Why wouldn’t China use this moment in time to threaten Taiwan? In fact, it would surprise no one if China invaded Taiwan.
After all, in his last press conference Biden gave the green light to despots to take a small bite out of petulant little countries. And while the White House downplayed Biden’s massive f*ck-up, Putin amassed over 100,000 troops at the Russia-Ukraine border.
Then Democrats issued a warning: Americans in Ukraine, please don’t create another Afghanistan and LEAVE. NOW!
I predicted that Biden’s press conference created an opening for China. And I was right.
As CNN reported,
China sent 39 warplanes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Sunday, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said, the largest such incursion this year.The flights by the People’s Liberation Army aircraft came a day after the United States and Japanese navies put on a massive show of force in the Philippine Sea, putting together a flotilla that included two US Navy aircraft carriers, two US amphibious assault ships and a Japanese helicopter destroyer, essentially a small aircraft carrier.
Two US guided-missile cruisers and five destroyers were also part of the exercise. The Philippine Sea is the area of the Pacific Ocean east of Taiwan, between the self-ruled island and the US territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. The Navy did not say how close the flotilla was to Taiwan.”
Freedom at its finest! Nothing reaffirms our commitment to a #FreeandOpenIndoPacific like 2 Carrier Strike Groups, 2 Amphibious Ready Groups sailing alongside our close friends from the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force,” Vice Adm. Karl Thomas, commander of the US 7th Fleet based in Japan, said in a tweet.
A US Navy statement said the mass of warships was “conducting training to preserve and protect a free and open Indo-Pacific region.”
Chinese warplane incursions
Taiwan and mainland China have been governed separately since the defeated Nationalists retreated to the island at the end of the Chinese civil war more than 70 years ago.But China’s ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) views the self-ruled island as part of its territory — despite having never controlled it.Beijing has not ruled out military force to take Taiwan and has kept pressure on the democratic island over the past few years with frequent warplane flights into Taiwan’s ADIZ. The US Federal Aviation Administration defines an ADIZ as “a designated area of airspace over land or water within which a country requires the immediate and positive identification, location and air traffic control of aircraft in the interest of the country’s national security.”
Sunday’s incursions were made by 24 J-16 fighter jets, 10 J-10 fighter jets, two Y-9 transport aircraft, two Y-8 anti-submarine warning aircraft, and one nuclear-capable H-6 bomber, the Taiwanese Defense Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.In response, the Taiwanese military issued radio warnings and deployed air defense missile systems to monitor the activities, it added.The incursions on Sunday marked the highest daily number of Chinese warplanes entering Taiwan’s ADIZ this year.
The highest number of incursions ever recorded was on October 4 last year, when 56 military planes flew into the area on the same day.While the Chinese incursions Sunday were likely a reaction to the large naval presence Tokyo and Washington were putting in the area, they also served another purpose, said Collin Koh, research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.”No doubt this is part of the broader campaign by Beijing aimed at eroding the will and ability of Taiwan to continue resisting,” Koh said.
This situation will likely grow more contentious in the coming weeks. Especially considering the possibility of both military pilot and training shortages. And while we don’t know what will happen on the global stage, what we do know is that our President is a weenie. He doesn’t have the backbone to stand up to Putin, China, or the Taliban. In fact, he doesn’t even have the capacity to change the toilet paper roll.
