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China Sends Warnings to US Ally Amid Rising Tensions


6 days ago 22
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As China's bitter feud with U.S. treaty ally the Philippines continues over the South China Sea, Beijing has this week warned Manila not to touch the Taiwan issue.

China warned it was "dangerous" to broach the topic of Taiwan, the self-ruled island it claims as its territory, after making the case for China-Taiwan unification in multiple impassioned press releases.

It is unclear why Taipei has been featuring more prominently in Beijing's messaging to Manila. But it follows the Philippines' announcement last month that it was upgrading a military outpost in the strategic Batanes Islands just 120 miles from Taiwan—news that drew a strong Chinese statement reiterating its claim over the democracy.

Then, earlier this month, reports also emerged that the U.S. Army was funding and helping construct a new civilian seaport, also in Batanes. The province's proximity to the Bashi Channel would make it pivotal in closing off China's access to the open Pacific in the event of a conflict.

China Displays Hypersonic Missiles In Parade
Vehicles carrying DF-17 missiles participate in a military parade at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on October 1, 2019. China has repeatedly said it will resort to force if neighboring Taiwan resists peaceful means of unification.... Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

"The Taiwan question is not and should never become an issue between China and the Philippines. Any attempt to implicate the Taiwan question in the maritime disputes between China and the Philippines is dangerous," China's embassy in Manila warned in a statement Wednesday.

Taiwan is a completely separate issue from the "maritime differences" between China and the Philippines—"purely an internal affair that does not brook any external interference," the statement continued.

The previous day, the Chinese mission released a statement on the same topic, this time quoting from a wistful 1972 poem about its China-born Taiwanese author's nostalgia for the mainland.

"These lines are outpouring emotion of a countryman in Taiwan for the mainland. Then what has kept Taiwan compatriots away over the shallow strait? And how did the Taiwan question arise?" the statement read.

It pointed out that the Philippines, like most countries, had agreed to the One-China principle in entering into normal relations with China. This principle holds that there is only one China, represented by the People's Republic in China in Beijing and not the Republic of China (Taiwan's official name) in Taipei.

Washington maintains its own longstanding one-China principle in which it acknowledges—but not necessarily agrees with—Beijing's claim over Taiwan.

Newsweek reached out to the Chinese foreign ministry, the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office in Manila and the Philippine foreign affairs department with written requests for comment.

In yet another statement, the Chinese embassy on Tuesday argued Taiwan had been part of China's since "ancient times" and pointed out the ethnic, linguistic and cultural ties shared by both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

"For China, Taiwan now is like a long-lost child of a mother," it said.

China has pledged to bring Taiwan into the fold, through force if necessary.

A November survey showed only about 15 percent of Taiwanese desire unification with China. Over 80 percent of respondents said they preferred to either maintain their de facto independent status indefinitely or to seek independence.

China asserts control over most of the South China Sea, through which 20 percent or more of global trade is estimated to transit annually, citing historical rights.

Manila and Beijing are at loggerheads over the latter's sweeping territorial claims in the waterway, including areas inside the Philippines' exclusive economic zone.

While on a state visit to Manila earlier this week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington has a "shared concern" over China's increasingly aggressive actions in the Philippine EEZ. He stressed the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty is "ironclad."

China responded by calling the 73-year-old defense pact a "vestige of the Cold War" and characterized the U.S. as being behind the tensions.

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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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