MEDIA ADVISORY

For Immediate Release
October 16, 2024

CONTACT:
Dede Laugesen, executive secretary,
Committee on the Present Danger: China, [email protected]

 Is the CCP Good-to-Go against Taiwan – and Us?

This is ‘No-Drill’; What Do We Do About It?

WASHINGTON, DC—As predicted, the Chinese Communist Party responded aggressively to statements made on the occasion of Taiwan’s national day by its new president, William Lai, including his declaration that, “I will…uphold the commitment to resist annexation or encroachment upon our sovereignty.”

The CCP’s military did so with its most intensive military exercises against the island to date. Dubbed “Joint Sword 2024B,” these war games involved the largest number of ships and aircraft yet deployed by Beijing to demonstrate its ability to encircle, quarantine and possibly invade Taiwan at will.

The Taiwanese defense minister previously warned that the People’s Liberation Army could roll directly into actual combat from such drills without warning.

Meanwhile, Xi Jinping’s Mini-Me, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, has mobilized artillery units on the border with South Korea. Such forces could deliver a devastating diversionary attack on Seoul at any time.

Former President Donald Trump recently warned about the danger posed by enemies within who may engage in violence here. Among them are estimated to be tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers allowed to enter the United States in the past year across our open borders.

Such forces may have been responsible for a particularly alarming exercise inside our country. Evidently, an array of unmanned drones of unknown origin overflew the world’s largest military complex in the Virginia Beach area with complete impunity over seventeen successive nights last December.

Had those drones been armed and used to attack the region’s myriad ports, airfields and shipyards, the strategic setback we suffered temporarily at Pearl Harbor in 1941 would have paled by comparison.

The fact that we were unable fully to assess – let alone stop – such potentially disastrous penetrations for over two weeks is a dire warning about our internal insecurity and the need to adopt immediately a war footing. And American voters must be informed about the prospect of an imminent shooting war with the Chinese Communist Party, with candidates explicitly telling us what they would do to deter and, if necessary, to defeat that threat.

The next Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC) webinar today from 5:00-6:30 p.m. ET will examine such topics, including:

The CCP’s latest show-of-force: lessons learned from the PLA’s demonstrated capabilities to affect a de facto “quarantine”; is it over?
The effect of these full-on exercises on Taiwan’s readiness and, in particular, its ability to assess the threat of China rolling into an attack
The CCP’s ambitions vis a vis Taiwan: Can the Chinese Communists win without fighting, or would they risk the destruction of the TMSC silicon chip foundries by an actual attack?
The state of U.S. abilities to challenge a CCP quarantine; does Biden-Harris have the will to do so?
If Xi calculates the U.S. might actually intervene, what is he prepared to do to preclude us from such a response – including attacks here?
If this does turn out to be just another dress rehearsal, what might the timing of the real thing be?
What are our options to deter the CCP at this point?

Register at PresentDangerChina.org.

Moderator: Frank Gaffney, Vice Chairman, Committee on the Present Danger: China

Panelists:

Colonel John Mills, U.S. Army (Ret.), Veteran Special Operator; former senior official responsible for Cybersecurity Policy, Office of the Secretary of Defense; former member, the National Security Council staff and detailed to the Department of Homeland Security; host, “The National Security Show”; author, “The Nation Will Follow” and “War Against the Deep State”
• Topic: “Joint Sword 2024B: The Final Dress Rehearsal for a Quarantine of Taiwan – or Worse?”
Dr. Bradley Thayer, PhD, Professor, Member, Committee on the Present Danger: China; co-author, “Embracing Communist China: America’s Greatest Strategic Failure”
• Topic: “Why Taiwan Matters – to America and the Free World”
Charles “Sam” Faddis, Former Career Clandestine Service Officer, Central Intelligence Agency; Army veteran; author, “Beyond Repair: The Decline and Fall of the CIA”; editor, AndMagazine at Substack
• Topic: “The CCP’s Preparations for War: Manipulating Indicators and Warnings and our Emboldening Failures to Respond” 
Lieutenant Colonel Guermantes “G-Man” Lailari, U.S. Air Force (Ret.), Former USAF Foreign Area Officer; former Fellow, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Taiwan; currently a Visiting Researcher at the Institute of National Defense and Security Research (Taiwan)
• Topic: “CCP Psychological warfare against Taiwan (Joint Sword 2024B and lawfare against Taiwan’s defenders) and What the US can do: Be Proactive” 
Colonel Grant Newsham, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.), Former Military Attaché in Embassy Tokyo; former Foreign Service Officer; longtime business executive in the Western Pacific; Senior Fellow, Center for Security Policy; Author, “When China Attacks: A Warning to America”
•Topic: “What Do We Do About the CCP Threat Abroad, and Here?”

HOW: Register at PresentDangerChina.org

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CONTACT:  Dede Laugesen, executive secretary, Committee on the Present Danger: China, [email protected]

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