ALERT The Winds of War Blow in Korea and The Far East

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N. Korea says Biden policy shows hostile U.S. intent, vows response

11:14 am, May 02, 2021

ReutersSEOUL (Reuters) — North Korea lashed out at the United States and its allies in South Korea on Sunday in a series of statements saying recent comments from Washington are proof of a hostile policy that requires a corresponding response from Pyongyang.

The statements, carried on state news agency KCNA, come after the White House on Friday said U.S. officials had completed a months-long review of North Korean policy, and underscore the challenges U.S. President Joe Biden faces as he seeks to distance his approach from the failures of his predecessors.

In one statement, a Foreign Ministry spokesman accused Washington of insulting the dignity of the country’s supreme leadership by criticizing North Korea’s human rights situation.

The human rights criticism is a provocation that shows the United States is “girding itself up for an all-out showdown” with North Korea, and will be answered accordingly, the unnamed spokesman said.

In a separate statement, Kwon Jong Gun, director general of the Department of U.S. Affairs of the Foreign Ministry, cited Biden’s first policy speech to Congress on Wednesday, where the new president said nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran posed threats that would be addressed through “diplomacy and stern deterrence.”

Kwon said it is illogical and an encroachment upon North Korea’s right to self-defence for the United States to call its defensive deterrence a threat. “His statement clearly reflects his intent to keep enforcing the hostile policy toward the DPRK as it had been done by the U.S. for over half a century,” he said, using the initials for North Korea’s official name.

Kwon said U.S. talk of diplomacy is aimed at covering up its hostile acts, and its deterrence is just a means for posing nuclear threats to North Korea.

Now that Biden’s policy has become clear, North Korea “will be compelled to press for corresponding measures, and with time the U.S. will find itself in a very grave situation,” he concluded.

■ ‘Fundamental Differences’
Talks aimed at persuading Pyongyang to surrender its nuclear weapons program have been stalled since a series of summits between Biden’s predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un failed to result in a deal.

The Biden policy attempts to strike a middle ground between Trump’s efforts, as well as those of Democrat Barack Obama, who refused serious diplomatic engagement with North Korea absent any steps by Pyongyang to reduce tensions.

The White House and State Department did not immediately comment on the latest North Korean statements.

The North Korean statements appear to echo comments by the ministry in March saying relations with the United States would be shaped by the “principle of power for power and goodwill for goodwill,” said Jenny Town, director of the U.S.-based 38 North program, which tracks North Korea.

“So for the U.S. to keep emphasizing the threat, it keeps focus on the negative aspects of the relationship and will elicit negative responses,” she said.

Markus Garlauskas, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council and former U.S. national intelligence officer for North Korea, said Pyongyang’s rhetoric is a reminder that the problem is bigger than terminology or tactics.

“The differences between the Kim regime and the United States are much more fundamental,” he said.

Kim Jong Un does not intend to give up nuclear weapons nor reform North Korea’s political system and it is hard to see how Washington could embrace a nuclear-armed North Korea that abuses human rights, Garlauskas said.

■ Inter-Korean tension
In a third statement on Sunday, Kim Yo Jong, a senior official in the government and sister of leader Kim Jong Un, sharply criticized South Korea for failing to stop defector activists from launching anti-North Korea leaflets.

An activist group in South Korea said on Friday it had released balloons into North Korea carrying dollar bills and leaflets denouncing the government in Pyongyang, defying a recently imposed law banning such releases after complaints by the North.

“We regard the manoeuvres committed by the human wastes in the south as a serious provocation against our state and will look into corresponding action,” Kim Yo Jong said.

Last year, North Korea blew up an inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong, North Korea, after Kim Yo Jong led a campaign of criticism over the leaflet launches.

On May 21 Biden is due to have his first meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has pushed for more engagement with North Korea.

Moon’s efforts were frustrated by the failure of denuclearisation talks under Trump, which left sanctions in place that block most economic engagement with the North.

Biden’s skepticism toward meeting personally with Kim, and his administration’s renewed focus on spotlighting North Korean human rights abuses present new hurdles for Moon as he seeks to make progress with Pyongyang in the last year of his presidency.
Speech

China's carrier group conducts exercises in South China Sea
China says its aiircraft carrier group has recently conducted routine annual exercises in the South China Sea, after Beijing criticized the U.S. for sending Navy ships into the strategic area

By The Associated Press
2 May 2021, 03:29



The Associated Press
FILE - In this April 23, 2019, file photo, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy aircraft carrier Liaoning participates in a naval parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of China's PLA Navy in the sea near Qingdao in eastern China's Shandong province. China says it is holding naval drills involving the battlegroup of the aircraft carrier Liaoning in waters near Taiwan. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool, File)

BEIJING -- China’s Shandong aircraft carrier group has recently conducted routine annual exercises in the South China Sea, the People’s Liberation Army said Sunday, after Beijing criticized the U.S. for sending Navy ships into the strategic area.

The Chinese Defense Ministry last week urged the U.S. to restrain its front-line forces in the air and seas near China. U.S. reconnaissance aircraft and warships have become more active around China since President Biden took office, it said.

The South China Sea is particularly contentious because China's smaller neighbors also have competing claims to one of the world's busiest sea lanes, which Beijing claims virtually in its entirety. China has constructed several man-made islands in the disputed waters in what the U.S. says is a move to militarize the area.

Navy spokesperson Gao Xiucheng said in a statement that the exercises were completely legitimate and part of safeguarding national sovereignty, security and development interests, as well as maintaining regional peace and stability.

“We hope the outside world will view it in an objective and rational way. In the future, the Chinese navy will continue to hold similar exercises as planned,” said Gao.

The Shandong is the second Chinese aircraft carrier to enter service after the Liaoning, which was originally purchased as a hulk from Ukraine and entirely refurbished.

China's carrier group conducts exercises in South China Sea - ABC News (go.com)

Australia to review lease of port to Chinese firm -media report

Reuters

2 minute read



1/2
Machinery can be seen sitting at the Port of Darwin, located in the Northern Territory's capital city of Darwin in Australia, April 21, 2017. Picture taken April 21, 2017. REUTERS/Tom Westbrook/

Australia will review the 99-year-lease of a commercial and military port in its north to a Chinese firm, the Sydney Morning Herald reported late on Sunday, a move that could further inflame tensions between Beijing and Canberra.

Defence officials are checking if Landbridge Group, owned by Chinese billionaire Ye Cheng, should be forced to give up its ownership of the port in Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, on national security grounds, the newspaper said.

Australia's national security committee has asked the defence department to "come back with some advice" on the lease and the review is underway, Defence Minister Peter Dutton was quoted as saying in the report.

The defence department, the Australian offices of Landbridge and the Chinese embassy in Canberra did not immediately respond to requests for comment.


Landbridge, which has close ties to the Chinese military according to media reports, won a bidding process in 2015 to operate the port in a deal worth A$506 million ($390 million).

The decision raised eyebrows in the United States as the port is the southern flank of U.S. operations in the Pacific. Australian media reported that then President Barack Obama expressed anger at then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for not having informed him of the deal.

Last week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he would act on the port's ownership if national security concerns were raised.

Australia overhauled its foreign investment laws almost a year ago, giving the government the power to vary or impose new conditions on a deal or force a divestment even after it has been approved by its Foreign Investment and Review Board.


Relations between Australia and China deteriorated after Canberra last year called for an international inquiry into the origins of COVID-19, prompting trade reprisals from Beijing.

($1 = 1.2962 Australian dollars)

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:: scratches pepperoni pizza off the weeks menu..for realz.. ::

Indo-Pacific News - Watching the CCP-China Threat
@IndoPac_Info


WaPo: #China's "Belt and Road" project built on slavery A new report accuses #Beijing of employing slave labor to build its infrastructure projects aimed to project economic and diplomatic power in the Eastern Hemisphere.
That’s not the only aspect of exploitation and bullying China employs in BRI. A week ago, Forbes’ Milton Erzati called China’s BRI manipulations a reconceiving of the British Empire, as written by The Godfather author Mario Puzo.
Small wonder that Australia decided to disentangle itself from China and the BRI. The real wonder is that other nations are getting tangled in the first place. Perhaps the first step in rolling back BRI would be to free the slaves building the projects.
View: https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1388922682566012930?s=20

Is China Done With Salami Slicing?

Beijing appears to have given up its incremental strategy in favor of more sizable power grabs.



By Tobias Burgers and Scott Romaniuk

May 01, 2021


Soldiers from China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy let out a yell as they march in formation during a parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of Communist China in Beijing, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2019.

Credit: AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein
China’s recent activities and behavior in and around its periphery have shown that its current regime seems intent to push its foreign policy and security boundaries. Since the start of the COVID-19 crisis China has sought to expand its influence at an unprecedented pace, across all domains and in a multitude of locations.

China has escalated its border conflict with India, leading to violent clashes between Indian and Chinese armed forces. China has also conducted offensive cyber operations, targeting India’s critical infrastructure, including vital seaports and the state’s critical power grid. Furthermore, it has significantly increased its operations against Taiwan: It has sent its People Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) past the long-mutually-respected median line in the Taiwan Strait and has escalated the situation further by intruding into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) with ever-increasing numbers of military aircraft. In addition, China deployed its carrier force to the eastern waters of Taiwan to conduct drills, while casually remarking that such entrancement-and-encirclement operations would become the norm in its foreign relations and interactions with other, principally neighboring, states.

In its conflict with Japan, China has also increased its operations, now regularly sailing its Coast Guard into Japanese territorial waters around the disputed Senkaku Islands at a rate that seems to double its present tempo of naval incursions compared to 2020. Finally, it has sought to expand its footprint and control in the South China Sea, recently dispatching nearly 200 boats from its para-military maritime militia to the Whitsun Reef, entering the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Observing the sum of these actions, it is apparent China has changed course in its security policy. Its security policy approach in the Indo-Pacific was long-seen as centering on the use of salami slicing tactics. We have previously discussed the various possible aspects and angles of how China was, and could further pursue, salami-slicing with the aim of advancing its security interests in adjacent regions. Yet it is evident that China has given up on its salami slicing tactics in favor of a more aggressive approach in and around its periphery. Indeed, several locales within the Indo-Pacific domain have already played host to more assertive foreign and security policy approaches that have little in common with China’s previous salami slicing tactics.

