The Asia Times Online reports: “China again used the East China Sea as a setting for military maneuvers and exercises that it knew would rattle the United States and its allies. After recently calming Japanese concerns about rising tensions in this area, China shut down all vessel traffic in a large zone off the coast of Zhejiang as the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) conducted a series of live fire drills.

The PLAN engages in such drills each year, and does so in waters considered part of China’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). All ships, including US military surveillance ships, are given fair warning to stay clear.

At the same time, because US Navy carriers do not frequent the Yellow Sea for a variety of reasons, China was sending messages in advance that ‘national interests could be damaged’ if the US proceeds to deploy a US carrier during a joint exercise with the South Korean navy later this summer.

‘Under current situations, relevant parties should exercise restraint and refrain from doing things that may escalate tensions and harm the interests of the countries in the region,’ said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang.

Having this floating symbol of US military might deployed so close to China is perceived by Beijing as more than a very unfriendly gesture on the part of the US. Another US aircraft carrier has just passed through the Panama Canal and will soon transit the Pacific Ocean – something else that Beijing must keep in mind.

Simply put, seldom have so many warships been exercising all at once in the Pacific. A large fleet of US and allied warships are engaged in the RIMPAC exercise off Hawaii, and the Russians are conducting a very large exercise in the western Pacific region.

Speculation swirled in the US and elsewhere about the possibility that the PLAN would launch Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles (ASBM) – known as ‘carrier killers’ – during its East China Sea exercises just north of Taiwan…” (China invades Israel in the second move of World War III – Revelation 16:12. For the result see Revelation 9:14 – 18.)