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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Important Takeaways:
- China insisted on Monday it would never renounce the “use of force” to take control of Taiwan, after ending a day of military drills around the self-ruled island that Beijing said was a “stern warning” to “separatist” forces.
- Beijing, which claims Taiwan as part of its own territory, deployed fighter jets, drones, warships and coast guard vessels to encircle the island in its fourth round of large-scale war games in just over two years.
- The United States said China’s actions were “unwarranted” and risked “escalation” as it called on Beijing to act with restraint.
- China declared the drills over at around 6:00 pm (1000 GMT), about 13 hours after they had begun.
- “We sincerely strive for the prospect of peaceful reunification, but we will never promise to renounce the use of force and will not leave any space for ‘Taiwan independence'” Ministry of National Defense spokesperson Wu Qian said soon after.
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Important Takeaways:
- At a state banquet celebrating the founding of the People’s Republic on Monday, Xi used his address to underscore his resolve to achieve the “complete reunification of the motherland.”
- “It’s an irreversible trend, a cause of righteousness and the common aspiration of the people. No one can stop the march of history”
- Successive Chinese leaders have vowed to one day take control of Taiwan, but Xi, China’s most assertive leader in decades, has ramped up rhetoric and aggression against the democratic island – fueling tension across the strait and raising concerns for a military confrontation.
- Taiwan officials say Beijing has intensified military activities around the island in recent months, including drills in May that the Chinese military said were designed to test its ability to “seize power” over the island.
- The issue of Taiwan has become a major point of contention between China and the US, which maintains close but informal relations with Taipei and is bound by law to supply the island with weapons to defend itself.
- On Sunday, US President Joe Biden approved an additional $567 million in military support for Taiwan in the largest aid package America has granted the island.
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Important Takeaways:
- A top Chinese general on Thursday told White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan that the U.S. must stop its “collusion” with Taiwan, during a high-stakes meeting in Beijing.
- Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, told Sullivan that Taiwan “is at the very core of China’s core interests, the bedrock of the political foundation of China-US relations, and the first red line that must not be crossed,” according to a readout from the Chinese Ministry of National Defense.
- “The PLA will definitely take countermeasures against the provocations of the Taiwan independence forces,” the readout said…
- “China urges the US side to stop military collusion with Taiwan, stop arming Taiwan, and stop spreading false narratives on Taiwan.”
- The U.S. has unofficial relations with Taiwan, which China claims as its own, but commits to supporting and arming the self-governing island nation.
- Intimidating Chinese drills and military exercises around Taiwan have increased in recent years, and accelerated after the inauguration earlier this year of pro-U.S. Taiwanese President William Lai Ching-te.
- Xi told Biden in the San Francisco summit that he would reunify with Taiwan, by force if necessary.
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Important Takeaways:
- Taiwan shuttered offices, schools and tourist sites across the island on Wednesday ahead of a powerful typhoon that already worsened seasonal rains in the Philippines, killed at least 13 people and displaced 600,000.
- Typhoon Gaemi’s outer skirt was bringing heavy rain to much of Taiwan, where a direct landfall was expected Wednesday evening in the northern county of Ylan. Fishing boats were recalled to port amid turbulent seas, while air travelers were rushing to board overseas flights before the storm arrives, amid numerous cancellations.
- On Wednesday morning, the typhoon was east of Taiwan moving at 18 kilometers (11 miles) per hour with maximum sustained wind speeds of 183 kilometers (113 miles) per hour, the Central Weather Administration said. In the capital Taipei, heavy rain was falling, but high winds had not yet arrived.
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Important Takeaways:
- China Sends Most Warplanes Ever Across Key Line With Taiwan
- Some 56 aircraft crossed the so-called median line as of early Thursday, the Ministry of National Defense in Taipei said on the X social media site. Taiwanese aircraft, naval vessels and missile systems were used “in response” to the flights by the People’s Liberation Army, the military added, without providing details on what that entailed.
- The latest warplane flights add to the pressure campaign China has rolled out since the election victory in January of Lai, who Beijing accuses of pursuing independence. That drive has included holding major military drills just after he took office in May, peeling off one of Taiwan’s few remaining diplomatic allies and expanding a law targeting what it sees as “separatists.”
- The PLA has stepped up incursions across the demarcation in recent years, effectively shrinking the buffer zone between the two sides and slashing the amount of time that Taiwan’s smaller military has to react to any attack from China.
- China has vowed to bring the archipelago of 23 million people under its control someday, by force if necessary.
- President Joe Biden has repeatedly said the US would come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a Chinese invasion. The US has also stepped up military aid to the archipelago that produces the bulk of the world’s advanced semiconductors in recent years in the hopes of deterring any attack.
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