WAR CHINA THREATENS TO INVADE TAIWAN

N

northern watch

TB Fanatic
jward said:
UPDATE: PLA deploys aircraft carrier, rockets, vessels, fighter jets, missiles in drills around Taiwan island

By
Liu Xuanzun
and Guo Yuandan Published: Apr 08, 2023 03:46 PM Updated: Apr 08, 2023 10:56 PM


A Type 052C guided missile destroyer of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy sails near the island of Taiwan during the combat alert patrols and 's Liberation Army Navy sails near the island of Taiwan during the combat alert patrols and

A Type 052C guided missile destroyer of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy sails near the island of Taiwan during the combat alert patrols and "Joint Sword" exercises that encircle the island on April 8, 2023. Photo: Screenshot from China Central Television

Kicking off the encirclement combat alert patrols and "Joint Sword" exercises around the island of Taiwan, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theater Command on Saturday pressured the island from all four directions by deploying an aircraft carrier, long-range rockets, vessels, fighter jets and conventional missiles.

Upon receiving orders, multiple military services and branches attached to the PLA Eastern Theater Command were quickly mobilized toward target regions and spread out in combat formations, China Central Television (CCTV) reported on Saturday.

The first day of the exercise focused on testing the task force capabilities in seizing the control of the sea, air and information under the support of the joint combat system, as the forces simultaneously pushed forward to encircle the island, creating a suppressive situation in which the island is surrounded from all directions, CCTV reported.

According to a video viewed by the Global Times on Saturday morning, the Army deployed PHL-191 modularized multiple rocket launcher systems, the Navy sent a Type 052C destroyer, Type 22 missile boats and YJ-12B land-based anti-ship missiles, the Air Force sortied J-10C fighter jets, a KJ-500 early warning aircraft and a YU-20 tanker aircraft, and the Rocket Force mobilized DF-11 conventional ballistic missiles in the drills.

Other types of weaponry and equipment, including electronic warfare aircraft and bombers, are also expected to be part of the exercise.

A second video released on Saturday evening showed more details of the drills, including the participation of dozens of J-16 and J-10C fighter jets, the Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft, the H-6K bomber, the Type 054A frigate and the DF-15 conventional ballistic missile.

During the drills, multiple PLA Navy destroyers and frigates quickly approached the island of Taiwan, took advantageous positions and practiced close-in assault, far-range deterrence and air defense, CCTV reported.

Guided and supported by early warning aircraft, electronic warfare aircraft and aerial tankers, Air Force fighter jets, carrying live munitions, conducted medium- and long-range air combat drills, CCTV reported. They used mixed and flexible formations together with tactics including jamming and positioned blocking to quickly search and eliminate opponents, seizing and control air superiority in the target regions.

In order to completely seize the advantage at the sea and in the air, warships and anti-submarine aircraft formed a network and held a successful joint anti-submarine exercise in waters near the island of Taiwan, according to the report.

Multiple artillery brigades of the Army and conventional missile brigades of the Rocket Force coordinated with the naval and air assault forces and carried out simulated attacks on targets in a move to test their rapid-response firepower and long-range precision strike capabilities, CCTV reported.

Zhao Xiaozhuo, a research fellow at China's Academy of Military Sciences, told the Global Times that the exercise is a large-scale, all-element drill featuring all military services and branches under a joint combat system.

The exercise is highly combat-oriented, with all weapons being live and radars turned on, Zhao said.

A clear goal of the drill is to seize control of information, including conducting electronic suppressions on the radar and anti-missile bases on the island of Taiwan, Zhao said.

The first detailed reports on the exercise came out in within only four hours after Senior Colonel Shi Yi, a spokesperson at PLA Eastern Theater Command, announced combat alert patrols and "Joint Sword" exercises in the Taiwan Straits, as well as the sea and air regions to the north, south, and east of the island of Taiwan from Saturday to Monday.

It showed the speed of the PLA's fast deployment as well as streamlined coordination between its different military services and branches, Song Zhongping, a Chinese mainland military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Saturday.

