BEIJING: The United States’ increasingly frequent military activities in the South China Sea indicate the military superpower’s intention to stir up trouble in the region, sound out and contain the Chinese military, and enhance its control capability in the “first island chain”, which covers Taiwan Island, experts said.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Milius on Monday illegally entered the waters near Meiji Reef off the Nansha Islands without the approval of the Chinese government, according to the People’s Liberation Army, noting that the PLA followed and monitored the whole journey of the warship.
It was the third time the USS Milius infringed on China’s interests in the region within 20 days, following the warship’s two non-approved entries into China’s territorial waters near the Xisha Islands, which took place on March 23 and 24, with the ship warned off by the Chinese military. Wang Li, executive director of the Institute of Maritime Strategy Studies at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, said the actions of the US showed its intention to promote militarization in the South China Sea and undermine regional peace and stability. “On one hand, the US just wants to fan the flames in the region rather than bring stability, as China and countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are working on the consultation of the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea to promote regional peace,” he said.
In a three-day meeting held in Indonesia in early March, China and ASEAN members continued to advance the consultation on the text of the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea and agreed to jointly uphold peace and stability, Wang Wenbin, spokesman for Chinese Foreign Ministry, told a daily briefing last month.
On the other hand, the US military could be attempting to “sound out the Chinese military’s ability to simultaneously respond to multiple tensions in both the Taiwan Straits and the South China Sea”, by sending USS Milius to the latter region on Monday — the last day of the PLA’s three-day military drills around Taiwan Island, said Wang Li. It could be a test posed by the US military to the PLA from the perspective of military tactics, he said, given the time overlap of the US warship’s action and Chinese military exercises that were countermeasures in response to the meeting between Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen and US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last week, a blatant act of collusion between “Taiwan independence” forces and the US.
–The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