In his 2012 article for Foreign Policy, Robert Haddick defined salami slicing as “the slow accumulation of small actions, none of which is a casus belli, but which add up over time to a major strategic change.” Haddick and Erik Voeten, building on the work of scholars such as Thomas Schelling and James Fearon, emphasize how the success and effectiveness of salami slicing tactics is found is the minor size of any single action. As Voeten notes the “key to salami tactic’s effectiveness is that the individual transgressions are small enough not to evoke a response.”

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This divide-and-conquer tactic is efficient over a longer period of time, slow and subtle enough to avoid evoking an unwanted response by states that might oppose both the policy as a means and its goals. While the gains are important, the actions are too minor to compel any state to go escalate significantly and potentially risk a (military) conflict that would otherwise result in far more destructive outcomes. The awareness of the reluctance of other states is an important element for the salami-slicing actor. This was best illustrated in the South China Sea, where China’s salami slicing tactics, and the absence of strong responses from its adversaries, primarily other claimant states, or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), has facilitated China’s military control over the area.

Yet, the recent Chinese actions are neither “small actions” nor “small transgressions,” and they have generated responses. The volume of China’s actions has grown sufficiently large and visible enough that its adversaries should take notice – and they have. While it is one thing to sail several ships in and through contested waters, it is an entirely different level of action to sail a fleet of 200 ships into contested waters – and to remain there. Similarly, crossing the median line with a few aircraft represents an entirely different magnitude of assertiveness as opposed to sending a squadron of fighters and bombers into an ADIZ. China has changed its modus operandi from “small actions and transgressions” to more dramatic, sweeping moves, the primary aim of which appears to be conjoined with heightened visibility.

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Concurrently, it is evident that China’s actions are evoking responses among its biggest adversaries. Indeed, the initial reluctance to respond to Chinese actions has changed and opposing actors are now responding in various ways. First, on the political level, China’s adversaries are increasingly seeking to form partnerships and other cooperative initiatives with the aim of counter China’s growing power. The Quad, the Australia-Japan-India-U.S. alliance, long regarded as a diplomatic exercise, seems to have been revitalized in the wake of recent Chinse assertiveness. Japan, generally a cautious actor when it comes to its China policy, recently, for the first time since 1969, affirmed the necessity for a secure and stable Taiwan in a joint statement with the United States. Meanwhile, Taiwan-U.S. relations strengthened under former President Donald Trump, and President Joe Biden has demonstrated that his administration is intent on bolstering the relationship further. The Philippines, which under President Rodrigo Duterte has pursued a pro-China, anti-United States approach, recently opted to extend the visiting forces agreement with the United States, and is seeking similar agreements with Australia and Japan. The latter two nations have signed their own agreements that cover the exchange of military forces – a novelty for Japan, which has not signed any such agreement since its first and only agreement with the United States in 1960. Across the Indo-Pacific, nations are increasing their political and military collaboration as a result of China’s highly visible pressure tactics.

On the military level, we likewise find strong responses to China’s actions. Taiwan has increased its defense budget; so have Japan and Australia. Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide’s government approved Japan’s ninth consecutive increase in military spending, putting money into the development of a stealth fighter and long-range missiles in response to China’s growing military power and capabilities. Australia’s defense budget continues to grow, with a view to increasing its defense spending by 40 percent over the course of the coming decade. Finally, the United States is further increasing its presence in the Indo-Pacific and seems intent on countering the growing Chinese military power. Chief among its most recent initiatives is its new anti-access/area denial A2/AD) missile plan, which aims to deploy medium- and long-range missiles as a tool to counter growing Chinese naval power.

The sum of these responses makes it obvious that China is now facing a new resoluteness among its adversaries to counter its security policies. In this environment and under these security dynamics, it seems unlikely China will be able to advance its security policies as successfully in the region, because its current tactics have violated the principles that make salami slicing effective. At times, the slices have become too thick and too frequent. These factors have played a considerable role in exposing the threat posed by China’s foreign policies. China’s incrementally bolder and sometimes clumsily blatant moves have resulted in a deeper awareness in its neighbors about the dangers of Chinese policies beyond China’s borders. At the same time, other states’ perceptions of China’s strategic outlook and intentions show little signs of being shaped and formed by Beijing, leaving China with less room to craft an alternative explanation for its actions.

While our view is that China by no means can be regarded as the sole perpetrator of assertiveness, aggression, and hostility with its neighbors and their strong allies (notably the United States), we find that salami slicing has possibly run its course. Hence, the Chinese regime has looked to increasing the pace and portion of its interests. This has created an acquisition spiral with the pursuit of its claims at its core.

What has now become more apparent than ever is that China’s objective of establishing itself as a superpower is at stake. To reach that goal, salami slicing may no longer seem a relevant tactic – after all, it requires time for the state to see the slow but steady accumulation of gains. Chinas’ stridently aggressive approach signals the end of any period of timidity for Beijing. As the regime moves to more aggressive posturing, it may expect to see its moves translate into rapid gains and influence over other states.

However, it remains to be seen how other actors in the Indo-Pacific (and further abroad) will react to China’s new approach. For now, we can conclude that its new foreign policy approach increases the risk of misperceptions and miscalculations, and increases the potential for conflict escalation throughout the Indo-Pacific.

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Teddy L. is the chief diplomat of the Philippine govt. . . my theory is when guam tipped over, all the world's missin' testosterone floated to this island. . .










Teddy Locsin Jr.
@teddyboylocsin


China, my friend, how politely can I put it? Let me see… O…GET THE **** OUT. What are you doing to our friendship? You. Not us. We’re trying. You. You’re like an ugly oaf forcing your attentions on a handsome guy who wants to be a friend; not to father a Chinese province … https://twitter.com/gmanewsbreakin
He doesn’t have a uterus. If he tried to give birth to a Chinese province it would be a ball of crap at best and the end of the regime. What is it so hard to understand about Duterte’s UN declaration that the Arbitral Award made all maritime features Philippines; no one else’s?

New Chinese submarine armed with nuclear missiles capable of covering the entire continental US, reports say
View: https://twitter.com/SputnikInt/status/1389163323208335362

vector7 said:

New Chinese submarine armed with nuclear missiles capable of covering the entire continental US, reports say

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1389163323208335362

View: https://twitter.com/SputnikInt/status/1389163323208335362

Click to expand...

Wen Lii 李問
@wen1949
May 2


Several illegal Chinese sand dredgers entered Matsu's "Restricted Waters" (<6km), on SW side of Nangan Island, around 5pm, May 2. Taiwanese coast guard vessels drove out the illegal ships. CGA also expelled a loitering Chinese cargo ship near NW side of Nangan. #KeepOut
View: https://twitter.com/wen1949/status/1388850864870223878?s=20

Naval News
@navalnewscom


ICYMI: #Japan’s MoD New Aegis-Equipped Missile Defense Ships May Be Multihulls Story by
@japanesepatrio6
Image by
@CovertShores
View: https://twitter.com/navalnewscom/status/1389226722508279811?s=20

The Epoch Times - China Insider
@EpochTimesChina
9h

In Guiyang, the capital of #China’s Guizhou province, there have been new reports of crack downs on underground #Churches by the #CCP after pastor Zhang Chunlei was placed under criminal detention.
View: https://twitter.com/EpochTimesChina/status/1389294945664749569?s=20

GET THE **** OUT – Philippines Foreign Minister Issues Expletive-Laced Tweet Over South China Sea Dispute
Reuters
Total Views: 1237
May 3, 2021
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MANILA, May 3 (Reuters) – The Philippine foreign minister on Monday demanded in an expletive-laced message on Twitter that China’s vessels get out of disputed waters, marking the latest exchange in a war of words with Beijing over its activities in the South China Sea.

The comments by Teodoro Locsin, known for making blunt remarks at times, follow Manila’s protests for what it calls the “illegal” presence of hundreds of Chinese boats inside the Philippines 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
“China, my friend, how politely can I put it? Let me see… O…GET THE **** OUT,” Locsin said in a tweet on his personal account.

“What are you doing to our friendship? You. Not us. We’re trying. You. You’re like an ugly oaf forcing your attentions on a handsome guy who wants to be a friend; not to father a Chinese province…,” Locsin said.

China, my friend, how politely can I put it? Let me see… O…GET THE **** OUT. What are you doing to our friendship? You. Not us. We’re trying. You. You’re like an ugly oaf forcing your attentions on a handsome guy who wants to be a friend; not to father a Chinese province … https://t.co/KTv1TOQvN7
— Teddy Locsin Jr. (@teddyboylocsin) May 3, 2021

Click to expand...

China’s embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Chinese officials have previously said the vessels at the disputed Whitsun Reef were fishing boats taking refuge from rough seas.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea, through which about $3 trillion of ship-borne trade passes each year. In 2016, an arbitration tribunal in The Hague ruled that the claim, which Beijing bases on its old maps, was inconsistent with international law.

In a statement on Monday, the Philippine foreign ministry accused China’s coast guard of “shadowing, blocking, dangerous maneuvers, and radio challenges of the Philippine coast guardvessels.”
Philippine officials believe the Chinese vessels are manned by militia.
On Sunday, the Philippines vowed to continue maritime exercises in its EEZ in the South China Sea in response to a Chinese demand that it stop actions it said could escalate disputes.

As of April 26, the Philippines had filed 78 diplomatic protests to China since President Rodrigo Duterte took office in 2016, foreign ministry data shows.
“Our statements are stronger too because of the more brazen nature of the activities, the number, frequency and proximity of intrusions,” Marie Yvette Banzon-Abalos, executive director for strategic communications at the foreign ministry, said.
Duterte for the most part has pursued warmer ties with China in exchange for Beijing’s promises of billions of dollars in investment, aid and loans.

“China remains to be our benefactor. Just because we have a conflict with China does not mean to say that we have to be rude and disrespectful,” Duterte said in a weekly national address.
“So, kindly just allow our fishermen to fish in peace and there is no reason for trouble,” Duterte said, addressing China. (Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales and Karen Lema; Editing by Ed Davies, Neil Fullick and Hugh Lawson)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021.
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jward said:

Teddy Locsin Jr.
@teddyboylocsin
China, my friend, how politely can I put it? Let me see… O…GET THE **** OUT. What are you doing to our friendship? You. Not us. We’re trying. You. You’re like an ugly oaf forcing your attentions on a handsome guy who wants to be a friend; not to father a Chinese province … https://twitter.com/gmanewsbreakin
He doesn’t have a uterus. If he tried to give birth to a Chinese province it would be a ball of crap at best and the end of the regime. What is it so hard to understand about Duterte’s UN declaration that the Arbitral Award made all maritime features Philippines; no one else’s?