The weaponry and equipment involved in the drills, particularly those capable of delivering long-range strikes, can neutralize opposing forces on the island before they start engaging in combat, as well as deny access of external military reinforcements, Song said.

Zhao confirmed that the Shandong aircraft carrier group, now operating in the West Pacific waters southeast of the island of Taiwan according to the "defense authority" on the island of Taiwan and Japan's Ministry of Defense Joint Staff, is also a part of the exercise.

The drills, coming only one day after Taiwan regional leader Tsai Ing-wen returned to the island of Taiwan on Friday following her meeting with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California on Wednesday local time, are being viewed by experts as a stern warning to "Taiwan independence" secessionist forces and their collusion with external forces, and a necessary move to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity.
www.globaltimes.cn

UPDATE: PLA deploys aircraft carrier, rockets, vessels, fighter jets, missiles in drills around Taiwan island - Global Times

www.globaltimes.cn
Click to expand...
Sounds like China is ready to start the invasion!
 
jward

jward

passin' thru
Teddy Locsin Jr.
@teddyboylocsin

I believe unequivocally in an all out US defense of Taiwan which is containable because it will be discrete and localized to the island and the Straits. But the compromise of our mutual security by an attack on Taiwan is not irremediable; the three potential "unsinkable aircraft carrier groups" will more than make up for the loss of a link in the First Island Chain that sprawls from the top of Japan through the Philippines to the tip of Indonesia way past the Chinese coastline in the Bay of Bengal.
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1644805720762642433
View: https://twitter.com/teddyboylocsin/status/1644805720762642433?s=20
 
K

Kennori

Contributing Member
In the era of hypersonic ship killers all surface ships but especially aircraft carriers are dinosaurs. They will be the first thing destroyed followed by satellites and silos. We have to rethink our strategies in this changing environment. Please remind the military and the think tanks that we have enough twerking robot dogs and that transgender warriors will last 2 minutes on the battlefield being shot in the back or fragged.
 
jward

jward

passin' thru
EndGameWW3
@EndGameWW3
1h

The Chinese army: We carried out a simulation of precision strikes on targets inside and around Taiwan.
 
N

northern watch

TB Fanatic

China carries out ‘simulated’ precision attacks on Taiwan targets​

Story by Eric Cheung
CNN
April 9 2023 5h ago
1681044206121.png
China said Sunday it was simulating precision attacks on key targets in Taiwan as the military drills it launched in response to the island president’s meeting with the US House Speaker entered a second day.

The mock drills included “tactical maneuvers” by the Chinese navy, state media reported.

Multiple services had carried out “simulated joint precision strikes on key targets on Taiwan Island” and in the surrounding waters, CCTV reported.

It said the exercises, dubbed “United Sharp Sword,” were being carried out under the supervision of the Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Taiwan’s defense ministry reported that, as of noon local time, it had detected a total of 58 PLA warplanes over the Taiwan Strait on Sunday, of which 31 crossed the median line and entered Taiwan’s ADIZ, or air defense identification zone. It said it had also detected a total of nine PLA navy vessels.

China launched the exercises on Saturday, a day after Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen returned from a 10-day visit to Central America and the United States where she met US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

China carries out ‘simulated’ precision attacks on Taiwan targets
China carries out ‘simulated’ precision attacks on Taiwan targets© Provided by CNN

A Chinese military aircraft takes part in exercises around Taiwan, in this handout image released on April 8, 2023. - Eastern Theatre Command/Handout/Reuters

It described them as “a serious warning against the Taiwan separatist forces’ collusion with external forces, and a necessary move to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Beijing had repeatedly warned against Tsai’s meeting with McCarthy and had previously threatened to take “strong and resolute measures” if it went ahead.

China’s ruling Communist Party claims the self-governing democracy of Taiwan as its territory despite never having ruled it, and has spent decades trying to isolate it diplomatically. It has not ruled out using force to take control of the island.

