China warns Taiwan independence 'means war' as US pledges support

AFAIK, the vast majority of the world recognizes the fact that they are, indeed, independent.

Pretty sure China is fairly lonely in their assertion that Taiwan is not thusly.

They produce goods themselves. They have their own trade agreements. They have their own military. Their own flag. They dont give YOU any revenue
Who cares if they NEVER "declare" that they're independent.

China considers Taiwan one of its provinces and will unify under their One China policy.

China is like a dog with a bone once it makes up its mind about something.

or national/international markets! Your 1.4 BILLION citizens are sure to remind you of that!

...it's freedom of navigation.

When Chinese military forces operate off their own coast after US warships, strategic bombers, and other aircraft conduct missions in the same area, they're "intimidating their neighbors."

Let's face it, the purpose of US presence in the strait, East China Sea, and South China Sea is to intimidate China. The US "defense industry" is arming up Taiwan. When a US carrier strike force goes through the straits of Taiwan, it's old fashioned gunboat diplomacy.

We're back to the fifties here. The difference is that China is much more powerful now than it was when it fought the US to a stalemate in Korea back then.

The "hard power" strategies have an illusory appeal in the US because the defense manufactures and national security establishment dominate Washington DC. Most of the "civilian advisors" in the cabinet come from conservative defense industry supported "think tanks." They don't know any other way.

19th Century tactics that ultimately led to WWII leave an alternative wanting.

Its territorial claims in the South China Sea are nothing but a blatant land grab by a bully.

... are primarily about Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) not freedom of the sea. The US State Department and Navy style their mission as Freedom of Navigation (FON) but that is a mischaracterization of the issue. What China and the other states with claims in the region are fighting over are the exclusive rights to mining, drilling, and fishing rights in the competing Economic Exclusive Zones claimed by each state. This has virtually nothing to do with freedom of navigation. Any nation can navigate through an EEZ, the surface waters are freely navigable. What they can't do without agreements that say otherwise is fish, drill, or extract minerals.

Interestingly enough, the US does not accept Taiwan’s claim to an Exclusive Economic Zone based upon it’s claims to the Pratas Island atoll, nor does it accept it’s similarly based claim to an EEZ in the Spratley Islands based on it’s possession and control of Itu Abu (Taiping Island) because to do so is to implicitly raise the historical issue of Chinese sovereignty and exclusive economic claims in both island groups. PRC controls Woody island in the Paracel group of islands raising another similar claim to a 200nm EEZ surrounding that island.

Military agreements between the US and Japan implicitly repudiate the Chinese claim to the Daioyu Islands in the East China Sea. This is a Taiwan claim as well. That dispute is also about the surrounding EEZ rights.

over pretty much the entire South China Sea

It has zero historical basis and it is imperialistic bullshit.

But their actions imply something quite a bit different from that. US warships and aircraft are not confronted until they approach within 12 nm of the artificially constructed islands. This in spite of the fact that no prescription of territory is acknowledged in UNCLOS for such artificial islands. This issue could be resolved with international negotiations but the US prefers to exploit the issue to advance it's own interests in the region, such as oil drilling on EEZ claims advanced by riparian states.

The agreement between S.Korea and Japan concerning Dokdo puts aside the territorial issue for the purposes of joint exploitation of the EEZ in the surrounding maritime region.

Instead of encouraging agreements concerning disputed areas the US administration has contented itself with a purely military approach which is likely to lead to war.

Except China ignore the results as they have already done with the Philippines.

If so you are misrepresenting it's legal status. It had no jurisdiction over China.

This article cited below depicts the Chinese position on the so called “arbitration” by the Permanent Court of Arbitration under the International Tribunal for Law of the Sea. Please refer to the article for a more complete description of the PCA's unsound assumption of jurisdiction and decision. The Chinese never acquiesced to PCA jurisdiction and the court's reasoning on jurisdiction is defective. Consequently, the decision is void.

The bottom line is there is no PCA/ITLOS jurisdiction over Chinese sovereignty claims:

…The overall obligation to submit to a compulsory conciliation procedure under 298(1)(a)(i) will however not apply in respect of a maritime boundary dispute which “necessarily involves the concurrent consideration of any unsettled dispute concerning sovereignty or other rights over the continental shelf or insular territory”.21 In other words, obligation contained in article 298(1)(a)(i) to submit a conciliation procedure is subject to three conditions: (i) the dispute should have arisen after the Convention entered into force; (ii) no agreement could be reached between the parties settling the dispute within a reasonable period of time; and (iii) that the dispute did not involve “the concurrent consideration of any unsettled dispute concerning sovereignty or other rights over continental shelf or insular land territory”.*

*The South China Sea Arbitration (The Philippines v. China): Assessment of the Award on Jurisdiction and Admissibility
Sreenivasa Rao Pemmaraju Author
Chinese Journal of International Law, Volume 15, Issue 2, June 2016, Pages 265–307, https://doi.org/10.1093/chinesejil/jmw019
Published: 20 June 2016 https://academic.oup.com/chinesejil/article/15/2/265/2548386

On July 12, 2016, The Hague's international arbitral tribunal, relying on the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea treaty (UNCLOS), issued a ruling supporting the Philippines' claims that China had violated Filipino territory in the South China Sea by seizing islets and "sea features." China had also plundered resources in the Philippines' maritime Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

Despite having signed the sea treaty (which meant accepting the arbitration process), the Chinese government callously ignored the verdict and disdained the court's authority.

UNCLOS codified the geophysical conditions and legal precedents establishing sovereign control of territorial waters and sovereign rights in the EEZ. It is an example of practical, peace-promoting diplomacy.

China's blunt rejection of the decision stunned the Filipino government and alerted other nations on the Pacific Rim. The Beijing regime not only broke a major treaty it had ratified but also openly maligned legal procedures created to promote peaceful resolution of international disputes. Beijing's thuggish rebuke sent the message that Chinese whim backed by China's enormous military and economic power determined sovereignty in the South China Sea.

It's interesting how much you take China's side...

didn't read the legal points in the reference i cited. issues which preexist the adoption of the UNCLOS are not governed by it. Sovereignty issues are not governed by UNCLOS. It said this right in the decision. Thirdly, the Chinese signed the UNCLOS with reservations and exceptions to it's application.

The art of diplomacy is understanding the views of the opposing side. This is analysis rather than casting aspersions. Compulsory arbitration without jurisdiction are not negotiations. I see that Duterte has said he's not going to argue over some rocks and has gone back to inviting Chinese capital investments in the Philippines, just as US foreign investment in China continues to expand. Goldman Sacks, Walmart, Telsa. Whose side are they on? Most of this is just propaganda for the military industrial complex.

Taiwan also rejects the PCA determination. Whose side are they on?

that is why the US military is pushing back - they can't allow China to impose restriction on the legal movement of military forces.



https://sites.tufts.edu/lawofthesea/chapter-4/

It should be directly related to how China treats Hong Kong. China promised to allow Hong Kong to continue their democracy once they took over. They are reneging on that promise. The US can use that to prove that China's word means nothing. And even to put pressure on China to reverse some of their harsh measures from their surrogates in Hong Kong.

It doesn't look like Biden is to roll over like the PRC was hoping.

Pittance for domestic spending.

The Taiwanese have looked at how China has treated HK and they want no part of it.