On the one hand, it is nice to hear planes flying back to Hong Kong again after almost three years of Covid-plane-silence, as Hong Kong relaxes and removes most of its Covid-19 restrictions.
On the other hand, it is not so nice to read, hear and talk, about China’s military exercise last week, which included fighter jets, maritime patrol planes and drones in the airspace near Taiwan – 71 planes — that broke a single-day record in the total number of aircraft deployed by Beijing. Of the 71 aircraft, 47 also crossed the so-called median line, an informal boundary between the two sides, according to the Taiwanese defense ministry. Passing the line is more provocative because the aircraft would be on a straight course over Taiwan if they did not veer away.
Presidents Biden and Xi are facing political headwinds at home, both within their respective political parties — and domestic front with the public at large.
To distract their political constituencies from their trade war, domestic economic recessions and unemployment brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, they are flexing their military muscles over Taiwan, testing each other’s military will and appetite for a military confrontation.
Tensions over Taiwan have been rising since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s August visit to the island. Her visit prompted Beijing to step up its military exercises in the area with live-fire drills and shows of air forces into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone as a way to test and wear down Taiwan’s resolve against a possible military offensive. The air defense identification zone is larger than the sovereign airspace claimed by Taiwan, and is a unilaterally declared area in which the island’s authorities claim special rights to tell aircraft to identify themselves.
Last week’s record breaking military exercise, was in response to the Taiwan Policy Act Biden signed that approved up to $10 billion over the next five years for Taiwan.
“This was a firm response to the current escalation of collusion and provocations by the U.S. and Taiwan,” said Senior Colonel Shi Yi, a spokesman for the Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army, which faces Taiwan.
A spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council said, “The United States is concerned by the People’s Republic of China’s provocative military activity near Taiwan which is destabilizing, risks miscalculations, and undermines regional peace and stability.
“We will continue to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability in line with our longstanding commitments,” the spokesman said.
Song Zhongping, a military commentator in Beijing who is a former Chinese military officer, said in an interview that the new U.S. defense legislation amounted to a test of China’s boundaries. “The People’s Liberation Army would use severe military drills to warn the United States that if it insists on going its own way, there will be no peace in the Taiwan Strait,” he said.
When presidents Biden and Xi met in Bali in November, Xi emphasized that Taiwan’s future and American support for the island remain a potential fuse of crisis, even conflict.
With Beijing and Washington ramping up military activities near Taiwan as the competition between China and the U.S. in the South China Sea for hegemony is in high gear – a new normal – the likelihood of an unintended accident that can lead to a hot war of unintended consequences between America and China over Taiwan is on the rise as Biden and Xi continue their war-of-words and flexing their military muscles.