A group working on peaceful relations between the United States and China on Monday sent a letter to the leaders of both countries, calling on them to end or limit “dangerous and provocative military maneuvers” in and near the South China Sea. in Taiwan, which could lead to an all-out war.
Writing to US President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, US-China Policy Committee co-chairs Joseph Gerson and Michael Clare warned that the US “combatant” Navy and China and the aerial maneuvers “could lead to an outbreak of accidental or unintended conflict with unpredictable and possibly catastrophic consequences.”
The group recorded 115 “provocative maneuvers and close encounters” between U.S. and Chinese forces this year, a dramatic increase after a controversial August visit to Taiwan by a U.S. congressional delegation led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (California).
According to the document, China initiated 93 of the incidents, while the US triggered 22. They ranged from “modest actions” by one or two ships or planes to “large-scale maneuvers,” such as a Chinese air force exercise involving 62 warplanes along China’s maritime border with Taiwan.
“Whenever these maneuvers take place, it is common for the opposing side to mobilize its own air and naval forces to protect its (or its allies’) territory and repel any intruders,” the letter notes. This resulted in some cases in close encounters between the ships and planes of the opposing sides, with only the skillful action of the pilots and captains preventing a potentially fatal collision.
Activists also urged the leaders of the two countries to hold talks “between military officials of both sides” as well as “other stakeholders such as Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines” to create “rules of the road” for security , non-threatening air and naval maneuvers.” The group’s letter comes amid intense U.S. diplomatic efforts to persuade China to lend less support to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“It’s strange,” wrote South China Morning Post editor Dong Lei on Friday, “how Washington expects help from China for Ukraine while maintaining a campaign of acceleration and humiliation, including China’s refusal to condemn Russia and Taiwan”.
US turning to Asia
Since the Obama administration began a “pivot to Asia,” the US has expanded its military forces and provocative military maneuvers in an effort to encircle and intimidate China.
US strategic planners see Taiwan – which seceded from China in 1949 after the defeated Guomindang fled China’s civil war with US support – as essential to blocking China and a key source for making advanced computer chips essential to the US military and industry.
When Biden pledged military support for Taiwan, he effectively overturned the “One China Policy” – enacted when the US resumed diplomatic relations with China in 1979 – by recognizing Beijing as the legitimate government of all of China, including Taiwan.
As of 2019, the US has sold more than $14 billion in weapons to Taiwan and sent military advisers to train its Special Forces.
Rejecting China’s claim to sovereignty over the Taiwan Straits
Under this latest strategy, the Biden administration rejects China’s claims of sovereignty over the Taiwan Strait.
According to the US, China’s claim that there are “no international waters” in the Taiwan Strait is not legitimate, but is intended to “prevent the US from sailing through the strait”, which Beijing says “harms stability and sends the wrong signal to the “Taiwan independence forces”.
The US also accuses China of violating international law by establishing baselines around scattered islands such as the Paracels in the South China Sea, which allow China to claim more internal waters, territorial waters, an exclusive economic zone and continental shelf than it is entitled to under with international law.
China, however, accuses the US of violating China’s sovereignty and security while pursuing maritime hegemony and militarizing the South China Sea. “The facts fully prove that the US is a ‘danger creator’ in the South China Sea and the ‘biggest destroyer’ of peace and stability in the South China Sea,” they said.
In short, the specter of war between the US and China has never been greater. Accordingly, it is up to us to try to avert conflict and restore legitimacy and sanity to US foreign policy through concerted political activism,” the committee’s letter reads.
