EDITORIAL: Militarism, messaging, partnerships

Two strands of a concerted misinformation campaign affecting Taiwan need to be resisted. The first is “US skepticism,” the idea that in the event of aggression against Taiwan by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Washington would be unlikely to intervene militarily. The second is “Japanese neo-militarism.”

Both originate from and serve the purposes of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The first is designed to shake the resolve of Taiwanese and the second to reduce obstacles to PLA aggression in the Taiwan Strait.

A US operational warfare guidance report released on Oct. 7 titled How the Army Fights describes how the US military intends to counterbalance its “pacing threat” — the PLA — by improving its warfighting infrastructure across the region. That is to be achieved by ensuring that forward deployments of weapons, equipment and supplies are present along the First Island Chain, enabling a rapid response to PLA actions.

This year’s Keen Sword military exercises, which started on Monday and run through Thursday, are operational practice runs by Japan and the US to protect Japan, including its Ryukyu Islands, with deployments on Okinawa, Miyako, Ishigaki and Yonaguni — only 110km from Taiwan — as well as on the main islands of Shikoku and Kyushu.

The addition of Indo-Pacific, Pacific and European nations — including France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, Australia and Canada — shows that other nations also see the benefit of the exercises.

The larger scale and wider participation at this year’s Keen Sword exercises demonstrate the evolving structure of the regional deterrence. They are the physical manifestation of the concepts laid out in the US’ operational warfare guidance report, just as they are the first trial run of Japan’s new Joint Operations Command, launched on March 24 last year to unify operational command of Japan’s ground, maritime and air self-defense forces.

The participation of the Philippines extends the scope of the exercises south along the First Island Chain, while the implications of the US report stretch north to South Korea, too, as the Chosun Daily reported in an article titled “US Army’s new guidance calls for full force against China in First Island Chain: New guidelines emphasize immediate action, impacting South Korea’s defense strategies.”

The article said that the new stance “necessitates changes to military assets on the Korean Peninsula, which hosts the second-largest US troop presence after Japan,” and quotes US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson as describing South Korea as a “fixed aircraft carrier between China and Japan.”

With these preparations in place, it is difficult to entertain any idea of “US skepticism.” The wide regional participation surely also quashes any suspicion of “Japanese neo-militarism,” yet the CCP continues to peddle this unfounded narrative to divert from its own blatant militaristic drive.

An article published in the English-language Chinese state media publication Global Times titled “Japan-US ‘Keen Sword’ pierces the ‘facade of peace,’” accuses Japan of “attempting to advance its maritime expansionist claims through military deployments and to exert pressure through force to secure control over the seas.”

The article said that “will send the wrong signal, exacerbate tensions in the Taiwan Straits [sic] and the East China Sea, and undermine regional peace and stability.”

The psychological projection of the CCP’s own intent is astonishing.

The article also contends that, during World War II, Japan “forged the Axis bloc with Germany and Italy; today, it leans on the Japan-US alliance alongside participating NATO nations,” attempting to tie Japan’s strategy with fascists, and to drive a wedge between the US and Japan.

For Taiwanese not to fall for this disinformation, they must first understand it for what it is. Then it is possible to discount it or push back against it.

However, more can be done.

Deterrence messaging is not just for Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and the PLA’s military planners, it is for the Chinese public, too. Chinese must be made to understand the cost of aggression in the Taiwan Strait and that it can be avoided if their government draws back from its destabilizing militarism and agrees to come to the table with the elected representatives of Taiwan’s government, without preconditions, and with the understanding that it would need to compromise on its red lines.