On August 6, Taiwan-based China analyst Guermantes Lailari published an article in India’s The Sunday Guardian which warned that there is a very big chance that Chinese President Xi Jinping will use the U.S. stopover of Taiwan Vice President William Lai to seize one of Taiwan’s frontline islands. One of the reasons why this could happen was that the U.S. had no aircraft carriers or other strike groups close to Taiwan at the time. It appears that the Pentagon did agree with Lailari, because a few days later the carrier strike group (CSG) of the supercarrier U.S.S. Ronald Reagan had moved from Australia to a position halfway to Taiwan, and new data shows that the Reagan CSG is now located just off the east coast of Taiwan.
Reports started coming in today that China has launched military drills around Taiwan, similar to the risk-increasing drills it had launched after Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen visited the U.S. on a stopover in April this year. Lailari told a panel of interviewers on August 8 that these PLA drills always simulate cutting Taiwan off from its frontline islands, and would be used as a deception ploy if China does decide to seize one or more of these islands.
Lailari did make a compelling argument for why he thinks Xi is very close to ordering the People’s Liberation Army to seize at least one of Taiwan’s frontline islands. One main reason for this would be because recent opinion polls have shown that the Chinese Communist Party’s charm offensive to achieve a “peaceful means of reunification” is not working, with one annual survey showing that more of Taiwan’s people now support either keeping the status quo or moving towards official independence from China (86%) — with only 7.4% supporting a movement toward unification with China.
The analyst said this would mean that Xi would be leaning towards forceful reunification, and this is where the U.S.’s recent actions become another reason why Xi might seize an island — the increasing lethality of Taiwan’s military due to increased U.S. support. The U.S. National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was signed into law last December and orders the U.S. military to train Taiwanese military personnel in Taiwan and in the U.S. This kind of training has been given to Ukraine from 2017 and Lailari said this was a big part of how Ukraine managed to stop Russia from invading the country quickly.
The U.S. has also begun speeding up its delivery of advanced weapon systems that Taiwan ordered years ago, and Washington plans to send some of its own weapons worth up to a billion dollars as part of a military aid package. Both the new training and increased weapons delivery were prompted by the massive buildup in China’s military over the past few years, as well as aggressive maneuvers undertaken daily around Taiwan by the PLA’s warships and warplanes.
Lailari said Xi would see this increasing lethality of Taiwan’s defenders as a serious problem as it would make invading Taiwan more risky. He said Xi might calculate that if the PLA could seize a Taiwanese frontline island, it would give the CCP leverage to demand a cessation of training and a slow-down in arms delivery as a precondition to negotiations.
On a side note, it is also possible that Xi might believe that if the PLA could successfully seize a frontline island — and if the U.S. does not intervene in this action — that could give the CCP a propaganda victory, as it might be able to claim that the U.S. is weak and would not intervene if China decides to invade Taiwan’s main island. That would of course not be a true claim, as Taiwan’s small and remote frontline islands can not be compared to Taiwan’s main island, which is home to 24 million people.
Lailari said Xi also needs to see if the PLA is ready for larger conflicts, so an invasion of one or more small islands would be seen as valuable training and, most crucially, proof that the PLA is ready for larger invasions and blockades. “Five key indicators (timing, Xi’s statements, new laws, missing leaders, military indicators) point to Xi ordering the PLA to conduct a military operation to demonstrate that the PLA is competent and capable. Without this military demonstration, Xi will be forced to take a higher risk in a future invasion or blockade of Taiwan,” he said.
The analyst said the most likely time for this military operation to occur is in the next few days, after Taiwan’s Vice President William Lai transits through the U.S. on his way back to Taiwan (Lai returned to Taiwan yesterday). Lailari said “instead of conducting another military exercise (as was done in August 2022 as a result of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and President Tsai Ing-Wen’s meeting with Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy in California in April 2023) the PLA could use the cover (deception) of another military exercise to take a small Taiwanese island.”
He went on to say that deception is a core concept in the CCP and in the PLA — as demonstrated by Mao Zedong who stated in his speech “On Protracted War”: “There can never be too much deception in war.”
Lailari also pointed to the way that Xi’s political ally, former Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang (秦剛) suddenly disappeared and was subsequently disgraced. He agreed with Madhav Nalapat, director of the School of Geopolitics of the Manipal Academy of Higher Education in India, that this “might have been an indication that Xi’s absolute grip on the CCP is under challenge.” Besides Qin Gang’s fall from grace, another sign of internal CCP challenges to Xi’s rule is the fact that four top officers of the PLA Rocket Force and PLA space forces were placed under investigation, while the deputy commander of the Rocket Force died by suicide on the same day that Xi conducted an inspection of the Eastern Theater Command.
These incidents hint at the fact that Xi might feel the need to consolidate his power by getting a quick military victory, while also lacking faith in the PLA’s competency and thereby further increasing the need to see a proof of readiness from the military. Lailari also later explained to a panel of interviewers that the CCP has passed a disconcerting number of laws in the last three months that gave Xi more powers, much like Nazi Germany gave Hitler more powers before he sparked World War II. Xi’s statements have recently become more aggressive and warlike, another indication that he might be preparing to start risky launching military operations.
Lailari also pointed out that the Reagan CSG and the U.S.S. America’s Amphibious Ready Group were both performing joint exercises around Australia at the time he published his warning on August 6. This was one of the few times that the entire Pacific Ocean region between Australia and Taiwan was devoid of U.S. carriers and other large strike groups. As we now know, that situation has subsequently changed and the Reagan CSG is now stationed close to Taiwan’s east coast.
The analyst added that the PLA would probably be most likely to seize Pratas Island — also called Dongsha Island (東沙群島) — if it does indeed launch such an operation in the next few days. He told the panel of interviewers the fact that the small island only houses a military base, and has no civilian population, will make it a less messy target from a “political optics” perspective — compared to other Taiwanese frontline islands like Kinmen, which has a civilian population of around 30,000 people. Pratas is also much farther away from Taiwan (460 kilometers) than Kinmen (190 kilometers), while still being relatively close to China (245 kilometers).
Two days after publishing his warning, Lailari told the above-mentioned panel of interviewers that he knows he might look like a “cry wolf” messenger if the PLA does not seize a Taiwanese frontline island around the middle of August. However, he believed his warning might at least have the effect of causing action that would deter the CCP from doing what he thinks they are planning to do.
U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class M. Jeremie Yoder
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