The People’s Liberation Army Eastern Theater Command, which is in charge of the East China Sea, said on Monday it is dispatching Army, Navy, Air Force and Rocket Force troops to areas surrounding Taiwan.

The drills, code-named “Justice Mission 2025,” are the first such exercises since April.

The theater command said the drills serve as a “serious warning to ‘Taiwan Independence’ separatist forces and external interference forces.”

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20251229_09/?fbclid=IwY2xjawO_oY1leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEewgPneoA3-EAv6FLObeXb8f-CUKEQDHtV4Llre8NKQUFoYgohCv9yWwFd408_aem_-qiUZDmc4k3yfiyVxAHaew

The post China announces major military drills around Taiwan first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

China‘s recent live-fire drills near Taiwan were targeted at the island’s government, a military expert said this week, claiming Chinese forces would leave “no chance” for the U.S. to intervene.

Veteran Chinese commentator Du Wenlong spoke confidently about the People’s Liberation Army‘s amphibious capabilities on Tuesday amid a six-day, large-scale PLA exercise off the coast of eastern China, roughly 135 nautical miles north of democratic Taiwan.

Appearing as a panelist on Chinese state broadcaster CCTV’s prime-time program Defense Review, the analyst said the short distance meant PLA forces would be able to reach the island’s shores “within a day.”

The prolonged Chinese military drills in the East China Sea were announced by China’s maritime safety authority, which issued a no-go zone for merchant vessels lasting through July 21. The exercises—also about 120 nautical miles northeast of the disputed Senkaku Islands—would have involved the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command.

© Fred Lee/Getty Images Planes from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force fly in formation during a parade to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party on July 1, 2021, in Beijing, China. Fred Lee/Getty Images

“From a strategic point of view, this allows us to traverse that distance in a very short amount of time, then begin combat maneuvers on the island,” Du said of a hypothetical attack on Taiwan.

The live-fire drills were announced a day after a U.S. Air Force jet landed in Taipei to deliver what local media described as “diplomatic mail” for the American Institute in Taiwan, which is the de facto U.S. embassy on the island. The stopover lasted all but 34 minutes, but the nature of the delivery—involving an American military asset—irked Beijing, which accused the U.S. of trespassing in its airspace.

Du called the PLA exercises a “serious warning” about Taiwan’s continued military engagements with the U.S.

“The current drills a short distance away could be considered a routine exercise, but I think they’re specially targeted [at Taiwan],” Du added. “Taiwan is the target.”

“How much time would the U.S. really have?” Du said, in the event China decided to launch a wave of attacks to invade the island.

He added: “Before U.S. forces arrive, we will have completed all our combat tasks. They will have no chance to intervene in a Taiwan Strait conflict.”

Cross-strait tensions have risen in recent years amid a breakdown in dialogue between Taipei and Beijing, now into its fifth consecutive year. Each side blames the other for the impasse.

As U.S.-Taiwan ties reached new highs in the final year of the Trump administration, they coincided with a straining of relations between the U.S. and China. The Biden administration has been working to reestablish communications at all levels—seen as necessary to avoid misunderstandings and accidents, especially of a military nature.

Beijing, meanwhile, has offered weekly reminders of its intention to “unify” Taiwan, which it considers a Chinese province despite having never governed it. China has also warned Taiwan—increasingly confident about its security because of U.S. backing—that it will use force if necessary.

Taiwan’s female artillery brigade takes part in an anti-invasion drill on a beach in Pingtung County on May 30, 2019. Patrick Aventurier/Getty Images

Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Murasame-class destroyer JS Ikazuchi steams alongside the U.S. Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier, USS Ronald Reagan, in the Philippine Sea on August 18, 2020. Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jason Tarleton/U.S. Navy

U.S. Marines maneuver combat rubber raiding craft after conducting drills in the Coral Sea on July 19, 2021. Lance Cpl. Grace Gerlach/U.S. Marine Corps

U.S. Marines maneuver combat rubber raiding craft after conducting drills in the Coral Sea on July 19, 2021. Lance Cpl. Grace Gerlach/U.S. Marine Corps

Although the recent PLA drills were considered close at 135 nautical miles, it is not the nearest to Taiwan proper Chinese forces could come.

The choppy strait separating the two neighbors is only 70 natural miles wide at its narrowest point. Taiwan’s outlying islands of Kinmen also lie just 3 miles from the Chinese port of Xiamen in Fujian province.

While the view out of Beijing suggests the PLA is capable of a swift and unannounced attack, military analysts in the U.S. and Taiwan predict such an outcome is far from conclusive.

China watchers say any invasion of Taiwan will require extensive amphibious preparations, including intentional troop movements that will serve as timely indicators for military intelligence in Taipei—and perhaps the U.S., too.

While the possibility of U.S. intervention remains, there is also the likelihood of action by Japan, which could find itself involved in the conflict in its capacity as an American treaty ally. Earlier in July, Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso intimated that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could pose an “existential threat” to Japan’s own survival, necessitating a collective defense of the island with U.S. forces.

In addition, the U.S. has about 50,000 forward-deployed troops in Japan, mostly on Okinawa.

But despite the tense atmosphere and bellicose threats of war, analysts say there is no indication that China is preparing an imminent attack. They say Beijing is unlikely to take such a large risk before 2022, when China hosts the Winter Olympics and Chinese President Xi Jinping seeks a third term in the fall.

Related Articles

• China Refuses to Cooperate on WHO Plan to Trace COVID Origins: ‘Impossible’
• China Says U.K. ‘Flexing Muscles’ After Britain Commits Two Warships to Asia
• Typhoon Thwarts China’s Patrols Around Disputed Senkaku Islands

Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/no-chance-us-can-stop-chinese-invasion-of-taiwan-military-expert-says/ar-AAMrANu#image=AAMrANu_1|4

The post ‘No Chance’ U.S. Can Stop Chinese Invasion of Taiwan, Military Expert Says first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

China accused the US and Japan of “ganging” up on them Saturday, following discussions by the two nations on a range of geopolitical issues, including China’s global expansion.

In the first in-person meeting at the White House since President Biden entered office, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said the two leaders discussed the “severe security environment” and People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) actions in the Indo-Pacific region.

The two nation’s addressed not only China’s increased military involvement in the South China Sea and security measures the PRC is using to pressure Taiwan, but also human right abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

“The US and Japan are actually ganging up to form cliques and fanning bloc confrontation,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement Saturday. “This anachronistic move runs counter to the aspiration for peace, development, and cooperation shared by the overwhelming majority of countries in the region and beyond.”

Tensions between China and the US have been on the rise following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, but Japan has had its own qualms with its Pacific neighbor.

In a statement following the bilateral talks, Japan and the US expressed their concern regarding China’s military involvement around the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.

The islands, also known as Diaoyu Dao, are uninhabited and administered by Japan, but claimed by China.

“Taiwan and Diaoyu Dao are both Chinese territories. Issues relating to Hong Kong and Xinjiang are purely China’s internal affairs,” the Foreign Ministry said. “China has indisputable sovereignty over islands in the South China Sea and waters around them.”

The US-Japan meeting came just days after 22 Chinese aircraft flew into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, including fighter jets and nuclear-capable bombers.

The US Navy has in turn increased their presence in the Taiwan Strait and Biden said the US along with Japan, are “committed to working together to take on the challenges from China.”

Source: https://nypost.com/2021/04/19/china-accuses-us-japan-of-ganging-up-on-them/

The post China accuses US, Japan of ‘ganging’ up on them first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

U.S. Marines participate in an amphibious assault exercise in Chonburi, Thailand, in February 2020: the Marines will be sea-based and able to sail into the waters of the South China Sea.   © Sipa/AP

Admiral James Stavridis was 16th Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and 12th Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He spent the bulk of his operational career in the Pacific, and is author of “2034: A Novel of the Next World War.”

