China's military exercises are increasing in size and scope, but China is equally leaving Taiwan and the U.S. guessing on the implications in the region.
"China has crossed some new line in every of their past exercises," a senior Japanese official told The Financial Times. "Now they have created another new normal: That they can do maneuvers of this size without announcement, leaving all of us struggling to respond."
Major exercises have usually been met with warnings and coercion campaigns but the new silence is increasingly concerning for Taiwan and the U.S., its lone globally ally in potentially protecting it against China expansion, according to the report.
China's latest maneuvers are leaving the region unsettled, by sowing confusion and uncertainty; also, large-scale exercises could make an attack harder to spot, sources told FT.
The actions this week involved all three of the People Liberation Army's coastal theater commands for the first time, according to the Taiwan defense ministry.
"We agree that this went far beyond Taiwan, it is a demonstration that they can lock down the First Island Chain," an official told FT, referring to islands from Japan to the Philippines that separates China from the Pacific Ocean. "But grey zone tactics like this pose a growing threat to us and our neighbor."
China's military said nothing until Friday when it quoted ancient Chinese tactician Sun Tzu's Art of War, a favorite of the communist republic's founder Mao Zedong.
"Just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions," the defense ministry said, a cryptic statement that neither confirmed nor denied that Beijing had been holding military exercises.
A senior Taiwan security official this week termed China's activities as "drills that dare not speak their name."
China's "Joint Sword-2024B" war games in October were accompanied by a flood of military and state media graphics and videos lambasting Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te, a person Beijing denounces as a "separatist." One animation caricatured Lai with devil-like pointed ears.
Lai rejects Beijing's claims of sovereignty over Taiwan, saying only the island's people can decide their future.
Security sources had expected China to launch new drills to coincide with Lai's trip this month to the Pacific, where he stopped over in Hawaii and the U.S. territory of Guam. Beijing opposes any foreign engagements for Taiwan leaders.
"I clearly believe this is the beginning of the 'mid-stage' of normalization," Chen Kuan-ting, a lawmaker for Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) who sits on parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee, told Reuters.
"Neighboring countries have to be aware that if they don't respond accordingly, they themselves may become the next target."
One fear Taiwan has is of Chinese drills suddenly turning into an actual attack, and a Taiwan intelligence official said this week China was trying to wrongfoot them by keeping mum.
"By not announcing the drills in advance, they want to lower our alertness and catch everyone off guard when they keep appearing around Taiwan," senior defense ministry intelligence officer Hsieh Jih-sheng told reporters.
Information from Reuters was used to compiled this report.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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