War Games in Asia

By N. GUNASEKARAN

Taiwan is an island separated from China by the Taiwan Strait. For more than seven decades, China had been maintaining that Taiwan was a part of its territory and vowed to unify Taiwan with the mainland. In August, tension mounted in this region, due to the visit of Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the US House of Representatives, to Taiwan. She visited Taiwan to “demonstrate US support for the island,” provoking China’s fierce response. China surrounded Taiwan with live-fire military drills. China viewed the visit as a direct challenge to the status quo which was forged five decades ago. The US at that time recognized Beijing and not Taiwan. Pelosi’s trip resulted in the suspension of US-China climate talks and termination of some high-level military communication channels.

The US had been holding dialogues with Taiwan and participating frequently in military training, regularly sailing ships through the Taiwan Strait to show its military presence in the region. With the US patronage, Taiwan increased its defense spending. Earlier, President Donald Trump deepened ties with Taiwan despite strong objections from China and sold more than $18 billion worth of arms to Taiwan. The latest US legislation, “The Taiwan Policy Act of 2022,” which is pending in the Senate, proposes “to bolster Taiwan’s defense capabilities, providing almost $4.5 billion in security assistance over the next four years” It also would designate Taiwan as a “Major Non-NATO Ally.”

Recently, the closest ally of the US, South Korea, adopted an aggressive attitude towards North korea.The New President of South Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol, has been resuming military exercises with the US and seemed to be pursuing a military strategy to exterminate the North Korean leadership.

Bolstering strategic ties with South Korea, the US would begin the biggest combined military exercise in four years, involving tens of thousands of troops in live-fire exercises combining land, sea and air forces. Such exercises including joint mock attacks, reinforcement of frontline units with the securing of weapons of mass destruction would certainly escalate tensions in the Korean Peninsula. North Korea expressed its fears that the exercise was “a dress rehearsal for northward invasion”. It is to be noted that the Korean Peninsula is usually considered as a “powder keg” in the Asia-Pacific region. The military rivalry and tensions in the peninsula would affect the peace and stability of Northeast Asia and the entire Asia.

The US has become more confrontational against China, which Secretary of State Antony Blinken denounced as the “most serious long-term challenge to the international order.” The Group of Seven (G7) countries objected to China’s “aggressive military activity,” and said that it was destabilizing the region. However they were silent on the US aggressive moves to control the region in the name of “containing” China. The US led many joint military exercises in Asia with its allies. It was aimed at North Korea, and also to show US military might in the Asia-Pacific region.

Many Asian political commentators have been predicting that the US would deploy more strategic weapons, such as aircraft carriers and strategic bombers. The military activities of the US to “deter China” would definitely prompt military response from China, and such competitive militarization in the region would endanger the peace and stability of Asia.

To further complicate the situation, the US seems to be trying to build a trilateral military alliance. According to the US Department of Defense, the US, South Korean and Japanese navies participated in missile warning and ballistic missile search and tracking exercises off the coast of Hawaii from Aug. 8 to 14. It was said that these exercises was held to further trilateral cooperation “in face of North Korean challenges.”

In retaliation over the growing military activities of the US and NATO in the Asia-Pacific region, and Washington’s recent provocations over Taiwan, weeklong Russian-led naval drills, called Vostok (East) 2022, was held. It was the first multinational military exercise hosted by Russia from Aug. 30 to Sept. 5. Seventeen nations, including China, participated in this exercise. So, Asia has become the theater for dangerous “war games.’’

The US, in its endeavor to regain its lost economic supremacy from China, is seeking new avenues in Asia to amass wealth for their big corporations. To dominate Asia, the US wanted to arrest the rapid rise of China. Under President Joe Biden, the US has taken up a more vigorous posture in the region, strengthening its military presence around Asia. This situation is forcing Asian nations to increase their military expenditures, causing a severe crisis in their economies. It is to be noted that Asian nations have still not recovered from the economic woes caused by the pandemic. The latest Human Development Index for 2022 showed that Asian nations are falling behind in all aspects of human development. For example Pakistan, has dropped seven places in the index, ranking 161 out of 192 countries. The world’s largest concentration of poverty and malnutrition existed in South Asia. The ongoing war games in the region would further worsen the situation.

N. Gunasekaran is a political activist and writer based in Chennai, India.

From The Progressive Populist, October 15, 2022

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