The United States and Japan are conducting joint war games and exercises in the event of a conflict with China over Taiwan, amid mounting concerns about the assertive activity of the Chinese military.
US and Japanese military officials began serious planning for a potential conflict in the final year of the Trump administration, according to six people who asked not to be identified. The activity includes top-secret tabletop war games and joint exercises in the South China Sea and East China
Shinzo Abe, then Japanese Prime Minister, decided in 2019 to significantly expand military planning due to the Chinese threat to Taiwan and the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. This work has continued under the administrations of Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The United States and Japan were concerned that China launched more combat aircraft and bombers into the Taiwan Air Defense Identification Zone, including 28 standard fighters on June 15. The Chinese Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard have also become increasingly active around the Senkaku, which is administered by Japan but claimed by China and Taiwan.
China insists that it wants to unite Taiwan with the mainland. While she says she wants peaceful reunification, she has not ruled out the use of force to control Taiwan.
www.baysidenews.net/us-japan-hold-war-games-amid-escalating-tensions-between-china-and-taiwan/
China has begun construction of what independent experts say are more than 100 new silos for intercontinental ballistic missiles in a desert near the northwestern city of Yumen, a building spree that could signal a major expansion of Beijing’s nuclear capabilities.
Commercial satellite images obtained by researchers at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif., show work underway at scores of sites across a grid covering hundreds of square miles of arid terrain in China’s Gansu province. The 119 nearly identical construction sites contain features that mirror those seen at existing launch facilities for China’s arsenal of nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.