China flies warplanes, bombers near Taiwan
‘US terror listing provocation’
BEIJING, Nov 23, (Agencies): China’s air force has again flown bombers and other warplanes through two strategic channels near Taiwan and also over the disputed South China Sea during training drills, state media said on Thursday.
Numerous H-6K bombers and other jets recently flew through the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines and the Miyako Strait in Japan’s south, and also over the South China Sea on a “combat patrol”, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing Air Force spokesman Shen Jinke.
Shen did not say when the drills began but said all planes had finished their patrols on Thursday, which were intended to “improve maritime real combat capabilities and forge the forces’ battle methods”.
China has been increasingly asserting itself in territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas. It is also worried about Taiwan, run by a government China fears is intent on independence.
Beijing has never ruled out the use of force to bring proudly democratic Taiwan under its control, and has warned that any moves towards formal independence could prompt an armed response.
China is in the midst of an ambitious military modernisation programme that includes building aircraft carriers and developing stealth fighters to give it the ability to project power far from its shores.
me to do so.
Jinke
S. Korea may
scrap US exercise:
South Korea is considering scrapping a regular military exercise with US forces next year to minimise the risk of an aggressive North Korean reaction during the Winter Olympics in the South, the Yonhap news agency reported on Thursday.
North Korea denounces regular military exercises between South Korean and US forces as preparations to invade it, and it has at times conducted missile tests or taken other aggressive action in response.
The Winter Olympics will be held in South Korea from Feb 9 to Feb 25, with the Paralympics on March 8-18.
The South’s Yonhap news agency, citing an unidentified South Korean presidential office official, said the option of scrapping the exercise had been considered for “a very long time”.
me to do so.
Terror listing ‘serious provocation’:
North Korea condemned its US terror listing as a “serious provocation” on Wednesday, warning that sanctions would never force it to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.
The response came shortly after China, the North’s sole ally, also rejected as “wrong” new US sanctions that targeted Chinese companies doing business with the pariah state.
President Donald Trump Monday declared North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism, a spot on a US blacklist Pyongyang had shed nearly a decade ago.
On Tuesday the US unveiled its fresh sanctions which also targeted North Korean shipping, raising the pressure on the North to abandon its nuclear programme.
Missing fishermen safe:
The crew of a Japanese trawler found capsized in remote Pacific waters have been located safe and well in the Philippines, the US Coast Guard said Thursday.
The abandoned Gyotoku Maru No. 1 was found drifting 350 kilometres (220 miles) southwest of Palau on Monday after it send an SOS message.
With no word on the fate of the seven-man crew — five Indonesians and two Japanese — a major international search effort was launched.
The coast guard said it turned out the trawler had collided with another fishing vessel, which then rescued the stricken sailors and took them to the Philippines.