After decrying US sanctions against Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA as "illegal" and enforcing "unfair competition", a Kremlin spokesman has reiterated that Russia is prepared to use "all mechanisms available to us" to defend its economic interests in Venezuela - interests that are closely tied to the Maduro regime.

According to RT, Russia has extended billions of dollars of loans to PDVSA, mostly via oil firm Rosneft. The company has extended $6 billion of loans which must be repaid in crude by the end of the year. Data from S&P Global Platts shows that as of November 2018, Venezuela had a $3.1 billion outstanding loan to repay to Rosneft.

Rosneft also has five joint upstream projects with PDVSA in Venezuela. Peskov said that Russia is still assessing the potential impact of the PDVSA sanctions for Moscow.

There was a thread here on CI a couple years ago about the phrase "Beware the yellow race" which didn't reach any conclusion, so I decided to do some research.

Many over the age of 70 will remember hearing that phrase being taught to them in school.  We all assumed it was a warning from the Fatima apparitions, but in reading early accounts I found nothing.  It was also emphasized
this phrase did NOT apply to Japan with whom we had just been at war but the threat was from China.

Since then two little prayer cards have come into my possession.

A Prayer for the Conversion of China, Dated Dec. 18th, 1918,
Imprimatur +Charles Hugh Gauthier, Abp. of Ottawa (the capital of Canada)

AND

Prayer for China, not dated
Imprimatur +Patrick Cardinal Hayes, (he was the Abp. of NY from 1918-1938

The Apocalypse mentions something about the dragon and the bear in end times

With the latest negotiations between China and the Pope and all mentioned in this thread,
is it time to start saying these prayers again?

Looks like we were warned about China 100 years ago.

The 20th Century German Catholic mystic, Alois Irlmaier had a vision of China invading America, but they did not last as victors.
But America lost most of it's territories and would no more be a superpower.

China and Russia Have Set a Nuclear Collision Course With the United States

Backed up by growing nuclear arsenals, China and Russia are waging little ‘asymmetric’ wars to expand their territory and influence. Can the U.S. stop them? They think not.

“Beijing has clearly relished challenging the U.S. Navy and Air Force.”

The Chinese also have one other advantage: the will to use force to take what is in the possession of others. In their peripheral seas, they grabbed control of the Paracel Islands, in the northern portion of the South China Sea, from South Vietnam in 1974 after a short battle. The Chinese also seized Mischief Reef from the Philippines in a series of actions from late 1994 to early 1995, and they snatched Scarborough Shoal, also from Manila, in early 2012. Now, China is, among other things, pressuring other Philippine features in the South China Sea and using menacing tactics to take over a chain of uninhabited islets currently under Japanese control in the East China Sea.

• About 55 miles east of Palm Beach, Florida on Grand Bahama Island, a Hong Kong-based business is spending about $3 billion on a deep-water container facility, the Freeport Container Port.
• The concern is that the port will become another debt-trap, like the port of Hambantota in Sri Lanka. There are concerns that Hambantota will eventually become a Chinese naval base. Will the Pentagon have to contend with Chinese warships at Freeport?
• The Chinese military is already in the Caribbean, in Cuba, apparently to collect signals intelligence from the U.S. Washington splashes plenty of cash around the Middle East, for instance, but American policymakers need also to be concerned, urgently, about critical needy locations closer to home.

There's a "Red Storm Rising" just miles from America's shores. "In point of fact, the entire hemisphere is on fire," said Lou Dobbs on his widely watched Fox Business Network show on April 4. "China and Russia are engaging us in almost every quarter in this hemisphere. Russia and China in Venezuela, but China throughout the hemisphere and throughout the Caribbean."

Throughout the Caribbean, China's influence is growing fast. Trade and investment have made Beijing a power. Chinese motives are not solely commercial, however, and do not appear benign.

We begin on the island of New Providence, in the Bahamas. The Export-Import Bank of China in 2011 extended a $2.45 billion construction loan for the Baha Mar resort, near the capital of Nassau. The project, troubled from the start, is the largest and most expensive in the Caribbean.

The project's size is a curiosity, and China's large commitment to the Caribbean is, from an economic viewpoint, intriguing. As Evan Ellis of the U.S. Army War College points out, China, on a per capita basis, has more equity invested in the Caribbean than in the rest of Latin America. This is noteworthy in that the Caribbean has, in comparison to the rest of that region, far fewer natural resources and only a tiny market for Chinese goods. As Ellis told Roll Call, "It really isn't about the market or the materials if you look at the amount that they are investing."

So, what is China's motivation? Another large Bahamian investment provides a clue.

About 55 miles east of Palm Beach, on Grand Bahama Island, a Hong Kong-based business is spending about $3 billion on a deep-water container facility, the Freeport Container Port.

Beijing views the Caribbean Sea in much the same way it perceives the South China Sea. This assessment goes a long way toward explaining China's otherwise unusual focus on the 13 island states and 17 "dependent territories" — what once were known as "colonies" — in the region.

That focus also goes some way to understanding the tirade of Haigang Yin, China's chargé d'affaires in the Bahamas, last month. Days before U.S. President Donald Trump's March 22 meeting with five Caribbean leaders — including the Bahamas' — at Mar-a-Lago, Yin accused the U.S. of attempting to "disintegrate solidarity and cooperation between China and other developing countries."

Up to now, America has mostly left the Caribbean alone. As is often said, the Caribbean is "too democratic and not poor enough" to get U.S. attention. It is, however, correctly called America's "third border" and "soft underbelly."

New Satellite Imagery Reveals Chinese Navy Simulating An Invasion On Taiwan


New satellite images show the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) recently conducted war games to simulate an invasion of Taiwan, reported ThePrint.


The PLAN used Type 071 (NATO reporting name: Yuzhao), an amphibious transport dock, designed to carry 800 fully armed troops, dozens of vehicles and landing crafts, and four helicopters, was used to practice circular deployment with other vessels ahead of a beach assault.

Quote

"This formation [circular deploymen] provides safety from shore fire as well as aerial attacks, since most landing ships carry only short-range air defence and close-in weapon systems (CIWS)," said ThePrint.

A Type 072A vessel (NATO reporting name: Yuting II), a landing ship designed to carry 250 fully armed troops ten tanks, four landing craft, a medium helicopter, was used to transport amphibious vehicles near the beach landing. Ahead of the invasion simulation, reconnaissance aircraft surveilled above.

The amphibious exercise used landing craft air cushion vessels to bring troops and vehicles ashore. Some of the first vehicles on land were type-08 amphibious armored vehicles and/or Type 05 amphibious fighting vehicles.




The PLAN’s recent upgrade of landing craft air cushion vessels demonstrates that these hovercraft will be used in future military exercises.




ThePrint said the PLAN also practiced re-embarkation after the landing exercise and regrouping to fine-tune their amphibious warfare tactics.

Quote

"The re-embarkation is rarely caught on satellite imagery. This exclusive satellite image displays the process of re-embarkation with five amphibious fighting vehicles lined up in the queue for loading on Type-72 Yukan and Yuting class vessels," ThePrint said.

Regional tensions have also grown due to China's territorial claims and aspirations in the South China Sea, something which has prompted Japan to cast aside its postwar pacifism.

With the probability of China taking Taiwan by force is rising, the military balance in the Taiwan Strait is firmly in China's favor.

With both sides preparing for a cross-strait war, it's only a matter of time before the powder keg is ignited.