Defense chiefs from the US, Australia, Japan and the Philippines on Thursday vowed to deepen their cooperation as they gathered in Hawaii for their second-ever joint meeting amid concerns about China’s operations in the South China Sea.
The meeting came after the four countries last month held their first joint naval exercises in the South China Sea.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at a news conference after their discussion told reporters that the drills strengthened the nations’ ability to work together, build bonds among their forces and underscore their shared commitment to international law in the waterway.
Photo: AP
Australian Minister for Defense Richard Marles said the defense chiefs talked about increasing the tempo of their defense exercises.
“Today, the meetings that we have held represent a very significant message to the region and to the world about four democracies which are committed to the global rules-based order,” Marles said.
Austin hosted the defense chiefs at the US military’s regional headquarters, US Indo-Pacific Command at Camp H. M. Smith in the hills above Pearl Harbor. Earlier in the day, Austin had separate bilateral meetings with Australia and Japan followed by a trilateral meeting with Australia and Japan.
Defense chiefs from the four nations held their first meeting in Singapore last year.
Washington has decades-old defense treaties with all three nations.
The US lays no claims to the South China Sea, but has deployed navy ships and fighter jets in what it calls freedom of navigation operations that have challenged China’s claims to virtually the entire waterway. The US says freedom of navigation and overflight in the waters is in its national interest.
Aside from China and the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei also have overlapping claims in the resource-rich sea.
Beijing has refused to recognize a 2016 international arbitration ruling that invalidated its expansive claims on historical grounds.
Skirmishes between Beijing and Manila in particular have flared since last year. Earlier this week, China’s coast guard ships fired water cannons at two Philippine patrol vessels off of Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島), damaging them.
The repeated confrontations have sparked fears of a larger conflict that could put China and the US on a collision course. The US has repeatedly said that it is obligated to defend the Philippines — its oldest treaty ally in Asia — if its forces, ships or aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.
US President Joe Biden’s administration has said it aims to build what it calls a “latticework” of alliances in the Indo-Pacific even as the US grapples with the Israel-Hamas war and Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
SHARED VALUES: The US, Taiwan and other allies hope to maintain the cross-strait ‘status quo’ to foster regional prosperity and growth, the former US vice president said Former US vice president Mike Pence yesterday vowed to continue to support US-Taiwan relations, and to defend the security and interests of both countries and the free world. At a meeting with President William Lai (賴清德) at the Presidential Office in Taipei, Pence said that the US and Taiwan enjoy strong and continued friendship based on the shared values of freedom, the rule of law and respect for human rights. Such foundations exceed limitations imposed by geography and culture, said Pence, who is visiting Taiwan for the first time. The US and Taiwan have shared interests, and Americans are increasingly concerned about China’s
RSS