The year’s end is in sight, but the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has not lessened its military activities. Following President William Lai’s (賴清德) first overseas trip to visit the nation’s diplomatic allies in the South Pacific, analysts said the CCP could launch a “Joint Sword-2024C” military exercise to demonstrate its dissatisfaction with Lai’s trip. However, to this day, the CCP has not officially announced that it was holding a “Joint Sword” exercise, although it mobilized PLA Navy (PLAN) vessels and aircraft in the Taiwan Strait to put pressure on Taiwan’s military.
Last year was the first time the CCP used the name Joint Sword for its operations targeting Taiwan. The first one was sparked by then-president Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) stopovers in the US and her meeting behind closed doors with then-US House of Representative speaker Kevin McCarthy. It was also the first time that a PLAN aircraft carrier was deployed to the waters off Taiwan’s east coast.
May’s Joint Sword-2024A drill was launched in response to Lai’s inauguration speech on May 20, in which he said: “The Republic of China [ROC] and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other.” The drill was the first time China had sent official vessels to harass Taiwan.
October’s Joint Sword-2024B drill was aimed at Lai’s Double Ten National Day speech, in which he said the ROC “has already put down roots in Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu,” and repeated that Taiwan and China are not subordinate to each other. The PLAN once again sent an aircraft carrier, as well as several China Coast Guard vessels in a show of force.
Based on these examples, the Joint Sword drills seem to have been held in response to the Taiwanese presidents’ speeches. However, on his latest trip abroad, Lai did not use similar phrasings from his previous speeches, thus, it is hard to say whether the PLA would use the trip to tack on the “Joint Sword-2024C” appellation in a subsequent retaliatory drill.
Nonetheless, the CCP is consolidating its naval, air and land power. Its likely aim is to show that the PLAN has built up an all-weather blockade capability under normal military-preparedness patrols. The past limitations on scale of fleet movements hindered by the winter northeastern monsoons season are no longer applicable. The PLAN and the China Coast Guard now have a sufficient number of large-draft vessels to carry out a blockade of Taiwan, meaning that inclement or other weather events might no longer be a shield.
From the start of the Joint Sword drills, the PLA has displayed time and again its ability to integrate its forces within a short amount of time, greatly reducing preparation time. Following military reforms, although the PLAN is implementing a division of command that falls under principles of a theater command and are only responsible for the fleets in their respective waters, fleets are still delineated between the commands of the Yellow, East and South China seas. However, in the future, the PLAN would need to break through fleet configuration to undertake mixed-organization to execute even more missions, such as carrying out a strategy for a five-fleet joint drill and carrying out personnel transfers between ships. These are all observable directions the PLAN could successfully choreograph in the near-term. The PLAN mobilizing and coordinating its aerial power in large numbers are aimed at putting pressure on and evaluating the Taiwanese military’s naval and aerial monitoring capabilities, using such a drill to observe whether Taiwan could take on a surprise assembly of PLAN force, as well as maintain a sustained response and defensive presence. This could be the strategic objective behind a Joint Sword-2024C operation.
Regardless of the frequency of the PLA’s internal personnel rearrangements, its problems with corruption keeps people questioning its true warfare capabilities.
Still, all Taiwan can do is to prepare well, and move forward with strategic assessments based on the various clues and traces left by the PLA, and not look fruitlessly for new courses of action at every turn like a weather vane oscillating in the wind. Taiwan needs to acquire strategic concentration.
Gao Shiqi is an assistant professor.
Translated by Tim Smith
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