The Atlantic Council’s publication of The Longer Telegram, which lays out a sweeping blueprint for a U.S. strategy to face China, provides significant clues about a new lay-down of American forces around east Asia.

Whether the new Biden administration fully embraces the paper’s aggressive stance remains to be seen, but elements are under serious consideration. Certainly, the new team at the National Security Council, led by highly respected Asia hand Kurt Campbell and a deep bench of Asia experts, will be looking at a wide variety of options for the military component of a new overall strategic posture.

One of the key elements in the military component is a series of “red lines” to which the U.S. would respond militarily.

These include “any nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons action by China against the U.S. or its allies or by North Korea; any Chinese military attack against Taiwan or its offshore islands, including an economic blockade or major cyberattack against Taiwanese public infrastructure and institutions; any Chinese attack against Japanese forces in their defense of Japanese sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands, which China claims as the Diaoyu, and their surrounding exclusive economic zone in the East China Sea; any major Chinese hostile action in the South China Sea to further reclaim and militarize islands, to deploy force against other claimant states, or to prevent full freedom of navigation operations by the U.S. and allied maritime forces; and any Chinese attack against the sovereign territory or military assets of U.S. treaty allies.”

At U.S. Indo-Pacific headquarters, strategic, operational, and tactical teams are putting together new approaches for deploying American forces. These new options will be sent back to the Pentagon as part of the overall “posture review” being undertaken by new Secretary of Defense General Lloyd Austin. What will emerge?

One option is an enhanced role for the U.S. Marine Corps, which traces so much of its pre-9/11 operational history to the Pacific going back to World War II. Under the dynamic intellectual leadership of Marine Corps Commandant Dave Berger, gone are the large troop formations, armored capability, and land-based Marine tactics of the “forever wars” in the Middle East.

Instead, in the context of a U.S.-China strategy, the Marines will be resolutely sea-based and able to sail into the waters of the South China Sea, well inside the island chains China relies on for defense. Once inside, they will use armed drones, offensive cyber capabilities, Marine Raiders — highly capable special forces — anti-air missiles, and even ship-killer strike weapons to attack Chinese maritime forces, and perhaps even their land bases of operations. The Chinese militarized artificial islands in the South China Sea would be juicy targets, for example. In essence, this will be guerrilla warfare from the sea.

An airstrip and buildings on China’s man-made Subi Reef in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, pictured in April 2017: juicy targets.   © AP

In addition to a new Marine tactical and operational approach, the U.S. Navy will be undertaking more aggressive patrols throughout the waters off China. Some will say this is merely the military equivalent of “driving doughnut holes in your neighbor’s lawn.” But the strategic concept is clever: to gradually include other allied warships in this aggressive freedom of navigation patrols. Doing so internationalizes the pushback on Chinese claims of sovereignty over the South China Sea.

In particular, the Pentagon is hoping to include British, French, and other NATO allies in the effort. Indeed the recent NATO defense ministerial in Brussels involved consultations over the alliance’s role in facing the rising military capability of China. Over time, the U.S. would like to convince Australia, New Zealand, India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Vietnam to participate in such deployments. The U.S. overall maritime strategic posture is predicated on creating a global maritime coalition to face the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s highly capable forces.

In addition to the sea service’s activities, the U.S. Air Force will likely be shifting additional long-range land-attack bombers and fighters to Pacific bases that are widely distributed across Asia, including some very remote sites on smaller islands. These so-called spokes will be supported from larger bases in Guam, Japan, Australia, and South Korea. The concept, dubbed Agile Combat Employment, adds a high degree of mobility to the currently concentrated combat power of both fighter and attack aircraft deployed in the region.

