Games With Frontiers

Can you imagine what would have happened had this occurred twenty years ago? I can.

RUSSIA will show off its most modern bombers to its best military customer and China will have a chance to demonstrate that it is a force to be reckoned with when the giant neighbours hold their first joint military exercises this month.

The decision to hold the drills off the east China coast in the Yellow Sea came after a disagreement over Beijing’s initial desire for the games to take place further south, opposite the island of Taiwan — which it hopes one day to recover, by force if necessary.

Yesterday’s announcement that 100,000 troops would mass from August 18 to 25 marked the culmination of years of rapprochement between countries that were once bitter enemies, which went to war in a minor territorial dispute in the 1970s, but now see themselves as strategic partners. [SNIP]

Analysts say there is little doubt that China is keen to send a message to the US. Not only is it gradually expanding its influence in Asia, eroding decades of dominance by Washington, but it also has the cash to go on a spending spree to update its military.

I can see now why some people are so worried about John Bolton. He might hurt the tender feelings of the communists and "ex-communists" that, no doubt, exist among this sort. Perhaps some "love-talk" will cause them to stand down.

And, just in case observers mistake the intention of these games, a Russian official journalist spells things out:

Vadim Solovyov, the Chief Editor of the Independent Military Survey, said: “These exercises are a challenge to the US and its allies — a new military alliance is forming. Now there is a unipolar world. Russia and China can make a second pole.”