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China warns Taiwan with military
exercises
By Yan Hua
HONG
KONG - As a pre-election warning to Taiwan's
pro-independence forces, China has conducted limited
military exercises over coastal areas opposite Taiwan,
including parachute landings, beach invasions and
air-combat maneuvers, Asia Times Online has learned.
China has ratcheted up its standard gunboat
diplomacy - the repeated warnings that it would use
force if necessary to unite the island and mainland -
more than a month before Taiwanese voters go to the
polls on March 20 to elect a president and express their
views on nearly 500 Chinese missiles targeted at the
island.
Most observers consider the exercises,
under way since early this month, a clear warning to
separatist and pro-independence forces not to re-elect
President Chen Shui-bian and not to vote "yes" in his
referendum. It will ask voters whether China should be
asked to remove its missiles aimed at Taiwan and, if
Beijing refuses, whether Taiwan should seek to buy
advanced defensive military arms and technology.
Since early February, many mainland commercial
flights have been delayed because the airspace had to be
cleared for military exercises, according to airport
sources, speaking to Asia Times Online on condition of
anonymity. Most delays were caused by an order from
Beijing to impose flight control and empty air space of
commercial aircraft, so that the air force could conduct
maneuvers along the southeast coast, they said.
One staff member of Shanghai Hongqiao Airport
attributed most of the postponements to "flight
control", saying that authorities had requested that
certain air routes be kept free of commercial traffic to
make way for military exercises on the southeast coast.
Commercial air space cleared
For
example, on February 9, the frequent commuter flights
between Shenzhen and Shanghai were postponed from 9am to
11:30am. Even after 11:30am, flights were delayed for
another 40 minutes, and the airport attributed this to
flight control. Afterward, the flights resumed their
normal schedule.
Similar postponements and
delays occurred on February 11 and 13 in commercial
flights along the southeast coast, involving flights to
and from Shanghai, Xiamen and Fuzhou. The latter two are
major cities in Fujian province opposite Taiwan.
Military and political observers consider the
flight controls and military exercises as Beijing's
initial warning to Taiwan as cross-Strait tensions
increase with the approach of the presidential election
and referendum. Beijing is opposed to the re-election of
President Chen Shui-bian, who is considered a Taiwan
separatist, and is fiercely opposed to his referendum on
redeployment of Chinese missiles.
During his
recent visit to the United States, China's director of
the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, Chen
Yunlin, indicated that Beijing would take unspecified
preemptive steps if President Chen successfully defended
his tenure, according to Taiwan UDNnews on February 8.
On February 10, China News Service gave a
detailed account of the People's Liberation Army's
recent exercises, underscoring Beijing's long-standing
position on the use of force, if Taiwan delays
reunification too long. The article said air force
drills involved parachute teams, beach landing practice
and exercises on confronting an adversary's jet
fighters.
Defense minister warns against
separatism
Chinese Defense Minister Cao
Gangchuan, who also is vice chairman of the Chinese
Communist Party Military Committee and a member of the
State Council, said recently in Beijing that steadfast
opposition to Taiwan separatism is a precondition for
peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. His comments
were reported on Tuesday on the website of the official
Xinhua news agency.
Fuzhou and Xiamen, separated
from Taiwan by the Strait, are China's most sensitive
military districts. Conducting exercises and announcing
a flight control over sensitive air space - just when
the Taiwanese election campaign goes into full swing -
is considered an obvious warning against Taiwan's
referendum and the re-election of President Chen.
Meanwhile, Beijing also used the Hong Kong media
to express its concerns that the emotional rhetoric in
the Taiwan election will jeopardize cross-Strait
relations. "Taiwan's presidential election not only
shakes up the ties across the Strait, but also turns up
the pro-independence voice that will mislead the
people," the pro-Beijing Ta Kung Pao newspaper reported
last Saturday. "The expansion of the separatist movement
has dealt a blow to the peaceful unification between the
two rims of the Strait," it said.
The newspaper
said Chen invoked the referendum law and pressed for the
"defensive referendum" so as to provoke Beijing and win
votes by creating conflicts. Last December 27, Chen
described the election as a "Taiwanese holy war against
the Chinese Communist Party" and called on his people to
"protest against the CCP through voting".
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
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