China could seize control of Taiwan’s offshore Kinmen Islands within the next six months, believing that the United States would not take a forceful response to its aggression, according to a new report by American nonprofit research group and advocacy think tank, Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
Researchers from the ISW and the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based centre-right think tank, warned that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping may believe that he has a “unique opportunity” over the coming months to carry out a short-of-war coercion campaign against the Kinmen Islands, given the political landscape in both Taiwan and the US.
“In the United States, President Joe Biden is in his lame-duck period after announcing his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race. The US domestic political landscape is turbulent and divisive amid the ongoing election, the foreign policy establishment is preoccupied with ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and the US populace has little appetite for more war,” the researchers wrote in their report that was made public on August 21.
“Xi [Jinping] may believe these factors will preclude a timely and forceful U.S. response to his Kinmen campaign before the inauguration of a new U.S. president in January 2025,” the report added.
The ISW report has been published amid heightened tension between Beijing and Taipei, following the January election of Lai Ching-te who was sworn in as Taiwan’s president in May.
The Taiwanese Coast Guard Administration said its patrol vessels expelled 835 Chinese boats from Taiwan-controlled waters from January to June 25, prompting the island’s defense minister, Wellington Woo, to warn that China was trying to establish a new norm around Kinmen’s waters, reports The Epoch Times.
In July, tension across the Taiwan Strait intensified after Chinese coast guard vessels boarded and seized a Taiwan fishing ship that was in Chinese waters about 17.5 nautical miles from the Taiwan-controlled waters of the Kinmen Islands, as per reports.
As for Taiwan’s current political dynamics, the ISW researchers said the Taiwanese administration under Lai’s presidency “is still relatively inexperienced” and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DDP) in Taiwan has to deal with “frequent political battles” with the opposition coalition of the Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), which it says are “trying to hinder the DPP’s agenda” of stopping authoritarian expansion.
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As a result, the researchers argue that neither the US nor Taiwan are likely to respond “in an effective or escalatory way,” should China decide to move against the Kinmen Islands.
“The People’s Republic of China (PRC), or China, began aggressively challenging Taiwan’s jurisdiction over its outlying islands, especially Kinmen, in February 2024. Repeated Chinese Coast Guard incursions in Taiwan-controlled waters around Kinmen aim to normalize the PRC’s ‘law enforcement’ jurisdiction in the area,” according to the report by ISW.
China can escalate current lines of effort (LOEs) to erode Taiwan’s sovereignty over its outlying territory of Kinmen in a short-of-war coercion campaign to seize control of the island group in the near term, the report said.
“China can escalate coast guard activities to initiate a quarantine around Kinmen that denies passage to Taiwanese government ships and economically squeezes the islands,” it added. “China can enhance Kinmen’s isolation by imposing a no-fly zone and sabotaging communication infrastructure, before finally coercing Kinmen to demilitarize under PRC oversight.”
Researchers said the United States’ unpreparedness or unwillingness to intervene amid domestic and international distractions increases the likelihood of this scenario.
“Trends in Taiwan’s domestic politics that diminish China’s confidence in its ability to achieve “peaceful reunification” also contribute to the likelihood of such a coercion campaign,” as per the report.
ISW researchers said Beijing’s efforts to seize Kinmen will strike at Taiwan’s political will to resist “unification”, and a successful incorporation of Kinmen by China would significantly diminish Taipei’s faith in the United States’ will to come to Taiwan’s aid and its own ability to defend itself.
Kinmen Islands is located about three miles from the Chinese mainland and about 124 miles from Taiwan, and because of the island’s “close proximity” to China, it is “very hard for Taiwan to defend” Kinmen, the report said.
The report added that China could make its first move “three to four months” from now to seize Kinmen, after the Chinese Coast Guard “normalizes incursions into Kinmen’s restricted and prohibited waters until such incursions occur nearly daily.”
According to the ISW report, China would start attempts to board and detain Taiwanese ships in waters that China “does not undisputedly control” and would begin to fly “ostensibly civilian surveillance drones directly over Kinemen’s military bases.”
The Chinese Coast Guard would either orchestrate or take advantage of an “unfortunate incident,” and use the event “to set up a ‘quarantine’ zone around Kinmen and prevent the delivery of any additional weapons or ‘contraband’ to the islands,” as per the report.
“The quarantine still allows most civilian ships to pass after an inspection but blocks the passage of most Taiwnese government vessels,” the ISW researchers mentioned in the report.
To further isolate the Kinmen Islands, China would subsequently impose a no-fly zone over the area and damage the island’s submarine cables connected to Taiwan, according to the ISW report.
The Taiwanese government would eventually concede, agreeing to turn the Kinmen Islands into a “demilitarized zone” (DMZ), the researchers predicted.
“China eventually establishes its own outposts and government liaison offices in Kinmen with the justification of overseeing the demilitarization and keeping the peace. It may operate these institutions jointly with Kinmen’s civilian authorities,” the researchers noted.
Ultimately, China would turn Kinmen Islands into “an exemplar of the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ scheme it wishes to impose on Taiwan,” as per the report.
The researchers wrote that the CCP will use its media and information warfare to promote narratives of Kinmen’s freedom and economic prosperity, thus increasing the appeal of such a model for Taiwan’s other outlying islands and eventually Taiwan itself.
China imposed the “one country, two systems” political system on Hong Kong after the former British colony was handed back to China in 1997, while Xi Jinping suggested that Taiwan could be united with the mainland under the same political system in a January 2019 speech.
Most Taiwanese oppose the idea of living under the Chinese Communist Party’s political system for mainland China.
About 85 percent of respondents either “disagree” or “strongly disagree” with the CCP’s proposition, The Epoch Times report, citing a recent poll by Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, a government agency in charge of handling cross-strait affairs.
The researchers wrote in the ISW report that the sequence of actions that China would take to seize Kinmen Islands “is a best-case scenario” and there are certainly risks that could derail China’s plan.
According to the report, the psychological effects of the possible seizure of Kinmen Islands included a loss of morale within the Taiwanese military and a loss of confidence in Taiwan about the United States and other friendly countries coming to the island’s aid in the event of a Chinese military attack.
Additionally, the Taiwanese administration may be confronted with a new political crisis, the researchers noted, while the opposition parties may be able to push Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan towards having greater diplomatic and economic engagement with China and reducing its reliance on the US.
The ISW report, however, suggested many preemptive measures, including having the Taiwanese government develop a merchant maritime force and establish a larger Coast Guard presence around Kinmen.
“The United States, Taiwan, and their partners must prepare for the possibility of China’s short-of-war coercion against Taiwan’s outlying islands by ‘pre-bunking’ CCP propaganda narratives that justify such a campaign, strengthening the resilience of communication infrastructure in Taiwan’s outlying territories, and bolstering Taiwan’s maritime law enforcement around the islands,” according to the report.
“The United States and its partners should respond to Beijing’s efforts to seize control of Kinmen by maximizing the economic and reputational costs for China, thwarting the quarantine and communication blockade of Kinmen, and communicating its will to strengthen US defense commitment to Taiwan as a consequence of PRC aggression,” researchers recommended in the report.
“Washington should respond to a successful Chinese seizure of Kinmen by significantly increasing its troop deployments and arms sales to Taiwan, coordinating joint coast guard patrols with Taiwan and other partners, and amending relevant laws to help protect Taiwan’s outlying islands from further coercion,” the report added.
