Beijing growing restless over Taiwan

For the next few weeks on a spit of land called Dongshan along the Taiwan Strait, a Chinese military force will practice making offensive strikes.

The exercise, which began last week, resembles what Chinese analysts say a military strike on Taiwan would look like: commando raids and elements of a so-called "decapitation strike" on Taipei, including night bombing runs - something the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has not practiced before in a coastal exercise.

Here in China's capital, a shift is on: Taiwan, China's geo-strategic Helen of Troy, is again being targeted by the PLA and by Party propagandists. For nearly three years, China has practiced mostly pin-stripe diplomacy on Taiwan, an approach often called "soft offensive."

The strategy was to be mild and reasonable in order that Taiwanese might vote Chen Shui-bian out of office. China's top leaders, Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, spoke often of a "peaceful unification" with Taiwan. Wen Jiabao in the Oval Office last December spoke of "he wei gui," a profound Confucian idea that translates, "nothing is more valuable than peace."

Yet quietly late last fall as it became clear that President Chen could be reelected, and then more boldly after March 20 when Chen was returned to office - a Beijing brand of sound and fury began to escalate.

State media are at volume levels not heard since 2000, the last time Chen, who desires a separate identity for Taiwan, was elected. Newspapers show Chinese frigates shooting rockets. They list Chinese weapons that "Americans are afraid of" - including the mobile-launched long range Dongfeng-31 and Dongfeng-4 rockets. Party newspaper People's Daily issued an angry broadside Tuesday on a July 15 resolution in Congress supporting the Taiwan Relations Act. The law allows US weapons sales to Taiwan for defensive purposes so long as the island is threatened. People's Daily argued that Congress "fabricated a Chinese military threat in order to justify arms sales to Taiwan - a blatant intervention into China's internal affairs."

In 2001 the Bush administration did approve $1.8 billion in arms sales to Taiwan. But few of the weapons systems, including sub-hunting aircraft, and destroyers, have actually been purchased by Taipei. Chinese media however often present pending arms sales as a new deal.

"We haven't heard this sound for a long time," says a Western scholar here. "For several years no 'message' has been sent to Taiwan, the US, or the world about Chinese military capability across the straits."

A new level of anxiety about Taiwan in Beijing is reportedly one reason National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice came here July 8 to signal, in her words, "what [the US] can and can't do"to cooperate with China. Analysts argue that an element of the ongoing US naval Summer Pulse '04 exercises that involve deploying seven carrier groups worldwide has protection of the Taiwan Straits as part of its message. (It is incorrect, as reported in Chinese and US media, that all seven carrier groups will gather in the West Pacific and that Taiwan is participating in the exercise.)

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