The Taiwan Domino Effect
Biden administration sends mixed messages to Beijing and Taipei, but fails to see what’s really at stake
Commentary
In the first week of the Biden presidency, the Chinese regime violated Taiwanese air space a record number of times, with record numbers of bombers and fighter jets.
The clear intent is to intimidate Taiwan and show them that they stand alone against China. The fall of Hong Kong to the communist Chinese regime less than a year ago provides the unmistakable context behind Beijing’s current intimidation tactics.
Will the US Respond?
If the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is fearful of U.S. President Joe Biden continuing the Trump administration’s policy against Chinese expansion in general, and against Beijing’s intimidation of Taiwan specifically, they have an odd way of showing it.
John McCain s final taunt of 2020 Follow Us
Question of the Day In this photo provided by the U.S. Navy, the guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain conducts routine underway operations in support of stability and security for a free and open Indo-Pacific, at the Taiwan Strait, Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2020. China . more > By Mike Glenn - The Washington Times - Thursday, December 31, 2020
The U.S. Navy ended the year by sending a pair of warships steaming through an area China claims as part of its nautical backyard even as the country was boasting of its military prowess in the pages of a state-run newspaper.
U.S. spy plane flies near North Korea ahead of Party Congress
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The U.S. Navy s EP-3E Aries II flew over Seoul, South Korea, this week, according to online aviation tracker No Callsign. File Photo by Hitoshi Maeshiro/EPA
Dec. 24 (UPI) A U.S. Navy spy plane flew over South Korean airspace for two consecutive days, according to an online aviation tracker.
No Callsign, a South Korea-based tracker, tweeted Thursday images of real-time movements of the EP-3E Aries II, a four-engine, electronic warfare and reconnaissance aircraft.
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The plane flew Wednesday and Thursday, traveling over the Seoul metropolitan area and the West Sea or Yellow Sea, between China and the Korean Peninsula. On Thursday, the plane flew northward toward the North Korea border, data show.
According to the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet, the Arleigh Burke class guided-missile destroyer “asserted navigational rights and freedoms near Vietnam in the vicinity of the Con Dao Island in the South China Sea” on Thursday.
South China Sea: Why America Is Concerned about China’s Maritime Claims
Beijing keeps expanding the areas of the sea it claims as its own, despite those territories belonging to other countries.
The U.S.-China tension related to the South China Sea has been going on for years, and there is no end in sight.
China recently sent its second aircraft carrier, the Shandong, into the region and the Pentagon reports that a U.S. Navy destroyer recently conducted a Freedom of Navigation Operation wherein it sailed within the twelve mile territorial boundary of island territory claimed by China. FONOPS, as they are called, have been going on for years as part of a visible and decided effort to challenge what the Pentagon regards as illegitimate, erroneous and provocative territorial claims in the highly disputed areas of the South China Sea.