China has been busy during the recent years with occupying the land of its neighbors. In May this year there was news that China secretly built three villages in a remote valley in Bhutan. This fits in a pattern, because last year China also made a claim out of nowhere on the Sakteng nature reserve in Bhutan. In the past this land was even shown on a Chinese map from 2014 to belong to Bhutan. Apparently this is all part of China’s plan to obstruct India, which has border disputes with China for a long time already. Bhutan is located between China and India and is an ally of the latter.
But China doesn’t limit itself to that border. The South China Sea isn’t safe for China’s unfounded territorial claims either. China is repeatedly violating the Exclusive Economic Zone (where only the state owner has rights for fishing and other economic activities) of the Philippines. Even though an international court declined the Chinese claims, China continues its behavior. The Filipino president Duterte at first tried to compromise with China and didn’t enforce the court ruling, but he seems to have lost patience with China now. Next to the Philippines, Malaysia complained about Chinese violation of its airspace in the South China Sea. The United States stated that it would come to the aid of the Philippines as its ally in case of Chinese aggression.
More alarming is the threat of war that China made to Taiwan in case it would declare its independence. China considers Taiwan to be part of China, but that’s twisting history. The Chinese Communist Party came to power only after it had driven out the Republic of China to Taiwan. It’s actually China which was part of Taiwan. The USA responded calmly, with a message that tensions over Taiwan do not need to lead to a confrontation.
Even though the USA push back, this still reminds me too much of the ‘appeasement’ of Nazi Germany in the prelude to the Second World War. To appease Nazi Germany it received a part of Czechoslovakia in the Treaty of Munich. This time nothing is given away formally, but in fact we do allow it to happen: China occupies foreign territory and doesn’t go away. It ignores the complaints of its neighbors and continues on its current footing. China already went too far with its genocide of the Uyghur people, but occupying the territory of other states should be a red line. It’s scandalous that Russia could get away with the annexation of the Crimea, but if the even more powerful China is allowed to go on with this we’re doomed.
The only way to deal with is more assertiveness. We want to avoid an armed conflict, but there’s much more we can do with sanctions. Serious sanctions which hurt Chinese exports severely are seemingly the only thing to make China listen. And that will only work if everyone joins: next to the USA also the neighboring countries of China and the EU. If China occupies land, we could target foreign Chinese property for confiscation, like the harbor of Piraeus near Athens for example. On Taiwan the USA, at the request of Taiwan of course, could build a military base. This is no different from what the USA has done in South Korea and Japan in order to protect its allies. The relation with China would drop to a new low, but it would deter China from a possible invasion of Taiwan.