TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Two Taiwanese security experts do not expect China to mount a large scale military retaliation against Vice President Lai Ching-te’s (賴清德) recent stopovers in the U.S., but are divided on the long-term implications of the trip.
Lai's weeklong trip between Aug.12 and 18 is centered around the inauguration of Paraguay President Santiago Pena, but also involved a transit stop in New York and an upcoming stop in San Francisco. Beijing has condemned the trip, calling Lai a separatist, and a "troublemaker through and through,"
Speaking to Taiwan News on Wednesday (Aug. 16), Director of the Taiwan Center for Security Studies and former Chair of the Research and Planning Committee of Taiwan’s foreign ministry Fu-kuo Liu (劉復國) said China understands the diplomatic trip Lai is conducting is nothing new. He said the next few days may bring an increased number of Chinese aircraft around Taiwan, but that this is about sending a political signal, not showing military strength.
Some foreign analysts have suggested China could invade one of Taiwan’s offshore islands in response to Lai’s trip, but Liu said it is very unlikely this will happen. “China currently has already developed into such an advanced technological power, they do not really need to focus on such a small item to show how capable they are,” Liu said.
Liu said that the suggestion China would invade an outlying island as a preliminary step in invading Taiwan was also suggested in Japanese media in 2020, though it was dismissed by the security studies community at the time.
“If China did decide to take up such a military invasion, they would definitely skip Kinmen and Matsu, unlike the old days, when the strategy was to start with a remote island first, and then come to Penghu, and then Taiwan.” He said the missiles China has now are capable of reaching Taiwan from China, so China would directly attack Taiwan’s mainland if the government did decide to invade.
Dr. Fu-kuo Liu (right) with Minister for Digital Affairs Audrey Tang and AIT's Brad S. Parker at a Taipei event in 2019. (CNA photo)
“My understanding may be different from some analysts’, but my view is widely shared by experts in the Taiwan security community,” he said.
Speaking about the trip itself, Liu said that in the past Lai had clearly identified himself as an independence activist. However, as Lai campaigns for the Taiwan presidency, he has made efforts to distance himself from the label, including in an interview with Bloomberg published Monday, in which he said there is no framework for formal independence in Taiwan.
Liu also said that Lai had shown “political constraint” during this visit, and that this has allowed the U.S. to signal to Beijing that it understands China’s interests. He said that the U.S. government knows that the day Taiwan declares formal independence, Beijing will launch a military invasion against the country.
However, Liu said Beijing’s concerns that a future presidential candidate will declare Taiwan independence are largely unfounded. “I believe those people may not know we are a democratic country,” he said.
“The president is elected by a majority of the people,” Liu said. “He or she does not have the authority to say that Taiwan is independent, to change our constitution, unless they can mobilize the majority of the support inside our Legislative Yuan, and also the majority of people through a referendum, but everyone knows this is almost impossible.”
Assistant professor of Political Science at Taiwan’s Soochow University Fang-yu Chen (陳方隅) also said China was unlikely to mount a large-scale military response to Lai’s trip, but understood the implications of Lai's trip differently. He said the trip had been a success for Lai so far, and allowed him to show that he can navigate the relationship between Taiwan and the U.S., without causing increased tensions with China.
Dr. Fang-yu Chen gives a presentation at an event hosted by the DPP in 2021. (CNA photo)
Chen also referenced Lai’s rejection of a formal framework for independence, and said that by softening his stance, Lai has shown that he knows how to engage with the U.S. in terms that its leaders will find favorable.
Lai has used the trip to show Washington that he is a presidential candidate who will lead Taiwan in the world in a similar way to current president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) Chen said, and that this will also help him find favor in the U.S. The trip has been quite low key so far, he said, and this will also help alleviate concerns in Washington about Lai’s desire for declaring formal independence.
Chen said that pro-China media in Taiwan is not focusing on Lai’s rejection of formal independence, because this will show the public that he will govern like Tsai, a president who has solid favorability ratings as she enters the tail end of her second term in office.
Chen also said that because of the scaled back nature of Lai’s trip, large scale military action by China in response is unlikely. He also said Beijing is currently dealing with pressing domestic challenges (i.e. floods and a sluggish economy), and that this means it is unlikely Beijing would launch any large scale military operation against Taiwan, a view shared by Liu. Chen said that in addition to this, any large scale military action would likely result in a boost in support for the DPP going into next year’s presidential election, something China does not want.
We do not know what Lai will do when he visits San Francisco on Thursday, Chen said, but judging by his visit to New York and the comments he made there, it is unlikely to produce any surprises. He said that China can see this, and is not likely to react in a way seen when Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in 2022, for example, which essentially amounted to a simulated blockade.
In response to Lai’s trip, China is more likely to mount small scale military drills, some of which have already been announced, or impose economic sanctions on Taiwan, Chen said. There is no reason for China to take strong action, he said.
