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Jamie Seidel, in an article in news.com.au – Australia based news site – wrote that “With diplomatic efforts meeting a wolf-warrior response, international forums gagged, and trade used as a coercive cudgel, Europe is reacting with growing alarm at China’s aggressiveness.”
“The dispatch of warships by the UK, France and Germany to the Indo-Pacific could draw a backlash from China and create new tension. But its positive effects – in terms of deterring Chinese adventurism in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea – arguably outweigh its negative ones,” wrote Hiroyuki Akita, a Japanese international security commentator. “This would set a higher bar for a Chinese decision on military action.”
The move to deploy warships in the South China Sea came after Beijing’s motives for building the world’s largest navy.
At this week’s Two Sessions, National Assembly of the Chinese Communist Party, Chairman Xi Jinping reasserted his desire to build a world-beating fleet.
“Our country’s current security situation is largely unstable and uncertain,” Xi told the assembled delegates. Defence Minister General Wei Fenghe added to the drumbeat, declaring China had “entered a high-risk phase”.
China officially possesses the world’s largest navy, with some 360 ships in active service. By 2035, Xi wants 40 major combatants afloat, reported news.com.au.
“Already commanding the world’s largest naval force, the People’s Republic of China is building modern surface combatants, submarines, aircraft carriers, fighter jets, amphibious assault ships, ballistic nuclear missile submarines, large coast guard cutters, and polar icebreakers at an alarming speed,” warns the US Pentagon’s recent Advantage at Sea report.
In December last year, NATO for the first time issued a report putting China on an equal threat footing as Russia.
France has led the way since in signalling its renewed interest in the “Far East” as it has territories in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It maintains military facilities on Reunion Island, New Caledonia and French Polynesia.
Britain has announced its new aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth will spearhead a multinational task force in its first active deployment later this year. This small fleet is expected to conduct exercises in the South China Sea.
Also, the United States has publicly praised Germany’s decision to send a frigate through the South China Sea to Japan in August. “We welcome Germany’s support for a rules-based international order in the Indo-Pacific,” a US State Department release reads. “The international community has a vital stake in the preservation of an open maritime order.”
A handful of warships will, on their own, appear insignificant to Beijing. But, the UK, France, Germany and The Netherlands are signalling their willingness to at least show their flags in opposition to China’s regional intimidation, wrote Seidel.
Moreover, the European countries’ ships are modern, capable and designed to operate seamlessly with the US and their crews regularly train with each other around the globe.
This makes them ideal for providing moral and physical support for the evolving Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) between India, Japan, Australia and the United States, wrote Seidel.
Meanwhile, Beijing finds itself increasingly friendless – mainly because of its own ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy and military intimidation.
Now it must consider the cost of broad international fallout if it were to make any aggressive move.
“If China takes military action in the Indo-Pacific involving the US, for instance in the Taiwan Strait, Europe is unlikely just to watch and do nothing,” Dr Nicolas Regaud of France’s Institute for Strategic Research told The Nikkei.
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