Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday that he wants to strengthen his country's army for 'actual combat' following three days of military drills that surrounded Taiwan.
, McCarthy said there was no intention to"escalate" tensions between the two countries."There's no need for retaliation," he said."There is no place that China is going to tell me where I can go or who I can speak to — whether you be foe or whether you be friend."
In the post-Mao era of the 1980s, China’s then-leader Deng Xiaoping wanted to build up a maritime defense policy and created the concept of the “First Island Chain.” Professor Steve Tsang, the director of the SOAS China Institute in London, told Yahoo News last August that Taiwan was in the middle of this defense chain. “They intended to secure that defensive line, but they couldn't actually do anything until the last few years.
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