Fire Hydrant of Freedom
Politics, Religion, Science, Culture and Humanities => Politics & Religion => Topic started by: Crafty_Dog on December 31, 2010, 08:35:40 AM
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Woof All:
Just as we have a "Russia" thread and a "US-Russia" thread and a "Russia-Europe" thread, for purposes of thread coherence and improved research/search function relevance, we need to have a "US-China" thread to accompany the existing thread on "China".
Please post accordingly. For example, I've asked GM to paste here his Popular Mechanics article here and I note that the Rare Earth Elements story, which we have discussed previously in the China thread, continues to bubble along. As I recounted there, I made a very nice chunk of change in very short order with the two US rare earth plays MCP and REE. I sold them in the aftermath of the apparent "resolution" of matters between Japan and China, (MCP at 28.xx and REE at 8.xx) but since then China has further tightened its export restrictions and both MCP and REE have shot up dramatically since then.
TAC!
Marc
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http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/navy-ships/what-a-war-between-china-and-the-us-would-look-like
What a War Between China and the United States Would Look Like
Any Chinese move to take over Taiwan would trigger a confrontation with the U.S. Navy and Air Force. Is the U.S. prepared to counter this growing threat?
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http://www.cnbc.com//id/40851371
Chinese Could Become Richer Than Americans: Economist
If the US and Chinese economies move at their present rates, the average Chinese citizen will be wealthier than the average American in less than three decades, Ed Lazear, a Stanford University economics professor, told CNBC Thursday.
“We are talking about a very different world if we don’t get our growth rates back up with the kinds of policies that are aimed toward long-term growth, rather than the policies that fix things for the next six months,” said Lazear, who was the chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors under George W. Bush.
“It means keeping taxes low, getting the fiscal situation in order, keeping spending down, having a positive climate for business and investing in human capital.”
**Read it all.
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http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/02/think_again_american_decline?page=full
There are some serious problems with some points here, like using Krugman to validate an argument , but still worth reading.
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http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/01/05/china.us.fighter.jets/index.html?hpt=T1
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Even if the J-20 is inferior to the F-22, they'll make many more J-20s.
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IJING—The first clear pictures of what appears to be a Chinese stealth fighter prototype have been published online, highlighting China's military buildup just days before U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates heads to Beijing to try to repair defense ties.
The photographs, published on several unofficial Chinese and foreign defense-related websites, appear to show a J-20 prototype making a high-speed taxi test—usually one of the last steps before an aircraft makes its first flight—according to experts on aviation and China's military.
WSJ's Rebecca Blumenstein explains to Simon Constable new photos indicate the possibility that the Chinese military has developed a new stealth fighter jet, confirming fears of a military buildup.
The exact origin of the photographs is unclear, although they appear to have been taken by Chinese enthusiasts from the grounds of or around the Chengdu Aircraft Design Institute in western China, where the J-20 is in development. A few experts have suggested that the pictured aircraft is a mock-up, rather than a functioning prototype of a stealth fighter—so-called because it is designed to evade detection by radar and infrared sensors.
Related
View Slideshow
The Wall Street Journal
On display at Air Show China in Zuhai late last year: this CIA-style drone with missiles.
.China Newspaper Refers to New Jet
China Real Time: China's Military Ambitions: A Walking Tour
China Seen Defusing Korea
China Clones, Sells Russian Fighter Jets
.But many more experts say they believe the pictures and the aircraft are authentic, giving the strongest indication yet that Beijing is making faster-than-expected progress in developing a rival to the U.S. F-22—the world's only fully operational stealth fighter.
China's defense ministry and air force couldn't be reached to comment on the latest photos. Even without official confirmation, however, the photographs are likely to bolster concerns among U.S. officials and politicians about China's military modernization, which also includes the imminent deployment of its first aircraft carrier and "carrier-killer" antiship ballistic missiles.
Global View Columnist Bret Stephens analyzes the stealth fighter and China's growing firepower.
.Such weapons systems would significantly enhance China's ability to hinder U.S. intervention in a conflict over Taiwan, and challenge U.S. naval supremacy in the Asia-Pacific region.
Gen. He Weirong, deputy head of China's Air Force, announced in 2009 that China's first stealth fighters were about to undergo test flights and would be deployed in "eight or 10 years." But there was no clear physical evidence of their existence until the latest photographs emerged.
Chinese authorities who monitor Internet traffic in the country appear not to have tried to block the J-20 pictures.
"The photos I've seen look genuine," said Gareth Jennings, aviation desk editor at Jane's Defence Weekly.
"It's pretty far down the line," he said. "The fact that its nose wheel is off the ground in one picture suggest this was a high-speed taxi test—that usually means a test flight very soon afterwards. All the talk we've heard is that this could happen some time in the next few weeks."
U.S. officials played down Chinese advances on the plane, which American intelligence agencies believe will likely be operational around 2018. "We are aware that the Chinese have recently been conducting taxi tests and there are photos of it," said Pentagon spokesman Col. David Lapan. "We know they are working on a fifth-generation fighter but progress appears to be uneven."
Col. Lapan said it appears the Chinese are still seeking engines for a fourth-generation fighter from Russia, an indication that they are "still encountering problems" with development work toward the fifth-generation aircraft, the J-20.
But the 2018 estimate suggests U.S. officials believe China's development of the fifth-generation fighter has accelerated. In 2009, Mr. Gates predicted that China wouldn't deploy a fifth-generation fighter until 2020. U.S. officials said the latest disclosures wouldn't affect any U.S. aircraft-development programs.
China has made rapid progress in developing a capability to produce advanced weapons, also including unmanned aerial vehicles, after decades of importing and reverse engineering Russian arms. The photographs throw a fresh spotlight on the sensitive issue of China's military modernization just as Washington and Beijing try to improve relations following a series of public disputes in 2010.
U.S.-China Disputes in 2010
January: China suspends military ties over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan
March: China refuses to blame North Korea for sinking of South Korean ship
July: China protests after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says U.S. has national interest in South China Sea
September: China angered by perceived U.S. support for Japan in row over disputed islands.
U.S. House of Representatives passes bill authorizing action against China for manipulation of its currency
October: U.S. congratulates Liu Xiaobo, jailed Chinese dissident, for winning the Nobel Peace Prize
November: China refuses to condemn North Korea for artillery raid on South Korea.
U.S. sends aircraft carrier to joint military exercises with South Korea
December: U.S. again expresses support for Liu Xiaobo ahead of Nobel ceremony. U.S. moves two more aircraft carriers to the region
.Defense Secretary Gates is due to begin a long-delayed visit to Beijing on Sunday—almost exactly a year after China suspended military ties in protest over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
China's President Hu Jintao is then due to begin a state visit to the U.S. on Jan. 19. President Barack Obama joined in preparatory talks at the White House on Tuesday between his national security adviser, Tom Donilon, and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. During the meeting, Mr. Obama said he was committed to building a bilateral relationship that is "cooperative in nature," the White House said.
The two countries clashed last year over issues including the value of the Chinese currency, China's territorial claims in the South China Sea and vocal U.S. support for a jailed Chinese dissident who won the Nobel Peace Prize.
The U.S. was also frustrated by China's refusal to condemn two North Korean attacks on South Korea, while Beijing was angered by a U.S. decision to respond to the second attack, the shelling of a South Korean island in November, by sending an aircraft carrier to take part in joint naval exercises with Seoul near China's coast.
The U.S. and its Asian allies have also been alarmed by China's naval maneuvers and more forceful stance on territorial issues, while China's military strategists have accused the U.S. of trying to "contain" China—most recently by sending two more aircraft carriers to the region in December.
"The U.S. wants to retain its global hegemony and also preserve its regional interests. It is not comfortable with China's military rise," Senior Col. Han Xudong, a professor at China's National Defense University, was quoted as saying in the Global Times newspaper Tuesday.
Experts who said they thought the photographs were authentic included Andrei Chang of the Canadian-based Kanwa Asian Defence Monthly, and Richard Fisher, an expert on the Chinese military at the International Strategy and Assessment Center in Washington.
Several experts said the prototype's body appeared to borrow from the F-22 and other U.S. stealth aircraft, but they couldn't tell from the photographs how advanced it was in terms of avionics, composite materials or other key aspects of stealth technology.
They said that China was probably several years behind Russia, whose first stealth fighter, the Sukhoi T-50, made its first flight in January 2010, but that Beijing was catching up faster than expected.
The U.S. cut funding for the F-22 in 2009 in favor of the F-35, a smaller, cheaper stealth fighter that made its first test flight in 2006 and is expected to be fully deployed by around 2014. The F-22 has mainly been used for exercises and operations around U.S. airspace, but some have been deployed to Guam and Okinawa to help maintain the U.S. security umbrella in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Chinese prototype looks like it has "the potential to be a competitor with the F-22 and to be decisively superior to the F-35," said Mr. Fisher. The J-20 has two engines, like the F-22, and is about the same size, while the F-35 is smaller and has only one engine.
China's stealth-fighter program has implications also for Japan, which is considering buying F-35s, and for India, which last month firmed up a deal with Russia to jointly develop and manufacture a stealth fighter.
— Adam Entous in Washington contributed to this article.
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FWIW, here's POTH take on this:
BEIJING — Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, on a mission to resuscitate moribund military relations with China, will not arrive in Beijing for talks with the nation’s top military leaders until Sunday. But at an airfield in Chengdu, a metropolis in the nation’s center, China’s military leaders have already rolled out a welcome for him.
It is the J-20, a radar-evading jet fighter that has the same two angled tailfins that are the trademark of the Pentagon’s own stealth fighter, the F-22 Raptor. After years of top-secret development, the jet — China’s first stealth plane — was put through what appear to be preliminary, but also very public, tests this week on the runway of the Aviation Design Institute in Chengdu, a site so open that aircraft enthusiasts often gather there to snap photos.
Some analysts say the timing is no coincidence. “This is their new policy of deterrence,” Andrei Chang, the Hong Kong editor in chief of the Canadian journal Kanwa Defense Weekly, who reported the jet’s tests, said Wednesday. “They want to show the U. S., show Mr. Gates, their muscle.”
These days, there is more muscle to show. A decade of aggressive modernization of China’s once creaky military is beginning to bear fruit, and both the Pentagon and China’s Asian neighbors are increasingly taking notice.
By most accounts, China remains a generation or more behind the United States in military technology, and even further behind in deploying battle-tested versions of its most sophisticated naval and air capabilities. But after years of denials that it has any intention of becoming a peer military power of the United States, it is now unveiling capabilities that suggest that it intends, sooner or later, to be able to challenge American forces in the Pacific.
Besides the J-20, a midair-refuelable, missile-capable jet designed to fly far beyond Chinese borders, the Chinese are reported to be refitting a Soviet-era Ukrainian aircraft carrier — China’s first such power-projecting ship — for deployment as soon as next year.
A spate of news reports allege that construction is already under way in Shanghai on one or more carriers; the military denied a similar report in 2006, but senior military officials have been more outspoken this year about China’s desire to build the big ships. China could launch several carriers by 2020, the Pentagon stated in a 2009 report.
The military’s nuclear deterrent, estimated by experts at no more than 160 warheads, has been redeployed since 2008 onto mobile launchers and advanced submarines that no longer are sitting ducks for attackers. Multiple-warhead missiles are widely presumed to come next. China’s 60-boat submarine fleet, already Asia’s largest, is being refurbished with super-quiet nuclear-powered vessels and a second generation of ballistic-missile-equipped subs.
And a widely anticipated antiship ballistic missile, called a “carrier-killer” for its potential to strike the big carriers at the heart of the American naval presence in the Pacific, appears to be approaching deployment. The head of the United States Pacific Command, Adm. Robert F. Willard, told a Japanese newspaper in December that the weapon had reached “initial operational capability,” an important benchmark. Navy officials said later that the Chinese had a working design but that it apparently had yet to be tested over water.
On that and other weaponry, China’s clear message nevertheless is that its ability to deter others from territory it owns, or claims, is growing fast.
China, of course, has its own rationales for its military buildup. A common theme is that potentially offensive weapons like aircraft carriers, antiship missiles and stealth fighters are needed to enforce claims to Taiwan, should leaders there seek legal independence from the mainland.
Taiwan’s current status, governed separately but claimed by China as part of its sovereign territory, is maintained in part by an American commitment to defend it should Beijing carry out an attack. Some experts date elements of today’s military buildup from crises in the mid-1990s, when the United States sent aircraft carriers unmolested into waters around Taiwan to drive home Washington’s commitment to the island.
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Chinese officials also clearly worry that the United States plans to ring China with military alliances to contain Beijing’s ambitions for power and influence. In that view, the Pentagon’s long-term strategy is to cement in Central Asia the sorts of partnerships it has built on China’s eastern flank in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.
“Some Chinese scholars worry that the U. S. will complete its encirclement of China this way,” said Xu Qinhua, who studies Russia and Central Asia at the Renmin University of China and advises government officials on regional issues. “We should worry about this. It’s natural.”
The Pentagon’s official view has long been that it welcomes a stronger Chinese military as a partner with the United States to maintain open sea lanes, fight piracy and perform other international duties now shouldered — and paid for — by American service members and taxpayers.
But Chinese military leaders have seldom offered more than a glimpse of their long-term military strategy, and the steady buildup of a force with offensive abilities well beyond Chinese territory clearly worries American military planners.
“When we talk about a threat, it’s a combination of capabilities and intentions,” said Abraham M. Denmark, a former China country director in Mr. Gates’s office. “The capabilities are becoming more and more clearly defined, and they’re more and more clearly targeted at limiting American abilities to project military power into the western Pacific.”
“What’s unclear to us is the intent,” he added. “China’s military modernization is certainly their right. What others question is how that military power is going to be used.”
Mr. Denmark, who now directs the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, said China’s recent strong-arm reaction to territorial disputes with Japan and Southeast Asian neighbors had given both the Pentagon and China’s neighbors cause for concern.
Still, a top Navy intelligence officer told reporters in Washington on Wednesday that the United States should not overestimate Beijing’s military prowess and that China had not yet demonstrated an ability to use its different weapons systems together in proficient warfare. The officer, Vice Adm. David J. Dorsett, the deputy chief of naval operations for information dominance, said that although China had developed some weapons faster than the United States expected, he was not alarmed over all.
“Have you seen them deploy large groups of naval forces?” he said. “No. Have we seen large, joint, sophisticated exercises? No. Do they have any combat proficiency? No.”
Admiral Dorsett said that even though the Chinese were planning sea trials on a “used, very old” Russian aircraft carrier this year and were intent on building their own carriers as well, they would still have limited proficiency in landing planes on carriers and operating them as part of larger battle groups at sea.
Little about China’s military intentions is clear. The Pentagon’s 2009 assessment of China’s military strategy stated baldly that despite “persistent efforts,” its understanding of how and how much China’s government spends on defense “has not improved measurably.”
In an interview on Wednesday, a leading Chinese expert on the military, Zhu Feng, said he viewed some claims of rapid progress on advanced weapons as little more than puffery.
“What’s the real story?” he asked in a telephone interview. “I must be very skeptical. I see a lot of vast headlines with regards to weapons procurement. But behind the curtain, I see a lot of wasted money — a lot of ballooning, a lot of exaggeration.”
Mr. Zhu, who directs the international security program at Peking University, suggested that China’s military establishment — not unlike that in the United States — was inclined to inflate threats and exaggerate its progress in a continual bid to win more influence and money for its favored programs.
And that may be true. If so, however, the artifice may be lost on China’s cross-Pacific rivals.
“Ultimately, from a U. S. perspective it comes down to an issue of whether the United States will be as dominant in the western Pacific as we always have been,” Bonnie Glaser, a China scholar at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a telephone interview. “And clearly the Chinese would like to make it far more complicated for us.”
“That’s something the Chinese would see as reasonable,” she said. “But from a U. S. perspective, that’s just unacceptable.”
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Crafty,
A lot of downplaying about Chinese military build up in the press. It is obvious China is positioning itself to dominate the East. While we cut our nuclear sub ballistic capability and our bombers with Start China continues to steal military secrets and build up their military. Yet our politically correct MSM decides that the big issue is humorous gay bashing by our aircraft carrier commander. :cry: The Chinese have to be laughing as hard as possible behind closed doors.
They are slowly but surely wiping the floor and catching up to us while the media is focused on gays and hollywood celebrities feelings. And the ONE has feminized our military commanders. They are no longer warriors. They come across as mothers.
***Monday, July 26, 2010. (AP Photo/Yonhap, Lee Jung-joon) By Bill Gertz
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The Washington Times
2:26 p.m., Monday, December 27, 2010
China's military is deploying a new anti-ship ballistic missile that can sink U.S. aircraft carriers, a weapon that specialists say gives Beijing new power-projection capabilities that will affect U.S. support for its Pacific allies.
Adm. Robert F. Willard, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, disclosed to a Japanese newspaper on Sunday that the new anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) is now in the early stages of deployment after having undergone extensive testing.
"An analogy using a Western term would be 'initial operational capability (IOC),' whereby I think China would perceive that it has an operational capability now, but they continue to develop it," Adm. Willard told the Asahi Shimbun. "I would gauge it as about the equivalent of a U.S. system that has achieved IOC."
The four-star admiral, who has been an outspoken skeptic of China's claims that its large-scale military buildup is peaceful, said the U.S. deployment assessment is based on China's press reports and continued testing.
The new weapon, the "D" version of China's DF-21 medium-range missile, involves firing the mobile missile into space, returning it into the atmosphere and then maneuvering it to its target
Military officials consider using ballistic missiles against ships at sea to be a difficult task that requires a variety of air, sea and space sensors, navigation systems and precision guidance technology - capabilities not typical of other Chinese missiles.
Asked about the integrated system, Adm. Willard said that "to have something that would be regarded as in its early operational stage would require that system be able to accomplish its flight pattern as designed, by and large."
The admiral said that while the U.S. thinks "that the component parts of the anti-ship ballistic missile have been developed and tested," China's testing has not gone as far as a live-fire test attack on an actual ship.
"We have not seen an over-water test of the entire system," he said.
Adm. Willard said he did not view the new missile as a greater threat to U.S. and allied forces than China's submarine forces, which also have been expanded greatly in the past decade.
"Anti-access/area denial, which is a term that was relatively recently coined, is attempting to represent an entire range of capabilities that China has developed and that other countries have developed," he said.
"It´s not exclusively China that has what is now being referred to as A2/AD capability. But in China´s case, it´s a combination of integrated air-defense systems; advanced naval systems, such as the submarine; advanced ballistic-missile systems, such as the anti-ship ballistic missile, as well as power-projection systems into the region," he said.
The new weapons can threaten "archipelagos" in Asia, such as Japan and Philippines, as well as Vietnam and other states that "are falling within the envelope of this, of an A2/AD capability of China," Adm. Willard said.
"That should be concerning - and we know is concerning - to those countries," he said.
Adm. Willard said the new weapons are "an expanded capability that ranges beyond the first island chain and overlaps countries in the region."
"For that reason, it is concerning to Southeast Asia, [and] it remains concerning to the United States."
Andrew S. Erickson, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, said the admiral's comments on the missile deployment confirm earlier reports that the Chinese are moving ahead with the DF-21D missile.
"China must have conducted a rigorous program of tests, most likely including flight tests, to demonstrate that the DF-21D [missile] is mature enough for initial production, deployment and employment," Mr. Erickson said in an e-mail.
Mr. Erickson estimates that at least one unit of China's Second Artillery Corps, as its missile forces are called, must be equipped with the road-mobile system.
"While doubtless an area of continuous challenge and improvement, the DF-21D´s command, control, communications, computers, information, surveillance, and reconnaissance infrastructure must be sufficient to support attempts at basic carrier strike group targeting," he said.
Mr. Erickson said, based on Chinese missile-deployment patterns, that the new missile system likely will be fielded in "waves" at different units to meet deterrence objectives.
Military specialists have said the DF-21D deployment is a potent new threat because it will force U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups to operate farther from hot spots in the western Pacific.
Currently, U.S. military strategy calls for the Pentagon to send several strike groups to waters near Taiwan in the event China follows through on threats to use force to retake the island. The lone U.S. aircraft carrier strike group based permanently in the region is the USS George Washington, whose home port is inYokosuka, Japan. A second carrier is planned for Hawaii or Guam.
Carrier forces also provide air power in the event of a new war in Korea and are used to assure freedom of navigation, a growing problem as the result of recent Chinese military assertiveness in the South China Sea, East China Sea and Yellow Sea.
Adm. Willard did not discuss what U.S. countermeasures the Navy has taken against the new anti-ship missile. U.S. naval task forces include ships equipped with the Aegis system designed to shoot down ballistic missiles.
Wallace "Chip" Gregson, assistant defense secretary for Asian and Pacific security affairs, said in a speech earlier this month that China's new anti-access and area-denial weapons, including the DF-21D, "threaten our primary means of projecting power: our bases, our sea and air assets, and the networks that support them."
He warned that China's military buildup could "upend the regional security balance."
Richard Fisher, a China military-affairs specialist, said the new ASBM is only one part of a series of new Chinese weapons that threaten the region.
"When we add the ASBM to the PLA's [People's Liberation Army's] growing anti-satellite capabilities, growing numbers of submarines, and quite soon, its fifth-generation fighter, we are seeing the erection of a new Chinese wall in the western Pacific, for which the Obama administration has offered almost nothing in defensive response," Mr. Fisher said.
"Clearly, China's communist leadership is not impressed by the administration's ending of F-22 production, its retirement of the Navy's nuclear cruise missile, START Treaty reductions in U.S. missile warheads, and its refusal to consider U.S. space warfare capabilities. Such weakness is the surest way to invite military adventurism from China," he added.
Mr. Fisher said the Pentagon should mount a crash program to develop high-technology energy weapons, like rail guns and lasers in response to the new ASBMs.
Mark Stokes, a retired Air Force officer who has written extensively on the new missile, said the new deployment is a concern.
"China's ability to place at risk U.S. and other nations' maritime surface assets operating in the western Pacific and South China Sea is growing and closer to becoming a reality than many may think," Mr. Stokes said.
© Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
About the AuthorBill Gertz
Bill Gertz is geopolitics editor and a national security and investigative reporter for The Washington Times. He has been with The Times since 1985.
He is the author of six books, four of them national best-sellers. His latest book, “The Failure Factory,” on government bureaucracy and national security, was published in September 2008.***
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Although expressed briefly, the point about BO neutering our space advantage is pivotal and profound IMHO.
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Yup.
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BEIJING — The Pentagon is stepping up investments in a range of weapons, jet fighters and technology in response to the Chinese military buildup in the Pacific, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Saturday on the eve of his visit to Beijing.
Despite billions of dollars in proposed Pentagon budget cuts that Mr. Gates announced this past week, he said that the Chinese development of its first radar-evading fighter jet, as well as an antiship ballistic missile that could hit American aircraft carriers, had persuaded him to make improvements in American weaponry a priority.
“They clearly have potential to put some of our capabilities at risk, and we have to pay attention to them, we have to respond appropriately with our own programs,” Mr. Gates said.
At the same time Mr. Gates doused China’s proud rollout this past week of its new stealth fighter jet, the J-20, saying that even though it was a matter for concern, there “is some question about just how stealthy” it is.
Mr. Gates made his comments to reporters before arriving Sunday night in Beijing, where he is on a three-day visit for talks with Chinese generals and President Hu Jintao that are meant to promote a more open and stable relationship between the American and Chinese militaries.
It is unclear what effect Mr. Gates’s comments will have on the talks, which are occurring a week before President Hu is to meet with President Obama in Washington.
The American weapons that Mr. Gates was referring to included investments in a new long-range nuclear-capable bomber aircraft, which the Pentagon had stopped developing in 2009, as well as a new generation of electronic jammers for the Navy that are designed to thwart a missile from finding and hitting a target. At a Pentagon briefing on Thursday, Mr. Gates said that the jammers would improve the Navy’s ability to “fight and survive” in waters where it is challenged.
Mr. Gates was also referring to continued investment in the Joint Strike Fighter, the Pentagon’s newest radar-evading fighter jet.
The Pentagon provided no estimate on Saturday of the total cost of the three programs or others meant to counter the Chinese buildup in the Pacific.
Although Pentagon officials say that China is a generation or more behind the United States in military technology, Mr. Gates said he has been worried about the Chinese buildup in his four years as defense secretary. And acknowledged that the Pentagon and intelligence agencies had underestimated how quickly the Chinese could act.
“We’ve been watching these developments all along,” Mr. Gates said.
“I’ve been concerned about the development of the antiship cruise and ballistic missiles ever since I took this job,” he added. “We knew they were working on a stealth aircraft. I think that what we’ve seen is that they may be somewhat further ahead in the development of that aircraft than our intelligence had earlier predicted.”
Mr. Gates said he hoped his talks with Chinese leaders would reduce the need for more American weaponry in the Pacific. He also said that if Chinese leaders considered the United States a declining power because of the financial crisis, they were wrong.
“I’ve watched this sort of cyclical view of American decline come around two or three times, perhaps most dramatically in the latter half of the 1970s,” Mr. Gates said. “And my general line for those both at home and around the world who think the U.S. is in decline is that history’s dustbins are filled with countries that underestimated the resilience of the United States.”
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BEIJING — China’s military conducted a test flight of a new stealth fighter jet on Tuesday, overshadowing an important visit to Beijing by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates aimed at improving defense ties — and apparently catching China’s civilian leadership off guard.
Staging the test flight of the long-secret J-20 while Mr. Gates was in Beijing amounted to an unusually bold show of force by China. But the demonstration also raised questions about the degree of civilian control of the Chinese military, as President Hu Jintao and other civilian leaders gave their American visitors the impression that they were unaware that the test had been conducted only hours before they received Mr. Gates at the Great Hall of the People.
A senior American defense official said that when Mr. Gates asked Mr. Hu to discuss the test it was evident to the Americans that the Chinese leader and his top civilian advisers were startled by the query and were unprepared to answer him. Photos of the flight of the radar-evading J-20 had been prominently posted on unofficial Chinese military Web sites a few hours before the meeting.
"The civilian leadership seemed surprised by the test," Mr. Gates told reporters on Wednesday morning in Mutianyu, during a visit to the Great Wall outside Beijing.
In remarks to reporters on Tuesday in Beijing, Mr. Gates said that Mr. Hu did acknowledge the test, apparently later in the same meeting, and that he assured Mr. Gates that it “had absolutely nothing to do with my visit.”
Asked if he truly believed that, Mr. Gates said, “I take President Hu at his word.”
But he said the episode also underscored concerns that the Chinese military might sometimes act independently of the country’s political leadership, a growing worry of American defense officials who say they do not know the real goals of the secretive Chinese armed forces. “I’ve had concerns about this over time,” Mr. Gates said.
Chinese officials provided only a brief summary of the meeting between Mr. Gates and Mr. Hu and did not address the perception by Pentagon officials that Mr. Hu had not been informed of the test.
A Hong Kong-based expert on the Chinese military, Andrei Chang, said in a telephone interview that the Chinese stealth fighter, which has the same two angled tailfins that are the trademark of the Pentagon’s own stealth fighter, the F-22 Raptor, flew for about 15 minutes over an airfield in the city of Chengdu. Photos of the jet in flight also appeared on a computer bulletin board run by Global Times, a state-run newspaper known for its hawkish positions.
The J-20, a midair-refuelable, missile-capable jet designed to fly far beyond China’s borders, was for years kept in top-secret development by the Chinese. American officials said they saw the test flight as a provocative display of muscle by China’s military but were unsure for whom the show was meant: Mr. Gates, Mr. Hu or both.
As China’s No. 1 leader, Mr. Hu heads the Central Military Commission, the top military body, as well as the Communist Party. But aside from Xi Jinping, China’s vice president and Mr. Hu’s heir apparent, who recently joined the commission, Mr. Hu is the only civilian official who has authority over the sprawling and increasingly well-financed military bureaucracy. It is not clear to what extent he exercises day-to-day control of military activities.
Some American officials speculated that the test flight was meant in part as an act of defiance against Mr. Hu, who has ordered the Chinese military to try to smooth over years of rocky relations with the Pentagon. Mr. Gates made the trip here at the invitation of Mr. Hu, who is to meet with President Obama at the White House next week and by all accounts is eager for his American visit to be a success.
Joseph S. Nye Jr., a Harvard professor and a former assistant secretary of defense who was in Beijing on Tuesday for a conference on United States-China relations, said it was not a complete surprise to him that Mr. Hu appeared uninformed of the test flight. “The Chinese military often sets its own agenda on day-to-day operations without political approval,” he said.
It is not the first time the Chinese military has operated in its own sphere. In 2007, Bush administration officials said they were unable to get the most basic diplomatic response from China after their detection of a successful Chinese missile test to destroy a satellite, and were uncertain whether China’s top leaders, including Mr. Hu, were fully aware of the test before it occurred.
The rapidly modernizing Chinese military, which has increasingly challenged the United States Navy in Pacific waters, first rolled out the plane last week, in what was regarded as a tough-minded welcome to Mr. Gates before he even arrived.
Mr. Gates, however, reacted by playing down the spectacle. In comments to reporters on his plane en route to Beijing, he questioned “just how stealthy” the Chinese fighter really was, then said the Pentagon was stepping up investments in a range of weapons, jet fighters and technology in response to the J-20 and other aspects of the Chinese military buildup in the Pacific.
The airborne debut of the J-20 capped a series of recent tests that resembled at times a celebration of the nation’s growing military and technological might.
In a string of demonstrations last week at an aviation center in Chengdu, in central China, the fighter taxied down a runway on Wednesday, then reappeared on Thursday for another high-speed runway test, almost taking off before parachutes popped out and slowed it to a halt.
That test was watched by a crowd of luminaries ferried to the site in a Boeing 737, according to Mr. Chang, the military expert. On Friday, two planeloads of officials watched another runway test, this time staging a ceremony and snapping pictures of themselves with the test pilot. Yet another large crowd witnessed Tuesday’s first flight, Mr. Chang said.
Such military high-fives must be measured against the long road the J-20 almost certainly must travel. The F-22 Raptor was conceived in 1981, took its first test flight in 1990, and did not enter operational service until 2004.
The Pentagon ordered four F-22 prototypes built to speed development. As far as is known, the Chinese have built two. Mr. Chang estimated that it could be a decade before China’s stealth plane enters production.
In that sense, the hoopla surrounding the tests — both inside and outside China — suggests that the symbolism of Tuesday’s flight may considerably outweigh its immediate significance.
Pentagon officials have more forcefully pushed the Chinese military to be less secretive about its intent and its weapons. Chinese military experts noted that at the very least, the test flight was transparent.
At the Great Wall, Mr. Gates stood in the cold sunshine framed by China’s attempt to repel foreign invaders and said that the commander of China’s nuclear missile forces, General Jing Zhiyuan, had accepted his invitation to visit the United States Strategic Command in Nebraska.
Mr. Gates said that no date had been set but held it out as an example of a small step of progress.
David E. Sanger contributed reporting.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jan/12/era-of-owned-by-china
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By SUDEEP REDDY
A worthy read BD.
Here's this, which may bear watching:
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WASHINGTON—The Export-Import Bank of the U.S. is taking on China's export machine, in a deal designed as a model for developed nations to challenge China in markets around the world.
In a move crafted with White House involvement, the U.S. export-financing agency agreed for the first time to match China's cheaper financing terms to get the Pakistan government to buy 150 General Electric Co. locomotives.
.The financing terms for the $477 million deal required the U.S. to work with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a multilateral organization that monitors export-financing terms by developed countries—but not by China—to attempt to provide a level playing field.
The move is one of several challenges the Obama administration has made to China, the world's largest exporter, as its president, Hu Jintao, prepares to visit Washington next week.
"They're winning deals in part because they're not playing by the rules," Ex-Im Bank Chairman Fred Hochberg said in an interview. "This says: We're not going to sit idly by and let you buy business. We will compete and make sure you stand toe to toe with American companies and American workers."
The Ex-Im Bank deal is one of several steps the Obama administration has taken to pursue its goal of doubling U.S. exports over five years. The U.S. and other governments have been pressing China to let its currency appreciate, which would make Chinese exports more expensive. The administration also has brought complaints against China at the World Trade Organization, most recently challenging Chinese subsidies for production of wind-power equipment.
"Anytime the U.S. wins a trade case…it opens the door for other countries," said Eswar Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell University and former head of the International Monetary Fund's China division. "It opens the floodgates for other countries and it emboldens other countries to act more forcefully against China." But, he added, "how far you can push that strategy remains to be seen."
The Pakistan deal was seen as a key test case by the Ex-Im Bank, which financed $25 billion of exports in the fiscal year that ended in September 2010. China's export-financing arm has ramped up in the past decade to support its exports. U.S. officials estimate that the Chinese agency already finances more than the total export financing of the Group of Seven industrialized nations combined.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington didn't immediately respond to requests to comment.
View Full Image
Bloomberg News
A General Electric plant in Erie, Pa., pictured, will manufacture the locomotives for Pakistan Railways. The deal, expected to support about 700 jobs in the U.S., fits with the goal of increasing American exports.
.Pakistan had indicated its interest in buying locomotives made by GE if the U.S. matched China's financing terms, which were sweeter than those allowed by the OECD agreement. The Chinese railcars were 30% to 50% cheaper than the GE products, but U.S. officials said Pakistan wanted the American equipment.
"The underlying premise has been that we ought to let products compete on their own merits, their own quality, their own value, and not let financing be a distorting factor," Mr. Hochberg said. China, not an OECD member, has long operated outside the group's agreed-upon terms. "Tolerance of that began to wear thin over the last 18 months," Mr. Hochberg said.
Early last year, the Ex-Im board agreed to finance about $437 million of the deal under a 12-year loan. It would carry a lending rate, tied to Treasury bond yields, that is now about 3% and an exposure fee of 8.2%. Ex-Im Bank notified the OECD, and officials said other OECD members encouraged the bank to move forward as a challenge to China's practices. The locomotives, which Pakistan's government plans to buy over two years, will be manufactured in Erie, Pa. The deal, expected to support about 700 U.S. jobs, has been approved by Pakistan pending a review by its Supreme Court.
"We are pleased that Ex-Im Bank offered fair, competitive and transparent financing to Pakistan Railways in support of GE's proposal," GE said in a statement Tuesday. "Ex-Im Bank's financing creates a level playing field for U.S. companies to compete and, ultimately, lays the foundation to sustain existing and to create new U.S. high-tech manufacturing jobs."
Officials at the U.S. Treasury, State Department, Commerce Department and White House were involved in striking the deal with Pakistan, which is important to U.S. strategic interests.
Last month, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited Pakistan and promised billions of dollars in infrastructure spending. The Chinese are building rail and road links from Xinjiang down through Kashmir to the Arabian Sea, and also financed the port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea coast, through grants and concessional financing. Pakistan imports more than twice as much in goods from China annually as it does from the U.S. The U.S. has reoriented its aid in Pakistan to focus more on infrastructure, in part to challenge China. That has antagonized India, which is especially angered by the Kashmir rail link through disputed territory. The U.S. hopes its new focus will help influence Pakistan to be more pliable in fighting Taliban militants and help boost the U.S.'s image with Pakistanis.
The Chinese are expected to try to avoid embarrassment in the Hu-Obama meeting next week, and the Obama administration is expected to play on that to press China for changes in trade, foreign exchange and national-security policies. But thus far China's military has rebuffed U.S. calls for regular high-level defense talks.
In the U.S., the administration isn't the only player setting the tone. On Tuesday, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a panel created by Congress that often takes a hard line on China, said growing Chinese strength in telecommunications could pose a danger for the U.S. "This greater potential role for China has generated concerns regarding corresponding potential national security implications of manufacturing and investment by China's telecommunications companies," its report said.
At least one House panel, the Foreign Affairs Committee, is considering holding hearings during Mr. Hu's visit on China's human rights, economic and foreign exchange practices.
—Bob Davis and Tom Wright contributed to this article.
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As always, Wesbury offers thinking worth the consideration. This piece could be posted in other threads as well, but I put it here because, , , well, because I had to choose :-)
Monday Morning Outlook
China and the Dollar To view this article, Click Here
Brian S. Wesbury - Chief Economist
Robert Stein, CFA - Senior Economist
Date: 1/18/2011
Chinese leader Hu Jintao visits the US this week. Getting past the public
pleasantries, our leaders will have much to say behind closed doors. On economic
issues, the focus will be on monetary policy, particularly the role of the US
dollar, the RMB/$ exchange rate, and the recent jump in China’s inflation.
On the issue of the US dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency, we
think the critical comments out of China – as well as other comments from
France, Russia, and the Middle East – are just bluster.
Countries that do not have a gold standard – which, at this point in history,
includes all of them – must still back their currencies with something. These
“reserves” create confidence. The Federal Reserve typically uses US
Treasury securities as reserves, although it also holds many mortgage-backed
securities these days. The Fed makes a profit on these holdings and turns them over
to the government. The European Central Bank also holds the sovereign debt of its
member countries and turns their earnings over to member governments.
Emerging market central banks have a choice of what to hold as reserves, and they
will always make the one that maximizes earnings and creates the most confidence in
their currencies. That’s why China links its currency to the dollar and holds
mostly US Treasury debt as reserves.
No one forces a foreign central bank to buy US Treasury debt. Each country would
prefer to have their central bank buy their own local government debt as reserves.
But who would trust these currencies if they were backed up by local government
debt? Imagine Thailand trying to encourage the use of its currency if it was backed
only by Thai government debt. And if fewer people held the currency, the central
bank would generate lower profits to hand over to the government.
In other words, the international role of the dollar is a by-product of
profit-seeking central banks pursuing their own self-interest. And that’s not
going to change anytime soon. There is simply no other instrument issued by anyone
that has the liquidity and certainty of payment of US Treasury debt.
Moreover, as emerging markets keep growing, their central banks will issue more
local currency, which will continue to elevate the demand for Treasury debt. So
while other countries must learn to accept the US dollar’s role, Americans
must learn to accept that, over time, the share of our debt owned by foreigners is
likely to keep rising. And, that the demand for US debt helps generate large US
trade deficits.
Many assume large foreign ownership of US debt makes the US vulnerable to foreign
governments. We think the vulnerability is the other way around. For example, the US
could protect Taiwan with its Navy. Or, instead, the US could send a message that
any attack would mean no payments on our debt to the attacking country until it
withdraws and makes reparations. The US did something similar when World War II
began. No wonder Hu Jintao told the Washington Post “the current international
currency system is a product of the past.” China realizes it’s
vulnerable. But, any major changes are decades in the future. The dollar will remain
the world’s reserve currency for a long time to come.
This does not mean the dollar cannot lose value. The yuan can strengthen as China
continues to emerge from Mao’s Communist tyranny. Since mid-2010, the yuan has
gained 3.5% versus the dollar, which adds to the 17.4% appreciation that occurred
between mid-2005 and mid-2008.
We think this trend will continue. It has to. The US is running a very loose
monetary policy, and because China links to the dollar it is experiencing rising
inflation. Commodity prices, like oil, are rising rapidly and China, which imports
lots of commodities for processing into consumer goods, is feeling that inflationary
pain before it hits home in the US. Letting the yuan gain versus the dollar is one
way for China to ease the pain from the Fed’s overly loose monetary policy.
It’s also a way for China to enhance the purchasing power of its workers and
companies.
The US should not take this week’s visit as an opportunity to lecture the
Chinese about the yuan. If we do, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke may find himself on the
receiving end of a lecture about the importance of price stability and how to run a
central bank. And he would deserve it.
This information contains forward-looking statements about various economic trends
and strategies. You are cautioned that such forward-looking statements are subject
to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and actual results
could be materially different. There are no guarantees associated with any forecast
and the opinions stated here are subject to change at any time and are the opinion
of the individual strategist. Data comes from the following sources: Census Bureau,
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Federal Reserve Board,
and Haver Analytics. Data is taken from sources generally believed to be reliable
but no guarantee is given to its accuracy.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/257501/stain-upon-american-honor-jay-nordlinger
A Stain Upon the American Honor
January 19, 2011 1:10 P.M.
By Jay Nordlinger
The Associated Press begins a story, “Chinese leader Hu Jintao is being feted in Washington this week with a lavish state banquet at the White House and other pomp usually reserved for close friends and allies . . .” Here is another passage, from later in the story:
“For the protocol-obsessed Chinese leadership, a highlight of the visit will be Wednesday’s state banquet — an honor denied Hu on his last trip to the White House in 2006. President George W. Bush thought state banquets should be reserved for allies and like-minded powers and instead gave Hu a lunch.”
Yes, that’s how a decent nation should treat a police state — lunch, at most.
The AP continues, “Even worse” — i.e., even worse than the insult of a mere lunch — “a member of Falun Gong, the spiritual movement banned by China, disrupted Hu and Bush’s joint appearance . . .”
“Worse”? Not in my book. That Falun Gong member’s “disruption” was just about the only ray of truth in that entire state visit. Hu’s government “disrupts” the lives of Falun Gong practitioners by kidnapping them, throwing them into camps and cells, and torturing them to death. I read reports of this every single week.
Here is a passage from a Bloomberg report: “While former President George W. Bush met with Hu in the U.S., the session wasn’t accorded the status of a state visit. That trip was marred by a demonstrator who criticized persecution of the Falun Gong religious group at Hu’s welcome ceremony at the White House.”
“Marred”? “Marred”? The demonstrator redeemed the whole awful affair: the head of a police state being received by the greatest democracy in the world.
China, to remind you, is a country with a gulag (laogai). The Chinese government is a regime that imprisons and tortures some of the most admirable people in all the world: the human-rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, for one. What he has endured is unimaginable, not to mention unendurable, by most people. The 2010 Nobel peace laureate, Liu Xiaobo, sits in prison, while his wife is under house arrest.
There were two other Nobel peace laureates blocked from going to Oslo to collect their prize: Carl von Ossietzky, a political prisoner of the Nazis; and Andrei Sakharov, the heroic physicist-dissident in the Soviet Union. (Lech Walesa and Aung San Suu Kyi were different cases, as I’ve explained in the past. They could have gone, but did not want to run the risk of being prevented from returning home.) The Chinese Communists have well earned their position with the Nazis and the Soviets.
The demands of “realpolitik” do not include a “lavish state banquet,” to borrow the AP’s words. George W. Bush did not bow to the Chinese Communists in this way. (Remember, Obama has literally bowed to the Chinese.) He gave them a lunch. Sino-American relations proceeded normally in his eight years.
Let me get a little corny on you: America is a nation that’s supposed to stand for something — for freedom, and human dignity, above all. We’re not supposed to be like every other nation. We’re supposed to be exceptional. Different. A beacon unto man.
I’m not a babe in the woods, and I understand the necessity of getting along in a wicked world. But we don’t have to abase ourselves as we are doing now. We should not be honoring the PRC boss. We should be honoring, and standing with, the men and women in the camps and the cells. Are we America? (Does this sort of talk make you gag?) What is America? What are we supposed to celebrate on the Fourth of July? Is it just an excuse for fireworks and a picnic?
American honor has been stained this week. A degree of shame rests upon this nation. We should hope that the prisoners and the strugglers — who want nothing more than what you and I are damn lucky to have — forgive us.
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jan/19/usacross-out-usa-china-1/
''If China becomes the world's No. 1 nation ... ." That was the headline in the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, The People's Daily, on the eve of Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit to Washington. The article went on to boast how "China's emergence is increasingly shifting to debate over how the world will treat China, which is the world No. 1 and has overtaken the U.S."
A story like this does not appear by accident in the official Chinese Communist Party newspaper on the eve of a state visit to the world's (current) No. 1 power, the United States.
It was a signal. The latest and boldest signal yet that China intends to become the world's No. 1 power.
President Obama took the occasion of his first visit to China to show "humility" and to assure his Shanghai audience that "we do not seek to contain China's rise."
The Chinese communists are taking the occasion of their first visit to the Obama White House - not to show humility, as Mr. Obama did to them - but to openly show their clear intention to dominate the world from the Middle Kingdom.
As Constantine Menges wrote in "China: The Gathering Threat," "In the traditional Chinese view, the world needs a hegemon - or dominant state - to prevent disorder. The communist Chinese regime believes China should be that hegemon." Traditionally, the Chinese communists have cloaked their hegemonic ambitions under the guidance of the late Deng Xiaoping to "keep a cool head and maintain a low profile. Never take the lead - but aim to do something big."
But in early 2010, cool heads and low profiles gave way to a senior People's Liberation Army officer openly calling for "China to abandon modesty about its global goals and sprint to become world No. 1," adding that "China's big goal in the 21st century is to become world No. 1, the top power."
Now we have the official state paper of the Chinese Communist Party openly discussing "China as the world's top nation" on the eve of China's state visit to the Obama White House. Why is this happening? And why now?
When Mr. Obama "arrived in China ... as a fiscal supplicant, not the leader of the free world," as stated in the Times Online, and bowed down to their communist premier, the Chinese communists took the president's gestures as the signs of weakness they were, and quickly made "radical departures from late patriarch Deng Xiaoping's famous diplomatic credo of 'adopting a low profile and never taking the lead' in international affairs" by unveiling China's new "ambitious agenda" to assume a more powerful stance on the world stage and "to become world No. 1, the top power," according to the Asia Times.
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Of all the differences between dictatorship and democracy, probably none is so overlooked as the ability of the former to project strength, and the penchant of the latter to obsess about its own weakness.
In 1957 the Soviets launched Sputnik and the U.S. went into a paroxysm of nerves about our supposed backwardness in matters ballistic. Throughout the 1980s Americans lived with "Japan as Number One" (the title of a book by Harvard professor Ezra Vogel, though the literature was extensive) and wondered whether Mitsubishi's purchase of Rockefeller Center qualified as a threat to American sovereignty.
Now there's China, whose President is visiting the U.S. this week amid a new bout of American hypochondria. In an op-ed last week in these pages, Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center noted that a plurality of Americans, 47%, are under the erroneous impression that China is the world's leading economy. News reports regarding Chinese military strides, or the academic prowess of Shanghai high school students, contribute to Western perceptions of Chinese ascendancy. So does the false notion that Beijing's holdings of U.S. debt amounts to a sword of Damocles over Washington's head.
Oh, we nearly forgot: Tough-as-nails Chinese mothers are raising child prodigies (a billion of them!) while their Western counterparts indulge their kids with lessons in finger-painting.
We'll leave it to others to debate the merits of Tiger-style mothering, except to say that the overnight success of Amy Chua's book fits the pattern of democratic fretting over our own perceived shortcomings. Such fretting does have its uses. Free societies that constantly adapt to swings in political opinion, innovations in the marketplace, evolving tastes and norms and the arrival of new neighbors are societies that almost never crack. Ours hasn't since Fort Sumter was bombarded 150 years ago this April.
Global View columnist Bret Stephens and Mary Kissel of the editorial board on Hu Jintao's visit to the U.S.
Slideshow: China's Dissidents Then again, it's a thin line between healthy self-criticism and neurotic—or opportunistic—self-loathing. The rise of China combines economic opportunities for the U.S. with competitive and strategic challenges. At a minimum, it's an occasion to pull up our collective socks and rethink some welfare-state attitudes about work, investment, entitlements and spending. The 112th Congress seems ready to do that by voting to repeal ObamaCare, and even President Obama is bowing to some economic sense.
If China's rise presents any immediate danger, it's the risk that it might cause Americans to ignore the sources of our strength. For all of China's genuine successes, there's an even greater dose of exaggeration—the product of a political system long adept at hiding its weaknesses to strangers.
China remains an underdeveloped country, its economy barely one-third the size of America's. Its leaders live in fear of peasant revolts, ethnic separatists, underground religious movements, political dissidents and the free flow of information. Its economy remains profoundly hobbled by corruption, inefficient state-owned enterprises and an immature banking system. (See Joseph Sternberg nearby.)
There is no genuine rule of law and its regulatory environment has become increasingly unpredictable for foreign investors and local entrepreneurs. It suffers from an aging population and environmental damage Americans wouldn't tolerate. Its greatest comparative advantage—cheap labor—is under strain from rising domestic wages and competition from places like Vietnam and Bangladesh.
Above all, China suffers from an absence of self-correcting mechanisms, beginning at the top with its authoritarian political system. And while it can trumpet achievements like a stealth fighter or bullet trains—some based on pilfered designs—it has a harder time adjusting to failure, much less admitting to it.
None of this strikes us as a particularly worthy model for the U.S. to emulate, and it's worth noting how few of China's neighbors seem eager to embrace its leadership. But it does seem to excite admiration among Western pundits with a soft spot for economic dirigisme and technocratic politics. That, too, is an old debate, one the technocrats always lose.
As Reagan showed in the 1980s, nothing cures a national funk as well or as quickly as a revival of economic growth. The U.S. has work to do to repair the damage of the last four years, but as always our fate is in our hands, not China's.
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Just as complacency kills on a personal level, it does on the national level as well. Every criticism of China listed above is true, at the same time, the US, as well as the rest of the west is busy committing slow motion suicide. The 21st. century will require that we remain the technological leader, but we are falling behind. India and China are hungry and motivated while we gut the values that put us where we are.
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I took the underlying point to be more a matter of we should not be looking to emulate them, that we should be who we are. Properly understood, being who we are rejects His Glibness and the Progressives too.
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Our disfunctional education system (ruined by the marxists) is creating a generation that will have their asses handed to them by asia.
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Unfortunately that seems to be true.
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http://althouse.blogspot.com/2011/01/2009-nobel-peace-prize-winner-hosted.html
"The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Winner hosted a dinner for the guy holding the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Winner in prison..."
"... and the media does not get the irony of this at all."
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I heard that contrast noted my someone earlier today. Whoever it was went on to note that the honor of a state dinner usually goes to a few close friends.
The mindboggling naivete and general pussiness of our Commander in Chief is doing damage for which we are going to pay dearly for a very long time.
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Alexander's Essay – January 20, 2011
U.S. v Red China, Version 3.0
"[Confinement] to a passive commerce would [compel us] to see the profits of our trade snatched from us, to enrich our enemies and persecutors. [Our] spirit of enterprise ... an inexhaustible mine of national wealth, would be stifled and lost; and poverty and disgrace would overspread our country." Alexander Hamilton
Hu Jintao, president of the People's Republic of China (as designated by the central politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, not the Chinese people), arrived in Washington this week for a lavish state soiree with Barack Hussein Obama and company. Hu and Obama will meet eight times, culminating with an extravagant state dinner underwritten by a loan from China.
After China's Olympic coming out party in 2008, Obama kow-towed to Red China with a visit in November 2009. Obama expected Hu to reciprocate in 2010, but the Chinese dictator did not -- a clear signal that Jintao would come here on his own terms in his own time.
It was no small irony that Hu arrived in Washington on a China Air Boeing 747-400, a very large affirmation of U.S. trade relations with China.
Hu's primary objective on this visit is to promote the establishment of a "G-2" partnership, conferring the honor of the new world order upon the two most powerful economies in the world (assuming Europe is not considered one economy, which would demote China to the number three position).
Obama will chatter about human rights, particularly the oppression in Tibet and the imprisonment of dissident Liu Xiaobo, who was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize in absentia because he was "otherwise detained." Expect to hear about the incarceration of human-rights attorney Gao Zhisheng, among countless others. But these concerns are tantamount to watching a few snowflakes in a blizzard. Complaining to Communists about human rights violations is a waste of air.
There will also be talk about the impending environmental catastrophes created by China's economic expansion, and, of course, China's impact on global climate change.
However, U.S. negotiators are rightly more concerned about bilateral trade, the valuation of U.S. and Chinese currencies, Chinese restrictions on export of its natural resources, re-establishment of military-to-military communications, China's substantial military buildup and Beijing's influence in North Korea, where the Chinese plan an economic consortium, undermining U.S. efforts to isolate Pyongyang's dictator, Kim Jong Il.
Hu, however, is more concerned about China's substantial investment in the U.S., a two-edged sword, which is the trillion-dollar gorilla hovering over every other discussions or negotiations between the two nations. The size and strength of that gorilla is a game-changer.
The evolution of U.S./China relations over the last 60 years can be characterized by three distinct eras.
In 1949, a Soviet-inspired Marxist/Stalinist revolution subordinated the Chinese people to the will of a Communist tyrant, Mao Tse-tung. Mao's 25-year reign of terror resulted in the deaths of some 30 million Chinese during his "Great Leap Forward" to centralize China's agricultural production. He also supervised the near-complete eradication of China's cultural and intellectual advances during the "Cultural Revolution" of the 1960s, when his Red Guard murdered more than a million Chinese academic and cultural leaders and exiled the rest to communal farms for "re-education." (Indeed, the Red on the Chinese flags flying in our nation's capital this week is symbolic of horrendous bloodshed.)
During this infamous era of tyranny, the U.S. and Red Chinese governments were Cold War adversaries of the first order.
A second era of U.S.-Sino relations began in 1972, when President Richard Nixon traveled to the People's Republic of China as a first step toward opening diplomatic channels and normalizing relations. This rapprochement was codified over the next three decades with accelerated trade agreements. The strategic aim of these trade arrangements in world markets was to create economic bonds that would deter China from expansionist mischief.
That strategy worked reasonably well until 2008, when Leftist economic policies helped bring about a crisis of confidence in the U.S. economy and a politically fortuitous collapse of the U.S. securities markets. Obama and his socialist bourgeoisie rode that crisis into office.
Subsequently, Red China has underwritten the largest share of Obama's socialist plan for economic recovery, and now holds more than $1 trillion in Treasury debt (about 7 percent of our total outstanding debt). Of course, Obama's plan has accomplished little other than saddling future generations with enormous amounts of debt.
China's U.S. debt holdings have, however, given rise to a new era of relations with China, replacing the Cold War's mutually assured destruction (MAD) nuclear standoff doctrine with a new version of MAD based on an economic standoff doctrine.
Hu says, "We should abandon the zero-sum Cold War mentality." But the power of China's economic leverage can't be understated, and history provides no record of a Communist nation holding such leverage over a Capitalist nation.
The Chinese had no means of attacking North America with nuclear weapons during the Cold War, and they relied on the protective umbrella of the Soviet Union's offensive capabilities. But in this new era, the Chinese have the ability to manipulate their massive U.S. debt holdings; should they cut off their U.S. credit line and/or dump their U.S. securities, it could propel our economy into a tailspin.
Red China is well aware of the cards they hold in this latest era.
Both parties know, however, that should China take any action that is detrimental to the U.S. economy, the result would have dire implications for the welfare of their own economy. There are 1.2 billion Chinese, 800 million of whom are, in effect, slave-laborers in Chinese factories; these laborers receive an economic benefit of about $2,400 per year. If the Chinese Communists want to forestall a national revolution, they must make every effort to improve the standard of living of those laborers or risk widespread civil unrest. Such an improvement will require economic expansion in the range of 10 percent annually -- a daunting task that includes other risks, including runaway inflation. (In 2010, China's GDP grew 10.3 percent.)
"We have an enormous stake in each other's success," Obama proclaimed in yesterday's press conference with Hu. "Nations, including our own, will be more prosperous and more secure when we work together," he said.
Hu concurred, saying, "We both stand to gain from a sound China-U.S. relationship, and lose from confrontation."
However, recall if you will that Red China is still under the oppressive thumb of Hu's Communist regime, and they do not answer to "the People." Mao may be dead, but his iconic image is ubiquitous in both urban and rural China, even appearing on the face of every denomination of Chinese currency. The Russian people tore down statues of V.I. Lenin soon after the collapse of the Soviet empire. The prevalence of Mao's image is a good indication that the Red Chinese government is still alive and well, despite reports of its imminent demise.
Needless to say the Red Chinese government, like all tyrannical regimes, does not handle civil unrest politely, as aptly demonstrated at Tiananmen Square 22 years ago. A likely response to civil discord would be the absorption of unemployed Chinese into the Red Army and service corps, bolstered by a resurgence of Communist nationalism. Predictably, that would be followed by some "creative activity" in the region to take the minds of the Chinese people off their empty stomachs.
Thus, China's rapid military expansion in the Pacific is a looming threat for Australia, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia and, of course, the U.S., as we have critical national interests in the region.
It has been said that "as goes the U.S. economy, there goes the world." The same can now be said of China, and this demands the full and undivided attention of every Western nation.
In the end, however, amid all of the posturing and pretense, the most valuable natural resource that the United States has in limitless quantity is Essential Liberty. Though Obama and his Leftist cadres are doing all they can to constrain that resource, it is the export of Liberty to China that will best protect our own national interests.
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Mark Alexander
Publisher, The Patriot Post
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"The mindboggling naivete and general pussiness of our Commander in Chief is doing damage for which we are going to pay dearly for a very long time."
If you look like food, you will be eaten.
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The Simmering Strategic Clash of U.S.-China Relations
Chinese President Hu Jintao met with U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday for the long-awaited bilateral summit and grand state dinner. The night before, Hu met with Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and National Security Adviser Tom Donilon to discuss strategic issues.
Precious little was novel in Hu’s and Obama’s comments to the press Wednesday, though there were a few points worth noting. Obama stressed that U.S. forward deployment of troops in the Asia-Pacific region brought the stability that was necessary to enable China’s economic rise over the past 30 years — a thinly veiled warning to China against acting as if the United States were an intruder. Obama emphasized, as his generals have, that the United States has a fundamental interest in free and secure passage in international waters in the region, a push against China’s growing military clout in its peripheral seas. But aside from these points, Obama’s tone was relatively meek. Hu, for his part, was also relatively meek. He reiterated the need for ever deepening cooperation — i.e. for the United States not to confront China over disputes — and in particular the need for the United States and China to work multilaterally — i.e. for the United States to not act unilaterally.
“Hence we have an unresolvable strategic clash; tempers are simmering, giving rise to occasional bursts of admonition and threat.”
The lead-up to the summit prepared the world for positivity and good feelings. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, in a speech last week, advertised an optimistic estimate of the growth of U.S. exports to China and seemed relatively satisfied with progress on China’s appreciation of the yuan. Obama echoed Geithner’s points, showing optimism about China as a model market for his national export initiative, and raising, but not harping on, the undervalued currency. Strategic disagreements were not allowed to interfere with the pageantry. Though the United States has warned that North Korea’s ballistic missiles pose a threat to the homeland, implying that China’s lack of willingness to restrain North Korea is extremely serious, nevertheless both sides signaled their agreement on moving toward resuming international negotiations to contain the problem.
Beijing and Washington have good reason to avoid confrontation. Both are overburdened with problems entirely separate from each other. The United States is consumed with the search for jobs while attempting to restore balances of power in the Middle East and South Asia so it can withdraw from these regions. China’s rapid economic growth is becoming more and more difficult to manage, and a slowdown could trigger a powder keg of social discontent. The United States could force an economic crisis on China, and China can, if not force the United States into crisis, at least make its strategic quandary far more complex (for instance by emboldening North Korea or helping Iran cope with sanctions). Hence, despite nationalist factions at home, Washington and Beijing continue to court stability and functionality.
To give an appearance of improving relations, all China need do is let the yuan crawl a bit upward, make a gigantic $45 billion purchase of U.S. goods (a reasonable use of surplus dollars timed to fit the meeting), promise to make U.S. products eligible for government procurement (which does not mean they will always be in fact procured), and launch another of its many (mostly ineffective) crackdowns on intellectual property theft. All the United States needs do is allow some relatively high-tech goods to be sold (though without loosening export restrictions in general) and refrain from imposing sweeping trade tariffs (though retaining the ability to do so any time). And to show the talks are candid, both sides can also offer faint words of criticism on topics like U.S. dollar hegemony or human rights violations.
This is, for the most part, the basis that U.S.-China relations have operated on since the 1970s — deepening economic interdependence coinciding with military standoffishness, and political mediation to keep the balance. The balance is getting harder to maintain because the economic sphere in which they have managed to get along so well is suffering worse strains as China becomes a larger force and the U.S. views it as a more serious competitor. But it is still being maintained.
But the strategic distrust is sharpening inevitably as China grows into its own. Beijing is compelled by its economic development to seek military tools to secure its vital supply lines and defend its coasts, the historic weak point where foreign states have invaded. With each Chinese move to push out from its narrow geographical confines, the United States perceives a military force gaining in ability to block or interfere with U.S. commercial and military passage and access in the region. This violates a core American strategic need — command of the seas and global reach. But China cannot simply reverse course — it cannot and will not simply halt its economic ascent, or leave its economic and social stability vulnerable to external events that it cannot control. Hence we have an unresolvable strategic clash; tempers are simmering, giving rise to occasional bursts of admonition and threat. Yet unresolvable does not mean immediate, and both sides continue to find ways to delay the inevitable and inevitably unpleasant, whether economic or military in nature, confrontation.
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"To give an appearance of improving relations, all China need do is let the yuan crawl a bit upward, make a gigantic $45 billion purchase of U.S. goods (a reasonable use of surplus dollars timed to fit the meeting), promise to make U.S. products eligible for government procurement (which does not mean they will always be in fact procured), and launch another of its many (mostly ineffective) crackdowns on intellectual property theft. All the United States needs do is allow some relatively high-tech goods to be sold (though without loosening export restrictions in general) and refrain from imposing sweeping trade tariffs (though retaining the ability to do so any time). And to show the talks are candid, both sides can also offer faint words of criticism on topics like U.S. dollar hegemony or human rights violations."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2013975730_chinaorder20.html?prmid=related_stories_section
China's 'new' jet orders anything but
The Truth Needle | The big Boeing order from China trumpeted during Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit to the White House is actually a re-announcement of previous orders.
By Dominic Gates
The claim: A White House fact sheet released Wednesday to coincide with the state visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao said: "In preparation for this visit, several large purchases have been approved including for 200 Boeing airplanes. ... The approval, the final step in a $19 billion package of aircraft, will help Boeing maintain and expand its market share in the world's fastest growing commercial aircraft market."
What we found:
The deal President Hu signed does not include any new jet orders.
Delivering the formal approval during Hu's visit is designed to make the Chinese government appear responsive to U.S. concerns about the balance of trade.
However, all of the airplanes in the sale were announced and booked by Boeing as firm orders over the past four years. Chinese airlines had already paid nonrefundable deposits and signed contracts for the jets, most of them as far back as 2007.
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http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/chinese_tiger_ate_us_dove_for_lunch_7Ro396zi1n6vZrCwLsp05M
WASHINGTON -- Who did you think would come out on top if you put a tiger and a dove in the same room together to work out their differences?
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**This could go into education, but this is why I fear China more than anything else.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/many-students-learn-little-to-nothing-in-college-surprise/?singlepage=true
Your son probably ended up in my class. He was the kid who slouched in his chair and sat in the back entertaining himself with his Nintendo or cell phone. At least, that’s how he behaved when he bothered to show up for class. Sometimes he disrupted class by coming late and being sure to walk across the front of the lecture hall to draw attention to himself. I wished that on such occasions he had the grace to have pulled his Levis above his underwear. But that was too much to ask.
Of course, he got a degree.
We have to sit through lectures by our incomparable elected officials and our distinguished administrators telling us how many people the state needs by such and such a year with college degrees. We know how to give degrees. We’re good at that. But an education? Even God could not compensate for the lack of skills, the lack of interest, and the lack of raw talent your son brought to us. Social promotion is not restricted to high schools any more. After all, somehow we have to pay for all those buildings, athletic facilities, and shopping malls that so impressed you.
Now your son is carrying a load of debt that he can’t pay off, and he can’t find a meaningful job because he really has no skills that translate into the marketplace. He never committed himself to the discipline, rigor, and fortitude it takes to get a meaningful education. He didn’t know what to do with himself; you didn’t know what to do with him, and you thought he should have a college experience. He did, in the sense that four years of recreational sex, hard drugs, and bars that are open late into the night provided him with a college experience.
You would have been better off giving him the cash to invest and sending him to the Caribbean or Vegas for several weeks every year where he could have indulged his sexual appetites and legally smoked ganja. Financially you would have both been ahead. So too would we.
Now, we have an overly credentialed population carrying an enormous debt.
These are people who feel they deserve good-paying jobs. After all, the education establishment told them that having a college degree was worth millions. Well it is, if it is in the right subjects and you did well. A political science degree is not exactly equal to a degree in computer engineering, although the campus feminists are always grousing over how much less they are paid than males of equal rank and seniority. How convenient to forget that the liberal arts, which possess no competitive external marketplace, are dominated by women, and engineering, science, and mathematics are dominated by men.
The next financial bubble is out there. It is comprised of people like your son who are carrying enormous debt without any prospect of paying it off. They are going to default. It’s our fault, you say. Well, you say that now. But if we gave your son the grades he deserved you both would have screamed foul and due processed us to death. If your son is a member of some protected class, we would have had to defend against the accusation that we discriminated against him. Anyhow, he got more than he deserved, and the rest of us subsidized his education directly or indirectly with our tax dollars. Of course, you do know that we are going to have to pick up the defaults, just as we picked up the sub-prime mortgages.
Oh yes, if you think the statistic that half don’t learn anything in the first two years is terrible, how does this one grab you? After four years 36% did not experience significant educational improvement. And that statistic is worse than it appears, because at many institutions nearly half the students drop out after two years. So among the self-selected that continued, more than a third learned almost nothing in four years of college.
And if you controlled by academic major and prior preparation, you would find that these failures cluster. How? It’s easy enough to figure out, even if you never finished college.
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Correct. It isn't the education in general it is what type of education.
Here in NJ we have *enormous* numbers of Asians and Middle Easterners pouring in getting IT jobs, MDs, opening businesses (patel-hotel-motel), working in or owning franchises in banks, 7 -11s, dunkin donuts, gas stations and on and on and on. Yet I have countless American borns coming in complaining of their stress and how it is not worth looking for a job that doesn't pay them what they want when they can easily get the same or so in unemployment checks.
The other day they were interviewing some sort of College football player who was some sort of big shot player and all. He was speaking and couldn't even speak decent English. I am thinking what a joke. This guy gets a college degree and can't speak decent English. I could never imagine anyone other than a jock getting all the way through a four year college without being able to put a decent grammatically correct sentence together.
The left perpetuates the nanny state and it only gets worse, spreads like a metastatic cancer. Chinese and Indians will run us over. The Mexicans they are a different breed. Education does not seem to be a factor for them like the others I noted. It appears to be cultural.
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Alright gents, lets take this to the Education thread on the SCH forum please. :-)
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http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/49822/
Chinese Pianist Plays Propaganda Tune at White House
US humiliated in eyes of Chinese by song used to inspire anti-Americanism
By Matthew Robertson
Epoch Times Staff Created: Jan 22, 2011 Last Updated: Jan 23, 2011
Lang Lang, a Chinese pianist, plays the piano at the White House on Jan. 19, 2011. The music he is playing is the theme song from an anti-American propaganda movie about the Korean War. (Screenshot from Youtube)
Lang Lang the pianist says he chose it. Chairman Hu Jintao recognized it as soon as he heard it. Patriotic Chinese Internet users were delighted as soon as they saw the videos online. Early morning TV viewers in China knew it would be played an hour or two beforehand. At the White House State dinner on Jan. 19, about six minutes into his set, Lang Lang began tapping out a famous anti-American propaganda melody from the Korean War: the theme song to the movie “Battle on Shangganling Mountain.”
The film depicts a group of “People’s Volunteer Army” soldiers who are first hemmed in at Shanganling (or Triangle Hill) and then, when reinforcements arrive, take up their rifles and counterattack the U.S. military “jackals.”
The movie and the tune are widely known among Chinese, and the song has been a leading piece of anti-American propaganda by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for decades. CCP propaganda has always referred to the Korean War as the “movement to resist America and help [North] Korea.” The message of the propaganda is that the United States is an enemy—in fighting in the Korean War the United States’ real goal was said to be to invade and conquer China. The victory at Triangle Hill was promoted as a victory over imperialists.
The song Lang Lang played describes how beautiful China is and then near the end has this verse, “When friends are here, there is fine wine /But if the jackal comes /What greets it is the hunting rifle.” The “jackal” in the song is the United States.
The name of the song is “My Motherland,” originally titled “Big River.” In an interview broadcast on Phoenix TV, the first thing Lang Lang is quoted as saying is that he chose the piece.
He then said, “I thought to play ‘My Motherland’ because I think playing the tune at the White House banquet can help us, as Chinese people, feel extremely proud of ourselves and express our feelings through the song. I think it’s especially good. Also, I like the tune in and of itself, every time I hear it I feel extremely moved.”
He expressed this idea more frankly in a later blog post, writing: “Playing this song praising China to heads of state from around the world seems to tell them that our China is formidable, that our Chinese people are united; I feel deeply honored and proud.”
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/23/world/main7274614.shtml
Jan. 23, 2011
Chinese Stealth Jet May Use U.S. Technology
Experts Believe Newly-Unveiled High-Tech Fighter May Borrow Technology Taken From U.S. Jet Shot Down in 1999
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http://www.cnbc.com/id/41643598
China Flexes Muscles With US As Biggest Creditor: WikiLeaks
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http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-rare-earth-20110220,0,4161956.story
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703561604576150301821467250.html
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Rare-Earths-Stocks-Get-A-Lift-indie-1668243288.html?x=0&.v=1
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So, depending on what happens with the so-called "Jasmine Movement" in China, REE might get very expensive.
I don't expect the movement to do much but increase China's prison camp population/supply of organs for sale.
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The Chinese opera starring Huawei Technologies Co. and Washington regulators hit another high note Friday when a spurned Huawei issued a public plea for understanding, fairness—and access to the rich U.S. telecom market.
Why has Washington repeatedly said no to Huawei as the China telecom giant tries to tap into the lucrative U.S. market? The Journal's John Bussey and Simon Constable discuss.
There are two lessons to draw from all the yodeling:
First, this drama isn't just about the Chinese suitor Huawei. It's about China Inc. and cybersecurity in the U.S. Because of that, Huawei may not be getting into the U.S. market in a big way anytime soon.
And second, Huawei—one of the biggest suppliers of telecom equipment in the world—may be the least of America's problems when it comes to thwarting aspiring cyberspies.
Huawei's latest travails stem from a tiny deal the company struck in California. It bought some patents and hired some employees from an outfit called 3Leaf Systems that did work in cloud computing. The Pentagon demanded Huawei retroactively seek approval of the transaction from a secretive panel called CFIUS, which reviews foreign investment that might threaten national security.
Huawei cried foul and said the deal didn't merit review because it wasn't an outright acquisition. Sens. Jim Webb and Jon Kyl and other U.S. lawmakers fired back, likening Huawei to a dangerous arm of communist China intent on snatching U.S. secrets. This month, CFIUS essentially ordered Huawei to unwind the purchase. As the dust settled, a Chinese government spokesman condemned the decision and, in an ironic footnote, grumbled that the U.S. should be "more transparent" in how it treats foreign investors.
Then on Friday, Huawei publicly challenged the U.S. to investigate the company and clear the air.
"Huawei is Huawei," says Bill Plummer, the company's spokesman. "It's a multinational company. It isn't China. It shouldn't be held hostage to the tense relationship between the two governments." Huawei's supporters say U.S. companies are missing out on quality Huawei gear that's safely sold to virtually every major phone company in the world.
Maybe so, but a range of intelligence agencies that sit on CFIUS, or the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., appear to feel differently. Huawei's plea "seems disingenuous," says an individual familiar with the government's thinking. "Why come out with that offer publicly? We've been asking for transparency" from the company for years.
The problem is that Huawei lives in a certain context. Its founder served in the People's Liberation Army. The company has prospered greatly in its home market and has grown almost overnight into a global giant. And while Huawei insists it is entirely independent of the Chinese government, the company thrives in an authoritarian country where success on so large a scale is usually carefully observed, and carefully prescribed. There are few subjects of greater interest to Beijing than telecommunications and technology—and creating national champions in both.
Rightly or wrongly, Huawei to many people in Washington is a proxy for China. They fear the company's equipment may contain bugs that could spy on American industrial secrets, shut down communications during a conflict, or make networks easier to hack. Huawei says that's nonsense.
CFIUS proceedings are secret, and a spokeswoman declined to comment on the Huawei case. But actions speak loudly. The committee, which includes the departments of Homeland Security and Defense, has blocked Huawei's access to the U.S. repeatedly, including Huawei's bid to buy electronics maker 3Com Corp. in 2008, its effort to upgrade Sprint Nextel Corp.'s network in 2010, and now the 3Leaf deal.
Noting the importance of context, a former intelligence official says: "You have senior officials in Washington going to work every week and their assistants telling them, 'Sir, the Chinese have hacked into your system and are reading your email again. We're trying to get them out. Don't use your computer.' China is contemptuous when we complain about this, and that probably deepens the reaction toward Huawei," he says.
Even Washington knows that at the end of the day Huawei is but a blip on a much larger radar screen of worry. Virtually every technology company is plugged into a global supply chain and gets its products from multiple sources. A given piece of consumer or industrial electronics can cross borders dozens of times as it is designed, coded and assembled before landing in the U.S. The rogue might be anywhere: in China, or in the piece of equipment stamped INDIA that was preassembled in China.
"The cyber side is where the real national-security issues are growing exponentially, the vulnerabilities created by the global supply chain," says Nova Daly, a consultant with Wiley Rein in Washington who previously managed the CFIUS program at the Treasury Department. "We need clear cyberpolicy from the administration and Congress."
That effort is under way, there are some early steps to better vet the source of key electronics distributed in the U.S. Scrubbing software and hardware before it crosses the border is a tricky business. Experts say it's almost impossible to find every bug.
So trusting the source of origin becomes all the more important.
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704293304576169080516080892.html#ixzz1FHHcON2a
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I don't want Huawei anywhere in the US, in any way.
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BEIJING—China announced plans to increase its defense budget by 12.7% this year, a pickup from last year's sharply lower growth that comes amid fresh confrontations over territorial issues with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.
China expects to spend 601.1 billion yuan ($91.4 billion) on defense in 2011, up from 533.4 billion yuan last year, Li Zhaoxing, spokesman for the National People's Congress, said Friday, ahead of the start of the legislature's annual session on Saturday.
Mr. Li said the military budget would be used for purposes including "appropriate armament development," training and human resources, while stressing that it remained relatively low as a proportion of China's GDP and overall budget, and dismissing concerns that it threatened neighboring countries.
"China's defense spending is relatively low in the world," he said. "Every bit of China's limited military strength will be used for safeguarding national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and this will not pose a threat to any country."
The projected rise is faster than last year's 7.5% increase—the slowest clip in decades—but is significantly slower than the roughly 19% annual growth in years before 2010.
The headline figure does not, however, include key items such as arms imports and the program to develop a stealth fighter and an aircraft carrier, according to foreign military experts who estimate that China's real defense spending is far higher.
The figure's announcement also comes amid signs that China's growing economic and military power is prompting other nations in the region to beef up their own militaries, pushing Asia into a new arms race, and in many cases to shore up defense ties with the U.S.
Japan, which revised its national-defense guidelines last year to focus more on the threat from China, expressed fresh concern Friday about the rise in Chinese military spending.
Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara told reporters that China's defense expenditure was "very high," and urged the Chinese government to be more transparent about how it planned to use its newfound military firepower.
"Whether it should be regarded as offensive or defensive would require a close look," he said, according to Japan's Foreign Ministry.
On Wednesday, Japan scrambled fighter jets to chase off two Chinese military planes which it said flew within 34 miles of disputed islands in the East China Sea, which are known as Senkaku in Japan and as Diaoyu in China.
Japanese government spokesman Yukio Edano said Japan would not protest formally as the Chinese planes did not leave international airspace, but he also voiced concern over China's growing military power and said Japan would monitor the situation. China's Foreign Ministry didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Relations between Asia's two biggest economies plunged to their lowest ebb in years in September following collisions near the islands between two Japanese coast guard patrol boats and a Chinese fishing vessel.
China's more forceful stance on that and other territorial issues last year also alarmed other countries in the region.
On Wednesday, the Philippines deployed two war planes to protect oil explorers who complained that they were being harassed by two Chinese patrol boats in a disputed area of the South China Sea.
The Philippine government demanded an explanation Friday for the incident at Reed Bank near the Spratly Islands, which are claimed by China, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Chinese Embassy spokesman Ethan Sun reiterated his country's claim to the Spratly Islands and adjacent waters, but said Beijing was committed to maintaining peace and stability in the area and resolving disputes through peaceful negotiations, according to the Associated Press.
South Korea's Coast Guard said Friday it seized two Chinese fishing boats and their crews on Thursday after they were found fishing illegally in South Korea's Exclusive Economic Zone, 64 miles southwest of Keokrulbiyeol island in the west sea.
During the process, one South Korean policeman was hurt by a weapon wielded by Chinese fishermen, and one Chinese fisherman was shot in his leg, the coast guard said.
China's Foreign Ministry didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on that incident.
But Chinese officials and academics have toned down their rhetoric this year in an apparent bid to address concerns that China plans to use its expanding military clout to assert its territorial claims, and to challenge U.S. military supremacy in the Asia-Pacific region.
In January, China jolted the region with a test flight of a new stealth jet fighter, indicating that China is further along in using the advanced technology than previous Pentagon statements had suggested.
China is also developing an antiship ballistic missile that could threaten U.S. naval vessels in the Asia-Pacific region, where the U.S. has long been dominant.
However, Mr. Li pointed out that China's military spending accounted for only about 6% of China's national budget, which he said was lower than in recent years—and well below the level of the U.S.
The defense budget "will see some increase, but the ratio of spending to GDP is quite low -- lower than in many countries," he added.
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**Click the link to see the CNBC interview
http://www.cnbc.com/id/42067433
Barack Obama Is the New Jimmy Carter: Niall Ferguson
Published: Monday, 14 Mar 2011 | 7:17 AM ET
By: CNBC.com
The current inflation scenario is reminiscent of the 1970s and the transition of economic dominance from the United States to China is already well under way, Harvard Professor Niall Ferguson told CNBC Monday.
Geopolitical events all add up "to a pretty bearish scenario because of all the inflation implications we're seeing right now," Ferguson said.
"You already had massive deficits and money printing in the developed world," he said. "On top of that you had enormous demand-side pressure from China relative to commodities."
"Now you've got the prospect of massive geopolitical disturbance in the great oil-producing centers of the world," he added. "That has to be a pretty inflationary scenario."
"At best case, we're going to re-run the 1970s, only with Barack Obama instead of Jimmy Carter in the White House," Ferguson said.
Globally, Western dominance peaked in the 1970s and the rise of Eastern dominance is evident with China taking over the top spot as world's biggest manufacturer, he said.
The dollar will likely keep its status as a reserve currency for a while, but there is "a sense around the world that exposure to the dollar has higher risk in it," Ferguson said.
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The United States and China began the third Strategic and Economic Dialogue since the Obama administration took office. The range of topics is expanding, and both sides are maintaining the warm relations that they began in the beginning of the year. But the underlying strains on the relationship are very much present and can burst forward at any point.
What’s new to this round of dialogue is that the two sides will initiate a strategic security track of dialogue, which China has just agreed to. This was an American proposal to discuss defense and military matters alongside the normal foreign affairs and economic and financial matters that are discussed at the Strategic and Economic Dialogue. Now the reason this is important is because the U.S. and China have a really irregular past when it comes to sharing information and communicating on their military. Now they’ll be able to broach topics like nuclear disarmament or missile defense or general naval issues and questions about how China intends to use its growing military power in the region. And these topics will be discussed in a format that perhaps could become more regular, although it’s really hard to say; typically, China cuts off military-to-military communications when the U.S. sells a new arms package to Taiwan. Perhaps the hope is that by initiating a new track of strategic security dialogue, that irregularity can be put to an end and they’ll have a consistent means of communicating on the really tricky defense matters that these two countries face, especially going forward.
Now the next point is the economic and financial issues. Looking at the Chinese yuan, this as always is a major topic of discussion. The United States is going to be pressing for China to appreciate its currency faster against the dollar. The yuan has risen by about 5 percent over the past year and the U.S. is glad to see movement there. But at the same time it’s clear that this movement isn’t really very comparable to what’s happened with other currencies, such as the Japanese yen, the euro, the Swiss franc or the British pound, all of which have risen much more dramatically against the dollar in the past year. But the U.S. isn’t really going to limit its focus to the yuan. But now, Washington wants to expand the range of topics including interest rate ceiling, the idea being that if China can raise the interest rates for its vast pool of depositors at home, they will make more money on their savings and eventually they’ll be able to build up savings and feel more comfortable, perhaps even consume more. And at the same time that would force China’s banks to be much more particular about what rates they lend to their state-owned companies. In other words, it would force a total rebalancing of the Chinese economic system in which consumers would have more money and corporations and industry would have to pay more for the capital that they borrow.
On the strategic track, the truth is that China has a lot to be anxious about going forward. On the one hand, the U.S. has introduced the topic of Middle East unrest and how that applies to Chinese society, implying that China has this large problem of growing social frustration. How is China going to deal with that? Is it going to use force to quell protests or is it going to be proactive and improve living standards for people? China is afraid that the U.S. is simply going to be fanning the flames of domestic unrest in order to weaken China and take advantage of it. So obviously there’s a lot of distrust there, especially with the U.S. taking this very proactive stance on Internet movements, social networking and projecting democratic values across the world. On the other hand, in South Asia, with the U.S. having killed Osama bin Laden, we’re getting closer to a time that China realizes the U.S. will withdraw from Afghanistan and take less of a role in the region. That will put more of a burden on China and its ally Pakistan to stabilize the region, and China will be concerned that militancy running wild in the area will impact its western borders. So China’s looking at having to take a much bigger role in stabilizing the area and in making sure that Pakistan does its part to prevent militancy from spreading.
And finally, China fears that if the U.S. does withdraw successfully from South Asia, that the increased freedom of maneuver that the U.S. gains will in fact later be brought to bear on China itself, as the two are seeing much greater strategic competition, and a number of U.S. allies in the region are demanding that the U.S. take a greater role in the Asia-Pacific to counterbalance China’s rising power.
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Doubts Cloud Future of U.S.-China Relations
The third round of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue between the United States and China started May 9. Cabinet-level officials on both sides emphasized that cooperation in all categories is strong and growing. They credited the January meeting between Presidents Barack Obama and Hu Jintao with establishing a new period of warm relations. Both sides expressed confidence that disagreements on everything from economic policy to human rights can be overcome.
Yet the optimistic tone seems to rise in proportion with the deepening of doubts in the relationship. Most recently, events in South Asia have complicated matters. While the United States achieved a victory in killing Osama bin Laden, the event has clouded its relations with Pakistan. China and Pakistan are historical and contemporary allies with mutual antagonism toward India. While China has no trouble formally applauding the death of bin Laden — and using it to highlight its concerns about the East Turkestan Islamic Movement — it is shocked at the Americans’ open criticism of Pakistan in the aftermath. U.S. actions have stirred up public anger in Pakistan in a way that would seem to pose unnecessary risks to U.S.-Pakistani relations and regional stability. China senses that U.S. foreign policy is shifting in important ways.
When the terrorist attacks of 9/11 occurred, the United States and China were in the midst of rocky relations symbolized by the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and the EP-3 incident in Hainan. China supported America’s new war on terrorism, sensing an opportunity to crack down on militants in its far west and to enjoy Washington’s refocusing on a different region. China also lent Pakistan assistance as the latter withdrew support for the Taliban to assist the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and Beijing pledged to support U.S. counterterrorism efforts as long as the United States reciprocated. This arrangement served as a basis for new cooperation.
“The very topics to be included in the strategic security talks read like a list of the new threats the two countries pose to each other: nuclear proliferation, missile defense, cyber-security, and the militarization of space.”
As the United States waded deeper into Afghanistan and Iraq, China faced a period of extraordinary opportunity. Beijing had just joined the World Trade Organization and benefited from having the doors to export markets flung open during a global credit boom. Although Washington complained about China’s delays on economic liberalization, Beijing found that a little currency appreciation, along with other adjustments here and there, was enough to fend off American pressure so long as Washington was embroiled in crises in the Middle East.
The arrangement began to weaken toward the end of the decade. Fast-growing China, emboldened by the global economic crisis in 2008, began to test the waters in its region to see where its rising clout would give it greater bargaining power. Meanwhile, the United States began to see that its relative neglect of the Asia-Pacific region had opened up a space that China was seeking to fill. Washington declared its return to the region in 2009, but it has not yet been able to put much effort behind the initiative. China enjoyed a bout of assertiveness in its periphery, provoking a U.S. backlash. By 2010 the situation had grown bleaker than it had been for a long time.
This is the context in which Obama and Hu relaxed tensions in January 2011, an arrangement that appears to be holding for now. China’s yuan is rising and Beijing is cooperating on North Korea. Washington remains preoccupied with foreign wars and domestic troubles and is not willing to confront Beijing. Meanwhile, the two are making economic trade-offs. Both sides recognize underlying pressures but point to the strategic and economic talks as a means of containing their disagreements. They are specifically talking up the new “strategic security” dialogue as a way to bring top military leaders into the civilian dialogue. Washington hopes the dialogue will provide a forum that will eliminate the problems arising from the intermittent military communication and mixed signals sent from China’s military and civilian leaders.
Despite efforts to manage tensions and delay confrontation, the relationship looks set to deteriorate. The very topics to be included in the strategic security talks read like a list of the new threats the two countries pose to each other: nuclear proliferation, missile defense, cyber-security and the militarization of space.
On a deeper level, bin Laden’s death is a harbinger of the coming U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. This move will leave China with the burden of suppressing militancy and helping Pakistan do the same. While the United States prods Beijing over the implications of Arab popular unrest for the future of China’s political system, Beijing points to the threat of instability in the Persian Gulf, hoping to prolong China’s strategic opportunity — and mitigate threats to its oil supplies — by keeping Washington preoccupied there. China sees American commitment waning in the Middle East and South Asia and worries that its priorities will next shift to containing China’s rise.
China is an emerging power attempting to expand its influence into a large space where it has not felt challenged for more than a decade. But ultimately the United States views the Asia-Pacific theater as one critical to its global strategy and to the naval supremacy it forged in the fires of World War II. The two countries have yet to settle their spheres of influence in this region, and dialogue alone will not accomplish such delineation. When U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S.-China dialogue should “demystify long-term plans and aspirations,” she meant the United States wants to make sure that China does not seek regional hegemony. Washington is bound to try to undercut any such claimant. In other words, since U.S. hegemony is not vanishing, the “demystifying” is up to Beijing.
None of this is to say the United States and China cannot cooperate further. Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo struck a sincere tone May 9 when he recalled that 2011 is the 40th anniversary of the United States and China’s “ping-pong diplomacy” — the ice-breaker that allowed for detente during the Cold War. Dai said the only reason for a 70-year-old like himself to engage in diplomacy is to make sure this detente continues into the future. However, Dai’s comments also called attention to the generational change sweeping China’s leadership and the doubts about the durability of the Sino-American Cold War arrangement. In this context, Clinton’s talk of “forward-deployed diplomacy” — in this case, re-engagement in the Asia-Pacific — made for a stark contrast that underlined the doubts.
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This week was a big week in China news. The United States and China sat down for strategic and economic dialogue, China’s new economic statistics revealed that the economy is starting to slow its pace of growth a little bit and beneath all of this there is a growing awareness that the U.S. is going to be putting more pressure for China to open up and more rapidly reform its economy. The United States and China concluded the strategic and economic talks this week with an agreement to hold consultations on the Asia-Pacific region. That’s really the big takeaway from this round of dialogue, but looking at the economic issues you can see a number of technical agreements that the two sides made.
China gave some concessions — they said the U.S. would be able to invest more in Chinese stocks and bonds, U.S. companies would be able to offer mutual funds or car insurance in China. They also pledged that the indigenous innovation policies that have been so controversial will not really apply to government procurement contracts, meaning that U.S. companies would be able to be considered at any level for Chinese government. We’ll see how that’s implemented, there’s obviously a lot of reason for doubt, but clearly China making that statement and making that pledge to the United States was important. And the Chinese also said that they would stop condoning the theft of intellectual property from the U.S. at least in regards to software that is being used on Chinese government computers. One industry group suggested the U.S. may lose about $8 billion a year because of that kind of theft.
The U.S. concessions had mainly to do with the suggestion that the U.S. will gradually ease the controls on its exports so that China can import more high-technology goods from the U.S. which it was hoping to do. Also, the U.S. said that it would allow more Chinese investment in, and of course there are national security concerns for the U.S. and that will continue to apply on a case-by-case basis. But overall, what China was really demanding was to get more access into the U.S. market, and there is a number of interests in the U.S. of course that would like to see that happen, so the U.S. claims that that will proceed very rapidly going forward.
Now at the same time that the dialogue was taking place, new economic statistics came out of China showing that in the month of April, the pace of growth in China is starting to slow a little bit. This comes as the government has taken over the past year, very, very tiny steps incrementally to moderate the pace of growth, and what we’re seeing is some of that bearing small fruit. We’ve seen that industrial output has started to slow its pace of growth a little bit, and also we’ve seen inflation stabilize a little bit, even sinking slightly compared to the previous month. Inflation of course has been the big worry. We’re still at three-year highs, in terms of inflation, and we’re also seeing asset bubbles grow as people withdraw their money from banks and invest in things that they think will gain in value namely real estate, because they’re afraid of this inflation problem. And we’re also seeing social frustration bubble up in different parts of China because of the rising prices, and that’s not going away. So fighting inflation will remain the priority in the short term even as we’re starting to hear the conversation shift a little bit among experts in China who are starting to see that in the second half of the year the government may have to become more accommodative and push growth a little bit more, which makes sense in terms of a normal Chinese economic cycles.
Now beneath the mostly technical discussions between the U.S. and China, reinforced by these new economic statistics, there is a growing awareness that the U.S. is going to begin to put more pressure on China to open up its economy and reform in ways that bring it into line with mainstream international practice as led by the United States. One event that created dissonance with the dialogue was China registering an $11.4 billion trade surplus for the month of April, but the U.S. is familiar at this point with large trade surpluses on a monthly basis from China and these negotiations are not really about a month by month development. Rather, the U.S. is expecting something much bigger. They’re putting pressure on China gradually to entirely rebalance and transform its economy. They’re aware that many in China are also arguing for this rebalancing to take place, but they’re also aware as the trade surplus shows, that this process is not happening very quickly. Vice Premier Wang Qishan said that China needs to make sure that all of its leaders are on the same page when it comes to this transformation of their economic model. His implication is of course that there are factual disagreements in China that are preventing reforms from happening. While it’s certainly true that there are factional divisions within China, it’s also curious that he would choose this platform and the United States to make that comment and what it suggests is that the Chinese are using these internal divisions as an excuse for the fact that they continue to move very slowly and reluctantly on the reforms that the U.S. is demanding.
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2011/may/17/gm-sponsors-and-celebrates-soon-be-released-chi-co/
PICKET: GM sponsors and celebrates soon to be released Chi-Com propaganda film
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http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2011/05/the-chinese-are-coming-part-one-a-tale-of-two-nobles/
For years now the Chinese automakers have been the bête noir of the global car industry, inspiring equal parts fear and contempt in boardrooms and editorial meetings from Detroit to Stuttgart. In an industry built on scale, China’s huge population and rapid growth can not be ignored as one scans the horizon for dark horse competitors. And yet no Chinese automaker has yet been able to get even a firm toehold in the market China recently passed as the world’s largest: the United States.
Certainly many have tried, as the last decade is littered with companies who have tried to import Chinese vehicles, only to go out of business or radically rethink their strategy (think Zap for the former and Miles/CODA for the latter). Others, like BYD (or India’s Mahindra), have teased America endlessly with big promises of low costs and high efficiency, only to delay launch dates endlessly. In short, a huge gulf has emerged between overblown fears of developing world (particularly Chinese) auto imports and the ability of Chinese automakers to actually deliver anything. No wonder then, that we found what appears to be the first legitimate attempt at importing Chinese cars to the US quite by accident…
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Yup. Just look at all that spare bandwidth we have.
Well, there is the Crafty Doctrine that some clever guy came up with that suggested upsetting the apple cart anyway. Maybe pulling most of the US forces from Trashcanistan proper and placing them in Indian bases on the border of Pure-land might be a gambit consistent with that doctrine?
Any predictions on how BO will respond?
Bwahahahahahaha! A strongly worded letter of concern, or a double-down on the bowing?
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The Crafty Doctrine was formulated in the context of Afpakia. Pakistan having a patron in China, perhaps giving it a seaport, is a major new variable.
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To me, that makes rapid action to implode Pakistan even more critical.
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By DAN BLUMENTHAL
Most countries celebrated this month's slaying of Osama bin Laden as an unadulterated good, but two of them are reacting with ambivalence. China and Pakistan have found the death of the al Qaeda leader an opportune time to solidify a relationship that has a distinct anti-American odor. Pakistan wants to play the "China card." And China wants to further its narrow national interests, no matter the broader consequences.
Islamabad's reaction to bin Laden's death is understandable if unjustifiable. U.S. special forces felled the terrorist on Pakistani soil without Pakistani foreknowledge. Pakistani leaders felt compelled to appeal to nationalist sentiment by decrying the violation of sovereignty—even if by harboring terrorists Pakistan has lost its right to sovereignty.
It also has reason to fear its standing in Washington. Questions linger about Pakistani knowledge of or support for bin Laden's long stay in Abbottabad. Naturally, there is a steady drumbeat in Washington to reexamine the entire relationship with Pakistan, including the generous provision of aid.
From a Pakistani perspective, it then makes sense to ease the pressure from Washington by embracing China. With a "China card," Islamabad is assured an ally who can stand up for it in international circles as well as provide capital. Visiting Beijing last week, Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani praised China as "an all weather friend"—in stark contrast to you-know-who. President Asif Zardari declared that the Pakistan-Sino relationship was unmatched "by any other relationship between two sovereign countries."
Mr. Gilani also secured the delivery of 50 JF-17 multirole fighter jets. Receiving aircraft from China—already Pakistan's largest supplier of weaponry by far—must have been all the more satisfying coming a month after its arch rival India turned down two U.S. fighter bids. It sent a message that Islamabad's relations with Beijing are more stable than New Delhi's with Washington.
.Beijing offers its ally more support than just fighters. While China announced it was happy that bin Laden was dead, it quickly followed with expressions of sympathy for Pakistan and praise for its less-than-stellar record of fighting terrorism. China's foreign ministry explained that China "will continue to support Pakistan formulating…counter-terrorism strategies based on its own national conditions…." From this point of view, the U.S was supposed to respect Pakistan's "national conditions" while going after the world's most wanted man.
Finally, Pakistan and China agreed that Beijing will operate the strategically positioned port in Gwadar, Pakistan. The port has raised concerns in New Delhi and Washington for the ability it gives the Chinese navy to operate in the Indian Ocean.
These Sino-Pakistani transactions are an intensification of a blossoming relationship. Just last year, China circumvented its obligations as a member of the Nuclear Supplier's Group to sell two new nuclear reactors to Pakistan with no strings attached. An unstable Pakistan with a burgeoning nuclear arsenal is the stuff of nightmare security scenarios for the rest of the world, and yet Beijing decided to sell it more nuclear material.
Pakistan's interests are clear here. But what explains China's disturbing diplomacy?
China's Pakistan policy has three objectives. First, Beijing sees Islamabad as a way to distract India from its great-power aspirations. An India concerned about a Pakistan threat is an India that cannot compete with China. Second, China wants to get into the great-power maritime game by operating ports throughout the Indian Ocean. Chinese projection of maritime power in the Indian Ocean can pose a threat to Indian and American naval mastery. Third, China wants help from Pakistan in keeping Islamic radicals from entering its Western province of Xinjiang.
From a charitable point of view, China is simply advancing its narrow national interests. But China's very concept of its national interest is the problem at hand.
China's pursuit of narrow interests, consequences be damned, is the equivalent of taking a wrecking ball to the current international order. It has pursued its interests before with Iran and North Korea, and the results of that are evident. The only reason China can afford to behave irresponsibly in these cases is because American arms and diplomacy are there to save the day.
Indeed, the international order the United States promotes and maintains—however imperfectly at times—benefits all those who want to join it. It produces public goods like the freedom of navigation in the seas, keeps the peace between great powers and leads in the fight against nuclear proliferation and terrorism that threaten the whole world—including pressuring countries that harbor terrorists, even if it sometimes violates their sovereignty. Washington cannot accomplish these strategic tasks if Beijing actively thwarts it.
China's Pakistan diplomacy offers a glimpse of one possible future in international politics. Beijing is clearly building up its power to challenge Washington's dominance and frustrate its goals, but it doesn't provide a responsible alternative to U.S. primacy. Should China succeed in undermining American aims, the world will not face a choice between Chinese or American leadership. Rather, Chinese behavior is leading to a choice between order and chaos.
Mr. Blumenthal is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
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The money flow to the Pak-thugocracy should end immediately and we need to make serious plans with India. Unfortunately, our president will do for our relationship with India what he's done with our relationship with England.
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The Philippine government continues to assess its security situation following a series of alleged incursions by the Chinese into disputed territories.
On May 20, just before the Chinese defense minister paid a visit to the Philippines, a report came out suggesting that two Chinese fighter jets had flown over Philippine territory in the disputed Spratly Islands. The story was initially played up as Chinese fighter jets shadowing Philippine patrol aircraft in the area but what later came out is that the Philippine OV-10s, which were patrolling the area, saw what they thought were contrails of fighter jets flying much higher and straight over the territory. But by bringing up a story right before the defense minister visited, it became a hot issue going into the talks.
The Spratly Islands are disputed by many claimants including the Philippines and China. Traditionally, control over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea was primarily an issue of sea-lane control and the ability to interdict sea lanes. But more recently, there’s been active investigation, active exploration and exploitation of deep-sea mineral resources of oil and gas off the ocean floor and as additional exploration takes place, the issue of the South China Sea and control over these islands becomes much more significant.
One of the reasons the issue is being played up so much in the Philippines is the Defense Ministry is trying to find ways to obtain more and more modern military resources, and this plays into the relationship of the United States. The United States is the primary supplier of military equipment to the Philippines, but the United States also still has an alliance structure with the Philippines. But it’s unclear what level of confrontation it would take before the United States would actually really take action against China, and as we’ve seen in Chinese interventions in Japanese territorial waters or in disputed territories and Chinese actions in the Philippines, we haven’t seen a concerted effort from the United States to counter this at this point and that leaves a certain amount of confusion and uncertainty amongst these nations.
The Philippines really does have to walk a careful balance. China is the regional power in their area, China’s major economic partner for the Philippines. At the same time, the United States again is a significant economic partner and an alliance partner.
For the United States, whether it’s the Philippines drawing them in or the U.S. trying to get involved with Vietnam in this issue or even Malaysia, the expansion of Chinese activity in the South China Sea has become a significant issue for U.S. security in the long-term. And the United States is looking very clearly at what the Chinese are doing the South China Sea and beginning to reshape U.S. defense policy in the region to maintain U.S. control over access in the area.
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http://cnsnews.com/news/article/china-has-divested-97-percent-its-holdin
(CNSNews.com) - China has dropped 97 percent of its holdings in U.S. Treasury bills, decreasing its ownership of the short-term U.S. government securities from a peak of $210.4 billion in May 2009 to $5.69 billion in March 2011, the most recent month reported by the U.S. Treasury.
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"China has dropped 97 percent of its holdings in U.S. Treasury bills, decreasing its ownership of the short-term U.S. government securities from a peak of $210.4 billion in May 2009 to $5.69 billion in March 2011, the most recent month reported by the U.S. Treasury."
Note that refers to short term holdings only. Looking at this link, the ratio was close to 20:1 long term over short term holdings: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34314.pdf
This link would indicate China still held over 1.1 trillion as of 3/31/11, fairly constant since last Sept. That is still a fairly low number if total debt is $14 trillion.
I'm sure we can make up for any loss foreign customer with our domestic demand for treasury bills - with our 0.000% savings rate.
This if true would be good news for us in the world of geo-politics. China would hold far less over our head if it had already dumped our holdings. What then are they doing with those dollars that keep flowing to China? They all come back one way or another.
One of the meanings of QE/QE2/QE-next monetary expansion is that we are running huge deficits without having to find buyers for our debt.
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Any idea how long we can QE until we hit QE-Z (Zimbabwe)?
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http://ca.news.yahoo.com/china-ratings-house-says-us-defaulting-report-054309883.html
China ratings house says US defaulting: report
A Chinese ratings house has accused the United States of defaulting on its massive debt, state media said Friday, a day after Beijing urged Washington to put its fiscal house in order.
"In our opinion, the United States has already been defaulting," Guan Jianzhong, president of Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. Ltd., the only Chinese agency that gives sovereign ratings, was quoted by the Global Times saying.
Washington had already defaulted on its loans by allowing the dollar to weaken against other currencies -- eroding the wealth of creditors including China, Guan said.
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By KEITH JOHNSON
A 2,000-year-old board game holds the key to understanding how the Chinese really think—and U.S. officials had better learn to play if they want to win the real competition.
That's the pitch that David Lai, a professor at the Army War College, has been making in recent months to senior military officials in the U.S. and overseas. Learning the ancient board game of wei qi, known in the U.S. as Go, can teach non-Chinese how to see the geostrategic "board" the same way that Chinese leaders do, he says.
Wei qi, the game of "surrounding," has long been popular in the East -- known as Go in Japan and Baduk in Korea. Now, U.S. military officials are looking at the game in an attempt to understand how the Chinese really think. WSJ's Christina Tsuei gets a lesson on the game from 35-year GO veteran Jean-Claude Chetrit.
The game, already well known in the days of Confucius and still wildly popular in Asia, is starkly different from chess, the classic Western game of strategy. The object of Go is to place stones on the open board, balancing the need to expand with the need to build protected clusters.
Go features multiple battles over a wide front, rather than a single decisive encounter. It emphasizes long-term planning over quick tactical advantage, and games can take hours. In Chinese, its name, wei qi (roughly pronounced "way-chee"), means the "encirclement game."
"Go is the perfect reflection of Chinese strategic thinking and their operational art," says Mr. Lai, who grew up watching his father—who was jobless during the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution—constantly play the game. A self-described midlevel Go player, Mr. Lai came to the U.S. about 30 years ago.
Mr. Lai's best-known work about the nexus between Go and Chinese geopolitical strategy is a 2004 paper called "Learning From the Stones," a reference to the 361 black and white stone pieces that eventually fill the 19-by-19 Go board. He described China's long-term and indirect approach to acquiring influence. He also zeroed in on concrete geopolitical challenges such as Taiwan, which he described, in terms of Go, as a single isolated stone next to a huge mass of opposing pieces.
As Chinese leaders see it, he suggested, Taiwan was a vulnerable piece that the U.S. should want to trade away for a better position elsewhere on the board. The U.S., by contrast, sees Taiwan not as a bargaining chip but as a democratic ally that it has supported diplomatically and militarily for more than 60 years.
Mr. Lai's paper caught the attention not only of his then-bosses at the Air Force's Air University in Alabama but of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who quickly became a convert to his way of thinking.
Throughout his new book, "On China," Mr. Kissinger uses wei qi to explain how Chinese leaders such as Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping managed crises during the Korean War, disputes over Taiwan, the Vietnam War, conflicts throughout Southeast Asia and with the Soviet Union, and the normalization of relations with the U.S.
In the first days of the Korean conflict, for example, President Harry Truman sent U.S. troops to South Korea and the U.S. Navy to the Taiwan strait. He had, "in Chinese eyes," Mr. Kissinger writes, "placed two stones on the wei qi board, both of which menaced China with the dreaded encirclement." Thus, despite being war-weary and impoverished, China felt the need to confront the U.S. directly.
The game can also be used to interpret recent Chinese behavior. Consider China's participation in antipiracy efforts in the Indian Ocean—the first time that China has undertaken blue-water naval operations in support of an international coalition. The West tends to see such cooperation as responsible behavior on China's part.
But a strategy paper published last December by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party offers a different view: that antipiracy operations can help China to subtly gain a foothold in a vital region. "China can make use of this situation to expand its military presence in Africa," the paper said.
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Wei qi (roughly pronounced 'way-chee') means the 'encirclement game.'
One of Mr. Lai's first fans was Air Force Gen. Steve Lorenz, formerly the head of Air University, where Mr. Lai then taught. Gen. Lorenz heard one of his lectures in late 2005 and summoned him for a full briefing about the insights that Go could offer.
"It really intrigued me," recalls Gen. Lorenz, now retired. "He made a whole generation of airmen think about the world in a different way."
In recent months, Mr. Lai has briefed officers at Pacific Command, the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command, the Center for Army Analysis and the Australian Defence College.
U.S. defense officials regularly receive strategy briefings from outside experts, and the U.S. military regularly taps ancient classics such as Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" and Xenophon's "The March of the Ten Thousand" to help educate modern officers.
One officer at the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command, where Mr. Lai gave a presentation at a commander's conference in March to about three dozen officers, said "the game analogy really sparked fascination" and was useful for Air Force officers who might have to consider China a potential adversary one day. He conceded, though, that the briefing's heavy academic content left "plenty of heads hurting."
"You've got to think like the other guy thinks," said the officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Mr. Lai's theories are not universally embraced by China experts. For starters, some say, comparing national strategic thought to popular sports and games is an over-simplification—and at any rate, the Chinese version of chess has lots of adherents in China, too.
Furthermore, despite the ancient roots of Chinese military thinkers such as Sun Tzu, it's far from clear that Chinese leaders over the millennia, especially Communist Chinese leaders, have followed a single, broad strategy at all, let alone the one sketched by the board game.
"Go is a very useful device for analyzing Chinese strategy, but let's not overdo it," says James Holmes, an expert on Chinese strategy and professor at the Naval War College.
Though he agrees that Go helps to describe the strategic showdown between China and the U.S. in East Asia, he says that "we have to be extremely cautious about drawing a straight line from theory to the actions of real people in the real world."
He notes that China's "amateurish" diplomatic blunders in recent years, including bullying neighbors and trying to push other navies out of international waters, represent a departure from the patient, subtle tenets of Go.
Write to Keith Johnson at keith.johnson@wsj.com
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Vietnam shift could see return of US ships
By Ben Bland in Cam Ranh Bay
Published: June 14 2011 22:46 | Last updated: June 14 2011 22:46
Nguyen Duc De knows at first hand how alliances can change. The former Vietnamese soldier was stationed on the disputed Spratly Islands in the 1980s, when tensions with China were high following their 1979 border war, and he used to take pot shots at the Chinese marines who approached his base, pretending to be fishermen.
When diplomatic relations between the Communist neighbours were restored in the 1990s, shooting was prohibited, he says, but, as China’s economic and military might has grown over the past decade, strains over contested islands in the South China Sea have been on the rise again.
China warns over South China Sea dispute - Jun-14Pilling: Asia’s quiet anger with ‘big, bad’ China - Jun-01Vietnam and China oil clashes intensify - May-29China defends naval actions - Jun-05US warns Beijing over South China Sea - Jun-04In depth: China shapes the world - Apr-25“They’re so big and we’re so small, so what can we do?” asks 50-year-old Mr De, who works as a security guard at a memorial to Vietnamese and Russian soldiers who lost their lives in the Spratly Islands and at the nearby naval and air base at Cam Ranh Bay in south-central Vietnam.
The historic military facility, located within one of Asia’s best natural harbours, is at the centre of a strategic push from Vietnam to counter China’s growing assertiveness over disputed waters in the commercially important South China Sea.
Nestled between soaring mountains and the South China Sea near Nha Trang, a popular resort city in south-central Vietnam, Cam Ranh Bay is one of Asia’s best natural, deepwater harbours.
In the 19th century, French colonial authorities constructed the first modern naval base in the vast bay, which extends for 20 miles north-south and is up to 10 miles wide.
France upgraded the military facilities before Japan invaded Indochina in 1940 and the Japanese then took advantage of the base to launch military sorties.
As the US assistance to the anti-communist southern Vietnamese regime developed into a combat role, the Republic of Vietnam offered Cam Ranh Bay to the US in 1965.
The US handed the base back to the Republic of Vietnam in 1972 under President Richard Nixon’s so-called Vietnamisation programme but communist forces seized the bay in 1975, the year they won the war.
The Soviet Union, a key ally of Vietnam, then pressed for access to the base and in 1979, was given a 25-year lease. The Russians moved out in 2002.
Today, the bay houses Vietnam’s small navy, while the air strip is the main access point for nearby Nha Trang.
Cam Ranh Bay became a potent cold war symbol, first as an American base during the war with Communist North Vietnam, and then as a Soviet base after 1979, hosting nuclear submarines and one of the most important spying stations outside Russia.
When the Russians finally pulled out in 2002, Hanoi vowed never to let any foreign power have control of the facility. But, last year, Nguyen Tan Dung, Vietnam’s prime minister, said he would let foreign naval ships use the base again to dock, resupply and undergo repairs on a commercial basis.
The move may generate some cash once the now crumbling facilities are refurbished, security analysts say. However, the main justification for opening up the bay is to balance China’s naval dominance in the South China Sea, which encompasses key global trade routes, valuable fisheries and is thought to sit atop vast oil and gas reserves.
“Who’s going to take up the offer to visit?” says Carl Thayer, an expert on security in the South China Sea at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra. “Precisely those navies that China doesn’t want in the South China Sea, including the Americans, Australians, South Koreans and Indians.”
One senior Asian defence official argues that the US will be keenest to take advantage of the opportunity to use the base, which offers great protection from storms and is located close to key commercial shipping lanes and the disputed islands.
“The US has a Pacific fleet and it’s been more aggressive than many other countries in trying to build closer contacts with Vietnam to counter China’s rise,” he says.
The planned reopening of the base to foreign naval vessels is a sign of the shifting global strategic sands, with China’s inexorable rise causing concern among those such as Vietnam and the US, pushing these old enemies closer together.
Although Vietnam has developed deep economic and political ties with its larger northern neighbour since the 1990s, the relationship is coming under pressure because of China’s increasingly aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea, according to Ian Storey, a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, who studies maritime security.
China, which recently built a large naval base on Hainan island, to the north of the disputed waters, increasingly has the capability to deploy coercive diplomacy in the South China Sea, says Mr Storey. Recent incidents where Chinese maritime surveillance vessels have tried to sabotage Vietnamese oil exploration ships show Beijing also has the political will to do so.
Hanoi has responded by seeking to internationalise the territorial dispute, calling on other claimants to some of the contested Paracel and Spratly Islands – Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan – to hold joint talks and attempting to bring in the US as a mediator.
Despite macroeconomic difficulties, Vietnam has boosted its spending on military hardware, agreeing to buy a number of Sukhoi SU-30 jetfighters and six Kilo-class diesel submarines from Russia.
Once delivered in the next year or two, the submarines are expected to be based at Cam Ranh Bay, which analysts say Russia has agreed to refurbish as part of the $2bn contract to supply the craft. Echoing the patriotism of many Vietnamese, Mr De says he does not want to see any foreign forces in the bay.
But changing dynamics of global security mean that, in a twist of fate, American and Russian ships may soon be back at Cam Ranh Bay, this time working alongside each other and the Vietnamese to counterbalance an ever stronger China.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011.
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Colin: Tensions have been rising again in the South China Sea, this time between Vietnam and the Philippines and China over disputed potentially oil-rich territory. This weekend China’s vice minister for foreign affairs and the United States assistant secretary of Asia-Pacific meet in Hawaii with the Chinese side advising Americans to urge restraint. (!!!) The vice foreign minister was quoted by the Wall Street Journal as saying, “some countries are playing with fire and I hope the U.S. won’t would be burned by this,” well we will see.
Welcome to agenda and joining me this week for his latest assessment of the Chinese Military is Nathan Hughes, Stratfor’s director of military analysis. Nate, it’s a good time to be discussing this. China’s first aircraft carrier goes for trials next week. It will be another year until, of course, it is in service but what difference will it make?
Nate: Well, the Chinese fixed-wing carrier aviation program is still very preliminary, they have had the Varyag in their possession for over a decade now. It was originally bought from the Ukraine as surplus to be a casino, at least extensively in 1998. But it takes a long time to really develop all the capabilities necessary to really run an effective flight deck, and that’s something that the United States has been doing for 100 years now and China is sort of just getting started with it. While the aircraft carrier goes to sea, it’s not even clear with the first time when they will actually start landing aircraft on at it. At the moment we’ve got some imagery that suggests there is still considerable amount of construction equipment and detritus on the deck itself, and it may go to sea with some of that because this first sea trial is really about putting the engines through their paces and making sure the basic shipboard systems are functioning properly.
Colin: So these are just sea trials not weapons testing?
Nate: Right, the initial sea trials of a vessel is really about making sure that the engines work the way they are supposed to and this sort of thing, and especially when you start talking about the purpose of an aircraft carrier, to feel and be able to launch and recover fixed wing aircraft, that is really quite a ways down the road for the Chinese even after, probably well after, the commissioning of this ship next year.
Colin: Of course even with this addition, the Chinese Navy only forms a relatively small part of China’s military. Most of it is in the army, which has also has a bigger budget. How much of the PLA’s effort is taken up with dealing with China’s internal problems?
Nate: Well, this is really an important thing to remember about China is that the vast majority of its military and security apparatus is devoted to land combat and internal security missions. While the navy and air force have gotten a lot of press lately, this is only a small fraction of, in fact combined the Navy and Air Force number fewer than nearly the internal security forces under the Ministry of Defense. It is important to remember the size of China. While it’s the size of the United States, it has one billion extra people. Almost all of whom exist in a fairly low state of subsistence or less, many are disillusioned with the amount of financial rebalancing that has taken place. Many are in buffer areas and some are ethnic minorities, so there is a lot for China to manage internally even as it appears to be expending a lot of effort externally.
Colin: Can you put any kind of percentage on it?
Nate: The Chinese People’s liberation Army Navy and People’s Liberation Army Air Force together, number less than 600,000, while the People’s armed police and a number of other internal security entities: everything from border police to railroad police, number over 700,000. And this isn’t even counting the 1.6 million-man People’s Liberation Army.
Colin: What are the chances of these forces actually having to be deployed in the short-term?
Nate: Well China spent almost its entire modern existence working with a very low- tech conscripted People’s Army. The idea was simply to be able to maintain internal security and defend China’s borders in a fairly traditional, attritional warfare sort of sense. So the challenges before China in the modernization that has taken place since the 1980’s are very profound in terms of taking these new techniques, these new systems and these new weapons that they have been working on, integrating them into an effective war fighting system, and being able to deploy them further afield. China’s been spending a lot of focus lately on China’s deployment of only two warships and a replenishment vessel at a time to the counter piracy mission off the coast of Somalia. And while this is somewhat of a prestige thing, it’s also about learning the basics of sustaining naval vessels far afield; the basics of maintenance, replenishment, the metrics of logistics, these are things China is still very unfamiliar with and those working to learn the tricks of the trade the idea, the idea that they will be able to deploy large numbers of forces anywhere beyond China’s borders, I think is very, is still a very real question.
Colin: What is your assessment of the quality of the hardware that China has invested in?
Nate: Which I have been doing since the 1980’s, has been investing a considerable amount in the latest Russian hardware, in the 1990’s when things were pretty bad for Russia, China was the single biggest buyer of high-end late Soviet technology. They’ve combined that with an aggressive espionage effort, including cyber espionage efforts, to glean the latest technology from the United States and its allies. China’s domestic efforts to put this all together, to be able to build it itself and use it itself, are very extensive, but the challenge is that because China is still new at this, and it’s been growing so rapidly, it’s in a very uncertain place while some of the technology it’s fielding is certainly very impressive, its ability to integrate that into a war fighting concept, it’s lack of real practical or operational experience with it, leaves very real questions about its performance in a shooting war.
Colin: Nate, thank you very much. STRATFOR’s Director of Military Analysis Nathan Hughes ending agenda for this week. I’m Colin Chapman, goodbye for now.
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http://www.businessinsider.com/navy-chinese-microchips-weapons-could-have-been-shut-off-2011-6
Navy Bought Fake Chinese Microchips That Could Have Disarmed U.S. Missiles
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/navy-chinese-microchips-weapons-could-have-been-shut-off-2011-6
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One of the world's flashpoints is the disputed waters of the South China Sea. The Philippines and Vietnam want explicit U.S. support against Chinese incursions, and the U.S. Senate passed a nonbinding resolution Monday deploring Chinese actions. But China is hardly backing down. Last week, Deputy Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai warned that "the individual countries are actually playing with fire, and I hope the fire will not be drawn to the United States."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is so far holding to the line she laid down last July in Hanoi: The U.S. doesn't take sides on the territorial disputes, but it wants to play a role in their peaceful resolution because of its interests in the region and support for freedom of navigation. As China ratchets up tension, it's time for something stronger.
Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario was in Washington last week seeking to clarify the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty between the two countries. In case of an attack on the Philippines, that agreement only obligates Washington to "consult" and "act to meet the common dangers." The Philippine media has been chasing its tail trying to figure out whether Mrs. Clinton and U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Harry Thomas firmed up this U.S. commitment.
The real news is that the Philippines is coming back into the U.S. orbit. As recently as early this year, Manila seemed to be courting Beijing—for instance, by extraditing Taiwanese citizens to the mainland without consulting Taipei. Mr. Aquino's predecessor scuttled the efforts of Southeast Asian nations to negotiate as a bloc with China over the South China Sea, instead opting to cut a separate deal in late 2004 to sacrifice some Philippine claims so that joint oil exploration could go ahead.
The current about-face is the result of China overplaying its hand. Especially alarming is that the People's Liberation Army seems to be calling China's shots on the South China Sea. China's navy vessels have been involved in confrontations even as its diplomats sound conciliatory. While it is too early to say that Beijing is going down the militarist road, all of this has concentrated minds in Southeast Asian capitals.
The U.S. and its regional friends have two main objectives. The first is to upgrade the 2002 Declaration on Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, which China has routinely violated, to a more rigorous code of conduct that spells out how ships and aircraft must behave. Beijing seems to be resuming its policy of "creeping assertiveness" by which it makes the area a Chinese lake by fait accompli.
The second is to convince China to spell out the basis of its claims to the islands and waters surrounding them. Singapore, which has no territorial dispute with China, recently called on Beijing to "clarify its claims with more precision as the current ambiguity as to their extent has caused serious concerns in the international maritime community."
This is important because Beijing has long claimed the South China Sea as its "historical waters" apparently on the basis of a 1947 map showing a dotted U-shaped line around 90% of the area, including the coastal waters of other nations. Customary law, to which Beijing is a signatory through the Law of the Sea treaty, does not recognize such expansive claims. But the Chinese position can't be subject to rigorous scrutiny until it is stated definitively.
No doubt Beijing would like to avoid that. Its preference has been to negotiate on a bilateral basis with each Southeast Asian neighbor, so that it can bring its superior economic and military power to bear. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) had some brief success in getting China to take multilateral negotiations seriously in the early 2000s, until the Philippines bugged out.
Now that Asean is united again, U.S. involvement is an important bargaining chip. Should China continue to preach peace while its military harasses other vessels, Asean nations will be driven to tighten their security arrangements with the U.S. Indications from Washington that it will be a willing partner should put Beijing on notice that its civilian leaders need to rein in the military and put the dispute on track for a negotiated solution.
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By JAMES BACCHUS
China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 was an unambiguously positive step for China in terms of opening up the country to trade and overall economic development. Now it is becoming clearer that China's WTO membership is a benefit for other countries, too. Witness the way in which the WTO may help foreign governments and businesses compel Beijing to reconsider troubling export restrictions on important raw materials.
In recent years, Beijing has expanded a list of minerals and metals subject to stiff export taxes and quotas or outright export bans. A trend that started with elements such as bauxite and materials such as coke for use in steel production expanded dramatically last year to include so-called rare-earth metals—17 elements whose unique properties make them indispensable to high-technology applications such as magnets, lasers, computer screens and cell phones. China currently accounts for 97% of global production of these critical metals.
Foreign businesses and governments have struggled to convince Beijing to relax these export limits, especially in the case of rare earths. But the ruling in a WTO case decided this week suggests that the world trade body could be an effective tool for resolving this problem.
Responding to a complaint by the United States, the European Union and Mexico, a WTO panel ruled on Tuesday that duties and quotas imposed by China on exports of nine metal ores and other raw materials vital to steel, chemical, aluminum and other industries violate international trade rules. This case does not touch on rare earths specifically but the facts and legal concepts are very similar.
The most significant aspect of the finding relates to China's claim to an environmental defense of its export rules. China's WTO accession agreement committed Beijing to eliminate taxes and other charges on exports of all goods except for a list of 84 products; the list does not include any of the raw materials at issue in the current case or any of the rare-earth elements. The only exception allowed by the WTO would be if China could prove that an export restriction is necessary for health or environmental protection, which is what Beijing tried to do in this case.
Mining can at times damage the environment, so China's defense couldn't necessarily be ruled out automatically. The WTO panel's rationale in the raw-materials case decided this week helps set the ground rules for judging China's future environmental claims.
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An iron ore stock yard in Tianjin, China
Importantly, the panel in the raw-materials case concluded that commitments of this kind made in China's accession agreement are not eligible for the environmental defense that is available to many other WTO violations. The rule permitting an environmental defense is in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which is one of many agreements that, together, comprise the overall WTO treaty. An open legal question is the extent to which the scope of this rule extends to excusing violations of the specific accession agreements of China and other WTO members.
The raw-materials panel concluded that since China's WTO agreement didn't specifically invoke GATT rules for export duties relating to these products (and for rare-earths), China can't now base its defense on a GATT provision. Based on previous WTO rulings, this seems a sound conclusion.
The panel went on to say that even if an environmental defense were available in such cases, China did not meet the legal burden of proving such a defense in the raw-materials dispute. The panel found that China did not show that those restrictions would contribute to human health by reducing pollution. Further, although China argued that the raw-materials restrictions are justified because they relate to the conservation of exhaustible natural resources, the panel found otherwise.
The basic legal problem for Beijing in claiming an environmental defense is that while it has limited exports to foreigners, it has not simultaneously taken steps to limit domestic mining or consumption, which is required under the GATT rule for such a defense. This rationale has a direct bearing on the rare-earths limits because those too have affected only exports and not domestic consumption.
This week's panel decision may not be the last word in this case. China has 60 days to appeal to the WTO Appellate Body, the global trade appeals court, which would then have 90 days to render a final decision. China can be expected to appeal. Reacting to this week's ruling, the Chinese government reiterated its environmental argument, saying its restrictive export measures on the raw materials "are in line with the objective of sustainable development promoted by the WTO and they help induce the resource industry toward healthy development."
Based on findings in previous cases, though, it is by no means certain China would win an appeal. If the panel decision were upheld, Beijing would either have to comply with the ruling by removing the restrictions on raw-materials exports, or suffer costly sanctions in other areas of trade from the countries that filed the case.
Beijing can't necessarily afford for matters to go that far. There are signs the government may change its policies accordingly. For instance, although the rare-earths restrictions have not yet been the subject of any litigation, the Commerce Ministry announced that it may unilaterally reform the rare-earths restrictions "according to relevant laws and World Trade Organization rulings," even as other parts of the government seemed to press forward toward an appeal.
Some officials within Beijing understand that China needs the WTO as much as other WTO members need China. Because China has a stake in maintaining free trade under the WTO system—and in encouraging other countries to change their own policies in those WTO cases where China itself prevails—Beijing has an incentive to comply with the spirit of the ruling across the board, in addition to complying with the letter of the ruling for the affected exports.
One positive outcome would be a negotiated settlement to the rare-earths issue now—years before any WTO ruling on that case could be implemented. Such a settlement could address any legitimate health or environmental concerns Beijing may have while ensuring that domestic and foreign consumers of rare earths alike share in any costs associated with better health and environmental compliance.
The next chance for a breakthrough will come next week with the arrival in Beijing of EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht. Commenting on the raw-materials ruling, Mr. De Gucht said, "I expect that China will now bring its export regime in line with international rules. Furthermore, in the light of this result, China should ensure free and fair access to rare earth supplies." That's good advice. Beijing would be wise to heed it.
Mr. Bacchus, a former Democratic Representative from Florida, is former chairman of the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization and chairs the global practice of Greenberg Traurig LLP.
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http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_16028/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=1IhJ5lxA
Guess who's been building the new span of the SF Bay Bridge?
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second post
BEIJING—Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, kicked off a visit to China with a vow to maintain the U.S. military presence in Asia and a warning that recent incidents in the disputed waters of the South China Sea could escalate into conflict.
At the start of a four-day visit, Adm. Mullen on Sunday acknowledged China as a fellow Pacific power, but urged its military to ease regional concerns about its rapid modernization by playing a more cooperative, responsible and transparent role in the world.
Adm. Mullen arrived Saturday on a reciprocal visit at the invitation of Gen. Chen Bingde, his Chinese counterpart, who visited the U.S. in May as part of bilateral efforts to rebuild military exchanges that resumed in January after a 12-month suspension by Beijing.
But even as both sides express their commitment to enhance military ties, tensions are mounting again over one of the most divisive issues between them—the South China Sea, where China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei all have territorial claims.
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Admiral Mike Mullen, right, seen here alongside Defense Secretary Robert Gates during a committee hearing on Capitol Hill in March, is visiting Beijing in a bid to cool military tensions between the U.S. and China.
Adm. Mullen expressed concern about recent incidents in those waters that have provoked angry exchanges between China and two other claimants—Vietnam and the Philippines—as well as protests in Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital, over the past few weeks.
"We have an enduring presence here, we have an enduring responsibility," Adm. Mullen told foreign reporters at a briefing. "We seek to strongly support the peaceful resolution of these differences. The worry, among others that I have, is that the ongoing incidents could spark a miscalculation, and an outbreak that no one anticipated and we should seek to avoid that under all circumstances."
Several Southeast Asian nations—most notably Vietnam—have been strengthening military ties with the U.S. since Chinese military and civilian figures began using more strident rhetoric about their territorial claims early last year.
China has accused the U.S. of interfering in its territorial affairs since Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, declared in Hanoi last July that the U.S. had an interest in protecting freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. Beijing, which advocates resolving the territorial issues bilaterally without any U.S. involvement, has also repeatedly demanded that the U.S. cease aerial reconnaissance and joint exercises around what it sees as its territorial waters.
Adm. Mullen made it clear that the U.S. would maintain its military presence and activities in the region, which included low-level joint naval exercises with Japan and Australia in the South China Sea on Saturday.
"The U.S. is not going away," he said. "Our enduring presence in this region has been important to our allies for decades and it will continue to be so."
China's Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment about Saturday's exercises, or Adm. Mullen's comments Sunday. But the state-run China Daily, an English-language newspaper, said in an editorial Friday that Southeast Asian nations should not tolerate attempts by outside forces to interfere in bilateral disputes.
"Asia's history proves outside forces have never worked whole-heartedly for Asian peace and development," it said.
Speaking later Sunday to students at Renmin University in Beijing, Adm. Mullen urged China's military to be more open about its modernization program. "With greater military power must come greater responsibility, greater cooperation, and just as important, greater transparency," he said. "Without these things, the expansion of military power in your region, rather than making it more secure and stable, could have the opposite affect."
The U.S. and many Asian countries have been alarmed by China's rapid development of advanced weaponry—notably a stealth fighter, a prototype of which it test-flew in January, and an aircraft carrier expected to begin sea trials in August.
"There are some very specific capabilities that are being developed here that are very focused on the United States' capability," Adm. Mullen told the earlier briefing.
However, he said it was not clear whether China would be able to make use of the carrier's full potential, given the huge cost and technical challenges.
"There is great symbolism associated with that and I understand that…. Sometimes matching the actual capability of it versus the symbolism of it, there can be a gap there so I, like you, wait to see what is forthcoming," he said.
He also expressed hope that China and the U.S. could find more ways to cooperate on antipiracy patrols, humanitarian operations, and North Korea, and to communicate directly with each other to help resolve crises.
"China and the United States are both Pacific powers and will be for a long, long time. And we need to, from my perspective, approach this relationship as two leaders with all of the responsibilities that that implies," he said. "And frankly I think we need to work a lot harder on strategic trust and transparency. And it's my hope that these reciprocal visits will get us started in this direction and that they can be sustained even through difficult issues."
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July 13, 2011
A COMPETITIVE CHINA-U.S. RE-ENGAGEMENT
U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen continued his visit to
China on Monday. He met with Chief of General Staff of the People's Liberation Army
Chen Bingde, future Chinese President Xi Jinping and other officials at naval and
air force bases in China.
Mullen's visit has attracted attention because the two sides have proved incapable
of sustained military communication and exchange, with disruptions arising from
intractable differences such as American military support for Taiwan. Mullen's trip
is the first for an official of his rank since 2007. There is every reason to think
that disruptions will continue to occur because of the disparity between the two
sides' views on how international military exchanges should function. The United
States seeks continual interaction separate from other aspects of the relationship,
whereas China cannot afford to separate what Washington views as "political" issues
from its military engagements and frequently cuts off exchange. Thus it is important
that the two sides are talking at all.
"Chen's comment that the United States should spend less on its military and focus
more on reviving its weak economy had a certain pointedness in the context of
American budget-deficit debates, but on a deeper level reflected China's fear that
it is becoming the United States' next target for direct competition before China is
ready."
However, the visit has also attracted attention because it is an exceedingly
interesting time for the two sides to be talking. As wars and a financial crisis
make the United States' strategic constraints more visible than at any other time in
the post-Cold War era, China's fast-growing economy and military development make
for a sharp contrast. The view among some regional players, whose national security
depends on their accurate assessment of the situation, is that a kind of leveling is
taking place.
The renewed engagement is also notable because it follows recent incidents and
conflicts that show regional animosities -- in the Koreas, the East and South China
Seas and Southeast Asia -- threaten to spill out of their former containers,
especially where American power is not considered to be overwhelming. Despite the
U.S. re-engagement throughout the region, some East Asian states suspect that
weakness and a long-term lack of commitment lie at the base of its prolonged
distance from regional affairs.
Thus what the United States and China say regarding military matters -- and any sign
of the trajectory of their intentions and capabilities -- are of great interest to
both parties as well as the rest of the region and world. So far the two sides have
shown they are capable proceeding with the calculated warming of relations formally
launched when Chinese President Hu Jintao met with U.S. President Barack Obama in
January. They have agreed to hold drills on humanitarian assistance and disaster
relief, as well as counter-piracy, and to work toward holding more traditional
military exercises in the future. These developments are not small, and they have at
least temporarily eased some fears in the region that relations between the United
States and China were on the verge of a downward spiral.
The recent warming in U.S.-China relations has drawn inevitable comparisons to the
Kissinger-style detente. However, the contrast between these events is more
striking. When Kissinger traveled to China, relations between the two countries
could hardly have been worse and because the countries shared a common enemy,
relations had ample opportunity to improve. At present, the prospects for
improvement appear limited, whereas their many differences on economic, military and
strategic interests present serious pitfalls. For instance, Chen's optimism
regarding China's future naval capabilities and his criticisms of U.S. military
exercises in the South China Sea with Australia, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam
reflect Beijing's bolder stance. Meanwhile, Mullen's insistence on the durability
and depth of American power and presence in the region and emphasis on China's need
to become a more responsible power seem to reflect a warning to Beijing not to
become too bold. The clash over the South China Sea will intensify regardless of a
warmer diplomatic atmosphere.
Nevertheless, for the time being the warming of relations continues apace because
China is not yet the great power it aspires to be. What allows both countries to
defer confrontation is not only American preoccupation elsewhere but also -- as Chen
all too readily admitted during Monday's meeting -- China's persistent military
weaknesses, despite its recent highlighting of a fifth-generation fighter-jet
prototype, an aircraft carrier and anti-ship ballistic missiles. Chen's comment that
the United States should spend less on its military and focus more on reviving its
weak economy had a certain pointedness in the context of American budget-deficit
debates, but on a deeper level reflected China's fear that it is becoming the United
States' next target for direct competition before China is ready.
What Chen inadvertently pointed to is that, like the Soviets, Beijing's competition
with the United States has an economic basis. Economics is at the heart of military
power. However, in this regard the Chinese do not have as great an advantage as is
widely thought. The American economy has shown itself to be resilient after many
recessions, while the current Chinese model shows all the signs of unbalanced and
unsustainable growth. Coincidentally, the military meeting came as an American
financial delegation visited China to renew demands for inspections of auditing
firms, after a wave of accounting scandals struck Chinese companies listed on
American stock exchanges. The scandals have drawn attention because of their
flagrancy, but China's domestic economy is rife with false accounting. Hidden risks
have become more visible after recent revelations of gigantic debts held by local
governments that push China's total public debt up to levels comparable to
heavily-indebted, developed Western countries. The risks are located in the
state-owned banks, which can only hold things together so long as rapid growth
enables them to continue deferring debt payments. Thus China's great challenge is to
face not only a rising international rivalry but also its eventual combination with
deteriorating domestic economic conditions.
Copyright 2011 STRATFOR.
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http://www.usatoday.com/NEWS/usaedition/2011-07-13-ChinaYanks_CV_U.htm
Latest export to China: The American dream
By Calum MacLeod, USA TODAYPosted 1d 8h ago |
ShareReprints & PermissionsJIANKOU GREAT WALL, China — His sweat pools quickly as Carl Setzer carries another heavy sack of smoked malt into his farmhouse-turned-brewery beside the Great Wall of China near Beijing.
"I'm living the American dream, just not in America," says the Cleveland native, 29, who brews through the night with unusual ingredients such as Sichuan peppercorn to produce craft beers unique in China, and the world.
Setzer typifies a new breed of young Americans, China-savvy and Chinese-speaking, who share the pluck, patience and grit necessary to pursue their diverse dreams here.
After South Koreans, U.S. citizens had formed the second-largest national group among the nearly 600,000 foreigners living on the Chinese mainland at the end of 2010, says China's national statistics bureau.
At a time when many Americans back home worry whether fast-rising China is out to eat their lunch, the number of Americans living on the Chinese mainland has reached a record high of 71,493, according to Chinese census bureau figures released in April.
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Eliminate the students there for exchange/studying purposes only, I wonder how many of those 71,493 "U.S. citizens" in China are naturalized former Chinese who will come running back the the USA waiving their American Passport at the first sign of unrest or trouble. Further, I bet only a very few will stay more than a 5 years in China. In contrast, the line is unbelievably long for Chinese wishing to
come and live permanently in the USA.
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I wonder if they'll recognize America when they get back. Obama's Cloward-Pivin plan is starting to really do it's damage.
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STRATFOR
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July 30, 2011
CHINA'S TECHNOLOGY SHOWCASES MASK ECONOMIC WARNING SIGNS
China is once again on the verge of sending its first aircraft carrier to sea. In
recent days, the Chinese media has expanded on comments, made during a Defense
Ministry press conference, openly confirming that China is refitting the Varyag and
preparing to enter the small club of nations with aircraft carriers.
China's outfitting of the never-completed Varyag has been one of the worst-kept
secrets in military history. Hiding something as large as an aircraft carrier, after
all, is difficult in this age of cameras and satellite imaging. And Chinese netizens
have been even more active than foreign observers at updating photos of the Varyag
at various stages in its development, postulating the timing of deployment, the
christening name, and the significance of China’s soon-to-be newest ship in the
navy.
"Perhaps rather than what these showcase projects mean for China, the greater
question is what is driving Beijing to pursue so many of them."
Even as Chinese officials consistently pretended the country was not working on the
Varyag for active use, Beijing knew that its public relations stance only added to
the mystique of China's naval development. Newspapers and defense journals along the
Pacific Rim and elsewhere are replete with foreign speculation on the future
activities of a more internationally active and aggressive Chinese navy, to say
nothing of more sober discussions of the constraints and limitations facing
potential Chinese naval ambitions with a single carrier (for now) and no history or
culture of carrier operations.
Beijing plays down the Varyag's significance by emphasizing that even after sea
trials, it will take two to five years to fully outfit the carrier and prepare it
for active service, and that the Varyag is intended more for training and scientific
purposes than for aggressive or even defensive military use. But the more China
plays down the carrier, the more foreign voices claim Beijing is hiding its true
agenda: to push the United States out of Asian waters and dominate the region.
The attention on the Varyag is, in many ways, misplaced. China is historically a
land power. Its biggest security challenges remain at home, across a vast territory
that will continue to require large expenditures for manpower, equipment and
transportation. China’s historical flirtation with a navy that travels far beyond
its immediate neighborhood has been limited. Even the famous voyages of Zheng He
could be called frivolous, rather than a serious attempt to dominate seas around the
world or even the region.
With the entrance of European navies into Asia, China found itself sorely lacking
any real defensive maritime capability. Unlike neighboring Japan, China’s attempts
to build up a navy to counter European influence proved ineffective, and the
emergent Japanese navy defeated the Chinese fleet. In the long run, however, Japan
was doomed once it launched its invasion of China. China’s population and size made
it nearly impossible for a foreign maritime power to truly conquer.
China's extensive geography and high population are its core strength and greatest
defense. Even if an invasion from the sea is initially successful, China has the
human resources to ultimately either absorb the conqueror (the one land power that
was successful in invading China -- the Mongols -- eventually became subsumed into
Chinese culture), or to outlast the invader through a long war of attrition.
STRATFOR has said that one of the reasons China appears bent on expanding its naval
capabilities relates to its shifting economic structure. The economic opening and
reform instituted by Deng Xiaoping led to a China that is much more dependent upon
foreign-sourced raw materials and foreign markets. China’s economic supply lines now
cross the globe. Beijing perceives the potential for a dominant naval power, namely
the United States, to interrupt those lines, or even to blockade Chinese ports in
case of confrontation.
China’s naval expansion, in that case, is not part of a strategy to engage in a
naval arms race with the United States or challenge U.S. dominance of the seas.
Rather, Beijing intends to build a defensive buffer around China's maritime
periphery. This would conceptually give Beijing the ability, in the event of a
confrontation with the United States, to continue carrying out trade, at least with
the countries bordering the South China Sea. This in part also explains China’s
so-called two-island chain strategy, and its increasing focus on disputed offshore
territories, like the Spratly Islands.
But the attention to China’s new aircraft carrier, deep-diving submarine, its space
exploration, and similar activities also helps Beijing distract audiences domestic
and global from real problems inside the country. China’s ability to refit and sail
an aircraft carrier built when the Soviet Union was still around and based on
technology from a generation earlier is similar to China’s first manned space launch
a few years ago. These projects are costly and address the periphery of China's
strategic needs, but they attract a lot of attention. Overseas, they somehow
reinforce the perception of a rising China -- and a rising China cannot be on the
verge of a major economic and social crisis. Domestically, they are intended to
inspire the population -- by creating a sense of unity, sacrifice and nationalism --
to rally behind an emerging global power.
Like the Three Gorges Dam, this show of China's capabilities is impressive for a
moment, but it does not really address the country's core needs. As China’s
high-speed rail accident shows, such leaps in Chinese showcase technologies are not
always perfected in the rush to highlight advancement. Perhaps attention should be
placed less on what these emerging showcase projects may mean for China than what is
driving Beijing to pursue so many of them. Beijing’s top concern is avoiding an
economic and social crisis, and Chinese leaders know that it may be only a matter of
time before the Chinese economy faces the same structural limitations that its East
Asian counterparts already faced.
The crisis may already be unfolding in China, as three decades of high growth rates
give way to more moderate growth and as inefficiencies within the economy become
more apparent. Sailing an aircraft carrier off the coast of China may make for great
video and breathless speculations of China’s emerging power. But the real show is
playing out at home. Stresses among small businesses and migrant laborers, between
the economic needs of the central planners and those of local and regional
governments, portend the looming question: What happens if China’s economic miracle
faces what all economic miracles eventually face -- the reality that there is no
such thing as unlimited, linear, multidigit growth.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/06/crisis-idUSLDE77504R20110806
In the Xinhua commentary, China scorned the United States for its "debt addiction" and "short sighted" political wrangling.
"China, the largest creditor of the world's sole superpower, has every right now to demand the United States address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China's dollar assets," it said.
It urged the United States to cut military and social welfare expenditure. Further credit downgrades would very likely undermine the world economic recovery and trigger new rounds of financial turmoil, it said.
"International supervision over the issue of U.S. dollars should be introduced and a new, stable and secured global reserve currency may also be an option to avert a catastrophe caused by any single country," Xinhua said.
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http://the-diplomat.com/2011/07/24/china%e2%80%99s-two-pronged-maritime-rise/
China’s Two-Pronged Maritime Rise
July 24, 2011
By Robert C. O'Brien
China is following a two-prong strategy with its impressive maritime build-up. The West is making a mistake if it underestimates the implications.
For the past decade, while the West has been consumed battling Islamic extremists in the Middle East and Central Asia, China has been engaged in a rapid and impressive effort to establish itself as the supreme maritime power in the Eastern Pacific and Indian Oceans.
For years, China focused its military spending on the People’s Liberation Army, while the Air Force and Navy served as little more than adjuncts to the Army. But with the launch of its first aircraft carrier next month, the rest of the world – and especially the United States’ Asian allies – is taking note of how dramatically things have changed. China has big maritime ambitions, and they are backed up by a naval build-up unseen since Kaiser Wilhelm II decided to challenge British naval power with the building of the High Seas Fleet at the turn of the last century.
China’s build-up is driven by a two-pronged strategy. First, China seeks to deny access by the United States and other naval powers to the Yellow, East China and South China Seas, thereby (1) establishing its own equivalent to the way the United States saw the Caribbean in the 20th century, from which its blue water navy can operate globally; (2) dominating the natural resources and disputed island chains such as the Spratly and Senkaku Island chains in those seas; and (3) giving it the capacity to reunify Taiwan with the mainland by force and without US interference, if necessary. China’s assertiveness in confronting and harassing Asian and US civilian and naval ships in the region over the past decade shows a sustained level of determination on this front.
Second, China seeks international prestige and a power projection capacity in the Pacific and Indian Ocean sea lanes by deploying multiple aircraft carriers and fifth-generation stealth fighter-bombers. The booming Chinese economy has become ever more dependent on imported minerals and oil from Africa and the Middle East, and the ability to protect its Indian Ocean and Strait of Malacca sea lanes is a responsibility that China is no longer willing to delegate to other powers.
The officially reported Chinese military budget for 2011 is $91.5 billion, a massive increase from its $14.6 billion budget in 2000. China acknowledges that a third of its spending is now devoted to its Navy, yet even this big leap is almost certainly understated. China is notoriously non-transparent with its military expenditures, and most analysts believe that it spends significantly more on its armed forces than the publicly reported number. Further, Chinese military labour costs for its soldiers, sailors and airman is a fraction of what Western governments spend, where salaries, benefits and pensions are usually the largest share of defence budgets. This allows China to devote more of its budget to building weapons systems than its competitors. Unlike Western governments, which are slashing defence spending, China will continue to increase spending in coming years.
A key goal of China’s maritime build-up is access denial. While multifaceted, China is building its access denial strategy around two backbone platforms: the DF-21D (Dong Feng) anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM), described as a ‘Carrier Killer,’ and an ever expanding and modern attack submarine fleet. US Navy Pacific Commander Adm. Robert F. Willard has characterized the DF-21D as already having reached the Initial Operational Capability stage of development, meaning that they are operable, but not yet necessarily deployable. Taiwan sources report that China has already deployed at least 20 ASBMs. Whether deployed now or in the near future, the US Navy believes China already has the space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, command and control structure, and ground processing capabilities necessary to support DF-21D employment. China also employs an array of non-space based sensors and surveillance assets capable of providing the targeting information necessary to employ the DF-21D. With a recently reported range of 2,600 kilometres, these missiles will give naval planners real concern when operating anywhere nearby the Chinese mainland.
The Chinese submarine programme has been especially vigorous. For most of the Cold War, China operated outdated Soviet-era coastal submarines. In the 1990s, China purchased Russian Kilo-class diesel-electric attack submarines, and has been launching two indigenously-built Song-class diesel-electric attack submarines per year for the past decade. It has also developed and launched the high tech Yuan-class diesel-electric attack boat, which may have the silent air-independent propulsion system. Analysts believe that China will in the coming years also launch the Shang-class nuclear-powered attack submarine, further strengthening its already robust submarine fleet. It has surely not escaped China’s notice that US anti submarine warfare capability has atrophied significantly since the end of the Cold War.
**Read it all.
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Said to be 'huge', this discovery could break China's lock on rare earth elements, the minerals required for basic technology manufacturing of our time. (If only the Obama EPA will allow them to mine there.)
http://www.businessinsider.com/elk-creek-rare-earth-2011-8
This Nebraska Village May Be Sitting On The World's Largest Untapped Deposit Of Rare Earth Minerals Aug. 3, 2011
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Said to be 'huge', this discovery could break China's lock on rare earth elements, the minerals required for basic technology manufacturing of our time. (If only the Obama EPA will allow them to mine there.)
http://www.businessinsider.com/elk-creek-rare-earth-2011-8
This Nebraska Village May Be Sitting On The World's Largest Untapped Deposit Of Rare Earth Minerals Aug. 3, 2011
That's a big if.
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One of the articles on that story says the cellphone would be 3 pounds without the use of so-called rare earth elements. Why don't we have people carry those for a couple of days until they tell the oppressionists in Washington, loudly and clearly, that we need to open this country for business, and that necessarily includes mining, drilling, processing and manufacturing - or someone else (like China) will.
I can only think of what Dean Wormer said to Flounder in Animal House: "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son." What is the matter with our globally competitive, strategic economic team?? Terms like deaf, dumb and blind aren't fair to people who really suffer those afflictions.
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I can only think of what Dean Wormer said to Flounder in Animal House: "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son." What is the matter with our globally competitive, strategic economic team?? Terms like deaf, dumb and blind aren't fair to people who really suffer those afflictions.
FAT
(http://i754.photobucket.com/albums/xx189/pistolpetestoys/mo-bathing-suit.jpg)
DRUNK
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmRXH7RkCZQ[/youtube]
STUPID
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omHUsRTYFAU[/youtube]
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/08/07/china-s-view-of-the-debt-debate-america-in-decline.html
Whatever the rating agencies say, many in China believe the U.S. is no longer creditworthy.
Aug 7, 2011 10:00 AM EDT
Xian, China—viewed from inside the Beltway, the passage of legislation to raise the federal debt ceiling was a triumph for democracy.
“The push and pull Americans saw in Washington these past few weeks…was the will of the people working itself out,” declared Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate. The appearance of Gabrielle Giffords to vote for the bill raised not just the ceiling but also the roof.
Viewed from Beijing, it looked very different. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine what more we could have done to vindicate the Chinese Communist Party’s position that Western democracy is a form of institutionalized chaos to be avoided by all sane Asians.
One of my friends from China asked me how much of the federal debt was owed by the government to itself. I had to check. The answer is just less than a third, since various agencies like the Social Security Trust Fund are major holders of U.S. Treasuries.
“So,” he mused, “Congress just voted not to default on the debt the government owes itself?” I had to admit that was correct. “And how much of the federal debt is owed by the government to the American people?” More checking. The answer is that just more than a third is owed to U.S. citizens and the banks and pension funds that manage their savings.
“So the will of the people was that it would be better not to default on the government’s debt to…the people?” I couldn’t deny it.
Readers who enjoy arithmetic can now answer a further question: what proportion of the federal debt is owed to foreigners? The answer is just less than a third. If you exclude the part of the debt the government owes to itself, the figure is 46 percent—nearly half. But my Chinese friend didn’t need me to tell him that. Everyone here knows that the United States is in hock to the rest of the world and that China is its No. 1 creditor.
According to official figures, mainland China holds $1.1 trillion in U.S.-government debt instruments. But it’s an open secret that the Chinese authorities also like to buy Treasuries via intermediaries in London, Hong Kong, and elsewhere. Add the U.K. and Hong Kong figures and the total is closer to $1.6 trillion—about 17 percent of the federal debt in public hands. And if you include nongovernmental securities held in China’s international reserves, the U.S. debt to China rises to more than $2 trillion.
The antics of American legislators take on a new significance when you realize how our leading creditor interprets them. As Beijing sees it, the last three months have furnished ample evidence that—regardless of what the American rating agencies may say—the United States is no longer creditworthy. Even if Congress has pulled back from the brink of outright default, many in China view the debt deal as at best a temporary fix. As the Xinhua News Agency put it, the 11th-hour deal has “failed to defuse Washington’s debt bomb for good, only delaying an immediate detonation by making the fuse an inch longer.” Meanwhile, the unspoken intention of the Federal Reserve is to debase the dollar through “quantitative easing,” which translates into Mandarin as “printing money.” (It’s no accident that one of the bestselling economics books in China is called Currency Wars.)
So the Chinese have skin in this game. And their U.S. exposure doesn’t stop there. In order to prevent devaluation of their dollars, they have no option but to keep buying yet more dollar-denominated securities. That strategy suits their exporters fine, since it keeps their goods competitive in the American market. But what if the effect of last week’s debt deal, which mandates deficit reduction of $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years, causes a further slowdown in U.S. growth? Not so good.
China has its own economic problems, to be sure. But they are the problems of a rising power. From Beijing’s standpoint, America’s problems are plainly those of a power in decline. We didn’t just raise a ceiling last week. In Chinese eyes, we also fell through a floor.
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STRATFOR CEO Dr. George Friedman explains why the United States should treat China as a regional power and not a superpower, in the third of a series on global pressure points.
Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.
Colin: The world is full of pundits who predict that China will, sometime in the first half of this century, overtake the United States as an economic power. The only difference between them is when this will happen. STRATFOR doesn’t believe this will happen and as China’s economy slows down while facing inflation, many others have doubts also. For his latest assessment, we turn to George Friedman, who we welcome back to Agenda.
George, China argues that the United States should treat it as an equal. For the United States, this seems a step too far. Is this a chasm that can be resolved peacefully?
George: The United States doesn’t treat China as an equal or an unequal, it treats it as China. As a country it has interests and those interests may coincide with American interests or they may not. But the United States, and any other country treats any other country as its interests. In many cases, the problem really is that observers of China have bought into the Chinese view that China is a superpower economically, militarily, politically, and therefore the United States should it treat it as such. But the fact is that China is far from a superpower in any of these realms. It remains a relatively weak economic power and certainly a weak military and political power, and the United States treats it as it is: a significant regional power with a great many weaknesses, and when it threatens American interests, the United States is quite happy to slap it back.
Colin: With the possibility of confrontation between the world’s first and second largest economy troubles many countries in the Asia Pacific region. First of all Japan and Korea but also many nations of Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Vietnam and a resources giant, Australia.
George: Well I mean it’s interesting that they’re troubled. I must admit that I’ve never understood what it meant for a nation to be troubled—I understand people being troubled. Look, there can’t be confrontation militarily between the United States and China. Firstly because the United States is incapable of intruding on mainland China militarily—it’s a vast population, a large army. And China has no naval capability worthy of the name. They have launched their first aircraft carrier. That means they have one aircraft carrier. They don’t have the cruisers, they don’t necessarily have the advanced attack submarines, they don’t have the Aegis defense systems. In other words they’ve launched a ship and now they have to train their pilots to land and takeoff from the ship and the aircraft that take off from the ship have to be able to engage and survive American F-14s. The distance between being a challenge to the United States and having one aircraft carrier is vast and generational. Not only do they have to train the people to fly off the deck, they have to train naval commanders, admirals, to command carrier battle groups, and even more admirals who know how to command groups of carrier battle groups. The United States has been in the business of handling carrier battle groups since the 1930s. The Chinese have not yet floated their first carrier battle group, and one isn’t enough. So it’s really important to understand that while China has made a minor movement in floating aircraft carrier, a technology that is now just about 80 years old—that’s very nice but it does not make them a power.
Colin: Now, financial analysts and economists talk up China as an economic power but at STRATFOR we’re doubters. China has slowed down this year, but do we still believe that Chinese growth is unsustainable?
George: The question of Chinese growth is the wrong question. I can grow anything if I cut profit margins to the bone or take losses. According to the Chinese Ministry of Finance, Chinese profits on their exports are about 1.7 percent, which means that some of these people are exporting at almost no level. The Chinese grow their economy not in the way that Western economies grow that when you sell more products, you make more money. The Chinese grow their economy to avoid unemployment. The Chinese nightmare is unemployment because in China unemployment leads to massive social unrest. Therefore the Chinese government is prepared to subsidize factories that really should be bankrupt because they’re so inefficient in order to keep these companies going. They will lend money to these companies not to grow them but in order to make certain that they don’t default on other loans. So I think one of the mistakes we make is the growth rate of China being the measure of Chinese health. I want everyone to remember that in the 1980s Japan was growing phenomenally and yet their banking system crashed in spite of the fact of having vast dollar reserves. So when you look at the Japanese example you see a situation where growth rates, which Westerners focused on, were seen to be a sign of health when in fact they were simply a solution to a problem of unemployment and underneath it the economy was quite unhealthy. This doesn’t mean that China doesn’t have a large economy, but having a large economy and being able to sustain healthy, balanced growth are two very different things.
Colin: Wouldn’t it be in the interests of both countries to find more common ground, perhaps to work together to make the Western Pacific a zone of peace involving Japan and other countries?
George: Well first of all, there is a zone of peace in that region. There’s no war going on. Secondly, the guarantor that it’s a zone of peace is the American 7th Fleet—the Chinese can’t do anything about it. As for tension bubbling about, so much of this is what I’ll call newspaper babble. Some minister or some secretary says something hostile, something is said—these are merely words. Here’s the underlying fact: China cannot sell the products it produces in China because over a billion people living in China live in absolute poverty and can’t buy it. They’re the hostage to European and American consumers, and their great fear is that those consumers, if they go into a recession, won’t buy those products. The problem the Chinese have is that they can’t invest their own money into the Chinese economy—there’s no room to put it, there aren’t enough workers, there’s not enough land and so on. So they have this massive hangover that they’re willing to invest in the world to get out of China. So there is a very good relationship between the United States and China. The Chinese get to sell products to the Americans; the Americans get these products. The problem the Chinese have is that their wage rates are now higher than those of other countries. It is cheaper to hire workers in Mexico today than in China. Their great historic advantage is dissolving yet they must continue to export. The American desire that the Chinese change the value of the yuan, that they float it, of course will never happen. The Chinese can’t afford to let that happen because of course that would make their exports even more expensive and place them in even more difficult trouble. So the United States enjoys jerking their chain by saying they should float the yuan. The Chinese respond saying that they will do that in a few years as soon as something else happens that’s unnamed. And the Chinese condemn the United States for their naval activities, and all of these are words. These two countries are locked together in a very beneficial relationship. In the long run it’s more beneficial to the United States than to the Chinese, and that’s one of the paradoxes. But again it takes a long time for people to realize that economies have failed or recovered. I remember back in 1993, people were still speaking about the Japanese super-state long after the banking system collapsed. One of the interesting things about the global financial community is that they always seem to be about two years behind reality, and the China situation is that they are in the midst of a massive slowdown. They’re admitting to a certain degree of slowdown—we suspect it’s much more substantial than that. In fact, given Chinese inflation rate, they may be entering negative territory. So this is a country that has had a magnificent run up in 30 years, it is going to be an important economic and military and political power over the next century but for right now it’s got problems.
Colin: George Friedman there, ending the Agenda for this week. Thanks for joining us, and until the next time, goodbye.
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An issue predicted more than once by me many months ago.
====================
The trade magazine Defense News reports that the Obama Administration has notified Taiwan that it will not sell it new F-16s, but will agree to upgrade the island's older fighters. "They are going to split the baby," a defense industry source told reporter Wendell Minnick. The metaphor is apt, as this outcome would endanger the island democracy.
Both the U.S. and Taiwan have denied the report, but whether it is final or not, we're hearing the Administration is leaning this way. If so, Beijing will have bullied another American President into scaling back the sale of defensive arms required under the Taiwan Relations Act. The island's weak defense is now becoming critical, as a report on Taiwanese air power due out shortly from the Pentagon will show.
Trying to paper over this reality with moves like upgrading Taiwan's F-16 A/B fighter only makes matters worse. These aging airframes reportedly will get sophisticated radars and electronic countermeasures that in some ways will make them more capable than the U.S. Air Force's own F-16s. So in order to make up the shortfall in Taiwan's defenses caused by its unwillingness to sell plain vanilla F-16 C/Ds, the Obama Administration is risking this more advanced technology falling into Beijing's hands by way of its espionage rings on the island.
Taiwan doesn't need the most advanced weaponry on the market to defend itself; it needs reasonably capable weapons in sufficient quantities. China is improving the capabilities of its weapons, but its biggest advantage on Taiwan is in numbers. The mainland can send missiles and fighters in waves across the Strait to overwhelm the island's air force. Taiwan is buying advanced Patriot missile defenses, which will help, but new F-16s are a crucial part of its defense in depth.
By hesitating to provide Taiwan with the arms it needs, President Obama is setting up a future U.S. President for a crisis. Beijing has declared that it will attack if Taiwan's leaders try to put off reunification indefinitely. In practice, this means that when the Chinese military enjoys a decisive advantage in the Taiwan Strait, the threats against Taiwan could begin in earnest. If the Obama Administration fails to honor America's commitments to Taiwan, Beijing's threats could turn to war sooner than anyone anticipates.
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Taiwan is in a way the Israel of its region. Our best natural ally but we aren't supposed to admit we like them or support them. They aren't even a country on the map of the United Nations, just like Israel is missing from some maps in their region. We wouldn't want to offend our friends the repressive communists, or Hamas, Hezbollah and the Mullahs. Did anyone ask Huntsman is he thinks Taiwan should be limited to flying old planes as the world's largest army threatening their shores is building new aircraft carriers? No. Evolution policy was more pressing.
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This whole thing is sad because manufacturing of high technology is not about cheap, low end labor costs. Our misguided policies over a long period have cost us far more of our manufacturing base and jobs base for more than what was needed based on just free trade and comparative advantage reasons.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/08/17/why-amazon-cant-make-a-kindle-in-the-usa/
“So the decline of manufacturing in a region sets off a chain reaction. Once manufacturing is outsourced, process-engineering expertise can’t be maintained, since it depends on daily interactions with manufacturing. Without process-engineering capabilities, companies find it increasingly difficult to conduct advanced research on next-generation process technologies. Without the ability to develop such new processes, they find they can no longer develop new products. In the long term, then, an economy that lacks an infrastructure for advanced process engineering and manufacturing will lose its ability to innovate.”
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Amazon’s Kindle 2 couldn’t be made in the U.S., even if Amazon wanted to:
* The flex circuit connectors are made in China because the US supplier base migrated to Asia.
* The electrophoretic display is made in Taiwan because the expertise developed from producting flat-panel LCDs migrated to Asia with semiconductor manufacturing.
* The highly polished injection-molded case is made in China because the U.S. supplier base eroded as the manufacture of toys, consumer electronics and computers migrated to China.
* The wireless card is made in South Korea because that country became a center for making mobile phone components and handsets.
* The controller board is made in China because U.S. companies long ago transferred manufacture of printed circuit boards to Asia.
* The Lithium polymer battery is made in China because battery development and manufacturing migrated to China along with the development and manufacture of consumer electronics and notebook computers.
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Summary
Philippine President Benigno Aquino III is leading a delegation of businessmen on a state visit to China from Aug. 30 to Sept. 3. Manila appeared to have toned down its criticisms of Beijing ahead of the visit, hoping to secure more Chinese investment in the country. But China has warned the Philippines that its cooperation in the current context has a cost, namely a bigger hand in the Philippine mining sector and more restraint from Manila in the South China Sea.
Analysis
Philippine President Benigno Aquino III began his first-ever state visit to China on Aug. 30, a long-delayed trip that will conclude Sept. 3. Relations between the countries have been tense since March because of their ongoing dispute over the South China Sea, and have been compounded by the fact that the visit comes a week after the one-year anniversary of the hostage crisis in Manila that killed eight people, mostly tourists from Hong Kong, not to mention that Aquino openly refused to apologize a week before his visit for the botched rescue by Philippine security forces during that incident.
However, prior to the visit, Manila appeared to tone down its public criticism of China’s assertiveness and incursions into the disputed sea, instead relying on conciliatory rhetoric in a bid to garner Chinese investment. The Philippines traditionally has played China and the United States off one another, reaping the benefits of economic cooperation with Beijing while protecting itself with security guarantees from Washington. Beijing recognizes this — and that the recent accommodative rhetoric from Manila is hollow — and will try to use Aquino’s request for investment to extract concessions and restrain the Philippines’ behavior in the South China Sea.
Manila’s Need for Investment
With the Philippine economy signaling slower growth, Aquino is in a tough spot. More than a year into his presidency, he is far from fulfilling a number of campaign promises and is facing a declining popularity rating. As a result, the Philippines is increasingly in need of external investment, and Aquino is looking to Beijing to provide it.
China has become the Philippines’ third-largest trade partner. But Chinese investment in the Philippines was only around $100 million in 2010, a tiny portion of the $59 billion of total overseas investment in the country that year and even lower than China’s investment there five years ago. In other words, there is a great deal of room for Chinese investment to grow in the investment-strapped country.
A delegation of 300 businessmen is accompanying Aquino on the five-day trip to China. According to reports, Aquino wants to double bilateral trade (from about $28 billion to $60 billion) with China by 2016. Meanwhile, he is seeking up to $7 billion worth of deals from China, promising that the investment-hungry country is “open for business.” In particular, Aquino is campaigning for Chinese investment in the automobile industry; shipbuilding, railway and agriculture projects; and his government’s public-private partnership program, the centerpiece of the Aquino administration’s push to restructure the economy and generate employment opportunities.
The Philippine Balancing Act
China’s rapid economic growth and expanding influence in the region, in conjunction with reduced investment and aid from Japan, has drawn more and more Southeast Asian countries into China’s economic sphere. Beijing has leveraged this economic influence to gain political influence and to help address diplomatic disputes.
However, unlike other countries in the region, the Philippines enjoys a security alliance with the United States, which provides Manila with alternative options to counterbalance China’s growing influence and maximize its own interests. In fact, Manila has proved capable of balancing the two powers, gaining U.S. defense guarantees while reaping the benefits of economic cooperation with China. However, with the U.S. re-engagement policy, competing interests in the South China Sea and other regional matters, Manila needs to walk a more careful line to balance the two powers and continue to secure the respective benefits of cooperation with each.
China’s Demands
Beijing has responded coldly to Manila’s latest overtures. The Global Times, a state-run Chinese newspaper, clearly suggested in a recent editorial that Beijing would not easily fulfill Manila’s request for investment, especially following the latest tension over the South China Sea during which Beijing saw the Philippines as using U.S. backing to its advantage. The editorial went on to say Beijing would not put its own interests at risk and encourage Manila’s game between China and the United States by granting easy access to investment. It also said China should use its economic leverage over the Philippines to address bilateral disputes and shape Manila’s behavior. Simply put, China has warned the Philippines that its cooperation in the current context will come with a price, namely a bigger hand in the Philippine mining sector and more influence in the South China Sea.
Beijing has long been interested in engaging the Philippines’ rich resource and energy sectors. In fact, shortly before Aquino’s visit, Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Liu Jianchao called on Manila to liberalize its economic policies in order to facilitate Chinese investments, particularly in mining. But resistance within the Philippines has hampered China’s efforts.
China’s interest in the Philippine mining sector stems from its need to meet its growing energy and resource demand over the long term, but for the Philippines, mining is a politically controversial issue. The Philippine Mining Act of 1995 essentially allows 100 percent foreign ownership for large-scale mining and limited equity for smaller operations. Attempts to open mining to foreign investors has been impeded, however, by opponents ranging from Catholic bishops, indigenous groups, environmentalists and the leftist political group known as the New People’s Army. Aquino has been under pressure to revoke the government’s mining policy, so acceding to China’s demand for more access to the Philippine mining sector will be difficult for him to do.
Meanwhile, Beijing may also pressure Manila to exercise more restraint in the South China Sea, emphasizing China’s preferred approach of bilateral dialogue and joint exploration projects. Still, the latest disagreement over potential joint exploration efforts shows that both sides are unlikely to abandon their positions. The Philippines will not make concessions on its territorial integrity, and thus it continues military purchases and calls for more assistance from Washington despite its moderated rhetoric. Indeed, just before Aquino’s visit, Manila made a show of its recently acquired patrol ship from the United States, the refurbished 115-meter (377-foot) BRP Gregorio del Pilar, and indicated that more purchases would be made.
Despite reduced tensions during the Philippine president’s visit, Beijing’s and Manila’s competing interests in the South China Sea continue to inhibit closer relations. Beijing expects concessions from Manila, particularly in the South China Sea, in return for investment. However, China also understands not to push the pro-U.S. administration in Manila too far, which would likely bring more attention from Washington to the disputed South China Sea region.
Read more: China Seeks Increased Leverage over the Philippines | STRATFOR
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Doing business with China is like playing pool or cards with a guy named after a geographical feature. You damn well better know what you are doing.
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This is but one step towards making the South China Sea their lake, setting up the day they back us off from supporting Taiwan, restricting the movements of our Navy and much more.
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This is but one step towards making the South China Sea their lake, setting up the day they back us off from supporting Taiwan, restricting the movements of our Navy and much more.
Of course it is.
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http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/china/articles/20110903.aspx
September 3, 2011:
The U.S. recently released its annual report on Chinese military power, and the main point was that growing Chinese military capabilities were being used to coerce or covertly attack other countries. Chinese neighbors agreed with this, as did more distant targets (of Chinese Cyber War attacks). China promptly denounced the American analysis as “baseless.” But the reality is otherwise. The growing Chinese navy is increasingly showing up to enforce Chinese claims over disputed islands, and large areas of (according to the rest of the world) international waters. China’s neighbors are increasing their naval capabilities (more ships, aircraft and weapons) and getting cozy with the United States (which has the largest fleet on the planet.)
During the recent fighting in Libya, the rebels complained of encountering government troops armed with new Chinese weapons. Accusations were made that China was selling weapons to the Kaddafi dictatorship despite a UN embargo. A little investigating found that this was indeed the case, and that Chinese arms merchants had approached the Libyan government earlier in the year, offering to sneak the weapons in via Algeria and South Africa. The last shipments appear to have arrived in July. Back then, there were reports of smugglers moving truckloads of weapons across the Algerian border into Libya.
In response to Chinese spy ships operating in the area, India is increasing its military forces in its Andaman (off the Burmese coast), Nicobar (near Indonesia) and Lakshadweep (off the southwest Indian coast) Islands. This means increasing maritime and electronic surveillance capabilities on the islands, as Chinese naval forces are expected to be a more frequent sight around these islands. Indian politicians are complaining about the expense of all these security measures (including creating and deploying new units on the Chinese border). But popular fear of growing Chinese military power forces the politicians to come up with the money.
The Chinese government has apparently leaned on some of the most prominent hacker groups to advise their members and followers to avoid hacking Chinese targets, and to be more discreet (don’t get caught) when attacking foreign targets. Those who are not skilled enough to avoid getting caught, are advised to not attack foreign corporations and governments at all. China has long maintained remarkable control over its own hackers, organizing many of them into a semi-official cyber-militia and permitting, and even encouraging, a lot of illegal hacking against foreign targets. The hacker organizations also served as a recruiting pool for government and military Cyber War organizations. But despite all the precautions, a lot of the subsequent Cyber War and espionage operations were traced back to China. This has caused a growing crescendo of accusations and threats from foreign nations. While China denies everything, it has now told its hackers to cool it, or else. That means something in China, where “enemies of the state” are still sent to labor camps or executed. Unfortunately, given the size and nature of the hacker underground (even in China), the cease and desist orders could not be given in secret.
It’s also recently been revealed (via wikileaks) that Apple Corporation set up a major anti-counterfeiting effort operation three years ago. One of the main targets was China, where corrupt officials tolerate massive counterfeiting, despite government promises to stamp out the practice. The Apple investigation resulted in considerable detail about counterfeiting operations in China, and the extent of official and unofficial government involvement. The U.S. government used these details to put more pressure on China to shut down the rampant counterfeiting and government approved hacking.
While the Chinese government is making a big deal about investing in North Korea, via new “free trade zones,” Chinese government controlled business publications are putting out articles detailing why such efforts have little chance of success. North Korea is still considered, even by the Chinese, as too unstable an area for any major investments. This is known from the experience of Chinese traders and businessmen who have been operating (at great risk) in North Korea for decades.
Several years of growing inflation in China is causing more unrest. Government efforts to curb the rising prices, like by restricting credit to companies, is being undermined by corruption, which makes it possible for companies to get loans from overseas lenders. This demonstrates that the widespread corruption not only creates popular unrest, but limits the ability of the government to govern.
August 29, 2011: A court sentenced a senior Buddhist monk to 11 years in jail for his role in allowing another monk to kill himself last March. The dead monk burned himself to death as a protest against Chinese persecutions of Tibetan Buddhists. Last month, another monk burned himself to death in protest.
August 26, 2011: Chinese web portal Sina.com, following government orders, announced that it had suspended several microblogs (the local equivalent of Twitter, which is banned in China) that had spread “misinformation.” What microblogs more frequently do is spread news the government wants to control (which is why Twitter cannot operate in China.) The Sina.com move generated a lot of protest by many other microbloggers. The government seeks to control Internet use to avoid stirring up unrest. But these censorship efforts often do just that. The government is also increasing its use of blacklists of popular culture items, like foreign (especially American) songs that cannot be available on the Chinese Internet. Recent hits by Lady Gaga and Beyonce are typical of the forbidden sounds. The stuff gets through anyway, aided by increased demand because of blacklist status. If the government doesn’t like it, it must be good.
August 25, 2011: State run TV removed a video from its web site that showed (apparently by accident) a Cyber War tool (that can launch a DDOS attack on another site and shut it down temporarily.) The government denied that the Cyber War program was government property, but refused to comment further. The video first appeared on TV in July.
August 24, 2011: The U.S. Department of Defense released its annual review of Chinese military power. Over the next week, China denounced the implications (that all this new Chinese military capabilities might be a problem.)
August 18, 2011: For the first time, Chinese PC shipments (18.5 million for this past April-June) exceeded those of the U.S. (17.7 million) for a three month period.
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After the Carter Administration established diplomatic relations with mainland China in 1979, the U.S. Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act with veto-proof majorities to ensure that future Presidents would sell the island the arms it needs to defend itself. The law is now in danger of becoming a dead letter, as the Obama Administration is reportedly planning to reject Taiwan's request to buy badly needed new F-16 fighters. It's time for Congress to act again to correct the executive branch's inability to withstand pressure from China.
A move is afoot to do exactly that. If the Administration decides against the deal by its self-imposed deadline of Oct. 1, Senator John Cornyn of Texas says he will propose an amendment to the defense authorization bill mandating the sale. He would probably get support from a majority of lawmakers in both houses, who have signed on to letters supporting the sale. The idea is that President Obama would find it difficult if not impossible to veto a law that keeps the entire military funded.
A precedent was set for such a move in 2000, when a Republican-controlled Congress threatened to force President Bill Clinton to sell Aegis destroyers to Taiwan. That became a bargaining ploy that helped a lame-duck Administration see its way to selling a bigger package of weapons and radars than it otherwise would have approved.
In this case, Taiwan badly needs the new F-16s, as well as an upgrade of its older planes. Late last month, the Pentagon released its annual report on Chinese military power acknowledging the upcoming leap in capabilities represented by China's J-20 stealth fighter, now in testing. A separate report on Taiwan's airpower is now 18 months overdue, which suggests there is bureaucratic infighting over contents that would show the island's air defenses need upgrading.
In normal circumstances, we would not advocate Congress interfering in the conduct of foreign affairs, the responsibility of the executive branch. However, since 1979 China has brought increasing pressure to bear on U.S. Presidents, so that they have tended to put off arms sales to Taiwan for their successor to handle. As Taiwan's defense becomes more and more precarious, a future U.S. President may have to put Americans in harm's way to defend the island or see a democracy capitulate to an aggressor.
In this case Congress would be enhancing President Obama's foreign-policy leverage in Asia, not undermining it. Some of the wiser figures in the White House might even be thankful if the Congress takes this difficult decision off their hands. As well as selling the F-16s, lawmakers might also consider how to strengthen the Taiwan Relations Act to put arms sales to the island on a more automatic schedule that would allow future Presidents to deflect Chinese pressure. That would be a boon to American policy making, an assurance for Taiwan's freedom—and a spur to more responsible Chinese conduct.
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By CHESTER DAWSON
TOKYO—Japan's new defense minister said that while the American alliance remains the core of security policy, he wants to improve ties between Chinese and Japanese armed forces as a means of dealing with China's military rise.
"The U.S.-Japan security relationship is the cornerstone of our national security policy, but based on that foundation we need to improve relations with China," Yasuo Ichikawa said Monday in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, his first with a foreign media organization since taking office Sept. 2.
Mr. Ichikawa also said the contract for a next-generation fighter aircraft, a long-delayed and highly anticipated project sought by three global defense titans, will be awarded by year's end.
Sino-Japanese relations have been strained by a series of recent incursions by Chinese ships into Japan's territorial waters in the East China Sea. A war of words between Beijing and Tokyo followed the arrest of a Chinese fishing crew last year, raising alarms about China's intentions toward its Asian neighbors. The dispute came shortly after the resignation of Yukio Hatoyama, who as prime minister had made improved ties with China a central focus of policy.
Japan's new defense minister, appointed by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, downplayed the territorial spat's impact and stressed the importance of opening communications channels with his counterparts in China.
"I'd like to work toward increasing interaction between Japanese and Chinese defense personnel," Mr. Ichikawa said, adding that he would try to visit China personally. He wouldn't be the first Japanese defense minister to do so, but a trip would signal a thaw.
That overture to Beijing evokes Mr. Hatoyama's embrace of China as a counterweight to the U.S., but Mr. Ichikawa said he has no intention of putting distance between Tokyo and Washington.
However, resolution of a long-simmering controversy involving plans to relocate a U.S. military base in Okinawa may take more time, he said. While Washington's desire to make progress is clear, the defense minister indicated Okinawan anti-base sentiment and budgetary limits might slow progress. The countries will share the cost of the move.
"We have to be mindful about the feelings of the Okinawan people and Japan's own schedule issues such as the deadline for budget requests" on defense-related allocations, he said.
In June, the U.S. and Japan agreed to postpone plans dating from 2006 to close a U.S. Marine Corps base at Futenma in Okinawa by 2014, citing cost concerns and local opposition to the proposed relocated Okinawa base.
At the same time, Japan's new defense minister signaled greater willingness to cooperate with the U.S. and other allies sharing the burden of developing advanced military technologies.
Noting the country's "three principles" banning arms exports has inhibited co-development of cutting-edge weapons, Mr. Ichikawa said he favors moving swiftly with the Japanese government's effort to "study" a relaxation of the ban.
"There's no set schedule, but it's not the kind of problem that we can take too long to consider," the defense minister said. "It's important to start taking gradual steps to sound out a direction as soon as possible." He added that relaxing the ban would bolster Japanese manufacturers who are struggling from weak domestic demand.
The review of the restrictions on weapons exports is politically sensitive in Japan because of the country's pacifist constitution. First established as policy in 1967, the principles were originally designed to prevent military technology from falling into the hands of Communist Bloc countries.
Earlier this month, the policy chief of the governing Democratic Party of Japan, former foreign minister Seiji Maehara, ruffled feathers by openly calling for a review of the ban at a speech in Washington, apparently without first consulting with Cabinet officials, including Mr. Ichikawa.
The issue of Japan's ban on arms exports has loomed large as it invests in developing expensive advanced weapons such as ballistic-missile systems. It has also colored the debate on Japanese plans to procure a new generation of fighter planes, since Japan has not been able to co-develop one with allies and missed an opportunity to do so with the F-35 joint strike fighter program spearheaded by the U.S.
Mr. Ichikawa said that Japan will accept formal bids for its next-generation fighter on Sept. 26 and that he expects a decision to be reached by December as part of budgetary discussions for fiscal 2012, at least three years later than initially planned.
The fighter program, dubbed the FX in Japan, will likely call for the purchase of about 40 to 60 planes in a deal expected to total around $4 billion, according to industry officials.
In an era of declining defense budgets, the project has attracted three of the world's biggest defense contractors: Boeing Co. with its F-18 Super Hornet, Lockheed Martin Corp. with the F-35 JSF and Eurofighter GmbH with the Typhoon.
Mr. Ichikawa said it is too early to say who will prevail.
That latest delay in the FX program came earlier this year when the ministry, which had been expected to start vetting bids in March, postponed the process an additional six months due to the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The new fighter will replace Japan's aging squads of F-4 Phantom fighters, made by McDonnell Douglas, now part of Boeing.
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Almost like Japan is questioning America's will and ability to defend them.....
Who could have seen this coming?
:roll:
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'The Economist' editorializes on a new book forecasting China to become the world's predominant economy and superpower. The author says there is little the U.S. can do; the editorial questions that. Obviously the full script for what happens next in the world has not been written. My view is that the economic rise of competing economies is a good thing, except if they are our military enemies. With China, who knows. Also I don't agree with his numbers; we aren't down to a 13-12 economic advantage over China right now. With the U.S., a real challenge coming from elsewhere should be reason enough to get focused on getting our own act back together.
http://www.economist.com/node/21528591
The celestial economy
By 2030 China’s economy could loom as large as Britain’s in the 1870s or America’s in the 1970s
Sep 10th 2011 | from the print edition
(http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/print-edition/20110910_FNC534.gif)
IT IS perhaps a measure of America’s resilience as an economic power that its demise is so often foretold. In 1956 the Russians politely informed Westerners that “history is on our side. We will bury you.” In the 1980s history seemed to side instead with Japan. Now it appears to be taking China’s part.
These prophesies are “self-denying”, according to Larry Summers, a former economic adviser to President Barack Obama. They fail to come to pass partly because America buys into them, then rouses itself to defy them. “As long as we’re worried about the future, the future will be better,” he said, shortly before leaving the White House. His speech is quoted in “Eclipse”, a new book by Arvind Subramanian of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Mr Subramanian argues that China’s economic might will overshadow America’s sooner than people think. He denies that his prophecy is self-denying. Even if America heeds its warning, there is precious little it can do about it.
Three forces will dictate China’s rise, Mr Subramanian argues: demography, convergence and “gravity”. Since China has over four times America’s population, it only has to produce a quarter of America’s output per head to exceed America’s total output. Indeed, Mr Subramanian thinks China is already the world’s biggest economy, when due account is taken of the low prices charged for many local Chinese goods and services outside its cities. Big though it is, China’s economy is also somewhat “backward”. That gives it plenty of scope to enjoy catch-up growth, unlike Japan’s economy, which was still far smaller than America’s when it reached the technological frontier.
Buoyed by these two forces, China will account for over 23% of world GDP by 2030, measured at PPP, Mr Subramanian calculates. America will account for less than 12%. China will be equally dominant in trade, accounting for twice America’s share of imports and exports. That projection relies on the “gravity” model of trade, which assumes that commerce between countries depends on their economic weight and the distance between them. China’s trade will outpace America’s both because its own economy will expand faster and also because its neighbours will grow faster than those in America’s backyard.
Mr Subramanian combines each country’s share of world GDP, trade and foreign investment into an index of economic “dominance”. By 2030 China’s share of global economic power will match America’s in the 1970s and Britain’s a century before (see chart). Those prudent American strategists preparing their countrymen for a “multipolar” world are wrong. The global economy will remain unipolar, dominated by a “G1”, Mr Subramanian argues. It’s just that the one will be China not America.
Mr Subramanian’s conclusion is controversial. The assumptions, however, are conservative. He does not rule out a “major financial crisis”. He projects that China’s per-person income will grow by 5.5% a year over the next two decades, 3.3 percentage points slower than it grew over the past two decades or so. You might almost say that Mr Subramanian is a “China bear”. He lists several countries (Japan, Hong Kong, Germany, Spain, Taiwan, Greece, South Korea) that reached a comparable stage of development—a living standard equivalent to 25% of America’s at the time—and then grew faster than 5.5% per head over the subsequent 20 years. He could find only one, Nicolae Ceausescu’s Romania, which reached that threshold and then suffered a worse slowdown than the one he envisages for China.
He is overly sanguine only on the problems posed by China’s ageing population. In the next few years, the ratio of Chinese workers to dependants will stop rising and start falling. He dismisses this demographic turnaround in a footnote, arguing that it will not weigh heavily on China’s growth until after 2030.
Both China and America could surprise people, of course. If China’s political regime implodes, “all bets will be off”, Mr Subramanian admits. Indonesia’s economy, by way of comparison, took over four years to right itself after the financial crisis that ended President Suharto’s 32-year reign. But even that upheaval only interrupted Indonesia’s progress without halting it. America might also rediscover the vim of the 1990s boom, growing by 2.7% per head, rather than the 1.7% Mr Subramanian otherwise assumes. But even that stirring comeback would not stop it falling behind a Chinese economy growing at twice that pace. So Americans are wrong to think their “pre-eminence is America’s to lose”.
Bratty or benign?
If China does usurp America, what kind of hegemon will it be? Some argue that it will be a “premature” superpower. Because it will be big before it is rich, it will dwell on its domestic needs to the neglect of its global duties. If so, the world may resemble the headless global economy of the inter-war years, when Britain was unable, and America unwilling, to lead. But Mr Subramanian prefers to describe China as a precocious superpower. It will not be among the richest economies, but it will not be poor either. Its standard of living will be about half America’s in 2030, and a little higher than the European Union’s today.
With luck China will combine its precocity in economic development with a plodding conservatism in economic diplomacy. It should remain committed to preserving an open world economy. Indeed, its commitment may run deeper than America’s, because its ratio of trade to GDP is far higher.
China’s dominance will also have limits, as Mr Subramanian points out. Unlike America in the 1940s, it will not inherit a blank institutional slate, wiped clean by war. The economic order will not yield easily to bold new designs, and China is unlikely to offer any. Why use its dominant position to undermine the very system that helped secure that position in the first place? In a white paper published this week, China’s State Council insisted that “China does not seek regional hegemony or a sphere of influence.” Whether it is precocious or premature, China is still a tentative superpower. As long as it remains worried about the future, its rivals need not worry too much.
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Vice President of Strategic Intelligence Rodger Baker explains how increasing Indian involvement in the South China Sea is a maneuver to outflank China, which is becoming involved in the Indian Ocean.
Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.
Although competition between China and India is not terribly new, we do see a current flare-up in the relations between the two countries. India has been expanding its relations with Vietnam, focusing on oil and gas exploration and production as well as military cooperation. This has received a strong verbal response from the Chinese as well as some physical activity.
India and Vietnam have been cooperating in offshore oil and gas exploration for several years. However, they are moving to a new phase with more of the exploitation of the resources. It appears that later this year a new memorandum of understanding between the two countries is going to be signed. China has responded to this by accusing India of violating Chinese territorial waters and of interfering in Chinese territorial issues. There has been a report of an incident where Chinese maritime police have interfered with the operations of an Indian vessel in the Vietnamese waters, and we see statements coming out of Beijing warning India to back off.
India for a long time has pursued what it calls a “Look East” policy but it has not pursued it very strongly. We see India now moving back again into the ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] nations, into the South China Sea, trying to expand its activity, trying to secure some of its influence, and ultimately taking a role in securing the major supply routes to the area, but also in trying to counter the Chinese. Chinese activity in Pakistan, Chinese activity in Myanmar, the expansion of Chinese port agreements throughout the Indian Ocean Basin, even the Chinese naval activity in regard to the anti-piracy operations off of Africa, have left the Indians feeling a little bit vulnerable.
Seeing the Chinese become stronger, at least theoretically, in their operations in the Indian Ocean, India is looking in some sense to flank China now. In response to the Chinese activities in the Indian Ocean, the Indians are going to become more active in the South China Sea and maybe even farther north. There is talk about creating a trilateral grouping to discuss security, economics and politics of the region between India, the United States and Japan, for example. This very obviously to the Chinese looks like an attempt to constrain Chinese operations and Chinese capabilities within in their own sphere of influence.
The South China Sea has long been the center of competition for sea lane control as well as, for the most part, theoretically for resources; though fishing is there, there has been some offshore oil and gas activity. In recent years we’ve seen an expansion of attention into not only exploring but truly exploiting the undersea resources, and not just in oil and gas but also now in mineral exploration. This is changing, in some sense, the way in which the countries interact because formerly when lots of countries claimed either all or parts of the territory, there was little to force them into confrontation. Now as countries begin to access resources, begin to explore the resources in the sea beds, they are doing so in ways that in some sense asserts their territorial claim to that area. That leaves the other countries that don’t interfere with that in some sense accepting those territorial claims.
The concreteness of this has changed, in some sense, the way in which interactions regarding the South China Sea play out. As countries expand their operations, as they put in installations, semi-permanent, permanent installations, to be able to access these resources, they find themselves needing to defend those resources. Other countries may be interfering in the operations and so we see these issues where China will send a boat to interfere with the activity of another country’s ships. The response, then, from Vietnam, or from India in this case, may be to become more robust in their own military patrols in the area. And this builds up a case where you have more military vessels in the area at the same time and the chances for accidental confrontation start to rise.
In the end, while India is becoming more involved, there are some serious limitations. The Indians certainly have very large land borders that they are much more concerned about. The country still struggles with several internal insurgencies or militancy. And their ability to forcefully push themselves into the South China Sea is very limited. The Vietnamese who are working with them know this. Vietnam is playing a lot of different options, not just working with India but also working with China, with the United States, with Japan and several other countries.
As we watch this competition play, the countries in Southeast Asia are put in an interesting position. They have the ability to exploit this competition to draw, perhaps, greater attention from each of the different players. At the same time they have the risk of being exploited by these players and finding themselves caught up in this big power confrontation.
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The Obama Administration is claiming that its decision to upgrade Taiwan's aging F-16s rather than furnish it with new versions of the fighter is proof that the U.S. remains firmly committed to the island democracy's defense. But a revealing comment by an Administration official shows it isn't fooling anyone.
The comment, from an unnamed source quoted in the Washington Post, came in response to a suggestion from Andrew N.D. Yang, Taiwan's vice minister of defense, that the U.S. might sell Taiwan the state-of-the-art F-35, which outmatches every fighter in China's arsenal and could restore Taiwan's old qualitative edge. Replied the U.S. official: "It's like not getting a Prius and asking for a custom-built Ferrari instead."
The quick dismissal shows the Administration has no intention of selling the island modern aircraft. That's especially true of the stealth F-35s, which the U.S. hasn't even deployed yet and whose advanced technology needs to be protected from foreign spies.
That "like not getting a Prius" line also isn't quite what the Administration would have the Taiwanese believe. "The upgraded A/Bs will provide essentially C/D quality planes," another Administration official told the Wall Street Journal—the A/Bs referring to the F-16s Taipei already has and C/Ds meaning the better versions they won't get. The official added that "Taiwan gets them quicker and they get them cheaper than the C/Ds."
The Taiwanese aren't drinking the Administration Kool-Aid. The notion that the upgraded planes are the equivalent of new ones is "not a very honest opinion," says one savvy Taipei legislator. Among other deficiencies, the upgraded planes will not have new engines. The deal also means that Taiwan will be unable to retire its ancient and diminished fleet of F-5s.
Yesterday in the Senate, Texas Republican John Cornyn tried to move his legislation co-sponsored by New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez to require the U.S. to sell 66 of the new fighters to Taiwan. That would help keep the U.S. F-16 production line open while honoring our treaty commitments to defend Taiwan. He was blocked by Senate Democrats who were responding to pressure from the White House, which is responding to pressure from China. The big winner is Beijing.
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Summary
A military cooperation agreement between Japan and the Philippines indicates the countries are going beyond their traditional economic ties and elevating security-related matters. The move comes as Japan’s role in regional security appears to be expanding and as Tokyo, looking to rebuild its influence in Southeast Asia, may consider greater involvement in territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
Analysis
During Philippine President Benigno Aquino III’s visit to Japan from Sept. 25 to Sept. 27, the Philippines and Japan signed a military cooperation agreement to expand joint naval exercises and regular talks between maritime defense officials. The agreement moves the countries’ relationship beyond their traditional economic ties and into the realm of security. Aquino had said prior to his visit that he would also seek backing from the Japanese government on territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
Though it has avoided direct involvement in South China Sea disputes, Japan’s interest in the South China Sea is long-standing and pragmatic, linked to its immediate geographic concerns: securing access to trade routes and to resources the archipelago lacks. Earlier this year, tensions in the South China Sea heightened between China, the Philippines and Vietnam as Beijing increasingly asserted its territorial claims. Just as Japan sees China’s rapidly expanding influence as a challenge to Tokyo’s historically strong position in Southeast Asia, it also sees China’s dominance in the South China Sea as a threat to its critical sea-lane and to its own strategic sphere. As other countries with claims in the South China Sea seek partnerships to boost their positions, and as the United States renews its engagement in the region, Tokyo could use maritime disputes in the South China Sea to reassert itself in Southeast Asia.
Japan’s Interest in Southeast Asia
Japan has been active in the South China Sea since industrialization prompted the country to secure trade routes and seek resources. This ran parallel to Japan’s militarization and expansion in its periphery. Japan began mining in the Spratley Islands as early as 1918 and occupied the Spratleys and the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea during World War II as part of its deployment in the Asia-Pacific.
(click here to enlarge image)
After the war, Japan’s policy was to become an economic leader in Southeast Asia, largely through aid and investment, and to build trust among the region’s nations with a limited military doctrine. From 1977 to 1992, Japan’s development aid to Southeast Asian countries increased from $1.42 billion to $50 billion. During this period, Japan retained considerable influence over Southeast Asia and remained greatly involved in regional affairs.
However, since the 1990s, Japan’s influence in the region has declined considerably because of domestic economic and political constraints and increasing challenges from regional rivals, particularly China. This does not mean the South China Sea is no longer important to Japan. The import of crude oil and raw materials is critical to the energy- and resource-poor country (Japan’s current dependence on foreign oil sources is nearly 100 percent, and approximately 88 percent of its supplies pass through the South China Sea). Furthermore, the Strait of Malacca is a crucial shipment point for Japanese goods going to foreign markets. Yet Japan’s limitations, along with waning U.S. interest in the region, allowed China to use its expanding political and economic influence to project itself as a rising power in Southeast Asia.
Regional Concerns About China
Over the past five years, China’s blue-water strategy and military expansion have led to concerns among Southeast Asian nations about a Chinese military buildup and renewed tensions over the South China Sea. These developments have also attracted attention from Japan, which sees China’s increasing assertiveness over the waters as a possible threat to Japan’s supply lines. Japan has its own territorial disputes with China, over the Senkaku Islands (known in China as the Diaoyu Islands) in the East China Sea, and has engaged in frequent rows with Beijing over joint exploration projects. For Japan, China’s military buildup and sovereignty claims in the South China Sea not only suggest similar approaches could be used in Beijing’s territorial disputes with Japan but also indicate that China wants to play a more dominant role in Southeast Asian affairs.
Previously, Japan was reluctant to directly challenge China on the South China Sea, but recently Tokyo has become more vocal on regional issues, particularly regarding the South China Sea. Since tensions in the sea reached new heights earlier this year, Japan has several times voiced concern about China’s dominance of the waters at Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) gatherings and assisted claimant countries calling for greater attention to regional security issues.
Japan also seems to have accelerated its efforts to increase Washington’s security interests in the South China Sea, as demonstrated by Tokyo’s attempt to formulate a framework for U.S.-Japanese cooperation along with ASEAN countries to pressure China to abide by international rules. Japan also put forth an initiative for cooperation with the United States and South Korea to defuse tensions in the South China Sea, and a proposal for U.S.-Indian-Japanese talks on regional security issues. Furthermore, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) deployed to the South China Sea earlier this year for a small joint military exercise with the U.S. and Australian navies off the coast of Brunei.
Japan’s Possible Changing Role
Several changes have made it possible for Japan to use tensions in the South China Sea to take a stronger stance against China. First, thanks to renewed U.S. interest in Asia-Pacific affairs, Japan — the strongest U.S. ally in the region — has been under pressure from Washington to play a greater role in regional affairs in order to counterbalance China. Japan in the past decade has gradually shifted away from the U.S. security umbrella and begun taking more responsibility for its defense. This, along with China’s growing economic clout and military modernization and expansion in the region, has caused both Washington and Tokyo to rethink their relations with Beijing. Japan’s interest in protecting its sea-lane from an encroaching China has given Tokyo one more motive to take a greater role in regional security.
Second, Japan can be expected to continue gradually expanding the role of the JMSDF to address energy supply line vulnerability and the general threat posed by China — both of which are growing in importance. The JMSDF is considered among the most sophisticated and capable naval forces in the world, but lingering memories of World War II and public perceptions of the Japanese military have strongly impeded its expansion. These perceptions show signs of gradually shifting, making it easier for Tokyo to argue for humanitarian and overseas deployments (as seen with the JMSDF’s disaster response following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami). China’s aggressiveness in the South China Sea, therefore, could help justify JMSDF operations. So far, the JMSDF’s expanding role largely has been focused on disaster relief or peacekeeping missions, but anti-piracy missions off the Somali coast and an air force base in Djibouti demonstrate Tokyo’s intention to increase the JMSDF’s peaceful presence overseas. Bilateral JMSDF training with Southeast Asian countries could be the start of greater military involvement in the South China Sea in particular.
Finally, Japan has also been pursuing both bilateral and multilateral security relationships with other countries in the region, with U.S participation. Tokyo has forged defense cooperation with countries including the Philippines and Vietnam — both of which have territorial claims in the South China Sea — and India, which has a strategic interest in containing China’s expanding sphere of influence. Some defense-related bilateral summits and trilateral talks involving the United States have also been proposed. Southeast Asian countries with territorial claims in the South China Sea believe working with Japan could increase their leverage in negotiations with China, drawing international attention to the territorial disputes. Moreover, working with Japan is an immense opportunity for the Philippines.
Despite Japan’s apparent interest in the South China Sea as part of its strategy to regain influence in Southeast Asia amid China’s increasing aggressiveness, Tokyo appears to be taking a cautious approach to avoid risking greater tensions with Beijing. It is not yet clear whether the new Japanese government wants to take an assertive stance against China on maritime issues. So far, the new Cabinet does not seem to be planning any bold moves in this area. Before taking a major step toward reinterpreting its role in Southeast Asia, Tokyo might have to garner the political will and intent to fit into the broader U.S. strategy for the region.
Read more: Japan Taking a New Role in the South China Sea? | STRATFOR
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We have seen a lot of activity in the South China Sea with questions of Chinese expansionism, responses by other countries and tensions building that region. We have seen the Japanese, the Indians, the Vietnamese getting strongly involved. But it is not just in the South China Sea that we are seeing maritime activity in the Asia-Pacific. The South Koreans right now are looking at two new projects— a new naval base on Ulleung island, just west of the disputed Dokdo/Takeshima island, and a new base on the large southern island of Jeju, which would give the South Korean navy much more rapid and greater access to the South China Sea and beyond.
The two bases in some ways are very different. The base on Ulleung-do is focused on rapid reaction to get South Korean naval vessels to the disputed Dokdo islets. This is a dispute between Japan and South Korea that has been going on for quite a while but ultimately is not a very strategic dispute, it is more of a public relations issue. The Jeju base, however, would be a very large facility. This is a facility that would be able to host Aegis destroyers, it would be able to host aircraft carriers. This really is where we see the major expansion potentially taking place for the South Korean navy.
We have been watching an evolution in South Korean military development for the past decade or so. One of the things in particular is the decision by the South Koreans to create, if not an independent military force that is non-reliant upon the U.S., at least a force that is strong, that is capable and that focuses on issues of importance to the Korean strategic interest rather than necessarily just retaining themselves as a force designed to back up or support U.S. interests in the region and the U.S. protection of South Korea from North Korea.
The naval expansions we have seen in South Korea have been a big part of this. South Korea is a major trading nation. South Korea is about twelfth largest economy in the world. A lot of that is based on trade, a lot of that is based on access to resources, access to markets, and therefore ultimately South Korea feels somewhat vulnerable in its supply lines and in finding a way to ensure that it has the ability to secure its resource acquisitions and its overseas operations.
The South Koreans are certainly not carrying out this expansion in isolation. They do have an eye on what is going on around them. They have noticed the big changes in the Chinese navy and the more assertive nature of Chinese maritime security interests. They have watched the Japanese who very quietly have been developing a pace within the region and remain, aside from the United States, probably the single strongest navy in the Asia-Pacific region. And they are looking in general at an area that is growing more tense, is growing somewhat more contested and that has become a lot more active both for exploration of potential undersea resources but also in the sense of nationalistic defense of claims territories.
In the short term, certainly on the issue of the base on Ulleung Island, this has the potential to continue to rankle relations with Japan. But those are largely manageable relations, it is really the naval base in Jeju that seems to be the most significant. This puts the South Korean navy probably more active within the South China Sea, maybe even onto the Indian Ocean as they look particularly at the energy supply lines. But it also puts them in a place where in the South China Sea, which is ultimately a very small place, a very cramped place, it is an area that we are seeing a lot of maritime activity, we are seeing a lot of ships in the area, we are seeing a lot of aircraft in the area, we are seeing a lot of countries that are really trying to push their interest or their claims of ownership. And having this much activity in that area really leaves it open to not only the possibility but perhaps the likelihood of some unintentional conflicts in the not-too-distant future.
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Economics continues as not so strong link in Stratfor diagnostic chain
Rhetoric and Reality in U.S.-China Currency Tensions
The U.S. Senate voted Monday to advance a bill pressuring China to stop undervaluing its currency. This paves the way for the bill, titled the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011, to receive a final vote as soon as this week. A STRATFOR source said the bill may pass the Senate but likely will fail in the House of Representatives, despite the currency issue having some bipartisan support. This includes the support of a few Republican presidential candidates who, though normally against trade regulations, are tying China’s rising economic power to domestic unemployment and U.S. President Barack Obama’s handling of the economy.
“The U.S. domestic situation may be conducive to using the China issue for political gain.”
China always makes a good target for American officials seeking to demonstrate their worth in the political and foreign policy arenas or as a distraction from domestic economic issues that are not easy to resolve. As the U.S. electoral cycle gets into gear, the currency bill may serve as a gauge of potential interest in raising China’s economy as a campaign issue. The bill itself is not entirely new. Lawmakers have been accusing China of undervaluing the yuan and engaging in unfair trade practices for years, but these accusations often serve more as sounding boards for the campaigners or as ways to negotiate within Congress for other issues of interest. The current bill brings a few new elements to the table, but it still amounts to little more than a domestic political message linked to Obama’s jobs plan, rather than a serious attempt to change Chinese trade practices.
Beijing has embarked on a relatively steady appreciation of the yuan since shifting to a managed peg in 2010. This is still insufficient for many observers, but Chinese authorities have domestic reasons for wanting to avoid any rapid shift in the yuan’s value. The Obama administration is mostly satisfied with this slower pace of appreciation and has refrained from using levers available to pressure China for any more rapid adjustments.
However, the U.S. domestic situation may be conducive to using the China issue for political gain. When there is a tough economic problem at home that cannot be resolved easily or quickly, it is often politically expedient to blame a foreign power of unfair practices. The rhetoric alone can often serve as a rallying point for political support.
Whether the bill is a serious attempt to curtail trade or just a source of renewed rhetoric, China must still respond based on the potential implications rather than the likelihood of passage or action. This creates another minor bump in the already bumpy road of U.S.-Chinese relations. As China’s power increases, and its economy pushes Chinese interests farther from home, it is increasingly in competition with Washington. This is not aggressiveness per se, but the natural result of a large and emerging power moving into the sphere of an existing power. But the more China reaches, the more insecure it feels. This makes Beijing particularly sensitive to any perceived encirclement campaign or economic pressure by Washington.
Meanwhile, perhaps not coincidentally, as China’s economic influence expands, the United States is pursuing a policy of economic and political re-engagement in the Asia-Pacific region. Two elements of this re-engagement are the U.S. participation in the East Asia Summit, in which the United States will be participating for the first time as a full member, and the U.S.-initiated Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade zone designed to increase U.S. competitiveness in the Asia-Pacific region and tap into Asia’s continuing economic growth. These fit U.S. interests even in the absence of an expanding China, but from Beijing’s perspective, they are clearly aimed at containing and rolling back Chinese political and economic gains.
What concerns China most, however, is Washington’s growing commitment in disputes regarding the South China Sea, which is increasingly becoming the core security issue for the entire region. Obama will be touring Asia in November and will deliver a speech at the East Asia Summit. The speech could have an impact similar to that of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2010 at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum, which changed the regional dynamic regarding maritime disputes when Clinton said it was in the United States’ “national interest” to ensure freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. Ultimately, Washington will want the summit to go beyond its normal energy- and economy-centered focus and address regional security issues, giving the United States a forum to counterbalance Beijing’s influence in that arena.
China is an easy target for U.S. politicians in rhetoric but far less so in the reality of regional competition. What bears watching is whether China reads moves such as the currency bill as rhetorical, and thus issues a measured response, or whether Beijing attaches more significance to the move and counters disproportionately. Beijing clearly wants a good domestic environment to pave the way for its own leadership transition in 2012. Depending upon domestic issues in China, particularly an economic slowdown and social stability concerns, Beijing could determine it beneficial to ratchet up tensions with the United States.
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WSJ
SHANGHAI—China's angry response to a U.S. Senate vote to move ahead with a bill to punish Beijing for keeping the value of its currency low reflects domestic pressures on the leadership to act tough, but is unlikely to result in any precipitous action, analysts and economists say.
China's reaction Tuesday to the 79-19 vote was swift and coordinated.
Money's Worth
U.S. Senate Moves to Punish China on Yuan
China Real Time: How to Value a Currency
.Journal Community
..The People's Bank of China cautioned in a statement that passage of the bill won't resolve U.S. domestic economic difficulties but could instead "seriously affect" China's continuing exchange-rate reform and even lead to a trade war. It said that with inflation factored in, the yuan has appreciated "greatly" and is close to a balanced level.
China's Foreign Ministry said the bill violates rules of the World Trade Organization, while the Ministry of Commerce described it as "unfair" and in violation of international practice.
Economists say they don't expect the angry words will translate into policy shifts or retaliation, at least not while the fate of the bill is up in the air. Even though the vote advanced in the Democrat-controlled Senate, it faces an uncertain future in the Republican-controlled House.
"I don't think China will make any big move in response," said UBS economist Wang Tao, adding she believes there is only a small chance the bill will become law.
"China won't yield to the pressure from the U.S. or change its gradual approach to yuan exchange-rate reform," Ms. Wang said.
The Senate bill seeks to impose tariffs on exports from countries with undervalued currencies. Supporters of the bill complain that China's yuan is undervalued, making its products cheaper on world markets. They say a higher yuan would boost U.S. exports and create thousands of American jobs. Opponents say the measure would accomplish little besides infuriating China, and that the U.S.-Chinese relationship faces far bigger issues.
Senior Chinese officials have become increasingly forceful in their approach to the U.S. since the global recession, with many convinced that China is now in the ascendant and the U.S. is in permanent decline. Some feel China has the upper hand as the largest holder of U.S. debt—and the only major economy still growing rapidly.
Chinese leaders say the U.S. is to blame for plunging the world into crisis as a result of economic mismanagement, and resent moves that America has taken to boost its recovery, including buying bonds to hold down interest rates —so-called quantitative easing—which they argue is debasing the U.S. dollar and pumping up inflation in China and other emerging economies.
Pressure on the Chinese leadership also is coming from a nationalistic public outraged by continued U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and a more forceful U.S. diplomatic engagement with Southeast Asia, where several countries are in territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea.
Still, balanced against Chinese assertiveness is a strong desire by China's leaders to avoid upsetting the relationship with the U.S. ahead of 2012, when there will be presidential elections in America and a leadership transition in China. They need external stability to focus on delicate transition politics.
Chinese leaders also recognize that in a globalized economy, their own fate is closely linked to that of the U.S., and a trade war would likely be as damaging to China as the U.S.—perhaps even more so given China's greater reliance on exports.
But under the surface of harsh response to the Senate vote, Beijing left the door open for reconciliation, reiterating its long-standing pledge to continue exchange-rate reforms. That is likely a sign of lingering hopes that the Republican-controlled U.S. House will vote down the currency bill.
Indeed, both the Foreign Ministry and central bank also repeated Tuesday Beijing's standard rhetoric that China will continue to increase the yuan's flexibility over time.
There are indications Beijing has been trying to keep the yuan's appreciation intact despite mounting global economic uncertainties caused by the debt woes in Europe and slowing growth in the U.S. In the face of heavy yuan selling last week, triggered by risk aversion and concerns that the Chinese economy will have a hard landing, the central bank kept supporting the yuan's value by setting the currency higher through a daily reference exchange rate.
At 6.3859 yuan to the dollar ahead of China's week-long National Day holiday, the yuan was down 0.1% against the U.S. currency in September, but up 6.9% since June 2010, when China ended its currency's two-year peg to the dollar.
The Senate's vote appeared to have little notable impact on the yuan in the less restricted offshore Hong Kong market, where the currency mostly tracked its regional peers and remained more or less steady versus the dollar on Tuesday.
The Senate vote puts the White House in a delicate position. Like previous administrations, the Obama White House is wary of antagonizing Chinese leaders, whose cooperation it needs not just on economic issues but also on an array of national security matters. But criticizing China remains popular with the public, and many Democrats, including those from big industrial states, say China's currency policy is unfair to U.S. workers.
"They use the rules of free trade when it benefits them, and spurn the rules of free trade when it benefits them," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.), a major sponsor of the bill. "For years and years and years, Americans have grimaced, shrugged their shoulders, but never done anything effective" to stop these policies.
Opponents of the bill say that instead of potentially sparking a trade war, the U.S. should face its own problems, such as the burgeoning federal budget deficit. "It's like we know what we've got to do but we won't do it," said Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.). "It's like we've got to find a bogeyman."
Because House leaders are reluctant to bring up the bill, its future is uncertain. The House overwhelmingly passed a similar bill in September 2010, when Democrats controlled the chamber, but GOP leaders argue today that the new bill could have unintended consequences.
—Stefanie Qi and Andrew Browne contributed to this article.
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Time magazine piece poses interesting questions:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2096345,00.html
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Forgive my ego/vanity, but I would point out I have been questioning here the Chinese miracle for a number of years now-- including for shoddy, dishonest bookkeeping and bubble dynamics.
Marc
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-28/rare-earths-fall-as-toyota-develops-alternatives-commodities.html
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http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/americas_pacific_century
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U.S. President Barack Obama is preparing for a series of visits throughout East Asia. In mid-November, he will be visiting several of the East Asian countries, as well as attending to the APEC summit in Hawaii and the East Asia summit in Bali, Indonesia. The trip is being seen as a key part of U.S. re-engagement in East Asia. In many ways, this term “re-engagement” is somewhat misleading — the U.S. never really disengaged from East Asia. But there’s a perception that the U.S. interest in the region has been lower than it was in the past. In the immediate post-Cold War period, the United States really did not have a strategic focus anywhere in the world. In the post 9/11 period, the U.S. was obviously focused very heavily upon the Middle East. During that same time period, the Chinese began to expand rapidly in their economic activity. And the perception in the region is that there’s now an unbalanced structure that China has in many ways become too strong economically and that the United States has not maintained a position in there to balance out this rising China. And with Japan’s economy continuing to remain in malaise, Japan has been unable also to provide that stabilizing force.
In many ways, as the United States looks at the world, it sees East Asia as one of its highest potential economic opportunities. By the mid-90s, containerized shipping from the United States and to the United States across the Pacific had basically equaled containerized shipping across the Atlantic. By the late 2000s, the Trans-Pacific accounted for nearly 2/3 of U.S. containerized shipping. So we see a much stronger role for East Asia in U.S. trade for both imports and exports. This is the place where the United States would like to be able to expand. One of the key elements to this is going to be the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This is, in essence, a free trade agreement of the Pacific. Critical to this is Japan’s participation. While there are a lot of other countries that are or will be involved in these TPP negotiations, Japan really is the linchpin for the United States — it is the large economy sitting in Asia, and it is one that the U.S. wants to reintegrate within that trade agreement and within that framework.
In Japan, there’s some reticence to joining into this. We see the prime minister perhaps more interested in working with Obama to bring this about, but we see a lot of resistance from other elements of the political spectrum and particularly from agriculture in Japan. And this is something that seems to come up pretty regularly in U.S. free trade agreements — the question of agriculture.
In the United States, there is also resistance to free trade agreements, but with the passage of the Korus FTA, the Colombian and the Panama free trade agreements it seems that there is some space for momentum, some potential for the president to be able to make progress on this proposal.
Conspicuously absent from any of the early forms of these TPP discussions is China. This is a free trade agreement that in many ways doesn’t recognize China as potentially being part, and even with some of the smaller players the U.S. is getting some resistance because of negotiations over what role state-owned enterprises may play. If China ever gets drawn into this, it will be in a manner that tries to deal with the benefits the state-owned enterprises gain. Not only with the TPP but with the entire concept of U.S. re-engagement in the region, the Chinese see this as some counter to Beijing’s economic success and to Beijing’s interests.
We’re going to see as the U.S. continues to become more active politically, militarily and economically in the region, we’re going to see the Chinese pushing back. We’re going to see the Chinese work with some of the East Asian countries — maybe give them more incentives to pull closer to China and try to maintain that level of influence. And so as the U.S. pulls out of Iraq, as the U.S. reduces its forces in Afghanistan, it may have the bandwidth to be able to start shifting attention to other areas of the world. They have identified East Asia as a primary place to look, and, in doing so, we’re going to start seeing some tensions play out, I think, between the United States and between the Chinese in this area where China feels is really its sphere of influence.
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Summary
China has been carefully monitoring the U.S. strategy for re-engagement in the Asia-Pacific region and understands the challenges its own regional strategies now face. The possibility of a new power balance will test both China’s ability to achieve its long-term goals and its relations with countries on its periphery.
Analysis
U.S. President Barack Obama is set to visit Australia and Indonesia later in November after months of diplomatic efforts aimed at improving perceptions of the U.S. commitment to the Asia-Pacific region, largely to counter growing Chinese power. This is coming as maritime security issues have begun to dominate regional affairs, with China taking a particularly aggressive stance in the South China Sea. Part of the U.S. re-engagement includes the intent to reshape the East Asia Summit (EAS) into a U.S.-led regional security institution. This year’s EAS, set for Nov. 18-19 in Bali, will thus serve as a gauge for Washington to demonstrate its commitment to Asia-Pacific maritime security affairs.
Beijing, which has been carefully developing its strategy for Southeast Asia over the past two decades, understands the challenges posed to it by the United States’ re-entry into the region, particularly to its South China Sea plans. The possibility of a new power balance will test both China’s ability to achieve its long-term goals and its relations with countries on its periphery.
China’s rapidly expanding economic influence in past years has enabled it to improve relations with neighboring states and gradually take a leading role in Southeast Asia, turning it into a testing ground for its strategy of soft-power diplomacy in an important sphere of influence. Beijing’s strategy largely has been based on economic cooperation, such as Chinese investment and aid to individual countries and increased trade through bilateral arrangements and regional mechanisms. One example of this is the free trade area that went into effect between China and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the most extensive set of trade and investment agreements between the two. As Southeast Asia is one of the few regions that generally marks trade surpluses with China, Beijing has attempted to convince ASEAN countries that they will benefit from China’s economic growth with its economic clout. China has been making progress with a charm offensive in the region, building political and security influence that has been facilitated by high-level military visits and arms sales, a longstanding policy of noninterference in other countries’ internal affairs, and, notably, a decadelong period of relative neglect by the United States.
Beijing has used this leverage to gain an advantage in the South China Sea. It has raised its profile in regional security facilities, such as the EAS and ASEAN Defense Ministers Meetings, and cultivated relations with mainland ASEAN countries, such as Laos and Cambodia, to prevent maritime disputes from gaining prominence in these regional organizations. It also has begun bilateral negotiations over maritime issues such as energy exploration, shunning third-party involvement and dealing with individual countries to prevent them from adopting a unified stance.
However, China’s increasingly aggressive moves to stake its maritime claim have shifted Asian perceptions, leading to growing tensions between China and other claimant countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines. The rapid modernization of the Chinese military and the expansion of its blue-water strategy — especially its aggressive moves in the South China Sea since the beginning of 2011 — also have caused disquiet among China’s Southeast Asian neighbors. These countries have both begun to cooperate regionally to counter Beijing’s dominance in the South China Sea and call for outside powers, particularly the United States, to do the same.
With Washington’s renewed interest in the region, Beijing sees considerable uncertainty in its maritime and Southeast Asia strategies. In particular, China expects the upcoming EAS to officially institutionalize a multilateral mechanism to address South China Sea issues — running directly counter to its attempts to deal with these issues bilaterally. However, direct confrontation between China and the United States would come at the expense of both China’s domestic situation and regional stability. Moreover, the United States’ physical distance from the region, as well as heavy U.S.-Chinese economic and political interactions in other areas, means that both sides have more reasons to cooperate than they do to press their agendas for the South China Sea.
Meanwhile, Beijing has seen the need to adopt proactive diplomatic efforts, such as enhancing traditional economic ties with ASEAN countries and indicating that it would be open to leading regional discussion forums for negotiating South China Sea issues. Such gestures may be appealing to Southeast Asian claimant countries; no matter how far the United States goes to re-engage in the region, these countries’ economic futures will be inextricably linked to China. China has proposed a set of principles that would govern future EAS discussions, called the Declaration of the East Asia Summit on the Principles of Mutually Beneficial Relations. In it, China calls for an integrated East Asian community and enhanced Chinese-ASEAN interdependence through economic ties.
At the same time, as the United States’ Asia-Pacific strategy becomes clearer, it provides an opportunity for Beijing to clarify its role in regional strategic affairs, and particularly to remedy the increasing disunity between its economic strategy and security strategy. As part of this, the United States’ stated intention of leading the EAS means China likely will try to support ASEAN as the premier regional bloc, something that ASEAN countries likely will be interested in as they try to avoid being hostages for either side in the increasing U.S.-Chinese competition.
It remains to be seen whether the U.S. plan for Asia-Pacific re-engagement will shift the balance of power in the region. Nonetheless, China will need to take a much more active stance to maintain its position.
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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/MK22Ad01.html
It might not be an Asian century after all
By Spengler
Here's a thought experiment: if the United States and China maintain their present fertility rate and educational systems through the end of the century, which country will have the stronger economy? This is not a forecast, to be sure, just a point of perspective at a distant horizon.
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It IS interesting, but the reference to the Philippines in the subject heading for this thread is in the context of China. For the Philippines as such please post in the Phiippines thread. TIA.
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By MIKE MCCONNELL, MICHAEL CHERTOFF AND WILLIAM LYNN
Only three months ago, we would have violated U.S. secrecy laws by sharing what we write here—even though, as a former director of national intelligence, secretary of homeland security, and deputy secretary of defense, we have long known it to be true. The Chinese government has a national policy of economic espionage in cyberspace. In fact, the Chinese are the world's most active and persistent practitioners of cyber espionage today.
Evidence of China's economically devastating theft of proprietary technologies and other intellectual property from U.S. companies is growing. Only in October 2011 were details declassified in a report to Congress by the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive. Each of us has been speaking publicly for years about the ability of cyber terrorists to cripple our critical infrastructure, including financial networks and the power grid. Now this report finally reveals what we couldn't say before: The threat of economic cyber espionage looms even more ominously.
The report is a summation of the catastrophic impact cyber espionage could have on the U.S. economy and global competitiveness over the next decade. Evidence indicates that China intends to help build its economy by intellectual-property theft rather than by innovation and investment in research and development (two strong suits of the U.S. economy). The nature of the Chinese economy offers a powerful motive to do so.
According to 2009 estimates by the United Nations, China has a population of 1.3 billion, with 468 million (about 36% of the population) living on less than $2 a day. While Chinese poverty has declined dramatically in the last 30 years, income inequality has increased, with much greater benefits going to the relatively small portion of educated people in urban areas, where about 25% of the population lives.
The bottom line is this: China has a massive, inexpensive work force ravenous for economic growth. It is much more efficient for the Chinese to steal innovations and intellectual property—the source code of advanced economies—than to incur the cost and time of creating their own. They turn those stolen ideas directly into production, creating products faster and cheaper than the U.S. and others.
Cyberspace is an ideal medium for stealing intellectual capital. Hackers can easily penetrate systems that transfer large amounts of data, while corporations and governments have a very hard time identifying specific perpetrators.
Unfortunately, it is also difficult to estimate the economic cost of these thefts to the U.S. economy. The report to Congress calls the cost "large" and notes that this includes corporate revenues, jobs, innovation and impacts to national security. Although a rigorous assessment has not been done, we think it is safe to say that "large" easily means billions of dollars and millions of jobs.
So how to protect ourselves from this economic threat? First, we must acknowledge its severity and understand that its impacts are more long-term than immediate. And we need to respond with all of the diplomatic, trade, economic and technological tools at our disposal.
The report to Congress notes that the U.S. intelligence community has improved its collaboration to better address cyber espionage in the military and national-security areas. Yet today's legislative framework severely restricts us from fully addressing domestic economic espionage. The intelligence community must gain a stronger role in collecting and analyzing this economic data and making it available to appropriate government and commercial entities.
Congress and the administration must also create the means to actively force more information-sharing. While organizations (both in government and in the private sector) claim to share information, the opposite is usually the case, and this must be actively fixed.
The U.S. also must make broader investments in education to produce many more workers with science, technology, engineering and math skills. Our country reacted to the Soviet Union's 1957 launch of Sputnik with investments in math and science education that launched the age of digital communications. Now is the time for a similar approach to build the skills our nation will need to compete in a global economy vastly different from 50 years ago.
Corporate America must do its part, too. If we are to ever understand the extent of cyber espionage, companies must be more open and aggressive about identifying, acknowledging and reporting incidents of cyber theft. Congress is considering legislation to require this, and the idea deserves support. Companies must also invest more in enhancing their employees' cyber skills; it is shocking how many cyber-security breaches result from simple human error such as coding mistakes or lost discs and laptops.
In this election year, our economy will take center stage, as will China and its role in issues such as monetary policy. If we are to protect ourselves against irreversible long-term damage, the economic issues behind cyber espionage must share some of that spotlight.
Mr. McConnell, a retired Navy vice admiral and former director of the National Security Agency (1992-96) and director of national intelligence (2007-09), is vice chairman of Booz Allen Hamilton. Mr. Chertoff, a former secretary of homeland security (2005-09), is senior counsel at Covington & Burling. Mr. Lynn has served as deputy secretary of defense (2009-11) and undersecretary of defense (1997-2001
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"Corporate America must do its part, too. If we are to ever understand the extent of cyber espionage, companies must be more open and aggressive about identifying, acknowledging and reporting incidents of cyber theft."
Good luck.
Indeed. Some companies are doing the espionage. Some have departments of hackers paid to hack around.
Brockster can talk all he wants about new Federal agencies to go after bad mortgage loans and some Wall St practices. But this stuff is far worse and far more insidious and a far greater challenge to everyone.
At least we now know there are three people in DC are even talking about it :cry:
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**This would be the same Hollywood that spent the last decade churning out anti-military propaganda films.
http://the-diplomat.com/2012/02/15/hollywood-bows-to-china-soft-power/2/?all=true
Hollywood Bows to China Soft Power
February 15, 2012
By Cain Nunns
Hollywood actress Meryl Streep recently hitched a ride on a Chinese businessman’s private jet to Beijing. Once there, she met up with idiosyncratic writer-director Joel Coen and Raise the Red Lantern director Zhang Yimou to promote “China’s exploding film industry.”
Zhang, who served as the artistic director for both the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the lavish 60th anniversary celebrations of the Chinese Communist Party, also unveiled his remake of Coen’s influential first film – Blood Simple.
And this sounds simple enough.
But for some industry insiders, the trio personify a growing partnership between Beijing’s aspirations to export what it calls “soft power” – a sugarcoated version of China and its myriad social problems – to the West and Hollywood producers, who are bending over backwards to get a piece of the world’s fastest growing film market.
“It’s obvious why media is controlled in Communist societies. But what makes China unique is that for the first time, it has the money and market to shift control of media for a local audience to control of external representations of the country,” says Liu Lee-shin, a China film expert at Taipei’s National Taiwan University of Arts.
“Chinese-Hollywood co-productions are vehicles for Beijing to dictate the China narrative outside its borders.”
Liu says that Beijing has made no secret of its eagerness to build that narrative through movies, and points to a recent plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party endorsing guidelines to boost what it calls “cultural security,” by “propelling Chinese culture overseas.”
To do this, Beijing says it will double its entertainment and cultural earnings to roughly $460 billion within the next five years.
Critics claim that studios will be pressured to produce works that depict China in a sympathetic light, a fear prompted by China’s strict controls over film importation, distribution and production, along with the rebuffing of recent WTO rulings to allow foreign distribution and expand a 20-a-year cap on foreign movies.
“They made it very clear in their last congress meeting that the overriding theme would be projecting an image overseas that they want projected, while Hollywood’s No.1 concern has always been the bottom line,” says Michael Berry, a lecturer of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara.
“U.S. producers are taking an ultra-conservative route, and self-censorship is happening at a very early stage. In concept development there’s already an understanding of what will fly in China, and that gets concentrated by the time it gets to a screenplay.”
And what flies in China today isn’t very much.
Beijing’s thumbscrew restrictions include: No sex, religion, time travel, the occult, or “anything that could threaten public morality or portray criminal behavior.”
All film scripts have to be signed off by a government censor and anything that depicts Tibet, Tiananmen Square, the Dalai Lama, Falun Gong, Uyghur separatists or Taiwan favorably is typically banned.
For Hollywood, however, the proof is still in the numbers. Turnstile revenues in China skyrocketed by 64 percent to $1.5 billion, and have surged nearly tenfold since 2003.
While China has been heavily criticized for its foreign film cap, Western producers are bypassing those restrictions by aligning with local partners, most of which are state-run, and all of which have strong ties to the party and state.
The deals also offer filmmakers access to cash-rich Chinese investors, who face significant restrictions on sending their money overseas.
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http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/03/19/japan-warns-of-chinese-threat/
March 19, 2012
Japan Warns of Chinese Threat
Tensions are rising between the two largest economies and most powerful military forces in Asia: Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshiko Noda is using some very un-Japanese language (direct, forceful, naming names) to address what he sees as a growing threat. As the [paywall alert] Wall Street Journal reports, Noda told graduating cadets at Japan’s National Defense Academy that:
“Circumstances in our surrounding regions are increasingly severe, complicated, and remain uncertain, as depicted in moves by North Korea including nuclear and missile forces, and China, which is reinforcing its military capabilities and continuing activities in surrounding waters.”
Those are tough words from a political culture that is often mealy-mouthed, and even more striking because the current Japanese government took office amidst talk of hoping to distance itself from the US and seek a more “balanced” relationship between the US and China.
Noda’s latest remarks (which reflect his longtime personal views) came after an incident last week in which a Chinese ship entered what Japan claims as its territorial waters around a disputed island chain that Japan controls but China claims. Chinese aggressiveness — and its failure to rein in its awkward and embarrassing North Korean sidekick — is steadily alienating the ring of countries around it and continues to drive them into Uncle Sam’s embrace.
In China, these assertive policies sometimes seem to originate without the blessing or even the knowledge of the Foreign Ministry, longtime observers tell Via Meadia. It is not just that the People’s Liberation Army generally takes a harder line, and its leaders have less time abroad and less understanding of the regional and global realities that shape China’s options; it is that often sub-agencies like the equivalent of the Coast Guard take provocative steps on their own authority without clearing it with higher ups. When the incident — like a decision to send a ship into disputed waters — blows up into a public controversy, nationalist opinion inside China makes it hard for the government to back down.
It’s no way for a great power to run its foreign policy in a volatile region, and this policy of random pinpricks has not served China well. It has, however, considerably added to America’s power in Asia: solidifying its alliances, encouraging allies to step up their military spending, and providing strong arguments to those in the US who believe that China’s growing assertiveness justifies high military budgets here.
If the smart people in China ever get secure control of the country’s foreign policy, the US task in Asia will become considerably tougher.
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second post of day
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By JAMES HOOKWAY
PHNOM PENH—Philippine President Benigno Aquino III Tuesday pushed other Southeast Asian nations meeting here in Cambodia to adopt a common stand on negotiating the flash point issue of territorial rights to the resource-rich South China Sea before bringing the region's powerhouse, China, into the discussions.
The Philippines and other members of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations are attempting to frame a regional, legally binding code of conduct to guide sovereignty claims in the waters, which are claimed in whole or in part by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei. China has expressed an interest in playing an earlier role in the discussions, a move which Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan has said is a sign of progress in that it shows Beijing is willing to engage with the Southeast Asian nations in finding a solution to the hot-button issue.
But the Philippines, backed by Vietnam, according to people familiar with the situation, is resisting. "It is important that we maintain Asean centrality," Mr. Aquino said during the meeting of Asean leaders. "After the code of conduct has been finalized by Asean, then Asean member states will meet with China."
Discussions over the South China Sea have loomed large over the summit despite key China ally Cambodia's attempts to play down the controversy. Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Cambodia shortly before the summit in an apparent bid to strengthen Beijing's already robust ties to Prime Minister Hun Sen and make sure that the territorial dispute is discussed as little as possible.
The Philippines and other nations, though, have insisted on raising the issue after 12 months of increasingly testy conflicts in the area. Vietnam and Manila regularly have accused China of intimidating fishermen and sabotaging oil exploration vessels. China denies doing so, but warns Vietnam and the Philippines from prospecting for oil and natural gas off their shores without China's permission.
Occasionally the disputes turn violent. In 1988, a spat between China and Vietnam resulted in the deaths of more than 70 Vietnamese sailors. Many diplomats fear that the current animosity and rising appetite for energy and fish stocks in the region could provoke further bloodshed.
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U.S. Saw Top Cop as Risky Asylum Candidate
.smaller Larger By JAY SOLOMON And DEVLIN BARRETT
WASHINGTON—The former police chief in the Chinese city of Chongqing would appear, on the face of it, a good candidate to receive diplomatic protection or political asylum from the U.S., due to his access to senior Communist Party officials and intelligence.
But to the Obama administration, which needed to decide Wang Lijun's fate in early February due to his role in a widening political scandal inside China, the decision was murkier.
U.S. officials have risked confrontation with Beijing before over how to handle Chinese citizens. During the 1989 Tiananmen political uprising, Chinese dissident and democracy advocate Fang Lizhi was granted sanctuary in the American embassy in Beijing; he remained for more than a year.
The man who brought Chongqing Communist Party Chief Bo Xilai down was denied political asylum from the U.S. consulate in Chengdu. The WSJ's Deborah Kan speaks to China Editor Andy Browne on why Wang Lijun didn't qualify for diplomatic protection.
.With Mr. Wang, however, asylum or some sort of refugee status was never seriously an option, said administration officials briefed on the case.
Chinese officials detained Mr. Wang after he left the embassy, and according to Chinese media, he hasn't been seen since. In the past, some foreign nationals, such as Mr. Fang, were granted safe haven in U.S. missions in part due to concerns they would face persecution if returned to local authorities. The same case could appear to be have been made for Mr. Wang, though the U.S. officials have maintained that they were guarding Mr. Wang's safety by turning him over to central authorities.
Getting Shelter | U.S. asylum guidelines
Asylum may be requested by those who have suffered, or fear they will suffer, persecution due to their race, religion or nationality, membership in a social group or political opinion.
Asylum can be granted only to those in the U.S. or at a point of entry.
Applicants can be barred for assisting in the persecution of others, committing nonpolitical crimes or being convicted of serious crimes in the U.S.
Temporary refuge at a U.S. post or embassy abroad may be granted if an applicant is in imminent danger of persecution or physical harm.
Temporary refuge may be denied if applicants simply wish to immigrate to the U.S. or are seeking to evade local law; if granting refuge would endanger the embassy's security; or if the State Department instructs the post not to do so.
Source: State, Homeland Security Department; WSJ Research
.Current and former U.S. officials say Mr. Wang's case was far different from Mr. Fang's, and say they see little reason on human rights grounds for sheltering a local police chief who was allegedly offering details of local corruption.
By dashing to the U.S. consulate, Mr. Wang risks charges of treason in China, a crime that carries a long jail sentence and possibly death.
In 2008, China executed a Chinese biomedical researcher convicted of passing military documents and information about a Chinese leader to Taiwan.
China is obsessed about state secrecy—even the leaking of routine economic data is regarded as a grave offense—and analysts say Beijing would have been alarmed at a pile of internal Chinese documents relating to a senior leader and internal political and security issues falling into American hands.
Analysts say the U.S. State Department, by stressing that Mr. Wang left the consulate of his own accord, was clearly sensitive to the human rights dimensions of the case.
Mr. Wang himself is widely believed to have fled to the consulate because he feared for his life after falling out with Mr. Bo. His main concern, according to many accounts, was to leave the consulate in the custody of officials from Beijing, rather than Chongqing.
Candidates for asylum must not be suspected of committing criminal acts or being involved in politically motivated violence, according to U.S. officials and government regulations. American diplomats are prevented from offering political asylum to a foreign national until the person is physically inside the U.S. or at a port of entry.
The State Department came to believe that as Chongqing police chief, Mr. Wang had played an "enforcer" role in carrying out some of the more controversial policies promoted by his then-boss, Bo Xilai, the megacity's top Communist Party official, according to U.S. officials. During a 30-hour stay at the American consulate in Chengdu, Mr. Wang gave U.S. diplomats information about the death of a British businessman, Neil Heywood, last year in China, according to U.S. and British officials.
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Ex-Chongqing police chief Wang.
."This was a policy enforcer for a governor, not some freedom fighter," said a senior U.S. official briefed on the case.
Had the U.S. considered providing refuge to Mr. Wang, it could have led to an international controversy just days before Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, who is expected to become the country's next leader, was scheduled to visit the U.S.
The Obama administration's handling of Wang Lijun has become politically sensitive for the White House in other respects, however. Republican lawmakers are demanding that the State Department hand over documents concerning Mr. Wang's case, arguing that if offered formal asylum, the police chief could have provided invaluable intelligence on China and the Communist Party.
Congressional panels are seeking clarity. A spokesman for Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R.-Fla.), chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Monday that her committee has yet to receive any of the information requested from the State Department in February.
Mr. Wang's case has roiled China. Mr. Bo was a rising political star and a potential political leader in Beijing. Now, the Chinese government has stripped Mr. Bo of his titles and detained his wife, Gu Kailai, and is formally investigating her for murder. Mr. Wang was handed over to central Chinese authorities, say U.S. officials, who add they are unsure of his current status.
The White House hasn't provided a definitive account of the depth and timing of its involvement in the Wang affair. Administration officials said that members of the National Security Council staff were told of the case while Mr. Wang was staying at the American consulate in Chengdu this February, but they say President Barack Obama wasn't briefed until Mr. Wang had left the consulate. They have declined to say exactly when the president was first briefed.
The Obama administration could face another fateful decision in the coming months concerning Mr. Bo's son, Bo Guagua, who has been studying at Harvard. State Department officials wouldn't discuss the son's prospects on Monday but said: "He is a student in good standing at Harvard … You can draw your own conclusions from that."
The U.S. has a long list of guidelines for dealing with so-called "walk-ins"—people who show up at U.S. embassies, consulates or other buildings overseas seeking the protection of the United States. According to a 2009 State Department cable obtained by Wikileaks, the U.S. has two main priorities for such cases: keeping its diplomatic outposts secure and obtaining intelligence.
The 10-page document advises diplomats to tell walk-ins seeking refuge that the post can't ensure their safe conduct out of the host country, their safety within their own country or their entry into the U.S.
Perhaps most tellingly for Mr. Wang, the cable emphasizes that temporary status "may never be granted to foreign nationals who simply wish to immigrate to the United States or evade local criminal law; if granting refuge would put post security in jeopardy; or if the Department instructs post not to do so."
In Mr. Wang's case, the government appears to have decided early on that he wasn't an intelligence asset like, for example, a Soviet KGB defector may have been in an earlier era. The cable also instructs that temporary refugee status "should be terminated as soon as circumstances permit.''
It is rare but possible for the Department of Homeland Security to "parole'' a foreign national into the United States in extraordinary cases, for individuals of special interest to the United States, when a walk-in is in immediate danger, or when the case is "politically sensitive,'' the cable states.
U.S. administrations have taken diplomatic risks in handling Chinese walk-ins in the past.
In 1989, after Mr. Fang was housed in the American embassy, there were then negotiations between the George H.W. Bush administration and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. Ultimately, the dissident and his wife were allowed to travel on medical grounds to the U.S., where he settled in Arizona before his death earlier this month.
U.S. officials on Monday stressed that Wang Lijun was no Fang Lizhi.
Jim Tom Haynes, a Washington-based immigration lawyer, said Mr. Wang's attempt to get asylum or refugee status struck him as "far-fetched," particularly because the case appears to center around domestic Chinese matters. U.S. diplomats, for their part, "probably don't want to encourage this sort of thing either, because it would get very messy diplomatically. The last thing you would want is a flood of people seeking refuge in your embassy," he said.
—Carol E. Lee
and Andrew Browne
contributed to this article.
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Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng will remain in China under a deal struck between Washington and Beijing and will attend school, according to a U.S. official, 10 days after his escape from home confinement and flight to U.S. protection pressured U.S.-China relations.
The deal potentially resolves a thorny diplomatic issue one day ahead of high-level talks between senior Chinese and U.S. leaders, though China on Wednesday demanded an apology over the matter. But it raises questions over how the U.S. will guarantee the safety of Mr. Chen – who has described abuse under de facto house arrest for the past 19 months -- and to what degree Beijing will allow him to resume his activist work.
"I am pleased that we were able to facilitate Chen Guangcheng's stay and departure from the U.S. embassy in a way that reflected his choices and our values," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement, adding that she spoke with Mr. Chen herself.
"Mr. Chen has a number of understandings with the Chinese government about his future, including the opportunity to pursue higher education in a safe environment. Making these commitments a reality is the next crucial task. The United States government and the American people are committed to remaining engaged with Mr. Chen and his family in the days, weeks, and years ahead," the statement continued.
Mr. Chen, a vocal opponent of forced abortions under China's one-child policy, will be relocated to a different part of China, the U.S. official said on Wednesday, adding that he will be allowed to attend a university "like any other student." The official stressed that Mr. Chen didn't request asylum and made clear he wanted to stay in China.
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Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng is seen in a wheelchair pushed by a nurse at a hospital in Beijing.
.Read More
China Real Time: Global Times Breaks Media Silence on Chen
Earlier: Daring Escape Brings Attention
.The U.S. urged the Chinese government not to punish those who helped him and said that Beijing had pledged to investigate local officials who Mr. Chen has alleged mistreated him. China's Foreign Ministry didn't respond to requests for comment late Wednesday.
"We think we have helped him secure a better future," said one U.S. official, while a second official added, "he will have an opportunity to continue to make a difference."
Officials said that Mr. Chen entered the U.S. embassy on Thursday with the help of embassy personnel, in their first confirmation of claims by Chinese human-rights activists who had spoken with Mr. Chen. U.S. officials said they helped Mr. Chen on humanitarian grounds because he injured his foot while escaping, adding that he scaled no fewer than eight walls during his flight.
On Wednesday Mr. Chen left the embassy to seek medical attention and to be reunited with his family, which he left behind when he fled his home in China's eastern Shandong province. Mr. Chen was at Beijing's Chaoyang Hospital on Wednesday. Police were ousting reporters from the facility Wednesday afternoon.
U.S. officials said Mr. Chen expressed a desire to speak with Mrs. Clinton while on the way to the hospital. They had a brief phone conversation, and Mr. Chen told her, in broken English, "I want to kiss you," according to officials.
U.S. officials said the issue could linger ahead of talks this week but suggested the deal showed that relations between Washington and Beijing had made progress. "This was not easy for the Chinese government," said one official.
Meanwhile, China's state-run Xinhua news agency said the government demanded an apology from U.S. officials over the matter.
"It should be pointed out that Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese citizen, was taken by the U.S. side to the U.S. embassy in Beijing via abnormal means, and the Chinese side is strongly dissatisfied with the move," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin, according to Xinhua.
He added that China demands that the U.S. "thoroughly investigate the event, hold relevant people accountable and ensure that such an event does not happen again," according to Xinhua.
A senior U.S. official declined to address the demand for an apology but said "this was an extraordinary case, involving exceptional circumstances, and I do not anticipate that it will be repeated." The official added, "we intend to work closely inside the U.S. government to fully insure that our policies are consistent with our values."
Despite the apology issue, an agreement on Mr. Chen's fate potentially ends a stumbling block between the U.S. and China one day before the beginning of high-level talks. Mrs. Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner arrived in Beijing on Wednesday to hold two days of talks with their Chinese counterparts on economic and strategic matters.
Experts had said Mr. Chen's plight could distract from or derail talks. U.S. officials over the weekend sent U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, the State Department's top Asia envoy, to Beijing to help defuse the issue ahead of the talks.
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A hospital security guard tries to restrain the photographer at the gate of Chaoyang Hospital in Beijing where Chen Guangcheng was staying on Wednesday.
.But the deal may raise questions about how the U.S. would guarantee the safety of an activist who has said he was beaten and mistreated since his home confinement began in September 2010.
At least one prominent Chinese dissident said Wednesday that he didn't believe that was a concern. "There's no way because this has already become an international issue," artist Ai Weiwei said, adding that he thought the handling of Mr. Chen's case demonstrated a "maturing" in the U.S.-China relationship.
Mr. Ai did say, however, that he though Mr. Chen's ability to continue with the legal advocacy he was pursuing before he was imprisoned would be limited. "If he does it, it will be restricted," the artist said.
News of Mr. Chen's release set off a flurry of activity on Chinese social media sites despite blocks on use of his name or related terms. Many users of Twitter-like microblogging site Sina Weibo welcomed the notion that the activist would be allowed to stay in China, but others expressed skepticism over the conditions of his release.
"Phrase of the year: left of his own volition," wrote Southern Metropolis Daily reporter Feng Xiang, an apparent reference to former Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun, who spent a night in the U.S. consulate in the city of Chengdu in February. Mr. Wang's stay in the Chengdu consulate began a series of events that led to the toppling of high-flying Chinese Communist Party official Bo Xilai in March.
Others mocked the Chinese Foreign Ministry's contention in announcing Mr. Chen's release that "China is a country under rule of law, and its citizens' legitimate rights and interests are protected by the Constitution and laws."
"We're paying a lot of attention, but we really don't understand," wrote on user from the coastal city of Xiamen. "Are we rule of law or rule by law?"
Blinded after a childhood illness, Mr. Chen overcame illiteracy and audited law classes on the way to becoming a locally celebrated "barefoot lawyer." Early in his career, he advocated on behalf of people with disabilities, later making a splash with a high-profile campaign against forced abortions being carried out in his home province under the one-child policy.
After his family-planning campaign led to the firing of local officials, Mr. Chen was detained by local authorities. In 2006, he was sentenced to four years in prison for disturbing the public order, charges supporters say were trumped up.
Upon his release from prison in 2010, he and his family were confined to their home, watched over by plainclothes guards who sometimes beat them severely, he and other activists have said.
Mr. Chen's plight turned him into a cause celebre among activists and others, a number of whom tried to visit him, which occasionally resulted in confrontations with guards. "Batman" actor Christian Bale was roughly turned away when he tried to visit Mr. Chen in December.
—Brian Spegele contributed to this article.
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At the moment it is looking like my previous subject heading was on target; despite the duplicity from Secy Clinton and the Embassy, the assertions that Chen chose to leave the embassy are contradicted by the apparent threats to his family by the regime. Now Chen says that he and his family are in danger and wish to leave China but apparently America's tradition of standing for oppressed dissidents comes in second to financing Baraq's baccanalia of spending.
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By MINXIN PEI
Nowadays Chinese leaders seem too busy putting out fires to think about their regime's long-term survival. Last month, they had to dispatch Politburo member Bo Xilai in a messy power struggle on the eve of a leadership transition. This past week, the daring escape of blind rights activist Chen Guangcheng from illegal house arrest to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing provoked another crisis. When rulers of one of the most powerful countries in the world have to worry about the defiant acts of a blind man, it's high time for them to think the unthinkable: Is the Communist Party's time up?
Asking such a question seems absurd on the surface. If anything, the party has thrived since its near-death experience in Tiananmen in 1989. Its ranks have swelled to 80 million. Its hold on power, bolstered by the military, secret police and Internet censors, looks unshakable.
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Rights activist Chen Guangcheng in a wheelchair at Beijing's Chaoyang hospital, May 2
.Yet, beneath this façade of strength lie fundamental fragilities. Disunity among the ruling elites, rising defiance of dissidents, mass riots, endemic official corruption—the list goes on. For students of democratic transitions, such symptoms of regime decay portend a systemic crisis. Based on what we know about the durability of authoritarian regimes, the Chinese Communist Party's rule is entering its most perilous phase.
To appreciate the mortal dangers lying ahead for the party, look at three numbers: 6,000, 74 and seven. Statistical analysis of the relationship between economic development and survival of authoritarian regimes shows that few non-oil-producing countries can sustain their rule once per capita GDP reaches $6,000 in purchasing power parity (PPP). Based on estimates by the International Monetary Fund, Chinese GDP per capita is $8,382 in PPP terms ($5,414 in nominal terms).
This makes China an obvious authoritarian outlier. Of the 91 countries with a higher per capita GDP than China now, 68 are full democracies, according to Freedom House, 10 are "partly free" societies, and 13 are "not free." Of the 13 countries classified as "not free," all except Belarus are oil producers. Of the 10 "partly free" countries, only Singapore, Tunisia and Lebanon are not oil producers. Tunisia has just overthrown its long-ruling autocracy. Prospects of democracy are looking brighter in Singapore. As for Lebanon, remember the Cedar Revolution of 2005?
So the socioeconomic conditions conducive to a democratic breakthrough already exist in China today. Maintaining one-party rule in such a society is getting more costly and soon will be utterly futile.
This brings us to the second number, 74—the longest lifespan enjoyed by a one-party regime in history, that of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1917-1991). One-party rule in Mexico had only a slightly shorter history, 71 years (1929-2000). In Taiwan, the Kuomintang maintained power for 73 years if we count its time as the ruler of the war-torn mainland before it fled to Taiwan in 1949.
Related Video
Human Rights Watch director of global initiatives Minky Worden on the deal the U.S. struck with Beijing over Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng. Photo: Getty Images
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.Social scientists have yet to discover why one-party regimes, arguably the most sophisticated of all modern-day autocracies, cannot survive beyond their seventh decade in power. What is important to note is that systemic crises in such regimes typically emerge about a decade before their ultimate fall. In the Soviet Union, it was the combination of the stagnation of the Brezhnev era and the ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan. In Mexico, the stolen presidential election of 1988 delegitimized the Institutional Revolutionary Party's rule.
The Chinese Communist Party has governed for 62 years. If history offers any guidance, it is about to enter its crisis decade, and probably has at most 10-15 years left on its clock.
One possible reason for the demise of one-party rule is the emergence of a counter-elite, composed of talented and ambitious but frustrated individuals kept out of power by the exclusionary nature of one-party rule. To be sure, the party has worked hard to co-opt China's best and brightest. But there are limits to how many top people it can absorb. So the party has a problem summarized by this ratio: 7:1.
Chinese colleges and universities graduate seven million bachelor degree-holders each year. The party admits one million new members with a college education or higher each year, thus leaving out roughly six million newly minted university graduates. Since party membership still is linked to the availability of economic opportunities, a sizable proportion of this excluded group is bound to feel that the system has cheated them.
Many will turn their frustrations against the party. Over the next decade, this group could grow into tens of millions, forming a pool of willing and able recruits for the political opposition.
The odds do not look good for those in Beijing who want to maintain the status quo indefinitely. They must begin thinking about how to exit power gracefully and peacefully. One thing the party should do immediately is end the persecution of potential opposition leaders like Mr. Chen and Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize winner now in Chinese prison. The party will need them as negotiating partners when the transition to democracy eventually begins.
Mr. Pei is a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College.
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This much is clear: Beijing reached an agreement Wednesday with the U.S. under which blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng left the U.S. Embassy. However, the details of the deal, including whether Mr. Chen was coerced to accept by Chinese threats to his family, remain murky.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in Beijing for the Strategic and Economic Dialogue talks on Thursday, said that the outcome "reflected his choices and our values," and was based on "a number of understandings with the Chinese government."
There's good reason to doubt that Beijing will honor those understandings. While local authorities did the dirty work of keeping Mr. Chen under illegal house arrest in rural Shandong province, the central government was complicit. Nobody should be under the illusion that village thugs defied Beijing's wishes for 19 months. As one Chinese commentator put it, "No matter how strong Dongshigu Village is, it can't be stronger than [defrocked Bo Xilai's] Chongqing."
Related Video
Human Rights Watch director of global initiatives Minky Worden on the deal the U.S. struck with Beijing over Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng. Photo: Getty Images
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.The good news is that Mr. Chen has occupied the moral high ground in China's public debate. The case hinges not only on universal concepts of human rights, but also the Chinese government's failure to follow its own laws. The persecution of a blind man and his innocent family exposed the Communist Party's mafia mentality of attacking anyone who dares to challenge its injustice.
This deal, flawed as it may be, should at least improve Mr. Chen's living conditions for a time, and it allows the U.S. to take an ongoing interest in his welfare. American concern should also focus on those who helped Mr. Chen escape his captors. Some have been detained, even though the police concede they broke no laws.
The Chinese government Wednesday deflected attention from Mr. Chen's mistreatment by criticizing the U.S. for the "abnormal means" by which he entered the U.S. Embassy. A Foreign Ministry spokesman's demands for a U.S. investigation and apology, widely repeated in the state-run media, are transparent efforts to save face. Beijing is on the back foot as Mr. Chen is already one of the most effective activists in China on human rights and the rule of law. Now he will garner even more attention.
While this case is unusual, it sets an important precedent in U.S.-China relations. Nobody doubts the importance of U.S.-Chinese cooperation on a range of issues, but that cooperation becomes counterproductive when it comes at the expense of the core values America embodies and the Chinese people admire. As for Beijing, it will only take its place in the world as a respected power when it also honors those values—and its own laws.
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By JON HUNTSMAN
The recent drama in Beijing over dissident Chen Guangcheng illuminates two of the most important characteristics of today's China and its political system. First, despite China's economic success and growing regional influence, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party is profoundly insecure. Second, the Chinese people are increasingly demanding a more transparent and fair society.
The Communist Party's insecurity has been amplified by the 18th Party Congress, an unprecedented leadership transition taking place this fall with a backdrop of domestic political scandal, social unrest, uncertainties about the Chinese growth model, and increased tensions with the United States. The party fears that liberalization would unleash centrifugal forces that would threaten its authority. Yet people such as Mr. Chen, artist and dissident Ai Wei Wei, Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, who is now imprisoned in China, and so many others provide a glimpse of China's potential if it were to unlock the talents of its people.
In crafting an effective approach to the U.S.-China relationship, we need to understand China and all of its complexities—not engage in hyperbole or wishful thinking. Saying that the U.S.-China relationship is among the most important in the world today is not a statement meant to set China above our allies on our priority list, nor does it convey any aspiration for a "G-2" management of global problems. Rather, it is recognition of what is at stake.
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A banner in support of Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng, Hong Kong, May 4.
.There is no other relationship in the world that, if mismanaged, carries greater long-term negative consequences for the U.S., the Asia-Pacific region, and the world. By contrast, wise stewardship of the relationship will make us and our allies safer, wealthier and more confident about global stability in the future.
The best hope for sustained bilateral cooperation will come from strategically identifying shared interests and operating from a position of shared values. Unfortunately, in today's China those values we share are found mostly among people like Mr. Chen, and not in the Communist Party or the government.
America's policy toward China should rest on the following pillars:
The U.S. must deal with China from a position of strength. This means getting our economic house in order by undertaking difficult structural reforms. China will approach all interactions with the U.S. by first sizing up relative strength and leverage. If we remain on our present course of fiscal irresponsibility, innovation-stifling policies and political paralysis, we can anticipate greater Chinese assertiveness and foreign policy adventurism.
Economics and trade must drive our foreign policy and Asia strategy. Chinese leaders have demonstrated that they want trade to be the lifeblood of their ties to the region. Today Beijing is the leading trading partner of most of our regional allies. Given the scale of the Chinese market, we should prudently consider the second-order effects of those relationships changing the regional incentive structure. Washington must get back in the game of robust trade liberalization. Beyond the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks, we should be pursuing free trade agreements with Japan, Taiwan and India, and allowing American businesses to enter Burma.
We should renew our ties to key allies, focusing on joint endeavors that hedge against some of the more difficult contingencies we could face in the region from an aggressive China and People's Liberation Army. There is vast potential for cooperative problem solving among countries that do share our values, and this "outside-in" approach to Beijing will demonstrate the benefits to being a friend of the United States. We can clearly communicate to our allies through our actions that the U.S. will be able to project power in the region despite Chinese opposition.
Values matter. We have an opportunity to shape outcomes by living up to our ideals and demonstrating we are worthy of the region's admiration and emulation. This approach will not only be consistent with the aspirations of many in China, but it will also leave the door open for a truly strong U.S.-China relationship based on shared values—should leaders in the Communist Party eventually embrace liberal reforms.
While our national leaders must try to bridge the communication gap in the near term, it will ultimately be everyday commercial, cultural and social interactions that will transform bilateral ties. I believe our peoples are more alike than different, and can see a future China where the likes of Chen Guangcheng are celebrated by both the people and the state rather than persecuted. Meanwhile, we should creatively engage constituencies beyond the government in Beijing and allow a multitude of relationships to flourish.
We must work with China on shared interests, while remaining vigilant to the inevitably competitive nature of our relationship for the foreseeable future. I've seen the competition up close, and I believe we can succeed with the right policies and leadership.
Chen Guangcheng has given us an opening that we can either see as a source of conflict or as an opening for expanding our dialogue on issues that increasingly matter to so many in China. The world will be watching.
Mr. Huntsman was U.S. ambassador to China from 2009-2011. A former governor of Utah and candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, he is now chairman of the Huntsman Cancer Foundation.
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Stratfor
The Chinese Marine Surveillance (CMS) announced May 9 that 36 new vessels are expected to join its surveillance fleet by 2013. The CMS fleet's new ships reportedly include seven 1,500-ton ships, 15 1,000-ton ships and 14 600-ton ships. The CMS is one of five Chinese maritime law enforcement agencies, and is tasked with maintaining China's presence in disputed waters and enforcing and surveilling Beijing's claimed economic exclusive zone, which is extensive and difficult to monitor. The new shipbuilding announcement comes while China is locked in a standoff with the Philippines over Huangyan Island in the South China Sea. The standoff began April 8 when two CMS ships blocked a Philippine warship from boarding eight Chinese fishing vessels anchored in the contested region. While both Manila and Beijing have publicly committed to resolving the standoff diplomatically, the situation remains tense and Chinese authorities say they are prepared for an escalation by Manila. The growing capabilities of China's maritime enforcement agencies allow Beijing to strengthen its presence within China's claimed maritime territory and to better position itself to respond to any clash, such as the current Huangyan Island standoff. China's bolstered maritime enforcement fleet and assertive maneuvering will increase the likelihood of maritime confrontation in a region rife with other claimants.
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Summary
ROMEO GACAD/AFP/Getty Images
A Filipino man harvests bananas in Mindanao
Philippine President Benigno Aquino III said May 14 that banana growers should seek alternatives to the Chinese market. The statement follows May 9 reports that Chinese customs agents would begin inspecting banana and pineapple shipments from the Philippines for "harmful organisms." Under the heightened scrutiny, Chinese customs agents have impounded ships carrying bananas from the Philippines, causing the cargo to spoil at the expense of Philippine growers. The tensions over China's import restrictions on Philippine fruit come as travel agencies in China and Taiwan stop Chinese tourism in the Philippines due to the Scarborough Shoal maritime dispute.
As the third-largest destination for Philippine exports, China possesses significant economic leverage over the relatively small island country. It will use this leverage to persuade the Philippines to relax its claims in the South China Sea.
Analysis:
China seems to be focusing on sectors large, strategic and urgent enough (fruit spoils quickly, and there are no reserves to mitigate a dip in tourism) to send Manila a message without seriously damaging the Philippine and Chinese economies. By contrast, targeting things like electronics or machine parts would harm both economies and risk a regional backlash against China.
Bananas are the Philippines' most important fruit export, providing a major source of employment on the poor and politically unstable island of Mindanao. Bananas account, however, for just about 1 percent of the Philippines' total export value. China is currently the second-largest destination of Philippine bananas after Japan, importing $75 million worth of the fruit in 2011 -- 16 percent of Philippine banana exports. Thought it is a distant second behind Japan, which consumes more than half of Philippine banana exports, China is the fastest growing market for Philippine bananas. Imports more than doubled each year from 2009 to 2011. Even when Philippine exports to other countries dipped drastically after El Nino hit in 2010, exports to China leapt from $14 million to $33 million. This rapid growth and a declining or relatively steady demand in other markets like South Korea and Iran suggest that Philippine growers will not willingly give up the market in China.
Bolstering this perception, the president of the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA) warned that losing the Chinese market could have political, social and economic implications. He noted that up to 200,000 workers would be affected by the current situation, the first such incident since the Philippines started exporting bananas to China in 2001. The PBGEA has played an important role in developing and consolidating the country's banana growers. As such, it constitutes the largest unified voice in the Philippine fruit industry and the strongest potential lobby to affect national policy.
PBGEA's efforts to develop Mindanao's banana industry have paid off in recent years, with the Philippines emerging as the third-largest exporter worldwide and the largest by far in Asia. Most Philippine bananas are grown on Mindanao. The island long has been a hotbed for political and ethnic struggle, with several competing separatist groups inhabiting different parts of the island. Poor and relatively underpopulated, the island embodies the Philippines' struggle to integrate its rural, agriculture-based and heavily indigenous southern islands with the more prosperous urban north. While these tensions are not directly tied to the island's banana industry (the majority of bananas are grown in Davao del Norte, which is not occupied by separatist groups), they form part of a larger political context that Manila treats with caution.
Beijing may hope its tougher banana inspections and tourism boycott will impel the Philippine agriculture and tourism lobbies to coax Manila into toning down its maritime territorial rhetoric. Despite the relatively small value of banana exports compared to electronics or machine parts, the PBGEA plays a central role in the country's key agricultural export product. That and bananas' important Mindanao employer may give the PBGEA -- and other parts of the country's agriculture sector that fear wider Chinese sanctions -- a significant say in crafting Manila's response to China.
This would allow Beijing to resolve a territorial dispute without acting overly aggressive toward the Philippines, a move that could deprive third parties, including the United States, of any reason to intervene. That Manila has joined Beijing in denying any connection between banana import restrictions and the Scarborough Shoal affair helps efforts to cast the spat as a trade issue rather than a political issue, as does a Philippine Department of Agriculture delegation's visit to China to seek a resolution to the issue. (Representatives of that department have said the particular bacteria the Chinese claimed to find do not even typically affect bananas.)
In some ways, China's strategy toward the Philippines is reminiscent of its rare earth elements export ban, which was seen as directed against Japan. It may extend this strategy of using less overt ways of reinforcing its territorial claims against countries with competing claims in the South China Sea.
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Posted on behalf of Crafty Dog...
(http://dogbrothers.com/kostas/China_south_china_sea_v2.jpg)
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http://www.defensenews.com/article/20120605/DEFREG03/306050016/India-Japan-Conduct-First-Joint-Naval-Exercises?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE
NEW DELHI — As part of their increased defense ties, the navies of India and Japan will hold their first joint exercises June 9-10 in Japanese waters.
The joint naval exercises follow agreements reached during the visit of Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony to Japan in November 2011. Both navies will also conduct routine passage exercises during the visit of Japanese ships to Indian ports this year.
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http://www.defensenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012307080006
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How very odd. I wonder what is going on beneath the surface here.
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Yes, a very odd report. "I wonder what is going on beneath the surface here."
Placating the opportunistic oppressors who backstab us around the globe it would appear, while elsewhere we backstab our real friends and allies.
From the article: "Calibrating a long-range China policy may be the greatest challenge for the U.S. administration’s pivot to the Asia-Pacific region."
I would add that dealing effectively with the current, unelected regime of China is, to me, only a short term goal.
At what point in a nation's economic development do a billion plus people deserve the basic human right of consensual government? That might have enormous foreign policy and defense implications for the U.S. I haven't heard much from this administration on the world stage about that, no tear down this wall speech from the Nobel prize winner in chief, though he did report Arizona to the UN for oppression.
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http://www.defensenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012307080006
This http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/78409.html should be read in tandem with the above article.
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China staked its modern claim to control of the sea in the waning days of the Chinese Civil War. Since most of the other claimant countries were occupied with their own independence movements in the ensuing decades, China had to do little to secure this claim. However, with other countries building up their maritime forces, pursuing new relationships and taking a more active stance in exploring and patrolling the waters, and with the Chinese public hostile to any real or perceived territorial concessions on Beijing's part, Deng's quiet approach is no longer an option.
The Paradox of China's Naval Strategy
July 17, 2012 | 0859 GMT
Stratfor
By Rodger Baker and Zhixing Zhang
Over the past decade, the South China Sea has become one of the most volatile flashpoints in East Asia. China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan each assert sovereignty over part or all of the sea, and these overlapping claims have led to diplomatic and even military standoffs in recent years.
Because the sea hosts numerous island chains, is rich in mineral and energy resources and has nearly a third of the world's maritime shipping pass through its waters, its strategic value to these countries is obvious. For China, however, control over the South China Sea is more than just a practical matter and goes to the center of Beijing's foreign policy dilemma: how to assert its historic maritime claims while maintaining the non-confrontational foreign policy established by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1980.
China staked its modern claim to control of the sea in the waning days of the Chinese Civil War. Since most of the other claimant countries were occupied with their own independence movements in the ensuing decades, China had to do little to secure this claim. However, with other countries building up their maritime forces, pursuing new relationships and taking a more active stance in exploring and patrolling the waters, and with the Chinese public hostile to any real or perceived territorial concessions on Beijing's part, Deng's quiet approach is no longer an option.
Evolution of China's Maritime Logic
China is a vast continental power, but it also controls a long coastline, stretching at one time from the Sea of Japan in the northeast to the Gulf of Tonkin in the south. Despite this extensive coastline, China's focus has nearly always turned inward, with only sporadic efforts put toward seafaring and even then only during times of relative security on land.
Traditionally, the biggest threats to China were not from sea, except for occasional piracy, but rather from internal competition and nomadic forces to the north and west. China's geographic challenges encouraged a family-based, insular, agricultural economy, one with a strong hierarchal power structure designed in part to mitigate the constant challenges from warlords and regional divisions. Much of China's trade with the world was undertaken via land routes or carried out by Arabs and other foreign merchants at select coastal locations. In general, the Chinese chose to concentrate on the stability of the population and land borders over potential opportunities from maritime trade or exploration, particularly since sustained foreign contact could bring as much trouble as benefit.
Two factors contributed to China's experiments with naval development: a shift in warfare from northern to southern China and periods of relative national stability. During the Song dynasty (960-1279), the counterpart to the horse armies of the northern plains was a large inland naval force in the riverine and marshy south. The shift to river navies also spread to the coast, and the Song rulers encouraged coastal navigation and maritime trade by the Chinese, replacing the foreign traders along the coast. While still predominately inward-looking during the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) under the Mongols, China carried out at least two major naval expeditions in the late 13th century -- against Japan and Java -- both of which ultimately proved unsuccessful. Their failure contributed to China's decision to again turn away from the sea. The final major maritime adventure occurred in the early Ming dynasty (1368-1644), when Chinese Muslim explorer Zheng He undertook his famous seven voyages, reaching as far as Africa but failing to use this opportunity to permanently establish Chinese power abroad.
Zheng He's treasure fleet was scuttled as the Ming saw rising problems at home, including piracy off the coast, and China once again looked inward. At about the same time that Magellan started his global expedition in the early 1500s, the Chinese resumed their isolationist policy, limiting trade and communication with the outside and ending most consideration of maritime adventure. China's naval focus shifted to coastal defense rather than power projection. The arrival of European gunboats in the 19th century thoroughly shook the conventional maritime logic of Chinese authorities, and only belatedly did they undertake a naval program based on Western technology.
Even this proved less than fully integrated into China's broader strategic thinking. The lack of maritime awareness contributed to the Qing government's decision to cede its crucial port access at the mouth of the Tumen River to Russia in 1858, permanently closing off access to the Sea of Japan from the northeast. Less than 40 years later, despite building one of the largest regional fleets, the Chinese navy was smashed by the newly emergent Japanese navy. For nearly a century thereafter, the Chinese again focused almost exclusively on the land, with naval forces taking a purely coastal defense role. Since the 1990s, this policy has slowly shifted as China's economic interconnectedness with the world expanded. For China to secure its economic strength and parlay that into stronger global influence, the development of a more proactive naval strategy became imperative.
Interpreting the 'Nine-Dash Line'
To understand China's present-day maritime logic and its territorial disputes with its neighbors, it is necessary to first understand the so-called nine-dash line, a loose boundary line demarcating China's maritime claims in the South China Sea.
The nine-dash line was based on an earlier territorial claim known as the eleven-dash line, drawn up in 1947 by the then-ruling Kuomintang government without much strategic consideration since the regime was busy dealing with the aftermath of the Japanese occupation of China and the ongoing civil war with the Communists. After the end of the Japanese occupation, the Kuomintang government sent naval officers and survey teams through the South China Sea to map the various islands and islets. The Internal Affairs Ministry published a map with an eleven-dash line enclosing most of the South China Sea far from China's shores. This map, despite its lack of specific coordinates, became the foundation of China's modern claims, and following the 1949 founding of the People's Republic of China, the map was adopted by the new government in Beijing. In 1953, perhaps as a way to mitigate conflict with neighboring Vietnam, the current nine-dash line emerged when Beijing eliminated two of the dashes.
The new Chinese map was met with little resistance or complaint by neighboring countries, many of which were then focused on their own national independence movements. Beijing interpreted this silence as acquiescence by the neighbors and the international community, and then stayed largely quiet on the issue to avoid drawing challenges. Beijing has shied away from officially claiming the line itself as an inviolable border, and it is not internationally recognized, though China regards the nine-dash line as the historic basis for its maritime claims.
Like other claimant countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines, China's long-term goal is to use its growing naval capabilities to control the islands and islets within the South China Sea and thus the natural resources and the strategic position they afford. When China was militarily weak, it supported the concept of putting aside sovereignty concerns and carrying out joint development, aiming to reduce the potential conflicts from overlapping claims while buying time for its own naval development. Meanwhile, to avoid dealing with a unified bloc of counterclaimants, Beijing adopted a one-to-one negotiation approach with individual countries on their own territorial claims, without the need to jeopardize its entire nine-dash line claim. This allowed Beijing to remain the dominant partner in bilateral negotiations, something it feared it would lose in a more multilateral forum.
Despite the lack of legal recognition for the nine-dash line and the constant friction it engenders, Beijing has little ability now to move away from the claim. With the rising international attention and regional competition over the South China Sea, the Chinese public -- which identifies the waters within the nine-dash line as territorial waters -- is pressuring Beijing to take more assertive actions. This has left China in an impossible position: When Beijing attempts to portray joint developments as evidence that other countries recognize China's territorial claims, the partner countries balk; when it tries to downplay the claims in order to manage international relations, the Chinese population protests (and in the case of Chinese fishermen, often act on their own in disputed territory, forcing the government to support them rhetorically and at times physically). Any effort to appeal to Beijing's domestic constituency would risk aggravating foreign partners, or vice versa.
Developing a Maritime Policy
The complications from the nine-dash line, the status of domestic Chinese developments and the shifting international system have all contributed to shape China's evolving maritime strategy.
Under former leader Mao Zedong, China was internally focused and constrained by a weak navy. China's maritime claims were left vague, Beijing did not aggressively seek to assert its rights and the independence struggles of neighboring countries largely spared China from taking a stronger maritime stance. China's naval development remained defensive, focused on protecting its shores from invasion. Deng Xiaoping, in concert with his domestic economic reforms in the late 1970s and early 1980s, sought the more pragmatic joint economic development of the East and South China seas, putting aside claims of territorial sovereignty for another time. China's military expenditures continued to focus on land forces (and missile forces), with the navy relegated to a largely defensive role operating only in Chinese coastal waters.
To a great degree, Deng's policies remained in place through the next two decades. There were sporadic maritime flare-ups in the South China Sea, but in general, the strategy of avoiding outright confrontation remained a core principle at sea. China's navy was in no position to challenge the dominant role of the U.S. Navy or to take any assertive action against its neighbors, especially since Beijing sought to increase its regional influence through economic and political means rather than through military force.
But joint development proposals for the South China Sea have largely failed. China's expanded economic strength, coupled with a concomitant rise in its military spending -- and more recently its focus on naval development -- has raised suspicions and concerns among neighboring countries, with many calling on the United States to take a more active role in the region to counterbalance China's rise. The issue of the nine-dash line and territorial claims have also risen in significance because countries had to file their maritime claims under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, bringing the competing claims a step closer to international arbitration. China, which was a signatory to the treaty largely due to its potential maritime gains in the East China Sea, found itself forced to file numerous counterclaims in the South China Sea, raising alarm in neighboring countries of what was seen as an outright push for regional hegemony.
It was not only counterclaimant nations that considered the Chinese moves troubling. Japan and South Korea are heavily dependent on the South China Sea as an energy transit corridor, and the United States, Australia and India among others depend on the sea for trade and military transit. All these countries saw China's moves as a potential prelude to challenging free access to the waters. China responded with increasingly assertive rhetoric as well as a larger role for the Chinese military in foreign policy decisions. The old policy of non-confrontation was giving way to a new approach.
The Foreign Policy Debate
In 1980, Deng expressed the shape of Chinese foreign policy as one in which China should observe the world, secure its position, deal calmly with foreign affairs, hide its capabilities and bide its time, maintain a low profile and never claim leadership. These basic tenets remain the core of Chinese foreign policy, either as guidelines for action or excuses for inaction. But China's regional and domestic environment has shifted significantly from the early days of Deng's reforms, and China's economic and military expansion has already passed Deng's admonition to hide capabilities and bide time.
Beijing understands that only through a more proactive policy can China expand from a solely land-based power to a maritime power and reshape the region in a manner beneficial to its security interests. Failure to do so could enable other regional states and their allies, namely the United States, to contain or even threaten China's ambitions.
At least four elements of Deng's policies are currently under debate or changing: a shift from noninterference to creative involvement; a shift from bilateral to multilateral diplomacy; a shift from reactive to preventative diplomacy; and a move away from strict nonalignment toward semi-alliances.
Creative involvement is described as a way for China to be more active in preserving its interests abroad by becoming more involved in other countries' domestic politics -- a shift from noninterference to something more flexible. China has used money and other tools to shape domestic developments in other countries in the past, but an official change in policy would necessitate deeper Chinese involvement in local affairs. However, this would undermine China's attempts to promote the idea that it is just another developing nation helping other developing nations in the face of Western imperialism and hegemony. This shift in perception could erode some of China's advantage in dealing with developing nations since it has relied on promises of political noninterference as a counter to Western offers of better technology or more development resources that come with requirements of political change.
China has long relied on bilateral relations as its preferred method of managing its interests internationally. When China has operated within a multilateral forum, it has often shaped developments only by being a spoiler rather than a leader. For example, China can block sanctions in the U.N. Security Council but has rarely proffered a different path for the international community to pursue. Particularly through the 1990s, Beijing feared its relatively weak position left it little to gain from multilateral forums, and instead put China under the influence of the stronger members. But China's rising economic power has shifted this equation.
China is pursuing more multilateral relationships as a way to secure its interests through the larger groups. China's relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, its participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and its pursuit of trilateral summits are all intended to help Beijing shape the policy direction of these blocs. By shifting to the multilateral approach, China can make some of the weaker countries feel more secure and thus prevent them from turning to the United States for support.
Traditionally, China has had a relatively reactive foreign policy, dealing with crises when they emerge but often failing to recognize or act to prevent the crises before they materialize. In places where Beijing has sought access to natural resources, it has often been caught off-guard by changes in the local situation and not had a response strategy prepared. (The division of Sudan and South Sudan is one recent example). Now, China is debating shifting this policy to one where it seeks to better understand the underlying forces and issues that could emerge into conflict and act alone or with the international community to defuse volatile situations. In the South China Sea, this would mean clarifying its maritime claims rather than continuing to use the vague nine-dash line and also more aggressively pursuing ideas for an Asian security mechanism, one in which China would play an active leadership role.
China's stance on alliances remains the same as that put forward by Deng in the 1980s: It does not engage in alliance structures targeted against third countries. This was both to allow China to retain an independent foreign policy stance and to avoid international entanglements due to its alliances with others. For example, Chinese plans to retake Taiwan were scuttled by its involvement in the Korean War, and thus its relations with the United States were set back by decades. The collapse of the Cold War system and the rise of China's economic and military influence have brought this policy under scrutiny as well. Beijing has watched cautiously as NATO has expanded eastward and as the United States has strengthened its military alliances in the Asia-Pacific region. Beijing's non-alliance policy leaves China potentially facing these groups alone, something it has neither the military nor the economic strength to effectively counter.
The proposed semi-alliance structure is designed to counter this weakness while not leaving China beholden to its semi-alliance partners. China's push for strategic partnerships (even with its ostensible rivals) and increased military and humanitarian disaster drills with other nations are part of this strategy. The strategy is less about building an alliance structure against the United States than it is about breaking down the alliance structures that could be built against China by getting closer to traditional U.S. partners, making them less willing to take strong actions against China. In its maritime strategy, Beijing is working with India, Japan and Korea in counterpiracy operations and engaging in more naval exchanges and offers of joint exercises and drills.
Looking Forward
China's world is changing. Its emergence as a major economic power has forced Beijing to rethink its traditional foreign policy. Closest to home, the South China Sea issue is a microcosm of China's broader foreign policy debate. The ambiguity of China's maritime claim was useful when the region was quiet, but it is no longer serving China's purposes, and coupled with the natural expansion of China's maritime interests and naval activity it is instead exacerbating tensions. Old policy tools such as trying to keep all negotiations bilateral or claiming a hands-off approach are no longer serving China's needs. The policy of joint development inherited from Deng has failed to bring about any significant cooperation with neighboring countries in the sea, and the assertion of the nine-dash line claims amid the U.N. sea treaty filings has simultaneously increased domestic Chinese nationalism and countermoves by neighboring countries.
Despite the lack of clarity on its maritime policy, China has demonstrated its intent to further consolidate its claims based on the nine-dash line. Beijing recognizes that policy changes are needed, but any change has its attendant consequences. The path of transition is fraught with danger, from disgruntled domestic elements to aggressive reactions by China's neighbors, but by intent or by default, change is happening, and how the foreign policy debate plays out will have lasting consequences for China's maritime strategy and its international position as a whole.
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India: Continued Activity in the South China Sea
July 20, 2012 | 1045 GMT
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Summary
Indian state-owned energy company ONGC Videsh Ltd. announced July 19 that it would continue participating in a joint oil and natural gas exploration project with Vietnam in Block 128, one of several potentially exploitable oil blocks in the South China Sea. The company withdrew from the project in May -- purportedly over unfavorable exploration conditions -- but it reconsidered its position after Hanoi reportedly pledged to give ONGC Videsh additional data and other incentives.
Complicating the project was China, which claims sole domain over the South China Sea and has long opposed joint exploration in its waters unless it includes China. Many observers considered ONGC Videsh's initial withdrawal to be a bow to China's demands, despite New Delhi's claims to the contrary. But with the decision to renew the contract, India has shown its willingness to align with Vietnam amid tensions in the South China Sea, even at the risk of hurting its relations with China. Still, a number of questions remain over the commercial viability of the venture and over the implications of Beijing's response.
Analysis
China's objections to the project are twofold. With tensions rising amid territorial disputes in the South China Sea, smaller countries in the region are turning to outside actors to help reinforce their territorial claims. Beijing's opposition is meant to warn Vietnam against joint exploration with non-claimant countries. This complicates Beijing's efforts to contain the disputes among claimant countries. At the same time, China wants to prevent India from increasing its presence in the South China Sea.
.For its part, India wants to operate in the South China Sea as a means to counterbalance China's regional influence and as a way to divert Beijing's attention from New Delhi's immediate strategic interests. By cooperating with Vietnam, India could gain some leverage in the South China Sea disputes. Engaging Beijing close to its own turf in this way could serve to keep China at bay while also enhancing New Delhi's role in the growing regional competition for energy resources.
Vietnam wants to counter China's claim to the South China Sea; increasing its presence through resource-exploration projects is one way it can achieve that goal. However, Vietnam lacks the technological capability needed to explore deeper waters, so it is courting the assistance of other countries. By locking in such collaborations, Vietnam could mitigate the financial and political risks involved with resource exploration in the South China Sea. Therefore, India's withdrawal on the project dealt a major setback to Vietnam's goal of countering Beijing's territorial claims.
A New Auction
To counter Vietnam's offer to India and to facilitate its claim to the South China Sea, Chinese state-owned energy firm China National Offshore Oil Corp. in late June opened nine offshore oil blocks to joint operation with foreign companies. The move marked the first auction in the area by the Chinese firm in two decades. Notably, the oil blocks Beijing opened are close to the western fringe of China's nine-dash line -- a loose boundary line demarcating China's maritime claims -- near the Vietnamese coast, and most blocks appear to overlap with those of Vietnam. The area of Blocks Yiqingxi 18 and Danwan 22 directly overlap with Block 128, where the Vietnam-India joint venture is located.
Underlying China National Offshore Oil Corp.'s auction is Beijing's desire to exercise its right to energy exploration in the disputed waters. As the firm's deep-sea technological capabilities grow, Beijing could become the only country with a territorial claim to the South China Sea that can conduct exploration projects without the help of other countries. As a result, the company will be uniquely positioned to lead future explorations in the disputed waters, and that ability will give credence to China's territorial claims.
China National Offshore Oil Corp.'s auction marks a significant development in Beijing's maritime strategy. Previously, Beijing protested any activity in the South China Sea and performed somewhat low-level naval harassment maneuvers against those active in the waters. Now, it has opened the sea to competition over energy and mineral resources. By initiating joint exploration projects, Beijing is attempting to force Vietnam to reconsider its strategy of working jointly with outside countries like India to the exclusion of China.
Concerns over Viability
However, the prospects for exploiting resources in the sea are unclear. ONGC Videsh has been engaged in exploratory projects with Vietnam since 2006 and has invested more than $50 million in block 128 alone. India earlier relinquished the nearby block 127 after finding insufficient production potential, and the hard seabed terrain in block 128 complicates prospects for recovering oil. If the venture with Vietnam does not produce oil, ONGC Videsh will have to carry at least some of the burden. Importantly, any move by India and Vietnam will inevitably provoke strong opposition from China.
Each country's decision to operate in the South China Sea derives largely from their strategic interests rather than their economic interests. For China, the auction is largely a political move intended to preempt outside countries interested in exploring the blocks, thereby buying time for China's own exploration even while opening up energy competition in the sea. Despite the fact that the auction has yet to attract interest from foreign companies, Beijing has little intention of backing off from its position. Meanwhile, China will continue to pressure other countries with claims in the South China Sea to not explore the disputed waters. And as pressure from China mounts, India, Vietnam and any other country looking to explore without Chinese participation will have to weigh the political implications.
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Read more: India: Continued Activity in the South China Sea | Stratfor
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America Needs a Business Pivot Toward Asia
Economic engagement should augment military presence. Start with free trade agreements..
By CURTIS S. CHIN
Much has been made of the Obama administration's policy "pivot" to Asia, increasing diplomatic outreach, and rebalancing and repositioning of military assets in the Asia-Pacific region. Missing from this shift is a "business pivot"—a more concerted effort to increase trade and investment between America and its allies in the region. This would be good strategy, and good economics too.
So far, Washington appears to be thinking of Southeast Asia—and particularly the problem of growing Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea—primarily in military terms. In June, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced plans to base 60% of U.S. naval forces in the Asia-Pacific region by 2020.
Yet adding a pro-growth, pro-business component to U.S. strategy could help Asian countries become stronger, more confident partners. Commercial ties also can help cement friendships. Beijing understands this, which is one reason Chinese companies have been investing heavily in the region.
This would not mean starting from scratch: A significant U.S.-Asia economic and trade foundation exists that can be built on. In Southeast Asia, for example, U.S. exports exceeded $76 billion in 2011. American companies also have invested twice as much in the region as they have in China.
To cite one example, Ford is investing $450 million in a new Thai plant that will employ 2,200. Ford is the second-largest automotive investor in Thailand after Toyota, having pumped in $2.5 billion over the years. Its success in Asia is to the benefit of the United States.
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CloseAssociated Press
Barbara Weisel, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, fourth from right, looks on during a news conference at the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement talks Tuesday, July 10, 2012, in San Diego.
.But whereas the Chinese are now actively encouraging greater overseas investment to catch up, Washington has lost focus. America needs more than the occasional trade mission.
The first step in a business pivot needs to be an explicit recommitment to free trade broadly and to free trade agreements (FTAs) specifically. For the past three years, too little has been done to advance a free-trade agenda beyond ratifying—after long delays—agreements initiated by prior U.S. administrations.
In the Asia-Pacific region, the U.S. has free trade agreements with only Australia, Singapore and South Korea. Negotiations continue toward a regional Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) multilateral trade agreement. Yet the U.S. commitment to this agreement, while welcome, again predates the present administration.
New initiatives are warranted. Washington could set a firm deadline for concluding TPP talks. Recently the focus seems to be more on expanding the number of participants—Canada and Mexico recently joined, and Japan might—than on concluding negotiations. While businesses would benefit from a deal covering as many countries as possible, the number of countries is irrelevant if expanding participation means there's no deal at all.
Washington also should look for opportunities to improve trade on a day-to-day basis. Logistics and transport are obvious cases. A low-profile but important move would be to boost negotiations on open skies agreements in Asia. Such deals allow airlines, including freight carriers, greater freedom to set routes and schedules between signatory countries.
As of late 2010, the U.S. had more than 100 open skies partners. Conspicuously missing from the list, however, are several Asian nations. The Philippines and Vietnam each could provide future opportunities for partnership agreements if governments on both sides understand the benefits of greater cooperation and competition, and of encouraging the building of businesses across borders.
Finally, a business pivot should consist not just of actions but also of words. It means ceasing to demonize companies that trade and invest overseas.
It's difficult to excite business leaders about the prospect of additional trade with Asia if they have to worry about becoming political whipping boys. Partly this would be a matter of politicians exercising some restraint, but partly also a matter of putting some leaders in Washington who understand the strategic and economic importance of trade with and investment in Asia and are willing to help businesses make that case at home and push for expanded opportunities abroad.
Unfortunately, there's hardly anyone in Washington right now making the case that protectionism hurts both the U.S. economy and American interests abroad. And no one is positioned to communicate with the business community on how best to expand commercial ties in Asia.
A central benefit of peace and stability in Southeast Asia—which is a goal of the U.S. administration's strategic pivot—would be to open the way for greater commercial opportunities on both sides of the Pacific. It's time for Washington to understand that trade and economic ties can be part of the means to a strategic solution in the region, and not just the ends.
Mr. Chin, a senior fellow and executive-in-residence at the Asian Institute of Technology, is a managing director with RiverPeak Group. He served as U.S. ambassador to the Asian Development Bank from 2007 to 2010.
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Looks like Sen. Webb has been reading this thread :-D
The South China Sea's Gathering Storm
All of East Asia is waiting to see how the U.S. will respond to China's aggression.
By JAMES WEBB
Since World War II, despite the costly flare-ups in Korea and Vietnam, the United States has proved to be the essential guarantor of stability in the Asian-Pacific region, even as the power cycle shifted from Japan to the Soviet Union and most recently to China. The benefits of our involvement are one of the great success stories of American and Asian history, providing the so-called second tier countries in the region the opportunity to grow economically and to mature politically.
As the region has grown more prosperous, the sovereignty issues have become more fierce. Over the past two years Japan and China have openly clashed in the Senkaku Islands, east of Taiwan and west of Okinawa, whose administration is internationally recognized to be under Japanese control. Russia and South Korea have reasserted sovereignty claims against Japan in northern waters. China and Vietnam both claim sovereignty over the Paracel Islands. China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia all claim sovereignty over the Spratly Islands, the site of continuing confrontations between China and the Philippines.
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Such disputes involve not only historical pride but also such vital matters as commercial transit, fishing rights, and potentially lucrative mineral leases in the seas that surround the thousands of miles of archipelagos. Nowhere is this growing tension clearer than in the increasingly hostile disputes in the South China Sea.
On June 21, China's State Council approved the establishment of a new national prefecture which it named Sansha, with its headquarters on Woody Island in the Paracel Islands. Called Yongxing by the Chinese, Woody Island has no indigenous population and no natural water supply, but it does sport a military-capable runway, a post office, a bank, a grocery store and a hospital.
The Paracels are more than 200 miles southeast of Hainan, mainland China's southernmost territory, and due east of Vietnam's central coast. Vietnam adamantly claims sovereignty over the island group, the site of a battle in 1974 when China attacked the Paracels in order to oust soldiers of the former South Vietnamese regime.
The potential conflicts stemming from the creation of this new Chinese prefecture extend well beyond the Paracels. Over the last six weeks the Chinese have further proclaimed that the jurisdiction of Sansha includes not just the Paracel Islands but virtually the entire South China Sea, connecting a series of Chinese territorial claims under one administrative rubric. According to China's official news agency Xinhua, the new prefecture "administers over 200 islets" and "2 million square kilometers of water." To buttress this annexation, 45 legislators have been appointed to govern the roughly 1,000 people on these islands, along with a 15-member Standing Committee, plus a mayor and a vice mayor.
These political acts have been matched by military and economic expansion. On July 22, China's Central Military Commission announced that it would deploy a garrison of soldiers to guard the islands in the area. On July 31, it announced a new policy of "regular combat-readiness patrols" in the South China Sea. And China has now begun offering oil exploration rights in locations recognized by the international community as within Vietnam's exclusive economic zone.
For all practical purposes China has unilaterally decided to annex an area that extends eastward from the East Asian mainland as far as the Philippines, and nearly as far south as the Strait of Malacca. China's new "prefecture" is nearly twice as large as the combined land masses of Vietnam, South Korea, Japan and the Philippines. Its "legislators" will directly report to the central government.
American reaction has been muted. The State Department waited until Aug. 3 before expressing official concern over China's "upgrading of its administrative level . . . and establishment of a new military garrison" in the disputed areas. The statement was carefully couched within the context of long-standing policies calling for the resolution of sovereignty issues in accordance with international law and without the use of military force.
Even so, the Chinese government responded angrily, warning that State Department officials had "confounded right and wrong, and sent a seriously wrong message." The People's Daily, a quasi-official publication, accused the U.S. of "fanning the flames and provoking division, deliberately creating antagonism with China." Its overseas edition said it was time for the U.S. to "shut up."
In truth, American vacillations have for years emboldened China. U.S. policy with respect to sovereignty issues in Asian-Pacific waters has been that we take no sides, that such matters must be settled peacefully among the parties involved. Smaller, weaker countries have repeatedly called for greater international involvement.
China, meanwhile, has insisted that all such issues be resolved bilaterally, which means either never or only under its own terms. Due to China's growing power in the region, by taking no position Washington has by default become an enabler of China's ever more aggressive acts.
The U.S., China and all of East Asia have now reached an unavoidable moment of truth. Sovereignty disputes in which parties seek peaceful resolution are one thing; flagrant, belligerent acts are quite another. How this challenge is addressed will have implications not only for the South China Sea, but also for the stability of East Asia and for the future of U.S.-China relations.
History teaches us that when unilateral acts of aggression go unanswered, the bad news never gets better with age. Nowhere is this cycle more apparent than in the alternating power shifts in East Asia. As historian Barbara Tuchman noted in her biography of U.S. Army Gen. Joseph Stillwell, it was China's plea for U.S. and League of Nations support that went unanswered following Japan's 1931 invasion of Manchuria, a neglect that "brewed the acid of appeasement that . . . opened the decade of descent to war" in Asia and beyond.
While America's attention is distracted by the presidential campaign, all of East Asia is watching what the U.S. will do about Chinese actions in the South China Sea. They know a test when they see one. They are waiting to see whether America will live up to its uncomfortable but necessary role as the true guarantor of stability in East Asia, or whether the region will again be dominated by belligerence and intimidation.
The Chinese of 1931 understood this threat and lived through the consequences of an international community's failure to address it. The question is whether the China of 2012 truly wishes to resolve issues through acceptable international standards, and whether the America of 2012 has the will and the capacity to insist that this approach is the only path toward stability.
Mr. Webb, a Democrat, is a U.S. senator from Virginia.
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U.S. Plans New Asia Missile Defenses .
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By ADAM ENTOUS And JULIAN E. BARNES
The U.S. is planning a major expansion of missile defenses in Asia, a move American officials say is designed to contain threats from North Korea, but one that could also be used to counter China's military.
Threats from North Korea and China's increased military presence in Asia are driving the U.S. to expand its military defense in the region. The WSJ's Deborah Kan speaks to reporter Jeremy Page. Photo: DefenseImagery.mil
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The planned buildup is part of a defensive array that could cover large swaths of Asia, with a new radar in southern Japan and possibly another in Southeast Asia tied to missile-defense ships and land-based interceptors.
It is part of the Obama administration's new defense strategy to shift resources to an Asian-Pacific region critical to the U.S. economy after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The expansion comes at a time when the U.S. and its allies in the region voice growing alarm about a North Korean missile threat. They are also increasingly worried about China's aggressive stance in disputed waters such the South China Sea, where Asian rivals are vying for control of oil and mineral rights.
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U.S. defense planners are particularly concerned about China's development of antiship ballistic missiles that could threaten the Navy's fleet of aircraft carriers, critical to the U.S. projection of power in Asia.
"The focus of our rhetoric is North Korea," said Steven Hildreth, a missile-defense expert with the Congressional Research Service, an advisory arm of Congress. "The reality is that we're also looking longer term at the elephant in the room, which is China."
China's Ministry of National Defense didn't comment directly on the anti-missile plans, but sounded a cautious note.
"China has always believed that anti-missile issues should be handled with great discretion, from the perspective of protecting global strategic stability and promoting strategic mutual trust among all countries," it said in a statement on Thursday. "We advocate that all parties fully respect and be mindful of the security concerns of one another and try to realize overall safety through mutual benefit and win-win efforts, while avoiding the situation in which one country tries to let its own state security take priority over other countries' national security."
In a separate statement, China's Foreign Ministry said it hopes the U.S. "will carefully handle this problem out of concern for maintaining the global and regional strategic balance and stability, and promoting the strategic mutual trust among all countries."
A centerpiece of the new effort would be the deployment of a powerful early-warning radar, known as an X-Band, on an undisclosed southern Japanese island, said U.S. defense officials. The Pentagon is discussing that prospect with Japan, one of Washington's closest regional allies. The radar could be installed within months of Japan's agreement, American officials said, and would supplement an X-Band the U.S. positioned in Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan in 2006.
A Japanese Ministry of Defense spokesman said the government wouldn't comment. The U.S. and Japan have ruled out deploying the new radar to Okinawa, a southern island whose residents have long chafed at the U.S. military forces' presence there.
Officials with the U.S. military's Pacific Command and Missile Defense Agency have also been evaluating sites in Southeast Asia for a third X-Band radar to create an arc that would allow the U.S. and its regional allies to more accurately track any ballistic missiles launched from North Korea, as well as from parts of China.
Some U.S. defense officials have focused on the Philippines as the potential site for the third X-Band, which is manufactured by Raytheon Co. Pentagon officials said a location has yet to be determined and that discussions are at an early stage.
The beefed-up U.S. presence will likely raise tensions with the Chinese, who have been sharp critics of U.S. ballistic missile defenses in the past. Beijing fears such a system, similar to one the U.S. is deploying in the Middle East and Europe to counter Iran, could diminish China's strategic deterrent. Beijing objected to the U.S.'s first X-Band deployment in Japan in 2006. Moscow has voiced similar concerns about the system in Europe and the Middle East.
Without commenting on specific plans, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said: "North Korea is the immediate threat that is driving our missile defense decision making."
In April, North Korea launched a multistage rocket that blew up less than two minutes into its flight. It conducted previous launches in August 1998, July 2006 and April 2009.
The Pentagon sent a sea-based X-Band, normally docked in Pearl Harbor, to the Pacific to monitor the most recent North Korean launch as a precaution.
The Pentagon is particularly concerned about the growing imbalance of power across the Taiwan Strait. China has been developing advanced ballistic missiles and antiship ballistic missiles that could target U.S. naval forces in the region.
China has between 1,000 and 1,200 short-range ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan, and has been developing longer range cruise and ballistic missiles, including one designed to hit a moving ship more than 930 miles away, says the Pentagon's latest annual report on China's military.
The proposed X-Band arc would allow the U.S. to not only cover all of North Korea, but to peer deeper into China, say current and former U.S. officials.
"Physics is physics," a senior U.S. official said. "You're either blocking North Korea and China or you're not blocking either of them."
Beijing has said it poses no threat to its neighbors. Chinese government officials couldn't be reached Wednesday, and its embassy in Washington, D.C., didn't return requests for comment.
One goal of the Pentagon is to reassure its anxious regional allies, which are walking a fine line. Many want the U.S.'s backing but also don't want to provoke China, and they aren't sure Washington can counter Beijing's rapid military modernization because of America's fiscal constraints.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said during a visit Wednesday to the USS John C. Stennis warship in Washington state that the U.S. would "focus and project our force into the Pacific."
The U.S. presence on the ground in Asia, especially the Marine bases in Okinawa, has been a source of constant tension, and a more determined presence could spark similar problems. In addition to the new X-Band site in southern Japan, the U.S. plans to increase the number of Marines in Okinawa in the near term before relocating them to Guam. As the Marines are pulled out of Afghanistan, going from 21,000 to less than 7,000, the number of forces on Okinawa will rise, from about 15,000 to 19,000, officials said.
Analysts say it is unclear how effective U.S. missile defenses would be against China. A 2010 Pentagon report on ballistic missile defenses said the system can't cope with large-scale Russian or Chinese missile attacks and isn't intended to affect the strategic balance with those countries.
The senior U.S. official said the new missile defense deployments would be able to track and repulse at least a limited strike from China, potentially enough to deter Beijing from attempting an attack.
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia nonproliferation program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, said any missile-defense deployments in the Asian theater will alarm the Chinese, particular if they believe the systems are designed to cover Taiwan. "If you're putting one in southern Japan and one in the Philippines, you're sort of bracketing Taiwan," Mr. Lewis said. "So it does look like you're making sure that you can put a missile defense cap over the Taiwanese."
Mr. Hildreth of the Congressional Research Service said the U.S. was "laying the foundations" for a regionwide missile defense system that would combine U.S. ballistic missile defenses with those of regional powers, particularly Japan, South Korea and Australia.
U.S. officials say some of these allies have, until now, resisted sharing real-time intelligence, complicating U.S. efforts. Territorial disputes between South Korea and Japan have flared anew in recent weeks, underlining the challenge of creating unified command and control systems that would be used to shoot down incoming missiles.
The U.S. has faced a similar problem building an integrated missile-defense system in the Persian Gulf.
Once an X-Band identifies a missile's trajectory, the U.S. can deploy ship-or-land-based missile interceptors or antimissile systems.
The Navy has drawn up plans to expand its fleet of ballistic missile-defense-capable warships from 26 ships today to 36 by 2018, according to Navy officials and the Congressional Research Service. Officials said as many as 60% of those are likely to be deployed to Asia and the Pacific.
In addition, the U.S. Army is considering acquiring additional Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, antimissile systems, said a senior defense official. Under current plans, the Army is building six THAADs.
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As China Muscles Into the Pacific, the U.S. Lacks a Strategy
Beijing's navy and weapons systems are intended to push the U.S. back from the Western Pacific..
By JOHN BOLTON
China's assertive territorial claims in the East and South China Seas have flared intermittently over the years into diplomatic and even physical confrontations. Until recently, however, these incidents—seizures of islands, reefs or rock outcroppings, or naval vessels ramming one another—have subsided after a flurry of tactical responses.
That pattern is changing permanently. Whoever becomes president in January will require a policy of sustained American involvement and leadership, not merely the watchful attitude we have long maintained. The U.S. is already perilously close to the point strategically where China will simply run the table with its claims. Potential hostilities are no longer hypothetical.
Last week in Beijing, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeated the usual U.S. bromides, namely: resolving the region's maritime disputes peacefully through negotiation consistent with international-law principles regarding freedom of navigation.
Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi replied bluntly that China was sovereign over the territories, and government media mouthpiece Xinhua warned the U.S. that "strategic miscalculations about a rising power could well lead to confrontations and even bloody conflicts, like the war between ancient Athens and Sparta. To avoid such a catastrophic scenario, Washington has to change its obsolete and doubt-ridden thinking pattern and cooperate with Beijing to settle their differences."
China sees these waters through a prism of increasing confidence based on geographical proximity; the weakness of, and competition among, the other territorial claimants; decreasing U.S. Navy capabilities due to draconian budget reductions; President Obama's diffidence in protecting U.S. interests abroad; and, for most Americans, the uninspiring abstractness of "freedom of the seas."
In Washington today, these disputes appear distant, almost trivial, akin to Neville Chamberlain's 1938 description of Czechoslovakia as "a faraway country of which we know little." Such lassitude must give way to a strategic approach based on three key elements.
First, the U.S. must decide unequivocally that Beijing's expansionism in the East and South China Seas is contrary to American national interests. There are high, tangible stakes for us and our Asian and Pacific friends, ranging broadly from Japan and South Korea to Australia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) including Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines. The stakes include undersea mineral resources and sea lanes of communication and trade critical to U.S. and global prosperity.
Sweet-sounding platitudes about international law will not prevent Beijing's looming hegemony in these waters. While not every Chinese claim is illegitimate, we must prevent the country's sheer mass and presence from prevailing. The U.N.-sponsored Law of the Sea Treaty—which may be passed by the lame-duck Congress this fall after going unratified for three decades—will be inconsequential, as the regional parties, particularly China, fully understand. This is about power and resolve.
Second, we must rapidly rebuild America's Navy, without which any shift in strategic thinking is hollow. This is a maritime problem at the operational level, demanding adequate resources. Today we have about 285 warships at sea, a scarcity of vessels not seen since World War I.
China is building its own blue-water navy for the first time in centuries, actively pursuing anti-access, area-denial tactics and weapons systems intended to push the U.S. back from the Western Pacific. Unless we increase the Navy's capabilities, or essentially abandon other ocean spaces, the negative direction and ultimate outcome in the waters off China are clear.
America's current approach—watching while initially minor incidents risk escalating—puts us at a distinct disadvantage. Passivity will allow Beijing to prevail repeatedly, incident after incident, until U.S. weakness becomes so palpable that there is no doubt of China's across-the-board success.
Third, we must work diplomatically, largely behind the scenes, to resolve differences among the other claimants. In the East China Sea, Japan is the major competitor, while Beijing butts heads with Vietnam, the Philippines and other Asean members in the South China Sea. These regions are distinct geographically and politically, but for China both are part of the same strategic picture. So it must be for America.
China's goal is to split the seams, pitting Vietnam against the Philippines; isolating Japan; neutralizing Taiwan, and otherwise sowing discord among its competitors. The more intra-Asean disputes we can eliminate, the greater the potential for a common position. This pragmatic diplomatic strategy of resolving non-Chinese competing claims hardly guarantees positive results, but it beats repeating academic mantras about international law. (Taiwan could also help politically by renouncing China's outlandish claims to disputed territories.)
The Obama administration argues that its "pivot" from the Middle East to Asia, combined with Secretary Clinton's frequent-flier miles, will resolve these problems. Not so. America is a global power, with continuing interests everywhere. We don't pivot like a weather vane from one region to another, especially since it is folly to believe the Middle East is so tranquil that we can pay it less attention.
America's China policy should be comprehensive, agile and persistent, but one fixed element must be that the international waters around China will not become Lake Beijing.
Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations" (Simon & Schuster, 2007).
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China Irks Japan With Patrol-Ship Incursion .
By YUKA HAYASHI And BRIAN SPEGELE
Tensions between Japan and China escalated Friday when an unusually large group of Chinese patrol ships entered Japanese territorial waters for a few hours near disputed islands in the East China Sea, as Beijing tried to assert its sovereignty.
The provocative action came days after Tokyo announced plans to purchase three of the contested islands it controls from a Japanese private owner to keep them out of the hands of nationalist Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, who had intended to use the territory to further inflame the situation.
While Tokyo's move was intended to calm Beijing, it instead drew an angry response from Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, prompting Beijing to say it planned to send marine surveillance vessels toward the islands.
China's foreign ministry said the ships entered the waters Friday to conduct maritime surveillance and that Beijing was carrying out a mission of "law enforcement over its maritime rights." Japan's coast guard said the ships had all left the area after seven hours, without incident.
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Shanghai Consulate Details Accounts of Japanese Harassed in China
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Chinese patrol ships have repeatedly entered Japanese waters near the islands—known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China—over the past year. But the group of six vessels that entered Friday morning was the largest such mission ever, said a Japanese government spokesman. The chain has become a symbol of maritime rivalry between the two Asian powers.
The last time tensions flared over the islands in 2010, a smaller group of Chinese patrol ships neared, but never entered, Japanese territorial waters.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda told reporters Friday his government would "take all possible measures" to ensure the security around the islands, said Kyodo News. Tokyo said it set up a special office at the prime minister office's crisis management center to deal with the situation and filed a formal protest to China's ambassador to Japan.
Disputed Seas
Competing territorial claims have led to maritime disputes off the coast of Asia.
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..Tensions High Over Asian Islands
Competing territorial claims have led to maritime disputes in the seas around Asia.
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The Japanese coast guard said one of the boats entered Japanese waters around 6:18 am Tokyo time at about 22 kilometers, or 14 miles, north-northeast of Taisho island, one of the craggy islets that make up the chain. It was followed by a second boat two minutes later. Territorial waters are defined as the area within 12 nautical miles of a nation's mainland.
Four other vessels later followed into the waters, before the group sailed out to the area known as the contiguous zone.
The Japanese coast guard said it had warned the boats not to enter the waters after the first boat reached a distance of 44 kilometers, or 27 miles, from the islands earlier in the morning.
All ships left the territorial waters by 1:21 pm Tokyo time. One of the ships even sent a radio message in Japanese to a Japanese coast guard vessel. "Uotsuri Island is Chinese territory. Our ship is conducting official duties," the Chinese boat said, according to the coast guard. "Please leave these waters immediately." Uotsuri is the largest of the islands.
The growing friction between patrol ships is unlikely to lead to an immediate military confrontation between the two nations that share significant trade and economic ties. Both the naval forces of People's Liberation Army and Japan's Maritime Self Defense Force have kept their vessels far away from the disputed islands.
Still, Japan and many other Asian nations are growing increasingly wary of China's growing territorial assertiveness around the region. Friday's show of force came on the eve of a planned Asian trip by U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who will visit both countries next week, part of the Pentagon's recalibration to rebalance its focus on Asia security.
The U.S. and China are grappling with a number of military issues, including the possibility of bolstered U.S. missile defenses in the Asian Pacific region, the development of advanced Chinese antiship missiles and concerns over freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, where China and U.S. partners including the Philippines have competing territorial claims.
The latest flare-up in territorial tensions came after Mr. Noda's government announced Monday plans to buy three of the Senkaku islands from a private Japanese owner. Japanese officials explained the action was meant to prevent further deterioration in sentiment on both the Chinese and Japanese sides by ending Mr. Ishihara's high-profile campaign to raise funds to buy the islands. Tokyo's combative governor had talked about cementing Japanese claims to the islands through high-visibility projects such as building ports. Mr. Noda's government has promised lower-key management of the territory.
That explanation, however, didn't go over well in China. "What the Japanese government did constitutes a gross violation of China's territorial sovereignty," Le Yucheng, China's assistant foreign minister told a conference on the disputed islands in Beijing on Friday. He said that "extreme right-wing forces" in Japan are steering "China-Japan relations down an extremely dangerous road."
A number of private and official cultural exchange programs have been canceled, government officials have hinted at curbing purchase of Japanese goods, and anti-Japan rallies have spread to several cities in China.
"If some Chinese consumers want to express their views in a reasonable way, we think that's their right and we fully understand," China's vice minister of commerce, Jiang Zengwei, said at a Thursday press conference, referring to the island dispute.
Outside the Japanese embassy in Beijing this week, mostly small groups of Chinese protesters—police have so far prevented large crowds from gathering—have demonstrated against Tokyo. Anti-Japanese sentiment has been among the most discussed topics on popular online Chinese forums this week, with many users calling for more protests over the weekend.
"The Chinese people love peace, but they are never afraid of confrontation or threats," the state-run Xinhua news agency said Friday.
The Japanese consulate in Shanghai issued a special warning Thursday to the city's 50,000-plus Japanese residents, citing several instances of minor violence. In one, a group of several Japanese were attacked on a street by someone shouting "Japanese." One person was injured after a bowl of noodles was dumped on him and another person had eyeglasses smashed, according to a statement posted on the consulate's website.
The Japanese government has called on Japanese residents and businesses based in China to use extra caution in coming days, citing the possibility of violent anti-Japan protest rallies across China over the weekend around a key anniversary of Japan's occupation of China during the early part of last century.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei Friday characterized the dispatch of ships to the islands as "a normal performance of duty" in a Chinese sovereign area. Asked about the Shanghai incidents, he told a regular news briefing that China is "strongly dissatisfied" with Japan's "infringement of Chinese territory," but "the Japanese people are innocent" and "Japanese people living in China should be protected according to the law."
Analysts say the steady stream of anti-Japan rhetoric in recent days from Chinese officials and state media has been aimed in part at appeasing a public that's full of anti-Japanese sentiment—while avoiding escalating tensions further, particularly ahead of the Communist Party's sensitive once-a-decade leadership transition beginning later this month.
"The truth is the Chinese have no interest in escalating this," said Brad Glosserman, an Asia-Pacific analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The problem is a very powerful nationalist impulse."
— William Kazer contributed to this article.
Write to Yuka Hayashi at yuka.hayashi@wsj.com and Brian Spegeleat brian.spegele@wsj.com
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http://freebeacon.com/chinese-general-prepare-for-combat/
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http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/07/13/china_caught_red_handed_in_the_south_china_seas?wpisrc=obnetwork
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Understanding the China-Japan Island Conflict
September 25, 2012 | 0902 GMT
By Rodger Baker
Vice President of East Asia Analysis
Sept. 29 will mark 40 years of normalized diplomatic relations between China and Japan, two countries that spent much of the 20th century in mutual enmity if not at outright war. The anniversary comes at a low point in Sino-Japanese relations amid a dispute over an island chain in the East China Sea known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan and Diaoyu Islands in China.
These islands, which are little more than uninhabited rocks, are not particularly valuable on their own. However, nationalist factions in both countries have used them to enflame old animosities; in China, the government has even helped organize the protests over Japan's plan to purchase and nationalize the islands from their private owner. But China's increased assertiveness is not limited only to this issue. Beijing has undertaken a high-profile expansion and improvement of its navy as a way to help safeguard its maritime interests, which Japan -- an island nation necessarily dependent on access to sea-lanes -- naturally views as a threat. Driven by its economic and political needs, China's expanded military activity may awaken Japan from the pacifist slumber that has characterized it since the end of World War II.
An Old Conflict's New Prominence
The current tensions surrounding the disputed islands began in April. During a visit to the United States, Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, a hard-line nationalist known for his 1989 book The Japan That Can Say No, which advocated for a stronger international role for Japan not tied to U.S. interests or influence, said that the Tokyo municipal government was planning to buy three of the five Senkaku/Diaoyu islands from their private Japanese owner. Ishihara's comments did little to stir up tensions at the time, but subsequent efforts to raise funds and press forward with the plan drew the attention and ultimately the involvement of the Japanese central government. The efforts also gave China a way to distract from its military and political standoff with the Philippines over control of parts of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
For decades, Tokyo and Beijing generally abided by a tacit agreement to keep the islands dispute quiet. Japan agreed not to carry out any new construction or let anyone land on the islands; China agreed to delay assertion of any claim to the islands and not let the dispute interfere with trade and political relations. Although flare-ups occurred, usually triggered by some altercation between the Japanese coast guard and Chinese fishing vessels or by nationalist Japanese or Chinese activists trying to land on the islands, the lingering territorial dispute played only a minor role in bilateral relations.
However, Ishihara's plans for the Tokyo municipal government to take over the islands and eventually build security outposts there forced the Japanese government's hand. Facing domestic political pressure to secure Japan's claim to the islands, the government determined that the "nationalization" of the islands was the least contentious option. By keeping control over construction and landings, the central government would be able to keep up its side of the tacit agreement with China on managing the islands.
China saw Japan's proposed nationalization as an opportunity to exploit. Even as Japan was debating what action to take, China began stirring up anti-Japanese sentiment and Beijing tacitly backed the move by a group of Hong Kong activists in August to sail to and land on the disputed islands. At the same time, Beijing prevented a Chinese-based fishing vessel from attempting the same thing, using Hong Kong's semi-autonomous status as a way to distance itself from the action and retain greater flexibility in dealing with Japan.
As expected, the Japanese coast guard arrested the Hong Kong activists and impounded their ship, but Tokyo also swiftly released them to avoid escalating tensions. Less than a month later, after Japan's final decision to purchase the islands from their private Japanese owner, anti-Japanese protests swept China, in many places devolving into riots and vandalism targeting Japanese products and companies. Although many of these protests were stage-managed by the government, the Chinese began to clamp down when some demonstrations got out of control. While still exploiting the anti-Japanese rhetoric, Chinese state-run media outlets have highlighted local governments' efforts to identify and punish protesters who turned violent and warn that nationalist pride is no excuse for destructive behavior.
Presently, both China and Japan are working to keep the dispute within manageable parameters after a month of heightened tensions. China has shifted to disrupting trade with Japan on a local level, with some Japanese products reportedly taking much longer to clear customs, while Japan has dispatched a deputy foreign minister for discussions with Beijing. Chinese maritime surveillance ships continue to make incursions into the area around the disputed islands, and there are reports of hundreds or even thousands of Chinese fishing vessels in the East China Sea gathered near the waters around the islands, but both Japan and China appear to be controlling their actions. Neither side can publicly give in on its territorial stance, and both are looking for ways to gain politically without allowing the situation to degrade further.
Political Dilemmas in Beijing and Tokyo
The islands dispute is occurring as China and Japan, the world's second- and third-largest economies, are both experiencing political crises at home and facing uncertain economic paths forward. But the dispute also reflects the very different positions of the two countries in their developmental history and in East Asia's balance of power.
China, the emerging power in Asia, has seen decades of rapid economic growth but is now confronted with a systemic crisis, one already experienced by Japan in the early 1990s and by South Korea and the other Asian tigers later in the decade. China is reaching the limits of the debt-financed, export-driven economic model and must now deal with the economic and social consequences of this change. That this comes amid a once-in-a-decade leadership transition only exacerbates China's political unease as it debates options for transitioning to a more sustainable economic model. But while China's economic expansion may have plateaued, its military development is still growing.
The Chinese military is becoming a more modern fighting force, more active in influencing Chinese foreign policy and more assertive of its role regionally. The People's Liberation Army Navy on Sept. 23 accepted the delivery of China's first aircraft carrier, and the ship serves as a symbol of the country's military expansion. While Beijing views the carrier as a tool to assert Chinese interests regionally (and perhaps around the globe over the longer term) in the same manner that the United States uses its carrier fleet, for now China has only one, and the country is new to carrier fleet and aviation operations. Having a single carrier offers perhaps more limitations than opportunities for its use, all while raising the concerns and inviting reaction from neighboring states.
Japan, by contrast, has seen two decades of economic malaise characterized by a general stagnation in growth, though not necessarily a devolution of overall economic power. Still, it took those two decades for the Chinese economy, growing at double-digit rates, to even catch the Japanese economy. Despite the malaise, there is plenty of latent strength in the Japanese economy. Japan's main problem is its lack of economic dynamism, a concern that is beginning to be reflected in Japanese politics, where new forces are rising to challenge the political status quo. The long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party lost power to the opposition Democratic Party of Japan in 2009, and both mainstream parties are facing new challenges from independents, non-traditional candidates and the emerging regionalist parties, which espouse nationalism and call for a more aggressive foreign policy.
Even before the rise of the regionalist parties, Japan had begun moving slowly but inexorably from its post-World War II military constraints. With China's growing military strength, North Korea's nuclear weapons program and even South Korean military expansion, Japan has cautiously watched as the potential threats to its maritime interests have emerged, and it has begun to take action. The United States, in part because it wants to share the burden of maintaining security with its allies, has encouraged Tokyo's efforts to take a more active role in regional and international security, commensurate with Japan's overall economic influence.
Concurrent with Japan's economic stagnation, the past two decades have seen the country quietly reform its Self-Defense Forces, expanding the allowable missions as it re-interprets the country's constitutionally mandated restrictions on offensive activity. For example, Japan has raised the status of the defense agency to the defense ministry, expanded joint training operations within its armed forces and with their civilian counterparts, shifted its views on the joint development and sale of weapons systems, integrated more heavily with U.S. anti-missile systems and begun deploying its own helicopter carriers.
Contest for East Asian Supremacy
China is struggling with the new role of the military in its foreign relations, while Japan is seeing a slow re-emergence of the military as a tool of its foreign relations. China's two-decade-plus surge in economic growth is reaching its logical limit, yet given the sheer size of China's population and its lack of progress switching to a more consumption-based economy, Beijing still has a long way to go before it achieves any sort of equitable distribution of resources and benefits. This leaves China's leaders facing rising social tensions with fewer new resources at their disposal. Japan, after two decades of society effectively agreeing to preserve social stability at the cost of economic restructuring and upheaval, is now reaching the limits of its patience with a bureaucratic system that is best known for its inertia.
Both countries are seeing a rise in the acceptability of nationalism, both are envisioning an increasingly active role for their militaries, and both occupy the same strategic space. With Washington increasing its focus on the Asia-Pacific region, Beijing is worried that a resurgent Japan could assist the United States on constraining China in an echo of the Cold War containment strategy.
We are now seeing the early stage of another shift in Asian power. It is perhaps no coincidence that the 1972 re-establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Japan followed U.S. President Richard Nixon's historic visit to China. The Senkaku/Diaoyu islands were not even an issue at the time, since they were still under U.S. administration. Japan's defense was largely subsumed by the United States, and Japan had long ago traded away its military rights for easy access to U.S. markets and U.S. protection. The shift in U.S.-China relations opened the way for the rapid development of China-Japan relations.
The United States' underlying interest is maintaining a perpetual balance between Asia's two key powers so neither is able to challenging Washington's own primacy in the Pacific. During World War II, this led the United States to lend support to China in its struggle against imperial Japan. The United States' current role backing a Japanese military resurgence against China's growing power falls along the same line. As China lurches into a new economic cycle, one that will very likely force deep shifts in the country's internal political economy, it is not hard to imagine China and Japan's underlying geopolitical balance shifting again. And when that happens, so too could the role of the United States.
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Read more: Understanding the China-Japan Island Conflict | Stratfor
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http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-57515278/china-haunted-by-ghost-inventory-shadow-banks/
China haunted by ghost inventory, shadow banks
ByConstantine von Hoffman .
(Credit: AP) (MoneyWatch) As China's economy slows, the country is also dealing with another impediment to growth -- investors and lenders that obtain loans through the country's unofficial banking system are getting scammed.
This "shadow banking" system in China involves state-sanctioned financial institutions, along with individuals, that loan out or manage money. Shadow banking is prevalent in China because more than 90 percent of the nation's 42 million small businesses are unable to get bank loans, while such investments offer returns at least several times higher than deposits, according to Bloomberg.
According to the People's Bank of China, what it calls the "social financing" system accounted for at least $1.18 trillion in loans last year, or about four times the amount seen in 2002. But some experts say the market for such loans could be even larger, with the French bank Societe Generale pegging it at $2.4 trillion, or about one-third of China's official loan market.
Even China's own data say its economy is troubled
China's economy continues to slow
China warns of persistent economic problems
China won't commit to eurozone aid
As Minxin Pei, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, recently explained:
Typically, the shadow banking system pushes something called "wealth management products," which are short-term financial products yielding a much higher rate than bank deposits for investors. To evade regulatory oversight, these products do not appear on a bank's balance sheet. According to Charlene Chu, a highly respected banking analyst for Fitch ratings, China had about $1.6 trillion in wealth management products, about 11.5 percent of the total bank deposits, at the end of June this year.
Many of those "wealth management products" were investments in China's real estate bubble. The collapse of that bubble has meant that money has vanished, destroying huge amounts of personal wealth. Chinese private-loan borrowers filed more than 600,000 lawsuits valued at $17 billion last year, a 38 percent increase over 2010. In the first six months of 2012, the number of suits rose 25 percent, according to People's Court, a newspaper run by China's Supreme Court.
It isn't only individuals who have been scammed. Several banks trying to seize stocks of steel used as collateral for defaulted loans are finding that the steel never existed. Chinese authorities are investigating a number of cases in which steel documented in transaction receipts turned out not to be real, belonged to another company or had been pledged as collateral to multiple lenders.
Meanwhile, steel prices are slumping because of China's faltering economy, making it hard for companies to keep up with payments on the $400 billion of debt they racked up during years of double-digit growth, Reuters reports.
Such ghost inventories are exacerbating the wider ailments of the Chinese steel industry. The business is now swamped with over 200 million metric tons of excess production capacity created during last decade's development boom.
One Shanghai trader told the wire service, "What we have seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg. The situation will get worse as poor demand, slumping prices and tight credit from banks create a domino effect on the industry."
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I have been commenting here for some years now that China's books are cooked. That said, the subject of Chinese banks is probably best handled on the "China" thread.
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I have been commenting here for some years now that China's books are cooked. That said, the subject of Chinese banks is probably best handled on the "China" thread.
Well, if you're wondering why Japan and Taiwan are looking down the barrels of the PLA, it's one part of China's economy crumbling and one heaping dose of Obama's groveling before America's enemies.
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Seeds of Chinese Liberalization, Made in America
Studying in the U.S., then going home by the hundreds of thousands bearing Western ideas..
Article more in Opinion | Find New $LINKTEXTFIND$ ».
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By FRED ZILIAN
Right here in our cozy, conservative boarding school in New England, we are unconsciously and with no malicious intent sowing the seeds of revolution in China. Chinese students coming to the United States for secondary and undergraduate education are learning—through their formal education in American classrooms and through osmosis at corner coffee shops—liberal political ideas and critical-thinking skills that may in the long run help to destabilize the Chinese political system. These students, who will soon be part of the next generation of adults in China, could prove in the long run a more insidious force to the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army than the U.S. Seventh Fleet.
