Alwaght- Chinese officials have repeatedly warned the US against warmongering around their borders but the White House leaders seem to have been turning a deaf ear, and this making the region a powder keg ready to go off.
China's military has announced a five-day military exercises in the South China Sea in an area where there is a chain of disputed islands and where the US navy carries out patrols. The spokesman of the Chinese army command has announced that the drills are a response to the illegal presence of the US navy in the region. It is said that all kinds of Chinese fighters, bombers, anti-submarine jets, submarines, cruisers and aircraft carriers are present for the drills. Simultaneously, the US and Japan have also sent 52 aircraft for exercises in the Sea of Japan, the Philippine Sea, and the Pacific Ocean. The two countries said it was a response to Chinese and Russian naval activity in the waters around Japan in the past weeks.
China's naval exercises come while US warships have violated China's territorial waters in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea in recent weeks during the patrolling, and the Chinese army has pushed them out of this area. With these measures, Washington is trying to challenge China's territorial integrity, but Beijing has repeatedly warned that it will give a "crushing response to any foreign aggression" around its borders.
China launched its third aircraft carrier last month as a warning to the US that Beijing is ready for any scenario. In recent days, the Chinese army has warned Washington several times that it is on full alert for its adventure on its borders. Although China has the largest army in the world and is not short of troops and military equipment, in terms of naval power, it was dealing with many problems until a few years ago. But in recent years, it has tried to reverse its naval weakness and therefore has built three indigenous aircraft carriers and has joined the club of world powers having this technology.
In the past decade, China has tried to strengthen its military power and challenge the hegemony of the US regionally and globally, and during this time, it has increased its military budget substantially, and now it is in the second place after Washington in military spending. This has been a source of American concerns.
In the past decade, the US has identified China as a new threat to its global interests in its security strategy and resorts to any means to contain the rising dragon. The dispatch of thousands of military forces and dozens of warships and fighters to East Asia in recent years has been done in order to counter so-called Chinese threats. The fear of the Americans and their allies from China's threat is obvious in the recent meeting of the G7, where the group allocated a budget of $600 billion to counter Beijing's global policies.
Ukraine crisis's repercussions on Taiwan
Already escalating the tensions with China, the US since Ukraine war eruption has been blowing the war horns. Worried about Beijing's support for Moscow in Ukraine, the Americans and Europeans have been making provocations to involve China into a military action in Taiwan. Since the beginning of the Ukraine war, Western leaders have repeatedly claimed that Russia's action will motivate China to launch military operations in Taiwan. This is while the issue of Taiwan is very different from Ukraine because the Chinese consider this region as part of their mainland and separate possible military action in this region from what is happening in Ukraine. China considers Taiwan to be a part of its territory and the US has accepted the "one China principle" in an agreement with Beijing, though Chinese leaders do not count much on its sustainability as in recent years the Americans increased their interventions and put strains on China in Taiwan case.
American security and political officials have visited Taiwan several times in recent months to ensure the country's full support for the Taiwanese in the face of China. The Chinese consider the American visits provocative and have announced that they will take decisive measures to protect their sovereignty and security interests. Also, Washington has signed several hundred million dollars in contracts to sell weapons to Taiwan, arousing the ire of Beijing leaders. Beijing said that Washington's actions undermine peace and stability and create dangers in the Taiwan Strait. In the past year, China has conducted dozens of aerial exercises in the skies of Taiwan in order to flex its muscles to the Americans, and by doing so, it has shown that it is ready to go to war to protect its territorial integrity.
Seeing the growing military and economic power of China as a serious threat to its interests, the US has tried in recent months to tighten the noose on its emerging rival with the help of its allies in Asia and the Pacific, and has formed a regional alliance in this regard. The Americans' claims about China's imminent attack on Taiwan have even frightened its allies in Asia, and the Japanese authorities warn that tensions over Taiwan are boiling over and there is a possibility of a conflict in this region anytime.
America is seeking to create tensions in Taiwan, while the world has not yet recovered from the negative consequences of the war in Ukraine and the coronavirus pandemic, and the outbreak of war in this region, due to its wide dimensions, can put the world face to face with a new crisis.
Just as their incalculated actions in Ukraine led Russia to war with this country, the Americans intend to drag China into a war in Taiwan and by providing military support to this autonomous region and by creating a regional alliance increase Beijing's costs and weaken it. White House officials, especially President Joe Biden, have said that they will support Taiwan in the event of a war, and these positions have led to the escalation of tensions between Beijing and Washington. Beijing officials have recently announced that bilateral relations with Washington are at stake.
The US knows very well that China considers all aspects and scenarios if it plans a military action in Taiwan, and this Chinese pragmatism has so far prevented a war and differences with Washington have not gone beyond verbal tensions. All know that any Western miscalculation in East Asia will have consequences different from what the West expected for Ukraine crisis and any arbitrary actions will end against the interests of those hatching plots for the region.
