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China's devious move under cover of virus
As outbreaks debilitate the US navy, there are fears China may be using the coronavirus pandemic as cover for asserting control over the South China Sea.
A Vietnamese fishing boat has been rammed and sunk. Military aircraft have landed at its artificial-island fortresses. And large-scale naval exercises has let everyone know China's navy is still pushing the boundaries, hard.
Meanwhile, the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier strike group has retreated from the contested waterway in an unscheduled return to Guam – with hundreds of cases of COVID-19 on board.
China's Peoples Liberation Army knows this presents an opportunity.
"The outbreak of COVID-19 has significantly lowered the US Navy's warship deployment capability in the Asia-Pacific region," an article on its official website declares.
The website insists not a single one of its soldiers, sailors or pilots had contracted COVID-19. Instead, the crisis had served to strengthen the combat readiness and resolve of the Chinese military.
That has international affairs analysts worried that even a short-term withdrawal of US and international from the East and South China Seas could give Beijing the opportunity it has been waiting for.
"I think China is exploiting the US Navy's coronavirus challenges to improve its position in the South China Sea by giving the appearance it can and will operate there at will while the US is hamstrung," former Pacific Command Joint Intelligence Centre director Carl Schuster told CNN.
Previously:
(2020-01-09) China Initiates Conflict with Indonesia in the South China Sea
(2019-12-21) Malaysian Top Envoy: China's 'Nine-Dash Line' Claim 'Ridiculous'
(2019-11-22) US Warships Sail in Disputed South China Sea Amid Tensions
(2019-05-14) China Builds New Type 002 Mega Carrier as the Age of Sea Power Wanes
(2018-05-13) China Begins Sea Trials for its First Domestically Developed Aircraft Carrier
(2017-12-24) World's Largest Amphibious Plane in Production Takes Flight in China
(2017-05-25) US Warship Challenges China's Claims in South China Sea
(2017-04-26) China Launches Aircraft Carrier
(2017-03-14) Japan to Send its Biggest Warship to the South China Sea
(2017-01-13) Chinese State Media Boasts About its New Electronic Reconnaissance Ship
(2016-07-14) China's South China Sea Claims Rejected By "Binding" but Unenforceable Tribunal Ruling
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2020, @04:55AM (3 children)
If the only way to obtain affordable healthcare is to work for a government department, that seems to suggest more about the appalling disparity of US healthcare than being trans.
And yet if Bernie proclaims universal affordable healthcare as a basic human right as enjoyed in western countries such as the Nordics, he's branded a loony red. Go figure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2020, @01:19PM
I want to be pretty, the taxpayers should cover it. Go bernie go! Cover my elective cosmetic procedure at the taxpayer's expense. Not having people fawning over me is bad for my emotional health. I don't even feel my body is my own, I'm beautiful in my mind: Who is this ugly person staring back from the mirror. Boob job, nose job, lipo, face lift! Stat!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2020, @01:22PM
Removing your balls so that you can better pretend to be female is not a health care issue - it's a psychiatric issue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 16 2020, @09:43PM
And if so, why then are the white-right so against universal healthcare for all their aryan brethren?
Could it be they just see other whites as 'white niggers' to be dealt with when the black and brown, slanty eyed, and sand niggers are all taken care of? Will you be the first when they find out you have Irish blood?
Americans are only happy when they are stupid, and that is a lot of the time. Which makes it easy for the less stupid among them to take advantage.