Edgar Degas Self Portrait 1862
Andrew Korybko:
The US is shaping the Asia-Pacific in preparation of a standard conflict with China, to which end it unveiled the AUKUS alliance in late 2021. This platform is meant to form the core of a NATO-like military structure for holding the People’s Republic, and it’ll replace whatever related role American policymakers initially envisaged the Quad playing. This makes AUKUS extremely dangerous, especially as other regional countries tacitly expand their cooperation with its American leader.
South Korea’s recent decision to let US nuclear-armed submarines dock at its ports for the primary time in many years, which was made during President Yoon’s trip to DC last week, signals its interest in de facto integrating into this anti-Chinese bloc. Nearby Japan can already be regarded as a casual member of that alliance after Prime Minister Kishida reaffirmed his country’s commitment to the US’ regional goals in January and implied that it’ll rapidly remilitarize in the approaching future to be able to contain China.
Taken together and paired with the recent Japanese-Korean rapprochement, it may well due to this fact be concluded that the US has strengthened its alliance network in Northeast Asia to be able to facilitate the region’s unofficial integration into AUKUS+. At the identical time, it’s also doing something similar with the Philippines in Southeast Asia, whose president visits the US this week. He’s expected to also de facto integrate his country into AUKUS+ too exactly as his South Korean counterpart just did.
The Philippines’ northernmost core island of Luzon is way closer to Taiwan than the Japanese Home Islands are, thus making it a really perfect staging post for any American military intervention in that Chinese province. Although President Marcos just denied that his country intends to facilitate anyone’s regional military plans, it was recently revealed that the 4 latest bases that he agreed to let America use are positioned on that island, thus casting serious doubts on the sincerity of his claim.
Three other recent developments bode unwell for peace on this a part of Asia. CNN published a lengthy evaluation in mid-April arguing that the US should maximally stockpile weapons in Taiwan to be able to help its ally’s forces survive within the event that China blockades the island prior to launching a special operation there. Curiously, such resupply challenges were then confirmed just a few days later during an anti-Chinese congressional committee’s wargame of precisely that scenario.
The second development concerned top EU diplomat Borrell’s suggestion that the bloc’s navies patrol the Taiwan Strait. This got here just several weeks after NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg declared that “We are actually stepping up our cooperation with our partners within the Indo-Pacific: Japan, South Korea, Latest Zealand and Australia.” The indisputable trend is that the US’ European partners are poised to play a bigger military role within the region, including a provocative one in the event that they find yourself patrolling the Taiwan Strait.
And lastly, it was reported last weekend that US special forces carried out their first-ever drills simulating what they’d do if their country went to war with China over Taiwan, thus removing any so-called “strategic ambiguity” about how Washington would reply to that scenario. It may well now not claim any pretense to neutrality after literally preparing its most highly trained forces for infiltrating into Taiwan to kill whatever Chinese forces might eventually enter that island.
These three developments prove that the US is rounding up allies in each the Asia-Pacific and Europe ahead of a possible war with China, but there are two vital players that either won’t take part in this plot or have yet to come to a decision, with these being India and Indonesia respectively. The influential Council on Foreign Relations’ official magazine just published a bit about why India won’t get entangled, while Indonesia is being pressured to permit American and Australian forces to transit through its territory.
Even without those two, the US’ emerging anti-Chinese containment coalition continues to be very formidable and represents its success in getting a large number of nations to converge around AUKUS. South Korea will function an intelligence and missile outpost, Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and the Philippines’ Luzon are complementary staging points for facilitating a US intervention in Taiwan, and NATO will provide back-end support all across the region in addition to possibly provoke China by patrolling the Taiwan Strait.
Amidst the solidification of the Asia-Pacific’s NATO-like military structure, the US and its allies will likely fill Taiwan to the brim with weapons exactly as CNN suggested and an anti-Chinese congressional committee curiously confirmed must be a top priority just a pair days later. These interconnected trends represent extremely pressing challenges for China’s objective national security interests, that are being threatened ever more by the day because it holds off on launching a special operation in Taiwan.
There are justifiable reasons for China’s stance, especially since its leadership would actually prefer to peacefully reunify with their country’s wayward region and thus wish to completely exhaust all related possibilities before resorting to military means. This moral approach is based on their reluctance to be the primary to initiate what can be a fratricidal conflict, which is commendable, however it comes on the expense of military interests within the event that a war over that island is inevitable.
Nobody knows whether it’s or not, however the US is doing its utmost to be in the very best position possible should that scenario unfold, which thus complicates China’s own position in that event. If the US feels that it’s obtained a decisive edge over China through the crystallization of AUKUS+ and upon maximally stockpiling weapons in Taiwan, then it’d even seek to impress a conflict that wargamers convinced themselves Beijing would lose, which is a daunting scenario that may’t be ruled out.