Tuesday, November 23, 2021
“For Free Indo-Pacific”
US warship drives through Taiwan Strait
The battle of strength between the USA and China in the Indo-Pacific is one chapter richer: Once again a US warship is sailing the strait between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. In Beijing, the action is likely to heat the mood further.
A good week after US President Joe Biden’s video conversation with China’s head of state Xi Jinping, another US warship has crossed the strait between Taiwan and mainland China. The routine passage of the destroyer USS Milius “shows the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” declared the US military. According to a count by international experts, it was the eleventh passage by a US ship this year.
US warships and their allies regularly conduct exercises in the strait, often causing angry reactions in Beijing. China regards Taiwan and the surrounding waters as its territory. The US and many other countries consider the route to be international waters open to all.
Taiwan is one of the biggest conflict issues between China and the US. The government in Beijing regards the island as a breakaway province which, if necessary, should be reunited with the mainland by military force. Most recently, the United States demonstratively supported the government in Taipei.
Xi warned against “playing with fire”
Biden sees the economically and militarily up-and-coming China as the greatest geopolitical challenge of the 21st century and intends to resolutely oppose the government in Beijing. For his part, Xi warned Biden not to “play with fire” on the Taiwan issue.
In the dispute over Taiwan’s claim to independence, China recently downgraded its diplomatic relations with Lithuania. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing announced that it would no longer send an ambassador to the Baltic nation. Instead, China will in future have its diplomatic representation in Lithuania regulated by an agent below the ambassadorial level.
China withdrew its previous ambassador in August. The People’s Republic is in a dispute with the EU member state Lithuania over its decision to upgrade its relations with the island republic of Taiwan. Taiwan opened a national representation under its own name in Lithuania last Thursday after both states announced this move to annoy China in July.