Click to expand...

Indo-Pacific News - Watching the CCP-China Threat
@IndoPac_Info
9m


#BREAKING : #EU suspends efforts to ratify #China investment deal. Finally!!!

should be some interesting stories, not to mention the grin inducing headline

The Epoch Times - China Insider
@EpochTimesChina
7h


A Chinese man smuggled himself to #Taiwan in a military-grade rubber dinghy without being detected; the military and police learned about the incident after a member of the public reported it.
View: https://twitter.com/EpochTimesChina/status/1389681043490451461?s=20

Port of Darwin Lease to Chinese Company 'Unfathomable': Sen. Abetz
By Caden Pearson

5-6 minutes



Liberal Senator Eric Abetz has welcomed a review into the Port of Darwin’s 99-year lease to a company with strong ties to Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), saying it was a “serious mistake that must be rectified.”
This comes amid tense relations between Canberra and Beijing, which sharply declined after Australia called for an inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 and implemented measures to protect its national interests, including reviewing the port lease.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media during a press conference following a national cabinet meeting at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on April 22, 2021. (AAP Image/Lukas Coch)

Speaking to Seven Network on May 4, Prime Minister Scott Morrison reiterated his stance from last week that the federal government may take action on the Port of Darwin, but only upon the advice of the Department of Defence.
“I’m not jumping to the next step,” Morrison said. “This is a matter for our security and defence agencies to advise if there’s been any change in the security status of those port arrangements.”

Two days earlier, The Sydney Morning Herald reported on May 2 that Defence Minister Peter Dutton had confirmed that the National Security Committee of Cabinet asked his department to “come back with some advice”, and he said that “that work is already underway.”
Senator Eric Abetz in Melbourne, Australia, on Sept. 10, 2014. (Graham Denholm/Getty Images)
As chair of the Senate’s Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee, Abetz said the review was vital and overdue.
He questioned how the Department of Defence and its former Secretary Dennis Richardson allowed the Port of Darwin to be leased to Landbridge Industry Australia, a subsidiary of the Chinese company Shandong Landbridge Group.

“It is unfathomable why the port was leased to a company whose billionaire owner was named by the Chinese Government in 2013 as one of the top 10 ‘individuals caring about the development of national defence’, and the company was later found to have extensive links to the CCP and the People’s Liberation Army,” Abetz said.
“The CCP would never let a foreign nation interfere with their ‘internal affairs’ with the purchase of such a piece of infrastructure that is so militarily, economically, and strategically important to the nation, yet DFAT inexplicably thought this was in the nation’s interest.”

According to a leading Australian strategic policy think tank, Beijing has sought to project power across the oceans, which involves seeking to control ports via state-owned enterprises.
China’s aircraft carrier Liaoning takes part in a military drill with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy in the western Pacific Ocean on April 18, 2018. (Reuters)
In a report by Charlie Lyons Jones titled “Leaping Across the Ocean” (pdf), the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) identified the three Australian ports in Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney as a potential part of this strategy.
Jones warned the federal government that Beijing viewed these locations as “strategic strong points” where China can use civilian control to establish economic gain and military dominance in the Indo-Pacific region.

“From the Greek Port of Piraeus, sold to the Chinese state-owned enterprise COSCO for a 51 per cent stake, Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka, ceded to the Chinese Government—along with 15,000 acres of surrounding land—for 99 years, or the Port of Doraleh in Djibouti, which is now buttressed by China’s first overseas military base, China has a consistent record of buying ports in vital shipping areas and using their economic leverage to extract military and strategic advantages,” Abetz said.

The move to review the Port of Darwin comes after the federal government intervened to cancel two Belt and Road deals the Victorian statement government had in place with Beijing. These deals were found to be inconsistent with Australia’s national interests, so Foreign Minister Marise Payne exercised powers under the Foreign Relations law to terminate them.
Experts and politicians around the world have labelled Beijing’s Belt and Road deals as means for the CCP to expand its influence globally.

“Australia faces unprecedented levels of foreign interference aimed at undermining our political system, critical infrastructure and social institutions,” Abetz said.
“Given the new powers of the Federal Government under the Foreign Relations Bill, it is a timely and appropriate decision from Minister Dutton to consider all investments and the purchase of critical assets by foreign nations that have the potential to subvert our national interests and security.”

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Indo-Pacific News - Watching the CCP-China Threat
@IndoPac_Info
7m

#China Has Lost the #Philippines Despite Duterte’s Best Efforts #Beijing’s growing aggressiveness is forcing #Manila back into Washington’s camp. When it comes to shooting itself on the foot, Xi wins the crown time & time again........
View: https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1389800426095013888?s=20

China / Military
US-China infowar escalates as America deploys task force in battle for power and influence

• Information war includes use of traditional media, social media, cyberwarfare, propaganda and disinformation
• US says allies are critical to ensure ‘our competitors are not getting that free pass and to recognise what is truth from fiction’

“Adversary use of disinformation, misinformation and propaganda poses one of today’s greatest challenges to the United States, not just to the Department of Defence,” says US defence official Christopher Maier. Photo: Shutterstock

An information war over the
Indo-Pacific region
is expected to intensify with the US military’s decision to set up a task force aimed at stifling China’s influence and information operations.

Military and security analysts said the creation of the task force meant the United States was integrating military and non-military instruments of warfare to counter China.
The creation of the task force in the Pacific region was revealed by General Richard Clarke, commander of Special Operations Command, in a House Armed Services Committee meeting in March when he said the US needed to tamp down disinformation by China.
The task force would work with “like-minded partners” in the region, he said.


“By working closely with those partners to ensure that our adversaries, our competitors are not getting that free pass and to recognise what is truth from fiction and continue to highlight that, to using our intel communities, is critical,” Clarke was quoted by US-based military website C4ISRNET as saying.

At an earlier committee meeting that month, Christopher Maier, acting assistant secretary of defence for special operations/low-intensity conflict, said the US military would step up countering propaganda, disinformation and deception, force protection and disrupting adversarial influence capabilities.

“Adversary use of disinformation, misinformation and propaganda poses one of today’s greatest challenges to the United States, not just to the Department of Defence,” he said.

“With first-mover advantage and by flooding the information environment with deliberated and manipulated information that is mostly truthful with carefully crafted deceptive elements, these actors can gain leverage to threaten our interest.”

Song Zhongping, a former PLA instructor and Hong Kong-based military affairs commentator, said the new task force would also be aimed at gaining military intelligence about the capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army.

“The US is looking to know more about the PLA, including the PLA’s ability to engage in combat and the development of Chinese military industry,” he said.
“So from China’s perspective, it is necessary to strengthen the security of various military installations and prevent infiltration.”

Song also said the task force could spread disinformation about China’s military, stirring up trouble for Beijing.
Everything you need to know about the US-China tech war

23 Apr 2021


Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst in defence strategy and capability at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said the setting up of the special task force reflected US concerns over Chinese media and
information operations
in relation to public opinion.


“Information war will intensify as part of China’s efforts to weaken US and allied resolve, particularly over Taiwan and in the South China Sea. For the US not to respond would be to hand the operational initiative to China, putting it in a much stronger position to shape the battle space before the use of kinetic force,” Davis said.
He said the US would highlight Chinese operations, both in traditional media and
social media
, promoting an alternative perception of events from that being disseminated by Beijing.


“So this is part intelligence gathering, and part media operations on the US side, identifying where China’s information strategy is focused, and developing counter responses to blunt its effectiveness,” Davis said.

The US has deemed China its rival.
Former commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command Phil Davidson said last month that China was using regular media and social media to undermine American and other democratic systems, dividing Washington and its Asian allies.

US lawmakers are also scrutinising a bill laying out an approach towards competing with Beijing, covering facets from diplomatic strategy, military deployment and competing values, to curbing China’s “predatory international economic behaviour”.
Kissinger warns China and US against escalating to all-out AI conflict

30 Apr 2021


Michael Raska, an assistant professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said the US decision to set up the task force came as China was projecting its power and influence in areas such as
Taiwan

The US is rethinking the integration of military and non-military instruments of warfare – including cyber and information operations in multiple domains – to influence an opponent’s strategic choices and options, he said.
“The use of cyber means as political instruments of warfare is increasingly reflected in Taiwan as well as the ongoing territorial disputes over the South China Sea,” he said.
“Potential conflict zones in East Asia therefore reflect greater complexity through the strategic interactions and interdependencies between the cyber, information, cognitive and physical domains of warfare, which present new challenges for both US and China’s traditional conceptions of deterrence and defence.”



This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Information war set to ramp up as US battles for influence
Please see source for videos
Posted for fair use

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BREAKING: China suspends economic dialogue with Australia, signaling Beijing’s growing frustration. The Australian dollar fell sharply on the news. https://trib.al/WGUKxlu

G-7 Lists the Many Ways That It’s Deeply Unhappy With China
By
Alberto Nardelli
and
Kitty Donaldson

May 5, 2021, 10:36 AM CDT Updated on May 5, 2021, 1:07 PM CDT

• Russia’s “malign” actions, build-up near Ukraine among worries
• Statement highlights treatment of Uyghur Muslims, flags Taiwan

WATCH: Top diplomats from the G-7 nations laid out a laundry list of concerns that will get under China’s skin in their latest communique. John Liu reports.

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Top diplomats from the Group of Seven nations singled out China in a number of ways that will irritate the government in Beijing, from alleged human-rights abuses to its actions on Taiwan and incursions in cyber space.


In a final statement first obtained by Bloomberg, the language used to reproach the Asian nation echoed past communiques but it was the laundry list of concerns that will get under China’s skin, along with the chiding.


“We encourage China, as a major power and economy with advanced technological capability, to participate constructively in the rules-based international system,” the statement said as it singled out in detail the treatment of Uyghur Muslims and pointedly supported Taiwan’s “meaningful participation in World Health Organisation forums.”



Why Taiwan Is the Biggest Risk for a U.S.-China Clash: QuickTake



“We continue to be deeply concerned about human rights violations and abuses in Xinjiang and in Tibet, especially the targeting of Uyghurs, members of other ethnic and religious minority groups, and the existence of a large-scale network of “political re-education” camps, and reports of forced labour systems and forced sterilisation,” the ministers said following two days of talks in London.
The document also took aim at Russia’s actions of “undermining other countries’ democratic systems, its malicious cyber activity, and use of disinformation.” The G-7 renewed calls on Russia to investigate its alleged use of chemical weapons in the poisoning of Alexey Navalny.

