THE crisis in the Taiwan Strait continues to hog headlines. The visit of United States Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei on Aug 2 and several other visits from the US government officials who treat the island as a sovereign state have understandably enraged Beijing.
Under the One China Policy, which the US embraced since 1979, Taiwan is an inalienable part of China.
The most recent event to make headlines happened on Sunday Aug 21, when Washington despatched two Navy warships to the Taiwan Strait.
According to John Kirby, a spokesperson for the US National Security Council, the passage sent a "very clear" and "very consistent" message that "the US military will sail, fly and operate wherever international law permits us to do so".
There is nothing to crow about. The passage is allowed under international law. The transit was outside China's 12-mile territorial sea where Beijing insists on prior notification.
In fact, the transit took place in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of China where all states can exercise the freedom of navigation, not in international waters as claimed by Washington.
As a coastal state, China has no right to stop the passage under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention. To its credit, although it complained that such passage was provocative, it did not send its Navy or Air Force to interfere with the transit.
That Beijing held its fire under duress is highly commendable. For regional stability, it is important for China to permit the right of navigation in its EEZ although Washington is consciously provoking China to start a war.
Writing in the National Interest, Paul Heer summarises the US fear of its own internal vulnerabilities and decline as a pretext to take on China with the tendency to overstate the nature and scope of the challenge.
I have argued elsewhere that President Joe Biden's foreign policy is overly simplistic. When he became US president in January 2021, the world expected that he would rapidly undo the harsh policies put in place against Chin
The writer is a keen student of geopolitics