China’s new aircraft carrier recently conducted its first fighter jet takeoff and landing drills in the provisional measures zone of the West Sea. Despite the sea’s shallow depth and vulnerability to anti-ship missiles, making it unsuitable for carrier operations, China pressed ahead with combat readiness training. In this zone, where the maritime boundary with South Korea remains undefined, China had already installed fixed structures and large buoys believed to have military purposes. Now it has brought in a carrier as well. This likely signals an intent to turn the West Sea into Chinese territorial waters and to build military power against the South Korea–U.S. and Japan–U.S. alliances. China’s other carriers have trained near Taiwan and Japan’s Okinawa.
“America can’t be everywhere all the time, nor should we be,” said the U.S. Defense Secretary on June 5 following a NATO defense ministers’ meeting. In Washington, talk of a U.S. troop reduction in South Korea is increasingly open. It is already assumed that U.S. Forces Korea will take on a bigger role and more responsibilities. The USFK commander said last month that South Korea is like an “aircraft carrier between Japan and China,” suggesting U.S. troops here are no longer just a fixed force to deter North Korea but a key element of Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy to contain China.
At the Asia Security Summit, the U.S. defense chief revealed that President Xi Jinping had ordered China’s military to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. He warned that China’s military “is rehearsing for the real deal.” The year 2027 marks the expected start of Xi’s fourth term, and Chinese forces have intensified Taiwan encirclement drills this year. The U.S. is monitoring China’s military moves closely using advanced surveillance assets. Warnings that an invasion could be imminent can no longer be dismissed as bluff.
Military experts predict that if China attacks Taiwan, it will try to provoke North Korea into opening a second front to tie down U.S. troops in South Korea. The Chinese carrier deployed to the West Sea is named Fujian, after the province facing Taiwan, symbolizing Beijing’s intent to unify with the island. If China enters the West Sea during a Taiwan crisis and North Korea miscalculates, what happens to the Korean Peninsula? At this critical moment, Washington says it cannot protect everywhere all the time. It brings to mind the Acheson Line that preceded the Korean War. That is why China’s threats must not be dismissed as science fiction.
