China’s communist regime is concluding three days of provocative military exercises around Taiwan, but experts are divided on whether the incident is mere posturing or a more serious attempt to prepare for war.
The tough talk is just talk, however, according to David Stilwell, a retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general and former assistant secretary of state.
“It’s all about signaling,” Stilwell told the Epoch Times.
“They threaten, and they threaten, and they threaten… Look at how many times [China] has threatened to invade and then it never follows through.”
To that end, Stilwell said that the CCP regime in Beijing did not fully comprehend how much it was damaging its international reputation by issuing repeated threats with no follow-through.
Hearkening back to President Barack Obama’s infamous “red line” comments, Stilwell said that the CCP was similarly eroding its own preeminence on the international stage by demonstrating it did not keep its word.
“They, like a middling power, think that [making empty threats] comes without costs,” Stilwell said. “But increasing threats without follow-through basically erodes any confidence in their word and at the great power level your word is your greatest asset.”
“Credibility and legitimacy are extremely important at this point and they haven’t made that transition yet.”
Likewise, Stilwell said that the CCP was continuously breaking its promises and assurances to the United States and Taiwan.
By threatening military violence and repeatedly crossing the center line of the Taiwan Strait this week, he said, the regime was undoubtedly violating 50 years of promises not to unilaterally seek to change the status quo regarding Taiwan.
“The agreement that we have with [China] is that the question of Taiwan will be resolved through dialogue without coercion or use of force and this is clearly coercion,” Stilwell said.
China Preparing for War
Stilwell’s assessment of CCP capability is not universally accepted. Indeed, there are many who believe China’s latest drills represent a concrete step on the path to war.Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu is among them.
“The Taiwanese government looks at the Chinese military threat as something that cannot be accepted, and we condemn it.”
Grant Newsham, a retired Marine colonel and senior research fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies, shares that opinion.
“We should take the Chinese seriously,” Newsham said during an April 11 interview with China in Focus.
“They’ve effectively said that this mutually agreed-upon demarcation line down the middle of the Taiwan Strait… doesn’t matter, and [they] don’t recognize it, and they are now flying their aircraft across it all the time.”
To that end, Newsham said that this latest series of exercises was part of a continuum of military preparation designed to ready the CCP’s forces for an eventual assault on Taiwan. Much as a baseball team goes through Spring training before the real season begins, he said, the CCP is warming up for a real war.
“It all is intended to build up Chinese capabilities to launch an effective and successful attack on Taiwan,” Newsham said. “So everything you’re seeing here is not a one-shot deal where China is just flexing its muscles to get Taiwan to sort of back off a bit or get the Americans to back off.”
“This is all much more significant than just a few-day exercise.”
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