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(activistpost.com)

China has entered the tense seas off the Korean Peninsula with guns blazing, showing its military might at a time when Beijing has warned two belligerent rivals, the U.S. and North Korea, from further escalating their nuclear standoff.

After closing off a 15,000-square-mile stretch of the East China Sea, the Chinese navy launched live-fire exercises Monday involving dozens of ships and submarines, more than 10 aircraft and a number of coastal troops in the Bohai Sea and Yellow Sea, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency. The drill, which reportedly included both offensive and defensive maneuvers against targets in the air as well as on land and at sea, come during a season of anticipated heightened military activity from the U.S. and its regional allies, and less than two weeks after North Korea conducted its second intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test. Both developments have frustrated Beijing's calls for peace in the region.

"[The Chinese] could be sending a message to the North Koreans that they will be effective in any conflict if war is to break out," Malcolm Davis, a Chinese defense specialist at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told the South China Morning Post. The Hong Kong–based newspaper also cited Collin Koh, a maritime security expert at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, as saying the drill would serve as a signal to the U.S. as well.

This picture taken on an undisclosed date in December 2016 shows a missile being fired from China's Liaoning aircraft carrier during military drills in the Bohai Sea, off China's northeast coast. China has boosted its naval power in order to counter U.S. military influence and assert its own territorial claims in the region.STR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

To demonstrate the importance of the drills, major figures within China's military infrastructure observed the two-day exercise, the ruling Communist Party's Global Timesreported, citing the official Chinese Central Television. Vice Admiral Shen Jinlong, the Chinese naval commander, was reportedly in attendance. The simulated battles took place off the western flank of the Korean Peninsula, where nuclear-armed North Korea and U.S.-backed South Korea technically remain at war since the 1950s. China has traditionally supported neighboring North Korea but has repeatedly called on that nation to abandon its rapidly expanding nuclear and ballistic weapons arsenal.

Chinese President Xi Jinping was approached earlier this year by President Donald Trump in hopes of curbing North Korea's military advancements, but Beijing has repeatedly dispelled what it refers to as the "China responsibility theory" and called on both the U.S. and North Korea to back off. China has been especially critical of the U.S.'s strategy of increasing its military presence in the region, where tens of thousands of U.S. troops are already stationed. China, along with Russia, condemned the U.S.'s installation of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD) in South Korea, which both countries say undermines their national security.

With North Korea having tested two nuclear-capable ICBMs with the potential to wreak havoc on U.S. cities, the Trump administration has doubled down on its militant rhetoric toward North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Last week, Joel Wit, a co-founder of the North Korea monitoring group 38 North, criticized "the constant drumbeat about getting China to do our job for us," and said August would be a particularly dangerous period for clashing interests in the region.

"The situation is bad now and it’s going to get worse in August, and that’s because, as many of us know who follow this closely, August is exercise season, and there’s going to be a large U.S.-South Korean joint exercise in August. And so that could create even more tension, and I think we need to be very careful about aggravating the situation," Wit said during a telephone conference call days after North Korea's second ICBM test late last month.

U.S. military drills in the Asia-Pacific region, which often include allies South Korea and Japan, have been a key instigating factor for North Korea. Kim and his government argue that nuclear weapons are necessary to deter potential invaders and have rejected the calls to disarm. The official Korean Central News Agency ran a statement Monday, attributed to the country's leadership, that accused the U.S. of bringing the world to "the brink of nuclear war" with recent missile exercises in the area. Other state media promised "severe lessons" over the latest sanctions rolled out by the U.N.

China recently deployed troops to send a message elsewhere, too. Thousands of miles away, a border dispute between China and India has produced threats of an all-out conflict. In June, Indian soldiers crossed a demarcated boundary in the contested Doklam region, which separates India's far eastern Sikkim state, China's far western region of Tibet and Bhutan's Ha Valley. India said it had moved to protect the interests of Bhutan, its ally, after China began building a road near the border. After a series of nearby drills, a Global Times editorial Sunday warned that China may be preparing to remove Indian troops by force in an upcoming operation.

(Newsweek)

In the grainy 24-minute video, taken at the entrance of a bathroom at Carson Elementary School, third-grader Gabriel Taye appears to be approaching a larger boy, who just pushed another boy, and extending his hand seemingly for a shake when the larger boy grabs his arm and pushes him into a wall, causing Gabriel to collapse and faint.

While the video is hazy, Gabriel’s motionless body is seen lying on the floor for several minutes, during which numerous children go past him, step over him, and even kick and poke him with their feet.

Almost eight minutes later, an adult in a dark suit is seen walking over and attending to a still unmoving Gabriel.

Play

8-Year-Old Boy Commits Suicide After Being Bullied 1:33

Two days after the bathroom attack, the boy hung himself with a necktie in the bedroom of his Cincinnati home.

The school made no mention of the incident to the boy’s mother, Cornelia Reynolds, only telling her that he fainted, said Jennifer Branch, an attorney representing Reynolds, adding that they learned about the surveillance video months after the attack in January.

“Mom got a call from the school. She was told her son had fainted, he’s in the nurse's office. His vitals are fine, he’s fine and she decided to come to the school to get him to make sure he was okay and she took him home,” Branch said. “Later that night he was nauseous and had fainted and thrown up a couple of times and she took him to the hospital."

But because the mother didn’t know what happened, the doctor at the hospital didn’t either, which changed the nature of the medical examination, she said. “If she had known he had lost consciousness for over 7 minutes, that is a critical detail for a medical professional to know," she said.

Reynolds found out about the bullying incident after her attorneys received a copy of a police investigative file that contained an email from a homicide detective to school officials describing the surveillance video, she said.

"If Gabe's mom had known that her son was going to school every day and experiencing, and witnessing, and being involved in these violent, very unsettling events, she wouldn’t have continued to send him there,” Branch said.

But the school says it has no culpability in what happened to Gabriel and instead stands by a different version of events — one where the school nurse told Reynolds to take her son to the hospital.

"When checking on Gabriel, the school staff members asked him what happened. He responded that he 'fell,'" the district said in its statement Friday. "He later said that he 'fainted.' At no point did Gabriel indicate that he had been hit, yanked, pulled, pushed or assaulted in any way. He had no visible abrasions and there had been no report of a fight of any kind."

"The school nurse checked Gabriel’s vital signs, which were normal. She also contacted Gabriel’s mother and asked her to pick him up and take him to the hospital to be checked out," the district said in its statement.

"We ask that you review the video, in its entirety. It is our firm position that the allegations portrayed in the media are not supported by the video," the school said in a statement after releasing the video Friday.

Bullying Blamed In 8-Year-Old's Suicide 1:52

The Hamilton County Coroner’s office said Thursday they were reopening an investigation into Gabriel’s death.

Attorneys for Reynolds say they have not filed a lawsuit against the school yet.

“What we are investigating is grounds to file a lawsuit and looking to see if the school district did anything to contribute to his death,” Branch said.

What happened to Gabriel is not an uncommon scenario at Carson School, said Branch.

“There’s lots of violence going on in that school,” she said. And by “downplaying” the incident with Gabriel, the school is putting “many more kids at risk,” she added.

“To watch these children walking in and out of bathroom who are afraid, and to see someone like Gabe who is trying to diffuse the situation by putting out his hand, you realize that 10-minute snapshot at that school, is what it must be like all day at that school,” she said.

(nbcnews.com)