That's probably a good thing we don't try. Not because of China, but because it would probably be a failure.Meanwhile I guess we are to scared to test our ICBM,s View: https://mobile.twitter.com/EndGameWW3/status/1555245935982268417
Wen Lii 李問 @wen1949 Director, Matsu Islands office, @DPPonline . 馬祖列島 On the frontline of democracy: 200km from Taipei, 20km off the coast of China. Tweets SEA/China/TW |
They are sparking a conflagration in the Pacific: THE US activates the "Lend-Lease Act" for Taiwan as well – Ambassador of China: "We will understand it soon"
By Vassilis Kapoulas
04/08/2022 - 23:34
War News 24 / 7
Taiwan is slowly and steadily turning into a new Ukraine as US Senators prepare a bipartisan bill with which they will activate for Taipei, as they did with Kiev, the military assistance program of the Second World War, "Lend-Lease Act".
It is a question mark over whether the US defence industry will withstand fighting on two fronts. Us action is also very risky as it will directly implicate AUKUS against China. Soon South Korea-Japan, Australia and Britain will be called upon to strengthen Taiwan.
In the USA they know and it is 100% a given that there will be a Chinese attack on Taiwan, When, the country's leadership will choose it but everything indicates that the "ground zero" is very close.
Today, on the first day of the largest military exercises in the history of the PLA, ballistic missiles passed over the heads of the inhabitants of Taiwan to fall either into the territorial waters of the island or into the EEZ of Japan.
This is an unprecedented act of war that has never been done before in history. A mistake to make and the Chinese missile, even from a manufacturing defect, will fall into Taiwan. The conflict is so close.
At the same time, China's ambassador to France spoke publicly of a "retraining" of the Taiwanese people which will take place after the reunification of the island with the mainland while General Meng Xiangjun (NDU of China) explained that the six areas in which the PLA conducts its exercises with real fire delineate the encirclement of Taiwan, potentially sealing the Keelung as well as the Bashi Channel.
He spoke of a rehearsal of war and the blockade of Taiwan.
This version is reinforced by the fact that a military convoy consisting of 160 amphibious ZBL08 armored vehicles of the Chinese Army headed for Xiamen, in Fujian province opposite Taiwan.
These will be loaded onto landing ships.
In other words, we have a repeat of the Ukrainian scenario. Exactly the same precision simulation tactics were carried out by the Russian Army.
At the same time, the PLA's Eastern Military Command revealed a few minutes ago that it deployed up to 100 types of aircraft in the north, southwest, southeast of Taiwan. It is confirmed that aerial tankers Y-20U were also developed.
Chinese ambassador: We will occupy Taiwan and retrain it
A senior Chinese diplomat has publicly revealed that Beijing will "retrain" the Taiwanese people after "reuniting" the island with the mainland.
Lu Sai, China's ambassador to France, spoke publicly about Beijing's war plans.
Speaking to French station BFMTV on Wednesday, Lou Sai described N.Pelosi's trip to Taiwan as an "unnecessary provocation", which "created great danger".
According to the diplomat, most people in Taiwan supported reunification with China a few years ago, but the propaganda of the Democratic Progressive Party of "anti-China" direction brainwashed the people.
That is why he believes that the population of Taiwan should be "retrained".
"After the reunion, we will do retraining. I am sure that at that moment, the people of Taiwan will once again become favourable to reunification.
The population will then regain its patriotic sense. Training will be the main weapon of this work, and it will not be done "under threat".
So they will put them in the camps, just like the Uyghurs!
.....
According to the diplomat, most people in Taiwan supported reunification with China a few years ago, but the propaganda of the Democratic Progressive Party of "anti-China" direction brainwashed the people.
...
"We condemn these actions, which are irresponsible and at odds with our long-standing goal of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the region," Kirby told reporters at the White House. "China has chosen to overreact and use the speaker's visit as a pretext to increase provocative military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait."
Both Taiwan officials, but more importantly Chinese officials and state media have acknowledged that effectively a blockade of the self-ruled island is in progress.
On Thursday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier and its strike group "to remain in the general area to monitor the situation," Kirby said.
