In the past few months, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has increased the frequency of military maneuvers close to Taiwan, with the PLA last week conducting joint naval-air exercises for two successive days.
This included multiple waves of PLA Air Force aircraft crossing into Taiwan’s southwestern air defense identification zone on Thursday last week.
According to the Ministry of National Defense, Chinese aircraft took off from bases within China’s Eastern and Southern Theater Commands.
The exercises represent an increased level of coordination and complexity, spread across separate commands and two branches of China’s military.
It is highly likely that the purpose of the exercises was to test the capabilities of China’s new BeiDou-3 satellite navigation system.
In a report delivered to the Chinese Communist Party’s 19th National Congress in October 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) stated: “By 2020, the PLA will have essentially achieved the important step of mechanization, and by 2035 China’s military and defense structures will have achieved fundamental modernization.”
Of central importance to Xi’s military modernization plan is the “data-ization” of the military, which has been achieved through the successful completion of BeiDou-3.
On July 30 Xi attended a commissioning ceremony for BeiDou-3.
The constellation of 55 individual satellites that comprise the system is the world’s fourth complete satellite navigation system after the US’ GPS, Russia’s GLONASS and the EU’s Galileo.
However, BeiDou-3’s data and wireless capabilities still require repeated testing and calibration to ensure that they can provide accurate information to aircraft, ships and guided missiles before the system can be used in a war by China’s military command structure.
The PLA might have been using the joint-military exercises to compress the testing and calibration for BeiDou-3, and to bring forward the completion date for the system’s certification by the military as “combat ready.”
Achieving full integration of the navigation system into China’s military ahead of schedule would also assist Beijing to ramp up its campaign of psychological warfare against Taiwan.
Huang Wei-ping is a former think tank researcher.
Translated by Edward Jones
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under