A viral online poster from the Chinese Coast Guard.

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) launched military drills involving the army, navy, air, and rocket forces on October 14, 2024, wherein they completely surrounded Taiwan. The 13-hour full-scale military operation, entitled “Joint Sword-2024B,” involved 34 naval vessels and 125 aircraft encroaching on Taiwan by sea and air and aimed at “intensifying pressure against Taiwan independence.”

The drills were launched four days after Taiwan President William Lai Ching-te delivered the National Day Address of the Republic of China (ROC) on October 10, in which Lai called on China to make positive contributions to global peace while vowed to defend Taiwan from “annexation” and “encroachment.”  Even though Lai’s speech was relatively mild and restrained as he acknowledged the political history of ROC being rooted in China, Beijing reacted fiercely, accusing Lai of promoting the “two-state theory,” which directly contradicts China's “One China Policy”:

Taiwan regional leader Lai Ching-te’s “Double Ten” speech, pushing the “two-state” rhetoric, employs “backdoor listing” tactics to advance the agenda of “Taiwan independence,” which will severely poison cross-Straits relations and escalate tensions, mainland scholars said at a… pic.twitter.com/1trJG4Rn4X

— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) October 11, 2024

What are the provocations?

Hours after the PLA announced the military drill, Mao Ning, the spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, justified the operation by stressing that  “provocation by Taiwan independence forces will be met with countermeasures.” She also warned the US against “arming Taiwan” and “sending the wrong signal to the Taiwan independence separatist forces.” 

China’s idea of provocation is laid out in a video titled “Strangle” (勒), released by the PLA amid the military drills. The animated video suggests that China’s military escalation, represented in the form of a tightening redline surrounding Taiwan's territories, has been justified by “provocations” by the US and Taiwan. One precipitating event to trigger China is then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in August 2022, which China saw as evidence of the US validating Taiwan:

The #PLA Eastern Theater Command conducted the “Joint Sword-2024B” drills around #Taiwan island on Monday, and released an animated video illustrating that “the more provocations, the tighter the stranglehold.” pic.twitter.com/8WZtJNxsrj

— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) October 14, 2024

In addition to Pelois’s visit, other “provocations” include former Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen’s US transit in March 2023, William Lai’s US transit in August 2023, the death of two Chinese fishermen near Taiwan-controlled Kinmen island in February 2024, and William Lai’s Presidential inaugural address on May 20. 

On the other hand, Taiwan called Beijing’s drills an “unreasonable provocation” and showed its determination to defend itself:

With today's military exercises, China aims to undermine regional stability & the status quo, failing to live up to global expectations. While Taiwan remains open to cross-strait dialogue & exchanges, we are determined to protect our free & democratic constitutional system.

— 賴清德Lai Ching-te (@ChingteLai) October 14, 2024

The US Pentagon also issued a statement calling the Chinese military operation in reaction to the Taiwan President’s customary annual speech on October 10 as “irresponsible, disproportionate, and destabilizing.”

As pointed out by many China observers, the unprovoked drills aim to demonstrate China’s ability to strangle or choke, if not takedown, Taiwan in a swift manner.

In an all-out kinetic blockade of Taiwan, China’s PLA forces will strike Taiwan’s civilian ports, airfields supporting transportation, energy import terminals, fuel storage facilities, and power grid to undermine the island’s ability to sustain itself. https://t.co/keSmldkvAz pic.twitter.com/9UhxjBtktv

— ChinaPower (@ChinaPowerCSIS) October 16, 2024

While China's assumption about a swift victory over Taiwan can only be proven in a real setting, regional politics in East Asia are far more complex. The US has been building a coalition in the Pacific region to maintain Taiwan's status quo. In fact, soon after the Chinese drills, on October 15, the US, the Philippines, Canada, and Japan debuted a series of naval exercises in the disputed South China Sea. 

However, on mainland Chinese social media, many have been convinced by the PLA's war propaganda and applauded the virtual victory in the PLA's “strangle” operation. Here is one popular reaction to the drills on Weibo:

实战演习大约用了13个小时。如果是攻台作战，那么，解放军拂晓出发，晚饭就可以在台北吃了？

The drills only lasted 13 hours. Does this mean that if the military really attacked Taiwan, the PLA would only need to deploy at dawn, and they could have their dinner in Taipei?

On the other front, Taiwan also showed its readiness to defend itself:

Video shows military's ability to defend Taiwan in response to China's “Joint Sword-2024B” drillshttps://t.co/5XzmKE6hq2 pic.twitter.com/QVvgxu7MSG

— Taiwan News (@TaiwanNewsEN) October 14, 2024

Since China’s military drills and operations have been ceaseless since 2022, most Taiwanese have remained calm amid the full-scale drills and untroubled by military propaganda featuring fighter jets and vessels. In fact, the Taiwan stock market was unaffected, as noticed by @FaustoChou:

I noticed something both interesting and amusing.

On the morning of October 14, the Eastern Theater Command of the PLA announced the launch of a military exercise, “Joint Sword-2024B,” in the waters surrounding Taiwan. Yet today (October 15), instead of dropping, Taiwan’s stock… pic.twitter.com/JPfEzi1jpO

— 周子愉 Fausto Chou (@FaustoChou) October 15, 2024

Distributing “love messages”

While the drills themselves didn't make many waves in Taiwanese society, the “love letters” to Taiwan distributed online by the Chinese Coast Guard, did catch people's attention. The poster depicted the drills as a lover’s message to Taiwan:

A Chinese propaganda image dispersed during Monday’s military drills around Taiwan was supposed to send a positive message to the island’s people, but instead has been decried as weird, creepy, and akin to “sexual harassment”.https://t.co/O0Dhab8Vii

— William Yang (@WilliamYang120) October 15, 2024

The poster read: “Hi, my sweetheart” and “The route of coastal patrol is in the shape of loving you.” 

The aggressive love message in the poster serves as a metaphor for the relationship between China and Taiwan. Taiwan has become a de-facto self-ruling entity since 1949 after Kuomingtang, the first ruling party of the ROC, escaped from the mainland upon being defeated by the Communist Party of China (CPC) in the Chinese Civil War. However, the CPC, which established the People's Republic of China in 1949, insists on unification with the ROC under the One China Principle and vows to fulfil the mission by force.