China carries out ‘simulated’ precision attacks on Taiwan targets
China carries out ‘simulated’ precision attacks on Taiwan targets© Provided by CNN
A Chinese naval ship takes part in exercises around Taiwan, in this handout image released on April 8, 2023. - Eastern Theatre Command/Handout/Reuters

China reacted in a similar fashion when then US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August, launching a series of military drills that surrounded the island and firing missiles over it.

Those drills were the first time China had fired missiles over the island, and many experts saw them as representing a major escalation of China’s military intimidation against Taiwan.

China says Operation Joint Sword military drills will continue through Monday.

 
et2

et2

TB Fanatic
Just wait until the joint war games with live fire starts in the Philippines in the next week or so. Things have been heating up there recently. China pushing the envelope sending merchant ships, military, and coast guard there. Blinded a Philippine coast guard ship with a green laser
 
phloydius

phloydius

Veteran Member
Lucas Tomlinson @LucasFoxNews
Sen. Lindsey Graham says U.S. should deploy nuclear sea-launched cruise missiles to Pacific to deter China. “If you don’t up your game now, you are going to have a war.” @FoxNewsSunday
9:41 AM · Apr 9, 2023
·
2023.04.09 China Graham Nulcear War.PNG
 
phloydius

phloydius

Veteran Member
japannews.yomiuri.co.jp

China Simulates Striking Taiwan on Second Day of Drills

TAIPEI (Reuters) — China’s military simulated precision strikes against Taiwan in a second day of drills around the island on Sunday, with the island’s defense ministry reporting multiple air force sorties and that it was monitoring China’s missile forces. China, which claims democratically...
japannews.yomiuri.co.jp japannews.yomiuri.co.jp

China Simulates Striking Taiwan on Second Day of Drills

16:06 JST, April 9, 2023

TAIPEI (Reuters) — China’s military simulated precision strikes against Taiwan in a second day of drills around the island on Sunday, with the island’s defense ministry reporting multiple air force sorties and that it was monitoring China’s missile forces.

China, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, began three days of military exercises around the island on Saturday, the day after Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen returned from a brief visit to the United States.

Chinese state television reported that the combat readiness patrols and drills around Taiwan were continuing.

Under the unified command of the theater joint operations command center, multiple types of units carried out simulated joint precision strikes on key targets on Taiwan island and the surrounding sea areas, and continue to maintain an offensive posture around the island, it said.

A Taiwan security source told Reuters that on Saturday the Chinese drills around the Bashi Channel, which separates Taiwan from the Philippines, included simulated attacks on aircraft carrier groups as well as anti-submarine drills.

Taiwan’s defense ministry said that as of Sunday midday they had spotted 58 Chinese aircraft, including Su-30 fighters and H-6 bombers, as well as nine ships, around Taiwan.

The ministry said they were paying particular attention to the People’s Liberation Army’s Rocket Force which is in charge of China’s land-based missile system.

Regarding the movements of the Chinese communists’ Rocket Force, the nation’s military also has a close grasp through the joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance system, and air defense forces remain on high alert, the ministry said.

It reiterated that Taiwan’s forces will “not escalate conflicts nor cause disputes” and would respond “appropriately” to China’s drills.

‘Comfortable, Confident’ U.S. monitors drills

Life in Taiwan has continued as normal, with no sign of panic or disruption from the Chinese drills.

Last August, following a visit to Taipei by Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, China staged war games around Taiwan, including firing missiles into waters close to the island. It has not announced similar drills this time.

While in Los Angeles last week, on what was officially billed a transit on her way back from Central America, Tsai met the current speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, despite Beijing’s warnings against it.

The de facto U.S. embassy in Taiwan said on Sunday the United States was monitoring China’s drills around Taiwan closely and is “comfortable and confident” it has sufficient resources and capabilities regionally to ensure peace and stability.

U.S. channels of communication with China remain open and the United States had consistently urged restraint and no change to the status quo, said a spokesperson for the American Institute in Taiwan, which serves as an embassy in the absence of formal diplomatic ties.

Washington severed diplomatic relations with Taipei in favor of Beijing in 1979 but is bound by law to provide the island with the means to defend itself.

