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Alert yesterday in the skies of Taiwan for the launch of a Chinese satellite, nothing extraordinary except that the country is in excitement for next Saturday’s elections, the most uncertain in the island’s recent history.
Taipei Defense raised the alarm on the afternoon of Tuesday 9 January, with the request to report any object or fragment falling from the sky. When Chinese state media reported that a Long March 2C rocket carrying a satellite was launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southwestern province of Sichuan, tempers on the other side of the strait heated up.
“The satellite successfully entered its predetermined orbit and the launch mission was a complete success,” Chinese official sources said. Taiwan translated the word satellite from Chinese into English as “a missile,” which triggered anxiety, then an about-face over the “inaccurate” choice of words.
Taiwan goes to vote amid fears of a new world war
But it is understandable that there is tension, the island will choose its next leader and the new Parliament and the competition between the DPP party in power for eight years and the nationalist rival Kuomintang is fierce. A victory, the third in a row, by the former is desirable to keep a willing partner like the USA on their side in the effort to repel China, which would put a strain on ties with the government of President Xi Jinping. A victory for the Kuomintang’s competitors would ease tensions with Beijing, bringing Taiwan back into the dialogue orbit.
President Tsai Ing-wen warned in November that Taiwan, a democracy of about 23 million people, faces “increasing military intimidation, gray zone campaigns, cyberattacks and information manipulation” by China. In 2016, the failure to refer to the One China principle in the inauguration speech triggered the frost. Then the frictions of August 2022 when Beijing held important military exercises around the island because Tsai had welcomed the speaker of the American Congress at the time, Nancy Pelosi, as a delegation. Being on the defensive has become normal and even a weather balloon is enough to fuel the war of nerves.