On Feb. 1 the Burmese military detained Senior State Minister Aung San Suu Kyi, the president and other senior ruling party officials, and announced that Myanmar Defense Force Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing had taken over the country. The new U.S. President Joe Biden, not without some anger, not only sternly ordered their release, but also threatened sanctions. The Chinese Foreign Ministry, on the other hand, issued only a nonchalant and unbiased statement.
After Biden’s inauguration on February 2, Yang Jiechi, a member of the Chinese Communist Party‘s Politburo who has been trying to visit the United States but has been unable to do so, finally made a video appearance in the United States, providing a podium for the National Committee on United States-China Relations. After severely criticizing the Trump administration’s extremely wrong anti-China Policy, he said, “China has never interfered in the internal affairs of the United States, including the election, never exported its development model to foreign countries, never engaged in ideological confrontation, never sought to challenge or replace the status of the United States, and has no intention of dividing its sphere of influence. The U.S. should effectively respect China’s position and concerns on the Taiwan issue. The U.S. side should stop meddling in issues involving China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, such as Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang, and stop trying to hold back China’s development by interfering in its internal affairs.” Yang Jiechi’s clear purpose is to continue to seek the friendly response from Biden that Xi did not receive at the Davos Forum.
Asia’s south-central peninsula has long been a sphere of influence for the Communist Party of China (CPC), which is divided from the United States, and Myanmar is the most important country on the peninsula. Back in the days of the military government, which suffered from world sanctions, China extended its only helping hand, and numerous key members of the military government have been trained in China. The Belt and Road railroad, oil pipeline and Kyaukpyu port project with Myanmar, known as the “economic corridor,” will not only allow China to avoid the strategic blockade of the Malacca Strait, but will also allow the Communist Party’s military to penetrate directly into the Indian Ocean. The Trump regime’s trade war against China has hit the Chinese economy hard, making many Asian countries benefit and becoming a place for the processing industry to move to, especially with Pompeo‘s promotion of the Lancang and Mekong River projects, with the U.S. providing military security, Japan providing financial and technical assistance, and India joining in, making the countries of the South China Peninsula turn to the U.S. In Myanmar, for example, Aung San Suu Kyi has not only taken away copper mines and dam projects from the Belt and Road, but also cut the $10 billion Kyaukpyu port, which is most valued by the Chinese Communist Party, to $1 billion, while giving one of the two nearby ports to Japan and one to India.
Myanmar, Taiwan Strait become new Cold War beacon
Last January 17 and 18, Xi Jinping went so far as to visit Myanmar to meet with government leaders and Defense Force Chief Min Aung Hlaing, in spite of the Wuhan outbreak, to consolidate the Belt and Road Initiative. When Xi delivered his New Year’s Day message this year, the background of his office showed an extra photo of a local arrangement of ethnic minority children with him when he returned to Yunnan province from his visit to Myanmar on Jan. 19 last year. Xi gave instructions on the Wuhan outbreak when he returned to Beijing last year, and Zhong Nanshan issued a “human-to-human” message on the 20th, before sealing off the city on the 23rd. The visit to Myanmar was Xi’s last trip to date, and the new photos in the office are a tribute to that trip.
On January 11 and 12 of this year, Chinese Communist Party Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Myanmar. The purpose of his visit was to continue to fully implement the results of Xi’s visit to the country, promising to give priority to Myanmar in providing vaccines. He met with the president, Aung San Suu Kyi and Min Aung Hlaing, and publicly praised the Burmese military for “taking the responsibility of national revitalization and thinking about the future development of the country from a long-term perspective.” He said China “supports the Burmese military in playing its due role in the country’s development and transformation process.”
On January 31, Myanmar staged a pro-military street march, followed by a coup the next day. Some commentators say this is a salty attempt by the Chinese Communist Party to turn the tide in Myanmar. How will it end? It’s up to the Biden Administration.
Since January this year, Chinese military aircraft have been crossing the Taiwan Strait in large numbers, coming extremely close to Taiwan’s airspace. After Biden’s inauguration on January 20, the Chinese Communist Party sent a large number of military aircraft into Taiwan’s southwest air defense identification zone for eight days in a row, starting on January 22, to provoke. On the 23rd and 24th, 13 warplanes and 15 warplanes were dispatched, the largest number of Chinese military aircraft to disturb Taiwan. The USS Roosevelt carrier battle group entered the South China Sea on the 23rd on a “routine mission,” and on January 29 the Financial Times reported that intelligence from the U.S. and its allies showed that, based on intercepted conversations in the cockpit of a Chinese Boom-6 bomber pilot, the USS Roosevelt was instructed to simulate a lock on the USS Roosevelt and launch anti-ship missiles.
Yao Cheng, a former Chinese Communist Navy aviation operations training staff officer, said in a film made on YouTube on May 19, 2019 that in the 1980s and 1990s, a large number of Chinese Communist pilots defected from Taiwan in their aircraft and ran out of options, and the Naval Air Forces technical department cooperated with Israel to create a device installed on the engine 24, which works because once it approaches the center line of the Taiwan Strait, this device starts, slowing down the car RPM, lose power, and can only turn around, or the engine explodes. However, this equipment often misfired, and accidents involving aircraft damage and fatalities continued to occur. 24 was finally removed. Now the monitoring of pilots is mainly political, rarely fly alone, either two or four aircraft, mutual supervision, found abnormal, can shoot each other down with missiles.
On January 23, State Department spokesman Price issued a statement: “The United States notes and is concerned that mainland China is intent on a pattern of intimidation of its neighbors, including Taiwan.” It also said, “Our commitment to Taiwan is as strong as a rock.” What the Biden administration should reflect on is how, in just 20 years, from Clinton to Obama, the Chinese Communist Party has allowed its military power to grow so strong in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.
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