Newsweek:
China has entered the tense seas off the Korean Peninsula with guns blazing, showing its military might at a time when Beijing has warned two belligerent rivals, the U.S. and North Korea, from further escalating their nuclear standoff.
After closing off a 15,000-square-mile stretch of the East China Sea, the Chinese navy launched live-fire exercises Monday involving dozens of ships and submarines, more than 10 aircraft and a number of coastal troops in the Bohai Sea and Yellow Sea, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency. The drill, which reportedly included both offensive and defensive maneuvers against targets in the air as well as on land and at sea, come during a season of anticipated heightened military activity from the U.S. and its regional allies, and less than two weeks after North Korea conducted its second intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test. Both developments have frustrated Beijing’s calls for peace in the region.
