'Authoritarian' China's Xi Jinping preparing more attacks, Taiwan minister says

China-Taiwan Conflict: Taiwan foreign minister Joseph Wu suggested cross-strait communications may diminish even further now.

Taiwan believes China is preparing to find another “pretext for practising their future attack” on the island, its foreign minister said. The comments were reported by Guardian as Taiwan witnessed a record-breaking year of military threats and incursions.

China-Taiwan Conflict: A Chinook helicopter carrying a Taiwan flag flies over the city during the country's National Day celebration in Taipei, Taiwan.(Reuters)

Taiwan foreign minister Joseph Wu suggested cross-strait communications may diminish even further now as China's president Xi Jinping secured his third term. Joseph Wu said the Chinese military threat was “getting more serious than ever”, with a five-fold increase in warplane incursions into Taiwan since 2020.

The most serious Chinese military activity was August’s live-fire exercises, staged after US speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi, visited Taiwan.

“And we are quite sure that the Chinese may want to use another pretext of practising their future attacks against Taiwan. So this is a military threat against Taiwan,” Joseph Wu said adding that it was not just China’s military efforts that were ramping up, but a “combination of pressures”, including economic coercion, cyber-attacks, cognitive and legal warfare, and diplomatic efforts to isolate Taiwan internationally.

Joseph Wu said Taiwan had previously maintained some lines of communication who had “good connections with the Chinese side”. But it is not possible now following Xi Jinping's third term as president.

“It is because the Chinese government system has become so authoritarian. It’s not like the old days when regular academia could write recommendations to the central government and are able to get in touch with the key decision-makers and tell us what is the thinking of the top leaders, things like that,” he said.

“In these couple of years, we are seeing that Chinese academia are afraid of saying different things other than Chinese propaganda. And they told us in a very frank way that they are not connected to the central government any more, or even if they are able to connect with government bureaucracies, those bureaucracies don’t seem to have the trust of the top leader any more," he added.

“He is the paramount leader and there’s no one else challenging him right now," Joseph Wu said about Xi Jinping.