In the 23 hours since I published my last Macro Macchiato post in which I argued that China, India and Saudi Arabia's actions show that isolationism is a flawed policy for the US to follow, there have been several developments.
First, China's foreign minister has accused NATO of making "groundless accusations" that China is a "decisive enabler" of Russia's war in Ukraine. He urged NATO not to incite confrontation with China or interfere it its affairs.
Wang elaborated: "China and NATO countries have different political systems and values, but this should not be a reason for NATO to incite confrontation with China … NATO should abide by its duties and not interfere in Asia-Pacific affairs, interfere in China’s internal affairs, and not challenge China’s legitimate rights and interests."
This shows some cheek in the week that Chinese troops appeared in Belarus for the first time. But what is happening here? Wang is promoting the view of isolationists -saying the west should stick to the west, but he is saying this even as China is expanding its own global reach, not just in Ukraine... China now has the world's most numerous navy including four aircraft carriers. Carrier groups are not defensive units. They exist to project and exert military power.
Secondly, on 10 July the Chinese PLA air force overflew the median line between the PRC and Taiwan more than ever before. Taiwan's defences identified a total of 66 PLA aircraft including piloted planes and unpiloted drones in Taiwan's Air Defence Identification Zone. 56 of these crossed the median line, the unofficial boundary between the island and the mainland. The show of power is perhaps timed to be a rebuke as the US and 28 allies are conducting the largest recent international naval exercise called Rimpac. It won't work, because both the Democrat and Republican parties in the US, plus an increasing number of allies including NATO, are now China hawks.
Thirdly, following increasingly tense contact between PLA Navy and Philippine Navy and fishing vessels, the Philippine ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez told UK newspaper The Guardian that “aggressive movements” needed to be reduced to “avoid a situation where something really major, conflict, can happen.” Ray Powell, director of Sea Light, a maritime transparency initiative based at Stanford University, says of China's coastguard ships that are now indefinitely located in waters that the Philippines claim, "It's getting more and more clear that this is a blockade." Blockades, as I wrote yesterday, are an act of war. The Philippines is a treaty ally of the US, which is bound to come to their military assistance.
While President Biden gets his words muddled at the NATO summit, America's strategic competitors are pushing ever harder, waiting to see when the push-back comes.
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