The Chinese discovered our New England boarding school only recently. Five years ago we had three Chinese students; four years ago we had 11; then 19; then 26. This year we have 32. Our experience reflects a national phenomenon. According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, only 65 Chinese students attended U.S. private high schools in academic year 2005-06. In 2010-11 the number had grown to 6,725. Chinese attendance at U.S. colleges is also booming. In 2011, 157,588 Chinese students attended college here, a 23% increase from the prior year.
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A student participates in a protest against Chinese patriotism classes in Hong Kong earlier this month.
.The Chinese students at our school are not only among our best students, they are also among our best citizens. They run and are elected to class office, they apply for the Model United Nations Club and—thank heavens—they play musical instruments and sing. Our choir and orchestra would be seriously weakened without their presence.
Sometimes they stun us with their knowledge of American culture. One of our Chinese students was the only child in a class who could identify the "Huckleberry Finn" character known as "the duke"; another was the only one who could quote the final line in the movie "Gone with the Wind."
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, one of the pre-eminent existential questions facing China has been: Can the Chinese accomplish what the Soviets could not—liberalize economically while maintaining an illiberal political system? The Chinese Communist Party reigns over 1.4 billion people with power concentrated in its 25-member Politburo. There are no genuinely free elections, no legal parties beside the Communist Party, and few guarantees of political rights. Whereas soldiers in Western armies swear to defend such things as the nation and the country's constitution, Chinese soldiers swear first their loyalty to the Communist Party.
My Chinese professor friend has told me that the Chinese people are used to following an emperor or strong man. Until 1911 the leader was an emperor or empress, from 1949-76 it was Mao Zedong. But that was the old China. Because of the tremendous double-digit growth China has realized during the past two decades, the country's middle class has grown to more than 300 million today from under 100 million.
It is a good bet that these people will eventually shift their focus from rudimentary physical and security needs to self-expression values such as freedom of speech and assembly, representative government, and free and fair elections—the values of the Enlightenment that destabilized so many Western countries where power had been concentrated in a monarchy or aristocracy. History is replete with the inexorable spread of a powerful idea or art form.
I asked some of our Chinese students after graduation what they believe they had obtained at our boarding school that their friends in China had not. More practical knowledge, said one.
"Here we have a lot of chances to apply the knowledge we have learned to see if we really understand them, such as essays and labs. These are very good ways to develop independent thinking as well."
Another emphasized the confidence in herself that she developed. If she had not come to our school, she "wouldn't have become this strong person." These students have tasted freedom of thought and have been educated to think independently and critically. As adults they will not easily be made to kowtow to anyone or to any political system that suppresses their freedoms.
Not Mycenaean warriors hiding in a wooden horse but Han students speaking native Mandarin—and excellent English—will return to China after their sojourns in America, carrying not weapons but liberal political ideas and critical-thinking skills. These students, combined with the masses of the new middle class, may prove to be a revolutionary cocktail for Chinese society. Call it the Han Spring.
Mr. Zilian has been a history teacher and the international student adviser at a New England boarding school for 20 years.
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I certainly hope it works out this way.
Seeds of Chinese Liberalization, Made in America
Studying in the U.S., then going home by the hundreds of thousands bearing Western ideas..
Article more in Opinion | Find New $LINKTEXTFIND$ ».
smaller Larger facebooktwittergoogle pluslinked ininShare.0EmailPrintSave ↓ More .
.
smaller Larger
By FRED ZILIAN
Right here in our cozy, conservative boarding school in New England, we are unconsciously and with no malicious intent sowing the seeds of revolution in China. Chinese students coming to the United States for secondary and undergraduate education are learning—through their formal education in American classrooms and through osmosis at corner coffee shops—liberal political ideas and critical-thinking skills that may in the long run help to destabilize the Chinese political system. These students, who will soon be part of the next generation of adults in China, could prove in the long run a more insidious force to the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army than the U.S. Seventh Fleet.
The Chinese discovered our New England boarding school only recently. Five years ago we had three Chinese students; four years ago we had 11; then 19; then 26. This year we have 32. Our experience reflects a national phenomenon. According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, only 65 Chinese students attended U.S. private high schools in academic year 2005-06. In 2010-11 the number had grown to 6,725. Chinese attendance at U.S. colleges is also booming. In 2011, 157,588 Chinese students attended college here, a 23% increase from the prior year.
Enlarge Image
Close
AFP/Getty Images
A student participates in a protest against Chinese patriotism classes in Hong Kong earlier this month.
.The Chinese students at our school are not only among our best students, they are also among our best citizens. They run and are elected to class office, they apply for the Model United Nations Club and—thank heavens—they play musical instruments and sing. Our choir and orchestra would be seriously weakened without their presence.
Sometimes they stun us with their knowledge of American culture. One of our Chinese students was the only child in a class who could identify the "Huckleberry Finn" character known as "the duke"; another was the only one who could quote the final line in the movie "Gone with the Wind."
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, one of the pre-eminent existential questions facing China has been: Can the Chinese accomplish what the Soviets could not—liberalize economically while maintaining an illiberal political system? The Chinese Communist Party reigns over 1.4 billion people with power concentrated in its 25-member Politburo. There are no genuinely free elections, no legal parties beside the Communist Party, and few guarantees of political rights. Whereas soldiers in Western armies swear to defend such things as the nation and the country's constitution, Chinese soldiers swear first their loyalty to the Communist Party.
My Chinese professor friend has told me that the Chinese people are used to following an emperor or strong man. Until 1911 the leader was an emperor or empress, from 1949-76 it was Mao Zedong. But that was the old China. Because of the tremendous double-digit growth China has realized during the past two decades, the country's middle class has grown to more than 300 million today from under 100 million.
It is a good bet that these people will eventually shift their focus from rudimentary physical and security needs to self-expression values such as freedom of speech and assembly, representative government, and free and fair elections—the values of the Enlightenment that destabilized so many Western countries where power had been concentrated in a monarchy or aristocracy. History is replete with the inexorable spread of a powerful idea or art form.
I asked some of our Chinese students after graduation what they believe they had obtained at our boarding school that their friends in China had not. More practical knowledge, said one.
"Here we have a lot of chances to apply the knowledge we have learned to see if we really understand them, such as essays and labs. These are very good ways to develop independent thinking as well."
Another emphasized the confidence in herself that she developed. If she had not come to our school, she "wouldn't have become this strong person." These students have tasted freedom of thought and have been educated to think independently and critically. As adults they will not easily be made to kowtow to anyone or to any political system that suppresses their freedoms.
Not Mycenaean warriors hiding in a wooden horse but Han students speaking native Mandarin—and excellent English—will return to China after their sojourns in America, carrying not weapons but liberal political ideas and critical-thinking skills. These students, combined with the masses of the new middle class, may prove to be a revolutionary cocktail for Chinese society. Call it the Han Spring.
Mr. Zilian has been a history teacher and the international student adviser at a New England boarding school for 20 years.
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Freedom works in unexpected ways, often when no one is looking.
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PHNOM PENH—Asian leaders will make a renewed attempt to hammer out a solution to the bitter South China Sea dispute when they meet in Cambodia this week, using the re-signing of a broad document on conflict resolution to prod China toward agreeing to a code of conduct for the territorial flash point.
Leaders from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations will sign a commemorative version of a document called the "Declaration of Conduct," which was first agreed in 2002 and sets out broad principles on conflict resolution.
That framework is a precursor to a potential narrower code of conduct for the South China Sea, which countries like the Philippines want implemented but China has in the past been hesitant to support. China's leadership will meet Asean counterparts on Monday. Premier Wen Jiabao is in Cambodia, along with Commerce Minister Chen Deming.
"Hopefully out of this conference there will be a renewed fresh momentum," Indonesia Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said in an interview. "We are in a holding station. Not regressing but nor are we at the same time making huge strides. Given the domestic political situation in China and other factors, being where we are is not necessarily negative."
The South China Sea area, which is crossed by more than half the world's total trade and is thought to contain vast energy and mineral reserves, is broadly claimed by China and in part by such nations as Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. The dispute comes amid unease among some Asian countries at China's efforts to increase its influence in the region—at a time the U.S. is seeking to do the same.
Beijing has previously opposed efforts to settle disagreements at multilateral forums, saying it prefers to handle them on a bilateral basis. A meeting of Asean foreign ministers in July broke up without issuing a communiqué for the first time in the bloc's history—an outcome analysts blamed on host Cambodia's weakness in the face of pressure from China.
Qin Gang, director general of the information department of China's ministry of foreign affairs, signaled Beijing's openness to move toward a framework for handling disputes in the South China Sea, but demurred on whether that would be via a code of conduct.
"We hope all parties can firstly observe the DOC round and then we can explore ways to further implement the DOC, by COC or other means. But it needs a serious, good discussion," he said at a briefing.
One official involved in the talks said the commemorative declaration was viewed as a "confidence building measure" designed to ease China's suspicions. "The priority is to ensure there is a good atmosphere" to start talking about a code," the official said.
One idea from Indonesia: Mr. Natalegawa, who has already suggested that a telephone hotline be established in the event of any incident on the South China Sea, says countries could flag intended activities in the waters, without needing to seek permission for such activities. "Countries can inform one another 'this is what we are doing next week or the week after,' " he said. Indonesia has been strengthening its leadership role in Asean and wants to use the bloc to showcase its success in creating a booming economy and stable democracy.
Its growing economic status means such practical suggestions could win the backing of other Asean members.
The talks between Asean and China come as U.S. President Barack Obama plans a historic visit to Myanmar and will also attend a wider gathering of leaders in Cambodia, the East Asia Summit. Indonesia's foreign minister said the U.S. has struck the right tone in its handling of the tensions by staying neutral but flagging worries over ensuring access to the sea lanes, which are vital to global trade.
Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan didn't comment on the idea of countries sharing their plans to use the waters, but said a hotline would be a pragmatic way to ensure quick communication. Thailand—as country coordinator for China at Asean—would propose the idea to China, Dr. Pitsuwan said in interview Saturday.
"I think there is a momentum of goodwill…The fact that (concerned parties) have agreed to lower the decibel between themselves, that's already a good sign that they would work further in the direction of discussing some of these concrete issues, one by one," Dr. Pitsuwan said.
Other territorial tensions in Asia are being discussed, most notably a long-standing territorial conflict between Japan and China in the East China Sea. The spat over a group of islands, which Japan calls the Senkaku and China calls the Diaoyu, has heated up in recent months, sparking Chinese boycotts of Japanese goods and services, which are expected to cost Japanese companies heavily.
For now, no bilateral meeting has been scheduled between China's premier and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.
"The heightening tensions (between Japan and China) are a great concern to Asean nations," Kimihiro Ishikane, Japan's ambassador to Asean, said in interview. "They are keeping a very close watch on how the two nations deal with the issue…because of their situation in the South China Sea."
Asean leaders also discussed ways to deepen economic integration through harmonizing laws and stripping down trading barriers, according to an official familiar with the talks.
Asean already has an agreement to eliminate all tariffs by 2015. But governments now want to start talks on deeper economic cooperation.
Among the early steps being considered are ways to harmonize rules, regulations and customs laws and eliminate other non-tariff barriers.
"It's a major step in thinking, because harmonizing rules for 10 countries with 10 different laws is something we know is very difficult," the official said, describing the talks as early stage. "The fact the leaders have started to raise it means there is some political will," the person said.
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China's Nationalist Wave
Beijing's naval aggression is a threat to peace in the Pacific. .
The risk of a serious naval confrontation in East Asia is rising. China recently announced guidelines, effective January 1, for its maritime "police" to board and seize foreign vessels in waters around the Paracel Islands, which are also claimed by Vietnam. On Tuesday, Hanoi responded with stepped up patrols and revealed that Chinese fishing boats had cut the cables of its seismic survey ship last week.
Philippines Foreign Minister Albert del Rosario revealed in an interview with the South China Morning Post published November 30 that China had communicated its intention to station ships permanently at the Scarborough Shoal, which is claimed by both countries and was the scene of a standoff earlier this year. Mr. del Rosario called China's behavior "dictatorial."
Beijing also continues to challenge Japan's control over the Senkaku Islands, known as the Diaoyus in Chinese. Chinese maritime surveillance and fisheries vessels loiter outside the 12-mile territorial limit, occasionally crossing inside to force the Japanese coast guard to respond.
When Beijing's campaign of assertiveness began three years ago, many observers believed it was either a miscalculation that would be corrected, or else a temporary phase related to jockeying for the recent leadership transition. It has proved to be neither.
What is driving Beijing? Chinese military men, who make up about 20% of the Central Committee, have become increasingly vocal about their desire to drive the U.S. out of their adjacent (and not-so-adjacent) waters. The Communist Party's longstanding rhetoric about ending a "century of humiliation" at foreign hands makes such calls difficult to ignore.
Another driver is the uneasy relationship between the military and their putative civilian masters. On Wednesday, new Chinese leader Xi Jinping publicly exhorted military officers to "put an end" to corruption and remain completely loyal to the Communist Party—a call that presumably would not have been necessary if such loyalty was not in doubt.
It's possible Mr. Xi is also uncomfortable with his navy's aggressive maneuvers. So far, however, the Party's response has been to buy off the military brass with huge annual budget increases. The new submarines and surface ships that these budgets purchase create pressure to deploy. Outgoing top leader Hu Jintao used his final report at last month's Party Congress to call for China to become a maritime power.
Perhaps most important is the revival of nationalism as a major theme in Chinese rhetoric. Mr. Xi has adopted "revival of the nation" as his first major slogan, signaling his intention to be a reform-oriented nationalist. Last week he led the Politburo Standing Committee on a visit to an exhibition on foreign imperialism at the National Museum, and his remarks suggest he wants to harness patriotic feeling to overcome political opposition.
The challenge for neighboring countries is how to respond. Failure to contest China's deployments risks conceding territorial claims under international law. But an overly assertive response might further inflame Chinese nationalism—or accidentally start a shooting war.
It doesn't help China's neighbors that they are increasingly outclassed by Chinese maritime forces. Japan is scrambling to reinforce its coast guard, and the Philippines wants more castoffs from the U.S. to cobble together a navy. For now, only the U.S. Seventh Fleet can deter Beijing's push to expand its territory.
To its credit, the Obama Administration has begun to shed the traditional U.S. posture of strategic ambiguity on these disputes. The Journal reported last week that a delegation to Beijing of retired officials led by former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage delivered the message that while the U.S. has remained neutral on the sovereignty issue, it is treaty-bound to defend Japan's control over the Senkakus. The U.S. Senate followed last week with a vote for an amendment to reaffirm that commitment.
Across Asia, alarm bells are ringing that Beijing has abandoned Deng Xiaoping's pragmatic internationalism. One can hope Mr. Xi will be willing and able to rein in his military's increasing bellicosity. That is more likely if the U.S. and its allies remain united and determined to deter it.
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Boulevard of broken dreams: Now Beijing and Shanghai each have more multi-millionaires than Los Angeles
By Daily Mail Reporter
PUBLISHED: 23:02 EST, 8 December 2012 | UPDATED: 00:58 EST, 9 December 2012
..America is losing the millionaire's race.
A new report from WealthInsight shows Beijing and Shanghai each with more multimillionaires than Los Angeles.
The data measures the segment of the population worth $30 million or more.
Falling: Los Angeles now has fewer multimillionaires than Shanghai or Beijing
People with bank accounts of at least $30 million are known in the wealth-industry as 'ultra-high-net-worth individuals.'
Beijing has 1,318 people who fit that description, Shanghai has 2,028, and L.A. has a pitiful 950 people worth at least $30 million.
More...Jamie and Nigella should give us recipes for leftovers to cut food waste, says minister
Triple-dip alert: Recession fears as figures show industrial output has fallen to lowest level in 20 years
But America still has New York, the city with the most 'ultra-high-net-worth individuals' at 2,929.
Still, Brazil, Russia, India and China are gaining.
Sao Paulo, Brazil, has 1,310 ultra-highs, which beats San Francisco, Washington and Miami put together.
City lights: The Shanghai Financial Center is tracking money from the city's exploding population of mulitmillionaires
City of gold: A lot of millionaires are sleeping in the city of Beijing
Moscow is even with Chicago for the wealthy, and Mumbai has surpassed Dallas.
Secondary cities such as Puna, Fuzhou and Chongqing could nearly double their numbers by the next presidential election.
Economists are still unsure whether this trend of shifting wealth from the West to the East will continue at its current rate, but WealthInsight says the millionaires in BRIC countries will boom at a 76 per cent growth by 2016.
Cash: BRIC countries are fast gaining people worth at least $30 million
That growth rate is twice that of the last four years.
India's millionaire populace will likely double to 511,000 and China's will grow 82 per cent and Brazil's 40 per cent.
However economic slowdown and dicey stock markets could slow that growth with China especially susceptible to the market.
If China were to be hit, asset prices would tumble taking a sever chunk of millionaires out of the figures.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2245329/Boulevard-broken-dreams-Now-Beijing-Shanghai-multi-millionaires-Los-Angeles.html
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
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http://en.rian.ru/business/20121210/178055067.html
China’s Economy No. 1 by 2030: US Intelligence Report
WASHINGTON, December 10 (RIA Novosti) - China’s economy will likely surpass the United States as the world’s largest by 2030 while Asia will overtake North America and Europe combined in global power based upon “GDP, population size, military spending, and technological investment,” a US intelligence report said on Monday.
"Meanwhile, the economies of Europe, Japan, and Russia are likely to continue their slow relative declines," the “Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds” report issued by the U.S. government's National Intelligence Council stated.
The report also said China could be looking over its shoulder at India in less than 20 years.
“India’s rate of economic growth is likely to rise while China’s slows. In 2030 India could be the rising economic powerhouse that China is seen to be today.”
America’s international role will be uncertain in the future as it evolves and “whether the US will be able to work with new partners to reinvent the international system will be among the most important variables in the future shape of the global order,” the report stated.
The study also said that Russia could either modernize and integrate itself in a “wider international community” or there is potential that if the country “fails to build a more diversified economy and more liberal domestic order” it “could increasingly pose a regional and global threat.”
The study cites that “individual empowerment” will lead to the growth of a global middle class during the next 15 to 20 years, leading to poverty reduction, greater educational attainment and improved health care.
“The growth of the global middle class constitutes a tectonic shift for the first time, a majority of the world’s population will not be impoverished, and the middle classes will be the most important social and economic sector in the vast majority of countries around the world,” the study stated.
The global population is also estimated to reach somewhere close to 8.3 billion people, thus increasing the demand for food, water and energy by as much as 50 percent and “climate change will worsen the outlook for the availability of these critical resources.”
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"China’s economy will likely surpass the United States as the world’s largest by 2030 ", if we don't ______________________________. Fill in the blanks over on 'the way forward' threads.
We keep pursuing anti-growth while China is all about keeping economic growth going. Not to be one-dimensional, but so-called communist China lowered it's corporate income tax presciently in Jan 2008 while the U.S. didn't know it was falling into a spiraling financial and then employment and fiscal crisis. There tax rate was already below ours. Japan lowered theirs this year, delayed a year by tsunami. The US is worst in the world (for this one measure) http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/30/usa-tax-japan-idUSL2E8EU5VV20120330, knows better, and does nothing about it.
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Also to keep in mind:
a) The Chinese are turning their country into a toxic dump and spilling their pollution over into the planet as a whole;
b) their bookkeeping is cooked; and
c) they have one weird demographic profile.
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Election yesterday, Shinzo Abe was elected Prime Minister. (Pronounced Ah-bi)
“Japan is currently in a crisis in terms of the economy, diplomacy, education and recovery from the catastrophe in the northeast,” Abe said at a press conference in Tokyo. “The job we have been given is to break out of this crisis.”
"This result doesn’t mean that public support for the LDP has 100 percent recovered,” Mr Abe told NHK. “It’s a rejection of the last three years of political confusion. Now it’s up to the LDP to live up to people’s expectations.”
Japan is the world's 3rd largest economy, faces deflation, recession and an island dispute with China. LDP was the ruling party for a half century, lost power 3 years ago. Abe was Prime Minister 2006-2007, left with a stomach ailment.
"Abe’s platform had three main planks: massive public spending, “unlimited” monetary easing, and reform of Japan’s pacifist constitution." http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/12/16/abe-ldp-take-japanese-elections/
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Because the map in the article will not appear in the post here, I note that the islands in question are quite close to China and Taiwan and the origin of Japan's claim. In short, in fairness I opine that we should note that the Chinese claim is not without intuitive merit. I lack the knowledge necessary to opine on the issues presented in the context of international law.
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A Dangerous Escalation in the East China Sea
China and Japan must act now to prevent a worsening territorial dispute from ending in armed conflict..
By STEPHANIE KLEINE-AHLBRANDT
The territorial dispute in the East China Sea between the world's second- and third-largest economies entered a disturbing new phase last month with the first direct involvement of military forces. On Dec. 13, Japan sent eight F-15 fighter jets after a small Chinese propeller plane that flew over the disputed Senkaku Islands, called Diaoyu in China. According to Japan, this was the first Chinese intrusion into its airspace since 1958.
There is far more at stake here than a small cluster of islands. Crisis mitigation mechanisms need to be urgently reinstated and communication increased between Beijing and Tokyo to reduce the risks of an accidental clash or escalation. China's continuous testing of Japan's bottom line is a dangerous game, and one that could have consequences for the U.S.-Japan security treaty.
.Beijing is bolstering maritime patrols of the disputed waters in a challenge to Japan's de facto administration. First annexed by Japan in 1895, the small cluster of islands and barren rocks came under U.S. control after World War II but reverted back to Japan with the 1971 U.S.-Japan Okinawa Reversion Treaty. They became more desirable a few years earlier when it was discovered that undersea oil reserves might exist nearby. Taiwan also claims the islands, but has enjoyed more amicable overall relations with Japan, and Japan does not officially recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state.
The dispute between China and Japan reignited in September when the Japanese government announced it was finalizing the purchase of three of the contested islands from a private Japanese owner. The government did this mainly to keep the islands out of the hands of former Tokyo Mayor Shintaro Ishihara, a flamboyant nationalist who had announced that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government would bid on them.
Reacting with a series of what it called "combination punches," Beijing threatened economic retaliation, launched joint combat drills by its navy, air force and strategic missile corps, and refused to attend the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group hosted by Tokyo in October. At the same time, violent anti-Japanese protests—the biggest since 2005—broke out across China.
China's most significant move was designed to end four decades of Japan's de facto control of the islands. Beijing announced base lines to formally demarcate its territorial waters and sent law enforcement ships into disputed waters. This new strategy is a stark departure from China's policy under Deng Xiaoping (Beijing's supremo from 1978 to 1992), which aimed to defer the dispute and seek joint exploitation of resources with Japan.
Deng's decision to put aside this fundamental disagreement reflected the deep challenges to resolving the issue of island ownership. Because the dispute is seen in China as related to Japan's imperial aggression, it awakens historical enmities and inflames Chinese nationalism. The Communist Party has long used past invasions and nationalism to bolster its legitimacy, making any negotiations over sovereignty extremely complex.
At the root of this new flare-up is a changing economic and power balance in East Asia. Seeing Japan on a downward slide while its own star is rising, China feels the time is right to stake its ground in the dispute. International law favors the country that has occupied or taken measures to exercise sovereignty. These include submitting claims to the United Nations, naming islands, making maps, conducting law-enforcement patrols, and eventually building structures and inhabiting islands. China believes that it has lost out while Japan administered the islands for decades.
Since Japan's purchase announcement, Beijing has taken legal and operational measures to strengthen its own hand. It is taking similar steps to bolster additional sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, as it clearly desires to become a greater maritime power.
Neither side has a solid legal case. Japan's claim to sovereignty on the basis of "discovery-occupation" centers on the assertion that it found no trace of habitation or control when it formally incorporated the islands in 1895. China claims that historical and legal evidence shows the islands were discovered, named and used during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), controlled by the Qing Dynasty in 1895, and seized in the context of Japanese wartime expansion. This, Beijing argues, means they must be handed over based on the post-World War II peace treaty that binds Japan to return Chinese territory.
Continued peace in the region hinges upon the two countries managing their differences. Cooperation on joint resource management in the East China Sea while setting aside—but not renouncing—maritime claims could be a practical way to build mutual trust and reap tangible benefits. In 2008, the two governments came close to such a deal but ultimately failed to overcome domestic nationalist opposition.
Before tensions flared, both sides had realized the danger of maritime accidents and were committed to setting up communications systems between their defense and law-enforcement bodies. But emotion prevailed over reason and those talks were abandoned.
Both China and Japan have stated that a military conflict is in no one's interest. That offers hope. Still, preserving peace requires urgent cooperation to avoid misfires and prevent an accident from escalating into a skirmish. A joint resource-development agreement would take time to negotiate, particularly given the steps needed to calm nationalist anger. But if the two sides are serious about avoiding armed conflict, common ground can still be found. Both Beijing and Tokyo have new leaders who have an opportunity to reduce tensions at sea. They should seize it.
Ms. Kleine-Ahlbrandt is China and Northeast Asia project director for the International Crisis Group.
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http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21569740-risks-clash-between-china-and-japan-are-risingand-consequences-could-be?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/pe/dangerousshoals
from the article:
CHINA and Japan are sliding towards war. In the waters and skies around disputed islands, China is escalating actions designed to challenge decades of Japanese control. It is accompanying its campaign with increasingly blood-curdling rhetoric. Japan, says the China Daily, is the “real danger and threat to the world”. A military clash, says Global Times, is now “more likely…We need to prepare for the worst.” China appears to be preparing for the first armed confrontation between the two countries in seven decades (see article).
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http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21569740-risks-clash-between-china-and-japan-are-risingand-consequences-could-be?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/pe/dangerousshoals
from the article:
CHINA and Japan are sliding towards war. In the waters and skies around disputed islands, China is escalating actions designed to challenge decades of Japanese control. It is accompanying its campaign with increasingly blood-curdling rhetoric. Japan, says the China Daily, is the “real danger and threat to the world”. A military clash, says Global Times, is now “more likely…We need to prepare for the worst.” China appears to be preparing for the first armed confrontation between the two countries in seven decades (see article).
The Chinese state media is banging the war drums loudly. China's leadership seems to expect Buraq to bow to them for some reason.
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Although IMHO The Economist is not what it used to be, this is the sort of piece which has always been the magazine's forte.
What madness the sequester cuts are going to be! :x :cry: :x And the Reps have so mishandled things that this is on no-one's radar screen. :x :cry: :x
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Unless Japan has a secret robot army, they might as well start working on a face saving way to hand over whatever China decides it wants. Taiwan better look at becoming a nuclear power or negotiating a return to the"Motherland".
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according to Economist's lead article:
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21569711-if-barack-obama-wants-be-remembered-great-president-he-should-focus-three-long-term
Brock they say has not met China's new guy for two months and he should have been there immediately. I don't agree that begging and groveling is the way to go but that is their opinion.
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Between the election and the transition I think it fair enough to say the man is entitled to have been busy, not to mention the implicit kowtow of him going to them.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/21/world/asia/china-criticizes-clintons-remarks-about-dispute-with-japan-over-islands.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130121&_r=0
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/21/world/asia/china-criticizes-clintons-remarks-about-dispute-with-japan-over-islands.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130121&_r=0
I thought all the foreign policy issues were solved by Buraq's bowing.
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In Dispute Over Islands, a Chance for Beijin.
January 21, 2013 | 1430 GMT
As Japan and China increase naval and air activity around the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea, the United States is steadily increasing its active involvement to reassure Tokyo and send a warning to Beijing. But Beijing may seek an opportunity to challenge U.S. primacy in what China considers its territorial waters.
Analysis
The United States is monitoring Chinese air activity from E-3 Sentry aircraft based at Kadena air base on Okinawa in response to increasing incidents of Chinese combat and surveillance aircraft shadowing U.S. P-3C and C-130 flights near the Ryukyu islands, according to Japanese and Korean media reports. Chinese pilots are more actively shadowing U.S. military aircraft flying through the airspace between China and Japan. Chinese aircraft have also reportedly violated Japanese airspace near the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands several times since mid-December, prompting Japan to send its aircraft, including F-15Js, to monitor Chinese actions.
The use of E-3s would bolster U.S. coordination and provide advance warning of possible encounters with Chinese aircraft, but its purpose may also be to offset some of Japan's weaknesses in the area. Japan's Defense Ministry wants to supplement its early warning capability -- its radar station on Miyako Island, near Okinawa, cannot detect Chinese aircraft flying over the sea at low altitudes. As the Japanese government continues to review its policies and capabilities for dealing with China's assertive stance on the disputed islands, Tokyo has identified several gaps in its ability to address Chinese actions. Japan will depend on the United States to fill these gaps as its military purchases new systems, shifts its existing forces and adjusts its rules of engagement.
Escalation
Until 2012, the dispute over the islands was only an occasional source of tension between China and Japan. The two sides had operated under a tacit agreement: China would not push its claims if Japan did not develop the islands. In April 2012, then-Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, in a speech at the Heritage Foundation, announced the city's plans to purchase the Senkaku Islands from their Japanese private owner. This action forced the Japanese central government to purchase the islands outright rather than continue to rent them from the private owners or allow Ishihara to buy the islands and possibly begin to build facilities on them.
What took place was effectively a change in the deeds to the islands, which in reality were already under Japanese control. Beijing, however, exploited the move to set in motion a nationalist campaign against Japanese businesses and products and to justify the new pace of Chinese maritime and air activity around the islands. China began sending more ships from its civilian maritime enforcement agencies to survey the waters around the islands and added aerial surveillance flights as part of a strategy to either force Japanese discussions over the islands or to demonstrate China's presence and authority. In the first case, Japan does not acknowledge China's claim to the islands, and thus it does not recognize a dispute, instead characterizing Beijing's moves as Chinese aggression. In the second instance, China sees its increased presence as a way to either cow the other claimant or to help China build a stronger case should the dispute ever go to international arbitration.
Japan has already recognized several shortcomings in its own defense capabilities to counter Chinese actions. Tokyo is reviving discussions about moving some of its F-15s from Naha on Okinawa to Shimoji-shima, which would place the aircraft just 190 kilometers (118 miles) from the Senkakus, rather than 420 kilometers away, thus halving the current 15-20 minute flight time required to scramble Japanese warplanes to the islands. Tokyo is also seeking to develop or purchase additional unmanned aircraft, including the U.S. Global Hawk, to maintain more active monitoring of the area around the disputed islands, as well as of the Chinese coast 330 kilometers away. The Japanese Coast Guard is also planning a 12-vessel special patrol unit to monitor the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. But most Japanese plans are slated for implementation no sooner than 2015. This leaves Tokyo unable to effectively counter Chinese activity for two more years.
The United States' Pacific Presence
This is where the United States comes in. Tokyo and Washington are discussing a joint approach to the disputed area and to Chinese actions. Washington has said it does not recognize any sovereignty over the islands, but it does recognize Japanese administrative control, meaning that by default, Washington supports Japan. But the United States does not want a violent clash between Japan and China. By increasing its direct involvement, Washington can reassure Tokyo of its support, softening the pressure for Japan to take more aggressive action, and it can serve notice to China that more aggressive action would involve not only Japan but also the United States.
But this approach assumes China is willing to step back. In China's view, the United States is trying to contain Beijing and encroach on its sphere of influence. Beijing sees the evidence of this in Washington's pivot to Asia, in the expansion of its political and defense relations with Southeast Asian states and in its strengthened military posture throughout the region, particularly in Australia and the Philippines. China's leaders see in some sense a Western attempt to prevent China, as a non-Western state, from taking its rightful place as a major regional power and international player. Chinese academics and officials raise the specter of a U.S. containment strategy similar to that used in the Cold War against the Soviets. Some also see a deeper U.S. and Western resistance to non-western power, an attitude they see going back to Western moves to block Japan's emergence as a modern imperial nation in the early 20th Century.
The involvement of the United States, then, may not suffice to alter China's actions around the disputed islands. Indeed, it may encourage China to more boldly test U.S. resolve and to assert its claim not only to the islands, but also to China's expanded sphere of influence. In 2001, after a collision between a Chinese Jian-8 and a U.S. EP-3E, China held the plane on Hainan Island and demanded a U.S. apology. But more than just seeking an apology or trying to pry secrets from the plane's airframe, China used the opportunity to try to show other Asian states that the United States and its military could be countered in Asia.
Beijing's ability to resist U.S. demands and Washington's unwillingness to intervene militarily were, for China, a victory. The 9/11 attacks on the United States shifted U.S. attention and the stresses of U.S.-China relations were quickly deprioritized. But those tensions are rising once again, and at a time when more military flights and ships are moving near the disputed area, Beijing may be on the lookout for another opportunity to reshape regional perceptions of Washington's military commitment to Asia. And with the United States engaged for more than a decade in a war in Afghanistan, Beijing is calculating that Washington will continue to seek to avoid new conflict in Asia, giving China a short window of opportunity to make its point..
Read more: In Dispute Over Islands, a Chance for Beijing | Stratfor
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Summary
STR/AFP/GettyImages
Chinese protesters march over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute in September 2012 in Zhejiang province
As Japan and China increase naval and air activity around the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea, the United States is steadily increasing its active involvement to reassure Tokyo and send a warning to Beijing. But Beijing may seek an opportunity to challenge U.S. primacy in what China considers its territorial waters.
Analysis
The United States is monitoring Chinese air activity from E-3 Sentry aircraft based at Kadena air base on Okinawa in response to increasing incidents of Chinese combat and surveillance aircraft shadowing U.S. P-3C and C-130 flights near the Ryukyu islands, according to Japanese and Korean media reports. Chinese pilots are more actively shadowing U.S. military aircraft flying through the airspace between China and Japan. Chinese aircraft have also reportedly violated Japanese airspace near the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands several times since mid-December, prompting Japan to send its aircraft, including F-15Js, to monitor Chinese actions.
The use of E-3s would bolster U.S. coordination and provide advance warning of possible encounters with Chinese aircraft, but its purpose may also be to offset some of Japan's weaknesses in the area. Japan's Defense Ministry wants to supplement its early warning capability -- its radar station on Miyako Island, near Okinawa, cannot detect Chinese aircraft flying over the sea at low altitudes. As the Japanese government continues to review its policies and capabilities for dealing with China's assertive stance on the disputed islands, Tokyo has identified several gaps in its ability to address Chinese actions. Japan will depend on the United States to fill these gaps as its military purchases new systems, shifts its existing forces and adjusts its rules of engagement.
Escalation
Until 2012, the dispute over the islands was only an occasional source of tension between China and Japan. The two sides had operated under a tacit agreement: China would not push its claims if Japan did not develop the islands. In April 2012, then-Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, in a speech at the Heritage Foundation, announced the city's plans to purchase the Senkaku Islands from their Japanese private owner. This action forced the Japanese central government to purchase the islands outright rather than continue to rent them from the private owners or allow Ishihara to buy the islands and possibly begin to build facilities on them.
What took place was effectively a change in the deeds to the islands, which in reality were already under Japanese control. Beijing, however, exploited the move to set in motion a nationalist campaign against Japanese businesses and products and to justify the new pace of Chinese maritime and air activity around the islands. China began sending more ships from its civilian maritime enforcement agencies to survey the waters around the islands and added aerial surveillance flights as part of a strategy to either force Japanese discussions over the islands or to demonstrate China's presence and authority. In the first case, Japan does not acknowledge China's claim to the islands, and thus it does not recognize a dispute, instead characterizing Beijing's moves as Chinese aggression. In the second instance, China sees its increased presence as a way to either cow the other claimant or to help China build a stronger case should the dispute ever go to international arbitration.
Japan has already recognized several shortcomings in its own defense capabilities to counter Chinese actions. Tokyo is reviving discussions about moving some of its F-15s from Naha on Okinawa to Shimoji-shima, which would place the aircraft just 190 kilometers (118 miles) from the Senkakus, rather than 420 kilometers away, thus halving the current 15-20 minute flight time required to scramble Japanese warplanes to the islands. Tokyo is also seeking to develop or purchase additional unmanned aircraft, including the U.S. Global Hawk, to maintain more active monitoring of the area around the disputed islands, as well as of the Chinese coast 330 kilometers away. The Japanese Coast Guard is also planning a 12-vessel special patrol unit to monitor the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. But most Japanese plans are slated for implementation no sooner than 2015. This leaves Tokyo unable to effectively counter Chinese activity for two more years.
The United States' Pacific Presence
This is where the United States comes in. Tokyo and Washington are discussing a joint approach to the disputed area and to Chinese actions. Washington has said it does not recognize any sovereignty over the islands, but it does recognize Japanese administrative control, meaning that by default, Washington supports Japan. But the United States does not want a violent clash between Japan and China. By increasing its direct involvement, Washington can reassure Tokyo of its support, softening the pressure for Japan to take more aggressive action, and it can serve notice to China that more aggressive action would involve not only Japan but also the United States.
But this approach assumes China is willing to step back. In China's view, the United States is trying to contain Beijing and encroach on its sphere of influence. Beijing sees the evidence of this in Washington's pivot to Asia, in the expansion of its political and defense relations with Southeast Asian states and in its strengthened military posture throughout the region, particularly in Australia and the Philippines. China's leaders see in some sense a Western attempt to prevent China, as a non-Western state, from taking its rightful place as a major regional power and international player. Chinese academics and officials raise the specter of a U.S. containment strategy similar to that used in the Cold War against the Soviets. Some also see a deeper U.S. and Western resistance to non-western power, an attitude they see going back to Western moves to block Japan's emergence as a modern imperial nation in the early 20th Century.
The involvement of the United States, then, may not suffice to alter China's actions around the disputed islands. Indeed, it may encourage China to more boldly test U.S. resolve and to assert its claim not only to the islands, but also to China's expanded sphere of influence. In 2001, after a collision between a Chinese Jian-8 and a U.S. EP-3E, China held the plane on Hainan Island and demanded a U.S. apology. But more than just seeking an apology or trying to pry secrets from the plane's airframe, China used the opportunity to try to show other Asian states that the United States and its military could be countered in Asia.
Beijing's ability to resist U.S. demands and Washington's unwillingness to intervene militarily were, for China, a victory. The 9/11 attacks on the United States shifted U.S. attention and the stresses of U.S.-China relations were quickly deprioritized. But those tensions are rising once again, and at a time when more military flights and ships are moving near the disputed area, Beijing may be on the lookout for another opportunity to reshape regional perceptions of Washington's military commitment to Asia. And with the United States engaged for more than a decade in a war in Afghanistan, Beijing is calculating that Washington will continue to seek to avoid new conflict in Asia, giving China a short window of opportunity to make its point.
Read more: In Dispute Over Islands, a Chance for Beijing | Stratfor
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Beijing knows Buraq will koutou.
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Japan Accuses China of Aggressive Military Moves .
By YUKA HAYASHI in Tokyo and JEREMY PAGE in Beijing
Japan accused China's navy of locking weapons-guiding radar onto Japanese naval forces twice in the past three weeks—a serious escalation in the two countries' long-running territorial dispute that has heightened fears of a looming military conflict between the two Asian giants.
"These were cases that could have led to an extremely dangerous situation with just one wrong move," Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera told reporters in a hastily arranged news conference in Tokyo Tuesday evening.
Mr. Onadera said that Chinese frigate ships aimed fire-control radar at a Japanese naval destroyer on Jan. 30 and a navy helicopter on Jan. 19. While neither incident involved firing of shots—a step that can follow use of such radar—the minister described the incidents as "highly unusual behavior" that occurs "only in extreme situations."
"We intend to push China very hard to restrain from engaging in such dangerous act," Mr. Onadera said.
The worsening dispute has drawn particular concern in the U.S., which has 37,000 troops stationed in Japan, with a majority on the island of Okinawa, just 260 miles from the disputed area.
Maj. Cathy Wilkinson, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said Tuesday morning that the U.S.'s commitments toward the islands were "longstanding and have not changed." A 1960 bilateral security treaty between the two countries would commit the American military to help defend both Japanese territory and islands administered by Japan, including the East China Sea islands in dispute.
"We have seen and are concerned by the reports of this incident," Maj. Wilkinson said. "We have long encouraged all sides to avoid steps that raise tensions and increase the risk of miscalculations that could undermine peace and stability in the region. We encourage claimants to resolve this matter peacefully through dialogue."
U.S. officials have said privately they have no desire to enter a war over a few rocks with little in the way of economic value—and the Obama administration has made clear it is intent on winding down the wars the U.S. is involved in, not starting new ones. Any military action with China over the islands would devastate the world economy and serve little purpose, those officials have said.
The latest development throws cold water on the emerging hopes that Japan and China may be close to resuming diplomatic talks to ease the tensions that have strained the ties between Asia's two largest economies since this past fall. The long-standing dispute flared up in September after the Japanese government purchased some of the islands from a private owner, triggering Beijing's anger. Last week, a senior lawmaker from Japan's ruling coalition visited Beijing and personally handed a letter from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to China leader Xi Jinping, raising expectations that the two leaders might be open to holding summit talks.
The Chinese government had no immediate public comment on the Japanese government's accusations.
Ni Lexiong, an expert on maritime and military issues at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, said Japan's claims were likely overblown, and intended to put international pressure on China to scale back its maritime patrols in the area. "The Japanese side did not explain what happened before these incidents—what caused the action from the Chinese ships," he said. "If this was between navy ships on both sides, then it's normal activity. I think they're exaggerating the incidents."
Independent analysts portrayed the behavior as more provocative. Beijing's use of fire-control radar "is certainly regarded as an 'escalatory' act because it infers that someone could be about to start shooting at you," said Richard Scott, IHS Jane's naval consultant.
Tokyo on Tuesday lodged complaints with Beijing through two channels, the Chinese embassy in Tokyo and China's foreign ministry in Beijing. Mr. Onodera explained that the decision to complain and unveil the tussles came after Japan analyzed the record and data and determined that illuminator radar used to search targets was indeed used in these cases.
Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters that the Chinese government responded to the protests "that they would first like to confirm the facts."
The addition of warships is the latest new dimension added to the tussle, which recently spread to the air with the introduction of military jets. Until now, the confrontation mostly took the form of a cat-and-mouse chase between civilian patrol ships, with Japanese Coast Guard cutters trying to fend off boats from China's maritime and fishery patrol agencies from the territorial waters around the contested islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.
While Chinese naval flotillas passed through Japan's Okinawa island chain at close distance in recent months, Japanese defense officials had stressed that Tokyo kept its naval ships at distance to avoid unintended clashes from escalating into military conflict.
Japan's defense ministry said in its Tuesday news release that the fire-control radar that targeted a Japanese naval destroyer—the 4,400-ton JS Yudachi based in the Sasebo port—was launched from the Jianwei II class missile frigate, a smaller ship. Targeting the helicopter that had taken off from the JS Onami, a 4,600-ton Yokosuka-based destroyer, was a Jianwei I class frigate.
Japan didn't disclose where exactly the incidents occurred in the East China Sea, and didn't say how close they were to the disputed islands.
"This was shocking behavior," said Sugio Takahashi, a senior fellow at Japan's National Institute for Defense Studies, a research arm of the defense ministry. "It was an intentional act aimed at escalating the situation or provoking Japan. I don't think there is a consensus within China that there is no place for the military in this dispute."
Some military analysts said it was hard to tell if this was a top-down strategy from China's military, or a dangerous improvisation on the high seas.
"What's unclear is whether the captain of the PLA Navy ship was acting of his own volition," said James Hardy, Asia-Pacific editor of IHS Jane's Defense Weekly. "It's a situation where the room for maneuver is narrowing—and acts like this don't help calm the waters."
The new tensions on the water follow worrisome exchanges that took place in the sky near the disputed islands. On Dec. 13, a Chinese maritime patrol plane flew into the airspace above the islands undetected by Japanese radar, prompting Japan to scramble eight F-15 fighters from Japan's air force. On Jan. 10, China scrambled its own military jets after Japanese fighters chased after a Chinese patrol flying near the disputed islands, Japanese officials say.
Within weeks of the Dec. 13 airspace intrusion, the first in decades by China, Prime Minister Abe unveiled the first increase in Japan's military spending in 11 years. In the budget was a new radar to replace the dated equipment near the islands that had missed the Chinese plane. A hangar at an Okinawa airbase to house radar-equipped reconnaissance planes was also added.
"We face continued provocations against our inherent land, waters, skies and sovereignty," Mr. Abe told troops this past on Saturday as he surveyed a military base in Okinawa. He pledged to "confront the clear and present danger."
As officials from the two nations stepped up their rhetoric against each other, Washington has grown increasingly worried.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have dedicated significant time to try to diffuse the dispute. It has been a delicate balancing act for the U.S. as it refocuses its attention toward Asia, under the Obama administration's military plans.
Defense analysts have cautioned that if the U.S. forces Japan to back down in the island dispute it will weaken its strongest ally in Asia. And some U.S. officials want Japan to be taking a more prominent and multilateral role in Asian security affairs. Forcing Tokyo to back down over the East China Sea could make persuading Japan to cooperate on other security matters—like joint exercises with the South Koreans—more difficult.
More importantly, analysts have warned that forcing Japan to back down could potentially give China a boost in its territorial claims in the South China Sea, disputes in which U.S. officials believe China is overreaching.
—Julian E. Barnes in Washington contributed to this article.
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China's Risky Strategy in Maritime Disputes
February 7, 2013 | 1115 GMT
Summary
On the surface, China's claim that it was unaware of recent actions by its naval forces against the Japanese raises serious questions about the degree of political control over the military and the stability of the region. However, despite this rare and seemingly surprising public admission from the Foreign Ministry, Beijing is likely threatening that it may not be able to continue holding back its military as part of a strategy to convince neighboring countries to cede to its maritime claims.
Analysis
The Jan. 30 naval incident reportedly involved a Jiangwei II-class frigate (Type 053H3) from the North Sea Fleet and a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Murasame-class destroyer near the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea. According to reports, the Chinese naval vessel locked its fire-control radar on the Japanese vessel.
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A fire-control radar is used to provide the data necessary to calculate a firing solution, after which missiles or shells can be fired at the target. The Chinese move to paint and lock on the Japanese destroyer with a fire-control radar is a provocative move that could have elicited an aggressive Japanese response. The move followed another incident in late January in which a Chinese Jiangkai I-class frigate (Type 054) locked its radar on a Japanese navy helicopter. Both incidents were revealed by the Japanese days later. Particularly with the heightened tensions between China and Japan surrounding the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, this sort of move could lead to serious miscalculations from both sides and even result in military actions, worsening the situation in the sea.
When asked about the incident at a Feb. 6 news conference, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said that the ministry did not know the specifics and that the action was made independently by the military. The spokesman's statement was a rare acknowledgement that the civilian government may not fully control the Chinese military, triggering speculation over a possible rift between the military and political leadership. It is quite well known that the Chinese military has been increasingly vocal over the years and that hawkish elements within the People's Liberation Army have pushed for a more assertive stance in China's maritime sphere.
However, Beijing's implication that it is out of touch with its military arm is at the very least misleading. First of all, it is hard to imagine that the Communist Party would reveal such a critical fissure to the public if it truly did exist. Moreover, the Party is deeply intertwined with the military at almost all command levels. A systematic arrangement exists to ensure the Party's control over the military, with a considerable role played by political commissars, who often act as de facto seconds-in-command. The Communist Party also has not admonished Chinese military generals after previous inflammatory incidents, leading to the suspicion that Beijing condoned those actions. Furthermore, the Party retains control over the money that continues to fuel rapid Chinese military modernization and growth.
In truth, along with the increasingly provocative military actions in the East China Sea, the newly inaugurated political leadership has not hidden its intention to safeguard its maritime periphery. There is thus an alternative explanation. By distancing itself from military actions, Beijing gives itself the option to continue to apply political and diplomatic pressure on neighboring countries, Japan included, over the disputed waters. In the meantime, by appearing as though it cannot rein in the military, China can warn its neighbors, as well as the United States, that if they do not meet Beijing's demands diplomatically, it could lead the Chinese military to take action that the Foreign Ministry cannot control.
A military solution in the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute is not the preferred option by either side. For one thing, the Japanese fleet's response to Chinese provocations has been relatively restrained. Beijing, despite its numerous provocations, has mostly relied on its civilian maritime agencies to push its territorial claims. Beijing had been quite successful over the years in enhancing its presence in the disputed waters in both the South and East China seas, taking advantage of its elaborate maritime surveillance agencies to assert its claims. The Chinese have also relied on enhanced exploration technology and measures that forced countries such as the Philippines, Vietnam and Japan to cooperate with China in the disputed waters.
However, Beijing has demonstrated in a number of cases that it is increasingly willing to engage in brinksmanship to aggressively push its claims. This may be in part due to a need to focus its populace on an external threat at a time when the Communist Party feels pressured on the domestic front. But Beijing's strategy remains a risky one. Even if a shooting incident does not escalate into a disastrous war, China's increasingly assertive stance has already pushed a number of its neighbors closer to Washington, a trend that ultimately works against Beijing's maritime strategy.
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Read more: China's Risky Strategy in Maritime Disputes | Stratfor
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China is counting on Buraq koutouing. It's a safe bet.
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2013/02/10/asian-currencies-tumble-yes-this-is-a-global-currency-war/
Asian Currencies Tumble. Yes, This Is A Global Currency War.
The renminbi fell slightly against the dollar in China on Friday. The yuan, as the currency is informally known, began the day up over the greenback but weakened as trading progressed.
The reason for the afternoon decline? Chinese enterprises entered the market and bought the American currency in large amounts late in the day. “It just seems so odd that companies would choose this particular time to buy such big amounts of dollars,” an unnamed Shanghai trader in a local bank told the Wall Street Journal.
Market participants naturally suspect that the People’s Bank of China, the central bank, was behind the surprising accumulation of greenbacks. Traders also believe that recent dollar purchases by China’s state banks are really on behalf of the central bank.
Since early December, the meddling of the People’s Bank in the currency market has been evident but not, in the words of Reuters, “overwhelming.” Stephen Green, the well-known analyst from Standard Chartered, estimates that the intervention last quarter was “to the net tune of $34 billion.”
Central bank operations do not have to be large to be effective, however. Traders, despite strong corporate demand for the renminbi, saw the signals from Beijing and have reined themselves in.
China’s dollar-buying is understandable in the context of the downward movement of the yen, which has fallen against every major currency in recent months. It has, this year, lost 7.09% of its value against the dollar and fallen 8.57% against the euro. Newly installed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made the depreciation of the currency one of the centerpieces of his controversial economic program, so there are expectations of aggressive tactics from the Bank of Japan, especially now that Masaaki Shirakawa announced on Tuesday his intention to step down early as its governor.
“I can’t recall a move in currencies that has been so deliberate and so linear without any apparent real change in fundamentals,” said ANZ’s Richard Yetsenga on CNBC Asia’s “Squawk Box.” “The yen’s move has largely been on the basis of an apparent move in government policy and the market is front-running that.”
Of course, everyone has noticed Tokyo’s new currency policy. Europe and South Korea in particular have complained, but China by and large has not.
Why complain when you can engineer the value of your currency? Beijing has been manipulating the yuan downward, and Seoul has been fiddling with the won. The South Korean currency is down 2.53% against the dollar since the end of December. At the same time, the Taiwan dollar is off 2.37% against the greenback. From all outward appearances, countries in Asia are now engaged in competitive devaluations.
So far, Beijing has escaped blame for starting the race to the bottom. “Has China Quietly Joined the Currency War?” CNBC asked on Thursday. That is not the right question because it is not possible for China to join the conflict. China, unfortunately, started it, at least a decade ago in fact.
For years, policymakers thought it was not worth trying to get Beijing to stop manipulating the renminbi, yet that view was mistaken. They ignored the fact that the Chinese were undermining the consensus that the market should determine currency values.
Now it seems it is too late to rescue the system of free-floating currencies. Abe’s plan to cheapen the yen, otherwise inexcusable, is a defense against the fixed yuan and the falling greenback. Ben Bernanke’s dollar-weakening moves, which hurt America, are in retaliation against Beijing. Beijing will not relax its grip on the renminbi even though it claims the currency is “pretty much close to the equilibrium level.” Of course the yuan is not, because the Chinese central bank is continuing to determine exchange rates.
We are, in fact, seeing the beginning of a currency war, which will not be confined to Asia. Governments see short-term advantage in intervening in the market, but in the end everyone will be hurt.
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I can't find anything in english, but I'm told that Chinese state media is reporting that the NorKs snubbed China as far as Lunar New Year greetings. A real cooling in the relationship or creating visible distance to give the PRC greater "plausible deniability" when using the NorKs as a cat's paw?
http://www.ibtimes.com/china-snubs-north-koreas-kim-hinting-realignment-asia-799591
China Snubs North Korea's Kim, Hinting At Realignment In Asia
BY Jacey Fortin | October 03 2012 2:04 PM
In a quiet snub with big implications, North Korea’s young leader Kim Jong-un was refused an appointment in China this year.
(Photo: Reuters)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was reportedly refused a visit to China this year, which could have big implications for Beijing's policies in a changing region.
The incident might have flown under the radar but for a Reuters report on Wednesday, wherein an anonymous source with close ties to both Pyongyang and Beijing confirmed that Kim Jong-un had requested a visit. It would have been his first official trip to China.
“There were too many things going on. [China] could not host Kim Jong-un,” said the source.
It could be that China is simply busy. This fall, it will undergo a major leadership change, with members of the elite Politburo Standing Committee handing power to newcomers. The process has been plagued by internal drama -- mysterious sackings, a salacious murder trial, car crashes and health problems -- as well as a countrywide economic slowdown.
Still, it’s odd that Beijing could not accommodate the leader of one of China’s closest allies, especially since Kim Jong-un’s father, the despotic and eccentric Kim Jong-il, made six visits to the mainland in the eight years before he died in December.
It is more likely that China’s refusal to host the Dear Leader is a calculated move, fitting a recent pattern of small-scale rifts between Beijing and Pyongyang. The shift could indicate a subtle change in policy for Beijing as China struggles to adapt to changing realities in the region.
Too Many Tiffs
China has plenty to be miffed about. Most memorably, Kim Jong-un ran afoul of Beijing when he decided to go ahead with a missile test in April. Pyongyang claimed it was a satellite launch, but international observers suspected it was a missile test. The rocket malfunctioned shortly after take-off, and the United Nations Security Council, including China, condemned the embarrassing experiment.
Furthermore, North Korea has been improving its relationship with Japan, China’s regional rival. In a sign that Kim Jong-un’s leadership may herald a new diplomatic direction for North Korea, officials from Pyongyang and Tokyo met in Beijing this August for their first direct talks in four years. Such a bond with Tokyo could potentially lessen North Korea’s decades-old dependence on China.
And then there are economic disputes. North Korea has a reputation as a shady business partner, but China tends not to publicize its neighbor’s weaknesses. That changed last month, when a Chinese corporation called Liaoning Xiyang Group allegedly lost more than $50 million in its dealings with a North Korean company Ryongbong Corporation. Xiyang’s complaints were covered in Chinese state media -- a rare disclosure -- while North Korean media rushed to downplay talk of a rift.
Most importantly, China is keen to prevent North Korea from stirring unnecessary controversy with its nuclear testing program. Pyongyang announced the completion of two successful nuclear weapons tests in 2006 and 2009, and the international community is determined to prevent another. China warned its neighbor not to conduct a third test amid rumors earlier this year that it was preparing to do so.
All of these rifts could explain China’s apparent iciness toward Kim Jong-un, but the fact remains that the historical bond between Beijing and Pyongyang is not so easily broken.
A Dependent Relationship
There is no question that North Korea needs China. The small communist nation relies on its giant neighbor, the second-largest economy on Earth, as its principal source of much-needed assistance.
Diplomatic isolation, economic sanctions, widespread poverty and ongoing food crises plague this country of more than 24 million people. The U.S. has been a prominent food aid donor to North Korea in the past, but that ended in early 2009 following a round of nuclear weapons testing provocation from Kim Jong-il.
China has stepped in to fill that gap, and not just in terms of aid. According to a report this year from the Council on Foreign Relations, Pyongyang-Beijing trade jumped to $5.63 billion in 2011, from $3.46 billion in 2010 -- a 62.5 percent increase. Meanwhile, trade with other significant partners, including South Korea, has been on the decline.
And Beijing has long turned a blind eye to North Korea’s deplorable human rights record. The people of North Korea live with an unrepresentative political system, strict censorship of the media and a skewed justice system that currently has up to 200,000 citizens detained in brutal gulags, where the prisoners perform forced labor for committing ill-defined "crimes against the state."
Without China, North Korea would have nowhere to turn for the support it so desperately needs.
Cuts Both Ways
China needs North Korea, too.
The People’s Republic has long-term plans for hegemony in the region, and the Korean Peninsula is integral to its efforts. By bolstering Pyongyang, Beijing hopes to play a leading role in the developing relationship between North Korea and South Korea. The two countries have been technically at war ever since a 1950-1953 battle between them ended in an armistice rather than a treaty.
A full reunion is still far off considering the high costs of such an endeavor, not to mention the two countries’ tense relationship. But South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak said just this month that reunification is “inevitable.” For China, any long-term geopolitical calculations must allow for that possibility.
South Korea is allied to the United States and Japan, both of whom rival China’s hegemony in the region. It is in Beijing’s interest, then, to keep its foot in the door in North Korea -- otherwise, it risks a loss of influence in the entire peninsula should a reunification come to pass.
For now, stability is Beijing’s goal for its communist neighbor. But the more Pyongyang irks the West through nuclear belligerence and inadequate development, the harder it will be for China to quell a diplomatic conflict that could upset the balance of power.
A Welcome Realignment
In that context, Chinese snubs -- refusing a visit from Kim Jong-un and publicizing the Xiyang spat -- are calculated admonishments rather than serious dismissals.
It is in Beijing’s best interests for Pyongyang to avoid stirring the pot over its nuclear ambitions, which would incur the ire of the West at an inopportune time. Not only is Beijing is in the middle of a fraught leadership change; it is also dealing with the U.S. administration’s recent “pivot” to the East in an effort to gain more influence in Asia, as well as a looming confrontation with Japan over island territories in the East China Sea.
So if Kim Jong-un wants a slot on the Politburo’s busy agenda, he may have to adhere to certain guidelines.
“Kim Jong-un wanted to come, but it was not a convenient time," said another anonymous source with insights into China's foreign policy to Reuters.
"From China's perspective, he has to come with something positive," added the source, suggesting that the Dear Leader must agree to dial back North Korea’s nuclear plans.
In other words, Beijing may now be using its overwhelming power over Pyongyang to effect a policy shift in North Korea -- more stability, less provocation. And even if China is acting out of pure self-interest, such a shift would be a welcome development for the West as well as the East.
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http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/02/22/chinese-admiral-says-goal-would-be-a-quick-win/
February 22, 2013
Chinese Admiral Expects “Quick” Win in Japan War
China’s armchair generals and active military officials alike are fully confident of a quick, decisive, and overwhelming victory against Japan if territorial disputes ever escalated into war. Time has the story:
“The real fight would be very short. It is very possible the war would end in a couple of days or even in a few hours,” said PLA Navy Rear Admiral Yin Zhou, a former director of the Navy Institute of Strategic Studies, in a recent primetime special on Beijing TV. . . .
“The keys to winning the war are quick actions, and good planning. . . . First, the troops that go into the battle must be well-trained, elite troops. Second, the troops must have precision strike capabilities. Once surface targets or air targets are chosen, the troops must be able to hit those targets immediately and precisely. Good planning also refers to accurately grasping the enemy’s situation, especially its operational (troop and ship) dispositions. We have to be very clear which disposition is the key and then plan our operations accordingly.”
When land powers like China attack sea powers like Japan, the initial results are often very dramatic. But the impact of even a short and “successful” campaign over the disputed islands would cause lasting economic damage to China. Would Japan’s navy interfere with China’s imports from overseas? Would war conditions halt China’s international trade, throwing tens of millions of Chinese factory workers out of their jobs?
War between China and Japan could be ruinous for both sides, as well as for countries caught or drawn into the middle. The world economy would take a huge dive.
Let’s hope China’s decision makers have cooler heads than some military leaders and nationalist bloggers.
(H/T to the tireless Daniel Lippman)
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Stratfor
By Rodger Baker
Vice President of East Asia Analysis
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has warned Beijing that Tokyo is losing patience with China's assertive maritime behavior in the East and South China seas, suggesting China consider the economic and military consequences of its actions. His warning followed similar statements from Washington that its patience with China is wearing thin, in this case over continued Chinese cyberespionage and the likelihood that Beijing is developing and testing cybersabotage and cyberwarfare capabilities. Together, the warnings are meant to signal to China that the thus-far relatively passive response to China's military actions may be nearing an end.
In an interview The Washington Post published just prior to Abe's meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington, Abe said China's actions around the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands and its overall increasing military assertiveness have already resulted in a major increase in funding for the Japan Self-Defense Forces and coast guard. He also reiterated the centrality of the Japan-U.S. alliance for Asian security and warned that China could lose Japanese and other foreign investment if it continued to use "coercion or intimidation" toward its neighbors along the East and South China seas.
Abe's interview came amid warnings on Chinese cyberactivity from Washington. Though not mentioning China by name in his 2013 State of the Union address, Obama said, "We know foreign countries and companies swipe our corporate secrets. Now our enemies are also seeking the ability to sabotage our power grid, our financial institutions, our air traffic control systems." Obama's comments, and the subsequent release of a new strategy on mitigating cybertheft of trade secrets, coincided with a series of reports highlighting China's People's Liberation Army backing for hacking activities in the United States, including a report by Mandiant that traced the activities to a specific People's Liberation Army unit and facility. The timing of the private sector reports and Obama's announcement were not coincidental.
Although Washington has taken a slightly more restrained stance on the Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute, reportedly urging Tokyo not to release proof that a Chinese ship locked its fire-control radar on a Japanese naval vessel, clearly Washington and Tokyo hold the common view that China's actions are nearing the limits of tolerance. Given its proximity to China, Japan is focusing on Chinese maritime activity, which has accelerated in the past two to three years around the disputed islands, in the South China Sea and in the Western Pacific east of Japan. The United States in turn is highlighting cyberespionage and the potential for cyberwarfare. Both are drawing attention to well-known Chinese behavior and warning that it is nearing a point where it can no longer be tolerated. The message is clear: China can alter its behavior or begin to face the consequences from the United States and Japan.
Abe drew a sharp response from Beijing, though less from his interview than from another Washington Post article based on the interview that interpreted Abe as saying, "China has a 'deeply ingrained' need to spar with Japan and other Asian neighbors over territory, because the ruling Communist Party uses the disputes to maintain strong domestic support." Tokyo responded to China's complaints by saying the second Post article was misleading but that the transcript of Abe's interview was accurate.
Although the Japanese government did not elaborate on this point, by "ingrained" Abe did not mean Chinese behavior per se, but rather the anti-Japanese undercurrents of China's education system and the use of anti-Japanese sentiment as the basis of Chinese patriotism.
In addition to being Beijing's standard knee-jerk reaction to any less-than-flattering comments by a foreign leader, the Chinese government and media response represented an attempt to shift attention from Chinese actions toward the "hawkish" Abe as the source of rising tensions in East Asia. A follow-up Xinhua article published after the Abe-Obama meeting cautioned the United States to be "vigilant against the rightist tendency in Tokyo" and said the first- and second-largest economies, the United States and China, should work together "to safeguard the peace and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region and contribute to global development." Other Chinese media reports suggested that Abe failed to gain support from Obama during the visit for his Senkaku/Diaoyu policies or for a unified stance against China. The undertones of China's response, however, reflect less confidence.
The Economic Threat
What Abe said in his interview apart from the Chinese media spin is instructive. According to Abe, relations between China and Japan have been suffering due to unintended consequences of moves by the Communist Party of China to retain its legitimacy. China's economic opening led to unequal prosperity, eliminating the Party's main pillar of support, equality. To counter that, the Chinese government pursued a two-prong strategy of economic growth and patriotism. Economic growth required Beijing to expand its sourcing of commodities, moving China naturally onto the sea. Meanwhile, patriotism, tinged with anti-Japanese teaching, has come to pervade the educational system and society.
Abe argued that China is pursuing a path of coercion or intimidation, particularly in the East and South China seas, as part of its resource-acquisition strategy. Anti-Japanese undercurrents in Chinese society due to the inculcation of patriotism have won domestic support for the assertive Chinese actions. But this has strained Japanese-Chinese economic relations, thus undercutting China's own rapid economic growth. And without continued economic growth, Abe cautioned, China's single-party leadership would be unable to control its population of 1.3 billion.
Within this context, Abe cautioned that it is important to make Beijing realize it cannot take another country's territory or territorial water or change the rules of international engagement. He raised the defense budget and emphasized that the Japanese-U.S. alliance is critical for regional security, as is a continued U.S. presence in the region. He also warned that China's assertive behavior would have economic consequences and that although Japanese companies profit in China, they are responsible for 10 million Chinese jobs. If the risk of doing business in China rises, then "Japanese investments will start to drop sharply," he added.
Abe's warnings were designed to strike at the core Chinese government fears of economic and social instability and military encroachment by the United States and a reinvigorated Japan. On the economic front, Japan is one of the top sources of actual foreign direct investment in China and a major trading partner. Although it is difficult to verify Abe's claims of 10 million Chinese employed due to Japanese investments, the implications of Chinese actions on bilateral economic cooperation are more easily observable. In 2012, a year when tensions ran high due to Japan's decision regarding what it called the "purchase" of some of the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands from a private Japanese citizen, anti-Japanese protests flared in China, as did unofficial boycotts of Japanese goods. Total trade between China and Japan fell 3.9 percent year on year, the first drop since the major financial crisis of 2009, with exports falling more than 10 percent. Japanese foreign direct investment, although rising slightly for the year, saw a major falloff in the summer when tensions between the two countries ran high.
Other factors played a role in the decline of trade and investment, including reduced overall Japanese demand and shifts in suppliers for certain key resources (and adjustments in Japan's export markets). And Japan itself would suffer from a major break in trade relations, though Tokyo may be taking steps to cushion against fallout from economic disputes with China. Japanese firms in fact already are beginning to show an interest is shifting some of their manufacturing bases out of China even without the added incentive of anti-Japanese sentiment-driven protests and boycotts. In 2012, the gap between China and the United States as the top destination for Japanese exports narrowed further to just 0.6 percent. Abe also hinted strongly that Japan has finally decided to pursue talks with the United States over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trading bloc (unofficially) designed to exclude China.
Although Japanese companies are unlikely to flee China en masse, the threat of a slow reorientation toward stronger trade ties with the United States and softening investment in China strikes at one of the Communist Party's major concerns, namely maintaining social stability through employment. Like that of Japan, exports and growth have driven China's economy. This does not necessarily mean profits or efficiency; on the contrary, Beijing has harnessed the constant growth to maintain employment and provide loans to keep businesses operating, even when they operate with razor-thin profit margins or at a loss.
Employment represents China's preferred tool to maintain social stability, and the Party sees stability as paramount to retaining its legitimacy as the unchallengeable and unopposable leader of China. Both the Chinese government and Abe know this, and now Abe is threatening to target Chinese growth, upending the whole system of stability. The Japanese may not really be able to effect or afford any drastic change in economic relations with China, but with the activation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and with a possible Japanese government emphasis on investment to Southeast Asia and Africa (with private investment likely to follow), the economic pressure on China could slowly build.
The Military Warning
The military warning is therefore more immediately troubling to Beijing. Both Tokyo and Washington are reaching their limits for tolerating aggressive Chinese behavior. The United States is pivoting toward Asia, seen by China as a constraining action. Japan is strengthening ties with Russia, Australia, India and Southeast Asia, something China regards as containment. China's emergence as a big power has not been entirely smooth. Any time a nation seeks to alter the status quo between other powers, disruption and resistance are inevitable. China's maritime expansion and its cyberespionage and emerging cyberwar capabilities are closely linked to its economic and social policies. The former is a more obvious concrete action, but one that raises the risk of creating the appearance of being ready for peer competition long before China actually is. The latter at least offers some opportunities for plausible deniability (though Washington is now removing that already-translucent veil) and reflects an attempt to exploit an area where China's overall vulnerabilities are less of a liability; it is the weak taking its best available action against the strong.
For Japan, maritime activity around the disputed islands is manageable so long as it remains in the civilian realm, but the use of fire control radar on Japanese ships and overflights by Chinese aircraft are unacceptable. (Japanese aircraft are shadowing Chinese overflights. In a recently reported case, a Chinese Y-8 surveillance aircraft and the Japanese F-15 interceptor came within 5 meters, or 16 feet, of one another, creating the potential for a collision like the one between a U.S. and Chinese aircraft in 2001.) And while the United States may have tolerated the occasional case of cybertheft and cyberespionage, as Obama noted, such activities become unacceptable in scale and when it shifts to targeting U.S. infrastructure, where it has the potential to disrupt electricity grids, communications systems and other industrial processes.
Japan and the United States have both called their defense alliance the cornerstone of their regional policies and relations. Japan continues to evolve its interpretation of its constitutional limit on military activity, and Tokyo has pledged to Washington to take a greater role in ensuring regional security. The escalation of Chinese naval activity has given the impression of a confident and capable Beijing on its way to changing the balance of naval power in the region. China has built the impression of a strong modern navy backed by land-based missiles, with modern ships and technology and an emerging international reach. China's anti-access area denial strategy is an increasing point of contention in Japan and the United States, where there are warnings that the Chinese navy will soon outpace the U.S. Navy in the Pacific, limiting U.S. naval capabilities with its "carrier-killer" missiles and quantitatively superior fleet.
The Chinese navy has undergone a significant modernization program over the past decade. Still, it is far from ready to compete head to head with the Japanese navy, much less with Japan's treaty ally, the United States. Modernization efforts and the fleet-building program have yet to make for a superb Chinese navy, nor would having superb sailors. A superb navy requires organization, doctrine, principles and most of all experience. The main problem constraining China's navy is not its shipbuilding or recruitment but its limited ability to truly integrate its forces for war fighting and fleet operations. This requires substantial knowledge and training in logistics, cooperative air defense and myriad other complex factors.
There really is only one real measurement for a navy: Its ability to win against its likely rival. Part of determining the quality of a navy depends upon its technology and part on doctrine, but a substantial part is actual experience. China's navy has little war-fighting experience, even in the past. This has substantially limited the number of individuals within the officer corps knowledgeable or capable of effective operations in the highly complex world of modern military engagements. The Chinese navy may have new technology and be building toward numerical superiority, but it faces off against a U.S. Navy with centuries of experience and generations of admirals schooled in combat. Even the Japanese navy has more than a century of experience and a tradition of maritime warfare. The lack of combat experience significantly limits China's naval capability.
The Chinese government officially downplays these capabilities and any talk of a potentially aggressive nature of the Chinese military. But Beijing does little to dissuade such speculation, allowing a steady stream of images and commentaries in the Chinese popular media and the strategic leaking of imagery in China's social media. Beijing likes to appear fierce while saying it is not. But the problem with this strategy is exactly what Abe has pointed out: In appearing threatening, concrete steps are taken to counter China's maritime expansion. Abe is calling China's bluff, exhorting Beijing to reassess the correlation of forces in the region before continuing its aggressive pattern.
. - See more at: http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/china-tests-japanese-and-us-patience#sthash.oqzPu7Zd.dpuf
Read more: China Tests Japanese and U.S. Patience | Stratfor
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"Abe is calling China's bluff"
You can only call someone's bluff if they are bluffing.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/9900009/Asia-has-more-billionaires-than-North-America.html
Asia has more billionaires than North America
A Chinese wealth survey has found that Asia has more billionaires than any other continent, apparently surpassing North America for the first time.
China's super-rich make their billions predominantly from real estate, manufacturing and investments, the report said. Photo: EPA
By Denise Roland
2:02PM GMT 28 Feb 2013
The Hurun Report, compiled by British accountant and former Forbes Rich List researcher Rupert Hoogewerf, found that Asia had 608 dollar billionaires, compared with North America's 440 and 324 in Europe.
It is believed to be the first time Asia has been named as home of the largest proportion of super-rich on any global list.
Nonetheless the US, which has 409 billionaires, retains its crown as the most populous country for the so-called 'nine-zero' club, while Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim was named the "planet's richest man" with a personal wealth of $66bn (£43bn), according to the report. Mr Slim also topped last year's Forbes global list.
China ranked second with 317 super-rich individuals, which the report noted were "all self-made" and, with an average age of 58, were on the younger end of the spectrum. The Sino super-rich make their billions predominantly from real estate, manufacturing and investments, said the report. Seven of the top 20 real estate tycoons on the list live in China, a stat it attributed to the urbanisation boom in recent years.
The UK, where the index found 56 billionaires, came fifth, only just ahead of India, which is home to 53 billionaires.
Hong Kong real estate tycoon Li Ka-Shing kept his title of Asia's richest man with $32 billion, ranking him the seventh wealthiest person in the world, while 98-year-old Taiwanese glass magnate Lin Yu-Chia shared a podium with current patriarch of the US's Rockefeller dynasty, David Rockefeller Sr as the oldest billionaires worldwide.
Zong Qinghou, who heads soft-drink producer Wahaha, and Wang Jianlin of property developer Wanda were the only two from mainland China to make it into the top 100.
The report also noted that the Dragon and Horse were the dominant Chinese star signs on the list, which it pointed out also belonged to the globe's two richest men, Carlos Slim and the US financier Warren Buffett respectively.
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http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/02/27/the_calm_before_the_storm_china_rise?page=full
From the article:
I also tell this story to illustrate how sensitive the establishment in Washington has become to any discussion on the nature of Sino-American relations. The real truth about this relationship is that, while there is a lot of calm on the surface, tension is brewing below. I am convinced that there is great simmering anger in Beijing about being pushed around callously by Washington. The Chinese resent, for instance, allegations of Chinese cyberspying that make no mention of America's own activities in this area. The Chinese do not believe that they are the only ones playing this game.
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I'm on a hotel connection for the next ten days and cannot sign up. May I ask you to share more of this article?
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Book Review
Richard McGregor's 'The Party' reveals the secret world of China's communists
By Andrew Higgins
Sunday, July 25, 2010
"The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers"
By Richard McGregor
Harper. 302 pp. $27.99
At a dinner party in Beijing more than a decade ago, Rupert Murdoch, the boss of New York-based News Corp. and a hard-headed arbiter of global opinion, declared that he hadn't met a single communist during all his visits to China.
With all the noisy debate over China's gargantuan trade surplus with the United States, its currency policy and its censorship of the Internet, one truth seems self-evident: China may do lots of things Westerners don't like, but at least it has dumped communism in all but name. After all, how can a country that so often seems to beat the United States at its own capitalist game be considered communist in any meaningful way?
Yet for all the dizzying change in China over the past three decades, the modern Chinese state "still runs on Soviet hardware," argues Richard McGregor in his illuminating and important new book, "The Party." Unlike the glittering skyscrapers, Starbucks cafes, sprawling factories and soaring GDP figures that so easily catch and dazzle the eye, much of this hardware lies hidden from view. "The Party is like God. He is everywhere. You just can't see him," a professor at People's University in Beijing explained to McGregor.
At first glance, a book about the Communist Party seems curiously old-fashioned, a throwback to a time when scholars and journalists scoured the People's Daily for hints of who was up or down in the Politburo and competed to decipher party gobbledygook. The red flags, the portrait of Mao overlooking Tiananmen Square and the occasional retro-slogan about "workers of the world" can sometimes seem as quaintly removed from present-day reality as the portraits of Queen Elizabeth that grace the offices of British civil servants working for what is, in name at least, "Her Majesty's government." However, it is a measure of how much China has changed that McGregor has been able to write such a lively and penetrating account of a party that, since its founding in Shanghai as a clandestine organization in 1921, has clung to secrecy as an inviolable principle.
Since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, China's ruling party has pulled off an extraordinary Houdini act, shaking off the horrors of Mao-made catastrophe -- including the death by starvation of 35 to 40 million people in the so-called Great Leap Forward -- and disentangling itself from the ideological chains that doomed the Soviet communists. Highly flexible on matters of economic doctrine but fiercely rigid in its commitment to political control, the party has not only survived but thrived. It now has 78 million members, including many multimillionaires. "We are the Communist Party," said Chen Yuan, a senior Chinese banker and the son of a Long March veteran, "and we decide what communism means."
But McGregor points out that "Lenin, who designed the prototype used to run communist countries around the world, would recognize the [Chinese] model immediately." Case in point: the Central Organization Department, the party's vast and opaque human resources agency. It has no public phone number, and there is no sign on the huge building it occupies near Tiananmen Square. Guardian of the party's personnel files, the department handles key personnel decisions not only in the government bureaucracy but also in business, media, the judiciary and even academia. Its deliberations are all secret. If such a body existed in the United States, McGregor writes, it "would oversee the appointment of the entire US cabinet, state governors and their deputies, the mayors of major cities, the heads of all federal regulatory agencies, the chief executives of GE, Exxon-Mobil, Wal-Mart and about fifty of the remaining largest US companies, the justices of the Supreme Court, the editors of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, the bosses of the TV networks and cable stations, the presidents of Yale and Harvard and other big universities, and the heads of think-tanks like the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation."
The central role of the party is hardly news to aficionados of Chinese-style Kremlinology. It has long been known, for example, that foreign policy is ultimately crafted not by the foreign ministry but the party's Central Leading Group on Foreign Affairs, and that military matters are decided not by the defense ministry but by the party's Central Military Commission. These and other party groups meet in secret. But McGregor adds flesh to dry bureaucratic bones through interviews with Chinese who know the system from the inside, though those who agreed to talk shed little light on the personal and political dynamics at the apex of the party. It is remarkable how little information has leaked from its upper echelons.
Nonetheless, McGregor provides many revealing nuggets, such as the existence of a network of special telephones known as "red machines," which sit on the desks of the party's most important members. Connected to a closed and encrypted communications system, they are China's version of the "vertushka" telephones that once formed an umbilical cord of party power across the vast expanse of the Soviet empire. All governments have their own secure communications systems. But China's network links not just ministers and senior party apparatchiks but also the chief executives of the biggest state-owned companies -- businessmen who, to outside eyes, look like exemplars of China's post-communist capitalism.
As a reporter for the Financial Times, McGregor -- who, incidentally, attended that dinner party with Murdoch -- has a firm grip on economics. Some of the most revealing parts of his book involve what he describes as the party's shadowy role in corporate decision-making and the overlap, as well as tension, between party and business interests. At times, the party's often hidden but decisive hand has served China well, as during the 2008 financial crisis when big Chinese state banks -- all of whose bosses are party members vetted by the Organization Department -- moved swiftly under instructions from the party leadership to pump out loans. But McGregor also relates how the party's orders can trump commercial good sense and even decency. When a dairy company called Sanlu discovered just before the opening of the Beijing Olympics that its milk products, including baby formula, were dangerously contaminated, the head of the company -- and of its party committee -- ruled against a recall and kept selling tainted goods. To announce a recall would have violated a party diktat that nothing should disturb the feel-good pre-Games mood.
The Chinese Communist Party's great success, despite the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and across Eastern Europe, has obliterated Western wishful thinking about the "end of history" and the world's inexorable march toward liberal democracy. "The Chinese communist system is, in many ways, rotten, costly, corrupt and often dysfunctional," McGregor observes. "But the system has also proved to be flexible and protean enough to absorb everything that has been thrown at it, to the surprise and horror of many in the west. For the foreseeable future, it looks as though their wish, to bestride the world as a colossus on their own implacable terms, will come true."
McGregor's analysis does not preclude the possibility that the party might one day evolve into a more open and less secretive organization, as happened to its old enemy in Taiwan, the KMT, a once rigidly Leninist outfit. Indeed, since the publication of this book, the Chinese Communist Party has made a big show of greater transparency, inviting journalists to visit the Central Party School in Beijing and announcing the appointment of spokespersons for previously media-phobic party bodies, including the Central Organization Department.
But there is no sign of the party surrendering its core prerogative: immunity from independent scrutiny of its actions or checks on its authority. Chinese judges, police officers, journalists and others are no longer mere cogs in a vicious totalitarian system. But, for all the relative freedom they now enjoy to act as professionals, not simply as political hacks, they remain firmly subordinate to what has become the Chinese Communist Party's only real ideology: its own survival.
higginsandrew@washpost.com
Andrew Higgins is a foreign correspondent for The Washington Post who has reported in China and the former Soviet Union.
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http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/02/28/the-unpivot-to-asia/
The Unpivot to Asia?
Walter Russell Mead
The Washington Post headline blares: “China is happy with John Kerry because it thinks he’ll drop the ‘pivot to Asia’”. The Post article itself gets its ammunition from this Liz Economy postover at CFR which rounds up some of the reactions to the new security team from around China. The mood is upbeat.
China Institute of International Studies’ Ruan Zongze: “Compared with Clinton’s tough diplomatic approach, Kerry as a moderate democrat is expected to stress the role of bilateral or multilateral dialogues”;
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Ni Feng: Kerry’s “diplomatic measures” will “greatly embody Obama’s concepts.”
In reviewing Secretary Kerry’s congressional voting record, Chinese observers also noted that he “generally voted in favor of bills conducive to promoting the development China-U.S. relations and generally voted against or expressed different opinions for bills not conducive to China-U.S. relations.” Overall, as People’s Daily observed, “Kerry stresses more on coordination rather than confrontation in foreign relations.”
What are the Chinese so happy about? One possible clue: during his confirmation hearings, John Kerry seemed to indicate that a further military buildup in Asia is not in the immediate future.
I’m not convinced that increased military ramp-up is critical yet. I’m not convinced of that. That’s something I’d want to look at very carefully when and if you folks confirm me and I can get in there and sort of dig into this a little deeper. But we have a lot more bases out there than any other nation in the world, including China today. We have a lot more forces out there than any other nation in the world, including China today. And we’ve just augmented the president’s announcement in Australia with additional Marines. You know, the Chinese take a look at that and say, what’s the United States doing? They trying to circle us? What’s going on? And so, you know, every action has its reaction. It’s the old — you know, it’s not just the law of physics; it’s the law of politics and diplomacy. I think we have to be thoughtful about, you know, sort of how we go forward.
Though the Chinese may be misunderstanding Secretary Kerry somewhat—he seems to have been been offering his assessment that our current force posture in the Pacific is adequate for the task at hand—there is an unmistakeable change of tone in his remarks.
Three possible things could be going on; one is excellent, one is OK but could bring trouble down the road, and one is catastrophic. Let’s start with the rosy scenario: the Obama administration hasn’t changed its Asia policy beyond changing the mood music and China, aware that it can’t change America’s basic approach to the region and lacks the strength to challenge us, has decided not to make a fuss about something it can’t change. It is taking the change in American tone as an opportunity to back down from a confrontation it can’t win without losing face.
That would be smart on China’s part: whining ineffectively about how much you hate something you can’t do anything about is an excellent way to look like a weakling and a fool (sort of like complaining about how much you hate Butcher Assad without doing anything about it).
If that’s what’s happening, look for things to quiet down in Asia.
Another, less hopeful possibility is that while US policy hasn’t changed in Asia, China thinks that it has. It has mistaken Secretary Kerry’s softer tone for a softer policy and is being nice because it thinks it has won the showdown. Chinese resolve and America’s Middle East and budget troubles have convinced the Americans that they can’t sustain the pivot, China thinks. In that case, we should expect some problems down the road as Chinese assertiveness runs into American resistance.
The third and worst possibility is that the Chinese are right and the Obama administration is ratting out on its own pivot and getting ready to betray our Asian allies who trusted the promises the administration made in its first term. In that case we can expect a crescendo of instability and crises that could escalate to include military conflicts and could well see South Korea, Japan and Taiwan going nuclear as China bids to establish a sphere of influence in the region.
It would be a tragic mistake for the Obama administration to shortchange the pivot by failing to devote the adequate amount of resources to the region—an enormous folly that would permanently undermine American credibility around the world. If your goal was to weaken the United States and alienate Washington’s closest allies, announcing a pivot to Asia with great fanfare and boldness, lots of parades and marches, and then slink ingloriously away would be about the best possible way to do it.
That said, the Obama administration has a big problem. Last year it seems to have believed it was on a winning streak in the Middle East that would allow it to continue withdrawing and moving toward a low-cost approach to a high-maintenance region. But that fell apart as the Syrian civil war, the mess in Libya and beyond, and the rising disquietude about Egyptian stability darkened the horizon. (Oh, and there’s that unfinished bit of business with Iran.) The pivot to Asia came when the administration felt bullish on its prospects for Middle East disengagement; that hope turned out to be misguided, and now the administration has got to deal both with a chaotic Middle East and an aroused China—when all it really wants to do is cut the defense budget and spend the money at home.
Backing away from Asia might seem like the easiest solution, but we hope and believe that the White House is smart enough to understand that this would be a mistake of historic proportions, one that historians would be shaking their heads over 100 years from now. Backing off from Asia might temporarily soothe US-Chinese relations, but at the cost of increasing the propensity among some Chinese to think the US is in such rapid decline that it can be bullied and pushed aside.
The White House, like most Americans, wants a calm international environment so that the US can concentrate on its problems at home. As we’ve said before, there’s nothing wrong with that, but unfortunately a calm overseas still depends on foreign perceptions that the US is willing to do what it takes to maintain its geopolitical position. If that confidence is lost, the international scene will become very tumultuous very quickly as other powers begin to plot the Wars of the American Succession. The cheapest and least risky foreign policy in the long run involves doing what it takes in both the Middle East AND Asia.
This is not as hard as some in the White House appear to think. President Obama would gain political capital and stature, not lose it, by stepping up to the plate overseas, and by explaining the international situation and our interests in it to the American people.
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For the record, this is exactly what's going to happen:
The third and worst possibility is that the Chinese are right and the Obama administration is ratting out on its own pivot and getting ready to betray our Asian allies who trusted the promises the administration made in its first term. In that case we can expect a crescendo of instability and crises that could escalate to include military conflicts and could well see South Korea, Japan and Taiwan going nuclear as China bids to establish a sphere of influence in the region.
It would be a tragic mistake for the Obama administration to shortchange the pivot by failing to devote the adequate amount of resources to the region—an enormous folly that would permanently undermine American credibility around the world. If your goal was to weaken the United States and alienate Washington’s closest allies, announcing a pivot to Asia with great fanfare and boldness, lots of parades and marches, and then slink ingloriously away would be about the best possible way to do it.
That said, the Obama administration has a big problem. Last year it seems to have believed it was on a winning streak in the Middle East that would allow it to continue withdrawing and moving toward a low-cost approach to a high-maintenance region. But that fell apart as the Syrian civil war, the mess in Libya and beyond, and the rising disquietude about Egyptian stability darkened the horizon. (Oh, and there’s that unfinished bit of business with Iran.) The pivot to Asia came when the administration felt bullish on its prospects for Middle East disengagement; that hope turned out to be misguided, and now the administration has got to deal both with a chaotic Middle East and an aroused China—when all it really wants to do is cut the defense budget and spend the money at home.
Backing away from Asia might seem like the easiest solution, but we hope and believe that the White House is smart enough to understand that this would be a mistake of historic proportions, one that historians would be shaking their heads over 100 years from now. Backing off from Asia might temporarily soothe US-Chinese relations, but at the cost of increasing the propensity among some Chinese to think the US is in such rapid decline that it can be bullied and pushed aside.
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An interesting line of analysis. Not to detract from it but:
a) FWIW IMHO China has pivoted from a Communist model to a Fascist model (private ownership of production, directed by the State). In that its fascist economic model is export driven its decisions remain informed by the pricing mechanisms of the international market place (i.e. the free market) thus avoiding many of the consequences that obtain from a more isolationist economic vision.
b) a very minor point, but I find the comment about the KMT being a Leninist group in its origins to be quite odd.
c) the concerns about projecting weakness are greatly heightened by the selection of Hagel to SecDef and what is happening to our military in the current budgetary clusterfcuk-- including the lack of Republic clarity of message to the American people on this point.
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The KMT was founded as a Chinese Nationalist party by Sun Yat Sen, but was shaped by Soviet advisors in the 20's after being ignored by the western powers. Zhou Enlai was originally a part of the KMT.
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I knew the part about Sun Yat Sen, but not the part about the Soviet influence or that Zhou Enlai started out that. Thank you GM.
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Indeed, thank you.
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I'm on a hotel connection for the next ten days and cannot sign up. May I ask you to share more of this article?
With apologies for the delay:
Since the dawn of geopolitics, there has always been tension between the world's greatest power and the world's greatest emerging power. No great power likes to cede its No. 1 spot. One of the few times the top power ceded its position to the No. 2 power peacefully was when Great Britain allowed the United States to surge ahead in the late 19th century. Many books have been written on why this transition happened peacefully. But the basic reason seems cultural: One Anglo-Saxon power was giving way to another.
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Today, the situation is different. The No. 1 power is the United States, the standard-bearer of the West. The No. 2 power rapidly catching up is China, an Asian power. If China passes America in the next decade or two, it will be the first time in two centuries that a non-Western power has emerged as No. 1. (According to economic historian Angus Maddison's calculations, China was the world's No. 1 economy until 1890.)
The logic of history tells us that such power transitions do not happen peacefully. Indeed, we should expect to see a rising level of tension as America worries more and more about losing its primacy. Yet it has done little to act on these fears thus far. It would have been quite natural for America to carry out various moves to thwart China's rise. That's what great powers have done throughout history. That's how America faced the Soviet Union. So why isn't this happening? Why are we seeing an unnatural degree of geopolitical calm between the world's greatest power and the world's greatest emerging power?
It would be virtually impossible to get Beijing and Washington to agree on the answers to these natural questions, as there are two distinct and sometimes competing narratives in the two capitals.
The view in Beijing is that the calm in Sino-American relations is a result of the extraordinary patience and forbearance shown by China. Chinese leaders believe they have followed the wise advice of Deng Xiaoping, the late reformist leader, and decided not to challenge American leadership in any way or in any area. And when China has felt that it was directly provoked, it has also followed Deng's advice and swallowed its humiliation. Few Americans remember any such instances of provocation. Chinese leaders remember many. In May 1999, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, a U.S. plane bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. America apologized, but no Chinese leader believed it was a mistake. Similarly, a Chinese fighter jet was downed when it crashed into a U.S. spy plane near Hainan Island, China, in April 2001. Here, too, China felt humiliated. Few Americans will recall the humiliation Premier Zhu Rongji suffered in April 1999 when he went to Washington to negotiate China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO); Chinese elites haven't forgotten. In their minds, China has been responsible for the low levels of tension in U.S.-China relations because China has swallowed such bitter pills time and again.
The view in Washington is almost exactly the opposite. Few Americans believe that China has been able to rise peacefully because of China's geopolitical acumen or America's geopolitical mistakes. Instead, the prevailing view is that America has been remarkably generous to China and allowed it to emerge peacefully because the United States is an inherently virtuous and generous country. There can be no denying that the United States has been generous to China in many real ways: allowing China's accession to the WTO (under stiff conditions, it must be emphasized, but stiff conditions that ironically benefited China); allowing China to enjoy massive trade surpluses; allowing China to join multilateral bodies like the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum; and perhaps most importantly of all, allowing hundreds of thousands of Chinese students to study in American universities. These are generous acts.
But it is also true that the United States allowed China to rise because it was so supremely self-confident that it would always remain on top. China's benign rise was a result of American neglect, not a result of any long-term strategy. China acted strategically; America did not. After the 9/11 attacks, for instance, the United States focused on the Middle East instead of the rise of China, leading Hong Kong journalist Frank Ching to write, "The fact is, it's not going too far to say that China owes a huge debt of gratitude to Osama bin Laden."
America has been sensitive to criticisms about its lack of a long-term strategy. I can speak about this from personal experience. In February 2009, Hillary Clinton visited China on her first overseas visit as U.S. secretary of state. I wrote at the time:
[T]here's little evidence Clinton has engaged in any serious strategic thinking about U.S.-China relations. If she had, she would have asked some big questions. Traditionally, relations between dominant powers and emerging powers have been tense. This should have been the norm with China and the United States. Yet China has emerged without alarming Americans. That's close to a geopolitical miracle. Who deserves credit for it? Beijing or Washington? China seems to have a clear, comprehensive strategy. The United States has none.
Officials in Washington reacted angrily to this column. A senior official at the National Security Council called up the Singaporean Embassy in Washington to complain about a Singaporean criticizing U.S. foreign policy -- even though, in theory, America welcomes debate and a free marketplace of ideas.
I also tell this story to illustrate how sensitive the establishment in Washington has become to any discussion on the nature of Sino-American relations. The real truth about this relationship is that, while there is a lot of calm on the surface, tension is brewing below. I am convinced that there is great simmering anger in Beijing about being pushed around callously by Washington. The Chinese resent, for instance, allegations of Chinese cyberspying that make no mention of America's own activities in this area. The Chinese do not believe that they are the only ones playing this game.
Given the many simmering tensions, it would be unwise to assume smooth sailing ahead for the United States and China. The need to cooperate is rising each day, as is the potential for a major U.S.-China misunderstanding. In November 2011, then-Secretary Clinton announced loudly and boldly a "pivot" to Asia, signifying a turning point in U.S. foreign policy that would reduce the focus on the Middle East. Barack Obama's administration took pains to avoid saying that this was America's response to a rising China, but nobody, including China, was fooled. Other countries saw it as a clear signal that Sino-American geopolitical competition was heating up. The logical consequence is therefore not difficult to figure out: We should be prepared for global turbulence if the U.S.-China relationship follows the millennial old patterns and no longer remains on an even keel.
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http://www.strategycenter.net/research/pubID.199/pub_detail.asp
The most recent period of PLA modernization very likely began shortly after the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, when the Chinese Communist Party leadership reversed the formerly low priority given to military modernization, in order to better defend the Party from perceived heighted internal and external threats.
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http://www.economist.com/node/21552193
The build-up has gone in fits and starts. It began in the early 1950s when the Soviet Union was China's most important ally and arms supplier, but abruptly ceased when Mao Zedong launched his decade-long Cultural Revolution in the mid-1960s. The two countries came close to war over their disputed border and China carried out its first nuclear test. The second phase of modernisation began in the 1980s, under Deng Xiaoping. Deng was seeking to reform the whole country and the army was no exception. But he told the PLA that his priority was the economy; the generals must be patient and live within a budget of less than 1.5% of GDP.
A third phase began in the early 1990s. Shaken by the destructive impact of the West's high-tech weaponry on the Iraqi army, the PLA realised that its huge ground forces were militarily obsolete. PLA scholars at the Academy of Military Science in Beijing began learning all they could from American think-tanks about the so-called “revolution in military affairs” (RMA), a change in strategy and weaponry made possible by exponentially greater computer-processing power. In a meeting with The Economist at the Academy, General Chen Zhou, the main author of the four most recent defence white papers, said: “We studied RMA exhaustively.
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Thank you BD.
I would add that the Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea seem to me to not be without some justification.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324178904578339243545311174.html
From the article:
China's new leader, Xi Jinping, appears to be ingratiating himself with the country's generals by protecting the defense budget even as economic growth slows. He also is cultivating a public image as a strong military leader as China faces off with Japan over a group of disputed islands and seeks to counteract the U.S. strategic pivot toward Asia.
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Summary
China Photos/Getty Images
A Chinese marine police ship escorts a Maritime Safety Administration patrol vessel off Shanghai
China is reorganizing its maritime law enforcement agencies, its principal tool for pressing territorial claims in the South and East China seas. The new measures could significantly enhance the efficiency of the maritime law enforcement agencies by reducing redundancy, improving response time, strengthening communications and bolstering overall command and control mechanisms. Japan's coast guard is the only civilian agency in the region that is robust enough to directly counter China's maritime agencies. Though both sides do not want any escalation over this issue, one could occur accidentally.
Analysis
Beijing unveiled a plan March 10 to place four of China's five maritime law enforcement agencies under one administration. The four will remain distinct entities, but they now will be overseen by the National Oceanic Administration. The administration, which currently directs China Marine Surveillance, will have oversight of the coast guard forces of the Public Security Ministry, the fisheries law enforcement command of the Agriculture Ministry and the maritime anti-smuggling police of the General Administration of Customs. The China Maritime Safety Administration, which administers matters related to maritime and shipping safety, will remain under the Ministry of Transport.
The newly expanded body, to be known as the State Oceanic Administration, will remain linked to the Ministry of Land and Resources and will carry out law enforcement activities under the operational direction of the Ministry of Public Security. The administration will be tasked with setting overarching strategic goals. The need for consolidated oversight of China's maritime enforcement agencies has been recognized for some time. Until now, numerous factors -- including institutional inertia, turf fighting and the considerable effort required -- have hampered consolidation.
The reorganization comes as Beijing is becoming increasingly reliant on its maritime agencies to press its territorial claims in the South and East China seas. The Chinese government has been steadily strengthening its maritime agencies to patrol and project its presence on the large number of islands, islets and reefs that it is vying with its maritime neighbors to control. Beijing's push to improve the effectiveness of its maritime law enforcement agencies via reforms that enhance efficiency and command and control are running parallel to its efforts to build new vessels for the China Marine Surveillance.
Of all China's neighbors, only Japan has a maritime law enforcement agency that has proven able to match that of the Chinese. Both Beijing and Tokyo are making considerable efforts, spearheaded by their respective maritime law enforcement agencies, to maintain an edge over their claims to the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands.
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Tokyo has used its powerful coast guard to press its case. It plans to set up a new 600-member coast guard unit equipped with 12 patrol ships for exclusive deployment in missions around the disputed islands. This will entail the largest staff increase to the Japanese coast guard in 32 years. Taking a page from the Chinese playbook, Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera announced last week that Tokyo is also considering converting retired navy vessels into coast guard patrol ships.
China's maritime agencies and Japan's coast guard are largely unarmed. Using them in the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute rather than heavily armed naval vessels thus diminishes the likelihood of a military engagement. China has in fact pursued a strategy of using its maritime law enforcement agencies as a foreign policy tool to push its territorial claims without risking an escalation to actual shooting.
Still, as both China and Japan gear up for a serious buildup of their maritime agencies, the waters around the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands are becoming increasingly crowded. There already have been a number of close calls between the Chinese and Japanese militaries near the disputed islands, including close fighter intercepts and radar lock-ons between ships. A miscalculation or accident as both maritime law enforcement agencies harass each other could very well occur, especially as tensions continue to drag on and both sides send more forces to the islands.
Read more: China's Maritime Law Enforcement Reorganization | Stratfor
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Hat tip to Doug:
Admiral Locklear: “It is not just about China and everybody else, because there are disputes between other partners down there, too. Sometimes I think the Chinese get handled a little too roughly on this.”
I wonder if our friends and allies in the region agree with him:
http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1096687/china-naval-build-major-concern-india
http://chinadailymail.com/2013/01/05/chinese-navy-buildup-no-threat-to-us-but-a-possible-threat-to-japan/
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/strengthening-of-chinese-navy-sparks-worries-in-region-and-beyond-a-855622.html
http://thediplomat.com/2010/09/29/china%E2%80%99s-naval-build-up-not-over/
http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20130209000029&cid=1703
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Meanwhile, the PLAN plots to destroy the 7th fleet.
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I wonder if Admiral Locklear and/or President Obama have read this report about the other religion of peace. No mention of global warming as the biggest threat.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324128504578348774040546346.html
WSJ CHINA NEWS (not the opinion section) March 13, 2013, 8:19 a.m. ET
For Xi, a 'China Dream' of Military Power
By JEREMY PAGE
BEIJING—Soon after taking over as Communist Party and military chief, Xi Jinping launched a series of speeches referring to "The China Dream."
Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping visited the destroyer Haikou in December and spoke of the 'dream of a strong military.'
It was music to the ears of Col. Liu Mingfu of the People's Liberation Army.
Three years ago, the former professor at its National Defense University wrote a book of the same name, arguing that China should aim to surpass the U.S. as the world's top military power and predicting a marathon contest for global dominion. The book flew off the shelves but was pulled over concerns it could damage relations with the U.S., according to people familiar with its publication.
The day after Mr. Xi's first "China Dream" speech, however, Col. Liu's publisher called to say he had gotten approval to launch a new edition. Now, it is on display in the "recommended books" section of a state-run bookstore.
"I don't know if he read the book, but he has sent a strong message," Col. Liu said in an interview at his apartment here, leaping to his feet with excitement to leaf through letters of support. "He could have grasped the economy, or some social issues, but instead he grasped the military."
As Mr. Xi prepares to add Chinese president to his other titles on Thursday, during a parliament meeting that caps a once-a-decade leadership change, "The China Dream" has become his signature. Officially defined as the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, it in some ways echoes previous leaders dating back to the Qing Dynasty's collapse in 1912. But Mr. Xi is making the idea his own by giving it a strikingly military flavor.
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"This dream can be said to be the dream of a strong nation. And for the military, it is a dream of a strong military," Mr. Xi told sailors in December on board the Haikou, a guided-missile destroyer that has patrolled disputed waters in the South China Sea. "To achieve the great revival of the Chinese nation, we must ensure there is unison between a prosperous country and strong military."
Mr. Xi has also made high-profile visits to army, air force, space program and missile command facilities in his first 100 days in office, something neither of his two immediate predecessors did. He has taken personal control of China's military response to a newly inflamed territorial dispute with Japan. And he has launched a campaign to enhance the armed forces' capacity to "fight and win wars."
All this leads many diplomats, party insiders and analysts to believe Mr. Xi is casting himself as a strong military leader at home and embracing a more hawkish worldview long outlined by generals who think the U.S. is in decline and China will become the dominant military power in Asia by midcentury.
In doing so, they say, Mr. Xi is setting the stage for a prolonged period of tension between China and its neighbors, as well as for a potentially dangerous tussle for influence with a U.S. that is intent on reasserting its role as the dominant Pacific power.
He has even set a precise date for the fulfillment of his dream: 2049, the 100th anniversary of the Communist takeover of China.
No doubt Mr. Xi has a domestic political agenda. As the son of a revolutionary leader, he has strong family ties to the military and a keen appreciation for its role in elite Chinese politics. In another speech, he made clear he believes the Soviet Union collapsed largely because the Soviet Communist Party lost command of the military.
Some believe Mr. Xi is trying to build support among China's powerful generals as a prelude to launching potentially disruptive economic and other reforms, including moves to curb corruption within the military itself. Others suspect he is trying to distract attention from problems that could derail Chinese growth, especially official corruption and abuse of power, an issue highlighted by the Bo Xilai scandal last year.
More broadly, Mr. Xi is determined to set himself apart from his predecessor, Hu Jintao, who was popularly viewed as relatively weak and colorless, say party insiders, family friends, diplomats and analysts.
Whatever his domestic goals, Mr. Xi's military posturing represents a clear break with the past that has potentially profound implications for China's foreign and defense policies.
"I think this reflects Xi's mind-set, his view of China's strength and relations with the outside world," said Li Mingjiang, an assistant professor and China security-policy expert at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. "Given his close personal ties, a lot of the information and policy suggestions he gets come from the military."
For three decades, the foundation of China's international relations has been the principle of taoguang yanghui—"hiding capabilities and biding one's time"—which was promoted by the late leader Deng Xiaoping.
Jiang Zemin, who became party and military chief in 1989 but had little authority over the generals until Mr. Deng's death in 1997, eventually won them over with defense-spending increases but kept them focused on building the capacity to defend borders and retake Taiwan.
After Mr. Hu became party chief in 2002, he kept a low military profile, not least because Mr. Jiang remained commander-in-chief until 2004. He focused on China's "peaceful rise," a term later toned down to "peaceful development." Although Mr. Hu encouraged the military to take on broader responsibilities, such as cybersecurity, he stressed their defensive nature.
By contrast, Mr. Xi has quickly asserted his authority over the 11-man Central Military Commission, on which he is the sole civilian. Among his first moves was to issue orders for the armed forces to focus on "real combat" and "fighting and winning wars," suggesting to many observers preparation for conflict beyond China's borders.
Mr. Xi also has added a qualification to Mr. Hu's signature foreign-policy idea: "We will stick to the road of peaceful development," he recently told the Politburo, according to the Xinhua news agency, "but we absolutely will not abandon our legitimate rights and interests, and absolutely cannot sacrifice core national interests." In China, the "core interests" term is taken to mean issues of sovereignty over which China would be prepared to go to war.
Mr. Xi has backed up his words with actions, overseeing a military response to the territorial dispute with Japan that included scrambling Chinese fighter jets and, according to Japanese and U.S. officials, locking weapons-guiding radar onto a Japanese ship and helicopter. Chinese officials deny those incidents.
"The Chinese are making up their own rules," said one U.S. military official, who described the radar incidents as "a serious escalation."
Mr. Xi's words and actions have played well with the Chinese public, as well as with military hawks like "China Dream" author Col. Liu. He and other outspoken officers don't reflect official policy but play an important part in molding public opinion, and do reflect the mind-set of more senior commanders, analysts say.
Col. Liu's book has a preface by Gen. Liu Yazhou, the political commissar of the National Defense University. "In my opinion," the general writes, "the competition between China and the U.S. in the 21st century should be a race, that is, a contest to see whose development results are better, whose comprehensive national power can rise faster, and to finally decide who can become the champion country to lead world progress."
Gen. Liu is among a small group of officers who have met regularly in private with Mr. Xi and helped to shape his strategic worldview, say people familiar with the matter.
For three years or so, many U.S. and Asian officials have attributed China's more assertive behavior, especially on territorial issues, partly to military hawks exerting pressure on a weak civilian leadership through the media, academia and informal lobbying channels.
Now those U.S. and Asian officials' concern is that Mr. Xi, while establishing clear authority over China's generals, has endorsed the more muscular approach to international relations, and a more prominent role for the military in China's development. Since his speech aboard the destroyer, China's military newspapers have been peppered with references to the "dream of a strong military" and the need for "combat readiness."
The PLA's General Staff Office published an article in Qiushi, the official journal of the party's Central Committee, in February that said: "History and reality show us that what determines the political and economic pattern of the world is, in the final analysis, a comparison of great powers' strength, and ultimately depends on force."
The PLA has also issued instructions for training to focus on real combat. Recently it for the first time published a schedule of exercises for the year, which will consist of 40 drills involving joint air-land combat and live fire operations on the open sea.
"Make no mistake, the PRC Navy is focused on war at sea and about sinking an opposing fleet," said Capt. James Fanell, deputy chief of staff for intelligence and information operations for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, at the U.S. Naval Institute in January. "In terms of their ultimate goals, they write a lot about national rejuvenation—restoration of China's rightful place. Well, we have to say: What does that mean? Where were they when they were back in their rightful place?"
For PLA commanders, according to many analysts, the dream of a strong military means securing the defense-spending increases needed to fund costly weapons programs such as aircraft carriers and stealth fighter jets, even as economic growth slows over the next decade.
The PLA has been focused for much of the past decade on developing and deploying the weapons it believes it needs to deny U.S. forces access to waters around China's shores. But while wary of entering an arms race with the U.S., it is increasingly preoccupied with enhancing capabilities to operate farther afield and establishing China as a maritime power.
"Even a blind man could see there is going to be a butter-versus-guns debate not far down the road," said Kenneth Lieberthal, an expert on Chinese politics at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Many Chinese and foreign analysts see Mr. Xi's military stance, especially regarding the territorial dispute with Japan, as a direct response to the U.S. "pivot" toward Asia.
The short-term aim, those analysts say, is to discourage countries that have territorial disputes with China from feeling emboldened by the U.S. strategy of focusing more on Asia. Longer term, the goal is to convince the U.S. that the strategy is unsustainable, given financial pressures on the Pentagon and China's expanding power.
"China's strength can play a positive role in the region," said Xu Guangyu, a retired PLA general and now a senior researcher at the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association. "It's a strategic mistake for the U.S. to rely on Japan for its rebalancing in Asia."
One U.S. military adviser said Chinese military strategists see China becoming the dominant power in Asia by midcentury, by which time they believe the world will be divided into spheres of influence dominated by at least four great powers: China, the U.S., the European Union and Russia.
That view also appears to be reflected in Mr. Xi's main foreign-policy initiative, which is a proposal to redefine China's relationship with the U.S. as one between equal "great powers."
U.S. officials and analysts are still waiting for details about the proposal. But many foreign governments fear it is an attempt to curb U.S. influence in Asia, in much the way the U.S. sought to restrict European meddling in the Americas with the Monroe Doctrine in the early 19th century.
War remains an unlikely prospect, say most observers. Even Col. Liu, whose next book is titled "Why the People's Liberation Army Can Win," didn't predict war in "The China Dream," seeing instead a protracted competition that Beijing is destined to win.
Lee Kuan Yew, the former Singaporean leader, has said that Chinese leaders recognize they can't confront the U.S. militarily until they have overtaken it in terms of the development and application of technology. Nonetheless, he says he is sure they aspire to displace the U.S. as the leading power in Asia.
"The 21st century will be a contest for supremacy in the Pacific because that is where the growth will be," Mr. Lee was quoted as saying in a recently published book. "If the U.S. does not hold its ground in the Pacific, it cannot be a world leader."
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Summary
Vietnam held an anti-China protest in Hanoi on March 14, marking the 25th anniversary of a deadly naval battle with China and highlighting the continuing Vietnamese resentment and concerns over perceived Chinese aggression. These concerns have prompted Vietnam to boost its defenses, particularly its naval defenses. Vietnam's first full-size diesel-electric submarine from Russia will enter service this year, with five more to follow in the next few years. A rising China has pushed Vietnam to seek Russian assistance in expanding the Vietnamese navy to defend its interests in the South China Sea. While this expansion will not eliminate the competition, it will improve Vietnam's ability to defend its interests.
Analysis
China and Vietnam historically have been enemies, and their bilateral relations remain strained. Relations were especially tense during and after the brief but deadly 1979 war in which China invaded northern Vietnam in response to the Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia. Although relations have been normalized since 1991, China's increased maritime activities frequently have put the two countries at odds. As the value of maritime resources grows and as an increasing amount of trade is conducted by sea, maritime matters have become more important for both countries.
Chinese strategy calls for control over the South China Sea, putting Beijing in direct conflict with Hanoi's interests there. China, Vietnam and several other Southeast Asian countries disagree over ownership of the Spratly and Paracel islands in the South China Sea. In 1974 and 1988, China engaged in armed naval conflict with Vietnam, in both cases killing members of the Vietnamese military. Complicating Vietnam's efforts, Hanoi is not competing with just China for resources and influence, but with every country in the region, including the Philippines, Japan, Taiwan and Malaysia.
Vietnam thus needs a strong maritime force to leverage its strategic location in the South China Sea and to protect its economic interests there. The competition is stiff for resources such as oil and fish in the crowded waters east of Vietnam. A larger navy helps Hanoi ensure it is not muscled out of the region. Vietnam's long coastline also makes it vulnerable to attack from the sea, requiring at least a defense force.
To improve its defenses against China and to better position itself in ongoing maritime disputes in the South China Sea, Vietnam has partnered with other countries and greatly increased its defense budget. In the process, it has allocated significantly more money to its navy.
In many ways, Vietnam is mirroring China's anti-access/area denial strategy, albeit on a more limited basis. This strategy is not achieved by building a fleet of aircraft carriers, but rather with anti-ship missiles, submarines and fast-attack missile craft -- weapons that will deter aggressors. Vietnam is not concerned about becoming a full blue-water navy, an ambition that does not match its needs and that its limited resources preclude. Instead, it is focusing on defending its maritime territorial claims.
The ongoing Vietnamese naval build-up has resulted in annual naval procurement budget increases of 150 percent since 2008, to $276 million in 2011. It is expected to grow to $400 million by 2015. Currently, Vietnam has six frigates, nine corvettes, 17 fast patrol craft and 30 patrol craft, but it is expanding quickly with Russian help.
For its defense procurement, Vietnam primarily has relied on the Russians, who are more willing to sell the advanced weaponry that Vietnam requires than other countries. Cost also is pushing Vietnam toward the Russians. Despite its growing naval budget, Vietnam is not a rich country, and so must shop for weapons carefully. Even if Russian weapons are not always the best on the market, they are often more cost-effective.
In addition to building a fleet of submarines for Vietnam, Russia also is providing training on operating the six improved Kilo-class submarines Vietnam has ordered. Including weapons and training, by 2018 Russia is to deliver the vessels for $3.2 billion. The Kilo-class submarine is a diesel-electric submarine, making it well-suited for patrolling Vietnam's noisy, shallow littoral. Since 2008, the Vietnamese navy also has taken delivery from Russia of two Gepard-class guided-missile stealth frigates and K-300P Bastion mobile coastal defense anti-ship missile systems.
A March 2013 visit to Vietnam by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reaffirmed the strategic alliance between the two countries. In another matter of shared interest, Russian firms are updating and expanding the port of Cam Ranh Bay. The bay occupies a highly strategic location close to the sea-lanes of the South China Sea. Foreign navies have used it for more than 100 years as a deep-water port. Russia used Cam Ranh Bay as a naval base until 2002, when it withdrew for financial reasons. Moscow has since expressed a renewed interest in using the port.
The United States also has an increased interest in Vietnam and this strategic port at a time when the United States is gathering all the allies it can in Southeast Asia to counter China's power. For its part, Vietnam is using this renewed U.S. interest to play Washington and Beijing off each other. If China continues to exert its power in the South China Sea, Vietnam could threaten to make deals with the United States. And if the United States does not help Vietnam, Hanoi could block the United States from using Vietnamese ports.
While Vietnam's naval buildup will not eliminate the competition, it will improve Hanoi's position as it pursues its interests in the South China Sea.
Read more: Vietnam: Naval Strategy and the South China Sea | Stratfor
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As the US Navy is busy battling Global Warming, the PLAN can work on other issues.
China holds landing exercises in disputed seas
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
Associated Press
BEIJING (AP) -- China's increasingly powerful navy paid a symbolic visit to the country's southernmost territorial claim deep in the South China Sea this week as part of military drills in the disputed Spratly Islands involving amphibious landings and aircraft.
The visit to James Shoal, reported by state media, followed several days of drills starting Saturday and marked a high-profile show of China's determination to stake its claim to territory disputed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei amid rising tensions in the region.
Sailors joined in the ceremony Tuesday aboard the amphibious ship Jinggangshan just off the collection of submerged rocks, located 80 kilometers (50 miles) off the coast of Malaysia and about 1,800 kilometers (1,120 miles) from the Chinese mainland, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday. China planted a monument on the shoal in 2010 declaring it Chinese territory.
Sailors gathered on the ship's helicopter deck declared their loyalty to the ruling Communist Party and vowed to "struggle arduously to realize the dream of a powerful nation," Xinhua said.
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Iraqi oil: Once seen as U.S. boon, now it’s mostly China’s
An U.S. Army soldier stands guard near a burning oil well in the Rumaylah Oil Fields in Southern Iraq April 2, 2003. | ARLO K. ABRAHAMSON/U.S. Navy NewsStay Connected
By Sean Cockerham McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Ten years after the United States invaded and occupied Iraq, the country’s oil industry is poised to boom and make the troubled nation the No.2 oil exporter in the world. But the nation that’s moving to take advantage of Iraq’s riches isn’t the United States. It’s China.
America, with its own homegrown energy bonanza, isn’t going after the petroleum that lies beneath Iraq’s sands nearly as aggressively as is China, a country hungry to fuel its rise as an economic power.
Iraq remains highly unstable in terms of security, infrastructure and politics. Chinese state-owned oil companies appear more willing to put up with that than Americans are.
“The Chinese have a higher tolerance for risk,” said Gal Luft, a co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, a Washington research center focused on energy.
The International Energy Agency expects China to become the main customer for Iraq’s vast oil reserves. Fatih Birol, the agency’s chief economist, recently declared “a new trade axis is being formed between Baghdad and Beijing.” Birol said that about 80 percent of Iraq’s future oil exports were expected to go to Asia, mainly to China.
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/27/187100/iraqi-oil-once-seen-as-us-boon.html
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China: A Historical Revelation and a Warning to Vietnam
April 1, 2013 | 1015 GMT
Summary
Chinese patrol boats docked at the pier in Sansha on an island in the disputed Paracel chain on July 27, 2012
Revelations that China quietly transferred control of an island in the South China Sea to Vietnam more than half a century ago could signal that Beijing is preparing to take a more aggressive stance on its territorial claims in the sea. Chinese semi-state-owned newspaper Huanqiu published an editorial March 27 titled "Expelling Vietnamese illegal shipping boats is justified" in defense of Vietnamese claims that a Chinese ship fired at Vietnamese fishing vessels near the disputed Paracel Islands. In a rare move, the article revealed a piece of history unknown to most of the public involving the transfer of Bach Long Vi Island (Bailongwei in Chinese) to Vietnam in early 1957. The article reasoned that, instead of returning the gesture of peace and friendship, Vietnam had increasingly challenged China's territorial claims in the South China Sea. The editorial was then reprinted in a number of major media outlets with the title "China transferred Bailongwei Island to Vietnam whereas Vietnam is stepping forward."
Not surprisingly, the articles sparked public outrage in China. Chinese citizens have condemned the government for conceding territory and have questioned the leadership's ability to safeguard the country's territory and national interest. The move was risky but it may fit Beijing's goal: To manufacture public outrage in order to add weight to Chinese moves in the South China Sea.
Analysis
Located about halfway between Vietnam's Haiphong city and China's Hainan Island in the Gulf of Tonkin (Beibu Bay in Chinese), Bach Long Vi Island is 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) long and 1.5 kilometers wide, making it the largest habitable island in the South China Sea. Official records are scant, but unverified accounts suggest Chinese leadership transferred the island to the North Vietnamese government in March 1957 as part of its aid package during the Vietnam War. The island has been administered by Vietnam's Haiphong city and inhabited by Vietnamese citizens ever since.
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Though China reportedly had considered reclaiming Bach Long Vi Island, it officially acknowledged Vietnam's sovereignty over it through a series of agreements as part of the border demarcation of the Gulf of Tonkin in the 2000s. The agreements also prohibit Chinese fishermen from approaching within 20 nautical miles of Bach Long Vi Island and granted 53.23 percent of the gulf's territory to Vietnam. (China was given control of the other 46.77 percent). Since then, there have been skirmishes over fishing but no major disputes.
Whether the settlements of Bach Long Vi Island and the Gulf of Tonkin were a result of strategic thinking or a lack of understanding of the island's importance, they have often been portrayed within Chinese policymaking circles as a shining example of Beijing's commitment to and flexibility in settling territorial disputes. China hoped to use that image to bring other neighbors to the negotiating table. The decision to now bring the resolution to light has stirred speculation that China could be reconsidering the agreement.
In publicizing the island transfer, Beijing is trying to portray itself as the responsible party while placing responsibility for the island disputes on Vietnam. Since Beijing shifted its focus to the maritime sphere, it has been increasingly evident that Hanoi will not back down from its claims on the Paracel and Spratly Islands or its desire to draw other countries into the disputes. Chinese policymakers have debated whether to be even more aggressive regarding their territorial claims as punishment or whether the previous relinquishment of territories is still useful for China's broader maritime interests. Therefore, now that Beijing is publicizing how its previous concessions were counterproductive, it could be that the country is trying to warn others to reach a peaceful settlement before it increases tensions or at least that Beijing may begin to reassess its territorial settlement with Vietnam.
Since tensions began to climb in the South China Sea in the late 2000s, China has not yet aggressively pushed Vietnam. Beijing has sent vessels to harass Vietnam fishing boats and to force Hanoi to cancel joint exploration deals with countries other than China along the nine-dash line, but it has not challenged Vietnam's control of islands or involved it in a severe confrontation. But now, in raising a fundamental fact of Chinese-Vietnamese relations -- the settlements of Bach Long Vi Island and the Gulf of Tonkin -- and perhaps suggesting that those settlements need to be reconsidered, China is warning Vietnam that a less accommodating Chinese stance may be imminent. At the same time, by inciting nationalist indignation, the Chinese government may be leaving itself with little room to de-escalate the dispute.
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Read more: China: A Historical Revelation and a Warning to Vietnam | Stratfor
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stratfor
Summary
China may use the fatal shooting of a Taiwanese fisherman by the Philippine coast guard on May 9 as a chance to build an alliance with Taiwan in maritime territorial disputes where the two countries have shared historical claims, and to justify its aggressiveness in the South China Sea. Compared to most of its neighbors, Taiwan lacks maritime clout and could benefit from following China's lead in the disputes. But such a strategy may eventually come at the expense of Taiwanese interests. Thus, Taipei has to strike a careful balance between pursuing diplomatic independence and enforcing its maritime claims in a way that would benefit China -- still Taiwan's most serious and enduring security threat.
Analysis
Taipei has been gradually escalating its response to the shooting, which occurred in the Bashi Strait, about halfway between Taiwan and the Philippines in a part of the South China Sea that is disputed by both countries and China. After initially lodging somewhat muted diplomatic protests, Taipei on May 12 dispatched four ships to the disputed waters, including three coast guard vessels equipped with cannons and machine guns and a naval vessel carrying an S70-C helicopter. The administration of Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou also vowed to deploy F-16 fighter jets and additional warships, including Kidd-class destroyers, if Manila fails to make an official apology to the fisherman's family within 72 hours.
South China Sea
The shooting sparked intense public outrage in Taiwan over the government's inability to protect Taiwanese citizens in the waters in addition to the enduring perception that Taipei has a weak position in its ongoing territorial disputes in the East and South China seas. To enforce Taiwan's position, demand on the island has been increasing for some sort of territorial cooperation with China over mutual maritime interests. According to a survey conducted after the shooting, roughly 69 percent of Taiwanese residents support working more closely with China to pressure the Philippines in the maritime disputes.
Taiwan's Challenge
But such cooperation would highlight Taipei's constant struggle to reinforce its territorial claims without undermining its independence. Despite its early claims to parts of the East and South China seas and its relatively advanced military, Taiwan's position has long been constrained due to its lack of international recognition and its complicated relations with China, who views Taiwan as a disobedient province that will eventually be subsumed by the mainland.
Because China and Taiwan share a similar historical basis for their maritime assertions, Beijing believes that Taipei's territorial claims validate the South China Sea as rightly Chinese territory. Beijing also believes that Taiwan's weak position in the maritime conflicts can be exploited for Chinese interests. Thus, Taipei has long believed that its vulnerable position in the maritime disputes would eventually force it to support Chinese aggression in the waters, thereby threatening Taiwanese independence.
Immediately after the shooting, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the incident, urging Manila to apologize and to launch a thorough investigation. An editorial in China's semi-official Global Times then called for heavier Chinese pressure on the Philippines in support of Taipei. Beijing is hoping such gestures highlight its common ground with Taipei, considering that they share concerns over their identical claim against other claimant countries.
Beijing's Interests
Indeed, China has long been seeking to facilitate some sort of cross-strait collaboration over maritime disputes as something that could lay the groundwork for future civilian cooperation on other matters. This strategy has proved somewhat effective previously in the dispute with Japan over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands (known as the Diaoyutai in Taiwan) in the East China Sea. Since the 1970s, Taiwanese activism over the islands has been seen by Beijing as an anchor of cross-strait cooperation and international justification for anti-Japanese protests in China. Beijing is hoping to follow a similar course in the current maritime disputes, where cooperation could strengthen China's territorial claims and its relations with Taipei.
But in 2012, Taiwan attempted to reassert its independence in the East China Sea by signing a fishing agreement with Japan concerning the waters around the disputed islands -- a move that undermined Chinese interests. Thus, China is hoping to use the May 9 incident to demonstrate that it is better equipped to protect Taiwanese maritime interests than other regional states and deter Taipei from looking elsewhere for support.
Taiwan Escalates Tensions Over Maritime Claims
Beijing also sees the tensions between Manila and Taipei as an opportunity to justify its recent forceful actions in the disputed waters, in support of its broader strategy in the South China Sea. Since tensions over the waters renewed in 2010, Beijing has been more aggressive against the Philippines than it has been against Vietnam and other claimant countries. In April 2012, for example, a Philippine warship attempted to board Chinese fishing vessels anchored in the contested region. Beijing used the opportunity to seize control of Scarborough Shoal, an island also known as Huangyan in China and Bajo de Masinloc in the Philippines. Meanwhile, China has continued to make moves around contested parts of the Kalayaan island chain and other areas within the Spratly Islands, an archipelago also claimed by the Philippines.
A Balancing Act
From Manila's perspective, in light of Beijing's ongoing occupation of Scarborough Shoal, the Philippines risks losing 38 percent of its exclusive economic zone to China, forcing Manila to rely fully on an outside power (such as the United States) or an international tribunal to counter Chinese aggression. Although China may pursue a strategy of gradually containing Philippine influence in the South China Sea and strengthening its own presence in the waters, Beijing's recent eagerness to take on Manila stems primarily from the Philippines' insufficient naval and coast guard capability, as well as the current lack of attention given to the issue by the United States -- Manila's main military ally. Future incidents like the May 9 shooting could provide additional opportunities for Beijing to assert its presence in the contested waters.
While Beijing may seize the opportunity in the latest tensions to shape its political sphere and bolster its alignment with Taipei, it may not prove accommodating to Taiwanese interests. Taiwan's relatively weak position in the maritime issues has forced its claims to be marginal, yet pragmatic. The country can seek to secure its interest either with its limited navy or by exploiting the rivalries among other claimant countries' space. Nonetheless, Beijing's escalated rhetoric and gestures could further squeeze Taipei, even though Beijing has been careful to avoid pushing Taiwan further away.
Ultimately, since China is Taiwan's top security threat, Taipei may enjoy Beijing's maritime protection to varying degrees while still pursuing an independent course in territorial issues. The fisheries pact with Japan in 2012 clearly demonstrated Taiwan's willingness to ignore Beijing's interests in pursuit of Taiwanese claims. In a similar manner, Taiwan may seek to avoid locking itself in an antagonistic relationship with Manila that would benefit China.
Read more: China's Opportunities in Taiwanese-Philippine Tensions | Stratfor
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Summary
An ongoing standoff between China and the Philippines over the Second Thomas Shoal -- a remote shallow coral reef in the Spratly Islands -- could be a new flashpoint in the countries' ongoing territorial tensions in the South China Sea. The standoff is another example of Beijing's intention to enforce its territorial claims in the disputed waters. China's relatively advanced military and technological capabilities leave Manila with few options to physically counter Beijing's claim without relying on a third party. China is betting that a lack of willingness on the part of the United States will allow it to strengthen its occupation of the islands and islets it wishes to claim, and Beijing is working to force Washington to recognize China's maritime presence and interests.
Analysis
On May 29, Philippines Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said Beijing had kept its vessels, including a naval frigate, around the Second Thomas Shoal (which China calls Renai Shoal and the Philippines have named Ayungin Shoal) since the vessels were dispatched in early May. Gazmin's comment came during an informal talk with Chinese Ambassador Ma Keqing, who had expressed concern that the Philippines might build additional structures on the shoal.
The coral reef, which is 15 kilometers (9 miles) long and 5 kilometers wide, is located approximately 105 nautical miles (120 miles) from the Philippines' western island of Palawan and is part of the Philippines' 200-nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone. The reef has been under the Philippines' control since 1999, when a tank landing ship, the U.S.-built BRP Sierra Madre, was run aground deliberately to mark the territory. The vessel has since served as an outpost for the Philippine military. Located very close to the southeastern fringe of Beijing's nine-dash line -- a loose boundary line demarcating China's maritime claims in the South China Sea -- the reef apparently gained Beijing's attention recently, and China has been pushing its territorial claim as justification for its presence in the water. The Second Thomas Shoal also is a strategic pathway to Reed Bank (called Recto Bank by the Philippines), which is believed to hold oil and natural gas resources that have piqued China's interest.
China's Strategy for a Physical Presence
Until now, China and the Philippines showed good intentions in the standoff in order to defuse immediate tensions. However, China's keeping vessels around the shoal -- currently guarded by only a dozen soldiers aboard the BRP Sierra Madre -- appears to be a tactic to gradually isolate the shoal and eventually deprive the Philippines of a presence in the area drawing China's interest. According to the Philippines, China's encroachment on the reef has made it difficult to rotate troops and perform maintenance operations and has blocked supplies (currently, the troops on the shoal have supplies for only half a month).
The current standoff is the latest episode in a string of maritime disputes in the South China Sea between China and the Philippines. Tensions between the countries over territorial claims in the sea resurfaced in 2010. China's determination to expand and strengthen its maritime boundary was exemplified by the seizure of Scarborough Shoal in 2012 after a Philippine warship confronted several Chinese fishing vessels near the shoal. Following this, Beijing continued to carry out activities in other islands or islets within and surrounding the Spratlys. In fact, Manila has said that, based on China's occupation of Scarborough Shoal, the Philippines risks losing 38 percent of its entire Exclusive Economic Zone.
Moreover, Beijing appeared to have a particular interest in Thitu Island (called Pagasa in the Philippines and Zhongye in China), where the Philippines' military headquarters for the Spratlys is located. It seems as though Beijing's intention over the long term is to move forward with a military buildup adjacent to the island and conduct regular patrols in an attempt to encircle the Philippines' deployments in the Spratlys.
Beijing's Maritime Buildup
Over the years, Beijing's attention has turned to maritime territories to accommodate its appetite for economic growth and energy resources. China has entered into numerous competitions for control of islands and islets and extended its presence in the South China Sea. As part of this, Beijing has gradually enforced its claims based on the nine-dash line, using the line as a supposed historical justification and boundary for its intrusions into and presence in disputed waters. This strategy has become a dominant factor in the region's security environment, since it has been accompanied by a buildup of China's naval and civilian maritime forces and technological capabilities in deep-sea exploration and drilling. This has left little room for the Philippines, as well as other claimant countries such as Vietnam, to counter Beijing's claims.
Considered one of Asia's weakest militaries -- and preoccupied with numerous internal insurgencies -- the Philippine navy is inherently inferior to the Chinese blue-water navy gradually taking shape. Although the Philippines had attempted to shift the focus of its security agenda from internal disputes to maritime matters, its military is far from on par with China's, especially considering Beijing's massive military upgrade. Moreover, China is building up its civilian maritime vessels, which it relies heavily upon in its strategies for the South and East China seas: When Beijing dispatches civilian maritime enforcement ships to reaffirm sovereignty, it effectively precludes other countries from confronting it with ships of their own. This strategy also allows the civilian vessels -- which are far more advanced than those belonging to other South China Sea claimants -- to patrol the waters without necessarily sparking an armed conflict.
In addition, Beijing relies on offshore energy exploration as a means of physically substantiating its territorial claims. Through indigenous development and partnerships with foreign companies, Chinese state-owned offshore oil companies -- particularly the China National Offshore Oil Corporation -- have built a growing deep-water exploration capability far more advanced than the capabilities of the Philippines and other claimants. This leaves the Philippines two options should it pursue energy exploration in the South China Sea: either partner with China at the expense of acknowledging Chinese claims in the disputed area, or seek external corporate partnerships (which often fail early on because of the military threat from China and the uncertain outcome of exploration).
Beijing's plan to gradually enhance its physical presence along the maritime boundary with the Philippines largely was driven by the Philippines' insufficient naval and coast guard capability and the lack of attention or assistance from outside powers, particularly the United States, the Philippines' security ally. Meanwhile, Beijing will find it logistically difficult, particularly during a crisis, to maintain a presence at all the islands, which are disconnected from each other. However, its actions around these islands have constituted a small-scale encroachment in its disputes with the Philippines and allowed China to test boundaries and highlight the United States' lack of action on behalf of its treaty allies in the region despite Washington's intentions to bulk up its presence in Asia. Ultimately, Beijing's intention may not be to monopolize the South China Sea, but to create a situation in which the United States will be forced to acknowledge China's interests and presence in the maritime sphere.
Read more: China, Philippines: The Latest Conflict in the South China Sea | Stratfor
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http://stratrisks.com/geostrat/13282
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Philippines to lead growth among region's investment darlings
The expectations continue to rise for the Philippine economy's growth prospects.
The country is seen to have the highest growth potential in the eight years to 2020 among Southeast Asia's new investment darlings – Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, or the TIP economies, a new report said.
In a June 18 report titled “Road map to 2020: TH, ID, PH,” Singapore-based DBS Ltd. economist Eugene Leow said, “The Philippines has the highest growth potential amongst the TIP economies.”
Thailand's gross domestic product (GDP) growth is seen averaging at 5.2 percent until 2020, while both Indonesia and the Philippines' expansion for the eight-year period is projected at 6.3 percent, according to the report.
Leow said the Philippines “can potentially run at trend GDP growth of 7 to 8 percent,” as its healthy fiscal position, manageable inflation and a financial system awash with cash has yet to be fully utilized. But he said, “A more conservative growth figure of 6 to 6.5 percent is realistic in the coming eight years as we factor in a gradual improvement in investment rates.”
Even as the Philippines' largely consumption-driven economy grew at the fastest rate in Asia at 7.8 percent in the first quarter, foreign direct investments (FDI) remain the region's lowest at $1.3 billion in the period.
Low investments from both domestic and international fronts has seen joblessness at a stubbornly high 7.5 percent of the labor force.
Leow said this forms part of the Philippines transitioning into a more investment driven economy. Debt-watchers Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services' decision to award the country investment grades are seen fuel much needed foreign and domestic investments.
The report noted that “the Philippines has the strongest external account balance, a banking sector best able to extend credit and a solid fiscal policy that is not threatened by heavy subsidy spending.”
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/313394/economy/business/philippines-to-lead-growth-among-region-s-investment-darlings-dbs-ltd
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Devices Given to Chinese Legal Advocate Had Tracking Spyware, N.Y.U. Says
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: June 21, 2013
BEIJING — Dissidents inside China have long been accustomed to a lack of privacy in their daily routines. Phone conversations are monitored, e-mails are read and public security agents trail human rights activists when they venture outside their homes.
Several electronic devices that were given to Chen Guangcheng last year were loaded with spyware designed to track his family’s movements and their online activity.
But according to officials at New York University, several electronic devices that were given to Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese legal advocate, soon after his arrival in the United States last year were loaded with spyware designed to track his family’s movements and their online activity.
Two of those devices, an iPhone and an iPad, were given to Mr. Chen by China Aid, a Texas-based Christian group that pushes for greater religious freedom in China. Bob Fu, the president of the group, said that he was out of the country when Mr. Chen arrived in New York so his wife, Heidi, handed over the equipment. The discovery of the tracking software came as a complete surprise, he said.
“This story is just crazy,” said Mr. Fu, an exiled Chinese dissident who championed Mr. Chen’s plight during the years of persecution Mr. Chen endured as an opponent of forced abortion.
The allegations, first reported by Reuters, threatened to further complicate an already messy narrative surrounding Mr. Chen’s tenure at N.Y.U., which includes accusations that school officials, bowing to pressure from the Chinese government, sought to curtail his public advocacy and then forced him to leave the Greenwich Village campus sooner than he expected.
School officials and associates of Mr. Chen, who is blind, have vehemently rejected such assertions and insisted that his fellowship at N.Y.U. was always meant to last one year.
Mr. Chen has declined to provide evidence backing up his assertions, issued in a brief statement last Sunday, that Beijing pressured N.Y.U. to terminate what he acknowledged was a generous arrangement that included tutors, security and housing for him, his wife, and their two children.
With Mr. Chen silent in recent days, Mr. Fu has become one of his more vocal advocates, eagerly telling reporters what Mr. Fu said were instances in which N.Y.U. tried to limit Mr. Chen’s access to conservative political figures and advocates who opposed abortion. Representative Christopher H. Smith, Republican of New Jersey, who frequently confers with Mr. Fu on human rights issues in China, has threatened to convene a Congressional hearing on Mr. Chen’s time at N.Y.U.
According to people with knowledge of the episode, Mr. Fu’s wife presented the Apple devices to an assistant of Jerome Cohen, the N.Y.U. law professor who was instrumental in arranging Mr. Chen’s exit from the American Embassy in Beijing, where he had sought refuge after escaping house arrest.
The gifts, along with at least two other phones that were handed to the assistant, arrived on the chaotic day Mr. Chen and his family landed in New York. After an examination by N.Y.U. technicians, all the devices were found to be compromised with spyware, said an associate, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.
The spyware included global positioning software that allowed a third party to track the whereabouts of the device, and presumably its owner, and another program that copied its contents to a remote server. After removing the spyware, technicians returned the Apple devices to the Chens, who were told about what had happened. The two other phones, their provenance a mystery, were not given to Mr. Chen.
“He was upset, but he was more concerned about the relatives he left behind who were being mistreated by the authorities,” the associate said.
Mr. Fu was not informed about the spyware on the items, and by all accounts, his relationship with the family deepened in the months that followed.
John H. Beckman, an N.Y.U. spokesman, confirmed the broad outlines of the episode but said he had no further information. Professor Cohen told Reuters he thought the compromised devices were an attempt to keep tabs on Mr. Chen remotely. “These people supposedly were out to help him, and they give him a kind of Trojan horse that would have enabled them to monitor his communications secretly,” he said.
Professor Cohen was traveling in Asia on Friday and could not be reached for comment.
In an interview, Mr. Fu said he learned on Thursday from Reuters that the items his wife had bought at an AT&T store in Texas were compromised. He said a technician he employs had activated the devices and added Skype but nothing else.
He suggested that the spyware could have been installed after his wife dropped off the items but before they were given to the Chens, a gap of at least a day.
“More than anyone else, we want to get to the bottom of this,” he said, adding that he had asked the F.B.I. to look into the matter. “We will fully cooperate with any investigation and hope N.Y.U. will do the same.”
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U.S. Seen Losing to China as World Leader
Global Survey Finds Economic Shifts are Changing Perceptions of the Two Nations
By JAMES T. AREDDY
SHANGHAI—People in the U.S. and China view each other with increasing suspicion, and many others around the world see the U.S. losing its place to China as the leading economic and political power, a new public opinion poll shows.
According to a survey of around 38,000 people in 39 countries released on Thursday by the Washington-based Pew Research Center, majorities or pluralities in 23 of the nations surveyed said China either has replaced or eventually will oust the U.S. as the world's top superpower. The Chinese don't question their nation's eventual dominance, but Americans are split on the question, the poll found.
The Pew survey is the latest indication that the global impact of China's economic expansion over the past three decades and the 2008 U.S. economic stumble are reordering perceptions about China—the world's most populous nation—and the U.S.—its biggest economy.
"China's economic power is on the rise, and many think it will eventually supplant the United States as the world's dominant superpower," the report concludes.
The new data show a shrinking number of Americans, 47%, believing the U.S. will continue to hold its lead over China, compared with 54% in 2008. By contrast, about two-thirds of Chinese say their country has overtaken the U.S., or eventually will, and 56% say China deserves more respect, Pew found.
The data also suggest deepening mutual suspicion. Only 37% of people in the U.S. view China favorably, similar to the 40% of Chinese who hold a positive view of the U.S. For both countries, the percentages for favorable views have declined since Pew asked the questions in 2008.
Less than a third of the Chinese surveyed described their nation's relationship with the U.S. as cooperative, down sharply from 68%, figures that hew closely to plummeting opinions in China about U.S. President Barack Obama.
Some 23% of Chinese describe the U.S. relationship as hostile. Pew said China is the only non-Islamic country where more than half the people, 54%, hold an unfavorable opinion of Americans.
Still, China has work to do on its own reputation, the survey found. The U.S. commands a 63% favorable rating around the world, and the survey found it is far more often considered by other nations as a partner compared with China, which gets a favorable rating from only half those surveyed elsewhere.
Where China holds positive images is in areas such as science and technology. Such so-called "soft power" influences on others are a particularly strong aspect of the generally positive international image the U.S. holds. "Science and technology are China's most popular soft power," Pew concludes. It found the biggest positive impact across Africa and Latin America. About 59% of Africans appreciate China's business methods, Pew said.
Achievements don't necessarily make China popular. Pew detected widespread distaste for China's military and human rights policies and little interest in its cultural exports.
Still, outright anti-Chinese sentiment is limited around the world, according to Pew. The country is least popular among Japanese, 5% of whom hold a favorable view, with most doubting China will emerge the dominant superpower. While Japanese sentiment follows tension with China over territorial issues, Germans too have grown less positive about China, despite strong exports to the country.
Beijing's strongest supporters include Malaysia, Pakistan, Kenya, Senegal and Nigeria, along with Venezuela, Brazil and Chile. In pockets of Asia, Africa and South America, China is considered a partner, though to most countries China is neither a partner nor an enemy.
In more and more areas, China generates similar sentiment as the U.S. Neither gets good marks for considering how their policy affects citizens elsewhere, for example.
Younger and better-educated people tend to be more positive about both nations. "China's greatest global asset in the future may be its appeal among young adults around the world," Pew found.
China is already the world's leading economic power, say many citizens of nations the U.S. considers its closest allies, including both the U.K. and Germany. People living closer to China, including Japan and South Korea, say the U.S. is at the top; those nations report growing suspicion about China's military ambition. "One of the major challenges for China's global image is that few," only 11 countries surveyed, "believe the Chinese government respects the personal freedoms of its people," the survey found.
Write to James T. Areddy at james.areddy@wsj.com
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By Robert D. Kaplan
The biggest question in international affairs has nothing to do with Syria or Iran going nuclear. It is has to do with the state of the Chinese economy, and the ability of China's one-party system to navigate through an economic slowdown to a different growth model. China's leaders will likely survive this trial. But what if they don't? What if China faces a severe socio-economic crisis and attendant political one of an unforeseen magnitude? What would be the second-order geopolitical effects? If Syria explodes, it does so regionally. If China explodes, it does so globally.
Such a crisis could lead to an upsurge in nationalism, an emotion that can be easily dialed upwards by Communist party leaders as a means of clinging to power. And it would not only be Communist leaders who play the nationalist card: dissidents and aspiring democrats both might do so as a way to gain political legitimacy. More nationalism would mean more of the same military activity in China's near abroad. China's defense budget has already increased eight-fold since 2001, and might continue to do so under a more nationalist-style regime (even amid slowing growth), enabling China to further implement an anti-access area-denial strategy in the East and South China seas, emphasizing submarine, ballistic missile, and cyber warfare capabilities. The aim would not be to go to war with the U.S. Navy and Air Force (quite the opposite, in fact), but to establish a force ratio more favorable to the continued, perceived growth of Chinese maritime power. But none of this would alter the current state of play in the Indian and Western Pacific oceans -- defined by a slowly diminishing unipolar American air and naval environment.
But what if the opposite occurred? What if an economic and political crisis ignited a downward trend in Chinese military procurements, or at least a less steep growth curve? This is also quite possible: to assuage public anger at poverty and lack of jobs, China's leaders might, for political reasons, ask the military to make sacrifices of its own. After all, a Chinese Spring might be all about demanding more freedom and not about nationalism. Over time, this could affect the foundations of the Eurasian maritime order, albeit to a lesser extent than the collapse of the Berlin Wall shook the foundations of the European continental order.
Stalled Chinese defense budgets would reinvigorate a Pax Americana from the Sea of Japan to the Persian Gulf, despite the debacles of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and despite the U.S. military budget crunch. The U.S. Navy would own the seas as though World War II had just ended. Japan, which continues to modernize its air force and navy (the latter is several times larger than the British Royal Navy), would emerge as an enhanced air and sea power in Asia. The same goes for a future reunified Korea governed from Seoul, which, in the event of a weakened China, would face Japan as a principal rival, with the United States keeping the peace between the two states. Remember that Japan occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945, and the hostility between Japan and Korea is thus much greater than the hostility between Korea and China.
Turmoil in China would slow the economic and security integration of Taiwan with the mainland. With more than 1,500 ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan from the mainland and 270 commercial flights per week between the two Chinas, U.S. military aid to Taipei is designed to defend Taiwan against a sudden Chinese attack, but not necessarily to postpone an inevitable unification of sorts. But the inevitable unification might not happen in the event of a prolonged political crisis in Beijing: a likelier scenario in this case would be for different regional Chinas, democratic to greater or lesser extents, more loosely tied to Beijing, to begin to emerge. This, too, translates into a renewed Pax Americana as long as U.S. defense cuts don't go too far.
The South China Sea is where the effects of U.S. military decline would, in a geopolitical sense, be most keenly felt. China's geographical centrality, its economic heft (still considerable), and its burgeoning air and naval forces translate into Finlandization for Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore in the event of large-scale U.S. defense cuts. However, internal disarray in China, combined with modest U.S. defense cuts that do not fundamentally affect America's Pacific forces, could unleash the opposite effect. Emboldened by a continued American presence and a less than dominant Chinese military, countries such as Singapore and Australia, which are already spending impressively on arms relative to the size of their populations, could emerge, in a comparable military sense at least, as little Israels in Asia, without having to spend more on defense than they already are. Vietnam, meanwhile, with a larger population than Turkey or Iran, and dominating the South China Sea's western seaboard, could become a full-fledged middle-level power in its own right were Beijing's regional grip to loosen, and were Vietnam to gradually gets its own economic house in order.
India, like Vietnam and Taiwan, gains most from a profound economic and political crisis inside China. Suddenly China would be more vulnerable to ethnic unrest on the Tibetan plateau abutting the Indian subcontinent. This would not necessarily alleviate the Chinese threat on India's northern borderlands (given the possibility of heightened ethnic unrest inside an economically weakened China), but it would give India greater diplomatic leverage in its bilateral relations with Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar, all of which have been venues for the quiet great game India has been playing with China. Myanmar has historically been where Indian and Chinese political and cultural influences overlap. Though China has been the dominant outside economic influence in Myanmar in recent decades, prior to World War II Indian economic middlemen were a major force in the capital of Yangon. Look for the Indian role in Myanmar to ramp up in the event of a partial Chinese political meltdown. Given Myanmar's massive stores of natural gas, coal, zinc, copper, precious stones, timber and hydropower, this would not be an insignificant geopolitical development.
If India were among the biggest winners in the event of severe Chinese internal turmoil, Pakistan would be the biggest loser. China has been Pakistan's greatest and surest patron in recent decades, and has given Pakistan stores of infrastructure aid -- highways in the north and a port in the south -- without lectures about human rights and terrorism, or threats about withdrawing aid. China has balanced against India, Pakistan's principal enemy, even as China keeps Pakistan from becoming friendless in the event of a rupture with the United States. A weakened China would leave Pakistan facing a strengthened India and a United States in a measurably better position to influence the future of Afghanistan over the next decade or so. Pakistan's options would still be considerable, on account its geographic centrality to southern Central Asia and Afghanistan in particular. But otherwise, without a strong China, Pakistan would be lonely in a hostile world.
Such a bleak scenario for China overall would leave the United States and its allies -- both de facto like India and Vietnam, and de jure like Japan and Australia -- in a commanding position around Eurasia's navigable southern rimland. But such a scenario is unlikely, even if the Chinese economy significantly slows and domestic unrest follows. More likely will be a tumultuous period of consolidation and readjustment within China, with China's strategic and military planners able to weather the storm with adjustments of their own for the long term.
But there is a larger point: geopolitics, while ostensibly about the geographically-constrained interactions of states, rests also on the internal conditions of states themselves, in which the actions of individuals are crucial and so much hangs on a thread. While both the United States and China face epochal budgetary and economic crises -- which in both countries bleed over into the political realm -- the crisis in China is far more profound than in the United States. After all, the system of governance in Washington simply enjoys so much more legitimacy than the one in Beijing, with the American public institutionally better equipped to vent its frustrations than the Chinese one. Such internal realities will remain the overriding geopolitical facts in Asia.
Read more: China's Geopolitical Fallout | Stratfor
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http://globalnation.inquirer.net/39913/pentagon-us-to-equip-philippines-with-powerful-radar
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http://www.scmp.com/business/economy/article/1323967/cautious-start-shanghais-free-trade-zone
Cautious start for Shanghai's free trade zone
The free-trade zone is up and running after much fanfare but questions still remain about exactly how free the region will be
07 Oct 2013
The Waigaoqiao Bonded area of the pilot Shanghai free trade zone, which is making a cautious start since being launched on Sunday amid great expectations. Photo: Xinhua
After the big-bang unwrapping, the uncertainty: how free is the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (FTZ)?
As the central government's propaganda machine churned out news of the inauguration on Sunday, which star supporter Premier Li Keqiang and other state leaders decided to give a miss, some analysts have started asking exactly how different will the 29 square kilometre slice of trade haven in coastal Pudong New Area be.
Clues to concessions on corporate income tax have been elusive while very little has been said on capital account and interest rate liberalisation.
While dos are scarce, there is a long list of don'ts in the form of a "negative list" for foreign investors. Moreover, private companies are required to make public their annual profit and loss account, which some say would make foreign companies "uncomfortable".
In Hong Kong, private companies are required to submit their accounts to the inland revenue department, but they are under no obligation to make them public.
"It suggests to us a cautious start and the gradual approach that officials want to take in this experiment," said Nomura chief economist Zhang Zhiwei, referring to the "negative list".
Billed as a path-breaking experiment for China's economic and financial reforms, the zone is a new economic model comprising the existing tariff-free port areas and the Pudong airport, and will integrate free movement of goods with financial innovation. The trial, if proven successful, will be replicated in other parts of the country.
The zone has identified six focus areas: financial services, shipping, trade, professional services, culture and the public sector. A first wave of 36 companies have been given the go-ahead to set up business inside the zone, but Citibank and DBS are so far the only foreign banks chosen to operate there.
However, although the financial sector is the soul of the zone, foreign capital investment is restricted in banks, finance companies, trust companies, foreign exchange dealing, insurance companies, securities entities and microcredit companies.
Other no-go areas for foreign investors include broadcasting and online news. They are even barred from setting up internet cafes and golf courses.
To the disappointment of investors, the zone does not offer any corporate income tax concessions, which they say would severely dent its attractiveness. It was widely expected that the corporate income tax would be reduced from the existing minimum rate of 25 per cent to 15 per cent, or lower.
Wang Wei, tariff director at the Ministry of Finance, has argued the zone would set the precedent for other regions and that it would not be feasible to replicate the 15 per cent tax incentive elsewhere in the country without undermining the national tax net.
Comparing the tax rates offered at the Shanghai zone and that by the new economic zone in Qianhai, Deloitte China tax partner Caesar Wong Shun-on said it would actually make more sense to have preferential tax rates in Qianhai to attract foreign investors because the latter is starting from scratch while Shanghai is an established business hub.
However, among its advantages, foreign parents of firms operating in the zone are allowed to issue yuan-denominated bonds as part of the financial services incentive. The FTZ has also promised to issue business licences and tax registration certificates in four days, compared with the 29 days elsewhere in China.
Despite the zone's overall shortcomings, some analysts said that it should not mean Hong Kong is insulated from competition. "It is a wake-up call for Hong Kong. The city must act proactively and more swiftly for its future," one analyst said.
Wong said Hong Kong should combine its strength with that of Macau and the three new economic zones across the border - Qianhai in Shenzhen, Hengqin in Zhuhai and Nansha of Guangzhou. "In 15 or 20 years, China itself may become a free-trade zone."
Federation of Hong Kong Industries chairman Stanley Lau Chin-ho said that to lift its competitiveness, Hong Kong should integrate deeper with the Pearl River Delta region.
"Guangdong has infrastructure and available land while Hong Kong has free flow of information and expertise in financial services," he said. "Hong Kong should improve its quality of life to attract more talent and foreign investors."
HSBC chief executive, Peter Wong Tung-shun, said he does not think the zone is "a zero-sum game". The zone would create more opportunities, a bigger pool of assets and a more varied range of assets that in turn would benefit Hong Kong, he said.
HSBC, the largest foreign bank on the mainland, is seeking to set up a sub-branch in the free-trade zone.
"We believe that further liberalisation offers new opportunities for foreign banks in areas like product innovation, fund raising and corporate investment," Wong said. "As the largest foreign bank in mainland China, HSBC looks forward to participating in the pilot programmes within the free-trade zone and contributing to its development by leveraging our global expertise."
Daniel Rosen, a partner at the Rhodium Group think tank, sees the zone as a test bed for policies and lessons that might later be applied on a national scale.
"There are tonnes of learning along the way," said Rosen. "Those immediately involved in designing this programme don't have any reservation that this is the right way to go for China in the long run. Letting it seep in gradually allows it to deal with the political resistance."
When deciding on the zone's details, the leadership is likely to keep in mind the experiences of other countries in the region who have opened up their capital markets in the past.
"Most of the ideas being tested at the FTZ are widely practised and tried before by other countries. But many of those countries, such as Korea, Thailand and Malaysia, have suffered financial crises afterwards for reasons such as lack of vigilance or getting the order of capital account liberalisation wrong," said Alaistair Chan, economist at Moody's Analytics.
"The Chinese government is keen to avoid any potential instability from opening up its capital account and so will proceed cautiously," he said.
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This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Wary start for Shanghai experiment
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WSJ
TOKYO—Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he envisions a resurgent Japan taking a more assertive leadership role in Asia to counter China's power, seeking to place Tokyo at the helm of countries in the region nervous about Beijing's military buildup amid fears of an American pullback.
In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with The Journal, Mr. Abe also defended his program of economic reforms against growing criticism that the package lacks substance—though he offered few details of new programs, or a timetable, that anxious foreign investors have been seeking.
"I've realized that Japan is expected to exert leadership not just on the economic front, but also in the field of security in the Asia-Pacific," Mr. Abe said, referring to his meetings with the region's leaders at a series of summits earlier this month.
Mr. Abe also defended his program of economic reforms against growing criticism that the package lacks substance—although he offered few details of new programs, or a timetable, that anxious foreign investors have been seeking.
And in his continuing attempt to juggle his desire to enact economic stimulus policies with the need to pay down Japan's massive debt, the prime minister said he was open to reviewing the second stage of a planned increase in the sales tax in 2015 if the economy weakens after the first hike is implemented next spring.
Less than a year after taking office, Mr. Abe has already emerged as one of Japan's most influential prime ministers in decades. He has shaken up the country's economic policy in an attempt to pull Japan out of a two-decade-long slump, and plotted a more active diplomacy for a country whose global leadership has been crimped by a rapid turnover of weak prime ministers.
In the interview, Mr. Abe made a direct link between his quest for a prosperous Japan, and a country wielding greater influence in the region and the world.
"Japan shrank too much in the last 15 years," the leader said, explaining how people have become "inward-looking" with students shunning opportunities to study abroad and the public increasingly becoming critical of Tokyo providing aid to other countries.
"By regaining a strong economy, Japan will regain confidence as well, and we'd like to contribute more to making the world a better place."
Mr. Abe's views expressed in the interview reflect his broader, long-standing nationalistic vision of a more assertive Japan, one he has argued should break free of constraints imposed on Japan's military by a postwar pacifist constitution written by the U.S.– and that has also been hampered by economic decline.
Mr. Abe made clear that one important way that Japan would "contribute" would be countering China in Asia. "There are concerns that China is attempting to change the status quo by force, rather than by rule of law. But if China opts to take that path, then it won't be able to emerge peacefully," Mr. Abe said.
"So it shouldn't take that path, and many nations expect Japan to strongly express that view. And they hope that as a result, China will take responsible action in the international community."
China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Mr. Abe's assertions. In the past, the Chinese government has said that Mr. Abe's government was in danger of leading Japan toward a revival of right-wing militarism.
Mr. Abe's comments come amid a period of heightened tensions between the two Asian giants, as high-level diplomatic contact has virtually dried up, amid a territorial dispute in the East China Sea. While the conflict preceded Mr. Abe becoming prime minister last December, Beijing has accused him of aggravating relations, with assertive rhetoric defending Japan's claims, and ramping up Coast Guard defense over the chain of islands known as the Senkakus in Japan and Diaoyu in China.
His remarks also follow months of active diplomacy that has taken him to summit meetings with heads of state in virtually every country in the region—with the notable exceptions of China and South Korea, which also has its own strained ties with Tokyo.
In December, he intends to host in Japan the leaders of the 10 members of Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The event is intended to mark 40 years of Japan's ties with the bloc that includes countries from Thailand to Indonesia to the Philippines to Myanmar, but also to further elevate Japan's role as a leader in a region where China has also sought influence.
Mr. Abe's pursuit of a more expansive role was on full display at a pair of Southeast Asia summits earlier this month, where he openly took sides in public comments with the Philippines in a South China Sea territorial dispute between Manila and Beijing. Mr. Abe's role in those meetings was amplified by the absence of American President Barack Obama, who canceled his participation in the Indonesia and Brunei summits amid budget paralysis back in Washington.
Some leaders expressed concern that Mr. Obama's absence symbolized a pullback in U.S. participation, and influence, in the region, as domestic political divisions undermine the American leader. Mr. Abe declined to answer directly a question about whether he was concerned about a decline in the clout of Japan's close ally.
"In the world today, there are many things which only U.S. can take care of. And in this context, the U.S. takes leadership and we expect the U.S. to do so going forward."
Mr. Obama's political woes have been in contrast to Mr. Abe, who has accumulated unusual power for a Japanese leader, steering his party this year to unified control of parliament, riding the popularity of his economic program, dubbed Abenomics. A quick dose of stimulus—easy money from the Bank of Japan, and new public works spending—has given Japan the fastest-growing economy and stock market of the advanced economies this year.
But now Mr. Abe's economic program is at a turning point. The next phase involves debating politically difficult economic reforms and deregulation measures, like making it easier for companies to shed workers, or reducing protections for farmers. He is facing increasing criticism from local media, economists, and global investors that these "pro-growth" plans are too vague.
Mr. Abe said the government had submitted related bills to the parliament, stressing that what mattered were the results.
"I am aware of the various criticism over my growth strategy. It may lack the flashy sort of features, but I think what is important is the outcome."
But Mr. Abe stopped short of shedding light on whether he would proceed with some key measures seen vital for growth.
On whether to review a 40-year-old system providing income support for rice farmers, long blamed for their low productivity, the prime minister said he would let experts discuss the issue first.
And on slashing the corporate tax rate, one of the highest among advanced economies which critics blame for the low foreign investment in Japan, Mr. Abe said his ruling party is the one in charge of setting tax policy.
Asked about whether he would proceed with a plan to raise the sales tax again to 10% in October 2015, Mr. Abe said he would first review the impact of the increase to 8% next April from the current 5%.
He said he expected the economy to be dragged down by the tax hike effect from April to June, and the key would be how it recovers afterward. "I would like to watch carefully how much it can recover in July, August and September. And then I'll make an appropriate decision."
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http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2013/10/27/south-china-sea/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20131027
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The Senkaku Boomerang
Japan needs U.S. support against Chinese bullying.
Updated Oct. 31, 2013 7:23 p.m. ET
China's leaders may have thought that by frequently dispatching ships and planes into Japan's territory around the tiny Senkaku Islands they would cause Tokyo to bow to their demands. Instead, their strategy of harassment and intimidation has accomplished the opposite—and then some.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has rallied Japanese to defend their territorial sovereignty, and he may succeed in reinterpreting the Japanese constitution to allow Japan to come to the military aid of its allies. The threat to the Senakakus has strengthened Tokyo's alliance with Washington, with the two countries agreeing earlier this month to bolster their military ties, including the deployment of U.S. P-8 maritime surveillance planes in Japan and stationing a second missile-defense radar.
Japan has also strengthened its ties with Southeast Asia. Smaller regional powers have come to see Tokyo as a potential defender, along with the U.S., of the peace against a hegemonic Middle Kingdom.
Enlarge Image
Japan Coast Guard vessel PS206 Houou sails in front of Uotsuri island, one of the disputed islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, in the East China Sea on August 18, 2013. Reuters
In an interview with the Journal last week, Mr. Abe, fresh from a successful tour of the region, signalled his willingness to take up a greater leadership role and issued a warning to Beijing. "There are concerns that China is attempting to change the status quo by force, rather than by rule of law. But if China opts to take that path, then it won't be able to emerge peacefully," he said.
Mr. Abe's remarks were followed by more clear-eyed talk from Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera, who on Tuesday accused China of endangering the peace by sending its coast guard vessels into the Senkaku waters more than once a week: "I believe the intrusions by China in the territorial waters around the Senkaku islands fall in the 'grey zone' (between) peacetime and an emergency situation."
Japan has begun conducting amphibious exercises that simulate the kind of operations that might be needed to defend or retake the Senkakus. It is expected to create a new unit tasked with such missions.
The danger now is that the chances of accident, miscalculation or even a shooting incident grow with each Chinese foray near the islands. That's what makes Japan's demonstration of political resolve and military capability all the more important, but Japan cannot be left on its own. The U.S. took the Senkakus from Japan after World War II and returned them in the early 1970s, effectively settling the question of their sovereignty for American purposes. The more explicit the Obama Administration is that the Senkakus are Japanese, the likelier Beijing is to back down.
In the long term, there may be a possibility for Japan and China to resolve their differences by freezing the status quo and deferring resolution of the dispute to future generations. That was the view Deng Xiaoping had of the matter, and current leader Xi Jinping would do well to follow in those footsteps. The alternative is to further alienate China from its neighbors, and further call into doubt the promise—and the hope—that China's rise will be peaceful.
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hina's Evolving Nuclear Capability
Analysis
October 31, 2013 | 1040 Print Text Size
China's Evolving Nuclear Capability
A Chinese nuclear-powered submarine prepares to dive. (AFP/AFP/Getty Images)
Summary
Despite notable progress over the past few years, the sea-based leg of the Chinese nuclear triad will remain significantly constrained by geographical and technological factors. In the last week the Chinese media have provided unprecedented coverage of the shadowy Chinese nuclear submarine force. During a slew of media reports and interviews, numerous Chinese military analysts have emphasized that China's nuclear ballistic missile submarines are now capable of conducting extended deterrent patrols.
This news is not entirely surprising. In its 2012 draft to the U.S. Congress circulated in November 2012, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission indicated that China was on the cusp of attaining a credible nuclear triad. The report came at a time when the U.S. Department of Defense had emphasized Chinese military progress, including the projected fielding of a new submarine-launched ballistic missile by 2014. While it is important to highlight such Chinese advancements, limiting factors must be kept in mind as well. For now, China must rely on its land-based nuclear arsenal as a deterrent against the West.
Analysis
China's ambition to build a three-pronged nuclear capability, specifically by bolstering its submarine-launched nuclear missile arsenal, is tied to its desire to enhance its deterrent potential against other nuclear powers, especially the United States, Russia and India. With continuing advancements in the precision and potency of the U.S., Russian and Indian nuclear arsenals, the Chinese are all the more determined to strengthen their own nuclear deterrent. Maintaining a credible sea-based nuclear arsenal will greatly enhance China's ability to respond to a nuclear first strike (i.e., its second-strike capability). A sea-based deterrent is also a matter of prestige for Beijing, since only a few countries have such a capability.
Technical Limits
China has seen significant progress in the development of its sea-based strategic nuclear deterrent but still lags considerably behind leading powers, especially the United States. The first Chinese submarine-launched ballistic missile, the JL-1A, which has a range of approximately 2,500 kilometers (nearly 1,600 miles), is believed to still be the Chinese nuclear submarine force's main missile. By comparison, the U.S. Navy's primary submarine-launched ballistic missile has more than four times the range (the exact figure is classified). China is currently developing a second-generation missile that is supposed to have an operational range of 7,000-8,000 kilometers, but little is known about it except that it is expected to be operational in a limited capacity by 2014.
China also lags in nuclear submarine technology. Aside from a single submarine, the Type 092 Xia class that is used largely for test purposes, the Chinese nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine force consists entirely of the Type 094 Jin class. Three or four vessels of the Jin class have reportedly been completed since the first was launched in 2004. The Type 094 is a clear improvement over the Type 092 but still underwhelms in many areas, especially in quieting technology, a critical variable when it comes to a submarine's survivability. According to a report by the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Intelligence, the Jin class is even more detectable than the Soviet Delta III class submarines from the 1970s.
Problems of Geography
Despite technological improvements, Chinese nuclear submarines would still need to safely bypass the "first island chain" into the open waters of the Philippine Sea to truly possess a global sea-based nuclear deterrent. Even when the early versions of the second-generation submarine-launched ballistic missiles, the JL-2, enter service, Chinese submarines operating in the East China Sea or within the first island chain will not be able to target the continental United States or Western Europe.
U.S., China: Exploring the Undersea Balance
The most likely route for Chinese submarines into the wider Pacific Ocean is through the Luzon Strait, which is situated between Taiwan and the Philippines and provides direct access into the Philippine Sea. The Luzon Strait is a safer access point than those that lie north between Taiwan and Japan because the Philippines does not have an anti-submarine warfare capability and Taiwan's anti-submarine capability is relatively limited, especially when compared to Japan's. Furthermore, U.S. conventional forces are not stationed in Taiwan or the Philippines like they are in South Korea and Japan.
Still, the Luzon Strait is not perfect, especially in the event of conflict with the United States. First, Taiwan is making a concerted effort to improve its anti-submarine warfare capabilities. By August 2015, Taiwan will have inducted a dozen P-3C Orion aircraft suitable for anti-submarine warfare in an airfield in the south, ideally positioned to monitor the Luzon Strait. Given that the Type 094 is a relatively noisy submarine, U.S. nuclear attack submarines patrolling the Luzon Strait would also be well positioned to detect and track the Chinese vessels.
These limitations are the principal reason the People's Liberation Army Navy has seemingly elected to adopt a modified "bastion strategy" around the South China Sea. So far, the Chinese have positioned their nuclear ballistic submarines with the North Sea and South Sea fleets. The North Sea Fleet includes the single Type 092 and reportedly another Type 094, while other Type 094s appear to have been deployed with the South Sea Fleet. In addition, the construction of the Sanya submarine base on Hainan Island means the infrastructure is mostly in place to support expanded nuclear submarine operations in the South China Sea.
There are a number of advantages that the South China Sea offers the Chinese in terms of nuclear ballistic submarine operations. First, unlike the East China Sea or Yellow Sea, the South China Sea is distant from the very capable South Korean and Japanese anti-submarine assets as well as the U.S. forces stationed in those countries. The South China Sea also gives Chinese submarines considerable room to maneuver compared to the more constricted waters immediately east of China. Finally, unlike the East China Sea, the South China Sea provides multiple access points to the wider oceans. In other words, while the South China Sea could offer a reasonably safe operating area for the Chinese navy, it also provides considerable potential for breakout operations in the future, whether through the Luzon Strait or other passageways such as the Sulu Sea or the Karimata Strait.
Operating from the East China Sea, South China Sea or Yellow Sea, Chinese submarines will soon have a credible sea-based nuclear deterrent against Russia and India. But the Chinese submarine fleet will still need to access the open waters beyond the first island chain to maintain a sea-based deterrent against Western Europe and the United States. Until China builds a nuclear submarine fleet (with well-trained crew and support) stealthy enough to routinely attempt access into the Philippine Sea, or submarine-launched ballistic missiles with enough range to target the continental United States, it will have to rely on its land-based strategic nuclear forces as the primary nuclear deterrent against the United States.
Read more: China's Evolving Nuclear Capability | Stratfor
Follow us: @stratfor on Twitter | Stratfor on Facebook
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China gave a mere $100K to the Philippines to help with the aftermath of the huge typhoon. Colbert put out a call to his audience to top that. Score so far:
China: $100k
Colbert Nation $245k
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As the US military continues its contraction, China militarily increases its assertion of dominance:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/11/23/national/china-sets-up-air-defense-id-zone-above-senkakus/#.UpL0CuK8Ctv
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As the US military continues its contraction, China militarily increases its assertion of dominance:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/11/23/national/china-sets-up-air-defense-id-zone-above-senkakus/#.UpL0CuK8Ctv
Time for the Japanese to dig those rising sun headbands out of the attic.
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Having seen the negotiations with Iran, can you imagine how excited the Chinese are to meet with Lurch.
We'll be lucky if we still have Hawaii when he's done.
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http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2013/11/25/america_has_no_military_strategy_for_china_106978.html
November 25, 2013
America Has No Military Strategy for China
By Seth Cropsey
Given the intense media focus on the woes of Obamacare’s rollout, it’s not surprising that no one paid much attention when Japan scrambled its fighters three days in a row beginning on October 24th in response to Chinese military aircraft’s incursions into Japan’s airspace as the so far bloodless maneuvering over claims to Japan’s Senkaku islands sharpens.
A miscalculation that drew fire has the potential to enmesh us in a dispute that serves no one’s interest. An escalation of such a dispute would be disastrous. Yet the U.S. has no strategy for a conflict with China. The sole U.S. preparation for such an outcome is a set of ideas known as the AirSea Battle, (ASB).
The ASB is a concept that has taken root in the U.S. Defense Department as the Obama administration talks about rebalancing forces from the Middle East to Asia, and as the American high command gradually accepts the possibility that China may be a strategic competitor to the U.S. The idea of ASB—a new approach to coordinating military services’ roles in combat, and not a strategy—comes in two parts: to preserve large American forces’ ability to bring power to bear by destroying an enemy’s command and control infrastructure; and to defeat the defenses that allow the launch of low-cost, proliferating, and increasingly accurate missiles. ASB means to accomplish this by new, almost revolutionary, cross-Service combinations of command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, that are reflected in equally coordinated operations.
On October 10th the House Armed Services Committee’s Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, chaired by Representative J. Randy Forbes (R-VA) held a public hearing on the Air-Sea Battle concept at which senior admirals and generals from all the military services testified. The discussion between the knowledgeable elected representative and high-level officers was congenial, informed, and—in unanswered questions—alarming. Representative Forbes asked the officers to explain the strategy on which the AirSea Battle concept is based. They couldn’t. Forbes noted the challenges to East Asia’s stability and America’s historic position as a defender of this stability raised by China’s growing military power. He observed that these challenges deserve a strategy worthy of the name, and warned against one that is determined by today’s weapons or the reduced force that will exist in the future.
Forbes’ point is solid. Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz famously remarked that because “the enemy (at war games played at the Naval War College) was always Japan, and the courses were so thorough…nothing that happened in the Pacific was strange or unexpected” in the war that followed. Nimitz was on target: surprise is part of warfare, and Japan certainly surprised us at the war’s beginning.
However, our surprise was strategic readiness. The island-hopping campaign, amphibious warfare, the role of aircraft carriers—all had been anticipated and rehearsed as elements of the strategy to defeat Japan. Even unrestricted submarine warfare, illegal on the day the war started, had been contemplated and quickly became part of an effective interdiction, rollback, and suppression strategy. The strategy and the organizational tools and the force structure and levels necessary to make it work had been envisioned and were under construction when the war began—largely thanks to Congressman Forbes’s predecessor Carl Vinson, the “Father of the Two-Ocean Navy."
China is not an enemy of the U.S. However, its ambition for regional hegemony, increasing armed strength, active effort to deny U.S. forces’ access to the Western Pacific, and increasingly troublesome disputes with its neighbors—in several cases, our allies—over territorial claims in the South China Sea all point to substantial difficulties ahead in relations between Washington and Beijing. China’s challenges to the rule of law, the global commons, liberal capitalism, and human rights are worth defending, and we need a strategy to do so. Miscalculation, the escalation of what began as a minor incident, and rising Chinese nationalism press the question of potential conflict. Preventing conflict is key: strategy, operational posture, readiness, resilience, and sustainability are its essential elements. We should be prepared, and we are not.
Warfare, like life itself, changes constantly. Success requires adaptation. Where adaptation falters consequences follow. In our own Civil War, the industrialized manufacture of repeating weapons, breech-loading naval guns, steam-propulsion, and armor-plating transformed the technology of warfare globally, but not its strategies, operations, or tactics. But not soon enough. Indeed, until virtually the end of World War I, commanders “came on in the same old way,” as Wellington commented on Napoleon’s conduct of Waterloo. The machine gunfire of World War I pushed men into defensive trenches from which they emerged to be cut down by the millions. The tank, which protected its operators from enemy fire while simultaneously attacking an enemy, did not appear on the battlefield until late 1916, and not in numbers nor accompanied by tactics to end the carnage.
Today, the expanding accessibility of relatively low-cost and increasingly accurate missiles questions a long-standing assumption of American strategy, that we could bring to bear land and naval power at a great distance from the U.S. in forward and en route sanctuaries, thus exploiting the strategic depth of two great oceans. If a million dollar missile can incapacitate or sink an aircraft carrier or a large amphibious ship that costs many billions—or destroy a U.S./allied base within missile range—we must either respond or accept the possibility that large parts of our military will become vulnerable or irrelevant, and in the loss of their regional punch grow weak in their usefulness to the nation’s position as a global power.
This is where the AirSea Battle comes in. With is anti-access and area denial strategy, China is challenging our strengths on her maritime approaches. ASB’s notion of integrating forces especially naval and air capabilities to destroy or otherwise reduce an enemy’s ability to keep us out of the area we require for applying power has great merit. But the ASB office devotes itself more to large changes in technical jointness than to crafting a strategy based on what integrated U.S. and allied forces can achieve.
An analogy is useful here. While coordination between an operating surgeon, anesthesiologist, nurses, and post-operative care are essential to surgery, perfecting such coordination offers no guidance about how to perform a difficult surgical procedure, much less what strategy a patient should use to preserve or improve health.
The ideas offered by the ASB, while necessary, are neither based upon, nor do they serve as the basis of, strategy for any region of the world where countries, most notably China, are actively building the command and control, intelligence, reconnaissance, surveillance, and offensive capability to deny the U.S. and its allies access to the seas far off its coast. The ASB office public document does not include the word “China.” So, although the U.S. Defense Department acknowledges the challenge of China’s anti-access efforts, we have no strategy to defeat it nor does there appear to be a plan to construct one.
The U.S. military faces a growing problem in securing the access that would be needed to project power as China’s expanding reach threatens our bases or treaty allies in the Western Pacific. The House Armed Services Committee’s expressions of concern were bipartisan and serious. The ASB is one of several approaches to managing risk, but by its authors’ own admission, it is a concept, not a plan.
We have no strategy on which to base the design of weapons or tactics to meet this challenge. We should. A sensible one would be based upon forward defense in a long war; command of the air and seas; close integration of ground forces to dominate the littorals, islands, archipelagoes, and straits; and building and deploying the forces required to assure a potential adversary that taking on the U.S. is a fool’s errand.
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Seth Cropsey is a Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute. He served as a naval officer from 1985 to 2004 and as undersecretary of the Navy in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations. He is most recently author of Mayday: The Decline of American Naval Supremacy.
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U.S. Flies B-52s Through China’s Expanded Air Defense Zone
Two long-range American bombers have conducted what Pentagon officials described Tuesday as a routine training mission through international air space recently claimed by China as its “air defense identification zone.”
The Chinese government said Saturday that it has the right to identify, monitor and possibly take military action against aircraft that enter the area, which includes sea and islands also claimed by Japan. The claim threatens to escalate an already tense dispute over some of the maritime territory.
American officials said the pair of B-52s carried out a mission that had been planned long in advance of the Chinese announcement this past weekend, and that the United States military would continue to assert its right to fly through what it regards as international air space.
READ MORE »
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/27/world/asia/us-flies-b-52s-into-chinas-expanded-air-defense-zone.html?emc=edit_na_20131126
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Milagro! This is the correct response.
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BEIJING—The U.S.'s flying of B-52 bombers uncontested through China's new air-defense zone is challenging Chinese efforts to assert its power, prompting Beijing to qualify a threat of action against any planes that didn't comply.
China's Defense Ministry said Wednesday it had monitored and identified the U.S. aircraft inside the zone over the East China Sea during the over-flights Tuesday, and the Foreign Ministry said that enforcement of the zone's rules would vary according to circumstances. "We will in accordance with different situations take corresponding reactions," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang.
The muted response suggested to some analysts that China wouldn't attempt, in the short term, to repel U.S. and Japanese military planes entering the zone without obeying its rules. It stood in contrast to the announcement Saturday that Beijing had declared the Air Defense Identification Zone over an area that includes islands at the center of a territorial dispute between Beijing and Tokyo. The Defense Ministry said the armed forces would take unspecified "defensive emergency measures" against aircraft that didn't identify themselves and obey instructions from Chinese authorities.
By sending the B-52s into the zone—even at the farthest edge from China according to the Chinese military—the U.S. sent a clear message that Washington would stand by its ally Japan—including over threats to the disputed islands it controls but which Beijing contests.
"The U.S. military is flying where they've been flying before, flying as usual. There's been no change," Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera told reporters in Tokyo. "The Chinese action is a unilateral one, and the U.S. shares this view," he said.
The U.S. military countered China's latest move to lay claim to disputed islands with the establishment of an air defense zone in the East China Sea by flying B-52 bombers over the area. Paul Burton, Asia-Pacific director at IHS, tells Deborah Kan why this move has escalated tensions in the region.
Though Beijing didn't interfere with the U.S. sortie, the prospect of Chinese intercepts of U.S. and Japanese air forces is raising the risks for all sides, by increasing the likelihood of a collision or a miscalculation that could quickly escalate into a broader military crisis. The rising tensions come just ahead of a visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden to China, Japan and South Korea next week.
"The vice president will make clear the US has a rock solid commitment to our allies" in his conversation with China's leaders, said a senior administration official. "The United States also believes the lowering of tension in this region is profoundly and deeply in the American interest." Mr. Biden is scheduled to mxieet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang.
A second official said that Mr. Biden would also try to clarify China's intentions in setting up the air-defense zone and try to make the case that the action isn't in China's interests. Rather it has become part of "an emerging pattern of behavior that is unsettling" to China's neighbors. The official said talks among all the parties could help to "cool down tensions."
The U.S. moved to try to counter China's bid for influence over increasingly jittery Asian neighbors by sending a pair of B-52 bombers over disputed islands in the East China Sea. There has been a muted response from China, Jeremy Page reports. Photo: Getty Images.
Experts said Beijing is unlikely to back down and will scramble its jet fighters more often than in the past to escort U.S. and Japanese planes in the area, without trying to force them to land or leave.
"If the U.S. continues to sends its aircraft without following the rules, we'll send our military planes to escort them, not to repel," said Shen Dingli, an expert on international relations and Chinese foreign and defense policy at Fudan University in Shanghai.
"China does not under any circumstances have the right to expel any aircraft outside its own airspace," he said. "But we'll escort them to show there is a cost. If the U.S. sends one, we'll send two, and we have 1,000 waiting."
He and other analysts said China had probably not intercepted the B-52s to avoid a direct confrontation with a more powerful military force and to show its willingness to resolve difference over the zone in talks with U.S. officials.
Beijing's announcement of the air-defense zone raised tensions with Japan and also unnerved several Southeast Asian nations locked in territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea. Beijing's image was already battered by its initially small offer of aid to one of those nations, the typhoon-damaged Philippines. Compounding the tensions, China on Tuesday sent its sole aircraft carrier to the South China Sea for training exercises under escort of four warships.
"Its deployment does not contribute to collective efforts to strengthen regional stability and instead serves to threaten the status quo," said Raul Hernandez, a spokesman for the Philippines' Department of Foreign Affairs.
In Beijing's contest with Tokyo over the islands, which Japan calls the Senkaku and China the Diaoyu, military experts have said China lacks the air power and sufficiently experienced pilots to mount a daily challenge to the better trained, technologically advanced U.S. and Japanese air forces.
Accidents have strained relations before. A Chinese jet fighter collided with a U.S. Navy EP-3 surveillance plane off Hainan Island in southern China in 2001, and after the U.S. plane made an emergency landing on Hainan, Chinese authorities detained the aircraft and its crew until the U.S. apologized.
Adding to the current risks, both China and Japan regard the airspace immediately surrounding the disputed islands as their national airspace and reserve the right to shoot down any unidentified aircraft that enters.
The standoff over the islands reflects the changing geopolitical dynamics of Asia, as China seeks to displace the U.S. as the dominant military power in the region, and Washington tries to shore up defense ties with allies concerned about China's rise.
The U.S. has taken China's announcement of the air-defense zone as an opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to Asia and still unrivalled military capabilities after U.S. influence in the region has recently appeared to be on the wane, analysts said.
Japan's hawkish Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, has made a point of taking a stand against China's recent assertiveness in the region, and has called repeatedly for broader interpretation of Japan's pacifist constitution that would allow it to help an ally under attack.
Chinese President Xi, meanwhile, has cast himself as a charismatic strongman intent on reclaiming China's prominence in the world. As part of that, he has taken a more confrontational approach to territorial disputes in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, analysts and diplomats said.
The Chinese strategy, analysts said, is to challenge Japan's control of the islands without provoking an actual military conflict and to raise the costs to Washington to get it to push Tokyo to acknowledge the dispute and start negotiations.
China's move to announce the new air-defense zone "is a deliberate calculated act to break the present Sino-Japanese stalemate over the Senkaku Islands," said Carlyle A. Thayer, an expert on Asian maritime security at the Australian Defence Force Academy. "China's actions are carefully calibrated. They are designed to push the envelope of China's claims while appearing defensive."
On the domestic front, a risk for Mr. Xi is that his rising personal power has raised expectations with a highly nationalistic domestic audience, leaving him vulnerable should China come out worse off in the dispute.
In China's relatively open online forums, some Chinese citizens criticized the military's failure to stand up to the U.S. on the B-52s while others questioned the decision to establish the air-defense zone in the first place.
"The immediate reaction [from U.S.] with both words and action shows the adventurism in China's decision over the air-defense zone, and the passive and embarrassing consequence resulting from that," Pan Jiazhu, a well-known columnist on military issues who goes by the pen name Zhao Chu, wrote on his verified account on the Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblogging service.
Internationally, meanwhile, China needs to show it has sufficient military muscle to enforce the zone while also reassuring neighbors, especially in Southeast Asia, where China is also involved in territorial disputes, that the zone doesn't threaten their interests.
"It will be very important for China to establish [the zone's] credibility," said Wang Dong, a Northeast Asia security specialist at Peking University. At the same time, "China needs to make a good case why it's defensive and limited and why it should not be seen as aggressive."
—Josephine Cuneta and Celine Fernandez in Manila, George Nishiyama in Tokyo, and Vu Trong-Khanh in Hanoi, Vietnam, contributed to this article.
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pdated Nov. 25, 2013 8:03 p.m. ET
The Obama Administration isn't known for its displays of American resolve, but on Tuesday it did U.S. allies in Asia and the cause of global security a service by sending a pair of B-52 bombers over disputed islands in the East China Sea.
The planes, which took off from a U.S. base in Guam, deliberately entered a new Chinese Ministry of Defense Zone without informing Beijing. On Saturday China announced the new defense zone that includes the Senkaku Islands that belong to Japan but are claimed by Beijing. The announcement was a clear attempt to intimidate Japan while sending a message to the world, and it fits the pattern of China's increasingly aggressive military actions in both the East and South China Seas that risk an armed clash.
The U.S., Japan and other nations also have air defense identification zones in which planes entering their airspace must declare themselves, but there is a key difference here. China declared its intention to challenge planes and demand that they follow instructions in the new zone regardless of whether they intend to enter Chinese airspace or are merely transiting through the area.
This is an attempt to interfere with the normal rules of global navigation and assert de facto Chinese control over a huge chunk of the Western Pacific. Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel immediately condemned the move as an attempt to change by force the status quo over the Senkakus. Mr. Kerry also noted the threat to freedom of navigation. China responded by telling the U.S. to butt out, so sending the B-52s was necessary to underscore that the U.S. will not let China's declaration stand.
Beijing's brinksmanship is reminiscent of its frequent harassment of U.S. naval vessels in international waters and the buzzing by Chinese fighters of U.S. EP-3 surveillance planes that caused a collision in 2001. Beijing is trying to make its exclusive economic zone into a no-go area for foreign military ships and aircraft. This is a serious violation of international law that must be resisted if U.S. security guarantees and President Obama's "pivot" to Asia are going to have any credibility.
China could now decide to escalate, but it is less likely to do so if the U.S. shows it is willing to defend its allies and global norms. Beijing engaged in a similar display of intimidation toward Taiwan in 1996 by staging missile tests as the Clinton Administration initially wrung its hands. Only after Bill Clinton dispatched two U.S. carrier battle groups to the area did the crisis ease.
Beijing is a master of bully-and-bluff tactics, pushing adversaries into a position where they must choose between capitulation or conflict. But it may have overreached this time, since the new zone all but obliged the U.S. and Japan to respond. The U.S. is obligated by treaty to defend Japan if it is attacked, and the best way to avoid having to do so is to make clear to Beijing that the U.S. takes the treaty seriously.
By trying to use force to seize control over the Senkakus' region, Beijing is edging closer to naked aggression. It has to be shown that such bullying won't succeed.
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The key question is how far are both sides willing to go? The Chinese military has stated openly that they'd trade the lives of a million troops to take out 15,000 Americans. They doubt the American public is willing to suffer that loss of life.
They've open mocked Obama to his face. If the PLAAF does shoot down an American or Japanese plane, what next?
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"China's Defense Ministry said Wednesday it had monitored and identified the U.S. aircraft inside the zone over the East China Sea during the over-flights Tuesday, and the Foreign Ministry said that enforcement of the zone's rules would vary according to circumstances. "We will in accordance with different situations take corresponding reactions," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang."
Translation: When we think we are strong enough and you are weak enough, we will bitch slap you.
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"China's Defense Ministry said Wednesday it had monitored and identified the U.S. aircraft inside the zone over the East China Sea during the over-flights Tuesday, and the Foreign Ministry said that enforcement of the zone's rules would vary according to circumstances. "We will in accordance with different situations take corresponding reactions," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang."
Translation: When we think we are strong enough and you are weak enough, we will bitch slap you.
Yup. See the bump phase of a shark attack.
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Anyone think Obama was calling the shots when the BUFFs were sent to fly through the "zone"?
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From a Canadian friend in the firearms industry:
"I heard some interesting news today out of China. Our distributor here in Canada who did just under 100million in sales this year has been told by the Chinese government that they will not be exporting ammunition out of China for the foreseeable future as they feel their reserves are too low. Rifle and pistol sales can continue but no ammo."
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GM: This is China/Japan/US issues, but this is the type of thing I mention in the Iran thread. Numbers 2 and 4, at least, have a rational choice element that could be researched more.
http://www.whiteoliphaunt.com/duckofminerva/2013/11/4-hypotheses-on-why-china-suddenly-declared-this-new-air-defense-zone.html
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The bump of the Chinese shark causes President Kitty to flinch:
U.S. Advises American Commercial Airlines to Obey China’s Flight Rules
After an internal debate, the Obama administration has decided to tell American commercial airlines to comply with China’s demands to be notified of any flights through a broad swath of international airspace that it has claimed as an air defense zone, officials said Friday.
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Crossing a line in the sky
What China’s new air-defence zone over disputed islands says about its foreign policy
Nov 30th 2013 | From the print edition
ACUTELY conscious that the emergence of new powers on the world stage has more often than not led to war, China’s leaders make much of their plans for a “peaceful rise”. But they often have an odd way of showing it. Take China’s declaration on November 23rd of an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) above a stretch of the East China Sea that includes the Senkaku or Diaoyu islands, which it disputes with Japan. This was bound to create alarm in China’s own neighbourhood and tension in its relations with the incumbent superpower. So it calls into question the priority China really places on maintaining peace; or, perhaps, its skill in managing its rise without sparking conflict.
The declaration seemed contrary to at least three stated foreign-policy aims. First, China claims to aspire to a “new type of great-power relationship” with America. But the invocation of an ADIZ—elsewhere in the world a relic of the cold war—was almost bound to prompt some old-fashioned muscle-flexing in response. America quickly reaffirmed that, although it takes no position on who owns the islands, they are covered by its mutual-defence treaty with Japan. Nor did it take America long to test the threat contained in the ADIZ declaration of unspecified measures against aircraft entering the zone without following its procedures. On November 26th two American B-52 bombers based in Guam crossed the new zone without informing China. An American aircraft-carrier group was already in the area, ready for a joint exercise with Japan, simulating a defence of the country from attack.
All this came just ahead of a planned visit to China, Japan and South Korea in early December by America’s vice-president, Joe Biden, intended to reassure both China and America’s allies about America’s strategic “pivot” to Asia. Mr Biden is said to have a good rapport with Xi Jinping, China’s leader. Just as well.
Second, the ADIZ has done great damage to China’s fairly successful recent efforts to reassure its neighbours of the benevolence of its intentions. China and South Korea, for example, have been getting on well lately—helped in part by shared resentment of what they see as Japan’s refusal to confront the evils of its wartime past, and its intractability over territorial disputes. Yet the ADIZ, which also encroaches on areas claimed by South Korea, prompted the government in Seoul to express regret too. And it created a bone of contention with Taiwan, with which relations have steadily improved in recent years.
Both Mr Xi and Li Keqiang, the prime minister, made well-received tours in South-East Asia in October, drawing attention to their reliable presence at a time when Barack Obama had cancelled a trip. China’s importance as an economic partner overshadowed the disputes it has with four regional countries over the South China Sea. But the ADIZ to the north suggests it is only a matter of time before China feels able to enforce one there as well. That China’s new aircraft-carrier and other warships were this week headed for exercises in the South China Sea was a reminder that China claims almost the entire sea and is ready to bully rivals—notably, of late, the Philippines—that stand up to it.
Third, and most broadly, the assertiveness over the specks in the East China Sea makes a mockery of the 35-year-old policy adopted by Deng Xiaoping of “strategic patience” or “hiding one’s brilliance”—which implied concentrating on developing the economy before throwing China’s weight around. Yet more than ever, China needs a stable global environment. A Communist Party central-committee meeting earlier in November promised a series of ambitious but high-risk economic reforms.
So it is possible that the announcement of the ADIZ was a blunder, an ill-considered overreaction to Japan’s threat to shoot down unmanned aircraft entering its airspace. Chinese foreign policy has sometimes seemed unco-ordinated and oddly insensitive to the consequences of assertive nationalism. But in this case all the relevant arms of party and government were surely on board. And at the party meeting, Mr Xi seemed to have consolidated his own power over decision-making with the announcement of a new national-security council to take charge of the management of internal and external threats. Even so, China may have miscalculated in some ways: in including South Korean-claimed airspace, for example, or in including aircraft not just approaching China, but merely crossing its ADIZ; or perhaps in thinking that such a zone was enforceable at all.
Yet the ADIZ dovetails with China’s long-term strategy for the islands. Since Japan’s government “nationalised” three of them (buying them from a private owner) in September 2012, China has stepped up incursions in the sea and air around them. Having contested Japanese sovereignty over the islands for decades, it has set out to undermine Japan’s claim to exercise administrative control. The ADIZ is a natural extension of this.
On the way up
The aim is to cow Japan, knowing that its government is under pressure from business to improve ties with the country’s biggest market, and believing that, as China rises inexorably, Japan is in long-term decline. China also hopes, some Chinese scholars suggest, to raise the diplomatic and military cost to America of its alliance with Japan, partly by provoking Japan into belligerence of its own. Then America might exert pressure on its ally to meet China’s demand, which is deceptively reasonable: for Japan to concede that the status of the islands is disputed.
An even more fundamental explanation of China’s apparently reckless behaviour is that nothing in its commitment to a peaceful rise is meant to trump the safeguarding of its national sovereignty. Mr Xi emerged from the party’s meeting appearing all-powerful. But no Chinese leader can afford to look weak on an issue, such as the disputed islands, that China has framed as one of its own sovereignty. He will find it hard to back down.
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http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2013/11/26-whats-happening-east-china-seas-kalb
From the article:
Last weekend, the Chinese astonished the U.S. and Japan, very close allies with similar views about Senkaku sovereignty, by declaring that all planes flying in this zone must get China’s permission. They must submit flight plans to Beijing. “If an aircraft doesn’t supply its flight plans,” the Chinese Ministry of National Defense announced, “China’s armed forces will adopt emergency defensive measures in response.”
Wait a minute!, was the immediate reaction in Tokyo and Washington. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel denounced the Chinese announcement as a “destabilizing attempt to alter the status quo in the region,”…increasing “the risk of misunderstanding and miscalculations.” Japan’s Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida echoed Hagel’s statement, describing the Chinese action as “one-sided” with the potential to “trigger unpredictable events” and “cannot be allowed.”
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http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2013/11/27-gang-two-russia-japan-make-play-pacific-hill
From the article:
New ties between Russia and Japan would mark not only a breakthrough in their relations but also a significant shift in Northeast Asia’s political dynamic. Since the 1950s, U.S. alliances with Japan and South Korea have dominated regional security. Russia and China thawed their frosty relationship in the 1990s and signed a friendship treaty in 2001, but China’s rise has increased tensions in every regional relationship.
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BD's post of a Russia-Japan alliance is quite interesting. I'm sure it is too provocative for the US administration to talk publicly about a military conflict with China, but I would hope we have a plan in place. This seems like a thoughtful piece on the subject.
A Military Strategy to Deter China By T.X. Hammes
http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2013/12/01/a_military_strategy_to_deter_china_106987.html
China’s announcement of an Air Defense Identification Zone last weekend made Seth Cropsey’s commentary “America Has No Military Strategy for China” extremely timely. He is absolutely correct on two key statements. First, an escalation between China and Japan would be disastrous and, even more importantly, the United States has no strategy for a conflict with China. Secretary Cropsey notes that the AirSea Battle concept is the “sole U.S. preparation” but that it is not a strategy.
While no set of actions can guarantee continued peace between China and the United States, carefully considered national and military strategies will reduce the probability of a conflict. The United States National Strategy makes that an explicit goal. In his November 2011 address to the Australian Parliament, President Barack Obama stated U.S. National Strategy would:
“continue our effort to build a cooperative relationship with China. … all of our nations have a profound interest in the rise of a peaceful and prosperous China.”
This year, Tom Donilon, the National Security Advisor, clarified and reinforced the Administration’s determination to continue its rebalance to Asia.
“To pursue this vision, the United States is implementing a comprehensive, multidimensional strategy: strengthening alliances; deepening partnerships with emerging powers; building a stable, productive, and constructive relationship with China; empowering regional institutions; and helping to build a regional economic architecture that can sustain shared prosperity.”
Thus, the United States has a clearly articulated national strategy to encourage peaceful growth in the region. Unfortunately, as Cropsey noted, the United States has failed to express a coherent military strategy to support its national strategy.
Deepening the confusion concerning U.S. military strategy is the tendency of many observers to assume that CSBA’s paper, AirSea Battle: A Point-of-Departure Operational Concept, expressed the U.S. military strategy for a conflict with China. The paper postulated that in the “unthinkable” case of a war with China, U.S. efforts would include a “executing a blinding campaign against PLA battle networks, executing a suppression campaign against PLA long-range, principally strike systems, seizing and sustaining the initiative in air, sea, space and cyber domains.” This paper stated it was not proposing a strategy but only a concept for overcoming China’s area denial/anti-access capabilities.
Perhaps the biggest weakness of the ASB concept is that it scares our allies without deterring China. Since most ASB technology is top secret, U.S. officials are unable to discuss it with our allies. As a result, many allies assume the United States will follow the plan described in CSBA’s paper and initiate immediate, extensive attacks on Chinese territory. Our allies are obviously concerned that China will see such attacks as emanating from allied territory and respond in kind. In short, U.S. allies are being asked to offer bases without any knowledge of what actions the U.S. intends to take from those bases. Not a great way to reassure allies. Unfortunately because this operational approach relies heavily on cyber and space capabilities, it creates the unintended consequence of raising the value of a first strike. Thus it is escalatory. In a crisis, both militaries will know that the one that strikes first will achieve significant tactical and operational advantages.
ASB also fails to deter China. Because it is apparently dependent upon space and cyber systems, China may well feel it can degrade those systems enough to defeat the operational approach. Further, China may well believe the United States cannot afford ASB or at very least will not field the capabilities for a decade or more. A military strategy that offers a relative inexpensive defeat mechanism or a window of vulnerability has little deterrent value.
To eliminate the confusion and reassure other nations, the United States needs to go beyond simply declaring that ASB is not a strategy. It must clearly state U.S. military strategy for a possible conflict with China.
What Should a Military Strategy Do?
The first and most important function of a military strategy is to support the national strategy. Therefore, any military strategy must encourage or, at very least, not discourage the continued growth and integration of China’s economy with that of the global economy. A U.S. military strategy for Asia must achieve five objectives:
1. Deter China from military action to resolve disputes while encouraging its continued economic growth;
2. Assure Asian nations that the United States is both willing to and capable of remaining engaged in Asia;
3. Ensure access for U.S. forces and allied commercial interests to the global commons;
4. Achieve victory with minimal risk of nuclear escalation in the event of conflict; and
5. Be visibly credible today.
Ideally, a military strategy would also provide guidance for matching limited defense resources to appropriate force structures and equipment buys. Given the fact that China has a thermonuclear arsenal, a military strategy must emphasize deterrence and, if that fails, should escalate in a deliberate, transparent way.
Outline for a Strategy
Professor Eliot Cohen proposes that a strategy should include critical assumptions, ends-ways-means coherence, priorities, sequencing, and a theory of victory. Without listing, examining and challenging assumptions, it is not possible to understand a strategy. With assumptions identified, coherence in ends-ways-means becomes possible. These elements should not be treated separately. If goals are selected that exceed available means, one does not have a strategy. Priorities are required because a nation will not have the resources to do everything at once. Sequencing flows from priorities. Finally, a strategy must have a theory of victory – an answer to the question “how does this end?” It must express how the strategy achieves war termination on favorable terms.
A Proposed Military Strategy
I propose a military strategy I am calling Offshore Control: Defense of the First Island Chain that takes advantage of geography to block China’s exports and thus severely weaken its economy.
Assumptions
I have listed five key assumptions below.
1. China starts the conflict. Assuming China initiates the conflict presents the most difficult military situation for the United States.
2. There is a high probability that a conflict with China will be a long war. For the last 200 years, wars between major powers have generally run for years rather than months. Further, the United States would find a protracted conflict most challenging.
3. Any major conflict between the United States and China will result in massive damage to the global economy. The integrated global economy means that, like WWI, the opening of the conflict will cause major economic contraction.
4. The United States does not understand China’s nuclear decision process. Therefore, it is critically important that the U.S. strategic approach minimize escalation. If escalation is required, deliberate and transparent escalation is better than a sudden surprise that could be misinterpreted. This approach certainly violates the generally accepted precept that escalation in war be violent and sudden to achieve maximum effect. However, that maxim was developed before the advent of offsetting nuclear arsenals.
5. In space or cyber domains, a first strike provides major advantages. Thus any operational approach that requires the robust use of space and cyber capabilities is inherently destabilizing in a crisis.
Ends, Ways, and Means Coherence
The combination of decreasing defense budgets and rapid increases in procurement costs for new weapons suggests a strategy for conflict with China should assume limited means, at least to start. In addition to limited means, the United States must accept that China’s nuclear arsenal imposes restrictions on the way American forces may attack Chinese assets. The United States must select ways that minimize the probability of escalation to nuclear conflict simply because no one can win in a major nuclear exchange. With limited means and restricted ways, the ends selected therefore also should be modest. They must attain U.S. strategic goals but not risk a major nuclear exchange.
This logic leads to the concept of Offshore Control. Operationally, Offshore Control uses currently available but limited means and restricted ways to enforce a distant blockade on China. It establishes a set of concentric rings that denies China the use of the sea inside the first island chain, defends the sea and air space of the first island chain, and dominates the air and maritime space outside the island chain. No operations will penetrate Chinese airspace. Prohibiting penetration is intended to reduce the possibility of nuclear escalation and make war termination easier.
The denial element of the campaign plays to U.S. strengths by employing primarily attack submarines, mines, and a limited number of air assets inside the first island chain. This area will be declared a maritime exclusion zone with the warning that ships in the zone will be sunk. While the United States cannot initially stop all sea traffic in this zone, it can prevent the passage of large cargo ships and tankers. In doing so, it cripples China’s export trade, which is central to China’s economy.
(http://www.realcleardefense.com/images/wysiwyg_images/asiaislandchains1.jpg)
The defensive component will bring the full range of U.S. assets to defend allied soil and encourage allies to contribute to that defense. It takes advantage of geography to force China to fight at longer ranges while allowing U.S. and allied forces to fight as part of an integrated air-sea defense over their own territories. In short, it flips A2/AD to favor allies rather than China. Numerous small islands from Japan to Taiwan and on to Luzon provide dispersed land basing options for air and sea defense of the apparent gaps in the first island chain. Since Offshore Control will rely heavily on land-based air defense and short-range sea defense to include mine and counter-mine capability, we can encourage potential partners to invest in these capabilities and exercise together regularly in peacetime.
In keeping with the concept that the strategy must be feasible in peacetime, the United States will not request any nation to allow the use of their bases to attack China. The strategy will only ask a nation to allow the presence of U.S. defensive systems to defend that nation’s air, sea, and land space. The U.S. commitment will include assisting with convoy operations to maintain the flow of essential imports and exports in the face of Chinese interdiction attempts.
The dominate phase of the campaign will be fought outside the range of most Chinese assets and will use a combination of air, naval, ground and rented commercial platforms to intercept and divert the super tankers and post-Panamax container ships essential to China’s economy. Eighty percent of China’s imported oil transits the Straits of Malacca. If Malacca, Lombok, Sunda and the routes north and south of Australia are controlled, these shipments can be cut off. This reduction in energy supply will have a negative effect on China’s economy.
However, the United States must recognize that the dramatic reduction in China’s trade will significantly reduce its energy demands. Thus, energy interdiction is not a winning strategy. Exports are of much greater importance to the Chinese economy. Those exports rely on large container ships for competitive cost advantage. These ships also are the easiest to track and divert. Naturally, China will respond by rerouting, but the only possibilities are the Panama Canal and the Straits of Magellan – or, if polar ice melt continues, the northern route. U.S. assets can control all these routes. While such a concentric campaign will require a layered effort from the straits to China’s coast, it will mostly be fought at a great distance from China—effectively out of range of most of China’s military power.
Ends
That leads us to modest ends. Offshore Control is predicated on the idea that the presence of nuclear weapons makes seeking the collapse of the Chinese Communist Party or its surrender too dangerous to contemplate. The United States does not understand the Communist Party decision process for the employment of nuclear weapons but it does know the Party is adamant it must remain in control of China. Thus, rather than seeking a decisive victory against the Chinese Communist Party, Offshore Control seeks to use a war of economic attrition to bring about a stalemate and cessation of conflict with a return to a modified version of the status quo.
Theory of Victory
Offshore Control seeks termination of the conflict on U.S. terms through China’s economic exhaustion without damage to mainland China’s infrastructure or the rapid escalation of the conflict. It seeks to allow the Chinese Communist Party to end the conflict in the same way China ended its conflicts with India, the United Nations in Korea, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam. It allows China to declare it “taught the enemy a lesson” and thus end the conflict. Offshore Control does not seek decisive victory in the traditional military sense but secures U.S. objectives effectively. It recognizes the fact that the concept of decisive victory against a nation with a major nuclear arsenal is fraught with risks if not entirely obsolete.
Conclusion
President Obama has presented a U.S. national strategy that sets goals and the diplomatic, economic and political paths necessary to achieve them. While one can argue about how effectively they are being executed, the diplomatic, economic, and political paths have been defined. However, the United States has failed to articulate a coherent military strategy to support its national strategy. It is time to correct that deficiency. Offshore Control: Defense of the First Island Chain is a starting point for a discussion with our allies and friends in the region. It seeks to provide the military component of the U.S. national strategy in Asia.
The major goal of Offshore Control is to deter China by presenting it with a military strategy that cannot be defeated. This directly addresses one of the most worrying aspects of the current situation in Asia. Like the Germans before WWI, the Chinese may believe they can win a short war. In particular, they may believe their growing capabilities in space and cyber might neutralize U.S. power in the region. By showing that Offshore Control can be executed with today’s force even with dramatically reduced access to space and cyber, the United States and its allies can dispel the notion of a short war. The only way China can defeat such a strategy is to invest hundreds of billions of dollars over a decade or more to create a global sea control navy. And even that will not be a guarantee it wins such a conflict.
T. X. Hammes served 30 years in the Marine Corps and is now a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at the National Defense University (NDU).
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Excellent discussion!
Surprisingly, here is a piece of good news.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/2/us-sends-submarine-hunting-jets-e-china-sea-post/
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http://complex.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/02/if_china_s_airspace_grab_turns_violent
From the article:
With tensions mounting, I decided to see what might happen if the maneuvers escalated into actual combat. In my scenario, played out in the ultra-realistic computer game Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations (C:MANO), Beijing decides to teach Tokyo a lesson -- and opens fire on the Japanese planes. When three of the world's most high-tech air arms meet in simulated battle, the results might surprise you.
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http://freebeacon.com/chinese-naval-vessel-tries-to-force-u-s-warship-to-stop-in-international-waters/
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/367886/changes-pacific-return-1930s-victor-davis-hanson
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http://chinadailymail.com/2014/01/13/the-reasons-why-a-battle-for-zhongye-pag-asa-island-seems-unavoidable/
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http://chinadailymail.com/2014/01/13/the-reasons-why-a-battle-for-zhongye-pag-asa-island-seems-unavoidable/
No worries they'll send Biden or Lurch to sort it all out.
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"Lurch"? :lol: :lol: :lol:
More seriously now, this is serious :cry: :x
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"Lurch"? :lol: :lol: :lol:
More seriously now, this is serious :cry: :x
China knows that Buraq isn't going to stand up to them. What's stopping them?
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/16/us-military-dominance-pacific-decline-says-top-adm/?page=all#pagebreak
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The Great Chinese Internet Crash
Web freedom is the best answer to Beijing's foreign media crackdown.
Updated Feb. 3, 2014 7:40 p.m. ET
The Internet suffered perhaps its largest crash of all time on Jan. 21, when most of China's 500 million Web users were unable to get online for up to eight hours. Nine days later New York Times NYT -2.19% reporter Austin Ramzy was forced to leave China, the latest in a string of foreign journalists denied work visas by the Beijing government.
The link in these two stories is the Communist Party's obsessive control over information. Mr. Ramzy's case is all too familiar, since China has long squeezed foreign journalists to punish and deter reporting on sensitive matters such as the family fortunes of China's top leaders. The case of the Internet crash is more unusual.
The blackout seems to have been caused not by hackers or equipment failure but by the Chinese government's own Internet censors—the operators of the "Great Firewall." Instead of denying access to proscribed sites, they accidentally re-routed almost all Chinese Web traffic to a set of foreign sites that are usually blocked. Those servers promptly crashed, and the Chinese Internet ground to a halt.
The foreign sites are among Beijing's most hated, as they belong to U.S.-based companies that specialize in helping Web users evade firewalls. Through tools such as "UltraSurf" and "FreeGate," these companies allow millions of regular Chinese (or Iranians, or Cubans) to mask their online identities, bypass state censors, and read news or history as if they were online in New York or Paris.
There's a lesson here for U.S. policy makers considering how to respond to China's foreign-media crackdown, which includes years-long visa delays, restrictions on travel within China and occasionally physical violence. Some American lawmakers and commentators propose that Washington adopt reciprocal measures—denying U.S. visas to Chinese journalists, for example, or to more senior Chinese media executives, such as those running the Xinhua news agency's North American headquarters in Times Square.
Here's another idea: Increase U.S. government support for firewall-circumvention tools like those that Beijing was trying to stifle on Jan. 21 when it accidentally crashed the Internet. No tit-for-tat visa war, no limits on reporting, but a firmer U.S. policy to expand the free flow of information world-wide.
Hillary Clinton championed this agenda as secretary of state, at least rhetorically. "Nations that censor the Internet should understand that our government is proud to help promote Internet freedom," she said in 2010. Yet that year a bipartisan group of Senators criticized her department for wasting some $20 million that Congress had appropriated to support "field-tested" Web access tools for "large numbers of users simultaneously in a hostile Internet environment." State spent most of the money on training programs for local journalists overseas.
In later years the Clinton State Department distributed additional Internet freedom funds to a range of grantees. But today Washington's most promising source of funding for firewall-circumvention tools appears to be the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the agency that oversees Voice of America. The 2014 appropriations bill passed last month directs the BBG to spend "not less than" $25.5 million specifically on "the development and use of circumvention and secure communication technologies."
A U.S.-based engineer behind one of the leading firewall-busting technologies tells us that his server capacity is about 1.5 billion hits a day from 1.2 million users world-wide (with one-third coming from China). The engineer, who prefers to remain anonymous for security reasons, says an additional $20 million would allow him to host nearly 20 times as many users per day.
Beijing has devoted enormous resources to Internet censorship but it still struggles to control the flow of information. A modest Western investment could poke holes in the Great Firewall or even bring it tumbling down.
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Published on The National Interest (http://nationalinterest.org)
Source URL (retrieved on Feb 4, 2014): http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/asias-1937-syndrome-9817
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Asia's 1937 Syndrome
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Gordon G. Chang [2]
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February 4, 2014
Gordon G. Chang [2]
In first days of July 1937, Chinese and Japanese soldiers skirmished in Wanping, a few miles southwest of what is now the Chinese capital. China’s Chiang Kai-shek then knew his army was no match for Japan’s, and he had many opportunities to avoid battle with a vastly superior foe. Yet he ultimately chose war.
So why did Chiang decide to fight? And how did a minor—and probably accidental—clash turn into years of disastrous conflict? Now, analysts think today’s Asia feels like 1914 Europe [3], and last month in Davos Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe likened today’s situation involving his country and China to that of England and Germany a hundred years ago [4]. The better comparison, however, is 1937. The parallels between then and now, unfortunately, are striking.
The “China Incident,” as the Japanese then called the war, began on the banks of the Yongding River in Wanping during the night of July 7, 1937. Imperial troops, shooting blanks in an evening exercise, found themselves under fire, presumably from elements of the Chinese 29th Army. After the minor exchange near Lugouqiao, commonly known as the Marco Polo Bridge, Japanese officers were alarmed when one of their soldiers failed to turn up for a roll call. They then demanded that Chinese guards let them search nearby Wanping, where the Japanese had no general permission to enter.
A refusal triggered days of skirmishes. Once the fighting started, it did not matter that the stray Japanese private, who is thought to have wandered off to urinate, eventually turned up unhurt. Soon, Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China was at war. The Japanese in short order would take the Marco Polo Bridge, cut off Beijing from the rest of the country, and seize that city. They would then drive Chiang’s forces from the metropolis of Shanghai, the capital of Nanjing, and most of the rest of eastern China.
Chiang could have avoided the descent into a war in July 1937. In fact, both sides had agreed to a truce after the initial fighting around the Marco Polo Bridge. Yet the agreement did not hold. Oxford professor Rana Mitter compares the events [5] then to those surrounding the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo in 1914. War, in both cases, was coming.
It is not hard to see why conflict between China and Japan was inevitable in the late 1930s. Japan was obviously determined to control portions of continental Asia. Its troops were stationed near Wanping pursuant to a 1901 treaty signed after foreign powers, including Japan, had put down the Boxer Rebellion. Japan had previously humiliated the Qing dynasty in a quick war ending in 1895, wresting control of Korea and Taiwan. Japan had also grabbed a portion of northeastern China from the Russians in the first decade of the twentieth century and invaded Manchuria in 1931, establishing puppet state of Manchukuo there. The Japanese massacred Chinese under their control.
In the late 1930s there were many incidents involving China’s troops and those of Japan. Most of these were settled quickly because Chinese commanders on the ground would give into Japanese demands or make concessions of some sort. In July 1937, officers guarding Wanping refused Japanese demands and Chiang realized he would have to make a stand. “The dwarf bandits have attacked at Lugouqiao,” he wrote in his diary, using one of his favorite terms for his enemy. “This is the time for the determination to fight.”
Chiang, in other circumstances, might have been willing to give up Beijing, but he had been roundly criticized for letting the Japanese have their way in northeastern China and in any event realized they would not be satisfied with taking only the old imperial capital. As he noted on July 10, “This is the turning point for existence or obliteration.” The decision Chiang made at the Marco Polo Bridge proved to be catastrophic, but at the time the decision to fight was about the only one he could make.
Why is 1937 relevant to us? Today, China, no longer the victim, is aggressive, continually pressing its weaker neighbors to its south and east. For decades, the People’s Republic has been seizing specks in the South China Sea from Vietnam and the Philippines.
Most recently, Chinese vessels took Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines [6] in the middle of 2012. Washington, not wanting to antagonize Beijing and hoping to avoid a confrontation, did nothing to stop Beijing gobbling up the shoal despite America’s mutual defense treaty with Manila. The Chinese were not satisfied with their seizure, however. Now they are pressuring Second Thomas Shoal and other Philippine territory, also in the South China Sea. Beijing claims about 80 percent of that critical body of international water [7] as an internal Chinese lake.
And as soon as the Chinese took Scarborough, they began to increase pressure on the Senkakus in the East China Sea, regularly sending their ships into territorial waters surrounding the islands and sometimes flying planes into airspace there. The barren outcroppings are claimed and in fact administered by Japan, but Beijing, which calls them the Diaoyus, wants them.
Why should the Japanese care about rocks in the East China Sea? The reason is that the Chinese are acting like classic aggressors. They were not satisfied with Scarborough, so they pressured the Senkakus. Chinese analysts, egged on by state media, are now arguing that Beijing should claim Japan’s Okinawa and the rest of the Ryukyu chain [8].
Chinese leaders, it is true, have not launched a large-scale invasion since 1979. Instead, they now employ “salami-slicing” tactics so as not to invite retaliation. For instance, the Chinese have denied access to Scarborough Shoal with a ring of fishing and patrol vessels so as to effectively control the area. They issued fishing regulations [9], effective the first of this year, purporting to exercise sovereignty over a large portion of the South China Sea, thereby infringing on freedom of navigation. Moreover, there are indications that Beijing will declare an air-defense identification zone over that sea [10], just as it did over the East China Sea last November.
The Chinese were not the first to use the salami-slicing stratagem. They were, in fact, victims of these same tactics. As noted, the hardline Japanese military in the 1930s kept advancing in northeastern China, and the Chinese then were continually pushed back and humiliated. By 1937, there was a feeling in Chinese circles that Chiang Kai-shek had no choice but to fight back.
This is, of course, a lesson for Washington today because the parallels between then and now are striking. First, the Japanese military then, like the Chinese one today, was emboldened by success and was ultra-nationalist. The views now expressed by China’s senior officers are deeply troubling. For instance, General Liu Yazhou, the political commissar at the People’s Liberation Army National Defense University, recently urged armed conflict to seize territory [11]. “Those borders where our army has won victories are more peaceful and stable, but those where we were too timid have more disputes,” he said in a recent magazine interview. “An army that fails to achieve victory is nothing.”
Second, the media in the 1930s publicized the idea that Japan was being surrounded by hostile powers that wished to prevent its rise. That’s exactly what the Communist Party says today about China.
Third, then, like now, civilians controlled Asia’s biggest army only loosely. Although many believe that new Chinese ruler Xi Jinping is firmly in command, he appears to be allowing the military to engage in provocative behavior to obtain its support. In the complex bargaining process inside Beijing, Xi may be letting flag officers, head of the most powerful faction in the Party, tell him what policies he will adopt. If the PLA is now Xi Jinping’s faction—as many now believe—it is unlikely that he is in a position to tell the top brass what to do.
Yet whether Xi is an aggressor in his own right—a logical conclusion of the majority view that he is in control of the military—or is being led by the nose by flag officers, China is lashing out, taking on many nations at once. That is the same thing Japan did beginning in the 1930s.
Instead of ignoring Beijing’s provocative behavior, as Washington does, American policymakers should be concerned that countries on China’s periphery, pushed to the limit by Beijing’s unrelenting belligerence, could very well be forced into the same decision that Chiang Kai-shek made in 1937, to resist aggression with force of arms.
World War II, as we now know, started not on the plains of Europe in 1939, but near Beijing two years before, at a village named Wanping.
Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China. Follow him on Twitter: @GordonGChang [12].
More by
Gordon G. Chang [2]
Topics:Defense [13]
Grand Strategy [14]
Great Powers [15]
Rising Powers [16]
Security [17]
Regions:China [18]
Northeast Asia [19]
Japan [20]
Asia [21]
.
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Source URL (retrieved on Feb 4, 2014): http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/asias-1937-syndrome-9817
Links:
[1] http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=nationalinterest
[2] http://nationalinterest.org/profile/gordon-g-chang
[3] http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/2014-good-year-great-war-9652
[4] http://blogs.ft.com/the-world/2014/01/davos-leaders-shinzo-abe-on-war-economics-and-women-at-work/
[5] http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Ally-China%C2%92s-World-1937-1945/dp/061889425X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1391226014&sr=8-1&keywords=forgotten+ally
[6] http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/learning-the-lessons-scarborough-reef-9442
[7] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/world/asia/beijing-reasserts-its-claims-in-south-china-sea.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
[8] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/world/asia/sentiment-builds-in-china-to-press-claim-for-okinawa.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
[9] http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/09/us-usa-china-fishing-idUSBREA0817720140109
[10] http://ajw.asahi.com/article/asia/china/AJ201401310211
[11] http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1406458/fighting-east-south-china-seas-would-test-pla-prowess-general-says
[12] http://twitter.com/GordonGChang
[13] http://nationalinterest.org/topic/security/defense
[14] http://nationalinterest.org/topic/security/grand-strategy
[15] http://nationalinterest.org/topic/security/great-powers
[16] http://nationalinterest.org/topic/security/rising-powers
[17] http://nationalinterest.org/topic/security
[18] http://nationalinterest.org/region/asia/northeast-asia/china
[19] http://nationalinterest.org/region/asia/northeast-asia
[20] http://nationalinterest.org/region/asia/northeast-asia/japan
[21] http://nationalinterest.org/region/asia
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This from today’s Pravda on the Hudson:
MANILA — President Benigno S. Aquino III called on Tuesday for nations around the world to do more to support the Philippines in resisting China’s assertive claims to the seas near his country, drawing a comparison to the West’s failure to support Czechoslovakia against Hitler’s demands for Czech land in 1938.
Like Czechoslovakia, the Philippines faces demands to surrender territory piecemeal to a much stronger foreign power and needs more robust foreign support for the rule of international law if it is to resist, President Aquino said in a 90-minute interview in the wood-paneled music room of the presidential palace.
“If we say yes to something we believe is wrong now, what guarantee is there that the wrong will not be further exacerbated down the line?” he said. He later added, “At what point do you say, ‘Enough is enough’? Well, the world has to say it — remember that the Sudetenland was given in an attempt to appease Hitler to prevent World War II.”
graphic
Graphic: Overlapping Airspace Claims in the East China SeaNOV. 27, 2013
Mr. Aquino’s remarks are among the strongest indications yet of alarm among Asian heads of state about China’s military buildup and territorial ambitions, and the second time in recent weeks that an Asian leader has volunteered a comparison to the prelude to world wars.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan caused a stir in Davos, Switzerland, when he noted last month that Britain and Germany went to war in 1914 even though they had close economic ties — much as China and Japan have now.
Japan has been locked in an increasingly tense standoff with China over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, and even South Korea, which has been quieter about Chinese claims, expressed alarm last year when Beijing announced that it had the right to police the skies above a vast area of ocean, including areas claimed by Japan and South Korea.
While China’s efforts to claim rocks, shoals and fishing grounds off the coast of the Philippines in the South China Sea have been less high-profile, the Chinese have moved faster there.
The Philippines already appears to have lost effective control of one of the best-known places of contention, a reef called Scarborough Shoal, after Philippine forces withdrew during a standoff with China in 2012. The Philippine forces left as part of an American-mediated deal in which both sides were to pull back while the dispute was negotiated. Chinese forces remained, however, and gained control.
In his nearly four years as president, Mr. Aquino, 53, has exceeded expectations in his country and the region for what he would be able to accomplish in a nation once known as the “sick man of Asia.” He was a fairly low-key senator when he was propelled into the presidency in 2010 by a wave of national sympathy after his mother, former President Corazon C. Aquino, died the year before.
Political analysts say that his administration has fought and reduced the corruption that played a role in holding the Philippines back. In one practical measure of that change, the country has been able to pave more roads per 100 million pesos in spending (about $2.2 million) than before — when funds were lost to corrupt officials and incompetence — finally addressing an impediment to commerce.
All of the major credit rating agencies now give the Philippines an investment grade rating, though the recent downturn in share prices and currencies here and in other emerging markets, on fears of further slowing of the Chinese economy, poses an immediate challenge.
In another accomplishment, Mr. Aquino’s negotiators concluded a major peace agreement last month with the main resistance group on Mindanao, the heavily Muslim southern island. Still, the deal remains something of a gamble; it is based in good part on the Muslim group’s ability to hold in check smaller resistance groups, which criticized the pact almost immediately.
Despite those successes, Mr. Aquino was criticized for the country’s slow initial response to last year’s devastating typhoon. He said the storm was so powerful that it overwhelmed the Philippines’ many preparations.
He has also been less aggressive on land reform — the Aquinos are among the country’s biggest landowning families — and he has preferred to shift more of the government’s social spending to poor villages instead. Walden Bello, although a congressman in the president’s governing coalition, said he was one of many who believe that “the lack of real progress on land reform is a real reason why poverty rates have remained” at high levels.
Analysts say the almost feudal power of some entrenched families, including some with militias, is a further obstacle to growth. But Mr. Aquino said he was trying to convince the families that becoming less insular would foster greater prosperity.
Mr. Aquino is prevented by law from seeking re-election when his six-year term expires in 2016, raising uncertainty about whether his changes will continue.
In the wide-ranging interview on Tuesday, Mr. Aquino said he thought the Philippines and the United States were close to a long-delayed deal that would allow more American troops to rotate through the Philippines, enhancing his country’s security. But the subject remains controversial among the political elite in the Philippines, with memories of the country’s past as an American possession making them wary of closer military ties.
The United States is pushing for the deal to aid in its rebalance to Asia, where it hopes to retain a strong influence despite China’s rise.
Speaking of the Philippines’ own tensions with the Chinese, Mr. Aquino said his country would not renounce any of its possessions in the sea between it and China.
China contends that centuries-old maps show that it had an early claim to the South China Sea almost to Borneo. It is trying to use its large and growing fleet to exercise effective control over reefs and islands in the sea, a strategy that could strengthen its legal position.
At the same time, China has strongly resisted applying the procedures and numerical formulas of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to the many reefs and islands that lie much closer to countries like the Philippines than to China. Officials in Beijing also oppose multilateral discussions, preferring bilateral talks with individual countries in Southeast Asia, an approach that allows Chinese leaders to apply greater pressure.
While China has been improving its military, Mr. Aquino noted that the last flight by a Philippine fighter jet was in 2005 and that the plane dated from before the Vietnam War. Most of the country’s tiny naval and coast guard fleet dates from World War II.
The difficulties with China extend beyond the arguments over the South China Sea. The Hong Kong government, with enthusiastic backing from the Chinese Foreign Ministry in Beijing, plans to stop allowing 14-day visa-free visits by Filipino diplomats and officials starting Wednesday. The sanctions are part of a long-running demand by Hong Kong that the national government of the Philippines apologize over a violent episode in 2010 in which a hostage rescue attempt in Manila failed, leaving eight Hong Kong citizens dead.
In his first public response to the sanctions, Mr. Aquino said he had no plans to apologize, saying that doing so could create a legal liability and noting that China had not paid compensation to the families of Filipinos who have died in episodes there.
Mr. Aquino, who is not married, lives in a small cottage behind the presidential palace instead of in the luxurious palace itself. He said he tries to relax before going to sleep each night either by listening to music — often jazz — or pursuing his passion as an amateur historian, reading military journals, some about World War II.
While recently reading about the predicament of Czechoslovakia’s leaders in the late 1930s, he said, he saw a parallel “in a sense” to his own problems now in facing challenges from China. Appeasement did not work in 1938, he noted; within six months of the surrender of the Sudetenland, Germany occupied most of the rest of Czechoslovakia.
The Philippines, he said, is determined not to make similar concessions. “You may have the might,” he said of China, “but that does not necessarily make you right.”
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By Robert D. Kaplan and Rodger Baker
What are the Chinese up to? Why raise tensions as much as they have in the Pacific Basin? Beijing's recent declaration of new fishing rules in disputed territorial waters has raised the ire of maritime neighbors and the consternation of the United States. It follows on the heels of the recently declared air defense identification zone, or ADIZ, above disputed islands in the East China Sea, which led American B-52s from Guam to overfly the region -- as a challenge to China's declaration and as a statement in defense of Japan, which also claims these islands. In the face of American and Japanese military resolve, can China even defend its claim to the Diaoyu (Senkaku in Japanese) island chain? Or can China truly dominate the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea?
China's bark certainly seems bigger than its bite, as the saying goes. China is acting in both the East China Sea and the South China Sea from, in some respects, a weak position. Indeed, China's various ground-based and airborne early warning systems -- needed to defend the new ADIZ -- are either too far away or still in production, while Japan is further ahead with this type of platform, which has been part of its military for decades. China's naval logistics and long supply lines make formal occupation of islets in the Spratlys difficult to obtain and harder to maintain.
To be sure, with the exception of Japan, China's navy and coast guard can overpower any single local competitor. But China cannot overpower any combination of states that includes the United States. And any overt act that changes the status quo -- occupation of islands, military confrontation or, for that matter, the establishment of an air defense identification zone -- threatens to do just that: draw in the United States. Meanwhile, the Philippines has been vocal in calling for expanded U.S. naval and air assets in and around its archipelago. And Washington will soon shift one of its most modern aircraft carriers to a forward deployment in Japan.
But what if the Chinese regime merely wants to raise tensions with the United States for the sake of a domestic audience, while avoiding actual conflict with it? That is a risky proposition, but it does explain China's behavior. In fact, it explains China's actions across the whole Asia-Pacific region -- actions that garner explosive headlines but are in other ways somewhat benign. The Chinese have coast guard ships circling islands, and those ships occasionally push a Philippine or Vietnamese fishing boat around. It is mainly bluster and puff. In almost all cases the Chinese are not fundamentally altering strategic realities, for they cannot. Preponderant Chinese naval and air ability is not yet there. Unsurprisingly -- again, in most cases -- the United States is largely ignoring these Chinese actions. In other words, there is no demonstrable American naval buildup in the region.
What we are seeing, therefore, is mainly a managed set of confrontations that serve domestically in China to keep the nationalistic spirit at a high volume in order to reinforce the sense of rising Chinese power -- something particularly necessary for the leadership during a time of slowing economic growth. Huffing and puffing at sea also helps China shape bilateral discussions with neighboring maritime claimants from a position of greater strength, or at least lay the groundwork for later assertions of ownership by highlighting the inability of local powers to fully deny China's claims -- something China's neighbors obviously worry about. Furthermore, by having its navy and coast guard antagonize a country such as the Philippines -- not to mention Japan -- China shows its domestic audience that the regime is standing up to the United States, a treaty ally of both of these countries.
Interpreting the Chinese
But observe how China has actually behaved in both the East China Sea and in the South China Sea over the past few years: When its unilateral actions generate too much attention from the United States on account of its alliance structure -- so that the costs of Chinese actions outweigh the benefits -- the Chinese simply shift attention elsewhere. For example, the Chinese stoked tensions for weeks on end in the disputed Spratly Islands near the Philippines in the South China Sea. But just as the United States began to take notice, threatening an uptick in U.S. naval involvement, China shifted military -- and hence public -- attention to the East China Sea and Japan. The Chinese did not stop patrols near the Philippines; they just reduced them somewhat and took demonstrable action elsewhere, around the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. It is likely, therefore, that this East China Sea dispute will fade a bit in the news and that the Chinese will raise the level of maritime provocation near Vietnam or Taiwan. Because China cannot fully secure the waters in the Pacific's marginal seas with the U.S. Navy and Air Force watching its every move, Chinese air and naval actions seem to have much to do with image management at home.
Because Chinese military capabilities are growing at a faster rate than most other Asian countries, it would seem to make sense for Beijing to be a good neighbor, provoke no crises, and simply bide its time as over the years the correlation of military power in the Pacific shifts slowly in its favor. Such a strategy would draw many countries in the region closer to Beijing's orbit, thereby lessening their psychological dependence on the United States. In fact, were China's leaders under no public pressure at home, it would make sense for them to play this long game with the utmost discipline: no military provocations abroad, even as China builds inexorably its military might. And for years, under former leader Deng Xiaoping's advice, China did just that -- keeping its military capabilities relatively quiet, its territorial challenges relatively mute.
But China's leaders evidently feel that they are under pressure at home. China's economic miracle is not what it was several years ago. Fundamental reform and rebalancing can no longer be avoided. And even if such reform works and China's new leaders turn out to be heroes on the scale of the late Deng Xiaoping, more social and political turmoil probably still cannot be avoided. China's new president and party leader, Xi Jinping, needs levers he can pull to ease public pressure on his new leadership team. Nationalism can easily be dialed up in such a circumstance.
In sum, China, by provoking crisis after crisis in the East and South China seas, is apparently acting against its middle-term strategic interests abroad in exchange for short-term benefits at home. After all, provocations such as bullying the Philippines and raising tensions with Japan will only intensify these countries' reliance on U.S. power, which China wants to see dissipate in the region. There is an irony here: Dictatorships do not, at least by definition, govern by the consent of the governed. But in this case, as in many others, it turns out that even dictators desperately require public approval and often act counterproductively to obtain it.
Of course, Chinese leaders and their people believe fervently in their territorial claims in the Pacific and would say that they are merely asserting their rights in the face of false claims by other states in the region, backed up by the hegemonic United States. But again, the likelihood for satisfying these claims would increase were China to act in a low-key fashion, even as it continues its military buildup and, later on, has the element of surprise.
For decades Americans have believed that Chinese power would be more benign if only China liberalized, with public opinion playing a larger role in shaping policy. But the opposite appears to be true. The more Chinese leadership feels it has to listen to public opinion, the more truculent and nationalistic the regime's behavior is likely to become. So while this particular crisis in the East China Sea will likely wane, many similar ones will likely crop up over the horizon. In the long run, as China's military capabilities catch up to its rhetoric, the willingness of neighboring states to dismiss China's claims will decrease.
Read more: Interpreting the Chinese | Stratfor
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Not bad from the sounds of POTH
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/world/asia/michelle-obama-mixes-some-politics-into-china-trip.html?emc=edit_th_20140326&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193
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China's Line in the Sea
Beijing Has Never Properly Explained What Its 'Nine-Dash Line' Represents
By Andrew Browne
Updated April 1, 2014 5:59 a.m. ET
Manila has risked China's wrath as it defies Beijing and what it sees as its historical right to ownership of the South China Sea, which carries more than a half of global trade.
BEIJING--When the Manchus ruled China, it was given the name South Sea—a maritime domain dotted with islets, atolls and lagoons that provided storm shelter for fishermen.
What today's atlases call the South China Sea received its English-language appellation, and its coordinates, under a 1953 document entitled Limits of Oceans and Seas published by the Monaco-based International Hydrographic Organization, whose patron is Prince Albert. And it's critical to the global economy.
It carries more than half of the world's seaborne trade; connects the fast growing economies of the Asian Pacific with markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and is reckoned to cover vast oil reserves.
Yet, in a push that's creating alarm among China's neighbors—and the U.S. —the inheritors of the Manchu empire who now run China are making increasingly assertive claims to almost all of it as part of an ancient imperium that they are proudly reviving.
The boundaries of their historical claim are marked by a "nine-dash line"—a line made up of nine dashes, or strokes, that protrudes from China's southern Hainan Island as far as the northern coast of Indonesia, looping down like a giant lolling tongue.
This line has always been something of a mystery. It was drawn up by cartographers of the former Kuomintang regime in 1946 in the chaotic final years of the Chinese civil war before the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan. And, in fact, the line started not with nine dashes but 11: Two were scrubbed out in 1953 after the victorious communists adopted the line. Scale and precision are prized by mapmakers, but the nine-dash line lacks any geographical coordinates. It looks as though it was added with a thick black marker pen.
What's more, Beijing has never properly explained what it represents. Does China's claim to "indisputable sovereignty" over the scattered territorial features inside the line derive from the line itself? Or is it the other way round, with the line deriving from those territorial features and the waters that surround them?
China's neighbors who dispute its territorial assertions—among them the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia—are left to guess.
For these reasons, the prevailing view among Western legal scholars has long been that the nine-dash line wouldn't stand much chance if it was ever challenged under international law.
We may be about to find out. On Sunday, the Philippines filed the first-ever legal challenge to the line as part of a 4,000-page submission to a U.N. arbitration tribunal in The Hague. It wants the line declared as without legal weight so that it can exploit the offshore energy and fishery resources within its U.N.-declared exclusive economic zone. China has so far abstained from the proceedings.
The landmark case risks a Chinese backlash. Already, Beijing has all but frozen political ties with Manila. In recent days, Chinese ships have been playing cat-and-mouse games with Philippine vessels trying to reprovision marines stuck on a lonely outpost called the Second Thomas Shoal.
But what's given the case even greater significance—and a potential for escalation to a strategic level--is that the U.S. has joined in attacks of the nine-dash line, dropping its previous diplomatic caution.
A China Coast Guard vessel tried to block a Philippine government boat as it attempted to enter a disputed part of the South China Sea on March 29. Associated Press
In congressional testimony in February, Daniel Russell, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said that while Washington doesn't take a position on sovereignty issues, the way that China pursues its territorial claims by reference to the nine-dash line creates "uncertainty, insecurity and instability." He added that the U.S. "would welcome China to clarify or adjust its nine-dash-line claim to bring it in accordance with the international law of the sea."
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman retorted that "China's rights and interests in the South China Sea are formed in history and protected by international law." He didn't elaborate.
What prompted the American shift in rhetoric, says Paul Haenle, a former director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolian Affairs on the U.S. National Security Council, was China's decision last November to declare an Air Defense Identification Zone over the East China Sea, including disputed islands administered by Japan.
Washington has since explicitly warned Beijing not to do the same over the South China Sea. It fears, says Mr. Haenle "that we'll wake up one morning and discover the whole region has changed."
But altering the nine-dash line, as the U.S. suggests, may be politically impossible for Beijing. China regards the Philippines' action as a gross insolence. It's a slap at President Xi Jinping's much trumpeted "China Dream," a notion that implies the restoration of the country's imperial splendor, including its control over a sea that it regards more or less as its internal lake.
Where is all this headed?
If Manila prevails at The Hague—and it's not clear that the U.N. tribunal will accept jurisdiction over the case--China could simply ignore the verdict and carry on as before. The simplest solution would be for all countries concerned to shelve their territorial disputes and focus on joint development of the area's natural resources.
But that's not the way the Chinese empire has traditionally worked things out. In past days, small countries like the Philippines knew their place—at the bottom of a regional hierarchy dominated by China. It is not likely to quietly allow Manila to upset that order.
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Good thing the US Navy has the ships and funding it needs to address the rising issues in asia. Right?
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http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304640104579488752623145002?mod=WSJ_hppMIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond&mg=reno64-wsj
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ULAN BATOR, Mongolia — When Robert M. Gates visited China in 2011 as the United States defense secretary, the military greeted him with an unexpected and, in the view of American military officials, provocative test of a Chinese stealth fighter jet, a bold show of force that stunned the visiting Americans and may even have surprised the Chinese president at the time, Hu Jintao.
When Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel visited China this week, the military greeted him with a long-sought tour of the country’s lone aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, in what many American officials interpreted as a resolve to project naval power, particularly in light of recent tension between Beijing and its neighbors over disputed islands in the East and South China Seas.
The displays of China’s military power reveal some dividends from years of heavy investments, and perhaps a sense that China is now more willing to stand toe-to-toe with the Americans, at least on regional security issues.
But American officials and Asia experts say the visits also showed a more insecure side of China’s military leadership — a tendency to display might before they are ready to deploy it, and a lingering uncertainty about how assertively to defend its territorial claims in the region.
Mr. Hagel encountered both combative warnings in public forums and private complaints that Beijing felt besieged by hostile neighbors, especially Japan and the Philippines, which it asked the United States to help address. The impression for some American officials was that China still has not decided whether it wants to emphasize its historical status as an underdog or adopt a new posture as a military powerhouse.
On the tough side, China’s minister of defense, Gen. Chang Wanquan, announced that his country would make “no compromise, no concession, no treaty” in the fight for what he called its “territorial sovereignty.”
“The Chinese military can assemble as soon as summoned, fight any battle, and win,” he said.
But the tough stance belies a different reality on the ground, a military with little or no combat experience, outdated or untested equipment, and a feeling of being under siege. The Liaoning, according to American defense officials who toured the ship, still lags well behind the United States’ 10 aircraft carrier groups. While Mr. Hagel spoke expansively about how impressive he found the Chinese sailors he met aboard the ship in his public remarks, one American defense official who accompanied Mr. Hagel noted privately that the Liaoning was “not as big, it’s not as fast,” as American carriers.
Some experts on China were more dismissive. The Liaoning is “a surplus ship from the Soviet era that had been used as a hotel after it was decommissioned,” said Andrew L. Oros, an associate professor of political science at Washington College in Chestertown, Md., and a specialist on East Asia.
“In my view this is about national pride, about being on the cusp of being able to challenge the powers that wrought such destruction and misery on China in the 19th and 20th centuries,” Mr. Oros said. “I think this leads them to over-flaunt, both out of genuine satisfaction in being able to do so, but also as a domestic crowd-pleaser.”
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In Beijing, standing next to Mr. Hagel at the Ministry of Defense this week, General Chang likened himself to the American defense secretary, who has two Purple Heart medals from combat during the Vietnam War. “Secretary Hagel and I are both old soldiers who fought on the battlefield,” he said, prompting a number of raised eyebrows among the Americans in the room. “We have a deep understanding of the atrocities of war.”
That may be so, but no one in China’s political or military leadership, which has focused for three decades on national economic development, has significant experience in war, and its troops are not trained in combat. Even Japan, which eschewed combat after World War II, is believed by American officials to have a superior navy, one that regularly trains with American marines and sailors and with a technical sophistication that counterbalances the heavy investment China has made in recent years.
In private meetings with Mr. Hagel, Chinese officials sounded more defensive, American officials said, expressing frustration over what they presented as a Japan and a Philippines made bolder by their treaty alliances with the United States, and ganging up on Beijing.
The American response, that the United States takes no position on competing claims for disputed islands in the East China Sea — which the Japanese call Senkaku and the Chinese call Diaoyu — or the islands and reefs claimed by the Philippines in the South China Sea, seemed only to further inflame the Chinese. Beijing also objects to the standard Obama administration line that the United States has treaty obligations to Tokyo and Manila.
Beyond that, American officials say the stronger public statements by leaders of the People’s Liberation Army are aimed partly at the Chinese public at large, noting a headline in the newspaper China Daily on Wednesday that spoke of Mr. Hagel’s being “urged” by General Chang to “restrain Japan.”
Still, no one at the Pentagon denies that China’s military has made huge leaps in the last decade. China now spends more on its military than any country except the United States, and will increase military spending to $148 billion this year from $139 billion in 2013, according to IHS Jane’s, a military industry consulting and analysis company. While that is still only about a fourth of what the United States spends, American military spending is declining, to $575 billion this year from $664 billion in 2012. By next year, analysts estimate that China will spend more on its military than Britain, Germany and France combined.
Moreover, for Beijing, the Liaoning is a launching pad for future naval operations, military experts said.
“Back in August 2011, when the carrier later to be known as the Liaoning took its first test voyage, I happened to be aboard the U.S.S. John C. Stennis witnessing flight operations,” said Andrew Scobell, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, referring to one of the United States Navy’s nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. “I recall shaking my head in amazement and thinking to myself, ‘The Chinese will never be able to do this!’ ”
But now, planes are taking off from the Liaoning. “The P.L.A. is seen as extremely capable,” Mr. Scobell said, “and one of the clearest indications of this is that the Pentagon now focuses considerable attention on countering what it dubs China’s ‘anti-access/area denial capabilities’ ” — military jargon for the doctrine that could be used by Beijing to deny the United States military the ability to operate in certain areas of the sea near China during a crisis.
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http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/04/08/china_might_actually_seize_japan_s_southern_islands
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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/58cbbbe2-ba70-11e3-aeb0-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2yCpH8pzh
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http://theweek.com/article/index/254400/what-would-a-us-china-war-look-like?utm_source=thefiscaltimes&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=partnership
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http://theweek.com/article/index/254400/what-would-a-us-china-war-look-like?utm_source=thefiscaltimes&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=partnership
Any analysis that doesn't include economic warfare is far from complete.
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Of course! But isolating the military variable is relevant.
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I think the Chinese would crash our infrastructure/economy long before the first missile was fired.
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I have started reading a VERY interesting book by the name of The Death of Money which is making a very similar point.
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The Chinese aren't buying up tons of gold because they like shiny things.
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Maybe the Filipinos should not have asked us to leave to begin with , , ,
U.S. Return to the Philippines
China drives another Pacific nation to closer military ties with America.
Updated April 28, 2014 7:26 p.m. ET
President Obama's Asia tour is ending with a deal signed Monday to increase U.S. military access to ports, bases and airfields in the Philippines. Two decades after Manila booted U.S. personnel from the country, China's aggressive rise has Filipinos strengthening their longtime alliance with America.
Under the 10-year deal, the U.S. will rotate troops, planes, ships and other military assets through Philippine territory at Manila's invitation. Their missions will range from disaster relief to training, surveillance and security operations around the South China Sea. In keeping with the Philippine constitution, the U.S. won't own or have exclusive use of bases, and Filipino commanders will have access to areas shared with U.S. forces. Washington has similar rotational-force agreements with Australia and Singapore.
Officials haven't specified where U.S. forces will operate, but one likely spot is Subic Bay, formerly America's largest overseas naval base, which offers quick access to the northern waters of the South China Sea. Some 125 miles away is Scarborough Shoal, the rich fishing territory grabbed from the Philippines by Chinese maritime forces in 2012. U.S. forces may also use Oyster Bay and Brooke's Point in the southwestern province of Palawan, a short cruise from the disputed Spratly Islands. That's where last month China began illegally blockading an outpost of Philippine marines on Second Thomas Shoal.
China doesn't like that the Philippines, Japan and others are trying to resist its territorial revanchism—through ties to Washington and by investing in defense and pushing for international arbitration under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The Philippines has a woefully weak military—it has zero fighter jets and, as of 2010, only 32 boats patrolling 36,000 miles of coastline—yet China's state-run Xinhua news agency labels it the "trouble-maker in the South China Sea." The new basing deal with Washington, a Xinhua commentary charged on Monday, will allow Manila "to confront China with U.S. backing."
As Beijing knows, Washington has stopped short of backing Manila in the territorial disputes where China has been most confrontational. President Obama affirmed last week in Tokyo that the U.S.-Japan mutual defense treaty would apply to the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, but he and his aides have avoided such assurances about Philippine-controlled territory in the South China Sea. "Our treaty obligations are ironclad," Mr. Obama said Sunday, but the Philippine marines at Second Thomas Shoal apparently fall outside those obligations.
In February Philippine President Benigno Aquino went as far as comparing China's territorial assertiveness to Adolf Hitler's in 1938. Mr. Aquino celebrated the new basing agreement at a press conference Monday, highlighting the Philippine military's opportunity to train on and eventually procure advanced systems such as the tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey aircraft.
The deal ought to show China's military leaders that their imperial behavior is backfiring in the region. Instead of kowtowing to Beijing, Pacific Rim nations are looking to the U.S. for strengthened military partnership. The Philippine-U.S. pact will help the cause of free trade and security in the Pacific.
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http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBREA450WL20140506?irpc=932
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http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBREA450WL20140506?irpc=932
U.S. State Department spokeswoman: "China's decision to operate its oil rig in disputed waters is provocative and unhelpful to the maintenance of peace and stability in the region."
Yes. China fears that a tough stand like this could lead to the drawing of an Obama Red Line, ... or a dotted blue line, a double white line, a line in the sand, maybe an American-made string placed across the South China Sea!
China's military advisers are saying, don't mess with this administration. You saw what they did with Iran, in Benghazi, in Syria, and standing up for territorial integrity of Ukraine!
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And nothing from "we the people", nor for that matter from the Reps. Where for example is a bill passed by the House calling for a stronger military budget? Discuss if you wish in the American Foreign Policy thread.
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And nothing from "we the people", nor for that matter from the Reps. Where for example is a bill passed by the House calling for a stronger military budget? Discuss if you wish in the American Foreign Policy thread.
Why would that matter? We still hold the military advantage over China for now. The key element is that China has no fear that Buraq " Mom jeans " Obama has the huevos to make a stand.
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"Discuss if you wish in the American Foreign Policy thread."
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http://news.yahoo.com/vietnam-chinese-ships-ram-vessels-near-oil-rig-134607409.html;_ylt=AwrBJR7GdmpT6SwAQMnQtDMD
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China Answers Obama
An 80-ship flotilla plants a Chinese oil rig in Vietnamese waters.
Updated May 8, 2014 3:17 p.m. ET
Less than a week after President Obama's Asian Reassurance Tour, Beijing offered its rejoinder, sending a flotilla of 80 military and civilian ships to install China's first oil rig in disputed South China Sea waters, well within Vietnam's 200-mile exclusive economic zone. When some 30 Vietnamese naval vessels demanded the rig's withdrawal on Sunday, China's ships responded by ramming several of the Vietnamese boats and injuring six sailors.
This skirmish hasn't escalated to gunfire or attempted boarding, but the two sides are still facing off at sea. "Vietnam has exercised restraint," said a senior Vietnamese commander Wednesday, "but if Chinese vessels continue ramming Vietnamese ships, we'll have to act out of self-defense." Beijing said Thursday it would negotiate only if Hanoi's ships leave the site. The Foreign Ministry says the $1 billion rig—located 225 miles south of mainland China and only 120 miles east of Vietnam—is "normal and legal."
The truth is that this is China's latest attempt to revise the East Asian status quo through intimidation and force. China claims sovereignty over some 90% of the 1.35-million-square-mile South China Sea, and it is staking that claim by flexing its muscle around the sea's outer reaches. Along the eastern edge, China seized Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines in 2012. Since March it has blockaded Philippine Marines on Second Thomas Shoal.
This week's oil standoff also wasn't begun on a whim. China developed the CNOOC 0883.HK -0.16% 981 rig so it would not depend on foreign companies to drill in contested waters. "Large deepwater drilling rigs are our mobile national territory," explained Wang Yilin, chairman of state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation, in 2012. The sea grab follows several years of gradually intensifying pressure—from Chinese tourist boats landing on disputed South China Sea islands, to Chinese fishing vessels cutting the acoustic cables of Vietnamese oil exploration ships.
As Chinese-Vietnamese relations have worsened, Hanoi has procured new military hardware—including Kilo-class submarines, guided-missile frigates, land-based antiship cruise missiles and jet fighters—and sought closer ties with India, Japan and the U.S. The Vietnamese and U.S. militaries held their first joint naval exercises in 2012, a year after a U.S. Navy ship called at Cam Ranh Bay for the first time since the Vietnam War.
So it goes across Asia—Chinese territorial revanchism is spurring arms purchases and defense cooperation among China's neighbors and with Washington. These are welcome developments, yet China continues on its aggressive course.
"It's fair to say both Vietnam and China have rights to claim sovereignty over the Paracels," said America's top Asia hand, Assistant Secretary of State Danny Russel, in Hanoi Thursday. "It is not for the U.S. to say which position is stronger. It's within the rights of the United States and the international community to call all parties to address the dispute in a peaceful way." China has heard such U.S. rhetoric many times, including as it grabbed Scarborough Shoal from Manila over three months in 2012. Beijing says it plans to drill for oil at least until Aug. 15.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-to-announce-first-criminal-charges-against-foreign-country-for-cyberspying/2014/05/19/586c9992-df45-11e3-810f-764fe508b82d_story.html?wpisrc=al_national
From the article:
The Justice Department is charging members of the Chinese military with conducting economic cyber-espionage against American companies, U.S. officials familiar with the case said Monday, marking the first time that the United States is leveling such criminal charges against a foreign country.
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I would quite enthusiastically applaud them for this - if we were not guilty of the same thing(?).
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I doubt we are trying to steal technological secrets from China to hand off to US industry. Not yet anyway.
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I doubt we are trying to steal technological secrets from China to hand off to US industry. Not yet anyway.
Agree. I see the distinction. I wonder if Angela Merkel and others complaining of US spying see it.
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I'm curious what the DOJ/administration expects to get from China. I doubt it will be a cascade of apologies.
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I doubt we are trying to steal technological secrets from China to hand off to US industry. Not yet anyway.
Agree. I see the distinction. I wonder if Angela Merkel and others complaining of US spying see it.
Rogers and Ruppersberger Call Chinese Indictment an “Important First Step”
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers and Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger praised the indictment by a U.S. Grand Jury in the Western District of Pennsylvania of five Chinese military hackers for computer hacking and economic espionage directed at six American companies.
“These charges are an important first step, both in terms of bringing these five individuals to justice, as well as holding the Chinese government accountable for its campaign of cyber economic espionage against American companies. This is just the tip of the iceberg -- there are thousands of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) hackers working every day, at the behest of the Chinese government, to steal American trade secrets and the jobs that result from our innovation. We must hold Beijing accountable and pressure the Chinese government to stop manipulating the free market through its use of cyber economic espionage. While every nation collects information to protect itself, it is unacceptable for any nation to steal intellectual property simply to get rich at other nations’ expense. ”
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China is hardly alone in doing this. France is one of the bigger offenders in economic espionage targeting American firms, iirc.
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FWIW if I remember correctly, either today or yesterday Krauthammer saw this as empty posturing, though I must say I am intrigued. Apparently the "Wang Dong 5" (one of them has the name "Wang Dong" LOL ) now will be subject to extradition if they go to any country with which we have an extradition treaty? Of course being Team Obama, there is always always a goodly chance that this is some fg illusion, but As I say, for the moment I am intrigued.
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Unless it comes up on the golf course, do you think the president has any clue about this?
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http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1515858/us-charges-chinese-military-cyber-spying
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Well, that is not necessarily a bad sign :lol:
Anyway, let's continue all conversation on the Wang Dong 5 affair on the Cyberwar thread. Thank you.
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http://www.ibtimes.com/china-russia-currency-agreement-further-threatens-us-dollar-248338
Obama has been relentless in destroying the dollar, so maybe this is an olive branch?
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/31/world/asia/us-sway-in-asia-is-imperiled-as-china-challenges-alliances.html?emc=edit_th_20140531&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0
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Discord in Shangri-La
China's attempt at Asian dominance meets resistance.
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Updated June 1, 2014 5:22 p.m. ET
The Shangri-La Dialogue held annually in Singapore has become Asia's premier forum for sniping about regional security, and the snark gets most of the headlines. But this weekend included more substance. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged Japan would play an "even greater and more proactive role" with stronger defense ties to Southeast Asia, including an offer of coastal patrol boats. And U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel gave a more complete military accounting of the American "pivot" to Asia than we've previously heard.
The justification for both agendas was clear: Beijing has destabilized the region with its attempts to use military coercion to change the status quo in the East and South China seas. That didn't go down well with Chinese officials. Lt. Gen. Wang Guanzhong called the two speeches "simply unimaginable" and a "provocative action against China."
The most important audience at Shangri-La was the Southeast Asian contingent, representing smaller nations that will have to decide whether to stand up to China or make a separate peace. Diplomats told us they were eager for signals that the U.S. will stay committed to the security of East Asia despite China's growing military might.
Mr. Hagel had the additional challenge of following President Obama's foreign policy manifesto last week at West Point, in which the Asia pivot was conspicuously AWOL. One participant asked the Defense Secretary why Mr. Obama hasn't explained the pivot to the American public with the same enthusiasm it is sold in Asia. That leaves Asians wondering if the policy has strong enough support to survive a crisis, especially as the defense budget shrinks and other trouble spots emerge.
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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gives the keynote address on the first day of The International Institute for Strategic Studies 13th Asia Security Summit in Singapore May 30. European Pressphoto Agency
More doubts arise from the way that Messrs. Obama and Hagel try to make nice with Beijing by holding out the prospect of finding a "new model of great-power relations." That is Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping's formulation, and many in Asia believe it is code for pushing the U.S. out of the region so it can no longer play the role of balancer.
The Obama Administration hasn't endorsed Mr. Xi's concept. But it's hard to shake the impression that the U.S. is playing catch-up after a sea change in Chinese attitudes around 2009. U.S.-China relations used to be based on respect for each other's "core interests," which remained stable. Then over the past five years Beijing redefined its core interests to include the disputed islands in the South China Sea. Virtually every Southeast Asian nation is under pressure to accommodate China's new territorial ambitions.
The rhetoric from Chinese officers in Singapore only reinforced fears that Beijing is on a collision course with the U.S. They accused the U.S. and Japan of using coercion and acting hegemonically, when everyone else in region says that describes Chinese behavior. While this is unlikely to convince Southeast Asians worried by Chinese bullying, it is worrying that self-deceptive nationalism is on the rise in China.
Mr. Abe's speech stressed the importance of international law to resolve or at least manage disputes. China's reluctance to play by those rules suggests it is not a status quo power, but instead wants to create a new Asia-Pacific order that it can dominate. Beijing's bid to heighten minor territorial disputes in which the U.S. has little to gain and much to lose makes sense as a way to drive a wedge between Washington and its allies.
Such disputes are unlikely to be resolved by dialogue, but confabs like Shangri-La offer clues to whether Beijing's strategy is working. So far Asia's Pax Americana has held together, but there are more tests ahead and Washington will have to raise its game.
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Roaring on the Seas
China’s Power Grab Is Alarming
By THE EDITORIAL BOARDJUNE 18, 2014
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Few aspects of China’s dynamic emergence as a global power have generated as much insecurity and danger in its neighborhood as its mounting campaign to control the South China Sea, a vital waterway for international commerce. On Wednesday, at a high-level meeting in Hanoi, China’s top diplomat scolded his Vietnamese hosts for complaining about an oil rig that Beijing planted in early May in waters that Vietnam claims, as its own.
The sharp back-and-forth represented one of the lowest points in relations between the two countries since a brief territorial war in 1979, and it added to worries in Washington and elsewhere about Beijing’s continued bullying in energy-rich waters that not only Vietnam but other small Asian nations lay claim to.
In addition to installing the rig, Beijing’s efforts to assert sovereignty over the many specks of rock dotting the South China Sea now includes a novel twist: the piling of sand on isolated reefs and shoals to create what amount to new islands in the Spratly archipelago.
Vietnam, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations that also claim sovereignty in the Spratlys have watched this island-building with growing alarm, but despite their protests — and a strongly worded statement last month by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel condemning China’s “destabilizing, unilateral actions” in the South China Sea — Beijing is showing no intention of changing its ways.
The Spratly Islands are uninhabited and of no economic value in themselves. But the archipelago covers rich fishing grounds and is believed to harbor large oil and gas reserves, and China could claim an exclusive economic zone within 200 nautical miles of each of the three or four islands it is creating. The new islands, projected to reach 20 to 40 acres in area, would also serve the projection of Chinese military power by providing bases for surveillance and resupply.
China insists that the Spratlys, Paracels and other islands have always belonged to China. But Vietnam also claims sovereignty, and parts of them are claimed by the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. In 2002, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China signed a Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, agreeing to resolve territorial disputes “without resorting to the threat or use of force.” That declaration is not legally binding, and China has argued that Vietnam and the Philippines have already developed some facilities in the islands, though without adding acreage.
The real problem, in any case, is not the muddled question of sovereignty, but the way China appears to believe that its expanding military and economic power entitle it to a maximalist stance in territorial disputes. Certainly the smaller nations abutting the South China Sea are no match for China in a fight, but the fear and anger that China’s aggressive actions have generated among its maritime neighbors, and the tensions they have raised with Washington, hardly seem to be in Beijing’s interest, or in keeping with the image China’s president, Xi Jinping, tried to project when he said in Paris in March that “the lion that is China has awoken, but it is a peaceful, amiable and civilized lion.”
That is not the lion now roaring over the waters of the South China Sea, threatening the stability and security that have benefited, above all, China. That is all the more reason for Beijing to heed the 2002 declaration’s call for self-restraint in activities that would complicate disputes or disturb the peace.
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I was promised a new era of peace when that stupid cowboy Bush left office. What happened? :-o
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Related to Crafty's post of 6/19:
http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2014/06/23/why-is-china-building-artificial-islands/
From the article:
The island-building has China’s neighbors alarmed and fighting back. Since April, the Philippines has filed numerous protests to China against land reclamation at two reefs and criticized the movements of Chinese ships they claim are engaged in island-building at two other sites. The Philippine Government has argued at an international tribunal that China occupies only rocks, reefs, and artificial islands — not true islands that would qualify for a 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/opinion/sunday/vietnams-overdue-alliance-with-america.html?emc=edit_th_20140713&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193
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Taiwan Expands South China Sea Facilities but Remains Constrained
Analysis
July 31, 2014 | 0415 Print Text Size
Taiwan Expands South China Sea Facilities but Remains Constrained
A Taiwanese navy frigate takes part in an exercise in waters off the southern naval base of Tsoying on July 21. (Mandy Cheng/AFP/Getty Images)
Summary
Shifting maritime security architecture in the South and East China seas is slowly pushing Taipei to expand its defense priorities. Increasingly, regional maritime disputes are taking on a military dimension, threatening the legitimacy of Taiwan's own claims as well as its ability to safeguard the islands it controls against mainland China, Vietnam and the Philippines. As a result, Taiwan appears to be considering a remilitarization of the Taiwan-administered Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba, one of the largest of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. As with the other nations fortifying nearby claims in the South China Sea, however, Taiwan will be constricted in its ability to defend Taiping were conflict to erupt.
Analysis
As tensions continue to escalate in the disputed South China Sea, claimant countries are accelerating construction activities in the islands that they control. Mainland China has recently initiated a land reclamation project to expand reefs, atolls and islets under its purview, and the Philippines and Vietnam plan to expand installations on their own claims. With this in mind, Taiwan has abandoned its less confrontational strategy and moved to improve its facilities on Taiping Island. This reflects Taipei's growing concern about the activities of rival claimants in the sea and, more important, an ability to increase focus on defense at the time of relaxed military tension with Beijing.
Click to Enlarge
Taiping Island is located more than 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) from the southern tip of Taiwan. With an area of 0.46 square kilometers (0.18 square miles), it is one of the largest of the Spratly Islands and one of the few in the group with its own freshwater supply. Taiwan's claims go back to 1946, when the government on the mainland claimed the island. After its defeat by the Chinese communists, the government in Taiwan retained control of the island, beginning formal military occupation in the 1950s. In 1999, as part of a more pragmatic approach to rival claimants in Southeast Asia, Taipei handed over the defense of the island to the coast guard in order to focus military capabilities on the emerging naval and missile threat from Beijing.
Growing competition around the disputed islands in recent years has forced Taipei to review its policies in the South China Sea. Expanding facilities on Taiping Island is central to this shift. Ongoing construction projects suggest that Taiwan is considering permanent troop deployments. By November, workers will complete a 320-meter (1,050-foot) pier capable of accommodating 3,000-ton naval frigates and coast guard cutters. The project will also include a 210-meter access road, a 350-meter extension to a 1,150-meter airstrip built in 2008 and new navigation guidance and auxiliary facilities. The expanded airstrip would likely accommodate P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft operated by the navy, boosting Taipei's anti-submarine surveillance and mobilizing capability in the South China Sea.
But Taiwan's ability to defend Taiping Island is limited. Taiwan does in fact possess coast guard and naval capabilities superior to those of the Philippines and, in some ways, Vietnam. Even in peacetime, however, maintaining regular supplies over the 1,400-kilometer distance to Taiping is difficult. To date, the island has no refueling facilities, relying instead on C-130 transport plane shipments every two months. Taiwan has only two replenishment ships in active service: the Wuyi fast combat support ship, or AOE-530, and Panshih fast combat support ship launched in 2013. It has no aerial refueling capacity and is therefore unable to support long-range, long-term deployment of naval vessels and aircraft over the distance between Taiwan and the Spratly archipelago.
Taiwan's competitors share most of these limitations, especially in their attempts to occupy the tinier islets, often little more than circles of rocks or artificial islands that need constant maintenance to avoid sinking. Most of the manned facilities in the South China Sea are hostage to the circumstances of water and weather, overshadowing their usefulness as forward operating positions and potential threats to competitors. In the long run, these facilities may provide support in monitoring the area, but primarily only in times of peace.
Ultimately, these islands are quite different from the Pacific islands that underpinned the U.S.-Japanese confrontation in World War II, which served as forward operating bases to establish regional dominance. The islands of the South China Sea, in contrast, have served primarily as political outposts or placeholders that block rivals from exercising jurisdiction under international law. Trying to dislodge a neighboring claimant would risk a larger war -- a possibility most would rather avoid. Instead, they choose to strengthen their positions and occupy remaining empty reefs to prevent others from doing so first.
In spite of its distinction as the first country to establish a military presence in the South China Sea and its ambitious claim, virtually identical to mainland China's, Taiwan was one of the last to catch up with the region's changing dynamics. Now that it has done so, its expansions will give Taipei a forward base to operate its surveillance and anti-submarine aircraft and stake its claim to the island. Taiwan's moves, however, do not fundamentally alter its strategic position in the Spratlys or grant control over the area. For its part, Beijing may view Taiwan's claim as politically useful because it will keep Taiwan distant from the Philippines and Vietnam. At the same time, however, Beijing may also feel the need to bolster its own presence as a counterbalance, a development not necessarily favorable to Taipei.
Read more: Taiwan Expands South China Sea Facilities but Remains Constrained | Stratfor
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NYT
ABOARD CSB-8003, in the South China Sea — As the large white Chinese ship closed in, the smaller Vietnamese Coast Guard vessel could only veer off, black exhaust billowing from its stack. The Vietnamese vessel had advanced to within 13 miles of the Chinese offshore oil rig, and the Chinese decided it could come no closer.
With the rig barely visible on the horizon but the Chinese ship looming close behind, the Vietnamese patrol boat, CSB-8003, blasted a two-minute recorded message in Chinese, from loudspeakers on the back of the boat. These waters belong to Vietnam, the message said, and China’s placement of the rig had “hurt the feelings of the Vietnamese people.”
About six hours after the encounter on July 15, one of the last in a two-and-a-half-month standoff over the rig known as HD 981, China began moving the rig north toward the Chinese island of Hainan and out of waters Vietnam considers its exclusive economic zone. Three weeks later, analysts are still debating whether China, facing international pressure, blinked in its standoff with Vietnam — or whether this was just a tactical retreat before a more aggressive campaign.
While Vietnam claimed success in forcing the departure of HD 981, China National Petroleum Corporation, which managed the project, said the rig had completed its exploration work and was moving as planned.
The relocation of the rig just ahead of the approach of a typhoon in the area also prompted speculation that the storm may have forced its early departure. But the $1 billion rig, which is owned by the state-run China National Offshore Oil Corporation, was moved to a spot about 60 miles southeast of Hainan Island that is also exposed to typhoons.
While the Vietnamese Coast Guard celebrated the departure of the Chinese rig, some officers said they were worried that the episode represented a more aggressive attitude by China.
“From the moment that they installed the rig near the islands, the Chinese began more and more and more attacks, in words and in actions,” said Lt. Col. Tran Van Tho of the Vietnam Coast Guard as he stood smoking a cigarette on the deck of CSB-8003. “Why? It is a part of a Chinese strategy to control the sea. This is a first step to try to make a new base to expand farther south. This not only threatens Vietnam, but the Philippines and other countries. This has been organized systematically, as part of a strategy. It is not random.”
Lyle J. Goldstein, an associate professor at the United States Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute, said that China has long taken an assertive stance toward its claims in the South China Sea, but was now much more able to uphold them.
“If anything is changing it is that China has capabilities to enforce and explore more carefully and it has money to field the cutters — that to me is what is driving the situation,” he said.
Vietnam invited groups of foreign reporters to embed with its Coast Guard vessels in an effort to focus international attention on the standoff over the rig. On the water with CSB-8003, the superior numbers of the Chinese vessels were clear.
On its two-day trip from Da Nang in central Vietnam, CSB-8003 encountered some 70 Chinese vessels, including fishing boats, Coast Guard cutters, patrol ships from other Chinese maritime organizations and two vessels that the Vietnamese Coast Guard identified as Chinese Navy missile corvettes.
Vietnam says there were about four to six Chinese military vessels among the more than 100 Chinese ships that patrolled around the rig, along with the Chinese Coast Guard, other maritime agencies and dozens of fishing boats.
As recently as two years ago, many observers said China’s policy in the South China Sea was dominated by an array of poorly coordinated agencies.
Some encounters showed organizational ability, as when Chinese ships harassed the Impeccable, a United States Navy surveillance ship, in the South China Sea in 2009. But many analysts argued that the Chinese Navy, China Marine Surveillance, the Bureau of Fisheries Administration, local governments and state-owned energy companies operated with high levels of autonomy and fueled regional tensions as they sought to increase their own influence and opportunities.
The standoff over the rig shows how things have changed. “The idea that China lacks a coherent policy, that’s clearly not the case with this oil rig,” said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. “It shows a high degree of interagency coordination involving civilian maritime agencies, the People’s Liberation Army and the oil companies.”
Efforts to streamline China’s maritime law enforcement agencies saw significant advancement last year when four of them were joined under the State Oceanic Administration to form a unified Coast Guard.
The placement of the rig indicates the will of China’s leadership to push maritime claims, Mr. Storey said. “Clearly this was sanctioned at the highest level of the Chinese government,” he said. “This is another indication of how Xi Jinping has very quickly consolidated his power in China and is calling the shots.”
Chinese energy companies backed away from plans to explore for oil and gas in the South China Sea after Vietnamese protests in 1994 and 2009. Now it is not so hesitant. HD 981 should be seen as a starting point for future exploration, said Su Xiaohui, a researcher at the China Institute of International Studies, a research institute run by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “China is sending out a signal to the related countries that it is legal and natural for China to conduct energy exploration and development in the South China Sea,” said Ms. Su.
The Chinese placement of the rig caught Vietnam off guard, and set off protests and riots targeting Chinese-owned factories in Vietnam. Factories owned by Taiwanese, Japanese, South Korean and Singaporean firms were also hit. Four Chinese workers at the Taiwanese-owned Formosa Plastics steel plant were killed by rioters in May.
The rig was first parked about 120 miles off the coast of Vietnam and 17 miles from the farthest southwest islet of the Paracels, islands held by China but claimed by Vietnam.
Both sides have exchanged accusations over who had been the aggressor in the standoff over the rig. In June, China said that over the first month of operations, Vietnamese ships had rammed Chinese ships 1,400 times. But Vietnam appears to have suffered the worst of the skirmishes at sea, with more than 30 of its vessels damaged in collisions during that same period.
The most severe clash was on May 26, when a Vietnamese fishing boat sank after a collision with a Chinese fishing boat. Video later released by Vietnam showed the much larger Chinese boat ramming the wooden-hulled Vietnamese vessel.
The movement of the rig to waters farther north will help defuse the conflict between Vietnam and China. But the broader issues over sovereignty in the South China Sea, and who has the rights to extract oil and gas in the region, remain far from resolved.
At talks among senior diplomats from the Asia-Pacific region on Saturday in Myanmar, Secretary of State John Kerry reiterated a suggestion by the United States that countries in the region refrain from taking steps that would further heighten tensions in the South China Sea. “We need to work together to manage tensions in the South China Sea, and to manage them peacefully, and also to manage them on a basis of international law,” Mr. Kerry said at the regional forum of Asean, the Association of Southeast Asian nations.
China said it would consider proposals to resolve disputes, but said that China and Asean “had the ability and wisdom to jointly protect peace and stability in the South China Sea,” China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, said, according to a statement posted on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. The statement did not mention the United States, but in the past China has criticized Washington for getting involved in its maritime disputes with other countries. In addition to China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines also claim parts of the South China Sea.
China announced last month that it would place four more rigs in the South China Sea, and Vietnam’s inability to block HD 981 will likely give China confidence about its ability to drill in contested locations. “I think China feels it got its point across,” said Bernard D. Cole, a retired United States Navy officer and a professor at the National War College. “I would not at all be surprised to see them do it again.”
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http://www.hoover.org/research/cycles-or-stages-chinese-history
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http://www.dickmorris.com/china-will-overtake-america-dick-morris-tv-history-video/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports
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China's Reckless Military
Beijing is testing the U.S. resolve to remain a Pacific power.
Updated Aug. 26, 2014 6:18 p.m. ET
'Very, very close. Very dangerous." That's how Pentagon spokesman Admiral John Kirby describes last week's encounter in which a Chinese fighter jet maneuvered, much like Tom Cruise's character in "Top Gun," within 20 feet of a U.S. Navy reconnaissance plane over the South China Sea. The Pentagon also revealed that China has flown at least three other provocative missions against U.S. aircraft since March. Such persistent Chinese military recklessness helps explain why China's neighbors increasingly fear for regional security.
China naturally is pushing its own version of last week's events. A military spokesman says that U.S. accusations are "totally unfounded" because "the Chinese pilot's maneuvers were professional, and maintained a safe distance from the U.S. aircraft." The real security risk, says People's Liberation Army Colonel Yang Yujun, comes from U.S. surveillance flights, which would be "the root cause behind any accidents."
Yet such claims don't hold up against China's record of courting danger up and down the Western Pacific. Chinese air and sea incursions into Japanese territory caused Japan's air force to scramble fighter jets a record 415 times in the year that ended in March, up 36% from the year before.
In May and June, Chinese fighters buzzed within 100 feet of Japanese reconnaissance planes near the Japan-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea—the closest Chinese flyby ever, according to Tokyo. This follows the January 2013 incident in which Chinese ships locked fire-control radar onto a Japanese destroyer and helicopter.
In the South China Sea, China's aggressive behavior more often targets the U.S., as when a Chinese warship cut within 100 meters of the U.S. destroyer Cowpens last December. In 2009 five Chinese vessels forced the unarmed maritime surveillance ship USNS Impeccable to withdraw from waters off China's Hainan Island. The worst case was in 2001 when a Chinese fighter jet collided with a U.S. EP-3 surveillance plane, forcing it to land on Hainan, where its 24 crew members were held for 10 days. The Chinese pilot died.
These South China Sea incidents—and last week's close call—all happened in international waters or airspace, far outside the area of Chinese sovereignty that extends 12 miles from the coast. China's international legal obligations require it to honor other countries' freedom of movement outside that 12-mile zone, but Beijing has tried to ban foreign militaries from conducting surveillance within its 200-mile exclusive economic zone as well.
Beijing last year declared an air-defense identification zone over the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea and will likely do the same soon for the South China Sea. Its claims to "historical waters" are particularly troubling because they are not dependent on land claims. Since this has no basis in international law, it's impossible to predict how Beijing might restrict navigation.
While Beijing is ratcheting up the tension, the Pentagon leaked speculation that last week's intercept was only the work of a rogue pilot or maybe a rogue squadron commander. One official told the Journal that "something's out of whack" with Chinese military behavior in the South China Sea. If that's the case, President Xi Jinping —who exerts significant control over the military and has purged several senior generals tied to corruption—now has the opportunity to send a message by disciplining the commander responsible.
But we're not counting on it. More likely, China's military provocations will continue until Washington pushes back.
One possible response would be to stop extending coveted invitations to U.S.-led military exchanges such as the Rim of the Pacific Exercise in the waters off Hawaii, which China joined this summer for the first time. Washington has already offered China a spot in Rimpac 2016, but that can be rescinded. While joint training can be valuable for teaching professionalism and building reliable lines of communication, the upside is limited if China's military remains dedicated to confrontation and intimidation.
At a minimum, continued surveillance flights through the Western Pacific are necessary to convey that the U.S. won't back down to Chinese bullying. U.S. friends in Japan, the Philippines, Australia, Vietnam and beyond will be watching for such public signals of resolve. Privately, meanwhile, U.S. officials could warn China that if its military keeps threatening routine reconnaissance operations in international airspace, U.S. forces will have little choice but to deploy F-15s or F-22s as defensive escorts.
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http://news.yahoo.com/philippines-displays-ancient-maps-debunk-chinas-sea-claims-110706447.html
MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines on Thursday put on display dozens of ancient maps which officials said showed that China's territorial claims over the South China Sea did not include a disputed shoal at the centre of an acrimonious standoff.
The Philippines is in dispute with China over parts of the South China Sea, including the Scarborough Shoal, an area believed to be rich in oil and natural gas as well as fisheries resources.
China seized control of the shoal in June 2012 and has prevented Philippine fishermen from getting close to the rocky outcrop, a rich fishing ground.
Philippine officials said the exhibition of old maps at a university showed that for almost 1,000 years, from the Song Dynasty in the year 960 until the end of the Qing Dynasty early in the 20th century, China's southernmost territory was always Hainan island, just off the Chinese coast.
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http://www.the-american-interest.com/blog/2014/09/12/chinese-see-war-with-japan-as-inevitable/
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Summary
Editor's Note: Rodger Baker, Stratfor's Vice President of Asia-Pacific Analysis, recently returned from a trip through Australia, Micronesia and the Philippines. The analysis below is drawn from remarks he made on the shifting realities in the East and South China seas -- particularly involving China, the Philippines, Japan, Southeast Asia and the United States -- in a keynote speech at a meeting of the Manila Times Business Forum.
China's recent foray into the East and South China seas is not its first, but it is perhaps its most substantial. For a number of reasons, Beijing is no longer comfortable or confident enough to allow the status quo in the region to remain unchanged. The natural expansion of China's interests, and its attempts to expand and ensure its sphere of influence, inevitably lead to responses both from its neighbors and from the more geographically (but not strategically) distant United States. Beijing's intent is not to trigger conflict, but rather to slowly change the political reality of the region by expanding its maritime buffer and securing its maritime trade routes. But few of these changes will go unchallenged, adding a layer of uncertainty to the future of East Asia.
Analysis
China historically has been a land power, not a maritime power. Although China has been involved in the maritime sphere for centuries and Chinese merchants have been active throughout Southeast Asia, the country's geography, natural resources, population pressures and neighbors have both allowed and encouraged Chinese leaders to focus their attention on the country's vast territory and land borders. At times of relative stability and security in China's history, Beijing could flirt with the idea of state-sponsored maritime exploration, as evidenced by the fleets of Zheng He. But for the most part, China avoided expanding its naval activity because it was neither pressed to physically assert its overseas diplomatic positions, nor did it have the bandwidth and freedom to look across the sea. The Silk Road provided sufficient access to exotic trade, and security concerns with neighbors kept China focused on the continent.
Beijing's Modern Maritime Interests
Today, there are two primary concerns driving Chinese maritime activity: economic resources and strategic access. Although many of the concerns China is dealing with now are not new, other factors have combined to both enable and compel Beijing to act in a more assertive manner.
The South China Sea has always had an abundance of natural resources. Although much attention is paid to existing and potential crude oil and natural gas reserves, as well as the possibility of subsea mineral extraction, one of the biggest resource drivers there is marine protein (fish and seafood). By some accounts, the South China Sea accounts for one-tenth of annual global seafood take. Asia's enclosed seas provide plentiful and readily available food resources, but fishing is a constant source of regional tension. Even at times of low inter-regional stress, fishing fleets frequently violate one another's territories, and run-ins with maritime patrols are not infrequent occurrences. These incidents are normally isolated, but if they occur when political sensitivities are heightened, they can quickly escalate into larger diplomatic incidents or even physical confrontations. (Several deadly maritime clashes between the divided Koreas in the past 20 years have been triggered by disputes over the location of fishing fleets.)
China's Moves in the South China Sea: Implications and Opportunities
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Crude oil, natural gas and seabed minerals are less proven, and political risk has kept significant progress in exploration to a minimum, except near proven reserves and usually within undisputed territory. However, this is not to say that there is no interest in tapping the subsea resources. Rising regional demand -- to which Beijing is a significant contributor -- and a rising level of technological proficiency in China and elsewhere is making subsea exploration and exploitation more desirable and achievable. China is entering the realm of deep-sea exploration, something it was not consistently able to engage in before. Still, cost and political risk will continue to impact decisions for exploration, since mere capability doesn't necessarily translate into cost effectiveness.
In addition to resource exploitation, there is another, more strategic, driver for China's maritime ambitions that is quickly becoming more pressing for Beijing. In the past, China was largely capable of meeting its own needs and sustaining its economy domestically, or via land routes. This is no longer the case, and the significant boom in the Chinese economy has raised the increasing vulnerability of China's overseas dependence to a much higher priority for Beijing. The large shift in Chinese consumption has created a heavy dependence on maritime routes, which high levels of Chinese exports only add to. This dependence has shaped the strategic picture in Beijing: As with any country dependent on maritime supply lines, China will seek to secure those routes, whether from regional competitors, non-state actors or any major maritime power.
China's Moves in the South China Sea: Implications and Opportunities
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The United States is currently the global maritime power, and the only nation that can (and does) operate freely throughout the world's oceans while ensuring the same opportunity for others. But the United States' ability to use and act on the seas with near impunity also means that, from China's perspective, Washington has the capability, if not the intent, to use that power to constrain China's growth. China's emergence as an economic power changed the international system, as it became one of three pillars of the global economy. This crucial role shapes not only China's perception of itself and its place in the world order, but also the perceptions others have of China. Beijing's concern is that the United States sees China as its only potential peer, even if an emerging regional power, and thus Chinese leaders fear that Washington will make the decision (if it hasn't already) to contain any further rise of China. This question of Washington's intent, combined with U.S. maritime power, has put pressure on China to develop the defensive capability to protect its critical maritime supply lines, or leave itself at the mercy of the United States.
The shift in Beijing's threat perception coincided with changes in the Chinese military. Under President Jiang Zemin, the Chinese government began to restructure the military and stripped away its business empire, in return offering the People's Liberation Army (PLA) a more modern role and more modern equipment. The modernization of the Chinese military required a new type of soldier who was highly educated and understood the technology of modern warfare. It also required a shift in the training, doctrine and overall focus of the Chinese military. The PLA has evolved well beyond its previous, politically constrained form, especially since China's land borders have remained relatively stable and Beijing has created more civilian forces to deal with internal unrest, freeing the military to focus abroad. The PLA's role is now more than just protecting China's borders, or preventing internal instability; it is preserving China's broader national interests, which include the protection of China's lines of trade. The PLA sees this global role emerging, starting in the South China Sea. New capabilities have allowed China to act with more authority in the South China Sea than in previous decades. Beijing does not see this as aggressive behavior but as defensive action, through which it is securing what is necessary to preserve its national interests.
Beijing's Goals in the South China Sea
China's aims in the South China Sea are not necessarily separate from its broader goals in Southeast Asia. Beijing sees Southeast Asia as a natural economic and political partner, and an area for trade and investment flowing in both directions that clearly falls within China's sphere of influence. Though not an exact parallel, China sees Southeast Asia in much the same way the United States saw Latin America in the early 19th century. China essentially has an unspoken Monroe Doctrine for its near seas -- it intends to remove significant foreign interference and influence from the countries around it. This does not mean that China expects regional countries to shun all connections with the United States; rather, China wants to ensure that it has the upper hand in influencing its neighbors' decisions to protect its national security interests.
China's Moves in the South China Sea: Implications and Opportunities
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In the South China Sea, China's small island strategy is not necessarily one of military expansion. Far different than the island hopping competition between Japan and the United States during World War II, the airstrips and dock facilities on islands and atolls in the South China Sea rarely give China a true military advantage. Modern military technology gives China the range to operate without needing these islets, and possessing the islands does not necessarily give Beijing greater strategic control over their surrounding waters. In some ways, from a purely military perspective, holding the islands farthest from the mainland is more of a risk than a benefit to China. They are small, have few or no local resources (in most cases, not even fresh water), and in times of conflict would prove hard to defend and resupply.
Building structures on the islands certainly prevents others from doing the same, and in times of relative peace may make it slightly easier for China to conduct maritime surveillance, but the primary purpose of occupying the islands is not military; it is political. Holding the islands over time, without facing a concrete challenge, strengthens the reality of Chinese ownership. Beijing has assessed that, to its neighbors and their U.S. ally, no single island is worth the military risk of physically countering China, so there is nothing to stop Beijing from slowly absorbing the region. When tension with a particular country rises too high, China can ease off, shift its attention to a different country, or use the perception of heightened tensions to drive a desire for calming the situation. Over time, this strategy slowly shifts the political reality in the region. The lack of real challenge to Chinese actions reasserts, by default, Beijing's claims to and authority over the territory. It also shows that neither the United States nor other extra-regional allies are going to intervene on behalf of the Southeast Asian nations. In the end, China believes this unwillingness for intervention will lead to the realignment of political relations as Southeast Asian nations find accommodating Beijing more beneficial than trying to oppose Chinese expansion through alliances with powers outside the region.
Implications for ASEAN
The changing status quo in Asia is as much a natural consequence of China's economic growth and expansion as of the imbalance between China's rapidly changing position in the global system and its relative lag in soft-power expansion. While China's economic rise benefits the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) considerably, there is no guarantee that it doesn't also undermine the core interests of each individual ASEAN country. The disconnect between China's economic strength on the one hand, and the significant security role assumed by others -- namely the United States -- on the other, highlights the imbalance of power in the region. In some ways this gap has benefited ASEAN by giving member states the ability to take advantage of the big powers' competition for their own benefit. But at other times, they find themselves caught in the ebbs and flows of U.S.-China relations, with little ability to influence the direction of the relationship.
China's economic approach has been to create a reality where ASEAN countries rely much more on China than China relies on them. As the security challenges in the South China Sea remain unsolved, deepening economic relations may only deepen ASEAN's suspicion of China's motives. Meanwhile, China's occasional diplomatic and economic mismanagement of its regional relationships may stir political and social resistance in the ASEAN states, adding to the situation's complexity. Despite these short-term conflicts, Beijing still regards its "friendly neighbor" and "peaceful rise" policies as the key elements in its relationship with ASEAN. Rather than formally dominate ASEAN states, as colonial powers did in the past, China is hoping to simply draw them in and gain their cooperation -- a recreation of the age-old Chinese system of regional political management.
The Philippines' Key Role in China's Strategy
China's Moves in the South China Sea: Implications and Opportunities
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The Philippines forms the eastern wall of the South China Sea, the key route to the Pacific Ocean. China cannot afford to have the Philippines adopt a confrontational stance toward Chinese interests and maritime activity. The Philippines is a U.S. treaty ally, and thus is seen as part of any U.S. containment strategy against China. Beijing feels compelled to break U.S.-Philippines ties, or at the very least create strain in the relationship. The Philippines' somewhat ambivalent attitude toward the U.S. military certainly helps China's cause. Furthermore, growing disappointment with the U.S. "pivot" to Asia, a policy widely misread in the region, has added another dimension to the complexity of the relationship between Manila and Washington. In other words, there is plenty of room to increase cooperation between China and the Philippines -- especially economically -- despite any political speed bumps. In 2013, the Philippines received just 1.4 percent of China's total investment in ASEAN, the second-lowest share among the 10 member states. Cross-border trade stood at $15.1 billion that year, ranking China as the Philippines' third most significant trading partner (and higher, if trade with Hong Kong is included). But there is much room for expansion, if political distractions can be overcome.
The Philippines has been one of the two countries in the South China Sea, along with Vietnam, that has noisily challenged China's expansion. Beijing's actions are the most disadvantageous to Manila and Hanoi, which claim the largest swathes of territory in the South China Sea after China itself and are therefore experiencing the biggest shifts from the status quo as a result of Beijing's expansionism. However, China is confident in dealing with the Philippines because of its disproportionate advantage in their economic relationship and because the U.S.-Philippine security relationship remains strained. The strategic balance between China and the Philippines is tipped heavily in Beijing's favor, giving China far more room to maneuver than Manila. Barring significant U.S. intervention, China will retain this advantage. Ultimately, Beijing is counting on its estimation that the United States won't get tied up in a real confrontation with China over a few unoccupied islands claimed by the Philippines.
Read more: China's Moves in the South China Sea: Implications and Opportunities | Stratfor
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http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-10/china-sending-america-message
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I don't happen to believe this. Just reporting what's being reported. Another feather in Obama's cap.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/its-official-america-is-now-no-2-2014-12-04
It’s official: America is now No. 2
There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it: We’re no longer No. 1. Today, we’re No. 2. Yes, it’s official. The Chinese economy just overtook the United States economy to become the largest in the world. For the first time since Ulysses S. Grant was president, America is not the leading economic power on the planet.
It just happened — and almost nobody noticed.
The International Monetary Fund recently released the latest numbers for the world economy. And when you measure national economic output in “real” terms of goods and services, China will this year produce $17.6 trillion — compared with $17.4 trillion for the U.S.A.
As recently as 2000, we produced nearly three times as much as the Chinese.
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"As recently as 2000, we produced nearly three times as much as the Chinese."
If I am not mistaken, that is since 1990, not 2000.
Regardless, the larger point remains.
:cry: :cry: :cry:
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http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/11/13/china-and-the-united-states-are-preparing-for-war/
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U.S., Philippines Vow to Strengthen Military Alliance
But Strategic Dialogue Produces No New Measures to Tackle Beijing’s Push in Disputed South China Sea
Philippine foreign affairs undersecretary for policy Evan Garcia and U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel R. Russel shake hands after two days of talks.
By
Trefor Moss
Jan. 21, 2015 7:40 a.m. ET
WSJ
MANILA—The U.S. and the Philippines vowed to deepen their military alliance despite tension over a stalled defense pact and allegations that a U.S. Marine murdered a Filipino transgender woman last year.
At the end of an annual two-day strategic dialogue in Manila on Wednesday, the high-level U.S. and Philippine panels also criticized China for what they characterized as its provocative actions in the South China Sea.
But they didn’t identify any new measures they could take to prevent China from tightening its grip on the disputed region, as some fear will happen this year.
The U.S. and the Philippines signed a new defense pact in April 2014 that would allow U.S. forces to deploy to Philippine military bases. However, the deal remains on ice because of a legal challenge currently before the Philippine Supreme Court.
The alliance was placed under further strain in October when a U.S. Marine was named as the suspect in the killing of Jennifer Laude in Subic Bay—a regular port of call for U.S. Navy ships—west of Manila.
Pfc. Joseph Scott Pemberton was charged with murder in December and is awaiting trial.
Critics of the new defense pact said the American decision to retain custody of Mr. Pemberton rather than surrender him to Philippine authorities demonstrated the inequality of the U.S.-Philippine alliance.
Mr. Pemberton has been held by the U.S. in a trailer inside the compound of the Philippine military’s headquarters in Manila.
On Wednesday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel R. Russel called the alliance “a true partnership of equals,” and reaffirmed Washington’s “rock-solid commitment to the Philippines.” Philippine Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Policy Evan Garcia said the alliance remained deep and flexible.
In a joint statement, the two nations said they would continue “efforts to reinforce” and strengthen their militaries in areas such as maritime domain awareness.
However, on China’s moves in the South China Sea, there was no sign of new measures. Mr. Russel noted that “the Chinese have a number of projects under way in the South China Sea in which they are reclaiming land in shoals and rocks in sensitive areas where sovereignty has been contested,” and reiterated calls for Beijing to desist from such activities.
Mr. Garcia said the “massive reclamation by China in the South China Sea is a clear violation” of an agreement between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, in which all parties pledged to avoid provocative actions. This month, Manila said a new artificial Chinese island with a potential military base at Fiery Cross Reef, in the Spratly Islands, was 50% complete.
However, the officials said they would continue trying to persuade China to moderate its actions, chiefly through high-level dialogue and by modernizing the Philippine military, although such efforts have been unsuccessful so far.
Chinese officials have confirmed their land-reclamation efforts, but said these are legitimate projects being undertaken in sovereign Chinese territory.
Zachary Abuza, a U.S.-based consultant on Southeast Asian affairs, said China would complete several artificial islands over the next few months, after which “the Philippines will be the focus of their actions.” He suggested that “China really does want to probe the U.S. response” to see how far Washington would go to protect Filipino interests.
A Philippine case at an international court in The Hague, Netherlands, challenging China’s claim to most of the South China Sea “continues to cast a dark shadow over Philippines-China relations,” said Richard Javad Heydarian, a political-science professor at De La Salle University in Manila.
He said a genuine strengthening of the U.S.-Philippine alliance would be “crucial to deterring China from further adventurism.”
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Utter realism would be preparing to fight another guerrilla warfare campaign against a large Asian invading force. There won't be a MacArthur returning this time.
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http://freebeacon.com/national-security/photos-show-china-military-buildup-on-island-near-senkakus/
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Well, our pivot to the east will handle this in short order :-P :-P :-P
It increasingly looks like NO major player of either party is paying any attention to this. Once again this forum is a lonely sentinel.
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Well, our pivot to the east will handle this in short order :-P :-P :-P
It increasingly looks like NO major player of either party is paying any attention to this. Once again this forum is a lonely sentinel.
Obama's golf balls aren't going to hit themselves.
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Well, our pivot to the east will handle this in short order :-P :-P :-P
It increasingly looks like NO major player of either party is paying any attention to this. Once again this forum is a lonely sentinel.
Obama's golf balls aren't going to hit themselves.
Oh, and Obama is busy mobilizing against his one true enemy to bother with China.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/09/world/in-a-test-of-wills-japanese-fighter-pilots-confront-chinese.html?emc=edit_th_20150309&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/09/world/in-a-test-of-wills-japanese-fighter-pilots-confront-chinese.html?emc=edit_th_20150309&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0
China will move before Obama leaves office.
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I fear you may be right on that one GM, though a case can be made that with our declining budget and their increasing budget and theft of our technology that the longer they wait, the easier it will be for them.
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I fear you may be right on that one GM, though a case can be made that with our declining budget and their increasing budget and theft of our technology that the longer they wait, the easier it will be for them.
They have Buraq's number. They deliberately show disrespect to him. It's clear that see him as weak, so no matter how the PLA stacks up to the U.S. Navy, they are confident that the U S will sit out a short, sharp conflict with Japan.
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http://theweek.com/articles/548082/china-right-alarmed-by-japans-new-helicopter-destroyer
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Beijing, With an Eye on the South China Sea, Adds Patrol Ships
By JANE PERLEZAPRIL 10, 2015
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The Chinese guided missile destroyer Harbin during exercises with the Russian Navy in 2012. Credit China Daily/Reuters
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SINGAPORE — China is rapidly building coast guard ships, the vessels that China most commonly uses for patrols in the South China Sea, and in the last three years has increased the number of ships in that category 25 percent, a new report by the United States Navy says.
China has the world’s largest coast guard fleet, with more such ships than its neighbors Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines combined, the report shows.
The unclassified assessment of the Chinese Navy, the first in nine years by the United States Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence, says the rapid modernization over the last 15 years is yielding dramatic results.
The Chinese Navy is “on track to dramatically increase its combat capability by 2020 through rapid acquisition and improved operational proficiency,” the report says.
Continue reading the main story
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In 2014, China began construction on, launched or commissioned more than 60 vessels, and a similar number of ships were planned in 2015, it said, adding: “In 2013 and 2014, China launched more naval ships than any other country and is expected to continue this trend through 2015-16.”
Photo
A China Coast Guard vessel last year. China has increased its number of Coast Guard ships by 25 percent in the last three years. Credit Bullit Marquez/Associated Press
The United States Navy faces growing competition from China in the Pacific Ocean, and Washington has become increasingly concerned about China’s maritime power as it undertakes reclamation works to create artificial islands in contested areas of the South China Sea.
The new islands were to serve a variety of purposes, among them the establishment of defensive military capabilities in the waterway, one of the busiest trade routes in the world, China’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
The Navy report noted that despite its slowing economy, China had continued its double-digit increases in military spending, announcing in March a military budget of $141.5 billion, an increase of 10 percent.
In keeping with President Xi Jinping’s goal to make China a great maritime power, China will have a much more robust navy with far greater reach in the coming decade with multiple aircraft carriers (China has only one so far), ballistic missile submarines and, potentially, a large-deck amphibious ship. At the moment, the report says, the Chinese Navy is built around destroyers, frigates and conventional submarines.
The report confirms recent announcements in the Chinese state-run news media that China has deployed the YJ-18, a new generation supersonic antiship cruise missile that could present unprecedented challenges to the air defenses of American and allied ships, said Andrew S. Erickson, an associate professor at the United States Naval War College in Rhode Island.
“Everyone serious about understanding Chinese military capabilities must familiarize themselves with this missile,” Mr. Erickson said.
An article in China Daily said last week that three “cutting-edge nuclear-powered attack submarines” had been manufactured by China and that one of them, referred to as the Type-093G, had a wing-shaped cross section designed to improve speed and mobility and to reduce noise. That submarine carried a vertical launcher capable of delivering China’s latest YJ-18 supersonic antiship cruise missile, the article said.
In the past, China had received antiship cruise missiles from Russia, but now China is making them at home and fielding them in greater numbers, said Lyle J. Goldstein, an associate professor in the China Maritime Studies Institute at the United States Naval War College.
“This missile, and its air-launched cousin, the YJ-12, are major threats to the U.S. Navy,” Mr. Goldstein said. “The major increase in speed makes the missile much harder to intercept.”
Correction: April 10, 2015
An earlier version of this article carried an incorrect dateline. The article was reported and written in Singapore, not Beijing.
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Important maps for understanding this article at
http://www.wsj.com/articles/china-expands-islands-in-disputed-waters-photos-show-1429011466
MANILA—China is expanding two islands it controls in the disputed Paracel Islands, east of Vietnam, even as it builds seven new islets in the South China Sea, satellite imagery published on Tuesday shows.
Woody Island and Duncan Island have both expanded significantly as a result of recent land reclamation work undertaken by China, according to images taken a month ago by satellite-imaging company DigitalGlobe and published today by the Diplomat, an Asian current-affairs website. Vietnam says it owns both islands, although Woody Island is home to China’s largest South China Sea settlement—Sansha City, which has a population of 600 people.
Read More
China Expands Island Construction in Disputed South China Sea (2/18/15)
China claims about 90% of the South China Sea, parts of which are also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. All the claimants apart from Brunei have populated settlements on disputed islands under their control, but China has made a concerted push in recent months to expand its footprint in the contested region, drawing persistent complaints—but little collective action—from its neighbors.
Satellite pictures published by the Philippines and others have charted the speedy construction of at least seven islands by China in the Spratly Islands group through the use of dredgers to dump sand on top of shallow reefs. Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Hua Chunying said earlier this month that the artificial islands would be used for “military defense,” as well as a range of civilian purposes.
Vietnamese officials couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday. Diplomatic relations between Beijing and Hanoi became strained a year ago when a Chinese drilling platform was deployed to disputed waters east of Vietnam, though ties have largely recovered since the rig was removed in July.
Hong Lei, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Tuesday that “the Paracels are an inherent part of China,” when asked about the reclamation projects there. Chinese officials have consistently waved away complaints about the country’s island-building program on the grounds that China is entitled to undertake construction projects within its own sovereign territory.
President Barack Obama waded into the South China Sea row last week, saying that China “is not necessarily abiding by international law and is using its sheer size and muscle to force countries into subordinate positions.”
“Just because the Philippines or Vietnam are not as large as China doesn’t mean that they can just be elbowed aside,” Mr. Obama said during a visit to Jamaica on Thursday, when asked about China’s island-building program.
The commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet Admiral Harry Harris last month dubbed the Chinese reclamation program in the South China Sea the “Great Wall of sand,” saying that Chinese dredgers had created 4 square kilometers of artificial landmass in the disputed sea over the past few months.
On Monday, the Philippine government said China’s island-building program would cost the region’s littoral states $100 million a year through damage caused to the local ecosystem and the degrading of fish stocks.
—Dinny McMahon contributed to this article.
Write to Trefor Moss at Trefor.Moss@wsj.com
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China’s aggressive actions in the South China Sea are prompting a soul-searching query from Hanoi to Washington: At what point does a sliced-up salami cease being a salami at all?
In a short space of time, China’s unilateral and incremental efforts to carve out a greater presence in the South China Sea — by, for example, turning empty coral atolls into artificial airstrips — have prompted concern that Beijing is not-so-stealthily creating a new strategic reality in one of the world’s most important and potentially volatile flash points. That so-called “salami-slicing” strategy, in which countries undertake a series of seemingly inconsequential steps that add up to a fundamental change, is pushing many Southeast Asian countries closer together and is breathing fresh life into the decades-old U.S.-Japan defense alliance, all with an eye on a common, if often unnamed, adversary.
On Tuesday, U.S. President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe celebrated deeper defense ties between the two allies, meant in part to respond to a shifting security environment in the Asia-Pacific region. “For the first time in nearly two decades, we’ve updated the guidelines for our defense cooperation,” Obama said at a joint news conference in Washington.
“We share a concern about China’s land reclamation and construction activities in the South China Sea, and the United States and Japan are united in our commitment to freedom of navigation, respect for international law, and the peaceful resolution of disputes, without coercion,” Obama said
On the other side of the world, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a regional grouping, went further than it ever had before in condemning China’s efforts to muscle aside neighbors with an aggressive program of island building in the South China Sea. Prompted especially by Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines, the 26th ASEAN summit concluded with a statement Tuesday that implicitly called out Beijing for destabilizing the region.
“We share the serious concerns expressed by some leaders on the land reclamation being undertaken in the South China Sea, which has eroded trust and confidence and may undermine peace, security and stability in the South China Sea,” ASEAN countries said in their joint statement.
And even though internal divisions inside ASEAN precluded condemning China by name, Beijing got the message — and shot back with vitriol.
China is “gravely concerned” by the statement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a briefing Tuesday. “Relevant construction [on the reefs] is lawful, justified and reasonable and thus beyond reproach. The Chinese side opposes a few countries’ taking hostage the entire ASEAN and China-ASEAN relations for their own selfish gains and undermining the friendly cooperation between China and ASEAN,” he continued.
The back-and-forth came just a day after the United States and Japan cemented a more muscular defensive partnership, with new guidelines that bolster the two countries’ militaries’ ability to plan and operate together. Japan has its own territorial disputes with China in the East China Sea — and Obama reiterated U.S. defense commitments to Japan in the event of a clash there — but the revised guidelines go further. They open the door for Tokyo to get involved in armed showdowns even when Japan itself is not attacked, including taking a greater role in possible South China Sea conflicts.
Taken together with other beefed-up U.S. defense commitments, including expanded basing rights in the Philippines, as well as closer defense ties between Asian countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines, the new guidelines point toward a growing recognition in the region and in Washington that China’s efforts to change the facts on the ground represent a real threat. In the past month, a bevy of analysts have called for a more vigorous U.S. response to Chinese actions that threaten regional stability.
“Together, our forces will be more flexible and better prepared to cooperate on a range of challenges, from maritime security to disaster response,” Obama said about the enhanced security relationship, adding that “Japan will take on greater roles and responsibilities in the Asia-Pacific and around the world.” U.S. Marines, Obama added, will relocate from Okinawa to Guam to help “realign U.S. forces across the region.”
Seeking to parry criticism that closer defense ties could suck Japan into U.S. wars, Abe stressed the role that the pact has played in underpinning decades of peace and prosperity in Asia. And in the context of rising tensions in the South and East China seas, Abe said, the revised defense pact will help enhance deterrence and make for a more efficient and functional alliance.
Importantly, the traditional alliance partners are no longer apparently alone. The fact that ASEAN’s 10 oft-divided countries managed to condemn, albeit obliquely, China’s behavior simply underscores how the region is waking up, said Holly Morrow, an expert at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
“What we are witnessing is China reaping the fruits of its strategy in the region: a reinvigorated U.S.-Japan alliance, a completely transformed U.S.-Vietnam relationship, a closer U.S.-Philippine alliance than has been seen in many years, and generally a Southeast Asian view of China’s rise that is much more negative than it was even five or 10 years ago,” she said.
China’s far-reaching claims to sovereignty over nearly all of the South China Sea, a crowded waterway filled with potential energy riches through which passes about $5 trillion in trade every year, are hardly new. The “nine-dashed line” that China says represents its blue territory on the map dates from just after World War II, and China has had low-level disputes with neighbors over maritime claims for more than a decade.
But in the past six months, its ambitious program of building artificial islands potentially gives Beijing the ability to project military power in the region in a way that it could not before. One expert on China defense issues, Andrew Erickson, noted recently that by building an airstrip on the Fiery Cross Reef, located hundreds of miles from China but close to the Philippines, Beijing could install air-defense zones in the heart of the South China Sea.
In the great game of weiqi that China appears to be playing in Asian geopolitics, steps such as reef reclamation and aggressive pushback at even mild condemnations by neighboring countries amount to a slate of strategically placed stones that could tilt the balance ever more in Beijing’s direction, experts say. That could be one reason that Washington appears to be putting more vigor behind the “rebalancing” to Asia, especially at the Defense Department, where the top leadership including Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Deputy Secretary Robert Work, are well versed in Asian security issues.
The big question, of course, is what the United States can realistically do to respond to China’s actions. The two countries need to cooperate on a whole range of issues, from managing the global economy to dealing with nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea, as well tackling climate change, cybersecurity, and other transnational affairs. At the same time, and unlike Vietnam or the Philippines, Washington’s attention is divided by multiple and escalating crises in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Ukraine. In that vein, as Foreign Policy columnist Stephen M. Walt recently noted, saber rattling over rocks doesn’t make much apparent sense.
But at some point, many experts now say, Beijing’s incrementalist approach to changing the status quo in the Western Pacific will require a full-throated response from Washington. If not, the Asian salami that the United States has spent 70 years defending might just gradually disappear from the plate.
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"the United States and Japan cemented a more muscular defensive partnership, with new guidelines that bolster the two countries’ militaries’ ability to plan and operate together"
Although our President's word is of no value, let his career scorecard show that in this one case he got something right. Welcome Prime Minister Abe to the United States.
More likely than than global security as a motivator, Michelle wanted an occasion like a state dinner to wear a new dress and knows the Japanese will come bearing gifts.
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U.S. Military Proposes Challenge to China Sea Claims
Moves would send Navy planes, ships near artificial islands built by China in contested waters
By
Adam Entous,
Gordon Lubold and
Julian E. Barnes
Updated May 12, 2015 7:33 p.m. ET
179 COMMENTS
The U.S. military is considering using aircraft and Navy ships to directly contest Chinese territorial claims to a chain of rapidly expanding artificial islands, U.S. officials said, in a move that would raise the stakes in a regional showdown over who controls disputed waters in the South China Sea.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter has asked his staff to look at options that include flying Navy surveillance aircraft over the islands and sending U.S. naval ships to within 12 nautical miles of reefs that have been built up and claimed by the Chinese in an area known as the Spratly Islands.
Such moves, if approved by the White House, would be designed to send a message to Beijing that the U.S. won’t accede to Chinese territorial claims to the man-made islands in what the U.S. considers to be international waters and airspace.
The Pentagon’s calculation may be that the military planning, and any possible deployments, would increase pressure on the Chinese to make concessions over the artificial islands. But Beijing also could double down, expanding construction in defiance of the U.S. and potentially taking steps to further Chinese claims in the area.
The U.S. has said it doesn’t recognize the man-made islands as sovereign Chinese territory. Nonetheless, military officials said, the Navy has so far not sent military aircraft or ships within 12 nautical miles of the reclaimed reefs to avoid escalating tensions.
If the U.S. challenges China’s claims using ships or naval vessels and Beijing stands its ground, the result could escalate tensions in the region, with increasing pressure on both sides to flex military muscle in the disputed waters.
According to U.S. estimates, China has expanded the artificial islands in the Spratly chain to as much as 2,000 acres of land, up from 500 acres last year. Last month, satellite imagery from defense intelligence provider IHS Jane’s showed China has begun building an airstrip on one of the islands, which appears to be large enough to accommodate fighter jets and surveillance aircraft.
The U.S. has used its military to challenge other Chinese claims Washington considers unfounded. In November 2013, the U.S. flew a pair of B-52 bombers over disputed islands in the East China Sea to contest an air identification zone that Beijing had declared in the area.
Officials said there was now growing momentum within the Pentagon and the White House for taking concrete steps in order to send Beijing a signal that the recent buildup in the Spratlys went too far and needed to stop.
Chinese officials dismiss complaints about the island-building, saying Beijing is entitled to undertake construction projects within its own sovereign territory. They say the facilities will be used for military and civilian purposes.
“China has indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha Islands and their adjacent waters,” said embassy spokesman Zhu Haiquan, using the Chinese name for the Spratlys. “The relevant construction, which is reasonable, justified and lawful, is well within China’s sovereignty. It does not impact or target any country, and is thus beyond reproach.”
Mr. Zhu said that Beijing hopes that “relevant parties,” a reference to the U.S. military and its regional allies, will “refrain from playing up tensions or doing anything detrimental to security and mutual trust.”
China claims almost all of the South China Sea, one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, and its efforts to enforce control of the area in recent years have caused growing concern in the U.S. and in Asia, where several nations have competing claims, including the Philippines, a U.S. ally.
“The Philippines believes that the U.S., as well as all responsible members of the international community, do have an interest and say in what is happening in the South China Sea,” said Charles Jose, spokesman for the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs, early Wednesday, citing freedom of navigation and unimpeded flow of commerce among other factors.
U.S. military aircraft have repeatedly approached the 12-nautical-mile zone declared by China around the built up reefs. But to avoid an escalation, the planes haven’t penetrated the zone. A senior military official said the flights “have kept a distance from the islands and remained near the 12-mile mark.”
U.S. planes have flown close to the islands where the building has been taking place, prompting Chinese military officers to radio the approaching U.S. aircraft to notify the pilots that they are nearing Chinese sovereign territory. In response, U.S. pilots have told the Chinese that they are flying through international airspace.
The USS Fort Worth, a combat ship, has been operating in recent days in waters near the Spratlys. “We’re just not going within the 12 miles—yet,” a senior U.S. official said.
The military proposals haven’t been formally presented to the White House, which would have to sign off on any change in the U.S. posture. The White House declined to comment on the deliberations.
Officials said the issue is a complicated one because at least some of the areas where the Chinese have been doing construction are, in eyes of the U.S. government, legitimate islands, which would be entitled to a 12-nautical-mile zone.
The proposal under consideration would be to send Navy ships and aircraft to within 12 nautical miles of only those built-up sites that the U.S. doesn’t legally consider to be islands, officials say.
Over the years, U.S. vessels and aircraft have had several encounters with Chinese assets, often arising from disagreements over Beijing’s territorial claims.
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March 2001 China orders an unarmed U.S. Navy survey ship out of waters in the Yellow Sea, claiming a violation of its exclusive economic zone. The U.S. disputed the claim, and days later the ship returned to the Yellow Sea with an armed escort.
April 2001 A Chinese fighter collides with a U.S. Navy electronic surveillance aircraft near China’s Hainan Island in the South China Sea, forcing the EP-3 to make an emergency landing.
May 2003 Chinese fishing boats are used to bump the same U.S. Navy survey ship involved in the 2001 incident, causing some damage.
March 2009 Chinese military and government ships surround a U.S. Navy surveillance ship in the South China Sea in a disputed economic zone, forcing the U.S. vessel to take evasive action. The Navy ship returned the next day accompanied by a guided missile destroyer.
Nov. 2013 The U.S. flies a pair of B-52 bombers over disputed islands in the East China Sea to contest Beijing’s air identification zone.
Dec. 2013 A Chinese ship blocks the path of a U.S. Navy cruiser, the Cowpens, in the South China Sea, some distance from China’s aircraft carrier, forcing the Cowpens to change course to avoid a collision.
Aug. 2014 a Chinese fighter conducted what U.S. officials said was a dangerous intercept of a U.S. Navy maritime patrol aircraft that was flying in international airspace about 135 miles east of Hainan Island.
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Under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, reclaimed features aren’t entitled to territorial waters if the original features are not islands recognized under the agreement, U.S. officials say. Under that interpretation, the U.S. believes it doesn’t need to honor the 12-mile zone around the built-up reefs that weren’t considered to be islands before construction there began.
Several U.S. allies in the region have been privately urging the White House to do more to challenge Chinese behavior, warning Washington that U.S. inaction in the South China Sea risked inadvertently reinforcing Beijing’s territorial claims, U.S. officials said. Some allies in the region have, in contrast, expressed concern to Washington that a change in the U.S.’s approach could inadvertently draw them into a conflict.
“It’s important that everyone in the region have a clear understanding of exactly what China is doing,” a U.S. official said. “We’ve got to get eyes on.” The U.S. has been using satellites to monitor building at the islands.
In recent months, the White House has sought to increase pressure on Beijing to halt construction on the islands through diplomatic channels, as well as by calling out the Chinese publicly in recent press briefings and government reports.
The U.S. Navy regularly conducts “freedom of navigation transits” in the region, including across the South China Sea. But the Navy has yet to receive explicit authorization from the administration to do so within 12 nautical miles of the artificial islands.
John Kerry, the U.S. secretary of state, is due in Beijing this weekend to make preparations for a visit to the U.S. in September by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has made improving military ties with the U.S. a top priority.
A new standoff with China would add to mounting security crises facing the U.S. in other regions.
Last year, after Russia seized Ukrainian territory, the White House imposed sanctions on Moscow but so far has rebuffed Ukrainian requests for U.S. weapons. In the Middle East, Islamic State militants took over large swaths of Iraq last summer, prompting the U.S. to launch an air campaign against the group.
The U.S. has long maintained that it doesn’t take sides in the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, though it has a national interest in maintaining freedom of navigation in the area. In the last year, though, U.S. officials have stepped up its criticism of China’s efforts to enforce and justify its claims in the region.
U.S. officials say they are concerned that a decision not to send naval vessels into the zone would inadvertently help the Chinese build their own case for sovereignty in the area.
Chinese coast guard vessels routinely sail within 12 nautical miles of the Senkaku Islands, which are controlled by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing, which calls them the Diaoyu.
U.S. officials say they believe China sends vessels into the Senkaku area in the East China Sea because it wants to demonstrate to Tokyo and to others that Beijing doesn’t recognize the islands as Japanese sovereign territory.
China’s claims include territorial seas stretching out 12 nautical miles from all the Spratlys, where it controls seven reefs—all recently expanded into artificial islands. Rival claimants occupy several other islands, reefs and rocks.
Historical images from Google Earth and elsewhere reveal that reclamation work at most of the Chinese held reefs began after President Xi took power in 2012.
Much of the construction began in the past year, despite protests from neighboring countries, warming military ties with Washington, and a new Chinese drive to improve relations in its periphery.
U.S. officials say they have repeatedly asked China to stop the work, to no avail.
—Jeremy Page and Trefor Moss contributed to this article.
Write to Adam Entous at adam.entous@wsj.com and Julian E. Barnes at julian.barnes@wsj.com
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U.S. Seeks Calmer Waters
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry calls for reduced tensions over China’s building of artificial islands
Photos by satellite-imagery provider DigitalGlobe shows what is believed to be Chinese vessels dredging sand at Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. ENLARGE
Photos by satellite-imagery provider DigitalGlobe shows what is believed to be Chinese vessels dredging sand at Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
By
Jeremy Page
May 16, 2015 8:33 a.m. ET
13 COMMENTS
BEIJING—Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing is determined to protect its sovereignty in the South China Sea as his visiting U.S. counterpart John Kerry called for efforts to reduce tensions over China’s stepped-up building of artificial islands.
At a joint news conference Saturday, Mr. Kerry briefly expressed concern about the land reclamation in the South China Sea and urged China to take steps to defuse the situation. He tried to emphasize other positive aspects of bilateral relations, such as cooperation on climate change.
Mr. Kerry didn’t respond to a reporter’s question on whether the U.S. military is planning to send warships or planes within 12 nautical miles of the artificial islands, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
Mr. Wang took up the question, however, saying the structures fall within the scope of China’s sovereignty.
“The determination of the Chinese side to safeguard our own sovereignty and territorial integrity is as firm as a rock and it is unshakable,” Mr. Wang said. “It is the demand of our people on our government as well as a legitimate right of ours.”
Mr. Wang said China is committed to resolving territorial disputes peacefully and would continue ongoing talks about the artificial islands with the U.S. and other nations.
The two men had met earlier for talks on the first day of Mr. Kerry’s weekend visit to Beijing, which officials say is designed to lay the ground for high-level meetings by senior officials in Washington in June, and a state visit to the U.S. by Chinese President Xi Jinping in September.
Mr. Kerry was due to meet Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Saturday afternoon and Mr. Xi on Sunday before moving on to South Korea.
The visit to Beijing has been overshadowed by differences on the South China Sea, where Beijing’s extensive land reclamation in the past year has raised fresh concerns in Asia and the U.S. that it plans to use force to assert its sweeping territorial claims.
China’s claims cover almost all of the South China Sea—one of the world’s busiest shipping routes—and overlap with those of several neighboring countries, including the Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally.
The U.S. military is now considering sending navy ships and aircraft within 12 nautical miles of the artificial islands to demonstrate that the U.S. doesn't believe China can claim territorial seas around them, U.S. officials say.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a joint news conference in Beijing on Saturday, May 16, 2015. ENLARGE
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a joint news conference in Beijing on Saturday, May 16, 2015. Photo: Zuma Press
Ahead of Mr. Kerry’s visit, U.S. officials had said that he would take a tough line on the issue in Beijing.
At the news conference, Mr. Kerry said the U.S. had already expressed its concern over the pace and scope of China’s island-building.
“I urged China through Foreign Minister Wang to take actions that will join with everybody in helping to reduce tensions and increase the prospect of a diplomatic solution,” he said. The region, he said, needs “smart diplomacy” to achieve a code of conduct for the South China Sea rather than “outposts and military strips.”
Mr. Kerry also played down other points of recent tension, saying the U.S. welcomed China’s establishment of an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The Obama administration at first tried to discourage allies from joining, U.S. officials and diplomats from allied countries have said, but switched to a more cooperative position when the bank, which is due to start operating this year, attracted many prospective members.
Mr. Wang said the infrastructure bank and other recent Chinese initiatives weren't aimed at reducing U.S. influence in Asia, noting that 23 of the 57 founding members of the new bank were not Asian nations.
“When we talk about openness and inclusiveness, we’re not simply talking the talk—we’re actually walking the walk,” Mr. Wang said.
Write to Jeremy Page at jeremy.page@wsj.com
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It seems China has won a battle without firing a shot. US appears to be fully confused and disoriented as "loopholes" in the global order are ruthlessly exploited by many who like to serve and eat salami slices.
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Anyone surprised? China will take full advantage of our self induced weakness.
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The lack of attention to China seizing control of the open seas wherein 40% of the world's trade transits boggles the mind.
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The lack of attention to China seizing control of the open seas wherein 40% of the world's trade transits boggles the mind.
America is busy watching the Kardashians eat salad.
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http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/20/politics/south-china-sea-navy-flight/index.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=*Situation%20Report&utm_campaign=SitRep0522
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May 22, 2015 6:23 p.m. ET
43 COMMENTS
The U.S. Navy flew a P-8 Poseidon surveillance plane this week over the South China Sea’s Spratly Islands, where Beijing is building military bases atop reefs and rocks claimed by several of its neighbors. A CNN team invited along for the mission reported that China’s military repeatedly tried to order the U.S. plane away. “This is the Chinese navy,” it radioed in English. “Please go away . . . to avoid misunderstanding.” The U.S. crew responded each time that it was flying through international airspace.
