There is no more watertight demonstration of the predictability of an event than that it was accurately predicted long before it happened. On Thursday last week, the day President William Lai (賴清德) delivered his Double Ten National Day address, a Nikkei Asia article quoted a senior national security official as saying that “regardless of what Lai said,” Beijing could launch military exercises to intimidate Taiwan and claim it was “caused by Taiwan’s provocation.”
Lo and behold, four days after Lai’s speech, Taiwan was encircled by fighter jets, drones, warships and coast guard boats in an operation Beijing called “Joint Sword-2024B.” The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said the drills would serve as a “stern warning to the separatist acts of Taiwanese independence forces.” As the exercises so closely followed Lai’s address, the PLA presumably considered parts of his speech provocative.
Kudos to that unnamed senior national security official; their prediction was spot on.
It is not true that these exercises were the PLA’s response to Lai’s provocations. His National Day address was, as National Taiwan University political science professor Lev Nachman wrote on social media, “pragmatic, level-headed ... calm and snark-less.”
The clue was in the name: The existence of a “part A” suggests a preplanned “part B.” “Joint Sword-2024A” was launched three days after Lai’s presidential inauguration on May 20. Some had called elements of Lai’s inaugural address “provocative,” although to say that they were provocative enough to warrant the PLA’s hissy fit in May is stretching credulity. The exercises then, as with those on Monday, were clearly planned far in advance, and were certainly neither a legitimate nor proportionate response.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is riled by Lai’s presidency, but would the PLA have acted any differently in the immediate wake of an inaugural address by New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) or Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) had January’s presidential election gone differently?
Another predictable aspect of the PLA’s overreaction was that it was counterproductive to many of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) aims. The international response to the drills, from the US, Japan and the EU, has been condemnation, and this while former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is visiting the EU and might be planning a US trip. The Taiwanese’s resolve to resist has been galvanized, just as any lingering desire to submit to CCP rule has been dealt a fatal blow. The realization that Beijing has no other option than to bleat from its bully pulpit is beginning to sink in.
One aspect that was not so predictable was the response from within Taiwan, among the three main political parties. There was condemnation from not only Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party — which was entirely predictable — but also from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the TPP, which was surprising.
The KMT’s response was critical, if insufficiently so. It said the drills were a severe threat to regional security and undermine cross-strait ties, but asked the government to “improve cross-strait relations,” which, in light of the PLA’s aggressive intent on display on Monday, sounded a little like victim-shaming. Most unpredictable, perhaps, was that TPP caucus whip Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) stepped up to the plate, asking what legal grounds could justify the PLA’s provocative displays of aggression, with his party calling for Beijing to try to engage with Taiwan through goodwill gestures.
Who knows how much control Xi actually has over the PLA. Perhaps he could surprise us all and put his mad dog on a tighter leash.
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