China is demonstrating “growing aggressiveness” through repeated close encounters with US military aircraft and vessels, the White House said on Monday.
A Chinese warship crossed 137m in front of a US destroyer in the Taiwan Strait on Saturday, and a Chinese jet crossed the path of a US reconnaissance plane as it was flying through international airspace on May 26.
“The concern with these unsafe and unprofessional intercepts ... [is that] they can lead to misunderstandings, they can lead to miscalculations,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
Although China appeared to be expressing its displeasure with the US for sailing through the Indo-Pacific region, the US has “real needs there and we’re going to stay there,” Kirby said.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) confirmed Kirby’s assumption at a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday when he accused the US of “sending warships halfway around the world to China’s doorstep in a provocative way.”
While China’s discontent over having US warships sail so close to its shores might be understandable, there are a few important points that Beijing must bear in mind:
First, the US is not sailing “halfway around the world” to conduct these passages. It has military installations in Japan and South Korea as part of commitments that date back to the immediate post-World War II period and the Korean War. The US also has bases in Guam, and a defense cooperation agreement with Manila that allows it access to Philippine bases. Those commitments mean the US military already has a significant presence in the Indo-Pacific region and China cannot unilaterally change that, no matter how much of a fit it throws.
Second, the US is understandably concerned about the free passage of cargo vessels through international waters in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. That free passage is crucial to the normal functioning of the global economy and is a concern of all nations around the world. Given the outsized role that it plays in the global economy, China should work with other countries to protect freedom of navigation, instead of obstructing it. It should not harbor any illusions about controlling sea and air traffic in the Indo-Pacific, as any attempts to do so would put it at odds with a growing alliance of nations that would cooperate to defend their interests against Chinese hegemony.
Third, the close intercepts by China occurred in international waters — more than 12 nautical miles (22km) from a country’s shore — and regardless of whether Bejing recognizes those international waters, every other country with interests in the region does.
Perhaps China has forgotten the lessons of World War II: Things did not end well for the aggressors, and they would not end well for China either if it attempts to impose itself on other countries. The US and other like-minded nations are trying to avoid a large-scale conflict with China, but the way to do that cannot, and will not, be to simply accept Chinese aggression and suppression of others’ interests.
Beijing’s approach has been to engage others through “gray-zone” tactics and to continuously push the envelope to see how much more it can get away with. The response to this must be to establish clear boundaries and to strictly enforce them. For example, countries navigating the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait should make it clear that any encroachment to within an unsafe distance of another country’s aircraft or vessel by a Chinese aircraft, vessel or other object would be interpreted as an act of war, and that the encroaching object would be fired upon.
Only through a coordinated and unambiguous response from the international community would China get the message that its aggressions will not be tolerated.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS