Chinese and American forces in the Pacific have had a busy year, with the great power rivalry flaring up again recently in the skies off Alaska. Yet this was only the latest episode in a long-running saga of moves and countermoves playing out in warmer seas to the south. The plodding US–PRC checkers game of the past has become a high-stakes chess match of oceanic geopolitics. Beijing and Washington both favor a strategic ambiguity that obscures their plans, objectives, and outcomes as the military escalation builds.
What follows is a list of notable events in the US-China rivalry over the calendar year. Taken together, they illustrate an overall trend of deteriorating bilateral relations and ever more active posturing for worse conflicts to come:
Hostile Bombers Approach Alaska. In a historical first, two nuclear-capable Chinese Xian H-6K bombers and two Russian Tu-95MS Bear bombers crossed into the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on July 24. The bombers were rapidly shooed away by American F-16s and F-35s and Canadian CF-18 fighter jets. Yet this single joint flight marked three ominous firsts: all four bombers were nuclear capable, all four took off from the same Russian air base, and together with Russian fighter jets they entered skies a mere 200 miles from the Alaskan coastline. The bold move illustrated Russia and China’s budding new “no limits” friendship declared in 2022, a pact preoccupied with testing US military power in the Pacific. This was the eighth joint Chinese-Russian bomber flight since 2019. Earlier flight paths overflew the Sea of Japan, East China Sea, and Western Pacific, and meandered into both Japanese and South Korean Air Defense Identification Zones. Russian and PRC naval forces have also increased their joint maritime patrols in Indo-Pacific waters.
PLA Navy Punishes Taiwan for Elections. While Western media applauded Taiwan’s election results in mid-May, Chinese forces threw their own celebration for newly elected president Lai Ching-te by surrounding his island’s air and sea space with military drills. Three days after Lai’s inauguration, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) deployed ground, naval, air, and rocket forces to encircle Taiwan for two days of maneuvers. On May 23, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense reported 49 PLA aircraft, 15 navy vessels, and 16 coast guard vessels in positions around Taiwan — signaling a new PLA ability to operate in and around Taiwan’s more remote eastern coast.
Weeks later in June, Taiwanese authorities recorded 325 incidents of Chinese military aircraft entering Taiwan’s ADIZ — the second highest monthly total of violations by PLA aircraft ever. This uptick in Chinese sky incursions coincided with the Lai administration’s first weeks in power.
The exercises evidently sought to improve joint operational coordination between diverse PLA units. This is a priority for the PLA as it seeks to modernize its many moving parts into a unified force capable of rivaling US military projection in the Pacific. The military exercises dovetail with President Xi Jinping’s rumored ambitions to achieve PLA combat readiness for a potential Taiwan invasion operation by 2027.
Taiwan is home to specialized microchip production facilities coveted by China and crucial to global supply chains for advanced weaponry and hi-tech consumer goods.
Beijing’s military behaviors in Asian waters have given rival militaries insights into Chinese operational progress. US, Japanese, and South Korean military analysts have had ample opportunity to study the PLA Navy’s growing prowess and provocations in recent years. Last September’s navy drills by PLA Navy carrier Shandong and some 20 Chinese warships sailing off Taiwan are a case in point. That same week, six PLA destroyers and two frigates cut a path between Japan’s Okinawa and Miyako islands. Just days earlier, a US destroyer and Canadian frigate had transited the Taiwan Strait — seaspace that Beijing considers its front yard.
Swords and Spears on the Philippine Seas. On June 19, Chinese Coast Guard personnel violently engaged Philippine Navy sailors and marines at the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea. The Filipino forces were attempting to resupply their ship-turned-impromptu-base, the BRP Sierra Madre, intentionally grounded on a submerged reef just west of the Philippines in the 1990s to protect against maritime encroachment by China. On June 19, hand-to-hand fighting ensued with Chinese personnel reportedly brandishing swords, knives and spears. Eight Filipino personnel were injured, possibly Chinese too. The skirmish is reminiscent of a bizarre and deadly Chinese clash with Indian soldiers in Galwan Valley on the Chinese–Indian border in 2020, fought using crude bludgeoning weapons. Manila has warned the PRC that it will consider any “willful act” causing the killing of a Filipino as an act of war. US military involvement would then follow, per US–Philippines defense treaties.
Weaponizing Hainan Island. The Wall Street Journal released evidence in late May that the PLA Navy is expanding its bases on the tropical island of Hainan in the South China Sea. The infrastructure upgrade boosts the PLA surface and submarine deployment radius and brings China closer to challenging US naval dominance in the region.
China Funds New Deep-water Port in Washington’s Backyard. Further afield, on Peru’s Pacific coast, PRC companies and banks are building a multibillion-dollar port in Chancay, Peru. The infrastructure expansion may dramatically invigorate China’s supply chains with Latin America and strengthen Chinese access to South American resources. In this latest manifestation of Beijing’s infrastructure-generating Belt and Road Initiative, the Chancay port is raising US–China tensions as both superpowers vie for influence in Latin America.
Dissenting Voices in the US Navy. Chinese companies already manage or own roughly 100 port facilities around the world. Many analysts warn that Beijing may dual-purpose these commercial ports for aggressive naval operations. However, a Defense News editorial in June highlighted dissenting voices in US defense circles who caution that PRC naval strategy may actually diverge significantly from the US Navy’s blue-water doctrine. The two US Navy authors see a flawed analysis in the Pentagon’s predictions of impending PLA Navy global dominance. In their view, the PLA Navy has demonstrated neither the will nor the actual ability to leverage its aircraft carriers and global commercial ports for real-world power projection. They contend that PLA warships remain predominantly in the near seas off China’s coasts, rarely insinuating power worldwide as the US Navy does. As such, US military planners may be missing the threat posed by Beijing’s “opaque second navy” — its massive Coast Guard and co-opted fishing fleets, such as the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM).
