As President Joe Biden and leaders from Japan, Australia, and India met in Tokyo for the Quad leaders summit on Tuesday, Russia and China held a joint military exercise, flying nuclear-capable bombers over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea.
Although the planes did not enter foreign airspace, fighter Jets from Japanese and South Korean Militaries scrambled to shadow the Russian and Chinese strategic bombers until they were out of their air defense zones.
Japan’s Defense Minister, Nobuo Kishi, insisted that the drill’s timing during the summit showed that it was intended to be “more than just a demonstration to Japan.”
“We believe the fact that this action was taken during the Quad summit makes it more provocative than in the past,” the Defense Minister underscored.
Although China and Russia were not mentioned by name in the Quad Joint Leaders’ Statement, discussions largely surrounded combatting aggression from the two countries.
“We reaffirm our resolve to uphold the international rules-based order where countries are free from all forms of military, economic and political coercion,” the statement reads.
“We discussed our respective responses to the conflict in Ukraine and the ongoing tragic humanitarian crisis and assessed its implications for the Indo-Pacific,” the joint statement continued under the section Peace And Stability. “Quad Leaders reiterated our strong resolve to maintain the peace and stability in the region. We underscored unequivocally that the centerpiece of the international order is international law, including the UN Charter, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states.”
“We will champion adherence to international law, particularly as reflected in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and the maintenance of freedom of navigation and overflight, to meet challenges to the maritime rules-based order, including in the East and South China Seas,” the leaders further stated. “We strongly oppose any coercive, provocative or unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo and increase tensions in the area, such as the militarization of disputed features, the dangerous use of coast guard vessels and maritime militia, and efforts to disrupt other countries’ offshore resource exploitation activities.”
On August 29th, one day prior to the completion of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Chinese authorities demanded that all foreign vessels within the “nine-dash line” in the South China Sea, which they referred to as “their territorial waters,” would be required to “report their information.”
The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration further claimed it “has the power to dispel or reject a vessel’s entry to Chinese waters if the vessel is found to pose threat to China’s national security,” according to the Global Times.
Zero Hedge reported in August that, “China’s ‘nine-dash line’ is deemed by most countries as being inconsistent with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which only gives states the right to establish a territorial sea up to 12 nautical miles.”
During the Quad summit, leaders launched “a new maritime domain awareness initiative” called the “the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA),” to promote “stability and prosperity in our seas and oceans.”
China and Russia’s joint military patrol reportedly lasted upwards of 13 hours. The bombers included Russian Tu-95 and Chinese Xian H-6 and flew through the “Sea of Japan and continued through the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea,” a senior administration official told Fox News.
“The exercise shows that China is continuing its military cooperation with Russia in the Indo-Pacific even as Russia brutalizes Ukraine,” the official emphasized. “It also shows that Russia will stand with China in the East and South China Seas, not with other Indo-Pacific states.”
Over the past year, China has exponentially increased its threats regarding an invasion of Taiwan and has attempted to preemptively bully countries away from interfering. In July, China insisted that if Japan were to meddle in their plans to “liberate Taiwan,” they would “use nuclear bombs—continuously until Japan declares unconditional surrender.”
Similarly, Russia has not shied away from hovering its finger over the nuclear button.
“Over the last few years, Putin has made several direct and indirect threats to use nuclear weapons. But now the threats come almost every week,” Hal Lindsey explained in a recent article.
“Jesus said that war and rumors of war would mark the time before His return. Skeptics point out that there have always been both. Jesus clearly meant that end-time wars and messages about them would somehow be more extreme,” he described, referencing Matthew 24:6.
Nuclear weapons arsenals, Lindsey underscored, have greatly magnified the extreme nature of today’s “wars and rumors of wars.”
“According to the Bible, it will get worse before it gets better,” he wrote.
“But this is a “lift up your heads” kind of moment,” he encouraged, explaining that the nuclear threats and intimidation “combined with all the other signs” makes it “obvious that we are getting close to the time of Christ’s return.”
