China on Thursday last week launched military exercises titled “Joint Sword-2024A” around Taiwan, which it said were to “punish” Taiwan in response to President William Lai’s (賴清德) inaugural address. While these drills showcased Beijing’s advanced military capabilities, they were also born of its weakness and demonstrated once again its total inability, or unwillingness, to understand and respect the preferences of Taiwanese.
For all its “great rejuvenation,” Beijing cannot influence Taiwanese politics the way it would like. It is no closer to achieving “unification” on its own terms than when former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) issued his “message to Taiwanese patriots” in 1979.
Taiwanese have consistently shown that they believe that only they have the right to determine their future, and that this is a conversation Beijing has no right to be a part of. Unable to influence by persuasion, China resorts to violence instead.
Joseph Nye defined “soft power” as the “ability to obtain preferred outcomes by attraction rather than coercion or payment.” To its fury, Beijing has no soft power to bring Taiwan into its fold. Its military exercises are a reflection of its weakness rather than its strength.
On Taiwan, Beijing showcases what the historian and military strategist Edward Luttwak has termed “great state autism” — the collective lack of situational awareness on behalf of national leaders to understand the reality of the world beyond their borders.
Taiwanese want to determine their future in peace and free from external interference. They are especially protective of their hard-won democracy.
As Lai said in his speech: “I hope that China will face the reality of the Republic of China’s existence, respect the choices of the people of Taiwan.”
Beijing’s latest exercises demonstrate once again its unwillingness to come to terms with Taiwan as it is.
Beijing’s great state autism manifests itself in military exercises. It seems unable to grasp that the more coercion it applies, the more it installs in Taiwanese the determination to resist.
Coercive diplomacy — the use of threats or limited force to get your opponent to moderate or change their behavior — can be a useful tool in international relations. Beijing had little success with this policy tool during the 1995 to 1996 Third Taiwan Strait Crisis when it also deployed unprecedented large-scale military exercises attempting to influence the decisionmaking of then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝).
Coercion to prevent independence is now superfluous.
The content of Lai’s speech which so infuriated Beijing — that the Republic of China (ROC) and People’s Republic of China (PRC) are not subordinate to each other, and the Republic of China Taiwan is already a sovereign, independent country — is an agreed upon consensus in democratic Taiwan.
Beijing has reached a dead end with “coercive diplomacy.” Now all that is left is naked punishment — lashing out because you cannot get your way. This is the behavior of a schoolyard bully.
During the presidency of Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Beijing had thought it could co-opt pro-China forces to bring Taiwan into its fold. However, as Lev Nachman and Jonathan Sullivan wrote in their book Taiwan: A Contested Democracy Under Threat, despite Ma’s friendly overtures across the Taiwan Strait, his presidency illustrated that “no ROC president will be able to deliver what the PRC wants, i.e. a political resolution resulting in unification on the PRC’s terms.”
Rather than come to terms with the reality of Taiwan’s democracy, China lashes out with violence to punish Taiwan. For there ever to be regional peace and stability, Beijing must come to terms with the reality of Taiwan’s democracy.
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