China, which has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control, says Taiwan is the most important and sensitive issue in its relations with the United States, and the topic is a frequent source of tensions.

Beijing considers Tsai a separatist and has rebuffed her repeated calls for talks. Tsai says only Taiwan’s people can decide their future.

Chinese fighters, warships

China has over the past three years or so stepped up its military pressure against Taiwan, flying regular missions around Taiwan, though not in its territorial air space or over the island itself.

Taiwan’s defense ministry said earlier on Sunday that in the previous 24 hours it had spotted 71 Chinese air force aircraft and nine navy vessels around Taiwan.

The ministry published a map showing around half of those aircraft, including Su-30s and J-11s, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, which has for years served as an unofficial barrier between the two sides.

Chinese state media said the aircraft were armed with live weapons. Taiwanese air force jets also typically carry live weapons when they scramble to see off Chinese incursions.

Late on Saturday, Taiwan’s Ocean Affairs Council, which runs the Coast Guard, put out footage on its YouTube channel showing one of its ships shadowing a Chinese warship, though did not give an exact location.

You are seriously harming regional peace, stability and security. Please immediately turn around and leave. If you continue to proceed we will take expulsion measures, a Coast Guard officer says by radio to the Chinese ship.

Other footage showed a Taiwanese warship, the Di Hua, accompanying the Coast Guard ship in what the Coast Guard officer calls a “standoff” with the Chinese warship.

Still, civilian flights around Taiwan, including to Kinmen and Matsu, two groups of Taiwan-controlled islands right next to the Chinese coast, have continued as normal.

In August, civilian air traffic was disrupted after China announced effective no-fly zones in several blocks close to Taiwan where it was firing missiles.
 
jward

jward

passin' thru
BREAKING: Europe must reduce its dependency on the US and avoid getting dragged into a confrontation between China and the US over Taiwan, French President Macron says - Politico
Macron says that "the great risk" Europe faces is that it "gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents Europe from building its strategic autonomy"

Europe must resist pressure to become ‘America’s followers,’ says Macron​


Jamil Anderlini, Clea Caulcutt​



Cet article est aussi disponible en français.
ABOARD COTAM UNITÉ (FRANCE’S AIR FORCE ONE) — Europe must reduce its dependency on the United States and avoid getting dragged into a confrontation between China and the U.S. over Taiwan, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview on his plane back from a three-day state visit to China.
Speaking with POLITICO and two French journalists after spending around six hours with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his trip, Macron emphasized his pet theory of “strategic autonomy” for Europe, presumably led by France, to become a “third superpower.”
He said “the great risk” Europe faces is that it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy,” while flying from Beijing to Guangzhou, in southern China, aboard COTAM Unité, France’s Air Force One.



Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party have enthusiastically endorsed Macron’s concept of strategic autonomy and Chinese officials constantly refer to it in their dealings with European countries. Party leaders and theorists in Beijing are convinced the West is in decline and China is on the ascendant and that weakening the transatlantic relationship will help accelerate this trend.
“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” Macron said in the interview. “The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction,” he said.

Just hours after his flight left Guangzhou headed back to Paris, China launched large military exercises around the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which China claims as its territory but the U.S. has promised to arm and defend.
Those exercises were a response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen’s 10-day diplomatic tour of Central American countries that included a meeting with Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy while she transited in California. People familiar with Macron’s thinking said he was happy Beijing had at least waited until he was out of Chinese airspace before launching the simulated “Taiwan encirclement” exercise.
Beijing has repeatedly threatened to invade in recent years and has a policy of isolating the democratic island by forcing other countries to recognize it as part of “one China.”

Taiwan talks​

Macron and Xi discussed Taiwan “intensely,” according to French officials accompanying the president, who appears to have taken a more conciliatory approach than the U.S. or even the European Union.
“Stability in the Taiwan Strait is of paramount importance,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who accompanied Macron for part of his visit, said she told Xi during their meeting in Beijing last Thursday. “The threat [of] the use of force to change the status quo is unacceptable.”


