WAR CHINA THREATENS TO INVADE TAIWAN

[jward]

Is clock really ticking down toward a Taiwan war?
Jeff Pao
5-7 minutes
PLA soldiers in a training formation. Concerns are rising China is preparing for an invasion try on Taiwan. Photo: China's Eastern Theater Command

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) called for boosting the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) combat abilities to achieve “national unification” with Taiwan after its new military commission was formed on Sunday.

The Chinese army will deepen its reform and innovation, change the way of its training, recruit new talent and keep learning from the spirit of the 20th Party Congress, Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the CCP Central Military Commission (CMC), said in a meeting on Tuesday (October 25).

A full report of the Party Congress, released on Tuesday, showed that General Secretary Xi Jinping had simplified two paragraphs of content concerning a “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan into one sentence but highlighted reunification by force in his widely reported speech on October 16, which was met with resounding applause by the gathered cadres.

Taiwanese media and other commentators said the risk of a near-term PLA invasion had risen after the Party Congress, with many opining that a Taiwan Strait war would break out between 2025-2027 but not before 2024.

On Monday, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell more than 1,000 points to close at 15,180, the lowest level in 13 years, in market response to the new Chinese leadership that was formed on Sunday and fears of a potentially imminent Taiwan conflict. The index rebounded 1% on Wednesday but was still 5.5% down from last Friday.

On October 22, the week-long 20th CPC National Congress closed and formed a new 205-member Central Committee. In its first meeting the following day, a 24-member politburo, a seven-person standing committee of the politburo and a seven-member CMC were formed.

Xi and Zhang remained as CMC chairman and vice-chairman, respectively. Zhang, 72, fought in the Sino-Vietnam war in 1979 and the following battle in 1984. His father Zhang Zongxun was a close friend of Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun, in the PLA.
President Xi Jinping is seen as a leading proponent of China’s ‘zero-Covid’ policy. Image: Screengrab / NTV

He Weidong, 65, was selected as another CMC vice-chairman on Sunday. He was born in Jiangsu and graduated from the PLA’s Army Command College in Nanjing. He was a commander at the East Theater Command between 2019 and early this year. Miao Hua, a 66-year-old Fujianese, renewed his term in the CMC.

After Xi said at the Party Congress’s opening ceremony on October 16 that China would not give up the option of reunifying Taiwan by force, US Secretary of State Antony said the following day that the PLA could try to seize Taiwan on a “much faster timeline” than previously thought.

Mike Gilday, the chief of US Naval Operations, told the Atlantic Council on October 19 that China could stage an invasion of Taiwan as early as late 2022 or 2023.

Chen Ming-tong, the director-general of Taiwan’s National Security Bureau, said although most people believed the PLA would not attack Taiwan until at least 2025, it was still possible that China could launch an invasion next year.

Zhao Chunshan, an honorary professor of the Mainland China Institute of Tamkang University in Taiwan, told media that a Chinese attack on Taiwan was not likely before the self-governing island’s presidential election in early 2024 but that the risk would gradually rise closer to the time of the 21st Party Congress in 2027.

Ming Chu-cheng, a professor at the Department of Political Science at National Taiwan University Taiwan, said whether the PLA would attack Taiwan would depend more on the international situation than the military balance between Taiwan and China.

Ming said Xi would start a war against Taiwan only if he misjudged the international situation, which he said was unfavorable for China to do so. He said the appointments of He Weidong and Miao Hua to the CMC would increase the chance of such a misjudgment as the duo tended to echo rather than check Xi’s opinions.

The CMC held its first work meeting on Tuesday nominally to study the spirits of Xi and the 20th Party Congress. The meeting was chaired by He Weidong and attended by Zhang.
A helicopter flies a Taiwanese flag in Taoyuan, Taiwan. Photo: Ceng Shou Yi / NurPhoto / Getty Images

Zhang said the CMC would learn how to implement Xi’s thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era and push forward his plan to strengthen the Chinese army. He said the CMC would increase the quality of the army’s development.

He Weidong chimed in that the CMC would strengthen its political organization and establishment.

According to the full report of the 20th Party Congress, China would communicate with Taiwanese who support the notion of reunification with the mainland and try all means to achieve it peacefully.

