Important Takeaways:
- CHINA has paraded its terrifying new invasion barges that connect up to form a runway for attack vehicles – which could be used to storm Taiwan.
- Satellite pictures show the huge hybrid vessels lining up to form a floating bridge, amid a spate of war drills involving the army, navy and rocket force.
- China has been flexing its military muscles to intimidate Taiwan, which has hit back with increased drills of its own.
- The satellite images show three specialized barges, each with two arms of roadway, lining up next to each other.
- They connect to form a continuous bridge along which invading ground vehicles such as tanks could trundle ashore.
- Huge retractable legs anchor the barges to the seabed like stilts.
- Analysts have likened the purpose-built barges to the floating Mulberry Harbors used by allied forces during the D-Day landings in June, 1944.
- At least five of the mobile bridges will soon be operational, according to military sources.
- Some experts have doubted whether China would be able to cross the Taiwan Strait with sufficient speed and numbers for an invasion.
- But this new system is the latest effort to make it possible – and could suggest the army is gearing up for an attempt, according to experts.
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Important Takeaways:
- China staged military drills off Taiwan’s north, south and east coasts on Tuesday as a “stern warning” against separatism and called Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te a “parasite,” as Taiwan sent warships to respond to China’s navy approaching its shores.
- The exercises, which China has not formally named unlike war games last year, are happening after a rise in Chinese rhetoric against Lai and follow on the heels of U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Asia visit, during which he repeatedly criticized Beijing.
- Taiwan’s government condemned the drills, with the presidential office saying China was “widely recognized by the international community as a troublemaker” and that the government has the confidence and ability to defend itself
- Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying only the island’s people can decide their future.
- Two senior Taiwan officials told Reuters that more than 10 Chinese military ships had approached close to Taiwan’s 24 nautical mile (44 km) contiguous zone and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond.
- China’s foreign ministry said the drills “are legitimate and necessary actions to defend national sovereignty and safeguard national unity”.
- “China’s reunification is an unstoppable trend — it will happen, and it must happen” Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson, said at a regular news conference on Tuesday.
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Important Takeaways:
- Beijing has the ability to hit the United States with conventional weapons; compromise U.S. infrastructure through cyber-attacks; and target its assets in space, the Annual Threat Assessment by the intelligence community said, adding the Communist dictatorship also seeks to displace the United States as the top AI power by 2030.
- AFP reports Beijing’s “coercive pressure” against Taiwan and “wide-ranging cyber operations against US targets” flag its growing threat to U.S. national security, according to the assessment.
- Beijing’s military is gearing up to challenge U.S. operations in the Pacific and “making steady but uneven progress on capabilities it would use in an attempt to seize Taiwan,” it concluded, even as U.S. President Donald Trump warns that Beijing’s actions will have consequences.
- Russia, along with Iran, North Korea and China, seeks to challenge the U.S. through deliberate campaigns to gain an advantage, with Moscow’s war in Ukraine affording a “wealth of lessons regarding combat against Western weapons and intelligence in a large-scale war,” the report said.
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Important Takeaways:
- For Taiwan, the cutting of an undersea communications cable, and live-fire shooting drills involving dozens of Chinese warplanes off the island’s coast this week were just the latest scary omens from Beijing.
- But Taipei’s biggest fear – a full-blown assault by its mighty neighbor – could come faster than they imagined, says a shocking new report on China’s recent diplomatic gains on the world stage.
- Researchers at Australia’s Lowy Institute have shown that the number of governments that support China’s bid to ‘reunify’ with Taiwan, including through military means, has jumped to 89 in recent months.
- That amounts to nearly half the membership of the United Nations, a testament to China’s prowess at using its Belt and Road investment scheme to enlist cheerleaders, especially among developing nations in the global south.
- The report comes amid deepening divisions between the western countries that have long advocated for Taiwan’s self-rule, as Donald Trump’s America pulls back from its European allies.
- The stakes don’t come higher: many see the South China Sea as the world’s most dangerous flashpoint, where fighting could quickly spiral into a nuclear face-off between Washington and Beijing.
- Fully 89 countries – 46 percent of UN members – give China a free hand when it comes to ‘national reunification’.
- Some 53 countries in Africa, where China directs much aid and investment, have greenlighted ‘all efforts by the Chinese government’ toward reunification – a phrase understood to include military force.
- Many Taiwanese see themselves as part of a separate democracy, although most support maintaining the status quo where Taiwan neither declares independence from China nor unites with it.
- Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te has vowed to ‘resist annexation or encroachment’.
- ‘If Taiwan declared independence first, it will be subject to Chinese invasion. And many countries may accept it,’ Acharya told DailyMail.com.
- ‘But if China outright invaded Taiwan before it declared independence, most countries will not support China.’
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Important Takeaways:
- Taiwan’s defense ministry says it only became aware of the exercise when local Taiwanese vessels were warned to stay out of the area after the drills had begun. The drills are centered off the coast of the Taiwan port city of Kaohsiung. Taiwanese officials say China “blatantly violated international norms” by unilaterally designating the drill zone.
- “This move not only poses a high risk to the navigation safety of international flights and ships at sea, but is also a blatant provocation to regional security and stability,” the defense ministry said in a statement.
- As part of the drill, Taiwan says it detected 32 Chinese military aircraft carrying out joint exercises with warships. Chinese officials have so far not acknowledged Taiwan’s complaints.
- The drills around Taiwan are only the latest example of Chinese aggression this month. The country’s military has also launched live-fire drills off the coast of Vietnam as well as between New Zealand and Australia, forcing commercial flights between the two countries to be diverted.
