The Presidential Office on Monday thanked defense ministers from the US, Japan and Australia for their joint statement calling the stability of the Taiwan Strait “essential.”
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Japanese Minister of Defense Gen Nakatani, and Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defense Richard Marles issued the statement at the 14th Trilateral Defense Ministers’ Meeting in Darwin, Australia, on Sunday.
“We emphasize the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and call for the peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues,” they said in the statement, which also raised concerns about Chinese activities in the South China Sea.
“It is important that all states are free to exercise rights and freedoms consistent with international law, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, including freedom of navigation and overflight and other lawful uses of the sea,” it added.
Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said in response to the statement that Taiwan would “continue to strengthen its self-defense capabilities and deepen its cooperative partnerships with the US, Japan, Australia and other like-minded countries to jointly defend the rules-based international order.”
The statement came after a year of rising tensions that include at least 12 confrontations between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea, and a 300 percent surge in incursions by China into waters and airspace around Taiwan since May. Officials in the US and elsewhere have urged all sides to avoid miscalculations that could cause unintentional escalation.
That does not seem to concern Beijing, as it consistently engages in acts that push the boundaries of what countries are willing to accept before taking retaliatory measures.
China engages in frequent military drills near Taiwan, but never enters Taiwan’s contiguous zone. That allows Beijing to threaten Taiwan under the pretense of conducting regular military exercises that are purportedly not targeted at anyone specific. Some of those drills have also involved the encirclement of Taiwan proper, which analysts say are to prepare China’s military for a potential blockade of Taiwan.
As a blockade would be an act of war, Beijing might simply enact a maritime quarantine that would see its large fleet of coast guard vessels stop ships coming in and out of Taiwan’s ports. That would allow it to isolate Taiwan economically and starve it of imports.
Elsewhere in the South China Sea, China frequently blocks Philippine supply vessels and boards fishing boats in addition to using water cannons on them. These acts fall just short of what would justify a Philippine naval response or US intervention. China is unlikely to scale back such “gray zone” tactics, and might even ramp up its aggression toward other countries that are friendly to the US or Taiwan. Beijing would not be moved by formal protests and can only be contained through shows of force.
Despite its rhetoric, China does not want to end up in a conflict with the US. The point is not whether China could inflict serious damage on US forces, but that China would be devastated in such a conflict. There would be no winner in a US-China war, and even if China were to survive it would find itself economically isolated from the world’s other major economies.
That is why Beijing would never risk war with the US and why Taipei should urge Washington to re-establish a military presence in Taiwan — or, at the very least, invite Taiwan to participate in major joint military exercises, such as the Rim of the Pacific Exercise. Some experts have said the US could stockpile supplies in Taiwan, so they would be readily available in the event of conflict in the Strait.
China is increasingly antagonistic and a growing threat to stability in the Asia-Pacific region. Taiwan should seek to engage with US, Australian and Japanese militaries as much as possible to show China any act of aggression would be met with a coordinated and united response.
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