The exercises were designed to deter Taiwan from moving further away from Beijing, but they also indicated how few policy carrots China has.
China’s 72-hour spectacle of missiles, warships and jet fighters swarming Taiwan was designed to create a firewall — a blazing, made-for-television warning against what Beijing sees as increasingly stubborn defiance, backed by Washington, of its claims to the island.
“We’re maintaining a high state of alert, ready for battle at all times, able to fight at any time,” declared Zu Guanghong, a Chinese navy captain in a People’s Liberation Army video about the exercises, which ended on Sunday. “We have the determination and ability to mount a painful direct attack against any invaders who would wreck unification of the motherland, and would show no mercy.”
But even if China’s display of military might discourages other Western politicians from emulating Nancy Pelosi, who enraged Beijing by visiting Taiwan, it also narrows hopes for winning over the island through negotiations. Beijing’s shock and awe tactics may deepen skepticism in Taiwan that it can ever reach a peaceful and lasting settlement with the Chinese Communist Party, especially under Xi Jinping as its leader.
“Nothing is going to change after the military exercises, there’ll be one like this and then another,” said Li Wen-te, a 63-year-old retired fisherman in Liuqiu, an island off the southwestern coast of Taiwan, less than six miles from China’s drills.
“They’re as bullying as always,” he said, adding a Chinese saying, “digging deep in soft soil,” which means “give them an inch and they will take a mile.”
Mr. Xi has now shown he is willing to bring out an intimidating military stick to try to beat back what Beijing regards as a dangerous alliance of Taiwanese opposition and American support. Chinese military drills across six zones around Taiwan, which on Sunday included joint air and sea exercises to hone long-range airstrike capabilities, allowed the military to practice blockading the island in the event of an invasion.
In the face of such pressures, the policy carrots that China has used to coax Taiwan toward unification may carry even less weight. During previous eras of better relations, China welcomed Taiwan’s investment, farm goods and entertainers.
The result may be deepening mutual distrust that some experts warn could, at an extreme, bring Beijing and Washington into all-out conflict.
“It’s not about to be a blow up tomorrow, but it elevates the overall probability of crisis, conflict or even war with the Americans over Taiwan,” said Kevin Rudd, the former Australian prime minister who previously worked as a diplomat in Beijing.
Taiwan has never been ruled by the Communist Party, but Beijing maintains that it is historically and legally part of Chinese territory. The Chinese Nationalist forces who fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the civil war also long asserted that the island was part of a greater China they had ruled.
