Although China responded to a high-ranking U.S. official's visit to Taiwan with military exercises, the maneuvers aren't raising concerns that the communist country intends to forcibly take over the island any time soon.
China announced it would conduct additional military drills around Taiwan a day before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) lead a U.S. delegation to Taiwan on Aug. 2, Reuters reported at the time. The drills were intended as a protest over Pelosi's visit but didn't affect the U.S.'s assessment of China's timetable for a possible military takeover of Taiwan in the next two years, according to Reuters.
Colin Kahl, the Pentagon's under secretary of Defense for Policy, told the news agency the drills were meant to intimidate Taiwan and possibly the U.S. as well.
"Clearly the PRC (People's Republic of China) is trying to coerce Taiwan," Kahl told Reuters, "clearly they're trying to coerce the international community and all I'll say is we're not going to take the bait and it's not going to work."
Roderick Lee is the director of research at the China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI) at Air University. He spoke recently on the ChinaPower podcast "The PLA at 95 and the Current Crisis in the Taiwan Strait: A Conversation with Roderick Lee," presented by the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Aug. 5. In the discussion, Lee said the military drills were meant to "create a deterrent effect." The PLA is China's People's Liberation Army, which marks its 95th anniversary this year.
“There's a chapter on strategic deterrence [in the PLA Science of Military Strategy book],” Lee says in the podcast. "And in that chapter, they talk about different types of military activities that one could employ to create a deterrent effect.
'And if you go down the list of different types of military activities that the PLA academically talks about as being deterrence activities," Lee said, "and you compare that with what we're seeing in the Taiwan Strait around Taiwan right now, it looks very textbook.”
Part of the strategy includes displaying advances in weapons and an increased combat readiness to emphasize its strength, according to Lee.
"I think they're very clearly messaging to us that 'we are trying to create a deterrent-like effect of demonstrating our willingness to use force against Taiwan' in an effort to bring it back into the fold, if you will," Lee said, "and an attempt to create a sense of hopelessness, if you will, within Taiwan and maybe even to the United States."
It's unlikely the strategy of deterrence will lead to more aggressive moves against Taiwan by China in the near term, Lee said, at least not until after China's President Xi Jinping secures a third term this fall.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is expected to grant Xi a third term term and designate him a "people's leader" at its 20th Party Congress in November, Newsweek reported in July.
“(T)here's still a strong impetus to not rock the boat, not really create any major incidents until after the 20th Party Congress is resolved and Xi Jinping gets his reappointment as party secretary," Lee said in the podcast.
He said the Chinese government was actually showing "a certain amount of restraint" with the military drills.
"They're doing what they have to do in response to what we, the United States, felt like we had to do," Lee said.