Finally, the U.S. Army will increase both combat power and mobility to deploy units forward in support of the red lines along those advocated in the telegram, including enhanced capability based in South Korea and Japan but easily capable of deploying to smaller islands throughout the region.

Both the Army and Air Force would be on the forward edge of additional training and exercises with the Taiwanese as well. Look for increased emphasis from the new American Space Force to focus intelligence and reconnaissance on the theater, as well as enhanced offensive cyber options from the U.S. Cyber Command, in coordination with the National Security Agency.

Taken together, it seems clear that the U.S. military is stepping up its presence and combat capability in the Western Pacific, and positioning for a conflict with China over the coming decades.

The Longer Telegram provides an important clue as to what options the Pentagon and the White House are considering as part of an expected new strategy to face the rise of China. Hopefully, skillful diplomacy and the intertwined economies of the two great powers will preclude the outbreak of war — but U.S. military planners are busy these days.

Source: https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/How-the-US-military-is-preparing-for-a-war-with-China

The post How the US military is preparing for a war with China first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

A scary concept.

The Third Taiwan Crisis was a brutal lesson for a China.

More than twenty years ago, a military confrontation in East Asia pushed the United States and China uncomfortably close to conflict. Largely unknown in America, the event made a lasting impression on China, especially Chinese military planners. The Third Taiwan Crisis, as historians call it, was China’s introduction to the power and flexibility of the aircraft carrier, something it obsesses about to this day.

The crisis began in 1995. Taiwan’s first-ever democratic elections for president were set for 1996, a major event that Beijing naturally opposed. The sitting president, Lee Teng-hui of the Kuomintang party, was invited to the United States to speak at his alma mater, Cornell University. Lee was already disliked by Beijing for his emphasis on “Taiwanization,” which favored home rule and established a separate Taiwanese identity away from mainland China. Now he was being asked to speak at Cornell on Taiwan’s democratization, and Beijing was furious.

(This first appeared several years ago.)

The Clinton administration was reluctant to grant Lee a visa—he had been denied one for a similar talk at Cornell the year before—but near-unanimous support from Congress forced the White House’s hand. Lee was granted a visa and visited Cornell in June. The Xinhua state news agency warned, “The issue of Taiwan is as explosive as a barrel of gunpowder. It is extremely dangerous to warm it up, no matter whether the warming is done by the United States or by Lee Teng-hui. This wanton wound inflicted upon China will help the Chinese people more clearly realize what kind of a country the United States is.”

In August 1995, China announced a series of missiles exercises in the East China Sea. Although the exercises weren’t unusual, their announcement was, and there was speculation that this was the beginning of an intimidation campaign by China, both as retaliation against the Cornell visit and intimidation of Taiwan’s electorate ahead of the next year’s elections. The exercises involved the People’s Liberation Army’s Second Artillery Corps (now the PLA Rocket Forces) and the redeployment of Chinese F-7 fighters (China’s version of the MiG-21 Fishbed fighter) 250 miles from Taiwan. Also, in a move that would sound very familiar in 2017, up to one hundred Chinese civilian fishing boats entered territorial waters around the Taiwanese island of Matsu, just off the coast of the mainland.

According to Globalsecurity.org, redeployments of Chinese long-range missile forces continued into 1996, and the Chinese military actually prepared for military action. China drew up contingency plans for thirty days of missile strikes against Taiwan, one strike a day, shortly after the March 1996 presidential elections. These strikes were not carried out, but preparations were likely detected by U.S. intelligence.

In March 1996, China announced its fourth major military exercises since the Cornell visit. The country’s military announced a series of missile test zones off the Chinese coastline, which also put the missiles in the approximate direction of Taiwan. In reality, China fired three missiles, two of which splashed down just thirty miles from the Taiwanese capital of Taipei and one of which splashed down thirty-five miles from Kaohsiung. Together, the two cities handled most of the country’s commercial shipping traffic. For an export-driven country like Taiwan, the missile launches seemed like an ominous shot across the country’s economic bow.

