China’s Sand Dredgers Are Eating Into Taiwan, Vietnam, Philippines: US Coast Guard Should Step Up
Commentary
China’s sand dredgers have destroyed thousands of square kilometers of ocean floor in order to build sand islands on which they put military runways and docking facilities for submarines and aircraft carriers. The construction of a single such Chinese island, Mischief Reef (5.6 square kilometers) on Philippine maritime territory, impacted 1,200 square kilometers with plumes of sediment that smothered life on the ocean floor. This implies that the approximately 12.9 square kilometers that China created in the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of the Philippines and Vietnam since 2013 impacted approximately 2,785 square kilometers of ocean floor.
Beijing’s Olive Branch Rejected as Taiwan to Secure Qualified Vaccine: Scholar
While Taiwan strived to speed up COVID-19 vaccine deliveries from its international allies in a recent surge of availability, Beijing’s offer to help did not win the confidence of Taiwan people who considered the proffered vaccine to be a political ploy, a Taiwanese scholar said.
Recently, Su Tzu-Yun, director of the Defense Strategy and Resources Division of the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taiwan, told The Epoch Times the reasons behind Taiwan’s reluctance to receive Chinese-made vaccines.
Taiwan, a model territory once known for successfully handling the Covid-19 outbreak, reported 295 new cases and one death on May 20, making it the sixth consecutive day of over 100 domestic infections, official data shows.
Taiwan unveils Army restructure aimed at decentralizing military 2 hours ago Taiwanese soldiers stay behind armed vehicles during a drill at the Hsinchu military base on Jan. 19, 2021. (Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images) MELBOURNE, Australia Taiwan will reorganize its Army’s command structure to emphasize joint operations between its services and give regional commanders more operational flexibility in the event of a conflict, the country’s defense minister told lawmakers. The reorganization will see the various corps and defense commands of the Taiwanese Army renamed as distinct “combat theater commands,” Chiu Kuo-cheng reported to the self-governing island’s parliament last week.
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