America is not doing well on the global security stage, regardless of the ra-ra the Trump administration continues to propagate about its dynamic chicken run over Iran two weekends ago. Sensing weakness and distraction—while also dealing with its own potential leadership woes in Beijing—China is working feverishly to solidify their regional military dominance. 

China Is Changing the Balance of Power in the Taiwan Strait

Just recently, Focus Taiwan reported that a Chinese Type 072A landing ship used for amphibious warfare operations was operating in the waters off northern Taiwan. This comes on the heels of more than a year’s worth of rapid escalations by China’s military against the democratic island. Since 1949, when Mao Zedong and his communists defeated Chiang Kai-Shek and the Chinese Nationalists in China’s civil war and Chiang’s defeated forces fled to Taiwan, a succession of Chinese communist rulers have sought to reabsorb the island into their regional empire. 

Until the last decade, the military balance of power consistently favored the United States and, by default, their partners in Taiwan. But those days are long gone. China has flipped the regional military........

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