Just hours after China flexed its military muscles with a parade of tanks, missiles and troop carriers through the avenues of Beijing, Taiwan's army yesterday staged live-fire drills to show off 50 refurbished tanks before officials and journalists in a military base in the centre of the island.
The Taiwan government also claimed yesterday that China's navy conducted missile tests and live-fire drills in the South China Sea from August 10th to 16th.
Despite the show of force by both sides, and the stepping up by Beijing of its war of words over Taiwan's move towards independence last month, the atmosphere in the Taiwanese capital, Taipei, was calm yesterday, and government officials expressed confidence that China was not planning a strike against the island, which Beijing regards as a renegade province.
"I personally don't believe they are planning military action because it could damage seriously their economic development," Taiwan's Vice Foreign Minister, Mr Francisco Ou, told The Irish Times. He predicted Beijing would not act unless the communist government needed to distract attention from domestic problems.
"At his moment I don't see any domestic problems which would make it necessary to distract people's attention," he said.
Nevertheless, the Chinese government managed to attract the worried attention of Beijingers and resident diplomats with its unannounced rehearsal in the Chinese capital of a mammoth military parade to mark communist China's 50th anniversary on October 1st. It was the first time tanks had creaked and clattered their way through the heart of Beijing since the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.
Many analysts consider that the timing of the parade, which began late on Monday and continued until 4 a.m. yesterday, was not accidental. Beijing has been venting its fury against Taiwan since President Lee Teng-hui of Taiwan declared on July 9th that Taiwan would in future deal with the People's Republic of China on a "special state-to-state" basis. This was interpreted by China, which has not ruled out the use of force to reunite Taiwan with the mainland, as a move towards eventual independence.
Throughout the centre of Beijing, rush-hour traffic ground to a halt on Monday evening as a long procession of camouflaged tanks, armoured personnel carriers, amphibious vehicles, rocket launchers, artillery pieces and trucks carrying People's Liberation Army troops crept four abreast along the Avenue of Eternal Peace, with erect officers in dress uniform standing to attention.
China's Liberation Army Daily said yesterday that frontline soldiers in the coastal city of Xiamen had vowed to smash Mr Lee's "evil splittist plot". The significance of this report is that the troops face Taiwan's heavily fortified Kinmin island just on the horizon off Xiamen.
The Chinese Communist Party's People's Daily announced that Chinese marines taking part in exercises in the South China Sea "would not sit by and watch the split of any inch of the motherland's territory". Such action "will surely end in bloodshed as it smashes its head into this indestructible great wall of steel", it said.
The display of military vehicles in Taiwan involved 50 US M41 tanks made in 1950, which had been completely overhauled with a more powerful engine, greater manoeuvrability and night vision. Several journalists were invited to witness the result of the $43 million refurbishment at Chi-chi military base.
"The small and refined M41D tanks, which are highly mobile, can play a key role in future battlegrounds," the Defence Ministry said in a statement.
A spokesman for Taiwan's Defence Ministry, Mr Kung Fanding, dismissed the rhetoric from Beijing as "psychological and propaganda warfare", and said the Chinese naval exercises "have no impact on our national security".
The acting government spokesman, Mr Frederic Chang, blamed the Hong Kong media for acting as a "tool of intimidation" in carrying leaked stories from Chinese security sources about plans by Beijing to take action against Taiwan, possibly by seizing an offshore island administered by Taipei.
Such stories were a "test balloon", Mr Ou said. "They want to see what the reaction of the United States would be." He added, however: "I think the PLA (People's Liberation Army) is interested in military action because this will help them get a bigger budget and more influence."