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\u003cp\u003eChina’s party and state leader Xi Jinping has left no doubt that he views the reunification with Taiwan as key for China’s future national strength.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe China Global Security Tracker is a semi-annual publication. It is part of the China Security Project, a cooperation between the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). In her analysis of events during the first half of 2018, MERICS researcher Helena Legarda tracks China’s growing military expenditures as well as steps taken by the Chinese Communist Party to extend its control over the military.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ch3 style=\u0022color: #6a6865;\u0022\u003eHighlights\u003c/h3\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul style=\u0022margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 1.5em;\u0022\u003e\n \u003cli style=\u0022color: #000000; margin-bottom: 0.5em;\u0022\u003eThe PLA seems to be preparing for a potential attack against Taiwan, with regular military exercises in the region and the development of new capabilities.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli style=\u0022color: #000000; margin-bottom: 0.5em;\u0022\u003eChina’s National People’s Congress approved a 1.11 trillion CNY military budget for 2018 to support China’s military modernization program.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli style=\u0022color: #000000; margin-bottom: 0.5em;\u0022\u003eChina is stepping up its involvement in security and defense issues in Africa and hosted the first China-Africa Defense and Security Forum in June.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli style=\u0022color: #000000; margin-bottom: 0.5em;\u0022\u003eBeijing continues to expand its out-of-area military facilities, building new military installations in the South China Sea and expanding its base in Djibouti.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli style=\u0022color: #000000; margin-bottom: 0.5em;\u0022\u003eChina continues to support the Iran nuclear deal, even after the United States’ withdrawal.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\n\u003ch3 class=\u0022chapter-title\u0022 id=\u0022Focus-topic\u0022 style=\u0022color: #6a6865;\u0022\u003e1. Focus Topic: China may be preparing to take Taiwan by force by 2049\u003c/h3\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\u0022color: #000000; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px;\u0022\u003eAfter nearly a decade of relative quiet, the issue of reunification with Taiwan has come back into the spotlight, driven by Xi Jinping’s self-imposed goals to turn China into a global power and the fear that Taipei may move towards declaring formal independence from China. But this time Beijing seems more willing than ever to use force to take the island back. Beijing’s longstanding hostile rhetoric and its efforts to internationally isolate Taiwan are now accompanied by increasingly realistic maneuvers and drills by the PLA around the island and by the rapid development and acquisition of new capabilities designed to target Taiwan. This suggests that military action against Taiwan is no longer an unrealistic proposition in the eyes of the Chinese leadership.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch4 style=\u0022color: #000000; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px;\u0022\u003eXi’s priorities have brought reunification with Taiwan back into the spotlight\u003c/h4\u003e\n\u003cp style=\u0022color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;\u0022\u003eIn October 2017, during his speech to the 19th Communist Party Congress, President Xi Jinping announced that by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the PRC, China will have achieved the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” and will have become “a strong, democratic, civilized, harmonious and modern socialist country.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\u0022color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;\u0022\u003eThis goal has brought the issue of Taiwan back to the political forefront in Beijing. For the Chinese leadership, reunification with Taiwan is a critical element of these efforts to turn China into a strong socialist country, and a clear obstacle in their quest to return China to global prominence. As Xi Jinping said after the National People’s Congress (NPC) in March 2018, \u0022it is a shared aspiration of all Chinese people and in their basic interests to […] realize China\u0027s complete reunification.\u0022 An article published on the website of the official newspaper China Daily days after the 19th Party Congress also unambiguously stated that, “Taiwan [is] integral to national rejuvenation.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\u0022color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;\u0022\u003eBy setting a deadline for “national rejuvenation” by 2049, Xi has created the expectation that progress on reunification with Taiwan will come in the short to medium term and, in any case, before mid-century.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch4 style=\u0022color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;\u0022\u003eBeijing may resort to force to take back Taiwan\u003c/h4\u003e\n\u003cp style=\u0022color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;\u0022\u003eBeijing has long maintained that it would prefer to reunify with Taiwan through peaceful means, although it has never ruled out the use of force. But its longstanding goal of peaceful reunification seems to be losing credibility among the Chinese leadership. Beijing’s plan to win the hearts and minds of the Taiwanese population or to pressure Taipei into surrendering seems to be failing. As demonstrated by recent polls, 75 percent of Taiwanese consider China and Taiwan as two separate countries. And the election of President Tsai Ing-Wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 2016 and the disarray within the more pro-Beijing KMT most likely helped to reinforce this perception.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\u0022color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;\u0022\u003eCalls for action on the Taiwan issue have thus become increasingly frequent among the Chinese leadership. The commander of the PLA Ground Forces, General Han Weiguo, for example, said on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress (NPC) in March 2018 that whereas Beijing would prefer to unify Taiwan by peaceful means, “the problem cannot be postponed indefinitely; it should be solved as quickly as possible.” Xi Jinping has made his own views on the issue abundantly clear. In response to a new US law encouraging exchanges between senior officials from the United States and Taiwan, he announced that, \u0022any actions and tricks to split China are doomed to failure and will meet […] the punishment of history.” This was followed by an editorial in the state-run Global Times newspaper, on March 22, which stated that, “the mainland must also prepare itself for a direct military clash in the Taiwan Straits.” This seems to suggest that Beijing has moved from considering the use of military force against Taiwan as a justified reaction to a potential declaration of independence to seeing it as a potential way to solve the issue of reunification.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch4 style=\u0022color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;\u0022\u003eThe PLA has developed capabilities to target Taiwan\u003c/h4\u003e\n\u003cp style=\u0022color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;\u0022\u003eIn the past, threats from Beijing to use force against Taiwan lacked credibility, both because of the United States’ support for Taipei, and because of the limited capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). China’s rapid military modernization, however, has changed things. Ever since former President Hu Jintao, during the 18th Communist Party Congress in 2012, called for the modernization of the Chinese military, the PLA has focused on rapidly developing or acquiring the capabilities to project power internationally, including some that seem clearly designed to target Taiwan.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\u0022color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;\u0022\u003eOver the past few months, the PLA has launched a new aircraft carrier, new destroyers with anti-air capabilities (such as the Type 052C), as well as new attack submarines, and is deploying fourth-generation naval aircraft designed to achieve superiority within East Asia’s first island chain. China has recently acquired Russian-made S-400 missile systems, which have a range that covers most of the Taiwanese airspace. The PLA has also announced that it is building more landing ships and that it will quadruple the size of its Marine Corps, capabilities that would be necessary for a land invasion of Taiwan.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\u0022color: #000000; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px;\u0022\u003eGiven the rapid progress in the modernization of the PLA’s capabilities, Xi has turned his focus to the armed forces’ ability to fight and win wars, with the ultimate goal of turning the PLA into a world-class force by 2049. This has led the PLA to conduct growing numbers of drills and exercises around Taiwan.\u003c/p\u003e\n","className":"richtext reading--content font-secondary"}), document.getElementById("react_iObpHVqE0kSAPbExrkv9dA"))});
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