Why would China want a blockade on Japanese islands? Recent drill raises Taiwan spectre
Analysts say the move could be part of China’s strategy ‘to take Taiwan without a fight’ and a Miyako Strait blockade would complicate Japan’s response
A fleet of Chinese navy vessels has conducted what Japanese military analysts believe was an exercise to impose a naval blockade between the main island of Okinawa and the most westerly islands of the prefecture, isolating them as part of Beijing’s plans to take control of Taiwan.
Quoting multiple Japanese government sources, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Wednesday that six Chinese ships – including a Jiangkai Class 1 frigate and three coastguard vessels – sailed around the southern tip of Taiwan before passing from the Pacific through the Miyako Strait and into the East China Sea on December 22.
The joint operation between the navy and armed coastguard vessels was the first in the 250km strait that separates Okinawa island and Miyako and an archipelago of smaller islands that ends with Yonaguni, a little over 100km to the east of Taiwan.
A Japanese government analyst said the ships’ movements were “an unusual move that suggests a maritime blockade”.
The exercises also coincided with the continued presence of Chinese coastguard ships in waters surrounding islands in the East China Sea that Beijing claims and refers to as the Diaoyu archipelago. The uninhabited territories are part of Okinawa prefecture and are administered by Japan, which knows them as the Senkakus.
Stephen Nagy, a professor of politics and international relations at Tokyo’s International Christian University, suggested the move could be “part of China’s broader strategy to take Taiwan without a fight”.
