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What’s in Store in 2025 for US From China’s Military?
China’s communist secretary-general, Xi Jinping, turned down an invitation to attend the U.S. inauguration offered by President-elect Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, between Dec. 9 and 11, the Chinese Communist Party sent the People’s Liberation Army in large numbers around Taiwan and into the Philippine Sea.
As the Jan. 20 inauguration approaches, recent trends in military operations make clear Xi has no interest in lowering tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
Since 2022, China has steadily increased its military incursions around Taiwan—the most provocative when PLA warplanes cross the median line in the Taiwan Strait. In just the past nine months, there have been various waves of PLA activity near Taiwan.
Usually, these demonstrations of military might around Taiwan are publicly announced as a response to some specific action irking Beijing, but the December event was unusual, not only for its massive scale, but also that it was not publicly announced by Beijing.
This wasn’t the only remarkable PLA activity in 2024.
In early April, there was a one-day surge of PLA activity around Taiwan involving 30 warplanes and nine warships. Twenty of those aircraft provocatively crossed the median line.
What was the trigger for that? Typically, weather is ideal for cross-strait military operations in mid-April, and it’s also the time when the PLA begins its annual training cycle. But this time, there was added context: The April 3 spike in activity followed a 7.4 earthquake in Taiwan that killed 18 and injured 1,100.
While the island was recovering, Beijing may have wanted to test Taiwan’s military resiliency during a natural disaster; this would provide insights into how the island would fare in a war. After that one-day surge, a familiar pattern repeated, with PLA incursions tapering off returning to average seasonal levels six days later.
The month of May, however, was full of political triggers for Beijing. The PLA’s biggest military demonstration followed the inauguration of Taiwan’s new president Lai Ching-te. Apparently, Lai’s inaugural speech infuriated Beijing, as it was construed as “splittist”—meaning, promoting independence for the island.
While many China watchers noted nothing new in the speech, it did diverge from past inaugural precedent in structure and mentioning that Taiwan was “not subordinate” to China. The PLA’s response was Joint Sword 2024A, a two-day military operation that occurred three days after Lai’s speech, involving at its height 19 warships, 16 coast guard vessels, and 62 warplanes that executed 82 median-line crossings.
In the summer months, Chinese military activity increased steadily, with the 30-day rolling average of air activity reaching a two-year high in early August. That upward trajectory began to occur after China’s hosting of the 16th Straits Forum, which aims to improve bilateral relations in the Taiwan Strait.
The upward trend persisted through July, with a spike in early July following a NATO statement describing China as a decisive enabler of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Toward the end of July, PLA activity around Taiwan tapered off to zero ahead of a meeting between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
The PLA’s good behavior didn’t last long.
As Blinken was on his way home, PLA activity levels returned to historic highs. An Aug. 23 speech by Lai, in which he rejected Beijing’s communist rule of Taiwan, drew a prompt response from the PLA even larger than the historically high levels of activity seen during the Aug. 1 anniversary of the PLA’s founding.
September saw sporadic PLA activity with a surprisingly high three-day period of activity after another Blinken-Yi meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City. For several days ahead of that meeting, as was the case in July, PLA activity was at zero. After that meeting, however, according to the Institute for the Study of War, China chose to retaliate against the U.S. arms sale to Taiwan by conducting its first intercontinental ballistic missile test launch since 1980.
While 2024 had, up that point, seen sustained high levels of provocative PLA activity, it was October that would see the largest-ever single-day military demonstration.
A “10-10” speech by Lai on the day marking the 1911 founding of the Republic of China drew a swift rebuke from Beijing. Five days later, Beijing sent a record-breaking number of warplanes (153) and 14 naval vessels near Taiwan. Of those, 111 aircraft crossed the median line, activity that Beijing called Joint Sword 2024B. That was followed the next week by live-fire drills.
(Muhammed Ali Yigit/Anadolu via Getty Images)
With the U.S. presidential election as the backdrop, PLA activity in November returned to more “normal” levels with an interesting peak as votes were being cast.
When Lai visited Hawaii and Guam, returning to Taipei on Dec. 6, things got very interesting. In a break with precedent, no announcement was made, nor rationale given, for a massive PLA response that included more than 90 warships.
At a time of year when the PLA is usually less active and the weather is problematic, that December surprise was remarkable. On the first day alone, Dec. 11, there were 53 warplanes and 19 naval vessels detected by Taiwan. With warships from all of China’s three fleets, it was the largest military drills in decades.
The last time the PLA sortied so many naval forces occurred during the third Taiwan crisis from 1995 to 1996. Moreover, the warships appear to have taken up station to the east of Taiwan in two columns, apparently to drill interdicting shipping headed to Taiwan and practice a mock blockade. As those events transpired, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was visiting Japan, and when asked about it, said the Pentagon would “keep a close eye” on developments.
So, what does 2025 hold for a new administration intent on strengthening its deterrence of future PLA provocations?
For one thing, China has not been deterred for some time, as the events of the past year indicate. Returning to a safe status quo will require changing the military balance in Asia. In the absence of that, there is every reason to expect future provocations from Beijing in response to tariffs promised, as well as expectations that the new administration will work to strengthen Taiwan’s defenses.
The bottom line is that provocations will continue and likely escalate until America regains deterrence of China. One indicator of success would be reduced levels of provocative PLA activity around Taiwan, as well in the South China and East China seas against our allies Japan and the Philippines.
Unfortunately, the U.S. has, for the past decade, neither recognized the comprehensive threat China poses, nor taken judicious countermeasures. The next administration seems intent on restoring peace through strength, but against a ready China, that will require a forceful rejuvenation of American economic and military power that has been elusive.
The post What’s in Store in 2025 for US From China’s Military? appeared first on The Daily Signal.
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