In one week, communist China terrorized four U.S. allies

FPI / February 27, 2025

Geostrategy-Direct

By Richard Fisher

While Washington focuses on the accelerating revolution in government unleashed by the second Trump Administration, China is running amok in Asia.

In just the week of Feb. 16 to 22, China used threatening military actions to terrorize America’s allies and partners Taiwan, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand, proving that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will offer no “honeymoon” for President Trump and will use its increasing military force to exploit American weakness.

Taiwan

In what since mid-2017 has become the “new normal” for the people of democratic Taiwan, the week of Feb. 16 to 22 saw no let-up in Chinese military coercion with the twin goals of forcing Taiwanese to surrender their freedoms, and then if they do not, to train the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to invade Taiwan and then crush their vibrant democratic culture.

After 30 years of sustained modernization, buildup and reorganizations, the PLA is now able to mount sustained daily military pressure against Taiwan, prompting U.S. IndoPacific Command Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo to state to a Honolulu defense forum on Feb. 13:

“We’re very close to that [point] where on a daily basis the fig leaf of an exercise could very well hide operational warning…Their aggressive maneuvers around Taiwan right now are not exercises as they call them, they are rehearsals. They are rehearsals for the forced unification of Taiwan to the mainland.”

But starting on Feb. 16 the PLA started a seven-day week of sustained coercive exercises that also trained PLA air and naval forces in joint force operations, as revealed daily by Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense.

Taiwan’s statistics of PLA operations showed it maintained an average sortie rate of 21.5 fighters a day and 5.8 naval combat ships — that could transition to attack or blockade operations.

Four of those exercise days featured the use of PLA Air Force (PLAAF) H-6K bombers and support aircraft.

For the first time, the naval component of this week’s pressure included the use of two large amphibious invasion ships, one Type-075 landing helicopter dock (LHD) “flattop” and one Type-071 landing platform dock (LPD) that together could put 1,600 troops, about 100 medium armored vehicles and 20 helicopters on Taiwan.

The Philippines

Chinese military coercive activity against the Philippines dates to its early 1995 occupation of Mischief Reef, about 200 km from the major Philippine island of Palawan in the South China/West Philippine Sea — a direct consequence of the U.S. military withdrawal from Philippine bases in 1991.

Since 1995 the Philippines has been subject to an ascending rate of Chinese military pressure, to include the construction of seven island military bases in disputed territories of the West Philippine Sea, near continuous harassment of Philippine ships and aircraft, and the contesting of Scarborough Shoal, a coral outcropping that is 248 kilometers from the Philippines and over 900 kilometers from China’s Hainan Island.

The CCP seeks to impose total control over the West Philippine Sea in order to secure its nuclear missiles submarines, carrier naval forces and its deep space launch base on Hainan Island — all critical for achieving the CCP’s global hegemony ambitions.

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