China Isn’t Just After Taiwan — But the South Pacific, Too
China’s coast guard is the tip of the spear.
Photographer: Ted Aljibe/AFP/Getty Images
Last year was a coming-out party for Chinese military power, from the lethal performance of Chinese-made weapons during the India-Pakistan clash in May, to the high-profile rollout of new nuclear and conventional capabilities at President Xi Jinping’s Victory Day parade in September, to year-end exercises simulating a blockade or quarantine of Taiwan with new levels of granularity, speed and assertiveness.
As the Pentagon noted in a report issued last month, for decades the People’s Liberation Army has been striving to build “a world-class military.” Now, China is rapidly nearing the moment when it could use “brute force” to take Taiwan or otherwise upend the Western Pacific.