Biggest Test For German Military — Will Its Navy Poke The Dragon In The Eye & Traverse ‘Volatile’ Taiwan Strait?

In 2023, Germany released its first National Security Strategy, which focused on China and discussed maintaining the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. Shifting its focus from the Transatlantic to the Indo-Pacific meant Germany dispatched its warships to the Indo-Pacific in 2024. But the real litmus test of its resolve will be reflected if these warships transit the disputed Taiwan Strait.

The Ukraine-Russia war shook the foundations of the European Peaceful order. The German 2022 progress report mentioned that the “rules-based international order is coming under mounting pressure” in the Indo-Pacific region as geopolitical tensions are pushing the countries to the brink of conflict. This led to the expansion of the German policy guidelines.

Its first-ever National Security Strategy reiterated that the Indo-Pacific “remains of special significance to Germany and Europe.” The German government has taken a tougher stand towards China, as indicated in its 2023 China Strategy.

The strategy acknowledges that “China has changed” and asserts that Beijing’s political decisions warrant a change in its “approach to China.”

In light of this, Berlin has already begun to boost its security commitments to the Indo-Pacific. In 2021, Germany deployed its first warship to the South China Sea in almost 20 years, and in 2022, it sent 13 military aircraft to join military exercises held in Australia.

For the first time, the German Air Force sent its fighter jet to participate in a multilateral aerial exercise in India.

The two German warships, on their Indo-Pacific deployment, have scheduled port calls in Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and India. However, the decision on whether they will traverse the Taiwan Strait, one of the flashpoints in the world today, will be made closer to the date after their port call in the Philippines.

The deployment to maintain freedom of navigation comes at a time when tensions between China and Taiwan are escalating.

“The decision has not been taken yet,” the commander of the naval task group, Rear Admiral Axel Schulz, was quoted by Reuters. “We are showing our flag here to demonstrate that we stand by our partners and friends, our commitment to the rules-based order, the peaceful solution of territorial conflicts, and free and secure shipping lanes.”

The two German warships, the frigate Baden-Württemberg and the combat supply ship Frankfurt am Main set sail for a world tour on May 7.

While the US and other nations have sent warships through the strait, it would be the German Navy’s first passage through the strait since 2002. The Taiwan Strait is a 180-kilometer-wide strait that separates the island of Taiwan from the Asian continent. It lies between mainland China’s Fujian Province and Taiwan Island. The Strait connects the South China Sea and the East China Sea in the western Pacific Ocean.

The alternate shipping route that the German warships can follow to come from the South China Sea is the Luzon Strait. The Luzon Strait is the waterway between Luzon (an island in the Philippines) and Taiwan. It connects the Philippine Sea to the South China Sea in the Western Pacific Ocean. The warships are expected in India for an exercise with the Indian Navy. This would add a few more days to ocean travel time.

The Taiwan Strait is a major trade route through which about half of global container ships pass and both the United States and Taiwan assert it to be an international waterway.

Taiwan Strait is a conduit for the raw materials to manufacturing powerhouses China, Japan, and South Korea. These three countries comprised nearly 40 percent of the world’s manufacturing output in 2019. Nearly half of the world’s 5,400 container ships passed through the Taiwan Strait in 2022, according to a November 2023 report by the US Naval Institute.

According to Bloomberg’s modeling, a war between Taiwan would deal a $10 trillion blow to the global economy, cutting world GDP by a whopping 10 percent. Besides adding to travel time, the alternate route through the Luzon Strait is risky as it is frequently churned up during typhoon season.

Poking The Dragon

Germany has been unwilling to poke the dragon too hard. Its last deployment to the Indo-Pacific was the warship Bayern, which traversed the South China Sea, but it stayed on the common international shipping routes. It also refrained from conducting any military drills, such as helicopter take-off and landing.

This was Berlin sidestepping taking a clear stand on the issue, even as its own Indo-Pacific Guidelines assert the decisiveness of international law on the issue.

In 2021, during the German Navy’s first deployment to the Indo-Pacific in almost two decades, frigate Bayern docked in Pakistan, Australia, Guam, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and India.

In a balancing act, Germany requested a stop in Shanghai to signal that the deployment was not against China. China rejected the port call.

Bayern also tried to avoid creating ripples in the South China Sea by sticking to international shipping routes and not conducting any military drills (exercises or rehearsals of prescribed movements). According to international law, warships have the right to “innocent passage” through the territorial seas of other countries.

Freedom of Navigation & The Taiwan Strait

The US Navy routinely conducts operations to demonstrate freedom of navigation. The Royal Navy (of the United Kingdom), France, and Canada have also sent warships through the Taiwan Strait.

The Royal Canadian Navy warship HMCS Ottawa transited the Taiwan Strait for the first time on September 9, 2023. During its 17-hour journey, it was flanked by three Chinese warships armed with missiles and torpedoes.

The freedom of navigation exercises by the US Navy warships through the Taiwan Strait have led to close encounters with the Chinese Navy. In June 2023, the US military released a video showing a close encounter between a Chinese warship and an American destroyer in the Taiwan Strait. The Chinese navy ship was observed executing maneuvers in an “unsafe manner,” coming within 150 yards of the USS Chung-Hoon.

Within 10 days, another American destroyer transiting the Taiwan Strait had to face an aggressive Chinese Navy ship. Prior to this, in 2021, the USS Kidd guided-missile destroyer and the Coast Guard cutter Munro sailed through the strait in international waters.

• Ritu Sharma has been a journalist for over a decade, writing on defense, foreign affairs, and nuclear technology.
• The author can be reached at ritu.sharma (at) mail.com
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