In March 1996, Bill Clinton sent two U.S. aircraft carriers — the USS Nimitz and USS Independence — into the Taiwan Strait to intimidate China during the island’s first direct presidential election. Beijing had no military answer. China backed down. That single humiliation became the organizing principle of thirty years of Chinese military investment in one thing above all else: missiles, and lots of them. The result is the largest precision-strike missile arsenal on Earth — the DF-21D, the DF-26 “Guam Killer,” the DF-17 hypersonic glide vehicle, the DF-27 reaching Hawaii, the DF-100 cruise missile, and several thousand weapons designed to sink American aircraft carriers before they get anywhere near China.
Click here to read more: China’s plan to sink US Navy aircraft carriers comes down to 1 word