Beijing’s dialed-down response to the Tsai-McCarthy meeting

After Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文 Cài Yīngwén) meeting with U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California last week, what some anticipated would be major blowback from China has instead resulted in a muted response.

Beginning on April 7, China conducted drills for three days in the skies and waters surrounding Taiwan in what it dubbed operation “Joint Sword.” On Monday, 91 Chinese planes — the highest number in a day since Taiwan began regularly releasing the data — were sent into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ). Jets took off from a Shandong aircraft carrier near Taiwan’s east coast as exercises near China simulated strikes on “key targets” in Taiwan.

Tsai said on Tuesday that the activity was irresponsible and caused instability in the region.

But the exercises that took place were less intense than those that occurred last August, said Ava Shen of the Eurasia Group. The exercises were shorter in duration and occurred in three areas rather than six; live-fire exercises were conducted by regional marine affairs bureaus rather than the PLA Navy and took place in waters close to China, Shen said.

“The exercises this time are in a much more coordinated fashion,” Shen told The China Project. “Basically, they’re trying to do a more ‘realistic’ drill that could be informative for future military action against Taiwan. But with that said, there is definitely an element of psychological warfare.”

Per usual amid military drills, most Taiwanese people weren’t too rattled, as all activity happened out of sight and mind. While news of China’s actions made headlines, they did not seem to take precedence over local news stories.

The exercises came alongside Beijing’s sanctioning of Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to the U.S., Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴 Xiāo Měiqín), and several other entities. China has also reportedly launched a probe into Taiwan’s “trade barriers” on more than 2,400 products.

Air incursions continued even after China announced an end to its exercises of April 10, and on Wednesday news broke of a 27-minute “no-fly zone” in airspace north of Taiwan to be imposed by Beijing next week.

“China could be spreading its response to this visit across several different phases,” Shen said.

Analysts say the latest military exercises show that Beijing wants to display a level of restraint and measuredness. Then again, the fact that the Tsai-McCarthy meeting happened on U.S. soil was an intentional move to avoid potential backlash from Beijing.

Wu Wen-chin (吳文欽 Wú Wénqīn), a political scientist at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica, says his research shows that “when China protests U.S.-Taiwan relations improvement, Taiwanese people become more supportive of the incumbent government. That is something that China would like to avoid,” he said.

Tsai’s visit came at a momentous time for China and Taiwan in the world. As Tsai met with McCarthy and a bipartisan delegation last week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron visited Beijing to discuss a road to peace in Ukraine. Former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou (马英九 Mǎ Yīngjiǔ) was also in the midst of a highly-publicized trip to China in which he visited several Chinese cities in an effort to promote cross-strait cooperation. Just a week before Tsai’s U.S. visit, Honduras announced that it was changing its formal recognition from Taipei to Beijing.

“A clear audience is obviously third-party stakeholders, especially Western countries to whom Beijing wishes to win hearts and minds from,” said Wen-ti Sung, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub.

Taiwan’s coming January 2024 general election also plays a factor in Beijing’s response, as China hopes to maintain a positive relationship with the pro-engagement Kuomintang (KMT). The KMT has yet to announce its nominee, while the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) announced its support yesterday for Vice President Lai Ching-te (赖淸德 Lài Qīngdé).

As president, Tsai has pursued what has been dubbed “steadfast diplomacy” by continuing to develop relationships with Taiwan’s formal allies while attempting to improve Taiwan’s international profile by strengthening informal relationships with other democracies. This has meant more meetings with high-level officials from Europe and the U.S.

But the Tsai administration has also faced criticism for its foreign policy, with opponents blaming Tsai for Taiwan’s loss of nine diplomatic allies throughout her tenure and Beijing’s growing assertions of a “new status quo” in the Taiwan Strait.

A recent poll conducted by Academia Sinica’s Wu and others recently found that 34 percent of Taiwanese agreed the U.S. was a credible country, down from 45.3 percent in 2021. Wu said the change is likely due to the U.S. offering support to Ukraine, but not troops.

The same poll found that only 9.4 percent of Taiwanese believed China was credible in 2022. Around 60 percent said high-level visits by American officials to Taiwan increased their belief in the likelihood of U.S. intervention in Taiwan’s defense.

“Taiwanese people have doubt, but still have confidence in the U.S. help to Taiwan’s national security,” Wu said.

Before leaving the U.S. last week, Tsai told a press conference that she hoped Taiwan’s future president will follow in her footsteps on foreign policy. “I believe what I am doing serves the best interest of Taiwan, and [I] hope the future president will follow suit,” she said.

Tai Wei-shan (戴瑋珊 Dài Wěishān) is a New Taipei City councilor and former DPP spokesperson. She said seeing Tsai’s meeting in the U.S. and knowing that the U.S. supports Taiwan offered a feeling of pride and safety to her constituents.

But she also expressed concern about the passivity of some Taiwanese regarding activity in the strait.

“Taiwanese people have become more and more like frogs in boiling water regarding the military exercises,” she said from her office in Banqiao, New Taipei City. “They slowly begin to think it’s actually not very scary, it’s nothing…whether these ‘fake exercises’ will become real exercises, we don’t know. But I think everybody is losing some vigilance.”

Still, she said, China’s drills were inevitable and should not deter Taiwan from building friendships with other countries.

“All along, what Tsai Ing-wen has been doing is saying that we are first and foremost a country, no matter if it is called the Republic of China or Taiwan, Taiwan or the Republic of China,” she said. “We are an independent entity, we can make friends with whoever we want, we should not be suppressed by others.”