This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

On Monday, Communist China ratcheted up yet again its territorial claims to the waters, airspace and resources of the Western Pacific. Beijing declared that it “has sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the Taiwan Strait,” the 90-mile-wide stretch that separates Taiwan’s island from the Chinese mainland.

The United States and Taiwanese governments have, properly, rejected this assertion, affirming that the Strait is, instead, an international waterway and declaring an intention to continue to exercise freedom of navigation there.

Unfortunately, in the Taiwan Strait as elsewhere, the Chinese Communist Party is inexorably creating facts on the ground – or, at sea – that will enable the People’s Liberation Army not just to enforce its requirements for permission to transit or otherwise utilize contested areas. They are preparing for war. We must, therefore, be about deterring and, if necessary, defeating the future aggression being telegraphed.

This is Frank Gaffney