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The Taiwan Strait Getting Hot, Hot, Hot…2.0

September 21, 2020

The Taiwan Strait Getting Hot, Hot, Hot…2.0

We originally posted the following in October 2018 after President Trump threw Montenegro, then the newest member of NATO under the bus a few months earlier.

We suspected POTUS’ loose lips would someday sink ships, at least metaphorically, if not literally.

The flapping of his jaws back in July 2018, we believe, triggered the geopolitical dynamics, sending a signal to Moscow and Beijing that the U.S. was not committed to its allies and we now find ourselves on the verge of a geopolitical hurricane.

As if the market didn’t have enough on its plate dealing with its extreme overvaluation and the current American political shit show.

The Taiwan Strait Getting Hot, Hot, Hot…

Posted on October 21, 2018 by macromon

We posted the following in July after President Trump threw Montenegro under the bus.

Taiwan may be about to get hot, hot, hot in the next year after last night’s Commander in Chief’s ambiguous message on defense treaties.  – GMM

One of GMM‘s most excellent followers, who we very much like and respect, responded with this:

This whole article is a science-fiction of oh, this could happen, and oh that could happen…. And we could be hit with an asteroid tomorrow. Just sit back and watch the hands that are dealt and how they are played. This article is either Sci-fi or false news. Your choice!

We still like and respect the reader, by the way.

Montenegro

By the way, in case your wondering about Montenegro?  It didn’t take a Ph.D. in international relations to figure out Trump’s interview with Fox would lather up Putin and wasn’t difficult to anticipate the outcome.

In an interview with Fox’s Tucker Carlson last night, President Trump seemed to question the raison d’être of NATO and foreign alliances in general.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

China Demands US Stop “Flexing Muscles” After Its New Carrier Sails Across Taiwan Strait

November 18, 2019

China Demands US Stop “Flexing Muscles” After Its New Carrier Sails Across Taiwan Strait

China has gone on the diplomatic and military offensive Monday as China’s Defense Minister told his US counterpart that Washington must stop “flexing its muscles” in the South China Sea. At the same time Beijing has deployed its new domestically produced aircraft carrier to the South China Sea for “training and research purposes,” CNN reports. Before that it passed through the Taiwan Strait, reportedly followed closely by US and Japanese ships. 

China said it would not tolerate “any Taiwan independence incidents” and urged the United States not to provoke any further problems or interference in the region.

China’s first domestically developed aircraft carrier, via Reuters.

This latest incident reported by Reuters involved the “Chinese carrier ship passed through the Taiwan Strait on Sunday, tailed by U.S. and Japanese ships.”

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe met in Bangkok where they are attending a summit with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other countries.

Wei is reported to have told Esper that China is determined to maintain “peace and stability in the South China Sea and demands the US stop flexing its muscles in the South China Sea and do not provoke and escalate tension in the South China Sea.” They also discussed the unrest in Hong Kong and a host of other security-related issues.

Chinese Defense Minister Wie Fenghe greets US Defense Secretary Mark Esper in Bangkok, Thailand on Monday, via the AP.

The day before, Esper had publicly accused Beijing of “increasingly resorting to coercion and intimidation to advance its strategic objectives” in the region.

Esper acknowledged in a Tweet that the two discussed “how our two nations can continue a relationship focused on maintaining the international rules based system.”

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…


China Enraged After US Sails Two Destroyers Through Taiwan Strait

May 23, 2019

China Enraged After US Sails Two Destroyers Through Taiwan Strait

Just in case the “world tech and trade war I” was not enough to send US-China relations back decades, on Wednesday the US military sent two Navy destroyers through the Taiwan Strait in its latest transit through the sensitive waterway, “angering China” at a time of tense relations between the world’s two biggest economies.

While trade war between the two superpowers is raging, so far at least there have been no shooting incidents, and yet the US seems eager to provide just the right “excuse” for a trade war to become a “kinetic” one, as Taiwan is one of a growing number of flashpoints in the U.S.-China relationship, where in addition to the increasingly bitter trade war, China’s increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea has prompted the United States to conducts frequent freedom-of-navigation patrols.

