Asia Pacific

US defence secretary Mattis pushes diplomatic solutions, but Beijing remains wary of Trump administration

A softer line taken by US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis over the South China Sea on Saturday may help clarify Washington’s stance, but Beijing is likely to remain very cautious on the rhetoric of President Donald Trump’s administration, Chinese analysts said.

Speaking in Tokyo with his Japanese counterpart Tomomi Inada as he wrapped up his first overseas trip, Mattis played down any need for major US military moves in the South China Sea.

Asia Pacific

Peter Navarro: Trump’s “China Policy Czar” ?

President-elect Trump named Peter Navarro to head the as-yet-uncreated White House National Trade Council. What does this portend?

Michael Wessel, a long-serving member of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), argued the United States government needs “to put somebody in charge” of US China policy “who looks at both the economic and national security implications of the US-China relationship and recognizes that they are inextricably intertwined.” Navarro definitely fits that description.

It is not clear what this council will do or how it might influence US-China relations. What is clear is that Dr. Navarro believes that trade with China is a zero-sum game the United States is losing. Moreover, the Harvard-educated economist also believes that “an authoritarian and increasingly militaristic China” is using its supposed trade advantage to execute “a hegemonic agenda” that could lead to a nuclear war with the United States.

Asia Pacific

China must be ready to take Taiwan by force – Beijing state media on Trump’s One China stance

The Chinese government should be prepared to seize Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade state, by force before the new US administration “activates the Taiwan card” to dictate terms in mutual relations, Beijing’s unofficial mouthpiece has stated.

“The Chinese mainland should display its resolution to recover Taiwan by force,” the Communist party-owned Chinese newspaper Global Times wrote earlier this week. Calling recent comments by US President-elect Donald Trump and his supporters regarding Taiwan and one-China policy a “farce,” the editorial stressed that China is now forced to be “vigilant” and forestall any potential US actions regarding the matter with their own actions.

“It might be time for the Chinese mainland to reformulate its Taiwan policy, make the use of force as a main option and carefully prepare for it.” 

Asia Pacific

Officials: Multilateral Effort Needed to Curb North Korean Cyber, Nuclear Threat

North Korea’s continued testing of nuclear weapons and expanded submarine-launched ballistic missiles threaten not only the South Korea, United States forces on the peninsula, and Japan but the global community, one of Seoul’s senior defense acquisition planners told a Washington forum Monday.

“Bilateral and multilateral cooperation is needed” to counter Pyongyang’s defiance of U.N. security resolutions to end those programs, Kim Il Dong, director general of the acquisition planning bureau in its Defense Acquisition Program, said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies(CSIS), a Washington, D.C., think-tank.

In his presentation, he said Japan and Singapore and possibly one or two others could come together with Washington and Seoul on how best to deal with North Korea. A forum for that to start could be U.S. Pacific Command’s 2017 conference to discuss regional security issues.

Last week, PACOM commander Adm. Harry Harris said he advocates the creation of more multilateral defense agreements, particularly ones with an eye toward detering North Korea.

Asia Pacific

What will President Trump do about North Korea?

It is unusual, but the North Korean media seems lost for words. The mouthpieces of the Supreme Leader have so far had little to say about the 45th president of the United States of America.

Probably, like most of the rest of the world, Mr Kim and those close to him never assumed it would happen, so the barrage of rhetoric was directed at outgoing President Obama and his presumed successor.

He was a "wicked black monkey" and Hillary Rodham Clinton was a "pensioner going shopping" (the finer points of political correctness not having yet reached the Democratic People's Republic of Korea).

Either way, the United States represented a "completely failed regime" that "will certainly be buried" in the "cesspool of history".