A High-Stakes Game
For the past year, the advent of a Chinese “carrier killer” antiship ballistic missile (DF-21D) has been gaining enormous attention. Chinese web chatter about how three salvos of such missiles could sink a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was taken very seriously in the United States. A Chinese admiral reportedly offered the U.S. Navy freedom of action in the Eastern Pacific because it would surely not be free to act on the other side of that ocean; the United States had better yield to China in matters concerning East Asia, including of course Korea and Japan, but particularly Taiwan.