Taiwan President Lai Ching-te says he hopes to cooperate with China

Communications between mainland China and Taiwan were cut off in 2016 after former President Tsai Ing-wen took office and vowed to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty.

Lai, also from the DPP, has vowed to maintain Tsai Ing-wen’s policy of strengthening Taiwan’s defense capabilities while keeping an open attitude towards dialogue with China and strengthening ties with Taiwan’s partners – especially the United States.

But China said Lai’s inaugural speech on Monday amounted to a call for Taiwanese independence and “pushed Taiwan compatriots into a dangerous situation of war and danger.”

“With every provocation by the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces, our countermeasures will be further strengthened until the complete reunification of the motherland is achieved,” Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said on Friday.

Song Wendi, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Center, told AFP that Jimmy Lai will “firmly demonstrate his resolve” after his government’s first interaction with Beijing.

“However, there is no doubt that he will seek to use other international partners and friends to help facilitate more covert communications with Beijing,” Soong said.

Scare tactics

China has stepped up military and political pressure on Taiwan since 2016, with naval ships, drones and warplanes appearing around the island on an almost daily basis.

The Taiwan Strait dispute has long been one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints.

China Central Television, the country’s state broadcaster, said this week’s exercises saw fighter jets loaded with live ammunition scrambled toward targets and bombers formed formations to combine with warships to simulate “strikes on important targets.”

Tong Zhen, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, told Xinhua that the exercise “is mainly aimed at ‘Taiwan independence’ leaders and political centers, simulating precision strikes on important political and military targets.”

Meng Xiangqing, a professor at the National Defense University in Beijing, told Xinhua that PLA ships were “closer to the island than ever before” and had already included the eastern part of the island – the direction the PLA believes external interference is most likely to come from.

“The exercise showed that we are able to control the eastern region,” Meng Hongwei said.

The United States, which does not recognize Taiwan diplomatically but is its largest ally and arms supplier, urged China on Saturday to “exercise restraint.”

Experts say Beijing is trying to intimidate and deplete Taiwan’s military.

On Sunday, two days after the exercise ended, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry reported that as of 6 a.m. (22:00 GMT), seven Chinese aircraft, 14 naval vessels and four coast guard ships were “operating” around the island of Taiwan.

The ministry also said in a separate statement that a cardboard box with political slogans said to have been left by Beijing was found on a dock at Erdan, a small island near Xiamen, China, part of Taiwan’s de facto controlled Kinmen island.

The Indian Ministry of Defense disagreed with the matter, saying it suspected that the move was intended to create online gossip.

‘GRAND TEST’

In Lai Changxing’s first week in office, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Taipei to protest against bills proposed by the opposition Kuomintang and the Taiwan People’s Party, which are seen as pro-Beijing.

DPP lawmakers have been accusing the opposition of fast-tracking these bills to expand parliament’s powers without proper consultation.

Since Jimmy Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party no longer holds a majority in parliament, his party is likely to face challenges in pushing forward government policies, such as increasing the defense budget.

“The pressure on Jimmy Lai’s government came early and fast,” Simon Shiu of the International Crisis Group told AFP.

“This will be a major test of their ability to tackle multiple challenges at home and abroad simultaneously.”