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A Philippines Coast Guard vessel was water cannoned by Chinese vessels on Tuesday in waters near Bajo De Masinloc. The Philippines Coast Guard vessel was on a resupply mission. #china #phillipines #news VIDEO AT LINK........................

When Admiral Michael Gilday, chief of U.S. naval operations, gave an interview in 2022, he made a point of saying he believed China could invade Taiwan in 2022 or 2023. As of the last week of April 2024, China has not invaded Taiwan. Does this mean that Taiwan and the international community can breathe a collective sigh of relief? Maybe. A compelling case can be made that if China does intend to take Taiwan, then the period between now and January 2025 is as favorable a time as it is likely to have over the near term.There is an array...

TOKYO -- The global wheat market has been hit by Chinese buyers canceling major shipments, seemingly in an attempt to secure better prices and bolster the country's food security. Benchmark Chicago wheat futures are trading at about $5.50 per bushel, up slightly from a three-and-a-half-year low marked in mid-March but down about 10% from the beginning of the year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture last month said 504,000 tonnes of wheat sales to China had been canceled. The figure is equivalent to about half the total U.S. wheat shipments to China in 2022 and the largest cancellation on record going...

Australia is preparing for war in order to avoid it. Their historic new increase in defense spending and China’s dependence on them for iron ore make them an important ally. Australia’s defense funding for 2024 will be $35 billion USD, just over 2% of their GDP, and up from $20 billion in 2021. They’ve signed a new trilateral security agreement with the United States and United Kingdom that will give the Australian Navy a new weapon that only 6 other nations in the entire world have. Major upgrades are being made to their northern army, air and naval bases. But...

President Obama recently shifted authority for approving sales to China of missile and space technology from the White House to the Commerce Department -- a move critics say will loosen export controls and potentially benefit Chinese missile development. "It's as though Commerce's mishandling of missile-tech transfers to China in the 1990s never happened," said Mr. Sokolski, a former Pentagon proliferation specialist. "But it did. As a result, we are now facing much more accurate, reliable missiles from China." Mr. Sokolski said he expects the U.S. government under the new policy to again boost Chinese military modernization through "whatever renewed 'benign'...

Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar warned on Friday that “one tiny mistake” could turn Cyprus into “a new Gaza”. Tatar, not recognized as a head of state by the international community, also suggested that Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan may soon recognize the north. Turkey is the only country that recognizes the so-called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. in an interview with the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, said, “A mistake or a misunderstanding such as the shooting of a Turkish soldier on the Green Line… would provoke a bomb between the two populations.” “If you shoot one Turkish soldier, you...

It was a terrible quake that struck near Hualien City, Taiwan, just as the workday was beginning on Wednesday. Details aren't yet complete but, so far, nine people have been reported killed, over a thousand more injured, and 152 trapped in damaged buildings, quarries, and other places. At 7.4 on Richter Scale, the Hualien shifter was three times more powerful and released 5.6 times more energy than the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake that dropped part of San Francisco's elevated Embarcadaro freeway, killed 63 people, and injured 3,757 more. “It was pretty scary,” a visiting American told NBC News. “In all...

The Taiwanese government has rebuffed an offer of help extended by Beijing as the island contends with the aftermath of a deadly 7.3 magnitude earthquake that struck on Wednesday morning, killing at least nine people.At least 934 people are reported injured and 56 remain trapped in the quake that struck off the east coast at 7.58am and sparked tsunami warnings. Soon after the disaster, Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council offered the island disaster assistance. In response, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said in a short statement there was no need for the mainland to help. “We noticed that...

Magnitude: 7.5 Origin Time: 4/2/2024, 6:58:00 PM Depth: 7 mi.Lat: 23.8° N Lon: 121.7° E Location: TAIWAN

Multiple buildings collapse in Hualien, Taiwan after USGS reports magnitude 7.4 earthquake

Beware, China. And Taiwan, and Asia, and America. Just after the holidays in 2022, a team from the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released a hefty report last year entitled The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan. It is jam-packed with insight. One hopes it finds avid readership among the uniformed services, their political masters, and Congress.The report details the design and results of an unclassified wargame set in the Taiwan Strait in 2026, toward the end of the much-discussed “Davidson window,” which postulates a Chinese attack on Taiwan by 2027....

