Australia’s defence minister Richard Marles has called on China to explain why it needs to have “such an extraordinary military build-up”.
On Sunday morning, Marles asserted that “what we have seen from China is the single biggest increase in military capability and build up in conventional sense, by any country since the end of the Second World War”.
It is not just the size of the military build-up that concerns other countries, he told reporters.
“It’s the fact that it is happening without strategic reassurance. It’s happening without a clear strategic intent on the part of China… what we want to see is strategic transparency and strategic reassurance be provided by China, and an understanding of why it is needed to have such an extraordinary military build-up.”
Many, many countries have ‘historical claims’ that mean nothing in current day geopolitics.
Claiming that ‘Taiwan is not a country’ is enough for me to know that this will not be a fruitful discussion.
Literally the first line of the ‘Taiwan’ Wikipedia article:
“Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia.”
Taiwan is a region of the ROC. The ROC is a country.