(Photo: Reuters/Aflo)

While Covid-19 Causes a Disaster, China Uses Laser to Sink a Ship

While the novel coronavirus spreads, China is increasing their military activities and putting pressure on their peripheral nations. Some of the actions that they have taken this year are listed below:

• From January to March, a total of 289 official Chinese ships have sailed around the Senkaku Islands. This is a 57% increase from last year when comparing the same time frames. There have been incidents where China’s fishing ships have hit and damaged Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) escort vessels as well.
• In February, China’s warships held a training off the coast of Hawaii for the first time. On their way back, they used a military laser (a weapon that emits focused light to blind its enemy) on a U.S. military patrol aircraft.
• In March, China’s state-run media published an article in which a Chinese official states that if the U.S. Navy continues to trespass in the South China Sea, they will not restrain themselves from using an electromagnetic pulse weapon (EMP) that will destroy U.S. electronic equipment.
• In March, China’s small speed boats repeatedly assaulted Taiwanese security boats, causing damage.
• In April, a Chinese Coast Guard ship rammed into a Vietnamese fishing ship near the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, sinking the ship.
• In mid-April, the Chinese aircraft carrier, “Liaoning,” passed Okinawa’s Miyako Strait and conducted military practices around Taiwan. Afterwards, they also operated in the South China Sea.

China Displays Its Willingness to Conduct Military Operations Amidst Covid-19

It is unnatural for China to indulge in this much provocative activity.

Kazuki Yano, an ex-Japanese Commander of the Submarine Fleet, explained China’s motives.

“Many medias claim that there was an outbreak of Covid-19 in U.S. aircraft carriers that lowered deterrence, making it easier for the Chinese military to engage in their forceful actions. However, I do not believe in this. The U.S. military is too robust to create this kind of lapse in power.

Instead, China is trying to show off their military power and their will to pursue territorial conflicts despite their nationwide spread of Covid-19. Furthermore, it has the motives of guiding domestic discontent to foreign entities.

If giving out masks to different countries were China’s attempts of appeasement, their sequence of military activities is their aggression. Even if the coronavirus spreads in Japan, we must not show weakness to China.”

U.S. Army Strongly Warns China

The U.S. is not staying silent through this. In April, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, declared, “Our strategic competitors are attempting to exploit this crisis to their benefit at the expense of others,” and that their enemies, China clearly included, are wrong if they think they can take advantage of this situation.

The United States is in a difficult situation with the domestic spread of Covid-19. Meanwhile, across the Pacific Ocean, the antagonism with China is escalating with the risk of war at hand. The China-initiated virus war, described later in detail, will only intensify this hostility.

Japan should focus on the threat from China as well as the coronavirus and take a step to strengthen their national defense.