The report said it’s a historical mission for China to solve the Taiwan matter, which Xi said would be done by force if necessary in what could go down as a historic October 16 speech.

Read: Party Congress drives HK stocks to 13-year low

Is clock really ticking down toward a Taiwan war?

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) called for boosting the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) combat abilities to achieve “national unification” with Taiwan after its new military co…

asiatimes.com

 

[danielboon]

EndGameWW3

@EndGameWW3
·
12m

Update: Chinese Foreign Ministry: US nuclear blackmail will not work with China, and we have the ability and confidence to protect our security interests.

 

[danielboon]

EndGameWW3

@EndGameWW3
·
10m

Chinese Foreign Ministry: We urge Washington to abandon the Cold War mentality and the logic of hegemony and pursue a rational nuclear policy.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

Posted for fair use.....

3 lessons Taiwan should take from Ukraine’s air war - Breaking Defense

Ukraine’s success against Russia in the skies shows how tactics have changed, in ways Taipei could replicate, write analysts Kelly Grieco and Julia Siegel.

breakingdefense.com

• AIR WARFARE, GLOBAL, LAND WARFARE

3 lessons Taiwan should take from Ukraine’s air war​

Ukraine’s success against Russia in the skies shows how tactics have changed, in ways Taipei could replicate, write analysts Kelly Grieco and Julia Siegel.​

By KELLY GRIECO and JULIA SIEGEL on October 24, 2022 at 11:44 AM

As cheap, unmanned drones proliferate on both sides of the Ukraine conflict, new air superiority tactics are emerging almost daily. In the op-ed below, the Stimson Center’s Kelly Grieco and the Atlantic Council’s Julia Siegel describe how the new era of aerial warfare could favor a savvy Taiwan, should China decide to invade.

Seven months after Russia’s full-scale invasion, the skies over Ukraine remain contested. Few military pundits saw it coming, predicting the Ukrainians stood little chance of defending their airspace. Moscow, too, believed its larger and more technologically sophisticated aerospace forces would quickly seize air superiority and expected to secure a decisive battlefield victory.

But in war, nothing is easy or inevitable. Rather than experience a quick defeat, Kyiv has stayed in the fight and landed a few hard blows to Moscow’s invading forces. Ukraine’s defense ought to inspire Taiwan to follow a similar path, should it face down a similar threat from Beijing.

The conventional wisdom in Washington now holds that if China chooses to invade Taiwan, it would likely “go big and move fast” in an attempt to conquer the island before the United States and its allies arrive. The underlying assumption is that Taiwan’s military would be unable to halt a Chinese incursion without the United States intervening directly and quickly.

However, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is neither imminent nor inevitable. Indeed, the majority of Chinese experts assess that Xi Jinping believes peaceful unification is still possible. Moreover, Taiwan has the defender’s advantage—it does not need to win outright, it merely needs to deny China a quick victory.


And the key to denying a Chinese victory lays in the air domain: Without the cover of air superiority, China would be unlikely to succeed in the event of an amphibious invasion or enforced blockade of the island.

Ukraine offers many lessons for Taiwan in a potential conflict scenario, and Taipei ought to carefully study Kyiv’s air and space playbook in particular and be cautious in taking the right lessons forward. China and Russia pose inherently different threats, given their distinct geographies, military capabilities, doctrines and strategic interests.

While Ukraine, the second-largest country in Europe, shares a land border with several US allies, Taiwan is not only about 1/17th the size of Ukraine but it is also an island nation. Taipei will need to adapt its approach to reflect its lack of strategic depth and natural barriers to easy resupply, as well as China’s large arsenal of precision long-range strike weapons.

Still, three core takeaways are particularly relevant to Taiwan’s defense.


Recommended

The new National Defense Strategy keeps the Pentagon’s focus locked on China​

The 2018 strategy “said we are worried about Russia and we’re worried about [China]. And I think one of the things we did as we were going through our assessment of the security environment was actually see that those needed to be looked at a little bit differently,” a Pentagon official said.
By VALERIE INSINNA

1. Small air forces can now access and exploit the air and space domains to battlefield advantage.

The democratization of air, space and intelligence capabilities — a result of low-cost and accessible technologies — has lowered barriers of entry into the air and space domains and removed traditional great-power military advantage. With allied help, Ukraine has leveraged commercial satellites in combat despite not owning national space capabilities, using them to successfully strike enemy forces and send encrypted messages back and forth between troops.

