China has threatened to “seize an island” presumed to be Taiwan during a live-fire drill video widely circulated in its media. The video marks the fourth threatening military propaganda film that the Chinese military has released in under six months.
In the recently released video which was syndicated by state broadcaster CCTV (China Central Television) on Saturday, troops from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can be seen simulating an attack on an unidentified island during a large-scale military exercise. The video is 2 minutes and 35 seconds long complete with dramatic music matched to a montage of military drills held by China, The Telegraph reported.
The military maneuvers coincided with Taiwan celebrating a holiday known as National Day.
The footage comes as political tensions between China and Taiwan have spiked to a new high after Beijing aired a purported confession from a Taiwanese businessman who is held captive by Chinese authorities on spying charges, Dailymail reported.
It’s also worth mentioning that last month, China sent 18 fighter jets and bombers into the Taiwan Strait in a show of force that a military official in Beijing said was a warning to Taiwan and the United States about their increasing political and military cooperation within the region, The New York Times reported.
This buzz by fighter jets was amid a meeting with a diplomatic official, Keith Krach, the undersecretary of state for economic, energy and environmental affairs.
“Those who play with fire are bound to get burned,” Senior Col. Ren Guoqiang, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of National Defense, said at a briefing in Beijing, warning the United States and Taiwan against what he called “collusion.”
This follows another mysterious meeting by a higher-up official in July-August, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.
Upon Azar’s visit to Taiwan, Chinese state media angrily threatened to retaliate by holding live-fire missile drills near Taiwan and Guam.
Simultaneously, last month, Chinese aircraft crossed what’s known as the “mid-line” and entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, prompting Taiwan to scramble jets to intercept them. A Twitter account by the Defense Ministry has been archiving all the incidents see: “@MoNDefense.”
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen previously called China a threat to the entire region.
“The Taiwan region is an inalienable part of China’s territory,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, according to an official transcript. He added that the “so-called” mid-line of the Taiwan Strait does not exist.
The Taiwan Defense Ministry reports, China has threatened or entered into Taiwan’s airspace 46 times in just nine days, the island’s defense ministry said, in a statement, Aljazeera reported.
China claims Taiwan is its territory and threatens to use military force to bring under its control the island that is a self-governing democracy and close U.S. ally, CBS reported.
Taiwan and the U.S. are now said to be in economic talks and that’s the reason for these diplomatic meetings. These meetings have angered China and the country has warned the U.S. of “serious damage” to their relations if they do not withdraw, the Associated Press reported.
On Saturday, the Taiwanese President stated in an address that she has hopes for less tensions with China and in the region if Beijing will listen to Taipei´s concerns, alter its approach and restart diplomatic talks with the self-ruled island.
Speaking at Taiwan’s National Day celebrations on Saturday, Tsai used recent remarks by Chinese leader Xi Jinping in a video message to the UN General Assembly that China would never seek hegemony, expansion or to establish a sphere of influence, Anewspost previously reported on this statement.
“As countries in the region and around the world are now concerned about China´s expanding hegemony, we hope this is the beginning of genuine change,” Tsai said in her annual address at the Presidential Office in downtown Taipei.
However, China seems to have responded to Tsai’s call for peace with a new video showing Chinese soldiers taking control of an island during a military exercise. This island is presumably assumed to be Taiwan.
The live-fire training session also featured — amphibious crafts, attack helicopters and land-based missiles.
The footage released by CCTV is said to have been filmed during a drill off China’s southeastern coasts of Fujian and Guangdong provinces.
Anewspost has been covering the ongoing and constantly evolving geopolitical relations between China and the U.S. for months now. Recently, we reported that China’s President Xi Jinping warned that war was on the horizon if things didn’t turn around, adding that China didn’t want to get involved in a cold war or hot conflict, but it would defend its national interests.
However, as Anewspost reported, China’s military has painted a much different picture releasing several frightening videos aimed at the U.S. More recently, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force published a video of nuclear-capable H-6 bombers carrying out a simulated attack on Andersen Air Force Base on the U.S. Pacific island of Guam.
That isn’t the first video release that seems aimed at the U.S. either. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has previously published a video on social media showing Hong Kong air defense drills as Anewspost reported.
Beijing’s state media has previously warned any attempt to prevent China from accessing its interests in the region of the South China Sea could risk sparking a “large-scale war.”
Even the UN chief Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the tensions between the U.S. and China were moving in a dangerous direction that could fracture the world and turn into a military conflict.
“We must do everything to avoid a new Cold War,” Guterres said. “We are moving in a very dangerous direction.” He added, “Our world cannot afford a future where the two largest economies split the globe in a great fracture. A technological and economic divide risks inevitably turning into a geo-strategic and military divide. We must avoid this at all costs,” Guterres said.
Guterres isn’t the only political official to warn about increasing tensions with China becoming into a hot conflict. A top Republican lawmaker Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) who sits on the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and Nonproliferation recently predicted that an armed war with China was imminent.
“I would predict there will be a clash within the next three to six months,” Yoho told the Washington Examiner.
The Florida Republican predicted that armed conflict will be triggered by a Chinese naval attack against the U.S. Pacific Fleet, which often commands a strong presence in the South China Sea, as Anewspost reported.
Nikkei Asian Review warns that if the U.S. were to recognize Taiwan and end the “one-China policy,” it would likely be the spark needed to fuel the fires of war between America and China, expressing the risk of war is “rising rapidly.”
While the U.S. and China is certainly a serious situation that needs to be watched, the potential conflict to heavily scrutinize even more is one much closer to the region between China and Taiwan. Taiwan previously released its own military propaganda video in late August fending off a Chinese attack, the South China Morning Post reported.
The war drums continue beating, louder than ever now…
Source: Anewspost.com
Alex Baldridge is an activist and freelance journalist from the Midwestern United States who was inspired to become a writer after watching the development of the WikiLeaks story and the persecution of Julian Assange. Alex is especially interested in topics like surveillance, the rise of automation, foreign policy, prison reform, and the legal system.
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