China’s Escalating Aggression

What constitutes a strike force and when is it dangerous?

On the evening of April 11, 2020, while the world sat transfixed over the climbing death tally from the Covid-19 virus, its latest unseen enemy, the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning along with two guided-missile destroyers, two guided-missile frigates, and a combat support ship sailed through the Miyako Strait near Okinawa. The carrier strike group came within 205 miles of Taiwan. Just 48 hours earlier the PLAF flew a J-11 fighter, H-6 bomber, and a KJ-500 reconnaissance plane past the southwestern tip of the island.

That group then moved on to track a US R-135 electronic surveillance aircraft in international airspace in the western Pacific. At a time when the United States’ two aircraft carriers in the region, the USS Roosevelt and USS Reagan, are docked tending to Covid-19 cases on board, the question arises as to why China decided to push forward with a show of force.

The Liaoning hasn’t visited these waters since June 2019. In the months preceding the global onset of the Covid-19 virus the PLAF and PLAN ramped up China’s aggressive behavior offshore. Was this latest event by a strike force intent only on testing Taiwan’s preparedness and response? Or, does it portend a future fraught with more negative challenges for the rest of the world? Have the major nations lost their vigilance in tracking China’s long-term grand strategy to emerge as a global power and regional hegemon inside of the next two decades? These are questions western military planners and American politicians need to be asking now while viable options still exist. It also should be of concern to the American public as China is not above using whatever type power it can wield to bully and inflict damage on nation-states it views as competitors or enemies.

At the same time as Beijing is claiming ignorance over the origin of the pandemic, or blaming it on the United States, its leaders are implementing faux export restrictions to withhold US-bound medical supplies needed to combat the virus. These include large quantities of test kits already FDA approved, N-95 face masks, personal protective equipment, and other types of critical medical goods stuck in warehouses and at Chinese airports. China’s new regulations, established this month, come down from high-ranking officials in Beijing as Covid-19 cases pass the two million mark worldwide.

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The extra 10 days needed to meet these new rules means lives lost overseas. The world can be certain President Xi Jinping is aware of the impact. In March, on a phone call with President Trump, President Xi promised to help with the pandemic. It is yet another example of China’s devious version of using its growing power to strike out at the world. This is the real China western governments must face, and come to terms with, in 2020 and beyond. The veil has lifted. The values and goals of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its leadership do not align with those of western nations.

China’s strategic behavior often belies its true militaristic goals. Intentional or not, Beijing’s handling of the current crisis has opened to the world a brief window into the inner workings of CCP planners. President Xi, who also is Chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, is an authoritarian leader determined to undermine Western liberal values. Whether it is the export of G-5 network technologies, which in effect restrict individual freedom by acting as an artificial intelligence-based surveillance system, or nationalized internet services with the ability to restrict political dissent and discourse across the developing world, China is determined to woo the world, defy conventional behavior and overtake the United States as the global hegemon. Whether recognized or not, be it through a traditional strike force group on the high seas, a cyber force in space, or outright physical bullying, the world is engaged in a total, protracted struggle with China. Two years ago, Rick Fisher, a China military expert, warned the US Congress that the United States has about ten years to take action to counter the Chinese threat. We have eight left. The Covid-19 virus might be the lynchpin that seals China’s fate. The lovefest with China will dissipate only if world leaders are vigilant and recognize the global domination plans of the government of the People’s Republic of China and act.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. Each Friday, she presents key updates on China.

Photo:China’s first home-built aircraft carrier leaves Dalian in Northeast China’s Liaoning province for sea trials on May 13, 2018. [Photo/Xinhua]

Quick Analysis

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.