TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – At a conference held in Beijing on Saturday, Chinese government and military officials discussed issues in the South China Sea and the current state of relations between the U.S. and China.

Chinese media reports that the situation in the South China Sea is expected grow more intense over the coming year, with one senior military official also declaring that China should be prepared to attack United States naval vessels, should the U.S. violate Chinese “territorial waters.”



Dai Xu (戴旭), who is President of the Institute of Marine Safety and Cooperation, as well as a PLA Air Force Colonel Commandant, was quoted by the tabloid Global Times saying the following.

"If the U.S. warships break into Chinese waters again, I suggest that two warships should be sent: one to stop it, and another one to ram it… In our territorial waters, we won't allow U.S. warships to create disturbance."

Referring to the increasingly regular Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) being carried out by the United States in the South China Sea, Dai said he couldn’t understand why people in China were afraid of using military force to counter U.S. FONOP activity.



Most recently, the U.S. sent two naval vessels through the Taiwan Strait four days after the Taiwanese elections held in November, which caused alarm among officials in Beijing .

Speaking about Taiwan, Dai even seemed to express anticipation for increasing tension in the South China Sea, emphasizing that China should not fear conflict.

He suggested that some manner of provocation in the South China Sea might push China towards military action targeting Taiwan.

"It would boost the speed of our unification of Taiwan… Let's just be prepared and wait. Once a strategic opportunity emerges, we should be ready to take over Taiwan."

Another speaker, Huang Jing, from the Beijing Language and Culture University, claimed that U.S. foreign policy was no longer capable of competing with Beijing’s in attracting support from other countries in the region.

Huang is a Chinese-American Professor, and an alleged spy for the Chinese Communist Party, who was deported from Singapore in 2017 for passing privileged information to Singaporean officials to "covertly advance the agenda of a foreign power," while working at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

Huang says that Beijing’s policy remains “firm but flexible” in the region, and also expressed his belief that ASEAN countries were increasingly supportive of Beijing’s claims to the South China Sea.

Huang also reportedly made the statement “Japan attacked the Pearl Harbor after it took control of the South China Sea.”