Wednesday, July 24, 2019

China takes aim at U.S., Taiwan in new military blueprint

they are going to come after us with their knock-offs

Gerry Shih, The Washington Post 

 FILE - In this Thursday, July 9, 2009, file photo, paramilitary police on board a truck with a banner which reads " against ethnic separatist" in the aftermath of ethnic violence that killed 156 people in Urumqi, western China's Xinjiang region. China says it will not "renounce the use of force" in efforts to reunify Taiwan with the mainland and vows to take all necessary military measures to defeat "separatists." In a national defense white paper released Wednesday, July 24, China listed among its top priorities its resolve to contain "Taiwan independence" and combat what it considers separatist forces in Tibet and the far west region of Xinjiang. Photo: Eugene Hoshiko, AP / AP2009


BEIJING - China sharpened its hostility toward the United States and Taiwan in a new high-level report on its future military strategy that accused Washington and its allies of undermining global stability.
Releasing the document on Wednesday, officials of the People's Liberation Army repeatedly warned
that Beijing would be willing to deploy military force to assert its claims over Taiwan. The self-ruled island has pulled closer to the Trump administration and agreed this month to buy $2.2 billion in weapons, including M1A2T Abrams tanks and Stinger missiles.

Taiwan's incumbent Democratic Progressive Party favors declaring formal independence from China, a move that could spark confrontation in the Taiwan Strait, one of the world's most heavily militarized flash points. China's navy this month sailed its sole aircraft carrier into the strait in a show of force reminiscent of similar U.S. operations two decades ago that showcased American military dominance in Asia.

"If anyone dares to separate Taiwan from China, the Chinese military would not hesitate to go to war," Chinese military spokesman Wu Qian said as he laid out what officials called a revised national defense policy for "the New Era" - a catchphrase that denotes the imprimatur of China's assertive leader, Xi Jinping.

The military blueprint comes as tensions simmer in the western Pacific and China moves to enforce its strategic aims across the region, including in the disputed South China Sea. Beijing views democratically ruled Taiwan, which separated from the Communist-ruled mainland in 1949, as a renegade province.

Global military competition was rising, with the United States "strengthening its Asia-Pacific military alliances" and engaging in "technological and institutional innovation in pursuit of absolute military superiority," the white paper noted.

The white paper, China's first in four years, noted that the Trump administration had "adjusted" the U.S. national security posture to regard China as a rival and claimed "hegemonism" was on the rise - a clear reference to the United States.

Washington "has provoked and intensified competition among major countries, significantly increased its defense expenditure, pushed for additional capacity in nuclear, outer space, cyber and missile defense and undermined global strategic stability," the Chinese document said.
The paper couched its assessments by describing the situation in the Pacific as "generally stable."
Tensions soared this week, however, as China and Russia flew bombers on a joint patrol into airspace claimed by Japan and South Korea, leading Seoul and Tokyo to scramble fighter jets. South Korean military officials say they fired warning shots at the Chinese-Russian sortie.

The patrol was widely seen as a demonstration of growing cooperation between Beijing and Moscow, especially given the alleged incursion into airspace claimed by two key U.S. allies in Asia.
"As Sino-Russian relations enter a new era, the Chinese and Russian militaries will continue to push military relations to new, historic highs," Wu said when asked about the patrol.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, military officials hailed Xi as "commander in chief," a title that has not been accorded any other Communist Chinese leader. Following years of purges within the military to establish its fealty, Xi began assuming the title in 2016 as a symbol of his political control.
Andrew Erickson, a Chinese military expert at the U.S. Naval War College, said the new white paper did not outline qualitatively different strategies but sent a political message.

"It reflects Xi's self-dictated era, strategy, goals, reforms, and rhetoric," he said.
"The report contains strong rhetoric doubling down on domestic stability imperatives and sovereignty claims vis-a-vis Taiwan and the East and South China Seas."
The document said a distinctive feature of its new strategy is that China would not seek a sphere of influence or regional hegemony because "since the beginning of modern times, the Chinese people have suffered from aggressions and wars."

As of 2017, the People's Republic's defense spending was hovering near a record low as a percentage of government spending, at around 5.14 percent, the paper said, which showed a "clear downward trend" despite Xi's ambitious modernization drive. U.S. defense spending, by comparison, accounts for roughly 15 percent of federal expenditures.

WASHINGTON, July 24 (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Wednesday it sent a Navy warship through the Taiwan Strait, which separates Taiwan from China, a move likely to anger China during a period of tense relations between Washington and Beijing.
Taiwan is among a growing number of flashpoints in the U.S.-China relationship, which include a trade war, U.S. sanctions and China's increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea, where the United States also conducts freedom-of-navigation patrols.
China on Wednesday warned that it is ready for war if there was any move toward Taiwan's independence, accusing the United States of undermining global stability and denouncing its arms sales to the self-ruled island.
The warship sent to the 112-mile-wide (180-km) Taiwan Strait was identified as the Antietam.
"The (ship's) transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific," Commander Clay Doss, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet, said in a statement. "The U.S. Navy will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows," he added.
The voyage risks further raising tensions with China but will likely be viewed by self-ruled Taiwan as a sign of support from U.S. President Donald Trump's administration amid growing friction between Taipei and Beijing.
The United States has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to help provide the island with the means to defend itself and is its main source of arms.
China has been ramping up pressure to assert its sovereignty over the island, which it considers a wayward province of "one China" and sacred Chinese territory.
On Wednesday, Chinese Defense ministry spokesman Wu Qian told a news briefing on a defense white paper, the first like it in several years to outline the military's strategic concerns, that China would make its greatest effort for peaceful reunification with Taiwan.
"If there are people who dare to try to split Taiwan from the country, China's military will be ready to go to war to firmly safeguard national sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity," he said.
China has repeatedly sent military aircraft and ships to circle Taiwan on exercises in the past few years and worked to isolate it internationally, whittling down its few remaining diplomatic allies. (Reporting by Idrees Ali; editing by Richard Chang and Leslie Adler)
In one good afternoon, their navy can be sunk.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous7/31/2019

    China will destroy Taiwan and Hong Kong one day.

    ReplyDelete