US Indo-Pacific commander calls PLA moves in strait ‘rehearsals', not exercises
'We face a profoundly consequential time in the Indo-Pacific. China is on a dangerous course,' said Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of US Indo-Pacific Command, in a special address to an AI expo hosted by the Special Competitive Studies Project think tank.
'Their aggressive manoeuvres around Taiwan are not just exercises. They are rehearsals,' he continued, without explicitly referencing a potential takeover of Taiwan.
Beijing regards the self-ruled island as part of China, to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take it by force and is committed to arming it.
In recent years, the US has grown increasingly anxious about a mainland takeover, with officials and lawmakers eyeing 2027 as a possible window, and pointing to more frequent People's Liberation Army sorties that cross the Taiwan Strait's median line as signs of growing aggression.
Tensions between Taiwan and mainland China have also grown in the year since Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te, whom Beijing has called a 'destroyer of peace', took office.
Without naming specific countries, Paparo said on Monday that China's aggression was compounded by 'a growing transactional symbiosis among an axis of autocracies,' evidenced by 'technology transfers and coordinated military activities'.
The US was at a 'technological inflection point' with advances in AI, hypersonic weapons and additive manufacturing, he said, calling for a change in course in favour of speed and innovation.
'We need engagement in the speed of combat, not committee,' Paparo said, adding that the scientific community and industry were essential to the 'urgent transformation' needed.
Paparo, who assumed his command in May 2024, has made similar comments in recent months, previously naming China, Russia and North Korea as a 'triangle of troublemakers'.
His remarks Monday came a day after the conclusion of the Shangri-La Dialogue, during which US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth called China a threat and said it wanted to 'fundamentally alter the region's status quo'.
Beijing protested Hegseth's remarks, with the foreign ministry on Sunday accusing him of deliberately ignoring calls for peace from countries in the region.
Hegseth did not meet his Chinese counterpart, Defence Minister Dong Jun, who opted to skip the annual security forum in Singapore.
The Chinese embassy in Washington disputed Paparo's characterisation of Beijing's actions around Taiwan on Monday.
'For the cross-strait situation, there is no factor more destabilising than the provocations made by the 'Taiwan independence' separatists and the disruptions by foreign forces,' said spokesperson Liu Pengyu, adding that China's military 'drills' were meant to serve as a deterrent to 'separatist plots'.
'We urge the US side to stop fanning the flames on the Taiwan question. Such behaviours would only backfire,' he said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New Straits Times
an hour ago
- New Straits Times
US-Vietnam trade deal sows new China uncertainty
HANOI: Vietnam's trade deal with the United States averts the most punishing of Donald Trump's "reciprocal" levies, but analysts warned it could provoke a fresh standoff between Washington and Beijing. The Southeast Asian nation has the third-biggest trade surplus with the United States of any country after China and Mexico, and was targeted with one of the highest rates in the US president's "Liberation Day" tariff blitz on April 2. The deal announced Wednesday is the first full pact Trump has sealed with an Asian nation, and analysts say it may give a glimpse of the template Washington will use with other countries still scrambling for accords. The 46 per cent rate due to take effect next week has been averted, with Vietnam set to face a minimum 20 per cent tariff in return for opening its market to US products including cars. But a 40 per cent tariff will hit goods passing through the country to circumvent steeper trade barriers — a practice called "transshipping". Washington has accused Hanoi of relabelling Chinese goods to skirt its tariffs, but raw materials from the world's number two economy are the lifeblood of Vietnam's manufacturing industries. "From a global perspective, perhaps the most interesting point is that this deal again seems in large part to be about China," said Capital Economics. It said the terms on transshipment "will be seen as a provocation in Beijing, particularly if similar conditions are included in any other deals agreed over coming days". Shares in clothing companies and sports equipment manufacturers — which have a large footprint in Vietnam — rose on news of the deal in New York. But they later declined sharply as details were released. "This is a much better outcome than a flat 46 per cent tariff, but I wouldn't celebrate just yet," said Hanoi-based Dan Martin of Asian business advisory firm Dezan Shira & Associates. "Everything now depends on how the US decides to interpret and enforce the idea of transshipment," he added. "If the US takes a broader view and starts questioning products that use foreign parts, even when value is genuinely added in Vietnam, it could end up affecting a lot of companies that are playing by the rules." Vietnam's government said in a statement late on Wednesday that under the deal the country had promised "preferential market access for US goods, including large-engine cars". But the statement gave scant detail about the transshipment arrangements in the deal, which Trump announced on his Truth Social platform. Bloomberg Economics forecast Vietnam could lose a quarter of its exports to the United States in the medium term, endangering more than two per cent of its gross domestic product as a result of the agreement. Uncertainty over how transshipping will be "defined or enforced" is likely to have diplomatic repercussions, said Bloomberg Economics expert Rana Sajedi. "The looming question now is how China will respond," she said. "Beijing has made clear that it would respond to deals that came at the expense of Chinese interests." "The decision to agree to a higher tariff on goods deemed to be 'transshipped' through Vietnam may fall in that category," added Sajedi.
