Credit: Asia Times
The US is actively pursuing plans to send Taiwan four MQ-9B Sea Guardian uavs to gather information on Chinese navy operations that will be communicated in real time with the American and Japanese forces, according to last week’s Financial Times (FT) report. The sale of the drones was authorised by the US Department of Defence in May, but no comments have been made on the intelligence-sharing agreement, which was apparently revealed to the Financial Times by four people.
The choice highlights the folly of US assertions that it still pursues a “One China” policy under which it essentially accepts Taiwan as a part of China and is another step in incorporating Taiwan into US war planning over China. Along with continuing to provide Taipei with military equipment, Washington is also enlisting Taipei in a network of military partnerships in the Indo-Pacific that are aimed at China.
The US is conscious of how controversial this action is. “The sharing of data between Japan and Taiwan, Taiwan and the Philippines, and the US with all three of them, is so crucial, but it’s also one of the big restrictions because China will see it as escalatory,” a senior US military officer who preferred to remain nameless told the Financial Times.
In accordance with the clause, General Atomics, a US firm, must begin supplying drones to Taiwan in 2025. The MQ-9B Sea Guardian drones can carry what the manufacturer refers to as “a kinetic payload,” which might include rockets and anti-submarine torpedoes, and are employed to monitor warships and submarines.
After the FT piece was published, a spokeswoman for the US defence department stated that the US was “not currently intending to help with MQ-9 information exchange between Taiwan and Japan.” He did not dispute the fact that Taiwan and the US share information, and that the drones will significantly increase such sharing.
According to Taiwan’s defence ministry, it has “not yet been informed of plans to share real-time data from naval reconnaissance drones with the US and Japan.” Taiwan is already exchanging intelligence with the high-level Five Eyes surveillance network, which is made up of the US, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, according to National Security Bureau (NSB) head Tsai Ming-yen, who spoke before the island’s legislature in late April.
Despite not currently being a part of the Five Eyes network, Japan already exchanges intelligence with the US, and talks to improve the connection are in progress. “There are increasing calls from inside both governments—and outside government—for the United States and Japan to increase intelligence sharing since war planning requires a much higher level of information sharing between militaries,” the US think tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies noted in a January article titled “How Might Japan Join the Five Eyes?” It added that this also highlighted the issue of Japan joining the Five Eyes.
The US’s interest in Taiwan is not by chance. Following Trump’s lead, Biden has consciously undercut the One China policy by strengthening his military and diplomatic connections with Taipei and increasing aggressive navy transits in the congested Taiwan Strait. Although China has highlighted that it favours peaceful ways of reunification with Taiwan, it has not disqualified the use of force should Taipei officially proclaim its independence from Beijing.
Following the FT’s disclosures last week, a spokeswoman for the Chinese foreign ministry, Wang Wenbin, urged the US and Japan to “avoid inciting military tensions and jeopardising security in the Taiwan Strait… We vehemently reject any military interactions between Taiwan and nations that have diplomatic connections with China.
The steps taken to construct a “common operational picture” between Taiwan, the US, and its allies through real-time information sharing is a warning of the highly developed nature of the Pentagon’s planning for war with China—a confrontation that would be catastrophic for all of mankind.
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