"They'll be there for a little bit longer than they were originally planned," said Kirby. "I won't get ahead of the ship's schedule but the president believed it was a prudent thing to do, to leave her and her escort ships there just a little bit longer."
The U.S. will also conduct "standard air and maritime transits through the Taiwan Strait in the next few weeks, consistent with our long-standing approach to defending the freedom of the seas and international law," he added.
Following the Chinese mainland's suspension of imports of several agricultural products from the island of Taiwan, which is viewed as a sort of punishing fallout from US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit, residents from the island's agricultural and business sectors, as well as some local netizens, have expressed dissatisfaction with the secessionist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), given the close connection between the island and the huge mainland market.
Starting on Wednesday, Chinese mainland customs authorities suspended the entry of citrus fruits including grapefruits, lemons and oranges, as well as two types of fish (chilled large head hairtail and frozen horse mackerel) from the island, in accordance with regulations and food safety requirements.
People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theater Command Spokesman Shi Yi that afternoon announced that the PLA's Eastern Theater Command Rocket Force launched a "multi-regional and multi-model exercise" in the waters off the coast of eastern Taiwan, according to China's state-run TV broadcaster CCTV. Shi claimed that the guided missiles all "hit their targets accurately."
Earlier, it [Taiwan's military] revealed suspected Chinese drones had flown above the Kinmen Islands, Taiwanese territory off China’s southeastern coast, and it had fired flares to drive them away.
Major General Chang Zone-sung of the military’s Kinmen Defense Command told the Reuters news agency that the Chinese drones came in a pair and flew into the Kinmen area twice on Wednesday night, at about 9pm (13:00 GMT) and 10pm (14:00 GMT).
Albanese’s remarks mirror those of the White House spokesman regarding Taiwan, a reflection that it is not in anyone’s interests for this dispute to escalate.Australia supports a one-China policy, but we also support the status quo when it comes to the issue of Taiwan. It is not in the interests of peace and security to talk up those issues of potential conflict.
Blinkin we are ready to face any escalation from the Chinese side View: https://mobile.twitter.com/EndGameWW3/status/1555456970265600000?cxt=HHwWgICxgfL3i5YrAAAA
China Boasts of Ability to Blockade Taiwan as Military Exercises Continue; Beijing highlights unprecedented operation against self-ruled island in response to Pelosi visit
Friday, August 5, 2022, 9:39 AM ET
By Wenxin Fan in Hong Kong and Joyu Wang in Taipei
Wall Street Journal
China touted its military exercises around Taiwan as proof of its ability to blockade the self-ruled island in the event of a war, as the operations in response to a visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi entered a second day.
At least 68 Chinese warplanes and 13 warships carried out maneuvers off Taiwan’s coast on Friday, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said. During the operation, some of the aircraft and ships sent by China’s military crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait, a notional boundary that Taipei says demarcates areas of de facto control, the ministry said.
The flurry of military sorties Beijing flew Friday—setting a record of such activity since Taiwan’s military began disclosing the data in September 2020—came after China encircled Taiwan with rocket and ballistic-missile fire a day earlier. The four-day exercises have been described as unprecedented by Chinese military experts and state media. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in Cambodia for a regional meeting, said they were a “significant escalation.”
Chinese forces carried out live firing in six delineated zones facing Taiwan’s military bases and its biggest commercial ports, allowing China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army, to form a blockade around the island for the first time, a breakthrough highlighted by state media outlets in Beijing. The areas overlap with what Taiwan claims as its territorial waters.
Maj. Gen. Meng Xiangqing, a professor at the People’s Liberation Army National Defense University, told China’s state broadcaster that the PLA launched missiles over the main island of Taiwan on Thursday, the first time the military has done so. Gen. Meng didn’t specify how many were fired, but said they passed over an area where Taiwan stations Patriot antimissile batteries, and which is monitored by the U.S. Navy. Taiwan said Beijing fired 11 ballistic missiles near the island.
The exercises simulated an actual war, Gen. Meng said, with China demonstrating the precision and mobility of weaponry that can now blanket the whole island.
