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.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has offered Taiwan a paradoxical mix of reassurance and risk. Trump’s visceral hostility toward China could reinforce deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. Yet his disdain for alliances and penchant for transactional bargaining threaten to erode what Taiwan needs most: a reliable US commitment. Taiwan’s security depends less on US power than on US reliability, but Trump is undermining the latter. Deterrence without credibility is a hollow shield. Trump’s China policy in his second term has oscillated wildly between confrontation and conciliation. One day, he threatens Beijing with “massive” tariffs and calls China America’s “greatest geopolitical
Ahead of US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) meeting today on the sidelines of the APEC summit in South Korea, an op-ed published in Time magazine last week maliciously called President William Lai (賴清德) a “reckless leader,” stirring skepticism in Taiwan about the US and fueling unease over the Trump-Xi talks. In line with his frequent criticism of the democratically elected ruling Democratic Progressive Party — which has stood up to China’s hostile military maneuvers and rejected Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework — Lyle Goldstein, Asia engagement director at the US think tank Defense Priorities, called
A large majority of Taiwanese favor strengthening national defense and oppose unification with China, according to the results of a survey by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC). In the poll, 81.8 percent of respondents disagreed with Beijing’s claim that “there is only one China and Taiwan is part of China,” MAC Deputy Minister Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a news conference on Thursday last week, adding that about 75 percent supported the creation of a “T-Dome” air defense system. President William Lai (賴清德) referred to such a system in his Double Ten National Day address, saying it would integrate air defenses into a
The central bank has launched a redesign of the New Taiwan dollar banknotes, prompting questions from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators — “Are we not promoting digital payments? Why spend NT$5 billion on a redesign?” Many assume that cash will disappear in the digital age, but they forget that it represents the ultimate trust in the system. Banknotes do not become obsolete, they do not crash, they cannot be frozen and they leave no record of transactions. They remain the cleanest means of exchange in a free society. In a fully digitized world, every purchase, donation and action leaves behind data.
RSS