Chinese Communist Party President Xi Jinping recently visited Fujian Province and called for cross-strait relations to “promote integration through communication, benefits and affection”, playing the “warm card”, but one day later the Communist Party sent 20 sorties to disturb Taiwan, the highest number of sorties in a single day. Analysts point out that all of this confirms the “gray zone threat” mentioned in the “Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR)” recently released by Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, indicating a growing trend of the Chinese Communist threat to Taiwan.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense first mentions “addressing gray-area threats”
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) recently released the latest version of its “Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR),” adding for the first time a special chapter on “Responding to Gray Zone Threats. In an interview with the Voice of America, Taiwan’s International Institute for Strategic Studies Director Wang Kun-yi pointed out that in the military sphere, the gray zone means a buffer zone to avoid direct war; in the non-military sphere, it refers to “hybrid warfare,” including psychological warfare, legal warfare, and public opinion warfare, the “three wars. “In addition, information warfare such as hacker attacks, election intervention, economic coercion, and various aircraft and ship intrusions of probing and deterrence are all gray area behaviors.
The purpose of the gray zone is to shake the morale of Taiwan’s internal people, including the national army, and to deplete the national army’s combat readiness and erode Taiwan’s national security. It (the Chinese Communist Party) to do this, mainly cognitive warfare, information stations, military aircraft ship harassment and so on the way, military aircraft almost every day, even fishing boats in the past will often surround the outer islands, and now even come to Penghu and so on, these are they (the Chinese Communist Party) to use the gray zone way to threaten you (Taiwan) to make a judgment, to see how you respond, and then to consume your morale and national budget and so on. “
Some analysts noted that CCP President Xi Jinping visited Fujian Province on March 25. He listened to the work of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee and the provincial government when he requested “highlighting to promote integration, to promote the integration of benefits, to promote the integration of feelings, the courage to explore a new way of cross-strait integration and development”, is considered a way of cognitive warfare, “through, benefits, feelings” has become Fujian in recent years The main discourse of promoting integration with Taiwan in recent years.
Poll: Over 60% believe China will not attack Taiwan
In addition, during China’s two sessions, U.S. Army Indo-Pacific Commander Adm. Phillip Davidson even boldly and clearly suggested during a hearing before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that Taiwan is part of China’s ambitions and that the PLA could attack Taiwan in the next six years.
Nonetheless, a recent poll in Taiwan shows that more than 60 percent of people believe China will not attack Taiwan. Why can Taiwanese be so optimistic despite the threat of PLA military aircraft?
According to a poll jointly released by the Taiwan Institute for International Strategy and the Taiwan Institute for International Studies in March this year, 63.3 percent of people believe China will not attack Taiwan, 77.9 percent support the opening of cross-strait dialogue, and 61.1 percent believe the U.S. defense and assistance to Taiwan is “an ulterior motive to take advantage of Taiwan. In another poll conducted by the China Asia Pacific Elite Exchange Association in March, 76.1 percent supported the resumption of cross-strait exchanges and 75.8 percent favored cross-strait dialogue under reciprocal dignity.
Cross-strait analysts say that in addition to the majority of people believing that “the U.S. will protect Taiwan,” the vast majority of Taiwanese people want to strengthen cross-strait exchanges and accept the concept of “cross-strait integration,” and even silently wait for the day when the Chinese Communist regime will change, which also This also highlights the fact that there are errors in the perceptions of the U.S., China, and Taiwan in the battle against the Taiwanese people, which warrants caution.
However, Taiwan Liaoyuan Publishing Editor-in-Chief Shiu-Wei Au believes that Taiwanese optimism reflects the public’s confidence in Tsai Ing-wen’s government, but “anticipate the enemy from a wide perspective, defend the enemy from a strict perspective” and that response units must be prepared in advance in order to deal with threats with ease.
“The security mentality of “the United States will defend Taiwan
Wang Kunyi, president of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Taiwan, said that Taiwanese believe that the Chinese Communist Party will not attack Taiwan by force because of the security mentality that “the United States will protect Taiwan” and the consideration that the natural danger of the Taiwan Strait will make it more difficult for the Communist forces to attack Taiwan. In their view, it would be meaningless to the Chinese Communist Party even if it were to use missiles to blow up Taiwan. Another reason is that, in the Chinese view of war, the best strategy is to “win an army without fighting”, and therefore unification without the use of force is the CCP’s highest goal. Similarly, Taiwan is deeply influenced by Chinese culture, and as long as Taiwan does not pursue legal independence, China is not likely to use force to achieve unification.