The Star
3 hours ago
- The Star
Beijing braces for US trade deals that aim to shut out China
BEIJING: The trade truce between Washington and Beijing may be holding for now, but China is increasingly wary about what's happening elsewhere: US efforts to forge deals that could isolate Chinese firms from global supply chains. Ahead of a July 9 deadline, US officials are deep in talks with major trading partners in Asia and Europe, pushing for new agreements that would include restrictions on Chinese content, or secure commitments to counter what Washington sees as China's unfair trade practices. In the first such deal, President Donald Trump on Wednesday (July 2) announced a tiered tariff agreement with Vietnam. Exports to the US from the South-East Asian nation will be charged a 20% rate, Trump said in a social-media post, with 40% levied on any goods deemed to be transshipped through the country. That will hit products with components from China and possibly other nations, which are routed through Vietnam or subject to only minimal final assembly before being exported to the US. The approach mirrors provisions in an existing US trade agreement with Mexico and Canada. India, another nation seen as close to a deal, has also been negotiating over "rules of origin.' Washington wants at least 60% of a product's value added locally to qualify as "Made in India' and benefit from the deal, Bloomberg News previously reported. India has pushed to bring that down to around 35%, according to the report. "Asia's dilemma when it comes to Trump's trade war is all about dependence on US final demand while relying heavily on China's value added in domestic production,' Alicia Garcia Herrero, Asia-Pacific chief economist at Natixis SA, said in a recent report, adding that Vietnam, Cambodia and Taiwan were among the most exposed. China, a larger trade partner than the US for most Asian economies, has warned of consequences if its interests are threatened, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi is likely to raise that again on his visit to Europe this week for talks in Brussels, Germany and France. "China firmly opposes any party reaching a deal at the expense of Chinese interests in exchange for so-called tariff reductions,' the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement Saturday, repeating earlier warnings. "If this happens, China will never accept it and will resolutely counter it to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.' Trump's 90-day pause on what he called "reciprocal' tariffs on dozens of America's trading partners ends on July 9. Unless those countries reach trade deals with the US, they could potentially face much higher tariffs. Some governments are making moves to stay on the right side of Washington. Vietnam, Thailand and South Korea have all put in place measures to stop goods from being rerouted through their countries to the US since Trump's tariffs were unveiled in April. South Korean customs announced a crackdown on transshipments, citing a rise in the practice. Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te also flagged the issue and followed up with new rules requiring all US-bound exports to carry a legal declaration they were made on the island. Another concern for Beijing is whether the US could convince others to impose or tighten export controls on high-tech equipment, which would further hamper Chinese efforts to buy the tools it needs to produce advanced semiconductors. Taiwan in June added Huawei Technologies Co. and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. to its so-called entity list, barring Taiwanese firms from doing business with them without government approval. The pressure isn't limited to Asia. Europe, too, finds itself in a delicate position. The EU is China's largest export destination for electric vehicles, and investment from Chinese firms into the bloc plus the UK hit 10 billion euros (US$12 billion) last year, according to recent research from Rhodium Group. Yet trade tensions are rising. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recently accused Beijing of "weaponising' rare earths and magnets and warned of the risks posed by Chinese overcapacity. Beijing is particularly concerned that the EU might sign up to provisions similar to those in the UK's deal with the US, which included commitments around supply chain security, export controls, and ownership rules in sectors like steel, aluminum and pharmaceuticals. While the language did not name China, Beijing criticised the agreement in a rare public statement, interpreting it as a direct challenge, the Financial Times reported. "China is clearly worried that the EU will accept the same wording as the UK did on export controls,' said Joerg Wuttke, a partner at the Albright Stonebridge Group in Washington and former president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China. "They are pushing the EU not to do this, and the US is pushing the EU to do it.' Brussels and Washington are aiming to reach some form of an agreement before July 9, when Washington is set to impose a 50% tariff on nearly all EU products. With European exports to the US worth more than double the amount to China, the bloc sees Washington as the more important partner, giving the US leverage in the talks. China's weekend statement is "obviously aimed entirely at Brussels,' said Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy in Brussels, who was recently in Beijing for meetings ahead of an EU-China summit this month. "China is concerned what the EU might agree with the US.' The long-term risk for Beijing is that these efforts coalesce into a broader shift - not just a US-led campaign to curb Chinese exports, but a reshaping of global trade around "trusted' supply chains, with China increasingly on the outside. In a visit to South-East Asia earlier this year, President Xi Jinping urged the region to stand together as an "Asian family,' warning against trade fragmentation. Beijing has often responded to actions it opposes with targeted trade measures. When the EU imposed tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles last year, China launched anti-dumping probes into European brandy, dairy and pork. It halted Japanese seafood imports in 2023 after Group of Seven meetings in Japan were seen as critical of China. A spat with Australia in 2020 led to trade restrictions on billions of dollars' worth of goods, including lobsters, wine and barley. "If some agreements explicitly list China as a target and show that some countries are cooperating or collaborating with the US to 'contain China,' then China will definitely respond,' said Tu Xinquan, dean of the China Institute for WTO Studies at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing and a former adviser to the Chinese Commerce Ministry. - Bloomberg
