By Jim Morris, Warrior Vice President, News
For the first time in more than two decades, German warships reportedly will sail through the Taiwan Straits – a move that China sees as unfriendly.
According to the German magazine Der Spiegel, the frigate Baden-Wurttenberg and the supply ship Frankfurt am Main will transit through the strait in the middle of the month while on a journey from South Korea to Indonesia. The magazine cited sources saying that Berlin considers the mission a routine operation and does not intend to formally notify Beijing.
Not surprisingly, China isn’t happy. The country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its opposition to the planned transit.
A spokeswoman says China respects other countries’ rights to sail ships under Chinese and international law. However, she said, “we firmly oppose the relevant countries using the banner of freedom of navigation to provoke and harm China’s sovereignty and security.”
It’s not like China is surprised by Germany’s move. The two ships are on a round-the-world voyage that began on May 7. Before the ships even left port, Beijing warned against traveling through the Taiwan Straits.
The mission led to some debate inside the German government, according to Der Spiegel. The defense and foreign ministries supported the transit, while the chancellor’s office was said to have had some reservations at first.
Last spring, Germany’s defense minister Boris Pistorius called the Indo-Pacific an area of increasingly strategic importance and said, “We want to strengthen our regional partnerships and consolidate our position as a reliable actor in the region.”
China’s Global Times, an English language newspaper run by the country’s Communist Party, said the German warships transit “will likely be seen as a muscle flexing move and a nod to the US’ Asia-Pacific policies …”
The standard response from China regarding anything involving Taiwan is that the Taiwan question in China’s internal affair.
Earlier this year, there was a show of force in the skies around Taiwan as China underscored its unhappiness with those resisting the island’s reunification with the mainland. The number of Chinese planes flying near Taiwan in June were said to be much higher than they had been in recent years.
And a number of those planes crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and entered the island’s eastern and southwestern air defense identification zones (ADIZ), the unofficial boundary that both sides had respected for years to avoid direct confrontation.
Meanwhile, the US ramped up arms sales to Taiwan, allowing the island to buy $300 million worth of aerial drones. At the same time, Washington gave the greenlight for Taiwan to receive 1,700 TOW 2B anti-tank missiles and 100 launchers.
