China uses the “boiled frog” strategy For sooner or later, confront the world with the fait accompli of the reunification (or annexation depending on your point of view) of Taiwan.
It involves slowly cooking the frog (the democratic island), gradually raising the temperature of the water until it boils without you almost realizing it. In essence, Xi Jinping is apparently increasing the pressure little by littlewith actions that do not constitute a “casus belli”, are underestimated and therefore they do not elicit a strong response from Taipei and the United States.
He said this in an interview with Financial Times the admiral John Aquilino, American commander for the Indo-Pacific theater.
The officer, who is nearing the end of his assignment, says that during the three years he has spent in the region he has observed a steady increase in tension caused by Chinese forces, who have increased their aggression: «They are increasingly daring and dangerous, for them “strength equals right”», denounces Aquilino.
The admiral recalls theAugust 2022, when Beijing launched ten days of major fire maneuvers around Taiwanon the occasion of the visit to Taipei of the then speaker of the American House Nancy Pelosi. Dozens of Chinese fighter-bombers flew into the Strait and missiles were fired. And after that show of strength now the incursions of the planes with the red star beyond the median line of the Strait (unofficial border but respected for decades) they have become routineare taken for granted.
Chinese Coast Guard units have also begun patrolling the waters around the Taiwanese-controlled islands of Kinmen and Matsu, which are considered a possible target for a first phase of the large-scale attack.
The last time the Chinese “turned up the heat under the pot in which the frog boils” was Saturday morning, a few hours after the departure of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken from Beijing. In three hours, Taipei’s defense detected 22 Chinese planes in the Strait, and 12 Su-30 fighters crossed the median line. A signal to reiterate what Xi and his Foreign Minister Wang Yi had just told Blinken: «Taiwan is an internal issue, a red line». By now the action has become so usual that it doesn’t even deserve an official protest or a news story in the international press.
Indeed, political scientists have observed that Xi has been rather moderate in these first months of 2024, perhaps waiting to listen the inauguration speech of the new Taiwanese president William Lai Ching-tescheduled for May 20th.
Aquilino warns that Beijing’s generals are “boiling the frog” around the Philippines tooparticularly at Second Thomas Shoal, the atoll in the Spratlys that under international law is within Manila’s exclusive economic zone. In 1999 the Filipinos ran an old landing ship, the Sierra Madre, aground on Second Thomas and kept a patrol of soldiers there to claim national sovereignty. But Beijing has been aggressively hindering supplies for months and the transport of material to repair the wreck: Chinese Coast Guard units use water cannons and cut off Philippine boats. The objective is to bring down the outpost without firing a shot. The Chinese have already raised their flag on seven islands in the Spratlys and have built others in the South China Sea, filling atolls with sand and concrete and then fortifying them with missile batteries and runways.
Is it still possible to turn off the heat under the pot where the Taiwanese frog is boiling? Aquilino reports the recipe: «To prevent conflict we need a sense of urgency and speed in delivering modern defense systems». President Joe Biden just signed legislation passed by Congress for $8 billion in military supplies to Taiwan.