Opinion Journal Video
American Enterprise Institute Scholar Michael Auslin on the Secretary of State’s latest diplomatic efforts. Plus, feminists call for a unified Korea. Photo credit: Associated Press.
By flying over the Spratlys, the U.S. provided its most forceful rejection to date of Beijing’s claim to sovereignty over an area that lies more than 600 miles from China’s coast. It also signaled that Washington would defend the freedom of the seas and the maritime rights of its partners.
And not a moment too soon. In recent years Beijing has expelled Philippine boats from certain fisheries, cut the cables of Vietnamese oil-exploration ships, and intercepted U.S. military vessels. Chinese dredgers have nearly doubled the total landmass of the Spratlys—creating more than 2,000 new acres, or some 1,500 football fields—in an attempt to extend Chinese military reach and its political claims.
For years diplomats got nowhere politely asking Beijing to stop. In 2012 the Obama Administration did not send naval forces to stop Chinese civilian and coast guard ships from banishing Filipinos from Scarborough Shoal, a rich fishing area north of the Spratlys and inside the Philippines’ 200-mile exclusive economic zone. The episode was barely noticed in the U.S. but raised alarms throughout Asia.
To its credit, the Administration has since toughened its response. After China declared an air-defense identification zone over Japan’s Senkaku Islands, a pair of B-52 bombers soon overflew the area. But U.S. officials claimed that was a previously scheduled mission unrelated to China’s gambit. This week’s overflight, by contrast, was an explicit response to China’s island-building, with the military releasing once-classified surveillance footage and bringing the media along for the ride.
In March a bipartisan group of Senate leaders demanded briefings on “specific actions the United States can take to slow down or stop China’s reclamation activities,” including possible military measures, changes in U.S.-China relations and expanded cooperation with Asian allies and partners. U.S. officials also say they are considering sending naval patrols past China’s artificial islands to reinforce that the waters around the Spratlys aren’t China’s to control.
That would be the right move. The longer the U.S. fails to contest Beijing’s South China Sea claims, the more aggressive China will become in asserting those claims—and perhaps the more willing it will be to fight for them. The time to resist Beijing’s maritime pretensions is now.
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Obama will do nothing for fear of damaging his legacy of non-involvement. Obama will do nothing about China trying to take over the South China Sea for fear of damaging his legacy of non-involvement. He will do nothing about the lack of education of poor children largely caused by teachers unions putting their pay and pensions way above the needs of poor children. He will do nothing about the lack of meaningful actions by Congress. He will do nothing effective about Putin's actions to increase his power. He will not stop ISIS. He will work on his pitching wedge shots.
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Lee Hartwig
Lee Hartwig 2 hours ago
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http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/05/26/chinas-military-blueprint-bigger-navy-bigger-global-role/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=*Editors%20Picks&utm_campaign=2014_EditorsPicksRS5%2F26
China laid out its military strategy in its first-ever defense white paper, promising not to hit first, but vowing to strike back hard if attacked in a world full of what it sees as potential threats.
The paper, released by China’s State Council, the chief administrative body of the Chinese government, is especially noteworthy at a time of heightened tensions with the United States over China’s aggressive behavior in disputed areas of the South China Sea. On Monday, Chinese state media spoke of war with the United States as “inevitable” if the United States keep pressing Beijing on its illegal activities; in the United States, meanwhile, the consensus over accommodating China’s rise seems to have given way to a more hawkish stance on the need to contain the rising Asian giant.
China’s new white paper provides plenty of points of continuity with past strategies, especially with Mao Zedong’s doctrine of “active defense,” known in the United States as the Billy Martin school of conflict management (“I never threw the first punch; I threw the second four.”)
At the same time, though, the defense blueprint breaks new ground. It codifies the ongoing transformation of China into a true maritime power, and puts more emphasis on high-seas, offensive naval operations. More broadly, it envisions a much bigger, global role for Chinese armed forces than had previously been the case, and in some places echoes the famously hawkish Chinese views of thinkers such as Liu Mingfu, whose bestselling book “The China Dream” paints a vision of nearly inevitable conflict between the two global titans.
Here are some of the main takeaways from the white paper’s English-language version.
Times may be peaceful, but things sure look scary in Beijing
The defense strategy’s starting point is a generally benign global environment: “Peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit have become an irresistible tide of the times,” the paper says. “In the foreseeable future, a world war is unlikely, and the international situation is expected to remain generally peaceful.”
But that doesn’t mean everything’s rosy from the vantage point of Chinese leaders. Traditional security threats have been compounded by new threats, from terrorism to cyber war, to make life potentially perilous. One rival country in particular, with a penchant for hanging on to its leading position and supporting treaty allies in the Asia-Pacific region, merits special attention: “There are, however, new threats from hegemonism, power politics and neo-interventionism.”
For a 5,000-year old civilization that has survived invasions from Mongols, Japanese, and Western Europeans, this is a sobering conclusion: “In the new circumstances, the national security issues facing China encompass far more subjects, extend over a greater range, and cover a longer time span than at any time in the country’s history.” Later, the paper notes: “Due to its complex geostrategic environment, China faces various threats and challenges in all its strategic directions and security domains.”
That’s especially true when it comes to the South China Sea
The white paper is mostly focused on higher-level issues of how China’s military will support the realization of China’s national “rejuvenation,” but it pays special attention to a potential area of conflict that’s in the headlines these days, China’s land reclamation efforts at a spate of reefs and rocks in the Spratly and Paracel island groups. Those activities on land features whose ownership is disputed have sparked tensions with the United States, Vietnam, the Philippines, and even Japan, which is shedding much of its post-World War II pacifism.
“On the issues concerning China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, some of its offshore neighbors take provocative actions and reinforce their military presence on China’s reefs and islands that they have illegally occupied. Some external countries are also busy meddling in South China Sea affairs; a tiny few maintain constant close-in air and sea surveillance and reconnaissance against China. It is thus a long-standing task for China to safeguard its maritime rights and interests.”
To underscore the point, and perhaps send a message to the U.S. Navy, the paper speaks at length about the need to ensure “preparations for military struggle” in China’s watery backyard: “In line with the evolving form of war and national security situation, the basic point for PMS will be placed on winning informationized local wars, highlighting maritime military struggle and maritime PMS.”
The paper makes clear that what’s at stake in the South China Sea is not the fate of a few atolls or uninhabited islands, but the very nature of Chinese sovereignty. Among the Chinese military missions in this new world will be to “safeguard national territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, and maintain security and stability along China’s periphery.” Such doctrinal stances make it hard to believe China will easily blink first in a showdown over navigation rights in the region.
How do you say Mahan in Chinese?
Building a stronger navy was a priority of former President Hu Jintao, and has only been accelerated under Xi Jinping. But if there were any lingering doubts about China’s aim of transforming itself into a modern, maritime power, the white paper puts them to rest.
For a country whose eyes were locked on the northern and western frontier for millennia, this is noteworthy: “The traditional mentality that land outweighs sea must be abandoned, and great importance has to be attached to managing the seas and oceans and protecting maritime rights and interests. It is necessary for China to develop a modern maritime military force structure commensurate with its national security and development interests, safeguard its national sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, protect the security of strategic [sea lanes of communication] and overseas interests, and participate in international maritime cooperation, so as to provide strategic support for building itself into a maritime power.”
Importantly, especially in the context of China’s interest in ports and possibly bases across the Indian Ocean, the white paper’s first order of business for military modernization is the ability to operate far from home: improving logistics.
That’s a very active defense you’ve got there
The white paper couches China’s posture in terms of active defense, a mainstay of Chinese defense thinking since Mao’s guerrilla campaigns in the 1930s: “We will not attack unless we are attacked, but we will surely counterattack if attacked.” But the paper itself details just how the Chinese navy and air force are shedding their traditional defensive roles to take up more pro-active positions, including a true blue-water navy: “In line with the strategic requirement of offshore waters defense and open seas protection, the PLA Navy (PLAN) will gradually shift its focus from ‘offshore waters defense’ to the combination of ‘offshore waters defense’ with ‘open seas protection,’ and build a combined, multi-functional and efficient marine combat force structure. The PLAN will enhance its capabilities for strategic deterrence and counterattack, maritime maneuvers, joint operations at sea, comprehensive defense and comprehensive support.”
China is embracing its global role
Finally, the white paper makes explicit what had seemed to be a recent evolution in China’s approach to the world. Traditionally, China focused on economic development and took a hands-off approach to global affairs. But with Chinese interests growing by leaps and bounds in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, China is finding that its defense responsibilities are set to go as global as its economic interests.
“In response to the new requirement coming from the country’s growing strategic interests, the armed forces will actively participate in both regional and international security cooperation and effectively secure China’s overseas interests.”
That may not all be bad news: The West, after all, has been asking China to become a “responsible stakeholder” for a decade. The white paper concludes on just that note:
“With the growth of national strength, China’s armed forces will gradually intensify their participation in such operations as international peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance, and do their utmost to shoulder more international responsibilities and obligations, provide more public security goods, and contribute more to world peace and common development.”
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Analysis
Forecast
As outlined in China's latest defense white paper, the Chinese military will focus more on the growing internationalization of its role and "active defense."
China's expanding economic and military activities in developing countries will make it increasingly difficult for Beijing to counter accusations of imperialism and convince other countries that it remains both politically neutral and capable of protecting its interests.
As China becomes more involved in global defense, it will struggle to maintain its professed policies of noninterference while protecting its expanding national interests and will be forced to choose sides in political and security issues.
Weaker states or groups within states will attempt to leverage Chinese power for their own interests.
China's defense white papers are less revelations of new direction than partial reflections of current trends, carefully crafted for foreign and domestic consumption. No secrets are revealed, and little new ground is broken, but a comprehensive view emerges of just how China would like the world to interpret the evolution of its defense capabilities and actions. In China's latest such paper, released May 26, China is sending a message that it is a big power with international interests and will shoulder international responsibilities, but that unlike other major powers before it (alluding in particular to the United States), China has no hegemonic designs.
The centerpiece of China's strategy is "active defense," which Chinese defense officials contrast with the "proactive" defense policies of other nations (a clear nod to the emerging Japanese defense doctrine, as well as to existing U.S. strategy). In short, China wants — and needs — to take a stronger and more active role in international security. But it also wants to prevent any of its actions from being interpreted as aggressive or imperialistic to avoid the political and security consequences of being seen as an interventionist power.
Among the shifts in China's overall defense strategy, as laid out in the white paper but already clearly underway, are modifications of the primary roles of the various branches of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). In Section IV of the white paper, China elucidates these changing roles:
The PLA Army "will continue to reorient from theater defense to trans-theater mobility."
The PLA Navy "will gradually shift its focus from 'offshore waters defense' to the combination of 'offshore waters defense' and 'open seas protection.'"
The PLA Air Force "will endeavor to shift its focus from territorial air defense to both defense and offense."
These evolutions match China's expanding strategic interests and reflect the ongoing refocusing of its defense strategy and capability from internal security and territorial integrity to assuring stability in its near abroad and addressing national interests far from China's borders or shores. This international component is summed up in Section I of the white paper:
With the growth of China's national interests, its national security is more vulnerable to international and regional turmoil, terrorism, piracy, serious natural disasters and epidemics, and the security of overseas interests concerning energy and resources, strategic sea lines of communication (SLOCs), as well as institutions, personnel and assets abroad, has become an imminent issue.
The latter half of this quote may highlight the biggest challenge to China's overall foreign policy. Just the assertion of the importance of Chinese interests abroad — shaped by natural resources, transport corridors, personnel and business operations in other countries — places China on a path of likely intervention that follows the United States and other imperial powers (whether intentionally imperial or otherwise) before it. If China is going to protect its physical interests and assets abroad, including its supplies of raw materials and its manufacturing and market bases, it will be forced to choose sides in political and security issues.
The Necessity of Choosing Sides
A shift in internal political alignment, a rising labor movement, the expansion of a militant organization or a change in international relations can all affect the stability and security of Chinese investments, access to raw materials, and the safety and security of Chinese personnel and assets abroad. In recent years, China has experienced these vulnerabilities firsthand, sometimes because of general trends (needing to pull its citizens out of Yemen, for example). At other times, it has been more directly related to Chinese activities (for instance, protests and actions against Chinese business operations in East Africa). China has already begun to face a stream of local accusations of economic imperialism in Africa, for example, and concerns are being raised about China's expanding economic activities in Latin America. Add in a more active military role, and Beijing will find it increasingly hard to convince other countries or populations that it remains both politically neutral and capable of protecting its interests.
An article written by the chief editor of the Sudanese newspaper Al-Ayyam on May 25, timed to nearly coincide with the release of the Chinese defense white paper, highlights this growing challenge for Beijing. Discussing the situation in South Sudan and China's supply of arms to the South Sudanese government, the commentary notes that the situation on the ground is forcing China to take sides and ease away from its noninterference policies, if it truly does want to ensure its own interests. The author then asserts, "China is now speaking the same language as the United States and the West on the South Sudan conflict." This is exactly the image China is trying so hard to deflect, but the reality is that protecting national interests requires choosing sides. And Beijing is finding it increasingly hard to follow its professed noninterference policy — or even its less overt tactic of funding and maintaining political ties with both sides of internal conflicts to ensure it has friends no matter which side wins.
In Africa, Southeast Asia (particularly Myanmar), Central Asia and beyond, Chinese officials face difficult decisions that test the noninterference policies every day. Adhering to noninterference could mean a loss of national interests, of access to strategic commodities, or of ease of passage for goods and services. Violating noninterference presents its own risks, as countries and populations see Chinese actions as more and more selfish and less and less about simply sharing with all in the great rise of the developing nations and the global south. China's clear shift to a more active international defense role shows just how much its thinking and recognition of this change in international relations is a reality. Why develop the ability to intervene to protect Chinese interests abroad if these interests are not threatened and if their status can be resolved through noninterfering political dialogue?
This is not to say that China is about to become the next global policeman, or that Chinese forces will begin deploying around the world on unilateral missions to protect Chinese factories. But the change in defense strategy is tied closely to evolutions in political strategy, and "active defense" to protect "the security of overseas interests" will frequently require choosing a side in internal and regional competitions and conflicts. One of the requirements of a major world power is that it must deal with these sorts of complications and contradictions; it is the cost of an expanded global reach and growing global dependencies.
The Risks of Empire
There is the additional risk that, as China's capabilities increase, countries will attempt to pull China into local or regional conflicts or confrontations to support their own positions. The United States finds itself regularly at the receiving end of requests for military assistance or intervention. And to maintain economic or diplomatic relations, the United States at times finds itself involved in conflicts that are of only tangential interest. For countries with the capability and the need to maintain certain levels of political relations to ensure their economic interests, it can be difficult to avoid being drawn in by third-party interests. Countries and interest groups may seek to exploit China's national interests to compel direct Chinese involvement in issues and cases where Beijing would prefer to remain somewhat distant. The more capability China develops and demonstrates, the more likely it is that weaker states or groups within states will attempt to leverage Chinese power for their own interests.
The United States, which China is always alluding to when it mentions hegemonic powers, did not seek to become a global empire and did not intend to be an interventionist power. U.S. policy was frequently espoused as noninterventionist, particularly in the 1800s as the United States emerged from a backwater nation in virgin lands to a globally active economic and military power at the end of the century. Yet as U.S. business interests expanded abroad, the U.S. Navy became a default tool of forcing changes in local behavior to ensure American economic access and security. The United States' claims of anti-imperialism during the same period stemmed from both a political will to avoid following the United Kingdom's path and a recognition of the weakness of the U.S. position abroad compared with the existing imperial European powers. Anti-imperialism was a tool to allow the United States to gain economic and security benefits at minimal cost and lower risk. As China continues its emergence from a regional to a global power, it is encountering similar compulsions and constraints and the contradictions that power and expanding global interests bring to professed ideological and anti-imperial non-hegemonic regimes.
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http://news.yahoo.com/mccain-seeks-defense-funding-help-asia-against-china-185722592.html
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http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/06/02/dont-give-up-the-south-china-sea/
and here is this in a similar vein from today's WSJ:
y
Stephen Peter Rosen
June 1, 2015 6:56 p.m. ET
34 COMMENTS
Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Saturday called for “an immediate and lasting halt” to China’s territorial expansion in the South China Sea. In Singapore for the annual Shangri-La Dialogue with Asian nations, Mr. Carter voiced U.S. concerns about the “prospect of further militarization as well as the potential for these activities to increase the risk of miscalculation or conflict among claimant states.”
The Obama administration’s “pivot” to Asia notwithstanding, tensions are clearly on the rise as Beijing becomes more assertive in the Asia-Pacific region. Less clear is what should be done about it. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called for a “stable regional balance.” Meanwhile, the Chinese government expands the land around disputed islands and deploys ground forces to them, while prominent Chinese academics discuss the need to end the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty.
How can a “stable regional balance” be achieved? China’s relative economic and military power will continue to grow. Asia is far from North America. Washington can stand up today for freedom of navigation and multilateral diplomacy, but some argue that geography and the steady shift in power toward China stacks the deck against the U.S. If China continues to build islands in disputed waters, what can the U.S. do?
The message, always there but seldom articulated, is that the U.S. should concede gracefully to the inevitable and make the best deal it can before it is even relatively weaker. This is a superficially appealing argument, but it is shortsighted and self-centered. It looks only at the U.S. But the question of what to do about a rising China cannot be answered by America alone.
China’s ascendance became apparent toward the end of the 1980s. What is forgotten is how unusually favorable to China the Asian environment was from 1990 until 2010. All of Beijing’s important enemies and rivals were neutralized during those 20 years. Soviet rule collapsed along with Russia’s sphere of influence in the region, eliminating what had been China’s main continental rival since the 18th century. Japan was constrained militarily and diplomatically by the consequences of its wars of aggression.
The U.S. became the ally of China during the Cold War and was actively supporting the growth of the Chinese economy and even of its military. When Washington started having second thoughts about this strategy at the turn of this century, they were soon subordinated to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The rise of China was thus neither motivated nor hindered by foreign hostility. It was facilitated by the most benign Asian security environment that China had experienced for 200 years.
China’s rise also took place when its Asian economic rivals were stunted. The so-called Asian Tigers—Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan—grew rapidly but were small. Japan was crippled by its financial crisis. India was hobbled by 40 years of socialist mismanagement and only began its slow journey toward economic reform in the early 1990s, some 15 years after China rejected Maoist economic policies. Vietnam, now a unified country of more than 93 million people, was recovering from 30 years of war. Russia suffered from a succession of kleptocracies. The countries that could provide investments, markets and exports to rival China in Asia were not there.
There are signs that this period has ended. Chinese economic growth has slowed. Japan is emerging as an independent military power; it is investing abroad, and its economy may be recovering from its long stagnation. India’s economic growth is now more rapid than China’s and is likely to remain so. Indian military spending is making up for decades of inattention. Indonesia and Vietnam have achieved modest rates of economic growth.
Russia is likely to remain a nuclear superpower with a decaying society. Moscow’s anxiety about Beijing is real but has been suppressed, if only for the time being, by President Vladimir Putin’s need to find a friend after his Ukraine excursion. Russia’s national anxiety will re-emerge when he goes.
Does this mean that all is well and the U.S. can turn away from Asia? Hardly. It will be at least a generation before other Asian countries have, in the aggregate, enough economic and military power to create some kind of equilibrium relative to China.
The period in which they catch up with China is likely to be dangerous. Facing multiple rising Asian powers that are divided and smaller, Beijing will try to woo, thrash or thwart them one by one. Only the U.S. can provide the security umbrella within which the balance of Asia can be safely restored.
But unlike the postwar struggle with the Soviet Union, Washington is not facing a choice between an endless Cold War with China or negotiations in which the only question is how much regional influence the U.S. gives up. If Washington is able to deny Beijing the opportunity to achieve easy coercive gains for about 25 years—the amount of time since the Cold War ended—Asia is likely to change in ways that make China a strong country among other strong countries. This would be a satisfactory outcome for Asian countries and the United States. And it ought to be satisfactory to a Chinese leadership that does not seek hegemony.
Mr. Rosen is a professor of national security and military affairs at Harvard.
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June 9, 2015 7:32 p.m. ET
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The Journal got the scoop Monday that the Malaysian government will loudly protest the Chinese coast guard’s incursions into its exclusive economic zone. National Security Minister Shahidan Kassim said in an interview that Prime Minister Najib Razak will raise the issue personally with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The Malaysians are upset that a Chinese coast-guard ship is anchored in the waters around the Luconia Shoals within their exclusive economic zone. The state-owned company Petronas has active gas wells nearby.
Kuala Lumpur played down such provocations in the past; Chinese ships have frequented the area for at least two years, and Malaysia made pro forma protests. The Chinese disrupted oil survey work nearby in August 2012 and January 2013. Yet Malaysia took a low-key approach when Beijing’s ally Cambodia shut down discussion of the South China Sea disputes at regional summits in 2012.
Malaysia has changed its attitude over the past year as China started reclaiming land for military bases on the disputed shoals and rocks it controls. Last year Kuala Lumpur offered to let the U.S. fly P-8 surveillance planes from Borneo airbases. At the Shangri-La Dialogue security conference in Singapore at the end of May, Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein warned that the dispute could “escalate into one of the deadliest conflicts of our time.” Two weeks ago Mr. Najib was in Tokyo to discuss maritime defense-technology transfer with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The Malaysians used to chastise Vietnam and the Philippines for being too confrontational toward China and called for diplomatic solutions. But it didn’t do them much good. The Chinese military is using the same tactics of creeping assertiveness in the Luconia Shoals that it employed in 2012 to take Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines. Beijing’s aggressive behavior has created such fear among Southeast Asian nations that a new unity may be emerging.
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second post
Opinion
Commentary
A New Diplomacy to Stem Chinese Expansion
The time for choosing sides in Southeast Asia has come.
By
Daniel Blumenthal And
Michael Mazza
June 10, 2015 12:01 p.m. ET
0 COMMENTS
China’s aggression is pushing the South China Sea to a boiling point. Beijing’s massive island-building project is militarizing the territorial disputes, changing the territorial status quo and shifting the region’s balance of power. The U.S. response has been reactive, rhetorical and confused.
To stop and reverse Chinese expansion, the U.S. needs a bold and comprehensive strategy. So far, Washington’s approach has consisted of strong remonstrations that call upon China to respect “norms,” exercises of military power in the South China Sea to protect these norms, and the shoring up of alliances and partnerships in Asia.
Missing is a clear explanation of U.S. interests and a diplomatic approach that defends them. Washington doesn’t just have an interest in maintaining respect for abstract norms. It has a vital interest in keeping the South China Sea an open maritime commons free of Chinese coercion, as well as in stopping Beijing’s changes to the territorial status quo.
To date Washington has played a behind-the-scenes diplomatic role, encouraging the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to take the lead in managing maritime tensions.
This approach has outlived its usefulness. For one thing, only five of Asean’s 10 states are parties to the disputes (Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam all make claims to physical features; Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone overlaps with China’s “nine-dash line”). Asean also has had little success in recent years acting in a united manner: Members still argue among themselves over maritime territory; meanwhile China actively sows divisions within the institution. And Washington has no assurance that Asean’s efforts will result in a solution that is in line with U.S. interests.
Thus the U.S. needs to play a far more active role in addressing the territorial disputes. A new diplomacy should have three prongs.
First, the U.S., in coordination with allied maritime powers such as Australia, Japan and the Philippines, should delineate what features in the South China Sea it considers to be islands warranting 12-nautical-mile territorial zones, and what features cannot legitimately be claimed as sovereign territory. The allies should make clear what areas of the sea they consider to be high seas, regardless of who ultimately controls the territories, and their militaries should regularly operate in those waters.
Second, the U.S. should lead a new diplomatic process to secure an agreement on the peaceful use of resources in disputed waters and develop clear rules guiding the conduct of claimants in disputed waters, including regulations on land-reclamation construction activities, ultimately leading to a resolution of territorial disputes.
At present, China is the primary obstacle to such a process. It has slow-rolled negotiations with Asean over a code of conduct and insists on bilateral rather than multilateral negotiations over territorial claims.
A new U.S.-led diplomatic process should encourage Chinese engagement, but should not depend on Chinese participation. If China chooses to boycott talks, the U.S. should lead an effort by its Southeast claimant partners to decide on territorial delineation and the proper use of resources in the seas.
This diplomacy would imbue with a political purpose the displays of U.S. and allied force. U.S. military power should be used to enhance Southeast Asian capabilities, to keep the South China Sea an international waterway, to counter Chinese territorial encroachment and to give allies and friends the security and space to develop economically and politically.
This strategy may not reverse China’s already completed land reclamation, but it will render those new Chinese islets indefensible and Chinese sovereignty over them unrecognized internationally. Beijing can choose to enter into a negotiating process over territorial disposition or see disputes resolved without its input. Either way, the U.S. will work with its East Asian friends and allies to demarcate territorial boundaries and gain agreement on how the seas will be used. It will use its power in support of these agreements.
This course of action is not without risk. Beijing will be angered by U.S. “meddling.” It could opt for confrontation, but bullies rarely pick fights they can’t win.
For their part, Southeast Asians prefer a nonconfrontational approach and may be initially discomfited by the U.S. adopting a leading role in finding solutions to territorial disputes. But Beijing has already upended the status quo in the South China Sea. Without action, Washington’s Asian friends will see their territorial holdings eroded and the broader balance of power shift in China’s favor.
Received wisdom is that Southeast Asians do not want to choose sides between China and the U.S. That may have once been true, but China is forcing its neighbors’ hands. The time for choosing has come.
The U.S. can present the Southeast Asians with an alternative to Chinese hegemony. It must do so before yet another regional competitor threatens the peaceful order Washington and its allies have built with blood and treasure.
Mr. Blumenthal is the director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where Mr. Mazza is a research fellow.
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Anyone think Buraq will stand up to the Chinese? The Chinese don't.
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A busy day on this thread!
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On Tuesday, the Philippine military announced that it would hold joint naval drills with Japan on June 22-26. Just four days before the announcement, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III concluded a state visit to Japan. In addition to signing a deal to buy 10 Japanese patrol boats and other Japanese defense equipment, Aquino announced that the Philippines and Japan were ready to begin talks on a visiting forces agreement. Under the proposed agreement, the Japan Self-Defense Forces would be allowed to refuel ships and aircraft in the Philippines, and Japanese military personnel would be able to use Philippine bases on a rotational basis. If signed, the visiting forces agreement would mark the second time that Japan has been able to secure basing rights abroad since the end of World War II (the first time being the small Japan Self-Defense Forces outpost in Djibouti that opened in 2011).
The final terms of the potential visiting forces agreement are not yet clear. However, the Philippines' efforts to augment a similar agreement with the United States give clues about its intent with the Japanese pact, if not necessarily the specifics. In April 2014, as China was pressuring the Philippines at the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea, the Philippines signed an agreement with Washington allowing the United States to station forces rotationally in Philippine bases and stockpile supplies at these facilities. The Philippines-Japan visiting forces agreement, driven by these same tensions, could include similar terms.
What is a Geopolitical Diary? George Friedman Explains.
The initiation of defense talks between Japan and the Philippines is significant but not unexpected, given their convergence of interests. With its weak external defense capabilities, the Philippines is eager to bring in as many outside parties as possible to bolster its position in its territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea. A visiting forces agreement with Japan could give the Philippines improved access to training from Japan's world-class maritime forces, repair services desperately needed by the Philippine navy and coast guard, and maritime reconnaissance data. This support would become all the more crucial as the Philippines begins to take more deliveries of Japanese equipment.
The Japanese, for their part, are happy to oblige. In recent years, Japan has taken greater action to secure its interests far from its shores. The expansion of Chinese activity in the South China Sea threatens the sea-lanes that are the lifeblood of the Japanese economy. This is a major factor in Japan's remilitarization. In recent months, Japan has moved to strengthen engagement with South China Sea claimants, signing a defense pact with Indonesia in March, conducting joint naval exercises with Vietnam in April and signing a defense technology transfer deal with Malaysia in late May. Japanese activities in the South China Sea are likely to intensify if the Japanese legislature passes measures in July expanding the scope of Japan Self-Defense Forces activity. The Philippines' location makes it a natural partner for Japan as Tokyo seeks footholds for its forces in the South China Sea.
If the Philippines-Japan visiting forces agreement is signed, it could take some time to overcome domestic barriers. Domestically, the implementation of the enhanced Philippines-United States agreement has been sensitive since some are wary of welcoming back a former colonizer; the agreement is awaiting a ruling by the Philippine Supreme Court. A comparable pact with Japan could face similar opposition. However, Aquino's decision to announce and move forward on an agreement with Japan despite likely opposition shows Manila's recognition of the basic fact that the Philippines will not be able to secure its maritime interests without outside help. Manila's relations with Beijing are likely to grow strained as ties with Japan deepen, which could harm economic ties between the Philippines and China, but Aquino appears to have calculated that the Sino-Philippine relationship is at the point where it will make no difference (as evidenced by his comments likening Chinese activities in the South China Sea to aggression by Nazi Germany). Moreover, additional aid from Japan — perhaps as part of the $110 billion infrastructure aid package Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced in May — will make up for the potential loss of Chinese investment.
This is a data point in another trend that Stratfor has been following: the United States' attempts to shift some of the burden of regional security to its allies. This plan has led to the slow reconfiguration of the U.S. alliance system in Asia, still largely based on a Cold War alliance structure called the hub-and-spoke system. This was a series of bilateral alliances between the United States and its Asian treaty partners featuring strong ties between each of the allies and Washington but limited collaboration among the Asian states themselves. The hub-and-spoke system enabled the United States to both check its adversaries and dominate aggressive allies such as South Korea and Taiwan, preventing them from dragging the United States into unwanted conflicts in an era of nuclear hair triggers. The United States quashed allies' attempts to independently build regional alliances among themselves. In return, the Americans shouldered the main burden of defending their partners, stationing large garrisons in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines.
Times have changed. The U.S. alliance system is no longer made up of weak but militarily adventurous regimes, reducing the need to maintain a tight grip on relations between allies. Some U.S. allies, such as Japan and South Korea, are rich and boast significant militaries, yet nearly 80,000 U.S. soldiers are garrisoned in these two countries in the name of providing regional security. These garrisons, plus the U.S. operations to secure the region's sea-lanes, are extremely costly and tie down significant American resources.
Therefore, the United States wants capable partners such as Japan to pick up some of the slack in supporting weaker allies such as the Philippines. Washington has pushed its allies to build their own bilateral security ties, which had been lacking during the Cold War. Although the effort has so far yielded some modest successes, a Philippines-Japan visiting forces agreement could be a landmark as the United States reconfigures its alliance structure in Asia, potentially leading to similar arrangements between other American allies in the future.
Send us your thoughts on this report.
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By
Dion Nissenbaum
Updated June 28, 2015 10:32 p.m. ET
5 COMMENTS
WASHINGTON— Peter Singer, one of Washington’s pre-eminent futurists, is walking the Pentagon halls with an ominous warning for America’s military leaders: World War III with China is coming.
In meeting after meeting with anyone who will listen, this modern-day soothsayer wearing a skinny tie says America’s most advanced fighter jets might be blown from the sky by their Chinese-made microchips and Chinese hackers easily could worm their way into the military’s secretive intelligence service, and the Chinese Army may one day occupy Hawaii.
The ideas might seem outlandish, but Pentagon officials are listening to the 40-year-old senior fellow at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank.
In hours of briefings, Mr. Singer has outlined his grim vision for intelligence officials, Air Force officers and Navy commanders. What makes his scenarios more remarkable is that they are based on a work of fiction: Mr. Singer’s soon-to-be-released, 400-page techno thriller, “Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War.”
“World War III may seem like something that was either a fear in the distant past or a risk in the distant future,” Mr. Singer told a dozen Air Force officers during a Pentagon briefing last week. “But, as the Rolling Stones put it in ‘Gimme Shelter,’ ‘It’s just a shot away.’ ”
Pentagon officials typically don’t listen to the doom-and-gloom predictions of fiction writers. But Mr. Singer comes to the table with an unusual track record. He has written authoritative books on America’s reliance on private military contractors, cybersecurity and the Defense Department’s growing dependence on robots, drones and technology.
The Army, Navy and Air Force already have included two of his books on their official reading lists. And he often briefs military leaders on his research.
“Ghost Fleet,” co-written with former Wall Street Journal reporter August Cole is based on interviews, military research and years of experience working with the Defense Department.
“He’s the premier futurist in the national-security environment,” said Mark Jacobson, a special assistant to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who made sure his boss read the book. “Peter’s always where the ball is going to be. And people in the Pentagon listen to what he has to say.”
Release of the book by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on Tuesday comes during a new period of soul-searching for the U.S. military.
President Barack Obama’s pledge to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was supposed to usher in an era of restrained military intervention world-wide. Budget cuts and shifting priorities have forced the Pentagon to shelve plans to carry out costly nation-building operations like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But threats posed by Islamic State militants reluctantly have pushed Mr. Obama and the U.S. military back into a limited war against the irregular insurgents in Iraq and Syria.
The end of the Cold War and the rise of al Qaeda compelled the U.S. military to reorient its priorities to focus on threats posed by small, stateless militants.
Pentagon officials have elevated military officers who embraced the “small war,” counterinsurgency dogma that guided the U.S. through a decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Russia’s military operations in Ukraine and China’s aggressive attempts to extend its control in the South China Sea have forced the Pentagon to re-evaluate its world view and think anew about the threats posed by powerful rivals.
“Ghost Fleet,” which includes hundreds of endnotes, challenges conventional military doctrine and relies on real events to warn that the U.S. military is vulnerable to cyberattacks that could cripple its ability to win a war with China.
The time has come, Mr. Singer tells military officials in his briefings, for the Pentagon to consider the possibility that Americans could face real dog fights in the sky and deadly naval battles unlike anything the U.S. has seen since World War II.
“It may not be politic, but it is, in my belief, no longer useful to avoid talking about the great power rivalries of the 21st century and the real dangers of them getting out of control,” he told Air Force officers at the Pentagon. “Indeed, only by acknowledging the real trends and real risks that loom can we take the mutual steps to avoid the kind of mistakes that would set up such an epic fail in both deterrence and diplomacy.”
After the briefing, Col. Randall Reed, director of the Air Force Executive Action Group who hosted Mr. Singer, said it helped spark debate about how to respond to real-world threats. “Having various ways to view any issue is diversity of thought and that’s healthy,” he said.
Paula Thornhill, a retired Air Force brigadier general who brought Mr. Singer to the Pentagon to speak about his work on robotics, said Mr. Singer “did an excellent job of challenging some of the Air Force’s finest emerging scientists and engineers to think about the strategic and operational impact of robotics many of them were studying, and I knew he could do the same for a more operationally focused military audience.”
“This would help them better envision the human dimensions of conflict rather than trying to contemplate what that might look like by working mostly with high-tech weapons and drafting operations plans,” said Ms. Thornhill, who is now a senior political scientist at RAND Corp.
One of America’s biggest vulnerabilities is in cyberspace, where Chinese hackers have secured access to White House computers, defense industry plans and millions of secret U.S. government files.
American officials have long warned that the nation is at risk of a “cyber Pearl Harbor,” and the Obama administration has been quietly developing more proactive steps to reduce the country’s vulnerabilities.
In “Ghost Fleet,” the authors envision a cyberwar where Beijing uses hidden technology baked into Chinese-made chips to help bring down one of America’s costly, controversial next- generation F-35 fighter jets.
In another creative hack, China uses a gardener’s cellphone to get inside the Defense Intelligence Agency computer system. The U.S. has to turn to Silicon Valley to develop a modern day cyber Manhattan Project and rely on help from hackers to try to gain an advantage. Meanwhile, Americans in Hawaii launch an insurgency against the occupying Chinese forces.
The book is fiction, but Mr. Singer wants Pentagon leaders to see it as a cautionary tale.
Mr. Singer pointed out to the Air Force leadership that the opening scene of “Ghost Fleet,” featuring a showdown between a U.S. P-8 plane monitoring Chinese ships, played out in real life last month in an increasingly concerning dispute over islands in the South China Sea.
“War is not just revolutionary, it’s evolutionary,” he said. “It’s survival of the fittest. And the real world is moving in such a way as to make this book potentially a work of prediction, which I’d rather never come true.”
Write to Dion Nissenbaum at dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com
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Our war with China is already over.
Here is why.
Yesterday the remote control of my DVD player quit.
Turns out one of the Energizer batteries had exploded.
I read the fine print on the other one. Yup, made in China.
As Singer sings, how we gonna go to war against the country that supplies everything we'd need to wage war, right down to the AA batteries?
And all that stuff they be makin' for us, such as the avionics in our aircraft, do you think they haven't had the foresight to build in remote controls to take it over? We may not be that smart when it comes to military sales, but they are. Heck, they can read our encrypted classified emails, while most of our leaders (think Hillary Clinton) don't even know how to use classified email.
No, if we want to fight somebody, we should try for Iran. They're still backward enough for us to stand a chance. But not for much longer.
If Americans want to understand China better, they need to read Sun Tzu's Art of War. For the chickenhawks, their disappointment will be that China is more for us than against us.
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Have no doubt, China is at war. One leg of this war is the information war, in which state-paid patsies like Dans Zhang, possibly, are goaded to influence world opinion, especially Western opinion.
I have lived in China and I believe I know China better than many Westerners. China, the mainland Communist variety, is a neo-fascist state. Most Chinese do not even realize they live in a neo-fascist state.
Peter Singer is on the right track. Power compels its own logic, and when China has sufficient power to wage war against the U.S., it will. And have no doubt that China will not stop at Taiwan, because the trajectory of its own culture and history will compel it to go as far as it can go.
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China’s Global Ambitions, With Loans and Strings Attached
The country has invested billions in Ecuador and elsewhere, using its economic clout to win diplomatic allies and secure natural resources around the world.
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS and KEITH BRADSHERJULY 24, 2015
点击查看本文中文版|Leer en español
Water pipes set aside near where Ecuador wants a Chinese oil company to build a giant refinery, outside the port of Manta. China has invested heavily in overseas oil projects. Credit Ivan Kashinsky for The New York Times
EL CHACO, Ecuador — Where the Andean foothills dip into the Amazon jungle, nearly 1,000 Chinese engineers and workers have been pouring concrete for a dam and a 15-mile underground tunnel. The $2.2 billion project will feed river water to eight giant Chinese turbines designed to produce enough electricity to light more than a third of Ecuador.
Near the port of Manta on the Pacific Ocean, Chinese banks are in talks to lend $7 billion for the construction of an oil refinery, which could make Ecuador a global player in gasoline, diesel and other petroleum products.
Across the country in villages and towns, Chinese money is going to build roads, highways, bridges, hospitals, even a network of surveillance cameras stretching to the Galápagos Islands. State-owned Chinese banks have already put nearly $11 billion into the country, and the Ecuadorean government is asking for more.
Ecuador, with just 16 million people, has little presence on the global stage. But China’s rapidly expanding footprint here speaks volumes about the changing world order, as Beijing surges forward and Washington gradually loses ground.
While China has been important to the world economy for decades, the country is now wielding its financial heft with the confidence and purpose of a global superpower. With the center of financial gravity shifting, China is aggressively asserting its economic clout to win diplomatic allies, invest its vast wealth, promote its currency and secure much-needed natural resources.
It represents a new phase in China’s evolution. As the country’s wealth has swelled and its needs have evolved, President Xi Jinping and the rest of the leadership have pushed to extend China’s reach on a global scale.
China’s currency, the renminbi, is expected to be anointed soon as a global reserve currency, putting it in an elite category with the dollar, the euro, the pound and the yen. China’s state-owned development bank has surpassed the World Bank in international lending. And its effort to create an internationally funded institution to finance transportation and other infrastructure has drawn the support of 57 countries, including several of the United States’ closest allies, despite opposition from the Obama administration.
Even the current stock market slump is unlikely to shake the country’s resolve. China has nearly $4 trillion in foreign currency reserves, which it is determined to invest overseas to earn a profit and exert its influence.
China’s growing economic power coincides with an increasingly assertive foreign policy. It is building aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and stealth jets. In a contested sea, China is turning reefs and atolls near the southern Philippines into artificial islands, with at least one airstrip able to handle the largest military planes. The United States has challenged the move, conducting surveillance flights in the area and discussing plans to send warships.
China represents “a civilization and history that awakens admiration to those who know it,” President Rafael Correa of Ecuador proclaimed on Twitter, as his jet landed in Beijing for a meeting with officials in January.
China’s leaders portray the overseas investments as symbiotic. “The current industrial cooperation between China and Latin America arrives at the right moment,” Prime Minister Li Keqiang said in a visit to Chile in late May. “China has equipment manufacturing capacity and integrated technology with competitive prices, while Latin America has the demand for infrastructure expansion and industrial upgrading.”
But the show of financial strength also makes China — and the world — more vulnerable. Long an engine of global growth, China is taking on new risks by exposing itself to shaky political regimes, volatile emerging markets and other economic forces beyond its control.
Photo
Nearly 1,000 Chinese engineers and workers have been pouring concrete for the dam and a 15-mile underground tunnel that is part of the $2.2 billion hydroelectric plant project. Credit Ivan Kashinsky for The New York Times
Any major problems could weigh on China’s growth, particularly at a time when it is already slowing. The country’s stock market troubles this summer are only adding to the pressure, as the government moves aggressively to stabilize the situation.
While China has substantial funds to withstand serious financial shocks, its overall health matters. When China swoons, the effects are felt worldwide, by the companies, industries and economies that depend on the country as the engine of global growth.
In many cases, China is going where the West is reluctant to tread, either for financial or political reasons — or both. After getting hit with Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis, Russia, which is on the verge of a recession, deepened ties with China. The list of borrowers in Africa and the Middle East reads like a who’s who of troubled regimes and economies that may have trouble repaying Chinese loans, including Yemen, Syria, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe.
With its elevated status, China is forcing countries to play by its financial rules, which can be onerous. Many developing countries, in exchange for loans, pay steep interest rates and give up the rights to their natural resources for years. China has a lock on close to 90 percent of Ecuador’s oil exports, which mostly goes to paying off its loans.
“The problem is we are trying to replace American imperialism with Chinese imperialism,” said Alberto Acosta, who served as President Correa’s energy minister during his first term. “The Chinese are shopping across the world, transforming their financial resources into mineral resources and investments. They come with financing, technology and technicians, but also high interest rates.”
China also has a shaky record when it comes to worker safety, environmental standards and corporate governance. While China’s surging investments have created jobs in many countries, development experts worry that Beijing is exporting its worst practices.
Chinese mining and manufacturing operations, like many American and European companies in previous decades, have been accused of abusing workers overseas. China’s coal-fired power plants and industrial factories are adding to pollution problems in developing nations.
The China Factor
Articles in this series explore how China is exerting its financial heft and economic influence around the world.
A few miles from the site of the hydroelectric plant, the Coca River vaults down a 480-foot waterfall and cascades through steep canyons toward the Amazon. It is the tallest waterfall in Ecuador and popular with tourists.
When the dam is complete and the water is diverted to the plant, the San Rafael falls will slow to a trickle for part of the year. With climate change already shrinking the Andean glacier that feeds the river, experts debate whether the site will have enough water to generate even half the electricity predicted.
Ecuadoreans on the Chinese-run project have repeatedly protested about wages, health care, food and general working conditions. “The Chinese are arrogant,” said Oscar Cedeno, a 20-year-old construction worker. “They think they are superior to us.”
Last December, an underground river burst into a tunnel at the site. The high-pressure water flooded the powerhouse, killing 14 workers. It was one of a series of serious accidents at Chinese projects in Ecuador, several of them fatal.
The Rise of China
When the research arm of China’s cabinet scheduled an economic development conference this spring, the global financial and corporate elite came to Beijing. The heads of major banks and pharmaceutical, auto and oil companies mingled with top Chinese officials.
Some had large investments in the country and wanted to protect their access to the domestic market. Others came to court business, as Beijing channeled more of its money overseas.
At the event, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, commended China’s efforts to engage globally through investment and trade, as well as to enact economic reforms. It “is good for China and good for the world — their fates are intertwined,” she said in her keynote address.
Photo
Chinese men, in Ecuador for the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric project, in their room in a camp for workers. Credit Ivan Kashinsky for The New York Times
China’s pull is strong.
It is the world’s largest buyer of oil, which gives China substantial sway over petropolitics. It is also increasingly the trading partner of choice for many countries, taking the mantle from Western nations. China’s foreign direct investment — the money it spends overseas annually on land, factories and other business operations — is second only to the United States’, having passed Japan last year.
Chinese companies are at the center of a worldwide construction boom, mostly financed by Chinese banks. They are building power plants in Serbia, glass and cement factories in Ethiopia, low-income housing in Venezuela and natural gas pipelines in Uzbekistan.
This striking evolution happened in a short time.
While China made some economic progress under Mao Zedong, his policies left the country turbulent and isolated. Hundreds of thousands of people were executed after the Communist takeover in 1949, accused of opposing the revolution or owning too much land. Famine killed tens of millions starting in the late 1950s. The Cultural Revolution, beginning in 1966, unleashed a decade of violence and economic stagnation.
When China started to open its economy in the late 1970s, it was among the poorest nations. Beijing had to court companies and investors.
One of the first multinationals to enter was the American Motors Corporation, which built a factory in Beijing. The project was initially aimed at producing Jeeps for export to Australia, rather than building cars for Chinese consumers, who still largely rode bicycles.
The Chinese market seemed unimportant, said Gerald Meyers, then the chief executive of the carmaker. He didn’t even bother to visit the country. “We didn’t devote a lot of our boardroom discussions to it,” he said. “We were really trying to scrape out a living in our domestic market.”
Photo
At night, some of the Chinese workers at the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant walk to the local brothel (prostitution is legal in Ecuador) and sit at separate tables from the Ecuadorean workers. Credit Ivan Kashinsky for The New York Times
Today, China produces two million cars a month, far more than any other country. It mirrors the broader transformation of the economy from an insular agrarian society to the world’s largest manufacturer.
The change has showered wealth on China. But it has also brought new demands, like a voracious thirst for energy to power its economy. The confluence of trends has compelled China to look beyond its borders to invest those riches and to satisfy its needs.
Oil has been on the leading edge of this investment push. Energy projects and stakes have accounted for two-fifths of China’s $630 billion of overseas investments in the last decade, according to Derek Scissors, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.
China is playing both defense and offense. With an increased dependence on foreign oil, China’s leadership has followed the United States and other large economies by seeking to own more overseas oil fields — or at least the crude they produce — to ensure a stable supply. In recent years, state-controlled Chinese oil companies have acquired big stakes in oil operations in Cameroon, Canada, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Iraq, Nigeria, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sudan, Uganda, the United States and Venezuela.
“When utilizing foreign resources and markets, we need to consider it from the height of national strategy,” Prime Minister Li said in 2009, when he was a vice premier. “If the resources mainly come from one country or from one place with frequent turmoil, national economic safety will be under shadow when an emergency happens.”
Road to Dependence
For President Correa of Ecuador, China represents a break with his country’s past — and his own.
His father was imprisoned in the United States for cocaine smuggling and later committed suicide. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Mr. Correa focused his doctoral thesis on the shortcomings of economic policies backed by Washington and Western banks.
Photo
A few miles from the site of a hydroelectric plant, the Coca River vaults down a 480-foot waterfall, the tallest in Ecuador. When the dam is complete and the water is diverted to the plant, the falls will slow to a trickle for part of the year. Credit Ivan Kashinsky for The New York Times
As a politician, he embraced Venezuela’s socialist revolution. During his 2006 campaign, Mr. Correa joked that the Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez’s comparison of President George W. Bush with Satan was disrespectful to the devil.
In an early move as president, Mr. Correa expelled the Americans from a military base in Manta, an important launching pad for the Pentagon’s war on drugs. “We can negotiate with the United States over a base in Manta if they let us put a military base in Miami,” President Correa said at the time.
Next, he severed financial ties. In late 2008, Mr. Correa called much of his country’s debt, largely owned by Western investors, “immoral and illegitimate” and stopped paying, setting off a default.
At that point, Ecuador was in a bind. The global financial crisis was taking hold and oil prices collapsed. Ecuador and Petroecuador, its state-owned oil company, started running low on money.
Shut out from borrowing in traditional markets, Ecuador turned to China to fill the void. PetroChina, the government-backed oil company, lent Petroecuador $1 billion in August 2009 for two years at 7.25 percent interest. Within a year, more Chinese money began to flow for hydroelectric and other infrastructure projects.
“What Ecuador wants are sources of capital with fewer political strings attached, and that goes back to the personal history of Rafael Correa, who holds the United States directly or indirectly responsible for his father’s death and suffering,” said R. Evan Ellis, professor of Latin American studies at the United States Army War College Strategic Studies Institute. “But there is also a desire to get away from the dependence on the fiscal and political conditions of the I.M.F., World Bank and the West.”
The Ecuadorean foreign minister calls the shift to China a “diversification of its foreign relations,” rather than a substitute for the United States or Europe. “We have decided that the most convenient and healthy thing for us,” said the foreign minister, Ricardo Patiño, is “to have friendly, mutually beneficial relations of respect with all countries.”
The Chinese money, though, comes with its own conditions. Along with steep interest payments, Ecuador is largely required to use Chinese companies and technologies on the projects.
China has lent nearly $11 billion to Ecuador, much of which has gone for hydroelectric, bridge, road and other infrastructure projects.
The Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric facility, which is being built by Sinohydro for $2.2 billion, is the largest Chinese construction project in Ecuador. Other such projects include Sopladora, in Morona Santiago province, built by Gezhouba, and Toachi Pilatón, financed by a Russian consortium, but built by the China International Water & Electric Corp.
A 1.25 mile, four-lane bridge over the Babahoyo River was built by the Guangxi Road & Bridge Engineering Corp. at a cost of over $100 million. It opened in 2011.
WATERWORKS
A $55.6 million project to redirect the flow of the Bulubulu, Cañar and Naranjal rivers was completed this year. It was built by a consortium of Chinese firms — Gezhouba, Hydrochina and China CAMC Engineering.
OIL DRILLING
The Chinese oil companies CNPC and Sinopec, as the Andes Petroleum consortium, run various oil projects in the Amazonian province of Sucumbios. In Orellana and Pastaza provinces, PetroOriental and Andes Petroleum manage concessions.
ROADS
China’s Sinohydro is reconstructing and modernizing several roads in Azuay and Morona Santiago provinces.
MINING
A Chinese joint venture, CRCC-Tongguan Investment, paid $100 million to the Ecuadorean government in 2012 for the rights to the Mirador Copper Mine, with a commitment to invest $1.4 billion over five years. Its Ecuadorean subsidiary, EcuaCorriente, also holds copper and gold properties further north, in Morona Santiago province.
WIND POWER
The wind farm at Villonaco, which generates 16.5 megawatts of power, began operations in 2013. It was built by the Chinese company, Xinjiang Goldwind.
By The New York Times
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In what ways do you think Chinese firms will change the culture and economy of the countries they are investing in?
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International rules limit how the United States and other industrialized countries can tie their loans to such agreements. But China, which is still considered a developing country despite being the world’s largest manufacturer, doesn’t have to follow those standards.
It is one reason that China’s effort to build an international development fund, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, has faced criticism in the United States. Washington is worried that China will create its own rules, with lower expectations for transparency, governance and the environment.
While China has sought to quell those fears over the infrastructure fund, its portfolio of projects around the world imposes tough terms and sometimes lax standards. Since 2005, the country has landed $471 billion in construction contracts, many tied to broader lending agreements.
In Ecuador, a consortium of Chinese companies is overseeing a flood control and irrigation project in the southern Ecuador province of Cañar. A Chinese engineering company built a $100 million, four-lane bridge to span the Babahoyo River near the coast.
Such deals typically favor the Chinese.
PetroChina and Sinopec, another state-controlled Chinese company, together pump about 25 percent of the 560,000 barrels a day produced in Ecuador. Along with taking the bulk of oil exports, the Chinese companies also collect $25 to $50 in fees from Ecuador for each barrel they pump.
China’s terms are putting countries in precarious positions.
In Ecuador, oil represents roughly 40 percent of the government’s revenue, according to the United States Energy Department. And those earnings are suddenly plunging along with the price of oil. With crude at around $50 a barrel, Ecuador doesn’t have much left to repay its loans.
Photo
On the beach in Manta, a port city in Ecuador. After Ecuador was shut out from borrowing in traditional markets, the country turned to China to fill the void. Credit Ivan Kashinsky for The New York Times
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“Of course we have concerns over their ability to repay the debts — China isn’t silly,” said Lin Boqiang, the director of the Energy Economics Research Center at Xiamen University in China’s Fujian province and a government policy planner. “But the gist is resources will ultimately become valuable assets.”
If Ecuador or other countries can’t cover their debts, their obligations to China may rise. A senior Chinese banker, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity for diplomatic reasons, said Beijing would most likely restructure some loans in places like Ecuador.
To do so, Chinese authorities want to extend the length of the loans instead of writing off part of the principal. That means countries will have to hand over their natural resources for additional years, limiting their governments’ abilities to borrow money and pursue other development opportunities.
China has significant leverage to make sure borrowers pay. As the dominant manufacturer for a long list of goods, Beijing can credibly threaten to cut off shipments to countries that do not repay their loans, the senior Chinese banker said.
With its economy stumbling, Ecuador asked China at the start of the year for an additional $7.5 billion in financing to fill the growing government budget deficit and buy Chinese goods. Since then, the situation has only deteriorated. In recent weeks, thousands of protesters have poured into the streets of Quito and Guayaquil to challenge various government policies and proposals, some of which Mr. Correa has recently withdrawn.
“China is becoming the new company store for developing oil-, gas- and mineral-producing countries,” said David Goldwyn, who was the State Department’s special envoy for international energy affairs during President Obama’s first term. “They are entitled to secure reliable sources of oil, but what we need to worry about is the way they are encouraging oil-producing countries to mortgage their long-term future through oil-backed loans.”
Plagued by Problems
A pall of acrimony surrounds the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant, Ecuador’s largest construction project.
Photo
José Tixi, who works at the hydroelectric plant project, with his family in their home in San Luis. Ecuadoreans on the Chinese-run project have repeatedly protested about the working conditions. Credit Ivan Kashinsky for The New York Times
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Gary
1 minute ago
Sounds like USA over the past 40 years. Ironic eh?
Bill Simpson
1 minute ago
We play world policeman, others get a free security ride. We bomb, so they can build.
WestSider
2 minutes ago
"...Beijing surges forward and Washington gradually loses ground."That's because Washington chooses to sink billions into an ungrateful...
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Few of the Chinese workers speak Spanish, and they live separately from their Ecuadorean counterparts. When the workers leave their camp in the village of San Luis at noon for lunch, they walk down the main street in separate groups. At night, they also walk in separate groups up the hill to the local brothel. (Prostitution is legal in Ecuador.) The workers sit at separate tables drinking bottles of the Ecuadorean beer, Pilsener.
When the Chinese and Ecuadorean workers return to camp, typically drunk, there have been shoving matches. Once a Chinese manager threw a tray at an Ecuadorean worker at mealtime.
“You make a little mistake, and they say something like, ‘Get out of here,’ ” said Gustavo Taipe, an Ecuadorean welder. “They want to be the strongmen.”
Like other workers, Mr. Taipe, 57, works 10 consecutive days. Then he drives seven hours home to spend four days with his family, then returns for another 10 days. Mr. Taipe and others have complained about low pay for grueling work. He initially made $600 a month. After work stoppages, he now earns $914 a month, a decent wage by Ecuadorian standards.
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Kevin Wang, a Chinese supervisory engineer at the project, played down the issues, saying, “Relations are friendly.” He predicted that the project would be a success. “We can do something here really important,” he said.
The hydroelectric project — led by Sinohydro, the Chinese engineering company, and financed by the Chinese Export-Import Bank — was supposed to be ready by late 2014. But the project has been plagued by problems.
A drilling rig jammed last year, suspending the excavation for a critical tunnel. Then in December, 11 Ecuadorean and three Chinese workers were killed and a dozen were hurt when an underground river burst into the tunnel and flooded the powerhouse. Workers drowned or were crushed by flying rocks and metal bars.
At a legislative hearing after the accident, one worker, Danny Tejedor, told the lawmakers, “I am a welder, and on various occasions I have been obligated to work in extreme conditions of high risk, deep in water.”
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China is doing the same thing all over the African continent too and in a big way.
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Yes.
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And all the sniveling lefties will have nothing to say about what Imperial China does.
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Tensions with U.S. rise as China demands return of executive with ties to top leaders
Monday, August 3, 2015 11:21 AM EDT
China is demanding that the Obama administration return a wealthy and politically connected businessman who fled to the United States, according to several American officials familiar with the case. Should he seek political asylum, he could become one of the most damaging defectors in the history of the People’s Republic.
The case of the businessman, Ling Wancheng, has strained relations between two nations already at odds over numerous issues before President Xi Jinping’s first state visit to the United States in September, including an extensive cybertheft of American government data and China’s aggressive territorial claims.
Mr. Ling is the youngest brother of Ling Jihua, who for years held a post equivalent to that of the White House chief of staff, overseeing the Communist Party’s inner sanctum as director of its General Office. Ling Jihua is one of the highest-profile casualties of an anticorruption campaign that Mr. Xi has made a centerpiece of his government.
The Obama administration has thus far refused to accede to Beijing’s demands for Ling Wancheng, and his possible defection could be an intelligence coup at China’s expense after it was revealed last month that computer hackers had stolen the personnel files of millions of American government workers and contractors. American officials have said that they are nearly certain the Chinese government carried out the data theft.
Mr. Ling’s wealth and his family’s status have allowed him to move freely in elite circles in China, and he may be in possession of embarrassing information about current and former officials loyal to Mr. Xi.
Read more »
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Five Chinese Navy Ships Are Operating in Bering Sea Off Alaska Coast
Chinese naval presence off Alaskan coast appears to be a first
Chinese navy warships arrive in Sudan in August as part of military cooperation between the two countries. On Wednesday, the Pentagon said five Chinese navy ships have been seen off the coast of Alaska. ENLARGE
Chinese navy warships arrive in Sudan in August as part of military cooperation between the two countries. On Wednesday, the Pentagon said five Chinese navy ships have been seen off the coast of Alaska. Photo: Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters
By Jeremy Page in Beijing and Gordon Lubold in Washington
Updated Sept. 2, 2015 1:51 p.m. ET
WSJ
Five Chinese navy ships are currently operating in the Bering Sea, off the coast of Alaska, the first time the U.S. military has seen such activity in the area, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.
The officials said they have been aware in recent days that three Chinese combat ships, a replenishment vessel and an amphibious ship were in the vicinity after observing them moving toward the Aleutian Islands, which are split between U.S. and Russian control.
They said the Chinese ships were still in the area, but declined to specify when the vessels were first spotted or how far they were from the coast of Alaska, where President Barack Obama is winding up a three-day visit.
“This would be a first in the vicinity of the Aleutian Islands,” one defense official said of the Chinese ships. “I don’t think we’d characterize anything they’re doing as threatening.” The Pentagon official confirmed that the five ships were operating in international waters.
Pentagon officials also said there was no information suggesting the Chinese ships had gone through the Bering Strait, a narrow waterway north of the sea that abuts Alaska.
China’s defense ministry couldn’t be reached to comment.
The presence of the Chinese ships so close to U.S. shores is the latest demonstration of how China’s military is rapidly expanding its operations far from its own coast to protect the nation’s growing global interests.
The Chinese naval activity comes as Mr. Obama visits Alaska and the Arctic region to highlight climate change. The naval operation also comes just before Chinese President Xi Jinping presides over a World War II Victory Day parade on Thursday that the U.S. and its allies fear is being used to showcase China’s new military strength and ambition.
Mr. Xi is heading to the U.S. in late September for a state visit, which has already been overshadowed by tensions over Chinese military activity, including alleged cyberattacks on the U.S. and island-building in the South China Sea.
China says its military activities aren’t designed to threaten any other nation but are expanding in tandem with its economic power, as well as its interests and responsibilities around the world.
The Pentagon official said there were a “variety of opinions” on how to interpret the Chinese ships’ deployment.
“It’s difficult to tell exactly, but it indicates some interest in the Arctic region,” the official said. “It’s different.”
China has shown growing interest in using the so-called Northern Sea Route to transport goods between Asia and the West via the Arctic in recent years as melting polar ice has eased access for shipping. The route can take several days less than the journey via the Suez Canal.
The first Chinese vessel to sail the entire Northern Sea Route was an icebreaker called the Snow Dragon in 2012 and some Chinese commercial ships have used the route since, according to state media.
Beijing also has shown growing interest in exploiting energy resources in the Arctic region and in 2013 became a permanent observer to the Arctic Council, whose members are Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the U.S.
A search of Chinese state media and military statements online revealed no record of any previous naval deployment to the Bering Sea.
China and Russia held joint naval exercises off the Russian Pacific coast—about 2,000 miles west of the Bering Sea—between August 20 and 28, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Seven Chinese ships took part, including two destroyers, two frigates, two landing ships and one supply ship, Xinhua said but it gave no details about where the vessels went afterward.
China’s navy confined itself to patrolling the nation’s coast for the first five decades after the Communist takeover in 1949. But in the past few years, it has ventured deep in the Pacific and Indian Oceans and even the Mediterranean Sea.
The Chinese navy has taken part in antipiracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden since 2008 and held joint naval drills with Russia in the Mediterranean in May. Last year, Chinese navy ships made their debut at U.S.-led Rim of the Pacific, or Rimpac, joint naval drills in Hawaii.
U.S. officials said an uninvited Chinese spy ship observed the Rimpac drills from international waters just off Hawaii. China’s defense ministry said at the time its ship operations complied with international law.
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The tyranny of distance. While secretary Carter has yet to speak with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in the seven months he’s been in office, and has often not played a large public role in working through the thorny issues of Iraq, Syria, and Russian adventurism in Ukraine, he has been more outspoken about the Chinese land reclamation project in the South China Sea.
In a speech earlier this month, Carter voiced his “deep concern” over China’s island building, which Beijing claims gives it territorial rights over not only the islands, but also a 12-mile zone around them. Carter says he’s having none of it: “Let me be clear: the United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows, as we do all around the world.”
He repeated that line word for word in a speech on Wednesday, adding, “turning an underwater rock into an airfield simply does not afford the rights of sovereignty or permit restrictions on international air or maritime transit.”
But the reality is a bit different. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, David Shear, assistant secretary of defense for Asia-Pacific security admitted, “I believe the last time we conducted a freedom of navigation operation within 12 nautical miles of one of those features was 2012.” Head of the U.S. Pacific Command Adm. Harry Harris also said that the United States has never conducted a flyover of any of the islands, either.
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http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-usn-should-never-have-low-t-moment.html
Obama sucks.
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By Paul McLeary with Adam Rawnsley
Full steam ahead. After three years of giving Chinese land claims in the South China Sea a wide berth, the U.S. Navy is preparing to ignore China’s so-called "Great Wall of Sand." FP’s Dan De Luce drops the exclusive story of how Washington has finally decided to challenge the legitimacy of Chinese claims of territorial sovereignty over the artificial islands Beijing has built in the South China Sea. Just last month, head of the U.S. Pacific Command Adm. Harry Harris admitted that U.S. ships and aircraft haven’t come within 12 miles of the Chinese “islands” since 2012, which gives the piles of rocks a false air of legitimacy.
But now, De Luce reports, “the Obama administration is heavily leaning toward using a show of military might after Chinese opposition ended diplomatic efforts to halt land reclamation and the construction of military outposts in the waterway.”
“It’s not a question of if, but when,” a Defense Department said.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/02/in-south-china-sea-a-tougher-u-s-stance/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=%2ASituation%20Report
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Senior American officials leaked word this week that the U.S. Navy will soon conduct freedom-of-navigation operations within 12 nautical miles of China’s newly built artificial islands in the South China Sea’s Spratly archipelago. This means the Administration may finally be willing to challenge Beijing’s baseless sovereignty claims in distant waters.
The caveat is that leaks from this Administration are unreliable signals of intent. Before Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited Washington last month, U.S. officials told reporters they were considering sanctioning China for cyber abuses. Sanctions never materialized, as Messrs. Obama and Xi announced a toothless bilateral pledge not to hack trade secrets.
China’s island-building dates at least to 2013, and last year the Philippines revealed evidence of Chinese military facilities under construction at Johnson South Reef. China illegally claims air and sea sovereignty around the islands by warning planes and ships away. In May the Pentagon assessed that China had built 2,000 acres of new land. With China’s neighbors growing alarmed, Pentagon chief Ashton Carter said the U.S. “will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows, as we do all around the world.”
Opinion Journal Video
Center for a New American Security Senior Fellow Jerry Hendrix on the U.S. Navy’s plans to enforce freedom of navigation in international waters. Photo credit: Getty Images.
But not where such operations were needed most, within 12 miles of China’s artificial islands. China went on dredging and building, even after it said it was stopping. By August it had amassed nearly 3,000 acres of new Spratly territory.
Washington’s hesitant response has allowed controversy to build around freedom-of-navigation missions that should be routine. Beijing’s strategy in the South China Sea is to bully its neighbors and achieve regional hegemony through coercive means short of war. Turning peaceful naval patrols into diplomatic hot potatoes is exactly the sort of change Beijing seeks.
And right on time on Friday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said China is “seriously concerned” about the reports of U.S. Navy action. China “will absolutely not permit any country to infringe on China’s territorial waters and airspace in the Spratly Islands in the name of ‘protecting freedom of navigation and overflight.’” she said.
Such threats are all the more reason for the U.S. to defend international naval norms, and to make this the beginning of a persistent challenge to China’s false claims. The U.S. has put too much hope in a “code of conduct” led by the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a group that has been routinely manipulated and stymied by Beijing. The better U.S. course is to start joint maritime patrols with willing partners, possibly including Japan, the Philippines, Australia, Singapore, Vietnam and others.
Two decades ago, then Philippines President Fidel Ramos said the Spratly Islands would be “a litmus test of whether China as a great power intends to play by international rules, or make its own.” Beijing has shown that it scorns those rules. The question is whether the U.S. intends to do what is necessary to uphold them.
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And if China uses it's Sunburn missiles to defend it's claimed territorial waters?
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And if China uses it's Sunburn missiles to defend it's claimed territorial waters?
Under Obama rules of engagement, I assume US forces will be unamed and (any survivors) will surrender if challenged.
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And if China uses it's Sunburn missiles to defend it's claimed territorial waters?
Under Obama rules of engagement, I assume US forces will be unamed and (any survivors) will surrender if challenged.
Sadly, China might well be anticipating the same thing.
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What Lies in the South China Sea
China’s claims rely on historical fiction and face an imminent challenge from the U.S. Navy.
By David Feith
Oct. 13, 2015 1:22 p.m. ET
25 COMMENTS
The U.S. and China are headed for a showdown at sea. U.S. officials say that within days the U.S. military will conduct “freedom of navigation” patrols to challenge Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea’s strategic Spratly archipelago. That area lies more than 700 miles off China’s coast, between Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, but China’s government has warned that it is “seriously concerned” about U.S. action and “will absolutely not permit any country to infringe on China’s territorial waters.”
Now’s a good time, then, to clarify what’s going on. The U.S. and its Asian partners are trying to curb a Chinese campaign to conquer one of the world’s most vital international waterways. The South China Sea is home to rich natural resources and half of all global shipborne trade: some $5 trillion a year in oil, food, iPhones and more. By asserting “indisputable sovereignty” over its nearly 1.35 million square miles, including vast swaths of sea belonging to its neighbors, Beijing threatens to hold hostage—and to wage war over—the economic heart of East Asia.
The U.S. position is to support open seas and the peaceful resolution of disputes, while taking no stance on who owns what in disputed waters. Yet that’s not because China’s claims are as valid as those of its neighbors. On the contrary, China’s claims are dubious, often laughably so. That Beijing backs them aggressively—sending oil rigs, fishing boats and maritime militia into its neighbors’ exclusive economic zones, transforming rocks and reefs into artificial islands for military bases—only underscores the importance of deterring further such revisionism.
“Islands in the South China Sea since ancient times are China’s territory,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping said last month at the White House, giving President Obama and the Washington press corps some typical Beijing spin. The real story is otherwise.
Opinion Journal Video
Editorial Page Writer David Feith on bilateral tensions and President Obama and Xi Jinping’s agenda in Washington. Photo credit: Associated Press.
Beijing officially registered its South China Sea territorial claims by submitting a map to the United Nations in 2009. With a huge dashed line swooping south from mainland China in the shape of a U, the map derives from one issued in 1947, when China’s Nationalist government wanted to answer Japan’s World War II claims to dominion over the sea. In 1949 the Nationalists fell to Mao’s Communists and fled to Taiwan. But their ahistorical maritime claim based on Japanese Imperial precedent is today a sacred tenet of China’s Communist Party.
China’s U-shaped map is more an assertion of power than an exercise in cartography. Originally it had 11 dashes. Then Beijing made it nine dashes, as in the version filed to the U.N. Still other official Chinese maps have 10 dashes, with one swallowing Taiwan.
ENLARGE
Beijing is vague about the map’s meaning. Does it claim sovereignty over just the rocks, islands and other land features within the nine-dash line, or over all the water and natural resources too? Beijing often acts as though the whole area is a Chinese lake in which foreigners can operate only with permission, but it hasn’t clarified its views to the U.N. or its neighbors. Nor has it deigned to publish geographic coordinates for the dashed line, or to explain why at different times the map has had dashes of different sizes, in different locations.
Beijing often speaks of “historical rights,” yet history shows China never ruled the South China Sea. Until the 1930s the Chinese government didn’t have maps of the Spratly archipelago, let alone control of the territory. After France occupied several of the Spratlys in 1930, it took Beijing three years just to notice—at which point China’s consul in nearby Manila had to ask U.S. diplomats for a map. The first country to object to France’s move was Japan, not China.
When the Chinese government in 1935 published a list claiming ownership of 132 pieces of land in the South China Sea, the assertion was so groundless—Beijing’s attachment to the area so imagined—that Chinese officials didn’t have Chinese names to use. So they translated or transliterated names from Western atlases, such as Antelope Reef and James Shoal. (BBC reporter Bill Hayton documents this in a recent book.)
In the case of James Shoal they made a translation error that echoes loudly today. Shoals are underwater rock or sand masses, and James Shoal lies 70 feet under water in the far southern South China Sea. But China’s 1935 list identified it as a beach or sandbank that rises out of the water. From that, Beijing now claims sovereignty over an area that is more than 1,000 miles from China yet within some 50 miles of Malaysia. What Beijing claims today as “the southernmost point of Chinese territory,” Mr. Hayton notes, “doesn’t exist.”
So China historically didn’t exercise authority over the South China Sea, and foreign states have never acquiesced to Chinese claims to the area. That disposes of Beijing’s historical case as a matter of the international Law of the Sea Treaty, to which China is a party. But of course Beijing’s essential strategy is to bully, not respect any law. As China’s foreign minister told a regional summit in 2010, “China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that is just a fact.”
Mr. Xi, who rose to power in 2012, is even more than his predecessors an ambitious revisionist keen to press Beijing’s advantage as long as its neighbors are weak and the U.S. unable or unwilling to impose costs for destabilizing behavior. A la Vladimir Putin.
Hence the imperative for the U.S. to protect freedom of navigation, as basic a pillar of international order as there is. Any U.S. military mission in the Spratlys entails risk, as China’s diplomatic and military responses are unpredictable. But the harms of U.S. inaction are mounting. While Mr. Xi tells tales at White House press conferences, his civilian and military forces are tightening control over Asia’s most sensitive waterway.
Mr. Feith is a Journal editorial writer based in Hong Kong.
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By Richard Fontaine
Oct. 22, 2015 12:56 p.m. ET
3 COMMENTS
Beijing’s land reclamation in the South China Sea has prompted reports that the U.S. Navy will soon conduct freedom of navigation exercises in the area. If they pass within 12 nautical miles of China’s artificial islands, American vessels will directly challenge Beijing’s expansive maritime claims.
But Chinese island building poses another challenge beyond freedom of the seas. In constructing and militarizing outposts far from its shores, China is enhancing its ability to project power. The international response should not be limited to freedom of navigation exercises.
During his recent trip to Washington, President Xi Jinping said that “China does not intend to pursue militarization” in the South China Sea. What Mr. Xi meant by that is debatable, but Foreign Ministry officials have since confirmed the presence of military facilities on Chinese-held islands.
Satellite imagery shows a new runway on Fiery Cross Reef that can accommodate military aircraft. Adm. Harry Harris, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, has noted the construction of aircraft hangars that appear designed to host tactical fighter aircraft and ports deep enough for warships. He expressed concern that the islands could host radars and electronic-warfare capabilities.
These facilities represent a major increase in Beijing’s capacity for force projection far from its coastline. With just one aircraft carrier, China lacks America’s ability to sail power-projection forces into vital regions. By reclaiming land and militarizing features in the South China Sea, Beijing is making up for this shortcoming and amassing capacity to project power elsewhere.
This should concern the United States and countries within the South China Sea, even those not mired in territorial disputes with Beijing. The implications for Southeast Asia are far-reaching, given China’s penchant for coercive diplomacy backed by demonstrations of military capability.
Most Western observers have noted that China’s island bases are small and exposed, which is unhelpful should a conflict ever ensue. Yet in a military contingency, China’s power-projection advantages may come not only from the aircraft or vessels based on these islands, but also from its improved situational awareness far from its shores. To that end, Beijing has already begun installing navigation aids, sophisticated radars, sensors and other technology that it claims is nonmilitary and would provide greater maritime domain awareness.
In addition, simply because the island bases may be vulnerable doesn’t mean they are without value in a regional contingency. They already enable China to exert power over other claimants or regional states that cannot counter the islands’ capabilities.
Should a short skirmish erupt at sea, most analysts agree that the first mover would have a decisive advantage. Island installations would help China succeed before cooler heads prevail in arresting it.
The trends are clear, as should be the response by the U.S. and its Asian partners. They should continue to deepen their security cooperation, not to contain China but to balance its assertiveness and reduce the prospect of coercion and conflict. This involves all regional actors—not just the U.S. Navy conducting freedom of navigation operations, or the states that claim features in the South China Sea.
By forging new partnerships and deepening old alliances, countries in the region can make China’s new runways and radars less effective. The good news is that the U.S. is pushing on an open door.
Interest in partnering with the U.S. continues to grow. Existing multilateral initiatives include renewed base access in the Philippines, arms sales to Vietnam, the stationing of littoral combat ships in Singapore and the deployment of U.S. Marines to Darwin, Australia.
The region is also deepening defense relations on its own. Washington should support these ties by deepening interoperability between key militaries and encouraging maritime states to conduct their own freedom of navigation operations.
The imminent exercises aimed at preserving freedom of navigation are an important expression of American concern. But they are insufficient to deal with the challenge Beijing poses. In strengthening security ties and joint operations with Southeast Asia, the U.S. can help manage a China whose appetite and capacity for power projection continues to grow.
Mr. Fontaine is president of the Center for a New American Security in Washington, D.C.
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Forecast
China will continue to push the envelope in the South China Sea because controlling the waters is key to its national security strategy.
The United States will be limited in its ability to respond because of its concerns about escalation and because of China's nuclear capabilities.
Beijing will lobby Washington to keep Japan out of the dispute, but Tokyo will remain involved.
Analysis
For months, Beijing and Washington have been engaged in a mounting rhetorical war over Chinese territorial claims — and island building — in contested waters of the South China Sea. The Chinese Foreign Ministry has cautioned the U.S. military not to exacerbate tension in the South China Sea by sailing naval vessels or flying aircraft near Chinese-held islands, many of which are located in waters also claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia. The Pentagon has countered that U.S. ships and aircraft will travel along any routes allowed by international law at any time and has told regional allies that it will soon conduct patrols near Chinese positions.
Though this standoff might seem like simple nationalist posturing between two Pacific powers, maritime disputes carry a special significance in Asia. Unlike in Europe, water is the organizing element of the continent, which wraps around the East and South China Seas, the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean, as well as countless peripheral lagoons and bays. Ownership of a particular island, reef or rock, and the right to name a body of water is more than a question of sentimentality — it is the foundation of many national policy strategies. Securing the right to patrol, build bases and regulate trade through these waterways can mean access to resources critical to sustaining economic growth and political stability.
Pacific Rivals
Beijing's and Washington's divergent perspectives are rooted in radically different national and regional strategies. On the world stage, China portrays the South China Sea dispute as fundamentally a question of sovereignty. The United States, however, foregrounds concerns about freedom of navigation. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been the unquestioned pre-eminent power in the Pacific Rim, assisted by its allies, most notably Japan and South Korea. Simultaneously, however, China has been emerging as a potential regional hegemon, and the South China Sea has become the most visible area of tension.
A core but often unstated component of U.S. national strategy is to maintain global superiority at sea. By controlling the seas, the United States is able to guarantee the secure movement of U.S. goods and to deploy military power worldwide. This preserves global economic activity — feeding the domestic economy — while ensuring that any threat to national security is addressed abroad before it can reach the homeland. This state of affairs is enforced by the powerful U.S. Navy, but it is undergirded by Washington's particular interpretation of international law.
In China's near seas, the U.S. global imperative comes into conflict with China's emerging regional needs. Since the early 1980s, China has undergone a transition from an insular, self-sufficient pariah state to a major exporter. This has forced Beijing to reassess its maritime risks and vulnerabilities. China is no longer able to protect its national economy without securing the maritime routes it needs to maintain trade and to feed its industrial plant.
The South China Sea is one such essential waterway, made more important by the value of the sea's fisheries and subsea resources such as natural gas. But addressing the risks of its near seas means tackling the time-consuming and costly project of building, training and deploying a stronger blue-water navy while also establishing a greater maritime buffer along the Chinese coastline. China's assertion of ownership and control in the South China Sea, coupled with liberal interpretations of its rights within its claimed exclusive economic zone, gives Beijing at least a modicum of greater security. With neighbors unable or unwilling to directly challenge China’s concrete actions in the sea, and the United States hesitant to use force to halt Chinese expansion, Beijing is reshaping the status quo unimpeded.
Legalizing National Strategy
In pursuit of their respective interests, the United States and China have chosen to interpret international maritime law differently. The precise legal nature of various landforms has become key. There are four basic geographic terms at play: island, rock, low tide elevation and artificial island. Understanding the ambiguity of each of these terms is key to understanding conflict in the South China Sea.
According to international law, an "island" is a naturally formed elevation that is always above the high-tide level and is habitable and/or capable of sustaining economic activity. A "rock" is also naturally formed and above the surface but not necessarily suitable for habitation or economic exploitation. By contrast, a "low tide elevation" can be covered by water at high tide but is exposed at low tide. An "artificial island" differs from an island in that it is not naturally formed. Disputes are further complicated when considering submerged rocks, seamounts and other subsea landforms.
The designation of a landmass determines precisely how the surrounding water can be used – and who can use it. An island is granted a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea and a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone, and it can be used to delineate a continental shelf, which has implications for access to subsea resources. A rock is granted a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea, but no exclusive economic zone. A low tide elevation is not granted a territorial sea, but it may be used as a base point in claiming territorial waters if it is within 12 nautical miles of land. An artificial island is granted nothing other than a 500-meter safety zone. Even conduct within another person’s exclusive economic zone is open to interpretation. The United States argues it is within international legal rights to conduct military patrols inside exclusive economic zones; the Chinese counter that this is considered hostile action and is thus forbidden.
Beijing and Washington each have their own interpretations. China asserts that its South China Sea holdings are islands and are part of sovereign Chinese territory, giving them the full 12-nautical-mile territorial sea and a 200-mile exclusive economic zone. The United States says that while it has no official stance on maritime disputes, it interprets the holdings as either low tide elevations or artificial islands. This reading gives U.S. vessels the right to sail within the 12-nautical-mile limit.
Regional Players
China's construction projects on several South China Sea reefs and islets have stirred the ire of its Southeast Asian neighbors. Chinese crews have been dredging and piling up sand; expanding reefs and islets; and building runways, housing, piers and other facilities on several landmasses. Vietnam complained recently about new Chinese lighthouses, for example, and the Philippines has taken its counterclaims to international courts.
The Philippines has borne the brunt of China's expansion, and much of the Chinese construction has been on islands Manila claims. Manila's status as an ally risks drawing the United States into the conflict, but Washington, while supporting Philippine security, maintains that it takes no side in competing South China Sea claims or, for that matter, any disputes in maritime Asia. Rather, Washington justifies its concern about the South China Sea as simply a defense of the right to freedom of navigation. This freedom includes the regular and irregular patrols of U.S. ships, submarines and air assets within the 200-mile exclusive economic zones of other states, although not within the 12-nautical-mile territorial seas.
China feels it can manage the opposition from various members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) by both manipulating ASEAN as a whole and by leveraging economic and military influence. Beijing also believes it can manage Washington, betting that the United States will work to avoid any real conflict with China in the South China Sea. This has been the case so far. Although Washington has challenged Beijing’s take on what is and is not allowed in the waters of the South China Sea. And whether China has a legitimate claim to the seas there, it has been careful to avoid any action that could lead to physical confrontation. China is well aware of U.S. reluctance to escalate the conflict and takes advantage of it to keep expanding its presence.
Rising Sun
But Beijing does fear one thing in the South China Sea: the involvement of Japan. Tokyo, long a passive power in the Pacific Rim, is now embarking on the long process of reasserting itself. If Japan decides to become more involved in the South China Sea, China’s strategy will become significantly more complicated. Recent signs indicate this may be starting. Tokyo recently carried out search-and-rescue drills with the Philippines, as well as other exercises with Southeast Asian states, flying an EP3 out of Palawan over parts of the South China Sea. Japan is also negotiating a visiting forces agreement with Manila to allow Japanese ships and planes to refuel and resupply in the Philippines. It is also offering to fund and supply ships and aircraft to the Philippine and Vietnamese coast guards and navies. And Tokyo and the United States have agreed in principle to carry out joint patrols in the South China Sea, perhaps as early as next year.
Japan has its own concerns about South China Sea claims. As an island nation with few natural resources, Japan’s economic lifelines can only pass through the seas — it has no land options. China’s expansion of activity in the waters, following its assertive activities in the East China Sea, have made it clear to Tokyo that there has been a real change in the Asia-Pacific and that Japan needs to secure its interests. While China has suggested it may accept continued U.S. patrols, it has also asserted that it absolutely cannot accept any role for Japan in the South China Sea, arguing that Japan has no legitimate claims or interests in the waters.
China’s kneejerk response against Japan is in part conditioned by Tokyo’s history of belligerent imperialism. More concretely, however, Beijing recognizes that Japan will have a freer hand in the Pacific than the globally committed United States. The United State is further limited because it, like China, is a nuclear power. Japan is not. This places a stopgap on escalation similar to the constraint on the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. This also explains why Beijing has been so set against potential U.S. deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-ballistic missile systems in South Korea. This system would give U.S. missile defense reach onto the Asian mainland and, over time, potentially weaken the viability of a Chinese nuclear counterstrike capability.
China has pledged to not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state. If Beijing intends to uphold that pledge, its ability to threaten Japan is diminished. All of this adds up to a greater threat if Japan and the United States align in the South China Sea. A combined Japanese-U.S. force would be a far different challenge for China than any single force. China is now trying through numerous channels to make clear to the United States that Japan does not have the same constraints and may be willing to gamble with the U.S. security for its own interests. And Japanese aid to the Philippines, by extension, would embolden Manila to potentially trigger a short, sharp clash with China on a disputed islet, armed by Tokyo and able to rely on Washington to step in if things escalate.
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Second post
http://www.stripes.com/news/uss-lassen-to-challenge-china-s-spratly-islands-claim-within-hours-1.375279
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http://www.stripes.com/news/uss-lassen-to-challenge-china-s-spratly-islands-claim-within-hours-1.375279
This could easily go under Glibness in the South China Sea as my favorite Democrat, Walter Russel Mead, delicately points out weakness in the US position.
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/11/10/mixed-u-s-messages-in-the-s-china-sea/
Mixed US Messages in the S. China Sea
The Pentagon has been sending mixed messages about whether it recently conducted a full freedom of navigation operation or a less assertive “innocent passage” operation in the South China Sea. Reuters reports:
A U.S. official speaking to Reuters last week described the patrols as an “innocent passage” operation, but later said that had been a mistake.
Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis insisted to reporters on Wednesday that the patrol was not an “innocent passage.” Pressed further on the issue on Thursday, he declined to explicitly restate that position or elaborate.
According to Hostra University law professor Julian Ku, an “innocent passage” operation by the U.S. would implicitly recognize that “China is entitled to a 12 nm (nautical mile) territorial sea around its artificial island on Subi Reef” and thus undermine the whole point of the operation.
Far be it from us to parse out technical details about naval maneuvers. It’s the messy messaging that concerns us. After months of waffling about whether to conduct the operation at all, the White House appeared to finally have made a decision. Now, the picture looks blurry again. The whole point of sailing within twelve miles of the artificial islands was to send a clear signal, so that signal had better be clear. Even if the U.S. did in fact conduct a complete freedom of navigation operation, stories like these only make the operation less effective.
Almost seven years into the current administration, you’d think the president would know how to make sure his officials are on the same page. The president and his advisors might disagree about the best course of action, but they would eventually come to work in concert. Yet that doesn’t appear to be how this administration operates.
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Ugh :x
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So shocked to hear this. :roll:
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http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-philippines-obama-20151115-story.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=*Situation%20Report
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http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-tells-obama-to-keep-out-of-south-china-sea-disputes/ar-BBn9ho1?ocid=spartandhp
China tells Obama to keep out of South China Sea disputes
Shouldn't this be the other way around?
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A New High for U.S.-China Military Ties
Analysis
December 4, 2015 | 09:15 GMT Print
The guided missile destroyer USS Stethem (DDG 63) arrives at the Wusong military port in Shanghai on Nov. 16. (JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images)
Forecast
Even as tensions in the Pacific Rim increase, military ties between China and the United States will become tighter.
China will continue to cooperate with the United States and Japan to establish mechanisms to manage crisis situations.
U.S. arms sales to Taiwan near the start of 2016 will not lead China to suspend military relations with the United States.
Analysis
After reaching their apex in the final decade of the Cold War, military-to-military ties between China and the United States entered a two-decade tailspin. In the interlude, China emerged as a major power in the Pacific Rim. Now, with Beijing's regional heft at an all-time high, regional military tensions are elevated, especially in the disputed waters of the South China Sea. In this volatile environment, the United States and China are now looking to military relations as a tool for developing strategic trust, making accidents less likely and helping to manage them when they inevitably occur.
Since 2011, and especially since Xi Jinping assumed the presidency in China, the two sides have worked to rebuild their relationship. This process is now speeding up. On Nov. 19, the People's Liberation Army hosted a U.S. Army delegation in Beijing for the first meeting of the U.S.-China Army-to-Army Dialogue. The initiative was signed between the defense establishments in June and includes a raft of confidence-building measures. It is part of a trend that will continue even as military tensions grow in the Pacific Rim.
Highs and Lows
Military relations between China and the United States were at their height in the final decade of the Cold War. The foundation of the relationship was a shared interest in countering the power of the Soviet Union, Beijing's regional rival and Washington's global competitor. When Deng Xiaoping assumed power in 1979, Washington and Beijing formed an entente to counter Moscow. At the height of these relations, the United States sold military equipment to China and even agreed to transfer military technology to the People's Liberation Army, a move that would be unthinkable today. These technology transfers included a modern ammunition production line and an avionics upgrade for Chinese J-8 fighters. China reciprocated by allowing the United States to operate a listening post in the northwestern province of Xinjiang to collect data on Soviet nuclear tests.
This cordial relationship broke down suddenly when the Chinese military cracked down on protesters during the 1989 Tiananmen Square Incident, but its real decline was due to the crumbling of the Soviet Union. In response to Tiananmen, the administration of U.S. President George H.W. Bush cut military ties with China, suspended technology transfers and imposed sanctions that prohibited U.S. arms sales. These restrictions are still in place. But Beijing's crackdown on protesters was merely the catalyst. At the height of Sino-Soviet tensions, China's military had stared down more than 30 Soviet armored divisions to the north, as well as the threat of battle-hardened and Soviet-aligned Vietnam to the south. By 1989, however, the Soviet Union was already beginning to fall apart, bringing an end to the mutual threat that had united Washington and Beijing. As Soviet power collapsed, most of its forces on the border were withdrawn. With the former Soviet space in disarray, China no longer had to devote its resources to this long land border. Freed up from this obligation, China turned its attention to maritime disputes in the East and South China seas. The People's Liberation Army has also returned its focus to reunification with Taiwan, the most acute point of tension with the United States.
Though the end of the anti-Soviet entente made a decline in military ties inevitable, the degree to which they deteriorated was remarkable under the presidencies of both Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. Efforts to mend the relationship began in 1993 with the resumption of military-to-military ties, but crises frequently disrupted progress, particularly the collision of a U.S. surveillance plane and Chinese fighter in April 2001 over the South China Sea. This collision, known as the Hainan Island incident, led the United States to once again suspend relations. Compared to the 1980s, China also became far more willing to cut ties to make a political point, frequently canceling planned visits and formal communications between the People's Liberation Army and U.S. military. These disruptions became Beijing's default response to major U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
Beijing and Washington put in place several communications mechanisms during this period, including the Defense Telephone Link in 2007; these often went unused. Senior U.S. officials involved in the many Sino-American crises during this time recalled frustration with China's seeming unwillingness to answer phone calls. Unstable relations and unreliable communications made conflict resolution difficult at a time when increasing Chinese force projection capabilities made clashes between China and its neighbors more likely.
A New High
In recent years, the military-to-military relationship has begun to stabilize once again. Although it is by no means back to pre-1989 levels, neither country has canceled major military interactions since 2011. This improvement roughly corresponds with the start of Xi Jinping's tenure as vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, the military's core leadership body, in October 2010. He later became chairman in November 2012. This was an early indication of his interest in strengthening military-to-military relations during his presidency, which began in March 2013.
Under Xi, the People's Liberation Army has increased the frequency of joint drills with the U.S. military, culminating in the United States inviting the Chinese navy to participate in RIMPAC 2014, the world's largest multilateral naval exercise. This was a symbolic milestone. The People's Liberation Army also built up its regularized communication mechanisms with the U.S. military, including the army-to-army dialogue that kicked off in November. More critically, the Chinese military made a serious effort to establish and implement crisis management mechanisms. At the 2014 Western Pacific Naval Symposium, the People's Liberation Army Navy agreed to abide by the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea, which establishes common protocols for interactions between naval vessels to reduce accidents. In September, China signed a bilateral agreement with the United States governing air-to-air encounters as well as protocols governing the use of the Defense Telephone Link. The two navies are also set to hammer out a set of rules on ship-to-ship encounters in the near future.
What is most notable about these newly stabilized military-to-military ties is that they come during a period of tumult between China and the United States as well as China's neighbors. Under Xi, Chinese incursions in the Japanese-controlled Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands have increased. China also declared an Air Defense Identification Zone over the East China Sea while accelerating land reclamation in the South China Sea. This is partly due to the fact that the People's Liberation Army itself appears to have shifted its attitudes and now believes that military-to-military ties with the United States can bring it tangible benefits. At the same time, China's top political leadership now recognizes the need for more tools to manage disputes.
Above all, however, these changes are symptomatic of China growing into its role as a great power in all respects, including how it handles military relations. Like the Soviet Union, China is discovering that great powers need ways to manage crises with their potential military opponents — something uniquely important given China's increasingly global interests. There are diminishing returns to politicizing the U.S.-China military relationship. To do so would both raise the risk of a military crisis with the United States and make it politically easier to isolate China from regional security arrangements. This is doubly critical as Japan makes strides in military normalization that further complicate China's periphery.
China's commitment to stable military ties with the United States will be tested very soon. The first major Taiwan arms sale since 2011 is coming up, likely in December 2015 or January 2016. This will be especially important to watch given China's stock response to such deals under the previous two administrations: suspending U.S. military-to-military ties. The latest source information, however, indicates that China will likely only make pro forma responses of displeasure and not suspend ties. The Chinese leadership now highly values military-to-military ties and has made obtaining an invitation to RIMPAC 2016 a political priority. Although the bilateral military relationship will likely not return to the highs of the 1980s, it will remain much more robust and stable than that of the period between Tiananmen and the end of Hu Jintao's presidency.
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http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-tells-obama-to-keep-out-of-south-china-sea-disputes/ar-BBn9ho1?ocid=spartandhp
China tells Obama to keep out of South China Sea disputes
Shouldn't this be the other way around?
It would, before a fundamental transformation.
http://breakingdefense.com/2015/11/us-steadily-retreating-in-south-china-sea-dispute/
US ‘Steadily Retreating’ In South China Sea Dispute
By DEAN CHENG
on November 29, 2015 at 3:37 PM
USS Lassen China Freedom of Navigation
USS Lassen
Those of us who cover the US military in detail, those in the military and those who spend lots of time around the military tend to be at least mildly obsessed with Star Trek and Star Wars. As his opening make clear, Dean Cheng is truly one of the tribe. But his topic, freedom of the seas and how the US, China and other countries cope with the difficult calculus of Taiwan, China, the South China Sea and the larger questions of international law and trade — let alone what is right — is deadly serious. Read on. The Editor.
When the Jedi Council assembled in Star Wars Episode I “The Phantom Menace,” they discussed a prophecy that they would soon be joined by one who would “bring balance to the Force.” Little did they expect that the One would achieve this balance by collapsing the old order.
Reality now seems to be mirroring fiction, as the Administration steadily obscures what it means by the “rebalance” to Asia in the six weeks leading to the next episode of the “Star Wars” franchise. American B-52s and the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier battlegroup both operated in the South China Sea recently, providing ample opportunity to conduct operations within 12 nautical miles of China’s artificial islands, and clearly sending the message to Beijing and the world of the seriousness with which the United States takes freedom of the seas.
960117-N-7729M-002 (December 20, 1995).... The U.S. Navy's aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) conducts a weapons on-load with the ammunition ship USS Santa Barbara (AE 28) in the waters off the Virginia-Carolina coast, following her post deployment yard period, at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, in Portsmouth, Virginia. Official U.S. Navy Photo by Photographer's Mate 2nd. Class Michael Tuemler
USS Roosevelt
After a stymied ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting Plus, where China battled hard to stop the group from taking any stance on the South China Sea, Southeast Asia is clearly becoming the focal point of growing tensions between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. As China continues to challenge the United States on the competing principles of sovereignty and freedom of the seas, the reefs, spits, rocks, and islands in the Spratlys have become the center of the battle
For the Chinese, the point is simple. As a Chinese admiral observed recently in London, “The South China Sea, as the name indicates, is a sea area that belongs to China. And the sea from the Han dynasty a long time ago where the Chinese people have been working and producing from the sea.” The issue is one of sovereignty, not only over the land and submerged features, but the waters, the “blue soil” that is encompassed within the “nine-dash line,” now more prominently noted in recent Chinese maps.
For the United States, the point is almost equally straightforward. Washington takes no position on the disputes over sovereignty in the South China Sea, but it is firmly committed to the principle of freedom of the seas. All states may use the high seas as they see fit, as they are free for use by all. Conversely, no state may arbitrarily seek to lay claim to swathes of the ocean—and reefs do not exert any justification for territorial claims, even if one builds an artificial island atop it.
Ostensibly as a show of commitment to the principle of freedom of the seas, the USS Theodore Roosevelt operated in the South China Sea, providing a perfect venue for Secretary of Defense Carter to make a speech on this issue. This comes a fortnight after the Administration finally authorized a US ship to transit waters near China’s artificial islands, five months after it stated that American ships would sail where they wished, and three years after the last freedom of navigation operation (FONOP).
Unfortunately, if several recent reports are to be believed, these American ship transits are demonstrating not strength, but weakness.
As it turns out, the USS Lassen reportedly did not engage in a FONOPS to demonstrate that the islands China has built exert no right to territorial waters reaching out 12 nautical miles. Instead, the U.S. ship reportedly conducted “innocent passage,” turning off its radars and grounding its helicopters as it transited within 12 nautical miles of the islands. Undertaking “innocent passage” is done only in another nation’s territorial waters.
In short, the United States, by its actions, may have actually recognized China’s claims. If the reports are correct, the United States treated the artificial island atop Subi Reef as though it were a naturally occurring feature, and therefore entitled to a 12 nautical mile band of territorial water. This is precisely the opposite of what had been announced.
Further obscuring the message, Administration sources are now claiming that it was both a FONOP and “innocent passage,” because the American ship was transiting waters near other islands occupied by various other claimants as well as going near Subi Reef. It would appear that the Administration was more intent on placating domestic concerns (e.g., the Senate Armed Services Committee) than in sending a clear signal.
Now, according to reports, the USS Theodore Roosevelt did not even sail within 200 nautical miles of the Chinese islands, instead avoiding the waters around them entirely. Similarly, the American B-52s underscoring freedom of navigation in the South China Sea took care to never approach more than 15 nautical miles from the artificial Chinese islands.
It is the final step in a pivot of American statements and actions that have charted a steadily retreating course. It has proceeded like this:
from Secretary of Defense Carter’s declaration at Shangri-La this May that “the United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows, as U.S. forces do all over the world;”
to the revelation to the Senate Armed Services Committee this summer that the United States, in fact, has not sailed or operated near China’s artificial islands for three years;
to the apparent concession on international law, five months later, by the Lassen’s “innocent passage” transit, effectively acceding to the Chinese version on the key principle of freedom of the seas;
to the apparent decision to have the USS Theodore Roosevelt and American B-52s avoid those waters and airspace altogether, a message that is being sent less than a month after the Lassen
Like it or not, the message that the White House is now repeatedly sending is that the United States, in fact, accepts that the Chinese artificial islands should be treated as national territory, like a natural feature. In short, the United States is acceding to China’s efforts to close off portions of the open ocean. Teddy Roosevelt’s catch-phrase, of course, was “Speak softly, but carry a big stick.” To deliver this craven message via the routing of a ship named for him adds a grotesquely ironic twist to the decision.
No doubt the Obama Administration will claim that it is trying to send a different message. This would be less difficult than the White House’s feckless efforts would make it appear—American aircraft and ships should conduct normal activities within 12 nautical miles of a manmade feature built atop a reef. This could include aircraft fly-overs, helicopter operations, anti-submarine warfare operations, the operation of fire control radars, and loitering in those waters. But, as Yoda observed, “Do, or do not. There is no try.”
Dean Cheng, one of the top US experts on the Chinese military and the PRC’s space program, is an analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
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t didn’t take long for the Obama Administration to muddy the message it sent in October by sending a warship to challenge China’s aggressive territorial claims in the South China Sea. At the time U.S. officials promised regular follow-up “freedom of navigation” operations—two every three months, according to leaks to the press, including another this year. Now comes word that the next mission won’t come before January, if then.
Citing three U.S. defense officials, Reuters reports that the Administration is stalling while “weighing the risks of raising tensions with Beijing at a time when the United States is focused on the fight against Islamic State.” There’s always an excuse for indecision.
This summer the White House rebuffed Pentagon-proposed freedom-of-navigation missions for fear of spoiling the mood before Chinese President Xi Jinping’s September visit to Washington. After the summit President Obama gave the green light, but our sources say Secretary of State John Kerry was opposed, fearful of angering China before the recent climate talks in Paris.
U.S. patrols are supposed to signal that China’s claim to territorial waters around artificial islands has no basis in international law. They’re also supposed to be routine. But Mr. Obama is turning each one into a diplomatic drama that advertises American irresolution.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Abraham Denmark said this week that the “U.S. commitment to Asia should not be underestimated, and to do so would be a severe miscalculation.” We hope he’s right, and U.S. moves such as the recent deployment of P-8 reconnaissance aircraft to Singapore are helpful.
But conducting responsible, regular freedom-of-navigation patrols is a baseline responsibility. Wavering on this undermines all other U.S. efforts to deter Beijing and reassure everyone else.
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WSJ
U.S. Bomber Flies Over Waters Claimed by China
Beijing files diplomatic protest over the B-52 flight; Pentagon claims route was unintentional
A photo from November 2014 showing structures China has built on Cuarteron Reef. ENLARGE
A photo from November 2014 showing structures China has built on Cuarteron Reef. Photo: CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative/DigitalGlobe
by Jeremy Page in Beijing and Gordon Lubold in Manama, Bahrain
Updated Dec. 18, 2015 7:11 p.m. ET
An American B-52 bomber on a routine mission over the South China Sea unintentionally flew within two nautical miles of an artificial island built by China, senior defense officials said, exacerbating a hotly divisive issue for Washington and Beijing.
Pentagon officials told The Wall Street Journal they are investigating why one of two B-52s on the mission last week flew closer than planned to Cuarteron Reef in the Spratly Islands, an area where China and its neighbors have competing territorial claims. A senior U.S. defense official said that bad weather had contributed to the pilot flying off course and into the area claimed by China.
Beijing filed a formal diplomatic complaint with the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, which prompted the Pentagon to look into the matter.
The flight comes amid rising tensions over China’s island-building program and U.S. operations to challenge Beijing’s broad but vaguely defined claims in the area.
In late October, a U.S. Navy destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of another Chinese-built island in the Spratlys. Two American B-52s also flew close to the islands last month but didn’t go within 12 nautical miles, a boundary marking a country’s territorial waters.
In sending a warship within 12 nautical miles of one of China’s artificial islands in the South China Sea, Washington has upped the ante in a contest over the future of one of the world’s most important waterways. Andrew Browne explains why the dispute is far more than just a battle over a reef. (Originally published Oct. 27, 2015)
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Unlike those patrols, the route taken by the B-52 this week wasn’t planned, according to the Pentagon. “For this mission, there was no intention of flying to within 12 nautical miles,” said Cmdr. Bill Urban, a Pentagon spokesman.
“The Chinese have raised concerns with us about the flight path of a recent mission,” he said. “We are looking into the matter.”
China’s Defense Ministry said that both of the American B-52 bombers on Dec. 10 “entered without authorization the airspace around the relevant islands and reefs” of the Spratlys, but didn’t specify the precise area.
The ministry said this and other U.S. operations in the area were “serious military provocations” that endangered Chinese personnel and could cause the militarization of the South China Sea. It added that the Chinese military would take “all necessary measures” to protect China’s sovereignty.
The incident is diplomatically awkward for the White House, which is trying to maintain stable ties with the world’s No. 2 economy while responding to pressure from U.S. allies in Asia, as well as the Pentagon and Congress, to push back against Beijing’s recent military assertiveness.
ENLARGE
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Aside from the South China Sea, other security issues roiling relations included alleged cyberattacks by China on the U.S.
On Wednesday, Beijing lodged another formal protest after the U.S. approved a $1.83 billion arms sale to Taiwan, an island that China claims but doesn’t control.
Cuarteron lies about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) south of China’s Hainan island. Since mid-2014, reclamation has expanded the reef by more than 230,000 square meters (57 acres); it now includes two helipads, possible gun or missile emplacements and two possible radar towers, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Washington has grown alarmed at the speed at which China’s artificial islands have expanded—from a total of 2,000 acres earlier this year to more than 3,000 acres by September, according to Defense Department documents.
Cuarteron is one of seven rocks and reefs in the Spratlys where China has built artificial islands in the past year, as part of what neighbors fear is a program to better enforce its claims and establish control over one of the world’s busiest shipping routes.
China says it guarantees freedom of navigation, but has “indisputable” sovereignty over all South China Sea islands and adjacent waters. It says the new facilities are for civilian purposes such as weather monitoring, as well as national defense.
Many maritime law experts categorize Cuarteron as a rock rather than a reef, a difference that some maritime experts say figures into Washington’s strategy in the South China Sea.
Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, natural islands and rocks are entitled to territorial seas stretching out 12 nautical miles, whereas most reefs that are submerged at high tide aren’t.
Thus, some maritime experts say Washington had planned to focus its overflights and ship passages on Chinese installations built on such reefs.
Cmdr. Urban said the Pentagon didn’t consider this week’s B-52 flight to be a freedom of navigation operation. The term is used by the Pentagon to describe missions meant to challenge what the U.S. sees as excessive claims to territorial waters.
Cmdr. Urban said Chinese personnel on the ground warned the aircraft during the flight but there was no indication that the Chinese military had scrambled jet fighters. He declined to say whether any disciplinary action had been taken or if other flights had been grounded.
While the U.S. says it doesn’t take sides in the territorial dispute, U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Ash Carter, have said the U.S. will fly or sail wherever it believes international law permits.
The U.S. conducts routine B-52 flights from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam throughout the Asia-Pacific region under a program known as “continuous bomber presence” started in 2004 to demonstrate the U.S. commitment to security in the region.
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So why did we give tax payer money for a bailout of GM for? For this?
http://qz.com/594984/the-secret-history-of-gms-chinese-bailout/?utm_source=YPL
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http://freebeacon.com/national-security/pentagon-conducts-warship-passage-near-disputed-island/
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Why are NONE of the candidates discussing this?
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Spotted. On the same day Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Secretary of State John Kerry at the State Department, reports emerged that China has sent fighter planes to Woody Island in the South China Sea, the same place Beijing deployed HQ-9 surface-to-air missile batteries in recent weeks.
The deployment is small -- fewer than 10 aircraft, a U.S. official told Fox News -- but the Chinese J-11s Flanker and JH-7s Flounder aircraft represent a significant increase in Chinese combat power in the disputed Paracel Island chain.
Earlier in the day, U.S. Pacific Command chief Adm. Harry Harris told a Senate panel in Washington that Chinese missile deployments to Woody Island, along with new radars and runways on small, man-made islands in the region are changing “the operational landscape” in the South China Sea. "China seeks hegemony in East Asia," he said, adding, "China is clearly militarizing the South China Sea, and you'd have to believe in the flat Earth to think otherwise."
Good timing. Harris will undoubtedly face questions about the latest Chinese deployment Wednesday when he appears before the House Armed Services Committee at 10:00 a.m. alongside Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, commander, U.S. Forces Korea. Watch here.
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Why are NONE of the candidates discussing this?
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Spotted. On the same day Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Secretary of State John Kerry at the State Department, reports emerged that China has sent fighter planes to Woody Island in the South China Sea, the same place Beijing deployed HQ-9 surface-to-air missile batteries in recent weeks.
I know it's a 40 minute youtube, but please watch the Rubio campaign speech I posted yesterday. I felt he addressed this quite strongly. Paraphrasing he said, China's behavior in the South China Sea is unacceptable and he would preside over a "Reagan-like" rebuilding of our military.
(Who knows if we would fight them over this but at the least he gets the significance and we wouldn't be retreating and surrendering the way we are now.)
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"The Chinese acted stupidly..." Is the best we can hope for at this point. Aside from all the racial healing, my favorite parts of the Obama era is all the peace and prosperity.
Why are NONE of the candidates discussing this?
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Spotted. On the same day Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Secretary of State John Kerry at the State Department, reports emerged that China has sent fighter planes to Woody Island in the South China Sea, the same place Beijing deployed HQ-9 surface-to-air missile batteries in recent weeks.
The deployment is small -- fewer than 10 aircraft, a U.S. official told Fox News -- but the Chinese J-11s Flanker and JH-7s Flounder aircraft represent a significant increase in Chinese combat power in the disputed Paracel Island chain.
Earlier in the day, U.S. Pacific Command chief Adm. Harry Harris told a Senate panel in Washington that Chinese missile deployments to Woody Island, along with new radars and runways on small, man-made islands in the region are changing “the operational landscape” in the South China Sea. "China seeks hegemony in East Asia," he said, adding, "China is clearly militarizing the South China Sea, and you'd have to believe in the flat Earth to think otherwise."
Good timing. Harris will undoubtedly face questions about the latest Chinese deployment Wednesday when he appears before the House Armed Services Committee at 10:00 a.m. alongside Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, commander, U.S. Forces Korea. Watch here.
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http://tankler.com/chine-invades-another-ph-territory-4475
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Revisiting the Geopolitics of China
Geopolitical Weekly
March 15, 2016 | 08:00 GMT Print
Text Size
(Stratfor)
By Rodger Baker
In 2008, Stratfor published The Geopolitics of China: A Great Power Enclosed, the second in a series of monographs describing the underlying geopolitics of key countries and explaining their current positions within that context. In the eight years since its publication, despite major changes in the global situation, the monograph has largely stood — largely, but not completely. Since then, a new imperative has emerged for China, one that is pulling it into a much more active global posture despite economic, social and political undercurrents at home.
At the core of the monograph is an assertion of China's strategic imperatives — the core compulsions and constraints on the state imposed by the interaction of geography, economics, politics, security and society throughout history. As we stated at the time, China has three overriding geopolitical imperatives:
Maintain internal unity in the Han Chinese regions.
Maintain control of its buffer regions.
Protect the coast from foreign encroachment.
If we were to summarize the monograph (though we recommend reading it in its entirety), we could recount these three imperatives fairly succinctly.
Maintain internal unity in the Han Chinese regions: The core of the nation sits along the Yellow and Yangtze rivers, the heart of Han China. This area encompasses the bulk of the population and, if the Pearl River is added, comprises most of China's agricultural and industrial activity. Ensuring the unity of the Han core is vital to maintaining the cohesion of China and the security of the Communist Party as the paramount power. But even the Han core is extremely complex and diverse culturally, geographically and economically. Balancing these differences requires a deft hand at the center, and with China's current economic slowdown, this balancing act is growing more difficult.
Maintain control of the buffer regions: One challenge faced historically by the agricultural and stationary Han civilization was that it was surrounded to the north and west by nomadic tribes, and faced fluctuating borders and populations in the mountains and dense forests to the south. To secure the Han core, China historically fought (and occasionally was overcome by) its neighbors and established a Middle Kingdom policy, whereby it kept neighbors at bay through a nominal tributary system, requiring minimal military force but also gaining minimal true influence or control. Modern China has integrated a series of buffer regions, stretching from Manchuria in the northeast through Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet, into Yunnan and along the mountains in the south. These territories provide strategic depth but bring their own challenges in the form of internal ethnic policies and cohesion.
Protect the coastline: For much of China's history, the country was largely self-sufficient in natural resources. What additional resources or luxuries it needed could be supplied along the Silk Road routes to the west. The coast was often plagued by piracy and suffered occasional international raids, but given its massive interior and its ethnic diversity, China rarely focused on naval power, concentrating instead on coastal defense or even alternatives to coastal travel, such as its Grand Canal system. The much-touted "treasure fleets" of Zheng He were more frivolities than a true assertion of military might. Traders and fishermen plied the seas but with minimal protection from the central government. Even modern China's naval development policies are designed primarily to fill a coastal defense role.
An Emerging Imperative
These three imperatives long remained the core of China's national and international strategy. But imperatives are not static, and at times the pressures on a state can add an imperative. China's economic growth created a new imperative, one that shifted China out of what had been a near self-reliant capability and into one that left China vulnerable to international involvement. Although we didn't formally recognize this new imperative in our 2008 monograph, we did allude to it as a manifestation of the coastal protection imperative.
This new, fourth imperative builds from that imperative but is not simply a matter of coastal defense. Namely, it is: Protect China's strategic trade routes, resources and markets from foreign interdiction.
China's economic success has broken its national independence. China imports at least as much of its key commodities as it produces. Foreign trade is a vital piece of China's economic activity, even as the country attempts to drive its economy toward a domestic consumption model. Outbound investments provide access not only to markets and resources but also to technology and skills. This has impelled China to seek ways to secure its vulnerable supply lines, expand its maritime presence, and extend its international financial and political presence.
And it is this relatively new Chinese imperative that has caused such upheaval in regional relations and such consternation in Washington. It represents a major break from what was seen as the status quo, and it clashes directly with two of the United States' key imperatives, as asserted in our 2011 monograph. That monograph asserts five imperatives for the United States:
Dominate the Greater Mississippi Basin.
Eliminate all land-based threats to the Greater Mississippi Basin.
Control the ocean approaches to North America.
Control the world's oceans.
Prevent any potential challengers from rising.
China's economic ascent, and particularly its need to break from its past semi-isolation, clashes squarely with the United States' fourth and fifth imperatives, and potentially also with its third. Since the North American continent is relatively secure, it is the world's oceans that continue to drive U.S. strategy: The way to preserve American strength is by keeping potential threats distant. China, driven by economic success and global integration, sees its further economic stability potentially challenged by a dominant U.S. naval force. The United States sees a rising China and expanding Chinese navy as a direct challenge to the underlying strategy of U.S. national security.
Imperatives Collide
From the viewpoint of strategic imperatives, which drive nations to follow certain courses to protect their interests as they develop, it is no wonder that the United States and China have such a complicated relationship, colored as much by economic interdependence as by strategic competition. A strategic imperative is more than just an interest, more than a policy desire. It is a force impelling a nation, though it does not force decisions. It shapes constraints and compulsions. Failing to pursue the imperative has costs. Pursuing the imperative has costs. Not all imperatives are achievable or even desirable. But beneath the surface, they press on nations, press on leaders, and create conditions both for international friction and for cooperation.
As China feels impelled to move into a more active global role, however cautiously, it pushes up against a U.S. imperative. U.S. dominance of the global seas is now seen as a very real threat to Chinese maritime trade and thus to China's economic and strategic well-being. China sees U.S. capability and reads U.S. intent. By building a military presence to deter U.S. intervention in the waters of the South and East China seas, a natural move given its economic position, China sends a reciprocal signal to the United States that U.S. interests are now being challenged, that freedom of navigation may not be guaranteed in these waters. If the United States is to be able to disrupt the rise of regional hegemony or conduct spoiling wars far from its shores, it needs unfettered access to the seas. So the United States seeks to counter China, and China sees this as containment and counters again. Neither side is the aggressor, but both see capability and read intent, and both are driven by deeper strategic concerns.
China's naval development, its advancements in anti-ship missiles and its assertive reclamation of islands and reefs in what it considers its territory in the South China Sea are perceived by the United States as aggressive behavior from a rising nation. China's maritime expansion to the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden — its so-called string of pearls port development — and its military reform and modernization further heighten these concerns. Meanwhile, China sees these measures as defensive behavior against a dominant United States. Both are right; both are wrong. But each government is primarily beholden to its own national interests, not to the feelings or concerns of the other. Those concerns may help guide diplomatic efforts or shape policy details, but the underlying realities drive the imperatives and impel action. Geopolitics does not dictate the response, but it does frame the options and, more directly, the costs of action and inaction.
But U.S.-Chinese competition is not limited merely to naval developments in the South China Sea or questions of missile defense in Asia. China's international economic networks and dependencies have made it harder for Beijing to retain older policies of noninterference. The larger and more active China becomes economically, the fewer countries around the world will consider Chinese actions innocuous. China faces political and security challenges to its investments and economic interests in Africa, Latin America, South Asia, Central Asia and elsewhere. As China seeks advanced technologies to remain on par with other global economic powers, it is stymied by political opposition, national security concerns and fears of competition.
Big Country, Big Impact
Even in lower-end technologies, such as steel or shipbuilding, China's sheer size has massive repercussions that trigger often unintentional, but no less important, consequences and responses. Chinese steel production, driven both by a massive surge in internal infrastructure development and by the desire of local and regional governments to maintain employment programs, spurred a huge spike in the price of iron ore internationally. While Beijing might not have intended to crush global steel markets, the combination of high input costs and the massive surplus of steel products produced in China led to a collapse in prices and has put heavy strain on other steel producers. Given China's scale, its surge in shipbuilding, its foray into solar panel manufacturing and its imports of raw materials all have a disproportionate effect on other nations, whether consumers or producers.
China's resource needs also shape the international situation in other ways. As China falls behind in certain technologies or process refinements, its competitive advantage in bidding for mineral or resource projects, or even for infrastructure development projects, lies along two paths: price and political blindness. On the first, China often either outbids or underprices its competitors, relying on extensive — if at times unofficial — government backing to ensure success. But China will also turn a blind eye toward political concerns, working with countries with which the West is largely unable to contract or acting in areas riven by internal conflict. Combined, these increase China's overall reach and influence and at times undermine U.S. attempts to shape international behavior through non-military means.
But China is moving well beyond such policies toward a greater role in international finance. One of the strengths of the United States is the ubiquity of the U.S. dollar and the larger role the United States plays in many aspects of international trade. This is a strategic risk to China, from Beijing's perspective, because the United States sets the rules and shapes the global economy, leaving China in a reactive position. Beijing's pursuit of the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, its inclusion in the International Monetary Fund's de facto currency in regional trade deals and its granting of low-interest loans all reflect an attempt to balance if not break free from U.S. influence in international finance. Perhaps ironically, were China to bring about a real break and create competing international financial and trade systems, it would lose some of the protection of the single integrated global system that currently prevents the United States from seeking a true containment policy against China, as it did against the Soviet Union.
Future Imperatives
There are numerous additional examples of military, economic and political areas in which China and the United States contend, but each can be seen as a collision of their strategic imperatives. When fundamentals, more than simply ideology or political expediency, take shape, the stakes are higher and the cost of inaction outweighs the cost of action. Although both may couch their public statements in terms of ideology, global norms, or proper economic or political systems, those are only the veneer overlaying the hardened oak of geopolitics.
China is changing, and it is impelled to change its behavior or accept the risk of inaction. Given its size and history, it is unlikely that the Chinese would simply accept their role in a U.S.-structured system, with the attendant risks and vulnerabilities it brings. And the United States, seeing a pattern in Asia breaking and seeing Chinese activity across the globe, will not simply hope that U.S. interests remain unthreatened — the emergence of a real Asian hegemony would violate another U.S. strategic imperative. If the United States can prevent or shape that rise, it will seek to do so. The cost of inaction is too high not to try.
Editor's note: A version of this essay was published in Limes, the Italian geopolitical monthly, a partner of Stratfor.
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I confess, I am pleasantly surprised!
http://breakingdefense.com/2016/03/us-army-plans-stockpiles-in-vietnam-cambodia-hello-china/
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Summary
The United States is in talks with Australia to deploy more strategic bomber aircraft at Royal Australian Air Force Base Darwin. Beyond further strengthening the U.S.-Australian military alliance, moving U.S. bombers to Australia from their usual station in Guam will protect them from China's intermediate-range missiles. As for Australia, deeper cooperation with the United States is a welcome step toward greater security, especially since China is still stoking tensions throughout the region with its claims to contested waters in the South China Sea.
Analysis
With limited resources and vulnerable maritime supply lines, Australia has long sought to enhance security through strategic military alliances with strong naval powers. During World War II, the United States replaced the United Kingdom as Australia's principal military ally. The resulting alliance has proved its strength, surviving to this day. In recent decades, however, economic links between China and Australia have grown substantially. Now, China is Australia's biggest trade partner. Therefore, as American and Chinese interests clash, Canberra finds itself caught between its primary military and trade allies.
This is not to say that Australia must choose between Washington and Beijing. Short of a full war between the United States and China, Australia can maintain relations with both countries, reassuring them that its commitments to each side remain strong. Nevertheless, where security is concerned, the Australians are increasingly willing to demonstrate their alliance with the United States, especially in light of China's buildup in the South China Sea. Canberra already patrols the South China Sea, which is an important conduit for trade, but Australia is now considering coordinated patrols with the United States to push back against Chinese claims to that critical body of water.
The United States recognizes the strategic advantage of closer military links with Australia. In 2011, Canberra agreed to a deployment of U.S. troops on Australian soil that would reach 2,500 by 2017. For Washington, rotating forces through Australia solidifies ties with the country, encourages a more unified stance in the South China Sea, provides opportunities for specialized regional training, and improves interoperability between U.S. and Australian armed forces.
Moreover, China's burgeoning military capabilities provide added incentive for the United States to expand its bomber deployment in Australia. Although the United States maintains considerable military forces in the western Pacific, a dearth of air bases in the region limits its strategic military position there. China's continued investment in a ballistic and cruise missile arsenal has further complicated matters, posing a potential threat to fixed American air bases and mobile carrier fleets alike.
Traditionally, the United States rotates heavy bombers through Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. This base is at once within comfortable range of potential hot spots such as the Taiwan Strait and beyond the reach of Chinese short-range ballistic missiles. But now that the Chinese are acquiring missiles with enough range to reach the island, such as the DF-26, Guam is becoming more of a potential target.
To minimize its vulnerability against China's arsenal, the United States is investing in kinetic anti-ballistic missile technology and spoofing gear that will jam, obstruct and confuse Chinese missiles. Washington is also considering building more hangars and bunkers and enhancing airfield repair capabilities in the region. But more significantly, the United States is exploring alternative airfields and air base locations. In February, the U.S. Air Force chose Tinian Island, just north of Guam, as a preferred alternative airfield "in the event access to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, or other western Pacific locations is limited or denied," according to an Air Force statement. And as the United States seeks to maximize security, there will be more U.S. airfield investments throughout the region.
Compared with its tactical combat fleet, the United States' bomber fleet has a much longer range and can be deployed in more distant air bases beyond the reach of Chinese missiles. While Guam is now within range of the DF-26, Darwin remains beyond the reach of all conventional Chinese ballistic missiles. Thus, rotating additional bombers through Australia serves a dual function for the United States, better protecting its aircraft from Chinese missiles while also strengthening the U.S.-Australian military alliance. Meanwhile, in welcoming American forces, Australia also opens itself to the risk that China will try to develop a means to target those forces.
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This is good and bad. For about 70 years we didn't want Japan to be militaristic. Now, in response to American impotence we need their help. As we move past the Obama doctrine of unilateral disarmament and disengagement, we will need to build alliances with countries like Japan, Australia, India, and others.
(relevant to other threads as well, North Korea, etc.)
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Japan allows its military to help defend U.S., other allies
http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-japan-military-20140702-story.html
Japan on Tuesday announced a reinterpretation of its pacifist post-World War II Constitution that allows the country's military to help defend the United States and other allies.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the decision by the Cabinet to adjust the interpretation from one that limited the armed forces to defending Japan was necessary because of regional changes. The decision allows Japan's forces to help protect U.S. ships that may come under attack in nearby waters, Abe said.
"This will be a deterrent," he said during a news conference. "The basic thinking on how the constitution is presently interpreted will not change because of the Cabinet decision that was made."
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In the South China Sea, China's Gaze Moves South
Analysis
March 26, 2016 | 13:00 GMT Print
Text Size
The Malaysian navy, as well as Indonesia's, often must approach ships belonging to the Chinese coast guard carefully when monitoring maritime disputes in the South China Sea. (Rahman Roslan/Getty Images)
Summary
China's activities in the eastern part of the South China Sea have garnered a lot of attention. Around the Paracel and Spratly islands, the United States, Japan and regional partners (primarily Vietnam and the Philippines) are expanding security cooperation to counter China's growing naval presence. But in the sea's south, China's relationships with Indonesia and Malaysia have largely been unexplored. Though not as dramatic as maneuvers in the east, developments in the south offer a more holistic picture of the maritime trade, energy flows and resource use — especially fishing — that define disputes in the South China Sea.
Analysis
Two Chinese vessels prevented an Indonesian patrol boat from impounding a Chinese fishing vessel near the Natuna Islands on March 19. Indonesia claims the vessel was trespassing in its exclusive economic zone, but China asserts that the area is its traditional fishing ground. Though Indonesian authorities failed to impound the ship, they did arrest the fishermen. Officials also threatened to appeal to an international court of arbitration and respond to future incidents with larger vessels.
In a similar event March 25, about 100 Chinese fishing boats were detected allegedly encroaching on waters near the Luconia Shoals, which Malaysia administers but China claims. Two Chinese coast guard vessels were reportedly guarding the fishing boats. Malaysia's navy monitored the situation, threatening legal action if the boats trespassed into its exclusive economic zone. But China's Foreign Ministry again reiterated Chinese fishing boats' rights to operate in the area.
These developments come ahead of a U.N. Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling on the Philippines' case to invalidate China's claims to disputed areas in the South China Sea, including the Scarborough Shoal. The ruling, expected sometime in 2016, will also clarify the legality of China's so-called nine-dash maritime line, which demarcates the country's perceived area of control in the South China Sea — and overlaps with Indonesia's and Malaysia's exclusive economic zones. China ultimately will not recognize the court's decision. Instead, it will use its surveying, construction and military activities, as well as its fishing activities — whether encouraged by the Chinese government or prompted by fishermen — to bolster its territorial claims ahead of the ruling, not only in the Scarborough Shoal and Spratly archipelago but also in the southern South China Sea.
Calmer Waters to the South
Indonesia and China do not have competing territorial claims in the South China Sea, and China recognizes Indonesia's sovereignty over the Natuna Islands. But because of the overlap in territory caused by China's nine-dash maritime line, the two countries have sparred over fishing rights. Indonesia launched a crackdown on illegal fishing in 2014 by sinking foreign vessels caught operating without permission. In 2015, the country destroyed an impounded Chinese fishing vessel. Earlier, in 2010 and 2013, it attempted to impound Chinese ships illegally fishing off the Natuna Islands, though Chinese maritime law enforcement vessels forced Indonesia to back off in both instances.
Yet China and Indonesia have managed to de-escalate tensions in these cases, and they will likely do so again this time. After all, China would rather contain the situation than push a country that perceives itself as a regional peacemaker to support the other countries opposing China's claims in the South China Sea. Moreover, Indonesia does not want to antagonize China while it expands maritime cooperation and economic ties with the Chinese government. Neither does Malaysia, which also seeks greater economic ties with China, despite territorial quarrels and spats over fishing rights with the country.
To the east, this civility is missing from feuds in the Paracels, the Spratlys and the Scarborough Shoal. There, China is preparing for a larger U.S. and Japanese military role to assist the major contestants in their South China Sea disputes and to block China's rise as a naval power. The United States and Japan signed defense cooperation deals with the Philippines in 2014 and 2016, respectively. Japan has allowed for a transfer of military hardware to boost Philippine coast guard capabilities and is even considering signing a deal that would enable Japanese ships and planes to refuel and resupply in the Philippines. On March 18, Washington and Manila announced the five locations in the Philippines where U.S. forces will have access to bases, including two bases about 300 kilometers from the disputed Mischief Reef and Scarborough Shoal. The United States and Japan are also cooperating with Vietnam to develop its coast guard.
By comparison, U.S. and Japanese security and military connections with Indonesia and Malaysia are underdeveloped. Malaysia and Indonesia want it this way, mainly because neither wants to pick a side and risk jeopardizing its lucrative ties with China or exacerbating tensions in the South China Sea and the region.
Making Preparations Nonetheless
But China may have no choice but to expand into southern waters. From Beijing's perspective, its military presence in the Paracels and Spratlys is required to contend with the growing U.S. and Japanese activities and, more important, to emerge as a major naval power with global ambitions. China's maneuvers in the south are equally important, aimed at ensuring its access to fishing grounds, smooth trade and energy flows through maritime routes that traverse major choke points, patrolled and controlled by Indonesia and Malaysia (as well as Singapore). China knows all too well that either country could halt this traffic in case of a conflict.
And despite their more cordial ties with China, Malaysia and Indonesia will nevertheless protect their maritime and territorial rights. Their waters are not as overfished as those along China's coast, tempting Chinese fishermen to explore. China's need to find abundant fishing grounds, along with its expanded naval exercises and patrols in the south, will prompt stronger security ties between the United States, Japan and other countries. In the meantime, accidental or unplanned breaches by Chinese fishing vessels, which are generally not under tight government control, could lead to snap decisions and actions, sparking conflict in the region.
The United States and its regional partners will seek to rally support for a joint response against China's activities in the South China Sea, undertaking shared patrols, flyovers and other security measures. But, short of military intervention, they can do nothing to stop China's land reclamation, military and fishing activities. They could, and likely will, approach Indonesia and Malaysia, but these countries will be more cautious in challenging China. And Beijing will be preparing for these scenarios, too. It will push ahead with its military activities in the Paracel and Spratly islands, all the while deepening economic engagement with Indonesia and Malaysia to keep them from aligning against it in regional disagreements.
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China
China has moved from deploying weapons to a disputed South China Sea island to test-firing them, according to several reports. China recently tested a YJ-62 anti-ship cruise missile from Woody Island, claimed by both Vietnam and Taiwan. China also recently shipped surface-to-air missiles and an associated radar system to the island, as well as J-7 and J-11 fighter jets as part of what the U.S. has called the "militarization" of the South China Sea. Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook wouldn't confirm or deny the report, citing the sensitivity of intelligence issues.
Philippines
The Philippine military is considering whether to buy a submarine in its pursuit of a stronger military to hedge against the rise of China's territorial ambitions. President Benigno Aquino floated the prospect of a submarine force on Wednesday, citing the need to modernize the country's armed forces. The sub would be the first for the Philippines and likely an expensive purchase for the country's relatively small defense budget.
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This is especially hard when you have a US President who is uninformed, disengaged and unprincipled.
I wonder how those daily briefings are going - that he missed on the Middle East...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/30/world/asia/obama-xi-jinping-meeting-washington.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0
Obama Faces a Tough Balancing Act Over South China Sea
"Expectations that anything of substance will be accomplished in the 90-minute meeting between Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi are minimal."
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This is especially hard when you have a US President who is uninformed, disengaged and unprincipled.
I wonder how those daily briefings are going - that he missed on the Middle East...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/30/world/asia/obama-xi-jinping-meeting-washington.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0
Obama Faces a Tough Balancing Act Over South China Sea
"Expectations that anything of substance will be accomplished in the 90-minute meeting between Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi are minimal."
The Chinese are openly contemptuous of Buraq.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-31/indonesia-to-deploy-f-16s-to-guard-its-south-china-sea-territory?cmpid=yhoo.headline
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Good for Sec Def Carter!!!
http://www.businessinsider.com/ash-carter-south-china-sea-2016-3
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Asian countries are increasingly pushing back against China’s sweeping territorial claims and bullying tactics in the South China Sea. On Sunday, a Japanese submarine made a port call in the Philippines for the first time in 15 years, a sign of growing security cooperation. Last week, Vietnam seized a Chinese ship for illegally entering its territorial waters, and Indonesia threatened to defend its own claims with F-16 fighter jets.
Meanwhile, President Obama used a meeting with President Xi Jinping last week to deliver what one administration official described as “a very direct and unvarnished earful” about how seriously Washington views China’s behavior. And on Monday the United States and the Philippines began annual war games that will certainly show that the Philippines can count on the United States to counter Beijing.
The South China Sea is rich in natural resources and serves as a vital waterway for $5 trillion in trade. The Chinese have been engaged in a campaign to transform contested reefs and rocks into artificial islands with airstrips and other military structures. This has alarmed neighboring countries, which have competing claims and fear that China will use these islands to interfere with navigation and other countries’ rights to fish and drill for oil and gas.
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One result of the rising friction is a new defense agreement that will allow the United States to station weapons and troops at five bases in the Philippines for the first time in more than 20 years. Another is a marked increase in regional military spending. The United States recently carried out two patrols by warships and aircraft into territory claimed by China and is planning a third.
The Philippines is challenging Beijing’s assertions of sovereignty over most of the South China Sea in the international arbitration court, and a decision is expected by the end of June. Although China ratified the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, guaranteeing unimpeded passage on the high seas for trade, fishing and oil exploration, it has refused to participate in the Philippine case. American officials worry that Beijing may reject the court ruling or even pre-emptively build up more islands.
The United States, which takes a neutral position on the competing claims, has pushed all countries, especially China, to stop militarizing land masses and adding to them. It has also promised to recognize the claims of whichever side wins the arbitration case. While there was no breakthrough in the Xi-Obama meeting, the Chinese president stressed his desire to work with the United States and “realize no conflicts or confrontation.” But some sort of confrontation seems increasingly likely as long as China refuses to resolve the maritime disputes peacefully.
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http://www.manilalivewire.com/2016/04/duterte-willing-to-stand-down-on-west-philippine-sea-disputes-with-china/
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http://qz.com/680123/beijing-is-setting-the-stage-for-war-in-the-south-china-sea/
I'm sure either 3AM Hillary or Littlefingers will handle this well.
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1992 Consensus called key to cross-Straits ties
By Peng Yining (China Daily)
Updated: 2016-05-07 07:37
CommentsPrintMailLargeMediumSmall
1992 Consensus called key to cross-Straits ties
Taiwan's Democratic progessive party (DPP) leader Tsai Ing-wen attends to the talent competition of children with mental disabilities in Taiwan, file photo. [Photo/IC]
'Mainland won't tolerate any vagueness' on whether Tsai endorses one-China principle
A denial of the 1992 Consensus principle that Taiwan and the mainland are both parts of one China would change cross-Straits relations and cause the collapse of the political mutual trust and process of dialogue between the two sides, experts say.
"The island's new leader has to answer whether she endorses the 1992 Consensus － it's not an optional question," Li Yihu, head of Peking University's Taiwan Institute, said on Friday. "The new leader has to voice a clear position on this issue."
Tsai Ing-wen, chairwoman of Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party, will assume the island's leadership on May 20 and deliver her inaugural speech.
"Cross-Straits relations have come to a turning point," said Li. "The mainland won't tolerate any vagueness regarding the Consensus."
In a front-page commentary on Thursday, People's Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party of China, stressed that not adhering to the 1992 Consensus constitutes sabotage of the common political foundation for cross-Straits ties.
According to the commentary, the development of cross-Straits relations in the past two decades has proved that the relations have a bright future with the endorsement of the Consensus. And without it, the peaceful development of the relations would be off course and could founder, it said.
"It is very rare for People's Daily to have a commentary like this on its front page," said Li. "The article shows the central leadership's firm position on this point. It's an official message and a powerful statement."
Li said the mainland has reiterated the importance of the Consensus and the serious consequences of not adhering to the principle.
"Economic loss is obvious, and the political impact would be inevitable," he said. "All the consequences would have to be borne by the Taiwan leadership."
But the island's new leader has been trying to skirt around the issue, said Ni Yongjie, deputy director of Shanghai's Taiwan Research Institute.
"Tsai did say she would prefer preserving the status quo. But without the Consensus, the status quo would not exist," he said, adding that Tsai could use the opportunity on May 20 to explicitly endorse the Consensus.
Zhu Songling, director of the Institute of Cross-Straits Relations at Beijing Union University, said the mainland has been unequivocal and has warned that further development of cross-Straits relations would be set back by its denial.
"Tsai's dodging of inquiries about her position on the Consensus is actually destroying cross-Straits ties," he said.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTdOnDSPZ_Q
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTdOnDSPZ_Q[/youtube]
China's PLA army enlists rap-style music video to recruit young soldiers
Published on May 2, 2016
The People's Liberation Army has released a rap-style music video filled with masculine lyrics and advanced weaponry in an attempt to attract more young people to join the military.
The song, called Battle Declaration, was posted on 81.cn, the PLA Daily's website, on Thursday. It is the first hip-hop video made by the PLA.
Previous PLA songs have been sung to the accompaniment of orchestral melodies, and their lyrics were carefully worded to avoid being too aggressive. By comparison, Battle Declaration, in an unmistakable effort to cater to the taste of young people, features a popular hip-hop style, and the lyrics hide neither combativeness nor a desire to fight.
The video starts with a young PLA soldier touching his uniform and putting on his cap. Then a man's voice comes in and says, "There are always missions in soldiers' minds, enemies in their eyes, responsibilities on their shoulders, and passions in their hearts."
The song then continues: "There could be a war at any time. Are you ready for that?"
The video shows soldiers training and exercising, fighter jets conducting dogfights and missiles being fired, among other military activities.
Almost all of the PLA's best weaponry is displayed in the video, including the aircraft carrier Liaoning, J-11 fighter jet, Type-99A tank and DF-11 ballistic missile.
Satellites and spacecraft also appear in the video, which indicates the PLA has placed unprecedented importance on its space force, said a PLA publicity expert who asked to be identified only as Jiao.
Moreover, the appearance of the military's space assets also intends to impress upon viewers that "the PLA is no longer the poorly equipped one that they saw from TV dramas, but a powerful force as modernized as the United States military," he told China Daily.
Jiao said the hip-hop video could be a big help in recruiting young people.
The PLA is striving to recruit more educated young people. An increasing number of media reports say some young people spare no efforts to avoid military service.
Colonel Wu Qian, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said at a news conference on Thursday that a man's youth is not only about being cool, but also about being responsible for the nation and its security.
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http://atimes.com/2016/05/trumps-nuclear-arson-in-asia/
Trump’s nuclear arson in Asia: Spengler
BY DAVID P. GOLDMAN on MAY 3, 2016 in AT TOP WRITERS, CHINA, DAVID P. GOLDMAN, JAPAN, KOREAS, SPENGLER
Late last year I spent some time with a former chief of China’s military intelligence, a bruiser with an ax to grind against the United States. Halfway through a long tirade about America’s alleged abuse of its global power, he interrupted himself and said: “There’s one thing we appreciate about America, though. You keep the Japanese away from us.”
Some Asian countries abhor American power, some like it, and some live with it reluctantly. But they all have one thing in common: They trust the United States of America more than they trust each other. There’s no regional balance-of-power arrangement that could replace America as a strategic buffer.
That’s why Donald Trump’s April 29 suggestion that Japan and South Korea should acquire nuclear weapons was the craziest single statement on foreign policy of any major American presidential candidate since the Second World War. “You have so many countries already — China, Pakistan, you have so many countries, Russia — you have so many countries right now that have them,” said Trump. “Now, wouldn’t you rather, in a certain sense, have Japan have nuclear weapons when North Korea has nuclear weapons?”
nuclear_blast
Trump’s April 29 foreign policy address made some good points, or rather points that would have been good if they had been in a different speech by a different candidate. But the core of the speech was Trump’s narcissistic claim that he would negotiate a “great deal” for the United States with its Russian and Chinese rivals. You don’t start negotiations by pouring gasoline around the conference table and flicking a cigarette lighter. Trump can’t un-ring that bell. Any negotiations he were to undertake in Asia would be a disaster.
The Japanese and South Koreans were horrified, with good reason. As CNN reported, “So high was the level of concern, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe felt the need to respond publicly, saying, ‘whoever will become the next president of the United States, the Japan-U.S. alliance is the cornerstone of Japan’s diplomacy.’ Japan remains the only country to have had nuclear weapons used against it and has had a non-nuclear policy and pacifist constitution since the end of World War II. Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida added, ‘It is impossible that Japan will arm itself with nuclear weapons.'”
Trump doesn’t read books, except the ghostwritten tomes that have appeared under his name, and probably doesn’t know that that the Japanese army killed about 25 million Chinese during the Second World War, the vast majority of them civilians. The scale of Japanese atrocities makes the mind reel, and China remains traumatized by the memory. Japan has never acknowledged the scale of its wartime misdeeds, unlike Germany. Japan and China fear each other and take extraordinary measures to keep provocation below the threshold of danger. As Kyle Mizokami wrote in The National Interest:
It is perhaps China’s greatest nightmare: a nuclear-armed Japan. Permanently anchored off the Asian mainland, bristling with nuclear weapons, a nuclear Japan would make China’s security situation much more complex than it is now, and force China to revise both its nuclear doctrine and increase its nuclear arsenal. To be perfectly clear, Japan has no intention of building nuclear weapons. In fact, it has a strong aversion to nukes, having been the only country to actually be on the receiving end of a nuclear strike on its cities. Japan’s strategic situation would have to grow very dire for it to undertake such a drastic and expensive option. At the same time, China has no interest in provoking Japan into building them. China’s nuclear “no first use” policy is in part aimed at reassuring Japan that, unless it were attacked first with nuclear weapons, it will not use them in wartime.
China grudgingly respects the United States for acting as a superpower in East Asia. By keeping Japan under the American strategic umbrella, Washington in effect told China that it did not have to prepare for war with Japan. Trump has now told China to prepare for a nuclear-armed Japan.
Trump understands nothing about China. “China respects strength and by letting them take advantage of us economically, which they are doing like never before, we have lost all of their respect,” he said on April 29. The merits of this claim are beside the point (China’s real effective exchange rate has risen by 40% since 2009, not fallen as Trump alleged). China’s first three priorities are security, security, and security. Its economy comes far down the list. If China believes that it faces an existential threat by the adversary that devastated it between 1931, when Japan invaded Manchuria, and 1945, when America won the Pacific war, it will make any sacrifice it thinks necessary in order to prevail.
China has invested massively in its strategic forces, including carrier-killer surface-to-ship missiles, satellite-killer missiles, ultra-quiet diesel electric submarines, a new generation of ICBM’s, as well as cyber war capabilities. Trump presumably would threaten to restrict Chinese exports; China would respond by massively shifting resources to its military sector. America’s interest lies in persuading China that it can feel security within its borders without projecting power in such a way as to destabilize the region around it, as it threatens to do by constructing artificial islands for military use in the South China Sea. The worst possible thing would be to introduce the wild card of a Japanese nuclear threat into the discussion.
Beijing will never believe that Trump is merely a blithering, blathering ignoramus. In China’s imperial system, every public statement is weighed carefully, for words cannot be retracted. The Chinese will remember that Trump proposed to put nuclear weapons into the hands of the Japanese and treat him as a dangerous enemy. And the consequences for Asian and American security will be dire.
The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the view of Asia Times.
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Or it might realize it might be a good idea to start working to restrain the Norks and to start respecting international law in the South China Sea.
Thanks in great part to the Obama-Kerry-supported by Hillary Iran nuke deal, the era of nuclear non-proliferation is over. Thanks too to Obama-Clinton, the US's ability to lead world wide Pax Americana to the benefit of all (most certainly including China) is over.
Throw in the Norks going nuke, and well , , , the facts have changed and thus too our strategy must change.
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Or it might realize it might be a good idea to start working to restrain the Norks and to start respecting international law in the South China Sea.
I have a HUMINT source that says that things feel very unstable in China right now. Reminded of the Cultural Revolution at the start.
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So, if I was Xi Jinping, and feeling threatened by internal strife, I wait until the Hilderbeast is sworn in, then through diplomatic channels let it be know that China does indeed have ALL her emails, and if she makes one peep about the reunification with the renegade province, or a confrontation with Japan or other asian parties, it all gets dumped online.
If things get bad enough, fast enough, then they just say fcuk it, Obama is a P*ssy and go for broke.
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This must be one of the most Orwellian concepts of our time, that the PRC is a world and US recognized country and Taiwan is not. "We" favor 'reunification', a one-China policy, and yet that is perhaps our biggest fear in the world. Pres. Obama would bring America to Taiwan's side militarily in an invasion, why? To preserve freedom? To fight against rule by executive orders? To oppose the big hand of government? Because an invasion would have crossed his "red line"??
Maybe big-talk, 'little fingers' can break through the political correctness without starting a world war.
The median household income is three time higher in Taiwan than China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income
http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2010/06/24/one-big-difference-between-chinese-and-american-households-debt/
Economically, wouldn't it make more sense for Taiwan (or Hong Kong) to take over China?
Who would want to do what's in the people's best interests when you have a politburo, central planning committee designing 'smart growth' that knows what's best for you? (Like Venezuela, reminds me of here...)
Speaking of openness, freedom and self-determination that we don't seem to favor, I wonder how the next Chexit (China exit) vote will go in the various provinces...
And I wonder how our freedom and independence would be coming along by now had we not had outside help in the 1700s.
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I doubt "Littlefingers" could tell you which Korea is an ally and which is an enemy.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/21/opinion/playing-chicken-in-the-south-china-sea.html?emc=edit_th_20160521&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193
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1) SPENGLER: http://atimes.com/2016/05/americas-instructive-humiliation-in-the-south-china-sea/
America’s instructive humiliation in the South China Sea: Spengler
By David P. Goldman on May 20, 2016 in AT Top Writers, China, David P. Goldman, Southeast Asia, Spengler
“Let us admit it fairly, as a business people should: We have had no end of a lesson: it will do us no end of good,” wrote Rudyard Kipling in 1902 after the Boers humiliated the British Army in the first round of the Boer War. America should express the same gratitude towards China, which has humiliated America in the South China Sea. By exposing American weakness without firing a shot, Beijing has taught Washington a lesson which the next administration should take to heart.
Last year I asked a ranking Pentagon planner what America would do about China’s ship-killer missiles, which reportedly can sink an aircraft carrier a couple of hundred miles from its coast. If China wants to deny the American navy access to the South China Sea, the official replied, we can do the same: persuade Japan to manufacture surface-to-ship missiles and station them in the Philippines.
It didn’t occur to Washington that the Philippines might not want to take on China. The country’s president-elect Rodrigo Duterte explained last year (as David Feith reported in the Wall Street Journal), “America would never die for us. If America cared, it would have sent its aircraft carriers and missile frigates the moment China started reclaiming land in contested territory, but no such thing happened … America is afraid to go to war. We’re better off making friends with China.”
statue_planet
It isn’t only the Philippines who see the obvious. China claims the support of 40 countries for its position that territorial claims to the South China Sea should be resolved by direct negotiations between individual countries, rather than before a United Nations tribunal constituted under the UN Convention on Law of the Seas, as Washington wants. A joint statement by the foreign ministers of China, Russia and India after a meeting in Moscow last month supported China’s position.
The 7th Fleet was the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the South China Sea after World War II, relying on a weapons system now more than nine decades old, namely the aircraft carrier. That was before China fielded its DF-21 “carrier killer” surface-to-ship missile. The latest iteration of the missile, designated DF-26, reportedly has a range of 2,500 miles. New technologies, including lasers and rail guns, might defeat the new Chinese missiles, but a great deal of investment would be required to make them practical, as a January report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies argued.
DF-26 missiles at 2015 WWII victory parade in Beijing
DF-26 missiles at 2015 WWII victory parade in Beijing
The new generation of diesel-electric submarines first launched by Germany in the early 1980s, moreover, is quiet enough to evade sonar. Diesel electric subs “sank” American carriers in NATO exercises. Even without its surface-to-ship missiles, which can swamp existing defenses of US vessels, China’s stealth submarines can sink American carriers, and anything else that floats.
Perhaps a greater concern is the next generation of Russian air defense, the new S-500 anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems might make the American F-35 stealth fighter obsolete before it becomes operational. Writing in The National Interest, Dave Majumdar warns that the new Russian systems are “so capable that many US defense officials worry that even stealth warplanes like the F-22, F-35 and the B-2 might have problems overcoming them.” Pentagon officials think that the present generation of Russian anti-aircraft missiles embodied in the S-400 can overcome the jamming capabilities of existing F-16’s. Once Russia put a few S-400 systems on the back of trucks in Syria, it owned the skies over the Levant. The Pentagon doesn’t want to find out how good it is.
Russian commentator Andrei Akulov details the alleged superiority of the S-500, due for deployment next year:
The S-500 is expected to be much more capable than the current S-400 Triumph.
For instance, its response time is only 3-4 seconds (for comparison, the response time of S-400 is nine to ten seconds).
The S-500 is able to detect and simultaneously attack (as well as make speeds of up to 4.3 miles per second) up to ten ballistic missile warheads out at 600 km flying at speeds of twenty-three thousand feet per second.
Prometey can engage targets at altitudes of about 125 miles, including incoming ballistic missiles in space at ranges as great as 400 miles.
Akulov concludes, “It’s not often that a relatively inexpensive air defense weapon is able to make a trillion dollar fighter program obsolete. That’s exactly what the S-500 missile system will do to US brand new F-35 stealth fighter.”
US F-35
US F-35
China and Russia have narrowed the technology gap with the United States, and in some instances have probably leapfrogged America’s military. In the past, the United States responded to such circumstances (for example the Russian Sputnik launch of 1957) by pouring resources into defense R&D at national laboratories, universities and private industries. Instead, Washington today is spending the lion’s share of a dwindling defense budget on systems that may not work at all.
At an estimated lifetime cost of $1.5 trillion, the F-35 is the costliest weapons system in American history. Even before a myriad of technical problems delayed its deployment, Pentagon planners warned that the flawed aircraft would degrade US defenses by consuming most of the Pentagon’s research and development budget. A still-classified report signed by several four-star generals was handed to President George W. Bush midway-through his second term warning of this baleful outcome. Bush ignored it. Former Air Force official Jed Babbin detailed the aircraft’s flaws in the Washington Times last year, concluding, “The F-35 program is an example of how weapons shouldn’t be bought. It needs to be stopped in its tracks.”
Those are the facts on the ground (as well as the air and sea). It’s not surprising that America’s allies in Asia want an accommodation with China. Nothing short of a Reaganesque effort to restore America’s technological edge will change this.
The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the view of Asia Times.
(Copyright 2016 Asia Times Holdings Limited, a duly registered Hong Kong company. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
=======================
2) GLICK
China took over the Spratly Islands, and with them, the South China Sea last week. Due to the fact that the US has scrapped the navy, spent in excess of a trillion dollars on the F-35 that still isn't operational, and devoted its attentions to making the military friendly to men who prefer dresses, in the face of China's move, the US has no options. It has been checkmated.
This means that the US has lost the South China Sea to China, and with it, its dominant position that it has held since World War II.
This is the biggest story of the decade from the perspective of global security and US national security. And yet, there has been almost no coverage of the event, no coverage of the significance of China's action. There has been no notable discussion of what this means for US-China trade, what it means for the alliance structure the US built in the far East with Japan and South Korea.
There are two main reasons for the silence.
First, as Ben Rhodes said so contemptuously, most reporters don't know anything international affairs. And so they cannot fathom the significance of the massive changes taking place in the global arena. They are simply too stupid or ignorant or ideologically driven to adequately cover their subjects and their editors are too stupid' politically motivated or driven by internet ads to understand why it is important to publish stories that have nothing to do with Beyonce or Bruce Jenner in a dress.
The other reason there has been no discussion of this massive loss of US power is because the White House doesn't want to discuss it. Obama has marketed himself as a genius. His pivot to Asia, was brilliant. His plan to apologize to the Japanese for the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which put an end to World War II and saved the lives of an estimated 1 million American soldiers, is the last word in 21st century statecraft.
It wouldn't do for the public to be made aware of the fact that Obama's imbecilic stewardship of US-Asian relations has led to China emergence as the predominant power in Asia at America's expense.
And since in the echo chamber, the Blob reports what Ben Rhodes and Obama tell them to report, there has been radio silence.
For more information read my friend David Goldman's story linked in the first response.
============================================================
America’s instructive humiliation in the South China Sea: Spengler
By David P. Goldman on May 20, 2016 in AT Top Writers, China, David P. Goldman, Southeast Asia, Spengler
“Let us admit it fairly, as a business people should: We have had no end of a lesson: it will do us no end of good,” wrote Rudyard Kipling in 1902 after the Boers humiliated the British Army in the first round of the Boer War. America should express the same gratitude towards China, which has humiliated America in the South China Sea. By exposing American weakness without firing a shot, Beijing has taught Washington a lesson which the next administration should take to heart.
Last year I asked a ranking Pentagon planner what America would do about China’s ship-killer missiles, which reportedly can sink an aircraft carrier a couple of hundred miles from its coast. If China wants to deny the American navy access to the South China Sea, the official replied, we can do the same: persuade Japan to manufacture surface-to-ship missiles and station them in the Philippines.
It didn’t occur to Washington that the Philippines might not want to take on China. The country’s president-elect Rodrigo Duterte explained last year (as David Feith reported in the Wall Street Journal), “America would never die for us. If America cared, it would have sent its aircraft carriers and missile frigates the moment China started reclaiming land in contested territory, but no such thing happened … America is afraid to go to war. We’re better off making friends with China.”
statue_planet
It isn’t only the Philippines who see the obvious. China claims the support of 40 countries for its position that territorial claims to the South China Sea should be resolved by direct negotiations between individual countries, rather than before a United Nations tribunal constituted under the UN Convention on Law of the Seas, as Washington wants. A joint statement by the foreign ministers of China, Russia and India after a meeting in Moscow last month supported China’s position.
The 7th Fleet was the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the South China Sea after World War II, relying on a weapons system now more than nine decades old, namely the aircraft carrier. That was before China fielded its DF-21 “carrier killer” surface-to-ship missile. The latest iteration of the missile, designated DF-26, reportedly has a range of 2,500 miles. New technologies, including lasers and rail guns, might defeat the new Chinese missiles, but a great deal of investment would be required to make them practical, as a January report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies argued.
DF-26 missiles at 2015 WWII victory parade in Beijing
DF-26 missiles at 2015 WWII victory parade in Beijing
The new generation of diesel-electric submarines first launched by Germany in the early 1980s, moreover, is quiet enough to evade sonar. Diesel electric subs “sank” American carriers in NATO exercises. Even without its surface-to-ship missiles, which can swamp existing defenses of US vessels, China’s stealth submarines can sink American carriers, and anything else that floats.
Perhaps a greater concern is the next generation of Russian air defense, the new S-500 anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems might make the American F-35 stealth fighter obsolete before it becomes operational. Writing in The National Interest, Dave Majumdar warns that the new Russian systems are “so capable that many US defense officials worry that even stealth warplanes like the F-22, F-35 and the B-2 might have problems overcoming them.” Pentagon officials think that the present generation of Russian anti-aircraft missiles embodied in the S-400 can overcome the jamming capabilities of existing F-16’s. Once Russia put a few S-400 systems on the back of trucks in Syria, it owned the skies over the Levant. The Pentagon doesn’t want to find out how good it is.
Russian commentator Andrei Akulov details the alleged superiority of the S-500, due for deployment next year:
The S-500 is expected to be much more capable than the current S-400 Triumph.
For instance, its response time is only 3-4 seconds (for comparison, the response time of S-400 is nine to ten seconds).
The S-500 is able to detect and simultaneously attack (as well as make speeds of up to 4.3 miles per second) up to ten ballistic missile warheads out at 600 km flying at speeds of twenty-three thousand feet per second.
Prometey can engage targets at altitudes of about 125 miles, including incoming ballistic missiles in space at ranges as great as 400 miles.
Akulov concludes, “It’s not often that a relatively inexpensive air defense weapon is able to make a trillion dollar fighter program obsolete. That’s exactly what the S-500 missile system will do to US brand new F-35 stealth fighter.”
US F-35
US F-35
China and Russia have narrowed the technology gap with the United States, and in some instances have probably leapfrogged America’s military. In the past, the United States responded to such circumstances (for example the Russian Sputnik launch of 1957) by pouring resources into defense R&D at national laboratories, universities and private industries. Instead, Washington today is spending the lion’s share of a dwindling defense budget on systems that may not work at all.
At an estimated lifetime cost of $1.5 trillion, the F-35 is the costliest weapons system in American history. Even before a myriad of technical problems delayed its deployment, Pentagon planners warned that the flawed aircraft would degrade US defenses by consuming most of the Pentagon’s research and development budget. A still-classified report signed by several four-star generals was handed to President George W. Bush midway-through his second term warning of this baleful outcome. Bush ignored it. Former Air Force official Jed Babbin detailed the aircraft’s flaws in the Washington Times last year, concluding, “The F-35 program is an example of how weapons shouldn’t be bought. It needs to be stopped in its tracks.”
Those are the facts on the ground (as well as the air and sea). It’s not surprising that America’s allies in Asia want an accommodation with China. Nothing short of a Reaganesque effort to restore America’s technological edge will change this.
The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the view of Asia Times.
(Copyright 2016 Asia Times Holdings Limited, a duly registered Hong Kong company. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
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Who could have seen this coming?
Re: POTH: US demands Chinese block cyberattacks
« Reply #200 on: March 12, 2013, 06:43:15 PM »
rolleyes
As China works to turn the Pacific into their lake, they'll seriously consider our protests.
rolleyes
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Leftists since Rules for Radicals have known that those who control the language control the issue. Why doesn't the man who renamed Mt. McKinley rename the South formerly China Sea?
My suggestion: The Singapore to Taiwan Sea.
Other ideas: The Sea of Freedom or the Sea of Deposed Communist Leaders.
Is he courageous enough to stand up to Americans but not to the Chinese?
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Leftists since Rules for Radicals have known that those who control the language control the issue. Why doesn't the man who renamed Mt. McKinley rename the South formerly China Sea?
My suggestion: The Singapore to Taiwan Sea.
Other ideas: The Sea of Freedom or the Sea of Deposed Communist Leaders.
Is he courageous enough to stand up to Americans but not to the Chinese?
Yes. traditional Americans, and Churchill's bust are the only enemies in Obama's worldview.
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Remember at the end of WW 2 how Japan's largest in the world battleships were sunk in minutes in the battle of Midway.
Could not some missiles do the same thing with carriers? Some experts think so:
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/02/26/china-dongfeng-21d-missile-us-aircraft-carrier-427063.html
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Remember at the end of WW 2 how Japan's largest in the world battleships were sunk in minutes in the battle of Midway.
Could not some missiles do the same thing with carriers? Some experts think so:
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/02/26/china-dongfeng-21d-missile-us-aircraft-carrier-427063.html
The Chinese will toast our electrical grid long before it gets to sinking carrier groups.
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My response on FB to Big Dog in response to his piece:
Sorry, as the serious read it is, it took me a few days to get to it. Certainly a very interesting piece, but IMHO entirely too sanguine.
For example, it suggests that China lacks the motivation to create the infrastructures necessary for being a true superpower that the US had in its adversary of the Soviet Empire.
1) China is a fascist state and does not need the assent of the people as we do here;
2) As a fascist state with a military deep in the political power structure with deep internal contradictions (both economic and demographic, foreign adventurism will have great appeal.
The piece does not even consider the slow moving Russian invasion of East Europe or its expansionism into the Arctic; the end of the era of nuclear non-proliferation; the 4th Generation War with Islamic Fascism; the likelihood of Europe to cease being what it has been-- perhaps via Balkanization; the impending financial crisis of the US government; the diminished hollowed out state of the US military, etc etc.
Instead it compares who is generating more patents. Relevant I suppose, but with the Chinese stealing out trade secrets and ignoring our patent rights to our face, just how significant is that really?
Nonetheless the piece does make many interesting points and I thank you for it.
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Nice response.
"...it compares who is generating more patents. Relevant I suppose, but with the Chinese stealing out trade secrets and ignoring our patent rights to our face, just how significant is that really?"
Within that observation is the fact they are actively conducting cyber warfare against us. so... we aren't driving our innovation forward at all like we could be while they are catching and passing us in terms of raw size of the economy. They are more motivated militarily, less restrained and have far more manpower available. Project that forward and they can have twice the arsenal and fleet based on our last years' technology, while ours at half the size will also be based on last years' technology.
It comes back to a previous point, the constraint they face now seems to be business relations, not fear of President Obama led military response.
To me, this rivalry isn't about China who has its own problems. It is about unleashing America's economic growth engine if we don't want others to surpass us economically, technologically, militarily or to simply implode from within.
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The weapons systems are too damn expensive. We have read numerous times how billions goes down the money hole . The projects are always years behind schedule.
The one read they don't work . I dunno. The new destroyer ship was just accused of being somewhat unstable at sea.
13 billion aircraft carriers can be sunk with a missile worth in the millions.
As GM reminds us . The Chinese appear to have the capacity to simply shut our grid down.
We don't even spend the estimate couple of billion to protect much of our electronic infrastructure from an EMP.
I would like to hear more from members of the intelligence and armed services committees in Congress and the Senate.
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"As GM reminds us, the Chinese appear to have the capacity to simply shut our grid down."
THIS.
We too can shut down theirs I believe but the consequences for us would be many, many, many times worse.
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http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/china-set-to-declare-air-defence-identification-zone-over-south-china-sea-report/articleshow/52539942.cms
Smart power!
Don't make Obama bust out his red line!
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Didn't they try this once already?
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Didn't they try this once already?
http://atimes.com/2016/03/the-strategy-behind-chinas-adiz-in-the-east-china-sea/
The strategy behind China’s ADIZ in the East China Sea
BY HARRY KAZIANIS on MARCH 17, 2016 in ASIA TIMES NEWS & FEATURES, CHINA
While the world wonders whether the People’s Republic of China is taking incremental steps towards establishing an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the South China Sea, detailed analysis of Beijing’s already established ADIZ in the East China Sea seems to point to an interesting conclusion: it may not be actively enforcing the zone and it could be part of a sophisticated “bargaining” strategy.
The above concept — and many other interesting conclusions detailing the declared East China Sea ADIZ along with an exploration of a possible South China Sea ADIZ — are part of a new report released by the US-China Economic and Security Review titled “ADIZ Update: Enforcement in the East China Sea, Prospects for the South China Sea, and Implications for the United States.”
The idea that Beijing might not be enforcing its ADIZ in the East China Sea is not entirely new. Indeed, Japanese scholars and retired defense officials on the sidelines of conferences I have personally attended over the last several years have also said as much. One prominent retired Japanese Defense Force official at a conference I attended in 2014 called it “An ADIZ on paper only.”
Chinese Su-27 fighters
Chinese Su-27 fighters can hit targets in East China Sea.
Reinforcing such ideas to a wider audience, the report nicely pulls together various strands of evidence of why China declared the zone and the reasons why enforcement today would be difficult — even with untold billions of dollars spent to modernize Beijing’s armed forces.
No integrated command
The report points out two big shortcoming China would need to overcome militarily. The first is the issue of command structure, something often overlooked. As the report explains:
“China is moving toward greater jointness in the administration of its ADIZ. China has established a joint operations command center (JOCC) in the East China Sea. A May 2015 report from Kanwa Defense Review—a magazine focused on Chinese defense issues—suggests the JOCC integrates People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force, Navy aviation, and Army aviation forces. Administering the ADIZ through a JOCC would facilitate the integration of radar data and the coordination of interceptors. It is unclear when China established its East China Sea JOCC. China previously may have lacked an integrated command center for the administration of its ADIZ, which may have hampered China’s ability to identify, track, and intercept foreign military aircraft.”
Radar lacking?
The second is important radar infrastructure, which could be lacking — and points to greater problems in maritime and air domain awareness:
“China’s network of land-based radar systems probably is broadly capable of tracking aircraft in its ADIZ, although some analysts suggest its effectiveness may suffer from a gap in coverage resulting from a division of radar assets between the PLA Air Force and PLA Navy. In addition to its land-based radar systems, China has more than a dozen airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft that could increase the PLA’s monitoring capabilities. It is unclear to what extent AEW&C aircraft are integrated into China’s ADIZ enforcement operations. A PLA Daily report from January 2014 indicated China planned to keep at least one AEW&C aircraft available at all times to support the ADIZ.”
Rely on ‘ratchet effect’
Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands claimed by Japan and China
Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands claimed by both Japan and China.
So if China may not have the full capability of enforcing an ADIZ over the East China Sea, why make such a declaration in the first place? Here, the report, citing research by the always smart US Congressional Research Service, points out that:
“[China] may be seeking to advance its position [in the East China Sea] over the long term after a short spike in tension, leaving a new status quo with the East China Sea ADIZ in place. [China] would acquire strategic advantage by asserting a maximalist position, then seeming to back down, while preserving some incremental gain — akin to a ‘ratchet’ effect. According to this theory, [China] would project a calm image and justify the East China Sea ADIZ as a ‘reasonable’ step to which foreign nations should not object. If there is an accident, crisis, or loss of life, Beijing could then blame Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, or Washington.”
In other words, China seemingly asserts itself with the strongest of possible negotiating positions — that of a grand ADIZ in the East China Sea, laying down the largest of markers possible in the contested space above the Senkaku Islands. Publicly, and most likely for purposes of domestic politics, Beijing can take a very hard line towards its long-time rival Japan. It has the option of enforcing the zone selectively, just as Beijing sends various types of naval vessels near the Senkakus to enforce its claims on the water, having the ability to ratchet up or down the level of activity as it desires.
South China replay?
In times of lowered tensions or when it so wishes, Beijing could announce it is easing restrictions in its ADIZ, all in an effort to show it is pursuing a so-called “restrained” approach. Or it could offer to ease restrictions as part of a bilateral negotiation with Japan — say limiting its ADIZ to just military and not civilian aircraft. But as time passes, and as China’s military prowess increases, it can slowly (if it so chooses), enforce the zone with greater confidence — if accurate, a very smart strategy indeed. In fact, China loses nothing with declaring an ADIZ it may have difficulty enforcing and looks strong, while Japan, South Korea and the United States all scramble to react and look weak — as many perceived was as the case in late 2013.
And this would all have repercussions in the South China Sea. Beijing could take this same approach, declaring an ADIZ in the months or years to come, using the same playbook as described above. Indeed, with China building islands in the South China Sea — with new airfields being a big part of this approach along with radar sites and anti-aircraft batteries — Beijing may already be on its way towards implementing such an approach.
Harry Kazianis (@grecianformula) is a non-resident Senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Center for the National Interest , a non-resident Senior Fellow at the China Policy Institute as well as a fellow for National Security Affairs at the Potomac Foundation. He is the former Executive Editor of The National Interest and former Editor-In-Chief of The Diplomat. The views expressed are his own.
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/06/03/u-s-secretary-of-defense-touts-plans-for-principled-security-network-in-asia-pacific-with-closer-ties-to-china/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Firewire%20-%20HORIZON%206-4-16%20FINAL&utm_term=Firewire
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/06/03/u-s-secretary-of-defense-touts-plans-for-principled-security-network-in-asia-pacific-with-closer-ties-to-china/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Firewire%20-%20HORIZON%206-4-16%20FINAL&utm_term=Firewire
:roll:
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working with China to improve security in Asia........ :cry: :x
But China IS the security threat.
Like making pals with Iran.
Can we be friends? Can we be friends? can we be friends?
With Pepsi generation music in background.
Why this is so beautiful. I wish I could have thought of this.
So wise and smart. So able to see beyond the rancor. God what genius....
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working with China to improve security in Asia........ :cry: :x
But China IS the security threat.
Like making pals with Iran.
Can we be friends? Can we be friends? can we be friends?
With Pepsi generation music in background.
Why this is so beautiful. I wish I could have thought of this.
So wise and smart. So able to see beyond the rancor. God what genius....
China is our friend, our rival, our partner AND our enemy. This would be tricky situation to deal with even if we were trying to act in our own best interests.
As our "friend", they won't lift a finger to stop North Korea, and keep building up their fleet, bases and intentions in the Taiwan to Singapore Sea.
As our enemy, they have neglected to take action against little Taiwan for all these years even knowing Obama would do nothing to stop them. Something is stopping them.
As our (economic) partner, they are susceptible to us sneezing over here. If our economy was roaring right now, their own economic growth would have been maintained. The worst thing we can do hurt them would be to elect 4 more years of stagnation and decline at home. It is hurting all of the rest of the world.
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"As our enemy, they have neglected to take action against little Taiwan for all these years even knowing Obama would do nothing to stop them. Something is stopping them."
If they move on Taiwan and fail, it would quite possibly topple the CCP from power.
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"As our enemy, they have neglected to take action against little Taiwan for all these years even knowing Obama would do nothing to stop them. Something is stopping them."
If they move on Taiwan and fail, it would quite possibly topple the CCP from power.
Failure might include having an unprovoked invasion become messy. Quite interesting to ponder.
Their main threat to power is from within. Japan isn't going to take them again and the US isn't coming in. If they start something they can't easily finish or that gives life to new dissent, perhaps other turmoil might develop.
The communist party knows one way to stay in power, maintain the status quo where political and physical oppression is offset with rising incomes for the masses.
It has been a long time since protesters were massacred in Tiananmen Square, aka the "June Fourth Incident", 27 years ago today. Does the ruling party have the will to do that today? Probably yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989
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As much money as Beijing puts into upgrading the PLA, PLAN, PLAAF, they put even more into the CCP's "Internal Security" entities. That is the CCP's biggest worry. The PLA and the "People's Armed Police" are trained and equipped to kill as many Chinese as needed to keep the CCP in power.
(http://www.1winedude.com/wp-content/uploads/Chinese_execution7252118x6.jpg)
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http://dailysignal.com/2016/03/09/china-hikes-defense-budget-by-7-6-percent/
In December, the Chinese announced the establishment of three new services: a separate ground forces command; the elevation of the Second Artillery to the status of a service; and the creation of a separate service to control China’s space, electronic warfare, and computer network attack forces. Subsequently, the Central Military Commission was reorganized from four General Departments to 15 departments, commissions, and offices.
Finally, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has announced a transition from seven military regions to five theater or war zone joint commands. Coupled with the announcement of a 300,000-man cut in the size of the People’s Liberation Army made in September 2015, the PLA is clearly undergoing a massive, fundamental overhaul.
It is not clear why the Chinese defense budget increase was scaled back, although some analysts think it may reflect China’s slowing economy. It is worth noting, however, that the increase in the People’s Liberation Army budget is still substantially higher than the growth of any Western military.
It also remains to be seen how the growth in the Chinese external security budget (i.e., for the PLA) compares with that for internal security, including the People’s Armed Police (PAP) and provincial-level public security forces. For the past several years, the internal security budget has grown more quickly than the defense budget, to the point where overall spending on internal security may outpace that for external defense.
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$5 TRILLION worth of goods per year go through the Taiwan to Sin gapore Sea every year while China is tryig to turn it into their own militarized lake.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/05/asia/china-admiral-south-china-sea/index.html
http://www.wsj.com/articles/calls-for-china-to-respect-maritime-claim-ruling-grow-louder-1465012976
http://www.jurist.org/paperchase/2016/06/china-to-ignore-un-ruling-concerning-the-south-china-sea.php
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By Paul McLeary with Adam Rawnsley
Bulking up. The U.S. Navy’s Third Fleet is moving out, and is sending ships to patrol the waters of the East China and South China seas. The deployment of more Navy vessels to bulk up the Japan-based U.S. Seventh Fleet likely will not sit well with Beijing, but “this is real. The commitment of the 3rd Fleet [operating] forward is real,” Adm. Scott Swift, the commander of the Pacific Fleet told Japan’s Nikkei Asian Review.
The San Diego-based Third Fleet has traditionally stayed close to the U.S., but Navy leaders say they need to widen the U.S. presence in East Asia. The Third's Pacific Surface Action Group -- including the guided-missile destroyers USS Spruance and USS Momsen -- already deployed to the region in April.
Swift added that the Navy needs to utilize the "total combined power" of the 200 ships and 1,200 aircraft that make up the entire Pacific Fleet, and that ships from the Third will regularly begin making the trips further west, as tensions between China and its neighbors continue to rise amid land reclamation projects, and fishing disputes, in the region.
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Analysis
Editor's Note: This is the next installment of an occasional series on China's transformation.
Between 1864 and 1871, something extraordinary happened in the heart of Europe. In three short wars, each following hot on the heels of the last, the Continent's great powers failed to unite to contain an ascendant Prussia. The failure to build a coalition against Prussia — during the Danish-Prussian War of 1864, the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 — resulted in the unification of Germany under Prussian dominion in early 1871. A few decades later, Germany was the leading power on the European continent, rivaling Great Britain for influence in global economic and political affairs. Its power would continue to grow, virtually unchecked, until 1914. How it managed such a feat is important when considering China's ambitions today.
It is scarcely an overstatement, in light of later events, to suggest that Prussia's rise and eventual unification of Germany was a watershed in the history of modern international politics. Even at the time, it was understood by leading statesmen in Britain, Russia and France as a profound shift in the European balance of power — one that directly threatened their own position and interests. In short, few, if any, observers outside of Germany desired Prussia's rise, and well before Otto von Bismarck launched the first of the conquests that produced a unified German nation-state, Europe's leading figures expressed concern over, and even called for containing, Prussian expansionism. Why did these calls go largely unheeded? What prevented Europe from uniting to halt Prussia's rise?
Europe's failure to contain Prussia represents an enduring challenge for international relations theory, which generally expects balances of power to form organically and efficiently from competition among states. If there are exceptions to this theory, the real world implications are many, especially for rising powers such as China. Most international relations scholars regard states as rational actors bent on survival in a competitive and potentially dangerous strategic environment and therefore anticipate that as one or several states grow in wealth and military power, others will emerge to balance against them, either by encouraging domestic economic growth or by forming alliances with other threatened states. From this process, scholars argue, arise the equilibriums known as international balances of power. Only rarely, and for reasons that continue to puzzle both scholars and policymakers, do these stabilizing balances fail to form or function.
A Question of Agency
The story of Prussia's rise taps into fundamental questions of the relationship between structure and agency in international relations. Prussia's ability to skirt the formation of a balancing coalition by its European rivals forces us to consider how emerging powers sometimes succeed in overcoming or preventing efforts to contain them. But the significance of this event extends beyond the theoretical realm. For a country like China today, the Prussian advance offers lessons in the arts of subterfuge and manipulation in international politics. As they struggle to avoid concerted containment by the United States and its Asian allies, China's leaders would do well to consider the example of Prussia under Bismarck.
International politics is a complex affair. The factors that shape events are many and often lie beyond the control of individual leaders or institutions, including states. In Prussia's case, a combination of historical, geographic and demographic forces provided a powerful thrust for the construction of a German state. Prussian dominance also profited from the emergence of communication and transport technologies that made it feasible for people in distant locales to imagine themselves as part of a single nation. In China's case, a variety of structural factors help explain the developments of the past decade. For example, China's large and relatively well-educated populace, combined with the ready supply of capital from international markets and ravenous demand for cheap goods in the United States and Europe, lent enormous momentum to the country's post-Mao "Reform and Opening," creating conditions that facilitated China's rise in the decades that followed.
By the same token, one could point to numerous events in surrounding countries — intra-European power struggles and domestic politics in Britain, Russia and France in the 1860s, or in the United States today, for instance — to account for European powers' ineffective response to Prussia's rise, or for what might look like underwhelming progress in the U.S. "pivot" to Asia. Indeed, one could even argue that Britain, France and Russia failed to effectively balance against Prussia in the 1860s because they did not see it as a true threat, or that the U.S. pivot has remained relatively limited because China, in fact, poses little real or immediate threat to American interests in the region. After all, China is decades from being able to truly challenge U.S. military dominance in Asia, let alone globally, and faces immense risks domestically that could stall, or even undermine, its rise to regional pre-eminence.
But these explanations, though helpful and no doubt partly true, miss an important aspect of Prussia's story, and possibly of China's, too. In placing emphasis either on structural factors — geography, demography, technology — or on the unpredictable messiness of domestic politics in surrounding countries, they obfuscate the role that Prussian strategy and statecraft played in neutralizing unified opposition to its rise in the 1860s and the role that Chinese statecraft has had in hampering the formation of an effective U.S.-led coalition to constrain China today. In particular, they neglect the ways in which Prussia and arguably China struggled (and in important ways succeeded) to represent their rise as consistent with the status quo and concordant with the long-term interests and principles of the status quo's upholders. In Prussia's case, these efforts amounted to a rhetorical and diplomatic sleight of hand that, in making a persuasive case for the legitimacy of Prussia's claims and of their congruence with international norms, immobilized opposition to Prussian expansion just long enough for Bismarck to ensure Germany's unification and transformation into an industrial and military juggernaut.
Spinning Narratives
As the political scientist Stacie Goddard argues, Prussia deployed a mix of rhetorical strategies to legitimize its expansion in 1864, 1866 and 1871, often tailoring its claims to the specific interests of the countries it dealt with. For example, in its war with Denmark in 1864, Prussia mobilized Austrian support and ensured British and Russian noninterference by defending its actions as a way of upholding prior treaties and fending off incursion by the Danish — a move that spoke to conservative European powers' desire to preserve the post-Napoleonic legal and political order. At other times, Prussia appealed to the principle of national self-determination, framing itself as a liberator of German-speaking peoples in non-German territories to stave off criticism from democratic Britain and post-Revolution France — a strategy, as Goddard suggests, of "setting rhetorical traps" to neutralize potential opposition.
Taken together, Goddard argues, these strategies made it difficult for leaders in Britain and France to overcome their own mutual distrust of each other, leading to an inability to balance against Prussia or justify expending national resources on military containment, let alone marshaling domestic popular support for war. By presenting its rise as consistent with powerful norms such as national self-determination, sovereign freedom from external intervention, and the maintenance of treaties, Prussia succeeded in deterring full-scale containment by Europe's major powers. European leaders were aware, even frightened, of Prussia's rise — but they could not justify the expense and risks of coalescing to oppose it.
What lessons can China's leaders glean from Prussia's example? It can be argued that Beijing has already taken several cards from Bismarck's playbook. At a time when the United States and Europe flirt with concepts of humanitarian intervention and democracy promotion, China has proclaimed itself a staunch defender of national sovereignty and sovereign freedom from external intervention — powerful and appealing norms not only to countries liable to find themselves on the receiving end of U.S. interventionism but also to many within the United States and Europe. Likewise, China wields concepts such as "economic interdependence," "development" and "multipolarity" to temper overt criticism of its rise. Such terms also go some way to legitimize Beijing's policies in regions such as Central Asia and Africa — after all, it is difficult for U.S. policymakers on the global stage to openly decry a multipolar world, or to condemn interdependence and development outright. It is not surprising, against this backdrop, that China in 2004 reframed its "peaceful rise" in more politically neutral terms, as "peaceful development."
This is not to suggest that China's rhetorical strategies are always and perfectly successful, or to deny that many of its counterparts view such rhetoric as thin cover for naked self-interest. The crucial point is that regardless of China's intent, its actions have yet to provoke concerted, effective balancing by the United States and its allies. As noted above, this may merely reflect confused domestic politics in Washington or that the United States and its Asian allies have more pressing tasks. But these facts do not negate the important role that China's political and foreign policy rhetoric — and its generally low-key behavior in international bodies such as the United Nations — play in staving off more overt efforts at containment by the United States, Japan and others.
To be sure, the Prussian analogy has its limits. The events of the 1860s gain their meaning because we know what came after. In China's case, what may now look to some like a failure by the United States to balance against China's rise could look, five or 10 years from now, like wisdom on Washington's part. China may be best positioned among the United States' potential competitors to challenge American dominance in the coming decades, but it also faces immense political, social and economic challenges at home — challenges compounded by the country's extreme regional geographic and socio-economic imbalances. These are factors and forces that threaten to halt China's rise well before it becomes a tangible danger to U.S. interests. As Stratfor has observed, these challenges will likely come to a head in the next 5-10 years, beyond which it is unclear if the Communist Party government can survive, at least in a form recognizable today.
Nonetheless, China, despite mounting risks and recent stumbles, is growing more powerful. And as it does, the consequences of lethargy will increase for the countries whose interests and positions are directly threatened by China's rise. So, too, will Beijing need to avert containment — an effort that, if Prussia's example is any lesson, will require steadfast and effective defense of China's actions in ways that neutralize opposition by rivals and mobilize support from allies and domestic audiences elsewhere. If, like Prussia in the 1860s, China makes it through the next 10 years without provoking conspicuous balancing by the United States and its partners, it will undoubtedly have its rhetoric partly to thank.
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Forecast
Though tension is rising in the South China Sea, it will not lead to a break in military ties between the United States and China.
Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2016 will serve as a crucial venue for the U.S. and Chinese navies to practice common operational procedures and build relationships among personnel.
China's military reform will somewhat disrupt the institutionalized channels of communication between the two as the organizational structure of the People's Liberation Army changes.
Analysis
The Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) biennial naval exercise is in full swing, and this year's has already proved to be an occasion of many firsts. Not only is RIMPAC 2016 the largest of its kind to date, but the navies of Denmark, Italy and Germany — none traditionally considered a Pacific power — are also making initial appearances in the exercise. Moreover, for the first time in RIMPAC's history, a non-American ship (in this case, a Singaporean frigate) led the multinational group comprising vessels from the United States, Japan, Indonesia and India from the Western Pacific to Hawaii, the site of the exercises. The move was a subtle message from Washington that it wants its Asian partners to take the lead in securing the region.
Yet despite these notable firsts, it is China's second showing at the exercise that is attracting the most attention. The relationship between Beijing and Washington has come under increasing strain in recent months amid Chinese displays of force and U.S. naval activity near Beijing's claims in the South China Sea. As tension between the two countries continues to mount, both will search for ways to avoid crises while managing those that do arise. Joint exercises such as RIMPAC 2016 may be just the answer they are looking for.
Lasting Imperatives Outweigh Temporary Friction
During the past few months, Beijing has heatedly opposed the U.S. role in the South China Sea, and in April it symbolically snubbed Washington by denying the USS John C. Stennis a visit to Hong Kong. In the lead-up to the June 3-5 Shangri-La Dialogue, one of Asia's biggest security summits, it was clear that the relationship between the two countries was on the rocks. Though Chinese state media outlets enthusiastically reported on meetings between lead Chinese delegate Adm. Sun Jianguo and dignitaries from at least eight other countries, they made no mention of talks between him and U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter or U.S. Pacific Command chief Adm. Harry Harris.
In fact, it was far from certain whether China would even be asked to attend RIMPAC 2016. In response to deteriorating ties, members of Congress and many U.S. think tanks pressured President Barack Obama to withdraw Beijing's invitation. But ultimately, Obama chose to prioritize maintaining close military ties with China, and Carter eventually announced that two U.S. Navy ships would sail from Guam alongside five Chinese warships on their way to the RIMPAC exercise.
Despite the diplomatic jabs the two countries have traded, they appear to have reached an understanding of sorts. Although each has immutable strategic goals that conflict with the other's, China and the United States agree that they need to manage their differences as well as they can to avoid a complete breakdown in ties — a development that, for two nuclear powers, would be disastrous. This mutual arrangement has been made possible in part by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has shown greater receptiveness than his predecessor, Hu Jintao, to the idea of normalizing his country's military relationship with the United States. His positive approach was made clear in December 2015, when Washington's approval of a $1.83 billion arms sale to Taiwan provoked a pro forma response from Xi's administration, rather than the cutoff in military cooperation that was customary under Hu.
Indeed, the past year marked many milestones in confidence building between the U.S. and Chinese militaries. In September 2015, Washington and Beijing signed two annexes to a 2014 memorandum of understanding on safe conduct in air and maritime encounters, one of which set procedures for the use of a defense telephone link between U.S. and Chinese officials. A month later, Chinese Adm. Wu Shengli used the hotline to contact U.S. Adm. John Richardson three days after the USS Lassen conducted a freedom of navigation operation within 12 nautical miles of the Spratly Islands' Subi Reef, which Beijing claims. Though the incident did not demonstrate the hotline's real-time use during a crisis, it did show China's initiative in using the new tools available to communicate with the United States.
This year's RIMPAC exercise will smooth their interactions even more. It took the U.S. and Chinese naval ships several days to reach Hawaii from Guam, affording plenty of opportunities to practice joint maneuvering drills and implement the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea. The code, a set of protocols signed in 2014 that governs the communications and conduct of naval ships to minimize the risk of accidents, is particularly important as U.S. and Chinese vessels encounter one another more frequently in the South China Sea. At the exercise itself, which began on June 30 and will last until Aug. 4, the U.S. and Chinese navies will participate in several drills on anti-piracy, gunnery, and search and rescue operations. Sailors and officers will also have the chance to work with one another and with their foreign peers in structured and unstructured activities onshore. Though such interaction is undoubtedly meant to generate positive publicity, it also speaks to one of RIMPAC's lesser-known functions: promoting personal relationships between sailors and officers of different navies that will endure as they move up through the ranks.
Putting It Into Practice
The primary value of joint exercises — familiarizing working-level military officials with one another and with the protocols that streamline communication — makes military interactions more predictable. This will be crucial in the coming years as the United States and China enter periods of political transition. The United States, for its part, is preparing to hold its presidential election, while China is readying itself for the 19th Communist Party Congress in 2017, when many senior military leaders are likely to be replaced. The cultivation of stable ties between the militaries' lower ranks will ensure that relations continue to be well regulated in the face of what could be a politically delicate time.
That said, military-to-military cooperation has its limits; it is a means of managing conflict, not eliminating it. Although Xi's administration has pursued closer military ties with Washington, that has not resolved disputes between China and the United States. If anything, those feuds have intensified even as the countries' military bonds have strengthened. Furthermore, the People's Liberation Army is currently undergoing one of the biggest restructurings in its history, and many of its organizational and command-and-control hierarchies remain unclear, even to Chinese personnel. The reform will likely impede the use of established channels of communication over the next five years or so as Beijing finishes revamping its military.
The United States and China's new conflict management mechanisms will probably be put to the test sooner than later. The U.N. Permanent Court of Arbitration is expected to rule on the Philippines' case against China's maritime claims on July 12, as RIMPAC completes its second week, and the court's decision will almost certainly ratchet up tensions between China and the United States. But Beijing and Washington are aware of how valuable close military cooperation can be for mitigating risk, and both will be reluctant to jeopardize it.
Lead Analyst: Thomas Vie
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http://qz.com/728289/china-illegally-cordoned-off-a-huge-part-of-the-south-china-sea-for-military-drills-and-will-likely-do-so-again/
No worries, Team Smartpower is on it!
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/world/asia/south-china-sea-hague-ruling-philippines.html?emc=edit_na_20160712&nlid=49641193&ref=cta&_r=0
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/world/asia/south-china-sea-hague-ruling-philippines.html?emc=edit_na_20160712&nlid=49641193&ref=cta&_r=0
I would hate to be on a Philippine flagged boat anywhere near that area.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/world/asia/south-china-sea-hague-ruling-philippines.html?emc=edit_na_20160712&nlid=49641193&ref=cta&_r=0
I would hate to be on a Philippine flagged boat anywhere near that area.
I am calling on President Trump in conjunction with all the other countries in the region to rename the formerly South China Sea.
Let them devalue their country and currency, let them sell cheap goods cheaply to American consumers, but don't let them control the Taiwan to Singapore Sea, the South Sea of Fallen Totalitarian Regimes. It belongs to all of us.
http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=2134.msg96258#msg96258
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:evil: :evil: :evil:
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First time I've run across this source:
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/u-s-warships-surround-disputed-chinese-waters-prepared-for-war-wwiii-at-stake_07152016
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Indonesia Guards Its Front Door
Analysis
July 28, 2016 | 09:30 GMT Print
Text Size
The Indonesian government blows up a foreign fishing vessel in its waters earlier this year. Indonesian authorities have confronted at least three Chinese fishing boats in 2016 near the country's remote and resource-rich Natuna Islands. (SEI RATIFA/AFP/Getty Images)
Forecast
Chinese fishing vessels will continue to cross into Indonesia's exclusive economic zone near the Natuna Islands.
Indonesia will maintain its aggressive stance to cement its hold on the area — part of its broader imperative to control the sprawling archipelago.
Jakarta will build military, fishing and energy facilities on the islands, pursuing a strategy similar to that of other claimants in the South China Sea.
Analysis
At least three times this year, Indonesian authorities have confronted Chinese fishing vessels in the waters near the remote Natuna Islands, an area whose 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) overlaps China's expansive nine-dash line. Each time, Jakarta has made a point of widely publicizing the incursions despite Beijing's objections. In the wake of the run-ins, Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo visited the islands and promised to boost defense, fishing and natural gas production in the area. Despite its provocative fishing activities in the South China Sea, however, China is not the sole target of Indonesia's defensive measures; Jakarta has also made a public show of destroying dozens of Malaysian and Vietnamese vessels found fishing in the area. For Indonesia, protecting the Natuna Islands — however small and remote they may be — is key to exerting control of its territory and affirming its position in Asia's waterways.
A Maritime Fulcrum
Indonesia holds an unparalleled position in the Pacific. Its islands stretch from the Andaman to the Philippine Sea, covering more than 4,800 kilometers (3,000 miles), a span wider than the continental United States. What's more, in a region whose geopolitics revolves around water, Indonesia sits at the juncture of Asia's two key oceans, the Indian and the Pacific. But the nation is also intensely fragmented. Of its 17,508 islands, only 6,000 are inhabited, and water covers most of Indonesia's territory. Anti-imperialist sentiment first united these disparate and ethnically distinct islands, and then decades of military rule and anticommunist fervor held them together. After emerging from New Order rule of longtime President Suharto in 1998, however, the country needed a new unifying strategy.
EEZ
The 1994 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea grants nations an exclusive economic zone of up to 200 nautical miles from the coast and around some islands, carrying rights to marine resources. This makes the official status of tiny rocks, reefs and islands essential.
Under President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, who took office in 2014, that strategy has been to make Indonesia a "maritime fulcrum" between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Controlling the seas that constitute so much of Indonesia's territory is not only essential to keep the nation together, but it also enables Indonesia to increase its prominence in Asia, making it an indispensible nation to Pacific powers. Jokowi's fulcrum concept boils down to three main priorities: to build up maritime defense, focus on securing and exploiting resources, and develop logistics throughout the archipelago. The idea is not to turn Indonesia into a great power in the Pacific but to make the most of its position by ensuring control over its broad swath of territory. Only with full control of its waterways and flanking oceans can Indonesia take advantage of its position on key trade routes. To do so requires building up naval capabilities and port connectivity.
Troubling the Waters
Though Indonesia has an imperative to control the entire archipelago, certain areas must to be targeted first. The Natunas, a group of 272 islands in the Tudjuh archipelago at the northern edge of Riau Islands Province, are among them. But as the regional powers challenge the balance established by the United States — the Pacific's pre-eminent force — Indonesia's maritime fulcrum strategy has run up against China's own push into the South China Sea. Patrol vessels from Indonesia's Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries encountered and apprehended a Chinese fishing vessel near the Natuna Islands on March 20, detaining its crew and taking the boat in tow. After a Chinese coast guard vessel intervened and freed the fishing boat, Beijing insisted that its fishermen had been in China's traditional waters, a phrase China often uses in defense of its fishing vessels' forays inside the nine-dash line. A second run-in occurred on May 27, when an Indonesian navy frigate seized another Chinese fishing boat for fishing in roughly the same area. And last month, Jakarta announced a third confrontation, in which Indonesian naval vessels fired warning shots at Chinese-flagged fishing vessels on June 18. Some reports indicate that seven crew members were detained, and the Chinese Foreign Ministry said one fisherman was shot.
China is not particularly interested in provoking Indonesia over this remote corner of the South China Sea. For one thing, between the Philippines and Vietnam, Beijing has bigger problems. For another, China does not want to make Indonesia any more receptive than it already is to military cooperation with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a U.S.-supported alliance structure of which Indonesia is a member. But by encouraging its fishermen to fish along the full extent of the nine-dash line, Beijing is pursuing a dangerous strategy to shore up its claims in the South China Sea. As the largely autonomous, ungovernable fishing vessels follow fish over wide stretches of sea, they inevitably pass into disputed waters. For Beijing, these incursions are a net positive, reinforcing their claims to traditional use. At the same time, however, they invite unpredictable reactions from the countries that claim the waters. In this case, Indonesia's response seems to have taken China by surprise.
An Unforgiving Policy
Indonesia has become increasingly staunch in defending the Natunas, not only against China but also against its neighbors. In late 2014, Indonesia implemented a policy whereby foreign fishing vessels that are in its waters illegally are sunk. Some of the earliest vessels sunk were Chinese, but since December 2014, many have been Malaysian or Vietnamese. Of the 57 fishing vessels that Indonesia has detained in 2016 for illegally fishing around the Natuna Islands, 49 were Vietnamese.
Since Vietnam and Malaysia are closer to Indonesia than China is, their fishing vessels are a more regular nuisance (the EEZ is formalized by treaty neither on its northern boundary with Vietnam nor on part of its eastern boundary with Malaysia). But China poses a more pressing threat to Indonesia's territorial integrity. That large Chinese coast guard vessels intervened on behalf of the fishing vessels seized near the Natunas underscores that threat. Territorial disputes with Malaysia and Vietnam, by contrast, have been put on the back burner. In fact, Malaysia is keen to cooperate with Indonesia not only in the Malacca Strait, an area of shared interest, but also in the far-flung Sulu and Celebes seas to curb piracy. The sudden escalation with China has caused Jakarta to question whether it needs to double down on its maritime strategy to manage a different sort of neighbor.
A Sea of Resources
Though the Natuna Islands are just one of many regions that Indonesia wants to secure, they have become a priority for Jakarta. Visiting the islands on June 23, shortly after the third fishing boat incident, Jokowi called the Natunas the "front door" of Indonesia. The country controls most of the waters approaching the Malacca Strait through the Natunas' EEZ. Moreover, the route is key to east-west trade (especially for the economies of Northeast Asia), and its importance will only grow: By the mid-2020s, the Asia-Pacific region's demand for oil will likely rise by at least 5 million barrels per day, meaning that nearly one-fifth of the world's oil will pass through the region.
In addition, the islands provide access to vital resources. The fisheries near the Natunas offer opportunities for Indonesia to expand its fishing beyond core areas where overfishing has devastated stocks of several species. After the incidents with Chinese fishing boats, Jakarta announced plans to raise the catch in the Natuna Sea from 9.3 percent of sustainable levels to 40 percent by mid-2017 — up to 1 million tons of production. Jakarta also plans to relocate 400 fishing vessels from Java by the end of October and up to 6,000 over the long term. The Natuna EEZ boasts the West Natuna Basin, already an important area for natural gas production. Furthermore, the East Natuna Field, located in the northern part of the Natuna EEZ, is the largest untapped natural gas field in Asia, containing an estimated 1.3 trillion cubic meters of recoverable natural gas. Indonesia is banking on the East Natuna Field — in addition to those on Papua — to expand its natural gas production by as much as 70 percent over the next decade. In fact, on July 12, state-owned energy company Pertamina announced plans to sign a memorandum of understanding with the National Iranian Oil Co. and to start operations before 2030.
Given all that the islands have to offer, it is not surprising that Indonesian military leaders have been calling to bolster defense of the Natuna Islands for the past two years. Since March, Jakarta has unveiled various plans to do so. Less than a week after Jokowi's visit to the islands, Indonesia's legislature voted to increase the 2016 defense budget by nearly 10 percent, to around $8.25 billion. A few days later, the Indonesian government announced plans to build military bases on the islands and to improve the existing Ranai air base. On July 13, Indonesia's minister of defense pledged to send warships and a fighter jet to the area, deploy surface-to-air missiles, and improve ports and airstrips.
But boosting Indonesia's presence in the Natunas — whether through military deployments, fishing activity or energy production — will take time. In the meantime, incursions by Chinese (as well as Vietnamese and Malaysian) vessels will continue. And though they are Indonesia's front door, the Natunas are just one part of Jakarta's larger strategy to achieve control of its vast territorial holdings.
Lead Analyst: Evan Rees
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A Glimpse Into China's Military Presence in the South China Sea (https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/glimpse-chinas-military-presence-south-china-sea) is republished with permission of Stratfor."
Does this URL work for you guys?
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http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/08/11/fbi-chinese-build-uk-nuclear-plant-stolen-us-technology/
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A Glimpse Into China's Military Presence in the South China Sea (https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/glimpse-chinas-military-presence-south-china-sea) is republished with permission of Stratfor."
Does this URL work for you guys?
Yes.
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Good to know-- the maps and the pictures add mightily to the value of Stratfor's work.
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Good to know-- the maps and the pictures add mightily to the value of Stratfor's work.
Indeed.
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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/08/21/national/china-hinted-at-military-action-if-japan-sends-sdf-to-south-china-sea/
No worries, team smart power is on it.
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/military-activities-continental-shelf
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/military-activities-continental-shelf
Expect more. China knows that they won't be stopped.
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http://warontherocks.com/2016/08/red-teaming-the-rebalance-is-the-united-states-good-for-asia/
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http://warontherocks.com/2016/08/red-teaming-the-rebalance-is-the-united-states-good-for-asia/
The Seward segment was worthwhile. The fact that China has checkmated us and Obama deliberate sabotage of power is ignored.
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Sub race. China is fueling a submarine race in the Pacific, FP’s Elias Groll and Dan De Luce tell us in a smart new story, writing that thanks to China’s huge increases in defense spending “and making aggressive claims to disputed island chains, Beijing’s regional rivals are investing in the one weapon that can undercut the increasingly potent People’s Liberation Army. Across South and East Asia, China’s neighbors are spending heavily on submarines, purchasing silent diesel-electric machines capable of slipping past Chinese defenses.”
But it’s not only subs. New Zealand recently signed a $26 million contract with Boeing to upgrade its fleet of five P-3 Orion submarine hunting surveillance planes. “This is particularly important in the Asia-Pacific region which is home to two-thirds of the world’s submarines” New Zealand’s defence minister Gerry Brownlee said.
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Sub race. China is fueling a submarine race in the Pacific, FP’s Elias Groll and Dan De Luce tell us in a smart new story, writing that thanks to China’s huge increases in defense spending “and making aggressive claims to disputed island chains, Beijing’s regional rivals are investing in the one weapon that can undercut the increasingly potent People’s Liberation Army. Across South and East Asia, China’s neighbors are spending heavily on submarines, purchasing silent diesel-electric machines capable of slipping past Chinese defenses.”
But it’s not only subs. New Zealand recently signed a $26 million contract with Boeing to upgrade its fleet of five P-3 Orion submarine hunting surveillance planes. “This is particularly important in the Asia-Pacific region which is home to two-thirds of the world’s submarines” New Zealand’s defence minister Gerry Brownlee said.
This discussion could extend to the Arctic as well.
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I still have that Red Team article on my "to read" list. Looks very interesting.
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China’s summit games. While the Americans and Russians danced around one another at the summit, China made some seriously provocative moves over the past several days, sailing eight ships around the disputed Scarborough Shoal, which both the Philippines and Beijing claim as their own. The flotilla, spotted by a Philippine Air Force patrol, may have contained two ships capable of carrying troops and a dredging ship. China and the Philippines have clashed over territorial disputes in recent months, including a protracted legal battle at the International Court of Arbitration, which rejected some of Beijing's claims to territory in the South China Sea.
Despite this, don’t expect the ongoing Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) conference attended by President Barack Obama in Laos, to make much of a stink over the latest Chinese provocations. A draft of a joint statement to be released at the summit, seen by Reuters, completely ignores the July ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. The statement is a diplomatic victory for China, coming on the heels of ASEAN's leaders during a meeting in July to reject a U.S.-backed proposal to insert the ruling in the text of a joint statement.
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Note that China has quite deliberately and publicly humiliated Empty Suit Buraq at the G20, yet somehow our professional journalists seem to have missed that.
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http://www.jerusalemonline.com/news/world-news/around-the-globe/watch-china-humiliates-obama-with-disrespectful-greeting-23401
Watch: China greets Obama in unusual manner, sparking controversy
In the past eight years, the US President has never been received in such a humiliating manner. The Chinese government apparently wanted to relay a message to Washington when it forced the US President to descend Air Force One via the back door and without a red carpet.
Sep 4, 2016, 2:00PM
Becca Noy
http://www.jerusalemonline.com/news/world-news/around-the-globe/watch-china-humiliates-obama-with-disrespectful-greeting-23401
Chinese leaders sparked a diplomatic storm when they welcomed US President Barack Obama in a humiliating manner yesterday (Saturday). Obama, who arrived in China for the G20 summit, was forced to descend the plane without the usual red carpet and from the backside of the plane while no senior level Chinese officials greeted him.
The Chinese authorities pulled out the red carpet for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, French President François Hollande, Brazilian President Michel Temer and British Prime Minister Theresa May. However, Obama, who is in the middle of what appears to be his last trip to Asia, was forced to leave the plane from the back door.
On the ground, one of the Chinese officials was seen shouting: “This is our country, this is our airport.” A New York Times reporter who was at the scene said that the way Obama and the White House staff members were greeted was insulting.
Mexico’s former ambassador to China Jorge Guajardo told The Guardian that he is certain that Obama’s humiliating greeting was not a mistake. “These things do not happen by mistake. Not with the Chinese,” said Guajardo.
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http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2016/09/08/russia-weighs-south-china-sea-belongs-china/
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http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2016/09/08/russia-weighs-south-china-sea-belongs-china/
Who is going to stop them?
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/water-wars-series-summits-highlights-persistent-divisions-south-china-sea
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http://www.stripes.com/news/philippines-reversal-on-troops-patrols-could-upend-us-china-strategy-1.429070
Another big win for Team Smart power!
Fundamentally changed.
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:x :x :x
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http://atimes.com/2016/09/china-may-be-waiting-for-the-perfect-timing-to-strike-in-south-china-sea/
(http://chinalawandpolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/XJP.jpg)
Strong horse.
(http://16004-presscdn-0-50.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/obama-hu-bow.jpg)
Weak horse.
Hey Australia,
(https://almostchosenpeople.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/imagespkrxdh6a.jpg)
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http://atimes.com/2016/09/counter-pivot-china-russia-hold-large-scale-s-china-sea-war-games/
They are calling it "Operation Obama is a p*ssy"
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By Andrew Browne
Updated Oct. 4, 2016 1:13 a.m. ET
45 COMMENTS
With the exception of the Vietnam War, America’s alliance system in East Asia has helped keep the peace for more than half a century.
Now it is in trouble. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s progression from abusive name-calling to a more broadly articulated anti-American hostility has been swift and stunning. It threatens one of Washington’s crucial Asian alliances and sets back U.S. President Barack Obama ’s signature “pivot” to the region.
China is jubilant over Mr. Duterte’s cooling relations with Washington after it clashed for years with the Philippine leader’s predecessor.
“The clouds are fading away,” China’s ambassador to Manila, Zhao Jianhua, said at a Chinese National Day reception. “The sun is rising over the horizon, and will shine beautifully on the new chapter of bilateral relations.”
At first it looked like a fit of pique: One month ago, Mr. Duterte called Mr. Obama a “son of a whore” over U.S. criticism of his war on drugs that has strewn the country with thousands of corpses. His rage quickly hardened.
A few days later Mr. Duterte proposed removing American military advisers from the troubled southern region of Mindanao. Then he declared he was shopping in China and Russia for military supplies readily available in the U.S. Mr. Duterte will lead a Philippine business delegation to Beijing this month.
And last week he declared an end to joint U.S.-Philippine naval exercises in the South China Sea to avoid provoking China. The last exercises, ostensibly, began on Tuesday.
Mr. Duterte’s outbursts come at a moment of rising doubt in America about the country’s role in the world. Donald Trump thinks that alliances are a bad deal for America—essentially a form of charity for countries rich enough to pay for their own defense. He seems to be in tune with growing numbers of Americans. Asked in 2013 whether the U.S. “Should mind its own business internationally” 52% of respondents to a Pew poll said “yes.”
In their recent book “America Abroad: the United States’ Global Role in the 21st Century,” Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, two academics at Dartmouth College, say that “the vast majority” of scholars who write on American grand strategy believe the time has come for America to pull back. They argue against such a move, saying it would lead to arms races and nuclear proliferation.
Now, Mr. Duterte is going a step further, calling into question an accord to let U.S. forces use Philippine military bases. That landmark 2014 deal was poignant in that Manila ejected U.S. troops in the early 1990s. It sent a powerful message: America is back.
Specifically, it was back in Southeast Asia, the focus of Washington’s “pivot” aimed at countering China’s rising power. There was little doubt about America’s commitment to Japan, where the Seventh Fleet is headquartered or to South Korea, home to 28,500 American service personnel. Southeast Asian countries, however, felt neglected as they faced China’s rapidly expanding naval and militia armadas.
Mr. Obama offered diplomatic reassurance and military assistance. To the Philippines, America’s only ally with territorial claims in the South China Sea, he sent decommissioned Coast Guard cutters, radar and other equipment to defend its long coastline. He eased a U.S. embargo on lethal weapons sales to Vietnam, which has clashed with China over offshore oil and fishing rights. Mr. Obama nudged Myanmar—a virtual Chinese client—along a path to democracy.
Mr. Duterte says he’s pushing a more independent foreign policy but still supports the U.S. alliance. His inflammatory rhetoric, though, suggests he’s trying to blow up a friendship. Last week, in a bizarre twist of logic, he invoked Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust to defend his antidrug campaign.
For China, Mr. Duterte’s turn is sweet revenge for its humiliation this year by an international tribunal in The Hague that struck down its claims to almost the entire South China Sea in a case brought by Mr. Duterte’s predecessor.
Chinese diplomats had branded Manila the chief recalcitrant in a part of Asia from which they expect deference.
If the Pentagon is alarmed, it isn’t showing it. Support for the American alliance runs high among both the Philippine public and armed forces; ditching America for China would be politically risky for Mr. Duterte. U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter told sailors last week the Philippine alliance was “ironclad.”
Meanwhile, China has found a new target for its browbeating: Singapore, which isn’t a U.S. ally but hosts American warships and spy planes.
The Global Times, a Communist Party-controlled tabloid, recently took aim at the city-state for allegedly trying to insert harder language about the South China Sea into a communiqué at the end of a summit of nonaligned nations. Singapore’s envoy to China took the rare step of publicly criticizing the paper for an “irresponsible report replete with fabrications.”
Expect more of that kind of pressure from Beijing. A key lesson that China is likely to draw from Mr. Duterte’s geopolitical about-face: Unrelenting attacks on America’s regional friends and allies eventually pay off.
Write to Andrew Browne at andrew.browne@wsj.com
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Meanwhile, China has found a new target for its browbeating: Singapore, which isn’t a U.S. ally but hosts American warships and spy planes.
The Global Times, a Communist Party-controlled tabloid, recently took aim at the city-state for allegedly trying to insert harder language about the South China Sea into a communiqué at the end of a summit of nonaligned nations. Singapore’s envoy to China took the rare step of publicly criticizing the paper for an “irresponsible report replete with fabrications.”
Expect more of that kind of pressure from Beijing. A key lesson that China is likely to draw from Mr. Duterte’s geopolitical about-face: Unrelenting attacks on America’s regional friends and allies eventually pay off.
*Chip, chip, chip.
China plays the long game. The US is a weak enemy and a treacherous friend.
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Australia Cedes the Seas
The ruling Liberals won’t conduct patrols of the South China Sea.
Oct. 17, 2016 6:54 p.m. ET
WSJ
Canberra confirmed last week that the Australian Navy won’t conduct freedom-of-navigation patrols in the international waters of the South China Sea, giving China’s bid to dominate the strategic area a boost. Such patrols are a basic requirement for the rules-based global order that Australia says it is committed to upholding.
An international tribunal ruled in July that China’s bid to claim most of the sea violates international law. But the verdict will be rendered moot unless law-abiding states are willing to push back. That would give Beijing effective control over the 60% of Australian trade that transits the sea.
Some Aussies understand the importance of defending maritime law, including current leaders of the opposition Labor Party. “In our view, there should be full authorization to engage in freedom-of-navigation operations, which are entirely consistent with international law and entirely consistent with the Court of Arbitration’s ruling,” said Labor’s Shadow Defense Minister Richard Marles this month. “It’s important that in supporting the rule of law internationally and the rules-based order that we do everything we can to assert that.”
The ruling Liberals rejected this. Naval patrols within 12 miles of Chinese-claimed features would “escalate tensions,” said Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, echoing language often used by Chinese officials. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull condemned Labor’s position as a “highly political” sign of “immaturity and unreadiness to take responsibility for these issues.”
These political battle lines are a surprise. The right-of-center Liberals are usually tougher on defense, and their former leader Tony Abbott, who was Prime Minister until last year, backs stepped-up sea patrols. “We should be prepared to exercise our rights to freedom of navigation wherever international law permits,” he said in February.
Labor has lately been caught up in scandals over Chinese influence-peddling, with rising star Senator Sam Dastyari resigning from the leadership last month after he accepted gifts from Chinese interests and endorsed Beijing’s position on the South China Sea. Several retired Labor grandees, including former Prime Minister Paul Keating and former Foreign Minister Bob Carr, have called for accommodating China and moving away from the U.S. So kudos to current Labor leaders for getting this one right, but they’re not in charge.
The Liberals’ climbdown is particularly damaging because it follows a long campaign of bullying from Chinese officials and state media. “Australia is not a party to the South China Sea issue” and must “carefully talk and cautiously behave,” Beijing’s Foreign Ministry warned after Aussie officials praised the tribunal verdict in July. The state-run Global Times threatened, “If Australia steps into the South China Sea waters, it will be an ideal target for China to warn and strike.”
Canberra’s decision can’t be separated from Washington’s ambivalence. As U.S. officials encouraged Australia to step up, the Obama Administration authorized a mere three U.S. freedom of navigation patrols, all under the minimalist doctrine of “innocent passage” and after months of hand-wringing that undermined the intended signal of resolve. If the next U.S. President takes a more serious approach, it might inspire Canberra to do the same.
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China=winning
Australia Cedes the Seas
The ruling Liberals won’t conduct patrols of the South China Sea.
Oct. 17, 2016 6:54 p.m. ET
WSJ
Canberra confirmed last week that the Australian Navy won’t conduct freedom-of-navigation patrols in the international waters of the South China Sea, giving China’s bid to dominate the strategic area a boost. Such patrols are a basic requirement for the rules-based global order that Australia says it is committed to upholding.
An international tribunal ruled in July that China’s bid to claim most of the sea violates international law. But the verdict will be rendered moot unless law-abiding states are willing to push back. That would give Beijing effective control over the 60% of Australian trade that transits the sea.
Some Aussies understand the importance of defending maritime law, including current leaders of the opposition Labor Party. “In our view, there should be full authorization to engage in freedom-of-navigation operations, which are entirely consistent with international law and entirely consistent with the Court of Arbitration’s ruling,” said Labor’s Shadow Defense Minister Richard Marles this month. “It’s important that in supporting the rule of law internationally and the rules-based order that we do everything we can to assert that.”
The ruling Liberals rejected this. Naval patrols within 12 miles of Chinese-claimed features would “escalate tensions,” said Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, echoing language often used by Chinese officials. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull condemned Labor’s position as a “highly political” sign of “immaturity and unreadiness to take responsibility for these issues.”
These political battle lines are a surprise. The right-of-center Liberals are usually tougher on defense, and their former leader Tony Abbott, who was Prime Minister until last year, backs stepped-up sea patrols. “We should be prepared to exercise our rights to freedom of navigation wherever international law permits,” he said in February.
Labor has lately been caught up in scandals over Chinese influence-peddling, with rising star Senator Sam Dastyari resigning from the leadership last month after he accepted gifts from Chinese interests and endorsed Beijing’s position on the South China Sea. Several retired Labor grandees, including former Prime Minister Paul Keating and former Foreign Minister Bob Carr, have called for accommodating China and moving away from the U.S. So kudos to current Labor leaders for getting this one right, but they’re not in charge.
The Liberals’ climbdown is particularly damaging because it follows a long campaign of bullying from Chinese officials and state media. “Australia is not a party to the South China Sea issue” and must “carefully talk and cautiously behave,” Beijing’s Foreign Ministry warned after Aussie officials praised the tribunal verdict in July. The state-run Global Times threatened, “If Australia steps into the South China Sea waters, it will be an ideal target for China to warn and strike.”
Canberra’s decision can’t be separated from Washington’s ambivalence. As U.S. officials encouraged Australia to step up, the Obama Administration authorized a mere three U.S. freedom of navigation patrols, all under the minimalist doctrine of “innocent passage” and after months of hand-wringing that undermined the intended signal of resolve. If the next U.S. President takes a more serious approach, it might inspire Canberra to do the same.
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http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2038577/philippines-president-rodrigo-duterte-gets-red-carpet
‘We’re neighbours and blood brothers’: Xi tells Duterte as firebrand leader announces ‘separation’ from US
Rodrigo Duterte given red carpet treatment in Beijing amid strained ties between two countries over their sovereignty claims in the South China Sea
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 20 October, 2016, 12:05pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 20 October, 2016, 11:29pm
19 Oct 2016
President Xi Jingping told his Philippines counterpart Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday that the two countries could put aside disputes and improve ties.
“This truly has milestone significance for China-Philippines relations,” Xi said, praising Duterte’s landmark visit to Beijing to reset the relationship that had been damaged by territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
In a further sign of his shifting allegiances, Duterte said he was announcing his “separation” from the United States at a business forum in the afternoon in the presence of Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli.
On the South China Sea issue, Xi suggested the two sides “temporarily put aside” the disputes, and learn from the “political wisdom” of history when the two nations had successfully kept their differences in check through talks.
“As long as we stick to friendly dialogue and consultation, we can frankly exchange views on any problem, manage differences, discuss cooperation, and temporarily put aside what is hard to reach by consensus,” Xi said.
Xi said although relations had “weathered storms, the foundation ... of their relations would not be changed” as the two countries were neighbours across the sea and the two peoples were blood-linked brothers.
South China Sea dispute to ‘take back seat’ in talks with Xi, Duterte says
“We have no reason to take a hostile attitude or confront each other,” he said. “I hope we can follow the wishes of the people and use this visit as an opportunity to push China-Philippines relations back on a friendly footing and fully improve things.”
Duterte said improved and developed relationships would benefit both peoples.
“Even as we arrive in Beijing close to winter, this is the springtime of our relationship,” he told Xi at the Great Hall of People.
He hoped the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank could play a role in Philippine economic development, and said his country would work to promote China-ASEAN relations in regional issues.
The two leaders later oversaw the signing of 13 of agreements on ranging from trade and investment to drug control, maritime security and infrastructure.
[Chinese president Xi Jinping welcome the visiting Philippine president Duterte in Beijing on Thursday. Photo: Simon Song]
Vice-Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin told reporters that China and the Philippines had agreed on Thursday that disputes in the South China Sea were not the sum total of their relations and that the two countries would restore consultations on diplomatic and defence matters.
“It means that a new page has now opened between the two countries in addressing the South China Sea issue through bilateral dialogue and consultation,” Liu said.
He also said China would restore Philippine agricultural exports to China and that Beijing would provide financing support for Philippine infrastructure projects.
On the eve of the meeting Duterte said that “it’s time to say goodbye” to the US as his foreign policy veered towards China.
“I will not ask but if they (the Chinese) offer and if they’ll ask me, do you need this aid? [I will say] Of course, we are very poor,”” he told hundreds of Filipinos in Beijing on Wednesday night.
“I will not go to America anymore … We will just be insulted there,” he added.
But Xu Liping, a senior fellow at the China Academy of Social Sciences, said Duterte’s statement did not necessarily mean that the Philippines would lean to China.
“It’s a pendulum effect,” said Xu. “Duterte is just adjusting and revising his predecessor’s excessive one-sided policy towards the US. I would not call him ‘inclining to China’”.
As ties warmed up, China might be able to resume some of the Philippines halted infrastructure projects like a railway in the northern Philippines, and open other, Xu said. The Philippines form an important part of Xi’s One Belt One Road development plan.
Geopolitically, Duterte’s distancing from the US would reduce the stake the US has in the region, which could lower the pressure on China from the US “Asia rebalance” strategy and improve China’s strategic environment, said Zhang Mingliang, a Southeast Asia expert at Jinan University in Guangzhou.
Next year the Philippines will be the rotating chair of the Asean, where the South China Sea disputes have been on the agenda.
“Without an improved relationship, the Philippines would use the Asean platform to embarrass China on the South China Sea issue,” said Zhang.
Playing the US against China may prove a smart move for Rodrigo Duterte
“China and the Philippines are neighbours across the sea and the two peoples are blood brothers,” Xi said.
He added that both sides should “appropriately handle disputes”, although he did not specifically mention conflicts over the South China Sea.
“I hope we can follow the wishes of the people and use this visit as an opportunity to push China-Philippines relations back on a friendly footing and fully improve things,” he said.
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Another obama reset.
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http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/philippine-leader-duterte-ditches-u-s-china-says-america-has-n670066?cid=sm_fb
So much for the pivot to Asia , , ,
This is HUGE. Toss in Australia giving up sailing in the South China Sea and the Russian Navy sailing with the Chinese in support , , ,
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http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/philippine-leader-duterte-ditches-u-s-china-says-america-has-n670066?cid=sm_fb
So much for the pivot to Asia , , ,
This is HUGE. Toss in Australia giving up sailing in the South China Sea , , ,
It's a fundamental transformation. Chalk up another big win for Team Smart Power!
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How long until the People's Liberation Army Navy (yes, that is what it's called) has a base there?
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How long until the People's Liberation Army Navy (yes, that is what it's called) has a base there?
Construction can start in 3 weeks. (
'Tell Xi we will have more flexibility after my chosen successors' election'.
We want Russians to be the force of freedom in the Middle East, why not have a communist-expansionist military run the Taiwan to Singapore Sea? Saves us money in the short run. And it brings them to the diplomatic bargaining table - to laugh at our demise.
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http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/10/20/rodrigo-dutertes-flip-flop-into-bed-with-china-is-a-disaster-for-the-united-states-south-china-sea/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=Flashpoints
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1/12/16-- note date
Stratfor
Less than two weeks into the new year, a new diplomatic flare-up in the South China Sea is already on our radar. This time, Japan rerouted maritime surveillance aircraft to locations that abut the contested waters. Given the sensitivity of the region, the move will surely invite scrutiny from Beijing.
The decision to reroute the aircraft came Jan. 10, when the Japanese Defense Ministry said aircraft returning from anti-piracy operations in Africa would refuel in places such as Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines, not in their traditional destinations like Singapore and Thailand, which are far from the disputed maritime zone. The aircraft in question — two P-3C Orion maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare aircraft — were first deployed to the East African country of Djibouti in May 2008 as a contribution to counter-piracy efforts in the Horn of Africa region, and they will touch down first in Vietnam's Cam Ranh Bay — a direct inlet of the South China Sea — in February.
Notably, the refueling stops appear to be the direct result of a series of high-level defense meetings that Japan held with South China Sea claimant countries in 2015. In other words, the decision was deliberated before it was executed.
What is a Geopolitical Diary?
Japan is not officially conducting reconnaissance patrols from these bases. Indeed, Tokyo insists that the flights are meant to be the naval aviation equivalent of port calls, or transit stops. But considering the aircraft's capabilities, China is understandably nervous. The P-3s are equipped with a powerful surveillance suite, including a maritime search radar, designed to spot very small targets such as submarine periscopes. Such a capability would be extremely useful when tracking and monitoring maritime traffic, or a military presence for that matter. Tokyo has clearly stated that the refueling stops do not equate to the permanent basing of P-3s in any country, nor do they obligate Japan to share maritime surveillance data (should it be acquired) with the host country.
In fact, on the surface the rerouting of aircraft appears to be only a modest step by the Japanese. Many observers believed Tokyo was preparing to conduct joint patrols with the U.S. Navy after the Japanese Diet passed long-awaited defense reforms in September 2015, authorizing the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) to employ force abroad to defend its allies.
But those observers may have simply expected too much, too soon. The passage of security legislation was politically taxing for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Intent on expanding its majority, the LDP can ill-afford to squander popularity ahead of upper house elections in the summer through overly assertive military deployments.
Aside from managing its own domestic politics, Japan must also manage political sensitivities in its partner countries — all of which experienced brutal Japanese occupation during World War II. Japanese investment is, of course, welcomed in Southeast Asia, but military cooperation with a former occupier is often seen as a bridge too far. Discussions between Tokyo and Manila to set up a Visiting Forces Agreement, which would give the JSDF basing rights in the Philippines, have so far yielded nothing. This suggests considerable domestic opposition in the Philippines — the claimant country in the South China Sea that needs military assistance the most. But even if the Philippines remains opposed to basing, refueling stops are a low-key and politically palatable way to revitalize a military relationship.
When these refueling stops occur, China will almost certainly react with protest and will accuse Japan of emboldening its rival in the South China Sea. Consequently, Beijing may redouble its efforts to construct military and civilian infrastructure on reclaimed islands in the South China Sea, actions designed to make China's presence impossible to dislodge. Tempting as it may be to regard Chinese opposition as an overreaction, Beijing is actually reacting to a future in which Japan slowly overcomes operational and political barriers to routinize its presence in the South China Sea. After all, refueling stops, like port calls, are not just a logistical necessity: They also give navies experience in interacting with their foreign counterparts, building the basis for increased cooperation down the line.
Japan wants to play a more active military role in the Pacific — indeed, it may have no other choice — but to do this Tokyo needs countries that are willing to host its forces. It is safe to say that Japan is not going to the trouble of altering its flight plans just so its aircraft will have a small number of additional refueling options over the next decade. Starting with these modest visits, Tokyo hopes to lay the foundation for a greater, more sustainable presence. China is justifiably concerned.
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second post, posted today by Stratfor
Japan plans to give Malaysia two 90-meter-long second-hand patrol vessels to boost its maritime security capabilities in the contested South China Sea, unnamed Malaysian government sources said Oct. 21, The Star reported. In September, Japan pledged to give the Philippines two similar vessels, and it expressed willingness to give Vietnam patrol boats as well. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is expected to visit Japan in mid-November.
Stratfor
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Cooperation as a Means to All Ends in the South China Sea
Analysis
September 26, 2016 | 09:30 GMT Print
Text Size
Beijing understands that constant conflict with its neighbors works against its desire to maintain good relations with them -- a particularly important aspect to its emerging global policy. (HOANG DINH NAM/AFP/Getty Images)
Forecast
Despite China's rejection of the ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the South China Sea dispute, Beijing is adopting a more conciliatory posture over its territorial claims, at least in the short term.|
The shifting status quo in the South China Sea may give claimant states, especially China, second thoughts about entering into joint development deals.
Any meaningful joint arrangements will hinge on Beijing's strategic intentions, although domestic pressure in respective states will also play a key role.
Analysis
South China Sea claimant states are adjusting to the new status quo in the region. The arbitration ruling the Philippines won over China in July gave it and other claimants rare leverage over Beijing, but China's rejection of the decision has diminished the possibility of legal intervention over maritime disputes in which it is embroiled. Beijing must also contend, however, with an increasingly complex set of circumstances in the waters — with greater potential for involvement by outside powers and potentially more hostile relations with nations on its periphery.
The ruling's potential to disrupt relations in the South China Sea may help to explain the generally lower-key rhetoric and conciliatory gestures by actors on all sides in the region over the past two months. China and other claimant states all appear willing to seize the opportunity to move some stagnant agendas forward, at least for now. Their gestures include an agreement between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to finalize a framework for the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea before mid-2017 and a host of accommodating trilateral arrangements among China and new leaders in the Philippines and Vietnam.
Fish: The Overlooked Destabilizer in the South China Sea
Despite the region's focus on minerals and oil, fish are a more important factor in the maritime disputes surrounding a rising China. Read more…
Some regional joint development proposals, moreover, have re-emerged. Shortly after the court ruling, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a high-profile white paper that, in addition to reiterating its positions and sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, said Beijing's openness to joint development in the waters had not changed. That position was reinforced shortly after when former Philippine President Fidel Ramos, the special envoy for current President Rodrigo Duterte, was invited to visit with Chinese policy experts, who raised the possibility of jointly developing fishing farms in the disputed waters, including around Scarborough Shoal. Separately, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc that both countries should actively push forward with joint exploration of waters beyond the Gulf of Tonkin — in other words, in the South China Sea — where both signed a comprehensive delimitation agreement in 2000. In addition, China and Japan appear ready to resume a long-stalled dialogue on natural gas exploration in the East China Sea.
Taken individually, these proposals are unremarkable. Joint development is a well-trodden path in East Asia. Mutually agreed joint-development mechanisms have a proven record of easing maritime tensions in the face of overlapping claims elsewhere. Therefore, it is seen by many, including the claimant governments of Southeast Asia, as a potential option to calm the waters in the South China Sea with its vast traditional fishing grounds and its rich oil and natural gas potential. But early attempts at joint development, notably an arrangement among China, Vietnam and the Philippines in 2005 for seismic surveys, failed largely because of domestic sentiment in the Philippines. And over the years, suspicions about Beijing's strategic intent, coupled with its unceasing territorial expansion and escalation of maritime tensions, thwarted any potential dialogue — let alone joint arrangement — in the South China Sea that involves China. In recent years, Beijing has put pursuing such joint arrangements on a back burner. Thus, the recent refashioning of these proposals from Beijing provides an opportunity both to understand the strategic intent behind these arrangements and to assess their application under the new paradigm in the South China Sea.
Pragmatic Policy or Stalling Strategy?
Setting aside disputes and pursuing joint development of natural resources have been central components of China's maritime policy since the late 1970s. The concept was promoted by Deng Xiaoping as he opened the country's economy and promoted domestic reform. Seeking to ease external pressures on the country, he embraced the practicality of joint economic development in the East and South China seas.
Most of those who lay claim to territory in the South China Sea have similarly endorsed joint development as a way to acquire undersea resources. (Notably, only a handful of oil and natural gas blocks in the disputed areas of the sea have proved commercially viable, and the financial risks and technological demands required for energy exploration in those areas have made it impossible for many claimants to do so without foreign partners.) But while Beijing has been pursuing joint development opportunities since the 1990s, in practice, other claimants generally believe those opportunities disproportionately benefit Beijing. Suspicions of its strategic objectives have repeatedly caused those arrangements to fail.
A major stumbling block to such agreements has been an insistence by the Chinese government that its claims of sovereignty over disputed territories in any deal would have to be recognized for it to go forward. In other words, a joint development deal with China would require the other party to recognize Chinese territorial claims in disputed areas, making the arrangements politically difficult to accept. Disagreement over sovereignty recognition resulted in repeated disruptions of initial joint exploration arrangements, including the one made in 2011 between the Philippines and China's state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp. around Reed Bank, near the Spratly Islands. Suspicion of Beijing's intent has remained a central concern for Vietnam and the Philippines even though they would profit from such deals.
Offers by China for joint development often come in areas within the exclusive economic zones of other claimant states. Those offers can be interpreted as a ploy by China to expand its territory into areas that it otherwise would have no legitimate claim to under international law. For example, Vietnam has objected to a decision by China to open up nine areas for joint development to foreign partners near the Vietnamese-controlled Vanguard Bank (about 160 nautical miles from the Vietnamese coast) in a disputed part of the Spratly Islands. Vietnam views that offer as essentially a Chinese claim of: "What is mine is mine, what is yours is mine, and we are willing to share." Part of the reason for the murky boundary status stems from the ambiguity of Chinese sovereignty claims in the South China Sea under the nine-dash line, which has resulted in a largely undefined boundary between areas with overlapping claims. Any joint development deals struck before agreements over the disputed areas are ironed out could amount to legitimizing China's nine-dash line claims. In 2011, Manila proposed a mechanism to separate disputed and non-disputed areas in the South China Sea and promote joint cooperation in the disputed zone. Beijing, however, viewed that proposal as a serious challenge to its sovereignty claims, and its opposition kept the proposal from generating momentum within ASEAN.
China's Tactical Advantages
Intentionally or not, the stalled progress on joint development deals — along with its ambiguous maritime claims — has given Beijing a much-desired result: time. Beijing's strategy of not asserting its claims too strongly before the 1990s allowed it to reduce potential conflicts that would result from overlapping claims, allowing its economy and military to develop. As China grew more powerful, its naval and maritime enforcement, along with its technological capabilities for island building and deep-sea exploration, dramatically shifted the status quo in the South China Sea. And these evolutions have naturally shaped Beijing's approach to any joint development mechanism.
China's technological and military abilities give it a tactical advantage when pushing its claims in the South China Sea. That means China can take unilateral measures to pressure other claimants, leaving Vietnam and the Philippines, the most vocal opponents of Chinese claims, with limited options for unilateral development. Because they have little capability to develop the sea's resources independently, they have to seek foreign assistance. In addition, however, to the uncertain prospects of oil and natural gas exploration in the South China Sea, military and economic pressure from China has also deterred foreign companies from entering agreements with those nations in the disputed areas. Meanwhile, as demonstrated in the case of Scarborough Shoal, Beijing's advanced coast guard vessels and armed fishing fleets have effectively stopped Philippine fishermen from plying their trade in their traditional grounds since 2012. In short, Beijing is forcing other claimants to accommodate or at least tolerate China's maritime boundary assertions before it will consider any meaningful arrangements — if that ever happens.
Resolving Conflicting Imperatives
Many policymakers in Beijing believe the policy has had mixed results for its foreign policy agenda. Claimant states — most notably Vietnam and the Philippines, and to a lesser extent Indonesia and Malaysia — have responded to Beijing's maritime aggression by expanding their naval and security capabilities and by seeking cooperation from external powers, such as the United States, Japan and India, for defense, energy and political support. This has resulted in a much broader international intervention and has justified moves by those powers to counter China. Beijing has meanwhile come to understand that constant conflict with its neighbors works against its desire to maintain good relations with them — a particularly important aspect of its emerging global policy.
At this point, Beijing probably understands the risks and repercussions of claiming the entire South China Sea — or pressing its claims based on the nine-dash line. In fact, there appears to be at least partial agreement among decision-makers that Beijing's "strategic ambiguity" over its maritime claim — combined with its ungrounded nine-dash line, lack of a clearly defined sovereignty claim and defiance of international law — has reached a limit. Over the past two years, official rhetoric from Beijing has repeatedly repudiated that the nine-dash line is the basis for the country's sovereignty claim. At the same time, its policymakers are in the process of reinterpreting its sovereignty claim and attempting to more closely adhere to international law.
It is unlikely that Beijing will ever ease its assertive behavior in the South China Sea. Rather, the new maritime status quo — coupled with the court ruling — may allow Beijing to rethink what strategies best fit its interests, even if those strategies take years to develop and result in even greater maritime disruption. But at the very least, its imperatives to avoid outright military confrontations, circumvent further "interference" from international players and to refrain from antagonizing all of its ASEAN neighbors at once makes its current course of behavior counterproductive.
Joint Development: a Possible Way Out?
To many claimant countries, developing maritime resources in disputed areas of the South China Sea has become more of a crucial economic imperative than ever. With its near-shore oil and natural gas blocks long past their peak productivity, Vietnam needs new energy sources to satisfy its domestic economy and provide export revenue to pay for its growing demand for imported refined oil products. The Philippines has some natural gas production but imports virtually all of its crude oil. The oil and natural gas potential in the South China Sea, particularly around Reed Bank and its commercially viable proven reserves of natural gas, is too high to ignore. Though China has similar needs — it depends heavily on oil and faces a growing need for natural gas — developing the sea's resources meets Beijing's strategic interests far more than its economic ones. In addition, the regional reliance on the sea's fish stocks — and the fluidity of fishing — makes exclusive development of that resource impossible. As more claimants desire to develop the sea's resources and as Beijing rethinks its strategies, both might give joint development ventures more attention.
Even though there has not been a joint arrangement in the South China Sea involving China, it will remain an option. Beijing has repeatedly expressed the hope that its relatively successful joint development and delimitation package with Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin can serve as a model for future arrangements in the South China Sea. According to the International Crisis Group, Beijing and Hanoi have carried out several rounds of consultations on possible cooperation in the South China Sea based on the Tonkin model, though no progress has been made. Meanwhile, Beijing has shown greater flexibility with claimants that it sees as cooperative as they pursue their own joint development deals. For example, it made little response to the joint oil and natural gas exploration agreement between Malaysia and Brunei in 2015, despite the fact that the development falls in an area that China also claims. The difference in China's reaction likely reflects the fact that Malaysia and Brunei tend not to trumpet their differences with China, but it could also point to how much flexibility Beijing has in its sovereignty claims.
In theory, joint development arrangements could allow Beijing to justify its dominance of the South China Sea and expand outreach in areas in which it has no legal claim in a more cooperative manner, all while allowing claimants to acquire the resources they want. But before any meaningful arrangements can be made, there are several obstacles to overcome.
Chief among them is the question of whether Beijing is willing to dampen its sovereignty claims now that it has established its tactical advantages in the South China Sea. But such a move may run afoul of domestic nationalist sentiment, which would see any joint arrangement as a surrender of sovereignty, thereby challenging the core of the government's legitimacy. Similar obstacles can be found in Vietnam and the Philippines, where years of assertive behavior by China have hardened the public's attitudes against accepting any arrangement with Beijing. In fact, in the Philippines, such sentiment, combined with a public perception of government misbehavior and corruption, was a key reason that Manila pulled out from the 2005 trilateral arrangement on seismic surveys. Meanwhile, the Philippine Constitution dictates that Philippine entities must retain 60 percent capital and ownership when it comes to joint exploration with foreign companies — a condition that Beijing can hardly accept unless both sides are willing to caveat their stances.
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By Euan Graham
Updated Nov. 1, 2016 11:39 p.m. ET
12 COMMENTS
Are dominoes teetering again in Southeast Asia? The limitations of that metaphor were clear in the Cold War, and are even more so now given the region’s much greater geopolitical fluidity. Nevertheless, anxiety is mounting among the U.S. and its stalwart Pacific allies after the Philippines’ abrupt tilt toward Beijing. President Rodrigo Duterte’s kowtow from Davao suggests a wave of realignment could happen within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak is the latest Southeast Asian leader to be feted with red-carpet treatment in Beijing. In advance of this week’s trip, Mr. Najib confidently exclaimed that new heights will be scaled in Malaysia’s already strong economic relationship with Beijing, worth $56 billion in annual trade last year.
China’s planned investments in “maritime silk route” infrastructure astride the Malacca Strait are likely to receive a further boost during the visit. A Chinese firm has been awarded a $13 billion contract to build a new 620-kilometer east-coast rail link to Kuala Lumpur.
The most eye-grabbing element of the agenda concerns Malaysia’s anticipated decision to order at least four, and as many as 10, Chinese-designed warships. Arms deals don’t automatically signal strategic reorientation. But Kuala Lumpur’s first major defence purchase from China has particular symbolism in a South China Sea setting, where Beijing claims territory occupied by Malaysia, and Chinese fishing and coast-guard vessels routinely appear in its exclusive economic zone.
The context is discouraging. Malaysia’s recently announced defense budget will sharply cut air-force and navy spending, denying capabilities that Malaysia needs most as a maritime nation bisected by the South China Sea. Plans for a new amphibious unit within the armed forces have been ditched, curtailing a promising area of engagement with the U.S. Marines. Under these circumstances, earmarking funds to buy Chinese ships looks like supplication.
Malaysia counts less in strategic terms to the U.S. than the Philippines. That is as much a function of geography as of alliance fealty, given the Philippine archipelago’s bulwark position in the South China Sea. But Malaysia also carves a long crescent around the Sea’s southern periphery, from the Gulf of Thailand to eastern Borneo.
Malaysia has longstanding military links with the U.S., but is more directly and historically important to Australia, through the Five Power Defence Arrangements. Australia continues to play a role in Malaysia’s air defence and flies scheduled surveillance patrols over the South China Sea from the peninsula.
There is little risk that Mr. Najib is contemplating a full-fledged “defection,” à la Mr. Duterte, on his visit to China. Nor is he likely to renounce Malaysia’s existing ties to Western defense partners. Malaysia’s security establishment by and large values these links over others. Past acquisitions, including Russian fighters, don’t commend the addition of another untried foreign supply chain, especially one with unseen conditions attached.
But politics trump such reservations. Mr. Najib has none of Mr. Duterte’s visceral animus towards America. Indeed, his balancing inclinations brought Malaysia into the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact. But U.S. legal probes, lodged this July, into the country’s sovereign wealth fund, personally stung him.
Battling domestic political opponents on multiple fronts and reliant on Chinese investment to prop up distressed government assets, Mr. Najib’s diplomatic compass has fixed north on China, the obvious source of nonjudgmental largesse. He harks back to the legacy of his father, who normalized relations with China back in 1974. But in reality bonds of political expediency tie him to Beijing.
More likely, Malaysia will gradually shy away from exercises or activities deemed potentially “provocative” to Beijing. Kuala Lumpur is likely to tread with increasing caution in the South China Sea, seeking bilateral accommodation where it can.
Thailand is the other U.S. treaty ally beside the Philippines in Southeast Asia, but its political fate is deeply uncertain and a submarine purchase from China is still potentially in the works. Singapore, a non-ally, is currently Washington’s most dependable defense partner. If the Philippines holds its eccentric course under Mr. Duterte, this odd state of affairs will become the new normal.
Mr. Najib’s visit could also be a nadir. Reports this week that Australia and Indonesia are discussing maritime patrols together in the South China Sea send a countervailing message that exploratory “rules-based” alignments are also possible outside of the traditional U.S. alliance framework. Tenuous as this bilateral undertaking remains, it should ease fears of dominoes collapsing in the South China Sea.
Mr. Graham is director of the international security program at the Lowy Institute in Sydney.
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Another big win for Team Smart Power!
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/11/01/malaysia-cozies-up-to-china/
Pivot to Asia! 8 more years!
By Euan Graham
Updated Nov. 1, 2016 11:39 p.m. ET
12 COMMENTS
Are dominoes teetering again in Southeast Asia? The limitations of that metaphor were clear in the Cold War, and are even more so now given the region’s much greater geopolitical fluidity. Nevertheless, anxiety is mounting among the U.S. and its stalwart Pacific allies after the Philippines’ abrupt tilt toward Beijing. President Rodrigo Duterte’s kowtow from Davao suggests a wave of realignment could happen within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak is the latest Southeast Asian leader to be feted with red-carpet treatment in Beijing. In advance of this week’s trip, Mr. Najib confidently exclaimed that new heights will be scaled in Malaysia’s already strong economic relationship with Beijing, worth $56 billion in annual trade last year.
China’s planned investments in “maritime silk route” infrastructure astride the Malacca Strait are likely to receive a further boost during the visit. A Chinese firm has been awarded a $13 billion contract to build a new 620-kilometer east-coast rail link to Kuala Lumpur.
The most eye-grabbing element of the agenda concerns Malaysia’s anticipated decision to order at least four, and as many as 10, Chinese-designed warships. Arms deals don’t automatically signal strategic reorientation. But Kuala Lumpur’s first major defence purchase from China has particular symbolism in a South China Sea setting, where Beijing claims territory occupied by Malaysia, and Chinese fishing and coast-guard vessels routinely appear in its exclusive economic zone.
The context is discouraging. Malaysia’s recently announced defense budget will sharply cut air-force and navy spending, denying capabilities that Malaysia needs most as a maritime nation bisected by the South China Sea. Plans for a new amphibious unit within the armed forces have been ditched, curtailing a promising area of engagement with the U.S. Marines. Under these circumstances, earmarking funds to buy Chinese ships looks like supplication.
Malaysia counts less in strategic terms to the U.S. than the Philippines. That is as much a function of geography as of alliance fealty, given the Philippine archipelago’s bulwark position in the South China Sea. But Malaysia also carves a long crescent around the Sea’s southern periphery, from the Gulf of Thailand to eastern Borneo.
Malaysia has longstanding military links with the U.S., but is more directly and historically important to Australia, through the Five Power Defence Arrangements. Australia continues to play a role in Malaysia’s air defence and flies scheduled surveillance patrols over the South China Sea from the peninsula.
There is little risk that Mr. Najib is contemplating a full-fledged “defection,” à la Mr. Duterte, on his visit to China. Nor is he likely to renounce Malaysia’s existing ties to Western defense partners. Malaysia’s security establishment by and large values these links over others. Past acquisitions, including Russian fighters, don’t commend the addition of another untried foreign supply chain, especially one with unseen conditions attached.
But politics trump such reservations. Mr. Najib has none of Mr. Duterte’s visceral animus towards America. Indeed, his balancing inclinations brought Malaysia into the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact. But U.S. legal probes, lodged this July, into the country’s sovereign wealth fund, personally stung him.
Battling domestic political opponents on multiple fronts and reliant on Chinese investment to prop up distressed government assets, Mr. Najib’s diplomatic compass has fixed north on China, the obvious source of nonjudgmental largesse. He harks back to the legacy of his father, who normalized relations with China back in 1974. But in reality bonds of political expediency tie him to Beijing.
More likely, Malaysia will gradually shy away from exercises or activities deemed potentially “provocative” to Beijing. Kuala Lumpur is likely to tread with increasing caution in the South China Sea, seeking bilateral accommodation where it can.
Thailand is the other U.S. treaty ally beside the Philippines in Southeast Asia, but its political fate is deeply uncertain and a submarine purchase from China is still potentially in the works. Singapore, a non-ally, is currently Washington’s most dependable defense partner. If the Philippines holds its eccentric course under Mr. Duterte, this odd state of affairs will become the new normal.
Mr. Najib’s visit could also be a nadir. Reports this week that Australia and Indonesia are discussing maritime patrols together in the South China Sea send a countervailing message that exploratory “rules-based” alignments are also possible outside of the traditional U.S. alliance framework. Tenuous as this bilateral undertaking remains, it should ease fears of dominoes collapsing in the South China Sea.
Mr. Graham is director of the international security program at the Lowy Institute in Sydney.
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http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/1120649/china-pushes-kung-fu-fighting-to-boost-soft-power
And exactly what are we exporting culturally these days? The Kardashians?
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Does this support Trump's assertion of Chinese currency manipulation or does it cut against it by keeping exchange rate higher than it otherwise would be?
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By Lingling Wei
Updated Nov. 25, 2016 10:32 a.m. ET
63 COMMENTS
BEIJING—China plans to clamp tighter controls on Chinese companies seeking to invest overseas, intensifying efforts to slow a surge in capital fleeing offshore amid tepid growth and an uncertain economic outlook.
The State Council, China’s cabinet, will soon announce new measures that subject many overseas deals to reviews of “strict control,” according to people with direct knowledge of the matter and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Targeted for particular scrutiny by the pending measure are “extra-large” foreign acquisitions valued at $10 billion or more per deal, property investments by state-owned firms above $1 billion and investments of $1 billion or more by any Chinese company in an overseas entity unrelated to the investor’s core business.
While the government has been plugging holes to keep more money at home in recent months, the new measures are the first to go after big deals by China Inc.
In doing so, the controls underscore Beijing concerns about capital flight and a weakening currency. They also come amid an overseas buying binge by Chinese companies. Total overseas direct investment rose more than 50% to $145.9 billion in the first nine months of this year from the same time a year earlier, according to official data.
Chinese companies have been moving to scoop up needed technology and management expertise—much of it at Beijing’s blessing. Headline-grabbing deals include petrochemical giant China National Chemical Corp.’s pending $43 billion acquisition of Swiss pesticide maker Syngenta AG, and a bevy of real estate, finance and other investments by Anbang Insurance Group Co., a recently obscure company that has emerged as global deal maker.
In all, Chinese buyers have announced $212.7 billion of overseas acquisitions in 2016, a year in which announced global deal volume has reached $3.28 trillion.
Concerns have grown among officials that the investment splurge may in some cases serve as a cover for getting around capital controls and sending money overseas. “Greater caution definitely is warranted when it comes to what kind of overseas direct investment is allowed and which ones aren’t,” said a senior government adviser in Beijing.
The State Council’s information office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new measures. The new controls will apply to deals yet to receive approval from China’s top economic planning agency, the people familiar with the matter say.
The new controls, once in place, are to remain in effect until the end of September and thus are intended as a temporary tool to stabilize outflows ahead of a major reshuffle of the top echelon of the ruling Communist Party late next year, the people familiar with the matter said. That’s in keeping with other efforts by Beijing to try to keep the economy on an even keel before the leadership change.
China has been a magnet for foreign capital in recent decades, bolstering the economy. In the past couple of years, however, money has been flowing out as the long economic boom ebbs and the consumerism and services expected to drive new growth have yet to gather momentum.
A steady depreciation of the Chinese yuan, after years of overall strength, has ensued, and as businesses and individuals try to take more money out, the pressure for further weakening is piling on. In the past week the yuan has fallen to its lowest level against the dollar in eight years.
The country’s foreign-exchange reserves plunged $45.7 billion in October from September to $3.12 trillion. The Institute of International Finance, a Washington-based group of financial institutions world-wide, estimates that net outflows doubled to $207 billion in the third quarter from the previous three months. That figure is just shy of the estimated record $226 billion in outflows in the third quarter of last year.
Since then, authorities have sought to buttress the country’s financial borders, mostly by curtailing options for individuals to invest overseas. Those measures included a suspension of a quota-based program intended to allow more Chinese to buy foreign stocks and bonds and a ban on purchasing most types of foreign insurance policies with domestically-issued credit cards.
Attention on outbound investments has broadened recently. Officials at China’s foreign-exchange regulator warned in September that some companies as well as individuals may have fabricated deals as a way to circumvent capital controls and move money offshore.
Earlier this week, the central bank announced it will use a new risk-control system to monitor capital flows through Shanghai’s much promoted free trade zone, which previously was hailed as a bold experiment to liberalize China’s financial markets.
A five-page action plan released by the Shanghai branch of the People’s Bank of China stresses efforts to ensure that currency inflows exceed outflows in the zone—a backhanded suggestion that more money may be moving out of the zone than coming in.
The soon-to-be announced controls empower the Commerce Ministry and the top economic planning agency to take a closer look at larger deals, the people familiar with the matter said.
Under the current rules, companies trying to undertake many of the targeted transactions in foreign markets only need to register with the authorities and don’t have to go through any lengthy approval process.
Aside from the major transactions, other deals covered by the pending rules are: overseas direct investments made by limited partnerships, investments in overseas-listed companies that are less than 10% of those firms’ total equity, and Chinese capital trying to participate in the delisting of overseas-listed Chinese companies.
— Kersten Zhang and James T. Areddy contributed to this article.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-02/china-grappling-with-trump-turns-to-old-friend-kissinger
BTW, I tangentially note that many years ago that the Investors Business Daily went after Dr. Kissinger REALLY hard for all the consulting money the Chinese were paying him. I also note that under Trump's lobbying rules, Kissinger could not have done this.
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Americans had to get used to Donald Trump breaking all the rules of presidential campaigning, and it looks like the world will have to adjust to a President Trump who will also violate diplomatic convention. One early lesson is not to overreact to every break with State Department protocol as if it’s the start of World War III.
The U.S. media had their 19th nervous breakdown Friday after the Trump transition said the President-elect had taken a congratulatory call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. Mr. Trump also later tweeted that he had spoken to “the President of Taiwan.” Doesn’t he understand this simply isn’t done? No American President or President-elect has talked to a Taiwanese President since 1979, and this violation of tradition is being portrayed as a careless, bone-headed provocation to Beijing.
Well, maybe it was calculated—and perhaps even useful. Trump Asia adviser Peter Navarro has advocated cabinet-level visits to Taiwan and an end to the U.S. bow to Beijing’s “one China” policy, which insists that Taiwan is part of China and shouldn’t be treated as an independent state. Perhaps that goes too far, but it is past time for the U.S. to recalibrate its Taiwan policy.
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Ned Price, spokesman at the Obama National Security Council, suggested that Mr. Trump made a mistake, saying the U.S. remains “firmly committed to our ‘one China’ policy based on the three Joint Communiqués and the Taiwan Relations Act.” But the communiqués from the 1970s and ’80s do not say that the U.S. supports Beijing’s view of “one China,” only that the U.S. acknowledges that both China and Taiwan agree on that principle. That is a crucial distinction.
Taiwan and the world have also changed since those communiqués. Taiwan has become a prosperous and democratic polity integrated into the world economy. Most Taiwanese now want to maintain their de facto independence. They resent Beijing’s bullying to force their leaders to move toward reunification.
Previous U.S. Presidents have eased restrictions on contact with Taiwanese officials to reflect this reality. Bill Clinton let President Lee Teng-hui give a speech at Cornell University in 1995. George W. Bush allowed President Chen Shui-bian to visit the U.S. in transit to countries in Latin America that maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
The U.S. is obligated to assist the self-governing territory in defending itself under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, and every Administration since has sold weapons to Taiwan. Mr. Clinton sent a U.S. carrier through the Taiwan Strait in 1996 when China was especially threatening.
Previous Taiwanese leaders tried to exploit U.S. support to push for a formal declaration of independence, which Beijing warns would be cause for war. Mr. Trump has to be careful not to encourage Ms. Tsai, who has advocated for independence in the past, to make the same mistake. But Ms. Tsai has studiously avoided such declarations since her election earlier this year, and she has been careful to say she wants good relations with Beijing despite China’s attempt to isolate her.
Mr. Trump shouldn’t concede Beijing’s power to intimidate the world’s democracies into isolating Taiwan. The U.S. has an interest in supporting Taiwan as a model for China’s future development. And adapting Taiwan policy could benefit the wider U.S.-China relationship.
Beijing says denying sovereignty for Taiwan is a core interest. But the U.S. has a core interest in preventing North Korea from threatening the world with nuclear-armed missiles. The rest of Asia has a core interest in preventing China from unilaterally asserting its dominance over the East and South China Seas. Respect for core interests goes both ways.
It’s notable that China has reacted better than the U.S. media to Mr. Trump’s phone conversation. Beijing protested but its Foreign Minister dismissed it as a “petty trick” by Ms. Tsai. Beijing censored the news inside China, while the English-language China Daily suggested Mr. Trump simply made a mistake.
President Obama had no success convincing China to rein in Pyongyang, and Chinese officials walked all over him on his first visit in 2009. Mr. Trump’s tougher stance may prove to be a better opening move in the deal-making to come.
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second post:
By Rupert Hammond-Chambers
Dec. 4, 2016 4:24 p.m. ET
7 COMMENTS
President-elect Trump’s phone conversation Friday with Taiwan’s democratically elected leader is the kind of engagement that any new U.S. president should undertake as he prepares to take office. In talking with President Tsai Ing-wen, Mr. Trump demonstrated why his presidency has the potential to return badly needed credibility to a host of global challenges where the Obama Doctrine has left vacuums, rising tensions and conflict.
America’s relationship with Taiwan is a good example of the drift in U.S. interests. The Obama administration likes to declare that we are experiencing the “best relationship ever.” But this assessment is predicated on an expectation that neither the U.S. nor Taiwan has ambitions for their relationship. Both have been far too preoccupied with their ties with China—a focus that has emboldened Beijing and fostered instability in the Taiwan Strait.
As a result, a dangerous vacuum has opened up in the U.S. relationship with Taiwan. The administration has all but halted arms sales to Taiwan even though such sales are guaranteed under U.S. law and have long been a mainstay of U.S. security relations with the island. So, too, the trade relationship has faltered. Our trade ties are better suited to those between the U.S. and Malta than with our ninth-largest trading partner. Trade ties drift aimlessly in the absence of broader goals such as investment and tax agreements or a bilateral free-trade accord.
Meanwhile, the Chinese have been pressing their objective: the unification and occupation of Taiwan through peaceful or military means. Beijing pursues economic integration and its smothering embrace, while its military modernization focuses on invading and occupying Taiwan. It points nearly 2,000 cruise and ballistic missiles at Taiwan’s people.
The U.S. has failed to meet this challenge, and it is into this vacuum that Ms. Tsai was elected in January. China’s response to her election has been to pressure Taiwan’s remaining allies, cut off direct communications with Taipei, and damage commerce by restricting mainland Chinese tourism to the island. It has also undermined Taiwan’s efforts to broaden its engagement with the global health community and to integrate better into the world’s global aerospace and transportation organizations.
Tensions have risen between Taiwan and China as a function of Beijing’s belligerence, and the Obama administration has done next to nothing in response.
It is a point of deep frustration in both Taiwan and the U.S. that China can pursue hostile activity in the South China Sea, regularly violate the sovereign airspace of Japan and Taiwan, and steal American commercial and military technology, putting companies out of business and threatening American forces with new Chinese capabilities created out of U.S. technology. It is China’s actions that destabilize Asia—and Mr. Trump appears to understand that.
Many in the U.S. presume that China would willingly hurt its own interests in a range of areas in pursuit of gains on Taiwan. This is a deeply flawed argument. Beijing will continue to act in its own core interests as they relate to North Korea, Iran, climate change and many other issues. On Taiwan matters, the U.S. likes to negotiate with itself in a vain attempt to ward off “China’s anger.” Unilaterally curbing military support to Taiwan and turning a blind eye to Chinese provocations after democratic elections in Taiwan are but two examples.
Mr. Trump made a bold statement of support by talking with Ms. Tsai. Instead of throwing another Trump tantrum, America’s media might consider encouraging Chinese President Xi Jinping to follow Mr. Trump’s example and have his own phone conversation with her. Who knows? It might actually reduce tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
Mr. Hammond-Chambers is president of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council and a managing director at Bower Group Asia.
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Third post
Summary
The contested waters of the South China Sea are a geopolitical flashpoint, but for now they exist in a period of comparative calm. Following a July ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, countries with territorial claims in the waters struck a conciliatory tone, most prominently over the Scarborough Shoal — a barely submerged coral atoll that has become a touchstone for affairs between China and the Philippines, traditional adversaries in the South China Sea. A normally recalcitrant Beijing, forced to accept a more delicate and complex maritime arrangement in the region, is making placating gestures at last.
The shoal is emblematic of deeper issues at stake, namely the nature of maritime boundaries and bilateral concerns over fishing rights and exploitation of strategic territory. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte made a high-profile visit to China in October and, following a strategic recalibration on both sides, Beijing and Manila appeared to be moving toward a joint mechanism of control over the shoal. The aspiration is that the countries will eventually be able to achieve some form of coexistence. That said, such a delicate arrangement is susceptible to domestic pressure, especially from nationalist movements, and to additional sovereignty disputes that may develop.
Analysis
Since early November, China has quietly eased its naval blockade around Scarborough Shoal, which it seized in 2012 after a hostile standoff. As part of the ongoing appeasement process, Beijing not only allowed access to Filipino fishermen and vessels but also offered fishing assistance. Although Philippine coast guard vessels have also been permitted to return to the locale, many points of contention are unresolved. Beijing still exercises some degree of control over the shoal, including conducting routine patrols, and Manila will not ease its attempts to push maritime boundaries. China has blocked access to the shoal's central lagoon. In return, Duterte has called for a fishing ban in the lagoon itself. And there is the matter of the underlying claim of sovereignty, which remains unresolved. Even with this diplomatic chafing, however, Beijing and Manila appear to have enough strategic reasons to sustain the current arrangement, at least for now.
An Evolving Strategy
EEZ
The 1994 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea grants nations an exclusive economic zone of up to 200 nautical miles from the coast and around some islands, carrying rights to marine resources. This makes the official status of tiny rocks, reefs and islands essential.
Located 120 nautical miles from the Philippine mainland — well within Manila's internationally recognized exclusive economic zone — Scarborough Shoal also rests within the eastern edge of China's maritime claim, known as the nine-dash line. The shoal is crucial to Manila's territorial integrity and is a buttress when it comes to external security. Yet, it is also key terrain in Beijing's plan to become a maritime power. The net result of these incompatible positions is that neither side will back off its claim. For Manila, Beijing's seizure of the shoal — and subsequent expansionism — not only dealt a serious blow to Philippine maritime defense but also represents a diminishing opportunity to counter Beijing's broader maritime aggressiveness in a practical manner.
In achieving international legal intervention, Manila won a diplomatic upper hand, but despite the July arbitration ruling, effectively resisting Beijing physically proved impossible. Furthermore, the Philippines' vocal opposition to China and its orientation toward Washington (and, to a lesser extent, Tokyo) put Manila at risk of Chinese maritime aggression as well as economic and diplomatic alienation. In context, Duterte's diplomatic reorientation allows Manila to amend its volatile relationship with Beijing while attaining desirable economic concessions. At the same time, Duterte hopes to restore a Philippine presence along the maritime boundary. This, in turn, could help alleviate domestic resistance toward the regional rebalancing act.
Similarly, Beijing perceives eased relations with Manila over the South China Sea as an opportunity to expand its own strategic space. China's immediate concessions are a luxury afforded by its significant tactical advantage in the shoal: Its strong military presence and its naval and maritime enforcement advantage over the Philippines would allow Beijing to achieve full control if it so desires. Indeed, the chances of China reasserting itself there are high, despite Washington's warnings against such an action.
By offering some concessions on Scarborough Shoal, however, Beijing shows its far-reaching aspirations. An effective arrangement to manage the dispute demonstrates Beijing's willingness to negotiate, encouraging other South China Sea claimants to rethink their approach. Beijing hopes the diplomatic track will help reduce external involvement, leading to international acknowledgement of its maritime interests. Shortly after the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling, Beijing refashioned its joint energy exploration proposals — which had been stalled for years — and reached out to a number of claimant countries through significant economic concessions. Meanwhile, China also enticed Malaysia and Vietnam back toward bilateral negotiations, but with mixed results.
Beijing Tries Diplomacy
China's charm offensive is in part driven by an evolving strategic recalibration at home. Despite its ambition for maritime domination, Beijing's policy of expansionism over the past six years led to contradictory outcomes for its foreign policy agenda. South China Sea claimant states — most notably the Philippines and Vietnam, and to a lesser extent Indonesia and Malaysia — have responded to Beijing's activities by expanding their military capabilities while seeking cooperation from external powers, such as the United States, Japan and India. The result has been increasingly internationalized waters that, from China's perspective, equate to hostile competitors stalking its periphery. At the same time, Beijing understands that the strategic ambiguity over its maritime claims — its ungrounded nine-dash line, lack of clearly defined sovereignty and defiance of international law — has reached a limit.
It is unlikely that Beijing will ever ease its assertive behavior in the South China Sea. Rather, the new maritime status quo, aided by the court ruling, could lead China to reconsider which strategies best suit the country's immediate interests. New courses of action might take years to develop, but for now, Beijing's current imperatives — to avoid outright military confrontations, circumvent further interference from the international community and not provoke all of its Association of Southeast Asian Nations neighbors at once — make further antagonistic behavior counterproductive.
A High-Stakes Game
The fate of Scarborough Shoal speaks to the new maritime reality for most South China Sea claimants: China's dominant military and technological advantages. Lacking options to effectively counter Beijing's practical control, either by force or international intervention, claimant countries are rendered powerless. This also feeds the prevailing regional perception of Washington's reduced sway in the Asia-Pacific and explains the generally conciliatory gestures made by Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines. Beneath the status quo, however, one thing is assured: Every stakeholder in the South China Sea is working behind the scenes to strengthen its footing. Claimant countries continue to search for external supporters to bolster their defense and negotiation positions; China plots to take control of what it considers to be its rightful territory; and the United States, working within its regional alliance, must somehow continue to assert itself, even though the future presidential administration's intentions remain unknown for now.
Whether Beijing's conciliatory stance over Scarborough Shoal marks a genuine strategy shift or is simply a facade, the underlying fervor surrounding territorial rights will not dim anytime soon. China is a past master at manipulating sovereignty for its own ends and is more than content to provoke through words, if not actions. Beijing's talk of "allowing access" to the shoal rather than conceding a claim fuels nationalist sentiments in Manila. In many respects, Scarborough Shoal is a testing ground for China, and any future territorial challenges will depend on the political climate in claimant countries as well as abroad. There is also the question of Beijing's maritime ambitions, which might render the need for diplomacy obsolete.
As peaceful as things may appear on the surface, when it comes to Scarborough Shoal, the stakes are as high as they ever were. And when China no longer feels inhibited by the desire to play nice, there will be no dispute as to who physically owns the shoal. The question then switches to what, if anything, the region or the international community is prepared to do about it.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442753/trumps-taiwan-phone-call-good-sign-shifting-balance-power
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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-taiwan-arms-idUSKBN0TZ2C520151216
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I love how China has been slapping Obama in the face with their dicks and the US MSM has done zero coverage of it, and now suddenly Trump taking a phone call from Taiwan is the end of the fcuking world.
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I love how China has been slapping Obama in the face with their dicks and the US MSM has done zero coverage of it, and now suddenly Trump taking a phone call from Taiwan is the end of the fcuking world.
Great move by Trump even if he was only taking an incoming call.
Mike Pence to Stephie Stephanopoulus: “It's a little mystifying to me that President Obama can reach out to a murdering dictator in Cuba in the last year and be hailed as a hero for doing it and President-elect Donald Trump takes a courtesy call from a democratically elected leader in Taiwan and it’s become something of a controversy,”
Well put.
A democratically elected leader of 24 million people in a crucial and strategic area of the world, why wouldn't you take the call?
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BTW, apparently last week the Chinese flew nuclear capable planes around Taiwan.
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BTW, apparently last week the Chinese flew nuclear capable planes around Taiwan.
I am assuming the Obama administration sprung into action at this provocative act towards a country we are obligated to defend.
Perhaps a red line was drawn?
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BTW, apparently last week the Chinese flew nuclear capable planes around Taiwan.
I am assuming the Obama administration sprung into action at this provocative act towards a country we are obligated to defend.
Perhaps a red line was drawn?
Right. And what is the evidence that China walks on eggshells worrying what the US (Pres. Obama) thinks about their every provocative move?
It was a phone call. Marc Thiessen, Washington Post, also thought it was brilliant. Just saying, under new management shortly.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-taiwan-call-wasnt-a-blunder-it-was-brilliant/2016/12/05/d10169a2-bb00-11e6-ac85-094a21c44abc_story.html?utm_term=.f9d0f781699f
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http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/2053045/beijing-takes-aim-macau-gaming-industry-cut-currency-flight
Beijing takes aim at Macau gaming industry to cut currency flight
Move to slash in half the amount China UnionPay bank card holders can withdraw from ATMs in enclave expected to take effect Saturday
Beijing is about to turn its guns back on the gaming industry in its battle against the multi-billion-yuan outflow of capital from its economy as Macau prepares to slash in half the amount of cash China UnionPay bank card holders can withdraw from ATM machines in the city.
The move to cut the daily withdrawal limit from 10,000 to 5,000 patacas is expected to take effect from Saturday and follows the discovery that as much as 10 billion patacas in China UnionPay ATM withdrawals were made in one month alone.
It also comes amid so far unanswered claims that the customer voucher scheme run by Marina Bay Sands casino resort in Singapore – which apparently allows China UnionPay card users to buy gaming chips in breach of China’s strict currency controls – has seen billions of yuan flow out of the mainland.
The Monetary Authority of Macau’s ATM withdrawal cut is understood to be a reaction to attempts by illicit money movers to circumvent Beijing’s move at the beginning of this year to cap at 100,000 yuan (HK$112,600) the annual amount that UnionPay card holders could withdraw.
China backflips on currency policy with controls to stem yuan’s outflow
The Monetary Authority declined to answer questions from the Post.
A Macau finance industry insider told the Post: “What has happened is that individuals are turning up at ATM machines with stacks of cards from individual account holders and are withdrawing 10,000 a time.
Macau prepares to slash in half the amount of cash China UnionPay bank card holders can withdraw from ATM machines in the city. Photo: REUTERS
“The authorities have decided it is time to act and Beijing is backing the move.’’
Two years ago, Beijing put the squeeze on the multi-billion yuan flow of illicit cash through Macau by imposing a crackdown on the use of UnionPay point of service machines, which were being used to disguise overseas transactions as local mainland ones.
It also cracked down on the practice of pawnshops paying cash for products such as jewellery and watches bought with UnionPay cards to subvert currency controls.
The pressure appears to have had a possible knock-on effect in other casino jurisdictions like Singapore.
Macau to become a centre for yuan settlement, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang confirms
An investigation by the Post has uncovered claims that a voucher scheme operated by Marina Bay Sands casino resort in the Lion City could be an attempt to get around China’s currency controls. The scheme allows certain customers using UnionPay cards to exchange vouchers for casino chips in apparent contravention of the terms and conditions of use of the UnionPay cards.
By press time Thursday night, Marina Bay Sands – which had defended the practice – Singapore’s Casino Regulatory Authority and China UnionPay had not responded to questions from the Post about the scheme.
Gamblers are using more complex methods to circumvent Beijing's attempts to stop mainland money being gambled in Macau
Macau political commentator Sonny Lo said: “At the end of the day, national security is at stake for Beijing when it comes to the integrity of their currency and its outflow in massive amounts. This is what is behind these increasing moves by Beijing to stem capital outflow.”
The latest moves follow a fall in China’s foreign exchange reserves in November despite Beijing’s attempts to close the door on capital outflows.
The larger-than-expected decline in the world’s biggest stockpile of foreign exchange exposed the flaws in Beijing’s current approach of selling state reserves to support the yuan and was likely to force the authorities to take a stricter line on outbound investment and payments, analysts said.
The reserves shrank by US$69.1 billion last month to US$3.052 trillion, according to data released by the People’s Bank of China. The mainland has lost nearly US$1 trillion worth of reserves since the figure peaked in June 2014.
Documents obtained earlier by the Post show capital outflow controls are already in force involving forex clearance for outbound investment of more than US$5 million, plus stricter reviews in place over very large deals. Both outbound investment and these mega deals are set to limit the speed and size of capital flow.
Additional reporting by Gary Cheung and Wendy Wu
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The Other Israel
By Bruce Walker
Israel, through no fault of its own, is a pariah nation almost completely surrounded by larger nations that do not even recognize the existence of the State of Israel. Iran routinely refers to Israel as the "Little Satan," and European nations typically take overtly anti-Israeli policies to curry favor with Islam. Yet Israel is not alone in being disparaged for no reason other than that it is small and its enemies are large.
Taiwan, the Republic of China, is a free land that has political and civil values precisely like what we ought to want the rest of the world to have. Freedom House has only two nations in Asia stretching from Sinai to Sakhalin listed as "Free," Japan and Taiwan, which has a freer press than even Israel or South Korea. The contrast between Taiwan and most nations in Asia is as stark as the contrast between Israel and the nations surrounding it in west Asia and north Africa.
Freedom House gives Taiwan the "1" rating (the highest rating) for political rights and "2" for civil rights, exactly the same rating as Israel. China, by contrast, is listed as "unfree," the worst category, and it has a "7" rating (the lowest rating) for political rights and a "6" (the second lowest rating) for civil rights.
Taiwan is a prosperous land, despite the absence of natural resources. The island's per capita GDP is $47,000 per year – higher than Germany or France or Canada – and just as Taiwan is as free and democratic as Israel, Taiwan is as prosperous as Israel, despite, like Israel, having no real wealth except the diligence and intelligence of its people.
The per capita income in China is that is 30% of the per capita income in Taiwan. The per capita income of Jordan and Egypt, to pick two peaceful nations as close to Israel as China is to Taiwan, is 30% of the per capita income of Israel. Indeed, Taiwan has a high per capita income than any nation in Asia – including Japan and South Korea – except Singapore.
Taiwan has no fewer than five political parties with seats in its national legislature and ten parties with seats in municipal or county government. Tsai Ing-wen, elected like Trump earlier this year, was the first woman to be elected president of the Taiwan, and real feminists (there aren't any, of course) would be thrilled that Trump talked to her when Obama and Hillary did not.
Our attitude toward Taiwan reeks of the same sort of sick double standard we are used to seeing in how nations that ought to know better deal with Israel. Both states represent the answer to virtually all our national security and diplomatic problems. Indeed, Taiwan and Israel are, in a practical sense, our two best allies in the world.
But there is another reason to celebrate rather than timidly skirt around the success of Taiwan and Israel. The transformation of the rest of Asia and Africa into countries that embrace civil rights, democracy, peaceful prosperity, and friendly relations with all who will be friendly in return is the precise solution to the problems of the world.
If the rest of west Asia and Africa had the levels of freedom and liberty and prosperity that exist in Israel, our problem with global terrorism would largely vanish as the liberated peoples in these lands found better use for their sons and daughters than as suicide bombers. If the Pacific Basin from the shores of Asia to the coast of Latin America had the levels of freedom and liberty and prosperity that exist in Taiwan, the flood of illegal aliens across our southern border would slow to a tickle as these people found in their native lands a good place to live.
President Trump ought to continue what he seems to have started: not shrinking from our true and most logical friends in the world, Taiwan and Israel, but rather publicly recognizing the truth that these nations are models, not pariahs, and that despite daunting obstacles and enemies, both of these nations work in the way we wish all other nations worked.
Israel, through no fault of its own, is a pariah nation almost completely surrounded by larger nations that do not even recognize the existence of the State of Israel. Iran routinely refers to Israel as the "Little Satan," and European nations typically take overtly anti-Israeli policies to curry favor with Islam. Yet Israel is not alone in being disparaged for no reason other than that it is small and its enemies are large.
Taiwan, the Republic of China, is a free land that has political and civil values precisely like what we ought to want the rest of the world to have. Freedom House has only two nations in Asia stretching from Sinai to Sakhalin listed as "Free," Japan and Taiwan, which has a freer press than even Israel or South Korea. The contrast between Taiwan and most nations in Asia is as stark as the contrast between Israel and the nations surrounding it in west Asia and north Africa.
Freedom House gives Taiwan the "1" rating (the highest rating) for political rights and "2" for civil rights, exactly the same rating as Israel. China, by contrast, is listed as "unfree," the worst category, and it has a "7" rating (the lowest rating) for political rights and a "6" (the second lowest rating) for civil rights.
Taiwan is a prosperous land, despite the absence of natural resources. The island's per capita GDP is $47,000 per year – higher than Germany or France or Canada – and just as Taiwan is as free and democratic as Israel, Taiwan is as prosperous as Israel, despite, like Israel, having no real wealth except the diligence and intelligence of its people.
The per capita income in China is that is 30% of the per capita income in Taiwan. The per capita income of Jordan and Egypt, to pick two peaceful nations as close to Israel as China is to Taiwan, is 30% of the per capita income of Israel. Indeed, Taiwan has a high per capita income than any nation in Asia – including Japan and South Korea – except Singapore.
Taiwan has no fewer than five political parties with seats in its national legislature and ten parties with seats in municipal or county government. Tsai Ing-wen, elected like Trump earlier this year, was the first woman to be elected president of the Taiwan, and real feminists (there aren't any, of course) would be thrilled that Trump talked to her when Obama and Hillary did not.
Our attitude toward Taiwan reeks of the same sort of sick double standard we are used to seeing in how nations that ought to know better deal with Israel. Both states represent the answer to virtually all our national security and diplomatic problems. Indeed, Taiwan and Israel are, in a practical sense, our two best allies in the world.
But there is another reason to celebrate rather than timidly skirt around the success of Taiwan and Israel. The transformation of the rest of Asia and Africa into countries that embrace civil rights, democracy, peaceful prosperity, and friendly relations with all who will be friendly in return is the precise solution to the problems of the world.
If the rest of west Asia and Africa had the levels of freedom and liberty and prosperity that exist in Israel, our problem with global terrorism would largely vanish as the liberated peoples in these lands found better use for their sons and daughters than as suicide bombers. If the Pacific Basin from the shores of Asia to the coast of Latin America had the levels of freedom and liberty and prosperity that exist in Taiwan, the flood of illegal aliens across our southern border would slow to a tickle as these people found in their native lands a good place to live.
President Trump ought to continue what he seems to have started: not shrinking from our true and most logical friends in the world, Taiwan and Israel, but rather publicly recognizing the truth that these nations are models, not pariahs, and that despite daunting obstacles and enemies, both of these nations work in the way we wish all other nations worked.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/12/the_other_israel.html
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For the charts themselves go to
feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tMBeq/~3/5_BzpgDO-Tc/chinas-problem-is-too-much-money.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email
China's problem is too much money
Posted: 09 Dec 2016 11:30 PM PST
The Chinese yuan has fallen from a high 6 per dollar three years ago to 6.91 today, and China's foreign exchange reserves have fallen from a high of $3.99 trillion in mid-2014 to $$3.05 trillion as of the end of November. Yet despite the almost 25% decline in China's forex reserves (a key component of China's monetary base), the amount of money in China continues to grow, and has increased over 10% in the past year. There is something wrong with this picture.
A declining yuan alongside declining forex reserves is powerful evidence of significant capital flight. Investors, individuals, and corporations apparently wish to reduce their exposure to the Chinese economy, and that's why the demand for yuan is falling. This problem won't be solved until the dollar value of the Chinese money supply declines by enough to match the decline in the demand for yuan. That can be accomplished by 1) shrinking the monetary base and the money supply, 2) devaluing the yuan vis a vis the dollar, and/or 3) inflating the Chinese price level. Alternatively, China could take steps to boost confidence in the yuan (e.g., by allowing the monetary base to shrink) or boost the demand for yuan (e.g., anything that improves China's long-term economic growth potential).
China's forex reserves are declining because the central bank is selling its foreign assets (mostly held in dollar securities), in an effort to try to support the currency; in effect the central bank is accommodating capital flight. The fact that the currency continues to decline suggests that forex sales have not been sufficient to stem the decline. It's not too hard to see why: the central bank is not allowing the decline in reserves to shrink the monetary base, and indeed, the amount of yuan in circulation continues to rise. Ordinarily, capital flight that is accommodated by central bank sales of forex would result in a shrinkage in the money supply, and that shrinkage would eventually bring the supply of yuan back into line with the declining demand for yuan.
To make matters worse, the ongoing increase in the amount of yuan in China, despite the decline in the demand for same, means the central bank is selling dollar assets and buying Chinese assets, thus “degrading” the quality of the yuan and allowing the oversupply of yuan to continue. The central bank is not allowing capital flight to shrink the monetary base. Replacing dollar assets with yuan-denominated assets in the monetary base is eroding the effective quality of the yuan, and that does little or nothing to maintain confidence in the yuan.
China is not taking adequate steps to address the decline in the demand for yuan. This means that the problem of capital flight and the decline in the value of the yuan will continue, despite China's best efforts to physically stem capital flight. It also means that Chinese inflation is likely to rise. Unless properly addressed, these problems will persist, and they will further weaken the Chinese economy. That is not good for China or for the world. It's difficult to see how exactly this will play out, and what impact it could have on the U.S. economy.
A crisis is not likely imminent, however, since China still sits on a virtual mountain of forex reserves, and the dollar value of Shanghai Composite Index is up over 15% since January. But as John Cochrane muses, and today's WSJ op-ed points out, there are disturbing things going on that bear watching.
At the very least, this makes Trump's demand that China boost the value of its currency vis a vis the dollar a virtual impossibility. (!!!!!!!!!!!)
The chart above summarizes the central facts. As it suggests, the persistence of capital flight is forcing the central bank to devalue the yuan.
Despite the yuan's decline in recent years, it is still very strong against a basket of trade-weighted, inflation-adjusted currencies.
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http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2016/12/09/vietnam-begins-island-building-project-south-china-sea/
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Trump could work out a deal to build a resort hotel/casino on the man made island.
Steve Wynn could add his casino too.
Take that Macau.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/11/business/dealbook/china-small-investors-us-money.html?emc=edit_th_20161212&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/11/business/dealbook/china-small-investors-us-money.html?emc=edit_th_20161212&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0
Could be some really opportunities in this.
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I thought you might find it interesting ;-)
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https://sg.news.yahoo.com/us-warns-aggressive-beijing-south-china-sea-071820241.html
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China Installs Weapons in South China Sea, Satellites Show
President Xi Jinping had pledged not to place arms on the islands in the Spratly archipelago
0:00 / 0:00
China has installed weapons on all seven of the artificial islands it has built in disputed water of the South China Sea, according to a U.S. think tank’s analysis of satellite imagery. Photo: Digitalglobe/Reuters
By Jeremy Page
Updated Dec. 15, 2016 6:20 a.m. ET
308 COMMENTS
BEIJING—A U.S. think-tank report that China has installed antiaircraft and other weapons on all seven islands it has built in the South China Sea is raising the stakes in a regional dispute as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump signals he is ready to confront Beijing on territorial issues.
The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative said late Wednesday that satellite imagery showed China had installed the weapons in recent months, despite President Xi Jinping’s pledge not to militarize the islands in the Spratly archipelago, where Beijing’s territorial claims overlap with those of several other governments.
China’s Defense Ministry in a statement on its website Thursday afternoon reiterated that any reef construction was mainly for civil use, though it appeared to also send a message to the U.S. “As to the necessary military facilities, they are mainly for defense and self-defense, which is appropriate and legal. For example, if someone is showing off their strength on your doorstep, can’t you even prepare a slingshot?”
China’s island-building over the past three years has raised fears in the U.S. and among its Asian allies and partners that Beijing plans to use its expanding military power to enforce its territorial claims and to take control of a shipping route that carries more than $5 trillion of world trade annually.
The U.S. says it doesn’t take sides in the territorial dispute but has often sent military planes and ships through the area, sometimes close to Beijing’s artificial islands, to demonstrate its right to freedom of navigation through what it sees as international waters.
Mr. Trump has indicated he will take a much harder line than his predecessor toward China, suggesting in the past two weeks alone that he would review U.S. commitments on the highly sensitive issue of Taiwan and accusing Beijing of building a “massive military complex” in the South China Sea.
Those comments have revived tensions in the region, which had appeared to ease over the past months, in particular as Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte set aside Manila’s South China Sea dispute with Beijing in favor of expanding economic links.
“If the [AMTI] report is true, then it is a cause for serious concern because it tends to raise tension and undermine peace and stability in the region,” Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Charles Jose said.
An aerial photo of Subi Reef taken Nov. 17. ENLARGE
An aerial photo of Subi Reef taken Nov. 17. Photo: CSIS/AMTI DigitalGlobe
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop echoed the sentiment. “The building of artificial islands and the possible militarization is creating an environment of tension and mistrust between claimants and other regional states,” she said. Canberra signed a deal on Wednesday with Washington to base U.S. F-22 Raptor stealth jet fighters in Australia’s north from next year, a sign of the U.S. military commitment to the region.
China’s weapons deployment predates Mr. Trump’s recent remarks and is in line with Beijing’s long-term strategy to steadily upgrade military facilities on the islands, which it says are mainly for purposes such as weather monitoring and search and rescue.
“I want to stress that deployment of necessary defense facilities by China on its own territory has nothing to do with militarization,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang in a regular briefing on Thursday.
But analysts say the new weaponry will significantly enhance China’s capability to control the surrounding waters and to enforce a potential air-defense identification zone in the area like the one Beijing declared in 2013 over the East China Sea, where it has a territorial dispute with Japan. China has said it reserves the right to declare such a zone in the South China Sea as well.
Fiery Cross Reef, Nov. 10.
Fiery Cross Reef, Nov. 10. Photo: CSIS/AMTI DigitalGlobe
The deployments are unlikely to disrupt Beijing’s outreach to other claimants, but could compound efforts by some to upgrade defense ties with the U.S. and their own armed forces; Vietnam, especially, has been expanding the South China Sea islands it controls—although on a much smaller scale.
“We mustn’t interpret this as being specifically directed at President-elect Trump,” said Ian Storey, an expert on maritime security at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. “Nevertheless, it will fuel the debate in Washington over how the U.S. should respond to Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea.”
Mr. Storey said the U.S. might send military ships or planes near China’s man-made islands to demonstrate its right to freedom of navigation once more before President Barack Obama leaves office, operations that have become largely symbolic. “Beijing will be more concerned about what happens after Trump is inaugurated in January, he added.
‘I say this often but it’s worth repeating—we will cooperate where we can and be ready to confront where we must.’
—Adm. Harry Harris, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, in Australia on Wednesday.
AMTI, run by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that since June and July it had tracked construction of hexagonal structures on three artificial islands—Fiery Cross, Mischief Reef and Subi Reef—where China has built airstrips large enough to accommodate military aircraft.
Those structures are nearly identical to defensive fortifications built earlier at four smaller artificial islands, which appear to include antiaircraft guns and probably close-in weapons systems, or CIWS, designed to track and shoot down cruise missiles, AMTI said.
Adm. Harry Harris, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, said in a speech at an Australian think tank on Wednesday that the U.S. “will not allow the shared domains to be closed down unilaterally no matter how many bases are built on artificial features in the South China Sea.” He added, “We will cooperate where we can and be ready to confront where we must.”
AMTI said the weapons it identified could be used to back up a defensive umbrella provided by a future deployment to the islands of mobile surface-to-air missile systems.
—Cris Larano in Manila and Rob Taylor in Canberra, Australia, contributed to this article.
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China Arms Its Great Wall of Sand
New Spratly bases are equipped to take on a superpower adversary.
Dec. 15, 2016 7:28 p.m. ET
14 COMMENTS
For a man who stood at the White House in September 2015 and promised not to militarize the South China Sea, Xi Jinping is sure doing a lot of militarizing. Satellite photos released Thursday indicate China has deployed powerful antiaircraft and antimissile systems to all seven of its new artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago, along shipping lanes that carry $5 trillion in trade a year. This is a “massive military complex,” as Donald Trump noted recently, and it’s worth detailing how massive.
Three years ago these were only specks of land, some submerged at high tide, but China has since built 3,000 acres of territory. (The flight deck of the newest U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, is only 4.5 acres.) This is more space, with more potential military value, than China would need simply to face down its smaller neighbors—suggesting that, as U.S. Navy Commander Thomas Shugart wrote recently, “China perhaps has a larger foe in mind.”
In this satellite image released on Dec. 13, CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative identifies what appear to be antiaircraft guns and what are likely to be close-in weapons systems on the artificial island Johnson Reef in the South China Sea. ENLARGE
In this satellite image released on Dec. 13, CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative identifies what appear to be antiaircraft guns and what are likely to be close-in weapons systems on the artificial island Johnson Reef in the South China Sea. Photo: CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative/DigitalGlobe/Reuters
As Commander Shugart wrote at the website War on the Rocks, three of China’s artificial islands are comparable in size to typical fighter bases in mainland China, with facilities that could be large enough for an entire fighter division of 17,000 personnel. Subi Reef now has a harbor bigger than Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor, and the aptly named Mischief Reef has a land perimeter nearly equal to Washington, D.C.’s.
That’s enough space to deploy, hide and defend mobile missiles that would threaten targets across the South China Sea, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and beyond. The boost to China’s already formidable “anti-access/area-denial” capabilities will be substantial. If Beijing also deploys floating nuclear-power plants to the area, as it intends, then its military facilities would be even more likely to become permanent fixtures on the East Asian map.
So it’s significant that, as the Center for Strategic and International Studies said in releasing its satellite images, Beijing has equipped its artificial islands with antiaircraft guns, targeting radar for guiding missiles and other weapons, and close-in weapons systems for defending against cruise-missiles. “We did not know that they had systems this big and this advanced there,” said researcher Greg Poling. “It means that you are prepping for a future conflict.”
The Philippines expressed “serious concern” through a spokesman Thursday, but President Rodrigo Duterte remains in an appeasing mood toward China. Indonesia in a first joined this week with India in urging China to respect the international Law of the Sea. Vietnam has begun to harden its modest defenses on the Spratly features it controls. It deployed mobile rocket launchers in August, an understandable response that nonetheless raises the risk of accident or miscalculation.
All of this means Donald Trump will soon take office facing a daily risk of hostilities over islands that didn’t exist when President Obama was last sworn in. “We will not allow the shared domains to be closed down unilaterally—no matter how many bases are built on artificial features in the South China Sea,” U.S. Pacific Commander Admiral Harry Harris said in Australia on Wednesday.
Nearly two years ago Admiral Harris warned that China was building a “Great Wall of Sand” at sea. Here’s hoping Mr. Trump seeks his good counsel come January.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/china-seizes-american-underwater-drone-south-china-sea-article-1.2913124
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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/china-seizes-american-underwater-drone-south-china-sea-article-1.2913124
China has a month to do whatever.
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http://warontherocks.com/2015/02/ten-reasons-why-china-will-have-trouble-fighting-a-modern-war/
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http://warontherocks.com/2015/02/ten-reasons-why-china-will-have-trouble-fighting-a-modern-war/
Although the article raises many valid points, China is planning on short, sharp wars and intends to use asymmetrical 4th gen warfare. They will not fight in a way that allows us to use our strengths. When the Gulf war resulted in our very lopsided victory, China totally changed it's gameplan and set to modernizing it's military.
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https://www.stratfor.com/snapshots/china-captures-us-navy-drone-south-china-sea?utm_campaign=LL_Content_Digest&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_8ZhaoWeeJK278c3NM3V_cmBgCWsKUtAifpON70wk3WFR1Ldc-PV5UpnTg3QPJSDeGdmAFfsINCvMrt7lJ4Nk42fAhSQ&_hsmi=39413471&utm_content=39413471&utm_source=hs_email&hsCtaTracking=c398680f-01cb-4275-9324-d25ac967ce11|9a7f7cef-b16c-43d8-a4c3-80650a903f03
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second post
China's first operational aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, carried out its first live fire exercise in the Bohai Sea a few days ago, according to the Chinese Ministry of National Defense. The carrier scrambled J-15 jets to engage targets with live ordnance while the ship itself practiced anti-missile defense drills by engaging incoming threats with its air defense systems. The flight deck of the Liaoning is of a ski-ramp design, which means that aircraft have to obey a weight limit in order to take off. This, in turn, negatively affects their fuel capacity and ordnance payload. Nevertheless, imagery and video released by the Chinese military highlighted how the embarked J-15 aircraft are still able to deploy with a limited number of PL-12 air-to-air missiles and YJ-83 anti-ship missiles.
In addition to launching and recovering aircraft, the Liaoning also practiced operating alongside other vessels as a combined battle group, with frigates and destroyers acting as escorts to the aircraft carrier, fulfilling various roles as dictated by the scenario. Despite rapid progress, China's carrier aviation remains in the early stages of development. The Liaoning has yet to embark a full compliment of aircraft and only initial batches of the carrier's actual aircrew have been trained. Furthermore, the live fire exercise carried out by the Liaoning battle group took place very close to Chinese shores, and not far from the carrier's homeport.
China previously announced that the Liaoning was ready for combat, but the reality is that the aircraft carrier will largely remain a training vessel focused on the development of initial cadres of carrier aviation pilots and crew. Nevertheless, China has an ambitious carrier program in place, with another ski-ramp carrier design nearing completion, closely followed by a more modern catapult design shortly after. China's third aircraft carrier, incorporating the catapult design, will be the first fully-capable Chinese aircraft carrier and will embark the full range of carrier aircraft types required — aircraft that are currently under development in China.
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Third post:
Lots of charts and maps in the original, which was written in February:
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Forecast
South China Sea tensions will rise in the long-term as China exhausts its near-shore fisheries and continues to push outward to secure further stocks.
In Asia, consumption of fish will increase with population and industrialization, boosting pressure on claimant countries to control their waters.
Fishing vessels will continue to spark short, sharp crises and risk further upset to the delicate balance in Asia's disputed waters.
Analysis
China is pushing outward. The country has made steady moves to reclaim its role as the pre-eminent power in the Pacific Rim. This expansion, however, differs from those made at any other time in its history. For most of China's existence, it was a continental power endowed with sufficient resources with an economy driven by self-contained markets. External trade was a factor but moved mostly by land, primarily via the Silk Road. Sea trade also did occur, but China's coast was generally a liability — a point of incursion to protect from raiders and hostile powers. China was not compelled to explore the seas and seek new lands.
Until recently, modern China hewed to this pattern. This began to change by the late 1990s, when China's economic boom started to strain domestic resources. At the turn of the century, imports of key commodities began to outstrip domestic production, exports ballooned and China became reliant on maritime transport. The very success of China's economic growth brought new vulnerabilities.
Because the United States maintains effective control of the world's oceans, this is a difficult move for China. Beijing has opted for a two-pronged strategy: diversifying away from sea routes with its Belt and Road Initiative and building up its naval strength, capacity and reach. But the push to solidify its claims to maritime territory is upsetting the balance of power in the Pacific Rim and challenging a pillar of the U.S.-centric world order: freedom of navigation.
Many Waters
China's reorientation toward the sea is particularly disruptive given Asia's geopolitics. Although Europe and Asia share the Eurasian landmass, their geopolitics differ fundamentally. Europe, a continent crowded with nations vying for space, is defined by land borders that ebb and flow like the tides. East Asia, by contrast, is defined by the sea and ringed by populous coasts, a space defined by maritime transit and resources. The sea serves as both the barrier and the pathway between the mainland and the archipelago. Europe's land borders might be contentious, but they can at least be clearly delineated. Maritime borders are ephemeral and subject to diverse concepts of use and passage.
What has emerged is a rising sense of competition and even potential conflict in the South and East China seas, driven by fear of losing control of key supply lines, competing maritime territorial claims, differing interpretations of maritime agreements, and competition for resources in these seas themselves. Much has been said about competition over sub-sea mineral resources, from claims of vast potential reserves of oil and natural gas to seabed methane and ocean mining. Although oil and natural gas reserves are actively exploited around the periphery of these seas, little significant exploration has been done in much of the contested areas, and assertions of a "second Arabian Gulf" are greatly exaggerated.
But there is one very real and actively exploited resource in those waters that is often overlooked: fish and other marine foodstuffs. Clashes over fishing grounds are frequent, volatile and mostly out of the control of the various regional governments. Given the size of the seas, maritime patrols are infrequent. The absence of strong regulation or enforcement allows room for gray areas to be exploited and territorial waters to be violated. Poor regulation and enforcement of boundaries make the security situation even more opaque and complex. Fishermen are both exploited by and exploit nationalist government sentiments and willfully push the boundaries of fisheries. As with the agricultural sector, the fishing industry and its countless small-scale producers, can have a disproportionate effect on political decision-making.
Feeding Asian Growth
In Asia, fish and other marine foodstuffs play a greater role in diets than in the West. Seafood production is an important source of employment and a vital component of national economies. Asian fisheries make up half the global total capture production, and six of the top 10 producers of marine products are in Asia.
In South Korea and Japan, seafood makes up about 20 percent of the protein supply and contributes more than 15 percent in Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. It makes up more than 10 percent of protein supply in Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, and while it was at around 8.5 percent in China, between 2008 and 2011 there was a 13 percent increase in the role of seafood in China's national protein consumption. By comparison, seafood provides a little over 5 percent of protein consumption in the United Kingdom, a little less than 5 percent in the United States and less than 4.5 percent in Germany.
In addition to its important role in national diets (and national food security), seafood also plays an important economic role. There are an estimated 1.72 million fishing vessels plying the waters of the South China Sea alone, employing some 5.4 million people. And Asia's fleets are growing faster than those of the rest of the world. Since the late 1980s, the overall size of the world's fishing fleets has stabilized, but the Asian fleet has nearly doubled, comprising around three-quarters of the world's powered fishing vessels. In 2014, Asia contributed a third of global seafood exports, with China alone accounting for 12.5 percent of total global exports, up from just 7 percent in 2007, with the value of China's exports growing nearly 200 percent over the same period. In Indonesia, fisheries contribute more than 3 percent to total national gross domestic product. In other countries, the numbers are harder to come by, as fisheries are often included with agriculture and forestry in statistics. Many countries in Asia have sizable local fishing communities, and as with agricultural concerns, these often have a greater political impact than their economic share might suggest.
Fish and other maritime products are particularly important to China. After the 1978 economic opening and reform program, Beijing actively sought to expand its fishing fleet and activities. Since then, China's seafood production has grown at a rate of 7.6 percent per year, making China the largest single producer of seafood in the region and second only to a combined Southeast Asia.
The value of the fishing industry in China has risen to 1.9 trillion yuan ($289 billion) in 2013, with fish now its top agricultural export. There were nearly 10,000 fish processing companies in China in 2013, employing 400,000 workers, predominately in Shandong, Liaoning and Fujian. Overall, the fisheries and marine foodstuffs industries in China provide nearly 14.5 million jobs, and China boasted 695,000 fishing vessels in 2013, a sharp rise from the 52,225 in 1979. Chinese fishermen earn almost 50 percent more than their farming counterparts, and as of 2010, China was spending $4 billion a year in subsidies to the industry.
Dwindling Resources
The marine fishing industry has long been important in Asia, and in the 20th century, it saw several boom and bust cycles with the expansion of mechanized fishing fleets and increased consumption and export patterns. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), signed in 1982 and designed to clarify maritime use and international regulations, may have inadvertently spurred both an expansion of regional fishing and increased competition and confrontation in the enclosed waters of Asia. The creation of UNCLOS introduced a use-it-or-lose-it element to exploitation of maritime resources, and Asian countries responded with increased fishing activity. Already strained fisheries grew even less productive, triggering a further expansion of fishing outward from the coasts to the formerly common and now contested waters farther out. UNCLOS also defined what a nation could claim as its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), spurring countries to claim previously unimportant landmasses in order to capture a larger EEZ.
In 1978, China set the goal of self-sufficiency in fishery products, finally achieving it in 2002. But as elsewhere in Asia, this rapid rise in activity saw depletion of stocks along the Chinese coast. In 1985, nearly 90 percent of Chinese fishing was inshore, but by 2002, the last year for reliable statistics, that had fallen to just under 65 percent, and the share of offshore fishing continues to rise. Chinese government plans to expand fishing, fish processing and exports of fishery products will impact this trend even more. The Chinese fish processing industry is operating at only around 70 percent of capacity, failing to reach the full utilization rates called for in the 12th Five-Year Plan, which ran from 2011-2015. China's 2015 agriculture report contains calls for even more overall fish production, with goals of 73 million tons annually by 2020 and 77 million tons by 2024, and a call to increase exports to 5.4 million tons by 2024.
As much as China's expansion of regulatory and defensive activity in the South China Sea is driven by strategic security and protection of transport routes, it is also driven by the immediate realities of China's maritime products production and consumption. China couches much of its activities in the South China Sea as focusing on the safety of fishing fleets and argues that the waters are Chinese waters traditionally, thus open for Chinese fleets. In the face of criticism from neighbors, China has argued at times that its fleets need to fish, and if they cross into others' waters accidentally, this is not something China can always stop or control. In 2012, the Chinese government assessed its main fishing areas — the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the South China Sea. The survey recognized the significantly reduced stocks in the Bohai and Yellow seas and called for a reduction in fishing to allow stocks to replenish. But it argued for an increase in fishing in the East and South China seas, and Beijing encouraged fishing through fuel subsidies and surveys of fishing stocks around the disputed Spratly Islands.
Confrontations over fishing are one of the most active and visible forms of competition in the South China Sea and the enclosed waters of Asia. The increase in fishing, the decrease in near-shore stocks, government subsidies to spur the maritime industry, and rising consumption of fisheries products at home and abroad are only adding to the frequency of clashes over fishing fleets — clashes that have the potential to explode into more active military confrontation. Looking north to the two Koreas, at least two recent maritime incidents between the two countries, ones that led to the sinking of ships and killing of naval personnel, occurred as each country sought to protect its claimed fishing waters in the Yellow Sea. Throughout Asian waters, fishing vessels are engaged in violent confrontations with other nations' coast guards, ships' crews are arrested and detained, and vessels are confiscated and scuttled. These contribute to national tensions and social distrust among nations.
Governments are also exploiting their fishing fleets at times to reinforce nationalist sentiments and territorial claims. It is not unusual to see reports of massive Chinese or Taiwanese fleets setting off adorned with nationalist slogans and asserting rights to fish around contested islets. In 2014, amid a standoff between China and Vietnam over China's moves to build a permanent oil platform near the South China Sea's Paracel Islands, both countries encouraged fishing fleets to enter the area to disrupt their adversaries' plans and to complicate matters for the others' maritime security forces. But such exploitation has unintended consequences. Fishing fleets often pursue their catch into contested areas, assuming that their governments will provide protection. Governments at times are forced to try to rein in these very fishing fleets that they encourage, or at least turn a blind eye to. And with the massive fleets at sea, each seeking whatever advantage it can garner, even if that means fishing contested waters or violating national maritime territories, the chances for unintended confrontations grow. This is a process that may be relatively easy to turn on but hard to turn off.
Subsea mineral resources, national sovereignty and critical supply lines are all drivers of regional maritime policy and sources of friction, but fisheries are an active and somewhat uncontrollable force that can serve as the spark of confrontation. Expanding fisheries activities in enclosed waters means greater chances for accidents, illegal activity and confrontation. As the drive for agricultural land drove conflict and expansion on land, the drive for maritime resources, particularly fisheries products, is driving a "land grab" in Asia's enclosed seas. Maritime security and naval forces are growing in size, assertions of national sovereignty are becoming more concrete, and keeping track of the 1.72 million fishing vessels in the South China Sea alone is not only a daunting task, it is one that can draw neighbors into more active confrontation.
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Summary
As China tries to make nice with some of its rivals in the South China Sea, Vietnam is quietly building up its own maritime defenses. Over the past month, a series of satellite images has shown that Hanoi is accelerating its island reclamation and fortification efforts in the Spratly island chain. Combined with its pursuit of defense partnerships with the United States, Russia, France and India, as well as its improving air and naval assets, Vietnam appears determined to thwart China's ambitions to expand its claims over the disputed waters.
Some of Vietnam's neighbors, however, may spoil its plans. The Philippines and Malaysia have given in to Chinese pressure and agreed to manage their territorial feuds with Beijing through bilateral talks rather than international arbitration. Though Vietnam has tried to avoid drawing China's ire by mending ties with it in other ways, Hanoi's continued defiance on maritime issues could incite retaliation from Beijing that leaves Vietnam with little choice, in the end, but to follow its neighbors' lead.
Analysis
Vietnam's practice of fortifying islands and reefs under its control is nothing new. Military installations and garrisons have dotted the features of the Spratly archipelago — including the Southwest Cay, Sin Cowe Island and Spratly Island itself — for some time. But over the past two years, Vietnam has redoubled its efforts to reclaim and build up these islets and reefs, creating over 50 hectares (120 acres) of new land in the archipelago in spite of U.S. calls for it to stop so as to avoid escalating tensions in the sea.
Vietnam Engineers a Deterrent
Based on satellite imagery, Vietnam's latest projects on Spratly Island include the extension of a 600-meter (2,000-foot) runway to 1,200 meters and the construction of two large hangars, in addition to the two that already existed. Once these projects are finished, the island will be able to accommodate most of the Vietnamese air force's aircraft. According to an assessment by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, they also indicate that Hanoi will probably deploy noncombat aircraft, such as its PZL M28B maritime surveillance planes and CASA C-295 transport planes, to Spratly Island. Meanwhile, dredging work has been spotted at the nearby Ladd Reef that could be designed to provide shelter for Vietnamese vessels inside the lagoon. Unconfirmed reports indicated that Vietnam has positioned rocket artillery in the island chain as well, though Hanoi has denied the claims.
The new features are no match for China's aggressive buildup in the South China Sea, but they are notable for their position. Located on the sea's southwestern rim, Spratly Island stands apart from most of the other islets in the Spratly archipelago, boasting a comparatively large exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of its own. It also serves as Vietnam's key military outpost in the Spratly island chain, just as the Thitu and Taiping islands do for the Philippines and Taiwan, respectively. But perhaps just as important, Spratly Island rests on the western edge of the nine-dash line that China insists delineates its South China Sea holdings. Under Beijing's definition, Spratly Island — and the vast potential resources that fall within its EEZ — belongs to China. Should Vietnam's claim to the island be verified, it could invalidate the rest of the nine-dash line boundary as well. Hanoi is not taking any chances as China's creeping encroachment has left Vietnam's island defenses vulnerable, and it hopes that bolstering its military posture in the Spratlys will help to ward off any further Chinese advances.
China Treads Carefully
Vietnam's moves come at a time of relative calm in the ongoing South China Sea dispute. To different degrees, the Philippines and Malaysia have acquiesced to China's request to handle territorial spats through its preferred mechanism: diplomatic negotiations and joint arrangements that align with Beijing's interests. Though it remains to be seen whether this trend will continue, several factors can explain why it is happening now. For one, China has gradually gained the tactical upper hand in the region over the past six years as it has modernized its military, developed its islands and acquired new deep-sea drilling technology.
MARC: NOTE WELL THIS PARAGRAPH:
That said, China has also experienced significant strategic setbacks, not least of which was a ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration that negated Beijing's competing claims with the Philippines in the South China Sea. As a result, China seems to have abandoned the outright use of force for a subtler two-track strategy: Using economic and tactical concessions to entice cooperation from some claimants while maintaining pressure against more vocal opponents with limited punitive measures. The former have included offers of joint energy development projects and fishing regulations, while the latter have included diplomatic complaints and interdictions.
Having found themselves with fewer options for countering China's maritime ambitions, many South China Sea claimants — including the Philippines and Malaysia — have adopted a more conciliatory approach toward Beijing. Though these countries have continued to expand their defense ties with other powers, they have relented in their refusal to settle disputes through bilateral talks with China. Vietnam, however, has proved the exception.
China sees Vietnam's land reclamation efforts as a provocation, but it has neither the legal grounds nor the appetite to militarily challenge it. Nevertheless, it has the means to pressure Vietnam or undermine Hanoi's territorial claims, should it so choose. For instance, Beijing could increase its holdings in the Paracel Islands or send coast guard patrols near the Spratlys. It could also begin bidding on or exploring for energy resources around Spratly Island, including in the nearby Vanguard Bank, which Beijing tried to develop in the 1990s. But each of these measures would also risk renewing regional suspicions of China's intentions, undermining its own goal of reaching one-on-one deals with the sea's claimants that ultimately work in its favor.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/18/world/asia/muted-us-response-to-chinas-seizure-of-drone-worries-asian-allies.html?_r=0
Muted U.S. Response to China’s Seizure of Drone Worries Asian Allies
By JANE PERLEZDEC. 18, 2016
BEIJING — Only a day before a small Chinese boat sidled up to a United States Navy research vessel in waters off the Philippines and audaciously seized an underwater drone from American sailors, the commander of United States military operations in the region told an audience in Australia that America had a winning military formula.
“Capability times resolve times signaling equals deterrence,” Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr. told a blue-chip crowd of diplomats and analysts at the prestigious Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, the leading city in America’s closest ally in the region.
**And what is missing in that formula today?**
In the eyes of America’s friends in Asia, the brazen maneuver to launch an operation against an American Navy vessel in international waters in the South China Sea about 50 miles from the Philippines, another close American ally, has raised questions about one of the admiral’s crucial words. It was also seen by some as a taunt to President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has challenged the One China policy on Taiwan and has vowed to deal forcefully with Beijing in trade and other issues.
**It was "seen by some", in the NYT breakroom, as a taunt to Trump, to anyone else, it is seen as China once again grabbing Obama by the p*ssy.**
“The weak link is the resolve, and the Chinese are testing that, as well as baiting Trump,” said Euan Graham, the director of international security at the Lowy Institute. “Capability, yes. Signaling, yes, with sending F-22 fighter jets to Australia. But the very muted response means the equation falls down on resolve.”
**Until Trump is sworn in as President, he has no power to do anything to address China's acts. Can anyone get Obama on the phone from the Golf Course?**
Across Asia, diplomats and analysts said they were perplexed at the inability of the Obama administration to devise a strong response to China’s challenge. It did not even dispatch an American destroyer to the spot near Subic Bay, a former American Navy base that is still frequented by American ships, some noted.
**You know who isn't surprised? The Chinese! Know who else? Anyone paying attention the last eight f*cking years.**
After discussions at the National Security Council on how to deal with the issue, the Obama administration sent a démarche to China demanding the return of the drone. On Saturday, China said it would comply with the request but did not indicate when or how the equipment would be sent back.
**Oh no! Not the STRONGLY WORDED LETTER!**
The end result, analysts said, is that China will be emboldened by having carried out an act that amounted to hybrid warfare, falling just short of provoking conflict, and suffering few noticeable consequences.
“Allies and observers will find it hard not to conclude this represents another diminishment of American authority in the region,” said Douglas H. Paal, the vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
**Not an accident.**
Significantly, the Chinese grabbed the drone not only in international waters but outside even the “nine-dash line” that China uses as a marker for its claims in the South China Sea. In so doing, analysts said, Beijing was making the point that the entire sea was its preserve, even though it is entirely legal for the United States to conduct military operations in waters within 200 miles of the Philippines, an area known as an exclusive economic zone.
**Under Obama's watch, China went from "peaceful rise", to the Honey Badger of Asia. Fundamentally transformed!**
In the last dozen years, China has steadily showed off its growing military prowess to the countries around the South China Sea, which carries trillions of dollars of world trade and which China values for its strategic access to the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean.
As China has built up its navy and its submarine fleet in the last decade, it has also emphasized what it calls its “inherent” right to dominate the regional seas, and to challenge the presence of the United States, its allies and partners in Asia.
The drone episode, which occurred on Thursday and was first broadcast by CNN despite efforts by the Obama administration to settle it quietly, was of a different nature and just as disquieting as past confrontations with China that involved bigger ships and more dangerous maneuvers, analysts said.
In 2001, soon after President George W. Bush came to office, an American spy aircraft, an EP-3, was forced to land on Hainan Island after colliding with a Chinese fighter jet. The Chinese stripped the plane of its assets and returned it broken down to its parts and packed in boxes.
In 2009, two months after President Obama took office, Chinese vessels swarmed a United States Navy reconnaissance ship, the Impeccable, in what the Pentagon said were dangerous and unprofessional maneuvers.
This time, China chose a more unconventional method to challenge the United States and hastened the timetable, challenging a president-elect rather than a newly installed president as it has in the past.
**Again, no. If Obama could be bothered with this while on his last multi-million dollar taxpayer funded vacation, I am sure he would pat the author on the head for this tongue-bath.**
The drone itself, known as an unmanned underwater vehicle, was not a particularly important piece of equipment. Such drones are deployed to gather military oceanographic data and are available over the counter for about $150,000, the Pentagon said. Data from the drone would no doubt be used to help track China’s growing submarine fleet, naval experts said.
More important than the equipment was the principle of freedom of navigation in international waters, and whether China was in the process of imposing its own rules in the South China Sea — more than 800 miles away from its coastline, said Alexander Vuving, a specialist on Vietnam at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii.
“This is China showing that it is in the process of setting the rules in the South China Sea, imposing its own view in the South China Sea and saying the South China Sea should be its own backyard,” Mr. Vuving said.
“If China can get away with this incident with impunity,” he added, “this will send a chilling message to countries in the region.”
Some leaders, like President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, will feel validated in a pivot away from the United States toward China, Mr. Vuving said. “Others, like the Vietnamese, will have to seriously rethink their regional outlook.”
Vietnam — always fearful of China, its neighbor to the north, but also careful not to alienate Beijing — has tried in the last few years to draw closer to the United States, while still maintaining a careful distance.
In 2011, as China became more assertive in the South China Sea, Vietnam accused China of instructing three high-speed patrol boats to cut the cables of a Vietnamese oil and gas survey ship.
The authoritarian Vietnamese government was so furious that it allowed anti-Chinese demonstrations in Hanoi.
In 2014, China moved a billion-dollar oil rig to waters close to the Paracel Islands that both Vietnam and China claim, and then blasted a flotilla of Vietnamese ships with water cannon.
Since then, China has hardened its position, sometimes referring to the South China Sea a “core interest” in which there is no room for compromise, though others in the region call it bullying by the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.
Under that vision, China would be in control from the waters of Indonesia to Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and up to Japan.
In the East China Sea, China and Japan are at odds over an uninhabited island chain, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. In June, China sent a warship for the first time into the waters around the islands, further escalating tensions.
Japan has been more outspoken than other Asian countries in its support for the Obama administration’s objections to China’s construction of military facilities on seven artificial islands in the South China Sea.
But in Tokyo, the government was watching the outcome of the drone episode with some anxiety. So far, Washington’s restrained response has not been reassuring.
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/chinas-capture-us-underwater-drone-violates-law-sea
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BD:
Love seeing you around here again. Thanks for another typically excellent contribution.
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/chinas-capture-us-underwater-drone-violates-law-sea
Someone should call the Global Police and report this violation of international law!
:roll:
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That is very witty, and if I may, a touch wide of the mark IMHO.
When China blows off Int'l Law its blandishments with the other countries on the SCS become much less effective and it runs the risk of motivating others to spend more on military and form alliances.
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That is very witty, and if I may, a touch wide of the mark IMHO.
When China blows off Int'l Law its blandishments with the other countries on the SCS become much less effective and it runs the risk of motivating others to spend more on military and form alliances.
Like the Philippines? Anyone seen Australia's Navy lately?
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The Philippines is/was/can be an unsinkable aircraft carrier for the US. Australia has been a good, sturdy ally of US but understandably will not go it alone.
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http://heatst.com/world/china-built-a-giant-rooster-statue-that-looks-like-donald-trump/
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I am not clear this was supposed to be a parody of Trump or some liberal American is just making this up.
But it could be a good marketing move if was on purpose.
Every huffington post reader will visit this place in china so they can yuck it up sending selfies to their marxist friends.
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I am not clear this was supposed to be a parody of Trump or some liberal American is just making this up.
But it could be a good marketing move if was on purpose.
Every huffington post reader will visit this place in china so they can yuck it up sending selfies to their marxist friends.
The "Socialist with Chinese characteristics" business owner would love to have an influx of "da bizi" spend money at this mall, and buy a smaller version.
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/year-review-south-china-sea-edition
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/year-review-south-china-sea-edition
https://www.lawfareblog.com/chinas-ridiculously-weak-legal-argument-against-complying-south-china-sea-arbitration-award
China doesn't have a strong legal argument against complying with international law? NFW! :-o
China has the world's oldest argument: "Come over here and make me do it, Motherf*cker".
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Thank you for the citation BD :-)
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What a welcome and brilliant marketing move by a Chinese company:
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/09/alibaba-to-discuss-expansion-plans-with-trump-company-aims-to-create-1-million-us-jobs-over-the-next-5-years.html
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What a welcome and brilliant marketing move by a Chinese company:
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/09/alibaba-to-discuss-expansion-plans-with-trump-company-aims-to-create-1-million-us-jobs-over-the-next-5-years.html
Chinese consumers really want American products.
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https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/01/09/ted-cruz-snubs-china-meets-with-taiwan-president-tsai-ing-wen/
A one China policy could mean we only recognize the Republic of China, not the PRC. Although that really could lead to war.
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https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/01/09/ted-cruz-snubs-china-meets-with-taiwan-president-tsai-ing-wen/
A one China policy could mean we only recognize the Republic of China, not the PRC. Although that really could lead to war.
It could lead to war, but why? They haven't shown any sign of caring what we think on anything else.
[And why is Ted Cruz re-starting his campaign. Someone appoint him to the Supreme Court!]
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Things are fragile in China. If Trump did use tariffs to punish China, it's might bring them into line, or it might cause things to spiral out of control.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/01/09/ted-cruz-snubs-china-meets-with-taiwan-president-tsai-ing-wen/
A one China policy could mean we only recognize the Republic of China, not the PRC. Although that really could lead to war.
It could lead to war, but why? They haven't shown any sign of caring what we think on anything else.
[And why is Ted Cruz re-starting his campaign. Someone appoint him to the Supreme Court!]
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Interesting move by Cruz. I'm thinking Trump could put it to "good cop bad cop" effect.
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Interesting move by Cruz. I'm thinking Trump could put it to "good cop bad cop" effect.
Once we have an American as president, come the 20th, we might be able to build a real alliance among China's unhappy neighbors.
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https://readfomag.com/2017/01/09/09-january-2017-war-with-russia-and-china-here-are-two-new-indicators/
War with Russia and China? Here Are Two New Indicators
A US Army (USA) Soldier assigned to the 1st Infantry Division, mans a .50 caliber M2HB machine gun mounted atop a High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV), during a patrol along Logistics Support Area (LSA) Anaconda, near Balad Air Base (AB), Iraq. The area is being cleared of threats so Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) personnel can call in an air strike. The image is silhouetted against the setting sun.
In an Executive Intelligence Summary from last month, I pointed out two additional indicators that bolster the case for a potential conflict with China and Russia. I didn’t see these two stories reported anywhere other than in military channels, and certainly not through the mainstream media. But they’re significant and I want you to know about them.
The potential for conflict with both Russia and China are scenarios I’m watching closely, because a war with either of these “near peer” competitors would likely involve cyber activity which could absolutely target us here at home. Although cyber attacks would likely focus on military command and control targets, we can’t rule out the possibility that our internet and other critical infrastructure won’t be targeted in the process. I’ve explained why and in greater detail in previous EXSUMs. Now on to the indicators…
The first is that the US Navy will be unveiling a new strategy for surface combat as early as today, which is just two years after their move to what’s called distributed lethality. That means that Navy ships, instead of operating in one mass formation, will break up into several smaller formations. This focus on splitting a large formation into small groups and increasing lethality means that adversaries will have more numerous target groups as opposed to one mass formation. And given electronic warfare and the capability to present decoy targets to adversary targeting systems, the US Navy is betting that they’ll be harder to hit as a result. The carrier strike groups will remain operational, but will launch aircraft and missiles from the rear of a sea battle, while distributed formations stay closer to the fight. This is most likely in response to recent Chinese weapons developments, which includes a series of upgrades to anti-ship missiles, and the expectation that a naval conflict is growing more likely. China’s strategy is to use long-range air-to-air and anti-ship missiles in what’s called an anti-access/area denial strategy. I’ll be paying close attention this week to see what comes of the Navy’s new strategy in response.
And the second is that the Army announced that Fort Stewart, Georgia’s 3rd Infantry Division will be changing the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, which is light infantry, into an armored brigade combat team equipped with Abrams tanks. After 15 years of fighting in mostly irregular wars, leaders at the Pentagon and their concept of reality has been quickly hurtling back to earth. For years, there was a Pentagon battle over force structure and becoming lighter, faster, and more lethal to respond to small, global contingencies, or maintaining the ability to fight large scale conventional wars. Some leaders didn’t see the need for maintaining conventional readiness because up until about four years ago, few people were ringing alarms about conventional threats. But now that a conventional war in Europe looks like a growing possibility, the Army is renewing focus on military readiness and increasing conventional warfighting capabilities, while playing catch up to electronic and cyber warfare; both of which will undoubtedly play a role in the next war. 2nd BCT’s sister brigade, the 1st Heavy Brigade Combat Team, and other units from the 3rd Infantry Division completed several rotations to Europe in 2015 as a part of Operation Atlantic Resolve. Operation Atlantic Resolve is part of the $3 billion package called the European Reassurance Initiative, which is meant to bolster the defense of Europe against Russian aggression.
Having an additional armored brigade at 3rd ID is directed at one problem: conventional, force-on-force warfare, specifically against Russia. I expect President-Elect Trump’s defense policy regarding Europe to be wrought with fragmentary changes (FRAGOs for the military folks). Trump’s desire to pursue better relations with Russia must be weighed against Russia’s regional policy goals concerning eastern Europe. What NATO wants is bad for Russia, and what Russia wants is bad for NATO. While Trump is cooling on war rhetoric with Russia, our European allies are engaging in the regional arms race in lock step with Russia in preparation for war. The US military defense posture in Europe is nearing a war footing as well, and Trump will be forced to make a decision on whether to pursue a high-risk friendship with Russia or continue the strategy of being Europe’s backstop. On the current trajectory, Trump will have to choose and he’ll likely alter history.
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Good article. I am interested in what war with either Russia or China would look like in the theoretical, game-theory, sense. The experts and military strategists must be playing this out all the time. A look at it from either side must lead to the conclusion that both sides are worse off than before no matter how it plays out, IMO.
The best analysis for understanding the behavior of these geo-rivals for me is the Denny S backyard theory. China has all these impending conflicts in its own neighborhood, obsessed with Taiwan and constantly testing its expansion of power in the South China Sea. Russia is always in conflict threat of conflict with the much weaker states on its immediate border, and they reach further out every time they win, annex or conquer one.
Unlike say Nazi Germany versus England, France, etc, there is no desire in China to rule the US and no desire in the US to rule China. A strike on the US by China would be for the purpose of having us back off from one of their regional conflicts, IMHO.
I mostly see China as a business. It's a ruthless totalitarian regime, but a business. Every major city and state in the US is a major customer of Chinese goods. They could attempt a Hiroshima, Nagasaki like nuclear attack on LA, San Fran or Seattle, but it would trigger an economic war, not just a military one. In terms of power, they could be hurt in that worse than us even if we did not strike back militarily. A full blown trade blockage with justification and resolve from us would trigger a kind of retraction and collapse in China that could end the rule of the regime.
If a shootout or mini-conflict erupted in their neighborhood, China versus US, and they were to lose it, just having the US engage in the region would lower the intimidation factor in their region that they currently rely on.
They have as much reason as us to be conflict averse.
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Mmmmm , , , AND they are a bubble, they economic model also has turned the country into a toxic dump, and they have 108 young males for every 100 females , , ,
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Defense Secretary Jim Mattis concluded a successful visit to South Korea and Japan this weekend, the first overseas trip by a Trump cabinet member and a welcome gesture of reassurance to Asian allies threatened by North Korea and China. Now officials in Seoul and especially Tokyo want to see how President Trump follows up when he hosts Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Washington on Friday.
Mr. Mattis said in Seoul that the U.S. commitment to South Korea is “ironclad” and that “it is a priority for President Trump’s Administration to pay attention to the northwest Pacific.” He warned North Korea that “any attack on the United States or on our allies will be defeated and any use of nuclear weapons will be met with a response that will be effective and overwhelming.”
He also reconfirmed plans for South Korea this year to deploy the advanced U.S.-made missile-defense system known as Thaad. This would boost protection against the North and facilitate cooperation among Seoul, Tokyo and Washington—which is why China doesn’t like it and is using informal economic sanctions to get Seoul to scotch its plans.
Whether Seoul caves will be a major test of the U.S. alliance as the Trump Administration finds its footing and South Koreans ride out their continuing presidential impeachment scandal and prepare to elect a new leader later this year.
In Tokyo, where the political leadership is more steady but concerns are mounting over Chinese bullying in the East China Sea, Mr. Mattis offered similarly broad assurances. Most important, he reaffirmed that the U.S.-Japan security treaty applies to the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands, which China claims for itself and regularly threatens using civilian and paramilitary ships.
Mr. Mattis also praised Japan’s government for increasing defense spending. The U.S.-Japan alliance, he said, is “a model of cost-sharing and burden-sharing” and “an example for other nations to follow.” This is especially important because as a candidate Donald Trump suggested several times that Japan is a free rider on U.S. security commitments, a view that underestimates Japan’s contributions to regional security and the value of basing U.S. troops at low cost near Asia’s many flash points.
Mr. Trump’s comments still sting, which is why his summit with Mr. Abe this week is highly anticipated in Tokyo and other allied capitals. The two men have had several promising exchanges since November’s election, including phone calls and a Trump Tower meeting, but these addressed few specifics of the bilateral relationship.
If Mr. Trump this week follows Mr. Mattis in affirming the U.S. commitment to Japanese control of the Senkakus, he will go a long way to putting U.S.-Japan alliance concerns to rest. He would also help deter Chinese aggression, while underscoring that Washington remains a guarantor of world order in the face of authoritarian challengers.
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http://www.aei.org/publication/trade-reciprocity-with-china/?utm_source=paramount&utm_medium=email&utm_content=AEITODAY&utm_campaign=020917
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http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/318874-trump-to-honor-one-china-policy
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Stratfor:
In his first phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping since taking office, U.S. President Donald Trump on Feb. 10 told his counterpart that his administration will honor the so-called one-China policy, a long-standing diplomatic formula underpinning Washington's relations with Beijing and Taipei. According to a White House statement, Trump and Xi spoke at length about a range of bilateral issues. Trump's affirmation of existing U.S. policy of maintaining only unofficial ties with Taiwan came at the request of the Chinese president. (Mainland China and Taiwan both adhere to the idea that there is only one China, so if a country forges ties with either Beijing or Taipei, it must sever ties with the other.)
Relations between Washington and Beijing have been effectively frozen since December, when Trump broke diplomatic tradition by taking a congratulatory phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen — the first such call since Washington and Beijing established diplomatic relations in 1979. Trump later suggested his administration may depart from its long-standing position on Taiwan if Beijing proves unwilling to make concessions on other issues such as trade. Beijing has repeatedly warned, however, that its one-China policy is nonnegotiable.
Trump's turn back to the status quo suggests that heated debates are still unsettled within the new administration about how to manage U.S.-China relations. Trump's campaign included ample hard-line rhetoric about China, and his team's statements on a range of issues — currency manipulation, China's militarization of contested waters in the South China Sea, its willingness to contain North Korea's nuclear program, and a potential easing of tensions between the United States and Russia — have triggered a broad reassessment inside Beijing. With the Chinese leadership preoccupied with maintaining control of a precarious economic rebalancing process and preparing for the key Party Congress later this year, this would not be a good time for significantly soured relations with Washington. Escalating trade tensions or growing security threats in the Western Pacific would jeopardize China's focus on internal stability, even if Beijing will have some countermeasures at its disposal — particularly in the economic, cybersecurity and maritime realms — as evidenced by China's seizure of a U.S. naval drone in the South China Sea in December.
Recently, there have been indications that Washington may soften its positions to defuse tensions. Earlier this week, for example, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson appeared to walk back comments he made during his Senate confirmation hearings in which he appeared to advocate a blockade of Beijing's man-made islands in contested parts of the South China Sea. Meanwhile, during his recent trip to Japan and South Korea, U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis emphasized diplomatic solutions to the South China Sea issue. According to The New York Times, the debate inside the White House on Feb. 9 centered on whether it should publicly reaffirm its commitment to the one-China policy. But even with Trump's apparent endorsement of the policy, Beijing expects no easy relief. The new administration in Washington may still have other options to leverage its relationship with Taiwan in pursuit of concessions from Beijing, potentially through increased arms sales or defense cooperation. In fact, the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 included for the first time a section on senior military exchanges with Taiwan.
For Taipei, the latest shift from the White House is a significant setback. The Democratic Progressive Party-led government has exercised great caution to avoid further antagonizing Beijing. But its pro-independence policies and ongoing pursuit of economic autonomy have apparently broken the cross-strait diplomatic truce forged under previous administrations. China has moved quickly to pressure Taiwan with diplomatic isolation, military intimidation and targeted economic coercion, and Beijing is also reportedly discussing more intensively the conditions under which to use military options against Taipei. If the White House begins to see its interests as once again diverging from Taipei's and wavers on its commitments, Taiwan might find itself the target of even more Chinese posturing and harassment operations.
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By Te-Ping Chen
Updated Feb. 10, 2017 12:19 p.m. ET
199 COMMENTS
BEIJING—China’s wait-and-see approach to U.S. President Donald Trump’s periodic diplomatic outbursts has paid off with the president dropping his threat to upend a cornerstone of Beijing-Washington relations.
After weeks of several phone run-ins with world leaders, Mr. Trump committed to a longstanding agreement that the U.S. won’t recognize Taiwan diplomatically in a phone call with President Xi Jinping late Thursday.
The Trump administration had already moved to temper heated rhetoric around U.S. policy in Asia, and marked a detente in a relationship that was thrown into uncertainty by Mr. Trump’s December phone conversation with Taiwan’s leader, which broke decades of diplomatic protocol.
Beijing, which had made clear to the Trump administration that U.S. adherence to the “One China” policy was an inviolable precondition for relations, praised Mr. Trump’s change of heart. Mr. Xi expressed his appreciation during the call, according to the official Xinhua News agency.
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China’s Foreign Ministry also welcomed Mr. Trump’s pledge to uphold the policy, “We appreciate that,” said ministry spokesman Lu Kang, who didn’t directly address in a Friday briefing a question about whether China had had to make any concessions in return.
More than three weeks after Mr. Trump took office, the absence of any call with China, the U.S.’s largest trading partner but also the object of some of Mr. Trump’s sharpest criticism, was growing increasingly conspicuous.
An official briefed on the discussion said Mr. Trump’s comments on the “One China” policy were short compared with long, formulaic assurances made by his predecessors. Putting the call together was the work of many people over many days, the official said.
Mr. Trump’s blunt style has posed a challenge for protocol-conscious Chinese officials wary of unpredictable turns in the conversation. In previous calls with leaders, Mr. Trump chided Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto over the country’s drug cartels and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refugee-resettlement agreement Australia reached with the Obama administration.
Chinese analysts said Mr. Trump’s change in rhetoric was inevitable. “Some things you don’t need to be anxious to respond with tits-and-tats for,“ said Zhang Ruizhuang, professor of international relations at Nankai University in Tianjin. ”Instead, give him some time, and let him slowly realize things on his own.”
Beijing has taken a measured approach to Mr. Trump’s signals from before he took office that he might walk back the U.S. commitment to the “One China” policy. It protested Mr. Trump’s December call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, but blamed Ms. Tsai for the exchange. Editorials in state media cited Mr. Trump’s inexperience in foreign relations.
China has considered Taiwan a breakaway province since Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists set up a government there in 1949, after years of civil war.
‘The most important thing is that Trump accepts the ‘One China’ policy, but that certainly doesn’t mean that his China policies are fully formed.’
—Zhu Feng, a professor focusing on international relations at Nanjing University
The call between the two leaders means work can now start on a crowded agenda in U.S.-China relations, beset by discord over trade as well as the North Korean nuclear threat and Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea.
“The most important thing is that Trump accepts the ‘One China’ policy, but that certainly doesn’t mean that his China policies are fully formed,” said Zhu Feng, a professor focusing on international relations at Nanjing University.
Mr. Trump has been vocal in his criticisms of Chinese currency and trade policy, and threatened during his campaign to slap a 45% trade tariff on Chinese goods and declare China a currency manipulator on his first day in office.
Since his inauguration, Mr. Trump has yet to carry out such combative actions, but his heated rhetoric has caused anxiety, including in the U.S. business community in China, which feared repercussions against American companies amid a possible deterioration in ties.
In recent days, the Trump administration had sought to clarify its approach to Asia. Last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis paid visits to U.S. allies South Korea and Japan to reassure them that the U.S. plans to continue stationing troops in both countries, following suggestions by Mr. Trump that their presence—which serves as a bulwark against military incursions by Beijing and Pyongyang—was too costly for the U.S.
Similarly, prior to his confirmation as Mr. Trump’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson walked back previous statements that the U.S. might block China’s access to islands it has built in the South China Sea, saying that the U.S. should be “capable” of limiting such access, should a contingency occur.
In written answers provided to the Senate, Mr. Tillerson also indicated he intended to adhere to the “One China” policy, saying Taiwan “should not be treated as a bargaining chip.”
Mr. Trump’s December call with Ms. Tsai had sparked both celebrations and anxiety in Taiwan, including fears that the island might become a chess piece in U.S.-Chinese relations.
In a statement released following the Trump-Xi call, Taiwan’s top agency for policy toward Beijing expressed hopes that the U.S. would continue to support the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and urged Beijing to engage in dialogue over differences with the self-ruled island.
On social media, Chinese users rejoiced on Friday at Mr. Trump’s acceding to the “One China” policy. “America is so scared of China, Trump’s called to surrender!” wrote one user on the country’s Twitter-like Weibo platform. “Trump must not have heard of that old Chinese saying: You can escape at first, but not for long!” said another.
—Kersten Zhang contributed to this article.
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China treated Obama like their prison bitch, now let's see if they roll Trump.
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https://pjmedia.com/spengler/2017/02/10/trump-is-right-again-on-one-china/
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https://pjmedia.com/spengler/2017/02/10/trump-is-right-again-on-one-china/
Spengler is very smart. Perhaps Trump got a briefing that had him reconsider.
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By Rodger Baker
In response to North Korea's latest missile test, and perhaps to the apparent assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, China has declared it will cease coal imports from North Korea for the entirety of the year. Beijing's threat to North Korea could significantly impact Pyongyang's finances, already stretched as the North continually seeks ways around international sanctions. But it also shows the limits of Beijing's actions toward North Korea. Even as China takes a more assertive role internationally, in finance, politics and even militarily, it views its global role — and potential responsibilities — far differently than the United States or earlier European empires.
The lens of China's latest actions on North Korea is a useful prism to understand how China throughout history has dealt with its periphery and beyond — and how it is likely to do so in the future.
For on a nearly daily basis, there are reports suggesting the decline of U.S. global power, and the attendant rise of China. This despite the slowing pace of Chinese economic growth, high levels of domestic bad loans and the massive undertaking of a shift from an export-led economic model to one based on domestic consumption, with the attendant structural shift in political and social patterns. China is seen as the next major global power, overshadowing the former Soviet Union and giving the United States a run for its money.
This view of China contrasts with how the country has been viewed for much of the past century: as the passed-by Asian power, the country that was most upended from its former glory by European colonialism and imperial competition, a Middle Kingdom carved into spheres of influence, forced to capitulate to Western concepts of trade and access, and left vulnerable to Japanese aggression at the turn of the last century. China is now seen as awakening, as consolidating political power domestically, building a strong and outwardly focused military, and spreading its economic reach across the globe, most recently with the network of infrastructure and trading routes characterizing the One Belt, One Road initiative.
In short, although China had some setbacks because of the fallout from the 2009 global financial crisis, it was perhaps affected less politically and socially compared with Europe and the United States, and this has presented the opportunity for the 4,000-year-old-plus country to take its turn at global leadership. And as I noted a few weeks ago, we may be seeing a shift in the willingness of the United States to play the role of global hegemon. From military expansion in the South China Sea to economic expansion with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), China is on the rise. Again.
A Sole Challenger Emerges
The rising China narrative is not new. A decade ago, the iconic May 17, 2007, Economist cover showed a panda atop the Empire State Building, a la King Kong. Nearly a decade earlier, in December 1998, U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher was flown in a Philippine military aircraft over a Chinese installation on Mischief Reef, raising an early concern of Chinese military expansion in the South China Sea. While these are but two anecdotes, a decade apart, it would be easy to list hundreds of others. And it isn't difficult to understand why.
With the end of the Cold War, aside from the multinational European Union, there was little potential for any nation alone to rise to power on such a scale as to challenge the United States as a peer power, much less as a single global hegemon. No country, that is, except perhaps China. China's population, its rapid rise into the central position of global supply chains, its economic expansion, its strategic location linking Eurasia to the Pacific, and its unitary government allowing centralized decision-making and long-term strategic planning all pointed to a country that could emerge as a real challenger. And China seemed at times interested in doing so.
But there is a difference between the potential to, the capability to, or even the desire to. China certainly wants to have a greater say in the structure of the global system that is now emerging, a system that from China's perspective should be multilateral, without a single dominant global power. China's drive toward "big power" status is not the same as seeking the central role of a global system. The reality is that the cost to maintain a central global role is just too high. The British, the French, the Spanish and Portuguese, the Americans, even more regional powers like Japan, Germany and the various guises of Russia, all showed that maintaining central power over a vast empire is simply exhausting. A hegemony must respond to challenges, no matter how small, or risk losing its power and influence. China may be a big country, but it is far from ready to take on the role of global balancer.
The Center of a Regional System
Which is why it may be useful to look back into history to see how China has managed power in the past. For some 2,000 years, prior to European imperial advancements in the early 19th century, China sat at the center of a regional imperial system of its own, where China was clearly seen as first among unequals. Imperial China developed a system of maintaining influence while limiting the need for direct action. China, in many respects, retained passive influence rather than direct positive control. Power moved out in rings from the core. There was China proper, protected by an integrated shell of buffer states. For some of these, from Xinjiang to Tibet to Manchuria, China was not always dominant, but when outside powers swept across the buffers to change Chinese empires, they at times found themselves ultimately integrated into the Chinese system.
Beyond that were tributary powers, kingdoms that nominally respected China's role at the center of a Sinacized region. These included areas such as Korea, the Shan state of Burma or even what is now Vietnam — areas where China attempted to expand but reached the limits of its power. Beyond these were so-called barbarian powers, ones that required minimal contact and were generally regarded as inferior (and thus not needing integration). These not only included places like the Ryukyu Islands, parts of the Malay Peninsula and some of the Central Asian ethnic tribes, but also the more distant European civilizations at times.
China could influence the behavior of its neighbors, but it did so as often as possible through passive means, demonstrating power but rarely using it. Instead, so long as the neighbors did not fundamentally counter China's core interests, they were largely left to their own devices. In this manner, China could remain central to a regional system while expending little in time, effort or resources to enforce its will — particularly when imperial expansion proved unachievable. Neighbors including Korea and Vietnam paid tribute and adopted the written language, governing systems and social structures from the Middle Kingdom. This cultural and political influence reduced the need for military action by either side of the arrangement.
In short, most countries, most of the time, largely accepted the arrangement, both for cultural reasons and because the cost of direct challenge was often too high. This did not prevent various challenges — the Mongols and Manchu, for example, or Japan's attempted usurpation of the Chinese imperial throne in the late 16th century. But these invaders more often sought to insert themselves at the center of the Sinitic order, rather than completely overturn it. Even the failed invasion by Japan's Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the last decade of the 1500s, which devastated Korea but failed to reach China proper, was an attempt to move Hideyoshi to China, allowing him to place his young son on the throne in Japan, linking the two empires but leaving China the physical and political center.
China's crisis with Western imperialism through the 1800s occurred at a time of dynastic and imperial weakness, and China was further weakened by Japanese occupation beginning in the 1930s and then by civil war from 1945 to 1949. The early Mao years were about reconstituting Chinese unity, but also showed the stirrings of Chinese foreign interest in a modern era. Although China under Mao played a role in the overall international Communist drive, providing money, manpower and materiel to various insurgencies, this was paired with a longer-term and more passive strategy. China made friends. Not necessarily with leaders, but with individuals who could ultimately prove influential, and perhaps nudge them to victory.
In part in keeping with its historical management strategy, China retained influence through its backing of leaders, from the king of Cambodia to the Nepalese monarchy to the Kim family in North Korea. But China also acted by retaining relations with many alternatives in and out of governments. The idea was that, no matter who came to power, China would have at least some existing relationship to draw on. Where China was drawn into regional conflict — with Vietnam and in Korea — it saw a potential threat to its buffer, and acted out of self-interest.
An Alternate Vision for the World
As we move into the current era, China is seeking to re-establish itself at the center of the region, politically, economically and strategically. The One Belt, One Road initiative is a key component of China's foreign strategy, to link itself into the emerging economic patterns around the region, placing China in the center of an integrated regional trading system. It also reflects a broader ambition — one where China takes hold of the so-called strategic pivot of the European landmass. China's establishment of the AIIB in late 2015 is part of a broader initiative intended to place China at the center of a regional financial system, one that breaks free from what Beijing sees as the economic hegemony of the Bretton Woods system that established the U.S. dollar as the global reserve.
Politically, China is continuing to offer a counter to the United States, positioning itself as a country that does not try to assert a specific political system upon others, but that rather is willing to work with whatever government a country may have. Militarily, China has asserted itself as the central power in the Western Pacific and argues that Japan is an imperial threat because of history, and the United States is a foreign interloper. China can provide regional security for all, so long as all accept China's central role.
At a time when Russia is working to reassert its influence around its periphery, when Europe is struggling to define its own future (greater integration, or disassociation into its constituent parts), and when the United States, at least temporarily, appears ready to step back from the role of global hegemon, the global system is in flux. What China is seeking on a global level is to fill an opening, to reshape the global system into one where spheres of influence among the dominant powers are recognized and respected. This is neither globalism nor hegemony. It is perhaps more akin to the period of European empires, though more regionally arranged. It is a world divided among great powers, each the relatively benign center of its own region.
China's curtailment of coal imports from North Korea is thus a reminder to an increasingly defiant semi-ally that it must behave against the contours of regional power. It should not be seen as the ultimatum of a would-be global hegemon.
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http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2017/02/beijing-wants-limit-foreign-submarine-operations-near-its-south-china-sea-islands/135582/
https://sofrep.com/75496/china-nears-completion-on-island-structures-that-may-house-long-range-missiles-in-south-china-sea/
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second post
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445182/china-tests-trump-south-china-sea-taiwan-key?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Trending%20Email%20Reoccurring-%20Monday%20to%20Thursday%202017-02-23&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives
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second post
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445182/china-tests-trump-south-china-sea-taiwan-key?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Trending%20Email%20Reoccurring-%20Monday%20to%20Thursday%202017-02-23&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives
Not a lot of good options at this point. This developed under Obama the feckless, and now Trump has to reset the boundaries, risking a war, or let China continue down this path.
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Very glad to see we are sailing an aircraft carrier there right now.
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Very glad to see we are sailing an aircraft carrier there right now.
IMHO, pretty worthless unless we are ready to use them to park on China's war islands.
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Disagree.
If I have it right, as a matter of international law this is part of asserting the right of free passage in international waters. If the right goes unasserted, it can be lost.
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Disagree.
If I have it right, as a matter of international law this is part of asserting the right of free passage in international waters. If the right goes unasserted, it can be lost.
I get that, I am taking into consideration that China is unlikely to alter their current trajectory of fortifying their islands and picking a time and place to confront someone's ship that will continue ratcheting up their domination of the South China Sea. If Trump can't do a deal, then things will continue to deteriorate. I am very skeptical for the potential for any deal.
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IMHO China's weakness is not its military, but its need to export, its' non-performing loans etc, and its demographics.
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IMHO China's weakness is not its military, but its need to export, its' non-performing loans etc, and its demographics.
China's aggressiveness stems not from it's strength, but it's weakness.
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Yes, this is the same Michael Yon of the heroic reportage in Iraq and Afghanistan:
http://japan-forward.com/the-hate-farm-china-is-planting-a-bitter-harvest/
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Yes, this is the same Michael Yon of the heroic reportage in Iraq and Afghanistan:
http://japan-forward.com/the-hate-farm-china-is-planting-a-bitter-harvest/
Japan planted the hate seeds the Chinese power structure now cultivates. I'd like to see Yon address "the rape of Nanking" by Iris Chang.
Japan did horrific war crimes all across Asia during WWII. This included the torture and murder of allied soldiers.
https://www.amazon.com/Rape-Nanking-Forgotten-Holocaust-World/dp/0465068367
In December 1937, the Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking. Within weeks, more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers were systematically raped, tortured, and murdered—a death toll exceeding that of the atomic blasts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Using extensive interviews with survivors and newly discovered documents, Iris Chang has written the definitive history of this horrifying episode.
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http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21226068
What Japanese history lessons leave out
By Mariko Oi BBC News, Tokyo
14 March 2013
Japanese people often fail to understand why neighbouring countries harbour a grudge over events that happened in the 1930s and 40s. The reason, in many cases, is that they barely learned any 20th Century history. I myself only got a full picture when I left Japan and went to school in Australia.
From Homo erectus to the present day - more than a million years of history in just one year of lessons. That is how, at the age of 14, I first learned of Japan's relations with the outside world.
For three hours a week - 105 hours over the year - we edged towards the 20th Century.
It's hardly surprising that some classes, in some schools, never get there, and are told by teachers to finish the book in their spare time.
When I returned recently to my old school, Sacred Heart in Tokyo, teachers told me they often have to start hurrying, near the end of the year, to make sure they have time for World War II.
"When I joined Sacred Heart as a teacher, I was asked by the principal to make sure that I teach all the way up to modern history," says my history teacher from Year Eight.
"We have strong ties with our sister schools in the Asian region so we want our students to understand Japan's historical relationship with our neighbouring countries."
I still remember her telling the class, 17 years ago, about the importance of Japan's war history and making the point that many of today's geopolitical tensions stem from what happened then.
Image caption Mariko's Japanese textbook: Only a footnote on the Nanjing massacre
I also remember wondering why we couldn't go straight to that period if it was so important, instead of wasting time on the Pleistocene epoch.
When we did finally get there, it turned out only 19 of the book's 357 pages dealt with events between 1931 and 1945.
Nanjing massacre, 1937-38
A six-week period of bloodshed, after the Japanese capture of the city in December 1937
International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), set up after WWII, estimated more than 200,000 people were killed, including many women and children
Dispute over scale of atrocity remains a sticking point in Chinese/Japanese relations - some Japanese question whether a massacre took place
Scarred by history: The Rape of Nanking
BBC History: Japan's Quest for Empire
There was one page on what is known as the Mukden incident, when Japanese soldiers blew up a railway in Manchuria in China in 1931.
There was one page on other events leading up to the Sino-Japanese war in 1937 - including one line, in a footnote, about the massacre that took place when Japanese forces invaded Nanjing - the Nanjing Massacre, or Rape of Nanjing.
There was another sentence on the Koreans and the Chinese who were brought to Japan as miners during the war, and one line, again in a footnote, on "comfort women" - a prostitution corps created by the Imperial Army of Japan.
There was also just one sentence on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I wanted to know more, but was not quite eager enough to delve into the subject in my spare time. As a teenager, I was more interested in fashion and boys.
My friends had a chance to choose world history as a subject in Year 11. But by that stage I had left the Japanese schooling system, and was living in Australia.
I remember the excitement when I noticed that instead of ploughing chronologically through a given period, classes would focus on a handful of crucial events in world history.
All of the photographs that China uses as evidence of the massacre are fabricated
Nobukatsu Fujioka
So brushing aside my teacher's objection that I would struggle with the high volume of reading and writing in English - a language I could barely converse in - I picked history as one of my subjects for the international baccalaureate.
My first ever essay in English was on the Rape of Nanjing.
There is controversy over what happened. The Chinese say 300,000 were killed and many women were gang-raped by the Japanese soldiers, but as I spent six months researching all sides of the argument, I learned that some in Japan deny the incident altogether.
Nobukatsu Fujioka is one of them and the author of one of the books that I read as part of my research.
"It was a battlefield so people were killed but there was no systematic massacre or rape," he says, when I meet him in Tokyo.
"The Chinese government hired actors and actresses, pretending to be the victims when they invited some Japanese journalists to write about them.
"All of the photographs that China uses as evidence of the massacre are fabricated because the same picture of decapitated heads, for example, has emerged as a photograph from the civil war between Kuomintang and Communist parties."
As a 17-year-old student, I was not trying to make a definitive judgement on what exactly happened, but reading a dozen books on the incident at least allowed me to understand why many people in China still feel bitter about Japan's military past.
Comfort women
200,000 women in territories occupied by Japan during WWII estimated to have been forced into becoming sex slaves for troops, or "comfort women"
In 1993 Japan acknowledged use of wartime brothels
In 2007 Japanese PM Shinzo Abe was forced to apologise after casting doubt on the existence of comfort women
While school pupils in Japan may read just one line on the massacre, children in China are taught in detail not just about the Rape of Nanjing but numerous other Japanese war crimes, though these accounts of the war are sometimes criticised for being overly anti-Japanese.
The same can be said about South Korea, where the education system places great emphasis on our modern history. This has resulted in very different perceptions of the same events in countries an hour's flying time apart.
One of the most contentious topics there is the comfort women.
Fujioka believes they were paid prostitutes. But Japan's neighbours, such as South Korea and Taiwan, say they were forced to work as sex slaves for the Japanese army.
Without knowing these debates, it is extremely difficult to grasp why recent territorial disputes with China or South Korea cause such an emotional reaction among our neighbours. The sheer hostility shown towards Japan by ordinary people in street demonstrations seems bewildering and even barbaric to many Japanese television viewers.
Equally, Japanese people often find it hard to grasp why politicians' visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine - which honours war criminals among other Japanese soldiers - cause quite so much anger.
Image caption Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, visiting the Yasukuni Shrine in 2012
I asked the children of some friends and colleagues how much history they had picked up during their school years.
Twenty-year-old university student Nami Yoshida and her older sister Mai - both undergraduates studying science - say they haven't heard about comfort women.
"I've heard of the Nanjing massacre but I don't know what it's about," they both say.
"At school, we learn more about what happened a long time ago, like the samurai era," Nami adds.
Seventeen-year-old Yuki Tsukamoto says the "Mukden incident" and Japan's invasion of the Korean peninsula in the late 16th Century help to explain Japan's unpopularity in the region.
"I think it is understandable that some people are upset, because no-one wants their own country to be invaded," he says.
But he too is unaware of the plight of the comfort women.
Image caption Chinese protesters often mark anniversaries of 20th Century clashes with Japan
Former history teacher and scholar Tamaki Matsuoka holds Japan's education system responsible for a number of the country's foreign relations difficulties.
"Our system has been creating young people who get annoyed by all the complaints that China and South Korea make about war atrocities because they are not taught what they are complaining about," she said.
"It is very dangerous because some of them may resort to the internet to get more information and then they start believing the nationalists' views that Japan did nothing wrong."
I first saw her work, based on interviews with Japanese soldiers who invaded Nanjing, when I visited the museum in the city a few years ago.
"There were many testimonies by the victims but I thought we needed to hear from the soldiers," she says.
"It took me many years but I interviewed 250 of them. Many initially refused to talk, but eventually, they admitted to killing, stealing and raping."
Image caption Matsuoka accuses the government of a deliberate silence about atrocities
When I saw her video interviews of the soldiers, it was not just their admission of war crimes which shocked me, it was their age. Already elderly by the time she interviewed them, many had been barely 20 at the time, and in a strange way, it humanised them.
I was choked with an extremely complex emotion. Sad to see Japan repeatedly described as evil and dubbed "the devil", and nervous because I wondered how people around me would react if they knew I was Japanese. But there was also the big question why - what drove these young soldiers to kill and rape?
When Matsuoka published her book, she received many threats from nationalist groups.
She and Fujioka represent two opposing camps in a debate about what should be taught in Japanese schools.
Fujioka and his Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform say most textbooks are "masochistic" and only teach about Japan in negative light.
History tuition in Japan
Students first learn about Japanese history in Year Six, over 105 hours of lessons
In Year Eight of junior high school, they study the history of Japan's relations with the rest of the world - this course now lasts for 130 hours
Seven history textbooks are approved by the Education Ministry - schools can choose which they use
Students can also choose to study World History in Year 11
"The Japanese textbook authorisation system has the so-called "neighbouring country clause" which means that textbooks have to show understanding in their treatment of historical events involving neighbouring Asian countries. It is just ridiculous," he says.
He is widely known for pressuring politicians to remove the term "comfort women" from all the junior high school textbooks. His first textbook, which won government approval in 2001, made a brief reference to the death of Chinese soldiers and civilians in Nanjing, but he plans to tone it down further in his next book.
But is ignorance the solution?
The Ministry of Education's guidelines for junior high schools state that all children must be taught about Japan's "historical relations with its Asian neighbours and the catastrophic damage caused by the World War II to humanity at large".
"That means schools have to teach about the Japanese military's increased influence and extension of its power [in the 1930s] and the prolonged war in China," says ministry spokesman Akihiko Horiuchi.
Textbook crisis
In 2005, protests were sparked in China and South Korea by a textbook prepared by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, which had been approved by the government in 2001.
Foreign critics said it whitewashed Japan's war record during the 1930s and early 1940s.
It referred to the Nanjing massacre as an "incident", and glossed over the issue of comfort women.
The book was not used in many schools, but was a big commercial success.
"Students learn about the extent of the damage caused by Japan in many countries during the war as well as sufferings that the Japanese people had to experience especially in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Okinawa in order to understand the importance of international co-operation and peace.
"Based on our guideline, each school decides which specific events they focus on depending on the areas and the situation of the school and the students' maturity."
Matsuoka, however, thinks the government deliberately tries not to teach young people the details of Japan's atrocities.
Having experienced history education in two countries, the way history is taught in Japan has at least one advantage - students come away with a comprehensive understanding of when events happened, in what order.
In many ways, my schoolfriends and I were lucky. Because junior high students were all but guaranteed a place in the senior high school, not many had to go through what's often described as the "examination war".
For students who are competing to get into a good senior high school or university, the race is extremely tough and requires memorisation of hundreds of historical dates, on top of all the other subjects that have to be studied.
They have no time to dwell on a few pages of war atrocities, even if they read them in their textbooks.
All this has resulted in Japan's Asian neighbours - especially China and South Korea - accusing the country of glossing over its war atrocities.
Meanwhile, Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe criticises China's school curriculum for being too "anti-Japanese".
He, like Fujioka, wants to change how history is taught in Japan so that children can be proud of our past, and is considering revising Japan's 1993 apology over the comfort women issue.
If and when that happens, it will undoubtedly cause a huge stir with our Asian neighbours. And yet, many Japanese will have no clue why it is such a big deal.
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http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/247337/unbroken-japan-still-deep-denial-over-cannibalism-daniel-greenfield
Unbroken: Japan Still in Deep Denial Over Cannibalism Against US Soldiers
"The corporal said he saw flesh being cut from prisoners who were still alive."
December 13, 2014
Daniel Greenfield
Japbehead3
Unlike Germany, Japan never came to terms in any way with its wartime history. The Japanese are fed on a diet of official history and pop culture history which makes them out to be the victims of American aggression. This history typically starts with American planes suddenly bombing Japan for no reason and then concludes with Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
So Unbroken has led to the expected outrage and denial.
Angelina Jolie’s new movie “Unbroken” has not been released in Japan yet, but it has already struck a nerve in a country still fighting over its wartime past.
And the buzz on social networks and in online chatter is decidedly negative over the film that depicts a U.S. Olympic runner who endures torture at a Japanese World War II prisoner-of-war camp.
Because Japan did nothing wrong.
Especially provocative is a passage in the book that refers to cannibalism among the troops. It is not clear how much of that will be in the movie, but that is too much for some.
“But there was absolutely no cannibalism,” said Mutsuhiro Takeuchi, a nationalist-leaning educator and a priest in the traditional Shinto religion. “That is not our custom.”
Custom or no custom, there was plenty of cannibalism.
The former President George Bush narrowly escaped being beheaded and eaten by Japanese soldiers when he was shot down over the Pacific in the Second World War, a shocking new history published in America has revealed.
Lt George Bush, then a 20-year-old pilot, was among nine airmen who escaped from their planes after being shot down during bombing raids on Chichi Jima, a tiny island 700 miles south of Tokyo, in September 1944 - and was the only one to evade capture by the Japanese.
The horrific fate of the other eight "flyboys" was established in subsequent war crimes trials on the island of Guam, but details were sealed in top secret files in Washington to spare their families distress.
Mr Bradley has established that they were tortured, beaten and then executed, either by beheading with swords or by multiple stab-wounds from bayonets and sharpened bamboo stakes. Four were then butchered by the island garrison's surgeons and their livers and meat from their thighs eaten by senior Japanese officers.
The next day a Japanese officer, Major Sueo Matoba, decided to include American flesh in a sake-fuelled feast he laid on for officers including the commander-in-chief on the island, Gen Yoshio Tachibana. Both men were later tried and executed for war crimes.
A Japanese medical orderly who helped the surgeon prepare the ingredients said: "Dr Teraki cut open the chest and took out the liver. I removed a piece of flesh from the flyer's thigh, weighing about six pounds and measuring four inches wide, about a foot long."
Another crewman, Floyd Hall, met a similar fate. Adml Kinizo Mori, the senior naval officer on Chichi Jima, told the court that Major Matoba brought "a delicacy" to a party at his quarters - a specially prepared dish of Floyd Hall's liver.
According to Adml Mori, Matoba told him: "I had it pierced with bamboo sticks and cooked with soy sauce and vegetables." They ate it in "very small pieces", believing it "good medicine for the stomach", the admiral recalled.
A third victim of cannibalism, Jimmy Dye, had been put to work as a translator when, several weeks later, Capt Shizuo Yoshii - who was later tried and executed - called for his liver to be served at a party for fellow officers. Parts of a fourth airman, Warren Earl Vaughn, were also eaten and the remaining four were executed, one by being clubbed to death.
That wasn't one aberrant incident. This happened a lot.
One of the first to level charges of cannibalism against the Japanese was Jemadar Abdul Latif of 4/9 Jat Regiment of the Indian Army, a VCO who was rescued by the Australians at Sepik Bay in 1945. He alleged that not just Indian PoWs but even locals in New Guinea were killed and eaten by the Japanese. "At the village of Suaid, a Japanese medical officer periodically visited the Indian compound and selected each time the healthiest men. These men were taken away ostensibly for carrying out duties, but they never reappeared," the Melbourne correspondent of The Times, London, cabled this version of Jemadar Latif on November 5, 1946.
Latif's charges were buttressed by Captain R U Pirzai and Subedar Dr Gurcharan Singh. "Of 300 men who went to Wewak with me, only 50 got out. Nineteen were eaten. A Jap doctor —Lieutenant Tumisa, formed a party of three or four men and would send an Indian outside the camp for something. The Japs immediately would kill him and eat the flesh from his body. The liver, muscles from the buttocks, thighs, legs, and arms would be cut off and cooked," Captain Pirzai told Australian daily The Courier-Mail in a report dated August 25, 1945.
Then there were more similar testimonies by PoWs interned in other camps, such as Havildar Changdi Ram and Lance Naik Hatam Ali, who also gave details of cannibalism practised in their camps. John Baptist Crasta of the Royal Indian Army Service Corps, also a PoW at Rabaul, wrote in his memoir (Eaten by the Japanese: The Memoir of an Unknown Indian Prisoner of War) about Japanese eating Indian soldiers. He was made part of the Allied investigation into Japanese war crimes later.
All these soldiers gave sworn testimonies to the war crimes investigation commissions set up by the Allies, based on which several Japanese officers and men were tried. The senior-most Japanese officer found guilty of cannibalism and hanged was Lieutenant General Yoshio Tachibana.
The Japanese, though, were always dismissive of these charges. Then in 1992, a Japanese historian named Toshiyuki Tanaka found incontrovertible evidence of Japanese atrocities, including cannibalism, on Indians and other Allied prisoners. His initial findings were printed by The Japan Times. In 1997, Tanaka came out with his book, Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes In World War II. There, he refuted the Allies' conclusion that the Japanese resorted to cannibalism when their supplies dwindled. Tanaka said this was done under the supervision of senior officers and was perceived as a power projection tool.
It really happened a whole lot. There was a reason that Americans during WW2 viewed their enemies as savages. They weren't racists. They were dealing with the reality of fighting enemies with absolutely no moral code, only an honor-shame code.
Mr Tanaka, a 43-year-old scholar from Fukui in western Japan, is working at the Political Science Department in Melbourne University. The documents he found concerning cannibalism include captured Japanese army memos as well as sworn statements by Australian soldiers for war crimes investigations. Mr Tanaka says he has amassed at least 100 documented cases of cannibalism of Australian and Indian soldiers as well as Asian forced labourers in New Guinea. He has also found some evidence of cannibalism in the Philippines.
'In some cases the (Japanese) soldiers were suffering from starvation, but in many other cases they were not starving at all,' said Mr Tanaka. 'Many reports said the Japanese soldiers were fit and strong, and had potatoes, rice and dried fish.' Some Japanese press reports yesterday suggested the cannibalism was carried out simply because of shortage of food.
The researcher also denied it was a result of a breakdown in morale: 'The reports said morale was good. Often it was done in a group under instruction of a commander. I think it was to get a feeling for victory, and to give the soldiers nerves of steel.' He said it helped the soldiers to bond 'because the whole troop broke the taboo (of cannibalism) together'.
A Pakistani, who was captured when Japan overran Singapore and taken to New Guinea, testified that in his area Japanese soldiers killed and ate one prisoner a day for 'about 100' days. The corporal said he saw flesh being cut from prisoners who were still alive.
The actual details of it destroy our entire idea of what human civilization looks like.
If there can be a "worst" in such a litany of atrocities, it is the admission of Masayo Enomoto, a former sergeant major. Enomoto remembers raping a young woman, slicing her up with a meat cleaver, cooking her in a pot and distributing her as food to his troops, who were short of meat.
We can keep going, but I think that's more than enough. Japan has adopted the self-righteous pacifism of the left along with its complete refusal to engage in a moral accounting of its own actions. We constantly hear lectures about the atom bomb. This was the kind of society it was used to fight.
Takeuchi acknowledged Jolie is free to make whatever movie she wants, stressing that Shinto believes in forgive-and-forget.
I can't speak for Shinto, but it was Americans who forgot and forgave. A Japanese occupation of America would not have involved a lot of forgetting or forgiving. It would have involved the same mass murder, mass rape and ritual cannibalism as the Japanese occupations elsewhere.
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Alive and safe, the brutal Japanese soldiers who butchered 20,000 Allied seamen in cold blood
By NIGEL BLUNDELL
Last updated at 17:53 03 November 2007
The perpetrators of some of the worst atrocities of the Second World War remain alive and unpunished in Japan, according to a damning new book.
Painstaking research by British historian Mark Felton reveals that the wartime behaviour of the Japanese Navy was far worse than their counterparts in Hitler's Kriegsmarine.
According to Felton, officers of the Imperial Japanese Navy ordered the deliberately sadistic murders of more than 20,000 Allied seamen and countless civilians in cold-blooded defiance of the Geneva Convention.
"Many of the Japanese sailors who committed such terrible deeds are still alive today," he said.
"No one and nothing has bothered these men in six decades. There is only one documented case of a German U-boat skipper being responsible for cold-blooded murder of survivors. In the Japanese Imperial Navy, it was official orders."
Felton has compiled a chilling list of atrocities. He said: "The Japanese Navy sank Allied merchant and Red Cross vessels, then murdered survivors floating in the sea or in lifeboats.
"Allied air crew were rescued from the ocean and then tortured to death on the decks of ships.
"Naval landing parties rounded up civilians then raped and massacred them. Some were taken out to sea and fed to sharks. Others were killed by sledge-hammer, bayonet, beheading, hanging, drowning, burying alive, burning or crucifixion.
"I also unearthed details of medical experiments by naval doctors, with prisoners being dissected while still alive."
Felton's research reveals for the first time the full extent of the war crimes committed by the Imperial Japanese Navy, a force that traditionally modelled itself on the Royal Navy. Previously unknown documents suggest that at least 12,500 British sailors and a further 7,500 Australians were butchered.
Felton cites the case of the British merchantman Behar, sunk by the heavy cruiser Tone on March 9, 1944. The Tone's captain Haruo Mayuzumi picked up survivors and, after ten days of captivity below decks, had 85 of them assembled, hands bound, on his ship's stern.
Kicked in their stomachs and testicles by the Japanese, they were then, one by one, beheaded with swords and their bodies dumped overboard.
A solitary senior officer, Commander Junsuke Mii, risked his career by dissenting. But he gave evidence at a subsequent war crimes tribunal only under duress. Meanwhile, most of the officers who conducted the execution remained at liberty after the war.
Felton also tells the horrifying story of James Blears, a 21-year-old radio operator and one of several Britons on the Dutch-registered merchant ship Tjisalak, which was torpedoed by the submarine I-8 on March 26, 1944, while sailing from Melbourne to Ceylon with 103 passengers and crew.
Fished from the sea or ordered out of lifeboats, Blears and his fellow survivors were assembled on the sub's foredeck.
From the conning tower, Commander Shinji Uchino issued the ominous order: "Do not look back because that will be too bad for you," Blears recalled.
One by one, the prisoners were shot, decapitated with swords or simply bludgeoned with a sledge-hammer and thrown on to the churning propellers.
According to Blears: "One guy, they cut off his head halfway and let him flop around on the deck. The others I saw, they just lopped them off with one slice and threw them overboard. The Japanese were laughing and one even filmed the whole thing with a cine camera."
Blears waited for his turn, then pulled his hands out of his bindings and dived overboard amid machine-gun fire.
He swam for hours until he found a lifeboat, in which he was joined by two other officers and later an Indian crewman who had escaped alone after 22 of his fellow countrymen had been tied to a rope behind the I-8 and dragged to their deaths as it dived underwater.
Uchino, who was hailed a Japanese hero, ended the war in a senior land-based role and was never brought to trial.
Felton said: "This kind of behaviour was encouraged under a navy order dated March 20, 1943, which read, 'Do not stop at the sinking of enemy ships and cargoes. At the same time carry out the complete destruction of the crews'."
In the months after that order, the submarine I-37 sank four British merchant ships and one armed vessel and, in every case, the survivors were machine-gunned in the sea.
The submarine's commander was sentenced to eight years in prison at a war crimes trial, but was freed three years later when the Japanese government ruled his actions to have been "legal acts of war".
Felton said: "Most disturbing is the Japanese amnesia about their war record and senior politicians' outrageous statements about the war and their rewriting of history.
"The Japanese murdered 30million civilians while "liberating" what it called the Greater East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere from colonial rule. About 23million of these were ethnic Chinese.
"It's a crime that in sheer numbers is far greater than the Nazi Holocaust. In Germany, Holocaust denial is a crime. In Japan, it is government policy. But the evidence against the navy – precious little of which you will find in Japan itself – is damning."
The geographical breadth of the navy's crimes, the heinous nature of the acts themselves and the sadistic behaviour of the officers and men concerned are almost unimaginable.
For example, the execution of 312 Australian and Dutch defenders of the Laha Airfield, Java, was ordered by Rear Admiral Koichiro Hatakeyama on February 24 and 25, 1942.
The facts were squeezed out of two Japanese witnesses by Australian army interrogators as there were no Allied survivors.
One of the Japanese sailors described how the first prisoner to be killed, an Australian, was led forward to the edge of a pit, forced to his knees and beheaded with a samurai sword by a Warrant Officer Sasaki, prompting a great cry of admiration from the watching Japanese.
Sasaki dispatched four more prisoners, and then the ordinary sailors came forward one by one to commit murder.
They laughed and joked with each other even when the executions were terribly botched, the victims pushed into the pit with their heads half attached, jerking feebly and moaning.
Hatakeyama was arraigned by the Australians, but died before his trial could begin. Four senior officers were hanged, but a lack of Allied witnesses made prosecuting others very difficult.
Felton said that the Americans were the most assiduous of the Allied powers in collecting evidence of crimes against their servicemen, including those of Surgeon Commander Chisato Ueno and eight staff who were tried and hanged for dissecting an American prisoner while he was alive in the Philippines in 1945.
However, the British authorities lacked the staff, money and resources of the Americans, and the British Labour government was not fully committed to pursuing Japanese war criminals into the Fifties.
• Slaughter At Sea: The Story Of Japan's Naval War Crimes by Mark Felton is published by Pen & Sword on November 20 at £19.99.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-491548/Alive-safe-brutal-Japanese-soldiers-butchered-20-000-Allied-seamen-cold-blood.html#
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http://ahrp.org/hidden-horrors-japanese-atrocities-include-evidence-of-cannibalism/
Hidden Horrors: Japanese atrocities include evidence of cannibalism
“For the 10,000-odd soldiers of the Indian Army who endured extreme torture at the hands of their Japanese captors, cannibalism was the culmination. Evidence suggests the practice was not the result of dwindling supplies, but worse, it was conducted under supervision and perceived as a power projection tool.” (War Crimes in WWII: Japanese Practiced Cannibalism on Indian soldiers, International Business Times, 2014)
On Dec. 25, 1942, the US Army’s Allied Translator & Interpreter Section (ATIS), obtained the diary of a Japanese commander whose entry on Oct. 19, 1942, documented starvation of his platoon, and noted that meat had been carved from a dead American prisoner: “This is the first time I have ever tasted human flesh—and it was very tasty.” (Interagency Working Group, National Archives and Records Administration, 2006; pp. 160—163
In 1993, Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes In World War II by Toshiyuki Tanaka, a Japanese historian at Melbourne University, was published in Japanese (English translation, 1996). The book focuses on Japanese atrocities Australian territory and deep in the jungles of Burneo and Papua, New Guinea where thousands of Australian, British, Pakistani and Indian POWs were massacred, and some cannibalized.
Tanaka addressed five categories of Japanese war crimes and explores the broader social, psychological, and institutional culture, examining Japanese conduct within the context of dehumanizing institutionalized wartime brutality. He describes the plight of 2,000 Australian and British POWs who died at Sandakan Camp in Borneo, and the tortuous 160-mile death march which only six survived to tell what happened. He describes human experiments in which POWs were injected with pathogens and poisons; the massacre of civilians, mostly German clergymen, Australian and Chinese civilians. He describes the slaughter of 65 shipwrecked Australian nurses and the gang rape of 32 other captured nurses who were then sent to Sumatra to serve as prostitutes for Japanese soldiers, who are euphemistically called, “comfort women.” And he addressed accounts of cannibalism.
Tanaka indicated that he had collected at least 100 documented cases of Japanese cannibalism involving Australian and Indian soldiers, and refuted the Allies’ contention that the Japanese resorted to cannibalism only when their food supplies were exhausted. “Tanaka said this [cannibalism] was done under the supervision of senior officers and was perceived as a power projection tool.” (Manimugdha Sharma. Japanese Ate Indian POWs, Used Them as Live Targets in WWII, Times of India, Aug. 11, 2014)
One of the first to level charges of cannibalism against Japanese soldiers
One of the first to level charges of cannibalism against Japanese soldiers was Jemadar Abdul Latif of the Indian Army who was rescued by the Australians at Sepik Bay in 1945. He alleged that Indian POWs and local New Guineas were killed and eaten by Japanese.
“At the village of Suaid, a Japanese medical officer periodically visited the Indian compound and selected each time the healthiest men. These men were taken away… and never reappeared.” (The Times of London, November 5, 1946; Manimugdha Sharma. Japanese Ate Indian POWs, Used Them as Live Targets in WWII, Times of India, Aug. 11, 2014)
Latif’s charges were buttressed by sworn testimonies to the War Crimes Investigation Commissions set up by the Allies. Captain R U Pirzai and Subedar Dr Gurcharan Singh told the Australian Courier-Mail in August 25, 1945 that:
“Of 300 men who went to Wewak with me, only 50 got out. Nineteen were eaten. A Jap doctor —Lieutenant Tumisa, formed a party of three or four men and would send an Indian outside the camp for something. The Japs immediately would kill him and eat the flesh from his body. The liver, muscles from the buttocks, thighs, legs, and arms would be cut off and cooked.”
(Manimugdha Sharma. Japanese Ate Indian POWs, Used Them as Live Targets in WWII, Times of India, Aug. 11, 2014; Jayalakshmi. War Crimes in WWII: Japanese Practiced Cannibalism on Indian soldiers, International Business Times, Aug. 11, 2014)
These witnesses testified that a Japanese doctor, Lieutenant Tumisa, would lead a party of three or four to kill and eat the flesh of hapless Indian soldiers. Similar testimonies by POWs held at other prisons have also provided detailed reports about Japanese cannibalism, such as Havildar Changdi Ram and Lance Naik Hatam Ali, who also gave details of cannibalism practiced in their camps
“John Baptist Crasta of the Royal Indian Army Service Corps, also a POW at Rabaul, wrote in his memoir (Eaten by the Japanese: The Memoir of an Unknown Indian Prisoner of War) about Japanese eating Indian soldiers. He was made part of the Allied investigation into Japanese war crimes later.”
April 2, 1946, Reuters reported: “The Japanese Lieutenant Hisata Tomiyasu found guilty of the murder of 14 Indian soldiers and of cannibalism at Wewak (New Guinea) in 1944 has been sentenced to death by hanging, it is learned from Rabaul.
November 5, 1946, The Times, London: “At the village of Suaid, a Japanese medical officer periodically visited the Indian compound and selected each time the healthiest men. These men were taken away ostensibly for carrying out duties, but they never reappeared.”
“Based on their testimonies, several Japanese officers were tried. Lieut. Gen. Yoshio Tachibana, the most senior officer found guilty of cannibalism, was hanged.” (Manimugdha Sharma. Japanese Ate Indian POWs, Used Them as Live Targets in WWII, Times of India, Aug. 11, 2014)
POW death rate under Japanese was seven times higher than under the Germans & Italians Tanaka suggests that the level of brutalities committed by the Japanese Army help to explain why the death rate for POWs under the Japanese was seven times that of the deaths of POWs under the Germans and Italians. He does not accept that starvation and diseases in tropical countries are the only explanation. Tanaka provides insights into the “emperor ideology” that dominated in Japan during this time and tries to separate this ideology from former periods in Japanese history. He shows that the corruption of the samurai class concept “Bushidou” that had been maintained during the nineteenth century had deteriorated to the point that soldiers had to be imbued with a “fighting spirit.”
“the concept for basic human rights, in particular for individual lives, was lacking among Japanese soldiers…they did what they thought would be done to them had the positions been reversed… Ideological pressure produced a blind obedience that went much further than the loyalty needed by a warrior from former times. Japanese soldiers also suffered from a radicalization evidenced by Japan’s decision to start a war without having plans on how to end it or to occupy New Guinea, for example, without further knowledge of the territory.”
Furthermore, Tanaka analyzes the psychological pressures that Japanese soldiers were under:
Rape has been “a device for maintaining group aggressiveness of soldiers…The need to dominate the enemy is imperative in battle with other men… The violation of the bodies of women becomes the means by which such a sense of domination is affirmed and reaffirmed” (p. 107, 108)
Tanaka explains that existing accounts of cannibalism make clear that its practice “was something more than merely random incidents perpetrated by individual or small groups subject to extreme conditions;” he classifies it as a sort of “group-survival cannibalism,” some driven by starvation, although instances of cannibalism occurred before there was a shortage of food.(p. 126) Tanaka highlights the fact that “discipline was maintained to an astonishing degree” (p. 127), thus, some soldiers participated in order to avoid being seen as traitors to group solidarity or even, in some cases, to avoid being eaten themselves by their own companions.
This underscores the inherent danger posed by a collective psychological tendency wherein an individual member in a closed dominant group feels obliged to accede to group pressures. [This was demonstrated in controversial psychological experiments by Stanley Milgrim in his “Obedience to Authority” experiment (1961), and by Philip Zimbardo in his infamous Stanford Prison experiment (1971)].
Hidden Horrors includes a chapter on Biological Warfare Plans. Although the Pacific front was spared biological warfare, plans were made and soldiers were trained for its eventuality. However, POWs at Rabau were subjected to experiments in which they were injected with various poisons or viruses to test their lethality.
Additionally, the extraordinary rate of deaths among Japanese soldiers due to starvation and tropical diseases led doctors to surmise that Japanese soldiers had also been subjected to such experiments. Tanaka suggested that it was as an example of victimizers being victimized; the way in which “those who are guilty are often the victims of war crimes themselves” (p. 134). Tanaka’s findings were later published by The Japan Times In 1997.
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http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/17/world/unmasking-horror-a-special-report-japan-confronting-gruesome-war-atrocity.html?pagewanted=all
Unmasking Horror -- A special report.; Japan Confronting Gruesome War Atrocity
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: March 17, 1995
MORIOKA, Japan— He is a cheerful old farmer who jokes as he serves rice cakes made by his wife, and then he switches easily to explaining what it is like to cut open a 30-year-old man who is tied naked to a bed and dissect him alive, without anesthetic.
"The fellow knew that it was over for him, and so he didn't struggle when they led him into the room and tied him down," recalled the 72-year-old farmer, then a medical assistant in a Japanese Army unit in China in World War II. "But when I picked up the scalpel, that's when he began screaming.
"I cut him open from the chest to the stomach, and he screamed terribly, and his face was all twisted in agony. He made this unimaginable sound, he was screaming so horribly. But then finally he stopped. This was all in a day's work for the surgeons, but it really left an impression on me because it was my first time."
Finally the old man, who insisted on anonymity, explained the reason for the vivisection. The Chinese prisoner had been deliberately infected with the plague as part of a research project -- the full horror of which is only now emerging -- to develop plague bombs for use in World War II. After infecting him, the researchers decided to cut him open to see what the disease does to a man's inside. No anesthetic was used, he said, out of concern that it might have an effect on the results.
That research program was one of the great secrets of Japan during and after World War II: a vast project to develop weapons of biological warfare, including plague, anthrax, cholera and a dozen other pathogens. Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army conducted research by experimenting on humans and by "field testing" plague bombs by dropping them on Chinese cities to see whether they could start plague outbreaks. They could.
A trickle of information about the program has turned into a stream and now a torrent. Half a century after the end of the war, a rush of books, documentaries and exhibitions are unlocking the past and helping arouse interest in Japan in the atrocities committed by some of Japan's most distinguished doctors.
Scholars and former members of the unit say that at least 3,000 people -- by some accounts several times as many -- were killed in the medical experiments; none survived.
No one knows how many died in the "field testing." It is becoming evident that the Japanese officers in charge of the program hoped to use their weapons against the United States. They proposed using balloon bombs to carry disease to America, and they had a plan in the summer of 1945 to use kamikaze pilots to dump plague-infected fleas on San Diego.
The research was kept secret after the end of the war in part because the United States Army granted immunity from war crimes prosecution to the doctors in exchange for their data. Japanese and American documents show that the United States helped cover up the human experimentation. Instead of putting the ringleaders on trial, it gave them stipends.
The accounts are wrenching to read even after so much time has passed: a Russian mother and daughter left in a gas chamber, for example, as doctors peered through thick glass and timed their convulsions, watching as the woman sprawled over her child in a futile effort to save her from the gas. The Origins Ban on Weapon Entices Military
Japan's biological weapons program was born in the 1930's, in part because Japanese officials were impressed that germ warfare had been banned by the Geneva Convention of 1925. If it was so awful that it had to be banned under international law, the officers reasoned, it must make a great weapon.
The Japanese Army, which then occupyied a large chunk of China, evicted the residents of eight villages near Harbin, in Manchuria, to make way for the headquarters of Unit 731. One advantage of China, from the Japanese point of view, was the availability of research subjects on whom germs could be tested. The subjects were called marutas, or logs, and most were Communist sympathizers or ordinary criminals. The majority were Chinese, but many were Russians, expatriates living in China.
Takeo Wano, a 71-year-old former medical worker in Unit 731 who now lives here in the northern Japanese city of Morioka, said he once saw a six-foot-high glass jar in which a Western man was pickled in formaldehyde. The man had been cut into two pieces, vertically, and Mr. Wano guesses that he was Russian because there were many Russians then living in the area.
The Unit 731 headquarters contained many other such jars with specimens. They contained feet, heads, internal organs, all neatly labeled. "I saw samples with labels saying 'American,' 'English' and 'Frenchman,' but most were Chinese, Koreans and Mongolians," said a Unit 731 veteran who insisted on anonymity. "Those labeled as American were just body parts, like hands or feet, and some were sent in by other military units."
There is no evidence that Americans were among the victims in the Unit 731 compound, although there have been persistent but unproven accusations that American prisoners of war in Mukden (now Shenyang) were subject to medical experimentation.
Medical researchers also locked up diseased prisoners with healthy ones, to see how readily various ailments would spread. The doctors locked others inside a pressure chamber to see how much the body can withstand before the eyes pop from their sockets.
Victims were often taken to a proving ground called Anda, where they were tied to stakes and bombarded with test weapons to see how effective the new technologies were. Planes sprayed the zone with a plague culture or dropped bombs with plague-infested fleas to see how many people would die.
The Japanese armed forces were using poison gas in their battles against Chinese troops, and so some of the prisoners were used in developing more lethal gases. One former member of Unit 731 who insisted on anonymity said he was taken on a "field trip" to the proving ground to watch a poison gas experiment.
A group of prisoners were tied to stakes, and then a tank-like contraption that spewed out gas was rolled toward them, he said. But at just that moment, the wind changed and the Japanese observers had to run for their lives without seeing what happened to the victims.
The Japanese Army regularly conducted field tests to see whether biological warfare would work outside the laboratory. Planes dropped plague-infected fleas over Ningbo in eastern China and over Changde in north-central China, and plague outbreaks were later reported.
Japanese troops also dropped cholera and typhoid cultures in wells and ponds, but the results were often counterproductive. In 1942 germ warfare specialists distributed dysentery, cholera and typhoid in Zhejiang Province in China, but Japanese soldiers became ill and 1,700 died of the diseases, scholars say.
Sheldon H. Harris, a historian at California State University in Northridge, estimates that more than 200,000 Chinese were killed in germ warfare field experiments. Professor Harris -- author of a book on Unit 731, "Factories of Death" (Routledge, 1994) -- also says plague-infected animals were released as the war was ending and caused outbreaks of the plague that killed at least 30,000 people in the Harbin area from 1946 through 1948.
The leading scholar of Unit 731 in Japan, Keiichi Tsuneishi, is skeptical of such numbers. Professor Tsuneishi, who has led the efforts in Japan to uncover atrocities by Unit 731, says that the attack on Ningbo killed about 100 people and that there is no evidence of huge outbreaks of disease set off by field trials. The Tradeoff Knowledge Gained At Terrible Cost
Many of the human experiments were intended to develop new treatments for medical problems that the Japanese Army faced. Many of the experiments remain secret, but an 18-page report prepared in 1945 -- and kept by a senior Japanese military officer until now -- includes a summary of the unit's research. The report was prepared in English for American intelligence officials, and it shows the extraordinary range of the unit's work.
Scholars say that the research was not contrived by mad scientists, and that it was intelligently designed and carried out. The medical findings saved many Japanese lives.
For example, Unit 731 proved scientifically that the best treatment for frostbite was not rubbing the limb, which had been the traditional method, but rather immersion in water a bit warmer than 100 degrees -- but never more than 122 degrees.
The cost of this scientific breakthrough was borne by those seized for medical experiments. They were taken outside in freezing weather and left with exposed arms, periodically drenched with water, until a guard decided that frostbite had set in. Testimony from a Japanese officer said this was determined after the "frozen arms, when struck with a short stick, emitted a sound resembling that which a board gives when it is struck."
A booklet just published in Japan after a major exhibition about Unit 731 shows how doctors even experimented on a three-day-old baby, measuring the temperature with a needle stuck inside the infant's middle finger.
"Usually a hand of a three-day-old infant is clenched into a fist," the booklet says, "but by sticking the needle in, the middle finger could be kept straight to make the experiment easier." The Scope Other Experiments On Humans
The human experimentation did not take place just in Unit 731, nor was it a rogue unit acting on its own. While it is unclear whether Emperor Hirohito knew of the atrocities, his younger brother, Prince Mikasa, toured the Unit 731 headquarters in China and wrote in his memoirs that he was shown films showing how Chinese prisoners were "made to march on the plains of Manchuria for poison gas experiments on humans."
In addition, the recollections of Dr. Ken Yuasa, 78, who still practices in a clinic in Tokyo, suggest that human experimentation may have been routine even outside Unit 731. Dr. Yuasa was an army medic in China, but he says he was never in Unit 731 and never had contact with it.
Nevertheless, Dr. Yuasa says that when he was still in medical school in Japan, the students heard that ordinary doctors who went to China were allowed to vivisect patients. And sure enough, when Dr. Yuasa arrived in Shanxi Province in north-central China in 1942, he was soon asked to attend a "practice surgery."
Two Chinese men were brought in, stripped naked and given general anesthetic. Then Dr. Yuasa and the others began practicing various kinds of surgery: first an appendectomy, then an amputation of an arm and finally a tracheotomy. After 90 minutes, they were finished, so they killed the patient with an injection.
When Dr. Yuasa was put in charge of a clinic, he said, he periodically asked the police for a Communist to dissect, and they sent one over. The vivisection was all for practice rather than for research, and Dr. Yuasa says they were routine among Japanese doctors working in China in the war.
In addition, Dr. Yuasa -- who is now deeply apologetic about what he did -- said he cultivated typhoid germs in test tubes and passed them on, as he had been instructed to do, to another army unit. Someone from that unit, which also had no connection with Unit 731, later told him that the troops would use the test tubes to infect the wells of villages in Communist-held territory. The Plans Taking the War To U.S. Homeland
In 1944, when Japan was nearing defeat, Tokyo's military planners seized on a remarkable way to hit back at the American heartland: they launched huge balloons that rode the prevailing winds to the continental United States. Although the American Government censored reports at the time, some 200 balloons landed in Western states, and bombs carried by the balloons killed a woman in Montana and six people in Oregon.
Half a century later, there is evidence that it could have been far worse; some Japanese generals proposed loading the balloons with weapons of biological warfare, to create epidemics of plague or anthrax in the United States. Other army units wanted to send cattle-plague virus to wipe out the American livestock industry or grain smut to wipe out the crops.
There was a fierce debate in Tokyo, and a document discovered recently suggests that at a crucial meeting in late July 1944 it was Hideki Tojo -- whom the United States later hanged for war crimes -- who rejected the proposal to use germ warfare against the United States.
At the time of the meeting, Tojo had just been ousted as Prime Minister and chief of the General Staff, but he retained enough authority to veto the proposal. He knew by then that Japan was likely to lose the war, and he feared that biological assaults on the United States would invite retaliation with germ or chemical weapons being developed by America.
Yet the Japanese Army was apparently willing to use biological weapons against the Allies in some circumstances. When the United States prepared to attack the Pacific island of Saipan in the late spring of 1944, a submarine was sent from Japan to carry biological weapons -- it is unclear what kind -- to the defenders.
The submarine was sunk, Professor Tsuneishi says, and the Japanese troops had to rely on conventional weapons alone.
As the end of the war approached in 1945, Unit 731 embarked on its wildest scheme of all. Codenamed Cherry Blossoms at Night, the plan was to use kamikaze pilots to infest California with the plague.
Toshimi Mizobuchi, who was an instructor for new recruits in Unit 731, said the idea was to use 20 of the 500 new troops who arrived in Harbin in July 1945. A submarine was to take a few of them to the seas off Southern California, and then they were to fly in a plane carried on board the submarine and contaminate San Diego with plague-infected fleas. The target date was to be Sept. 22, 1945.
Ishio Obata, 73, who now lives in Ehime prefecture, acknowledged that he had been a chief of the Cherry Blossoms at Night attack force against San Diego, but he declined to discuss details. "It is such a terrible memory that I don't want to recall it," he said.
Tadao Ishimaru, also 73, said he had learned only after returning to Japan that he had been a candidate for the strike force against San Diego. "I don't want to think about Unit 731," he said in a brief telephone interview. "Fifty years have passed since the war. Please let me remain silent."
It is unclear whether Cherry Blossoms at Night ever had a chance of being carried out. Japan did indeed have at least five submarines that carried two or three planes each, their wings folded against the fuselage like a bird.
But a Japanese Navy specialist said the navy would have never allowed its finest equipment to be used for an army plan like Cherry Blossoms at Night, partly because the highest priority in the summer of 1945 was to defend the main Japanese islands, not to launch attacks on the United States mainland.
If the Cherry Blossoms at Night plan was ever serious, it became irrelevant as Japan prepared to surrender in early August 1945. In the last days of the war, beginning on Aug. 9, Unit 731 used dynamite to try to destroy all evidence of its germ warfare program, scholars say. The Aftermath No Punishment, Little Remorse
Partly because the Americans helped cover up the biological warfare program in exchange for its data, Gen. Shiro Ishii, the head of Unit 731, was allowed to live peacefully until his death from throat cancer in 1959. Those around him in Unit 731 saw their careers flourish in the postwar period, rising to positions that included Governor of Tokyo, president of the Japan Medical Association and head of the Japan Olympic Committee.
By conventional standards, few people were more cruel than the farmer who as a Unit 731 medic carved up a Chinese prisoner without anesthetic, and who also acknowledged that he had helped poison rivers and wells. Yet his main intention in agreeing to an interview seemed to be to explain that Unit 731 was not really so brutal after all.
Asked why he had not anesthetized the prisoner before dissecting him, the farmer explained: "Vivisection should be done under normal circumstances. If we'd used anesthesia, that might have affected the body organs and blood vessels that we were examining. So we couldn't have used anesthetic."
When the topic of children came up, the farmer offered another justification: "Of course there were experiments on children. But probably their fathers were spies."
"There's a possibility this could happen again," the old man said, smiling genially. "Because in a war, you have to win."
Photo: Japan proposed using germ-war balloons against America. (From "Unit 731"/The Free Press) (pg. A1); Gen. Shiro Ishii, head of Unit 731. (pg. A12) Map shows the location of Harbin, China. (pg. A12)
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The Untold Story of the Vengeful Japanese Attack After the Doolittle Raid
When the U.S. responded to Pearl Harbor with a surprise bombing of Tokyo, the Imperial Army took out its fury on the Chinese people
image: http://thumbs.media.smithsonianmag.com//filer/44/96/4496ecfa-b30c-4a81-a78d-b00f319a49da/planes.jpg__800x600_q85_crop.jpg
Planes Preparing
The flight deck of the U.S. aircraft carrier Hornet, some 800 miles off Tokyo Japan, where it shows some of 16 Billy Mitchell (B-25) Bombers, under the command of Major Jimmy Doolittle, just before they were guided off flight deck for historic raid on Tokyo, April of 1942. (Bettmann/Corbis)
By James M. Scott
smithsonian.com
April 15, 2015
At midday on April 18, 1942, 16 U.S. Army bombers, under the command of daredevil pilot Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, thundered into the skies over Tokyo and other key Japanese industrial cities in a surprise raid designed to avenge the attack on Pearl Harbor. For the 80 volunteer raiders, who lifted off that morning from the carrier Hornet, the mission was one-way. After attacking Japan, most of the aircrews flew on to Free China, where low on fuel, the men either bailed out or crash-landed along the coast and were rescued by local villagers, guerrillas and missionaries.
That generosity shown by the Chinese would trigger a horrific retaliation by the Japanese that claimed an estimated quarter-million lives and would prompt comparisons to the 1937-38 Rape of Nanking. American military authorities, cognizant that a raid on Tokyo would result in a vicious counterattack upon free China, saw the mission through regardless, even keeping the operation a secret from their Pacific theater allies. This chapter of the Doolittle Raid has largely gone unreported—until now.
Long-forgotten missionary records discovered in the archives of DePaul University for the first time shed important new light on the extent to which the Chinese suffered in the aftermath of the Doolittle raid.
In the moments after the attack on Tokyo, Japanese leaders fumed over the raid, which had revealed China’s coastal provinces as a dangerous blind spot in the defense of the homeland. American aircraft carriers not only could launch surprise attacks from the seas and land safely in China but could possibly even fly bombers directly from Chinese airfields to attack Japan. The Japanese military ordered an immediate campaign against strategically important airfields, issuing an operational plan in late April, just days after the Doolittle raid.
Survivor accounts point to an ulterior objective: to punish the Chinese allies of the United States forces, especially those towns where the American aviators had bailed out after the raid. At the time, Japanese forces occupied Manchuria as well as key coastal ports, railways and industrial and commercial centers in China.
image: http://thumbs.media.smithsonianmag.com//embedly/Unknown-7.jpeg.300x0_q85_upscale.jpg
Preview thumbnail for video 'Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor
Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor
The dramatic account of one of America’s most celebrated— and controversial—military campaigns: the Doolittle Raid.
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/untold-story-vengeful-japanese-attack-doolittle-raid-180955001/
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OzWWXop1-o
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OzWWXop1-o
Good video.
War is great for the economy. It would also cut down on the population (especially one with China).
" The U.S. owed China $1.115 trillion as of October 2016." https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-debt-to-china-how-much-does-it-own-3306355
"That's 27.8 percent of the $3.8 trillion in Treasury bills, notes, and bonds held by foreign countries." (about 6% of the total US debt).
I'm thinking that a war with China would be a great idea. I'd even put my life where my mouth is.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OzWWXop1-o
Good video.
War is great for the economy. It would also cut down on the population (especially one with China).
" The U.S. owed China $1.115 trillion as of October 2016." https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-debt-to-china-how-much-does-it-own-3306355
"That's 27.8 percent of the $3.8 trillion in Treasury bills, notes, and bonds held by foreign countries." (about 6% of the total US debt).
I'm thinking that a war with China would be a great idea. I'd even put my life where my mouth is.
It would quite probably turn into WWIII and with the nuclear exchange usually associated with WWIII. Not a great idea in my mind. This does not mean we roll over. I do agree with throwing some elbows and showing we won't be punked, but it has to be done with a great deal of finesse.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/11/30/the-great-depression-was-ended-by-the-end-of-world-war-ii-not-the-start-of-it/
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OzWWXop1-o
Good video.
War is great for the economy. It would also cut down on the population (especially one with China).
" The U.S. owed China $1.115 trillion as of October 2016." https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-debt-to-china-how-much-does-it-own-3306355
"That's 27.8 percent of the $3.8 trillion in Treasury bills, notes, and bonds held by foreign countries." (about 6% of the total US debt).
I'm thinking that a war with China would be a great idea. I'd even put my life where my mouth is.
It would quite probably turn into WWIII and with the nuclear exchange usually associated with WWIII. Not a great idea in my mind. This does not mean we roll over. I do agree with throwing some elbows and showing we won't be punked, but it has to be done with a great deal of finesse.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/11/30/the-great-depression-was-ended-by-the-end-of-world-war-ii-not-the-start-of-it/
As usual, I learn something new every day. To be honest, before reading this article, I've never even really given the depression a second thought. I do; however, concede the point entirely.. especially when one looks at pics of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, immediately after being bombed, and what they look like today.
And like you.. I also agree with throwing some elbows.... I'm not diplomatic enough to strategize the finesse of it though... never been my strong suit.
Hiroshima -
(http://image.slidesharecdn.com/hiroshimaynagasaki-090319231914-phpapp01/95/hiroshima-y-nagasaki-en-la-actualidad-4-728.jpg?cb=1238231416)
Nagasaki -
(http://www.tokyoweekender.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Nagasaki-640x425.jpg)
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What Nagasaki and Hiroshima have become today can be directly related to what America did and did not do in winning the war.
Of course, we need to get back to the part where we won the war.
Being the nice guy, once you've won is crucial. History cares nothing for the nice guy loser.
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MSM is playing catch up with the forum on their coverage of the Singapore to Taiwan Sea
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-military-commentary-idUSKBN1684OW
Is Beijing outflanking the United States in the South China Sea?
- 'ya think?
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Now that Trump is president, it's a concern. Gee, when did China start getting so aggressive? Questions not asked or answered. Must have just happened a few weeks ago.
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Lot's of good detail in that article.
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Lot's of good detail in that article.
Except how Obama the feckless let this happen.
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http://www.aei.org/publication/securing-asias-mediterranean/?utm_source=paramount&utm_medium=email&utm_content=AEITODAY&utm_campaign=030717
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China building navy’s biggest amphibious assault vessel
South China Morning Post
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2083109/china-building-navys-biggest-amphibious-assault-vessel
Ships will strengthen navy as Beijing makes more assertive claims to disputed waters in South China Sea and increases sea patrols amid strained ties with Taiwan
China has started building a new generation of large amphibious assault vessels that will strengthen the navy as it plays a more dominant role in projecting the nation’s power overseas, military sources said.
The 075 Landing Helicopter Dock is now under construction by a Shanghai-based shipbuilding company, the sources said.
The amphibious vessel is far larger than similar ships previously constructed for the PLA Navy.
The 075 can serve as a form of aircraft carrier and military experts said it would give China’s navy the ability to launch various types of helicopters to attack naval vessels, enemy ground forces or submarines in the East or South China Sea.
table
The introduction of the vessel comes as China is placing increasing importance on its navy as it makes more assertive claims to much of the South China Sea.
The PLA has also increased the number of naval patrols near Taiwan, amid strained ties with the independence-leaning government of the island, which Beijing considers a breakaway province that has split from the rest of the nation.
China’s navy commander, Vice-Admiral Shen Jinlong, visited the Hudong Zhonghua Shipbuilding Company on Sunday, which specialises in building Landing Helicopter Docks, the company said on its website.
One source close to the navy said Shen’s inspection trip confirmed construction work was underway on the new class of vessel.
“Construction of the Type 075 ships will take two more years,” the source said. “The first vessel may be launched as early as 2019 and put into full service in 2020.”
As overseas ambitions expand, China plans 400 per cent increase to marine corps numbers, sources say
Beijing is also due to launch its first home-built aircraft carrier, the Type 001A, on April 23, according to Chinese media reports and military sources, as part of its strengthened naval forces.
April 23 marks the 68th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army Navy and President Xi Jinping may attend the launch ceremony, one of the sources added.
Beijing-based naval expert Li Jie said: “This year is a big year for the navy as the supreme Central Military Commission has announced it’s going to expand. That’s why the launch time was set for the navy’s birthday.”
The South China Morning Post reported earlier this month, citing military sources, that the navy planned to increase the size of its marine corps from about 20,000 to 100,000 personnel to help protect its increasing interests overseas.
The launch of the 001A carrier and the construction of the Type 075 amphibious assault vessel provide further evidence that marine corps troops and the navy will play an increasingly important part in PLA operations.
China to step up patrols to create ‘first class’ navy
The Macau-based military observer Antony Wong Dong said building the bigger Type 075 vessels, which are similar in size to the largest American Wasp-class amphibious ships, would help the navy match the US in the use of helicopters in its fleet.
“China has so many giant warships, including four Type 071 amphibious vessels and two aircraft carriers, but its vertical landing capability is still limited due to a lack of the largest helicopter dock vessels,” Wong said. “ The launch of Type 075 will let the navy become the world’s No 2 powerful navy after the US.”
The Type 075 is able to deploy and house up to 30 armed helicopters. Six helicopters will be able to take off from the flight deck at the same time.
The vessels will also be able to deploy landing craft and troops, plus house command and control operations.
PLA Vice-Admiral Shen Jinlong (centre) pictured during his inspection trip at the Hudong Zhonghua Shipbuilding Company on Sunday. Photo: Handout
Its developer is a subsidiary of the China State Shipbuilding Corporation which has produced at least four, smaller 20,000 tonne Type 071 amphibious transport docks.
The PLA navy dispatched one of the smaller amphibious ships to Fiery Cross Reef and other man-made islands in disputed areas of the South China Sea for the first time last year.
The construction of the new vessel is also likely to put more military pressure on Taiwan.
Its government says Beijing has increased the military “intimidation” of the island since President Tsai Ing-wen of the independence leaning Democratic Progressive Party won elections in January 2016.
Navy must take lead in national defence, retired PLA general says
The US Department of Defence said in a report to Congress last year that the PLA was building a strong amphibious assault force and that this posed a threat to Taiwan.
These included amphibious landing ships, armoured brigades and marine corps, the report said.
Another source said that after visit his visit to see the Type 075 under construction, Vice-Admiral Shen also inspected progress on the new Type 002 aircraft carrier.
The Type 002 will be China’s third carrier, which has been under construction at the Jiangnan Changxingdao shipyard in Shanghai since March 2015.
It is expected to be launched in about 2021.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/02/us/politics/trump-china-jared-kushner.html?emc=edit_th_20170403&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0
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I think there is a good chance we move on the NorKs. Hopefully China stands back and let's it happen.
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"China Learns How to Get Trump’s Ear: Through Jared Kushner"
This seems true of everybody - got to suck up to such a "nice" man. (kushner)
This is all too weird .
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By Gerald F. Seib
Updated April 12, 2017 6:52 p.m. ET
President Donald Trump was expansive on Wednesday about his relationship with a world leader he has gotten to know since taking office.
“We have a very good relationship,” he said in a Wall Street Journal interview in the Oval Office. “We have a great chemistry together. We like each other. I like him a lot. I think his wife is terrific.”
The leader who came in for those warm words? Chinese President Xi Jinping.
It’s safe to say very few people saw that coming. China was, as much as any country, the target of Trump broadsides during the 2016 presidential campaign—for not playing fair in the world economy, for taking advantage of the U.S., for stealing American business, for intimidating its neighbors.
Meantime, of course, Russian President Vladimir Putin was the great-power leader who was supposed to emerge as the Trump favorite, the one who would develop a close relationship and be forgiven for past transgressions.
Yet somehow in the five months or so since Mr. Trump’s election victory, almost the reverse has happened. Now it appears the Trump-Xi relationship may be emerging as the world’s most important.
As Mr. Trump recounted in the interview, he spent hours with Mr. Xi at his Mar-a-Lago resort last week, including long stretches minus their retinues. An opening discussion between the two “was scheduled for 10 to 15 minutes, and it lasted for three hours,” Mr. Trump said. “And then the second day we had another 10-minute meeting and that lasted for two hours. We had just a very good chemistry.”
Trump Sees North Korea as Top Threat
In an Oval Office interview with The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, President Trump affirmed that North Korea is the U.S.'s biggest international threat. WSJ's Gerald F. Seib gives us more insight on what Mr. Trump had to say about Washington's posture toward Pyongyang. Photo: Jason Andrew for WSJ
Mr. Xi was the first world leader to learn of the American president’s decision to launch 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Syria; Mr. Trump told him over dessert at Mar-a-Lago last Thursday night. Then the two talked by phone for another hour Tuesday night, specifically about the nuclear threat from North Korea, Mr. Trump said.
Asked whether he could have imagined that kind of relationship emerging from the smoke of campaign rhetoric, Mr. Trump replied simply: “No.”
He added: “He’s so smart. It’s to his advantage. I like to call it flexible.”
Meantime, asked about the Xi relationship in contrast to the one with Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump recounted a nice call from the Russian leader after the election, and another phone conversation he initiated after the recent terror attack in Russia to offer American condolences and help.
He said: “Despite what you guys have been writing about, I don’t know Putin. I don’t know Putin.”
Part of all this is expediency, of course. The gravest national-security problem Mr. Trump faces is the North Korean quest for more nuclear weapons and the missiles that could deliver them over long ranges. And China happens to be, far and away, the country best able to help stop that threat.
It’s clear that the North Korean problem occupies a huge spot in the middle of the burgeoning Trump-Xi dialogue. In fact, Mr. Trump said he has offered a kind of big deal to Mr. Xi: You help stop the North Korean nuclear threat, and we’ll give you a better deal in looming, and potentially tough, trade negotiations.
The message on North Korea, Mr. Trump said, is: “If you don’t help us that will be absolutely fine. We will solve the problems by ourselves. But your trade deal will not be the same as if you helped us.”
And, the president insisted, China may be starting to deliver. Mr. Xi told him in this week’s phone conversation that China has in recent days turned away some North Korean ships bearing coal—perhaps the most important North Korean export—as they were attempting to make deliveries to China.
At the same time, Mr. Trump said his administration won’t formally accuse China of manipulating its currency to help improve its trade position, as promised during the campaign.
Meanwhile, distance from Mr. Putin is valuable when allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign to benefit Mr. Trump are being investigated. Russia has denied those allegations.
Certainly there’s a fair distance to travel between a few good conversations and some opening actions and a sturdy relationship with China. For one thing, Trump rhetoric still could inflame Chinese passions. Mr. Trump, echoing campaign assertions, said he has told his Chinese counterpart that “we’ve rebuilt China with the money you’ve taken out of the United States.”
And even cooperation on North Korea won’t erase the other significant source of tension with Beijing, which is its claim to waters and islands in the South China Sea also claimed by America’s friends in the region.
Still, the Trump-Xi relationship is, for now at least, emerging as one of the world’s most surprising bromances.
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I'll put this flashback in US-China thread, not Intel matters, assuming it is not on-point to the Presidents giving away intel discussion.
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/11/world/clinton-approves-technology-transfer-to-china.html
Clinton Approves Technology Transfer to China
MAY 11, 1999
The Clinton Administration notified Congress today that it had approved the export of technology to China to permit the launching of a communications satellite aboard a Chinese rocket next month.
[Bill Clinton did not fear impeachment in May, 1999.]
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IIRC Bernie Schwarz Schwartz? of Loral Satellite "donated" $345,000 to the Clintons who then in turn moved jurisdiction over reviewing this deal to Commerce instead of State, thus making approval a sure thing.
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"Bill Clinton did not fear impeachment in May, 1999"
And even with his impeachment the media supported him.
That is the whole difference - the MSM.
We have a free but not equal press.
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Tillerson sends the wrong message. What if we had a China policy that worked?
The view expressed here involves risks but makes more sense than the Obama-Tillerman course.
Very good specificity of details included.
http://www.hoover.org/research/china-policy-works-america
Hoover Institution
Stanford University
A China Policy That Works—For America
by Gordon G. Chang
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Image credit: Poster Collection, CC 111, Hoover Institution Archives.
Last March, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson attempted to set American policy toward China for the next 50 years. Washington in its dealings with the Chinese state, he said, would be guided by the principles of “non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation.”
Nobody wants conflict or confrontation and everyone values respect and seeks cooperation. Tillerson’s statement, however, is misguided, as just about every assumption behind those words is wrong. America, therefore, needs a completely new paradigm for relations with Beijing.
As an initial matter, the phrase Tillerson used is not Washington’s. It’s Beijing’s, and the Chinese consider it the foundation of their “new model of great-power relations.” Their “new model,” in sum, is that the U.S. does not challenge Beijing in Asia. China’s policymakers, therefore, heard America’s chief diplomat promise that the Trump administration would not oppose their attempts to dominate their periphery and the wider region.
Obviously, Tillerson did not think he was agreeing to a Chinese sphere of influence or even to defer to Beijing, but his words show how eager American policymakers are—and have been—to partner with China.
The general thrust of American policy, especially since the end of the Cold War, has been to integrate China into the international system. Washington has employed various formulations, such as Robert Zoellick’s “responsible stakeholder” concept announced in 2005, but the general idea is that Beijing would help America uphold the existing global order. U.S. policy, in many senses, was the grandest wager of our time.
And by now, the bet looks like a mistake history will remember. In short, America’s generous approach has created the one thing Washington had hoped to avoid: an aggressive state redrawing its borders by force, attacking liberal values around the world, and undermining institutions at the heart of the international system.
This decade, China’s external policies, except in the area of climate change, have moved in directions troubling to American leaders. During this time, Beijing has, for instance, permitted Chinese entities to transfer semi-processed fissile material and components to North Korea for its nuclear weapons programs. North Korean missiles are full of Chinese parts and parts sourced through Chinese middlemen. China even looks like it gave Pyongyang the plans for a solid-fuel missile.
China’s leaders have permitted North Korean hackers to permanently base themselves on Chinese soil, where they have launched cyberattacks on the U.S., such as the 2014 assault on Sony Pictures Entertainment. Beijing has itself hacked American institutions such as newspapers, foundations, and advocacy groups, and it has taken for commercial purposes somewhere between $300 billion to $500 billion in intellectual property from American corporates each year.
China violated its September 2015 pledge not to militarize artificial islands in the South China Sea; refused to accept the July 2016 arbitration award in Philippines vs. China; threatened freedom of navigation on numerous occasions with dangerous intercepts of American vessels and aircraft; seized a U.S. Navy drone in international water in the South China Sea; and declared without consultation its East China Sea air-defense identification zone. Its warning to a B-1 bomber in March was phrased in such a way as to be tantamount to a claim of sovereignty to much of the East China Sea. Official state media has issued articles that imply all waters inside the infamous “nine-dash line” in the South China Sea are China’s, “blue national soil” as Beijing now calls it.
Beijing also wants to grab land. It regularly sends its troops deep into Indian-controlled territory with the intention of dismembering that country.
China, under the nationalist Xi Jinping, is engaging in increasingly predatory trade practices with the apparent goal of closing off its market to American and other companies. Of special concern are its Made in China 2025 initiative and the new Cybersecurity Law.
These are not random acts, unrepresentative of the regime’s conduct. They form a pattern of deteriorating behavior over a course of years. And these acts flow from similar ones in preceding decades, suggesting the aggressiveness is not just related to any one Chinese leader.
Americans who seek to “engage” Beijing typically ignore its bad acts or downplay their significance. Tolerance, unfortunately, has over time created perverse incentives. As the Chinese engaged in dangerous behavior, Washington continued to try to work with them. As America continued to work with them, they saw no reason to stop belligerent conduct. Arthur Waldron of the University of Pennsylvania put it this way: “We have taught the Chinese to disregard our warnings.”
Perhaps the clearest example of this dynamic relates to Scarborough Shoal. In early 2012, both Chinese and Philippine vessels swarmed this chain of reefs and rocks, 124 nautical miles from the main Philippine island of Luzon—and 550 nautical miles from the closest Chinese landmass. Washington then brokered a deal for both sides to withdraw their craft. Only Manila complied. China has controlled Scarborough Shoal since then.
To avoid confrontation with Beijing, the Obama administration did nothing to enforce the agreement. What the White House did do, by doing nothing, was empower the most belligerent elements in the Chinese political system by showing everybody else in Beijing that aggression in fact worked.
Feeble policy has had further consequences. The Chinese leadership, emboldened by success, just ramped up attempts to seize more territory, such as Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea from the Philippines and the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea from Japan. China, in short, just made the problem bigger. And its ambitions are still expanding. Chinese state institutions, backed by state media, are now laying the groundwork for a sovereignty claim to Okinawa and the rest of the Ryukyu chain.
There are many reasons why Chinese behavior is not conforming to American predictions. “Rising” powers are always assertive, and the turbulence inside Beijing political circles makes it difficult for Chinese leaders to deal with others in good faith. A discussion of these and other trends is far beyond the scope of this short essay, but it is clear that the U.S. needs to change its China policy now.
So how should policy change?
First, American leaders need to see things clearly. Confucius called it “the rectification of names.” As we take the advice of the old sage, we should not call China a friend or partner. It is a threat, fast becoming an adversary of the sort America faced in the Cold War.
In that multi-decade contest, an authoritarian state sought to spread ideology, remake the international system, and undermine Western values. China is doing all these things, plus trying to redraw its borders by force. Washington needs to realize America is in the midst of an across-the-board struggle with China.
“If you treat China as an enemy, it will become one,” American policymakers were constantly told and then said themselves. Washington treated China as a friend, and it is now becoming an enemy anyway.
Second, Washington must begin imposing costs on China for hostile and unacceptable conduct. Why would Beijing ever stop if it is allowed to keep the benefits of its actions?
Take the example of Chinese banks helping North Korea launder money in violation of U.S. law. Last September, the Obama administration did not sanction these financial institutions when it seized money they held in 25 accounts of Chinese parties that were themselves sanctioned for laundering North Korean cash. Apparently, the administration, by not going after the banks that time, wanted to send a message to Beijing to stop storing Pyongyang’s cash.
Yet Chinese officials surely took away the opposite message. As the Wall Street Journal in an editorial correctly pointed out, Washington signaled that the unsanctioned Chinese banks were “untouchable.”
These financial institutions have long thought they are above the law. Last month, the same paper reported that Federal prosecutors are now investigating whether certain Chinese middlemen helped North Korea “orchestrate the theft” of $81 million from the central bank of Bangladesh from its account at the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
If such middlemen were involved, Chinese financial institutions were almost certainly complicit. If such institutions were complicit, the U.S. should cut them off from their dollar accounts in New York.
Such an action would rock global markets, but it would for the first time in decades tell Beijing that Washington was serious about North Korea—and it would cripple Pyongyang’s nuclear proliferation activities. In any event, the Trump administration has an obligation to enforce U.S. law and defend the integrity of its financial system.
The Chinese economy is fragile at the moment, so Washington, in all probability, would only have to do this once before Beijing got the message and withdrew its support for the North’s various criminal activities.
Imposing costs on China will undoubtedly cost us as well, but we are far beyond the point where there are risk-free, painless solutions. The costs we will bear are the price for relentlessly pursuing overly optimistic—and sometimes weak—policies over the course of at least two decades.
Third, Washington should take the advice of Taro Aso when in late 2006 he proposed an “arc of freedom and prosperity” for the region. America should bolster alliances and strengthen ties with friends old and new. Nations in the region, from India in the south to South Korea in the north, realize the dangers of Chinese assertion and are scrambling to build defense links. Those threatened are drawing together, but the one ingredient they need is stout American leadership.
Fourth, American leaders must again believe in American power as a force for good in the world and realize they do not need Chinese permission to act. President Trump took a step in that direction in his Financial Times interview published April 2 when he said that Washington will solve the North Korean problem on its own if China decides not to help.
Chinese leaders need to see that Washington has adopted a fundamentally new approach and is no longer afraid of them. Tillerson then can say things that advance American and regional interests, not undermine them.
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/year-review-south-china-sea-edition
https://www.lawfareblog.com/chinas-ridiculously-weak-legal-argument-against-complying-south-china-sea-arbitration-award
China doesn't have a strong legal argument against complying with international law? NFW! :-o
China has the world's oldest argument: "Come over here and make me do it, Motherf*cker".
MANILA — China’s president warned the Philippines that it would go to war if Manila insisted on enforcing an international arbitration decision rejecting China’s claims over disputed areas of the South China Sea, the Philippine president said in a televised speech on Friday.
Although both sides pledged for now to talk and to avoid confrontation, the remarks by the Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, highlighted the stakes in a part of Asia that has become a geopolitical flash point. The warning — which Beijing did not immediately confirm — also draws attention to a policy dilemma for the United States, which is trying to maintain its naval dominance in the Pacific in the face of China’s military buildup and its construction of artificial islands in disputed waters.
In a landmark ruling last July, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, based in The Hague, delivered a sweeping rebuke of China’s behavior in the South China Sea, including the creation of islands that could be used for military purposes, and found that its claim of sovereignty over the waters had no legal basis. However, there is no legal mechanism for enforcing the decision, and Beijing has refused to abide by it.
In a speech on Friday to the Philippine coast guard, in the southern city of Davao, Mr. Duterte claimed that President Xi Jinping of China had cautioned him against trying to enforce the ruling. Mr. Xi said the two countries could eventually discuss it, “but it cannot be done now,” Mr. Duterte said.
“We intend to drill oil there, if it’s yours, well, that’s your view, but my view is I can drill the oil, if there is some inside the bowels of the earth, because it is ours,” Mr. Duterte quoted Mr. Xi as telling him.
Mr. Duterte described Mr. Xi’s position as, “We’re friends, we don’t want to quarrel with you,” but “if you force the issue, we’ll go to war.”
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So much for Duterte's new alliance with China.
With Trump wanting Chinese help dealing with the Norks he has , , , postponed US Navy patrols in the SCC. This very well could be the beginning of a cave by him. Seems likely the Chinese threatening Duterte at this moment is no coincidence.
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https://www.opendemocracy.net/digitaliberties/chenchen-zhang/curious-rise-of-white-left-as-chinese-internet-insult
The curious rise of the ‘white left’ as a Chinese internet insult
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https://www.lawfareblog.com/water-wars-fighters-flights-and-perhaps-fonop
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I was very glad to see the FONOP the other day and good article about it posted here by our BD.
Fiendishly complex interplay of issues with trade, SCC, Nork nukes, Duterte, et al.
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http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/06/something_is_fishy_about_uss_fitzgerald_story_we_are_getting_from_the_media.html#.WUaTrr8ACRU.twitter
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http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/06/something_is_fishy_about_uss_fitzgerald_story_we_are_getting_from_the_media.html#.WUaTrr8ACRU.twitter
Very interesting. Do you have some SME's that could provide an analysis of this incident?
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https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/18/world/asia/path-ship-hit-uss-fitzgerald.html?_r=0
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http://therightscoop.com/video-military-officials-say-terrorism-is-possible-in-cargo-ship-collision-with-uss-fitzgerald/
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/03/world/asia/trump-xi-jinping-china-north-korea.html?emc=edit_th_20170704&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0
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http://nationalinterest.org/feature/three-plan-officers-may-have-just-revealed-what-china-wants-21458?page=show
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second post
By Michael Auslin
July 12, 2017 6:37 p.m. ET
193 COMMENTS
With only six months in office, President Trump has put his signature on America’s China policy. A strategy that may appear capricious to his critics in fact has a logic consistent with Mr. Trump’s guiding beliefs. He sought a deal with China, then concluded he would not get one, and so acted in what he believes is America’s best interest.
Mr. Trump’s approach is undoubtedly transactional, but it’s surprisingly realistic given China’s kid-glove treatment by most U.S. presidents. In potentially putting Beijing and Washington at loggerheads, it is also undeniably risky.
In June, the White House delivered three blows to China. First, it imposed sanctions on a Chinese bank and two individuals for abetting North Korea’s financial transactions. Second, it listed China in the category of worst offenders in human trafficking. Finally, it announced a $1.4 billion arms sale to Taiwan. The Trump administration also made several lesser-order jabs, among them calling for more freedom in Hong Kong and conducting another freedom-of-navigation operation near the contested Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. It did all this as Chinese President Xi Jinping tried to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to China from Britain.
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Any one of these actions would normally be enough to rock Sino-U.S. relations, at least for a while. Taken together, they constitute a significant break from the past two decades of diplomatic engagement between the two powers. Is this an enduring shift on the part of the Trump administration? Or simply shots across Beijing’s bow to get China to cooperate more with Washington and behave better abroad?
To Mr. Trump’s critics, the moves represent a recognition of his initial naiveté regarding China. When the president tweeted on June 20 that China’s efforts to help on North Korea had not worked out, he was derided for his apparent faith in Beijing’s promises and for flipping his opinion so quickly. The latest turnaround was seen as part of a pattern stretching back to the campaign and transition, when candidate and President-elect Trump warned that he would not shrink from putting economic and political pressure on China. Then, soon after taking office, the president radically shifted to a far more cooperative stance, going so far as to host Mr. Xi at Mar-a-Lago for a family-style summit.
But Mr. Trump’s moves are neither capricious nor naive, even if they do lack a certain diplomatic finesse. His interest has always been in the bottom line, and diplomatic niceties of the kind that have suffused Sino-U.S. relations since Richard Nixon’s epochal 1972 visit to Beijing are useful to him only if progress is being made.
Last month’s actions put Beijing on notice that Mr. Trump’s transactional approach is real, and so are the potential consequences for failing to make a deal. Moreover, each move serves some larger U.S. purpose, whether strategic (Taiwan) or tactical (North Korea). Chinese leaders have long been accustomed to strong words and no action from Washington; now they will have to consider how far the Trump administration may go.
By publicly calling out China, Mr. Trump risks chipping away at Beijing’s carefully polished image as a global leader and contributor to stability. Beijing, already upset by criticism leveled by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis about China’s militarization of the South China Sea islands, lashed back at the administration’s moves, especially the arms sale to Taiwan.
With a critical Communist Party Congress coming up in the fall, Mr. Xi will be loath to be seen as unable or unwilling to combat an activist U.S. policy in Asia. He may look for ways to check Mr. Trump’s recent moves, such as ratcheting up economic and diplomatic pressure on U.S. allies like South Korea, which is already in Beijing’s doghouse for accepting a new U.S. missile defense system. Mr. Xi may also try to regain some standing by challenging the U.S. Navy in the South China Sea.
Mr. Trump has made clear that he means what he says about deal-making. China said it would help and did not. That’s enough for Mr. Trump to put the world’s two most powerful countries on a potential collision course. He might be bluffing or he might be in earnest. Either way, the American president’s sharp dose of realism has the potential to reshape the world’s most important relationship.
Mr. Auslin is a fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
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http://nationalinterest.org/feature/three-plan-officers-may-have-just-revealed-what-china-wants-21458?page=show
Good analysis.
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This is an insightfull video about the Chinese, to those pressed for time 2:18-4:22 makes an important point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOyJZ4UGeD0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOyJZ4UGeD0)
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Taking China’s Maritime Threats Seriously
Jul 27, 2017
By Phillip Orchard
For much of the past year, China has taken a somewhat softer approach to the South China Sea dispute in an effort to draw in Southeast Asian states. For example, it has opened lucrative fishing waters to foreign fleets and pledged progress on a code of conduct in the disputed waters. But this tactic was always underpinned by the yawning gap in maritime capabilities between China and its neighbors. Two developments this week merely exposed this reality, underscoring not only why China is likely to get its way on most issues in the South China Sea, but also why the success of its broader strategy remains in doubt.
On July 24, the BBC reported that Vietnam recently pulled the plug on a drilling operation in disputed waters off its southern coast because of Chinese pressure. According to the report, Hanoi told the company carrying out the drilling, a subsidiary of Spanish firm Repsol, that Beijing had threatened to attack Vietnamese bases in the Spratly Islands if the operation continued. (A second source has since confirmed the report, though Vietnam has not officially addressed the matter.) Just days earlier, the Repsol subsidiary had reportedly confirmed the existence of a major natural gas play in the block, which is located on the southwest fringe of China’s desired maritime boundary, delineated by the so-called nine-dash line.
The same day, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced that the Philippines and China are in talks to jointly develop oil and natural gas around Reed Bank, a contested area well within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone where drilling has been suspended since 2014. (Under international law, the Philippines has sole rights to seabed resources in these waters.) The announcement walks back earlier comments, when officials from the Philippine Department of Energy said the Philippines may reopen bidding to foreign companies by the end of the year to drill in the disputed waters – suggesting that Manila may be willing to sidestep Beijing, as it did prior to 2014. Duterte also reaffirmed an earlier claim that Chinese President Xi Jinping had threatened war when Duterte stated his intention for the Philippines to resume drilling unilaterally. Philippine Foreign Minister Alan Peter Cayetano confirmed the president’s announcement on joint drilling with China the following day during a press conference with his visiting Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi.
Joint Development, Under Duress
At this point, how far the Chinese were willing to go militarily in either case is unclear. Chinese threats regarding resource extraction in parts of the South China Sea are nothing new. The Chinese have a long history of small-scale coercive actions in the waters, typically involving harassment from their rapidly expanding coast guard or their fishing militias. We can assume that both the Philippines and Vietnam would have considered such risks acceptable before moving forward. And if both have indeed changed course, it would suggest that they think China is more willing to resort to force to stop the drilling than may have been expected.
Manila and Hanoi are both eager to find a way to access their oil and gas reserves without the Chinese. Both countries need the energy resources, and neither is inclined to delay drilling until the interminable process of resolving their territorial disputes with China fully plays out. Vietnam, for example, is set to become a net importer of crude oil in two years, while its natural gas consumption is expected to increase by some 60 percent over the next decade. In addition to the Repsol project, Vietnam recently launched a joint venture with Exxon Mobil and renewed an oil lease with Indian oil firm ONGC Videsh – both in blocks overlapping China’s nine-dash line. In the Philippines, meanwhile, Reed Bank is needed to replace the primary source currently feeding Luzon’s energy needs, the Matamata field, which is expected to run out of natural gas by the middle of the next decade.
Both countries also face considerable political and economic risks of capitulating to Chinese pressure on oil and gas development. In the case of Vietnam, for example, Repsol had already reportedly poured some $300 million into the project. If the project is indeed stopped, and not merely suspended, the decision could drive away international oil companies in the future over concerns about the above-ground risk in the disputed waters. Moreover, Hanoi is wary of having nationalist political forces push it into an unwanted confrontation with Beijing. Fresh on Hanoi’s mind is the 2014 standoff over a deep-sea oil rig that China moved into Vietnamese waters – sparking violent protests and minor skirmishes at sea and destabilizing the political landscape at senior levels in Hanoi.
A protester holds a placard during a protest in Manila against China’s presence in disputed waters in the South China Sea on June 12, 2017. TED ALJIBE/AFP/Getty Images
In the Philippines, meanwhile, Reed Bank has long been a point of contention with China, which has been pushing for joint exploration since the mid-1980s. In 2003, the Philippines abruptly broke ranks with the rest of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to launch a joint seismic exploration venture with China’s CNOOC, eventually pulling a reluctant Vietnam on board. To the extent that the goal was to put aside the sovereignty dispute and conduct seismic exploration while sharing the cost burden, the initiative was basically successful, and it could provide a template for another try at joint development.
But any attempt at joint development with the Chinese will face legal and political hurdles. Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, a regular Duterte foil, warned that the Philippine Constitution bars any state-state agreements on drilling in the Philippines’ EEZ. Compliance with the charter will depend on the language of whatever arrangement is reached, but it may be difficult for Manila and Beijing to strike a deal without implicitly ceding ground on the sovereignty question. Much of the Philippine defense establishment already opposes joint development with China on principle. And public support would sour if it comes to be portrayed as the political and business elite selling out Philippine sovereignty to the neighborhood bully for personal gain. The 2003 deal, for example, fell apart by 2008 amid widespread corruption allegations, including some related to Chinese investments in the country, that had been plaguing Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for years.
It’s Not About the Oil
China is acting with much broader geopolitical imperatives in mind. For China, it’s not about the oil, or any of the known seabed resources in the waters, for that matter. (Securing access to rich fishing grounds is an imperative for China, but it is only a secondary concern.) Rather, for China, it’s primarily about pushing outward to create a buffer that shields its internal vulnerabilities and secures access to its vital seaborne trade routes south to the Indian Ocean basin and west toward North America.
China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, encompassing some 1.4 million square miles (3.6 million square kilometers), are intentionally vague on the fringes, ostensibly leaving Beijing room to push and prod where it sees fit. But attempts at resource extraction tend to bring China’s claims into starker relief. Allowing Vietnam or the Philippines to extract mineral resources even on the very fringes of the nine-dash line, several hundred miles from the Chinese mainland, would amount to effective recognition of their sovereignty over the waters. If the Philippines and Vietnam are going to drill, from China’s perspective, they can do so only in a way that does not invalidate China’s territorial claims. Better still would be for these countries to undertake joint ventures, framing China as a source of prosperity and progress for the region while giving Beijing yet another point of leverage for use in service of its broader aims.
This strategy helps cement China’s dominance in its backyard and prevent regional states from disrupting efforts at bolstering its defenses in its near abroad, such as its militarized man-made islands in contested waters with the Philippines and Vietnam. It also underscores the limits of U.S. naval superiority, as the U.S. is reluctant to wade into minor disputes. And if Beijing succeeds in forging a joint development agreement with Manila, it would mark a breakthrough, if a mostly symbolic one, in Beijing’s ability to navigate nationalist impulses in the region (while keeping its own in check) enough to get adversaries to engage on its terms.
The Bigger Picture
But it doesn’t automatically address China’s broader geopolitical imperatives. China’s only viable strategy to ensure access to the Pacific is to reach a political accommodation with one of the nation-states that make up what’s known as the first island chain, the archipelago stretching from Indonesia to Japan. China would need to be certain that this state wouldn’t side with an outside naval power in a major conflict. Beijing’s best bet is the Philippines.
If a lasting political accommodation is the goal, then China’s apparent willingness to resort to military force on issues its neighbors hold dear like drilling may seem counterintuitive. But hard power is working for Beijing, particularly in the small doses that assert its local superiority without dragging the U.S. into the fray. After all, despite the international backlash against China’s militarization of the Spratlys, and despite last year’s international arbitration ruling that invalidated China’s sweeping territorial claims in the region, China’s position in its near abroad has only strengthened. It has received no meaningful pushback to the island building, and littoral states are increasingly divided and negotiating on Beijing’s terms.
Beijing is betting that its overwhelming superiority compared to weaker Southeast Asian states will diminish the appetite for confrontation among its southern neighbors and turn their attention toward the tangible benefits of cooperation. A lot of people are getting rich off Chinese investments in the Philippines and Vietnam, and a lot of them have considerable influence in their capitals. In other words, China is using force to declare the rules of the game, and using economic tools to make its neighbors more willing to play.
The drawback, of course, is that there is a cost to perpetual coercion, particularly when the other states have the option of partnering with stronger outside powers. And Chinese pressure will inevitably compel Southeast Asian states to keep the United States and allies like Japan no further than an arm’s length away. The 2015 agreement allowing the U.S. rotational access to Philippine military bases is a case in point. Duterte’s framing of his concession on joint development with Beijing as being done under threat of war may reduce the possibility of a nationalist backlash against him in the Philippines, but it also makes the Philippine public more distrustful of the Chinese and more likely to support a stronger alliance with the West. It hardly fits Wang Yi’s June 25 depiction of China as the Philippines’ “good brother.”
Thus, routinely flexing its muscles in its near abroad is in many ways Beijing’s only choice. Any political accommodation with Manila would be fluid and subject to shifts in Philippine political moods, and expelling the United States from the region is a long-term project, at best. China cannot outsource the task of securing its backyard to its neighbors, nor trust that they will reject all other suitors. So China is building out its buffer bit by bit, in part by demonstrating a willingness to go to the mat over issues large or small.
The post Taking China’s Maritime Threats Seriously appeared first on Geopolitics | Geopolitical Futures.
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British Defense Minister Michael Fallon announced that the United Kingdom is planning to send warships to the South China Sea for freedom of navigation exercises. Though the ministry has not finalized exactly where the deployment will occur, Fallon made it clear that the United Kingdom would not let China constrain it from sailing through the sea. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson echoed the statements on a visit to Sydney. Following his discussion with Australian foreign and defense ministers, Johnson elaborated that two brand new aircraft carriers, the HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, will be dispatched as part of the exercises. Given their scheduled service, however, the deployment will not likely take place before 2020.
The United Kingdom will assume its naval role in defending the freedom of the seas, as it continues to carefully maintain a balanced relationship with Beijing and to court Chinese investment. France has also made similar proposals to support freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, specifically by working more closely with Vietnam, Japan and the United States. France hopes for regular patrols in the region. Increased maritime presence enables both France and the United Kingdom to project strength and build alignment in the region.
However, increased involvement by foreign powers in the South China Sea only complicates China's strategy to define its maritime sphere of influence and its interests beyond. Particularly prominent projects that could be complicated by developments in the South China Sea include Chinese efforts to strengthen relations with the United Kingdom, efforts to accelerate its strategic Belt and Road Initiative in Europe and attempts to further internationalize the Yuan.
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Looks like the West and the Brits may finally be developing some spine. Barak O should never have allowed the Chinese to build those islands, it gave Chinese a swollen head. They have continued to support NK and now they threaten us. Sending B1 planes to the region does not do much unless they fly directly over NK . At some point little Kim will need to go. I think Trump might do the needful. All these interceptor tests are meaningful.
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http://taskandpurpose.com/trump-just-approved-a-plan-for-the-us-navy-to-check-beijing-in-the-south-china-sea/
Trump Just Approved A Plan For The US Navy To Check Beijing In The South China Sea
By ALEX LOCKIE, BUSINESS INSIDER on July 23, 2017 T&P ON FACEBOOK
President Donald Trump approved a plan to check Beijing over its continued militarization of and actions in the South China Sea, Breitbart News Kristina Wong reports.
Over the last few years, China has ambitiously built up islands on reefs and atolls in the South China Sea and militarized them with radar outposts, military-grade runways, and shelters for missile defenses.
Military analysts believe China hopes to expand its air defense and identification zone into the western Pacific and build a blue-water navy to rival the US’s, but six other countries also lay claim to parts of the region.
In 2016, an international court at The Hague deemed China’s maritime claims unlawful and excessive, but China rejected the ruling outright and has continued to build military installations and unilaterally declare no-fly and no-sail zones.
When a country makes an excessive naval claim, the US Navy challenges it by sailing its ships, usually destroyers, close to the disputed territory or through the disputed waters as a way of ensuring freedom of navigation for all. In 2016, the US challenged the excessive claims of 22 nations — China’s claims in the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in annual shipping passes, were the most prominent.
China has responded forcefully to US incursions into the region, telling the US the moves were provocative and that they must ask permission, which doesn’t align with international law or UN conventions.
“China’s military will resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security and regional peace and stability,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in response to US bombers flying in the region.
Under former US President Barack Obama, the US suspended freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea from 2012 to 2015. In 2016, the US made just three such challenges. So far, under Trump, the US has made three challenges already.
“You have a definite return to normal,” chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana White told Breitbart News.
“This administration has definitely given the authority back to the people who are in the best position to execute those authorities, so it’s a return to normal,” she said.
Freedom of navigation operations work best when they’re routine in nature and don’t make news.
They serve to help the US establish the facts in the water, but in the South China Sea, those facts all indicate Chinese control.
When Chinese military jets fly armed over head, when Chinese navy ships patrol the waters, and when Chinese construction crews lay down the framework for a network of military bases in the South China Sea, the US’s allies in the region notice.
An increased US Navy presence in the area won’t turn back time and unpave runways, but it could send a message to allies that the US has their back and won’t back away from checking Beijing.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-07-25/bomb-shelter-sales-are-booming-after-north-korea-s-icbm-launch?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social
Business has never been better at Atlas Survival Shelters, which ships bunkers to customers around the world from its U.S. factories. Among the best sellers: the BombNado, with a starting price of $18,999.
The popularity of the company’s doomsday fortifications is no surprise, considering the state of the world in general and, specifically, Kim Jong-Un’s pursuit of a missile that can hit the continental U.S. Curiously, though, the most furious surge of interest isn’t in America but Japan, a country that’s long been within North Korea’s striking distance.
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VERY glad to see President Trump defending freedom of navigation in SCS!
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Foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) and China are expected to endorse the framework for a code of conduct governing the South China Sea at a ministerial meeting later this week, ABS-CBN News reported July 31. Approval of the framework is the next step toward a final, more detailed code of conduct, intended to be an agreement setting forth norms to guide the conduct of parties and promote maritime cooperation in the strategically critical waters.
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China apparently responded to news of plans to complete the placement of a U.S. missile defense system in South Korea with a large live-fire exercise on July 31. On the day before China's military parade on Aug. 1, the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force launched 20 ballistic and cruise missiles at targets simulating a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile site, along with mock-up airstrips and bases, reports indicate. The drill used Chinese DF-26C and DF-16A ballistic missiles as well as CJ-10 cruise missiles.
Ballistic and cruise missiles are central to China's military strategy, especially in the Western Pacific, where Beijing faces powerful militaries, such as those of the United States and Japan. Continued exercises employing components of the country's missile arsenal are necessary for China to become adept at using its extended-range weapons.
Two observations make the July 31 exercise particularly noteworthy. First, the size of the missile launch is important. It is exceedingly rare for China to test this many missiles in live-fire games during a single exercise. These weapons are costly and China only has a limited number, meaning that Beijing won't expend them needlessly.
Second, the exercise comes amid considerable friction with the United States over trade, the South China Sea and especially North Korea. Indeed, the partial deployment by the United States of a THAAD anti-missile battery in South Korea prompted vehement protests from Beijing. Therefore, it is likely that the Chinese were trying to send a message of resolve, especially when the scope and size of the exercise are taken into account.
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This missile test has the dual purpose of serving as a warning to India too. There seems to be some Indo-US co-ordination going on with simultaneous US moves in the Indo-China sea. With the stand off in Bhutan, it puts pressure on China that a war with India might leave their eastern flank unprotected. In such an instance US could easily knock of NK.
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Interesting notion , , ,
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China May Finally Be Ready to Work With the United States on North Korea
On July 28, however, North Korea tested its second ICBM, ratcheting up pressure on China to act.
(JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images)
The United States and China appear to have reached accord over a draft U.N. resolution on fresh sanctions against North Korea. Anonymous diplomatic sources say that the United States aims to hold a vote Aug. 5. This has been the U.S. and Chinese approach for some time — to first engage in bilateral dialogue before formally proposing sanctions measures to the broader U.N. Security Council.
Washington handed over a new draft sanctions resolution to China shortly after an emergency July 5 U.N. Security Council meeting in reaction to North Korea's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test. The United States insisted that it wanted to avoid the watered-down sanctions leveled in the past, a specific allusion to China's pattern of playing defense in the United Nations to ensure that sanctions do not go too far in destabilizing North Korea.
Shortly after the July 5 meeting, China's U.N. Ambassador Liu Jiey cautioned against rushing the measures and said an improvement of the situation might reduce the urgency, specifically noting his desire for further North Korean tests to be prevented by diplomatic means. On July 28, however, North Korea tested its second ICBM, ratcheting up pressure on China to act. The following week, the U.S. announced it would launch new investigations into Chinese trade practices — a sign that it will no longer allow hoped-for cooperation to limit it from firm action. The investigation could allow the U.S. administration to eventually unleash a slate of retaliatory trade measures against China — a prospect very much on Beijing's mind as it decides how to proceed regarding North Korea.
According to anonymous U.N. diplomats, the U.S.-proposed sanctions would stop countries from increasing the number of North Korean workers they accept and from engaging in new joint ventures with the country. They would also ban coal, iron, seafood and lead exports with the goal of reducing North Korea's export income by a third. In the bilateral talks ahead of the most recent June 2 U.N. sanctions on North Korea, China balked at broader proposals and instead agreed only to limited measures on individual entities. In early 2017, however, Beijing took some limited steps in terms of banning coal and cutting some humanitarian programs as well as a moderate curb of oil exports.
To come into force, the resolution would need the approval of nine U.N. Security Council member states. It would also have to avoid a veto from permanent members. The veto is the biggest worry for the United States, given that Russia has the power to block the resolution. Moscow shows every sign that it is willing to act as a spoiler in the U.S. strategy to contain the North Korean threat, questioning the assessment that North Korea test-fired ICBMs and stepping in with fuel exports to North Korea. The question now becomes whether Russia will pull the trigger on a veto, or whether it will allow the U.N. measures to proceed with the intention of undercutting them in practice — as it has done before. Moscow's incentive to act as a spoiler has only become greater since new U.S. sanctions on Russia were signed into law Aug. 2. The raft of measures also included enhanced sanctions on North Korea, with provisions specifically aimed at targeting Russian energy shipments to the North — something Russia is increasingly doing under the radar in case further sanctions are implemented. Russia's new ambassador to the U.N. met with his Chinese counterpart Aug. 3 and cautioned that a bilateral agreement between the United States and China was by no means universal.
Russian pushback on sanctions could, however, work to China's advantage by giving the country what it wants but can't actually work toward. With the United States showing every sign of stepping up trade pressure and sanctions targeting Chinese entities doing business with North Korea, Beijing has every reason to cooperate on U.N. sanctions. During the closed-door talks between China and the United States, China worked closely with Moscow as well, and the ball is now in Russia's court.
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"China May Finally Be Ready to Work With the United States on North Korea"
This is all silly.
We have had this dance for decades and where are we now. Only thing that will work is force.
Otherwise we accept NK a nuclear power - just as Krauthammer pointed out.
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"China May Finally Be Ready to Work With the United States on North Korea"
This is all silly.
We have had this dance for decades and where are we now. Only thing that will work is force.
Otherwise we accept NK a nuclear power - just as Krauthammer pointed out.
I am an optimist on this. There are a lot of levers available other than force - and we have force too. I wrote this before but wouldn't it be great if the art of the deal guy with all the levers of the leader of the free world, with logic, power, safety and ?everything else on his side, could get China to cooperate on this?
If they don't and if we don't take out the threat... Japan, South Korea, Taiwan will go nuclear too, and others. When the world's lowest tech country can go nuclear, they all will. A nuclear Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines? How is THAT in China's best strategic, control of their own backyard, interest?
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"China May Finally Be Ready to Work With the United States on North Korea"
This is all silly.
We have had this dance for decades and where are we now. Only thing that will work is force.
Otherwise we accept NK a nuclear power - just as Krauthammer pointed out.
I am an optimist on this. There are a lot of levers available other than force - and we have force too. I wrote this before but wouldn't it be great if the art of the deal guy with all the levers of the leader of the free world, with logic, power, safety and ?everything else on his side, could get China to cooperate on this?
If they don't and if we don't take out the threat... Japan, South Korea, Taiwan will go nuclear too, and others. When the world's lowest tech country can go nuclear, they all will. A nuclear Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines? How is THAT in China's best strategic, control of their own backyard, interest?
It isn't. These are all pressure points that can be used.
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More bluster from Chinese....at some point they have to do something!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/11/south-china-sea-chinese-military-tells-us-ship-to-turn-around-10-times (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/11/south-china-sea-chinese-military-tells-us-ship-to-turn-around-10-times)
South China Sea: Chinese military tells US ship to turn around 10 times
Thursday 10 August 2017 20.18 EDT
A US warship has sailed close to an artificial island created by China in the South China Sea as part of a “freedom of navigation” operation.
The USS John S McCain destroyer sailed within six nautical miles of Mischief Reef, part of the disputed Spratly Islands south of the Paracel Islands.
A US official said a Chinese frigate sent radio warnings at least 10 times to the USS McCain.
“They called and said ‘Please turn around, you are in our waters,’” the official said.
“We told them we are a US [ship] conducting routine operations in international waters.”
The official said the interactions were all “safe and professional”, with the operation lasting about six hours from start to finish.
China’s foreign ministry said: “The US destroyer’s actions have violated Chinese and international laws, as well as severely harmed China’s sovereignty and security.
“China is very displeased with this and will bring up the issue with the US side.”
China claims nearly all of the South China Sea, despite partial counter-claims from Taiwan and several south-east Asian nations including the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam.
The freedom of navigation operation – known in the military as a “Fonop” – was bound to annoy Beijing and was the third of its kind carried out by the United States since President Donald Trump took office.
It comes amid soaring tensions on the Korean Peninsula over Kim Jong-un’s missile programme, and as the United States seeks to push China into more assertively restraining North Korea.
Trump this week warned North Korea it faced “fire and fury” if it continued to threaten America.
Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Chris Logan declined to comment on whether there had been a freedom of navigation sailing, but said: “We are continuing regular Fonops, as we have routinely done in the past and will continue to do in the future.
“All operations are conducted in accordance with international law and demonstrate that the United States will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows.”
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http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/08/21/did_china_hack_the_seventh_fleet_112102.html
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Certainly seems so...to much of a coincidence. If true, the Chinese are quite advanced in their capabilities. I also found the NK missiles going haywire several months ago, quite odd, almost seemed as if the US was testing their own cyber capabilities. The problem is the US will not admit they were hacked....now if a couple of Chinese missiles or ships crash that might be a sign.
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Certainly seems so...to much of a coincidence. If true, the Chinese are quite advanced in their capabilities. I also found the NK missiles going haywire several months ago, quite odd, almost seemed as if the US was testing their own cyber capabilities. The problem is the US will not admit they were hacked....now if a couple of Chinese missiles or ships crash that might be a sign.
We do know that China has invested a lot of time and energy in developing it's cyberwar capabilities.
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http://freebeacon.com/national-security/cno-does-not-rule-out-intentional-act-latest-warship-collision/
Navy Does Not Rule Out Intentional Act in Latest Warship Collision
China calls Navy 'hazard' in Asian waters
Guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain moored pier side at Changi Naval Base, Republic of Singapore following a collision with the merchant vessel Alnic MC / Getty Images
BY: Bill Gertz
August 22, 2017 5:00 am
The Navy has not ruled out an intentional action behind the latest deadly collision between a Navy destroyer and a merchant ship, the chief of naval operations told reporters Monday.
"That's is certainly something we are giving full consideration to but we have no indication that that's the case—yet," Adm. John Richardson, the CNO, said at the Pentagon.
"But we're looking at every possibility, so we're not leaving anything to chance," he said.
Asked if that includes the possibility the electronic defenses on the guided missile destroyer USS John S. McCain were hacked in a cyber attack, Richardson said investigators will look into all possible causes.
"We'll take a look at all of that, as we did with the Fitzgerald," the four-star admiral said, referring to another Navy warship collision with a merchant ship in June near Japan.
USS McCainUSS McCain
The McCain collided with the Liberian-flagged oil tanker Alnic MC in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore late Sunday, injuring five sailors and leaving 10 sailors missing.
The ship was on its way to Singapore where it docked after the collision. Photos show a deep gash in the ship's hull.
It was the second deadly collision at sea of its kind for the Navy in two months, and the fourth Navy ship incident in the Pacific region this year.
The McCain took part in a freedom of navigation operation by sailing within 12 miles of the disputed Mischief Reef in the South China Sea earlier this month.
A Chinese navy frigate shadowed the McCain during the passage and ordered it to leave what it claimed were Chinese waters.
Beijing also issued a formal diplomatic protest note as a violation of its maritime sovereignty.
On June 21, the destroyer USS Fitzgerald collided with the merchant ship MV ACX Crystal about 90 miles southwest of Tokyo. The incident killed seven sailors in their sleeping quarters below deck and severely damaged the warship's hull.
The Crystal was likely operating on autopilot at the time of the collision, raising the possibility that hackers may have broken into the ship's control network and directed the ship to hit the Fitzgerald.
The two destroyer collisions are unusual because warships are equipped with multiple radars capable of detecting ships as far as 20 miles out. Watch officers on the bridge also are in charge of checking for nearby vessels.
In the case of a ship on a collision course, Navy radar operators will signal the bridge that a "constant bearing, decreasing range" contact is detected once radar detects a vessel on a collision course.
USS McCainUSS McCain
Watch officers on the bridge normally would notify the captain and recommend that the ship change course to avoid the collision.
Navy experts say collisions between slow moving freighters and fast Navy ships that occur are normally the result of two mistakes by the warship operators: Allowing the warship to get close to an approaching vessel in the first place, and then having to maneuver at close quarters to avoid it.
"This is obviously an extremely serious incident," Richardson said. "And is the second such incident in a very short period of time. And very similar as well."
Richardson said he has ordered Navy ships to conduct an operational standdown for one or two days so that procedures of all surface fleets can be reviewed. The operational pause means most Navy operational activities will halt during that period.
"The emphasis of that is really to look at the fundamentals at the unit and team levels to make sure that we're not overlooking anything in what I would call the blocking and tackling of the basic seamanship, airmanship, those sorts of things, team work, how we do business on the bridge," Richardson said.
The results of that review over the next week will be used to produce a "lessons learned" from recent incidents.
The problems also appear to be part of the Pacific Fleet, Richardson said. Both the McCain and the Fitzgerald are part of Destroyer Squadron 15 and the Seventh Fleet.
In addition to the McCain and Fitzgerald collisions, in May the USS Lake Champlain, a guided missile cruiser, collided with a South Korean fishing boat in waters near South Korea. No injuries resulted from that incident.
In January, the guided missile cruiser USS Antietam ran aground in Tokyo Bay, damaging the ship's propellers and spilling oil into the water. That incident also resulted in no injuries to the ship's crew.
The need to repair the damaged hulls of both the McCain and Fitzgerald mean the ships will be unable to take part in the Navy's Aegis missile defense systems at a time when threats posed by North Korean missile attacks in the region are increasing.
Pyongyang recently threatened to fire test missiles near Guam but appeared to back down from firing missiles toward the U.S. island under pressure from the Pentagon.
A Navy official said the loss of two missile defense warships will not have an immediate impact on Navy regional missile defenses for forward deployed forces in the Pacific. However, "the long term effects remain to be seen," the official said.
In addition to the two-day halt in Navy surface warship activities, Richardson said the Navy also is conducting a longer-term review to see whether the problem is related to Navy forces in Japan.
That review will be headed by Adm. Philip S. Davidson, commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command.
"This will be a broader effort looking at a number of things," Richardson said, noting the situation of Navy forces in Japan.
The longer-term review will examine training and readiness, trends in operational tempo, maintenance and equipment, and personnel.
A Navy official said budget cuts and fiscal uncertainty as a result of the Budget Control Act of 2011 limiting defense funds may be to blame.
"As a result of decades of not having a competitor to drive fleet focus, high tempo and fiscal uncertainty and under funding, we are seeing fraying in surface and aviation," the official said. "By this review, the CNO wants to see how bad it is and then quickly address it."
That review also will delve into the process the Navy used to develop surface warship drivers.
In addition to Navy experts, the review will include experts from other military services as well as outside experts.
China, meanwhile, has been covertly attempting to take control of the strategic waterway in a political battle over freedom of navigation. Beijing reacted to the latest collision by calling the Navy a hazard to shipping in the South China Sea.
The Global Times newspaper, an official publication of the Communist Party of China that often reflects official military views, reported that the Navy in Asia poses a "growing risk to commercial shipping."
"While the U.S. Navy is becoming a dangerous obstacle in Asian waters, China has been making joint efforts with the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to draw up a Code of Conduct for the South China Sea and it has boosted navigational safety by constructing five lighthouses on its islands," the newspaper said.
"Anyone should be able to tell who is to blame for militarizing the waters and posing a threat to navigation."
Chinese propaganda outlets did not report widely how a People's Liberation Army Navy frigate ran aground in the South China Sea in July 2012 and was stranded for 10 days near the disputed Spratlys islands near the Philippines. Press reports in the region at the time called the incident "the bully that ran aground."
The Navy official called the Global Times report "an opportunistic and uninformed view on how these recent mishaps play into the broader context of the region."
"It's sad to see the Chinese use this loss of life as a way to advance their area interests," the official said.
On the possibility that China may have triggered the collision, naval analysts say Chinese military writings routinely discuss combined electronic and cyber warfare in high-technology conflict.
The Chinese military intends to use its integrated network and electronic warfare to extend the reach of cyber attacks to isolated battlefield networks in space and on the seas as a component of future warfighting plans.
The Navy traditionally adopts a strict policy of accountability for all ship mishaps.
On Friday, the two senior officers on the Fitzgerald were relieved of duty, and about a dozen other sailors who were on watch the night of the collision were punished.
A preliminary report on the Fitzgerald collision provided no details on the cause of the incident.
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http://www.atimes.com/ship-collisions-raise-specter-chinese-electronic-warfare/
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https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/10/11/politico-china-abducted-american-impunity/
Politico: China Abducted American With Impunity
SEAN KEELEY
Politico today offers a disturbing peek into Chinese spy games during the Obama Administration, including a previously hushed-up account of the abduction of an American official in Chengdu:
It was January 2016. The U.S. official had been working out of the American consulate in the central Chinese metropolis of more than 10 million. He may not have seen the plainclothes Chinese security services coming before they jumped him. In seconds he was grabbed off the Chengdu street and thrown into a waiting van.
The Chinese officials drove their captive — whom they believed to be a CIA officer — to a security facility where he was interrogated for hours, and, according to one U.S. official, filmed confessing to unspecified acts of treachery on behalf of the U.S. government.
It wasn’t until the early morning hours of the following day that other U.S. officials — who were not immediately informed by their Chinese counterparts of the consular official’s capture — arrived to rescue him. He was eventually released back to their custody and soon evacuated from the country.
The circumstances surrounding this incident eerily parallel a similar one in Moscow that also occurred on President Obama’s watch. In that case, it was Russia’s FSB that roughed up an American official suspected of espionage on U.S. diplomatic grounds. In both cases, Obama officials took pains to hide the incident from public view while protesting through official channels—though that didn’t stop Moscow from publicly releasing footage of the brawl to humiliate Washington and score propaganda points at home.
Indeed, the Politico story fits into a disturbing pattern of brazen provocations by rival spy services during the Obama years—provocations that were protested in private but never publicly exposed or avenged. As Damir Marusic wrote about the Russian incident at the time, President Obama preferred to compartmentalize such events so as not to endanger cooperation elsewhere:
President Obama seems determined to not be baited by this kind of stuff, even if it is causing lasting frustration and outrage among the men and women serving in the diplomatic and intelligence corps. Indeed, one could easily imagine the President making the case that there is little to be gained from descending to the Russians’ level in such matters.
That thinking seems to have prevailed in the Chinese case as well. And keep in mind that previous to this incident, China had already hacked the Office of Personnel Management and systematically dismantled the CIA’s spy network beginning in 2010.
One can interpret that decision charitably (as a calculation that such things are best resolved through quiet diplomacy) or cynically (as a political decision to avoid a potential scandal during an election year). Regardless, the effect was the same: Obama’s timidity became its own form of recklessness, emboldening rivals who calculated that they could act against Americans with impunity.
And indeed, Beijing’s spooks got the message, and appear to have upped their game. Politico cites several examples: a broadening of recruitment efforts beyond the usual Chinese-American targets, sophisticated cyber attacks that led to “staggering” breaches, omnipresent surveillance of American officials, and frequent searches of their rooms and belongings. Some of these tactics mirror the heavy-handed harassment of American officials that has long been standard practice in Moscow.
And China’s espionage efforts are arguably more sophisticated than Russia’s, and its efforts are expanding. This year alone, two federal government employees have been charged with passing state secrets to Beijing, and allies like Australia and New Zealand are currently mired in domestic dramas about Chinese influence in their university system and Parliament, respectively. The need for vigilance about Chinese espionage has never been greater.
This is a case where President Trump’s Jacksonian instincts and penchant for showmanship may actually serve him well. Rather than burying the danger of Chinese spy games, the Trump Administration should respond publicly to any such provocations, making it abundantly clear that any such behavior will not go unanswered. One of the more interesting details in the Politico story is that the Obama Administration “issued a veiled threat to kick out suspected Chinese agents within the U.S.” during the diplomatic talks around the Chengdu incident. It’s not clear that that threat was ever carried out—but if the FBI is sitting on a Chinese spy ring, now might be a good time to publicly break it up as loudly as possible, and send a message to Beijing.
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http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/10/24/xi-jinping-thought-will-go-textbooks-classes-brains-chinese-students/
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China has long range plan laid out by Xi. We have none really except for some blurbs like carbon energy independence,
or from private sector such as from astronomers, like Bezos , Musk , and the Virgin guy what is his name?
or FB guy who sees the work using his network for every human to human interaction from birth to after death and the like.
But no real long term plan for our nation.
5 take aways from China's 30 yr plan
« Reply #616 on: Today at 09:47:16 AM »
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/18/xi-jinping-speech-five-things-you-need-to-know
By contrast what are our 30 yr goals?
I don't know of any unified vision for this?
I don't recall any from any politician. We think in 2, 4 yr cycles.
You carbon energy free by 2050 etc yada yada .......
By then the debt could be 30 trillion and we have 65% not working .
We could have a goal of turning us into a Spanish speaking country by 2050.
Atheism by 2050 the majority?
More females in the military then in law school?
The nation according to big tech far more then even now?
We are like a huge ship just drifting at sea................
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I think it's good we don't have a 5 year plan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_for_the_national_economy_of_the_Soviet_Union
Our plan should be to have no centrally planned economy whatsoever.
Our plan should be to remove the shackles and allow unplanned innovation from unexpected sources to disrupt the markets for all the entrenched players that pay to have all the central plans written in their favor. Not do what Zuckerberg and Musk want; do what will set loose thousands of the next Zuckerbergs and Musks. MHO.
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We can have some goals maybe:
reduce the debt
keep taxes low
protect our sovereignty
stay #1
more freedom from the central planners
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We can have some goals maybe:
reduce the debt
keep taxes low
protect our sovereignty
stay #1
more freedom from the central planners
That is exactly how we answer the China threat. Trump feels like he says this everyday in every sentence but still fails to get across the clarity, URGENCY and context of what make America great again means - and truly win the argument against anti-freedom and sovereignty leftists.
If we accept leftist stagnation, moral relativism, disarmament, etc. as the new normal, China grows right past us, not just economically, but militarily.
What's at stake? The South China Sea should be renamed by the President of name calling the Singapore to Taiwan Sea. Has any leftist thought through WHY China wants to dominate and control the world's greatest shipping lane?
Speaking of liberals thinking Trump is a dork, does anyone remember a recent President talk about a 'pivot to Asia' and then hand China our lunch in a way no enemy spy could have dreamed possible.
ccp bullet points: 1) reduce the debt: Through growth and gasp, real spending cuts. We don't need foreigners to buy our debt. That is an economic policy choice, and a bad one at that.
2) keep taxes low: Corporate taxes in Calif, MN etc are almost three times higher than 'preferred' enterprises in 'communist' China. How about we compete on a near-level playing field if we want to compete at all? It's not rocket science, and if it was, we still need to figure it out. Trump has made this point but no one has articulated the sense of urgency, that our survival of being America, the greatest country in the world, and not just another Venezuela-like ash heap of history depends on it.
3) protect our sovereignty: It's not an empty slogan. Someone articulate this better, especially to young people, WHY THIS MATTERS! Whether 'Law of the Sea', Paris accords or PTT, we can do it better without being governed by someone else. We fought a war of independence over this...
4) stay #1: Yes, and articulate - How? and Why? What would living in a world dominated by China, Russia and rogue regimes look like? A nuclear North Korea with long range missiles targeted at the US is just the most recent illustration of it. Honduras and Sweden aren't going to disarm NK; only the US can do it. Or can we?
5) more freedom from the central planners: Exactly! Here is an example of how that plays out, the electric cars (or whatever) of the future. Our decentralized business innovation intelligence will run past China's system of government favored funding and enterprises - only if we choose decentralization and economic freedom over the system of centrally planned spoils that plague our competitors.
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2017/10/19/mercantilists_neednt_worry_china_wont_dominate_electric_cars_102924.html
In the 1980s we thought Japan Inc., they called it, with a better central focus, would run all over our decentralized Silicon Valley in the emerging computer industry, and they didn't.
Recently posted, the number of STEM grads in US per year versus China. They beat us in numbers by what, 100 to 1? And we will win an economic competition by running our economy like they run theirs? Not a chance. Not Venezuela, Haiti, Congo, nor Belgium are sending carriers to the military crisis in Asia and China isn't considering a policy change on NK based on their (non) threats. Build economic strength and military strength of deterrence in a free country or look and see who fills that void. It won't be friendly fire or freedom...
There is an urgency to this! In 8 years of stagnation here, the Chinese economy caught up with us and has 4 times the population. One more period of status quo, which seems to be what Democrats and establishment Republicans favor, and we are number two at best and falling. Has anyone thought through ALL the geopolitical consequences of that?
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Containing China on the Open Seas
Nov 2, 2017
By Phillip Orchard
China’s maritime presence is slowly spreading, and as it does, the outlines of a loose coalition to stop that spread are gradually taking shape. Last week, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono said Tokyo would propose a revival of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a 2007 defense cooperation initiative also involving India, Australia and the United States, during U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to Japan on Nov. 5-7. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reportedly urged India to take part during his recent trip to New Delhi. On Oct. 29, India and Japan began anti-submarine warfare exercises. And on Oct. 31, Indian media reported that four-way talks would take place this month on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in the Philippines.
Given their overlapping interests in ensuring stability in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean basin — as well as their growing naval capabilities with which to do so — the four countries form a natural grouping. Yet, we’ve been at this stage before: The 2007 dialogue fell apart after only a year amid Chinese opposition, and the idea of a robust naval alliance remains far-fetched. Still, momentum for four-party defense cooperation appears to have returned, a reflection of the fact that the strategic interests of the countries in the region never stopped converging.
Slow to Develop
It didn’t take much pushback from the Chinese for the original version of the quad to fall apart in 2008. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the George W. Bush administration pitched the idea in 2007 to coincide with joint naval drills in the Bay of Bengal involving all four countries (and Singapore). Beijing balked at the framework, filing diplomatic protests with each of the four countries before even the first round of talks was held. A diplomatic protest isn’t typically something that can detonate a defense framework – or at least a coalition underpinned by geopolitical realities – on its own. But Chinese opposition was enough to unravel the nascent coalition for two primary reasons.
The first is that the quad was not intended to grow into a robust defense alliance. None of the participants were keen to establish an “Asian NATO.” Japan, India and Australia have ample overlapping interests and little reason to be suspicious of each other’s long-term intentions. But they’re separated by several thousand miles, and their respective naval build-ups have been focusing on developing the capabilities to address threats in largely discrete spheres. Japan, the country spearheading the effort, also faced major legal limitations on its ability to come to the aid of allies. Thus, none were capable of doing much for each other in the defense realm. Ultimately, all three parties would lean heavily on the U.S., not each other, to respond in a crisis, limiting the value of a multilateral coalition. For its part, the U.S. was bogged down in the Middle East and was only beginning to turn its attention to emerging maritime threats in the Asia-Pacific.
U.S. and Japanese (R) navy ships are pictured docked at a harbor during the inauguration of joint naval exercises with India in Chennai on July 10, 2017. Photo by Arun Sankar/AFP/Getty Images
This reality underpins the second reason: Given these flaws, a formal four-party coalition with the expressed intent of containing China was seen as needlessly provocative and detrimental to efforts to keep Beijing focused on the mutual benefits of the existing regional order. In particular, Australia was striving to cultivate deeper trade ties with China, a core market for Australian commodity exports that became critical to the Australian economy following the onset of the 2008 financial crisis. Thus, following a change in government in Canberra in 2008, new Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd pulled out of the quad.
India, itself facing domestic pressure over the issue and historically wary of alliances, was quietly relieved that Australia made the first move. It’s not that India’s domestic headaches or Australia’s commercial interests with China outweighed their long-term alarm about growing Chinese maritime assertiveness along critical trade routes. Rather, the quad framework itself was simply too insignificant to take priority over more immediate concerns – particularly if many of the benefits of cooperation could be reaped through other bilateral and trilateral settings that had not drawn Chinese ire.
Nonetheless, the doomed fate of the initial quad framework belies the fact that strategic interests in the region have been converging for some time, triggered by China’s rise. Indeed, all four parties have very gradually been building up military cooperation anyway ever since the initial version of the quad collapsed. Within two years, for example, Australia began hosting rotations of U.S. Marines at a base in Darwin. Japan and Australia signed a defense pact last year, while India and the United States began implementing their own landmark deal last month. The India-led Malabar joint naval exercises have expanded every year and are expected to include all four countries in the near future.
Quad 2.0
So would a resurrected Quadrilateral Security Dialogue be any more substantive than its doomed predecessor?
To be clear, an Asian NATO is still not in the cards. Familiar constraints would hinder its development even if it was the goal: Though Japan, India and Australia have each been investing heavily in naval modernization, none would be in a position to rush to each other’s defense if a major conflict broke out in Northeast Asia or in the Indian Ocean basin. Nor are any of the parties interested in getting dragged into a conflict not of their choosing. Once again, any robust naval alliance would rely heavily on the U.S. — still the world’s only naval superpower — to fill in the gaps and do most of the heavy lifting. Meanwhile, all three remain wary of provoking economic or domestic blowback or being left exposed by a fragile coalition. At this stage, the talks are likely to focus on low-level areas of cooperation such as coordinating the growing amounts of infrastructure and security assistance each of the four countries has been giving to weaker states in the region.
But two notable things have changed since 2007 that have altered the cost-benefit calculations. First, China has continued to push south through the South China Sea toward the Strait of Malacca, a critical chokepoint for global maritime trade and the place where all four countries’ security interests overlap the most.
Japan’s dependence on energy imports through the strait is a major driver of its gradual push to shed its constitutional constraints on offensive military capabilities, its growing security assistance to Southeast Asian states, and the more regular presence of Japanese warships in Southeast Asian ports. India, likewise, relies on the free flow of commerce through the waters, and it is eager to find ways to counter China’s growing presence in the Indian Ocean basin. Australia is less reliant than the others on the South China Sea and the Malacca for trade, but as a remote island nation whose economy is heavily dependent on seaborne trade, it is fully dependent on the U.S. to guarantee that trade. Thus, it has historically tried to prove its value to its alliance with the U.S. by eagerly participating in U.S.-led security initiatives, no matter how distant. In Southeast Asian waters, it would be relatively well-placed to support potential operations from the south.
Second, the deteriorating security environment in Northeast Asia underscores the sense among India, Japan and Australia that they cannot fully rely on the U.S. to secure the waters should a major conflict break out in the Western Pacific. This isn’t to say trilateral cooperation can fully replace what the U.S. brings to the table, or that the U.S. presence in the region is about to diminish significantly. But the four countries are preparing for worst-case scenarios, however unlikely they may be.
If the U.S. gets tied down in an unpredictable conflict and becomes too overstretched to dominate the waters farther south, then Japan, India and Australia would need to try to fill the void. The purpose of joint drills and military cooperation agreements is to have communications, intelligence-sharing and joint operational mechanisms in place before such an event takes place. And their respective naval modernization efforts will certainly improve their capacity to do so.
China is a long way from developing a blue-water navy that can dominate waters that far from home, and it faces substantial economic obstacles to its ability to do so. But the pace of its naval development is nonetheless forcing states to consider the possibility that the Chinese break out of their internal constraints. Thus, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue is being resurrected, this time on firmer grounds. To the extent that the Malacca Strait becomes the locus of cooperation, look for Singapore — which has quietly become one of the United States’ most important defense partners in the region — to become more involved as well.
The four-party framework may not amount to much more than dialogue. But with cooperation already deepening across the proposed coalition, whether the talks themselves take place isn’t really the point. What matters is the underlying forces compelling Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. to prepare for the potential of a darker day.
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Yes, yes, it is Susan Rice, but , , , ,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/opinion/susan-rice-trump-china-trip.html?emc=edit_th_20171114&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0
THIS I agree with:
"The Chinese leadership played President Trump like a fiddle, catering to his insatiable ego and substituting pomp and circumstance for substance.
"China always prefers to couch state visits in ceremony rather than compromise on policy. This approach seemed to suit President Trump just fine, as he welcomed a rote recitation of China’s longstanding rejection of a nuclear North Korea and failed to extract new concessions or promises. He also settled for the announcement of $250 billion in trade and investment agreements, many of which are nonbinding and, in the words of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, “pretty small.” Missing were firm deals to improve market access or reduce technology-sharing requirements for American companies seeking to do business in China."
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Yes, yes, it is Susan Rice, but , , , ,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/opinion/susan-rice-trump-china-trip.html?emc=edit_th_20171114&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0
THIS I agree with:
"The Chinese leadership played President Trump like a fiddle, catering to his insatiable ego and substituting pomp and circumstance for substance.
"China always prefers to couch state visits in ceremony rather than compromise on policy. This approach seemed to suit President Trump just fine, as he welcomed a rote recitation of China’s longstanding rejection of a nuclear North Korea and failed to extract new concessions or promises. He also settled for the announcement of $250 billion in trade and investment agreements, many of which are nonbinding and, in the words of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, “pretty small.” Missing were firm deals to improve market access or reduce technology-sharing requirements for American companies seeking to do business in China."
I don't think 'firm deals' that solve a massive problems were expected in the first meeting. It looks to me like China recognizes Trump as a serious leader of the free world, unlike the apologist predecessor.
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Yes, yes, it is Susan Rice, but , , , ,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/opinion/susan-rice-trump-china-trip.html?emc=edit_th_20171114&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0
THIS I agree with:
"The Chinese leadership played President Trump like a fiddle, catering to his insatiable ego and substituting pomp and circumstance for substance.
"China always prefers to couch state visits in ceremony rather than compromise on policy. This approach seemed to suit President Trump just fine, as he welcomed a rote recitation of China’s longstanding rejection of a nuclear North Korea and failed to extract new concessions or promises. He also settled for the announcement of $250 billion in trade and investment agreements, many of which are nonbinding and, in the words of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, “pretty small.” Missing were firm deals to improve market access or reduce technology-sharing requirements for American companies seeking to do business in China."
I don't think 'firm deals' that solve a massive problems were expected in the first meeting. It looks to me like China recognizes Trump as a serious leader of the free world, unlike the apologist predecessor.
Thus far, I see no indication of the blatant disrespect and contempt shown to Obama repeated with Trump.
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"Thus far, I see no indication of the blatant disrespect and contempt shown to Obama repeated with Trump."
Of course they are stroking his ego with the state dinner and all, but they also are elevating him beyond what his opponents and media at home see as not really the President. For the public stroking they likely get in return a little restraint on Trump from saying something publicly while he is there about a number of things, treatment of dissidents, censoring of the internet, recognition of Taiwan, etc. There is going to be carrot and stick both ways in bilateral relationships among powers like US, China, Russia. It will be hard to judge success until we see some. Reagan didn't go to the wall on his first day, say tear down this wall and then watch it come down. He did it with timing,set the table first. Rebuild the US first, the US arsenal and the US defense systems, watched for Soviet weakness and challenged Gorbachev to really do what he was already saying. Wait for Xi to call brag about restructuring and openness (perestroika and glasnost), or bully-free shipping lanes, then call him out to make good on it.
Following up on Susan Rice in the NYT:
[In the first place, I doubt she wrote her article. She didn't write the Benghazi talking points. She just agrees to go forward when asked and is amply rewarded for it.]
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/268426/susan-rice-still-denial-over-failed-tenure-joseph-klein
SUSAN RICE STILL IN DENIAL OVER FAILED TENURE
Latest attack on Trump highlights the disaster of Obama era foreign policy.
November 15, 2017 Joseph Klein 8
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Susan Rice, former national security adviser and ambassador to the United Nations during the Obama administration, is at it again. Following up on her op-ed column in the New York Times last August in which she advised that we learn to “tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea,” Ms. Rice has written another op-ed column for the New York Times on November 14th entitled “Making China Great Again.” Her thesis is that “Chinese leaders played Trump like a fiddle, catering to his insatiable ego and substituting pomp and circumstance for substance.” She argues that President Trump “welcomed a rote recitation of China’s longstanding rejection of a nuclear North Korea and failed to extract new concessions or promises.”
Ms. Rice speaks as if she were in the room during the private conversations between President Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping or had the kind of access to intercepted confidential communications she was used to having during her tenure as national security adviser. Alternatively, Ms. Rice may simply be projecting onto President Trump the failures of her own boss Barack Obama in his dealings with China. In any case, as she displayed in her previous column, Ms. Rice simply does not know what she is talking about.
For example, Ms. Rice complains that President Trump failed to mention publicly any concern about the disputed South China Sea issue. Contradicting herself, she then criticizes President Trump further on in the same column for his “hubristic offer late in his trip to mediate China’s disputes with its neighbors in the South China Sea.” Offering to mediate a dispute would appear to show some concern that it be resolved peacefully.
In any event, had Ms. Rice bothered to take a look at the White House’s detailed public read-out of the meetings between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, she would have found that the South China Sea issue was indeed discussed at some length: “President Trump underscored the critical importance of the peaceful resolution of disputes, unimpeded lawful commerce, and respect for international law in the East and South China Sea, including freedom of navigation and overflight and other lawful uses of the sea, and raised concerns about militarization of outposts in the South China Sea.”
Evidently, Ms. Rice does not realize that it is unwise to engage in public shaming of the visiting president’s host on what the host considers to be a sensitive matter of inviolate national sovereignty that can be more candidly discussed in private. This is especially true when the visiting president is trying to secure the host's cooperation on issues of more direct mutual concern such as North Korea.
Ms. Rice argues that there was not enough diplomatic preparation for the summit meeting between the two heads of state to yield anything worthwhile in substance. Again, she did not do her homework. Here for her edification is a relevant excerpt from the White House read-out that describes how China and the United States have structured their interactions since President Xi’s meeting last April with President Trump in Florida: “During their April meeting, the two presidents set up the United States-China Comprehensive Dialogue with four pillars: the Diplomatic and Security Dialogue; the Comprehensive Economic Dialogue; the Law Enforcement and Cybersecurity Dialogue; and the Social and Cultural Dialogue. Each of these dialogues have met since April, to prepare for President Trump’s state visit and produce meaningful results.”
Ms. Rice complains that “Mr. Trump showered President Xi Jinping of China with embarrassing accolades” and that “scenes of an American president kowtowing in China to a Chinese president sent chills down the spines of Asia experts and United States allies who have relied on America to balance and sometimes counter an increasingly assertive China.” That unsubstantiated assertion does not square with the warm reception and praise that President Trump received from the leaders of such allies as Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia during his trip. It is also curious that Ms. Rice would criticize pomp and ceremony surrounding a state visit involving a U.S. president and President Xi. After all, Barack Obama lavished President Xi with a star-studded formal White House state dinner and a 21-gun salute during the Chinese president’s visit to Washington in 2015. Also, when Ms. Rice laments that President Trump “hailed Mr. Xi’s consolidation of authoritarian power,” did she somehow forget Obama’s similar praise of President Xi in 2014? “He has consolidated power faster and more comprehensively than probably anybody since Deng Xiaoping,” Obama said back then, referring to China’s leader from 1978 to 1992. “And everybody’s been impressed by his ... clout inside of China after only a year and a half or two years.”
Then there is the North Korean crisis, upon which Susan Rice opines that President Trump failed to make any progress with President Xi. Ms. Rice had contributed to the worsening of the North Korea problem in the first place by helping to formulate and sell the flawed approach known as “strategic patience” that guided Obama’s feckless foreign policy in North Korea. In doing so, the Obama administration allowed China to continue doing business as usual with North Korea. That stopped under President Trump. Even before President Trump arrived in Beijing, he had managed to wrest more concessions from China regarding its dealings with North Korea than Obama had managed to do in eight years. President Trump’s “strategic impatience” has already paid off with new UN sanctions that even Ms. Rice had to concede in her August op-ed column were “especially potent, closing loopholes and cutting off important funding for the North.”
Since August, with the help of the able diplomacy of the current U.S. ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, the UN Security Council has unanimously imposed even tighter restrictions on exports to and imports from North Korea, as well as on North Korean workers continuing to live and work in other countries and earn foreign currency for use by the cash-starved North Korean regime. President Trump reportedly asked for even more stringent measures during his private talks in Beijing with President Xi that would increase China’s economic pressure on North Korea. Also, they discussed the full and strict implementation of all UN Security Council resolutions on North Korea passed to date, with which China has shown evidence of compliance.
By contrast, the Obama administration indulged itself with the fantasy that UN resolutions and multilateral or bilateral agreements on paper are an end unto themselves. Susan Rice boasts in her November 14th column, for instance, of what she called the “historic United States-China deal on climate change, which led to the Paris Agreement.” In reality, this 2015 deal was an example of how Chinese leaders played Obama like a fiddle.
China, the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases, promised only that its total carbon dioxide emissions would peak by 2030. Obama committed the United States to significant emissions cuts of 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, during the same period that China’s emissions would still be rising. Obama also committed to transfer many billions of dollars more of American taxpayers’ money to developing countries who have made meaningless, non-binding pledges that would do nothing to change the trajectory they were on anyway. The Paris Agreement that Susan Rice is so proud of drastically tied down only the developed countries’ fossil fuel use in the immediate future while picking their taxpayers’ pockets at the same time. President Trump wisely pulled the plug on the U.S.’s involvement in a massive give-away to bribe the so-called developing nations to play along with a feel-good “universal” agreement.
Susan Rice is using the platform provided her by the New York Times to criticize President Trump for one main reason. She sees President Trump’s attempt to confront the issues head-on that his predecessor repeatedly glossed over as an attack on the Obama administration’s ‘legacy.’ What she is defending, however, is a failed foreign policy and misnamed “National Security Strategy” her office issued in 2015. In her November 14th op-ed column, she provides a checklist of all the problems she says President Trump should have addressed with China’s president, many of which he did. However, there is no self-assessment of all the missed opportunities during the Obama administration to move the ball forward on any of these problems, particularly North Korea.
President Trump is willing to make hard choices if he is convinced that in the end they will advance America’s vital national interests and the welfare of the American people, which he values above all else. This is very refreshing after experiencing eight years of Obama’s and Rice’s ‘leading from behind,’ ‘strategic patience,’ apologies for past U.S actions, and muddled thinking.
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Doug posted:
"Thus far, I see no indication of the blatant disrespect and contempt shown to Obama repeated with Trump."
WHAAAAAAAT?!
Doug, did Susan Rice ACTUALLY SAY THIS? :x
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That was G M's observation I was quoting.
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U.S. President Donald Trump's prominent tour of the Asia-Pacific ended with limited concrete success, but it has produced an important conceptual change to U.S. strategy in the region. On Nov. 12, leaders from the United States, India, Japan and Australia met in Manila to revive the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD) and to urge cooperation for a free and open Indo-Pacific. The term Indo-Pacific, and the policy implications that come with it, is an important indicator of how the United States and its allies are working to shape geopolitics, or at least how it's conceived. And the fact that Trump repeatedly referred to the Asia-Pacific region as the Indo-Pacific points to just how central the idea is to his administration's foreign policy.
Geopolitics on the Asian continent is organized around the numerous seas, bays and lagoons that fringe its expansive oceans. The Indo-Pacific idea simply expands the conceptual region of Asia-Pacific to include India and the Indian Ocean. The QSD translates this geopolitical understanding into strategy, envisaging the two oceans as a single security space, which includes India and Japan, is bridged by Australia, and is undergirded by U.S. maritime dominance. The impetus for such a reconceptualization is simple: Japan and India, isolated as they are in their own oceans, want to balance against the Western Pacific's rising power, China, by uniting under a single geopolitical sphere.
The Indo-Pacific is not a new concept. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe first proposed the QSD in 2007 during his ill-fated first term, but it quickly fell apart after Australia's Labor Party-led government, which opposed the organization, assumed power. The idea of an Indo-Pacific region, however, endured. The notion has resurfaced time and again, brought up by numerous leaders in former U.S. President Barack Obama's administration during its Pivot to Asia. Most recently, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster began using the term instead of Asia-Pacific.
For a buzzword, Indo-Pacific has been remarkably durable. In the decade since Abe proposed the QSD, China's regional clout has only grown, making the QSD more relevant than ever. China has cemented its dominant position in the South China Sea, expanded in the disputed East China Sea, established footholds in the Indian Ocean, and pushed roads and military infrastructure to the Indian border. During the past year, China held a landmark summit of its 64-nation Belt and Road Initiative, made progress toward a South China Sea Code of Conduct, faced off with India on the Doklam Plateau, and opened its first overseas military base in Djibouti. Meanwhile, a de facto alliance between China and Russia based on their shared interest in challenging the United States has begun to take shape.
As positive as all of these developments are for China, the country's rise and its attempts to gain more regional influence impinge on the imperatives of a growing number of other countries. This makes China uniquely vulnerable to the sort of alignment the QSD offers: Smaller nations in Asia feel less threatened by U.S. power because of the country's geographic distance from them. Separately, China's rivals have already been working to offset China's strength. In July, Japan participated in military exercises in India's Malabar region, which it also did in 2007, 2009 and 2014. Japan and India have also announced the launch of a program, the Freedom Corridor, to compete with China's Belt and Road program. The relaunch of the QSD builds on this cooperation and on the increasing military ties between all members of the QSD. Apart from countering China, the unique format addresses key interests from all of its members: Japan's need to protect energy flows from the Middle East, the United States' desire to devolve responsibilities to regional allies, as well as Australia's and India's bid to become maritime powers.
The success or failure of the QSD will be determined by not only cementing the initial grouping but by expanding the "Indo-Pacific" concept to include the numerous smaller powers bordering the two oceans. Countries occupying key geopolitical positions — namely Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar and Sri Lanka — could be enlisted as part of the effort to balance against China. But this is where the concept would run into serious trouble. Even at the height of the Cold War, when the competing Western and communist spheres of influence offered stark choices, the United States never succeeded in forging the same strategic unity in Asia it achieved on the other side of the Eurasian landmass through NATO. Without the imminent threat of the Cold War, the prospect of unity is even more limited today, particularly given increased interconnectedness of trade since the 1990s. Many small countries enjoy the economic benefits of strong relations with China and the security benefits of relations with the United States. They would be hard-pressed to align against either.
Even in its current form, the QSD's viability and effectiveness are questionable. India's military capacity is still limited, particularly in terms of its force projection capabilities, hindering its ability to advance its land-based goals, much less its maritime ones. India also has close connections to Russia, especially in the realm of defense procurement, and will be hosting the Russia-India-China trilateral meeting in December. In addition, the country has a long history of preserving autonomy, dating back to the Cold War, and is wary of subservience to any foreign power. Any balancing against China will have to factor in these three limitations. Even the stalwart U.S. allies Japan and Australia have their limits. Japan is engaged in the slow process of empowering its military for a role in foreign policy and will need to balance the expense of that shift against social spending. Australia, which nixed the original QSD, is torn between its strong economic relationship with China and its loyalty to its strategic allies. It's leaning toward its strategic allies now, but time and economic considerations could always change that.
Considering the shifting dynamics in the Asia-Pacific, the Indo-Pacific concept and its strategic implications have no guarantee of success. If the nascent alignment of the QSD does advance, its progress will be slow. But as China's regional ambitions grow, so will efforts to provide a coherent geopolitical response to that rise, including through the QSD.
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China’s One Belt, One Road Faces Pushback
Countries want China’s funding but not at any cost.
China’s One Belt, One Road, a much-touted initiative to connect the country with Europe, the Middle East, Africa and other parts of Asia, is facing resistance from states whose cooperation Beijing needs to build its highly ambitious infrastructure projects. Last week, Pakistan and Nepal both pulled out of deals to build dams with China because of disagreements over the terms of the deals. Countries that have partnered with China on projects such as these need Chinese finance and expertise to help develop their economies and infrastructure. But these two cases show that some countries are unwilling to just accept China’s terms in exchange for access to its cash. There are limits to China’s economic clout, and Beijing can expect similar pushback from other countries.
On Nov. 15, Pakistan announced that it had withdrawn from the $14 billion Diamer-Bhasha Dam, part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project, over its objections to certain terms and conditions set by Beijing. According to the head of Islamabad’s Water and Power Development Authority, China demanded ownership of the project and its operations and wanted its own forces to provide security. Pakistan will use its own financing to go ahead with the dam, which is expected to provide 4,500 megawatts of power – roughly equivalent to the country’s energy shortfall.
Before the dam was included in the $62 billion CPEC project, the Pakistanis had sought financing from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Both institutions refused to fund the project because of its location in the Pakistani-controlled part of the disputed Kashmir region. The project, which has been in the works for 15 years, has already faced numerous delays and could face even more if Pakistan is unable to supply the money needed to complete the dam.
The CPEC will continue to fund other projects, including roadways, energy facilities, transportation systems and the port of Gwadar. At a time when relations with the United States have deteriorated, Pakistan is all the more reliant on China for development assistance, making the decision to reject Chinese funding for the dam even more significant. Pakistan didn’t make this decision lightly, but it couldn’t accept the terms China was seeking; Chinese ownership of a major infrastructure facility guarded by Chinese security forces was just a step too far.
Leaders attend a roundtable meeting during the Belt and Road Forum at the International Conference Center in Yanqi Lake, north of Beijing, on May 15, 2017. LINTAO ZHANG/AFP/Getty Images
Also last week, Nepal announced that it would scrap a $2.5 billion deal with Chinese state firm China Gezhouba Group to develop the Budhi Gandaki hydroelectric project. The hydroelectric plant would have generated 1,200 megawatts of electricity. The deal was signed last June – less than a month after Nepal agreed to participate in OBOR – by the pro-Beijing Maoist-dominated government in charge at the time.
That government has since been replaced by an interim government, which has said that a key part of its decision to pull out of the deal was that the agreement was reached without a competitive bidding process. There is much speculation that factions that support India within the interim government were behind the decision. Nepal has long been part of a struggle for influence between the world’s two most populous nations. With elections due on Nov. 26, the future balance between pro-China and pro-India factions in Nepal remains unclear, but the struggle between these two camps is just one part of why Nepal pulled out of the deal and why China has had trouble ensuring the cooperation of its partners.
In an article published this week, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post highlighted the larger implications of the cancellation of these two deals. That a Chinese paper has been openly critical of how China has handled this issue is noteworthy. Chinese publications don’t often acknowledge problems associated with a signature project of President Xi Jinping. But people are beginning to take notice of the many problems with OBOR. The failure of these deals is related to the fact that OBOR is an overly ambitious initiative that lacks a coherent strategy.
The most developed of OBOR’s six overland economic corridors runs from Xinjiang province in western China through the entire length of Pakistan to the port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea. Pakistan views the project as a major part of its close relationship with China and its efforts to address its chronically weak infrastructure. But Pakistan understands that China’s main interest in the project is to ensure that Chinese firms can profit from it, to find new markets for its goods and to establish a new trade route that isn’t dependent on maritime shipping lanes.
It is unlikely that Pakistan and Nepal will be the only countries critical of China’s approach to these infrastructure projects. Countries in Central Asia, where the Chinese are aiming to develop another critical corridor as part of OBOR, could also raise objections to Chinese demands, which are proving to be unduly onerous on China’s partners. These countries want China’s funding, but not at any cost.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/454003/china-dominance-east-asia-echoes-japan-world-war-ii&hl=en&geo=US?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202017-11-23&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives
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The Coming Conflict Between China and Japan
Dec. 6, 2017 As the U.S. nears the limits of its power, regional powers will be more unencumbered than ever before.
By Jacob L. Shapiro
It is easy to forget that as recently as the 19th century, China and Japan were provincial backwaters. So self-absorbed and technologically primitive were East Asia’s great powers that German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said, “The extensive tract of eastern Asia is severed from the process of general historical development.” His description seems laughable today. China and Japan are now the second- and third-largest economies in the world. Japan’s failed quest for regional domination during World War II and its subsequent economic reconstruction profoundly affected the world. China’s unification under communism and its pursuit of regional power in the past decade have been no less significant.
And yet, for all the strength and wealth Beijing and Tokyo accumulated, since 1800 neither has been powerful enough to claim dominance of the region. Since European and American steamships discovered their technological superiority relative to the local ships in the first half of the 19th century, Chinese and Japanese development has proceeded at the mercy of outside powers. Japan tried to break out, and came close to breaking out during World War II, but was ultimately thwarted by the United States. China, already anointed by many as the world’s great superpower, remains a country divided. The lavish wealth found in its coastal regions is noticeably, if not entirely, absent from the interior.
This state of affairs is beginning to change – and the U.S.-North Korea stand-off over Pyongyang’s pursuit of deliverable nuclear weapons shows just how much. The United States does not want North Korea – a poor, totalitarian state of roughly 25 million malnourished and isolated people – to acquire nuclear weapons capable of striking the U.S. mainland. The U.S. has threatened North Korea with all manner of retribution if Pyongyang continues its pursuit of these weapons, and yet North Korea remains undaunted. It is doing this not because Kim Jong Un is crazy. It is doing this because it figures it will be left standing, come what may.
It may not be such a bad wager. From Kim’s point of view, there are only two ways to get North Korea to halt its development of nuclear missiles: The U.S. either destroys the regime or convinces it that continued tests would call into question its very survival. (For that to work, the regime would have to believe it could be destroyed.)
The U.S. can rail all it wants in the U.N.; it will fall on deaf ears. The U.S. can try to assassinate Kim Jong Un; someone else will take his place. The U.S. can forbid China from fueling North Korea; the North Koreans don’t use that much fuel anyway, and they have already demonstrated they will sacrifice much to defend their country.
One Step Closer
But can the U.S. take out the Kim regime, or at least make Pyongyang think it can? It’s hard to say. There are only two ways to take out the regime. The first – using the United States’ own vast nuclear arsenal – would set a precedent on the use of weapons of mass destruction that Washington would rather not. The second – a full-scale invasion and occupation of North Korea – would strain even U.S. capabilities and wouldn’t have the desired outcome. The U.S. might be able to defeat the North Koreans in the field, but as Vietnam and the Iraq War showed, defeating the enemy in battle is not the same thing as achieving victory. And there is, of course, the question of China, which came to Pyongyang’s aid in 1950, the last time the U.S. fought on the Korean Peninsula, and might well again if the U.S. struck North Korea pre-emptively with massive force.
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Limited military strikes are another possibility. Politically attractive though they may be, they can only delay, not destroy, North Korea’s nuclear program. And they would surely enhance Pyongyang’s credibility. Every U.S. attack that doesn’t succeed in knocking out the political leadership would be used as propaganda, spun in the North Korean countryside as a victory against the “gangster-like U.S. imperialists.”
Thus is the extent, and limit, of American power. Around the world, the U.S. has been struggling to execute a foreign policy that does not rely on direct U.S. intervention. This is easier said than done, especially when the issue at stake is nuclear war. Analysts like me can scream until we are blue in the face that North Korea would never use its nuclear weapons because doing so would invite its own demise. But we are not the ones making the decision. We don’t bear the burden of being wrong.
That is the brilliance behind North Korea’s strategy. The goal is to prod the U.S. to react to its behavior – and then to use its reactions to shore up support. And the strategy is working. The U.S. has said time and again that it will not allow North Korea to have a nuclear weapon. If North Korea gets a nuclear weapon, then what good is a U.S. security guarantee? If the U.S. attacks North Korea without destroying the Kim regime – and I believe it can’t – then North Korea can say it defeated the imperialists as it continues to pursue its current strategy. If the U.S. agrees to remove its forces from South Korea in exchange for North Korea’s halting its testing, then North Korea is one step closer to its ultimate goal: unifying the Korean Peninsula under Pyongyang’s rule.
Doing, Not Saying
In every scenario, the conclusion is the same: The United States alone cannot dictate terms in East Asia. It cannot bring North Korea to heel. It cannot make China do what China does not want to do. It cannot even persuade its ally, South Korea, to pretend that a pre-emptive military option is on the table. Japan looks at all the things the U.S. cannot do, and for the first time since 1945 it must ask itself a question that leads to a dark place: What does Japanese policy look like if Tokyo cannot rely on U.S. security guarantees?
The North Korea crisis may not have created Washington’s predicament, but it exposed it in ways previously unseen, to China’s benefit. The U.S. has shed blood and spent untold sums of money forging an alliance network in East Asia to prevent any country there from challenging its power. And so it is the region’s great power, China, not North Korea, that is putting U.S. strategy to the test. Already an economic behemoth, China is rapidly developing its military capabilities. Its newly declared dictator-president, Xi Jinping, intends to preside over a massive transformation of the Chinese economy that, if successful, would make China more self-reliant and politically stable than at any point in the past four centuries. China still has a long way to go – too long before it first loses its political stability, in our estimation – but in the short term, China’s power is growing. Chinese adventurism in the South and East China seas, its strategic investments around Asia, and the continued development of its navy all validate its growing power.
china-japan-exclusive-economic-zones
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Its ascendance will inevitably bring China into conflict with Japan. Such conflict is nothing new – these civilizations have fought their fair share of wars. The brutality of the Japanese invasion of China in the 20th century – an invasion for which Korea was a staging ground – still lingers fresh in the memories of the Chinese and Korean people. But the conditions for conflict are different this time. For one thing, China and Japan are both powerful. In the early 20th century, Japan discovered the difficulties that many of China’s would-be conquerors did when it attempted to take over the Middle Kingdom, but Japan was still by far the superior power. It’s hard to say which is stronger today. China has a greater population, but Japan is more stable and boasts better military and technical capabilities. This has the makings of a balanced rivalry.
China and Japan, moreover, are no longer worried about being subjugated. This may seem an obvious observation, but in fact it is the first time since the Industrial Revolution that both countries have been able to call their own shots. They came close a few times, of course. Japan nearly came to dominate the Pacific but was eventually subdued by the United States. China wanted to conquer Taiwan in a bid for complete unification, but the arrival of the U.S. 7th Fleet to the Taiwan Strait dashed the government’s hopes.
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Now, the first signs of the coming Sino-Japanese competition for Asia are reaching the surface. Ignore the things Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Xi Jinping have said to each other recently – their statements seek to obscure reality, not uncover it. Look instead at what they are doing. China is investing significant financial and political capital in the Philippines in an attempt to lure Manila away from the U.S. Japan is there with military aid and support, as well as economic incentives of its own. China sees strategic potential in cultivating a relationship with Myanmar, and Japan is there too, with promises of aid and investment without the kinds of strings China often attaches. Much has been made in the mainstream media about China’s One Belt, One Road initiative, a testament to Beijing’s excellent PR skills. Less time has been spent examining Japan’s counters – resuscitating the Trans-Pacific Partnership, pledging to invest more than $200 billion in African and Asian countries, and announcing various initiatives involving the Asian Development Bank, the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Japan Infrastructure Initiative. China has bullied other powers out of the South China Sea, but Japan won’t be bullied out of the East China Sea. Meanwhile, Japan advocates the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – a grouping of the U.S., Japan, India and Australia – to keep China’s power confined to its traditional terrestrial domain.
The conflict will develop slowly. Its contours are just now taking shape. The United States won’t simply disappear from Asia entirely – Washington still has an important role to play, and how it manages the North Korea crisis will go a long way in defining the long-term regional balance of power. But over the next few years, the U.S. will begin to reach the limits of its powers, and as it does, it will pursue a new strategy that employs skillful manipulation of relationships instead of brute force. It will find that China and Japan are no longer severed from world history but shaping history on their own terms.
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This piece seems to me to be well worth considering.
What Is China’s Angle in North Korea?
Trump can’t rely on Xi’s cooperation. Beijing seems to be using Pyongyang to weaken U.S. influence.
By Daniel Nidess
Dec. 5, 2017 7:24 p.m. ET
116 COMMENTS
‘Just spoke to President XI JINPING of China concerning the provocative actions of North Korea,” President Trump tweeted last week, referring to Pyongyang’s launch of a missile that may be capable of striking anywhere in the U.S. “The situation will be handled!”
That Mr. Xi will help resolve the crisis on the Korean Peninsula has been Mr. Trump’s expectation since their first meeting at Mar-a-Lago. With America’s Korea policy now seemingly dependent on China’s cooperation, it is time to put the relationship between Pyongyang and Beijing into perspective.
Two competing narratives have come to dominate the discussion. In the first, China has no fondness for Kim Jong Un’s regime and is aligned with the rest of the world in viewing it as a threat to peace and stability. But Beijing is constrained. It has less influence with Pyongyang than the world imagines and fears creating a humanitarian catastrophe on the Chinese border. In short, the Chinese share the world’s concerns and would love to do more, but their hands are tied.
In the competing narrative, China has no real interest in pressuring North Korea too forcefully, since it serves as a useful buffer between the Chinese border and U.S. troops in South Korea. Realpolitik dictates that, despite real concern over Pyongyang’s instability and unpredictability, a somewhat erratic ally is immeasurably better than staring at your enemies across the Yalu River.
Most of the commentary on China’s efforts falls somewhere on the spectrum between these two narratives. But there’s a third possibility—that China has been deliberately allowing tensions on the Korean Peninsula to escalate, if not outright stoking them. More than two decades of U.S.-led diplomacy, sanctions and threats have all failed to halt North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and resulted in only one real casualty: American credibility. The inability of the world’s only superpower to entice, coerce or force a small, impoverished nation to fall into line has undoubtedly been observed by Asian countries weighing whether to align with American or Chinese spheres of influence.
Using North Korea to highlight the limits of American power and influence would fit into a larger Chinese strategy of discrediting U.S. relevance in the Asia-Pacific region. Despite consistent protests from the U.S. and its allies, China has continued to expand and arm its chain of artificial islands in the East China and South China seas. Beijing’s ability to flout a legally binding decision by an international tribunal on a territorial dispute with the Philippines further reinforces the message that the U.S.-led international system is ineffective and irrelevant.
This is not to say that China is actively pulling Pyongyang’s strings. It doesn’t need to. By simply tolerating North Korea’s pursuit of its nuclear agenda, educating its scientists, and providing just enough diplomatic and economic cover to keep the regime afloat, China allows the crisis to fester. As the crisis goads successive American administrations into ever greater displays of impotence, America’s prestige continues to decline.
Skeptics of this theory may point to the “muscular” responses when tensions escalate—the inevitable flyby of U.S. bombers. But American planes come and go, and North Korea’s weapons programs continue their increasingly rapid progress. Much like the “freedom of navigation” operations, in which U.S. Navy ships sail past China’s artificial islands, they are less significant as shows of force than as demonstrations that the U.S. presence is passing, while the Chinese one is permanent.
Mr. Trump’s approach of appealing to China to mediate not only reinforces this message but provides Beijing an opportunity to move beyond influencing perceptions to attempting to roll back America’s actual presence in the region. China has put forward the so-called Dual Freeze proposal, which would halt joint U.S.-South Korean training exercises along with North Korean nuclear development. That would remove a significant pillar of Washington’s military alliance with Seoul, diminishing the decadeslong U.S. commitment in Asia. All while leaving Pyongyang’s current nuclear capabilities intact.
The U.S. response must be to strengthen its alliances, not weaken them. China’s aggressive territorial expansion and the growing North Korean threat have prompted American allies to begin taking independent steps to expand their military capabilities, including arming their own islands. The U.S. should take the lead in coordinating and accelerating these efforts, tying them into a cohesive, multinational effort that rings China and North Korea from Japan in the east to Vietnam and Thailand in the south.
Although presented explicitly as a response to the threat from North Korean missiles, such an approach would also clearly challenge China’s own ambitions with the outcome that most concerns officials in Beijing—encirclement. It also incorporates an implied economic risk, threatening the shipping lanes from West Asia on which China depends. And unlike ships briefly passing by, this presence would be much more permanent. The message to Beijing would be clear: Curb North Korea’s antagonism, or feel the noose tighten.
North Korea is a nuclear power, and that is not about to change. What must shift is America’s perception of the problem. China enables North Korea’s belligerence as part of a strategy to diminish and ultimately eliminate U.S. influence in Asia and dominate the region. To address it as such, Washington must avoid rewarding Beijing for stoking instability and invert China’s incentives, making it abundantly clear that failure to rein in Pyongyang will increase America’s role in Asia, not decrease it.
Mr. Nidess, a former Marine, is a writer in San Francisco.
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From the article: [China v. Japan] "It’s hard to say which is stronger today. China has a greater population, but Japan is more stable and boasts better military and technical capabilities. This has the makings of a balanced rivalry."
Walter Russel Mead previously on the 8 great powers of the world listed China ahead of Japan and called it a tie. While I don't agree, it draws attention to the balance BEFORE Japan starts re-militarizing.
China and Japan are the world's second and third largest economies, an indicator of the ability to develop, acquire and deploy ships, submarines, missiles, anti-missile technology etc. But that is before considering the possibility of Japan allying with the US, S.Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, India, etc. How does Japan's economy compare with China when considered in alliance with just the US?
China is the big bully in the region right now wanting to take control of the Taiwan to Singapore (South China) Sea. And they will succeed - assuming no one steps up to counter them.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/454691/us-navy-visits-taiwan-dont-let-beijing-bully-us?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202017-12-15&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives
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China: A leaked document from a Chinese telecom firm says that Beijing is setting up refugee camps across the North Korean border. A Chinese spokesman did not deny the report. This comes amid a handful of other feint signs that China is preparing for a crisis on its borders. What else would we expect to see from Beijing if it thought war was imminent – and is there any evidence that they’re taking action?
Taiwan: China is ramping up military patrols in Taiwanese airspace. Over the past weekend, a Chinese diplomat said China would invade Taiwan if a U.S. warship visited the island – as authorized for the first time in 40 years by the 2018 U.S. National Defense Authorization Act. We need to better understand whether this is indeed a red line for Beijing and whether China is prepared to defend it. This starts with an assessment of whether China currently has capabilities to retake Taiwan, assuming the U.S. lives up to its security commitments to Taipei. If not, it raises the question: If the U.S. gets tied down with a war on the Korean Peninsula, does Beijing’s calculation change?
Russia: Russia is pressuring India to join China’s One Belt, One Road initiative. Meanwhile, China is touting OBOR integration with the Eurasian Economic Union. We know Russia will reap some tangible benefits from OBOR projects, but this likely stems more from Russia’s fears of a strong alliance forming between Japan, India and the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific. Is there any reason to think Russia can peel India away from the Indo-Pacific coalition?
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• China: China Central Television reportedly aired footage of an airbase on Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea on Dec. 30 – something it supposedly promised the Philippine government it would not do. The Philippine defense secretary has said he will lodge a formal diplomatic protest because China reneged on the deal. An adviser for the U.S. secretary of state, meanwhile, has accused Beijing of “provocative militarization” in the South China Sea and has suggested that Washington would resume freedom of navigation operations there. What prompted Washington’s statements? Is it coordinating with the government in Manila? What is the status of Philippines-China relations?
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• Japan, China: Japan’s defense chief says Japan detected a Chinese stealth nuclear submarine near the Senkaku Islands (China refers to the disputed islands as the Diaoyu Islands) and had lodged a protest with China over the issue. China sails ships around the Senkakus often, and Japan often protests, but a stealth nuclear submarine is a little different. What kind of submarine is this, and does its deployment in the East China Sea indicate any increase in Chinese capability? Politically, is this an escalation? Is any Japanese response beyond a formal protest in the offing?
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• Australia: Australia’s prime minister is visiting Japan, where he is expected to sign a visiting forces agreement. Some reports say this is a prelude to a formal alliance. How long has this been in the making? Is it a stark change of policy, or is it the formalization of aligned Australian-Japanese interests? How will China respond?
• China: China’s sole aircraft carrier sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Jan. 17. U.S.-China relations are already getting worse. Take note of how the U.S. reacts.
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Depending on its implementation, the plan could close off entire sectors of the U.S. economy to Chinese investment.
It's still possible the Trump administration could ease its stance in response to U.S. pushback. It could also stand firm.
If the administration holds its course, China will undoubtedly push back. The question is how.
The United States spent 2017 laying the groundwork needed to aggressively pressure China on trade and investment in 2018. Now it appears the pressure is on. On Jan. 17, InsideTrade reported that the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is contemplating setting up a system of reciprocity on Chinese foreign direct investment in the United States. Under that system, the United States would treat Chinese investment into U.S. sectors the same way China treats U.S. investment into its analogous sectors. It would fall to Chinese investors to prove their desired investments would be allowed under Chinese investment rules.
Rather than limit Chinese investment, the Trump administration seems to want to force China to change its investment policies — which it has been slowly doing albeit at levels far below those expected. The risk Washington is taking, however, is enormous. The plan could face significant legal challenges internationally and domestically. And it could also harm U.S. businesses depending on Chinese investment or those with investments in China at risk of Chinese reciprocation.
Chinese investment into the United States has significantly increased over the past five years, reaching $71.8 billion in 2016 before settling down to $29.5 billion in 2017. And China protects a wide variety of industries, including aviation, telecommunications, construction, finance, agricultural biotechnology and entertainment. Washington's plan could potentially limit Chinese ownership percentages or could even entirely close off sectors of the U.S. economy to Chinese investment. Those sectors with high Chinese investment — including the high-tech, transportation, real estate and entertainment — are at particular risk.
The plan is an outcome of Washington's Section 301 investigation into China's policies on intellectual property rights. In particular, the investigation has focused on allegations that China is forcing U.S. tech companies to transfer technology to Chinese companies in exchange for investment or other incentives. To institute the changes, Trump would declare a national emergency and use his executive power under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. Less protectionist lawmakers and business leaders are already pushing back, but protectionist lawmakers led by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer have been supportive. It's still possible the Trump administration could ease its stance. Trump, who uses the U.S. stock market's performance to gauge his economic success, has abandoned more extreme economic measures in the past because of concerns about the stock market.
If the Trump administration stands firm on its plan, there could be considerable consequences for both the United States and China. The United States is particularly concerned about China's push into high-technology sectors, so it would not be surprising if the new plan targets those industries the hardest, to the detriment of Chinese technology companies. China could push back the same way, similarly hurting U.S. companies. In response to the plan, China may accelerate its efforts to liberalize investment into parts of its economy, but it will also certainly push back against the measures by pressuring individual companies investing in the country.
Whether the plan is ultimately implemented, it will create controversy. The Trump administration is clearly making a huge statement against Chinese economic policy, and even if this plan dissolves, another plan will take its place. The question is how will China respond.
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second post:
GPF Weekly
By Jacob L. Shapiro
As North Korea Goes Nuclear, U.S.-China Relations Sour
Beijing will use what leverage it has to prevent the U.S. from taking a tougher stance on trade.
The decision to attack North Korea or to allow its government to acquire nuclear weapons was always a choice between the lesser of two evils. One option brings with it the death and destruction that come with war. The other option brings with it the chance, however remote, that the United States could be nuked by an enemy state. Both options bring an additional consequence that must be taken into account: a worsening of U.S.-China relations. China promised to help with North Korea so that the U.S. wouldn’t have to choose either evil. China has failed, and the U.S. appears to be moving toward a decision to accept a nuclear North Korea. That, in turn, creates yet another decision the U.S. must make: whether to hold China accountable.
A Reprieve, With a Condition
The U.S. has promised to get tougher on China for almost a year now. On the campaign trail, presidential candidate Donald Trump promised that, under his administration, China would not be allowed to take advantage of the U.S. through its trade practices. After Trump became president, his Cabinet excoriated China for its moves in the South China Sea and promised to push back. Then, just three months after Trump’s inauguration, while eating chocolate cake with Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump gave China a reprieve, albeit with one condition: that Beijing agree to help stop North Korea from acquiring nuclear missiles capable of striking the U.S.
For China, this deal was more charade than aligned interests. The government in Beijing would prefer a non-nuclear North Korea but ultimately does not consider it existential. China’s economic relationship with the United States is far more consequential. Because almost 20 percent of all Chinese exports go to the United States, the stability of China’s economy depends on access to the U.S. market. 2017 was the year Xi solidified his dictatorship over the country; he couldn’t risk its economic well-being during such a pivotal time. He therefore needed to stop the U.S. from following through on its trade-related threats. In effect, Xi paid for social stability at home with promises of Chinese cooperation on North Korea.
The issue now is that North Korea is closer than ever to having a deliverable nuclear weapon. And the closer it gets, the less valuable China’s offer of keeping Pyongyang in check becomes, and the more the U.S. begins to view China as a rival. Signs that their relationship is becoming more contentious have already appeared. In December, the U.S. released its National Security Strategy, which identified China and Russia – not North Korea – as the key threats to American security. More ominous from China’s perspective, Trump received an in-depth briefing on U.S.-China trade relations last weekend, suggesting action is coming. China has been quick to respond. Recent moves from Beijing are designed to show the U.S. government will pay the price if it follows through on Trump’s threats.
The significance of U.S.-China trade relations shouldn’t be understated. Since the Soviet Union’s collapse, economic dependence has been the only thing tying U.S. and Chinese interests together. It’s the result of a strategic decision made by both sides. China and the U.S. were enemies for the first few decades after World War II, but by the 1970s, China had come to see the Soviet Union, not the United States, as its most dangerous foe. The Nixon administration capitalized on this. Successive U.S. administrations, both Democratic and Republican, not only maintained the U.S.-China relationship but strengthened it. Even the Reagan administration, outspoken as it was against communism, encouraged economic interdependence with China in the 1980s. It was considered the glue that would bind the U.S. and China against the Soviet Union for a generation.
(click to enlarge)
Of course, China’s help was not needed for a generation. As it turned out, the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse. But U.S.-China economic interdependence couldn’t dissolve as quickly as the Soviet Union had. The spigot had already been opened, and the potential profits made it difficult to shut it off. In 1972, the year Nixon went to China, final household consumption expenditure in China was just over $59 billion. In 1990, at the end of the Cold War, it was just over $180 billion. Last year, it was $4.4 trillion, the second-highest household consumption expenditure in the world. Particularly attractive for foreign businesses is the annual growth in consumption. Since 1991, the lowest annual growth in consumption expenditure in China was 5.4 percent – higher than any year in the U.S. in the same time frame.
(click to enlarge)
Charging Headlong
U.S. corporations saw the potential for growth in China as a huge opportunity. They charged headlong into the Chinese market, and they made a lot of money doing it. As a result, the U.S. and Chinese economies are more tightly linked today than at any point in history – and China is hoping to use that fact to its advantage. Now that it’s clear China can’t help on North Korea, this is China’s Plan B: to show the U.S. that it has just as much to lose from taking a harsh stance on trade relations as China does. In recent weeks, China has done this by suggesting it could slow or halt the purchase of U.S. treasuries and by taking aim at U.S. companies active in China.
The first measure – halting the purchase of U.S. treasuries – might generate some fear in the financial sector about a declining U.S. dollar but has little consequence for the U.S. economy. Last week, senior government officials told Bloomberg that China was reviewing its foreign exchange holdings and was indeed considering halting purchases of U.S. treasuries. The government has denied the report but likely didn’t mind that it set off jitters in the bond market. China can set off a lot of jitters when it leaks comments such as these, and it has a habit of doing so for political purposes. In 2011, it threatened to use its holdings of U.S. debt as “a financial weapon to teach the United States a lesson,” after the U.S. increased arms sales to Taiwan.
In reality, though, this “weapon” is fairly useless. Its holdings of U.S. securities are actually a symptom of China’s economic irrationality. China needs a place to park its foreign exchange reserves outside the Chinese economy, and U.S. debt is still considered one of the safest investments money can buy. If China were to sell a large quantity of U.S. securities, it might increase the value of the yuan – which would make Chinese exports more expensive. In addition, history shows that previous Chinese sell-offs of U.S. securities have had little effect on the U.S. From October 2015 to October 2016, China sold $140 billion in U.S. securities – about 11.1 percent of its total holdings. During that period, the yield on the 10-year bond increased by only 40 basis points – four-tenths of 1 percent. China can move markets and likes to play up its U.S. debt holdings, but this is an empty threat.
The second measure is potentially more damaging to the United States than the first. U.S. companies have made a fortune in China over the past 20 years, and many have formulated future business plans under the assumption that there is a great deal more money to make over the next 20 years. Beijing knows this and is sending a message to those companies that they access the Chinese market at the pleasure of the Chinese Communist Party. Last week, the Shanghai branch of the state cyberspace administration shut down Marriott International’s website in China because the hotel chain listed Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as separate countries in a customer questionnaire. The questionnaire set off a firestorm on Chinese social media that eventually made its way to China’s Foreign Ministry. A spokesperson for the ministry said that if foreign businesses wanted to continue to do business in China, they should “respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, abide by Chinese law, and respect the Chinese peoples’ feelings.”
Then, on Jan. 12, China’s aviation authority singled out the second-largest U.S. airline, Delta, for listing Taiwan and Tibet as countries on its website. It called for an investigation and an immediate apology.
American companies were not the only targets of this campaign. The cyberspace regulator also castigated Ireland-based medical device maker Medtronic and Spain-based clothing company Inditex for similar violations.
(click to enlarge)
But a closer look at the U.S. businesses caught in Beijing’s crosshairs reveals they were not chosen at random. For Marriott, China is a crucial market in terms of current revenue and future growth. It owns 569 properties in the Asia-Pacific region, 300 of which are in China. The chain plans to build or acquire at least 300 more hotels there, which would mean nearly 10 percent of its properties would be located in China. In August, Marriott announced a partnership with Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group that would allow Chinese travelers to book rooms at Marriott hotels via Alibaba’s travel service. The deal would give Marriott access to more than 500 million new potential consumers. As for Delta, the airline is in the midst of a multi-year restructuring of its Asia-Pacific operations. It plans to move its main hub in the region from Tokyo to Shanghai – the “hub of the future” in the words of Delta’s CEO.
Marriott and Delta are not the only American companies heavily invested in the Chinese market. Boeing, for example, derived over 10 percent of its revenue from Chinese sales in 2016. Apple’s 2016 annual report noted that the U.S. and China were the only countries that accounted for more than 10 percent of the company’s net sales in the past three years. To be more precise, in 2016, “Greater China” announced for 22.4 percent of Apple’s net sales. Perhaps Apple will be next in China’s dog house. In the company’s publicly available reports, revenue for the “Greater China” segment includes China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Should China’s Foreign Ministry read the report, it will likely be displeased that Apple has chosen to treat these parts of China as if they were separate.
U.S. businesses make a lot of money in China, and they have influence in the U.S. government. These companies do not want to be shut out of the Chinese market, and they have little concern for geopolitics. The only geopolitics these companies care about is the geopolitics that affects their bottom line. If apologizing for listing Tibet as a separate country helps their bottom line, it’s in their interest to do so. And if lobbying the U.S. government to refrain from putting pressure on the Chinese economy helps their bottom line, it’s in their interest to do so. By putting pressure on U.S. companies, China is in effect putting pressure on the U.S. government. Whether or not the U.S. decides to antagonize China on the issue of trade, U.S. and other foreign companies can expect to experience more Chinese nationalism firsthand. China’s market is so big that it can afford to be tough and expect that it will still find companies willing to kowtow to its demands.
In the early 1950s, the Korean War began as a U.S.-North Korea war and quickly became a U.S.-China war. The current North Korean crisis began as a U.S.-North Korea issue and will now become a U.S.-China issue. China sees the coming storm and is demonstrating what it can do if the Trump administration gets tough on trade, the area where the U.S. can hurt China the most. This clash is different from the North Korea crisis, where the U.S. had very limited options and China could easily manipulate the situation to its benefit. It is much more dangerous for China to duel with the U.S. over the bilateral economic relationship. At this point, however, China has little choice. It agreed to help on the North Korea issue to buy time and stall U.S. trade retaliations so Xi could consolidate his power and prepare the country for a rocky path of reform ahead. That power is about to be tested as China braces for the U.S. response.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/six-chinese-ships-covertly-aided-north-korea-the-u-s-was-watching-1516296799
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"As North Korea Goes Nuclear, U.S.-China Relations Sour"
Great article. Our previously 'unsoured' relationship was a bit one-sided.
China was stealing our technologies.
China was undermining us and laughing at our aggravation over North Korea.
China was allegedly manipulating currency.
China was building their economy to surpass us.
China was building their military to surpass us.
China was militarizing the South China Sea.
China was undermining us at the UN.
China was undermining us everywhere else in the world, cf. Venezuela.
US was denying that democratized Taiwan is a sovereign nation.
US was deferring to China on N.K.
US was building plants in China, giving ownership shares to China.
US was looking the other way on technology and license, copyright theft.
US was intentionally limiting our own GDP growth, giving world leadership opening to China.
US was unilaterally disarming, setting budget limits on defense.
US was looking the other way on China's treaty violations.
Just off the top of my head... there is plenty more I'm sure. (See Crafty's post while I was typing.)
Any righting of any of the above wrongs risks souring the relationship. That doesn't mean it isn't the necessary thing to do. A more balanced relationship of mutual respect of valid interests would be an improvement over being their b****, or whatever one might call the current arrangement.
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Exactly so.
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With US Trade, China Plays a Dangerous Game
January 19, 2018
The U.S. has promised to get tougher on China for almost a year now. On the campaign trail, presidential candidate Donald Trump promised that, under his administration, China would not be allowed to take advantage of the U.S. through its trade practices. The tough talk ended once Washington realized it needed China’s help resolving the North Korea crisis. And now that that appears to have hit a dead end, Trump may soon make good on the threats he issued during the presidential campaign.
(click to enlarge)
The United States would have the upper hand in a trade war, but Beijing is not without weapons of its own. U.S. companies have made a fortune in China over the past 20 years, and they would like to make more over the next 20 years. Beijing knows this and is sending a message to those companies that they access the Chinese market at the pleasure of the Chinese Communist Party. Last week, the Shanghai branch of the state cyberspace administration shut down Marriott International’s website in China because the hotel chain listed Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as separate countries in a customer questionnaire. The questionnaire set off a firestorm on Chinese social media that eventually made its way to China’s Foreign Ministry. A spokesperson for the ministry said that if foreign businesses wanted to continue to do business in China, they should “respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, abide by Chinese law, and respect the Chinese peoples’ feelings.”
Then, on Jan. 12, China’s aviation authority singled out the second-largest U.S. airline, Delta, for listing Taiwan and Tibet as countries on its website. It called for an investigation and an immediate apology.
The businesses were not chosen randomly. Marriott owns 569 properties in the Asia-Pacific region, 300 of which are in China. The chain plans to build or acquire at least 300 more hotels there, which would mean nearly 10 percent of its properties would be located in China. For its part, Delta is in the midst of a multi-year restructuring of its Asia-Pacific operations. It plans to move its main hub in the region from Tokyo to Shanghai – the “hub of the future” in the words of Delta’s CEO.
The significance of U.S.-China trade relations shouldn’t be understated. Since the Soviet Union’s collapse, economic dependence has been the only thing tying U.S. and Chinese interests together. China sees the coming storm and is demonstrating what it can do if the Trump administration gets tough on trade, the area where the U.S. can hurt China the most. China is playing a dangerous game, but at this point it has no other choice
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Australia: Australia’s prime minister is visiting Japan, where he is expected to sign a visiting forces agreement. Some reports say this is a prelude to a formal alliance. How long has this been in the making? Is it a stark change of policy, or is it the formalization of aligned Australian-Japanese interests? How will China respond?
• Finding: Talks on a VFA have been ongoing since 2014 but picked up steam early last year following Donald Trump’s election. This is a landmark step for Japan, since it would be its first VFA (its agreement with the U.S. is somewhat different) and one that would add further momentum to its remilitarization. Notably, Japan is also negotiating a VFA with the United Kingdom, with which it is also eager to more regularly conduct joint drills. But it’s not a shift in trajectory; both Japan and Australia have gradually been building toward this. The basic utility of a VFA is to put formal structures in place that make it easier to conduct joint drills, position materiel at each other’s bases and so on. The functional goal of the emerging “quad” framework (involving the U.S., Japan, Australia and India) is to have these sorts of technical matters ironed out so that the quad can be elevated into a more formal alliance quickly should the need arise.
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second post
For These Young Entrepreneurs, Silicon Valley Is, Like, Lame
China’s startup founders used to see a pilgrimage to tech’s mecca of innovation as a rite. Now, not so much.
By Li Yuan
Updated Jan. 18, 2018 11:39 p.m. ET
Last week, a group of Chinese startup founders and investors made a pilgrimage to Silicon Valley. They toured a Tesla assembly line, complained to senior Apple executives about its slow app-reviewing process in China and brunched on baked eggs and avocado at Russian billionaire investor Yuri Milner’s hilltop mansion.
Silicon Valley has loomed large in China’s tech world in the past two decades. China’s internet industry started by copying Silicon Valley technologies and business models. That’s why there’s the Google of China ( Baidu Inc. ), the Uber of China (Didi Chuxing Technology Co.) and the Groupon of China (Meituan-Dianping). Some of the biggest Chinese internet companies, such as e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. , were funded by Silicon Valley money. Translations of best-selling books by Silicon Valley sages, such as “Zero to One” by Peter Thiel and “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” by Ben Horowitz, became instant best sellers in China too.
Fast Money
China leads the world in e-commerce and mobile payments—far surpassing the U.S., the world's largest economy.
For These Young Entrepreneurs, Silicon Valley Is, Like, Lame
So the trip to Silicon Valley is something of a rite for ambitious Chinese startups and investors looking for inspiration in global tech’s mecca of innovation.
But for most of the 18 entrepreneurs and investors, and especially for those in their 20s and 30s, last week’s visit largely failed to impress. To many in the group, northern California’s low-rise buildings looked shabbier than the glitzy skyscrapers in Beijing and Shenzhen. They can’t believe Americans still use credit cards and cash while they use mobile payment for almost everything back home, including settling bets for their Texas Hold’em games one night in Palo Alto.
Google and Intel Beware: China Is Gunning for Dominance in AI Chips
Chinese companies want to take the lead in building processors that use artificial intelligence to make phones, cars and home appliances interact with us more seamlessly. And they have a lot going in their favor.
Click to Read Story
In 2018, Tech’s Cowardly Lions Need Courage
In 2017, Silicon Valley did some soul-searching about tech’s role in spreading fake news that exacerbated social divisions in the U.S. Chinese tech firms should do some soul-searching too, given they work with an authoritarian government skilled in using technologies to try to control society.
Click to Read Story
They didn’t see the shared bikes that are ubiquitous in China’s cities nor could they order meal-delivery service at any hour. Office buildings don’t use facial recognition to gain entry.
As China’s internet industry has grown larger and its companies have become more competitive and confident, Silicon Valley’s allure is fading.
“The age that Silicon Valley serves as the teacher and China follows step by step is becoming the past, at an accelerating pace,” Li Gen, founder of online media startup QbitAI in Beijing, wrote about the trip on his company’s official WeChat social-media account.
That feeling was reinforced throughout their trip. Mr. Milner, an early Facebook investor who has also backed big Chinese startups, told his brunch guests that China leads the world in mobile payments, e-commerce and online services.
At several meetings, presentations included slides showing the volumes of China’s online meal delivery and mobile payments are many times that of the volumes in the U.S. Their slides also said e-commerce makes up more than 20% of China’s retail revenue while making up about 10% in the U.S.
“I’ve read about this before from the media and wasn’t sure if it’s for real,” says Ding Jichang, founder and chief executive of Mobiuspace, a mobile app developer. “Now I know we’re not self-delusional.”
That Chinese entrepreneurs had to travel to the U.S. for a shot of confidence about their tech prowess isn’t so strange. China blocks Facebook, Google’s search engine and some other U.S. internet services while Chinese companies are hitting barriers in the U.S. too. As a result, the biggest companies in the two markets rarely compete head-to-head.
One startup founder didn’t recognize the famous “like” button in the Facebook giftshop. On a giant digital world map showing where Facebook’s two-billion-plus monthly active users are, China is a big black blotch. A company employee told them that the only other country strangling access to Facebook is Iran (North Korea is largely disconnected from the global internet).
Last week’s tour was put together by Kai-Fu Lee, chief executive of Beijing-based venture firm Sinovation Ventures and former head of Google China. Mr. Lee believes that China has the talent and competitiveness to go head-to-head with the U.S. in the next important tech frontier—artificial intelligence.
Still, Mr. Lee thinks Chinese tech entrepreneurs have much to learn and should be less focused on financial results and on going public. He tried to expose the group to the more creative side of Silicon Valley, arranging for them to spend an afternoon listening to futuristic ideas at Singularity University. The think tank’s co-founder Peter Diamandis wowed the group with his asteroid-mining venture, Planetary Resources Inc., in which Sinovation Ventures is an investor.
They were wowed again when meeting with two startup founders funded by Coatue Management LLC, a hedge fund. One of the founders, a serial entrepreneur working on an artificial-intelligence chip startup, told the group that his firm has spent $30 million in two years on research and development and won’t have a product until later this year.
While the few older 40-somethings in the group admired Silicon Valley’s idealism, the younger ones were less impressed. They said that moonshot ideas and long development times don’t work in China because investors are less patient and copycats are so rife that businesses have to get products to market superfast.
“China is like a startup. The U.S. is like a big corporation,” says Mr. Ding, whose company is developing an app to improve video-watching even on cheaper smartphones popular in emerging markets. “China runs very fast, tweaking along the way. The U.S. runs at a steady pace, doing a lot of research and development. It’s hard to tell who will win in the end.”
Write to Li Yuan at li.yuan@wsj.com
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U.S., China: The USS Hopper, a guided-missile destroyer, is in the South China Sea. Already there are reports that it has sailed near Scarborough Shoal, which is claimed by China, the Philippines and Taiwan. The government in Beijing has vowed to safeguard its territorial claim. Is this routine, or is this the beginning of a change in policy?
• Finding: This freedom of navigation operation is notable because it is likely the first of its kind. Scarborough Shoal, after all, is perhaps the area most contested by China and the Philippines. Beijing and Manila have abided by a fragile truce for the past year. In 2016, the Obama administration reportedly told Beijing that it considered any attempts to turn the shoal into a man-made island a red line, and the Philippine defense minister has credited this with stopping Chinese plans to build there. The operation may have added significance: It comes amid hints of a growing split between the Philippine Defense Ministry and the president over China’s militarization of the disputed islands – hints that have coincided with an uptick in U.S. criticism of the Chinese activities. The U.S. has little interest in picking a fight on Manila’s behalf; more likely, it is demonstrating that Scarborough is a priority. Still, we need to watch for signs that the U.S. is trying to change the status quo between Manila and Beijing.
U.S., China: The government in Beijing has predictably criticized the United States’ newest National Security Strategy, which names China as Washington’s biggest threat. We need an in-depth study of what is laid out in the U.S. strategy. How does it differ from previous strategies? To which points does China specifically object?
• Finding: The National Security Strategy articulates a gradual shift in U.S. military focus. It emphasizes that the greatest threat facing the U.S. is great power competition from China and Russia (in that order), while terrorism and threats from “rogue states” like North Korea and Iran are secondary concerns. China’s criticism of the NSS echoes its general, long-standing criticisms of U.S. foreign policy: that the U.S. is stuck in a “Cold War mindset” marked by zero-sum thinking that mischaracterizes Beijing’s ambitions and undermines peace and stability in the Western Pacific. The Chinese would prefer to be treated as an equal power by the U.S., of course, and for Washington to cede dominance in the Western Pacific to Beijing, but there’s no reason to believe they really expected the U.S. to do so. There’s nothing in the NSS that would have caught the Chinese off guard, nor is there anything that could be altered through hearty protest. Their complaints are a matter of course and reflect the emerging strategic paradigm in the region.
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By Heidi Vogt
Updated Jan. 29, 2018 4:12 p.m. ET
WSJ
WASHINGTON—Lawmakers are moving to stanch the flow of U.S. technology to foreign investors, creating potential problems for a number of American companies that have bet big on partnering with China.
The Senate and House, with the backing of the White House, are working on bipartisan legislation to broaden the authority of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., a multi-agency body that has oversight of deals that could lead to the transfer of sensitive technology to rival countries. The current CFIUS statute doesn’t single out any country, but in recent years, the committee has often been focused on deals involving China.
Currently, CFIUS can recommend the president block foreign entities from buying majority stakes in U.S. companies; the new bill would let the committee make similar recommendations for deals involving minority investments and joint ventures, along with transactions that it determines involve “emerging technologies.”
The scope of the proposed legislation is broad. China requires foreign investors to form ventures with local partners, and Washington law firms say they are receiving a surge in inquiries over what it might mean for the large number of U.S. firms active in China. The country’s huge size has made it a market of interest for companies ranging from auto makers like General Motors Corp. , technology companies like Cisco Systems Inc. or other manufacturers like Caterpillar Inc. —all of which have local ventures in China.
It isn’t clear how broadly the new law would be enforced. For now, the most vocal corporate opponents are a handful of U.S. companies that have determined the new law might crimp business prospects by requiring companies to get the blessing of CFIUS for some joint ventures that involve shared U.S. technology.
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IBM Corp. , for instance, last year agreed with China’s Wanda Internet Technology to share the cloud computing technology used in its Watson artificial intelligence system. Behind the strategy is the belief that embedding IBM’s technology in China’s business infrastructure would steer Chinese customers toward IBM as they seek future growth.
Other large U.S. corporations, from General Electric Co. to Microsoft Corp. , see China as a crucial market for similar reasons.
IBM, among others, has said the bill—known as the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act—would hurt U.S. companies’ ability to compete globally. “Foreign competitors that do not face similar regulatory restrictions will seize global market opportunities while American companies are left watching from the sidelines,” IBM’s vice president of government and regulatory affairs, Christopher Padilla, testified at a recent Senate hearing.
Supporters of the bill, who think it could be signed into law later this year, aren’t convinced. “I am concerned that some of the recent witnesses before the House and Senate have major financial conflicts of interest that prohibit an objective evaluation of the security threats we face,” Rep. Robert Pittenger (R., N.C.)—one of the drafters of the bill—said in an email.
“The business models for IBM, Microsoft, and GE, for example, have led to the transfer of military applicable technologies to China that have likely aided the modernization of the Chinese military and intelligence agencies,” said Mr. Pittenger. The bill’s supporters say it complements and strengthens export regulations rather than duplicating them.
Under ReviewThe number of transaction notices that CFIUShas reviewed in recent years.Source: Treasury DepartmentNote: 2017 figure is an estimate of nearly 240.
2010’12’14’16050100150200250
IBM and other opponents, while acknowledging national-security concerns, have suggested existing export controls to counter China rather than expanding the reach of CFIUS. IBM didn’t respond to requests for comment.
In an email, GE said while it supports the idea of changes to CFIUS, “it’s also important that any reform support America’s historical leadership in attracting foreign investment, not duplicate existing and well-established export control regimes, and preserve the ability of American companies to compete globally.” The company declined an interview. Microsoft declined to comment.
Several security experts say China has been sidestepping controls by taking minority stakes in U.S. technology companies or entering joint licensing ventures.
“There’s a very sophisticated and well-organized plan [by China] to acquire the technology and the reality is there are people here who want to sell it,” said William Reinsch, who was the Commerce Department’s undersecretary for export administration under President Bill Clinton.
And for many who have watched China easily avail itself of gaps in the CFIUS review process, the bill is the minimum that can be done in a fight that is likely to get much bigger. CFIUS blocked 10 deals between 2014 and 2016 over national-security concerns; China in recent years has accounted for the largest number of reviewed transactions.
“There’s a big trade war shootout coming up with China that I think, frankly, is overdue,” said Adm. Dennis Blair, co-chair of the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property and a former U.S. director of national intelligence. He said among the key technologies right now are those involving artificial intelligence, data mining and pattern recognition.
How Bill Would Broaden CFIUS’s Reach
Expands CFIUS’s jurisdiction to partnerships where a foreign firm doesn’t have a controlling interest, such as joint ventures, minority investments and licensing deals.
Adds ability to review real-estate purchases or leases near military bases or other sensitive U.S. government properties.
Updates CFIUS’s definition of “critical technologies” to include emerging technologies that could be essential for maintaining U.S. technological advantage over countries that pose threats to national security.
Makes a filing mandatory if the partnership involves a state-owned enterprise.
Expands CFIUS’s ability to revisit earlier transactions.
Specifies national-security factors for CFIUS to consider in its analyses.
Source: Proposed Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2017
Supporters point to recent deals that they say deserve greater scrutiny because they give China access to critical technology, such as Advanced Micro Devices Inc.’s 2016 joint venture with China’s Tianjin Haiguang Advanced Technology Investment Co., which gave the company access to technology similar to that used by Intel Corp. in its chips. Tianjin Haiguang didn’t respond to requests for comment.
AMD spokesman Drew Prairie said in an email that “some commentators have mischaracterized” the venture and that AMD received a “U.S. government classification confirming that the technology was not restricted for export”—a reference to Commerce Department export controls. As for the CFIUS overhaul bill, Mr. Prairie said AMD supports strengthened security but wants to make sure it doesn’t have “unintended consequences.” Dawning Information Industry Co. , the largest shareholder of Tianjin Haiguang, didn’t respond to an email.
Many businesses are also supportive of the bill, including software maker Oracle Corp. , telecommunications firm Ericsson Inc., steelmaker Nucor Corp. and railroad-car-equipment maker Greenbrier Co s. Many say an expanded CFIUS would set needed ground rules for working with Chinese firms.
Even openly supporting the bill, some companies worry, could expose them to problems—not in the U.S. but in China. They don’t want to be blocked from entering deals in China, or prevented from selling products in its booming economy.
“We’re quiet about our support because of fear of retaliation,” said an executive at a large U.S. technology company.
—Kersten Zhang and Ted Greenwald contributed to this article.
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http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/02/23/gaffney-warns-china-waging-unrestricted-financial-cyber-war-on-u-s-fire-mcmaster-to-combat-threat/
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China may be dead set on pressuring Taiwan, but the United States is making subtle adjustments to challenge the cross-strait status quo. And the latest U.S. move has Taiwan set to host a U.S.-Taiwan defense industry conference for the first time in May. Though the annual gathering has been held in the United States the past 16 years, both sides have agreed to take turns holding the event going forward. And in 2018, the event will be held in two parts, with the main conference expected to take place in the United States in October. The split nature of the event may soften the blow for China slightly, but holding any part of it on Taiwanese soil will still sting.
Moreover, the event could eventually provide an opportunity for the United States to needle China further by sending high-ranking officials to Taiwan. The Taiwan Travel Act has not yet been signed into law, but its enactment would allow the United States and Taiwan to exchange visits from senior officials. The annual defense conference is typically attended primarily by defense contractors and military officials, but altering that would be an effective means for the United States to further challenge the "One China" narrative.
China views Taiwan as a wayward province, and vocally rejects any attempts to recognize it as a sovereign entity. But the United States has been laying the foundation for strategies to contain and challenge China, which it now labels its top strategic competitor. In late 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law. The law calls for increased defense cooperation with Taiwan, including arms sales and a feasibility study of port of call exchanges. Beijing has voiced bitter opposition to the law, which it says places unnecessary strain on the relationship between China and the United States. But, in addition to the Taiwan Travel Act, Congress has already introduced multiple bills that would legitimize Taiwan's status in the international community in ways that Beijing opposes.
Each of these steps from the United States, once mature, will widen the chasm between Washington and Beijing. Though China has watched warily to see how far the United States will push, it has wasted no time ratcheting up pressure against Taiwan by poaching its diplomatic allies and increasing its military presence around the island. China may respond to the United States by pursuing less collaboration in military exchanges or dialogues, but such an avenue may be less effective than it has been in the past. And as Taiwan gets pushed further toward the center of competition between the United States and China, Beijing's hopes for a peaceful reunification with the island will slip further away.
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http://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-violated-obama-xi-agreement-halt-cyber-theft/
While Dems fart around with phony Russia got Trump elected scam
China is waging a state sponsored criminal enterprise on us for decades.
Chinese scientists, professors are here in droves.
How could one sort out the spies from those just trying to live a better life?
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YES, let's stay on this issue!
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"YES, let's stay on this issue!"
This is the China US thread
so what is the issue do you mean
You don't think many
Chinese who work in our industries are not sending intellectual property back to China?
I doubt it is all overseas internet theft.
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What I mean is Chinese intellectual property theft, industrial espionage, etc.
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By George Friedman
Before the Pyeongchang Olympics began, there were fears that North Korea would do something provocative during the games. Instead, the opposite happened. North Korea still stole the show, but it did so by using the Olympics to signal its openness to reconciliation with South Korea. With the closing ceremony behind us, this will be the lasting significance of the 2018 games.
After the ceremony concluded, China’s special envoy to South Korea met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. The usual diplomatic niceties were exchanged after the meeting, but given that the meeting took place at a critical moment for the region, we need to consider the major issue that was under discussion, which was obviously relations between North and South Korea.
The Olympics may simply have been an interregnum in the crisis over North Korea’s nuclear and missile program. Or it may represent a profound shift not only in relations between the two Koreas but also in the strategic realities of the region. The United States wants no such shift. Washington was unhappy with the Olympics diplomacy. The U.S. has no appetite for war with North Korea, but neither does it want reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula – unless it’s on Washington’s terms. It’s Seoul, though, that would be literally staring down the barrel should war break out. And so, Seoul opened its own dialogue with Pyongyang, separate from any U.S.-North Korean discussion that may have been underway.
Meanwhile, China does want a strategic shift on the peninsula. One of China’s major problems is that it does not control the waters off its east coast. The U.S. Navy’s presence is more than a challenge to the Chinese navy – it’s a challenge to China’s survival. As important, the formal and informal alliance system the U.S. has created – from Singapore to Indonesia to Taiwan to South Korea and Japan – represents a line of containment that China needs to break. If the events of the Olympics lead to a breach in U.S.-South Korean relations, they are of great importance to the Chinese.
(click to enlarge)
When the North Korea crisis began, there was a broadly held, erroneous assumption that China was as alarmed by North Korea’s behavior as the United States was, and therefore that it would serve as both a negotiator and a source of pressure. In fact, the Chinese were quite pleased to see North Korea back the U.S. into a corner. If the U.S. attacked, it would be seen as an aggressor and would be blamed for all collateral damage. If the U.S. refused to attack, it could be portrayed as weak and unable to stand up to North Korea. Either result would benefit China, at little or no cost.
The North Koreans were aware that the Chinese regarded North Korea as expendable. Their relationship with China has always been shaped by the Korean War, in which China did not get involved until its own borders were threatened, quite willing to accept the destruction of the North Korean state. Even had China wished to be an honest broker, history makes China suspect in North Korea’s eyes.
By creating a situation in which any hostile U.S. action included the potential devastation of Seoul, the North Koreans drove a wedge between the two allies. They forced South Korea to take steps that took away the initiative from the U.S. and, frankly, they forced it to prepare for a nuclear North Korea. The North then used the Olympics as its chance to step into the space it had created between the U.S. and South Korea. What happens next is the question. South Korea would obviously like to maintain its relationship with the U.S. while building a relationship with North Korea. North Korea, however, has no reason to go along with that.
From North Korea’s standpoint, its greatest strategic weakness is its economy. If it released the controls, the economy might surge, but then the regime might also be at risk. South Korea, on the other hand, is a vast economic success. Its primary interest is retaining that economic success, which means avoiding war. Before North Korea’s recent evolution, the U.S. guaranteed the South’s security and economic success. Now, the U.S. threatens it.
Given the situation, some sort of entente, or even confederation, is conceivable. Each side would retain its own regime, but the economic benefits of South Korea would help buttress the North Korean regime rather than threaten it. From the South’s point of view, this wouldn’t be the worst outcome. The South’s economy would be secure, and war would be avoided. From the North’s point of view, it might complicate regime preservation, or it might guarantee it, but either way Pyongyang would have control over relations with Seoul.
The complexities of such an arrangement would be enormous, yet the basic concept is simple. And it’s a concept that worries the United States and delights China. It would likely mean the end of the U.S.-South Korean defense relationship. That would be a risk South Korea would have to take, but at the moment, it’s the relationship itself that makes the situation perilous. The South may consider it. In that case, the U.S. position in the northern waters near China would weaken, and a crack would open in the containment structure. Japan would have to deal with this strange compound Korea, which would divert its attention away from China as well.
If this is what China is hoping for, then the Chinese special envoy’s visit to South Korea is the logical step. There is little to discuss with North Korea. But China would certainly like to see defense relations between the U.S. and South Korea broken, as much as North Korea would. For this, China might be willing to sweeten the deal for South Korea by making special rules for the access of South Korean goods to China possible, or offering other economic incentives that would induce South Korea in some way. With the Olympics over and the Koreas at a bit of a loss for what to do next, this is where China will want to be particularly helpful. And it’s where the U.S. has to consider the possible consequences of staying on its present course.
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China and the Philippines are slowly moving forward on a bilateral arrangement regarding the South China Sea, though they continue to face obstacles. On March 2, a presidential spokesman for the Philippines said the country has identified two sites for potential joint oil and natural gas exploration with China. This development comes in the aftermath of the countries' second bilateral maritime consultation in mid-February. At that meeting, both sides expressed their desire to move forward with joint mechanisms in the areas of fisheries, energy and marine scientific research, and they established a technical working group to tackle the energy issue.
The potential exploration sites include one area, SC-57, outside of disputed waters near the Philippines province of Palawan, as well as the SC-72 field, located in Reed Bank, which is claimed by both the Philippines and China. The SC-57 field is within the uncontested Philippines exclusive economic zone, while the SC-72 field was ruled to be a part of the Philippines' exclusive economic zone in a Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling that China does not recognize. The latter field, believed to be rich in natural gas potential, has been the subject of years of possible joint exploration discussions between Philippines' PXP Energy Corporation and China's state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). All these early attempts failed, however, in large part because China insisted that deals over the disputed territories come with acknowledgment of Chinese sovereignty. Negotiations were suspended in 2014 by former Philippine President Benigno Aquino III's administration amid intensified maritime tensions.
But developing potential maritime resources has become increasingly crucial for the Philippines, which produces some natural gas but imports virtually all of its crude oil. With domestic gas production nearing its peak, the country needs new energy sources to satisfy its economy — hence its focus on the commercially viable, proven resources around the Reed Bank. But the Philippines' lack of adequate technology, combined with China's opposition to unilateral development attempts in areas it deems disputed, have proved too much for Manila in the past.
When Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte came to power in 2016, however, he attempted to rebalance his country's strategic agenda and pursue a detente with China. In response, Beijing has extended certain concessions toward Manila. Both have worked to establish a joint fishing and patrolling mechanism in the Scarborough Shoal, a set of reefs and rocks that China seized in 2012 before granting the Philippines access in 2016. They've also laid the groundwork for possible energy cooperation, with the Philippines announcing in 2017 that it will resume drilling in the disputed sea and reportedly re-engaging in talks with CNOOC.
This pragmatic arrangement could allow the Philippines to acquire the resources it needs, helping manage tensions. But as their relationship moves forward, both Manila and Beijing will likely confront the same obstacles that have damaged previous attempts at bilateral cooperation. In the Philippines, Duterte's engagement with China has prompted domestic criticism and nationalist sentiment. Manila has tried to allay concerns by emphasizing that any deals would be made at the company level and not with the Chinese government itself. But it will also need to iron out thorny constitutional issues. The Philippine Constitution dictates that Philippine entities must retain 60 percent capital and ownership when it comes to joint exploration with foreign companies — and Beijing is unlikely to accept that deal. Finally, even if both sides agree to caveats, China's powerful military presence in the South China Sea will put Manila at an increased security disadvantage.
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http://www.speroforum.com/a/RLMYKHAADP36/83135-FBI-closing-in-on-pernicious-infiltration-by-Chinese-government-in-US-schools-and-universities?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=UUEMZBHPHI55&utm_content=RLMYKHAADP36&utm_source=news&utm_term=FBI+closing+in+on+pernicious+infiltration+by+Chinese+government+in+US+schools+and+universities#.Wsi0U3rcCqB
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https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/no-joke-mark-levin-explains-us-must-confront-china-now/
Even we here have noticed for years that the Chinese keep coming out with military designs that look exactly like ours.
I have not heard this in CNN or MSLSD.
The Chinese are at war with us, period.
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China Installed Military Jamming Equipment on Spratly Islands, U.S. Says
Disclosure comes as Chinese military conducts what U.S. officials describe as its largest military exercise to date in South China Sea
April 9, 2018 5:32 a.m. ET
China has installed equipment on two of its fortified outposts in the Spratly Islands capable of jamming communications and radar systems, a significant step in its creeping militarization of the South China Sea, U.S. officials say.
The move strengthens China’s ability to assert its extensive territorial claims and hinder U.S. military operations in a contested region that includes some of the world’s busiest shipping routes.
The disclosure comes as the Chinese military is conducting what U.S. officials describe as its largest military exercise to date in the South China Sea, maneuvers that include China’s first aircraft carrier as well as air force and ground units.
A U.S. Defense Department official, describing the finding, said: “China has deployed military jamming equipment to its Spratly Island outposts.”
The U.S. assessment is supported by a photo taken last month by the commercial satellite company DigitalGlobe and provided to The Wall Street Journal. It shows a suspected jammer system with its antenna extended on Mischief Reef, one of seven Spratly outcrops where China has built fortified artificial islands since 2014, moving sand onto rocks and reefs and paving them over with concrete.
China’s Defense Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Notes: Different countries refer to the disputed Paracel and Spratly Islands by different names. China defines its claim as all waters within a ‘nine-dash’ line, based on a map issued by the Kuomintang government in 1947, but has never published coordinates for its precise location.
Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies (claim boundaries)
Beijing claims “indisputable” sovereignty over all South China Sea islands and their adjacent waters and demarcates its claims with a U-shaped line stretching from the Chinese coast almost as far south as Malaysia.
China says its island-building is for defensive purposes only, but the activity has stirred fears that it could use the outposts to enforce territorial claims that overlap with those of Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam, as well as the Philippines, which is a U.S. treaty ally. In the last year or so, China has tried to smooth relations with other claimants while continuing work on the islands.
Three of its outposts in the Spratlys—Fiery Cross Reef, Mischief Reef and Subi Reef—now feature 10,000-foot runways, hangars for fighter planes, ammunition bunkers, barracks and deep-water piers for ships.
While Chinese military personnel are at the Spratly outposts and Chinese ships dock there, China has yet to station ground units or fighter planes on the artificial islands, U.S. officials say. Nor have surface-to-air missiles or antiship cruise missiles been deployed in the Spratlys, though spots to install such weapons have been prepared, U.S. officials said.
But China’s ability to quickly shift military assets to the outposts is a serious concern for the Pentagon since it could enable China to control vital trade routes, exclude other claimants from disputed areas and interfere with the U.S. military’s plans to defend Taiwan.
“China has built a massive infrastructure specifically—and solely—to support advanced military capabilities that can deploy to the bases on short notice,” Adm. Harry Harris, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month.
According to U.S. intelligence, the new jamming equipment was deployed within the past 90 days on Fiery Cross Reef and Mischief Reef.
“While China has maintained that the construction of the islands is to ensure safety at sea, navigation assistance, search and rescue, fisheries protection and other nonmilitary functions, electronic-jamming equipment is only for military use,” the U.S. Defense Department official said.
The U.S. regards most of the South China Sea as international waters and has sent ships through the Spratly archipelago to assert its right to freedom of navigation in the area.
China has been steadily escalating its military activities in the area. Beijing has deployed HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles and J-11B jet fighters in the disputed Paracel Islands since 2016. Those islands are about 500 miles north of the Spratlys in the South China Sea.
Beijing also has established a new Southern Theater Command to oversee Chinese forces responsible for the South China Sea.
A satellite image shows more than 40 Chinese naval ships, including the country's first aircraft carrier, sailing in formation in the South China Sea, just south of Hainan, on April 1.
A satellite image shows more than 40 Chinese naval ships, including the country's first aircraft carrier, sailing in formation in the South China Sea, just south of Hainan, on April 1. Photo: Planet Labs Inc.
Recent satellite images from Planet Labs Inc. showed about 40 Chinese naval vessels, including submarines and the aircraft carrier Liaoning, sailing in formation in the South China Sea near Hainan in an unusually large show of force.
The drills took place from March 24 to April 5 off the coast of southern Guangdong province, then moved off the east coast of Hainan, where they will continue until April 11, according to notices from China’s maritime safety administration.
“The goal is to inspect and increase the troops’ training level, and enhance their capacity to win a victory,” Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang said this month. “It’s not aimed at any particular country or target.”
Enhancing the Chinese military’s capacity for U.S.-style joint combat operations—involving all the armed services—is one of the main goals of a four-year military-restructuring plan begun by Xi Jinping, China’s president and military chief, in 2016.
Analysts said the exercises appear to be designed to practice joint operations involving China’s South Sea Fleet, based in Guangdong, and the Liaoning carrier group, based in China’s northeast, as well as air, missile and other forces.
Air Force spokesman Shen Jinke acknowledged last month that Su-35s and H-6s recently conducted joint combat patrols over the South China Sea, without specifying the exact timing or location. China revealed in February that it had sent Su-35s, bought from Russia and delivered in late 2016, to the South China Sea for the first time.
U.S. officials said drills involving Chinese marines on the mainland were part of the broader exercise as well.
Timothy R. Heath, a senior analyst at the Rand Corporation, said that while the main purpose of the exercise was to improve the readiness of China’s forces, it was also sending a political message.
“To Chinese domestic audiences, Beijing is signaling strength and readiness to defend the country’s interests, which may bolster nationalist support for the government,” Mr. Heath said. “To the region and the United States, Beijing is signaling that it has been acting with restraint, but that it is willing to meet confrontational policies with its own confrontational policies.”
Maj. Gen. Jin Yinan of China’s National Defense University said the South China Sea drills weren’t connected to the recent U.S. deployment of three aircraft carriers to the region. The USS Theodore Roosevelt arrived in Singapore last Monday. The USS Carl Vinson visited Vietnam last month and did joint exercises with Japan in the South China Sea. The USS Ronald Reagan is currently based in Japan.
“Even if all three carriers came to the South China Sea, what about it?” Gen. Jin told state-run China National Radio. U.S. carrier operations in the area gave China a chance to study their operations and their radar and other electronic signals, he said.
“What else can you do apart from a show of strength? Can you attack me? Do you dare to open fire?” he said.
Write to Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com and Jeremy Page at jeremy.page@wsj.com
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https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/china-eyes-vanuatu-military-base-in-plan-with-global-ramifications-20180409-p4z8j9.html
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https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/how-to-meet-the-strategic-challenge-posed-by-china/
How to Meet the Strategic Challenge Posed by China
March 2018 • Volume 47, Number 3 • David P. Goldman
David P. Goldman
Columnist, Asia Times
David P. Goldman is a columnist for Asia Times. He also writes regularly for PJ Media and the Claremont Review of Books and is the classical music critic for Tablet magazine. He has directed research at investment banks and served as a consultant for the National Security Council and the Department of Defense. A senior fellow of the London Institute for Policy Studies, he is the author of How Civilizations Die (And Why Islam Is Dying Too). In 2017, he was a Pulliam Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Journalism at Hillsdale College.
The following is adapted from a speech delivered on February 21, 2018, in Bonita Springs, Florida, at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar.
China poses a formidable strategic challenge to America, but we should keep in mind that it is in large part motivated by insecurity and fear. America has inherent strengths that China does not. And the greatest danger to America is not a lack of strength, but complacency.
China is a phenomenon unlike anything in economic history. The average Chinese consumes 17 times more today than in 1987. This is like the difference between driving a car and riding a bicycle or between indoor plumbing and an outhouse. In an incredibly short period of time, this formerly backward country has lifted itself into the very first rank of world economies.
Over the same period, China has moved approximately 600 million people from the countryside to the cities—the equivalent of moving the entire population of Europe from the Ural Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean. To accommodate those people, it built the equivalent of a new London, plus a new Berlin, Rome, Glasgow, Helsinki, Naples, and Lyons. And of course, moving people whose ancestors spent millennia in the monotony of traditional village life and bringing them into the industrial world led to an explosion of productivity.
Where does America stand in respect to China? By a measure economists call purchasing power parity, you can buy a lot more with $100 in China than you can in the United States. Adjusted for that measure, the Chinese economy is already bigger than ours. In terms of dollars, our economy is still bigger. But the Chinese are gaining on us, and in the next eight to ten years their economy—unlike the economies of our previous competitors—will catch up.
China, on the other hand, is an empire based on the coercion of unwilling people. Whereas the United States became a great nation populated by people who chose to be part of it, China conquered peoples of different ethnicities and with different languages and has kept them together by force. Whereas our principle is E Pluribus Unum, the Chinese reality is E Pluribus Pluribus with a dictator at the top.
China once covered a relatively small geographic area. It took about 1,500 years for it to reach its current borders in the ninth century. These borders are natural frontiers. China can’t expand over the Himalayas to India, while to its extreme west is desert and to its east is the ocean. So China is not an inherently expansionist power.
Nor is China unified. It has a written system of several thousand characters that takes seven years of elementary education to learn, working four hours a day with an ink brush, ink pot, and paper. Learning these characters well enough to read a school textbook or a newspaper is how the Chinese are socialized. The current generation is the first where the majority of Chinese understand the common language, due to the centralization of the state and the mass media. But the Chinese still speak very different languages. Cantonese and Mandarin are as different as Finnish and French. In Hong Kong, you’ll see two Chinese screaming at each other in broken English because one speaks Mandarin and the other speaks Cantonese and they don’t have a word in common.
China is inherently unstable because all that holds it together is an imperial culture and the tax collector in Beijing. It is like a collection of very powerful, oppositely charged magnets held together by super glue—it looks stable, but it isn’t.
Within the living memory of older Chinese, China underwent an era of national division, warlordism, civil war, starvation, and degradation. The Century of Humiliation, as the Chinese call it—which began with the opium wars in 1848 and ended with the success of the Communist Revolution in 1949—was a century in which civil war claimed untold millions of lives, and the terror of a return to those conditions is a specter that haunts the Chinese leadership.
China, like Russia, responds to its past humiliation by challenging American power. It would be naïve to expect the Chinese or the Russians to be our friends; the best we can hope for is peaceful competition and occasional cooperation in matters of mutual concern. But it is also important to recognize that American policy errors exacerbate their suspicion and distrust. For example, our decision to impose majority rule in Iraq created a Shi’ite sectarian state now allied to Iran, and it left Iraq’s Sunni minority without a state to protect them. This drove the Sunnis into the hands of non-state actors and unintentionally helped al-Qaeda and ISIS. Sunni jihad is a serious security threat to Russia and China, and Russia’s intervention in Syria is, in part, a response to our mistakes.
The Chinese live a double life. If you walk down the street in Beijing, you see people who dress very drably, who show little emotion and do their best not to draw attention to themselves. But if you go to a Chinese wedding or a restaurant where families gather, the same people are loud and bumptious. Their real existence is a family existence. During the Lunar New Year, the Chinese have the largest migration in history—three billion long-distance journeys are undertaken—because all Chinese will travel long distances to be with their family.
Here in the West, we have a concept of rights and privileges that traces back to the Roman Republic—we serve in the army, we pay taxes, and the state has certain obligations in return. There is no such concept in China. Beijing rules by whim. The Chinese do whatever the emperor—or today, the Communist Party—asks, hoping they will be rewarded. But there is no sense of anything deserved. The idea of the state held together by a common interest as in Cicero, or by a common love as in St. Augustine, is unknown in China. The imperial power is looked on as a necessary evil. The Chinese had an emperor for 3,000 years, and when they didn’t have an emperor they killed one another. It’s all very well to lecture the Chinese about the benefits of Western democracy, but most Chinese believe they need the equivalent of an emperor to prevent a reprise of the Century of Humiliation.
From the standpoint of most Chinese, the Communist Party dynasty that took charge in 1949 has brought about a golden age. It’s the first time in Chinese history when no one is afraid of starving to death or of a warlord coming through and raping the women and burning the crops. So for the time being, the regime has a great deal of support, even though it is more comprehensively totalitarian than Hitler or Stalin could have imagined. As deplorable as the regime looks to us, the prospects for transforming China’s way of governance are for now negligible.
China’s Communist Party government is a merciless meritocracy, which is one reason the Chinese have difficulty understanding American politics. If you’re in the Chinese leadership, you made it there by scoring high on a long series of exams, starting at age twelve—which means you haven’t met a stupid person since you were in junior high school. The fact that democracies can frequently advance stupid people—we are entitled to do that if we wish—doesn’t make sense to the Chinese. The one thing President Xi Jinping cannot do is get his child into Peking University unless that child scores high on his exams. Here in America, you can buy your way into Harvard. You can’t do that in China. So while the Chinese Communist Party is not a particularly efficient organization, and is certainly not a moral one, it has a lot of incredibly smart people in it.
Along with ensuring internal stability at all costs, China’s leaders are determined to make China impregnable from the outside. We hardly hear the term South China Sea these days, because that sea has become a Chinese lake. It has become a Chinese lake because the Chinese have made it clear they will go to war over it. There’s a Chinese proverb: “Kill the chicken for the instruction of the monkey.” China has an even greater concern over Taiwan. The Chinese Communist Party is terrified that a rebel province like Taiwan can set in motion centrifugal forces that the Party will be unable to control. So the adhesion of Taiwan to the Chinese state—the imperial center—is for the Chinese government an existential matter. They will go to war over it. By demonstrating their willingness to fight over the South China Sea, they are demonstrating that they will fight all the more viciously over Taiwan.
China Graphs
Turning back to our two economies, consider the three graphs above. China does something that Japan, Korea, and other Asian nations do—it massively subsidizes capital investment in heavy industry. From the Chinese standpoint, a steel mill or a semiconductor fabrication plant are public goods—the Chinese look at these things the way we look at highways and airports. And as a result of Chinese subsidies for heavy industry, America has been pushed out of any major capital-intensive manufacturing. Thirty years ago the Japanese were doing this, which is why the Reagan administration took steps to force the Japanese to build car plants in the U.S. But Japan’s economy was very small compared to ours. Because China’s economy is roughly the same size as ours, the impact of Chinese subsidies is huge.
The first graph shows the capital intensity of the companies in the major Chinese stock index (MSCI) versus their return on equity. The more capital-intensive, the higher the return. In the United States, on the other hand, if you look at the S&P 500 on the second graph, the slope is in the other direction. More capital-intensive industries are less profitable. This distortion of global investment by Chinese subsidies for heavy industry has led to a stripping out of capital from American heavy industry. It’s not that Americans prefer financial assets to real assets—it’s that the Chinese have pushed us out. That’s why we’ve lost so much ground in terms of industry.
As the third graph shows, China’s share of high tech exports has risen from about five percent in 1999 to about 25 percent at present, while America’s has plummeted from about 20 percent to about seven percent. That’s not a sustainable situation. What it means in practical terms is that America can’t build a military aircraft without Chinese chips. That’s a national security issue.
China’s “One Belt, One Road” policy, announced by President Xi in 2013, is a plan to dominate industry throughout Eurasia—both by land (belt) and by sea (road).
As a rule, so-called developing economies don’t develop, because 40 percent of the people are outside of the formal economy—they’re in the “underground” economy, mostly in small villages, and they live relatively unproductive lives. What the Chinese have done is to rip out the social structure of village life.
China’s economy is nothing like Japan’s, because Japan wanted to maintain its social structure. The Japanese protected agriculture, small retail, and small business. So in Japan we see a few great companies with global capacity sitting on top of a protected, inefficient economy. In China, which moved the mass of people from the villages to the cities, their equivalent of Amazon—Alibaba—will manage labor back in the villages. The Chinese have broadband everywhere, so as entrepreneurs figure out what villages can make, the villages will work for them.
The Chinese intentionally dismantled their social structure to avoid Japan’s constraints. And what they propose to do with “One Belt, One Road” is repeat that experiment throughout all of Asia—to Sinofy every country from Turkey to Southeast Asia.
A couple years ago, I visited the headquarters of Huawei, China’s telecommunications company—the biggest in the world—which hardly existed a dozen years ago. It has a campus that makes Stanford look like a swamp. Today it has 70 percent of the world market in telecommunications. How did Huawei do that? It cut prices and got massive subsidies from the government. After a three-hour tour, the Chinese sat the Latin Americans I was with down in a little amphitheater and said, “If you turn your economy over to us, we will make you like China. We’ll put in telecommunications. We’ll put in broadband. We’ll bring in e-commerce. We’ll bring in e-finance. You’ll be advanced like we are.” The Latin Americans didn’t take the deal, but the Turks have taken it.
Turkey plans to be a cash-free society in five years. Chinese telecommunications companies are rebuilding the Turkish broadband network. Turkey has given up on the West and is becoming the western economic province of China.
The impact of what China is doing is felt all over the world. Former allies of the U.S., including former NATO members, are orienting towards China. Russia—which has become totally dependent on China—has quadrupled its energy exports to China, providing China with land-based energy imports in case the U.S. tries interfering with seaborne energy traffic.
China has an extensive high-speed rail network, with trains going 200 miles an hour. This has had huge productivity effects, and the Chinese are proposing to build these trains all over Southeast Asia. Thailand, an agricultural country, sees that with high-speed trains built by China, it can become the source of fresh fruits and vegetables for China. So Thailand—which used to be an American ally—is being absorbed into the Chinese economy. And so on.
One of the most dangerous misconceptions Americans have about the Chinese is that they can’t innovate. Who do you think invented gunpowder, the magnetic compass, the clock, and movable type? Yes, China’s culture is much more conformist than ours. And on average, Chinese are less likely than Americans to be innovators. But there are 1.38 billion Chinese, and their research and development (R&D) spending is quickly catching up with ours. They’re producing four times as many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) bachelor’s degrees and twice as many STEM Ph.D.s as the United States. Granted, some of them are of low quality—but many are excellent.
The single most troublesome deficiency we have in the United States is not the industrial base, which is relatively easy to deal with. It is the lack of scientific and engineering education. Six or seven percent of U.S. college students major in engineering. In China that number is 30-40 percent. That’s our biggest problem. Second to that is the fact, already mentioned, that there is a massive distortion of the global economic system caused by Chinese industrial policy.
The Chinese play very dirty. One of the issues raised in the Trump administration’s recent National Security Strategy is forced technology transfer. That is, if Intel wants to get access to the Chinese market—the biggest chip market in the world—China requires Intel to divulge everything it knows. From the standpoint of Intel stock price over the next five to ten years, that’s a pretty good deal. But it is bad from the standpoint of America’s national interest. If the U.S. government prohibits the transfer of technology to China, the Intels and the Texas Instruments of the world will scream, because it will hurt their stock prices. I’m a free trader, but national security sometimes supersedes the free market. This would be such a case.
Virtually all of American investment in R&D today goes to software. This means that we’ve conceded to Asia, and especially China, the actual manufacturing, to the point that—this bears repeating—we can’t put a warplane in the air without Chinese chips.
So what do we do about China? The answer is not to adopt an industrial policy. As Americans, we believe in individual liberty. We are not good at being collectivists. China and Germany have industrial policies. Culturally they can deal with it. We cannot. If we’re going to compete with China, we’ve got to do it the American way. And what we are best at is innovation.
In the 1970s, all the smart people thought Russia was going to win the Cold War. Economists at the CIA and in the universities believed that Russia had a great economy. But by 1989, we realized that the Russian economy was a piece of junk. It actually had a negative worth, because the cost of environmental cleanup exceeded the value of whatever Russia was producing.
What happened in the interim was the greatest wave of industrial innovation in American history. We invented fast, light, small, inexpensive microchips. We invented sensors that didn’t exist before. We invented the semiconductor laser. And we did virtually all of this through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and NASA, in cooperation with the great corporate laboratories.
The U.S. turned the Russian economy into junk by creating an economy that hadn’t existed before. That was the Reagan economy. During this creation, the Fortune 500 lost employment. The monopolies were all ruined. New companies no one ever heard of sprang up to commercialize the new technologies, and corruption declined because we had challengers taking market share away from the entrenched interests.
In 1983, I wrote a memo for the National Security Council arguing that the Strategic Defense Initiative would pay for itself—that the impact of the new technologies we were researching, once they were commercialized, would generate more tax revenue than we’d spent on R&D. When you do R&D, you don’t know the outcome. Manufacturing using CMOS chip technology came about because the Pentagon thought it would be great for fighter pilots to have a weather forecasting module in the cockpit. The semiconductor laser came about because the Pentagon wanted to light up the battlefield during nighttime warfare. These technologies produced unforeseen consequences that rippled in unimaginable ways through our economy.
We have failed to continue this innovation in recent decades. Starting with the Clinton administration, we came to believe we were so powerful that we didn’t have to invest in national defense and new technologies. Investment went into the Internet bubble of the 1990s, as if downloading movies was going to be the economy of the future.
I’m a free marketer. But the one thing markets cannot do is divorce themselves from culture. It is when we have a national security requirement, forcing us to the frontier of physics to develop weapons that are better than those of our rivals, that we get the best kind of innovation. So the government has a role—a critical role—in meeting the Chinese challenge.
If the Chinese are spending tens of billions of dollars to build chip fabrication plants and we come up with a better way of doing it, suddenly they’ll have a hundred billion dollars’ worth of worthless chip manufacturing plants on their hands. But you can’t predict the outcome in advance. You have to make the commitment and take a leap of faith in American ingenuity and science. We can meet the strategic challenge of China, but we have to meet it as Americans in the American way.
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Spengler is always worth serious thought , , ,
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Spengler is always worth serious thought , , ,
Yes. I put him up there with VDH and Richard Fernandez.
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I pointed out on this board that the universities are flooded with Chinese professors students etc. OF COURSE many are taking everything they know for a fee and sending off to the China.
FINALLY here is the first article I have seen on this. It ain't just a bunch of people sitting in China in some windowless concreter building hacking into our computers.
OTOH maybe a lot of American borns non Chinese are also being bribed :
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/chinese-spies-engaged-massive-theft-u-s-technology/
So what do we do about this?
Ask a Dem and the answer is bring in more immigrants . They have so much to contribute .. blah blah blah.
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I pointed out on this board that the universities are flooded with Chinese professors students etc. OF COURSE many are taking everything they know for a fee and sending off to the China.
FINALLY here is the first article I have seen on this. It ain't just a bunch of people sitting in China in some windowless concreter building hacking into our computers.
OTOH maybe a lot of American borns non Chinese are also being bribed :
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/chinese-spies-engaged-massive-theft-u-s-technology/
So what do we do about this?
Ask a Dem and the answer is bring in more immigrants . They have so much to contribute .. blah blah blah.
Lots of Chinese would love to stay rather than return to China. Unfortunately, they usually aren't allowed to stay.
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In the ever-evolving spat between the world's two largest economies, the United States is reaching for yet another tool to pressure China. On April 16, the U.S. Commerce Department announced that it is reinstating an order barring U.S. companies — including tech giants such as Google, Qualcomm and Intel — from selling parts, software and equipment to the Shenzhen-based telecommunications giant ZTE Corp. The move will undeniably be felt in ZTE's operations throughout the world.
The United States originally slapped its export ban on ZTE in 2016, after an investigation determined that the Chinese tech giant had run afoul of U.S. sanctions by buying U.S.-produced technology and exporting it directly — or embedded in ZTE's products — to Iran and North Korea. ZTE earned a few waivers as it tried to comply with the U.S. sanctions, and it eventually reached a full settlement in early 2017. Now, however, the United States is arguing that ZTE has violated the pact: Though the company fired four employees involved with the sales to the sanctioned countries, it did not follow through with its promise to reduce the bonuses paid to others involved. The White House is exploiting an opportunity that ZTE Corp. itself created — perhaps at the behest of Beijing, as ZTE Corp. is partially owned by a state-owned enterprise.
The development is a huge blow for ZTE, as an estimated 25 to 30 percent of its supplies and components come from U.S. companies. ZTE likely cannot, for example, use U.S.-produced semiconductors or include Google's Android-based operating system in its smartphones. ZTE has emerged as one of the five largest suppliers of telecommunications equipment in the world, but that status may be in jeopardy now, especially as it faces these challenges during the critical 5G testing, development and rollout period.
ZTE is one of the most important companies in China's ongoing tech innovation strategy, and the United States is engaged in an overall push against those efforts. As it did in 2016, the company will likely try any and all options to forestall or freeze the ban — though with the U.S.-China economic spat in full gear, it may find that the United States is less than accommodating.
If ZTE's pleas for leniency fail, other Chinese companies are likely to emerge from the background. China has adopted a strategy of supporting several tech giants with overlapping products that compete with one another. ZTE, one of the world's largest smartphone makers, has seen rivals Huawei, Oppo, Xiaomi and Vivo jump ahead as the leading Chinese companies in the space, for example. And while ZTE is a telecommunications leader right now, Huawei is a far bigger company and could be in a position to overtake its rival in the industry.
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Not at all wild about the title to the piece, but the news about REEs (a subject which I brought to the attention of this board a few years back) is BIG.
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Japanese Imperialism With Chinese Characteristics
Apr 18, 2018
By Jacob L. Shapiro
It is exceedingly rare for a scientific study about deep-sea mud in the Pacific to have geopolitical import. But then, we live in crazy times.
Nature – one of the world’s most prestigious scientific journals – published a paper on April 10 analyzing a deep-sea mud patch near Minamitorishima Island, a small island in the Pacific off the coast of Japan, and concluded that the 965-square-mile (2,500-square-kilometer) mud bed contained such a high concentration of certain rare-earth elements that it could meet the world’s REE demand for almost a millennium. This is uncharted territory for Japan, a country driven to horrible extremes in the first half of the 20th century by its dearth of natural resources and still defined by its reliance on imports to this day.
(click to enlarge)
A discovery of rare-earth elements cannot eliminate Japan’s extreme reliance on imports. This is a country that imported almost 90 percent of its energy needs and 60 percent of its caloric intake last year, and REEs cannot power automobiles or be served for dinner. And even though the Japanese scientists who conducted the study believe the mud can be mined in the “near future,” academics tend to have a different sense of what the near future means than the rest of the world. REEs are not actually all that rare – they are just costly and environmentally destructive to mine. It will take Japan years to take advantage of this breakthrough.
Even so, the discovery is a major boon for Japan. REEs have become increasingly important for the production of everything from flat-screen TVs to advanced military weapons systems, and until now, Japan has depended on a risky source for its supply: China. China accounted for 80 percent of global REE production last year and has not hesitated in the past to use this as leverage over Japan, mostly recently in a 2010 dispute over a Chinese trawler that collided with a Japanese coast guard patrol ship in disputed waters near the Senkaku Islands. For Japan, this discovery kills two birds with one stone: It offers Japan a chance to curtail its reliance on foreign imports for a key natural resource while also potentially weakening China’s grip over the REE market worldwide.
Strength Through Self-Sufficiency
It is an ironic shift in roles between East Asia’s two major powers. One of the defining differences between China and Japan has always been China’s abundance of natural resources. This imbalance played a critical part in Japan’s invasion of China in 1931 and Japan’s development of a formidable maritime force in the 19th century because securing sea lanes and access to natural resources was (and remains) synonymous with Japan’s survival. China has an ideological bent toward self-sufficiency because historically it has been capable of self-sufficiency. That, however, is beginning to change, and as it does, the relationship between Japan and China will transform as well.
China has risen to global prominence on the back of its export-driven economy. But imports are becoming more important than ever for the Middle Kingdom. Mao Zedong wanted China to be strong, and for him, that meant self-sufficiency. This fixation on self-sufficiency did not change even after Deng Xiaoping opened China’s economy up to the world. In 1996, China’s State Council issued a directive to achieve 95 percent self-sufficiency in grain production, and this goal was affirmed in China’s Mid- to Long-Term Grain Security Plan released in 2008. But in late 2013, Beijing conceded that Chinese appetites had grown too large, and “moderate imports” became an official part of China’s national food strategy. Now China is the world’s largest importer of soy and, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, will become the top importer of corn by 2020.
Oil is another key area where China’s reliance on foreign suppliers is becoming more pronounced. Last year, China surpassed the United States as the world’s largest crude oil importer, a reflection both of increased U.S. domestic production and increased Chinese demand. In 2004, China imported just over 2 million barrels per day; last year, that figure rose to 8.4 million bpd. About 56 percent of Chinese oil imports came from OPEC countries in 2017 and 14 percent came from Russia, which means China has to consider both how to secure its maritime trade lanes to the Middle East and how to avoid becoming the Europe of the East, unable to challenge Russian ambitions because of its dependence on Russian energy. This will also make China particularly vulnerable to any power capable of blocking its access to these imports – the ultimate trump card in any U.S.-China trade negotiation.
Increasing Competition
These are problems with which Japan is intimately familiar. Japan, however, has a much smaller population than China and a more equitable distribution of wealth. China, and the myriad imperial dynasties that preceded it, has always had its hands full just with maintaining order at home. Building the type of maritime capability needed to secure far-flung resources is incredibly costly, and China is being forced to pour money and resources not into making sure hundreds of millions of Chinese living on less than $5.50 a day reach long-promised prosperity but into building and training a navy capable of protecting Chinese interests abroad, as well as building infrastructure in some of the most insecure regions of the world.
The more China becomes dependent on imports, the more Chinese geopolitics should begin to mirror Japanese geopolitics. And that necessarily means that China and Japan, which until now have established a pragmatic if uneasy working relationship, will increasingly compete over the same resources and trade routes. The REE issue is a perfect example. It is no coincidence that a week after the article in Nature was published, Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported that Chinese ships were carrying out illegal REE surveys in Japan’s exclusive economic zone. Japan’s new REE treasure trove is located near a coral atoll roughly 1,150 miles from the main Japanese island chain – an advantage for the Japanese considering that they can exploit resources there with little environmental impact for the country’s main islands. But it’s also a disadvantage because it makes the resources vulnerable to Chinese exploration.
Chinese-Japanese competition over resources won’t erupt overnight, or even in the next year. For every Chinese violation of Japanese waters or Japanese development of new military capabilities, there is another diplomatic meeting meant to show that the countries are still friends – consider the ministerial-level meeting held between China and Japan in Tokyo this week, after an eight-year hiatus in economic talks. Direct conflict is not in the interest of either side yet and may not be for years to come. But make no mistake: As China grows more dependent on imports, its behavior will come to resemble Japan’s. The REE discovery is exceptional news for Japan, good news for the world, and bad news for China. But the more important story here is the slow development of what we might call “Japanese imperialism with Chinese characteristics.”
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second post
China: China has reportedly deployed its Dongfeng-26 ballistic missile, which has a range of 2,000-2,500 miles (3,000-4,000 kilometers) and can reach the U.S. territory of Guam. How many of these missiles does China have in its arsenal? What locations are the most likely to be used for storing and firing this missile? What is its success rate?
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https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21737517-it-bet-china-would-head-towards-democracy-and-market-economy-gamble-has-failed-how
How the West got China wrong
It bet that China would head towards democracy and the market economy. The gamble has failed
Print edition | Leaders
Mar 1st 2018
LAST weekend China stepped from autocracy into dictatorship. That was when Xi Jinping, already the world’s most powerful man, let it be known that he will change China’s constitution so that he can rule as president for as long as he chooses—and conceivably for life. Not since Mao Zedong has a Chinese leader wielded so much power so openly. This is not just a big change for China (see article), but also strong evidence that the West’s 25-year bet on China has failed.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West welcomed the next big communist country into the global economic order. Western leaders believed that giving China a stake in institutions such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) would bind it into the rules-based system set up after the second world war (see Briefing). They hoped that economic integration would encourage China to evolve into a market economy and that, as they grew wealthier, its people would come to yearn for democratic freedoms, rights and the rule of law.
It was a worthy vision, which this newspaper shared, and better than shutting China out. China has grown rich beyond anybody’s imagining. Under the leadership of Hu Jintao, you could still picture the bet paying off. When Mr Xi took power five years ago China was rife with speculation that he would move towards constitutional rule. Today the illusion has been shattered. In reality, Mr Xi has steered politics and economics towards repression, state control and confrontation.
All hail, Xi Dada
Start with politics. Mr Xi has used his power to reassert the dominance of the Communist Party and of his own position within it. As part of a campaign against corruption, he has purged potential rivals. He has executed a sweeping reorganisation of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), partly to ensure its loyalty to the party, and to him personally. He has imprisoned free-thinking lawyers and stamped out criticism of the party and the government in the media and online. Though people’s personal lives remain relatively free, he is creating a surveillance state to monitor discontent and deviance.
China used to profess no interest in how other countries run themselves, so long as it was left alone. Increasingly, however, it holds its authoritarian system up as a rival to liberal democracy. At the party’s 19th congress last autumn, Mr Xi offered “a new option for other countries” that would involve “Chinese wisdom and a Chinese approach to solving the problems facing mankind.” Mr Xi later said that China would not export its model, but you sense that America now has not just an economic rival, but an ideological one, too.
The bet to embed markets has been more successful. China has been integrated into the global economy. It is the world’s biggest exporter, with over 13% of the total. It is enterprising and resourceful, and home to 12 of the world’s 100 most valuable listed companies. It has created extraordinary prosperity, for itself and those who have done business with it.
Yet China is not a market economy and, on its present course, never will be. Instead, it increasingly controls business as an arm of state power. It sees a vast range of industries as strategic. Its “Made in China 2025” plan, for instance, sets out to use subsidies and protection to create world leaders in ten industries, including aviation, tech and energy, which together cover nearly 40% of its manufacturing. Although China has become less blatant about industrial espionage, Western companies still complain of state-sponsored raids on their intellectual property. Meanwhile, foreign businesses are profitable but miserable, because commerce always seems to be on China’s terms. American credit-card firms, for example, were let in only after payments had shifted to mobile phones.
China embraces some Western rules, but also seems to be drafting a parallel system of its own. Take the Belt and Road Initiative, which promises to invest over $1tn in markets abroad, ultimately dwarfing the Marshall plan. This is partly a scheme to develop China’s troubled west, but it also creates a Chinese-funded web of influence that includes pretty much any country willing to sign up. The initiative asks countries to accept Chinese-based dispute-resolution. Should today’s Western norms frustrate Chinese ambition, this mechanism could become an alternative.
And China uses business to confront its enemies. It seeks to punish firms directly, as when Mercedes-Benz, a German carmaker, was recently obliged to issue a grovelling apology after unthinkingly quoting the Dalai Lama online. It also punishes them for the behaviour of their governments. When the Philippines contested China’s claim to Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, China suddenly stopped buying its bananas, supposedly for health reasons. As China’s economic clout grows, so could this sort of pressure.
This “sharp power” in commerce is a complement to the hard power of armed force. Here, China behaves as a regional superpower bent on driving America out of East Asia. As with Scarborough Shoal, China has seized and built on a number of reefs and islets. The pace of Chinese military modernisation and investment is raising doubts about America’s long-run commitment to retain its dominance in the region. The PLA still could not defeat America in a fight, but power is about resolve as well as strength. Even as China’s challenge has become overt, America has been unwilling or unable to stop it.
Take a deep breath
What to do? The West has lost its bet on China, just when its own democracies are suffering a crisis of confidence. President Donald Trump saw the Chinese threat early but he conceives of it chiefly in terms of the bilateral trade deficit, which is not in itself a threat. A trade war would undermine the very norms he should be protecting and harm America’s allies just when they need unity in the face of Chinese bullying. And, however much Mr Trump protests, his promise to “Make America Great Again” smacks of a retreat into unilateralism that can only strengthen China’s hand.
Instead Mr Trump needs to recast the range of China policy. China and the West will have to learn to live with their differences. Putting up with misbehaviour today in the hope that engagement will make China better tomorrow does not make sense. The longer the West grudgingly accommodates China’s abuses, the more dangerous it will be to challenge them later. In every sphere, therefore, policy needs to be harder edged, even as the West cleaves to the values it claims are universal.
To counter China’s sharp power, Western societies should seek to shed light on links between independent foundations, even student groups, and the Chinese state. To counter China’s misuse of economic power, the West should scrutinise investments by state-owned companies and, with sensitive technologies, by Chinese companies of any kind. It should bolster institutions that defend the order it is trying to preserve. For months America has blocked the appointment of officials at the WTO. Mr Trump should demonstrate his commitment to America’s allies by reconsidering membership of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as he has hinted. To counter China’s hard power, America needs to invest in new weapons systems and, most of all, ensure that it draws closer to its allies—who, witnessing China’s resolve, will naturally look to America.
Rivalry between the reigning and rising superpowers need not lead to war. But Mr Xi’s thirst for power has raised the chance of devastating instability. He may one day try to claim glory by retaking Taiwan. And recall that China first limited the term of its leaders so that it would never again have to live through the chaos and crimes of Mao’s one-man rule. A powerful, yet fragile, dictatorship is not where the West’s China bet was supposed to lead. But that is where it has ended up.
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And in follow to CD's previous post how we got China wrong; what do we do about it how.
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/how-to-meet-the-strategic-challenge-posed-by-china/
If the progressives, liberals, have their way I don't see how we could meet the challenge.
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By Phillip Orchard
It’s been an awfully eventful year in the South China Sea – and it’s not even halfway over. In just the few first months of 2018, U.S., Japanese, Australian and Singaporean warships paraded their power around the waters by making several high-profile port visits to the Philippines and Vietnam. Meanwhile, in an uncustomarily overt show of military force, China launched a series of live-fire naval and air force exercises, including one involving at least 40 warships. In late March, the U.S. conducted a freedom of navigation operation, sailing a warship near a Chinese-controlled artificial island in disputed waters to discredit Beijing’s legal basis for its territorial claims. The same week, Chinese warplanes chased off Philippine surveillance aircraft monitoring developments in the disputed Spratly archipelago, even as the governments in Beijing and Manila were agreeing to jointly pursue and extract oil and natural gas in waters just off Philippine shores. Two days later, Vietnam canceled its second foreign-backed drilling project in disputed waters in less than a year. Both the Philippines and Vietnam were capitulating to repeated Chinese threats to disrupt any drilling project undertaken with another outside power.
But the list of events doesn’t end there. In early April, the Pentagon released satellite imagery showing that China had installed radar-jamming equipment on Fiery Cross Reef – one of several artificial islands China has gradually been militarizing in the Spratly archipelago, which are located, as Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte put it, just a jet ski ride from Philippine shores – and landed military transport planes on neighboring Mischief Reef. The same day, 20 U.S. warplanes took off from and returned to the nearby USS Roosevelt aircraft carrier in just 20 minutes, an impressive display of operational tempo intended to demonstrate to the region just how far China has to go to achieve parity with the Americans. Shortly thereafter, China’s first indigenously built aircraft carrier started sea trials, underscoring the remarkable pace of China’s own naval modernization.
More recently, on April 17, shortly after Duterte returned from a trip to China, the U.S. finally broke ground on base facilities in the Philippines, agreed to under a 2014 pact that Duterte had once threatened to cancel. (He also threatened to cancel the annual U.S.-Philippine Balikatan naval exercises, which will formally open next week with expanded Australian and Japanese participation.)
Two days later, Chinese warships had an unexplained “encounter” with three Australian warships sailing from Manila to Vietnam. Then, a week ago, Chinese researchers proposed replacing the infamous “nine-dash line,” which traces Beijing’s sweeping but nebulous claims in the South China Sea, with a fixed boundary more clearly outlining the area in which China would have exclusive rights to fish, drill for oil, station military assets and so forth. (Beijing often uses “researchers” to submit contentious proposals and gauge international reaction before deciding whether to adopt them formally.) Finally, at last weekend’s annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit, while U.S. bombers were cruising over the South China Sea, Chinese pressure once again prevented Southeast Asian leaders from demonstrating even a shred of unity in opposition to Chinese assertiveness. Member states succeeded only in issuing yet another watered down communique that addressed the South China Sea disputes in oblique terms.
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At issue, as always, is whether any of this will amount to more than shadowboxing. It’s difficult to say for sure, considering how performative so much of the behavior in the South China Sea can be. Perhaps the clearest signal came last week from Adm. Philip Davidson, the incoming chief of U.S. Pacific Command, who told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that “China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States.” Equally notable were Davidson’s milquetoast recommendations to counter China’s expansion: more freedom of navigation operations, more development of advanced weaponry, and a steadier U.S. presence in the region. His recommendations echoed the case made by the commander of the USS Carl Vinson on a visit to Manila in February: that a consistent U.S. presence is what underpins regional security. Neither called for the U.S. to actually do anything to roll back the Chinese advance.
Davidson’s comments make sense. China is the only country that seems to know exactly what it wants in the South China Sea and that has settled on a strategy for getting it. Beijing is betting that it can draw Southeast Asian states firmly into its orbit, eventually securing access to the Greater Pacific Ocean merely by never giving an inch and creating a sense that Chinese domination is inevitable. The U.S. wants to counter this impression with occasional shows of force intended to demonstrate how much better its Navy is, while nudging littoral states to unite against the Chinese. But a demonstration of force isn’t the same thing as a demonstration of willingness to use force on another state’s behalf, and the U.S. has too much to do elsewhere to supply the resources needed for an anti-Chinese coalition among Southeast Asian states to have any teeth. Southeast Asian states are trying to play all sides to their benefit, but they are too wary of Chinese coercion, too uncertain about U.S. interest in intervening on their behalf, too weak militarily and too internally divided to act decisively in either direction.
So to what degree does the U.S. actually care about Chinese control of the South China Sea, as Davidson put it, in all scenarios short of war? The problem for Southeast Asia is this: Chinese dominion over what littoral states do in the South China Sea’s waters isn’t actually that much of a threat to U.S. interests in the big picture, at least for the time being. The main U.S. interest in the South China Sea dispute is preventing a conflict or an erosion of maritime law that threatens to disrupt seaborne trade. Some 30 percent of global maritime trade and about half of global oil tanker shipments pass through the waters each year. But so long as the U.S. can block Chinese traffic through the first island chain – the series of islands off China’s coast that stretch from Japan to Indonesia – and through the Strait of Malacca, China can’t risk stopping traffic in the contested waters. The U.S. also cares about things like rules-based order and the narrow material interests of littoral states, but it has little interest in what would inevitably be a costly war to defend them. And it cares about maintaining a balance between East Asia’s larger powers, but it would like this burden to fall on regional partners like Japan, Australia and India as much as possible – countries that have no more apparent interest in going to war over the drilling rights of Vietnam and the Philippines.
The risk of this approach is that, over the long term, it could dramatically raise the cost of a U.S. intervention to address issues it does care about, such as sea lane control. China’s military modernization will narrow the gap with the U.S. somewhat, particularly in an area where the Chinese would have home-field advantage, where it could amass forces and supplies quickly beneath the umbrella of its mainland-based missiles and air power. And if Southeast Asian states feel that U.S. indifference has given them no choice but to accept Chinese regional domination, it would undermine the United States’ regional position altogether since it would prevent Washington from using the first island chain to block the Chinese. Notably, Davidson also warned that China’s domination of the South China Sea will allow it to “extend its influence thousands of miles to the south and project power deep into Oceania” and “use these bases to challenge U.S. presence in the region.” And if the U.S. concludes that a clash with China is inevitable, it’d have an interest in pushing back before China makes it even more costly to do so.
These are long-term threats, ones that the combination of China’s own internal woes and, say, Japan’s re-emergence may very well derail. But what we’re seeing in the South China Sea today are preparations grounded in the assumption that the fragile status quo won’t necessarily hold forever.
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Japan Should Increase Military Ties With Taiwan, Says Former Japanese Navy Chief [and Doug
[The article is all about responding to Chinese activity in the South China Sea but I would add response the Kim Jung Un fiasco to the mix. China wants to accomplish something, dominance, in the South China Sea. The Korea ordeal just adds to the need for Japan to re-militarize and for the other countries to join together to stand up to the bully in the neighborhood. Why does China want Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Singapore, the United States and others to be forming and strengthening military alliances in their region? Xi must be telling Un to wrap this this up. - Doug]
https://www.theepochtimes.com/japan-should-increase-military-ties-with-taiwan-says-former-japanese-navy-chief_2512991.html
Japan Should Increase Military Ties With Taiwan, Says Former Japanese Navy Chief
By Paul Huang
May 3, 2018 11:34 am Last Updated: May 7, 2018 2:04 pm
Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer JS Ashigara (DDG 178), foreground, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer (DDG 108) and the Ticonderoga-class cruiser USS Lake Champlain (CG 57) transit the Philippine Sea on April 28, 2017. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Z.A. Landers)
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WASHINGTON—As the Chinese regime continues to flex its military muscle, the former chief of Japan’s naval forces said it is high time for Japan to increase its military exchanges and cooperation with its close neighbor Taiwan, which is also being threatened by Beijing’s aggressive activities in the region.
At a Sasakawa Peace Foundation forum in Washington on May 2, Tomohisa Takei, the retired admiral and former chief of staff of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), said that Japan should remain vigilant in ensuring that China doesn’t get an opportunity to change the status quo in the region.
Takei also called for Japan to increase military communication and exchanges with its southern neighbor Taiwan, and said that currently there is “almost nothing” in terms of cooperation between the Taiwanese Navy and the JMSDF.
“Taiwan has a strong navy. There must be more interaction between Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force ships and Taiwanese navy ships to avoid accident situations,” said Takei. “Japan and China already agreed to set up maritime and air communication mechanism. Japan should also establish such communication with Taiwan.”
Takei, who was the head of Japan’s naval forces from 2014 to 2016 and is now a fellow at the U.S. Naval War College, also said that Beijing’s military buildup and ever-increasing aggression in the region are primarily aimed at retaking Taiwan. Takei said Japan needs to increase engagement with “like-minded countries” in the Indian Ocean to resist the expansionist power.
The United States maintains a close military relationship with Japan, as the two countries have a mutual defense treaty in place. Due to political pressure from Beijing, however, Japan does not have any established military cooperation or exchange mechanism with Taiwan, which is Japan’s closest neighbor to the south.
“There is a lot of potential for Taiwan to cooperate more with Japan, especially in military aspects,” David An, a senior research fellow with the Global Taiwan Institute, told The Epoch Times. “Since much of [Taiwan’s and Japan’s] equipment are of U.S. origin and already have military communication systems in common, there is a lot of interoperability between Taiwan’s and Japan’s militaries.”
An, a former U.S. State Department political-military affairs officer, cautioned, however, that Taiwan’s military cooperation with countries outside of the United States is often done in a quiet and low-profile manner, so as to avoid interference by Beijing.
“If cooperation is quiet, then it is hard to tell the exact extent of cooperation—whether high, medium, or low,” An said, citing Taiwan’s military exchanges with Singapore, which does not formally recognize Taiwan’s statehood but regularly sends troops to Taiwan for training exercises, a low-profile program that has been in existence for decades that Beijing has consistently opposed.
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This is a very interesting idea. Let's keep an eye to see if anything comes of it.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/china-taiwan-policy-strategy-erode-sovereignty-isolate/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202018-05-14&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives
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http://www.aei.org/publication/testimony-chinas-worldwide-military-expansion/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTXpSa01EZGxaREZqWVdR
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http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/05/22/china-winning-trade-war-so-far/
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https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/senate-committee-overwhelming-votes-to-block-trump-from-saving-chinese-telecom-giant/
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Gordon is also on John Batchelor show a lot as well:
http://video.foxnews.com/v/5787496064001/?#sp=show-clips
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Making Waves: China Pushes Ahead With Its Aircraft Carrier Program
May 24, 2018
Summary
When China rolled out its first aircraft carrier six years ago, it was met mostly with shrugs, if not scorn. China had purchased the Soviet-era warship, dubbed the Liaoning, half-finished from Ukraine. It was immediately clear that the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s shiny new toy – a floating blunderbuss in appearance and obsolescence – would never see serious combat duties. The launch of the Liaoning therefore raised some questions: Just what is the purpose of the Liaoning, and what do Chinese strategic planners have in mind?
Two weeks ago, China’s second aircraft carrier slipped out of port in the northeastern city of Dalian for its maiden sea trials. The Type 001A, which may enter service within two years, isn’t a dramatic improvement over the Liaoning. It’s based on the same outdated design, and thus faces most of the same inherent limitations. But there’s one major difference: China built this one from the ground up. The Chinese constructed it quickly, and they appear to be gearing up to build several more. This doesn’t mean that China is anywhere near ready to engage in exceedingly complicated carrier operations in unfriendly waters. And it certainly doesn’t mean China is set to become a pre-eminent maritime power, capable of squaring off against the U.S. Navy in the middle of the Pacific. Nonetheless, it’s no small feat – and one that hints at China’s expanding naval ambitions.
This Deep Dive examines the pace, limits and strategic rationale of China’s curious carrier program. Ultimately, it concludes that, at present, Chinese carriers are largely irrelevant to the growing competition over the Indo-Pacific, but also that Beijing has reason to believe this may not always be the case.
Reasons to Shrug
If the Chinese were to try to go toe to toe with the U.S. using their two aircraft carriers in open waters, it would be like taking a knife to, well, a carrier fight. Part of the problem has to do with the limitations of China’s carriers themselves. Both the Liaoning and the Type 001A have conventional oil-fueled steam turbine power plants, limiting their speed and service life compared to the far more efficient nuclear propulsion systems sported by U.S. and French carriers. Neither are particularly large, with the Type 001A expected to be capable of carrying 32-36 multirole fighter jets (plus a dozen or so helicopters), compared to as many as 90 fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft on the new U.S. Ford-class supercarriers. Both have ski-jump assisted short take-off but arrested recovery, or STOBAR, launch systems – as opposed to catapult-assisted systems that are standard on more advanced carriers – putting extra stress on warplanes and limiting their sortie tempo, payloads and operating range. Mastering the more advanced carrier technologies will presumably take longer, and be far more expensive, than merely copying and modifying the Soviet-era designs of its current fleet.
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The other problem for China is that having a carrier capable of toting around a bunch of fighter jets is not the same thing as having a viable carrier battle group, consisting of an aircraft carrier and a full suite of escort submarines and surface ships – destroyers, frigates, cruisers and replenishment-at-sea ships – plus air wings with sophisticated anti-air, anti-submarine, early warning and electronic attack capabilities. Absent these components, carriers are sitting ducks.
China still has relatively limited anti-submarine warfare capabilities, which means that its carriers would be easy targets for enemy torpedoes. Its own nuclear submarines are believed to be roughly equivalent to what the U.S. was building in the 1980s. The STOBAR systems cannot handle heavy fixed-wing airborne early warning and control aircraft, limiting the carriers to early warning helicopters that cannot fly at the high altitudes needed for expansive detection ranges. Unlike the United States’ latest and greatest fighter jet, the F-35, China’s own premier warplane, the J-20, has no variant suitable for carriers. Moreover, Beijing does not have any experience integrating these complex parts into a unified strike group. In fact, training and experience will be a disadvantage for China in nearly all dimensions of bluewater operations. The U.S. has been doing carrier ops since before World War II. According to the Pentagon, China did not graduate its first cohort of domestically trained pilots to fly China’s carrier-borne J-15 fighter jets until 2015.
Finally, there’s the problem of logistics. China would be operating extremely far from its main base of operations on the mainland. With few nuclear-powered ships, China must be constantly worried about refueling. The U.S. has forward bases, supply depots and maintenance hubs around the globe. China is just beginning to scratch the surface on gaining long-term basing rights anywhere in the Indian Ocean, despite its investments in deep-water ports in various Indo-Pacific countries.
Trajectory Matters
As with all dimensions of China’s rise, trajectory is more important than the current balance of forces. And China’s shipbuilding program is demonstrating a capacity to pump out large, increasingly sophisticated vessels with remarkable speed.
China’s third carrier, for example, is expected to be significantly larger than the first two and include catapult launch systems. This means it will be able to carry a larger and more diverse air wing, including warplanes with heavier payloads and longer operating ranges. China is then expected to turn its focus to developing a nuclear-powered carrier in the not-too-distant future, allowing for much greater operating range and speed and addressing some of its refueling concerns. Furthermore, the Type 001A was built in around a third of the time it took the U.S. to build its latest carrier, the USS Gerald Ford. Granted, the Ford is a much larger and more sophisticated warship, and China has far more limited operational expectations than the U.S. in the near term, so the carriers can essentially be rushed into service and allowed to work out the kinks on the fly without fear of them pulling up lame in the middle of combat. So this tells us only so much.
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But China’s success in rolling out other new warships at a blistering pace and its success in playing rapid catch-up on the technology front tell us quite a bit more. The number of naval vessels rolled out by China over the past three years is greater than the total fleet of any country in Europe except France. Over that period, China has gone from no corvettes to 37. In 2016 alone, it commissioned 23 new surface ships (compared to just six by the U.S.), including a Type 052D guided-missile destroyer and three Type 054A guided-missile frigates – both considered world-class warships. According to the Pentagon, by 2020, China’s force will likely grow to between 69 and 78 submarines, compared to just 31 (most of them outdated or purchased from abroad) a decade ago. Altogether, the People’s Liberation Army Navy now boasts more than 300 surface combatants, submarines, amphibious ships and missile-armed patrol craft – by far the largest navy in Asia, according to the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence. (The U.S. Navy is expected to reach 326 ships in the next five years.)
What’s most notable here is how quickly China has been replacing obsolete components and weaning itself off foreign technology. In 2015, the Pentagon rated 70 percent of Chinese submarines (both nuclear- and diesel-powered), destroyers and frigates as being of “modern design,” compared to between 30-40 percent just a decade earlier. According to the Office of Naval Intelligence, “The JIANGKAI-class (Type 054A) frigate series, LUYANG-class (Type 052B/C/D) destroyer series, and the upcoming new cruiser (Type 055) class are considered to be modern and capable designs that are comparable in many respects to the most modern Western warships.”
There are doubts about whether China can maintain the trajectory of its buildup if, as we expect, its economic growth slows considerably over the coming decades, creating new budgetary constraints. It’s also facing questions unrelated to its ability to build bigger and better ships. Perhaps most important is whether it can use its Belt and Road initiative to build out a logistics and base network needed to sustain a global presence. But it’s not unreasonable to assume that China has at least the technical chops to play catch-up in the carrier realm, and it certainly has the industrial capacity to do so. The real question is why it would want to – and what this may say about
China’s strategic intentions.
Carriers’ Diminishing Strategic Value
However strong its carrier groups might one day become, China’s decision to devote resources to them is curious for several reasons. Most important, carriers would do little to solve China’s most immediate strategic problems. In fact, China’s broader naval modernization push has been geared overwhelmingly toward making carriers altogether obsolete.
The issue comes down to two concepts core to naval doctrine: sea control versus sea denial. According to the godfather of U.S. naval strategy, Alfred Thayer Mahan, sea control is basically the unchallenged power to conduct maritime trade, military operations and so forth wherever and whenever a country likes, without putting itself at risk of attack by an adversary. Sea denial is simply the ability to conduct attacks on enemy ships, even without the ability to stop an attack on one’s own. Sea control, of course, is much more difficult to achieve, requiring carriers that provide a protective umbrella for all a country’s other ships. Sea denial can be achieved even without a substantial surface fleet, so long as a country has sufficient shore-based anti-ship missiles, aircraft and submarines. Achieving sea denial is sufficient for most countries’ strategic goals.
Since World War II, the U.S. has enjoyed sea control across most of the globe, including nearly all of the Western Pacific. This has allowed the U.S. to routinely move carriers into waters just offshore from conflict zones and establish air superiority. Indeed, just 22 years ago, the Clinton administration famously moved a carrier group and an amphibious assault ship into the Taiwan Strait in a demonstration of its ability to come to Taiwan’s defense in the face of a Chinese invasion. There was almost nothing China could do about it. That’s not the case today.
Across the globe, the proliferation of precision-guided anti-ship missiles and stealth diesel-electric submarines is gradually diminishing the U.S. ability to project power with impunity – and nowhere more so than in the South and East China seas, where China has historically been most vulnerable to foreign attack. Since embarrassing itself in the Taiwan standoff, the overwhelming focus of China’s naval modernization has been on building up sea denial capabilities as part of its broader anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy. The goal, put simply, is to build a “fortress fleet” that, when combined with onshore missiles, air power, sea mines and swarms of deputized civilian vessels, would raise the costs of attacking China enough to give the U.S. and its allies serious pause before doing so.
Carriers, in particular, would be relatively easy pickings in China’s littoral waters. This has been a looming concern as far back as the early 1980s, when a top U.S. admiral told Congress that U.S. carriers would last just a day or two in a full-blown war with the Soviets. U.S. carriers have also routinely proved lacking during more recent war games and exercises, including those simulating an asymmetric attack on the U.S. fleet in a congested area like the Persian Gulf or South China Sea. In 2015, the French navy gracefully allowed the U.S. to save face by retracting a report that one of its subs had “sunk” the USS Theodore Roosevelt and most of its accompanying surface fleet during a war game. And their vulnerabilities will only increase as new space-based electronic warfare systems, longer-range and more precise missiles, unmanned systems and so forth come into play.
China’s carriers would be equally vulnerable, and its A2/AD strategy within its near seas doesn’t really require them. Over time, as the range, speed and sophistication of its sea denial capabilities increase, China intends to build strategic depth, gradually pushing its protective envelope outward until it can theoretically dominate the waters around maritime chokepoints along what’s known as the first island chain – a series of small islands running from Japan to Indonesia enveloping the South and East China seas. Presently, another naval power could use these islands to sever critical Chinese sea lines of communication, leaving the Chinese economy to wither on the vine. Carriers would do little to solve this problem. And, with China effectively encircled by hostile powers with growing sea denial capabilities and by U.S. positions in Japan, Guam, the Philippines and Singapore, plus U.S. carrier strike groups sitting farther afield, its carriers would be too exposed to enemy fire to play a central role in any such strategy, anyway. Nothing in China’s growing arsenal can do much to keep its carriers afloat in the face of a U.S. onslaught.
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For China, carriers may actually prove more of a vulnerability than an asset. Carrier groups are enormously expensive to develop and sustain. In the U.S., building a complete carrier strike group and air wing costs more than $35 billion, plus another $1 billion or so to keep everything humming each year. Labor and personnel costs in China will make building and upkeep less expensive for Beijing, but the carrier program will inevitably soak up resources that could be used for more important systems and dilute the talent pool by taking thousands of sailors to man the new warships. In a 2013 paper, for example, the U.S. Navy estimated China could produce more than 1,200 DF-21D “carrier killer” anti-ship missiles with what the U.S. pays for each one of its carriers. Moreover, the success or failure of China’s strategy is likely to hinge as much on China’s ability to strike an agreement with a country in the first island chain that ensures it access to the Pacific as on China’s military capabilities compared to those of the U.S. and its allies. Yet, building carriers deepens suspicion among regional states about Chinese intentions.
The Rationale Behind the Carriers
Beijing is certainly aware of these trade-offs and has prioritized development of the rest of the PLAN fleet over its aircraft carriers accordingly. Why, then, is China still building carriers? For one, China’s strategic imperatives aren’t confined to the South and East China seas. Its critical sea lines of communication extend much farther. For example, the vast majority of Chinese exports to Europe pass through the Indian Ocean, as do its critical energy imports from the Middle East. As a result, to bypass chokepoints in the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca, China is developing alternative import and export outlets in Indian Ocean littoral states. And this means developing maritime capabilities, base facilities and logistics networks needed to keep these outlets open should a conflict erupt to its east. Chinese naval doctrine now calls for a permanent carrier presence in the Indian Ocean.
Moreover, China sees a need to devote greater attention to growing Chinese interests farther afield. Indeed, Chinese strategic planners increasingly appear to be warming to the idea that the growing range of precision-guided missiles requires a capability to strike pre-emptively against an adversary in open waters east of the first island chain – a task in which carriers would have a more obvious role to play. China’s 2015 military strategy white paper, for example, calls for a shift in focus from littoral defenses to a “combination of near seas defense and distant sea protection,” citing the need to neutralize a distant enemy before it can launch land-attack aircraft and missiles against the Chinese mainland. In 2016, according to an internal Chinese navy paper obtained by The National Interest magazine, officers at China’s Naval Research Institute took this a step further, calling for the extension of area-denial capabilities to waters inside the so-called second island chain (Honshu, the Mariana Islands, Palau and eastern Indonesia), while developing “far seas counterattack” capabilities to conduct punitive strikes in response to an enemy attack in China’s littoral waters. In other words, China is beginning to embrace the notion that the best defense is a good offense.
Still, establishing sea control in either area – the Pacific east of the first island chain or the Indian Ocean Basin – would be a tall order, even with a major leap in carrier design, technology and experience. As noted earlier, Chinese carrier battle groups in either theater would be operating far from home, at the edge of their protective umbrellas from onshore missiles and well within range of sea denial assets of other regional powers. Their supply lines could easily be severed if the Chinese have not first established firm control over the myriad maritime chokepoints in the Indo-Pacific, and their Belt and Road bases could themselves be neutralized by enemy air power. Thus, the ability of the carrier groups to secure China’s far-flung interests in the event of conflict is still highly aspirational, at best.
Keeping Its Options Open
It’s also possible that China is under no illusions that it will ever achieve bluewater naval parity with the U.S. – and that it still sees carriers as worth the time and money even if it doesn’t plan on challenging U.S. supremacy on the high seas anytime soon. Indeed, according to the state-owned Global Times: “China doesn’t have to throw around its naval weight like the US does, we don’t need to wage a war in far-flung littoral waters on the other side of the world and thus we don’t need so many carriers as far as our ability goes, and we have no intention to police the world.”
After all, the U.S. is still heavily invested in carriers despite signs that their utility is declining. The U.S. hasn’t fought a major naval battle on the high seas since World War II. (In fact, no one has.) And the United States’ naval supremacy will not be challenged for at least another generation. Yet, the U.S. is planning to spend more than $43 billion on its next three carriers alone and launch a new one every five years.
The U.S. is doing so, in part, because worst-case scenarios are at the core of any power’s strategic planning, and in part because maintaining an overwhelming edge is a good way to dissuade any other powers from attempting to challenge it. Carriers are also valuable in reassuring allies, responding to humanitarian disasters, keeping sea lanes open and providing air cover for land-based wars against overmatched foes.
China will have more interest in these types of operations as its interests ripple outward – particularly in areas where it thinks the U.S. may have no appetite to try to stop it – and as it tries to prove to its skeptical neighbors that it can deliver the regional security benefits currently provided by the United States. At minimum, China’s carriers are a symbol of national prestige. It’s hard to say what tangible benefits this really provides, but Beijing has a political imperative to keep its people bought into the narrative that the Communist Party is making the country a great power.
Finally, Beijing may think that budgetary and political pressures could push the U.S. further into isolation and allow China to emerge as the dominant power in the Western Pacific without firing a shot. Of course, other regional powers – particularly Japan, India, South Korea and Australia – will also get a say in how easily China would fill the maritime vacuum left by the U.S. in such a scenario, while even weaker countries like Vietnam and Indonesia are also developing substantial sea denial capabilities. But waning U.S. interest in the region would certainly give China greater freedom to operate.
From this perspective, China doesn’t need to decide exactly what its carriers will be used for now. But if Beijing suspects carriers may end up helping it solidify its regional dominance – and, at minimum, deliver enough diplomatic, political and asymmetric benefits to justify the costs – then it has good reason to start laying the groundwork for a more robust naval footprint now. Building a viable fleet of carrier groups and mastering the training, technology, infrastructure and supply lines needed to make them meaningful takes decades, after all, and the U.S. and its allies will be improving their own systems in the meantime.
In other words, China’s interest in carriers is perhaps best described as an attempt to keep its options open. China cannot fully determine what kind of naval power it’s going to be; too many factors are outside of its control. But it wants to be ready to push outward if and when a door opens.
The post Making Waves: China Pushes Ahead With Its Aircraft Carrier Program appeared first on Geopolitical Futures.
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Just the fact that we dupes in the West continue to debate whether China is partner, a competitor or out right enemy ( I favor the latter by a wide margin)
speaks to the success of a carefully crafted planned long game of *Red* Chinese:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/obama-administration-politicized-intelligence-law-enforcement-apparatus/
Can we meet the challenge? :-o I need to reread this again:
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/how-to-meet-the-strategic-challenge-posed-by-china/
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China: Growing Old Before It Grows Rich
The Communist Party has become a victim of its own policy success.
The Chinese Communist Party may finally be getting out of the family planning business. Three years ago, the party scrapped its infamous one-child policy. Last week, Bloomberg reported that China’s State Council is mulling ending birth limits altogether. The damage to China’s demographic outlook done by tight population controls has been immense – and it may take several generations for the country to recover.
The Damage Done
When Deng Xiaoping’s government implemented the one-child policy in 1979, population control was all the rage across the globe. Amid booming population growth in the years following World War II, some demographers were warning that the human race was about to breed itself into extinction. Most famously, Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 best-seller “The Population Bomb” warned that hundreds of millions of people, mostly in the developing world, would starve in the 1970s alone. This, of course, turned out to be wildly off the mark. Among other failures, it did not anticipate extraordinary advancements in agricultural technology and mechanization. The famines that did occur were primarily caused by age-old scourges like war, political instability and gross policy mismanagement.
But for China, the threat was all too easy to visualize. A decade earlier, between 23 million and 55 million people starved to death during the famine that resulted from Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward, and collectivization had left the country’s agricultural sector in tatters. Meanwhile, China’s population was exploding, nearly doubling in the years since the Communist Party had won the Chinese civil war. To stave off another disaster, the party turned to its most tried and true policy response: tightened control over even the most intimate affairs of its people.
Today, China has become a victim of its own success. In 1980, Chinese population growth, measured as the crude birthrate minus the crude death rate, had reached 15 per 1,000 people. By 2015, when the one-child rule was lifted countrywide, this had dropped below 5.5 per 1,000 people. Fertility rates today are estimated to be around 1.7 children per adult female, well short of the 2.1 replacement rate. In fact, fertility rates have been below replacement levels since the early 1990s, bottoming out at just 1.18 in 2010.
This means that the average Chinese citizen is getting older, fast, and this trend is expected to pick up speed beginning around 2030. According to China’s National Development and Reform Commission, China’s working-age population (those aged 16 to 59) will fall more than 23 percent to around 830 million by 2030 and 700 million by 2050. By then, a full third of the Chinese population will have reached retirement age, compared to around 15 percent today.
Making matters worse, fertility rates haven’t increased substantially since Beijing decided to allow families to have a second child three years ago. In 2016, according to official figures, 18.46 million Chinese babies were born, nearly 2 million more than the previous year and the highest number since 2000. Nearly half were born to families that already had a child. But things came back to earth in 2017, with births plummeting some 3.5 percent to 17.23 million, nearly 3 million short of official forecasts.
The problem for China is that government policy hasn’t been the only thing keeping birthrates low. The one-child policy has, in many ways, become self-sustaining. In Chinese culture, people are generally expected to take care of their parents when they reach their golden years. This means average Chinese households will be expected to take care of four parents – and have no siblings to share this burden with – leaving less time and money to raise kids of their own. This, combined with factors like career pressures, changing social pressures, the lower birthrates that generally coincide with urbanization and so forth, means Chinese couples have become less inclined to have more kids even if allowed to. According to the Population Research Institute of Peking University, “fertility desire” – the number of children the average Chinese adult female wants (or believes she will be able to afford) – is between 1.6 and 1.8.
Drags on China’s Growth
A shrinking, aging population poses problems for any country; China’s size and position on the development curve simply make them more acute.
For one, it means a lot more retired people to take care of – and fewer working-age people to shoulder the burden of rising pension payouts, health care costs and so forth. In China, the dependency ratio (the number of people too young or old to work divided by the working population) is expected to surge to nearly 70 percent by 2050, compared to just more than 36 percent in 2016. In other words, there is expected to be 1.3 workers for every retired person by the middle of this century, down from nearly three today. Even if the end of the two-child policy compels Chinese couples to start having substantially more children, an immediate bump would actually make the dependency ratio worse for another 15-20 years (in other words, until those newborns enter the workforce).
(click to enlarge)
Magnifying this problem are macroeconomic challenges. For example, a shrinking population means declining consumer demand and output. Tighter labor markets drive up wages, making export-oriented industries less competitive – a major concern for a manufacturing-dependent country like China, whose economic rise is fueled by abundant low-cost workers.
To a degree, health care advances that enable people to live and work longer, combined with technological advances that enable the Chinese economy to sustain productivity with fewer workers, will help soften the blow. This, in part, explains Beijing’s hearty support for emerging technologies – such as self-driving cars, robotization and artificial intelligence – that will inevitably displace workers in the short term. Nonetheless, the demographic outlook is expected to be yet another drag on China’s continued economic rise.
Projections at this time-scale are bound to be inexact, but the International Monetary Fund forecasts that demographic pressures will reduce Chinese gross domestic product growth by 0.5 percent to 0.75 percent over the next three decades. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, demographics is a major contributor to what it expects will be a sharp decline in economic growth beginning in the not-too-distant future. Between 2030 and 2060 (the same period when the Chinese government expects to see the sharpest drop in the working-age population), the OECD forecasts just 2.3 percent annual growth, down from an estimated 6.8 percent last year.
Why It’s Worse For China
China isn’t alone in this challenge. South Korea, Japan and a number of Western countries have comparably low fertility rates and shrinking, aging populations. (Every day in Japan, the world’s oldest country, nearly a thousand more people die than are born.) But China is different in four main ways.
First, this trend is happening faster in China than elsewhere. The slice of the Chinese population made up of retirees will jump from less than 10 percent to a full quarter in just 25 years. In Western countries, this shift has taken place far more gradually, generally over a century or more. China will have far less time to adjust.
Second, it’s happening earlier on China’s development curve than any other major economy. In other words, China is growing old before it grows rich. When Japan reached the percentage of retirees China has now, per capita incomes were double those of China today. When South Korea crossed this threshold, incomes were nearly three times as high. This meant more money to sink into eldercare in aggregate, plus fewer one-child households left holding the bag. And even these countries are still struggling to cope with the rising social costs and economic stagnation tied to demographic decline.
Third, at least compared to Western countries, China has never been particularly receptive to immigration. The United States’ ability to attract and absorb immigrants is an enduring source of national strength, occasional political spasms over the issue notwithstanding. China has no tradition of attracting foreign immigrants; just 1,576 foreigners were granted permanent residency in China in 2016. And it’s unclear how the country’s rigid systems of social control would adapt to a major influx of outsiders.
Finally, China’s political-economic balance is far more precarious than that of more developed economies. The benefits of its economic rise have not been shared equally between the coasts and the interior. For a variety of other structural reasons, economic growth is already expected to gradually slow over the coming decades; demographics will make the challenge only more difficult to manage. Making matters worse, the one-child policy led to an explosion of gender-selective abortions, creating a sizable imbalance between the sexes. By 2014, there were 41 million more men than women in China – and this gap is widening. In other words, there will be tens of millions of males with poor chances of marrying and looking for an outlet to vent their frustrations. In fact, after it lifted the one-child policy in 2015, the government saw a wave of protests by couples demanding compensation for being denied the right to build a bigger family.
In a democratic country, mass social and economic dissatisfaction may lead to the fall of a particular government, but in democracies, governments come and go all the time. To the Communist Party, the threat of social unrest is existential. The public tolerates the party’s tight social controls so long as it continues to deliver on its pledge to make the whole country a modern, vibrant state. In this climate, even a modest economic slowdown could reverberate in ways that threaten to make the whole project come undone.
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GPF:
Philippines, China: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said the Philippines would go to war with China if it crossed certain “red lines.” This is quite an about-face for Duterte, who has previously spoken about the futility of war between the Philippines and China. Over the weekend, satellite images appeared to show the Philippines rebuilding an air base on a contested island in the South China Sea. What are the red lines, and what changed that gave Duterte enough confidence to make his statement?
• Finding: Foreign ministers from China and the Philippines recently had a bilateral meeting in which both sides explicitly laid out their red lines. The Philippines said China could not interfere with Manila’s work in the Spratlys around Second Thomas Shoal, which the Philippines has held ever since deliberately running aground a rusting naval vessel there in 1999. Manila also said no party could unilaterally extract natural resources in the South China Sea. China said its red line called for no new occupation of island areas under a 2002 agreement. Recently, there has been an increase in Chinese and U.S. military activity in the South China Sea, which may have played a role in this exchange.
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By Nancy A. Youssef
Updated June 2, 2018 11:46 p.m. ET
289 COMMENTS
SINGAPORE—The U.S. and China appear to be headed for a more confrontational relationship in Southeast Asia as Washington warns of a more aggressive response to the militarization of disputed islands in the South China Sea.
Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a regional security conference, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis warned there could be “much larger consequences” in the future from China’s moves to install weapons systems on islands in the sea. He didn’t specify what the consequences would be.
The warning, in response to a question from an audience member, came after a speech by Mr. Mattis in which he said “despite China’s claims to the contrary, the placement of these weapons systems is tied directly to military use for the purposes of intimidation and coercion.”
He also called his decision to not invite China to the biennial Rim of the Pacific exercise, slated to begin later in June, “an initial response” to its increased militarization of the South China Sea.
His comments were the most assertive yet in response to what he has described as a ramp-up of Chinese military activity in the past month. This appeared to lay the groundwork for an increased U.S. military—or even economic—response.
China recently sent an H-6K heavy bomber to Woody Island, one of the areas under dispute. It also installed surface-to-air and antiship cruise missiles and communication-jamming equipment on some islands, U.S. officials have said. The U.S. responded last month by sending two Navy warships into the South China Sea to conduct a freedom of navigation operation.
Beijing’s activities are “in stark contrast to the openness of what our strategy promotes; it calls into question China’s broader goals,” Mr. Mattis told a packed house of international military officials, senior global lawmakers, experts and others on Saturday.
China says it has “indisputable” sovereignty over a number of South China Sea islands and the surrounding waters. It says its new facilities are for defensive and civilian purposes.
Lt. Gen. He Lei, of the People’s Liberation Army’s Academy of Military Sciences, delivered a frank defense of China’s armaments in the South China Sea. Beijing has deployed soldiers and weapons there for defensive purposes, he said, calling criticism of those developments irresponsible.
“If we deploy soldiers and weapons in the South China Sea, it is just a matter of China’s sovereignty,” he said at a panel discussion Saturday after Mr. Mattis spoke.
China was the hottest topic of conversation during talks at the three-day conference, even though President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are scheduled to meet here June 12. Mr. Mattis a passing reference to the eagerly awaited summit, saying diplomats were leading the way. On Friday, Mr. Trump said the summit was back on, just a week after canceling it in a letter to Mr. Kim.
“Our objective remains the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Mr. Mattis said, making no mention of maintaining the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign, which included tough sanctions. Hours earlier, after a White House meeting with a top North Korean official, Gen. Kim Yong Chol, Mr. Trump said he would no longer use the term.
Speaking later before a trilateral meeting with his counterparts from Japan and South Korea on Sunday, Mr. Mattis said the U.S. wouldn’t give North Korea sanctions relief until it had confirmed it no longer had a nuclear weapons program. “North Korea will receive relief only when it demonstrates verifiable and irreversible steps to denuclearization,” he said.
The defense chief also portended an unpredictable period in the days leading up to the talks.
“We can anticipate at best a bumpy road to the negotiations,” Mr. Matis told his counterparts. “As defense ministers, we must maintain a strong collaborative defensive stance so we enable our diplomats to negotiate from a position of strength at this critical time.”
In his main speech earlier in the conference Saturday, Mr. Mattis sought to reassure allies that the U.S. remained a reliable partner even after the Trump administration pulled out of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement and, earlier in the week, imposed aluminum and steel tariffs on the European Union, Canada and Mexico.
“America is true in both word and deed,” Mr. Mattis said. “America remains committed to maintaining the region’s security, stability and economic prosperity, a view that transcends America’s political transitions and will continue to enjoy Washington’s strong bipartisan support.”
At the conference, Asia-Pacific officials are discussing the need to work collectively to ensure that the region is secure. At the same time, the U.S. military has sought to intensify its defense cooperation with India. That includes encouraging New Delhi to buy more American military equipment and forging a closer four-way naval partnership that also includes Japan and Australia.
The U.S. military recently changed the name of its command covering Asia and the Pacific Ocean to the Indo-Pacific Command from the Pacific Command.
Military analysts say the American appeal to India reveals concerns about Beijing’s assertive stance in the region. And it has drawn criticism from China.
But during the conference’s keynote speech, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed the concept of a “regional comprehensive partnership.” He spoke about the need to work with multiple nations, including the U.S. and China.
“India does not see the Indo-Pacific region as a strategy or as a club of limited members,” Mr. Modi said.
Write to Nancy A. Youssef at Nancy.Youssef@wsj.com
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The Other China Challenge
Mattis and Congress push back against Beijing’s South China Sea escalation.
By The Editorial Board
June 3, 2018 3:32 p.m. ET
29 COMMENTS
While President Trump focuses on trade and North Korea, China is aggressively building military outposts beyond its borders in the South China Sea. Beijing wants to push Washington out of the Indo-Pacific, and the Trump Administration and Congress may finally be developing a serious strategy to respond.
Trillions of dollars of trade annually float through the Indo-Pacific, which stretches from East Africa through East Asia. In recent years China has built military bases on artificial islands hundreds of miles from its shores, ignoring international law and a 2016 ruling by a United Nations tribunal.
The buildup has accelerated in recent weeks, as China has deployed antiship missiles, surface-to-air missiles and electronic jammers on the Spratly islands and even nuclear-capable bombers on nearby Woody Island. This violates an explicit promise that Chinese President Xi Jinping made to Barack Obama in 2015 that “China does not intend to pursue militarization” on the Spratlys.
The next step could be deployed forces. At that point “China will be able to extend its influence thousands of miles to the south and project power deep into Oceania,” Admiral Philip Davidson, who leads the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said in April.
In the face of China’s buildup, the U.S. has shown uneven commitment. Mr. Obama limited freedom-of-navigation patrols to avoid a confrontation and never committed the resources to make his “pivot to Asia” a reality. China saw Mr. Obama’s hesitation and kept advancing. The growing concern is that China will begin to dictate the terms of navigation to the world and coerce weaker neighboring countries to agree to its foreign policy and trading goals.
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Defense Secretary Jim Mattis lately has been putting this concern front and center. He recently rescinded an invitation to the Chinese navy to participate in the multinational Rimpac exercises off Hawaii this summer. And at the annual Shangri-La security dialogue in Singapore this weekend, Mr. Mattis said that “the placement of these weapons systems is tied directly to military use for the purposes of intimidation and coercion.”
He pointed to the Rimpac cancellation as a “small consequence” of this behavior and said there could be “larger consequences,” albeit unspecified, in the future.
One such consequence could be more frequent and regular freedom-of-navigation operations inside the 12-mile territorial waters claimed by China. Joint operations with allies would have an even greater deterrent effect, and the U.S. should encourage others to join. Beijing will try to punish any country that sails with the U.S., but that will underscore the coercive nature of its plans.
Believe it or not, Congress is also trying to help with the bipartisan Asia Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA). The Senate bill affirms core American alliances with Australia, Japan and South Korea, while calling for deeper military and economic ties with India and Taiwan. It notably encourages regular weapons sales to Taipei.
The bill authorizes $1.5 billion a year over five years to fund regular military exercises and improve defenses throughout the region. It also funds the fight against Southeast Asian terror groups, including Islamic State. This will help, but more will be needed. This year’s $61 billion military spending increase was more backfill than buildup, and China recently boosted its defense budget 8.1%.
ARIA also tries to address Mr. Trump’s major strategic blunder of withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which didn’t include China. The Senate bill grants the President power to negotiate new bilateral and multilateral trade deals.
It also calls for the export of liquefied natural gas to the Indo-Pacific and authorizes the U.S. Trade Representative to negotiate a deal with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). If the U.S. had a trade rep who believed in trade, this could strengthen the U.S. relationship with Vietnam and the Philippines—countries at odds with China over its territorial claims and militarism.
The bill is backed by Republicans Cory Gardner and Marco Rubio and Democrats Ben Cardin and Ed Markey, which is a wide ideological net. China’s rise, and Mr. Xi’s determination to make China the dominant power in the Indo-Pacific, is a generational challenge that will require an enduring, bipartisan strategy and commitment. A firmer stand to deter Chinese military expansionism is an essential start.
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Abe would like to include missiles that can reach Japan dismantled with the de-nuclearize deal. I agree. Also he wants release of prisoners. Fair enough.
One more person thinks a deal is possible, (along with Xi meeting with Un at least twice). All we should ask in return is that he pay Japan's fair share of defense since Sept 1945 and we will remove the threat of Un.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/japans-abe-meet-trump-ahead-us-north-korea-55683437
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http://m.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2149664/china-removes-missile-systems-disputed-south-china-sea
(Winning?)
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A lot of interesting tidbits in that.
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http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/06/07/china-sought-to-promote-steve-mnuchin-in-trade-negotiations/
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China Grows Anxious About Taiwan Reunification
In this photograph, Taiwanese sailors stand on a U.S.-made Guppy-class submarine in southern Taiwan on Jan. 18, 2017.
(SAM YEH/AFP/Getty Images)
Tensions between China and Taiwan have reached a decade high, but Beijing is unlikely to take military action unless Taipei declares independence.
The changing strategic picture in the region and increased tension between Washington and Beijing will only boost Taiwan's importance in the coming decade.
A younger, more independence-minded Taiwanese generation could clash with China's goal of achieving national reunification.
China has played a long game of carrot-and-stick with Taiwan, alternating between military threats and economic sweeteners, but the clock may be ticking down to a confrontation.
One of the biggest obstacles to China's campaign for "national rejuvenation," President Xi Jinping's plan to guide the country to world prominence, lies across 180 kilometers (112 miles) of water on the island of Taiwan. The mainland's drive to return China to a position of global strength — which it hopes to complete by 2049 — includes reunification with Taiwan. The remnants of the Nationalist Party that fled to the island during the civil war waged in China in the 1940s remain there, creating a situation that the conflict's Communist victors cannot accept. While successive governments in Beijing have tried without success to reclaim or to reintegrate the island, they did prevent it from pulling away. Their efforts to draw Taiwan closer have yielded mixed results, but over the past few decades, Taiwanese nationalism has continued to rise. Today, with the island's younger generations displaying an increasing desire for independence, the United States is showing signs of greater support for Taiwan. These factors have helped to push tensions across the Taiwan Strait to their highest point in a decade.
The Big Picture
As the United States weighs its options on turning up the pressure on China, it will continue to pave the way for closer ties with Taiwan, putting cross-strait tensions in the spotlight while ratcheting them up.
The Push and Pull Over Taiwan
Over the decades, Beijing has alternated between military intimidation and economic sweeteners to try to keep the government in Taipei in line. Recently, the mainland's elevated military posture along with increasing diplomatic coercion and heated rhetoric about reunification have strained relations with Taiwan. A growing willingness by both Taipei and Washington to break cross-strait protocols has aggravated tensions. As it applies increasing strategic pressure on China, the United States has moved to increase official communication and defense cooperation with Taiwan while boosting arms sales to the island. The current U.S. administration is not the first to challenge the "One China" principle — mainland China's view that it has sovereignty over Taiwan — but the changing balance of power between the mainland and island is heading into a pivotal period.
The growth in military and political might that has accompanied China's economic rise has transformed the geopolitical landscape in the Asia-Pacific while increasing Beijing's willingness to assert its will on its periphery. For China, Taiwan is a last holdout to its long-awaited national reunification and a critical missing piece in its strategic attempts to break through the first chain of islands off East Asia's coast. By securing Taiwan, China would gain a direct route into the wider Pacific unencumbered by geographic chokepoints, and it has shown a growing willingness to use its burgeoning power to achieve that objective.
The United States, in response, is increasingly pushing back against Beijing's assertiveness. It is challenging China's economic rise with threats of punitive economic measures, but countering Beijing's growing naval power may be more difficult. Taking on China's maritime expansion will require greater U.S. naval engagement in the Indo-Pacific as well as closer collaboration with regional allies. Taiwan is a key cog in such a strategy, given its location along the first island chain as well as its potential role as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" within striking range of the mainland.
This map shows Chinese maritime chokepoints and U.S. encroachment
Rejuvenation and Reunification
During its history, China has ruled Taiwan indirectly for long spans. But the island has also been home to European and Japanese colonies. Today, Beijing remains resolute in achieving reunification. While it has historically been willing to bide its time in regards to Taiwan, its urgency to end the separation is growing. Three trends are fueling this drive. First, China has a self-imposed deadline to "achieve national rejuvenation" by 2049 — the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the People's Republic of China — and the country's leaders may want to make tangible progress toward reunification with Taiwan sooner than later. With term limits on the Chinese presidency removed, Xi could attempt to address reunification during his tenure.
Second, previous attempts at unity have not borne fruit. After several failed tries over the past few decades, including conducting intimidating offshore missile exercises in 1995 and 1996, Beijing primarily has sought to use economic interdependence as a tool. China's leaders had hoped that closer economic ties would convince the Taiwanese that their interests are interwoven with the mainland's, decreasing the popular appeal of independence. But Taiwan's generational change and a rapidly shifting strategic environment have upended that effort. Between the push for independence and the willingness of rivals to elevate the island's stature, China's ultimate concern is that Taiwan will only drift farther out away.
Finally, Beijing is increasingly concerned that the understanding of the "One China" policy — under which the United States recognizes Beijing as representing China — could be at risk. The United States could move closer to recognizing Taiwanese independence or could adopt a more assertive and visible military presence on the island. A direct U.S. military presence would not only greatly complicate China's options on unity but also ensure that China would find itself at war with the United States if it tried to use its military to force reunification.
Between Two Giants: Taiwan's Future
Taiwan's path ahead is uncertain and risky. It sits between two giants locked in a great power competition, and its limited international clout and increasingly outmatched military puts it at a disadvantage. Washington's attempts to elevate its ties with Taiwan and improve its military capabilities are certainly welcome in Taipei, especially because they allow the island to access military technology and equipment that previously had been denied. Still, U.S. guarantees for Taiwan remain ambiguous and untested.
Taiwan remains rightfully suspicious of the depth of U.S. commitment and aware that the United States could reverse course and bargain away their relationship as part of a grand settlement with China. Furthermore, Taipei is caught between the growing sentiment both within the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and among the younger generations for independence and the deepening resolve in Beijing to prevent it. Taiwan's freedom to maneuver is limited and at perpetual risk of spilling over into conflict. These conditions are forcing Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to tread carefully, lest her country become embroiled in the broader U.S.-China confrontation.
And despite China's increased urgency to act on reunification, the current level of its military capabilities still limits its options. Right now, any Chinese military operation against Taiwan, from a blockade to a direct amphibious assault, would be exceedingly difficult and risky, especially if the United States intervenes. Given the expectations that China's military capabilities, particularly in comparison to Taiwan's, will continue to increase, it would make more sense for China to wait for its armed forces to grow more powerful before even considering a military operation against Taiwan.
The tension between the wisdom of waiting and the urgency of acting is expected to weigh heavily on China in the years ahead. Still, absent a sudden and pivotal event such as a Taiwanese declaration of independence, it is unlikely that Beijing would resort to any military option before at least 2030, by which point Chinese military strength is forecast to have grown significantly. The only certainty is that reunification will remain a core objective for Beijing.
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Japan: Japan has expressed concern over the U.S. decision to suspend military exercises with South Korea. Japan has been worried that it may be left out of a possible U.S.-North Korea deal as the U.S. prioritizes its own interests and relations with South Korea and China. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with his Malaysian and Laotian counterparts, and during both meetings, the leaders discussed increasing bilateral cooperation on the North Korea issue. Is this a sign of Japan trying to step up as a regional alternative to China when it comes to dealing with North Korea? Is Japan acting in partnership with the U.S., or offering an alternative should the U.S. presence in the region wane? Check if Abe has met with any other Southeast Asian heads of state in recent days to talk about North Korea.
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http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/393741-new-fears-over-chinese-espionage-grip-washington?userid=188403
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China is contending with several challenges to its foreign policy agenda. The first and most important is China’s relationship with the United States. U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis is traveling to China to have a “conversation” – a polite way of saying the U.S. is sending a major official to relay an important message to Beijing. As Mattis was in transit, two Chinese government sources said that Beijing would not target U.S. companies operating in China in retaliation against U.S. tariffs – a surprising development, considering that is one of China’s strongest countermeasures against U.S. protectionism. China may be trying to ease tensions while saving face.
China has its hands full in other areas too. Chinese relations with the Philippines are at a two-year low over the Scarborough Shoal issue. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s move to align Manila with China is now causing trouble for his government at home, creating a push to shore up the Philippine navy. Protests erupted over the weekend in Vietnam against the establishment of special economic zones in which Chinese companies could get long-term leases with favorable conditions. Meanwhile, the Australian government is now seeking a formal security treaty with Vanuatu. This strategically located South Pacific island nation made waves earlier in the year when reports emerged that China was seeking to build a military base there. Those reports were never substantiated, but Australia’s recent rhetorical clashes with China, followed by this diplomatic outreach, suggest something was afoot and that Canberra is moving quickly in response.
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The US Weighs Its Options in the South China Sea
Jun 28, 2018
Summary
Over the past year, there’s been a growing chorus of warnings from the United States that it’s preparing to adopt a more confrontational stance in the South China Sea. With China’s installation of radar jamming equipment and long-range anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles this spring on Fiery Cross Reef – one of China’s seven artificial islands in the disputed Spratly archipelago – the pretense that Chinese President Xi Jinping intended to uphold his vague pledge in 2015 to refrain from militarizing the islands has evaporated. Now, the quiet standoff appears primed to enter a new phase.
Last month, for example, a top U.S. general talked openly about the U.S. ability to destroy Chinese military installations in the South China Sea, and Defense Secretary James Mattis said the U.S. is planning a “steady drumbeat” of naval exercises near Chinese holdings in the disputed waters. In May, the U.S., Japan and Australia agreed to formulate an “action plan” on cooperation in the South China Sea. Even France and the United Kingdom are talking openly about becoming more active in the region. But it’s far from clear what the U.S. and its allies really have in mind. The U.S. has few options that would alter the facts on the ground, and those that would push the Chinese back carry substantial risks. Ultimately, the South China Sea just may not be important enough to the U.S. to take such risks.
This Deep Dive examines U.S. strategic interests in the South China Sea (or lack thereof) and gauges what may compel the U.S. to push back against Chinese assertiveness there. It then looks at the oft-misunderstood freedom of navigation operations, known as FONOPs – to date, Washington’s favorite tool for dealing with the territorial dispute – and explains why such ops will do little to deter Beijing. Finally, it assesses the United States’ options in the South China Sea should it want to go further in limiting China’s expansion in the hotly contested waters.
U.S. Interests in the South China Sea
The United States is relatively uninterested in who controls a few man-made molehills in the Spratly Islands. But the U.S. would be vitally concerned should any country attempt to use its position to restrict freedom of navigation either for U.S. naval ships or global trade. Some 30 percent of global maritime trade and about half of all global oil tanker shipments pass through the waters each year. Someday, the thinking goes, China could use the reefs that it has turned into remote military outposts, combined with its increasing sea denial, naval, coast guard and maritime militia capabilities, to restrict movement there – or at least threaten to do so – and coerce other countries that rely on the waters. Already, it has begun using them to deny other littoral states the ability to fish, drill for oil and so forth in the disputed waters.
But, at least at present, the U.S. doesn’t need to roll back China’s island-building to keep Beijing from restricting maritime traffic. So long as the U.S. can cut off Chinese commerce flowing through chokepoints along what’s known as the first island chain and through the Malacca and Sunda straits, China likely couldn’t disrupt maritime traffic in the South China Sea, even if it had a good reason to. The Chinese economy would be crippled, and the world would be united against it. Attempting to shut down sea lanes would be an act of desperation. It’s not the kind of thing China could threaten in order to gain leverage against the U.S. in scenarios short of war.
Moreover, for the foreseeable future, the military assets stationed on the artificial islands would likely prove only of marginal value in an all-out conflict between China and the United States. Located more than 700 miles (1,100 kilometers) south of Chinese bases on Hainan, the Spratly bases do effectively expand the range of China’s missiles and bombers. The supersonic YJ-12B anti-ship cruise missiles and HQ-9B anti-air missiles placed on Fiery Cross Reef in May give China missile coverage over a vast area of the South China Sea, including a base in Palawan expected to host U.S. forces. Three of the artificial islands have runways capable of handling bombers and fighter jets. If China struck first in a conflict, these capabilities would certainly come in handy. But the island bases likely wouldn’t last long. Their locations are fixed and cannot be camouflaged, making them easy pickings for U.S. missiles.
(click to enlarge)
Still, the U.S. has reasons to want to put an end to China’s militarization of the islands. And since dislodging the Chinese will get only harder as China’s maritime and anti-ship missile capabilities and ranges improve, the U.S. has an interest in acting sooner rather than later. Perhaps the most important reason is to maintain its credibility with its allies and potential partners in the region – those that are already suffering materially from China’s expanding presence. If the U.S. appears to be washing its hands of the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, it will heighten the sense among claimant states like the Philippines and Vietnam that the distant U.S. wouldn’t intervene on their behalf.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has a point when he says U.S. disinterest in a war over China-occupied reefs off the Philippine coast has given Manila – a U.S. treaty ally – little choice but to comply when Beijing dictates terms on fishing and resource extraction. To date, the U.S. has declined to confirm that its mutual defense treaty with Manila, which the U.S. has kept vague to avoid getting drawn into a war not of its choosing, even covers the South China Sea. (Further alienating Manila, the U.S. has confirmed that its treaty with Japan covers the disputed Senkaku Islands.) Vietnam’s recent cancellations of two much-needed drilling projects, reportedly under threat from Beijing, spoke louder than words. All this plays into China’s narrative that Southeast Asian states would be wise to accept its ascension as regional hegemon as a fait accompli.
This becomes a problem for U.S. strategy if it leads regional states – the Philippines, in particular – to abandon cooperation with the U.S. at Beijing’s behest and allow China to take up positions that give it access through critical chokepoints. In such a scenario, the U.S. would lose its trump card and its status as traditional guarantor of regional maritime trade. Already, the Duterte administration has been delaying implementation of a landmark pact giving the U.S. rotational access to Philippine bases, including one on Palawan, near the Spratlys.
Thus, the U.S. has been gradually bolstering its presence in the South China Sea to reassure other littoral states and signal to Beijing that the U.S. is not abandoning the region. But the question remains just how much Washington thinks China’s expansion in the disputed waters matters to U.S. interests – and just how far the U.S. is willing to go to protect those interests.
A Primer on Freedom of Navigation Ops
At minimum, the U.S. appears primed to accelerate the pace of freedom of navigation operations. The goals and mechanics of these operations, and how they fit into U.S. strategy in the Western Pacific and beyond, are often mischaracterized. Since we’re likely to be hearing a lot about them in the coming years, it’s worth understanding how they work and what they can and cannot achieve.
The basic goal of FONOPs is to reinforce norms (such as free navigation and maritime law), particularly those outlined under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which came into force in 1994. (The U.S. is not an UNCLOS signatory, providing much rhetorical and propaganda fodder to China, which is. Nonetheless, the U.S. treats UNCLOS as customary international law and is effectively its staunchest enforcer.) Since the late 1970s, the U.S. has quietly conducted scores of FONOPs around the world each year, only publicizing them, with minimal detail, in an annual report. China is not the only target; in 2017, the U.S. targeted excessive maritime claims of 22 countries, including allies and partners like the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, India and Indonesia.
China’s Claims
In the South China Sea, U.S. FONOPs have taken on a much higher profile, in part because China’s territorial claims are so vast and its violations of UNCLOS have been so flagrant. China has reclaimed more than 3,000 acres of land atop seven reefs that previously were at least partially submerged.
Under UNCLOS, if China’s holdings met the definition of an island – a feature always above water and capable of sustaining human life or economic activity – then they would grant China three things: a territorial sea within the surrounding 12 nautical miles, a contiguous zone between 12 and 24 nautical miles, and an exclusive economic zone extending out 200 nautical miles. A state can exercise sovereign control over a territorial sea, making and enforcing its own laws in the waters (as well as the airspace above) free from outside interference. In an exclusive economic zone, the state has exclusive resource rights. However, if the China-occupied feature were considered merely rock – always above water but incapable of sustaining human life or economic activity – then it would give Beijing a territorial sea and a contiguous zone but no exclusive economic zone. And if determined to be at a low-tide elevation – i.e., a maritime feature that is submerged at high tide – it would generate none of the three. (Transforming a rock or low-tide elevation into an artificial island does not alter its legal character.)
