Allison Hooker, AGS Senior Vice President
Beijing has stated that its large-scale “Joint Sword 2024A” air and sea exercises conducted around Taiwan May 23-24 were intended to “punish” Taiwan’s new President Lai Qing Te for comments made during his May 20 inauguration speech. Beijing said the exercises were intended to “test the ability to jointly seize power, launch joint attacks and occupy key areas.” In official statements, the PRC said it specifically objected to President Lai’s assertion during his speech that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait were “not subordinate to each other,” claiming that the phrase confirmed the PRC’s view that Lai is a separatist in pursuit of independence.
The exercises were the largest-scale joint maneuvers in more than a year— conducted jointly by the PRC army, navy, air force, rocket force, and, for the first time, the PRC coast guard also participated.
While the PRC claimed that the exercises were essentially a practice run for seizing Taiwan, we do not assess that an attack is imminent. Beijing is trying to intimidate Lai and his new Administration, as well as the Taiwanese people. Beijing is also trying to take advantage of the opposition party’s majority in the Legislative Yuan (LY) and embolden the KMT to pursue actions that will undermine the Lai Administration’s efforts to adopt and implement military-related legislation.
In addition, Xi likely sees it is not in China’s interest to attack right now because it is too costly and risky. Rather Beijing’s strategy is to continue to try to weaken Taiwan in the following ways:
- by forcing the Taiwan military to react to the exercises, using fuel and wearing out air and ship assets; and
- by trying to divide the Taiwanese people. Beijing hopes it can intimidate the people and cause them to change their support from Lai’s strong policies to KMT’s more pro-PRC policies (ultimately hoping for a Hong Kong-type takeover of Taiwan instead of a military takeover).
These exercises also provide an opportunity for the PRC military – which hasn’t fought a ground war since Vietnam – to practice joint operations and develop its military capabilities and represent an incremental step towards being ready to carry out an attack. The PRC is learning lessons each time they do them. The exercises were also likely intended to demonstrate internationally that the PRC military can prevent foreign intervention, in the event of a sudden PRC invasion of Taiwan.
In addition, PRC leadership probably believes it is useful for domestic reasons to do these big exercises — that it would tap into nationalism and rally or distract the Chinese people from economic issues and other internal problems at home. While it is uncertain that this effort will be successful, Xi Jinping and his advisors likely hope it will be.
AGS will monitor the situation and provide updates should there be any significant developments.
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