After days of speculation and a chase by Japanese destroyers and a surveillance plane, it has finally been determined that the nuclear submarine that intruded into Japanese territorial water between Okinawa and Taiwan was Chinese. The fact that the incident took place, and Beijing's response in its aftermath, give legitimate reason for its neighbors to feel alarmed.
It goes without saying that the Chinese submarine, which was spotted on Wednesday, intruded into a highly sensitive area. It's near a disputed gas field that Japan and China have wrangled over. But it is also only 300km southwest of Okinawa, where the majority of the 40,000 US troops stationed in Japan are located.
The Japanese government waited for two days before it openly declared that the intruding submarine was Chinese and asked for an apology. It is hard to believe that the Japanese government needed two whole days to determine the identity of the submarine. After all, it doesn't even take five fingers to count the countries that have nuclear submarines in the area and the required familiarity with the nearby waters. If it had been a US submarine, it would certainly have identified itself. So, after Russia had categorically denied that it was a Russian submarine, the only possible suspect left was China.
In all likelihood Japan hoped that Beijing would step up and claim that the entry into Japanese territorial waters was an accident. However, Beijing disappointed the well-intentioned Japanese government.
Even after the Japanese government openly identified the submarine as Chinese and demanded an apology, Beijing has continued to maintain an aloof stance. The state media in China has remained quiet by not even reporting about the incident. And when Chinese envoy Cheng Yonghua was asked for an explanation and an apology, Cheng refused, saying that his government was still investigating the matter. The likelihood that Beijing does not know by now that it was a Chinese submarine is about zero.
The arrogance of Beijing makes conceding such a mistake -- let alone making a formal apology -- extremely difficult, if not downright impossible. Moreover, the likelihood of the intrusion being an open provocation cannot be ruled out. At the very least, given the location where the submarine was spotted, the incident shows that China is actively and aggressively expanding the reach of its nuclear submarine activities. This is a sign which should rightfully worry all members of the region, not just Japan.
Ironically, as some Japanese media pointed out, Japan probably helped China fund the specific submarine that was chased out of Japanese territorial waters. After all, Japan has provided more than six trillion yen to the Chinese government over the years to aid development. Yet, in the face of such a powerful neighbor, Japan did not dare to take a strong position until it was certain that China was not about to come clean.
The incident also reveals the admirable capability of the Japanese navy and air force. The intruding Chinese submarine was almost immediately spotted and then became the target of a two-day chase by Japanese destroyers and a surveillance plane. Surely, if it was Beijing's intention to test the waters about how far it can go in provoking Japan, Beijing will think twice before pulling the same stunt again.
To Taiwan, the incident reveals something it had known all along: China is a major threat to regional peace. The need to strengthen one's self-defense capability in the face of such a hawkish neighbor has again been verified through this incident. Under the circumstances, buying advanced arms is something that can no longer be delayed or questioned.
On March 22, 2023, at the close of their meeting in Moscow, media microphones were allowed to record Chinese Communist Party (CCP) dictator Xi Jinping (習近平) telling Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin, “Right now there are changes — the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years — and we are the ones driving these changes together.” Widely read as Xi’s oath to create a China-Russia-dominated world order, it can be considered a high point for the China-Russia-Iran-North Korea (CRINK) informal alliance, which also included the dictatorships of Venezuela and Cuba. China enables and assists Russia’s war against Ukraine and North Korea’s
After thousands of Taiwanese fans poured into the Tokyo Dome to cheer for Taiwan’s national team in the World Baseball Classic’s (WBC) Pool C games, an image of food and drink waste left at the stadium said to have been left by Taiwanese fans began spreading on social media. The image sparked wide debate, only later to be revealed as an artificially generated image. The image caption claimed that “Taiwanese left trash everywhere after watching the game in Tokyo Dome,” and said that one of the “three bad habits” of Taiwanese is littering. However, a reporter from a Japanese media outlet
Taiwanese pragmatism has long been praised when it comes to addressing Chinese attempts to erase Taiwan from the international stage. “Taipei” and the even more inaccurate and degrading “Chinese Taipei,” imposed titles required to participate in international events, are loathed by Taiwanese. That is why there was huge applause in Taiwan when Japanese public broadcaster NHK referred to the Taiwanese Olympic team as “Taiwan,” instead of “Chinese Taipei” during the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics. What is standard protocol for most nations — calling a national team by the name their country is commonly known by — is impossible for
India is not China, and many of its residents fear it never will be. It is hard to imagine a future in which the subcontinent’s manufacturing dominates the world, its foreign investment shapes nations’ destinies, and the challenge of its economic system forces the West to reshape its own policies and principles. However, that is, apparently, what the US administration fears. Speaking in New Delhi last week, US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau warned that “we will not make the same mistakes with India that we did with China 20 years ago.” Although he claimed the recently agreed framework
RSS