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In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague ruled that all seven of China’s artificial islands in disputed parts of the South China Sea are either rocks or low-tide elevations, not islands, meaning none grant China exclusive resource extraction rights. It also ruled that China’s historical rights to waters within its sweeping “nine-dash line” do not supersede UNCLOS. Importantly, the court did not rule on rightful ownership of any of the reclaimed islands – just that whoever controls them is not entitled to the benefits that would be granted by an island, and thus many of China’s claims and activities are not in accordance with international law. Officially, the U.S. has also stopped short of taking a position on which feature belongs to which country.
What FONOPs Actually Achieve – And What They Don’t
FONOPs are one way for the U.S. to uphold the 2016 international tribunal ruling. The operations can take many forms, depending on what legal point the U.S. is trying to make or the type of excessive maritime claim the U.S. is intending to challenge. Most are focused on reinforcing what’s known as “innocent passage.” Under UNCLOS, a warship from any country is allowed to transit through the territorial waters of another so long as it refrains from activities such as military exercises or surveillance operations, research and survey activities – and so long as it moves “continuously and expeditiously” through the waters. It’s also considered out of step with UNCLOS for a state to demand that ships passing through its territorial waters provide prior notice or obtain permission before doing so, though some countries disagree with this interpretation. Where a country like China is making such demands, the U.S. will often have a warship sail through territorial waters without notice or permission. Narrow point made.
Sometimes, the U.S. will use FONOPs to more pointedly discredit China’s sweeping claims. In May 2017, for example, the USS Dewey sailed near Mischief Reef, a low-tide elevation built up by China in the Spratlys some 150 miles from Philippine shores. To assert that the man-made island does not grant China, say, the right to block Philippine fishermen from the area, the U.S. did two things prohibited under the principle of innocent passage: First, it sailed in a zigzag pattern, rather than passing through expeditiously. Second, while within 12 nautical miles of the reef, the crew conducted a man overboard exercise. Both activities implicitly made the point that the U.S. does not consider the waters around Mischief Reef to be Chinese territory. Beijing’s standard response to U.S. FONOPs – tailing the warships with their own and demanding that they promptly leave – is intended to make the opposite point and show the folks back home that they’re “standing up” to the imperialist Americans.
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If all this seems like little more than shadowboxing over legal minutiae, that’s not far from the truth. FONOPs make for good headlines, but they are not an actual deterrent and never were intended to be. Technically, they don’t even assert that the U.S. thinks that China shouldn’t be allowed to occupy the reefs. They don’t generate leverage for the U.S. or punish China for its aggressiveness. Since the U.S. quietly conducts dozens of them each year around the world, and since they work best when conducted at a regular clip, they don’t signal displeasure about an unrelated point of tension with Beijing or serve as warnings of, say, a growing willingness to confront China. They may help reassure allies about U.S. engagement in the region, but they achieve less in this regard than joint exercises would and nothing more than routine operations in international waters would. Mostly, they assert a uniform legal principle and underscore the U.S. role of protector of the high seas. If it could trust China to comply with UNCLOS, the U.S. would likely be satisfied. But recent history shows that making international law the focal point of U.S. strategy would be fruitless. The U.S. has conducted FONOPs around Chinese features at a steady clip since 2016, including at least seven since President Donald Trump took office. They have not altered Beijing’s strategy or behavior in any discernible way.
Going Beyond FONOPs
If the U.S. wants to stop China’s expansion in the South China Sea, it won’t have many clear-cut options for doing so. The problem for the U.S. is its superior firepower can’t be put to much use so long as it’s not willing to pick a fight over other countries’ islands, meaning the U.S. likely wouldn’t be playing to its strengths.
It can attach some costs to Chinese actions, however. For starters, it can ramp up security assistance to Southeast Asian littoral states and better equip them to defend themselves – supporting the U.S. goal of relieving itself of duties as the global policeman and allowing it to better manage regional affairs from afar. It’s already been doing this, to a degree, and growing Japanese security assistance to the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia has amplified U.S. efforts. (Notably, though, the current version of the legislation setting the Pentagon’s budget in 2019 would cut funding for security assistance to Southeast Asia by half.) The U.S. could make it clear that certain Chinese moves will be met with a commiserate increase in military aid to the region, creating at least some room for negotiation. The main limit of this approach is that most South China Sea states have no hope of ever achieving parity with the Chinese, making them unlikely to force the issue. Some, like Vietnam, have substantial sea denial capabilities that could be used to at least temporarily restrict Chinese freedom of action. But using them would risk drawing them into a larger conflict they’d have little hope of winning, while also leading to Chinese economic retaliation.
One step the U.S. has not yet even threatened is pressuring Beijing with targeted sanctions. Multinational Chinese construction firms doing the island-building, telecommunications firms installing equipment on the atolls, and commercial airliners ferrying civilians there would be obvious targets. It’s doubtful this would deter Beijing, which sees its South China Sea islands as an integral part of its anti-access/area denial strategy and will happily tolerate sanctions if it means avoiding the humiliation of backing down. It has ways to continue on without the help of commercial partners, anyway. But for the purposes of raising the cost of expansion and doing something tangible in support of allies like the Philippines, this, too, would go further than mere FONOPs. The U.S. certainly has not been meek about targeting Chinese firms and banks with secondary sanctions to further its goals on North Korea, Iran and trade.
Ultimately, however, to restore the status quo, the U.S. would need to bring power to bear directly. This could take one of two forms. The first is to do what China has done to the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia and blockade its access to the islands. There is a strong case that this would be legal under UNCLOS. The U.S. doesn’t have the sort of coast guard or paramilitary assets in the region that China uses to harass and block outside vessels. To avoid having to police the situation by itself with warships ill-suited for the task, the U.S. would want to lean on a multinational coalition involving coast guards and civilian vessels from littoral states, plus allies like Japan, Australia and European powers – though it’s uncertain to what degree these states would be willing to provoke China in this manner. This option would have the highest risk of accident or incident that leads to unwanted escalation, and the mechanics would be exceedingly tricky. Washington would have to decide ahead of time if it’s really willing to risk war with rules of engagement that allow U.S. forces to come to the defense of a partner vessel that comes under attack.
The second option, on the extreme end of the spectrum, would be a military operation to expel the Chinese from their man-made islands and restore the status quo – or at least threaten to if China launches a new island-building project on a contested reef. This, too, would risk sparking a broader conflagration with China, but a wider war would not be automatic. For one, U.S. operations would be targeting remote outposts that were uninhabited three years ago and wouldn’t put many Chinese citizens at risk, making it conceivable that Beijing could use its media controls to contain a nationalist backlash and avoid getting drawn into an all-out war it’s not ready for. For another, China wouldn’t be able to do much to fight back even if it wanted to. China’s installation of military assets like radars and anti-air and anti-ship missiles on the islands notwithstanding, the Chinese navy would still be poorly equipped to defend them – especially those several hundred miles from the naval and air bases and missile installations on the mainland.
Most important, since the U.S. would not have much need to take and hold the islands, it could attack from a distance using standoff cruise missiles and potentially avoid direct confrontations between U.S. and Chinese warships and warplanes in China’s backyard. This means Chinese counterattacks would largely be punitive, not tactical, even if the growing range and sophistication of China’s “carrier killer” anti-ship missiles and longer-range ballistic missiles are making it harder for the U.S. to act with impunity. The U.S. wouldn’t need to open broader operations to neutralize Chinese air power or disrupt Chinese logistics networks, and Chinese counterattacks would risk escalation against the world’s most powerful military for little tactical benefit. In other words, there would be no World War II-style fights to the death over critical islands, and the operations could stay relatively contained.
Doing this wouldn’t decisively eject the Chinese from the islands or deny them future access. Nor would it prevent China from harassing Philippine fishermen or Vietnamese oil drillers. But it would attach a major cost to Chinese aggression, while demonstrating U.S. willingness and ability to play the role of arbiter in the South China Sea. Even milder U.S. threats have compelled China to back off in the past. In 2014, for example, the Chinese coast guard stopped blocking resupply boats from reaching Philippine marines marooned on Second Thomas Shoal when a U.S. surveillance plane showed up overhead. And in 2016, the Obama administration reportedly drew a red line around Scarborough Shoal, a flashpoint reef seized from the Philippines in 2012, compelling Beijing to abandon reclamation plans there.
Still, war has a way of taking on a life of its own, and it’d be naive to dismiss the risk of escalation. Regional support cannot be guaranteed. It would also give cause for Beijing to retaliate indirectly on other issues important to the United States. At minimum, it would amount to a complete breakdown of U.S.-Chinese relations at a time when there are still many issues where the U.S. wants Chinese cooperation. The U.S. would effectively be prioritizing ally reassurance in the South China Sea over trade, North Korea and so forth. Geopolitical issues of this magnitude are not settled in a vacuum. Unlike Philippine anglers blocked from Scarborough Shoal, the U.S. could reasonably decide it has bigger fish to fry.
The post The US Weighs Its Options in the South China Sea appeared first on Geopolitical Futures.
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New Zealand said it would buy four submarine-hunting surveillance jets, the country’s biggest military purchase in decades, as it seeks to counter a Chinese buildup in the Pacific that has worried the U.S. and its allies.
New Zealand’s government on Monday approved the $1.5 billion purchase of Boeing Co. P-8A Poseidons used by the U.S. and its military allies including the U.K., Australia and South Korea.
“We are stepping up and being responsible in the Pacific,” said Winston Peters, who is acting prime minister while Jacinda Ardern is on parental leave. Beijing has previously accused Mr. Peters, the populist leader of New Zealand First, a minor party in Ms. Ardern’s center-left government, of being “anti-Chinese.”
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Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Monday that China’s development “poses no threat to any country.”
“In fact, we have created great opportunities for other countries,” she said, adding that “disputes should be peacefully resolved through negotiation by the concerned parties, and we hope the New Zealand side will do more to help with our mutual trust.”
New Zealand’s deal announcement comes just days after the small island nation unveiled a new defense blueprint warning that an “increasingly confident” Beijing is testing international rules and stability in “newly potent ways.” Ms. Hua said China affirms “some reasonable parts of that document, though we also express our concern with other parts of it.”
New Zealand scrapped its combat air force about 15 years ago to save money. The P-8 deal comes as a more assertive China expands its military, diplomatic and economic reach across an arc stretching from Africa through the Indian Ocean to the Pacific.
The deal increases New Zealand’s patrol and intelligence gathering abilities in a region expected to be home to half of the world’s submarines in a few decades, as China’s naval expansion accelerates an Asian arms race. The Poseidon can track ships and submarines across vast areas of ocean, deploying missiles, depth charges and torpedoes from a rotary launcher to sink them if necessary. The four aircraft will begin operations in 2023.
Mr. Peters, who is also New Zealand’s foreign minister, said recently the country needed to use “all the levers at its disposal to advance our national interests and protect our sovereignty” against a backdrop of rising U.S.-China tensions, the militarization of South China Sea atolls, and Beijing’s growing Pacific sway.
Australia and New Zealand are negotiating a security pact with small South Pacific island nations as a counter to the growing influence of China and Russia over regional economies including Fiji and resource-rich Papua New Guinea. China in particular has been courting island governments through a mix of aid and infrastructure loans.
“Great Power competition is back,” Mr. Peters said last month. “This government is determined to have the tools to defend and advance New Zealand’s interests.”
Robert Ayson, an expert from New Zealand’s Centre for Strategic Studies, said the choice of submarine hunting P-8s to replace a fleet of six 50-year-old Lockheed Martin Corp. P-3 Orions, signals a fresh willingness to help maintain maritime security in the Pacific.
“New Zealand’s position had firmed up. It’s more willing to say things about China that are a bit critical,” Prof. Ayson said. “If New Zealand, like Australia, feels that the maritime and strategic environment is deteriorating…then you need the P-8 to show New Zealand is willing to deploy [its military] in and beyond the Pacific.”
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July 18, 2018
By Phillip Orchard
Taiwan’s Quest to Modernize Its Submarine Fleet
It still needs foreign technology to build up a modern fleet anytime soon.
Twice in the past week, Chinese President Xi Jinping has gone out of his way to assert that peaceful reunification with Taiwan is Beijing’s foremost foreign policy goal. Whether or not this is wishful thinking, it reflects the reality that retaking Taiwan by force would be extraordinarily difficult, especially if Taipei has outside help. This underscores a second reality: To pave the way for reunification, whether peaceful or otherwise, Beijing thinks it must first isolate Taiwan and sap its will to fight.
Both have been illustrated in Taiwan’s quixotic quest to modernize its submarine fleet. Until the past few months, at least, Beijing had succeeded in sinking Taiwan’s submarine force without firing a shot, using its diplomatic and economic leverage to prevent foreign submarine exporters from selling to the island nation. But in April, the U.S. State Department approved licenses for U.S. defense contractors to export U.S.-made submarine technology to Taiwan. In May, Taiwan reached an agreement with a Dutch firm to upgrade its only two subs currently in service. And last week, Taiwanese media reported that firms from Japan, India and Europe had submitted design proposals for subs expected to be built in Taiwan in partnership with the island nation’s main shipbuilder. Washington reportedly encouraged the Japanese bid, and possibly the others. In the battle over China’s attempts to leave Taiwan alone and adrift, the tide may be turning ever so slightly in Taipei’s favor.
A Languishing Fleet
The woeful state of Taiwan’s undersea capabilities is one of the peculiarities of the intensifying maritime competition in the Western Pacific. Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province, sits less than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from a massive adversary for whom reunification is not a matter of if, but when. Retaking Taiwan, whether by force or by peaceful means, is a strategic imperative for China – given how the island could be used to sever Chinese trade routes – and a scar on Communist Party narratives about the communist victory in the Chinese civil war. As a result, Beijing has been shoveling vast resources into developing capabilities that would be needed to bring Taipei to heel, with a naval and amphibious fleet that is growing at a breathtaking pace.
Yet, at present, Taiwan has just four submarines. Two were commissioned before the end of World War II and are used solely for training. The other two were bought from the Dutch in the mid-1980s. Taiwan has allowed its fleet to atrophy, in part, because it has been able to rely on its closest ally, the U.S., which has the most sophisticated submarine fleet in the world – not to mention the most sophisticated anti-submarine warfare capabilities, air force and so forth. Even though the U.S. recognized Beijing as the legitimate government of China in 1979, thus abrogating its mutual defense treaty with Taipei, Congress quickly passed the vaguely worded Taiwan Relations Act, requiring the U.S. to look out for Taiwan’s security to some degree. China has routinely sought to cast doubt in Taipei about the U.S. willingness to come to its defense – and Taiwan has good reason to be concerned about current U.S. ambivalence toward its allies in the Western Pacific – but Beijing can never be sure that the U.S. won’t come to save the day.
Another reason Taiwan could get by with a subpar sub fleet is that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be exceedingly difficult, even without a Taiwanese undersea deterrent. It doesn’t matter how many troops, arms and supplies the People’s Liberation Army can amass on the shores of Fujian province across the Taiwan Strait. To invade Taiwan, China would need the bulk of its forces to get into boats and make an eight-hour voyage into the teeth of Taiwanese firepower coming from well-entrenched, well-supplied onshore positions. Taiwan has about 130,000 well-armed troops (plus 1.5 million in reserve) and thousands of armored fighting vehicles and camouflaged, self-propelled artillery pieces. Only 10 percent of Taiwan’s coastline is suitable for an amphibious landing, and even taken by surprise, Taiwan could amass its forces at the landing zones, even under a missile barrage from Fujian, and exact high rates of attrition on the Chinese. Moreover, the PLA has zero experience with amphibious operations in a modern combat environment. Amphibious war requires extraordinarily complex coordination between air, land and sea forces, especially with logistics. An enormous number of things would have to go right for China to succeed, and the political risks of failure would be sky high.
(click to enlarge)
Taipei Starts to Come in From the Cold
Still, Taiwan has felt increasingly exposed without its own submarine deterrent, and it’s never been comfortable relying on U.S. intervention. China’s maritime capabilities have grown by leaps and bounds, and it’s starting to focus some attention on the amphibious realm. (In response, Japan has begun addressing its own curious lack of amphibious capabilities.)
By the end of the next decade, China is expected to have a force of some 100,000 marines, plus a fleet of sophisticated new amphibious landing ships and amphibious assault ships roughly as large as the U.S. fleet. Its own sub fleet will soon include 10 nuclear-powered boats, plus another 48 diesel-electric subs. According to the Taiwanese Defense Ministry, some 1,500 Chinese missiles are fixed on Taiwan’s onshore defensive positions, airfields and so forth at all times. In an invasion, to supplement its still-insufficient fleet of landing craft, China would deputize commercial roll-on/roll-off ships to ferry waves of troops and arms across the strait once a beachhead had been established. China’s biggest strength – its vast arsenal of anti-ship missiles and other area denial assets – is intended to prevent the Americans from joining the fray.
This buildup both improves China’s odds in an invasion scenario (albeit probably not enough to make Beijing willing to try anytime soon) and gives the U.S. greater pause about wading into what would be an extraordinarily costly fight. Moreover, China has ways to use its own subs to tighten the noose on Taiwan short of an invasion. For example, it could try to impose a blockade against Taiwan if, say, Taipei declared independence. The bulk of Taiwan’s defenses against invasion would be of little use here; Taipei wants to be able to fight fire with fire (and not have to ask the Americans to provide the fuel).
Thus, for decades now, Taiwan has been attempting to modernize its submarine fleet but to no avail. The main reason is that China has succeeded in using its economic and diplomatic power to prevent Taiwan from getting much outside help. In the past decade alone, Vietnam has bought six Kilo-class subs from Russia. Singapore is stocking its fleet with German and Swedish boats. In 2016, France beat out Japan for the right to build 12 new subs for Australia. South Korea entered the market in 2016 with its delivery of the first of three new submarines to Indonesia. Owing primarily to pressure from Beijing, all these suppliers have completely frozen out Taiwan from the underwater arms race.
The country that would be most willing to sell subs to Taiwan – the United States – is actually ill-equipped to do so. The entire U.S. fleet consists of nuclear-powered submarines. Taiwan doesn’t need nuclear-powered subs, which are ideal for long-range operations but expensive. Rather, like most countries in East Asia with limited budgets and relatively small areas to patrol, Taiwan wants diesel-electric subs equipped with modern technology like air-independent propulsion systems. These are cheaper but still stealthy and ideal for anti-area/access denial strategies in littoral waters. U.S. defense contractors don’t build these for the U.S. Navy nor for export. In 2001, the George W. Bush administration approved a plan to help Taiwan acquire diesel-electric submarines, but the deal stalled for several reasons, reportedly including opposition from, of all places, the U.S. Navy. (The Navy fears that if U.S. defense contractors started building cheaper diesel-electric subs for export, Congress would force it to buy them.)
In March 2017, Taiwan finally announced that it would build its own boats. Nonetheless, with scant experience in submarine construction, Taiwan still needs foreign technology and weapons systems to build up a modern fleet anytime soon, and foreign suppliers haven’t appeared any more inclined to go down this path. Taiwanese defense officials told the Asia Times two weeks ago that Taipei was struggling to procure critical components for its sub program. But it appears now as though outside players may have merely been waiting for the U.S. to take the lead.
It’s not yet clear how much stomach Tokyo, New Delhi or European governments really have to risk economic retaliation from Beijing for Taipei’s benefit, nor how much they’d be willing to transfer sensitive technologies given the risk that they’d end up in the hands of the Chinese. Their reasons for hesitating on the matter haven’t gone away overnight. Nor is it clear how successfully Taiwan will be able to incorporate a mix of foreign technologies into an indigenous design. Doing so is quite a bit more difficult than buying subs off the shelf.
Still, Japan and India both make some sense as partners with Taiwan in this arena, given their own growing wariness of China’s maritime expansion. For Japan, preserving Taiwan’s independence is an utmost strategic priority. The participation of either would be further evidence that a loose coalition of regional powers keen to check Chinese assertiveness is starting to take shape. And it says something that countries may be willing to shrug off concerns about Chinese retaliation if and when the U.S. does so first.
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It hadn't really occurred to me that the reason China doesn't take over Taiwan is because they can't.
From the article: Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be exceedingly difficult, even without a Taiwanese undersea deterrent. It doesn’t matter how many troops, arms and supplies the People’s Liberation Army can amass on the shores of Fujian province across the Taiwan Strait. To invade Taiwan, China would need the bulk of its forces to get into boats and make an eight-hour voyage into the teeth of Taiwanese firepower coming from well-entrenched, well-supplied onshore positions. Taiwan has about 130,000 well-armed troops (plus 1.5 million in reserve) and thousands of armored fighting vehicles and camouflaged, self-propelled artillery pieces. Only 10 percent of Taiwan’s coastline is suitable for an amphibious landing, and even taken by surprise, Taiwan could amass its forces at the landing zones, even under a missile barrage from Fujian, and exact high rates of attrition on the Chinese. Moreover, the PLA has zero experience with amphibious operations in a modern combat environment. Amphibious war requires extraordinarily complex coordination between air, land and sea forces, especially with logistics. An enormous number of things would have to go right for China to succeed, and the political risks of failure would be sky high.
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It hadn't really occurred to me that the reason China doesn't take over Taiwan is because they can't.
From the article: Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be exceedingly difficult, even without a Taiwanese undersea deterrent. It doesn’t matter how many troops, arms and supplies the People’s Liberation Army can amass on the shores of Fujian province across the Taiwan Strait. To invade Taiwan, China would need the bulk of its forces to get into boats and make an eight-hour voyage into the teeth of Taiwanese firepower coming from well-entrenched, well-supplied onshore positions. Taiwan has about 130,000 well-armed troops (plus 1.5 million in reserve) and thousands of armored fighting vehicles and camouflaged, self-propelled artillery pieces. Only 10 percent of Taiwan’s coastline is suitable for an amphibious landing, and even taken by surprise, Taiwan could amass its forces at the landing zones, even under a missile barrage from Fujian, and exact high rates of attrition on the Chinese. Moreover, the PLA has zero experience with amphibious operations in a modern combat environment. Amphibious war requires extraordinarily complex coordination between air, land and sea forces, especially with logistics. An enormous number of things would have to go right for China to succeed, and the political risks of failure would be sky high.
A nuclear Taiwan would really make things difficult.
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"A nuclear Taiwan would really make things difficult."
The guy acutely aware of that is Xi Jinping, who would like to backstab Trump on NK, but NK fully nuclear means Taiwan nuclear, Japan nuclear, and others. Xi is really in a tougher spot than Trump or Un. He doesn't like that his best option in his own best interest is to support Trump 100% on NK and cave on the whole trade war at the same time.
Look for more conciliatory sounds to come out of China soon IMHO.
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I too was struck by that part of the article. Very interesting!
Nuclear Taiwan?!? The mind boggles at the implications of even the threat of this :wink:
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If I was Taiwan, I might try cultivating a deal with a small country in the middle east for one of their Dolphin class subs, especially one with all the standard munitions.
As soon as it was operational, Taiwan could declare independence.
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Now there is a very crafty idea , , ,
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Does Lebanon have subs? :wink:
Maybe one country in the New World should do it.
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Japan: Coast Guard May Increase Presence in Far-Flung Islands
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What Happened: Japan's coast guard is planning to expand its activities in the Ogasawara Islands to curb encroachments by foreign fishing vessels, The Japan Times reported July 19, citing an anonymous government official. The islands are about a 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) south of Tokyo.
Why It Matters: China's increasing maritime presence in Japan's near abroad poses a threat to its outlying islands and territorial claims. As Japan moves to boost its maritime self-defense forces, the coast guard is a key tool to shore up its presence in these far-flung regions.
Background: As China continues to assert itself in the waters around Japan, Tokyo is taking steps to counteract encroachment into its waters and challenge Beijing's attempts to assert dominance in the region.
Read More:
Understanding the China-Japan Island Conflict (July 5, 2018)
China's Navy Prepares to Close the Gap on the U.S. (May 11, 2018)
Understanding the China-Japan Island Conflict (Sept. 25, 2012)
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one position paper makes the argument:
https://pjmedia.com/spengler/a-letter-to-larry-kudlow-you-need-a-different-china-strategy/
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That is a very good piece.
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That is a very good piece.
Spengler is very good.
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one position paper makes the argument:
https://pjmedia.com/spengler/a-letter-to-larry-kudlow-you-need-a-different-china-strategy/
Some comments on this:
It is good perspective for us to know that the US is a smaller market for China than the rest of Asia. We are not their largest market and Chinese exports to the US are less than 15% of their economy,. But still, they are 8 times more dependent on exports to us than we are on exports to them and loss of their second largest market would still be economically and politically catastrophic to them, IMHO.
Their axis of alliance with other countries in Asia and elsewhere is not so perfect either. We are not the only country threatened by them.
Central planning in technology may have some benefits, but as the article admits, it also has pitfalls.
Our emphasis in software may be missing some research in physics that we should be doing but all the self-made billionaires that I know, one, think the future is in software. Take the top-of-the-line Tesla for an example of what can soon be done in many many lower-end products. It is essentially a software driven vehicle. Software require security and support, not as easily stolen as hardware.
The gpf rumor post, even if the details are false, contradicts the widely believed, perfect strength of Xi and China. I don't happen to believe that their growth rate can tumble and their stock market can crash without internal consequence, even in a dictatorial regime.
I opposed using tariffs and trade war as the tactic to break down China's barriers and technology theft, but that is where we are.
If Trump blinks first right now, where are we in the technology theft and trade fight with China?
All these critics of the tariffs and trade war including myself need to be challenged as to what is the better way of achieving this? Working from memory with my computer down, Spengler links a better way of competing which is a 2016 article that we should essentially lower corporate tax rates and make research an immediate business expense. I believe we did. We made the US more competitive through deregulation first and tax reform econd prior to launching this trade offencive. I suggested one more tax move on that thread, but we are mostly negotiating from a position of strength.
He also calls for more federal spending on research and development. I have reservations about that. For one thing, look at the MIT class list, foreign names and foreign students.. What is the security that keeps any of our research developments in our country or steers them to the right companies, and who are the right companies that deserve the crony benefits of giant government investment? That stirs up all kinds of other problems.
The question has been called with these allies and enemies, what is the playing field of the future going to look like?
Trump needs to say in every sentence, in every speech, and in every tweet that the end game in all this is free trade with no tariffs. This tit-for-tat tariffs game is only a tactic to get on that track.
Ask Canada, ask Europe, and ask China, how much damage should we do to ourselves before we agree on that end?
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https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/2018-07-27/storm-brewing-taiwan-strait
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http://www.atimes.com/article/australia-charts-its-own-south-china-sea-course/
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http://www.atimes.com/chinas-new-woes-unravel-xis-personality-cult/
Official propaganda admits:
"a slight weakening was spotted in June in industrial output and investment, and worries have been on the rise that escalating trade tensions could bite into the economy in the future.”
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"In another sign of how the US’s tariffs badly affect China’s economy, it was recently reported that its stock market has been overtaken as the world’s second-biggest by Japan’s bourse."
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"But, with America’s economy doing well, its stock market faring better than China’s since the trade dispute began and with Trump making peace with the European Union, the US’s biggest trading partner and one of Washington’s closest and strongest allies, America is gaining the upper hand over China and thus is likely to ratchet up its trade war on China."
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[Doug] Strangely it's possible that the totalitarian leader for life of China faces more political pressure right now than the u.s. president up against a 95% hostile media and impending midterm elections.
Who will blink first? It certainly doesn't look to Xi that it will be Trump.
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https://m.theepochtimes.com/chinese-people-hope-powerful-grandpa-trump-ends-the-chinese-communist-party_2613192.html
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https://forwardobserver.com/infocus-how-trump-intends-to-disrupt-china-and-save-pax-americana/
InFocus: How Trump intends to disrupt Chinese dominance and save Pax Americana
FORWARD OBSERVER DAILYINTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS
By Samuel Culper Last updated Aug 2, 2018
ADMIN NOTE: InFocus is my opportunity each week to address subscribers with analysis on whatever topic I choose. This week, I discuss a major shift by the world’s only superpower to stave off an aspiring and revisionist global power. This brief will appear in the Strategic Intelligence Summary for 02 August 2018.
In Focus: This week I want to provide you with an overview of a major shift happening right now. I don’t think this is getting the attention it deserves. We’ve heard of Chinese ascendancy, their economic expansion, the Asian Export Import bank and the Belt and Road Initiative (which now extends to roads and ports in 60 countries), investment across Asia, Africa, and South America, technological and industrial progress aided by persistent and aggressive espionage against the United States (intellectual property theft to the tune of $200-$300 billion per year, conservatively, for over a decade), their long-term military strategy and growing blue water navy — all the things setting China up to be dominant in the 21st century. Late last year we reported that China is on track to have as many fast attack submarines as there are boats in the entire U.S. Navy. That kind of military rise will allow China to challenge the U.S. in the Pacific and disrupt the established order in southeast Asia — not to mention enable their control of the $5 trillion of trade that passes through the South China Sea each year. That kind of power means that the Chinese will use control of the South China Sea to reward the countries who fall in line with China’s vision and bully those who don’t. Rightly, U.S. allies in Asia are worried as they’re forced to choose between reinforcing long-held strategic partnerships with the U.S. or pivoting to fit into inevitable Chinese dominance. Old news, right? Here’s what I’ve been watching as the U.S. response to disrupt China’s rise to dominate Asia.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will be in Singapore this weekend at the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) ministerial meeting to discuss, among other things, economic security for ASEAN countries in light of China’s military and economic bullying. U.S. allies like Australia, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines, and others have increased defense spending as a result. (Vietnam’s arms imports are up nearly 700 percent in the last decade.) To be sure, no U.S. ally in Asia is capable of confronting China alone and, conservatively, they’re probably 10-20 years behind where they need to be to pose a significant challenge. Around this time last year, Secretary of Defense James Mattis called on ASEAN to be the bulwark against Chinese expansion in the southeast Pacific. That means militarily, economically, diplomatically — every avenue available should be pursued to stop Chinese dominance, according to the strategy. One reason: preventing Chinese dominance is better than trying to topple Chinese dominance. If we want to avoid war, the strategy goes, then we can’t allow China to become so dominant that war is the only choice. But China’s rise to dominance means more than just its military. We’re seeing Australia, Canada, Germany, and other European nations veto Chinese bids to purchase farmland and critical infrastructure in their countries on the grounds of national security. Chinese investment is an enabler of espionage and technology transfers. It’s a big, big deal. (Earlier this year, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission blocked a plan for Chinese investors to purchase the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.)
Back in May, U.S. Pacific Command officially changed their name to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM). Established in 1947, PACOM’s area of responsibility has traditionally included everything from the U.S. West Coast all the way to central Russia (Arctic), the Middle East, and the waters east of southern Africa. As opposed to a decade ago, INDOPACOM’s job is tying India into the Indo-Pacific Strategy to counter China. Talks are on-going to include Japan as a routine member of U.S.-Indian military exercises and the annual Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) — the largest military exercise in the world — included 25 nations this year. Notably present: India. Notably absent: China. (China was disinvited by the Trump administration; although China kept a spy ship off the coast of Hawaii to observe and collect signals intelligence during the exercise.)
Former U.S. PACOM commander Adm. Harry Harris, long speculated to become ambassador to Australia, is actually now the ambassador to South Korea. That’s a lot of military experience for an ambassador position, but it underscores how vitally important that relationship is. Adm. Harris serving in a diplomatic role will have positive effects on achieving U.S. strategic security objectives in the region.
Secretary Pompeo, along with Japanese and Australian officials, recently announced a new trilateral economic investment project for Asia in order to build up the economies of U.S. allies in competition with China. Its direct purpose is to prevent China’s regional dominance. Said Secretary Pompeo: “These funds [$112 million] represent just a down payment on a new era in U.S. economic commitment to peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region… We have never and will never seek domination in the Indo-Pacific, and we will oppose any country that does.”
And that brings us to the export-driven Chinese economy. Early on, the Trump administration reckoned that if it were going to use tariffs to curb Chinese espionage and flatten out the U.S. trade deficit, the time to do that is when the U.S. economy is booming. The U.S. economy grew at 2.2 percent in the first quarter of 2018, followed by 4.1 percent in the second quarter. It could always be revised down, but the Atlanta Federal Reserve published their third quarter estimates at 4.7 percent. The the time to impose tariffs and use a trade war to bring China to the negotiating table is when a growing economy can absorb the downside. And that’s why we’re seeing aggressive tariffs now (the Trump administration may raise tariffs from 10% to 25% on roughly $200 billion of Chinese goods later this month), which is starting to weigh on the Chinese economy.
Despite official numbers from China at 6.7 percent annual growth (year over year from the most recent numbers available), the actual growth might be half of that. We’ve previously covered the trillions in off-the-books debt from the central government to bail out state-owned enterprises, and the private sector may be facing a debt crisis. In the first seven months of 2018, there have been 20 private sector bond defaults. To put that in perspective, there were 20 defaults in all of 2017. This is unlikely to be a result of trade tariffs, but it does underscore two fundamental truths: 1) China has exploitable vulnerabilities, too, and 2) Economic warfare is a central part of China’s war against the U.S., and the Trump administration is willing to meet that threat and expose Chinese weakness. A Tuesday meeting of the Chinese Politburo outlined the health of the Chinese economy and pointed out ‘external challenges’ to growth. The Politburo acknowledges that the Trump administration treats the trade deficit as a national security issue, especially as the Chinese continue to steal intellectual property from U.S. corporations. We have to recognize that, as a former U.S. intelligence official put it, China is at a cold war with the United States. The U.S. government under the Trump administration is no longer turning a blind eye.
Previous administrations did little to curb the trade deficit because, starting under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the belief was that China’s economic rise would force it to adopt more open and democratic governance. Wrong. And then the Obama administration followed that line of thinking. In 2011, Obama met with then-president Hu Jintao and said,“There has been an evolution in China over the last 30 years since the first normalization of relations between the United States and China. And my expectation is that 30 years from now we will have seen further evolution and further change.” There are financial talking heads like Jim Cramer, who said on his “Mad Money” show on CNBC several months ago: “Sure, the Chinese may steal our trade secrets. Yes, they take our manufacturing jobs, but boy, oh boy, do our companies make money there. Starbucks is huge in China. FedEx is the shipping company of choice for their exports,” so of course U.S. corporations doing business there have a vested financial interest in allowing China to operate however it wants — just as long as they get access to the Chinese economy. And so for eight years, Obama did basically nothing, either to retaliate against Chinese theft or to make America more competitive. In that same 2011 speech, Obama went so far as to defend China, saying: “China has a different political system than we do. China is at a different stage of development than we are. We come from very different cultures with very different histories.” China took that as a signal to continue what they were doing because, hey, we just have a different culture and that’s okay. Treating China for eight long years as a developing democratic peer instead of an economic and military competitor was extremely short-sighted, and America continues to pay the price for that oversight. For all the hand-wringing over the demise of the post-1945 international order, few will publicly acknowledge that the decline of that “order” actually began under Obama when China started re-writing the rules in Asia.
And I should mention again that last month, Chinese officials approached the European Union to strike a trade deal that would drive a wedge between the EU and the United States. Chinese diplomats proposed a deal to jointly wage action against the U.S. at the World Trade Organization, and sought trade deals that would re-align European interests with China’s future. EU officials, of course, politely declined the alliance. But that’s the kind of power China wants to yield; they want to create their own world order and shape global politics in the image of China. That’s a bad thing for Americans but that’s a world the next generation risks inheriting. That’s why I’ve described President Trump’s job as “saving Pax Americana”. (InFocus; Strategic Intelligence Summary for 23 March 2018) We’ll see if he can do it without going to war, either at home or abroad.
Always Out Front,
Samuel Culper
You can receive our intelligence reporting and stay on top of what’s going on at home and in the world with expert analysis from former special operations and intelligence professionals.
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https://m.theepochtimes.com/chinese-people-hope-powerful-grandpa-trump-ends-the-chinese-communist-party_2613192.html
"they think Trump can achieve more than just a “Da Ye,” by bringing about political changes through economic means."
People forget, that is why we opened up economically to China.
Will it work for a trump? I don't know, but shaking up the status quo is part of the process.
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"Chinese officials approached the European Union to strike a trade deal that would drive a wedge between the EU and the United States. Chinese diplomats proposed a deal to jointly wage action against the U.S. at the World Trade Organization, and sought trade deals that would re-align European interests with China’s future. EU officials, of course, politely declined the alliance."
As mentioned on the trade thread at the time, that little turn of events was a BFD. It was looking like world versus Trump and now it is world vs China, at least on trade practices.
Also from the article, the Chinese growth rate might be half of what the propagandists say it is. Everything measurable, like their currency and stock market, spells trouble.
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in some disarry over Trump :
https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/08/09/trade-war-with-u-s-opens-rift-in-chinese-leadership/
They are getting Trump hysteria syndrome too.
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China's power structure is very brittle. A hard enough hit could shatter things. However, It could lead to desperate acts as well.
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Well, although Breitbart has upped its game since getting rid of Bannon (e.g. with Caroline Glick) it still is quite far from a serious source IMHO.
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Aug. 17, 2018
By Jacob L. Shapiro
Tonga, a New Ally in the Fight Against China's Debt Trap
The small island nation doesn’t want to pay back the money it owes Beijing. Nor do it’s neighbors.
Tonga, a small island nation with a population of just 107,000 and GDP of $426 million, has found itself at the center of the power struggle between China and the West in the South Pacific. The country is heavily indebted to Beijing – to the tune of 24 percent of GDP – and the first payment on a loan it took out a decade ago is due next month. But it’s trying to delay the payment as long as possible, or even to avoid it completely, by banding together with its South Pacific neighbors to pressure China into forgiving the debt it holds over islands in the region. Perhaps most important, it’s being egged on by New Zealand, which over the past few months has joined Australia to try to reduce China’s economic leverage in the South Pacific.
In 2008 and 2010, Tonga took out loans from the Export-Import Bank of China totaling approximately $120 million. Since then, it has been avoiding repayment. The first payments on the 2008 loan were due in 2013. At the time, Tonga asked China to convert the loan into a grant, but China refused. $120 million may not seem like much to trifle over, especially if you are the world’s second-largest economy, but Chinese loans to Tonga are part of a much larger Chinese strategy to entrap South Pacific nations with debt. Between 2006 and 2016, China lent more than $2.2 billion to countries in the South Pacific. Letting Tonga off the hook would have set a bad precedent and, more important, eliminated China’s leverage – which was the point of the loan in the first place.
(click to enlarge)
It was only after the International Monetary Fund intervened that China agreed to a five-year grace period on repayment. That grace period is up in September, and now Tonga is once again trying to get out of repaying its Chinese debt – this time, by enlisting the help of its neighbors. In advance of next month’s Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ summit in Nauru, PIF foreign ministers met in Samoa on Aug. 10. In an interview on the sidelines of that summit, published by the Samoa Observer this week, Tongan Prime Minister Akilisi Pohiva said that at next month’s meeting, he would urge all Pacific island nations to sign a statement asking China to forgive billions in debt incurred by countries in the region.
Then, on Aug. 16, New Zealand Radio reported that New Zealand’s foreign minister had made the same suggestion at the foreign ministers’ meeting last week. (It was unclear whether New Zealand was encouraging Tonga to raise the issue or merely agreeing to the Tongan proposal.) The same day, Tonga’s prime minister doubled down on his position in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He told ABC that Tonga was not the only country facing this issue and that only if all the region’s nations banded together might China agree to waive repayments. This suggests Australia and New Zealand are either encouraging Tonga or tacitly supporting it.
At the moment, Tonga doesn’t seem willing to simply default on its debt to China. Last month, the Tongan government confirmed that it would begin making payments to Beijing in September – totaling roughly $6 million, according to the prime minister. The Tongan government budget, published on June 30, accounts for these payments and indicates that it will see a budget deficit of $5 million next year as a result. Notably, the five-year grace period China agreed to in 2013 did not change the 20-year maturity of the loans, which means Tonga’s payments will be significantly larger than they would have been in 2013. (At that time, they would have amounted to roughly 17 percent of government revenue.)
It’s unclear whether PIF nations will decide to confront China at next month’s summit. Either way, it’ll be a busy meeting. Rumors have already been circulating that members plan to expand the scope of their security cooperation, with Australia and New Zealand leading the charge for a better framework to help manage “emerging threats.” China hopes to increase its leverage over a number of Asian countries through debt, but the goodwill that money engenders evaporates when a lender comes to collect. If China forgives the debt, it will look weak. If it stands firm, it will look unsympathetic. Australia and New Zealand, on the other hand, must ensure unanimity among PIF nations – if even one country breaks ranks, Beijing can consider its strategy a success. In this normally sleepy part of the world, the repayment of a relatively small sum of money in a relatively insignificant island nation smaller than College Station, Texas, has become part of a power tussle between China and the West for the South Pacific.
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China-U.S. relations continue to flounder. The public comment period on new U.S. tariffs against Chinese imports ended Thursday. U.S. President Donald Trump was quick to tell the media that an additional $267 billion worth of tariffs might be levied at any time, depending on China’s actions. There’s little to suggest China will bend. China did not think Trump would move forward with a serious trade war, but it has recovered from the initial shock and looks prepared to stand its ground. Besides the economic measures to give Beijing greater control, China continues to pursue its foreign policy objectives as well. It’s no coincidence that on the same day Trump threatened more tariffs, China announced its president had accepted an invitation from Russia to attend the upcoming Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. Meanwhile, China hosted a South Korean envoy on Saturday, a day after South Korea’s president said he hoped to declare an end to the Korean War by the end of the year. Those tariffs are likely coming sooner rather than later.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-09-30/china-should-heed-mahathir-mohamad-s-belt-and-road-warnings?utm_content=view&cmpid=socialflow-facebook-view&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social
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second post
Oct 2, 2018 | 09:00 GMT
7 mins read
Taiwan Confronts the Costs of Economic Integration With Mainland China
Taiwanese electronic firms are still more advanced than mainland China's in developing most cutting-edge technologies, but they are increasingly linked to mainland supply chains.
This integration could help Beijing move up the production value chains, compromising Taiwan's competitive advantage.
U.S.-China trade tensions will likely increase production costs and push Taiwanese-owned, low-end manufacturing companies to move away from China and into Southeast Asian states.
Though Taiwan will continue to struggle to form regional, multilateral free trade agreements, it could see more success pursuing bilateral deals with the mainland's biggest rivals.
Taiwan is caught in the middle of the escalating trade war and larger strategic competition between mainland China and the United States. And the clash is threatening the self-governing island's export- and tech-oriented economy, which relies heavily on the mainland's supply chains for assembly, export opportunities and market access. (This is particularly true for its electronic and semiconductor industries, which together account for about 25 percent of the island's gross domestic product.)
The Big Picture
The trade tensions between China and the United States are unsettling global supply chains. This disruption will have an impact on Taiwanese businesses, many of which are closely linked with the mainland. Combined with Beijing's increasing use of coercive tactics against Taipei since Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen took office, these issues are driving Taiwan to diversify its economy away from mainland China.
Adding to Taiwan's economic troubles is Beijing's two-pronged campaign to diplomatically isolate the island and poach its businesses and talent, all in the hopes of eventual reunification. Together, these threats are increasing Taipei's desire to rely less on the mainland's economy, to diversify its trade and investment relationships with its neighbors, particularly India and those in Southeast Asia, and to establish more free trade agreements. In the past, these efforts have had mixed results, but the current economic and strategic pressure will likely harden Taipei's resolve in the coming months.
Deepening Connections
Over the past two decades, disputes over sovereignty have contributed to a volatile political relationship between Taiwan and mainland China. But at the same time, trade and investment links between the two have grown. Taiwanese investments into the mainland have steadily increased since Beijing opened up access in the early 1990s. Because of a similar culture and language, and the mainland's huge market potential and cheap labor, many capital-rich Taiwanese businesses relocated to the mainland. Today, China accounts for over 40 percent of Taiwan's exports, of which 80 percent are intermediary goods that are assembled in China before being sold domestically or exported.
These developments have had the added effect of nurturing China's economy during its reform and transformation era. The Taiwanese business community not only serves as a top capital source for once cash-strapped China but has also become an important means through which Beijing could influence the island and forge cross-strait connections.
Graph Showing Taiwanese Outbound Investment
And as such links grew, Taiwan found it had few options besides mainland markets and production. The island's economy was plagued by years of stagnation, low wages and productivity throughout the 2000s, and it continues to face high-tech competitors in South Korea. Indeed, during the global financial crisis of the late 2000s, former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou's administration removed a host of restrictions on investment in key high-tech sectors on the mainland, contributing to an even heavier dependence on the mainland economy and creating new cross-strait supply chains in those industries.
As Taiwanese electronics firms outsource to mainland China, they are keeping higher value-added work — such as the development of semiconductors, chips and other key electronic components — at home. But a significant portion of these components are supplied to Chinese, Taiwanese or foreign firms in China. As much as 90 percent of Taiwanese-branded computers, laptops and mobile phones are produced outside the country, with a majority being produced in mainland China.
The Consequences of Linking Supply Chains
While the mainland and Taiwan have both benefited from their interconnectedness in economic terms, the relationship has spurred increasing debate within Taiwan about its impact on the island's de facto independence. The mainland's relatively high-skill, low-cost labor and integrated supply chains offer Taiwanese businesses competitive advantages, but they also open up the opportunity for China to interfere with Taiwan's internal politics and, in a more extreme scenario, to challenge its industrial development.
Beijing's ultimate imperative is reunification, so it has been careful in applying serious economic pressure on Taiwanese businesses on the mainland. But it has increasingly leveraged its economic influence to try to shape Taiwan's internal politics in its favor, as it did during Taiwan's presidential election in 2012.
Moreover, a heavy reliance on overseas production is eroding the Taiwanese incentive to innovate and allowing mainland competitors to gain knowledge as China pushes to move up the value chain. This drive threatens Taiwan's competitive advantage in lower-end technology sectors. In particular, Beijing has been moving aggressively to develop a more self-reliant semiconductor industry, as outlined in its signature Made in China 2025 project.
These developments could have several implications for Taiwan. China has ramped up its efforts to absorb talent and technological capability, and Taiwan is a target due to Beijing's reunification goal and its strategic intention to move up the semiconductor value chain. And Beijing's capital- and state-led efforts are expected to boost China's tech industry, putting Taiwanese companies in a race to climb the ladder of cutting-edge technology.
Of course, as the ZTE case has illustrated, Beijing is still perhaps a decade away from its goal of achieving greater technological independence, while Taiwan holds a leading position in the most advanced technologies, such as integrated circuit design, fabless integrated circuits and foundries. But the mainland's efforts to climb the value chain with products such as solar panels and smartphones have rapidly eroded Taipei's advantages in those global markets.
Taiwan Strives to Diversify
As the U.S.-China trade war threatens to disrupt supply chains and as China amplifies cross-strait tensions while growing more technologically competitive, Taiwan has urgently emphasized the development of economic relations beyond the mainland, which the island has pursued in one form or another for the past several decades.
Since taking office in 2016, Tsai has implemented her "New Southbound Policy" to ramp up connections with and investment in Southeast Asian states and India — an extension of similar goals held by two previous administrations. Her government has also accelerated its longtime quest for free trade agreements, hoping to better integrate Taiwan's economy on a global level. This was a goal in the 2000s as well, as the proliferation of regional free trade agreements threatened to undermine Taiwan's competitive advantage in the Asia-Pacific.
But the previous diversification policies didn't yield much progress, since Beijing's ever-growing and outperforming economy meant China remained the most lucrative place for investment. And Taiwan's attempts to join multilateral free trade agreements, such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership between the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, didn't yield much success due to the island's political status and the concerns of some countries that they would risk backlash from Beijing.
In the two years since Tsai took office, Taiwanese investment in Southeast Asia has moderately picked up but still fell short of what the island was investing in those regions in the late 1990s and early 2010s. Most of the current investments are concentrated in the retail and financial sectors, indicating that they are primarily oriented to capture those growing markets instead of directing markets away from mainland China. Moreover, Taiwan has so far made few electronics investments in Southeast Asia (with a few in Malaysia and Indonesia and some most recently in Thailand). After two decades of developing sophisticated, well-functioning supply chains for items such as semiconductors, Taiwanese businesses are less than eager to relocate and abandon the growing domestic Chinese market.
What's Different Now
But Tsai's conviction of the need to diversify Taiwan's economy is strong, and things may change this time around. Many countries in the ASEAN, such as Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, are developing strong economies of their own, working to move up the value chain and moving factories out of China. Inspired by their success, Taipei will likely work hard to keep up. Additionally, even as Taiwan remains an unlikely candidate for regional free trade agreements in the short term, its quest for bilateral free trade agreements with the United States and, to some extent, India may get new momentum as Washington challenges the current state of cross-strait relations.
All these developments, combined with the protracted U.S.-China strategic competition that could disrupt critical supply chains and with a mainland government that is increasingly challenging Taiwan's autonomy, will drive Taipei to focus on its goal of disengaging its economy from the mainland, despite the barriers to that objective.
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second post
The Big Picture
In the context of broad strategic competition between China and the United States, the United States was expected to solidify its naval presence in the South China Sea and to work with allies and periphery states to balance against China. While Beijing is improving relations with its neighbors, it appears to be taking a hard-line response to countering the United States.
See Asia-Pacific: Among Great Powers
What Happened
A Chinese warship almost struck a U.S. destroyer conducting a freedom of navigation patrol near the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, the U.S. Pacific Fleet announced Oct. 1. The United States said a Chinese destroyer came within 41 meters (45 yards) of the USS Decatur on Sept. 30, forcing the U.S. warship to take evasive maneuvers to avoid a collision. The Chinese Defense Ministry blamed the United States for the incident, claiming it had violated China's waters and threatened its security and sovereignty.
The incident marked an aggressive departure from previous Chinese responses to U.S. freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) in the South China Sea. Over the past few years, Chinese ships have shadowed U.S. vessels conducting FONOPs in the region, but they had never maneuvered close enough to risk collision.
Why It Matters
With the United States taking an increasingly hard-line approach against China — including but not limited to placing tariffs on Chinese goods, sanctioning Chinese entities and ramping up arms exports to Taiwan — Beijing is likely wondering whether a state of significantly deteriorated relations with the United States is the new normal or whether it can expect things to improve eventually. China also has to consider how to respond to the U.S. pressure. Beijing thus far has taken a largely tit-for-tat approach by placing its own tariffs on U.S. goods, refusing port visits to U.S. warships and downgrading military-to-military ties with the United States.
The Chinese interception of the USS Decatur therefore should be seen through the context of a potential Chinese response to U.S. pressure. It's not yet known whether this incident is a one-off attempt by China to send a message or whether it marks a new level in China's own response to U.S. moves under the administration of President Donald Trump. Watching for China's future responses to U.S. FONOPs will help shed light on the matter.
In the past, China has relied on paramilitary vessels to harass U.S. warships operating in the South China Sea. Sending a warship to challenge the Decatur clearly was a deliberate decision intended to highlight China's assertive position on the FONOP.
The incident came as the United States works to standardize FONOPs in the South China Sea and to build defense relationships with claimant states on the Chinese periphery. Part of the reason why China has adopted a high-visibility approach to the interception of the Decatur could also be linked to Beijing's growing apprehension over the rising number of world navies that have fixed their sights on pushing against its hold on the South China Sea. While no navy has taken the same measures as the United States has with its regular FONOPs, the United Kingdom, France, Japan and Australia have increasingly dispatched their warships to the South China Sea while highlighting the need to counter China's claims in the region.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how-china-used-a-tiny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies
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It's a very scary situation because SuperMicro is an ODM that makes the white box servers for Amazon and Apple. So, the chip can bypass the normal security precautions that are in standalone switches and other boxes located in data centers.
Until recently, in data centers, all of the security was on the perimeter of the site to guard against the infiltration of bad packets from external sources. And the secure boot authentication systems on most boxes from personal computers to large servers would also not prevent this threat because the device would boot with the spy chip inside.
In the last few years, however, the security protocols inside data centers have changed from an emphasis upon preventing external threats to a system more like a large ship's ability to cordon off bad areas with water-tight bulkheads. So, the data center can take offline the affected servers and run everything by going around quarantined areas.
The issue is whether those chips could reach into the entire packet flow of the networks in which they were installed or whether they just intercepted packet flows that were routed through the specific servers in which the chips were installed.
On a less serious note: wonder if DiFi's gofer was the leader of this ring?
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https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/410484-trump-expands-anti-china-effort?userid=188403
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Malaysia: Beijing Takes a Major Step Toward Naval Cooperation in Southeast Asia
(Stratfor)
The Big Picture
Amid the intensifying great power competition between China and the United States, both countries have made strides to strengthen their influence in the disputed waters of the South China Sea. In addition to building up its presence on features it claims in the waters, China has taken a more assertive approach to countering U.S. freedom of navigation operations. The competition between the powers has increased tensions in the region, as evidenced by a dangerous encounter recently between their navies near a Chinese-controlled feature in the Spratly Islands.
What Happened
China, Malaysia and Thailand will hold the nine-day Peace and Friendship 2018 joint naval exercise along the Strait of Malacca starting Oct. 20. The drill will be held in the waters off Malaysia's Port Dickson and Klang. China announced Oct. 14 that it will send a combination of three destroyers and frigates, plus two shipborne helicopters, three Il-76 transport aircraft and 692 service personnel to participate. A statement by the Chinese Defense Ministry noted that the exercise was intended to "demonstrate the common will ... to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea region" and is not intended to target any country.
Why It Matters
The exercise represents a major step by Beijing as it seeks to increase cooperation with other Southeast Asian states in response to the growing U.S. naval posture in the South China Sea. The United States has assembled a loose security bloc of regional allies and partners such as Japan, Australia and increasingly Vietnam as it works to balance against China's maritime assertiveness in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.
In response, China has made efforts to increase cooperation on a number of fronts with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It has been working, for example, with the Philippines to jointly develop resource management and energy exploration efforts in disputed waters near the island nation. It has also taken steps to build trust at the multilateral level. Over the past two years, China and the ASEAN have adopted an agreement on the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea and a maritime emergency hotline. They also have moved forward on the long-stalled negotiation over the code of conduct in the South China Sea.
While the upcoming exercises are not the first for China in the strategic Strait of Malacca (it has participated in staged escort exercises with Malaysia in the area), the latest drills show Beijing's interest in expanding multilateral defense cooperation. China and ASEAN members' naval forces staged a computer-simulated drill in early August at Singapore's Changi Naval Base, and plans are being made to hold another joint naval drill off China's southeast coast near Zhanjiang.
For the most part, ASEAN states have welcomed China's outreach as well as the increased U.S. focus in the region, and instead of choosing sides, some have tried to take advantage of the security and economic benefits offered by each by playing one power off the other. However, as the great power competition between them intensifies, this strategy could prove untenable if U.S.-Chinese relations sour.
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Oct. 16, 2018
By Phillip Orchard
The US Plays the Long Game in the South China Sea
Washington is content to accept the status quo in the region, so long as Beijing does as well.
In the past couple weeks, Washington’s tone on China has gotten noticeably tougher. In a speech Oct. 4, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence outlined a litany of grievances with China – from trade to technology theft to Beijing’s purported attempts to put the political hurt on Donald Trump. He didn’t shy away from the areas where U.S. and Chinese military ambitions are bumping up against each other, either, giving special attention to Chinese expansionism in the South and East China seas. This followed a Sept. 24 report in Axios, in which unnamed White House officials touted an impending administrationwide pressure campaign against China, involving the departments of Treasury, Commerce and Defense. And on the same day as Pence’s speech, unnamed Pentagon officials told CNN that the U.S. Navy was preparing to do its part, formulating plans to carry out a “global show of force” to counter Chinese military actions, starting next month.
U.S. activity in waters China claims as its own has indeed picked up in recent weeks. The U.S. has sent warships past and warplanes over the disputed islands China occupies and conducted drills in Indo-Pacific waters with a range of allies, including Japan and even the United Kingdom. On Sept. 30, a Chinese warship acted in an “unsafe and unprofessional” manner, according to the Pentagon, coming within 150 feet (45 meters) of the USS Decatur during a U.S. freedom of navigation operation. But while the U.S. is clearly trying to squeeze China at nearly all its pressure points, the South China Sea is unlikely to play a front-line role in this effort. The U.S. has neither the interest nor the ability to link the South China Sea to its other points of contention with Beijing. Posturing on the high seas won’t give way to a real crisis until China determines it can no longer live with the status quo.
More Bark Than Bite
Until the past few months, the South China Sea had received relatively scant attention from the Trump administration. There have been the occasional warnings to Beijing that the U.S. will no longer tolerate its militarization of disputed islands. And there have been the periodic freedom of navigation operations, or FONOPs, near China-held reefs in contested parts of the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos. As under past administrations, however, these have amounted to far more bark than bite – certainly nothing substantive enough to limit Beijing’s continuing buildup in the waters.
The dirty little secret is the U.S. doesn’t actually care all that much about checking China’s expansion in the South China Sea. The core U.S. interests in the waters are keeping maritime traffic – whether commercial or naval – flowing and upholding international maritime law and norms, but also avoiding getting dragged into a war not of its choosing. So long as the U.S. can cut off Chinese maritime traffic in chokepoints along the first island chain and in the Strait of Malacca, Washington will be able to bring Beijing to its knees. China has near-zero interest in testing the U.S. on this point by cutting off maritime trade in the South China Sea – even in the unlikely event that it finds reason to do so – or by trying to push the U.S. from the region by force. Attempting to shut down sea lanes would be an act of desperation. It’s not the kind of thing China could threaten to do to gain leverage against the U.S. in scenarios short of war.
To be sure, China’s placement of anti-ship and anti-air missiles, naval assets, and warplanes on its artificial islands off the coasts of Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia – in combination with its onshore missiles, air power, and growing space, cyber and undersea capabilities – could make it harder for the U.S. to operate freely in China-claimed waters. They are also making it easier for Beijing to dictate terms for what its weaker neighbors do there (such as drilling or fishing), posing a credibility problem for the U.S. among its regional allies. Dislodging the Chinese will get only more difficult as their missile capabilities and ranges improve.
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But on the whole, the U.S. is operating from a position of strength. The islands would not last long in an all-out war with the U.S. if push came to shove, and they won’t solve the fundamental problem posed by U.S. naval strength around the chokepoints anytime soon. The fact that the U.S. has allies like Australia and, most important, Japan with major interests in keeping the waters open, while China lacks any major security partners, only bolsters the U.S. position. Washington can afford to play a long game – one that allows it to avoid the messy business of refereeing territorial disputes among regional states – centered on constructing a multilateral coalition to contain Chinese assertiveness, helping local countries to develop their own capabilities, and, if necessary, trying to blunt China’s military trajectory by depriving it of the riches needed to continue its buildup.
Challenging China
That the U.S. is now apparently planning a show of force in the South and East China seas does not reflect a shift in its strategy. Rather, the White House has simply decided that it’s time to challenge China on multiple fronts to try to alter its course. In reality, though, this campaign is focused primarily on the economic front.
The main problem for the U.S. is that it has few options, short of a direct conflict, for ramping up pressure in the South China Sea and thus little leverage to gain by trying to link security and trade. Freedom of navigation operations are important for reinforcing international law and maritime norms, and they give the U.S. the appearance of doing something in the disputed waters, but they are not an actual deterrent and never were meant to be. They don’t generate leverage or, technically, even assert that the U.S. objects to China’s occupying the disputed reefs. They have not yet altered Beijing’s strategy or behavior in any discernible way. Neither have occasional exercises in the South China Sea.
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China sees its islands as an integral part of its anti-access/area denial strategy. To get the Chinese to vacate them, Washington would need to convince Beijing that the U.S. is ready to remove it by force. War with a nuclear power over the South China Sea would be a costly and ill-conceived way for the U.S. to execute a strategy aimed at containing China primarily by sapping the country of its economic dynamism. China won’t swap its security for trade concessions, and the U.S. won’t offer this deal anyway.
Short of force, the U.S. has some small ways it can attach costs to China’s actions in the South China Sea. For starters, it can boost its security assistance to Southeast Asian littoral states and better equip them to defend themselves. It also wouldn’t be surprising if the U.S. were to sanction Chinese firms involved in island-building. Still, neither of these actions would do much to deter Beijing and, again, neither is important enough to either side to really factor into the trade fight.
More of the Same
And so, we’re probably looking at more of the same largely symbolic measures in the South China Sea that we’ve been seeing there in fits and starts over the past decade. Pence hinted that this was the case in his speech, saying more or less what the U.S. always says about the South China Sea: “The United States Navy will continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows and our national interests demand.” That means more FONOPs, more exercises, more shadowboxing. These won’t do much directly to alter the status quo in the South China Sea. But that’s not to say things can’t get messy.
Even if the U.S. moves are mostly symbolic, they still require a commensurate response from Beijing for two reasons. The first is that the Communist Party has tied its political legitimacy to the twin narratives that the disputed waters are indisputably China’s and that only unquestioned party rule can make the country powerful enough to reassert control over the area and protect China from the imperial powers that historically have humiliated it. It can try to censor coverage of U.S. shows of force in the waters to contain pressure from nationalists and the People’s Liberation Army, but it cannot go meekly into the night.
The second reason relates to China’s strategic imperatives: To blow a hole in the U.S. containment line, Beijing needs to convince countries along the first island chain, particularly the Philippines and Taiwan, that Chinese dominance over its littoral waters is a fait accompli. In other words, China needs to persuade these states that while the U.S. may parade its warships around the South China Sea, it won’t actually come to their defense in a crisis, much less guard their access to resources in their exclusive economic zones. If littoral states want oil, fish, and a security and economic benefactor whose regional interests will never waver, they’re better off ejecting the Americans and throwing their lot in with the Middle Kingdom, according to Beijing. Offers of aid and investment make that pill easier to swallow.
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For China to satisfy its domestic political imperatives, responding merely with its own largely symbolic measures, such as drills, may be sufficient. Shadowboxing can easily be spun in state media as daring displays of resolve and deterrence. Sending a forceful message to Southeast Asia, on the other hand, is a somewhat different matter. To expose Washington’s security guarantees as hollow, or at least tailored to narrow U.S. interests, China needs, at minimum, to stay its recent course. That means denying regional states access to their littoral resources and building fortresses on the islands they claim – and even this risks stoking nationalist political pressure in the countries that could compel their governments to try to take matters into their own hands. If Beijing thinks it needs a bigger play to drive its message home in the littoral states, it may try to call the U.S. bluff elsewhere – say, around the Philippine-claimed Scarborough Shoal, potential Chinese reclamation of which the Obama administration set as a red line in 2016.
In short, the U.S. is content with the way things are in the South China Sea. It doesn’t really need to escalate matters there to contain China comprehensively, and it couldn’t do so anyway without going to war. China can’t live with the status quo forever; eventually it will need to break out of the box geography and U.S. naval power have put it in. But because the U.S. has no pressing reason to threaten China’s trade access, Beijing can bide its time. If it makes a move on a flashpoint like the Scarborough Shoal, it will do so because it’s reasonably certain that it is indeed calling Washington’s bluff. Failing an accident or a gross miscalculation, it’ll just be two sharks circling each other in the South China Sea, with little appetite for a fight.
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• Two U.S. B-52 bombers flew over disputed parts of the South China Sea, according to the Pentagon.
• U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis met with his Chinese counterpart, Wei Fenghe, in Singapore. Wei is scheduled to meet with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Friday.
• Beijing is protesting a visit by a U.S. naval research ship to Taiwan.
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From the Forecast: “Japan is playing a critical role in creating an informal alliance between Japan, India, the U.S. and Australia to combat Chinese ambitions in the South China Sea.”
Update: Turning now to Southeast Asia, we check in on our forecast that Japan, India, Australia and the United States would grow closer as they tried to block China’s expanding influence in the region. (We would be remiss if we did not mention that our forecast for the year missed the level of anti-China activity that would unfold in the South Pacific – for more on that, click here.) This group of powers is still operating under the unfortunate nickname “the Quad,” and while 2018 has not brought any meaningful steps to define how its members will work together or to lay out the specifics of their relationship, each of the four countries has been very active, not just in laying the groundwork for increased cooperation among themselves but also in reaching out to states in Southeast Asia where China’s influence could eventually threaten the balance of power.
Japan and Australia, for instance, both wrapped up military exercises with the Philippines, a country of immense strategic importance to China, and one that seemed to be tilting toward Beijing during the first years of Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency. Japan and India, meanwhile, have reached out to Vietnam, whose prime minister publicly proclaimed his country’s desire for Japan to play a prominent role in the South China Sea. We also note that the Indian navy diverted three ships to offer humanitarian assistance to Indonesia during the recent tsunami – a seemingly innocuous gesture, but exactly the sort of thing that can help to build trust and interoperability between two countries. Like the Philippines, Indonesia is of immense strategic importance because of its location on major maritime trading routes.
It's not all positive news, though. U.S.-India relations have tightened considerably – but not so much that New Delhi is willing to go along with Washington’s oil sanctions against Iran, or to refrain from purchasing S-400 missiles from Russia (a move for which the United States punished China with sanctions recently). And despite the myriad meetings between some of the Quad’s main players – like the meeting of the foreign and defense ministers of Australia and Japan on Oct. 10, which paved the way for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to Australia next month, or the recent meeting between Indian and Australian officials to discuss their strategic relationship – there has not yet been a move to codify the group’s cooperation or more publicly signal its overall intent. The most that has happened is the Quad held a second meeting since its revival, on the sidelines of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Singapore in June.
That may be simply because higher-profile activities would serve only to threaten China, or it may have more to do with the fact that the four powerful countries of the Quad need no formal alliance to jointly pursue their interest in limiting China in Southeast Asia. Attempting to make a formal alliance out of an informal collaborative relationship may do more harm than good. But then, our forecast did not promise a formalization of the Quad in 2018, but merely more engagement with Asian nations and among the group’s members as a counterbalance to China. Aside from the occasional hiccup in U.S.-India ties, which explains the recent downward trend in the forecast’s performance, we believe overall that the forecast remains on target.
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“Japan is playing a critical role in creating an informal alliance between Japan, India, the U.S. and Australia to combat Chinese ambitions in the South China Sea.”
Good! Japan is not China's equal anymore but these countries including the US working together can successfully counter China's overreaches.
Trump should also be playing the Taiwan card more in his trade, South China Sea and NK fights with China, IMHO.
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The trade war and the damage done. The purchasing managers’ index released in China in October shows that Chinese manufacturing had dropped to 50.2, barely above the 50 point threshold to indicate growth. To be sure, the PMI is an imprecise measurement, but the low figure is still revelatory because it is below what economists had anticipated and, more important, it focuses on the state-owned enterprises and heavy industries that are theoretically less vulnerable to tariffs than private ones. Private manufacturing is probably faring worse. The U.S. has been pressuring China to respond to its invitation to start trade talks. So far, Beijing has declined – it doesn’t think the U.S. is serious about reaching a compromise that China could accept. Data points such as the PMI suggest Beijing may not have much of a choice any longer.
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What Happened
Enhanced security cooperation between Taiwan and the United States could easily expand as the pair work to balance against China's increased military presence in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. On Nov. 5, Taiwanese Defense Minister Yen Teh-fa told legislators that his government would consider allowing the U.S. Navy access to Taiping Island if Washington requested it. The remark is by no means conclusive, though Yen emphasized that the United States could be granted access for humanitarian or regional security operations if they aligned with Taiwan's interests.
Allowing the United States access to the island would further challenge the status quo at a time when the U.S. Navy is stepping up its presence in the Taiwan Strait. Over the past few months, U.S. warships have twice passed through the Taiwan Strait in a possible attempt to standardize patrols there or even pave the way for an aircraft carrier group to transit through. And in October, a U.S. Navy research ship docked in Taiwan's southern port city of Kaohsiung for refueling. Moreover, Taiwanese media has speculated that U.S. vessels will dock in Taiwan as part of naval exercises that are expected to occur in the region this month. However, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson declined to confirm or deny such a possibility.
Background
Taiping, one of two islands Taiwan controls in the South China Sea, is the largest naturally occurring Spratly Island; 1.4 kilometers long and 400 meters wide (.87 miles and .25 miles, respectively). The island sits 1,600 kilometers away from Taiwan in the South China Sea Basin, and bears strategic importance as an ideal location from which to secure sea lanes and establish a presence in the disputed region. Thanks to its strategic location and resources — Taiping possesses ample fisheries and is the only one of the Spratly Islands with an indigenous supply of fresh water — the island has served as an important logistics base.
Why It Matters
A U.S. military presence on Taiping Island or on Taiwan itself would be a serious provocation for China, which regards Taiwan as a wayward province and views U.S. relations with Taipei as a threat to Chinese sovereignty. Beijing has lodged stern protests against previous dockings and passages, and even threatened military action against Taiwan if a U.S. warship arrived in Kaohsiung. And China is also highly sensitive to the possibility that Taiwan will alter Taiping's status quo. Beijing and Taipei have largely overlapping maritime claims, and China is hoping Taiwan's control over Taiping will buttress its territorial claims in the South China Sea after Beijing attains its desired goal of reunifying Taiwan with mainland China. But while Beijing's hopes are high, its fears are equally strong that Taipei would be unable to defend Taiping against invasion or would allow Chinese rivals such as the United States or Vietnam greater access to Taiping Island.
This map shows some of the competing territorial claims made by China and Taiwan in the South China Sea.
This map shows some of the competing territorial claims made by China and Taiwan in the South China Sea.
But while Beijing sees Taiwan through the lens of its plans in the South China Sea, Taipei views Chinese expansion as its greatest challenge. Taiwan has been working for years to expand its facilities, fortify its infrastructure and increase military exercises to counter China's expanding influence. Chinese military pressure against Taiwan has grown over the past two years, potentially spurring Taiwan's government to view cooperation with the United States as a convenient way to secure its control over Taiping and further prioritize its goal of countering China's military might in the Taiwan Strait. Unlike its predecessors, Taiwan's current government is less concerned with war legacies, and many Taiwanese citizens see little economic value in Taiping, prompting some scholars to even suggest leasing Taiping to the U.S military — an explosive move that would be certain to infuriate Beijing and escalate tensions.
Access to Taiping would give the United States greater mobility in the South China Sea, as well as provide ammunition for rivals such as Vietnam or the Philippines to undermine Beijing's territorial claims. An agreement on U.S. access to the island is by no means finalized, but the perceived challenge would likely prompt China to increase its own military presence in the region and ramp up pressure against Taiwan. If that happens, the animosity between Chinese and U.S. forces in the region will intensify, and close encounters between their respective vessels — and even interceptions — can be expected to increase.
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I don't really care for the tenor of this analysis, but the subject matter is quite important.
China Looks at U.S. Tech-Limiting Measures and Sees Gunboat Diplomacy
By Scott Stewart
VP of Tactical Analysis, Stratfor
As China attempts to achieve technological parity for reasons of national security, the U.S. government will continue to deploy a wide array of tools against these efforts, particularly Beijing's attempts to obtain trade secrets illegally.
These U.S. actions, however, will merely convince Beijing to break its dependence on Western technology by any means possible, since they vividly remind China about how a technologically superior West victimized it during the days of gunboat diplomacy.
Fearful for its own future in the wake of Washington's actions, Russia will also strive to obtain technology by any means possible.
The last Opium War ended 176 years ago, but Beijing remembers the battle well — particularly the West's penchant for gunboat diplomacy. Memories of Western coercion and blockades have already prompted China to bolster the country's navy and take aggressive steps in the South China Sea to fulfill two of its overriding strategic imperatives: prevent any encroachment on the eastern coast and secure maritime trade routes.
The Big Picture
Like the Cold War, the current great power struggles between the United States on one side and China and Russia on the other will involve every facet of national power: military, economic, legal, diplomatic and intelligence. With both China and Russia seeking technological parity with the West — and willing to use any means necessary to achieve it — the struggle between espionage and counterintelligence agencies to acquire or protect technologies will make for an extremely active competition.
See Echoes of the Cold War
Beijing, however, is now preparing to respond to another type of blockade. Late last month, the U.S. Commerce Department announced that it was adding Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co. to the list of entities facing restrictions, essentially declaring that the firm poses a significant risk to U.S. national security or foreign policy. A December 2017 indictment accused the firm of illegally obtaining trade secrets for the production of DRAM chips from U.S. company Micron. With the action, the Commerce Department has barred the export, re-export or transfer of U.S.-origin technology, commodities or software to Fujian Jinhua without a special export license — which the department is unlikely to grant anyone.
The action against Fujian Jinhua is tantamount to a blockade on the company, because Washington is using lawsuits to prevent it from selling its chips in overseas markets and imposing technology transfer bans to prevent it from obtaining the components it needs to produce chips. Because of this, the measures are certain to provoke an emotional response among China's leaders, who will see them as an attack on its future development — and perhaps more fundamentally — its sovereignty. And far from persuading China to desist from its efforts to acquire technology by any means necessary, the robust U.S. action is ikely to only encourage more of it.
In Hot Pursuit of Chinese Companies
Three days after Fujian Jinhua was added to the list on Oct. 29, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil suit to prevent the firm from selling DRAM chips made by it or its Taiwanese partner, UMC, inside the United States. The suit also applies to other devices that include chips made by Fujian Jinhua and UMC, meaning that foreign companies that wish to sell to the U.S. market will have to get their DRAM chips elsewhere.
The measures against Fujian Jinhua come amid a raft of recent U.S. efforts to halt technology transfers to China, as well as Beijing's industrial espionage. On Nov. 12, The Wall Street Journal reported that in addition to judicial action to counter Chinese spies, the U.S. government will also use tools such as export controls to combat China's theft of trade secrets from American companies. Then, on Nov. 19, the Commerce Department launched a 30-day public comment period to obtain feedback from the technology sector on legislation that would impose restrictions on the exports of dual-use U.S. technology to China if it could pose a national security risk to the United States.
The Response to a 21st-Century Blockade
Taken together, all the U.S. steps are likely to hit Fujian Jinhua extremely hard. In fact, The Wall Street Journal even suggested that they could kill the company, because it relies on U.S. technology and components to produce its chips. (Compounding the issue, Micron filed a civil lawsuit against Fujian Jinhua in December 2017, which continues to wind its way through the courts. Fujian Jinhua subsequently filed a countersuit in a Chinese civil court in July 2018.) From the U.S. government's perspective, damaging or even destroying Fujian Jinhua for stealing Micron's intellectual property would represent a major victory. Contrastingly for China, Fujian Jinhua's demise would represent a significant blow to the country's efforts to become self-sufficient in semiconductor production, including DRAM chips. As a state-owned enterprise, the firm received $5.7 billion in state funding from the Fujian provincial government to build a production plant for DRAM chips, illustrating the government's focus on the importance of developing the technology.
The U.S. government's proclivity for measures to ban knowledge transfers are, ironically, only going to convince Beijing of the need to accelerate its efforts to end its reliance on Western technology.
But in its rush to obstruct China's efforts to develop domestic technology, the U.S. government's proclivity for measures to ban knowledge transfers are, ironically, only going to convince Beijing of the need to accelerate its efforts to end its reliance on Western technology. And technology transfers are not the only means of ending such dependence — the acquisition of coveted technology by any means necessary is another method of ultimately ensuring that Beijing can fulfill its national security goal of achieving technological parity with the West. Faced with such U.S. measures, the hard-liners who have been urging Chinese intelligence agencies to acquire the technologies on the shopping list associated with the "Made in China 2025" initiative by hook or by crook are now likely to redouble their clandestine efforts.
However, as these efforts increase, Chinese companies and intelligence agencies will naturally need to adjust their tactics. This will be especially true as they target trade secrets that are only available from a small number of companies, which will be on guard after high-profile incidents such as the Micron case and theft attempts by Chinese spies seeking the designs for jet engine components. These efforts will involve the use of every tool in the espionage toolbox, including cyberattacks and the recruitment of human sources.
While some of the recent, highly publicized Chinese espionage efforts may appear amateurish, Western governments and companies would underestimate them at their peril. A variety of Chinese agencies and actors will often conduct simultaneous efforts to collect the desired information or technology using multiple approaches — some of which are more sophisticated than others. Because of this, botched or thwarted efforts should not lull potential targets into a false sense of security, because other, more effective operations using sophisticated tradecraft may already be in motion.
China will also use other tools at its disposal. On DRAM chips, China launched a domestic antitrust investigation in June, alleging that the world's leading producers, SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron — which together control about 95 percent of the DRAM market — had conspired to fix prices. On Nov. 19, the trio's stock prices tumbled after the Financial Times reported that China's investigation was making progress. Needless to say, Chinese officials will have even more incentive to press their antitrust case if Fujian Jinhua suffers as a result of the U.S. measures.
Espionage in the Great Power Struggle
Watching on with great interest is Russia, which has its own list of 77 technologies that it wishes to develop indigenously in order to break its dependency upon the West. Without question, the U.S. government's use of virtual gunboat diplomacy against Fujian Jinhua will strengthen the Kremlin's resolve to ensure that it is not on the receiving end of similar actions in the future — especially given Washington's current sanctions against Moscow. This will also result in increased Russian corporate espionage in concert with the Kremlin's efforts to sow discord within the United States, various European countries and the European Union, as well as between Washington and Brussels.
In the end, great power struggles involve every facet of national power, with the military, diplomatic, legal and commercial angles of the struggle obvious for all to see. But lurking in the shadows, battles between intelligence agencies to procure or protect technology may, in the long run, prove to be every bit as significant as those higher-profile struggles.
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https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2018-11-21/chinas-aggressive-military-reorganization-prompts-fears-of-conflict?fbclid=IwAR2AeOiXYieCVIXmuRURhd5GPTy730ji_1Cf1YSx0Y3YRoA-7RYDa4qpcV4
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What the Arrest of Huawei's CFO Means for the U.S.-China Trade War
By Matthew Bey
Senior Global Analyst, Stratfor
Matthew Bey
Matthew Bey
Senior Global Analyst, Stratfor
A woman uses her mobile phone in front of an LED display board for Huawei at the Beijing International Consumer Electronics Expo in Beijing.
(WANG ZHAO/AFP/Getty Images)
Stratfor's geopolitical guidance provides insight on what we're watching out for in the week ahead.
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On Dec. 1, the United States and China agreed to a truce in their trade war, but that same day Canadian authorities arrested the chief financial officer of one of China's most important tech companies, Huawei. Huawei has been the chief target of U.S. pressure on Chinese tech companies, and this new development adds another layer of complication to the already awkward trade negotiations between Beijing and Washington.
What Happened
Canada's Department of Justice announced in a Dec. 5 statement that it had arrested Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of prominent Chinese tech company Huawei, in Vancouver on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States. Meng is the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei. According to Canadian Justice Department spokesman Ian Mcleod, Meng is facing extradition to the United States over suspicions that she violated U.S. sanctions on Iran.
Huawei is the world's second-largest manufacturer of smartphones after Samsung and is arguably China's most important hardware technology company. China will likely perceive Meng's arrest as a U.S. strategy to undercut the company, and the impending investigation — especially in the likely event that it expands beyond Meng into a broader investigation of Huawei — is sure to increase tension between Beijing and Washington as the two navigate their trade war over the coming three months.
On the Heels of ZTE
Accusations that Huawei violated U.S. sanctions on Iran have been floating since an earlier sanctions violation investigation into ZTE, another large Chinese hardware company, ended in 2016. the United States released internal ZTE documents in which the company described a large competitor – only called "F7" – skirting U.S. sanctions. F7 has widely been assumed to be a codename for Huawei.
In April of this year, leaks from anonymous U.S. officials suggested that there was already an active criminal investigation into Huawei for violating Iran sanctions. During that time, the United States and China were already tussling over Washington's decision to ban U.S. suppliers from exporting to ZTE in the wake of that company's sanctions violations. (This initially happened in the ZTE case, but it was only after ZTE violated the terms of that settlement by giving bonuses rather than punishment to involved employees that the United States threatened the supplier ban.)
Why Huawei Matters
Huawei's overall value to China and the global technology hardware competition dwarfs ZTE's. In addition to being the world's second-largest smartphone maker, it's also the world's largest producer of radio access network gear for the telecommunications sector and, critically, for 5G.
The United States has previously sought to persuade its allies not to use Huawei's 5G gear over concerns that China could exploit it for intelligence purposes, and it has barred telecommunications companies receiving U.S. public funds from deploying Huawei 5G technology. Australia and New Zealand have made similar moves, while Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom are currently discussing Huawei 5G equipment bans.
How An Export Ban Could Hurt Huawei
The Meng arrest and current U.S. investigation into Huawei have the potential to significantly hamper the company's economic health and viability, meaning China will consider it yet another example of the United States employing what Beijing perceives to be "modern gunboat diplomacy." Washington's short-lived ban on U.S. suppliers exporting to ZTE, which brought the company to the brink of implosion, provides another example.
The same would happen to Huawei. A list of its 92 core suppliers that Huiwei published in November is dominated by U.S. tech heavyweights like Intel and contains a total of 33 U.S. companies. (That number excludes NXP Semiconductors, a Dutch company that has extensive production facilities in the United States.) Just 29 of Huawei's core suppliers are from mainland China or Hong Kong.
Trade War Sparring Continues
The United States attempted to use the damaging impact of the ZTE export ban to extract concessions from Beijing, hoping that China would be pushed into approving a merger of semiconductor developers Qualcomm and NXP. (Ultimately, Beijing rejected the merger.) Washington will almost certainly use the Huawei investigation as ammunition in its trade war as well.
With its many trade and tariff escalation threats, China has shown that it values reciprocity in its dynamic with the United States. As possible retribution over Meng and Huawei, Beijing could rely on the ambiguous and sometimes contradictory nature of Chinese laws to justify arrests of high-profile U.S. executives in China for violations.
The reality is that a ban on U.S. exports to Huawei would be far more damaging to China than any trade war with Washington.
China could also threaten to pull out of trade negotiations entirely. However, at this point, such a move would only provoke more aggressive U.S. behavior, which China simply can't afford. Huawei is far larger and more important to the Chinese economy than is ZTE, so any potential retaliation could prompt the United States to ban U.S. suppliers from exporting to the company. And the reality is that a ban on U.S. exports to Huawei would be far more damaging to China than any trade war with Washington.
What's Next for the U.S. and China
Over the coming weeks, it will be important to track the investigation's scope and identify any potential settlement negotiations between Huawei and the United States. Typically, sanctions violations do not result in export bans but rather settlement offers from the Justice Department that include a large fine and an action plan for punishing employees involved in the violations. The China hawks in the U.S. government will be calling for significant punishment in the case, whereas China will be trying its hardest to protect Huawei by steering the decision toward a settlement.
More broadly, continued threats of an export ban and concerns about reliance on U.S. components, technology and intellectual property will only push China and Huawei to accelerate efforts to develop their own indigenous capabilities, further spurring the power competition between China and the United States.
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This writer (a.k.a. Spengler?) is of superior quality but here he may be missing the mark-- I thought I saw that Bolton says he knew of this in advance?
http://www.atimes.com/article/did-trumps-enemies-try-to-derail-a-trade-deal-with-china/
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Third post
The U.S.-China tech war gets personal. Sabrina Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei and daughter of the Chinese tech giant’s founder, was detained in Vancouver on an extradition request by the U.S. Details on the arrest remain scant, but it’s likely related to Huawei’s alleged violations of U.S. sanctions on Iran. As with the brief U.S. ban on exports of critical components to Chinese telecommunications equipment maker ZTE, which was also accused of violating previous sanctions on Iran, the CFO’s detention is mostly about the U.S. giving its sanctions some teeth. But while the arrest isn’t explicitly a result of the trade war, it’s not a separate issue altogether. The U.S. has been sounding the alarm about the potential for Beijing to weaponize technology exports for cyberespionage and other nefarious aims. Within the past week alone, Washington persuaded New Zealand to block a major local wireless carrier from using Huawei equipment, and British national carrier BT said it would remove Huawei components from its systems. If the U.S. denies Huawei – the world’s largest supplier of telecom equipment – access to the U.S.-made components on which it still heavily relies, it would harm China’s efforts to move into high-tech industries. Beijing is far more worried about this sort of battle far than it is about any tariffs.
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Opposite to the 'Lippmann Gap' view is that maybe Trump is actually thinking and planning two steps ahead of the Chinese, the establishment and the rear view mirror analysts. What if the plan is to topple the oppressive regime along the way, put them on the ash heap of history, not just stop technology theft and Chinese militarization.
Former President Obama has some advice that might be given to the Chinese, stop under-estimating this guy. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-16/obama-says-dont-underestimate-donald-trump-in-final-interview/8185104
What if the US under trump has a plan and purpose? Mattis, Bolton and Pompeo are not there to put on their tombstone they made it to the top of establishment bureaucracy and occupied a seat for a time. All three I believe are brilliant and committed to much higher accomplishment, if time and circumstances permit.
The US, victim of cyber attacks, is capital of the world's technology, software development, data security and data communications. The US is not as helpless as we sometimes appear. (The HRC server and Podesta password were not our greatest moments nor our greatest capability.) US-based Google has been cooperating with the Chinese on censorship. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/02/google-working-on-censored-search-engine-for-china Maybe the US also has offensive capability, reverse Chinese censorship for example.
Trump enjoyed an unprecedented call with Taiwan's President during his transition, turning his nose to restraint and tradition. He wants achievements in his presidency greater than merely re-energizing the economy. Maybe he walks out of stalled negotiations and saber rattling with Xi and unleashes a cyber truth campaign in China that make radio free Europe look old by a century.
The next war may not involve guns and rockets.
Trump can act like an oaf and his moves often appear random and mostly lucky. Maybe instead he is moving small pieces on a chessboard in preparation for moving larger pieces, pursuing an end that one might call checkmate.
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October 2018
https://www.c-span.org/video/?452478-1/vice-president-pence-intimidated-china
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as Rush theorizes, or coincidental timing , or planned , I dunno:
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2018/12/07/washington-is-still-95-against-trump-and-still-sabotaging-him/
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2018/12/14/chinas-hybrid-warfare-against-taiwan/?utm_term=.c8ee583dcd0b
President of Taiwan:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/if-you-like-betting-on-embattled-underdogs-this-leader-is-worth-a-look/2018/12/11/94c3d90c-fd75-11e8-ad40-cdfd0e0dd65a_story.html?utm_term=.c8e9fe046c07
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Shanghai’s stock index ends 2018 as the world’s biggest loser as trade war, slowing Chinese economy weigh on confidence
https://m.scmp.com/business/markets/article/2179765/hong-kong-shares-steady-early-trading-after-wall-streets-wild
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https://m.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/2180072/chinas-economy-slows-further-manufacturing-contracts-first
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Keeping up the drumbeat for US China trade deal.
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https://www.latimes.com/business/la-na-pol-us-china-20181231-story.html#nws=mcnewsletter
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13497/china-sovereign-state
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"Sen. Feinstein: "President Trump was right and I was wrong"
Did she actually say that ? I don't see it put that way.
Gee you think she would be invited onto any of the fake news networks to discuss
this.
I don't know what was so hard to see . I thought it fairly ***obvious*** for a few decades now exactly what China has been up to when everyone of their military machines coincidently just happens to look like ours.
Among other obvious rip offs. :roll:
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""Sen. Feinstein: "President Trump was right and I was wrong"
"Did she actually say that ? I don't see it put that way."
I was just translating :evil:
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https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612421/us-china-quantum-arms-race/
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https://business.inquirer.net/263484/ex-navy-chief-sounds-alarm-on-possible-chinese-takeover-of-subic-shipyard?fbclid=IwAR2sU_ejU8pyHxaI6cM3EJ63S976vCCuZ17UXx20tZ72mRRi65cx9EUfJqY#ixzz5cS9P6adC
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Some Chinese economic stats here you don't often see printed...
https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/lawrence-solomon-remember-trumps-supposedly-lose-lose-trade-war-hes-winning-chinas-losing
By Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post:
Remember Trump’s supposedly ‘lose-lose’ trade war? He’s winning. China's losing.
The tariffs clearly hurt China’s economy more than America’s
Not that long ago, China’s economy was seen as a juggernaut that would soon overtake America’s to become the world’s largest. “Made in China 2025,” the Chinese government’s blueprint to take over manufacturing, was seen as an existential threat to U.S. technological leadership. Speculation had the Chinese yuan replacing the United States dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
What a difference a trade war makes. No one marvels at the Chinese economy today.
Car sales in China, the world’s largest car market, plummeted by 19 per cent in December, capping a six-per-cent decline in sales for the 2018 year, the industry’s first fall in 20 years. Goldman Sachs predicts the decline will steepen to seven per cent in 2019. More broadly, China’s private and public manufacturing sectors both contracted in December.
Beijing heads to trade talks with ‘good faith’ as Trump says China’s weak economy incentive for deal
‘An elephant starting to run’: With China’s economy slowing, all eyes turn to India in search of growth
Trump renews attacks on Federal Reserve, calls it the U.S. economy’s ‘only problem’
China’s mainland stock markets, which declined 25 per cent in 2018, aren’t doing well either. Neither is growth in consumer spending, which is at a 15-year low. The government is backpedalling on its targets for “Made in China 2025,” and its other high-profile initiatives — the much-ballyhooed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt and Road Initiative — are falling short.
In fact, the entire Chinese economy may not only be falling short, it may never have performed as well as claimed. Many believe that China’s official economic growth rate, a fabulous 6.5 per cent, is more a fable. A World Bank estimate for 2016 put China’s economic growth at 1.1 per cent, with other estimates showing low or even negative growth. Also worrying is the potentially catastrophic hidden debt that fuelled China’s growth — as much as US$6 trillion by China’s local governments alone, according to S&P Global Ratings, which called it “a debt iceberg with titanic credit risks.”
[Putting numbers to something Crafty has pointed out.]
Many authorities point to the trade war to explain in part these poor metrics, typically adding that trade wars are always lose-lose. Yet while China clearly seems a loser, the same can’t be said for the U.S., whose economy is on fire.
In contrast to the 15- and 20-year lows logged by China’s economic indicators, the U.S. is racking up 20-, 30-, 40- and 50-year highs. Wages are up, especially for those traditionally worse off, while unemployment rates for blacks, Hispanics and women are at lows not seen in decades. The U.S. economy has added 4.8 million jobs since Donald Trump was elected president, with U.S. manufacturers last year adding 284,000 jobs, the most in more than 20 years. Americans are ditching food stamps and disability payments for well-paying jobs. “Put it together, and this is the best time for the American labor market in at least 18 years and maybe closer to 50,” The New York Times noted in November.
So much for the claims of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which warned that Trump’s tariff policy on imported products “endangers the jobs of millions of workers”; of the Tax Foundation, which predicted that Trump’s tariffs would decrease Americans’ wages; of Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, who stated the trade war with China would reduce U.S. GDP; and of the Heritage Foundation, which called Trump’s tariffs “ineffective and dangerous.”
While China’s demise and America’s rise can’t all or even mostly be attributed to Trump’s tariffs, the tariffs clearly hurt China’s economy more than America’s. For one thing, the “tax” that tariffs represent has mostly been paid by China. According to a recent policy brief from EconPol Europe, a network of researchers in the European Union, U.S. companies and consumers will pay only 4.5 per cent of the 25-per-cent tariffs on US$250 billion of Chinese goods, with the other 20.5 per cent falling on Chinese producers. The EconPol report found that the Trump administration selected easily replaced products, forcing China’s exporters to cut selling prices to keep buyers. “Through its strategic choice of Chinese products, the U.S. government was not only able to minimize the negative effects on U.S. consumers and firms, but also to create substantial net welfare gains in the U.S.,” the authors determined, adding that the tariffs will accomplish Trump’s goals of lowering the trade deficit with China.
More importantly, the tariffs have spurred investment confidence in the U.S., not only in steel and aluminum, where dozens of plants are either being built or reopened, but in the broader economy, too. A UBS Wealth Management Americas survey found that 71 per cent of American business owners support additional tariffs on imports from China, with only one-third believing tariffs would hurt them. A Bloomberg Businessweek article in October bore out the view that tariffs hitting steel and aluminum imports would be beneficial: “Employment in metal-using industries has risen since the tariffs went into effect last spring, (more than) the increase for overall manufacturing.”
The American public likes tariffs, too: According to a Mellman Group and Public Opinion Strategies poll in October, nearly 60 per cent of likely voters deem it important for Trump and Congress to “place trade restrictions on countries that violate trade agreements.” When the tariffs apply to China, the public doubtless also likes them for non-economic factors — to rein in one of the world’s worst human rights offenders and America’s chief military threat.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, this trade war is anything but lose-lose. This one is a big win for the U.S.
[Doug: The win is yet to come, when they open their market and stop stealing.]
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https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/01/14/19/palace-no-problem-if-trusted-chinese-firm-takes-over-subic-shipyard?fbclid=IwAR09I4OdSF4D9vDdJYXvRn_fOkaO4UBL3oE1Zj5k7iD0iHPCx5Ur4sQNAjc
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Good perspective on the larger issues in the region...
https://freebeacon.com/columns/great-wall-democracy/
China is not a ten-foot giant. It may have moved too aggressively and too quickly in the South and East China Seas, alerting the world to its ambitions and spurring Japan to spend more on defense. China also seems more interested in showing off its military modernization and strength than investing in strategic capabilities
...
China doesn't have many friends. It is deeply distrusted even by putative allies.
...
Xi Jinping's signature Belt and Road Initiative and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, heralded as a shift in global economic power toward Eurasia, have run into trouble as participant nations worry they may be ensnared in a Chinese debt trap. China's heavy-handed behavior at the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Papua New Guinea alienated smaller powers. Its partners tend not to carry much geostrategic weight. Djibouti is not Singapore.
...
America's treaty alliances with NATO, Japan, and the Republic of Korea are not just legacies of World War II and the Cold War. They constitute the steel frame of the American-led liberal international order that has kept a lid on great-power war for more than 70 years. A visit to Japan reminds you American power is appreciated at least as much as, if not more than, it is resented. A visit to Japan reminds you that the alliance system is essential to a Pacific Ocean secured by ships flying Old Glory. Not patrolled by destroyers bearing flags of gold stars in fields of red.
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https://warontherocks.com/2019/01/jaw-jaw-how-america-got-china-wrong/
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https://dailycaller.com/2019/01/26/trump-china-trade/?utm_medium=email
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Among some other things in the news Friday:
U.S. Navy sails warships through Taiwan Strait
CNN Fri, January 25, 2019
(http://cnnphilippines.com/incoming/jhtvdy-US-Navy_CNNPH.JPG/alternates/FREE_768/US-Navy_CNNPH.JPG)
http://cnnphilippines.com/world/2019/01/25/US-Navy-Taiwan-Strait.html
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https://www.foxnews.com/us/doj-charges-chinese-tech-giant-huawei-top-executive-with-fraud?fbclid=IwAR27joFcxsA1jEN4Ob2XKPLgNDelf-NqnGutEgNz5fhH6ATejto6_r8aZcQ
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maps will not print here:
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The Philippines Tries to Save a Treaty
What are the security options for a country that can dictate terms to neither friend nor foe?
Phillip Orchard |February 8, 2019
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Next week, the U.S. and the Philippines will open exploratory talks on salvaging their 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty. This comes after a month of renewed drama that has come to typify the hot-and-cold relationship between the U.S. and its oldest security treaty ally in Asia. In late December, Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana called for a comprehensive review of the treaty for updating. A week later, he announced that Manila had begun studying the possibility that the pact could be scrapped altogether.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened to withdraw from the treaty repeatedly since his election in 2016. Duterte says a lot of things, often changes his mind before the sun has set over Manila Bay, and is mostly incapable of fundamentally restructuring Philippine foreign policy to his personal tastes, anyway. But this particular warning came from Lorenzana – an advocate for robust U.S.-Philippine ties, a former attache to the Pentagon, and a Philippine defense establishment check on Duterte – suggesting that the anxieties Manila has about U.S. security commitments are born not from the vagaries of Duterte but from a more immutable set of circumstances: The U.S. and the Philippines face a common threat in China but have starkly divergent views on how to manage it.
Arguments Ring Hollow
The main problem with the treaty, according to Lorenzana, is that the U.S. won’t confirm that it includes Philippine holdings in disputed parts of the South China Sea. The treaty says the U.S. is obligated to respond to “an armed attack on the metropolitan territory of either of the Parties, or on the island territories under its jurisdiction in the Pacific or on its armed forces, public vessels or aircraft in the Pacific.” But the text leaves some room for interpretation on what would actually trigger the treaty – and what “acting to meet common dangers” in such an event actually means in practice. This debate isn’t academic; this week, for example, imagery published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies showed as many as 90 Chinese naval, coast guard and fishing vessels near Pag-asa Island, the Philippines’ largest holding in the Spratlys, ostensibly in response to Manila’s plans to resume work on a beaching ramp on the island.
(click to enlarge)
For Washington, the ambiguity is at least partly deliberate. When the pact was signed in 1951, it argues, the Philippines did not yet control the nine features in the hotly contested Spratly archipelago that it does today. The U.S. is officially neutral on the territorial dispute, which began in earnest in the late 1980s, emphasizing instead that such matters should be resolved in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague on a case brought by Manila invalidated Beijing’s claims that its Spratly holdings were entitled to territorial seas, but it did not rule on the rightful ownership of any of the reclaimed islands. So if the U.S. were to formally include the South China Sea in the treaty, it would ostensibly abandon a policy it applies in disputed hot spots around the world – one that serves the broader U.S. interest of bolstering a “rules-based” international order.
But this argument rings hollow to Manila for several reasons. For one, in 2015, the Obama administration agreed to updated guidelines in its Mutual Defense Treaty with Japan that, in no uncertain terms, included the disputed Senkaku Islands, which are administered by Japan but also claimed by China and Taiwan in the East China Sea. Washington can point to minor differences in the language of the two treaties to defend its position, but it’s the kind of legalistic rationale you invoke only if you’re looking to keep a pact weak. (The U.S. hasn’t always been so circumspect. The Clinton administration twice confirmed that the treaty covered the South China Sea, even though the Philippine Senate voted to boot the U.S. Navy from its strategically invaluable base at Subic Bay in 1991.)
Perhaps most telling, the legal case for covering the Scarborough Shoal, just 130 miles (210 kilometers) from Luzon, is more straightforward. The U.S. formally took administrative control of the resource-rich reef from Spain in 1900 following its victory in the Spanish-American War, and the Philippines acquired formal control upon gaining independence in 1946. The Philippines established a U.S. naval operating area covering a 20-mile radius around Scarborough Shoal in the 1960s, and the two allies used the reef as bombing range into the early 1980s.
Yet, when Chinese forces seized the shoal in 2012, the U.S. declined to forcefully intervene. The Obama administration reportedly warned China in 2016 that it would consider an attempt to turn Scarborough Shoal into yet another artificial island a red line. But neither the Obama nor the Trump administration has moved to stop China from exercising effective control over the surrounding waters. Nor has the U.S. expressed any willingness to defend Manila’s right to drill for oil in waters the U.N. tribunal determined were Philippine. From Manila’s viewpoint, in other words, the U.S. is going out of its way to keep the Philippines at arms’ length.
Words on Paper
Unfair as it may appear, the U.S. has strategic reasons to keep its options open. It doesn’t want to get dragged into a war with China, at least not one that wasn’t started on its terms, and so it doesn’t want to give the Philippines reason to think the U.S. will automatically have its back if it picks a fight it can’t win on its own. The U.S. is basically content with the status quo in the South China Sea. It doesn’t really need to escalate matters there to contain China on other fronts. So long as the Chinese navy can’t challenge the U.S. Navy directly, the U.S. is happy to cripple China by choking its maritime traffic along the first island chain and around the Strait of Malacca.
The problem for the U.S. is that this strategy gives the Philippines little choice but to do whatever it deems necessary to remain friendly with China. Over the past two years, this has meant limiting the scale of cooperation with the U.S., presumably at Beijing’s behest, while allowing China to gradually expand its commercial and political influence in the country in ways that could come back to haunt the U.S.
For example, Manila has dramatically slowed implementation of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, a 2014 deal providing U.S. forces with rotational access to five Philippine bases. Construction on U.S. facilities was delayed by more than two years before finally breaking ground earlier this month. Two bases, including the one closest to the Spratlys, may now be excluded, and any hope that the deal would expand in scope, which Duterte’s predecessor’s administration assumed was inevitable, has been quashed.
(click to enlarge)
Meanwhile, Chinese firms are making plays for assets at what were once the U.S.’ two most important bases in Luzon – Clark airfield and Subic Bay naval base. There’s no guarantee that commercial ownership will mean China will ever be able to get these assets for military purposes. We’re skeptical of the strategic utility of so-called Chinese “debt traps” in general. But the potential threat is real enough that those concerned about China across the region are moving to counter or block outright Chinese acquisitions of strategically valuable infrastructure abroad. (Lorenzana, for example, is calling for the government to take over the shipyard at Subic Bay to keep it out of Chinese hands.) Perhaps just as important, in November, Manila approved entry to the Philippine market of a wireless consortium led by China Telecom, which is likely to aid Chinese efforts to export fifth-generation wireless technologies to strategically important states, the military implications for which are potentially game-changing.
Ultimately, to blow a hole in the U.S. containment line, China needs one of the countries along the first island chain to flip fully into its camp. Weak as it is, the Philippines may be China’s best bet, even if it’s not an especially good bet. Even if Manila scrapped the Mutual Defense Treaty outright, it wouldn’t automatically bring the U.S.-Philippine partnership to an end. In practice, the U.S. hasn’t been cooperating with the Philippines substantially more than it has been with other regional allies with which it has no formal treaty. And in any case, Washington and Manila struck a more detailed and arguably more important visiting forces agreement in 1999 that has facilitated the bulk of recent cooperation, including U.S. assistance in the Philippines’ fight against jihadist militants in Mindanao. (On the other hand, the EDCA would likely need to be renegotiated if the Mutual Defense Treaty is snuffed out. This would be a substantive setback to bilateral cooperation.)
The Duterte administration’s outreach to Beijing is less an expression of preference for China over the U.S. than one of a desire to keep its options open. Nearly every strategically located state on China’s periphery is keen to play the U.S. and China off each other, and to balance ties with any number of outside powers, to their advantage. The Philippines has been eagerly deepening military cooperation with U.S. allies like Japan, Australia and South Korea accordingly.
Still, countries as weak as the Philippines don’t get to dictate terms, whether to friends or to foes, and an “omnidirectional” foreign policy is no substitute for using the U.S. to deter the Chinese. Treaties are only as relevant as the strategic logic underpinning them, but they can be important for facilitating things like military interoperability, intel-sharing and basing agreements – the flesh and bones of a balance of power strategy. A Chinese alliance with Manila, then, may never be in the cards. But a divided, uncertain Philippines – one vulnerable to influence and fruitlessly trying to keep its own options open – is the next best thing.
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That is quite a conundrum for both countries. We don't want to be drawn into a war because of the Philippines but most certainly want all these countries to align with us and not China in a conflict.
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That is quite a conundrum for both countries. We don't want to be drawn into a war because of the Philippines but most certainly want all these countries to align with us and not China in a conflict.
They are free to choose poorly, which they did. Now they get to be China's prison bitch.
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And we take a major step towards losing the South China Sea.
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And we take a major step towards losing the South China Sea.
That happened with the election we had back in 2008.
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Indeed.
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This author says no:
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/skeptics/us-shouldn’t-go-war-china-over-taiwan-44432
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This author says no:
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/skeptics/us-shouldn’t-go-war-china-over-taiwan-44432
Should anyone have helped fight back when Hitler invaded Austria, Czech, Poland? Or let the oppressors keep picking up more resources and territory, then maybe they'll be satisfied and stop.
Taiwan is a democracy, not part of a territory ruled by the mainland totalitarians. To change that by force is an invasion of a sovereign country, in fact if not in name, IMHO
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Taiwan is part of a larger Chinese mission , , ,
https://geopoliticalfutures.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Greenland-China.jpg?utm_source=GPF+-+Paid+Newsletter&utm_campaign=91fc034455-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_02_15_06_43&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_72b76c0285-91fc034455-247660329
OTOH, we have shown ourselves to be real unenthused about Russia (and/or China) being in our backyard. Witness the Cuban Missile Crisis and our various interventions in Central America.
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"OTOH, we have shown ourselves to be real unenthused about Russia (and/or China) being in our backyard. Witness the Cuban Missile Crisis and our various interventions in Central America."
True. And we have refrained for 60 years from invading Cuba, 90 miles off our shore (similar distance to Taiwan Strait), and removing that threat.
The US does not want a full scale military conflict right now with China over anything, but isn't that feeling mutual?
What is the history of the communist PRC ruling the free people of Taiwan? None. There is no historic claim to restore that I can see.
Taiwan-US Mutual Defense Treaty was ended by Jimmy Carter, the President who gave away the Panama Canal.
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-looming-taiwan-crisis/
America’s [current] commitments to Taiwan were articulated in legislation (the Taiwan Relations Act) signed in 1979. The US stated that it would ‘consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means of grave concern to the United States’.
The law stated that the US would support Taiwan’s self-defence and maintain the capacity to come to Taiwan’s aid. Left vague, however, was whether it actually would. Taiwan could not assume that it would; the mainland could not assume that it would not. Such ambiguity was meant to dissuade either side from unilateral acts that could trigger a crisis.
Look for Taiwan to go under communist control by force during Gillibrand's [Kamala's?] first term.
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Feb 14, 2019 | 23:07 GMT
11 mins read
The End of Strategic Luxury for China
By Zhixing Zhang
Senior East Asia Analyst, Stratfor
Zhixing Zhang
Zhixing Zhang
Senior East Asia Analyst, Stratfor
As its economy matures, China has attempted to move up the value chain in manufacturing, beyond industries such as textiles and into high-tech development.
Signs of China's economic maturation, such as decreased reliance on exports and reduced returns on government-led investments, have promised an era of slowed Chinese economic growth since the years after the global financial crisis.
China needs more time and space to facilitate its domestic socio-economic transformation and upgrade its value chain, but it is losing the "strategic luxury" of a relatively stable external environment.
Beijing will reverse infrastructure spending and credit expansion and try to use financial incentives to stimulate domestic consumption where it can, but it is likely to face greater economic pain, at least in the short term.
Editor's Note: This assessment is part of a series of analyses supporting Stratfor's upcoming 2019 Second-Quarter Forecast. These assessments are designed to provide more context and in-depth analysis on key developments over the next quarter.
When Chinese President Xi Jinping declared his country's "era of national rejuvenation" at the 19th Communist Party Congress in 2017, he saw a historical mission awaiting him. China had gone from a "century of humiliation" into seven decades of rehabilitation through internal reconsolidation and economic growth. The country had developed a massive economy and was halfway to its goal of ascending into a global power; Xi saw it as his job to take it the rest of the way. But though Xi may have had a clear mission informed by his predecessors, the fact is that he presides over a China that sits at a major crossroads domestically, politically, economically and globally.
China has hit the point in its economic transition where it must adapt to slower growth and adjust to a rockier economic situation. Chinese leaders are finally facing the constrictions stemming from the end of the country's previously near-unrestrained expansion at the same time that China is facing active challenges from the United States in the form of an aggressive trade war, a tech competition and challenges to Chinese territorial claims. For the next several years, almost none of China's existing internal and external challenges will face, and some will possibly even escalate, marking the final years of the decade as the end of "easy times" for China.
The Big Picture
Over the past two decades, China's emergence as the world's second-largest economy, coupled with its growing capacity to turn wealth into military power, has remade the geopolitical landscape, both regionally and globally. But its economic boom years have passed, and as its economy matures, China faces pressure to transform its structure and climb the value chain. It must figure out how to do so, however, without the strategic luxury that its astronomical growth spurt afforded to it.
China's Economy, the Origins
To understand the complex challenges that Xi's China faces today, it is helpful to examine their origins. While the historical perspective will not answer the question of what China will do next, it does illuminate the country's priorities, and, in turn, help explain its behaviors. While China's actions are inherently driven by the country's economic path, the interplay of geopolitics and the global power competition exudes a strong pull on them.
Even before Xi took his place as the Communist Party's general secretary in 2012, the economic and political order that guided China in the post-reform era had been rapidly evolving.
In 1978, China opened its economy to the world and started down a path to economic success and, by extension, military and global ascendance. Over 40 years into the process, China's economy is finally stumbling, but the country's main challenges have not arisen simply because of its cooling growth. Investment returns and external trade were once the core pillars of the Chinese economic miracle, but both have been losing potency, promising a somewhat slower "new normal." Continued weak domestic consumption, a struggling private economy and high debt loads provide a limited buffer for externally driven financial crises like a recession or the current U.S.-China trade war, while China's aggressive pursuit of technological development is facing increasing international scrutiny.
Stratfor has long argued that the 2008-09 global financial crisis and its aftermath had profound implications on China's domestic environment, resonating in the policy priorities and challenges that China's government faces today. In short, the financial crisis exposed the fundamental vulnerabilities of the export-oriented growth model that sustained China's decades of extraordinary growth and its employment of some 300 million people — the majority of whom were low-end manufacturing workers migrating from the impoverished countryside.
When the recession hit China's coastal economy and 40 million laborers found themselves unemployed, the government had few options other than drastically pivoting away from the export sector. But to do so, it had to implement a massive financial stopgap of 4 trillion yuan ($591 billion) for government-directed investments into development of roads, railways and, most importantly, real estate to mitigate economic and employment stress. In a post-crisis world, China continued to rely on credit expansion to sustain its economic transition, resulting in substantial industrial overcapacity and outstanding debt; indeed, debt currently sits at almost 260 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), spanning local government, state-owned enterprises and the household sector (the latter in part due to soaring real estate mortgages).
It was only a matter of time before China entered a lasting era of slow growth. As its economy matured and government-led investments expanded, returns naturally diminished. And regardless of Beijing's willingness to spur China's real estate market, whatever stimulus it could provide could not maintain the pace of growth it experienced before 2015, resulting in limited domestic consumption and suggesting that boosting the real estate market is losing its efficacy as a key policy tool. Added to all this is China's rapid shift away from export reliance — the export sector went from accounting for 36 percent of GDP in 2007 to just 22 percent in 2013.
The fact that domestic consumption has not grown as expected, private investments grew tighter and debt got larger pointed to one of two core problems facing the Chinese government: short of broad liberalization reforms, the strategies available to the government to quickly respond to unexpected shocks — and by extension, to continue to deliver wealth and mitigate social consequences — have been stretched to their limits, and using them will come with increasing costs.
China's economy also faced a second maturation challenge in the years after the recession. Although its export sector continued to grow in dollar value following the crisis and has served as a key buffer for the country's economic transition, rising costs of living and rapid urbanization, coinciding with inevitable shrinking demographic dividends would eventually undermine China's competitiveness in the face of emerging economies in Southeast Asia or East Africa. And for the sake of avoiding the dreaded middle-income trap, China must aggressively accelerate the pace of development of its technology sector to make the country's economy a more value-added and innovative one.
Essentially, when Xi took power, the country was caught between two types of economies: eager emerging markets were waiting for China's low-end manufacturing windfall, but at the same time, China also retained a heavy dependence on Western markets for cutting-edge technologies such as semiconductors. Chinese leaders knew their options were limited, and so was time.
A Sense of Economic Urgency
Xi has always known he was racing against time, which explains the spate of reform initiatives since 2015 (around the time when he consolidated political power) and his clear belief that the country needs to slow its growth rates to make way for these reforms. Over the past three years, Xi's government has ruthlessly eliminated excess capacity and improved efficiency in state-owned sectors, and it removed so-called "zombie" corporations owned by the state that produce no returns and carry high debt. It has limited credit generation, cracked down on informal lending in local governments and the private sector, and restricted property markets in large cities.
A sense of urgency also explains Xi's desire to rapidly ramp up China's technology industry and reduce external dependency on cutting-edge technologies — a plan outlined in the state-led Made in China 2025 industrial initiative. And it informs the country's aggressive overseas tech investments and acquisitions and its hunt for technological know-how, which has also included illicit means such as espionage and cybersecurity.
The Communist Party itself will struggle to maintain the sort of legitimacy that high growth and substantial wealth once helped to provide.
None of these measures are without casualties. The credit crunch, liquidity stress and property restrictions, for instance, have hit hard, affecting both private companies that have rising defaults or bankruptcies and debt-laden local governments over the past two years. It also risks bringing rising unemployment and financial stress to individuals who have experienced negative consequences from reforms. And amid China's aggressive pursuit for tech development, many Western companies and governments have found themselves directly exposed to growing Chinese competition and national security threats. Even within China's domestic political environment, the Communist Party itself will struggle to maintain the sort of legitimacy that high growth and substantial wealth once helped to provide. But despite the limitations, Chinese leaders are convinced they can buy China enough time to quickly upgrade the country's value chain, advance its technology capabilities, prevent potential supply chain disruption, and ensure China is in a better position to withstand another internal or external economic crisis than it was a decade ago.
The Dawn of the U.S.-China Rivalry
Another global economic crisis has yet to manifest. But something more profound has arrived, long overdue: the emergence of a strategic rivalry between China and the United States. The two are engaged in competition over technological supremacy, conflict over China's territorial and infrastructure expansion and a massive trade war, both reflecting and increasing the global ambivalence to China's rise.
Just a year after its economic opening, China normalized its relationship with the United States, a key element of ensuring a stable strategic global environment in which China could grow and develop. After decades of ebbs and flows from its Cold War peak, the state of the U.S.-China relationship has hit an all-time low — and it's poised to grow worse.
This eventuality is hardly surprising to Beijing. The prospect of the U.S.-China relationship morphing from positive to competitive has haunted Chinese leaders since the collapse of the Soviet Union neutralized their mutual adversary. Indeed, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush entertained the idea of labeling China as a strategic competitor in early 2001 — right before the 9/11 attacks urgently redirected U.S. attention toward a global war on terrorism (for which it conveniently needed strong allies like China) for nearly two decades.
Now, almost 20 years later, the United States is working to disengage from overseas conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, and it has finally begun amassing resources to engage with China in a strategic rivalry. In late 2017, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump released a policy paper officially classifying China as a strategic competitor of the United States. But China has not wasted the past two decades. Building on its economic heft, China has largely established dominance as a regional economic and political powerhouse. Beijing has also accrued diplomatic influence, infrastructure capability and military power on a global scale.
At this point in the great power competition, China is acknowledging the blessings and curses it has observed in other rising powers. Specifically, as China's economic growth slows and as it increasingly challenges U.S. technology supremacy in areas such as artificial intelligence and robotic and other high-end manufactured goods, China has found itself limited in ways similar to those that Japan faced three decades ago. Back then, Washington challenged Tokyo's protectionist policies, currency management and economic model, much like the United States is doing to China today. However, unlike Japan in the 1990s, which relied on the U.S. security umbrella, China's security independence allows it to approach any negotiations with its strategic competitor from a stronger position.
Likewise, as China assertively engages in eastward maritime expansion to secure vital access to overseas markets and moves westward to develop its desolate inland regions, it finds itself with the same geographic limiters that Germany confronted nearly a century ago. Like pre-World War I Germany, China sees its expansion as defensive in nature, but that inevitably exposes China both to skeptical and competing neighbors and to conflicts with the United States over its imperative to secure maritime dominance. If China's expansion makes it a target for containment by U.S-led allies, then its critical supply lines would be vulnerable to disruptions.
The End of Easy Times
China still would benefit from more time and space to facilitate its domestic socio-economic transformation, but the strategic luxury that once supported the country's four-decades of near unrestrained rise is evaporating. It is coming to the global great power competition from a position of much greater strength than it would have two decades ago. However, it also has found itself with fewer domestic policy options and less strategic flexibility for withstanding external shocks.
In the long run, China's global ambitions will oblige it to continue updating its supply chains and restructuring its economy while continuing its fierce economic competition with the United States. At the same time, Beijing cannot ignore domestic economic issues, such as maintaining employment levels and minimizing supply chain disruptions. It will do that by seeking to expand and deepen export markets and continuing its push to build out infrastructure, a strategy that will drive it, when it can, to continue expanding its economic, political and military influence. This process will inevitably create points of conflict with other powers and require a reluctant Beijing to continue to adapt to international norms.
Without question, China is entering a new period in its ascendancy, and the way it handles the international conflicts and economic challenges ahead will shape the country's trajectory for many years to come.
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Been checking out this site: Seems to be very Dem, but still giving it a chance-- haven't read this one yet:
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/02/ep-38-beyond-south-china-sea-tensions-part-two-ccp-vision-and-future-chinese-history/154946/
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https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-14/china-and-the-u-s-are-in-a-new-cold-war
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Those of you who are on FB should follow Jacob Bauer. We have broken bread together. The man is DEEPLY knowledgeable about China-- things of which he will not speak in print. Check out this evening's chat in which I participate.
https://www.facebook.com/jacob.bauer.545/posts/1909235762518614?comment_id=1909257385849785&reply_comment_id=1909267689182088¬if_id=1551164454315776¬if_t=feed_comment_reply
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https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/03/us-china-tech-war-being-fought-central-europe/155343/?oref=d_brief_nl
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China to make forced technology transfer illegal as Beijing tries to woo back foreign investors
Issue a key demand made by US President Donald Trump as part of the ongoing US-China trade war
China expected to pass new foreign investment law next week during National People’s Congress
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/2188885/china-make-forced-technology-transfer-illegal-beijing-tries
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https://freebeacon.com/national-security/trump-administration-approves-sale-of-f-16s-to-taiwan/?utm_source=Freedom+Mail&utm_campaign=28ea3d70f8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_03_14_09_54_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b5e6e0e9ea-28ea3d70f8-45632137&fbclid=IwAR3OmeUBlxat_5wRs6SJfHyIYEaHOEF6UkqluiEnmjGt4tab0fN3lRm9-ZE
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China’s Rise Means Trouble in Paradise
Fiji and other tiny South Pacific states will be flashpoints of global competition.
By Walter Russell Mead
March 18, 2019 7:04 p.m. ET
Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama with Chinese engineers in Suva, Fiji, Sept. 29, 2017.
Viti Levu, Fiji
On a recent visit to Fiji I was able to confirm that the majestic islands of the South Pacific remain as close to paradise as one can get in this world. But alongside the sparkling crystal waters and coral gardens, I saw something darker at work in the region.
As U.S.-China competition intensifies, the thinly settled islands scattered across Oceania will become geopolitical flashpoints. The contest has already begun to impose strains on fragile societies. These strains will intensify as strategists in Washington, Beijing and Canberra seek to further influence political developments in tiny, almost inaccessible island-states.
U.S. interests in the South Pacific run deep. The American naval presence in the region, originally dispatched to protect U.S. whalers, is 200 years old. American statesmen have long believed that the country’s security depends on U.S. power in the Pacific. President John Tyler extended the Monroe Doctrine to Hawaii in 1842; a century later the importance of the region was driven home by the brutal island warfare of World War II. Even in an era when many Americans want to limit the nation’s overseas commitments, voters and Washington strategists alike will remain focused on maintaining security and stability in the South Pacific.
For many years, the main diplomatic drama in the region revolved around the bidding war between Taipei and Beijing for diplomatic recognition. In exchange for aid packages, island-states would agree to recognize either Taiwan or the mainland. For small states without many goods to sell, diplomatic recognition turned out to be good business. Of the 17 countries world-wide that maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan, six are in the South or Central Pacific.
More recently, Beijing has intensified its courtship of Pacific island-states. Large investments and aid packages for countries like Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Fiji have alarmed Australia and New Zealand; additionally, China dangles the prospect of massive infrastructure aid for countries willing to participate in the Belt and Road Initiative. Tonga’s indebtedness to China amounts to nearly one-third of its GDP.
Some in the region welcome China’s new activism. A bidding war between Western nations and Beijing over sea lanes and naval bases, they reason, will be more lucrative than a mere contest over diplomatic prestige between Beijing and Taipei. Outsiders might be tempted to sneer at the venality of countries looking at geopolitics in this way, but the Pacific island nations cannot afford many scruples.
Fiji, for example, has a population of 926,000 citizens and a GDP of $4.9 billion according to the latest CIA World Factbook estimate. Yet it must provide infrastructure and basic services to 110 inhabited islands while monitoring a maritime territory that includes more than 200 uninhabited islands scattered across 486,000 square miles of sea. Kiribati, an archipelago north of Fiji, has a population of 109,000 distributed across an expanse of ocean twice the size of Alaska with a GDP of $197 million.
Good jobs on the islands are often hard to find. Young Pacific islanders who gain university education are often drawn to the bright lights of Sydney and Auckland, New Zealand. With little or no manufacturing capacity, the islands must import goods, from fuel to textiles and pharmaceuticals—usually at high cost, due to their distance from industrial centers. In these circumstances, the islands have every incentive to leverage their geographical position for financial and diplomatic advantage.
The priority in the U.S. and allied nations (including France and Britain, which still control territories in the region) must be to draw these countries into a stable and deepening relationship with the West while reducing the risk of crises and confrontations with China.
This will not always be easy. Economic development in countries like Papua New Guinea hinges on the exploitation of mineral resources. Papua New Guinea was ruled by Australia until 1975, but China’s role as a major export destination ensures that it will have a close relationship with Beijing. China’s willingness to finance the construction of ports and rail infrastructure makes that relationship likely to grow closer still.
Protecting U.S. interests in the South Pacific is neither the most difficult nor the most expensive task confronting American policymakers in a newly competitive world. But success will send an important signal to Beijing and beyond about Washington’s ability to respond effectively to the wider geopolitical consequences of China’s rise.
Failure will also be noted, and will come with a price.
Appeared in the March 19, 2019, print edition.
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China plays to win. Do we?
China’s Rise Means Trouble in Paradise
Fiji and other tiny South Pacific states will be flashpoints of global competition.
By Walter Russell Mead
March 18, 2019 7:04 p.m. ET
Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama with Chinese engineers in Suva, Fiji, Sept. 29, 2017.
Viti Levu, Fiji
On a recent visit to Fiji I was able to confirm that the majestic islands of the South Pacific remain as close to paradise as one can get in this world. But alongside the sparkling crystal waters and coral gardens, I saw something darker at work in the region.
As U.S.-China competition intensifies, the thinly settled islands scattered across Oceania will become geopolitical flashpoints. The contest has already begun to impose strains on fragile societies. These strains will intensify as strategists in Washington, Beijing and Canberra seek to further influence political developments in tiny, almost inaccessible island-states.
U.S. interests in the South Pacific run deep. The American naval presence in the region, originally dispatched to protect U.S. whalers, is 200 years old. American statesmen have long believed that the country’s security depends on U.S. power in the Pacific. President John Tyler extended the Monroe Doctrine to Hawaii in 1842; a century later the importance of the region was driven home by the brutal island warfare of World War II. Even in an era when many Americans want to limit the nation’s overseas commitments, voters and Washington strategists alike will remain focused on maintaining security and stability in the South Pacific.
For many years, the main diplomatic drama in the region revolved around the bidding war between Taipei and Beijing for diplomatic recognition. In exchange for aid packages, island-states would agree to recognize either Taiwan or the mainland. For small states without many goods to sell, diplomatic recognition turned out to be good business. Of the 17 countries world-wide that maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan, six are in the South or Central Pacific.
More recently, Beijing has intensified its courtship of Pacific island-states. Large investments and aid packages for countries like Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Fiji have alarmed Australia and New Zealand; additionally, China dangles the prospect of massive infrastructure aid for countries willing to participate in the Belt and Road Initiative. Tonga’s indebtedness to China amounts to nearly one-third of its GDP.
Some in the region welcome China’s new activism. A bidding war between Western nations and Beijing over sea lanes and naval bases, they reason, will be more lucrative than a mere contest over diplomatic prestige between Beijing and Taipei. Outsiders might be tempted to sneer at the venality of countries looking at geopolitics in this way, but the Pacific island nations cannot afford many scruples.
Fiji, for example, has a population of 926,000 citizens and a GDP of $4.9 billion according to the latest CIA World Factbook estimate. Yet it must provide infrastructure and basic services to 110 inhabited islands while monitoring a maritime territory that includes more than 200 uninhabited islands scattered across 486,000 square miles of sea. Kiribati, an archipelago north of Fiji, has a population of 109,000 distributed across an expanse of ocean twice the size of Alaska with a GDP of $197 million.
Good jobs on the islands are often hard to find. Young Pacific islanders who gain university education are often drawn to the bright lights of Sydney and Auckland, New Zealand. With little or no manufacturing capacity, the islands must import goods, from fuel to textiles and pharmaceuticals—usually at high cost, due to their distance from industrial centers. In these circumstances, the islands have every incentive to leverage their geographical position for financial and diplomatic advantage.
The priority in the U.S. and allied nations (including France and Britain, which still control territories in the region) must be to draw these countries into a stable and deepening relationship with the West while reducing the risk of crises and confrontations with China.
This will not always be easy. Economic development in countries like Papua New Guinea hinges on the exploitation of mineral resources. Papua New Guinea was ruled by Australia until 1975, but China’s role as a major export destination ensures that it will have a close relationship with Beijing. China’s willingness to finance the construction of ports and rail infrastructure makes that relationship likely to grow closer still.
Protecting U.S. interests in the South Pacific is neither the most difficult nor the most expensive task confronting American policymakers in a newly competitive world. But success will send an important signal to Beijing and beyond about Washington’s ability to respond effectively to the wider geopolitical consequences of China’s rise.
Failure will also be noted, and will come with a price.
Appeared in the March 19, 2019, print edition.
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March 20, 2019
By Phillip Orchard
How the Trade War Won’t End
Washington wants to cut a deal now, but Beijing is playing the long game.
The U.S. and China are circling ever closer to a trade deal. They just need to agree on how to make it mean something a year or two from now. In the weeks since U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to postpone the March 1 spike in tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods, enough progress has apparently been made that both sides are eyeing a “signing summit” between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping by June. This cautious optimism is fueled by several factors, from Beijing’s offer to nudge down the trade deficit by binging on U.S. energy and agriculture products, to new laws set to be approved this week that include expanded protections for foreign investors. Trump’s barely concealed urgency to give markets a boost by calling off the dogs is probably furthering hopes in Beijing.
But “ending” the trade war still appears to mean something quite different to each side. China, naturally, wants to put this whole unpleasantness behind it and to turn its full focus to its staggering domestic headaches, and is reportedly demanding that all tariffs be lifted immediately. The U.S., naturally, is wary of China’s history of backsliding on rigorously negotiated deals, and presumably aware that it would take Beijing years to implement some of the structural reforms Washington is demanding. Washington needs to hold on to at least some leverage to ensure that the Chinese follow through. As a result, the U.S. is reportedly offering only to lift tariffs incrementally (while Chinese counter-tariffs would be lifted immediately). What’s more, the U.S also wants snapback mechanisms in place to further discourage Beijing from backsliding.
In other words, the focus of the talks has evidently moved to the thorny issues of implementation and enforcement. This speaks to a core problem bedeviling U.S. aims in the matter: Given that U.S. tariffs are only one of many problems weighing on Beijing, can the U.S.-China trade dispute really be negotiated away?
Keeping to a Deal
Whether the U.S. has any real urgency beyond political interests to wrap up a deal depends on whether it believes its broader strategic aims merit the costs of the trade war. The U.S. economy is at the peak of the business cycle and will eventually come back to earth. And the diminishing returns of a tool as blunt as tariffs for forcing China to make systemic changes are starting to become clear. Already, according to the Institute of International Finance, Chinese counter-tariffs are costing U.S. exporters more than $3 billion per month. The higher cost of imports is falling primarily on U.S. consumers, with losses expected to approach $70 billion this year, according to two new authoritative studies. None of this is devastating to the U.S., but Washington can’t ignore the ghost of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff – which raised duties on 20,000 imported items and contributed to the severe economic deterioration of the Great Depression. Meanwhile, there’s no evidence suggesting Beijing is preparing to make the sweeping structural changes demanded by the U.S. To get everything it wants from Beijing, the U.S. would have to keep up the pressure for years – likely well into an economic downturn, and certainly during a key election year. Moreover, even if annual Chinese growth plummets to 3-4 percent, it will still be adding hundreds of billions of dollars in new consumption. The opportunity cost to U.S. exporters is steep.
If the U.S. deems the costs necessary to stunt China’s rise, then no deal is imminent. Otherwise, the U.S. has an interest in settling for quite a bit less up front. By agreeing to a limited deal, pairing relief from specific tariffs with implementation of select concessions by Beijing, Washington can gradually ease the burden on the U.S. entities hurting most – exporters, firms with supply chains routed through China, firms dependent on lower-cost Chinese inputs, and consumers. And it will still have other tools like export controls, investment restrictions and the embattled but still potent World Trade Organization dispute settlement courts with which to protect U.S. firms and target Chinese practices that pose the biggest long-term threat, particularly in the race for technological supremacy. Whether or not the current negotiations produce a substantive deal, U.S. pressure in these areas isn’t going away.
But to trade hawks in the Trump administration, the sense of urgency to get a deal risks undermining efforts to address the very real problem of post-deal implementation – and giving Beijing incentive to try to run out the clock on what it sees as an impatient president. (Beijing would be foolish to think the next U.S. administration will be fundamentally more dovish, but it’s reasonable to think political and economic complications in the coming years will weaken U.S. appetite for a sustained offensive.) China has a mixed history, at best, of implementing deals. If it had fulfilled all of its WTO obligations, after all, it wouldn’t be in this position in the first place.
Beijing is trapped between oft-conflicting imperatives: economic dynamism and social stability. Under Xi, it has routinely prioritized the latter, deepening state domination of the economy in ways that have provoked the U.S., but that also helped maintain steady employment and manage China’s immense internal financial risks. Tariffs are a far smaller problem for China than internal dysfunction. But the duties are making Beijing’s tightrope walk of internal reform ever more precarious. In all likelihood, China will agree to whatever it deems necessary to make the tariffs go away. But if keeping order necessitates cheating on its commitments and risking a backlash, Beijing won’t hesitate.
What the U.S. Can Do
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is trying to make it harder for Beijing to backslide in a couple ways. The U.S. is insisting that concessions from Beijing be as explicit and quantifiable as possible. (Lighthizer says the agreement will exceed 110 pages.) The easier it is to identify cheating, the greater the reputational costs for Beijing and the easier it will be for Washington to make the case to the U.S. public and allies that pressure be revived. There are two main problems here: One, the Chinese system is exceedingly opaque, especially given the dominance of state-owned enterprises. Two, implementation progress on the biggest issues – forced technological transfers and cyber theft, for example – can’t easily be quantified or monitored. Thus, the U.S. is also demanding the right to independently assess whether China is living up to what it considers the spirit of the deal – and to unilaterally reimpose tariffs, without retaliation, if it concludes Beijing is falling short.
Still, these sorts of measures can do only so much. Trade deals, like most international agreements, last only as long as each side is willing to comply, which is why they tend to work only when they are truly in both sides’ interests. Either way, it’s really hard to make them binding. There won’t be any trade cops to make arrests when there’s a violation. The U.S. isn’t going to threaten war to enforce this sort of deal. Nor can the U.S. really take too much reassurance from measures like China’s new foreign ownership law, which would ostensibly help address the issue of forced technology transfers. The new law is vague, and Beijing has only so much ability and interest to enforce it at a granular level. (Trade lawyers say tech transfer typically happens willingly, often by foreign firms that are desperate for funding or that simply failed to adequately protect themselves under existing Chinese laws.) And when it comes to core technologies Beijing deems critical for initiatives like next-generation military applications, all bets are off. Law in China is applied only to the extent that it serves the Communist Party’s interests.
This isn’t to say China won’t have reasons beyond the lure of tariff relief to continue to comply. A lot of what Beijing will likely concede is fairly low-hanging fruit. For example, it’s expected to pledge to refrain from artificially weakening its currency (currently, it’s trying to keep the yuan from collapsing) and to buy more U.S. goods (items it needs to import anyway). Its measures to improve intellectual property protections, meanwhile, are needed to reassure spooked foreign investors, ease discontent among domestic private firms fed up with their state-owned counterparts, and further erode the U.S. business community’s support for the trade war. Countries often use trade agreements to bring recalcitrant domestic players obstructing needed reforms into line. And Beijing has a real need to repair its image abroad. The trade war has triggered a slow-motion stampede to the exits by foreign firms in the country, while also intensifying the spotlight on internal practices, deterring new investment. It’ll be dealing with the fallout of this for years and has ample reason to let the U.S. lose interest.
But structural reforms like ending industrial subsidies and scaling back the state’s role in the economy would be an order of magnitude trickier for Beijing to implement. These issues also happen to be at the heart of U.S. grievances. Even if the U.S. can pressure China into including concessions in these areas in the deal, it will be an exceedingly wobbly deal, however many pages it runs.
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I disagree in part.
"Given that U.S. tariffs are only one of many problems weighing on Beijing, can the U.S.-China trade dispute really be negotiated away?"
Yes it can. If we only succeed in part, that part can amount to millions, billions or trillions. We will be far better off with partial success than where we were before this trade war started, a Trump accomplishment and a big bump in the economy. China is better off in some ways too, with an end to the crisis and being legitimized instead of being the scapegoat called out constantly for unfair practices. Strangely, domestic politics matters in dictatorships too.
China used these unfair policies to jump to being the world's second largest economy. To go further, the unfair advantage needs at least some reform.
Free trade is possible because it benefits both sides. That's why real reductions in tariffs are possible.
The old system, mercantilism(?), is gone. Trump can't turn back now, or take a faux agreement to save face. Neither can his successor. Trade toughness and tariffs actually have more natural support in the Democratic party. Democrats don't really like trade and they love tariffs which are taxes and revenues in the US. Can Xi really see the US Dem nominee running on a platform of lowering taxes or running to hand China back their unfair advantage? Or will the Dem nominee promise to be tougher than Trump on China? On that count Xi is better off dealing with this now.
I opposed picking this fight and found some of Trump's claims false or misleading. Trade deficits by themselves aren't bad. But there is truth in this too, China's higher tariffs, technology theft and forced technology transfers are undeniable. Going back to the old way isn't an option. China's best option is to cut their best deal now.
I calculated that the danger of escalation hurts China 6 times more than it hurts the US based on reliance of each economy on the exports to the other country. We can recalculate that all we want but the difference in impact is gigantic, yuge.
A deal can be made and kept, not perfectly, but to put us in a far better position than we were in before. Trade enforcement is not nuclear weapon enforcement. How do you hide charging more than the tariff rate for a tariff? If you cheat on banned nuclear weapons, you have the nuclear weapons and become less likely to be attacked. Not so with tariffs, you face immediate tariff 'snapback', again, with 6 times more power. If you break a new Chinese law to stop forced technology transfers, then we have a Chinese company is breaking a Chinese law. That is better than where we were, something that can be addressed.
Try this for enforcement: If a US company hands away protected technology to a Chinese company, they lose patent protection for that technology in the US - and around the world. Have we got your attention?
From the Article: "Beijing would be foolish to think the next U.S. administration will be fundamentally more dovish [on trade]"
Regarding the long game, how long is Trump's term? Assuming he loses in 2020, he has about a year before going lame duck. If he wins, he has 5 years plus. China doesn't have an economic plan that includes putting growth on a 5 year delay. Current leadership has never experienced a downturn and don't wish to start now. Some think China's economy rests on a house of cards, of debt in particular, also based on false and exaggerated economic reporting. (From the article, "China’s immense internal financial risks") The current challenges for the regime are exacerbated by this trade crisis. Trump is asking for nothing more than parity. Having it solved is an advantage for both sides. The Chinese regime looks better domestically and around the world with the American President bragging about the new fairness (he caused) in China than of their cheating. Their economic numbers will be better too.
Yes they will cheat and yes they will still be our rival, our adversary, our enemy. But making real improvement is a win for the US, for our economy and for Trump to have called them out on what no other candidate or President would have even attempted.
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I am of more than one point of view on all this-- here is one of them :lol:
Between the squeeze for the South China Sea (including the apparent purchase of the Philippine president) the BRI, the String of Pearls, the theft of our military and high tech technology, our debt payments financing the Chinese military, our lag in 5G, our lag in hypersonic missile technology, having of our country having lost its fg mind geopolitically as well as domestically, and various other matters the long term trends are ominous.
China is now in the position that the US was in with regard to international capital flows that enabled us to supplant the British Empire and post WW2 take command of the international order. Witness China's play in Iran, Africa, Venezuela and elsewhere in Latin America.
TRADE IS NOT DIVISIBLE FROM THE OTHER ISSUES. This is our last and best chance of stopping the Chinese drive to dominance.
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Profound wisdom there Marc. Great takeoff point for a youtube rant or podcast...
Ominous, but the current process brings a ray of hope.
"TRADE IS NOT DIVISIBLE FROM THE OTHER ISSUES. This is our last and best chance of stopping the Chinese drive to dominance."
It is "our last and best chance" - > and we are finally doing it!
Indivisible from the other issues means that getting the trade agreement is a start at countering the other challenges and threats that China poses.
I am more optimistic.
A Pacific contest will involve/ include allies. The US is in a better position to make good alliances (IMHO), Japan, India, Singapore, Taiwan if necessary, Australia, and others hopefully. Balance of naval military power in the Pacific . South China Sea region should not be limited to the US standing up to China. If others aren't involved, who are we defending?
Back to the point that trade is indivisible from other factors: Because of that, when free trade is flowing dynamically in both directions and China is more prosperous and a bigger consumer of future American products, the relationship IMHO becomes way too intertwined to have a real war. Unlike envies in the lead up to past wars, we have zero interest in conquering any Chinese land to plant our flag there, and vice versa.
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controls 30% of market
no US makers of 5G equipment
Germans don't care :
https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-login-5268a8f9-192d-49fd-a2e9-1eea9abed2d0.html?chunk=3&utm_term=emshare#story3
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-28/trump-s-gunboats-test-xi-s-red-lines-as-china-talks-grind-on
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The Big Picture
Tensions across the Taiwan Strait have escalated over the past two years due to Beijing's increasingly aggressive military posture regarding its territorial claims over Taiwan. For its part, the United States has more assertively challenged China over Taiwan. This situation could lead to more standoffs and close calls in maritime hot spots between Taiwanese and U.S. forces on one side and Chinese forces on the other.
See Global Trends section of the 2019 Annual Forecast
What Happened
Two Chinese J-11 fighter jets crossed the cross-strait median, the de facto maritime border between China and Taiwan, the morning of March 31, Taiwanese officials said. When the Chinese fighters failed to change course after being hailed by the Taiwanese, they were met by Taiwanese interceptors. Even so, the Chinese fighter jets continued the incursion for about 10 minutes. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen labeled the incursion "reckless and provocative" and called for the "forceful expulsion" of Chinese warplanes should they cross the line again.
Why It Matters
The encounter marks one of the most serious incursions by People's Liberation Army Air Force fighter jets on the Taiwanese side of the maritime border this century. Chinese jets flew across the cross-strait median frequently until 1999, when both sides tacitly agreed to halt the practice. Rare subsequent Chinese crossings were largely deemed accidental.
The duration of the latest incursion implies it was intentional, and it reflects increased tensions between China and Taiwan and in the broader U.S.-China geopolitical struggle.
The incursion might be an effort by Beijing to test Taipei's response, or to compel Taipei to seek negotiations on avoiding escalations from such encounters.
China's apparent ending of the informal nonincursion agreement might be an effort to test Taipei's response, and it could compel Taipei to seek negotiations on avoiding escalations from such encounters. It could result in Taiwanese fighters making their own incursions on the west side of the line, which in turn could lead to a cycle of tit-for-tat provocations coming amid already-tense cross-strait relations. Unsurprisingly, Beijing is more likely to avoid potentially dangerous escalations with the United States, but increased hostile encounters in the Taiwan Strait could draw Washington in deeper anyway.
Background
Cross-strait relations have deteriorated since Tsai took office in 2016, with Beijing using pressure tactics including threats of military action to try to assert its claims over Taiwan. The government of U.S. President Donald Trump has meanwhile stepped up its support to Taipei, which has included more U.S. naval patrols in the Taiwan Strait and efforts to regularize arms sales to Taipei. In March, the Trump administration gave preliminary approval to Taiwan's request to buy more than 60 more modern F-16s. The Chinese response to more U.S. naval patrols and to arms sales to Taiwan can be expected to include increased Chinese maritime patrols and exercises in and across the Taiwan Strait.
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Tension Over the Taiwan Strait
More evidence that the U.S. ally needs F-16V jets to deter China.
By The Editorial Board
April 1, 2019 7:05 p.m. ET
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen speaks during a military award ceremony at the Presidential office in Taipei, April 1. Photo: /Associated Press
Two Chinese J-11 fighter jets crossed the Taiwan Strait’s “median line” on Sunday, stoking a 10-minute standoff with Taiwanese jets in the island’s airspace. Taipei’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the incident “intentional, reckless, and provocative,” and it underscores why President Trump should bolster Taiwan’s defenses with a sale of American F-16s.
Taiwanese media called the incursion the first since 2011, and the one eight years ago was considered an accident. Chinese planes have skirted the island’s airspace for years with little consequence, and Sunday’s deeper breach underscores the danger of that impunity.
Beijing is smarting from the voyage a week ago of a U.S. Navy destroyer and Coast Guard cutter through the Strait, as well as President Tsai Ing-wen’s speech in Hawaii a few days later. Speaking via video link to the Heritage Foundation, Ms. Tsai confirmed her government’s request to buy American M-1 Abrams tanks and F-16V fighters.
The Chinese may hope Sunday’s escalation will convince Washington that its support for Taiwan’s democracy isn’t worth the risks. This strategy has worked for decades to convince American Presidents not to sell fighters to Taiwan, and the island’s forces are now heavily outnumbered. Taiwan has 144 fourth-generation F-16s from the 1990s compared to 600 fourth-generation planes on the Chinese side, an advantage that has made Beijing more aggressive.
News reports say the Administration is close to accepting Taiwan’s request for some 60 F-16Vs, which are more advanced than the island’s existing fleet and would provide meaningful deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. Such a sale would “show to the world the U.S. commitment to Taiwan’s defense,” as Ms. Tsai said last week. America’s Pacific allies want to know how Mr. Trump will respond to Chinese aggression, and Taiwan is his most important test.
Appeared in the April 2, 2019, print edition.
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To be fair, US policies toward China were in place and defective long before Barack Obama was President. But while the US under Obama was under-performed our potential during the post-crash period by 200 or 300%, our chief rival was growing gangbusters. Scott Grannis calls the stagnant US Obama-era economy compared with its long term average the "GDP Gap", with the area under the curve now amounting to tens of trillions of dollars, more than the entire US government debt.
Meanwhile 'communist' China invested and grew, if not catching and surpassing us, making that a very real possibility. This article in the South China Morning Post reports on China's phenomenal growth during that time. My question is outside the scope of this article; why did the US stand still while our main economic (and military) rival was energized on steroids? Although largely unreported, the American people knew this and changed course.
https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3004415/chinas-decade-extraordinary-growth-2008-lost-its-critics
"China's economy tripled in size from 2008-2018,"
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Doug: Adjusting for bias and inaccuracies in China's economic reporting, the growth was still phenomenal while the growth in the US was pathetic. We were doing cash for clunkers, solyndra and 'shovel ready jobs' while they were invested in major targeted industries.
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/2189052/china-exaggerated-gdp-data-2-percentage-points-least-nine
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Fair points all AND
Chinese numbers are highly suspect. Buildings built empty etc. Loans that have no meaningful collateral carried on books, etc. The country is a toxic dump, etc
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second post
U.S. deployments in the Western Pacific. According to Japanese media, a U.S. Air Force RC-135S Cobra Ball, a reconnaissance aircraft designed to monitor ballistic missile launches, arrived in Japan over the weekend amid speculation that North Korea is planning to resume missile testing. U.S. Marines also deployed 14 aircraft to South Korea for joint exercises and an amphibious assault ship carrying 10 F-35Bs (more than such ships can usually carry) to the South China Sea. And according to the South China Morning Post, the U.S. and Philippines are in talks over the possible deployment of a U.S. rocket system to help the Philippines boost its defense capabilities against Chinese expansion in the South China Sea.
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https://www.npr.org/2019/04/12/711779130/as-china-hacked-u-s-businesses-turned-a-blind-eye?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits
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https://thediplomat.com/2019/04/major-us-army-exercise-to-focus-on-south-china-sea/?fbclid=IwAR1vvs7KrUeUk0Apr9qZGAYlkQve1WOIP86_gk-5A8SOHKWW-kXD2U1cggg
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By Phillip Orchard
Taiwan: More Than a US Friend of Convenience
U.S. assurances to Taiwan are intentionally vague. U.S. interests in Taiwan are crystal clear.
Last Wednesday marked the 40th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act – the U.S. law shaping de facto diplomatic relations between Washington and Taipei. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen celebrated the occasion by doing what most of her predecessors have often found themselves having to do: exhorting the U.S. to prove that it still “considers the security of Taiwan vital to the defense of democracy.” This comes amid Taipei’s latest push for a tangible demonstration of U.S. commitment to Taiwanese security, this time by approving the sale of more than 60 F-16 fighter jets to the self-ruled island, which China considers a renegade province.
Taiwan hasn’t lacked for attention under the Trump administration. Two months before Donald Trump even took office, he took an infamous phone call from the Taiwanese leader, violating decades of protocol and antagonizing Beijing, but effectively acknowledging that the game of diplomatic make-believe around the issue of Taiwan had become rather silly. In early 2018, the U.S. Congress passed legislation allowing the resumption of high-level official visits between Washington and Taipei that became taboo after 1979. In March, a U.S. warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait for the fifth time in six months.
(click to enlarge)
Yet, with the balance of power between Taiwan and China shifting dramatically in the latter’s favor, and with Beijing repeatedly declaring its intent to reunify (by force, if necessary), Taipei’s perpetual unease is understandable. After all, Washington designed the Taiwan Relations Act to give itself ample flexibility to reinterpret the law if changes in the broader strategic environment necessitated it. Forty years later, in other words, Taiwan’s fate is still tied firmly to a superpower an ocean away that Taipei suspects could someday conclude that it has bigger fish to fry. But that day won’t arrive anytime soon.
A Diplomatic Dilemma
The Taiwan Relations Act was an inelegant but effective fix to a diplomatic dilemma that started with President Richard Nixon’s landmark trip to China in 1972. At the time, the strategic interests of Beijing and Washington were converging. The U.S. wanted China to stop meddling in Vietnam and, more important, to cooperate against the Soviets. China, which had fought a major battle with the Soviets along the Siberian border a decade earlier and feared additional attacks, was inclined to coordinate with Washington against the Soviets.
But Washington struggled to appease both China and Taiwan, and so the normalization process with Beijing dragged on for another seven years as the U.S. tried to come up with a way to let both sides save face and preserve the cross-strait status quo. Since China was too weak to retake Taiwan by force – and since Beijing was demanding few substantive changes to U.S.-Taiwanese defense or trade ties – Washington was happy to endorse the “one China” policy and shift diplomatic recognition to Beijing. It was easy enough to close its embassy in Taiwan and reopen it as the American Institute in Taiwan, a nongovernmental organization that happened to be manned by U.S. diplomats (and, since 2005, U.S. military personnel).
Somewhat more problematic, Washington also had to formally pull out of the 1954 Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, which meant that it needed a mechanism to maintain military ties with a government in Taipei it no longer recognized as legitimate. The solution, introduced in Congress less than two months after U.S. diplomatic ties shifted to the mainland, was the Taiwan Relations Act.
The act includes two key passages. Both are notably vague in keeping with the U.S. principle of “strategic ambiguity,” which allows the U.S. to avoid military entanglements not of its choosing. (Formal U.S. mutual defense treaties are likewise imbued with this principle.)
The first passage describes how the U.S. would respond to an attack on Taiwan: “[The U.S. will] consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States.” This isn’t exactly an ironclad commitment. Every U.S. administration since President Jimmy Carter has sought to augment this clause with various clarifications and promises intended to reassure Taipei, but its ambiguity continues to make Taiwan uneasy.
For the U.S., however, balance and flexibility have remained the priorities. President Ronald Reagan, for example, gave Taipei his “Six Assurances,” promising, among other things, to continue arming Taipei without asking first for permission from Beijing. But he also committed in the “Third Communique” with Beijing to gradually reduce arms sales to Taiwan. The Clinton administration, focused firmly on boosting economic ties with Beijing, reinterpreted the act to allow for further international isolation of Taiwan, and then sent a carrier group into the Taiwan Strait in 1996, humiliating Beijing, in response to a series of Chinese drills simulating an invasion.
The second key passage in the act is intended, in part, to avoid ever having to decide whether to come to Taiwan’s rescue in the first place: “The United States will make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.” Since 1979, the U.S. has sold Taiwan more than $25 billion in arms. Still, what’s sufficient for Taiwanese self-defense is open to interpretation. What Taipei thinks Taiwan needs and what Washington thinks Taiwan needs have, at times, differed widely. Ultimately, it’s up to Congress and the White House to make that determination. And the U.S. inevitably has myriad factors to look at when considering an arms sale to the self-ruled island. The U.S. is wary, for example, of giving Taipei cutting-edge technology because of Taiwan’s extreme vulnerability to Chinese espionage. More broadly, the U.S. is constantly either at odds with Beijing or in need of Chinese cooperation on one issue or another. Reagan’s assurances notwithstanding, the timing and scope of arms sales to Taiwan will inevitably be seen as something of a U.S. bargaining chip with Beijing – especially in an environment where a Chinese invasion appears a pipe dream.
Island Bliss
Taiwan has geography on its side, and it’s a technological powerhouse in its own right. So it doesn’t need the full weight of U.S. power on its side to keep China at bay. (Early on, in fact, the U.S. was worried about giving Taiwan too much, lest Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang try to restart the Chinese civil war.) A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be exceedingly difficult. It doesn’t matter how many troops, arms and supplies the Chinese army can amass on the shores of Fujian province across the Taiwan Strait. To invade Taiwan, China would need the bulk of its forces to get into boats and make an eight-hour voyage into the teeth of Taiwanese firepower coming from well-entrenched, well-supplied onshore positions. They would be funneled into just a handful of acceptable landing zones and met by as many as 2.5 million well-armed troops and thousands of armored fighting vehicles and self-propelled artillery. China’s army is almost entirely bereft of experience with amphibious operations in a modern combat environment. Amphibious war requires extraordinarily complex coordination between air, land and sea forces, especially with logistics. An enormous number of things must go right for China to succeed, and the political risks of failure would be sky high.
Still, for Beijing, reunification is a matter of when, not if. Politically, Taiwan is a perpetual scar on the Communist Party’s narratives about the communist victory in the Chinese civil war, and the party routinely nurtures grievances about foreign meddling in Taipei to curry nationalist support for its right to rule. Strategically, so long as the U.S. can pair its superior naval and aerial capabilities with bases and allied support along what’s known as the first island chain – Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia – it poses a threat to block sea lanes that are critical to China’s export-dependent economy. And more than any other island in this chain, Taiwan could be used by a foreign power to threaten the Chinese mainland itself. Retaking Taiwan would blow a hole in the U.S. containment strategy – and put China in a more enviable position to threaten Japan’s southwestern islands.
(click to enlarge)
Thus, the possibility that the U.S. (along with allies like Japan) may, in fact, intervene on Taiwan’s behalf is, more than anything else, preserving the status quo. And Taiwan does have some reason to question the continued willingness of the U.S. to do so. While China may still be incapable of mounting an invasion with an acceptable chance of success, much less going toe-to-toe with the U.S. in open waters, it is developing the capabilities to make it increasingly costly for the U.S. to go to battle closer to the mainland. Unlike other U.S. allies like the Philippines and Japan, Taiwan is located well within range of China’s growing “fortress fleet” of onshore anti-ship missiles, air power and swarming maritime forces.
But the fact remains: Control of the Pacific is important enough to the U.S. that Taiwan can neither be left to its own devices nor bargained away. Strategic ambiguity cuts both ways; the U.S. doesn’t have to convince Beijing that it will intervene, just that it might and that it can. And for the time being, at least, the U.S. can defend Taiwan without putting its surface ships at risk, much less bringing its own amphibious forces into the fray. U.S. missiles and air power could pick off amphibious forces like sitting ducks and impose severe retaliatory costs on the mainland, while the vastly superior U.S. (and Japanese) submarine fleets thwart a Chinese blockade.
Ultimately, to take Taiwan, China has to think it’s ready to take the entire Western Pacific. China does not think it will be ready for this for decades to come. Until then, it’ll be stuck fruitlessly trying to coerce Taipei back into the fold via economic and political coercion. Thus, Taipei is largely in the same situation it was in 1979: anxious, isolated and comfortably secure.
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Nuclear Taiwan flips the script and allows for a de-nuclearized North Korea.
By Phillip Orchard
Taiwan: More Than a US Friend of Convenience
U.S. assurances to Taiwan are intentionally vague. U.S. interests in Taiwan are crystal clear.
Last Wednesday marked the 40th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act – the U.S. law shaping de facto diplomatic relations between Washington and Taipei. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen celebrated the occasion by doing what most of her predecessors have often found themselves having to do: exhorting the U.S. to prove that it still “considers the security of Taiwan vital to the defense of democracy.” This comes amid Taipei’s latest push for a tangible demonstration of U.S. commitment to Taiwanese security, this time by approving the sale of more than 60 F-16 fighter jets to the self-ruled island, which China considers a renegade province.
Taiwan hasn’t lacked for attention under the Trump administration. Two months before Donald Trump even took office, he took an infamous phone call from the Taiwanese leader, violating decades of protocol and antagonizing Beijing, but effectively acknowledging that the game of diplomatic make-believe around the issue of Taiwan had become rather silly. In early 2018, the U.S. Congress passed legislation allowing the resumption of high-level official visits between Washington and Taipei that became taboo after 1979. In March, a U.S. warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait for the fifth time in six months.
(click to enlarge)
Yet, with the balance of power between Taiwan and China shifting dramatically in the latter’s favor, and with Beijing repeatedly declaring its intent to reunify (by force, if necessary), Taipei’s perpetual unease is understandable. After all, Washington designed the Taiwan Relations Act to give itself ample flexibility to reinterpret the law if changes in the broader strategic environment necessitated it. Forty years later, in other words, Taiwan’s fate is still tied firmly to a superpower an ocean away that Taipei suspects could someday conclude that it has bigger fish to fry. But that day won’t arrive anytime soon.
A Diplomatic Dilemma
The Taiwan Relations Act was an inelegant but effective fix to a diplomatic dilemma that started with President Richard Nixon’s landmark trip to China in 1972. At the time, the strategic interests of Beijing and Washington were converging. The U.S. wanted China to stop meddling in Vietnam and, more important, to cooperate against the Soviets. China, which had fought a major battle with the Soviets along the Siberian border a decade earlier and feared additional attacks, was inclined to coordinate with Washington against the Soviets.
But Washington struggled to appease both China and Taiwan, and so the normalization process with Beijing dragged on for another seven years as the U.S. tried to come up with a way to let both sides save face and preserve the cross-strait status quo. Since China was too weak to retake Taiwan by force – and since Beijing was demanding few substantive changes to U.S.-Taiwanese defense or trade ties – Washington was happy to endorse the “one China” policy and shift diplomatic recognition to Beijing. It was easy enough to close its embassy in Taiwan and reopen it as the American Institute in Taiwan, a nongovernmental organization that happened to be manned by U.S. diplomats (and, since 2005, U.S. military personnel).
Somewhat more problematic, Washington also had to formally pull out of the 1954 Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, which meant that it needed a mechanism to maintain military ties with a government in Taipei it no longer recognized as legitimate. The solution, introduced in Congress less than two months after U.S. diplomatic ties shifted to the mainland, was the Taiwan Relations Act.
The act includes two key passages. Both are notably vague in keeping with the U.S. principle of “strategic ambiguity,” which allows the U.S. to avoid military entanglements not of its choosing. (Formal U.S. mutual defense treaties are likewise imbued with this principle.)
The first passage describes how the U.S. would respond to an attack on Taiwan: “[The U.S. will] consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States.” This isn’t exactly an ironclad commitment. Every U.S. administration since President Jimmy Carter has sought to augment this clause with various clarifications and promises intended to reassure Taipei, but its ambiguity continues to make Taiwan uneasy.
For the U.S., however, balance and flexibility have remained the priorities. President Ronald Reagan, for example, gave Taipei his “Six Assurances,” promising, among other things, to continue arming Taipei without asking first for permission from Beijing. But he also committed in the “Third Communique” with Beijing to gradually reduce arms sales to Taiwan. The Clinton administration, focused firmly on boosting economic ties with Beijing, reinterpreted the act to allow for further international isolation of Taiwan, and then sent a carrier group into the Taiwan Strait in 1996, humiliating Beijing, in response to a series of Chinese drills simulating an invasion.
The second key passage in the act is intended, in part, to avoid ever having to decide whether to come to Taiwan’s rescue in the first place: “The United States will make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.” Since 1979, the U.S. has sold Taiwan more than $25 billion in arms. Still, what’s sufficient for Taiwanese self-defense is open to interpretation. What Taipei thinks Taiwan needs and what Washington thinks Taiwan needs have, at times, differed widely. Ultimately, it’s up to Congress and the White House to make that determination. And the U.S. inevitably has myriad factors to look at when considering an arms sale to the self-ruled island. The U.S. is wary, for example, of giving Taipei cutting-edge technology because of Taiwan’s extreme vulnerability to Chinese espionage. More broadly, the U.S. is constantly either at odds with Beijing or in need of Chinese cooperation on one issue or another. Reagan’s assurances notwithstanding, the timing and scope of arms sales to Taiwan will inevitably be seen as something of a U.S. bargaining chip with Beijing – especially in an environment where a Chinese invasion appears a pipe dream.
Island Bliss
Taiwan has geography on its side, and it’s a technological powerhouse in its own right. So it doesn’t need the full weight of U.S. power on its side to keep China at bay. (Early on, in fact, the U.S. was worried about giving Taiwan too much, lest Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang try to restart the Chinese civil war.) A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be exceedingly difficult. It doesn’t matter how many troops, arms and supplies the Chinese army can amass on the shores of Fujian province across the Taiwan Strait. To invade Taiwan, China would need the bulk of its forces to get into boats and make an eight-hour voyage into the teeth of Taiwanese firepower coming from well-entrenched, well-supplied onshore positions. They would be funneled into just a handful of acceptable landing zones and met by as many as 2.5 million well-armed troops and thousands of armored fighting vehicles and self-propelled artillery. China’s army is almost entirely bereft of experience with amphibious operations in a modern combat environment. Amphibious war requires extraordinarily complex coordination between air, land and sea forces, especially with logistics. An enormous number of things must go right for China to succeed, and the political risks of failure would be sky high.
Still, for Beijing, reunification is a matter of when, not if. Politically, Taiwan is a perpetual scar on the Communist Party’s narratives about the communist victory in the Chinese civil war, and the party routinely nurtures grievances about foreign meddling in Taipei to curry nationalist support for its right to rule. Strategically, so long as the U.S. can pair its superior naval and aerial capabilities with bases and allied support along what’s known as the first island chain – Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia – it poses a threat to block sea lanes that are critical to China’s export-dependent economy. And more than any other island in this chain, Taiwan could be used by a foreign power to threaten the Chinese mainland itself. Retaking Taiwan would blow a hole in the U.S. containment strategy – and put China in a more enviable position to threaten Japan’s southwestern islands.
(click to enlarge)
Thus, the possibility that the U.S. (along with allies like Japan) may, in fact, intervene on Taiwan’s behalf is, more than anything else, preserving the status quo. And Taiwan does have some reason to question the continued willingness of the U.S. to do so. While China may still be incapable of mounting an invasion with an acceptable chance of success, much less going toe-to-toe with the U.S. in open waters, it is developing the capabilities to make it increasingly costly for the U.S. to go to battle closer to the mainland. Unlike other U.S. allies like the Philippines and Japan, Taiwan is located well within range of China’s growing “fortress fleet” of onshore anti-ship missiles, air power and swarming maritime forces.
But the fact remains: Control of the Pacific is important enough to the U.S. that Taiwan can neither be left to its own devices nor bargained away. Strategic ambiguity cuts both ways; the U.S. doesn’t have to convince Beijing that it will intervene, just that it might and that it can. And for the time being, at least, the U.S. can defend Taiwan without putting its surface ships at risk, much less bringing its own amphibious forces into the fray. U.S. missiles and air power could pick off amphibious forces like sitting ducks and impose severe retaliatory costs on the mainland, while the vastly superior U.S. (and Japanese) submarine fleets thwart a Chinese blockade.
Ultimately, to take Taiwan, China has to think it’s ready to take the entire Western Pacific. China does not think it will be ready for this for decades to come. Until then, it’ll be stuck fruitlessly trying to coerce Taipei back into the fold via economic and political coercion. Thus, Taipei is largely in the same situation it was in 1979: anxious, isolated and comfortably secure.
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quote author=G M:
"Nuclear Taiwan flips the script and allows for a de-nuclearized North Korea."
The idea of a nuclear Taiwan might quickly go from a bargaining chip to a reality and it is China's fault. They could have quashed the nuclear threat in N.K. and they are openly threatening the entire region, especially Taiwan, with their words, their military buildup and provocative actions.
If I were China I would pretend to be more peace seeking and cooperative. I don't think they are such great strategists.
The "inevitable" "reunification" is 75 years behind schedule. They missed their best chance under President O.
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Enabling Taiwan to go nuke presents some REAL interesting scenarios :-o :-o :-o
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Enabling Taiwan to go nuke presents some REAL interesting scenarios :-o :-o :-o
The reality is that Taiwan or Japan is quite capable of going nuclear without our assistance or permission.
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Enabling Taiwan to go nuke presents some REAL interesting scenarios :-o :-o :-o
Yes. One scenario I see is to make the scheduled re-unification date: never. Two, DPRK threat neutralized. Three, an end to the PRC acting like they rule the whole region.
There have been no nuclear weapon use deaths since 1945. The main effect of Taiwan going nuclear IMHO will be what will NOT happen because of greatly increased deterrence.
What scenarios were you thinking?
The reality is that Taiwan or Japan is quite capable of going nuclear without our assistance or permission.
I agree. They are both technologically far ahead of other regimes that have gone nuclear. My guess would be that the only nuclear challenge for both is political.
Adding these two countries plus maybe Australia to the nuclear club would make the region and world safer, IMHO. Try running those Russia vs US or China vs US war game simulations again with India, Japan, UK, France, Taiwan, Israel and Australia (hopefully) on our side and maybe the outcome changes. Nothing brings security like deterrence.
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Gearing up to go nuclear takes time AND is detectable. China is not likely to sit back and let it happen.
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Gearing up to go nuclear takes time AND is detectable. China is not likely to sit back and let it happen.
Detectable, like when Pakistan did it and our IC learned about it on CNN? Apartheid South Africa and Israel became nuclear powers decade ago.
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Fair points, but no one was watching them with the technology and sense of purpose that the Chinese now watch Taiwan.
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https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/04/global-trove-rare-earth-metals-found-japans-deep-sea-mud
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14068/china-aggression-south-china-sea
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Apr 23, 2019 | 10:30 GMT
11 mins read
China Encroaches on Australia's Backyard
One of Fiji's many islands. Fiji is one of the four independent countries that make up the Melanesian subregion of the Pacific Islands. The other three include Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
China's increasing economic ties to Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Vanuatu are threatening Australia and New Zealand's historic grasp on the Pacific island subregion of Melanesia.
In coordination with the United States, both Australia and New Zealand will deploy their subregional heft and longstanding diplomatic, economic and defense ties to counter Beijing's efforts and, in turn, maintain their prominent role among the island countries.
But China's infrastructure largesse and massive market for raw materials, along with its ambitions in the greater region, will solidify Beijing's presence in Melanesia — challenging the broader U.S. strategic hold on the South Pacific in the process.
On the world stage, Australia ranks as a middle power at best. But among the islands of the Pacific Ocean, Australia is almost a superpower — serving as a major source of aid, a hungry market and a stalwart defense ally for these tiny nations. This is especially true in the subregion of Melanesia, which has long been a key backstop for U.S. dominance in the Asia-Pacific. Australia and New Zealand each have a strong incentive to bolster Washington's power in the subregion both to amplify their own positions on the world stage and prevent security threats to their respective countries.
But China's increasing presence in Melanesia's resource-rich economies and infrastructure outlays, along with signs of nascent military ambitions in the area, are now threatening Australia's and New Zealand's preeminence in the region — and, by extension, that of the United States. The U.S. allies have attempted to stem China's spread by leveraging their historic large outlays of aid and defense assistance, as well as their regional diplomatic role. But Australia's own economic ties with China, as well as increasing internal pressures to cut international aid, will restrict Canberra's ability to counter Beijing — opening the door for a more permanent Chinese presence in the Pacific Islands.
The Big Picture
In our 2019 Annual Forecast, Stratfor highlighted the role of U.S. allies in the intensifying great power competition between the United States and China. The Pacific subregion of Melanesia is one such area where this dynamic is now on full display. The United States has long relied on Australia and New Zealand to check its rivals in the Pacific Islands. But China's recent rise in Melanesia is providing opportunities for these small island nations to play the great powers off each other.
Melanesia is one of three subregions of the Pacific Islands, along with Micronesia and Polynesia. In addition to Australian and French holdings, the subregion is home to four independent countries: Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Fiji and Papua New Guinea.
Papua New Guinea is by far the largest country in Melanesia, both in terms of landmass and population. With an economy based on mineral and hydrocarbon exports, Papua New Guinea also boasts the third-highest gross domestic product in the Pacific behind New Zealand and the U.S. state of Hawaii. Fiji, however, has the most developed economy in the subregion, based in manufacturing. And all of Melanesia, including Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands, have more capacity for economic self-sufficiently than their smaller peers elsewhere in the Pacific.
But in order to exploit their land and maritime resources, the countries of Melanesia require sizable investment, access to large markets and infrastructure assistance, as well as defense aid to ensure stability and police their extensive waters. This means Melanesian nations must seek larger powers to act as patrons — a role that has historically been filled by Australia and New Zealand, due to the threats the islands pose to their security.
At the narrowest point of the Torres Strait, Papua New Guinea is just 150 kilometers (roughly 93 miles) from the Australian mainland, while the more far flung Melanesian islands all front Australia's densely populated and economically vital east coast. Along with Australia, the British Empire's reign in the Pacific encompassed Fiji, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands for much of its history. Then after World War I, Australia inherited rule over what is now Papua New Guinea from British and German imperial control — largely administering the country from 1919 until it gained independence in 1975. Today, all of these countries remain in the British Commonwealth alongside Australia, which still presides over three external territories in Melanesia: Norfolk, Phillip and Nepean islands.
A Security Stronghold
In the broader U.S. strategic map of the Pacific, Melanesia overlaps with the so-called second island chain, which extends south from Japan through Micronesia to Papua New Guinea. During World War II, Melanesia was the starting point of the northern thrust of the U.S. island-hopping campaign to defeat imperial Japan, which had sought to use the islands' position to sever transit between the United States and Australia and New Zealand.
But while Melanesia is just one of Washington's many adjuncts to the broader Pacific, the subregion serves as crucial security foothold for Australia. Australia's larger defense strategy rests on two pillars: The first, called "forward defense," consists of supporting the United States and its allies in sometimes distant conflicts to ensure global order and to secure Washington's support in return, should Canberra ever come under threat. And the second, called "continental defense," focuses on defending Australia's maritime approaches, many of which run through the ocean surrounding Melanesia.
During World War II, Japan's invasion of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia sparked fears that Australia would be next. And the 1970s brought concern that the decolonizing countries of Melanesia would become targets for Soviet expansion. But even without the contingency of a military invasion, the proximity of the islands to Australia means that unrest or instability can bring refugees to the country by sea or compel a messy intervention.
To this end, Australia — and to a lesser extent, New Zealand — have long operated as Melanesia's prime beneficiaries. Both founding members of the premier regional coordinating body, the Pacific Islands Forum, these two countries help bankroll all of the major regional cooperation organizations. Australia has also played a defense role in Melanesia and the broader Pacific islands by providing patrol vessels, training, infrastructure and arms sales.
China's Rise
However, China's precipitous economic rise and growing clout in the Pacific have begun to impinge on Australia and New Zealand's historic maritime domain. Between 2011 and 2018, China's total committed aid to the entire Pacific Islands region was second only to Australia's.
In addition to serving as a valuable source of hydrocarbon and mineral resources, China sees Melanesia as a key foothold in the broader Pacific Islands — and one that extends its reach outside of the first and second island chains off the east Asian coast. And as a result, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Vanuatu have all joined China's massive Belt and Road Initiative, along with several other Polynesian and Micronesian nations in the Pacific.
Papua New Guinea: In recent years, China has significantly expanded its economic footprint in the subregion's largest country, Papua New Guinea. In 2018, Beijing narrowly beat out Australia to become the country's top destination for mineral and hydrocarbon exports. And unlike Australia, China's imports from the country are steadily increasing, growing 17 percent between 2014 and 2018, while Australia's shrunk by 3 percent and U.S. ally Japan's dropped 2 percent. From 2012 to 2018, China invested a total of $4.78 billion into Papua New Guinea. Beijing also now holds nearly a quarter of Papua New Guinea's external debt (roughly $588 million), and committed more aid to the country than Australia between 2011 and 2018.
Fiji: In 2006, a coup led Australia and New Zealand to upend their diplomatic relations with Fiji, impose sanctions and push the country out of the Pacific Islands Forum and the British Commonwealth. While Fiji was isolated from the West, China quickly swooped in to fill the gap — investing a total of $270 million into the country between 2009 and 2014, when it transitioned back into a civilian-led government And while Australia's ties with Fiji have since renormalized, China has nonetheless managed to maintain much of the headway it had secured during Canberra's absence.
Between 2011 and 2018, China committed $340 million in aid to Fiji and overdelivered — doling out 340 percent of that amount across 42 projects. By contrast, Australia has spent only 84 percent of the $424 million it committed. Today, Beijing holds $249.2 million of the country's external debt, about 37 percent of the total. China has also deepened its links with the Fijian police forces, even cooperating with Fiji to send Chinese personnel to New Zealand to apprehend Chinese nationals.
Vanuatu: China has also bolstered its ties with Vanuatu, with particular interest in its exports as well as military facilities. Beijing now holds nearly half of the country's total debt at $134 million and, like Papua New Guinea, is now the country's top trade partner. In 2016, a Chinese state-owned enterprise renovated the Luganville Wharf on the country's Espiritu Santo island, located near where U.S. forces were based during World War II. The revamped wharf is intended to host cruise liners, but its size has fueled speculation about eventual dual military use. Reports have also emerged that China is considering building an unspecified military facility on the island, though Vanuatu has denied these rumors.
Australia and New Zealand's Response
Beijing's outreach in Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Vanuatu is long-term and will no doubt be sustained, particularly as the Chinese market grows at a pace Australia cannot hope to match. But joint U.S.-Australian efforts to counterbalance China in Melanesia have achieved some success in containing the Chinese rise.
In response to China's overall push into the region, Australia announced plans in November 2018 for a $2.14 billion infrastructure package for transportation, energy, telecommunications and water projects across the Pacific islands. This will consist of $1.4 billion infrastructure bank and $710 million for facilitating Australian investment into the islands. The country also plans to expand its Pacific Maritime Security Program to provide further patrol vessels while expanding it to include aerial surveillance.
In late 2018, Australia, Japan, the United States and New Zealand teamed on a joint $1.2 billion upgrade to Papua New Guinea's electric grid. The upgrade included new telecommunications infrastructure as well, in an effort to counter Chinese tech giant Huawei's plans to install 3,390 miles of undersea cables linking Papua New Guinea's outlying islands. In August 2018, there were also signs China was interested in helping to develop the Lombrum naval base on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island, where a Chinese state-owned enterprise is already carrying out an airport project. Australia and the United States swiftly moved to preempt China's move — announcing just two months later that they would partner to develop the base instead.
When it comes to defense aid in particular, Canberra still has the edge over Beijing due to its proximity and naval capacity. In Fiji, for example, China and Australia have both provided boats to help the country patrol and surveil its waters. But in August 2018, Fiji's government selected Australia over China to fund its Black Rock military facility by offering a holistic contract that included more infrastructure and training agreements, which Beijing could not match.
China's Permanent Presence
However, Australia and New Zealand's historic role as the premier power in Melanesia has never been without controversy among the region's nations. Over the decades, both countries have found themselves embroiled in political situations that have periodically upended relations with the subregion's countries, such as their post-coup divorce with Fiji in 2006. Canberra and Wellington's assistance have always been contingent on Melanesian countries upholding democratic norms as well, such as good governance and transparency — with the hopes that such structures would foster long-term stability and eventually wean them off aid altogether.
Unlike Australia and New Zealand, China's outreach isn't contingent on Melanesian countries upholding democratic norms — making Beijing's assistance more appealing, and potentially more reliable.
Australia, in particular, is also facing a domestic political push to decrease aid payouts, leading to worldwide cuts and a cap at $4.2 billion through 2022. And while the Asia-Pacific region has so far largely been shielded from these cuts, continued pressure from Canberra could eventually bring assistance to Melanesia further under the knife.
But as Australia wrings its hands about aid costs, China, by contrast, is likely to only increase its overseas infrastructure spending as a way to keep its domestic industry churning amid its economic slowdown. This, along with Beijing's great power competition with the United States and Melanesia's alignment with its global Belt and Road Initiative, means China will only look to anchor its hold and further spread its influence across the islands. And unlike Australia, China's outreach doesn't come with any strings attached to the nations' regional activity — making its assistance more appealing (and potentially more reliable, should Canberra begin tightening its purse strings).
Within this new reality, Australia will move to check any efforts that impinge on its defense of the maritime approaches to the continent — though such efforts will continue to be more reactive than proactive. Australia's economy is also deeply entwined with that of China's, which will force it to navigate between its U.S. defense ties and its Chinese trade relations. As a result, Australia will avoid taking too confrontational of a stance against China, and will instead focus on working with and around Melanesia's eastern suitor to ensure the West keeps its edge.
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April 24, 2019
By GPF Staff
Daily Memo: China’s Marine Corps, the Hypersonic Race, Sissi’s Extended Term
All the news worth knowing today.
China’s expanding marine corps. According to a report aired by China’s state broadcaster, the country’s marine corps “has been expanded and upgraded to a unit of its own.” China’s marine corps was first established in 1953, but the country has long been unable to field an amphibious force capable of retaking Taiwan, and with this announcement, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (the marine corps will still be part of the navy) is making clear its intention to increase efforts to build such a force. With China’s push into the South and East China seas, Beijing has more territory to defend, which requires amphibious capabilities. Recent estimates from the Jamestown Foundation put China’s marine corps at around 40,000 strong, much smaller than that of the U.S. (about 200,000 soldiers).
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French vessels in Asian waters. U.S. officials told Reuters that a French frigate, the Vendemiaire, sailed through the Taiwan Strait on April 6, shadowed by the Chinese navy. In response, Beijing canceled an invitation for Paris to attend a naval parade held earlier this week to celebrate 70 years since the Chinese navy’s founding. One unnamed U.S. official said they were unaware of previous French military passages through the contentious strait, but a researcher quoted by the South China Morning Post said such operations by France and other countries were not uncommon – they just had not been disclosed before. Whatever the case may be, the United States decided to publicize the passage this time.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-exploits-fleet-of-u-s-satellites-to-strengthen-police-and-military-power-11556031771?mod=hp_lead_pos10
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second post
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35106631?SThisFB&fbclid=IwAR3qCyFMBbsh4bXDwHvCGguIeebRk-CLUBlghrxDcbfOfxlgZERvX8eYG_U
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We Are Going To Lose The Coming War With China
Kurt Schlichter |Posted: Mar 21, 2019 12:01 AM
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent the views of Townhall.com.
Nations famously tend to always try to fight the last war, and what America is preparing to do today with the newly assertive China is no exception. The problem is our last war was against primitive religious fanatics in the Middle East and China is an emerging superpower with approaching-peer level conventional capabilities and an actual strategy for contesting the United States in all the potential battlespaces – land, sea, air, space and cyber. America is simply not ready for the Pacific war to come. We’re likely to lose.
In Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein was dumb enough to choose to face a U.S. military that was ready to fight its last war. That last war was the Cold War, where the Americans were prepared to fight a Soviet-equipped conscript army using Soviet tactics. And Saddam, genius that he was, decided to face America and its allies with a Soviet-equipped conscript army using Soviet tactics, except fractionally as effective as the Russians. It went poorly. I know – I was there at the VII Corps main command post as his entire army was annihilated in 100 hours.
Chances are that the Chinese will not choose to fight our strengths. In fact, those chances total approximately 100%.
It’s called “asymmetrical warfare” in English. What it’s called in Chinese I have no idea, but Sun Tzu wrote about it. Don’t fight the enemy’s strength; fight his weakness. Strike where he is not. Spread confusion about your intentions; force him to lash out. It’s all there in The Art of War; it’s just not clear anyone forming our current American military strategy has read it. Maybe they would if we labeled it “Third World” literature and said checking it out would check a diversity box for promotion.
We seem intent on fighting not the enemy we face but the enemy we want to face. This is a rookie mistake. And we’ve built our strategy around that error. Take aircraft carriers. I have a sentimental attachment to those potent floating fortresses – the Schlichters are usually Navy officers and I’m the random green sheep who went Army. There was a picture of my dad’s carrier (the U.S.S. Lake Champlain) hanging in my house as a kid. I love them – but in 2019 they’re a trap.
We’re hanging our whole maritime strategy in the Pacific Ocean around a few of these big, super-expensive iron airfields. If a carrier battle group (a carrier rolls with a posse like an old school rapper) gets within aircraft flight range of an enemy, then the enemy will have a bad day. So, what’s the super-obvious counter to our carrier strategy? Well, how about a bunch of relatively cheap missiles with a longer range than the carrier’s aircraft? And – surprise – what are the Chinese doing? Building a bunch of hypersonic and ballistic anti-ship missiles to pummel our flattops long before the F-35s and F-18s can reach the Chinese mainland. We know this because the Chinese are telling us they intend to do it, with the intent of neutering our combat power and breaking our will to fight by causing thousands of casualties in one fell swoop.
The vulnerability of our carriers is no surprise; the Navy has been warned about it for years. There are a number of ideas out there to address the issue, but the Navy resists. One good one is to replace the limited numbers of (again) super-expensive, short-range manned aircraft with a bunch more long range drones. Except that means the Naval aviation community would have to admit the Top Gun era is in the past, and that’s too hard. So they buy a bunch of pricy, shiny manned fighters that can’t get the job done.
Another mistake is over-prioritizing quality over quantity, which is the same mistake the Nazis made with their tanks. The Wehrmacht had the greatest tanks in the world – all top notch. Really good tanks. Tank-to-tank, they were the best – the dreaded Tiger had an 11.5-to-1 kill ratio. The Americans and Russians had merely decent tanks, just multiples more of them. Quantity has a quality all its own. Right now, America has something like 280 ships. We’ll have about 326 by 2023. That’s to cover the entire world. We had 6,768 ships when WWII ended in August 1945
Of course, it would also be nice if the Navy would emphasize seamanship and basic skills again so that it could keep its super-expensive ships from running into other vessels. The U.S.S. Fitzgerald collision not only killed some of our precious sailors, but took out a key weapons platform – 1/280th of our entire fleet! – because its officers failed again and again and because key systems on the ship were out of commission.
This is inexcusable, but it is being excused. The focus of our military has shifted from victory to satisfying the whims of politicians. Here’s a troubling thought – if you go to one of the service branches’ War Colleges and poll the faculty and students about America’s greatest strategic threat, as many as 50% of the respondents will tell you it is “climate change.” That’s not an exaggeration. Our military is supposed to be dealing with the Chinese military and its brain trust is obsessing about the weather in 100 years.
The Chinese are going to continue dumping exponentially more carbon than America into the air and preparing to take us down while we focus on this kind of frivolous nonsense. Did you know the Chinese are pillaging our tech here in America, while our intelligence community’s incompetence led to our spy networks in China being rolled up? Probably not – these are one-day stories because the elite in DC and the media are busy trying to push the guy who won the last election out of office.
Here’s how the Chinese win. First, they take out our satellites. You know the GPS location service on your phone? Satellites, which are easy to hit. Say “bye-bye” to much of the ability of our precision weapons to find their targets. Also up for destruction are the communications satellites we rely on to coordinate our operations. And then there is the Chinese cyberattack, not only on our military systems but on systems here at home that control civilian power, water and other logistics. A U.S military with no comms and no computers is essentially the Post Office with worse service. An America with a ruined internet is Somalia.
Then they hit our land bases on Guam, Okinawa and elsewhere with a blizzard of missiles, knocking them out and annihilating our aircraft on the ground. Maybe we could respond with B-2s flying from the continental United States. We have 19 whole combat-capable aircraft, assuming a 100% operational readiness rate, which is just not a thing. We might even take out a few missile batteries on the Chinese coast. We won’t know the difference though. As for our carriers, if they come to play, they are likely going to get sunk, and if they stay out of the fight, they are merely useless – assuming quiet diesel subs do not find and sink them.
This is not a surprise. We play wargames against the Chinese all the time, and we lose.
Much of this seems to be picking on the Navy, but that’s only because the Navy would take the lead in a fight against the Chinses in the Pacific. The other branches have similar issues with strategy, leadership and equipment. So, what is the answer? The answer may well be to reframe the question – instead of determining our objectives and then failing to provide the capabilities to achieve them, maybe we need to decide what capabilities we are willing to provide and form our strategic objectives to meet those realities. Moreover, we need to get it through our heads that no one is going to be as dumb as Saddam was and conveniently fight us the way we want to be fought. We need a complete strategic mindset revolution, one that moves from a few super-expensive systems to many affordable ones. We need to say good-bye to legacies of the 20th century, like mostly manned combat aircraft and a few huge carrier battle groups. We need to prepare to defeat the enemy we actually face, not the enemy we want to face.
On an equally cheery note, check out my novels People’s Republic, Indian Country and Wildfire, about an America split apart into red and blue nations at each other’s throats. Number Four is in progress for release this summer…and yeah, this time China is in the picture!
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By Ryan Bridges
Picking Sides: What Brexit Means for the UK, US and China
The controversy in London over the Huawei leak is about far more than technology.
A sacking in Whitehall is revealing the strain Brexit has put on the United Kingdom’s foreign policy. British Prime Minister Theresa May fired Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson on Wednesday over leaks to the press of conclusions from a British National Security Council meeting in late April. According to the leak, the British government had decided in the meeting that it would allow Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei to provide “non-core” components for the construction of the U.K.’s 5G mobile infrastructure. The NSC’s decision sparked immediate outcry from critics of the decision in the U.K. and U.S. officials who have been urging allies to shun Huawei technology. In a statement, Williamson denied that he had played a role in the disclosure.
Whoever leaked the Huawei decision likely hoped the backlash would force the government to reverse course and ban Huawei. A known China hawk, Williamson caused a diplomatic tiff with Beijing in February when he said the first deployment of the new HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier would be to the Pacific and that the U.K. needed to demonstrate its willingness to use “hard power” against China and Russia. In response, the Chinese government canceled British Chancellor Philip
Hammond’s planned visit to China.
More important than who leaked the decision, though, is what the discord within the British government says about the limits of British strategic flexibility. A year before the 2016 Brexit referendum, the British government had launched a deliberate campaign to improve ties with China. During a visit to Beijing in 2015, then-British Chancellor George Osborne hailed the start of a golden era in U.K.-China relations and set a goal to make China the U.K.’s second-largest trade partner by 2025. In March 2015, the U.K. caused outrage in Washington when it became the first Western country to join China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The same year, the U.K. and China signed nearly 40 billion pounds (worth $60 billion in 2015) in bilateral trade deals.
When May took over as prime minister, she tapped the brakes on the golden era. Just weeks into her premiership, May delayed one of the most significant of those bilateral deals – plans for China’s General Nuclear Corporation to buy a 33 percent stake in the 20 billion pound Hinkley Point nuclear power project – so that her government could review the contract. During her first official visit to China in February 2018, May raised concerns about sensitive issues like intellectual property theft and steel dumping, and she refused to endorse China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative.
But in the age of “global Britain,” when the U.K. is downplaying the importance of ties with Europe in favor of the rest of the world and aspiring to free trade agreements with major trade partners, including China, May’s initial position was untenable. There’s been no sign of backtracking on the (unofficial) Huawei decision, even after the U.S. repeated its threat to cease information sharing with countries that use the Chinese firm’s 5G technology. And last week, Hammond offered “British project design and legal, technical and financial services expertise” to help China “realize the potential” of the BRI, even after the U.S. criticized Italy’s decision to sign a memorandum of understanding related to the project.
To be sure, countries around the world are searching for the appropriate balance in relations with the U.S. and China at a time when they are increasingly competing for influence. Countries like the U.K., Germany and France have some strategic flexibility lent by economic heft and a degree of physical isolation from the two powers, separated as they are by an ocean from the U.S. and by Eurasia from China – a position few others enjoy. But only London is facing the possible exclusion from a customs union and single market with its largest trading partners, forcing it to curry favor with countries like China in case it needs a rapid trade deal to make up for lost revenue. It’s London that is under domestic political pressure to demonstrate to voters that it can thrive on its own without the European Union. If Germany or France – who, unlike the U.K., aren’t actively seeking a trade agreement with Beijing – want something from China, they can call on a bloc with a combined economy larger than China’s to speak for them. If the U.S. wants to withhold a trade deal from one of them, it has to give up its aspiration for a deal with the EU – something the U.S. president has wanted for a while.
A year ago to the day of Williamson’s firing, the chairman of the pro-Brexit European Research Group, Jacob Rees-Mogg, wrote that without the EU, the United Kingdom could “build a truly special relationship” with the United States. British Trade Secretary Liam Fox said last November that Brexit gave the U.K. the rare opportunity to raise the “special relationship” with the U.S. to a new level. The problem now is that to do so, the U.K. must choose a side: It can’t have a super special relationship with the U.S. and a golden era with China at the same time. The U.K.’s eventual exit from the EU means Britain won’t have to take orders from Brussels, but it also means balancing between Washington and Beijing will be more important than ever. The deeper the strain in those relations, the less freedom Britain will have in its foreign affairs.
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second post
By GPF Staff
Daily Memo: China’s Nuclear Triad, Thailand’s New King, Gold’s Rising Popularity
All the news worth knowing today.
China completes the nuclear triad, developing a “global force.” On Thursday, the Pentagon released its annual report to Congress on the state of the Chinese military. It sheds light on a number of strategic and military modernization trends we’ve been watching closely. For example, it emphasizes that the Chinese navy is gunning for a full-time presence in the Indian Ocean basin and even the Arctic Ocean. It warns about possible military dimensions of the Belt and Road Initiative, the race for dominance in 5G, and China’s pursuit of hypersonic anti-ship missiles. This year’s report placed heavier emphasis than past years’ on China’s use of its coast guard and so-called “maritime militia” in grey zone operations in the South and East China seas – an emphasis reflected in the U.S. Navy chief's recently reported warning to Beijing that the U.S. was preparing to start treating coast guard and armed fishing vessels as combatants. Finally, it concludes that Chinese ballistic missile submarines have advanced enough to pose a credible sea-based nuclear deterrent.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48134881?SThisFB&fbclid=IwAR3xTR5cc_2y5nrt3iZWkV1XxhevMMhblKAs14ZHY_s9IAec755WFZzrlKU
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48134881?SThisFB&fbclid=IwAR3xTR5cc_2y5nrt3iZWkV1XxhevMMhblKAs14ZHY_s9IAec755WFZzrlKU
China really believes that was on purpose. I don’t know.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinas-big-brother-social-control-goes-to-australia_2898104.html
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So, I have a tip that Beijing has put out an order for a full inventory of its rice reserves, to be done immediately.
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China is 5 times more dependent on exports to us than we are on exports to them.
United States Trade Representative
https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/china-mongolia-taiwan/peoples-republic-china
U.S. goods and services trade with China totaled an estimated $737.1 billion in 2018. Exports were $179.3 billion; imports were $557.9 billion. The U.S. goods and services trade deficit with China was $378.6 billion in 2018.
GDP US 2018 $20.5 Trillion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States
GDP China 2018 $13.4 Trillion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_China
Exports ratio:
$557.9 billion China goods and services to US
/ 13.4 T China economy = 4.2% of economy
$179.3 billion US goods and services to China
/ 20.5 T US economy = 0.87% of US economy
China is 5 times more dependent on exports to us than we are on exports to them.
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Timely data, timely reminder!
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By Phillip Orchard
Digging in for a Longer Trade War
If the political constraints on Xi are so steep that Beijing can’t even rubber stamp its way out from under 25 percent tariffs, it doesn’t bode well for the negotiations going forward.
Last Thursday, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He flew to Washington for a last-ditch dinner with U.S. trade chief Robert Lighthizer to try to stave off an 11th-hour spike in U.S. tariffs. Evidently, there wasn’t all that much to discuss. The dinner ended with several hours still left on the clock. The 10 percent U.S. tariffs on some $200 billion in Chinese goods jumped to 25 percent at midnight, and just a few minutes later, China announced that it would respond with “necessary countermeasures” of its own. Foreboding as that may sound, there was at first reason to believe that the deal could still be salvaged. The U.S. is exempting shipments that have already left China, creating a little room for talks to get back on track. Except that a second round of talks on Friday between Liu and Lighthizer ended similarly, and everything coming out of Washington and Beijing suggests both sides are digging back in for a long fight. And on Monday, China announced that it would raise tariffs from 10 to 25 percent on $60 billion worth of U.S. exports.
It’s quite a reversal for a negotiations process that, by all accounts, had achieved just about everything that could reasonably be achieved at this point. There were reportedly only a handful of issues left to be resolved before U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping could meet to sign a deal, and though that deal would have failed to ease the broader competition between the powers, it would have given China an opportunity to focus on its problems at home and the U.S. the chance to adopt a more targeted, long-term approach to addressing its vulnerabilities to China’s rise.
The outstanding points of contention – mainly, enforcement mechanisms – may have been irresolvable. But there’s little reason to think the major parts of the deal that had already been settled would abruptly come unraveled, so there are now serious questions about China’s willingness and ability to pay the price of U.S. demands – and about where the trade war goes from here.
Gang of Five
Trade negotiations are fraught processes complicated by any number of domestic or international political considerations and tactical decisions. Broadly speaking, there are five explanations for why they fail at this stage. For China, it’s probably a combination of all of them.
The first is that some outstanding disagreements simply can’t be resolved. This may ultimately prove true for the U.S. and China, but it doesn’t explain why things fell apart at the last minute. For context, the problem started a little over a week ago, when Beijing reneged on items it had already agreed to, according to several reports citing sources in Washington. Beijing, for example, struck from the draft agreement all pledges to codify its new commitments into law. If negotiators always knew it would be difficult to legislate their concessions, why make them in the first place?
The second is that this is all just standard, 11th-hour negotiating tactics. When one side (in this scenario, the Trump administration) touts progress in the negotiations and raises expectations for an imminent deal, it gives some degree of leverage to the other side to push for last-minute concessions. Beijing may have concluded that Trump was over-eager to get the deal done before campaign season kicked into high gear and, in doing so, may have overplayed its hand. If this is the case, negotiations are likely to get back on track shortly – once, that is, Beijing can find a way to save face and demonstrate that it’s not, as Chinese state media put it, “negotiating with a gun to its head.”
The third is a mistake or misunderstanding by one delegation or the other. The language of diplomacy is filled with ambiguities and promises that sound good “in principle” but serve mostly to keep the talking rolling – that is, until the time comes for lawyers to put pen to paper. So it’s possible the U.S. thought Beijing had promised more than it actually had – whether because Beijing was being intentionally vague or because something got lost in translation. It happens often, especially when the main goal of one side (Beijing, in this case) is to give up as little as possible to get the more aggressive side to back down – or to drag out talks until circumstances change in its favor. It’s also common for a delegation from one side to over-promise, even if in good faith, only to see its concessions nixed by the leadership at home. There’s some evidence that this is the case with Liu, who appears to have been stripped of his title as “special envoy” and who hinted that he returned to the U.S. against the wishes of his boss.
The fourth is when a change in economic circumstances emboldens one side or the other. When the negotiations began, China was, in the throes of a private sector liquidity crunch, grappling with slowing demand for exports due to U.S. and European tariffs. Since then, modest stimulus measures have kicked in, its credit situation has improved, and its economy has largely stabilized – at least for now. The 10 percent tariffs are generally estimated to have dinged Chinese growth by around 0.5 percent, which is manageable for Beijing so long as it feels like it has the economy’s deeper pathologies under control. It’s hardly out of the woods yet. But things are calm enough at the moment that Beijing may very well have thought it could push a bit harder – especially if, as appears to be the case, it didn’t think the U.S. would escalate tariffs so quickly.
A Land of Men, Not Laws
The fifth and potentially most problematic for Beijing is when political circumstances change – for instance, when hardliners on one side or the other gain the upper hand and force negotiators to default on their agreements. For China, the non-starters we expected to see were structural issues such as state support for economically vital industries. But, curiously, it was Washington’s demands for protections on issues like intellectual property, forced technology transfers, and cybertheft – and, in particular, that they be written into law – that Beijing apparently couldn’t stomach.
It’s curious for a few reasons. For one, Beijing refuses to acknowledge that it forces foreign firms to hand over sensitive technology or engage in cybertheft – which it does – and thus would be unaffected if it outlawed the practice. For another, on issues like intellectual property rights, Xi’s government has been keen to push through reforms in these areas anyway. Indeed, liberalizers in Beijing are reportedly quietly thankful that the trade war provided cover to do so. It’s why these items, unlike structural reforms, were on the table in negotiations in the first place. Last and perhaps most important, China is a land of men, not laws. Technically, Beijing can quickly make, scrap, interpret, enforce or ignore laws however it sees fit. For U.S. demands that concessions be written into Chinese law to sink the negotiations – especially on issues where Beijing was amenable to concessions – it would mean Xi is a prisoner to unyielding political forces in China even more than previously thought.
In general, it’s not uncommon for a government to say something like, “Hey, we’d be happy to concede on this or that issue. But the legislature would never sign off.” This is an obvious constraint on negotiators but since it also puts the onus on the other side to either temper their demands or walk away, it’s also a potential source of leverage. China, with its rubber-stamp legislature, is somewhat different, of course, but the government still has to manage public resistance. Since taking power, Xi has been constantly griping about how “entrenched interests” impede much-needed reforms. The widespread recognition in Beijing of the need for a leader strong enough to suppress these interests and wrestle China into more sustainable shape is why Xi gained so much power in the first place.
Yet the political landscape in China has remained explosive enough to force Xi to move slowly in most areas and punt on some of China’s biggest challenges. Thus, in trade talks with the U.S., Xi may see little point in agreeing to things he might not be able to implement – especially on the expedited timetable demanded by Washington. Doing so would make the Chinese system look bad, would aggravate tensions with the U.S., and would degrade Beijing’s already poor reputation as a good-faith negotiator.
The U.S. was always going to struggle to find ways to enforce a trade deal with China. Getting Beijing to enshrine certain concessions into law would help in small ways, but it wouldn’t solve much. But if the political constraints on Xi are so steep that Beijing can’t even rubber stamp its way out from under 25 percent tariffs, it doesn’t bode well for the negotiations going forward. Of course, the escalation could dramatically alter the political cost-benefit analysis for both sides. China largely shrugged off the 10 percent tariffs. The 25 percent ones won’t be so easy. However, constrained though Xi may be by hawks in Beijing, he’s constrained more by the masses who will be bearing the brunt of the pain the new tariffs inflict.
Washington won’t escape unscathed either – tariffs from both sides have hit U.S. firms and consumers nearly as hard as their Chinese counterparts. The U.S. economy is overdue for a downturn anyway, and, evidently, it’s already campaign season again. A trade war is not just about who hits the hardest but also who’s willing to stay in the ring the longest – and, as we may be learning, who’s stuck fighting with one hand tied behind their back.
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click on 8 minute video on lower right of screen :
https://www.foxnews.com/shows/next-revolution-steve-hilton
H Bush Clinton W Bush and Obama were all naive and made one sided deals with China while all along they took advantage of us, robbed us, spied on us , suppress their own people and are bribing their way around the world and increasing their weapons capability in a slow war with us.
ONLY TRUMP PERCEPTIVELY SAW THIS FOR CLOSE TO IF NOT 30 YRS while all the big shots sold us down the river - again.
Don't expect the enemy of the people to point this out except for Fox and the few we have in the media , and radio
Of course arm chair people like us saw this coming too for 20 yrs .
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CCP: Can't get it to play for me.
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From my arm chair:
We are badly overextended. Russia-East Europe; Russia-Syria-Iran; Iran; North Korea; even Venezuela, our Southern Border. If China orchestrates problems for us on a number of these, we will be hard pressed to find the band width (and money) to deal with them.
Much of our thinking is the modern equivalent of a Maginot Line.
Per Boyd and his OODA loop he who sees and acts first will win.
China hacked 2.5 million of our Security Clearance applications. They have the manpower and the discipline to study them well. What do you think they are doing with what they have learned from them?
Much of our military supremacy is based upon our ability to observe up close from far away, and to issue commands based thereon-- satellites. We see and act first. China may well have the ability to neutralize that. Russia too.
Rock, Paper, Scissors: Yes our aircraft carriers are better and we have more of them, but China can neutralize them with land based missiles. The Philippines used to be an unsinkable carrier for us but it would appear that the Chinese have cleverly neutered this by intimidating and buying Duterte.
Hypersonic technology: We appear to be in third place on this behind China and maybe Russia. Fear of first strike capabilities can/will neuter will to act, even on actions short of military.
Goolag is enabling China’s net to isolate from ours and China, (and Russia, North Korea, and Iran?) have deeply penetrated ours. A purposeful cyber attack can have us in cranial rectal interface while key irreversible actions are undertaken.
China has many vulnerabilities too. Among them is that its bookkeeping is spectacularly dishonest and IMHO seriously under-reported bubbles are lurking. President Trump has shrewdly chosen the best strategy for us with Trade War.
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"China hacked 2.5 million of our Security Clearance applications. They have the manpower and the discipline to study them well. What do you think they are doing with what they have learned from them?"
https://warontherocks.com/2018/05/imagining-a-cyber-surprise-how-might-china-use-stolen-opm-records-to-target-trust/
IMAGINING A CYBER SURPRISE: HOW MIGHT CHINA USE STOLEN OPM RECORDS TO TARGET TRUST?
IAN BROWN MAY 22, 2018
SPECIAL SERIES - OFF GUARD
Editor’s Note: This is the fourth installment in “Off Guard,” a series on surprise in war inspired by a new CSIS study. Read the rest of the series here.
“What is the quickest way you can destroy an organization?… Mistrust and discord.”
-Col. John Boyd
The cyber attack — both real and imagined — has come a long way since Matthew Broderick nearly caused World War III with a 1200 bit-per-second modem and rotary phone in 1983. In the fictional realm, Broderick’s duel with the War Operation Plan Response computer has given way to the infrastructure fire sale from Live Free or Die Hard and, most recently, the multi-layered sabotage of everything from GPS to stealth fighters in Ghost Fleet. The real world has seen cyber surprises only a step removed from fantasy, with various actors disrupting civil networks and infrastructure, subverting military research projects, and using cyber salvos as a complement to physical military activity.
However, even as authors, screenwriters, and policymakers grapple with the potential fallout from cyber vulnerabilities in the physical realm — the blinding of sensors, degradation of communications networks, or deliberate infrastructure malfunctions — modern cyber attacks are increasingly aiming at the adversary’s less tangible mental and moral capabilities. The starkest example of this was Russia’s interference in the 2016 American presidential election, which significantly damaged those intangibles — faith in social and traditional media, transparency in political campaigning, even confidence in the integrity of the election results themselves — that will take a long time to repair.
I had this in mind, along with Boyd’s words about the best way to destroy an organization, when Mark Cancian invited me to participate in the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ “Coping With Surprise” working group. I decided to explore the impact of a hypothetical “trust attack” directed against Defense Department personnel as the opening salvo to conventional military operations. The recent past shows this type of cyber strike is possible; indeed, it’s a small miracle it hasn’t happened yet. While the federal government has a general framework in the National Cyber Incident Response Plan, the Defense Department’s cyber strategy remains a dangerously ad hoc patchwork of training and processes. This patchwork needs to be unified under a coherent and rapidly executable response framework that could be tailored down to the small-unit level, ensuring the resilience of American servicemembers against attacks targeting the most intimate aspects of their lives.
Envisioning a Chinese Trust Attack
My vignette — entitled “Assassin’s Mace” — is appended to Cancian’s final report. I sought to envision how China might seek to follow up on its 2015 hack of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) database. By the time OPM security engineers detected the intrusion, hackers had enjoyed access to the OPM records — including millions of background checks, personnel files, and digital fingerprints — for almost a year. The OPM hack was by no means the first large-scale breach of a protected database, but it was unique in two aspects. First, these records contain by far the most detailed personal information yet accessed by a cyber intruder. Second, the hackers have not yet attempted traditional data exploitation by ransoming it back to the agency or selling it to third parties. These facts suggest the hackers have plans for the data beyond a quick payday. A widespread trust attack on Defense Department personnel would be one of the few things that could justify sitting on a goldmine of exploitable data. Moreover, knowing it could only exploit this information for so long before American countermeasures came into the play, I thought the Chinese government would want to “go big”: attack as many targets as possible at once, generate maximum confusion, and then use that window of confusion to quickly achieve goals it otherwise could not with a smaller attack.
My imagined Chinese cyber attack used the sensitive and detailed OPM records not to disrupt or degrade American military or intelligence systems, but rather to spread fear, mistrust, and discord among the men and women in uniform who operate those systems. During such a strike, hackers would lock out medical records, wipe away financial information, manipulate social media, and spread lies and half-truths about personal misconduct.
How might China shape such an attack? First, it’s difficult to understate the value of the records China stole. Background investigations; personnel files; digital fingerprint images; former addresses; phone numbers; Social Security numbers; lists of family members, dependents, and friends: these are all nuggets of unique information — and in fact, frequently the answer to security questions — that a motivated attacker could turn into keys unlocking virtually any digital account owned by the targeted individual or group. An intruder seeking to impersonate another person could not ask for a more comprehensive data set.
Second, a concerted attack exploiting OPM data would avoid patterns making it obvious an attack was happening. My vignette incorporated many variations. Navy sailors at a strategic port in Japan would find their families’ bank accounts emptied. Others received death threats on their Twitter feeds, with hackers adding further confusion by posing as third parties. I even imagined military spouses having intimate photos blasted across social media (and this was before the latest revelation of military-sourced revenge porn). One man using a phishing scheme managed to hack the login credentials of 250 celebrities to access their most intimate photos. A dedicated team of cyber intruders with the wealth of OPM records at their fingertips would find their phishing expeditions much simpler, and would be able to harm people somewhat more vital to national security.
An attacker could wreak further havoc by locking out digital medical records with ransomware, as North Korea allegedly did in the WannaCry episode last year. That intrusion alone cancelled surgical operations and delayed appointments across the entirety of Britain’s National Health Service. Medical hackers could also steal private records and threaten to sell the material on the dark web. A few well-publicized penetrations of personal devices belonging to senior officials — such as the hack of John Kelly’s cell phone — could spread further fear.
These efforts would strike at the individual level. But as Boyd said, the overall goal is destroying the cohesion of the organization. Thus, an attacker could combine individual confusion with the undermining of key trusted leadership. The best way to do this is to mix lies with the truth. Unfortunately, scandals like Marines United, “Fat Leonard,” and other harassment claims have already sown mistrust in the public mind and amongst the ranks. It’s entirely possible to envision China’s Strategic Support Force using personal information from OPM records to gain access to the accounts of senior leaders and hijacking them to plant and spread incriminating material.
An adept cyber competitor might also seek to weaken America’s alliances. My vignette described the viral dissemination of a YouTube video showing American servicemembers stationed on Okinawa sexually assaulting local citizens. Uniformed Americans have a dark history of sexual misconduct on the island, and the U.S military presence there is fraught with other tensions. Using bots, trolls, voice clones, artificial intelligence, and generative adversarial networks, China could create fake videos to turn the Okinawan population and Japanese government against America. Again, exploiting personal information from OPM records, it does not strain credulity to imagine Chinese hackers accessing a servicemember’s YouTube account, posting an explosive video, and then letting mistrust and confusion poison the relationship. Investigators would doubtless discover the truth eventually; but the point of such an attack, when combined with myriad other cyber strikes, is simply to sow enough mistrust and discord that the organization’s focus turns inward to deal with its own internal friction. In my vignette, the cyber attack on Defense Department personnel would disrupt their personal lives, poison command relationships, and corrupt key alliances to keep them from responding effectively to the opening moves of Chinese conventional operations in the South Pacific.
The attack would undermine individual and organizational morale to the point that the entire Defense Department would be obligated to take an “operational pause” to sort out fact from fiction and let servicemembers get their lives back in order. In the past, when facing a sufficiently severe problem, defense leaders have implemented wide-reaching pauses. Individual commands also often execute stand downs to address critical non-operational problems, like sexual assault or substance abuse. Even if Defense Department leaders did not execute a formal operational pause, the functional effect would be the same: Individuals and units would turn their focus inward to deal with the myriad crises caused by simultaneous widespread cyber attacks.
China would exploit the formal pause or general distraction to flood the South China Sea with conventional forces and pursue long-held national goals, be that securing economic supremacy across southeast Asia’s waterways or isolating Taiwan. A surprise cyber attack targeting the personal lives of American servicemembers would enjoy the dual benefit of not requiring detectable physical preparations, and making moot the question of how effective China’s anti-access/area denial and anti-stealth capabilities really are in combat. Even just a few days of confusion would be enough for conventional Chinese forces to radically alter the balance of power in the South Pacific.
Cyber penetrations are rarely permanent. Over time, experts usually find them and can often trace them with confidence to a particular group or country. Rebooting, wiping, or replacing corrupted hardware is fairly straightforward. Cohesion, morale, and fighting spirit, on the other hand, cannot be rebooted or grabbed off the shelf. A pervasive surprise cyber strike targeting those things closest to home for servicemembers could, without firing a single bullet, have a devastating impact on the American military’s ability to rapidly deploy, while generating lingering fear and mistrust even after counter-cyber efforts revealed the truth.
Not Just a Hypothetical
There are historical precedents for a widespread cyber attack used either to significantly disrupt an adversary’s government as a goal in and of itself, or as a prelude to military action. Russia preceded its invasions of Georgia, Crimea, and Ukraine with a variety of cyber operations. Aside from OPM, adversarial hackers have breached other American government agencies like the National Security Agency and State Department. And the National Health Service attack in Britain demonstrated how hostile organizations can exploit personal information — in this case, medical records. The aforementioned hypotheticals differ only in degree from capabilities attackers already have. And the Chinese government, in its purloined OPM data, enjoys an access key that other entities, like Russia, did not.
I used the OPM hack as my starting point, but Russia’s activities in the 2016 election provided a practical frame of reference. That attack targeted trust and other intangibles like faith in the U.S. political system. Russian operatives directed their attack against a few target sets — social media channels, a political party’s computer systems — and executed it with comparatively modest resources.
Yet Russia’s trust attack did not fully exploit this method’s potential. First, Russia seemed satisfied with spreading confusion and mistrust where it could get easy access, like social media and badly protected private networks. Russian hackers did not penetrate more hardened networks in the financial or defense sectors, possibly because they did not see the need, but more likely because they didn’t have an exploitable access point. Second, Russia did not treat the confusion achieved in the United States as an opportunity to pursue national objectives that required a direct confrontation with America. Russia spread confusion and mistrust as apparent ends in themselves, as noted in the official Intelligence Community Assessment: “Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process … [to] apply lessons learned … to future influence efforts worldwide, including against US allies and their election processes.”
China, on the other hand, has both the opportunity and need for a maximized trust attack. The opportunity lies in possessing exploitable information that Russia lacked: the OPM database. Its need stems from the fact that any robust pursuit of national objectives in the South China Sea and against Taiwan would put it in direct conflict with American interests. While China has generally eschewed direct confrontation in recent years, we should not dismiss the possibility that China’s leaders might think they could come out ahead in a direct confrontation in their virtual backyard, especially in the wake of a debilitating trust attack against the American military.
Defending Against an Attack on Trust
How can America defend its military personnel against a determined cyber attack? Several measures are already either in place or on the way. The Pentagon’s recent elevation of Cyber Command to combatant command status shows it understands the fundamental need for a dedicated force on this battlefield. However, there is less consensus on what that force should look like. I’d argue this is not an area where the perfect should be made the enemy of the good. Whether cyber warriors are blue-haired civilians, Special Operations Command operators with doctorates in cyber security, or a mix of the two, America’s cyber force needs to be fighting on the virtual battlefield today.
Strategists have identified a growing need for a theory of cyber deterrence on the model of conventional and nuclear deterrence. Some have even suggested borrowing a system implemented in Estonia that essentially crowdsources cyber defense efforts among volunteers.
In their piece on trust attacks, Neal Pollard, Adam Segal, and Matthew Devost argued the United States needed to lead the way in developing protocols for protecting the integrity and trustworthiness of critical information systems. Such recommendations, along with the others listed above, are well and good. However, these measures will be inadequate in the absence of a unifying, DoD-specific framework, practical enough that subordinate units can derive their own cyber defense blueprints. What we need, in short, is a cyber mishap plan.
Mishap plans are familiar to any military aviator. Higher headquarters lay out a general mishap response framework for what immediate actions a unit should take once it determines a mishap has occurred. Subordinate units then tailor those plans to their unique operational circumstances. Units train their members on what actions they must take immediately to first keep the mishap from getting any worse, followed by steps to help the unit bounce back and return to normal operations as quickly as possible. The ready-made mishap plan ensures the squadron’s resiliency should the worst occur.
Yet the Defense Department does not currently offer any specific guidance to help units develop their own cyber mishap plans. Its last cyber strategy document came out in April 2015, before OPM disclosed its breach. Three years later, we still await the Pentagon’s release of a new strategy. And in the interim, the Government Accountability Office found the department had failed to develop a plan to sufficiently support civil authorities in the case of a cyber attack, and to train its staff on effectively implementing their responsibilities under the National Cyber Incident Response Plan. At lower levels, the escapades of Jeff and Tina might be sufficient to train individual members, but they do little to build unit resiliency against a broad cyber attack. A mishap plan gives units the framework for planning and executing the training necessary to build cyber resiliency at the unit level. The Defense Department owes its members a broad-based cyber strategy and response plan, tailored to military members, from which units can develop their own cyber mishap plans.
China, Russia, and others have seen the turmoil generated by using social media and a handful of vulnerable private networks to spread organizational discord. Russia poisoned America’s discourse in a scattershot approach with minimal investment and, in the case of the Democratic National Committee’s email server, a lucky typo. But it did not enjoy the special access that could be gained from a protected personal database like OPM.
A good mishap plan lets its personnel rebound from surprise attacks and prepares them to counter conventional follow-up moves an adversary might attempt during the confusion. As Cancian noted in the final CSIS report, the United States is particularly vulnerable to the surprise attack today because many of its discussions about conflict display a disturbing hubris. “Senior officials,” Cancian notes, “have repeatedly made claims that the U.S. military is not just the best in the world but the best the world has ever known. As with Greek heroes of legend and literature, hubris can lead to downfall.” The American military might enjoy an unmatched level of funding and equipment, but it could all be rendered moot by a cyber attack that bypassed the military’s physical superiority to disrupt its moral capacity to fight. The American government has already experienced disruptive practice runs in the OPM hack and 2016 election; those may be the last warnings we get before an opponent tries the real thing.
Ian T. Brown is a U.S. Marine Corps CH-53E pilot. He has previously discussed the ideas of Col. John Boyd, maneuver warfare, and conflict theory in the Marine Corps Gazette, War on the Rocks, Strategy Bridge, and the Professional Military Education podcast. His forthcoming book from the Marine Corps University Press, A New Conception of War, is a reexamination of the development of maneuver warfare doctrine in the Marine Corps. The opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not reflect those of the U.S. Marine Corps, the Department of Defense, or any part of the U.S. Government.
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I think about the first 8 minutes covers . TRump rightly calling out China 30 yrs before all the DC big shots who I might add got it all wrong:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ze39z6nSQg
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"even Venezuela,"
and the only reason I can see we even need to be involved at all is because of China and Russia taking advantage of the situation
so we can't leave it in a vacuum - I guess.
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Cuba is the main player in Venezuela. Anyway, if we want to discuss, let's take it to the Venezuela thread.
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***The cognitive dissonance of his Chinese Glibness ***:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trade-war-bites-chinas-xi-preaches-openness-054033744.html
what horse shit!
trying to use racial or cultural conscious game playing to play Americans
we need to stop being patsies for the Chinese COMMUNISTS :
don't give us lectures about cultural and racial superiority when they jail steal from Muslims and Christian in their own country ! and give everything to the Mandarins
This guy needs to be called out
but of course the MSM will call out Trump instead.
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Stratfor Worldview
Forecasts
snapshots
May 15, 2019 | 22:15 GMT
3 mins read
China: A Worsening Economy and Hardball U.S. Tactics Don't Budge Beijing
(Stratfor)
The Chinese economy has continued to slow down. With the collapse last week of a trade deal with the United States, the prospect of a protracted trade war looms large — something that could compel the Chinese government to ramp up its stimulus efforts and adjust its trade negotiating strategy.
What Happened
New Chinese economic data from April has laid bare the continuing fragility of the world's second-largest economy despite Beijing's stimulus efforts. Industrial output, retail sales and investments all slowed last month, with retail sales and manufacturing investment growing at a respective 7.2 and negative 1.2 percent, their slowest pace in nearly 15 years. The data comes on top of declines in exports and manufacturing, suggesting the deceleration is occurring across the board and dampening hopes of recovery despite positive economic indicators in March.
Why It Matters
While trade talks between China and the United States have not completely collapsed, obstacles to a deal remain large. Chief among these is Chinese resistance to U.S. demands for a codified enforcement mechanism and other legal changes. Both sides now appear to have hardened their positions ahead of the next round of negotiations set to occur in Beijing, which U.S. Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin has confirmed will take place soon.
Even before the trade war, the Chinese economy was slowing.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative proceeded May 13 with a commenting process that is necessary to pave the way for tariffs on an additional $300 billion in Chinese goods in June. This means the next five to six weeks will be a critical window if the sides are to salvage a deal before Washington can follow through on its threats to impose additional tariffs. Beijing, however, has shown no sign it is willing to bend on U.S. demands for legal changes. In fact, it has recently sought to whip up nationalism via state media, taking a harder line on U.S. demands and emphasizing the stability of China's economy. According to the Nikkei Asia Review, Beijing has now rejected 30 percent of the most recent draft agreement with Washington.
Even so, the window for talks remains open. The Chinese and U.S. leaders are still expected to meet during the upcoming G-20 meetings on June 28-29 in Japan. But if no deal is reached and the additional tariffs go into effect, a trade agreement between the two powers will become an even more distant prospect.
Background and Outlook
Even before the trade war, the Chinese economy was slowing. Tariffs are now expected to drag down gross domestic product by another 0.3 to 0.6 percentage points as the trade war escalates. The additional tariffs are set to hit coastal China's export sector further, the majority of which is part of the private sector and is already struggling with thin margins and limited access to financing.
Worries over the worsening economy and trade war have renewed officials' focus on unemployment. On May 15, Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang called on the provinces to create more jobs and to prevent the social instability that could follow increased unemployment among migrant workers. Since early this year, Chinese authorities have also engaged in several rounds of rate cuts, credit stimulus and tax relief to support the economy. As the weakness and trade war persist, riskier credit stimulus packages might be required to keep the already debt-laden economy afloat.
Beijing's tougher line on trade suggests it thinks it can absorb the economic pain. It also suggests it anticipates the United States might back down as U.S. President Donald Trump heads toward his 2020 electoral campaign while contending with multiple trade negotiations, such as talks with the European Union, a crisis in Venezuela and escalating tensions in the Persian Gulf. Further economic pain could, however, force Beijing to recalculate.
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next the Chinese Communists trying to play the race card
Can anyone image the leader of one billion people using our politically correct media and Dem party against Trump with the *race card*
they way the media and the Dems do to us here?
I think Xi is trying it.
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Excerpted from one of five possible reasons trade talks stalled:
"it would mean Xi is a prisoner to unyielding political forces in China even more than previously thought.
In general, it’s not uncommon for a government to say something like, “Hey, we’d be happy to concede on this or that issue. But the legislature would never sign off.” This is an obvious constraint on negotiators but since it also puts the onus on the other side to either temper their demands or walk away, it’s also a potential source of leverage. China, with its rubber-stamp legislature, is somewhat different, of course, but the government still has to manage public resistance. Since taking power, Xi has been constantly griping about how “entrenched interests” impede much-needed reforms."
- It's a little bit funny to realize dictators and totalitarians have political pressure too. Xi is powerful but China is ruled by a politburo / committee. His power has to do with what is best for the ruling 'party', not necessarily what is best for China, the Chinese economy or the Chinese people. If not for that, this would be done.
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Add ccp's comments on Chuck Schumer here and extrapolate that to all the Dem candidates and the eventual nominee. Democrats in general (exception: Biden?) are more anti-China than Republicans, exception: Trump. Trump wins only if the country is behind him because otherwise China sees the splits and exploits them and waits him out.
Schumer's goal is to win control of the US Senate for the Democrats, not to govern NY or just placate the energetic Left. Winning the Senate requires Dems to hold seats in red states.
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Stratfor: "Even before the trade war, the Chinese economy was slowing."
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3010245/china-economy-slows-sharply-april-even-higher-us-trade
China's economy slows sharply in April, even before new US tariffs take effect
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So which is it Xi, appease your hardliners or act in the best interest of your economy and your citizens?
Besides force and threat of force, two things keep the ruling party in power, security and people satisfied with economic growth and opportunities.
The longer this goes on, the more that other sources in other countries and the US replace those in China and the more some of those new sources will be permanent.
Ego and saving face are now greater than economic consideration. How do we win our demands AND let Xi save face? I don't know how to solve that one.
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"How do we win our demands AND let Xi save face? I don't know how to solve that one."
How about the way the mafia does it (at least in the movies):
nothing personal Xi .
it's just business
now stop stealing our stuff!
and remove all of your tariffs and start buying more of our goods
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Although the President often speaks as if the Balance of Trade is THE issue, it is not. There is intellectual property theft, industrial espionage, aiding and abetting the Norks, and fascist military strategy.
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second post
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/china-strategy-build-economic-military-technological-superiority/?fbclid=IwAR3qk6vIsWnum4PWV7DhCqnW4BU_E1adf2h5DkOL7N9xdynf4saDx4wtBs0
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second post
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/china-strategy-build-economic-military-technological-superiority/?fbclid=IwAR3qk6vIsWnum4PWV7DhCqnW4BU_E1adf2h5DkOL7N9xdynf4saDx4wtBs0
As usual, VDH nails it.
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New Huawei Restrictions Turn Up the Heat on the U.S-China Tech Cold War
By Matthew Bey
Senior Global Analyst, Stratfor
Highlights
U.S. President Donald Trump's recent executive order prevents U.S. 5G infrastructure from using Huawei equipment and also may be applied to many other types of tech equipment, given its expansive language.
Though it is receiving less press coverage than the executive order, the U.S. Commerce Department's move to add Huawei to its Entity List, which requires U.S. exporters to obtain approval before selling to companies on it, is actually the largest salvo yet against China's tech sector.
The Commerce Department's designation targets suppliers and could fragment important tech supply chains.
Taken together, the two U.S. decisions serve as a reminder that the U.S.-China tech war will endure far beyond the trade war and the Trump administration.
In its tech war with China, the United States has launched two major attacks aimed at China and its most globally competitive tech company, Huawei Technologies. First, on May 15 U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order giving the U.S. Commerce Department the authority to block certain transactions involving information and communications technologies developed, designed or manufactured by companies subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign adversary. While the order did not explicitly mention China and Huawei, its intention is clear: to pave the way for the United States to block Huawei from its 5G networks and other critical infrastructure. One the same day, the U.S. Commerce Department announced that it was adding Huawei and 70 of its affiliates to its Entity List, meaning any U.S. company that wants to export technology, services or products to Huawei will need a special license from the Commerce Department to do so.
Both decisions will damage Huawei and China's economy — especially if the United States chooses to enforce them strictly. But even though the executive order is gaining most of the media attention, the bigger danger to Huawei and China's tech sector at large is the Commerce Department designation, which could drive many U.S. suppliers — on which Huawei and other tech companies are particularly reliant — to stop working with China to avoid navigating complicated regulations. And these U.S. attempts to disrupt supply chains will fuel China's nationalist drive to develop more domestic tech equipment, further broadening the scope of the ongoing U.S.-China tech war.
The Big Picture
The United States and China are in the middle of a tech Cold War, and Huawei is a company that sits in the center of the United States' crosshairs. As perhaps China's largest, most innovative and globally competitive tech firm, it has come to symbolize China's tech rise.
An Expansive Executive Order
Trump's executive order is extremely broad. It allows the Commerce Department to block transactions with Chinese companies — including Huawei — that could pose the risk of sabotage to U.S. telecommunications infrastructure, as well as those that could pose "an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons" or "an undue risk of catastrophic effects on the security [...] critical infrastructure or the digital economy of the United States." The expansive nature is even similar to China's own powerful cybersecurity law, which the United States has accused of being vague and far-reaching.
The breadth of Trump's order means it could be used to block almost any equipment produced by a Chinese entity that is used in U.S. information technology infrastructure — not just 5G networks. It will be critical to watch the Commerce Department's interpretations of the executive order as it begins issuing guidelines and regulations, which technically could end up covering tech equipment as small as home routers and switches. The Commerce Department has a 150-day deadline to issue those guidelines, meaning they will come between now and Oct. 12.
A Mess for Huawei and Its Suppliers
The executive order puts even stricter limits on Huawei's already limited ability to sell to the United States, but since the tech company's U.S. sales are a relatively small portion of its overall profit, that move actually presents much fewer complications for the company than the decision to place Huawei on the Commerce Department's Entity List. The latter action hits Huawei's relationship with the United States where it will hurt the most: the tech company's suppliers. Huawei is one of the world's most competitive technology companies when it comes to building 5G network gear, building smartphones and even designing certain chips — but it depends heavily on the tech sector's global supply chains, which invariably involve a lot of U.S. equipment, technology and knowledge. In fact, when Huawei released a list of its 92 top suppliers in November 2018, 33 of those suppliers were American companies.
A list of Huawei's key suppliers of smartphone and computer parts.
The many possible results of the United States placing Huawei on the Entity List are creating uncertainty for companies involved in the tech sector. The move may be one more step toward an extreme scenario in which it tries to block Huawei from accessing U.S. technology and components in a wide range of products. Washington did something similar in 2018, when the Commerce Department temporarily denied export privileges to another Chinese technology company, ZTE. However, the Commerce Department can choose to be flexible in allowing deals to go through to minimize the risk of Chinese retaliation and subsequent damage to U.S. companies operating in China, though it will not be an easy process. Finally, in conjunction with one of these outcomes, the Commerce Department could also try to exert leverage on Huawei in its ongoing investigations and criminal cases involving potential violations of U.S. sanctions, which is one of the legal justifications for placing Huawei on the Entity List.
Nevertheless, even if the Commerce Department is flexible in its permissions, the new designation will be a headache for suppliers. Large U.S. companies, such as Qualcomm, employ armies of lawyers to navigate complicated U.S. export control laws, but small- and medium-sized enterprises in the United States may choose not to work with Huawei to avoid the complications. Moreover, the export controls include deemed exports, which limits and/or prohibits any collaboration between Huawei and U.S. entities, such as its Silicon Valley research and development subsidiary FutureWei — even for research purposes. Already, U.S. universities have begun downsizing collaboration projects with Huawei. Beyond the United States, foreign companies are likely to find themselves caught in between the United States and Huawei and possibly forced not to sell products containing American-made technology or components to Huawei.
China's Complicated Options for Responding
The moves against Huawei and China's tech sector come during a strenuous period in U.S.-China trade talks. Washington has given Beijing a four-week notice to reach a deal before the United States places additional tariffs on effectively all remaining imports from China. This puts Beijing in a complicated spot. Typically, China responds to foreign actions against its companies by selectively upping pressure on the respective country's China-residing companies and citizens. For example, China has responded strongly to Canada's role in detaining Huawei's chief financial officer at the behest of the United States by increasing arrests of Canadian citizens and employing de facto import bans on certain goods.
Up to this point, China has hoped to succeed in making a deal on trade and has thus avoided doing anything to blow up the process. But that restraint is unlikely to last forever.
But when it comes to handling the United States' treatment of Huawei and other tech companies during its trade war with the United States, Beijing has refrained from tit-for-tat moves to cut American companies out of the Chinese market. Up to this point, China has hoped to succeed in making a deal on trade and has thus avoided doing anything to blow up the process. But that restraint is unlikely to last forever. If the U.S.-China trade negotiations don't result in a deal and all of China's goods are subject to additional U.S. tariffs, Beijing may have no choice but to increase pressure on the United States and respond in kind. Indeed, in recent weeks China's state media has ramped up nationalist sentiment, raising the possibility that Beijing may be closer to acting against U.S. assets or citizens in China.
The Big Question: To What End?
Ultimately, however, even if the United States and China do resolve their trade war, the battle for economic and tech supremacy between the world's two largest economies will drag on.
In the global tech world, the looming question is just how far the United States (and China) will go to try to separate a deeply globalized sector that boasts long, complicated supply chains. The United States will certainly consider issuing new regulations that aim to limit the amount of sensitive U.S. technology that makes its way to China and helps Chinese companies — indeed, it's still rolling out new export control rules on emerging technologies — but Washington cannot unravel the dense network of the global tech sector on its own.
A U.S. campaign to try to cut off China's access to U.S. technology and products will only force China to increase its own nationalist stance regarding technology development. It will drive Beijing to ramp up support for companies in the Chinese tech sector and to improve the country's semiconductor production capabilities through initiatives like the Made in China 2025 plan, which the United States wants China to stop as a part of its trade war. China will also try to ensure that Chinese-led and -developed standards in the tech sector are adopted worldwide so that Chinese companies can sell their products in foreign markets without fear of the United States claiming patent infringement.
Many tech suppliers and global economies consider China the most important future growth market for technology since the developed world is essentially saturated. Suppliers in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and the rest of the world thus have a large economic incentive to not completely cut off economic relationships with China and its tech sector. Instead of cutting off ties to China, they will need to balance between China and the United States. Because of this, foreign companies and countries will find themselves needing to navigate a growing labyrinth of overlapping and contradictory export control rules and regulations. These rules and regulations, as well as the physical supply chains that bind them together, will be difficult to unravel, having been built up over years of globalization. But now the United States is trying to fragment globalization and it may start with Huawei.
Matthew Bey is an energy and technology analyst for Stratfor, where he monitors a variety of global issues and trends. In particular, he focuses on energy and political developments in OPEC member states and the consequences of such developments on oil producers and the international oil market. Mr. Bey's work includes studies on the global impact of rising U.S. energy production, the recent fall in oil prices, Russia's political influence on Europe through energy, and long-term trends in energy and manufacturing.
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second post
China, U.S.: With the Trade War Raging, Beijing Makes a Risky Appeal to Nationalism
(Stratfor)
The intensified U.S. economic offensive against China is weighing heavily on China's leadership. Instead of offering concessions, Beijing is hardening its position and stoking nationalism. Though the strategy will help Beijing build public support in the short term, it could backfire in the longer term.
What Happened
With Washington's targeting of Huawei raising tensions to new heights, the U.S.-China trade conflict shows no signs of abating. Now, the Chinese government has hardened its position on trade and is seeking to fan the flames of nationalist sentiment.
Five days after Washington increased tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods, state broadcaster CCTV on May 13 used its most popular news program to issue a strongly worded statement exuding confidence in China's ability to stand up to the United States. The tone stood in marked contrast to Beijing's relatively muted attitude in the preceding months as trade talks dragged on.
The statement coincided with Beijing's announcement of retaliatory tariffs and a high-level Politburo meeting, suggesting a degree of consensus among China's top leadership. In the following days, a series of commentaries and editorials from the state media and affiliated social media accounts continued to whip up nationalist sentiment in the face of U.S. pressure.
Why It Matters
The shift toward a nationalist tone coincides with Beijing's hardened trade negotiating position, which includes its rejection of U.S. demands for changes to Chinese law. Now, China is sticking to its line that any deal must involve the removal of all tariffs, respect China's dignity and steer clear of expecting the country to purchase an unreasonable amount of U.S. goods. If Washington does not rethink its demands and the sides fail to reach a deal within the United States' four-week deadline, China is implying that it is willing to accept an escalation of the trade war. These developments, accordingly, mean Chinese-U.S. trade tensions are less likely to diminish any time soon.
If Beijing sees little prospect of a U.S. de-escalation, it could impose restrictions on U.S. businesses and individuals in China and even refuse to sell strategic commodities like rare-earth elements to Americans.
Beyond select regulatory obstacles, Beijing has yet to erect major official obstacles against U.S. businesses and individuals. This stands in contrast to Beijing's tougher approach to Canada, whose citizens and exports it has targeted. If Beijing sees little prospect of a U.S. de-escalation, it might impose restrictions on U.S. businesses and individuals in China and even refuse to sell strategic commodities like rare-earth elements to Americans. Increased nationalism could also lead to public boycotts, protests or even attacks on U.S. assets and individuals beyond the state's control.
An intensified conflict over trade and nationalism that results in harm to U.S. interests will make China less appealing to foreign investors, something Beijing can ill afford at a time when its economy is already slowing. Moreover, previous protests have shown that promoting nationalism can boomerang on the Chinese state and lead to unwanted social disruptions.
Background
Given widespread and powerful resentment over China's "Century of Humiliation," nationalism can always be a powerful instrument to forge national cohesion during challenging times, allowing the Communist Party to muster popular support. Chinese President Xi Jinping has harnessed this force to manage the country's socio-economic transition. But despite increasing tensions with the United States since early 2018, Beijing had until now refrained from deliberate appeals to nationalism in the trade war, leaving more space for de-escalation and continued trade negotiations.
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https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/11/trump-administration-wonders-should-we-seek-cold-war-china/153176/?oref=d1-related-article
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2019/01/chinas-military-getting-better-lot-things-once-pentagon-intelligence/154194/?oref=d1-related-article
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/01/why-chinas-military-wants-beat-us-next-gen-cell-network/154009/?oref=d1-related-article
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/01/china-huawei-and-coming-technological-cold-war/153913/?oref=d1-related-article
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2018/04/us-navy-wants-better-way-keep-chinas-nose-out-its-contracts/147596/?oref=d1-related-article
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2018/11/us-air-force-redrawing-its-pacific-war-playbook-china/153051/?oref=d1-related-article
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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/us/politics/hikvision-trump.html?te=1&nl=politics&emc=edit_cn_20190522
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May 23, 2019
By George Friedman
Visiting China
I can’t explain China. I don’t know it well enough, and sometimes it seems to me that the Chinese are experts on their country, but they’re experts that don’t agree. Still, China is an American adversary, and an adversarial relationship between these two countries is dangerous even if it doesn’t lead to war. Therefore, I have to try to understand China.
I have been to Shanghai and Beijing, which I suspect are as representative of China as New York City and Washington are of the United States. In that sense, I have not been to China. Still, these are the country’s political and economic centers, so I will begin there.
I traveled to Beijing last fall as the guest of a bank that wanted me to speak to Chinese investors. It was at a time when the economic confrontation between the U.S. and China was just heating up, and the meetings were tense. Everything I said was met with suspicion. The local people I met with were filled with bravado, of how they would retaliate against the U.S. and the price they would exact. A quiet drink with one or two of them later in the evening brought out another dimension, as such late-night encounters often do. The investors were afraid of the United States and wanted to send back a message that while the U.S. was overreacting, there was nothing that couldn’t be managed. The Chinese simply wanted to know what the Americans wanted.
These were important men. They were well connected to Chinese political power; they wouldn’t be handling the funds they were handling without political blessing. They had been to many countries, including the United States. One of them, who led a particularly large fund, had been confrontational in public but admitted in private that he didn’t understand the Americans – not the government, not President Donald Trump, and not what he took to be the animosity of the American public. In his view, Trump was the prisoner of massive social forces. (In some sense, this was the old Marxist in him searching for the social basis of things.) But he couldn’t understand how American society had turned on a country that had done it no harm.
There was something profoundly strange in his understanding of the U.S. On the one hand, he felt that Trump was a prisoner of social forces. On the other hand, he asked that I deliver him a message. Why deliver a message to a trapped man? The confusion was compounded by the idea that I could deliver a message to any senior official. I tried to explain that I was not connected with the government and that officials would not give me the time of day, assuming they had any idea who I was. This was also incomprehensible to him. How could I be in Beijing, speaking of matters as sensitive as those I addressed, and not be authorized by the government? The more I protested, the more he assured me that he understood. This is a dance I have done in many countries whose citizens cannot conceive of a private citizen knowing things and not being answerable to the government. (The assumption is that I am CIA, and the more I protest that I am not, the more I get a wink and knowing look.) But this man had been to and done business with the United States. How could he not tell that I was merely watching from the bleachers and putting forth my best analysis of the situation?
The truth is that while it can be said that Americans don’t understand China, even the most sophisticated Chinese simply don’t know how to read the United States. Yes, Trump was elected by social forces, and yes, he is president. But he has to deal with Congress and the courts. His hands are free and tied in a very American way. As for me, the U.S. is filled with people who go to China and act as if they know something. Washington is a city filled with people who would claim to know important people, but mostly they don’t.
Years ago, well before today’s mutual fear, I met a Chinese businessman who wanted to sell some goods to the Department of Defense. He wanted to meet with a senior government official, at least the secretary of defense. He was told that he needed to meet with a lieutenant colonel, the project manager, based in Colorado – that was the key to the sale, not the secretary of defense. The businessman recounted this story to me with anger, because he had clearly been rebuffed without courtesy. All I could do was tell him that he better hurry before the lieutenant colonel was rotated to a new job, and his job left open for six months.
While I was in Beijing, I was given a guide who would take me around the city. One of the places she took me was a small traditional neighborhood in the midst of Beijing called a hutong. It is not a museum but a small village with people living there, shopping there and raising families there. The cottages, if they can be called that, were small and my guide told me that she had lived in one of them when she first came to Beijing. She had a room with access to a shared stove for cooking in a hallway but no plumbing. When she wanted to take a shower or use a toilet, she would have to walk down the street to a communal bathroom. She told me many people wanted to live in this neighborhood but that rooms are very expensive.
(click to enlarge)
Earlier that day, I had had lunch with an Australian friend in a shopping center, which would be quite upscale for the United States – all the international brands were there and then some. The mall was crowded with mostly younger shoppers. I was told that there were many such malls in Beijing. In the hutong, my guide told me that there were many such villages in Beijing. I find it incomprehensible that the capital of the second-largest economy in the world would have malls that would make Beverly Hills blush, intermingled with peasant villages from a bygone era. My guide could not understand my bewilderment.
This is the point where I am supposed to say that we should all work toward better understanding each other. If we have time, we should. But the fact is that we will not, on the whole, understand each other. I have met many U.S expats who had spent years in China and confessed that while they understood China better than I did, they still had large blank spots in their knowledge. Same for the Chinese. Each of us reasons through the prism of our own societies looking for analogs from our own countries. That includes those who admire the other country as much as those who fear and distrust it. The two countries have different geographies, histories and fears rising from different places.
It is also not necessary for us to understand each other, which is just as well since we won’t. What is necessary, however, is that the citizens of each understand their own country and its needs. I couldn’t explain to the Chinese fund manager how the U.S. works, but I could tell him what it wants from China: access to the Chinese markets on the same terms as we give them, and recognition that the Pacific is under American control. It is most important that we understand what we need and leave it to the Chinese to understand what they need, and the system will take care of itself, mostly peacefully and sometimes violently. But the idea that if we understood each other better we could work things out misses two points. First, that we won’t understand each other. And second, that the vast internal pressures in each country will determine what each will do – not a think tank, not the close friends of presidents. But if we know what we want, then at least we can understand what is going on.
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https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3011441/us-senate-bill-proposes-sanctions-involvement-illegal?fbclid=IwAR3cKi5Ry21Hhg7N_46_6CCOe-OiItREjobsG0v83kQOwFDIdXFVc696IvM
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China only controls ~ 36 % of world supply
probably less once we start making more effort to find them:
https://geology.com/articles/rare-earth-elements/
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China only controls ~ 36 % of world supply
probably less once we start making more effort to find them:
https://geology.com/articles/rare-earth-elements/
That seems far more credible than larger proportions quoted earlier.
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China only controls ~ 36 % of world supply
probably less once we start making more effort to find them:
https://geology.com/articles/rare-earth-elements/
That seems far more credible than larger proportions quoted earlier.
Rare earths aren’t that rare. China is willing to refine them cheaply with little to no environmental concerns. Plenty of other countries can fill the need. Even the People’s Republic of Kalifornia.
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Some years back I invested short term in some REE stocks and -- rare event-- did extremely well in very short order. I got out as I became concerned about the Chinese variable.
Working from memory, the US has plenty of REE but has shut down our mines because of genuine, serious environmental issues.
The Chinese tried (succeeded? Don't remember) intimidating the Japanese in a South China Sea squabble by threatening Japanese access to Chinese REE, so this is not the first time that this has come up.
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This is a desperation move by China. They are losing and they know it.
Some years back I invested short term in some REE stocks and -- rare event-- did extremely well in very short order. I got out as I became concerned about the Chinese variable.
Working from memory, the US has plenty of REE but has shut down our mines because of genuine, serious environmental issues.
The Chinese tried (succeeded? Don't remember) intimidating the Japanese in a South China Sea squabble by threatening Japanese access to Chinese REE, so this is not the first time that this has come up.
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China only controls ~ 36 % of world supply
probably less once we start making more effort to find them:
https://geology.com/articles/rare-earth-elements/
That seems far more credible than larger proportions quoted earlier.
Rare earths aren’t that rare. China is willing to refine them cheaply with little to no environmental concerns. Plenty of other countries can fill the need. Even the People’s Republic of Kalifornia.
http://fortune.com/2019/05/29/china-rare-earth-metals-trade-war/
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The Big Picture
________________________________________
China has elevated rhetoric threatening to restrict exports of rare earth elements to the United States, implying through state media mouthpieces that a ban of the materials vital to high-tech manufacturing could be imminent. As U.S.-Chinese trade negotiations continue to spiral downward, Beijing is looking to hit back against the United States in the ongoing trade war. With major shifts on the horizon in the global rare earth elements market, China may be seeking to use its current control of this strategic resource as a retaliatory tool before that leverage begins to wane.
________________________________________
China in TransitionSupply Chains
What Happened
Chinese rhetoric surrounding its willingness to impose restrictions on rare earth exports has escalated. Two different state-controlled entities have strongly hinted that China is prepared to use its near-monopoly in the rare earths market to hit back against the United States in the ongoing trade dispute. The People’s Daily, a state-run publication, published a commentary entitled "United States, Don’t Underestimate China’s Ability to Strike Back." The strongly worded missive echoed previous warnings outlining how rare earths could be used as a "counter weapon" to respond to U.S. tariffs and ongoing demands in trade negotiations. At the same time, China’s National Development and Research Commission, the country’s top economic planning agency, emphasized the need for China to prioritize domestic needs over the export market in the face of rising domestic demand for rare earths.
Two weeks earlier, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Vice Premier Liu He paid a highly publicized visit to a major rare earths production facility in Jiangxi province that processes the elements for use in defense and avionic systems, sending a strong signal that China was considering using its dominant position in the rare earths sector to retaliate against the United States.
Supply Threat and Potential Alternatives
Because of China’s near-monopoly on rare earths processing, any decision by Beijing to ban their export would undoubtedly produce short-term supply disruptions in the numerous high-tech sectors that use them — telecommunications, electric vehicles, renewables and defense, to name a few — although estimates vary about how long that disruption would last. The U.S. government keeps stockpiles of some rare earths, though much of that supply is not fit for final use, and China possesses nearly all global processing capacity. Still, some experts believe that the defense sector, at least, would be able to muddle through in the short term by tapping a combination of public and private stocks. However, timelines are difficult to pinpoint as even the government reportedly has difficulty tracking rare earth inputs throughout the supply chain.
As has often been noted, supplies of the 17 rare earth elements, comprising the lanthanide metals plus scandium and yttrium, are relatively abundant. The eventual diversification of rare earth supplies away from China, a process that is proceeding slowly, is inevitable, especially as global demand grows. Technological advancements are likely to result in a diversification of rare earth supplies away from China as new projects become more economically feasible due to surging demand. Around a decade ago, the market failed to support some alternative supplies, while some plans to develop further alternatives fell by the wayside. And although market realities are different this time, it would still take months to restart even an existing mine, while building a new processing facility would take years. In all, replacing the supply China currently provides, by conservative estimates, would take more than a decade.
Though the trend is toward a more globally diverse market — and there are even proposals for a new processing facility in the United States — alternatives to Chinese processing capacity are, for now, mostly confined to an operation in Malaysia that faces an upcoming licensing issue that could disrupt operations. Should the restrictions take effect, China’s own domestic sector may also come into play. As China continues to consolidate its rare earths sector and cracks down on illegal mining at home, those miners will continue to look for alternative markets. Earlier this month, China banned imports of rare earths from Myanmar — which accounted for roughly half of China’s feedstock of medium and high rare earth elements in 2018 — in an effort to thwart smuggling. Myanmar producers, accordingly, will now be looking for alternative markets as well.
In considering a ban, Beijing would be trading the long-term consequences of accelerating the decline of its near-monopoly on the rare earths market for traction in the trade war.
Inflaming the Trade War
Instead of enticing Washington to return to the negotiation table, potential Chinese restrictions on rare earths would further fan the flames of its trade war with the United States. Until now, China has for the most part refrained from seriously challenging the United States beyond tit-for-tat tariffs and limited regulatory restrictions as it tries to keep the door open for further trade talks. But as Beijing perceives progress in the talks to be less likely, it could become more willing to inflict serious economic pain on the United States. The chances that China would employ the rare earths option will peak if the White Houses follows through with additional bans targeting Chinese tech companies or adds even more tariffs.
In considering the ban, Beijing would be trading the long-term consequences of accelerating the decline of its near-monopoly on the rare earths market for traction in the trade war. The advantage gained in showing a strong intent and a willingness to continue down an aggressive path could leave the United States unsure whether additional harmful restrictions, like restrictions on major U.S. tech firms, could be in the works. The costs of a rare earths ban would be high as it would damage China's long-term strategy of controlling or dominating all aspects of the electric vehicle supply chain. At the same time, it would also incite an international backlash through World Trade Organization measures or possibly push the European Union to take the United States' side in trade talks.
But for Beijing, that would be an acceptable alternative to riskier options for retaliation, including dumping its extensive U.S. Treasury bond holdings or restricting U.S. business operations inside China. Those moves could cause significant market volatility and shake business confidence, undermining its ability to withstand the trade war. Stronger posturing and potential rare earths restrictions could be a potential avenue to extract a trade deal more beneficial to Beijing, one that does not force reform in key strategic sectors. Meanwhile, as China uses nationalist narratives to prepare the public for a further intensification of the trade war, it opens the door for consumer boycotts of American goods, protests or even attacks on U.S. assets and individuals.
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There goes the double digit growth.
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3012538/china-manufacturing-index-crashes-negative-territory-may
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There goes the double digit growth.
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3012538/china-manufacturing-index-crashes-negative-territory-may
The PLA may be too busy machinegunning mobs of Chinese citizens, and as a result, cut back on threatening other nations in asia.
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"The PLA may be too busy machinegunning mobs of Chinese citizens, and as a result, cut back on threatening other nations in Asia."
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30 year anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre coming up June 3-4.
For 30 years I've been wrong predicting the Great Fall of the regime of China.
I wonder how the regime will celebrate the anniversary. Maybe just have a few Central Committee laughs and toasts in private? Here's to another 30 years of oppression...
(https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6064567be5306abe5e0235f2fc96a99941638c64/0_23_2000_1201/master/2000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=4605c43634b904c835ad056ab9ddb7de)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/31/tiananmen-square-protests-crackdown-intensifies-as-30th-anniversary-nears
"On June 3-4, the People’s Liberation Army opened fire point-blank on unarmed civilians around the square."
"In a diplomatic cable dated June 5, 1989 -- and declassified in 2017 -- the then-British ambassador to China estimated at least 10,000 were killed."
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-29/how-the-tiananmen-square-protests-shaped-modern-china-quicktake
(http://www.awesomestories.com/images/user/64449dde27f272e540dc687345c677d4.jpg)
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https://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=189701&sec_id=189701&fbclid=IwAR3jo6qh9F_MwwYybtMbrOB5okgeiW4CbMSWtGWD7S8LKUA8WMKgOlD89XM
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second post
https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/china-announces-south-china-sea-military-training-exercises/article27405127.ece?fbclid=IwAR3-FBV2FCrcH0hAZo40TaJa6YVJeHRR8afLOC08Hof7ba7MnOdYAjDAdco
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Third post
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dont-panic-about-rare-earth-elements/?redirect=1&fbclid=IwAR1MT0phieZc4zZiwkusgwOyxpCZivewT6uFHA4JiaKWbSYRvFqf_O9gebI
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The South Pacific. Newly re-elected Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters this morning that the three Chinese warships that arrived at Sydney Harbor this morning were on a reciprocal four-day visit approved by his government. He cautioned that their visit should not be over-analyzed – but his pleas fall on deaf ears at GPF. Indeed, it is hard not to scrutinize the Chinese navy’s sudden visit to Sydney considering last week’s reports that Australian military helicopters were forced to land during operations in the South China Sea after laser attacks launched by Chinese militia vessels, a charge China’s Defense Ministry fiercely denied. As for the prime minister, he is currently in the Solomon Islands, making the small and strategically located Pacific island nation his first official visit after the election. There, Morrison will announce $250 million in infrastructure investments and a $250 million grant to a program designed to help island residents get work in Australia – all to make sure that Australia, not China, is the country’s international partner of first choice. The competition between the two countries is very real, even if they appear friendly on the surface.
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How the pols and policy gurus totally misread history on China:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/30-years-after-tiananmen-us-doesnt-get-china/591310/
A American friend of mine has a son who lives in
China and speaks fluent Chinese.
He would tell me a dozen yrs ago how the Chinese would laugh at how stupid the US was with regards to them.
All the while ripping us off and playing us for fools.
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Has, so far been wrong about China:
"Collapse of China
Chang says that China is on the brink of collapse and that the people are one step away from revolution.[7] Chang also says that China is a "new dot-com bubble", adding that the rapid growth by China is not supported by various internal factors such as decrease in population growth as well as slowing retail sales.[8] In a separate interview, he remarked that China achieved its 149.2 percent of its current trade surplus with the United States through "lying, cheating, and stealing" and that if China decided to realize its threat that had been expressed since August 2007 to sell its US Treasuries, it would actually hurt its own economy which is reliant on exports to the United States; the economy of the United States would be hurt by a sell-off of Treasuries, causing the United States to buy less from China, which would in turn hurt the Chinese economy.[9]
Chang has said that the Chinese government would collapse in 2012 and 2016.[10][11] Shen Dingli, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, wrote that Chang's predictions "collapse his own credibility."
I would be curious as to what he thinks at this time.
Hopefully he is NOT wrong about the prediction but only wrong about the time frame.
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The struggle going on now in HK is a BFD. Hardly covered yet in the US press.
An estimated 1 million Hong Kong residents took to the streets over the weekend in ongoing demonstrations to protest a new bill that would allow extradition to mainland China of those suspected of criminal offenses. Hong Kong citizens fear that, if the bill is adopted, China’s notoriously repressive and corrupt criminal laws will be used against Beijing’s political opponents in Hong Kong. (Read.It.All.)
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2019/06/11/hong-kongs-protests-against-china-show-u-s-appeasement-of-beijing-has-failed-to-bring-reform/
Hong Kong’s young protesters back with a vengeance as all-out chaos erupts on city’s streets
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3014257/hong-kongs-student-protesters-back-vengeance-all-out-chaos
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at demonstrators who threw plastic bottles on Wednesday as protests against an extradition bill that would allow people to be sent to mainland China for trial descended into violent chaos.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-extradition/hong-kong-police-fire-rubber-bullets-as-extradition-bill-protests-turn-to-chaos-idUSKCN1TC1WR
Hong Kong police fire rubber bullets as extradition bill protests turn to chaos
https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3014210/ghosts-occupy-return-haunt-hong-kong
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Still trying to figure out the "Orange man bad!" spin.
The struggle going on now in HK is a BFD. Hardly covered yet in the US press.
An estimated 1 million Hong Kong residents took to the streets over the weekend in ongoing demonstrations to protest a new bill that would allow extradition to mainland China of those suspected of criminal offenses. Hong Kong citizens fear that, if the bill is adopted, China’s notoriously repressive and corrupt criminal laws will be used against Beijing’s political opponents in Hong Kong. (Read.It.All.)
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2019/06/11/hong-kongs-protests-against-china-show-u-s-appeasement-of-beijing-has-failed-to-bring-reform/
Hong Kong’s young protesters back with a vengeance as all-out chaos erupts on city’s streets
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3014257/hong-kongs-student-protesters-back-vengeance-all-out-chaos
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at demonstrators who threw plastic bottles on Wednesday as protests against an extradition bill that would allow people to be sent to mainland China for trial descended into violent chaos.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-extradition/hong-kong-police-fire-rubber-bullets-as-extradition-bill-protests-turn-to-chaos-idUSKCN1TC1WR
Hong Kong police fire rubber bullets as extradition bill protests turn to chaos
https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3014210/ghosts-occupy-return-haunt-hong-kong
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GM:
"Still trying to figure out the "Orange man bad!" spin"
maybe the "spin " is just this,
Dough wrote :
" Hardly covered yet in the US press "
Since the MSM can't think of a way to use this to make Trump look bad they simply ignore it and spend the whole day talking impeachment , Russia interference, and obstruction , and the rest of their propaganda to desperately get the public opinion to change so over 50 % want impeachment.
Push the nonstop farce and ignore real events .
I haven't seen the new yet but the tanker explosions will be easily be spun as thus:
If Trump had only kept the genius ObamaKerry deal with Iran going this would never had happened.
Orange man is leading us to war because he is not simple accepting that Iran should get nuclear bombs and missles
like the first socialist prezident .
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Xi man bad. Totalitarianism bad. Coercion / Fascism bad. One million people take to the streets desperate to save their last shred of freedom and no one in the world comes to their support.
Hong Kong rule was handed back to the ruthless Communists while Bill Clinton was President.
Nothing in this struggle fits the American MSM Trump man bad narrative.
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Xi man bad. Totalitarianism bad. Coercion / Fascism bad. One million people take to the streets desperate to save their last shred of freedom and no one in the world comes to their support.
Hong Kong rule was handed back to the ruthless Communists while Bill Clinton was President.
Nothing in this struggle fits the American MSM Trump man bad narrative.
https://pjmedia.com/claudiarosett/the-sky-high-stakes-in-hong-kong/
If it were up to me, Trump would make a clear statement that unless the PRC backs off of HK, 100% tariffs on everything out of the PRC. Totally locked out of the US market. We will just see how long Xi Pooh Bear remains emperor after that.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/huawei-is-an-asset-not-a-threat-11558390913
George Gilder goes against the crowd on this. I don't agree with him but would like to learn his viewpoint. He seems naive on the security question but he knows the technology better than I do. I will try to find a version of this that doesn't require subscription.
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https://www.discovery.org/a/huawei-is-an-asset-not-a-threat/
Huawei Is an Asset, Not a Threat
Ren Zhengfei’s company should be celebrated as a triumph of the U.S.-led global trading system.
GEORGE GILDER MAY 20, 2019 ECONOMICS, TECHNOLOGY
READ AT THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Among the world’s most inspiring business voices is Ren Zhengfei, founder-philosopher of Huawei, the disruptive and now condemned Chinese telecom-equipment company. Vilified as a cat’s-paw of the Chinese government, Mr. Ren has decided to place his trust in America’s legal system and launch a court challenge to the U.S. government’s campaign against his company—and family. His daughter, Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, is fighting extradition to the U.S. from Canada on murky charges that she helped financial institutions violate American sanctions on Iran. She has been under house arrest in Vancouver, British Columbia, since December.
The U.S. is about to learn not to underestimate Mr. Ren. In three decades he turned the equivalent of $3,000 into China’s telecom-equipment champion and a multinational colossus. Huawei boasts $105 billion in annual revenue, operates in 170 countries, and employs 180,000 people. Its finance division, run by Ms. Meng, is staffed by hundreds of graduates of Harvard, Cambridge, Wharton and Yale.
In the U.S., anxious experts and rivals have offered many explanations and alibis for the rise of Huawei. Mr. Ren, they say, is an ex-officer of the People’s Liberation Army who created his company as a Trojan horse for communist hackers and spies. Huge subsidies and heists of intellectual property allegedly account for Huawei’s ascent.
Mr. Ren’s army career, however, was routine for Chinese youths and focused on engineering. As the son of a “capitalist roader,” Mr. Ren launched one of the first fully private firms in mainland China, pioneering a U.S.-style employee stock-ownership plan. Huawei triumphed by outperforming the state-owned enterprises that had previously dominated China’s telecom industry. Huawei’s independent auditor, KPMG, reports no major state subsidies and verifies Huawei’s private ownership structure, with 98.6% owned by employees and 1.4% by Mr. Ren.
Mr. Ren is a vocal admirer of American openness. “Throughout history, China has shut itself away from the outside world for long periods of time, making it impossible to become strong,” he has said. “The U.S. is the world’s most open nation, and thus the world’s strongest.” A supply-side admirer of President Trump’s tax cuts, he says: “Benefits from increased investment can offset loss of revenue.”
The claim leveled most frequently against Huawei is that it steals. But rival technology companies necessarily imitate one another and use common components under industry standards, provoking tensions over intellectual property. In January 2003, the American router pioneer Cisco hit Huawei with a wide-ranging lawsuit alleging Mr. Ren’s company had copied Cisco’s software code and violated several of its patents. Mr. Ren saw the lawsuit as an opportunity, declaring his trust in the U.S. legal system and sending Huawei lawyers and engineers to remote East Texas to defend the company. The two firms eventually settled their dispute.
In the years since the settlement Huawei has become a prime mover in the telecommunications industry. It has paid U.S. chip maker Qualcomm more than $1 billion in royalties in recent years and last year bought $11 billion worth of chips from American companies such as Intel and Broadcom. Today, with some 2,300 patents, Huawei is the world leader in the new 5G generation of broadband wireless architecture and offers the only turnkey system that can be installed in a working network.
In recent months the U.S. government has begun backpedaling on specific claims of wrongdoing by Huawei, reverting to a more general argument that it does the bidding of Beijing, which requires Chinese companies to cooperate with its intelligence services. Anathematizing Chinese companies simply for being Chinese would cripple the world economy. The international trading system and its global supply chains have allowed America to build the world’s four most valuable companies: Microsoft , Amazon, Apple and Google. Each outsources manufacturing to China and Taiwan.
If U.S. telecom companies and network managers are worried about Huawei, they should ask to see the company’s software source codes. If consumers interpret the continual patter of software upgrades as a threat to privacy, Washington should assign the role of managing them to domestic telecommunications companies. Telecom pioneer Daniel Berninger has proposed creating a new Network Integrity Board to mitigate fears of sabotage or breakdown because of equipment flaws. Its model would be the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates plane crashes.
With a steady stream of news stories about data breaches and international hacking, people have grown understandably nervous about what the future holds for personal privacy, economic growth and national security. Easing these fears will require the development of a new and secure internet architecture. The good news is that technologists around the world are developing such a system.
Huawei isn’t a problem. It’s an opportunity to revitalize the U.S. economy and enhance its digital infrastructure. The U.S. should embrace Huawei as a triumph of the American-led system rather than push it into the arms of Chinese hard-liners who revel in autarkic dreams.
Mr. Gilder is author of “Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy.”
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Gilder has always decried any protectionism from China
he has always , since the 90's down played the "threat" from china.
In the 90s a remember quite well with astonishment how he said the Chinese stealing from us with but a blip and to think the Chinese would not be able to come up with the stuff anyway on their own was foolish
On these points I could not DISAGREE with GG more .
He certainly is NOT a genius on global politics .
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but thank GOD there are some politicians who don't have sons taking money through well connected business deals with China
who are looking at this with their eyes wide open:
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/rick-scott-deal/2019/06/13/id/920267/
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https://sharylattkisson.com/2019/06/organs-from-chinese-prisoners-harvested-insider-account/
https://nypost.com/2019/06/01/chinese-dissidents-are-being-executed-for-their-organs-former-hospital-worker-says/
Chinese dissidents are being executed for their organs, former hospital worker says
By Steven W. Mosher June 1, 2019 | 9:59am | Updated
China is rounding up dissidents and barbarically harvesting their organs, while profiting greatly in the process, according to reports.
Zheng Qiaozhi — we will call him George — still has nightmares. He was interning at China’s Shenyang Army General Hospital when he was drafted to be part of an organ-harvesting team.
The prisoner was brought in, tied hand and foot, but very much alive. The army doctor in charge sliced him open from chest to belly button and exposed his two kidneys. “Cut the veins and arteries,” he told his shocked intern. George did as he was told. Blood spurted everywhere.
The kidneys were placed in an organ-transplant container.
Then the doctor ordered George to remove the man’s eyeballs. Hearing that, the dying prisoner gave him a look of sheer terror, and George froze. “I can’t do it,” he told the doctor, who then quickly scooped out the man’s eyeballs himself.
George was so unnerved by what he had seen that he soon quit his job at the hospital and returned home. Later, afraid that he might be the next victim of China’s forced organ-transplant business, he fled to Canada and assumed a new identity.
First-person accounts like George’s are understandably rare. The “transplant tourists” who come to China are naturally told nothing about the “donors” of their new heart, liver or kidney. And those who are executed for their organs tell no tales.
Experts estimate that between 60,000 and 100,000 organs are transplanted annually in China. Multiply that number times the cost of a liver transplant ($170,000) or a kidney transplant ($130,000), and the result is an eye-popping $10 billion to 20 billion.
And where do these hundreds of thousands of organs come from? George was told nothing about the background of the young man whose kidneys he fatally removed except that he was “under 18 and in good health.”
‘The world is beginning to wake up to the fact that virtually every organ transplant in China costs the life of an innocent human being’
But experts like Ethan Gutmann, author of several books on the subject, believe that the vast majority are obtained by executing prisoners of conscience.
One particularly rich source of fresh organs for China’s transplant industry in recent years has been the Falun Gong, which was declared a heretical Buddhist sect in 1999 by then-Party Secretary Jiang Zemin. Hundreds of thousands — perhaps millions — of the group’s followers have been arrested and disappeared into a vast network of secret prisons, many never to reemerge — at least in one piece.
The Muslim minorities of China’s far west are apparently next in line. Over the past couple of years, between one to three million Uighur and Kazakh men have been arrested and sent to concentration camps — Beijing calls them “vocational training centers” — in the region.
Tellingly, all these prisoners of conscience not only had their blood drawn upon entry but also had their organs examined, presumably so they could be more quickly matched with those willing to pay for them. Even more ominously, dedicated organ-transplant lanes have been opened at airports in the region, while crematoria are being built nearby.
All this suggests that assembly-line harvesting of Uighur, Kazakh and Tibetan organs is already getting underway. China is not just ridding itself of troublesome minorities, it is profiting mightily in the process.
Despite China’s claims to the contrary, its transplant business is booming. And, thanks to a Western technology called ECMO — extracorporeal membrane oxygenation — it has become much, much more lucrative.
Twenty years ago, it was only possible to successfully harvest an organ or two — two kidneys, say, or a heart — from a transplant victim. The other organs, such as the lungs and liver, had to be discarded because they had been deprived of oxygen too long to be usable.
Now, the victims are put on an ECMO machine, which serves as an artificial heart and lung and keeps every last organ fresh enough to be harvested. Before ECMO, a victim’s few salvageable organs were worth maybe $250,000. Now, with ECMO, every organ can be harvested — even the skin — and the victim is easily worth two or three times as much. ECMO, which has saved countless lives in the West, has had the opposite effect in China: It has accelerated the killing of innocent people.
In recent years, China has gone to ever greater lengths to cover up these crimes from international scrutiny. In January 2015, the government announced that it would only use organs from voluntary civilian organ donors and that the use of organs from executed prisoners would be banned.
As proof, they even published statistics. These showed a straight-line increase in “voluntary” organ donations so picture-perfect it could only be fabricated. And China’s “official” number of voluntary donors had only risen to 6,000 by 2018, a number far too small to supply the many tens of thousands of organs actually transplanted that year.
Proof that the slaughter of “donors” continues is revealed by the country’s amazingly short wait times for organs. In normal countries, sick people can wait for many months or years for an organ to become available. The wait time in the UK is three years. The wait time in Canada is double that. Only in China do organ tourists receive a kidney, heart or liver transplant within days or weeks of arriving. In fact, in some cases patients have reported that their transplant surgeries were scheduled before they even arrived in China — something that could only happen as a result of forced organ harvesting.
The world is beginning to wake up to the fact that virtually every organ transplant in China costs the life of an innocent human being. That’s why countries like Israel, Spain, Italy and Taiwan have already banned transplant tourism.
In the past, primitive peoples often practiced human sacrifice in order to propitiate the gods.
But China’s officially atheistic Communist Party couldn’t care less about pleasing or displeasing a higher being. It has resurrected the practice of human sacrifice for two very practical reasons: to rid itself of troublesome minorities and to turn a huge profit.
China’s organ-transplant assembly line is not only murder for hire but may turn out to be a kind of genocide as well.
Steven W. Mosher is the president of the Population Research Institute and the author of “Bully of Asia: Why China’s Dream is the New Threat to World Order,” out now.
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https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/China-s-debt-mountain-scales-new-heights-on-trade-war-stimulus
The ratio of debt to gross domestic product, excluding the financial industry, totaled 248.8% at the end of March, according to a study by two government think tanks. That figure is 5.1 percentage points higher than it was at the end of December.
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"The ratio of debt to gross domestic product, excluding the financial industry, totaled 248.8% at the end of March, according to a study by two government think tanks. That figure is 5.1 percentage points higher than it was at the end of December."
WOW!!! :-o
Between Trump telling us how great everything is and the DEms promising to exponentially increase consumer spending
the day of reckoning continues to get closer.
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https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3015421/collision-highlights-need-south-china-sea-code
Chinese vessel crushes a Filipino fishing boat, leaves them for others to rescue. Incident highlights the need for agreed rules.
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The world retains its ability to surprise:
Germany eyes the Taiwan Strait. High-ranking German officials are discussing sending a warship through the Chinese-claimed and highly contested Taiwan Strait, which U.S. warships have been visiting with increasing frequency, according to a Politico report citing two unnamed German officials. A decision this summer is unlikely. This is interesting less for what it means for the future of the Taiwan Strait and more for what it tells us about the gradual increase in Indo-Pacific activity among European powers. In April, the Chinese navy shadowed a French frigate as it transited the strait, and last month, France deployed its only aircraft carrier group to Southeast Asia. The U.K., too, has said it may start conducting freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea. But Berlin has been much more cautious about any displays of military force. Its potential change of heart is likely motivated by a desire to prove its value as an alliance partner to the United States, which is still holding the threat of tariffs on foreign cars over the export-dependent German economy and perpetually frustrated over the meager military budgets of many of its NATO allies.
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So, Trump has got them to start acting like allies.
The world retains its ability to surprise:
Germany eyes the Taiwan Strait. High-ranking German officials are discussing sending a warship through the Chinese-claimed and highly contested Taiwan Strait, which U.S. warships have been visiting with increasing frequency, according to a Politico report citing two unnamed German officials. A decision this summer is unlikely. This is interesting less for what it means for the future of the Taiwan Strait and more for what it tells us about the gradual increase in Indo-Pacific activity among European powers. In April, the Chinese navy shadowed a French frigate as it transited the strait, and last month, France deployed its only aircraft carrier group to Southeast Asia. The U.K., too, has said it may start conducting freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea. But Berlin has been much more cautious about any displays of military force. Its potential change of heart is likely motivated by a desire to prove its value as an alliance partner to the United States, which is still holding the threat of tariffs on foreign cars over the export-dependent German economy and perpetually frustrated over the meager military budgets of many of its NATO allies.
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Maybe we should score it under the "Promises Kept" thread :-D
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Maybe we should score it under the "Promises Kept" thread :-D
Dems: it’s because of Obama’s bowing!
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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/01/opinion/hong-kong.html
What the Hong Kong Protests Are Really About
Chinese people in Hong Kong live better than any in Chinese history. This gives moral force to our way of life.
By Jimmy Lai
Mr. Lai is the founder and majority owner of Next Media, which publishes the Apple Daily newspaper and Next Magazine in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
July 1, 2019
Riot police firing tear gas during clashes with protestors outside the Legislature in Hong Kong, on Monday.
Credit
Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times
ImageRiot police firing tear gas during clashes with protestors outside the Legislature in Hong Kong, on Monday.
Riot police firing tear gas during clashes with protestors outside the Legislature in Hong Kong, on Monday.CreditCreditLam Yik Fei for The New York Times
阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版
When hundreds of thousands of my fellow Hong Kongers took to the streets to demonstrate last month, most of the world saw people protesting provocative legislation that would allow extraditions to mainland China.
But the Chinese government, which supported the extradition measure, had a much broader view of the protests. It recognized them as the first salvo in a new cold war, one in which the otherwise unarmed Hong Kong people wield the most powerful weapon in the fight against the Chinese Communist Party: moral force.
In much of the West, moral force is underestimated. Communists never make that mistake. There is a reason Beijing will never invite the pope or the Dalai Lama for a visit to China. The government knows that whenever its leaders must stand beside anyone with even the slightest moral legitimacy, they suffer by the comparison. Moral force makes Communists insecure.
And for good reason. As China was reminded this week, as riot police officers used pepper spray and batons on demonstrators in Hong Kong, the protests have been holding a mirror up to China. What rattles Beijing is that it sees in that mirror what the rest of the world sees: a monster.
Since his ascendancy to power in 2012, President Xi Jinping has made no secret of his goal to purge the Western influences that he believes are contaminating China. In Hong Kong, he has been working to erode the limited political freedoms and rule of law that make Hong Kong the special region of China that it is — and that have long made Hong Kong economically valuable to China, ironically enough.
Nearly all us in Hong Kong who are Chinese are refugees or the descendants of refugees from China. We have no illusions about what happens to people when they come up short in the eyes of the Communist Party. Everyone in Hong Kong knows that introducing the possibility of imprisoning us in China, as the extradition treaty does, would signal the end of life in Hong Kong as we know it.
In Beijing’s view, of course, Hong Kong’s colonial past undermines its legitimacy as a Chinese society. Never mind that the system of limited freedoms that the British introduced to Hong Kong existed long before Communism was established on the mainland. (Communism is itself a Western import to China, by the way.)
The inconvenient truth is that Chinese people in Hong Kong (and in Taiwan) live better than any Chinese in Chinese history. This gives moral force to our way of life. It also shows the extraordinary things Chinese people can accomplish when given the freedom to do so.
Hong Kong’s moral force has also been economically good for China, since the moral force of our free society cannot be separated from its prosperity. It is not likely that Beijing agreed to have the government of Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, suspend consideration of the extradition bill just because a lot of people marched against it. No doubt President Xi learned much about capital flight and jittery investors during those protests and saw how badly China still needs a prosperous and functioning Hong Kong.
This is Mr. Xi’s great weakness: If he crushes the soul of Hong Kong, he will lose the Hong Kong he needs to make China the global power he envisions.
So it is not trade with China that the West should aim to stop. China is also simply too big now as a market for and producer of goods and services. We all need to trade with China, just as we all need to trade among ourselves. It should be possible for the West and China to trade freely, while at the same time competing as opposing value systems.
People at protests against changing Hong Kong’s extradition law sat outside the Legislative Council building in Hong Kong, on June 21.
Credit
Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times
ImagePeople at protests against changing Hong Kong’s extradition law sat outside the Legislative Council building in Hong Kong, on June 21.
People at protests against changing Hong Kong’s extradition law sat outside the Legislative Council building in Hong Kong, on June 21.CreditLam Yik Fei for The New York Times
The values war is the real war. For the West to prevail, it must support the tiny little corner of China where its virtues now operate: Hong Kong. These values may be a legacy of Western rule, but for Hong Kongers who have grown up with them, they feel as natural as any part of our Chinese heritage.
Our struggle with Beijing, if successful, can help China’s leaders begin to accept the need for authority earned through the moral admiration of the world, not through the barrel of a gun. But if Beijing’s approach prevails, when China becomes the world’s biggest economy — which it inevitably will — the West will face a far greater monster.
The West’s moral authority is its most powerful weapon. Moral authority is where China is most vulnerable to humiliation, at home and abroad. Beijing has no weapons save for force, which gets harder to rely on, the more the world can see that for itself.
Jimmy Lai is the founder and majority owner of Next Media, which publishes the Apple Daily newspaper and Next Magazine in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
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In 2008 Chinese authorities received 204,268 patent filings, compared with 428,881 in the US. However, by 2017 China’s State Intellectual Property Office received 1.3 million applications — more than double the number received by the US, according to statistics from the World Intellectual Property Organization, the global forum for policy in the field.
https://www.ft.com/content/8ecf7464-8d05-11e9-b8cb-26a9caa9d67b?segmentId=a7371401-027d-d8bf-8a7f-2a746e767d56
China is narrowing the gap between it and the U.S. in the race for dominance in high-technology markets, according to a recent Nikkei analysis. Chinese companies expanded their market share in nine sectors including mobile infrastructure in 2018, while the U.S. grew in eight, the analysis of data collected by various research companies showed. Of 74 high-tech products and services covered by the survey, an analysis of the top 5 shares in 25 key markets found that Chinese companies expanded their presence in mobile base stations as well as smartphones and tablets.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-trends/China-makes-gains-against-US-in-high-tech-markets2
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The Hong Kong protests succeeded, for the moment. The power was in the numbers. Hong Kong is part of China. One country, two systems? BS.
For the most part, Chinese people probably have no idea what happened in Hong Kong. Chinese People traveling outside of the country know. Chinese people in the US know. Chinese students studying at MIT know. Hard to keep all of this a secret.
It seems to me this has huge implications for the future of China. It seems to me that the US has huge leverage here in our ability to put out this message and others to the Chinese people. No?
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Wouldn't that be contrary to President Trump's policy of not meddling in the internal affairs of other countries with human rights stuff?
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Wouldn't that be contrary to President Trump's policy of not meddling in the internal affairs of other countries with human rights stuff?
The PRC would agree that both HK and Taiwan are internal matters. Both HK and Taiwan would not.
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Wouldn't that be contrary to President Trump's policy of not meddling in the internal affairs of other countries with human rights stuff?
True. My thought is that reelection is his highest priority, it will define whether his Presidency was a success or failure. The China trade war directly threatens that. A new deal with China is the planned centerpiece of his reelection campaign. He risks much to have his negotiating adversaries see him as an undisciplined loose cannon. Short of invasion or military action, he always seems willing to escalate until he gets the concessions he seeks.
Separate from involvement of Trump or the US, is the success of the HK protests a potential model for mainland dissent?
Sadly, I don’t think so. The PRC isn’t willing to go full Tiananmen on HK just yet. However, similar protests in the PRC would be crushed. As in literally, under tank treads.
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"Sadly, I don’t think so. The PRC isn’t willing to go full Tiananmen on HK just yet. However, similar protests in the PRC would be crushed. As in literally, under tank treads."
G M, I think you have that exactly right. Still I think that is the greatest fear of the ruling party. The ruling party has now seen it happen in Hong Kong beyond their control or at least beyond their willingness to act.
The leader in 1989 during the Tiananmen Square uprising was Deng Xiaoping and he eventually brought out tanks to crush unarmed protesters. Xi Jinping was a party secretary at the city level at that point in his career. As leader of China now, he has been untested in this regard and taken every step possible to remain untested. He very much does not want to be a leader who had to crush his dissenters with military force.
Like Putin, like Maduro, Xi wants to rule with the perception that he has the support of the people. That illusion is gone if he has to crush major protests with force.
President Trump has been unable to seal a deal with China that at one point seemed to be within his reach. The policy mix is appease and escalate with unconventional warfare.
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Under President Xi Jinping, China has more forcefully asserted its claims to more than 80% of the South China Sea, building runways and military facilities on territory claimed by other nations. It has also raised a navy of more than over 300 ships, eclipsing the U.S. to become the largest in the Asia Pacific. China’s investments in patrolling the South China Sea have given it a leg up in the race to secure energy and fishing resources that account for about a tenth of the global catch. In addition, China has utilized less conventional means to clear the sea of its maritime adversaries—a so-called maritime militia of well-equipped vessels numbering in the hundreds—disguised as fishing vessels that patrol, surveil, resupply, and sometimes, provoke.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-south-china-sea-silent-war/
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By The Editorial Board
July 12, 2019 6:45 pm ET
An U.S. made F-16V fighter jet lands on the freeway in Changhua county, central Taiwan during the 35th Han Kuang drill on May 28. Photo: sam yeh/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Deterring Chinese military dominance in the Indo-Pacific is a top U.S. strategic goal, and the Trump Administration made progress this week with a tentative $2.2 billion arms sale to Taiwan. The next sale should be F-16V fighter jets, which is the island’s most pressing defense need.
The Pentagon on Monday notified Congress of the sale of 108 M1A2T Abrams tanks, 250 Stinger missiles, and transport vehicles. Lawmakers have 30 days to object to the deal, but that’s unlikely given the near-unanimous backing of pro-Taiwan legislation in Congress in recent years.
Acosta Resigns and Pelosi vs. Progressives
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Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang called on the U.S. to “immediately cancel” the deal, and on Friday China said it will sanction U.S. companies that participate in the arms sale. That’s mostly symbolic since China doesn’t buy arms from the U.S.
But what Beijing has never understood is its starring role in consolidating Washington’s cooperation with Taipei. Last month’s voyage of the Chinese Liaoning aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait is the type of saber-rattling that increases American support for the island’s democracy, as Taiwanese want little more than to preserve their freedom.
Beijing’s latest power play in Hong Kong is turning even Taiwan’s pragmatic politics further against China. Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s approval rating rose 10% this spring after rebuking Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” model, and she looks prescient after Beijing’s gambit last month to pass a bill in Hong Kong allowing extradition to Mainland China. Some two million city residents marched against it, and Chief Executive Carrie Lam on Tuesday declared “the bill is dead.”
The extradition fiasco has even changed the pro-Chinese tune of Taiwan’s opposition Nationalist Party (KMT). Han Kuo-yu, a populist star of the KMT running for president in the island’s 2020 election, has campaigned on expanding economic ties to China. But he vowed last month never to allow “one country, two systems,” which Taiwanese would accept “over my dead body.”
This shifting political mood gives Mr. Trump an opportunity to sell Taiwan some 60 fourth-generation F-16V fighters, which Taipei requested in February. The U.S. is obligated under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act to help the island defend itself, and the need is dire. Taiwan’s fleet of fourth-generation fighters, which date to the George H.W. Bush Administration, are outnumbered more than four-to-one by Chinese counterparts. A fighter sale, which China has called a “red line,” has been moving through the federal bureaucracy.
Selling F-16Vs would set off rhetorical fireworks in Beijing, and Mr. Trump might be reluctant given his focus on China trade. The same thinking may be why he hasn’t publicly supported Hong Kong’s protesters. But Hongkongers and Taiwanese know China takes Western silence or accommodation for weakness. Asia’s U.S. friends are counting on Mr. Trump not to defer to China as his presidential predecessors did.
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What Happened: Chinese and Vietnamese coast guard vessels have reportedly been engaged in a weeklong standoff in the Spratly Islands after a Chinese survey ship entered waters around the Vanguard Bank to conduct a seismic survey, the South China Morning Post reported July 12.
Why It Matters: Although information on the incident remains sparse, China previously deployed survey ships and oil rigs to the region and unilaterally announced exploration bids to limit other countries' activities in disputed areas. Both China and Vietnam did not publicly announce the standoff, which suggests that neither side is currently interested in escalating the situation.
Background: China and Vietnam last clashed in 2014 after Beijing deployed an oil rig near the Parcel Islands.
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Even with exaggerated data, this is the lowest growth report in recent history.
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3018580/china-economy-reports-lowest-gdp-record-second-quarter-us
Highest debt, lowest growth, if they cared about their people, maybe leaders of an export based economy would sign a trade agreement with the world's largest economy.
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quarterly growth in 27 years as the trade war drags on
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/15/china-economy-beijing-posts-q2-gdp-amid-trade-war-with-us.html
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https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2019-07-18/how-confront-advancing-threat-china
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I don't want to register or subscribe. Any chance you could post the whole article?
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I don't want to register or subscribe. Any chance you could post the whole article?
It didn't come up for me right now either. I will summarize for now and post it when I can.
Nikki Haley gets it in terms of the seriousness of the threat of China and offers details and examples of that. She also offers some details in terms of size of our military and strength of our required to address the threat. I think she even mentions the number of ships we need which is one indicator of Naval strength. She is pro free trade in general but also recognizes that it is different when you face a threatening adversary. If I remember correctly, she even quotes Adam Smith on that. Then the article abruptly ends without addressing the title of it, specifically how to deal with the threat of China. More to come I hope.
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TY.
Very much looks like she is preparing for 2024.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/world/asia/china-military-hong-kong-taiwan-protests.html?fbclid=IwAR3nDYNH6T3cHcIrUW21StHD-W65kQjhaLLoWVG6qiZzIXj0sLGfiIGtGFw
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https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3019995/us-warship-sails-through-strategic-taiwan-strait-amid-period
US warship sails through strategic Taiwan Strait amid period of heightened military and economic tension
China on Wednesday warned that it is ready for war if there was any move toward Taiwan’s independence.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/welcome-to-xi-jinpings-smart-jails-a-secret-text-revealed_3014660.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=2ac66ae928-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_07_25_11_33&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-2ac66ae928-239065853
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Xi Changed My Mind About Trump
The president defends not only U.S. sovereignty but the entire world order.
By Gordon G. Chang
July 24, 2019 6:40 pm ET
Chinese President Xi Jinping proposes a toast in Beijing, April 26. Photo: Nicolas Asfouri/Getty Images
At first I had no idea why President Trump talked so much about sovereignty. I’ve changed my mind. To be more precise, Xi Jinping changed it. Mr. Trump is the only thing that stands between us and a world dominated by China.
“We do not expect diverse countries to share the same cultures, traditions, or even systems of government,” Mr. Trump told the United Nations General Assembly in September 2017. “But we do expect all nations to uphold these two core sovereign duties: to respect the interests of their own people and the rights of every other sovereign nation.”
Mr. Trump mentioned sovereignty 21 times in that speech. Why? Everyone knew America was a sovereign state, one of nearly 200 in the world. The idea of sovereignty has been firmly established for more than three centuries. Mr. Trump’s defense of it seemed unnecessary.
Yet for more than a decade, President Xi has been dropping audacious hints that China is the world’s only sovereign state. As a result, I have come to believe that Mr. Trump’s defense of sovereignty is essential to maintaining international peace and stability.
The world is full of “experts” who will tell you China and the U.S. are locked in a contest for dominance. Technically, that’s true. The idea that the two nations are struggling for control, however, falsely implies that America is jealously guarding its position atop the international system. That’s Beijing’s narrative. Chinese leaders disparage the U.S. by implying it is in terminal decline and accusing it of attempting to prevent China’s legitimate rise.
In reality, America is preserving more than its role in the international system. It is trying to preserve the system itself—which Mr. Xi is working to overthrow by promoting imperial-era Chinese concepts.
The idea that underpinned the imperial tributary system was that states near and far were obligated to acknowledge Chinese rule. Chinese emperors claimed they had the Mandate of Heaven over tianxia, or “All Under Heaven.”
China repudiated tianxia in the first half of the 20th century and played it down in the second half. But in the 21st century it is making a comeback. “Tianxia is a long Chinese political tradition of practice and ideal that is being revitalized and re-energized in today’s People’s Republic,” Fei-Ling Wang, author of “The China Order: Centralia, World Empire and the Nature of Chinese Power,” told me last week. “The Chinese dream of tianxia, or the China Order, assumes a hierarchical world empire system.”
Mr. Xi’s signature concept is the “Chinese Dream,” or “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” “Rejuvenation” evokes restoration of the imperial system, and echoes of tianxia could be heard in the slogan for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, which Mr. Xi managed as a member of the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee. “One World, One Dream,” at least to scholars employed by the party to study the application of tianxia, equates Chinese dreams with dreams for the world.
Since the Olympics, Mr. Xi has used more direct tianxia language. “The Chinese have always held that the world is united and all under heaven are one family,” he declared in his 2017 New Year’s Message.
He made sure his revolutionary message was understood by having Foreign Minister Wang Yi explain it in Study Times, the influential Central Party School newspaper, in September 2017. “Xi Jinping thought on diplomacy,” Mr. Wang wrote, “has made innovations on and transcended the traditional Western theories of international relations for the past 300 years.” A “thought” in party lingo is an important body of ideology, such as “Mao Zedong Thought.”
Mr. Wang is almost certainly referring to the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which established the current international order by recognizing states as sovereign. When he says “transcended,” he hints that Mr. Xi aspires to a world without sovereign states—in other words, a unified world ruled by the Chinese.
As the Hudson Institute’s Charles Horner told me by email last week, many world leaders are nationalistic, but Mr. Xi is the only one whose “officially propounded nationalism takes the form of a global imperial vision.” That is consistent with his lawless behavior: treating neighbors as vassals, taking territory, closing off the global commons and intimidating leaders around the world.
“Tianxia,” Fei-Ling Wang notes, “inevitably and even necessarily makes the People’s Republic view and treat its neighbors and eventually all other states as essentially nonequals and lesser entities, to be influenced, controlled and subjugated with force, money, favor, ruse and fear.”
China is not, as some believe, a “trivial state” that seeks nothing more than to preserve its regime and defend its territory. With Mr. Xi pursuing tianxia ambitions, the world could use more of Mr. Trump’s defense of sovereignty, and even a little more “America First.” These concepts are not, as I once thought, unnecessarily provocative. They are a necessary defense of the centuries-old international order against an existential threat.
Mr. Chang is author of “The Coming Collapse of China.”
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second post
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-air-force-space-command-claims-china-stealing-us-blind_3014681.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=2ac66ae928-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_07_25_11_33&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-2ac66ae928-239065853
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Vietnam, China: Hanoi Stands Up to Beijing on Drilling in the South China Sea
(Stratfor)
The Big Picture
The rich energy resources in the South China Sea have long driven conflict among the countries that have staked frequently overlapping territorial claims over its waters. China, which has laid claim to wide swaths of the sea, has taken an aggressive stance, using various tactics to defend its interests and deter those who have rival claims from drilling and exploration operations. Some countries, such as the Philippines, have settled their disputes with China by choosing to work with Beijing. However, Vietnam has adopted the opposite approach, maintaining a harder-line stance and bringing in third parties to conduct energy exploration as it resists China.
What Happened
A quiet standoff has been brewing in the South China Sea since May over a joint energy exploration effort between Vietnam and Japan around the energy-rich Vanguard Bank in waters that both Hanoi and Beijing claim as their own. The potential for the dispute to grow louder, however, is increasing. On July 25, Vietnam announced it would allow a Japanese exploratory oil rig to continue operations in waters it and China each claim beyond an originally planned completion date of July 30. The decision came after Beijing reportedly asked Vietnam to withdraw the rig in exchange for China withdrawing the survey ship it sent into the region, along with its accompanying flotilla of coast guard and other vessels. Social media reports suggest that Vietnam would deploy more ships to the area.
Why It Matters
If neither side backs down, and more vessels are indeed dispatched to the scene of the dispute, the risk of a serious escalation akin to the skirmish between China and Vietnam in 2014, similarly over energy exploration, will climb. Significantly, Vietnam's decision to dig in its heels noticeably departs from its previous practices, when it responded to Chinese threats by either halting its exploratory operations or backing away from its decision to explore. Vietnam's response now leaves China with several options. It could decide to reinforce its own survey activities and send in additional escort forces, it could escalate its tactical actions at sea designed to intimidate Hanoi, or it could choose to reduce its own activities in the waters.
This map show the numerous overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea
A mid-July visit to China by Vietnam National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan as tensions over the dispute spiked and ongoing consultations between Beijing and Hanoi had suggested that neither side was willing to escalate the dispute, given the high stakes. After all, for Beijing, a more serious standoff would weaken its carefully managed conciliatory approach to Southeast Asia as it attempts to insulate itself from increased U.S. pressure. In Vietnam, greater tensions over the disputed waters could fan nationalistic fervor, generating an anti-China backlash that grows beyond government control, putting the country's recent investment momentum at risk.
But by extending the contract, Hanoi appears to be more willing to take those risks, banking on the growing focus on the South China Sea by outside powers to bolster its resistance to China's desires and force Beijing to alter its course. Specifically, China must calculate the risks of closer security relations between Hanoi and Washington. An escalation of the current dispute could well strengthen anti-China sentiment inside the Vietnamese Communist Party, sparking a call for increased security relations with the United States — a path Hanoi has so far been reluctant to take. In fact, last year Vietnam abruptly canceled dozens of military engagement activities it had scheduled with the United States. In addition, if China were to step up tactics of intimidation, it could push Vietnam to submit their maritime disputes to the International Court of Justice, putting a further strain on their relationship.
Background
The deployment of the Japanese oil rig in Block 06-1 in mid-May under contract to Rosneft Vietnam B.V. near the oil-rich Vanguard Bank, a region of the South China Sea that both countries claim as their own, prompted China to deploy its own Haiyang Dizhi 8 survey ship to the area in early July. China also hinted that it might go so far as to drill in the area itself if Vietnam did not withdraw. The U.S. State Department issued a statement of concern on July 20, terming China's activity coercive.
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https://americanmilitarynews.com/2019/07/china-announces-military-exercises-in-areas-near-taiwan-in-south-and-east-china-seas/?utm_campaign=DailyEmails&utm_source=AM_Email&utm_medium=email
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Headwinds at home push Xi to show progress in US trade talks
https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Trade-war/Headwinds-at-home-push-Xi-to-show-progress-in-US-trade-talks
Who knew dictators face political pressures?!
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/us-plans-new-naval-base-in-australia-to-thwart-chinese-tcphn5t5t
The United States is planning to bolster its military presence in the Pacific and counter Chinese expansionism by building a naval base in northern Australia.
At least $211 million has been allocated for “new military construction” near Darwin, which already has a base for thousands of US Marines and their equipment.
The planned new facilities, about 25 miles northeast of the city, in an area known as Glyde Point, would be big enough to accommodate amphibious warships and larger vessels.
Map showing bases in the region: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F0357960e-b240-11e9-878e-18f1a6738204.png?crop=3000%2C2000%2C0%2C0&resize=1200
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Why the Fate of Hong Kong's Protests Will Come Down to Beijing
By Ben West
Global Security Analyst, Stratfor
A burning cart is seen during a demonstration in the area of Sheung Wan on July 28, 2019, in Hong Kong.
(H.C. KWOK/Getty Images)
Highlights
The size, frequency and duration of street demonstrations alone do not determine the success of a protest movement.
Major cracks are beginning to form among Hong Kong's "pillars of power" — the major stakeholders in any society as identified by the social scientist Gene Sharp — suggesting that protesters could make greater headway.
One critical stakeholder, Hong Kong's business community, will ultimately support the force that will bring more stability to the territory.
But even if protesters succeed in eroding support for the government, Beijing will step in as the ultimate backstop so as to preserve Hong Kong's status within the People's Republic of China.
Not all protests are created equal. So far this year, popular uprisings in Sudan, Algeria and Puerto Rico have successfully overthrown their leaders — some of whom were authoritarian figures entrenched in power for decades. But perhaps some of the most geopolitically consequential protests of the year are still raging in Hong Kong, four months after they started over a controversial bill that would permit Hong Kong to extradite criminal suspects to mainland China. Protesters successfully blocked that legislation in June, but over the past six weeks, they have expanded their demands by agitating for the resignation of Hong Kong's leader, Carrie Lam, among other calls.
The Big Picture
In assessing Hong Kong's protest movement, it is important to look beyond the demonstrators in the street to the segments of society that act as pillars in holding up the government and its mandate. In Hong Kong's case, key institutions like the education system, civil society groups, the media and religious figures are all leaning in favor of the protesters, while others are sitting on the fence. In the end, however, Beijing will be the final arbiter of what happens in Hong Kong.
See China in Transition
On the surface, the protests center on the extradition bill and the current government that sought to pass it. But the underlying issues are much more deeply seated in Hong Kong's status as a unique autonomous region of China, sensitivities among both Hong Kongers and Beijing about territorial integrity in the respective jurisdictions and, ultimately, the special jurisdiction's place within the People's Republic of China. Hong Kong's protests have not been nearly as violent as those in Sudan, where over 200 died in the uprising, nor as peaceful as those in Algeria, where police rarely engaged in violent clashes with protesters. They've also been much larger than those in Puerto Rico, where a few thousand protesters managed to force the governor from power with just a handful of rallies. The disparity in the nature of all of these protests and their outcome begs a more comprehensive analysis of the Hong Kong protests. Doing so might provide better clues as to the future of Hong Kong's demonstrations — even if there is one power looming over the city that will ultimately make the final determination.
Looking at the Pillars of Power
While protesters on the street make the most noise and garner the most attention, they alone do not compel a government to accept their demands given the constellation of other forces present in a society. In assessing the level of support (or opposition) to protesters' demands, it's necessary to consider all the stakeholders that determine a government's support — something that becomes possible when applying the "pillars of power" model that political science researcher Gene Sharp outlined in his theories on civil disobedience. Such stakeholders, or "pillars," include civil society, the education system, religion, the media, business leaders, bureaucracies, security forces and, ultimately, the government and its executive leaders. Looking at how each of these segments of society lean, as well as watching for indications that they are solidifying in favor of — or crumbling in opposition to — the government, provides a better barometer of where a protest movement like Hong Kong's is going.
The Education System
Students are leading the more radical protest actions, including the July 1 assault on the Legislative Council complex, and have been engaged in some of the more violent clashes with police. Education administrators tried to condemn the students' more aggressive tactics, but the University of Hong Kong's (HKU) vice chancellor was forced to climb down from a statement criticizing students' actions after thousands of the institution's students, alumni and staff signed a petition, while hundreds more showed up in person outside his residence requesting he retract his criticisms.
Civil Society
The Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF), which has been leading some of the largest protests thus far, is an umbrella organization overseeing around 50 civil society and pro-democracy groups. The CHRF has been mobilizing Hong Kongers for pro-democracy rallies since the British handed the city over to China in 1997, but its most recent marches have attracted some of the largest turnouts the group has ever recorded. Estimates vary, but CHRF organizers claim that some of its marches have drawn over 2 million people — 27 percent of Hong Kong's 7.3 million population. And recent surveys indicate that some of the protesters' grievances are supported by other citizens: In May, an HKU survey found that just 27 percent of respondents were satisfied with Hong Kong's leadership, while nearly half were not. In late June, another survey determined that those proud to be a Chinese national had dropped from about 38 percent to 27 percent since 2018; in contrast, pride in being considered a "Hong Konger" remained high. When it comes to winning over the hearts and minds of Hong Kongers, Beijing is thus facing an uphill struggle.
While protesters on the street make the most noise and garner the most attention, they alone do not compel a government to accept their demands.
The Media
Major Hong Kong news outlets like the South China Morning Press and the Hong Kong Free Press have remained nominally neutral, although reporting tends to favor the protesters' narrative that they are victims of police abuse. Few Hong Kong outlets have toed Beijing's official line that the demonstrations stem from external meddling and Western interference. These forces set the tone for the confrontation both locally in Hong Kong and for international audiences that have largely supported the protesters.
Religious Figures
Because of Hong Kong's religious freedom and comparatively cosmopolitan makeup, the territory is home to a variety of faith communities, including Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus and Christians. So far, however, Hong Kong's Roman Catholic diocese is one of the only major religious groups to express official support for the protesters through its condemnation of the violent attacks on demonstrators in Yuen Long on July 21. At the same time, other Christian groups sang hymns in support of protests during protests in early June. Although Hong Kong enjoys more religious freedoms than the mainland, faith leaders must still walk a fine line between politics and spirituality. Ultimately, religious groups are likely to continue calling for peace and appealing to both sides to de-escalate tensions.
Business Leaders
Hong Kong's business leaders opposed the extradition bill amendment in June, yet they have not backed the protests as fervently since the government abandoned the amendment. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some business leaders believed the violence at the Legislative Council on July 1 went too far, thereby jeopardizing stability in a city that has long been more of an economic than a political hub. Workers in the travel and health sectors have gone on strike and staged protests in opposition to the government, but Hong Kong's business elite are more tepid in their support. Nevertheless, the head of Hong Kong's stock exchange recently said China's People's Liberation Army should not become involved in Hong Kong and should leave the issue to local police to handle — a statement that didn't back the protesters but that conspicuously urged Beijing to remain on the sidelines. In the end, Hong Kong's business community is interested in maintaining stability, meaning it will be a crucial factor in determining how the protests play out. Its ultimate support will depend on which side it perceives as a bigger threat to stability: anti-government protesters or pro-government forces.
Bureaucracy
Perhaps most concerning for Hong Kong's government are the cracks emerging in Hong Kong's civil service. Upward of 1,000 state employees are planning a demonstration on Aug. 2 after the South China Morning Post reported that over 600 civil servants from 44 departments had filed a petition against the government's handling of the protests and its unwillingness to establish an independent commission to investigate police responses. Civil servants have threatened to escalate their protest action to work stoppages and strikes by mid-August if the government fails to address their concerns. These grievances not only demonstrate divisions within Hong Kong's government but also threaten to disrupt government services. And depending on the severity of disruptions to government services, such a development could compel a response from Beijing.
Security Forces
As Hong Kong's police have been at the front line in containing protests and protecting government property, they have borne the highest physical toll, with dozens of officers suffering injuries during the protests, including one whose finger was bitten off while trying to restrain a protester. Despite protest leaders' claims of police violence, the force has demonstrated a great deal of restraint and discipline. Police forces have been present for nearly all of the 27 separate demonstrations, which drew approximately 4.8 million people between March 31 and July 21. Dozens have been injured on both sides, some seriously, but no deaths directly linked to protests have occurred — a distinction that is unlikely to last long if the protests continue to escalate. Police have used nonlethal protest suppression tactics that are common throughout the world, firing tear gas and rubber bullets and leading baton charges in a few extreme scenarios.
Nevertheless, protesters have directed their ire toward the police, demanding investigations into their responses so far. This greatly reduces the chances that police will defect to the protesters' side, while also subjecting the force to a great deal of pressure. The Junior Police Officers' Association has expressed concern about officers' safety, noting that it is exploring "legal action" to protect officers that could disrupt Hong Kong's reliance on local police to contain protests. In such a situation, signs of strain could develop within the police department amid protesters' efforts to coopt them or, more likely, coerce them to uphold their duty less fervently.
Beijing remains the ultimate backstop — one which will not tolerate a protest movement overwhelming the city and turning it completely against China.
The Legislative Council and the Executive Leadership
The pan-democrat camp of the Legislative Council generally supports the protests, but they only hold 25 of the chamber's 70 seats. By contrast, the majority pro-Beijing camp holds 43 seats and has rejected the demonstrators' demands. Crucially, Beijing gets a say in who can serve in the Legislative Council, ensuring that it can preserve its interests — albeit while inflaming tensions in the process, as such privileges already attracted demonstrators' ire during the 2014 Umbrella Movement. Next year's legislative elections will provide another opportunity for that grievance to resurface, but Beijing will ensure that the council remains a political ally that opposes protesters' demands.
Beijing reportedly rejected Lam's resignation earlier this month, implying that it was up to her to clean up the mess that began on her watch. Her resignation would satisfy one of the protesters' key demands, but Beijing is concerned that such a concession would only embolden protesters instead of placating them — leading to demands for freer elections in Hong Kong, which would be intolerable for Beijing. For now, Lam is effectively acting as a firewall between popular unrest and Beijing's control over Hong Kong, suggesting that it is unlikely that she will leave before the 2020 elections. Whoever replaces her, however, will similarly be pro-Beijing given China's ability to mold the council.
The Ultimate Arbiter
At present, the police, Legislative Council and Executive's Office are the only institutions in Hong Kong that unequivocally oppose the protesters. The others either support the protesters or are wavering in their convictions, indicating that demonstrators are retaining broad support, staying on message and maintaining coordination — in spite of their leaderless model. Naturally, the situation is in flux, as the business community could come down against the protesters if it believes that they are endangering Hong Kong's stability. Moreover, increasing violence on the part of protesters could alienate other pillars of the community, especially the religious community.
In the end, Beijing remains the ultimate backstop — one which will not tolerate a protest movement overwhelming the city and turning it completely against the People's Republic of China. That's why, even if all other pillars fall, Beijing retains the right the deploy the People's Liberation Army to instill order. Such a development would be a worst-case scenario that would likely involve waves of arrests affecting a broad cross-section of society and result in the suppression of public gatherings, thereby harming Hong Kong's reputation as a global hub for business — yet it is a move that Beijing would ultimately rely on to prevent an uprising and maintain its territorial integrity. And as more pillars of Hong Kong's establishment fall, the more likely that scenario becomes.
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Vietnam's Balance Between Great Powers May Start Skewing West
A garment worker prepares shirts for shipment in a factory in Hanoi, Vietnam, on May 24, 2019.
Highlights
The U.S.-China trade war has escalated Vietnam's move up the industrial value chain in recent years by more deeply integrating Hanoi's economy with manufacturers seeking refuge from the fallout.
But with the sixth-largest trade surplus with the United States, Vietnam now risks becoming the target of the White House's next trade salvo, which will force Hanoi to make concessions to evade tariffs that could thwart its economic progress.
Fears of complicating relations with China have so far kept Vietnam from taking the action needed to adequately ease its growing trade imbalance with the United States, such as upping its arms purchases.
However, rising tensions in the South China Sea could provide an opening for Hanoi to take a stronger stance against Beijing after decades of delicately balancing between the two great powers.
For the past two decades, Vietnam has leveraged its strategic location as the gateway to Indochina to become one of the biggest success stories in the Asia-Pacific. This position has allowed it to largely remain neutral among great power competitions over the years, which continues to serve to its benefit today as now the top export "safe haven" from the U.S.-China trade war. This, however, has come at the cost of ramping up its trade deficit with the United States, which has threatened to retaliate should Hanoi not increase its purchases of American goods and services — a warning the U.S. trade representative reiterated on July 29, noting the "host of unfair trade barriers" that U.S. businesses face upon entering the Vietnamese market.
Desperate to avoid coming under the siege of a trade salvo, Vietnam has used every opportunity to remind Washington of its value as a foil to China. Such words, however, hold only so much weight when Hanoi's actions are constantly stiffened by its desire to also keep on good terms with Beijing. But with its own maritime relations with China now on the rocks, there's a chance Hanoi could finally start inching toward the United States' side.
The Big Picture
Once a low-end manufacturing hub, Vietnam is now an increasingly sought-after destination for global tech companies' production lines. This momentum has aided Hanoi's push to further enmesh its economy with global markets in the hopes of gaining more value-added investments and exports — both of which are crucial to buffer the country's sustained growth from heightened regional competition. But just how much further Vietnam can progress is increasingly uncertain, as it struggles to address U.S. demands to reduce its trade deficit in a way that doesn't irk neighboring China.
See Asia-Pacific: Among Great PowersSee Southeast Asia: Burdened by Consensus
Vietnam's Coming of Age
Vietnam's economic surge has been a long time coming. Home to a large and low-cost labor pool, stable political environment and pro-investment policies, Hanoi has established itself as a low-end manufacturing powerhouse in sectors such as garments and textiles. This has, in turn, made it an alluring alternative to China's rising manufacturing costs. And as a result, Vietnam's economy has kept an average growth rate of 6.17 percent for the past 19 years — putting it well ahead of some of the region's other middle-powers such as Thailand and Malaysia.
To integrate closer with the global supply chain, Vietnam has also embarked on one of the most ambitious free trade quests in the Pacific Rim. Hanoi has recently signed 11 trade agreements, including a bilateral deal with the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. Last year, the country also joined the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTTP), and most recently signed on to another separate trade agreement with the European Union on June 30.
The high standards set forth by both CPTTP and the European Union will require Hanoi to undertake extensive regulatory overhauls and politically sensitive labor union reform. Doing so could threaten the operations of its bloated state-owned enterprises and political authority, which is a large reason why Hanoi is the only developing country to have signed deals with both trade blocs and serves as a testament to Vietnam's desire to break out of its low-end manufacturing status.
Gaming the Trade War
But Vietnam's deepening integration with the rest of the world has also made it more vulnerable to volatility in global markets, given Hanoi's still-evolving economic foundation. Like its Southeast Asian neighbors, Vietnam has not been immune to the ripple effects of the global and Chinese economic slowdown. Indeed, its domestic economy de-escalated to 6.8 percent in the first half of 2019, slowing from a robust 7.5 percent during the same period in 2018. And foreign investment has also declined year-on-year by 9.2 percent.
Despite these dips, however, Vietnam's economic ascendance has remained relatively intact in recent years, thanks in large part to the U.S.-China trade war. The country's close proximity to Beijing — combined with years of carefully integrating with its neighbor's supply chain — has paid off amid global supply chain revamps prompted by the uptick in Beijing and Washington's trade tensions, as companies increasingly seek refuge in Hanoi to escape U.S. tariffs.
Vietnam is now actively being courted by multinational companies and East Asian manufacturers seeking to diversify their electronic and tech production lines away from China. As a result, Vietnam has been able to more deeply integrate itself into the supply chains of Asian giants, as companies like Japan's Nintendo and China's TCL seek to move part of their production to the country. This has not only strengthened Vietnam's overall trade and financial position, but it has also granted Vietnam once largely denied access to the know-how of these regional heavyweights to then pass down to its still lagging domestic tech companies.
Balancing Between Great Powers
The gains that Vietnam has been able to garner from the trade war is largely the product of the balancing act Hanoi has maintained between great powers over the past 20 years. Hanoi's transition toward value-added industries requires a strong investment in infrastructure, technological capacity and greater development of domestic industrial capabilities. Within this context, Vietnam's close proximity to China and longtime maritime disputes with its powerful northern neighbor has placed it in a uniquely delicate position compared with the rest of its Southeast Asian peers. And as a result, Hanoi has focused on diversifying its economic and strategic partnerships with major powers such as the United States, Japan, South Korea and Russia, while avoiding any disruption to its relations with Beijing and the trade and economic benefits that relationship yields.
For the United States and its regional allies, Vietnam has become key to the maritime security and freedom of navigation to fend off China's expansion in the South China Sea, distinguishing Hanoi from the other more muted Southeast Asian claimants. Vietnam, for example, quietly excluded China's Huawei from its domestic 5G rollout, while its neighbors (including even staunch U.S. allies such as South Korea and Thailand) kept their cooperation.
At the same time, Vietnam carefully treads the evolving strategic balance against China — its longtime rival and formidable northern neighbor. Thus, despite being singled out by the White House as a potential security partner, Hanoi has still kept itself at an arms-length distance from Washington's regional initiatives for fear of complicating its relations with China. Even though Hanoi has its own reservations about Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), it has yet to outwardly align itself with U.S. efforts to check against China's maritime expansionism. Instead, Vietnam has opted to embrace its place in Beijing's BRI and the subsequent influx of Chinese investments. And relatedly, while Hanoi generally supports Washington's infrastructural initiatives in the region, it has also shied away from talk of including a potential security bloc.
From Beneficiary to Potential Victim
But as the great power competition between the United States and China continues to escalate, Hanoi's tried-and-true method of remaining "neutral" has become an increasingly precarious act. Vietnam's emerging role as a place to dodge tariffs has exacerbated U.S. concerns over Hanoi's growing trade deficit, which is currently the sixth-largest the United States has with any country. In early July, Washington threatened to impose duties of up to 456 percent on Vietnamese steel imports that originated in either Taiwan or South Korea, shortly after Trump referred to Hanoi as "almost the single worst [trade] abuser of everybody."
The latest flare-up in the South China Sea could prompt Vietnam to adopt a more confrontational stance against Beijing elsewhere.
The timing of the threats could not be worse for Hanoi, which is pushing for the United States to change its current nonmarket economy designation (which has made Hanoi more susceptible to Washington's anti-dumping tariffs over the years) before it expires in 2019. Should Vietnam's trade surplus continue to widen, there's also a chance that the White House could reach for the same legal weapon it's used to impose greater tariffs on China by claiming a Section 301 case. Should the White House impose a 25 percent tariff on Vietnamese shipments as it's done on Chinese exports, Hanoi's export revenue would be immediately cut by 25 percent and its gross domestic product cut by 1 percent. Such a tariff hike risks stalling or significantly slowing Vietnam's economic trajectory, due to the country's heavy reliance on exports and export-related foreign investments to source its economy and value-added industries.
As a result, Hanoi has sought to dodge this threat by increasing its purchases of U.S. energy products and agricultural products in recent months. Washington has also long pushed Hanoi to reduce its purchases of Russian weapons and, in turn, increase its purchases U.S. arms. Doing so is currently the safest bet to reduce — or at least, delay — the prospect of becoming the victim of Washington's next trade salvo by helping reduce its trade surplus. But progress has been slow on this front. In October, Vietnam abruptly canceled a dozen defense activities with the United States, including military exchanges, likely in an effort to show Beijing (and Moscow) that it was holding strong against U.S. pressure to buy American military equipment.
Inching Away From China?
However, renewed tensions with Beijing over energy exploration in the South China Sea may reduce Hanoi's previous reservations about fostering closer security relations with the United States. Since May, Chinese and Vietnamese vessels have been engaged in a confrontation in the disputed waters of the oil-rich Vanguard Bank. After the two countries' last maritime flare-up in 2014, Hanoi had trodden lightly in the region, careful to keep its oil and gas activities discreet from Beijing. However, China's continued harassment of Vietnam’s energy operations could prompt Hanoi to take a more confrontational stance in the South China Sea — an approach that may very well bleed into its position against Beijing elsewhere.
This development — combined with the threat of being the next target of the United States' trade salvo, and the subsequent toll it would take on Vietnam's economic progress — could make Hanoi more willing than ever to step up its resistance against China and more directly side with the United States. Such a move would free Vietnam to commit more fully to U.S. demands to reduce its trade deficit, such as buying more U.S. arms purchases. But as tensions between Washington and Beijing continue to rise, doing so carries the risk of warranting Chinese retaliation — whether it be in the form of reduced BRI investments, or more violent clashes in the South China Sea.
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https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/07/article/plas-deployment-plan-for-hk-revealed/
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deploying hypersonic missiles
if not for Trump we would still be trying to make nice to them all the while they rip us off:
https://freebeacon.com/national-security/stratcom-china-rapidly-building-up-nuclear-forces/
were too busy worrying about identity politics here
or offending someone with an insult - now some of the worst crimes against humanity
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Some good points in here:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/trump-faces-down-china-threat/
Trump Faces Down the China Threat
By CONRAD BLACK
August 8, 2019 6:30 AM
President Donald Trump attends a bilateral meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping during the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, June 29, 2019. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
He knows their weaknesses and isn’t afraid to apply pressure.
Of much greater importance to the political and strategic course of the United States than the shabby attempt to portray President Trump as a racist is the developing showdown between the United States and China. The febrile Democratic effort to unseat the president by unconventional means is no longer the result of the shock of Trump’s having defeated the entire political class nearly three years ago. It is in some measure a credit to his invulnerability in most policy areas, especially the economy, in moving to reduce illegal immigration, and in strengthening the country’s strategic position. The overt attempt by the media and Democrats to build, in the ashes of the nasty fairy tales of Russian collusion and obstruction of justice, the semi-discarded fraud that he is a racist is pitiful, as well as contemptible. This was the Siamese twin of the misogyny fraud, which seems to have vanished into the ether, leaving behind only the pink pussy headgear of the post-inaugural demonstrators.
The racism claims got early traction from the controversy over suspension of entry rights for people from terrorism-plagued or -exporting countries. The left-wing West Coast judges the Democrats shopped around for were all overturned in serious higher courts, and Democratic Senate leader Schumer is no longer warning us that the Statue of Liberty is blubbering, as he himself did in a passable piece of improvised histrionics on the Senate floor. The other starting pistol for the racist charges was one of the greatest frauds perpetrated by Trump’s enemies since the Clinton-Steele dossier, that he had defended Nazis and Klansmen at Charlottesville. He said that the people legitimately debating what to do with the statue of General Lee were good people, but the media managed to deform this so severely into the whitewashing of Nazis and the Klan that Carl Icahn and other eminences retired from various White House committees whose existence was unknown outside their memberships. The president also made the point that Antifa, which was being defended by social commentators such as Chris Cuomo, is no better than the Nazis. It was odd even for the terminal sufferers of Trump dementia to link Trump to the Nazis, given that almost half his family is Jewish. Perhaps Senator Elizabeth Warren, whose qualifications to discuss racism are blurred by her fraudulent claim to be a native American Indian, reached the most absurd extreme in this area last week by accusing the president of “environmental racism.” This is where the Democrats have arrived: at what Kafka called “nameless crimes.”
What Trump is doing, adapted to different times, regimes, and circumstances, is what Mr. Churchill urged when he opposed the appeasers in the 1930s. China is not a threat as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were, has not overcommitted to an arms race with an entirely command economy, and is not as overtly threatening as Hitler, Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev were. But China is explicitly aiming to become the world’s greatest power and is, accordingly, a very serious challenge. Being the world’s most powerful country means different things to different countries and different regimes. Under President Carter and President Obama, there was some embarrassment about America’s preeminence, and both men thought the United States was as much part of the problem as it was the solution of the world’s ailments. Obama apologized for the high-handed manner in which Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill conducted the war effort, and for President Truman’s use of the atomic bomb, and for President Eisenhower’s role in overthrowing the Iranian government of Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953. The three presidents mentioned were among the most distinguished in American history and far more accomplished than their apologist.
China’s conduct in Myanmar (Burma), where they were so heavy-handed that they were eventually pushed out, and in parts of Africa where they are large investors, and their attempt to reduce the South China Sea to Chinese territorial waters all demonstrate China’s will to dominate and exact exaggerated deference, unlike anything in America’s international behavior. This is the time to have a nonviolent showdown, which will require reform, at least insofar as they apply to the U.S., of Chinese practices in “forced technology transfer and cyber theft, intellectual property rights, services, currency, agriculture and non-tariff barriers to trade.” China purported to agree on all this in April but declined to consider any enforcement mechanism. This is a familiar Chinese method of negotiating, which has been imitated by the North Koreans. If there is a reason for optimism in the present raucously antagonistic American political atmosphere, it is that the Democrats have generally supported the president in these positions, indicating that the old adage that “partisanship ends at the water’s edge” retains some applicability.
Yet the stock response of the president’s reflexive media critics is an absurd solicitude for their country’s principal rival, a chronic cheat in world trade matters by universal agreement. China is a poor country with few resources while the United States, with a year to retool and reorient itself, would not have to import any necessities except perhaps small quantities of rare earths. China still has 300 million people who live pretty much as they did 2,000 years ago, a 40 percent command economy, no institutions that command any respect except the People’s Army; and not a word or figure it publishes about its economy can be unreservedly believed. It is trying an end run around the entire world economic system at the same time that it asserts itself with conjoined military and economic expansionism in susceptible areas. Of course this president will save China’s “face” if that’s what it comes to, but in contrast to all the havering ninnies in The Economist and like-minded places, the strongest cheering section President Trump enjoys in the execution of his China policies consists of China’s neighbors: Vietnam, India, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia. They are a ready group of important states to resurrect a refined containment policy slightly modeled on the North Atlantic alliance but with more emphasis on economic issues.
The booming American economy that defies all the prayerful warnings and expectations of Trump’s enemies can steadily eliminate Chinese imports and compensate the agricultural sector that sells to China — it can resupply those countries that replace U.S. agriculture sales to China, as there is no great surplus of food in the world that would make American production superfluous. Loss of the American export market would be a heavy blow to China, as would the continued reduction of the value of its currency (renminbi). Chinese manufacturing, much of which migrated to it from Japan via South Korea, is already moving on to Vietnam, India, and Mexico (now America’s biggest trading partner). China cannot force its way into the U.S. market, or replace it as an export market. The much-vaunted threat to sell their 1 trillion dollars of U.S. debt is a paper tiger — it is only 7 percent of the outstanding total of U.S. federal debt, and China would take a loss on its position, which could easily be absorbed in the world bond market.
The United States is finally expanding its sphere of substantial economic integration to Mexico (and moving to regularize the demographic flow on its southern border) and is in preliminary economic discussions with the new Brazilian government, and provisionally with post-Brexit Great Britain. Such a grouping, including Canada, would have a population of 750 million people and a GDP of $30 trillion, with room to expand in Latin America and Australasia as conditions recommend, and to remove the potential Chinese advantage of a comparatively immense population. It would dwarf both China and a truncated, post-Brexit European Union. This is intelligent grand strategy. He may have to wait for the historians to get any credit for it, but President Trump has an excellent natural judgment of the weaknesses of interlocutors and of negotiating techniques. He is dealing with national irritants, including Iran, patiently, firmly, and from strength. He will succeed where his post-Reagan predecessors did not.
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"Chinese manufacturing, much of which migrated to it from Japan via South Korea, is already moving on to Vietnam, India, and Mexico (now America’s biggest trading partner)."
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I have been watching for the great conclusion of the tariff trade war with China and anticipating how that will help our economy, Trump's reelection and the advancement and winning of free market ideas and policies that I see as in the best interests of the country and the globe.
I've been watching for problems and chokepoints in China and the Chinese economy wondering when they will finally give in, drop their trade barriers and stop stealing our technology.
Maybe I have this wrong. Maybe a fabulous trade deal with an oppressive totalitarian regime that enriches and empowers both sides forever is a) not going to happen and b) not the ideal outcome anyway.
Without a doubt, the trade war is disruptive to the otherwise healthy US economy. This has political, not just economic consequences, at home.
