China flexes its muscles against a weakened USA
China today threatened to ‘crush’ any US troops stationed on Taiwan as it conducts live fire drills in the South China Sea after Joe Biden abandoned Afghanistan.
An editorial in the regime-backed Global Times lashed out at a since-deleted tweet by Senator John Cornyn which erroneously stated there were 30,000 American soldiers stationed in Taiwan.
The bombastic propaganda article said: ‘It is equivalent to a military invasion and occupation of the Taiwan Province of China. It is an act of declaring war on the People’s Republic of China …
‘It is believed that China will immediately put the Anti-Secession Law into use, destroy and expel US troops in Taiwan by military means, and at the same time realize reunification by force.’
China conducted naval exercises south of Taiwan on Tuesday in the latest show of strength to the US and its allies which are still reeling from their chaotic retreat from Afghanistan.
Although China is the dominant power in east Asia, many of its neighbours like Taiwan and Japan look to the US as their closes military partner. Beijing, therefore, revels in anything which undermines Washington’s credibility.
Chinese state media pumped out the images of desperate Afghans flooding Kabul airport in an effort to flee on Monday as a sign of the chaos prompted by the US retreat.
On Tuesday, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Washington had left ‘an awful mess of unrest, division and broken families’ in Afghanistan.
‘America’s strength and role is destruction, not construction.’
State media has peddled the idea that America’s rush from Afghanistan reflects its fair-weather attitude to all allies including in Taiwan, which seeks strength from Washington’s security guarantee as it defies Beijing.
State media has peddled the idea that America’s rush from Afghanistan reflects its fair-weather attitude to all allies – including in Taiwan, which seeks strength from Washington’s security guarantee as it defies Beijing.
Biden, hammered over the disorderly retreat, has defended the withdrawal saying China and Russia would ‘love nothing more’ than his country to have continued to sink resources into the Afghanistan quagmire.
But Beijing now perhaps senses any opportunity to seize the impetus in the region with the US licking its wounds over its calamitous foreign policy decision to quit Afghanistan.
Warships, anti-submarine aircraft and fighter jets took part in the live fire drills in an undisclosed location off Taiwan on Tuesday.
People’s Liberation Army spokesman Shi Yi called it a ‘necessary activity in response to the recent situation in the Taiwan Strait.’
It follows recent passages by US and European military vessels through the disputed waters in the South China Sea.