The Democratic Progressive Party won decisively, affirming that most Taiwanese want to maintain Taiwan’s separation from communist China.The Taiwanese elected William Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as their next president, despite Beijing’s threat that voting for Lai would lead to war.The campaign to succeed Taiwan’s incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen, who will step down in May due to term limits, was a fierce three-way race, including Vice President Lai of the DPP, Hou Yu-ih of the Kuomintang (KMT), and Ko Wen-je from the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). Beijing accuses the DPP of “promoting” Taiwan’s independence, a red line...

World leaders congratulated Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for a historic third presidential term even as President Biden warned that the U.S. will not endorse independence for the island. "We do not support independence," Biden told reporters when asked for comment on DPP candidate William Lai’s victory over the rival Koumintang (KMT) party following Saturday’s election. Lai, who also goes by his Chinese name, Ching-te, declared victory after a tightly contested election saw him beat KMT candidate Hou Yu-ih, the mayor of New Taipei City. Beijing had not declared a clear preference for any candidate, but Chinese officials framed...

Several high-profile purges are said to have happened in China over the past few months. What do they mean? Do the mysterious removals of cabinet ministers and generals signal weakness? Paranoia? Or something else?Because China is a tightly controlled totalitarian nation, getting good information on it is difficult. China even ceased issuing certain reports about its economic performance last August while criminalizing the gathering of basic corporate performance data necessary to make sound investment decisions.In this context, everything coming out of China should be viewed with extreme skepticism: Is this true, or is this something China wants us to think...

American foreign policy experts have long argued that China has been laying the groundwork for a permanent rise as a major global power, and U.S. politicians (particularly on the Republican side) have certainly counted the ways in which China is clearly our No. 1 geopolitical foe. However, China's ascendency isn't without its setbacks, and at times it seems possible that China is closer to declining than rising. Their economy hasn't recovered since COVID-19, and Chinese President Xi Jinping has been dealing with more internal struggles than were previously let on. One such problem for the leader of the Chinese Communist...

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy battled with CNN host Kaitlan Collins on her show Monday night after she aired a brief clip of him speaking about Taiwan. "Guess what, we’ll put a gun in every Taiwanese household, train them how to use it, that is how you make Xi Jinping think twice," Ramaswamy said in a clip taken from a speech he gave in Iowa. "Do you really think that would be a sufficient plan to deter a Chinese invasion, if it includes long-range missiles, ground troops, an aerial blockade, a naval blockade, all of the different measures here?" Collins...

Chinese President Xi Jinping warned President Biden last month that he intends to end Taiwan’s decades-long de facto independence — peacefully, if possible. Xi told the 81-year-old commander-in-chief that “Beijing will reunify Taiwan with mainland China but that the timing has not yet been decided,” NBC News reported Wednesday, citing three current and former US officials briefed on the meeting. The White House didn’t deny the exchange, which occurred during a Nov. 15 summit outside San Francisco that was attended by a dozen US and Chinese officials. “I’m not gonna get into the specifics of the discussion between the two...

WASHINGTON — Chinese President Xi Jinping bluntly told President Joe Biden during their recent summit in San Francisco that Beijing will reunify Taiwan with mainland China but the timing has not yet been decided, according to three current and former U.S. officials. Xi told Biden in a group meeting attended by a dozen American and Chinese officials that China’s preference is to take Taiwan peacefully, not by force, the officials said

Chinese intelligence officials offered a Taiwanese army pilot millions of dollars to steal a US-made transport helicopter and land on a Chinese aircraft carrier. Lieutenant Colonel "Hsieh" was offered $15 million by Chinese spies to steal a Boeing CH-47 Chinook and land on a People's Liberation Army Navy aircraft carrier during a military drill near the self-ruled island. The plan to steal the Chinook came to an abrupt end when Taiwanese authorities arrested Hsieh in August for allegedly spying for Beijing. In an indictment revealed by the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors Office on Monday, "Lieutenant Colonel Hsieh was asked to...

While Taiwan’s presidential candidates support maintaining ties with the U.S., they diverge in their respective approaches to China.In January 2024, Taiwanese voters will head to the polls to elect the island’s next president, who will be instrumental in shaping Taiwan’s policy toward the United States and Red China. With Beijing becoming increasingly aggressive toward Taiwan — which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) claims is Chinese territory — the outcome of the nation’s presidential contest will be felt throughout the region for years to come. Running to succeed term-limited President Tsai Ing-wen are three main contenders: Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s current vice...