Chinese warplanes flying into Taiwan’s Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) is not new. Nor is the presence of foreign navies sailing warships through the South China Sea. What is new is the number and type of aircraft involved, and the manner of their testing of Taiwan’s defences. As the Taiwanese defence ministry puts it, they “don’t even bother to make excuses anymore”. What is also new is the resolve of multiple nations to push back against China’s increasingly assertive behaviour.
The People’s Liberation Army aircraft flying towards Taiwan include the usual surveillance and maritime patrol aircraft, but now there are far more fighter jets and bombers in the air as well. Dozens of them, coming in waves.
Both countries hold their National Day celebrations in October and the month is usually a period of tension. But this year several factors have come into play ensuring the attention of large parts of the globe. At stake is not only Taiwanese democracy, but the right of nations to sail their ships through what are legally defined international sea lanes.
It’s clear Beijing thinks it is approaching the moment when the PLA may be strong enough to attempt to conquer Taiwan. That does not mean war is imminent, but its actions show just how far China has distanced itself from Deng Xiaoping’s policy of “Tao guang yang hui” – keeping a low profile. Its confidence is displayed not just in probing Taiwan, but in constructing military bases on artificial islands and then aggressively insisting that almost all the 1.3 million-square-mile South China Sea is its sovereign territory. Beijing’s “nine-dash” line, depicting what it says are its waters, is drawn around territory also claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Taiwan. It also runs across international sea lanes which are enshrined in the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). China is among the countries which have ratified it.
To underline how seriously they take UNCLOS, the US, UK and Australia conduct regular freedom of navigation operations or FONOPS in the region. When they pass through waters claimed by China, Beijing routinely refers to “gunboat diplomacy” and, if it’s a British ship, “colonialism”. Earlier this year Chinese media said that if the ships strayed too close to islands within the nine-dash line they would be “expelled”. Amid rising anti-Chinese sentiment most of the region’s other countries welcome these FONOPS.
The recent naval drills off the Japanese island of Okinawa angered Beijing which said they undermined regional peace and security. It’s worth noting who took part and what happened.
Two US aircraft carriers were involved, along with the new UK carrier HMS Elizabeth, and one of Japan’s four “Big Deck” ships which they have long pretended are not carriers for fixed wing aircraft but are. Officially the JS Izumo is a helicopter carrier, but last weekend a jet fighter landed on it and then took off – the first time an aircraft has taken off from a Japanese carrier since the Second World War. The fact that it was an American F-35B jump jet will only have enraged Beijing as it shows how foreign powers are now coming together to face what they see as China’s challenging of the rule of law in the Pacific. Naval vessels from the Netherlands, Canada and New Zealand also took part in the exercises which were designed to improve how the six countries’ ships interact.
There’s a risk the Chinese will view this new resolve as a challenge it needs to quickly meet before it grows too strong. Some analysts suggest it could trigger an attempt to invade Taiwan sooner rather than later. The Taiwanese government takes the view that the less robust the response to China, the more likely it is to attack. Writing in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs magazine Taiwan’s President, Tsai Ing-Wen spelt out what was at stake: “Taiwan lies along the first island chain, which runs from northern Japan to Borneo; should this line be broken by force, the consequences would disrupt international trade and destabilize the entire western Pacific. In other words, a failure to defend Taiwan would not only be catastrophic for the Taiwanese; it would overturn a security architecture that has allowed for peace and extraordinary economic development in the region for seven decades”.
The British have made several statements of intent. Late last month the Type 23 frigate HMS Richmond sailed through the Taiwan Strait between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland en route to Vietnam. There are few things Beijing regards as more provocative. While the Americans do it on a routine basis, few of their allies do. The UK has not risked it for more than a decade. China said the ship “harboured evil intentions”.
Earlier this week the carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth entered the South China Sea for a second time via the Luzon Strait which connects the Pacific Ocean to the South China Sea and lies between Taiwan and the Philippines. Both countries claim territorial rights there, and so does China.
This type of diplomatic/military signalling of resolve was flagged this summer in the British government’s “Global Britain in a competitive age – The Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy”. It singled out the Indo-Pacific as being critical to the UK’s security and at “the centre of intensifying geopolitical competition with multiple potential flashpoints”.
On the central issue, it says: “Much of the UK’s trade with Asia depends on shipping that goes through a range of Indo-Pacific choke points. Preserving freedom of navigation is therefore essential to the UK’s national interests”. The UK will “deploy more of our naval assets across the world”, hence the presence of the Royal Navy in the South China Sea and the Taiwan and Luzon Straits.
HMS Elizabeth is on a world tour, visiting more than 40 countries for her coming out party. But once she sets sail for home, two Royal Navy patrol ships are due to arrive for a five-year deployment. As that finishes there are plans for Type 31 frigates to be permanently based in the region. They have just begun to be built. So has the rationale for the UK, and others, to be operating so far from home.