A tiny Taiwan island could be trigger for US-China clash
- Pratas sees increasing numbers of Chinese military flights
- Beijing unhappy at Taipei’s closer ties with US since Biden’s election
The PLA has flown close to the atoll – uninhabited except for a garrison of Taiwanese marines and coastguard officers – once a week on average since September 16, when Taiwan’s defence ministry began releasing detailed data. If all fly-bys into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone between Pratas and the Chinese mainland are included, the patrols have become an almost daily occurrence.
Beijing’s focus on Pratas serves several aims of President Xi Jinping, highlighting Taiwan’s vulnerability to attack while investigating its defences. The strategy also tests the limits of Washington’s security commitment, and whether it is willing to go to war to defend largely vacant reefs hundreds of miles from the nearest American base.
The aerial campaign shows that Beijing has options for striking a blow against Taipei that fall well short of a dangerous invasion across the 130km (80-mile) Taiwan Strait, which is becoming a more urgent concern for American military planners. Taking Pratas Island – which is located closer to Hong Kong than Taiwan – could give China a new launching ground for future military operations without provoking a full-scale conflict with the US.
“There is now a serious possibility that China seeks to occupy one of the outer islands,” said Ben Schreer, a professor at Macquarie University in Sydney who studies Taiwan’s defence policy. “If that happens, what is the international community going to do? What is the US going to do?”