Meanwhile, the voyage will be viewed by self-ruled Taiwan as a sign of support from the Trump administration amid growing friction between Taipei and Beijing, which views the island as a breakaway province and has vowed it will never let it become fully independent.

The transit was carried out by the destroyer Preble and the Navy oil tanker Walter S. Diehl, a U.S. military spokesman told Reuters.

“The ships’ transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,”Commander Clay Doss, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet, said in a statement.

And while Doss said all interactions were safe and professional, China was less enthusiastic, and its Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Beijing had lodged “stern representations” with the United States.

“The Taiwan issue is the most sensitive in China-U.S. relations,” he told a daily news briefing in Beijing. 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Joint Russia-China Naval Drills Kick Off After 2 US Warships Enter Taiwan Strait

May 1, 2019

Joint Russia-China Naval Drills Kick Off After 2 US Warships Enter Taiwan Strait

Early this week Chinese media confirmed that Russian warships arrived in Qingdao, a port city in East China’s Shandong Province, at the start this week’s join China-Russia naval exercises. 

The Russian fleet included the Varyag guided missile cruiser, a submarine, two anti-submarine ships, a corvette, a landing ship, a tanker and a rescue vessel, according to China’s Global Times

View image on Twitter

View image on Twitter

Russian submarine makes a visit to Qingdao Port in China.

The planned drills, called Naval Cooperation 2019 exercises, set to run April 29 to May 4 come amidst a general thawing and improvement of relations between Moscow and Beijing as both experienced heightened economic and military tensions with the United States of late. 

For its part, the PLA Navy (People’s Liberation Army) will deploy a submarine, two guided missile destroyers, three guided missile frigates and a submarine rescue ship to participate in the exercises, according to an official PLA statement. Prior file photo of PLA crew members aboard the Russian missile cruiser Varyag last year. via China Daily

Official descriptions of the drills detail plans for joint training in maneuvering and communication, missile launches, artillery fire at sea, and naval aviation coordination, among other things. 

Russia’s TASS news agency identified the ships in its fleet that are involved in the joint drills as follows: 

A group of Pacific Fleet ships consisting of the flagship Guards Order of Nakhimov missile cruiser Varyag, the large anti-tank ships Admiral Vinogradov and Admiral Tributs, the corvette Sovershenny, the large landing ship Oslyabya, the rescue vessel Igor Belousov and the sea tanker Irkut arrived at the port of Qingdao on a business call several hours ago, and the official opening ceremony for the bilateral Russian-Chinese naval drills ‘Maritime Cooperation 2019’ was carried out.

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Two US Warships Sail Through Taiwan Strait In Dare To Beijing

April 29, 2019

Two US Warships Sail Through Taiwan Strait In Dare To Beijing

With US-China trade talks set to resume this week amid what flashing red headlines, Larry Kudlow and Donald Trump’s twitter account remind us every day, if not hour, is a sense of “optimism” about an imminent deal, on Sunday the US navy reminded Beijing to stick to the script (one in which Trump supposedly comes off as a negotiating giant), when it two warships through the hotly contested Taiwan Strait as the Pentagon increases the frequency of movement through the strategic waterway despite vocal and often time angry opposition from China.

While the voyage risks further raising tensions with China – at an especially sensitive time for trade negotiations – it will also be viewed by Taiwan as a sign of support from the Trump administration amid growing friction between Taipei and Beijing.

“The ships’ transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Commander Clay Doss, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet, said in a statement. The 112-mile-wide Taiwan Strait separates Taiwan from China. Winking at China, Doss also said there were no unsafe or unprofessional interactions with other countries’ vessels during the transit. Beijing may beg to differ.

