China earlier this week began a massive aggressive military maneuver around Taiwan which can be considered Beijing’s strategic communication to Washington over Taiwan. Through this military drill China has actually responded to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s visit to the US and meetings with senior American lawmakers with extensive air and naval drills off Taiwan, which mirror the militaristic precedent set by US Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last year.

Code-named “Joint Sharp Sword,” China’s stated goal for the exercise is to test the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) capability to control the sea, air, and information space in and around Taiwan, which Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed to “reunify” with the mainland.

On April 9, Taiwan’s defense ministry reported spotting 71 Chinese aircraft, including Su-30 fighters, H-6 bombers, and 11 ships, including China’s Shandong aircraft carrier, around Taiwan.

71 PLA aircraft and 9 PLAN vessels around Taiwan were detected by 6 a.m.(UTC+8) today. R.O.C. Armed Forces have monitored the situation and tasked CAP aircraft, Navy vessels, and land-based missile systems to respond these activities. pic.twitter.com/oZbmPZcDib

— 國防部 Ministry of National Defense, R.O.C. 🇹🇼 (@MoNDefense) April 9, 2023

China has simulated “precision attacks” on critical targets in Taiwan, such as runways and military logistics facilities, with China’s Eastern Theater Command releasing a video showing missiles fired from sea, air, and land into Taiwan, with two missiles exploding as they hit their targets.

Chinese MoD showed an imitation of high-precision strikes, which was worked out during the PLA exercises,going for the second day around Taiwan pic.twitter.com/XwAsM5026J

— Security & Threat Matrix (@_Stmatrix) April 9, 2023

Reuters also reported that China’s Fujian maritime safety administration launched a three-day “special operation” alongside the Joint Sharp Sword drills in the northern and central parts of the Taiwan Strait that includes “on-site inspections” of cargo ships and construction vessels. Taiwan’s Transport Ministry’s Maritime and Ports Bureau lodged a strong protest in response and instructed relevant shipping operators to refuse such orders and to notify Taiwan’s coast guard to render assistance if they are stopped for inspections.

According to a 2022 RAND report by Bradley Martin and other writers, China’s air and naval power could impose a blockade on Taiwan, but using the PLA conveys the message that China is invading another country, which is in stark contrast to its narrative framing the Taiwan issue as an internal affair. Officially, Beijing considers Taiwan a renegade province. Upon this, few US lawmakers are proposing a blockade of China in case Beijing decides to move against Taiwan militarily. Can US Navy put a blockade against China? This is certainly a big ask considering the fact that China has developed many long range ICBMs for striking US carrier battle groups.

DF-27: Hypersonic Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile of PLA.

The report also notes that China Coast Guard’s substantial fleet size of 130 large patrol ships, 70 fast patrol combatants, and 400 coastal patrol craft is larger than many navies in East Asia, and these ships are increasingly well-armed and could be used to interdict ships in a quarantine scenario. China’s air and naval forces are on standby to deter and respond against escalation by Taiwan, the US, and its allies.

So far, 2 aspects of Chinese maritime strategy against Taiwan are vividly observable; air power and rocket force. It is evident from the video shown in shared tweet above, that since last couple of years, China is working on crafting operational plans to utilize her air power and rocket force against Taiwan to maximum effect. This also explains the constant intrusions in Taiwan’s airspace which many experts believe can result in completely unintended encounters and ominous consequences.

From Beijing’s point of view, this strategy will help PLAN/PLAAF to force Taiwan to indulge into a war with a tempo that would be too fast for Taiwan to meet in order to deter incoming Chinese attack waves. Once that happens, Taiwanese defense forces will find it very difficult to stay in the battlefield for long as fatigue, lack of resources along with shock and awe created by Chinese attacks will force defending forces to make more blunders or collapse.

This explains, why the US and all its Pacific allies are so worried about Chinese hypersonic ballistic missile program which in fact is ahead of US program.

China fired DF-17 missiles during its show of force in the Taiwan Strait last July demonstrating China’s ability to box in Taiwan with long-range precision fires on top of an air and naval blockade. DF-17 has a range of 1600KM.

For now Chinese strategic communication over Taiwan consists of a very well-thought-out strategy of “squeeze-and-relax”. China begins a round of exercise around Taiwan, increase the scale every year and then suddenly these exercises come to an end.  It would be interesting to see what follows the Joint Sharp Sword exercise in the future. One thing which is beyond doubt here is the fact that China is fully committed to its unification of China policy and is inching towards achieving it.

Shahzad Masood Roomi

Shahzad Masood Roomi is founding member and, editor security and geopolitics at GCW. He is IT graduate and has more than 10 years experience of being a  geopolitics and defense affairs analyst. He focuses on IR, geopolitics, strategic studies, maritime security, cybersecurity issues, military aviation, history and geography. His work has published in national and international media outlets.