The tone sets the stage for when leaders meet next month in Cornwall along the English coast. U.S. President Joe Biden will make his G-7 debut and try to corral allies into taking a firmer stance against a rival superpower in the shape of China and a historic foe in the form of Russia.
It will take some convincing given China’s economic clout and how countries need such a key player on board for multilateral issues like climate change.

A facility believed to be a re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained, in Xinjiang region, in June 2019.
Photographer: Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images
Secretary of State Antony Blinken essentially began to lay the groundwork with an informal proposal to counter what the U.S. sees as China’s economic coercion. Germany, France and Italy -- the three European Union countries that participate in the G-7 -- are beginning to move into closer alignment with the Biden administration but are not there yet.

Officials meeting on Tuesday spent some 90 minutes discussing ways in which China tries to exert leverage over governments and individuals through the Belt and Road infrastructure initiative or by leveling economic threats, according to a senior State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Read More: U.S. Proposes G-7 Coordination to Counter China’s Might
In the statement the group agreed to “work collectively to foster global economic resilience in the face of arbitrary, coercive economic policies and practices. We urge China to assume and fulfil obligations and responsibilities commensurate with its global economic role.”

Antony Blinken during the G-7 meeting in London, on May 5.
Photographer: Hollie Adams/Bloomberg
As Blinken heads from London to Kyiv, the G-7 reaffirmed its support for Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders including its territorial waters.
The statement also touches upon other geopolitical issues:

• Belarus and the political and human rights crisis there following the fraudulent August 2020 presidential election
• The Western Balkans and support for the formal opening of EU accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia
• North Korea, where the group remains committed to the goal of getting the regime to completely abandon its nuclear weapons program
• Condemnation of the coup in Myanmar and reaffirming a commitment to reaching the full restoration of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran
• In a section entitled open societies, a key priority for the U.K., the foreign ministers committed to working together “to strengthen the foundations of open societies, promote human rights and inclusive connectivity” and to protect democracies from disinformation and cyber attacks.

— With assistance by John Follain, Kathleen Hunter, and Ruth Pollard

Indo-Pacific News - Watching the CCP-China Threat
@IndoPac_Info


THREAD: #China plans to revive strategic Pacific airstrip, #Kiribati lawmaker says A base in Kiribati Islands, in the central area of the Pacific ocean, 3,000Km from Hawaii & in the rear of #Guam can be a game changer, disrupt #US efforts to contain China
View: https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1389994474504290308?s=20


The plans, which have not been made public, involve construction on the tiny island of Kanton (also spelled Canton), a coral atoll strategically located midway between Asia and the Americas.

Despite being small, Kiribati, a nation of 120,000 residents, controls one of the biggest exclusive economic zones in the world, covering more than 3.5 million square kilometres of the Pacific.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) said in a paper last year that Chinese facilities on Kiribati would be positioned across major sea lanes between North America, and Australia and New Zealand.

Any significant build-up on Kanton, located 3,000 kilometres (1,864 miles) southwest of Hawaii and U.S. military bases there, would offer a foothold to China deep into territory that had been firmly aligned to the U.S. and its allies since World War Two.

Kanton has been used by the U.S. for space and missile tracking operations and its near 2-kilometre (6,562 ft) runway hosted long-range bombers during the war.
View: https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1389994489964421121?s=20


“The island would be a fixed aircraft carrier,” said one adviser to Pacific governments, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the project. The map shows the strategic location of #Kiribati & the threat it poses to #Hawaii & #Guam
View: https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1389994495106637825?s=20

jward said:

Indo-Pacific News - Watching the CCP-China Threat
@IndoPac_Info


THREAD: #China plans to revive strategic Pacific airstrip, #Kiribati lawmaker says A base in Kiribati Islands, in the central area of the Pacific ocean, 3,000Km from Hawaii & in the rear of #Guam can be a game changer, disrupt #US efforts to contain China

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1389994474504290308

View: https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1389994474504290308?s=20


The plans, which have not been made public, involve construction on the tiny island of Kanton (also spelled Canton), a coral atoll strategically located midway between Asia and the Americas.

Despite being small, Kiribati, a nation of 120,000 residents, controls one of the biggest exclusive economic zones in the world, covering more than 3.5 million square kilometres of the Pacific.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) said in a paper last year that Chinese facilities on Kiribati would be positioned across major sea lanes between North America, and Australia and New Zealand.

Any significant build-up on Kanton, located 3,000 kilometres (1,864 miles) southwest of Hawaii and U.S. military bases there, would offer a foothold to China deep into territory that had been firmly aligned to the U.S. and its allies since World War Two.

Kanton has been used by the U.S. for space and missile tracking operations and its near 2-kilometre (6,562 ft) runway hosted long-range bombers during the war.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1389994489964421121

View: https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1389994489964421121?s=20


“The island would be a fixed aircraft carrier,” said one adviser to Pacific governments, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the project. The map shows the strategic location of #Kiribati & the threat it poses to #Hawaii & #Guam

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1389994495106637825

View: https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1389994495106637825?s=20

Click to expand...

So how much did Beijing offer their government?

US forces must ‘be ready’ for North Korean nuclear, chemical attacks: Official | NK News
View more articles by Jeongmin Kim

3-4 minutes


China is at fault for a lax export control, contributing to North Korea’s weapons programs, said US officials
The U.S. military must be prepared as North Korea continues to pursue nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, a high-level Pentagon official told a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing.
In a statement delivered Tuesday, U.S. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Jennifer Walsh stressed the need to “be ready” to respond to contingencies should North Korean leader Kim Jong Un seek to use these weapons.
“North Korea’s continued pursuit of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons jeopardizes international stability and weakens the global nonproliferation regime,” wrote Walsh, warning that American joint armed forces should be ready if Kim Jong Un “[seeks] to employ weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the course of or to stave off a conflict on the Korean Peninsula.”

She wrote that the Pentagon will work with allies to “deter and delay North Korea’s WMD ambitions,” adding that Washington plans to train U.S. forces how to fight in conditions where these weapons are deployed.
Walsh’s statement comes just days after a DPRK foreign ministry official warned of a coming “crisis beyond control,” slamming U.S. President Joe Biden for calling North Korea a “serious threat” last week.
Her statement also comes a few months after Kim Jong Un revealed at a Workers’ Party Congress a long wish list of weapons he wants to acquire, such as new intercontinental ballistic missiles and tactical nuclear weapons.
Brandi Vann, the Pentagon’s acting assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs, also submitted a statement Tuesday referencing North Korea’s use of chemical weapons.
“In 2017, we observed North Korea orchestrate the assassination of Kim Jong Nam … demonstrating the willingness of authoritarian states to use asymmetric techniques to achieve political objectives.”
Pyongyang is accused of using a VX nerve agent to kill the North Korean leader’s half-brother Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Feb. 2017.

CHINA’S ROLE
U.S. Special Operations Command’s deputy commander Timothy Szymanski also weighed in at the hearing and stressed that other countries are partly at fault for providing materials that aid Pyongyang’s weapons program.
“North Korea almost certainly continued to acquire foreign-sourced goods for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, as well as other dual-use items that could support chemical and biological weapons production and research,” he wrote in a submitted statement.
Walsh said China in particular was not fully complying with international sanctions against North Korea.
“Chinese entities and individuals continue to transfer proliferation-sensitive materials to North Korea, Iran, and other threat actors,” she wrote in her statement. “And China has demonstrated lax enforcement of domestic export controls and multilateral sanctions regimes intended to prevent such transfers.”
Edited by Arius Derr
posted for fair use

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18m


#Philippine Coast Guard shoos away #Chinese maritime militia vessels loitering at Sabina Shoal in the #WestPhilippineSea In 2 separate instances, they dispersed the area, the National Task Force on West Philippine Sea and Philippine Coast Guard said
2) Chinese militia vessels moored at the Sabina Shoal inside the Philippines' exclusive economic zone dispersed after being challenged by the Philippine Coast Guard, National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon has said.
View: https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1390291021779529737?s=20

Indo-Pacific News - Watching the CCP-China Threat
@IndoPac_Info
2h


1) VIDEO: #Brazil: President Jair Bolsonaro says the novel coronavirus may have been made in a laboratory to wage "biological warfare", in the latest comments likely to strain Brazil's relations with #China
2) AFT News adds at the end that a #WHO report said it was extremely unlikely, but we already know such report is not credible and the WHO itself has reversed its position & wants further investigation of such possibility.
View: https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1390329000648581123?s=20

China’s Deep-Sea Motivation for Claiming Sovereignty Over the South China Sea
By Mark Crescenzi and Stephen Gent for The Diplomat

8-11 minutes


Features | Security | East Asia
At the bottom of the contested waters lies a supply of the rare earth minerals crucial to China’s tech ambitions.


In this March 31, 2021, file photo provided by the National Task Force-West Philippine Sea, Chinese vessels are moored at Whitsun Reef, South China Sea.
Credit: National Task Force-West Philippine Sea via AP, File

In March of this year, over 200 Chinese marine militia ships gathered at Whitsun Reef in the Spratly Islands. Their presence was an ominous reminder of China’s intention to claim large swaths of the South China Sea, enclosed by the so-called “nine-dash line,” as its sovereign territory. Philippine officials sounded the alarm and reiterated the 2016 ruling of an international arbitral tribunal that denied the legality of China’s previous claims. Chinese officials dismissed the ruling and its implications and downplayed the military presence. But quietly, China continues to fortify a new and controversial presence in the South China Sea that risks triggering conflict. At least one American pundit is already warning of the risk of war between the United States and China.

Among the many issues at stake is the free and unlimited access to these international waters and the critical trade routes that run across them. These top-water issues are important and have drawn the attention of the largest navies in the world. China’s naval presence in the region has reached record levels with a plan for even more growth. The United States has enhanced its naval presence in the region as well, and President Joe Biden signaled his intent to maintain a strong presence in the Indo-Pacific. The European Union has released its long awaited Indo-Pacific Strategy, which re-emphasizes the need for free and open access to international waters and trade routes. The United Kingdom is sending a fleet of warships to the region that is its largest deployed fleet since the 1982 Malvinas/Falkland Islands War. Given all this intensification, one might wonder if we are experiencing the precursor to war.