Despite an alleged convergence of view on trade between Beijing and DC., Taiwan remains one of a growing number of flashpoints in the U.S.-China relationship, which also include a trade war, U.S. sanctions, the future of Huawei and 5G and China’s increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea, where the United States also conducts freedom-of-navigation patrols to remind China that the US will never cede implicit control of the world’s most important naval area.

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US Warships Again Enter Taiwan Strait, But This Time With Chinese Bombers Overhead

January 25, 2019

US Warships Again Enter Taiwan Strait, But This Time With Chinese Bombers Overhead

For the first time this year the United States has sailed two warships through the Taiwan Strait Thursday in yet another challenge to the ‘One China’ policy and in accord with the US Navy’s “freedom of navigation” operations. It seems the US Navy is establishing this almost as “routine” given the number of times this provocative act has been done over the past number of months (3 times last year); however, this time China’s air force was busy overhead flying H6 strategic bombers and reconnaissance planes in the vicinity since Thursday. 

“The ships’ transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Lt. Cmdr. Tim Gorman told USNI News, referring to the guided missile destroyer USS McCampbell and the USNS Walter S. Diehl.“The US Navy will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows.” 

US Navy prior passage through the Taiwan Strait, file photo

Taiwan described the ships’ passage through the approximately 110-mile-wide strait as necessary to “ensure the security of the seas and regional stability” according to Reuters. China’s response was to warn US officials to abide by the ‘One China’ principle while reiterating “concern” over growing tensions caused by such actions, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. 

But it appears China’s verbal threats are increasingly being boosted by putting potential deterrent assets in the air as there’s been an uptick in Chinese military aircraft conducting “drills”:

Beijing sent several bombers and aircraft through the Bashi Channel, which separates Taiwan from the Philippines, earlier on Thursday, Taiwan’s defense ministry said in a separate statement.

A similar Chinese operation was conducted on Tuesday, the ministry said, and both were monitored closely.

An H-6K, considered “China’s B-52” via War is Boring

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“We Will Be At War With China In 15 Years” Predicts Former Commander Of U.S. Army In Europe

October 26, 2018

“We Will Be At War With China In 15 Years” Predicts Former Commander Of U.S. Army In Europe

Days after U.S. warships made a provocative passage through the Taiwan Strait on Monday, further making already strained tensions between the Washington and Beijing  — currently in the midst of a trade war — even hotter, the former top commander of the US Army in Europe has predicted the United States and China will likely be at war in 15 years.

Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges made the bombshell and alarming comments at a Warsaw security forum on Wednesday where he urged European allies to do more in preparing their own defenses against Russia while Americans focus more on the Pacific.

Gen. Hodges said, according to the Military Times:

I think in 15 years — it’s not inevitable, but it is a very strong likelihood — that we will be at war with China. The United States does not have the capacity to do everything it has to do in Europe and in the Pacific to deal with the Chinese threat.

This statement is hugely remarkable in that it signifies the thesis has just left the domain of academic international relations theoreticians and has now become a guiding assumption of military commanders with years of experience on the ground.

General Ben Hodges (ret). commanded the US Army in Europe from 2014-2017. Image source: AP file photo

Hodges served as US Army commander in Europe during 2014-17, which makes his warning especially noteworthy, and he’s now an analyst with the Center for European Policy Analysis. He addressed an ongoing policy debate among policy and defense official circles over whether it’s a mistake for Washington to focus its defense efforts on “threats” like Russian and Iran.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Prospect Of U.S.-China War Rising” After US Warships Sail Through Taiwan Strait

October 24, 2018

“Prospect Of U.S.-China War Rising” After US Warships Sail Through Taiwan Strait

Just after U.S. warships again made a provocative passage through the Taiwan Strait on Monday, further making already strained tensions between the Washington and Beijing — currently in the midst of a trade war — even hotter, Steve LeVine at Axios poses the question long on the Western public’s mind: what are the chances of a US-China war?

LeVine recently crossed paths with Graham Allison, who published his explosive “Destined For War: Can America And China Escape Thucydides Trap?” a year ago which detailed the reasons for a coming major war being all but inevitable, sparking a global debate about the Harvard professor’s controversial thesis. LeVine followed up with Allison in relation to the recent uptick in tensions in the region of the South China Sea:

He said, if history holds, the U.S. and China appeared headed toward war.

