By Ryan Morgan. Two Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) aircraft carriers are preparing to conduct a set of provocative war games in the contested South China Sea, near the Taiwan-claimed Pratas Islands, also known as the Dongsha Islands.

The Chinese aircraft carriers Liaoning and Shandong were finishing up combat readiness training in the Bohai Bay of the Yellow Sea ahead of a planned deployment near the Taiwanese territorial claims, The Daily Mail reported. The Pratas or Dongsha Islands are a series of three atolls off the coast of China and lying to the southwest of Taiwan.

The reports of China’s planned aggressive moves near Taiwan come shortly after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi claimed, “political forces in the US are taking China-US relations hostage and pushing our two countries to the brink of a new Cold War.”

The war games near the Pratas Islands also come amid Chinese calls to reunify with Taiwan, raising concerns among some observers that the war games are a ploy to capture the islands.

The Japan-based Kyodo News reported on May 12, that the PLA is also planning to hold massive beach landing drills on the Chinese island province of Hainan in August, which could be used to simulate a beach landing on Taiwan’s Pratas Islands. (Read more about China’s attempt to threaten Taiwan HERE)

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Xi Tells Military: Prepare for Worst-Case Scenarios

Edited by Divyanshu Dutta Roy. Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday ordered the military to scale up the battle preparedness, visualising the worst-case scenarios and asked them to resolutely defend the country’s sovereignty. Though he did no mention any specific threat, his comments came amid a face-off between soldiers of India and China at the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Xi, 66 who is also the General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) and head of the two-million-strong military with prospects of lifelong tenure in power, made the remarks while attending a plenary meeting of the delegation of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and People’s Armed Police Force during the current parliament session being held in Beijing.

Xi ordered the military to think about worst-case scenarios, scale up training and battle preparedness, promptly and effectively deal with all sorts of complex situations and resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, state-run Xinhua news agency reported, without mentioning any specific issues that posed a threat to the country. (Read more about China’s efforts to threaten Taiwan, India and other nations HERE)

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If Xi Attacks India, it May be His Last Mistake

By Michael Rubin. There have been at least four ‘incidents’ across the India-China line-of-control in recent weeks. While there were nearly 500 incidents in eastern Ladakh in 2019, the recent incidents are larger scale and better coordinated than what occurred in 2019 and before. The People’s Liberation Army has reinforced its positions in the Galwan Valley and Demochok in Ladakh. Lieutenant General (retired) Deependra Singh Hooda, India’s former Northern Army commander, wrote on May 24, 2020 that the decision and direction of China’s most recent aggressions appear originate in Beijing rather than with local commanders. China appears angered that India is developing its roads and logistical capabilities in the region. An analysis in India’s Economic Times theorizes that Chinese authorities seem to be repeating their 1962 playbook, not recognizing how much India has changed.

India is today ascendant. It does not face the same demographic nightmare that China now confronts due to decades of Beijing’s previous one-child policy. India’s conventional military has advanced substantially over the last half-century and it has, since 1974, also been a nuclear power. Despite all of India’s internal inefficiencies, bloated bureaucracy, and protectionism, its economy is in far greater shape than it was a half-century ago. The world has also changed. When China initially invaded Indian territory, President John F. Kennedy offered some arms, but it was too little too late, and his official neutrality likely encouraged Indian leaders to tilt even more toward the Soviet Union. Today, however, belief in a strong U.S.-India partnership is one of the few topics which still unites Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill and across administrations. It is not the stuff of hushed backroom diplomatic negotiations, but openly embraced.

China may believe intimidation and the sort of ‘salami-slicing’ in which it engages in the South China Sea will enable it to act without consequence against India, but India is not the Philippines, willing to roll over for a few yuan.

Or consider another analogy: When Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, the world wrung its hands and issued harsh condemnations, but did little more. When Russian leader Vladimir Putin ordered Russian forces into Ukraine, however, he found himself mired in a conflict which still continues both to send Russian soldiers and ‘contractors’ home in body bags and to drain Russian finances, both propping up annexed territories and proxy states, and subsidizing their war efforts. Xi may believe he can digest Hong Kong and crush its freedom spirit, but he will be wrong to believe that India is weak or that the United States—even under the Trump administration—would simply ignore his aggression. Instead, the United States would likely open the floodgates to provide any intelligence and weaponry which India would need to defend itself and bog down China in a morass of Xi’s own making. (Read more about the implications of China’s efforts to threaten Taiwan, India and other nations HERE)