Similarly, Ukraine has exploited relatively cheap but still “good enough” combat drones—including the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2—to locate and destroy expensive Russian military assets. Thousands of commercial drones, some modified to drop munitions, have further hampered Russian ground movements. By employing a mix of commercial and dual-use technologies together with more advanced military systems, Ukraine has managed to close the capability gap.

Taipei ought to take notice and seek to build a largely roboticized air force with precision-strike capabilities for itself. Taiwan has completed long-range flight tests of its domestically-built Ten Yung 2, a combat drone similar to the US MQ-1 Predator and recently announced the purchase of four MA-9B Sea Guardian, the maritime variant of the US MQ-9A Reaper. These nascent efforts are a step in the right direction, but they ought to be rapidly expanded and scaled up to gain an asymmetric advantage. Though Taiwan has traditionally prioritized smaller numbers of exquisite platforms, like F-16 fighters, it should prioritize cheaper, asymmetric capabilities to combat China.

2. The return of mass to air and space operations favors the defender because it is easier to deny air and space superiority than it is to gain it outright.

After many decades of the United States and Western air forces substituting stealth aircraft, space-based information advantages and precision weapons for superior numbers, the relationship between quantity and quality is now moving in the opposite direction. As the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin reputedly quipped, “quantity has a quality all its own,” and that’s becoming true in the modern aerial battlefield.

The advantage now lies with cheap mass. Operating a mix of Cold War era, Soviet-made mobile surface-to-air missile systems, anti-aircraft artillery and thousands of shoulder-fired man-portable air defense systems, including American-supplied Stingers, Ukraine has managed to deny air superiority to the Russians. Employing so-called shoot-and-scoot tactics, Ukrainian defenders have made it difficult for Russians to find and destroy them.

This combination of mobility and layered mass, from high to low altitudes, has allowed Ukraine to survive Russia’s air and missile strikes and keep the airspace contested. Without air superiority, Russia’s ground offensive cannot succeed — after all, an attacker must concentrate and move to achieve its goals, making it extremely vulnerable to air attacks.

Taking a page from Ukraine’s playbook, Taiwan ought to develop concepts and capabilities for employing sufficiently large numbers of smaller, cheaper, uncrewed systems in a distributed way to increase both the costs and uncertainty associated with Chinese military aggression.

If China chose to invade Taiwan, Chinese aircraft and missiles would attempt to target and overwhelm military command and control systems at the outset, so as to leave the island in a blind fight. If Taiwan employs a distributed defense, however, enough Taiwanese systems would likely survive the initial onslaught and then be able to challenge Chinese forces attempting to cross the Taiwan Strait. This force posture would thus give Taiwan a more credible deterrent by denial.

3. Robust international and cross-sector partnerships can be a “force multiplier” in countering an adversary’s relative military advantages in air and space capabilities.

Ukraine has exploited a strong web of commercial partnerships and international coalition support to military advantage. Russian cyber efforts have had limited success, at least in part because of the breadth and depth of Kyiv’s network of supporters. For example, after observing a Russian military intelligence operation in progress, Microsoft worked with Ukrainian cyber defenders and US government partners to stop the attack.

In the space domain, Ukraine has shown that access to satellite service matters more than ownership of the satellite itself. Public-private partnerships will likely become even more central to warfighting as scalable dual-use technologies increasingly shape the battlefield.

Taiwan is well-placed to exploit this trend, given its strong information and telecommunications, semiconductor and advanced manufacturing industries. These robust commercial and international networks will be critical for Taiwan’s ability to generate mass and sustain capacity should it find itself in a prolonged war of attrition with China. While Taiwan’s island geography makes resupply more challenging, partnership networks can be leveraged for stockpiling critical supplies and putting redundant infrastructure in place during peacetime.

Each of these key takeaways suggest Taiwan ought to invest in what’s popularly known as a porcupine defense, with an air force built around large numbers of cheap and mobile systems, trained on air denial concepts and tactics, and intertwined in robust international and public-private partnerships to meet potential wartime demands.

