Taiwan warns China ‘expansionism’ to persist without global action

TAIPEI: China’s “authoritarian expansionism” in regional waters will persist if the world fails to act, a senior Taiwanese security official warned on Wednesday, describing Beijing’s strategy as “incremental salami slicing”.

Chinese ships regularly ply the East China Sea, Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea to assert Beijing’s maritime claims over disputed waters and islands.

China is “constantly pushing the limits through an incremental salami-slicing approach,” Lii Wen, a deputy secretary-general of the National Security Council, told an international forum.

Lii said China’s “authoritarian expansionism” involved the use of military, coast guard, research and maritime militia vessels to press its claims and attempt to “transform international waterways into internal waters”.

“If the world fails to voice our concerns or take action, this expansionism will only continue,” Lii warned.

Ocean Affairs Minister Kuan Bi-ling told the forum that Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines faced the “same pattern of actions” that were “deliberately controlled to remain below the threshold of conventional warfare”.

“When a series of actions accumulates, it may create an entirely new status quo,” Kuan said.

Their remarks came a day after ships from Japan’s and China’s coast guards faced off near disputed islands claimed as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.

Each side claimed they drove out the other’s vessels that had intruded into their territorial waters.