The effectiveness of transits through the Taiwan Strait by foreign navies could be bolstered if those vessels made ports of call in Taiwan.
French Navy frigate Prairial entered the Taiwan Strait on Monday night and sailed in a northerly direction, the Ministry of National Defense said on Tuesday. Chang Ching (張競), a retired captain in Taiwan’s navy, told RW News that the Prairial had been docked in Cebu as part of its operational deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. That transit comes on the heels of one by the US Navy destroyer USS Higgins and the Canadian navy frigate HMCS Vancouver on Oct. 20, and one by German navy frigate FGS Baden-Wurttemberg and logistics ship FGS Frankfurt am Main on Sept. 13 — Germany’s first transit of the strait in 20 years.
The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force also set a precedent on Sept. 25 when naval destroyer JS Sazanami sailed the strait accompanied by naval ships from Australia and New Zealand. That transit marked a “big step away from [Japan’s] long-held policy of not directly challenging China,” the BBC reported.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2022 claimed that the waters of the Taiwan Strait “are China’s internal waters, territorial sea, contiguous zone and exclusive economic zone in that order.” Clearly, that is incorrect according to international law.
“Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea [UNCLOS], to which China is a party, China enjoys a 12 nautical mile territorial sea off of its coasts,” Forbes wrote on June 28, 2022.
“Regardless of the status of Taiwan as a country, the Taiwan Strait still contains a corridor of international waters and airspace beyond the territorial sea of any state,” it wrote.
Many nations are now demonstrating that they are keen to uphold the rules laid out in UNCLOS, and that they would not sit idly while China flouts international norms and order. It has been expressed on numerous occasions that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would have disastrous consequences for the global economy. Probably in part because of that risk, more countries are expressing support for Taiwan. This has manifested most recently with the EU resolution condemning China’s interpretation of UN Resolution 2758.
For some countries, supporting Taiwan has been an expression of support for democracy in general, in the face of what they see as the growing threat of authoritarianism. Regardless of their motivations in supporting Taiwan, democracies would not want to see China exercise control over the Taiwan Strait, which would disrupt shipping, and embolden China to push boundaries and expand further.
Transits through the strait are a good way for countries to demonstrate to Beijing their commitment to protecting international rule of law. However, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) censorship of news media in China gives it the opportunity to present transits in the way it wants to its own public. The CCP would likely present the false narrative that it expelled the foreign vessels from the strait, or that the transits were possible only after the CCP sanctioned them following application by the foreign navy.
If foreign vessels were to make ports of call at Kaohsiung, it would be much harder for the CCP to spin that into a favorable narrative. Such calls would also afford the opportunity for foreign vessels to resupply, and would enable meetings with Taiwanese officials.
China could hardly object to port calls in Taiwan since it suspended US calls to Hong Kong in 2019. Former Maritime and Port Bureau deputy director-general Lee Yun-wan (李雲萬) has said that four ports in Taiwan could handle calls by US destroyers, and Kaohsiung could handle aircraft carriers. The government should communicate with Washington and other governments about the possibility of port calls in Taiwan.
Transits through the Taiwan Strait send a message to China that other countries would not tolerate violations of international law and order. Making ports of call in Taiwan would further convey to Beijing that Taiwan would not be left to face Chinese aggression alone.
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