Ukraine

• Russia indicated that it would let International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors visit the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which is under Russian control and has suffered strikes both sides blame the other for.
• The situation at Zaporizhzhia is precarious: the plant is under Russian control but operated by Ukrainians. It houses six of Ukraine's 15 working nuclear reactors - which all together provide around half Ukraine's electricity. An outage would handicap the Ukrainian power grid; a nuclear accident would be far more devastating.
• Meanwhile, the U.S. said it will send up to $1 billion worth of stockpiled Pentagon weapons to Ukraine, largely comprising resupplies of weapons that were already sent to Ukraine, but also including 120-mm mortars for the first time.

Russia

• It sounds like U.S.-Russia talks about swapping WNBA star Brittney Griner for convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout are proceeding in a channel specifically designated for it.
• Russia plans to launch an Iranian satellite next week. For the first few months, Russia will use the satellite to support its war in Ukraine; after that, it will be transferred to Iranian control and used to spy on targets in Israel and rival Gulf countries.

Iran

• The EU proposed a "final" text for a new Iranian nuclear deal, following four days of talks in Vienna. Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell tweeted: "What can be negotiated has been negotiated, and it’s now in a final text. However, behind every technical issue and every paragraph lies a political decision that needs to be taken in the capitals."

China

• Taiwan's Foreign Minister accused China of using successive rounds of nuclear drills as a cover to prepare for a real invasion. Pres. Biden also expressed concern about China's provocative drills: "I'm concerned they are moving as much as they are. But I don't think they're going to do anything more than they are."
• Analysts aren't so sure: many think China will continue to push boundaries and "enforce...a new status quo in the Taiwan Strait." A Bloomberg article pasted below has more.
• Meanwhile, Taiwan started its own pre-scheduled military drills today, test-firing howitzers to the sea.

Sahel

• Chad's military junta and over 40 rebel groups signed a cease-fire in Qatar agreeing to hold reconciliation talks in N'Djamena later this month, but the abstention of a main rebel group - the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), which assassinated Pres. Déby last year - raises doubts for the deal's prospects.
• There's less than two months remaining in the 18-month transition period the junta agreed to, and it's unlikely these talks are going to reach a lasting solution without FACT participating.

Energy

• Nigeria approved ExxonMobil's $1.3 billion sale of its Niger Delta oilfields, completing Exxon's exit from the Delta. Exxon intends to focus on exploring and developing offshore Guyana, where it's made some promising finds without as many challenges as it faces in Nigeria.

China Seizes on Pelosi Visit to Set ‘New Normal’ for Taiwan (Bloomberg) Xi lays out template for military activity closer to island Strategy puts pressure on Biden to restore buffer zone From the South China Sea to the Himalayas, Beijing has shown a willingness to seize on perceived missteps by its rivals to tighten its grip over disputed territory. That’s now playing out around Taiwan.

In recent days, the People’s Liberation Army has sought to establish a new status quo on Taiwan with a series of exercises in the wake of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit. The moves, including frequent trips across the US-defined median line in the Taiwan Strait and likely firing missiles over Taipei, have shrunk a vaguely defined buffer zone that has kept the peace for decades.

While the most provocative exercise areas closest to Taiwan had expired by Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping has laid out a template for operating ever closer to the democratically governed island. The Taiwanese Defense Ministry again reported spotting Chinese warships and warplanes nearby Monday, after more than 120 aircraft crossed the median line from Wednesday to Sunday.

“We will probably see different elements of what China has been doing this week become a much more regular occurrence,” said M. Taylor Fravel, professor and director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program. “There is a new normal, or a new status quo, in terms of kind of the military presence that China will have around Taiwan.”

The strategy places greater pressure on the US to craft a response that encourages China to pull back without escalating tensions further, like when then-President Bill Clinton sent two aircraft carrier groups into the area during the last Taiwan Strait crisis. These days, President Joe Biden faces a China that commands the world’s largest navy and a vast arsenal of anti-ship missiles, increasing the risk to American vessels operating close to its coasts.

