Chinese Military Fires Back at US Navy Commander’s “Hellscape” Comments

By Jim Morris, Warrior Vice President, News

In a little more than a month as head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral Sam Paparo has shown himself to be a straight shooter, with most of the shots aimed at China. Now, Beijing is firing back at Paparo’s latest remarks.

Paparo told Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin that if China launches an attack on Taiwan, the US would unleash a strategy that involves thousands of drones – unmanned planes, ships and submarines.

“I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities,” Paparo told the Post. “So that I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything.”

China was not amused, and responded in the Global Times, an English-language newspaper controlled by the Chinese Communist Party’s paper, the People’s Daily.

A naval expert and retired PLA Navy officer, Wang Yunfei, told the Global Times that the US strategy is “wishful thinking,” He said China can use its hypersonic anti-ship missiles to keep US aircraft carriers out of the region, and can jam the signals needed to control unmanned weapons.

Army Pioneers new classified, secure commercial computer network