中國指控法國軍艦違法進入台灣海峽 FT 20190425

【Comment】

The Vendémiaire’s passage through the Taiwan Strait on April 6, happened two weeks after Emmanuel Macro, Angela Merkel and Jean-Claude Juncker met with Xi on March 26, in which  Macro claim “time of European naïveté” towards China was over.

The passage of Vendémiaire’s was political, just as Beijing’s cancellation of France’s invitation to the naval parade.

The language “illegally entering Chinese waters” by Beijing was first and extraordinary, amid Chinese attempt to draw a baseline of a man-made island in the South China Sea. 

China will claim of inner water, territorial water, contingency zone, EEZ as well as the Continental Shelf and the rights further on the base-line drawing.

However, China will never to sink to shoot the ships and the airplanes through it.  What is the point, if no war?  And what will Xi get when Xi calls out loudly the Chinese nationalism.

China accuses France of illegally sailing warship in Taiwan Strait    FT 20190425

Beijing steps up rhetoric in sign of rising tensions over status of island nation

China has accused France of “illegally entering Chinese waters” after a French naval vessel sailed through the Taiwan Strait earlier this month, in an escalation of its rhetoric that highlights rising tensions over the status of the island nation that Beijing claims as its territory.

Senior Colonel Ren Guoqiang, China defence ministry spokesman, said on Thursday that Beijing had made stern representations to Paris over the passage of the French warship and said the Chinese navy had sent ships to warn the French ship to leave the waterway, according to reporters present at the press conference.

China sees Taiwan as its territory and has threatened annexation if Taipei refuses indefinitely to give up its de facto independence.

The French defence ministry made no immediate comment on Thursday.  But defence officials told the Financial Times that the French navy had been transiting the Taiwan Strait at least once a year without any problem or reaction from the Chinese side.

“France reaffirms its commitment to freedom of navigation in accordance with the law of the sea,” said one.

The officials said France was in close contact with the Chinese authorities over the latest incident.

While China’s claim encompasses all waters around Taiwan, including the Strait, Beijing has not made clear whether it claims the entire area as territorial waters or some just as an exclusive economic zone — ambiguity that resembles its claim to the waters of the South China Sea.

Beijing has expressed irritation previously when the US sent warships through the Taiwan Strait, a key international waterway, but has not described such passages as illegal.

The French warship Vendémiaire at an international port.  Paris says it sails naval vessels through the Taiwan Strait once a year, with no previous reaction from Beijing.  “This would be new language,” said Alexander Huang, an expert on the Chinese military at Tamkang University in Taipei and a former senior government official working on cross-Strait relations.

The passage of the French frigate Vendémiaire through the Strait on April 6 was first reported by Reuters, quoting two anonymous US officials.

It came as China ratchets up military pressure on Taiwan ahead of the island nation’s presidential elections next January.

Last month, two Chinese fighter aircraft crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait for the first time in 20 years, a move decried by Taipei as a deliberate provocation.  Beijing has also resumed naval and air exercises close to Taiwan’s airspace, with bombers circling the island on their most recent such sortie 10 days ago.

Taipei is concerned Beijing will step up military posturing further as the election nears.  “We may see Chinese air force moves close to the median line or across it again, and we may also see moves east of Taiwan,” said Evans Chen, of the Institute for National Defence and Security Research, a think-tank backed by the Taiwanese defence ministry.

The US, the sole guarantor of Taiwan’s security under a law that requires it to help the island defend itself, has stepped up activity in the Taiwan Strait, sending military vessels through the waterway six times since last July, ending a year-long pause.

Following the most recent such passage, the Chinese defence ministry said it had expressed “concern” to the US and asked Washington to handle Taiwan issues prudently so not to damage bilateral relations and regional stability.  But it did not refer to “illegal” entry into “Chinese waters”.

A Taiwanese retired military official said the April movement was not the first time France had sailed a warship through the Strait but that the incident was “rare enough to make it a political statement”.

The move comes as Paris steps up its military engagement in the region.  France, which has island territories across the Pacific, has been reinforcing its relationships in the Indian Ocean and Pacific, including with India and Australia.  Like the UK, it has also sailed warships through the South China Sea, effectively backing the US in its Freedom of Navigation Operations aimed at asserting the right of international ships to use waters Beijing claims as its own.

Fear, threats and scapegoats

Taiwan tensions call for restraint from big powers

Six other countries dispute part or all of China’s claim to the South China Sea.  But Beijing has in recent years gained ground by building and militarising islands in the waters and then restricting rival claimants’ access.

Mr Chen said the French passage through the Taiwan Strait was a sign that as with the South China Sea, the Taiwan issue was being internationalised.

The Vendémiaire sailing occurred less than two weeks after a state visit to Paris by Xi Jinping, Chinese president.

Emmanuel Macron, French president, has tried to forge a united European front to resist commercial and strategic competition from China, and he invited German chancellor Angela Merkel and Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the European Commission, to join him for a meeting with Mr Xi on March 26.

Both European leaders echoed Mr Macron — who had previously declared that the “time of European naïveté” towards China was over — in demanding commercial reciprocity from China.

Reuters has reported that in response to the Vendémiaire’s passage through the Taiwan Strait, China withdrew France’s invitation to the naval parade held to celebrate the Chinese navy’s 70th anniversary on Tuesday.