camp parties, which generally lean in favor of the One-China policy, with economic benefits and political resources.
In recent years, Beijing’s United Front work and efforts to win over key Taiwanese political and social figures in Taiwan have paid off, and the most obvious example of this is the fact that the CCP was able to mobilize former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou to visit China for 12 days in order to counter President Tsai Ing-wen’s visit to the U.S. and meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
The goal of the CCP’s efforts is to influence Taiwan’s politics as much as possible, so that a presidential candidate from a party like the China-friendly KMT can be elected in Taiwan’s presidential election in January 2024 to replace the Democratic Progressive Party, thereby giving Beijing more room to maneuver and time to prepare for a soft seizure of Taiwan or for a military conquest. This would also enable Beijing to further infiltrate Taiwan and cultivate people inside Taiwan who can help the CCP in the future.
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