China tests ‘Guam killer’ missile it says can strike moving warships

Photo: Chinese state media reported the missiles could strike moving warships. (CCTV)

 

China’s military has test-fired its DF-26 intermediate ballistic missile, which reportedly has the capacity to strike moving warships.

The missile is nicknamed the “Guam killer” because US military bases on the Pacific island are within its range.

Chinese state media reported that the tests were conducted in an undisclosed location in China’s north-west.

Xi Tells PLA to ‘Prepare for War’ in South China Sea, Taiwan

(Photo Credit: The Kremlin/www.kremlin.ru)

 

Details of the Chinese president’s speech were not made public for nearly 24 hours.

Today, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post has reported that state-controlled CCTV broadcaster has reported on a Thursday speech made by Chinese President Xi Jinping in which he told the military region responsible for monitoring the South China Sea and Taiwan to “prepare for war.”

Confusion Looms As Iran Claims Control Over Key Oil Waterway

 

A Reuters headline early Monday sparked fears that Iran could be in control of the Strait of Hormuz, a key narrow waterway in the Persian Gulf through which about one-third of the global supply of oil passes.

Reuters reported in its story headline, Iran says it has full control of Gulf and U.S. navy does not belong there, while citing the head of the navy of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), General Alireza Tangsiri.

Iran Threatens Gulf Oil Producers

(Photo Credit: Asharq al-Awsat English Archive)

 

Wednesday, while most Americans were otherwise preoccupied with the Independence Day holiday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani threatened an open act of war against his neighbors:

“The Americans have claimed they want to completely stop Iran’s oil exports. They don’t understand the meaning of this statement, because it has no meaning for Iranian oil not to be exported, while the region’s oil is exported. The Americans say they want to reduce Iranian oil exports to zero… It shows they have not thought about its consequences.”

China Adds Advanced Missiles to South China Sea Islands

 

Pentagon plans major response to Chinese hegemony

China’s military has stepped up militarizing disputed islands in the South China Sea by deploying advanced missile systems on the Spratly islands, according to the Pentagon.

Defense officials disclosed to the Washington Free Beacon that the militarization has raised alarm bells about China’s creeping takeover of the strategic waterway used for some $5 trillion annually in international trade.

War Games in the Pacific

WASHINGTON/BERLIN (Own report) – German soldiers will soon participate in maneuvers in the Pacific and will be on hand as observers on patrols in the South China Sea, according to announcements by the US Navy and the French Minister of Defense, Florence Parly. At a top-level conference in Singapore last weekend, Parly declared that Paris will dispatch warships to the South China Sea in the next few days and will also navigate through the territorial waters of Islands China claims as its territory. According to Parly, German military observers will embark on these ships. At the same time, German soldiers are preparing their participation in the US led RIMPAC 2018 maneuver, taking place mainly near Hawaii. RIMPAC is the world’s largest international maritime exercise. During RIMPAC 2016 German soldiers trained in “liberating” an island, which, according to the scenario, was held by the “Draco” militia. “Draco” is the Latin term for “dragon” – a symbol for China.

While world watches North Korea, China builds in the South China Sea

Airstrips and military facilities on China’s Subi Reef as seen from a Philippine military transport plane on April 21, 2017. China has renewed its militarization efforts in the South China Sea while attention has been focused on North Korea. (Bullit Marquez/AP/File)

 

While the world has turned its focus to North Korea, satellite images show new Chinese high-frequency radar facilities on its controversial man-made outposts in the Spratly and Parcel Islands. China has been pressured to halt its militarization of the contested land.

DECEMBER 15, 2017  WASHINGTON—While attention in Asia has been distracted by the North Korean nuclear crisis in the past year, China has continued to install high-frequency radar and other facilities that can be used for military purposes on its man-made islands in the South China Sea, a US think-tank said on Thursday.

Theory: China’s Secretly Prepping for War in the South China Sea

Chinese leader Mao Zedong, 1963.

 

Should a U.S.-China war break out in the South China Sea, Beijing will rely on an old Mao-era military tactic in its efforts to vanquish the United States.

