US flexes muscles in Asia as tensions flare around Tsai visit

The U.S. is flexing its military might in the Indo-Pacific as Washington seeks to downplay diplomatic tensions with China over meetings between U.S. lawmakers and Taiwanese officials this week. 

The Defense Department on Monday began joint anti-submarine drills with South Korean and Japan and prepped for next week’s annual Balikatan exercise in and around the Philippines — the largest version of the drill in the 38 years it's taken place.

Combined with a proposed U.S. defense budget that bolsters military competition with China, four new U.S. bases in the Philippines, and a trilateral security pact to supply nuclear-powered attack submarines to Australia, the message from Washington to Beijing carries no ambiguity, according to experts. 

“The message is, [the] U.S. is determined and prepared to deter any Chinese military adventurism against Taiwan,” Yun Sun, director of the Stimson Center’s China program, told The Hill.  

The tensions between the superpowers this week center around a meeting Wednesday between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Taiwan President Tsai Ing-Wen along with a bipartisan delegation of more than a dozen U.S. lawmakers. The meet up, part of Tsai’s so-called “transit” through the United States, is being viewed by China as a show of U.S. support for a self-governed island Beijing claims as its own territory, and has threatened to soon bring under its control. 

Chinese officials on Thursday vowed reprisals against Taiwan, also warning that the U.S. was on a “wrong and dangerous road.” Beijing also sent an aircraft carrier strike group off Taiwan’s east coast in what appeared to be a reaction to the visit. 

Also in the backdrop, a bipartisan congressional delegation led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) arrived in Taiwan on Thursday en route from visiting Japan and South Korea.  

“Being here I think sends a signal to the Chinese Communist Party that the United States supports Taiwan and that we’re going to harden Taiwan, and we want them to think twice about invading Taiwan,” McCaul said.  

The Biden administration, however, has maintained there is nothing unusual about Tsai’s visit, carefully labeling the trek as a routine transit and in line with the U.S.'s policy toward Taiwan. 

“China shouldn't use this visit as a pretext in any way to increase any aggressive activity around the Taiwan Strait,” deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Wednesday.

Even as there has been an effort to keep the tension low, “Beijing still sees the visit as pushing the envelope and inching forward with the ‘salami-slicing,’” Yun said.  

At the same time, Washington has been using its military to do most of the talking, according to Jacob Stokes, senior fellow for the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. 

Recent and upcoming military drills such as next week’s Balikatan exercise in the Philippines – which will use more than 12,000 U.S. troops from all four branches as well as thousands of their Philippine counterparts – send a firm signal to China.  

“The United States is right to undertake military patrols and exercises to deter China during this time,” Stokes said. “Those operations help signal to Beijing as well as Taipei that the United States maintains the capability to respond — including with allies — if China tries to change the cross-Strait status quo by force.” 

The wargame is just one piece of a robust tool kit meant to deter an aggressive China, a key goal in the administration’s proposed $842 billion defense authorization bill for fiscal year 2023. 

In the bill, President Biden proposes investing $9.1 billion for the Pentagon’s Pacific Deterrence Initiative — meant to maintain and bolster a U.S. military presence in the region — and another $400 million to outcompete Beijing in military, economic and technological sectors. 

In a related spending column, the Pentagon also wants $37.7 billion to continue modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal. 

The United States has also sought to bolster relations with allies and partners in China’s backyard.

The Pentagon on Monday also announced the locations of four new naval bases in the Philippines, securing three of the spots in the northeastern part of the island to better counter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific.

And last month it formalized the AUKUS trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. 

Under the agreement, Washington will provide Canberra with at least three Virginia-class submarines, help with patrols and training, and assist the country in building its own nuclear-powered submarine. 

Stokes said the pairing of America’s rhetoric pushing peace and calm was an effective compliment to its military flexing in the Indo-Pacific. 

“Deterrence works best when it’s paired with reassurance,” he said.