While Taipei recently announced a major increase in defense spending for next year, its total defense budget of about $19.4 billion is still only equivalent to about 2.4 percent of its projected gross domestic product. Taiwan’s investment in its own military’s future ought to match the urgency of the issue—fielding next-generation drones and similarly flexible and dispersible systems can deny China a quick win at a reasonable dollar cost.

A readied Taiwanese air force that can deny China a quick victory is the best guarantor of Taiwanese sovereignty, for it ought to cause Beijing to think twice about attempting an invasion in the first place.

Kelly A. Grieco is a senior fellow with the Stimson Center’s Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program. Julia Siegel is an assistant director in the Forward Defense practice of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. This article is based on Grieco and Siegel’s overview article for the Atlantic Council’s “Airpower After Ukraine” series, which advances key themes of the Ukraine air war and implications for future air and space forces.

 

[vector7]

Massachusetts Democratic Senator Ed Markey has been accompanied by colleagues from across the political spectrum, including Representatives John Garamendi and Alan Lowenthal of California, Don Beyer of Virginia, and Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen of American Samoa.
The unannounced trip caught many by surprise, underscoring bipartisan consensus in Washington in favor of a tougher stance against China.

Dems are compromised...

BOMBSHELL REPORT: Fired Democrat Congressional Staffer Barbara Hamlett – Worked for Rep. Don Beyer – CAUGHT WORKING ON BEHALF of Chinese Embassy...

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1586403348240289793

View: https://twitter.com/ChuckCallesto/status/1586403348240289793?t=9YE7JKVMiCjaaUyeE-aXZg&s=19

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

Posted for fair use.....

Ukraine's Dream Could Be Taiwan's Nightmare - War on the Rocks

Russia’s poor performance in Ukraine has bolstered the hopes of those who seek to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, but there is reason to expect

warontherocks.com

UKRAINE’S DREAM COULD BE TAIWAN’S NIGHTMARE​

MICHAEL SPIRTAS
OCTOBER 28, 2022
COMMENTARY

Russia’s poor performance in Ukraine has bolstered the hopes of those who seek to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, but there is reason to expect that Taiwan would be more difficult to defend than Ukraine. Defenders of territorial sovereignty and a peaceful world order may be cheered by Ukraine’s success, but there is danger that success could decrease the urgency of efforts to strengthen Taiwan. China is investing in its military and will seek to learn from the problems Russia has had in Ukraine. Will the United States and other supporters of Taiwan do the same?

This isn’t to say that China would have it easy if it chooses to intervene in Taiwan. Amphibious invasions are notoriously complex and difficult, and the People’s Liberation Army hasn’t engaged in a large-scale operation recently. Prominent defense figures have called for the U.S. military to take significant steps to bolster its, Taiwan’s, and other allies’ capabilities to counter Chinese aggression, and the Biden administration has made progress in building capabilities that would help deny Chinese military war aims.

The current conflict in Ukraine offers a wide range of lessons. Some relate to strategy, some relate to the use of information, some relate to logistics, and some relate to the tactical fight. Not all of these lessons will help to prepare for Chinese aggression in Taiwan. Taiwan’s defense problems differ greatly from Ukraine’s, stemming from the fact that Taiwan is a small island country that does not share borders with U.S. allies. It would be a mistake to underestimate the difficulty of defending Taiwan.

The United States can go beyond its current course to better prepare to defend Taiwan. The National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy both highlight the need to compete with China, but the Department of Defense needs to adopt a generational approach to China similar to the one that it followed with respect to the Soviet Union. The United States was able to support Ukraine off the cuff, but wouldn’t have the same opportunity with Taiwan. Instead, the Department of Defense and Congress should plan now, with urgency, and devote significant resources and organizational focus to the problem. Discussion of great power competition and integrated deterrence have created confusion in the defense world, and both concepts broaden the focus of U.S. strategy beyond defense. It is not wrong to harness a range of tools of national power, but to develop the concepts of operation and capabilities necessary to deny Chinese aggression against Taiwan, the United States also needs a clear, focused, and appropriately resourced approach.

Help Taiwan Early and Often



Many have drawn different types of lessons for a potential Taiwan conflict from the war in Ukraine. Some have noted that Taiwan might be less likely to receive support from the United States and Europe than Ukraine. Others have noted that China’s position in the international economy could make it more difficult to isolate than Russia and that the concentration of advanced microchip production in Taiwan puts the American and global economies at risk. Diplomatic and economic factors may loom large in defending Taiwan, but it would also be wise to consider the military problem as well.



