When two Chinese fisherman died last month trying to flee Taiwan’s coastguard, Beijing laid the blame at Taipei’s feet and demanded an apology. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also spied an opportunity to advance its territorial claims.

China has been targeting Kinmen, an island controlled by Taiwan, more aggressively over the past few weeks. The CCP stated that ‘there is no such thing as “prohibited or restricted waters”’ – saying that the waters around the island had been used as traditional fishing grounds by both sides. On the morning of 19 February, four Chinese coast guard vessels patrolled around Kinmen’s restricted waters. Personnel boarded and inspected a Taiwanese tourist boat that had ‘veered slightly of course’.

The next day, a Chinese coast guard boat entered Kinmen’s waters, leaving an hour after Taiwan’s own coast guard dispatched a boat to drive it away. It marked the start of a new, but entirely predictable, norm – when Beijing says a boundary does not exist, it demonstrates it with actions.

A week later, five Chinese ships crossed into the prohibited or restricted waters around Taiwan’s frontline island. Last Friday, China sent another four coast guard vessels into these waters, despite the Taiwanese coast guard, only the day before, answering their calls to help rescue a capsized Chinese fishing vessel. The following day, another four Chinese coast guard vessels had to be expelled from Kinmen’s prohibited waters.

Eisenhower went on to say that ‘sometimes I wish they’d sink’

Kinmen is no stranger to a crisis. Referred to as one of ‘those damn little offshore islands’ by Dwight Eisenhower, it sits a few miles from China’s coast – yet remains part of Taiwan. In the 1950s, when it was known to westerners as Quemoy, the islands were the site of two China-US standoffs, both of which could have escalated to global nuclear war. It is perhaps no surprise then that Eisenhower went on to say that ‘sometimes I wish they’d sink’.

Kinmen has come a long way over the past half-century. Tunnels and turrets, once teeming with Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist forces, are tourist attractions. Residents on the island enjoy all the democratic rights enjoyed by citizens in Taiwan-proper.

Beijing’s approach to the offshore island has also changed. Rather than seeing the island’s proximity to China solely as a vulnerability to be exploited, it is now also regarded as an enticing prospect. A chance, for the CCP, to showcase the benefits of integration and exchange, and thus advance its ‘reunification’ agenda. In his 2019 ‘Message to Compatriots in Taiwan’, China’s president Xi Jinping encouraged ‘connectivity wherever necessary’, starting with ‘supplies of water, electricity, gas, and construction of sea-crossing bridges from coastal areas in Fujian province to Kinmen …’ Yet, as recent events show, it is not all sweeteners.

A handful of incidents might not look worthy of much international attention. But this is precisely the point. Grey-zone manoeuvres start with a statement, and then a few, seemingly minor, innovations, that slowly intensify until they become the new normal. Beijing previously proclaimed the median line, the once respected barrier running through the Taiwan Strait, as non-existent and now its fighter jets proceed to repeatedly cross it, heightening the risk for miscalculation.

Taipei clearly wishes to avoid escalation. Following the first incursion, Taiwan’s defence minister Chiu Kuo-cheng stated that the military would not ‘actively intervene’, instead urging that the matter be handled peacefully. Yet China’s opportunism appears unrelenting. Following the latest incursions, a few days ago a spokesperson at Beijing’s Taiwan office insisted, once again, that the patrolling of Kinmen’s waters was ‘legitimate action’. ‘We will absolutely not’, he went on to say, ‘tolerate or condone the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities’ brutal acts…’

Given that the DPP’s Lai Ching-te will shortly begin a four-year term as Taiwan’s president (the third consecutive term for his party), expect Beijing’s phoney fury to continue. While they may not wish to escalate the situation, they want to send a message and will attempt to take advantage if they think they can get away with it.

In response to recent events, the United States has issued a boilerplate call for peace and stability across the Taiwan strait to be maintained and expressed opposition to unilateral changes to the status quo. Others, including the UK government, have been less vocal. Let’s hope that concerns about Beijing’s advances around Kinmen are, at the very least, being raised, by Foreign Office officials behind closed doors. Perhaps, parliamentarians can find out at next week’s, fortuitously timed, adjournment debate on Britain’s cross-strait policy.