A war in the South China Sea, however, is unlikely. These recent events are playing out in the latest chapter of what is becoming a very long playbook for China. Similar chapters have already unfolded in Mischief Reef, Fiery Cross Reef, and Subi Reef. Each time, China gradually asserts its presence and influence in disputed areas, like the Spratlys and Scarborough Shoal, wrapping “cabbage leaves” of sovereignty around these remote outposts while dismissing legal resolutions and avoiding large-scale conflict with a slow and patient approach we call strategic delay. We expect that China will continue on this course for the foreseeable future, relying on small-scale “gray zone” tactics to expand its reach in the South China Sea.
To see why, we need to look beneath the surface of what is happening now, both figuratively and literally.

China is aggressively competing with other global powers in what is becoming the great economic race of the 21st century: the quest to dominate the market for a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels. China has made no secret about its intentions to be a world leader in the production of batteries that will fuel the transportation needs of the future, power the sophisticated electronic devices that allow us to communicate and do business, and potentially reduce the extent of climate change. At the same time, China is aiming to become a leading global manufacturer of advanced electronics. With “Made in China 2025” as a key economic platform for President Xi Jinping, high-priority manufacturing sectors such as semiconductors, aerospace technology, and robotics are primed to expand and innovate.

These batteries and advanced electronics rely on the cumbersome extraction and refinement of rare earth elements. Access to an ample supply of these rare earths will be critical to unfettered growth in these sectors in the coming years. In our research, we have found that a core strategic goal for China is to maintain its market power in the rare earths market. Over the last three decades China has dominated the market for the production and export of rare earths. Often producing well over 90 percent of the world’s consumption of rare earths, China has the market power to control the prices and the quantities of these essential commodities. Much like Saudi Arabia functions as the swing state in the world’s oil market, China can constrict or expand its exports of rare earths to maintain its preferred prices and supplies.

What does China’s role in the rare earths market mean for the politics of the South China Sea? China is currently facing two potential threats to its supply of rare earths. First, as China’s economy develops and its middle class evolves, the Chinese government likely anticipates a declining appetite for huge land-based rare earth mines at home. Second, China has successfully leveraged raw rare earth materials from states such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, but the long-term stability of access to these external sources remains an issue.

In response to these threats, China has begun to look offshore for a way to augment its supply of rare earths. The seabed of the South China Sea contains an abundant supply of small lumps of minerals known as polymetallic nodules. China has developed the most advanced deep-sea extraction technology in the world, and its ability to harvest polymetallic nodules and the rare earths within them is unparalleled. With the emerging mining code coming out of the International Seabed Authority, the best way for China to ensure continued access to these seabed minerals and an offshore supply of rare earths would be to treat these waters as sovereign territory.
If China’s goal is to control the supply and price of rare earths for at least the next quarter-century, fighting a war would be counterproductive. Indeed, China is quite familiar with the limits of its current market power over rare earths. In 2010, a Chinese fishing trawler in the East China Sea was seized by the Japanese Coast Guard after a collision near the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. The resulting dispute rattled the region, and China imposed a ban on rare earth exports to Japan as well as quotas on rare earth exports to the rest of the world. Huge price spikes of as much as 2,000 percent ensued, but what happened next is key.

The spike in prices and drop in supply attracted new entrants into the rare earth extraction business. The United States’ Department of Defense launched an inquiry into its reliance on Chinese minerals, and dozens of private firms launched into the market. In what became known as the “Rare Earth Crisis of 2010-2012,” China learned that constricting supply or raising prices too much would erode its own market position. By 2014, China had removed its quotas, restored exports to Japan, and prices dropped. The new entrants into the rare earths market faded away, but the threat of their reemergence lingers.
With that lesson learned, China’s goal is not to deploy its market power to erode global access to rare earths. Instead, we expect that China aims to ensure a steady and stable supply of rare earths for an expanding domestic need while continuing to dominate the global market. If China can guarantee plentiful and low-cost rare earths for its own manufacturing needs, it will be well-positioned to succeed in its ambitious economic efforts in the coming years. Profits gained from the global market make it easier to subsidize China’s domestic needs.

As such, we do not expect these confrontations to go away anytime soon, just as we do not expect any of them to trigger war. China’s market power goals will continue to motivate it to gradually expand its maritime reach and reassert its claims in the South China Sea. At the same time, as its rejection of the 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling demonstrates, any proposed solution to these repeated territorial disputes that ignores the economic imperative of China’s rare earth market power is likely to fail. No matter how tense things seem to get on the surface, the economics of what lies beneath cannot be ignored.

Posted for fair use

NK NEWS
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4h


Kim Jong Un wants the women of North Korea to "fulfill their duties as eternal cooks for the revolution" as "true daughters of the party." The North Korean leader's wife made a rare public appearance on Thursday, attending a performance with Kim.
View: https://twitter.com/nknewsorg/status/1390547046759870465?s=20

New submarine threat: Top U.S. general says China pursuing Atlantic naval base
'They're looking for a place where they can rearm and repair warships. That becomes militarily useful in conflict.'

By Guy Taylor - The Washington Times - Thursday, May 6, 2021

China is moving behind-the-scenes toward establishing a major naval port on the west coast of Africa that would host Chinese submarines and aircraft carriers capable of projecting Beijing‘s military power directly into the Atlantic, a top U.S. military official warned on Thursday.

The top commander for U.S. military operations in Africa said Chinese officials have been approaching countries stretching from Mauritania to south of Namibia in search of where to position the naval facility.

“They’re looking for a place where they can rearm and repair warships. That becomes militarily useful in conflict,” U.S. Gen. Stephen Townsend said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Gen. Townsend, who heads the Pentagon’s Africa Command, added that China‘s military is already close to establishing such a facility in Djibouti, which is situated more than 2,000 miles away in the Horn of Africa on the Indian Ocean side of the continent.

“Now they’re casting their gaze to the Atlantic coast and wanting to get such a base there,” the general said in the interview.

The comments caused a stir among China watchers in Washington, some of whom said the American public should awaken to a reality the Pentagon has been quietly warning about for the past several years: Authoritarian communist government-run China is emerging as a global military power.

“It’s just a matter of time before you have regular surface and subsurface Chinese naval vessels in the Atlantic,” Bradley Bowman, who heads the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told The Washington Times on Thursday.

“Americans need to know that’s coming and the question is what do we do between now and then to get ready,” Mr. Bowman said, adding that Gen. Townsend‘s warning should give U.S. policymakers pause as they debate defense spending priorities in the Biden era.

Thursday’s warning came roughly two weeks after the general sought to draw the attention of U.S. lawmakers to Beijing‘s expanding activities in Africa.

China‘s “activities in Africa are outpacing those of the United States and our allies as they seek resources and markets to feed economic growth in China and leverage economic tools to increase their global reach and influence,” Gen. Townsend testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee April 22.

In prepared remarks, he noted that Beijing has pledged to deliver some $60 billion in infrastructure and development loans to an array of African countries in recent years.

He also said the goal of Chinese military operations in Djibouti are to create a “platform to project power across the continent and its waters.”

Beijing built its first overseas naval base years ago in Djibouti and has been steadily increasing the base’s capacity. Gen. Townsend told The Associated Press that 2,000 military personnel positioned at the base. “They have arms and munitions for sure. They have armored combat vehicles,” he said. “We think they will soon be basing helicopters there to potentially include attack helicopters.”

The Djibouti operation is located only about 6 miles from the American Camp Lemonnier in the Horn of Africa, a U.S. Navy-led installation, which is home to roughly 3,400 U.S. Defense Department personnel.

“Beijing seeks to open additional bases, tying their commercial seaport investments in East, West and Southern Africa closely with involvement by Chinese military forces in order to further their geo-strategic interests,” Gen. Townsend told lawmakers.

His testimony and Thursday’s interview come against a backdrop in which U.S. military officials are increasingly shifting the Pentagon’s strategic focus from the counterterrorism wars of the last two decades to threats from great power adversaries like China and Russia.

The Biden administration views China‘s rapidly expanding economic influence and military might as America’s primary long-term security challenge. Among President Biden’s initial foreign policy moves has been a scramble to solidify U.S.-Japan-Australia-India “Quad” cooperation aimed at countering China — building on former President Trump’s push for the four major democracies to align against the communist government in Beijing.

U.S. military commanders around the globe caution that Beijing is aggressively asserting economic influence over countries in Africa, South America and the Middle East, and is pursuing bases and footholds there. Beijing has already spent years building up bases in the disputed waters of the South China Sea and has been sending submarines and warships to far-flung China-financed ports in Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

In addition to those activities, officials have sought to underscore Beijing‘s focus on Africa. “The Chinese are outmaneuvering the U.S. in select countries in Africa,” Gen. Townsend told The Associated Press. “Port projects, economic endeavors, infrastructure and their agreements and contracts will lead to greater access in the future. They are hedging their bets and making big bets on Africa.”

Beijing was believed to be working toward establishing a Navy base in Tanzania on Africa’s eastern coast. But Gen. Townsend said it appears there’s been no decision on that yet, emphasizing that he’s more concerned with Africa’s Atlantic coastline.

“The Atlantic coast concerns me greatly,” he told The Associated Press, pointing to the relatively shorter distance from Africa’s west coast to the U.S. In nautical miles, a base on Africa’s northern Atlantic coast could be substantially closer to the U.S. than military facilities in China are to America’s western coast.

Other U.S. officials have said Beijing is also eyeing locations for a port in the Gulf of Guinea in northwest Africa.

A 2020 Pentagon report said Beijing has likely considered adding military facilities to support its naval, air and ground forces in Angola, along the continent’s southwest. The report maintained the large amount of oil and liquefied natural gas imported to China from Africa and the Middle East has prioritized Beijing‘s focus on those regions.

An analysis published last week by the United States Institute of Peace said Africa has “not escaped [the] growing great power rivalry” between Washington and Beijing. “Countering China was the lodestar of the Trump administration’s Africa policy,” the analysis said. “While the Biden administration may be looking for general areas of cooperation with Beijing, its Africa policy will certainly reflect its overarching aim of challenging China.”

But the analysis also suggested Beijing‘s interests are more economic and diplomatic than security oriented. “China invests heavily in Africa because it sees a continent of abundant natural resources, including strategic minerals, and a growing, youthful population that offers significant commercial opportunities,” it said. ” In 2020, African countries accounted for seven of the world’s 10 fastest-growing economies. There are 54 African countries represented at the United Nations, which often vote as a block, making Africa an important force in multilateral diplomacy. China’s foreign policy seeks to legitimize the Chinese Communist Party at home by winning accolades and showing its clout worldwide, including in Africa.”

Mr. Bowman, meanwhile, told The Times on Thursday that U.S. policymakers would be wise view Beijing‘s economic investments anywhere in the world as precursors to Chinese military developments to follow over the years to come.