Supporting Taiwan’s defense could require tremendous investment well prior to a conflict there. The scale of U.S. military aid pledged to Ukraine is quite large. Estimates range from $17 billion to $25 billion since the Russian invasion. This is much more security assistance than the United States government is even contemplating for Taiwan. For example, the United States has proposed selling $1.1 billion worth of arms to Taiwan, and at present the Senate’s version of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act calls for $10 billion of assistance over five years. To be sure, wartime military aid to Ukraine is different than peacetime weapons sales to Taiwan. Not having to engage in active fighting gives Taiwan, the United States, and others more time to develop and deploy defenses.

Part of the problem is that China can intervene when it chooses, so it is impossible for policymakers to know exactly when conflict might occur. Timing is key. The bulk of U.S. and allied assistance to Ukraine has come after the Russian invasion in February. The many land routes of supply across Europe have allowed the United States and its allies to transport arms, humanitarian aid, and other assistance during the conflict. Taiwan, of course, is an island, and it would be much more difficult to send in the same level of supplies during a conflict. China could contest both sea and air access to Taiwan. The United States and other supporters of Taiwan may need to employ military and merchant shipping to provide humanitarian and military aid. U.S. commanders have expressed confidence that they could break a Chinese blockade, but air and sea resupply of Taiwan during a conflict could be a challenge. It would be much better to stockpile supplies in Taiwan prior to a conflict, but the United States is not known for acting with urgency in the absence of a crisis.

Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

Now is the time to sell arms, develop and deploy forces, and plan with Taiwan and other allies and partners. To successfully deter Chinese aggression will likely require an effort on the scale not seen since Cold War-era preparations to deter Soviet aggression in Western Europe. Eisenhower’s reorientation of the U.S. military to adopt an approach of massive retaliation comes to mind, but that initiative was accompanied by a reduction in defense spending. There is little talk of reductions in the U.S. defense budget at present, but it is unlikely that Congress or the American people have much appetite for increased investment in defense at this point. Instead, the Department of Defense will need to be much more efficient in its operations and apply the profits of efficiency to the problem of Taiwan.

Taiwan Can Help Itself

Taiwan is working to make itself and its leadership a more difficult target for Chinese intervention. Analysts and others have called for Taiwan to invest in relatively simple platforms and large quantities of munitions to deny a Chinese military assault — or at least to delay one while the United States and others mobilize and deploy their forces. Taiwan began to prepare itself through its Overall Defense Concept, which set out a program to make itself a harder target and to use mobility, camouflage, concealment, and deception to raise the costs of a Chinese military intervention. There are questions about whether the concept will prove viable, but the example of Ukraine has helped inspire Taiwan to take steps to prepare its people to engage in civilian resistance by providing courses to its people on medical rescue, self-defense combat, and rescue and evacuation.

Taiwan’s military budget is more than double Ukraine’s, which bodes well for the island nation. However, Ukraine has had eight years of fighting its adversary, which has helped it to build a capable military force. In contrast, Taiwan is much less prepared for the type of challenges that the People’s Liberation Army could pose. There are questions about the adequacy of the training it provides to its reserve forces, and there is criticism that it has bungled its transition from a conscription-based force to a professional one, creating a range of problems with its personnel.

Another problem is that there are a variety of ways that China might act. China could engage in an amphibious assault of Taiwan and on its offshore islands, likely combined with air assault and bombardment from the land, air, and sea. It could also engage in a coercive campaign that combines economic and diplomatic pressure along with limited missile strikes using its growing arsenal of ballistic and cruise missiles. China might also seek to blockade, or quarantine, Taiwan. Coercion, quarantine, and attack are different enough that they could require Taiwan and its supporters to do more to prepare than if they could concentrate on a single course of action from China.

The war in Ukraine has followed a specific and, it turns out, fairly fortuitous course. It isn’t advisable that we prepare for Beijing to act as thoughtlessly, to prepare as little, or to make the as many errors in Taiwan as Russia has in Ukraine. China will no doubt face obstacles if it acts against Taiwan. China needs to upgrade its helicopters and other elements of its amphibious fleet. Even if it lands forces in Taiwan, the Chinese military might have to engage in urban warfare and counterinsurgency. The point here is that there is danger in finding too much comfort in the known events of Ukraine as we prepare for the unknown in Taiwan.

