PLA drills a farce
The military responded with extreme diligence and appropriate measures to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) “Joint Sword-2024B” exercises around Taiwan on Monday.
Beijing needs to understand that this kind of bullying behavior will get it nowhere, and will have the opposite of its desired effect.
On this occasion, not only did the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) attempts to cow Taiwanese into submission fail, they only succeeded in reinforcing the military’s resolve in defending Taiwan’s sovereignty.
Monday’s exercises were essentially put on for the benefit of the PLA. The Taiwan side needs to do little more than respond with calm and professionalism.
The CCP consistently says that it wants to “maintain peace,” and yet it has repeatedly acted in ways that ramp up tension in the Taiwan Strait. It is fooling nobody. The international community can see through this; it is not buying China’s hypocritical calls for peace.
The CCP says that it is warning off “Taiwanese separatist forces,” but all this approach would do is elicit a stronger response, making Taiwanese more united in their resolve to resist such threats. It is the CCP’s military intimidation that shatters the possibility of peace in the Taiwan Strait. We must call out the CCP’s lies for what they are.
The repeated intimidation and threats conducted by the PLA around Taiwan will get the CCP little more than international condemnation for China’s bullying behavior.
From Washington to Tokyo, governments around the world can see through the superficiality of the threats and are perfectly aware that they are just empty military tactics. The more the CCP attempts to orchestrate this farce, the louder calls from the international community in support of Taiwan become.
In the face of all of this intimidation from across the Taiwan Strait, it is incumbent upon all Taiwanese to do more to support our military apparatus and to strengthen our resistance against the CCP’s aggression.
It is only when the whole nation stands up to defend our freedoms that we can be assured that we will not be subject to such intimidation in the future.
The PLA exercises will not shake Taiwan’s resolve. On the contrary, they will let the international community see how Taiwanese will never surrender and will continue to resist.
Mei Hsin-hsin
Taipei
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