China's silent invasion: US Congress warns of China's illegal Indo-Pacific expansion

Washington, DC [US], October 8 (ANI): The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been accused of carrying out a long-term and calculated strategy to expand its territorial and maritime claims across the Indo-Pacific without triggering open warfare, as reported by The Epoch Times.

According to The Epoch Times, during a hearing of the US Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy, Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) warned that China's creeping expansion mirrors Russian President Vladimir Putin's actions in Crimea in 2014.

He said that several successive US administrations had failed to effectively respond because Beijing's tactics deliberately stayed below the threshold of direct military confrontation.

Experts testifying before Congress highlighted that the CCP is using illegal and coercive means to expand both its physical territory and global influence. Particular attention was given to its growing military pressure on Taiwan and its unlawful claims over islands and natural resources in the South China Sea areas located hundreds of miles from China's coastline.

For decades, the CCP has built artificial islands and established military installations across the South China Sea to assert control over nearly 80 per cent of the region.

Despite a 2016 international court ruling that rejected these claims, China refused to recognise the decision, insisting that it held "indisputable sovereignty" over the waters.

Data from the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies showed that Chinese naval and maritime law enforcement vessels were involved in nearly 79 per cent of all major incidents in the South China Sea between 2010 and 2020.

Experts said these actions are part of a wider strategy designed to steadily erode regional resistance while avoiding a direct clash with the United States, as highlighted by The Epoch Times.

Craig Singleton of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies described China's expansion as "incremental and ambiguous", meant to weaken Taiwan's resolve.

Meanwhile, Raymond Powell of the SeaLight Foundation warned that the world is already "decades into losing a gray-zone war" to China's slow and strategic territorial aggression, as reported by The Epoch Times. (ANI)

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