It also is not clear which military lessons we draw from Ukraine will be applicable to Taiwan. Russia has failed to obtain air superiority over Ukraine, but Russian aircraft are different than those operated by the People’s Liberation Air Force, and Taiwan’s air defense systems are very different from those employed by Ukraine. The Russian military’s reluctance to delegate authority has put its general officers in jeopardy, but there are some indications that emerging Chinese military concepts might seek to delegate some decisions to lower levels. China is working to upgrade its military capabilities, and like us, Taiwanese policymakers will learn from the Ukraine war — but it is not clear whether any of us will learn the right lessons.

In addition to supplying aid to Taiwan, the United States and other supporters may choose to intervene militarily in a fight over Taiwan, which they have not had to do in Ukraine. Since the establishment of the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979, the United States has been deliberately vague about its security commitment to Taiwan, although relatively recent statements by President Biden have been interpreted as clarifying the U.S. commitment to defend Taiwan. If the United States and other countries do intervene directly in a conflict over Taiwan, it is possible that China could threaten — much as Russian President Vladmir Putin has — and even use nuclear weapons. This brings to mind Cold War debates about whether or not Washington would trade New York for Paris to stop Soviet aggression. Fortunately, the United States never had to make that trade. Would it contemplate similar risks for Taiwan?

So far, observers have speculated that Putin’s nuclear threats at this point relate to tactical weapons. The Russian military has a history of planning for tactical nuclear use in conflict. U.S. defense analysts and war gamers have speculated that the Chinese military might threaten to use nuclear weapons against the United States in the event of a clash over Taiwan. Despite China’s adoption of a “no first use” policy, there are signs that it could be rethinking that now after witnessing the Russian misadventure in Ukraine. At this point, we don’t know what might provoke China to use nuclear weapons or what nuclear options China might employ.

Conclusion

The sheer scale of munitions, platforms, and other capabilities that Taiwan and its partners will need to successfully deter or deny Chinese military aggression suggests that we need to act promptly and with no small degree of urgency. Bureaucratic delay and inefficiency are never welcome, but in this case, they are outright obstacles to meaningful and timely preparation that could make the difference between successful deterrence and war, or between victory and defeat. This is troubling, because it is much easier to motivate partners and government departments in crises than in peacetime. The conflict in Ukraine shows how we can act during a crisis, but we won’t likely have the same opportunity in Taiwan. The Biden administration has made it clear since its first days that deterring Chinese military aggression in Taiwan is a priority, but U.S. support for Ukraine and other dynamics have led some to question if the current administration is truly prioritizing Taiwan.

Some defense analysts and members of the public have been encouraged by the plucky Ukrainian defense of its territory and sovereignty against a seemingly indestructible Russian military, reminding some of the battle between David and Goliath. A similar dynamic could materialize if it becomes necessary to protect Taiwan from China, but the prospect of success in Taiwan could improve with early preparation.



BECOME A MEMBER


Michael Spirtas is associate director of the International Security and Defense Policy Program, part of the RAND National Security Research Division, and a senior political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.

 

[jward]

US Air Force to deploy nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to Australia as tensions with China grow​

Lesley Robinson, Meghna Bali​

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阅读中文版
The United States is preparing to deploy up to six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to northern Australia, a provocative move experts say is aimed squarely at China.
An investigation by Four Corners can reveal Washington is planning to build dedicated facilities for the giant aircraft at Tindal air base, south of Darwin.
The US has drawn up detailed plans for what it calls a "squadron operations facility" for use during the Northern Territory dry season, an adjoining maintenance centre and a parking area for "six B-52s".

Plans for the Tindal air base expansion include a parking area that can accommodate six B-52 bombers.(Supplied/Four Corners: Lindsay Dunbar)
Becca Wasser from the Centre for New American Security says putting B-52s in northern Australia is a warning to China, as fears grow Beijing is preparing for an assault on Taiwan.
"Having bombers that could range and potentially attack mainland China could be very important in sending a signal to China that any of its actions over Taiwan could also expand further," she says.