- Wednesday’s exercise came just days after the Chinese Communist Party’s fourth-ranked leader, Wang Huning, called for greater “reunification” efforts. China has long maintained that Taiwan is a rebel territory belonging to Beijing.
- China must “firmly grasp the right to dominate and take the initiative in cross-strait relations, and unswervingly push forward the cause of reunification of the motherland,” Huning said, according to a translation by Chinese state media.
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Important Takeaways:
- The United States is drawing up contingency plans for military deployments in Japan and the Philippines in case of an emergency over Taiwan, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported.
- A US Marine regiment which possesses the multiple-launch HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) would be deployed along Japan’s Nansei island chain stretching from Kyushu to Yonaguni near Taiwan, Kyodo said.
- From an early stage, if a Taiwan contingency becomes highly imminent, temporary bases will be set up on inhabited islands based on US military guidelines for dispatching marines in small formations to several locations, the report added.
- Japan’s military is expected to mainly engage in logistical support for the marine unit, including supplying fuel and ammunition, it said.
- Kyodo added that the US Army would deploy Multi-Domain Task Force long-range fire units in the Philippines.
- Asked about the report on Monday, Beijing’s foreign ministry said that Taiwan is an “inalienable part of China’s territory”.
- “China firmly opposes relevant countries using the Taiwan issue as an excuse to strengthen regional military deployment, provoke tension and confrontation, and damage regional peace and stability,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.
- China is building up its military capacity while ramping up pressure on self-governed Taiwan.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Chinese navy is hard at work on a huge new amphibious assault ship – a combination troop transport and aircraft carrier that could carry hundreds of troops toward Taiwan, and then launch helicopters to deposit those troops behind Taiwanese defenses.
- Why would the Chinese need a third type of big-deck amphibious ship?
- The most chilling answer is that Chinese officials anticipate losing a lot of ships in any attempt to land troops in Taiwan – and they’re planning in advance to replace sunk or damaged Type 075s and Type 076s with smaller assault ships they can build fast and cheap. Or they may want to add numbers to their invasion fleet as quickly as possible.
- Shugart noted it in satellite imagery going back “a few months” prior to October. In those few months, workers completed the ship’s hull and deck.
- In shipbuilding terms, that’s fast. It took Chinese shipbuilders a year to complete the first Type 075; construction of the Type 076 might also take a year.
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Important Takeaways:
- China is expected to double its nuclear arsenal to 1,000 warheads over the next five years, according to a new Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report.
- In 2020, the DIA assessed China had acquired 200 nuclear warheads and would double that by the end of the decade. Now, the intelligence agency says China has already reached 500 warheads and will have more than 1,000 by 2030.
- “China is undergoing the most rapid expansion and ambitious modernization of its nuclear forces in history,” the report said, while noting China’s capabilities are still far behind that of the U.S. or Russia.
- At the same time, China carried out another “combat control” near the island over the weekend as Beijing threatens countermeasures for the U.S.’ $2 billion arms deal with Taiwan.
- The Pentagon has lately been grappling with how to prepare for 2027 – the point at which Chinese leaders have told their military they should have the capability to invade Taiwan.
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Important Takeaways:
- China on October 22 conducted live-fire exercises in the Taiwan Strait.
- The bellicose move follows a 13-hour simulated blockade of Taiwan on October 14 and 15. The People’s Liberation Army, in the Joint Sword-2024B exercises, employed a record 153 planes as well 26 ships, including the Liaoning, one of the country’s three aircraft carriers.
- The Chinese Coast Guard participated in the massive drill as well, carrying out, as the Economist noted, an “unprecedented” patrol around the main Taiwan island.
- The drill, according to the Chinese Coast Guard, was a “practical action to control Taiwan island in accordance with the law based on the one-China principle.”
- Beijing maintains that the island has been an “inalienable” part of China since time immemorial. The People’s Republic has never exercised control over Taiwan. In fact, no Chinese regime has ever held indisputable sovereignty to it. Chiang Kai-shek, the first Chinese ruler to exercise control of the whole island, arrived in 1949.
- A quarantine is a cunning maneuver at a time that China is not prepared for a full-scale war and is not ready to start hostilities by launching an invasion of Taiwan’s main island.
- Not prepared? Xi Jinping does not trust the Chinese military, a war on Taiwan would be extremely unpopular with the Chinese people, and the Chinese regime is extremely casualty averse.
- Xi, therefore, is trying to intimidate everyone else into submission.
- “The real target is the United States.” … They were “practicing ways to ambush the U.S. Navy if it heads towards an already held-hostage Taiwan.” — Chang Ching of the R.O.C. Society for Strategic Studies.
- Xi’s implied threats to use these weapons are particularly ominous. We have to ask ourselves: When in history has a militant regime engaged in belligerent acts and constantly threatened to go to war but did not actually do so?
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Important Takeaways:
- “Xi said the military should ‘comprehensively strengthen training and preparation for war, (and) ensure troops have solid combat capabilities,’ CCTV reported,” according to the AFP and reported on Barrons Saturday.
- The drills were accompanied by China declaring the possibility of invading and taking over Taiwan.
- “China’s communist leaders have insisted they will not rule out using force to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s control,” Barrons said on Saturday.
- Days after the Sino naval drills around Taiwan, the Chinese military criticized the U.S. and Canada for sending warships through the Taiwan Strait as the two power blocks exercise show-of-force operations in the region.
- The recent directive by Jinping builds upon a similar order he dictated in 2023, a call for stronger military combat readiness, as well as echoes the ruler’s directives in 2018 to prepare for war.
- The recent war escalation with China follows escalations with Ukraine and Russia and Israel and Iran.
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