Analysis: China's Naval Drills Suggest Preparation to Isolate Taiwan
The massive Chinese naval exercises around the South China Sea, East China Sea and Philippine Sea last week were structured to prepare for an area denial strategy, according to a senior Taiwanese security official.
American and allied military planners have long anticipated that a Chinese offensive to reunify Taiwan would be accompanied by efforts to keep other countries from intervening, and would do so by restricting access to the region. China has the world's largest navy by fleet size, the world's largest coast guard, and a formidable arsenal of strike aircraft and antiship missiles - a diverse array of assets for intercepting any foreign assistance, from foreign merchant ships up to carrier strike groups.
On November 3, the secretary general of Taiwan's National Security Council, Joseph Wu, reported that more than 100 PLA Navy and China Coast Guard ships were at sea in the region for an unannounced exercise. The fleet was split into two groups - one moving out into the Pacific, accompanying the Chinese carrier Liaoning; and a second encircling the shores of Taiwan itself, creating a naval cordon. Additional task forces were deployed in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, covering China's main seaports and its southern approaches.
The U.S.-based Institute for the Understanding of War (ISW) assessed that the scope and location of the drill suggested "a major exercise that simulates isolating Taiwan" - in particular because the maneuvers drew on naval units from all three of the PLA's coastal divisions, the Eastern, Northern and Southern Commands. ISW noted that it was out of pattern for China to conduct a major exercise without prior announcement - the last coastwide drill, held mid-October, was preceded by several days of formal declarations and navigational warnings - and that the sudden movement was a cautionary statement about its ability to encircle the island at will.
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In Chinese state media, frequent PLA affairs commentator Song Zhongping said that the drills "signal Beijing’s readiness for multi-nation interventions in defense of Taiwan," specifically Japanese or American interventions.
Consistent with these assessments, Taiwanese defense minister Wellington Koo confirmed to Reuters on Tuesday that "China has indeed conducted area denial drills in the Western Pacific," and suggested that the maneuvers are "intended to undermine peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific."
