The French frigate Vendemiaire’s passage through the Taiwan Strait on April 6 sparked China’s acrimonious response, which indicated not only its expansive ambitions, but also a serious security concern to the region.
Chinese National Ministry of Defense spokesman Senior Colonel Ren Guoqiang (任國強) accused the vessel of “illegally entering Chinese waters” and canceled the ship’s participation in a naval parade to celebrate the Chinese navy’s 70th anniversary on April 23 in Qingdao.
It was the first time that China has referred to the Taiwan Strait with such strong sovereign and legal implications — revealing an intention to encompass the international waterway into its territorial or economic exclusive zone.
According to a Financial Times report, the French Ministry of Defense said that its navy had been transiting the Taiwan Strait at least once a year without incident or reaction from China. Obviously, China’s stern response was purposefully aimed to dramatize the passage and was in sharp contrast to its response when US warships sailed through the waterway.
The US sent two destroyers, the USS William P. Lawrence and the USS Stethem, though the Strait on April 28. It was the seventh time that US warships had sailed through the waters since July last year and the fourth this year — once every month.
When navigating the Strait from south to north, one of the US warships turned on its automatic identification system, which sends signals to other ships nearby to avoid collisions, to enable the public to track it on the Internet or through mobile applications.
The high-profile transit was unprecedented and the US’ message was clear.
The US Navy’s Seventh Fleet confirmed the passage the next day and said in a statement that “the ships’ transit through Taiwan Strait demonstrates the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
For the US, it was a part of its freedom of navigation operations to ensure free passage through the the waterway as allowed by international law.
Rather than the intimidating rhetoric Beijing used against France, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Geng Shuang (耿爽) said that China had paid close attention to the US passage and expressed its concerns to the US. Similar mantras had been repeated in the previous months when US warships transited the Strait.
For example, on Feb. 24, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said that “we are firmly opposed to the US’ provocative acts, which neither keep the peace and stability of Taiwan Strait nor help the development the China-US relations.”
China’s toned-down response to the determined US posture clearly reveals its bullying and aggressive nature. Showing weakness to China only emboldens its ambitions and risks further dangers.
Nevertheless, Chinese military threats are daunting and relentlessly increasing.
The Pentagon in its latest China Military Power report said that “Taiwan persistently remains the PLA’s [the Chinese People’s Liberation Army] ‘strategic direction’” and “China has an array of options for a Taiwan campaign, ranging from an air and maritime blockade to a full-scale amphibious invasion to seize and occupy some or all of Taiwan or its offshore islands.”
With these military options, Beijing’s key goals range from demonstrating its readiness to use force or taking punitive actions against Taiwan, to forcing Taiwan into capitulating to unification or unification dialogue, the report said.
Two Chinese fighter jets on March 31 crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait for the first time in 20 years. Chinese fighter jets or bombers conducted exercises by circling Taiwan more than 20 times since December 2016, when Taiwan was holding presidential and legislative elections and when then-presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was the frontrunner, whose Democratic Progressive Party supports a distinct Taiwanese identity.
The US has decided to take a much tougher stance toward China’s military expansionism.
Responding to China’s provocative acts in the South China Sea, US Admiral John Richardson, head of the US Navy, in January told his Chinese counterpart, Vice Admiral Shen Jinlong (沈金龍), that the US would treat the Chinese coast guard or maritime militia, which is disguised as fishing boats, as equals of the Chinese navy.
Although unarmed, the maritime militia receives training from the Chinese navy and plays a major role in ramming vessels, blocking access to lagoons and harassing ships, and has been involved in the seizure of reefs and shoals to advance Beijing’s military purposes.
To deter China’s military intimidation against Taiwan, US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Randall Schriver at a news conference on the Pentagon report on May 3 said that “any threat to Taiwan, including economic threats, blockade, etc, would be regarded with grave concern in the United States.”
“History is clear: When Taiwan has been threatened, the US has responded in an appropriate manner to help support Taiwan to preserve its status, free from coercion,” he said.
At the same time, the US has been keeping up economic pressure on China.
US President Donald Trump on May 5 tweeted that he would raise the tariffs on Chinese goods worth US$200 billion from 10 percent to 25 percent at end of the week and “shortly” impose 25 percent tariffs on an additional untaxed US$325 billion of Chinese imports.
This is an attempt to force China into making more concessions in a final trade agreement, aiming to end the months-long trade dispute, which Trump thinks has lasted too long.
Trump’s muscular approach to dealing with Beijing’s bad economic behavior has been welcomed by Democrats and Republicans.
Referring to Trump’s smack, US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted: “Hang tough on China” and “Don’t back down. Strength is the only way to win with China.”
Curiously enough, when Taiwan’s most important security ally, the US, and like-minded countries around the world have decided to defend a rules-based world order, freedoms and the democratic system, some Taiwanese turn a blind eye to the Chinese threats and nurture the fantasy that peaceful cross-Strait relations are based on the so-called “1992 consensus.”
The “consensus” — in which the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) claims that both sides of the Strait recognize that there is only “one China” and admits that each have different interpretations of what China means — is not only self-deceiving, as Beijing recognizes Taiwan as a part of China and criticizes the different interpretations of China for producing two Chinas, but also misleading, as it is a prelude to China’s “one country, two systems” formulation.
Unfortunately, the KMT’s major candidates for next year’s presidential election unanimously accept this misnomer.
More importantly, ignoring that Taiwan’s exports to China and Hong Kong have reached 41.2 percent of its total exports — a dangerously high level of dependency on a rival country — these candidates are eager to boost the Taiwanese economy through deepening trade relations with China, rather than decreasing them.
This erroneous and perilous China-oriented export policy has been adopted for decades, only allowing China to increasingly strangle Taiwan’s economy, while Beijing translates the massive trade profits into military power to threaten Taiwan.
Taiwan should correct this wrong method, divert its exports to other countries and avoid funding its own destruction.
Until the elections on Jan. 11 next year, China will certainly use every means, such as ratcheting up military pressure, increasing trade or financial benefits, or running fake news campaigns, to meddle in Taiwan’s elections.
Taiwanese voters should bear in mind that freedom is not free. Dispelling precarious illusions about China, developing a strong national defense and firmly confronting Chinese provocations is the way to protect Taiwan’s precious democracy and existence.
Tu Ho-ting is a senior journalist and international political analyst based in Taiwan.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs