Watch: Chinese Warship Stalks and Aggressively Overtakes US Destroyer
It was a Chinese-instigated game of chicken — with President Joe Biden’s weakness on display and American lives on the line.
In a blatant challenge to the United States military and the Biden administration, a Chinese naval vessel deliberately cut off an American guided-missile destroyer Saturday in the Taiwan Strait, coming dangerously close to actual contact between the two ships, according to news reports.
And it’s only the most recent incident in escalating tensions between the two countries that could easily end up with Americans dying thanks to Biden’s dithering.
According to ABC News, Saturday’s incident occurred when the American destroyer the USS Chung-Hoon sailed in international waters with the Canadian frigate the HMCS Montreal. The Taiwan Strait separates the island of Taiwan from the Chinese mainland about 100 miles away.
There was no question that the incident was intentional — the Chinese vessel contacted the Chung-Hoon in advance and ordered to alter its course or a collision would ensue, according to Canada’s Global News, which had a crew aboard the Montreal.
Chinese warships had been shadowing the American and Canadian vessels, Global News reported.
On Saturday, one of the Chinese vessels broke off the stalking to overtake the American ship and cross directly in front of its path.
Check out the report here — footage of the near-collision starts about the 45-second mark:
According to a U.S. Navy Indo-Pacific Command statement reported by ABC, the Chung-Hoon maintained its course but slowed to a speed of 10 knots. It also warned the Chinese ship to maintain its distance, Global News reported.
The Chinese vessel cut across the Chung-Hoon’s bow from the port side. It was only 150 yards from the American vessel. That could be catastrophically close, the Montreal’s commander told Global News.
“When you’re in big warships maneuvering close to each other … 150 is very scary,” Montreal Capt. Paul Mountford said in an on-camera interview.
“You don’t ever want to be that close to another vessel. Because too many things could go wrong, and you could actually have a collision.”
An actual collision between two warships at sea could, naturally, lead to the loss of lives on both, meaning American service members dying because the Biden administration is unable to project strength.
As ABC News reported, it was the second action by the Chinese military against the U.S. in just over a week.
On May 23, according to ABC, a Chinese fighter jet flew directly in front of an American reconnaissance plane over the South China Sea, forcing the American U.S. plane to fly through its wake.
These are provocations, pure and simple, and a sign of China’s increasingly aggressive stance on the world stage as it moves to exploit the vacuum in global leadership created by the Biden administration’s self-evident weakness both literal — starting with a president building an embarrassing reputation for public falls — and political.
It’s a course China has taken since Biden came into office. Clearly, Chinese “President” Xi Jinping (more of a Chinese Communist Party dictator than a “president” in the American sense) has taken the measure of the man in the Oval Office.
He saw Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 and the weakness it signaled to the rest of the world. He saw and heard Biden effectively green-light Russian “President” Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
He watched as Russian war jets forced an American military drone out of the sky over the Black Sea, and drew little more than an embarrassingly tepid response from John Kirby, a retired rear admiral and Pentagon spokesman.
Xi no doubt laughed at the weak-kneed Biden reaction to the unbelievable effrontery of a Chinese spy balloon crossing the breadth of the continental United States in February.
Possibly even more importantly, Xi is almost certainly aware of exactly how deeply the president is involved in his crooked son Hunter’s business dealings — at least as they pertain to affairs involving China.
Xi has seen Biden’s weakness since January 2021.
He’s likely even more keenly aware of Biden’s weaknesses that the American public is still ignorant of — thanks to a deep state that protects him and an establishment media that’s more than happy to keep its eyes averted.
So, Xi is willing to risk his military instigating games intended to intimidate American commanders — or give the world the impression those commanders are intimidated — even it if means the possibility of two warships colliding on the high seas.
Xi clearly has no fear of Biden, just as Putin had no fear of Biden.
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In Europe, that meant Putin felt free to invade a neighboring country, causing countless deaths in war that continues to this day.
In Asia, it could well mean Xi feels free to invade Taiwan, a direct military confrontation with an American ally that could mean war between the U.S. and China. The increasing militarization of the region — by China but also from the U.S. — points more to that possibility with every passing day.
The indisputable weakness of the Biden White House — which publicly pretends that “climate change” is a global danger on a par with nuclear militaries in the hands of madmen — is on display for the world to see.
And Saturday’s dangerous game of chicken just made that all the more obvious.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