“When we see China‘s economic projects in the Middle East or Africa or even in Europe for that matter, we have to assume that there is either now or will be a military component to that activity in the future,” he said, claiming Beijing is engaging in “debt-trap diplomacy.”

Others have argued the goal is to lure poorer nations into accepting infrastructure loans they cannot possibly pay back and then to forgive the loans in exchange for those country’s natural resources or for Chinese military access to strategically located ports and bases.

Chinese officials sharply reject such characterizations. But Mr. Bowman claimed that what Beijing is engaged in Africa and other corners of the world has begun to “look a lot like neocolonial and neoimperialist resource extraction.”

While U.S. critics often claim America engages in similar activities through direct foreign aid, World Bank and International Monetary Fund lending, Mr. Bowman said there is a stark difference.

“Beijing is not interested in creating independent and prosperous trading partners and co-equals. They are interested in creating dependents from whom they can extract resources and coerce national security advantages,” he said. “This is different from the U.S. approach to the world. I’m not saying America has a perfect history, but generally speaking, the United States wants stable and independent trading partners who control their own territory and don’t let it be used by terrorists to attack us.”

General: China's Africa outreach poses threat from Atlantic - Washington Times

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6m


‘No prospects’ for #China #Australia relations to get back on track soon, political analyst says #Beijing on Thursday moved to “indefinitely” suspend all high-level economic dialogue with #Canberra That's ok, stay away from Australia please.....
View: https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1390893197862133767?s=20

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@IndoPac_Info

#China Is Building Entire Villages in Another Country’s Territory Since 2015, a new network of roads, buildings & military outposts has been constructed deep in a sacred valley in #Bhutan it openly violates China’s founding treaty with Bhutan.
View: https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1390833099219488768?s=20

This involves a strategy that is more provocative than anything China has done on its land borders in the past. The settlement of an entire area within another country goes far beyond the forward patrolling and occasional road-building that led to war with India in 1962.
By mirroring in the Himalayas the provocative tactics it has used in the #SouthChinaSea, Beijing is risking its relations with its neighbors, whose needs and interests it has always claimed to respect, and jeopardizing its reputation worldwide.
View: https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1390837963198636037?s=20

Since 2015, China built 3 villages, 7 roads & 5+ military outposts in the Beyul & Menchuma Valleys. There is little Bhutan can do, the 1998 agreement where both sides undertook not to alter the status of disputed areas, has been shredded by Beijing’s actions on the ground.

Indo-Pacific News - Watching the CCP-China Threat

@IndoPac_Info


#US is urging #WHO to immediately invite #Taiwan to the World Health Assembly #WHA74 "Excluding a reliable partner, vibrant democracy & force for good in the world while jeopardizing global health, especially at the behest of #China is wrong"
View: https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1390993120259502082?s=20

China Sending Troops to Ladakh to Attack India in 'Near Future', Claims BJP Lawmaker Swamy - Sputnik International (sputniknews.com)

China Sending Troops to Ladakh to Attack India in 'Near Future', Claims BJP Lawmaker Swamy

INDIA 12:16 GMT 07.05.2021Get short URL
by Priya Yadav

A year ago, in early May, dozens of Indian and Chinese soldiers were injured in clashes on the north bank of Pangong Tso, a lake which crosses the border between India and China. The tense situation led to violent skirmishes in the Galwan Valley on 15 June, which resulted in casualties on both sides for the first time in 45 years.

A Parliamentarian of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, Subramanian Swamy, has warned of an "hour of crisis" because China is gathering troops in Ladakh as it prepares to attack India in the "near future".

Speaking about India's readiness for the attack, Swamy said India is "well prepared but it will be at heavy human cost. We should never have ceded Kailash Range without Chinese withdrawal."

The tweet, which received more than 8,000 likes within a couple of hours, included rebukes from Swamy for senior members in his own party, including Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for ignoring his warnings about China's plans.

"If the Government had listened when I first informed Modi in 2015 about China's planning and later to Amit Shah at his residence with a RSS senior functionary present, we would not be in this sorry state. Modi was silent but Shah was dismissive," said Swamy.

Swamy's outburst followed media reports that a year after Indian and Chinese soldiers clashed on the north bank of Pangong Tso in eastern Ladakh, China is now turning its temporary positions into permanent ones. Indian daily newspaper, the Times of India, quoted defence officials that the "Rutog County area has witnessed a lot of activity in recent days."

Meanwhile, talks between the countries continue. The Chinese and Indian armies have seen several rounds of talks after which disengagement occurred on both sides of Pangong Tso in February. However, China's People's Liberation Army refused, in the last round of talks, to pull back from Gogra, Hot Springs, Demchok and Depsang Plains.

Indo-Pacific News - Watching the CCP-China Threat
THREAD: 1) Leaked #Chinese document reveals a sinister plan to ‘unleash’ coronaviruses A document written by Chinese scientists and Chinese public health officials in 2015 discussed the weaponization of SARS coronavirus.
View: https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1391033790932283397?s=20


2) Titled The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons, the paper predicted that World War Three would be fought with biological weapons.

3) Released five years before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it describes SARS coronaviruses as a “new era of genetic weapons” that can be “artificially manipulated into an emerging human disease virus, then weaponised and unleashed in a way never seen before”.

4) Peter Jennings, the executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), told news .com.au that the document is as close to a “smoking gun” as we’ve got.

5) “I think this is significant because it clearly shows that Chinese scientists were thinking about military application for different strains of the coronavirus and thinking about how it could be deployed,” said Mr Jennings.

China’s New Flash Point With U.S. Allies Is a Hotspot for Spying

A South Korean island just off North Korea is attracting more Chinese fishing boats and warships.

By Jeong-Ho Lee
Bloomberg
May 4, 2021, 4:26 AM PDT
Updated on May 4, 2021, 4:08 PM PDT

Ever since fighting ended in the Korean War nearly seven decades ago, Baengnyeong has been a key location for U.S. allies in Seoul to spy on North Korea. Yet now the island is on China’s radar.

China spooked South Korea in December by sending a warship past a self-imposed boundary near the island to probe the limits of the country’s claims in the Yellow Sea. The move, described as rare by South Korean lawmakers, comes as China’s military bolsters its presence in the disputed waters.



Roughly 5,000 residents on Baengnyeong have also become wary of an influx of Chinese fishing boats near the island, which sits in a strategic location perpendicular to the Bohai Strait — the main waterway providing access to Beijing. In years past the island’s quartzite beach — one of a handful of natural runways in the world — was used for sorties in the Korean War.

“North Korea was definitely our major concern,” Park Soon-ae, who collects seafood on the island for a living, said as about a dozen Chinese fishing boats bobbed in waves nearby. “You see the sea behind me? That sea will be filled with Chinese fishing vessels in a few weeks when the crab season comes. And now what, warships? This can’t be true.”

Much of the focus on Beijing’s naval expansion often revolves around Taiwan and disputed territory with American allies Japan and the Philippines, which together make up the so-called First Island Chain blocking China from easy access to the Pacific Ocean. But China’s increased activity in the Yellow Sea — known as the West Sea in Seoul — shows that Beijing is also worried about a scenario in which the U.S. imposes a blockade much closer to its shores.



“China wants to make the sea a buffer zone to expand its maritime influence and secure a path for its fleets to exit to the south — and the ROK stands in its way of realizing that goal,” said Shin Won-sik, a former general in South Korea’s military who now serves as a lawmaker with the parliament’s Defense Committee, referring to South Korea’s official name. “Its ultimate goal is to gain full control in the West Sea, to prohibit the U.S.’s maritime activity in the waters and enable swift military action in times of emergency.”

Caught in the middle is Baengnyeong, which sits just 13 kilometers (8 miles) from North Korea and has long been a focus of intelligence agents from the two Koreas. South Korea’s military has installed dozens of radars on the island, some easily seen by the public. In 2013, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un stared at the island through binoculars and threatened to engulf it in flames. A year later a North Korean drone crashed on Baengnyeong in an alleged attempt to spy on South Korea’s surveillance capabilities.

Lines in the Sea




One key problem is that three unilateral maritime boundaries near the island remain disputed, opening the door for potential conflict. Back in 1953, after fighting stopped, U.S.-led forces unilaterally drew a maritime border known as the Northern Limit Line (NLL) that put Baengnyeong and other islands under South Korea’s control. In 2010, an international investigation concluded North Korea torpedoed the South Korean warship Cheonan near the island, killing 46 sailors — an allegation Pyongyang denies.

Beijing authorities set a boundary in 2013 staking out China’s so-called maritime Area of Operations (AO) line along 124 degrees east longitude in the Yellow Sea about 50 kilometers west of Baengnyeong. The headquarters of China’s North Sea Fleet sit across the waters in the port of Qingdao, and the deployment of new aircraft carriers requires more space to maneuver in the Yellow Sea.

South Korea’s territorial claims, meanwhile, extend 20 kilometers west of Baengnyeong, with a buffer zone of about 30 kilometers between its line and China’s boundary. According to military documents acquired by Shin through his position on the Defense Committee, Chinese ships appeared near Beijing’s self-claimed AO every day last year to “patrol and monitor its neighboring countries’ military power.”



In December, Shin added, Beijing sent a patrol ship into the buffer zone about 40 kilometers away from Baengnyeong, prompting South Korea’s Navy to respond immediately by sending a battleship that was guarding the Northern Limit Line.

Shin, who is a member of the main opposition People Power Party, said the Chinese aircraft carriers Liaoning and Shandong conducted around 20 maritime exercises last year in the area while anti-submarine drills took place about 10 times.

South Korea’s Joint Chief of Staff had no comment on Shin’s remarks or Chinese patrols. China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment about Chinese military activities near the island.

China’s goal in the West Pacific is to deter the U.S. and its allies from projecting power in areas containing core national interests, according to Zhao Tong, a senior fellow at the Carnegie–Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in Beijing.

“This requires the PLA to prioritize the modernization of its naval power and acquire sea-control capabilities to deny access to key theaters around its coast,” Zhao said, referring to the People’s Liberation Army in China.

South China Sea



For China, which often casts President Xi Jinping’s policies in historical terms, memories of foreign armies descending on Beijing through the Bohai Strait are still relevant. China reacted harshly when the U.S. sent an aircraft carrier to the Yellow Sea in 2010 for a joint naval drill with South Korea, according to Zhang Baohui, director of the Center for Asian Pacific Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.

“The Yellow Sea constitutes a core national security interest of China,” he said.

