The hypothesis of nuclear blackmail materializes in Beijing on the Taiwanese file

From the start of military operations in Ukraine at the end of February 2022, Moscow undertook to increase tensions with the West by multiplying demonstrations of force, exercises and declarations regarding the possible use of its nuclear capabilities. For the Kremlin, it was a question of preventing the Europeans and the Americans from responding favorably to Ukrainian demands regarding the implementation of a no-fly zone but also against the delivery of high-performance Western weapon systems to the armies. Ukrainians. If indeed the "No Fly Zone" over Ukraine was never implemented, rightly since the risk of a globalization of the conflict would have been far too high, the Europeans and Americans gradually increased the quantities and the performance of the military equipment supplied to the Ukrainians, without Moscow, and the nuclear threat repeatedly brandished , cannot effectively oppose it.

However, the results obtained seem to have convinced the Chinese authorities. Indeed, on the occasion of the controversial visit of the Speaker of the American House of Representatives, the Democratic deputy of California Nancy Pelosi, Beijing has multiplied the demonstrations of force, including with regard to its nuclear weapons, as well as announcements implying that an American military intervention to oppose the annexation of Taiwan by the People's Republic of China, could give rise to the use of nuclear weapons, including strategic ones. Thus several videos showing the deployment and refueling of DF-5 intercontinental ballistic missiles were published a few days after the whirlwind visit of the American parliamentarian to Taipei, as well as various photos and videos of other weapon systems at more short range, such as the DF-16, DF-27 and DF-15B. As for the threat, it was carried in the Chinese press by various analysts and former officers of the PLA, a way of not directly involving the Chinese state while clearly getting the message across.

The new Chinese posture, which until now had never, even indirectly, developed such methods, is not in itself a surprise. In May 2022, the commander of the US Strategic Command, Admiral Charles Richard, had thus warned that it was now necessary to expect, in view of the postures used by Moscow in the context of the Ukrainian conflict, that Russia, but also China, multiply this type of threats and postures in order to hinder the nuisance or even intervention capacities of Western countries. It will therefore hardly have been necessary to wait for this prediction to materialize, even if, in the Chinese case, the threat is more indirect than in the Russian case, the conflict also being so in the same way.

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