Beijing’s message is that Washington needs to stop boosting ties with Taiwan, and restore the diplomatic understanding that discouraged any House speaker from visiting for the past 25 years. If not, China could start to restrict Taiwan’s freedom to operate off its shores in the same way that it has restricted the island’s ability to participate in global organizations since Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s election in 2016.

“The Chinese are certainly ratcheting up their response and subsequent crises will take this as a new baseline,” said Christopher Twomey, an associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School. “Their next signal to a perceived or real provocation will have to be more intense.”

In recent years, China has repeatedly exploited its rivals’ reluctance to risk open war to assert clearer control over contested territory. In 2012, after Washington declined to intervene when it effectively occupied the Scarborough Shoal, China remained on the reef and began to construct a vast network of military facilities on reclaimed land in the South China Sea. More recently, in 2020, China gained control over disputed territory in border clashes with India.

China Drills Surround Taiwan
Sources: Xinhua, Flanders Marine Institute, Australian National University
China’s drills last week were larger and closer to Taiwan than a similar show of force in the mid-1990s. Prior to Pelosi’s arrival, the PLA conducted operations that suggested its planes were ready to “escort” her flight, if it had taken the typical route into Taipei, Bonny Lin and other analysts with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a report updated Monday.

The six exclusion zones appeared carefully chosen by China to test out its operations during a blockade or invasion scenario, the report said. For the area farthest east from the mainland, the PLA could “launch attacks on Taiwan’s eastern shores and bases and help deny the United States and other countries from flowing forces into Taiwan from the east,” it added. Zones in the north and southwest could be launching points for future blockades of key ports, the analysts noted.

“China’s attempt to deny the strait as an international waterway by sending warships into the area and crossing the median line represents another attempt to change the status quo,” said Kuo Yu-jen, director of Taiwan’s Institute for National Policy Research. “It will have a grave impact that the international community will find hard to tolerate.”

Official Chinese statements on the drills illustrate Beijing’s desire to portray them as a strategic victory by demonstrating its ability to curb the movement of its rivals. The missile tests confirmed the PLA’s “precision strike and area-denial capabilities,” Eastern Theater Command spokesman Senior Colonel Shi Yi said in a statement, echoing language used by the US and its allies to describe China’s strategy to deny an adversary’s freedom of movement in contested regions.

China “deterred Taiwan independence forces and completely shattered the so-called strait median line,” Meng Xiangqing, a professor at the PLA’s National Defense University in Beijing, told state broadcaster China Central Television. “The drills created conditions for realizing national reunification at an earlier date.”

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said the drills had given the military the chance to do “practical training against combat scenes.” It added that no Chinese warships or military planes entered Taiwan’s air space or territorial sea since Pelosi’s visit, even though China’s exclusion zones partly crossed into those areas.

How the Biden administration will respond remains unclear. John Kirby, spokesman for the US National Security Council, said last week that the US would keep the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group “on station in the general area to monitor the situation,” and “we will also undertake standard air and maritime transits through the Taiwan Strait in the next few weeks.”

Regional Risk
On Monday, Biden expressed confidence China would not escalate tensions further with Taiwan after a confidence series of military exercises that shook the region. “I’m not worried, but I’m concerned that they’re moving as much as they are,” he said. “But I don’t think they’re going to do anything more.”

China’s exercises also demonstrated the risk that any conflict over Taiwan could quickly escalate and shake global supply chains. Besides disrupting air traffic and shipping, the drills also covered waters claimed as exclusive economic zones by the Philippines and Japan, with missiles landing in an area claimed by Tokyo.

“If the US doesn’t ‘learn its lesson’ and does more to challenge China’s sovereignty, then I think we’ll see more of these operations,” said Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “They may seek to enforce here a new status quo in the Taiwan Strait.”