By Yang Jinghua
Amidst tensions between China and the US and the heat-up of 2024 Taiwan's leadership election, the US and the Taiwan authorities have been stepping up collusion and intensifying their provocations against China. Recently, they almost simultaneously exaggerated and hyped up war crisis across the Taiwan Strait, which aroused heated discussions and disputes.
The Messenger of the US quoted news from anonymous US intelligence officials on June 12 that the Biden administration has been secretly formulating a plan to evacuate American citizens from Taiwan for up to six months. The plan provoked further discussion especially as the tension across the Taiwan Strait has been rising in the past two months. In addition to the US, Indonesia, the Philippines and other countries have also formulated evacuation plans, and Japan has even discussed evacuation schemes with the Taiwan authorities. In this regard, the White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby denied the need to consider the evacuation policy in Taiwan, but implicitly affirmed that the country has reserved evacuation schemes.
Meanwhile, Taiwan media disclosed on June 13 that the defense department in the region had released the Civil Defence Contingency Handbook, which includes the Taiwan military's prediction of possible wartime situations to show their "earnest attitude" toward so-called war preparation.
Political calculations lurk behind the fact the US and Taiwan hyped up the risks across the Taiwan Strait and stoked war anxieties with great fanfare and "tacit understanding". Amid the escalated and complex gaming situation between China and the US, Washington continues to strengthen the manipulation of the "Taiwan card" to increase strategic chips and maximize strategic interests. The US' trick to heighten the war risks across the Taiwan Strait by clamoring the evacuation plans is in line with its political consideration of creating a favorable public opinion environment for its further intervention in the Taiwan question, and is also concordant with its political calculations of raising the tensions in neighboring countries or regions and promoting "internationalization" of the Taiwan question.
In addition to pandering to the US political considerations of "containing China with Taiwan", the DPP authorities' hyping up the emergency war preparation topics is also inseparable from their election campaign. Since Tsai Ing-wen came to power, the DPP had been adopting the ploy of intensifying public anxieties by highlighting "war countdown" in all campaigns, in an attempt to dilute the negative impacts of its ineffective administration, divert social attention, and mislead public opinions to stabilize the election situation. As the 2024 leadership election is drawing near, which will decide the future and fate of its key political figures, it will be more difficult for the DPP to break free from habitual thinking and give up the old practice of "relying on the US to confront mainland and promote elections".
However, in the current background, the political manipulations of the US and the Taiwan authorities may have the effect of doing more harm than good. The DPP authorities have strongly adopted the path of "relying on the US to seek independence and confront mainland", and completely skewed towards the US as its obedient pawn , which has put the Taiwan region in an extremely unfavorable predicament and even made it "the most dangerous place on Earth". However, skepticism of the US has continuously fermented in the region as a result of the US' ambiguity on supporting Taiwan and clarity on exploiting it while turning the island into a hedgehog or a powder keg. War anxieties also make the people on the island full of doubts about whether the DPP 2024 leadership candidate Lai Ching-te, who holds a strong stance on "Taiwan independence", can stabilize the situation across the Taiwan Strait. The US and the Taiwan authorities' joint efforts to exaggerate the tensions across the Taiwan Strait are possible to deepen the existing skepticism over the US and Lai, exerting opposite effects to their political calculations.
(The author is an associate researcher at the Institute of Taiwan Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)
Editor's note: Originally published on china.com.cn, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
