U.S. military officials say that Taiwan needs to be as difficult as possible to invade, in order to deter a conflict with Beijing. It comes as China is stepping up its military presence by deploying both of it's active aircraft carriers to the Western Pacific.
00:00Somewhere in the Western Pacific, China's Navy is conducting military exercises.
00:07And while the scale is not as big as previous drills aimed at Taiwan,
00:11they're demonstrating the extent that Beijing's modernized its armed forces.
00:15U.S. officials now increasingly concerned about the potential for war in the region.
00:20They say Taiwan is a critical partner and that more needs to be done to deter a conflict.
00:25We've been studying this in the Navy for a long time.
00:29We have a global series of war games. We needed to make Taiwan a very difficult target to take.
00:36Those comments come as for the first time two Chinese aircraft carriers were spotted operating in the second island chain,
00:43a strategic group of islands that rarely sees this much activity from China until now.
00:52Branching outwards into waters where the U.S. and its allies usually operate and challenging their presence.
00:58Why would the U.S. will likely increase its own presence with more fighter jets and warships in the region?
01:05Here in Taiwan, a response might not be as big.
01:10Taiwan is already scrambling its fighter jets on a weekly basis to ward off Chinese military aircraft flying close to the country.
01:14But analysts say that with limited resources, Taiwan might not be able to keep that up as Beijing continues its modernization.
01:23And as the Navy in China develops more significantly with aircraft carriers and just develops a more blue water navy,
01:30we're going to need to see a change in response to that as well.
01:37And I think one of that is possibly not necessarily overreacting to every time these aircraft carriers go.
01:42That doesn't mean we ignore them, but not every time an aircraft carrier moves, we have to set off alarm bells.
01:49With China continuing its military expansion, the U.S.
01:54and Taiwan will now have to figure out how they will adapt to the changing security environment, one that seems to be changing faster than expected.
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