The likelihood of such a conflict increases by the day…

That’s because the United States continues to exert its military presence in the trade- and resource-rich South China Sea, despite China’s insistence that nearly the entirety of the valuable maritime region belongs to it. China’s claims, as a matter of fact, clash with those of six other nearby nations, such as Vietnam and Taiwan.

China Sends Warships, Fighter Jets to Intercept U.S. Destroyer in South China Sea

 

Just days before Trump’s meeting with the Chinese president in Hamburg later this week for the G-20 summit, the Trump administration sent a guided-missile destroyer near Triton Island in the South China Sea, Bloomberg reported, a move “which may cause concern ahead of President Donald Trump’s meeting with his Chinese counterpart.”

According to an anonymous official cited by Bloomberg, the U.S. Navy sent the destroyer USS Stethem within 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) of Triton Island on Sunday, passing through the contested waters on the basis of “innocent passage.”

In first under Trump, U.S. warship challenges Beijing’s claims in South China Sea

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey prepares for a replenishment-at-sea in the South China Sea May 19, 2017. Picture taken May 19, 2017. Kryzentia Weiermann/Courtesy U.S. Navy/Handout via REUTERS

 

A U.S. Navy warship sailed within 12 nautical miles of an artificial island built up by China in the South China Sea, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, the first such challenge to Beijing in the strategic waterway since U.S. President Donald Trump took office.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the USS Dewey traveled close to the Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands, among a string of islets, reefs and shoals over which China has territorial disputes with its neighbors.

The so-called freedom of navigation operation, which is sure to anger China, comes as Trump is seeking Beijing’s cooperation to rein in ally North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

Pacific Command chief exhorts Russia and China to bring Kim Jong Un ‘to his senses’

U.S. Pacific Command chief Adm. Harry Harris answers questions during a speech at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation in Tokyo on Wednesday. | AP

 

The head of the U.S. military’s Pacific Command on Wednesday urged Russia and China to step up efforts in reining in North Korea and persuade the reclusive state to halt its nuclear weapons program and related provocations.

“The dangerous behavior by North Korea is not just a threat to the Korean Peninsula,” Adm. Harry Harris said at an event in Tokyo, referring to Pyongyang’s latest test launch of a new ballistic missile on Sunday.

Exclusive: Japan plans to send largest warship to South China Sea, sources say

FILE PHOTO: A helicopter lands on the Izumo, Japan Maritime Self Defense Force’s (JMSDF) helicopter carrier, at JMSDF Yokosuka base in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, Japan, December 6, 2016. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo

 

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan plans to dispatch its largest warship on a three-month tour through the South China Sea beginning in May, three sources said, in its biggest show of naval force in the region since World War Two.

China claims almost all the disputed waters and its growing military presence has fueled concern in Japan and the West, with the United States holding regular air and naval patrols to ensure freedom of navigation.

Japan steps up activity in disputed South China Sea region

JAPAN has announced its intention to step up its activity in the disputed South China Sea region.

Japanese Defense Minister Tomoomi Inada said the country will conduct joint training patrols with the United States and bilateral and multilateral exercises with regional navies, Reuters reports.

Inada justified the decision by saying Japan shared similar concerns with the US about China’s rise to power and aggressive pursuit of territorial claims.

Chinese Admiral Warns of ‘Disaster’ for US Patrols in South China Sea

As Beijing launches new maritime exercises, it has warned that future US naval patrols through the region could have a bad result.

In recent months, the Pentagon has launched a number of provocative “freedom of navigation” patrols within the 12-mile territorial limit of China’s land-reclamation projects in the Spratly archipelago.

During a closed-door forum on Monday, Sun Jianguo, admiral and deputy chief of the Joint Staff Department of China’s Central Military Commission, stressed that freedom of navigation has never been threatened, but added that further acts of military aggression could have dire consequences.

Beijing sends nuclear capable H-6K bomber over Scarborough Shoal in new South China Sea escalation

People’s Liberation Army air force (PLAAF) H-6K long-range bomber is shown over Scarborough Shoal. Picture: Weibo

 

The United States has conducted several B-52 bomber ‘freedom of navigation’ flights over the contested waterway in recent months, along with flights by surveillance and patrol aircraft.

Beijing on Friday returned the favour.