American forces were already operating in the area. The USS Bunker Hill, a Ticonderoga-class Aegis cruiser, was stationed off southern Taiwan to monitor Chinese missile tests with its SPY-1 radar system. The Japan-based USS Independence, along with the destroyers Hewitt and O’Brien and frigate McClusky, took up position on the eastern side of the island.

After the missile tests, the carrier USS Nimitz left the Persian Gulf region and raced back to the western Pacific. This was an even more powerful carrier battle group, consisting of the Aegis cruiser Port Royal, guided missile destroyers Oldendorf and Callaghan (which would later be transferred to the Taiwanese Navy), guided missile frigate USS Ford, and nuclear attack submarine USS Portsmouth. Nimitz and its escorts took up station in the Philippine Sea, ready to assist Independence. Contrary to popular belief, neither carrier actually entered the Taiwan Strait.

The People’s Liberation Army, unable to do anything about the American aircraft carriers, was utterly humiliated. China, which was just beginning to show the consequences of rapid economic expansion, still did not have a military capable of posing a credible threat to American ships just a short distance from of its coastline.

While we might never know the discussions that later took place, we know what has happened since. Just two years later a Chinese businessman purchased the hulk of the unfinished Russian aircraft carrier Riga, with the stated intention of turning it into a resort and casino. We know this ship today as China’s first aircraft carrier, Liaoning, after it was transferred to the PLA Navy and underwent a fifteen-year refurbishment. At least one other carrier is under construction, and the ultimate goal may be as many as five Chinese carriers.

At the same time, the Second Artillery Corps leveraged its expertise in long-range rockets to create the DF-21D antiship ballistic missile. The DF-21 has obvious applications against large capital ships, such as aircraft carriers, and in a future crisis could force the U.S. Navy to operate eight to nine hundred miles off Taiwan and the rest of the so-called “First Island Chain.”

The Third Taiwan Crisis was a brutal lesson for a China that had long prepared to fight wars inside of its own borders. Still, the PLA Navy deserves credit for learning from the incident and now, twenty-two years later, it is quite possible that China could seriously damage or even sink an American carrier. Also unlike the United States, China is in the unique position of both seeing the value of carriers and building its own fleet while at the same time devoting a lot of time and resources to the subject of sinking them. The United States may soon find itself in the same position.

Kyle Mizokami is a defense and national-security writer based in San Francisco who has appeared in the Diplomat, Foreign Policy, War is Boring and the Daily Beast. In 2009, he cofounded the defense and security blog Japan Security Watch. You can follow him on Twitter: @KyleMizokami.

Source: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/kill-carriers-how-china-plans-win-superpower-showdown-against-america-51262

The post Kill the Carriers: How China Plans to Win a Superpower Showdown Against America first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post Japan Sets Up Crisis HQ After Incident With Chinese Ship – Reports first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post Japan, U.S. plan military response to Chinese threat to Senkakus first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

A MAJOR new war is looming — and this one sits worryingly close to home.

The post A major new war is looming — and this one sits worryingly close to home first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Most analysts agree that China and the U.S. are locked in a seminal long-term struggle for dominance in Asia. With the military of both sides engaging in nearly simultaneous shows of force in the South China Sea and sensationalist headlines blaring alarm around the world a casual observer could be forgiven for thinking the “strategic competitors” are on the verge of war. http://www.news.com.au/military/beijing-launches-enormous-south-china-sea-livefire-exercise-as-three-us-carrier-battle-groups-pass-by/news-story/bb837b51545c2370283257d415046b92; http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/2141169/us-aircraft-carrier-sails-disputed-south-china-sea-display-military-might

This is not so – not yet anyway.  But a new and more dangerous phase in their troubled relationship may be beginning and one window on this evolving dynamic is their behavior in the South China Sea.