Over the weekend, I asked him for an update — specifically whether the danger of the two going to war seems to have risen.

“Yes,” he responded. The chance of war is still less than 50%, but “is real — and much more likely than is generally recognized.”

LeVine comments of Graham Allison’s central thesis, “Glued to a 2,400-year-old script, the U.S. and China seem to be on the same war-bound path that great powers have taken since Sparta fought upstart Athens.”

LA Times: On Monday the ships sailed from the south to the north through the Taiwan Strait and were shadowed by multiple Chinese navy vessels. (U.S. Navy)

The reference is to the History of the Peloponnesian War, in which ancient Greek historian Thucydides told us the tale of a dominant regional power (Sparta) that felt threatened by the rise of a competing power (Athens).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Taiwan Strait Getting Hot, Hot, Hot…

October 23, 2018

The Taiwan Strait Getting Hot, Hot, Hot…

We posted the following in July after President Trump threw Montenegro under the bus.

Taiwan may be about to get hot, hot, hot in the next year after last night’s Commander in Chief’s ambiguous message on defense treaties.  – GMM

One of GMM‘s most excellent followers, who we very much like and respect, responded with this:

This whole article is a science-fiction of oh, this could happen, and oh that could happen…. And we could be hit with an asteroid tomorrow. Just sit back and watch the hands that are dealt and how they are played. This article is either Sci-fi or false news. Your choice!

We still like and respect the reader, by the way.


U.S. To Send Warships Through The Strait, Again

Yesterday,  Zero Hedge posted a great piece,  In Latest Provocation To Beijing, US Plans New Warship Passage Through Taiwan Strait,  bringing to our attention the following Reuters article,

The United States is considering a new operation to send warships through the Taiwan Strait, U.S. officials tell Reuters, a mission aimed at ensuring free passage through the strategic waterway but which risks heightening tensions with China.

The United States is considering a new operation to send warships through the Taiwan Strait, U.S. officials tell Reuters, a mission aimed at ensuring free passage through the strategic waterway but which risks heightening tensions with China. – Reuters

John Bolton’s Fingerprints 

The show of force by the U.S. in the Taiwan Strait appears to be a hardening line against and challenge to President Xi’s One China Policy and has National Security Adviser,  John Bolton’s fingerprints all over it.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

In Latest Provocation To Beijing, US Plans New Warship Passage Through Taiwan Strait

October 20, 2018

In Latest Provocation To Beijing, US Plans New Warship Passage Through Taiwan Strait

In Washington’s latest attempt to provoke Beijing, the United States is planning to send warships through the Taiwan Strait according to Reuters, a mission meant to ensure “free passage” through the strategic waterway and which will further heighten political tensions with China. Reuters sources did not discuss the potential timing for any fresh passage through the strait.

The last time the US conducted a similar crossing under the “free passage” umbrella, China responded angrily over what it saw was the latest US incursion in its geopolitical sphere of influence and a fresh mission would only exacerbate the state of affairs between the two superpowers; meanwhile any repeat would be seen in self-ruled Taiwan as a fresh expression of support by President Donald Trump’s government.

China, which views Taiwan as a wayward province, has been ramping up pressure to assert its sovereignty over the island and it raised concerns over U.S. policy toward Taiwan in talks this week with U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in Singapore.

Ironically, even as Washington mulls ordering a fresh passage through the strait in a show of support for Taiwan and defiance of China’s growing sphere of influence, it has been trying to explain to Beijing that its policies toward Taiwan are unchanged. Mattis delivered that message to China’s Defense Minister Wei Fenghe personally on Thursday, on the sidelines of an Asian security forum.

“Minister Wei raised Taiwan and concerns about our policy. The Secretary reassured Minister Wei that we haven’t changed our Taiwan policy, our one China policy.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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