China is playing chicken with our warships in the Taiwan Straight. With Joe Biden falling down all over the place, Xi Jinping is ramping up his aggressive posturing and apparently planning to speed up his invasion timetable. He gave Antony Blinken one more warning that we’re still playing with fire by teasing Taiwan with false hopes of freedom.
China threatens warships
China defended “sailing a warship across the path of an American destroyer and Canadian frigate transiting the Taiwan Strait.” No, we’re not sorry, Defense Minister General Li Shangfu declared.
Lloyd Austin might call them “freedom of navigation” patrols but they’re a “provocation” to Beijing. If we don’t get the message, the next time could be worse.
General Li is fairly new in his position as Defense Minister, having been appointed to the post in March. This appearance in Singapore was his “first international public address.”
DM Li Shangfu: “Why do all the questions involve the vicinity of China’s airspace&territorial waters instead of those of other countries? Because China’s military aircraft&warships never approach airspace&territorial waters of other countries to exercise ‘navigation hegemony’.” pic.twitter.com/Yyq3z7klwA
— Hua Chunying 华春莹 (@SpokespersonCHN) June 4, 2023
China, he explains, “doesn’t have any problems with ‘innocent passage‘ but we must prevent attempts that try to use those freedom of navigation (patrols), that [mimic] innocent passage, to exercise hegemony of navigation.” Hegemony means acting like a bully.
When U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin took the podium on the same stage a day earlier, he announced that even if Joe Biden can’t walk across a stage without falling down his handler’s still won’t “flinch in the face of bullying or coercion” from the Pooh Bear.
He promises to keep “sailing through and flying over the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea to emphasize they are international waters.” They aren’t international, they’re ours, the Chinese reply. Would we like their destroyers sailing around the Gulf of Mexico?
Within 150 yards
The reason Austin was upset was because that same day “a U.S. guided-missile destroyer and a Canadian frigate were intercepted by a Chinese warship in the strait dividing the self-governed island of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own, and mainland China.” Just like the bully the Chinese claim we are, we have been daring them to take action.
On Saturday, the “Chinese vessel overtook the American ship and then veered across its bow at a distance of 150 yards (about 140 meters) in an ‘unsafe manner.‘” They’ve been playing similar games with our spy plane.
At the end of May, a Chinese J-16 fighter jet “performed an unnecessarily aggressive maneuver” while “intercepting a US Air Force reconnaissance aircraft over the South China Sea, flying directly in front of the plane’s nose.” It’s all our fault, General Li proclaims.
Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu:
“Some states shamelessly poke their noses into the internal affairs of other countries and regions. Each time they unilaterally impose sanctions and threaten with weapons, stage color revolutions and proxy wars everywhere.
1/2 pic.twitter.com/yeDZQEfBPc
— Dagny Taggart (@DagnyTaggart963) June 4, 2023
He “suggested the U.S. and its allies had created the danger, and instead should focus on taking ‘good care of your own territorial airspace and waters.‘”
Through an interpreter, he spelled it out in words even the Pentagon can understand. “The best way is for the countries, especially the naval vessels and fighter jets of countries, not to do closing actions around other countries’ territories. What’s the point of going there? In China we always say, ‘Mind your own business.‘”
They also are a little steamed that we finally came through with the stingers we promised Taiwan about five years ago. Li is a pretty easy going guy for a Chinese Defense Minister. He closed his speech with a quote. “As the lyrics of a well-known Chinese song go: ‘When friends visit us, we welcome them with fine wine. When jackals or wolves come, we will face them with shotguns.’“
