China Looks To Take Advantage Of World Distraction With Aggressive Behavior
By Michael Snyder/Economic Collapse Blog July 16, 2024
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Does China sense weakness in the White House?
In recent days Chinese troops have been sent to Belarus for military exercises, dozens of Chinese military aircraft have been threatening Taiwan, and four Chinese military vessels were even detected off the coast of Alaska.
So why has China decided to become so aggressive all of a sudden? Right now, Joe Biden is facing endless questions about his competency, and those around him are focused on fighting for his political survival. So could foreign adversaries such as China use this window of opportunity to do things that they may not normally attempt to do?
According to authorities in Taiwan, 66 Chinese military aircraft and 7 Chinese military vessels were "operating around Taiwan" on Wednesday...
Taiwan's Ministry of National Defence (MND) on Thursday said that it had detected 66 Chinese military aircraft and vessels around the island, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the Western Pacific.
The media outlet embedded a statement by Taiwan's Ministry of National Defence on its X platform.
"66 PLA aircraft and seven PLAN vessels operating around Taiwan were detected up until 6 am (2200 GMT Wednesday) today," the statement said.
When asked about this, the Chinese government responded by declaring that the operation was about protecting "its sovereignty and territorial integrity"...
When asked about the warplanes crossing the median line at a regular press briefing in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian avoided directly responding. "The determination of China to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity remains unrelenting," he said.
The CCP insists that Taiwan is Chinese territory, and the Biden administration has been warned that "reunification" will take place at some point.
Let us hope that the Chinese do not choose to use this current window of opportunity to "reunify" with Taiwan, because the moment that they invade we will be at war with China and everything will change.
Unfortunately, it appears that the Chinese have been aggressively probing Taiwan's maritime defenses. During the first six months of 2024, the Taiwanese Coast Guard "drove away 567 Chinese boats"...
The coast guard drove away 567 Chinese boats and seized seven illegally operating in Taiwanese waters in the first six months of this year, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday.
They mostly operated near Kinmen and Penghu counties, resulting in fines totaling NT$1.7 million (US$52,440), it said.
Three ships -- two near Kinmen County and one near Penghu County -- were detained in January for illegally crossing the border, while one ship each was detained near Kinmen in February and Penghu in March respectively, it said.
Meanwhile, the Chinese have been sniffing around our coastlines too.
In fact, it is being reported that four Chinese military vessels were just spotted off the coast of Alaska...
Multiple Chinese military ships were spotted by the U.S. Coast Guard in the waters off Alaska, officials said in a news release on Wednesday.
Three vessels were detected about 124 miles north of the Amchitka Pass in the Aleutian Islands, and a fourth ship was spotted about 84 miles north of the state's Amukta Pass. The ships were seen on Saturday and Sunday.
All four ships were in international waters, the Coast Guard said, but were inside the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone, which extends 200 nautical miles from the U.S. shoreline.
The reason that this incident is noteworthy is because it is very unusual.
Chinese military vessels don't normally operate so far north.
Most people don't realize this, but China now has the largest navy on the entire planet.
I don't know how we allowed that to happen, but we did.
And it turns out that our own military industry has become extremely dependent on the Chinese. For example, it is being reported that Chinese semiconductors are in approximately "40% of all U.S. Department of Defense weapons systems and infrastructure"...
A large number of Chinese semiconductors are used in critical military platforms, accounting for around 40% of all U.S. Department of Defense weapons systems and infrastructure, and are further linked to military supply chains such as Patriot air-defense missiles and B-2 bombers.
For example, a Lockheed Martin missile factory situated in Alabama produces Javelin anti-tank weapons which use more than 200 semiconductors in each weapon. This equates to thousands of Chinese-made semiconductors within U.S. weaponry.
"U.S. companies at the bottom of the supply chain pyramid often source these parts from China in open market transactions. As a result, many essential components in sensitive U.S. military systems now come from China. Countless major weapons platforms are vulnerable," the report states.
Our leaders aren't exactly the sharpest tools in the shed, but this is ridiculous.
Didn't anyone consider the fact that one day we might actually end up in a war with China?
Before I end this article, I wanted to give a quick update on the conflict in Ukraine.
According to the BBC, at the big NATO conference this week the Ukrainians were told that they now have an "irreversible path" to membership in the alliance...
Nato members have pledged their support for an "irreversible path" to future membership for Ukraine, as well as more aid.
While a formal timeline for it to join the military alliance was not agreed at a summit in Washington DC, the military alliance's 32 members said they had "unwavering" support for Ukraine's war effort.
Nato has also announced further integration with Ukraine's military and members have committed €40bn ($43.3bn, £33.7bn) in aid in the next year, including F-16 fighter jets and air defence support.
Needless to say, this is not going to sit well with the Russians at all.
One of the reasons this war started was because Russia was determined to keep Ukraine out of NATO.
Now F-16 fighter jets from a number of NATO countries are starting to be delivered to Ukraine, and the Russians have already warned that those fighter jets will be considered a nuclear threat...
This summer, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Belgium will begin sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, and Denmark and the Netherlands have said there will be no restrictions on the use of these planes to strike targets in Russia. F-16s are able to deliver nuclear weapons, and Russia has said the planes will be considered a nuclear threat.
We are rapidly approaching a point of no return.
I have been studying the Russians for a long time, and once they come to the conclusion that nuclear war is inevitable they will strike first.
They know that there are no winners in a nuclear war, but they also know that whoever strikes first will have the best chance of surviving.
The Russians are highly paranoid, and we should not be backing them into a corner because that will make them extremely dangerous.
Originally published at The Economic Collapse Blog
