(Bloomberg) — Germany sent its first warship through the Taiwan Strait in 22 years, defying China’s warnings as relations between the two sides fray over trade and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
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The Baden-Württemberg frigate and a support vessel sailed through the strait on Friday, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said at a news conference in Berlin.
“International waters are international waters,” Pistorius told reporters. “It is the shortest and, given the weather conditions, also the safest route,” he added. Asked about the ship’s voyage later on Friday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said: “There’s not much to say about the passage of ships. It’s an international waterway.”
Berlin’s decision to go ahead with the rare voyage risks angering Beijing, which has ramped up military, economic and diplomatic pressure on Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, who refuses to endorse the claim his democratically run island is part of China. Beijing hasn’t ruled out taking the territory by force.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning called any transit an “act of provocation under the pretext of freedom of navigation” this month, when asked about Berlin’s plans. Such actions “harm China’s sovereignty and security,” she added.
Germany’s move highlights a growing willingness by US partners to defy President Xi Jinping and send ships through one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. China doesn’t claim sovereignty over the strait, but wants to regulate the waterway and protests transits by foreign powers.
European Union countries have been increasing their presence in the Indo-Pacific region more broadly this year, according to Hsu Chih-hsiang, assistant analyst at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research.
“EU nations are not likely to send over vessels or troops if China invades Taiwan,” he said. “But they’re still able to send warship in peacetime to show their concerns.”
Germany mulled sending a frigate through the Taiwan Strait several years ago but canceled the plan as then-Chancellor Angela Merkel didn’t want to irritate China, he added. The US conducts regular transits through the strait, and France, the United Kingdom and Canada have all sent vessels in recent years.
China’s military has become more assertive toward Taipei, earlier this year sending a record swarm of warplanes across a US-drawn boundary in the Taiwan Strait. That comes as Beijing increasingly clashes with US ally the Philippines in the nearby South China Sea, where Xi also has territorial claims.
Pistorius sounded the alarm earlier this year over China’s growing military ambitions in the Indo-Pacific. “Fear is growing over Beijing’s military buildup,” he said, also citing “its aggressive economic policies and its open quest for geopolitical dominance.”
Berlin is trying to balance those security concerns with its important economic relationship with China. Scholz lined up with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez this week, calling for the EU to reconsider imposing tariffs on Chinese-made electric cars amid concerns the move could backfire on their domestic industries.
Relations between Berlin and Beijing have cooled under Scholz, who has criticized the world’s No. 2 economy for flooding his market with cheap products. The Chinese leader’s support for Russia despite its war in Ukraine has become another thorny issue in bilateral ties.
Michael Roth, the chairman of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee, earlier this month defended his nation’s actions.
“A transit is not a provocation,” Roth, a member of Scholz’s Social Democratic Party and a former deputy foreign minister, wrote on X. “We stand for peace and security in the Taiwan Strait and oppose any unilateral and violent changes to the status quo by China.”
Germany’s latest move was likely aimed at warning China against military adventurism, said Lin Po-Chou, an assistant research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taipei.
“It’s becoming important for Western countries to deter China’s potential invasion of Taiwan in peacetime,” he said.
–With assistance from Jing Li and Iain Rogers.
(Updates with Scholz comment in third paragraph.)
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