However, hot air balloon flights can be part of the “gray zone” tactic that China uses to warn Taiwan of its strength and its military options, without tipping into open confrontation. The timing of the balloon flights, in the run-up to Taiwan’s elections, is telling, he said. Ko Yong Sen, a researcher at the National Defense and Security Research Institute, a Taipei think tank funded by Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense. Mr. Ko analyzed the model recent observations.
“It’s more of an intimidation effect in what is turning out to be quite a sensitive time, when we in Taiwan have our elections on January 13,” Mr. Ko said in an interview. China, he said, “may want to tone it down.” People say they have been recklessly using major weapons like planes and ships for harassment, and so they have turned to balloons which can be used for a certain type of intimidation and harassment of less intensity.”
In these elections, Taiwanese voters will elect a president and a legislature, and Beijing has made no secret of its intention to see the ruling Democratic Progressive Party lose power. The party opposes Beijing’s claims to Taiwan and has asserted Taiwan’s distinctive identity and national claims. Decades ago, the party supported Taiwan’s independence, but now says it accepts the more ambiguous status quo of democratic self-determination.
Lai Ching-te, the Democratic Progressive Party’s presidential candidate, was leading in most polls through Wednesday. But Hou Yu-ih, the Nationalist Party candidate, who favors closer ties with China, trails Mr. Lai by only a few percentage points. in some recent surveysand the Nationalists could become the largest party in the legislature, ending the Democratic Progressive Party’s majority.
Asked late last month about the first reports of balloons near Taiwan, a Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman, Wu Qian, neither confirmed nor denied any flights, but suggested thatAs Taiwan was part of China, any dispute over balloons crossing the center line between the two sides was moot. He also accused the Democratic Progressive Party of stirring up the issue “to cheat votes.”
