China Launches Campaign to Illegally Police Ships Near Taiwan

A new Chinese Coast Guard operation targeting foreign commercial shipping off Taiwan’s Pacific coast drew criticism Wednesday from the United States and other Western nations. Some analysts view it as a potential dry run for a naval quarantine of Taiwan.

• From June 6 to 10, Chinese Coast Guard crews issued radio interrogations to 198 commercial vessels in waters east of Taiwan’s main territory.
• China has no jurisdiction over this maritime region and no legal authority to conduct these operations. But it signals China’s intensifying determination to assert control over democratic Taiwan and its environs.

Dangerous precedent: The U.S.’s de facto embassy in Taiwan called China’s actions “deeply destabilizing” and said: “We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic and economic pressure against Taiwan and instead engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwan’s democratically elected authorities.”

• British, French and German authorities said the Chinese operations “threaten regional stability and the freedom of navigation and safety of international shipping.”

Raymond Powell, director of Stanford University’s SeaLight project, told the Wall Street Journal that the campaign sets a precedent that China can build on as it works to assert control over waters around Taiwan and throughout the South China Sea.

“Today, it’s radio challenges,” he said. “That lays the groundwork for tomorrow, when it could be stopping and boarding ships, redirecting them to clear customs on the mainland, or turning them back for failing ‘inspection.’”

For decades, the Trumpet has cautioned that America’s lack of will is going to be the main factor that enables China to seize Taiwan. In 1998, after U.S. President Bill Clinton yielded to Chinese pressure by issuing a statement critical of Taiwanese independence, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote:

The Chinese leaders pressured the president and America to speak against our freedom-loving friends before the whole world. … The people of Taiwan fear for their future. They feel betrayed. …

Once again, America has showcased its broken will to the whole world. …

How could anyone fail to see that Taiwan is destined to become a part of mainland China? These [23 million] people are going to be forced into the Chinese mold; and it is going to happen for one reason: because of a pitifully weak-willed America.

Does freedom really mean so little to us?

Mr. Flurry based his analysis of America’s faltering will, and its role in the China-Taiwan dynamic, on biblical prophecy.

• Leviticus 26 records God’s warning to the descendants of Israel—mainly modern America and Britain—that if they refuse to obey Him, then He will “break the pride of [their] power” (verse 19).

As China intensifies its campaign to conquer Taiwan and as America limits its response to statements of concern, it is easy to see how Taiwan’s independence will be one of the casualties of America’s broken will. As Powell said, “[W]ords not backed by real costs … just teach Beijing that its strategy is working. The coils will keep tightening.”

To learn more, order your free copy of Russia and China in Prophecy.