East Asia on a knife-edge over Tsai-McCarthy meeting

TAIWAN President Tsai Ing-wen’s current trip abroad is ostensibly to visit the self-governing island’s few remaining allies in Latin America. However, it is her stopovers in the United States – Taiwan’s unofficial partner and supplier of arms – that is the focus of attention in Beijing and, indeed, all of East Asia.

If all goes according to script, US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will meet Tsai on Wednesday (Apr 5) as she transits in Los Angeles on her way home. Of course, it will be a staged meeting, although both sides will seek to depict it as a casual encounter. And clearly, Beijing is not buying any of it; it has warned that a Tsai-McCarthy tete-a-tete in any guise would be a provocation that “undermines peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait”. Beijing considers Taiwan a renegade province to be reunited with the mainland by force if necessary.

On the face of it, East Asia may again be set to see a display of China’s wrath. When previous House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan last year, Beijing staged military drills with more than 100 fighter jets and bombers and 10 warships. Missiles were launched, the US ambassador to China was summoned to hear an official protest, and Beijing banned some farm imports from Taiwan. There seems to be an assumption both in Taipei and Washington that Beijing will react again in similar proportions and that the matter will die down in due course. In short, they both can ride out the storm.

It should be noted that other players and activities are afoot in this regional chessboard that may not support such a sanguine assessment of a Tsai-McCarthy meeting.

North Korea has been testing record numbers of missile tests since last year, including firing its most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking every major city in the US. Pyongyang is reported to be testing a new nuclear-capable underwater attack drone. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is signalling to the US and South Korea that it has an array of weapons that is a match for anything the allies would care to deploy against it.

In response to the recent joint US and South Korean military drills meant to demonstrate America’s extended deterrence, Kim has ordered an “exponential” increase in his country’s nuclear arsenal, including mass production of tactical nuclear weapons and development of new missiles for nuclear counterstrikes. It should also be noted that Washington’s deterrence exercise almost certainly includes China in its sights.

In the South China Sea last week, Beijing revealed that it yet again had to drive away the US Navy destroyer USS Milius that had entered its territorial waters near the Paracel Islands. The US Navy said the guided-missile destroyer was asserting its navigational rights and freedoms and that it would continue to exercise those rights. China claims vast swathes that overlap the exclusive economic zones of the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam. Goods estimated at more than US$3 trillion flow through the waterway each year.

It remains to be seen how these developments will play out. However, the stakes could not be higher. Even a small misstep by any of the parties could turn out to be catastrophic for all of East Asia.