The leaders of the US, Australia, India and Japan met on Sept. 24 in Washington for the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, known as “the Quad.” After the conference, they issued a joint statement that contained no reference to China.
However, the following day, huge naval assets from the US, the UK and Australia simultaneously sailed into the South China Sea from four directions, where China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy was conducting drills.
Vietnamese journalist Duan Dang, who specializes in reporting on military affairs, on Sept. 24 started posting updates on Twitter about the situation in the South China Sea and western Pacific.
Dang used open source satellite imagery to show that the British Royal Navy’s HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier strike group had departed from Guam and was transiting through the Bashi Channel from the east. The US Navy’s USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier group had entered the South China Sea via the Strait of Malacca from the south, and the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group was approaching from Japan’s Okinawa islands in the north. Meanwhile, the Royal Australian Navy’s HMAS Canberra helicopter landing dock had departed Vietnam’s Cam Ranh Bay and entered the sea from a southwesterly direction.
The convergence of three aircraft carrier groups in the South China Sea throws into stark relief the unique geography of the area. If conflict were to break out, controlling the four major military ports that allow access and exit to the sea from the north, south, east and west — Subic Bay in the Philippines, Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam, Changi Naval Base in Singapore and the Port of Kaohsiung in Taiwan — would be vital to war strategy. Controlling these ports would also enable the US and its allies to engage in a rapid and limited war by severing the PLA’s strategic supply lines.
Prior to the exercise, the US’ Naval Institute’s Web site on Aug. 30 reported that a sexpartite rapid reaction naval task group, formed from US, UK, Australian, Japanese and Indian naval assets, carried out operational deployments in the Indo-Pacific region that was clearly focused on island capture.
During an interview with Sky News on Sept. 17, Australian Minister for Defence Peter Dutton observed: “There is a militarization of bases across the region.”
The driving factor behind this militarization is China’s present attitude and intent toward Taiwan.
A 2017 Rand Corp report assessed that of the three major trigger points that could result in a conflict between the US and China, two involved Taiwan. Although there is no military defense treaty between Taiwan and the US, Taiwan is the linchpin of the first island chain. This is the primary reason why PLA aircraft frequently harass Taiwan’s southwestern air defense identification zone.
While the defensive scope of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the US and Japan incorporates waters surrounding the Taiwan Strait, the US military normally only dispatches navy vessels to traverse the South China Sea under “freedom of navigation” operations.
Earlier this year, the US Navy announced that it would re-establish the 1st Fleet. However, until this happens, the defensive burden currently being borne by the US Navy’s 7th Fleet could become greater and the ability of US-Japan joint forces to project power within the East China Sea would be squeezed even further.
The establishment of the AUKUS security alliance between Australia, the UK and the US could have significant implications for peace in the South China Sea. Not only does it dilute the relevance of the older ANZUS alliance between Australia, New Zealand and the US, which did not allow for involvement in the South China Sea, Australia’s future nuclear-powered submarine capability can integrate with US and Japanese naval assets to form a defensive patrol line stretching from the South and East China seas to the Taiwan Strait. This would help to put flesh on the bone of the Quad alliance.
Taiwan’s military and foreign policy establishment once feared that if the PLA were to use force to annex Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島), the provisions of the Taiwan Relations Act might not allow Washington to provide military assistance. However, AUKUS should increase Beijing’s misgivings about making any rash moves.
With the US, UK and Australia’s joint carrier group naval maneuvers demonstrating that they are working on the assumption that the South China Sea would be the stage for the next war, the PLA should factor in a much higher strategic cost for any military adventurism.
Ou Wei-chun is the chief legal officer of a private company.
Translated by Edward Jones
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US