Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Beijing Growing Restless Over Taiwan An interesting article by Robert Maquand of the Christian Science Monitor.  It's the Chinese that are doing unprecedented wargaming in the region, not the United States. For the next few weeks on a spit of land called Dongshan along the Taiwan Strait, a Chinese military force will practice making offensive strikes. The exercise, which began last week, resembles what Chinese analysts say a military strike on Taiwan would look like: commando raids and elements of a so-called "decapitation strike" on Taipei, including night bombing runs - something the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has not practiced before in a coastal exercise. ...   ... State media are at volume levels not heard since 2000, the last time Chen, who desires a separate identity for Taiwan, was elected. Newspapers show Chinese frigates shooting rockets. They list Chinese weapons that "Americans are afraid of" - including the mobile-launched long range Dongfeng-31 and Dongfeng-4 rockets. Party newspaper People's Daily issued an angry broadside Tuesday on a July 15 resolution in Congress supporting the Taiwan Relations Act. The law allows US weapons sales to Taiwan for defensive purposes so long as the island is threatened. People's Daily argued that Congress "fabricated a Chinese military threat in order to justify arms sales to Taiwan - a blatant intervention into China's internal affairs." ... ... A new level of anxiety about Taiwan in Beijing is reportedly one reason National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice came here July 8 to signal, in her words, "what [the US] can and can't do"to cooperate with China. Analysts argue that an element of the ongoing US naval Summer Pulse '04 exercises that involve deploying seven carrier groups worldwide has protection of the Taiwan Straits as part of its message. (It is incorrect, as reported in Chinese and US media, that all seven carrier groups will gather in the West Pacific and that Taiwan is participating in the exercise.) I am glad to see that someone in the media is doing their homework and setting the record straight with regards to Summer Pulse '04. While it seems like we've been hearing for years that Communist Undemocratic China is preparing to attack Taiwan (thereby making it seem like a perpetual fear that is unjustified), it unfortunately looks more and more like the enemies of freedom are just biding their time, gathering strength, and waiting for the right opportunity. Military comment []7:01:35 PM   trackback []