China's war games a warning to Taiwan, U.S.

China and Taiwan routinely conduct war games

By Willy Lam
CNN Senior China Analyst

HONG KONG, China -- Beijing's elite missile unit is expected to take part in Chinese war games scheduled for later this week along the Fujian coast opposite Taiwan.

China's official media have said the People's Liberation Army (PLA) exercises are designed to send warning messages to Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian and to Washington.

China considers Taiwan a renegade province, and has been irked over Chen's transit stop in the United States. Even though Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949, Beijing has threatened to attack the island if it indefinitely rebuffs Beijing's demands for talks on unification.

While China and Taiwan routinely conduct war games around the Taiwan Strait, this week's maneuvers will be China's first large-scale war games since the election of Chen last March, a Chinese newspaper reported last week.

'Surgical' strikes

The Beijing-run Hong Kong daily Wen Wei Po reported on Monday the war games, code-named Liberation No. 1, would be made up of 100,000 officers and soldiers from different divisions.

While the exercises would involve amphibious landing and maneuvers against aircraft carriers, the paper reported that officers and facilities from the PLA's newly modernized missile division would also be on standby.

Their presence comes as military analysts say that in the unlikely event that Beijing opted to use force against Taiwan, the PLA would launch a series of "surgical" missile strikes against military targets on the island.

As part of the exercises, the missiles are primed to deliver "accurate, knock-out blows" against targets in Taiwan. Wen Wei Po quoted military experts as saying that part of the war games, which include newly imported destroyers from Russia, would consist of combating aircraft carriers.

The experts said should the United States come to Taiwan's aid in the wake of cross-Strait hostilities, Washington would likely send aircraft carrier battle groups to the Taiwan Strait.

'Climate of fear'

Diplomatic analysts in Taipei and Beijing have said the main purpose of "Liberation No. 1" is psychological warfare -- to create a climate of fear, and entice Taiwanese businesses to migrate from the island to mainland China.

A Taipei-based Asian diplomat said Beijing would try to lure Taiwanese capital to the mainland in a bid to foster the island's economic dependence on Beijing.

Missile drills in 1996 had already caused "considerable panic in Taiwan," the diplomat said.

"There was also massive outflow of capital to North America. This stopped only after [then American president Bill] Clinton ordered two aircraft carrier battle groups to go near the Taiwan region."