On the other side, the trade war has thrown the leaders of China on their ear. They have lost market share, lost economic growth, lost manufacturing and export jobs. People are losing confidence in their leaders and the leaders risk losing control. I have opined and quantified that China is 5 times more dependent on exports to us than we are on exports to them. The disruption is taking its toll.
China has responded by devaluing their currency (devaluing their country) and dropping their prices, and profits. Add to Xi and the politburo concerns, the Hong Kong protests that risk spilling over into the mainland.
Meanwhile the adversarial policies and rhetoric on both sides escalate.
My reaction to each new chapter in this deteriorating drama is that now we must now be close to a deal. But maybe we aren't. Maybe the outcome of this is the endless struggle we see now. It occurs to me now that maybe more good comes out of it without a settlement.
Instead of legitimizing this regime and pretending to approve of them as we rely on them to supply our consumer economy, under this more adversarial relationship, we can more freely call them out and oppose their egregious acts.
New suppliers in other countries are replacing our economic dependencies on Communist China. Vietnam, Mexico and India are mentioned above. Maybe we can start pulling rare earth elements out of the ground elsewhere. Also, Chinese military oversteps in the South China Sea are causing us to form new alliances in the region.
Back to US politics which is what the Chinese are watching in negotiations, maybe President Trump would rather have the issue of China in reelection than have the win over China.
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"Back to US politics which is what the Chinese are watching in negotiations, maybe President Trump would rather have the issue of China in reelection than have the win over China."
Trump should start looking being able to hold an all out war against the crats
if he loses the election claiming he lost due to outside foreign power interference - the Chinese!
no doubt they will do whatever they can to get him to lose.
:wink:
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They already have Goolag hard at work for them.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/china-destabilizing-indo-pacific-us-defense-secretary_3029413.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=799969d7e0-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_08_05_11_59&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-799969d7e0-239065853
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mekong-river/missing-mekong-waters-rouse-suspicions-of-china-idUSKCN1UK19Q?fbclid=IwAR2Ytf4mB_zxojhg9laI9Uwpxy9X1Ge_ROBIqI1qDGzpn0tEbJ1RhxrKwUQ
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second post
Highlights
Washington is hesitant to react to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's informal call for the U.S. Navy to act against China in line with the country's Mutual Defense Treaty.
But in the wake of Chinese aggression against Philippine interests in the South China Sea, Manila is likely to continue questioning the utility of the pact unless Washington provides more forceful backing.
Ultimately, a lack of action to oppose China will allow Beijing to fortify its position in the South China Sea.
Floating in the South China Sea near Recto Bank, or Reed Bank as it is also known, the crew of the Philippine vessel F/B Gimver 1 braced for impact as the Chinese-flagged Yuemaobinyu 42212 steamed directly toward their craft. Ignoring the Philippine crew's entreaties to rapidly change course, the Chinese captain plowed his ship into the smaller vessel, seemingly oblivious to his responsibilities under international collision regulations to avoid the crash. Crippled and sinking, the Gimver 1's crew abandoned ship, confident their Chinese counterparts would pick them up. That, however, was not what happened: Ignoring his responsibilities for a second time, the Yuemaobinyu's captain abandoned the Filipinos to their fate. Though the 22 mariners were eventually rescued by a Vietnamese ship, the incident early on the morning on June 9 increased tensions between Beijing, on one side, and Manila and its allies on the other.
The reaction from the United States was as forceful as it was expected. Without mentioning the incident directly, the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, Sung Kim, made reference to a militarized fishing fleet, or maritime militia, when suggesting an attack by "government-sanctioned militias" could trigger the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT). His comments served as a warning to China — going further than those made by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who tried to reassure a skeptical Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in February that the 1951 treaty remained in Manila's best interests. Though Duterte is more vocal than his predecessors about his concerns surrounding the deal, his skepticism toward the treaty is not new among the country's leaders. Both sides in the long and occasionally troubled U.S.-Philippine alliance have used the MDT to shape each other's behavior, most recently with regard to its applicability to the South China Sea. But as foreign policy experts around the world mull the content of Kim's statements about Recto Bank, some key wording suggests the intended audience may be Manila — rather than Beijing — and that Washington isn't all too eager to dive into a battle with China.
What's in an 'Armed Attack'?
Pompeo and Kim were both very careful with the terms they used to describe the incident. The phrase "if an armed attack occurs" refers to Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, which codifies states' inherent rights to self-defense in the event of an armed attack. But understanding the U.S. response to the Recto Bank incident and how it affects the MDT requires an understanding of what the Chinese maritime militia is and what it is not.
The Recto Bank incident amounts to a deliberate attempt to avoid classification as an "armed attack," making it a classic indicator of hybrid warfare.
According to U.S. Naval War College professor Andrew Erickson, the People's Armed Forces Maritime Militia is a "state-organized, -developed, and -controlled force operating under a direct military chain of command to conduct Chinese state-sponsored activities" — which makes it anything but a group of zealously patriotic fishermen. The militia is trained, manned and equipped with vessels purpose-built for ramming other craft and armed with non-lethal munitions that allow the organization to avoid designation as a naval unit. According to Erickson, the militia is a component of the Chinese military that responds through the chain of command to President Xi Jinping himself. Despite this, the militia falls through the cracks of Article 51 of the U.N. Charter and other international agreements — including the MDT — that govern the use of force between states because it is not, officially, a naval unit. In this respect, the militia resembles other emerging and poorly regulated tools of state power such as teams that engage in cyberattacks and information warfare on behalf of a country. The Recto Bank incident amounts to a deliberate attempt to avoid classification as an "armed attack," making it a classic indicator of "hybrid warfare." When packaged into a coherent hybrid warfare campaign, these tools can present a significant threat to international peace and stability as occurred in Crimea in 2014.
Friendly Deterrence
Following the Recto Bank incident, Washington intimated that Chinese provocations in the South China Sea could result in the application of the MDT. In time, however, the United States has somewhat muddied the waters on the MDT: While the United States certainly wishes to maintain access to the Philippine bases identified in the treaty, it is less eager to invoke the pact's Article IV — which spells out the defense relations between Washington and Manila — over a wrecked Philippine fishing vessel. Perhaps the United States' hedging is what prompted Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana to demand clarity about the MDT's applicability to these types of incidents. Without clarity, he argued, Manila ought to review the treaty to determine its relevance to the country's defense.
Lorenzana's point is a valid one. Reading between the lines of the U.S. ambassador's statements revealed that Washington is more interested in deterring the Philippines from questioning the utility of the MDT than in preventing China from employing hybrid warfare in the South China Sea. The American tactic, however, appears to have worked a bit too well: During the periodic U.S.-Philippine Bilateral Strategic Dialogue, held July 15-16 in Manila, the Philippine ambassador to the United States, Babe Romualdez, announced the two countries were in talks to "strengthen" the decades-old treaty. Duterte took it a step further the next day, informally invoking the MDT and inviting the United States to send its 7th Fleet to protect the Philippines from China.
Having called America's bluff, the skeptical Duterte may decide the Mutual Defense Treaty is actually as hollow as he has previously suggested it is.
The request presents a dilemma for the United States. Duterte made his surprise demand without following a formal consultative process (he made it abruptly during a TV interview), while his call also lacked any of the coordinating details necessary to invoke the constitutional requirements stipulated in the treaty. Still, Washington is under pressure to demonstrate the pact's credibility after previously communicating verbal guarantees regarding its viability. But almost two months since the Recto Bank incident, there does not appear to be any appetite to commit U.S. naval forces in response to an incident that China presented as an accident between two fishing vessels.
At a certain point, however, China's repeated coercion in the region cannot go unanswered. Manila's perception that Washington is dragging its feet gets to the heart of the MDT. Having called America's bluff, the skeptical Duterte may decide the MDT is actually as hollow as he has previously suggested it is. At stake is a strategic effort to maintain American access to the South China Sea amid an ongoing Chinese consolidation of its position there. And unless the United States and the Philippines reconcile their views of mutual defense in the face of such "unarmed attacks," they will soon find themselves faced with an unbreakable chain of heavily fortified Chinese islands immune to any pressure short of war.
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2018/12/23/duterte-opens-up-the-philippines-to-chinese-workers-as-filipinos-seek-jobs-overseas/amp/?fbclid=IwAR3O8HO1zIMwOu0UfwZ3YhbXVZ1sZyw_j5aC89__XGLT6TD5CysUgN2yfoU#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s
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Michael Yon says China is freaking out , , ,
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/China-freezes-permits-for-individual-travel-to-Taiwan?fbclid=IwAR1N2ebFTmzkQCVri2qYHJCBJdnq2jV3GDJYAZPXJk2zpfrD15si5e3zGLA
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https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/08/chinas-credibility-problem/158956/?oref=defenseone_today_nl
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"Satellite Photo Shows China's Military Buildup in Response to Hong Kong Protests"
If you live in Hong Kong, wise to prepare for invasion. Nobody knows what is coming next, including China.
Possible that the airport will be stuffed again but this time with people scrambling for flights out.
Nobody knows. I do know that if Hong Kong had a second amendment, 12,000 troops would sustain massive casualties if there were serious resistance. Stuff like this is what the second amendment is all about. It's not about deer hunting.
China is not in a position of ultimate power over Hong Kong. These things do not happen in a vacuum.
One massive advantage that Hong Kongers have is that they generally are very likable and intelligent, while ChiComs tend to be the opposite and savage.
Watch the comments from ChiCom trolls on my page. They will talk about "white dogs," "jap dogs," and on and on. Very crass people, and extremely savage. The absolute last people you would want to see armed while you are disarmed.
A lot of Japanese have not woken up to this yet, but Hong Kong and Taiwan's futures are barometers for Japanese future. The unrest today between Korea and Japan is caused by China exploiting Korean psychological vulnerabilities. Chinese information experts hacked the collective-Korean mind and installed a virus.
The general plan in bare, bare bones:
1) Split Korea-USA-Japan. (Korea has no passwords on their brains. They are easy.)
2) Control vast swaths of land and sea such as the South China Sea
3) Extend reach to Africa, etc, (including around Thailand -- knock knock)
4) Take complete control of Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc.
5) Extend influence in Europe/USA -- through places like Hollywood (Jackie Chan, one example of many)
6) Attack Japan economically/politically, and eventually militarily. (Most Japanese seem to be in denial, and those who see the monster are labeled in the normal ways.)
7) Contain India -- which is not difficult. India can barely contain itself and the IAF aircraft fall out of the sky practically monthly, and the Indian navy is not ready for much. Many Indians seem in denial and besieged with false pride about their ability to stand up to China. My bet: within 30 years, China will mostly control Nepal and Bhutan, as examples. (Unless we take out CCP, and then all this likely is moot.) India is being constricted on all sides.
8) Exercise control/influence in places like Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar. Thailand is sleeping or in denial about where Thailand stands with China.
9) Much more, such as influence in Philippines, Australia, NZ, Central America.
10 ) Mitigate and heavily influence USA through economic, military, political containment including using our own democracy to elect influencers.
===
The penultimate goal is to take USA out of the equation. Ultimate goal is China as the lone superpower.
Hong Kong is a D-Day to Taiwan and a lot more.
Hong Kong is a major battlefield. That's how I ended up in this cheap hotel waiting for invasion.
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Damn. I love Hong Kong. I really dread what is coming.
"Satellite Photo Shows China's Military Buildup in Response to Hong Kong Protests"
If you live in Hong Kong, wise to prepare for invasion. Nobody knows what is coming next, including China.
Possible that the airport will be stuffed again but this time with people scrambling for flights out.
Nobody knows. I do know that if Hong Kong had a second amendment, 12,000 troops would sustain massive casualties if there were serious resistance. Stuff like this is what the second amendment is all about. It's not about deer hunting.
China is not in a position of ultimate power over Hong Kong. These things do not happen in a vacuum.
One massive advantage that Hong Kongers have is that they generally are very likable and intelligent, while ChiComs tend to be the opposite and savage.
Watch the comments from ChiCom trolls on my page. They will talk about "white dogs," "jap dogs," and on and on. Very crass people, and extremely savage. The absolute last people you would want to see armed while you are disarmed.
A lot of Japanese have not woken up to this yet, but Hong Kong and Taiwan's futures are barometers for Japanese future. The unrest today between Korea and Japan is caused by China exploiting Korean psychological vulnerabilities. Chinese information experts hacked the collective-Korean mind and installed a virus.
The general plan in bare, bare bones:
1) Split Korea-USA-Japan. (Korea has no passwords on their brains. They are easy.)
2) Control vast swaths of land and sea such as the South China Sea
3) Extend reach to Africa, etc, (including around Thailand -- knock knock)
4) Take complete control of Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc.
5) Extend influence in Europe/USA -- through places like Hollywood (Jackie Chan, one example of many)
6) Attack Japan economically/politically, and eventually militarily. (Most Japanese seem to be in denial, and those who see the monster are labeled in the normal ways.)
7) Contain India -- which is not difficult. India can barely contain itself and the IAF aircraft fall out of the sky practically monthly, and the Indian navy is not ready for much. Many Indians seem in denial and besieged with false pride about their ability to stand up to China. My bet: within 30 years, China will mostly control Nepal and Bhutan, as examples. (Unless we take out CCP, and then all this likely is moot.) India is being constricted on all sides.
8) Exercise control/influence in places like Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar. Thailand is sleeping or in denial about where Thailand stands with China.
9) Much more, such as influence in Philippines, Australia, NZ, Central America.
10 ) Mitigate and heavily influence USA through economic, military, political containment including using our own democracy to elect influencers.
===
The penultimate goal is to take USA out of the equation. Ultimate goal is China as the lone superpower.
Hong Kong is a D-Day to Taiwan and a lot more.
Hong Kong is a major battlefield. That's how I ended up in this cheap hotel waiting for invasion.
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Download as PDF
Aug. 15, 2019
By George Friedman
George Friedman’s Thoughts: China and a Global Economic Contraction
The protests in Hong Kong must be understood in the context of a global economic slowdown.
There has been much talk recently about economic problems in key economies around the world. Early Wednesday morning, for example, I spoke on Bloomberg Surveillance about the situation in China. Before I went on air, Bloomberg News was covering multiple stories on the decline in bond yields and its effect on the U.S. economy, weakness in the German economy, and so on. I then realized how closely this issue is linked to the protests in Hong Kong.
It has been about 10 years since the last U.S. recession, and we would expect to see another one soon. Since the United States is the world’s leading importer, an American recession always leads to a weakening of the global economy. Massive exporters like Germany and China are particularly vulnerable to such downturns. China’s economy was significantly weakened by the 2008 financial crisis. It has, until recently, managed to stave off U.S. attempts to try to level the imbalance between Chinese exports to the U.S. and U.S. exports to China. But it has now lost the ability to manage the United States. And at the same time, Hong Kong is rising.
(click to enlarge)
The uprising occurred because China was increasing its control over Hong Kong, including taking much greater control of the criminal justice system. In 1997, when the United Kingdom relinquished control of Hong Kong to China, Beijing was willing to allow Hong Kong to have a high degree of independence because Hong Kong was the financial interface between China and the world. China could not afford to undermine Hong Kong’s dynamism.
But China is in a very different position today, and it can no longer accept a strong and independent Hong Kong. Even before the U.S. trade actions, the Chinese economy was in serious trouble, and its banking system was nearly in shambles. The introduction of new tariffs by its largest customer has created deeper problems in the economy, which are seen in industrial production data and other sector statistics. The accuracy of these statistics is always uncertain to me, but that China is publicly revealing its economic weakness is significant. When it admits that it has problems, it likely means the problems are serious indeed.
Today’s China was built on economic growth and the promise of prosperity. Maoism still exists, but it is on the margins. Chinese elites, like elites everywhere, expect greater wealth and, at minimum, that the wealth they have already accumulated will be protected. And the public expects a better life for themselves and especially their children. The Communist Party of China, therefore, now derives its legitimacy not from communist ideology but rather from the promise to deliver prosperity to the people, coupled with national pride. But as the economy weakened, China engaged in major international initiatives to try to encourage pride in its global standing, from exaggerating its military power, to lending money to other countries, to building a route to Europe. The more concerned China was about delivering prosperity, the more it leaned on pride in Chinese power and the idea that the U.S. would be bypassed by the Chinese in every way possible.
But the Chinese realize that their relationship with the United States has gotten out of control. On one hand, they depend on the U.S. to buy their goods. On the other hand, they want to show that they are pushing back against the United States. In the end, national pride goes only so far in a country that is divided into many social classes, with millions left out of the economic boom and others having benefited but remaining resentful of the avariciousness of the elite. The foundation of China is prosperity; national pride is just a substitute.
Right now, that prosperity is threatened not only by U.S. demands to redefine economic relations between the two countries, but also by the last thing China needs: a global economic slowdown. It is always the exporters who are hurt the most by such downturns.
China tried to dramatically increase its control of Hong Kong, not out of confidence but out of fear. If the Chinese economy contracts, Hong Kong doesn’t want to be taken down with it. But the people of Hong Kong couldn’t predict how far they would be able to separate the island from China’s problems, so they wanted to ensure their security apparatus had control of Hong Kong. The Chinese resistance to these steps was what really led to the uprising. From my point of view, it also points to a critical Chinese weakness. China relies on its internal intelligence system to maintain order, but it failed to anticipate the uprising in Hong Kong. That raises the question of whether a pillar of the Chinese system, its internal controls, is weakening.
Another major concern for Beijing is that the unrest in Hong Kong may spread to the rest of the country. People in other Chinese cities might sense Beijing’s weakness and, facing tough economic conditions, take their concerns and resentments into the streets. This is why Beijing cannot appear to have lost control of Hong Kong. If it does, China’s global image as a confident, leading power would be transformed into one of a brutal and repressive regime, fighting its own people.
Hong Kong has not triggered a reaction on the mainland, but Chinese President Xi Jinping has been wrong on several fronts, so the Central Committee may not be in the mood to let him handle this problem. But it is caught between its need to suppress the protests in Hong Kong and its fear of the consequences if it does. When decisive action becomes a threat, it’s a sign that a regime is in trouble. China has tried to appear patient, but it is increasingly appearing impotent to its own people. And that is the one thing it can’t tolerate.
Economic downturns have a tendency to trigger political responses. Consider 2008 and how the political landscape changed in many countries in the following years. While 2019 may not be as intense as 2008, many countries’ economies are struggling, having never fully recovered from the global financial crisis. It is in this context that I am beginning to think of China. It’s easy for an exporter to prosper in a robust global economy. It’s much harder to sell to a world facing an economic downturn. Such exporters are battening down the hatches – China’s approach to Hong Kong is one example. Having encountered resistance, it fears the consequences of decisive action. And it fears not acting. China doesn’t know quite what to do, and that is not the behavior of a formidable rising power.
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https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3023002/white-house-appoints-uygur-american-elnigar-iltebir-top-china?fbclid=IwAR1br0W6ix8Ng54znqGC1gPFiC8QMNbBafCJorPTBVsF7PDN87Lwss4IJGc
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https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3023002/white-house-appoints-uygur-american-elnigar-iltebir-top-china?fbclid=IwAR1br0W6ix8Ng54znqGC1gPFiC8QMNbBafCJorPTBVsF7PDN87Lwss4IJGc
Ha! Well done!
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One thing missing in China's prosperity through devaluation strategy is the phenomenon of capital flight. If you know your wealth will be devalued, out it goes. Before they announce devaluation they need to lock the exits.
https://www.ft.com/content/28c9bd82-c27a-11e9-a8e9-296ca66511c9
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(https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/1200x800/public/d8/images/methode/2019/08/22/39b344d4-c472-11e9-ad8c-27551fb90b05_image_hires_190039.JPG?itok=5l7w6o4C&v=1566471645)
scmp.com South China Morning Post
This is the defining issue of our time. Not transsexual bathrooms.
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China’s elite Tsinghua University is among the first batch of large academic institutions that have implemented face scans to expedite the enrollment process this month
https://www.techinasia.com/day-university-china-means-face-scan-enrol
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Yes, it's to "expedite the enrollment process", wink, wink.
We could merge our liberal fascism, Communist China and Goolag threads any day now. What's the difference, location?
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China’s elite Tsinghua University is among the first batch of large academic institutions that have implemented face scans to expedite the enrollment process this month
https://www.techinasia.com/day-university-china-means-face-scan-enrol
----------------------------
Yes, it's to "expedite the enrollment process", wink, wink.
We could merge our liberal fascism, Communist China and Goolag threads any day now. What's the difference, location?
What? No DNA swabs and forensic scans of cell phones as part of the enrollment process?
Slackers.
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A Decisive Moment for China Draws Nigh
The 2019 Beidaihe meeting of Chinese officials was thought to have started on Aug. 3.
(SIMON SONG/South China Morning Post via Getty Images)
Highlights
Following this year's annual gathering of political elites in Beidaihe, China’s response to the ongoing protests in Hong Kong, as well as the next phase of its trade war with the United States, could soon take shape.
China's tougher stance in trade negotiations is likely an attempt by its leaders to appear strong against Washington — the country's most formidable external threat for the foreseeable future.
That approach risks drawing even more U.S. trade salvos, which could further damage China's already slowing economy and increase the likelihood of social instability in the country's wealthier coastal and urban areas.
Domestic economic and political unease will compel China to further solidify control over its buffer regions, a driver that could tempt Beijing to directly intervene in Hong Kong's political crisis.
Nearly 70 years after its founding, China has once again found itself at a historic crux. As Beijing's rivalry with the United States grows increasingly hostile, its future relations with Hong Kong hang in the balance — all while the country grapples with an economic slowdown that risks blunting 30 years of unrestrained expansion. Suffice it to say, China's political leaders had their plates full when they gathered in Beidaihe this year for their annual meeting, which reportedly just wrapped up.
But while China has faced similar internal threats over the decades, its leaders are unlikely to find answers in precedent this time around. And that's because the economic and political challenges the country faces today are occurring in a vastly different domestic context. Any speculation or leaks from this year's summit won't cover all the solutions to the complex challenges Beijing's leaders now face both at home and abroad. But any decision made behind closed doors during the summer retreat could very well dictate not only China's trajectory in the coming decade but also the rest of the world's.
The Big Picture
For decades, the summer resort of Beidaihe, about 300 kilometers (186 miles) east of Beijing, has served as the site of numerous historical decisions — as well as a microcosm of factional struggles among China's ruling elite. Amid Hong Kong protests and a trade war with the United States, coupled with a 30-year ebb in economic growth, this year's meeting took place at a particularly crucial moment for the world's second-largest economy.
A Perfect Storm
The U.S.-China trade war — punctuated by a cycle of negotiation, truce and retaliation — recently entered its 18th month. Since the last round of talks broke down in late April, Beijing has notably hardened its negotiating position. China, for example, has frozen its purchases of U.S. agricultural goods until Washington extends export licenses or reduces controls on the Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies. But such a stringent position risks further escalating the trade war — the effects of which have already taken a sizable toll on China's domestic economy. This raises the question of whether Chinese leaders will be able to maintain their tough stance without exacerbating the country's economic slowdown.
Even with the trade war bubbling in the background, the unfolding situation in Hong Kong undoubtedly garnered its share of attention in Beidaihe. Protests — drawing anti-government demonstrators and members of radical and more violent cells to Hong Kong's streets — have entered their third month with no immediate end in sight. The demonstrations, sparked by the city's now-tabled extradition bill, have evolved into a symbol of Hong Kong's anxiety over deepening economic and cultural integration with China, mixed with antagonism over Beijing's tightening political influence there.
That said, the prospects of seeing an independent Hong Kong in the near future remain unlikely. But the ongoing protests nonetheless risk undermining the city's 50-year transition under China's one country, two systems policy. At the bare minimum, Chinese leaders will have to figure out some sort of short-term solution to quickly de-escalate the volatile issue — ideally before the People's Republic of China celebrates its 70th anniversary on Oct. 1. But the high-profile and unrelenting unrest will also continue to pose critical questions about what red line must be crossed before Beijing ultimately takes matters into its own hands and directly intervenes.
More Money, More Problems
Compared with other eras, China's current economy is in much better shape. After all, both the massive push to reform state-owned sectors in the late 1990s and the global financial crisis in 2008 put tens of millions of Chinese citizens out of work. And even the most pessimistic estimates project that the costs of the current trade war will pale in comparison to those inflicted by post-1989 international sanctions, which virtually isolated China from Western economies for more than a year.
There's only so much more that China's cooling economy can absorb before U.S. tariffs begin to generate greater domestic pressure.
Unlike past economic crises, though, the issue this time around won't be the scope of the damage itself, but rather how that damage is perceived by the country's now wealthier population — and whether that perception leads to a significant backlash against the government. China's economic transformation over the past 30 years has made its citizens more affluent, on the whole, than they've ever been. But that also means they'll be much less tolerant of any disruptions of the lifestyles to which they've grown accustomed. Thus, should China's economic slowdown start to directly affect jobs and pocketbooks, it could increase the likelihood of social instability — particularly in the country's urban and coastal economic hubs — by bringing brewing political grievances to the surface.
Keeping Up Appearances
Beijing's tougher stance in trade talks could risk making that a reality by drawing further retaliation from the United States — something Chinese leaders surely want to avoid. But at the same time, with their global rivalry only set to grow, Beijing's current position against Washington could very well set the tone for how the country will be perceived — and positioned — as international power shifts in the coming decades. And thus, the Chinese leadership will hesitate to let down its guard for fear of appearing weak against the United States.
China's political leaders have always been highly sensitive to perceived external threats, even when internal challenges linger. This mindset likely stems from an astute understanding of the difficulties that come with ruling such a geographically massive and socially diverse country whose position also makes it uniquely vulnerable to outside influence.
There's a chance, then, that Beijing will bet on its authoritarian strength and still-intact nationalist support to give it room to maintain its hard line against the United States. But with more U.S. tariffs set to take effect Sept. 1., and more trade pressures likely to follow, there's also only so much more that the country's already cooling economy can absorb before the repercussions start to generate greater domestic problems.
Peripheral Power Grabs
Meanwhile, China's economic slowdown is propelling its leaders to diversify trade routes and develop new financial footholds in more remote regions of the world. Combined with the subsequent risk of domestic social instability, this outreach will compel Beijing to grasp its buffer regions even tighter.
This could increase the likelihood of Beijing intervening in Hong Kong's political crisis, should the situation continue to escalate before the national day in October. But in the longer term, it also means that Beijing will likely further tighten its already heavy security and surveillance regimes along its Western periphery. For decades, China had pursued a much more hands-off approach to Tibet and Xinjiang's incremental assimilation. But the need to develop its peripheral states amid economic restructuring has worn Beijing's patience thin — hence its decision to pursue a more ruthless and discriminatory approach in recent years, including the establishment of re-education camps. And as external and internal threats continue to rise, ensuring that these two historically restive buffers remain firmly under control will become all the more important to Beijing.
With Bated Breath
The measures Beijing takes in response to these challenges will undoubtedly have significant implications for China and elsewhere. And as a result, the importance of this year's Beidaihe summit has been elevated. For decades, the rumored policy and personnel decisions made at the private gathering have closely intertwined with the country's political path. Many of its key national strategies — including the Great Leap Forward, the hallmark economic and social campaigns of the Mao era — had their genesis at Beidaihe.
Over the intervening years, the annual meeting had become more of an informal forum. But at a time when so much affecting China's future remains in flux, the world will be waiting with bated breath to see what decisions the elite leaders made to respond to the myriad challenges that lie at their feet.
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-taiwan-china-miitary/u-s-military-ship-passes-through-strategic-taiwan-strait-idUSKCN1VD0YT?fbclid=IwAR2lbIOz6iLfkirFIDo5D4tR9YI46_SJFmBhjryyF5ikIK0uWCvKSPeUbRI
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https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3024249/trumps-military-rare-earths-drive-opens-doors-new-us-mines-amid-threats
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Three-quarters of 18- to 29-year-old residents of Hong Kong self-identify as Hongkongers, not Chinese, twice the share that did so in 2006. The data show that the younger the respondents, the more negative their sentiments towards mainland China.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/08/26/almost-nobody-in-hong-kong-under-30-identifies-as-chinese
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/pentagon-accuses-china-of-bullying-tactics-in-waters-off-vietnam_3055903.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=f459e320a5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_08_26_04_46&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-f459e320a5-239065853
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Google to shift Pixel smartphone production from China to Vietnam as sales soar.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Tech-scroll-Asia/Google-to-shift-Pixel-smartphone-production-from-China-to-Vietnam
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China doesn't feel that?
It's time for the endgame of the trade war.
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Google to shift Pixel smartphone production from China to Vietnam as sales soar.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Tech-scroll-Asia/Google-to-shift-Pixel-smartphone-production-from-China-to-Vietnam
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China doesn't feel that?
It's time for the endgame of the trade war.
I don't think the PRC feels like it is winning. I think the fact that Hong Kong hasn't been crushed yet demonstrates this.
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Stop the Bully in the South China Sea
Beijing must pay a price for allowing its coast guard and proxies to impede freedom of the seas.
By Gregory B. Poling and
Murray Hiebert
Aug. 28, 2019 7:02 pm ET
A Chinese coast guard ship attempts to block a Philippine vessel in the South China Sea, March 29, 2014. Photo: Bullit Marquez/Associated Press
The State Department weighed in forcefully last week on China’s harassment of Malaysian and Vietnamese oil and gas operations in the South China Sea. Spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus blasted Beijing’s “continuing interference with Vietnam’s longstanding oil and gas activities,” which “calls into serious question China’s commitment . . . to the peaceful resolution of maritime disputes.” The department was right to fire diplomatic shots across Beijing’s bow, but the U.S. and its partners need to do more to persuade China to rein in its coast guard and militia ships before they cause a deadly collision that could spark a wider crisis.
The situation off the Vietnamese coast has attracted the most attention, but China’s bullying started in May on the other side of the South China Sea. Two vessels contracted by a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell had finished one of their regular runs from Malaysia’s Sarawak State to a drilling rig operating off its coast in the South China Sea on May 21 when things went awry. A large Chinese coast guard ship, the Haijing 35111, appeared on the horizon. Sailing at high speed, the Chinese ship circled the commercial vessels, approaching to within 80 meters.
These maneuvers were tracked by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies using the identification signals transmitted by the ships. The incident was one episode in a two-week effort by the Haijing 35111 to harass and impede Shell’s drilling operations. At the end of May, the Chinese vessel gave up and returned to port in China’s Hainan province, but not for long.
By June 16 the Haijing 35111 had made its way to Vietnamese waters, where the Russian energy company Rosneft had contracted a Japanese rig to drill a new offshore well. The coast guard ship and others like it began harassing the rig and vessels servicing it—and still are. The Chinese ships have been using the same risky maneuvers seen off the Malaysian coast to create a threat of collision to pressure Vietnam and Rosneft to halt drilling.
Natural gas from offshore drilling in this area provides as much as 10% of Vietnam’s energy needs. And keeping Rosneft from folding to Chinese pressure is critical to Vietnam’s offshore energy industry. Beijing has coerced most other major foreign companies—BP, Chevron , ConocoPhillips and most recently Repsol —out of their investments in Vietnamese offshore energy blocks. If Rosneft is forced to halt its work, the last holdouts—especially Exxon Mobil , which is preparing to undertake a large natural gas project dubbed “Blue Whale” in waters farther north—will likely rethink the wisdom of their investments.
The Haijing 35111 has failed to stop the drilling in the Vietnamese and Malaysian cases, but the resistance hasn’t been without cost. A Chinese government vessel, the Haiyang Dizhi 8, arrived off the coast of Vietnam on July 3 and began conducting its own survey for oil and gas. That survey, which continues, covers the seabed over which Vietnam has indisputable rights under international law.
Transmissions show numerous Chinese coast guard ships and members of the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia—an official paramilitary force that operates from fishing ships—escorting the survey ship. Vietnam quickly dispatched its coast guard vessels to protect its rig and to shadow the Chinese survey ship. This creates a volatile situation in which collisions, intentional or not, could easily occur. That could lead to an overt military standoff.
Another Chinese state-owned survey vessel, the Shi Yan 2, spent a week in early August surveying Malaysian waters, including areas in which the oil and gas rigs contracted by Shell and others are operating. Since Aug. 14, a third Chinese survey vessel, the Haiyang 4, has been surveying an area of the continental shelf jointly claimed by Malaysia and Vietnam.
There are no military solutions to this pattern of Chinese coercion. If Washington wants to avert a crisis and prove it is serious about upholding freedom of the seas, it will need a robust diplomatic and economic strategy in lockstep with international partners. The goal should be to raise the costs to Beijing for its behavior and convince Chinese leaders they will lose more on the global stage than they will gain locally from their campaign of coercion.
Such a strategy must begin with the State Department recruiting other countries—including European states, Japan, India and Australia—to call on China to abide by its legal obligations. The broader the coalition calling on Beijing to alter its behavior, the higher the reputational costs China will pay for staying its current course.
The U.S. and allies should couple this with the imposition of direct economic costs. If China wants to rely on civilian actors and paramilitaries to coerce its neighbors, then those forces should be unmasked. The U.S. and partner countries should publicly identify Chinese civilian actors and their owners who engage in militia activities targeting China’s neighbors.
Washington should block those entities from doing business in the U.S. or accessing international financial markets through a vehicle like the South China Sea Sanctions Act, currently before both houses of Congress. There is a precedent: The U.S. and Europe responded similarly to Russia’s use of paramilitary forces in eastern Ukraine in 2014.
China is engaged in a long-term campaign of bullying, intimidation and paramilitary violence against Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. Its aggressive pursuit of claims that flout international law at the expense of the rights of Southeast Asian nations is a serious challenge to the international maritime order and regional stability.
Mr. Poling is director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Mr. Hiebert is a senior associate at CSIS’s Southeast Asia Program.
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When China's pirates start getting sunk, that will put this garbage to an end.
Stop the Bully in the South China Sea
Beijing must pay a price for allowing its coast guard and proxies to impede freedom of the seas.
By Gregory B. Poling and
Murray Hiebert
Aug. 28, 2019 7:02 pm ET
A Chinese coast guard ship attempts to block a Philippine vessel in the South China Sea, March 29, 2014. Photo: Bullit Marquez/Associated Press
The State Department weighed in forcefully last week on China’s harassment of Malaysian and Vietnamese oil and gas operations in the South China Sea. Spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus blasted Beijing’s “continuing interference with Vietnam’s longstanding oil and gas activities,” which “calls into serious question China’s commitment . . . to the peaceful resolution of maritime disputes.” The department was right to fire diplomatic shots across Beijing’s bow, but the U.S. and its partners need to do more to persuade China to rein in its coast guard and militia ships before they cause a deadly collision that could spark a wider crisis.
The situation off the Vietnamese coast has attracted the most attention, but China’s bullying started in May on the other side of the South China Sea. Two vessels contracted by a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell had finished one of their regular runs from Malaysia’s Sarawak State to a drilling rig operating off its coast in the South China Sea on May 21 when things went awry. A large Chinese coast guard ship, the Haijing 35111, appeared on the horizon. Sailing at high speed, the Chinese ship circled the commercial vessels, approaching to within 80 meters.
These maneuvers were tracked by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies using the identification signals transmitted by the ships. The incident was one episode in a two-week effort by the Haijing 35111 to harass and impede Shell’s drilling operations. At the end of May, the Chinese vessel gave up and returned to port in China’s Hainan province, but not for long.
By June 16 the Haijing 35111 had made its way to Vietnamese waters, where the Russian energy company Rosneft had contracted a Japanese rig to drill a new offshore well. The coast guard ship and others like it began harassing the rig and vessels servicing it—and still are. The Chinese ships have been using the same risky maneuvers seen off the Malaysian coast to create a threat of collision to pressure Vietnam and Rosneft to halt drilling.
Natural gas from offshore drilling in this area provides as much as 10% of Vietnam’s energy needs. And keeping Rosneft from folding to Chinese pressure is critical to Vietnam’s offshore energy industry. Beijing has coerced most other major foreign companies—BP, Chevron , ConocoPhillips and most recently Repsol —out of their investments in Vietnamese offshore energy blocks. If Rosneft is forced to halt its work, the last holdouts—especially Exxon Mobil , which is preparing to undertake a large natural gas project dubbed “Blue Whale” in waters farther north—will likely rethink the wisdom of their investments.
The Haijing 35111 has failed to stop the drilling in the Vietnamese and Malaysian cases, but the resistance hasn’t been without cost. A Chinese government vessel, the Haiyang Dizhi 8, arrived off the coast of Vietnam on July 3 and began conducting its own survey for oil and gas. That survey, which continues, covers the seabed over which Vietnam has indisputable rights under international law.
Transmissions show numerous Chinese coast guard ships and members of the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia—an official paramilitary force that operates from fishing ships—escorting the survey ship. Vietnam quickly dispatched its coast guard vessels to protect its rig and to shadow the Chinese survey ship. This creates a volatile situation in which collisions, intentional or not, could easily occur. That could lead to an overt military standoff.
Another Chinese state-owned survey vessel, the Shi Yan 2, spent a week in early August surveying Malaysian waters, including areas in which the oil and gas rigs contracted by Shell and others are operating. Since Aug. 14, a third Chinese survey vessel, the Haiyang 4, has been surveying an area of the continental shelf jointly claimed by Malaysia and Vietnam.
There are no military solutions to this pattern of Chinese coercion. If Washington wants to avert a crisis and prove it is serious about upholding freedom of the seas, it will need a robust diplomatic and economic strategy in lockstep with international partners. The goal should be to raise the costs to Beijing for its behavior and convince Chinese leaders they will lose more on the global stage than they will gain locally from their campaign of coercion.
Such a strategy must begin with the State Department recruiting other countries—including European states, Japan, India and Australia—to call on China to abide by its legal obligations. The broader the coalition calling on Beijing to alter its behavior, the higher the reputational costs China will pay for staying its current course.
The U.S. and allies should couple this with the imposition of direct economic costs. If China wants to rely on civilian actors and paramilitaries to coerce its neighbors, then those forces should be unmasked. The U.S. and partner countries should publicly identify Chinese civilian actors and their owners who engage in militia activities targeting China’s neighbors.
Washington should block those entities from doing business in the U.S. or accessing international financial markets through a vehicle like the South China Sea Sanctions Act, currently before both houses of Congress. There is a precedent: The U.S. and Europe responded similarly to Russia’s use of paramilitary forces in eastern Ukraine in 2014.
China is engaged in a long-term campaign of bullying, intimidation and paramilitary violence against Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. Its aggressive pursuit of claims that flout international law at the expense of the rights of Southeast Asian nations is a serious challenge to the international maritime order and regional stability.
Mr. Poling is director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Mr. Hiebert is a senior associate at CSIS’s Southeast Asia Program.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4wbx9hIN4E
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4wbx9hIN4E
Being afraid to speak up is one thing, but hard for me to understand how people in the mainland actually support the oppression.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4wbx9hIN4E
Being afraid to speak up is one thing, but hard for me to understand how people in the mainland actually support the oppression.
The Chinese public knows communism is garbage. The CCP uses nationalism to fill the void.
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Where Do Hong Kong's Protests Go From Here?
What Happened
With new protests and potential violence in Hong Kong a distinct possibility in the weeks ahead, the city's police force is striving to stay a step ahead of its competition. Authorities detained seven prominent activists, including Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow and Andy Chan, on Aug. 29 and Aug. 30 on charges that they were organizing protests. The arrests coincided with a ban on a major rally that the Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF), a key organizer against the contentious extradition bill that first ignited Hong Kong's protests, had scheduled for Aug. 31. As a result of the prohibition, the CHRF called off the rally, during which it had planned to demand universal suffrage on the fifth anniversary of Beijing's controversial white paper that effectively rejected the request.
The Big Picture
________________________________________
Now nearing its 14th week, anti-government protests in Hong Kong have escalated violently and dramatically in recent weeks, putting the city's all-important business and transportation activities at risk and raising the prospect of a harsher crackdown or direct intervention by Beijing. The general course of the protest movement and the demonstrators' deep — and still unaddressed — grievances make the chances of a de-escalation remote.
________________________________________
China in TransitionAsia-Pacific: Among Great Powers
Meanwhile, the Hong Kong airport authority said it would strictly enforce an earlier court injunction to ban demonstrations at the hub amid some protesters' plans to conduct another nearby "stress test" (efforts that have, in effect, disrupted the airport for several days since earlier this month). At present, the situation on the street remains volatile, as protesters plan new rounds of industrial strikes and class boycotts and the police prepare for a harsher crackdown with advanced equipment, including water cannon. At the same time, Hong Kong's authorities have been in discussion about making a final roll of the dice — a far-reaching emergency ordinance that would further restrict people's ability to protest — in an effort to head off the nuclear solution: direct intervention by Beijing.
Why It Matters
Despite the ban on the Aug. 31 rally, the detentions and the ongoing crackdown, the authorities' actions are unlikely to quell the situation on the ground due to the fluid nature of the opposition movement and the demonstrators' deep-seated grievances against Hong Kong's government and Beijing over their refusal to meet protesters' demands. In fact, the measures could provoke more radical protesters to resort to more aggressive tactics, inflaming the situation.
With a political settlement a remote possibility and the police unable to suppress the unrest at this point, Hong Kong's authorities are increasingly looking into legal options to beat back the demonstrators. One such means that has attracted heated debate is the potential invocation of the 1922 Emergency Regulations Ordinance, which could grant Chief Executive Carrie Lam near-unrestrained power to control the internet, seize key transport hubs and arrest and deport demonstrators.
But given the potential legal hurdles to such a step, as well as the disruptions it would cause to businesses and the wider public, Hong Kong authorities are likely to apply the ordinance only in a small geographic area and avoid censoring the internet too much. In the end, however, the law might be Lam's last chance to quell the protests on their own — and preempt Beijing, which would intervene reluctantly, though heavy-handedly. And given that Oct. 1, China's National Day, is just a month away, Hong Kong will be under unprecedented pressure from Beijing to stabilize the situation, which China's central authorities believe Lam's government made on its own. At this stage, however, it is unclear whether the Hong Kong police are powerful enough to halt the protests even if authorities invoke the ordinance, meaning Beijing's foreboding presence will continue to loom over proceedings.
What to Watch for Next
Protest movement: The success of the upcoming protests and strikes will be critical in gauging the trajectory of the movement and, in turn, evaluating the government's options. If the protests remain peaceful, there will be less need for the emergency ordinance or Beijing's intervention — something that would help restore business confidence, which has been shaken by the crisis. But a further escalation in which protesters overwhelm the airport, key transport links or politically symbolic buildings such as Beijing's liaison office will strengthen the hand of those advocating a harsher crackdown through the imposition of the ordinance.
Internal debates: The Hong Kong government remains extremely divided over the emergency ordinance, with some in the administration even unclear as to which authority would approve the move. A possible legislative process to impose the act would likely have to wait until the Hong Kong Legislative Council reconvenes in October, but Lam's government could take the unilateral step to invoke the act if it deems it necessary, although that would ignite a firestorm of controversy and risk further splitting the government. At the same time, the administration is debating the scope of the possible ordinance, with some recommending the implementation of an anti-mask law (such laws exist in the United States and Canada) to discourage violence.
Coordination with Beijing: Beijing, which does not want to take blame for the crisis, would certainly prefer that Lam's government and police handle the unrest instead of conducting an intervention that would immediately result in U.S. sanctions and disrupt its efforts at maintaining its "one country, two systems" with regard to Hong Kong. Given the high stakes in Hong Kong and the prospect that Beijing may feel compelled to intervene if local police fail to enforce the emergency ordinance, signs of coordination between the central government and Lam's administration will be critical in tracking Beijing's position. Other signposts would include the mobilization of the Chinese People's Armed Police, the security forces just over the border in Shenzhen, as well as the military in the Hong Kong garrison to see whether these forces could play an assisting role.
Reaction from the business community and foreign governments: Foreign and domestic businesses are stuck between a rock and a hard place, as they have no desire to see the ongoing crisis or a possible state of emergency — let alone an intervention from Beijing. Besides the toll on Hong Kong's economy, sentiment among the all-powerful business community and foreign governments, particularly the United States, will be key to follow regarding a possible emergency ordinance – since their opposition could go a long way to restraining both Lam's government and the one in Beijing.
Read on Worldview
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Maritime security in the Asia-Pacific. This week will see several significant developments in Asia-Pacific security. The U.S. kicked off its first-ever military exercises with the 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The location of the exercises, jointly led by the U.S. and Thai navies, will range from the Gulf of Thailand to the South China Sea. Japan and India’s defense ministers met yesterday in Tokyo to advance their talks on security cooperation, in particular on establishing a bilateral acquisition and cross-servicing agreement. South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha signed a memorandum of understanding on military intelligence cooperation. While such memorandums themselves do not carry much weight, it is notable that South Korea is pursuing intelligence sharing with its neighbors after scaling back such cooperation with Japan. Last but certainly not least, there are signs that the government of the Solomon Islands may be rethinking its relationship with China. A Solomon delegation of eight ministers recently paid visits to both Taiwan and Beijing. The Solomon Islands have recognized Taiwan for the past 36 years, and a shift toward Beijing would raise concerns for both the U.S. and Australia, for whom the islands play a strategic role in maritime security objectives
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Maritime security in the Asia-Pacific. This week will see several significant developments in Asia-Pacific security. The U.S. kicked off its first-ever military exercises with the 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The location of the exercises, jointly led by the U.S. and Thai navies, will range from the Gulf of Thailand to the South China Sea. Japan and India’s defense ministers met yesterday in Tokyo to advance their talks on security cooperation, in particular on establishing a bilateral acquisition and cross-servicing agreement. South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha signed a memorandum of understanding on military intelligence cooperation. While such memorandums themselves do not carry much weight, it is notable that South Korea is pursuing intelligence sharing with its neighbors after scaling back such cooperation with Japan. Last but certainly not least, there are signs that the government of the Solomon Islands may be rethinking its relationship with China. A Solomon delegation of eight ministers recently paid visits to both Taiwan and Beijing. The Solomon Islands have recognized Taiwan for the past 36 years, and a shift toward Beijing would raise concerns for both the U.S. and Australia, for whom the islands play a strategic role in maritime security objectives
Winning.
I thought our allies were all turning against us. Oops, another false narrative.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/trump-has-the-right-strategy-on-beijing-as-a-chinese-dissident-id-know/2019/08/30/2579b5ba-ca81-11e9-8067-196d9f17af68_story.html
Presidents before Trump naively believed that China would abide by international standards of behavior if it were granted access to institutions like the World Trade Organization and generally treated as a “normal” country. But that path proved mistaken, and Beijing ignored Western pressure on matters from human rights to the widespread theft of intellectual property. Trump, whatever his flaws, grasps this reality.
Unlike many of his predecessors in the White House, Trump appears to understand innately the hooliganism and brutality at the heart of the CCP. He comprehends that — whether in the realm of trade, diplomacy or international order — dictatorships do not commonly play by the rules of democratic nations. While past administrations have curried favor with the CCP (“appeasement” is not too strong a word), Trump has made excising the party’s growing corrosion of U.S. society — from business and the media to education and politics — a focus.
Which past administrations failed to understand China?
Think of Richard Nixon marveling at staged supermarkets and shoppers in Beijing, and paving the way for the severing of ties with the Republic of China (Taiwan) in favor of the communist regime. Or Bill Clinton, after talking tough, declining to make “most favored nation” status for China conditional on human rights reviews, effectively eliminating any leverage the United States had over China with respect to fair trade, not to mention rights. As China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization moved toward reality, in 2000, Clinton described it as “the most significant opportunity that we have had to create positive change in China since the 1970s.” He said there would be no downsides to freer trade: It was “the equivalent of a one-way street.”
Following the attacks of 9/11, George W. Bush turned a blind eye when Beijing used the U.S. war on terror as cover for persecuting ethnic minorities; Barack Obama repeatedly shied away from mentioning human rights to CCP officials, notably during a visit in 2009.
...
It is different with Trump:
During his administration, the Justice Department has ordered that CCP-run media companies operating in the United States register as foreign agents. His is the first administration to subject Confucius Institutes at U.S. colleges and universities — which serve as the eyes and ears of the CCP — to intense scrutiny, leading to the closure of several.
Trump is the first American president to take a call from a Taiwanese president since the United States cut off formal diplomatic ties with the island in 1979. He has placed sanctions on Chinese nationals, including a CCP official responsible for the death of a human rights activist and three people involved in trafficking fentanyl. He has met with persecuted people of a broad range of religious beliefs in the Oval Office, including Uighurs, Tibetans and Christians from independent Chinese “house churches.” He’s said that a deal on tariff depends on China working “humanely” with Hong Kong.
...
China is a deep-pocketed, rapacious regime that poses a significant threat not just to American interests but to the entire civilized world. Yet after decades of empty talk about nudging China toward reform, we’re at a point where it is American companies, news outlets and universities that feel pressured to play by Beijing’s rules or risk losing access to its markets and resources.
Trump, with an admittedly unorthodox style, is trying to break down the systems, and the concessions, that have allowed the CCP to operate unchecked for too long. He deserves credit, not criticism, for saying: Enough.
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Trump has not yet attacked China's human rights abuses, but by attacking their power and control he is arguably helping that cause.
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Duterte’s trip to the Middle Kingdom. For the fifth time in three years, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is visiting China, where he will hold talks with President Xi Jinping and meet various other officials during a four-day visit. A few hours before Duterte was due to arrive, the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs sent an apology letter from the Guangdong Fishery Mutual Insurance Association to the Philippines’ Foreign Ministry regarding an incident in which a Chinese ship collided with a Philippine fishing boat in June near Reed Bank. The conciliatory move is a nice touch but hardly enough to provide much of a release on the internal domestic pressure Duterte is facing over his government’s pursuit of a closer relationship with China. Duterte and Xi are reportedly set to sign a number of impressive-sounding deals. The two countries have signed many deals totaling billions of dollars in recent years, but their execution has been less impressive. Meanwhile, the Philippine navy announced earlier today that it will acquire multiple new ships, including two submarines.
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https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/hong-kong-protesters-sing-star-spangled-banner-appeal-trump-liberate-n1051166
Hong Kong protesters sing Star Spangled Banner, appeal to Trump to 'liberate' city
HONG KONG — Thousands of Hong Kong protesters on Sunday sang the Star Spangled Banner and called on President Donald Trump to "liberate" the Chinese-ruled city, the latest in a series of demonstrations that have gripped the territory for months.
Police stood by as protesters, under a sea of umbrellas against the sub-tropical sun, waved the Stars and Stripes and placards appealing for democracy after another night of violence in the 14th week of unrest.
"Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong," they shouted before handing over petitions at the U.S. Consulate. "Resist Beijing, liberate Hong Kong."
Hong Kong has been rocked by a summer of unrest kicked off by a proposed law that would have allowed criminal suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial.
Many saw the extradition bill as a glaring example of the Chinese territory’s eroding autonomy since the former British colony was returned to China in 1997.
Hong Kong’s government promised last week to withdraw the bill — an early demand of protesters — but that has failed to appease the demonstrators, who have widened their demands to include other issues, such as greater democracy.
Sunday’s rally followed overnight violent clashes between protesters and police at several metro stations.
Image: Anti-Government Protest Movement in Hong Kong
Police have responded to violence in recent weeks with water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas.Carl Court / Getty Images
The unrest has become the biggest challenge to Beijing’s rule since Hong Kong’s return from Britain.
Beijing and the entirely state-controlled media have portrayed the protests as an effort by criminals to split the territory from China, backed by hostile foreigners.
Protesters on Sunday urged Washington to pass a bill, known as the Hong Kong Democratic and Human Rights Act, to support their cause.
The bill proposes sanctions against Hong Kong and Chinese officials found to suppress democracy and human rights in the city, and could also affect Hong Kong’s preferential trade status with the U.S.
Related
NEWS
Pro-Hong Kong rallies in U.S. met with pushback from China supporters
The State Department said in a travel advisory Friday that Beijing has undertaken a propaganda campaign “falsely accusing the United States of fomenting unrest in Hong Kong.” It said U.S. citizens and embassy staff have been the target of the propaganda and urged them to exercise increased caution.
Some U.S. lawmakers have spoken out strongly in support of the Hong Kong protesters and voiced concern about the potential for a brutal crackdown by China.
Trump, however, has indicated the U.S. would stay out of a matter he considers between Hong Kong and China. He has said he believes the U.S. trade war with China is making Beijing tread carefully.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Saturday urged China to exercise restraint in Hong Kong.
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Official numbers have long exaggerated growth but more so now to hide the decline. Auto sales down 15 of the last 16 months. As growth slows, the private sector share of the economy in China is shrinking making the economy more state-run and less dynamic. This is a prescription for failure, IMHO, becoming less like Silicon Valley and more like the Soviet Union.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-says-growth-is-fine-private-data-show-a-sharper-slowdown-11567960192?mod=hp_lead_pos5
https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-state-driven-growth-model-is-running-out-of-gas-11563372006?mod=article_inline
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The snark in the subject line about having bought Duterte is mine, not GPF's, but note well the Chinese strategy here:
else, it’s clear that he’s keeping communication open with his erstwhile ally.
China and the Philippines at sea. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Tuesday that Manila intends to move forward with a contentious maritime oil and gas exploration deal with China – and that his government would ignore The Hague’s landmark 2016 arbitration ruling invalidating China’s sweeping claims in the South China Sea, including waters around the resource-rich Reed Bank in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. Duterte said that, during last week’s visit to Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping had agreed to a 60-40 revenue sharing scheme favoring the Philippines. As we’ve previously noted, China’s primary goal here is not to take the hydrocarbons for itself but to force regional states into joint exploration agreements that implicitly acknowledge China’s distended territorial claims. As a result, it has repeatedly blocked Manila’s attempts to launch joint exploration with firms from other countries. The Philippines needs the gas, and thus it’s reluctantly going along with China. But the deal may run afoul of the Philippine constitution, not to mention nationalist political forces in the country. Indeed, attempts at energy cooperation with China have contributed to the downfall of a Philippine leader in the past
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https://www.meforum.org/59338/how-china-disrupts-the-middle-east?utm_source=Middle+East+Forum&utm_campaign=146ba48b9f-MEF_Pipes_2019_09_11_11_49&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_086cfd423c-146ba48b9f-33691909&goal=0_086cfd423c-146ba48b9f-33691909&mc_cid=146ba48b9f&mc_eid=9627475d7f
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https://www.lawliberty.org/2019/09/12/we-need-our-mojo-back-vis-a-vis-china/?utm_source=LAL+Updates&utm_campaign=01145ca698-LAL_Daily_Updates&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_53ee3e1605-01145ca698-72519097
We aren't winning.
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https://www.lawliberty.org/2019/09/12/we-need-our-mojo-back-vis-a-vis-china/?utm_source=LAL+Updates&utm_campaign=01145ca698-LAL_Daily_Updates&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_53ee3e1605-01145ca698-72519097
We aren't winning.
The 5G thing is mystifying.
"Huawei owns 40 percent of the patents related to fifth-generation broadband, largely because it spent twice as much on research and development as its two largest rivals (Ericsson and Nokia) combined."
None of these three are American. Where is Qualcomm? Where is Silicon Valley? While we were f*ing around with solyndra and windmills, cash for clunkers and "shovel-ready jobs", they were changing the nature of espionage and war.
The one thing worse than being the world's only superpower is to have a brutal, hostile, repressive totalitarian regime take that place.
.......
"As we examine the details, the picture of a Soviet-style communist regime bent on world domination falls apart. China’s concept of world domination is so different from what we imagine that it has halfway come to fruition before we noticed it."
...
"Foreign students earn four-fifths of all doctoral degrees in electrical engineering and computer science at U.S. universities"
But we direct our best and our brightest to become lawyers, social justice warriors and gender and climate non-scientists.
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https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3026822/taiwan-steps-trade-war-breach-us-saying-it-will-buy-us36?fbclid=IwAR1FISstpxjgz7NS9qj121ogpw3Uu3lc58MFKxHicGRf9MA1vXRb7CSAr9w
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https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3026822/taiwan-steps-trade-war-breach-us-saying-it-will-buy-us36?fbclid=IwAR1FISstpxjgz7NS9qj121ogpw3Uu3lc58MFKxHicGRf9MA1vXRb7CSAr9w
Smart move by Taiwan. HK and Taiwan I believe are the keys to ending the Chinese Imperium's global domination.
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Michael Yon via Instapundit
”There is a tiny, tiny notice in the news today that China has backed off on its tariffs on US soy and pork.
Ya don’t say…
First of all, soy and pork are protein, which is a chronic problem in all national food chains, but more so in China. Between their traditional plant based diet and the cultural prestige of eating pork (the middle class literally measures its affluence by how many nights a week they eat pork and the lower classes and villages use pork as a celebratory meal), China’s protein consumption is very narrowly restricted to soy and pork (fish is common, but not nearly as available as soy and pork).
Second, by lifting the tariffs, China has just admitted it cannot produce enough protein for national consumption, both as a staple or as a preferred meat. Imagine a US shortage of wheat and chicken, with no real access to corn or beef, and a couple dozen urban areas of 20 millions or more with just a third arable land as now. That’s China.
So, what’s the problem with China’s agricultural industry? Basically, they simply do not have enough land to grow the volume of soy they need; and, their pork production is highly diffused and is ravaged by a massive and seemingly uncontrollable swine flu epidemic. In fact, it is estimated that up to 60% of China’s pigs are infected with the flu.
To compound a bad situation to worse, Chinese officials are both incapable of enforcing a quarantine and too corrupt to stop the spread of the flu.
While this seems to have little to do with defense or military matters, I would suggest it is a huge red shift event offering insights into both the underlying economic and organizational civilian support system of the Red Army and suggestive of a wider indigenous structural and organizational condition of the military and government writ large.
I believe we can draw significant conclusions from closely studying China’s responses to this food supply crisis and extrapolating our observations to the military to understand what they do under stressful conditions, what resources they deploy, and how they organize their response. Not to mention, how the civilian population responds to the military’s demands.
“Stipulated: The food supply chain is in fact a national security issue and it is a function of the military’s most basic needs. A lot can be learned by studying this issue.”
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Interesting thinking there , , ,
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The Spengler piece is dead on.
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Protester shot in chest with live police round during Hong Kong National Day protests
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3031044/chaos-expected-across-hong-kong-anti-government-protesters
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Is the great fall of China coming? These protests are the biggest challenge they have faced in the modern era. People have been waiting for China to overstep with the protesters. This bullet overshadows all the military hardware in their phony celebration.
Sometime soon in the trade and intellectual property theft negotiations, Pres. Trump should note that the impasse on trade issues frees the US to mount a massive campaign for human rights for the people of China that includes self determination with free and fair elections and end their regime.
Trump has set aside the calling out of their human rights violations in hope of getting agreement on trade and economic concerns. But if that fails and further stalling is failure, then the campaign of pressure for human rights in China [that we should be doing anyway] needs to start and escalate.
The Soviet Union was our greatest security threat for decades. After years of American appeasement, President Reagan stood at the gate and said, open this gate Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. Down it came. Today our biggest security threat is China and for the first time in a long time they are suffering from economic weakness. Does anyone in the Chinese regime think Trump would not make a similar challenge to China?
Nothing would solve our trade and security issues faster than the fall of the regime and making the PRC a free people's republic.
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On a similar note to my rant:
https://www.nysun.com/editorials/the-tragedy-of-communist-china/90852/
Also New Anthem of Hong Kong introduced:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=138&v=0ZUtV9NsikM
Creepy and telling that it is performed by masked musicians.
The world recognized PRC instead of free China to the UN in 1971, accepted the Handover of Hong Kong to totalitarian China in 1997 on their word of "one country, two systems".
How about we support one country, freedom?
For how long does this tragedy continue?
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https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2019/10/new-drones-weapons-get-spotlight-chinas-military-parade/160291/?oref=defenseone_today_nl
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Previously, "then the campaign of pressure for human rights in China [that we should be doing anyway] needs to start and escalate"
They didn't get to hear the whole speech with his specific criticisms of China, but he is starting to break through.
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https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3031373/donald-trumps-un-speech-about-patriotism-and-sovereignty
A quote from Trump’s speech, translated into Chinese and posted by the US embassy in China on its official Weibo account on Wednesday, attracted thousands of comments and shares and more than 38,000 likes, with many users saying it could apply to them.
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Previously, New Anthem of Hong Kong introduced:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=138&v=0ZUtV9NsikM
Creepy and telling that it is performed by masked musicians.
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https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3031399/hong-kong-government-announce-new-law-banning-masks-during
Are they going to arrest a million masked protesters? Do the protests end or do they spread?
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China displays new hypersonic nuclear missile on 70th anniversary
Beijing also showcased inter-ballistic missile capable of reaching US in 30 minutes during 70th anniversary parade.
China's military has shown off a new hypersonic ballistic nuclear missile believed capable of breaching all existing anti-missile shields deployed by the United States and its allies.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/china-displays-hypersonic-ballistic-nuclear-missile-191001031803778.html
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Maybe we will second source the capabilities before it goes in the Military technology thread.
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https://www.richmond.com/opinion/columnists/victor-davis-hanson-column-how-china-woke-america/article_f9b9c8ae-5d0b-5a31-b398-0071f3e4c992.html
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https://www.richmond.com/opinion/columnists/victor-davis-hanson-column-how-china-woke-america/article_f9b9c8ae-5d0b-5a31-b398-0071f3e4c992.html
Great column full of truth and insight (as usual). This was something like the frog in boiling water story; it all happened so gradually.
China was an economically pathetic third world country with a massive and growing population, a once great civilization that became a human disaster. It was humane and also strategic during the mutually assured destruction days with the Soviet Union to engage with China.
Their economic progress was a hopeful sign for mankind. Hundreds of millions were lifted out of poverty and the birth rate (through brutal totalitarian tactics) collapsed. We hoped that growing prosperity would lead to pressure for democratic reforms but that is another matter.
Remember when Made in Japan meant crap before it meant Lexus and the highest of quality. China started with unskilled production of cheap stuff, then stole technology, passed us in engineering grads, and now we don't know how to implement next generation technology (5G) without them.
10-20 years ago, when they said the cost of the pirated software in China alone would cover the whole trade deficit, the point was moot. They were using the software because it was free, not because they could afford it. In the time since we have moved closer to parity.
We aren't trying to close our market to their manufacturers. We are only asking for equal access, free trade both ways, and we are asking for an end to theft and unfair trade practices. Not unreasonable.
VDH is right, standing up for our producers is a Democrat issue too. I, it's just that their leaders have were too timid, too wimpy and/or bought off to do that. Did the public want a general price increase in box stores, Walmart, Home Depot etc. or want an interruption in farm exports? No. It took courage to call this out and mean it and only an outsider could do it. Note that he accelerated the growth of the economy first before risking the short term damage. No Democrat knew how to do that.
In the last Democrat debate it was asked, who would end the [Trump] tariffs on the first day if elected? No one said yes. Instead they mumbled criticism about Trump's tone and manner.
Both economies are hurting from the trade war. Our hurt is noticeable and China has five times more hurt than the US according to basic math - whether they admit or not. This will get resolved. If Trump is defeated and another President is in office when it is settled, it is still a Trump accomplishment. He led instead of followed.
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interesting
had two patients recently explain that they teach at home
their employers are Chinese
their jobs are to teach Chinese children English
one told me there are about 100.000 such teachers in the US.
Thus they all know English .
few of us know Chinese............
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“Fight for freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.”
Don't say that in America!
That was the now deleted tweet that a NBA Franchise GM wrote that caused in international crisis.
I have one question, whose side are we on? Doesn't anybody know or admit we are on the side of freedom and stand with Hong Kong?
Maybe someone should tell them.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-senator-ted-cruz-visits-taiwan-for-national-day-affirms-strong-us-taiwan-relationship_3112625.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=b215b247d3-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_11_01_39&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-b215b247d3-239065853
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The U.S.-China tech war moves to Xinjiang. The U.S. State Department announced Tuesday that it would impose visa restrictions on Chinese officials connected to the mass detentions of ethnic Uighur Muslims in the western region of Xinjiang. This comes a day after the U.S. Commerce Department added 28 Chinese entities allegedly connected to abuses in Xinjiang, including eight tech firms, to its “entities list,” which bans U.S. firms from selling to them without a special license. The common theme among the eight sanctioned firms makes clear that U.S. concern about Chinese human rights abuses in Xinjiang is peripheral to the issue. All are developing technologies the U.S. sees as posing national security risks, particularly artificial intelligence. And, for the moment, all source the vast majority of their microchips from U.S. firms. For more than a year, the U.S. has been seeking to leverage the Chinese tech sector’s dependence on U.S. semiconductors to target Chinese telecommunications firms like Huawei and ZTE. But while China has struggled to develop native sources of the sorts of microchips needed for these firms, it’s been having much greater success with AI chips. So, don’t expect the U.S. move to be crippling over the long term. Either way, China has pledged to retaliate, but the issue reportedly hasn’t diminished Chinese willingness to resume talks on reaching at least a limited trade deal covering other issues.
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And if we do, what will Goolag, Apple, Nike, and the NBA do?!?
https://www.theepochtimes.com/china-to-get-full-access-to-foreign-ip-and-data_3113932.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=e371228df1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_13_08_26&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-e371228df1-239065853
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Oct. 15, 2019
China Plays Hardball Over Hong Kong Unrest
Beijing’s willingness to demand silence from Western businesses, despite the risks of alienating them, is a sign of its increasing fragility.
By Phillip Orchard
Last weekend, the NBA unexpectedly found itself at the center of the row between Beijing and anti-government protesters in Hong Kong when Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey expressed support for the protests on Twitter. After the Chinese Basketball Association announced a suspension of cooperation with the league, the NBA scrambled to distance itself from Morey’s views and defuse the situation. China was evidently unsatisfied; broadcasts of NBA games were canceled, NBA merchandise was pulled from Chinese stores, NBA ads disappeared (including one featuring the Brooklyn Nets, which are owned by vocally pro-Beijing Alibaba co-founder Joseph Tsai), and every one of the NBA’s official Chinese partners suspended ties with the league.
This week, Beijing also reportedly forced Apple to remove the Taiwanese flag emoji from iPhone keyboards in Hong Kong, as well as two apps: HKMap.live, which Hong Kong protesters used to crowdsource police movements, and Quartz, a U.S. media outlet whose Hong Kong coverage has evidently crossed a line. U.S. gaming company Blizzard Entertainment, meanwhile, suspended a professional player for expressing support for the Hong Kong protests. The hotel company Marriott, which has been under fire from Beijing for accidentally referring to Taiwan as a country, said it would fire an employee for “wrongfully liking” a tweet by a Tibetan independence group.
If China appears to be increasingly thin-skinned, it’s because the country is entering a period of profound internal political and economic stress. The risk of mass social unrest is as high as it has been at any time since 1989, making the potential rupture of regional fault lines amid these pressures China’s core geopolitical problem. Its uneasy relationship with foreign corporations illustrates the trade-offs inherent to Beijing’s approach to managing the problem. To stave off a political crisis sparked by an economic collapse, China needs the capital, jobs and technology provided by foreign firms. Yet, to stave off a political crisis, it can’t afford to see its control undermined by foreign influences – and won’t hesitate to go it alone if forced to choose.
The Costs Are Real
China’s willingness to draw a line in the sand with foreign firms reflects the country’s staggering growth in power but also its increasing fragility. It’s now home to the world’s second-largest consumer market. China has as many NBA fans, for example, as the rest of the world combined, and last year, the league reaped more than 10 percent of its revenue from China.
Increasingly, Beijing is leveraging its market power for a wide range of strategic, economic and political aims. For example, in exchange for the right to sell to Chinese consumers, Beijing often pushes tech firms to share advanced technologies with local partners that it hopes will accelerate the economy’s race up the value ladder. As illustrated by moves like forcing foreign airlines to pretend Taiwanese cities aren’t in Taiwan, no political victory is too small.
Still, at times, Beijing can appear curiously tone-deaf and ham-fisted, pressuring outside institutions in ways that do considerable harm to its reputation abroad for minimal gain. Beijing could’ve just ignored Morey’s tweet, which was unlikely to have any impact on the Hong Kong protests or perceptions of them on the mainland. Twitter is censored in China, after all. Yet, Beijing did respond – even explicitly calling for curbs to free speech in the U.S. – and then kept escalating the matter. As a result, it magnified the spotlight on human rights issues in Hong Kong and Xinjiang (where, until Sunday, the NBA had a training camp), sparked a national conversation in the U.S. about Chinese coercion two days before critical U.S.-China trade talks were set to begin, and gave antagonized NBA fans in China reason to sympathize with Hongkongers. For what gain?
Even when China has clear, worthwhile reasons to take a hard line with foreign firms, moreover, such moves invariably come with costs. For one, China needs foreign investment and technology, now more than ever considering that it’s dealing with the trade and tech wars, the global slowdown, China’s structural slowdown, credit shortages, and the growing awareness in foreign business circles of the difficulty and risks of operating in China. Already, its current account has slipped into deficit, and uncertainty related to the trade war has pinched global investment. Yet, the more foreign firms and investors think that doing business with China comes with risks of stumbling unawares onto Beijing’s naughty list or provoking nationalist boycotts – and, at home, risks of bad PR and pressure from U.S. lawmakers – the more likely they are to stay away.
To be clear, China will remain exceedingly attractive to most firms, particularly those selling to Chinese consumers. The conspicuous silence on the kerfuffle over Hong Kong of otherwise politically outspoken NBA stars has made that much clear. To steal from Michael Jordan: Communists buy sneakers, too. But for firms on the fence or those looking at the country purely as a manufacturing hub, China may not be worth the headaches.
China’s reputation problem carries risks in a number of other strategic and economic areas as well. The power of coercion is king in geopolitics, but hearts and minds still matter. Beijing has immense interest in winning political support for its aims abroad, or at least not antagonizing populations to the point where it creates political risks for foreign leaders of engaging with or conceding to China. In the past couple years alone, anti-China political backlashes have derailed strategically important Belt and Road Initiative projects in places like Sri Lanka and Malaysia. They’ve also undermined Beijing’s goals in regional states like the Philippines, which China needs to flip to solve its foremost strategic challenge. Perhaps most important, the growing impression in the U.S. and elsewhere in the West that China is a neo-fascist, revisionist state whose growth in power must be contained, whatever the costs, has boosted political support for Western trade and tech measures targeting China.
The costs are real.
Rocketing Risk
Why, then, is Beijing apparently so unconcerned about winning hearts and minds – or at least so clumsy at it? For one, China often can’t help itself. When an organ of the Chinese state lashes out at a foreign firm, it’s often less a tactical, conscious decision than the reflexive response of an institutional culture that can’t tolerate any questioning of the party line. It’s doubtful, in other words, that Xi Jinping rushed to convene an emergency strategy meeting on whether and how to respond to a tweet by some front office guy with the Houston Rockets. The massive machinery of the Chinese state just responded in the way it’s been programmed to. This is an inherent risk to authoritarian regimes where dissent is not tolerated and nationalism is a boon – and where career incentives push officials to air on the side of being too hawkish. China, moreover, was almost fully closed off to the world just two generations ago, so the system as a whole is still relatively new to the game of massaging foreign opinion and thus prone to seemingly pointless misadventures.
Often, though, China’s moves are indeed the result of risk-reward calculations – ones that underscore China’s increasing political fragility. If it can’t live without foreign capital and technology, but also can’t live with foreign firms undermining its control at home, then it has good reason to make an example of those who flout the party line in hopes of making the consequences abundantly clear to everyone else. If, as a result of the rigid institutional culture this creates, it may be prone to overreach and self-inflicted wounds, so be it. If it makes China’s broader tensions with its neighbors or the West worse, well, none of these tensions would be resolved altogether by playing nice, anyway. Whenever Beijing wields its favorite, seemingly tone-deaf accusation that a Western government or corporation has “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people,” what it’s really saying is that it can survive isolation by nursing powerful historical grievances to rally nationalist support.
The bigger point is that the Communist Party of China is stuck with a lot of bad options. When forced to choose, it’ll almost invariably pick the one that it thinks most solidifies its control. And the more China’s long-term economic interests take a back seat to the CPC’s immediate concerns about political stability, the more risk levels will rise on a range of issues.
Consider Hong Kong. The main constraint preventing Beijing from forcefully ending the protests and taking full control of the territory is China’s dependence on Hong Kong as a gateway for both inbound and outbound investment. The territory accounted for around 64 percent of China’s inward foreign direct investment last year – and it will become all the more important as China’s internal and external economic woes mount. Beijing has a strong interest in preserving what’s left of Hong Kong’s reputation (with both foreign and Chinese firms) as a stable, business-friendly temple to capitalism. Thus, rather than rolling tanks through Tsim Sha Tsui, we expect Beijing to intervene only indirectly, helping Hong Kong police contain and grind down the protests over time.
(click to enlarge)
Still, if Beijing begins to truly fear widespread contagion from the protests in the mainland, China’s concern about spooking foreign investors or derailing trade talks with the U.S. won’t be enough to stop it from restoring stability in Hong Kong the hard way. This would intensify Beijing’s isolation, and thus worsen its economic and political pressures at home. But from the CPC’s viewpoint, at least it would survive to be able to try to solve them.
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second post, and an example of the prior post
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-lawmaker-criticizes-beijing-bullying-after-visa-denial_3116347.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=b7451e0518-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_15_08_52&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-b7451e0518-239065853
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Buying Huawei Technology ‘Like Buying Chinese Fighter Planes’
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/09/25/buying-huawei-technology-like-buying-chinese-fighter-planes-shock-new-report-warns/#62fcd5893170
“Why is there universal agreement that military equipment from China be restricted but not telecom networks where vital information is transported?”
https://chinatechthreat.com/about-us/
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https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2019-10-04/without-democracy-china-will-rise-no-farther
Without Democracy, China Will Rise No Farther
Beijing Can’t Compete With Washington Until It Reckons With Its People
By Jiwei Ci October 4, 2019
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/09/25/buying-huawei-technology-like-buying-chinese-fighter-planes-shock-new-report-warns/
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https://www.msn.com/en-sg/news/world/think-of-your-family-china-threatens-european-citizens-over-xinjiang-protests/ar-AAIVq44?ocid=sf&fbclid=IwAR3jNzFkNNBUw1nYQfoD_LOBuzm5SQOUpEWs-5BVeCNShm8t2jgtAuaXLfY
Also, Tarantino movie banned:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/china-cancels-release-tarantinos-once-a-time-hollywood-1248652?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=THR%27s%20Today%20in%20Entertainment_now_2019-10-18%2007%3A10%3A07_aweprin&utm_term=hollywoodreporter_tie&fbclid=IwAR2YRwyId1pI8ePYKhiFhKPuGSQXNudLl8ilf8XOVXVqPWQxm7CxOWVPusU
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/09/25/buying-huawei-technology-like-buying-chinese-fighter-planes-shock-new-report-warns/#abf19e231704
Reminder: #abf19e231704 is a way of tracking the source of the URL. The URL will work without the # and what follows it.
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Sorry to be dimwitted on these things and gratitude for your help! Do I have it right now? Or is it too late?
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Sorry to be dimwitted on these things and gratitude for your help! Do I have it right now? Or is it too late?
All good now.
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Thanks for the help!
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/bipartisan-lawmakers-call-out-apple-blizzard-for-enforcing-chinese-regime-censorship_3120996.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=3809f1d673-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_20_07_36&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-3809f1d673-239065853
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15045/trade-china-cheating
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/apple-ceo-appointed-chair-of-board-at-top-chinese-university-with-close-ties-to-beijing_3123297.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=2727543252-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_22_09_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-2727543252-239065853
Also
https://www.theepochtimes.com/abominable-film-axed-in-malaysia-after-rebuffing-order-to-cut-china-map_3122575.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=2727543252-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_22_09_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-2727543252-239065853
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/is-america-becoming-sinicized/?fbclid=IwAR2C2XSqyY-HY-pkK4FFu7sDEb_AvLFVFetActiDypA1Bjeu2sL8r-pvwiE
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5CW6jmZedI&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0dR5DrUdNDUruthgf4tWp7xpqYmTUx-oRdDxqYg3KoU11qY16IRWZhTSA
Summary of the Speech:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/in-policy-speech-pence-criticizes-chinese-regimes-unethical-practices-voices-support-for-hong-kong-and-taiwan_3127039.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=e8802ff3a8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_24_11_43&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-e8802ff3a8-239065853
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trouble for the world’s second biggest economy as the trade war with the US takes toll on China’s economic activity
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3034737/china-industrial-profits-biggest-fall-four-years-us-tariffs
Did anyone see this coming? :wink:
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/americans-lawmakers-are-waking-up-to-china-threat_3128010.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=36f3f23532-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_27_07_33&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-36f3f23532-239065853
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second post
China and the US Are Dealing With the Easy Stuff
By: Phillip Orchard
U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators appear to have made a breakthrough on a “phase one” trade deal. Of course, it’s just a handshake deal, bereft of details that, according to U.S. President Donald Trump, would be papered eventually. And, of course, as we saw when negotiations collapsed abruptly in May, declaring success before the stickiest points of contention have been fully ironed out can backfire. Chinese President Xi Jinping won’t risk weakening his position at home by meeting with Trump at the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November if there’s any chance of walking away empty-handed.
Nonetheless, what’s important now is that the U.S. appears willing to settle on a deal that overwhelmingly ignores the stickiest points of contention altogether – at least for the time being. And recent moves from China suggest that it thinks a window of opportunity has indeed opened to lock in the handful of points where agreement is possible. A long-delayed Chinese Communist Party conclave this week will shed light on just how far Beijing is ready to push forward with critical reforms the U.S. is demanding.
At this point, even a limited, largely symbolic agreement would be a big deal to the extent that it staves off future escalation by the United States and shields U.S. businesses and consumers from the round of tariffs – by far the most painful – scheduled for mid-December. Just don’t expect this particular deal to do away with the bulk of existing tariffs, much less to resolve the underlying drivers of the dispute. Steep political constraints on Beijing will make a more comprehensive settlement even harder to reach down the road. Ultimately, the prospects of a final deal will hinge on just how much the United States, not China, is willing to cave.
Why China Looks Serious About a Deal
The trade war is far from China’s biggest economic problem, but it’s nonetheless starting to become a problem. U.S. imports from China have fallen 12.5 percent so far this year, compared to 2018. An International Monetary Fund forecast released this week said Chinese growth will plummet by another 1.6 percent next year if Trump follows through on his threats to tax another $267 billion worth of Chinese imports.
(click to enlarge)
It’s unsurprising, then, that over the past two months, Beijing has been quietly laying the groundwork for concessions needed to strike at least a “truce” with the U.S., if not a more substantive deal. On Friday, for example, it confirmed that a deal would include a pledge to keep the Chinese yuan stable in relation to a basket of currencies. Also in the past few weeks, Beijing lifted caps on foreign ownership in the asset management and auto industries, passed a new foreign investment law that received widespread positive reviews, and pledged a host of new measures such as export tax rebates, improved trade financing and credit insurance. It expanded quotas for tariff-free imports of some U.S. farm goods. According to U.S. officials, Beijing has also committed to make new concessions on intellectual property protections.
(click to enlarge)
Senior Chinese officials, meanwhile, have been on a PR blitz at home and abroad aimed at wooing foreign investors. Most prominent among them has been Premier Li Keqiang, a longtime economic liberalization advocate, and Vice President Wang Qishan, Xi’s trusted “firefighter” who is held in relatively more high esteem abroad. When Li and Wang take high-profile trips abroad and feature prominently in Chinese state media, it’s often a signal of growing concern in Beijing about its souring reputation in foreign business circles (and, occasionally, hints at a power struggle in the upper echelons of the CPC).
The timing of the CPC’s Fourth Plenum this week is also noteworthy. Beijing was expected to hold the plenary session a year ago, per tradition, but delayed it about as long as possible under party rules. This, combined with occasional hints of dissent about Xi’s reassertion of state control over the economy, suggested deep factional divides may have been emerging within the party over China’s handling of the economy, including the trade war. Xi is loath to risk having these divides on display at the plenum, so the fact Beijing is finally moving forward with the meeting, along with the aforementioned rollout of various reforms, could suggest he’s succeeded in restoring enough consensus for China to move more aggressively with reforms going forward.
More likely, though, the plenum will underscore the reality that Beijing is still operating amid tight political constraints and trying to thread the needle between a number of bad options. Based on official releases, at least, the emphasis of the conclave will be on themes like ideological purity, party loyalty and combating the evils of Western-style capitalism – not, say, the virtues of reform and opening. This would suggest that Xi remains preoccupied with restoring party solidarity and appealing to nationalist forces to curry support. When the party leadership gets nervous, it typically either gets trapped in paralysis or resorts to the tools it trusts most to entrench its power. In short, China wouldn't be capable of inking anything more than a “truce” anytime soon. The plenum will be held behind closed doors, so watch for subtle shifts in state media coverage, unexpected personnel changes and so forth for clues on Beijing’s ability to move decisively in one direction or another.
What a Deal Won’t Resolve
Already, it’s fairly clear what won’t be resolved in the immediate future, even if a phase one deal is finally put on paper. There’s a common theme among China’s recent moves and expected concessions: They’re all measures China increasingly needs to do anyway. Its moves to boost foreign participation in its financial sector, for example, come on the heels of a near-crisis in which the Chinese banking sector, especially state-owned lenders, proved exceedingly ill-suited for channeling funding to the private sector. The resulting credit crunch did far more damage to the Chinese economy than U.S. tariffs have yet to do. China’s increased agricultural purchases would come at a time of surging food prices resulting from a devastating outbreak of African swine fever. If it agrees, as reported, to a deal on stabilizing the yuan, it will be at least in part because it hasn’t been intentionally driving down its currency and has a crippling fear of capital flight.
Similarly, its measures aimed at wooing foreign investment come amid mounting concerns about the country’s reputation as a place increasingly hostile to foreign businesses. Beijing needs new foreign investment to sustain employment, boost its flagging growth, and stem the slow-motion exodus of foreign firms to other low-cost manufacturing hubs. Moreover, it has long relied on Western business circles to block anti-China and protectionist political forces abroad from translating into punitive policy measures. But over time, as homegrown competitors to foreign firms began hoarding market share in China (with ample help from the state), and as well-documented allegations of things like intellectual property theft proliferated, disenchantment among foreign firms with the Chinese model has become widespread. This is why opposition to Trump's trade war has proved manageable for the White House. Beijing won’t be able to make the sweeping changes needed to restore foreign confidence. But it makes sense for it to bend over backward to at least appear to be sincere about addressing foreign firms’ concerns.
In contrast, there’s been nary a hint of evidence that Beijing is preparing to make concessions on the main U.S. grievances. On some issues, like forced technology transfer, there’s realistically not that much Beijing can do to fully snuff out the practice. On others, like more meaningful IP protections, it can pass new laws and push courts to enforce them, but it sees such U.S. demands as an infringement on Chinese sovereignty and is thus loath to spark a nationalist backlash by following through with a gun to its head.
On the biggest issues, moreover, Beijing is going in the opposite direction. Its structural slowdown, trade pressure and soaring debt risks are forcing it to lean even more heavily on the state sector, for example. And to avoid falling into the fabled “middle-income trap,” bolster the People’s Liberation Army and reduce its dependence on foreign technologies, it's doubling down on its support for advanced manufacturing sectors. Deepening state control at the expense of market-driven dynamism may ultimately do more harm than good to China’s economy and industrial development. But resistance to liberalization from entrenched state-sector stakeholders in China, combined with the party's existential fear of widespread job loss, means Beijing is defaulting to the tools it trusts most to sustain stability.
There are also a number of points of contention that the U.S. itself isn’t willing to negotiate on – particularly those with national security implications resulting from China’s development of “emerging and foundational technologies." As we’ve long said, the U.S.-China “tech war” will far outlast the trade war. U.S. concerns over military issues or things like Hong Kong will also remain separate. Thus, expect U.S. measures targeting Chinese tech firms like Huawei, scrutiny on research and development collaboration, and inbound Chinese investment to only intensify from here. And since the U.S. will need to hold on to leverage to ensure implementation of whatever Beijing concedes on trade, expect most of the existing tariffs to remain in place for the time being as well.
(click to enlarge)
The U.S. will still have ample political and economic interest in striking a more comprehensive deal. The tariffs are accelerating the U.S. downturn, and an election year is approaching. And while the U.S. needs to do far more to reset its trade relationship with China and find ways to pressure Beijing to change, the problem for the U.S. is twofold: One, reaping the easy, low-hanging fruit in negotiations now leaves only the hard stuff. Two, absent a cataclysmic loss of CPC control, Beijing can’t and won’t concede on most of the hard stuff just to get out from under tariffs. Rather, they’ll just push China deeper into its shell.
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China Investors Keep Making Deals in Silicon Valley Amid Washington Pushback
The moves highlight a resilient relationship amid Washington’s efforts to curb foreign access to sensitive technology
Sri Ambati, left, CEO of H20.ai, said a Chinese financial firm that made a passive investment in his company is “a strong partner.” PHOTO: JASON HENRY FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
By Heather Somerville
Updated Oct. 28, 2019 7:07 pm ET
Chinese investors are pressing ahead with investments into startups and venture-capital funds, emboldened in part by ambiguities in U.S. efforts to limit foreign access to technology deals.
Key rules for implementing a 2018 U.S. law intended to curb foreign access to sensitive technologies are yet to be defined, often leaving investors and entrepreneurs to determine which deals are permissible. For their part, U.S. tech entrepreneurs want to nurture connections to China.
Investment ties between the two countries thus remain tight despite political and trade tensions, say technology investors, entrepreneurs, attorneys, and current and former government officials.
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The sources of Chinese-affiliated money vary widely, as do investors’ motivations. Both can be hard to discern.
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hone Capital was set up in 2015 with about $200 million from China Science and Merchants Investment Management Group, a Chinese private-equity firm known as CSC Group that nearly two years ago was delisted from a Chinese stock exchange, according to a person familiar with the matter and public documents.
Since the law was passed, Hone has continued to invest in the U.S., including in artificial-intelligence startups. Last year, Canadian private-equity firm Whitehorse Liquidity Partners gave Hone about $50 million to invest, people familiar with the matter said.
Hone hasn’t received funding from China in more than two years, said founder Veronica Wu. Yet Hone employees still report to CSC Group, which recently emphasized to them that the long-term strategy is to bring U.S. technology companies to China, the person familiar with the matter said.
Last month, more than 10,000 people flocked to a technology conference in Santa Clara, Calif., an annual gathering of mostly Chinese and U.S. tech workers and investors known as the Silicon Valley Innovation & Entrepreneurship Forum. Speakers included scientists affiliated with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and U.S. national labs.
“Some people in Washington want to decouple the two economies. We disagree,” Ren Faqiang, China’s deputy consul general in San Francisco, told the audience.
The 2018 law expanded the power of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or Cfius, to probe minority investments in critical tech companies through which foreign investors could influence a company’s business decisions.
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CFIUS: The Obscure Panel That's Becoming a Bigger Deal for Deals
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CFIUS: The Obscure Panel That's Becoming a Bigger Deal for Deals
CFIUS: The Obscure Panel That's Becoming a Bigger Deal for Deals
A secretive panel called Cfius is paving the way for President Trump to block more foreign business deals due to national security concerns. WSJ's Shelby Holliday explains why you'll hear more about Cfius during the Trump era. Illustration: Laura Kammerman (Originally published March 20, 2018)
The law mandates that certain startups fundraising from foreign investors report their deals to Cfius for approval, and that Cfius do a better job sniffing out unreported foreign investments in sensitive technologies.
Cfius has broad authority to unwind deals after they have closed if it determines the technology should be restricted, so not reporting a foreign investment can be risky, said William Newsom, an attorney with law firm Cooley LLP.
The law prompted an initial pullback. The amount of Chinese venture investment in the U.S. during the first half of 2019 declined about 27% in dollar terms from the second half of 2018, according to research firm Rhodium Group.
“We were seeing a very conservative approach from investors initially,” said Larry Ward, a Cfius attorney with law firm Dorsey & Whitney LLP.
But Cfius appears ill-equipped to police the venture-capital industry, current and former government officials said.
The government also hasn’t codified which technologies are off-limits to foreigners, so some startups and investors don’t see the need to file with Cfius, Mr. Ward and other lawyers said.
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Amino Capital said it received funding from a local government in eastern China a couple of years ago. The firm, which also manages a venture fund in China, hasn’t changed its U.S. investment strategy in response to the Cfius law, said co-founder Jun Wu, who left the firm in August. He said the government phased out its support for Amino, but the firm is still mostly backed by Chinese investors. About 80% of the funding now comes from executives and owners of Chinese businesses seeking to move their money outside China, Mr. Wu said.
Amino managing partner Larry Li said the firm’s partners are U.S. citizens and none of its backers have access to private information about startups, nor can they make investment decisions on behalf of the firm.
Last year, Amino incubated and funded DataBeyond, a Palo Alto company that provides data analytics on fashion trends. One of Amino’s partners briefly served as its chief executive. The startup’s new CEO, Xiaoxi Zhang, and its top technology officer, Adrian Wang, said the relationship provided Amino with more access and influence over the company’s business strategy and growth plans than an average investor. They said their lawyer told them they didn’t have to alert Cfius.
Some Chinese investors are choosing different tactics, including taking pains to conceal their identity, U.S. defense officials and venture capitalists said. Mike Janke, co-founder of Maryland-based DataTribe, a venture fund that incubates cybersecurity startups, said that six times in the past year and a half, government-backed investors, including from China and Russia, have offered money for his fund through layers of front companies or subsidiaries. He rejected the offers after learning the origins of the money.
Other Chinese investors have been content to make only passive investments.
“Investment that is purely passive is inherently low-risk from a national security standpoint and in most cases should be welcomed,” said David Hanke, a partner at law firm Arent Fox who was the lead staff architect of the Cfius legislation while working for its sponsor, Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas). “We didn’t want to shut off the flow of truly benign investment.”
Chinese financial conglomerate Ping An Insurance Group Co. began making minority investments in the U.S. this August through a venture fund it set up, including $15 million for a less than 5% stake in machine-learning startup H20.ai. Sri Ambati, the CEO of H20.ai, said he didn’t notify Cfius of Ping An’s investment because it isn’t taking a board seat and can’t see customer data. A spokesman for the venture fund said it isn’t seeking control with the investments.
Ping An will become a customer of H20.ai and help the startup get more customers in China, Mr. Ambati said. “They were the right match,” he said. “It’s a strong partner to provide a gateway into China.”
Beijing-based venture firm ZhenFund retreated from the U.S. partly because of Cfius, said a person familiar with the matter. But a ZhenFund employee recently pitched prospective investors about a new U.S.-based fund called Olive Capital, according to a pitch deck reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Olive Capital will include money from a founder of ZhenFund, but ZhenFund itself won’t provide money, the person said. The pitch deck says Olive Capital will invest in U.S. tech companies and help them “gain exposure to China.”
“The policies we have put in place have not been all that effective in limiting China’s technology ambitions,” said Nicholas Eftimiades, a retired senior U.S. intelligence officer whose work has focused on China.
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Shen groups Beijing’s technological warfare attack tactics in three categories, in increasing magnitude of decentralization: helping authoritarian regimes with money and technology to surveille their citizens with the help of Beijing-linked technology companies such as Huawei; hacking and collecting information from countries targeted by Beijing; and using communication technology such as social media platforms to spread disinformation to create discord in society.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/facing-the-reality-of-the-chinese-regime_3132219.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=9f6cda989a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_30_11_50&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-9f6cda989a-239065853
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/u-s-increasingly-reliant-on-chinese-manufactured-drugs-experts-warn_3132065.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=9f6cda989a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_30_11_50&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-9f6cda989a-239065853
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“Imagine what the world would look like if China were setting standards in six game-changing technologies like hypersonics, quantum sciences, autonomy, artificial intelligence (AI), 5G, genetic engineering, and space,” Brown said, noting that all these technologies, aside from hypersonics, are also vital for economic prosperity, not just militarily.
“Well, you don’t have to imagine, because China is already setting the pace for a number of those technologies,” he said at the panel, titled “Managing the Risk of Tech Transfer to China.”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/china-is-leading-in-emerging-technology-industries-defense-official-warns_3131789.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=9f6cda989a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_30_11_50&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-9f6cda989a-239065853
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... what the relationship will look like between the United States and China in the years and decades ahead. I’ll be clear about what the United States wants: We don’t want a confrontation with the People’s Republic of China. In fact, we want just the opposite.
We want to see a prosperous China that is at peace with its own people and with its neighbors.
We want to see a thriving China where the Chinese business community transact business with the rest of the world on a fair set of reciprocal terms that we all know and understand.
And we want to see a liberalized China that allows the genius of its people to flourish.
And we want to see a China that respects basic human rights of its own people, as guaranteed by its own constitution.
But above all, it’s critical that as Americans, we engage China as it is, not as we wish it were.
Herman Kahn used to remind us, he would urge us to think unconventionally to create persuasive arguments for policy and make those arguments consistently to the American people.
We have to think anew, and unconventionally, about the People’s Republic of China.
I hope you will all join me in that. We will learn together and we will develop a strong relationship between these two nations.
https://www.state.gov/the-china-challenge/
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https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/30/20940921/us-interior-department-drone-grounding-china-spying-cybersecurity-risk?fbclid=IwAR1CnJbs_XK3eC2zrtuygt0ur0dfFpQSB-FBKT8sFBeiLxuaXxdcYwU1yi0
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second post
Will China Use a Cross-Strait Economic Pact to Push Taiwan?
4 MINS READ
Oct 31, 2019 | 22:31 GMT
The Big Picture
China's tactics of intimidation and isolation directed at Taiwan as pro-independence sentiment on the island grows have sent relations between them to a two-decade low. As Taiwan nears a January election with the ruling party enjoying a strong lead in opinion polls, it's been speculated that Beijing could step up its pressure against Taipei by threatening a key economic pact. Ending the deal, however, would eliminate a tool the mainland has long relied on to manage relations with Taiwan.
Rising discord between Taiwan and China as crucial elections approach in Taiwan has raised the idea that Beijing could threaten the island's economy by terminating the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA). The pact, signed in 2010 when cross-strait relations were more cordial, offers a range of preferential policies giving Taiwanese manufacturers and exporters duty-free access to the otherwise restrictive mainland market and establishes the possibility of extending that access to trade in services. With the agreement, China hoped to increase integration of the cross-strait economy, thus giving Beijing more influence over Taipei and creating an atmosphere on the island less hospitable to thoughts of independence.
Although the deal as a whole is set to expire in June, neither the government in Beijing nor in Taipei has made any move to extend or renegotiate it. Negotiations over the services portion of the agreement, which were suspended in 2014 in the wake of mass protests in Taiwan, remain on hold. The declining efficacy of the deal and Taipei's growing tendency to dissociate politically and economically from the mainland gives Beijing the incentive to rethink it altogether. The pact's expiration — or even merely the idea that it would be allowed to expire — could provide political ammunition to the Taiwanese opposition Kuomintang — which Beijing arguably would prefer to win Taiwan's January elections over the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The economic harm to Taiwan's economy of ending the ECFA gives China a lever that it can use to try to rein in Taipei's hawkish cross-strait policies ahead of the election.
The cross-strait cooperation agreement expires in June. Neither China nor Taiwan has made any move to extend or renegotiate it.
A news conference held Oct. 30 by the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, which holds responsibility for Taiwanese affairs, did little to refute the idea that the ECFA's days might be numbered. Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesman for the agency, stressed the frozen nature of the cross-strait dialogue while evading the question of whether China would exercise its option to terminate it. Beijing’s recent moves to ramp up economic pressure against Taipei, including an August ban on individual Chinese citizens making trips to Taiwan, make the chances of further economic escalation plausible, and the ECFA gives Beijing a potent cudgel to hold over Taiwan's head.
Trade with China accounts for 40 percent of Taiwan’s total exports, and the loss of preferential duty-free policies would add further drag on the Taiwanese economy, which has suffered under the weight of the global trade storm and sluggish semiconductor demand. Specifically, the ruling government, with an intent to minimize the cost, calculated that losing the ECFA would shrink Taiwanese trade at least 5 percent. An industrial assessment suggested the loss would hit industries such as chemicals, textiles, machinery and agriculture particularly hard.
But with the DPP's popularity on the upswing since Hong Kong's crisis erupted, potential economic threats may not have a significant political impact. Furthermore, there's a strong chance that they could backfire, feeding a DPP campaign narrative that focuses on Chinese intimidation. Besides, cross-strait economic linkages are a key part of China's strategy for managing its relations with Taiwan, so ending the ECFA would undercut Beijing's ability to influence Taiwan. It would also risk driving Taiwan to more aggressively pursue alternative economic partners, including the United States. And none of those outcomes would serve Beijing’s interests
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Third post
Michael Yon:
Hong Kong Insurgency Intensifying — this is far beyond mere Protests, and beyond Civil Unrest
I flew to Hong Kong in late June after realizing from friends and reports that Hong Kong had slipped into General Civil Unrest. I jumped on an airplane — notice I rarely do this.
Since at least early July, some portion of Hong Kong Patriots have been waging insurgency. That portion continues to grow.
I do not know what next month or next year will bring. I can spot a hurricane, certify it is a hurricane, estimate its power, but have only guesses about what it will do next. Will it strengthen? Weaken? Blow out to sea? Flood Houston?
At this moment, the insurgency continues to grow. Keeping in mind that the pool of Patriots is not homogenous in thoughts, but they remain generally united at this time.
Tomorrow, Saturday, likely will bring another large demonstration of Patriot resolve with a giant march planned to start from Victoria Park.
I will be there. Expect running battles with police later in the day and into the night. (Having been to about 80 major Hong Kong protests so far, patterns have emerged.)
I will be there live-streaming, though likely not holding the camera myself. Tomorrow is a great opportunity to talk with a cross-section to sense the mood.
Remember — my “war name” was made being right about conflicts far ahead of talking heads. It helps to have smart friends to bounce information around. It’s 95% work, and thus I have been here most of the time since June, and now in early November this will be a chance to check temperature and pressure of the Patriot mood.
At this instantaneous moment, Hurricane Hong Kong is aiming straight at Beijing. US Congress is lining up the ducks to get behind Hong Kong. Much is at stake for China, and for Hong Kong officials who have allowed or even ordered Hong Kong Police to commit crimes against humanity on a daily basis for months.
There will be a reckoning. There will be a judgement day.
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Law enforcement looks to be a bit different in Hong Kong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZlSXJHfDsU&fbclid=IwAR21Ag9CrwpHKDJ-jhD3OI2CljO82xK1hMBqIOyAgnYyjXpH8YVuodHZ2OY
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fourth post
https://www.theepochtimes.com/fcc-proposes-mandating-telcos-to-remove-chinese-networking-equipment_3133395.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=05cc14171d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_31_11_20&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-05cc14171d-239065853
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By Mixing Tech and Human Rights Sanctions on China, the White House Crosses the Rubicon
Reva Goujon
Reva Goujon
VP of Global Analysis, Stratfor
14 MINS READ
Nov 1, 2019 | 09:30 GMT
HIGHLIGHTS
As the United States and China make a fresh attempt at a trade truce, a glaring omission from the so-called Phase 1 talks is the issue of whether the White House will ease export restrictions on American tech suppliers to Chinese tech giant Huawei.
Even as the Trump White House may have originally intended to use at least parts of the Huawei blacklisting as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations, the window for compromise is closing, spelling prolonged uncertainty for U.S. tech companies with heavy exposure to China.
The reduced room for compromise is due in part to the trade and tech wars blending into human rights concerns, as complex global supply chains expose a number of Western and Chinese companies to accusations of facilitating Chinese digital authoritarianism.
From Hong Kong to Xinjiang to Taiwan, multiple flashpoints in the Chinese periphery will favor policy hawks on China over the doves in Washington. At the same time, the theme of Chinese censorship and appropriation of American values in pop culture is drawing a broader swath of the American public into recognizing "the China issue."
In this political climate, human rights-related sanctions against a growing list of strategic tech targets in China cannot easily be walked back.
U.S. and Chinese negotiators are scoping out new venues after the protest-wracked Chilean capital of Santiago canceled the Nov. 16-17 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, where U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping had been expected to endorse a so-called Phase 1 deal to allow White House and Beijing to justify another fragile cease-fire in their trade war. An alternative location for the two leaders is likely to emerge, giving both sides more time to shake out the details of what appears to be a lightweight compromise: Beijing has committed to around $20 billion in agricultural purchases in 2020 (around what it averaged before the trade war even started), is dusting off earlier pledges to boost intellectual property protections via an updated foreign investment law passed earlier this year, will make an additional symbolic pledge to avoid currency manipulation, and will partially liberalize its financial sector by lifting equity caps for foreigners on financial services firms at a time when Beijing faces a growing imperative to keep Western capital flowing to the mainland. In return, the White House so far is restraining itself from raising existing tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports from 25 percent to 30 percent and will likely hold off on following through with a threat to impose on Dec. 15 a 15 percent tariff on $110 billion in mostly consumer goods. That would still leave U.S. tariffs on more than $360 billion worth of Chinese goods weighing on the global economy.
The Big Picture
With the 2020 election approaching, the White House is under pressure to temper the trade war and avoid destabilizing a record-long U.S. economic expansion. But against the backdrop of lightweight trade truces, the battle over technological prowess is intensifying while restive parts of China’s periphery offer ample opportunities to the White House to drum up human rights sanctions against Beijing. Once the tech and trade wars bleed into human rights territory, however, the political cost of bargaining over these issues rises dramatically and leaves little room for compromise.
Conspicuously absent from the emerging truce is the outstanding issue of U.S. export restrictions against Huawei. This is in spite of Trump's largely unfulfilled promise in June following his G-20 meeting with Xi that the ban would be eased and indications last month from Beijing that even a boost in agricultural purchases would have to be matched with concessions on Huawei for a Phase 1 deal to advance. The Huawei issue is apparently being punted to an elusive "Phase 2" negotiation that may or may not get off the ground as Beijing digs in and prepares for whatever the November 2020 U.S. presidential election brings.
The omission reveals an uncomfortable and growing reality for U.S. tech firms: Politically convenient trade truces will come and go, but the strategic competition between the United States and China is deepening. Technology is a fundamental component of this broader rivalry, which also makes it a radioactive element in the trade talks and a prime target for China hawks advocating a decoupling of the U.S. and Chinese economies. At this stage of the competition, national security, human rights and sovereignty are getting mashed together along with American public attitudes on how to contend with China when it comes to shaping U.S. policy. As a result, the political room to negotiate on an issue like Huawei is narrowing by the day, driving a more hard-line U.S. policy toward China overall.
Packaging the Huawei Threat
The White House has taken three broad swings against Chinese tech giant Huawei:
A ban preventing Huawei from selling technology and hardware to U.S. telecom providers over concerns that U.S. telecommunications infrastructure could be made vulnerable to espionage or even sabotage by the Chinese government.
Criminal charges alleging violations of Iran sanctions, intellectual property theft and bank fraud.
A sweeping export ban imposed in May that largely prevents Huawei from purchasing critical U.S.-made parts and services, like semiconductor chips or access to Google's Android operating system.
When it comes to keeping Huawei out of U.S. — and allied — telecom networks, the United States is doubling down on its position. Washington is now in the process of trying to scrub rural networks of existing Chinese telecom gear. (Huawei has contracts with smaller telecom providers in rural America that are reliant on government subsidies to service low-income households, thus making them more vulnerable to government influence.) The U.S. government has also launched a largely unsuccessful campaign to pressure reluctant foreign partners not only to ban Huawei from their 5G networks, but also to preclude competitors to U.S. firms like Samsung, Nokia or Ericsson from even manufacturing their equipment in China.
When it comes to keeping Huawei out of U.S. — and allied — telecom networks, the United States is doubling down on its position.
The criminal charges and export ban, on the other hand, leave room for negotiation — in theory, anyway. Barring China from critical IT infrastructure is one thing, but severe restrictions on U.S. suppliers selling to China is another. U.S.-based multinational corporations cannot simply forfeit the growth and revenue the massive Chinese market offers. The White House could have left Chinese telecom firm ZTE to die after the U.S. Commerce Department in April 2018 cut the company off from U.S. software and hardware and drove it to the verge of bankruptcy. Instead, the White House swooped in with an eleventh-hour deal between Xi and Trump a month later that punished the firm for violating U.S. sanctions on Iran and North Korea, but restored U.S. business ties with the Chinese firm. But the White House was just ramping up its trade war with China at the time, calculating the first big tariff barrage announced in March 2018 coupled with the near-death blow to a big Chinese tech firm would be enough to grab Beijing's attention and drive a deal. Instead, a now all-too-familiar cycle ensued: The White House imposed tariffs, China retaliated, Trump and Xi eventually held a high-level summit, Xi promised big agricultural purchases, a truce was called, talks broke down over U.S. accusations that China was reneging on enforcement agreement, and more tariffs followed. Critically, the ZTE compromise also exposed Trump's narrowing room for maneuver on future tech bargains. After releasing ZTE from a chokehold, Trump faced significant criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who argued against any compromise on national security matters involving China.
Bargaining Chip or Strategic Target?
ZTE served as U.S. target practice for the attack against Huawei that followed in May 2019. The move by the Commerce Department to place the world's largest telecom equipment provider and second-largest manufacturer of smartphones on its entity list means that U.S. tech suppliers like Intel, Qualcomm, Xilinx, Broadcom, Micron and Google, all of which derive significant revenue from sales to China, are facing pressure to either reduce or cut ties with Huawei to avoid sanctions or fight an uphill regulatory battle to obtain an export license from the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security. The Commerce Department has been issuing 90-day temporary general licenses (TGLs) — the next one expires on Nov. 18 — ostensibly to give U.S. telecom companies more time to find alternatives to Huawei equipment, technology and software. The TGLs have been narrow in scope and do little to address uncertainty for U.S. tech suppliers to China. Trump himself has meanwhile periodically raised the prospect of including an easing of the export ban in a future trade deal.
The U.S. crackdown on Huawei leaves open the question of whether the White House ultimately views Huawei as a bargaining chip or a strategic target. The uncomfortable answer for U.S. tech firms and the global industry at large is that it is both. From the ban on 5G infrastructure to the ban on U.S. chipmakers, the Huawei issue is often politically packaged as one mega national security threat. This makes it very hard to compartmentalize, for example, more defined guidance from the Commerce Department on which exports actually constitute a threat to U.S. national security and more stringent rules that keep China out of U.S. 5G infrastructure.
This is perhaps why Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei has telegraphed a startling offer via The Economist and The New York Times: Huawei would sell its 5G technology stack of patents, code, blueprints and know-how to a Western firm, which could then further develop, implement and maintain the technology according to its own standards. On the surface, this appears like a tempting offer considering that the United States lacks a competitor in the 5G space and would have to look to Samsung, Nokia or Ericsson as a Huawei alternative. But concerns over software vulnerabilities and maintenance, not to mention the political firestorm such a transaction would ignite, probably render it impractical. That may be Ren's plan all along — to call out overt U.S. politicization of U.S. business interactions with the company, while also giving the appearance that Huawei is a responsible global stakeholder while governments worldwide must weigh the clear economic benefit of working with Huawei to install their 5G networks amid a U.S. campaign to brand Huawei as a critical danger to allied networks.
The muddling of White House tactics and strategy in dealing with Beijing on trade and technology risks reducing space for meaningful negotiation and will inevitably drive the United States down a more hawkish path. This reality was on display a few weeks ago when the Trump White House, in its incessant search for leverage in trying to secure a Phase 1 deal on its terms, blacklisted 28 Chinese companies, including eight critical Chinese tech companies. The companies included artificial intelligence firms SenseTime Group Ltd. and Megvii Technology Ltd. and surveillance product manufacturers Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology and Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co. The additions to the Commerce Department's burgeoning entity list were pinned on human rights violations against Muslim minorities in Xinjiang province, where Beijing has been pilot testing highly invasive technologies to control what it views as a restive part of its periphery.
The muddling of White House tactics and strategy in dealing with Beijing on trade and technology risks reducing space for meaningful negotiation.
The move appears to have been designed to kill two birds with one stone: The White House had been sitting on these human rights sanctions for months, holding the tactic in reserve for an opportune point in its trade negotiation to escalate pressure on Beijing. At the same time, the blacklisting clearly had a strategic end in targeting some of the biggest tech challengers to the United States.
For China, this was only further confirmation that the White House remains intent on trying to handicap Chinese tech giants by squeezing their supply chain vulnerabilities to American tech suppliers. Beijing can only assume at this point that future sanctions could target other valuable Chinese tech companies, like electronics manufacturers Xiaomi and Lenovo and digital services companies like Tencent, Baidu and Alibaba. Rather than drive China toward deeper concessions on reforming its industrial policies, the U.S. move more likely will intensify China's imperative to put state resources to work (including the country's cyberespionage prowess) to facilitate a rapid build-up in indigenous tech capabilities. This is what makes a Phase 2 deal on more substantive issues that much harder to envision, and what will keep the trade war in an extreme state for the foreseeable future.
The Costs of Playing the Human Rights Card
In leveraging human rights issues, the White House may also be painting itself into a negotiating corner in managing its economic standoff with Beijing. The potent narrative of Beijing harnessing its technological strengths in artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition to fortify government surveillance and oppress minorities in Xinjiang and democracy defenders in Hong Kong is not one that can be easily walked back politically. Capitol Hill is already buzzing with China hawks on both sides of the aisle, with more than 150 anti-China bills and counting introduced in the 116th Congress so far, including the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019 (which has passed the House but has yet to be voted on in the Senate) and an upcoming bill by Sen. Marco Rubio, R.-Florida, that could open the door to U.S. capital controls by preventing a federal pension fund from investing in China. As U.S. Navy Secretary Richard Spencer put it in a recent op-ed in The Washington Post, "imagine retiring after a long career serving in uniform, only to learn that your savings all those years had helped fund advanced weapons systems for America's adversaries."
In this charged political climate, an easing of the U.S. export ban on Chinese tech companies as part of a broader trade deal would be met with an avalanche of political criticism from both Democrats and Republicans. Even outside the circle of policy wonks in Washington, the explosive controversy between China and the NBA over a tweet in support of the Hong Kong protests by the general manager of the Houston Rockets and Beijing's ban on "South Park" for satirizing U.S. corporations that enable Chinese censorship of American pop culture are drawing a much broader swath of the American public into recognizing "the China issue." At this stage, corporations heavily invested in China not only may have to worry about social media activism that translates into consumer boycotts against companies seen as facilitating Chinese repression, they also are unlikely to see much in the way of a reprieve in White House policy when it comes to sweeping trade restrictions affecting their bottom line.
I imagine this has been a major point of discussion among the Chinese leadership as the Central Committee of the Communist Party has held its secretive plenum this week in Beijing. The Chinese leadership will remain engaged with the Trump White House, watching and waiting to see if a more politically vulnerable Trump in 2020 will lead to some tariff easing, especially if a broader industrial slowdown and the jitters from the trade war start to more visibly drag on U.S. economic growth and risk depriving the president of his chief electoral advantage. But Beijing is also looking well beyond the Phase 1 deal and the 2020 election in preparing the country for a much more intensive U.S. containment strategy against China.
Though it may seem counterintuitive, many scholars and officials in Beijing actually see Trump as the lesser of two evils compared to any of his Democratic challengers. The U.S.-China confrontation is already in full swing, so now it is a question of where and how does the rivalry escalate. Some in Beijing will argue that a more transactional and impressionistic president like Trump whose unilateralist policies tend more to polarize than to recruit allies may be more advantageous to Beijing than a more traditional strategist who would work with allies to more effectively contain China and who would have a stronger ideological grounding in human rights issues — risking heavier interference in flashpoints like Hong Kong or Taiwan.
Less than two months ago, Trump did say rather bluntly that the potential for intervention by Beijing in Hong Kong was "between Hong Kong and that's between China, because Hong Kong is a part of China. They'll have to deal with that themselves. They don't need advice." That message of noninterference may have been music to Beijing's ears, but it is far from a guarantee of a policy of noninterference, as recently evidenced by the Xinjiang sanctions. With the trade war already in extreme territory, the White House will grasp at tech-infused human rights issues in trying to pressure Beijing. As the theme of self-determination takes hold in the Hong Kong protests and threatens to embolden Taiwanese nationalists, Beijing will face a growing compulsion to lock down what it sees as the most vulnerable nodes of its periphery. In the end, this will create more ammunition for policy hard-liners to play off growing American public sensitivities to the China challenge and build on the momentum created by the president to drive to a more hawkish U.S. policy toward China.
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The U.S. and China have essentially concluded negotiations on several aspects of the trade deal, a White House adviser said Friday, including on agriculture, financial services and currency. Gaps still remain on forced technology transfer, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow told reporters. The adviser spoke as ministerial-level representatives negotiated over the phone, aiming to reach a partial deal for the leaders to sign sometime in November. "The agriculture chapter is about closed down," Kudlow told reporters. "Not only the increase in purchases [of] $40 to $50 billion, but the opening up of [agricultural] markets, the lowering of regulations and standards and non-tariff barriers. Very positive."https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Trade-war/US-China-trade-talks-virtually-done-on-agriculture-and-finance
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Huawei, reinstated? U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Sunday that U.S. suppliers will be authorized to resume sales to Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei “very soon.” Huawei and 68 of its affiliates were placed on a U.S. blacklist last spring; U.S. suppliers have since had to apply for licenses to export software and technology to the Chinese firms. The Commerce Department has received 206 requests for such licenses, according to Ross, but none have yet been granted. It’s unclear just how much the U.S. intends to relax the ban, but the decision will reflect a fundamental challenge facing U.S. policy toward foreign tech companies it deems potentially threatening: how to protect U.S. vulnerabilities without needlessly harming the United States’ own tech sector. In other words, imposing a blanket ban on exports to firms like Huawei risks depriving U.S. firms of critical revenues needed to drive innovation and accelerating the development of Chinese competitors. Another challenge is that a ban just might not work. On Monday, for example, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, became the latest major supplier to say it had no plans to cut off Huawei. Major U.S. firms like Intel and Micron have also found ways around the ban
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China and the US Are Dealing With the Easy Stuff
Beijing and Washington have yet to tackle the core grievances of the trade war.
By Phillip Orchard -October 28, 2019Open as PDF
U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators appear to have made a breakthrough on a “phase one” trade deal. Of course, it’s just a handshake deal, bereft of details that, according to U.S. President Donald Trump, would be papered eventually. And, of course, as we saw when negotiations collapsed abruptly in May, declaring success before the stickiest points of contention have been fully ironed out can backfire. Chinese President Xi Jinping won’t risk weakening his position at home by meeting with Trump at the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November if there’s any chance of walking away empty-handed.
Nonetheless, what’s important now is that the U.S. appears willing to settle on a deal that overwhelmingly ignores the stickiest points of contention altogether – at least for the time being. And recent moves from China suggest that it thinks a window of opportunity has indeed opened to lock in the handful of points where agreement is possible. A long-delayed Chinese Communist Party conclave this week will shed light on just how far Beijing is ready to push forward with critical reforms the U.S. is demanding.
At this point, even a limited, largely symbolic agreement would be a big deal to the extent that it staves off future escalation by the United States and shields U.S. businesses and consumers from the round of tariffs – by far the most painful – scheduled for mid-December. Just don’t expect this particular deal to do away with the bulk of existing tariffs, much less to resolve the underlying drivers of the dispute. Steep political constraints on Beijing will make a more comprehensive settlement even harder to reach down the road. Ultimately, the prospects of a final deal will hinge on just how much the United States, not China, is willing to cave.
Why China Looks Serious About a Deal
The trade war is far from China’s biggest economic problem, but it’s nonetheless starting to become a problem. U.S. imports from China have fallen 12.5 percent so far this year, compared to 2018. An International Monetary Fund forecast released this week said Chinese growth will plummet by another 1.6 percent next year if Trump follows through on his threats to tax another $267 billion worth of Chinese imports.
(click to enlarge)
It’s unsurprising, then, that over the past two months, Beijing has been quietly laying the groundwork for concessions needed to strike at least a “truce” with the U.S., if not a more substantive deal. On Friday, for example, it confirmed that a deal would include a pledge to keep the Chinese yuan stable in relation to a basket of currencies. Also in the past few weeks, Beijing lifted caps on foreign ownership in the asset management and auto industries, passed a new foreign investment law that received widespread positive reviews, and pledged a host of new measures such as export tax rebates, improved trade financing and credit insurance. It expanded quotas for tariff-free imports of some U.S. farm goods. According to U.S. officials, Beijing has also committed to make new concessions on intellectual property protections.
U.S. Agricultural Exports to China
(click to enlarge)
Senior Chinese officials, meanwhile, have been on a PR blitz at home and abroad aimed at wooing foreign investors. Most prominent among them has been Premier Li Keqiang, a longtime economic liberalization advocate, and Vice President Wang Qishan, Xi’s trusted “firefighter” who is held in relatively more high esteem abroad. When Li and Wang take high-profile trips abroad and feature prominently in Chinese state media, it’s often a signal of growing concern in Beijing about its souring reputation in foreign business circles (and, occasionally, hints at a power struggle in the upper echelons of the CPC).
The timing of the CPC’s Fourth Plenum this week is also noteworthy. Beijing was expected to hold the plenary session a year ago, per tradition, but delayed it about as long as possible under party rules. This, combined with occasional hints of dissent about Xi’s reassertion of state control over the economy, suggested deep factional divides may have been emerging within the party over China’s handling of the economy, including the trade war. Xi is loath to risk having these divides on display at the plenum, so the fact Beijing is finally moving forward with the meeting, along with the aforementioned rollout of various reforms, could suggest he’s succeeded in restoring enough consensus for China to move more aggressively with reforms going forward.
More likely, though, the plenum will underscore the reality that Beijing is still operating amid tight political constraints and trying to thread the needle between a number of bad options. Based on official releases, at least, the emphasis of the conclave will be on themes like ideological purity, party loyalty and combating the evils of Western-style capitalism – not, say, the virtues of reform and opening. This would suggest that Xi remains preoccupied with restoring party solidarity and appealing to nationalist forces to curry support. When the party leadership gets nervous, it typically either gets trapped in paralysis or resorts to the tools it trusts most to entrench its power. In short, China wouldn’t be capable of inking anything more than a “truce” anytime soon. The plenum will be held behind closed doors, so watch for subtle shifts in state media coverage, unexpected personnel changes and so forth for clues on Beijing’s ability to move decisively in one direction or another.
What a Deal Won’t Resolve
Already, it’s fairly clear what won’t be resolved in the immediate future, even if a phase one deal is finally put on paper. There’s a common theme among China’s recent moves and expected concessions: They’re all measures China increasingly needs to do anyway. Its moves to boost foreign participation in its financial sector, for example, come on the heels of a near-crisis in which the Chinese banking sector, especially state-owned lenders, proved exceedingly ill-suited for channeling funding to the private sector. The resulting credit crunch did far more damage to the Chinese economy than U.S. tariffs have yet to do. China’s increased agricultural purchases would come at a time of surging food prices resulting from a devastating outbreak of African swine fever. If it agrees, as reported, to a deal on stabilizing the yuan, it will be at least in part because it hasn’t been intentionally driving down its currency and has a crippling fear of capital flight.
Similarly, its measures aimed at wooing foreign investment come amid mounting concerns about the country’s reputation as a place increasingly hostile to foreign businesses. Beijing needs new foreign investment to sustain employment, boost its flagging growth, and stem the slow-motion exodus of foreign firms to other low-cost manufacturing hubs. Moreover, it has long relied on Western business circles to block anti-China and protectionist political forces abroad from translating into punitive policy measures. But over time, as homegrown competitors to foreign firms began hoarding market share in China (with ample help from the state), and as well-documented allegations of things like intellectual property theft proliferated, disenchantment among foreign firms with the Chinese model has become widespread. This is why opposition to Trump’s trade war has proved manageable for the White House. Beijing won’t be able to make the sweeping changes needed to restore foreign confidence. But it makes sense for it to bend over backward to at least appear to be sincere about addressing foreign firms’ concerns.
In contrast, there’s been nary a hint of evidence that Beijing is preparing to make concessions on the main U.S. grievances. On some issues, like forced technology transfer, there’s realistically not that much Beijing can do to fully snuff out the practice. On others, like more meaningful IP protections, it can pass new laws and push courts to enforce them, but it sees such U.S. demands as an infringement on Chinese sovereignty and is thus loath to spark a nationalist backlash by following through with a gun to its head.
On the biggest issues, moreover, Beijing is going in the opposite direction. Its structural slowdown, trade pressure and soaring debt risks are forcing it to lean even more heavily on the state sector, for example. And to avoid falling into the fabled “middle-income trap,” bolster the People’s Liberation Army and reduce its dependence on foreign technologies, it’s doubling down on its support for advanced manufacturing sectors. Deepening state control at the expense of market-driven dynamism may ultimately do more harm than good to China’s economy and industrial development. But resistance to liberalization from entrenched state-sector stakeholders in China, combined with the party’s existential fear of widespread job loss, means Beijing is defaulting to the tools it trusts most to sustain stability.
There are also a number of points of contention that the U.S. itself isn’t willing to negotiate on – particularly those with national security implications resulting from China’s development of “emerging and foundational technologies.” As we’ve long said, the U.S.-China “tech war” will far outlast the trade war. U.S. concerns over military issues or things like Hong Kong will also remain separate. Thus, expect U.S. measures targeting Chinese tech firms like Huawei, scrutiny on research and development collaboration, and inbound Chinese investment to only intensify from here. And since the U.S. will need to hold on to leverage to ensure implementation of whatever Beijing concedes on trade, expect most of the existing tariffs to remain in place for the time being as well.
Looking Ahead in the U.S.-China Trade War
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The U.S. will still have ample political and economic interest in striking a more comprehensive deal. The tariffs are accelerating the U.S. downturn, and an election year is approaching. And while the U.S. needs to do far more to reset its trade relationship with China and find ways to pressure Beijing to change, the problem for the U.S. is twofold: One, reaping the easy, low-hanging fruit in negotiations now leaves only the hard stuff. Two, absent a cataclysmic loss of CPC control, Beijing can’t and won’t concede on most of the hard stuff just to get out from under tariffs. Rather, they’ll just push China deeper into its shell.
Phillip Orchard
Phillip Orchard is an analyst at Geopolitical Futures. Prior to joining the company, Mr. Orchard spent nearly six years at Stratfor, working as an editor and writing about East Asian geopolitics. He’s spent more than six years abroad, primarily in Southeast Asia and Latin America, where he’s had formative, immersive experiences with the problems arising from mass political upheaval, civil conflict and human migration. Mr. Orchard holds a master’s degree in Security, Law and Diplomacy from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, where he focused on energy and national security, Chinese foreign policy, intelligence analysis, and institutional pathologies. He also earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Texas. He speaks Spanish and some Thai and Lao.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUnehLMGz7c&fbclid=IwAR3DRDV6ntbgkmOphtMzSGOIlGhv8JiDOCaPT1VE9rtSP-cLtR2YdWooq5c
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUnehLMGz7c&fbclid=IwAR3DRDV6ntbgkmOphtMzSGOIlGhv8JiDOCaPT1VE9rtSP-cLtR2YdWooq5c
Speaking of a very large country being on the brink of a civil war... This keeps escalating.
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Michael Yon:
"Hong Kong Insurgency Intensifying — this is far beyond mere Protests, and beyond Civil Unrest"
- Yes it is.
China should grant HK independence, recognize Taiwan as the independent country it is, grant the US reciprocal free trade status and pass a bill of rights for their own citizens - or else they can stay on this path and see where it leads.
The Michael Yon reporting exposes that this uprising is bigger than anything that happened at Tiananmen.
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One industry is thriving in China as their stubbornness in the US trade war lingers on: bankruptcy
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-embraces-bankruptcy-u-s-style-to-cushion-a-slowing-economy-11573058567?mod=hp_lead_pos7
https://www.wsj.com/articles/less-savings-more-debt-how-chinese-manage-money-american-style-in-17-charts-11572427805?mod=article_inline
Interesting trend, the leading challenger to Trump [Warren] is a noted expert on the same subject, bankruptcy.
Like a forest fire, bankruptcy is good if it is not too large or over-used.
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https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3036844/trade-negotiator-who-got-china-wto-rooting-trumps-re
Former negotiator says the Twitterer in Chief is "easy to read" and just wants China to buy more American products.
The Chinese side is harder to read and might be saying the opposite of what they think.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-tech-chief-calls-china-advanced-authoritarian-state-warns-against-surveillance-censorship_3142181.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=88480e0f28-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_11_11_01_09&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-88480e0f28-239065853
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second post
The Quantum Computing Threat to American Security
Google claims supremacy, but the risk remains that U.S. complacency lets China crack all its codes.
By Arthur Herman
Nov. 10, 2019 1:48 pm ET
An illustration of Google’s Sycamore processor, Oct. 23. PHOTO: HO/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Google announced last month that it had achieved “quantum supremacy,” demonstrating the potential of a new kind of computer that can perform certain tasks many orders of magnitude faster than the most advanced supercomputers. It’s a crucial moment for America’s national security, which depends on winning the race to do what quantum computers will do best: decrypt the vast majority of existing public-key encryption systems.
Google reports that its quantum computer, dubbed Sycamore, solved a mathematical calculation in 200 seconds that would take a supercomputer 10,000 years. IBM, a quantum competitor, asserted that Google’s claim of supremacy is overblown, and that the world’s most powerful classical computer, the Summit OLCF-4 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, could have done the same calculation in 2.5 days—roughly a thousandfold difference rather than 1.5 trillionfold. Still, quantum computers are no longer science fiction.
To process information, digital computers use bits, essentially switches that can be either off or on, corresponding with the binary digits, 0 and 1. Quantum computers employ “qubits,” which use the probabilistic nature of quantum physics to represent any combination of 0 and 1 simultaneously, enabling them to encode more complicated data.
Their computing power grows exponentially as the number of qubits expands. Sycamore’s 54-qubit chip allowed it to outcompute the best supercomputer. A 2,000- to 4,000-qubit quantum computer would render most public-key encryption architectures—used for applications from banking and credit cards to the power grid—obsolete. They rely on numbers too big for conventional computers to factorize, but which a quantum computer could.
Building quantum computers is a very heavy lift. They require hugely expensive infrastructure to stabilize the qubits at temperatures near absolute zero. They also generate high error rates, or “quantum noise,” for which researchers have to compensate. Developers are probably years away from the large-scale code-breaking quantum computer everyone worries about—although once scientists and engineers start using quantum computers to build the next generation of quantum computers (since modeling complex systems like themselves is one of their strengths) the timeline could quickly shorten.
Beijing is America’s chief quantum-computing rival. It spends at least $2.5 billion a year on research—more than 10 times what Washington spends—and has a massive quantum center in Hefei province. China aspires to develop the code-breaking “killer app,” which means protecting U.S. data and networks from quantum intrusion is a vital security interest.
Congress enacted the National Quantum Initiative Act late last year, which commits an additional $1.25 billion over five years—still a fraction of China’s effort. In addition to more money, the U.S. needs a three-phase national-security strategy to protect and defend American data, networks and infrastructure from future quantum attack.
First, dramatically increase efforts to develop encryption methods based on algorithms large and complex enough to foil quantum intrusion. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is working to set a comprehensive standard for these quantum-resistant algorithms so they can be deployed by 2024, but companies in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere are already building algorithms and other protective tools.
Second, use quantum technology itself to create the “unhackable” networks of the future. The same particles that make quantum computing possible can provide randomized and unhackable keys for encrypted transmissions, in the form of quantum random number generators and quantum key distribution, a method of securing information shared between two parties. Dismissed as a fantasy a few years ago, quantum cryptography has spawned companies in the U.S., Switzerland, South Korea and Australia, which are deploying the first components of a new quantum-based information-technology infrastructure. Eventually this will include satellites using quantum keys to transmit encrypted data.
Here again China has moved quickly. It launched the world’s first quantum satellite in 2016 and shocked the world by creating a quantum-encrypted intercontinental video link from space to a China-Austria study group in Vienna. China has also created a 1,263-mile ground link between Beijing and Shanghai using quantum-encrypted keys between relay stations, which offers an ultrasecure network for transmitting sensitive data, including for China’s military and intelligence services.
Third, require that all U.S. data and networks, including future 5G technology, be made secure from quantum attack while devoting resources to build the hack-proof quantum communication networks of the future. That will require working with America’s closest allies, several of which are making key breakthroughs in the same quantum and postquantum technologies.
Promoting such cooperation has been a core mission at the Quantum Alliance Initiative, which convened a consortium of companies and universities from the U.S. and allied countries to develop global standards for quantum random number generators and quantum key distribution late last year. But no one can do all this alone, not even Google plus IBM plus Microsoft and the other big companies working in quantum computing. Leadership from the federal government is more imperative than ever. Google’s breakthrough proves that the threats, as well as the opportunities, of quantum technology are real—and that quantum is poised to become the national-security issue of the 21st century.
Mr. Herman is director of the Hudson Institute’s Quantum Alliance Initiative and author of “1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder.”
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https://www.africanstand.com/business/china-to-take-over-kenyas-main-port-over-unpaid-huge-chinese-loan/?fbclid=IwAR1a4AGza671ByMfqVD98ru3LARUIcnWVRn3Vc9eYk4-bvDg8L724X1kiOY
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/thousands-of-us-based-scientists-sell-research-to-china-report-says_3150130.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=96e9e881dd-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_11_19_11_52&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-96e9e881dd-239065853
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/thousands-of-us-based-scientists-sell-research-to-china-report-says_3150130.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=96e9e881dd-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_11_19_11_52&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-96e9e881dd-239065853
Of course. Why wouldn't we? It wouldn't shock me to find out we are still sending the PRC money/food as part of an anti-poverty program.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/esper-accuses-china-of-intimidating-smaller-asian-nations_3151979.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=3ba065ea05-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_11_21_02_35&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-3ba065ea05-239065853
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/thousands-of-us-based-scientists-sell-research-to-china-report-says_3150130.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=96e9e881dd-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_11_19_11_52&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-96e9e881dd-239065853
Of course. Why wouldn't we? It wouldn't shock me to find out we are still sending the PRC money/food as part of an anti-poverty program.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/senate-report-u-s-taxpayers-have-unwittingly-funded-chinas-economy-and-military-for-decades
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My comments at the end.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-11-21/china-has-few-options-to-retaliate-against-u-s-over-hong-kong
China Is Out of Economic Ammo Against the U.S.
It has maxed out tariffs and other trade barriers, and selling Treasuries is ineffective.
By Noah Smith
November 20, 2019,
It can’t get much worse.
The Chinese government has issued vague but stern-sounding warnings that it will retaliate for a bill passed by Congress that would require the White House to protect human rights and ensure the territory’s autonomy. But China’s options for economic retaliation are limited. And most of these options have already been exercised amid President Donald Trump's trade war.
China’s most obvious method of retaliation would be to stop buying American goods. But China has already imposed tariffs on $135 billion worth of products.
...
The other big weapon in the Chinese arsenal is investment. The Chinese government is traditionally a major buyer of U.S. government debt, and it holds the second-biggest stash of Treasuries (after Japan). Over the years, many have fretted that a spat between the U.S. and China would lead the latter to sell off that mountain of debt, creating a world of hurt for the U.S. financial system and economy.
But this danger is vastly exaggerated for two reasons. First, as recent experience demonstrates, the U.S. simply doesn’t need Chinese government cash. In 2015 and 2016 China experienced one of the biggest capital flights in history, with about $1 trillion pouring out of the country. This resulted in a huge drawdown of China’s foreign-exchange reserves, most of which are U.S. bonds:
...
If the U.S. were heavily dependent on Chinese government financing, interest rates on U.S. debt -- and by extension, throughout the U.S. economy -- should have risen. Instead, they fell.
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If China can dump a quarter of its U.S. bond holdings and not cause a noticeable movement in American borrowing costs, then the threat represented by the remaining three-quarters probably is small. The U.S., like the rest of the developed world, is simply awash in financial capital.
Unloading its reserve stockpile in retaliation for U.S. actions toward Hong Kong would put China in greater danger than the U.S. Without the cushion of reserves, a repeat of 2015-16 could lead to a classic emerging-market crisis in China, with capital outflows forcing a sudden currency depreciation, devastating the financial system and bringing the economy to a sudden stop.
One final thing China could do is restrict its exports of rare earths, a crucial input for many technology products. China now dominates production of these commodities. But as my colleague David Fickling has noted, this threat also is minimal; when China cut off rare-earth exports to Japan in 2010 as part of a geopolitical dispute, Japan simply teamed up with an Australian company to find new supplies, quickly breaking China’s monopoly. The U.S. could easily replicate this feat. [Doug: Trump already started that effort.]
So China has few economic weapons left with which to threaten the U.S. over Hong Kong. It will likewise be powerless to retaliate over other geopolitical and humanitarian disputes, such as U.S. condemnation of the mass internment of Muslims in China’s Xinjiang province or territorial spats in the South China Sea. For that matter, China’s continued ability to escalate the trade war seems limited.
(more at link)
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My comment on the first point, agriculture. To the extent that people are willing to buy and sell a distance of US to China, there is one world market for these goods (crops). If China buys from "other suppliers", US suppliers can sell to the otherwise buyers of these other sellers. The net damage to US farmers rounds to zero.
China is out of economic weapons against the US. All we want now is what Xi just said, an equal relationship, in terms of the playing field. Write it up and be done with this mutually destructive (5-fold against them) game.
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The U.S. ramps up freedom of navigation ops. The U.S. is signaling at least a small shift in its approach to the South China Sea. On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the U.S. was ramping up so-called Freedom of Navigation Operations, or FONOPs, in the contested waters. Sure enough, the U.S. Navy announced today that the littoral combat ship USS Gabrielle Giffords on Wednesday sailed within 12 nautical miles of Mischief Reef – one of seven disputed reefs in the Spratly Islands transformed into a Chinese military outpost over the past five years. Then, on Thursday, the guided-missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer sailed through the disputed Paracel Islands, farther north. China, in response, issued its customary protests and accusations. As we’ve explained, most FONOPs are largely symbolic moves aimed primarily at demonstrating U.S. commitment to international maritime law; they do nothing to deter Chinese expansion and have only limited value in reassuring allies about U.S. defense commitments. Nonetheless, the involvement of the USS Gabrielle Giffords – believed to be the first time a U.S. littoral combat ship has been used in a FONOP – will likely be seen by Beijing as something of a warning that the U.S. is willing to shift from surveillance to deterrence. The U.S. has been deploying at least three Independence-class littoral combat ships (which can operate in shallower waters than destroyers) to Changi naval base in Singapore on a rotational basis. In addition to the Giffords, the USS Montgomery has been spotted in the South China Sea recently, including reportedly conducting joint exercises with a pair of Australian warships last week.
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https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-spy-wang-liquiang-defects-australia-intelligence-secrets-2019-11?utm_content=buffera286a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer-defense&fbclid=IwAR1ioKuTkqpYwIfvrZjSr28Ex3FxxGSg19O9h_8SZuii0d-lHH99iIX0oJ8
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apan Modernizes Its Air Force, but Will It Be Enough?
5 MINS READ
Nov 20, 2019 | 10:00 GMT
An Oct. 14, 2018, photo shows an F-35A fighter aircraft of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force taking part in a military review at Asaka training ground in Asaka, Saitama prefecture, Japan.
An Oct. 14, 2018, photo shows an F-35A fighter aircraft of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force taking part in a military review at Asaka training ground in Asaka, Saitama prefecture, Japan.
(KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP via Getty Images)
HIGHLIGHTS
Japan is accelerating the buildup of its offensive capabilities as part of its military normalization process, with its air force at the forefront of the effort.
The newly acquired JASDF offensive capabilities will greatly enhance Japan's flexibility and independence in its defense.
A multiplicity of threats and a struggling domestic defense industry will continue to pose challenges for Japan.
Japan is accelerating its military normalization process by building up its offensive capabilities, especially those of its Japanese Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF). As a part of that push, the United States on Oct. 29 granted Japan's request for a major upgrade to its F-15J fighter aircraft. Installing advanced radar and cruise missile capability on 98 JASDF jets will mark a crucial step in Japan's move away from its post-World War II pacifist stance. And while the upgrades will enhance Tokyo's options, maintaining Japanese national defense as the country's aerospace industry declines and the regional threat environment — including an expanding Chinese military — becomes more complex will become increasingly difficult.
The Big Picture
Tokyo, long focused on maintaining a purely defensive military, is now building its offensive capabilities to better deal with emerging threats. How Japan deals with its security challenges in its increasingly complex neighborhood will have significant regional and global implications.
From Defense to Offense
Since its founding in 1954, the JASDF has focused on developing potent air defense and anti-ship capabilities. This largely meshed with Japan's postwar self-image as a pacifist country with an air force geared exclusively toward defending the home islands. While the JASDF built a considerable ability to intercept inbound enemy jets and warships, it couldn't mount offensive operations beyond the immediate waters around Japan. Instead, Tokyo relied on its security alliance with the United States to serve as its offensive capability: If need be, the Japanese military could be the shield, and the U.S. military could be the sword.
Though Japan's pacifist strategic posture outlived the Cold War, it has steadily eroded in the 21st century as Washington urged it to beef up its military and because of Tokyo's concern that the U.S. commitment to Japanese national defense could waver. Japan's increasing alarm at a nuclear North Korea and a rising China have only reinforced the trend, spurring Japan to accelerate efforts to normalize its military.
One of the first significant steps for the JASDF in this regard was acquiring aerial refueling aircraft in 2008. Japan had previously never developed this capability given its potential to extend the range of its combat aircraft such that they could reliably strike other countries. Japan sought to justify the purchase by arguing it allowed the JASDF to reduce fuel costs, extend the duration of its air defense patrols and enhance its response time.
Another significant step in Japan's military's normalization occurred with the 2016 announcement that it was developing a new anti-ship cruise missile with the built-in capability of striking land targets. Such weapons, including versions that can be launched from the air, significantly enhance the JASDF's ability to strike at Tokyo's potential adversaries — including North Korea and China — on their own territory.
This photo shows a Lockheed Martin AGM-158 joint air-to-surface standoff cruise missile (JASSM).
A Lockheed Martin AGM-158 joint air-to-surface standoff missile (JASSM) in front of an aircraft at an air show on July 16, 2018, in Farnborough, England. The AGM-158 JASSM is a low observable standoff air-launched cruise missile and is likely to be used with Japan's F-15J fighters.
(Richard Baker/In Pictures via Getty Images Images)
The JASDF's decision to majorly upgrade its F-15J fighter jets furthers Japan's transition to offensive military capabilities. The modernization of the aging, but still powerful, fighters will see them equipped with potent cruise missiles.
An F-15J/DJ fighter aircraft at the Japan Air Self-Defense Force's Hyakuri air base in Omitama, Ibaraki prefecture, Japan on Oct. 26, 2014.
An F-15J/DJ fighter aircraft at the Japan Air Self-Defense Force's Hyakuri air base in Omitama, Ibaraki prefecture, Japan, on Oct. 26, 2014.
(KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP via Getty Images)
In conjunction with the new F-35 jets Tokyo has purchased, the upgrade will enhance Tokyo's ability to go on the offensive, including the ability to preemptively strike its adversaries, rather than just to defend itself — and the ability to inflict pain, of course, carries a deterrent effect. But even as Japan is bolstering its military, the already-substantial threats it faces are also growing.
An Expanding Array of Threats
During the Cold War and in close alignment with the United States, Japan focused on the Soviet Union as the only significant threat to the home islands. Today, Japan's threat environment is significantly more complicated. In addition to intercepting the Russian aircraft that still regularly approach Japan, the JASDF must contend with the much more active Chinese air forces — the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and the People's Liberation Army Naval Air Force (PLANAF). Moreover, North Korea has emerged as a major missile and nuclear threat over the last decade, forcing Japan to devote considerable resources to developing missile defenses and driving the JASDF toward obtaining offensive capabilities.
The PLAAF's and PLANAF's qualitative leaps in equipment seriously concern the JASDF. While the Chinese air forces have always outnumbered the JASDF, the latter typically boasted significantly better jets and pilots. But this is no longer a given since China has begun fielding large numbers of advanced jets and has greatly bolstered pilot training. Japan's approximately 300 fighter jets backed up by approximately 20 early warning and control aircraft, are well outnumbered by the Chinese air forces' 1,000 modern fighter jets and about 30 early warning and control aircraft.
Japan has sought to build its capabilities against these threats as quickly as possible by purchasing 147 of the already-in-production F-35s and by upgrading its F-15Js. But these decisions, especially the F-35 purchase, have caused some controversy in Japan.
A Japan Air Self-Defense Force F2 jet fighter at the Higashi-Fuji firing range in Gotemba, Shizuoka prefecture, Japan, on August 24, 2017.
A Japan Air Self-Defense Force F2 jet fighter at the Higashi-Fuji firing range in Gotemba, Shizuoka prefecture, Japan, on Aug. 24, 2017. The aircraft is manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Lockheed Martin for the Japan Air Self-Defense Force, with a 60-40 split in manufacturing between Japan and the United States.
(TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA/AFP via Getty Images)
Heavy reliance on purchases from the United States has disappointed the Japanese defense aerospace industry, which has largely been stuck with a marginal assembly role. Japan's purchases of foreign-built aircraft have left many domestic parts suppliers under increasing stress. In a 2016 ministerial survey, 52 of 72 aerospace companies said they are aware of supply disruptions and parts makers going out of business. Maintaining a mature domestic aerospace industry capable of meeting Japanese security needs against future challenges will be harder for Japan, given that its sector has been starved of major contracts as Tokyo has largely looked to the United States for big purchases.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/foreign-born-researchers-at-us-agencies-were-secretly-working-for-china-and-recruiting-others-senate-report-finds_3154339.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=476dedd106-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_11_25_12_21&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-476dedd106-239065853
https://www.theepochtimes.com/fcc-votes-5-0-to-bar-chinas-huawei-zte-from-government-subsidy-program_3154372.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=476dedd106-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_11_25_12_21&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-476dedd106-239065853
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https://www.judicialwatch.org/corruption-chronicles/communists-working-in-u-s-steal-billions-in-taxpayer-funded-scientific-research/?utm_source=deployer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=corruption+chronicles&utm_term=members&utm_content=20191129192650
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https://globalnews.ca/news/6234665/batman-poster-china-hong-kong-dc-comics/?fbclid=IwAR1eLUZp_jGcG31onSLHw9J0xavu6D-kel3urLRYvleNKPrGqs2stkU0mZE
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15230/china-adopts-malicious-cybersecurity-rules
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The latest jobs report indicates which way the trade war will turn.
Trade wars are described as your country shooting a hole in the bottom of your own boat as retaliation for your competitor nation shooting a hole in theirs. Tariff is a tax on your own consumer and a limit on your own consumer's choices.
The trade war with China is more complicated than that because it involves technology and trademark theft among other issues.
But the dynamics of it remain close to the analogy, and close to the analysis made here at the beginning. By imposing tariffs 'on China', Trump shot a hole in our boat, the world's largest and greatest economy, that already has other holes and anchors weighing it down. Our hole has one fifth the impact of the one China is dealing with. Theirs is bringing down the engine of growth; ours is not.
China MUST make an agreement with the US or throw out their current economic model. The US is under no such pressure.
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China's exports to the United States amid the ongoing trade war decreased 23% from a year earlier
https://www.ibtimes.com/us-china-trade-war-chinese-exports-us-fall-23-amid-tensions-between-washington-2881575
Meanwhile, US economy continues to grow.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15304/china-business-security-threat
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/expert-the-sword-is-being-thrust-into-the-south-pacific_3177052.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=1ef0d2e611-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_12_18_12_22&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-1ef0d2e611-239065853
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinas-new-encryption-law-poses-threat-to-us-companies-experts-warn_3178810.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=897272427f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_12_18_10_20&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-897272427f-239065853
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzCqQKnF9Oo&feature=share
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-16/defaults-in-one-of-china-s-richest-provinces-spook-investors?srnd=premium-asia
...
"The problem isn’t the defaults themselves -- other provinces have seen more and worse. It’s the practice common among Shandong companies of guaranteeing each others’ debts."
Did someone here call it a house of cards?
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"The problem isn’t the defaults themselves -- other provinces have seen more and worse. It’s the practice common among Shandong companies of guaranteeing each others’ debts."
Even Ponzi schemes ?
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China Sails Carrier Group Through Taiwan Strait as Election Looms
BY REUTERS
CommentsDecember 26, 2019 Updated: December 26, 2019Share
TAIPEI/BEIJING—China sailed its new aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan’s defense ministry said on Dec. 26, just weeks away from a presidential election on the island and amid heightened tension with Beijing.
The ministry didn’t say exactly when the voyage occurred.
Democratic Taiwan is claimed by China as a wayward province and is the Communist Party’s most sensitive and important territorial issue. The regime has threatened to attack if Taiwan moves toward formal independence.
Taiwan holds a presidential vote on Jan. 11, 2020, with President Tsai Ing-wen hoping to win reelection. She has repeatedly mentioned the threat of China as a warning to voters.
Tsai’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party is pro-independence. She has said she wants to maintain the status quo with the regime but will defend Taiwan’s security and democracy.
The Chinese carrier Shandong sailed north through the strait, the Taiwan ministry said in a short statement, adding that the carrier was accompanied by frigates.
“It’s the responsibility and duty for the two sides across the strait to maintain peace and stability and strive for the well-being of the people,” Taiwan’s presidential office said in a statement.
“Beijing should cherish peace and stability across the strait and in the region, which are not easy to come by.”
China’s defense ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
A senior Taiwan official familiar with security planning said the Chinese navy patrol was the latest bid by Beijing to meddle in Taiwan’s election.
“By flexing military muscles, China is trying to intimidate non-aligned voters,” the official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.
“Beijing understands that this could be a double-edged sword, but what worries China more is the possibility of a fiasco for pro-China forces in the election.”
The Chinese regime would prefer to see the candidate of the main opposition Kuomintang party, which backs stronger ties, win the election.
The Chinese ministry’s spokesman, Wu Qian, speaking Dec. 26 at a monthly news briefing, said everything was going “smoothly” with the new carrier, although he didn’t comment on its deployments.
“It will continue to conduct trials and training, and form a combat capability through training. We will make an overall consideration about its deployment according to the situation and task needs,” Wu said.
He didn’t mention its sailing through the Taiwan Strait.
The carrier, China’s second-largest, entered service at a base in the South China Sea last week in a big step in the country’s ambitious military modernization.
Last month, the ship, which was still unnamed at the time, sailed through the Taiwan Strait on its way to what China called routine exercises in the South China Sea, with Taiwan scrambling ships and aircraft to monitor the group.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping said in January that China reserves the right to use force to bring Taiwan under its control, but will strive to achieve peaceful “reunification.”
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Reminder: Some Taiwanese nukes flips that script.
China Sails Carrier Group Through Taiwan Strait as Election Looms
BY REUTERS
CommentsDecember 26, 2019 Updated: December 26, 2019Share
TAIPEI/BEIJING—China sailed its new aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan’s defense ministry said on Dec. 26, just weeks away from a presidential election on the island and amid heightened tension with Beijing.
The ministry didn’t say exactly when the voyage occurred.
Democratic Taiwan is claimed by China as a wayward province and is the Communist Party’s most sensitive and important territorial issue. The regime has threatened to attack if Taiwan moves toward formal independence.
Taiwan holds a presidential vote on Jan. 11, 2020, with President Tsai Ing-wen hoping to win reelection. She has repeatedly mentioned the threat of China as a warning to voters.
Tsai’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party is pro-independence. She has said she wants to maintain the status quo with the regime but will defend Taiwan’s security and democracy.
The Chinese carrier Shandong sailed north through the strait, the Taiwan ministry said in a short statement, adding that the carrier was accompanied by frigates.
“It’s the responsibility and duty for the two sides across the strait to maintain peace and stability and strive for the well-being of the people,” Taiwan’s presidential office said in a statement.
“Beijing should cherish peace and stability across the strait and in the region, which are not easy to come by.”
China’s defense ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
A senior Taiwan official familiar with security planning said the Chinese navy patrol was the latest bid by Beijing to meddle in Taiwan’s election.
“By flexing military muscles, China is trying to intimidate non-aligned voters,” the official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.
“Beijing understands that this could be a double-edged sword, but what worries China more is the possibility of a fiasco for pro-China forces in the election.”
The Chinese regime would prefer to see the candidate of the main opposition Kuomintang party, which backs stronger ties, win the election.
The Chinese ministry’s spokesman, Wu Qian, speaking Dec. 26 at a monthly news briefing, said everything was going “smoothly” with the new carrier, although he didn’t comment on its deployments.
“It will continue to conduct trials and training, and form a combat capability through training. We will make an overall consideration about its deployment according to the situation and task needs,” Wu said.
He didn’t mention its sailing through the Taiwan Strait.
The carrier, China’s second-largest, entered service at a base in the South China Sea last week in a big step in the country’s ambitious military modernization.
Last month, the ship, which was still unnamed at the time, sailed through the Taiwan Strait on its way to what China called routine exercises in the South China Sea, with Taiwan scrambling ships and aircraft to monitor the group.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping said in January that China reserves the right to use force to bring Taiwan under its control, but will strive to achieve peaceful “reunification.”
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/indonesia-rejects-chinas-claims-over-south-china-sea_3190654.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=f382b23f2b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_01_01_09_06&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-f382b23f2b-239065853
Also see this from 2018
https://www.theepochtimes.com/indonesia-opens-military-base-near-disputed-south-china-sea-to-deter-threats_2743406.html
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=H0ZC7dno_bg&feature=emb_logo
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/12/videos/swedens-pm-stands-up-to-chinese-threats-2/
I like the format of this, an easy to share video.
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China’s debt and bureaucracy spell big trouble
Bejing is coming to a crossroads where some serious decisions have to be made about its place in the world
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/11/article/chinas-debt-and-bureaucratic-big-trouble/
...
This debt is mostly unknown, hidden in the accounts of provincial and county administrations, and with State-Owned Enterprises (SOE). Including state debt, the total amount is estimated at more than 300% of China’s GDP, i.e. it could be about US$40 trillion, or about half of global GDP. China’s M2, money in circulation, potentially 40% of worldwide money in circulation. Moreover, the Chinese central bank may not be in control of what tech giants like Tencent or Alibaba do with their money and their B2B and B2C tech-credit. Due to the structure of the Chinese state, this debt weighs heavily on its shoulders.
...
Beijing possibly sits on top of the biggest bubble in economic history. ...
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Crisis in China has always meant rivers of blood running through the streets. Perhaps the CCP can figure out a way to peacefully step aside and let true freedom work for the Chinese people.
Sure. That'll happen...
China’s debt and bureaucracy spell big trouble
Bejing is coming to a crossroads where some serious decisions have to be made about its place in the world
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/11/article/chinas-debt-and-bureaucratic-big-trouble/
...
This debt is mostly unknown, hidden in the accounts of provincial and county administrations, and with State-Owned Enterprises (SOE). Including state debt, the total amount is estimated at more than 300% of China’s GDP, i.e. it could be about US$40 trillion, or about half of global GDP. China’s M2, money in circulation, potentially 40% of worldwide money in circulation. Moreover, the Chinese central bank may not be in control of what tech giants like Tencent or Alibaba do with their money and their B2B and B2C tech-credit. Due to the structure of the Chinese state, this debt weighs heavily on its shoulders.
...
Beijing possibly sits on top of the biggest bubble in economic history. ...
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/indonesia-boosts-patrols-after-chinese-boat-trespasses-in-its-waters_3192782.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=0821fbfb56-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_01_06_12_32&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-0821fbfb56-239065853
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/indonesia-deploys-fighter-jets-in-stand-off-with-china_3195740.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=c53a7bffbf-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_01_08_12_59&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-c53a7bffbf-239065853
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GPF
A standoff between Indonesian and Chinese forces is unfolding in the southernmost reaches of the South China Sea. Since around the middle of December, scores of Chinese fishing boats have reportedly been tooling around in Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone around the Natuna Islands. China does not claim the islands, but oil- and gas-rich waters near the islands do fall within China’s vaguely defined “nine-dash line,” which outlines Beijing’s territorial claims. Beijing asserts it has historical fishing rights in the waters. Indonesia rejects China’s nine-dash line and does not consider itself a party to the regional dispute over the South China Sea, but Chinese fishermen have periodically frustrated Jakarta’s preference to remain on the sidelines. And wherever there are Chinese fishermen in contested parts of the South China Sea, Chinese “maritime militia,” coast guard vessels and the occasional warship are certain to be nearby. (Open-source ship trackers show at least four Chinese coast guard vessels in the area on Tuesday, plus others active in waters claimed by Malaysia and the Philippines.) So over the past two days, Jakarta announced that it would deploy eight warships to the waters, plus several fighter jets. Indonesia is also adopting Chinese tactics, urging hundreds of Indonesian fishing vessels to rush to the area. Neither side has much appetite for or interest in escalation here, so expect both to quietly look for face-saving ways to quietly stand down. But the weaponization of fishing fleets has raised major command-and-control questions on both sides, meaning there’s at least a modest risk of an unintended clash.
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https://thefederalist.com/2020/01/10/taiwan-is-about-to-have-an-election-that-will-change-the-world/
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https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/11/taiwan-president-takes-early-lead-in-election-closely-watched-by-china.html
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https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/11/taiwan-president-takes-early-lead-in-election-closely-watched-by-china.html
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3045652/taiwan-votes-not-just-leader-way-forward-beijing
Winning.
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Stratfor Worldview
The Strength of Tsai's Victory Raises Questions for Beijing's Approach to Taiwan
3 MINS READ
Jan 11, 2020 | 21:05 GMT
HIGHLIGHTS
The landslide win for the incumbent president indicates that the mainland's continued hard-line approach to Taipei could deepen nationalist sentiment on the island....
The Big Picture
Taiwan’s most consequential elections in years have ended, and an overwhelming victory by incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen promises to foster continued cross-strait tensions with China. The landslide raises the question about how Beijing will respond, particularly in dealing with the island’s rising resistance to its influence.
What Happened
Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen's landslide victory in elections Jan. 11 will extend her term by four years, setting the island nation on a course for an extended period of cross-strait tensions with mainland China if, as expected, Beijing maintains its hard-line approach to her administration. Tsai's ruling party also captured a majority in Taiwan's 113-member parliament. The strength of her victory raises questions about how China will choose to deal with her administration while strengthening U.S. options for countering Chinese influence. The Chinese government could now be forced to rethink its completely restrictive policies to take into account the rise of more radical pro-independence factions inside the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and a long-term shift in Taiwan’s political landscape.
Why It Matters
Tsai secured more than 8 million votes among some 14 million Taiwanese voters, a record margin of victory since direct presidential elections began in 1996, and outpaced her main challenger, Han Kuo-yu from Kuomintang, by 2.5 million votes. Concurrently, the DPP is also set to retain its majority in the 113-member Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s parliament, even though it lost control of seven more seats than it currently has. The opposition Kuomintang gained three more than its previous total. Minor parties that play a third force in the island’s traditionally bipartisan political landscape made some limited strides in these elections. Turnout also reached a record high of 74.9 percent, reflecting high political awareness among the electorate.
In light of her party's slightly less impressive legislative performance than in past elections, Tsai's landslide win indicated that her approach to relations with Beijing was popular enough to overcome discontent among the electorate over some of the DPP’s domestic policies. Against the backdrop of Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests and perceived political interference from Beijing, the result reveals growing resistance among Taiwan's residents to Chinese influence, a feeling only set to grow stronger as the island's younger generation rises.
Given the election campaign’s heavy focus on cross-strait relations, the strength of Tsai's performance plus the extended tenure for the pro-independence DPP deals a blow to Beijing’s hard-line approach in dealing with the ruling party and to its strategy of extending economic incentives to the Taiwanese public to try to win their favor. This will effectively force Beijing to choose between two paths. It could maintain its hard-line approach, or even intensify it, at the risk of strengthening the more radical factions inside the DPP that advocate for independence and stronger ties with the United States. Or, it could choose to deal with the relatively more moderate factions that Tsai represents.
That said, Beijing is most likely to decide to continue to restrict its communications with Taiwan's leaders and follow its isolative and coercive strategy. This means maintaining efforts to poach Taiwanese diplomatic allies or deciding not to renew the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement when the pact expires in June as it seeks to wait out Tsai's term rather than risking its own domestic opposition by altering its stance. If that approach empowers the more radical pro-independence factions in Taiwan, it could trouble cross-strait relations for years to come. Ultimately, that would make Beijing’s already remote chances of achieving its objective of unification even more costly.
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Daily Memo: Taiwan’s Elections, Iran’s Protests
By: GPF Staff
Taiwan’s elections. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and her China-skeptic Democratic Progressive Party won in a landslide in Saturday’s general elections. According to Taiwan's Central Election Commission, Tsai won 57 percent of the vote, well ahead of the 39 percent won by Kuomintang’s candidate, Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu. The DPP also retained control over the national legislature, winning 61 of 113 seats (compared to 68 in 2016), while ideologically aligned smaller parties and independent candidates won another eight seats. An astounding 74 percent of eligible Taiwanese voters turned out.
What's striking about the result is just how much it was shaped by events outside the island, particularly those involving China. Less than two years ago, the KMT trounced the DPP in local elections, and post-election polls showed Tsai trailing Han by more than 30 points. Between then and now, Taiwan’s economy proved to be a key beneficiary of the U.S.-China trade war, taking in much of the investment fleeing the mainland, while the protests in Hong Kong heightened local anxieties about Beijing’s aims to eventually retake the island. Hurting the KMT’s case were things like a Jan. 2 speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who declared that Taiwan “must be and will be” unified with China and declined to rule out an invasion, and the purported defection to Australia of a Chinese spy who claimed to have been involved in a Chinese campaign to meddle in the elections. Tsai and the DPP will be reluctant to rock the boat regarding cross-strait relations. It’s telling that Taiwan’s hard-line pro-independence party failed to win a single seat in the legislature. (Neither did any hard-line pro-unification parties.)
Still, there’s a saying about the precariousness of cross-strait relations: It’s only a problem if either side tries to fix it. And the combination of demographic shifts at home and Chinese pressure across the region are polarizing Taiwanese views about the mainland, which will make it difficult for Taiwanese leaders to stick safely to the status quo.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/01/stephen-schwarzman-china-surveillance-scholars-colleges/604675/?utm_term=2020-01-11T06%3A00%3A12&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=the-atlantic
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https://michaelsavage.com/900k-in-counterfeit-1-bills-discovered-inside-chinese-shipping-container/
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Odd that is was ones and not tens, twenties, or fifties, , ,
Did not see a date on the article.
Generally not a fan of Savage , , ,
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/engineer-at-us-defense-contractor-charged-for-taking-missile-defense-secrets-to-china_3224122.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=b5a58c9756-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_02_02_11_23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-b5a58c9756-239065853
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second post
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-report-sets-out-comprehensive-strategy-to-counter-chinese-regime-in-indo-pacific_3220519.html?utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=9bb24ccb7e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_01_30_11_18&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-9bb24ccb7e-239065853
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Strategy Page:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmvGhcwk3OU&feature=youtu.be
1. The HK protest movement is aimed directly against the mainland totalitarian regime - and the protest keep getting larger instead of being put down. The strength of the movement is noticed throughout China despite the news monopoly.
2. The anti-mainland party won big in Taiwan. They also are standing up to the regime without consequence.
3. The Chinese government is losing credibility in its handling of the Corona virus. Covering up their errors and protecting their own deep state is costing lives, freedom of movement, money, food and causing panic of the people. Their GDP and their markets and investments are crashing.
4. Getting bad information or no information from the regime forces people to get around that in different ways which is dangerous to the health of the regime.
5. What has been missing in my prediction since 1989 of the great fall of China is lack of a feeling of unrest in the masses, because things were still going pretty well for them if they behave. What if that changes?
Even a totalitarian state needs a politic of legitimacy. The subjects of the Tiananmen oppression know they are oppressed, but trade that missing basic human right for benefits such as security, safety, prosperity, and freedom of travel - that was just taken away.
What a shame it would be if the Democracy Virus were to spread to Thomas Friedman's favorite governing regime and weaken it to the point of (eventual) sudden collapse.
SOMEDAY, these recent and ongoing events will be mentioned in the obit of the ruling era of these thugs.
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HK is ready to be free. I think it's more likely to see the PRC fragment into warlord districts.
Strategy Page:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmvGhcwk3OU&feature=youtu.be
1. The HK protest movement is aimed directly against the mainland totalitarian regime - and the protest keep getting larger instead of being put down. The strength of the movement is noticed throughout China despite the news monopoly.
2. The anti-mainland party won big in Taiwan. They also are standing up to the regime without consequence.
3. The Chinese government is losing credibility in its handling of the Corona virus. Covering up their errors and protecting their own deep state is costing lives, freedom of movement, money, food and causing panic of the people. Their GDP and their markets and investments are crashing.
4. Getting bad information or no information from the regime forces people to get around that in different ways which is dangerous to the health of the regime.
5. What has been missing in my prediction since 1989 of the great fall of China is lack of a feeling of unrest in the masses, because things were still going pretty well for them if they behave. What if that changes?
Even a totalitarian state needs a politic of legitimacy. The subjects of the Tiananmen oppression know they are oppressed, but trade that missing basic human right for benefits such as security, safety, prosperity, and freedom of travel - that was just taken away.
What a shame it would be if the Democracy Virus were to spread to Thomas Friedman's favorite governing regime and weaken it to the point of (eventual) sudden collapse.
SOMEDAY, these recent and ongoing events will be mentioned in the obit of the ruling era of these thugs.
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Michael Yon has been hammering on this wrt HK.
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Duterte’s gambit. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s announcement this week that he would abrogate the Visiting Forces Agreement with the U.S. is generating alarm and confusion in both Washington and Manila. The loss of the VFA would be a big deal; without it, joint military exercises would have to be curbed, the already slow implementation of a landmark 2014 agreement giving U.S. troops rotational access to multiple Philippine bases would likely grind to a stop and the Mutual Defense Treaty would be further weakened. The U.S. would also be less able to lend support during crises in the Philippines on the scale it did following Typhoon Haiyan in 2013 and the jihadist attacks in Mindanao in 2017. The termination isn’t immediate; the notification merely triggers a 180-day window to allow the U.S. to pack its bags and tie up any loose ends. So there’s still some time for the two sides to resolve the matter, which Duterte will be under considerable pressure at home to do. The thing is: It’s not exactly clear what there is to negotiate. Duterte’s initial justification was a handful of minor human rights-related moves by the United States. Those are hardly unresolvable, considering the strategic stakes. And while Duterte has proved adept at playing the U.S. and China off each other for the Philippines’ benefit, there’s no indication that there’s something tangible he’s seeking from the U.S. on this issue. Expect the U.S. to mount some kind of response either way. The Philippines is too strategically valuable to be ignored – and that’s perhaps the main point of Duterte’s gambit.
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The Philippines is in deep balut with Coronavirus. This may be the motivator for this action.
Duterte’s gambit. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s announcement this week that he would abrogate the Visiting Forces Agreement with the U.S. is generating alarm and confusion in both Washington and Manila. The loss of the VFA would be a big deal; without it, joint military exercises would have to be curbed, the already slow implementation of a landmark 2014 agreement giving U.S. troops rotational access to multiple Philippine bases would likely grind to a stop and the Mutual Defense Treaty would be further weakened. The U.S. would also be less able to lend support during crises in the Philippines on the scale it did following Typhoon Haiyan in 2013 and the jihadist attacks in Mindanao in 2017. The termination isn’t immediate; the notification merely triggers a 180-day window to allow the U.S. to pack its bags and tie up any loose ends. So there’s still some time for the two sides to resolve the matter, which Duterte will be under considerable pressure at home to do. The thing is: It’s not exactly clear what there is to negotiate. Duterte’s initial justification was a handful of minor human rights-related moves by the United States. Those are hardly unresolvable, considering the strategic stakes. And while Duterte has proved adept at playing the U.S. and China off each other for the Philippines’ benefit, there’s no indication that there’s something tangible he’s seeking from the U.S. on this issue. Expect the U.S. to mount some kind of response either way. The Philippines is too strategically valuable to be ignored – and that’s perhaps the main point of Duterte’s gambit.
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Flesh that out?
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Flesh that out?
Officially, the Philippines has 3 cases (Per the Johns Hopkins website), given the massive amount of travel between the P.I. and Mainland China and Hong Kong, my guess it it's about 3000 right now.
The P.I. is much poorer than the PRC and will soon be in dire need of help. It has no way to begin to address the coronavirus pandemic.
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Duterte could just as easily come to us so I find that unpersuasive.
More logical for me is that the Chinese have bought him; he's been on this trajectory for a while now.
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Duterte could just as easily come to us so I find that unpersuasive.
More logical for me is that the Chinese have bought him; he's been on this trajectory for a while now.
China is in no position to buy anyone now, at least not for long.
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To deny the US the unsinkable aircraft carrier that is the Philippines they will gladly sell enough US debt that they hold to buy a fukker like Duterte.
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My vision for the struggle in the 'Taiwan to Singapore' Sea is that China is the bully and everyone else in the region joins with the US to oppose them.
This is a setback (understatement).
Chinese hackers stole the private information of 145 million Americans, meaning they can get almost anything. Wouldn't they try even harder in their own backyard? Any chance they have incriminating information on Duterte? Maybe their cost to buy him off is nothing.
A free agency bidding war is a lousy basis for making a strategic alliance.
My memory was that Trump and Duterte had a spat or a feud but that is not what I am seeing as I look it up:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/world/asia/trump-duterte-philippines.html
Maybe post-Duterte we get the Philippines back. In the meantime, we thwart China in other ways.
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https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/02/its-time-talk-about-taiwan/163291/?oref=defenseone_today_nl
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https://patriotpost.us/articles/68844-medical-supply-chain-dominated-by-china?mailing_id=4888&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4888&utm_campaign=digest&utm_content=body
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https://www.americanpartisan.org/2020/02/will-china-win-the-pandemic-world-war/
"China will get old before it gets rich."
China will get coronavirus before it gets old.
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https://americanmilitarynews.com/2020/02/chinese-navy-destroyer-shoots-laser-at-us-navy-plane-says-us/?utm_campaign=DailyEmails&utm_source=AM_Email&utm_medium=email
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/nasa-satellite-images-show-significant-decline-in-china-air-pollution-amid-coronavirus-outbreak_3255946.html
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/nasa-satellite-images-show-significant-decline-in-china-air-pollution-amid-coronavirus-outbreak_3255946.html
Good point. We can measure the lying communists economic activity most accurately by their emissions.
If it is safety, security and prosperity keeps the masses in line and the regime in place, what is the other side of that?
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/03/01/coronavirus-could-be-the-end-of-china-as-global-manufacturing-hub/?utm_campaign=forbes&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Valerie%2F#2fc431dc5298
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/nasa-satellite-images-show-significant-decline-in-china-air-pollution-amid-coronavirus-outbreak_3255946.html
Good point. We can measure the lying communists economic activity most accurately by their emissions.
If it is safety, security and prosperity keeps the masses in line and the regime in place, what is the other side of that?
I worry that Xi will go for broke and try to invade Taiwan out of desperation and/or have the NorKs push south rather than risk being Mussolini'ed by angry mobs.
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https://americanmilitarynews.com/2020/03/us-navy-warns-china-you-dont-want-to-play-laser-tag-with-us-after-chinese-destroyer-shoots-laser-at-us-plane/?utm_campaign=DailyEmails&utm_source=AM_Email&utm_medium=email
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/doj-battle-against-chinese-communist-infiltration-reaches-historic-scale_3260176.html?ref=brief_News&utm_source=Epoch+Times+Newsletters&utm_campaign=c2989e81af-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_04_07_48&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4fba358ecf-c2989e81af-239065853
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU5Vu7XBpzg
Single payer.
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To distract from COVID-19 fevers? Desperate communists do desperate things.
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The first case known at this point was Nov. 17, 1999 and China hid it until Jan 20, 2020, more than two months, and denied the large numbers of the outbreak until Jan. 31.
Pres. Trump ordered the quarantine and travel ban that same day.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1255532/coronavirus-news-covid-19-china-first-case-november-pandemic
Coronavirus cover-up? First case confirmed on Nov 17 NOT end of December, China data says
On January 20, President Xi Jinping ordered that the virus be “resolutely contained” in his first public comment on the issue.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/from-cover-up-to-lock-down-how-china-turned-the-tide-on-the-coronavirus/story-VxpMIZgQLgPayK5Pj0vkpN.html
"Human-to-human transmission was finally confirmed by a leading Chinese expert that day. This marked a major turning point in the epidemic, with 291 infections reported nationwide." [A lie, see below.] "Panic took hold in Wuhan, a city of 11 million, when it was abruptly placed on lockdown on January 23. The rest of Hubei province was sealed off in the following days."
During that time the crisis was hidden by China, more than 10,000 PEOPLE PER DAY were flying from China to the US, some of them infected.
Where do we file THAT lawsuit?
"More than 11,800 people in China have been diagnosed with coronavirus, the country’s health experts confirm; U.S. to deny entry to foreign nationals who recently visited China and quarantine returning Americans
Jan. 31, 2020 at 8:55 p.m. CST
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/coronavirus-china-live-updates/2020/01/31/eeac61b6-442b-11ea-b503-2b077c436617_story.html
The United States announced Friday it would be taking new measures to combat a coronavirus outbreak, including denying entry to foreign nationals who had recently visited China and imposing 14-day quarantines on American citizens returning from mainland China.
More than 11,800 people have been diagnosed with the rapidly spreading virus. More than 250 have died, all of them in China. The State Department told Americans not to travel there and advised those who are already there to consider leaving.
Following a quarantine order issued Friday, which government officials said was last used in the 1960s, evacuees held at a base in California will have their movements tightly controlled for 14 days after they left China because health experts are still uncertain about how readily the virus spreads."[/s]
The travel ban ordered Friday was in effect by Sunday, as Americans scrambled to get home.
FDR declared war on Japan the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. President Trump ordered quarantine and travel ban same day China admitted the massive numbers of the deadly virus outbreak. That is a historically fast and decisive response!
When did Italy, Spain, EU announce their travel ban from China?
On what day did Presidential candidate Joe Biden (or any other Democrat) call on congress or Pres. Trump Trump to issue a travel ban on from China to contain the virus and protect the nation?
NEVER. Biden responded to the quarantine and travel ban with: "This is no time for...xenophobia - and fearmongering"
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/481028-biden-slams-trump-for-cutting-health-programs-before-coronavirus-outbreak
In fact, House Democrats own"No Ban Act" with 219 co-sponsors would have precluded this action.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/2214/cosponsors?searchResultViewType=expanded&KWICView=false
How many more would be dead if they were in charge, with still more people coming from the virus source country at the rate of 10,000 per day through the month of February, then March? Ordering the travel ban and first quarantine in 50 years long before people or opponents or media were calling for it took guts, leadership, and saved lives.
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"Where do we file THAT lawsuit? " (previous post)
When this is over and blame is assessed and damages measured, reparation is a reasonable demand.
What was the cost to the rest of the world of the November, December, January cover up and the continued lying they are doing now?
Those who believe in world government should test it with enforcement. Bankrupt this regime and give the ownership of that government to the Chinese people.
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Maybe if the rest of the media and the world are all over this, I can climb down from my soapbox.
I have some ideas for US China policies for Trump's second term that go beyond passing House Resolutions.
https://www.scribd.com/document/453024295/Banks-Resolution-COVID-19-Outbreak#from_embed
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bipartisan-house-resolution-condemns-chinese-government-over-handling-of-coronavirus-response
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(Original Signature of Member)
116
TH
CONGRESS
H. RES.
ll
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government
of the People’s Republic of China made multiple, serious mistakes in
the early stages of the COVID–19 outbreak that heightened the severity
and spread of the ongoing COVID–19 pandemic, which include the Chi-
nese Government’s intentional spread of misinformation to downplay
the risks of the virus, a refusal to cooperate with international health
authorities, internal censorship of doctors and journalists, and malicious
disregard for the health of ethnic minorities.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Mr. BANKS
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the
Committee on
RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that
the Government of the People’s Republic of China made
multiple, serious mistakes in the early stages of the
COVID–19 outbreak that heightened the severity and
spread of the ongoing COVID–19 pandemic, which in-
clude the Chinese Government’s intentional spread of
misinformation to downplay the risks of the virus, a
refusal to cooperate with international health authorities,
internal censorship of doctors and journalists, and mali-
cious disregard for the health of ethnic minorities.
Whereas Chinese Government records suggest that the first
human became infected with COVID–19 on November
17, 2019, in China’s Hubei Province;
Whereas, on December 27, 2019, Zhang Jixian, a doctor
from the Hubei Provincial Hospital of Chinese and West-
ern Medicine alerted China’s health authorities that sev-
eral individuals exhibiting mysterious, flu-like symptoms,
were infected with a novel strain of coronavirus;
Whereas Dr. Yu Wenbin and a team of researchers from
Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden reported that
the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market greatly contrib-
uted to the spread of COVID–19 throughout the city of
Wuhan;
Whereas the Chinese Government waited five days after being
informed of cases of a dangerous new strain of
coronavirus concentrated around Wuhan’s open-air mar-
ket to shut down of the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Mar-
ket in Wuhan;
Whereas Zhou Xianwang, the mayor of Wuhan, stated that
5,000,000 of Wuhan’s 14,000,000 residents left the city
before the Chinese Government imposed a lockdown;
Whereas, on December 30, 2019, Ai Fen, director of Wuhan
Central Hospital’s emergency department, shared a diag-
nostic report on the then unknown COVID–19 virus with
a group of doctors through the social media application
WeChat;
Whereas, on December 30, 2019, Dr. Li Wenliang, warned
his medical school classmates of an outbreak of an un-
known SARS-like virus over WeChat;
Whereas, on December 31, 2019, Wuhan Central Hospital
authorities formally reprimanded Fei for ‘‘spreading ru-
mors’’ about the virus;
Whereas, on January 1, 2020, an official at the Hubei Pro-
vincial Health Commission ordered at least on private
genomics testing company to cease testing samples of a
SARS-like virus from Wuhan and to destroy all existing
samples of the virus;
Whereas, on January 3, 2020, Wuhan’s Public Security Bu-
reau detained, questioned and forced Dr. Li Wenliang
and seven other doctors to sign a letter confessing he had
made ‘‘false comments’’ that ‘‘severely disturbed the so-
cial order’’;
Whereas, on January 3, 2020, the leading public health au-
thority in China, the National Health Commission, di-
rected all Chinese research institutions to cease publicly
publishing any information related to a then unknown
SARS-like virus, and ordered them to destroy existing
samples of the virus or transfer them to approved testing
sites;
Whereas the Centers for Disease Control first asked permis-
sion to study COVID–19 within China on January 6,
2020, but was barred by the Chinese Government from
entering the country until mid-February;
Whereas Chinese authorities first publicly confirmed the ex-
istence of COVID–19 on January 9, 2020, 14 days after
the presence of a novel strain of coronavirus was inter-
nally confirmed;
Whereas China’s National Health Commission publicly denied
COVID–19 was person-to-person transmissible until Jan-
uary 15, 2020, despite having uncovered contrary evi-
dence in late December and being alerted of the trans-
missibility of COVID–19 on January 1, 2020;
Whereas, on January 18, 2020, over 10,000 families attended
the city of Wuhan’s annual Lunar New Year Banquet,
which was organized and sponsored by the Wuhan city
government;
Whereas the People’s Daily, the largest newspaper in China,
first reported on the coronavirus on January 21, 2020,
nearly a month after the virus was internally confirmed;
Whereas, on February 7, 2020, one month after checking
into Wuhan Central Hospital, Dr. Li Wenliang died of a
severe case of COVID–19;
Whereas the COVID–19 outbreak has disproportionately
harmed China’s persecuted Uyghur Muslim minority as a
result of the following actions taken by the Chinese Gov-
ernment—
(1) the detention of over 1,000,000 Uyghur Muslims
and other ethnic minorities in ‘‘re-education camps’’,
whose crowded and unsanitary conditions makes the
camps hotspots for viral disease and leave prisoners at an
elevated risk of contracting COVID–19;
(2) as reported by Uyghur Human Rights Project,
and corroborated by video evidence and Radio Free Asia,
an unannounced and strictly enforced quarantine of mil-
lions of residents in its predominantly Uyghur Muslim
Xinjiang Province around January 24, 2020, resulted in
mass starvation and shortages of basic medical supplies;
(3) on February 25, 2020, Xinhua News Service re-
ported that China had ‘‘re-located’’ 30,000 Uyghur labor-
ers to temporarily shuttered factories in the Hotan pre-
fecture, exposing them to health risks the Chinese Gov-
ernment deemed unacceptable for the ethnically Han ma-
jority;
Whereas the Centers for Disease Control, being the premier
infectious disease research institution in the world, was
well situated at the beginning of the COVID–19 outbreak
to both assist China’s response and prepare the United
States to handle the virus should it spread internation-
ally;
Whereas China’s National Health Commission failed to in-
clude individuals who tested positive for COVID–19 but
remained asymptomatic in its daily tally of confirmed
COVID–19 cases, hampering American public health au-
thorities’ ability to accurately account for the health risks
of infection and spread rate of the virus;
Whereas Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Zhao Lijian,
claimed that COVID–19 originated in the United States
and that the United States army brought the virus to
Wuhan to wage biological warfare on China;
Whereas other Chinese Government officials including sci-
entists working on China’s COVID–19 response, China’s
Ambassador to South Africa and China’s Ambassador to
Australia have claimed that there is no evidence that
COVID–19 originated in China;
Whereas, on March 4, 2020, Xinhua News Agency, an official
mouthpiece of the Chinese Government, published an ar-
ticle threatening to cut off medical supply exports to the
United States and ‘‘plunge [the United States] into the
mighty sea of coronavirus’’;
Whereas, on March 17, 2020, China expelled American na-
tionals working at the Wall Street Journal, Washington
Post, and New York Times, reducing the spread of reli-
able information on the COVID–19 outbreak in China;
and
Whereas a study by the University of Southampton found
that if China had taken action 3 weeks earlier, the spread
of coronavirus would be reduced by 95 percent globally:
Now, therefore, be it
Resolved,
That the House of Representatives—
1
(1) calls on the Chinese Government to—
2
(A) publicly state that there’s no evidence
3
that COVID–19 originated anywhere else but
4
China;
5
(B) denounce the baseless conspiracy that
6
the United States Army placed COVID–19 in
7
Wuhan;
8
(C) revoke its expulsion of American jour-
9
nalists;
10
(D) end its detainment of Uyghur Muslims
11
and other persecuted ethnic minorities; and
12
(E) end all forced labor programs;
13
(2) condemns—
14
(A) the Chinese Government’s censorship
15
of doctors and journalists during the early days
16
of the outbreak and particularly its treatment
17
of the deceased Dr. Li Wenliang;
18
(B) the Chinese Government’s refusal to
19
allow scientists from the Centers of Disease
20
Control to assist its response to COVID–19 for
1
over a month after cooperation was offered,
2
needlessly endangering the lives of its own citi-
3
zens and hampering the United States’ early at-
4
tempts to learn more about COVID–19;
5
(C) China’s National Health Commissions’
6
duplicitous denial of the person-to-person trans-
7
missibility of COVID–19; and
8
(3) calls for the World Health Organization Di-
9
rector-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to
10
retract highly misleading statements of support for
11
the Chinese Government’s response to COVID–19,
12
especially his praise for the ‘‘commitment from [Chi-
13
na’s] top leadership, and the transparency they have
14
demonstrated’’.
15
-
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15802/britain-huawei-china
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Jim Treacher at PJ Media nails it.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/the-virus-is-a-fire-and-the-arsonist-is-china/
"We did not do this. Every scrap of evidence points to the government of China."
"Put the blame where it belongs. #ChinaLiedPeopleDied."
-----------------------------------------
[Doug] I've been talking about China stealing from us all these years dispassionately, like observing that it's cloudy outside. Now it's personal. Their duplicity is killing Americans (and people everywhere else), it's killing our own freedoms and it's killing our economy. It's putting healthy people on edge and unhealthy people in isolation. Grandchildren can't visit grandparents. My Governor is telling my tenants not to pay rent - and it's happening because China lied.
China lied - people died.
At the end of this, they pay or we commit to helping take down the regime no matter how long it takes. Broadcast our message to their people. Hack their internet and media with truth and opposing opinions. Insist on free elections and put the word out to everyone to settle for nothing less. The time is coming to end our membership in organizations that treat the government of China as a member in good standing - until they are in good standing. UN. WHO. IMF. World Bank. Insist on rightful treatment of Taiwan. Etc.
https://spectator.us/abolish-world-health-organization/
Radio free China.
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Pres. Trump had an hour long talk the other night with Chairman Xi. You would think Trump would be furious at Xi for the dishonesty and coverup, but meanwhile they need each other in an existential, medical, economic, political and geopolitical crisis. Luckily we already know Trump isn't a pushover on China, so we can trust that the reparations can wait.
Being a top coronavirus government is scientist in China right now must be quite a balancing act. He must maintain certain lies or go the way of the one who died in jail and the other 17 who disappeared with him. He must also tell certain truths and share in the world knowledge that is being learned minute by minute with no time to waste.
Here is George Gao, head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, trying to thread that needle. There are political and scientific aspect to this interview, including the fact it took two months to get a response.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/not-wearing-masks-protect-against-coronavirus-big-mistake-top-chinese-scientist-says
Not wearing masks to protect against coronavirus is a ‘big mistake,’ top Chinese scientist says
By Jon CohenMar. 27, 2020 , 6:15 PM
Science’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center.
Chinese scientists at the front of that country’s outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have not been particularly accessible to foreign media. Many have been overwhelmed trying to understand their epidemic and combat it, and responding to media requests, especially from journalists outside of China, has not been a top priority.
Science has tried to interview George Gao, director-general of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), for 2 months. Last week he responded.
Gao oversees 2000 employees—one-fifth the staff size of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—and he remains an active researcher himself. In January, he was part of a team that did the first isolation and sequencing of severe acute respiratory syndrome 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19. He co-authored two widely read papers published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) that provided some of the first detailed epidemiology and clinical features of the disease, and has published three more papers on COVID-19 in The Lancet.
His team also provided important data to a joint commission between Chinese researchers and a team of international scientists, organized by the World Health Organization (WHO), that wrote a landmark report after touring the country to understand the response to the epidemic.
First trained as a veterinarian, Gao later earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Oxford and did postdocs there and at Harvard University, specializing in immunology and virology. His research specializes in viruses that have fragile lipid membranes called envelopes—a group that includes SARS-CoV-2—and how they enter cells and also move between species.
Gao answered Science’s questions over several days via text, voicemails, and phone conversations. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
George Gao, head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention STEPHANE AUDRAS/REA/REDUX
Q: What can other countries learn from the way China has approached COVID-19?
A: Social distancing is the essential strategy for the control of any infectious diseases, especially if they are respiratory infections. First, we used “nonpharmaceutical strategies,” because you don’t have any specific inhibitors or drugs and you don’t have any vaccines. Second, you have to make sure you isolate any cases. Third, close contacts should be in quarantine: We spend a lot of time trying to find all these close contacts, and to make sure they are quarantined and isolated. Fourth, suspend public gatherings. Fifth, restrict movement, which is why you have a lockdown, the cordon sanitaire in French.
Q: The lockdown in China began on 23 January in Wuhan and was expanded to neighboring cities in Hubei province. Other provinces in China had less restrictive shutdowns. How was all of this coordinated, and how important were the “supervisors” overseeing the efforts in neighborhoods?
A: You have to have understanding and consensus. For that you need very strong leadership, at the local and national level. You need a supervisor and coordinator working with the public very closely. Supervisors need to know who the close contacts are, who the suspected cases are. The supervisors in the community must be very alert. They are key.
Q: What mistakes are other countries making?
A: The big mistake in the U.S. and Europe, in my opinion, is that people aren’t wearing masks. This virus is transmitted by droplets and close contact. Droplets play a very important role—you’ve got to wear a mask, because when you speak, there are always droplets coming out of your mouth. Many people have asymptomatic or presymptomatic infections. If they are wearing face masks, it can prevent droplets that carry the virus from escaping and infecting others.
Q: What about other control measures? China has made aggressive use of thermometers at the entrances to stores, buildings, and public transportation stations, for instance.
A: Yes. Anywhere you go inside in China, there are thermometers. You have to try to take people’s temperatures as often as you can to make sure that whoever has a high fever stays out.
And a really important outstanding question is how stable this virus is in the environment. Because it’s an enveloped virus, people think it’s fragile and particularly sensitive to surface temperature or humidity. But from both U.S. results and Chinese studies, it looks like it’s very resistant to destruction on some surfaces. It may be able to survive in many environments. We need to have science-based answers here.
Q: People who tested positive in Wuhan but only had mild disease were sent into isolation in large facilities and were not allowed to have visits from family. Is this something other countries should consider?
A: Infected people must be isolated. That should happen everywhere. You can only control COVID-19 if you can remove the source of the infection. This is why we built module hospitals and transformed stadiums into hospitals.
Q: There are many questions about the origin of the outbreak in China. Chinese researchers have reported that the earliest case dates back to 1 December 2019. What do you think of the report in the South China Morning Post that says data from the Chinese government show there were cases in November 2019, with the first one on 17 November?
A: There is no solid evidence to say we already had clusters in November. We are trying to better understand the origin.
Q: Wuhan health officials linked a large cluster of cases to the Huanan seafood market and closed it on 1 January. The assumption was that a virus had jumped to humans from an animal sold and possibly butchered at the market. But in your paper in NEJM, which included a retrospective look for cases, you reported that four of the five earliest infected people had no links to the seafood market. Do you think the seafood market was a likely place of origin, or is it a distraction—an amplifying factor but not the original source?
A: That’s a very good question. You are working like a detective. From the very beginning, everybody thought the origin was the market. Now, I think the market could be the initial place, or it could be a place where the virus was amplified. So that’s a scientific question. There are two possibilities.
Q: China was also criticized for not sharing the viral sequence immediately. The story about a new coronavirus came out in The Wall Street Journal on 8 January; it didn’t come from Chinese government scientists. Why not?
A: That was a very good guess from The Wall Street Journal. WHO was informed about the sequence, and I think the time between the article appearing and the official sharing of the sequence was maybe a few hours. I don’t think it’s more than a day.
Q: But a public database of viral sequences later showed that the first one was submitted by Chinese researchers on 5 January. So there were at least 3 days that you must have known that there was a new coronavirus. It’s not going to change the course of the epidemic now, but to be honest, something happened about reporting the sequence publicly.
A: I don’t think so. We shared the information with scientific colleagues promptly, but this involved public health and we had to wait for policymakers to announce it publicly. You don’t want the public to panic, right? And no one in any country could have predicted that the virus would cause a pandemic. This is the first noninfluenza pandemic ever.
Infected people must be isolated. That should happen everywhere.
George Gao, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention
Q: It wasn’t until 20 January that Chinese scientists officially said there was clear evidence of human-to-human transmission. Why do you think epidemiologists in China had so much difficulty seeing that it was occurring?
A: Detailed epidemiological data were not available yet. And we were facing a very crazy and concealed virus from the very beginning. The same is true in Italy, elsewhere in Europe, and the United States: From the very beginning scientists, everybody thought: “Well, it’s just a virus.”
Q: Spread in China has dwindled to a crawl, and the new confirmed cases are mainly people entering the country, correct?
A: Yes. At the moment, we don’t have any local transmission, but the problem for China now is the imported cases. So many infected travelers are coming into China.
Q: But what will happen when China returns to normal? Do you think enough people have become infected so that herd immunity will keep the virus at bay?
A: We definitely don’t have herd immunity yet. But we are waiting for more definitive results from antibody tests that can tell us how many people really have been infected.
Q: So what is the strategy now? Buying time to find effective medicines?
A: Yes—our scientists are working on both vaccines and drugs.
Q: Many scientists consider remdesivir to be the most promising drug now being tested. When do you think clinical trials in China of the drug will have data?
A: In April.
Q: Have Chinese scientists developed animal models that you think are robust enough to study pathogenesis and test drugs and vaccines?
A: At the moment, we are using both monkeys and transgenic mice that have ACE2, the human receptor for the virus. The mouse model is widely used in China for drug and vaccine assessment, and I think there are at least a couple papers coming out about the monkey models soon. I can tell you that our monkey model works.
Q: What do you think of President Donald Trump referring to the new coronavirus as the “China virus” or the “Chinese virus”?
A: It’s definitely not good to call it the Chinese virus. The virus belongs to the Earth. The virus is our common enemy—not the enemy of any person or country.
-
The Wuhan Virus or the China Virus for me!
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/china-is-pushing-a-zero-myth-on-covid-19-and-attacking-press-freedom/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WIR%20-%20Sunday%202020-03-29&utm_term=WIR-Smart
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second post
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15804/china-duplicity
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15804/china-duplicity
Yes. We could have a topic called, "China Is Still Lying", and run it until the totalitarian regime is finally deposed.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/03/29/cotton_chinese_government_still_lying_about_coronavirus_as_evidence_indicates_rising_death_tolls.html
Sen. Tom Cotton spoke about why he does not trust China's self-reported coronavirus data. "The Chinese Communist Party is still lying," he said.
-------------------
One can fully embrace 'free trade' and make exceptions for national security purposes, two different issues. US-China relations relations fall under that caveat - until the totalitarian regime is finally deposed.
In my export career, I always needed a US government approved export license to ship [potential 'dual use'] high technology to the "People's Republic" of China.
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https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Shadow-War-Playing-Out-Behind-The-COVID-19-Crisis.html
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https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Shadow-War-Playing-Out-Behind-The-COVID-19-Crisis.html
Very good article.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/chinese-researcher-escorted-from-infectious-disease-lab-amid-rcmp-investigation-1.5211567
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/chinese-researcher-escorted-from-infectious-disease-lab-amid-rcmp-investigation-1.5211567
The rest of the story goes blank as it always does. Not our right to know.
Plus we don't want to look as racist:
"Based on information received to date, the RCMP has assessed that there is no threat to public safety at this time," Robert Cyrenne said in an email to CBC News on Thursday.
PHAC is describing it as a policy breach and "administrative matter" and says the department is taking steps to "resolve it expeditiously," Eric Morrissette, the health agency's chief of media relations, said from Ottawa.
No one is under arrest or confined to their home, he added.
When asked for a response to the latest details, Morrissette said there would be no further comment "for privacy reasons."
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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/04/china_is_preparing_to_start_a_war_with_america.html
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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/04/china_is_preparing_to_start_a_war_with_america.html#ixzz6ISS36xrl
Delete this----> #ixzz6ISS36xrl
MARC: Thank you once again.
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https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/china-seizes-covid-19-advantage-in-south-china-sea/
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/03/andrew-cuomo-unbelievable-we-cannot-make-medical-protection-equipment-us/
no kidding
but hey isn't this xenophobic and racist to point this out?
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https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/01/04/well-see-how-frightened-america-is-chinese-admiral-says-sinking-us-carriers-key-to-dominating-south-china-sea/
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https://thedispatch.com/p/the-china-problem-extends-well-beyond?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTXpNME5ESXdaVGMzWTJJMSIsInQiOiI2TjJwb1VvKzVLaFErR0doajByU01IS1ZuUkF4aUsyd2pqRTlGNWxcL0t1MzBDWVRrMW10eG5cL3d6aGdjOUdKRjlUZlJLYXdYYmRiYkNrVkJwUHBUTEdXM01VaVBCeTNyUDJYTXZFTVFPR0t0eURacEpmXC9IN2NxUzQ0SzYrMlBZRSJ9
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third post
https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3078286/chinese-ship-hits-and-sinks-vietnamese-fishing-boat-south
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fourth post
Apparently the Chinese seized some islands from Vietnam in the aftermath of our war with Vietnam. Here is the Vietnamese version of events:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/lsvnqa/photos/?tab=album&album_id=141216622590518
sent to me by a Viet FB friend. Is an English version available? Dunno.
His comments in English:
=======================
Chinese ships attack Vietnamese fishing boats whenever they want to do that.
The disputed territory on the Paracel islands belonged to China since 1974. There is no way Vietnamese can get it back.
So sad for the fishing boats out there.
China killed Vietnamese people out there for their claims and from that day they are building up a lot of artificial islands like military bases and threat all of fishing boats from Vietnam, Philippines, Taiwan... whenever they are close to those islands
Marc Denny yes uncle before more than a year the Vietnamese war ended, Chinese did that because the Paracel islands belonged to the Vietnamese in the south (Viet South).
Likes a small price Vietnamese Communist (Viet North) paid for their guns, foods and all the supports from China.
And after that 5 years the war in the south west between Viet North with Cambodia began and China of course was behind Cambodia.
That made Vietnamese Communist so mad at wars and gave China a chance to attack Vietnam in the border with them in the six northern provinces in the same year 1979, my father joined the war.
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Vietnam kicked China's ass in that little border war. Who knew the Vietnamese were good at guerrilla warfare?
:wink:
fourth post
Apparently the Chinese seized some islands from Vietnam in the aftermath of our war with Vietnam. Here is the Vietnamese version of events:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/lsvnqa/photos/?tab=album&album_id=141216622590518
sent to me by a Viet FB friend. Is an English version available? Dunno.
His comments in English:
=======================
Chinese ships attack Vietnamese fishing boats whenever they want to do that.
The disputed territory on the Paracel islands belonged to China since 1974. There is no way Vietnamese can get it back.
So sad for the fishing boats out there.
China killed Vietnamese people out there for their claims and from that day they are building up a lot of artificial islands like military bases and threat all of fishing boats from Vietnam, Philippines, Taiwan... whenever they are close to those islands
Marc Denny yes uncle before more than a year the Vietnamese war ended, Chinese did that because the Paracel islands belonged to the Vietnamese in the south (Viet South).
Likes a small price Vietnamese Communist (Viet North) paid for their guns, foods and all the supports from China.
And after that 5 years the war in the south west between Viet North with Cambodia began and China of course was behind Cambodia.
That made Vietnamese Communist so mad at wars and gave China a chance to attack Vietnam in the border with them in the six northern provinces in the same year 1979, my father joined the war.
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The Paracel Islands and the naval battle of January 19, 1974
[Google translation of previous facebook link.]
The Paracel Islands are a battle between the Republic of Vietnam Navy and the Chinese Navy that took place on January 19, 1974, on the Paracel Islands, islands claimed by both sides. After France withdrew from Indochina under the Geneva Agreement of 1954, the Vietnamese nation inherited all control of this archipelago under the Agreement, all the southern territorial waters of the 17th parallel of Vietnam controlled by the French army. will be transferred to the Vietnam Country. After the Republic of Vietnam was established on the basis of inheriting the State of Vietnam, these islands were controlled by the Republic of Vietnam. During the transition between France and the State of Vietnam in 1956, the People's Republic of China occupied part of the archipelago and the Republic of China occupied Ba Binh Island. The Republic of Vietnam only retains and exercises a partial sovereignty over the islands but still claims sovereignty over the whole archipelago until the naval war occurs. After the battle, China occupied the entire Paracel Islands to date.
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Trump claimed that 10,000 people a day were flying from China to the US before he imposed his travel ban. NYT says it was more than that!
From the article:
"But the analysis of the flight and other data by The New York Times shows the travel measures, however effective, may have come too late to have “kept China out,” "
Maybe because China lied - right up until that date. And still lies about the virus, its deadliness and its origin.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/us/coronavirus-china-travel-restrictions.html
430,000 People Have Traveled From China to U.S. Since Coronavirus Surfaced
There were 1,300 direct flights to 17 cities before President Trump’s travel restrictions. Since then, nearly 40,000 Americans and other authorized travelers have made the trip, some this past week and many with spotty screening.
Passengers in Beijing before an American Airlines flight to Los Angeles in late January.
By Steve Eder, Henry Fountain, Michael H. Keller, Muyi Xiao and Alexandra Stevenson
April 4, 2020
Since Chinese officials disclosed the outbreak of a mysterious pneumonialike illness to international health officials on New Year’s Eve, at least 430,000 people have arrived in the United States on direct flights from China, including nearly 40,000 in the two months after President Trump imposed restrictions on such travel, according to an analysis of data collected in both countries.
The bulk of the passengers, who were of multiple nationalities, arrived in January, at airports in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Newark and Detroit. Thousands of them flew directly from Wuhan, the center of the coronavirus outbreak, as American public health officials were only beginning to assess the risks to the United States.
Flights continued this past week, the data show, with passengers traveling from Beijing to Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, under rules that exempt Americans and some others from the clampdown that took effect on Feb. 2. In all, 279 flights from China have arrived in the United States since then, and screening procedures have been uneven, interviews show.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly suggested that his travel measures impeded the virus’s spread in the United States. “I do think we were very early, but I also think that we were very smart, because we stopped China,” he said at a briefing on Tuesday, adding, “That was probably the biggest decision we made so far.” Last month, he said, “We’re the ones that kept China out of here.”
But the analysis of the flight and other data by The New York Times shows the travel measures, however effective, may have come too late to have “kept China out,” particularly in light of recent statements from health officials that as many as 25 percent of people infected with the virus may never show symptoms. Many infectious-disease experts suspect that the virus had been spreading undetected for weeks after the first American case was confirmed, in Washington State, on Jan. 20, and that it had continued to be introduced. In fact, no one knows when the virus first arrived in the United States.
During the first half of January, when Chinese officials were underplaying the severity of the outbreak, no travelers from China were screened for potential exposure to the virus. Health screening began in mid-January, but only for a number of travelers who had been in Wuhan and only at the airports in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York. By that time, about 4,000 people had already entered the United States directly from Wuhan, according to VariFlight, an aviation data company based in China. The measures were expanded to all passengers from China two weeks later.
In a statement on Friday, Hogan Gidley, a White House spokesman, described Mr. Trump’s travel restrictions as a “bold decisive action which medical professionals say will prove to have saved countless lives.” The policy took effect, he said, at a time when the global health community did not yet “know the level of transmission or asymptomatic spread.”
Trump administration officials have also said they received significant pushback about imposing the restrictions even when they did. At the time, the World Health Organization was not recommending travel restrictions, Chinese officials rebuffed them and some scientists questioned whether curtailing travel would do any good. Some Democrats in Congress said they could lead to discrimination.
[Important chart at the link, flights and numbers of passengers to US cities in January. I was unable to insert it.] Most to least:
Los Angeles (LAX)
San Francisco (SFO)
New York (JFK)
Chicago (ORD)
Seattle (SEA)
Newark (EWR)
Detroit (DTW)
Washington (IAD)
Boston (BOS)
Dallas (DFW)
Honolulu (HNL)
Atlanta (ATL)
Houston (IAH)
San Jose (SJC)
Las Vegas (LAS)
Denver (DEN)
St. Louis (STL)
In interviews, multiple travelers who arrived after the screening was expanded said they received only passing scrutiny, with minimal follow-up.
“I was surprised at how lax the whole process was,” said Andrew Wu, 31, who landed at Los Angeles International Airport on a flight from Beijing on March 10. “The guy I spoke to read down a list of questions, and he didn’t seem interested in checking out anything.”
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Japan will declare a state of emergency as the virus surges in Tokyo and other cities.
Sabrina Fitch, 23, flew from China to Kennedy International Airport in New York on March 23. She and the 40 or so other passengers had their temperature taken twice while en route and were required to fill out forms about their travels and health, she said.
“Besides looking at our passports, they didn’t question us like we normally are questioned,” said Ms. Fitch, who had been teaching English in China. “So it was kind of weird, because everyone expected the opposite, where you get a lot of questions. But once we filled out the little health form, no one really cared.”
In January, before the broad screening was in place, there were over 1,300 direct passenger flights from China to the United States, according to VariFlight and two American firms, MyRadar and FlightAware. About 381,000 travelers flew directly from China to the United States that month, about a quarter of whom were American, according to data from the Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration.
In addition, untold others arrived from China on itineraries that first stopped in another country. While actual passenger counts for indirect fliers were not available, Sofia Boza-Holman, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said they represented about a quarter of travelers from China. The restrictions, she added, reduced all passengers from the country by about 99 percent.
Mr. Trump issued his first travel restrictions related to the virus on Jan. 31, one day after the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global health emergency. In a presidential proclamation, he barred foreign nationals from entering the country if they had been in China during the prior two weeks. The order exempted American citizens, green-card holders and their noncitizen relatives — exceptions roundly recognized as necessary to allow residents to return home and prevent families from being separated. It did not apply to flights from Hong Kong and Macau.
About 60 percent of travelers on direct flights from China in February were not American citizens, according to the most recently available government data. Most of the flights were operated by Chinese airlines after American carriers halted theirs.
ImagePresident Trump with the health secretary, Alex M. Azar II, at a Covid-19 briefing last month.
At a news conference about the restrictions, Alex M. Azar II, the health secretary, repeatedly emphasized that “the risk is low” for Americans. He added, “Our job is to work to keep that that way.”
Sign up to receive our daily Coronavirus Briefing, an informed guide with the latest developments and expert advice.
Health officials also announced an expansion of the screening beyond arrivals from Wuhan. Dr. Robert R. Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, explained that people would be screened for “significant risk, as well as any evidence of symptoms.” If there was no reason for additional examination, “they would be allowed to complete their travel back to their home, where they then will be monitored by the local health departments in a self-monitoring situation in their home.”
The procedures called for screening to be conducted in empty sections of the airports, usually past customs areas. Passengers would line up and spend a minute or two having their temperature taken and being asked about their health and travel history. Those with a fever or self-reported symptoms like a cough would get a medical evaluation, and if they were thought to have been infected or exposed to the virus, they would be sent to a hospital where local health officials would take over.
Passengers would also be given information cards about the virus and symptoms. Later versions advised people to stay at home for two weeks.
In a statement on Thursday, the C.D.C. described the entry screening as “part of a layered approach” that could “slow and reduce the spread of disease” when used with other public health measures.
“We cannot stop all introductions,” the C.D.C. added, noting that the coronavirus pandemic was “especially challenging due to asymptomatic and presymptomatic infections and an incubation period of up to two weeks.”
Separately, on Friday, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the administration’s measures were “unprecedented” and allowed “the U.S. to stay ahead of the outbreak as it developed.”
Passengers including Mr. Wu described a cursory screening process when they arrived in the United States.
Mr. Wu, who has had no symptoms and has not become ill, said he was told to stay inside for 14 days when he landed in Los Angeles. He said he received two reminder messages the next day by email and text, but no further follow-up.
Another traveler, Chandler Jurinka, said his experience on Feb. 29 had an even more haphazard feel. He flew from Beijing to Seattle, with stops in Tokyo and Vancouver.
At the Seattle-Tacoma airport, he said, an immigration officer went through his documents and asked questions unrelated to the virus about his job and life in China. At no point did anyone take his temperature, he said.
“He hands me my passport and forms and says, ‘Oh, by the way, you haven’t been to Wuhan, have you?’” Mr. Jurinka said. “And then he says, ‘You don’t have a fever, right?’”
Like others, he left the airport with a card that recommended two weeks of self-quarantine and a promise that someone would call to check up on him. He said he never got a call.
Other travelers also said the follow-up from local health departments was hit-or-miss. Some received only emails or texts.
Jacinda Passmore, 23, a former English teacher in China who flew into Dallas on March 10, after a layover in Tokyo, got a thorough screening at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. It took about 40 minutes, she said, before she was cleared for her flight home to Little Rock, Ark.
State health workers later dropped off thermometers at her house and insisted her entire family stay home for two weeks and provide updates on their condition.
“They asked us every day: ‘Have you stayed inside? Have you met anyone? Have you been quarantined?’” Ms. Passmore said. “They’re really nice about it. They said, ‘If you need anything, we can go grocery-shopping for you.’”
Nineteen flights departed Wuhan in January for New York or San Francisco — and the flights were largely full, according to VariFlight. For about 4,000 travelers, there was no enhanced screening.
On Jan. 17, the federal government began screening travelers from Wuhan, but only 400 more passengers arrived on direct flights before Chinese authorities shut down the airport. Scott Liu, 56, a Wuhan native and a textile importer who lives in New York, caught the last commercial flight, on Jan. 22.
Mr. Liu had gone to Wuhan for the Spring Festival on Jan. 6, but decided to come back early as the outbreak worsened. At the Wuhan airport, staff checked his temperature. On the flight, he and other passengers filled a health declaration form, which included questions about symptoms like fever, cough or difficulty breathing.
After they arrived at J.F.K. in New York, the passengers were directed to go through a temperature checkpoint. “It was very fast,” he said. “If your temperature is normal, they will just let you in.”
Mr. Liu said no one asked him questions about his travel history or health, and he received a card with information about what to do if he developed symptoms. At the time, there were no instructions to isolate. Mr. Liu said he and his friends all decided to do so anyway.
“I stayed at home for almost 20 days,” he said.
Image
A cargo plane charted by the U.S. State Department to evacuate Americans from Wuhan in February.
A cargo plane charted by the U.S. State Department to evacuate Americans from Wuhan in February.Credit...Edward Wang/Via Reuters
About 800 passengers on five charter flights were later evacuated from Wuhan by the U.S. government and directed to military bases, where they waited out two weeks of quarantine.
The charter flights began on Jan. 29. Instagram posts from one showed C.D.C. officials in full protective gear on the plane and escorting passengers after landing.
One group of passengers was eventually flown to Omaha to be taken by bus to a National Guard camp for quarantine. Video showed them accompanied by a full police escort, with lights flashing, helicopters overhead and intersections blocked off along the way.
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Please post in Homeland Security thread as well.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr98gE88W60
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Just some examples
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9yIv4fpJes&list=PL0L_JIVu0gT9K-skb6VBQQBFscJWbzf5w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmDXpee-Zn4&list=PL0L_JIVu0gT9K-skb6VBQQBFscJWbzf5w&index=7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4Uudb3WOOs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCxRWi67AuM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkzmU5z2Odc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=255N2PfFLbw
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second post
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-29/trump-s-new-trade-war-weapon-might-just-be-antique-china-debt
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https://business.financialpost.com/technology/trudeau-says-no-security-risks-in-chinese-takeover-of-canadian-satellite-firm-2
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https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/China-up-close/Xi-fears-Japan-led-manufacturing-exodus-from-China
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https://www.oodaloop.com/documents/unrestricted.pdf
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https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/05/mcmaster-china-strategy/609088/
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The US needs to reach past, around and through the government of China to the people. We cannot allow the hatred of us by a billion people to grow and grow based on the lies of the regime. If they want to lie about us, we get to answer that.
A good friend married a nice Chinese American woman recently (she grew up in China) and have a great marriage I think but there will always be some cultural differences that come up. One time something was mentioned about putting a man on the moon and she said, "if you believe that". (That isn't the history they were taught.) Now they're taught it's US spreading coronavirus. Enough is enough. In the age of Trump, we fight back when people lie about us, no?
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https://twitter.com/paulmozur/status/1250784614177583104
My great fear is the chauvinism+xenophobia that come with China's new nationalism will stay after the virus has gone. In the past year the CCP has blamed foreigners for the Hong Kong protests, said we invented the issues in Xinjiang, and now the virus.
Kicked Out of China
As the coronavirus escalated to a worldwide crisis, China expelled our journalists — and surveilled our correspondents to thwart their reporting before they left.
nytimes.com
If you take Beijing at its word you'd be crazy not to be angry at the world. That's creating very ugly scenes at the moment. The lashing out at writer Fang Fang for chronicling Wuhan's suffering. The racism towards Africans in Guangzhou. It feels a new era
As Coronavirus Fades in China, Nationalism and Xenophobia Flare
Now that the pandemic is raging outside China’s borders, foreigners are being shunned, barred from public spaces and even evicted.
nytimes.com
And if you want to see how the fears and anger over the virus are being tied more broadly to the nationalism, today was national security day. A totally normal holiday, where buildings display slogans like this: “work together to fight traitors and oppose spies.”
- Paul Mozur cpvered Asia for the NYT.
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"The US needs to reach past, around and through the government of China to the people. We cannot allow the hatred of us by a billion people to grow and grow based on the lies of the regime. If they want to lie about us, we get to answer that."
THIS.
Reading the McMaster piece now.
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Pasting Doug's post here:
========================================
[Which thread do you want to be the 'China Lies' thread? There is a lot of material.]
Following is a 17 year old Mark Steyn column with the word sars replaced with COVID-19:
The appearance of the virus itself was a surprise but everything since has been, to some extent, predictable. Because totalitarian regimes lie, China denied there was any problem for three months, and thereafter downplayed the extent of it. Because UN agencies are unduly deferential to dictatorships, the World Health Organization accepted Beijing's lies. This enabled SARS COVID-19 to wiggle free of China's borders before anyone knew about it. I mentioned all this three weeks ago, but only in the last couple of days has the People's Republic decided to come clean -- or, at any rate, marginally less unclean -- about what's going on.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0420/steyn042020.php3
Steyn continued, April 20, 2020:
"It is profoundly depressing - on CNN, the BBC, CBC, etc - to hear the credibility their reporters still give to ChiCom/WHO propaganda.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Fool me thrice? Death on me."
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-security-idUSKBN2230GC
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-security-idUSKBN2230GC
The correct response would be to land a Marine Expeditionary Force in Taiwan. We could call it "Operation Grass Mud Horse".
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https://www.youngresearch.com/researchandanalysis/trade/china-and-america-are-about-to-go-through-a-breakup/?awt_a=A71V&awt_l=PWy8k&awt_m=3dC_8bQT4tzlu1V
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https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/05/mcmaster-china-strategy/609088/
This is a must read!
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Here Comes the Asia Defense Buildup
Lawmakers push for funding as China seeks Pacific dominance.
By The Editorial Board
April 21, 2020 7:19 pm ET
Washington strategists have been talking about a “pivot to Asia” for the better part of a decade, but it may take the coronavirus to make it a reality. Last week Republican Rep. Mac Thornberry, ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, introduced $6 billion for a new initiative to deter Chinese expansion. This week Sen. Tom Cotton of the Senate Armed Services Committee will also propose major legislation to beef up U.S. forces in the Pacific.
Sen. Cotton wants his $43 billion legislation, first reported here, included in Congress’s phase four coronavirus relief package. He calls for $1.6 billion for precision weapons to prevent China from limiting “U.S. freedom of action or access to vital waterways and airspace.” The legislation also puts $1.3 billion toward changes in force design so American weapons and troops in the Pacific are less concentrated and vulnerable to attack. There are significant new funds for the Air Force and Navy, including for an additional Virginia-class attack submarine.
Much of this may not make it into a virus relief bill, but the appetite in Congress is growing for better military deterrence. The Journal reported last week that Rep. Adam Smith, the Democratic Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is working on legislation similar to Mr. Thornberry’s.
Meanwhile in the Presidential race, Joe Biden is sparring with President Trump over who is tougher on China. Expect parts of Sen. Cotton and Rep. Thornberry’s legislation to be included in next year’s National Defense Authorization Act, if a stand-alone bill doesn’t pass sooner. One obstacle is the likely belt-tightening after the coronavirus recession, which may force appropriators to divert funds from other theaters.
China has been exploiting the coronavirus crisis to throw its weight around in the Western Pacific. Beijing’s military exercises intended to intimidate Taiwan have grown more frequent; it has tightened its hold on disputed islands in the South China sea; and Chinese ships have increased their harassment of commercial craft from nations like Malaysia and Vietnam.
Military doves worry that the U.S. could provoke Beijing by upgrading American military capabilities to maintain a balance of power. But the real danger is that the People’s Liberation Army sees a window of opportunity amid the nationalist sentiment stirred up by President Xi Jinping. Against this backdrop it’s more important than ever for the U.S. to signal that it considers the independence of Pacific states a vital interest and isn’t retreating.
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https://www.businessinsider.com/south-china-sea-chinesenavy-ram-us-ships-2018-12?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=topbar
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second post
Watch Out in the South China Sea
As U.S.-China tensions increase, the chance of a miscalculation grows.
By The Editorial Board
April 23, 2020 7:06 pm ET
SAVE
PRINT
TEXT
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Navy personnel of Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy take part in a military display in the South China Sea on April 12, 2018.
PHOTO: CHINA STRINGER NETWORK/REUTERS
With the world preoccupied by the coronavirus pandemic, China has been looking to exert more military control in the South China Sea. This week three warships from the U.S. Seventh Fleet, joined by an Australian frigate, responded by sailing into the disputed waters in a show of force. The danger is that Chinese naval officers misread America’s public mood and think they can embarrass the U.S. without escalation.
The South China Sea is a critical waterway in the Western Pacific, bordered by Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei. Beijing has long claimed control over it, and during the Obama Administration it moved on its claim by militarizing islands despite international protests.
This month Vietnam said a Chinese ship deliberately rammed and sunk a Vietnamese fishing boat. Indonesia’s fishermen are also reporting escalating harassment, and in recent weeks Chinese government and militia ships have been tailing Malaysian oil-exploration boats.
U.S. freedom of navigation exercises are intended to affirm that Beijing cannot unilaterally seize control of the waterway. Some waters of the South China Sea are claimed by multiple neighboring countries, but China is the strongest power in the region and last week it announced its sovereignty over more islands over objections from Vietnam and the Philippines. China wants to assert its dominance, chasing other countries’ commercial maritime traffic out of waters even near their own coasts.
It’s widely believed that Chinese military officers are more hawkish and anti-American than Beijing officialdom claims to be. While the military has historically been reined in, President Xi Jinping has been doubling down on nationalism to consolidate his control amid the coronavirus crisis. Chinese propaganda has also amplified the virus troubles aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, a premier American naval asset in the Pacific, to suggest U.S. vulnerability.
Another potential flashpoint is Taiwan, which has won deserved international recognition for its handling of the coronavirus. That’s also infuriated China, which has increased military flyovers close to the island.
U.S.-Chinese tensions are also increasing, as Americans blame China for its deceptions about the coronavirus in an election year. Chinese propagandists have claimed the U.S. may have created the virus.
Under these circumstances the chance of a military miscalculation increases. Even something like the Hainan Island incident, when a U.S. and Chinese plane collided in 2001, would require careful de-escalation. The coronavirus is consuming most of America’s political oxygen, but Chinese military commanders should not think this is a moment to tangle with the U.S. if they encounter each other at sea. China’s geopolitical opportunism amid the pandemic has turned opinion against Beijing.
Freedom of navigation exercises are important but not enough to secure the Western Pacific from Chinese domination. The U.S. has remained neutral on territorial claims, but it may need to start recognizing claims of countries like Vietnam to make China pay a price for further expansion. The U.S. should also try to maintain its defense pact with the Philippines under mercurial President Rodrigo Duterte.
China’s recent behavior has badly damaged its claims to be a global stakeholder that plays by the rules. The U.S. is right to make clear that it remains a Pacific power and that the coronavirus hasn’t lessened its resolve.
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https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3921563
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https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3921563
Good.
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https://www.epi.org/publication/issuebriefs_ib137/
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/hisutton/2019/12/15/china-is-building-an-incredible-number-of-warships/#29511b0869ac
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"China is building an incredible number of warships"
But Bloomberg and Biden don't see anything here.
I suppose their new carrier will look just like the USS Ford,
by chance of course. :x
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https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2020/04/27/china-warns-australia-drop-coronavirus-probe-or-pay-an-economic-price/
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https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/27/a_china-us_cold_war_143042.html
Inter alia, the article notes this point that we were discussing recently:
"China’s leaders not only knew how contagious the virus was, they acted on that inside information. In December, they stopped all internal flights from Wuhan to protect Shanghai, Beijing, and other population centers. Yet they allowed international flights to continue. Flights from Wuhan to Madrid. Wuhan to Rome. Wuhan to Seattle. Wuhan to Los Angeles."
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"China’s leaders not only knew how contagious the virus was, they acted on that inside information. In December, they stopped all internal flights from Wuhan to protect Shanghai, Beijing, and other population centers. Yet they allowed international flights to continue. Flights from Wuhan to Madrid. Wuhan to Rome. Wuhan to Seattle. Wuhan to Los Angeles."
This is totally emblematic of the way the Red Chinese think of themselves VERSUS the world.
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This is a powerful bullet point to hammer home again and again.
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This is a powerful bullet point to hammer home again and again.
Yup.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/lawmaker-to-introduce-bill-to-help-us-manufacturers-move-out-of-china_3339236.html?__sta=vhg.qblkmhbwphzxphzemdsbg%7CYFV&__stm_medium=email&__stm_source=smartech
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second post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/70453-trump-working-to-cut-china-from-supply-chain?mailing_id=5034&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.5034&utm_campaign=digest&utm_content=body
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third post
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/rep-michael-waltz-chinese-infiltration-of-us-colleges-results-in-massive-theft-of-our-research
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https://americanmilitarynews.com/2020/05/trump-says-we-could-cut-off-whole-relationship-with-china-among-options/?utm_campaign=DailyEmails&utm_source=AM_Email&utm_medium=email
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8326109/US-lose-war-China-fought-Pacific-Pentagon-sources-warn.html
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By: Geopolitical Futures
Huawei on life support? On Friday, the Trump administration moved forward with a long-awaited measure requiring even non-U.S. chip manufacturers using U.S. chipmaking equipment, intellectual property or design software to apply for a license before shipping microchips to Chinese tech giants like Huawei. This effectively forces Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. – the world’s dominant chipmaker – to choose between the U.S. and Chinese tech sectors. For now, at least, it’s choosing the U.S. The firm, which produces some 90 percent of the world’s most advanced microchips and which last week announced early stage plans to build a factory in the U.S. – has reportedly halted new orders from Huawei. One risk of this move for the U.S. is that it inadvertently accelerates development of a homegrown Chinese competitor. So it’s worth noting that China’s own top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., on Friday announced that it had received $2.25 billion in financing from a pair of state-owned funds. But the firm is believed to be several years away from being able to replace what industry leaders like TSMC provide. Thus Huawei’s startling admission this morning: Its survival is at stake.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8326109/US-lose-war-China-fought-Pacific-Pentagon-sources-warn.html
My reaction to these types of analyses is that I assume this type of conflict would not involve the US alone vs. China. How do these simulations come out if Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, India(?), others, side with the US? Secondly, like NATO issues, if these potential allies don't add much power, they need to step up their capabilities too.
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Yes, AND
A sense of who would win a hot war very much influences who flinches when and where during the various interactions of a Cold War.
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I disagree, but some fair points are raised:
The U.S. Doesn’t Need a New Cold War
Proponents of heightening the conflict with China understate the diplomatic successes of recent years.
By Robert B. Zoellick
May 18, 2020 7:03 pm ET
The U.S. approach toward China now relies on confrontation and accusation. Yet in diplomacy, as in war, the other side gets a vote. On May 22 China will convene two of its annual summits, the National People’s Congress and the Political Consultative Conference. The Communist Party will choreograph messages carefully: The collapse of communism in the Soviet Union casts a long shadow in Beijing, and Covid-19 came close to shaking the party’s legitimacy. In Chinese history, diseases, famines and other natural disasters have foretold the end of dynasties.
President Xi Jinping will want the gatherings to herald China’s relative success in handling the virus, its emerging economic recovery, and its role in a global “community of shared interests,” as he has previously called the world order. He needs to moderate Beijing’s propaganda overreach and its emissaries’ heavy-handed responses to critics. Chinese historians recall that past spasms of patriotic and party fervor—the Boxer Rebellion and the Cultural Revolution—scared the world.
How will the U.S. respond? The proponents of a “New Cold War” have declared their objections to China, but not what they plan to accomplish. When I worked with Secretary of State James Baker during the closing years of the old Cold War, we focused on what we wanted to get done—results, not mere expressions of dissatisfaction.
The New Cold Warriors can’t contain China given its ties throughout the world; other countries won’t join us. Nor can the U.S. break the regime, though the Communist Party’s flaws could open cracks within its own society. The U.S. can impose costs on China, but to what end, and at what price to Americans? After three years of bluster and tariffs, President Trump negotiated a narrow trade deal with China. Even before the pandemic the deal was unlikely to be fulfilled, and now it looks fanciful.
The New Cold Warriors expunge the successes of past U.S. cooperation with China. Beijing was once a wartime enemy, a supplier of proxy foes in North Korea and North Vietnam, and the world’s leading proliferator of missiles and nuclear weapons technology. Beginning in the 1990s, China reversed course and worked with the U.S. to control dangerous weapons. It turned from proliferation partnerships with Iran and North Korea to helping the U.S. thwart their development of nuclear arms. From 2000 to 2018, U.S. diplomacy prodded Beijing to support 182 of the 190 United Nations Security Council resolutions that imposed sanctions on states. China also assisted U.N. peacekeeping and helped Washington end the genocide in Darfur, Sudan.
China became the largest contributor to global economic growth. Beijing cut its current-account surplus from about 10% of gross domestic product to near zero, which drove world-wide expansion. For 15 years China was the fastest-growing destination for U.S. exports. It stopped manipulating its exchange rate. During the financial crisis, Beijing pushed the largest and quickest stimulus and helped stave off global depression, while cooperating closely with the U.S., the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
China is also a leading innovator in non-fossil-fuel technology, though it is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. The U.S. and its allies successfully pressured Beijing to ban sales of elephant ivory, but China still permits illegal trafficking in rare species. This pandemic will likely prompt China to change its treatment of wildlife.
Over the past 50 years, America’s prudent and persistent policy toward Taiwan, combined with Beijing’s reluctant restraint, has enabled democracy to prosper safely.
This doesn’t mean that all is well with China. But it is flat wrong to suggest that working with China has not served U.S. interests. Self-deception will lead to dangerous diplomacy.
The U.S. and its partners face a staggering set of challenges. We need to find medical solutions to Covid-19. We must learn how to protect ourselves against future epidemics more quickly. America also needs a strong recovery, which will require a growing global economy, including China. Washington must anticipate financial weaknesses from mountains of debt and experimental monetary policies. Environmental and energy risks will require international cooperation and innovation. We have begun a huge digital transformation. Terrorists have not retired, and dangerous would-be regional hegemons still seek weapons of mass destruction. And we need to deal with China.
The U.S. strategy to address these challenges must begin with its allies. Europe’s role will be especially vital. Europeans have enjoyed Beijing’s benefits but also have felt China’s heavy hand. Most Europeans do not want to become Chinese tributary states, but they may adopt a benign neutrality toward Beijing. America’s appeal could tip the balance. The New Cold Warriors ignore how Washington led in defining shared objectives with allies during the Cold War—prodding, but also compromising, and combining idealism with pragmatism. America’s European and Indo-Pacific partners know addressing today’s problems will require working with China, even if countries need to develop separate systems in critical areas such as telecommunications.
The U.S. must have the military means to deter aggression against vital interests and allies. America should also promote the cause of freedom, which hasn’t been a Trump priority, and be a steady friend to other free countries. Even with authoritarian competitors such as China, the U.S. should emphasize human aspiration, not name-calling. We want to appeal to the Chinese public, not insult them. The U.S. needs to offer allies and the world an attractive approach, which must include working with China on mutual interests.
Mr. Zoellick is a former World Bank president, U.S. trade representative and deputy secretary of state.
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Haven't watched this yet; it came recommended, posting it for viewer later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhMAt3BluAU&t=3s
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China Moves on Hong Kong
Beijing plans a new national-security law. Is Taiwan next?
By The Editorial Board
May 21, 2020 7:23 pm ET
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Ted Hui, a pro-democracy lawmaker, is removed by security officers during scuffles between pro-establishment and opposition lawmakers at a meeting to elect a new chairperson for the House Committee at the Legislative Council in Hong Kong, May 18.
PHOTO: ROY LIU/BLOOMBERG NEWS
China’s forceful takeover of Hong Kong appears to have begun, and threats against Taiwan are rising. That’s the message this week as the National People’s Congress in Beijing moved to pass an onerous new security law for Hong Kong and the Chinese navy plans to practice an amphibious assault on an island controlled by Taiwan.
Under the Sino-British Joint Declaration, China promised Hong Kong legal autonomy and the preservation of basic liberties, including freedom of speech, press and assembly. Yet Beijing is now seeking to bypass the Hong Kong Legislative Council and impose the national-security law unilaterally. This rule-by-diktat means the end of the “one country, two systems” arrangement that Beijing promised for 50 years after 1997.
Enforcement of the national-security legislation would erase the legal lines between Hong Kong and the mainland. By our deadline China’s Communist Party legislature hadn’t released a draft bill, but rest assured the purpose is to silence and punish dissent to prevent a repeat of last year’s mass protests in Hong Kong. For months Beijing has falsely accused protesters of seeking independence from the mainland and acting on behalf of a foreign “black hand.”
On Monday pro-Beijing lawmakers used a legally questionable procedure to seize control of a powerful Legislative Council committee that vets bills and schedules final votes. China’s Hong Kong surrogates can now move forward with legislation making disrespect of China’s national anthem a crime punishable by up to three years in prison. When pro-democracy lawmakers protested, security guards dragged some from the room. Legislator Ted Hui had to go to the hospital after he was kicked in the chest so hard he struggled to breathe, the South China Morning Post reported.
At a hearing Monday Hong Kong prosecutors signaled they may seek yearslong sentences for 15 pro-democracy activists arrested for their role in last year’s protests. They include Martin Lee, the father of the Hong Kong democracy movement, media tycoon Jimmy Lai, and other prominent advocates of peaceful protest. The cases will now be heard in district court, which has the authority to impose sentences of up to five years for those found guilty of participating or organizing unauthorized protests.
Meanwhile, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen was sworn in for a second four-year term this week and used her inaugural remarks to reject “one country, two systems” for the island. Taiwanese can see that China isn’t keeping its promise of autonomy to Hong Kong. She called for “peace, parity, democracy, and dialogue” between the two Chinese governments. Beijing reacted by attacking Ms. Tsai’s party and saying reunification is “inevitable.”
To underscore the point, Reuters quoted Chinese sources last week as saying the People’s Liberation Army is planning a large-scale landing drill off Hainan Island in the South China Sea in August to simulate the possible seizure of the Taiwanese-held Pratas Island in the future. If Chinese President Xi Jinping needs a nationalist rallying cry, he might sign off on such an assault.
The only way to deter any of this is to make sure Beijing officials know they will pay a heavy price. Hong Kongers may feel they have no choice but to protest in the streets even at the risk of arrest and imprisonment. They may lose but they will expose Beijing’s ugly side to the world. A bipartisan group in the U.S. Congress is advancing legislation that would sanction officials who implement the national-security law. The U.S. will also have to sell more arms to help Taiwan defend itself.
Mr. Xi wants the world to think his China is a benign power that follows global rules, but in Hong Kong and Taiwan we are seeing the true nature of the current Communist regime. The world will have to adapt to this increasingly dangerous reality.
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What the End of One Country, Two Systems Means for Hong Kong, Taiwan and the World
Rodger Baker
Rodger Baker
Senior VP of Strategic Analysis, Stratfor
4 MINS READ
May 26, 2020 | 22:06 GMT
HIGHLIGHTS
Beijing's decision to impose a long-delayed security law on Hong Kong reflects the mainland’s growing concern with challenges to national unity ahead of next year's 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. But it is more immediately driven by the rising violence in Hong Kong and the political evolution in...
Beijing's decision to impose a long-delayed security law on Hong Kong reflects the mainland’s growing concern with challenges to national unity ahead of next year's 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. But it is more immediately driven by the rising violence in Hong Kong and the political evolution in Taiwan. Despite international criticism, China will strengthen efforts to fully integrate Hong Kong and to further isolate Taiwan internationally.
The issues of Hong Kong and Taiwan are intimately linked for Beijing. Hong Kong was intended to be a model of effective unification under one country, two systems, to entice Taiwan to rejoin the motherland and bring to fruition the post-World War II rebuilding of China. But Hong Kong's integration has grown increasingly fractious over the past decade, and this has reinforced sentiment in Taiwan that reintegration with China would see a similar erosion of Taiwan's political and social structures.
With Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen's reelection in January, driven in part by the Hong Kong protests, Beijing is aware that there is little support left in Taiwan for reintegration with the mainland. Rather, Taiwanese politics now splits between pro-status quo and pro-independence ideas. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought Taiwan's international status back to the forefront, with countries from the United States to Australia arguing in favor of increasing Taiwanese participation in International forums like the World Health Organization, something strenuously objected to by Beijing.
The issues of Hong Kong and Taiwan are intimately linked for Beijing: Hong Kong was intended to be a model of effective unification to entice Taiwan to rejoin the motherland.
The 2019 protesters in Hong Kong rallied around five key demands, essentially insisting on self-determination for Hong Kong. This was clearly something on which Beijing would not yield. As protests continued, elements within the movement grew more violent, with some using improvised explosives, something Beijing fears Hong Kong security forces cannot fully manage. The combination of the college break and the social restrictions implemented due to the COVID-19 crisis eased the protests, but the Chinese National People's Congress' decision to take up the security law reignited them. While these protests were small, they demonstrated a growing willingness to challenge Hong Kong's restrictions on gatherings and foreshadowed another summer of regular protest activity leading up to legislative elections in September.
The security law was supposed to be something Hong Kong itself passed following the 1997 handover from the United Kingdom, but domestic opposition delayed concrete action. Beijing has now stepped in to provide the legal tools to counter separatism, terrorism or intentional economic upheaval. The law will also provide a mechanism for Chinese agencies to operate directly in Hong Kong. The timing coincides with a delayed vote in Hong Kong later this week on a bill that would outlaw parodying or disrespecting the Chinese national anthem, another measure generating ire among Hong Kong protesters.
In the past year, China has grown more assertive in its international diplomacy, lashing out at anything it considers a challenge to Chinese national unity or criticism of Chinese actions. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated already-tense exchanges between China and several Western countries, but despite criticism and threats of political and economic sanctions, Beijing remains undeterred. The 100th anniversary of the CCP is an important piece of China's narrative to reinforce Chinese nationalism and challenge what it sees as an outdated and unfair Western world order.
With rising international efforts to constrain China's economic and political rise, Beijing cannot allow Hong Kong, a Chinese city, to remain a challenge to central authority. The politics of one country, two systems no longer resonate, and leaving Hong Kong to its own devices no longer aids China's Taiwan policy. For Hong Kong, this means an acceleration of reintegration, and a more rapid erosion of special status — something that will likely trigger a further acceleration of corporate diversification or relocation from Hong Kong, challenging its status as a financial center. For Taiwan, it means increased economic and military pressure from the mainland. And for the world, it means China will use its political, economic and, if need be, military might to assert its sovereignty over its periphery, including Taiwan and the South China Sea.
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https://www.daybydaycartoon.com/comic/pacific-rim-job/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DayByDayCartoon+%28Day+by+Day+Cartoon+by+Chris+Muir%29
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Daily Memo:
U.S. boosts scrutiny of Chinese firms. The U.S. is taking steps to remove many Chinese firms from U.S. stock exchanges. On Thursday, the White House gave U.S. financial regulators two months to come up with recommendations for how to handle Chinese firms that refuse to comply with U.S. transparency requirements. Per Chinese law, Chinese firms listed on overseas exchanges effectively can’t comply; they’re required to hold their audit papers in China and forbidden from allowing foreign regulators to inspect them. For years, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been pushing Beijing to change its stance. But since so many high-profile Chinese firms are either state-owned or closely linked to the Chinese government or military, Beijing is loath to budge. While the high-profile Chinese companies Beijing wants to protect face a low risk of collapse, many of the listed companies are obscure, often-fraudulent operations that have teamed up with unscrupulous U.S. investment firms to exploit loopholes in U.S. securities regulations. And there’s a staggering amount of money tied up in these listings – upward of $1 trillion, by some estimates, or around 3.3 percent of U.S. equity market valuation – so a lack of compliance with accounting rules poses a systemic risk to the U.S. equity markets. As a result, last month, the U.S. Senate approved legislation that would de-list companies if they defy U.S. audit regulations for three consecutive years. And U.S. exchanges are making their own moves. NASDAQ has unveiled tighter restrictions on IPOs and suspended trading of China’s Luckin Coffee for a month on grounds (pun intended) that it had inflated revenues by more than $300 million. An inability to raise capital on U.S. exchanges is a problem for Chinese firms and thus the Chinese economy. But unless other foreign exchanges follow the U.S. lead on the matter, don’t expect Beijing to back down.
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https://www.patreon.com/posts/37571942
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China scholar Orville Schell on the death of engagement: "Without political reform and the promise of China transitioning to become more soluble in the existing world order, engagement no longer has a logic for the United States. Beijing’s inability to reform, evolve, and make the bilateral relationship more reciprocal, open and level finally rendered the policy inoperable. Because Xi Jinping viewed just such changes threatening his one-party rule, there came to be an irreconcilable contradiction at the heart of engagement that killed it.
https://www.thewirechina.com/2020/06/07/the-birth-life-and-death-of-engagement/
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A serious study of the relationship with every President since Nixon.
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As Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing and pro-democracy camps focus on winning legislative elections in September, the city will see protests -- and U.S. and Chinese reactions to the unrest -- kick into high gear....
A year after the city's extradition bill prompted more than a million people to take to the streets in June 2019, marking a watershed moment in last year's protests, Hong Kong's political crisis is heating up once again. The next three months in Hong Kong will see protests kick back into high gear as pro-Beijing and pro-democracy camps focus on winning Legislative Council elections planned for September. The central government in mainland China will fast-track its controversial national security laws ahead of the polls to increase control over protestors and politicians, while the regional Hong Kong government will work to fulfill its side of the legislation. The White House, meanwhile, will pressure China to ease back on its encroachment in Hong Kong by possibly stripping away the city's special tariff treatment, but will weigh carefully whether to escalate further to financial measures that would cripple Hong Kong's status as a business hub in a way that decreases U.S. influence.
On June 18, Hong Kong's COVID-19 social gathering restrictions will expire if not renewed, although the government will retain the powers to reimpose these restrictions until at least August 31.
In September, the Hong Kong Legislative Council's four-year term will also expire, requiring elections. Pro-Beijing lawmakers have held the majority in the body since the late 1990s and the pro-democracy camp is aiming for a majority, holding its own primary to streamline candidate lists July 11-12. The government has only tentatively set the election date, leaving room for a postponement.
Sources indicate that as early as August, China's National People's Congress Standing Committee will formulate and pass national security legislation for Hong Kong.
As the U.S. presidential election campaign season goes into full swing, China's global rise, the origins of COVID-19 and trade relations will also all become key U.S. foreign policy issues from now until November.
The Next Phase of Hong Kong's Political Crisis
Hong Kong's protests will heat up this summer as COVID-19 infection rates and control strategies ease, prompting both the pro-establishment and the pro-democracy camps to escalate confrontation ahead of the September elections. The likely lifting of COVID-19 restrictions will probably result in more frequent street clashes between protesters and police as pro-democracy supporters attempt to maintain protest momentum and public outrage to fuel voter support and turnout. Leaders will likely highlight actions by the central government and maintain staunch opposition to the legislature's pro-establishment agenda in order to underscore alleged central government overreach and complicity between the Hong Kong government and Beijing.
While mainstream leaders advocate moderate and peaceful actions, crackdowns by authorities and increasing frustration with unilateral action by Beijing will probably increase the use of radical tactics by pro-democracy fringe elements, increasing the level of violence beyond what occurred in 2019. Alternatively, if authorities try to extend COVID-19 gathering restrictions, or if new controls are necessary to combat a second wave of infections, it will likely be seen by activists as an attempt to use the pandemic to exert additional political control.
The Final Form Of China's Security Law
Beijing's controversial national security legislation, which bans secessionism, subversive activity, terrorism and foreign meddling, has yet to take shape. Potential developments that would mark a more significant shift in Hong Kong's special status and impact foreigners include:
If the new national security law includes a provision allowing for extradition to mainland China, raising the same risks as the now withdrawn 2019 extradition bill in terms of transgressions that could include business crimes.
If mainland Chinese agents are tasked with enforcing the law as opposed to Hong Kong police.
If police are granted the right to wiretap and search premises without a warrant.
If the new law bans subversion of not only the central government but also the Hong Kong government.
If the law encompasses bans of collaboration with non-political organizations, which could include foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
If the legislation is not enforced by Hong Kong's existing court system but requires recourse either to a specially set up a court or one with a curtailed pool of judges.
China will probably seek to quickly implement the national security legislation to empower Hong Kong authorities with a policy tool that allows Beijing to avoid heavy-handed intervention into city affairs, while regularizing mainland oversight of the city's internal affairs. China will also likely grant Hong Kong authorities additional tools to suppress protests and pro-democracy politicians. Beijing probably calculates that the enhanced penalties for protest-related violence, arrest and search powers, as well as potentially the ability to make arrests for alleged seditious or secessionist speech, will erode the pro-democracy camp's momentum.
Chinese officials may assess that the 2019 demonstrations and November district council elections demonstrated that pro-Beijing forces in Hong Kong cannot influence the action of elected Hong Kong institutions over the long term, leading China to propose the national security legislation to avoid having to deploy People's Armed Police Units.
Beijing contemplated such a military intervention throughout 2019, but avoided the move to prevent a strong global backlash that could jeopardize Hong Kong's status as an internal finance and business hub.
China's intervention and oversight over other elements of Hong Kong's internal affairs will also likely grow, shrinking the space for viable counter actions by the pro-democracy camp and spurring more desperate tactics. The new Beijing-imposed national security law could allow for more expansive powers in banning political candidates for a wide range of actions or foreign links. This would be a deepening of bans conducted during the 2016 election to weed out pro-independence figures — a move that would risk a major street backlash.
In 2019, Beijing reshuffled the Chinese officials in charge of Hong Kong affairs, bringing in effective hardliners closely aligned to President Xi Jinping. Since that time, Beijing's liaison office has increasingly asserted the right to openly comment on Hong Kong affairs, with city authorities interpreting its role as supervisory over "one country, two systems."
If the national security legislation extends its ban on secessionism and subversive activity to speech acts, it could also allow for more wholesale crackdowns on protesters and dissident speech, leading to more extreme and radical action by the fringe elements willing to defy authorities. Similarly, terrorism aspects of the bill could be broadly interpreted to encompass numerous acts by protesters.
Protesters Take Their Fight to the Polls
The leadup to the September elections will bring rising acrimony in the city, while an electoral win by the pro-democracy camp would open a period of increasing confrontations within the Hong Kong government that will lead to further efforts by Beijing to circumvent local policymakers. As these events play out within Hong Kong, the central government will be compelled to shape them into its narrative, while the United States will react to try to pressure in favor of the city's autonomy.
Within Hong Kong, the competing pro-establishment and pro-democracy camps will maneuver ahead of the election to secure public support and erode their opponents. The pro-establishment camp alternatively will focus on containing street unrest and demonstrating their effective oversight of the COVID-19 outbreak, while pursuing further fiscal stimulus and economic supports to assist with recovery. The pro-democracy camp will respond by finding opportunities to filibuster and hold the legislative agenda up with demands for concessions, banking on a repeat of the groundswell of support that delivered a landslide victory in November's district council elections. The pro-establishment camp will highlight the dangers of disruptive protests to the city's growth and will use any adverse U.S. actions to place blame on their pro-democracy adversaries. The legislative council will be less high stakes in some ways for the pro-establishment camp, given that in the event of a loss the pro-Beijing elements would still maintain a great deal of institutional power, with the chief executive candidate effectively controlled by Beijing.
The outcome of the election will be a key inflection point for the city, with several potential outcomes:
If pro-establishment forces lose out in the September elections, central government circumvention of the city's legislative council would become increasingly common as a means of reining in the city and integrating it more closely into the mainland. However, Beijing's allies will maintain the high ground in terms of the power balance in the city through the office of the chief executive, and the pro-democracy camp's approach will not be effective in stopping the gradual encroachment of mainland control.
For pro-democracy forces, a decisive win in the legislative council in September would give them another platform to air their concerns. However, in terms of tangible power, the body has limitations. This will lead to increasing acrimony in the city as the council potentially wields its power to veto budgets in order to force a confrontation with the chief executive. Afterward, there will be a period of two years before the 2022 chief executive election that will see increasing desperation by pro-democracy political forces.
If, by contrast, pro-establishment forces manage to maintain or gain ground in upcoming elections, Beijing will feel more comfortable easing back somewhat and relying instead on its allies in the city to forward its agenda.
Alternatively, if the COVID-19 situation justifies the decision and pro-democracy forces appear poised to sweep the polls, pro-Beijing authorities may delay the September elections altogether citing safety concerns, which would pave the way for a Beijing-appointed interim body. This would be a highly inflammatory action that would spark protest backlash so would only be done in extremity.
As Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing and pro-democracy camps focus on winning legislative elections in September, the city will see protests — and U.S. and Chinese reactions to the unrest — kick into high gear.
For China, the election will bring a key decision point in the broader trend of mainland-Hong Kong relations, and preserving the city's overall business value to the national economy. China's overall national strategy and internal issues will drive it to accelerate the integration of Hong Kong, but the city's continued key financial role in the country will compel a balance between these goals and economic interests. Several factors will drive Beijing to increase its grip on Hong Kong through its own institutions or allies in the city, if they can be relied on:
In Taiwan, a major loss for the more Beijing-friendly Kuomintang Party and the effective neutralization of the pro-unification wing of the political spectrum has increased pressure on Beijing to assert national unity by exerting authority in Hong Kong ahead of next year's hundredth anniversary of the Communist Party.
Within China, COVID-19's sustained economic damage and increased unemployment have eroded the Communist Party's legitimacy and will hinder 2020 growth substantially. One means of deflecting political repercussions will be to make progress on key national goals, including securing Hong Kong.
China, however, must still be mindful of eroding Hong Kong's unique economic status, even as it concentrates on tools to tamp down unrest. Although Hong Kong's importance to China has waned over the past two decades, there are no realistic alternatives to the full scope of what the city provides to businesses at this time. China will thus continue to rely on Hong Kong as a gateway for investment into the country amid the mainland's continued maintenance of capital controls and interventions in the city's financial sector, as well as its banking system.
Upwards of 60 percent of foreign direct investment flowed in and out of China through Hong Kong in 2018.
In 2019, Hong Kong also accounted for 48 percent of the money raised by Chinese companies in initial public offerings, and provided 25 percent of offshore U.S. dollar funding for Chinese businesses.
Caught in the U.S.'s Crosshairs
Internal Hong Kong-Beijing tensions will also drive U.S. decisions that could have an outsized impact on the city's long-term business hub status. As the U.S. presidential campaign season picks up ahead of the November election, the White House will use its Hong Kong policies as a means of highlighting its hardline push against China, and to pressure China to reconsider imposing greater security and policy control over Hong Kong. Electoral setbacks for the White House in terms of the economy, COVID-19 and domestic protests against police brutality will increase the White House's desire to focus on China as an electoral issue.
The United States is less likely to escalate to financial sector measures, such as limiting Hong Kong's access to dollars, sanctioning major Hong Kong or Chinese banks or invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Such moves would not only risk raising public ire against the pro-democracy camp in the city ahead of elections, but erode U.S. influence over the city that could then tangibly bite into the city's key economic sectors and status as a business hub. With no hope for Beijing to step back on its national security law, a U.S. reaction is likely to be one that limits damage to U.S. interests in ways that still creates pain for Beijing.
Washington could enact limited impact options to include extradition treatment changes, visa regulation shifts, a state department travel advisory as well as sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials — all of which will add complexity for businesses and individuals operating in Hong Kong.
Middle range options would bleed into the trade realm, including export controls, limits on dual-use technology or a full repeal of Hong Kong's special tariff status. While the tangible economic hit to Hong Kong would be relatively limited, removing the special tariff status would risk derailing the U.S.-China phase one trade deal and carry great weight in terms of symbolizing the erosion of the city as a key business hub.
On the most extreme end of the spectrum, Washington could roll out measures that would limit Hong Kong's access to U.S. dollars or even a nuclear option of using the IEEPA to block investment or transfer of funds to Chinese entities or persons.
To support its pressure campaign against China over Hong Kong, the United States will work to enlist its allies, most notably the United Kingdom given its status related to the 1997 handover agreement.
Regardless of U.S. actions over Hong Kong, U.S.-China tensions will still mount over issues such as COVID-19 blame, the South China Sea, Chinese tech giant Huawei, Taiwan, trade and human rights issues. Although others are available, Hong Kong's special tariff status is the biggest weapon currently at Washington's disposal to retaliate against Beijing over any of these issues, although others are available. International businesses are likely to face greater pressure to consider the long-term trends emerging in Hong Kong, as changing Chinese policy will likely mean that Hong Kong-based businesses and individuals will face risks similar to those seen inside of mainland China. Amid rising U.S.-China tensions over Hong Kong, American companies operating in the city or in mainland China, as well as British businesses or other allied countries, could face the risk
of Chinese retaliation for U.S. actions either overtly linked to Hong Kong or in a more indirect manner.
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China's Evolving Taiwan Policy: Disrupt, Isolate and Constrain
Rodger Baker
Rodger Baker
Senior VP of Strategic Analysis, Stratfor
10 MINS READ
Jun 11, 2020 | 17:44 GMT
A 3D rendering of eastern China and the island of Taiwan lit by city lights from space.
A 3D rendering of eastern China and the island of Taiwan lit by city lights from space.
(Anton Balazh/Shutterstock.com)
HIGHLIGHTS
For China's leadership, the unification of Taiwan is more than a symbol of the final success of the Chinese Communist Party or an emotional appeal to some historic image of a greater China. It is a strategic imperative driven both by Taiwan's strategic location, and by the rising antagonism between...
For China's leadership, the unification of Taiwan is more than a symbol of the final success of the Chinese Communist Party or an emotional appeal to some historic image of a greater China. It is a strategic imperative driven both by Taiwan's strategic location, and by the rising antagonism between the United States and China. Taiwan is the “unsinkable aircraft carrier” off the Chinese coastline, splitting China's near seas, and bridging the arc of islands stretching southwest from Japan with those from the Philippines south through Indonesia. Taiwan is crucial for both any foreign containment strategy, and for China's confidence and security in the East and South China seas — areas critical to China's national defense, food security and international trade.
China's Management of Taiwan
For decades, China has seen Taiwan reunification as an issue that can be delayed so long as Beijing could constrain the emergence of strong pro-independence forces. To achieve this, China has relied on a combination of tools, from conciliatory political and economic policies to more coercive military activities and international diplomatic isolation. For several years, particularly during the 2008-2016 administration of Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, China eased off its more overt coercive measures, and instead sought greater economic and social interactions with Taiwan. This was intended to tie the islands' economic status so tightly to the mainland that it would tamp down political sentiment that bucked the cooperative trend, and perhaps ultimately lead to a peaceful unification under a “one country, two systems” model.
But the election, and then re-election, of President Tsai Ing-Wen — combined with the resurgent power of her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which leans more pro-Taiwan than pro-unification, and the island's changing demographics — have effectively erased any lingering expectation of Taiwan giving up its sovereignty and willingly joining with the mainland. Tsai and the DPP reject the 1992 Consensus, an arrangement between Taiwan and China that they would agree there is only one China (though each was able to have their own interpretation of whether that was the current communist People's Republic of China or the past Nationalist Republic of China), thus forming the framework for cross-strait interactions. More recently, Beijing has stepped up its link between the 1992 Consensus and the “one country, two systems” concept, thus asserting that any consensus is a recognition that mainland Communist China is the only China. In this context, even the island's Kuomintang party has backed away from the 1992 Consensus amid increasing political pressure inside Taiwan.
With President Tsai calling for a committee to review Taiwan's constitution, and pursuing a more assertive policy to sign trade deals with Western powers and expand relations with Southeast Asian states, Beijing is concerned that Taiwan may be laying the groundwork to move from de facto to de jure independence, even if not immediately. Taiwan's apparent success in battling the COVID-19 pandemic, and the unfolding events in Hong Kong, are raising international sympathies for Taiwan at a time when Beijing is trying to tighten the island's political isolation. The United States' public recognition of Tsai's re-election and request for new arms sales, as well as its increased patrols in the South China Sea and through the Taiwan Strait, all point to a potential change in Taiwan's security and international status — and one that Beijing sees as a clear violation of its claimed sovereignty and a threat to its strategic security.
China's Taiwan Toolkits
China has five main toolkits it draws from for its Taiwanese policy: incentivize, disrupt, isolate, constrain and force. The first three (incentivize, disrupt and isolate) are largely a combination of economic and political tools, while the latter two (constrain and force) move more heavily into the military space. During Taiwan's previous administration under President Ma, China relied largely on the first tool (incentivize) while selectively drawing from the second two (disrupt and isolate).
But given the changes inside Taiwan, and in Taiwan's international ties, Beijing no longer sees the first as having much relevance, and is now shifting heavily toward the second two. At no time is China not using the fourth tool (constrain), shaping the future battlespace to limit Taiwan's options and ability to rely on external powers. The fifth, direct military action, is one Beijing wishes to avoid but sees as potentially necessary over the next decade due to the pace of change in Taiwan and shifting U.S. regional interactions.
1) Incentivize: Using primarily economic, social/cultural and political tools to encourage greater integration with the mainland to highlight the benefits of cooperation and eventual reunification. Examples include:
Offering economic benefits for Taiwanese companies operating in China.
Opening sectors of the Chinese economy to Taiwan, such as agricultural products.
Suspending “dollar diplomacy” competition between the Mainland and Taiwan.
Loosening opposition to Taiwanese presence in select international forums.
Encouraging tourism between Taiwan and the mainland.
Emphasizing Chinese cultural ties, and the strength of the Chinese market and economy.
2) Disrupt: Using economic, political and informational tools to disrupt social and political unity in Taiwan, and thus prevent the formation of a strong pro-independence bloc. Examples include:
Selectively applying regulations to Taiwanese business operations on the mainland.
Engaging in disinformation campaigns in Taiwan and countries sympathetic to Taiwan.
Carrying out cyber espionage and cyber attacks.
Adding complications to trade and tourism to create uncertainty, delays and economic loss.
Using military statements or exercises to create a sense of a less stable Taiwan.
3) Isolate: Reducing the “international space” for Taiwan to operate by influencing global organizations and foreign nations in ways that limit their interaction with Taiwan, or keep such interaction within tightly prescribed boundaries. Examples include:
Blocking Taiwanese participation in international forums, as it did in the recent World Health Assembly meeting.
Threatening or carrying out economic action against businesses from third-party countries that do not adhere to Chinese convention labeling Taiwan a province of the People's Republic, or that assist in Taiwan's defense.
Threatening or carrying out economic action against countries that either recognize Taiwan, or conduct political, economic or military actions that appear to support Taiwanese autonomy or independence.
Accelerate dollar diplomacy efforts to strip away Taiwan's remaining formal diplomatic ties.
4) Constrain: Shaping the physical environment around Taiwan and in China's near seas to increase Beijing's strategic posture vis-a-vis Taiwan, and increase the cost of intervention by foreign powers if China should shift to military action to coerce or conquer Taiwan. Examples include:
Increasing China's air, surface and subsurface maritime capabilities and reach.
Increasing missile range and deployments to raise the cost of foreign intervention in China's near seas.
Dominating key features in the South and East China seas and along strategic routes.
Weakening regional U.S. alliance structures through economic, political and military coercion and concessions.
Enhancing China's Marine Corps and military amphibious capabilities.
Increasing and regularizing Chinese naval operations in the waters around Taiwan.
5) Force: Using military force to isolate Taiwan from international economic and security connections, eroding Taiwan's governed space, disrupting or damaging critical Taiwanese infrastructure, degrading Taiwanese military capabilities, and/or (in the extreme) invading and occupying Taiwan. Examples include:
Disrupting key supply lines to Taiwan, including raw materials, machinery.
Conducting cyber attacks on Taiwanese government and critical infrastructure.
Naval blockade of Taiwanese ports.
Closing the Taiwan Strait and/or airspace around Taiwan.
Seizing outlying Taiwanese-controlled islands.
Selective missile/drone strikes.
Amphibious assault and occupation.
The Military Option
Although Beijing would prefer to avoid a military confrontation over Taiwan, it has never taken the military card off the table. The pace of China's military developments have far exceeded Taiwan's, and the balance has clearly tilted in favor of China, including even in several scenarios where the United States intervenes in a cross-strait conflict. But for Beijing, a potential victory in a military action to take Taiwan does not necessarily outbalance the numerous costs. An invasion risks not only jeopardizing Chinese soldiers and equipment, but prompting a global economic and political backlash.
Even If the United States was deterred from intervening in a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, Beijing would encounter a significant international economic and political response. And it is not clear a successful invasion would translate into a successful occupation, or the ability to capitalize on Taiwan's own economic capacity. So long as China retains some negative influence in Taiwan sufficient to deter active moves toward formal independence or foreign military occupation, it will likely delay direct military action.
That does not mean, however, that China is not actively preparing the battleground, both in the political realm to demonstrate the futility of Taiwanese independence, and as a concrete way to increase the likelihood of victory if there is a shift to open hostilities. This shaping takes several forms. First, China uses its economic heft to dissuade any significant foreign support for Taiwanese international space. Second, it similarly uses its political pressure to shape foreign companies and countries in their interaction with Taiwan. By isolating Taiwan diplomatically, China limits the strength of Taiwan, and reduces the potential for foreign intervention as Beijing shapes the physical environment.
Taiwan's apparent COVID-19 success and the unfolding events in Hong Kong are raising international sympathies for Taiwan at a time when Beijing is trying to broaden the island's political isolation.
It is the third component, the physical military space, that has been most notable in recent years. Beijing's construction and militarization of artificial islands in the South China Sea create a Chinese defensive ring around Taiwan, allowing China to interfere with key maritime routes foreign powers would take to intervene in cross-strait tensions. Expanding the Marine Corps, increasing the supply of amphibious ships, and stepping up the training cycle provides the conceptual force for occupying outlying Taiwanese islands and for an invasion force of the main island. China's developments of anti-ship missiles, including work on hypersonics, further increases the cost of intervention by foreign powers. At the same time the United States is sailing ships and flying aircraft to assert freedom of navigation around Taiwan, China is also honing its capacity to deny the water and airspace to foreign powers. China will match these efforts to shape the future battlespace with continued activities to spread disunity within Taiwan through economic, political and informational means.
A More Contentious Region
For now, it is unlikely that Taiwan will seek formal independence, despite the ruling DPP. Taiwan is, however, seeking a larger international environment and is reaching out to Europe, Southeast Asia and India for improved economic ties. Taiwan is also seeking the weapons systems necessary to increase its own ability to counter-strike should China invade, including the ability to strike into the mainland to increase the cost of any Chinese military action. While reunification is largely off the table in Taiwan, the island's strongest propensity is for a continuation of the status quo of de facto, rather than de jure, independence.
We can anticipate, then, that China will pursue a policy to disrupt, isolate and constrain Taiwan over the next few years, offering very few conciliatory incentives unless there are clear opportunities provided by political or economic dynamics in Taiwan. This will include shoring up the current artificial islands in the South China Sea that serve as forward basing and interdiction of key maritime routes (there are rumors of Beijing even considering the use of floating nuclear reactors to both reduce resupply problems and disincentivize foreign military action against these military outposts); deploying more anti-ship and anti-air missiles in and around China's near seas, including hypersonic missiles; increasing training for its carrier battle groups and marine corps amphibious operations; and using its civil maritime and aviation organizations to maintain a consistent presence in its claimed areas to demonstrate effective control. We may, at times, even see China experiment with various forms of loose blockades to disrupt foreign economic and security connections to Taiwan.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/united-states-philippines-defense-agreement-vital-containing-china/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202020-06-16&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
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https://www.judicialwatch.org/corruption-chronicles/u-s-medical-research-agency-fires-dozens-of-scientists-with-financial-ties-to-china/?utm_source=deployer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=corruption+chronicles&utm_term=members&utm_content=20200617230150
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16148/end-china-tech-empire
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Who could have seen THIS coming?
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/china-swallows-hong-kong/
Under the guise of protecting “national security,” the new law criminalizes as “subversion” and “terrorism” various expressions of protest and political dissent. It further endeavors to cut off Hong Kong’s support lines by criminalizing, as conspiracy to endanger national security, sundry exchanges with other countries and outside groups.
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Maritime maneuvering in the Indo-Pacific. During their annual summit on Saturday, Association of Southeast Asian Nations leaders jointly declared that the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, should be “the basis for determining sovereign rights, jurisdiction and legitimate interests over maritime zones” in disputed waters like the South China Sea. This may sound anodyne, but it’s notable that the risk-averse bloc, which in the past has repeatedly failed to show even token levels of unity on the South China Sea, is now backing UNCLOS. (The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in 2016 ruled that many of China’s sweeping maritime claims were not supported by the 1982 law.)
Meanwhile, the local government in Indonesia’s Natuna Islands (whose nearby oil-rich waters China claims) is openly calling for Australian investment and rejecting Chinese money. China is launching new maritime drills and new dredging operations around the disputed Paracel archipelago. U.S. anti-submarine aircraft have been spotted around Taiwan for eight consecutive days. Japan and India launched joint maritime drills. And the United States is reportedly mulling plans to open its training facilities in Guam to fighter pilots from fellow Quad members Japan, Australia and India.
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Beijing’s Big Bet in Hong Kong
The security law over Hong Kong raises the question of whether Beijing passed it from a position of strength or weakness.
By: Phillip Orchard
When Beijing retook control of Hong Kong from the British 23 years ago, the understanding was that Hong Kong would maintain a high degree of autonomy under the “one country, two systems” framework for a period of 50 years. On Tuesday, the Communist Party of China declared that that time was up. And it did so with striking ease. There was no bloody Tiananmen-style showdown between the army and pro-democracy protesters; no tanks inside Victoria Park. Beijing merely had its rubber-stamp legislature unanimously approve a sweeping national security law – one first announced just a month ago and never released for public comment – bypassing the Hong Kong legislature in violation of the city’s mini-constitution, known as the Basic Law.
The move presages a dramatic deterioration of political freedoms in Hong Kong. The security law, which will be enforced by separate courts and security forces effectively controlled by Beijing, is conspicuously broad, meaning things like peaceful pro-democracy protests, anti-CPC editorials and school curricula that don’t toe the party line could realistically be defined as “separatism, subversion, terrorism and foreign interference.” At minimum, uncertainty about how the law will be enforced will have a chilling effect on civil society in Hong Kong. Activists are already disbanding their organizations and bleaching their Twitter accounts. If China starts making full use of its powers, there’s not much anyone can do to stop it.
China, of course, could’ve done this years ago. The main reason it didn’t is that it benefits enormously from Hong Kong’s reputation as a stable, rule-of-law oriented financial hub – a reputation earned through the city’s autonomy and political freedoms. The national security law will undoubtedly undermine Hong Kong’s standing and capacity to facilitate the mainland’s financial needs, posing enormous risks to the already-teetering Chinese economy. But Beijing is betting heavily on its ability to mitigate risks and walk the line between eliminating political threats from the city without burning the whole system down. Already, there are some signs that the conventional wisdom is wrong, that the Hong Kong business community has been bluffing. And if it’s wrong – if squeamish foreign firms and banks flee, or if the move accelerates China’s financial decoupling with the West – the CPC appears to be willing to say: so be it.
Still Indispensable
Hong Kong’s economic importance to the mainland has steadily diminished since China began to open and reform its economy. In 1993, Hong Kong’s economy was equal to 27 percent of China’s gross domestic product. Today, it's less than 3 percent. Last year, the GDP of Shenzhen province alone surpassed that of Hong Kong. China is hardly an easy place to do business, but thousands of foreign firms and investors in the country have found ways to get fabulously wealthy without Hong Kong anyway.
Yet, Hong Kong is still indispensable in several ways, including as a transshipment hub for Chinese exports. Perhaps its most important role is as the mainland’s foremost gateway for foreign investment, as well as a place for mainland firms to raise dollar-denominated funding critical for expanding operations abroad. More than half of foreign direct investment into China in 2018 was routed through Hong Kong, and nearly half of projects on the mainland funded by overseas investment were tied to Hong Kong interests. The flows go both ways: The city facilitated more than 55 percent of outbound Chinese FDI in 2018, including the bulk of funding for Chinese Belt and Road Initiative projects. The same year, it was the largest offshore clearing center for yuan, with its banks facilitating a little more than 75 percent of the world’s yuan-denominated payments. Chinese firms on the Hong Kong exchanges now boast a total market capitalization of more than $3.4 trillion, or some 73 percent of the market total. This number will rise if/when the U.S. makes good on its threats to delist Chinese firms from its own exchanges.
Foreign firms have benefitted from Hong Kong's relatively impartial courts, independent regulators and central bank; free flows of information and modern fintech infrastructure made operations far less risky there than on the mainland. Foreign banks were happy to avoid mainland capital controls and party meddling. Chinese mainland firms gorged on access to dollars they couldn’t find as easily elsewhere, with the greenback-pegged Hong Kong dollar perfectly interchangeable in the West and Hong Kong’s sophisticated fintech infrastructure tightly integrated with those in London and New York. Hong Kong also enabled them to avoid some of the regulatory and geopolitical risks that would come with listings on Western exchanges.
Naturally, Beijing had been eager to assert its authority over the city with as light a touch as possible to avoid disrupting the status quo. In lieu of brute force, it tried to rely more on things like cooption of Hong Kong institutions such as the legislature, media and the police and its ability to capture the interests of the city’s business elite to the mainland. It occasionally reached across the border to snuff out perceived threats to mainland political stability, most famously with its 2015 kidnapping of Hong Kong booksellers and wayward tycoons, but otherwise it largely avoided trying to muzzle the pro-democracy movement altogether. Evidently, Beijing felt that the protests of the past year had made the status quo no longer tenable.
How the Law Could Backfire
The national security law may well address Beijing’s concerns about political threats to mainland stability. But it will be extraordinarily difficult for China to impose the sorts of tight social controls needed to truly squash dissent without harming its financial vitality. Can banks credibly claim to be able to protect the privacy of their clients if and when the CPC – which wants to prevent corrupt mainland figures from using Hong Kong as a haven for their assets – demand access to their books? Will financial analysts face prosecution if they publish an unflattering assessment of a Chinese state-owned enterprise? Can foreign firms expect a fair shake in court if seeking redress against a Chinese firm with suction among the CPC elite? Will Beijing feel compelled to bring down the great firewall around Hong Kong, cutting off free flows of information that are the lifeblood to the industry? What’s the risk of getting caught between Beijing and rival foreign governments like Washington, which is steadily ramping up pressure of its own over Hong Kong and threatening to deprive figures and institutions that support the law of access to critical U.S.-dominated financial networks?
So far, Hong Kong’s business community has been conspicuously supportive of the law. Even high-profile foreign institutions like the London-based Standard Chartered and HSBC – whose iconic headquarters in the city was designed as a monument of capitalism and has often served as a base for protesters – have thrown their weight behind it. To be sure, some are relieved by the prospect of returning to stability. Some, presumably, have good reason to fear the costs of openly opposing the CPC.
Beijing has reportedly warned foreign banks that they’ll lose access to lucrative mainland accounts if they cause a fuss.
Still, Beijing wants to give itself room to apply the law as it sees fit, and is therefore unlikely to carve out explicit exemptions for commercial sectors. This means uncertainty over exactly how Beijing will exercise its power will hang over the business community in Hong Kong indefinitely, regardless of how much it actually decides to use the law. The sense that politically motivated prosecution or even rendition is just a misstep or misunderstanding away won’t vanish even if Beijing tries to exercise restraint. And if seemingly random, politically motivated interpretations do become the norm, foreign banks and firms will increasingly look elsewhere. According to an AmCham survey released after the law was announced in May, some 40 percent of Hong Kong businesspeople polled said they were already considering pulling up stakes. Sixty percent said their operations would be negatively affected by the new law.
Beijing is going to great lengths to guard against certain risks. For example, Chinese financial regulators for the first time explicitly pledged to support Hong Kong’s currency if the city sees a surge of capital flight. Critically, Chinese money has steadily come to dominate the city, diminishing the risks, if only a little, of a foreign exodus. It's making halting but notable progress on reforms intended to make foreign institutions more comfortable operating in mainland centers like Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hainan. It’s gaining headway on efforts to reduce the country’s dependence on the dollar by, for example, setting up alternate systems to facilitate cross-border transactions and a digital currency that could facilitate foreign trade without access to dollars. China realizes that it’s still home to the world’s most valuable labor pool, its fastest-growing consumer base, and among its deepest wells of investment capital. It views the issue as similar to the question of how much longer foreign firms will be willing to depend on Chinese manufacturing and supply chains. So long as there’s money to be made in China, there’s good reason to believe that foreign firms will stomach a lot to keep their slice of the pie.
But China can’t eliminate all the risks of a major hit to Hong Kong’s value as a financial hub. With the Chinese economy – and, in particular, its banking sector and bevvy of private firms struggling to pay down dollar-denominated debts – already under immense stress thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, the consequences of even a modest hit to Hong Kong’s currency or credibility in foreign finance circles could carry major costs. This raises the question of whether Beijing is doing this out of weakness or strength. In other words, is it willingly taking on these risks because it thinks it has succeeded in making them manageable – and, by virtue of its relative success in handling the pandemic, making itself ever-more indispensable to the global economy and ever-more immune to U.S. pressure? Or because China's internal pressures turn concern about unrest spilling over from Hong Kong to the mainland into an existential fear? Or because it figures financial decoupling from the West and the accompanying capital flight were inevitable? Or merely because the protests have embarrassed Xi Jinping personally to the point where he had to act?
In truth, the answer is probably some mix of all of the above. China is strong and ambitious and yet contending with existential risks on seemingly every front. With Hong Kong, as with so many of its other woes, Beijing is stuck choosing between unsavory options. In these situations, its authoritarian impulse typically prevails. It leans on the only thing it really trusts – its own power – prioritizing control over capitalist efficiency, and figuring out the rest later.
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second post
https://www.theepochtimes.com/senators-introduce-new-bill-to-boost-us-production-of-semiconductors_3405360.html?ref=brief_News&__sta=vhg.qblkmhbwphzxphzemdsbg%7CVQJ&__stm_medium=email&__stm_source=smartech
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https://nypost.com/2020/07/06/us-increasing-naval-presence-in-south-china-sea-as-check-on-china/
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How Not to Punish China
Weaponizing the dollar to hurt Hong Kong would backfire on the U.S.
By The Editorial Board
July 8, 2020 7:05 pm ET
Washington is mulling a variety of ways to punish Beijing for violating Hong Kong’s autonomy. But one new idea should be off the table: weaponizing the U.S. dollar to undermine Hong Kong’s currency.
News reports Tuesday suggested some Administration officials are contemplating cutting off Hong Kong banks’ access to U.S. dollar funding. The aim would be to undermine the Hong Kong dollar, which since 1983 has been fixed to the U.S. dollar at a rate of about 7.8 Hong Kong dollars to $1.
That peg is a currency board, which means that every single Hong Kong dollar in circulation is backed by around 13 cents held in a vault at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. To maintain the system, the HKMA and banks must be able to freely buy and sell U.S. dollars as demand for Hong Kong dollars rises or falls. Unlike mainland China’s currency, the yuan, Hong Kong’s money is stable and freely convertible, and has been the backbone of the territory’s prosperity for decades.
That should be reason enough for the Trump Administration to leave the Hong Kong dollar alone. The victims of any disturbance to the currency board would be the people of Hong Kong, who are already suffering enough at Beijing’s hands. The United Kingdom and other countries recognize that one effective way to push back against Beijing’s imposition of a draconian security law is to allow Hong Kongers to emigrate. Washington can do its part by avoiding a crippling depreciation of the Hong Kong dollar that would wipe out emigres’ savings as they leave.
The bigger risk from such economic warfare is to the U.S. Washington derives enormous influence from the free convertibility of the greenback, which allows governments, institutions and individuals to use the dollar as a global reserve currency.
The dollar’s global reach is why financial sanctions bite countries such as Iran and North Korea on the relatively rare occasions Washington does cut off access to dollars. That influence also offers the Trump Administration better ways to impose financial penalties on Beijing, such as Magnitsky-style sanctions targeted at individual officials involved in human-rights abuses.
The more creatively Washington wants to think about how to hold Beijing accountable, the better. But the Administration should take care to play to American strengths rather than undermining them in the process. One of the biggest strengths is a fully convertible dollar.
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https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-04-03/chinas-coming-upheaval?utm_medium=newsletters&utm_source=summer_reads&utm_campaign=summer_reads_2020_actives&utm_content=20200712&utm_term=all-actives
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https://americanmilitarynews.com/2020/07/reports-us-to-officially-reject-chinas-south-china-sea-claims-for-the-first-time/?utm_source=breaking_email&utm_campaign=breaking_mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Master+List&utm_campaign=ba1d2f2c91-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_07_13_06_35&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9c4ef113e0-ba1d2f2c91-61658629&mc_cid=ba1d2f2c91
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What to Make of the U.S. Rejecting China's Claims in the South China Sea
3 MINS READ
Stratfor
Jul 14, 2020 | 16:31 GMT
HIGHLIGHTS
The United States' partial rejection of China's South China Sea claims will add to mounting tensions between the two countries, but will not alone derail their trade deal or upset the status quo of the contested waterway. This marks a shift from the previous U.S. approach of refraining from an official position on specific Chinese claims in the South China Sea, though Washington is still remaining partly neutral by not explicitly backing the overall maritime claims of countries contesting those of China. The waterway, however, will still be a growing site of U.S.-China competition, worsening the two countries' already fraught relationship troubled by Hong Kong, COVID-19, human rights issues and tech competition. ...
The United States' partial rejection of China's South China Sea claims will add to mounting tensions between the two countries, but will not alone derail their trade deal or upset the status quo of the contested waterway. On July 13, the U.S. State Department officially rejected China's "nine-dashed line" maritime claims in the South China Sea, affirming a 2016 ruling under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. Specifically, the United States stated:
China cannot assert an exclusive economic zone around the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal, and has no right to unilateral energy extraction in these areas.
China cannot harass Philippine vessels around the Philippines' Mischief Reef or Second Thomas Shoal.
The United States rejects any Chinese claims to waters beyond 12 nautical miles around the Spratly Islands.
China cannot claim the waters around Vanguard Bank near Vietnam, Luconia Shoals near Malaysia, Brunei's exclusive economic zone or Indonesia's Natuna Islands.
China's claims to the James Shoal near Malaysia are unlawful since the territory is submerged.
This marks a shift from the previous U.S. approach of refraining from an official position on specific Chinese claims in the South
China Sea, though Washington is still remaining partly neutral by not explicitly backing the overall maritime claims of countries contesting those of China. This somewhat aloof approach enables Washington to avoid alienating its regional partners, many of which have expansive claims in the South China Sea, including Taiwan and Vietnam. It also avoids setting a precedent for taking sides in maritime disputes further afield, such as those between allies Japan and South Korea. South China Sea claimants — which include the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei — do not want Washington's overt support either, given China's preeminent military position in the South China Sea and its role in their respective economies. A more ambiguous U.S. stance helps bolster their position without putting them in China's sights.
The rejection marks the first time Washington has taken an official position on specific Chinese claims in the South China Sea, adding to mounting U.S.-China tensions.
The waterway, however, will still be a growing site of U.S.-China competition, worsening the two countries' already fraught relationship troubled by Hong Kong, COVID-19, human rights issues and tech competition. The United States has been increasing the tempo of its naval operations in the Western Pacific in recent months, including a dual-carrier drill in the South China Sea and the expansion of facilities. Washington also plans to increase military spending in the region under the Pacific Deterrence Initiative.
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Daily Memo: Beijing's South China Sea Claims,
Weekly reviews of what's on our bookshelves.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Washington rejects Beijing's claims. On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expanded the U.S. condemnation of China’s expansion in the South China Sea, rejecting several Chinese claims in disputed waters beyond what was covered in the 2016 arbitral ruling in The Hague. That ruling invalidated several Chinese claims to reefs near the Philippines in the Spratly Archipelago. Pompeo said the U.S. would also regard as illegal Chinese harassment of fishing fleets or oil exploration in certain areas off the coast of Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Vietnam. This is a notable shift for the U.S., which has traditionally just encouraged regional states to work out their myriad disputes either bilaterally or at international arbitration courts. But China, of course, has not been deterred by international rulings like the 2016 decision, and has been steadily increasing its harassment of regional states over their oil exploration and fishing activities. Indeed, over the weekend, Vietnam lost another foreign partner helping it drill for oil off its southeastern coast.
The problem for the U.S., however, remains persistent doubts among regional partners about U.S. willingness or capability to go beyond rhetorical defenses of their interests. A U.S. move in May to deploy warships to waters off Malaysia to keep an eye on the Chinese coast guard was notable in this regard. The U.S. Navy has also gone to great lengths to demonstrate that the COVID-19 outbreaks that briefly sidelined several warships in April are ancient history; in recent weeks, it has moved three carrier groups into the Western Pacific, conducted a number of major exercises in the area and stepped up surveillance in waters off Taiwan. Setbacks haven’t stopped, though: A major fire that broke out Sunday aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard, a U.S. Wasp-class amphibious assault ship that was being upgraded in San Diego to accommodate the F35-B – exactly the sort of vessel the U.S. would need to do anything that actually deters Chinese expansion in the South China Sea – might just sideline the warship for good.
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The Truth About the US-China Thucydides Trap
By: George Friedman
We remember Thucydides as a historian thanks to his documentation of the Peloponnesian War, but we often forget that he was also a philosopher. And like all great philosophers, he has many things to teach us, even if his teaching is inappropriately applied. Thousands of years after the war was fought between Sparta and Athens, observers argued that it showed that an authoritarian government would defeat a democracy. This was widely said in the early stages of World War II and repeated throughout the Cold War. In truth, what Thucydides said about democracies and oppressive regimes was far more sophisticated and complex than a simplistic slogan invoked by defeatists.
Jacek Bartosiak, who wrote of the Thucydides trap for us last week, is never simplistic, but I think he is wrong in some respects. The error is the idea that China is a rising power. He is certainly correct if by rising he means it has surged since Mao Zedong died. But he is implying more: that China is rising to the point that it can even challenge the United States. The argument that the U.S. may overreact is based on this error. The U.S. is choosing to press China hard, but the risk of doing so is low.
The most important thing to understand about China is that its domestic market cannot financially absorb the product of China’s industrial plant. Yes, China has grown, but its growth has made it a hostage to its foreign customers. Nearly 20 percent of China’s gross domestic product is generated from exports, 5 percent of which are bought by its largest customer, the United States. Anything that could reduce China’s economy for the long term by about 20 percent is a desperate vulnerability. COVID-19 has hurt and will continue to hurt many countries. But for China, if international trade collapsed, internal declines in consumption would come on top of the loss of foreign markets.
China faces a non-military threat from the United States, which relies on exports to China for about half of 1 percent of its GDP. If the U.S. simply bought fewer Chinese products, Washington would damage China without firing a shot. If China is a rising power, it is rising on a very slippery slope without recourse to warfare.
But the United States has even more devastating options. China must have access to global markets, which depends overwhelmingly on the ports of its east coast. The South China Sea is therefore a frontier of particular interest for Beijing. The military problem is simple. To access the ocean, China must control the sea lanes through at least one (and preferably more) outlet. The United States does not need to control these lanes; it just needs to deny them to China. The difference is massive. The Chinese have to force the U.S. into deep retreat to secure access. The United States needs only to remain in position to fire cruise missiles or lay mines.
The U.S. Navy controls the Pacific from the Aleutians to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia, giving Washington an old and sophisticated alliance system that China cannot match. And though allies can drag a nation into conflicts it doesn’t want to be part of, having no allies deprives a nation of strategic options. If only one of China’s littoral nations allied with it, China’s strategic problem might be solved. The failure to recruit allies is an indicator of the regional appreciation of Chinese power and trustworthiness. Adding to China’s strategic problems is that it borders some countries such as Vietnam and India that are hostile to its interests.
Hypothetically, China could forge an alliance with Russia, a nearby power with which it shares some common competitors. The problem is that Russia’s focus must be on its west and on the Caucasus. It has no ground force it could lend to China, nor does it have a naval force that would be decisive in its Pacific operations. A simultaneous strike westward by Russia and eastward by China is superficially interesting, but it would not divide U.S. and allied forces enough to take the pressure off of China.
It’s true that China is a rising power, but as I said, it’s rising from the Maoist era. It has a significant military, but that military’s hands are tied until China eliminates its existential vulnerability: dependence on exports. Under these circumstances, the idea of initiating a war is farfetched. More than perhaps any country in the world, China cannot risk a breakdown in the global trading system. Doing so might hurt the U.S. but not existentially.
The United States has no interest in a war in the Western Pacific. Its current situation is satisfactory, and nothing is to be gained from initiating a conflict. The United States is not giving up the Pacific – it fought wars in Korea and Vietnam as well as World War II to keep it. The U.S. can’t invade mainland China or conquer it. It cannot expose its forces to massive Chinese ground forces. In this sense China is secure. China’s fear is maritime – isolation from world markets. And that possibility is there.
There is of course evidence of advanced Chinese systems being prepared and claims that the U.S. is losing its relative share of power. But this is one of the great defects of military analysis: counting the hardware. In the U.S. military, I have noted people rolling their eyes when they hear about the superweapons being produced. The closer you are to weapons development, the more you are aware of its shortcomings. Wars are won by experienced staff, brave and motivated forces, and factories that don’t screw up. Engineering is part of war but not its essence. The question for any military is not what equipment it has but how long it takes to jury-rig the breakdown. Technology matters, of course, but it is only decisive in the hands of those with deep experience of the battle to be fought. China lacks that. For all its hardware and technology, it has not fought a naval battle since 1895 (which it lost). China has no tradition of naval warfare to compare to its experience on land. And tradition and lessons passed down from generation to generation of admirals are extremely valuable. The United States has been in combat frequently, launching aircraft against land targets, conducting active anti-submarine searches and coordinating air defense systems for large fleets in combat conditions.
It's on this point that I disagree with Jacek. He submits that China is rising, with a particular focus on a technological prowess with which the U.S. is not keeping pace. Maybe that’s true. But the U.S. is still the superior power. It has an economic superiority, a geographic superiority, a political superiority in alliances, and a superiority of experience not only at sea but in air and space. Technology can only offset those deficiencies so much.
So I think the Thucydides concept, while valid, doesn’t apply to this case. China is not pressing the United States in any dimension, and for this reason, American rhetoric is not matched by the frenzied production the U.S. puts in motion when it is concerned.
And so Jacek and I will continue to duel.
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Fourth
The Thucydides Trap and the Rise and Fall of Great Powers
A theory used to explain the Peloponnesian War can also be applied to the growing tensions between the U.S. and China.
By Jacek Bartosiak -July 8, 2020Open as PDF
Roughly 2,400 years ago, Thucydides, a Greek historian and author of “History of the Peloponnesian War,” expressed a view that resonates in strategic thinking to this day. He argued that the real cause of the Peloponnesian War was the rapid increase in the power of Athens and the fear this aroused in Sparta, which had dominated Greece thus far. Author Graham Allison used this concept in his book “Destined for War,” in which he described the relationship between the U.S. and China as an example of the “Thucydides trap” – the idea that the decline of a dominant power and the rise of a competing power makes war between the two inevitable.
Thucydides focused his writings and analysis on the structural tensions caused by a sharp change in the balance of power between rivals. He pointed to two main factors that contribute to this change: the aspiring power’s growing need for validation and its demand, either implicit or explicit, for a greater voice and strategic place in multilateral relations; and the current power’s fear and determination to defend the status quo.
In the fifth century B.C., Athens emerged as a powerful force that in mere decades had become a merchant maritime power, possessing financial resources and wealth but also reaching primacy in the Greek world in the fields of philosophy, history, literature, art, architecture and beyond. This irritated the Spartans, whose state had been the dominant land power in Greece throughout the preceding century.
As Thucydides argued, Athens’ behavior was understandable. With its rising power, its confidence also increased, as did its awareness of past injustices and determination to right the wrongs that were committed against it. Equally natural, according to Thucydides, was the behavior of Sparta, which interpreted Athens’ behavior as ungrateful and a threat to the system that Sparta had created and under which Athens was able to emerge as a great power. This combination of factors resulted in structural tensions and, subsequently, a war that devastated Greece.
In addition to the objective shift in the balance of power, Thucydides drew attention to Spartan and Athenian leaders’ perception of the situation, which led to an attempt to increase their own power through alliances with other countries in the hope of gaining a strategic advantage over their rival.
The lesson that Thucydides taught us, however, is that alliances are a double-edged sword. When a local conflict between Kerkyra (Corfu) and Corinth broke out, Sparta felt that, to maintain the balance, it needed to help its vassal, Corinth. The Peloponnesian War began when Athens came to Kerkyra’s defense after Kerkyra leaders convinced the Athenians that a de facto war with Sparta was already underway. Corinth also convinced the Spartans that, if they did not attack Attica, they would be attacked by Athens themselves. Corinth accused the Spartans of misunderstanding the gravity of the threat to maintaining a favorable balance of power in Greece. Although Sparta ultimately won the Peloponnesian War, both Athens and Sparta came out of the 30-year conflict in ruins.
Peloponnesian War Allies
(click to enlarge)
The Thucydides trap, which many now call a “security dilemma,” can also be seen in the context of U.S.-Chinese relations.
The United States is concerned about China’s growing economic power and military capabilities, believing that it could challenge the primacy of the U.S. and the existing security architecture in the Western Pacific and East Asia. China, meanwhile, is concerned that, so long as the Americans are present in this part of the world, they will limit the legitimate growth of Chinese power and influence.
Political scientist Joseph Nye believes that the key trigger in the Thucydides trap is an excessive reaction to the fear of losing one’s power status and prospects for future development. In the case of Washington and Beijing, the relative decline of America’s power and the rapid rise of China’s power destabilizes their relationship and makes it difficult to manage. Gen. Martin Dempsey, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Armed Forces, even admitted in May 2012 that his primary task was to ensure that the United States did not fall into the Thucydides trap.
As a result of the slow but noticeable erosion of the U.S. position in the Western Pacific, it is highly conceivable that a scenario could emerge in which the current hegemon is tempted to conduct a strategic counteroffensive in response to an incident, even a trivial one, in the South China Sea or East China Sea, believing falsely that it has the edge over its inferior rival. This would trigger a modern Thucydides trap.
An in-depth reading of Thucydides’ work reveals a second trap, even more complex and dangerous than the first. Thucydides clearly warned that neither Sparta nor Athens wanted war. But their allies and vassal states managed to convince them that war was inevitable anyway, which meant that both city-states would need to gain a decisive advantage at an early stage of the escalating confrontation. Thus, they decided to enter the war after being urged to do so by their vassal states.
According to research conducted in 2015 by a team led by Graham Allison at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, 12 out of 16 historical cases spanning the past 500 years and with similarities to those described above by Thucydides ended in a war of domination. Releasing the competitive tension, if that was even possible, always required huge and often painful adjustments to one’s expectations, status and international position.
As Allison recalls, eight years before the outbreak of World War I, British King Edward VII asked the British prime minister why there was disagreement with his nephew, German Emperor Wilhelm II, when the real threat to the British Empire was the United States. The prime minister asked for an appropriate response in the form of a memorandum from the head of the Foreign Office, Eyre Crowe.
The memorandum, delivered to the king on New Year’s Day 1907, was, as Allison writes, “a diamond in the annals of diplomacy.” The logic within it was truly consistent with Thucydides’ own: The key to understanding the German threat was understanding Germany’s ability, over time, to deploy not only the strongest army on the Continent but also the strongest fleet, given the growing strength of the German economy and Germany’s proximity to Britain. Thus, regardless of German intentions, Germany would pose an existential threat to Britain, its maritime power and the security of communication routes connecting the metropolis with the colonies that represented the backbone of the empire.
Three years later, both U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and the German emperor attended Edward’s funeral. Roosevelt, himself a keen supporter of the expansion of the American fleet, asked the emperor whether Germany would give up building a large fleet. The emperor said Germany was determined to have a powerful fleet, and added that he grew up in England, felt part English himself and believed that war was unthinkable.
At that time, in 1910, world war seemed as impossible as it does now. But it turns out that cultural, spiritual, ideological and even family ties, as well as economic interdependence and the global trading system, are not enough to prevent conflict. Both then and now.
To learn more, please visit strategyandfuture.org.
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Jacek Bartosiak
Jacek Bartosiak
https://geopoliticalfutures.com/author/jbartosiak/
Jacek Bartosiak is an expert in geopolitics and geostrategy and a senior analyst with Geopolitical Futures. He is founder and owner of Strategy & Future. Dr. Bartosiak is the author of three books: Pacific and Eurasia: About the war (2016), dealing with the upcoming rivalry of great powers in Eurasia and about the potential war in the western Pacific; The Commonwealth between land and sea: On war and peace (2018), on the geostrategic situation of Poland and Europe in the era of rivalry between powers in Eurasia; and The Past is a Prologue on geopolitical changes in the modern world. In addition he is Director of the War Games and Simulation Program of the Pulaski Foundation; Senior Fellow at The Potomac Foundation in Washington, co-founder of "Play of Battle", which prepares military simulations; associate of the New Confederation and the New Generation Warfare Center in Washington; member of the advisory team of the Government Plenipotentiary for Central Communication Port (2017-2018), president of the board of the company Centralny Port Komunikacyjny Sp. z o. o. (2018–2019). Dr. Bartosiak speaks at conferences on the strategic situation in Central and Eastern Europe, The Western Pacific and Asia. He graduated from the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Warsaw, and is a managing partner at a law firm dealing with business services since 2004.
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Rule of Law in the South China Sea
The State Department finally declares Beijing’s claims unlawful.
By The Editorial Board
July 13, 2020 7:11 pm ET
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The U.S. Navy flagship America-class amphibious assault ship USS America during routine patrol in the South China Sea, April 20.
PHOTO: JONATHAN BERLIER/U.S. NAVY/ZUMA PRESS
In the last decade China has intensified its efforts to exert military control over the South China Sea, the vital waterway also claimed in part by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and others. While the U.S. has sent warships on freedom of navigation exercises, it has remained formally neutral on these maritime disputes.
No longer. In a statement released Monday, the State Department declared that “Beijing’s claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea are completely unlawful.” In 2016 the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague said as much, but China ignored it and accelerated its militarization. The State Department document for the first time embraces that ruling and says, “The world will not allow Beijing to treat the South China Sea as its maritime empire.”
During the pandemic Chinese vessels have tailed Malaysian oil-exploration boats and rammed a Vietnamese fishing boat. Beijing wants to repudiate international norms and control commercial activity in the region. This month the U.S. sent two aircraft carriers to the South China Sea, prompting a state media outlet to tweet that “China has a wide selection of anti-aircraft carrier weapons” and “any US #aircraftcarrier movement in the region is at the pleasure” of the Chinese military.
Beijing has probably concluded that it can gradually tighten its grip on the South China Sea and, while the U.S. might complain and occasionally send naval assets passing through, its hegemony won’t be challenged. Monday’s State Department decision, along with shows of military force, signals that the U.S. may be toughening its strategy against Chinese regional bullying.
This is one of those Trump-era diplomatic moves—like moving the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem or pulling out of failing arms accords—that a more risk-averse Administration would not have tried. China won’t be happy. Yet the decision brings official U.S. policy in line with international law and geopolitical facts. No matter who wins the White House this year, a key priority of U.S. foreign policy in 2021 will be deterring Chinese lawlessness and expansion. This is a necessary first step.
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sixth
A Way to Curb Chinese Intimidation
Congress kept companies from cooperating with the Arab boycott of Israel. It can follow that model now.
By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Anastasia Lin
July 13, 2020 6:49 pm ET
WSJ
Facebook, FB 0.3054393305439331% Google and Twitter TWTR 1.6558249556475457% announced this month that they will refuse to comply with customer-information requests from Hong Kong authorities until the companies review the implications of a new Chinese security law designed to suppress dissent in the territory. If the tech companies don’t cave in, it will be a rare instance of Western businesses standing firm against Beijing’s intimidation.
Corporations typically kowtow, fearful of losing access to China’s massive market. International airlines, including American, Delta and United, changed their websites so that Taipei isn’t listed as being in Taiwan. The general manager of the National Basketball Association’s Houston Rockets apologized for tweeting an image that read “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.” Mercedes-Benz DMLRY 2.420135527589545% apologized for an English-language Instagram post that included an innocuous quote from the Dalai Lama. The Big Four accounting firms issued statements criticizing Hong Kong protests after some of their employees took out an ad supporting them.
Using its economic power to pressure Western corporations is a key element of Chinese statecraft. The Communist Party keenly appreciates that Western entities are far more credible than Chinese government or media. China scrutinizes statements by Western companies, focuses on those that are even mildly critical of its behavior, and threatens them on social media with economic retaliation and blacklisting.
Such threats often appear to emanate from private Chinese citizens. But given the government’s heavy censorship of Chinese social-media platforms, they inevitably bear the party’s imprimatur. Moreover, the Chinese government almost always backs up the statements attributed to its citizens, waging a joint campaign, so that the language of these “private” complaints tracks Communist Party propaganda.
Beijing also attempts to suppress authentic Chinese voices critical of its human-rights abuses. One of us (Ms. Lin) represented Canada in the Miss World 2016 finals in Washington. The London-based Miss World Organization—most of whose sponsors are Chinese companies—isolated her from the media during the pageant and threatened to disqualify her after she was seen speaking informally to a Boston Globe columnist. The ban on her contact with journalists was ameliorated only after intense public pressure.
It’s too much to expect corporations, whose objective is to make money for shareholders, to take a lonely stand against a government that controls access to a major market. But U.S. lawmakers could stiffen corporate spines. In response to the Arab League boycott of Israel, Congress in 1977 made it illegal for U.S. companies to cooperate with any unsanctioned foreign boycott and imposed civil and criminal penalties against violators. That legislation and the implementing regulations “have the effect of preventing U.S. firms from being used to implement foreign policies of other nations which run counter to U.S. policy,” according to the Commerce Department.
Antiboycott regulations forbid U.S. companies to “agree” to eschew doing business in Israel or with a company already blacklisted by the Arab League, or to cooperate with the boycott’s enforcement by providing information about business relationships with Israel or blacklisted companies. All requests for such cooperation must be reported to the Commerce Department. The regulations presume that any action taken in response to boycott-related requests violates the law. It isn’t sufficient to claim that one’s boycott-related speech or activity is based on one’s own views.
These regulations survived legal challenges from companies that claimed violations of their First Amendment right to free speech. Federal courts upheld the rules as narrowly tailored restrictions on commercial speech driven by a compelling government interest. American companies eventually grasped that the rules protected them from foreign pressure. In time, antiboycott compliance became part of American corporate culture and didn’t require much enforcement.
Beijing’s efforts to force American companies to support and comply with its propaganda and deception campaigns and furnish information on Chinese dissidents are similarly inimical to vital American interests. Preventing Western companies from participating in Chinese propaganda campaigns would diminish China’s soft power and impair its ability to use economic blackmail as a tool of statecraft.
Congress should enact legislation prohibiting American companies, as well as foreign entities doing business in the U.S., from cooperating with any Chinese effort to enlist them for propaganda or furnish information on dissidents. In particular, they would be barred from changing their public statements and social-media presence in response to Chinese pressure or from taking other steps to placate Beijing, whether its demands are communicated directly or indirectly. Any such Chinese demands would have to be reported to the U.S. government.
With most Americans—91%, according to a March Pew Research Center report—agreeing that Beijing threatens American interests, such legislation should be able to win bipartisan support. It would also be constitutionally defensible as a narrowly tailored regulation of commercial speech supported by a compelling government interest—countering Beijing’s push for global dominance.
The goal would not be to prevent companies from speaking, or to compel their speech, on China-related issues. They could not, however, legally comply with Chinese government attempts to direct their speech. Like the antiboycott laws, such a statute would protect Western companies, enabling them to tell Beijing that they are unable to comply with its demands. The U.S. can’t stop Chinese state institutions from spreading propaganda, but it can use the law to shield Western companies from the Communist Party’s intimidation.
Mr. Rivkin practices appellate and constitutional law in Washington. He served in the White House Counsel’s Office and Justice Department under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Ms. Lin, an actress, was Miss World Canada 2015 and 2016. She is the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s ambassador for China policy and a senior fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. She is the wife of James Taranto, the Journal’s editorial features editor.
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Trump Carefully Continues to Increase Pressure on China in Hong Kong
3 MINS READ
Jul 15, 2020 | 20:33 GMT
HIGHLIGHTS
Despite growing bipartisan pressure among U.S. legislators to take more aggressive action against China, the White House's latest actions in Hong Kong indicate the administration still seeks to avoid any moves that could substantively damage the city's status as an economic hub or jeopardize the U.S.-China phase one trade deal. On July 14, U.S. President Donald Trump announced the issuing of an executive order invoking the United States-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992 to certify the city no longer warrants autonomous treatment under U.S. law, as well as the signing of the Hong Kong Autonomy Act (HKAA) into law. These two actions mark another step in the incremental escalation of U.S. pressure on China over its implementation of a severe new national security law in the city but still fall short of more extreme moves Washington could take, reflecting a still cautious White House strategy. ...
Despite growing bipartisan pressure among U.S. legislators to take more aggressive action against China, the White House's latest actions in Hong Kong indicate the administration still seeks to avoid any moves that could substantively damage the city's status as an economic hub or jeopardize the U.S.-China phase one trade deal. On July 14, U.S. President Donald Trump announced the issuing of an executive order invoking the United States-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992 to certify the city no longer warrants autonomous treatment under U.S. law, as well as the signing of the Hong Kong Autonomy Act (HKAA) into law. These two actions mark another step in the incremental escalation of U.S. pressure on China over its implementation of a severe new national security law in the city but still fall short of more extreme moves Washington could take, reflecting a still cautious White House strategy.
Trump's executive order falls short of imposing a significant penalty on Hong Kong or Beijing that would provoke an escalatory response from China, likely to preserve some strategic aspects of his administration's bilateral relationship with Beijing. The order specifically applies to U.S. tariffs on Hong Kong's exports on par with China, eliminates Hong Kong passport holders' preferential treatment, suspends the extradition treaty with the city, ends U.S. arms sales to and the training of Hong Kong police, and opens up the United States further to Hong Kong asylum seekers.
The application of China-level U.S. tariffs to Hong Kong would hit about $1.77 billion in the city's domestic exports to the United States, which is around 2 percent of its manufacturing production and 0.1 percent of total exports.
The Hong Kong extradition treaty has only been used twice between 2015 and 2018, with five U.S. requests rejected. In terms of the passport status change, the application process and duration for mainlanders and Hong Kongers is currently almost identical.
Leaks indicate that the Hong Kong police will be able to easily replace equipment that they have been receiving from the United States with other suppliers.
The U.S. measures on Hong Kong have not yet targeted the city's vital services sector, particularly its financial sector. On July 14, White House leaks emerged indicating that the administration decided against measures that would undermine Hong Kong's crucial peg to the U.S. dollar.
The signing of the Hong Kong Autonomy Act also demonstrates that the administration maintains broad latitude in terms of how to shape sanctions in light of its broader China strategy. The law does set the stage for potential sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials over the erosion of the city's autonomy, with the potential for foreign financial institutions that transact with them to be hit as well.
On July 14, the White House issued a statement clarifying that it interprets the section of the act that places some requirements on the president if he declines to sanction an individual or entity as "advisory and non-binding.”
Although the bill moved quickly through both houses of Congress after it was introduced in May, the Trump administration reportedly slowed its passage to impose revisions that would grant the U.S. Department of Treasury greater control over sanctions targets, suggesting an intention to more carefully tailor sanctions.
The new U.S. sanctions against China's Uighur crackdown in Xinjiang, along with the and the U.S. State Department's recent rejection of China's South China Sea territorial claims, have also fallen short of measures that would derail U.S.-China relations.
TO READ THE FULL A
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In the South China Sea, Washington Tries to Balance Support and Entanglement
Rodger Baker
Rodger Baker
Senior VP of Strategic Analysis, Stratfor
8 MINS READJul 17, 2020 | 09:30 GMT
Mischief Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands on April 21, 2017.
Mischief Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands on April 21, 2017.
(TED ALJIBE/AFP via Getty Images)
HIGHLIGHTS
Washington continues to walk a delicate balance between supporting its allies and partners in the region and avoiding entanglement in regional territorial conflicts.
So long as U.S. policy remains largely reactive to China, rather than proactive in defining and shaping the region toward a particular goal, its behavior will remain difficult for partners and allies to anticipate.
Now that the State Department has issued a new position statement, China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nation states will be watching closely to see just how far the words translate into action.
In the recently released U.S. Position on Maritime Claims in the South China Sea, Washington continues to walk a delicate balance between supporting its allies and partners in the region and avoiding entanglement in regional territorial conflicts. The test will come when the United States is called to act upon its more clearly articulated position on Chinese expansionist behavior.
The United States asserts a "free and open Indo-Pacific" as a key component of its national security strategy and has long argued that China's so-called nine-dash-line and its actions to exert greater influence over the South China Sea are anathema to global norms, regional stability and U.S. interests. The new Position on Maritime Claims is one piece amid this larger puzzle.
Over the past few years, the U.S. Navy has increased its freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea. Washington has affirmed that the South China Sea region falls within the U.S. mutual defense treaty with the Philippines (similar to earlier statements regarding Japan and the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands). The United States has encouraged joint training and patrols throughout the region. And the 60th annual National Defense Authorization Act sets aside up to nearly $7 billion in fiscal years 2021 and 2022 for a new Pacific Deterrence Initiative aimed to increase U.S. activities and cooperation in the region and counter Chinese expansion.
Parsing the U.S. Statement
Four years after the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled that there was no legal basis to China's so-called nine-dash-line territorial assertions and that no feature in the Spratly Islands meets the definition of an island (and thus none can serve as the basis of a 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone), the U.S. State Department issued the U.S. Position on Maritime Claims in the South China Sea. In many ways, the new statement merely reiterates often-asserted U.S. views. But given the timing and the shifting regional and international context, the statement serves as a key component of a broader U.S. reassertion of its role in the Western Pacific.
a map of territorial claims in the South China Sea
While continuing to avoid taking sides in legitimate territorial disputes, the United States asserted that many of China's claims are invalid under the tribunal's ruling and the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. In this way, Washington recognized Philippine sovereignty over Mischief Reef and Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratlys, and over Scarborough Reef (better known as Scarborough Shoal). China currently occupies Mischief Reef and patrols Scarborough Shoal, while the Philippines occupies Second Thomas Shoal.
Washington has long tried to avoid choosing sides in regional maritime territorial disputes. In part, this helped keep the United States from being drawn into a confrontation with China by an ally, whether the Philippines in the South China Sea over the Spratly Islands or Japan in the East China Sea over the Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute. But it also helped the United States avoid getting tangled in disputes between partners and allies, such as South Korea's and Japan's conflicting claims to Dokdo/Takeshima, or the many overlapping claims among Southeast Asian states in the South China Sea. The new statement marks an evolution of the U.S. position on territoriality in the region, and may set Washington up for more direct responses to any future Chinese action on disputed islets or waters.
The United States also asserted that because the nine-dash-line is invalid, it considers Chinese harassment of offshore oil and gas exploration and fishing by Southeast Asian nations both illegal. The statement specifically cited Vanguard Bank — a series of undersea features, several with Vietnamese outposts — around which Vietnam suspended oil and gas drilling operations due to aggressive Chinese actions and threats. It also highlighted Luconia Shoals, inside Malaysia's EEZ, where Chinese coast guard vessels patrolled for hundreds of days last year. And it cited Natuna Besar, an island in Indonesia's Natuna Sea where Chinese fishing vessels with coast guard escorts intruded into the waters in late 2019 and early 2020 in assertion of China's "historical" fishing grounds.
The final focal point of the Position on Maritime Claims centers on James Shoal, an undersea feature inside Malaysia's EEZ that Beijing frequently touts as the southernmost point of China. China's claim to the shoal has been traced to faulty maps and misinterpretations of maritime features. But it nonetheless serves as a key location in China's broader regional claims based on a mix of so-called historical fishing grounds, select interpretations of historical claims and occasionally on modern law. The statement points out, however, that undersea features like James Shoal do not form the basis for maritime claims under international law.
Rebuilding Trust
The selection of these specific features in the U.S. statement is intentional. It highlights each counterclaimant (Brunei's EEZ is also mentioned), and shows different ways China asserts its dominance in the South China Sea: namely, occupation and artificial island building, coast guard and militia patrols, interfering with other nations' offshore resource development, and using its fishing fleets as a tool of state policy and territorial assertion. The attention to the Philippines reflects the need to reestablish trust in U.S. reliability as a partner, particularly as President Rodrigo Duterte's shift to China was in part justified by the lack of U.S. assistance to stop China from occupying islets in the South China Sea while U.S. defense cooperation weakened Manila's access to Chinese trade and investment.
For the United States, rebuilding trust with Asian partners and allies will be critical given how the region has long been torn between Chinese economic ties and U.S. security ties. A main challenge the United States must overcome is the perception that its regional policy is largely reactive. In short, the United States appears to be responding to China's expansion, but doesn't necessarily have any U.S.-specific set of goals aside from blocking China from altering the status quo. China is a large and economically important neighbor, a critical source of trade and investment. In a region where infrastructure development, investment and creating economic opportunities for growing populations is a daily challenge for local governments, simply being anti-China is not only insufficient, it is counterproductive.
Testing U.S. Commitment
Three areas will shape regional assessments of U.S. commitment and leadership moving forward. The first is economics. Is the United States willing to increase its loans, investments and trade with Southeast Asia to assist in infrastructure development projects, and at a competitive rate with China? Cooperative efforts, for example with Japan, Australia and India, may partially fulfill this need, but even with a renewed focus on the Western Pacific, there is unlikely to be an Asian Marshall Plan that facilitates a surge of regional development and growth. Meanwhile, the post-COVID economic situation will make investment and assistance even more critical in supporting regional governments.
Direct military intervention, even if just through a show of force, raises the stakes in the overall U.S.-China military relationship.
The second is in cooperation and training. How willing is the United States to increase defense training, arms sales and technology transfers? In the case of Vietnam, for example, the United States has already begun supplying coastal patrol vessels and stepped-up port visits. Despite political differences, the Philippines remains a central focus of U.S. military joint training. And again, U.S. partners such as Japan and the United Kingdom may be taking a more active role in strengthening regional maritime capabilities. Paired with local capacity building, the United States will also continue on its trend of a notable presence in the region, including everything from Freedom of Navigation Operations to strategic aviation flights to bilateral to multilateral exercises.
The final and most difficult test, however, will come when China continues along its current path in the region and seeks to interfere with regional offshore oil operations, declares an air defense identification zone over the South China Sea, chases off neighboring fishing vessels or begins occupying another reef such as Scarborough Shoal. Thus far, China has patrolled the shoal and interfered with Philippine fishing vessels gaining access to the waters around the shoal and the safe waters in its lagoon. Should Beijing begin to physically occupy the shoal or begin land reclamation operations as it has elsewhere, the United States would be forced either to demonstrate its strong commitment to blocking the action or once again allow China to occupy territory unhindered.
Though the United States clearly states such activities would be illegal, its defense agreement with the Philippines may only come into effect if the Philippine military comes under threat during a Chinese operation. The United States could resort to diplomatic and economic tools, from statements in the United Nations to sanctions against Chinese companies or officials engaged in further land reclamation inside the Philippine EEZ, but it is unclear whether that would be sufficient to reassure Manila or its neighbors of U.S. commitment.
Direct military intervention, even if just through a show of force, raises the stakes in the overall U.S.-China military relationship. Failing to do so risks U.S. reputation. So long as U.S. policy remains largely reactive to China, rather than proactive in defining and shaping the region toward a particular goal, its behavior will remain difficult for partners and allies to anticipate. Now that the State Department has issued the new position statement, China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nation states will be watching closely to see just how far the words translate into action.
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https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/07/us-out-position-indo-pacific-region/166964/?oref=defenseone_today_nl
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/houston-police-respond-suspected-document-burning-chinese-consulate
We hope.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/houston-police-respond-suspected-document-burning-chinese-consulate
We hope.
I see a scenario where the 3 Gorges collapses, the PRC blames Taiwan and/or US and launches strikes on Taiwan and/or US.
It's 2020, why not?
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https://www.9news.com.au/national/australian-navy-joins-us-and-japan-in-philippine-sea-military-exercises/2cbe24f8-d9ed-4bfe-ba92-18083adb8c4b?ocid=Social-9News
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second post
https://www.foxnews.com/media/why-american-companies-ceos-chinas-uighur-human-rights-abuses
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https://www.9news.com.au/national/australian-navy-joins-us-and-japan-in-philippine-sea-military-exercises/2cbe24f8-d9ed-4bfe-ba92-18083adb8c4b?ocid=Social-9News
Good. When does Philippines come back to our side?
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/South-China-Sea/China-and-Philippines-affirm-ties-after-South-China-Sea-spat
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"I see a scenario where the 3 Gorges collapses, the PRC blames Taiwan and/or US and launches strikes on Taiwan and/or US.
It's 2020, why not?"
https://asiatimes.com/2020/07/three-gorges-dam-deformed-but-safe-say-operators/
It's as strong as an I-35 bridge. I'm sure no government engineer took a shortcut to meet a budget or a deadline.
Didn't all the climate sayers forecast drought? (except on the forum). You should be able to plant cacti by now where the Yangtze used to flow.
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"I see a scenario where the 3 Gorges collapses, the PRC blames Taiwan and/or US and launches strikes on Taiwan and/or US.
It's 2020, why not?"
https://asiatimes.com/2020/07/three-gorges-dam-deformed-but-safe-say-operators/
It's as strong as an I-35 bridge. I'm sure no government engineer took a shortcut to meet a budget or a deadline.
Didn't all the climate sayers forecast drought? (except on the forum). You should be able to plant cacti by now where the Yangtze used to flow.
Oh no. All the top experts have assured me that any weather can be explained by Global Warming Climate Change!
At least we can take comfort in knowing that this was built with the finest Chinese craftmanship and quality control respected worldwide.
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By: Geopolitical Futures
South China Sea moves. During his annual state of the union address on Monday, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ruled out allowing the U.S. to set up military bases in the country, arguing that China is “in possession of” the disputed waters and that allowing U.S. base access would lead to nuclear war on Philippine soil. This leaves the fate of the landmark 2014 basing agreement with the U.S., implementation of which has stalled under Duterte, further in doubt.
(Possibly related: He also said that he had pleaded with Chinese President Xi Jinping to think of the Philippines first if and when it developed a COVID-19 vaccine.)
Other littoral states, apparently, disagree with Duterte on the question of whether might makes right in the South China Sea. Vietnam, for example, is mulling following the course set by Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino, and initiating international legal action against Chinese claims. Indonesia, meanwhile, has been ramping up maritime drills around the Natuna Islands. Perhaps most notably, Australia and the U.S. are expected to hold talks Wednesday on ramping up joint drills in the South China Sea.
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/07/30/democrat-dianne-feinstein-praises-china-claims-it-is-growing-into-a-respectable-nation/
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https://www.insidesources.com/dianne-feinstein-growing-rich-off-of-chinese-interests/
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Daily Memo: Taiwan Deploys Troops to the South China Sea
This is the second such deployment over the past couple of months.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Taiwan deploys troops to the South China Sea. Taiwan is deploying a company of some 200 marines to reinforce a coast guard garrison in the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands, located around 275 miles (440 kilometers) to the south in the South China Sea. This is the second such move by Taiwan over the past couple of months. Both have been made amid reports that China was planning massive military exercises in nearby waters simulating an amphibious landing and occupation of islands like the Pratas.
Beijing is under increasing pressure, both from internal political forces and from gradually increasing U.S. support for the self-ruled “renegade province,” to reverse Taiwan’s slow drift away from the mainland’s grasp. China is keen to achieve two things on the military front: One is to make Taipei conclude that a Chinese takeover, whether by force or negotiation, is inevitable. The second is to sow doubt in Taipei about the U.S. willingness to come to Taiwan’s defense in the event of a conflict. China cannot yet invade and hold Taiwan itself – at least not without incurring costs on a scale that Beijing could not stomach. But it can manufacture a crisis on Taiwan’s periphery, say, by seizing the Pratas or perhaps Taiping Island farther south. If it's really ambitious, China can also try to impose some sort of limited blockade. Both options would carry immense risks for Beijing, but less so for the former. Add in the fact that Beijing is keen to get the People’s Liberation Army more real operational experience one way or another, and it’s easy to see why Taiwan is taking these threats seriously.
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second
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/philippines-southchinasea-08042020210325.html/
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j656W9sMAuA
Internal instability makes the PRC more dangerous.
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A More Assertive China Drives Japan to Respond in Kind
Rodger Baker
Rodger Baker
Senior VP of Strategic Analysis, Stratfor
7 MINS READ
Aug 14, 2020 | 15:56 GMT
Japanese Self-Defense Forces stand guard at a park in Tokyo on Oct. 22, 2019.
Japanese Self-Defense Forces stand guard at a park in Tokyo on Oct. 22, 2019.
(CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images)
HIGHLIGHTS
Japan has long operated beyond the pacifist constraints of its post-war constitution, but a growing and more assertive China is accelerating Tokyo's development of offensive its capabilities. Japan's core strategic imperatives are shaped by economic concerns -- the islands are resource-poor and thus import-dependent. This shaped its post-World War II Yoshida Doctrine, in which Japan largely outsourced its national security to the United States while focusing its energy on economic development at home. With Japan less confident in its dependence on the United States, the same vulnerability is now driving Tokyo to take on a more active role in its neighborhood. Japan's increased economic and security engagement in the Indo-Pacific provides a regional alternative to China for Southeast Asian nations, but may raise tensions with neighboring South Korea. ...
Japan has long operated beyond the pacifist constraints of its post-war constitution, but a growing and more assertive China is accelerating Tokyo's development of offensive its capabilities. Japan's core strategic imperatives are shaped by economic concerns — the islands are resource-poor and thus import-dependent. This shaped its post-World War II Yoshida Doctrine, in which Japan largely outsourced its national security to the United States while focusing its energy on economic development at home. With Japan less confident in its dependence on the United States, the same vulnerability is now driving Tokyo to take on a more active role in its neighborhood. Japan's increased economic and security engagement in the Indo-Pacific provides a regional alternative to China for Southeast Asian nations, but may raise tensions with neighboring South Korea.
Moving Beyond the Yoshida Doctrine
Just as Chinese President Xi Jinping has moved China past Deng Xiaoping's doctrine, which called for China to avoid showing its strength while it rebuilt internal power, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has sought to move beyond the strategy Japan adopted under its postwar prime minister, Shigeru Yoshida. Though several factors have shaped Japan's defense evolution, today Tokyo is driven by the changes in Chinese international behavior and the growth of Chinese power. China's economy has far surpassed Japan's, leaving the island nation a distant third behind the United States and China in national GDP. China is rapidly increasing its technological capabilities, challenging Japan in traditional areas of strength, from semiconductors to high-speed rail. China has increased its investment and trade footprint throughout the region via its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), supplanting earlier Japanese soft power gains.
China's navy development over the past decade has outstripped Japan's, and the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) now operates freely in the East and South China Seas, as well as into the West Pacific. Chinese construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea, along with the Philippines' rebalance away from the United States toward China, raises the risk of interrupting vital Japanese maritime supply lines. Chinese port development and investment stretching through Southeast and South Asia and into East Africa also create additional areas where China could interfere with Japanese supply lines.
Japan's Economic and Diplomatic Response
Japan uses its identity as both a democracy and the second-largest regional economy to strengthen its position as a viable alternative for regional leadership. Despite its wartime history, Japan is largely seen as a non-threatening partner throughout much of Asia, except of course by neighboring China and the Koreas.
In response to China's growing global presence, Prime Minister Abe traveled to Kenya to launch his "Free and Open Indo-Pacific" initiative in 2016, which emphasizes building economic, social and security connections from East Africa through Asia to Japan. Abe's declaration had followed China's 2015 launch of the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, and while Tokyo toyed with also joining China's initiative, it ultimately decided to offer an alternative source of development loans and aid. Japan also took a leading role in revising the Trans-Pacific Partnership after the United States pulled out in 2017, strengthening its regional trade arrangements through the re-named Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Tokyo has stepped up diplomacy, aid and cooperation across Southeast Asia, among the Pacific Islands and into the Indian Ocean Basin, with the intent of countering Chinese advances and strengthening Japan's economic and security position. In 2017, Japan helped revive the defunct Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (also known as the "Quad") comprising Japan, Australia, India and the United States. Japan is supplying the Philippines and Vietnam with new coast guard ships, and has eased its self-imposed restrictions on arms exports. Tokyo is actively incentivizing Japanese companies to reduce their supply chain dependencies on China and move operations to Southeast Asia, with Vietnam currently standing out as a preferred spot.
Redefining Self-Defense
Japanese governments have frequently reinterpreted Article 9 of the country's post-war constitution, which renounces war and nominally requires Japan to possess only a defensive military capacity to avoid a repeat the imperial actions that led to World War II. Abe has sought to formally change Article 9 by rewriting the constitution, but his attempts have continuously been sidelined by more immediate priorities or a lack of consensus. But despite his failure to amend Article 9, a more liberal interpretation of "self-defense" has allowed Japan to still make substantial strides in reorienting its military toward emerging geopolitical threats.
Over the years, Japan has revised what it considers "offensive" versus "defensive" weapons systems. Japan has added in-air refueling capabilities, approved the acquisition of long-range cruise missiles, and is now discussing the development of anti-satellite systems to protect its space-based assets. Following Japan's June announcement that it was canceling its plans for purchasing and deploying the U.S.-made Aegis Ashore missile defense system, elements of Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have revived discussions around Japan acquiring the capability to strike at foreign missile sites — something once taboo under the constitution.
Japan has already begun the process of updating its Izumo-class helicopter destroyers to take on F-35 joint strike fighters. In June, the United States approved the sale of 105 such aircraft to Japan, including 42 short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) variants, which would bring Japan's total to 147 — the second-largest F-35 fleet in the world. Japan is also building an airbase on Mage Island off Kagoshima Prefecture for field carrier landing practice for the U.S. Navy and Japanese pilots.
In addition to its aircraft carrier development, Japan carried out its largest scale amphibious training drill since World War II in November 2019, honing its ability to retake island territory in case of war. Japan has also stepped up space cooperation with the United States, and is slated to lead a major multi-national cyber defense exercise later this year. Japan has an overseas base in Djibouti and has eased restrictions on the use of arms abroad by the country's Self-Defense Forces. Japan is expanding its basing through the Ryukyu Islands (bringing it closer to Taiwan), and is increasing regional port visits along and joint training exercises with the United States, Australia, India and other regional partners.
