China’s ruling Communist Party claims the self governing democracy of Taiwan as its own territory despite never having controlled it, and has not ruled out taking the island by force. It views unofficial interactions between Washington and Taipei as a violation of its sovereignty. Taiwan’s leadership rejects China’s territorial claims over it. China seems to be determined to integrate the democratic island of Taiwan with the mainland.

China has upped the ante in recent times by increased military activities in Taiwanese waters to intimidate and with the intention to bring Taiwan into submission. That would not be as simple a proposition as Beijing might imagine. Despite that Beijing has used economic doles with Taiwan’s limited diplomatic allies. The intention is to diplomatically isolate Taiwan by coercing those allies to switch allegiance; Beijing would be too credulous to think that Taiwan has no friends. But Beijing is not deterred. In the latest move, China fielded its largest maritime deployment around the Taiwan Strait and Western Pacific in decades.

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This surge of Chinese military activities put Taiwan on high alert. The Chinese provocation came as Taiwan braced for expected military drills after President Lai Ching-te sparked Beijing’s ire by making unofficial stops in Hawaii and the US territory of Guam during a weeklong South Pacific tour, which wrapped up on 6 December. The visit was Lai’s first to the United States since becoming president in May.

The leader, who has long faced Beijing’s wrath for championing Taiwan’s sovereignty, used his travel to tout solidarity with like minded democracies. Chinese authorities voiced firm opposition to Lai’s trip, referring to him as a “separatist.” His travel came after the US approved new arms sales to Taiwan, which prompted China to vow “strong countermeasures.” China has used military drills to voice dissatisfaction over visits by US or Taiwanese officials to each other’s soil. In May, days after Lai’s inauguration, China launched two days of large-scale military drills surrounding Taiwan in what it called “punishment” for so-called “separatist acts.” It called those drills “Joint Sword-2024A.” Chi na then conducted “Joint-Sword-2024B” drills in October, after Lai said during a National Day address that the island was “not subordinate” to China.

The latest military movement by China appears to differ from those two drills, including in its geographic breadth. China refuses to react to questions, saying “the Taiwan issue is China’s internal affair, and China will firmly defend its national sovereignty.” On 9 December, Taiwan claimed that multiple formations of Chinese naval and coast guard vessels were moving in regional waters and around the Taiwan Strait. Lt. Gen. Hsieh Jih-Sheng, deputy chief of the General Staff for Intelligence claimed an “astonishing” number of Chinese vessels were deployed at a scale that “could block external forces”.

Around 90 Chinese navy and coast guard ships were in the waters near Taiwan. Beijing issued no comments on why so many vessels were deployed. Beijing often announces such military drills in advance. China neither acknowledged nor refuted Taiwan’s claim of its large-scale deployment. Hsieh also claimed that the PLA naval deployment was not only targeting Taiwan but the geographic spread stretched into waters past the first island chain, which encompasses Japan, Taiwan, parts of the Philippines and Indonesia.

The larger Chinese objective seems to be to challenge the US as the dominant power in the Pacific. Taiwan is the first to feel the Chinese heat as the PLA’s activities exerted military pressure, specifically when Chinese forces have significantly raised their posture around the Western Pacific. Taiwan’s discomfort is understandable. If China blocks outside forces from entering the first island chain, it could pose a survival threat to Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, potentially cutting off naval access by outside forces seeking to aid the island. The maritime deployment was the largest since China began holding large-scale war games around Taiwan in the mid1990s.

Taiwan authorities also reported a significant increase in PLA aircraft operating around the island. It detected 47 such jets within 24 hours on 9 December. It transpired that the PLA had designated seven zones of reserved airspace to the east of its coastal Zhejiang and Fujian province. Taiwan is alarmed by the unprecedented scale of Beijing’s naval deployment of its largest naval fleet in nearly three decades to the waters around the island. Thus, this is a more significant threat than previous iterations. This marked the largest Chinese naval manoeuvre since the 1996 military drills surrounding Taiwan’s presidential elections.

There were indications that the aircraft were simulating attacks on foreign naval vessels and practicing how to repel civilian and military planes as part of a “blockade exercise”. The Chinese ships were deployed from its northern, eastern and southern theatre commands. The vessels conducted “grey zone harassment”, which Taiwan’s coast guard described as deliberate provocation short of conflict that included regular military incursion by air and sea. Taiwan appealed to Beijing as a “civilised neighbour” to cease its “troublemaking”. While the Taiwanese defence ministry activated combat readiness exercises and warned that unilateral provocations could destabilise peace in the region, it reminded Beijing that its actions would not be appreciated by the international community. While Beijing has not described the nature of its military activities closer and within Taiwanese waters, Taiwan has described these as China’s training exercises.

This shows that Taiwan is exercising extreme restraint despite provocations in order not to escalate matters. However, “training” can develop into drills, and drills can become war. The US State Department has urged China to exercise restraint. It reminded Beijing that a routine transit by President Lai should not be used as a pretext for military pressure. There is overwhelming opinion across the world that the scale of Chinese deployment targeting the entire island chain stretching from Japan to Borneo is a clear demonstration of China’s intention to intimidate Taiwan militarily by exerting control over critical waterways.

No wonder, Beijing’s military posture around Taiwan in recent years has raised fears of conflict in the region. It is expected that China will uphold the true meaning of freedom of navigation, uphold the international “rules-based order” and avoid any escalation.

(The writer is former Senior Fellow at the PMML (Ministry of Culture), MP-IDSA (Ministry of Defence), and ICCR Chair Professor (Ministry of External Affairs) at Reitaku University, Japan. He can be reached at rajaram.panda@gmail.com)