Dobir Uddin MaMa Ukraine war Russia deploys dozens Horipur Bonpara Natore Rizik More 2023
Star roles for “action men” in China’s new military leadership may hint at an increased threat of war with Taiwan, though analysts suggest Xi Jinping’s stated preference for a peaceful takeover of the island should be taken at face value – at least for now.
China announced the lineup of its Central Military Commission (CMC) last weekend, just days after Xi opened the Chinese Communist Party’s National Congress with a speech vowing to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s control. To thunderous applause, the Chinese leader said this could be done peacefully but – reiterating Beijing’s longstanding stance – he refused to rule out the use of force.
The new leadership of the military commission – the top authority in charge of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) – includes a number of officers seen as “action men” for their expertise in areas that would be key to any invasion. And that’s fueled concerns that such a move could be imminent.
The past year has seen China significantly ramp up its intimidation of Taiwan, a democratically governed island of 24 million that the Chinese Communist Party claims as its sovereign territory despite never having controlled it.
Beijing has sent dozens of aircraft and ships near Taiwan and even fired a missile over the island.
Xi Jinping just became unassailable. Here's why investors are running scared
Earlier this month, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen said though she was willing to work with China to find “mutually acceptable ways” to maintain peace across the Taiwan Strait, there was “no room for compromise” over the self-ruled island’s sovereignty
The rhetoric from both sides and Beijing’s recent maneuvers have stoked fears that an attempted Chinese military takeover of Taiwan could be next on the horizon.
But many experts say that won’t necessarily be the case.
The six-member military commission Xi leads does not look like a “war council,” analysts said, but rather a body set up to continue the methodical modernization of the world’s largest military, which the Chinese leader set as a goal in 2015.
“A hot war in Asia remains unlikely in the foreseeable future,” said James Char, associate research fellow in the China Program at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore.
“The PLA will continue to try to achieve China’s national objectives by operating at the level below the threshold of war in the near to medium term,” Char said.
One of those chief objectives has been to make the PLA a world-class fighting force – essentially the equal of the US military – by 2049. Xi has established waypoints toward that 2049 goal, including by putting an emphasis on joint operations, the ability of all the PLA’s branches to function as one in times of conflict – which would be essential to any invasion of Taiwan.
Hear the grim warning that got Xi Jinping a roaring applause during speech
03:00 - Source: CNN
The appointment of Gen. He Weidong, former commander of the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command, as one of two CMC vice chairmen below only Xi in the military leadership shows that commitment to joint operations, analysts said.
Upon taking over the Eastern Theater Command in 2019, He oversaw the integration of PLA operations across the Taiwan Strait.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government was to approve on Friday a hefty economic package that will include government funding of about 29 trillion yen ($200 billion) to soften the burden of costs from rising utility rates and food prices.
Formal party and Cabinet approval was expected later in the day after a morning economic policy meeting. Kishida was set to give a news conference in the evening.
Inflation has been rising in Japan along with globally surging prices. A weakening of the yen against the dollar has amplified costs for imports.
The stimulus package includes subsidies for households that are largely seen as an attempt by Kishida to lift his plunging popularity. His government has been rocked by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s close ties to the South Korean-based Unification church, which surfaced after the assassination of former leader Shinzo Abe in July.
“We will make sure to deliver the measures to everyone and do our utmost so that people can feel supported in their daily lives," Kishida told the morning meeting.
The stimulus is another indication that Japan will stick to using fiscal measures, or government spending, to counter current economic challenges. While central banks around the world are raising interest rates aggressively to try to tame decades-high inflation, Japan's inflation rate is a relatively moderate 3% and the greater fear is that the economy will stall, not overheat.
The Bank of Japan, which has kept its benchmark rate at minus 0.1% since 2016, kept its longstanding lax monetary policy at a policy making meeting that wrapped up on Friday.
The overall size of the package, including private-sector funding and fiscal measures, is expected to amount to 71.6 trillion yen ($490 trillion), Kishida said. Fiscal spending will be 39 trillion yen ($270 billion).
The package includes about 45,000 yen ($300) subsidies for household electricity and gas bills and coupons worth 100,000 yen ($680) for women who are pregnant or rearing babies.
Dobir Uddin MaMa Ukraine war Russia deploys dozens Horipur Bonpara Natore Rizik More 2023
Earlier this year, the results of those efforts were evident when, shortly after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, the PLA put on a show of force in a joint operation that included sea, air and missile units while simulating a blockade of the island and sending ballistic missiles over it.
That experience was a new one for the Chinese military’s central decision-making body.
'No room for compromise' on Taiwan's sovereignty, President Tsai says in National Day speech
Rod Lee, director of research at the US Air Force Air University’s China Aerospace Studies Institute, said He was the first PLA officer on the Central Military Commission to run a joint command and his experience would be invaluable in any operation involving Taiwan.
Besides bringing together the army, navy, air and rocket forces, He will have learned how to implement a national mobilization plan and integrate auxiliary units like the People’s Armed Police, Lee said.
“All these reforms that Xi Jinping has imposed on the PLA, He Weidong is the first one who has actually had to deal with this at some level in an operational sense,” Lee added.
Besides that joint command experience, He possesses another key attribute sought in top PLA leadership – field experience in hostile situations. He led the PLA’s Western Theater Command army forces during the Doklam border standoff with India in 2017.
Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center, said He was one of Xi’s “action men” on the military commission. Another “action man” was his fellow vice chairman Gen. Zhang Youxia.
China's Xi is more powerful than ever. What does it mean for the world?
Zhang, whose father served alongside Xi’s father in the Chinese civil war, is seen by many as a loyal ally of the Chinese leader. Zhang served on the previous military commission and has been retained and promoted despite being past the unofficial retirement age of 68.
Zhang reflects “two important aspects that Xi seems to value: loyalty and war-fighting experience, being a veteran of the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War,” said Meia Nouwens, senior fellow for China at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Joel Wuthnow, a senior research fellow in the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the US National Defense University, said Zhang brings other key experience: he’s a former director of the commission’s equipment department, overseeing the PLA’s acquisition of advanced technology and hardware.
“This is a clear priority for Xi. The (Party Congress) work report focuses on the need to increase the proportion of ‘intelligentized’ equipment – a category that includes things like unmanned systems, artificial intelligence, and hypersonic missiles,” Wuthnow said. Zhang’s fellow commission member, Gen. Li Shangfu, has also played the acquisition role, Wuthnow noted.
