China’s military

Taiwan’s ability to strike back at a potential attack from mainland China has received a further boost after the US approved its second arms sale to the island in a week, to boost its coastal defenses. The Taiwanese defense minister said the deal would help the island achieve its goal of being able to destroy half of any invading force. In a statement on Monday, the US state department said it had notified Congress of its approval for the $2.4 billion package, which includes 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles, 100 launcher transporters, radar and support systems. The arms deal is the ninth approved since Donald Trump became president in 2017. According to the state department, Taiwan will be abl

The United States has offered to supply Taiwan with weapons that can strike targets on the Chinese mainland as it helps the island increase its ability to counter any attack from Beijing. Military experts said the latest US arms sales, the first of their kind for more than four decades, were intended to enable Taipei to counter the increasingly modernized firepower of Beijing, which considers the self-ruled democracy to be part of its territory and has vowed to take the island – by force if necessary. The latest batch of proposed arms sales – the eighth to be approved during Donald Trump’s presidency – was welcomed by Taipei on Thursday in the face of growing military intimidation from Beiji

The United States has staged a simulated island assault exercise featuring a red silhouette of China on air personnel’s uniforms, in what Chinese state media described as a provocative gesture. The drill was being conducted in California but triggered warnings from Chinese state media that China would fight back if the US attacked it in the South China Sea. US-based Air Force magazine reported that the US veteran drone fleet’s training, which began on September 3, suggested that the US Air Force was focusing more on the Pacific region. Patches on uniforms made for the exercise featured an MQ-9 Reaper drone superimposed over a red silhouette of China, the report said. Despite the training ex

China’s latest military propaganda film appears to show, once again, that the People’s Liberation Army’s publicity team has a passion for Hollywood blockbuster action movies. According to some observers, several of the scenes in a new video produced for the PLA Air Force – showing a simulated bombing exercise on an American military base in the Pacific region – look like they were lifted directly from the 2008 Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker and the 1996 action-thriller The Rock. Inkstone is able to match at least three scenes from the video with those in the Hollywood productions, in addition to what appears to be a modified aerial shot from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. A military s

China has told its service personnel “not to fire the first shot” as Beijing looks to de-escalate tensions with the United States in the South China Sea. Both sides have stepped up their operations in the disputed waters, increasing the risk of incidents that spiral out of control. Still, Beijing does not want to give American hawks the opportunity to escalate things further, sources familiar with the situation told the South China Morning Post. Beijing had ordered pilots and naval officers to exercise restraint in the increasingly frequent stand-offs with US planes and warships, the sources said. Meanwhile, further details emerged about a phone conversation between the two countries’ defens

China’s military leaders are fighting for a substantial increase in their budget to be announced at an upcoming parliamentary session, arguing that the world’s largest standing army needs more resources to cope with volatile challenges at home and overseas.  At the top of the list is the growing confrontation with the United States. China-US relations have hit a low point amid a trade war, spats over civil liberties and Taiwan, and conflicts over Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. Disputes between Washington and Beijing over the origins of the coronavirus have added to the toxic brew. From Beijing’s viewpoint, the military threats are on its doorstep with US bombers runnin

China’s new generation strategic bomber is likely to be ready for delivery this year, but Beijing is said to be undecided about unveiling it at a complex time in regional relations due to the coronavirus pandemic. Military sources said the Xian H-20 subsonic stealth bomber – expected to double the country’s strike range – could make its first public appearance at China’s largest air show, in the southern city of Zhuhai in November, if the pandemic is sufficiently under control. “The Zhuhai Airshow is expected to become a platform to promote China’s image and its success in pandemic control – telling the outside world that the contagion did not have any big impacts on Chinese defense enterpri

As the USS Barry, one of the US’ most advanced destroyers, sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Thursday last week, an officer on board posted a message on Facebook: “They don’t call us the Finest Forward Deployed Destroyer for nothing! Your Bulldogs always have the watch – together, we ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific!” Based in Yokosuka, Japan, the guided-missile destroyer was no stranger to the sensitive channel separating Taiwan and mainland China. In fact, this was its second passage this month through the 112-mile-wide waterway – defined as part of the South China Sea under international protocol. As the Covid-19 global health crisis continues to rage, infecting more than 3 million p

American military officials have requested an additional $20 billion in funding from legislators to fortify the country’s naval, airborne and ground-based operations in the Indo-Pacific region. The new funding request is a sign of Washington’s intensifying efforts to counter China’s military presence in the Pacific.  “Without a valid and convincing conventional deterrent, China and Russia will be emboldened to take action in the region to supplant US interests,” read an executive summary of the request obtained by Breaking Defence, a military news outlet that first reported the move. The request by the Pentagon’s Indo-Pacific Command for funding, which would last through financial year 2026,

The US Navy was targeting China with live-fire missile tests in the Philippine Sea last week, sending a message that it was up to the challenge of the Chinese military’s new advanced systems, military analysts said. In the drill in waters east of the Philippines on Thursday, the guided-missile destroyer USS Barry launched a medium-range Standard Missile-2, the US Seventh Fleet said on its Facebook page. It was accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Shiloh, which also launched an SM-2 during the drill. The Philippines Sea is separated from the disputed South China Sea, a major flashpoint in the US-China rivalry, by the Philippines.  Beijing claims almost all of the energy-rich South Ch