The US held at least 15 military drills jointly with its Indo-Pacific allies over the past four months to counteract the Russia-China military coalition and Chinese expansion in the region, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report delivered to the legislature yesterday.
The bureau is to report on “the influence of recent changes in the East Asian situation on Taiwan” at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee today.
In its report, the bureau said that China, Russia and North Korea gathered at China’s large-scale military parade held in Beijing on Sept. 3 to demonstrate their alignment against the US, while the Chinese People’s Liberation Army more frequently conducted joint maritime and aerial drills and “gray zone” harassment in the Taiwan Strait, East China Sea and South China Sea, attempting to challenge the regional order.
Photo: CNA
On the other hand, the US and its allies in the Indo-Pacific region engaged in bilateral or multilateral combat-oriented joint exercises, with allies from outside the region such as the UK, France, Canada and the Netherlands occasionally invited, to jointly counter the trilateral alignment and deter Chinese aggressive actions, it said.
Both the frequency and scale of such joint exercises reached a record high, the bureau said.
The US and its allies also reiterated the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, it said.
The US not only cooperated with Taiwan to bolster the global semiconductor supply chain, but also engaged in more strategic dialogues and information exchanges with Taiwan about the China’s political infiltration, military expansion, cognitive warfare and cyberattacks, seeking to unite democratic allies to counteract Chinese forces, the bureau said.
Data from the bureau showed that the US armed forces held at least 15 bilateral, trilateral or multilateral exercises along with its Indo-Pacific allies from July to this month, averaging at least three exercises per month.
These joint operations included the first Resolute Force Pacific exercise — which had seven participating countries — the Operation Highmast exercise held by the British Royal Navy’s Carrier Strike Group, the Bushido Guardian 25 exercise held by the US, Japan and Australia, and the ongoing Annualex 25 exercise led by the US and Japan, it said.
Taiwan’s Han Kuang military exercise, which ran from July 9 to 18, was held concurrently with the Resolute Force Pacific, the Cope Thunder and the Talisman Sabre exercises, the report said.
Although the Ministry of National Defense did not make remarks about such a coincidence, the attitude of the Indo-Pacific region’s democratic partners toward China’s military expansion is implicit in their actions.
The bureau said all these joint exercises focused on multidomain operations, including air superiority, maritime dominance, long-range, anti-ship warfare and mobile reinforcement, as well as cyberwarfare and space warfare, and sought to enhance interoperability.
For example, the Royal Navy’s Carrier Strike Group took part in a joint maritime and aerial exercise with 12 countries — including the US, Japan, Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Norway —- while it was conducting the Operation Highmast drills in the region, it said.
The US and its allies intensified their joint exercises in the Indo-Pacific region for a reason — to counteract the China-Russia military coalition and deter Chinese expansion, it added.
LIMITS: While China increases military pressure on Taiwan and expands its use of cognitive warfare, it is unwilling to target tech supply chains, the report said US and Taiwan military officials have warned that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could implement a blockade within “a matter of hours” and need only “minimal conversion time” prior to an attack on Taiwan, a report released on Tuesday by the US Senate’s China Economic and Security Review Commission said. “While there is no indication that China is planning an imminent attack, the United States and its allies and partners can no longer assume that a Taiwan contingency is a distant possibility for which they would have ample time to prepare,” it said. The commission made the comments in its annual
DETERMINATION: Beijing’s actions toward Tokyo have drawn international attention, but would likely bolster regional coordination and defense networks, the report said Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s administration is likely to prioritize security reforms and deterrence in the face of recent “hybrid” threats from China, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said. The bureau made the assessment in a written report to the Legislative Yuan ahead of an oral report and questions-and-answers session at the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The key points of Japan’s security reforms would be to reinforce security cooperation with the US, including enhancing defense deployment in the first island chain, pushing forward the integrated command and operations of the Japan Self-Defense Forces and US Forces Japan, as
IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST: Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu said the strengthening of military facilities would help to maintain security in the Taiwan Strait Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi, visiting a military base close to Taiwan, said plans to deploy missiles to the post would move forward as tensions smolder between Tokyo and Beijing. “The deployment can help lower the chance of an armed attack on our country,” Koizumi told reporters on Sunday as he wrapped up his first trip to the base on the southern Japanese island of Yonaguni. “The view that it will heighten regional tensions is not accurate.” Former Japanese minister of defense Gen Nakatani in January said that Tokyo wanted to base Type 03 Chu-SAM missiles on Yonaguni, but little progress
NO CHANGES: A Japanese spokesperson said that Tokyo remains consistent and open for dialogue, while Beijing has canceled diplomatic engagements A Japanese official blasted China’s claims that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has altered Japan’s position on a Taiwan crisis as “entirely baseless,” calling for more dialogue to stop ties between Asia’s top economies from spiraling. China vowed to take resolute self-defense against Japan if it “dared to intervene militarily in the Taiwan Strait” in a letter delivered Friday to the UN. “I’m aware of this letter,” said Maki Kobayashi, a senior Japanese government spokeswoman. “The claim our country has altered its position is entirely baseless,” she said on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Johannesburg on Saturday. The Chinese Ministry
RSS