Now that US President Donald J. Trump’s administration has declared China “a strategic competitor” https://www.ft.com/content/215cf8fa-e3cb-11e7-8b99-0191e45377ec and China President Xi Jinping has assumed total long term power and is promoting a more nationalist Communist agenda, the two powers are increasingly likely to come face to face politically and militarily  in the South China Sea or at other ‘hot spots’ in the region.  China scholar and government advisor Shi Yinhong has postulated four scenarios for the future of China-US relations.  “First, China undertakes a historic contraction, thus averting a clash.  Second, the U.S. and China gain equal power in the Pacific, and Washington recognizes Beijing’s strategic advantage in the western area.  Third, the two sides enter a cold war or quasi cold war.  Fourth, they engage in direct confrontation.” http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2069520/trump-era-we-cant-rule-out-war-between-china-and-us-whether

The situation seems to be entering Shi’s third scenario –in which the two competitors “enter a cold war or quasi-cold war” –and could well– in the South China Sea (or in the even more fraught East China Sea or Taiwan issues), –proceed to the fourth—”direct confrontation”.  While the U.S. and China seem to have reached an uneasy and unsteady status quo in the South China Sea https://ippreview.com/index.php/Blog/single/id/688.html some see this as a proverbial calm before the storm.

The situation seems to be entering Shi’s third scenario –in which they “enter a cold war or quasi-cold war” –and could well in the South China Sea (or in the even more fraught East China Sea or Taiwan issues), and proceed to the fourth—”direct confrontation”.  While the U.S. and China seem to have reached an uneasy and unsteady status quo in the South China Sea https://ippreview.com/index.php/Blog/single/id/688.html some see this as a proverbial calm before the storm.

For many years the two have shadow boxed in, over and under that Sea.  Despite numerous US warnings, China has continued its construction and “militarization” of disputed features and apparently maintains and even, occasionally enforces its historic claim to a large part of the Sea, its features and resources.  China has been altering the status quo in steps just small enough to avoid provoking a military response from the U.S.  It has deftly used coast guard vessels, lawfare, and economic coercion to advance and back up its claims vis a vis other claimants including US ally, the Philippines.  According to Kurt Campbell and Ely Ratner, former senior Asian officials responsible for Asia policy in the Obama administration, “Washington is at risk of adopting an approach (to Asia) that is confrontational without being competitive.  Beijing, meanwhile, has managed to be increasingly competitive without being confrontational.”

http://www.chinafile.com/conversation/american-policy-toward-china-due-reckoning

This –and the status quo –may be about to undergo more rapid change—for the worse. China has now installed missile systems with ‘offensive’ reach on three of its occupied features and the White House has declared that there would be “near-term and long-term consequences”  for doing so. https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/05/03/white-house-says-china-faces-consequences-for-militarization-of-south-china-sea.html; https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southchinasea-china-missiles-usa/white-house-says-will-be-consequences-for-china-militarizing-south-china-sea-idUSKBN1I42FY?il=0

However, one can debate what constitutes offensive and defensive weapons or military posture. For example, are US ‘forward deployed forces’ in Asia and the South China Sea, its FONOPs, and its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance probes all purely ‘defensive’?  Or do some have ‘offensive reach”—or can they be interpreted as having such by objective observers?

Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to push the limits of China’s tolerance with Freedom of Navigation Operations that publicly challenge China’s “illegitimate” maritime claims.  Moreover, despite China’s strong objections, it continues its ISR probes over, in and under China’s near shore waters. Such probes and China’s kinetic responses thereto have resulted in a series of international incidents beginning with one involving an EP-3 (2001), and followed by those involving the  Bowditch (2001), the Impeccable (2009), the Cowpens (2013) and Poseiden 8 (20014). Continuing these probes –or at least the particular actions China strenuously objects to –invites miscalculations and accidents.

