The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to bully Taiwan by conducting military drills extremely close to Taiwan in late May 2024 and announcing a legal opinion in June on how they would treat “Taiwan Independence diehards” according to the PRC’s Criminal Code. This article will describe how China’s Anaconda Strategy of psychological and legal asphyxiation is employed.
The CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) conducted a “punishment military exercise” against Taiwan called “Joint Sword 2024A” from 23-24 May 2024, just three days after President William Lai (賴清德) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was sworn in and gave his inauguration speech.
The PLA Navy (PLAN), Air Force (PLAAF), Rocket Force, Army, and the CCG (all under China’s Central Military Commission’s [CMC] authority) conducted military exercises in several places just beyond Taiwan’s contiguous zone (twenty-four nautical miles (24 NM) from Taiwan’s coastline). For the first time, the CMC had ordered both the PLA and CCG to completely surround Taiwan in very close proximity (in one case less than 24 NM near Hualien) and CCG ships conducting operations very close to Taiwan’s outer islands (Kinmen, Matsu, Wuqui, and Dongyin).
Secondly, the exercise included more PLAN and CCG vessels working together than in any other previous exercise against Taiwan and the largest number of median line crossings up to that date:
On 23-24 May, 49 PLA aircraft (35 aircraft flew across the Taiwan Strait median line), 19 PLAN vessels, and 16 CCG vessels (9 CCG vessels around Taiwan’s outer islands and 7 CCG vessels operating around Taiwan). The CMC deployed four CCG vessels along the eastern coast of Taiwan and three CCG vessels near the southern entrance of the Taiwan Strait to practice blockading law enforcement operations. On 24-25 May, 62 PLA aircraft (47 aircraft crossed the median line) and 27 PLAN vessels were operating around Taiwan.
Some CCG ships involved in this exercise had previously blocked Philippine replenishment ships to the WWII-era Philippine Navy ship the Sierra Madre stuck on the Second Thomas Shoal. In other words, the CCG ships were practicing blockade operations in the so-called “South China Sea” (SCS) and then transited to practice blockade operations around Taiwan. This explains one reason the PLAN and CCG have been so busy in the SCS — they were developing blockade tactics, techniques, and procedures.
When the PLA and the CCG came very close to Taiwan in May 2024, the US and the ROC militaries did nothing to force the CCP forces to retreat. A PLA fighter jet or a missile fired at Taiwan can travel 24 NM in less than one minute. The ROC military must now operate in fifty percent less space since the loss of the midline and they have less than a minute to decide what to do in case any of these forces decide to cross into Taiwan’s contiguous zone or into Taiwan’s territory. This is an example of the CMC conducting the Anaconda psychological warfare strategy against Taiwan’s military and population.
Will the next CMC exercise move to just beyond Taiwan’s twelve-mile territorial waters and decrease the reaction time to CCP aggression to less than thirty seconds? What is the US and ROC planning to do to prevent the CCP from using its Anaconda Strategy of decreasing the physical space for the ROC military to react to?
At the end of Joint Sword 2024A, the PRC Defense spokesman said: “Every time ‘Taiwan independence” provokes us, we will push our countermeasures one step further, until the complete reunification of the motherland is achieved.”
On 15 May in Washington DC the Hudson Institute and again on 5 July 2024 in Taipei, Taiwan, the Hudson Institute and the Institute for National Defense and Security Research conducted a seminar on CCP Legal Warfare against Taiwan.
These two one-day seminars focused on the following PRC laws: the 2005 Anti-Secession Law (ASL), PRC Criminal Code (PCC) Article 103, and the 21 June 2024 legal instruction of these two laws (called the “Opinion to law crimes of splitting the country and incitement to split the country committed by ‘Taiwan independence’ diehards”).
The following international legal experts provided their interpretation of these three legal documents: Donald C. Clarke, Margaret Lewis, and Yu-Jie Chen. The information included in the second part of this article comes from these two notable events.
After his re-election in 2004, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) planned to hold a referendum on a new constitution. The PRC hastily created the ASL to deter Taiwan from considering this course of action. However, since the Legislative Yuan did not shift to a DPP majority, the referendum never occurred.
The ASL makes two key statements about Taiwan’s future: either the PRC will take over Taiwan via “peaceful means” or by “non-peaceful means” (NPM). The State Council and the CMC shall decide on and execute the non-peaceful means and other necessary measures. As seen from the military exercise described above, the CMC is certainly preparing for NPM.