While Chinese trawlers have fished near South Korea’s waters for years, tensions with China began to ratchet up in 2016. South Korea accused Chinese fishing boats of deliberately ramming a South Korean Coast Guard cutter, causing it to sink.

China has used fleets of trawlers to assert territorial claims in other places around Asia such as the South China Sea. In March, the U.S. and Philippines blasted China for sending a “maritime militia” of more than 200 vessels to a disputed reef in the waters. Beijing insisted they were merely sheltering from bad weather.

On Baengnyeong, residents are growing impatient with China’s moves and want President Moon Jae-in to do more. South Korea’s leader has sought to balance ties with China, the country’s biggest trading partner, and the U.S., its main security partner for more than seven decades.

South Korea is planning to build airports to serve civilian and military aircraft on Baengnyeong and the Yellow Sea island of Heuksan further to the south. Residents said the airport would help them feel safer, but they wanted the government in Seoul to do more to deter China.

“The military and Coast Guard should crack down on these Chinese fishing boats,” said Im Goon-jae, a 63-year-old resident who works for the island’s hospitality industry. “They need to block them far out.”

— With assistance by Adrian Leung

China’s New Flash Point With U.S. Allies Like South Korea a Hotspot for Spying - Bloomberg

Posted for fair use.....

Missile Deployments on the Korean Peninsula: An Accelerating Arms Race

• BY: SANGSOO LEE
• MAY 7, 2021
• MILITARY AFFAIRS

(Source: Rodong Sinmun)
South Korea’s significant improvements in its conventional force capabilities are an important driver of North Korean efforts to accelerate its development of more advanced ballistic missile and nuclear weapons capabilities. The North’s incorporation of new technologies into its ballistic missiles will significantly increase the threat to South Korean and US national security. The Biden administration’s announcement that it will seek a pragmatic and phased approach to North Korean denuclearization could give Pyongyang incentives to reach agreements favorable to Washington and Seoul. These future negotiations could curb the North’s further missile development and stop or decelerate the arms race underway between the two Koreas, while creating opportunities to build the kind of confidence needed to continue working toward denuclearization.

Background
North Korea conducted two short-range missile tests at the end of March—the first such tests in a year and the first since US President Joseph Biden took office. Just before the tests, First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said North Korea felt no need to respond to the recent attempts by the Biden administration to establish dialogue, dismissing them as a “delaying-time trick.”[1] Kim Jong Un has probably judged that, at least in the near term, Biden is not interested in meeting the regime’s major demands, such as an end to America’s “hostile policy” and security guarantees and sanctions relief for the North. From the regime’s perspective, reaching a nuclear deal now with the new administration seems less likely than it was during the Trump presidency, as Biden has already placed emphasis on the threat North Korea poses and its human rights record.

As a result, the missile tests conducted in late March were seen as a signal to Washington that Pyongyang would continue developing its nuclear weapons program in the current “hostile” environment. Ri Pyong Chol, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, made a statement proclaiming that North Korea is solely exercising its right to self-defense and condemned the unfairness of the security situation on the peninsula by stating the US brought “strategic nuclear assets into the Korean Peninsula and launch[es] ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles] any time it wants,” and criticizes “the North when it conducts ‘even a test of a tactical weapon.’”[2] On March 28, Jo Chol Su, a senior foreign ministry official, similarly described the test as “an exercise of the righteous self-defensive right to deter military threats posed to the Korean Peninsula and safeguard peace and prosperity of our state.”[3]

Missile Race With South Korea
In many ways, North Korea’s most recent missile advancements have focused on capabilities to counter South Korean defense improvements, including ballistic missile capabilities and missile defenses. Despite the protection of US extended deterrence, over the next five years, the South Korean government plans to spend more than 80 percent of its $90 billion defense budget to boost defense capabilities, especially its missile defenses. Meanwhile, the US agreed to lift weight limits for South Korean ballistic missiles in 2017, “leading to the development of at least one heavier weapon that could play a key role” in implementing “strategies aimed at preempting North Korean attacks or ‘decapitating’ its leadership.” One of the significant outcomes is the Hyunmoo-4 missile with a range of 800 km and a warhead weight of two tons. This missile can be used to strike deeply buried underground facilities in North Korea.

Another big part of South Korea’s recent missile development is a new submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), the Hyunmoo-2B; these conventional missiles, with a 500-km range, are expected to be deployed with the 3,000-ton class KSS III or larger submarines. South Korea’s SLBM development and latest flight test may have been a potential motivation for North Korea’s new Pukguksong models, shown at recent military parades.

In a speech at the Eighth Party Congress in January, Kim Jong Un criticized South Korean President Moon for remarks made on a visit to the state-run Agency for Defense Development (ADD), where he proclaimed that the country’s ballistic missile development had “sufficient range and the world’s largest warhead weight,” most likely referring to the Hyunmoo-4.[4] These developments show an emerging arms race between the two Koreas, as both Seoul and Pyongyang work to match each other’s military advancements.

However, North Korea is focusing on developing offensive missiles to deter South Korea’s military strength because it has no missile defense system to ensure the survivability and second-strike potential of its strategic arsenal. Thus, its recent tests were intended to demonstrate a missile attack capability surpassing South Korea’s Hyunmoo-4 in terms of the sophistication of its guidance system and warhead weight. For instance, North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that the new missiles could carry a payload of 2.5 tons—more than double the weight of its KN-23’s one-ton warhead.[5] In theory, the new ballistic missile would be capable of carrying a heavier warhead than South Korean missiles, which maxes out at two tons.

KCNA also claimed that the missiles were solid-fuel tactical and carried a “new-type tactical guided projectile” that could perform “gliding and pull-up” maneuvers in low-altitude flight.[6] This advancement could render useless the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system deployed in South Korea in 2017. North Korea also announced that the two missiles flew 600 kilometers toward the East Sea (Sea of Japan), while the South Korean military estimated a flight distance of around 450 kilometers with an altitude of 60 kilometers. Some missile experts suggest “gliding and pull-up” maneuvers would enable the missiles to avoid radar detection systems in South Korea, creating new challenges for its missile defenses. In addition to the development of short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs), Pyongyang has reportedly announced plans to deploy nuclear-powered submarines armed with nuclear weapons by 2022, and has said that they would carry the Pukguksong-5, the country’s most recently revealed (but not yet flight tested) SLBM. Kim Jong Un has said that such a weapon will be of great importance in raising North Korea’s surprise attack and long-range nuclear strike capabilities.[7]

The Race Between Offense and Defense
US missile defense systems have also been evolving to deal with North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats. In March 2020, the Trump administration asked the US Congress to provide “$380 million over the next five years” to develop and test a “prototype space-based laser weapon” by 2023 that can destroy ICBMs. On November 16, 2020, the US Navy successfully launched the SM-3 Block IIA from Kwajalein Atoll toward an area northeast of Hawaii—a missile designed to eliminate an incoming “ICBM-representative target,” such as North Korea’s ICBMs.

North Korea’s new class of SRBMs currently poses a serious threat to South Korean and American troops on the Korean Peninsula—a threat that will grow as Pyongyang fields SRBMs with solid-fuel engines, hypersonic missiles and maneuverable warheads. During the Eighth Party Congress, Kim Jong Un said North Korea is “conducting research into perfecting the guidance technology for multi-warhead rocket at the final stage.”[8] Based on North Korean ICBM development and testing to date, its new ICBM might have sufficient payload to allow the deployment of multiple, independently targetable warheads; further North Korean progress in warhead miniaturization could enable it to deploy four multiple warheads for its ICBMs by 2022. If these technologies are fielded, the North’s missiles will be less vulnerable to missile defenses. North Korea is, therefore, increasingly likely to accelerate strategic weapons testing in the years ahead to make those improvements. However, in order to avoid additional sanctions and external military pressures as much as possible, Pyongyang appears to be taking partial and gradual steps to obtain the necessary know-how and technologies for a new ICBM, rather than conducting additional tests of the long-range missile.

Conclusion
South Korea’s significant improvements in its conventional force capabilities have driven North Korea to advance its strategic weapons and nuclear capability. What we are witnessing today on the Korean Peninsula is the same kind of action-reaction dynamic that developed between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War—a destabilizing and expensive arms race that prompted both sides to pursue arms control agreements to promote strategic stability, reduce arms racing, and lessen the burden of defense expenditures. North Korea might find arms control attractive because it would make it easier to pursue parallel development of its nuclear deterrent and economic growth.

1. • [1]
     “Statement of First Vice Foreign Minister of DPRK,” KCNA, March 18, 2021.
   • [2]
     See: “Ri Pyong Chol Expresses Deep Apprehension over U.S. President’s Statement Faulting DPRK’s Regular Testfire,” KCNA, March 27, 2021; and “N.K. says Biden’s remarks on recent missile launches a ‘provocation’,” Yonhap News Agency, March 27, 2021, N.K. says Biden's remarks on recent missile launches a 'provocation' | Yonhap News Agency.
   • [3]
     “Double Standard Will Invite More Serious Consequence: Director-General of Department of International Organizations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of DPRK,” DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs, March 29, 2021, Ministry of Foreign Affairs DPRK.
   • [4]
     See: “조선로동당 제8차대회에서 하신 경애하는 김정은동지의 보고에 대하여,” KCNA, January 9, 2021; and “S. Korea to accelerate development of hypersonic missiles: defense chief,” Yonhap News Agency, August 5, 2020, S. Korea to accelerate development of hypersonic missiles: defense chief | Yonhap News Agency.
   • [5]
     See: “Academy of Defence Science Test-fires New-type Tactical Guided Missiles,” KCNA, March 26, 2021; and “(News Focus) New KN-23 ballistic missile to boost N. Korea’s tactical nuclear capabilities: experts,” Yonhap News Agency, March 26, 2021, (News Focus) New KN-23 ballistic missile to boost N. Korea's tactical nuclear capabilities: experts | Yonhap News Agency.
   • [6]
     See: “Academy of Defence Science Test-fires New-type Tactical Guided Missiles,” KCNA; and Laura Bicker, “North Korea claims ‘new tactical guided’ missiles launched,” BBC, March 26, 2021, North Korea claims 'new tactical guided' missiles launched.
   • [7]
     “Great Programme for Struggle Leading Korean-style Socialist Construction to Fresh Victory On Report Made by Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un at Eighth Congress of WPK,” DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs, January 9, 2021, Ministry of Foreign Affairs DPRK.
   • [8]
     See: “Great Programme for Struggle Leading Korean-style Socialist Construction to Fresh Victory On Report Made by Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un at Eighth Congress of WPK,” DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and Joshua Berlinger and Yoonjung Seo, “Kim Jong Un says North Korea is developing tactical nukes, new warheads and a nuclear-powered submarine,” CNN, January 9, 2021, Kim Jong Un says North Korea is developing tactical nukes, new warheads and a nuclear-powered submarine.

