With the United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi leaving Taiwan, China has now launched its military exercises.

From a geo-strategic perspective, such exercises signify that China's move to blockade Taiwan has always been one of the plans for it to achieve its "unification". Breaking the opponent's resistance without a fight, and causing it to collapse on its own is the most exceptional strategy, as outlined in the ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu's Art of War. This is certainly a more superior form of pragmatic tactic compared to the imaginative "occupation" or "armed unification" of Taiwan.

However, achieving such an aim would require certain conditions, opportunities, resources, and window periods.

The Taiwan Strait carries high strategic significance. It is a key hub for Japan and South Korea to connect to the global market, and a crucial area linking these two countries to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and other places. More than 80,000 ships pass through the Taiwan Strait every year, and three-quarters of Japan's cargo volume pass through its waters. As it is pivotal to the economic development of East Asian countries, any war in this area will severely affect their survival.

It is worth noting that 70% of the oil needed by Japan is shipped to the country from the Persian Gulf via the Melaka Strait-South Sea-Taiwan Strait or Bashi Channel-Ryukyu-Japan maritime route, and a large part of Japan's manufactured products also pass through this route. Meanwhile, more than 90% of China's international trade in goods is also conducted through the sea route as well. Theoretically, there are mainly four strategic channels for China's maritime trade, and most of these four major channels pass through the Taiwan Strait. With all these in mind, the Taiwan Strait is of major strategic importance for China.

China has attempted to establish a concept of "territorial sea" for the Taiwan Strait, with the purpose of creating conditions for controlling it. The United States then initiated the Freedom of Navigation (FON) in the Taiwan Strait to undermine such an effort. In addition, it has also vigorously promoted the Asia-Pacific Strategy, where the Indo-Pacific Strategy that includes India is an extension of this. This is with the hope to construct an alliance on a broader basis to erode China's control over the Taiwan Strait.

As a countermeasure, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) initiated the military exercises on August 4. Unleashing a show of force, the exercises fired missiles in the circular area around Taiwan. This is tantamount of constructing gates surrounding the island, which China can open or close at will. With the projection of long-range strategic bombers, combined with space intelligence, as well as maritime and air forces, this was a complete blockade of the island for three days.

Such a strategic idea was certainly pre-planned, and China definitely keeps a few of such ideas up its sleeves. That being said, there are few opportunities and conditions for these ideas to be realized, even after they were being discussed and studied in China multiple times. Now, there was the occasion that China could use to put these ideas into practice.

It is then possible in the future when the situation arises, that China would extend the time of the blockade. If that happens, Taiwan's geopolitical significance will become an "inner island" or even a status more or less equivalent to a "peninsula" in the region controlled by China.

Objectively, the PLA's military exercise has demonstrated the weakness of the FON, and the U.S. 7th Fleet was nowhere to be seen. The three-day military exercises and blockade, as things stand, appear to diminish the significance of the Indo-Pacific Strategy. During this blockade, while the U.S. made some protests, the sole country in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework alliance doing so, no concrete actions were taken.

Geo-strategy has always been closely linked to window periods, trends, changes, and situations. While the U.S. could respond to the situation created by China during the military exercises, for now, China is on the commanding heights, and it would not be easy for the U.S. to regain the controlling power.

There are those in Taiwan who understand the real implications of this. A former Taiwanese military personnel said that the PLA's simultaneous military exercises in six areas around Taiwan Island are obviously an act to "blockade Taiwan". "If the exercise lasts a little longer, for a week or two, then we will not be able to obtain many of our strategic provisions", said the personnel. Julian Kuo, a former legislator and current affairs commentator in Taiwan, stated that, "I wouldn't say this was the beginning of armed unification". This, of course, is not 'armed unification', but China having an upper hand in controlling the situation.

Under such circumstances, the Taiwan Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) hopes to reduce the impact and shock of the incident, stating that this has "little impact" and "merely affected 51 flights", and there are still 11 days of energy reserves. In reality though, Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics Administration is coordinating with the Taiwanese military to seek the usage of military routes and airspace. At the same time, Taiwan itself is rerouting the flights and working with Japan and the Philippines to locate alternative routes, and to use airspace transportation to bring in energy sources. It should be understood that Taiwan is an isolated island economy that relies on foreign trade and external linkages, hence any complete blockade would pose a great challenge to it.

In terms of international relations and geopolitics, this is an out-and-out offensive. From then on, the U.S. geostrategy will need to reflect further retraction, and begin to seriously consider retracting to the front line of Hawaii and returning to its circle of power before World War II. Otherwise, the United States will have to consider the actual collision of long-range strategic conflict. However, is the United States really ready to do so? At least for now, the Biden administration, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, as well as the Taiwanese authorities remain unprepared.

The recent military exercises indicate that China has grasped a rare strategic timing. Through this move, it demonstrates to the world of its forceful geo-strategy. The blockade of Taiwan is part of the scenario in this strategy. At the same time, this has also dwarfed the Indo-Pacific Strategy of the United States. From now on, the world may need to rethink many issues.