Donovan’s Deep Dives: Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines need to face the common threat from Beijing

Beijing is testing new territorial narratives around Batanes and Okinawa as growing regional cooperation threatens its ambitions along the first island chain

• By Courtney Donovan Smith 石東文 / Staff Columnist

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For a time, it became popular to describe the tactics of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in encroaching on sovereignty and militarizing islands in the South China Sea as “salami slicing.” Those slices have been getting chunkier.

The People’s Liberation Army has been increasing its navy and air force activities in the region. The Chinese Coast Guard has likewise been ramping up their activities, and the civilian paramilitary People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia has been backing up the navy and coast guard with alarming swarming maneuvers.

The PRC claims most of the South China Sea through its U-shaped 10-dash line (formerly nine-dash line). Various neighboring states such as Taiwan, however, are much closer and have stronger historical claims.

A Chinese Coast Guard ship, back, on July 24 fires water canon on a Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) ship near Scarborough Shoal, in the disputed South China Sea.

Photo: AFP

Several neighboring coastal states such as Taiwan have competing claims to features and much stronger claims under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to maritime zones extending from their own coasts.

In July 2016, an UNCLOS arbitral tribunal ruled that China had no legal basis for claiming historic resource rights beyond those provided by the convention within the nine-dash line.

China’s harassment of Japan over their claims to the Senkaku Islands, also known as Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in Taiwan and China, is long-standing, but has intensified.

A weapons safety instruction sign in May stands at the US Marine Corps’ Camp Schwab in Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan.

Photo: AFP

Also not new, but recently ramped up, are Chinese claims questioning Japan’s sovereignty over Okinawa Prefecture — which encompasses the Ryukyu Islands — in both state media and so-called scholarly symposiums. See Michael Turton’s “Notes from Central Taiwan: Okinawa as Taiwan” (Dec. 22, 2025) for more. Beijing has not formally laid claim to Okinawa, but there is the strong implication they might, or press for the restoration of the Ryukyu Kingdom, which had once been a Chinese tributary state.

The upgrading of the nine-dash line to 10 included a dash off the east coast of Taiwan, which presaged the recent regular “law enforcement” activities by the Chinese coast guard.

Clashes with Southeast Asian nations in the South China Sea have been ongoing for decades, but recently the Chinese navy and coast guard have been increasingly aggressive towards the Philippines. Alarmingly, there are indications that Beijing may be planning to militarize Scarborough Shoal — known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) in China, Bajo de Masinloc in the Philippines and Democracy Reef (民主礁) in Taiwan — which would point a dagger only about 120 nautical miles from Luzon and 200 nautical miles from Manila.

US Marines in May take part in a drone operator training course at Camp Schwab in Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan.

Photo: AFP

Then, like a toddler pointing to whatever they want and declaring loudly “mine,” the PRC is now pushing the line through their nationalistic Global Times that “From both historical and legal perspectives, it remains questionable whether the sovereignty over Batanes Islands belongs to the Philippines” and that “the islands have longstanding historical ties with China’s Taiwan region and that relevant legal grounds exist for China to claim sovereignty.”

LAYING THE GROUNDWORK

Beijing has not yet formally laid claim to the Batanes, but is using the Global Times to apply pressure on the Philippines. The Strategist, the analysis and commentary site for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, summed up the short-term goal: “For the moment, the manufactured claim may serve only as a flexible diplomatic and legal pressure point to advance immediate objectives: disrupting Japan–Philippines maritime boundary talks and escalating cognitive warfare against Taiwan.”

The cognitive warfare extends to the region with the intent of creating fear and strengthening the hand of those favoring appeasement towards Beijing. Appeasement has always failed over the long term with hegemonic, dictatorial regimes like the PRC’s, but fear remains a powerful motivator for some in closing one’s eyes to historical precedent and hoping somehow this time things will be different.

China is unlikely to invade Batanes or Okinawa in the immediate future, but they are creating the conditions for them to act should the opportunity arise. They are laying the groundwork for such an eventuality, such as a withdrawal of US forces, or the calculation in Beijing that their relative military advantage is worth the risk.

Recently, in joint diplomatic statements, Beijing has been increasingly pressuring other countries to strongly reaffirm their support for China’s “one China principle” that Taiwan is an “inalienable” part of China’s territory.

Watch to see if they begin to do the same with other territorial claims; it would be an important signal.

Geographically, Okinawa is north of Taiwan across the Miyako Strait, while the Batanes sit just south of Taiwan in the Bashi Channel. Both nations are treaty allies of the US, and those key geographical positions allow careful monitoring of Chinese navy activities as they traverse through the first island chain. They are also critical locations in any defense of — or attack on — Taiwan.

Military analyst Lu Wen-hao (陸文浩) recently published a piece in Storm Media entitled “China Is Quietly Signaling It Can Control the Bashi Channel.” This is based on Lu’s tracking of vessels and movements in the region, including off Taiwan’s south and southeast coasts.

If true, this is alarming. It would also dovetail with the recent Chinese propaganda on the sovereign status of the Batanes.

Beijing has also in the last few months been conducting research in these key regions, especially near Scarborough Shoal, the Bashi Channel and off the east coast of Taiwan. This may sound harmless, but they are capable of providing key military analysis and monitoring of conditions that would be very valuable in an invasion or blockade scenario, especially for the Chinese navy.

WHY THE UPTICK?

The CCP has a long-term strategy that has continued for decades — sometimes increasing or decreasing their activities.

The recent uptick in aggressiveness may be related to Washington being distracted by its war in Iran, and US President Donald Trump’s failure to stand against Beijing’s hostility towards Japan and its Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. However, there is a risk of viewing the situation through an overly US-centric lens.

A bigger factor is likely recent moves by Japan and the Philippines to both boost their individual military capabilities while simultaneously deepening their mutual cooperation and interoperability, which Beijing views with alarm, judging by their party-state media going into hyperbolic overdrive.

Though Washington remains a key partner, all of these recent moves by Beijing increase the imperative for Taiwan to closely coordinate with Japan and the Philippines. Taiwan’s problematic diplomatic status complicates matters, however.

The good news? All three nations may be aware of this. According to Reuters, Japan in 2023 appointed a serving government official to act as its de facto defence attache in Taiwan, instead of a retired official as was common previously.

The Philippines in April last year loosened restrictions on higher-level contact with Taiwan, though it still excludes the president and foreign and defense secretaries. The Philippines in July sent serving Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, Coast Guard spokesman Grand Commodore Jay Tarriela and a former Presidential Communications Office assistant secretary to attend the Taiwan International Ocean Forum in Taipei. This year, Delfin N. Lorenzana, former defense secretary for the Philippines, was a panelist at the Yushan Forum in Taipei.

Let us hope that there is more extensive cooperation among the three countries. It could be valuable on an existential level for all three nations.

Donovan’s Deep Dives is a regular column by Courtney Donovan Smith (石東文) who writes in-depth analysis on everything about Taiwan’s political scene and geopolitics. Donovan is also the central Taiwan correspondent at ICRT FM100 Radio News, co-publisher of Compass Magazine, co-founder Taiwan Report (report.tw) and former chair of the Taichung American Chamber of Commerce. Follow him on X: @donovan_smith.