TOKYO, Jan. 25, 2021―There has been little Bide administration response to what could embolden Xi Jin-ping to act expeditiously before Washington starts its first line of action against Beijing: On Jan. 22, China’s Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, the highest Chinese legislative body, enacted the China Coast Guard legislation that authorizes Chinese coast guard ships to use firepower, according to Xinhua News Agency’s report from Beijing Jan. 23.
The legislation, which would be enforced Feb. 1, 2021, coincided with the flyover into the Taiwan airspace of Chinese air force planes Jan. 24 and new U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s assurances to his Japanese counterpart in a Jan. 24 phone conversation that the United States would defend Japan in the event of Japan’s conflicts with China over the Japanese claimed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
The Chinese legislative move also came amid the continuing salvation of sand by a large fleet of Chinese civilian vessels along Fujian province coasts. presumably for building a runway for large military aircraft to prepare for conflicts with Taiwan.
The Chinese legislation authorizes coast guard ships ― which are naval vessels camouflaged as patrol ships ― to use weapons; empowered to operate defensive military action by receiving Chinese military command orders; are responsible for the defense of China’s exclusive economic waters, sea water shelves, manmade islands (such as the Chinese-built runways and installations on Spratly and other South China Sea shoals, underwater reefs); limit and/or ban the passage of ships in Chinese control waters, according to Japanese and Chinese media reports.
Over the past several years, China has been infringing into Japanese exclusive waters around Senkaku, its invasion having become far more aggressive after Trump became the former U.S. president and trashed important multilateral arrangements including APEC, TPP, and WTO. China seized on Trump’s naive policy by trumpeting multilateralism, intimidating Asian countries with a wide array of threats.
###