Regional Implications
Japan is positioning itself as a regional alternative to China for economic, political and security relations. While its pockets are not as deep as China's, Tokyo leverages assertions of better quality in both development and financing. Japan offers an alternative to China's BRI financing, both alone and in conjunction with partners including Australia and the United States. Japanese financing may require more careful considerations and planning by recipients than Chinese financing, but it also comes with fewer political strings, less fear of becoming a "debt trap" and with a higher level of trust in the technical acumen and quality of infrastructure.
A growing and more assertive China is now accelerating Tokyo's development of its offensive capabilities beyond the pacifist constraints of its post-World War II constitution.
Tokyo is also emerging as an alternative supplier of defense equipment, though primarily focused on maritime defense. Japan's involvement gives countries such as the Philippines and Vietnam greater confidence in standing up to Chinese challenges for their maritime territory, particularly as Japan's own reliance on the South China Sea represents a clear shared interest in ensuring open transit. Japan continues to enhance its regional security relationships, both in concert with its U.S. defense ties and independently, but has also maintained dialogue and cooperation with China and Russia, even as it sees China as the primary regional security threat. This balancing act enables Japan to simultaneously be a critical component of U.S. regional security and avoid a Cold War-type rift with China.
Japan's re-emergence as a regional military power, even without formally changing its constitution, is largely seen in a positive light as a local counterbalance to China (though China and the Koreas, of course, see this differently). The slow revision of the role of Japan's Self-Defense Forces over the last several decades, as well as Japan's lack of territorial disputes (aside from those with China and the Koreas), has engendered little overt concern of any new Japanese imperialism from Southeast Asia, and none from South Asia and East Africa. Tokyo's tensions with South Korea, however, remains a major complication, both for Japan's regional position and for the trilateral relationship between Japan, the United States and South Korea.
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https://jrnyquist.blog/2020/08/13/peace-behind-me-war-in-front-of-me/
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https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/satellites/final-piece-of-chinas-beidou-navigation-satellite-system-comes-online
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https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-08-18/latest-trump-moves-against-huawei-will-spark-china-s-retaliation
Great policy. Bad reporting.
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https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/satellites/final-piece-of-chinas-beidou-navigation-satellite-system-comes-online
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https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/08/17/the_scary_war_game_over_taiwan_that_the_us_loses_again_and_again_124836.html
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https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/08/17/the_scary_war_game_over_taiwan_that_the_us_loses_again_and_again_124836.html
From the article:
"a war over Taiwan would most likely begin with a massive attack by advanced Chinese missiles against three American targets: its bases on Okinawa and Guam, its ships in the Western Pacific, including aircraft carrier groups, and its air force squadrons in the region. ...Taiwan would fold in a week or two.”
...
"Other experts, however, believe that the situation is not quite as bleak as the war games would indicate, or at least that it can be remedied. They argue: 1) that the American deterrent even now is still strong enough to make China very hesitant to use force on Taiwan, and 2) that the U.S. can and should adapt to China's capacity with new weapons and new tactics that would enable the country to prevail if it did come to an armed confrontation."
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It would seem to me that the outcome would depend on the willingness of the US ,via its President, willingness to use force, on what scale. The scenario above of China taking Taiwan begins with destroying 3 US bases, in other words starting a war with the US.
In the simplest terms, would the US at that time be led by Trump or Biden? Trump has maintained a peace through strength deterrence stance that would make any adversary think twice. We don't know what Trump would do in a Taiwan attack but for an attack on the US we would expect a major response. That response would need to be disproportional from the start, attack ALL known Chinese military bases in the first retaliation as a priority ahead of a naval operation defending Taiwan. Sink all ships that are not part of the operation, all nuclear sites, all air bases. If they attack the US first, this isn't a Taiwan war; it's more like a world war. The need would to defeat them on all fronts as fast as possible including every possible effort to topple the head of the beast.
China has the enormous advantage of willingness to take casualties. They can't be fought on their terms.
In a Biden administration, they might calculate the US won't intervene. In that case they would not attack the US bases first, just swarm the island.
Would Japan, Korea or anyone else join in? Would that change anything?
I see this conflict deterred also by economics. Things have changed under Trump and during coronavirus, but the US is still roughly their largest customer. The regime's 'legitimacy' to rule a billion and a half people is held together partly by their ability to provide internal security and increasing prosperity. In a twisted way, their behavior has been intensely logical, not suicidal like a bin Laden type enemy. They have a historic need to recapture Taiwan but they have a higher need not rock their own boat.
Chinese Communist Party is fighting on a longer time frame than us. I think they would prefer to have this operation later after they build their own forces bigger, after they pass up our economy and after the US implodes from within. Oops, that time may be near.
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seems inevitable China will take over Taiwan doesn't it
does anyone really think we would have the will to take on CCP in their own turf?
And with the likes of the Bloombergs of the world etc
forget it.
we would need Japan Phillipines Vietnam Australia etc to arm and together we take them on.
Even H Bush , the globalist even before Clinton , who was the hero in forming an alliance against the Iraq Kuwait takeover
would not have done that - ( I don't think)
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They have cultural, regional, historic interests in those countries. They will stop there. Why would they go further?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_occupation_of_Czechoslovakia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_invasion_of_Poland
Etc.
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Given Hunter "Snorty" Biden's time in the PRC, I would bet the Chinese MSS has compiled some very interesting blackmail material.
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https://strategypage.com/on_point/2020082520543.aspx
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/aug/30/highway-danger-zone-china-taunts-us-carrier-killer/
my understanding from the international military intelligence sources into armchair at home :wink:
is that the missiles could be intercepted
as long as they are not hypersonic
and I read conflicting things about this ;
whether china can really put to affect hypersonic missiles
or if these other missiles sink or make a carrier inoperable.
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Particularly interesting in light of YA's post of two days ago on the India thread.
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Washington's commitment to Taiwan. The U.S. is reportedly set to declassify documents providing clarity on the “six assurances,” a set of security commitments made to Taiwan in 1982 by the Reagan administration. This is notable because with Taiwan, as with many of its friends and allies, the U.S. generally prefers to keep its security commitments as vague as possible to avoid getting entangled in a conflict not of its choosing. The downside, naturally, is that it reinforces doubts abroad about just how much support the U.S. would provide in a crisis, forcing partner governments to hedge their bets and incentivizing potential adversaries to manufacture crises meant to add to local anxieties. In other words, there can be value in making U.S. red lines more explicit.
This comes on the heels of several other notable developments in U.S.-Taiwan relations. Taiwan is seeking to purchase additional U.S. mines, surveillance drones and anti-ship missiles. Last week, Taiwan formally opened an F-16 maintenance hub. Also last week, Taiwan started the process of rolling back regulations that have been impeding trade talks with the U.S. And today, yet another U.S. warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait in a show of solidarity as Chinese forces conducted maritime drills on nearly every side of the self-ruled island.
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"And today, yet another U.S. warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait in a show of solidarity as Chinese forces conducted maritime drills on nearly every side of the self-ruled island."
God Bless Pres. Donald Trump. US armaments without leadership are worth nothing.
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Doug on May 17. ->
"My reaction to these types of analyses is that I assume this type of conflict would not involve the US alone vs. China. How do these simulations come out if Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, India(?), others, side with the US? Secondly, like NATO issues, if these potential allies don't add much power, they need to step up their capabilities too."
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What the Pentagon is most worried about with China. The U.S. Defense Department on Tuesday released its annual report to Congress on Chinese military developments. The sections on China’s breakneck missile, nuclear and warship buildups are getting the most attention, and for good reason. The Pentagon now estimates the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force has more than 200 intermediate-range ballistic missiles (with a range of 3,000-5,000 kilometers, or 1,900-3,100 miles), and an estimated 200 IRBM mobile launchers. A year ago, the Pentagon estimated that China had just 80 launchers. Altogether, the Pentagon estimates that the Chinese arsenal now features some 1,250 ground-launched ballistic missiles and ground-launched cruise missiles with ranges of up to 5,500 kilometers.
China’s growing ability to put U.S. warships and bases at risk with ever-expanding reach is the single biggest threat to the U.S. Navy’s ability to operate in the South and East China seas. Shorter-range missiles have long worried U.S. defense planners about their ability to, say, come to Taiwan’s defense. (Relatedly, a Taiwanese Defense Ministry report released over the weekend is still bearish on whether China could actually conduct an amphibious invasion.) But the increasing range of the Chinese arsenal could theoretically make it more costly for the U.S. to cut off Chinese sea lanes at one of the many chokepoints along the first island chain and Strait of Malacca – the U.S.’ biggest point of leverage against China.
The Pentagon also sees China as having already achieved parity with or passed the U.S. on shipbuilding and integrated air defense systems.
China’s military modernization drive still has all sorts of deficiencies, especially on long-range power projection capabilities. But in its littoral waters, at least, China is turning into a formidable force.
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Also see
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/09/china-rapidly-increasing-nuclear-naval-and-next-gen-tech-pentagon-warns/168166/
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second
The U.S. Expands Its South China Sea Fight to Chinese Firms and Officials
4 MINS READ
Aug 26, 2020 | 21:36 GMT
HIGHLIGHTS
New U.S. restrictions on Chinese companies and individuals involved in supporting Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea still fall short of more extreme options, demonstrating Washington’s desire to avoid derailing outreach to China, even as overall U.S.-China tensions continue to mount. On Aug. 26, the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) added 24 Chinese companies to its entities list, which increases U.S. export controls, for supporting the militarization of China's maritime claims in the South China Sea, specifically citing the violation of Philippine sovereignty as upheld by the 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling. The list of entities includes five subsidiaries of the massive state-owned enterprise China Communications Construction Company, as well as one shipbuilding group and numerous telecommunications and electronics companies. The new export controls coincide with the U.S. State Department announcing it would also impose a visa ban on Chinese nationals found to be...
New U.S. restrictions on Chinese companies and individuals involved in supporting Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea still fall short of more extreme options, demonstrating Washington’s desire to avoid derailing outreach to China, even as overall U.S.-China tensions continue to mount. On Aug. 26, the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) added 24 Chinese companies to its entities list, which increases U.S. export controls, for supporting the militarization of China's maritime claims in the South China Sea, specifically citing the violation of Philippine sovereignty as upheld by the 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling. The list of entities includes five subsidiaries of the massive state-owned enterprise China Communications Construction Company, as well as one shipbuilding group and numerous telecommunications and electronics companies. The new export controls coincide with the U.S. State Department announcing it would also impose a visa ban on Chinese nationals found to be responsible for militarization, land reclamation or construction supporting Chinese outposts in the contested waterway.
The companies added to the entities list will be restricted from purchasing goods from the United States, with a particular focus on dual-use technology that could have a military use or threaten national security.
This is the first time the Commerce Department has used its entities list to target South China Sea activities. The listing, however, is far less severe than being listed by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which would jeopardize all international financial transactions and be far more devastating.
In recent months, the U.S. Commerce Department has also added companies involved in China's Uighur crackdown in Xinjiang to its entities list, along with Huawei and other Chinese tech companies in an effort to restrict their ability to acquire sensitive technology.
The U.S. export controls and visa restrictions are a response to China’s continued buildup of its military presence and infrastructure in the South China Sea, where Beijing has asserted sweeping claims that jeopardize freedom of navigation.
On July 13, the U.S. State Department officially rejected specific Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, referencing disputes by Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei with specific mention of Chinese unilateral energy exploration activities. The day after, David R. Stilwell, the assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, suggested it was possible that the United States would sanction Chinese companies or individuals for South China Sea activities.
Washington has also been upping the frequency of its Western Pacific naval operations in recent months, expanding facilities and aiming to increase overall spending as part of its Pacific Deterrence Initiative.
Counter-claimants to China in the South China Sea — including Vietnam, Malaysia and even the Philippines — have begun adopting a more confrontational stance towards Chinese claims as well, although these neighbors are still cautious given their deep economic ties to Beijing.
For now, the White House remains unlikely to impose severe sanctions on a Chinese company related to activities in the South China Sea for fear of jeopardizing its trade deal with Beijing ahead of the 2020 presidential election. However, a key watch item will be whether U.S. targeting of Chinese entities extends to energy exploration activities in the waterway, which were mentioned in the July State Department announcement.
Targets for such U.S. sanctions could include China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) due to its involvement in oil exploration standoffs with both Vietnam and Malaysia in the South China Sea, as well as the China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), which has a major role in port construction across China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Sanctioning CNOOC, in particular, would be particularly significant. In addition to having assets in North America, the Chinese oil giant is also a major investor in energy projects across the world, including some with U.S. oil companies, such as the project with ExxonMobil in the Stabroek Block off the coast of Guyana.
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September 1, 2020 View On Website
Open as PDF
Nothing Has Changed With Taiwan
By: George Friedman
On Aug. 17, 1982, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz sent a memo via an American diplomat to the Taiwanese government. On Monday, just over 38 years later, the memo was declassified. Its contents were “secret” in that they were not publicly available, but the gist has been well known for some time; these points had to be part of U.S. relations with Taiwan and China because without them, U.S. policy toward Taiwan and China made no sense.
The decision to make public a document after nearly 40 years comes at a time of rising tensions, military drills and Chinese threats in the Taiwan Strait, and is meant to stave off more escalation by clarifying its position. The memo outlines the following:
That the U.S. had not agreed to set a date for ending arms sales to Taiwan
That the U.S. had not agreed to consult with China on arms sales to Taiwan
That the U.S. would not play a mediation role between Taipei and Beijing
That the U.S. had not agreed to revise the Taiwan Relations Act
That the U.S. had not altered its position regarding sovereignty over Taiwan
That the U.S. would not exert pressure on Taiwan to enter into negotiations with the People's Republic of China
In other words, the United States was not prepared in any substantial way to abandon Taiwan, and by releasing the memo, Washington confirmed that the position it has held since 1982 has remained in place, and that China should understand as much.
The original context for the memo had to do with Richard Nixon’s visit to China, a groundbreaking trip born of mutual concern. Russian-Chinese relations were bad after the bloody conflict on the Ussuri River. China was afraid that the Soviets could defeat it. Meanwhile, the U.S., emerging bloodied from Vietnam, had weakened its position in Western Europe and feared the Soviets might take advantage of this opening. By restoring ties with the Chinese, the United States balanced this threat and opened a new threat against the Soviets if both attacked simultaneously.
It made no ideological sense but perfect geopolitical sense. Yet, it left open the status of Taiwan. The Chinese insisted that Taiwan was part of China, and Nixon agreed with them in principle so long as it was understood that it meant nothing in practice. The Soviet Union was the central issue.
By the 1980s, the Soviets were weakening a bit, the Chinese were increasing their power, and the Taiwan issue became more important. Ronald Reagan, of course, wouldn’t budge, so the memo – which was and remains the U.S. policy on China – slammed shut the door on modifying its Taiwan policy. It may not have explicitly said that the U.S. would intervene if China invaded Taiwan, but it left little to the imagination.
U.S.-Chinese relations have since deteriorated, and China has raised the possibility of invasion in various ways. Releasing this memo at this time does not surprise China, but does affirm that any Chinese move must take into account a U.S. intervention. Unlike many China watchers, the Chinese themselves know that an amphibious assault on Taiwan – armed as it is with U.S. aircraft, submarines and missile defense batteries – would likely fail, and that failure would vastly weaken their pretense of being a power on par with the United States.
The memo itself didn’t deter a Chinese invasion at the time; the U.S. alliance structure was such that that would have been a bad idea anyway. Beijing may see the reclamation of Taiwan as inevitable, but the inescapable reality of war is that you can lose, which is a nonstarter for China. The U.S. may have taken a defensive posture on Taiwan, but it’s an inflexible defensive posture. Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia and the rest of Southeast Asia may have reason to doubt U.S. commitments in the future, but for now the alliance remains very much intact. By releasing the memo, Washington is making it clear that nothing has changed.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-military-is-offered-new-bases-in-the-pacific-11599557401
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16485/china-threatens-dumping-treasuries
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16485/china-threatens-dumping-treasuries
China threatens dumping treasuries
Gordon Chang: "Be my guest." :wink:
Chang: "any move to suddenly attack the dollar by selling Treasuries will tend to make the renminbi extraordinarily expensive, thereby killing off the Chinese export sector"
...
"The tenure of China's Communist Party depends on its continual delivery of prosperity to the Chinese people, so that organization exists only with the permission of the United States." [I would only add some exclamation points to that. !!!!]
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Gordon Chang has this right. China owns less than 4% of US debt, and a lower share every minute assuming they aren't buying any more.
https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-3306124
They could 'dump' their share or the US could just default on their share, declare it a penalty payment for research and military secrets stolen, patents violated, etc. Coronavirus damages. They owe us far more than that.
Reminds of the trade war analogy. If you shoot a hole in your boat, I will shoot an even larger hole in mine.
War scenarios between these two nations ignore their interconnected economies. What is China without trade and trading partners. What is China without a thriving economy? China should be taking or at least faking cooperative actions to slow the decoupling of the economies already in process.
Imagine some other business situation where your obsession is to cripple your biggest customer.
If both countries take the strategy to destabilize the other's regime, doesn't the Chinese Communist Party politburo have the most to lose? Trump has between a few months and 4 years left to exercize very limited power over a mostly free country, versus 205 people in CCP China, 1 in particular, viciously and oppressively rule 1.4 billion subjects. What could go wrong? I think of the trial and hanging of Saddam and the suicide of Hitler. What does go wrong when brutal oppressors lose power?
I predict China will be more friendly to US interests in Trump's second term.
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well one thing for certain,
if Joe Sr. loses , Hunter will be kicked off the Chinese company's boards.
they will no longer need his world class "expertise"
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Daily Memo: Taiwan Won’t Shoot First
The increasing tempo of Chinese airspace incursions has clearly unnerved Taipei.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Eroding barriers to escalation in the Indo-Pacific. Taiwan’s government said Monday that its pilots would not be the first to fire on Chinese military assets, but the statement included the critical exception that they would fire if they thought a Chinese attack was imminent. This comes after two Chinese bombers and 16 fighter jets crossed what’s known as the cross-strait median line between China and Taiwan on Friday. The next day, another 19 Chinese warplanes entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone in a formation intended to simulate an attack. Taiwan scrambled its own warplanes in response, just as it has done in dozens of similar incidents over the past several months.
But the increasing tempo of Chinese airspace incursions – particularly violations of the median line, which both sides had generally respected until 2019 as a way to limit the risk of conflict, but which Beijing on Friday and Monday basically said it would no longer recognize – has clearly unnerved Taiwan. Over the weekend, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense reportedly held a series of briefings with air force leaders to make sure rules of engagement for Taiwanese pilots were crystal clear. In other words, Taipei appears concerned that Beijing is trying to bait it into firing the first shot, ostensibly to give China casus belli.
China’s recent moves make sense from a purely tactical perspective – to probe the other side’s air defenses, to incentivize restraint and to sow confusion. But they’re also the sorts of moves that, if true, would heighten the risk of accident, miscalculation and unplanned escalation that could be extraordinarily difficult to contain, signaling a weakening strategic emphasis on restraint.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16554/china-taiwan-killing-americans
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The Philippines Takes a Tougher Approach to Its South China Sea Claims
7 MINS READ
Oct 6, 2020 | 10:00 GMT
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s South China Sea policy is becoming less conciliatory toward China, as he tries to balance growing pressure from within his administration to revitalize Manila’s security cooperation with the United States against the need to preserve his country’s economic ties with Beijing. The Duterte administration has recently made a number of statements emphasizing the Philippines’ extensive maritime dispute with China. This suggests a notable shift in Manila’s approach toward China, as the Philippine government has largely avoided making points of contention with Beijing since 2016. However, there appear to be divisions between the president and key members of his cabinet on the matter.
On Sept. 22, Duterte gave a U.N. General Assembly address that touted the importance of the Philippines’ 2016 arbitration ruling, departing from his past public position by saying the ruling is "now part of international law, beyond compromise and beyond the reach of passing governments to dilute, diminish or abandon.”
The country’s foreign secretary, Teodoro Locsin, has also emerged as a confrontational figure, making statements about China that appeared to contradict the softer approach advocated by Duterte. On Aug. 26, Locsin said that Manila would invoke its Mutual Defense Treaty with the United States if China attacked a Philippine naval vessel. On Sept. 21, he then said that the Philippines would not support China’s stance that an ASEAN Code of Conduct on the South China Sea should keep out third party countries (such as the United States).
Since taking office, Duterte has consistently avoided pursuing the Philippines’ 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration win, a verdict which rejected China's expansive South China Sea claims under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Instead, he has deemphasized the Philippines’ maritime disputes with China in the interest of attracting economic and diplomatic support from Beijing.
These reversals suggest that Duterte’s slipping popularity amid the COVID-19 crisis has made him more willing to address the concerns of his administration’s more military-focused elements. Throughout Duterte’s tenure, Philippine security officials have consistently pressed behind the scenes for the country to maintain its U.S. alliance and shore up its South China Sea maritime claims. Leaks suggest that the military has been dissuaded from patrols in the South China Sea to avoid inflaming tensions, and has expressed concern that buildups by both China and Vietnam outpace those of the Philippines on disputed features.
While still touting his nationalist credentials, Duterte has argued that China’s military preeminence in the South China Sea, combined with the U.S. failure to defend the Philippines under previous administrations, left Manila little choice but to compromise with Beijing. Duterte’s South China Sea policy has long been difficult to stomach for both military leadership and rival political players, but his high levels of domestic political popularity had enabled him to resist calls for change. Political setbacks due to the economic and health impacts of COVID-19, however, appear to have now changed Duterte’s calculus on the matter.
With under two years left before the expiration of his single term, Duterte’s approval ratings have dropped from nearly 90 percent in 2019 to under 65 percent. As a political outsider, Duterte faces uncertainty in terms of anointing his successor, and risks becoming a lame-duck president if he cannot cement the position of an ally such as his daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, ahead of 2022 elections,
The Philippines is still battling the largest COVID-19 outbreak in Southeast Asia, with over 309,000 total cases and nearly 5,500 deaths as of Sept. 29. Philippine economic growth in 2020 will show a sharp reversal from 2019’s nearly 6 percent growth. The Asia Development Bank projects the Philippine economy will shrink by 7.3 percent this year, which would mark the country’s worst economic contraction since World War II, as well as the second-most severe region behind Thailand.
In February, the Philippine government notified the United States that it planned to terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), a key pillar of their military alliance. But in June, the Duterte administration reversed course by announcing it would delay any consideration of suspending the agreement until February 2021, with the potential for another six-month extension.
On Aug. 28, Locsin recommended that the Philippines follow Washington'ss lead and blacklist certain Chinese firms directly involved in Chinese military projects in the South China Sea, including subsidiaries of the massive China Communications Construction Company. On Sept. 1, however, the president’s office announced it would not stop domestic infrastructure projects that involve these Chinese companies, saying Manila is "not a vassal state of any foreign power.”
On June 10, Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana traveled to the disputed Thitu Island in the South China Sea alongside top military officials for a ceremony to launch a $26 million beach ramp at the strategic feature. However, on Aug. 3, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said that Duterte had issued a standing order that the Philippine navy would not participate in any U.S.-led South China Sea exercises and would refrain from any drills outside of 12 nautical miles from Philippine shores.
Tangible shifts in Philippine behavior in the South China Sea will nonetheless occur slowly, as Manila recognizes that the United States would not necessarily back up efforts to antagonize China in the South China Sea. The Philippines also sees little value in chasing its South China Sea arbitration victory in an international arena where China has massive support and could retaliate economically — or even militarily. Manila also recognizes that the United States would not necessarily back up efforts to overly antagonize China in the South China Sea, setting up a tripartite dynamic of action and reaction between the Philippines, the United States and China. Even as the United States increases pressure on China on a range of fronts, including the South China Sea, Washington has no interest in defending maritime counterclaimants to China outright. Instead, the United States is playing a more reactive role to China’s already-in-place military positions, working to shore up claimants’ military capabilities and to increase U.S. presence in the waters.
Duterte’s South China Sea policy is becoming less conciliatory toward China amid growing political pressure to shore up Manila’s maritime claims, as well as its U.S. security alliance.
This will set up a tripartite dynamic of action and reaction between the Philippines, the United States and China that will prompt Manila to reemphasize its U.S. relationship while maintaining less robust outreach to China. Such moves would leave China with less support in its negotiations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its efforts to keep third countries such as the United States out of the disputes to deal with claimants one-on-one. Beijing can counter by expanding economic outreach, even as Philippine politics might tilt the balance in one direction or the other.
With a return to economic growth critical for the Philippines as a whole and for Duterte’s political fortunes, in particular, China represents a major driver of growth, particularly given its early exit from COVID-19 and its economic recovery. China is a key trading partner at over 17 percent of the Philippines’ trade, compared with the U.S. share of 10.3 percent. And although massive flows of Chinese investment have not yet lived up to expectations, China’s Belt and Road Initiative and deep pockets mean it is far more likely than the United States, or even other allies such as Japan, to help the Philippines overcome its infrastructure deficit and development gaps.
Even when the Philippines made harsh rhetorical statements about the United States, it still maintained a strong security relationship with Washington. Although Duterte threatened to cancel all military exercises with the United States in September 2016, the two sides have continued to carry out drills, with over 300 U.S.-Philippine exercises in 2019 along. The siege of Marawi City by Islamic State-aligned terrorists in 2017 required critical U.S. counterterrorism support for the Philippines. Since then, the United States has continued to provide military support amid the chronic and open-ended unrest in the Southern Philippines, which China cannot replace. The Philippines' first guided-missile frigate also participated in the U.S. Rim of the Pacific Exercise 2020 (Rimpac20) from Aug. 17-31 in Hawaii.
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We've been waiting for Philippines to come back to our side.
https://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=2134.msg127076#msg127076
Now it really is China vs the world, at least in their backyard, except for rogue nations.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16662/china-fentanyl-source
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16705/china-existential-threat
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Without Legislative Seats, What’s Next for Hong Kong’s Pro-Democracy Camp?
6 MINS READ
Nov 11, 2020 | 20:42 GMT
Pro-democracy lawmakers join hands during a press conference at Hong Kong’s Legislative Council after city officials ousted four of their colleagues on Nov. 11, 2020
Pro-democracy lawmakers join hands during a press conference at Hong Kong’s Legislative Council after city officials ousted four of their colleagues on Nov. 11, 2020
(Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)
HIGHLIGHTS
On Nov. 11, the 15 remaining pro-democracy lawmakers in Hong Kong's legislature said they will resign from their posts Nov. 12 after authorities disqualified four of their colleagues for allegedly advocating for U.S. sanctions. By leaving the legislature, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy camp has lost its only remaining official platform to express discontent with Beijing's encroachment -- setting the stage for a potentially volatile dynamic. However, the threat of the national security law and COVID-19 restrictions will leave many Hong Kongers wary of launching disruptive protests against the government, granting Beijing more freedom to rein in Hong Kong’s political crisis without damaging the city’s status as a global financial hub. ...
By leaving the legislature, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy camp has lost its only remaining official platform to express discontent with Beijing's encroachment — setting the stage for a potentially volatile dynamic. However, the threat of the national security law and COVID-19 restrictions will leave many Hong Kongers wary of launching disruptive protests against the government, granting Beijing more freedom to rein in Hong Kong’s political crisis without damaging the city’s status as a global financial hub. On Nov. 11, the 15 remaining pro-democracy lawmakers in Hong Kong's legislature said they will resign from their posts Nov. 12 after authorities disqualified four of their colleagues for allegedly advocating for U.S. sanctions.
On Nov. 11, China's National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) passed a resolution allowing the Hong Kong’s chief executive to expel lawmakers if they took actions deemed against the Hong Kong Basic Law and their oath of allegiance, including advocating for independence, declining to support Chinese assertions of sovereignty over Hong Kong, calling for sanctions or threatening national security. Shortly thereafter, Hong Kong authorities announced the removal of the four pro-democracy lawmakers, retroactively effective to July 30.
Hong Kong’s pro-democracy camp has since called the move the end of China’s "one country, two systems" policy, arguing that the resolution effectively abolishes the separation of powers under the city's Basic Law by granting the chief executive power over the legislature.
The Disqualified Lawmakers: How We Got Here
In July, these four sitting lawmakers were disqualified from standing in planned September 2020 legislative council elections for calling on foreign sanctions related to Hong Kong, alongside eight other pro-democracy candidates. After those elections were delayed due to COVID-19 and the legislative term extended by a year, China’s parliament granted Hong Kong authorities the power to decide the fate of these legislators. The Hong Kong government ultimately allowed them to keep their seats for the extended term, with leaks indicating that the chief executive and pro-Beijing moderates had decided this in part to avoid overly provoking tensions both within the city, as well as with the United States ahead of November elections.
Hong Kong and Beijing see constant disruptions in the legislative council as no longer acceptable, particularly ahead of the early 2021 budget passage process. The current dampened protest environment in the city, along with the uncertain political climate in the United States following the presidential election, may also have given authorities the confidence to make this move without the fear of sparking an unmanageable response from Hong Kongers or the United States. The Chinese government may also be seizing on the opportunity to further clamp down on any potential legislative disruptions in Hong Kong ahead of upcoming events that could raise the risk of high-profile protest activity, including the legislative council elections in September, followed by the 100-year anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in July and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games.
Moderates and more hardline pro-democracy politicians were already divided on whether to participate in the extended legislative term, with polls of supporters showing an even split that justified moderates remaining.
Without a legislative majority, the pro-democracy camp had planned on using the extended term to slow the pro-Beijing policy agenda via filibustering tactics. It was also planning to leverage its presence in the legislature as a high-profile platform to highlight the growing encroachment of the mainland into Hong Kong affairs.
The pro-Beijing camp, however, has been increasingly advocating for official moves to halt such disruptive tactics by the pro-democracy lawmakers since the start of the current session on Oct. 14. On Oct. 23, pro-Beijing lawmaker Alice Mak called on Legislative Council President Andrew Leung to look into whether the pro-democracy camp's tactic of filibustering violated the new national security law. Earlier, Leung had also warned that some pro-democracy discussions in the legislature may not be protected under parliamentary immunity.
The pro-democracy camp now lacks an official foothold in the Hong Kong power structure, with the exception of a large presence in the relatively powerless district councils. The legislative council resignations will help unite the pro-democracy camp by forcing its moderate wing to also operate outside Hong Kong’s official power structure alongside its more radical wing. Without legislative seats, however, the pro-democracy camp has few options for dissent. This will likely spur more Hong Kongers to leave the city altogether, although such an exodus would too be partly blocked off by Beijing. With the more moderate camp now equally marginalized as the radical camp, there will be more energy behind mounting protests as well, though government restrictions will make mobilizing large swaths of the public difficult. More radical, disaffected members of the opposition may, in turn, be among the few to brave street demonstrations, increasing the risk of violence against official targets.
Pro-Beijing lawmakers, meanwhile, will now be free to pass a raft of legislation, potentially including long-term bans on filibustering tactics to shield it against any future opposition disruptions. Following the disqualification of the four lawmakers, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said there would be no by-elections to fill the seats and that the next elections would not take place until the already-planned Sept. 2021 polls. In the meantime, the legislature could also pass laws allowing Hong Kongers in mainland China to vote, as well as potentially more controversial measures such as a robust extradition law and patriotic education. The pro-Beijing camp, however, may first focus most on proving its value to the sharply polarized Hong Kong public by focusing on measures to control the spread of COVID-19 and get the city’s economic growth back on track.
Despite Beijing’s increasing encroachment in Hong Kong, authorities still appear focused on preserving the city’s standing as a global economic hub by prioritizing political stability while preserving business continuity. In response to the recent legislative council development, the United States could impose additional sanctions, though the transition to a new administration under President-elect Joe Biden may make this difficult. Regardless, any new U.S. sanctions would likely target more Hong Kong and Chinese officials, as Washington will remain wary of targeting the city’s major entities or its financial sector. The tightly controlled Hong Kong government and its backers on the mainland are also unlikely to engage in efforts that would jeopardize continuity for foreign businesses, seeking instead to preserve the value of the city as a gateway to China.
Foreign financial institutions in Hong Kong will face less risk of being squeezed between Beijing and Washington, given recent Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission guidance saying implementing U.S. sanctions would not violate the national security law.
Hong Kong regulators have also reportedly dropped that would have forced cloud technology providers to agree to a data-sharing scheme granting them access to client information.
Media outlets and internet/social media platforms, however, still risk getting caught up in the city’s increasingly polarized political environment.
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https://www.politico.eu/article/chinas-promise-a-free-market-for-unfree-people/
The nature of this ideological challenge merits special attention. China has the wherewithal to become the first high-tech totalitarian state in history. This would allow it not just to control its citizens, but also information flows within and across other countries, targeting Washington’s allies and the U.S. itself.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16754/china-rare-earth-materials
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e U.S. in Taiwan. A two-star U.S. Navy admiral in charge of U.S. military intelligence for Indo-Pacific Command reportedly made an unannounced visit to Taiwan on Sunday. Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Randall Schriver said the Pentagon has been quietly sending one-star flag officers to Taiwan on a routine basis over the past few years.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16754/china-rare-earth-materials
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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/29/business/economy/nike-coca-cola-xinjiang-forced-labor-bill.html?order=0
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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/29/business/economy/nike-coca-cola-xinjiang-forced-labor-bill.html?order=0
Get Hunter a new job!
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More China measures. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that will boot Chinese companies from U.S. exchanges if they don't comply fully with U.S. auditing rules. Chinese law forbids Chinese firms from complying with some such rules. U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the bill into law.
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Not to worry, Manchurian Joe will be on the job:
https://www.wsj.com/.../china-is-national-security-threat...
China Is National Security Threat No. 1
Resisting Beijing’s attempt to reshape and dominate the world is the challenge of our generation.
By John Ratcliffe
Dec. 3, 2020 1:20 pm ET
As Director of National Intelligence, I am entrusted with access to more intelligence than any member of the U.S. government other than the president. I oversee the intelligence agencies, and my office produces the President’s Daily Brief detailing the threats facing the country. If I could communicate one thing to the American people from this unique vantage point, it is that the People’s Republic of China poses the greatest threat to America today, and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom world-wide since World War II.
The intelligence is clear: Beijing intends to dominate the U.S. and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically. Many of China’s major public initiatives and prominent companies offer only a layer of camouflage to the activities of the Chinese Communist Party.
I call its approach of economic espionage “rob, replicate and replace.” China robs U.S. companies of their intellectual property, replicates the technology, and then replaces the U.S. firms in the global marketplace.
Take Sinovel. In 2018 a federal jury found the Chinese wind-turbine manufacturer guilty of stealing trade secrets from American Superconductor.
Penalties were imposed but the damage was done. The theft resulted in the U.S. company losing more than $1 billion in shareholder value and cutting 700 jobs. Today Sinovel sells wind turbines world-wide as if it built a legitimate business through ingenuity and hard work rather than theft.
The FBI frequently arrests Chinese nationals for stealing research-and-development secrets. Until the head of Harvard’s Chemistry Department was arrested earlier this year, China was allegedly paying him $50,000 a month as part of a plan to attract top scientists and reward them for stealing information. The professor has pleaded not guilty to making false statements to U.S. authorities. Three scientists were ousted in 2019 from MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston over concerns about China’s theft of cancer research. The U.S. government estimates that China’s intellectual-property theft costs America as much as $500 billion a year, or between $4,000 and $6,000 per U.S. household.
China also steals sensitive U.S. defense technology to fuel President Xi Jinping’s aggressive plan to make China the world’s foremost military power. U.S. intelligence shows that China has even conducted human testing on members of the People’s Liberation Army in hope of developing soldiers with biologically enhanced capabilities. There are no ethical boundaries to Beijing’s pursuit of power.
China is also developing world-class capabilities in emerging technologies. Its intelligence services use their access to tech firms such as Huawei to enable malicious activities, including the introduction of vulnerabilities into software and equipment. Huawei and other Chinese firms deny this, but China’s efforts to dominate 5G telecommunications will only increase Beijing’s opportunities to collect intelligence, disrupt communications and threaten user privacy world-wide. I have personally told U.S. allies that using such Chinese-owned technology will severely limit America’s ability to share vital intelligence with them.
China already suppresses U.S. web content that threatens the Communist Party’s ideological control, and it is developing offensive cyber capabilities against the U.S. homeland. This year China engaged in a massive influence campaign that included targeting several dozen members of Congress and congressional aides.
Consider this scenario: A Chinese-owned manufacturing facility in the U.S. employs several thousand Americans. One day, the plant’s union leader is approached by a representative of the Chinese firm. The businessman explains that the local congresswoman is taking a hard-line position on legislation that runs counter to Beijing’s interests—even though it has nothing to do with the industry the company is involved in—and says the union leader must urge her to shift positions or the plant and all its jobs will soon be gone.
The union leader contacts his congresswoman and indicates that his members won’t support her re-election without a change in position. He tells himself he’s protecting his members, but in that moment he’s doing China’s bidding, and the congresswoman is being influenced by China, whether she realizes it or not.
Our intelligence shows that Beijing regularly directs this type of influence operation in the U.S. I briefed the House and Senate Intelligence committees that China is targeting members of Congress with six times the frequency of Russia and 12 times the frequency of Iran.
To address these threats and more, I have shifted resources inside the $85 billion annual intelligence budget to increase the focus on China. This shift must continue to ensure U.S. intelligence has the resources it needs to give policy makers unvarnished insights into China’s intentions and activities.
Within intelligence agencies, a healthy debate and shift in thinking is already under way. For the talented intelligence analysts and operators who came up during the Cold War, the Soviet Union and Russia have always been the focus. For others who rose through the ranks at the turn of this century, counterterrorism has been top of mind. But today we must look with clear eyes at the facts in front of us, which make plain that China should be America’s primary national security focus going forward.
Other nations must understand this is true for them as well. The world is being presented a choice between two wholly incompatible ideologies. China’s leaders seek to subordinate the rights of the individual to the will of the Communist Party. They exert government control over companies and subvert the privacy and freedom of their citizens with an authoritarian surveillance state.
We shouldn’t assume that Beijing’s efforts to drag the world back into the dark will fail just because the forces of good have triumphed before in modern times. China believes that a global order without it at the top is a historical aberration. It aims to change that and reverse the spread of liberty around the world.
Beijing is preparing for an open-ended period of confrontation with the U.S. Washington should also be prepared. Leaders must work across partisan divides to understand the threat, speak about it openly, and take action to address it.
This is our once-in-a-generation challenge. Americans have always risen to the moment, from defeating the scourge of fascism to bringing down the Iron Curtain. This generation will be judged by its response to China’s effort to reshape the world in its own image and replace America as the dominant superpower. The intelligence is clear. Our response must be as well.
Mr. Ratcliffe is U.S. director of national intelligence.
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https://time.com/5917873/chinese-spacecraft-moon-liftoff/
funny this looks familiar:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Lunar_Module
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpzjBaPd0AM
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/12/08/mccarthy-swalwell-should-be-removed-from-congress-when-did-pelosi-schiff-know-about-china-spy-issue/
Must be devastating to find out it was not one's good looks charm or prowess in bed as reason why this lady had an interest.
CNN will likely say nothing and reason it would be a national security risk to do so.
Eric the egg (on his face) says it is a classified matter - no comment:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/asked-dem-rep-swalwell-intimate-relationship-chinese-communist-spy-honeypot-office-said-no-comment-classified/
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9035211/Eric-Swalwell-demands-probe-revelation-friendship-Chinese-honeytrap-Fang-Fang.html
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16813/china-military-caribbean
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A Chinese run seaport on Jamaica ?
Biden , we Americans knew JFK, and you sir are NO JFK
we are so screwed
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A Chinese run seaport on Jamaica ?
...
we are so screwed
Not to mention the Panama Canal.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/07/the-panama-canal-could-become-the-center-of-the-u-s-china-trade-war/
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https://nypost.com/2020/12/10/pompeo-blasts-mit-for-refusing-to-host-him-due-to-china/?utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter
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https://www.reuters.com/article/hongkong-taiwan-military/special-report-china-launches-gray-zone-warfare-to-subdue-taiwan-idUSL4N2IQ1QM
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https://www.reuters.com/article/hongkong-taiwan-military/special-report-china-launches-gray-zone-warfare-to-subdue-taiwan-idUSL4N2IQ1QM
Yes. Serious, worthwhile read.
Chinas is the world's biggest threat. Taiwan is China's second target - with Hong Kong conquered. [Didn't somebody once annex Austria?]
From the article:
"Under President Xi Jinping, China has accelerated the development of forces the PLA would need one day to conquer the island of 23 million - a mission that is the country’s top military priority, according to Chinese and Western analysts."
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A first US response to the threat of China is to get Taiwan into the TPP, IMHO. It is a correct move for so many reasons. One, if you are Biden, it would prove you are not under their thumb. If you don't prove that right out of the gate, they will walk all over you. Nothing is more dangerous in the world than America showing weakness and every new administration has something to prove. Best to do it without military action. Two, Taiwan, its people and its economy deserve world recognition. Three, the world standing up to the regime of China is good for the Chinese people who have no ability to do that on their own. - Doug
https://www.piie.com/publications/piie-briefings/prospects-taiwans-participation-trans-pacific-partnership
https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/How-Biden-can-use-Taiwan-to-rattle-China
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The PRC has Senile Joe by Hunter's short and curlies.
Imagine the honey-pot traps they got Hunter into when he was in the PRC.
https://www.reuters.com/article/hongkong-taiwan-military/special-report-china-launches-gray-zone-warfare-to-subdue-taiwan-idUSL4N2IQ1QM
Yes. Serious, worthwhile read.
Chinas is the world's biggest threat. Taiwan is China's second target - with Hong Kong conquered. [Didn't somebody once annex Austria?]
From the article:
"Under President Xi Jinping, China has accelerated the development of forces the PLA would need one day to conquer the island of 23 million - a mission that is the country’s top military priority, according to Chinese and Western analysts."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A first US response to the threat of China is to get Taiwan into the TPP, IMHO. It is a correct move for so many reasons. One, if you are Biden, it would prove you are not under their thumb. If you don't prove that right out of the gate, they will walk all over you. Nothing is more dangerous in the world than America showing weakness and every new administration has something to prove. Best to do it without military action. Two, Taiwan, its people and its economy deserve world recognition. Three, the world standing up to the regime of China is good for the Chinese people who have no ability to do that on their own. - Doug
https://www.piie.com/publications/piie-briefings/prospects-taiwans-participation-trans-pacific-partnership
https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/How-Biden-can-use-Taiwan-to-rattle-China
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https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3113692/taiwans-purchase-us-mobile-communication-system-could-help
Taiwan’s purchase of US mobile communication system could help counter Chinese cyberattack
The Field Information Communications System is as significant as other, more high-profile weapons Washington has sold to Taipei
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/wall-street-bets-big-on-china/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MJ_20201215&utm_term=Jolt-Smart
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China Arms Its Great Wall of Sand
New Spratly bases are equipped to take on a superpower adversary.
Dec. 15, 2016 7:28 p.m. ET
14 COMMENTS
For a man who stood at the White House in September 2015 and promised not to militarize the South China Sea, Xi Jinping is sure doing a lot of militarizing. Satellite photos released Thursday indicate China has deployed powerful antiaircraft and antimissile systems to all seven of its new artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago, along shipping lanes that carry $5 trillion in trade a year. This is a “massive military complex,” as Donald Trump noted recently, and it’s worth detailing how massive.
Three years ago these were only specks of land, some submerged at high tide, but China has since built 3,000 acres of territory. (The flight deck of the newest U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, is only 4.5 acres.) This is more space, with more potential military value, than China would need simply to face down its smaller neighbors—suggesting that, as U.S. Navy Commander Thomas Shugart wrote recently, “China perhaps has a larger foe in mind.”
In this satellite image released on Dec. 13, CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative identifies what appear to be antiaircraft guns and what are likely to be close-in weapons systems on the artificial island Johnson Reef in the South China Sea. ENLARGE
In this satellite image released on Dec. 13, CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative identifies what appear to be antiaircraft guns and what are likely to be close-in weapons systems on the artificial island Johnson Reef in the South China Sea. Photo: CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency
Initiative/DigitalGlobe/Reuters
As Commander Shugart wrote at the website War on the Rocks, three of China’s artificial islands are comparable in size to typical fighter bases in mainland China, with facilities that could be large enough for an entire fighter division of 17,000 personnel. Subi Reef now has a harbor bigger than Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor, and the aptly named Mischief Reef has a land perimeter nearly equal to Washington, D.C.’s.
That’s enough space to deploy, hide and defend mobile missiles that would threaten targets across the South China Sea, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and beyond. The boost to China’s already formidable “anti-access/area-denial” capabilities will be substantial. If Beijing also deploys floating nuclear-power plants to the area, as it intends, then its military facilities would be even more likely to become permanent fixtures on the East Asian map.
So it’s significant that, as the Center for Strategic and International Studies said in releasing its satellite images, Beijing has equipped its artificial islands with antiaircraft guns, targeting radar for guiding missiles and other weapons, and close-in weapons systems for defending against cruise-missiles. “We did not know that they had systems this big and this advanced there,” said researcher Greg Poling. “It means that you are prepping for a future conflict.”
The Philippines expressed “serious concern” through a spokesman Thursday, but President Rodrigo Duterte remains in an appeasing mood toward China. Indonesia in a first joined this week with India in urging China to respect the international Law of the Sea. Vietnam has begun to harden its modest defenses on the Spratly features it controls. It deployed mobile rocket launchers in August, an understandable response that nonetheless raises the risk of accident or miscalculation.
All of this means Donald Trump will soon take office facing a daily risk of hostilities over islands that didn’t exist when President Obama was last sworn in. “We will not allow the shared domains to be closed down unilaterally—no matter how many bases are built on artificial features in the South China Sea,” U.S. Pacific Commander Admiral Harry Harris said in Australia on Wednesday.
Nearly two years ago Admiral Harris warned that China was building a “Great Wall of Sand” at sea. Here’s hoping Mr. Trump seeks his good counsel come January.
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https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/12/worlds-most-important-body-water/170784/
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The U.S. Deploys Its Export Blacklist Against China’s Top Chipmaker
4 MINS READ
Dec 18, 2020 | 21:32 GMT
HIGHLIGHTS
The United States’ move to cut off exports to China’s top chipmaker will impede the company’s manufacturing capabilities, while pushing Beijing to further prop up its domestic semiconductor industry. On Dec. 18, the U.S. Commerce Department announced it was adding over 60 companies, including China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), to its entity list, which will effectively bar these companies from accessing U.S. technology by increasing export controls. U.S. companies will now need a special license from the Commerce Department before exporting any products, services or technology to SMIC and the other newly blacklisted companies. Requests for such licenses will be subject to the presumption of denial. The jurisdiction of such controls also covers exports by other countries that use U.S. components and technology. ...
The United States’ move to cut off exports to China’s top chipmaker will impede the company’s manufacturing capabilities, while pushing Beijing to further prop up its domestic semiconductor industry. On Dec. 18, the U.S. Commerce Department announced it was adding over 60 companies, including China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), to its entity list, which will effectively bar these companies from accessing U.S. technology by increasing export controls.
U.S. companies will now need a special license from the Commerce Department before exporting any products, services or technology to SMIC and the other newly blacklisted companies. Requests for such licenses will be subject to the presumption of denial. The jurisdiction of such controls also covers exports by other countries that use U.S. components and technology.
On Dec. 3, the U.S. Pentagon also added SMIC to its list of Chinese military companies, which will restrict U.S. investment into the company beginning in November 2021.
Severe restrictions on Chinese firms like SMIC and Huawei will likely remain in place under U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, who will seek to maintain — and potentially even widen — his predecessor’s politically popular crackdown against Chinese tech. Aggressive action against China’s tech sector has become an increasingly bipartisan issue in recent years. The Biden administration may shift future action to focus less on specific Chinese companies and more on specific sectors or technologies. But it will be under significant political pressure to keep Huawei and SMIC on Washington’s export blacklist.
Huawei’s addition to the Commerce Department’s entity list in April 2019 took an immediate toll on its business, which has since been made worse by Washington’s move to expand the jurisdiction of the export controls earlier this year.
In August, the Associated Press reported that Huawei would soon lose access to advanced smartphone chips, which only a few companies in the world manufacture.
On Sept. 15, Huawei stopped producing its top-of-the-line Kirin processors and AI chips after new U.S. export restrictions went into effect that barred its key customer, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TMSC), from purchasing Huawei products.
Since being added to Washington’s entity list, Huawei has had to lobby the U.S. government for some older generation chips to be sold for smartphones and other American businesses.
U.S. export controls may have a narrower impact on SMIC, as its business faces less international competition compared with Huawei. But it will still hit the SMIC’s expansion plans and damage China’s overall strategy to develop its indigenous semiconductor industry. SMIC is China’s largest and most capable semiconductor manufacturer. And while it remains behind technology-leading peers like Taiwan’s TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung, SMIC has been gaining ground in recent years. In October, SMIC announced it had taped out its first chip using its new N+1 “7 nm” process, putting it closer to its rivals. But it is unclear how long it will take for SMIC to transition to mass production of these chips, and doing so will likely require the use of imported machinery — specifically deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography systems — that will now be all the harder to acquire, thanks to Washington’s new restrictions.
SMIC’s current medium- and long-term technology roadmap includes the use of more advanced extreme ultraviolet (EUV) systems, which are manufactured by the Dutch semiconductor company ASML. In 2019, SMIC purchased one of these systems, but its delivery has since been delayed by Dutch authorities and ASML amid U.S. pushback.
As the United States tries to block foreign-produced chips from entering China’s market, the extent of the impact of U.S. export controls on SMIC’s technology roadmap will also be significant for Chinese consumers by robbing domestic tech companies of one of their only remaining avenues for evading U.S. restrictions.
China already has plenty of incentives to provide as much financial support to its tech companies, particularly in the semiconductor industry. But increasing U.S. pressure and the recent targeting of SMIC will only reinforce that push. China will, in turn, will take broader action regarding increasing funding for its semiconductor companies, while also pushing for them to outbid competitors like TSMC for engineering talent.
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https://gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/060/831/722/original/e705aea1af632737.mp4
The ROC (Taiwan) knows what happens if Xi's senile puppet is sworn in.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/wall-street-bets-big-on-china/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WIR%20-%20Sunday%202020-12-20&utm_term=WIR-Smart
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How the U.S. Misread China’s Xi: Hoping for a Globalist, It Got an Autocrat
Early hopes that Xi Jinping would want closer integration with the U.S.-led global order have become one of the biggest strategic miscalculations of the post-Cold War era
President Xi inspecting troops last year in Beijing.
By Jeremy Page
Dec. 23, 2020 10:06 am ET
BEIJING—In the two years before Xi Jinping became China’s leader in 2012, U.S. officials tried to size him up through a series of face-to-face meetings.
During talks in China in 2011, Mr. Xi, then vice president, asked about civilian control of the U.S. military, shared his thoughts on uprisings in the Middle East and spoke, unprompted, about his father, a renowned revolutionary. When he visited the U.S. in 2012, he was relaxed and affable, chatting with students and posing for pictures with Magic Johnson at a Los Angeles Lakers basketball game.
The U.S. officials’ conclusion: Although Mr. Xi was far more confident and forthright than Hu Jintao, the stiff and scripted leader he would succeed, he likely shared his commitment to stable ties with Washington and closer integration with the U.S.-led global order. Some even hoped Mr. Xi would kick-start stalled economic reforms.
It was one of the biggest strategic miscalculations of the post-Cold War era.
In the eight subsequent years, Mr. Xi has pursued an expansive, hypernationalistic vision of China’s future, displaying a desire for control and a talent for political maneuvering. Drawing comparisons to Mao Zedong, he has crushed critics and potential rivals, revitalized the Communist Party and even scrapped presidential term limits so he can, if he chooses, rule for life.
Promising a “China Dream” of national renewal, he has mobilized China’s military to enforce territorial claims, forced up to a million Chinese Muslims into internment camps and curbed political freedoms in Hong Kong.
Now, with Covid-19 under control in China but still widespread across the U.S., he is promoting his self-styled, tech-enhanced update of Marxism as a superior alternative to free-market democracy—a “China solution” to global problems.
“It was clear he was not going to be a second Hu Jintao,” said Danny Russel, who as a senior Obama administration official attended several meetings with Mr. Xi, including in 2011 and 2012. “What I underestimated about Xi Jinping was his tolerance for risk.”
Mr. Xi’s swift reversal of more than three decades of apparent movement toward collective leadership and a less intrusive party has surprised both U.S. officials and much of the Chinese elite. In hindsight, though, the roots of his approach are visible in key episodes of his life.
They include his father’s purge from the top party leadership, his teenage years in a Chinese village, his induction into the military and his exposure to nationalist and “new left” undercurrents in the party elite.
Mr. Xi’s autocratic turn also was catalyzed by a 2012 political scandal that upset the balance of power among the party elite and emboldened advocates of stronger, centralized leadership. It gave Mr. Xi the justification he needed to sideline rivals, rebuild the party and revamp its ideology.
Today China follows a new political doctrine known as “Xi Jinping Thought,” which combines many attributes of different 20th-century authoritarians. It reasserts the party’s Leninist role as the dominant force in all areas, including private business. It revives Maoist methods of mass mobilization, uses digital surveillance to replicate Stalin’s totalitarian social controls and embraces a more muscular nationalism based on ethnicity that makes fewer allowances for minorities or residents of Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Above all, Xi Jinping Thought aims to grant Mr. Xi the legitimacy to remain in power and continue his quest to make China a rich, truly global power by 2049, the centenary of Mao’s victory.
Mr. Xi has been a popular leader, bolstered in part by positive coverage in state media. Under his leadership, China has posted robust economic growth and eradicated extreme poverty, as well as curbing Covid-19 within its borders. The nation’s growing international stature also has become a source of national pride.
“His goal is to make the whole world see China as a great power, and him as a key figure in making it great,” said Xiao Gongqin, a leading figure among scholars who advocate so-called enlightened autocracy in China. “At heart, he’s a nationalist.”
Mr. Xiao, based in Shanghai, counts himself a supporter. But like many in China’s elite, he said he worries Mr. Xi “lacks a spirit of compromise. That’s his shortcoming….And there is no mechanism to correct him.”
China’s government press office declined to comment, but arranged interviews with two professors at the Central Party School, the party’s top think tank and training academy.
Both said Mr. Xi hadn’t abandoned collective leadership, but declined to predict whether he would retire in 2022, when his current term is scheduled to end. They described Xi Jinping Thought as “21st-Century Marxism,” saying his political thinking was shaped, in part, by his experiences in his youth.
“When he was young, his life was a little tortuous, but these twists and turns made comrade Xi Jinping what he is today,” said Han Qingxiang, one of the professors, who has conducted a study session on Marxism for top leaders. “Only those who have suffered can achieve great things.”
Fall From Grace
Xi Jinping was deeply affected by his austere upbringing and the purge of his revolutionary father, Xi Zhongxun, from the top leadership in 1962.
One mistake many in China and abroad made about the new Chinese leader was hoping he would emulate his father, Xi Zhongxun, as a pioneer of economic reform and opponent of one-man rule after Mao’s death.
People who have spoken with Xi Jinping say he talks with pride about his father, who commanded Communist guerrillas in China’s northwest and became a vice premier after Mao’s 1949 victory.
What instead honed his political instincts, they say, were his austere upbringing and his family’s suffering after his father was purged from the leadership in 1962 and banished to central China for 13 years, mostly to work at a tractor factory, for supporting publication of a controversial book.
That set him apart from other leaders’ offspring, known as princelings, who in most cases endured less hardship. It also left him fearful of disorder, determined to clear his family’s name and distrustful of China’s elite.
Like many other princelings, Xi Jinping, who is now 67 years old, spent his earliest years in exclusive schools and housing compounds, where he was raised to believe he was one of China’s future leaders.
His mother lived and worked at the Party School, so he and three siblings were mostly cared for by their father. Xi Zhongxun was unusually strict and frugal, forcing his two sons to wear their elder sisters’ castoff clothes and shoes, and often lecturing them about his role in the revolution.
The father was prone to depression and bouts of violent rage, according to Joseph Torigian, an American University professor who is writing a book about Xi Zhongxun. “The standout characteristic of this family was a father who was exceptionally disciplinarian and brutal,” Mr. Torigian said.
The Xi family was denounced and shunned by many peers after Xi Zhongxun’s purge from the leadership in 1962. The abuse intensified after Mao launched his Cultural Revolution in 1966, unleashing Red Guard youths who assaulted and often killed teachers and other “class enemies.” Among those who died was Xi Jinping’s half sister.
Many princelings formed their own Red Guard unit. Xi Jinping, too young and tainted by his father to join, spent his time roaming the streets and reading books taken from deserted schools and libraries, including Charles de Gaulle’s memoirs and Richard Nixon’s autobiography, according to a family friend.
He rarely speaks of those years, but in interviews before taking power, he said they hardened his view of politics. He recalled denouncing his father, being jailed three times and having Red Guards threaten him with execution.
“People who have little contact with power, who are far from it, always see these things as mysterious and novel,” he said in 2000. “But what I see is not just the superficial things: the power, the flowers, the glory, the applause. I see the bullpens”—a reference to Red Guard detention houses—”and how people can blow hot and cold. I understand politics on a deeper level.”
Like his father, he maintained faith in the party, blaming his family’s ordeals on Mao’s security chief, according to people who know the family. At the same time, they say, he learned from the misfortunes of his father, who was rehabilitated in 1978 and helped establish China’s first Special Economic Zone to attract foreign investment, then was sidelined again in the late 1980s.
Beijing (1953-68)
Spends early years in exclusive schools
and leadership compounds.
1
Life of Xi Jinping on a map
Liangjiahe, Shaanxi (1968-75)
Does manual labor in the countryside.
2
Beijing (1975-82)
Studies at university and then works
for senior military official.
3
1
3
8
Beijing
Zhengding, Hebei (1982-85)
Begins local government career
in a pig-farming county.
4
Zhengding
4
2
Liangjiahe
Shanghai
7
Fujian (1985-2002)
Works in various government posts, ultimately as provincial governor.
5
CHINA
Zhejiang
6
Fujian
Zhejiang (2002-07)
Serves as provincial party chief.
6
5
Shanghai (2007)
Is briefly appointed as the city's party chief.
7
Beijing (2007-)
Returns to Beijing to join Politburo
and its Standing Committee.
8
500 miles
500 km
Source: staff reports
One conclusion Xi Jinping reached, these people say, was that politics is a winner-take-all contest. Another was that he should conceal his own views until he had real power.
Once he was in office, his controlling instincts and distrust of peers became clear as he moved away from consensus decision-making and targeted potential rivals in an anticorruption campaign. His desire for control trumped an early pledge to allow the market a “decisive role” in the economy.
“He reached a conclusion that unrestrained markets were in fact going to present a massive problem for long-term party control,” said Kevin Rudd, a former Australian prime minister who has met Mr. Xi several times, most recently in November 2019. “The party’s in his veins. He does not buy any argument, direct or indirect, about any form of peaceful transition to something else.”
Today, his father is lauded primarily for his unwavering loyalty to the party. His grave in northwest China is now part of a “patriotic education base” where officials often gather to renew their oaths to the party and bow before a statue of Xi Zhongxun. Carved in granite in front of the statue is a Mao quote: “The party’s interests come first.”
Resurrecting Mao
Despite his family’s suffering in the 1960s and 70s—including his own seven years of hard labor in a Chinese village—Xi Jinping has resurrected Mao Zedong as a source of legitimacy.
Mr. Xi was expected to have conflicted views of Mao, having learned to revere him but also having suffered because of him. The surprise has been the extent to which he has sought to resurrect Mao as a source of legitimacy for the party and himself.
In 1968, Mao tried to restore order by sending millions of young people into the countryside to be “educated.” That is how Mr. Xi, at age 15, wound up in Liangjiahe, a cluster of about three dozen homes, mostly traditional cave dwellings, 220 miles northeast of his father’s birthplace.
Conditions were brutal. Flea-ridden and often hungry, he spent much of the next seven years building wells, digging fields and herding sheep. There was no school.
Many in his generation had similar experiences and, after Mao’s death in 1976, returned home disillusioned.
Since taking power, Mr. Xi has deliberately cultivated comparisons with Mao, and used his Liangjiahe years as the centerpiece of his political origin story. Today, tour guides in the village depict Mr. Xi being transformed from a weak, confused teenager into a hardy man of the people.
Recently, inside one cave, a guide pointed out the raised brick platform that Mr. Xi and five others used as a bed. The guide gave a selective account of Mr. Xi’s stay: He found it tough at first, but soon won over villagers through his hard work and ended up as local party chief, the guide said.
Local officials tailed a visiting Wall Street Journal reporter and stopped every attempted interview.
People who speak with Mr. Xi or study his record say his time in the village was transformative. They say he developed an affinity and sense of duty to China’s rural poor, and a pragmatism through dealing with village life. Villagers turned to him for advice, feeding his self-image as a born leader.
He brought two suitcases of books with him and borrowed many more, reading them obsessively and absorbing ideas, according to people who have spoken with him. Some of the frayed volumes are displayed in one cave, including “Lenin on War and Peace,” Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea,” two books on foreign policy by Henry Kissinger and the collected writings of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who pioneered Nazi Germany’s blitzkrieg tactics.
Years later, he would mention his reading frequently, quoting from foreign or Chinese classical works and boasting that he mastered the core tenets of Marxism in the village.
Some who know him see that as a conscious emulation of Mao, who prided himself on his literary prowess. Others detect a sensitivity about his lack of formal schooling. A former secretary to Mao, after meeting Mr. Xi in the 2000s, described him as having “elementary school level” education.
Mr. Xi won a place to study chemical engineering at a university in Beijing in 1975, but as a “worker-peasant-soldier,” selected before competitive entry exams and regular teaching resumed.
After China’s market-opening reforms began in 1979, most of Mr. Xi’s contemporaries, including his siblings, focused on improving their lives, often going into business. Mr. Xi was one of the few princelings who chose a political career and often complained to friends about the corruption and materialism around him.
Some familiar with those princelings believe they never lost their reverence for Mao. Mr. Xi, as leader, has adopted many of Mao’s titles, rhetorical terms and political techniques, and declared Mao’s achievements to be on par with the reform era that followed.
He had pragmatic reasons as well. In the years before he took power, he came to believe that criticism of Mao was undermining the party’s foundations, just as condemnation of Stalin eroded faith in its Soviet equivalent.
Mr. Xi saw how Bo Xilai, another princeling, became hugely popular as party chief in the city of Chongqing with a campaign to revive strongman rule and egalitarian Maoist ideals.
Liberal-minded Chinese, appalled at the rehabilitation of a man who many historians believe caused the death of more than 40 million people, now warn of a new Cultural Revolution.
Cai Xia, a former Party School professor in exile in the U.S., accuses Mr. Xi of making the party into a “political zombie” and warns of major chaos in the next five years.
Mr. Xi, however, appears to believe he can use digital censorship and surveillance to achieve the political control Mao aspired to, without upending society.
“The legacy I think he is drawing on is not Mao the revolutionary, the radical,” said Jude Blanchette, a Chinese politics expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and author of a book on China’s neo-Maoist movement. “It’s a nation-building Mao, the Mao who fought the U.S. to a draw in the Korean War.”
Military Transformation
Xi Jinping’s three-year stint as a secretary to Geng Biao, a top military official, helps to explain his skill at political maneuvering and his close ties to the armed forces.
In the spring of 1979, shortly after Mr. Xi graduated from the university, he got a job, with his father’s help, as a secretary to Geng Biao, then a vice premier responsible for national defense. It gave him a three-year crash course in elite politics, international relations and military affairs.
He gained an inside view of U.S.-China relations, learning to see the U.S. as both a partner and a potential threat. He traveled abroad for the first time, visiting Europe with Mr. Geng. He also learned the political importance of the People’s Liberation Army and built a network of military contacts.
“I have an insoluble bond with the army,” Xi Jinping said in a speech last year. “From a young age, I learned a lot about our military history and witnessed the demeanor of many older generation army leaders.”
Mr. Geng was an army veteran who had served with Mr. Xi’s father, been ambassador to six countries and led the International Liaison Department, which managed ties with Communists abroad. When Mr. Xi joined him, he was vice premier and secretary-general of the Central Military Commission, which controls the armed forces. In 1981, he became defense minister.
It was a big change for Mr. Xi. He wore a military uniform, accompanied Mr. Geng to most meetings and handled confidential documents, according to accounts from Mr. Geng’s relatives and biographer. The two men often rode together in Mr. Geng’s Mercedes-Benz—an extraordinary luxury then—and regularly unwound playing Go, a Chinese board game.
Mr. Geng was demanding and security-conscious, insisting that Mr. Xi memorize meetings’ proceedings rather than take notes, according to those accounts. To this day, Mr. Xi memorizes large portions of speeches and rarely uses notes in private meetings.
China had just normalized relations with the U.S. and fought a short war with Vietnam that ended in stalemate, a humiliation that still haunts the PLA. Mr. Geng’s priority was to build military ties with Washington to counterbalance Soviet power, and in 1980 he went to the U.S. to try to negotiate the purchase of American weapons.
The U.S. arranged a display of top-tier weaponry, plus a White House screening of “The Empire Strikes Back.” But it offered to sell only nonlethal equipment, and it pledged to continue arming the island of Taiwan, which Beijing sees as a rebel province.
“In developing China-U.S. relations, we can’t be too excessive or hasty,” Mr. Geng warned in his report on the trip, according to his biography. “On some questions, the U.S. is going to maintain unreasonable positions, and we should conduct necessary and appropriate struggle against it.”
The lesson for Mr. Xi was that while cooperation with the U.S. could potentially benefit both countries, their long-term strategic interests weren’t aligned, people who study that era say.
Through his contact with military officers, he became sensitive to territorial issues, especially Taiwan and the South China Sea, and a mind-set that from the 1990s increasingly viewed the U.S. as China’s adversary.
He also witnessed firsthand how Deng Xiaoping courted support from the military during a power struggle between 1979 and 1981 that resulted in his emergence as China’s top leader.
More than three decades later, Mr. Xi would use similar tactics, first establishing firm control of the military, then consolidating his power elsewhere.
“He saw how central politics really worked: The most important thing is to seize actual power,” said Deng Yuwen, a former editor at a newspaper published by the Party School.
Mr. Geng remained a mentor, and when he died, Mr. Xi helped to collect his ashes, an honor usually reserved for the eldest son.
Guiding Ideology
Once in power, Xi Jinping relied primarily on Wang Huning, a former academic and advocate of enlightened autocracy, to revamp Party ideology.
After leaving Mr. Geng’s office, Mr. Xi went into local government for the next 25 years. Following his promotion in 2007 to the Politburo Standing Committee, the top decision-making body, he was increasingly exposed to a debate between advocates and opponents of liberalization, which intensified after the global financial crisis.
That’s when he got to know Wang Huning, a former academic who became his top political adviser. Mr. Wang, now 65, emerged in the mid-1980s as a leader among “neo-authoritarian” scholars who argued that China needed enlightened autocracy, rather than liberalization, to modernize.
“He believed China needed a leader who is pragmatic and farsighted, who knows the country well, and who has the necessary powers to guide it,” said Ren Xiao, a former student of Mr. Wang at Shanghai’s Fudan University. “He’s been quite consistent in that.”
In 1995, Mr. Wang joined the party’s Central Policy Research Office, which gives advice and writes speeches for top leaders. He became its director in 2002 and, from 2007, worked alongside Mr. Xi, including on a team responsible for party building.
When Mr. Xi took power, he relied primarily on Mr. Wang to revamp party ideology in a way that married Mr. Xi’s instincts with countercurrents that were bursting into view on new social media platforms.
Ultranationalists were calling for a more aggressive stance toward the U.S. Other scholars were calling for a revival of Confucianism, a philosophy that advocates strict obedience to social hierarchy. China’s state-sector reforms and 2001 World Trade Organization entry gave rise to “new left” thinkers who railed against corruption and inequality.
Mr. Xi rarely expressed views on those debates. After the global financial crisis, however, he became less guarded as many in the Chinese elite became convinced that free-market democracy was in decline.
Visiting Mexico as vice president in 2009, he took a thinly veiled swipe at the U.S. “Some foreigners, with full bellies, who have nothing better to do, point fingers at our affairs,” he said. China didn’t export revolution, poverty or hunger, he added: “What else is there to say?”
In 2010, he visited Chongqing and endorsed the Maoist revival championed by Mr. Bo, the city’s party chief, which included mass performance of revolutionary songs.
In 2011, he met with then U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in China. Mr. Xi talked at length about the Soviet collapse and how authoritarian leaders in the Middle East were recently overthrown because they lost touch with their people and failed to control corruption, according to people familiar with those conversations.
“He really clearly signaled that the party faced some existential challenges, in his view, and that things had to change,” said Mr. Russel, the former U.S. official. “What I took away was: There were too many power centers, and not only does the country need a strong hand, the party needs a strong hand.”
The following year, the party was thrown into turmoil when a former Chongqing police chief fled to a U.S. consulate in China and alleged that Mr. Bo’s wife had murdered a British businessman. She was convicted and jailed for life. Mr. Bo got a life sentence for graft and abusing power.
The scandal eliminated from contention for the Standing Committee the one person with comparable clout to Mr. Xi’s, and gave him an opening to target other powerful individuals in coming years for allegedly conspiring with Mr. Bo to seize power.
It also brought to a head the internal debate over China’s future. Critics of liberalization, especially among princelings, prevailed, arguing that only a strongman could save the party.
That gave Mr. Wang, who became his top political adviser and joined the 25-member Politburo in 2012, a unique opportunity to influence a leader whose instincts and circumstances aligned with his statist views on how to improve China’s governance.
Chinese Communist Party hierarchy
Politburo
Standing Committee
7-9
Double
promoted
in 2007
24-25
Politburo
193-205 members
Promoted
in 2002
Central
Committee
151-172 alternate members
Xi Jinping
joined in 1997
Source: staff reports
Mr. Wang, who accompanied Mr. Xi to most meetings and on foreign visits in his first term, is widely considered the architect of the “China Dream” concept and Xi Jinping Thought, which was written into the party constitution in 2017, when Mr. Wang joined the Standing Committee.
Party School professor Han Qingxiang described Mr. Wang as a “great theorist” whose policy-making clout “should not be underestimated.”
Mr. Xi “is definitely influenced in some ways by comrade Wang Huning, but Wang Huning is influenced even more by the general secretary,” Mr. Han said.
Mr. Xi and his advisers describe his doctrine primarily in Marxist terms, and, while pledging not to impose it on other countries, portray it as a model for them that proves the superiority of socialism over capitalism.
Xin Ming, a Party School professor, said in an interview arranged by the government press office that Mr. Xi’s Marxism was an updated version that incorporated some Western and traditional Chinese thinking, and considered Communism a distant, yet-to-be-defined ideal that would not be realized even by the centenary of Mao’s victory in 2049.
Other scholars studying Mr. Xi’s doctrine say its Marxist content is limited, noting that he doesn’t advocate class struggle or eliminating private property, and that he has cracked down on both Marxist student activists and liberal voices.
They see it as a fusion of Mr. Wang’s thinking with new left, neo-Confucian and other illiberal ideas in an attempt to unify the party, legitimize Mr. Xi’s concentration of power and forge a new model of authoritarian government.
Some detect the influence of Carl Schmitt, a German legal theorist whose ideas the Nazis used to justify unlimited executive power. Chinese scholars who advise the government have invoked Mr. Schmitt in recent years, including Jiang Shigong, a Peking University law professor who helped devise Beijing’s policy on Hong Kong.
In a recent essay, Mr. Jiang described Xi Jinping Thought as a “new system for comprehensive party leadership of the state,” arguing that the introduction of the rule of law in China after 1979 had undermined the party’s authority.
“This new party-state system is undoubtedly an important organizational part of the China solution” whose ultimate goal was “creating a new order for human civilization,” he wrote.
Mr. Jiang declined to comment.
China’s containment of the Covid-19 pandemic within its own borders has made Mr. Xi more confident in his governance model, people who speak with him say. In November, he pledged to double China’s gross domestic product by 2035. China’s aging society and debt problems will make that challenging.
Mr. Xi faces a mounting backlash abroad, especially from democracies alarmed by his Muslim internments, Hong Kong crackdown and aggressive diplomacy.
Even some in the party think he has overreached and may face resistance to any effort to continue ruling after 2022. Few people, inside or outside the party, would bet against him though.
“There’s something about Xi Jinping’s political schoolcraft which suggests to me that he is capable of navigating what I think will still be a stormy period ahead,” said Mr. Rudd, the former Australian prime minister. “There’s a steeliness to him.”
Write to Jeremy Page at jeremy.page@wsj.com
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".It was one of the biggest strategic miscalculations of the post-Cold War era"
Well they have been taking advantage of us for decades
and our brave new world globalist leaders
H Bush Clinton W Bush Obama all were duped like fools
while arm chair geo political experts like us and many others who can see the writing on the wall knew better
only till Trump did anyone do shit
no we have Biden with his band of obama era losers
and now the big tech titans and lebron james selling us out.
I don't ,, therefore , see what will change
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There was once a point to partnering with China to offset the power of the Soviet Union.
There was a gain for humanity when the increasing prosperity of China brought hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
There was always a contradiction that we dealt with Castro by isolating Cuba and dealt with China with economic engagement. Interestingly, neither strategy worked.
I believed that increasing prosperity and also the information age would lead to the fall of the communist regime.
Like the frog in boiling water, there was a point where we needed to recognize that the information age had became a powerful weapon of the totalitarian regime that might keep them in power forever.
Then, as explained in the Innovator's Dilemma, only a true outsider could disrupt a co-dependency that now measured in the trillions of dollars.
Enter Donald Trump.
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https://asiatimes.com/2020/12/how-india-could-tweak-china-in-the-south-china-sea/?fbclid=IwAR3AMfhWCH--yKezrluJg0z2wtVbb-Rg8AwJ2o7EjekuQUnL2re39I5cbIM
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The Fate of Trump’s China Tariffs Under Biden
5 MINS READ
Dec 28, 2020 | 16:21 GMT
Containers are seen stacked at a port in Qingdao, China, on Jan. 14, 2020.
Containers are seen stacked at a port in Qingdao, China, on Jan. 14, 2020.
(STR/AFP via Getty Images)
HIGHLIGHTS
The Biden administration will probably maintain many of the existing U.S. tariffs on China, ushering in a lengthy period of restrictions that will likely prompt businesses to consider shifting their supply chains and operations outside China. While President-elect Joe Biden says he intends to review the tariffs U.S. President Donald Trump placed on China, he has said he will not make any "immediate moves" regarding them. Nevertheless, as the phase one trade deal between the U.S. and China winds down and concludes in 2021 and China continues to remain far behind committed levels of purchases, the Biden administration is not likely to add significantly more tariffs on China to those already existing....
The Biden administration will probably maintain many of the existing U.S. tariffs on China, ushering in a lengthy period of restrictions that will likely prompt businesses to consider shifting their supply chains and operations outside China. While President-elect Joe Biden says he intends to review the tariffs U.S. President Donald Trump placed on China, he has said he will not make any "immediate moves" regarding them. Nevertheless, as the phase one trade deal between the U.S. and China winds down and concludes in 2021 and China continues to remain far behind committed levels of purchases, the Biden administration is not likely to add significantly more tariffs on China to those already existing.
The United States is likely to shore up its China trade policy by seeking some alignment in trade policy via World Trade Organization reform, partnering with countries including Japan, the European Union, the United Kingdom, South Korea and Australia. But such reforms will take time, and require consensus that China can effectively block. The Biden administration could use existing tariffs as collective leverage against China while encouraging like-minded allies to join a multilateral effort for WTO reforms. A strategy in which both the European Union and the United States advocate changes to both WTO rules for developing countries, as well as some of the rules related to industrial subsidies and state-owned enterprises (SOEs), could blunt Chinese efforts to skirt existing WTO rules. Such a strategy, however, would take time, as WTO reform has become increasingly difficult. The Doha Round of trade negotiations, for example, lasted some 14 years before effectively ending in failure.
WTO reform must be sanctioned through member consensus, effectively giving China veto power. Other mixed economies and developing countries would also oppose many U.S. and European proposals against China.
In 2020, the United States significantly expanded its actions against Chinese tech companies by widening export controls on Huawei and SMIC, China's largest semiconductor manufacturer.
Leaks on China's next Five-Year Plan, which was approved in October, indicate that financial support for chip manufacturers and the tech sector are an integral component of its economic strategy document.
The Biden administration will probably consider direct negotiations with China as the phase one trade deal ends in 2021. Any significant pullback of sanctions is unlikely, as Washington will also be under pressure to address Beijing's failure to honor its phase one commitments relating to increased imports from the United States. The Biden administration will focus on structural reform, such as stripping direct support for Chinese SOEs, which China is likely to continue to reject. If the Biden administration maintains such demands for an extended period, negotiations will stall until the United States focuses on China's commitments to purchase more U.S. goods. Additionally, any trade deal that results in a lower value of committed purchases than the deal that Trump negotiated will be politically unpalatable in the United States. China, however, will be willing to sign a trade deal that includes expanded commitments on purchases as a way to string along negotiations and reduce diplomatic tensions ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. In a best-case scenario, the United States and China could roll over the trade deal and the United States could perhaps slightly relax some of the tariffs on China. But it is unlikely to secure the kinds of reforms necessary to fully lift tariffs.
Under the phase one trade deal, China promised to increase imports of U.S. goods by a combined $200 billion over 2017 levels in 2020 and 2021.
Through October 2020, China imported $75.5 billion worth of U.S. goods this year, less than half of the $173 billion worth of U.S. goods China was expected to import in 2020.
Under the deal, China agreed to specific commitments in agricultural, energy and manufactured goods purchases — and it is behind schedule on purchases of all of them.
Because China tariffs are likely to remain politically difficult to remove, businesses in many sectors are beginning to look at long-term strategies to manage their impact, investing outside China while also exploring options to shift production operations outside China. Industries that have relatively low costs of final assembly and packaging and low upfront investment costs in building new manufacturing plants, such as in textiles, would probably be prime candidates to move operations out of China and into neighboring countries like Vietnam. The more apparent it becomes that the tariffs will be long-lasting, the more likely that industries with larger costs of moving production will start to shift business operations.
Southeast Asia continues to be the primary beneficiary of any manufacturers looking to leave or diversify away from China; they do not have to face tariffs that can reach 25 percent on most goods from China.
The textile, automotive, chemicals and machinery industries were the most impacted as the Trump administration’s tariffs focused the most heavily on intermediate goods, not consumer goods.
Consumer goods including electronics are likely to be less affected by the trade war itself, as the Trump administration did not include consumer goods as frequently and electronics were largely spared from tariffs. That said, the electronics industry will be more significantly affected by the tech policy the Biden administration will likely maintain that restricts foreign companies’ ability to sell goods to certain Chinese companies.
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Apologies if already posted. 1 minute.28 seconds video, Mark Steyn, recommend watch.
Eric Swalwell questions then FBI Director James Comey on all the ways Communist China may try to penetrate the US. Irony alert.
https://rumble.com/vcb0wz-you-only-fang-twice-mark-steyn-has-a-take-for-the-ages-on-eric-swalwell.html?mref=23gga&mc=8uxj1
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I wouldn't want to be tech billionaire Jack Ma right now. Imagine that the federal government is tired of you being rich and free and successful. Now imagine that government is Conmunist China.
Jack Ma owns Alibaba, the Amazon of Asia and he owns the South China Morning Post, a partly free newspaper, worldwide out of Hong Kong, that can't really report news without being sometimes critical of the regime. It was the first news organization to report coronavirus in Wuhan for example.
Not a good idea. Suddenly he's gone?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9104507/Chinese-tech-billionaire-Jack-Ma-VANISHES-reality-show.html
"Mystery surrounds the whereabouts of China’s richest man after he criticised the regime."
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Not that much mystery. Where are the 4 doctors who first reported coronavirus and went missing? Where is the UN human rights commission on this? China, Cuba, Pakistan et al, oh that's right, complicit.
Two systems, communist and economically free? Don't kid yourself.
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https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2021/01/05/china-rising-nyse-withdraws-plans-to-delist-3-chinese-telcos/
back to sucking up to China again while they are at war with us.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/washington-one-china-policy-dead-pompeo-lifts-restrictions-us-taiwan-relations
Will they wait for their puppet to be sworn in?
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/washington-one-china-policy-dead-pompeo-lifts-restrictions-us-taiwan-relations
Will they wait for their puppet to be sworn in?
Mike Pompeo rocks.
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Either Biden's deep state string pullers immediately walk this back, thus highlighting Beijing's previous purchase of the Biden crime family, or they hold on, and risk a hot war in Asia.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/washington-one-china-policy-dead-pompeo-lifts-restrictions-us-taiwan-relations
Will they wait for their puppet to be sworn in?
Mike Pompeo rocks.
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Pompeo has been an outstanding Sec. State.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/washington-one-china-policy-dead-pompeo-lifts-restrictions-us-taiwan-relations?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter
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Chinese trade. Chinese exports in December jumped a whopping 18.1 percent compared with the same month a year earlier – a month that, looking back, may end up representing the peak of the U.S.-China trade war. China’s trade surplus rose to a record $78.18 billion. The surge in foreign purchases of medical supplies and work-from-home gear, particularly consumer electronics and other home office supplies, during the pandemic is the primary cause. Expect the Biden administration to de-emphasize tariffs as the main U.S. tool with which to pressure China.
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The U.S. Adds Chinese Oil Giant CNOOC to Its Export Blacklist
4 MINS READ
Jan 14, 2021 | 21:50 GMT
HIGHLIGHTS
The U.S. Commerce Department added the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) to its entity list on Jan. 14, effectively cutting off China’s third-largest oil company from U.S. exports. The move highlights the South China Sea’s importance to U.S. strategy, which will likely continue -- though not necessarily expand -- under U.S. President-elect Joe Biden. The Trump administration has significantly increased pressure on CNOOC in recent months, beginning in December when it added CNOOC to a separate U.S. Pentagon list of companies that are either owned by or controlled by the Chinese military, which will force certain U.S. investors to divest from CNOOC’s shares by mid-November. Just hours before the Commerce Department’s announcement, the S&P Dow Jones announced it was removing CNOOC from impacted indices to comply with a Jan. 13 presidential order banning U.S. investment into designated Chinese military-linked companies. As a result, major U.S. exchanges will likely delist...
The U.S. Commerce Department added the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) to its entity list on Jan. 14, effectively cutting off China’s third-largest oil company from U.S. exports. The move highlights the South China Sea’s importance to U.S. strategy, which will likely continue — though not necessarily expand — under U.S. President-elect Joe Biden. The Trump administration has significantly increased pressure on CNOOC in recent months, beginning in December when it added CNOOC to a separate U.S. Pentagon list of companies that are either owned by or controlled by the Chinese military, which will force certain U.S. investors to divest from CNOOC’s shares by mid-November. Just hours before the Commerce Department’s announcement, the S&P Dow Jones announced it was removing CNOOC from impacted indices to comply with a Jan. 13 presidential order banning U.S. investment into designated Chinese military-linked companies. As a result, major U.S. exchanges will likely delist the company in the coming days and weeks.
Targeting CNOOC, historically the most technocratic of China’s major state-owned oil companies, indicates the rising U.S. attention on China’s assertive posture in the South China Sea. As China’s main offshore operator, CNOOC has been central to China’s drilling campaign in the region, which has encroached on disputed waters for years. The Commerce Department’s press release specifically cited CNOOC’s role in supporting Beijing’s efforts in the South China Sea, with U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross saying that the company bullied countries like Vietnam on the behalf of China’s People’s Liberation Army.
In 2012, CNOOC kicked off an accelerated drilling campaign in disputed waters claimed by Vietnam and Japan. Since then, the company has been involved in a number of escalations in the South China Sea, with Beijing using the company’s exploration activities as a way to effectively implement control over maritime territory.
The inclusion of CNOOC on the entity list will significantly cut off the company’s access to U.S. technology, which is pervasive throughout the energy sector. It will also damage CNOOC’s reliability as a partner in its overseas operations. The immediate impact of the new designation will be limited to CNOOC itself since none of its subsidiaries were added to the entity list. The biggest implications will be related to the company’s domestic offshore operations, as CNOOC will now have to find alternatives to the U.S. suppliers and technology being used in those operations. Although CNOOC’s overseas subsidiaries will not be directly affected, companies exporting to the subsidiaries and consortiums will now also need to conduct enhanced due diligence in order to ensure that exports – including deemed exports of technology – do not trigger U.S. restrictions by eventually falling into the hands of the parent company. The scaling up of the U.S. pressure campaign against CNOOC will also damage both the company and all of its subsidiaries’ global reputation, meaning international oil companies may be less willing to partner with CNOOC in future projects.
CNOOC claims to be active in over 40 countries, and is particularly active in Africa, Asia and Latin America. CNOOC is also a major partner in burgeoning oil producers Guyana and Uganda. Through a subsidiary, CNOOC also has acreage in the United States as well.
The Biden administration is unlikely to expand the ban to CNOOC’s international subsidiaries for fear of blowback from the company’s global partners, such as U.S.-based ExxonMobil. But a full removal of CNOOC from the list is also unlikely due to the political consequences of appearing weak on China and CNOOC’s expansive actions in the South China Sea.
The ultimate scope of the export ban is unclear as the United States could still approve any export licenses requested by CNOOC. But the impact of Huawei’s inclusion on the entity list has shown just how effective Washington’s export bans can be when U.S. technology is essential to the blacklisted company’s business operations. According to the semiconductor market researcher TrendForce, Huawei’s share of the global smartphone market is expected to shrink to just 4% in 2021. Before the most extensive U.S. restrictions went into place in mid-2020, Huawei was the world's top smartphone maker.
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-crime-mit/us-charges-mit-professor-with-grant-fraud-over-hidden-chinese-ties-idUSKBN29J269
BOSTON (Reuters) - A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who specializes in nanotechnology research was arrested on U.S. charges that he failed to disclose his ties to the Chinese government when seeking federal grant money.
--------------------------------
How many more? How many students have ties?
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Saw that Blinken said Trump got it right on China. :-o
And now this:
Daily Memo: US Accuses China of Genocide
If Beijing was hoping that this issue would go away with the Trump administration, it sure looks unlikely.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Genocide. On his last full day as U.S. secretary of state, Mike Pompeo labeled China’s treatment of ethnic Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang as genocide. The declaration isn’t one to be made lightly – the U.S. is the first country to make such a determination – but it’s unclear at this point what action it might compel by Washington. Notably, though, incoming Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during his confirmation hearing on Tuesday that he agreed with the determination, so if Beijing was hoping that this issue would somehow go away with the Trump administration, it sure looks unlikely.
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ccp: "And China laughs...... "
Talk about an understatement! This election determined their future more than anything that happens on the inside. Who holds China accountable now? India, Australia? No. They have specific conflicts and disagreements with China. No one holds China accountable now.
The free world lost Hong Kong under Trump. What will we lose under Biden?
War game models show China already defeating the US? How do they score the conflict without the US?
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Taiwan is next
the island is doomed
no one is going to use military to protect them
just talk bluffs and selling them more arms
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(https://mcusercontent.com/dc8d30edd7976d2ddf9c2bf96/images/9077ab2d-5ed1-447d-a0fd-4dea1b514d40.jpg)
https://mcusercontent.com/dc8d30edd7976d2ddf9c2bf96/images/9077ab2d-5ed1-447d-a0fd-4dea1b514d40.jpg
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(https://mcusercontent.com/dc8d30edd7976d2ddf9c2bf96/images/9077ab2d-5ed1-447d-a0fd-4dea1b514d40.jpg)
https://mcusercontent.com/dc8d30edd7976d2ddf9c2bf96/images/9077ab2d-5ed1-447d-a0fd-4dea1b514d40.jpg
Of course they did.
Big win for them.
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(https://mcusercontent.com/dc8d30edd7976d2ddf9c2bf96/images/9077ab2d-5ed1-447d-a0fd-4dea1b514d40.jpg)
https://mcusercontent.com/dc8d30edd7976d2ddf9c2bf96/images/9077ab2d-5ed1-447d-a0fd-4dea1b514d40.jpg
Of course they did.
Big win for them.
https://i.imgflip.com/4ullx9.jpg
(https://i.imgflip.com/4ullx9.jpg)
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https://apnews.com/article/beijing-south-china-sea-east-china-sea-china-asia-pacific-4011c3c0545270c0e924272ac25b569a?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter
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The Chinese begin to test Manchurian Joe,
GPF: Chinese assertiveness. China sent an unusually large force consisting of at least 15 fighter jets, anti-submarine aircraft and reconnaissance planes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone on Sunday. A day earlier, China sent at least six bombers flanked by four fighter jets into airspace between mainland Taiwan and the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands in the South China Sea. The U.S.,
meanwhile, expressed its “rock-solid” commitment to the self-ruled island and sent a U.S. carrier group to the South China Sea on Sunday.
===================================
https://twitter.com/MoNDefense/status/1353285038859640833
===================================
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southchinasea-usa/u-s-carrier-group-enters-south-china-sea-amid-taiwan-tensions-idUSKBN29T05J
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Oh, they know...
The Chinese begin to test Manchurian Joe,
GPF: Chinese assertiveness. China sent an unusually large force consisting of at least 15 fighter jets, anti-submarine aircraft and reconnaissance planes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone on Sunday. A day earlier, China sent at least six bombers flanked by four fighter jets into airspace between mainland Taiwan and the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands in the South China Sea. The U.S.,
meanwhile, expressed its “rock-solid” commitment to the self-ruled island and sent a U.S. carrier group to the South China Sea on Sunday.
===================================
https://twitter.com/MoNDefense/status/1353285038859640833
===================================
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southchinasea-usa/u-s-carrier-group-enters-south-china-sea-amid-taiwan-tensions-idUSKBN29T05J
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response to that today
is carrier force to South China Sea
China can then test their hypersonic missiles and dispense with them in minutes?
or maybe soon.
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Carrier force right of passage move is something we support, yes?
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/01/biden-shuns-his-left-flank-on-china-for-now/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MJ_20210127&utm_term=Jolt-Smart
OTOH letting them into our power grid is seriously bad.
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Carrier force right of passage move is something we support, yes?
If you make a move, you have to be ready for what may come your way. If China sinks ships, what will Beijing Bai-den do?
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If China sinks ships, what will Beijing Bai-den do?
"talk with our 'allies'
" pretend we can sanction them"
and send bloomberg and his WS cohorts
to threaten to remove investments
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With Biden in Power, Vietnam Is Set for Success
8 MINS READ
Jan 28, 2021 | 19:54 GMT
Vietnam rings in the new year with a fireworks show in the city center of Hanoi on Jan. 1, 2021.
Vietnam rings in the new year with a fireworks show in the city center of Hanoi on Jan. 1, 2021.
(Linh Pham/Getty Images)
HIGHLIGHTS
Vietnam is well-positioned to reap the economic and political rewards of continued U.S. pressure on China over the next year, as the world gradually emerges from the COVID-19 crisis. The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden’s continued hardline stance toward China will present Vietnam with new opportunities to counterbalance Beijing -- and with fewer pitfalls, as Biden will ease his predecessor’s trade pressure on Hanoi. Supported by this strengthening U.S. relationship and its own domestic political stability, Vietnam will provide an attractive alternative to China for manufacturing supply chains. The Biden administration’s more measured and less overtly confrontational stance toward China will also enable the Vietnamese government to increase outreach to the United States without it being seen as taking an aggressive anti-China stance. ...
Vietnam is well-positioned to reap the economic and political rewards of continued U.S. pressure on China over the next year, as the world gradually emerges from the COVID-19 crisis. The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden’s continued hardline stance toward China will present Vietnam with new opportunities to counterbalance Beijing — and with fewer pitfalls, as Biden will ease his predecessor’s trade pressure on Hanoi. Supported by this strengthening U.S. relationship and its own domestic political stability, Vietnam will provide an attractive alternative to China for manufacturing supply chains. The Biden administration’s more measured and less overtly confrontational stance toward China will also enable the Vietnamese government to increase outreach to the United States without it being seen as taking an aggressive anti-China stance.
The past 15 years have seen deepening U.S.-Vietnam ties under the administrations of both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, which will continue under the Biden administration.
Obama visited Vietnam in May 2016, where he met with top leadership and announced the full lifting of a 1984 embargo on lethal arms sales to Vietnam, although it remains subject to human rights provisions. The Obama administration had partly eased the embargo in 2014.
The Trump administration also engaged in frequent outreach to Vietnam as part of its strategy to counter Chinese influence. Trump visited Vietnam twice — once for the 2017 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference and again for the 2019 Hanoi summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un — meeting with Vietnamese top leaders both times.
In March 2018, the USS Carl Vinson made the first carrier visit to Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam war, followed up by the USS Theodore Roosevelt in March 2020. 2018 also saw Vietnam’s first-time participation in the U.S.-led Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises.
Vietnam's trade surplus with the United States and transshipment of Chinese goods will remain under scrutiny, though Biden is unlikely to use tariffs or similar retaliatory measures to address this. The Biden administration will shift away from its predecessor’s unilateral and transactional approach to a refocus on U.S. allies and international institutions. This will see the United States step down from its broad global trade war, which has targeted countries with high trade deficits such as Vietnam.
In 2019, Vietnam’s trade surplus with the United States was $58 billion, the fifth-largest globally. And for the first 11 months of 2020, the U.S. government estimated that this surplus had risen to $63.7 billion.
In March 2018, the United States imposed duties on Vietnamese steel products meant to prevent the rerouting of Chinese steel around anti-dumping rules. In June 2019, the Vietnamese government issued new orders to customs officials to crack down on the re-export of Chinese-made goods to the United States.
The Trump administration’s approach to Vietnam focused on punitive tariffs to try to change the trade balance. In December 2020, Washington labeled Vietnam a currency manipulator, but left it to the Biden administration to decide whether to impose tariffs by releasing the findings of its Section 301 investigation in mid-January 2021. A separate U.S. International Trade Commission decision on whether to impose countervailing duties on Vietnam for causing "material injury" to U.S. industries is due in March 2021.
On the campaign trail, Biden advocated for a multilateral effort to negotiate trade rules to counter China's economic influence, making World Trade Organization reform a likely pursuit. This would allow Washington to leave questions of Vietnam's currency manipulation to be dealt with later in WTO reforms, which could result in Vietnam’s currency practices being deemed an export subsidy. To offset the trade deficit in the meantime, Biden could focus on pressuring Vietnam to increase its purchases of U.S. aircraft, liquified natural gas and agricultural products.
Biden’s maintenance of Trump-era tariffs on China will continue to make Vietnam an attractive destination for manufacturers looking to avoid U.S.-China trade tensions. While it will seek to mitigate trade disputes elsewhere, the Biden administration will find it difficult to unwind the Trump administration’s steep tariffs on China. This will benefit Hanoi by continuing to drive manufacturers to diversify their operations outside China. In addition to its political stability and proximity to China, Vietnam’s adroit handling of its domestic COVID-19 outbreaks and prioritization of manufacturing continuity will allow it to capitalize more easily on more low-end manufacturing operations that can more easily relocate their Chinese operations.
The business reaction to the Trump administration’s rising pressure on China proved to be a boon to Vietnamese exporters, whose shipments to the United States rose by 50 percent% ($88 million) between 2016-2019 compared with the 34 percent% increase ($44.5 million) reported between 2013-2016. In 2019, the Nomura Group projected that Vietnam would see a boost in growth GDP equivalent to 7.9 percent% of GDP.
The Vietnamese government has managed to successfully control the spread of COVID-19 in the country through targeted lockdowns, contact tracing and widespread testing, beating back several waves of the virus. Since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, Vietnam has reported under 1,600 total COVID-19 cases, with just 35 deaths as of Jan. 28. The country, however, recently reported a fresh wave of local transmissions that potentially includes a new COVID-19 strain, which could make the outbreak more difficult to manage.
Importantly, Vietnam has also managed to largely maintain manufacturing output throughout the pandemic, with 2020 GDP growth estimated at 2.91 percent%, driven by 3.98 percent% growth in manufacturing. The World Bank expects the Vietnamese government to grow by 6.8 percent% in 2021, approaching its pre-pandemic levels of over 7 percent%.
Along with the Philippines, Vietnam will be a primary target for U.S. outreach, given its prominent role within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), extensive maritime disputes with China and strong imperative to counterbalance its powerful neighbor. To this end, the South China Sea will be a key area of focus, as the United States works to shore up counter-claimants to China.
The Trump administration escalated the number of publicized freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) in the South China Sea, regularizing the practice initiated under the Obama administration.
In July 2020, the U.S. State Department released a landmark public statement partially rejecting China’s South China Sea claims, dismissing China’s expansive nine-dashed line and specifically rejecting China’s claims around Vanguard Bank near Vietnam.
In August 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce blacklisted several subsidiaries of state-run China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) for its role in helping Beijing build up islands in the South China Sea. Then, in January 2021, Washington blacklisted the state-run energy giant Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) for supporting Chinese efforts to block energy exploration by claimants in the South China Sea.
Also in July 2020, the United States signed a memorandum of understanding with Vietnam promising support for Vietnamese fishing vessels facing intimidation by Chinese vessels via enhanced law enforcement and surveillance capabilities. In November 2019, Washington also announced plans to provide Vietnam with a second coast guard cutter.
Vietnam’s early 2021 leadership transition will provide a great deal of domestic political stability through 2026. Hanoi will avoid the major power struggles and shakeups that accompanied the ruling Communist Party’s previous 2016 national congress, providing a contrast to potential political instability in peers such as Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia. This will provide greater policymaking continuity in Vietnam compared with its neighbors — with the Philippines set for a power transition in mid-2022, Malaysia’s government risking collapse after the COVID-19 pandemic, and Thailand’s government beset by a chronic protest movement.
The 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam will be held Jan. 25 - Feb. 2. In addition to at least 14 new politburo members, the meeting will see the party select individuals for the top posts in the Vietnamese political system — including party general-secretary, state president, prime minister and national assembly chair — who will then be confirmed in the coming months.
Crucially, the next party congress will also determine whether Vietnam reverts to its longstanding “four-pillar” leadership model, in which all four of these posts are held by different individuals, after the 2018 death of the president led to the consolidation of the presidency and general secretary position under Nguyen Phu Trong.
Leaks from the party’s 15th plenum ahead of the national congress indicate that Trong will remain general-secretary beyond his two-term limit, but will allow Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc to take on the presidency, thus restoring collective leadership. This compromise will enable Trong, who is 76 years old and in poor health, to oversee the continuation of his anti-corruption campaign, as well as facilitate a smooth transition to a chosen successor after his likely step down before 2
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January 27, 2021
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Reinventing Vietnam
The ongoing National Congress is uncharacteristically shrouded in palace intrigue.
By: Phillip Orchard
The Vietnamese Communist Party is holding its 13th National Congress this week. These semi-decennial conclaves are typically carefully scripted, spiritless affairs where the party sets forth long-term goals and formally anoints new leaders. But this one is particularly important and, curiously for a party completely obsessed with stability, shrouded in palace intrigue.
All of Vietnam’s top leadership posts appear to be up for grabs, despite typically being decided well in advance. This is, in part, because the generational transition of power scheduled to take place at the last congress in 2016 never did, leaving a major power struggle unresolved and the country in political limbo. (If pre-congress leaks prove true, it looks unlikely to be resolved this go round too.) The political paralysis reflects Vietnam's deep-rooted regional, ideological and generational divides, ones that in recent years have bred an inability to make decisions at inopportune moments in Hanoi.
The VCP traditionally governs by consensus, which it considers sacred. But given the mounting pressures on the country from both inside and out, the inherent problems of this model have become ever more apparent. How forcefully Vietnam resists China over the next decade, and how closely it integrates with the West, will depend on how much it can restore consensus at home – or, taking a page from China’s own playbook for managing socio-economic pressure, whether it abandons the need for consensus for good.
Two Centers of Power
Vietnam's ethnic and geographic fault lines aren't nearly as severe as those of most of its neighbors in Southeast Asia. But the country isn't exactly well-suited for internal unity, particularly when placed under stress by an outside power.
The two historical centers of power of the cobra-shaped country are concentrated in a pair of deltas on its northern and southern ends. Northern society sprouted up in the fertile valleys along the tempestuous Red River, prone to both extreme droughts and floods. The surrounding jungle-coated mountains made the valleys defensible. But the uplands themselves were difficult for northern rulers to subjugate, and they happen to border China, whose various rulers tried to invade Vietnam a dozen-odd times (more often than not ending in disaster for the Chinese). Under perpetual siege from both the environment and hostile outsiders, northern societies developed largely in dense, walled communities, the sort that tend to require rigid hierarchies and traditions to function.
The freewheeling south, by comparison, is a product of the mighty, languid Mekong. The more predictable seasonal variations in the river's ebb and flow, along with the sprawling rice-growing wonderland its abundant silt creates, necessitated decentralized societies marked by impermanence and natural abundance. The river brought empires from the west like the Cham and Khmer, whose rule preceded the southward expansion of the Viet, but also foreign commerce and cultural exchange. This, along with the south's relative proximity to Borneo and Palawan and its position astride dominant oceanic currents bringing merchants from South Asia, also made the south historically a society of outward-looking seafarers and traders.
Vietnam
(click to enlarge)
Traces of these historical contrasts are still imprinted on Vietnamese society. The north around Hanoi is the political capital and proud cradle of Viet civilization. Generally speaking, it's more organized, more ideological and more conservative. It's also more attuned to the nuances and necessities of dealing with its overbearing northern neighbor, China. The general secretary of the VCP, the country's most powerful figure, traditionally comes from the north. The south, around Ho Chi Minh City, is the commercial capital, a more internationalist region less interested in rigid hierarchical forms of governance. Indeed, even after their victory in 1975, the communists made only token efforts at imposing collectivization on the south. (There's also a whole lot of oil off Vietnam's southern coast.) Until recently, Vietnam's prime minister traditionally came from the south.
Estimated Oil and Natural Gas Reserves in the South China Sea
(click to enlarge)
Complicating the north-south balance of power, which the VCP has sought to preserve ensuring balanced geographic distribution of senior leadership posts, has been the rise of the narrow but flourishing center. Historically, the rugged geography of the central regions was ill-suited for large populations but today is home to the country's fastest-growing commercial hubs, such as foreign investor-darling Danang. Current Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, whose government received high marks for its remarkable management of the pandemic, comes from the middle.
Forks in the Road
Naturally, the two sides don't always see eye to eye on matters like the virtues of capitalism, foreign trade, the division of power between party and state, or the best way to navigate external challenges. (It's been less than half a century since the two were at war, after all.) Every country has regional and generational divides, policy disagreements, and so forth. But for Vietnam, the problem is that the kinds of decisions the government is grappling with are, for the party at least, existential. And there are few easy answers.
Take Vietnam's evolving economic model. Vietnam has a young, rapidly urbanizing population. With this comes rapid increases in social expectations and demands for the party to deliver ever-more prosperity and a higher quality of life. Since an epochal National Congress in 1986, when the party introduced a liberalization policy known as "Doi Moi," it's been gradually opening the economy to foreign investment and trade. This has led to a boom, particularly over the past few years, with Vietnam benefitting perhaps more than any other country from the U.S.-China trade war. But liberalization has also led to booms in pollution, corruption, inequality and other issues associated with breakneck industrialization. It's also required the party to let go of tools it traditionally uses to maintain control and accept much greater Western influence. By signing onto the Trans-Pacific Partnership and its newly inked free-trade pact with the EU, for example, it's required to pare down state-owned enterprises and ease restrictions on labor organizations. Some in Hanoi fear that too much economic liberalization could create competing power centers and thus weaken the party's control of the patronage networks that are indispensable to its monopoly on power.
This ties directly into Vietnam's other great dilemma: what to do about China. To ease its economic dependence on China, continued economic integration with the West is vital, even if risky for the aforementioned reasons. To check Chinese maritime incursions, Vietnam needs to substantially deepen cooperation with China's more powerful foes, particularly the U.S., and find a way to make defending Vietnamese interests worthwhile to them. But this violates Hanoi's sacred "Three Nos" policy: no military alliances, no aligning with one country against another, and no foreign military bases on Vietnamese soil. Vietnam does have enough maritime capabilities (thanks largely to Russia, Vietnam’s most important military patron) to at least create a degree of deterrence against Chinese forces from, say, harassing Vietnamese oil drilling operations and scaring off key foreign partners. But responding too aggressively could invite retaliation from a much more powerful neighbor.
Standing up to China also could cause problems at home. Somewhat counterintuitively, Hanoi fears stoking nationalist fervor among the public. This is partly because it could force Hanoi into a conflict it doesn't want to be in. But it's also because party elders fear the possibility that ascendent cadres would attempt to ride nationalist currents to build an independent base of political power. They also fear a nationalist movement turning into a pro-democracy movement. As a result, clashes with the Chinese in the South China Sea often receive barely a mention in state media.
All this spilled out into the open around the last National Congress, which came on the heels of an incident in which China moved a massive offshore oil rig into Vietnamese waters to assert its sweeping territorial claims. The move sparked massive protests across Vietnam. Demonstrators were supported by then-Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, a charismatic, pro-Western southerner whose encouragement was seen as a ploy to replace aging General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the National Congress. Trong and his backers thwarted Dung's ascent, but they couldn't broker a consensus on an alternative. So Trong ended up sticking around, in violation of party retirement age rules. In 2018, following the death of President Truong Tan Sang, Trong took that post for himself as well. He also launched a massive anti-corruption campaign meant to purge potential challengers and restore order in the gridlocked party leadership. Last week, leaked reports suggested that Trong intends to stick around yet again for an unprecedented third term as party secretary.
Consensus Is Overrated
On the surface, at least, there are a lot of parallels between Trong and his counterpart to the north, Xi Jinping. Like the Communist Party of China, the VCP has long cherished its consensus decision-making model. Like China, Vietnam has been reaping the benefits of economic liberalization. But just as Xi and his backers in 2012 concluded that Deng Xiaoping's "reform and opening" policies had gone too far too fast, had bred too much corruption and transferred too much power away from the party – thereby threatening the party itself – Trong and his cadre feel similarly today. Like Xi, Trong may be using anti-corruption to replace the consensus model with one better suited for decisive action in addressing Vietnam's many emerging crises.
But the parallels mostly end there. The 76-year-old Trong, believed to have suffered a stroke last year, is not Xi. There's no attempt to build a personality cult around him, no messaging from state media implying that he alone can restore Vietnam to lost glory. He's still expected to step down once everyone stops squabbling long enough to agree on the best way to replace him and find ways to make gridlock less of a problem. (Watch for Hanoi to eventually make permanent the combined general secretary-president post in order to streamline decision-making.) Nor is there a real effort underway to roll back economic liberalization and international trade, or to curb Vietnam's military cooperation with the U.S. – the same country that nearly wrecked the country just a couple of generations ago. Trong himself made a landmark visit to the U.S. in 2015 and signed off on a raft of military agreements between Hanoi and Washington since then.
Indeed, under Trong, Vietnam has become the most aggressive among the South China Sea’s littoral states about courting outside security assistance and integration into Western-led multilateral trade blocs. The threat from China is immense and here to stay, making ideological alignment with its foreign partners a luxury it can live without. Hanoi would prefer to keep relations with Beijing on an even keel, but Beijing has been making it impossible for Hanoi to do so without sacrificing its sovereignty and its legitimacy with the Vietnamese public. As a result, Hanoi has forged a formal strategic partnership with Australia, invited India to open a satellite maritime surveillance center, cozied up to the Japanese navy, and successfully lobbied Washington to remove its embargo on arms sales. In 2019, Hanoi even welcomed a port visit by a U.S. carrier for the first time since the end of the war. Vietnam, in other words, has gotten a taste of the economic and strategic benefits of continued integration with the West. The more it becomes accustomed to them, the harder it is to imagine Hanoi forsaking them.
All this suggests that something of a consensus in Hanoi on the big issues is, in fact, quietly starting to coalesce. What's truly in question at the National Congress, then, is not Vietnam's broad strategic direction; so long as Chinese power doesn't reach the point of overwhelming the region, Vietnam will remain largely focused on balancing against it. Rather, it's whether the party can reinvent itself in a way that ensures it remains at the helm in the process – and capable of steering the country decisively through the turbulent seas ahead.
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Two U.S. carriers are exercising together in the South China Sea. The Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group and the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group sailors and aviators "conducted a multitude of exercises aimed at increasing interoperability between assets as well as command and control capabilities," the U.S. Navy said today, adding, "Dual carrier operations, like this one, are not new and are intended to maintain U.S. readiness and combat-credible forces to reassure allies and partners and preserve peace in the region."
Context: "The exercise comes days after China condemned the sailing of [U.S. Navy] destroyer, the USS John S. McCain, near the Chinese-controlled Paracel Islands in what the United States calls a freedom of navigation operation — the first such mission by the U.S. navy since President Joe Biden took office," Reuters reports. More, including three photos, here.
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Brief: Philippines and Cambodia Do a Little Balancing
U.S. and Philippine top officials have been in touch, while Cambodia abruptly suspended exercises with China.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Background: Southeast Asia is the fulcrum of U.S. strategy in the Indo-Pacific and the great impediment to Chinese strategic imperatives both in the region and beyond. Thus, China has been attempting to pull regional countries tightly into its orbit through a mix of threats and rewards. The main focus of its efforts have been the Philippines – whose geography and Mutual Defense Treaty with the U.S. make the archipelagic nation the biggest potential problem for Beijing – and Cambodia, which among littoral states in the region has been the most receptive to China's courtship. In response, the U.S., often viewed as powerful but capricious and inattentive to the region's needs, has had to recalibrate its diplomatic approach.
What Happened: On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and his Philippine counterpart, Delfin Lorenzana, held talks on the two countries’ Visiting Forces Agreement, a critical accord that Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte spent much of 2020 attempting to scrap. Without the agreement, the Mutual Defense Treaty doesn't have much teeth, and a stalled 2014 agreement intended to provide U.S. troops with rotational access to several Philippine bases would remain dead in the water. The call follows a similar one between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Philippine Foreign Minister Teddy Locsin, in which Blinken reportedly clarified U.S. commitments under the defense treaty. The U.S. prefers to keep its treaty commitments as vague as possible in order to avoid getting pulled into a war not of its choosing. Naturally, though, this makes it hard for allies like the Philippines to put much faith in U.S. commitments.
More curious, it was also reported Wednesday that Cambodia had suspended its big annual Golden Dragon joint military exercises with China. Cambodia is the closest thing China has to a useful ally in Southeast Asia, and presently its best chance at establishing a meaningful military foothold in the region. Indeed, over the past couple of years, China has been not-so-quietly constructing major naval and air force facilities along Cambodia's southwestern coast. It also persuaded Cambodia to scrap the bulk of its military cooperation with the United States. Phnom Penh's official reason for the move is that flooding and the fallout from the COVID-19 crisis have simply put too much on its plate to consider holding the exercises this year. That doesn't really make sense: China reportedly foots most of the bill for the drills, and Cambodia's internal problems aren't the sort that would generally keep militaries from doing what they do. This suggests Cambodia may be trying to get off on the right foot with the new U.S. administration – one that, as demonstrated by its Thursday announcement of sanctions on Myanmar over its recent coup, may be less hesitant to apply pressure over human rights issues – and restore some balance in Cambodia's foreign relationships. Scrapping military exercises with its most important military and economic partner seems like a pretty extreme way to do this, though.
Bottom Line: Few countries in Southeast Asia want to choose between the U.S. and China. All are adept at hedging their bets and playing outside powers off each other. Given the strategic value of their particular place in the world, they'll have plenty of chances to do so as the U.S.-China competition intensifies.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/china-lists-four-redlines-to-biden-asks-us-to-lift-tariff-and-sanctions_3706645.html?utm_source=morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-02-23
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As always, GF is intelligent and thoughtful, but not sure that I agree with this one.
Not only does he leaves out of his analysis the implications of potential conflict being on China's front porch (e.g. land based missiles) but also the implications of the Maginot Line concept e.g. that China can destroy/blind our comm structures.
Know Your Enemy
Thoughts in and around geopolitics.
By: George Friedman
The most important thing in poker is knowing who you are playing against. You need to know his weakness – not all of them, mind you, but an appropriately fatal one. For poker is a complex game, one so requiring a vastness of human talent that you have to assume your opponent’s strengths are many. With one weakness you can own your opponent, and perhaps the night.
The same is true of the game of nations. There is a tendency among people and nations to be exquisitely aware of their own shortcomings and to dismiss the weaknesses of others. The United States has an especially difficult time arriving at a comprehensive evaluation of other nations, particularly their weaknesses. That’s partly because of the sheer number of nations a great power must deal with, and partly because its citizens tend to be hypercritical of their own nation and so overestimate other nations. Or just as often they mistake strengths for weaknesses, or vice versa.
Prior to World War II, the United States vastly underestimated Japan on everything from its ability to produce superior fighter aircraft to its inability to think through a cunning opening gambit. The U.S. also missed its weakness, which was that its army and navy were mortal enemies. In many ways, they were answerable to no one. Washington assumed Japan’s naval forces would collaborate with its army, planning joint operations, sharing facilities and so on. Opportunities were missed accordingly.
During the Cold War, the U.S. regarded the Soviet Union as a mirror image of itself. It counted Moscow’s tanks and was stunned by the number, not grasping that they were in many cases lying in disrepair, or that they would have great trouble maintaining fuel delivery on the offensive. The U.S. came to the conclusion that the Soviets would overrun NATO in short order, and therefore made plans for the use of tactical nuclear weapons. U.S. policymakers never bothered to ask: If the Soviets have us nailed, why don’t they act? This excellent question was rarely discussed. Soviet power was a given, except that the Soviets didn’t attack because they couldn’t. In other words, the U.S. preoccupied itself with the Soviet Union’s strengths rather than its weaknesses.
When the U.S. invaded Iraq, it thought its primary mission was the destruction of Saddam Hussein’s army, and that once that was achieved we could impose our will on them. It did not understand that the regime rested on a society that was armed, violent and capable. Nor did it understand the role the Shiites would play. In this case, the U.S. missed the strength behind Iraq’s apparent weakness. The result was an extended war the U.S. lost by not winning.
China has since become Washington’s primary adversary. As with the Soviets, the U.S. counts military materiel as if that alone tells us China’s power. The Chinese navy has not fought a fleet battle since 1895, when Japan crushed them. In an encounter with the United States, neither the Chinese air force nor the navy has enough battle experience. Nor do they have the institutional memory of war to sustain them. All of the exercises and the shiniest equipment in the world do not prepare untried admirals or petty officers for war.
With Japan, the U.S. failed to recognize that deep defect in the armed forces. In the Cold War, the U.S. overestimated its enemy. In Iraq, the U.S. failed to understand the structure of the resistance it would encounter. And now with China, it fails to recognize a well-trained but untried enemy.
In poker, not understanding the weaknesses of the other players or, worse, not seeing any, is a costly mistake. But it is only money. The U.S. failure to understand Iraq cost it a lot of blood and treasure. In not seeing China’s core military weakness, the U.S. acts with a timidity that is not entirely warranted and misses the opportunity to perhaps restructure its relationship with China peacefully.
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Obviously this would appear to contradict the Manchurian Joe riff , , , if he is actually the one in charge see e.g. https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2021/03/01/now-40-days-biden-has-not-held-solo-press-conference/
Daily Memo: The Biden Administration Defines Its Approach to China
The new administration appears set to continue its predecessor's China trade policy.
By: Geopolitical Futures
The trade war is here to stay. A big report released Monday by the U.S. Trade Representative office makes abundantly clear that the Biden administration has no plans to scrap the Trump administration’s hawkishness on trade and other grievances with China. The new administration will face all the same hurdles as the old on actually making meaningful headway on its goals. But it’s worth watching to see if it can gain leverage from mounting international concerns over human rights issues such as forced labor in Xinjiang and threats to supply chains critical to the West.
Rethinking East Asia. The U.S. is rethinking its force structure in the Western Pacific, eyeing deployments “across the battlespace’s breadth and depth,” according to Adm. Philip Davidson, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. Davidson argued that the gradual loss of base access for U.S. forces in places like Thailand, Taiwan and the Philippines over the past half-century has left the U.S. ill-positioned to sustain the balance of power with China. U.S. forces in the region are concentrated in places like South Korea, Japan and Guam, half a continent away from the chokepoints around the South China Sea that the U.S. would want to block in a conflict with China. And concentrated forces is itself an increasing problem in an era of precision-guided missiles. (MARC: Note well this sentence.
We have commented on this issue here) The big question is: Is anyone else in East Asia keen to host major U.S. deployments?
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/beijing-views-taiwan-as-next-big-prize-after-hong-kong-xinjiang-crackdowns-former-national-security-adviser_3717638.html?utm_source=morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-03-03
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Australia’s Role in America’s War With China
By: Jacek Bartosiak
March 3rd, 2021
Australia’s Role in America’s War With ChinaJacek BartosiakMarch 3rd, 2021Analysis
In U.S. plans for a war with China, Australia serves as a base for peripheral operations in the Indian Ocean and in the Indonesian Straits.
Of course, there are voices in the Antipodes against America’s use of Australia in a war, but for now the Australian government stands firmly with Washington. It is therefore quite possible for Canberra to participate in a war with China, should it ever come to that.
Strengths and Weaknesses
A sea state whose navy is weaker than that of the enemy may try indirect methods – peripheral raids or military campaigns far from the conflict’s center of gravity and the enemy. The ability of a maritime state to “wait” in conflict and disperse the continental state’s power through the horizontal expansion of the theater of operations is a significant advantage for the U.S. and Australia over China – one that will fade as the Chinese achieve the status and capabilities of a maritime power.
Perhaps this should be the overall strategy of both countries in a potential war with China: an attack on distant communication lines. The Chinese economy is very sensitive to the smooth, free and timely flow of goods and merchandise by sea, the lion’s share of which flow from Africa and the Middle East across the Indian Ocean.
A division of tasks is also possible. The U.S. Navy would operate in the Western Pacific, and the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), somewhat in the rear, would carry out diversions on the periphery of the Indian Ocean, taking advantage of the convenient geographic location of its west coast. The RAN would have to strike against China’s naval forces in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, operating from Gwadar in Pakistan, in order to eliminate the enemy’s naval forces at the beginning of the conflict. The Indian Ocean is, from the point of view of military geography, larger than the Western Pacific, and has no advanced counter-combat structures like the South China Sea or the Western Pacific. In the future, however, the northern part of the ocean will become more frequented by enemy forces and infiltrated by its reconnaissance, making RAN operations difficult.
At the same time, analysts in Australia realize that in the event of a war with China, Australia will not be able to count on quick and adequate military aid and supplies. The planning leaves no doubt: The conflict will last many months, if not years, and will involve a great effort by the U.S. to replenish its own weapons and ammunition, especially precision ammunition, so the allies’ needs will be served on stretched communication lines threatened by intersection from China.
The greatest challenge to any operation in the Indian Ocean is its sheer size. There are 1,864 nautical miles between the Australian ports of Perth and Darwin. Another 3,266 nautical miles lie between Perth and the U.S. base at Diego Garcia. The conventional Australian submarine fleet will find it difficult to maintain more than one or two ships in the war area on longer patrols in the Indonesian archipelago, much less far out in the Indian Ocean.
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Nuclear submarines are much more operational in the Indian Ocean. Australia does not have them, so in the Indian Ocean, it will have to rely on the air force, including long-range unmanned patrol systems. Fleet Base West (HMAS Stirling), in Perth, is conveniently located for the operation of U.S. Navy nuclear submarines and would be the third in the Indian Ocean theater of war alongside Guam and Diego Garcia. (It is also possible to build a small spare port for submarines in the Cocos Islands near Indonesia, after the lagoon is partially drained, which would also improve the logistics of the allies during the conflict.)
An Indispensable Ally
Essentially a continent-sized island, Australia lies on the fringes of the Asia-Pacific routes and is the southern anchor of the entire Indo-Pacific operational area, which is fundamental to the United States. In recent years, U.S. and global attention has shifted east toward Asia, and Australia – a distant continent during the defining conflicts of the 20th century – has found itself near the center of the strategic contest between the world’s two largest powers. For the U.S., Australia and their alliance became a priority. It could become America’s most closely allied relationship in the 21st century.
At the same time, for Australia itself, China is a major trading partner. China buys huge amounts of natural resources from Australia, in particular iron ore and natural gas, but also agricultural produce. As a result, the previously poorer Western Australia is growing rapidly. In 2013, China accounted for 35 percent of the country’s exports, double the share from just five years earlier. Australia is more economically dependent on China than it ever was on the United Kingdom, not to mention the United States.
For two decades, the Australian economy has grown every year, despite the 2008-09 financial crisis. It is the only developed country to achieve such a result. According to analysts, only South Korea is more dependent on fluctuations in Chinese markets. Mandarin is Australia’s second most important language, and Chinese tourists spent more money there than tourists from any other country before the pandemic.
From the point of view of military geography, Australia is located at the junction of the Pacific and Indian oceans and has an ideal location that allows control over the sea and air communication routes connecting both waters. Due to its location and its modern infrastructure and strategic depth, determined by the vastness of the territory, Australia is an indispensable ally for the United States.
The United States, wishing to dominate the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean militarily, will have to use Australian bases, ports and airports, provide logistics, train and rotate units, and maintain military stocks and equipment repair centers. Australia is an excellent base for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, by both sea and air. Its proximity to the Indonesian and South Asian “bottlenecks,” the main arteries of world trade, enables it to exercise operational control over the Sunda and Lombok straits. Australia is also a great base for all operations in the Indian Ocean and for the control of Asian countries’ sea routes from resource bases in Africa and the Persian Gulf.
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Until recently, U.S. domination in the waters surrounding Australia was stabilizing and comfortable. Australia could trade with whomever it wished in Asia, benefiting from the military and political protection of American power. When, after Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit in 2005, the head of the Australian Foreign Ministry described the alliance treaty with the U.S. as merely “symbolic,” it led to genuine panic in Washington. The Chinese believed that Australia could play a role similar to that of France in Europe (in the Western camp, but with a distance to the United States). Economic relations with China flourished in the following years, but the Australian government chose to strengthen its political ties with the U.S.
This decision met with criticism from many analytical centers and business circles in Australia, which were of the opinion that a position should not be taken directly on the American side in the impending conflict for domination in this area of the world.
Australia is familiar with the strategic dilemmas related to the rise of an Asian power, particularly when Australia depends for its security on a weakening and departing power. Beginning in 1921 and with the denunciation of the Anglo-Japanese naval treaties, the Australians began to fear Japan and stopped believing that their geographic remoteness kept them safe. After the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, Australia did not openly condemn the aggressors’ actions and avoided confrontation. Australian politicians feared a Japanese invasion and doubted British guarantees, including the ability of the British navy to come from a base in Singapore to aid Australia. They also did not believe that the United States would be able to provide significant assistance in the event of a war with Japan. Regardless of these sentiments, Australia benefited greatly from trade with Japan and recorded a positive trade balance with that country, very similar to the current Chinese case.
The Rivalry Moves Closer
Australia’s military role in a possible war with China is closely related to where a possible conflict would take place. If it erupted far away in Northeast Asia or around Taiwan, Australia would not be able to make a significant contribution, but it could provide key logistical and base facilities as well as reconnaissance and intelligence services for U.S. forces, especially in the event of the destruction of U.S. infrastructure in the immediate vicinity of the conflict.
In the event of a conflict in the South China Sea, Australia’s role would be huge, given the proximity to its ports and infrastructure, including military airports. Then, most likely, Australian forces would assist in launching strikes against Chinese forces in order to prevent the capture of strategic locations around the Indonesian islands and straits, and to try to gain control and access to key maritime crossings in the Indonesian archipelago to protect the traffic of ships and allied warships while destroying Chinese communications.
However, it is likely that in the coming years and decades, the strategic U.S.-China rivalry will gradually move to the Indian Ocean. There will be competition if China builds a real ocean fleet and finally gets access to the ports it is building in the Indian Ocean basin (in Gwadar, Djibouti, Ceylon, the Seychelles, Kenya and East Africa). Especially if China tries to control the lines of communication from the Persian Gulf, Africa and Europe, crucial to keeping the Asian economies alive, Chinese bases in the region will be a threat to Australia. In connection with the above, the basic roles for the Australian armed forces in a possible future war can be distinguished: providing strategic depth, operation of the submarine fleet, reconnaissance tasks and force projection into the Indonesian Straits.
An Important Advantage
Australia’s most important advantage is its strategic depth, far as it is from the Asian mainland. As U.S. bases in the Western Pacific become more vulnerable to destruction by Chinese attacks, including missile strikes, Australia will play a larger and more important role as a technically well-developed logistics center and sanctuary free from enemy combat.
China’s growing reliance on missiles would indeed make Australia, which is outside China’s effective combat range, very attractive for allied air operations. And while Chinese submarines may threaten Australia’s communication lines and targets, it is likely that most of the Chinese submarine fleet will be occupied with more important matters within the second island chain. However, Chinese subs could be expected to conduct mining operations and missile attacks on ports and coastal infrastructure, and Chinese special forces may be secretly deployed to sabotage operations at military bases in northern Australia. To defend against these threats, Australia needs to strengthen coastal surveillance and security procedures around bases, ammunition and fuel depots.
China's Perspective
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In that sense, Chinese forays in the north would resemble the Japanese sabotage operations in Sydney and Newcastle during World War II – operations that were psychologically effective but ultimately irrelevant to the outcome of the conflict.
Moreover, distance and maritime geography mean that Chinese conventional submarines would have a hard time in the shallow waters to the north and east of Australia. They would have to surface frequently, and their noisy nuclear subs would be easily tracked by the well-equipped Australian coastal listening stations. The United States could help with its long-range reconnaissance, nuclear submarines and strike aviation operating from Australia.
Currently, Washington’s bomber aviation and submarine fleet rely heavily on a small number of bases in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean. In the Western Pacific, the main base is Guam, located 1,800 nautical miles off the coast of China. Guam may soon be within range of Chinese ballistic missiles and is already within range of submarine-fired maneuvering missiles and aircraft. U.S. aircraft are also stationed in the Indian Ocean, on the British island of Diego Garcia, 3,900 nautical miles away from China. A significant distance means an extension of the time of arrival to the place of conflict, which significantly limits combat capabilities by shortening the time of effective patrolling and reducing the weight of the combat load.
Australia, on the other hand, provides the U.S. with a relatively safe sanctuary for air operations beyond the reach of Chinese forces. The airbases in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, Cape York, Queensland and Western Australia lie approximately 2,700 miles from the Taiwan Strait and “only” 1,700 nautical miles from the South China Sea. In addition, Australia has islands in the Indian Ocean. The runway on the Cocos Islands in the eastern Indian Ocean is even closer – 700 miles to the narrow straits of Sunda and Lombok. From the military port of Stirling, the distance to the South China Sea is comparable to the distance from Guam. The use of the naval port in Stirling by U.S. nuclear submarines significantly diversifies the deployment of U.S. forces in theatre while enhancing operational accessibility both in the Indian Ocean and in the Persian Gulf. Unlike Guam, all of these locations are beyond the reach of conventional Chinese missile forces, including those in development.
Added Benefits
Notably, air bases in northeastern Australia increase the strategic mobility of the United States, especially in terms of reconnaissance and performance of tasks by long-range strike aviation and for tanker aircraft, which will be crucial given the vast expanses of the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean. Of course, fuel storage facilities would be essential in this regard. Tanker planes will be needed to provide an air bridge for tactical aviation operating over the South China Sea and for bombers operating from Diego Garcia. Australia currently has only one squadron of airplanes stationed in Tindal, in the north of the country. The Darwin base is the only one in the north of the country that can accommodate American heavy tanker aircraft and bombers, and is therefore the center of allied air operations.
In the north of Australia, there are three more bases that are currently empty: Curtin, Learmonth and Scherger. All of them have lanes of little more than 10,000 feet (3,000 meters), which is not enough to accommodate U.S. Air Force tankers and heavy bombers. In addition, more planes mean more parking. Airports in the north have shelters for 10-20 multi-role fighters, but all except Tindal are close to the sea and require shelters to protect from the elements. Finally, investment in rapid refueling facilities for combat operations will be required to be able to operate more aircraft at one time and plan intensive combat operations.
Another island that could prove useful is Christmas Island, located in the Indian Ocean close to the Indonesian Straits. Its role as a detention center for migrants limits its martial effectiveness, and in any case the island’s runway is located at the top of a mountain and ends with a cliff that slopes steeply into the sea, making it impossible to extend it to the minimum required 11,000 feet for the stationing of American tankers and long-range bombers.
Developing the Cocos Islands would require even more infrastructure investments. There are no shelters and hardly any place to park aircraft. The fuel depots are far away and insufficient, and the runway is only 8,000 feet long. Moreover, flight control and guidance systems are outdated. However, if developed correctly, the airport on the Cocos Islands would be ideal for stationing long-range maritime patrol aircraft. Learmonth Airport is closer to the South China Sea than Darwin and has good logistical links to the rest of the country.
Notably, there are oil resources and refineries in southern and western Australia, but there are too few oil pipelines throughout the country. Raw materials such as oil are transported by ships, and ships and tankers would be the first targets of a Chinese attack. From ships, oil and other raw materials are transported by trucks and local pipelines. During rainy seasons, access by heavy trucks to some air bases is difficult in the north. (Officials are considering plans to transport by train in the future.) Therefore, the priority should be the improvement of railway infrastructure and its protection, as well as fuel storage facilities, refineries, storage facilities for weapons and ammunition, rockets and precision weapons. Australia will have to provide for its own protection to eliminate the possibility of attacks by special forces.
The airport network described above enables the U.S. and Australia to have a tactical aviation presence over the most important sea routes in the Western Pacific, the South China Sea and Southeast Asia. It strengthens U.S. strike capabilities in the event of a conflict with China, and it discourages the Chinese from carrying out a preemptive strike. This, in turn, could allow Washington to control the escalation of conflict.
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/mar/12/congress-created-commission-warns-brain-drain-chin/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=R0FiNVu5ffiyqnN%2FtuxheE16QZGfmpVUyR4gPT8yrnyOYoPf1X4e9toCwU8XP2JS&bt_ts=1615577632298
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17160/china-tech-war?fbclid=IwAR3siFnN7uKKtkBWm48zSzY9wCzRPaxJUpX9XUzyZJqX2ZhmeECOetUDL5g
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third
https://news.yahoo.com/were-going-to-lose-fast-us-air-force-held-a-war-game-that-started-with-a-chinese-biological-attack-170003936.html
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https://news.yahoo.com/were-going-to-lose-fast-us-air-force-held-a-war-game-that-started-with-a-chinese-biological-attack-170003936.html
I bet the PLA hasn't even conducted one trans-positive training course for it's troops! We totally own that element of the battlespace!
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/03/biden-signs-executive-order-make-transgender-surgery-free-military-look-armed-forces-flooded-transitioning-candidates-important/
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17110/china-military-artificial-intelligence
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https://news.yahoo.com/were-going-to-lose-fast-us-air-force-held-a-war-game-that-started-with-a-chinese-biological-attack-170003936.html
"China’s growing military confidence is manifesting itself in an increasingly belligerent approach to its neighbors, the growing frequency of the PLA’s violation of the airspace of Taiwan and Japan, and the bullying of other neighbors in the South China Sea,”
Won't they be even more belligerent after successfully taking Taiwan?
Is losing to China and being under their totalitarian rule forever worse than losing to radical Leftists here as they deceitfully tighten their totalitarian grip here, 'if you like your guns, you can keep your guns...'
"By 2017 US Sec Defense Jim Mattis realized... "
And then he went on to resign over Syria and support PLA apologist Joe Biden for POTUS.
I have one question to ask all of us regarding both (related) threats: Did we do everything we could do during our time here to stop them?
The answer is resoundingly no.
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second
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17160/china-tech-war?fbclid=IwAR3siFnN7uKKtkBWm48zSzY9wCzRPaxJUpX9XUzyZJqX2ZhmeECOetUDL5g
Biden is responding with a three part comprehensive plan:
Let the amazing power of US free market capitalism respond to the China threat.
Destroy free market based capitalism in the US.
Give or sell all our technology to China.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DH4v6FnbvM&t=5s
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/mar/14/us-being-systematically-undermined-by-china-as-rad/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=EEda38qgD93cWn6kyfsdApr%2FV17nki1qwzgEgqyi5l4MiBEhBs3nzF9zMmeNIIEu&bt_ts=1615726662686
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/west-must-stop-ceding-strategic-initiative-to-china-russia-uk-commander_3731942.html?utm_source=morningbrief&utm_medium=email&email=craftydog@earthlink.net&utm_campaign=mb-2021-03-14
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-deploys-coast-guard-far-from-home-to-counter-china-11615813220?mod=hp_featst_pos3
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Not a fan of some of the shading here, but many points of interest:
Biden’s First Hong Kong Sanctions Maintains Trump’s Approach
4 MIN READMar 17, 2021 | 20:46 GMT
Despite China’s ongoing efforts to undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy, new U.S. sanctions indicate that Washington will continue to avoid broader measures against the city’s financial sector or access to U.S. dollars for fear of dramatically escalating tensions with China and damaging U.S. economic interests in Hong Kong. Financial institutions in the city, however, will find themselves increasingly at risk of facing secondary sanctions. On March 16, the U.S. State Department updated its sanctions list under the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, adding 24 individuals involved in either the drafting or enforcement of the city’s controversial national security law. But even after China’s recent passing of sweeping Hong Kong electoral reforms, the latest U.S. sanctions linked to mainland encroachment on the city remain carefully calibrated to a limited set of individuals.
The U.S. State Department’s list under the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, which was signed into law in June 2020, previously only included 10 individuals. The 24 new additions include 15 members of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, one Politburo member from Hong Kong, a member of the Central Leading Group on Hong Kong and Macau Affairs and seven individuals from both mainland and Hong Kong national security organs.
The Hong Kong Autonomy Act additions overlap with the individuals that the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) added to its Specially Designated Nationals list in December 2020, which was linked to then-President Donald Trump’s “Executive Order on Hong Kong Normalization,” and subjected the added individuals to asset freezes and blocked U.S. transactions. The State Department designation, however, reclassified these individuals as Specially Designated Nationals under both the Hong Kong Autonomy Act and the executive order, expanding the penalties to allow secondary U.S. sanctions on financial institutions.
The Biden administration is signaling it will maintain the Trump-era emphasis on Hong Kong ahead of a key U.S.-China meeting. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will meet with their Chinese counterparts in Alaska on March 18-19 for what will be the first major bilateral U.S.-China meeting under the Biden administration. The fact that the new sanctions were announced just a day ahead of this meeting indicates that like its predecessor, the Biden administration will continue to emphasize Hong Kong in its relationship with Beijing. Bipartisan support in the United States for a hard-line China policy and Biden’s emphasis on broad, multilateral outreach to Indo-Pacific allies also portend a continuation of U.S.-China tensions under Biden over a range of other issues, including Taiwan, Xinjiang and the South China Sea.
The March 16 sanctions announcement also follows U.S. moves in recent days to support allies such as Japan and Australia in their efforts to counter China’s regional rise. On March 16, the White House’s Indo-Pacific coordinator, Kurt Campbell, said that U.S.-China relations would only improve if China ended its trade pressure on U.S. ally Australia. Also on March 16, the United States and Japan agreed to hold joint military exercises on Okinawa focused on preparing for contingencies in the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands disputed between China and Japan.
China has been undeterred by U.S. or international criticism of its electoral reforms in Hong Kong. On March 17, Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office Deputy Director Zhang Xiaoming concluded three days of consultations with 1,100 prominent Hong Kongers about the new electoral changes. Zhang told reporters that the Chief Executive Election Committee would choose a "larger proportion" of Legislative Council members than those directly elected by geographic constituencies or chosen by functional groups, signaling even tighter control of the legislature.
As the White House targets more individuals tied to Hong Kong’s political crisis, the financial institutions in the city that transact with these individuals will become increasingly at risk of triggering secondary U.S. sanctions. In announcing the new sanctions, Blinken warned foreign financial institutions that they will also be subject to sanctions if they knowingly conduct significant transactions with the added individuals. With these new designations and more likely to follow, financial institutions operating in Hong Kong will need to increase efforts to ensure compliance by examining their existing customers and screening new customers.
Following the State Department listing, the U.S. government will now have 60 days to submit a report to Congress identifying any financial institutions connected to the added individuals.
Since the passage of the Hong Kong Autonomy Act last year, financial institutions in the city have reportedly heavily vetted their customer lists for individuals connected to the contentious political developments in Hong Kong, given the dual risks of both triggering U.S. sanctions and having pro-democracy activist assets be targeted by the national security law.
The U.S. Treasury Department said in December 2020 that it had not identified any banks or financial institutions linked to the 10 individuals designated under the act as part of its mandatory 60-day report.
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What to Watch for Ahead of the U.S.-China Meeting in Alaska
The first face-to-face meeting between officials from the new U.S. administration and China is unlikely to lead to any breakthroughs; rather it is intended to set the strategic tenor of relations from the U.S. side. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will host Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Yang Jiechi in Alaska March 18-19 for the first face-to-face talks between the administrations of Joe Biden and Xi Jinping. Expectations are low, at least in regards to any early easing of trade or security frictions. The White House will instead use the meeting to reset Beijing’s expectations while laying out the contours of its evolving policy toward China, which so far appears to be a fairly hard-line stance.
Ahead of the meeting, U.S. officials engaged in a rapid series of diplomatic and military dialogues with partners and allies, highlighting local concerns and priorities to reinforce a common front. The United States has emphasized multilateralism and a focus on strategic competition with China ahead of the meeting. Just a few of the actions from the past week include:
Biden joined a virtual summit of the leaders of the Quad countries (the United States, India, Australia and Japan), agreeing on collaboration in countering COVID-19 and reinvigorating a grouping seen as the core of a counterbalance to China in the Indo-Pacific region.
Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Japan and South Korea for strategic talks, and Austin will continue on to India while Blinken heads to Alaska. The meetings in Japan and Korea followed the conclusion of negotiations over delayed defense cost-sharing agreements.
In both Japan and South Korea, the visiting U.S. officials addressed particular local concerns, including the Chinese maritime activity in the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and South Korea’s cautious balance of engagement and deterrence with North Korea. This was meant to reinforce the sense of cooperation.
Kurt Campbell, the administration’s Indo-Pacific coordinator, said Washington would not improve relations with China until Beijing ceased its “economic coercion” of Australia, noting similar Chinese behavior toward several other U.S. allies and partners. The message was not merely to Beijing — it was also intended to rebuild trust by allies that the United States would defend them or help offset costs of their actions against China.
Washington approved the sale of key military technologies to Taiwan to assist with domestic submarine development, suggesting a continuation of expanding sales and a willingness to help bolster Taiwan’s defense capabilities.
Biden’s focus on a multilateral approach, which was signaled well before the November election, is a key component of his administration’s foreign policy. Rebuilding trust will take time. Perceptions of U.S. unreliability led to significant changes in Philippine relations with the United States and China, have strained ties with South Korea, and remain a sticking point in U.S. attempts to bring partners in alignment with U.S. priorities. But the initial efforts by the administration show at least a recognition of this challenge, and highlight the importance Washington pays to removing a key tool from China’s diplomatic arsenal — that is, the ability to exploit significant differences among countries within the U.S. alliance and partner structure.
The Biden administration is approaching the meeting by highlighting its renewed multilateral approach, but also showing continuity with its predecessor’s hard-line perceptions of China. Beijing initially saw the meeting as an opportunity to “reset” relations, to find areas of collaboration and to ease tensions between the two powers. But as the meeting draws closer, the Chinese have shifted their own expectations, and are cautiously downplaying the importance of the meeting. Nonetheless, they have signaled that they will call for the removal of U.S. sanctions and a significant shift in relations, likely as a way to highlight their “willingness” and U.S. “intransigence.” The United States has promised to address hot-button issues, including Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Taiwan, and the Chinese no longer expect any swift talk of easing trade tensions. China’s strategic interests remain unchanged, and Beijing is unlikely to back down on any of its internal issues (or Taiwan), suggesting this first meeting will be rather contentious.
Coming out of the meeting, we will be watching for any signs of tactical cooperation, areas of further escalation, and signals for future discussions on economic and trade issues. While there are few expectations for a major adjustment to bilateral relations in Alaska, we can monitor for more subtle tactical adjustments.
There may be announcements of future bilateral or multilateral working groups that could provide space for focused dialogue and cooperation, even as strategic relations remain strained. Both Washington and Beijing at times have hinted at potential collaboration on issues of multilateral interest — from managing the COVID-19 pandemic to alternative energy and climate change mitigation. There is also room for further defense talks on setting protocols for military encounters at sea or in the air, for search and rescue coordination, and for countering piracy and illegal fishing.
Further escalation of tensions between the two could be signaled by demands for significant changes in behavior. If Washington sets specific expectations and deadlines on China for political actions in Hong Kong or human rights activities in Xinjiang, for example, we could see a further degradation of space for cooperation. China could also make clear threats regarding what it considers its territorial waters, building off of the recent change in laws regulating its Coast Guard use of force.
While Washington is trying to unify its partners and allies, China may shift its focus to keep the gaps open. China may step up its Code of Conduct negotiations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), for example, to dissuade Southeast Asian nations from signing on to any broader U.S. initiatives, and shift its active maritime pressures from the South China Sea to the East China Sea. The Chinese may also step up diplomacy with South Korea, which remains concerned that the Biden administration may abandon anything that happened in North Korea relations during the Trump administration.
While not a significant part of the Alaska meeting, the next phase of the U.S.-China dialogue is likely to focus on economics and trade. The Alaska talks will give some sense as to how tightly the United States will tie economic, strategic and human rights issues, or whether it will continue the general pattern of the past administration, keeping the three tracks somewhat separate. The former would make any quick progress complicated, but may also drive more strategic dialogue between China and the United States.
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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/03/bidens-foreign-policy-disaster-alaska-china-worse-initially-reported/
When the Chinese feel free to openly show contempt, you really suck.
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/mar/21/china-military-buildup-be-revealed-national-geospa/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=Mz8XywI1%2FxDkAF02tlA%2F0MHuUOsUa1LqIcmMUnFOWHxnj6NfZWgWdfl7b838rYeQ&bt_ts=1616377060749
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17196/china-civilizational-war
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Chinese boats in the Spratlys. Chinese-Philippine tensions have been ratcheting up again over the past week, with a fleet of hundreds of (likely armed) Chinese fishing vessels showing up around a Philippine-claimed reef in the Spratlys and appearing to expand its base on the disputed Subi Reef. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte pledged to defend Philippine territory, citing the country’s 2016 victory in its case against Chinese territorial claims at The Hague. (In the past, Duterte has generally been dismissive of the case’s importance.) The Philippine navy is sending a few vessels to the area.
Taiwan's dry spell. Taiwan is experiencing its worst drought in decades, which is threatening to only deepen the global chip shortage wreaking havoc on advanced manufacturers just about everywhere. On Wednesday, the Taiwanese government announced cuts to water supplies in several parts of the self-ruled island, including areas home to major chipmakers, which need a ton of water to operate. Taiwan’s astounding dominance of global chipmaking is starting to become a problem for both friends and foes.
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/05/10/china-is-launching-a-massive-weather-control-machine-the-size-of-alaska/?sh=6181501e6315
Worst drought in decades? Huh...
Chinese boats in the Spratlys. Chinese-Philippine tensions have been ratcheting up again over the past week, with a fleet of hundreds of (likely armed) Chinese fishing vessels showing up around a Philippine-claimed reef in the Spratlys and appearing to expand its base on the disputed Subi Reef. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte pledged to defend Philippine territory, citing the country’s 2016 victory in its case against Chinese territorial claims at The Hague. (In the past, Duterte has generally been dismissive of the case’s importance.) The Philippine navy is sending a few vessels to the area.
Taiwan's dry spell. Taiwan is experiencing its worst drought in decades, which is threatening to only deepen the global chip shortage wreaking havoc on advanced manufacturers just about everywhere. On Wednesday, the Taiwanese government announced cuts to water supplies in several parts of the self-ruled island, including areas home to major chipmakers, which need a ton of water to operate. Taiwan’s astounding dominance of global chipmaking is starting to become a problem for both friends and foes.
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For the record, that article is more than two years old.
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For the record, that article is more than two years old.
So their weather control program doesn't exist now?
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Not my point.
a) probably good practice to note the age an article when it is not current;
b) In this case it arguably is suggestive of having time to affect Taiwan.
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Not my point.
a) probably good practice to note the age an article when it is not current;
b) In this case it arguably is suggestive of having time to affect Taiwan.
China, not surprisingly has been very aggressive in using weather modification technology. It would not surprise me to find out that China and Russia have been using it to melt the ice in the Arctic while we are told it's Climate Change!
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I had not thought of this angle. Worth contemplating the implications.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/biden-admin-believes-china-flirting-taiwan-takeover-its-closer-most-think
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Persuasive to me.
Co-Presidents Magoo and Cackling Kommiela as war chiefs.
WE ARE FUCT.
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Well, the people of Taiwan are Fuct. To be sure.
I dare not set foot in the PRC or Hong Kong these days. How long before Taiwan and Singapore are also off limits?
Persuasive to me.
Co-Presidents Magoo and Cackling Kommiela as war chiefs.
WE ARE FUCT.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17215/china-whitsun-reef
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Australia’s Role in America’s War With China, Part 2
The country would have plenty to do aside from housing U.S. forces.
By: Jacek Bartosiak
Perhaps America’s greatest operational advantage over China – should a war ever start between them – is the superiority of its submarines. Submarines are great for breaking China’s anti-access/area denial strategy. Especially in the early stages of the conflict, nuclear submarines and cruise missile carriers would be Washington’s first option; they would be deep in Chinese-controlled waters, and they could hit inland targets such as ports, communications facilities and air defense systems. Even so, submarines have an inherent operational limitation: ammunition, which obviously can’t be replaced underwater.
Geographic Advantage
Enter Australia, whose importance can’t be confined to just one analysis. Northern Australia would be the ideal location for U.S. bases in theory, but inclement weather, great tides, moving floors and reefs make it too treacherous. The best option, then, would be Western Australia’s Stirling naval base. It’s beyond the range of China’s current conventional missile force, and unlike in Guam, Australia has conventional submarines stationed there. Its access to the Indian Ocean also allows U.S. vessels to eliminate peripheral Chinese raids and to cut through Chinese communications or block military ports in the Indian Ocean. (Not for nothing, Stirling would need some upgrades: a new harbor for nuclear ships, a deepened port at the Cockburn Sound canal, and so on. All of which would require things like ammunition stores and massive construction equipment that would make this a huge undertaking.)
Notably, Australia already has massive ship, warship and aircraft traffic reconnaissance capabilities far north of the Australian coast. For example, the off-horizon observation system, based on the use of radio wave reflection in the JORN (Jindalee Operational Radar Network) ionosphere, monitors sea routes and straits at a distance of 1,000-3,000 kilometers (620-1,900 miles) from the northern coast. The system detects planes, rockets and ships. After a planned upgrade, it will detect ballistic missiles as well as stealth planes and cruise missiles. Its data is interchangeable with Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft, HALE-class drones and P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol planes. Australia may soon ask other countries in the region to host the system, which would only strengthen it further.
Indeed, Australia has a huge role to play in terms of space reconnaissance. The geographic location of the country on the edge of the Southern Hemisphere enables precise tracking of the launch and, later, the movement of bodies in orbit. Western Australia’s sparse population reduces radio interference of satellite signals, and the lack of cloud cover over the country’s western deserts is ideal for tracking Chinese satellites.
Responsibilities
In the event of a war with China, Australian forces would have several automatic advantages over Chinese forces in the Indonesian strait area. A blockade of the Malacca Strait would divert Chinese vessel traffic to the Indonesian straits closer to Australia. This would distance Chinese forces from their own coast, complicating logistics and effectively depriving them of air protection or at least seriously reducing it. The current naval and air systems of the Chinese army do not have sufficient range to conduct operations around the straits. Only Chinese cruise missiles can threaten surface ships trying to block the Indonesian straits. Chinese long-range reconnaissance will therefore have a very difficult task. The natural geography of the area favors Australia by channeling the movement of ships, which helps its armed forces to concentrate strike forces over and between narrow passages. Australia’s smaller naval forces have local control of key narrow sea passages closer to their own bases and ports that will be almost entirely beyond Chinese influence.
Strategic Points in the Indo-Pacific
(click to enlarge)
Australians would presumably be assigned the role of permanent control of the movement of ships and warships, and for this they would need sensors, drones and special forces located near the Lombok and Sunda straits. It would not be necessary to maintain a constant air force presence over all Indonesian straits, because Chinese planes have too short a range. Only Chinese H-6 bombers with stand-off missiles can operate in this area. And the Chinese can fight Australian aircraft only with their Luyang I, II and III-class missile destroyers. These ships would naturally be subjected to the first attacks by American (and Australian) forces at the beginning of the war, something best accomplished with a fleet of submarines intercepting Chinese ships on their way south from Hainan Island, or with long-range planes armed with hard-to-detect anti-ship missiles with a range greater than the sensors and radar of Luyang destroyers.
Another role would be to combat Chinese submarines traveling from Hainan Island toward the Indonesian straits to dislodge the blockade. In this case, the conventional submarines of the Australian navy – typically difficult to detect in shallow and acoustically noisy waters around the straits – would be even more important than U.S. nuclear ships. At the operational level, there would be a division of tasks between American and Australian ships, where American nuclear ships would fight the Chinese navy in the deeper waters of the South China Sea, while quiet, conventional Australian ships lying in the shallow waters of the Indonesian archipelago would be waiting for Chinese vessels trying to get out of the American trap.
An important aspect in all this is Indonesia’s response to the conflict. If Indonesia fought with Western powers, it would significantly change the balance of power. In the Sunda and Lombok straits, coastal missiles can be easily used against objects at sea with the help of special units or separate ground troops. The Sunda Strait, in particular, is exceptionally narrow – in some places only 15 nautical miles wide. Special operations forces equipped with rockets and hidden in the jungle at Cape Tua in Sumatra or Puja in Java, moreover, would help to effectively block traffic in the straits.
One last task Australia may have to carry out, and one that may prove to be its primary task with regard to establishing a blockade, would be to escort its own ships and warships. Doing so would require extensive use of warships and combat platforms as the main force. Given the daily number of ships passing through the straits, it will not be easy, and even using all Australian forces may not be sufficient in allied operations, given that the Americans also do not have the number of ships to do the job. To this end, the Australian armed forces should provide for the possibility of calling and replenishing war stocks in ports geographically close to the straits in Malaysia and Singapore, and in the Philippines.
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"I dare not set foot in the PRC or Hong Kong these days. How long before Taiwan and Singapore are also off limits?"
- I'm afraid my participation here with honest observations precludes me from ever visiting a country under their control. Whether that includes the US or not remains to be seen. They don't just have our posts; they have our DNA.
Good last point too. Without the US being the strongest Navy in the world and in the region, the question expands from who protects Taiwan (no one) to who protects Singapore, and others.
Current estimate, Singapore Navy 30 ships, 4 submarines. Is there any chance China doesn't have a missile or torpedo aimed at each one of them?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Singapore_Navy
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/05/china/china-world-biggest-navy-intl-hnk-ml-dst/index.html
China has built the world's largest navy. Now what's Beijing going to do with it?
CNN March 5, 2021
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https://www.conservativebeaver.com/2021/03/21/reports-japan-may-deploy-military-to-protect-u-s-from-china-tokyo-warns-of-taiwan-tensions-seeks-to-deploy-military-overseas-for-1st-time-since-1945/
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second
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Biden-s-Asia-policy/Biden-and-Suga-to-note-Taiwan-Strait-in-April-joint-statement
=======================
Also see:
When he gets it right I say so: GOOD.
Daily Memo: Washington Shows Its Support for Taiwan
The U.S. is making it easier for its diplomats to meet with Taiwanese officials.
By: Geopolitical Futures
U.S. support for Taiwan. The United States is gradually treating Taiwan more and more like an independent country. The Biden administration is reportedly prepping new guidelines that would make it easier for U.S. diplomats to meet with their Taiwanese counterparts, building on a trend that started last year. This comes after the U.S. ambassador to Palau joined the Palauan president on a visit to Taipei over the weekend, becoming the first sitting U.S. ambassador to visit Taiwan in 42 years. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga are reportedly planning on making a joint rhetorical show of support for Taiwan during Suga’s visit to Washington next month.
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Luring Indonesia into taking a stand against China is an important piece of keeping the ability to block Chinese ships from ingress and egress with the South China Sea
======================
Japanese-Indonesian defense deal. As expected, Japan and Indonesia inked their landmark pact paving the way for exports of Japanese military equipment and technology to Indonesia. Tokyo has long been looking for ways to become a bigger player in the arms export game but has been hampered by factors both foreign and domestic.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-national-intelligence-officer-argues-china-meddled-in-2020-election-to-damage-trump_3740095.html/amp
Intelligence Officials Believe China Meddled in 2020 Election to Damage Trump:
March 18, 2021
“The National Intelligence Officer for Cyber assesses that China took at least some steps to undermine former President Trump’s reelection chances, primarily through social media and official public statements and media,”
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I know how we should respond: Meddle enough to accomplish their regime change.
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Council on Foreign Relations Special Report: “Taiwan is the issue with the greatest potential to turn competition into direct confrontation. For the past four decades, diplomatic finesse, backed by military deterrence, has maintained a precarious peace in the Taiwan Strait. The United States has played a critical role in deterring China from using force against Taiwan, as Beijing cannot be sure that the United States would stand aside in the face of Chinese aggression. Similarly, the United States has deterred Taiwan from seeking formal independence, as Taipei cannot be certain that the United States would come to its defense should it provoke a Chinese assault.
Cross-strait stability has allowed Taiwan to thrive and its people to build a democratic, pluralistic, and economically vibrant society. China, for its part, benefited from Taiwanese investment on the mainland and was able to set military modernization aside for a time to focus instead on economic development. The United States, through its One China policy, maintained official diplomatic relations with China but at the same time built a strong unofficial relationship with Taiwan.
It is unclear, however, whether this playbook that has worked so well for forty years can endure. Xi Jinping has broken from his predecessors, who stressed maintaining a low profile internationally and were content with keeping the question of Taiwan unresolved in order to focus on economic growth, recognizing that a Taiwan crisis would seriously harm China’s economy. Xi has opted for a more assertive Chinese foreign policy. On his watch, China has militarized the South China Sea, fought border skirmishes with India, challenged Japanese claims to the Senkaku islands, and used economic leverage to punish countries critical of Chinese practices. Xi has also overseen an effort to intimidate Taiwan and signaled that the Taiwan question cannot be delayed indefinitely.
China now possesses a stronger military that it hopes to rely on to back this bolder foreign policy. China has the second-largest military budget in the world, and most of its focus has gone toward preparing for a Taiwan scenario. In the United States, there has been a push toward retrenchment, while the Donald J. Trump administration called into question the value of America’s alliances and partnerships. As a result, China has greater capabilities to coerce Taiwan, and it could very well be questioning whether the United States would intervene on Taiwan’s behalf despite the fact that the Joe Biden administration has signaled that it well might. The net result is that the chances of a conflict over Taiwan have grown significantly in recent years. (via cfr.org)
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By: Geopolitical Futures
Biden and Suga to meet. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will be the first foreign leader to meet in person with U.S. President Joe Biden in a summit planned for April 16. The pair is expected to ink a deal on secure supplies of microchips. Japan’s chip industry is primarily focused on memory chips, not central processing unit chips or other chips presently in short supply across the globe, so it’s unclear what such a deal would entail. Getting South Korea involved as well would make a lot of sense, though. And that’s apparently on the agenda when U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan holds talks with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts on Friday.
War planning. The United States and Australia are reportedly holding talks on what to do in the event that China attacks Taiwan. The U.S. has been holding similar talks with Japan. There’s no obvious direct role for Australia unless such a conflict were to escalate into a broader regional conflict, giving Australia a chance to leverage its valuable position on the southern end of the first island chain.
Ship sales. The Indonesian-Japanese defense talks this week, during which a deal was signed facilitating Japanese arms sales to Indonesia, were reportedly centered on Japanese frigates. Jakarta is reportedly mulling buying eight of them. This would be a big win for Japan, which is keen to use arms exports to bolster its domestic arms industry, and would mark something of a departure for Indonesia, which has been somewhat reluctant to develop deep military ties with countries most directly involved in the disputes with China. (It has bought fighter jets from South Korea.)
TPP expansion? The Philippines has formally expressed interest in joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This is probably motivated by Manila’s trade goals, but the timing seems conspicuous with China intensifying pressure on the Philippines in the South China Sea. Meeting the bloc’s requirements might be a tall order for Manila, though.
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Chinese occupation. Philippine Defense Minister Delfin Lorenzana said China’s latest move around disputed reefs in the Spratlys illustrated China’s intent to occupy additional features in the area. We speculated as much last week. China is still insisting the hundreds of armed Chinese fishing vessels in the archipelago (some of which lies in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone) are there only to fish. Aides to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, usually quick to downplay these sorts of things, said China’s actions created the risk of “unwanted hostilities that both countries would rather not pursue.”
Help from Pyongyang? Taiwan says it is not getting help on its fledgling indigenous submarine from North Korea, contrary to reporting in various U.S. outlets over the past couple of years. The self-ruled island’s defense ministry says it is, however, now getting help from certain European powers (in addition to the U.S., which was known). Taiwan has felt increasingly exposed without its own submarine deterrent.
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https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-army/2020/09/01/what-war-with-china-could-look-like/
They know it.
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https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/2020/09/01/china-moves-toward-new-intelligentized-approach-to-warfare-says-pentagon/
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By: Geopolitical Futures
U.S. Navy in Indian waters. A U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer on Wednesday conducted a freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) inside India’s exclusive economic zone some 130 nautical miles west of the country’s Lakshadweep Islands. Unusual for FONOPs, the U.S. 7th Fleet announced the operation and explained its rationale, citing India’s requirement of prior consent before foreign militaries conduct military exercises or maneuvers in its economic zone, something inconsistent with international maritime law. This comes days after the 7th Fleet announced it had also conducted a FONOP challenging Japanese territorial claims in the Tsushima Strait, citing disagreement with the Japanese government’s particular methodology for calculating the extent of its claims. Naturally, these sorts of ops targeting friends and allies raise eyebrows about what exactly the U.S. endgame is here. But it’s worth noting that the U.S. routinely, and usually quietly, conducts FONOPs targeting both friends and foes. Its chief aim with FONOPs is consistent interpretation and application of international maritime law – and, with China more aggressively flouting such laws, it has a growing interest in trying to get its core defense partners on the same page.
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Taiwanese defenses. Taiwan is deploying Kestrel anti-armor rockets to some of its outlying islands in the South China Sea. This comes as Chinese military vessels have been loitering near islands where Taiwan has been conducting missile tests and as the People’s Liberation Army has been intensifying exercises and incursions into Taiwanese air space on each of Taiwan’s flanks. Last week, Taiwan threatened to shoot down Chinese drones it says it spotted circling around its Pratas islands in the South China Sea. China’s initial salvo against Taiwan is likely to take place around one of the outlying islands.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/the-chinese-regime-is-ready-to-attack-taiwan_3768455.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-04-11&mktids=7b98d9590e0d9b93e3dc2bd608497ef0&est=vsLR6iVkuEQTME%2BcKeucQ1N3%2FuLBpM4E51KDhoj2A6%2FKKP%2FE45xbCOkPa7Zz05D%2BC5gS
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https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-army/2020/09/01/what-war-with-china-could-look-like/
They know it.
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2021/04/russia-china-warn-biden-at-same-time-to-stay-out-of-ukraine-taiwan/
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https://2020electioncenter.com/watch?id=60760dee56165f200e388015
Bracken says they are going for it.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-army/2020/09/01/what-war-with-china-could-look-like/
They know it.
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2021/04/russia-china-warn-biden-at-same-time-to-stay-out-of-ukraine-taiwan/
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https://2020electioncenter.com/watch?id=60760dee56165f200e388015
Bracken says they are going for it.
You would think China's military and commercial objectives would be in conflict with each other. You would think that active military expansionism like taking Taiwan by force would cause commercial partners in Asia and around the world to back off and isolate the PRC. [That theory might not be true.]
The idea that Russia and China will act now while the US has its weakest President in office is completely true. Slow Joe is not fully in charge, but to the extent he is, he's the one who wanted to arm wrestle a supporter and take Trump out back and beat him up. In this context, he's not a deteriorating 80 year old who can't walk up a stairway; he (and his team) are commanders in chiefs of the US military that his predecessors built. Why test Biden now or rock the boat at all when everything is already going China's way?
This is not first term of an inexperienced President. This is really term 3 of the Obama politburo. Obama believed in peace through American weakness, but even Obama continued drone strikes on terrorists, authorized the bin Laden raid, and kept the war going in Afghan. Biden looks weak but his administration, at least domestically, is anything but cautious, moving full speed on all [Leftist] fronts, moving forward on gun control and court packing just this week. China doesn't have to hurry on account of the short window Joe occupies the Oval Office. Isn't Kamala even more skeptical of US military strength? If China really takes the long view, don't they want this chapter of weak US administrations to run as long as possible? Making Biden look impotent, putting the world in crisis, will come with a backlash, make a switch back to stronger Republican leadership more likely and happen sooner.
The current path favors the regime of China. Assuming they act in their own best interests, why screw that up?
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Xi sees America in terminal decline (Is he wrong?) and wants to do this on his watch.
https://2020electioncenter.com/watch?id=60760dee56165f200e388015
Bracken says they are going for it.
You would think China's military and commercial objectives would be in conflict with each other. You would think that active military expansionism like taking Taiwan by force would cause commercial partners in Asia and around the world to back off and isolate the PRC. [That theory might not be true.]
The idea that Russia and China will act now while the US has its weakest President in office is completely true. Slow Joe is not fully in charge, but to the extent he is, he's the one who wanted to arm wrestle a supporter and take Trump out back and beat him up. In this context, he's not a deteriorating 80 year old who can't walk up a stairway; he (and his team) are commanders in chiefs of the US military that his predecessors built. Why test Biden now or rock the boat at all when everything is already going China's way?
This is not first term of an inexperienced President. This is really term 3 of the Obama politburo. Obama believed in peace through American weakness, but even Obama continued drone strikes on terrorists, authorized the bin Laden raid, and kept the war going in Afghan. Biden looks weak but his administration, at least domestically, is anything but cautious, moving full speed on all [Leftist] fronts, moving forward on gun control and court packing just this week. China doesn't have to hurry on account of the short window Joe occupies the Oval Office. Isn't Kamala even more skeptical of US military strength? If China really takes the long view, don't they want this chapter of weak US administrations to run as long as possible? Making Biden look impotent, putting the world in crisis, will come with a backlash, make a switch back to stronger Republican leadership more likely and happen sooner.
The current path favors the regime of China. Assuming they act in their own best interests, why screw that up?
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"Xi sees America in terminal decline (Is he wrong?)"
- Right, so it gets easier each year that he waits.
"and wants to do this on his watch."
- That makes sense. Xi is 67 years old. Probably sees himself as having 15, 20 or more years in power. From his point of view, the war already started, as he is putting more and more Chinese military assets closer and closer to Taiwan, right now.
https://www.9news.com.au/world/china-holds-navy-drills-in-taiwan-waters-south-china-sea/d3c7935f-702e-4e3e-a167-7ce37b412269
The changes Biden is making, like gender equity in the American military, are insidious. Why not let the rot of the American might and spirit rot further first?
Wars started by Xi Jinping: All I can see is the India skirmish, which was some kind of a test or practice run, not a war to conquer a country.
Maybe Hong Kong is more the model than an all out military assault. The handover was in 1997. Complete control was accomplished in the last year of Trump(?) without a shot fired. Xi took small steps, but let it go on, let it go on, let it go on, then suddenly it's over, and no one says a word. It took more than 20 years.
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"- Right, so it gets easier each year that he waits."
Not really. China has serious internal issues and debt problems. Waiting means China's demographic problems get much worse (China getting old before it get's rich).
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"- Right, so it gets easier each year that he waits."
Not really. China has serious internal issues and debt problems. Waiting means China's demographic problems get much worse (China getting old before it gets rich).
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-09/china-taiwan-aggression-fallout-for-united-states-australia/100056942
Keep in mind PLA Generals have openly stated they plan on trading 100,000 troops to kill 10,000 Americans. They know that the American public won't accept WWII level casualties.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_qr-4AKM18
Note nothing about college or gender "confirmation" surgery in the above recruiting video, just a message of leave your family behind and prepare for war.
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SITUATION REPORT
U.S., China: Biden Sends Unofficial Delegation to Taiwan
2 MIN READApr 14, 2021 | 21:33 GMT
What Happened: U.S. President Joseph Biden sent an unofficial delegation of three former senior officials to Taiwan on April 13, calling the visit a “personal signal” of the strong U.S. commitment to Taiwan, the South China Morning Post has reported.
Why It Matters: As Biden attempts to prove the U.S. commitment to Taiwan, China will likely continue to use shows of force to counteract U.S.-Taiwan diplomatic entreaties. Chinese incursions into Taiwanese airspace are thus likely to grow in frequency and size, which will increase the risk of China-Taiwan military incidents and the diplomatic fallout that would follow. The timing of the U.S. visit to Taiwan may also further hinder Chinese officials’ willingness to cooperate in scheduled April 14-17 talks on climate initiatives with the United States and South Korea.
Background: On April 13, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson stated that the recent incursion of 25 Chinese aircraft into Taiwanese airspace was a signal that China contests U.S. efforts to grow closer to Taiwan. On April 9, the U.S. State Department released new guidelines designed to ease U.S.-Taiwan diplomatic meetings.
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https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2021/04/15/how-to-start-a-war-n2587985
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Japanese drills. Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) announced plans to conduct nationwide exercises involving all of its units between September and November of this year. The drills, the first on this scale since 1993, will focus on boosting deterrence, transporting supplies and improving communication systems. The GSDF also said joint drills with the U.S. and France could take place as early as May in Japan.
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https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/philippine-president-duterte-asked-to-confront-china-in-south-china-sea/ar-BB1fJ7o5
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The Philippine president is threatening to send warships to confront Chinese vessels in Philippine-claimed waters.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Philippine threats. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is threatening to send warships to confront Chinese vessels in Philippine-claimed waters in the South China Sea – but only if China starts drilling for oil and gas there. China has been blocking the Philippines from developing much-needed gas reserves in its exclusive economic zone, but there haven’t been any attempts yet by the Chinese to take the gas for themselves. What they are taking is fish – an enormous amount of it. This comes as Philippine defense officials are having to publicly deny speculation that the military is souring on the president over his relatively accommodative policies toward China.
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U.S. support for Vietnam. The U.S. has handed over coast guard training facilities it built for Vietnam. Coast guard training and assistance is becoming an increasingly important way for the U.S. to show its support for South China Sea littoral states, but the U.S. Coast Guard itself is poorly equipped to play a much more robust role in the region.
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Military developments in East Asia. Taiwan is seeking approval from Washington to buy long-range cruise missiles from the U.S. China has reportedly deployed long-range artillery launchers in the Himalayas. Japan is developing a nifty new long-range surveillance drone. The U.S. has returned a batch of B-52 long-range bombers to Guam.
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Military developments in East Asia. Taiwan is seeking approval from Washington to buy long-range cruise missiles from the U.S. China has reportedly deployed long-range artillery launchers in the Himalayas. Japan is developing a nifty new long-range surveillance drone. The U.S. has returned a batch of B-52 long-range bombers to Guam.
I hope that US made weapons to be sold to Taiwan have a remote shutoff switch to deactivate when control of Taiwan is ceded to China.
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".I hope that US made weapons to be sold to Taiwan have a remote shutoff switch to deactivate when control of Taiwan is ceded to China."
good point
how many times have we seen our own weapons used against us?
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17300/china-russia-provocations
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Japan's combat hesitancy. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said Thursday that Japanese troops would not get involved if China invaded Taiwan. Suga was clarifying the intent of a joint statement released last week following his meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden that mentioned, for the first time since Sino-Japanese relations were normalized in 1972, Taiwan by name. It’s a curious thing to say, since even the possibility of Japanese intervention is a deterrent to Beijing – and since a Chinese takeover of Taiwan would pose a huge strategic problem for Tokyo. But it speaks to the enduring power of domestic opposition to Japanese involvement in foreign wars.
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U.S. Concerns About China Put Focus on Taiwan’s Defensive Weakness
As Chinese military activity near the self-ruled island increases, security experts say it must do more to prepare for possible conflict
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has raised Taiwan’s military budget by 10% this year to $15.4 billion.
PHOTO: WALID BERRAZEG/SOPA IMAGES/ZUMA PRESS
By Alastair Gale
April 22, 2021 1:40 pm ET
An increase in Chinese military activity near Taiwan and U.S. concerns about Beijing’s intentions are putting a new focus on the island’s capabilities to deter any future invasion.
While there are no signs of an imminent move by Beijing to take the self-ruled island, which China claims, U.S. officials have said they believe the odds of conflict have gone up, especially since China’s crackdown on Hong Kong showed it could assert its authority without major international repercussions.
U.S. officials, former Taiwanese military leaders and security experts say they believe that means Taiwan needs to do more to ensure it can inflict enough damage to discourage an invading force or hold it off until the arrival of help—possibly from the U.S. After years of increases in military spending, China now has around 100 times as many ground force personnel as Taiwan and a military budget 25 times as large, according to Pentagon data.
Taiwan and China have had an unstable coexistence for more than seven decades. But concerns are rising that China may move against Taiwan to force a unification.
WSJ’s Gerald F. Seib explains some of the causes for worry. Photo illustration: Laura Kammermann
“From my perspective, we are really far behind what we need,” said Lee Hsi-min, chief of the general staff of Taiwan’s military until 2019. Mr. Lee said Taiwan needed to invest more in military assets that raise its ability to wage guerrilla-style warfare such as sea mines, missile attack boats and portable rocket launchers.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said earlier this month that the U.S. was committed to ensuring Taiwan has the ability to defend itself, a reference to an American law that has allowed for arms sales to the island. But Mr. Blinken declined to say what the U.S. would do if China attacked Taiwan, keeping to a longstanding U.S. government stance of ambiguity intended to deter conflict.
Some U.S. foreign policy experts advocate the U.S. making an explicit commitment to intervene if China attacks Taiwan. The Defense Department is studying hypothetical scenarios to counter a Chinese blockade or attack on Taiwan—from sending in American troops and Navy vessels to missile attacks—but one recent opinion poll showed the U.S. public wouldn’t support the deployment of American troops to defend Taiwan.
Military drills in Taiwan scheduled to start Friday are meant to sharpen Taipei’s responses and show allies the Taiwanese military isn’t falling behind.
The annual Han Kuang exercises begin with a week of computer simulations of Chinese actions, including electronic and cyberattacks, psychological warfare and uprisings among pro-China groups inside Taiwan. Taiwan’s defense minister said this week the simulations were lengthened this year to allow more time to fully review all scenarios of Chinese attack.
The drills shift to live-fire exercises in July, which are also intended as a show of force to deter Beijing from aggression.
“It’s not in our consideration how long it would take for others to arrive. I will fight on as long as you want,” Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said at a recent press conference.
Taiwan’s military ranks, however, have fallen over the last decade with the phasing out of conscription in response to public pressure, with many young Taiwanese more interested in pursuing other careers. Compulsory military service now consists of four months of basic training, down from two years maintained for decades.
Although salaries have been improved as Taiwan tries to build an all-volunteer force, the number of active-duty soldiers fell to 165,000 last year from 275,000 three years earlier. More than 2.5 million reservists only receive a handful of days of training every couple of years.
Alexander Huang, a former deputy minister in Taiwan’s mainland affairs council, which coordinates policy toward China, said an underlying factor affecting Taiwan’s preparedness was that most Taiwanese don’t believe China would attack.
“Even in the past two years, when we started to see the trade war and U.S.-China strategic competition, (and) shows of force by (China’s military) around our air defense identification zone, poll numbers tell us that Taiwan’s perception in a general sense is that China won’t do it,” he said.
The head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Adm. Phil Davidson, recently forecast that China could attempt to take over Taiwan within the next six years.
In testimony to Congress’s U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in February, Oriana Skylar Mastro, an expert on the Chinese military at Stanford University, said she had been told by Chinese military leaders that they believe they will have the capabilities to force unification with Taiwan within a year.
The Chinese military has flown more than 260 sorties near the island’s southwest coast so far this year, according to a Wall Street Journal tally of disclosures from Taiwan’s Defense Ministry. A record of about 380 similar sorties from China were tracked by Taiwan in all of last year.
Beijing committed to a policy of “peaceful unification” in 1979, and has offered to assimilate Taiwan under the “one country, two systems” framework applied to Hong Kong, while stressing that a military takeover remained an option.
Some security analysts say the threat of Chinese action is overstated. An all-out invasion across the 110-mile Taiwan Strait wouldn’t be easy because the sea is often rough and Taiwan’s built-up coastlines and mudflats make it hard for ships to land, said Scott Harold, an expert on Taiwan at the Rand Corp.
China also has other options to exert pressure, including imposing some form of blockade on Taiwan, or seizing any of the small islands controlled by Taipei close to the Chinese mainland.
Taiwanese experts still worry about worst-case scenarios. James Huang, a retired Taiwanese army lieutenant colonel, said Taiwan would quickly be plunged into chaos in any Chinese attack, as control centers and other targets would be destroyed. War games have shown that China could neutralize Taiwan’s air power in minutes, he said.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has said Taiwan would look for other countries’ support in the event of any attacks. She also has raised Taiwan’s military budget by 10% this year to $15.4 billion. U.S. arms sales to Taiwan last year included weaponry for so-called asymmetrical warfare, including drones, antiship missiles and truck-based rocket launchers.
In a speech at a U.S.-Taiwan defense-industry conference last year, David Helvey, acting assistant secretary of defense for East Asia in the Trump administration, called for Ms. Tsai to go further.
Recent spending increases, while a step in the right direction, “are insufficient to ensure that Taiwan can leverage its geography, advanced technology, workforce, and patriotic population to channel Taiwan’s inherent advantages necessary for a resilient defense,” Mr. Helvey said.
Some analysts point to Taiwan’s years of trying to foster closer ties with Beijing as the period when the balance of power shifted decisively in China’s favor. During the administration of previous Taiwan president Ma Ying-jeou, who emphasized building economic links with mainland China while in power from 2008 to 2016, China’s annual military spending doubled, while Taiwan’s edged up 3.5%, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
“The Ma years were a bit of a loss because in terms of preparedness and in terms of signaling to the Taiwanese military, they were not putting as much emphasis on countering a Chinese attack as they currently are,” said Michael Cole, a Taipei-based policy analyst.
—Joyu Wang contributed to this article.
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Daily Memo: Britain in the Indo-Pacific, Chinese Military Spending in 2020
The United Kingdom is increasing its presence in the region.
By: Geopolitical Futures
The U.K.'s new deployment. The United Kingdom will deploy a carrier strike group to the Indo-Pacific next month to participate in a series of military exercises and other operations. The group, led by the HMS Queen Elizabeth, will visit India, Japan, South Korea and Singapore.
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Australia, India and Japan formally launched their Supply Chain Resilience Initiative.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Bypassing China. Australia, India and Japan formally launched a so-called Supply Chain Resilience Initiative, an effort to present a supply chain alternative to China in the Indo-Pacific. The three countries will cooperate on trade, investment promotion and buyer-seller matching to help countries and companies diversify their supply chains. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman condemned the initiative, saying it does not support the stability of global supply chains and economic recovery.
Australian base expansions. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the expansion of four military training bases in the country’s Northern Territory. The government has allotted 747 million Australian dollars ($580 million) for the project, whose goal is to enable more wargaming exercises with the United States. Morrison emphasized Australia’s interest in a “free and open” Indo-Pacific and in protecting Australia’s national interests amid high uncertainty in the region. The announcement comes against the backdrop of souring Australian-Chinese ties.
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Brief: China Tests the Philippines and US Red Lines
If Chinese dredgers show up around Scarborough Shoal, things will get complicated quickly.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Background: The Philippines’ importance lies in its geography, located in the middle of what’s known as the first island chain, giving it – or, more likely, any outside naval power that allies with it – the power to disrupt vital Chinese sea lanes through the South China Sea and Bashi Channel. So China has been trying to pull the Philippines into its orbit with both carrots and sticks. But over the past few months, it has been relying more and more on sticks. Beijing has flooded several sensitive areas with Chinese coast guard vessels and armed fishing fleets to block Philippine fishermen from accessing resource-rich waters and impeding the Philippines’ own coast guard patrols.
What Happened: Scarborough Shoal has long been one of the most hotly contested areas between China and the Philippines. In 2012, the two sides engaged in a monthslong standoff over the reef. The U.S. brokered a mutual withdrawal, which China promptly violated. In 2016, the U.S. reportedly told China that it considered any attempt to transform Scarborough Shoal into another of its artificial island military bases as a red line, and China has refrained from doing so.
But Beijing still effectively controls the waters in and around the shoal, and it periodically uses Scarborough to needle Manila. Over the past couple of weeks, for example, Chinese vessels reportedly have harassed Philippine coast guard vessels sent to patrol the area, sparking outrage in Manila. On Monday, Philippine Foreign Secretary Teddy Locsin Jr. uncorked a truly wild, expletive-laden Twitter thread against China. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana was more diplomatic but still drew a hard line and insisted patrols would continue. President Rodrigo Duterte, who has come under withering political pressure over his perceived pro-China policies, has essentially said he’s doing all that he can.
Bottom Line: First of all, Locsin’s rant is hard to ignore. But what really caught our attention is that it’s the Scarborough Shoal at stake this time, making it possible that China is testing the Biden administration’s willingness to enforce the red line set in 2016. The U.S. would rather not get directly involved, and it probably won’t have to unless China signals its intent to start building on the shoal. If Chinese dredgers show up in the area, things will get complicated quickly.
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https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2021/05/03/anthony-blinken-our-purpose-is-not-to-contain-china/
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Scarborough Shoal, Obama 2012
We didn't contain China then either.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/2012-scarborough-shoal-crisis-blueprint-joe-bidens-china-policy-16757
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Daily Memo: Japan and Taiwan's Joint Operation in the East China Sea
It was the first operation of its kind.
By: Geopolitical Futures
East China Sea intel. Japan and Taiwan reportedly conducted a joint surveillance operation over the weekend for the first time, tracking the movements of a Chinese warship tooling around the East China Sea and passing through the Miyako Strait. Newly released satellite images show Japanese and Taiwanese warships in the area. Any signs of closer defense cooperation between Taiwan and Japan are worth noting.
Diplomatic games. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s most important chipmaker, will reportedly expand its plans to build new fabrication plants in Arizona and potentially elsewhere in the United States. TSMC is playing a savvy diplomatic game here, working to assuage U.S. fears about being too dependent on chip factories so close to Chinese shores while still keeping the bulk of its chipmaking capacity at home in Taiwan – a major incentive for outside powers to protect, or refrain from attacking, the self-ruled island.
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https://www.hoover.org/news/scholars-consider-possible-scenarios-preventing-chinese-takeover-taiwan
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https://washingtontimes-dc.newsmemory.com/?token=bae9e860486c225ccfb13c91df6a0252_60929c0b_6d25b5f&selDate=20210505&goTo=A01&artid=5&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=washingtontimes-E-Editions&utm_source=washingtontimes&utm_content=Read-Button
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Why China Wants the Spratlys
The islands could help Beijing secure the Western Pacific without actually fighting for it.
By: Phillip Orchard
For several months, China has been relentlessly asserting its control over disputed parts of the South China Sea. Hundreds of vessels in the Chinese maritime militia – lightly armed fishing fleets that don't so much fish as serve as foot soldiers for the Chinese navy – have been squatting around various reefs in the disputed Spratly archipelago near Philippine and Vietnamese controlled areas. The Chinese coast guard, meanwhile, has apparently been blocking and harassing Philippine patrols around Scarborough Shoal, a flashpoint reef farther north. The United States reportedly warned China in 2015 that turning Scarborough into another artificial island was a red line.
The show of force illustrates how the seven artificial island bases that China has built in the Spratlys since 2013 can be put to good use in scenarios short of war. The surveillance, communications and logistics capabilities they house make it easier than ever for legions of Chinese vessels to occupy disputed areas in perpetuity, swiftly overwhelm interlopers, and assert de facto control over the waters and marine resources claimed by others. But in an actual, prolonged conflict with the U.S. and its allies, the tactical value of the Spratlys would rapidly diminish. And if China's “salami-slicing” campaign pushes the Philippines, in particular, to throw in fully with the U.S., China's biggest strategic challenge – the threat of a U.S.-led blockade – will become an order of magnitude more difficult to solve.
In other words, China is playing a risky game. But it’s worth it, evidently, given the role Beijing thinks the islands could play in the early days of a major conflict. More important is the role they could play in cementing Chinese dominance of the Western Pacific without fighting at all.
Missile Fodder or More?
China has been finding ways to assert its claims over disputed reefs across the South China Sea for decades, particularly around the Paracels in the northwestern part of the sea, where China fought a pair of brief engagements with Vietnam and today has more than 20 military outposts. But it took things to another level beginning around 2013 when dredgers started showing up at a handful of reefs in the Spratlys, located in southeastern waters off the shores of the Philippines, Malaysia and the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. By 2016, China had transformed seven partially- or fully-submerged features into artificial islands, creating some 3,200 acres of new land. Today, these are full-fledged military bases, featuring lengthy runways, deepwater ports, barracks, underground ammunition stores, and a vast array of radar and communications technologies.
(click to enlarge)
And yet, over the course of a long kinetic conflict between China and the U.S., the value of China's bases in the Spratlys would be negligible. Indeed, there's a good chance the bases wouldn’t still be there at all.
There are two main problems that limit their value in a hot war. One, they’re not located particularly close to the chokepoints that the U.S. and its allies would try to control in order to close off vital Chinese sea lanes. Those are located in the Bashi Channel and Miyako and Tokara straits in the East China Sea and, to the south, the Malacca, Sunda and Lombok straits. Though China could use the Spratlys to threaten naval movements within the South China Sea itself, control of these waters is unlikely to be the main focus of the conflict. The ability to move forces from and through the Spratlys to break a blockade would be only marginally more advantageous than moving them from the Chinese mainland.
Second, and more fundamentally, the bases would be sitting ducks for enemy missiles. Long before major operations moved to the South China Sea – a stage where, theoretically, the bases could aid Chinese carrier operations, augment Chinese cyber and electronic warfare offensives, enhance China's edge in battlespace awareness, and/or facilitate asymmetric swarm attacks – their runways, communications and surveillance infrastructure would likely be rendered unusable. Whatever survived would be extraordinarily difficult to resupply. (There are also major questions about the islands' ability to withstand major environmental degradation, though it seems unwise to bet against China's engineering savvy and willpower.)
Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi reefs are not, in other words, the Spratly equivalents of Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima. There would be no brutal island-hopping campaign where control of the islands was a vital objective. They'd simply need to be neutralized. This could be done from a distance, no bloody amphibious operations required.
But focusing on their (lack of) value in the latter stages of a major conflict would be misguided. A lot would have to go wrong for Chinese forces for things to even get to that point. Rather, in an all-out war with the U.S. and its allies, the main value of the Spratlys would come into play in the very initial stages.
At the most basic level, they would give the U.S. seven more targets to deal with sooner or later. This could matter a lot, depending on how much the U.S. succeeds in its current efforts to find places to deploy land-based missiles across the first island chain. The U.S. has few such options right now. It would have to rely on longer-range (and thus less precise) missiles fired from Guam and other positions farther afield, on the limited arsenals of allies willing to join the fight (which cannot be guaranteed), and on whatever munitions U.S. warships can carry, which is of course limited. So, at worst, the Spratly bases are useful missile sponges.
China's Growing Coast Guard
(click to enlarge)
At best, they dramatically expand the range of Chinese missiles and air power. They give China an ability to try to flood contested spaces with sheer numbers, overwhelming the relatively small number of U.S. or allied assets that would be available in the early days of a conflict, with everything from fishing boats and coast guard vessels to swarms of unmanned aerial and maritime vehicles to, of course, actual warships and fighter jets. Most important, they give China tremendous capacity to dominate the information domain, with the potential to effectively blind or even cripple U.S. assets if caught unaware.
Power Imbalance in the South China Sea
(click to enlarge)
Each of these elements would be invaluable in helping China maintain the element of surprise, gain the initiative from the outset of a conflict, and put the U.S. back on its heels. Even if the bases don't last long after that, the tactical advantages of being able to set the terms in a conflict from the first shot can be decisive.
Winning Without Fighting
The main reasons for China's commandeering of the Spratlys have little to do with worst-case scenario war-planning, though. Realistically, war with the U.S. is still only a remote possibility, even if the apocalyptic risks of one are such that both sides have to prepare as if it may be inevitable. There’s a reason there hasn't been a great power war since the 1940s. The damage from one today could be even more catastrophic.
Some of China's objectives in the Spratlys, then, are much more straightforward. Shipping to and from China through the South China Sea is so vital to the Chinese economy that any threat of prolonged disruption could be existential to the Communist Party’s hold on power. It makes perfect sense for Beijing to want to have coast guard bases as close as possible to ward off potential threats before they become a reality. There are also basic material gains at stake. For example, fishing stocks in Chinese waters have been deteriorating at an alarming rate, and China has a lot of mouths to feed. Whether China's apparent determination to dictate who can fish and where is motivated more by distrust of its neighbors’ ability to prevent overfishing, or simply by the desire to grab what it can for itself, is a major driver of Chinese policy.
Even so, China can't ignore a potential conflict with the U.S. altogether. And it's making a big bet that dominating the Spratlys will ultimately help it prevail not only in the South China Sea but in the broader Western Pacific as well.
Put simply, China needs the Philippines on its side to truly deal with the threat of a U.S. and allied blockade on its access to the Western Pacific. So China has been employing a carrot-and-stick strategy to win Manila over, pairing military pressure with hefty amounts of aid and investment. In truth, it's always been more of a “bitter pill” strategy, using aid and investment to make it somewhat easier for Manila to swallow the reality that it doesn't exactly have a lot of options in the matter. China has made it clear that it's not about to back off, and, in doing so, has deepened suspicions in Manila that the U.S. isn't about to risk war with China in defense of Philippine material or sovereign interests. Eventually, China believes, Manila will conclude that its best long-term option is to flip into the Chinese camp. And in the meantime, Beijing can use its leverage to at least weaken the U.S.-Philippine alliance and discourage Manila from, for example, implementing a key 2014 agreement with the U.S. giving it rotational access to several Philippine bases. On these fronts, the strategy has been pretty successful.
Still, antagonizing the Philippines at a time when the U.S. is shedding distractions elsewhere in the world and getting serious about stitching together a robust alliance structure in East Asia is a risky bet, to say the least. The Duterte administration, which has bent over backward to stay on friendly terms with China, appears to be reaching something of a breaking point, with Foreign Minister Teddy Locsin Jr. lashing out at Beijing in a manner typically reserved for those on the president's list of enemies (drug dealers, Barack Obama, the pope, et al.). It's not unreasonable to wonder, then, if China is at risk of forcing Manila to go all-in on its alliance with the U.S. and greenlight, say, the reestablishment of U.S. bases throughout the country. This would be a monumental strategic setback.
But China pushed its chips in long ago. The Spratlys are too valuable in too many ways to back off now. Beijing is done biding time and hiding its capabilities. Under Xi Jinping, the strategic calculation is starting to look a whole lot like action for action's sake.
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if we had a military war with China (not just the one we were in )
could we count on people of this country
to come together to defend ourselves?
would it pull us together like 9-11 mostly did?
not so sure ........ :|
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if we had a military war with China (not just the one we were in )
could we count on people of this country
to come together to defend ourselves?
would it pull us together like 9-11 mostly did?
not so sure ........ :|
No.
A real war with the US is unthinkable for China as well. The goal seems to be, how much can they take without war.
On the current path, they will pass the US militarily soon enough if they haven't already. I think they would like to drive us out of our military presence in Asia but keep us as a customer.
The act of war they perpetrated on us so subtly is the Joe Biden presidency. Now there is no resolve to build our military or counter any move they make.
https://www.hngn.com/articles/234996/20210318/china-interference-elections.htm
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No retreat around the Spratlys. The number of Chinese maritime militia and coast guard vessels around the hotly disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea has increased by more than a third in recent months, since Manila began filing diplomatic protests, according to Philippine Foreign Secretary Teddy Locsin Jr. The Spratlys are too valuable for China to back off now.
China is breaking records. Bond defaults by Chinese firms are reaching a record pace, according to new data from Bloomberg. Already this year, companies have failed to make payments on an estimated 99.8 billion yuan ($15.5 billion) of onshore bonds. In previous years it’s taken until September to top the century mark.
The fate of Hong Kong. Nearly half of U.S. firms in Hong Kong are considering pulling up stakes within 3-5 years, according to the latest survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong of its members. Eroding Hong Kong's elite status as a financial hub and investment gateway to the mainland was a major risk Beijing was evidently willing to take when it accelerated its takeover of Hong Kong politics last year.
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https://m.theepochtimes.com/philippines-duterte-says-wont-withdraw-ships-from-contested-waters_3816189.html
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/watch-communist-professor-declares-us-was-defeated-biological-war-china?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A%20The%20Durden%20Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter&fbclid=IwAR3ZDk9KcXy0JLWGYYel8K6ApHzik0sBHtvCucTD4pxmjf9YOnWDpwBCyoQ
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Not sure hoe to say that in stronger terms, a guy smarter than me, knows more than me, sees all Biden has done wrong and says this is the worst yet. He already destroyed our country , what could be worse? Giving our vaccine technology to the CCP bioweapons group aiming to destroy us.
Will add link.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17393/biden-giving-china-vaccine-tech?fbclid=IwAR1Pxae045BOhayUyaCORTzTlpzADUYMIsjDaMvwlYX60p_XgFYo43dQ1OY
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Closer to a deal. The U.S. and the Philippines are nearing a deal to extend the all-important 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement, according to Foreign Policy magazine. The VFA, which Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has taken steps to scrap over the past two years, is indispensable to giving the bilateral Mutual Defense Treaty any weight. Without it, a still-unimplemented U.S.-Philippines basing deal signed in 2014 will not move forward. It’s unclear whether this extension will be yet another short-term stopgap measure or something that solidifies the alliance for many more years to come.
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Anyone have any faith that China Joe will stand up to Xi?
Closer to a deal. The U.S. and the Philippines are nearing a deal to extend the all-important 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement, according to Foreign Policy magazine. The VFA, which Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has taken steps to scrap over the past two years, is indispensable to giving the bilateral Mutual Defense Treaty any weight. Without it, a still-unimplemented U.S.-Philippines basing deal signed in 2014 will not move forward. It’s unclear whether this extension will be yet another short-term stopgap measure or something that solidifies the alliance for many more years to come.
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Cold shoulder. The U.S. and Chinese militaries apparently are barely on speaking terms. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has reportedly made three requests to speak to his Chinese counterpart and been rebuffed three times. The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, hasn’t spoken to his Chinese counterpart since January.
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".U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has reportedly made three requests to speak to his Chinese counterpart and been rebuffed three times."
What we need is *MORE DIPLOMACY!*
yeah right
we could offer them military secrets if they will only meet with Biden's crew
or send kerry over with loads of cash.......
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17414/china-navy-patrol-new-york
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Brief: Chinese Warplanes in Malaysian Airspace
Beijing is keen to get its air force some practice conducting logistics operations over long distance.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Background: China's biggest strategic challenge is preventing foreign powers from using the first island chain to box in Chinese forces or blockade vital Chinese sea lanes. To address this, China has focused on steadily pressuring weaker littoral states around the South China Sea with both economic and military moves, so that they’ll conclude that China’s rise to regional hegemony is inevitable. It has also invested heavily in power projection capabilities. However, lacking a network of overseas bases in the region, China has yet to prove it has the logistics capacity to back up its power projection.
What Happened: Malaysia on Tuesday said it had scrambled fighter jets to intercept 16 Chinese military aircraft flying in formation in Malaysian airspace off Sarawak, the easternmost part of Malaysian Borneo. China makes airspace incursions around Taiwan and the Senkaku Islands all the time. And it routinely sends coast guard and maritime militia vessels to harass Malaysian energy exploration operations off Sarawak and Sabah. But airspace incursions that far from the Chinese mainland are a little bit unusual. Curiously, moreover, each of the 16 warplanes was reportedly one of two types of military transport aircraft deployed by the People’s Liberation Army. Again, it's not unusual for such planes to take part in larger incursions closer to mainland shores. But for them to fly so far from home, unaccompanied by fighter jets, seems a bit odd.
Bottom Line: This is a minor and probably marginally significant deviation from the pattern of Chinese incursions and other military pressure tactics in Southeast Asia. But it makes enough sense: China presumably is keen to get its air force some practice conducting logistics operations over long distance. It's also typically keen to show off advancements in its capabilities – especially to blocking states like Malaysia – even if flying large cargo planes a couple thousand miles isn't really going to impress anyone all that much.
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Daily Memo: New Stage in US-Chinese Competition
Washington also announced plans to launch trade and investment talks with Taiwan.
By: Geopolitical Futures
U.S.-Chinese competition. The U.S. Senate is inching closer to finalizing legislation worth at least $200 billion aimed at boosting U.S. competitiveness against China. The Biden administration also announced a “strike force” to combat unfair Chinese trade practices. China, meanwhile, is pushing forward with a new law aimed at making it easier to retaliate against Western sanctions.
U.S.-Taiwanese trade talks. The United States will launch trade and investment talks with Taiwan, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a U.S. House committee on Monday. Blinken didn't provide additional details, and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai's office said there were no formal meetings to announce at the moment. Diplomatic isolation and economic coercion are two core Chinese tactics toward Taiwan.
==============================
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-08/schumer-seeking-endgame-on-200-billion-plus-anti-china-bill
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-08/china-moves-forward-with-law-aimed-at-countering-u-s-sanctions
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-taiwan-to-launch-trade-talks-11623097659
2019: https://geopoliticalfutures.com/taiwan-us-friend-convenience/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=https%3A%2F%2Fgeopoliticalfutures.com%2Ftaiwan-us-friend-convenience%2F&utm_content&utm_campaign=PAID+-+Everything+as+it%27s+published
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https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2021/06/09/2104276/vfa-faces-uncertainty-duterte-asks-us-explain-inaction-2012-panatag-standoff
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People are asking and answering the question of how the US should get tough on China. Suggestion: Pres. Biden should appoint Donald Trump (or Mike Pompeo) Ambassador to China. Seriously.
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Off the top of my head:
Apply our debts to China towards the damages they caused us by their bad behavior spreading the Wuhan Virus.
Relevant military build up.
Eliminate vulnerabilities such as reliance upon China for antibiotics, semi-chips, REEs, etc
Go for removing China from the WTO.
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Off the top of my head:
Apply our debts to China towards the damages they caused us by their bad behavior spreading the Wuhan Virus.
Relevant military build up.
Eliminate vulnerabilities such as reliance upon China for antibiotics, semi-chips, REEs, etc
Go for removing China from the WTO.
- I like the way you are thinking.
On the first point, at least freeze assets pending investigation. Since we are such multi-lateralists now, do it worldwide.
This one should have 100% bipartisan support:
"Eliminate vulnerabilities such as reliance upon China for antibiotics, semi-chips, REEs, etc"
- Why aren't we working to mitigate all of our vulnerabilities? We couldn't even make masks, and we are still having supply chain disruptions across our industries.
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/jun/16/g-7-leaders-back-taiwan-first-time/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=dive_deeper&utm_term=newsletter&bt_ee=qh%2FJM2VXg5PPRJ0kmYbXyHoNyFEvSYRCHPHf3hweapmG8XoCFch0HPbHTTK3ZRsM&bt_ts=1624038940458
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85% of Taiwanese see themselves as Taiwanese only, not Chinese, reported by Gordon Chang. Low single digits in Taiwan see themselves as Chinese.
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G7 backs Taiwan for first time
wow
I like it.
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This is a good thing.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/jun/22/navy-warship-challenges-china-taiwan-strait-voyage/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=XQKanCd7IQiDHPYisrm2iF6YndK1uDwqQRguIic8661WItxiNp5Wg1stzBY0zH7p&bt_ts=1624409309053
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17512/end-china-trade
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https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/07/threat_of_chinese_military_aggression_even_more_worrisome_after_ccps_100th_anniversary_celebration.html
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17547/china-mobilizing-war
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Expanding the blacklist. The Biden administration added more than 30 additional Chinese companies to its economic blacklist over alleged links to human rights violations in Xinjiang. The targeted firms have not yet been identified. China’s crackdowns in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and elsewhere are making it easier for anti-China coalitions to coalesce across the West.
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Expanding the blacklist. The Biden administration added more than 30 additional Chinese companies to its economic blacklist over alleged links to human rights violations in Xinjiang. The targeted firms have not yet been identified. China’s crackdowns in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and elsewhere are making it easier for anti-China coalitions to coalesce across the West.
:roll:
Any of those companies ones Hunter did business with?
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".Any of those companies ones Hunter did business with?"
it is none of our God damn business ! :wink:
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".Any of those companies ones Hunter did business with?"
it is none of our God damn business ! :wink:
https://nypost.com/2021/07/09/psaki-claims-biden-didnt-discuss-business-with-hunter-despite-docs-that-show-otherwise/
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https://nypost.com/2021/07/09/psaki-claims-biden-didnt-discuss-business-with-hunter-despite-docs-that-show-otherwise/
Just like nancy did not tell paul anything
so he could INSIDE trade
( " I have nothing to do with his stock trades )
not mentioned is she only comes home and just happens to mention legislation that would affect certain stocks
he goes out calls his broker and she can make the absurd claim she
had nothing to do with it.
no shame
because NO punishment .
NOT even the media who covers for all the Dems
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A Look Back at a Landmark South China Sea Ruling, Five Years On
7 MIN READJul 12, 2021 | 17:34 GMT
An aerial photograph taken by the Philippine Air Force in November 2003 shows Chinese-built structures near the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
An aerial photograph taken by the Philippine Air Force in November 2003 shows Chinese-built structures near the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
(STR/AFP via Getty Images)
On July 12, 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague effectively ruled that China’s sweeping nine-dash line in the South China Sea had no international legal standing under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), siding with the Philippines. Ahead of the fifth anniversary of that landmark ruling, I had the opportunity to take part in a semi-formal dialogue between researchers and officials from both the United States and China (notably, Philippine delegates were not invited). The Chinese side set the tone of the meeting. They considered the Philippine case without merit (China boycotted the tribunal), reasserted their historical claims to much of the South China Sea, and not so subtly told the United States to stay out of regional Chinese affairs. There was no dialogue. The meeting was intended to deliver a message that China would continue to assert its sovereignty over several built-up artificial islands and that it saw U.S. moves to challenge these claims or support regional counterclaimants as interference and acts of aggression against China and its core interests.
In the five years since the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled on the case brought by the Philippines, China’s response has highlighted the challenges of maritime claims in the region, as well as the limitations of international law. Without willing compliance or international enforcement, relative power remains the true arbiter — allowing for Beijing to gain an advantage in the disputed waterway.
A Look Back
Five years on, China continues to ignore the U.N. tribunal ruling, has hardened its positions in the South China Sea, formalized its administrative claims to the territory, and expanded its maritime patrols and exercises. In part, this was facilitated by the Philippines itself. Just two months before the tribunal issued its ruling, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte took office and rapidly distanced himself from the tribunal ruling and his predecessor’s China policies. In return, Duterte sought Chinese investment and stable relations, which would enable him to focus on his domestic priorities, including his anti-drug campaign and his push for greater federalism as a way to manage the restive southern provinces.
Manila’s shift in tone regarding China also comes amid Duterte’s frequent threats to distance the Philippines from the United States, as well as end the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), which is a 70-year-old framework under which U.S. military personnel operate in the Philippines. This means that even if the United States sought to challenge China’s claims on the basis of the tribunal ruling, Washington would find little support from the very country that had brought the case against Beijing to begin with. The negative U.S. response to Duterte’s anti-drug campaign, which was reportedly rife with extrajudicial killings, added to tensions between the two erstwhile allies. While the U.S. Navy continued to carry out Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) around the Chinese-occupied islets, it did little more to try and dislodge the Chinese forces. Tribunal ruling or not, Beijing remains the de facto controlling power over the disputed islets, and also retains control of related fishing grounds.
The Challenges of International Law
One of the frequent arguments Duterte has made for his China policy and his reluctance to press the tribunal ruling is that Manila simply does not have the capacity to enforce the ruling, and that Washington has failed to step up and shoulder the responsibility. In short, Duterte has essentially said that, while he still holds that the islands and other landmasses in the South China Sea are Philippine territory, Manila is incapable of asserting its claims, and thus it is near futile and self-defeating to undermine relations with China over something that cannot be altered any time soon.
In a similar vein, Duterte has blamed both the previous Philippine administration and the United States for failing to dislodge China in 2012, when Washington helped ease rising tensions around the disputed Scarborough Shoal. Duterte and his supporters have questioned why the United States failed to push Chinese ships out of the shoal after the Philippine ships withdrew. The crux of the argument is that, despite the U.S.-Philippine mutual defense treaty and the superiority of the U.S. Navy at the time, Washington failed to fulfill its responsibilities to its ally. Thus U.S. freedom of navigation operations (FONOPS) are disruptive and cause problems for Manila, but do not include any real benefit.
China wagered that the United States would not risk triggering a larger military engagement over a few spots of rock and sand in a distant sea.
Despite his frequent rhetorical flourishes and occasional foul language, Duterte isn’t entirely off the mark. The inconvenient reality of treaties and international law more broadly is that they are only effective so long as they are enforced or willingly adhered to, or at least perceived by third parties to be actually binding. If China truly believed that the United States would risk its own ships, aircraft and personnel to preserve Manila’s claims to the unoccupied shoals and islets, Beijing may have taken a different path. But China’s experience has led it to assess that while the United States would complain, Washington would not take on the risk of a larger military engagement with China over a few spots of rock and sand in a distant sea, no matter how strategic the overall waterway may be. And the United States reinforced this view by frequently claiming it did not take sides in the Philippines' South China Sea dispute with China, thus failing to assertively back Manila’s claims. Not only was this the longstanding U.S. policy, it also matched the tribunal ruling, which did not assess Philippine sovereignty despite rejecting China’s claims.
The Limitations of U.S. Power
The United States has long had mixed views on treaties, international law and multinational organizations. From its earliest days, U.S. leaders argued against entangling alliances, fearing that such relations could force the United States into economic or military action that would be detrimental to its own domestic interests. Like any large power, the United States has used international systems, laws and organizations when they largely fit U.S. needs and interests, but shied away when they did not. The United States has even failed to ratify UNCLOS, despite that being the basis for the tribunal ruling, as well as part of Washington’s justification for its naval operations in the South China Sea.
For much of the last three decades, even as there were growing voices urging Washington to take heed of China’s rise and its potential challenge to the U.S.-supported international order, U.S. administrations largely sought to entice Beijing through engagement, hoping China would “westernize” by default. While that idea has since lost credence, it does in part explain U.S. reticence in the past to directly challenge China, despite Beijing’s assertive behavior in the South China Sea. In more concrete terms, Washington has also felt that the risk of military escalation with China exceeded the threat posed by each incremental step China took in occupying, building up and arming the islets.
For the past 20 years, the primary U.S. security focus had been on counterterrorism efforts and on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Great power competition was simply not in vogue, and U.S. training cycles and force deployments reflected the prioritization of non-state actors as the primary security threat. While that pattern is now shifting rapidly, the United States is no longer in a position to prevent Chinese action. Washington must instead either manage the new reality of power in the South China Sea, or take on the cost of trying to roll back Chinese positions. It’s one thing to stop something from happening, but it’s quite another to reverse an existing reality.
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https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2021/07/danger-china-clear-and-present-already-indopacoms-top-intel-officer-warns/183698/
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South China Sea: China Warns U.S. Destroyer Operating Near Disputed Islands
2 MIN READJul 12, 2021 | 17:53 GMT
What Happened: The Chinese military said it had warned U.S. guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold to leave Chinese-claimed waters near the South China Sea’s Paracel Islands following a U.S. freedom of navigation operation (FONOP), the South China Morning Post reported July 12. This coincided with the fifth anniversary of an international legal victory by the Philippines that invalidated China's sweeping South China Sea claims, which U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken marked by reaffirming the U.S. position that its mutual defense treaty with the Philippines would come into play in the South China Sea if China attacked Philippine military personnel, vessels or aircraft.
Why It Matters: Both China and the United States are signaling their resolve to assert their respective positions in the South China Sea, with an eye toward the competing claimants in the waterway — namely the Philippines and Vietnam. In the Philippines, the May 2022 presidential election will see a transition away from President Rodrigo Duterte, who has adopted a softer stance on China and a more hard-line stance on the United States since taking office in 2016. Vietnam is a key potential partner for the United States in Southeast Asia given Hanoi’s interest in defending its South China Sea claims in order to both shore up its national security, as well as access vital natural gas resources to feed Vietnam’s growing industries.
Background: July 12 marks the anniversary of a 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in favor of the Philippines that struck down China's “nine-dashed line” claims under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The United States has conducted at least 36 FONOPS since late 2015. The USS Benfold was present in the region following joint training exercises with Singapore in Guam that lasted from June 21 to July 7.
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"Both China and the United States are signaling their resolve to assert their respective positions in the South China Sea, with an eye toward the competing claimants in the waterway — namely the Philippines and Vietnam."
Does anyone really believe we will do anything if CCP invades Taiwan?
Yes big man JOE who can scream Jim Crow and fight for our democracy and inherent rights to vote !!!! :wink:
We know his response - > sanctions!
confer with our friends and allies!
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One country,
two one system.
https://freebeacon.com/media/china-hong-kong-journalists/
NBA, Nike, Apple, Google Silent on China’s Crackdown on Journalists in Hong Kong
At least seven journalists arrested in Hong Kong since June 17
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Jailed journalists, and no one protests. Don't tell me these are American companies. Their loyalties are with China.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/chinese-communist-party-officials-share-viral-video-urging-nuclear-strikes-japan
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http://ace.mu.nu/archives/394772.php
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https://www.unz.com/freed/watching-china-anatomy-of-a-suicide/
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Chip shortage easing? Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s most important chipmaker, said Thursday that the global chip shortage may be starting to ease. The company said it increased output for micro-controlling units – a key automaking input – by 30 percent during the first half of this year and expects production to continue to expand through the next six months.
Mystery package. A U.S. Air Force cargo plane made an unannounced stop in Taipei to deliver a package to the de facto U.S. embassy there, Taiwanese media reported on Thursday. Neither government has confirmed the stop or provided any hints as to what was inside the parcel. Beijing warned that the U.S. is playing with fire. The U.S. has been dropping more than a few hints that a renewed U.S. military presence in Taiwan isn’t unthinkable.
This from Oct. 2020:
https://geopoliticalfutures.com/will-us-troops-return-to-taiwan/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=https%3A%2F%2Fgeopoliticalfutures.com%2Fwill-us-troops-return-to-taiwan%2F&utm_content&utm_campaign=PAID+-+Everything+as+it%27s+published
Will US Troops Return to Taiwan?
Washington appears to be suggesting it would be willing to put boots on the ground again in Taiwan.
By Phillip Orchard -October 21, 2020Open as PDF
For the past several years, China has been going to exaggerated lengths to isolate Taiwan – diplomatically, militarily, even epidemiologically. But Taipei and Washington have been finding some subtle but pointed ways to make clear that the self-ruled island is not exactly alone. There was, for example, the photo Taipei released earlier this month of President Tsai Ing-wen and her Cabinet walking down a hallway at an early warning radar site, with a U.S. military technical officer lurking in the background. In August, there was the U.S.-released photo of a bunch of Taiwanese airmen and, conspicuously, a handful of U.S. avionics advisers, posing in front of a Patriot missile battery in Taiwan. Also in August, there was the first-ever visit by Taiwanese troops to the de facto U.S. embassy in Taipei, where Washington has openly discussed stationing troops.
Taiwan and the U.S. have little reason to play coy about traditional means of U.S. support for the self-ruled island. The U.S. is required by U.S. law to sell Taiwan the arms it needs to defend itself, and it doesn’t typically do so covertly. Such arms packages have been getting larger and more frequent over the past couple of years, as have appearances by U.S. warships in the Taiwan Strait. And Washington, which doesn’t have official diplomatic ties with the government in Taipei, has also become less and less inclined to keep playing its game of diplomatic make-believe around Taiwan to please China, as illustrated by a pair of recent senior-level visits by U.S. officials. Still, there’s a world of difference between providing material and diplomatic support for Taiwan and putting U.S. forces in Taiwan.
So are Taipei and Washington signaling that a return of U.S. boots on the ground in Taiwan is on the table? Probably not in a major way. But Taiwan hosting at least a modest U.S. military presence in the not-so-distant future shouldn’t be ruled out.
Foot in the Door
For nearly a quarter century beginning in 1954, Taiwan hosted as many as 30,000 U.S. troops as the U.S. sought to deter the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) from attempting to put a decisive end to the Chinese civil war (and to discourage Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang from launching its own mainland invasion). But the U.S. committed to withdrawing all its forces from the island in its breakthrough 1972 joint communique with Beijing, and all were gone by the time the U.S. switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.
Since then, like the State Department and every other U.S. government agency with an interest in Taiwan, U.S. military engagement in Taiwan has largely had to rely on unofficial or civilian workarounds. When Taipei in August opened a “U.S.-backed” F-16 maintenance center in the western Taiwanese city of Taichung, for example, technically it was done in partnership with Lockheed Martin Corp., not the U.S. military itself. Otherwise, U.S. forces have generally steered well clear of the island in the interest of managing latent tensions with Beijing – or so it was thought until the past couple of years.
In 2018, the U.S. State Department stirred up a minor cross-strait kerfuffle by requesting a routine deployment of U.S. Marines to provide security for the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto U.S. embassy in Taipei. Former U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis reportedly decided against the move after talks with Beijing. But last year, an institute spokesperson said that, actually, active U.S. military personnel have been stationed there since 2005 – and not just Marines but personnel from the Army, Navy and Air Force as well.
Also in 2018, the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act authorized port calls by U.S. Navy ships, and the Navy followed through shortly thereafter by dispatching a research vessel to the island. Meanwhile, there’s been a marked increase in discussion in U.S. and Taiwanese defense policy circles, and even the Taiwanese parliament, about a return of more substantial U.S. forces to Taiwan. There’s little evidence that any formal discussions on the matter have taken place. Still, the rumors have sparked no small amount of consternation in Chinese state media, with the Global Times warning that such a move would trigger “reunification by force.”
Why Taipei Might Be Interested
The increase in chatter about U.S. troops returning to Taiwan makes sense. Chinese military pressure on Taiwan has surged over the past year or so. The PLA isn’t capable of launching an amphibious invasion of Taiwan yet – at least not at an acceptable cost. But the PLA’s breakneck buildup of naval, air and missile capabilities is rapidly turning the cross-strait balance of power in the mainland’s favor. And while Taiwan has enormous geographical advantages working in its favor, there’s growing concern in Taipei about just how optimized the military is for deterring an invasion given the growth in Chinese anti-access/area-denial firepower, much less countering a Chinese blockade or, say, a seizure of one of Taiwan’s outlying islands.
The Communist Party of China, moreover, has a political imperative to reunify on its terms. Thus, China must make Taipei think reunification – whether peacefully or by force – is a matter of when, not if. Toward this end, China also needs to sow extreme doubt in Taipei about the United States’ willingness to intervene on its behalf – something that would expose U.S. forces to substantial losses.
From Taipei’s perspective, U.S. arms sales may not be enough to keep China at bay indefinitely. Taiwan doesn’t have the budgetary capacity to build or acquire the level of firepower the U.S. could bring to bear. And since the U.S. is leery of handing over its most sophisticated weapons and surveillance systems to a government so vulnerable to Chinese espionage and potentially capture, Taiwan is at increasing risk of losing what’s left of its technological superiority over the PLA. Thus, bringing back U.S. troops and U.S.-controlled assets could reasonably be considered a fine way to preserve the cross-strait status quo.
Realistic Possibilities
For the U.S., Taiwan’s geographic position offers innumerable advantages. Strategically, so long as the U.S. can pair its superior naval and aerial capabilities with bases and allied support along what’s known as the first island chain – Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia – it poses a threat to block sea lanes that are critical to China’s export-dependent economy. And more than any other island in this chain, Taiwan could be used by a foreign power to threaten the Chinese mainland itself. Since, with the U.S. basing agreement with the Philippines still stalled, the only existing major U.S. bases in the Western Pacific are thousands of miles away in Japan, South Korea and Guam, Taiwan could ostensibly also facilitate a more active U.S. presence in the South China Sea. More broadly, given China’s expanding arsenal of sophisticated precision-guided anti-ship missiles, the U.S. is keen to adopt a more distributed force posture in the region. The more places from which it can station and dispatch forces, the better.
(click to enlarge)
In truth, the U.S. probably isn’t interested in basing large numbers of troops, warplanes and warships in Taiwan. The geographic benefits provided by the island probably are outweighed by the risks of putting U.S. forces so close to Chinese firepower. The U.S. can also exploit its main point of leverage over China – its ability to cut off chokepoints along the first island chain and egresses into the Indian Ocean like the Strait of Malacca – without Taiwan.
Still, establishing at least a modest military footprint in Taiwan could serve U.S. interests in a couple of key ways. One is by countering China’s creeping superiority in regional information operations (i.e., its communications, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities – the main benefit of its island bases in the Spratlys and Paracels). Another is by aiding the U.S. search for land-based missile sites in the Western Pacific. The U.S. is very keen to deploy land-based, intermediate-range cruise and ballistic missiles to the region to avoid being fully dependent on overstretched U.S. warships, which inherently carry limited magazines and would be difficult to resupply during combat. But the U.S. has had a devil of a time finding anyone willing to host such missiles. U.S. missiles in Taiwan would have the range to reach certain flashpoints in the East and South China seas, to say nothing of ports, airfields and anti-ship missile sites on the mainland itself.
Second, the U.S., of course, also has a strong interest in making it excessively risky for China to make a move on Taiwan – and thus incentivize Beijing to be content with less aggressive ways to meet its own strategic and political needs. It wouldn’t take a huge U.S. force to raise such costs. Even the presence of a relatively small number of U.S. military personnel at Taiwanese bases, radar sites and so forth would function as a tripwire and make it abundantly clear to Beijing that an attack on Taiwan – and thus on U.S. personnel – would very likely lead to war with the United States. Indeed, this may have been the intent behind the release of the photos of U.S. personnel at Taiwanese radar and anti-missile sites, which would be the initial targets in a Chinese “shock and awe” attack aimed at forcing Taipei to the negotiating table.
The political and diplomatic risks of such a move, though, are real and may quite likely be intolerable to Taipei and/or Washington. Despite the recent surge in tension with Beijing, both Washington and Taipei have every interest in avoiding backing China into a corner and in keeping a lid on the potential for conflict. So for now, think of any move dangling the possibility of a return of U.S. forces to Taiwan as merely a play for leverage – something intended to make clear to Beijing that its continued coercion could backfire. But if the two sides conclude that Beijing’s strategic and political imperatives make conflict inevitable, and that the best way to preserve the cross-strait status quo is to make an attempt at forceful reunification too risky for Beijing to stomach, then things might just get interesting.
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https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/16/chinas-bid-for-newport-wafer-fab-condemned-by-mp-iain-duncan-smith.html
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Chinese drills. China held drills simulating an amphibious assault off the coast of Fujian province in the Taiwan Strait. This comes amid yet another broader uptick in naval and air force activity near Taiwan – something of a reversal from the historical trend of China expanding its reach farther from mainland shores. Taiwan held its own artillery drills, possibly in response.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/america-should-lead-the-world-in-ending-the-persecution-of-falun-gong-pompeo_3910543.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-07-21&mktids=6216e7cd37b5c65c3fbae1cfa6aa558e&est=[EMAIL_SECURE_LINK]
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Economy for Growth
5 MIN READJul 21, 2021 | 21:04 GMT
Stratfor
(MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP via Getty Images)
An agreement with the United States on Vietnam’s exchange rate management removes a potential bilateral irritant, returns the United States to a traditional view of foreign currencies and global trade, and sets Vietnam up for a return to export-driven high growth in 2021. On July 19, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) and the U.S. Treasury Department announced a joint agreement on exchange rate policy according to which Vietnam will not engage in competitive devaluations of its currency. In the long-term, by not imposing retaliatory tariffs on imports from Vietnam, the United States will make it easier for companies to begin to shift their supply chains away from China, while also giving Vietnam clarity on the external environment as Hanoi begins to plan economic development for the next five years.
The U.S. Treasury Department designated Vietnam a “currency manipulator” in December 2020, but the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden reversed that decision in April.
As a part of the July 19 agreement, Vietnam will provide the Treasury Department with data needed to analyze its economic fundamentals and determine if the exchange rate is appropriate. SBV Governor Nguyen Thi Hong acknowledged that the focus of monetary policy is to promote macroeconomic stability and control inflation.
The agreement reinstates the U.S. government’s conventional view of bilateral trade deficits as not alone being enough evidence to prove unfair trading practices by trade partners. The U.S. position is that economic policies can distort exchange rates from underlying fundamentals and enforcement action may be necessary, but that comparative advantage and macroeconomic factors are principal in assessing international trade on a global basis and bilateral trade deficits should be viewed in the broader context.
The agreement puts in abeyance potential U.S. tariffs on imports from Vietnam under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which would have severely disadvantaged the competitiveness of Vietnam’s exports.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said her office “will monitor Vietnam’s implementation of its commitments and work with Vietnam to ensure that it addresses the acts, policies and practices related to the valuation of its currency that were found actionable in the Section 301 investigation.”
According to the Congressional Research Service, Section 301 is “one of the principal statutory means by which the United States enforces U.S. rights under trade agreements and addresses ‘unfair’ foreign barriers to U.S. exports.”
The deal removes a significant source of uncertainty for Vietnam, a small open economy that is heavily reliant on trade. While Vietnam’s currency should somewhat appreciate against the U.S. dollar, the agreement will help maintain the country's external competitiveness and contribute to its attractiveness as an alternative investment destination, with businesses redirecting supply chain links away from China. Vietnam’s dependency on trade makes it vulnerable to trade tensions, especially with large partners such as the United States.
According to World Bank data, Vietnam’s exports of goods and services as a percentage of GDP were equivalent to 106.8% in 2020, while its imports of goods and services were equal to 103.6% — making net exports at 3.2% of GDP a significant contributor to economic growth.
The United States is Vietnam’s largest export market, accounting for 25-30% of export receipts. The country is the sixth-largest source of U.S. imports, including shipments of furniture, seafood, computers, electronics, apparel and footwear.
In 2019, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) assessed Vietnam’s external position to be “substantially stronger than warranted by fundamentals and desirable policy setting,” suggesting the exchange rate was undervalued by slightly less than 7%. In March 2021, the IMF advised that “enhancing [Vietnam’s] exchange rate flexibility would facilitate external adjustment and management of domestic liquidity,” which the recent U.S. agreement is consistent with.
The exchange rate agreement will enable Vietnam to segue to a fresh start for what are likely to be ambitious industrial production targets for the next five years. Vietnam’s 15th National Assembly will set the country’s economic goals for the next five-year period during its first session from July 20-31. The Vietnamese economy was one of the only economies worldwide that grew in 2020, which at 2.9% was still well below its long-term trend of 6-7%. Vietnam should return to high growth this year if it can control its current COVID-19 outbreak, with the IMF projecting a 6.5% increase in GDP in 2021. New economic targets, however, hinge on Vietnam leveraging its export-led growth model with the United States as its number one export destination. Meeting those targets depends on Vietnam continuing to attract manufacturing from developed neighbors like China as well, while also moving up the manufacturing value chain and nurturing domestic high-tech champions in digital services.
Taiwanese firm Foxconn, which assembles Apple’s iPad tablets and MacBook laptops, announced in late 2020 it was building assembly plants in Vietnam that are expected to come online this year.
Samsung already has manufacturing facilities in Vietnam and in 2020 announced it was investing $3 billion in addition to its existing $2 billion in manufacturing facilities.
Vietnam was the world’s 12th-largest electronics exporter in 2019 and the second-largest exporter of mobile phones behind China.
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Trade booming. Despite everything, U.S.-China trade is booming, recovering fully from last year’s pandemic lows and widely expected to continue. To an extent, this comes at the expense of Australia; China, which has tightly restricted imports of Australian coal (and myriad other commodities) as part of its wide-ranging campaign to squeeze the country, is getting a lot of what it needs from the U.S.
Taiwan's breakthrough? Taiwan is reportedly set to launch its first indigenously built submarine in the next two years, according to local media. China has been largely successful in blocking Taiwan from getting substantial outside assistance in either buying subs or building its own, so this could be a big breakthrough.
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https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2021/07/it-failed-miserably-after-wargaming-loss-joint-chiefs-are-overhauling-how-us-military-will-fight/184050/
A touch of cognitive dissonance here:
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2021/07/we-will-not-flinch-austin-promises-us-will-continue-bolster-taiwans-self-defense/184058/
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https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2021/07/it-failed-miserably-after-wargaming-loss-joint-chiefs-are-overhauling-how-us-military-will-fight/184050/
A touch of cognitive dissonance here:
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2021/07/we-will-not-flinch-austin-promises-us-will-continue-bolster-taiwans-self-defense/184058/
We hold the transgender surgical advantage over the PLA.
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Flight suits for the pregnant men and women pilots too.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17605/china-ambush-american-diplomat
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Daily Memo: The US and Philippines Reportedly Reach Key Deal
The Philippine president reportedly agreed to restore the critical Visiting Forces Agreement.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Agreement reached. The U.S. and the Philippines may have finally put to rest concerns over one of the biggest threats to their Mutual Defense Treaty. Following a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte reportedly agreed to fully restore the two sides’ critical Visiting Forces Agreement, which the president had previously repeatedly taken steps to scrap. The loss of the VFA would force the U.S. to pull its troops from the Philippines and dramatically curtail joint exercises. It would also quash any hope of implementing the landmark basing agreement reached back in 2014.
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Another hint from Taipei. A report released by Taiwan’s National Audit Office “inadvertently” confirmed that Taipei had earmarked funding for U.S. technicians to help with tests of U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems. Taipei has been dropping hints of an increased presence of U.S. personnel on the self-ruled island periodically over the past couple of years. It’s a savvy way for Taipei to raise the risks associated with a Chinese attack.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/biden-administration-approves-its-first-arms-sale-to-taiwan_3934159.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-08-05&mktids=5863106b9ee9628ce30634d71273192d&est=GVB71CJ7VvPtOvbJWMFTv86rvSNlHeT3PgbCfXdlqGKdgYhwTAiYLO0%2Bv2nWPKi4wlMD
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https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/08/05/memorandum-on-the-deferred-enforced-departure-for-certain-hong-kong-residents/?fbclid=IwAR2Df2RMVITRcuMY-1gg7-C1ADfR5rxvIaupZK5e20pU2eJCDgjyvkogLhg
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Third post
Taiwanese defense. Taiwan is also planning to mass produce its own extended-range air-to-air missiles and testing its new shoulder-fired rockets. The location of the weapon tests, set to take place in September, is conspicuous: Pratas island in the South China Sea is one of the remote Taiwanese islands that China could attempt to seize as a low-risk move to trigger a cross-strait crisis. Recent Chinese amphibious drills have been simulating such a maneuver.
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/china-stolen-enough-data-compile-dossier-every-american
So does FB AMAZON GOOGLE APPLE
and the US GOVERNMENT
so should we even be more alarmed
about this ?
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By: Geopolitical Futures
Support for Taiwan. Japan’s defense minister over the weekend called for greater international attention on the “survival of Taiwan,” warning that China is working to envelop the self-ruled island. Japan, traditionally circumspect about cross-strait relations, has taken a number of conspicuous steps in the past month or so in support of Taiwan. This is because a Chinese attack on Taiwan would be a direct threat to Japan. We’re watching for hints of tangible support.
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https://washingtontimes-dc.newsmemory.com/?token=99bc7495133145e299c4a9fe84003bbb_611129c7_6d25b5f&selDate=20210809
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Drills in the South China Sea. It seems everyone is holding military drills in the South China Sea. France and the U.K. are taking the unusual step of joining U.S.-led exercises, which also include Japan, Australia and New Zealand. India is moving four warships into the region for a series of drills over the next two months that will include its Quad partners and several key Southeast Asian states.
MARC: This is good; a sign that perhaps someone is working to bring the allies into the game?
And China on Friday kicked off its own major drills, sealing off waters between Hainan and the Paracels, fueling speculation that it may be on the verge of testing some of its new anti-ship missiles.
Moscow's plans for the Kurils. The Russian military has built more than 25 buildings in the disputed Kuril Islands, including seven dormitories for military personnel, in recent years, according to a report in Russia’s Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper. The Kremlin plans to construct 51 facilities in total on the island chain, part of which is claimed by Japan.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17619/china-illegal-actions-south-china-sea
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Provocation. A French frigate is reportedly anchored off the coast of Taiwan, according to an unnamed Taiwanese coast guard official and open-source observers. Neither the French nor the Taiwanese governments have confirmed the arrival. Though European navies – the British, Germans and French in particular – have been deploying warships to the Indo-Pacific more frequently, they’ve generally steered well clear of anything that Beijing would see as a major provocation. This, of course, would be different.
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Very important at least for symbolism that Europe and the rest of the world are taking an interest in Taiwan and the South China Sea.
They must be feeling the collapse of the US under Biden and the resulting emboldening of China.
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Japan’s New China Reality
A top official recognizes America’s relative decline in the Pacific.
By The Editorial Board
Aug. 13, 2021 6:30 pm ET
The drumbeat of concern from America’s most important Asian ally about China’s military rise is getting louder. Last month Japan’s Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso warned that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could threaten Japan’s “survival.” Now Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi has bluntly acknowledged America’s relative decline in the Western Pacific and the need for Japan to assert itself militarily to fill the void.
The remarks came in an interview with Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald. Mr. Kishi “said the shifting power balance between the US and China ‘has become very conspicuous’ while a military battle over Taiwan had ‘skewed greatly in favour of China,’” the paper reports. He added that China “is trying to change the status quo unilaterally backed by force and coercion” and said “we must build a structure where we can protect ourselves.”
Japanese officials are normally soft-spoken in public, but China’s immense military buildup has become impossible to ignore. According to a new Lowy Institute report by military analyst Thomas Shugart, China has “become the world’s premier sea power by most measures,” adding 80 warships to its navy in the last five years while the U.S. added 36.
Measured by warship tonnage, China’s naval expansion since 2016 easily outpaced the expansion of the U.S. Pacific fleet and the allied “Quad” navies of India, Japan and Australia combined, the report finds. The U.S. Navy retains some qualitative advantages, but quantity eventually overwhelms quality.
Japan, which mostly relies on the U.S. for its defense, has a front-row seat to this realignment in sea power. Meanwhile, the Biden Administration has proposed an inflation-adjusted cut to America’s defense budget. The Senate Armed Services Committee added $25 billion last month, but with Congress preparing a $3.5 trillion welfare-state expansion, observers in Tokyo have good reason to doubt the U.S. can ever afford to underwrite Pacific security in the way it has since World War II.
Mr. Kishi told the Herald that “the defence stability of Taiwan is very important, not just for Japan’s security, but for the stability of the world as well,” reflecting the emerging consensus on Japan’s center-right around defending the island.
Beijing is serious about bringing Taiwan under its control. That would put the People’s Liberation Army in a position to directly threaten parts of the Japanese archipelago, which the U.S. is treaty-bound to defend.
A more assertive Japan is probably inevitable and necessary if Chinese hegemony in Asia is to be averted. Yet the U.S. is taking a risk as it lets the military balance erode and China’s ambitions expand. If U.S. deterrence fails and war breaks out in the Pacific, Americans as well as Japanese will pay the price.
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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/08/economy-will-implode-chi-coms-threaten-taiwan-following-collapse-afghanistan-steven-bannon-warns-magnitude-us-economy-video/
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Too bad Bannon is such a stain , , ,
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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/08/breaking-china-dispatches-warships-asw-aircraft-fighter-jets-off-coast-taiwan-following-fall-afghanistan/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/08/economy-will-implode-chi-coms-threaten-taiwan-following-collapse-afghanistan-steven-bannon-warns-magnitude-us-economy-video/
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https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202108/1231667.shtml?fbclid=IwAR1_uX03p76T7jYoR9U6icT8dIcq4L0pR4ZWt3rLAzBW2aHOCya4TG9sYI4
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https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/082/595/239/original/e6678cfa4e7ee4aa.jpg
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/082/595/239/original/e6678cfa4e7ee4aa.jpg)
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Missile tests. China says it tested a pair of new short-range missiles designed to target military command and communication infrastructure – i.e., the first things its military would target in an attack on Taiwan. Taiwan, meanwhile, is ramping up its missile program, allocating an extra $7 billion for local mass production of long-range surface-to-air missiles, midrange supersonic anti-ship missiles and potentially hypersonic missiles.
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Biden, your move
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E983HtSVQAg9w9U?format=jpg&name=large)
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202108/1232752.shtml (https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202108/1232752.shtml)
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Adding this from M.Yon, wrt to Taiwan.
"I can only concur with his warning on Taiwan. If I were the Chinese Communist Party, I'd be mobilizing my invasion forces right now, and preparing to strike while America is distracted with what's going down in Afghanistan. I don't think there could be a more opportune time for them. Consider:
Our President is incompetent, incapable and almost incapacitated by age-related mental deterioration, propped up in office by blatant elder abuse and manipulation by those pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Chinese money and influence dominates many of our politicians, to the point that they might actually countenance and tolerate a Chinese conquest of one of our oldest allies in the Far East, despite our treaty relationships with it.
Our military has been reduced to a hollow shell of what it once was, paralyzed by political correctness.
Our economy is a mess, mismanaged, hamstrung by supply chain difficulties, and hopelessly indebted.
Our national focus on political correctness, particularly related to the COVID-19 pandemic, is preventing our politicians paying sufficient attention to what's going on elsewhere.
Frankly, given all those factors, if China doesn't move on Taiwan within a matter of weeks I'll be very surprised indeed. The door is wide open for them to take it, then cock a snook at the rest of the world. I don't think President Biden would know what to do about it, or even want to do anything about it (that's assuming he understood what was going on in the first place). His handlers would probably make enough money by kowtowing to Chinese imperialism that they wouldn't care."
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" ... given all those factors, if China doesn't move on Taiwan within a matter of weeks I'll be very surprised ... "
- If China doesn't move on Taiwan within a matter of weeks it says something about Xi and Chinese leadership, not about American lack of readiness and lack of commitment which we already know.
The Chinese civil war ended in 1950. Xi was born in 1953. He may very well be as ruthless as Hitler, Stalin, Mao or WWII Japan, but his methods have mostly been more subtle, patient and clandestine. Launching a first strike, all-out war has not been his way - so far.
Fixed pie economics [falsely] says you can only get a larger piece for yourself if you take someone else's. Xi has not governed that way. He is a very strange mix of a pro-growth supply sider and unyielding totalitarian. He steals technology and trade secrets and arranges to have those given to him. He exerted control over Hong Kong, breaking promises, but except for so called disputed islands in the South China Sea and a not fully accepted border in the Himalayas with India, he has not grown China (so far) by geographic expansion or military invasion. Maybe his stated desires on Taiwan are a head fake designed to placate his fellow politburo members.
Everything is going his way. What does he need a war for?
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They have stolen (salami sliced) a lot of Indian, Nepalese and Bhutanese territory. Its never enough that India will go to war...until the last time, when India said they have had enough!.
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Taiwanese warnings. Taiwan’s Defense Ministry has warned that the Chinese military is now capable of paralyzing its defenses, according to a leaked copy of its annual report to the Taiwanese parliament. The report placed a heavy emphasis on China’s electronic warfare and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, as well as its precision strike arsenal. Meanwhile, Taiwan is set to hold mass air raid drills and major live-fire exercises later this month.
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Taiwanese warnings. Taiwan’s Defense Ministry has warned that the Chinese military is now capable of paralyzing its defenses, according to a leaked copy of its annual report to the Taiwanese parliament. The report placed a heavy emphasis on China’s electronic warfare and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, as well as its precision strike arsenal. Meanwhile, Taiwan is set to hold mass air raid drills and major live-fire exercises later this month.
A call for help - falling on deaf ears. Does anyone think Slow Joe is calling in his generals to urgently address this or is re-adjusting his budget priorities? American weakness invites trouble and emboldens enemies.
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Taiwanese warnings. Taiwan’s Defense Ministry has warned that the Chinese military is now capable of paralyzing its defenses, according to a leaked copy of its annual report to the Taiwanese parliament. The report placed a heavy emphasis on China’s electronic warfare and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, as well as its precision strike arsenal. Meanwhile, Taiwan is set to hold mass air raid drills and major live-fire exercises later this month.
A call for help - falling on deaf ears. Does anyone think Slow Joe is calling in his generals to urgently address this or is re-adjusting his budget priorities? American weakness invites trouble and emboldens enemies.
Anyone think the US military is capable of taking this on at this point?
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https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/serious-threat-pentagon-blasts-beijings-demand-all-ships-south-china-sea-register
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https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/serious-threat-pentagon-blasts-beijings-demand-all-ships-south-china-sea-register
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xcvDMDg8TY
The above is a SA citizen who lived in China for about a decade, fluent in Mandarin and is married to a Chinese Doctor. He knows what he is talking about.
I take this very seriously.
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https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1035549/did-china-just-declare-an-open-war-vs-america
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https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/new-chinese-ambassador-snaps-at-u-s-please-shut-up/
This is what we get from the country the unleashed covid hell on the world
when we have blinks as SOS
Every time I hear that guy speak , it is from a position of weakness
and yet, he will be there for another yrs to make fools out of us.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/16/world/australia/australia-china-submarines.html
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The Porcupine, or the Pit Viper?
Taiwan is rethinking how best to defend itself – a decision that hinges on the U.S.
By: Phillip Orchard
China’s breakneck military buildup has generated all sorts of alarm in both Washington and Taiwan. U.S. arms sales to the island have spiked over the past decade accordingly. Taipei is rapidly expanding its indigenous capabilities as well, as illustrated by a $9 billion (or 5.2 percent) jump in defense outlays announced last week. But there are two ongoing, intertwined debates that will define the trajectory of the U.S.-Taiwanese partnership going forward. In Taipei, where there’s widespread concern that the Taiwanese military has become outdated and ill-suited for countering the Chinese threat, the dilemma is how to best structure its military modernization drive. In short, Taiwan is deciding whether to become a “porcupine” – focusing on defensive capabilities aimed at buying time during a Chinese attack – or a “pit viper,” emphasizing the ability to strike back and deter China by raising the political costs at home of an attack. The outcome of this debate will hinge largely on a parallel one taking place in Washington: whether the long-held U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” has outlived its usefulness.
Quills Out
On paper, Taiwan has a formidable military. It has more than 160,000 well-armed troops (plus another 1.65 million in reserve) and thousands of armored fighting vehicles and camouflaged, self-propelled artillery pieces. It has a modern, sophisticated air force boasting a fleet of some 140 F-16s. Even its indigenous submarine program is also making notable progress against steep odds.
More important, it has an extraordinary geographic advantage. Only 10 percent of Taiwan’s coastline is suitable for an amphibious landing. It doesn’t matter how many troops, arms and supplies the People’s Liberation Army can amass on the shores of Fujian province across the Taiwan Strait. To invade Taiwan, China would need the bulk of its forces to get into boats and make an eight-hour voyage into the teeth of Taiwanese firepower coming from well-entrenched, well-supplied onshore positions. Even taken by surprise, Taiwan could amass its forces at the landing zones, even under a missile barrage from Fujian, and exact high rates of attrition on the Chinese. Moreover, the PLA has no experience with amphibious operations in a modern combat environment. Amphibious war requires extraordinarily complex coordination, especially logistical coordination, among air, land and sea forces. An enormous number of things would have to go right for China to succeed, and the political risks of failure would be sky-high. Occupying and pacifying Taiwan, moreover, would introduce a whole new set of headaches.
However, there’s been growing concern both in Washington and Taipei that these numbers considerably overstate the Taiwanese military’s power. The bulk of its millions of reservists, for example, receive relatively little training, and combat readiness is generally considered woefully low. The structure and spending priorities of the Taiwanese military are cause for concern too. Its fleet of warplanes, though capable, would almost certainly be overwhelmed by China’s superiority in both numbers and technology. It’s a similar story for the Taiwanese navy, which would be operating within range of China’s arsenal of anti-ship missiles and warplanes and would be vulnerable to swarm attacks from China’s vast fleet of warships, coast guard vessels and maritime militia.
As it happens, warplanes and warships are also incredibly expensive. Nearly 10 percent of its new, bigger defense budget is earmarked for F-16s alone. China’s economy is more than 20 times the size of Taiwan’s. Taipei simply can’t sustain the PLA’s level of spending, and thus it’s a pretty bad idea for Taiwan to try to defeat China by going toe to toe with it in conventional combat. Already, the air force is reportedly getting worn down – and its coffers drained – merely by responding to China's ever-increasing tempo of incursions into the Taiwanese air defense identification zone.
Its problems in force structure stem largely from the fact that, for most of Taiwan’s history since the People’s Republic of China’s takeover of the mainland in 1949, Taiwan had good reason to focus on expensive, technologically superior platforms. More often than not, China was a mess internally and couldn’t come close to developing the sorts of technologies the U.S. was selling Taiwan. In fact, the U.S. sometimes limited what it was willing to sell Taiwan for fear that Taipei would be emboldened to head back across the strait and try to restart the civil war. This made Chinese invasion an abstract threat, at worst, contributing to Taiwan’s problems with combat readiness.
But after getting embarrassed by the U.S. in the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1995-96, and seeing U.S. technologies in action in the Gulf War and the Balkans, China got serious about catching up. In the two decades since, it’s closed the technology gap with astonishing speed. And its size advantage has only grown in tandem with its economic growth.
Coiled and Cocked
So there’s a view today that Taiwan should instead redirect its efforts on countering Chinese superiority in much the same way that China is preparing to counter the U.S.: by investing heavily in comparably cheap, abundant assets like anti-ship missiles, air defense systems, underwater mines, etc., in lieu of more expensive prestige platforms. The “porcupine strategy,” in effect, is to hunker down, maximize Taiwan’s geographic advantages, deny easy access to Taiwanese waters, and make it so that if the Chinese want to invade, they’ll have to take on a grinding, costly, potentially unsustainable offensive. Another goal of this is to give the U.S. and other potential allies time to deploy forces into the theater, whether for direct intervention or to relieve pressure on Taiwan indirectly by imposing a blockade along the many chokepoints encircling China. The U.S., whose own strategy in the East China Sea would benefit enormously from a Taiwan capable of keeping Chinese maritime forces bogged down with sea denial assets, has increasingly been nudging Taipei in this direction.
(click to enlarge)
There are a couple of downsides to this strategy, though. One is that it should not be assumed that a Chinese attack would automatically mean a Chinese attempt at invasion. Most likely, a Chinese move on Taiwan would start with a seizure of one of Taiwan’s outlying islands and/or the imposition of at least a limited blockade. The porcupine strategy does little to account for these scenarios. Another is that any direct Chinese attack on Taiwan, regardless of whether the ultimate goal was invasion, would start with a massive missile barrage. The initial goal would likely be simply to stun Taipei into negotiating on Beijing’s terms. A potential secondary goal would be to clear the decks for an invasion. The porcupine strategy is ill-suited for this sort of an attack, nor is it good for sustaining Taiwan’s defenses for a potential follow-up invasion attempt.
As a result, some argue that Taiwan still needs to invest in substantial counterstrike capabilities, even expensive ones, to truly deter China. In other words, Taiwan must have a way to raise the political risks for Beijing of undertaking some sort of kinetic operation against the self-ruled island. A Taiwan with the ability to conduct precise strikes on missile positions, naval facilities and airfields in Fujian province, or even civilian infrastructure there, is a much more unpredictable and dangerous Taiwan, or so the thinking goes. And given Beijing’s inherent distrust of its own people and existential fear of both public anger and unchecked public nationalism, the path of least resistance would point firmly toward living comfortably with the cross-strait status quo.
Strategic Ambiguity
There’s another important, complicated factor: the question of whether the U.S. would, in fact, intervene on Taiwan’s behalf. The U.S. and Taiwan are not formal allies, and there’s nothing forcing the U.S. to defend Taiwan. The U.S. is merely required by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act to sell or provide Taiwan what it needs to defend itself. To be sure, the U.S. has numerous, and arguably growing, strategic interests in coming to Taiwan’s aid. Taiwan is the proverbial “unsinkable aircraft carrier” and could be extraordinarily valuable as an ally, considering that the U.S. is presently looking for places in the region to deploy ground-based anti-ship, anti-air assets and rapid reaction forces. Taipei and Washington have been hinting that the return of at least a tripwire U.S. force to the island is not as laughable an idea as it would’ve sounded just a decade ago.
At the same time, the PLA’s buildup of anti-access/area denial capabilities is making it increasingly risky and costly for the U.S. to do so. There’s increasing concern in Washington that China, within the next decade or so, may be capable of making it prohibitively costly for the U.S. to try to operate anywhere around Taiwan. And reunification is Beijing’s utmost strategic and political priority. Retaking Taiwan would blow a massive hole in the U.S. containment strategy – and put China in a more enviable position to threaten Japan. For Beijing, reunification is a matter of when, not if.
As a result, the U.S. has maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity” about its defense commitments to Taiwan. This is a reasonable enough approach. The U.S. does not want to get pulled into a war not of its choosing – not to mention one that it may very well lose. And so long as China thinks there’s a strong possibility of the U.S. intervening, it’s a strong deterrent against Chinese attack on Taiwan. The U.S. also does not want to implicitly give Taiwan a green light to declare independence (and thus likely trigger a war).
But there are several trade-offs here. It increases the risk of misinterpretation and miscalculation in an incredibly tense theater, for example. Ambiguity can be viewed by allies as ambivalence, compelling them to take actions that undermine U.S. planning. And the policy invariably keeps Taiwan’s military modernization plans in limbo. Simply put, if Taiwan can count on U.S. or allied counterstrike capabilities, then going all-in on the porcupine strategy makes more sense. If not, then Taiwan probably needs to devote a healthy share of the budget to its own counterstrike assets. Ideally, it would pursue both, but spending more on one will inevitably undermine the efficacy of the other. The scale of the threat posed by China is such that fundamental decisions on things like force structure can’t be delayed until a true crisis crystallizes everyone’s positions.
Thus the debate in Washington about whether it’s time to clarify its position on defending Taiwan. There are all sorts of political and diplomatic pitfalls here, and the U.S. cherishes flexibility, so don’t expect any major decision to be made soon – at least not one announced publicly. And if the U.S. is at all unsure about its willingness or ability to defend Taiwan, strategic ambiguity will remain. But there will be clues about where this debate is heading in the types of assets the U.S. sells Taiwan going forward, as well as the direction Taiwan goes in developing its indigenous arsenals at home.
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Also see
https://www.dailypundit.com/2021/09/25/they-know-not-what-they-do-but-fuck-around-and-find-out/comment-page-1/#comment-74264
which makes some potent points rather pithily.
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Risks of China..a declining power
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/24/china-great-power-united-states/ (https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/24/china-great-power-united-states/)
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After the face-off between India-China was over, and China had to withdraw, they have continued to mass troops all over the border. This is unusual behaviour (not seen previously) and suggests they are either smarting from their withdrawal and may come back again with better preparations, or they are planning a move on Taiwan. A war with Taiwan will direct Chinese energies to their east and India could potentially make a grab for their territories currently under Chinese occupation. To prevent that, they are covering their bases by building a presence all over the border.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FArILceUUAIW6Ek?format=jpg&name=large)
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After the face-off between India-China was over, and China had to withdraw, they have continued to mass troops all over the border. This is unusual behaviour (not seen previously) and suggests they are either smarting from their withdrawal and may come back again with better preparations, or they are planning a move on Taiwan. A war with Taiwan will direct Chinese energies to their east and India could potentially make a grab for their territories currently under Chinese occupation. To prevent that, they are covering their bases by building a presence all over the border.
As usual for ya posts, very interesting! China lost and learned, maybe.
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India has an interest in the South China Sea, this article is from 2020:
https://www.livemint.com/news/india/india-has-abiding-interest-in-stability-of-disputed-region-of-south-china-sea-11594916648169.html
China's militarization wakes up Japan:
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/japan-conducts-nationwide-military-exercise-first-time-30-years-193845
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https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/02/asia/china-warplanes-taiwan-air-defense-intl-hnk/index.html
so what are we going to do?
nada
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Would you let your son fight for Taiwan with Biden-Blinks-Harris in charge?
Meanwhile, Taiwan appears to adjust accordingly:
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1135077/japan-needs-hydrogen-bombs
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/a-new-way-to-defend-taiwan_4029735.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-10-04&mktids=5d8985f34914a7dc216f7895cae78114&est=ADg28VAD%2Ft%2Bl8k0NjaOFp%2BruHaWIMRVJShIZtH799h3FSofoyJ7Om3MpafUH1DVANpvp
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Anyone think Zhoe Xi-Den and Commisar Millie are going to defend Taiwan?
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/a-new-way-to-defend-taiwan_4029735.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-10-04&mktids=5d8985f34914a7dc216f7895cae78114&est=ADg28VAD%2Ft%2Bl8k0NjaOFp%2BruHaWIMRVJShIZtH799h3FSofoyJ7Om3MpafUH1DVANpvp
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No
this is what I think
when China invades
Blinks et al
will look stern
and call for meetings and consultations "with our friends and allies "
and plan very "heavy sanctions"
it short they
will do nothing
are we as a people ready to go to war with China
frankly, no
we will fold
and worry about free child care college
low mortgages endless taxing the "rich"
CRT gender fantasies
and sit back and blame ourselves
Gordon Chang is right - this is the turning point
I mean look at the interviews of college students
they only know to hate ourselves
and all. the marxist shit the stinking tenured profs have told them
why , we don't even have borders anymore
we are finished
--------------------
yet we fight on ...
no choice
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No
this is what I think
when China invades
Blinks et al
will look stern
and call for meetings and consultations "with our friends and allies "
and plan very "heavy sanctions"
it short they
will do nothing
are we as a people ready to go to war with China
frankly, no
we will fold
and worry about free child care college
low mortgages endless taxing the "rich"
CRT gender fantasies
and sit back and blame ourselves
Gordon Chang is right - this is the turning point
I mean look at the interviews of college students
they only know to hate ourselves
and all. the marxist shit the stinking tenured profs have told them
why , we don't even have borders anymore
we are finished
--------------------
yet we fight on ...
no choice
Better be ready for a literal fight.
If you have access to Netflix, watch "The last days". There is a line where a holocaust survivor addresses why they didn't try to flee before being rounded up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTc-f5RxVPc
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So us having to watch the whole thing :-D What was the reason he gave?
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So us having to watch the whole thing :-D What was the reason he gave?
She. It was incremental. One thing would come down, then people would adapt, then another edict...
It's just registration, it's just a star, it's just being relocated, it's just sending us to work in orchards. (Spoiler, the train taking them to work in the orchards kept going into Poland, someplace called Auschwitz).
Good thing we'd never fall for that here! Happy 18th month anniversary of two weeks to flatten the curve!
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This is the Shoah movie
I remember
during my intern days
~ 1986 to 87
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoah_(film)
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China's angry neighbors. Malaysia on Tuesday summoned China's ambassador to the Southeast Asian nation to file a formal protest over Chinese vessels’ encroachment in Malaysian waters. Chinese research and fishing vessels have been pushing ever deeper into the South China Sea in recent months, particularly in oil-rich waters off Malaysian Borneo and Indonesia's Natuna Islands, antagonizing both Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta. For Malaysia, this comes as a test for new Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, who, like his immediate predecessors, will be leery of appearing too cozy with either Beijing or Washington and its allies.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10063171/China-warns-World-War-Three-triggered-time.html
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China Would Be Able to Launch Attack on Taiwan by 2025, Island’s Defense Minister Warns
Taiwan’s military faces its most dire challenge from Beijing in decades, Chiu Kuo-cheng said after sorties by Chinese fighters and bombers
Taiwanese flags flew in the capital, Taipei, ahead of annual National Day celebrations Sunday, amid heightened tensions with China.
PHOTO: RITCHIE B TONGO/SHUTTERSTOCK
By Josh Chin and Chao Deng
Oct. 6, 2021 9:00 am ET
TAIPEI—Taiwan’s military is facing its most dire challenge from China in decades, the island’s defense minister said, reflecting a surge in tensions after a flurry of Chinese military sorties in the region sparked expressions of concern from the U.S.
China’s People’s Liberation Army would be able to launch a full-blown attack on Taiwan with minimal losses by 2025, the defense minister, Chiu Kuo-cheng, also warned.
“For our military the current situation is really the grimmest in the more than 40 years since I joined the service," Mr. Chiu said in a speech to Taiwan’s legislature on Wednesday as he answered lawmakers’ questions about a proposed $8.7 billion special defense spending package.
Mr. Chiu’s comments came after China’s military sent close to 150 fighters, bombers and other aircraft near the self-ruled island in the space of four days—an escalation that on Wednesday prompted Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to accuse China of undermining peace in the region.
“Here I want to warn Beijing authorities that they must exercise a certain amount of restraint to avoid accidentally sparking conflict,” she said in videotaped comments delivered to senior leaders of her Democratic Progressive Party, echoing a warning from Mr. Chiu that even a small miscalculation risked setting off a crisis.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. China is in the middle of a week-long holiday.
‘For our military the current situation is really the grimmest in the more than 40 years since I joined the service,’ Taiwan’s Defense Minister Ch_
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The sorties by Chinese aircraft began on Friday, around the same time that an armada of 17 ships, including two U.S. carrier strike groups, gathered to conduct joint exercises southwest of Okinawa, Japan, not far from Taiwan. The first sorties also coincided with China’s national day.
The White House has responded to the sorties by saying its commitment to Taiwan is rock solid and calling on Beijing to end the flights.
The flurry of military activity has focused renewed attention on Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s intentions toward Taiwan, which the Communist Party considers a part of China. Beijing has vowed to take control of the island by force if necessary.
While Mr. Xi has made the unification of Taiwan a key element of his plans for China’s national rejuvenation, military analysts have disagreed over when and even whether the PLA, which has not fought a war since 1979, would feel confident enough to launch an invasion. Mr. Chiu waded into the debate with his comments on Wednesday.
“It is capable now, but it has to calculate what it would cost, and what kind of outcome it would achieve,” the defense minister said. After 2025, he continued, “it would have lowered the cost and losses to a minimum.”
Mr. Chiu didn’t elaborate further, though military analysts have pointed to the valuable experience PLA aircraft have amassed in flying their sorties into Taiwan’s air-defense identification zone. There have been number more than 800 over the past year.
China’s military recently sent close to 150 fighters, bombers and other aircraft near Taiwan in the space of four days.
PHOTO: JIN DANHUA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
An air-defense identification zone, or ADIZ, extends beyond a territory’s airspace and is monitored in the interest of giving its military time to respond to any incoming foreign aircraft. The Chinese aircraft haven’t entered within 12 nautical miles of the coast of Taiwan, which claims that as its airspace.
Recent sorties came late at night, which one former Taiwanese military commander said was a sign that the PLA air force was getting close to being able to engage in real combat.
In an essay for Foreign Affairs magazine published Tuesday, Ms. Tsai warned that “the consequences would be catastrophic” for democracy and regional peace if Taiwan were to fall, citing the island’s strategic location and robust democratic system.
In a show of support for Taiwan, a delegation of French senators landed in Taipei on Wednesday to hold talks with Ms. Tsai over the strenuous objections of China’s embassy in France.
“They are being exploited by the forces of ‘Taiwan independence,’” the Chinese Embassy said last month when asked about the group’s trip. “Not only does this harm China’s core interests and damage Sino-French relations, in the end it will also harm France’s own interests and reputation.”
The delegation, led by former French defense minister Alain Richard, will spend a total of five days in Taiwan, according to Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry. The ministry’s spokeswoman, Joanne Ou, praised Mr. Richard for “his support for Taiwan and staunch defense of freedom” in the face of Chinese threats.
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Daily Memo: The 'Taiwan Agreement,' Russian Gas Games
Taiwan is sounding the alarm again about a potential Chinese invasion.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Agreeing to disagree. U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke Tuesday and, according to Biden, agreed to preserve the "Taiwan agreement," an apparent reference to the long-held "One China” policy in which the U.S. officially recognizes Beijing so long as it agrees to allow Taiwan's future to be resolved peacefully. This came as two of the presidents' top advisers, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Chinese Communist Party foreign affairs chief Yang Jiechi, met in Switzerland. Both sides have a strong interest in finding a way to live together, but fundamental improvement in bilateral relations isn't on the horizon.
Taiwan warnings. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said a Chinese attack on Taiwan would be catastrophic for democracies everywhere, and Taiwanese Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said the People’s Liberation Army will be capable of mounting a full-scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025. Previous U.S. estimates have suggested 2027 or so. This isn't the same thing as a willingness or intent to invade within the decade; attempting to do so would be extraordinarily costly and risky for the Chinese Communist Party, and a Chinese attack wouldn't start with an invasion attempt. But Beijing can leverage the yawning cross-strait imbalance of power in a lot of ways without going to war.
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2018
The US and China Get Real About Taiwan
By Phillip Orchard -March 22, 2018
By Phillip Orchard
Late last Friday, with the approaching weekend ensuring the White House minimal media coverage of the move, U.S. President Donald Trump quietly signed bipartisan legislation that permits high-level exchanges between senior U.S. and Taiwanese government officials. Its passage comes three months after Congress, amid intense pressure from Beijing, watered down part of the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act that would require U.S. Navy warships to conduct regular port calls in Taiwan.
Of course, the signing of the act – a move Chinese state media in February warned would cross a “red line” and cause immeasurable damage to Sino-U.S. ties – did not escape Beijing’s notice. This week, in an uncharacteristically fiery speech, China’s newly crowned president-for-life Xi Jinping said, “All acts and tricks to split the motherland are doomed to failure and will be condemned by the people and punished by history.” The following day, China’s lone aircraft carrier sailed through the Taiwan Strait for the third time in the past year.
Many U.S. presidents have sought to walk a fine line between supporting Taiwan and catering to Beijing’s sensitivities over what it views as a renegade province, and China has rarely followed through on its threats of retaliation. The difference now is that both sides are beginning to acknowledge that the Sino-U.S. diplomatic dance over Taiwan has outlasted the strategic environment in which it began. And Taiwan is taking little comfort in the strategic paradigm on the horizon.
A Paradigm Shift
The awkward Sino-U.S. detente over Taiwan has held since former President Richard Nixon’s landmark trip to China in 1972, which led to the normalization of ties between the two sides. At the time, Chinese and U.S. strategic interests were converging. The U.S. wanted China to stop meddling in Vietnam and, more important, to cooperate against the Soviets. China, which had fought a major battle with the Russians along the Siberian border a decade earlier and feared additional attacks, was inclined to coordinate with Washington against the Soviets. But Beijing needed political cover on Taiwan. And since China was too weak to retake Taiwan by force – and since Beijing was demanding few substantive changes to U.S.-Taiwanese defense or trade ties – Washington was happy to formally adopt Beijing’s “one China” policy in exchange. The U.S. closed its embassy in Taiwan and reopened it as the American Institute in Taiwan, a nongovernmental organization that happened to be manned by U.S. diplomats.
Since then, the strategic logic of the original agreement on Taiwan has been gradually eroding. The Soviet Union collapsed, the U.S. lost much of its interest in Indochina, and Vietnam – still nominally a communist state but one long at odds with Beijing – began a cautious pivot toward Washington. The U.S. has, in most ways, continued to engage with China to discourage its rise from disrupting the established order in the Indo-Pacific and has generally been happy to preserve the status quo regarding Taiwan. Although it has provoked occasional Chinese bellowing about, for example, arms sales to Taiwan, sometimes even leading to temporary freezes in U.S.-Chinese military cooperation, the U.S. has mostly tiptoed around Chinese sensitivities about the island, with Taiwan routinely taking a back seat to more pressing bilateral issues. For its part, Beijing has remained content with the status quo as well, so long as Taiwan doesn’t make a major push for independence or serve as a sort of “unsinkable aircraft carrier” for a foreign power keen to check China’s rise.
The strategic environment is continuing to evolve – and, broadly speaking, in ways that are not in Taiwan’s favor. China has become more assertive about securing its interests in its near abroad and its breakneck military modernization is making it better equipped to do so. At the same time, China’s growing economic clout is allowing it to cultivate substantial political influence among its poorer neighbors, while contributing to political crises in the West. As a result, the U.S. and its regional allies are becoming more overt about the need to lay the groundwork to contain China, should matters come to a head with Beijing, and therefore less inclined to pretend to bend to Chinese wishes on matters like Taiwan.
(click to enlarge)
On the surface, this would seem to be a welcome development for Taipei, to the extent that it removes political and strategic constraints on Washington’s support for the Taiwanese. But Taiwan is still drifting into uneasy waters. It fears being treated like a bargaining chip or, worse, becoming a battleground between China and the U.S. in a war not of its choosing.
More problematic, Taipei still has ample reason to question the level of U.S. commitment to its defense, even if the U.S. abandoned the “one China” principle altogether. China is still far from having the navy needed to go toe-to-toe with the U.S. in open waters, but it is developing the capabilities to make it increasingly costly for the U.S. to go to battle closer to the mainland. The U.S. disinterest in starting a conflict over China’s island-building in the South China Sea has exposed the distance between U.S. strategic priorities and those of Southeast Asian states. The U.S. inability to dictate terms on the Korean Peninsula has revealed the limits of its power even on issues vital to U.S. strategy. The U.S. is an ocean away, and Taiwan cannot be certain that regional circumstances will not shift further and eventually give Beijing an opening to force the issue. And in this regard, Beijing thinks time is on its side.
Can China Win Without Fighting?
Reunification is Beijing’s utmost strategic and political priority. This view is, in part, motivated by domestic concerns. Under Xi, China is putting the finishing touches on its reintegration of Hong Kong and Macau, the two other physical reminders of China’s century of humiliation and foreign subjugation. Taiwan is a perpetual scar on the Communist Party’s narratives about the communist victory in the Chinese civil war, and the party routinely nurtures grievances about foreign meddling in Taipei to curry nationalist support for its right to rule. This view is also strategic. So long as the U.S. can pair its superior naval and aerial capabilities with bases and allied support along what’s known as the first island chain – Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia – it poses a threat to block sea lanes that are critical to China’s export-dependent economy. And more than any other island in this chain, Taiwan could be used by a foreign power to threaten the Chinese mainland itself. Retaking Taiwan would blow a massive hole in the U.S. containment strategy – and put China in a more enviable position to threaten Japan.
For Beijing, therefore, reunification is a matter of when, not if. This doesn’t mean it will attempt to retake the island anytime soon. Attempting to do so would involve vast amphibious landing operations against a well-equipped and deeply entrenched foe, requiring extraordinarily complex coordination between air, land and sea forces, and especially with logistics. The Chinese military has no real experience with this kind of warfare. It would also expose economically invaluable mainland regions to Taiwan’s considerable firepower.
For the time being, China is following Sun Tzu’s tried and true strategy of winning without fighting. In recent years, especially since the 2016 electoral win of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s nominally pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, China has doubled down on efforts to squeeze Taiwan diplomatically. For example, it’s been flooding the few remaining countries that still recognize Taipei as the legitimate Chinese government with aid and investment in exchange for severing ties with the Taiwanese. Taiwan has found itself barred from international bodies like the World Health Organization, the International Civil Aviation Organization and Interpol. Chinese diplomatic pressure has succeeded in diminishing Taiwanese trade ties with important partners such as Nigeria. These moves may be little more than irritants to Taipei, but they speak to the potential that China can suffocate Taiwan internationally in more substantive ways. Already, for example, Taiwan has been unable to find sellers to help it update its obsolete and minuscule submarine fleet – a critical vulnerability for a country separated by just 80 miles (130 kilometers) of water from a military perpetually planning for an invasion.
The overriding goal of this strategy is to make it easier for Taiwan to one day decide that peaceful reunification is in its own best interests. The ongoing shift in the military balance of power toward Beijing, combined with Taiwanese doubts about U.S. commitments, certainly gives it reason to think Taipei will eventually come around. So too is Taiwan’s eroding economic edge, as mainland firms increasingly move into the high-tech and advanced manufacturing spaces occupied by their Taiwanese counterparts. And moves like the announcement by Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office in February of a list of “31 incentives” to “improve the rights of Taiwanese studying, working, living or starting a business” on the mainland are intended to hollow out resistance from within.
In theory, China can afford to bide its time to see if this strategy works. As former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping put it, China can wait on reunification for 100 years if necessary. The question is what happens if and when China plunges into a deep socio-economic crisis, hindering both China’s military trajectory and its ability win over the Taiwanese with soft power – and whether nationalist pressures in such a scenario compel China to take its best shot prematurely.
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https://news.usni.org/2021/10/07/breaking-attack-submarine-uss-connecticut-suffers-underwater-in-pacific
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https://news.usni.org/2021/10/07/breaking-attack-submarine-uss-connecticut-suffers-underwater-in-pacific
PLAN submersible drone
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"if a real war were in the offering, we’d see less saber-rattling"
https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=49377
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Who suffers if China blows up Taiwan's semiconductor industry? Who suffers from a long, drawn out Asian war?
Why wouldn't Xi wait until the Biden era is wrapping up. This is the best 3 1/2 years they're going to get.
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/9/xi-jinping-blames-taiwan-standoff-past-chinese-wea/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=subscriber&utm_campaign=newsalert&utm_content=newsalert&utm_term=newsalert&bt_ee=ZMPqDCnJhAnXORV%2F1xFIchrOh7uRfueyXT3YmC38xNbbTeiqkvreu%2B0d7hL0bvk7&bt_ts=1633797100101
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/09/hong-kong-university-orders-removal-of-tiananmen-square-massacre-statue
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https://www.hudson.org/research/17326-transcript-preserving-peace-in-the-taiwan-strait
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/fight-of-our-lifetime-grant-newsham-on-the-global-impact-if-china-declares-war-on-taiwan_4039930.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-10-10-2&est=iHW1UP4RN%2FWft7groobBLyRBd2ZKu9EikpKgcO2nyCDazG5m%2Fo78Huw2w0jlqNJyvmJq
https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgecalhoun/2021/09/29/why-china-probably-wont-go-to-war-over-taiwans-semiconductor-riches/?sh=5b1198b22aa4
https://www.hudson.org/research/17326-transcript-preserving-peace-in-the-taiwan-strait
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17844/taiwan-biden-health
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who is moving faster towards a more one party controlled
government dominating the inhabitants and stymying dissent
China or the US?
China of course started more to the LEFT but we are following them step for step
as for Taiwan
they are cooked.
but don't worry we have Gen Milley
and
Sec of Def Austin
and capping that off with Sec of State Blinken
under a senile Biden
we are in good hands. :roll: :wink:
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https://populist.press/ar-aapl7bq/
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https://www.google.com/search?q=b2+bomber&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj50rOeudDzAhVpq3IEHUG0CdgQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1440&bih=789&dpr=2#imgrc=pKBZ7cFY0VXsQM
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2021/10/china-has-big-plans-to-show-off-its-new-h-20-stealth-bomber/
they steal everything we do
including our military strategies
-
But I must add
blinks Milley and Austin are hard at the job
which makes me only more afraid we are doomed
-
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17864/defend-taiwan-nuclear-bomb
-
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17864/defend-taiwan-nuclear-bomb
Great idea!
-
https://spectatorworld.com/topic/state-department-laughing-stock-pronouns-antony-blinken/
At least we totally dominate the pronoun battlespace!
-
https://spectatorworld.com/topic/state-department-laughing-stock-pronouns-antony-blinken/
At least we totally dominate the pronoun battlespace!
https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/21/empire-lost/
Taiwan is fcuked and so are we.
-
https://jrnyquist.blog/2021/10/22/the-taiwan-question/
First, says Chi, living space is the regime’s central focus, though this cannot be publicly admitted because it would associate China with Nazi Germany in the eyes of the world and reinforce the view that China is a threat. So, this focus must remain secret.
Second, the Communist Party must teach the Chinese people to “go out” and find “new lands” in order to justify its leadership position and hold firmly to power. Chi states, “Comrade Mao Zedong said that if we could lead the Chinese people outside of China, resolving the lack of living space in China, the Chinese people will support us.”
Third, for China to become the “lord of the earth,” it is necessary, said Chi, “to hold firmly onto the big ‘issue of America.’ This appears to be shocking, but the logic is actually very simple.”
Chi underscores his point with the following rhetorical question: “Would the United States allow us to go out to gain new living space? First, if the United States is firm in blocking us, it is hard for us to do anything significant to Taiwan, Vietnam, India, or even Japan, [so] how much more living space can we get? Very trivial! Only countries like the United States, Canada and Australia have the vast land to serve our need for mass colonization.”
-
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/chinas-military-declares-biotechnology-warfare-fundamental-guiding-principle/
https://jrnyquist.blog/2021/10/22/the-taiwan-question/
First, says Chi, living space is the regime’s central focus, though this cannot be publicly admitted because it would associate China with Nazi Germany in the eyes of the world and reinforce the view that China is a threat. So, this focus must remain secret.
Second, the Communist Party must teach the Chinese people to “go out” and find “new lands” in order to justify its leadership position and hold firmly to power. Chi states, “Comrade Mao Zedong said that if we could lead the Chinese people outside of China, resolving the lack of living space in China, the Chinese people will support us.”
Third, for China to become the “lord of the earth,” it is necessary, said Chi, “to hold firmly onto the big ‘issue of America.’ This appears to be shocking, but the logic is actually very simple.”
Chi underscores his point with the following rhetorical question: “Would the United States allow us to go out to gain new living space? First, if the United States is firm in blocking us, it is hard for us to do anything significant to Taiwan, Vietnam, India, or even Japan, [so] how much more living space can we get? Very trivial! Only countries like the United States, Canada and Australia have the vast land to serve our need for mass colonization.”
-
Yet another reader of this forum?
-
Yet another reader of this forum?
Just thinking about a scenario where China takes down the grid this winter just as the ClotShot starts killing off a significant number of the vaxxed, which would include the majority of unpurged active duty military. If you think we are seeing empty shelves and a disintegrating supply chain now…
I am expecting ADE to become a thing this winter.
https://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-safety/antibody-dependent-enhancement-and-vaccines
-
Yet another reader of this forum?
Just thinking about a scenario where China takes down the grid this winter just as the ClotShot starts killing off a significant number of the vaxxed, which would include the majority of unpurged active duty military. If you think we are seeing empty shelves and a disintegrating supply chain now…
I am expecting ADE to become a thing this winter.
https://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-safety/antibody-dependent-enhancement-and-vaccines
Just take the ClotShot, oh and China needs your DNA.
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/l-a-first-responders-ordered-to-turn-over-personal-and-genetic-data/
-
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/us/politics/china-genetic-data-collection.html
-
US 'walking back' Biden statement that we would defend our ally.
What?
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/578111-biden-remarks-on-taiwan-leave-administration-scrambling
-
US 'walking back' Biden statement that we would defend our ally.
What?
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/578111-biden-remarks-on-taiwan-leave-administration-scrambling
President Ron Klain has other ideas.
-
when CCP
perfects hypersonic missiles
I am thinking they will blockade Taiwan and strangle into submission
would they want to flatten an economic powerhouse
or take it over without firing a shot?
I am thinking they will do sooner than later
why wait to let us or other nations in the region beef up?
the msm telling us joe is going to trying to have a face to face talk with Xi
only sounds like chamberlain on his knees begging Hitler to stop taking control of surrounding countries
-
Not a fan of D1, but the point about tag teaming with the Russians and the nature of the options for attack are well worth noting:
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2021/10/taiwan-emerges-pre-eminent-issue-cias-new-china-directorate/186350/
-
Not a fan of D1, but the point about tag teaming with the Russians and the nature of the options for attack are well worth noting:
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2021/10/taiwan-emerges-pre-eminent-issue-cias-new-china-directorate/186350/
“Taiwan is going to be the test” of U.S. resolve and credibility, said Norman Roule, a former National Intelligence Manager for Iran at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Roule said the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has made it harder to credibly threaten China with retaliation should it invade Taiwan.
-
U.S. troops in Taiwan. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen basically confirmed that at least a small number of U.S. troops have been stationed in Taiwan, ostensibly to carry out training functions. (We're still patting ourselves on the back on this one.) Tsai also said she believed the U.S. would help defend Taiwan in the event of an attack, adding to the speculation on whether the U.S. and Taiwan are edging away from the long-held U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity.”
-
Good news that we are being set up to lose?
PLA Generals openly talk of being willing to lose 100,000 to kill 10,000 American troops. They say America won't gut out massive losses. This was pre-Biden Bugout.
U.S. troops in Taiwan. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen basically confirmed that at least a small number of U.S. troops have been stationed in Taiwan, ostensibly to carry out training functions. (We're still patting ourselves on the back on this one.) Tsai also said she believed the U.S. would help defend Taiwan in the event of an attack, adding to the speculation on whether the U.S. and Taiwan are edging away from the long-held U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity.”
-
What would you do?
-
What would you do?
Own their own nukes. Anyone depending on the FUSA and it's fake and gay military is committing suicide.
-
second post
I'm highly sympathetic to the thought, but if the following article from Stratfor is correct, that would constitute a red line for Xi.
Recent confirmation of a U.S. troop presence in Taiwan marks an escalation in U.S.-China and cross-strait tensions, but doesn't significantly change Beijing's calculations regarding whether to take military action against Taiwan. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen confirmed in an interview with CNN on Oct. 27 that U.S. troops were present in Taiwan for a training mission, though Taiwan's defense minister soon clarified that U.S. troops are not garrisoned in Taiwan. In response, China's defense minister said that if U.S. efforts to "contain China" via Taiwan continued, China would "resolutely counter and fight back." Despite these strong words, rumors of U.S. troops in Taiwan have circulated for a year, and given China's wealth of intelligence assets in Taiwan, it is highly likely Beijing already knew about this development. If the U.S. training mission truly crossed a red line, China probably already would have taken military action.
In the short term, China's red lines on Taiwan will remain unchanged; they largely pertain to Taiwan's internal affairs and the formalization of international relationships. Beijing's decision making is often opaque to Western observers, to say the least, but senior officials have been quite clear about the kinds of events that could push China to take military action against Taiwan.
A formal declaration of independence by Taiwan is one such trigger, though legal hurdles in Taiwan make pulling one off very difficult.
The end of political negotiations regarding reunification with China by each of Taiwan's main political parties is another, a tall order given the opposition Kuomintang's friendly stance toward the mainland and its unwillingness to provoke economic retaliation from Beijing.
Formal defense agreements with Taiwan — signed by Japan, the United States or other Western allies — could trigger military action. Despite recent news, the United States does not have such an agreement with Taiwan.
The widespread acceptance of Taiwan as a country and/or equal partner in multiple international organizations, like the United Nations, could also push China toward a military contingency.
In the long term, China's decision to invade Taiwan will be highly influenced by internal politics, rather than military developments and public statements like Tsai's recent confirmation. For Beijing, reunification with Taiwan has always been primarily a political issue — though the strategic benefits of Taiwan for China's maritime strength are not lost on Beijing — driven by the internal motivations of the opaque and hierarchical Communist Party of China. Territorial consolidation has been a hallmark of Chinese political legitimacy for millennia, and the CPC is no exception, explaining why every Party leader has confirmed the need to reunify with Taiwan, eventually. But they have all been wary of the massive economic and diplomatic fallout that would accompany an invasion. A major erosion of CPC legitimacy could drive China to attack Taiwan. The most commonly suggested trigger for such erosion is a severe economic calamity, but internal Party documents suggest Beijing is confident in China's economic trajectory — despite 2021 supply chain issues. Similarly, President Xi Jinping could make a move on Taiwan if his own political legitimacy started to slip, but though there are real signs of internal dissent over some of Xi's recent policies, like the tech crackdown, Xi's hold on power — including military, bureaucratic and ideological power — is stronger than ever. Lastly, Xi believes himself to be a historic figure in China's history, on par with Mao Zedong, and has repeatedly asserted his personal desire to resolve the Taiwan issue in order to achieve China's so-called "great rejuvenation" as an economic superpower free from repression by foreign powers. Thus, the chances of a Taiwan invasion will grow toward the end of Xi's third term in 2027 and even more so by the end of his (likely) fourth term in 2032.
-
Xi only respects the viable threat of force.
second post
I'm highly sympathetic to the thought, but if the following article from Stratfor is correct, that would constitute a red line for Xi.
Recent confirmation of a U.S. troop presence in Taiwan marks an escalation in U.S.-China and cross-strait tensions, but doesn't significantly change Beijing's calculations regarding whether to take military action against Taiwan. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen confirmed in an interview with CNN on Oct. 27 that U.S. troops were present in Taiwan for a training mission, though Taiwan's defense minister soon clarified that U.S. troops are not garrisoned in Taiwan. In response, China's defense minister said that if U.S. efforts to "contain China" via Taiwan continued, China would "resolutely counter and fight back." Despite these strong words, rumors of U.S. troops in Taiwan have circulated for a year, and given China's wealth of intelligence assets in Taiwan, it is highly likely Beijing already knew about this development. If the U.S. training mission truly crossed a red line, China probably already would have taken military action.
In the short term, China's red lines on Taiwan will remain unchanged; they largely pertain to Taiwan's internal affairs and the formalization of international relationships. Beijing's decision making is often opaque to Western observers, to say the least, but senior officials have been quite clear about the kinds of events that could push China to take military action against Taiwan.
A formal declaration of independence by Taiwan is one such trigger, though legal hurdles in Taiwan make pulling one off very difficult.
The end of political negotiations regarding reunification with China by each of Taiwan's main political parties is another, a tall order given the opposition Kuomintang's friendly stance toward the mainland and its unwillingness to provoke economic retaliation from Beijing.
Formal defense agreements with Taiwan — signed by Japan, the United States or other Western allies — could trigger military action. Despite recent news, the United States does not have such an agreement with Taiwan.
The widespread acceptance of Taiwan as a country and/or equal partner in multiple international organizations, like the United Nations, could also push China toward a military contingency.
In the long term, China's decision to invade Taiwan will be highly influenced by internal politics, rather than military developments and public statements like Tsai's recent confirmation. For Beijing, reunification with Taiwan has always been primarily a political issue — though the strategic benefits of Taiwan for China's maritime strength are not lost on Beijing — driven by the internal motivations of the opaque and hierarchical Communist Party of China. Territorial consolidation has been a hallmark of Chinese political legitimacy for millennia, and the CPC is no exception, explaining why every Party leader has confirmed the need to reunify with Taiwan, eventually. But they have all been wary of the massive economic and diplomatic fallout that would accompany an invasion. A major erosion of CPC legitimacy could drive China to attack Taiwan. The most commonly suggested trigger for such erosion is a severe economic calamity, but internal Party documents suggest Beijing is confident in China's economic trajectory — despite 2021 supply chain issues. Similarly, President Xi Jinping could make a move on Taiwan if his own political legitimacy started to slip, but though there are real signs of internal dissent over some of Xi's recent policies, like the tech crackdown, Xi's hold on power — including military, bureaucratic and ideological power — is stronger than ever. Lastly, Xi believes himself to be a historic figure in China's history, on par with Mao Zedong, and has repeatedly asserted his personal desire to resolve the Taiwan issue in order to achieve China's so-called "great rejuvenation" as an economic superpower free from repression by foreign powers. Thus, the chances of a Taiwan invasion will grow toward the end of Xi's third term in 2027 and even more so by the end of his (likely) fourth term in 2032.
-
Geopolitical Futures
China and Taiwan. China has reportedly been cracking down on a surge of online speculation about a possible cross-strait conflict with Taiwan. Like many authoritarian regimes, Beijing often tries to stoke nationalist sentiment among the public to boost the Chinese Communist Party’s legitimacy, but it also often gets nervous about public pressure forcing its hand on complicated foreign policy issues. The rumors were apparently sparked by fake People’s Liberation Army text messages asking reservists to prepare to mobilize, as well as Beijing's recent move urging families to stockpile food (a pandemic-related issue). This comes as the PLA on Wednesday launched a week of live-fire drills in the East China Sea. Taiwanese special operators, meanwhile, have reportedly been training with U.S. Marines in Guam.
-
second post
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2021/11/china-likely-have-least-1000-nukes-2030-pentagon-estimates/186597/
-
Blockade risk. China’s military could impose a sea and air blockade on Taiwan, according to a new report from the self-ruled island's military. In addition, mainland forces have developed at least five other types of operational capabilities that could be used against Taiwan. A limited blockade is one of two scenarios that we see Beijing trying before attempting any sort of all-out attack on Taiwan. Of note, the report also said 618 U.S. military personnel visited Taiwan between mid-2019 and August.
-
Strait tensions. A delegation of U.S. lawmakers, including two senators, made an unannounced visit to Taipei on Tuesday. The group arrived on a U.S. Navy aircraft. In response, Beijing staged a hasty joint combat readiness drill in the Taiwan Strait.
-
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/us-china-war/620571/
-
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/us-china-war/620571/
Worthwhile read all the way through.
---------------------------------------
What Will Drive China to War?
A cold war is already under way. The question is whether Washington can deter Beijing from initiating a hot one.
By Michael Beckley and Hal Brands
NOVEMBER 1, 2021
About the authors: Michael Beckley is a Jeane Kirkpatrick Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where his research focuses on U.S.-China competition, and is an associate professor at Tufts University. Hal Brands is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies US foreign policy and defense strategy, and is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
President xi jinping declared in July that those who get in the way of China’s ascent will have their “heads bashed bloody against a Great Wall of steel.” The People’s Liberation Army Navy is churning out ships at a rate not seen since World War II, as Beijing issues threats against Taiwan and other neighbors. Top Pentagon officials have warned that China could start a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait or other geopolitical hot spots sometime this decade.
Analysts and officials in Washington are fretting over worsening tensions between the United States and China and the risks to the world of two superpowers once again clashing rather than cooperating. President Joe Biden has said that America “is not seeking a new cold war.” But that is the wrong way to look at U.S.-China relations. A cold war with Beijing is already under way. The right question, instead, is whether America can deter China from initiating a hot one.
Beijing is a remarkably ambitious revanchist power, one determined to make China whole again by “reuniting” Taiwan with the mainland, turning the East and South China Seas into Chinese lakes, and grabbing regional primacy as a stepping-stone to global power. It is also increasingly encircled, and faces growing resistance on many fronts—just the sort of scenario that has led it to lash out in the past.
The historical record since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 is clear: When confronted by a mounting threat to its geopolitical interests, Beijing does not wait to be attacked; it shoots first to gain the advantage of surprise.
In conflicts including the Korean War and clashes with Vietnam in 1979, China has often viewed the use of force as an educational exercise. It is willing to pick even a very costly fight with a single enemy to teach it, and others observing from the sidelines, a lesson.
Today, Beijing might be tempted to engage in this sort of aggression in multiple areas. And once the shooting starts, the pressures for escalation are likely to be severe.
Numerous scholars have analyzed when and why Beijing uses force. Most reach a similar conclusion: China attacks not when it feels confident about the future but when it worries its enemies are closing in. As Thomas Christensen, the director of the China and the World Program at Columbia University, writes, the Chinese Communist Party wages war when it perceives an opening window of vulnerability regarding its territory and immediate periphery, or a closing window of opportunity to consolidate control over disputed areas. This pattern holds regardless of the strength of China’s opponent. In fact, Beijing often has attacked far superior foes—including the U.S.—to cut them down to size and beat them back from Chinese-claimed or otherwise sensitive territory.
Examples of this are plentiful. In 1950, for instance, the fledgling PRC was less than a year old and destitute, after decades of civil war and Japanese brutality. Yet it nonetheless mauled advancing U.S. forces in Korea out of concern that the Americans would conquer North Korea and eventually use it as a base to attack China. In the expanded Korean War that resulted, China suffered almost 1 million casualties, risked nuclear retaliation, and was slammed with punishing economic sanctions that stayed in place for a generation. But to this day, Beijing celebrates the intervention as a glorious victory that warded off an existential threat to its homeland.
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In 1962, the PLA attacked Indian forces, ostensibly because they had built outposts in Chinese-claimed territory in the Himalayas. The deeper cause was that the CCP feared that it was being surrounded by the Indians, Americans, Soviets, and Chinese Nationalists, all of whom had increased their military presence near China in prior years. Later that decade, fearing that China was next on Moscow’s hit list as part of efforts to defeat “counterrevolution,” the Chinese military ambushed Soviet forces along the Ussuri River and set off a seven-month undeclared conflict that once again risked nuclear war.
In the late ’70s, Beijing picked a fight with Vietnam. The purpose, remarked Deng Xiaoping, then the leader of the CCP, was to “teach Vietnam a lesson” after it started hosting Soviet forces on its territory and invaded Cambodia, one of China’s only allies. Deng feared that China was being surrounded and that its position would just get worse with time. And from the ’50s to the ’90s, China nearly started wars on three separate occasions by firing artillery or missiles at or near Taiwanese territory, in 1954–55, 1958, and 1995–96. In each case, the goal was—among other things—to deter Taiwan from forging a closer relationship with the U.S. or declaring its independence from China.
To be clear, every decision for war is complex, and factors including domestic politics and the personality quirks of individual leaders have also figured in China’s choices to fight. Yet the overarching pattern of behavior is consistent: Beijing turns violent when confronted with the prospect of permanently losing control of territory. It tends to attack one enemy to scare off others. And it rarely gives advance warning or waits to absorb the initial blow.
For the past few decades, this pattern of first strikes and surprise attacks has seemingly been on hold. Beijing’s military hasn’t fought a major war since 1979. It hasn’t shot at large numbers of foreigners since 1988, when Chinese frigates gunned down 64 Vietnamese sailors in a clash over the Spratly Islands. China’s leaders often claim that their country is a uniquely peaceful great power, and at first glance, the evidence backs them up.
But the China of the past few decades was a historical aberration, able to amass influence and wrest concessions from rivals merely by flaunting its booming economy. With 1.3 billion people, sky-high growth rates, and an authoritarian government that courted big business, China was simply too good to pass up as a consumer market and a low-wage production platform. So country after country curried favor with Beijing.
Britain handed back Hong Kong in 1997. Portugal gave up Macau in 1999. America fast-tracked China into major international institutions, such as the World Trade Organization. Half a dozen countries settled territorial disputes with China from 1991 to 2019, and more than 20 others cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan to secure relations with Beijing. China was advancing its interests without firing a shot and, as Deng remarked, “hiding its capabilities and biding its time.”
Those days are over. China’s economy, the engine of the CCP’s international clout, is starting to sputter. From 2007 to 2019, growth rates fell by more than half, productivity declined by more than 10 percent, and overall debt surged eightfold. The coronavirus pandemic has dragged down growth even further and plunged Beijing’s finances deeper into the red. On top of all this, China’s population is aging at a devastating pace: From 2020 to 2035 alone, it will lose 70 million working-age adults and gain 130 million senior citizens.
Countries have recently become less enthralled by China’s market and more worried about its coercive capabilities and aggressive actions. Fearful that Xi might attempt forced reunification, Taiwan is tightening its ties to the U.S. and revamping its defenses. For roughly a decade, Japan has been engaged in its largest military buildup since the Cold War; the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is now talking about doubling defense spending. India is massing forces near China’s borders and vital sea lanes. Vietnam and Indonesia are expanding their air, naval, and coast-guard forces. Australia is opening up its northern coast to U.S. forces and acquiring long-range missiles and nuclear-powered attack submarines. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom are sending warships into the Indo-Pacific region. Dozens of countries are looking to cut China out of their supply chains; anti-China coalitions, such as the Quad and AUKUS, are proliferating.
Globally, opinion polls show that fear and mistrust of China has reached a post–Cold War high. All of which raises a troubling question: If Beijing sees that its possibilities for easy expansion are narrowing, might it begin resorting to more violent methods?
China is already moving in that direction. It has been using its maritime militia (essentially a covert navy), coast guard, and other “gray zone” assets to coerce weaker rivals in the Western Pacific. Xi’s government provoked a bloody scrap with India along the disputed Sino-Indian frontier in 2020, reportedly out of fear that New Delhi was aligning more closely with Washington.
Beijing certainly has the means to go much further. The CCP has spent $3 trillion over the past three decades building a military that is designed to defeat Chinese neighbors while blunting American power. It also has the motive: In addition to slowing growth and creeping encirclement, China faces closing windows of opportunity in its most important territorial disputes.
China’s geopolitical aims are not a secret. Xi, like his predecessors, desires to make China the preponderant power in Asia and, eventually, the world. He wants to consolidate China’s control over important lands and waterways the country lost during the “century of humiliation” (1839–1949), when China was ripped apart by imperialist powers. These areas include Hong Kong, Taiwan, chunks of Indian-claimed territory, and some 80 percent of the East and South China Seas.
The Western Pacific flash points are particularly vital. Taiwan is the site of a rival, democratic Chinese government in the heart of Asia with strong connections to Washington. Most of China’s trade passes through the East and South China Seas. And China’s primary antagonists in the area—Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines—are part of a strategic chain of U.S. allies and partners whose territory blocks Beijing’s access to the Pacific’s deep waters.
The CCP has staked its legitimacy on reabsorbing these areas and has cultivated an intense, revanchist form of nationalism among the Chinese people. Schoolchildren study the century of humiliation. National holidays commemorate foreign theft of Chinese lands. For many citizens, making China whole again is as much an emotional as a strategic imperative. Compromise is out of the question. “We cannot lose even one inch of the territory left behind by our ancestors,” Xi told James Mattis, then the U.S. secretary of defense, in 2018.
Taiwan is the place where China’s time pressures are most severe. Peaceful reunification has become extremely unlikely: In August 2021, a record 68 percent of the Taiwanese public identified solely as Taiwanese and not as Chinese, and more than 95 percent wanted to maintain the island’s de facto sovereignty or declare independence. China retains viable military options because its missiles could incapacitate Taiwan’s air force and U.S. bases on Okinawa in a surprise attack, paving the way for a successful invasion. But Taiwan and the U.S. now recognize the threat.
President Biden recently stated that America would fight to defend Taiwan from an unprovoked Chinese attack. Washington is planning to harden, disperse, and expand its forces in the Asia-Pacific by the early 2030s. Taiwan is pursuing, on a similar timeline, a defense strategy that would use cheap, plentiful capabilities such as anti-ship missiles and mobile air defenses to make the island an incredibly hard nut to crack. This means that China will have its best chance from now to the end of the decade. Indeed, the military balance will temporarily shift further in Beijing’s favor in the late 2020s, when many aging U.S. ships, submarines, and planes will have to be retired.
This is when America will be in danger, as the former Pentagon official David Ochmanek has remarked, of getting “its ass handed to it” in a high-intensity conflict. If China does attack, Washington could face a choice between escalation or seeing Taiwan conquered.
More such dilemmas are emerging in the East China Sea. China has spent years building an armada, and the balance of naval tonnage currently favors Beijing. It regularly sends well-armed coast-guard vessels into the waters surrounding the disputed Senkaku Islands to weaken Japan’s control there. But Tokyo has plans to regain the strategic advantage by turning amphibious ships into aircraft carriers for stealth fighters armed with long-range anti-ship missiles. It is also using geography to its advantage by stringing missile launchers and submarines along the Ryukyu Islands, which stretch the length of the East China Sea.
Meanwhile, the U.S.-Japan alliance, once a barrier to Japanese remilitarization, is becoming a force multiplier. Tokyo has reinterpreted its constitution to fight more actively alongside the U.S. Japanese forces regularly operate with American naval vessels and aircraft; American F-35 fighters fly off of Japanese ships; U.S. and Japanese officials now confer routinely on how they would respond to Chinese aggression—and publicly advertise that cooperation.
For years, Chinese strategists have speculated about a short, sharp war that would humiliate Japan, rupture its alliance with Washington, and serve as an object lesson for other countries in the region. Beijing could, for instance, land or parachute special forces on the Senkakus, proclaim a large maritime exclusion zone in the area, and back up that declaration by deploying ships, submarines, warplanes, and drones—all supported by hundreds of conventionally armed ballistic missiles aimed at Japanese forces and even targets in Japan. Tokyo then would either have to accept China’s fait accompli or launch a difficult and bloody military operation to recapture the islands. America, too, would have to choose between retreat and honoring the pledges it made—in 2014 and in 2021—to help Japan defend the Senkakus. Retreat might destroy the credibility of the U.S.-Japan alliance. Resistance, war games held by prominent think tanks suggest, could easily lead to rapid escalation resulting in a major regional war.
What about the South China Sea? Here, China has grown accustomed to shoving around weak neighbors. Yet opposition is growing. Vietnam is stocking up on mobile missiles, submarines, fighter jets, and naval vessels that can make operations within 200 miles of its coast very difficult for Chinese forces. Indonesia is ramping up defense spending—a 20 percent hike in 2020 and another 16 percent in 2021—to buy dozens of fighters, surface ships, and submarines armed with lethal anti-ship missiles. Even the Philippines, which courted Beijing for most of President Rodrigo Duterte’s term, has been increasing air and naval patrols, conducting military exercises with the U.S., and planning to purchase cruise missiles from India. At the same time, a formidable coalition of external powers—the U.S., Japan, India, Australia, Britain, France, and Germany—are conducting freedom-of-navigation exercises to contest China’s claims.
From Beijing’s perspective, circumstances are looking ripe for a teachable moment. The best target might be the Philippines. In 2016, Manila challenged China’s claims to the South China Sea before the Permanent Court of Arbitration and won. Beijing might relish the opportunity to reassert its claims—and warn other Southeast Asian countries about the cost of angering China—by ejecting Filipino forces from their isolated, indefensible South China Sea outposts. Here again, Washington would have few good options: It could stand down, effectively allowing China to impose its will on the South China Sea and the countries around it, or it could risk a much bigger war to defend its ally.
Get ready for the “terrible 2020s”: a period in which China has strong incentives to grab “lost” land and break up coalitions seeking to check its advance. Beijing possesses grandiose territorial aims as well as a strategic culture that emphasizes hitting first and hitting hard when it perceives gathering dangers. It has a host of wasting assets in the form of military advantages that may not endure beyond this decade. Such dynamics have driven China to war in the past and could do so again today.
If conflict does break out, U.S. officials should not be sanguine about how it would end. Tamping or reversing Chinese aggression in the Western Pacific could require a massive use of force. An authoritarian CCP, always mindful of its precarious domestic legitimacy, would not want to concede defeat even if it failed to achieve its initial objectives. And historically, modern wars between great powers have more typically gone long than stayed short. All of this implies that a U.S.-China war could be incredibly dangerous, offering few plausible off-ramps and severe pressures for escalation.
The U.S. and its friends can take steps to deter the PRC, such as drastically speeding the acquisition of weaponry and prepositioning military assets in the Taiwan Strait and East and South China Seas, among other efforts, to showcase its hard power and ensure that China can’t easily knock out U.S. combat power in a surprise attack. At the same time, calmly firming up multilateral plans, involving Japan, Australia, and potentially India and Britain, for responding to Chinese aggression could make Beijing realize how costly such aggression might be. If Beijing understands that it cannot easily or cheaply win a conflict, it may be more cautious about starting one.
Most of these steps are not technologically difficult: They exploit capabilities that are available today. Yet they require an intellectual shift—a realization that the United States and its allies need to rapidly shut China’s windows of military opportunity, which means preparing for a war that could well start in 2025 rather than in 2035. And that, in turn, requires a degree of political will and urgency that has so far been lacking.
China’s historical warning signs are already flashing red. Indeed, taking the long view of why and under which circumstances China fights is the key to understanding just how short time has become for America and the other countries in Beijing’s path.
-
Very good article. If things go kinetic in Asia, the NorKs will jump in and at some point it will go
Nuclear if China is losing.
Plan accordingly.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/us-china-war/620571/
Worthwhile read all the way through.
---------------------------------------
What Will Drive China to War?
A cold war is already under way. The question is whether Washington can deter Beijing from initiating a hot one.
By Michael Beckley and Hal Brands
NOVEMBER 1, 2021
About the authors: Michael Beckley is a Jeane Kirkpatrick Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where his research focuses on U.S.-China competition, and is an associate professor at Tufts University. Hal Brands is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies US foreign policy and defense strategy, and is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
President xi jinping declared in July that those who get in the way of China’s ascent will have their “heads bashed bloody against a Great Wall of steel.” The People’s Liberation Army Navy is churning out ships at a rate not seen since World War II, as Beijing issues threats against Taiwan and other neighbors. Top Pentagon officials have warned that China could start a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait or other geopolitical hot spots sometime this decade.
Analysts and officials in Washington are fretting over worsening tensions between the United States and China and the risks to the world of two superpowers once again clashing rather than cooperating. President Joe Biden has said that America “is not seeking a new cold war.” But that is the wrong way to look at U.S.-China relations. A cold war with Beijing is already under way. The right question, instead, is whether America can deter China from initiating a hot one.
Beijing is a remarkably ambitious revanchist power, one determined to make China whole again by “reuniting” Taiwan with the mainland, turning the East and South China Seas into Chinese lakes, and grabbing regional primacy as a stepping-stone to global power. It is also increasingly encircled, and faces growing resistance on many fronts—just the sort of scenario that has led it to lash out in the past.
The historical record since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 is clear: When confronted by a mounting threat to its geopolitical interests, Beijing does not wait to be attacked; it shoots first to gain the advantage of surprise.
In conflicts including the Korean War and clashes with Vietnam in 1979, China has often viewed the use of force as an educational exercise. It is willing to pick even a very costly fight with a single enemy to teach it, and others observing from the sidelines, a lesson.
Today, Beijing might be tempted to engage in this sort of aggression in multiple areas. And once the shooting starts, the pressures for escalation are likely to be severe.
Numerous scholars have analyzed when and why Beijing uses force. Most reach a similar conclusion: China attacks not when it feels confident about the future but when it worries its enemies are closing in. As Thomas Christensen, the director of the China and the World Program at Columbia University, writes, the Chinese Communist Party wages war when it perceives an opening window of vulnerability regarding its territory and immediate periphery, or a closing window of opportunity to consolidate control over disputed areas. This pattern holds regardless of the strength of China’s opponent. In fact, Beijing often has attacked far superior foes—including the U.S.—to cut them down to size and beat them back from Chinese-claimed or otherwise sensitive territory.
Examples of this are plentiful. In 1950, for instance, the fledgling PRC was less than a year old and destitute, after decades of civil war and Japanese brutality. Yet it nonetheless mauled advancing U.S. forces in Korea out of concern that the Americans would conquer North Korea and eventually use it as a base to attack China. In the expanded Korean War that resulted, China suffered almost 1 million casualties, risked nuclear retaliation, and was slammed with punishing economic sanctions that stayed in place for a generation. But to this day, Beijing celebrates the intervention as a glorious victory that warded off an existential threat to its homeland.
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Henry Montgomery seated in the back of a car, between two men
Henry Montgomery Has Helped Free Hundreds, but He’s Still Not Free
CLINT SMITH
U.S. soccer fans
How U.S. Soccer Lost Its Hipster Cred
WILL LEITCH
Illustration of the U.S. Capitol with red and blue.
The Right’s Total Loss of Proportion
DAVID A. GRAHAM
In 1962, the PLA attacked Indian forces, ostensibly because they had built outposts in Chinese-claimed territory in the Himalayas. The deeper cause was that the CCP feared that it was being surrounded by the Indians, Americans, Soviets, and Chinese Nationalists, all of whom had increased their military presence near China in prior years. Later that decade, fearing that China was next on Moscow’s hit list as part of efforts to defeat “counterrevolution,” the Chinese military ambushed Soviet forces along the Ussuri River and set off a seven-month undeclared conflict that once again risked nuclear war.
In the late ’70s, Beijing picked a fight with Vietnam. The purpose, remarked Deng Xiaoping, then the leader of the CCP, was to “teach Vietnam a lesson” after it started hosting Soviet forces on its territory and invaded Cambodia, one of China’s only allies. Deng feared that China was being surrounded and that its position would just get worse with time. And from the ’50s to the ’90s, China nearly started wars on three separate occasions by firing artillery or missiles at or near Taiwanese territory, in 1954–55, 1958, and 1995–96. In each case, the goal was—among other things—to deter Taiwan from forging a closer relationship with the U.S. or declaring its independence from China.
To be clear, every decision for war is complex, and factors including domestic politics and the personality quirks of individual leaders have also figured in China’s choices to fight. Yet the overarching pattern of behavior is consistent: Beijing turns violent when confronted with the prospect of permanently losing control of territory. It tends to attack one enemy to scare off others. And it rarely gives advance warning or waits to absorb the initial blow.
For the past few decades, this pattern of first strikes and surprise attacks has seemingly been on hold. Beijing’s military hasn’t fought a major war since 1979. It hasn’t shot at large numbers of foreigners since 1988, when Chinese frigates gunned down 64 Vietnamese sailors in a clash over the Spratly Islands. China’s leaders often claim that their country is a uniquely peaceful great power, and at first glance, the evidence backs them up.
But the China of the past few decades was a historical aberration, able to amass influence and wrest concessions from rivals merely by flaunting its booming economy. With 1.3 billion people, sky-high growth rates, and an authoritarian government that courted big business, China was simply too good to pass up as a consumer market and a low-wage production platform. So country after country curried favor with Beijing.
Britain handed back Hong Kong in 1997. Portugal gave up Macau in 1999. America fast-tracked China into major international institutions, such as the World Trade Organization. Half a dozen countries settled territorial disputes with China from 1991 to 2019, and more than 20 others cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan to secure relations with Beijing. China was advancing its interests without firing a shot and, as Deng remarked, “hiding its capabilities and biding its time.”
Those days are over. China’s economy, the engine of the CCP’s international clout, is starting to sputter. From 2007 to 2019, growth rates fell by more than half, productivity declined by more than 10 percent, and overall debt surged eightfold. The coronavirus pandemic has dragged down growth even further and plunged Beijing’s finances deeper into the red. On top of all this, China’s population is aging at a devastating pace: From 2020 to 2035 alone, it will lose 70 million working-age adults and gain 130 million senior citizens.
Countries have recently become less enthralled by China’s market and more worried about its coercive capabilities and aggressive actions. Fearful that Xi might attempt forced reunification, Taiwan is tightening its ties to the U.S. and revamping its defenses. For roughly a decade, Japan has been engaged in its largest military buildup since the Cold War; the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is now talking about doubling defense spending. India is massing forces near China’s borders and vital sea lanes. Vietnam and Indonesia are expanding their air, naval, and coast-guard forces. Australia is opening up its northern coast to U.S. forces and acquiring long-range missiles and nuclear-powered attack submarines. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom are sending warships into the Indo-Pacific region. Dozens of countries are looking to cut China out of their supply chains; anti-China coalitions, such as the Quad and AUKUS, are proliferating.
Globally, opinion polls show that fear and mistrust of China has reached a post–Cold War high. All of which raises a troubling question: If Beijing sees that its possibilities for easy expansion are narrowing, might it begin resorting to more violent methods?
China is already moving in that direction. It has been using its maritime militia (essentially a covert navy), coast guard, and other “gray zone” assets to coerce weaker rivals in the Western Pacific. Xi’s government provoked a bloody scrap with India along the disputed Sino-Indian frontier in 2020, reportedly out of fear that New Delhi was aligning more closely with Washington.
Beijing certainly has the means to go much further. The CCP has spent $3 trillion over the past three decades building a military that is designed to defeat Chinese neighbors while blunting American power. It also has the motive: In addition to slowing growth and creeping encirclement, China faces closing windows of opportunity in its most important territorial disputes.
China’s geopolitical aims are not a secret. Xi, like his predecessors, desires to make China the preponderant power in Asia and, eventually, the world. He wants to consolidate China’s control over important lands and waterways the country lost during the “century of humiliation” (1839–1949), when China was ripped apart by imperialist powers. These areas include Hong Kong, Taiwan, chunks of Indian-claimed territory, and some 80 percent of the East and South China Seas.
The Western Pacific flash points are particularly vital. Taiwan is the site of a rival, democratic Chinese government in the heart of Asia with strong connections to Washington. Most of China’s trade passes through the East and South China Seas. And China’s primary antagonists in the area—Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines—are part of a strategic chain of U.S. allies and partners whose territory blocks Beijing’s access to the Pacific’s deep waters.
The CCP has staked its legitimacy on reabsorbing these areas and has cultivated an intense, revanchist form of nationalism among the Chinese people. Schoolchildren study the century of humiliation. National holidays commemorate foreign theft of Chinese lands. For many citizens, making China whole again is as much an emotional as a strategic imperative. Compromise is out of the question. “We cannot lose even one inch of the territory left behind by our ancestors,” Xi told James Mattis, then the U.S. secretary of defense, in 2018.
Taiwan is the place where China’s time pressures are most severe. Peaceful reunification has become extremely unlikely: In August 2021, a record 68 percent of the Taiwanese public identified solely as Taiwanese and not as Chinese, and more than 95 percent wanted to maintain the island’s de facto sovereignty or declare independence. China retains viable military options because its missiles could incapacitate Taiwan’s air force and U.S. bases on Okinawa in a surprise attack, paving the way for a successful invasion. But Taiwan and the U.S. now recognize the threat.
President Biden recently stated that America would fight to defend Taiwan from an unprovoked Chinese attack. Washington is planning to harden, disperse, and expand its forces in the Asia-Pacific by the early 2030s. Taiwan is pursuing, on a similar timeline, a defense strategy that would use cheap, plentiful capabilities such as anti-ship missiles and mobile air defenses to make the island an incredibly hard nut to crack. This means that China will have its best chance from now to the end of the decade. Indeed, the military balance will temporarily shift further in Beijing’s favor in the late 2020s, when many aging U.S. ships, submarines, and planes will have to be retired.
This is when America will be in danger, as the former Pentagon official David Ochmanek has remarked, of getting “its ass handed to it” in a high-intensity conflict. If China does attack, Washington could face a choice between escalation or seeing Taiwan conquered.
More such dilemmas are emerging in the East China Sea. China has spent years building an armada, and the balance of naval tonnage currently favors Beijing. It regularly sends well-armed coast-guard vessels into the waters surrounding the disputed Senkaku Islands to weaken Japan’s control there. But Tokyo has plans to regain the strategic advantage by turning amphibious ships into aircraft carriers for stealth fighters armed with long-range anti-ship missiles. It is also using geography to its advantage by stringing missile launchers and submarines along the Ryukyu Islands, which stretch the length of the East China Sea.
Meanwhile, the U.S.-Japan alliance, once a barrier to Japanese remilitarization, is becoming a force multiplier. Tokyo has reinterpreted its constitution to fight more actively alongside the U.S. Japanese forces regularly operate with American naval vessels and aircraft; American F-35 fighters fly off of Japanese ships; U.S. and Japanese officials now confer routinely on how they would respond to Chinese aggression—and publicly advertise that cooperation.
For years, Chinese strategists have speculated about a short, sharp war that would humiliate Japan, rupture its alliance with Washington, and serve as an object lesson for other countries in the region. Beijing could, for instance, land or parachute special forces on the Senkakus, proclaim a large maritime exclusion zone in the area, and back up that declaration by deploying ships, submarines, warplanes, and drones—all supported by hundreds of conventionally armed ballistic missiles aimed at Japanese forces and even targets in Japan. Tokyo then would either have to accept China’s fait accompli or launch a difficult and bloody military operation to recapture the islands. America, too, would have to choose between retreat and honoring the pledges it made—in 2014 and in 2021—to help Japan defend the Senkakus. Retreat might destroy the credibility of the U.S.-Japan alliance. Resistance, war games held by prominent think tanks suggest, could easily lead to rapid escalation resulting in a major regional war.
What about the South China Sea? Here, China has grown accustomed to shoving around weak neighbors. Yet opposition is growing. Vietnam is stocking up on mobile missiles, submarines, fighter jets, and naval vessels that can make operations within 200 miles of its coast very difficult for Chinese forces. Indonesia is ramping up defense spending—a 20 percent hike in 2020 and another 16 percent in 2021—to buy dozens of fighters, surface ships, and submarines armed with lethal anti-ship missiles. Even the Philippines, which courted Beijing for most of President Rodrigo Duterte’s term, has been increasing air and naval patrols, conducting military exercises with the U.S., and planning to purchase cruise missiles from India. At the same time, a formidable coalition of external powers—the U.S., Japan, India, Australia, Britain, France, and Germany—are conducting freedom-of-navigation exercises to contest China’s claims.
From Beijing’s perspective, circumstances are looking ripe for a teachable moment. The best target might be the Philippines. In 2016, Manila challenged China’s claims to the South China Sea before the Permanent Court of Arbitration and won. Beijing might relish the opportunity to reassert its claims—and warn other Southeast Asian countries about the cost of angering China—by ejecting Filipino forces from their isolated, indefensible South China Sea outposts. Here again, Washington would have few good options: It could stand down, effectively allowing China to impose its will on the South China Sea and the countries around it, or it could risk a much bigger war to defend its ally.
Get ready for the “terrible 2020s”: a period in which China has strong incentives to grab “lost” land and break up coalitions seeking to check its advance. Beijing possesses grandiose territorial aims as well as a strategic culture that emphasizes hitting first and hitting hard when it perceives gathering dangers. It has a host of wasting assets in the form of military advantages that may not endure beyond this decade. Such dynamics have driven China to war in the past and could do so again today.
If conflict does break out, U.S. officials should not be sanguine about how it would end. Tamping or reversing Chinese aggression in the Western Pacific could require a massive use of force. An authoritarian CCP, always mindful of its precarious domestic legitimacy, would not want to concede defeat even if it failed to achieve its initial objectives. And historically, modern wars between great powers have more typically gone long than stayed short. All of this implies that a U.S.-China war could be incredibly dangerous, offering few plausible off-ramps and severe pressures for escalation.
The U.S. and its friends can take steps to deter the PRC, such as drastically speeding the acquisition of weaponry and prepositioning military assets in the Taiwan Strait and East and South China Seas, among other efforts, to showcase its hard power and ensure that China can’t easily knock out U.S. combat power in a surprise attack. At the same time, calmly firming up multilateral plans, involving Japan, Australia, and potentially India and Britain, for responding to Chinese aggression could make Beijing realize how costly such aggression might be. If Beijing understands that it cannot easily or cheaply win a conflict, it may be more cautious about starting one.
Most of these steps are not technologically difficult: They exploit capabilities that are available today. Yet they require an intellectual shift—a realization that the United States and its allies need to rapidly shut China’s windows of military opportunity, which means preparing for a war that could well start in 2025 rather than in 2035. And that, in turn, requires a degree of political will and urgency that has so far been lacking.
China’s historical warning signs are already flashing red. Indeed, taking the long view of why and under which circumstances China fights is the key to understanding just how short time has become for America and the other countries in Beijing’s path.
-
https://nypost.com/2021/11/10/pentagon-climate-and-china-are-equally-important-threats-to-us/
What’s the environmental impact of sunken US carrier groups at the bottom of the S. China sea?
Very good article. If things go kinetic in Asia, the NorKs will jump in and at some point it will go
Nuclear if China is losing.
Plan accordingly.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/us-china-war/620571/
Worthwhile read all the way through.
---------------------------------------
What Will Drive China to War?
A cold war is already under way. The question is whether Washington can deter Beijing from initiating a hot one.
By Michael Beckley and Hal Brands
NOVEMBER 1, 2021
About the authors: Michael Beckley is a Jeane Kirkpatrick Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where his research focuses on U.S.-China competition, and is an associate professor at Tufts University. Hal Brands is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies US foreign policy and defense strategy, and is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
President xi jinping declared in July that those who get in the way of China’s ascent will have their “heads bashed bloody against a Great Wall of steel.” The People’s Liberation Army Navy is churning out ships at a rate not seen since World War II, as Beijing issues threats against Taiwan and other neighbors. Top Pentagon officials have warned that China could start a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait or other geopolitical hot spots sometime this decade.
Analysts and officials in Washington are fretting over worsening tensions between the United States and China and the risks to the world of two superpowers once again clashing rather than cooperating. President Joe Biden has said that America “is not seeking a new cold war.” But that is the wrong way to look at U.S.-China relations. A cold war with Beijing is already under way. The right question, instead, is whether America can deter China from initiating a hot one.
Beijing is a remarkably ambitious revanchist power, one determined to make China whole again by “reuniting” Taiwan with the mainland, turning the East and South China Seas into Chinese lakes, and grabbing regional primacy as a stepping-stone to global power. It is also increasingly encircled, and faces growing resistance on many fronts—just the sort of scenario that has led it to lash out in the past.
The historical record since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 is clear: When confronted by a mounting threat to its geopolitical interests, Beijing does not wait to be attacked; it shoots first to gain the advantage of surprise.
In conflicts including the Korean War and clashes with Vietnam in 1979, China has often viewed the use of force as an educational exercise. It is willing to pick even a very costly fight with a single enemy to teach it, and others observing from the sidelines, a lesson.
Today, Beijing might be tempted to engage in this sort of aggression in multiple areas. And once the shooting starts, the pressures for escalation are likely to be severe.
Numerous scholars have analyzed when and why Beijing uses force. Most reach a similar conclusion: China attacks not when it feels confident about the future but when it worries its enemies are closing in. As Thomas Christensen, the director of the China and the World Program at Columbia University, writes, the Chinese Communist Party wages war when it perceives an opening window of vulnerability regarding its territory and immediate periphery, or a closing window of opportunity to consolidate control over disputed areas. This pattern holds regardless of the strength of China’s opponent. In fact, Beijing often has attacked far superior foes—including the U.S.—to cut them down to size and beat them back from Chinese-claimed or otherwise sensitive territory.
Examples of this are plentiful. In 1950, for instance, the fledgling PRC was less than a year old and destitute, after decades of civil war and Japanese brutality. Yet it nonetheless mauled advancing U.S. forces in Korea out of concern that the Americans would conquer North Korea and eventually use it as a base to attack China. In the expanded Korean War that resulted, China suffered almost 1 million casualties, risked nuclear retaliation, and was slammed with punishing economic sanctions that stayed in place for a generation. But to this day, Beijing celebrates the intervention as a glorious victory that warded off an existential threat to its homeland.
RECOMMENDED READING
Henry Montgomery seated in the back of a car, between two men
Henry Montgomery Has Helped Free Hundreds, but He’s Still Not Free
CLINT SMITH
U.S. soccer fans
How U.S. Soccer Lost Its Hipster Cred
WILL LEITCH
Illustration of the U.S. Capitol with red and blue.
The Right’s Total Loss of Proportion
DAVID A. GRAHAM
In 1962, the PLA attacked Indian forces, ostensibly because they had built outposts in Chinese-claimed territory in the Himalayas. The deeper cause was that the CCP feared that it was being surrounded by the Indians, Americans, Soviets, and Chinese Nationalists, all of whom had increased their military presence near China in prior years. Later that decade, fearing that China was next on Moscow’s hit list as part of efforts to defeat “counterrevolution,” the Chinese military ambushed Soviet forces along the Ussuri River and set off a seven-month undeclared conflict that once again risked nuclear war.
In the late ’70s, Beijing picked a fight with Vietnam. The purpose, remarked Deng Xiaoping, then the leader of the CCP, was to “teach Vietnam a lesson” after it started hosting Soviet forces on its territory and invaded Cambodia, one of China’s only allies. Deng feared that China was being surrounded and that its position would just get worse with time. And from the ’50s to the ’90s, China nearly started wars on three separate occasions by firing artillery or missiles at or near Taiwanese territory, in 1954–55, 1958, and 1995–96. In each case, the goal was—among other things—to deter Taiwan from forging a closer relationship with the U.S. or declaring its independence from China.
To be clear, every decision for war is complex, and factors including domestic politics and the personality quirks of individual leaders have also figured in China’s choices to fight. Yet the overarching pattern of behavior is consistent: Beijing turns violent when confronted with the prospect of permanently losing control of territory. It tends to attack one enemy to scare off others. And it rarely gives advance warning or waits to absorb the initial blow.
For the past few decades, this pattern of first strikes and surprise attacks has seemingly been on hold. Beijing’s military hasn’t fought a major war since 1979. It hasn’t shot at large numbers of foreigners since 1988, when Chinese frigates gunned down 64 Vietnamese sailors in a clash over the Spratly Islands. China’s leaders often claim that their country is a uniquely peaceful great power, and at first glance, the evidence backs them up.
But the China of the past few decades was a historical aberration, able to amass influence and wrest concessions from rivals merely by flaunting its booming economy. With 1.3 billion people, sky-high growth rates, and an authoritarian government that courted big business, China was simply too good to pass up as a consumer market and a low-wage production platform. So country after country curried favor with Beijing.
Britain handed back Hong Kong in 1997. Portugal gave up Macau in 1999. America fast-tracked China into major international institutions, such as the World Trade Organization. Half a dozen countries settled territorial disputes with China from 1991 to 2019, and more than 20 others cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan to secure relations with Beijing. China was advancing its interests without firing a shot and, as Deng remarked, “hiding its capabilities and biding its time.”
Those days are over. China’s economy, the engine of the CCP’s international clout, is starting to sputter. From 2007 to 2019, growth rates fell by more than half, productivity declined by more than 10 percent, and overall debt surged eightfold. The coronavirus pandemic has dragged down growth even further and plunged Beijing’s finances deeper into the red. On top of all this, China’s population is aging at a devastating pace: From 2020 to 2035 alone, it will lose 70 million working-age adults and gain 130 million senior citizens.
Countries have recently become less enthralled by China’s market and more worried about its coercive capabilities and aggressive actions. Fearful that Xi might attempt forced reunification, Taiwan is tightening its ties to the U.S. and revamping its defenses. For roughly a decade, Japan has been engaged in its largest military buildup since the Cold War; the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is now talking about doubling defense spending. India is massing forces near China’s borders and vital sea lanes. Vietnam and Indonesia are expanding their air, naval, and coast-guard forces. Australia is opening up its northern coast to U.S. forces and acquiring long-range missiles and nuclear-powered attack submarines. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom are sending warships into the Indo-Pacific region. Dozens of countries are looking to cut China out of their supply chains; anti-China coalitions, such as the Quad and AUKUS, are proliferating.
