May 19, 2020
The U.S. Navy is deploying her submarine forces to Asia.
From the American Military News article:
The Navy recently has maintained a flotilla of warships in the Western Pacific as a show of force and proof that COVID-19 hasn’t significantly degraded its capabilities, with the United States and China long trading barbs over military activities in the South China Sea and increasingly so over each other’s pandemic response.
China has been accused of intensifying its occupation of man-made islands and bullying other nations in the region while much of the world has been focused on the pandemic.
Geopolitical intelligence platform Stratfor said that the U.S. and China have maintained a "robust operational pace in the South China Sea†amid heightening tensions and COVID-19 — signs that point to continued escalation after the virus wanes.
When the Navy advertises the presence of its usually unseen submarines, it’s often to make a point with an adversary. The Navy released a photo of the Los Angeles-class sub Alexandria transiting Apra Harbor in Guam on May 5.
As the U.S. military addresses COVID-19 at home, "we remain focused on our national security missions around the world,†Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the same day.
"Many countries have turned inward to recover from the pandemic, and in the meantime our strategic competitors are attempting to exploit this crisis to their benefit at the expense of others,†Esper said.
He accused the Chinese Communist Party of ramping up a "disinformation campaign†to shift blame for the virus and burnish its image. All the while, "we continue to see aggressive behavior by the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) in the South China Sea, from threatening a Philippine navy ship to sinking a Vietnamese fishing boat and intimidating other nations from engaging in offshore oil and gas development.â€
Esper said two Navy ships conducted freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea the week before "to send a clear message to Beijing that we continue to protect freedom of navigation and commerce for all nations large and small.â€
The guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill conducted a "FONOP†in the Spratly Islands, and the destroyer USS Barry sailed twice through the Taiwan Strait and through the Paracel Islands in disputed territory that China claims as its own.
"These provocative acts by the U.S. side … have seriously violated China’s sovereignty and security interests, deliberately increased regional security risks and could easily trigger an unexpected incident,†the South China Morning Post quoted a Chinese military command saying after the Barry’s Paracel passage.
The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt has been sidelined in Guam since late March after experiencing an outbreak of the new coronavirus among its 4,800-member crew.
U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor has been quick to note the ongoing deployment of other assets in the region, including transits of the South China Sea by the littoral combat ship USS Gabrielle Giffords, the destroyer USS Rafael Peralta sailing in the East China Sea and the destroyer USS McCampbell passing through the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday.
I think we are now in a cold war with China, and this is going to only get worse as time passes. The Chinese are not going to let their dreams of power go without a fight.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:35 AM
| Comments (9)
| Add Comment
Post contains 549 words, total size 4 kb.
How many Chinese ships are cruising in US waters? Right, zero. The article cites a whole herd of US ships cruising in Chinese waters. But, you claim, they aren't really Chinese waters. That may or may not be, but our ships are where they are and their ships are not where we are. Who is the aggressor?
Posted by: Bill H at May 19, 2020 02:52 PM (vMiSr)
BTW we were patrolling those waters since the end of WWII, when we were acting as China's protector. We continue to be a protector - but of Japan, S. Korea, and Taiwan. And as for your assertion that they aren't in our backyard, I would suggest you look at what is happening in Venezuela, in Cuba, in Nicaragua, shoot, they even control the Panama Canal. Yes, they DO have bases in our back yard. Not the old fashioned kind, but covert bases. And a lot of Chinese have come here, either legally or illegally (through Mexico). Why?
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at May 20, 2020 06:42 AM (F0qlI)
Democrats invent foreign enemies so that we will not notice what they themselves are doing to this nation. What they are doing is far worse than anything that any foreign power can do or would want to do. And they are doing it while the population panics and worries about Russia, pandemics and, now, China.
They tried the "Russia is out to get us" and it didn't work. Then they tried Ukraine as the enemy and that didn't work. Now they are trying China. None of those "enemies" can destroy democracy in this nation, but Democrats can, and they are doing it. They are doing it while successfully distracting us with nonsense about the "Red Menace" of 60 years ago.
Posted by: Bill H at May 20, 2020 08:49 AM (vMiSr)
What makes China so dangerous is that the Democrats have succeeded in promoting Chinese style socialist thinking in America and too few Americans actually see the danger. We could resist the Soviets because we held a common belief in this country. We don't now.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at May 20, 2020 12:48 PM (PcPsH)
Posted by: Bill H at May 20, 2020 03:28 PM (vMiSr)
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at May 21, 2020 08:13 AM (Dzyvy)
Posted by: margaret just at May 23, 2020 05:12 AM (Vb0bq)
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at May 23, 2020 06:58 AM (At6xD)
Posted by: Eudora at May 27, 2020 03:58 AM (ji06y)
37 queries taking 8.332 seconds, 167 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.