US military might ensures Beijing's bark is worse than its bite

Beijing seems increasingly impatient to enforce its claims to disputed territory across East Asia.

In the East China Sea, China sought to pave the way for de facto sovereignty over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in November last year with the creation of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). The ADIZ covers territory claimed by South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, and requires any aircraft entering the zone to identify itself to Chinese authorities.

Then in January this year, Beijing issued new restrictions on non-Chinese fishing boats in disputed areas of the South China Sea, and used a law enforcement vessel to blast Filipino fishermen with water cannons for straying into territory it claims as its own.

If these Chinese strongarm tactics did not send a clear enough message, Foreign Minister Wang Yi made Beijing's intentions explicit earlier this month: With China prepared to 'defend every inch of territory' that it claims, Beijing has signalled that 'there is no room for compromise in territorial and historical issues.'

In other words, China will not be content until it has seized vast tracts of land and sea from Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines and other East Asian nations, including up to 90% of the South China Sea and islands that have been administered by Japan for more than 100 years.

Despite these worrying signals, Taiwan's experience shows that US security guarantees can keep China's territorial assertiveness from jeopardising peace and stability, while also acting as a powerful bulwark against potentially runaway Chinese demands.

Since the nationalist Kuomintang withdrew to Taiwan at the end of the Chinese Civil War, the reunification of what Beijing considers a 'renegade province' with the 'motherland' has been a non-negotiable core plank of Chinese Communist Party policy.

Nevertheless, Beijing has come to accept, albeit reluctantly, indefinite de facto Taiwanese independence.

The Taiwan Relations Act(TRA)-which has governed US-Taiwanese relations since Washington formally switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979-establishes a strong US commitment to safeguarding Taiwan's security and resisting any non-peaceful Chinese attempts to reintegrate Taiwan.

By authorising arms sales to Taiwan and requiring that the United States maintain the capacity to resist threats to the island nation's security, the TRA has chastened China's appetite for control of Taiwan and provided the backdrop for warming Sino-Taiwanese relations.

With President Ma Ying-jeou's election in 2008, Taipei initiated a policy of engagement with Beijing on the basis of the 'three no's'-no unification, no independence, and no use of force.

By focusing on mutually beneficial economic ties with China and deferring the push for de jure Taiwanese independence, the Ma administration has presided over a boom in business links, and in February this year, even secured the first official meeting between Taiwan and mainland China since 1949.

The Taiwanese test case shows that Chinese desire to control disputed territory is not a barrier to peace and stability: With US military mettle exerting a constraining influence on Chinese ambitions, Beijing will wilt away from its provocative territorial threats.

In concert with its Asia-Pacific allies and partners, Washington should therefore continue to use its security presence in the Western Pacific to caution against and undercut Chinese attempts to alter the territorial status quo.

Not least because abandoning the commitment to the territorial status quo could make the prospect of more Chinese assertiveness a self-fulfilling prophecy. Land and sea acquired through brinkmanship and bullying risks encouraging Beijing to become even more territorially aggressive.

For example, if the United States and Japan allowed China to take control of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, Beijing may be emboldened to seize disputed territory from China's much weaker maritime neighbours in Southeast Asia.

Defending the territorial status quo to the point of courting war with China is obviously an unpalatable proposition for US policymakers and politicians.

Nevertheless, at least for now, using the threat of US military involvement to force China to contain its appetite for territorial aggrandisement is prudent policy.