President Joe Biden’s attempt to rally democratic powers in the Indo-Pacific raises the possibility of “a cold war or hot war,” according to a senior Chinese diplomat who bristled at rebukes from the United States and its allies.
“The Asia-Pacific region is a promising land for peace and development. It should not be turned into a boxing ring for major power rivalry, still less a battlefield of a cold war or hot war,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Monday. “Attempts to stoke a new cold war in the region will be met by firm rejection of regional countries and peoples.”
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Wang was left fuming by the results of Biden’s summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who pledged to coordinate against “threats that affect our collective interests and security.” The trio’s displeasure with China’s posture touched off a rhetorical controversy that continued into Monday as Beijing sought to assert its aggressive claims to sovereignty throughout the region and also portray the U.S. as the problem.
“The trilateral summit of leaders of the U.S., Japan and the ROK at Camp David smeared and attacked China on Taiwan and maritime issues — an act of gross interference in China’s internal affairs, a deliberate attempt to sow discord between China and our neighbors and a serious violation of norms in international relations,” Wang said. “China deplores and strongly opposes this and has made solemn demarches to relevant parties.”
Taiwan, the last bastion of the Republic of China nationalist forces defeated by the communists in the Chinese civil war, has developed into an island democracy and a high-tech manufacturing superpower, which Beijing claims as its sovereign territory even though the Chinese Communist Party has never ruled in Taipei. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen unveiled a record-setting defense budget increase on Monday as the U.S. encourages Taiwanese officials to enhance their ability to resist a prospective Chinese invasion.
"We reaffirm the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as an indispensable element of security and prosperity in the international community," Biden, Yoon, and Kishida said Friday. "There is no change in our basic positions on Taiwan, and we call for a peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues."
China’s diplomatic protests fell on deaf ears in Seoul, where South Korean officials, who have taken a security-minded approach to managing relations with its larger neighbor, brushed off Beijing’s protests by reproaching the power for its truculent claim to sovereignty over an island near the Philippine archipelago.
"In early August in the South China Sea, a Chinese coast guard vessel reportedly fired water cannons at a Philippine vessel,” South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin told Yonhap News Agency on Monday. “This incident served as an example of such aggressive behavior.”
Wang leaned into the dispute, saying that the Chinese coast guard’s hostile treatment of the Philippine coast guard ship, which was tasked with delivering supplies to Philippine troops in the Spratly Islands, was “legitimate, lawful and beyond reproach.” China has claimed sovereignty over those islands, along with most of the rest of the South China Sea, without regard for the territorial claims of the Philippines and other countries whose shores touch those waterways.
“We strongly oppose any unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the waters of the Indo-Pacific,” the U.S., South Korea, and Japan said in a joint statement released Friday. “In particular, we steadfastly oppose the militarization of reclaimed features; the dangerous use of coast guard and maritime militia vessels; and coercive activities.”
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An international court ruled against China in a case brought by the Philippines in 2016, but Chinese officials have ignored the ruling and complained that the U.S. is encouraging other countries to resist China’s claims to the disputed oceans, which include some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
“It has encouraged and supported certain countries’ violation of other countries’ maritime rights and sowed discord between countries in the region, which makes the U.S. a disrupter and saboteur of the regional order,” Wang insisted. “The U.S. has become the biggest threat and challenge to regional peace and stability.”