President William Lai’s (賴清德) stopovers in Hawaii and Guam during his first overseas trip to Taiwan’s Pacific diplomatic allies are indicative of a Taiwan-US alliance to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a Taipei-based security expert said on Sunday.
Lai arrived in Hawaii on Saturday for a two-day stopover on his trip to Palau, Marshall Islands and Tuvalu, and is scheduled to make a stopover in Guam on his return trip.
Lai’s trip is set to “link” the first, the second and third island chains, said Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the government-funded Institute for National Defense and Security Research.
Photo: Reuters
Taiwan is on the first island chain, while Guam and Palau are along the second island chain, and Hawaii is on the third island chain, Su said.
The three island chains are strategically important for curbing China’s expansionism and, in particular, the BRI, he said.
The first island chain is the “first line of defense” against Chinese expansionism and a critical maritime route for fuel, with Taiwan at the center of this chain, Su said.
As China is building deep-water harbors in the Solomon Islands and Peru and a space tracking station in Kiribati, fortifying the second island chain aids efforts to defend the first island chain is in the interest of the US and its allies, he said.
Meanwhile, open-source data showed that the George Washington Carrier Strike Group (CSG) is deployed in Yokosuka, Japan, while the Abraham Lincoln CSG is in Port Klang, Malaysia, and the USS Carl Vinson supercarrier is in the East Pacific.
Asked if such deployments were made to deter China from overreacting to Lai’s passing through the US state and territory, Association of Strategic Foresight research fellow Chieh Chung (揭仲) said they were aimed to deter China, but were unlikely related to Lai’s itinerary.
Academics have said that there is a high possibility Lai’s transit stops in the US could trigger Beijing, causing it to hold large-scale military exercises near Taiwan, in part to “set the ground rules” for US president-elect Donald Trump regarding Taiwan.
However, this is unlikely as such a tactic could irritate Trump and have the opposite effect, the academic added.
Rather, the move is likely intended to warn China not to engage in any unnecessary or provocative behavior in the Taiwan Strait in the run-up to Jan. 20, when Trump is to be inaugurated, he added.
The first island chain refers to the archipelago consisting of the Aleutian Islands, the Japanese archipelago, South Korea, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, the Philippines and the Greater Sunda Islands.
The second island chain refers to the Izu Islands, the Bonin Islands, the Mariana Islands, the Caroline Islands, Guam, Palau and Halmahera Island.
The third island chain refers to Alaska, Hawaii, US- governed Pacific Islands, Australia and New Zealand.
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