According to Wang Kunyi, Taiwanese people cognitively believe that the CCP’s promotion of integration and unification is true, which is why even the U.S. general’s warning cannot affect the Taiwanese people’s perception, “probably because it means that American propaganda is not as effective as Chinese propaganda comes. He said, “The Chinese Communist Party has been propagating the concept of peaceful reunification for many years to penetrate the hearts and minds of Taiwanese people, and the Chinese Communist Party wants to unify by peace, not by force. The money spent on cognitive warfare is very economical, compared to the military preparation of force, so (the CCP) uses the cheapest way to achieve the purpose of peace and war. In terms of avoiding war, the CCP can achieve peace or peaceful unification without having to go to war, and cognitive warfare is the cheapest and simplest way to do so.
Wang Hailiang, deputy director of the Shanghai Institute of East Asian Studies, said in an interview with Voice of America that the American way of looking at the problem is not the same as the Taiwanese in terms of observation methods and conclusions, and that the U.S. military’s concern may be a purely military estimate, while the Taiwanese public’s optimism is due to comprehensive factors.
Comprehensive factors for optimistic assessment of the Taiwan Strait situation
Wang Hailiang made three observations: “For example, subjectively, Taiwan society’s understanding and knowledge of the mainland and its policies over the years, they know that the mainland has not changed the theme of peaceful development, nor has it abandoned its policy of integration and development with Taiwan. For example, recently President Xi Jinping went to Fujian to talk about the need to promote integration with love and benefits, are talking about integration and development, at least the official did not often talk about non-peaceful reunification, or talking about peaceful reunification, I think Taiwan compatriots, the community has a sense of this, so they believe that the mainland subjectively will not change or abandon the basic policy in a short time.”
Wang Hailiang said the second point is that Taiwan people’s objective perception of China on the belief that China itself has many economic and social problems to solve first, not necessarily put Taiwan on the top priority, so under the existing capacity and conditions of the Chinese Communist Party, it is not necessary to complete the pursuit of unification in 5 or 6 years. The third point is that the Taiwanese people still have expectations of the U.S. attitude, believing that the U.S. can hold China in check and that China will take into account the U.S. and dare not make rash moves. The combination of the above three subjective and objective factors will make the Taiwanese people feel that the U.S. military’s “six-year attack on Taiwan” is not that serious and dangerous, “which may be some distance from the U.S. military’s thinking and judgment.
Wang Kunyi, president of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Taiwan, said the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda may seem like a negative thing for Taiwan, but it is not. Some people in Taiwan with a unificationist view still feel proud of China’s power, but behind the acceptance of this propaganda is a very important concept, that is, these people do not believe that the totalitarian regime of the Chinese Communist Party will rule China forever. “If we look at China’s dynasties, being able to rule for 100 or 200 years is already a long time. The CCP has now been in power for 70 years, and there is a limit to how long it can remain in power; give it another 100 years and it’s almost time, and the regime will naturally change.”
As for the nearly 80% of Taiwan people who want to resume cross-strait exchanges, Wang Hailiang, deputy director of the Shanghai Institute of East Asian Studies, believes that “it is very credible” because cross-strait civil exchanges are the opposite of the official stalemate of not communicating with each other, which actually reflects the people’s desire to expand the exchange situation. Wang Hailiang said, cross-strait people’s communication is blocked can not be stopped, the people feel that the exchange is to the good direction, otherwise if the exchange is worse there will be no one in favor of it.
Scholars: cognitive errors worth thinking about
Wang Hailiang also said that he did not think that China’s foreign propaganda can surpass that of the United States, nor did he think that Taiwan’s society and public opinion would be easily led by the nose by China or the United States. He said that Taiwan’s intellectual community “looks at the United States more”, and China’s argument into Taiwan will not necessarily be accepted, mainly because Taiwan’s intellectual community sees the actual practice of the United States “America First”, and seriously feel that Taiwan is being used as a pawn Taiwan people are very smart!”
Wang Kunyi, president of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Taiwan, said that 60% of Taiwanese believe that the U.S. is using Taiwan, which also shows that the DPP government’s goal of “pro-U.S. and anti-China” has not really succeeded, otherwise Taiwanese should feel that the U.S. is a sincere ally and not using Taiwan. The number of people who are “taking advantage” of Taiwan may also include a large portion of the 8.17 million votes cast for President Tsai Ing-wen last year (Tsai’s vote share in the 2020 election was 57.13 percent).
Wang Kunyi said, this shows that the United States propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party will attack Taiwan’s intimidation is afraid too strong, so that the Taiwanese people feel that “every day to live a good life, why the United States every day to tell us when the Chinese Communist Party will attack Taiwan”, and the United States and Taiwan in the propaganda and cognitive combat error, and between the Taiwan rulers and the people’s perception It is worth thinking about whether there is also a big error between the Taiwan rulers and the people.
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