US and China posturing against each other in the South China Sea

US and China posturing against each other in the South China Sea
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U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers have carried out training in the vicinity of the South China Sea and the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, the Air Force said on Friday, in what a Chinese newspaper linked to China's drills near Taiwan.

The US Air Force said on Friday they took off from Andersen Air Force Base on the US Pacific island of Guam and "transited to the vicinity of the South China Sea."

China's Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Ma Xiaoguang said weeks of naval maneuvers in the narrow waterway separating the Chinese mainland from Taiwan was a message that Beijing was ready to take more actions to protect peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the interests of people on both sides of the strait.

China has been angered by U.S. "freedom of navigation" patrols in the disputed South China Sea, where China has reclaimed land for military bases, and by U.S. support for democratic Taiwan.

The exercise was reported in Taiwanese media this week, which speculated it could have been a warning from the United States to China following China's stepped-up military presence around Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own.

China's obsession with Taiwan





China's air force has flown bombers and reconnaissance aircraft around Taiwan as Beijing conducted a live-fire military drill along its southeastern coast in an apparent warning to the self-ruled island nation and to the United States.

Reacting to the military exercises, Taiwan's Defense Ministry said Beijing was using "cheap verbal intimidation and sabre-rattling" to threaten the island nation.

Taiwan is a self-ruled island republic, which is viewed by Beijing as a wayward province that should rejoin the mainland and that both territories are inalienable parts of "One China."

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) exercise took place Wednesday and involved various types of helicopters that tested "all-weather operational capability of the air force at sea," the official Xinhua news agency said.

Chinese combat helicopters also conducted live-fire drills with missiles off southeast China, state media said, without confirming whether the exercises took place in the sensitive Taiwan Strait.

US and China headed for the warpath

While the rest of the world is talking peace, whether it is on the Korean Peninsula and even China-India, the US and China are headed on the warpath. many strategists, in fact, are saying that the Chinese premier's invitation to the Indian PM was extended because Xi wanted to show his strength to he Americans.

Diplomacy is all about strategy and Indians standing closer to the Chinese will anger Americans no end as they are banking on India as its new partner in fighting it's global war.


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