The US military has released video of what it called an “unsafe” Chinese manoeuvre in the Taiwan Strait on the weekend, in which a Chinese navy ship cut sharply across the path of an American destroyer, forcing the US ship to slow to avoid a collision.

The incident occurred on Saturday as the American destroyer USS Chung-Hoon and Canadian frigate HMCS Montreal were conducting a so-called “freedom of navigation” transit of the strait between Taiwan and mainland China.

China claims the democratic self-governing island of Taiwan as part of its own territory and maintains the strait is part of its exclusive economic zone, while the US and its allies regularly sail through and fly over the passage to emphasise their contention that the waters are international.

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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/05/taiwan-strait-footage-released-of-near-miss-between-chinese-warship-and-us-destroyer

The post Taiwan Strait: footage released of near miss between Chinese warship and US destroyer first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

A Chinese aircraft carrier task group led by Liaoning is currently conducting what Beijing has called a “routine” combat exercise east of Taiwan, while the U.S. military monitors the drill in the Pacific and deploys the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group to the South China Sea.

These are signs that the U.S., China, and Taiwan are locked in a “vicious cycle” as tensions continue to rise in the region, according to Ma Chen-kun, a professor with the Graduate Institute of China Military Affairs Studies at National Defense University in Taoyuan in northeastern Taiwan.

The Taiwan Strait now resembles the Balkans before the outbreak of the First World War, Ma added, saying the “window for peace”—a non-violent resolution to relations between China and Taiwan—was growing ever smaller.

“Although no country intends to trigger a war, the powder kegs of war are spread throughout the Taiwan Strait and the surrounding region,” he was quoted as saying.

His remarks came on the day Taiwan’s defense ministry reported four People’s Liberation Army aircraft sorties into the island’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), a self-declared buffer that is not regulated under international law. On Monday, as Liaoning and five accompanying Chinese warships entered the Western Pacific, the PLA flew 10 fighter jets and reconnaissance planes into the ADIZ.

Tuesday’s panel, which discussed Secretary of State Antony Blinken‘s visits to Asia and Europe, included Li Shih-hui, a professor at National Chengchi University (NCCU) in Taipei.

Blinken’s foreign visits to Tokyo, Seoul, and Brussels—the first diplomatic calls of the new administration—demonstrated President Joe Biden‘s foreign policy strategy of re-establishing the common interests of American and its allies, Li said.

By prioritizing its competition with Beijing and doing so from the perspectives of human rights and security, the Biden administration had created a contrast between the U.S. and China, highlighting the latter’s threat to regional order in Asia, the professor added.

The strategic significance of Taiwan has risen on the agenda in discussions between Washington and Tokyo, said Li, who is with NCCU’s Japan Studies program. The island’s increased visibility on the international stage was a “diplomatic breakthrough,” he added but said it had dragged Taiwan into the larger U.S.-China battle for supremacy.

Despite the support it has received for its technological advancements and human rights achievements, Taiwan needed to be agile and flexible in order to meet the strategic challenges ahead, Li concluded.

Amid warnings from Beijing, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on Sunday stressed the importance of Taiwan’s peace and stability to the region. He said he hoped to work with President Biden to lower cross-strait tensions.

“It is important for Japan and the United States to cooperate and use deterrence to create an environment where Taiwan and China can find a peaceful solution,” he said in a television interview.

Suga and Biden are scheduled to hold a summit in Washington on April 16, according to the White House.

The two leaders will reportedly mention peace across the Taiwan Strait as a mutual concern in a joint statement to be released following the Biden administration’s first in-person visit by a foreign leader.

Taiwan’s outlying Kinmen Islands, in the foreground, lie less than 3 miles from the deep-water port of Xiamen, a city in China’s eastern province of Fujian. The Taiwan Strait, just 80 miles wide at its narrowest point, separates China and Taiwan’s main island.AN RONG XU/GETTY IMAGES

Source: https://www.newsweek.com/taiwan-strait-powder-keg-that-could-set-off-world-war-military-expert-warns-1581277

The post Taiwan Strait a ‘Powder Keg’ That Could Set Off World War, Military Expert Warns first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Japan‘s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and President Joe Biden will together stress the importance of stability in the Taiwan Strait following their summit in Washington next month, reports Nikkei Asia, but the rare joint statement “will definitely” harm relations between Tokyo and Beijing, China’s state-owned Global Times said in an op-ed on Tuesday.

“If the passage on Taiwan is included in the joint statement after the summit between Suga and Biden, the hit will be grave,” the author wrote in the nationalistic tabloid, saying Tokyo’s decision to take a position on Taiwan “impairs China’s national interests.”

“China will take countermeasures against it,” the author said, adding “Japan’s loss will sharply outweigh its gain” if it sides with Washington, which has issued statements in support of democratic Taiwan amid continued military pressure from Beijing since Biden took office.

Global Times, which presents some of the Chinese government’s most hawkish views, did not reveal how exactly Beijing would react if the upcoming U.S.-Japan statement calls attention to Taiwan’a security. Tuesday’s report by Nikkei Asia says Taipei has not been jointly mentioned by the two countries’ leaders for over half a century.

The post China Media Warns Japan Against Siding With U.S. Over Taiwan first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.