2021/02/19 15:04 PLA Navy sailors PLA Navy sailors (AP photo) TAIPEI (Taiwan News) The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) on Thursday (Feb. 18) held an online hearing, with a number of scholars and former U.S. government officials discussing how to deter China from invading Taiwan. USCC member Alex Wong (黃之瀚), who visited Taiwan in 2018 as the U.S. State Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, asked at the hearing where the Taiwan Strait ranks in terms of triggering a U.S.-China conflict. Thomas Shugart, an adjunct Senior Fellow with the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security, said that he would put the strait in first place. His reasons were the civil war between the Kuomintang (KMT) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) did not technically end and China has not invested many resources into South China Sea
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China’s FC-31 is a twin-engine stealth fighter demonstrator, which includes two iteratively different flying airframes that have been under active flight test since late 2012 and late 2016, respectively. This aircraft has often incorrectly been dubbed the “J-31” and been given various other names over the years, such as “J-21.” None of these J-designations remain true to the aircraft’s current state. It is a self-funded technology demonstrator from Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (SAC) and AVIC rather than a project being actively developed by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Therefore the names “J-31” or “J-21” are incorrect.
However, for the last few years it has been accepted that the PLA Navy has selected an FC-31-derived airframe to be developed into its carrier-based fifth-generation fighter, resulting in an aircraft that will indeed receive a J-designation. The PLA watching community has often referred to this aircraft as “J-35”; howe
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On Friday last week, at the Pakistan Navy Dockyard in Karachi, the seventh edition of the multinational maritime exercise Aman-2021 officially opened with a flag-hoisting ceremony in which flags from 45 participating countries were simultaneously hoisted.
Navies from 45 countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Russia, Turkey, and other Arab and African countries are participating in the week-long Aman-21 exercise. Notably, since 2007, the exercise has taken place every two years.
In the sense of military tensions between China and the US in regions such as the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, it is unusual for the Chinese and US navies to engage in multilateral exercises. Moreover, it is also a rare opportunity for Russia to join NATO countries in an exercise.
Are China’s Attack Helicopters Getting Ready to Go to War Over Taiwan?
The maritime employment of helicopters for attack, transport, and reconnaissance relies upon much more than an ability to conduct air assault raids.
Here’s What You Need to Remember: What is perhaps most significant about the report is the fact that it specifically cites Taiwan and island chains in the South China Sea as locations that would naturally lend themselves to being more susceptible to these kinds of assaults.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army is preparing for air and amphibious attacks upon the island of Taiwan and strategically crucial areas of the South China Sea, using new air-assault raid tactics and high-speed attack helicopters.
Global Times portrayed the junction of the USS
Nimitz and
Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike groups as “symbolic” and as having “more political than military meaning.” Strike-group commanders, meanwhile, stressed the maneuvers’ tactical value while soft-pedaling their political import. “Our operations are not a response to any nation or any event,” declared Rear Admiral Jim Kirk, the commander of Carrier Strike Group 11 embarked on board
Nimitz.
Why does it have to be one way or the other? Strategist Edward Luttwak notes that fleet maneuvers serve political purposes alongside their strictly military functions. “Naval suasion,” says Luttwak, means deploying forces to cast a “shadow” across decision-making in foreign capitals. Even a modest deployment can be politically potent if the target audience believes that the combined might of the force casting the shadow stands behind the force actually on the scene. That political leaders would order overb