The two have very different political narratives.  According to Chris Buckley, writing in the New York Times, Xi has encouraged a rejection of Western influence and implicitly of Western models.  According to Xi thought, ‘many aspects of China’s modernization process must have Chinese characteristics and the Chinese Communist Party must provide guidance on every aspect of human behavior’.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/world/asia/xi-jinping-thought-explained-a-new-ideology-for-a-new-era.html; https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-helmsman-congress.html

This is of course anathema to those who strongly believe in the superiority of Western values like the United States, especially under American hype-nationalist US President Donald J. Trump.  The Trump administration, with new National Security Advisor John Bolton, is likely to strengthen its military ties with Taiwan back Japan’s new muscular posture in the East China Sea, and be more aggressive militarily in the South China Sea. With a looming economic ‘war’ further tightening tension doing so may cross a red line for China.

There are many scenarios that could beckon the apocalyptic red horse of war. According to David C. Gompert former Deputy Director of the CIA, “Tensions exist between the United States and China on a number of issues,”_ _ “and a crisis could occur and involve incidents or miscalculations that lead to hostilities.  For example, China could try to intimidate its neighbors below the threshold of U.S. intervention and misjudge where that threshold is, or underestimate U.S. willingness to back Japan militarily in a crisis over disputed territory in the East China Sea.”  https://www.wearethemighty.com/china-us-war-what-happens.  I would add to these worst scenarios a miscalculated confrontation in the South China Sea.

On 6 April, news.Com.au reported that “forty Chinese warships and three American aircraft carrier battle groups converge[d] in the South China Seas as dangerous tensions between the super powers simmer.” The nearly simultaneous timing of these displays of force may have been completely coincidental but their messages were clear.  Both have the intent and capability to use force if necessary to protect their interests in the South China Sea.

These exercises were followed by Chinese naval live-fire exercises close to China’s coast opposite Taiwan and a foray of Chinese bombers east of Taiwan that theoretically could have threatened Guam.  In what Taiwan has described as military intimidation, a Chinese air force sortie circumnavigated Taiwan. In what some say was a clear response, two US B-52H Stratofortress bombers flew over the Bashi Channel and within cruise missile striking distance of China.  The B-52s are deployed to Guam are part of a ‘continuous bomber presence mission’ meant to reassure allies and display strength against potential adversaries– like China.

Both China and the U.S. have clearly stepped up their planning and exercises focused on potential military conflict in the Western Pacific. The US military has announced it will continue its contingency planning for a conflict with China. Admiral Philip Davidson, Trump’s nominee to be the new US Pacific Forces Commander testified to Congress that he will “maintain a robust blunt layer that effectively deters Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific.”  To him, the Chinese military buildup is a “threat to US forces and bases (that is) substantial and growing.”  http://www.atimes.com/article/us-admiral-outlines-new-military-buildup-to-counter-china/ The enhanced US militarily posture in the Western Pacific is likely to include more submarines and warships as well as another aircraft carrier strike group and advanced warplanes and drones.  Davidson would also like to have “hypersonic and directed energy weapons [and] resilient space, cyber and network capabilities _ _.”  His policy and wish list reflect President Trump and Defense Secretary James Mattis’ desire to make confronting Chinese aggressiveness a strategic priority.

Meanwhile China’s burgeoning military modernization continues. China is no match for the U.S. militarily on a global scale. Nevertheless it is making rapid progress particularly in military technology and already would pose a formidable challenge in a conflict in its near shore waters especially in the South China Sea.

The stage does seem to be set for a US-China confrontation in the South China Sea. Hopefully wise minds on both sides will recognize the disaster this would be for both—and for Asia—and will be able to find compromises for their differences.

*Mark J. Valencia, Adjunct Senior Scholar, National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Haikou, China.

This piece first appeared in the IPP Review.

Source:  https://www.eurasiareview.com/27052018-are-china-us-relations-entering-dangerous-new-phase-in-south-china-sea-oped/

The post Are China-US Relations Entering Dangerous New Phase In South China Sea? – OpEd first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.