CHINA boasted it has rehearsed sinking US aircraft carriers using hypersonic missiles as part of a massive war games amid simmering tensions over Taiwan.
Beijing's state controlled media bragged recent missile launches were squarely aimed at hitting any "foreign aircraft carriers" that could interfere with a "reunification-by-force operation”.
Communist Party-run tabloid The Global Times quoted a number of named and unnamed "experts" who blustered about the massive war games near Taiwan.
China has been left furious after senior US politician Nancy Pelosi - the third in line to the presidency - visited the autonomous island earlier this week in what Beijing views as a "provocation".
Xi Jinping's regime views any engagement between Washington and Taipei as a US endorsement of Taiwan's independence.
But an increasingly belligerent China claims the island belongs to them - and has vowed to retake Taiwan by 2050.
Warships, warplanes and missiles have all been moved towards the island for the massive Chinese war games - which in effect blockaded Taiwan.
Beijing's state run media bragged the drills showed how China could attack the island by first unleashing a wave of rocket strikes across the Taiwan Strait.
And it then boasted missile launches showed how the Communist forces could also strike any "foreign" aircraft carriers that may attempt to "intervene from the Philippine Sea".
Hypersonic missiles such as the DF-17 could be used, it claimed, to hit "moving targets at sea”.
“It’s about hitting hard and early so we can’t get boots on the island before the United States can launch a response," Mastro told The Sun Online.
She went on: "My argument is that the more people like Pelosi try to make the US commitment clear, then the more certain the Chinese are of our commitment - and the more likely a Pearl Harbor-style attack is."
Mastro is not the only expert to have suggested that the US could face another "Pearl Harbor" over Taiwan.
In recent book Defending Taiwan foreign policy experts Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned the war could begin in much the same way - with a Chinese attack on US forces.
Chinese military doctrine demands that they attempt to "paralyse the enemy in one stroke" - and they warn "by the time the [US] was ready to fight, the war might effectively be over".
The experts, who penned the chapter "Getting Ready for a Long War" in the book for the American Enterprise Institute, argue the US is preparing for the "wrong kind of war" over Taiwan.
Both sides are readying their militaries for a "splendid little war".
But they warn Chinese and US military leaders will instead end up getting a long, grinding conflict with an overt risk of a nuclear exchange.
Japan, South Korea and the island of Guam are just some of the locations which serve the US army, navy and air force near China and Taiwan.
Guam has 6,000 servicemen on the island, South Korea hosts 26,000, while Japan has 56,000.
And the main source of power for Washington in the region is the mighty Seventh Fleet.
The fleet deploys between 50 to 70 warships, including aircraft carriers, submarines, destroyers, cruisers and assault ships.
Some 27,000 sailors and marines are service with the fleet - which also has around 150 aircraft.
The USS Ronald Reagan is currently heading up the fleet as she leads the Fifth Carrier Strike Group.
Chinese nationalists fled to Taiwan after the Communists won the civil war on the mainland in 1949 - and the island has remained self-governing ever since.
Beijing has always aggressively insisted that Taiwan belongs to them by right - and have pledged to reclaim the island by 2050.
August 6, 2022