PRC Criminal Code 103 (PCC 103) covers those who organize, plot, or conduct schemes of splitting the State or undermining unity of the country. However, PCC 103 makes no mention of Taiwan.
PCC 103 consists of two paragraphs that specify that the ringleaders of those who violate PCC 103 shall be sentenced up to life imprisonment or not less than 10 years. Those who do less will receive not more than ten years. PCC 103 does not mention the death penalty.
On June 21, the following PRC organizations endorsed the legal instruction of 22 articles based on PCC 103 and ASL, specifically against Taiwan independence supporters: the Supreme People’s Court, Supreme People’s Procuratorate, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of State Security (MSS) and Ministry of Justice. These 22 articles are a legal “instruction to security authorities, including courts, police, and prosecutors,” according to Mr. Clarke.
This new legal instruction allows for punishments up to and including the death penalty. Specifically, Article 6 states that “those who commit the acts specified in Article 2 of this Opinion shall be sentenced to life imprisonment or imprisonment of ten years or above for the ringleaders or those who commit serious crimes. Those who cause particularly serious harm to the state and the people and whose circumstances are particularly heinous may be sentenced to death.”
Article 2 of the 22 Articles states that anyone who does any of the following is subject to Article 6:
“(1) Initiating or establishing a ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionist organization, planning or formulating a ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionist action program, plan or program, or directing members of a ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionist organization or other personnel to carry out activities that split the country or undermine national unity;
(2) Attempting to change the legal status of Taiwan as a part of China by formulating, amending, interpreting or abolishing relevant regulations on the Taiwan region or through ‘referendum’ or other means;
(3) Those who attempt to create ‘two Chinas,’ ‘one China, one Taiwan,’ or ‘Taiwan independence’ in the international community by promoting Taiwan’s membership in international organizations restricted to sovereign states or engaging in official exchanges or military contacts with foreign countries;
(4) Using one’s official position to wantonly distort or falsify the fact that Taiwan is a part of China in the fields of education, culture, history, news media, etc., or to suppress political parties, groups, or individuals that support the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and national reunification;
(5) Other acts attempting to separate Taiwan from China.”
Article 17 allows the PRC to try and convict suspects in absentia with no statute of limitations.
These 22 Articles provide another example of the CCP’s Anaconda Strategy of threatening Taiwan’s population and its supporters for wanting Taiwan independence or even maintaining the status quo which denies ”reunification.”
According to Amnesty International, the PRC conducts more judicial executions than the rest of the world combined. Additionally, PRC conviction rates were 99.975% for 2022 according to human rights NGO Safeguard Defenders.
China signed more than 59 bilateral extradition treaties, with 45 of them ratified. Consequently, Taiwanese and Taiwan’s supporters will need to be more cautious about traveling outside of Taiwan. Over 600 Taiwanese nationals between 2016 and 2019 were legally extradited to China from around the world. Since July 2023, China detained fifteen Taiwanese.
Due to the new legal instruction, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council alerted Taiwanese citizens considering travel to China, Hong Kong, and Macau to the second-highest “orange alert” level advising Taiwanese to avoid unnecessary travel due to increasing safety concerns. The approximately 150,000 Taiwanese residing in China would be especially concerned about this new law.
Even with legal extradition treaties, the CCP often tries to illegally extradite dissidents. In March 2024, French border police thwarted two MSS officers trying to forcibly repatriate a Chinese dissident at a Paris airport. The French government expelled the two MSS officers in July.
I strongly recommend Taiwanese and Taiwan’s supporters read and understand the PCC, especially Article 103 and the new legal instruction, since the CCP intends to enforce it inside and outside of its territory.
I hope that more Taiwanese and “Taiwanophiles” comprehend and resist the dystopian future that the CCP intends to impose on Taiwan and the pernicious intent behind the CCP’s Anaconda Strategy of psychological and legal asphyxiation.
Otherwise, the CCP will not be deterred.
Guermantes Lailari is a retired US Air Force Foreign Area officer specializing in counterterrorism, irregular warfare, missile defense, and strategy. He holds advanced degrees in international relations and strategic intelligence. He was a Ministry of Foreign Affairs Taiwan Fellow in 2022, a visiting scholar at National Chengchi University and National Defense University in 2023, and is a visiting researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in 2024.
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