SwedCham China Insights for the Week of May 20 - May 24 , 2024

Top news of the week:

Xi stresses efforts to promote high-quality development of tourism sector

20 May 2024

President Xi Jinping recently made important remarks on work related to the development of the tourism sector, stressing the need for the development of new policies to coordinate tourism’s development and cooperation.

China unveils guideline to promote development of smart cities

21 May 2024

China on Monday unveiled a guideline on promoting the development of smart cities and urban digital transformation to make urban management smarter.

China formulating plan to improve biodiversity conservation

22 May 2024

China is formulating a plan for implementing major biodiversity conservation projects, with the country considering this an undertaking of great importance.

PLA conducts joint military drills surrounding Taiwan Island

23 May 2024

The People’s Liberation Army has launched a two-day exercise around Taiwan in a practice run for a blockade of the self-ruled island.

Leaders of Korea, China, and Japan will meet in Seoul on Monday

24 May 2024

Chinese premier Li Qiang will attend the trilateral summit between leaders from 26^th to 27^th of May. It is the first trilateral talks in more than four years to discuss how to revive their cooperation.

Insight of the week:

The Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) started joint military drills surrounding the island of Taiwan at 7:45 a.m. Thursday. This move already comes at a time in a location fraught with geopolitical tensions.

The drills were the first substantive response by China to the swearing-in of leader of Taiwan Lai Ching-te, whom Beijing dislikes, in Taipei on Monday. Lai’s party asserts Taiwan’s separate status from the mainland, and in a high-profile inaugural speech on Monday, he vowed to keep Taiwan’s democracy safe from mainland pressure. Historically, the mainland has used military drills as a response to pro-independence sentiments from the government in Taiwan. For example, the PLA Navy launched unprecedented massive drills around the island in 2022 after then–US House speaker Nancy Pelosi defied Beijing’s repeated warnings and visited Taipei.

According to the PLA, the drills are being conducted in the Taiwan Strait, the north, south and east of Taiwan Island, as well as areas around the islands of Kinmen, Matsu, Wuqiu, and Dongyin. The drills focus on joint sea-air combat-readiness patrol, joint seizure of comprehensive battlefield control, and joint precision strikes on key targets, testing the joint real combat capabilities of the forces of the command. Apart from the four branches of the military, the coastguard force in Fujian said it sent a fleet on Thursday to take part in patrols of Wuqiu and Dongyin, two outlying islands controlled by Taipei.

The Taiwanese defense authority released a statement calling the drills a provocation that disrupts regional peace and stability, adding that its naval, air and ground forces are standing by. These kinds of drills, especially the encirclement drills, have become a norm in recent years since Pelosi’s Taipei visit in 2022. In mainland, the social media response has been strong, especially coupled with the responses to Lai’s speech; Chinese netizens are very sensitive to issues surrounding Taiwan, and occasionally respond in nationalist sentiment.