The “peaceful rise” of the Red Dragon has officially morphed into a full-scale naval swarm. On Saturday, December 20, 2025, satellite imagery and intelligence reports confirmed an unprecedented “Great Flood”: over 100 Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and Coast Guard vessels have simultaneously seized control of the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, South China Sea, and the Western Pacific. This isn’t a drill—it’s a chokehold.
In response to what regional officials are calling the “most extensive maritime display in history,” the Pentagon has pulled the trigger on a high-stakes counter-surge. The USS Abraham Lincoln and USS George Washington—both armed with the world’s most lethal F-35C Lightning II stealth fighters—have been deployed into a “layered combat posture” centered around Guam. We are now in a pre-war “Staring Contest” where one accidental collision could ignite a global inferno.
The “Rage Trigger” Section: The Controversy Everyone is Ignoring
The media is talking about “exercises,” but they are ignoring the August 2025 Collision Scandal. Just months ago, a PLAN warship and a Chinese Coast Guard cutter smashed into each other in a chaotic “friendly fire” incident in the South China Sea because their command structure is a mess.
Now, they’ve tripled the ship count. By flooding the waters with 100+ vessels, Beijing isn’t just testing the US; they are playing a dangerous game of “Bumper Cars” with nuclear-powered warships. The real danger isn’t a deliberate strike—it’s the fact that China’s ego is currently larger than its ability to coordinate its own fleet. They are begging for a disaster just to prove they can “own” the ocean.
Deep Background: The “First Island Chain” Dirty History
For decades, the “First Island Chain” (stretching from Japan to the Philippines) was a NATO-protected wall. That wall just crumbled. In December 2024, China sent 90 ships as a “warning.” Today, they’ve blown past that record.
This escalation followed a brutal diplomatic brawl in November 2025, when Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi warned that a Taiwan contingency is a Japanese contingency. Beijing responded by summoning ambassadors and unleashing a “Gray Zone” nightmare. They are currently using amphibious assault ships to conduct mock attacks on foreign merchant vessels, effectively rehearsing how to starve Taiwan and Japan out of existence.
The Cold Hard Truth from the Insiders
“The era of US maritime dominance is no longer guaranteed,” admits a senior naval analyst. The “Hard Truth”? While the US has 11 carriers, they are spread across the globe like butter on too much bread. China has three operational carriers (Liaoning, Shandong, and the new electromagnetic-catapult Fujian) and they are all concentrated in one backyard. The US is betting everything on the F-35C’s stealth sensors to “shred the kill chain,” but China is betting on Missile Salvos. They have built a “Missile Bubble” of hypersonic DF-series killers designed to sink a carrier before it even gets close enough to launch a plane. In a hot war today, the US Navy wouldn’t just be fighting ships—they’d be fighting a “Wall of Fire” from the Chinese mainland.
