Taiwan is working with friendly nations on how to respond to a possible economic blockade by China, a scenario that appears more likely than a direct military attack on the island, according to a senior Taiwanese diplomat.
Chinese military exercises are increasingly aimed at "winning the war without an actual fight,” Roy Chun Lee, Taiwan’s deputy foreign minister, said in an interview. "An economic blockade is, for sure, one of the possible options that China is seriously looking at.”
Lee’s remarks came after the People’s Liberation Army conducted three days of military drills around Taiwan, a response to President Tsai Ing-wen’s travel through the U.S., where she met House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California. Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said the intensity of the latest exercises was on a par with Beijing’s reaction last August, when then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island.