Undersea Fiber-optic Cables Vulnerable to Tampering. The US State Department recently notified Silicon Valley executives of suspicious activities by a state-owned, Shanghai-based company responsible for repairing international undersea cables. The repair ships appeared to habitually turn off their transponders in the western Pacific over recent years in apparent attempts to conceal their movements from maritime tracking systems. The undersea internet cables crisscrossing the Pacific floor transmit sensitive commercial and military data between nations and may be susceptible to Chinese tampering and eavesdropping, per US sources.
US-China Tensions Give Rise to War Games. Off the shores of Hawaii, 25,000 military personnel from 29 nations took part in the massive five-week multinational maritime RIMPAC exercises from June 27 to August 1. These international naval training maneuvers have occurred biannually since 1971, first established by the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Beijing has criticized RIMPAC as more evidence of US-led containment strategies to intimidate the PRC with coalitions. President Xi echoed this complaint while addressing Global South delegations in Beijing in late June, rebuking “bloc confrontation, creating small circles, and forcing others to pick sides.” The PRC Ministry of Defense specifically denounced RIMPAC’s rehearsals for sinking the decommissioned amphibious assault ship USS Tarawa as a practice-run for targeting PLA ships near Taiwan. Incidentally, in more cordial days in 2014 and 2016, the US invited China to participate in RIMPAC exercises.
Asian Military Hotlines and Face-to-face Diplomacy. Despite the increasing belligerence in the Pacific theater, concrete mechanisms for deconfliction are still in play as PRC, US, and East Asian leaders continue to prioritize diplomacy and discussion. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met China’s new Defense Minister Admiral Dong Jun for the first time for talks in Singapore in early June aimed to ease recent US–PRC tensions. Both leaders agreed to reconnect direct communication lines between their respective military commands.
Philippines officials hosted similar meetings in Manila with their PRC counterparts on July 2. In this ninth iteration of PRC–Philippine Bilateral Consultation Mechanism talks held in Manila, officials engaged in “frank and constructive” discussions focused on repairing mutual trust and confidence. Philippine and PRC leaders exchanged policy views on their confrontations in the South China Sea and agreed to explore procedures for direct deconfliction hotlines.
Japan–US–South Korea Trilateral Pact Affirmed. Defense leaders of three major Pacific partners met in early June in Singapore to coordinate further cooperation on intelligence-sharing and deterrence of PRC and North Korean threats. US Secretary Austin, Japanese Defense Minister Kihara Minoru, and South Korean (ROK) Defense Minister Shin Won-sik renewed their mutual defense commitments and ongoing intelligence exchanges. The ROK–Japan military cooperation is significant in light of mutual resentments still lingering from World War II. The three officials also condemned North Korea’s continued test launches of ballistic missiles and suspected military reconnaissance satellites, and its illegal weapons shipments to Russia.
USMC Island-hopping Strategy Eyes China. Teams of US and Philippine Marines recently landed on the remote island of Itbayat in the northern Philippines, some 100 miles from Taiwan’s southern point. Black Hawks and Chinooks unloaded platoons of men for a joint training evolution simulating how the Marine Corps might disperse teams to far-flung islands to run reconnaissance and combat missions against PLA forces attacking Taiwan.
The PLA boasts a daunting arsenal of missiles and drones, and a decisive home-court advantage. A key Marine Corps objective would seek to leverage its forward-based Marines to confuse and entangle PRC forces in the first hours of a potential conflict, while follow-on US units come from Japan, Guam, and other points. Marine Corps teams would use drones and sensors from concealed positions on several islands to build a battlespace picture of enemy locations and to hit PLA assets directly with anti-ship missiles.
Okinawa’s Amphibious Upgrade for Pacific Missions. The III Marine Expeditionary Force in Okinawa welcomed its brand new USMC amphibious vehicles at the Naha Military Port on June 29. Officially christened the Amphibious Combat Vehicle, this new landing craft replaces its outdated Vietnam-era predecessor and carries three crew and 13 Marines with a two-day combat capacity. It is an eight-wheeled, next-generation beach-landing vehicle designed to transport amphibious forces from ship to shore in combat venues, with a kinetic emphasis on waterborne gunnery against beach-based targets.
US Air Power Reaches Deeper into the Pacific. The USMC reached a combat-logistics milestone in June when it landed its first large fixed-wing military aircraft, a KC-130J Super Hercules tanker, on historic Peleliu Island’s Sledge Runway on June 22. The 1st Marine Air Wing began expanding the airfield’s landing capacity in 2021 to support cross-oceanic combat and logistical missions. Situated in the vast expanse between the Philippines and Guam, the far-flung island saw fierce fighting in World War II. Located 1000 miles southeast of Manila, Peleliu’s improved landing capacity can push vital US military supply chains deeper into the western Pacific. The US Air Force is pursuing similar air facility enhancements on the Micronesian island of Yap, 1000 miles southeast of China.
Looking Ahead
Against this backdrop of US–PRC saber-rattling, military exercises, and port expansions, ominous predictions of major conflict in the Pacific are tempting. Yet both nations adhere to their own proactive policies of strategic ambiguity, which ironically offer the region some hope that neither side will rush headlong into destructive kinetic operations anytime soon. Washington and Beijing have kept each other guessing for years, and this fog of pre-war has so far injected a strong dose of caution into policy dynamics on both sides of the equation. If the Pacific powers can slow their weaponization of coastlines and sealanes, then perhaps a pragmatic deescalation can gain momentum and further delay any stray ship-to-ship missile from sparking a devastating, economy-shattering Pacific War.
