http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/topstories/story/0,4386,259015,00.html
So, what does this mean? Why this operation, and why now?
I would guess that because most of our combat troops are deployed, about to be deployed, or are just returning from deployment, and the Chinese know this, why shouldn’t Bushco remind the Chinese that we can still bomb the shit out of them?
Not much, to remind China who’s still the big dog, and because it’s reasonably timely.
This is pretty standard stuff, adjusted upwards (if indeed all seven show up) to reflect the fact that China’s military are tougher hombres than they used to be. We’ve been doing stuff like this since we normalized relations with Red China. Heck, during a 1996 crisis when China was making noises about forceful reunification, Clinton sent at least one and maybe two carrier groups right up the Taiwan Strait!
China will fume about it, but they’ll get the message (which is that we’re mindful of our promises under the Taiwan Relations Act) and they’ll get over it.
It’s a hell of a big force to have in the vicinity of North Korea as well.
Yes it’s the usual message-sending gesture to the butchers of Tiananmen, but this is significantly larger, far more than the norm. I smell a bait and switch.
Is there a Russian connection? May be Far East bears watching.
Might be in response to the China/France naval exercises off Taiwan in March of this year.
I’m confused. Didn’t China/Taiwan relations come to the forefront recently, and didn’t Bush deliberately REFRAIN from pledging support for Taiwan? So why would we now be trying to imply that we WOULD defent Taiwan? Seems like mixed messages.
That may be why they’re sending the carrier group over - to solidify the message.
Remember that the US walks a thin line when it comes to China and Taiwan. The US doesn’t want to give Taiwan a seeming blank check to do something disastrous with regards to China by offering unlimited support - but at the same time the US needs to make certain the China understands we will live up to our obligation to protect Taiwan if China becomes the aggressor.
So while Taiwan was making noises about independence referenda and such, the US chose to stay relatively mum. As China grew more aggressive in its rhetoric, the US thought it might be a good idea to give China a little reminder.
China keenly understands the situation and I seriously doubt they are misreading any messages that the US is throwing - but just in case…
Ah, the quaint old Big Dog theory. Somebody here had to pick that up, I guess.
You don’t think China knows that almost the entire combat strength of the US Army is tied down in Iraq? The PLA has on the order of 2.5 million people, right there. The only thing for China to be threatened by is aerial and missile bombing, and is that really going to happen? Better reconsider who the Big Dog is there.
They’ll get messages, all right, but don’t be too sure that’s the only one. Another might be that Bush is a facile, ignorant blusterer, rattling a saber he will not be able to use.
It is “standard stuff”, though, as you say - just like China’s own face-saving saber-rattling, and Taiwan’s to a lesser extent, while their behind-scenes relations continue to soften and warm and the trade deals continue to expand. That’s the reality, not the traditional bluster of the old guard, yet Bush continues to respond only to the bluster.
'nuff said. Also if you look at the quote:
The United States is planning a massive show of force in the Pacific Ocean near China to register a point with Beijing.
“Near China” seems to be the operative word. I’ll be gobsmacked if they sail through the Taiwan straits. That didn’t happen in 1996 when tensions were considerably higher and the Chinese economy less than half the current level.
No? I’ve read conflicting reports. Clinton says he did, and IIRC DOD semi-official communications more or less backed him up (of course they’re never going to have an official press conference announcing it). And of course the mainstream press said they did, but I don’t think any of them had trawlers out in the Strait. 
I’ve since read some claims that they never actually went up the Strait, but those claims have come from sources I don’t hold in particularly high regard (anti-Clinton and ultra-Nationalist Taiwan websites, on an admittedly quick search). Do you have a better source?
Not that it’s that important, but facts is facts, and it’s better to have them straight (heh), so I’d be grateful for any correction.
Iraq is irrelevant here, as even if the entire US forces were in Taipei, Japan, Korea and Australia we don’t have the pure manpower for a one-one-one confrontation with China on land.
The point is to show that our land power is not the deterrent – it’s the sea and air power. It’s to show China that, with or without our forces in Iraq, we’ve got more than enough power to make sure that a possible (or threatened, or mentioned, or theorized, or whatever) invasion force tasked with reuniting China by force would never touch a beach in Taiwan.
Not all seven carriers are going to the chinese coast
http://www.wavy.com/Global/story.asp?S=1902088&nav=23ii0Elx
Summer pulse was designed to evaluate surging 7 carriers together. For some reason or other the chinese got spooked and assumed that all flat tops were heading their way, probably they were never disabused of that notion by the Whitehouse for some reason or other 
Of course now they have to save face by launching an exercise , to take over some little spit of an island just off their coast ,as a test to see if they could actually take over taiwan , or do the million man swim.
Most likely three of those carriers are going to be covering the olympics.
But relax , its all part of doing business.
Declan
Reasonable enough, except that it still takes the rhetoric originating there at face value instead of considering the governments’ actions as being representative of their real thoughts. To wade in there, guns loaded and cocked, is not deterring anything in reality; it’s simply provocative - adding to the possibility of war, not reducing it.
But then, you admit you follow the school of thought that “possible (or threatened, or mentioned, or theorized, or whatever)” (*your * wording) is all the same damn thing. Flights of fancy are just as good as reality on the ground. Such delusional “thinking”, when applied to Iraq by the administration you so automatically defend, has gotten a lot of good people *really * killed. A responsible person reasons a little more rigorously than that.
I don’t have time to find an on line cite. I’m also going from memory, but if you look at the south china morning post or far easter economic journal from those days I’m about 99% sure you’ll find they did NOT steam through the Taiwan straits. I was in HK at that time, and it received massive coverage.
In retalliation, the Chinese have apparently temporarily banned Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Exerpts from the linked daily
So this newspaper goes from stating that summerpulse will have all seven battlegroups plus allied and guest naval units , somewhere in the pacific, but yet in the second paragraph , they mention the actual deployment of the battlegroups.
Me thinks , that someone is waving a yellow shirt.
Declan
Wait a minute. You aren’t suggesting that The Peoples Daily isn’t a reliable and accurate news source?
Well, maybe for the men in black its accurate and reliable. There is always a kontravian battle cruiser in orbit.
Declan