One chilling word hints at China’s intentions as Taiwan warns it is getting ‘ready for war’
With Taiwan increasingly convinced that China is getting ready to “launch a war”, one chilling piece of rhetoric has hinted at the CCP’s plans.
A chilling new word has entered the vernacular of Chinese officials as they continue to threaten the use of force against Taiwan, with recently concluded military exercises convincing the island’s government that war may indeed be looming.
Tensions between the island nation and the global power that regards it as a breakaway province have simmered a little more ominously than usual in recent days.
Last week, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen met with US Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy in California. Mr McCarthy’s predecessor, Nancy Pelosi, had visited Taiwain last August, becoming the highest-ranked US government official to do so in decades.
Ms Tsai’s meeting with Mr McCarthy prompted three days of Chinese military exercises, named Operation Joint Sword. Those exercises included a simulated encirclement of Taiwan, which observers found particularly worrying.
Beijing itself described the operation as a “serious warning” to pro-independence Taiwanese politicians, or to use its words, “the Taiwan separatist forces”, whom it accused of “colluding with external forces”. It claimed the exercises were “necessary” to “defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
As Joint Sword concluded, China issued an even blunter warning, saying its military was prepared to “fight at any time to resolutely smash any form of ‘Taiwan independence’ and foreign interference attempts”.
“Look at the military exercises, and also their rhetoric. They seem to be trying to get ready to launch a war against Taiwan,” Taiwan’s Foreign Minister, Joseph Wu, warned in a subsequent interview with CNN.
“The Taiwanese government looks at the Chinese military threat as something that cannot be accepted, and we condemn it.”
Asked to gauge when war could break out, Mr Wu simply advised China’s leaders to “think twice” before deciding to use force.
“No matter whether it is 2025 or 2027 or even beyond, Taiwan simply needs to get ready,” the Foreign Minister said.
US intelligence believe the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, has instructed his military to be ready for war by 2027.
Ominous word added to China’s rhetoric
Chinese has long vowed to “unify” Taiwan with the mainland, while Taiwan’s democratically elected leaders say it’s a sovereign state.
It has never been ruled by Communist China.
One particularly worrying word recently popped up in China’s rhetoric: during a state TV appearance, a senior officer in the Chinese army likened Taiwan to a “tumour”.
Colonel Zhao Xiaozhuo made the remark on China’s CGTN network, while justifying the Joint Sword military drills.
“It is because of the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces that have forced the People’s Liberation Army to take counteractions,” said Colonel Zhao.
“Let me give you an example: a person is sick and has a tumour in his body, and we have to operate to remove this tumour. The body will feel pain. But what causes the pain? Scalpels? Or the tumour?
“Of course, if we don’t remove the tumour there is something wrong with our health.”
Disturbing rhetoric on PRC state media describing "Taiwan independence forces" i.e. all of the Taiwanese people, as the "tumours" of an unhealthy Chinese nation who must be excised. pic.twitter.com/N1y9Z1Arji
— @mhar4@mastodon.social (@mhar4) April 11, 2023
The word “tumour” is particularly unsettling because it’s the same one Chinese officials have used to justify their ongoing repression of the Uighur ethnic minority in Xinxiang Province.
In 2021, when it first classified China’s treatment of the Uighurs as a genocide, the US State Department said senior members of the ruling Chinese Communist Party were describing them “malignant tumours”.
For years, China has been systematically targeting the Uighurs, a mostly Muslim minority, incarcerating them en masse and attempting to stamp out their culture. It’s built a series of complexes in Xinjiang, which it describes euphemistically as “vocational training centres”. They are, in fact, re-education centres where human rights abuses are rife.
The United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights published a report on China’s treatment of the Uighurs last August. It detailed “interlocking patterns of severe and undue restrictions on a wide range of human rights”.
That report was only published after a lengthy delay, on the commissioner’s final day in office, after a sustained Chinese effort to suppress it.
Its findings added to an already significant body of evidence that the Uighurs have been subjected to torture, gender-based sexual violence, forced abortions, forced sterilisation, forced labour, arbitrary imprisonment and family separations. Those crimes are in addition to draconian restrictions on expression, movement and religious practices.
As mentioned, in mid-2021, the US State Department’s annual human rights report formally declared that China’s conduct amounted to genocide.
In June of that year, Amnesty International released a report detailing the accounts of more than 50 former detainees.
“Members of the predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang have been subjected to an attack meeting all the contextual elements of crimes against humanity,” the report said. It’s worth reading in full.
“The Chinese authorities have created a dystopian hellscape on a staggering scale,” Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, said at the time.
“It should shock the conscience of humanity that massive numbers of people have been subjected to brainwashing, torture and other degrading treatment in internment camps, while millions more live in fear amid a vast surveillance apparatus.”
The Taiwanese will not be comforted to hear Chinese officials trotting out the same sort of rhetoric for Taiwan that it uses to justify this monstrous treatment of the Uighurs.
Twitter: @SamClench
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