Is China Massing Forces At Coastal Military Bases For An Invasion Of Taiwan?
By Michael Snyder/End of the American Dream September 20, 2023
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If the Chinese decide to pull the trigger on an invasion of Taiwan, it will instantly become the biggest news story in the entire world. Because the moment that an invasion of Taiwan begins, the United States and China will be at war and nothing will ever be the same again.
Of course the Chinese would not consider an attack on Taiwan to be an invasion of a foreign country. The Chinese consider Taiwan to be part of their territory just like we consider Florida or Texas to be part of our territory. For a long time, the communist Chinese government had hoped to "reunify" with Taiwan peacefully, but now it has become clear that is never going to happen.
The Taiwanese government continues to boldly declare that Taiwan is not part of China, and the Biden administration recently approved a 500 million dollar arms sale that is intended to help them prepare for a potential invasion.
Needless to say, this arms sale greatly infuriated China, and it appears that the Chinese are gearing up for a big move.
In fact, Fox News is reporting that the Chinese are "continuously massing forces at its coastal military bases facing Taiwan"...
China is continuously massing forces at its coastal military bases facing Taiwan, the self-governing island warned Tuesday.
Taiwan said it is bolstering its own defenses in response. The island's Defense Ministry issued a report on the expansion of Chinese airfields and military activity on Taiwan's doorstep, saying China has begun probing Taiwan's territory on a near-daily basis.
"This year, the Chinese Communist Party has aggressively expanded its armaments and continued to build various types of fighter jets and drones," Maj. Gen. Huang Wen-Chi said of the report. "The information we have received is that all important military bases along the coast ... are being continuously updated."
This doesn't mean that the Chinese will invade right away.
But they are obviously preparing for something huge.
And the Chinese have also been regularly probing Taiwan's defenses.
On Thursday, China sent 10 naval vessels and 68 military aircraft toward the island...
Dozens of Chinese warplanes and 10 navy ships were detected around Taiwan, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday, after warning that Beijing was conducting air and sea drills in the western Pacific.
Ten Chinese naval vessels and 68 aircraft were detected near the nation between 6am on Wednesday and 6am yesterday, the ministry said in a statement.
Forty of the aircraft had crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and entered the southwest or southeast air defense identification zone (ADIZ), it said.
If my assessment of the situation is correct, I don't believe that the Chinese will invade Taiwan right now.
But I do believe that an invasion is coming.
And U.S. military officials have been warning us over and over again about the possibility of such a conflict.
On Monday, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall had some very ominous things to say about China...
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall on Monday warned that China was building up its military to prepare for a potential war with the U.S., and he said America must optimize its forces to counter the rising threat.
Speaking at the Air and Space Forces Association Warfighter Symposium at National Harbor, Md., Kendall said the U.S. must be ready for a "kind of war we have no modern experience with," though he stressed "war is not inevitable."
"Our job is to deter that war and to be ready to win if it occurs," Kendall said. "We're all talking about the fact that the Air and Space Forces must change, or we could fail to prevent and might even lose a war."
A decade ago, a war with China was unthinkable.
But now a war with China is a very serious threat, and U.S. Air Force officials want a lot more funding so that they can build air bases all over the Pacific...
The U.S. Air Force is finding ways to increase the number of airfields it can take off from in the Pacific--and wants more money to build out airfields and rebuild overgrown WWII airfields.
Adding bases is key to the service's Agile Combat Employment concept, or ACE, which aims to keep combat aircraft flying despite enemy attacks, Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, Pacific Air Forces Commander, told reporters Monday at the Air & Space Forces Association's annual Air, Space & Cyber conference.
The Air Force is currently clearing out a jungle on Tinian, a small island near Guam that was home to the largest B-29 bomber base during World War II and more recently has hosted ACE exercises.
The timing of any Chinese assault on Taiwan will most certainly be determined by Xi's assessment of the domestic political strength of the Biden administration as well as the possible need for a strong diversion from his own imploding economy.
Xi is also doubtless assessing the US president's resolve to back up his repeated declarations that US forces would come to the defense of Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, as opposed to the US State Department's immediate walk-back of the promise.
A big date to watch will be Taiwan's election result on January 14, 2024 and how any new political leader is viewed by by China. If Xi loses faith in the possibility of a peaceful union with Taiwan he will then inevitability decide on the most appropriate time to launch an invasion of Taiwan.
After witnessing the Biden Administration's abandonment of Afghanistan, that would most likely be while Biden is still in power.
Originally published at End of The American Dream - reposted with permission.