“We can say that we have the ability to switch the exercise into a real war at any point,” he said.
It was also the first occasion that Chinese aircraft carriers joined an exercise in a group formation, Gen. Meng said. Two of China’s carriers, the Liaoning and the Shandong, were training together earlier this week before Mrs. Pelosi’s arrival in Taiwan, which coincided with the 95th anniversary of the founding of the PLA. The whereabouts of the carriers couldn’t be determined.
The White House, meanwhile, announced that the USS Ronald Reagan carrier and its accompanying ships would remain in the region to monitor the situation. The White House also summoned Chinese ambassador Qin Gang.
“We made clear to the ambassador that Beijing’s actions are of concern to Taiwan, to us, and to our partners around the world,” White House spokesman John Kirby said in a statement Friday.
On Thursday afternoon, the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command said it had successfully completed all live-fire operations in the waters off the east of Taiwan, lifting traffic controls in the area. By late Friday, it said the second day of drills had been carried out as planned. The state broadcaster aired footage showing flying jet fighters and cruising warships but with no images of live fire included.
More than 200 vessels that regularly navigate the waters around Taiwan have moved out from the six zones. Only a handful of vessels were still sailing in those zones on Friday, from an average 240 a day over the past week, Lloyd’s List Intelligence data show. The Taiwan Strait is a major shipping route, with about half of the global container fleet and 90% of the world’s largest ships by tonnage crossing the waterway last year.
Kaohsiung and Keelung, Taiwan’s two biggest ports, are still open for business, but ship arrivals have fallen by a quarter over the past two days, the data show.
While the general mood in Taiwan remained calm after the end of Thursday’s exercises, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen called on Beijing to act with reason and restraint.
“Taiwan will not escalate conflict, but we will resolutely defend our sovereignty, our security and our democracy,” she said in a video released Thursday.
On Friday, a prominent figure in Taiwan’s world-leading semiconductor industry announced a donation equivalent to $100 million to promote the island’s civil defense and combat China’s psychological warfare.
Robert Tsao, founder of United Microelectronics Corp., or UMC, said that there were people in Taiwan who wouldn’t be compromised by the lure of Beijing’s economic might or intimidated by its military strength. He urged more people to come to the island’s defense.
UMC, a Taiwanese chip maker that also operates two fabrication plants in China, referred a request for comment to Mr. Tsao himself, without elaborating further. Mr. Tsao remains honorary chairman of UMC after his retirement and isn’t involved with the company’s day-to-day operations.
On Friday afternoon, China said that it was suspending climate-change talks with the U.S. and scrapping some military exchanges in response to Mrs. Pelosi’s visit. The countermeasures include the cancellation of calls between military leaders and two security meetings, and the suspension of cooperation in fighting crime. It also announced sanctions against Mrs. Pelosi and her immediate family.
Visiting Japan on the last leg of her Asia tour, Mrs. Pelosi said Beijing probably saw her visit as an opportunity to conduct the exercises and said the U.S. would continue engaging with Taiwan despite criticism from China.
“We will not allow them to isolate Taiwan,” she said at a news conference in Tokyo on Friday.
By visiting Taiwan, Mrs. Pelosi had defied repeated warnings from Beijing. The U.S. Air Force plane carrying her delegation from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Taipei took a three-hour detour, flying over Indonesia and the Philippines before landing in Taipei.
Gen. Meng, the Chinese military expert, told China’s state broadcaster that the circuitous route was a response to the deterrent effect created by China’s deployment around Taiwan.
He said the PLA had followed Mrs. Pelosi’s flight to Taiwan, keeping it under surveillance during the journey. He didn’t say whether Chinese warplanes had physically shadowed her plane.
Write to Wenxin Fan at Wenxin.Fan@wsj.com and Joyu Wang at joyu.wang@wsj.com
China Boasts of Ability to Blockade Taiwan as Military Exercises Continue - WSJ
Dumb question, just for the record.
What treaty obligation do we have that would compel us to defend Taiwan using U.S. military forces?
Maybe even sooner!by october/november