China weighing reaction to Lai’s May 20 ‘guest list’
The standing of international guests attending president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration ceremony on May 20 would determine Beijing’s reaction to the event, including holding military exercises or dispatching a large number of aircraft to harass Taiwan, an expert said on Thursday.
“I expect things to possibly get worse in the lead-up to William Lai’s inauguration ... especially depending on who from outside Taiwan attends,” Thomas Shattuck, non-resident research fellow with the Global Taiwan Institute, told a seminar held by the institute.
High-level attendees might prompt China to hold military drills or large-scale aerial incursions, he said.
Beijing has this year launched relatively fewer large-scale aerial incursions in comparison with the past few years, he said.
It might be an attempt to avoid raising concerns about cross-strait stability in the run-up to Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, as alarming the public might sway voters toward Lai, he said.
Beijing might also turn its attention to a “new mechanism to coerce Taiwan at sea,” such as frequently sending China Coast Guard vessels to waters near Kinmen after an incident in which two Chinese fishers died while being pursued by a Taiwanese Coast Guard Administration vessel last month, he said.
By conducting regular patrols, drills and inspections, Beijing is “normalizing its presence” in disputed waters in preparation for taking control of the area, said Lee Sze-fung (李紫楓), a former analyst at the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Global Affairs Canada.
China is likely to prolong and expand its presence in the Taiwan Strait and would be “seizing effective control in the area in a very short, near future” if it is met with no “high pace, effective countermeasures,” she said.
When Beijing is able to exercise control, the “only step left is an invasion to take full control of the island and Taiwan itself,” she said.
The Chinese gray-zone tactics work as they exploit “the greatest weakness between liberal democracies,” which is “a lack of consensus on what constitutes war or a clear threshold of unacceptable behaviors,” she said.
Lee called for a “comprehensive approach of cross-domain deterrence” to facilitate discussions among democracies on countermeasures against Beijing.
To counter China’s coercive behavior, Taipei could look to Manila, which is “doing a very good job of publicizing it and creating international outrage,” Shattuck said.
Despite being much smaller in size and having limited resources, Taipei could use affordable drones to document Beijing’s aggression and use it to solicit support from international friends, who can in turn speak up for the nation and condemn such behavior at UN meetings or other occasions, he said.