Beijing's Elusive Bid For Pricing Power On Rare Earths
by Tyler Durden

6-7 minutes


Authored by Damien Ma via MacroPolo.org,

From ventilator and chip shortages to what kind of ships traverses through which canals, the linkages and nodes of the global economy have rarely been in the spotlight as much as they have over the last 12 months. Many of these disruptions are short-term ones, but they have also brought attention to longstanding challenges of supply chain resilience and dependence.

One of those challenges is that of China’s grip on rare earth elements (REEs), a key input in permanent magnets that are in everything from smart phones and wind turbines to electric vehicles and missile guidance systems.


Figure 1. REE Demand for Permanent Magnets by Application, 2010-2025

Source: Statista estimates; Quest Rare Minerals.

This is not the first time these 17 elements that sit at the bottom of the periodic table have raised alarm from Tokyo to Washington. Back in 2010, Beijing was roundly accused of embargoing REE exports to Japan as Sino-Japan relations soured.
At the time, China was responsible for some 90%-plus of REE supplies globally, even though its estimated reserves are around just 25%-33% of the global total. Given the wide belief in Japan and the United States—which also happen to be the largest importers of REEs—that China could weaponize this resource, its supply monopoly raised hackles and intensified calls for diversification.

A decade since, has much changed? I had trekked to Inner Mongolia’s Baotou Rare Earth Hi-Tech Zone back in 2010 to gain more insight into China’s designs on the REE industry and how that affected the global market. It’s worth revisiting this industry now to understand how its dynamics shaped Beijing’s thinking and intent on managing this resource.

“Selling gold for the price of radishes”
China has long viewed REEs as a strategic resource, with the industry’s development spurred by a quip supposedly attributed to Deng Xiaoping: “The Middle East has oil, but China has rare earths.”
Yet as China became the dominant supplier of REEs over subsequent decades, it saw the price of REEs plummet, hardly the price-setting influence that an OPEC exerted on oil prices. That frustrated the economic nationalists in Beijing, grumbling that China was essentially “selling gold at the price of radishes.”

Much of that frustration stemmed from the government’s inability to regulate a wild industry that was rife with smuggling. At one point in 2011, it was estimated that there was a gap of 120% between REE volumes that China officially exported and what other countries imported. Meanwhile, REE mining was also exacting a hefty environmental toll.
The Chinese government decided it needed to consolidate the REE industry. Beijing thought it could clean up the illegal business, while also receiving some of that price-setting power that has long eluded it. What’s more, the move also dovetailed with rolling out the original “strategic emerging industries” initiative, the start of China’s effort to indigenize supply chains and move up the value chain.

In other words, why export this resource for pennies when China should keep more of it for its own tech industries of the future?
This is where Baotou comes into play. Part of the industry restructuring was intended as a “resource for technology” play. That is, instead of exporting REEs, China did what it knows best: set up zones to attract high-tech manufacturing investment in exchange for easy access to critical materials. Baotou, of course, was and still is China’s largest production base of REEs.

Did the strategy work?
Although economic nationalist in orientation, China’s REE policy was a far cry from banning exports (see Figure 2). The stringent export quotas in the 2011-2012 period certainly drove a spike in prices, but that was short-lived. By 2014, it became apparent that China was ramping up exports rather than reducing them, and prices quickly corrected and have remained relatively low since. The reality reflects Beijing’s perennial struggle in imposing its will on a fragmented, messy, and profit-driven industry.

Figure 2. China’s REE Exports Have Not Declined Over Last Decade

Source: Wind.

It is also not entirely clear whether an actual embargo took place in 2011 or whether it was the result of Beijing’s export quotas. But whatever the judgment in hindsight, the damage has already been done to China as a reliable supplier of REEs, leading to gradual resource diversification. China is now just under 60% of global REE production (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Global Share of REE Production (in tons)

Source: US Geological Survey.

The relative abundance of REE reserves globally, it turns out, means that China’s bid for price-setting power rested on faulty assumptions of its leverage. Despite national security hawks’ continued pitch for exercising pricing power, Beijing seems to have recognized that it no longer has a monopoly on production.
Instead of obsessing over what’s in the ground and how much to sell it for, China appears to have shifted tactic to redouble its effort on developing the midstream REE processing industry and downstream end products like magnets.
A clear indication of that focus was President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Jiangxi—a major hub of REE production. Rather than a mining operation, Xi toured JL Mag, a downstream company that supplies magnets to the likes of Goldwind and BYD. We will look further at the midstream and downstream dynamics of the REE industry in future analysis.

Posted for fair use

jward said:

Indo-Pacific News - Watching the CCP-China Threat
THREAD: 1) Leaked #Chinese document reveals a sinister plan to ‘unleash’ coronaviruses A document written by Chinese scientists and Chinese public health officials in 2015 discussed the weaponization of SARS coronavirus.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1391033790932283397

View: https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1391033790932283397?s=20


2) Titled The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons, the paper predicted that World War Three would be fought with biological weapons.

3) Released five years before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it describes SARS coronaviruses as a “new era of genetic weapons” that can be “artificially manipulated into an emerging human disease virus, then weaponised and unleashed in a way never seen before”.

4) Peter Jennings, the executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), told news .com.au that the document is as close to a “smoking gun” as we’ve got.

5) “I think this is significant because it clearly shows that Chinese scientists were thinking about military application for different strains of the coronavirus and thinking about how it could be deployed,” said Mr Jennings.

Click to expand...

Posted for fair use.....

Leaked, Chinese Document Reveals Malevolent Intent for Coronaviruses
By Nick Koutsobinas | Saturday, 08 May 2021 01:47 PM

A document titled The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons, written by Chinese scientists and Chinese public health officials in 2015, discussed the weaponization of SARS coronaviruses. It postulates a World War III scenario fought with biological weapons.

The paper describes coronavirus as a "new era of genetic weapons," according to news.com.au, and details how coronaviruses can be "artificially manipulated into an emerging human disease virus, then weaponised and unleashed in a way never seen before."

According to a Politico article published in March, one United States official had said, "If there was a smoking gun, the CCP [Communist Party of China] buried it along with anyone who would dare speak up about it... We'll probably never be able to prove it one way or the other, which was Beijing's goal all along."

But according to Peter Jennings, executive director of Australian Strategic Policy Institute, this newly uncovered document may be as close to a "smoking gun" as we have.

"I think this is significant because it clearly shows that Chinese scientists were thinking about military application for different strains of the coronavirus and thinking about how it could be deployed," said Jennings.

Jennings added, "It begins to firm up the possibility that what we have here is the accidental release of a pathogen for military use."

The document would also explain why China was reluctant to cooperate with investigations on the virus's origin.

"If this was a case of transmission from a wet market it would be in China's interest to cooperate… we've had the opposite of that."

Robert Potter, who works as a cybersecurity specialist analyzing the Chinese government said, the document definitely is not fake.

"We reached a high confidence conclusion that it was genuine … It's not fake but it's up to someone else to interpret how serious it is," Potter stated.

Potter stated that it is unlikely the virus escaped from a lab.

"It emerged in the last few years … they (China) will almost certainly try to remove it now it's been covered."

According to the World Health Organization, COVID-19 was most likely of animal origin, which crossed over from humans to bats. Director of public health pathology Dominic Dwyer, who acts as a representative for the WHO, went to the wet market in Wuhan, where one theory states the virus originated. He said the wet market might not be the source of the virus.


"The market in Wuhan, in the end, was more of an amplifying event rather than necessarily a true ground zero. So we need to look elsewhere for the viral origins," Dwyer said.

One of the critical worries from a United States senior administration official was that, "This was just a peek under a curtain of an entire galaxy of activity, including labs and military labs in Beijing and Wuhan playing around with coronaviruses in ACE2 mice in unsafe labs ... It suggests we are getting a peek at a body of activity that isn't understood in the West or even has precedent here."

Related Stories:

• New Study Suggests COVID-19 Could Infect Lungs Via the Gums
• Republicans Press for More Transparency on COVID Origin

© 2021 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Indo-Pacific News - Watching the CCP-China Threat
@IndoPac_Info


Chilling warning from #China's State Media to BOMB #Australia with long-range missiles should Canberra support #US military action in #Taiwan #Beijing has been ramping up efforts for Taiwan 'reunification' under 'One China'

Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of The Global Times, which is seen as Beijing's mouthpiece on foreign policy to the world, said China should retaliate with 'long-range strikes' if Australia gets involved in a potential military conflict over Taiwan.

He warned Australia 'they must know what disasters they would cause to their country' if they were 'bold enough to coordinate with the US to militarily interfere in the Taiwan question'.

Mr Hu said it would be important for the Chinese government to send a strong message about the plan for retaliatory military action 'to deter the extreme forces of Australia' from 'committing irresponsible actions'.

View: https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1391238214204104704?s=20

jward said:

Indo-Pacific News - Watching the CCP-China Threat
@IndoPac_Info


Chilling warning from #China's State Media to BOMB #Australia with long-range missiles should Canberra support #US military action in #Taiwan #Beijing has been ramping up efforts for Taiwan 'reunification' under 'One China'

Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of The Global Times, which is seen as Beijing's mouthpiece on foreign policy to the world, said China should retaliate with 'long-range strikes' if Australia gets involved in a potential military conflict over Taiwan.

He warned Australia 'they must know what disasters they would cause to their country' if they were 'bold enough to coordinate with the US to militarily interfere in the Taiwan question'.

Mr Hu said it would be important for the Chinese government to send a strong message about the plan for retaliatory military action 'to deter the extreme forces of Australia' from 'committing irresponsible actions'.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1391238214204104704

View: https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1391238214204104704?s=20

Click to expand...

Somebody in Beijing is taking that "wolf warrior diplomacy" just a bit too far. Aussie based LRBMs (think longer range and up to date Pershing 2s), launched from let's say RAAF Base Curtin in Western Australia would have about 4000 miles to travel to Beijing and the Aussies are just as capable of rolling their own launch vehicles, as well as whatever flavor of warhead, they want to as offering basing to US systems (with or without a "two key" setup).

Yeah this isn't going to end well at all......