Globally, opinion polls show that fear and mistrust of China has reached a post–Cold War high. All of which raises a troubling question: If Beijing sees that its possibilities for easy expansion are narrowing, might it begin resorting to more violent methods?
China is already moving in that direction. It has been using its maritime militia (essentially a covert navy), coast guard, and other “gray zone” assets to coerce weaker rivals in the Western Pacific. Xi’s government provoked a bloody scrap with India along the disputed Sino-Indian frontier in 2020, reportedly out of fear that New Delhi was aligning more closely with Washington.
Beijing certainly has the means to go much further. The CCP has spent $3 trillion over the past three decades building a military that is designed to defeat Chinese neighbors while blunting American power. It also has the motive: In addition to slowing growth and creeping encirclement, China faces closing windows of opportunity in its most important territorial disputes.
China’s geopolitical aims are not a secret. Xi, like his predecessors, desires to make China the preponderant power in Asia and, eventually, the world. He wants to consolidate China’s control over important lands and waterways the country lost during the “century of humiliation” (1839–1949), when China was ripped apart by imperialist powers. These areas include Hong Kong, Taiwan, chunks of Indian-claimed territory, and some 80 percent of the East and South China Seas.
The Western Pacific flash points are particularly vital. Taiwan is the site of a rival, democratic Chinese government in the heart of Asia with strong connections to Washington. Most of China’s trade passes through the East and South China Seas. And China’s primary antagonists in the area—Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines—are part of a strategic chain of U.S. allies and partners whose territory blocks Beijing’s access to the Pacific’s deep waters.
The CCP has staked its legitimacy on reabsorbing these areas and has cultivated an intense, revanchist form of nationalism among the Chinese people. Schoolchildren study the century of humiliation. National holidays commemorate foreign theft of Chinese lands. For many citizens, making China whole again is as much an emotional as a strategic imperative. Compromise is out of the question. “We cannot lose even one inch of the territory left behind by our ancestors,” Xi told James Mattis, then the U.S. secretary of defense, in 2018.
Taiwan is the place where China’s time pressures are most severe. Peaceful reunification has become extremely unlikely: In August 2021, a record 68 percent of the Taiwanese public identified solely as Taiwanese and not as Chinese, and more than 95 percent wanted to maintain the island’s de facto sovereignty or declare independence. China retains viable military options because its missiles could incapacitate Taiwan’s air force and U.S. bases on Okinawa in a surprise attack, paving the way for a successful invasion. But Taiwan and the U.S. now recognize the threat.
President Biden recently stated that America would fight to defend Taiwan from an unprovoked Chinese attack. Washington is planning to harden, disperse, and expand its forces in the Asia-Pacific by the early 2030s. Taiwan is pursuing, on a similar timeline, a defense strategy that would use cheap, plentiful capabilities such as anti-ship missiles and mobile air defenses to make the island an incredibly hard nut to crack. This means that China will have its best chance from now to the end of the decade. Indeed, the military balance will temporarily shift further in Beijing’s favor in the late 2020s, when many aging U.S. ships, submarines, and planes will have to be retired.
This is when America will be in danger, as the former Pentagon official David Ochmanek has remarked, of getting “its ass handed to it” in a high-intensity conflict. If China does attack, Washington could face a choice between escalation or seeing Taiwan conquered.
More such dilemmas are emerging in the East China Sea. China has spent years building an armada, and the balance of naval tonnage currently favors Beijing. It regularly sends well-armed coast-guard vessels into the waters surrounding the disputed Senkaku Islands to weaken Japan’s control there. But Tokyo has plans to regain the strategic advantage by turning amphibious ships into aircraft carriers for stealth fighters armed with long-range anti-ship missiles. It is also using geography to its advantage by stringing missile launchers and submarines along the Ryukyu Islands, which stretch the length of the East China Sea.
Meanwhile, the U.S.-Japan alliance, once a barrier to Japanese remilitarization, is becoming a force multiplier. Tokyo has reinterpreted its constitution to fight more actively alongside the U.S. Japanese forces regularly operate with American naval vessels and aircraft; American F-35 fighters fly off of Japanese ships; U.S. and Japanese officials now confer routinely on how they would respond to Chinese aggression—and publicly advertise that cooperation.
For years, Chinese strategists have speculated about a short, sharp war that would humiliate Japan, rupture its alliance with Washington, and serve as an object lesson for other countries in the region. Beijing could, for instance, land or parachute special forces on the Senkakus, proclaim a large maritime exclusion zone in the area, and back up that declaration by deploying ships, submarines, warplanes, and drones—all supported by hundreds of conventionally armed ballistic missiles aimed at Japanese forces and even targets in Japan. Tokyo then would either have to accept China’s fait accompli or launch a difficult and bloody military operation to recapture the islands. America, too, would have to choose between retreat and honoring the pledges it made—in 2014 and in 2021—to help Japan defend the Senkakus. Retreat might destroy the credibility of the U.S.-Japan alliance. Resistance, war games held by prominent think tanks suggest, could easily lead to rapid escalation resulting in a major regional war.
What about the South China Sea? Here, China has grown accustomed to shoving around weak neighbors. Yet opposition is growing. Vietnam is stocking up on mobile missiles, submarines, fighter jets, and naval vessels that can make operations within 200 miles of its coast very difficult for Chinese forces. Indonesia is ramping up defense spending—a 20 percent hike in 2020 and another 16 percent in 2021—to buy dozens of fighters, surface ships, and submarines armed with lethal anti-ship missiles. Even the Philippines, which courted Beijing for most of President Rodrigo Duterte’s term, has been increasing air and naval patrols, conducting military exercises with the U.S., and planning to purchase cruise missiles from India. At the same time, a formidable coalition of external powers—the U.S., Japan, India, Australia, Britain, France, and Germany—are conducting freedom-of-navigation exercises to contest China’s claims.
From Beijing’s perspective, circumstances are looking ripe for a teachable moment. The best target might be the Philippines. In 2016, Manila challenged China’s claims to the South China Sea before the Permanent Court of Arbitration and won. Beijing might relish the opportunity to reassert its claims—and warn other Southeast Asian countries about the cost of angering China—by ejecting Filipino forces from their isolated, indefensible South China Sea outposts. Here again, Washington would have few good options: It could stand down, effectively allowing China to impose its will on the South China Sea and the countries around it, or it could risk a much bigger war to defend its ally.
Get ready for the “terrible 2020s”: a period in which China has strong incentives to grab “lost” land and break up coalitions seeking to check its advance. Beijing possesses grandiose territorial aims as well as a strategic culture that emphasizes hitting first and hitting hard when it perceives gathering dangers. It has a host of wasting assets in the form of military advantages that may not endure beyond this decade. Such dynamics have driven China to war in the past and could do so again today.
If conflict does break out, U.S. officials should not be sanguine about how it would end. Tamping or reversing Chinese aggression in the Western Pacific could require a massive use of force. An authoritarian CCP, always mindful of its precarious domestic legitimacy, would not want to concede defeat even if it failed to achieve its initial objectives. And historically, modern wars between great powers have more typically gone long than stayed short. All of this implies that a U.S.-China war could be incredibly dangerous, offering few plausible off-ramps and severe pressures for escalation.
The U.S. and its friends can take steps to deter the PRC, such as drastically speeding the acquisition of weaponry and prepositioning military assets in the Taiwan Strait and East and South China Seas, among other efforts, to showcase its hard power and ensure that China can’t easily knock out U.S. combat power in a surprise attack. At the same time, calmly firming up multilateral plans, involving Japan, Australia, and potentially India and Britain, for responding to Chinese aggression could make Beijing realize how costly such aggression might be. If Beijing understands that it cannot easily or cheaply win a conflict, it may be more cautious about starting one.
Most of these steps are not technologically difficult: They exploit capabilities that are available today. Yet they require an intellectual shift—a realization that the United States and its allies need to rapidly shut China’s windows of military opportunity, which means preparing for a war that could well start in 2025 rather than in 2035. And that, in turn, requires a degree of political will and urgency that has so far been lacking.
China’s historical warning signs are already flashing red. Indeed, taking the long view of why and under which circumstances China fights is the key to understanding just how short time has become for America and the other countries in Beijing’s path.
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A South China Sea Flare-Up Renews Attention on the U.S.-Philippine Military Pact
5 MIN READNov 19, 2021 | 19:42 GMT
A Chinese coast guard ship prepares to anchor at the Manila port in the Philippines on Jan. 14, 2020.
A Chinese coast guard ship prepares to anchor at the Manila port in the Philippines on Jan. 14, 2020.
(STR/AFP via Getty Images)
The latest incident in the South China Sea is reinvigorating attention on the U.S.-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), which pledges U.S. assistance if the Philippines comes under attack, and Washington’s role in the Indo-Pacific. On Nov. 16, three Chinese coast guard ships blocked two Philippine resupply ships from reaching the Philippine-occupied but Chinese-claimed Ayungin Shoal, also known as the Second Thomas Shoal or Renai Jiao, in the South China Sea. The incident comes as the United States and the Philippines are shoring up relations, which have been periodically strained under Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. It also comes shortly after the declaration of candidates for the Philippine presidential elections, which are scheduled for May 2022. In response to the blocking of the two ships, Philippine officials and politicians — including several of those candidates — asserted that any action against Philippine public vessels falls within the scope of the Mutual Defense Treaty, though most fell short of calling for a U.S. intervention at this time.
Manila protested the latest Chinese action, which Beijing declared was justified and legal after the Philippine vessels allegedly trespassed Chinese waters.
The Philippine military has occupied the Ayungin Shoal since intentionally grounding a ship on the reef in 1999 amid an earlier round of competition with China over reefs and islets in the South China Sea.
Philippine claims in the South China Sea (or what it calls the West Philippine Sea) were already a key issue ahead of next year’s elections, but this incident appears to ensure Manila’s return to a more assertive policy. During Duterte’s presidency, Manila took a more accommodative approach to China, with the president seeking Chinese investment in return for setting aside disputes in the South China Sea. Duterte also threatened to end the Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States, accusing Washington of failing to defend Philippine interests and of straining Philippine-Chinese relations without providing any benefits to Manila. But the promised China-funded economic development ultimately proved underwhelming, and Beijing never softened its assertive claims in disputed waters. As a result, Manila has started shifting back to a stronger stance against Chinese claims in the South China Sea. In recent months, there has also been a series of U.S.-Philippine dialogues, healing the rift between the treaty allies and reinforcing the value of defense cooperation.
In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled that Chinese claims to the so-called nine-dash line were invalid and that China’s occupation of reefs and islets in the South China Sea did not give Beijing territorial waters. The ruling was seen as a victory for the Philippines, which sought to reverse Chinese occupation and island-building and regain access to key reefs for Philippine fishing vessels.
Duterte promised to set aside the landmark South China Sea ruling, easing tensions with China. His policies were controversial, particularly as the president often admitted the Philippines had no power to secure its maritime claims in the region — something that appeared an admission of defeat.
In February, Duterte formally notified the United States of his government’s intention to terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement, which is the framework under which U.S. military personnel operate in the Philippines on a rotational basis, allowing for the implementation of other deals such as the Mutual Defense Treaty. The Philippine government delayed and ultimately rescinded the threat of termination.
With Philippine-U.S. defense relations revived, and Manila reaffirming the MDT, future incidents in the South China Sea could test Washington’s risk tolerance and willingness to confront China more directly in the contested waterway. Philippine officials have said they intend to send coast guard ships and fisheries vessels to escort further resupply runs to Ayungin Shoal. But if China continues to intervene, Manila may call on Washington to intercede. The United States has rarely intervened directly in a standoff between Chinese vessels and those of a U.S. ally or partner, which would be seen as escalating the broader U.S.-China defense competition. However, an activist Indo-Pacific policy, combined with lingering questions of U.S. commitment, may lead to more direct U.S. action in future stand-offs. Washington is likely to use the coast guard initially, as a way to reduce the potential for escalation. But more frequent confrontations will probably eventually force the United States to demonstrate its commitment to its allies, raising the likelihood of a more direct standoff between the U.S. and Chinese navies. This will intensify the need for dialogue with the Chinese to establish de-escalation protocols while increasing the potential for miscalculations or accidents in the near term.
Over the past three or four years, the United States has affirmed its commitment to backing its allies and partners when challenged, while still claiming it doesn’t pick sides over the disputed islets. This has included new assurances of U.S. support for both Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, as well as for the Philippines over disputed reefs in the region.
Washington’s actions in the South China Sea have so far primarily been through statements and joint maritime training. The United States has also routinely conducted so-called Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) in the South China Sea over the past decade, with U.S. Navy vessels sailing through waters the United States asserts are international, despite Chinese claims to sovereignty.
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Chinese passage. A Chinese naval ship sailed through Japanese waters for the first time in four years last week, according to the Japanese Defense Ministry. The passage took place off the southwestern prefecture of Kagoshima on Wednesday and Thursday. Exactly what type of warship was involved is not clear. Meanwhile, a report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences warned that Japan may be on a political and military trajectory toward being willing and capable of intervening on Taiwan’s behalf in a conflict.
Cooperation. The U.S. and Taiwan are kicking off talks on economic integration on Monday, according to the U.S. State Department. This is the second such iteration of the talks. From chips to trade hurdles to Taiwan’s fears of economic dependency on China, there should be plenty to talk about.
Sailing through. The Philippines is set to resume resupply missions to troops stationed on a Philippine-controlled reef in the Spratly archipelago. Such missions were disrupted last week by the Chinese coast guard, prompting warnings from the U.S. that an attack on Philippine vessels would trigger the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty – and making for some awkward moments at this week’s China-Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit. Meanwhile, new details on China’s recent hypersonic missile tests have been released. Of note, at least one test was conducted in the South China Sea.
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PHILIPPINES
Philippine supply mission gets past Chinese blockade
No water cannons as boats reach disputed shoals
BY JIM GOMEZ ASSOCIATED PRESS MANILA, PHILIPPINES | The Philippine navy successfully transported food supplies to Filipino forces guarding a disputed shoal in the South China Sea on Tuesday, a week after China’s coast guard used water cannons to force the supply boats to turn back, sparking outrage and warnings from Manila, officials said.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the two wooden boats carrying navy personnel reached government forces stationed on a military ship at Second Thomas Shoal without any major incident. President Rodrigo Duterte strongly condemned last week’s Chinese blockade of the supply boats, in a regional summit led by Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday.
However, Mr. Lorenzana said that while the Philippine navy personnel were unloading supplies from the boats, a Chinese coast guard ship deployed a rubber boat with three personnel who took pictures and video of the delivery. “I have communicated to the Chinese ambassador that we consider these acts as a form of intimidation and harassment,” Mr. Lorenzana said.
The supply boats reached the shoal without a Philippine military escort in accordance with a request by China’s ambassador to Manila, who assured Mr. Lorenzana over the weekend that the boats would not be blocked again, the defense chief said.
But a Philippine military plane flew over as the supply boats arrived around noon at the remote shoal, which has been surrounded by Chinese surveillance ships in a yearslong territorial standoff. A Philippine coast guard ship also patrolled the waters a few miles away and military offi cials in their headquarters in Manila closely monitored the 30-hour journey of the supply boats, officials said.
The Philippines says the shoal is in its internationally recognized exclusive economic zone, but China insists it has sovereignty over the waters and has the right to defend it.
Officials said the Philippine government conveyed its “outrage, condemnation and protest of the incident” to China after two Chinese coast guard ships blocked the two Filipino boats on Nov. 16 and a third coast guard ship sprayed highpressure streams of water on the boats, which were forced to abort their mission.
Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. warned China that the supply boats are covered by a mutual defense treaty with the United States. Washington later said it was standing by the Philippines “in the face of this escalation that directly threatens regional peace and stability,” and reiterated “that an armed attack on Philippine public vessels in the South China Sea would invoke U.S. mutual defense commitments” under the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian responded to the Philippine protests by saying that China’s coast guard had upheld Chinese sovereignty after the Philippine ships entered Chinese waters at night without permission.
Mr. Duterte, who has at times expressed a desire for closer ties with China, did not comment on Beijing’s action until Monday, when he raised the issue at a meeting of leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China.
“We abhor the recent event in the Ayungin Shoal and view with grave concern other similar developments,” Mr. Duterte said, using the Philippine name for the shoal. “This does not speak well of the relations between our nations and our partnership.”
Mr. Xi did not respond directly to Mr. Duterte’s remarks but gave an assurance that China will not bully its smaller neighbors or seek dominance over Southeast Asia, diplomats told The Associated Press.
China’s increasingly assertive acts in the disputed waters have been protested by coastal states, including by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia.
It was the latest flare-up in long-simmering disputes in the strategic waterway, where China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have overlapping claims. China has transformed seven shoals into missile-protected island bases to cement its assertions, ratcheting up tensions.
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DIPLOMACY
China critical of U.S. decision to invite Taiwan to summit
BY ALEXANDRA JAFFE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Biden administration has invited Taiwan to its Summit for Democracy next month, the State Department announced, prompting sharp criticism from China, which considers the self-ruled island as part of its sovereign territory.
The summit makes good on a pledge that then-candidate Joseph R. Biden made during his 2020 campaign, and it reflects his emphasis on returning the U.S. to a global leadership position among world democracies. The event is aimed at gathering government, civil society and private sector leaders to work together on fighting authoritarianism and global corruption and defending human rights.
The invitation list features 110 countries, including Taiwan, but does not include China or Russia. The inclusion of Taiwan comes as tensions between Washington and Beijing have ramped up over America’s approach to the island nation.
The United States’ “One China” policy recognizes Beijing as the government of China but allows informal relations and defense ties with Taipei.
But in late October, Mr. Biden set off alarm bells in Beijing by saying the U.S. has a firm commitment to help Taiwan defend itself in the event of a Chinese attack. White House officials were quick to deny that Mr. Biden’s remarks represented a change in longstanding U.S. policy, but the administration has also taken a number of steps in recent months to upgrade bilateral ties with Tiapei.
During a three-hour virtual meeting earlier this month between Mr. Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Mr. Biden reiterated U.S. support for the “One China” policy but also said he “strongly opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” according to the White House.
The democracy summit invite list set off a new round of criticism from Beijing.
“What the U.S. did proves that the so-called democracy is just a pretext and tool for it to pursue geopolitical goals, suppress other countries, divide the world, serve its own interest and maintain its hegemony in the world,” said Zhao Lijian, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said Wednesday “we firmly oppose any form of official contacts between the U.S. and the Chinese region of Taiwan.”
Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said the government would be represented by Digital Minister Audrey Tang and Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan’s de facto ambassador in Washington, the Reuters news agency reported.
“Our country’s invitation to participate in the ‘Summit for Democracy’ is an affirmation of Taiwan’s efforts to promote the values of democracy and human rights over the years,” the ministry said in a statement.
Mr. Biden has repeatedly pitched the gathering as part of a larger competition with authoritarian nations such as China, which he said are using their recent economic gains and the domestic problems of the U.S. and other leading Western powers to argue that their systems are better. The invite list underscores the challenging geopolitics that Mr. Biden will have to navigate at the summit: While U.S. allies like Japan and South Korea were invited, still others, including Vietnam, Egypt and NATO member Turkey, were not.
The summit preparations had to negotiate another diplomatic minefield when the White House confirmed to the Voice of America that Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido and his representatives would be receiving an invitation to the summit. Both the Trump and Biden administrations have clashed with the socialist government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
The U.S. and many other nations have recognized Mr. Guaido’s claim to be the oil-rich South American country’s “interim president,” following national elections in 2019 won by Mr. Maduro’s supporters that were widely criticized as rigged.
Juan Gonzalez, the senior director on hemispheric affairs on the National Security Council, told VOA this week that the summit guest list will “incorporate in a robust way” representatives from democracy-challenged countries, including Cuba, Nicaragua and “above all Venezuela, because of everything that is going on there right now.”
Mr. Gonzalez said the final guest list was still being formulated, but members of Mr. Guaido’s opposition movement would participate, including on one panel on “democratic resilience” in the face of official repression
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The Philippines Clarifies Its Threshold for Triggering U.S. Military Support in the South China Sea
3 MIN READDec 8, 2021 | 22:59 GMT
A helicopter takes off from a U.S. Navy vessel during joint U.S.-Philippines military exercises in waters facing the South China Sea on April 11, 2019.
A helicopter takes off from a U.S. Navy ship during joint military exercises with the Philippines in waters facing the South China Sea on April 11, 2019.
(TED ALJIBE/AFP via Getty Images)
The Philippines’ clarification of when maritime confrontations with China would trigger its defense pact with the United States reflect Manila’s bolder efforts to regain initiative in the South China Sea. In an interview with CNN Philippines over the weekend, the chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Lt. Gen. Andres Centino, clarified Manila’s stance on the invocation of its Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) with the United States, which pledges U.S. assistance if the Philippines comes under attack, following China’s Nov. 16 use of water cannons against Philippine supply ships. Specifically, Centino said that “the act of using the water cannon against our vessel [was] not considered an armed attack,” though it could be seen as “a hostile act.” Hostile acts do not trigger the MDT, which only pledges U.S. assistance if the Philippines comes under an armed attack. Centino’s clarification thus temporarily eases concerns that future clashes could draw the United States into more direct confrontations with China in the South China Sea. But his comments also send a warning to Beijing that escalation beyond water cannons could prompt Manila to call for U.S. support.
In November, Chinese vessels used water cannons to block Philippine supply ships from reaching Ayungin Shoal (also known as the Second Thomas Shoal or Renai Jiao), a reef occupied by Philippine marines as part of its claim to disputed islets in the South China Sea.
Manila’s initial response included both a protest to Beijing, as well as a commitment to continue with supply runs in the future escorted by the Philippine Coast Guard. Philippine Coast Guard Vice Admiral Oscar Endona, speaking at a Senate sub-committee meeting on Dec. 7, noted that coast guard vessels had their own water cannons and would use them in response to any similar acts by Chinese ships against resupply missions.
Moving forward, Manila’s policy toward its maritime claims will be more proactive. On Dec. 6, the Philippine House of Representatives also approved a Maritime Zones Act, a legal mechanism allowing Manila to build on the Baseline Act of 2009, define its claimed maritime territories, and set the legal framework for enforcement. The new act highlights Manila’s switch to a more activist approach instead of a more passive policy under outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte. This, along with the recent statements from the country’s top army and coast guard officials, clarifies the Philippine strategy to manage tensions around the Ayungin Shoal and other disputed areas. Manila is planning to step up the protection of its resupply efforts and match Chinese actions, which could push China to back down. But if Beijing instead decides to escalate beyond the use of water cannons, the Philippines has made it clear when they could escalate themselves by calling on the United States to intervene.
The Maritime Zones Act is pending in the Philippine Senate. The final law is expected to be passed before the end of the current legislative session.
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Amphibious exercises. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army on Wednesday began a series of exercises in and around Hainan Island in the South China Sea. Hainan Island is only slightly smaller than Taiwan. The exercises, apparently directed at improving the joint combat readiness of Chinese forces during amphibious operations, end on Friday.
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Pentagon app to track China’s ire toward U.S.
Beijing uses tactic for manipulation
BY BILL GERTZ THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Pentagon’s Indo-Pacific Command recently unveiled a software application that military officials say will monitor Chinese military anger at U.S. activities in the region in a bid to reduce tensions.
Some analysts warn that the application represents a step back toward U.S. policies to appease China, whose communist leaders have used fears of upsetting Beijing to manipulate U.S. decision-makers.
The software tool is designed to systematically gauge Chinese military reactions to U.S. actions in the region, such as arms sales to Taiwan, naval and aerial maneuvers in disputed maritime zones, and congressional visits, defense officials and spokesmen said. The software measures U.S.-Chinese “strategic friction,” said a defense official who spoke to Reuters aboard a flight with Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks last week.
The computer-based software evaluates information from early 2020 on significant activities that could trigger tensions in U.S.-Chinese relations. Military leaders and Pentagon policymakers will use it to predict how Beijing will respond to U.S. actions. The software is part of the Biden administration’s policy of seeking to curb Chinese aggression while preventing at all costs an open conflict between the world’s two most powerful countries and two biggest economies.
“With the spectrum of conflict and the challenge sets spanning down into the gray zone, what you see is the need to be looking at a far broader set of indicators, weaving that together and then understanding the threat interaction,” Ms. Hicks told Reuters in discussing the software.
An Indo-Pacific Command official said the tool will be used to avoid inadvertently provoking a conflict with China.
“U.S. Indo-Pacific Command ensures security and stability throughout the Indo-Pacific,” the official told The Washington Times. The command’s combined
military force “responsibly manages competition to prevent conflict in the region. One of the best methods to do just that is centered on looking at the complex and overlapping geopolitical, operational and strategic environment,” the official added.
The command “will continue to refine methods, including decision aids, to responsibly manage competition with our No. 1 pacing challenge while supporting national defense priorities.”
A Chinese Embassy spokesman did not respond to an email request for comment.
A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment. “This is an Indo-Pacom program,” he said.
Critics among U.S. China-watching experts expressed concern that the software will allow Beijing to manipulate U.S. policies and weaken U.S. responses to threats posed by China, with the U.S. bending over backward not to give offense to China or spark a crisis.
Kerry K. Gershaneck, a retired Marine and former Pentagon policymaker with extensive intelligence experience, said the “appeasement app” will hand China’s leaders a political warfare victory.
“China’s political warfare aims, in part, to condition naive opponents to do what the Chinese Communist Party wants them to do, on their own volition, without Beijing actually telling them to do it,” Mr. Gershaneck said. “With this ‘appeasement app,’ it appears the CCP has masterfully succeeded in its conditioning of senior U.S. defense officials.”
Such an approach will only invite further Chinese aggression and demoralize military personnel, he said.
“The app appears to be self-destructively unilateral: It tells the U.S. military — and only the U.S. military — to always back off, to stand down and to do nothing that might possibly ‘upset’ China,” Mr. Gershaneck said.
Retired Navy Capt. Jim Fanell, a former head of intelligence for the Pacific Fleet, said the software tool is designed to guide military commanders and diplomats and will systematically erode U.S. defense of its national interests in the region — a key goal of Beijing.
“This tool should be scrapped immediately, and American commanders and diplomats should be allowed to operate as the environment dictates, allowing for maximum flexibility and assertiveness that will keep the Chinese Communist Party decision-makers on their back feet when it comes to pursuing their strategic goal of pushing America out of the Indo-Pacific,” he said.
Miles Yu, a State Department official in charge of China policy during the Trump administration, has described the U.S. approach to China as misguided “anger management” based on false fears of Chinese reactions and bluffs rather than proactive U.S. initiatives.
“For decades, our China policy was carried out based upon an ‘anger management’ mode — that is, we formulated our China policy by calculating how mad the CCP might be at us, not what suits the best American national interest,” Mr. Yu said in a recent interview.
The tool was unveiled during a briefing for Ms. Hicks at Indo-Pacific Command’s Honolulu headquarters. Included in the briefing were the theater’s senior commander, Adm. John C. Aquilino; Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Samuel Paparo; Gen. Charles Flynn, commander of the Army Pacific; and other senior leaders for frontline military forces in charge of dealing with China.
Over the past five years, American military forces in the Pacific have stepped up proactive actions designed to push back against Chinese military encroachment. The activities began during the Trump administration.
Chinese military forces, in turn, have sharply increased aggressive and threatening operations, mainly against Taiwan and against rival claimants to sovereignty in the South China Sea.
Toward Taiwan, China has stepped up military flights and naval maneuvers close to the self-ruled island. U.S. officials have described the actions as coercive and threatening.
China has carried out war games, including long-range missile tests, in disputed islands throughout the strategic South China Sea.
Chinese naval vessels have sought to drive U.S. warships out of the sea when the Navy conducts “freedom of navigation operations” through disputed waterways.
Last month, the State Department warned China that it faced a military response after Chinese coast guard vessels blocked Philippine efforts to resupply a military post in the Spratly Islands.
Mr. Yu has argued that failed policies have been based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how China’s rulers try to manipulate the U.S. First, the Chinese voice anger and rage at U.S. actions and then see how the United States reacts. The process allows the Chinese to calibrate American policy responses to suit their interests.
“Unfortunately, too often, we fell for this CCP sophistry and made our China policies to appease CCP sensitivities and fake outrage to avoid an often imagined and exaggerated direct confrontation with the seemingly enraged CCP,” he said.
More broadly, Mr. Gershaneck said, the adoption of the app sends a terrible message to frontline U.S. military personnel that they should always back down and never risk angering China. The military should instead invest in software that will assist military officers and diplomats on how to exploit Chinese weaknesses and engage in successful political warfare against Beijing, he added.
Disclosure of the software followed reports that Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, so feared Chinese military misperceptions of a U.S. attack that he telephoned a Chinese general to tell him that the United States would inform him of any military attacks in the fraught days after the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
A spokesman for Gen. Milley did not respond to a request for comment on the app.
Gordon Chang, a Chinese affairs expert, said the “appeasement app” is a political gift for the Chinese military.
“We should send Chinese flag officers an app that sends them alerts whenever they are about to do something that will get us angry,” Mr. Chang said.
Capt. Fanell, the former Pacific Fleet intelligence director, said the focus on “strategic friction” software reflects an institutionalization at Indo-Pacific Command of a central tenet of pro-China policies first put into place by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and adopted more recently by the Obama administration. That policy calls for avoiding all military and other activities that could provoke China or lead to the perception by Beijing of “containment.” The overall objective was to preserve positive ties.
“During my time in uniform, we saw the American government, both State and Defense departments, impose selfinduced constraints on the exercise of American military and diplomatic operations in order to not provoke the PRC,” said Capt. Fanell, who retired in 2015.
U.S. reconnaissance flights near China’s coasts and requests of regional allies to push back against Chinese hegemony were called off or reduced based on fears that they would place the greater U.S.Chinese relationship at risk.
“These same appeasers proclaimed that the ‘relationship’ with China was the most important relationship for America’s national security and thus we had to constrain our actions,” Capt. Fanell said. He added that the officials “were actively promoting a policy of kowtowing to the Chinese Communist Party and its bad behavior.”
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Harris: It’s ‘no one’s fault’ that virus spread to U.S.
BY DAVE BOYER THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Vice President Kamala Harris said it’s “no one’s fault” that COVID-19, which originated in China, spread to the U.S. and the rest of the world.
In an interview with CBS News, the vice president also set herself apart from President Biden by refusing to blame unvaccinated Americans for the spread in the U.S.
“I don’t think this is a moment to talk about fault,” Ms. Harris told interviewer Margaret Brennan. “It is no one’s fault that this virus hit our shores, or hit the world. It is more about individual power and responsibility and the decisions that everyone has the choice to make.”
The Republican National Committee responded on Tuesday, “Wrong. It’s China’s fault.”
The virus originated in Wuhan, China. A report by a U.S. government national laboratory concluded this year that it’s “plausible” the virus leaked from a Chinese lab in Wuhan, and that the theory deserves further investigation.
Last year, Ms. Harris blamed then-President Trump for the virus spreading in the U.S., saying Mr. Trump was “delusional” and failed to take the virus “seriously from the start.”
“This virus has impacted almost every country, but there’s a reason it has hit America worse than any other advanced nation. It’s because of Trump’s failure to take it seriously from the start,” she said at the time. “His refusal to get testing up and running, his flip-flopping on social distancing and wearing masks, his delusional belief that he knows better than the experts — all of that is the reason and the reason an American dies of COVID-19 every 80 seconds.”
But deaths from COVID-19 under the Biden administration now equal the number during the Trump administration. The U.S. reached the milestone of 800,000 deaths last week, double the 400,000 deaths that had been recorded by Mr. Trump’s last full day in office.
Her latest interview also is a departure from Mr. Biden, who has laid blame on people who don’t get vaccinated.
In September, Mr. Biden told Americans in a speech, “This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. And it’s caused by the fact that despite America having an unprecedented and successful vaccination program, despite the fact that for almost five months free vaccines have been available in 80,000 different locations, we still have nearly 80 million Americans who have failed to get the shot.”
In her comments to CBS, Ms. Harris said Americans “have the power today to go out and if you’ve not been boosted, go get boosted. The power today to go and get vaccinated. And that will have an impact on where we end up tomorrow.”
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Hong Kong's Legislative Council elections have put the legislature in the hands of pro-Beijing factions, and will accelerate Western sanctions against China. The Dec. 19 LegCo elections saw record low voter turnout at 30% — compared to 58% in the 2016 LegCo elections and 70% in the 2019 District Council elections — and saw 89 out of 90 LegCo seats given to pro-Beijing candidates, with the remaining one given to a centrist candidate. All 11 pro-democracy candidates lost in the geographical constituency portion of the LegCo election, the same candidates that prompted the Hong Kong government to claim this truly was a "diverse" election, despite the "patriots only" selection process designed to weed out candidates less amenable to Beijing. In response, senior officials from the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom released a Dec. 20 joint statement decrying democratic erosion in Hong Kong, as did the European Union and the G-7.
This election has been delayed since September 2020 as the Hong Kong government enacted the National Security Law following the massive protests of summer 2019, which saw millions of citizens march in the streets.
As of Dec. 16, Hong Kong authorities have wielded the National Security Law to convict two Hong Kongers and arrest eight others for urging people not to vote in the LegCo elections.
The LegCo landslide deepens the continued erosion of all branches of the Hong Kong government, while the voter turnout shows democratic abstention as a remaining outlet for protest. Given that 40 of the 90 LegCo seats were selected by the Election Committee, which will also select Hong Kong's next chief executive in March 2022, Beijing's influence over Hong Kong's executive branch is also secure.
The judiciary's independence has been slower to erode, with the branch continuing to act as a minor limiter on the expansion of police jurisdiction for National Security Law cases, but it is only a matter of time before this branch too aligns with the pro-Beijing government, given the chief executive's power to appoint judges and recent statements from the empowered national security office that the judiciary should reflect China's will. This inevitability is well exemplified by Maria Yuen's withdrawn candidacy from the Court of Final Appeals in June following pro-Beijing legislative pressure and calls earlier in June from pro-Beijing legislators to appoint more non-Western judges and those who have not criticized the National Security Law.
For dissolved civil society groups and the large portion of Hong Kong citizens who still oppose Beijing's gradual takeover of their city, the record low voter turnout (the lowest since 1995, prior to the handover of Hong Kong to Beijing) represented one of the few remaining avenues for political protest. Calls by exiled pro-democracy leaders and a few local dissenters to forgo the vote may have greatly influenced the low turnout, along with widespread dissatisfaction with the city's rapid pro-Beijing swing since 2019 under Chief Executive Carrie Lam.
The National Security Law-related arrests for discouraging voting in LegCo elections expand the scope of the main law used to suppress Hong Kong political dissent, with recent charges expanding from conducting actions that "violate the National Security Law" to those that "go against the interests of national security" more broadly. In addition, Security Chief Chris Tang confirmed in September that the list of explicit National Security Law crimes would be broadened in this new LegCo session to include theft of state secrets, treason, sedition and cooperation with foreign political organizations in Hong Kong.
Western sanctions pressure against Chinese human rights abuses will grow as the erosion of democracy in Hong Kong worsens, while the new LegCo will promote Hong Kong's greater regulatory and economic alignment with Beijing. The immediate reaction from Western groups, like the G-7, Five Eyes and the European Union, suggests Western sanctions pressure on Beijing officials in Hong Kong will accelerate, scuttling recent attempts to seek moderate cooperation with Beijing. The legislative takeover also forebodes the slow, but certain, arrival of mainland Chinese laws, like the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law and the Cybersecurity Law, which officials in Lam's Cabinet have recently confirmed will be applied to the special administrative region. This China-aligned legal and legislative trajectory for Hong Kong will continue to undermine foreign investor sentiment and confidence in Hong Kong as a global financial hub. Lastly, this pliable legislature will support Lam's explicit efforts to increase Hong Kong's economic ties to China (versus the West) — including alignment with Beijing's national development plans — and, to that end, align the region's COVID-19 management policies with Beijing's to expedite border reopening with the mainland.
The U.S. Treasury announced its intention Dec. 20 to level secondary financial sanctions against any foreign entities conducting business with select Beijing officials in Hong Kong, which Washington has already sanctioned for their role in the territory's democratic erosion.
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Much to disagree with here, but he does raise difficult questions which cannot be ignored
https://amgreatness.com/2021/12/23/additional-thoughts-on-taiwan/
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I agree. Much to disagree with there. Important points wrong by omission, I think.
1. One reason the Chinese Communist Party has no legitimate claim to rule and oppress more people and more territory is that they start with no legitimate claim to rule and oppress the people they already do.
2. What are the lessons of WWII - if this is a conflict potentially of that scale. Stop evil sooner. Don't let it persist, expand and grow in strength, power and territory. Intervene sooner.
3. Don't conflate China, the region with culture, ethnicity, region and history, with this small, brutal, ruling politburo. The idea of Taiwan rejoining 'China' must be contingent on China becoming free. Otherwise it is just putting more people and a greater amount of the planet in tyranny. Why are we not pushing hard for reforms there? Instead we keep lending them legitimacy, cf. Olympics, trade, etc.
4. American freedom came with outside help. Why is that crucial point always ignored?
5. The regime of China only grows stronger and stronger in their iron fist over their people. We hold some responsibility in that, starting with Nixon's opening to these thugs and everything that followed. We believed prosperity would lead to freedom, and WE did not change course when proved wrong. We still haven't changed course. To a large extent, we gave them the tools to expand the oppression. Now offer them a free pass to expand? And then what? Draw a new red line for them to cross and it still won't fit his definition of 'in our national interest'.
6. Within the article he admits WE ARE under attack by China. [I think we have a thread for that.] It is a fair point to me that you do whatever you can do to stop their expansion on another front as part of fighting back and stopping their attack on us. How does their leverage and infiltration of us get checked when they add complete control of the semiconductor industry to their war chest?
7. Did we really lose the wars in Iraq, in Afghanistan? How is Saddam doing. He stood up to us and now rots in hell. Osama bin Laden likewise. We lost at nation building which is another matter.
8 . What is the South China Sea and who controls it when China rules both sides of the Taiwan Strait? What is OUR interest in that? Absent the US, the Philippines will keep the shipping lanes open?
9. China cannot be resisted from the inside. Only from the outside. Then the question becomes, who if not us is the resistance? The "Quad" minus the US? Look at the world economic map, posted recently. Look at the equivalent world military map. Look at the balance of power in the world absent the US. As tyranny and oppression grow and the US retreats, freedom loses. It's already losing. What is worth fighting for? Nothing? Just let it all go to hell? It's not our fight? I dissent.
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Excellent big picture post Doug!
A big question remains:
What is the actual balance of forces between us and China in China's littoral waters?
In outer space?
In cyberspace?
Would we win or lose if China moves against Taiwan?
Are the American people up for such a war?
Under present leadership?
Even were we to succeed in defending Taiwan for now, what would China's next move be? Germ warfare? (Again?) Cyberwar? Hypersonic first strike? All of the above?
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(Crafty) "What is the actual balance of forces between us and China in China's littoral waters?
In outer space?
In cyberspace?
Would we win or lose if China moves against Taiwan?
Are the American people up for such a war?
Under present leadership?"
Who would win an all-out war? Some models say China. Add in our allies, maybe us. Figure in current 'leadership' maybe them. Best answer is the lose-lose outcome. From mutually assured destruction to mutual assured loss, big time losses. Both sides would probably destroy military targets and stop at some point. Do the American people have the stomach for it? No. But what about the regime ruling China? Don't they actually actually have more to lose, again cf. Saddam and Osama. A perfect alignment of the status quo allow a hundred people or so to brutally control a billion. If China is roughly our military equal, there must be a (US) plan in place to take down their central control in an extreme conflict. In a true, existential conflict, the President would be unable to micromanage it and would have to move responsibility from the woke figureheads to real military leaders, at least one would hope.
Interesting point that China wouldn't want to destroy the island they wish to take. Also they don't want to destroy the economic trading partners that make them what they are economically and militarily today. Have we ever seen that, all out war between two countries that almost totally depend on each other? Certainly not on this scale. They are already overtaking us without firing a shot. The status quo favors them, while only a first move by them could disrupt that and bring unforeseen change.
Isn't the image and prestige Xi has in China his most treasured asset, along with fear, the reason this henchman and military will follow him wherever he leads? Peace, security and economic growth and success, along with obviously the fear of crossing the totalitarian regime, keep him in power. Wouldn't starting an unprovoked war that leads to disaster undermine and risk that?
Look at the other side of it. If China hit our central control, killed the President, VP, all cabinet members, blew up all 536 members of Congress and obliterated every central building of government in Washington D.C., after grieving we would replace it one election cycle and the new people would not likely be soft on China.
Isn't our willingness to defend others in freedom the reason this conflict won't happen. And as soon as we say we won't come to Taiwan's aid, won't that be the reason they invade?
FYI to the original author: The status quo is not the goal. We should be calling out the tyranny and illegitimacy of the regime in every sentence in every message. They criticize us (and threaten Taiwan) openly and freely. We can call for free and fair elections in China every day until someday it happens if it takes a hundred or a thousand years. Someone should say it. ["Mr. Gorbachev ... tear down this wall!"] US weakness and appeasement has never yielded the peace it promises.
Our (mostly) silence of their oppression is perhaps the (second biggest?) crime of the century.
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MILITARY
US Running Out of Time to Prepare for Possible War With China Over Taiwan: Experts
By J.M. Phelps December 23, 2021 Updated: December 23, 2021 biggersmaller Print
The Chinese regime is rapidly expanding its military and modernizing its weaponry. Taiwan and the United States could be caught flat-footed if they fail to recognize the urgency of the threat, analysts warn.
China will have the ability to mount a full-scale invasion of Taiwan by 2025, according to Taiwanese Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng. He also called the rising tensions between China and Taiwan the most severe he has seen in 40 years.
Retired Capt. James Fanell, former director of intelligence and information operations for the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet, agreed. The United States needs to be prepared for a conflict as tension escalates to “near out-of-control levels” between China and Taiwan, he told The Epoch Times.
Fanell said the Chinese regime has become an “aggressor nation.” While some would argue they haven’t taken enough military action to be called an aggressor, he said, “the people that are supposed to be intelligent and forward-thinking about national security shouldn’t have to wait for China to launch an invasion of Taiwan to then be able to say China is an aggressor.”
This year, Chinese warplanes have entered Taiwan’s air defense zone in record numbers. In November, two Chinese amphibious landing dock ships also simulated an assault east of Taiwan.
“Essentially, China is encircling Taiwan and putting a noose around its neck,” Fanell said, adding that “they’ll just keep tightening it more and more as time goes on.” Each provocation from the Chinese regime is an effort to get Taiwan to “lash out.” Such action, he added, could be used as justification by the Chinese regime to launch an invasion of Taiwan.
Ill-prepared for Conflict
According to the Lowy Institute’s Asia Power Index, China’s defense spending surpasses that of India, Japan, Taiwan, and all 10 members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) combined.
David Sauer, a retired senior CIA officer who served as chief of station and deputy chief of station in multiple overseas command positions in East Asia and South Asia, said it is imperative to “read the writing on the wall and see looming danger [of the growing military power].”
If the Chinese regime were to move forward with an invasion of Taiwan, Sauer said, “they will want to do it as fast as possible, while limiting the amount of death and destruction.” He said he imagines “[the Chinese regime’s] goal would be to do it so fast that the U.S., Japan, and the international community can’t react fast enough to make any kind of difference.”
Time is running out for the United States and Taiwan to prepare to go to war with China, he said.
“Taiwan is going to have to be extremely resilient, hopefully holding on long enough for the United States to marshal enough forces to arrive and defend them with success,” Sauer said.
On Nov. 29, President Biden approved recommendations from the Pentagon’s global posture review. While the review was not made public, the Pentagon’s summary of its findings left much to be desired, according to Sauer.
“Little was said about China,” he said, explaining that the review lacked any specifics on strategic changes to U.S. capabilities or capacity for military operations in the Pacific. “The Pentagon appears to have missed an opportunity to recommend the deployment of more forces in the Pacific theatre,” he said.
“What does that say to the Chinese regime?” Sauer added. “The Chinese regime is massively increasing their military capabilities and the United States, under the direction of Biden and Austin, are not really doing anything different to match that buildup.”
For Fanell, the United States has been asleep at the wheel for decades.
“China has been conducting the largest military modernization in the post-WWII environment of any country in Asia,” Fanell said.
For at least 20 years, he said, experts have suggested China’s military buildup was normal, because China is a large country, having the second-largest economy in the world.
“This is what big countries do, they say—but it’s this kind of thinking that has made us ill-prepared,” Fanell said. “For the past few decades, U.S. operations have focused on the Middle East, and in doing so, the strategic threat of the PRC [People’s Republic of China] was largely minimized.”
“The last 30 years have been spent in the desert and mountains of Afghanistan, focused on killing individual terrorists.”
All the while, the Chinese Navy has embarked on building the largest navy in the world with 355 ships. The Pentagon has projected that the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) will increase its number of ships to 460 by 2030. In comparison, a 30-year plan for the U.S. Navy to build ships would bring its fleet to 355 by 2049. At this rate, some analysts fear that the PLAN is outpacing the U.S. Navy in terms of naval capabilities.
“[The United States] does not currently have the military power structure that’s required to fight China in the domain that’s going to be required, a maritime domain in the Pacific,” said Fanell, who retired in 2015 having served nearly 30 years focused on Indo-Asia Pacific security affairs, and the Chinese navy and its operations.
A Crucial Decade Ahead
While the Chinese regime wants to avoid a full-blown military conflict in the immediate future, the timeframe for such action is narrowing, according to Sauer. He noted Taiwan’s society is far removed from that of mainland China. “Given the unabashed efforts of China to take over Hong Kong, the chances for Taiwan to relinquish their autonomy peacefully are slim to none,” he said.
Fanell agreed, saying the Chinese regime does not necessarily want to go to full-blown war to achieve its goals. “But as time goes on [without Taiwan’s submission], the pressure to use military force increases exponentially,” he said, adding that Taiwan and the United States are running out of time because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is on a timeline.
2049 will mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese regime. As the date moves closer, Fanell said the CCP is on a timeline to be “totally restored and complete.” In effect, their goal is to complete what Chinese leader Xi Jinping refers to as the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”
According to Fanell, “whoever is the paramount leader at this time will be able to stand up in front of the world and say China has completed the great rejuvenation, having taken control of areas they believe are theirs.” These areas include Taiwan and the disputed border regions of India, he noted.
For the CCP, they are likely focusing on one key question: “How late can [the Chinese regime] wait to use military force and still expect the world to come to Beijing on 1 October 2049 and celebrate the great rejuvenation?”
Following the massacre at Tiananmen Square, the world condemned “the barbarous actions of the PRC and CCP in 1989,” he said. “Fast-forward 19 years and President Bush sat, with sleeves rolled up, among commoners in a stadium to enjoy the spectacular opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.”
If 20 years is the proposed mark for the world to forget about the atrocities of Tiananmen Square, then “back up 20 years from 2049,” Fanell. Thus, the time period between now and 2030, he characterizes as “the decade of great concern”—“the most dangerous time in the world” for Taiwan and its allies.
If the Chinese were to take “aggressive” military action between 2025 and 2030, for example, he said, “the Chinese also recognize that the West has a short attention span, and will forget about their use of force, just like they forgot about Tiananmen Square.”
“Many of the same people who will oppose the invasion of Taiwan will also forget about the invasion, and find themselves attending the big [rejuvenation] ceremony in 2049,” Fanell said.
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Taiwan Should Destroy Island’s Semiconductor Plants If China Invades, Paper Says
The proposed deterrence strategy aims at hurting the Chinese economy
By Frank Fang January 5, 2022 Updated: January 5, 2022biggersmaller Print
A scorched-earth policy involving Taiwan destroying its own advanced semiconductor plants in the event of a Chinese invasion would be a good deterrence strategy for the self-ruled island against warmongering China, according to a recent paper published by the U.S. Army War College.
“In practice, this strategy means assuring China an invasion of Taiwan would produce a major economic crisis on the mainland, not the technological boon some have suggested would occur as a result of the PRC [People’s Republic of China] absorbing Taiwan’s robust tech industry,” the paper’s (pdf) authors state.
The key is to make Taiwan “unwantable,” the paper states, and the economic costs would “persist for years” even after the regime in Beijing had taken over the island.
The paper, titled “Broken Nest: Deterring China from Invading Taiwan,” was published in the last 2021 issue of the institution’s quarterly journal Parameters, an official U.S. Army periodical. Jared McKinney, chair of the department of strategy and security studies at the eSchool of Graduate Professional Military Education at Air University, and Peter Harris, associate professor of political science at Colorado State University, are the authors.
The strategy centers around China’s current heavy reliance on importing semiconductors, which are tiny devices that power everything from computers, smartphones, and electric vehicles, to missiles. According to China’s state-run media, Beijing imported over $350 billion worth of chips in 2020.
That year, only 5.9 percent of semiconductors ($8.3 billion) used in China were manufactured domestically, according to a report by U.S.-based semiconductor market research company IC Insights.
In October last year, IC Insights warned that the Chinese regime believes it can solve its problem of not being able to produce leading-edge semiconductors through “reunification with Taiwan.”
China claims Taiwan as a part of its territory even as the self-governing island is a de facto independent country with its own democratically elected officials, military, and currency.
Currently, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, and Samsung in South Korea are the only companies in the world capable of making the most advanced five-nanometer chips. TSMC is scheduled to produce the next-generation three-nanometer chips in the second half of this year.
Epoch Times Photo
A chip by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (TSMC) at the 2020 World Semiconductor Conference in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China, on Aug. 26, 2020. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)
As chips get smaller in size, they deliver more performance-per-watt, meaning that they run at a faster speed while consuming less power.
The paper recommends that Taiwan “destroy facilities belonging to” TSMC in the face of a Chinese invasion, given that the Taiwanese chipmaker is China’s most important supplier. The challenging aspect of the strategy would be to make the scorched-earth strategy “credible” to the Chinese regime, according to the paper’s authors.
“If China suspects Taipei would not follow through on such a threat, then deterrence will fail,” they explain.
The authors recommend that Taiwanese authorities set up an “automatic mechanism” to destroy TSMC’s plants, to be “triggered once an invasion [by Beijing] was confirmed.”
Without Taiwanese chips, China’s economy would take a hit and Beijing would be unable to maintain sustained economic growth, hurting the Chinese Communist Party’s legitimacy to rule mainland China, according to the paper.
“The purpose here must be to convince Chinese leaders invading Taiwan will come at the cost of core national objectives: economic growth, domestic tranquility, secure borders, and perhaps even the maintenance of regime legitimacy,” the authors add.
The authors offered several other recommendations that could further deter China from invading Taiwan. These include the United States threatening to lead a global sanction campaign against any chip exports to China, or giving a green light for U.S. allies such as Japan, South Korea, and Australia to develop their own nuclear weapons, if the invasion takes place.
“If penalties for invading Taiwan can be made severe and credible enough, Beijing could still be deterred from choosing such a course of action,” the paper states.
The authors also note that they were told by a Chinese analyst with ties to China’s navy that Beijing’s goal for a successful invasion of Taiwan was 14 hours, and Beijing estimated that it would take 24 hours for the United States and Japan to respond.
“If this scenario is close to being accurate, China’s government might well be inclined to attempt a fait accompli as soon as it is confident in its relative capabilities,” the authors write.
In October last year, Taiwan’s defense minister warned that the Chinese regime will be capable of mounting a full-scale invasion of the island by 2025.
“If Taiwan fell to China, a successful democracy would be extinguished, and Beijing’s geopolitical position in East Asia would be enhanced at the expense of the United States and its allies,” the authors write.
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Rep. Ami Bera (D-CA) chairs a House Committee on Foreign Affairs Asia and Pacific subcommittee hearing concerning the coronavirus outbreak, in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on Feb. 5, 2020 in Washington. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
US-CHINA RELATIONS
China Engaged in ‘Direct Coercion’ of United States: Rep. Bera
By Andrew Thornebrooke January 7, 2022 Updated: January 7, 2022biggersmaller Print
The United States must do more to understand how China’s communist regime is leveraging economic coercion and statecraft against it, according to Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.).
“It’s extremely important that the United States administration, whether it’s a Democratic or Republican administration, understands how China uses economic coercion,” Bera said during a webinar hosted by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a D.C.-based think tank.
“What they’re doing really is direct coercion,” he added.
Since the beginning of the trade war between the United States and China in 2018, economic reprisals such as tariffs, sanctions, and investment restrictions have increasingly defined the Sino-American relationship.
Most recently, reports documented a massive hoarding spree by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), through which the regime continues to stockpile precious resources like semiconductor chips and cotton. This was conducted apparently to insulate itself from the effects of U.S. trade controls.
Bera underscored the problem of ambiguity in U.S. economic and deterrence strategy, saying that the Congress and the Biden administration needed to better clarify the nation’s tools for conducting economic competition and its rules for deploying them.
“We should have some clarity in terms of the deterrent tools that are available,” Bera said, “and some of those tools are economic deterrent tools.”
That effort is also the subject of a proposed bipartisan bill that Bera introduced alongside Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.), called the Countering China Economic Coercion Act.
That bill, if made law, would require the president to establish a task force responsible for developing and implementing a strategy to respond to the CCP’s economic coercion, and to monitor the associated costs and impacts of such coercion.
“The People’s Republic of China’s [PRC] heavy-handed and predatory economic policies harm our partners and undermine American interests well beyond the Indo-Pacific region,” Wagner said in an associated press release.
“Our efforts to respond to PRC economic coercion must be strategic, measured, and proactive.”
Whether the United States could influence the Chinese regime without inflaming tensions, or even open lines of meaningful dialogue, however, remained an open question for Bera.
“We’re going to be competitive with China in the 21st century. That’s a given,” Bera said. “Competition is not a bad thing, [but] can we have competition without direct confrontation?”
“We don’t have to guess the direction that Xi Jinping wants to take China.”
To that end, Bera said that there was some silver lining to Xi’s hardline and at times provocative ruling style.
“I think that the heavy-handed approach that China sometimes takes actually is doing our work for us,” Bera said.
“I would have said three to four years ago [for example] that Australia was taking a somewhat laissez-faire attitude towards China. That’s not the case today. They’re probably one of our strongest allies in understanding how to counter what China is doing around the world and certainly in the Indo-Pacific.”
US is Slower to Act than China
Bera’s comments also helped to contextualize a report released by CNAS in December, titled “Containing Crisis: Strategic Concepts for Coercive Economic Statecraft.”
That report was based on scenario exercises carried out by CNAS that found that the United States was generally less willing than China to engage in very aggressive economic coercion, and that both nations’ governments still desired wide-ranging access to one another’s markets.
“While both China and the United States may be willing to accept negative economic impacts to pursue geopolitical objectives, both also demonstrate a preference to broadly retain access to the other’s market, which may constrain the use of the most extreme forms of economic coercion,” the report said.
The report also noted, however, that the CCP was willing to use a much wider array of methods to coerce the United States and others economically, whereas the United States generally limited itself to targeted sanctions or export controls.
Notably, the report found that U.S. economic strategy aimed overall at preserving the international status quo. Because of this, the United States tended to coordinate policy more slowly than China, as it sought a balance between defending its principles and de-escalating situations from outright conflict.
The report recommended that the United States pursue a persuasive, rather than coercive, strategy with regard to its economic toolset, and underscored the strategic importance of improving diplomatic relations with middle powers throughout Asia and the Indo-Pacific.
Biden Administration Hopes for new Indo-Pacific Framework
Bera’s comments echoed similar remarks made by Kurt Campbell, White House coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, during a webinar hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Jan. 6.
Campbell’s remarks, in turn, were similar to the prognosis of the CNAS report. He said that that the United States’ relationship with smaller nations throughout Asia and the Indo-Pacific, particularly in trade, would be central to any successes or failures that it might have in directing the future of the region.
“We’ve got to make clear that not only are we deeply engaged diplomatically, militarily, comprehensively, strategically, [but] that we have an open, engaged, optimistic approach to commercial interactions [and] investment in the Indo-Pacific,” Campbell said.
“The ramparts, the areas in which we are going to need to compete in the Indo-Pacific, are not necessarily just in military competition, but across arenas of technology,” Campbell also said.
To that end, the official said that the nation would need to find a trade framework to replace the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a 19-nation trade agreement that grew out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which the Trump administration withdrew from in 2017.
Former President Donald Trump spurned the TPP, and withdrew from the proposed deal owing to criticism that it was bad for the American job market. Biden administration officials have said for months that they are engaged in an effort to create a new, more robust economic framework for the Indo-Pacific. Nothing has yet materialized of the effort, however.
In all, Campbell signaled that a new framework would be finalized, but also cautioned that real, meaningful competition, would be the defining feature of Sino-American relations for decades to come.
“The general proposition of the Biden administration is that the dominant paradigm between the United States and China is increasingly going to be defined by competition,” Campbell said.
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Pursuing Taiwan. Canada said on Monday it would pursue a foreign investment protection agreement with Taiwan. According to Canada’s International Trade Ministry, the two parties will work together to “promote supply chain resilience and mutually beneficial commercial opportunities.” The announcement comes as relations between Canada and mainland China are at an all-time low.
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https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/20/asia/us-navy-destroyer-china-paracel-islands-intl-hnk-ml/index.html?fbclid=IwAR1DQ3Dg4iF0F_lJBYQ40w-eOlHgnkuce3gII632w3uPkIiL0FRr5ZO18bI
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https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44001/two-u-s-carrier-strike-groups-are-operating-in-the-south-china-sea-after-massive-show-of-force?fbclid=IwAR172vuxONuUbukVifCoQEH7nG5_iCciYumXxGZ6WqUbATzp3xT-XVeSfvo
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US Must ‘Expand the Battlefield’ to Win a War Against China Over Taiwan: Experts
By J.M. Phelps January 26, 2022 Updated: January 27, 2022biggersmaller Print
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The United States can win a war against China over Taiwan, analysts say, but it must take steps to expand its efforts in the different domains of economics, warfare, and diplomacy against the Chinese regime.
Describing a wargaming exercise conducted in October 2020, including a simulated conflict with the Chinese regime over Taiwan, then-Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. John Hyten said in July, “Without overstating the issue, it failed miserably.” As a result, Hyten called upon the Pentagon to overhaul its warfighting strategy to gain the edge in battle by 2030.
Grant Newsham, a retired U.S. Marine Colonel who was the first Marine Liaison Officer to the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, told The Epoch Times that “the more people hear about losing a fight with China over Taiwan, it creates a sense of defeatism, a sense that there’s nothing we can do.” He said that “America must expand the battlefield” to find success against the Chinese regime.
James Fanell, a former director of intelligence and information operations for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, concurred. He said that “the U.S. would have difficulties operating inside the first island chain, so the battlespace needs to be expanded not just in the military arena, but also the economic and diplomatic arena.”
Weaken With Sanctions
Newsham and Fanell said lines of trade and commerce can be affected, if not stopped. And this would have a significant impact on the Chinese regime’s ability to exert itself over Taiwan. “Because China is dependent on overseas assets,” Newsham said. “It is very vulnerable.”
Some of China’s top imports include integrated circuits, crude petroleum and petroleum gases, and soybeans. China is the second-largest trade destination in the world with total imports averaging approximately $1.61 trillion.
“The Chinese military, for all its rapid growth and power, is not able to defend China’s overseas interests, or its overseas lines of communication,” Newsham said. The country is “simply too dependent” on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the European Union, its major import partners.
Fanell said, “By limiting access to overseas assets including technology, energy, and even food, it would put the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at great risk.”
Newsham said that while it is seldom mentioned, it is also worth noting that “the renminbi [RMB], is not a convertible form of currency.” It’s merely the official currency of the People’s Republic of China, but “China can barely buy anything overseas with it, nor does anybody really want the currency,” he said.
According to Newsham, the United States could impose financial sanctions on China to take advantage of these “huge vulnerabilities” by stopping the flow of goods and keeping the use of the “people’s currency” internalized.
Fanell agreed, saying that “crippling economic sanctions would get China’s attention very quickly.” Additionally, he said the United States Navy could “interdict to stop or divert ships” from delivering many of its imported resources.
It is then that the Chinese regime would become “very vulnerable, not only militarily, but also financially and economically.” By expanding the battlefield in this manner, Newsham said “China would be given a very bad hand to play and be placed in a very weak position.”
Admittedly, if a fight with the Chinese regime was limited to the Taiwan Strait, Newsham said, “America would have a hard time, [but] by expanding the battlefield, odds would change immensely in favor of the United States.”
Break Taiwan’s Isolation
Decades of “isolation” from large-scale joint exercises with its military allies must also come to an end, according to Newsham. “Taiwan’s military has not developed the way it should have over the last 40 years due to a lack of exposure to other militaries,” he explained.
“Consider the problems that the Taiwanese could face in large-scale operations with other militaries, having never trained and conducted exercises together.”
Newsham said he suspects such training with Taiwan has been neglected for so long for fear of upsetting the Chinese regime. “That sends a message to Taiwan: we love you and we’ll support you, but we’re afraid to be seen in public with you,” he said. “It is past time for Taiwan’s allies to break the isolation and engage in multilateral training and exercise with Taiwan.”
If the isolation is not broken, he said the chances of allowing Taiwan to develop so that it could defend itself are severely jeopardized.
What’s more, Fanell said the CCP has heard from American military leaders that the United States won’t “strike the mainland.” According to him, many fear that an attack on China’s mainland would immediately escalate to a nuclear war. But Fanell doesn’t agree.
“The United States has done nothing more than give the Chinese regime the unwitting benefit of knowing they won’t ever have to really defend themselves,” he said. The United States needs to be willing to do whatever is necessary to “change the Chinese regime’s calculus and make them reconsider attacking Taiwan,” he added.
Collective Condemnation
Other countries must use diplomatic means to impact the Chinese regime’s global standing, Fanell said. One possibility includes making use of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), an informal partnership between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States.
Fanell suggested that the U.S. State Department should encourage the Quad’s foreign ministers to issue a joint statement, alongside any other nation in the Indo-Pacific, that would condemn the Chinese regime for what it has done against Hong Kong and is doing against Taiwan. “The point is, if the Chinese regime is going to be confronted, all levers of national power will have to be used.”
In terms of diplomacy, Fanell said “the world needs to be much more aggressive” in confronting the Chinese regime for what it’s doing “against freedom and liberty, and against international norms and standards.” He said the Chinese regime is “the odd nation out” and “the exception to the rule,” adding that “it’s not about America versus China, but it’s about China versus the world.”
According to Fanell, this must be exposed in a way that “further diminishes the standing and posture” of the Chinese regime on a global scale. And part of the problem can be attributed to the United States, he added.
“Big corporations and investment firms need to stop pouring billions of dollars into China, [because] some portion of every dollar that’s spent there is going toward building the PLA, [People’s Liberation Army] which in turn, uses it to prepare for war against the United States.”
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https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/21/kissinger-china-taiwan-summit-biden-523139
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Chinese doctor remembered for speaking out
Li sounded alarm of initial COVID-19 outbreak, endured authorities’ cruelty
BY BILL GERTZ THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The medical doctor who tried to sound the alarm on the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in late 2019 and later died from the disease was remembered Monday, two years after Chinese authorities forced him to confess to making illegal internet statements that reflected badly on the country.
Li Wenliang, an ophthalmology doctor at Wuhan Central Hospital, was among the first to send a message to an online group of friends and medical doctors warning of the outbreak of a new deadly disease that appeared to be a new strain of the SARS virus that hit China 18 years earlier.
“[Seven] cases of SARS were diagnosed in the South China Fruit and Seafood Market and were isolated in the emergency department of our hospital,” Dr. Li wrote on We-Chat, the Chinese social media and messaging site, on Dec. 30, 2019.
Two other doctors also sounded the alarm in December 2020, including Liu Wen, a neurologist at the Wuhan Central Hospital who noted that a case of infectious viral pneumonia was diagnosed in the Houhu district. “SARS has been basically confi rmed,” he said, adding that medical workers should adopt protective measures to avoid infection.
A third doctor, Xie Linka, at the Cancer Center of Wuhan Union Medical College Hospital, took to WeChat to warn of an outbreak of “unexplained pneumonia (similar to SARS).”
The posts triggered an immediate crackdown by Chinese government censors who blocked all posts using the word “Wuhan unknown pneumonia,” “SARS variation,” “Wuhan Seafood Market,” and others related to the virus outbreak. Beijing would go on to face global criticism for its lack of openness and handling of the origins and early outbreak of the pandemic.
On Jan. 1, 2020, eight medical doctors, including Dr. Li, were arrested by security police, interrogated and charged with making false statements on the internet, a crime in China punishable by imprisonment.
Dr. Li, 34, was forced to write a “self-criticism” statement claiming his online remarks were wrong because they created a “negative impact” on society. On Jan. 9, 2020, Dr. Li signed a letter of reprimand for the Wuhan Public Security Bureau, the political police agency, describing his WeChat posts as “illegal.”
Despite the crackdown, Dr. Li became an instant hero in China for standing up to the party on behalf of the health of ordinary people. His persecution and death set off a wave of public anger that forced the police to rescind the signed letter of reprimand.
But the police in a statement also accused the doctor’s Chinese supporters of using what was termed the “Li Wenliang incident” in a conspiracy with unidentified “hostile forces” to undermine the regime.
“It should be recognized that certain hostile forces, in order to attack the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government, gave Dr. Li Wenliang the label of an antisystem ‘hero’ and ‘awakener.’ This is entirely against the facts. Li Wenliang is a Communist Party member, not a so-called ‘anti-institutional figure,’ and those forces with ulterior motives who wish to fan the fires, deceive people and stir up emotions in society are doomed to fail,” the statement said.
“Hostile forces” is the blanket term used by CCP propagandists to discredit those who speak out and criticize party leaders and institutions by insinuating that they are acting as tools for foreign governments.
Authorities were unable to impose a prison sentence on the doctor because he became ill with the disease and died on Feb. 7, 2020, leaving behind a pregnant wife and child.
Randall Schriver, a former Pentagon and State Department official, said Dr. Li discovered that a patient had suffered from the new SARS outbreak and tried to warn his colleagues of the emerging epidemic.
“Today we stand solemnly with the people of the People’s Republic of China who grieve the death of Dr. Li Wenliang, a lone hero who died while alerting the world of the perils of COVID-19,” said Mr. Schriver, now chairman of the Project 2049 Institute, a think tank.
“Despite warnings from the security bureau officials, he went back to work and tirelessly cared for patients, until he was diagnosed with COVID-19 and passed away on Feb. 7, 2020,” Mr. Schriver said.
“His bravery and willingness to stand against China’s authoritarian regime and inform the public of the COVID19 outbreak saved many lives in China, as people took his warnings seriously and wore masks from the early stages of the outbreak.”
Critics say China’s government continues to hide information about the initial disease outbreak and has not apologized to Dr. Li’s family for his treatment by authorities after he went public
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The Chinese doctor
could have been murdered:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang
how many 33 year olds have died of corona?
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Thank you for that follow up.
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U.S.-Taiwan deal. The U.S. approved a deal worth $100 million to upgrade Taiwan’s Patriot missile defense system. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the move and urged the U.S. to scrap the deal. A ministry spokesperson said Beijing would take the necessary steps to protect its sovereignty and security.
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Will Xi Jinping's 'End of Days' Plunge China and the World into War?
by Gordon G. Chang
February 16, 2022 at 5:00 am
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Xi Jinping, China's mighty-looking leader, has an "enormous array of domestic enemies." — Gregory Copley, president of the International Strategic Studies Association and editor-in-chief of Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, to Gatestone Institute, February 2022.
Xi created that opposition. After becoming China's ruler at the end of 2012, he grabbed power from everyone else and then jailed tens of thousands of opponents in purges, which he styled as "anti-corruption" campaigns.
Beijing is panicking, adding nearly a trillion dollars in total new credit last month, a record increase.... When the so-called "hidden debt" is included, total debt in the country amounts to somewhere in the vicinity of 350% of gross domestic product.
Not surprisingly, Chinese companies are now defaulting. The debt crisis is so serious it can bring down China's economy—and the country's financial and political systems with it.
In the most recent hint of distress, "Fang Zhou and China"... wrote a 42,000-character essay titled "An Objective Evaluation of Xi Jinping." The anti-Xi screed, posted on January 19 on the China-sponsored 6park site, appears to be the work of several members of the Communist Party's Shanghai Gang faction, headed by former leader Jiang Zemin. Jiang's faction has been continually sniping at Xi and now is leading the charge against him.
Xi's problems, unfortunately, can become our problems. He has, for various internal political reasons, a low threshold of risk and many reasons to pick on some other country to deflect elite criticism and popular discontent.
The Communist Party of China has always believed its struggle with the United States is existential—in May 2019 the official People's Daily declared a "people's war" on America—but the hostility has become far more evident in the past year.
Virulent anti-Americanism suggests Xi Jinping is establishing a justification to strike America. The Chinese regime often uses its media to first warn and then signal its actions.
America has now been warned.
Xi Jinping, China's mighty-looking leader, created his opposition. After becoming ruler at the end of 2012, he grabbed power from everyone else and then jailed tens of thousands of opponents in purges, which he styled as "anti-corruption" campaigns. Xi's problems, unfortunately, can become our problems. Virulent anti-Americanism suggests Xi is establishing a justification to strike America. Pictured: Xi at the Great Hall of the People on May 28, 2020 in Beijing. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
When truckers took over Canada's capital, Ottawa, and shut down border entry points to America, some called it a "nationwide insurrection." Mass demonstrations have occurred across the democratic world. People have had enough of two years of mandates and other disease-control measures.
Not so in the world's most populous state, which maintains the world's strictest COVID-19 controls. There are no known popular protests in the People's Republic of China against anti-coronavirus efforts.
Yet China is not stable, and Xi Jinping is facing his "End of Days," as a recent essay by opposition figures (see below) puts it. The revolt is not in society at large but at the top of the Communist Party. As Gregory Copley, president of the International Strategic Studies Association, told Gatestone, Xi Jinping, China's mighty-looking leader, has an "enormous array of domestic enemies."
Xi created that opposition. After becoming China's ruler at the end of 2012, he grabbed power from everyone else and then jailed tens of thousands of opponents in purges, which he styled as "anti-corruption" campaigns.
Xi also used the disease to great advantage. As Copley, also the editor-in-chief of Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, points out, "Xi's 'zero COVID' policy is, indeed, less about stopping the spread of COVID and more about suppressing his internal enemies, both in the public and in the Party."
The "enormous array" is now starting to strike back. Xi is most vulnerable on his handling of the country's stagnating economy. For one thing, the draconian campaign against COVID—massive testing, meticulous contact-tracing, strict lockdowns—have of course undermined consumption, which Beijing has touted as the core of the economy.
Beijing is panicking, adding nearly a trillion dollars in total new credit last month, a record increase. Chinese technocrats have also become sneaky, embarking on what the widely followed Andrew Collier of Global Source Partners terms "shadow stimulus"—stimulus provided by local governments and their entities in order to allow the central government to avoid reporting spending.
China needs a vibrant economy to service enormous debts, largely run up as Beijing overstimulated the economy, especially beginning in 2008. When the so-called "hidden debt" is included, total debt in the country amounts to somewhere in the vicinity of 350% of gross domestic product.
Not surprisingly, Chinese companies are now defaulting. The debt crisis is so serious it can bring down China's economy—and the country's financial and political systems with it.
For three decades, a Chinese leader was essentially immune to criticism because all decisions of consequence were shared by top figures in the Communist Party. Xi Jinping, however, as he took power also ended up with accountability—in other words, with no one else to blame. With things not going China's way in recent years, Xi, often called the "Chairman of Everything," is taking heat.
There are signs of intensifying discord among senior leaders. In the most recent hint of distress, "Fang Zhou and China"— "Fang Zhou" is a pseudonym meaning "ark"—wrote a 42,000-character essay titled "An Objective Evaluation of Xi Jinping." The anti-Xi screed, posted on January 19 on the China-sponsored 6park site, appears to be the work of several members of the Communist Party's Shanghai Gang faction, headed by former leader Jiang Zemin. Jiang's faction has been continually sniping at Xi and now is leading the charge against him.
Fang's piece incorporates previously voiced criticisms but does so in a comprehensive fashion. Fang blames Xi for, among other things, ruining the economy.
"Xi will be the architect of his own defeat," writes Fang at the end of the rant, in a section titled "Xi Jinping's Denouement" or "End of Days." "His style of governance is simply unsustainable; it will generate even newer and greater policy missteps."
Fang notes that Xi was able to take advantage of a feeble opposition but has not been able to accomplish much. "Xi's policies have been retrogressive and derivative, his successes minor and his blunders numerous," writes the Asia Society's Geremie Barme, who translated the essay, summarizing Fang's thoughts. Fang believes Xi "deserves a score of less than zero."
Xi is not one to let a decade of zero scores get in the way of his continued rule. Communist Party norms require him to step down at the 20th National Congress, to be held sometime this fall if tradition holds. He obviously wants a precedent-breaking third term as general secretary so that he can become, as outsiders say, "Dictator for Life." Most observers expect he will get that new term.
Maybe. Fang Zhou's essay shows Communist Party leaders are risking stability by airing disagreements in public. Xi Jinping therefore, now realizes he is in the fight of his life.
Xi's problems, unfortunately, can become our problems. He has, for various internal political reasons, a low threshold of risk and many reasons to pick on some other country to deflect elite criticism and popular discontent.
In 1966, Mao Zedong, Communist China's first ruler, started the decade-long Cultural Revolution to vanquish political enemies in Beijing. Xi is doing much the same thing now, especially with his "common prosperity" program, which could return China to the 1950s.
Unlike Mao, however, Xi has the power to plunge the world into war, and he has reason to lash out soon.
Xi is targeting the United States. On August 29 of last year, People's Daily, China's most authoritative publication, accused America of launching "barbaric" attacks on the Chinese nation. On the 21st of that month, Global Times, a tabloid controlled by People's Daily, insinuated the U.S. was working with China's "enemies."
The Communist Party of China has always believed its struggle with the United States is existential—in May 2019 the official People's Daily declared a "people's war" on America—but the hostility has become far more evident in the past year.
Virulent anti-Americanism suggests Xi Jinping is establishing a justification to strike America. The Chinese regime often uses its media to first warn and then signal its actions.
America has now been warned.
Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.
Follow Gordon G. Chang on Twitter
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/feb/17/defense-department-ill-prepared-china-war-gao-says/
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/feb/17/defense-department-ill-prepared-china-war-gao-says/
After 20 years, we lost to illiterates who fcuk goats.
No one takes us seriously.
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".After 20 years, we lost to illiterates who fcuk goats.
No one takes us seriously."
Bill forgot to mention our military does lead China in wokeness
in 2022. :-P
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http://ace.mu.nu/archives/397844.php
At least the current totalitarian governments are preparing the populations for Chinese rule.
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https://www.economist.com/china/2022/01/15/america-and-china-are-one-military-accident-away-from-disaster?utm_campaign=a.io_fy2122_q4_conversion-cb-dr_abo-allaudiences_global-global_auction_na&utm_medium=social-media.content.pd&utm_source=facebook-instagram&utm_content=conversion.content.non-subscriber.content_staticlinkad_np-americachina-n-jan_na-na_article_na_na_na_na&utm_term=sa.int-news-politics&utm_id=23849830099130005&fbclid=IwAR1s6996johInk7nFXhvaOD3fGVMU_Jur9FjRTgRbxOioQpKLpst6LZH5EM
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quote author=G M link=topic=2134.msg139287#msg139287 date=1635464193
"Xi only respects the viable threat of force."
--------------
Among the sanctions Biden has slapped on Putin for full scale invasion of Ukraine include unfollowing him on Twitter, according to the Babylon Bee. Is that about right?
Before the tanks even reach Kiev, unopposed, we see this:
Nine Chinese Jets Violate Taiwan Airspace
https://thehill.com/policy/international/china/595661-taiwan-reports-nine-chinese-aircraft-in-defense-zone
Who predicted THAT? [everyone here?]
(https://i0.wp.com/asiatimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Russia-China-Xi-Jinping-Vladimir-Putin-e1596026282881.jpg?fit=1200%2C782&ssl=1)
http://www.zzwave.com/plaboard/posts/3968357.shtml
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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1497931360627007493
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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1497931360627007493
Not a lot of purple haired soibois in Eastern Europe.
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https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Biden-sends-former-top-defense-officials-to-Taiwan
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Good.
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Famous people caught reading the fire hydrant of freedom:
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/U.S.-should-abandon-ambiguity-on-Taiwan-defense-Japan-s-Abe
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Taiwan’s leaders try to calm fears over Ukraine invasion, but citizens worry their island will be next
Listen to article
6 min
By Lily Kuo, Vic Chiang and Pei-Lin Wu
Today at 8:24 a.m. EST
Ukrainians and Taiwanese people pray for the end of the war in Ukraine at a temple in Taipei, Taiwan, on March 3. (Ann Wang/Reuters)
406
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwanese officials have been working hard to discourage a catchphrase that has emerged over the last week, “Today Ukraine, Tomorrow Taiwan.”
Since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the slogan has been repeated in local headlines, discussed in panels and uttered by jittery citizens worried that the war will embolden their similarly powerful and aggressive neighbor China, which claims Taiwan should be under its rule.
In Taiwan, where residents have for years been numb to Beijing’s threats and intimidation — including daily incursions into their air defense identification zone, military exercises simulating attacks on the island and cyberattacks — there is a growing realization that the status quo may no longer hold.
Analysis: The fallacy that links Putin’s attack on Ukraine with Xi’s ambitions on Taiwan
“I believe that today’s Ukraine is tomorrow’s Taiwan,” said Lung Wei-chen, a 69-year-old retired soldier from the southern city of Kaohsiung. “Other countries including the United States are not reliable, and we only have ourselves to defend Taiwan.”
To Lung, the similarities between the two global flash points are unsettling. Like Russian President Vladimir Putin, China’s ruling Communist Party has for decades said the self-governed democracy is an “inalienable” part of its history and sovereign territory. Chinese President Xi Jinping, the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, has repeatedly reserved the right to use force to “reunite” Taiwan with mainland China.
But government officials and researchers focused on cross-strait tensions say the similarities stop there. They stress differences such as the 100-mile sea barrier between Taiwan and China, Taiwan’s key role in global supply chains and the fact that it is surrounded by U.S. allies such as South Korea and Japan.
Since the Chinese Communist Party’s 1949 victory over the Nationalists, sending them fleeing to Taiwan, residents have lived through periods of shelling, warming ties and bellicose rhetoric — always under the assumption that Beijing would not risk entangling itself in all-out-war to take over the island.
Now, although few residents believe an attack from China is imminent, watching the destruction of Ukrainian cities has made that possibility seem much more real.
“I used to think that it’s not possible for China to attack Taiwan. Now I fear that if Russia is able to win the war, the chances of China using force against Taiwan will rise,” said Marvyn Hsu, a 26-year-old finance researcher in Taipei.
Scholars have called for revising Taiwan’s military doctrine, which maintains that it will never strike first. Groups have started organizing civilian defense training courses, free first-aid sessions and talks on how regular citizens can prepare for war.
The Kuma Academy, an education research center hosting a two-day crash course on traditional and cyberwarfare and modern military science, described the Ukraine attack as a reminder that “we cannot relax, and in peacetime we must prepare for the worst.”
Officials have tried to tamp down alarm, worried not just about fearmongering but also the possibility that pro-China forces will use public alarm to push for better ties with Beijing to avoid Ukraine’s fate.
Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen wears a “Stand with Ukraine” mask in Taipei, Taiwan, on March 2. (Handout/Via Reuters)
The day after the invasion began, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen described the situation Taiwan faces as “fundamentally different” while Cabinet spokesperson Lo Ping-cheng said it was “inappropriate” and “demoralizing” to claim that Taiwan would be next.
A senior official working on national security said the Ukraine crisis did not change the government’s assessment of the menace from Beijing, while admitting that it had added a sense of urgency.
“From the Ukraine crisis, there is a lot we must do, but these are things we were doing before. Maybe we should do more and do it faster,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. He cited in particular reforming Taiwan’s reservist system and buying more weapons from the United States.
With beer, rum and chocolate, Taiwan rallies behind Lithuania in spat with China
On Wednesday, the military doubled the length of its now annual mandatory refresher course for Taiwanese men for those selected by lottery. Last month, legislators approved an extra $8.6 billion to the $13 billion annual defense budget.
Some argue that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now entering its second week, has driven home how difficult an invasion of Taiwan would be. China would need to launch what would be history’s largest amphibious attack, and the chance of a U.S. intervention would be high.
“Beijing is taking note of the speed and strength of the international response,” said Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution. “It is becoming more difficult for anyone inside China to argue that Beijing could subdue Taiwan quickly and without high costs.”
At a panel Thursday on the implications of the Ukraine crisis for Taiwan, Kuo Yu-jen of National Sun Yat-sen University said the war “has united Europe and made Taiwan more secure than ever.”
Ukraine’s experience is further proof that Taiwan should revise its methods, he added, so that it can respond to China’s increased use of “gray zone warfare” aimed at wearing down one’s opponent through intimidation and economic pressure.
“Russian troops had been gathering on the border since March last year, which is already a threat. Ukraine still waited for [the attack] to happen,” he said, comparing the situation with the frequent incursions of Chinese aircraft into Taiwan’s air identification zone.
Green sky at night over Taiwan’s islands heralds a different kind of squid game
On Monday, former U.S. defense and security officials led by Mike Mullen, who served as chairman of the joint chiefs, landed in Taiwan for two days of meetings with Tsai, Taiwan’s minister of defense Chiu Kuo-cheng and other top officials in what the Taiwan president’s office described as a show of the “rock solid” U.S.-Taiwan ties.
Residents in Taiwan watching the overwhelming international response to the crisis wonder whether an attack on their homeland would incur the same level of sympathy. Taiwan is not recognized by the United Nations or a member of the World Health Organization and other international bodies because of intense lobbying by Beijing.
A staff member from the Russian representative office receives a protest sign during a March 1 protest in Taipei over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. (Sam Yeh/AFP/Getty Images)
“I think the reason why both Europe and the United States sympathize with Ukraine is because they are similar in terms of ethnicity and culture, but for Taiwan, we don’t even have the opportunity to show our faces in the United Nations,” said Ian Cheng, 28, a developer in Taipei. “It’ll be difficult for the West to feel connected with us.”
In Taipei, groups of protesters gather outside of the Moscow-Taipei Coordination Commission, Russia’s de facto embassy in Taiwan. Many say they are here to support Ukraine and that their own geopolitical flash point is a secondary priority. Others say that while the threat from China does not seem imminent, they will not shy away when the time comes.
“Although I might not be able to fight at the front lines, I can still help build molotov cocktails, just like the Ukrainian women,” said Huang Shu-chen, 52, who sells medical instruments in Taipei. “Taiwan is our home. We need to protect it.”
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Taiwan better change their gun laws TODAY and start training their people. Hell, I would even be willing to fly over to help.
Taiwan’s leaders try to calm fears over Ukraine invasion, but citizens worry their island will be next
Listen to article
6 min
By Lily Kuo, Vic Chiang and Pei-Lin Wu
Today at 8:24 a.m. EST
Ukrainians and Taiwanese people pray for the end of the war in Ukraine at a temple in Taipei, Taiwan, on March 3. (Ann Wang/Reuters)
406
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwanese officials have been working hard to discourage a catchphrase that has emerged over the last week, “Today Ukraine, Tomorrow Taiwan.”
Since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the slogan has been repeated in local headlines, discussed in panels and uttered by jittery citizens worried that the war will embolden their similarly powerful and aggressive neighbor China, which claims Taiwan should be under its rule.
In Taiwan, where residents have for years been numb to Beijing’s threats and intimidation — including daily incursions into their air defense identification zone, military exercises simulating attacks on the island and cyberattacks — there is a growing realization that the status quo may no longer hold.
Analysis: The fallacy that links Putin’s attack on Ukraine with Xi’s ambitions on Taiwan
“I believe that today’s Ukraine is tomorrow’s Taiwan,” said Lung Wei-chen, a 69-year-old retired soldier from the southern city of Kaohsiung. “Other countries including the United States are not reliable, and we only have ourselves to defend Taiwan.”
To Lung, the similarities between the two global flash points are unsettling. Like Russian President Vladimir Putin, China’s ruling Communist Party has for decades said the self-governed democracy is an “inalienable” part of its history and sovereign territory. Chinese President Xi Jinping, the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, has repeatedly reserved the right to use force to “reunite” Taiwan with mainland China.
But government officials and researchers focused on cross-strait tensions say the similarities stop there. They stress differences such as the 100-mile sea barrier between Taiwan and China, Taiwan’s key role in global supply chains and the fact that it is surrounded by U.S. allies such as South Korea and Japan.
Since the Chinese Communist Party’s 1949 victory over the Nationalists, sending them fleeing to Taiwan, residents have lived through periods of shelling, warming ties and bellicose rhetoric — always under the assumption that Beijing would not risk entangling itself in all-out-war to take over the island.
Now, although few residents believe an attack from China is imminent, watching the destruction of Ukrainian cities has made that possibility seem much more real.
“I used to think that it’s not possible for China to attack Taiwan. Now I fear that if Russia is able to win the war, the chances of China using force against Taiwan will rise,” said Marvyn Hsu, a 26-year-old finance researcher in Taipei.
Scholars have called for revising Taiwan’s military doctrine, which maintains that it will never strike first. Groups have started organizing civilian defense training courses, free first-aid sessions and talks on how regular citizens can prepare for war.
The Kuma Academy, an education research center hosting a two-day crash course on traditional and cyberwarfare and modern military science, described the Ukraine attack as a reminder that “we cannot relax, and in peacetime we must prepare for the worst.”
Officials have tried to tamp down alarm, worried not just about fearmongering but also the possibility that pro-China forces will use public alarm to push for better ties with Beijing to avoid Ukraine’s fate.
Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen wears a “Stand with Ukraine” mask in Taipei, Taiwan, on March 2. (Handout/Via Reuters)
The day after the invasion began, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen described the situation Taiwan faces as “fundamentally different” while Cabinet spokesperson Lo Ping-cheng said it was “inappropriate” and “demoralizing” to claim that Taiwan would be next.
A senior official working on national security said the Ukraine crisis did not change the government’s assessment of the menace from Beijing, while admitting that it had added a sense of urgency.
“From the Ukraine crisis, there is a lot we must do, but these are things we were doing before. Maybe we should do more and do it faster,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. He cited in particular reforming Taiwan’s reservist system and buying more weapons from the United States.
With beer, rum and chocolate, Taiwan rallies behind Lithuania in spat with China
On Wednesday, the military doubled the length of its now annual mandatory refresher course for Taiwanese men for those selected by lottery. Last month, legislators approved an extra $8.6 billion to the $13 billion annual defense budget.
Some argue that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now entering its second week, has driven home how difficult an invasion of Taiwan would be. China would need to launch what would be history’s largest amphibious attack, and the chance of a U.S. intervention would be high.
“Beijing is taking note of the speed and strength of the international response,” said Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution. “It is becoming more difficult for anyone inside China to argue that Beijing could subdue Taiwan quickly and without high costs.”
At a panel Thursday on the implications of the Ukraine crisis for Taiwan, Kuo Yu-jen of National Sun Yat-sen University said the war “has united Europe and made Taiwan more secure than ever.”
Ukraine’s experience is further proof that Taiwan should revise its methods, he added, so that it can respond to China’s increased use of “gray zone warfare” aimed at wearing down one’s opponent through intimidation and economic pressure.
“Russian troops had been gathering on the border since March last year, which is already a threat. Ukraine still waited for [the attack] to happen,” he said, comparing the situation with the frequent incursions of Chinese aircraft into Taiwan’s air identification zone.
Green sky at night over Taiwan’s islands heralds a different kind of squid game
On Monday, former U.S. defense and security officials led by Mike Mullen, who served as chairman of the joint chiefs, landed in Taiwan for two days of meetings with Tsai, Taiwan’s minister of defense Chiu Kuo-cheng and other top officials in what the Taiwan president’s office described as a show of the “rock solid” U.S.-Taiwan ties.
Residents in Taiwan watching the overwhelming international response to the crisis wonder whether an attack on their homeland would incur the same level of sympathy. Taiwan is not recognized by the United Nations or a member of the World Health Organization and other international bodies because of intense lobbying by Beijing.
A staff member from the Russian representative office receives a protest sign during a March 1 protest in Taipei over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. (Sam Yeh/AFP/Getty Images)
“I think the reason why both Europe and the United States sympathize with Ukraine is because they are similar in terms of ethnicity and culture, but for Taiwan, we don’t even have the opportunity to show our faces in the United Nations,” said Ian Cheng, 28, a developer in Taipei. “It’ll be difficult for the West to feel connected with us.”
In Taipei, groups of protesters gather outside of the Moscow-Taipei Coordination Commission, Russia’s de facto embassy in Taiwan. Many say they are here to support Ukraine and that their own geopolitical flash point is a secondary priority. Others say that while the threat from China does not seem imminent, they will not shy away when the time comes.
“Although I might not be able to fight at the front lines, I can still help build molotov cocktails, just like the Ukrainian women,” said Huang Shu-chen, 52, who sells medical instruments in Taipei. “Taiwan is our home. We need to protect it.”
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".Taiwan better change their gun laws TODAY and start training their people. Hell, I would even be willing to fly over to help."
well it Taiwan seems more important to us the Ukraine
however, we need GM here
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".Taiwan better change their gun laws TODAY and start training their people. Hell, I would even be willing to fly over to help."
well it Taiwan seems more important to us the Ukraine
however, we need GM here
I’m no one of any importance, frankly I don’t expect to live through the upcoming festivities. I just want to be sure that I am the biggest pain possible to our enemies, both foreign and domestic.
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STRENGTH AND HONOR! GOD BLESS AMERICA AND OUR CONSTITUTION!
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/ccp-likely-moving-toward-gray-zone-warfare-in-taiwan-strategy-analysts_4332487.html?utm_source=China&utm_campaign=uschina-2022-03-13&utm_medium=email&est=xUse4d%2FTgwLMGYyY2QhddjFvDj62Hcwab7IJO39WZkXAc2EfkL%2FbThaAWpcQa04AMpuC
TAIWAN
CCP Likely Moving Toward Gray Zone Warfare in Taiwan Strategy: Analysts
By Gary Bai March 12, 2022 Updated: March 12, 2022biggersmaller Print
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The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may lean heavier on a gray zone warfare strategy than hard military power in its attempt to take over Taiwan after witnessing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China analysts suggested in a panel discussion.
“Although the gap of military spending and strength between Taiwan and China has been expanding, it seems that China is likely to use gray zone tactics to subvert Taiwan rather than an outright invasion.” Dr. Lee Jyun-yi, a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR), said in a virtual panel discussion hosted by the Global Taiwan Institute on March 9.
Gray zone warfare is the use of carefully designed operations to achieve political gains against target states. The strategy consists of misinformation or disinformation operations, political and economic coercion, cyber attack, and provocation.
“Taiwan enjoys the blessing of geography in conventional deterrence. The fact that Taiwan and China are separated by the Taiwan Strait means that a Chinese armed attack must consist of an element of amphibious warfare,” Dr. Lee said.
“Consequently, the development of amphibious vehicles and the mobilization of troops become crucial signs for determining the intention of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).”
This factor makes it difficult for the PLA to launch a blitzkrieg attack on Taiwan without alarming the United States, Japan, and Taiwan, or to turn military exercises into an armed attack, which is “in contrast to the Russian invasion [of] Ukraine,” Dr. Lee explained.
In addition, “Taiwan has been bolstering its national defenses by, for instance, increasing its national [defense] budget, developing asymmetric warfare capabilities, undertaking reservist reforms, and so on,” he said, noting these improvements will prompt China to rely more on gray zone warfare rather than a military incursion.
Eric Chan, a Senior Strategist at the United States Air Force, added that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine likely put the West on high alert.
“[The CCP knows] the U.S. and Europe [are] now certainly more on edge, and they are going to be watching for things like “a repeat of 2014,” Mr. Chan said in the virtual event, referring to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Therefore, China’s invasion of Taiwan or what he foresaw in 2021 as a “limited invasion” of Kinmen—a cluster of Taiwanese islands miles away from China’s southeast coast—is not as viable now, Mr. Chan added.
According to a biennial report released by Taiwan’s Ministry of Defence in September 2021, the PLA initiated 554 airspace intrusions by flying warplanes into Taiwan’s Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) between September 2020 and the end of August 2021.
The objective of this tactic is to “subdue Taiwan’s military forces and shake the morale of the Taiwanese people and military” to “take over Taiwan without a battle,” the report said.
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Biden Administration: China has been warned! Consequences!! That oughtta stop 'em.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/jake-sullivan-warns-of-consequences-if-china-helps-russia-evade-sanctions
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3170315/will-china-heed-us-european-calls-help-restrain-russia-ukraine?module=lead_hero_story&pgtype=homepage
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3170329/ukraine-war-biden-adviser-jake-sullivan-meet-senior-chinese?module=lead_hero_story&pgtype=homepage
What could go wrong.
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https://news.yahoo.com/alligator-snaps-50-pound-dog-140006740.html
so
the entire Ethos of CCP is to beat us down and take advantage of us
and lie cheat and steal
so what could come of this?
some dubious announcement that Joe talked tough with Xixi ping ?
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Nothing sounds tougher than a seriously demented geezer slurring incoherent sentences!
https://news.yahoo.com/alligator-snaps-50-pound-dog-140006740.html
so
the entire Ethos of CCP is to beat us down and take advantage of us
and lie cheat and steal
so what could come of this?
some dubious announcement that Joe talked tough with Xixi ping ?
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18355/china-southeast-asia
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18355/china-southeast-asia
The Big Guy got his 10%.
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".The Big Guy got his 10%."
I wonder if that included 10 % of the girls and 10% of the crack......
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".The Big Guy got his 10%."
I wonder if that included 10 % of the girls and 10% of the crack......
Imagine what the Ministry of State Security has on Hunter. I would be a half Chinese grandchild of the current US president is included.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-28/solomon-islands-lawmaker-says-australia-was-warned-on-china-pact?fbclid=IwAR0Oto4hrjf-hMQ3NGqbfFyTBnO3FFJRxBwzouj-S9dQSU5xd8Mp7QANyRQ
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18384/china-takes-over-solomon-islands
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18384/china-takes-over-solomon-islands
So much losing, you’ll be tired of all the losing!
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"https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18384/china-takes-over-solomon-islands"
:-( :x
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https://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2022/03/losing-solomons.html
It's only going to get worse from here.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18384/china-takes-over-solomon-islands
So much losing, you’ll be tired of all the losing!
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The CCP’s Military Plan for Taiwan’s Subjugation
'Deceive the heavens to cross the sea'
Guermantes Lailari
Guermantes Lailari
April 2, 2022 Updated: April 2, 2022biggersmaller Print
News Analysis
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) disguises its intent to subjugate Taiwan via a siege. Inspiration for this effort comes from Chinese military and diplomatic history.
The classic Chinese military strategy book, “Thirty-Six Stratagems,” was written over 1,500 years ago. The first strategy, to “deceive the heavens to cross the sea,” was designed for countries in a superior position. This strategy intends to lull or condition one’s adversary into relaxed vigilance.
Responding to the 2016 and 2020 Taiwanese presidential electoral victories of Tsai Ing-wen and the shocking events in Hong Kong and Ukraine, 80 percent of Taiwanese people polled want to keep the status quo or move toward declaring independence from mainland China.
Their growing sense of independence and fear of severe consequences of being under the CCP’s autocratic and kleptocratic subjugation have galvanized them. The CCP hoped that Taiwan would commit democratic suicide and join other captive regions (Tibet, East Turkestan, Inner Mongolia, and Hong Kong).
Due to the Taiwanese public preference for independence, the CCP is examining military options to achieve Taiwan’s “unification” with China.
The CCP has demonstrated at least three types of behaviors that align with an aggressive strategy.
First, it conducts political warfare and military action against countries, companies, and individuals that deviate from the CCP’s desired path. Most recently, the CCP tested political warfare weapons in its toolkit against Lithuania with some of the most severe “mafia-like” measures to date.
Second, the CCP uses Vladimir Lenin’s dictum, “You probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw,” in the South China Sea (SCS) by taking over small islands and converting them into People’s Liberation Army (PLA) military bases.
Examples of the CCP’s aggression include taking the Paracel Islands (1974) and south Johnson Reef (1988) from Vietnam; and massing commercial, maritime militia, and Chinese Coast Guard ships around the Philippine’s Scarborough Shoal (2012) and Whitsun Reef (2021).
The CCP’s continued harassment of SCS navies is an example of how it “probes,” in this case with ships. The SCS countries have not found steel to stop CCP probing and aggression in the SCS.
Comparing the U.S. Navy and the PLA Navy (PLAN), the number and capabilities of the ships are often used to show that the PLAN is trying to match the U.S. Navy. Rarely discussed is the comparison of the Chinese Coast Guard to its neighbors’ assets.
In 2015, the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence published a comparative analysis of the Chinese Coast Guard, showing the stark Chinese power regional imbalance of the respective coast guards.
A Chinese Coast Guard ship
A Chinese Coast Guard ship sails near a Philippine Coast Guard vessel during its patrol at Bajo de Masinloc, 124 nautical miles west of Zambales Province, northwestern Philippines, on March 2, 2022. (Philippine Coast Guard via AP)
Third, the PLA conducts many types of aggressive military maneuvers in and around Taiwan. The most blatant of these is the unannounced flights of PLA aircraft into the island’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the southeast, south, and southwest.
PLA Air Envelopment
Less reported by the Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense (MND) are the PLA flights into Japan’s ADIZ that bracket Taiwan to the northeast, north, and northwest.
In 2020, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) published a rigorous analysis of the PLA’s flights in and around South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. The PLA air provocations against Taiwan had three patterns:
Circumnavigational flights of Taiwan (most common provocation).
ADIZ intrusions (second most common provocation).
Violations of the cross-strait median line (viewed as the most provocative action and, as a result, are rare).
The circumnavigational flights are probably not reported by the MND since it appears that the PLA Air Force skirts around the Taiwan ADIZ. However, the MND has reported dramatic increases in PLA intrusions into Taiwan’s ADIZ since the fall of 2020.
An example of multiple PLA aircraft ADIZ intrusions occurred on Nov. 28, 2021, with 27 aircraft and longer flight profiles.
A comprehensive map (here) shows PLA incursions on Taiwan and Japan’s ADIZ, detailing the PLA aircraft enveloping Taiwan by air.
PLA Naval Envelopment
The Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JASDF) have reported PLA Naval deployments between Japan and Taiwan into the western Pacific. These trends are depicted by the most recent Japanese Defense White Paper (2021).
Page 18 of the document contains a map depicting the various PLAN deployments in red arrows. Like the PLA aircraft encirclement of Japan and Taiwan (yellow arrows), the PLAN is training for the equivalent maritime encirclement operation (subsurface, surface, and above surface).
What Are the Implications?
These civil and military actions prepare the CCP for many possible lines of effort. The sheer number of possible actions makes it difficult to identify and assess the likelihood of any particular action. In effect, the CCP is disguising what it plans to do while leaving open several possible courses of action. These actions are designed to lower the vigilance of Taiwan, Japan, the United States, and others. These actions provide China with at least three main options—the last of which appears to be the most likely.
Option 1: Taiwan Invasion
The first option, and the most obvious, is that the CCP is preparing its forces for an invasion of Taiwan. Much has been written on this and how the Chinese will invade. Ian Easton’s book, “The Chinese Invasion Threat,” provides an excellent analysis of a full-scale invasion.
This PLA option is its “hard” course of action that it can implement if Taiwan or other countries cross the CCP’s red lines.
In the 2020 Department of Defense annual report to Congress, the DOD assessed that the CCP has seven red lines:
Formal declaration of Taiwan independence.
Undefined moves toward Taiwan independence.
Internal unrest in Taiwan.
Taiwan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Indefinite delays in the resumption of cross-strait dialogue on unification.
Foreign intervention in Taiwan’s internal affairs.
Foreign forces stationed on Taiwan.
In the 2021 DOD report, the seventh red line, “foreign forces stationed on Taiwan,” was removed, probably because the First Special Forces Group released a video on its Facebook page showing personnel training Taiwanese forces in June 2020.
In October 2021, President Tsai acknowledged the presence of U.S. military personnel in Taiwan as part of the U.S. assistance to “increasing our [Taiwan’s] defense capability.”
Epoch Times Photo
Two armed U.S.-made F-16V fighters fly over an air force base in Chiayi, southern Taiwan, on Jan. 5, 2022. (Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images)
Option 2: Psychological Warfare—Deterrence
The second option’s focus is the threat of invasion (psychological warfare—designed to deter Taiwan supporters) rather than an actual invasion. The CCP wants to remind Taiwan and the rest of the world to maintain the CCP’s “One China” policy and not provide Taiwan diplomatic recognition and create fear of providing “too much support” for Taiwan.
In effect, the second option is designed to deter the rest of the world and Taiwan from going outside the CCP’s “red lines” and allow maximum flexibility for the CCP: psychological blockade.
Option 3: Total Taiwan Blockade With Options
The third, and the most likely option, is a total blockade of Taiwan and its islands. Why is a blockade the most likely scenario?
Under normal circumstances, a blockade would be an act of war, and the resulting starvation of a country’s population would be categorized as a war crime for international armed conflicts.
Yet, according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), blockading a country’s “province” is not an act of war, and starving one’s own population is not categorized as a war crime.
Since Taiwan is not recognized as a sovereign country (not a United Nations member), international law does not consider a blockade of Taiwan to be an act of war. The resulting suffering would be difficult to pursue in the ICC since it does not address cases of non-international armed conflicts.
The CCP’s use of lawfare in a blockade protects the CCP against international legal tools; a blockade and associated actions are consistent with viewing Taiwan as a rebellious Chinese province.
Media attention would be minimal if the PLA does not conduct active kinetic operations against Taiwan. In contrast to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a blockade option probably would not motivate international action against the CCP.
Epoch Times Photo
Warships and fighter jets of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy take part in a military display in the South China Sea on April 12, 2018. (Reuters)
Beijing has indicated that any foreign nation’s interference in its operations against Taiwan would be considered interfering with its internal affairs. The CCP has threatened the use of nuclear weapons to counter such interference, thereby establishing another red line before it initiates any operation against Taiwan.
Beijing would coerce countries, companies, organizations, and individuals to comply with its demands. Moreover, by blocking shipping and aircraft from arriving to and departing from Taiwan and its associated islands, the CCP would seek to force the population to “bend the knee” and accept CCP rule. A blockade is classic siege warfare, and Mao Zedong encouraged siege warfare in his book, “People’s War.”
The CCP would escalate its operation against Taiwan and would conduct a total blockade once it is confident of minimal international opposition. Ukraine provided the CCP with useful insights on global punishments against a superpower. China has more leverage based on its world trade and its experiences than the Russian government. The CCP will prepare accordingly.
The Taiwanese government and people should prepare against this likely siege warfare scenario. The Taiwanese should have in place a food supply reserve capability to mitigate critical dependencies such as possible fishing restrictions. The military should make similar preparations if a blockade were implemented, including ensuring that Taiwan has sufficient stored supplies to conduct a protracted war.
In addition to an air and sea blockade, the CCP might attempt to implement a communications blockade—denying Taiwan the means to communicate with the outside world by disrupting satellites and sea cables. The 2022 Russia-Ukraine war shows that commercial satellite alternative options are viable and can maintain necessary communications.
Conclusion
In his book “On Protracted War,” Mao argued that “[t]here can never be too much deception in war.” Following his injunction, the CCP uses deception to disguise its preparations to conduct a total blockade: “deceive the heavens to cross the sea.”
Taiwan and its allies should recognize the deception and prepare accordingly for a total blockade. Once a blockade is functioning, additional options to subjugate Taiwan become available to the CCP.
Communicating the CCP’s blockade threat to Taiwan’s whole of society could mobilize the population to enhance its resilience. Communicating the CCP threat to Taiwan’s allies could help deter the CCP’s plan of assimilating Taiwan through siege warfare.
The CCP is using deception to prepare its battlefield for the effort to subjugate Taiwan. The Taiwanese should heed an ancient Chinese proverb that provides useful advice about the necessity of being prepared for the current situation: “Dig the well before you are thirsty.”
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times
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http://ace.mu.nu/archives/398503.php
https://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2022/03/losing-solomons.html
It's only going to get worse from here.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18384/china-takes-over-solomon-islands
So much losing, you’ll be tired of all the losing!
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"The Solomon Islands are just to the east of New Guinea, and only 1,100 miles to the northeast of Australia. That’s about the same distance as Los Angeles to Seattle – not a significant nautical distance."
- Looks like that backyard courtesy rule applies to totalitarian regimes but not to US allies.
I can't wait to see the ultimatum Biden confronts his Chinese donors and extortionists with:
'Russia, China, you stay out of those regions or I'll, I'll, I'll, oh skip it. We surrender.' Russia, you take Europe. Not our problem. China, you take the Asia Pacific, not our problem. West Hemisphere, oops, that's China's too.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/amp/ncna1284713
When do we want to stand up to militarized, totalitarian evil?
My instinct says early and often, every time it rears its ugly head, or very soon it will be too late.
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Russia hasn't taken Kiev as of yet, it seems Paris is safe. We'll know the ROC. OZ and NZ are serious when they become nuclear powers. After the COVID tyranny, I am ambivalent about defending OZ. NZ can be overrun by the PLA as far as I am concerned.
"The Solomon Islands are just to the east of New Guinea, and only 1,100 miles to the northeast of Australia. That’s about the same distance as Los Angeles to Seattle – not a significant nautical distance."
- Looks like that backyard courtesy rule applies to totalitarian regimes but not to US allies.
I can't wait to see the ultimatum Biden confronts his Chinese donors and extortionists with:
'Russia, China, you stay out of those regions or I'll, I'll, I'll, oh skip it. We surrender.' Russia, you take Europe. Not our problem. China, you take the Asia Pacific, not our problem. West Hemisphere, oops, that's China's too.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/amp/ncna1284713
When do we want to stand up to militarized, totalitarian evil?
My instinct says early and often, every time it rears its ugly head, or very soon it will be too late.
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A second chance for Biden’s Asia team
The clock is ticking
By Jim Fanell
As Americans watch in horror at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s murderous invasion of Ukraine and recall America’s disastrous rout from Afghanistan, an urgent question is being asked: Is the Biden administration’s foreign policy team up to the task of defending America’s national security interests in the Asia Pacific, specifically the defense of Taiwan?
The answer rests upon understanding who is on President Biden’s team and their previous record of actions and results. Former President Barack Obama has noted that 90% of Biden’s team came from his administration. Mr. Obama boasted Mr. Biden is “finishing the job” he started during his two terms in office.
It is worth examining the Obama administration’s foreign policy team and some of the highly destructive decisions they made regarding the Asia-Pacific region.
April 2022 marks the 10th anniversary of what is arguably America’s greatest foreign policy disaster in Asia since the fall of Saigon in 1975. Yet few today understand America’s retreat from the South China Sea at Scarborough Shoal from April to June 2012.
This history matters because the same national security “experts” that oversaw the Scarborough Shoal fiasco are staffing the upper echelons of the Biden administration now, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, NSC “Asia Czar” Kurt Campbell and others of lesser stature, such as Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby. This group has an established track record of weakness and appeasement in many crises. They appear to be failing regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the People’s Republic of China’s threats to take Taiwan, the Senkaku Islands and parts of India by military force.
In April 2012, PRC commercial ships were caught inside Scarborough Shoal, within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone, stealing Philippine giant clams and coral. The illegal actions by these PRC ships instigated a standoff that ultimately forced the Philippine Coast Guard and fishermen away from their ancestral fishing grounds. The U.S. State Department, led by then-Assistant Secretary Kurt Campbell, abetted the PRC’s theft by negotiating a flawed mutual withdrawal of PLA Navy and Philippine naval assets from Scarborough in June 2012.
The Philippine vessels withdrew, but the PRC immediately reneged on the agreement. It refused to remove its vessels, giving the PRC sovereign domain over territory that it enjoys to this day — territory belonging to a key U.S. treaty ally. Mr. Campbell, Mr. Sullivan and other seniors within Obama administration ignored pleas by the president of the Philippines for the U.S. to force the PRC to comply. Nothing is more sensitive to a mutual defense treat than the defense of territory, and everybody in East Asia immediately understood America’s betrayal.
The most obvious failure of these so-called “experts” in defending America’s national interests was the construction of the “New Spratly Islands,” seven artificial islands in the southern portion of the SCC, three being the size and capacity of the Pearl Harbor naval base. Despite repeated warnings about this ongoing NSI construction, the “experts” failed to act to blunt Beijing’s illegal, militarily threatening territorial expansionism.
This ineptitude is even more indefensible because Beijing arrogantly proceeded with its unprecedented, massive construction in the face of an impending decision by the United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration on its claim to most of the SCS. On July 12, 2016, the court ruled China’s claim illegal. Yet the Obama-Biden national security team did little more than acknowledge the building of the islands and conduct routine naval transits through the SCS far from these new islands. PLAN warships now challenge every foreign naval warship entering the SCS and demand they request Beijing’s permission before entering. The devastating long-term impact of this U.S. policy failure is the PRC’s de facto possession of the SCS, flouting international law and disrupting 80 years of peace and stability.
Combined with the ignoble retreat from Kabul and the failure to deter Russian aggression and adequately help defend Ukraine, this pattern of appeasement and failure has led Beijing to believe the U.S. is unable and/or unwilling to defend Taiwan. Chinese President Xi Jinping repeatedly threatens to invade democratic Taiwan and has built the military capability to do so.
The PLA’s invasion plan is on a timeline that supports Mr. Xi’s “Great Rejuvenation,” which includes the goal of the physical restoration of China. The invasion count-down clock is rapidly ticking: We are now in the “Decade of Concern/Danger” (2020-2030). Those leading Biden’s team assured us that China takes the long view and would take Taiwan through peaceful means and not kinetic combat operations. The fatuousness of this view is now incontrovertible.
What can be done to reverse the CCP’s ambitions? First and foremost, the Biden administration must designate the PRC as a strategic adversary and an existential threat to U.S. national security and the free world. Second, the president must replace his current national security team. Mr. Campbell and Mr. Sullivan must be among the first to leave: Mr. Campbell is merely a figurehead as the “Asia czar” and has failed to confront the paramount threat to our nation, and Mr. Sullivan’s record of weakness and abysmal analytical skill is equally unforgivable. Third, the U.S., in conjunction with our allies and partners, must equip Taiwan with the weapons that will both deter PRC aggression and, if Mr. Xi invades, force Beijing to undertake a protracted, costly counterinsurgency. Fourth, the U.S. must take a whole-ofgovernment approach to confront and deter the PRC across the region. For example, a massive naval and air buildup must be undertaken immediately. Fifth, the U.S. must counter the PRC’s vast Political Warfare campaign it is waging to destroy us and other democracies. One step must be to terminate the fatally flawed “strategic ambiguity” policy toward Taiwan.
Sixth, the U.S. military must begin to operate with our allies as real equals. We must open up tactical and operational data sharing, collaborative intelligence, and surveillance and reconnaissance channels to provide adequate indications and warning.
The Biden administration’s national security team had the chance to prove they learned the lessons of the failures of the Obama administration in confronting an expansionist, totalitarian regime in Russia and China. Sadly, they are failing to do so.
Time is not on our side. Accordingly, Mr. Biden must explicitly define the PRC’s existential threat and replace his current national security team with realists who can effectively confront and defeat this threat with real actions today.
Retired Navy Capt. James Fanell is the former director of intelligence for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, who had headed all intelligence and information opera-tions for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command up until his retirement in 2015
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The author assumes the shadow cartel pulling Biden's strings wants to win against China.
A second chance for Biden’s Asia team
The clock is ticking
By Jim Fanell
As Americans watch in horror at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s murderous invasion of Ukraine and recall America’s disastrous rout from Afghanistan, an urgent question is being asked: Is the Biden administration’s foreign policy team up to the task of defending America’s national security interests in the Asia Pacific, specifically the defense of Taiwan?
The answer rests upon understanding who is on President Biden’s team and their previous record of actions and results. Former President Barack Obama has noted that 90% of Biden’s team came from his administration. Mr. Obama boasted Mr. Biden is “finishing the job” he started during his two terms in office.
It is worth examining the Obama administration’s foreign policy team and some of the highly destructive decisions they made regarding the Asia-Pacific region.
April 2022 marks the 10th anniversary of what is arguably America’s greatest foreign policy disaster in Asia since the fall of Saigon in 1975. Yet few today understand America’s retreat from the South China Sea at Scarborough Shoal from April to June 2012.
This history matters because the same national security “experts” that oversaw the Scarborough Shoal fiasco are staffing the upper echelons of the Biden administration now, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, NSC “Asia Czar” Kurt Campbell and others of lesser stature, such as Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby. This group has an established track record of weakness and appeasement in many crises. They appear to be failing regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the People’s Republic of China’s threats to take Taiwan, the Senkaku Islands and parts of India by military force.
In April 2012, PRC commercial ships were caught inside Scarborough Shoal, within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone, stealing Philippine giant clams and coral. The illegal actions by these PRC ships instigated a standoff that ultimately forced the Philippine Coast Guard and fishermen away from their ancestral fishing grounds. The U.S. State Department, led by then-Assistant Secretary Kurt Campbell, abetted the PRC’s theft by negotiating a flawed mutual withdrawal of PLA Navy and Philippine naval assets from Scarborough in June 2012.
The Philippine vessels withdrew, but the PRC immediately reneged on the agreement. It refused to remove its vessels, giving the PRC sovereign domain over territory that it enjoys to this day — territory belonging to a key U.S. treaty ally. Mr. Campbell, Mr. Sullivan and other seniors within Obama administration ignored pleas by the president of the Philippines for the U.S. to force the PRC to comply. Nothing is more sensitive to a mutual defense treat than the defense of territory, and everybody in East Asia immediately understood America’s betrayal.
The most obvious failure of these so-called “experts” in defending America’s national interests was the construction of the “New Spratly Islands,” seven artificial islands in the southern portion of the SCC, three being the size and capacity of the Pearl Harbor naval base. Despite repeated warnings about this ongoing NSI construction, the “experts” failed to act to blunt Beijing’s illegal, militarily threatening territorial expansionism.
This ineptitude is even more indefensible because Beijing arrogantly proceeded with its unprecedented, massive construction in the face of an impending decision by the United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration on its claim to most of the SCS. On July 12, 2016, the court ruled China’s claim illegal. Yet the Obama-Biden national security team did little more than acknowledge the building of the islands and conduct routine naval transits through the SCS far from these new islands. PLAN warships now challenge every foreign naval warship entering the SCS and demand they request Beijing’s permission before entering. The devastating long-term impact of this U.S. policy failure is the PRC’s de facto possession of the SCS, flouting international law and disrupting 80 years of peace and stability.
Combined with the ignoble retreat from Kabul and the failure to deter Russian aggression and adequately help defend Ukraine, this pattern of appeasement and failure has led Beijing to believe the U.S. is unable and/or unwilling to defend Taiwan. Chinese President Xi Jinping repeatedly threatens to invade democratic Taiwan and has built the military capability to do so.
The PLA’s invasion plan is on a timeline that supports Mr. Xi’s “Great Rejuvenation,” which includes the goal of the physical restoration of China. The invasion count-down clock is rapidly ticking: We are now in the “Decade of Concern/Danger” (2020-2030). Those leading Biden’s team assured us that China takes the long view and would take Taiwan through peaceful means and not kinetic combat operations. The fatuousness of this view is now incontrovertible.
What can be done to reverse the CCP’s ambitions? First and foremost, the Biden administration must designate the PRC as a strategic adversary and an existential threat to U.S. national security and the free world. Second, the president must replace his current national security team. Mr. Campbell and Mr. Sullivan must be among the first to leave: Mr. Campbell is merely a figurehead as the “Asia czar” and has failed to confront the paramount threat to our nation, and Mr. Sullivan’s record of weakness and abysmal analytical skill is equally unforgivable. Third, the U.S., in conjunction with our allies and partners, must equip Taiwan with the weapons that will both deter PRC aggression and, if Mr. Xi invades, force Beijing to undertake a protracted, costly counterinsurgency. Fourth, the U.S. must take a whole-ofgovernment approach to confront and deter the PRC across the region. For example, a massive naval and air buildup must be undertaken immediately. Fifth, the U.S. must counter the PRC’s vast Political Warfare campaign it is waging to destroy us and other democracies. One step must be to terminate the fatally flawed “strategic ambiguity” policy toward Taiwan.
Sixth, the U.S. military must begin to operate with our allies as real equals. We must open up tactical and operational data sharing, collaborative intelligence, and surveillance and reconnaissance channels to provide adequate indications and warning.
The Biden administration’s national security team had the chance to prove they learned the lessons of the failures of the Obama administration in confronting an expansionist, totalitarian regime in Russia and China. Sadly, they are failing to do so.
Time is not on our side. Accordingly, Mr. Biden must explicitly define the PRC’s existential threat and replace his current national security team with realists who can effectively confront and defeat this threat with real actions today.
Retired Navy Capt. James Fanell is the former director of intelligence for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, who had headed all intelligence and information opera-tions for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command up until his retirement in 2015
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TAIWAN
Taiwan publishes first civil defense handbook
Military prepares for an attack by China amid fallout from Ukraine
BY BILL GERTZ THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Taiwan’s military has published its first-ever civil defense handbook to prepare the island’s 23 million people for a possible Chinese attack.
The handbook provides detailed guidance for civilians on finding air raid shelters, coping with building collapses and fires, power and water outages, general war preparations and survival basics.
Disclosure of the handbook’s release this week was just the latest sign of growing unease in Taipei over the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and concerns China may seek to emulate Russia with a military move against Taiwan. Civilian resistance has proved a major factor in the surprising ability of Ukraine to hold off Russian attacks so far.
“[We] are providing information on how citizens should react in a military crisis and possible disasters to come,” said Liu Tai-yi, a Defense Ministry official, during an online news conference held to release the handbook on Tuesday in Taipei. Taiwan also held military drills this week, the ministry said.
Meanwhile, a six-member U.S. congressional delegation led by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Robert Menendez, New Jersey Democrat, arrived in Taipei to show U.S. support for Taiwan, Reuters reported. The bipartisan group is set to meet Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Friday.
Taiwan Presidential Office spokesman Xavier Chang said in a statement the visit will deepen the U.S.-Taiwan relationship, but a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman denounced the trip to the island-nation Beijing considers part of its sovereign territory.
“Relevant U.S. lawmakers should abide by the one-China policy upheld by the U.S. government,” spokesman Zhao Lijian told a Beijing briefing Thursday. “The U.S. should … stop official contacts with Taiwan, and avoid going further down the dangerous path.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his nation’s success against the Russian invasion was based on national unity that fostered fierce resistance, with civilian volunteers providing crucial support for Ukraine’s outnumbered and outgunned forces. Taiwan has raised the alert level of its forces since the Russian military incursion began on Feb. 24. The government has said it does not see signs of an imminent Chinese attack.
The civil defense handbook uses comic-book-like graphics and amounts to official recognition that Taiwan’s leaders fear they are facing a potential military attack in the future.
Adm. John Aquilino, commander of the Indo-Pacific Command, warned in remarks last month that the Russian invasion of Ukraine highlights the danger China poses to Taiwan.
“I don’t think anyone five months ago would have predicted an invasion of the Ukraine. So I think the No. 1 lesson is: ‘Hey, this could really happen,’” Adm. Aquilino told the Financial Times during a visit to Australia.
China’s military forces have stepped up provocative military operations near Taiwan that the admiral said were part of a pressure campaign targeting the people of Taiwan.
Publication of the Taiwan civil defense handbook on Tuesday was the first time the Taiwanese military put out its recommendations for how to cope with a conflict. The handbook also mentions that some of the measures could be used in response to a natural disaster such as an earthquake.
“National defense is a demonstration of the people’s overall strength, awareness and resistance to the enemy,” the handbook states. “Only by being fully prepared can we protect ourselves and work together.”
The handbooks reveal how in the event of conflict the military will communicate with reservists, reservists who would be summoned via a mobilization symbol on television or notification via radio broadcast. The handbook also provides QR codes that can be used with smartphones to locate air raid shelters and emergency rooms, weather information and details on dealing with power outages.
During bombing raids, civilians are urged to turn off power, water and gas, and close windows and doors before heading for shelters. For people caught outside during an air raid, the handbook recommends assuming a “refuge posture” of kneeling with the body arched off the ground, with eyes and ears covered and the mouth open slightly.
In response to the disruption of food supplies, such as an attack on a grain warehouse, Taiwanese agricultural authorities will set up rice, edible oil, salt and natural gas distribution. Citizens also should prepare by storing a three-day supply of food, water, clothing, cash, maps and identifi cation documents.
China’s state media dismissed the handbook as part of efforts by Taipei to exacerbate cross-strait tensions.
A Chinese military expert told the Communist Party-affiliated Global Times outlet that both the military exercises and the handbook “are futile in saving ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionist forces should a cross-strait conflict break out.”
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U.S. Lawmakers Make Surprise Taiwan Visit to Signal Support Against China
Trip draws angry response from Beijing, as Washington warns it against any attempt to change the island democracy’s status quo
Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez, speaking at a news conference in Taipei on Friday, called Taiwan a ‘country,’ a reference that rankles Beijing.
PHOTO: TAIWAN MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAI/VIA REUTERS
By Joyu Wang
Apr. 15, 2022 9:23 am ET
TAIPEI—Six U.S. lawmakers met with Taiwan’s leader on Friday in a show of support for the island democracy, in a surprise trip that signals more tension between Washington and Beijing.
The six-member delegation, led by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) and Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Bob Menendez (D., NJ), blasted Beijing for what it described as China’s support for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The visit prompted a military response and angry words from Beijing.
“We are going to start making China pay a greater price for what they are doing all over the world. The support for Putin must come with a price,” Mr. Graham told Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen during a meeting in Taipei, adding: “To abandon Taiwan would be to abandon democracy and freedom.”
Sens. Graham and Menendez were joined by Sens. Richard Burr (R., N.C.), Rob Portman (R., Ohio) and Ben Sasse (R., Neb.), and Rep. Ronny Jackson (R., Tex.). Mr. Menendez was the sole Democrat. The six men arrived in Taipei on Thursday evening aboard a Boeing C-40C operated by the U.S. Air Force.
In addition to Ms. Tsai, the Congressional delegation met with Taiwan’s Defense Minister and other senior officials.
The congressional trip comes as Washington seeks to reassure Taiwan of its support, while warning Beijing against any attempts to change the status quo across the Taiwan Strait with military action.
The war in Ukraine has turned a spotlight on how Washington would respond in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan, a democratically-governed island that China’s Communist Party has never ruled but claims as part of its territory and has vowed to win control over, by force if necessary.
A spokesman for China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army, said in a statement Friday that the U.S. delegation had sent a “serious wrong signal” to Taiwan, warning against what it described as external interference in support of Taiwanese separatists.
A social-media post published by the Chinese military’s Eastern Theater Command said destroyers, bomber and fighters engaged in a joint combat exercise and readiness patrol on Friday.
Beijing has ratcheted up its military activity around Taiwan in recent years, sending warplanes into Taiwan’s vicinity on a near-daily basis as diplomatic ties between Washington and Taipei have strengthened.
“They are very unhappy that we are here, but that did not dissuade us from coming and it won’t dissuade us in the future in supporting Taiwan,” Mr. Menendez told Ms. Tsai on Friday in Taipei, noting Beijing’s recent protests.
Using language anathema to Beijing, Mr. Menendez pointedly referred to Taiwan as a country, describing it as “a country of global significance, of global consequence, of global impact.”
The bipartisan delegation’s trip to Taipei came as U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the U.S. was seeking to prevent a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan.
“We are going to take every step we possibly can to ensure that never happens,” Mr. Sullivan said at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. on Thursday.
Earlier this month, the State Department notified Congress that it had agreed to sell $95 million in equipment, training and other services to support the island’s Patriot Air Defense System, the second such deal the White House has pushed through this year. China condemned the move.
Many made-in-China goods are now produced in Taiwan, creating an export boom to the U.S. as tensions rise between Washington and Beijing. WSJ visits a Taiwanese factory to see how geopolitics are complicating the business environment. Photo composite: Sharon Shi
This week’s Congressional visit to Taiwan represents the latest of a string of such delegations during the Biden administration, in addition to another in March led by Michael Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) was slated to visit Taiwan, according to people familiar with the matter. That trip, however, was scrapped at the last minute after Mrs. Pelosi tested positive for Covid-19.
Reports of Mrs. Pelosi’s planned trip had drawn ire from China’s Foreign Ministry, which said it raised objections to the U.S. and warned of retaliatory measures.
A spokesman for Mrs. Pelosi said last week that a planned trip to Asia had been postponed. It couldn’t be determined if new plans were being drafted. Mrs. Pelosi has since tested negative for Covid-19 and is no longer isolating.
Any visit to Taiwan by Mrs. Pelosi would make her the highest-ranking sitting U.S. lawmaker to visit the island since then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich traveled to Taipei in 1997 and met with then-Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui.
Write to Joyu Wang at joyu.wang@wsj.com
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G M link from another thread:
https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/taiwans-defense-plans-are-going-off-the-rails/
Good news I guess is that IF Taiwan is unprepared and unconcerned, counting on the Biden leadership to save them, this will be a short war.
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Important issues raised there.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18435/us-arm-taiwan
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/apr/12/chinas-orbiting-hypersonic-missile-part-of-growing/
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China’s Secret Navy in the South China Sea
Richard A. Bitzinger
Richard A. Bitzinger
April 23, 2022 Updated: April 23, 2022biggersmaller Print
Few regions are more strategically important to China than the South China Sea (SCS). Beijing has increasingly treated the SCS as a “Chinese lake,” subject to its “indisputable sovereignty.”
Beijing’s competing territorial claims within other countries bordering on the SCS have led China to be militarily engaged and active in this area for many years. This has often led to tensions, if not outright clashes.
The issue of Chinese hegemony in the South China Sea has been less and less about economics—oil and gas reserves or fishing rights—and more about control and sovereignty.
The South China Sea is, quite simply, a key defensive zone for Beijing. Accordingly, China has particularly increased its military presence in the region through expanded patrols by the PLA Navy (PLAN). In addition, there has been a dramatic military expansion on the Hainan and Woody islands in the western SCS.
Woody Island has witnessed the construction of a 2,700-meter runway that can accommodate most Chinese fighter jets, an improved harbor, and the deployment of long-range HQ-9B surface-to-air missiles (SAMs).
Beijing has also been engaged in a massive effort to assemble—and subsequently militarize—a constellation of artificial islands in the Spratlys, in the eastern part of the SCS. This building program included the construction of runways on Fiery Cross, Subi, and Mischief reefs, harbors and barracks, and, finally, the emplacement of radar stations, anti-aircraft guns, HQ-9B SAMs, and YJ-12B supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) to the islands.
Epoch Times Photo
An airstrip made by China is seen beside structures and buildings at the man-made island on Mischief Reef in the Spratlys group of islands in the South China Sea on March 20, 2022. (Aaron Favila/AP Photo)
Beyond an overt military presence in the SCS, China has lately expanded its paranaval activities. These include more traditional undertakings, such as increased patrols by the Chinese Coast Guard, and the use of an irregular but still Beijing-controlled “maritime militia”—the so-called “little blue men.”
Coast guards are usually noncontroversial in maritime matters. They are primarily concerned with protecting freedom of navigation and operations in regional sea lines of communication (SLOC). This includes combating piracy and other sea-based criminal activities, human trafficking, and drug smuggling.
Coast guards are also used to enforce exclusive economic zones (EEZs). EEZs are regional maritime territories, extending out from shore no more than 200 nautical miles, within which a country has exclusive rights to exploit for economic gain; this includes fishing but also oil and gas deposits.
EEZs in the SCS are particularly contentious since many countries’ claims overlap. Therefore, regional coast guards have found an increased function in enforcing EEZ rights.
The advantage of using coast guards in sovereignty enforcement operations is that they are lightly armed (usually just a small cannon or machine guns). This lowers the risk of catastrophic clashes in the SCS. But if such clashes increase or the stakes are raised, they could escalate into more violent action involving navies.
For example, using paranaval forces to sink commercial ships, resulting in a large loss of life, or employing coast guards to forcibly remove personnel from bases in the SCS or block oil and gas exploration from disputed areas and, thus, provoking armed resistance—all of these actions could increase the risk of conflict.
It should surprise no one that the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) is the largest in the SCS and one of the most active. Until recently, China operated five civil maritime forces: China Marine Surveillance (CMS), the Border Patrol, the Fisheries Law Enforcement Command, Customs, and the Maritime Safety Administration (MSA). Many of these forces overlapped in their missions and competed with each other. In 2013, the first four services were combined into a single China Coast Guard (CCG) under the command of the State Oceanic Administration.
The CCG operates over a hundred patrol boats, particularly the 41-meter Type-218 offshore patrol vessels, armed with twin 14.5mm machine guns. In 2007, the PLAN transferred two 1700-ton Type 053H (Jianghu-I) frigates to the CCG, making them the largest ships in the coast guard.
In 2016, China launched two 12,000-ton “monster cutters” for the CCG, the largest paranaval vessel in existence. At least one of these ships has been more or less permanently deployed to the SCS.
Unsurprisingly, the CCG has been one of the most aggressive paranaval fleets in the SCS. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the CCG has been involved in a sizable majority of clashes in the SCS, including bullying, harassing, and even ramming of other countries’ coast guard and fishing vessels. In November 2021, the CCG used water cannon on two Filipino supply boats operating within the Philippines’ EEZ.
But the CCG’s actions are nothing compared to those of China’s “militarized fisherman,” the so-called “little blue men” who go out in the SCS and purposely clash with ships from other nations, both commercial and naval. These are not simply private fishermen engaged in “patriotic activities.” On the contrary, these vessels are, in actuality, a maritime militia subsidized by Beijing and effectively a part-time military organization.
These boats are sent out to collect intelligence, show the flag, and promote sovereignty claims. Moreover, they are not above creating minor clashes with other ships. They provide Chinese naval and paramilitary forces, particularly the Chinese Coast Guard, with a pretext (protecting Chinese “civilians”) to intervene and thereby bolster China’s military presence in the SCS.
While this maritime militia has been around for years, they have lately become a much more active and aggressive force, and one that has a growing strategic purpose, what has been dubbed the “3Ds” of China’s SCS strategy: declare (Chinese claims), deny (other countries’ claims), and defend (those claims).
The use of paranaval and irregular maritime forces permits the Chinese to operate in overpowering numbers within the SCS. A RAND Corporation report calls this a “classic ‘gray zone’ operations … designed to ‘win without fighting” by overwhelming the adversary with swarms of fishing vessels,” further bolstering Chinese claims of “indisputable sovereignty” in the region.
China has created a powerful paramilitary tool by combining its reinvigorated coast guard with its increased use of a vast and aggressive maritime militia.
According to Jay Batongbacal, director of the Institute for Maritime Affairs at the University of the Philippines, the ultimate goal is to “establish de facto control and dominance over the entire South China Sea.”
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18480/what-to-do-about-china
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https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2022/05/05/report-chinese-hackers-stole-trillions-in-intellectual-property-from-multinational-companies/
we spend all the money doing research then they get if free from us
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Biden's QUAD meeting
(https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi0.wp.com%2Fpunjabnewstimes.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2022%2F05%2FTokyo-Modi-Biden-meeting.jpeg%3Ffit%3D626%252C460%26ssl%3D1&f=1&nofb=1)
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https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3180047/us-be-joined-other-quad-members-south-china-sea-nations-rimpac
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https://dailycaller.com/2022/06/06/australia-china-air-force-intercept-bundle-of-chaff/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2680&pnespid=rbZ7FHtBJaRAh6Cfqyi0As6MvR62SYl7J.ajzuFt9hhmrLJDCyshfS1o4KZggcaxA7EPOzYB
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is this not an act of war?
why cannot an Australian plane fly in China Sea?
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So too was deliberately letting the Wuhan Virus escape China on international flights while shutting down domestic flights-- and now Biden looks into lifting the Trump tariffs to sooth his domestic inflation troubles.
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China’s Risky Air Maneuvers Raise the Specter of an International Crisis
Jun 8, 2022 | 19:00 GMT
A digital illustration shows a jet overlaying the Chinese and Australian flags.
A digital illustration shows a jet overlaying the Chinese and Australian flags.
(Shutterstock)
China’s aggressive maneuvers performed while intercepting Western surveillance aircraft increase the chance of a mid-air collision and subsequent international crisis, with higher probabilities of escalation than in the past. On June 5, Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said that a Chinese J-16 fighter jet had on May 26 intercepted an Australian P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft in international airspace over the South China Sea. According to Marles, the J-16 flew dangerously close to the P-8, deployed flares alongside it, and released aluminum chaff designed to distract radar-guided missiles in front of the aircraft. The P-8 then returned to base after its engines ingested some of the aluminum decoys. The news of this interception follows similar accusations from Canada of China breaching international air safety norms. On June 1, the Canadian armed forces said Chinese jets repeatedly flew close to a Canadian CP-140 Aurora patrol aircraft over the East China Sea between...
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-and-russia-alarm-japan-with-navy-drills-south-of-tokyo/ar-AAYCCkb?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=7a46ccd14f8f4638819f2d350b298ab2&fbclid=IwAR04N0T25Em_6UcaNU-Opn8ZlzrCstZ1_u8f-2Tzs6oE2uQcxeRwgxMhLws
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U.S. approach to China hinges on new outreach from Marcos in Philippines
BY GUY TAYLOR THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A presidential transfer of power this week in the Philippines could either enhance or undermine U.S. efforts to unify Asian democracies against China’s expanding economic power and increasingly aggressive military activity.
Two familiar names will begin leading the Philippines into uncharted territory on Thursday as Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is inaugurated president decades after his dictator father was overthrown and Sara Duterte, the daughter of outgoing firebrand populist President Rodrigo Duterte, is sworn in as his vice president. Mr. Marcos, popularly known by his childhood nickname “Bongbong,” completed an astonishing personal comeback with a convincing win in the Pacific nation’s May 9 election.
With Mr. Marcos so far withholding specifics on foreign policy plans after the notoriously unpredictable Duterte era, speculation is coursing through U.S. national security circles over the future of the country, which was once the central bulwark of Washington’s Asia strategy.
Mr. Marcos has signaled a desire to improve the long-standing U.S.-Philippine military alliance, but he also has made overtures to China that he is open to a potentially dramatic expansion of ties between Manila and the communistruled government in Beijing.
A week after winning the presidency by a landslide in May, Mr. Marcos made headlines by holding what he described as “very substantial” talks with Chinese
President Xi Jinping, indicating plans to accelerate what many saw as Manila’s pro-Beijing shift during the Duterte years. Mr. Marcos, 64, said Mr. Xi had assured him that Beijing would support the Philippines in pursuing its own “independent foreign policy,” but he made no secret of his desire for tighter ties with China.
“The way forward is to expand our relationship not only [diplomatically], not only [in] trade, but also in culture, even in education, even in knowledge, even in health, to address whatever minor disagreements that we have right now,” Mr. Marcos said in a statement, according to Reuters.
Days later, however, he appeared to walk back the statement, saying he planned to stand firm against Beijing in territorial disputes over the South China Sea — the resource-rich waterway over which China claims sovereignty and through which trillions of dollars of trade pass annually.
Agence France-Presse reported that Mr. Marcos said he’ll seek to enforce an international ruling against Beijing’s claims to nearly all of the South China Sea, which have clashed in recent years with smaller territorial claims by the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan. Beijing has ignored the 2016 victory by Manila at the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration that rejected the historical basis of its territorial claims.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband, first gentleman Douglas Emhoff, will lead the official U.S. delegation to Thursday’s inauguration. China has dispatched Vice President Wang Qishan as Chinese President Xi Jinping’s special representative, China’s Foreign Ministry announced this week. Mr. Wang also headed the Chinese delegation for new South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s inauguration last month.
With regard to U.S.-Philippine relations, meanwhile, Mr. Marcos has reportedly also been in discussion with U.S. diplomats in Manila over plans to extend a delicate joint military pact with Washington that was often a source of acrimony between Washington and the Duterte administration.
The president-elect has signaled a desire to smooth over friction surrounding the Visiting Forces Agreement, which stipulates guidelines for American forces operating in the Philippines, as well as U.S. naval refueling operations and various military exercises.
The joint drills have been maintained with Filipino forces in recent years, despite the U.S. having all but shuttered its basing operations decades ago in the Philippines’ Subic Bay, once the largest U.S. military outpost in Asia.
Thousands of American and Filipino forces recently wrapped up one of their largest combat exercises in years — drills that showcased U.S. firepower in the northern Philippines near its sea border with Taiwan, which American officials say is under increasing threat of invasion from China, whose leaders claim to control the island democracy.
Mr. Marcos’ election in the Philippines arrives amid growing U.S. efforts to broaden engagement with Asian democracies by strengthening a web of security alliances and partnerships, with an emphasis on restraining China.
A recent report by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) think tank called for revitalizing the U.S.-Philippine alliance as a linchpin of Washington’s wider strategy “as competition with China intensifies across the Indo-Pacific.”
“The U.S.-Philippines alliance remains of critical importance due to the two countries’ deep historical and cultural ties, including the significant Filipino-American community in the United States, as well as the Philippines’ strategic location in the South China Sea,” said the report, which emphasized the Philippines’ geographic significance by noting that “if an adversary can coerce or easily penetrate the Philippine archipelago, Japan and Taiwan are easily flanked.”
With the Marcos election, the U.S. “should seek to reinvigorate this critical alliance and set it on firmer footing,” the report said.
Analysts say Mr. Marcos’ mandate offers an opportunity to rethink his country’s foreign policy orientation.
“The Marcos administration should assess and consider the current regional landscape to effectively redirect the country’s foreign policy,” said Victor Andres C. Manhit, who heads the Philippines-based Albert del Rosario Institute for Strategic and International Studies.
“Maritime security, economic diplomacy, and multilateral cooperation with like-minded states such as Japan, Australia, and the European Union are areas that need to be prioritized,” Mr. Manhit wrote recently in the Manilabased publication BusinessWorld.
Filipino trade with China has increased over the past decade, but unlike many East Asian economies, the United States remains the Philippines’ top economic partner.
But the U.S.-Philippines bilateral alliance was widely seen to have faltered during the Duterte years because of the outgoing president’s brutal and widely criticized anti-drug operations that resulted in widespread extrajudicial killings and human rights abuses, as well as Mr. Duterte’s outspoken attempts to cozy up to both China and Russia while at times openly railing against the United States.
Mr. Marcos has said he would maintain the country’s military alliance with the U.S., but the relationship is complicated by American backing of the administrations that took power after his father was deposed.
Mr. Marcos Sr. was ousted in 1986 after millions of people took to the streets, forcing an end to his corrupt dictatorship and a return to democracy. But the election of Mr. Duterte as president in 2016 marked a return of the strongman-type leader, which voters have now apparently endorsed with Mr. Marcos Jr.
The United States has a long history with the Philippines, which was an American colony for most of the early 20th century before gaining independence in 1946. Although the two have since been allies for more than 70 years, the history may grow more complicated under the new Marcos administration.
A 2011 U.S. District Court ruling in Hawaii found Mr. Marcos and his mother in contempt of an order to furnish information on assets in connection with a 1995 human rights class-action lawsuit against his father. The court fined them $353.6 million, which has never been paid and could complicate any potential travel to the United States.
Domestically, Mr. Marcos is widely expected to pick up where Mr. Duterte left off, stifling a free press and cracking down on dissent with less of the outgoing leader’s crude and brash style, while ending attempts to recover some of the billions of dollars his father pilfered from the state coffers.
But a return to the hard-line rule of his father, who declared martial law for much of his rule, is not likely, said Julio Teehankee, a political science professor at Manila’s De La Salle University.
“He does not have the courage or the brilliance, or even the ruthlessness, to become a dictator, so I think what we will see is a form of authoritarian-lite or Marcos-lite,” Mr. Teehankee told The Associated Press in May.
-
second
Repealing China tariffs would only empower them
The U.S. would resume the loss of jobs and capital to PRC
By Michael Faulkender and Steve Yates
President Biden is considering the cancellation of former President Donald Trump’s successful China tariffs, ostensibly to mitigate the worst inflation the U.S. has faced in 40 years. Gas prices have more than doubled under Mr. Biden’s tenure, reaching a record $5 per gallon nationwide average in recent weeks.
Rather than taking responsibility for the excessive stimulus caused by his American Rescue Plan Act and owning the anti-energy policies that have generated these crushing gas prices, Mr. Biden seeks to blame Mr. Trump’s China tariffs.
Eliminating tariffs imposed on China would have a minuscule effect on inflation while emboldening yet another autocrat, as it would represent a unilateral concession to the Communist Chinese government. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo confirmed that Mr. Biden has personally asked her to explore potential moves on the issue.
The People’s Republic of China is the premier threat to U.S. national security and a menace to its neighbors.
It remains Beijing’s official policy to “reunify” with Taiwan. China’s conquest of Taiwan, home to 92% of the world’s production capacity for the advanced semiconductors that make modern life possible, would give it a commanding position over the indispensable sea trade lanes in East Asia and would be a disaster for the United States.
The Chinese Communist Party supports the repeal of the Trump tariffs because they know it would advantage them. The tariffs established credible deterrence in our relationship with China for the first time in decades.
They brought the Chinese Communist Party to the table for an unprecedented “Phase 1” trade deal in 2020, aimed at establishing fair and reciprocal trade.
It required major structural changes by China in the areas of intellectual property, technology transfer, agriculture, financial services, currency, expanding trade and dispute resolution. At least one member of the Biden administration, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai recognizes the risk, saying, “Lifting tariffs now would cost the U.S. leverage at the negotiating table with the Chinese and would not do much to combat inflation.”
Mr. Trump imposed these tariffs to address one of the most important threats to American prosperity: the unequal and predatory trade practices of the People’s Republic of China. Before Mr. Trump’s tariffs were implemented in 2018, China’s intellectual property theft cost the United States an estimated $225 billion to $600 billion per year, and our trade deficit with China reached $418 billion. Both of these contributed to a hollowing out of America’s manufacturing base, costing 3.7 million American jobs between 2001 and 2018.
As a result of Mr. Trump’s America First economic policies, more than 500,000 manufacturing jobs returned to U.S. shores between Mr. Trump’s November 2016 election and February 2020.
There is no proof China tariffs signifi cantly increased inflation. From 2018 to 2020, inflation in the U.S. averaged 1.8%. Under Mr. Biden, the Consumer Price Index rose more than 7.5% in 2021 and could well reach 8.0% inflation this year. Removing all of Mr. Trump’s tariffs may lower inflation by a paltry 0.26%, according to a recent study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Rather than the present inflation crisis arising from Mr. Trump’s China policy, it is overwhelmingly due to policies that Mr. Biden has endorsed or enacted himself. A March 2022 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco found that the U.S. inflation rate has grown higher and more rapidly than in other advanced economies since Mr. Biden took office in early 2021 due to “direct fiscal support introduced to counteract the economic devastation caused by the pandemic.” The same study shows a massive spike in U.S. disposable income corresponding to the ARP, which injected trillions of dollars of direct assistance into consumers’ pockets and may explain about three percentage points of the inflation realized by early 2022.
A successful “America First” economic policy means empowering hardworking American citizens to strengthen our economy by pursuing their own personal prosperity, free from China’s economic manipulation. The way to ensure this is a free — and fair — foreign trade policy that renews American industry, jobs, and competitiveness.
The removal of the Trump-era China tariffs would result in a minuscule impact on inflation, at best, and would resume the leakage of jobs and capital to China that characterized the pre-Trump era while bolstering the corrupt and authoritarian CCP regime.
Mr. Biden’s misguided and desperate bid for temporary popularity must not take precedence over preserving a dynamic economic strategy that has successfully stymied our chief geopolitical rival.
Michael Faulkender is a former assistant secretary for economic policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Steve Yates is a former deputy assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney for National Security Affairs and is currently a senior fellow and chair for the China Policy Initiative at America First Policy Institute.
-
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/education/story/2022-07-08/uc-san-diego-expert-abe-assassination?_amp=true
China doing battlefield prep?
-
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/education/story/2022-07-08/uc-san-diego-expert-abe-assassination?_amp=true
China doing battlefield prep?
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/07/revealed-chatter-chinese-twitter-shinzo-abe-completing-task-posted-17-hours-shinzo-abe-assassination/
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Interesting article on China Taiwan
https://drpippa.substack.com/p/taiwan
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https://michaelyon.locals.com/post/2432216/china-collapsing
I take everything cited very seriously.
-
Well CDS rates are rising across the world. SriLanka has collapsed, many so called Frontier economies will collapse too. Famine could come to Africa, India has restricted wheat exports. All we need is Putin to shut oil/gas to Europe and if they run out of heat, things could get interesting.
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(https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IfYouEatToday.meme_-300x562.png)
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https://apnews.com/article/china-beijing-nancy-pelosi-taiwan-newt-gingrich-8ca46ccaeeb78634d455102b7eea31ff
China should know all they need do is threaten the pelosi fortune to get her to back off:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/01/26/beijing-nancy-pelosi-shifted-her-china-stance-as-her-family-scored-beijing-deals/
-
Looks like the ChiComs are pretty confident Nancy is their hag.
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/top-federal-reserve-officials-with-known-links-to-china-still-have-their-jobs-senate-republican-report-says
Says WH
lets see if they lift all tariffs maybe CCP will be nice to us............. :roll:
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/top-federal-reserve-officials-with-known-links-to-china-still-have-their-jobs-senate-republican-report-says
Says WH
lets see if they lift all tariffs maybe CCP will be nice to us............. :roll:
Negotiate from a position of weakness.
Where do they teach that?
The real question is, how do we shut this down without violating everyone's liberties.
(Start by telling us who the Supreme Court leaker was.)
--------
The article starts with:
"The report found that China — which holds nearly $1 trillion in Treasury securities —..."
What an insignificant amount that is, out of 30 trillion (?), and it hasn't gone up in how long, a decade or two? They aren't financing our deficits and if they were and threatened to stop, it would be a good thing. We spent 7 trillion last year, most of it on nothing, just mailing pretend money around.
---------
The strangest part of this story is that the communist government of China knows what is going on inside the Fed and we the people don't.
There (The Fed) is a branch of government that should be reformed, redefined and downsized, while we clean house and clean it up.
-
"(Start by telling us who the Supreme Court leaker was.)"
I can't believe we know nothing about the "investigation"
How long does it take to "investigate "
Roberts ....
:x
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https://dailycaller.com/2022/07/27/us-military-prep-war-pelosi-taiwan/
I like THIS MESSAGE better
then
"we don't need to escalate this....."
scumbags have been robbing us, bribing our institutions, sending spies over here ,
sent us the damn virus and
using every means of to undermine our country for decades
we are at war already
-
https://dailycaller.com/2022/07/27/us-military-prep-war-pelosi-taiwan/
I like THIS MESSAGE better
then
"we don't need to escalate this....."
scumbags have been robbing us, bribing our institutions, sending spies over here ,
sent us the damn virus and
using every means of to undermine our country for decades
we are at war already
Are you talking about our feral government or China?
It's hard to tell at this point.
-
GM:
Thought experiment for you:
What does the world, America's place in it, and Americans place in America look like if China takes Taiwan?
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GM:
Thought experiment for you:
What does the world, America's place in it, and Americans place in America look like if China takes Taiwan?
If the PRC takes Taiwan, it's the final nail in the coffin of Pax Americana and the rise of Pax Sinica.
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/088/863/154/original/ef065a1f49007a3d.png)
This will only increase the world's contempt for the rotting hulk that once was America. Whatever value the dollar holds at that point will plummet and any fantasy of reserve currency status will be as dead as the freedoms of the Taiwanese people.
China needs land and resources for it's population:
(https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/088/863/137/small/3ef9ddbb04b25ef7.png)
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/088/863/114/original/72cbd64374be3d11.png)
Our economy and rapidly degrading infrastructure need chips:
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1050,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/088/863/099/original/9f26d084b1f6b3d7.png)
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Very well done!
So, what are the implications for our Ukraine policy?
Can the Chinese takeover of Taiwan be stopped?
-
Very well done!
So, what are the implications for our Ukraine policy?
Any pain we have inflicted on Russia will be returned to us and our allies tenfold. Historians will see our Ukraine idiocy as the end of NATO and the EU.
Can the Chinese takeover of Taiwan be stopped?
If they had the weapons and equipment we left the Taliban? If they had the weapons and money we wasted in Ukraine? Quite possibly.
They better get nukes soon.
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https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-looks-tamp-down-taiwan-tension-during-china-xi-call-2022-07-28/
Tamp down tensions? They don't have tensions. The larger one wants to swallow the smaller one, like Russia and Ukraine.
The don't need a phone call to ease 'tensions'. The need real reasons to not do it.
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https://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-warns-pelosi-trip-marks-invasion-and-military-has-right-to-fire-on-her-plane/
:wink:
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https://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-warns-pelosi-trip-marks-invasion-and-military-has-right-to-fire-on-her-plane/
:wink:
The USAF aircrew would be the only ones I would feel bad for if that witch was shot down.
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China on the Offensive
How the Ukraine War Has Changed Beijing’s Strategy
By Bonny Lin and Jude Blanchette
August 1, 2022
Chinese President Xi Jinping delivering a virtual speech in Boao, China, April 2022
Chinese President Xi Jinping delivering a virtual speech in Boao, China, April 2022
Kevin Yao / Reuters
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/china-offensive
In the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Beijing was on the back foot. For weeks after Russian troops crossed Ukraine’s border, China’s messaging was stilted and confused as Chinese diplomats, propagandists, and foreign ministry spokespeople themselves tried to figure out Chinese President Xi Jinping’s line on the conflict. Xi’s “no limits” partnership with Russian President Vladimir Putin was incurring growing reputational costs.
Almost six months after the war’s outbreak and with no end in sight, Beijing has largely regained its footing. Its early concerns that the war would significantly increase overall European defense spending have yet to materialize. Although China would prefer the war to end with a clear Russian victory, a second-best option would be to see the United States and Europe exhaust their supplies of military equipment in support of Ukraine. Meanwhile, rising energy costs and inflation are threatening the resolve of European governments to hold the line on sanctions, signaling to Beijing a potential erosion in transatlantic unity. And even though in advanced democracies public opinion about China has clearly deteriorated, throughout the “global South,” Beijing continues to enjoy broad receptivity for its development assistance and diplomatic messaging.
At the same time, Beijing has concluded that regardless of the war’s outcome, its own external environment has become more dangerous. Chinese analysts see a growing schism between Western democracies and various nondemocratic countries, including China and Russia. China is concerned that the United States may leverage this growing fault line to build economic, technological, or security coalitions to contain it. It believes that Washington and Taipei are intentionally stirring up tension in the region by directly linking the assault on Ukraine to Taiwan’s safety and security. And it is concerned that growing international support for Taiwan will disrupt its plans for “reunification.”
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These perceptions of Western interference have put Beijing once again on the offensive. Moving forward, China’s foreign policy will increasingly be defined by a more bellicose assertion of its interests and the exploration of new pathways to global power that circumvent chokepoints controlled by the West.
WHO TELLS YOUR STORY
Beijing’s reorientation since the invasion is evident in several areas. At the highest level was China’s unveiling earlier this year of a new strategic framework, which it dubbed the “global security initiative.” Although it is still in its early stages, the GSI consolidates several strands of Beijing’s evolving conceptualization about global order. More important, it signals Xi’s attempt to undermine international confidence in the United States as a provider of regional and global stability and to create a platform around which China can justify augmenting its own partnerships. The GSI also counters what Beijing perceives to be false portrayals of China’s aggressiveness and revisionism.
Xi first outlined the GSI during a virtual speech in April. Strictly speaking, there was little new content in Xi’s speech. But in announcing the GSI, Xi was seeking to wrest narrative control on global security away from the United States and its allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific and discourage countries from joining U.S.-led military blocs or groupings. With this initiative, Xi has put something else on the table to compete with a U.S.-led discussion about what an international order should look like after the war in Ukraine. Core to Beijing’s broader story is that China is a force of stability and predictability in the face of an increasingly volatile and unpredictable United States.
Just as important, Beijing continues to position itself as an innovator and leader in twenty-first-century global governance. Since the GSI’s initial rollout, it has become a standard item to include in meeting readouts from China’s bilateral and multilateral engagements across Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America, evidence that Beijing is pushing for the diplomatic normalization of its new initiative, and thus, inclusion in the vernacular of global governance. Although the GSI may not gain much traction in Tokyo, Canberra, or Brussels, it will find resonance in Jakarta, Islamabad, and Montevideo, where frustration with elements of the U.S.-led order is manifest.
Xi’s April speech also confirmed that the strategic alignment between China and Russia continues, despite Putin’s disastrous war in Ukraine. In particular, Xi included a reference to “indivisible security,” a phrase that dates to the early 1970s and negotiations between the Soviet Union and the West known as the Helsinki Process, but under Putin, has become a short-hand for Moscow’s argument that NATO expansion directly imperils Russia’s own sense of security. As Chinese officials have made crystal clear, Beijing sees a direct connection between NATO’s expanding presence in Europe and the United States’ growing coalition of security partners in the Indo-Pacific. As Le Yucheng, then a top foreign ministry official, said in a May speech, “For quite some time, the United States has kept flexing its muscle on China’s doorstep, creating exclusive groups against China and inflaming the Taiwan question to test China’s red line.” He went on: “If this is not an Asia-Pacific version of NATO’s eastward expansion, then what is?” This linkage of the Russian security environment to China’s was also a central component of the joint statement put out by Xi and Putin on February 4.
MORE AND CLOSER FRIENDS
As part of its post-invasion reorientation, China is also rapidly strengthening partnerships with countries that fall outside of the Western camp—that is, most of the “global South.” China has long sought to deepen its friendships abroad, but it is now recognizing that some countries, such as European democracies, will never stand with it when forced to choose. Referencing Ukraine, Le lamented in March that “some major countries make empty promises to small countries, turn small countries into their pawn and even use them to fight proxy wars.” Beijing does not want to face the same fate if it were to find itself in a conflict against Taiwan or any of its neighbors. As the Chinese scholar Yuan Zheng has explained, Beijing believes “that a potential proxy war is what some hawkish individuals and groups back in the U.S. are expecting to take place in China’s neighborhood.” Even if Chinese leaders are still confident about their country’s political system and its growing economic and military power, they recognize that it is still dependent on external goods and resources to fuel its development and growing military capabilities. Accordingly, Beijing is moving fast to both deepen and broaden partnerships to increase its immunity to crippling sanctions and to ensure that it is not alone in hard times. This includes strengthening bilateral relations with Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. In August, Venezuela is expected to host a sniper competition as part of Russia-led military exercise in the Western Hemisphere that will likely involve China, Russia, Iran, and ten other countries in a show of force against the United States.
China is also keen to cement exclusive blocs of countries that will support it—or at least not support the United States. Chief among these efforts is China’s attempt to strengthen and expand the BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—as an alternative developing world bloc to compete with the Quad, the G-7, and the G-20. In May, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a meeting of BRICS foreign ministers that included an additional nine guests, including from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The next month, as the host of a BRICS summit, Xi advocated expanding the group and proposed new cooperative efforts on the digital economy, trade, and investment, and the supply chain. Xi also invited an unprecedented 13 world leaders to participate in a high-level dialogue on global development with BRICS countries, including Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. Not long after, Argentina and Iran officially applied to join the BRICS group, and Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey expressed interest in doing so, as well. In July, Moscow went so far as to suggest that the group’s members “create a new world reserve currency to better serve their economic interests.”
Perceptions of Western interference have again put Beijing on the offensive.
In addition to BRICS expansion, Beijing is seeking to transform the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which includes Russia, into a powerful bloc that can leverage deep political, economic, and military ties. China has long pushed for more SCO economic cooperation and proposed the establishment of a free trade agreement and creation of a SCO bank. Although these ideas fell flat last year, this year, in May, the SCO discussed the need for increased interactions among member states, particularly on international security and economic cooperation. As SCO formal membership expands to include Iran later this year, and potentially Belarus in the future, the organization is primed to become more assertive on the world stage. Indeed, this June, Tehran proposed that the SCO adopt a single currency and expressed hopes that the group can become a “concert of non-Western great powers.”
Within both blocs and beyond, it will be increasingly important to observe how much China, Russia, and Iran are able to deepen relations with one another and drive broader alignment among countries that are dissatisfied with U.S. leadership. Similarly, the extent to which China can leverage its close relationship with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to build support among Muslim countries, including with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Gulf Cooperation Council, is another variable affecting support for China among developing countries.
BACKING UP WORDS WITH FORCE
A final component of China’s foreign policy rethink concerns military force. Beijing believes that the West is incapable of understanding or sympathizing with what it views as legitimate Russian security concerns. There is no reason for China to assume that the United States and its allies will treat China’s concerns any differently. Because diplomacy is not effective, China may need to use force to demonstrate its resolve.
This is particularly true when it comes to Taiwan, and Beijing is now more anxious than ever about U.S. intentions toward the island and what it perceives to be increasing provocations. This has led to discussion among some Chinese foreign policy analysts about whether another Taiwan Strait crisis is imminent and, if so, how China should prepare. Yang Jiechi, a diplomat who serves on China’s Politburo, has stated that China will take “firm actions”—including using the military—to safeguard its interests. At the same time, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army has engaged in more exercises near Taiwan in an effort to deter potential third-party intervention. These dynamics likely explain why Beijing is issuing unusually sharp warnings over the visit to Taiwan that Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, is planning, saying that such a trip would “have a severe negative impact on the political foundations of China-U.S. relations.”
It would be a mistake to brush aside China’s warnings—and its threats of military action—simply because prior warnings have failed to materialize. Although the prospect of an invasion of Taiwan remains remote, Beijing has numerous paths to escalate short of outright conflict, including sending jets to fly over Taiwanese territory. And if Beijing did take more drastic action out of frustration with recent U.S. behavior, this could easily provoke a full-blown crisis.
IT’S UP TO XI
Will China’s recent efforts to shift the balance of momentum and power in its direction work? It remains to be seen if the GSI will fundamentally alter the international order, or even become a key pillar of China’s approach to global governance. China has tried and failed before to drive the discussion on global security, as was the case with its New Security Concept, a security framework that sought greater economic and diplomatic interactions, which was first articulated in 1996. Back then, of course, China had far less economic and diplomatic leverage. And regardless of its ultimate success, the GSI is an important window into how Beijing will seek to steer the conversation on regional and global security after the upcoming 20th Party Congress, which is expected to be held in the fall.
Beijing’s efforts to revitalize and expand existing organizations such as the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization also face obstacles. India, for instance, is a member of both blocs and may constrain any openly anti-American efforts. But even marginal improvements in the capabilities and cohesion of these groupings would help Beijing blunt any coercive or punitive moves that the United States and its allies may make against China in the years ahead.
But perhaps the biggest factor shaping China’s strategic environment moving forward is Beijing itself. On paper, one can begin to glimpse the initial outlines of China’s readjusted game plan. Deeper ties with the “global South.” A repurposing of existing Beijing-led institutions like the SCO. New concepts of security that align with its own vision for international order. Implemented well, this strategy would no doubt complicate U.S. foreign policy. But these efforts take considerable time, and they could unravel if Beijing’s increasingly aggressive and coercive behavior against its neighbors generates international pushback or reticence to work with China. Xi’s penchant for “own goals” and his dramatic overreach have proved to be the single biggest inhibitor for China’s grand strategy. His hunger for power could well doom Chinese foreign policy.
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I thought this was a big technological jump for latest US carriers
funny the ccp came up with it too on its 3rd carrier:
Fujian
https://eurasiantimes.com/deflating-chinas-3rd-aircraft-carrier-us-names-pla-navys-most-dangerous-warships/
how many spies do they have here?
-
:-o
I didn't think she had it in her!
I must admit
for the first time in my life I am actually proud of what Pelosi did
just surprised
since she and her party spend more time bashing the USA then standing up for it.
-
cow towing to China has not worked
they take advantage every which way but loose
so maybe standing up to them for a change will work
8-)
-
:-o
I didn't think she had it in her!
I must admit
for the first time in my life I am actually proud of what Pelosi did
just surprised
since she and her party spend more time bashing the USA then standing up for it.
I'm not sure what she's up to but yes, stand up to them.
A wants to visit B and C objects. C has nukes. So what. We have a little firepower too (and missile defense - and can't use our arsenal unless they strike first.
Looks like no WWIII yet.
https://apnews.com/article/china-asia-beijing-malaysia-a5a6acc391511c99b1b4c2d69e67b133
If I was selling to the Chinese, culture and 'face' matter. But these people, they are in open warfare against us. All they understand is appeasement and resolve. Which should we show?
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nikki-haley-says-chinas-temper-tantrum-wont-dictate-us-foreign-policy-pelosi-touches-down-taiwan
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"I'm not sure what she's up to but yes, stand up to them."
this is surely a head scratcher
truly defending democracy is not likely the real reason
other then for show
divert attention away from her corruption?
a pre midterm election gimmick?
:|
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:-o
I didn't think she had it in her!
I must admit
for the first time in my life I am actually proud of what Pelosi did
just surprised
since she and her party spend more time bashing the USA then standing up for it.
I'm not sure what she's up to but yes, stand up to them.
A wants to visit B and C objects. C has nukes. So what. We have a little firepower too (and missile defense - and can't use our arsenal unless they strike first.
Looks like no WWIII yet.
https://apnews.com/article/china-asia-beijing-malaysia-a5a6acc391511c99b1b4c2d69e67b133
If I was selling to the Chinese, culture and 'face' matter. But these people, they are in open warfare against us. All they understand is appeasement and resolve. Which should we show?
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nikki-haley-says-chinas-temper-tantrum-wont-dictate-us-foreign-policy-pelosi-touches-down-taiwan
It does appear at this point that the PRC blinked.
We should formally recognize the Republic of China and open an Embassy in Taipei.
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We should formally recognize the Republic of China and open an Embassy in Taipei
agree
offer them 51 st statehood? :-D
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We should formally recognize the Republic of China and open an Embassy in Taipei
agree
offer them 51 st statehood? :-D
I wouldn't want them to take on the national debt.
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"offer them 51st statehood?" :-D."
Our own ccp hits another home run! )
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Pompeo, whom I hold in high regard, says this.
"We should formally recognize the Republic of China and open an Embassy in Taipei".
Big Picture I agree, but we need to get our military shit together and harden up our many vulnerabilities (military and economic) first.
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Pompeo, whom I hold in high regard, says this.
"We should formally recognize the Republic of China and open an Embassy in Taipei".
Big Picture I agree, but we need to get our military shit together and harden up our many vulnerabilities (military and economic) first.
We've already lit the fuse. China wasn't parking tanks outside of banks for no reason. Xi has a real internal crisis on his hands.
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Pompeo, whom I hold in high regard, says this.
"We should formally recognize the Republic of China and open an Embassy in Taipei".
Big Picture I agree, but we need to get our military shit together and harden up our many vulnerabilities (military and economic) first.
We've already lit the fuse. China wasn't parking tanks outside of banks for no reason. Xi has a real internal crisis on his hands.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/18968094/us-lose-war-china-week-taiwan/
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https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/pelosi-departs-taiwan-after-president-tsai-bestowed-highest-medal-china-preps-largest
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"https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/pelosi-departs-taiwan-after-president-tsai-bestowed-highest-medal-china-preps-largest"
:roll:
right our military needs divisions of gays, feminists trans, and race baiters
to dox the CCP off the face of the battlefields.
that should work. :roll:
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https://www.history.com/news/us-china-relations-history-diplomacy-taiwan?cmpid=email-hist-inside-history-2022-0803-08032022&om_rid=&~campaign=hist-inside-history-2022-0803
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https://archive.ph/xEXnq
-
https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1181313
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18792/china-economic-race
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well we have legal pot
and are on the frontiers or psychedelics :roll:
and the concept of the metaverse
to me sounds like we will be able to experience our lives in a fantasy world
not the real world
plus if you ever watch Shark Tank
we might be leaders in ridiculous products
like a better fishing lure , more perfume , make up , new clothing ideas or better cupcakes
no drinks or wine in a bottle
or fandango mango soup etc ....
plus we are innovators of WOKISM
the new Christianity that will threaten the Western World
while Chinese CCP laugh their heads off
yes we are fuct
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Beijing’s Upper Hand in the South China Sea
Why Time Is Running Out to Secure U.S. Interests
By Gregory Poling
August 18, 2022
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/beijing-upper-hand-south-china-sea
Since the 1980s, the People’s Liberation Army Navy has sought to be the dominant power in the South China Sea. China has not yet accomplished that goal, but it is much closer than Washington cares to admit. China’s artificial island building and its expansion of military capabilities in the area, combined with a massive naval and air force modernization program, raise serious questions about the U.S. military’s ability to maintain primacy in the area. Admiral Phil Davidson, then commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, testified before the Senate in 2018 that China “is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States.” In reality, the balance has shifted even more than that. The truth is that the United States would likely have little choice but to cede the South China Sea in the opening stages of any conflict with China.
But China isn’t looking for a fight with the U.S. Navy. Even if China won, the costs for Beijing would outweigh the benefits. What China really wants is to convince the rest of Asia that the contest for primacy is already over. The greatest danger for U.S. military power in the South China Sea is not China’s preparations for war but its peacetime machinations. By using the China Coast Guard and maritime militia—state-funded and -controlled paramilitary forces that operate from fishing vessels—to steadily erode its neighbors’ access to their own waters, China hollows out the value of the United States as a regional security provider.
U.S. “forward presence,” the strategy of constantly having American forces deployed abroad to reassure allies and deter enemies, rests on the access provided by partners. In the South China Sea, that means Singapore and the Philippines. And those countries increasingly wonder what they’re getting from the United States in exchange for that access. The U.S. Navy might be free to sail the South China Sea, but Southeast Asians are being excluded from their own waters by the constant harassment of Chinese forces during peacetime. The more Chinese pressure builds, the more support for the United States seems like a bad bet—one that benefits Washington but not its partners.
UPPER HAND
If there were a military confrontation in the South China Sea, Chinese forces would have clear advantages, ones they have been building up for years. The United States might be able to neutralize the air and naval bases China built on artificial islands in the Spratlys, a disputed island chain. But the effort would be costly, time-consuming, and uncertain since U.S. forces are too far from the area and the military capability China has constructed on the islands have helped shift the balance of power in China’s favor. The closest U.S combat aircraft are based in Okinawa and Guam, 1,300 and 1,500 nautical miles from the Spratlys, respectively. China has four air bases in the South China Sea, not counting smaller installations or those along its coast. It could deploy combat aircraft to the islands for short tours of duty at the drop of a hat. Given its current force structure, China would have control over the airspace above the South China Sea during the early stages of any conflict. And its considerable advantage in missile forces would turn the South China Sea into a shooting gallery. It would quickly become clear that the United States could not protect American naval warships operating in the area.
China’s radar and signals intelligence capabilities in the islands are extensive and, most important, redundant. They couldn’t be easily blinded by U.S. forces, which means China would see the United States coming. And thanks to their surface-to-air, antiship, jamming, and other weapons systems, the islands are more defensible than many believe.
Sheer size also presents complications: The Pearl Harbor naval base could fit inside the lagoon at Subi Reef, the second largest of China’s bases in the Spratly Islands. Mischief Reef, its largest, is roughly the size of the I-495 Beltway around Washington, D.C. Plus, much of China’s military infrastructure has been buried or hardened against attack. This combination of size and fortification means that neutralizing the bases could require hundreds of missiles. And U.S. Indo-Pacific Command doesn’t have the ammunition to spare, especially when any U.S.-Chinese conflict is unlikely to be limited to the South China Sea. Anything thrown against the Spratlys would have to be taken away from the defense of Tokyo or Taipei. The math is already brutal and getting worse: the stronger China’s position becomes, the harder it gets to imagine U.S. forces operating in the South China Sea during a conflict.
The United States needs a small but capable force of air and missile assets in the Philippines.
Neither side wants such a fight, but that doesn’t make one impossible. U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Ely Ratner and U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Jung Pak said last month that Washington is increasingly worried about a sharp uptick in unsafe intercepts of American and Australian military planes by People’s Liberation Army aircraft over the South China Sea. A ship from China’s navy came within 45 yards of hitting the USS Decatur, a guided missile destroyer, during a freedom of navigation operation in 2018. Chinese militia boats have behaved even more aggressively. Miscalculations are plausible. And although there are mechanisms to prevent incidents and de-escalate those that occur, Chinese ships rarely follow the bridge-to-bridge protocols that are intended to prevent misunderstandings at sea, and calls on military hotlines to de-escalate crises often go unanswered.
Another potential risk is that something could go wrong during one of the many occasions when Chinese boats play chicken with their counterparts from other countries in the region. In April 2020, a China Coast Guard vessel rammed and sank a Vietnamese fishing boat in the Paracels, another disputed island chain in the South China Sea. A ship that likely belonged to the Chinese maritime militia did the same to a Filipino fishing boat in October 2019, leaving the crew members to their fate until a passing Vietnamese boat rescued them. In many other cases, especially when Chinese ships harass Philippine government boats delivering supplies to that country’s outposts in the Spratlys, collisions have been avoided by the narrowest margins. Given how many vessels China has deployed to its neighbors’ waters and how aggressively the Chinese government encourages them to behave, a loss of life seems inevitable. Were that to involve the Philippines, the United States might be called upon to respond under the U.S.-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty. Failure to do so would only accelerate the expansion of Chinese control over the South China Sea. But armed intervention would probably require the United States to jump several rungs up the escalation ladder, putting it closer to war with China. And if both sides felt compelled to posture rather than de-escalate, things could get out of hand. No matter how such a conflict ended, each would lose more than it gained.
BUYING TIME FOR VICTORY
Besides a military conflict that would likely be lose-lose, there are two other possible outcomes. The first is the one that Beijing seeks and toward which the region is drifting. In this scenario, China’s peacetime coercion would continue to raise the risks to neighbors undertaking normal activities in their own waters. It would become impossible to attract foreign investment in offshore oil and gas exploration and other commercial activity. Fishers would lose their livelihoods, either because the Chinese militia and coast guard make life too difficult or because overfishing and reef destruction wipe out stocks.
Most other claimants to the South China Sea would eventually hold their noses and take whatever deal Beijing puts on the table. The U.S.-Philippine alliance would likely end as Manila concluded that it provided little benefit while irritating Beijing. U.S. ability to project power in the South China Sea would steadily decline as China’s grew. Other states would more aggressively assert their own excessive maritime claims, further undermining the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. This would start with bad actors such as Russia and Iran but would eventually spread as rule-abiding states saw themselves disadvantaged by the excessive claims of their neighbors. And China, confident in the United States’ inexorable decline, would challenge other rules and institutions, especially in Asia. The net effect would be a regional and global order that is less stable and much more threatening to the interests of the United States and its remaining allies.
A far preferable alternative outcome would secure U.S. interests at an acceptable cost by pushing China toward a compromise that its neighbors and the international community could live with. As U.S. officials have been saying since the 1990s, any agreement between the stakeholders must be consistent with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. That means China must recognize all the freedoms of the seas: unimpeded navigation for commercial traffic, access for foreign navies, and resource rights for coastal states. And any such agreement between China and the other South China Sea claimants must be reached without force or coercion. Luckily, the convention provides plenty of opportunities for compromise if all sides are serious about it.
The details of the arrangements between China and its neighbors shouldn’t matter to the United States. The goal of U.S. policy should be to cajole China into seeking compromise and then support Washington’s allies and partners in whatever they decide, so long as it is legal and peaceable. Doing so will require a years-long effort to impose costs on and shape incentives for China. The United States cannot do this alone: it must involve a coalition of Asian and European partners. That coalition must impose diplomatic and economic costs, as well as strengthen Southeast Asian military capabilities, to help deter outright aggression from China. Since 2016, Beijing has been running away with the game and has had little reason to want a deal. But that could change if a critical mass of states began treating China the way they do other bad actors—Russia, for instance. That would make it apparent that Beijing’s policies in the South China Sea undermine its larger goals. It would signal that China can be a global leader or a regional bully, but not both.
Anything thrown against the Spratlys would have to be taken away from the defense of Tokyo or Taipei.
There are no military solutions in the South China Sea, but American hard power will play an indispensable role in any successful strategy. A multilateral campaign to change Beijing’s calculus through diplomatic, economic, and legal pressure will take years. And in the meantime, China’s military power will continue to grow. Pressure on its neighbors will build. The only thing that will buy those countries the space and time they need to see through a long-term strategy is U.S. military support.
The United States and other security partners must continue to provide capacity-building assistance to the region. But the most important role the U.S. military can play is direct deterrence on behalf of the Philippines, keeping U.S. forces close enough to credibly threaten China with retaliation should it use force against Manila. As Chinese strength grows, it will test the seams of the U.S.-Philippine alliance. And without access to rotate U.S. assets through the Philippines, the United States will find it increasingly difficult to credibly respond to provocations. For instance, if China opts to use force to remove the Sierra Madre, a grounded Philippine warship that Manila has turned into an outpost on Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratlys, U.S. power in Okinawa and Guam won’t matter. The United States needs a small but capable force of air and missile assets in the Philippines, close enough to put Chinese surface ships at risk and to respond to small provocations before they escalate. Manila and Washington recently launched long-overdue efforts to modernize their alliance, but time is short.
The South China Sea isn’t lost to the United States and its partners yet. No other government has endorsed China’s interpretation of maritime law; no country has accepted Beijing’s territorial claims. The United States is still the preferred security partner for most of the region. And the U.S.-Philippine alliance is still alive and overwhelmingly popular. There continues to be a path to secure U.S. national interests at an acceptable cost. It is narrower and more uncertain than it was a few years ago. But that should be cause for urgency, not resignation
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http://www.learningaboutelectronics.com/Articles/Mini-mental-state-examination.php
this is obvious
what I am waiting for is some elite "historian" or university professor to link this to the trade of opium to China......
Some Ivy leaguer will somehow use this history to then turn around and blame us....
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US is f****d
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/sep/21/senators-warn-us-incapable-protecting-american-inn/
thanks for telling us 30 yrs too late while any idiot could see CCP is ripping us off!
:x
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read somewhere on my I phone news that us
using phishing trojan horse techniques
NSA
hacked into Chinese military hardware and successfully obtained there satellite and space and other data
I cannot find it now though
Maybe this is what I was reading :
https://thehackernews.com/2022/09/china-accuses-nsas-tao-unit-of-hacking.html
If true it is good start
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US Senators Seek to Establish ‘China Grand Strategy Commission’ to Confront Threats From CCP
By Mary Hong October 2, 2022 Updated: October 2, 2022biggersmaller Print
Sens. Angus King (I-Maine), John Cornyn (R-Texas), and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) have introduced legislation that would establish a commission tasked with developing a comprehensive whole-of-government approach to the threat the communist regime in Beijing poses to the U.S. economy, security, and foreign relations.
A bipartisan group of 15 senators is co-sponsoring the effort to establish a China Grand Strategy Commission; they intend to add the measure as an amendment to the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act.
“We simply cannot afford an ad hoc China policy that lacks a long-term strategy,” King said in a statement. “The world is undergoing a period of significant change: economies are shifting, alliances are changing, and national security threats are rapidly evolving.
“At almost every turn, the United States is facing new challenges from an increasingly aggressive China.
The proposed commission would include 18 members from the executive and legislative branches as well as business representatives.
The mission is to “make actionable recommendations to develop a grand strategy across the entire government” that protects and strengthens U.S. national security interests, King said.
The recommendations by the panel would be for the purposes of “ensuring a holistic approach toward the People’s Republic of China across all federal departments and agencies; defining specific steps necessary to build a stable international order that accounts for the People’s Republic of China participation in that order; and providing actionable recommendations with respect to the United States’ relationship with the People’s Republic of China.”
Epoch Times Photo
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “China’s Non-Traditional Espionage Against the United States: The Threat and Potential Policy Responses” in Washington on Dec. 12, 2018. (Jennifer Zeng/The Epoch Times)
Liberalism or Socialism
Cornyn said that the Chinese Communist Party’s ambitions paint an alarming picture for U.S. economic and national security.
“Confronting threats from China is the greatest security imperative of our generation and a strategic, whole-of-government approach is the only way forward,” he said.
“Over the years, the U.S–China relationship has evolved in ways few could have predicted,” Kaine said.
“A China Grand Strategy Commission would help accomplish [preserving the status of the United States as the world’s preeminent power] by creating a long-term, comprehensive strategy to manage this consequential relationship,” he added.
Epoch Times Photo
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) speaks at the Senate subcommittee hearing on The China Challenge, Part 3: Democracy, Human Rights, and the Rule of Law, on Dec. 4, 2018. (Jennifer Zeng/The Epoch Times)
The proposed commission would have a structure closely modeling that of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, which King co-chairs.
According to the statement, the Cyberspace Solarium Commission made more than 80 concrete recommendations for how to improve U.S. national security in cyberspace, more than 85 percent of which are fully or partially implemented or on track for implementation.
The China Commission legislation has already been praised by top military leaders, including U.S. Army Gen. Stephen Townsend, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) commander; Gen. Glen VanHerck, NORTHCOM/NORAD commander; Gen. David Berger, commandant of the Marine Corps; Lt. Gen. Michael Langley, AFRICOM commander nominee; and Army Lt. Gen. Bryan Fenton, U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) commander nominee.
Sens. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Jackie Rosen (D-Nev.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Tom Young (R-Ind,), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) are co-sponsors of the proposal, according to the statement.
Chen Ting contributed to this report.
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https://news.yahoo.com/increasing-number-chinese-researchers-leaving-182311322.html
here is report cited:
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2209/2209.10642.pdf
written by Chinese
(CCP?)
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https://news.yahoo.com/increasing-number-chinese-researchers-leaving-182311322.html
here is report cited:
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2209/2209.10642.pdf
written by Chinese
(CCP?)
It's what you would do prior to the start of a war...
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GPF
Quad goals. The Philippine military is expanding cooperation with the four Quad alliance states – Australia, India, Japan and the United States. The chief of the Philippine army met with top defense officials from Australia and Japan, as well as New Zealand, to reaffirm ties during joint exercises last week. India’s ambassador has also offered training in operational and cybersecurity fields for the Philippine military while U.S. lawmakers met with Philippine officials on Sunday to discuss increased cooperation.
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Who runs Hong Kong?
Putin's friend Xi runs Hong Kong now.
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2022/10/11/Hong-Kong-US-Russia-John-Lee-Alexey-Mordashov/5541665491686/
Hong Kong said Tuesday that it would not seize the superyacht of a Russian oligarch who is under Western sanctions. The $521 million Nord Vessel is linked to Alexei Mordashov, an ally of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and one of the country’s richest men. The ship had made the week-long voyage from Vladivostok to Hong Kong.”
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Philippines works with the West. More than 700 members of the Philippine military are participating in bilateral naval exercises with the U.S. and Australia. Training will cover territorial defense, anti-submarine warfare and maritime law enforcement activities. The strategically important Philippines has been strengthening ties with the U.S. in recent weeks, and the exercises come amid reports of increased tensions with China.
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China, Philippines: Beijing Looks to Shore Up Ties With Manila
2 MIN READOct 13, 2022 | 15:57 GMT
What Happened: China and the Philippines have agreed to cooperate under the Belt and Road Initiative on semiconductors, electronics and energy, the South China Morning Post reported Oct. 13. To that end, they will build complementary industrial parks that offer tax breaks and other incentives, the first of which will be built in China's Fujian province, from which many ethnically Chinese Filipinos originate, with a corresponding park located in the Philippines.
Why It Matters: As the United States continues to decouple more of its operations from China and limit the export of U.S. semiconductor technology to China, Beijing is looking to establish alternative production bases, integrate existing supply chains and boost innovation. China's efforts to court the Philippines are therefore due to Beijing's desire to use the country's geographic position to maintain supply chains across the Pacific, as it lies between the Americas and continental Southeast Asia. The Philippines is unlikely to side with either China or the United States amid their strategic competition, especially while territorial disputes in the South China Sea persist, but the country will continue to maintain strong economic ties with both world powers.
Background: On Oct. 7, the United States added more restrictions to the export of supercomputing and artificial intelligence chips and components to China, as well as exports of semiconductor equipment that can be used to make advanced logic and memory chips. Washington also made it easier for the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security to add companies to its Entity List, which is the bureau's toughest export control blacklist. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. reaffirmed the U.S.-Phillippine partnership and alliance when he spoke with U.S. President Joe Biden in September, spooking China.
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https://www.defenseone.com/business/2022/10/commercial-planes-ships-would-play-large-role-pacific-war-transcom-head-says/378524/
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By: Geopolitical Futures
Quad cooperation. Australia and Japan will sign a defense agreement this weekend, strengthening military cooperation between the two allies. The deal is expected to complement an existing agreement that allows each nation’s military to be stationed on the other’s territory. Both countries have been expanding defense ties across the region in recent months to secure supply chains and counter Chinese moves. Japan is set to host the Malabar naval drills involving the Quad states – the U.S., Australia, Japan and India – in November. It will also provide new stealth antennas to India as part of its growing military export program, in a further sign of growing ties between the Quad allies.
====================
Military financing. The U.S. has offered the Philippines $100 million in military financing, according to Washington’s ambassador in Manila. The money will likely be used to purchase Chinook helicopters from the U.S. after the Philippines scrapped a deal worth $227 million in August to purchase Russian-made Mi-17s because of fears of U.S. sanctions. It was reported at the time that Manila was looking to replace the 16 Russian helicopters with Chinooks
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Drilling in the Pacific. The United States and Japan began on Thursday joint drills involving over 30,000 troops and dozens of ships and aircraft in southwestern Japan. The exercises focus on island defense and are running concurrently with the Malabar exercises involving members of the Quad alliance – Australia, India, Japan and the United States. Elsewhere in the Pacific, the U.S. Embassy in Manila said on Thursday that Washington would provide equipment to support Philippine search and rescue operations and enforcement of maritime law. And on Wednesday, senior Philippine and French naval officials met to discuss defense cooperation.
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https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/ASEAN-talks-lay-bare-deep-divisions-on-South-China-Sea-Ukraine
Paywall blocked, I will look for another source.
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Here it is:
ASEAN talks lay bare deep divisions on South China Sea, Ukraine
U.S. allies' clash with Russia, China overshadows end of bloc's meetings in Cambodia
Leaders from across the Asia-Pacific region take part in the East Asia Summit on Nov. 13, part of three days of ASEAN-led meetings in Phnom Penh. © Agence Kampuchea Press
CLIFF VENZON and TSUBASA SURUGA, Nikkei staff writers
November 13, 2022 14:10 JSTUpdated on November 13, 2022 19:00 JST
PHNOM PENH -- Southeast Asian leaders on Sunday concluded their annual summit, after three days of intense talks on everything from the crisis in Myanmar to the Ukraine war and tensions in the South China Sea.
The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations held the marathon meetings in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, where discussions with bigger powers including China, the U.S. and Russia highlighted deep divisions on critical security issues.
"We must maintain ASEAN unity regardless of circumstances for the best interests of the whole region," Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, this year's rotating ASEAN chair, said as he handed over the chairmanship to Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
Shortly before the proceedings wrapped up, U.S. President Joe Biden, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida participated in the East Asia Summit, which brought together leaders from ASEAN as well as eight dialogue partners -- South Korea, Australia, India and Russia also among them.
The anticipated East Asia Summit statement was not immediately released, amid reports that the U.S. and Russia disagreed on the language. Still, an initial draft seen by Nikkei Asia and remarks by various leaders over the three days offered a window on participants' mindset -- and a preview of a closely watched bilateral meeting between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, set to take place in Bali on Monday.
The presidents of the world's top two economies will be coming face to face just ahead of the Group of 20 summit on the picturesque Indonesian island. Some hope their first in-person meeting since Biden took office last year might ease tensions between the superpowers. But in Cambodia, there was little sign that the U.S. and China can find much common ground.
Biden calls for a "free and open" Indo-Pacific, pushing back against China's effort to dominate much of the South China Sea. Beijing has reclaimed and militarized islands to assert its expansive claims over the strategic waterway, where ASEAN members Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines also lay claims.
A White House handout about Sunday's East Asia Summit said Biden underscored that freedom of navigation and overflight must be respected in both the East China and South China seas, and that all disputes must be resolved peacefully and in accordance with international law. Biden also said the U.S. would "compete vigorously" and vowed to speak out on Chinese human rights abuses, while keeping lines of communication open to prevent conflict.
In the draft of the East Asia Summit statement, some leaders expressed "concern" over land reclamation and other activities that have "eroded trust and confidence, increased tensions, and may undermine peace, security, and stability in the region." They did not, however, name China.
Beijing, which prefers to deal with maritime disputes bilaterally with other claimants, has previously slammed what it describes as Washington's interference. During a summit with ASEAN counterparts on Friday, Li said, "We have full confidence, wisdom and capacity to take the key to the South China Sea issue firmly in our own hands."
On Sunday, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said international law and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea should be followed in the South China Sea, which he called a vital global trade route.
"It's important to avoid conflict," Marcos stressed to reporters afterward.
Marcos also said that a long overdue "code of conduct" being negotiated by ASEAN and China is "urgently needed." He did not directly cite the arbitration ruling Manila won in 2016, which invalidated Beijing's expansive claims to the sea -- a decision China rejects.
Cambodia's Ream Naval Base in Sihanoukville: The U.S. has expressed concern about the China-funded facility. © Reuters
There were other friction points. In a meeting with Hun Sen on Saturday, Biden raised "concern" about Chinese military activities at the Beijing-funded Ream Naval Base, situated on Cambodia's coast on the Gulf of Thailand. The White House said the president stressed the importance of "full transparency."
Another pressing security matter on Sunday's agenda, meanwhile, was the threat posed by North Korea's missile and nuclear programs. The draft East Asia Summit statement expressed "grave concerns" over the recent surge in Pyongyang's ballistic missile testing.
"This worrisome development reflects an increased tension on the Korean Peninsula and threatens peace and stability in the region and in the world," the document said.
Kishida sought stronger support from ASEAN leaders in dealing with North Korea. At one point during the weekend, he called Pyongyang's recent ballistic missile launches a "clear and serious challenge to the international community."
They "can never be overlooked," he insisted.
North Korea was a key topic for a three-way sideline meeting between Biden, Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on Sunday. Biden said the three nations are "more aligned than ever" on the threat from Pyongyang.
Separately, Kishida also stressed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, where Beijing has not ruled out using force to "reunite" with Taiwan. Biden made the same call for peace at the East Asia Summit, according to the White House.
Looming over all of the discussions was the conflict half a world away in Ukraine.
During the East Asia Summit, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said leaders discussed Russia's ongoing invasion, which has unleashed economic and security shock waves in Asia.
"I pointed out that Russia's actions were causing an enormous human toll, that it was an illegal invasion," Albanese told reporters. He also called it "a breach of the international rule of law" that was "having economic consequences and rising costs of inflation through energy prices throughout the world."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, seated, talks with Singaporean Minister of Foreign Affairs Vivian Balakrishnan during the East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh on Nov. 13. © Reuters
The initial East Asia Summit draft statement called for respecting "sovereignty, political independence [and] territorial integrity" and underlined "the importance of an immediate cessation of hostilities."
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was on hand to push Moscow's position.
Russia's state-run news agency Tass said Lavrov criticized NATO's expanding scope to the Indo-Pacific and said the U.S. and its allies were not taking into account "the interests of most of the countries that are here."
Despite Ukraine's geographical distance, this year's ASEAN meetings became a key forum for both sides to argue their cases. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dymtro Kuleba met counterparts on the sidelines of the summit and urged them to condemn Moscow's invasion and support his country.
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/11/19/billionaire-mike-bloomberg-apologizes-after-former-uk-pm-boris-johnson-criticizes-china-at-singapore-event/
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What excrement Bloomberg is!
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Global Tensions Spur a Sea Change in Japan
Public opinion polls show more than 60% support for higher military spending.
Walter Russell Mead hedcutBy Walter Russell MeadFollow
Nov. 28, 2022 6:24 pm ET
Tokyo
Riots in China, deepening war in Ukraine, continuing upheavals in Iran: It’s been a dramatic week in world affairs. But the quiet revolutions sometimes matter more. Japan is one of the stablest countries on earth, and there are no crowds in the streets as bureaucrats shuffle papers and write reports.
Nevertheless, what is in those reports will have a massive impact on world politics—and could well determine the outcome of the U.S.-China competition.
Germany’s Zeitenwende, or historical turning point—the abandonment of appeasement as the basis of Russia policy and a shift toward greater military spending—has received more attention. But as I learned on a recent visit to Tokyo, the shifts taking place in Japan go further and rest on a wider consensus than anything happening in Berlin.
The pandemic years saw a steady increase in political and military tension in Japan’s neighborhood. Fiery rhetoric from China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats was frequently aimed at Japan. North Korea stepped up its missile program. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shocked a public firmly committed to the post-World War II framework of international law based on the United Nations Charter. China’s support of Russia’s invasion stunned Japanese observers and drove home the danger that China could launch an attack on Taiwan.
A new national-security strategy is expected to be released before the end of the year, and Japanese and foreign observers alike expect it to be a scorcher. Japan is on course to double defense spending, embrace “counterstrike” weapons that would give Japan-based missiles the ability to strike targets on mainland Asia, develop a world-class arms industry based on cutting-edge technology, and upgrade its self-defense forces into one of the world’s most powerful militaries.
Japan turned a corner during the past three years. Public opinion, once resolutely pacifist, has shifted. Polls now show more than 60% support for higher military spending. Officials who previously sought to avoid characterizing China as a threat now speak candidly about the need to counter China and, if necessary, to defend Taiwan. Diplomats and military analysts agree that Chinese control of Taiwan and the surrounding waters would seriously damage Japan’s global position. Several people told me that China’s next step after occupying Taiwan would be to press claims to Okinawa. Others said that control over Taiwan and the surrounding waters would give China a strategic chokehold on trade routes vital to Japan.
Many expected Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who represents Hiroshima in the Diet, to embrace a less activist course than his predecessor, Shinzo Abe. But in part because of his previous reputation as a dove, Mr. Kishida has so far pushed the envelope further while encountering less resistance than Abe’s sometimes brash approaches. Even traditional pacifists like longtime Liberal Democratic Party coalition partner Komeito have softened their opposition to a stronger military.
What happens in Tokyo matters. Japan is America’s single most important ally, and the strategic bond between the two powers is the foundation of America’s position in the Indo-Pacific. Japan’s decision to double down on its American alliance while building up its own capabilities is a major setback for China’s effort to reshape East Asia. In the Philippines and Southeast Asia, Japanese investment and trade help counter China’s economic power. Japanese diplomacy, less hectoring and more culturally sensitive than America’s sometimes abrasive preaching on issues like human rights, is often more effective in Asian capitals. The steady development of closer Japanese relations with India and Australia has been a major factor behind the rapid evolution of the Quad.
Much remains to be done. Japanese-Korean relations, despite some improvements under South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, remain difficult. Japan itself, with a stagnant economy and the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, will be hard put to sustain the necessary military buildup.
But at this point it is the U.S. that must do more to secure the peace of East Asia. Given the long military supply lines across the Pacific and the likely difficulty of providing supplies if hostilities break out, the U.S. should position substantial quantities of weapons and supplies in the region. American as well as Taiwanese and Japanese officials told me that current stockpiles are woefully insufficient.
Beyond that, Washington still needs a regional economic strategy. Expanding economic integration between the U.S. and friendly Asian economies is an essential dimension of any long-term policy for the Indo-Pacific.
America’s unique ability to attract powerful allies around the world remains critical to our national security and the values we cherish. The Japanese strategic awakening is historic, and Americans should do everything we can to support it.
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Communist China ‘Tempting a Crisis’ With Military Provocations: DOD Official
By Andrew Thornebrooke December 8, 2022
Communist China is baiting a catastrophic conflict in the Indo-Pacific by engaging in threatening and erratic military maneuvers designed to intimidate the United States and its allies.
The regime’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), frequently risks the lives of its pilots and those of the United States and its allies by conducting aggressive close maneuvers, according to Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner.
“We have PLA aircraft coming within tens of feet of allied aircraft; we have them releasing flares and chaff, we have them doing dangerous maneuvers around aircraft and, to exactly this point, it is tempting a crisis that could have geopolitical and geoeconomic implications,” Ratner said during a talk with the American Enterprise Institute on Dec. 8.
“If Beijing’s intent is to somehow intimidate the United States out of operating according to international law, that hasn’t worked [and] it’s not going to work. But it is very reckless behavior.”
Ratner’s comments referred to increasingly common incidents in which PLA aircraft have attempted, and sometimes succeeded, in forcing allied aircraft out of international airspace by releasing chaff, a countermeasure made of numerous shards of metal, into their engines mid-flight.
In one such episode in May, an Australian aircraft was forced to cut its mission short and engage in an emergency landing after PLA chaff significantly damaged its engines, threatening the lives of its crew.
Weeks later, PLA fighter pilots flew within 20 feet of a Canadian surveillance plane, made eye contact, and presented the Canadians with the middle finger. Canada reported more than 60 such incidents in the first half of the year.
The Canadian aircraft involved had been on a U.N. mission to investigate reports that Chinese ships were violating international sanctions by illegally delivering oil to North Korean vessels at sea.
Ratner said that the provocations demonstrated China’s communist regime did not care about being taken seriously as a superpower.
“It is a pattern of behavior that has been growing in particular over the last year and a half or so,” Ratner said.
“On the whole, the PLA is not yet willing or serious about trying to manage this competition in a way that we would expect a responsible or aspiring major power to do so. We think that’s a huge problem.”
The CCP Rejects International Law
Ratner’s comments follow the release of the Pentagon’s annual China Military Power Report, which found that communist China was engaged in a whole of society effort to seize Taiwan and displace the United States as leader of the international order.
Ratner described the report as “the most authoritative unclassified articulation of PRC capability and strategy,” using an acronym for communist China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.
Epoch Times Photo
A Navy Force helicopter under the Eastern Theatre Command of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) takes part in military exercises in the waters around Taiwan, at an undisclosed location on Aug. 8, 2022, in this handout picture released on Aug. 9, 2022. (Eastern Theater Command/Handout via Reuters)
To that end, Ratner connected the PLA’s provocations to the regime’s larger ambition of becoming a global military power. He said that the maneuvers were intended to push the United States and its allies out of the Indo-Pacific but that such an effort was doomed to fail.
“We’re going to continue to fly, sail, and operate in a way that is consistent with international law, that is responsible, that is peaceful, regardless of this behavior,” Ratner said.
Ratner warned that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its leader Xi Jinping “don’t accept” international law and refuse to accept the peaceful transit of vessels in international waters where it seeks hegemony.
As such, he said, the United States would continue to lead an international effort to present a model of responsible statecraft in the Indo-Pacific and work peacefully with partners throughout the region even as the CCP engages in military intimidation.
“We’re seeing a more global PLA,” Ratner said. “One that is pursuing installations around the world, very ambitious aspirations with the projection of power and sustaining power overseas.
“The region is looking to Washington and Beijing to manage this more responsibly, and I want there to be no doubt that the Department of Defense … have an outstretched hand to say ‘let’s have a conversation.’”
A Conflict of Decades
Speaking at the same event, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for China Michael Chase said that the Pentagon expects 2023 to be a decisive year in the competition between the CCP and United States, but the PLA threat will not end anytime soon.
Indeed, according to Chase, the Pentagon anticipates the CCP’s aggression, and related risk of catastrophic conflict, to continue for at least three more decades.
“This is part of what makes the PRC the pacing challenge,” Chase said. “There are challenges that we could face in the very near term, over the next five years, and beyond.
“Xi Jinping has set goals for the PLA to accomplish in 2027, 2035, and all the way up to 2049, and we have to be prepared to deal with the challenges they present through that entire time period.”
To that end, Chase said that the CCP sought nothing less than to become a global military power, with a string of bases and other installations spreading its malign influence throughout multiple continents.
“It’s increasingly clear that the PRC has global ambitions for the PLA,” Chase said.
“We now see the pursuit of a global network of logistics and support facilities and bases to help them build that out and become a global military power.”
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December 14, 2022
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Daily Memo: Manila Concerned by 'Swarming' Chinese Boats
Philippine authorities worry that their access to resource-rich areas slated for joint exploration could be cut off.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Boat swarm. The Philippine Department of National Defense said it was concerned about Chinese vessels “swarming” within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. Growing numbers of Chinese boats have gathered near shoals in the area in recent months, raising alarm among Philippine authorities that their access to resource-rich areas slated for joint exploration could be cut off. Manila has been strengthening military ties with Japan and the United States recently.
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The Sleeping Japanese Giant Awakes
Tokyo rolls out the most important shift in defense strategy and spending since World War II.
By The Editorial Board
Dec. 16, 2022 6:38 pm ET
History is on speed-dial these days, and the latest seismic shift is Japan’s announcement Friday of a new defense strategy and the spending to implement it. This is an historic change, and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida deserves credit for taking the political risk to educate his country about the growing threats from China and North Korea and how to deter them.
Tokyo said it will increase defense spending to 2% of the economy by 2027, double the roughly 1% now. The accompanying strategy documents are right to call the current moment “the most severe and complex security environment” since the end of World War II.
The strategy explicitly mentions the “challenge” from Beijing. Recall that five Chinese ballistic missiles landed in Japan’s nearby waters in August. North Korea routinely lobs missiles over the islands. Tokyo says it will prepare “for the worst-case scenario.”
Notably, the strategy calls for acquiring longer-range missiles that can strike enemy launch-sites and ships, perhaps including the purchase of some 500 U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles. This is the kind of capability that forces other countries to think twice before attacking a sovereign neighbor.
Also welcome is the focus on the vulnerability of East Asia’s first island chain, from southern Japan to Taiwan. China is intensifying “military activities around Taiwan,” the strategy says, and “the overall military balance between China and Taiwan” is moving rapidly in China’s favor. The fate of Taiwan matters enormously to Japan’s ability to defend itself, especially its peripheral islands.
The documents promise to procure more naval vessels and fighter aircraft, as well as more investment in cyber. All of this will complement American efforts to rearm, assuming the U.S. can follow through on priorities such as expanding the Navy’s attack submarine inventory, building more long-range munitions, and putting these assets in the Pacific. One start would be restoring permanent U.S. fighters at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa.
Beijing predictably railed against Japan’s new strategy, but it has itself to blame. It hasn’t controlled its proxy North Korea’s missile launches and nuclear program. Neighbors are alarmed by its aggressive moves in the East and South China seas, border skirmishes with India, bullying of Australia and others, and especially threats against Taiwan. As the world’s third-largest economy, Japan has the wealth to do something to counter China.
The new strategy amounts to a revolution in Japanese domestic politics, essentially transcending its postwar pacifist constitution. It builds on the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s vision of a Japan that sheds its postwar reluctance to build a strong military. Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, says a political shift of this magnitude might normally take a decade to accomplish. But the public mood changed rapidly amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s increasing aggression.
The new strategy anchors Japan firmly in the U.S. alliance. Tokyo is America’s most important ally, and a militarily stronger Japan will enhance deterrence in the Pacific.
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By: Geopolitical Futures
Russia in the Asia-Pacific. Russia and China will carry out joint naval drills in the East China Sea on Dec. 21-27, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defense. Vessels from Russia’s Pacific Fleet are headed to the area from Vladivostok to participate in the exercises, which will include missile and artillery firing and anti-submarine exercises. China’s navy will deploy two destroyers, two patrol ships, an integrated supply ship and a diesel submarine. Moscow is continuing to expand its presence in the Asia-Pacific region despite the ongoing war in Ukraine.
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https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/chinas-dangerous-decline?utm_medium=newsletters&utm_source=fatoday&utm_campaign=America%20Needs%20More%20Immigration%20to%20Defeat%20Inflation%20&utm_content=20221219&utm_term=FA%20Today%20-%20112017
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South China Sea tensions. The Philippines’ Defense Ministry has ordered the military to boost its presence in the South China Sea following recent reports that China is building on four uninhabited maritime features. Beijing called the reports “unfounded.” The ministry said it was monitoring “Chinese activities” near the strategic Thitu Island but didn’t provide further details. It urged Beijing to uphold the rules-based international order and refrain from acts that will stoke tensions.
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https://thehill.com/policy/defense/3784923-china-sends-dozens-of-warplanes-ships-toward-taiwan/
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Japanese defense. Japan will deploy a surface-to-air missile defense unit to its westernmost island, near Taiwan. The move is part of a plan to reinforce defense capabilities across Japan’s southern island chains, where numerous missile systems have been deployed in recent months. Tokyo announced a major increase to its defense budget earlier this month.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/military/watch-chinese-fighter-threatens-us-spy-plane-over-regional-waters-coming-within-20-feet?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1152
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China and the Philippines. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. held a meeting in Beijing, during which Xi said China was willing to properly handle maritime issues with the Philippines through friendly consultation, and was eager to restart negotiations on oil and gas exploration. He told Marcos the two countries should work to safeguard the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and avoid confrontation among blocs. They also agreed to expand cooperation in agriculture, infrastructure and culture.
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He [Xi] told Marcos the two countries should work to safeguard the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and avoid confrontation among blocs. They also agreed to expand cooperation in agriculture, infrastructure and culture.
sounds like US democrat shysterisms...
Xi is the one who is threatening all the other SE Asian nations then turns it around
Xi can be trusted about as much as Adam Schiff...
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'Confrontational exercises.' A Chinese carrier strike group, led by the country’s first domestically built aircraft carrier, conducted live-fire drills in the South China Sea. In a statement, the Chinese navy called them "combat-oriented confrontational exercises," according to the state-owned Global Times newspaper. This comes after the U.S. Navy said on Friday that its USS Nimitz carrier strike group carried out its first routine operations in the South China Sea of the year.
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I would imagine it would not take much Chinese money to put the half the state on the payroll....
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/01/20/exclusive-special-interests-intervene-south-dakota-attempt-slow-noem-proposal-restricting-chinese-land-purchases/
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The better thread for that would be the "Chinese Penetration of America" thread.
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https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/china-cracks-open-door-improved-ties-australia-and-south-korea?id=743c2bc617&e=de175618dc&uuid=656f791f-7b0d-4f4b-9cd1-5027da40f8b1&mc_cid=3e87ae9f24&mc_eid=de175618dc
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Analysis: Xi puts top brain in charge of Taiwan unification strategy
Nikkei Asia ^
So what role will Wang play in formulating a Taiwan policy during Xi's third term?
One source knowledgeable of China-Taiwan relations noted that Wang will be tasked with writing a theoretical unification strategy fit for the Xi era.
"One may assume that a threat of China using force to unify Taiwan is imminent, but this is not the case. The first step is to launch a new theory that will replace Deng's one country, two systems. Then pressure will be put on Taiwan based on it," the source explained.
The source expects this theory to become a yardstick with which to measure progress and to decide if a military operation is necessary.
Wang is a rare politician. He has served three successive supreme leaders -- Jiang Zemin, who died recently at the age of 96; Hu Jintao, 80; and Xi, 69 -- each time asked to stay on as the leader's brain.
On security issues, Xi is said to respect the advice of the seasoned Wang.
When Xi held talks with the rambunctious Donald Trump, Wang always sat beside him to offer advice. Nobody knew what Trump might say, and Xi needed somebody who could think quickly.
Wang's experience in writing important documents related to security and his past as a professor of international politics at Fudan University prepared him well.
The ability to write in ways that pleases the top leader of the time, however unclear it may seem to outsiders, is perhaps the most important skill to have in the Communist Party.
Huning will serve as deputy director. Wang Yi once served as the director of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, China's government.
As a Politburo Standing Committee member, Wang Huning in one of China's top seven and has a much higher level of authority than Wang Yi, a Politburo member.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/China-up-close/Analysis-Xi-puts-top-brain-in-charge-of-Taiwan-unification-strategy (paywall)
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Interesting.
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https://dailycaller.com/2023/01/29/joe-biden-hong-kong-deportation-protection-china/?utm_medium=email&pnespid=v704VXlNLbhEwaDKvzuxGIqNp0v3V50uK_i6yOw3vBlmU5hYABgD8yLdD10QPkWGcwpjGRGu
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Deep respect for GF, but I think he misses completely the idea of a naval blockade such as what was done around Pelosi's visit. With McCarthy set to go in the near future (will he flinch?) it seems to me that the Chinese are likely to double down on these tactics.
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January 31, 2023
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On the Leaks of a War With China
By: George Friedman
Over the past few days, two senior U.S. officials – Gen. Mike Minihan, the head of the U.S. Air Force Mobility Command, and Michael McCaul, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee – predicted that a war with China could erupt by 2025. I have been on record as saying China’s economic and political vulnerabilities make such a conflict unlikely, but when a four-star general and one of the few politicians I actually respect go well out of their way to say something like this, I’m compelled to recheck my thinking. That the two are saying the same thing, moreover, suggests to me that someone in Washington has briefed them on the matter. Briefings are not the subject of random gossip.
I remain skeptical; the Pentagon has distanced itself from the general’s remarks, and though McCaul may be a respectable politician, he is still a politician. But in reevaluating the likelihood of a war, some questions must still be answered.
Who will start the war? It’s hard to believe the U.S. would initiate a conflict. Defeating the Chinese navy, though doable, wouldn’t resolve the matter. So long as the Chinese homeland is intact, Beijing can rebuild its armed forces. For China, attacking the U.S. Navy would be a major gamble, and it would have to calculate what a defeat at sea would cost it, particularly domestically.
Why would they wait to start the war? It could be that U.S. intelligence learned that there was an attack planned and spread the news to signal to Beijing that it was wise to its plans. But if those plans were indeed for 2025, the U.S. would have plenty of time to prepare for it. Time and danger are the same in warfare, and the idea that China is planning that far out is hard to buy. No one wants to give the other side an advantage.
What does the aggressor hope to accomplish, and is it worth the risk? China wants to secure its eastern ports and ensure access to trade routes in the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. might want to move from a notional threat to a real threat.
Will the war be on land, in the air, at sea, or some combination of the three? The U.S. is not capable of waging a land war in China given its size and population. China can wage an air and naval war, but it would be doing so against a very capable enemy. Beijing’s advantage is that the homeland is secure. The U.S. has the same advantage, of course, but it has the added benefit of being able to draw deep into the Pacific and engage China far from home. In other words, the U.S. can to some degree determine where the war will be fought.
Are their respective economies healthy enough to support a war? Both economies are in precarious positions, but there’s evidence to suggest America’s downturn is a cyclical event, whereas China’s is a structural event. Sustaining air and sea production would be more difficult for China than for the U.S.
Why would either side leak its intentions? The aggressor must have secrecy. The defender should advertise its preparations to deter the aggressor. So if China is the aggressor, leaking the news would be disastrous. But one of the reasons that the war can’t be planned very far out is that the longer the windup, the more likely there will be a leak. If there was a real war being planned, it would be on a very short timeline.
I respect the general and the congressman, and obviously they have access to better intelligence than I do. But I find it hard to believe that China would plan a war so carelessly. Given the leak, a war could still be in the offing, but for China it would likely be short.
Perhaps I am reverting to bad habits. Answering my own questions with my old views is admittedly poor intelligence. Feel free to let me know which questions I didn’t pose and which answers were insufficient. I will happily pout and respond.
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send Blinks to the rescue
in typical laughable style
to make administration look tough:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/blinken-trip-to-china-postponed-after-spy-balloon-spotted-over-u-s-11675437406
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https://ace.mu.nu/archives/403022.php
China owns us.
send Blinks to the rescue
in typical laughable style
to make administration look tough:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/blinken-trip-to-china-postponed-after-spy-balloon-spotted-over-u-s-11675437406
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/shooting-down-suspected-chinese-spy-210053701.html
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-china-j20-stealth-jet-compares-to-us-f22-fighter-2020-11
https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/chinas-next-carrier-fighter-will-likely-be-based-on-stolen-f-35-plans/
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https://www.businessinsider.com/how-china-j20-stealth-jet-compares-to-us-f22-fighter-2020-11
https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/chinas-next-carrier-fighter-will-likely-be-based-on-stolen-f-35-plans/
Our best hope is the Chinese copy the F-35 Thunderjug. :roll:
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https://dailycaller.com/2023/02/03/chinese-intercepted-us-spy-plane-2001-hainan-island-incident/?fbclid=IwAR2jsarQ__5CBsAZUayJRSVZCgZjKXlCZ93y1bu8tIFIAdDTQ6R0ngJgr94
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America’s friends in Asia are reorganizing to manage the threat from a belligerent China, and a case in point is Japan’s plan to double defense spending. Another important development is this week’s news of a larger U.S. military footprint in the Philippines, which is one more step in rebuilding America’s Pacific deterrent.
The Pentagon announced that the U.S. will have access to four new military bases in the Philippine archipelago, for a total of nine, up from the five now allowed under the bilateral Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, visiting the islands this week, said U.S. cooperation with the Philippines is “especially important” as Beijing “continues to advance its illegitimate claims in the West Philippine Sea.”
Only about 500 rotating American troops are on the islands and the U.S. isn’t putting more boots on the ground permanently. But more equipment and troops rotating through is “a really big deal,” as Mr. Austin put it. The move is a breakthrough with new President Ferdinand Marcos after years of diplomatic whiplash from the erratic Rodrigo Duterte. The Pentagon didn’t name the new sites, though press reports suggest two may be in the country’s north—in other words, near Taiwan.
That real estate is especially important as China becomes more aggressive toward Taipei. More than a few military analysts are warning that Beijing could make an attempt to blockade or occupy Taiwan in the near future, and Beijing’s strategy is to push the U.S. out of the Western Pacific by wielding the threat of long-range weapons against bases and ships.
To mitigate that threat, the U.S. needs far more firepower throughout the region. The U.S. Marines are rearranging to fight in small units with long-range fires, but success likely depends on allies in the neighborhood willing to allow troops to operate from their shores. Rep. Mike Gallagher has called the Philippines “the Holy Grail” for dispersing U.S. long-range missiles, with more than 7,000 islands and dense jungle. This deserves to be an urgent priority for the Biden Administration.
The new basing agreement is a welcome step that sharpens America’s posture in the Pacific. It builds on other efforts such as the Aukus accord with the U.K. and Australia, and it shows a U.S. commitment that will be noticed in the rest of East Asia—and especially in Beijing.
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Boosting defenses. The U.S. is considering deploying medium-range missiles in Japan as part of a plan to bolster defenses against China in the region, according to Reuters, which cited a report by Japan's Sankei newspaper. The plan could also include long-range hypersonic weapons and Tomahawks. The location of the deployment is still undecided, though Japan is reportedly considering the southern island of Kyushu
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/china-raises-military-reserve-age-limits-amid-increased-tension-over-taiwan-strait_5052091.html?utm_source=China&src_src=China&utm_campaign=uschina-2023-02-13&src_cmp=uschina-2023-02-13&utm_medium=email&est=17BQPSUptH1YqOEzVPePNCKvz3JCtKP4qNty8cPQGzMxXbH%2F%2BTolii4V15govS4Hbe%2F7
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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/breaking-us-intelligence-watched-spy-balloon-lifted-off-near-chinas-south-coast-us-military-tracked-week-entered-us-airspace/
Our IC/Military incompetence would be hysterical if the stakes weren't so high.
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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/breaking-us-intelligence-watched-spy-balloon-lifted-off-near-chinas-south-coast-us-military-tracked-week-entered-us-airspace/
wow
what transparency
:roll:
very strange we have no idea what the other 4 "objects are "; smells of cover up happening
I suspect CNN weather balloons
Biden gets the cred for being the big shot who ordered to shoot down ( at least one missile missed )
would get the scoop
what a Democrat bonanza .
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/02/16/biden-three-objects-shot-down-were-most-likely-balloons-not-tied-chinese-surveillance/
great
we let the spy balloon cross the ocean over alaska over most of the continental us
but then our fearless military leadership and commander in chief shoots down private weather balloons
the embarrassment this brings is what we expected is the reason why we have heard nothing till now
I can see the Chinese generals taking a shot of Chinese whiskey over this.
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https://twitter.com/michael_yon/status/1637992717551808514?s=46&t=odkpX7-42JUBiauj-tvISQ
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/3706880/ishigaki-frontline-island-against-chinese-imperialism
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https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/another-red-line-breached/?lctg=547fd5293b35d0210c8df7b9&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MJ_20230321&utm_term=Jolt-Smart
This is how bad people get to thinking of going to war against America.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/another-red-line-breached/?lctg=547fd5293b35d0210c8df7b9&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MJ_20230321&utm_term=Jolt-Smart
This is how bad people get to thinking of going to war against America.
Every time Biden feels froggy, Xi’s people show him some footage of Hunter with very young Chinese girls and the financial documents they have on him.
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That is probably the way of it, going all the way back to his doing nothing as they built and militarized the pseudo-islands in the SCS.
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Jesse Kelly:
Xi and Putin having a 5 hour conference about taking over the world while Joe Biden meets with the cast of Ted Lasso pretty much sums up the state of things at the moment.
[At least the Russians and Chinese know who their actual leaders are, and they are not pushing the castration, mutilation and sterilization of their own children.]
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Pretty much.
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https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/3719331/this-morning-on-ishigaki-japan-neighborhood-taiwan
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With No Deal in Sight, South China Sea Claimants Continue to Militarize
8 MIN READMar 22, 2023 | 16:11 GMT
A Chinese coast guard ship sails past anchored Philippine fishing boats in the Scarborough Shoal, in the disputed South China Sea, on Feb. 3, 2023.
Despite the resumption of talks between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China over the still-unrealized South China Sea code of conduct, fundamental differences suggest the long-standing deadlock will persist, driving claimants to accelerate regional militarization. On March 10, China and ASEAN concluded the latest round of negotiations to produce the long-sought-after code of conduct governing claimant states' behavior in disputed territories of the South China Sea. As expected, the meeting did not yield much progress. The main result, which was primarily symbolic, was an agreement to "attempt" to establish a security hotline between ASEAN and China at some point in 2023 — a measure agreed upon in 2016 but never implemented — to reduce the likelihood of escalation in the event of maritime standoffs or accidental collisions. Most consequentially, China and ASEAN did not discuss whether the code of conduct will be legally binding (which ASEAN insists on and China resists).
The latest talks were held in Jakarta, Indonesia, which currently chairs ASEAN. The country's top ASEAN official told reporters on March 10 that "we avoid binding words [regarding the code of conduct] for now."
On March 13, Japan established a security hotline with ASEAN, becoming the first non-member state to do so and accomplishing it before China. This development underscores that Southeast Asia is fast becoming a realm of geopolitical competition between China and Japan, and it highlights the sluggish pace of discussions on the code of conduct.
China established bilateral hotlines with claimants Vietnam in 2021 and the Philippines in January 2023, illustrating Beijing's preference for negotiating with individual states (over which China can exercise asymmetric advantages) rather than with ASEAN as a bloc.
A legally binding code of conduct would be based on the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. The International Court of Justice would then have jurisdiction to adjudicate disputes.
The parties resumed negotiations following a three-year COVID-19-induced hiatus, but simmering regional tensions and diplomatic posturing, rather than a genuine push to produce a code of conduct, primarily drove the meeting. In recent months, tensions in the South China Sea have increased, particularly between China and the Philippines, contributing to claimants' desire to renew negotiations. Moreover, as ASEAN chair, Indonesia has vowed to utilize its greater power relative to other Southeast Asian countries to actively push China to conclude the code of conduct. However, as gleaned from the negotiations, the two sides remain so far apart that the negotiators opted to discuss minor issues, such as the hotline, while actively avoiding the major issue of legal force. Even so, holding the meeting still served other interests. For example, by bringing China back to the negotiating table, Indonesia is able to boost its credibility as a regional leader and emerging diplomatic player. China, for its part, needs to maintain dialogue with ASEAN counter-claimants or risk these countries falling under greater Western influence, even if it has no intention of pursuing the code of conduct along more actionable lines.
ASEAN has sought a binding agreement on the South China Sea since 1996. The bloc produced a draft code of conduct and provided it to China for consultation in 1999.
After years of negotiations, the parties agreed to the non-binding declaration of conduct in 2002, wherein claimants agreed to peacefully settle differences and exercise self-restraint, but the document does not provide any mechanism to fulfill its commitments. At the time, the declaration of conduct was hailed as a milestone toward eventual resolution. Yet since its signing, the declaration's non-binding nature has failed to meaningfully constrain claimant states' behavior, which has only grown more aggressive over time. Subsequent non-binding documents intended to regulate behavior have had similarly little impact.
China's core strategic interests mean it is unlikely to make concessions on the South China Sea, and ASEAN lacks the leverage needed to compel a compromise. China's strong and heavily militarized position in the South China Sea, which it was largely able to cultivate while the United States was distracted from the region in prior decades, serves to help secure vital sea lines of communication and critical maritime chokepoints. Moreover, China is motivated to maintain its claims and de facto freedom of movement due to a desire for trade routes and maritime resources such as oil, gas and fisheries to satisfy growing domestic demand, especially since China has depleted its domestic fish stocks. Additionally, the South China Sea is a potential key battleground in the fight over Taiwan; if China can effectively surveil and prevent the United States and its allies from sending supplies, vessels and aircraft through the waters, it can more effectively cut off Taiwan from outside assistance. In the long term, this would further enable China to establish control over a wider area, not just its own coasts, to become the dominant military in the Western Pacific. Relatedly, control of wide swaths of the maritime region also enables China to control subsea internet cable installation and repair projects in the South China Sea, which prevents the installation of surveillance systems by adversaries and gives Beijing de facto control over much of the maritime region's internet connections. All of these interests mean that China is highly unlikely to allow a code of conduct to curb its substantial strategic advantages. This has proven to be a major sticking point, as Chinese interests are often directly at odds with those of ASEAN counter-claimants.
Around $3.4 trillion of global trade moves through the South China Sea annually.
China occupies 20 outposts in the Paracel Islands and seven in the Spratly Islands after creating around 3,200 acres (1,295 hectares) of new land since 2013.
The South China Sea's subsea cables provide telecommunications and internet connections from the region to the rest of the world. Two cables currently under construction, Apricot (connecting Japan to Singapore) and Echo (connecting Indonesia to the United States), are being built to circumvent the South China Sea.
Incidents in the South China Sea
The poor prospects for a binding code of conduct amid increasing regional tensions suggest that claimants will continue expanding their militaries to secure their interests, which will result in more dangerous incidents at sea. Though China may be amenable to a code of conduct that allows it to formalize its control of occupied features, Beijing remains unlikely to entertain a legally binding agreement that would constrain its military options. And because ASEAN states are unlikely to agree to a non-binding document that would leave member states' claims in the region unaddressed and unprotected, enabling China to maintain control over disputed territories while using its vast maritime capacities to outmuscle the competition, it remains unlikely that an agreement will come to fruition. This means that the currently elevated level of military activity is set to persist, especially from China, the Philippines and Vietnam — the three most aggressive maritime powers in the region. As China continues to build out military facilities on its occupied features, the Philippines is breathing new life into its alliance with the United States by allowing U.S. forces to build out and staff nine military sites in the country. Manila is also adopting more bellicose rhetoric regarding Chinese encroachment and seeking deeper defense partnerships with China's adversaries, such as Australia and Japan. Vietnam, for its part, is substantially intensifying its land reclamation efforts in the South China Sea and prioritizing its ability to both expand and protect areas already under its de facto control. These activities suggest that ASEAN claimant states do not anticipate signing a legally-binding code of conduct soon. Without a mechanism governing claimant states' behavior, growing militarization portends a rockier status quo going forward, which will result in more incidents at sea, intrusions into counter-claimants' exclusive economic zones, harassment of counter-claimants' fishermen, and disputes over oil and gas exploration. This also implies that inter-state conflict is slowly becoming more likely, although ASEAN states’ characteristically cautious approach would likely drive major efforts to de-escalate the situation should this prospect reach a genuine crisis point.
On March 8, ASEAN announced that it will elevate ties with Japan to a "comprehensive strategic partnership" in 2023, suggesting that the bloc will court other powers to balance against China.
The United States will begin cycling military assets and personnel in 2023 into the Philippines under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, which Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. revitalized in November 2022 and expanded in February 2023.
Other claimants Malaysia and Brunei are also shoring up security collaboration with each other and Indonesia. The Philippines and Malaysia likewise boosted defense cooperation in March.
According to the U.S. think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, Vietnam created approximately 420 acres (170 hectares) of new land in 2022 compared with 540 acres (219 hectares) in the entire preceding decade — an 80% increase in just one year. Vietnam has also vastly expanded its anti-access and area denial capabilities to prevent adversaries from deploying forces to the areas under its control while inhibiting the movement of enemy forces that are already in-theater.
On Feb. 6, the Chinese coast guard shined a military-grade laser at Philippine sailors, causing temporary blindness. President Marcos subsequently issued a formal complaint and instituted a policy to widely broadcast the occurrence of future Chinese incursions in an effort to sway popular opinion.
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A mongolian-american is the next Dalai Lama (reincarnation of Khalkha Jetsun Dhampa Rinpoche). China is sure to be pleased.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FsH5AilacAE5mAF?format=jpg&name=small)
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April 11, 2023
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Daily Memo: US and Philippines Train in South China Sea
By: Geopolitical Futures
South China Sea. The Philippines and the United States began their largest-ever joint military exercises. Some 12,200 American, 5,400 Philippine and 100 Australian troops – about twice as many as last year in total – will participate in the two-week-long drills, which will include live-fire exercises in the South China Sea for the first time. This follows China’s three-day military exercises near Taiwan over the weekend.
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The Revamped U.S.-Philippine Alliance Starts to Come to Fruition
6 MIN READApr 13, 2023 | 21:58 GMT
The reinvigorated U.S.-Philippines defense alliance will improve the United States' ability to counter China's military maneuvers in nearby waters, but will also exacerbate already rising regional tensions. Following their so-called ''2+2'' meeting in Washington, top foreign policy and defense officials from the United States and the Philippines issued a joint statement on April 11 in which they committed to completing a 10-year roadmap for delivering U.S. military equipment to the Southeast Asian nation, including ''priority defense platforms'' like drones, military transport aircraft and coastal and air defense systems. That same day, the United States and the Philippines also launched their largest and most technologically sophisticated joint military exercises, which are taking place in and around northern Luzon and Palawan, among other places, and will run through April 28. China strongly condemned the developments, with its foreign ministry spokesperson warning that the United States ''must not interfere in South China Sea disputes, still less harm China's territorial sovereignty, maritime rights and interests and security interests.''
The United States and the Philippines have conducted their annual Balikatan (''shoulder-to-shoulder'') military drills for decades. A record 17,600 soldiers are taking part in this year's exercise, which also includes live-fire elements at sea for the first time and a small contingent of Australian military personnel. Prior iterations of the drill focused on counterterrorism, but the reorientation toward preparing to confront China requires far larger contingents from both armed forces.
The meetings and drills come amid growing Chinese threats near Taiwan and in the South China Sea. The U.S.-Philippine military drills were launched a day after China finished its own military exercises near Taiwan. Since January, Chinese and Philippine maritime forces have also had several dangerous encounters in the South China Sea, where the two countries have conflicting maritime claims. Recent South China Sea code of conduct negotiations failed to make progress, meaning more confrontations in the disputed waterway are likely, which will further raise the stakes — especially given the U.S. Navy's increased presence in Philippine waters.
Between April 8-10, China conducted limited military activities around Taiwan, including a Taiwan Strait patrol and a naval voyage east of the island, in response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen's April 5 meeting with U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California. China also conducted live-fire drills near Taiwan following Tsai's August 2022 meeting with McCarthy's predecessor, Nancy Pelosi, in Taipei.
On Feb. 6, a Chinese coast guard ship shined a military-grade laser at a Philippine coast guard ship near the Spratly Islands' Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea, causing Philippine sailors' temporary blindness. On March 5, the Philippine coast guard also reported more than 40 Chinese vessels within 12 nautical islands of the Spratly Islands' Thitu island, and the vessels stayed in the area for several days.
The developments also reflect the United States and the Philippines' reinvigorated defense alliance following the recent revival of their Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), driven by the countries' growing concerns about China. In November, Philippine President Macros revived the EDCA, which his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte stalled during his 2016-2022 term. Signed in 2014, the EDCA allows the United States to constantly rotate troops in the Philippines, use Philippine bases for prolonged stays, and build and operate facilities in-country with its own personnel. In February, Washington and Manila then agreed to increase the number of U.S.-operated military sites in the Philippines under the EDCA from five to nine. On April 3, Manila announced that three of those new sites will be located in northern Luzon, within 250 miles (402 kilometers) of Taiwan, while the fourth will be located on Balabac island, which is just 160 miles (257 kilometers) southeast of Mischief Reef — a site of persistent territorial dispute between Manila and Beijing. This optimized strategic positioning of the four new EDCA sites highlights the United States and the Philippines' shared desire to oppose Chinese encroachment around Taiwan and in the South China Sea, as Beijing more assertively presses its territorial claims to both.
The joint statement issued after the recent 2+2 meeting indicates the United States will also increase annual spending at its nine EDCA sites to more than $100 million by the end of 2023, up from the current $80 million.
While both countries insist the EDCA is not a permanent basing agreement, the ongoing rotation of U.S. personnel and equipment in the Philippines under the deal nonetheless effectively enables the United States to maintain a constant military presence in the country.
The Philippines and the United States have not held a meeting in the ''2+2'' format since 2016 — underscoring the two countries' renewed military relationship under Philippine President Macros, who took office in June 2022.
The revitalized alliance will bolster Washington's regional security architecture and Manila's capacity to defend its maritime claims. The new EDCA bases' locations unambiguously target China's core interests to secure two of its major territorial claims: over most of the South China Sea and over the island of Taiwan. For the United States, the new bases will improve its maritime monitoring and response capabilities in the event an armed conflict with China breaks out in the region. Such enhanced U.S. monitoring capabilities will be most immediately impactful in the strategically important Bashi Channel (a crucial waterway between the Philippines and Taiwan) and the Balabac Strait (another crucial waterway that could connect China to the Sulu Sea during a potential war). A larger U.S. military presence in the Philippines will also improve both countries' capacity to jointly patrol disputed waters in the South China Sea, where dangerous incidents with Chinese maritime forces are occurring with increasing frequency.
But it will also expose the Philippines to Chinese strikes in the event of an armed conflict over either Taiwan or the South China Sea. On April 10, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. assured China that he will not allow the EDCA sites to be used for ''offensive action.'' But in a regional war scenario, the EDCA bases could nonetheless become legitimate military targets as Beijing would want to disrupt or destroy U.S. rapid response capabilities. For now, China will try to avoid seriously escalating tensions with the Philippines for fear of pushing it even deeper into the United States' orbit. However, Manila's efforts to deepen its defense ties with Washington will still risk placing it more frequently in China's crosshairs, increasing the risk of clashes and confrontations in disputed waters.
On April 11, Beijing issued a veiled threat to Manila, stating ''We remind the relevant countries in the region that relying on extraterritorial forces will not only fail to maintain their own security, but will instead increase tension and will certainly harm themselves.''
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A Look Back at a Landmark South China Sea Ruling, Five Years On
undefined and Director, Stratfor Center for Applied Geopolitics at RANE
Rodger Baker
Director, Stratfor Center for Applied Geopolitics at RANE, Stratfor
7 MIN READJul 12, 2021 | 17:34 GMT
An aerial photograph taken by the Philippine Air Force in November 2003 shows Chinese-built structures near the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
On July 12, 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague effectively ruled that China’s sweeping nine-dash line in the South China Sea had no international legal standing under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), siding with the Philippines. Ahead of that landmark ruling, I had the opportunity to take part in a semi-formal dialogue between researchers and officials from both the United States and China (notably, Philippine delegates were not invited). The Chinese side set the tone of the meeting. They considered the Philippine case without merit (China boycotted the tribunal), reasserted their historical claims to much of the South China Sea, and not so subtly told the United States to stay out of regional Chinese affairs. There was no dialogue. The meeting was intended to deliver a message that China would continue to assert its sovereignty over several built-up artificial islands and that it saw U.S. moves to challenge these claims or support regional counterclaimants as interference and acts of aggression against China and its core interests.
In the five years since the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled on the case brought by the Philippines, China’s response has highlighted the challenges of maritime claims in the region, as well as the limitations of international law. Without willing compliance or international enforcement, relative power remains the true arbiter — allowing for Beijing to gain an advantage in the disputed waterway.
A Look Back
Five years on, China continues to ignore the U.N. tribunal ruling, has hardened its positions in the South China Sea, formalized its administrative claims to the territory, and expanded its maritime patrols and exercises. In part, this was facilitated by the Philippines itself. Just two months before the tribunal issued its ruling, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte took office and rapidly distanced himself from the tribunal ruling and his predecessor’s China policies. In return, Duterte sought Chinese investment and stable relations, which would enable him to focus on his domestic priorities, including his anti-drug campaign and his push for greater federalism as a way to manage the restive southern provinces.
Manila’s shift in tone regarding China also comes amid Duterte’s frequent threats to distance the Philippines from the United States, as well as end the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), which is a 70-year-old framework under which U.S. military personnel operate in the Philippines. This means that even if the United States sought to challenge China’s claims on the basis of the tribunal ruling, Washington would find little support from the very country that had brought the case against Beijing to begin with. The negative U.S. response to Duterte’s anti-drug campaign, which was reportedly rife with extrajudicial killings, added to tensions between the two erstwhile allies. While the U.S. Navy continued to carry out Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) around the Chinese-occupied islets, it did little more to try and dislodge the Chinese forces. Tribunal ruling or not, Beijing remains the de facto controlling power over the disputed islets, and also retains control of related fishing grounds.
The Challenges of International Law
One of the frequent arguments Duterte has made for his China policy and his reluctance to press the tribunal ruling is that Manila simply does not have the capacity to enforce the ruling, and that Washington has failed to step up and shoulder the responsibility. In short, Duterte has essentially said that, while he still holds that the islands and other landmasses in the South China Sea are Philippine territory, Manila is incapable of asserting its claims, and thus it is near futile and self-defeating to undermine relations with China over something that cannot be altered any time soon.
In a similar vein, Duterte has blamed both the previous Philippine administration and the United States for failing to dislodge China in 2012, when Washington helped ease rising tensions around the disputed Scarborough Shoal. Duterte and his supporters have questioned why the United States failed to push Chinese ships out of the shoal after the Philippine ships withdrew. The crux of the argument is that, despite the U.S.-Philippine mutual defense treaty and the superiority of the U.S. Navy at the time, Washington failed to fulfill its responsibilities to its ally. Thus U.S. freedom of navigation operations (FONOPS) are disruptive and cause problems for Manila, but do not include any real benefit.
China wagered that the United States would not risk triggering a larger military engagement over a few spots of rock and sand in a distant sea.
Despite his frequent rhetorical flourishes and occasional foul language, Duterte isn’t entirely off the mark. The inconvenient reality of treaties and international law more broadly is that they are only effective so long as they are enforced or willingly adhered to, or at least perceived by third parties to be actually binding. If China truly believed that the United States would risk its own ships, aircraft and personnel to preserve Manila’s claims to the unoccupied shoals and islets, Beijing may have taken a different path. But China’s experience has led it to assess that while the United States would complain, Washington would not take on the risk of a larger military engagement with China over a few spots of rock and sand in a distant sea, no matter how strategic the overall waterway may be. And the United States reinforced this view by frequently claiming it did not take sides in the Philippines' South China Sea dispute with China, thus failing to assertively back Manila’s claims. Not only was this the longstanding U.S. policy, it also matched the tribunal ruling, which did not assess Philippine sovereignty despite rejecting China’s claims.
The Limitations of U.S. Power
The United States has long had mixed views on treaties, international law and multinational organizations. From its earliest days, U.S. leaders argued against entangling alliances, fearing that such relations could force the United States into economic or military action that would be detrimental to its own domestic interests. Like any large power, the United States has used international systems, laws and organizations when they largely fit U.S. needs and interests, but shied away when they did not. The United States has even failed to ratify UNCLOS, despite that being the basis for the tribunal ruling, as well as part of Washington’s justification for its naval operations in the South China Sea.
For much of the last three decades, even as there were growing voices urging Washington to take heed of China’s rise and its potential challenge to the U.S.-supported international order, U.S. administrations largely sought to entice Beijing through engagement, hoping China would “westernize” by default. While that idea has since lost credence, it does in part explain U.S. reticence in the past to directly challenge China, despite Beijing’s assertive behavior in the South China Sea. In more concrete terms, Washington has also felt that the risk of military escalation with China exceeded the threat posed by each incremental step China took in occupying, building up and arming the islets.
For the past 20 years, the primary U.S. security focus had been on counterterrorism efforts and on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Great power competition was simply not in vogue, and U.S. training cycles and force deployments reflected the prioritization of non-state actors as the primary security threat. While that pattern is now shifting rapidly, the United States is no longer in a position to prevent Chinese action. Washington must instead either manage the new reality of power in the South China Sea, or take on the cost of trying to roll back Chinese positions. It’s one thing to stop something from happening, but it’s quite another to reverse an existing reality.
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By Gordon G. Chang
April 11, 2023Updated: April 12, 2023
Commentary
“We are probably not going to be able to do anything to stop, slow down, disrupt, interdict, or destroy the Chinese nuclear development program that they have projected out over the next 10 to 20 years,” said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley on March 29 at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee. “They’re going to do that in accordance with their own plan.”
Milley is wrong about China’s nuclear weapons ambitions. He is, unfortunately, expressing the same pessimism that pervaded the Nixon, Ford, and Carter years, when the American foreign policy establishment took the Soviet Union as a given and therefore promoted détente.
America can stop China’s nuclear weapons development and other monumental programs.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) needs America for, among other things, money, and the United States does not have to provide it.
“The one resource which Xi Jinping’s ambition has overreached is cash,” Gregory Copley, the president of the International Strategic Studies Association and editor-in-chief of Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, told Gatestone. “Beijing cannot, in the short term, provide the cash needed to dominate the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and other places.”
The fundamental problem for the audacious Chinese ruler is that China’s economic growth is stumbling. China’s official National Bureau of Statistics reported that gross domestic product last year grew 3.0 percent, well below the regime’s announced target of “around 5.5%.”
Official statisticians minimized inflation, thereby overstating last year’s economic output. In reality, China’s economy in 2022, after price adjustments, almost certainly contracted, perhaps by as much as 3 percent.
Will there be growth now? There was great optimism at the beginning of this year, in part because the economy in 2022 was so weak and a fast rebound seemed likely after the lifting of China’s draconian “dynamic zero-COVID” controls in early December.
Beijing’s propaganda machine, beginning in December, went into overdrive, predicting a robust economic expansion for this year. Li Keqiang, in one of his last acts as premier, in March announced a GDP growth target of “around 5%.” He did not do his successor, Li Qiang, any favors. That target, as low as it is, is unattainable. In any event, the economy stumbled out of the block. From all indications, GDP contracted during the combined January-February period.
During the two months—January and February are combined for reporting purposes to eliminate the distortion caused by the constantly shifting Chinese New Year holiday—trade volume continued its downward trend. Exports fell 6.8 percent year-on-year. More significantly, imports, one of the best reflections of domestic demand, plunged 10.2 percent.
Retail sales for the two-month period, Beijing says, increased, but only by 3.5 percent. That number, as weak as it is, is not consistent with consumer data, however. Anne Stevenson-Yang of J Capital Research points out that airline passenger traffic for January-February was off 23 percent compared with the same period in 2019, the last pre-COVID year; box office revenue, a closely watched indicator, was down 13 percent for the Jan. 1-April 4 period, again compared to 2019; and the price of sports shoes has been dropping rapidly on the popular Alibaba sites of Taobao and TMall.
Beijing has been issuing optimistic-looking purchasing managers’ indexes (PMIs) for the services sector, but Stevenson-Yang, also the author of “China Alone: The Emergence from, and Potential Return to Isolation,” persuasively argues these numbers do not show the true state of economic growth. “The services PMI gives the impression that the Chinese economy is roaring back, but that does not at all appear to be the case,” she told Gatestone. “Everything is down, whether plane travel, freight, or buying on the Alibaba platforms.”
The dramatic downturn in the all-important property market and the deep pessimism in Chinese society ultimately combine to limit consumer spending, which in turn limits manufacturing output. Weak foreign demand has, as trade numbers show, already dented exports. In sum, the Chinese economy is anemic.
China, therefore, needs factory orders from abroad and foreign investment. The American president can crimp both of these lifelines by, among other things, using his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 and by joining or liberalizing free-trade agreements with other countries. For instance, U.S. President Joe Biden could encourage factories to move to the Western hemisphere by making a few fixes to the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). The American market is the largest in the world, and the president can use it to redirect trade flows.
Will redirecting trade flows stop China’s nuclear weapons buildup? Not all at once. The People’s Liberation Army has been taking larger shares of the resources of the Chinese state. Last year, for instance, China’s military budget, according to official sources, increased 7.1 percent while the economy, at least officially, grew only 3.0 percent. This year, the military is slated to get 7.2 percent more, and economic growth will again fall short.
In the short term, therefore, China can afford its nukes, but the budget of the Chinese central government is strained because of Xi Jinping’s other grand ambitions, such as his building and maintaining an enormous surveillance state—this costs more than the Chinese military—and his Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) worldwide infrastructure-building program.
“The BRI is faltering and crumbling as China has overextended itself because of pressure from Xi Jinping to push it through too rapidly and without adequate contingency provision for the economic downturn caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and other factors,” China analyst Charles Burton of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute told Gatestone. “We now know that China spent $240 billion on country bailouts from 2008 to 2021, correlating with a drop in Chinese lending for infrastructure projects that are the core of this Belt and Road Initiative. It is clear that China is now overstretched and unable to continue with the BRI overall plan into the foreseeable future.”
Sure, China has foreign reserves and gold, but there is a brewing local currency crisis. There is no other explanation for the “oldies” or “silver” protests. Municipalities and cities across China have not been able to pay civil servant salaries and promised benefits, and for months there have been protests, even in wealthy cities like Wuhan in Hubei province and Dalian in Liaoning. In Shenzhen in Guangdong province, teachers in public elementary schools are not getting full salaries.
Localities, dependent on crumbling property revenues, are going broke. Attempts to raise new revenues are now starting a fresh round of demonstrations.
Xi has diverted the state’s resources for nuclear weapons. He can do that for a time, but soon the cash will run out. So here is a message for General Milley: There is a lot America can do to stop China’s fast buildup of its most dangerous arsenal, and in any case Americans must not under any circumstances fund, with trade and investment, the weapons pointed at them.
President Ronald Reagan bankrupted the Soviet Union by reducing the flow of cash to Moscow. It is now time to bankrupt China.
After all, no money, no nukes.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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This seems very encouraging!
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May 16, 2023
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Shifts in the Western Pacific
By: George Friedman
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. visited Washington last week, where he signed what is essentially a collective defense agreement. In doing so, he sealed their bilateral relationship just a few weeks after signing another agreement that allows the U.S. to station troops and aircraft at bases in the Philippines. The alliance creates a serious problem for China, whose fundamental interest is having unfettered access to the Pacific Ocean and thus unencumbered global trade.
At roughly the same time, Taiwan and Japan held a meeting to plan the coordination of forces in the event China attacks Taiwan. That Beijing immediately condemned the meeting emphasized its significance. The fall of Taiwan would be a serious threat to Japan’s access to the Pacific and possibly a threat to the Japanese mainland. These threats may be far-fetched, but a Chinese occupation of Taiwan graduates them from non-existent to at least theoretical.
Japan has been in the process of expanding its military for some time, and obviously a joint Japanese-Taiwanese force would necessarily include the United States. There are also indications that South Korea would participate.
The new map of the Western Pacific thus puts China in a very different position. An invasion of the Chinese mainland by any new coalition is still impossible given the size and sophistication of Chinese land forces. But China’s difficulties in securing guaranteed access to the Pacific and its regional waters have soared. The ability of Japan and Taiwan to intercept Chinese naval movements, combined with the United States’ and Australia’s ability to block Chinese movement to the south, is a problem for Beijing. The obvious vulnerability of the coalition is that it has shown its hand and undoubtedly has not fully completed its defenses. China could preemptively strike any one of the coalition partners in theory, but the narrowness of the waterways makes the risk of defeat high.
South Pacific
(click to enlarge)
There is evidence that China understands the severity of the situation. President Xi Jinping recently moved Zhao Lijian – an official who came to embody China’s aggressive and confrontational wolf warrior diplomacy – from a spokesman role to head of the Foreign Ministry’s Boundary and Ocean Affairs Department. This will herald a significant, if not radical, shift in Chinese foreign policy. Indeed, the Taiwan News outlet recently reported that top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi outlined new policies for Taiwan, saying that the old ones must be reconsidered.
Our view is that though China’s systemic internal problems make it weaker than its military and economic stature suggest, it’s still a major power that can, under the right circumstances, assert power far from its shores. But these are not the right circumstances. The geography of the Asia-Pacific is changing to Beijing’s detriment. China has made gestures toward a policy shift. It remains to be seen whether China's internal politics allow it to be this flexible.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinese-fighter-jet-intercepts-us-plane-over-south-china-sea_5301241.html?utm_source=China&src_src=China&utm_campaign=uschina-2023-05-31&src_cmp=uschina-2023-05-31&utm_medium=email&est=D4o4iuaBwN8XCwYL0UjmZpTUBA6f21sWQeS%2Fuxf5aM9sGa7e8qpeMMJWR5NxPNfQRrmm
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https://dailycaller.com/2023/06/02/biden-cia-bill-burns-china-trip-intelligence/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking&pnespid=qLpoDypGaf4Kwv3DtijuAYKBsAujDpAvJPeyz7c29UxmHnESjo2giQyFQFn9fSE8hzEYBZAZ
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https://dailycaller.com/2023/06/05/biden-administration-accused-giving-major-coup-china-meeting-anniversary-tiananmen-square-massacre/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=29912&pnespid=pqZgEy1KP6Ec26ffpW6_GsOFrxelC4YrNurkzuo38UVmeW12fk50zP4sLC85uJgoPftM0HBJ
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Coast guard exercise. U.S., Japanese and Philippine coast guard vessels participated in a joint drill off the Bataan Peninsula west of Manila. A Philippine coast guard official stressed the importance of cooperation with the other two countries to counter foreign intrusions into territorial waters, a reference to Chinese actions in and around the South China Sea.
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Xi Prepares China for ‘Extreme’ Scenarios, Including Conflict with the West
Beijing plays up possibility of worsening ties as the U.S. and China set plans for Blinken visit
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has focused on ringfencing the economy and the country against prolonged tensions with the West. MARK CRISTINO/PRESS POOL
By Lingling WeiFollow
Updated June 12, 2023 12:07 pm ET
As Beijing and Washington move gingerly toward restoring high-level exchanges, Xi Jinping is stepping up his effort to gird China for conflict.
Since late last month, the Chinese leader has twice urged the nation to prepare for what he described as extreme scenarios or conditions—trotting out a phraseology implying the possibilities of escalating tensions as the competition between the U.S. and China intensifies.
At a top-level meeting focused on national security on May 30, the Chinese leader said, “We must be prepared for worst-case and extreme scenarios, and be ready to withstand the major test of high winds, choppy waters and even dangerous storms.”
A week later, Xi extended that concept to the economic arena. While inspecting an industrial park in Inner Mongolia, Xi said efforts to build up the domestic market are aimed at “ensuring normal operation of the national economy under extreme circumstances.”
The comments come as Secretary of State Antony Blinken is planning to travel to China this month as part of the efforts by both governments to rebuild lines of communication derailed by a suspected Chinese spy balloon flying over the American heartland early this year.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to visit Beijing this month. PHOTO: AHMED YOSRI/PRESS POOL
The warnings about extreme conditions running parallel with the effort to mend ties with Washington suggest Xi isn’t letting up on efforts to ringfence the economy and the country against prolonged tensions with the West.
Liu Pengyu, spokesman at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said Xi has made it clear the two sides should work together to ensure that the bilateral relations “move forward on the right course without losing direction or speed, still less having a collision.”
The Biden administration wants to establish guardrails around the bilateral relationship to prevent it from evolving into outright conflict. Beijing, on the other hand, appears less interested in the specifics than in the general principles underpinning the relations. In particular, China wants to make sure the U.S. doesn’t cross red lines on matters China considers off limits, such as Taiwan.
Xi, whose political status rivals that of Mao Zedong, shares Mao’s penchant for terms or statements that dramatize perceived foreign threats as a way to secure power. He has mentioned external risks before but the recurring reference to extreme conditions, which came after Xi lashed out at the U.S. for seeking to suppress China’s rise at the legislative session in March, raised new alarms.
Jin Canrong, an influential foreign-policy scholar, didn’t mince words about his interpretation, telling the Global Times, a nationalist newspaper under the Communist Party, that the extreme scenarios Xi referred to mean “the danger of war.”
Bill Bishop, author of the China-focused newsletter Sinocism, noted that Xi’s use of language represents “a significant upgrading of the sense of risk, peril and the need to prepare.”
China has slowly claimed and militarized disputed territory across the South China Sea, often at the expense of its neighbors. WSJ explains the economic repercussions for the U.S. and countries across the Indo-Pacific, and what the U.S. is doing about it.
Having secured an unprecedented third term in power in October, Xi has time and again signaled that China’s relations with the West—the U.S. in particular—could become much choppier, indicating that a main development goal for the next five years is to build a geopolitically resilient economy that is much less dependent on foreign markets and technology.
The recent references to extreme scenarios are at least partly meant to prod policy makers and local leaders to double down on that effort, said policy advisers who consult with authorities in Beijing. Doing so hasn’t been easy for an economy that both counts exports as a traditional driver of growth and relies on Western high-tech.
Senior aides to Xi, including his longtime economic adviser, former Vice Premier Liu He, and Liu’s successor, He Lifeng, have been entrusted with mapping out plans to keep the economy going in the case of much stepped-up U.S. and other Western sanctions—possible scenarios in the event of conflict, the policy advisers said.
The “extreme” wording is emerging as a kind of new catchphrase that is also popping up at local levels of government. Local leaders from the coastal metropolis of Shanghai to the landlocked province of Hunan have also vowed to ready their systems for extreme circumstances, according to official releases, which didn’t elaborate.
“Xi’s overriding mission of his coming term is to harden China from external vulnerabilities,” said Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former presidential adviser on China and Asia. “Seen through that lens, it would make sense for Xi to seek to heighten a sense of urgency and importance around strengthening China’s ability to withstand ‘extreme’ conditions.”
Looming over the new Xi-speak is what Beijing sees as increased challenges from Washington over a mission it views as sacred—the eventual reunification with Taiwan.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping shares Mao Zedong’s penchant for statements that dramatize perceived foreign threats as a way to secure power. PHOTO: MARK CRISTINO/PRESS POOL
The U.S. is committed to bolstering Taiwan’s ability to resist coercive tactics from China under pledges including the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, and the Biden team trumpets its plans to strengthen economic and political links to Taipei. Xi has made reunification with Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a breakaway province, a big part of his “China Dream” of national revival.
There is little sign of imminent Chinese action to take back the island, though there have been plenty of symbolic gestures.
For instance, Chinese airplanes over the past year have significantly ramped up incursions into Taiwan’s air-defense zone. Earlier this month, the U.S. accused a Chinese warship of cutting in front of an American vessel that was taking part in a joint exercise with the Canadian navy in the Taiwan Strait, while Chinese officials essentially blamed the U.S. vessel for encroaching on China’s sovereignty.
In recent meetings with Western diplomats and business executives, Chinese officials appeared to be trying to make a case that the U.S. will seek to goad China into war over Taiwan. The rhetoric is similar to how China has described Russia’s war in Ukraine. Beijing hasn’t denounced the invasion and has instead blamed Washington and its European allies for provoking Moscow into action.
A Chinese warship crossed the path of a U.S. Navy vessel as it was transiting the Taiwan Strait earlier this month. PHOTO: GLOBAL NEWS/REUTERS
Meanwhile, amid deepening economic woes, Beijing is working on wooing foreign businesses, highlighting the contradictions in Chinese policy.
The same day that Xi spoke of “extreme scenarios” at the national-security meeting, Elon Musk was getting a red-carpet treatment in Beijing, with senior officials seeking to use the visits by the Tesla chief executive and other global business leaders to hit back at the Biden administration’s restrictions on doing business in China.
Beijing’s own attempts recently to bring foreign businesses to heel—involving raids, detentions and investigations targeting U.S. consulting and other firms—have made many global companies already worried about geopolitical tensions even more wary of expanding in the country.
The two-prong approach of preparing for worsened tensions while trying to mend fences with the foreign business community and Washington suggests Xi is taking no chances. While inspecting troops when he toured Inner Mongolia last week, the Chinese leader, in military green, called on the army to “forge the Great Wall of Steel to defend the country and defend the border.”
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Zombie Engagement With Beijing
The Biden administration seems determined to revive an approach to China that has failed for 30 years.
By Mike Gallagher
June 14, 2023 1:26 pm ET
President Biden foresees a “thaw” in relations with Beijing. The State Department wants to “move beyond” what Mr. Biden now calls the “silly balloon” and get “back to Bali,” where in late 2022 the president apparently enjoyed a brief honeymoon with General Secretary Xi Jinping. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen suggests that we needn’t fret about our economic dependence on China, as the costs of decoupling would prove “disastrous.”
If this script sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve seen this movie before. For more than 30 years, Washington has pursued economic engagement with communist China on the theory that economic growth would lead to political liberalization. We now know that prosperity has served only to embolden Mr. Xi’s worst authoritarian instincts.
The scene isn’t confined to economics. Nearly a decade ago, President Obama engaged with Mr. Xi in the hope that he wouldn’t militarize newly constructed islands in the South China Sea. The president in 2015 also announced a cyber agreement with Beijing, believing that it might slow the party’s cyberwar against American companies. Each gambit failed.
By the time the party’s Covid coverup came to light in 2020, it appeared as if the era of wishful thinking had ended. Yet like a zombie in a horror movie, the strategy of unfettered engagement has come back from the dead.
Why is the White House following a path that has proved so fruitless? The charitable interpretation is that Mr. Biden wants to turn down the temperature after pursuing such worthy objectives as semiconductor export controls and basing agreements in the Pacific. There is no harm in talking, proponents of zombie engagement argue, and a failure to communicate could lead to unintentional war.
While crisis communication is important, Beijing is refusing to pick up the phone, and Washington’s pursuit of diplomatic engagement ignores three geopolitical realities.
The first is that the siren song of engagement invariably leads to appeasement in the face of foreign aggression. In keeping with its strategy of cooperation, Washington won’t pursue defensive measures because it fears such moves might provoke Beijing and endanger détente. Our leaders are shelving vital policy actions—such as ending export licenses to Huawei, applying sanctions against party officials responsible for the Uyghur genocide, and releasing details on the downed spy balloon—because they’re concerned with how the party might react. Each day that goes by without these measures, we grow weaker and communist China grows stronger.
The second geopolitical reality is the provocation paradox. The more we wring our hands over whether we’re provoking a Marxist-Leninist regime that has no respect for international rules, the more we create incentives for that regime to act “provoked” at the most insignificant slight.
The third is that the approach simply doesn’t work. Early returns for the latest round of zombie engagement, which the administration euphemistically refers to as “building a floor under the relationship,” aren’t encouraging. As the administration has stepped up its diplomatic courtship of Beijing, we’ve seen the party raid American corporate offices, target American firms through economic coercion, and extend its repression to American soil through secret police stations and spy balloons. Last month, the administration floated the idea of lifting sanctions on Defense Minister Li Shangfu to restore high-level military-to-military conversation. The party’s response? A resounding no thank you.
Instead of reciprocal engagement, we get the recent reports that China is bent on enhancing a spy base in Cuba aimed directly at eavesdropping on Americans. While Washington worries about upsetting Beijing, the Communist Party ruthlessly focuses on achieving its objectives—from taking Taiwan and dominating global technology sectors to stealing intellectual property, from economically supporting North Korea to militarizing islands in the South China Sea and attempting to box the U.S. out of the Pacific. Perhaps party officials don’t feel compelled to talk to our diplomats because they increasingly have more-sinister means of listening to us.
This is the trap of zombie engagement. It almost always places the burden of “improving” relations on the U.S. rather than demanding that Beijing adjust its malign behavior. We give up the farm simply to get to the negotiating table. Once we’re there, we’re beholden to an entirely new process of concessions because of the pressure to present “deliverables.” While we build guardrails for ourselves, the Communist Party builds fast lanes to achieve its long-term objectives.
The alternative strategy isn’t war. We needn’t capitulate to avoid catastrophe. Instead, we must defend ourselves with all the courage and conviction we can muster across the free world. Acquiescence today only makes military conflict more likely tomorrow.
Together, we must move heaven and earth to put hard power in Mr. Xi’s path when it comes to Taiwan. We must hold the Communist Party accountable for its failure to meet trade commitments; expand export controls on critical technologies; impose sanctions on Chinese firms and officials that enable the party’s human-rights abuses, and restrict capital from flowing into China’s emerging tech industry and military-industrial complex.
The Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn perhaps best articulated the problem with zombie engagement when he observed: “The very ideology of communism, all Lenin’s teachings are that . . . if you can take it, do so. If you can attack, strike. But if there’s a wall, then retreat. The Communist leaders respect only firmness and have contempt for persons who continually give in to them.”
Instead of zombie engagers, we need to be like Solzhenitsyn’s wall: firm, self-assured and resolute in the face of communist China’s growing threat.
Mr. Gallagher, a Republican, represents Wisconsin’s Eighth Congressional District and is chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party.
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General Keane mentioned last night that China now has facilities at both ends of the Panama Canal.
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Good thing the PRC doesn't have blackmail material on the Biden Crime Family!
Zombie Engagement With Beijing
The Biden administration seems determined to revive an approach to China that has failed for 30 years.
By Mike Gallagher
June 14, 2023 1:26 pm ET
President Biden foresees a “thaw” in relations with Beijing. The State Department wants to “move beyond” what Mr. Biden now calls the “silly balloon” and get “back to Bali,” where in late 2022 the president apparently enjoyed a brief honeymoon with General Secretary Xi Jinping. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen suggests that we needn’t fret about our economic dependence on China, as the costs of decoupling would prove “disastrous.”
If this script sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve seen this movie before. For more than 30 years, Washington has pursued economic engagement with communist China on the theory that economic growth would lead to political liberalization. We now know that prosperity has served only to embolden Mr. Xi’s worst authoritarian instincts.
The scene isn’t confined to economics. Nearly a decade ago, President Obama engaged with Mr. Xi in the hope that he wouldn’t militarize newly constructed islands in the South China Sea. The president in 2015 also announced a cyber agreement with Beijing, believing that it might slow the party’s cyberwar against American companies. Each gambit failed.
By the time the party’s Covid coverup came to light in 2020, it appeared as if the era of wishful thinking had ended. Yet like a zombie in a horror movie, the strategy of unfettered engagement has come back from the dead.
Why is the White House following a path that has proved so fruitless? The charitable interpretation is that Mr. Biden wants to turn down the temperature after pursuing such worthy objectives as semiconductor export controls and basing agreements in the Pacific. There is no harm in talking, proponents of zombie engagement argue, and a failure to communicate could lead to unintentional war.
While crisis communication is important, Beijing is refusing to pick up the phone, and Washington’s pursuit of diplomatic engagement ignores three geopolitical realities.
The first is that the siren song of engagement invariably leads to appeasement in the face of foreign aggression. In keeping with its strategy of cooperation, Washington won’t pursue defensive measures because it fears such moves might provoke Beijing and endanger détente. Our leaders are shelving vital policy actions—such as ending export licenses to Huawei, applying sanctions against party officials responsible for the Uyghur genocide, and releasing details on the downed spy balloon—because they’re concerned with how the party might react. Each day that goes by without these measures, we grow weaker and communist China grows stronger.
The second geopolitical reality is the provocation paradox. The more we wring our hands over whether we’re provoking a Marxist-Leninist regime that has no respect for international rules, the more we create incentives for that regime to act “provoked” at the most insignificant slight.
The third is that the approach simply doesn’t work. Early returns for the latest round of zombie engagement, which the administration euphemistically refers to as “building a floor under the relationship,” aren’t encouraging. As the administration has stepped up its diplomatic courtship of Beijing, we’ve seen the party raid American corporate offices, target American firms through economic coercion, and extend its repression to American soil through secret police stations and spy balloons. Last month, the administration floated the idea of lifting sanctions on Defense Minister Li Shangfu to restore high-level military-to-military conversation. The party’s response? A resounding no thank you.
Instead of reciprocal engagement, we get the recent reports that China is bent on enhancing a spy base in Cuba aimed directly at eavesdropping on Americans. While Washington worries about upsetting Beijing, the Communist Party ruthlessly focuses on achieving its objectives—from taking Taiwan and dominating global technology sectors to stealing intellectual property, from economically supporting North Korea to militarizing islands in the South China Sea and attempting to box the U.S. out of the Pacific. Perhaps party officials don’t feel compelled to talk to our diplomats because they increasingly have more-sinister means of listening to us.
This is the trap of zombie engagement. It almost always places the burden of “improving” relations on the U.S. rather than demanding that Beijing adjust its malign behavior. We give up the farm simply to get to the negotiating table. Once we’re there, we’re beholden to an entirely new process of concessions because of the pressure to present “deliverables.” While we build guardrails for ourselves, the Communist Party builds fast lanes to achieve its long-term objectives.
The alternative strategy isn’t war. We needn’t capitulate to avoid catastrophe. Instead, we must defend ourselves with all the courage and conviction we can muster across the free world. Acquiescence today only makes military conflict more likely tomorrow.
Together, we must move heaven and earth to put hard power in Mr. Xi’s path when it comes to Taiwan. We must hold the Communist Party accountable for its failure to meet trade commitments; expand export controls on critical technologies; impose sanctions on Chinese firms and officials that enable the party’s human-rights abuses, and restrict capital from flowing into China’s emerging tech industry and military-industrial complex.
The Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn perhaps best articulated the problem with zombie engagement when he observed: “The very ideology of communism, all Lenin’s teachings are that . . . if you can take it, do so. If you can attack, strike. But if there’s a wall, then retreat. The Communist leaders respect only firmness and have contempt for persons who continually give in to them.”
Instead of zombie engagers, we need to be like Solzhenitsyn’s wall: firm, self-assured and resolute in the face of communist China’s growing threat.
Mr. Gallagher, a Republican, represents Wisconsin’s Eighth Congressional District and is chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/06/the-price-of-blinkens-china-trip/
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https://www.conservativereview.com/blinken-s-weak-taiwan-remark-paves-the-way-for-chinese-invasion-critics-say-2661614541.html
he makes Madelaine Albright appear great.
:roll:
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https://asiatimes.com/2023/06/blinkens-trip-hasnt-interrupted-slide-toward-war/
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There is a tenor to that piece that does not read well to me, e.g. the description of Blinken at the Alaska meeting.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-and-china-drifting-into-war-former-joint-chiefs-chairman_5346832.html?utm_source=China&src_src=China&utm_campaign=uschina-2023-06-22&src_cmp=uschina-2023-06-22&utm_medium=email
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I disagree with the general tenor of this piece regarding China but find it intelligent.
June 23, 2023
Open as PDF
How to Read a Nation’s Intentions
By: George Friedman
Last week, several readers challenged my assertion that China was acting out of fear of the United States. They said the U.S. had in no way threatened China and had never claimed any intention of going to war with China, and that, in fact, Beijing had frequently threatened fundamental U.S. interests, including those in Taiwan. China, then, has no reason to fear the U.S. and could not, therefore, be acting out of fear. These are fair responses, but because they illustrate a critical element of forecasting – determining what matters and what doesn’t – I’d like to articulate my reasons more thoroughly.
Nations don’t evaluate other nations’ intentions by what they say. They evaluate them by understanding a nation’s imperatives and fears, and, as important, the ways in which another nation can hurt them, particularly militarily. Intent and ability mean everything. If a nation concludes it is in another nation’s interest to act against it, then it must assume it is under threat. This rarely has anything to do with what is said publicly. The Japanese never threatened to attack Pearl Harbor; in fact, talks between the U.S. and Japan were underway in Washington when Japan attacked. The absence of words can mean anything.
If I were China, I would note the following about the United States. First, the U.S. regards China as a long-term threat, one that could someday expand its influence into the Pacific Ocean and thus threaten not just a buffer zone but the foundation of American security. Second, the U.S. maintains a large naval and air force presence near China. Third, China does not have a non-nuclear way to counter the U.S. by attacking the U.S. mainland. Fourth, as China expands its military force to contain the U.S., Washington’s anxiety will only increase the threat. Last, the U.S. has indeed acted against what it sees as a threat from China’s economic growth – potentially raising the odds of an eventual military threat.
From a strategic point of view, China’s most vital and vulnerable assets are its ports on its east coast. The trade China’s economy depends on must come through these ports. U.S. forces, then, could strangle Chinese trade by blockading these ports. This fear was compounded by the recent deal to allow more U.S. bases in the Philippines, and then by a similar agreement with Papua New Guinea. This creates a cordon that essentially stretches from the Aleutians to Australia. The U.S. has gone to great lengths to draw this line. The ability of the U.S. to block those ports frightens China far more than a hostile statement. In the real world, unspoken threats like these are the ones that really matter.
So even if Washington never explicitly threatens China with war, China nonetheless feels threatened by what the U.S. has done, not by what it has said. With little ability to respond militarily or diplomatically, China must for now accept the reality the U.S. has imposed on it and seek accommodation until the balance of power changes. The U.S. is content with the arrangement so long as China doesn’t threaten U.S. interests in the Pacific.
Both act on the potential threat, not on verbal abuse and charges. That China placed a listening post in Cuba is minimally threatening. If it installed nuclear weapons on the island, that would be another matter. It is the significance of the threat that generates fear, and the U.S. has generated fear. As I formulate a forecast, I will watch how China responds. Will it break the American threat or impose a threat of its own? Until then, the Chinese fear of the United States will be real and rational, which is why now is the best time to negotiate with China – and this is precisely what Secretary of State Antony Blinken is doing.
China is concerned about U.S. intentions because of U.S. capabilities and its past actions. Or, put differently, China fears the U.S. The U.S. fears China too. The fact that the U.S. hasn’t attacked China with words means nothing to a Chinese policymaker – that's certainly not something to bet a country on.
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India typically avoids taking anti-China positions, so as not to pi$$ them off...but things are changing.
https://thewire.in/diplomacy/for-the-first-time-india-calls-for-abiding-by-the-2016-arbitral-award-on-south-china-sea (https://thewire.in/diplomacy/for-the-first-time-india-calls-for-abiding-by-the-2016-arbitral-award-on-south-china-sea)
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I referenced the arbitral award here several times in years gone by. Seems to me a strong political argument to make and very glad to see India asserting the point. Beijing Joe may not notice though.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/vietnam-bans-new-barbie-movie-for-featuring-chinese-regimes-south-china-sea-map_5372697.html?utm_source=China&src_src=China&utm_campaign=uschina-2023-07-04&src_cmp=uschina-2023-07-04&utm_medium=email
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19751/biden-gifts-to-china
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This matter of the Green Leap Forward putting our neck under the Chinese boot needs to be spoken of LOUDLY.
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Yellen goes to China, wants them to buy our debt. Looks desperate. Opposite of the stature we want to negotiate larger issues from.
https://asiatimes.com/2023/07/china-raises-five-demands-during-yellens-visit/
Deficits in the trillions and debt in the tens of trillions are choices we make. Stupid political choices. Stupid economic choices. Stupid geopolitical choices.
Where are the adults in the room? Yellen is the Treasury Secretary. She was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. She didn't criticize deficit spending then. She doesn't criticize it now. So she goes to China and looks desperate right when we need to look strong.
China is a seller of our debt, not a buyer of our debt. They have their own financial issues.
One message to China is, we don't need you. The civilized world is moving on if you can't get your humanitarian and otherwise act together. But her message is, we need you to buy our debt, and their answer back is we have many demands of the United States.
Meanwhile, we release the richest among us from their consensual, contractual debt obligations to us.
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Then there is the matter of her apparently thinking that because they have similar eyes, Chinese are into bowing like the Japanese are and her then literally bowing/kowtowing to the Chinese official greeting her.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12318229/Chinas-President-Xi-meets-Henry-Kissinger-Beijing.html
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The following analysis could be correct, but for me I have concern the personel changes it discusses are easily reversed eyewash-- with Xi being Lucy and the football, and Blinken being Charley Brown.
August 3, 2023
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Open as PDF
China’s Slowdown Triggers Changes
Recent policy shifts indicate an acknowledgement of disappointing economic figures.
By: Victoria Herczegh
New data released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics in July show where the country’s long-awaited economic rebound stands today. The figures clearly indicate that economic growth over the past several months has fallen short of market expectations. In the second quarter, gross domestic product grew by only 0.8 percent, down from 2.2 percent in the first quarter. Unemployment among people aged 16 to 24 grew to a record 21.3 percent – the sixth consecutive monthly increase. Trade was also disappointing, falling by about 6 percent in June, with exports declining by 8.3 percent.
While most nations around the world are battling inflation, the big concern for China is deflation. In June and July, consumer prices remained flat while factory-gate pricing (the cost of goods quoted by manufacturers) declined. Due to the struggling real estate sector and generally low market confidence, China’s consumer price index recorded its lowest reading since February 2021, while its producer price index fell by 5.4 percent in June compared to the previous year – the steepest fall since 2015. Chinese financial firms, hospitals, schools and even some private businesses have introduced deep cuts to worker salaries, adding to the risk of deflation.
After the data was released, President Xi Jinping chaired a meeting of the Politburo in Beijing, where members discussed the Chinese economy’s heightened risks, thus openly admitting that the country was experiencing economic challenges – a rare admission for the Chinese leadership. Politburo members introduced a targeted action plan aimed at shoring up ailing sectors and boosting confidence. However, the central government introduced a similar package of measures four years ago, and as the new data demonstrates, it was not nearly enough to address the key issues. The challenges facing the Chinese economy today, including wage pressures and the risk of deflation, are potentially even more disruptive than those of four years ago and could threaten one of the key pillars of Chinese stability: social welfare.
The Chinese leadership seems increasingly concerned, leading it to make notable changes in recent months. The government in Beijing has been preoccupied by the security situation in Hong Kong and Macau, taking more direct control of these regions. And in July, it launched its latest “strike hard” campaign in the western region of Xinjiang, cracking down on any gatherings of more than 30 people in an area that’s home to many minority ethnic groups, including Muslim Uyghurs. These three locations are of particular concern for the government: Hong Kong saw massive pro-democracy protests in 2019, and Xinjiang’s repressed minority groups could be a source of unrest in the future. The government has also increased monitoring of online and offline activities of university students, especially in China’s tier-one cities. Considering that unemployment is highest among new graduates, universities are a natural place of potential protest.
One strategy China has used for years to try to boost economic growth is to increase overseas use of its national currency, the yuan. Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and Argentina are among the countries that have accepted use of the yuan in trade. But the U.S. dollar still dominates the world, accounting for 90 percent of foreign trade, meaning that access to dollars and U.S. trade will be critical to China’s efforts to rebound – especially since the country relies on exports for economic growth. The latest trade figures indicate Chinese business could be struggling in this regard. European and Southeast Asian countries are some of China’s biggest trade partners, but the only single market that could give China a substantial boost is the United States, which has been pressing for a decoupling from the Chinese economy. Top officials from both nations have held talks to try to resolve their differences, but no meaningful agreement has been reached.
Among the officials typically involved in such talks is the foreign minister, a post that has been the source of much speculation in China lately. Last week, Foreign Minister Qin Gang, a career politician and Xi’s right-hand man, was replaced by his predecessor, Wang Yi. Qin had not been seen in public for weeks and was noticeably absent from a string of scheduled summits and bilateral talks. The Foreign Ministry said Qin’s absence was due to health issues. But it gave no explanation for his removal and deleted all official records of his activities as foreign minister after his removal.
Qin was widely known as one of the closest Chinese officials to Xi. The president supported his rise through government ranks and openly praised him for his hard work and dedication several times in recent years. In March, when Xi was awarded a third term in office, he surrounded himself with loyalists who fully embraced his leadership and removed some members of the Politburo who had in some way criticized his agenda. Qin retained his post through that period, making his removal now even more dubious.
Notably, however, Qin had a radically anti-U.S. stance throughout his time as foreign minister. He repeatedly made hostile statements about the United States, accusing Washington of being driven by “hysterical neo-McCarthyism” and of pursuing policies that could push the two countries toward conflict and confrontation. His rhetoric was similar to the way Xi used to characterize relations with the United States – though he softened his tone when the economy slowed after the pandemic. In April, Qin visited the Philippines – a strategically important country situated along major trade routes in the region – in an attempt to improve ties and discourage President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. from expanding Washington's military presence there. His efforts were predictably unsuccessful, given Qin’s criticism of the U.S. and Manila’s long-standing close ties to Washington. Qin was also supposed to meet with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen when she visited Beijing in mid-July, but he failed to attend the talks.
It's not implausible that Xi removed his foreign minister to make amends with the U.S., believing that this could help put trade relations between the two countries back on track. Qin’s successor is known to display a milder, more constructive tone and has already held a number of candid talks with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who recently said he knows Wang well and likes him a lot.
Recent events thus suggest that China is now on a less radical path. The central government has realized it needs a more targeted set of reforms to improve economic conditions in the country. The Housing Ministry is planning to finally introduce measures to reduce speculation in the property market. It’s also promised to help individual home owners by easing restrictions on buying a second house and reducing down payment ratios for first-time homebuyers. These are drastic changes that until now were seen by the leadership as unnecessary. The government has also paused its 32-month-long crackdown on big tech and is encouraging tech firms to expand and hire more employees. Politically, Xi appears to be sacrificing his closest allies to pursue more fruitful diplomacy, especially with the United States. For Beijing, improving relations with the U.S. to secure dollar-based trade and investment is more critical than internal economic reforms. More changes to Xi’s Cabinet can be expected. What we’re seeing is the beginning of a shift in China’s political and economic orientation, which will have implications for its foreign affairs as well. Considering its current circumstances, China needs a change now more than ever.
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The China-Philippines standoff in the South China Sea drew the U.S. military's attention on Tuesday, as Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin rang up his Philippine counterpart Gilberto Teodoro Jr. to discuss the Chinese "efforts to obstruct the Philippine resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal on August 5," the Defense Department said afterward. In the call, Austin reaffirmed the U.S.-Philippine defense alliance, and he "condemned the China Coast Guard's use of water cannons and other dangerous maneuvers, which put the safety of Philippine vessels and crew at risk," according to the Pentagon.
Notably, Austin told Teodoro that the two nations' Mutual Defense Treaty "extends to Philippine public vessels, aircraft, and armed forces—to include those of its Coast Guard—in the Pacific, including in the South China Sea."
Review a lengthy and "laughable" Tuesday statement from China's embassy in Manila regarding the water cannon episode on Saturday. Regional security analyst Collin Koh broke down the statement on social media Tuesday, and isolated several instances of apparent hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance from the Chinese. Find that analysis, here.
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https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-repeats-call-philippines-remove-grounded-warship-2023-08-08/
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https://twitter.com/CollinSLKoh/status/1689057855624945664
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The U.S military may soon build a civilian port for the Philippines that's pretty close to Taiwan, Reuters reported Wednesday from Manila. It would be located in the Batanes islands, which sit about 125 miles from Taiwan and are home to about 18,000 people. (Map, here.) Discussions are underway.
Why it matters: "The Bashi Channel between those islands and Taiwan is considered a choke point for vessels moving between the western Pacific and the contested South China Sea and a key waterway in the case of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan," Reuters writes.
Its civilian purpose would ostensibly be "to assist the unloading of cargo from the capital, Manila, during rough seas in the monsoon season," according to the provincial governor, Marilou Cayco. A decision on the new port could come as soon as October, Cayco said. Read more, here.
Related reading:
"China's new national map has angered its neighbors," CNN reported Thursday;
"Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia reject China's latest South China Sea map," Reuters reported Thursday as well;
And "US given OK to enforce maritime law around Palau as Washington vies with China for Pacific influence," the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
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https://www.reuters.com/world/us-expects-upgrade-vietnam-ties-risks-china-anger-2023-09-03/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_campaign=Daily-Briefing&utm_term=090423
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US snubs Asian allies:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/09/05/biden-asean-summit-us-china-southeast-asia-snub/
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China is slowly being strangled, will take a decade.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F5libXwWsAADCBU?format=jpg&name=small)
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Yay! Please post in the Decoupling thread as well.
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https://www.theepochtimes.com/china/china-using-military-to-illegally-push-nations-out-of-international-waters-rep-wittman-5500340?utm_source=China&src_src=China&utm_campaign=uschina-2023-10-03&src_cmp=uschina-2023-10-03&utm_medium=email&cta_utm_source=China&est=BQG2aiDEGUNbPadWO6tnNGL2FYesnPbBti6L9cy8A6T51ec26Dd120JznUUyLNSsdCGo
OTOH
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/fifty-five-chinese-sailors-are-feared-dead-after-their-nuclear-submarine-got-caught-in-a-trap-intended-to-ensnare-british-sub-surface-vessels-in-the-yellow-sea/ar-AA1hDPQU?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=6f753f83dc094a27866d73f6667aab1f&ei=19
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Meanwhile, China Trouble in the Pacific
A China-Philippines wreck shows Beijing’s increasingly risky military moves.
By
The Editorial Board
Follow
Updated Oct. 25, 2023 10:41 am ET
A Chinese coast guard ship, left, with a Chinese militia vessel, right, blocks Philippine coast guard ship, BRP Sindangan as it tried to head towards Second Thomas Shoal at the disputed South China Sea during rotation and resupply mission on Oct. 4 PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
The U.S. is putting military assets into the Middle East to deter a larger war, but other parts of the world aren’t receding into calm. The latest sparks in the Pacific demand a real bipartisan effort to pour U.S. hard power west of the international dateline to deter a provocation from China.
Over the weekend in the South China Sea, a Chinese coast guard vessel collided with a Philippine boat that was attempting to resupply military personnel on the Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands. Beijing regularly harasses Philippine vessels as it tries to exert control over the islands.
China has assets that include coast guard vessels, civilian boats and an increasingly large and sophisticated navy. The Pentagon says in a new report that the People’s Liberation Army Navy runs 370 ships deep, up from an estimate of 340 ships a year ago.
Americans are aware that Beijing may try to swallow Taiwan, but the Philippines incident is a reminder that China’s ambitions are bigger than Taipei and include dominating the region and dictating rules to the world. Beijing could provoke a conflict with the Philippines or Japan, and the U.S. is bound by treaty to defend both.
Beijing is taking more military risks. The Pentagon this month released details about China’s “sharp increase in coercive” behavior in the East and South China Seas. The Pentagon cited 180 dangerous incidents since autumn 2021—“more in the past two years than in the decade before that.” One PLA jet fighter harassed an American aircraft, “clearly armed and closing to just 30 feet away,” and lingering for more than 15 minutes.
The Biden Administration deserves credit for telling Americans about the growing risks, but it has followed up with a supplemental budget request that treats the Pacific as an afterthought. Last week’s request to Congress includes such worthy priorities as $3.4 billion for building more U.S. submarines but only $2 billion in security assistance for regional partners.
There is no shortage of projects worth funding—stockpiling more weapons in Taiwan; speeding up the island’s deliveries of Harpoon antiship missiles; and large new orders of long-range antiship missiles for U.S. forces.
Yet two regional wars so far haven’t startled Washington into taking real steps to deter China. Former U.S. Indo-Pacific commander Harry Harris was right last week when he said at an American Enterprise Institute event that the U.S. is building military force for the 2030s when the acute challenge is in the 2020s.
Some Republicans argue that the U.S. should pull back from Ukraine and Israel to focus military resources on Asia. But abandoning either one would signal to U.S. allies in the Pacific—and to China—that Washington can’t be counted on in a crisis. That is courting trouble on a third global front.
Many foreign-policy sages said Vladimir Putin wouldn’t really roll into Ukraine or thought that Israel had subdued the threat from Hamas. They were wrong, and war now rages in Europe and the Middle East. War still may be preventable in the Pacific—if President Biden and Congress start to change course.
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second
Pacific watch. The U.S. Coast Guard launched a new unit dedicated to combatting illegal and unregulated fishing in the Western Pacific. The unit, based on Ford Island in Hawaii, will work with U.S. allies in the Pacific to monitor illegal activity and support responses to incidents in their territorial waters.
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https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20107/china-overwhelming-response
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Philippine foreign relations. India has offered the Philippines at least seven helicopters for use by its coast guard during rescue and humanitarian operations, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said in a statement on Sunday. The offer comes amid Manila’s deteriorating ties with Beijing in the South China Sea. Meanwhile, Marcos and the prime minister of Japan agreed on Nov. 3 to start talks on a defense pact meant to facilitate the presence of visiting forces and conduct joint military training activities.
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Chinese threat. Taiwan’s intelligence agencies are monitoring for any signs of potential Chinese aggression, the director of Taiwan’s National Security Bureau said during a budget meeting. He emphasized that Beijing has increased its military presence not only in the Taiwan Strait but also in the East China Sea, South China Sea and Western Pacific, and hopes to have the capability to seize Taiwan by 2027.
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Chinese threat. Taiwan’s intelligence agencies are monitoring for any signs of potential Chinese aggression, the director of Taiwan’s National Security Bureau said during a budget meeting. He emphasized that Beijing has increased its military presence not only in the Taiwan Strait but also in the East China Sea, South China Sea and Western Pacific, and hopes to have the capability to seize Taiwan by 2027.
Both the tactics and the time line seem about right if we stay on the same course.
Four more years of tiresome news for Taiwan that China has moved more and more and more military assets into threatening positions, and then one day, one day before Barack, Joe and Kamala complete their 16th lazy year of not defending freedom, China will strike.
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A little bit delusional, but I have a dream.
I have a dream that one day Taiwan's political system takes over mainland China and that Chinese people have to go to the polls every 2 or 4 years and pick their own lousy leaders - like we do.
I get it that since Tiananmen Square 1989 we have only moved further and further from that ideal but I don't get why we give up on it.
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Love it!
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Moscow's partners. Russia and Myanmar began their first-ever joint naval exercises on Tuesday. The drills are taking place in the Andaman Sea and will run until Nov. 9. Meanwhile, Russia's military prosecutor’s office and China’s Ministry of Defense signed a cooperation agreement in Xian.
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Cambodian base. A new Chinese-built military base in Cambodia will be larger than many had anticipated. There’s reportedly new indication that the project is progressing rapidly and includes construction of a dry dock. Cambodia insists that the base will be used by its own navy, but many analysts are skeptical, believing the Chinese navy will use the base to expand its overseas presence.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/video-shows-the-moment-antony-blinken-winces-after-biden-calls-china-s-xi-a-dictator-upending-months-of-careful-diplomacy/ar-AA1k1tVg?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=bc84fef72a284799810ad5b113ad192c&ei=17
Article fails to mention (well, it is MSN) that Xi said that Taiwan becoming part of China is "instoppable" or something like that.
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The one thing McCain was right about: Blinks.
Blinks is thinking Nobel Prize: :wink:
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67433961
We cleaned up San Fran for that?
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From a post on Energy thread:
US is spending $2 trillion in the mis-named Inflation Reduction Act to reduce CO2 emissions by 1 Gigaton/yr.
During that time, China will INCREASE its CO2 emissions with new coal plants by 2 Gigatons/yr.
Net save-the-climate gain: far worse than zero.
Meanwhile, China will have a huge cost advantage on the production of everything else because of much cheaper energy.
China produces over 60% of the world’s aluminum, refines over half of the world’s copper—the element that is the keystone of 90% of all things electrical—and 90% of the world’s refined rare earth elements vital for many electric motors or generators, and irreplaceable in many high-tech applications including solar cells and wind generators, 90% of the globes refined gallium, the element that makes possible the magical semiconductor gallium-arsenide used to make many tech things, not least lasers and LEDs; and 60% of the world’s refined lithium, 80% of the world’s refined graphite that is used in all lithium batteries, and 50% to 90% of many key chemical formulations and polymer parts needed to fabricate lithium batteries.
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Xi’s 10 years as president are marked by a genocide against China’s Muslim minority, attempts to wipe out Tibetan culture, and persecution of Christians and followers of Falun Gong – not to mention a crackdown on democracy, religious freedom, and civil rights in Hong Kong.
Yet, during official and unofficial meetings this week, there was no mention of the long list of atrocities. Instead, Xi received an unusually warm reception.
By Susan Crabtree - RCP
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Manila is bypassing Beijing with its South China Sea plans.
By: Geopolitical Futures
Code of conduct. The Philippines is seeking to develop a code of conduct for the South China Sea with other countries in the region like Malaysia and Vietnam, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said. It would be a separate agreement from the one being negotiated between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the progress on which has been slow. Marcos said China’s increasing assertiveness in the region has made the situation “more dire.”
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-calls-america-s-bluff-in-the-south-china-sea/ar-AA1kmtPq?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=DCTS&cvid=992a4d750a3541639f4af277299b56ff&ei=13
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/u-s-responds-to-china-s-claim-of-illegal-entry-by-destroyer/ar-AA1kxfXh?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=18996ff8c9a6459e9371e48af7c54ba0&ei=16
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-warship-expelled-from-chinese-waters-senior-colonel-claims/ar-AA1kAXX6?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=b005c9ed63514a189cfa331a5442a727&ei=11
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/nov/30/china-defense-report-links-high-altitude-spy-ballo/
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America’s Chance to Blunt China’s Encroachment
Offering better investment terms to developing countries is essential to prevent Beijing from controlling the supply of important natural resources.
By Daniel Silverberg and Elena McGovern
Dec. 4, 2023 6:38 pm ET
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While the U.S. rightfully focuses on bringing its hostages home from Gaza and alleviating broader tensions in the Middle East, the U.S.-China competition continues unabated. The supplemental funding package for Israel that President Biden proposed in October contains a $1.25 billion funding request for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development—a part of the World Bank—to help developing nations such as Kenya, Morocco and Nigeria get loans from Western organizations instead of from China. Congress should endorse this package and enact additional measures to weaken Chinese economic influence in the developing world.
For a decade, China has pushed its Belt and Road Initiative—an ambitious project aimed at linking countries around the world through railways, pipelines and other infrastructure financed by Chinese state-owned banks. The U.S. can offer better partnerships to secure countries’ futures while making the U.S. economy more resilient.
Over the past decade, China, through its Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, has sought to expand its influence by providing cut-rate loans to developing countries. Even though Chinese workers have built substandard infrastructure, such as a cracking dam in Ecuador and faltering railroads in Ethiopia and Djibouti, impoverished countries continue to seek these loans, particularly to fund their green-energy transitions, indebting themselves to China for decades. China is using its banking power to dominate critical supply chains and spread the Communist Party’s soft power. The U.S. and its allies must act quickly and decisively to blunt its influence.
The Biden administration has been pushing for months to ensure that the U.S. and its allies, not China, control the supply chains critical to the green-energy transition. Mr. Biden and Group of 20 partners threw down an economic gauntlet against China in September with a revolutionary rail-to-port project connecting India with Europe. The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, or IMEC, will allow India and the United Arab Emirates to pump clean hydrogen into Europe, along with strengthening the power and digital infrastructure of participating countries.
The Biden administration believes that breaking America’s and its allies’ dependence on Chinese supply chains requires not only securing the raw materials for products like electric vehicles, but also safeguarding supply-chain infrastructure like railroads and seaports.
The $1.25 billion proposed by the administration would be a critical first step. It would allow the World Bank to provide financing to developing countries to build ports, railroads and mines that would be helpful to the U.S. Besides this funding, Congress should undertake four other reforms to help the U.S. fight the resource battle against China.
First, fix how the U.S. International Development Corp.’s equity investments are scored so that early-stage companies in emerging and frontier markets like the Democratic Republic of the Congo can attract investment. At present, the agency is required to treat equity investments as a total loss, akin to a grant, instead of allowing for expected return on investment. Changing these requirements would allow the agency to work with transparent global companies that are environmentally responsible and invest in local workers.
Second, double down on America’s commitment to the Group of Seven’s Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, the vehicle by which Mr. Biden launched the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor. The initiative involves corralling U.S., foreign and private capital to outbid Chinese interests in sectors vital to the West.
Third, seek to expand the World Bank’s risk threshold to allow greater investment in the infrastructure projects necessary to secure mineral supply chains. The World Bank currently takes a highly conservative approach toward investing in projects that China would be happy to fund. Congress can help by pushing the bank and its new leader, Ajay Banga, to raise the overall risk profile of World Bank loans.
Fourth, encourage the International Monetary Fund to create financing programs for countries of strategic importance, similar to the fund established for Ukraine in March. The IMF has restrictions on lending to countries in arrears, but the U.S. needs countries with critical mineral deposits, such as Zambia and Ghana, to escape their extensive Chinese debt obligations, and the IMF can provide them the means of doing so.
If the U.S. spreads its efforts too thin or focuses primarily on military power at the expense of economic diplomacy, it will lose this competition. But if it musters its finances and those of allied partners to address this most dire of Chinese economic threats, it will have a fighting chance.
Mr. Silverberg is a managing director at Capstone LLC, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a former national security adviser to Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland. Ms. McGovern is a co-leader of Capstone’s national-security practice.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-attacked-philippine-vessels-with-water-cannons-u-s-responded/ar-AA1lgIRy?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=a1c0a7db2e8645baada0827b55fbee86&ei=13
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I read somewhere or on news that the CCP is using fishing and other non military vessels to block waters in South China Sea.
Taking a page from Hamas. Use civilians as military shields.
Sounds like they are provoking a response to give CCP an excuse to take military action.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-philippines-vessels-face-off-in-second-day-of-clashes/ar-AA1lhwpt?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=98d53265c1ff4b558eed197609267643&ei=13
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-accused-of-using-sonic-weapon-against-us-ally/ar-AA1lkT2h?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=4834ffd536584edeba92b55e1d3371c6&ei=7
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/dec/7/emerging-defense-bill-mandates-pentagon-study-on-w/
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/satellites-capture-china-s-militia-ships-parked-in-us-ally-s-territory/ar-AA1lBnnU?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=29eaf9a5a30445d88b2615355dec1c97&ei=16
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Maritime security. Japan and Malaysia announced that they will elevate their relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership. During a meeting between the Japanese and Malaysian leaders over the weekend, Tokyo also announced that it will grant $2.8 million to boost maritime security along Malaysia’s coast as part of its new Overseas Security Assistance initiative.
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https://nypost.com/2023/12/20/news/xi-told-biden-he-plans-to-take-taiwan-peacefully-if-possible/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nypost
Xi told Biden he will take Taiwan by whatever means necessary
And Biden said back to him...
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Myanmar is not quiet. Lots of internal strife happening.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GCGmlsfXIAAavFw?format=jpg&name=medium)
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December 27, 2023
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China and the Philippines Square Off
By: George Friedman
The Philippines has long been an important component of Washington’s alliance network in the Asia-Pacific. Its geography is such that Manila can help to make or break China’s access to the maritime transport corridors its export-oriented economy depends on. But that same geography has usually meant that the Philippines has maintained some semblance of balance between Beijing and Washington.
The status quo changed in 2022, when Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was elected president. He has pursued a much more pro-U.S. foreign policy, one best exemplified by an agreement this year that allows Washington to establish military bases in the country. Add to this the fact that Australia, also a U.S. ally, signed a similar agreement with Papua New Guinea, and China is left looking at a potential wall stretching from the Aleutian Islands to Japan to Australia built for no other reason than to contain its expansion, armed with entrenched artillery and missiles and several ports of call.
Since then, the question has been whether China would respond – and if so, how. Previous efforts in that regard included attempts to drive a wedge between the Philippines and the United States; they failed because the U.S. had more to offer the Philippines economically than China. Beijing is now trying a different approach. Chinese President Xi Jinping had many reasons to speak with U.S. President Joe Biden in California earlier this year, and one of them surely included ways to limit the threat of a potential U.S. blockade. Whatever was or was not agreed to in California clearly did not satisfy China, which has begun a campaign designed to seduce Manila and discourage it from honoring its military agreement with the U.S. It has also threatened to intrude on the Philippines at will, has reissued a territorial claim in the South China Sea that runs counter to international law, and has even had its aircraft close in on U.S. bombers in the region in an attempt to force the U.S. to reevaluate its position in the region.
To be clear, no combat has yet taken place. These are merely gestures in a region where gestures are common currency. But what is clear from these events is that no stable understanding was achieved on military matters or the South China Sea. China is signaling that it will not tolerate American bases in the Philippines. But the U.S. has just substantially strengthened its position against China and is in no position to back down voluntarily.
This is the kind of situation that threatens to escalate into something much more deadly. The prospect of war, however, depends on the military capabilities of the two belligerents. The U.S. Navy has always been more powerful than China’s, and its new land-based defensive and offensive positions in the Philippines and Papua New Guinea undermine China’s ability to mount a naval assault even further. (If nothing else, they limit China’s aggression by making the risk of defeat too expensive to bear.)
That said, it was believed that China’s economic problems and America’s preoccupation with Ukraine would force the two into an accommodation. Sometimes a negotiation requires a final gut check to make sure nothing is left on the table. Perhaps this is the case, but it's more likely that Beijing doesn’t believe the U.S. can solve its economic problems, and Washington doesn’t believe China wants a military accommodation.
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https://news.usni.org/2024/01/03/carrier-uss-carl-vinson-sails-with-philippine-navy-in-south-china-sea
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second
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRK2NuzVtH8
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/u-s-ally-faces-fresh-challenge-in-east-china-sea/vi-BB1hO8Gd?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=3ff87ea1d10d4adca75c9a08fa75791d&ei=3
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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/jan/31/list-of-chinese-military-linked-firms-in-us-surges/
:x
The LEFT too worried about McCarthyism, Red Scare ?
We should be worried and taking real action.
This is worse, far worse then the 50s.
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Please post that in the Chinese Penetration thread. Thank you.
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Boosting presence. The Philippines plans to enhance its military presence and infrastructure in Batanes province near Taiwan, its defense secretary said. The secretary made the comment during a visit to a naval detachment in the province where a naval base is under construction. Tensions have been rising in the South China Sea in recent months, with repeated confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels and with the U.S. and the Philippines resuming joint patrols in November.
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Manila's response. The Philippines deployed a warship off the coast of Palawan Island in the South China Sea, days after China expelled a Philippine coast guard vessel it said intruded into waters near a Chinese-controlled island in the region. Manila said it made the move to “protect its maritime interests.”
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-demands-the-us-stop-any-official-contact-with-taiwan-following-a-congressional-visit/ar-BB1iJ718?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=3dcbd7a4ace1439f9feee356aeb30161&ei=9
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https://dailycaller.com/2024/02/25/defense-spending-plans-for-2025-dont-live-up-to-white-house-congress-bluster-on-deterring-china-experts-say/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=29912&pnespid=6L19EyhdPfILwKbO.ibrH86AuAKjCsNsJvi43LUythxmGfBcu6XHsNLMV7hc9N2rmp3LUkCh
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The World Is in for Another China Shock
China is flooding foreign markets with cheap goods again. This time it isn’t buying much in return.
By
Jason Douglas
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Updated March 3, 2024 12:15 am
Vehicles awaiting export in Fuzhou, China. The country is making more cars than its domestic economy can absorb. PHOTO: CFOTO/ZUMA PRESS
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the U.S. and the global economy experienced a “China shock,” a boom in imports of cheap Chinese-made goods that helped keep inflation low but at the cost of local manufacturing jobs.
A sequel might be in the making as Beijing doubles down on exports to revive the country’s growth. Its factories are churning out more cars, machinery and consumer electronics than its domestic economy can absorb. Propped up by cheap, state-directed loans, Chinese companies are glutting foreign markets with products they can’t sell at home.
Some economists see this China shock pushing inflation down even more than the first. China’s economy is now slowing, whereas, in the previous era, it was booming. As a result, the disinflationary effect of cheap Chinese-manufactured goods won’t be offset by Chinese demand for iron ore, coal and other commodities.
China is also a much larger economy than it was, accounting for more of the world’s manufacturing. It had 31% of global manufacturing output in 2022, and 14% of all goods exports, according to World Bank data. Two decades earlier China’s share of manufacturing was less than 10% and of exports less than 5%.
Everyone is investing in manufacturing
In the early 2000s, overproduction mainly came from China, while factories elsewhere shut down. Now, the U.S. and other countries are investing heavily in and protecting their own industries as geopolitical tensions rise. Chinese firms such as the battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology are building plants overseas to soothe opposition to imports, though they already produce much of what the world needs at home.
The result could be a world swimming in manufactured goods, and short of the spending power to buy them—a classic recipe for falling prices.
Strollers at a factory in Handan, China. Chinese producer prices have been falling for 16 months. PHOTO: STR/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
“The balance of China’s impact on global prices is tilting even more clearly in a disinflationary direction,” said Thomas Gatley, China strategist at Gavekal Dragonomics.
There are some countervailing forces. The U.S., Europe and Japan don’t want a rerun of the early 2000s, when cheap Chinese goods put many of their factories out of business. So they have extended billions of dollars in support to industries deemed strategic, and imposed or threatened to impose tariffs on Chinese imports. Aging populations and persistent labor shortages in the developed world could further offset some disinflationary pressure China exerts this time.
“It won’t be the same China shock,” said David Autor, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the authors of a 2016 paper that described the original China shock.
A different sort of China shock
Even so, “the concerns are more fundamental” now, Autor said, because China is competing with advanced economies in cars, computer chips and complex machinery—higher-value industries that are viewed as more central to technological leadership.
The first China shock came after a series of liberalizing reforms in China in the 1990s and its accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. For U.S. consumers, this brought considerable benefits. One 2019 paper found that consumer prices in the U.S. for goods fell 2% for every extra percentage point of market share grabbed by Chinese imports, with the biggest benefits felt by people on low and middle incomes.
But the China shock also piled pressure on domestic manufacturers. In 2016, Autor and other economists estimated that the U.S. lost more than two million jobs between 1999 and 2011 as a result of Chinese imports, as makers of furniture, toys and clothes buckled under the competition and workers in hollowed-out communities struggled to find new roles.
A sequel of sorts appears to be under way.
China’s economy expanded 5.2% last year, a subdued rate by its standards, and is expected to slow further as a drawn-out real-estate crunch crushes investment and consumers rein in spending. Capital Economics, a consulting firm, thinks annual growth will slow to around 2% by 2030. Beijing is seeking to engineer an economic turnaround by plowing money into factories, especially for semiconductors, aerospace, cars and renewable-energy equipment, and selling the resulting surplus abroad.
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Deflation in China
But weak demand and overcapacity means Chinese producer prices have been falling for 16 months, led by consumer and durable goods, food products, metals and electrical machinery.
That disinflationary impulse is showing up around the world. The price of U.S. imports from China fell 2.9% in January from a year earlier, while the price of imports from the European Union, Japan and Mexico all rose.
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How can the world economy combat China’s deflation? Join the conversation below.
Unlike in the early 2000s, however, the Western world now sees China as its chief economic rival and geopolitical adversary. The EU is considering whether Chinese-made electric vehicles are unfairly subsidized and should be subject to tariffs or other import restrictions. Former President Donald Trump, who is seeking the Republican nomination for November’s presidential election, has floated the idea of hitting imports from China with tariffs of 60% or higher.
Such protectionism might shift some of the deflationary impact to other parts of the world, as Chinese exporters look for new markets in poorer countries. Those economies could see their own fledgling industries shrivel in the teeth of Chinese competition, much as the U.S. did in an earlier era. Unlike Japan or South Korea, which abandoned low-cost manufacturing as they progressed to higher-value exports, China has maintained a commanding position in low-cost sectors even as it pushes into products typically dominated by advanced economies. China represents “a unique mercantilist challenge,” said Rory Green, chief China economist at GlobalData–TS Lombard.
Write to Jason Douglas at jason.douglas@wsj.com
https://www.wsj.com/world/china/the-world-is-in-for-another-china-shock-3d98b533
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-fumes-after-us-ally-s-ominous-warning/ar-BB1jiRdA?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=0d0cbfe23a9c40a289eb4f641dd95a4f&ei=10
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-fumes-after-us-ally-s-ominous-warning/ar-BB1jiRdA?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=0d0cbfe23a9c40a289eb4f641dd95a4f&ei=10
Good to see pushback from Philippines after the disaster of his predecessor:
https://www.cfr.org/article/dutertes-ingratiating-approach-china-has-been-bust
The tyrants of China are so used to suppressing free thought and free speech they forget Philippines in a sovereign nation not (yet) completely under their control.
Mr. Jinping - if you come in peace - give back the freedoms of (former) Hong Kong.
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https://redstate.com/benkew/2024/03/06/why-an-outright-ban-on-tiktok-is-now-closer-than-ever-n2171046
appears bipartisan
This could be a win for the country if they don't screw it up.
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Please post that in this thread instead:
https://firehydrantoffreedom.com/index.php?topic=2759.msg125134#msg125134
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-coast-guard-flexes-its-might-against-the-philippines-in-disputed-waters-as-journalists-watch/ar-BB1jsXo4?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=8baf1c2131da4a50a91ca528fb61a0f5&ei=110
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-faces-new-sea-dispute-with-another-neighbor/ar-BB1k6s9M?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=4ae746984e0b4247b5511061a9544879&ei=25
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(1) U.S. FALLING BEHIND CHINA IN GREAT POWER COMPETITION: During a House hearing, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) said, “We’re beyond the point of a wake-up call” that foreign adversaries are using U.S. innovation to undermine U.S. national security interests, and the U.S. needs to open new markets to remain competitive in a great power competition.
Arnold & Porter law partner John Bellinger said, “We are not only not at the table but off the field” on deep-sea critical mineral mining, and the U.S. has the most to lose by not ratifying a U.N. treaty on deep-sea mining.
Why It Matters: U.S. officials are increasingly calling out the global reordering from the “unipolar moment” to an era of great power competition. The U.S. is playing catch-up to China, which has significantly expanded its influence into the Western Hemisphere through infrastructure and deep water port investments. The U.S. previously spurned investment in critical mineral mining in resource-rich regions like Africa and Latin America, and the slow development of U.S. mining investments is unlikely to secure critical mineral supply chains and block Chinese access ahead of an expected 2027 conflict. China is also moving to corner the global deep-sea critical mineral mining market, while the U.S. has resisted investing in the sector. – R.C.
(2) NEW BIDEN AIDE A SIGN CHINA TECH WAR ESCALATING: According to senior Biden administration officials, President Biden will appoint Navtej Dhillon and Mike Konczal to the National Economic Council (NEC).
Navtej Dhillon will be appointed as the NEC deputy director to focus on industrial policy and unfair Chinese economic practices.
Why It Matters: The Biden administration has continued to ratchet up its tech trade war with China. Biden appointing Dhillon to the NEC is a sign that the Biden administration will likely escalate the trade war ahead of a conflict with China that U.S. officials expect by 2027. – R.C.
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Shared space. South Korea and Japan signed a memorandum of cooperation to develop and operate regional satellite navigation systems in East Asia, Seoul’s science ministry announced. The memorandum outlines that both countries will collaborate on the development of their satellite systems, the Korean Positioning System and Japan's Quasi-Zenith Satellite System, focusing on coexistence and cooperation. The agreement took shape during the first technical working group meeting in Seoul
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"Navtej Dhillon will be appointed as the NEC deputy director to focus on industrial policy and unfair Chinese economic practices.
Why It Matters: The Biden administration has continued to ratchet up its tech trade war with China. Biden appointing Dhillon to the NEC is a sign that the Biden administration will likely escalate the trade war ahead of a conflict with China that U.S. officials expect by 2027. – R.C."
Why it really matters : election coming up. period
Oh so all of sudden trade war is ok
now, after Trump pointed this out for many many yrs. :roll:
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FO
Japan plans to upgrade five commercial airports and eleven seaports the Self-Defense Force and the Japanese Coast Guard to use in preparation for a war in the Pacific.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-and-chinese-navy-ships-enter-east-china-sea/ar-BB1kKJj9?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=315d3d9635aa4b729984df65cf211075&ei=24
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https://reason.com/2024/03/26/how-capitalism-beat-communism-in-vietnam/
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April 1, 2024
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Is Vietnam Facilitating US-North Korea Talks?
Pyongyang’s traditional benefactors are not as reliable as they once were.
By: Allison Fedirka
North Korea lies athwart the interests of the world’s most important geopolitical actors – namely, the United States, China and Russia. The government in Pyongyang plays its bilateral relationships with these countries off one another as part of its broader strategy to ensure the survival of the Kim regime and to forestall complete economic collapse. But against the backdrop of current global conflicts that are creating hardships for China and Russia, this strategy is proving less effective than it once was. This explains why Pyongyang may be trying to hold back-channel talks with the U.S. through Vietnam.
The U.S. and North Korea have been at odds since the end of the Korean War. Their animosity only intensified as North Korea developed its ballistic missile systems and threatened U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, long supported North Korea during its war efforts, and Russia has picked up where its predecessor left off. But for much of the 21st century, North Korea’s most valued relationship was with China, whose economic rise gave it plenty of money to support North Korea and whose geopolitical clout has created problems for the United States.
The evolution of U.S.-China relations and the outbreak of war in Ukraine forced the Kim regime to review its foreign ties. Since its missile scare in 2017, things have been going downhill. Reports of food shortages are common, embassies are closing, and uncertainty looms around Kim Jong Un’s health and potential successor. During this time, a trade war, draconian pandemic restrictions and natural limits to boom cycles caused China’s economy to slow dramatically. China’s economic downturn – and need to remain on Washington’s good side to reverse it – makes it a less reliable partner for North Korea. China can’t afford to alienate the U.S. right now, and supporting the North Korean regime is a high-risk, low-reward job.
Global Diplomatic Relations with North Korea
(click to enlarge)
Pyongyang thus began to turn more toward Russia for outside support. Initially, its support seemed to be enough. North Korean workers acquired jobs in nearby Russian territory, and Moscow delivered food shipments. This is on top of all the oil Russia has smuggled into North Korea to keep its economy afloat. More recently, North Korea has reportedly offered weapons and munitions to aid Russia's war effort in Ukraine. (Russia has denied as much.) However, the war has taken a toll on the Russian economy, which has been under a heavy sanctions regime for two years. The war has been costly and requires enormous funding at a time when Russians in non-metropolitan areas are experiencing a decline in purchasing power and living standards. Moscow’s ability to be a robust and dependable partner for North Korea is now in question.
A series of diplomatic visits involving Vietnam suggests that North Korea and the U.S. may be exploring back-channel talks to improve ties. On March 25, Vietnamese Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son met in Washington with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan. The same day, the head of the international department of North Korea's Workers' Party, Kim Song Nam, held talks with the head of the Vietnamese Communist Party's Commission for External Relations, Le Hoai Trung, in Hanoi, during which he called for boosting bilateral ties between the two countries. Also that day, South Korea’s defense, foreign and unification ministers met in Seoul with a U.S. congressional study group to discuss South Korea's relations with the North. At the meeting, the unification minister asked the U.S. to support South Korea's efforts to seek peaceful unification with North Korea.
Individually, each visit could be considered routine. But their timing and the succession of related diplomatic activity raises the possibility of back-channel talks. Russia's foreign intelligence chief, Sergei Naryshkin, visited North Korea on March 25-27 to exchange views on Russia and the Korean Peninsula. On March 26, Russian President Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee, Nguyen Phu Trong. The call ended with Putin accepting an invitation to visit Vietnam at a “suitable” time. North Korea also sent a delegation led by its minister of foreign economic affairs to Moscow to discuss the implementation of various agreements. Finally, on March 28, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reiterated Tokyo’s interest in holding a summit with North Korea. (Kishida is scheduled to meet U.S. President Joe Biden in May.)
The involvement of Vietnam, which is uniquely positioned to facilitate these exchanges, gives credence to the possibility of back-channel talks. Hanoi is on relatively good terms with China, the U.S. and Russia. This is partly due to the fact that it’s a socialist republic that shares some ideological commonalities with China and Russia. Its shared Cold War experience with Russia also means that Moscow still enjoys good security ties with Vietnam, including somewhat privileged access for its navy to Cam Ranh Bay. Yet the government has liberalized its economy, making it more palatable to the West. In recent years, then, Vietnam’s geopolitical role has been marked by its balancing act between the U.S. and China, both of which are vying for influence in East Asia, and both of which have an interest in Vietnam for security and economic cooperation. Vietnam also stands to benefit from hosting U.S.-North Korea talks; given China’s comparative weakness in the region, doing a favor for Washington would encourage greater U.S. economic commitment to Vietnam. Last, it would not be the first time Vietnam assumed a significant role in U.S.-North Korea talks. Recall that Hanoi hosted the second summit between North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un and then-President Donald Trump in February 2019.
Timeline of North Korea Nuclear Negotiations
(click to enlarge)
The U.S. has its own interests in going along with talks. There are two main problems the U.S. would like to resolve with regard to North Korea. The first is denuclearization. Pyongyang’s potential nuclear and missile threat has been a thorn in Washington's side for decades. As North Korea advances its nuclear and missile programs, the threat grows ever greater. North Korea is currently working on an intercontinental missile with a nuclear warhead that is capable of hitting the U.S. The country has yet to turn this threat into a reality, but Washington considers that development a red line and will do everything in its power to prevent North Korea from acquiring such capabilities.
The second problem is tensions in the U.S.-Japan-South Korea security alliance. South Korea naturally has a lower tolerance for the North’s provocations, and there have been times in the past when Tokyo and Seoul disagreed on what response should be given to the North. The removal of the overlapping North Korean threat between South Korea and Japan would make it easier for the U.S. to execute this strategy.
There’s a chance this is all a product of routine diplomatic behavior, of course. North Korea continues to receive critical oil shipments from Russia, and the current development of the missile program fosters closer relations with Russia. Pyongyang has refused to communicate with Japan since the latest bilateral rift focused on Japanese abductees and the North's nuclear program. Satellite imagery indicates nuclear facility expansion, and in late March, North Korea claimed to have staged a ground engine test for a new intermediate-range hypersonic missile. This suggests North Korean efforts to inflate the threat it truly poses. In response, the top brass from the U.S., South Korean and Japanese military and security establishments met to discuss trilateral security efforts to deal with the threat. The U.S. and South Korea also launched a new task force whose sole purpose is to block North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
Yet there are reasons to believe back-channel talks are more likely. First, the continuation of perceived hostile actions would be expected so that each side could improve its positioning going into talks. Second, it’s reasonable to assume that each side would keep security measures on track at these early stages in order to not be caught off guard in the event back-channel talks stall. Last, the operating principles of geopolitics dictate that shifts in relations among major world actors and their relative power will have knock-on effects and force secondary actors to redefine their positions to adapt to the changing geopolitical system.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-speaks-with-chinese-president-xi-jinping/ar-BB1kX3oT?ocid=msedgntphdr&cvid=9053fd2f2bb84ca3f69d99088e93576e&ei=18
what a joke
we have an old senile fool to taking on our arch enemy
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/wwiii-could-start-over-philippines-dispute-in-south-china-sea-china-not-respecting-treaties-expert-says/ar-BB1ld2Wi?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=53a91d58b8484e56a3e7e8a74e41edf5&ei=24
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(4) U.S. ARMY TO BEGIN NEW JUNGLE TRAINING EXERCISE IN PHILIPPINES: The U.S. Army is scheduled to hold a jungle warfare training exercise alongside the Philippines Army in June. The two sides say they’ll work on logistics in jungle and island environments.
Manila reportedly requested the exercise, where soldiers will determine how they’ll conduct logistics and resupply for items like ammunition, radio batteries, and food in a simulated combat environment.
The U.S. Army also announced that Tomahawk cruise missile launchers are being deployed to the region due to “rising security threats.”
Meanwhile, the Philippines, Australia, Japan, and the U.S. each sent a ship to conduct a joint patrol in the South China Sea (SCS) over the weekend. China responded with a competing “combat patrol” in the area, according to Chinese state media.
Why It Matters: It certainly appears that the U.S. is not willing or prepared to militarily defend Taiwan against Chinese action and instead is drawing a line against Chinese encroachment into the Philippines. The U.S. and the Philippines already have two major annual multi-domain exercises. Adding another is likely intended to bolster the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty and convince China that the U.S.-Philippines (+Japan+Australia) military alliance is ready to defend the Philippines’ territorial sovereignty. Biden will reportedly “warn” China during a joint U.S.-Philippines-Japan summit this week that Chinese actions risk violating that treaty. – M.S.
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This piece applies the lessons Israel (and the US, and several Arab countries that defended Israel[!!!] learned during Iran's ongoing drone attacks and apply those lessons to Taiwan. Suffice to say Taiwan has not demonstrated a similar capability or indeed has similar tools at hand, which is good news for China:
Apply Middle East Lessons to Taiwan
Iran's Attack Could be Replicated by China Against Taiwan
STEPHEN BRYEN
APR 17, 2024
There is still a great deal to learn about Iran's drone and missile attack on Israel. Even so, it is very clear that if such an attack was launched by China against Taiwan, the results could well be dismal and Taiwan would suffer greatly. If there is one clear lesson from Iran's attack, it is that the US and Japan along with Taiwan must urgently prepare to fend off a similar attack.
In the Iranian attack on Israel:
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170 Kamikaze Drones were fired. None entered Israeli territory. At least one appears to have landed in Iran.
30 Cruise Missiles were fired; 25 were shot down outside of Israeli territory.
103 out of 110 Ballistic Missiles were shot down; 7 Ballistic Missile impacts were recorded on Israeli territory. Five of them hit the Nevatim air base damaging at least one transport plane.
Israel used its layered mostly ground-based air defenses including Iron Dome, David's Sling, and Arrow-2 and Arrow-3. One drone was shot down by an Israeli Sa'ar ship equipped with C-Dome, the sea-based version of Iron Dome. Israel also used its fighter jets and other aircraft to shoot down drones and cruise missiles.
Israel's defenses were deeply coordinated. Israel put in the air its Oron surveillance aircraft, a multi-domain, multi-sensor solution that was used to spot threats and pass target coordinates to fighter aircraft and ground based defenses. Israel also used its Eitam AWACS and Shavit intelligence gathering aircraft during the attack. 'The Wing of Zion' 767 aircraft, based at Nevatim, also was launched. Ostensibly it is a VIP transport for Israel's top leaders. In reality it is a sophisticated command center in case of a nuclear attack.
The US, UK, Jordan and Saudi Arabia also supported Israel against Iran's massive attack. US ships and aircraft shot down some 80 "objects" that were mostly drones, but US AEGIS class Arleigh Burke class destroyers also used their AWACS missiles against ballistic missile threats. Between four and seven SM-3 air defense missiles were launched. The only on the ground casualties were in Israel, one Bedouin girl, age 7, seriously injured by shrapnel and in Jordan where reportedly four people died.
The USS Wayne E. Meyer arrives at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division. The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer carries the 100th of the Aegis Weapons Systems that has been delivered to the Navy. The ship is named after the Navy Rear Admiral Wayne E. Meyer, who is known as the "Father of Aegis." Photo by Eric Parsons, US Navy
This was the first time Arab countries came to Israel's defense.
The pivot of the operation outside of Israel was the US Central Command (CENTCOM). CENTCOM coordinated the actions of all the players. While some of this coordination was improvised rather than planned far in advance, nonetheless it demonstrated the critical importance of an integrated approach to security.
This is an important, in fact a vital lesson for defending Taiwan.
There are three key findings. The first is that if China launched a similar attack on Taiwan, Taiwan would need outside support for its defense just as Israel needed outside support to fend off the Iranian attacks. As brilliant as Israel's air defense system is, it would have been saturated and unable to cope without help from the US, UK, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Taiwan's air defenses are, as far as we know, not integrated and layered like Israel's. Taiwan's air defenses consist of Patriot batteries and home-grown air defense solutions, especially Sky Bow III. Sky Bow is said to be capable of dealing with aircraft, cruise missiles and short range tactical missiles. It fills in the gap of coverage with Patriot Pac-3 designed to deal with strategic threats.
Taiwan has some sea based air defenses. Its six Lafayette-class frigates, the best warships in Taiwan's Navy, are equipped with RIM-72C Sea Chaparral air defense missiles. The missiles are old AIM-9 Sidewinders with very short range ( said to be 3 to 4 kilometers) and would not be effective against most contemporary threats. Taiwan has a project underway to upgrade the Lafayettes under the Xunlien Project. This project aims to install MK-41 vertical launch systems on the ships which requires significant structural changes to the frigates. The MK-41 is the same vertical launch system used on US AEGIS-equipped cruisers and destroyers, and also is used in the AEGIS Ashore system in Poland and Romania. Taiwan plans to equip the frigates with Sky Bow II or Sky Bow III missiles.
The second key finding is that Taiwan's domestic air defenses still need upgrading, especially since its current systems would have difficulty dealing with drones and with complex saturation attacks. In particular, Taiwan would greatly benefit from Iron Dome and with air defense integration know-how. Taiwan lacks any modern combat experience in using its missile defenses and has no hands-on knowledge of how they would perform under heavy combat stress.
One immediate enhancement would be for Taiwan to get Iron Dome. The US owns two Iron Dome systems which the US Army, a particularly retarded organization when it comes to common sense and air defenses, does not want or even know what to do with. The easy and obvious answer would be to transfer them to Taiwan.
The third finding relates to time and distance and how to handle an air attack on Taiwan. It is quite true that the Israeli and CENTCOM air defenses were cobbled together and probably could stand significant improvement, more automation, and other steps to exploit capabilities and commonalities. Even so, compared to what exists in the US Pacific Command (PACOM) and its responsibilities vis a vis Japan and Taiwan, it is hardly developed at all. PACOM cannot fight to defend Taiwan unless its systems are coordinated with Taiwan. Much of this means there is a great need for a fully mature command and control system. Taiwan has long been excluded from any coordination activities, has not been involved in regional military exercises led by PACOM, and so far as is known there is no planning on how to deal with a sophisticated attack on Taiwan from China.
The US must take lessons from the Iran threat and apply them to Taiwan's defense. Failing to do so leaves China in the catbird's seat and renders Taiwan's survival against any strong attack questionable. If nothing is done, even if the US wanted to help Taiwan, it would be without the coordinated means to help.
https://weapons.substack.com/p/apply-middle-east-lessons-to-taiwan?r=1qo1e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true