China’s unprecedented war games set to encircle Taiwan amount to a “sea and air blockade” of the island, Taipei said on Wednesday.
Some of Beijing’s planned military exercises will take place within Taiwan’s 12 nautical mile sea and air territory, according to the defence ministry.
China’s plans come after House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi became the highest-level US visit to Taiwan in 25 years when she touched down on Tuesday.
Nancy Pelosi is the highest-ranking US official to visit the self-governed island in 25 years. China warned of repercussions in a bid to prevent the visit, which is seen in Beijing as support for Taiwan’s independence.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Singapore early Monday to start her Asia tour with questions remaining as to whether Taiwan is included in the lightning trip.
AP reports “a person familiar with the matter” confirmed Pelosi and her diplomatic entourage landed in the city-state before dawn as tension with Beijing continues over exactly where she will be going next and when.
Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, plans to meet Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday, in a controversial visit that has triggered concern about a possible military response from China.
A Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece said on Friday that it could shoot down Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plane if she makes a stop in Taiwan, a move he said is tantamount to an “invasion” of the island.
A standoff over Taiwan threatens far more collateral damage than the conflict in Ukraine
Days after the Ukraine conflict erupted, Apple, BMW, McDonald’s and other Western giants lined up to announce they were quitting Russia in protest.
“This moment calls for unity, it calls for courage,” declared Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive.
That it only caused a relatively small financial hit must also have helped. The decision reportedly cost the iPhone maker less than 1pc of its global sales, while some foreign businesses, including France’s Renault, chose to sell off their Russian operations for a symbolic one rouble. Oil giant Shell, which made almost $300bn (£254bn) in sales last year, said its losses would not top $5bn.
On June 21, China’s People’s Daily reported that the United States and Taiwan were about to participate in the annual Monterey Talks. The U.S. side, China’s most authoritative publication stated, was expected to offer 20 types of weapons for sale to Taiwan, “with emphasis on building ‘asymmetric capability.'”
Taiwan, which the People’s Republic of China claims as its 34th province, already has asymmetric capabilities, and one of them could be as powerful as a nuclear weapon.
Parallels have been drawn between the war in Ukraine and a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan. While these situations differ in many respects, both countries exist outside of a collective security apparatus like NATO, and both face existential threats posed by much larger and hostile neighbors. Lacking nuclear weapons and outgunned in conventional terms, both the Ukrainian and Taiwanese militaries have little choice but to wage asymmetric warfare. Yet few people truly know, let alone understand, Taiwan’s current defense policy and the path forward.
China threatens Defense Secretary with WAR: Minister tells Lloyd Austin that Beijing will ‘smash to smithereens any Taiwan independence plot’ and will ‘definitely not hesitate to start a war no matter the cost’
China has said it is prepared to go to war in order to defend its right to keep Taiwan from becoming an independent state.
China will ‘smash to smithereens any Taiwan independence plot and resolutely uphold the unification of the motherland’ Chinese Defense Minister Fenghe told U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue conference in Singapore on Friday.
‘If anyone dares to split Taiwan from China, the Chinese army will definitely not hesitate to start a war no matter the cost’, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Wu Qian quoted the Fenghe as saying during the meeting, in what is a escalating of tension, not least of which in the type of language being used.
Deep Fried China comin up.
During his maiden Asian visit to Japan and South Korea, President Joe Biden reiterated in Tokyo on May 23 that the United States would intervene militarily if China attempted to invade Taiwan by force. His repeated warning appeared to depart from the long-lasting “policy of ambiguity” employed by Washington. In Japan, the U.S. president added that the United States had made a commitment to “support the One China policy” in the past, but Beijing does not have the “jurisdiction to go in and use force to take over Taiwan.” He then compared the Russian invasion of Ukraine to a potential invasion of Taiwan by China and warned “it will dislocate the entire region” and emphasized that China—like Russia—would pay a long-term price for its actions. In essence, Biden’s message is crystal clear: the United States would engage in stronger military action to defend Taiwan against China than it has in Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
US President Joe Biden, when, during a May 23 joint press briefing with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, was asked by a reporter if ” the US would militarily support Taiwan if China attacked” he answered, “Yes, that is the commitment we made” — a statement that unfortunately the State Department immediately walked back.
While China’s reaction to Biden’s remarks was predictably negative, the Free World, after Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine, must not assume that Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s repeated pledge to “restore Taiwan to the Motherland” is mere chest-thumping.
When we discuss whether the United States should defend or ditch Taiwan, what we should really discuss is whether the United States should seek to maintain its supremacy in the Western Pacific and beyond.
President Joe Biden’s recent pledge to defend Taiwan has ignited renewed controversy. When asked if he “was willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan” during his visit to Asia on May 23, he answered yes, adding: “That’s the commitment we made.” His remarks are apparently in contradiction with “strategic ambiguity,” the decades-long U.S. policy toward Taiwan that is deliberately ambivalent about the extent of the United States’ commitment to come to the aid of Taiwan. Although the White House, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and later Biden himself denied that the statement reflects a change in U.S. policy, it is unclear whether this was another gaffe by the president or a deliberate statement aimed at enhancing deterrence against China (adding ambiguity to strategic ambiguity), particularly given that this was not the first time Biden expressed his commitment.
Assuming this is real (and it appears to be), there has been what’s being described as an unprecedented leak of a recording of a top-secret meeting of China’s People’s Liberation Army leadership. During the meeting, senior military and CCP officials are heard discussing detailed plans to “smash” the military forces of Taiwan. There are also detailed discussions of logistical support for the invasion involving various companies that will provide needed supplies.
President Joe Biden said the US military would intervene to defend Taiwan in any attack from China, comments that appeared to break from the longstanding US policy of “strategic ambiguity” before they were walked back by White House officials.
Asked during a press briefing on Monday in Tokyo whether the US would be willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan after not doing so in Ukraine, Biden said “yes — it’s a commitment we made.”
“We agree with the One China policy, we signed onto it and all the attendant agreements made from there,” Biden added. “But the idea that — that it can be taken by force, just taken by force, is just not — it’s just not appropriate. It will dislocate the entire region and be another action similar to what happened in Ukraine.”
The man accused of opening fire at a church in California is a Chinese immigrant who was allegedly motivated by hate for Taiwanese people.
The 68-year-old man is accused of killing one and injuring five others before members of the Taiwanese congregation disarmed him and hog-tied him using extension cords.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement that they recovered two firearms at the scene and that the suspect was not believed to live in the area.
The former prime minister advises abandoning strategic ambiguity.
If there is a “gathering storm” in the Indo-Pacific, Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may be the Asian Winston Churchill. In an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times on April 12, Abe called for the U.S. and Japan to end strategic ambiguity toward Taiwan. “The policy of ambiguity,” Abe wrote, “worked extremely well as long as the U.S. was strong enough to maintain it, and as long as China was far inferior to the U.S. in military power. But those days are over.” Abe wrote that the U.S. policy of strategic ambiguity “is now fostering instability in the Indo-Pacific region, by encouraging China to underestimate American resolve, while making the government in Taipei unnecessarily anxious.”
