China holds military drills near Taiwan: all about the shared history, current tensions

According to the PLA, the exercise tested “combat readiness patrols, blockade of key ports and areas, assault on maritime and ground targets and seizure of comprehensive superiority”.

Why did China conduct these exercises now?

According to China, the current round of war games is retaliation for the “dangerously separatist” remarks made by Taiwan President Lai Ching-te on October 10 in his National Day address. He said, “The People’s Republic of China has no right to represent Taiwan”, and promised to “uphold the commitment to resist annexation or encroachment upon our sovereignty”.

Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (RoC), is self-administered and views itself as a sovereign state, while the People’s Republic of China (PRC) sees Taiwan as a breakaway province to be “reunified” with the mainland as part of its One China policy.

The PLA Eastern Command has described the current operation as a “stern warning to the separatist acts of ‘Taiwan Independence’ forces”.

Taiwan has promised to “deal with the threat from China appropriately”, with the Taiwanese Presidential Office calling on China to “cease military provocations that undermine regional peace and stability and stop threatening Taiwan’s democracy and freedom.”

China held the “Joint Sword-2024A” drills on May 23 and 24 this year, four days after Lai took office and affirmed Taiwan’s status as a “sovereign, independent nation.” China promised war if Taiwan declared independence and called the drills “punishment” for the speech.

How is Taiwan positioned globally?

Earlier known as Formosa, Taiwan is a tiny island in the East China Sea off the east coast of China. It is located to the northeast of Hong Kong, north of the Philippines and south of South Korea, and southwest of Japan.

This places it in a location of strategic importance to East Asia and Southeast Asia. Scholar Ngeow Chow Bing observed that Southeast Asia has the most at stake in ensuring peace across the Taiwan Strait. He wrote, “Hundreds of thousands of Southeast Asian citizens live in Taiwan. These nations’ economies are deeply integrated in regional supply chains, which depend heavily on stable trade flows through the Taiwan Strait. A Taiwan military conflict could threaten to escalate tensions in the South China Sea and undermine regional peace and stability in Southeast Asia” (“How Southeast Asia Might React in a Potential Military Conflict Over Taiwan”, Carnegie Endowment for Peace, June 2024).

Since its founding in 1949, the PRC has believed that Taiwan must be reunified with the mainland, while the RoC has held out as an “independent” country. The RoC became the non-communist frontier against China during the Cold War, and it was only in 1971 that the US inaugurated ties with the PRC through the secret diplomacy of Henry Kissinger, national security adviser to President Richard Nixon.

Taiwan observes “Double 10” or October 10 as its national day. On this day in 1911 sections of the Manchu army rose in rebellion, leading ultimately to the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and the end of 4,000 years of the monarchy. The RoC was declared on December 29, 1911, and it found its feet in the 1920s under the leadership of Dr Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Kuomintang (KMT) Party.

Only 11 countries recognise Taiwan. Most are very small, remote island nations. The rest of the world follows the One China policy, diplomatically acknowledging the Chinese position that there is only one Chinese government.

The evolution of Taiwan’s relations with China

The Chinese Communist Party’s victory in the 1949 Chinese Civil War resulted in its rival, the KMT, relocating to Taiwan where its leader, Chiang Kai Shek, ruled as President until his death in 1975. Martial law was lifted that year and Taiwan got its first democratic reforms.

Starting from the 1990s, relations between the PRC and RoC improved, and trade ties were established. As the British prepared to exit Hong Kong in 1999, the “One China, Two Systems” solution was offered to Taiwan as well, but it was rejected by the Taiwanese.

Taiwan got its first non-KMT government in 2000 when the Taiwanese nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the presidency. In 2004, China started drafting an anti-secession law aimed at Taiwan; trade and connectivity, however, continued to improve.

Today, the two big players in Taiwan’s politics are the DPP and KMT, broadly the parties of the island’s Hakka inhabitants and the minority mainland Chinese respectively. Taiwan has seen a sharp pro-independence phase ever since Tsai Ing-wen was elected President in 2016.

Taiwan has massive economic interests, including investments in China, and pro-independence sections worry that this might interfere with their goals. Inversely, the pro-reunification sections of the polity, as well as China, hope that economic dependence and increasing people-to-people contacts will wear out the pro-independence lobbies.

This is an updated version of an explainer published in 2022