DI SPATC H E S| GLOBAL ALLIANCES But the Philippines sat out recent U.S.-led military exercises in the disputed South China Sea so as not to antagonize China, all while building up its own presence in the Kalayaan Island Group, located off Palawan. The Republic of Palau, for example, between Guam, the Philippines and Indonesia, is asking the U.S. to build bases on the island to counter China. Support for Taiwan, open South China Sea
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The Chinese leadership views Taiwan as a renegade province that needs to return to the Chinese motherland through reunification or war.
terial — enough to create 80 warheads and long-range rockets for its space program that could form the basis of a Japanese nuclear deterrent in short order. This might prompt other neighbours to follow a similar path in the face of increasing Chinese military strength. The 2020 Defence of Japan white paper offered a strategic overview of its perception of the global security environment and detailed its defence strategy. The paper outlined increased concern about China’s maritime posturing on the disputed Senkaku Islands, concern over North Korea’s missile and nuclear program and continuing strategic partnership with the U.S. The document also warned it is closely monitoring Russia’s growing military co-operation with Beijing after a July 2019 joint air patrol between two of Russia’s Tu-95 strategic bombers and their
Chinese H-6 counterparts took place over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea. In the 2019 fiscal year, the Japanese air selfdefence force scrambled 947 times to deal with Chinese or Russian air incursions and the intrusions have risen sharply in the past decade. The white paper also described India as a partner in Japan’s drive to build further defence partnerships with several countries that are key to its security mandate. The paper also outlined plans to convert a Japanese helicopter destroyer, JS Izumo, one of two of the class, to an aircraft carrier with F-35s. Which brings us to South Korea, which is under pressure from the U.S. to take on more of the financial burden of U.S. troops based there, from its sabre-rattling neighbour, North Korea, and faces increased historic tensions with Japan. It is FALL 2020 | OCT-NOV-DEC
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Beijing’s belligerence toward Taiwan, which increased with a series of incidents and threats during the pandemic, has opened a space in the international community for greater recognition of Taiwan and potentially full-scale rearmament, something that has been unthinkable in the past decade for fear of a Chinese invasion. The Chinese leadership views Taiwan as a renegade province that needs to return to its fold. The U.S. Senate is now looking at a further expansion of its trade relationship with Taipei in partnership with its bilateral defence relationship. Despite the history shared by Japan, Taiwan and China, and Tokyo’s seizure and occupation of Formosa prior to the Second World War (1939-1945), Japanese security is as linked to Taiwan’s security as U.S. security interests in Asia are tied to Japanese security. The Czech Republic and Germany have sent representatives to Taipei only to be scorched by Chinese threats and rhetoric. The threats prompted a warning to Beijing from German Chancellor Angela Merkel that Europe stands together and to cut the threats. First the United Kingdom, then France and now Germany have adopted Indo-Pacific strategies to engage with the region, maintain the rule of law and the liberal world order and to contain China. Britain and France have expressed an interest in seeing freedom of navigation operations (FONOPS) in the South China Sea be maintained and, if necessary, by outside powers. Canada’s HMCS Winnipeg just completed a FONOPS in the straits between China and Taiwan as part of Canada’s commitment to ASEAN security. The U.S., U.K., Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have become concerned by China’s repression of its own Tibetan and Uighur populations and Hong Kong. Japan, for its part, has faced the Chinese and North Korean challenges with a debate over changing its pacifist postSecond World War constitution. It should not be forgotten that Japan has been called a nascent nuclear power. Should it change its current constitution, Japan has a stockpile of nuclear weapons-grade ma-
