Trump Crosses China's Line In The Sand Re:Taiwan
Today much has happened to push the world closer to global war. In the past, world powers have jostled one another in hot regions, then apologized bashfully afterward. Today's events were not a bump or jostle, but an unapologetic, clear push...the pushing of a center pawn straight into conflict after careful years castling and building a battery of rooks on the open center file! Today US Navy Admiral Michael Studeman visited Taiwan (officially the Republic of China), the free and technologically advanced nation of 24 million on the island of Formosa. Communist Red China sees Taiwan as a renegade province and has bullied most of the world into withdrawing official exchanges of ambassadors. Specifically prohibited by China's belligerent and unilateral demands are open military exchanges such as happened today.
The US has for decades been treaty-bound to intervene should China invade Taiwan, but faith in that agreement has waned considerably in recent years, even though Taiwanese conservative President Tsai Ing-Wen has supported independence and bolstered US ties. The Chinese embassy levies a formal complaint every time Ing-Wen stops in California en route to Taiwan's allies in the Americas. She spends the night, fuels her plane, and shops a little on Rodeo Drive. She is the president of a sovereign nation, and China wants her to ask permission to go shopping and stop for gas! Then she goes on to Guatemala, Honduras, or Paraguay, to make deals trading technology and manufactured items for raw materials and agricultural products that the island nation desperately needs. Red China is furious that any allies are left; they have tightened the stranglehold though years of "One China" policy. Chinese-backed anarchist mobs have harried these allies as well, this weekend setting fire to the congress building in Guatemala's capital, Guatemala City. Three days ago, US Undersecretary of State Keith Krach visited Taiwan ahead of the Admiral, signing a five-year agreement on many subjects including security (mutual defense). This meeting alone was perhaps enough to provoke invasion or missile bombardment by Red China...but there was much, much more.
Today the leader-in-exile of Tibet visited the White House For the first time in 60 years. Much of the world sees Tibet as a sovereign nation illegally occupied by China, and now China has fortified the Tibetan Himalayas in their ongoing feud with neighboring India, a nuclear power. The USA just wrapped up military exercises jointly with India and Japan as part of the QUAD, or Quadrilateral Security Dialog, a growing counterbalance to China's power in the Indo-Pacific. Australia joined the exercise at the last minute, infuriating China (which had assumed Australian subjugation was complete). The provocation of the naval exercise was today exceeded by the announcement that Japan has refitted their military with US F-35 Joint Strike Fighters! This completes the Japan Self-Defense Forces' transition to a blue-water navy capable of force projection WITH TWO AIRCRAFT CARRIERS! (Scroll down to June 16th article on these carriers and the global jump-jet-carrier arms race-which today was won by the USA and allies!)
The United States' moves to bolster military ties with Taiwan have truly come at the eleventh hour. China is scrapping the last vestiges of freedom in Hong Kong, showing that this is their intent in every place: the Pacific, the Americas, and even in these United States. The historic "free world" is reuniting and preparing to make a stand. Will China back up their bluster? We dare them to!
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/us-admiral-michael-studeman-makes-unannounced-visit-to-taiwan-p06h5lcmc
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/21/us-and-taiwan-sign-five-year-agreement-on-health-tech-and-security
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tibet-usa/tibetan-political-leader-visits-white-house-for-first-time-in-six-decades-idUSKBN28108D
https://asiatimes.com/2020/11/japan-says-farewell-to-its-phantastic-phantom-fighters/
The US has for decades been treaty-bound to intervene should China invade Taiwan, but faith in that agreement has waned considerably in recent years, even though Taiwanese conservative President Tsai Ing-Wen has supported independence and bolstered US ties. The Chinese embassy levies a formal complaint every time Ing-Wen stops in California en route to Taiwan's allies in the Americas. She spends the night, fuels her plane, and shops a little on Rodeo Drive. She is the president of a sovereign nation, and China wants her to ask permission to go shopping and stop for gas! Then she goes on to Guatemala, Honduras, or Paraguay, to make deals trading technology and manufactured items for raw materials and agricultural products that the island nation desperately needs. Red China is furious that any allies are left; they have tightened the stranglehold though years of "One China" policy. Chinese-backed anarchist mobs have harried these allies as well, this weekend setting fire to the congress building in Guatemala's capital, Guatemala City. Three days ago, US Undersecretary of State Keith Krach visited Taiwan ahead of the Admiral, signing a five-year agreement on many subjects including security (mutual defense). This meeting alone was perhaps enough to provoke invasion or missile bombardment by Red China...but there was much, much more.
Today the leader-in-exile of Tibet visited the White House For the first time in 60 years. Much of the world sees Tibet as a sovereign nation illegally occupied by China, and now China has fortified the Tibetan Himalayas in their ongoing feud with neighboring India, a nuclear power. The USA just wrapped up military exercises jointly with India and Japan as part of the QUAD, or Quadrilateral Security Dialog, a growing counterbalance to China's power in the Indo-Pacific. Australia joined the exercise at the last minute, infuriating China (which had assumed Australian subjugation was complete). The provocation of the naval exercise was today exceeded by the announcement that Japan has refitted their military with US F-35 Joint Strike Fighters! This completes the Japan Self-Defense Forces' transition to a blue-water navy capable of force projection WITH TWO AIRCRAFT CARRIERS! (Scroll down to June 16th article on these carriers and the global jump-jet-carrier arms race-which today was won by the USA and allies!)
The United States' moves to bolster military ties with Taiwan have truly come at the eleventh hour. China is scrapping the last vestiges of freedom in Hong Kong, showing that this is their intent in every place: the Pacific, the Americas, and even in these United States. The historic "free world" is reuniting and preparing to make a stand. Will China back up their bluster? We dare them to!
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/us-admiral-michael-studeman-makes-unannounced-visit-to-taiwan-p06h5lcmc
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/21/us-and-taiwan-sign-five-year-agreement-on-health-tech-and-security
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tibet-usa/tibetan-political-leader-visits-white-house-for-first-time-in-six-decades-idUSKBN28108D
https://asiatimes.com/2020/11/japan-says-farewell-to-its-phantastic-phantom-fighters/