The Star
3 hours ago
- The Star
Philippines biodiversity hotspot Palawan pushes back on mining
BROOKES POINT, Philippines: A nickel stockpile towers over farmer Moharen Tambiling's rice paddy in the Philippines' Palawan, evidence of a mining boom that locals hope a new moratorium will tame. "They told us before the start of their operations that it wouldn't affect us, but the effects are undeniable now," Tambiling told AFP. "Pangolins, warthogs, birds are disappearing. Flowers as well." A biodiversity hotspot, Palawan also holds vast deposits of nickel, needed for everything from stainless steel to electric vehicles. Once the world's largest exporter of the commodity, the Philippines is now racing to catch up with Indonesia. In 2021, Manila lifted a nine-year ban on mining licences. Despite promised jobs and tax revenue, there is growing pushback against the sector in Palawan. In March, the island's governing council unanimously passed a 50-year moratorium on any new mining permits. "Flash floods, the siltation of the sea, fisheries, mangrove areas... We are witnesses to the effects of long-term mining," Nieves Rosento, a former local councillor who led the push, told AFP. Environmental rights lawyer Grizelda Mayo-Anda said the moratorium could stop nearly 70 proposed projects spanning 240,000 hectares. "You have to protect the old-growth forest, and it's not being done," she said. From 2001 to 2024, Palawan -- dubbed the country's "last ecological frontier" -- lost 219,000 hectares of tree cover, more than any other province, in part due to mining, according to Global Forest Watch. A fisherman showing two fish, his catch of the day, near the pier at the village of Maasin, in Brooke's Point, Palawan province. - AFP In southern Palawan's Brooke's Point, a Chinese ship at a purpose-built pier waits for ore from the stockpile overlooking Tambiling's farm. Mining company Ipilan says increased production will result in greater royalties for Indigenous people and higher tax revenues, but that means little to Tambiling's sister Alayma. The single mother-of-six once made 1,000-5,000 pesos (US$18-90) a day selling lobster caught where the pier now sits. "We were surprised when we saw backhoes digging up the shore," she told AFP, calling a one-time compensation offer of 120,000 pesos ($2,150) insulting. "The livelihood of all the indigenous peoples depended on that area." On the farm, Tambiling stirred rice paddy mud to reveal reddish laterite he says is leaking from the ore heap and poisoning his crops. Above him, swathes of the Mantalingahan mountains have been deforested, producing floods he describes as "fearsome, deep and fast-moving." Ipilan has faced protests and legal challenges over its logging, but its operations continue. Calls to parent company Global Ferronickel Holdings were not returned. For some in Palawan, the demand for nickel to power EVs has a certain irony. "You may be able to... eliminate pollution using electric vehicles," said Jeminda Bartolome, an anti-mining advocate. "But you should also study what happens to the area you are mining." In Bataraza, the country's oldest nickel mine is expanding, having secured permission before the moratorium. Rio Tuba employees armed with brooms, goggles, hats and scarves are barely visible through reddish dust as they sweep an access road that carries 6,000 tonnes of ore destined for China each day. Company senior vice president Jose Bayani Baylon said mining turned a barely accessible malarial swamp into a "first-class municipality". "You have an airport, you have a port, you have a community here. You have a hospital, you have infrastructure which many other communities don't have," he told AFP. He dismisses environmental concerns as overblown. With part of its concession tapped out, the company is extending into an area once off-limits to logging but since rezoned. Thousands of trees have been cleared since January, according to locals, but Baylon said "under the law, for every tree you cut, you have to plant 100". The company showed AFP a nine-hectare plot it spent 15 years restoring with native plants. But it is unclear to what degree that will be replicated. Baylon concedes some areas could become solar farms instead. Nearby, indigenous resident Kennedy Coria says mining has upset Mount Bulanjao's ecosystem. "Honeybees disappeared where we used to find them. Fruit trees in the forest stopped bearing fruit," the father-of-seven said. A fifth of the Philippines' Indigenous land is covered by mining and exploration permits, according to rights group Global Witness. Legally, they have the right to refuse projects and share profits, but critics say the process is rarely clear. "There are Indigenous peoples who have not received any royalties for the past 10 years," said Rosento. Coria, who can neither read nor write, said he must sign a document each year when accepting what he is told is his share of Rio Tuba profits. "We get about four kilos of rice from the community leader, who tells us it came from the company," he said. Rio Tuba said funds are distributed in coordination with the National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP), which is meant to represent the communities. But some say it acts in the interests of miners, attempting to persuade locals to accept concessions and the terms offered by companies. The NCIP referred questions to multiple regional offices, none of which replied. The government's industry regulator declined interview requests. While Palawan's moratorium will not stop Rio Tuba's expansion or Ipilan's operations, supporters believe it will slow further mining. Ryan Maminta, a councillor who backed the moratorium, said it already halted one expansion. There are looming legal challenges, however. A recent Supreme Court decision struck down a mining ban in Occidental Mindoro province. Backers remain confident though, and Rosento said the council would stand firm. "Responsible mining is just a catchphrase," she said. - AFP