Xi responded by saying anyone who thought they could influence Beijing on Taiwan was deluded.
Macron appears to agree with that assessment.
“Europeans cannot resolve the crisis in Ukraine; how can we credibly say on Taiwan, ‘watch out, if you do something wrong we will be there’? If you really want to increase tensions that’s the way to do it,” he said.
“Europe is more willing to accept a world in which China becomes a regional hegemon,” said Yanmei Xie, a geopolitics analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics. “Some of its leaders even believe such a world order may be more advantageous to Europe.”

In his trilateral meeting with Macron and von der Leyen last Thursday in Beijing, Xi Jinping went off script on only two topics — Ukraine and Taiwan — according to someone who was present in the room.
“Xi was visibly annoyed for being held responsible for the Ukraine conflict and he downplayed his recent visit to Moscow,” this person said. “He was clearly enraged by the U.S. and very upset over Taiwan, by the Taiwanese president’s transit through the U.S. and [the fact that] foreign policy issues were being raised by Europeans.”
In this meeting, Macron and von der Leyen took similar lines on Taiwan, this person said. But Macron subsequently spent more than four hours with the Chinese leader, much of it with only translators present, and his tone was far more conciliatory than von der Leyen’s when speaking with journalists.

‘Vassals’ warning​

Macron also argued that Europe had increased its dependency on the U.S. for weapons and energy and must now focus on boosting European defense industries.
He also suggested Europe should reduce its dependence on the “extraterritoriality of the U.S. dollar,” a key policy objective of both Moscow and Beijing.

Macron has long been a proponent of strategic autonomy for Europe | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
“If the tensions between the two superpowers heat up … we won’t have the time nor the resources to finance our strategic autonomy and we will become vassals,” he said.
Russia, China, Iran and other countries have been hit by U.S. sanctions in recent years that are based on denying access to the dominant dollar-denominated global financial system. Some in Europe have complained about “weaponization” of the dollar by Washington, which forces European companies to give up business and cut ties with third countries or face crippling secondary sanctions.
While sitting in the stateroom of his A330 aircraft in a hoodie with the words “French Tech” emblazoned on the chest, Macron claimed to have already “won the ideological battle on strategic autonomy” for Europe.
He did not address the question of ongoing U.S. security guarantees for the Continent, which relies heavily on American defense assistance amid the first major land war in Europe since World War II.
As one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and the only nuclear power in the EU, France is in a unique position militarily. However, the country has contributed far less to the defense of Ukraine against Russia’s invasion than many other countries.

As is common in France and many other European countries, the French President’s office, known as the Elysée Palace, insisted on checking and “proofreading” all the president’s quotes to be published in this article as a condition of granting the interview. This violates POLITICO’s editorial standards and policy, but we agreed to the terms in order to speak directly with the French president. POLITICO insisted that it cannot deceive its readers and would not publish anything the president did not say. The quotes in this article were all actually said by the president, but some parts of the interview in which the president spoke even more frankly about Taiwan and Europe’s strategic autonomy were cut out by the Elysée.
Europe must resist pressure to become ‘America’s followers,’ says Macron
 
danielboon

danielboon

TB Fanatic

finally some good news China ends Taiwan drills after practising blockades, precision strikes​

By Ben Blanchard
and Yimou Lee

  • Summary
  • China ends three days of drills around Taiwan
  • Chinese jets, warships practice blockading Taiwan
  • Chinese aircraft carrier also involved in drills
  • Taiwan says won't let up on combat preparedness
TAIPEI, April 10 (Reuters) - China ended three days of military drills around Taiwan on Monday saying they had tested integrated military capabilities under actual combat conditions, having practised precision strikes and blockading the island that Beijing views as its own.
www.reuters.com

China ends Taiwan drills after practising blockades, precision strikes

China's military carried out aerial and naval blockade drills, with a Chinese aircraft carrier joining in combat patrols as Taipei reported another surge of warplanes near the island.
www.reuters.com www.reuters.com
 
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