The bombers are part of a much larger upgrade of defence assets across northern Australia, including a major expansion of the Pine Gap intelligence base, which would play a vital role in any conflict with Beijing.
The B-52s have been the backbone of the US Air Force for more than 60 years, with the capability to deliver long-range strikes of both nuclear and conventional weapons. The US documents say the facilities will be used for "deployed B-52 squadrons".
"The ability to deploy US Air Force bombers to Australia sends a strong message to adversaries about our ability to project lethal air power," the US Air Force told Four Corners.
Asked when the B-52s would begin their deployment at Tindal, Australia's Department of Defence declined to comment.

'The tip of the spear'​

Some worry having B-52s rotating through Tindal each year locks Australia into joining the US in any conflict against China.
"It's a great expansion of Australian commitment to the United States' war plan with China," says Richard Tanter, a senior research associate at the Nautilus Institute and a long-time, anti-nuclear activist.
"It's a sign to the Chinese that we are willing to be the tip of the spear."
Mr Tanter sees the planned deployment of the bombers as more significant than the rotation of US Marines through Darwin each year.

US marines and Australian soldiers conduct annual exercises in the Top End.(ABC News)
"It's very hard to think of a more open commitment that we could make. A more open signal to the Chinese that we are going along with American planning for a war with China," Mr Tanter says.

Ms Wasser says the growing importance of northern Australia to the US makes Darwin and Tindal targets in any war with China.
Her work includes running war game exercises to examine how a potential conflict might unfold.
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.

Military analyst Becca Wasser and her team explore the risks Australia could face by joining the US in a fight over Taiwan.
She says in the war game scenarios where Australia either joined the fight or allowed Washington to use bases in the Top End, "it did very much put a bullseye on Australia".
“Ultimately these attacks were not successful because of the long range required and because China had already expended its most capable long-range missiles earlier in the game, … but who's to say that in the future, China might have more advanced missile capability that would be better suited to potentially attacking Australia.”

China's growing confidence about Taiwan invasion​

In recent months, US war planners and analysts have brought forward estimates of when Beijing may look to take Taiwan.
"The time frame for an assault on Taiwan, I would put it at 2025 to 2027," says defence academic Oriana Skylar Mastro from Stanford University.
"This is largely dependent on when I think the Chinese leadership and in particular [President] Xi Jinping can be confident that his military can do this."

A missile launch from a Chinese military propaganda video.
She says there is a growing confidence within the People's Liberation Army that it could successfully invade Taiwan.
"For 15 years I would ask the Chinese military if they could do this [invade Taiwan], and the answer was 'no'. So the fact that for the first time at the end of 2020 they're starting to say 'yes', I think that's a significant message we should pay attention to," she says.

US has big plans for Australia​

These growing tensions with China have made northern Australia a crucial defence hub for the US, which has committed to spending more than $1 billion upgrading its military assets across the Top End.
The Tindal air base expansion includes a parking area that can accommodate six B-52 bombers and is forecast to cost up to $US100 million. The US Air Force says the parking area will be finished in late 2026.
"The RAAF's ability to host USAF bombers, as well as train alongside them, demonstrates how integrated our two air forces are," it says.

B-52s have been the backbone of the US Air Force for more than 60 years.(U.S. Air Force photo)
In April, the US Department of Defence budgeted $US14.4 million ($22.5 million) for the squadron operations and maintenance facilities at Tindal.
"The [squadron operations] facility is required to support strategic operations and to run multiple 15-day training exercises during the Northern Territory dry season for deployed B-52 squadrons," the US documents say.
The US also plans to build its own jet fuel storage tanks and an ammunition bunker at the site.

"The north of Australia in the new geopolitical environment, has suddenly become strategically much more important, if not crucial to the US," says Paul Dibb, a former senior official at the Department of Defence in Canberra.
A greater presence of US forces in Australia was hinted at during last year's annual ministerial meetings, known as AUSMIN.
Under so-called "enhanced air co-operation" it was agreed there would be "rotational deployment of US aircraft of all types in Australia".
"Today we endorse major force posture initiatives that will expand our access and presence in Australia," US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin said.

B-52s can deliver long-range strikes of both nuclear and conventional weapons.(U.S. Air Force photo)
There was no mention of rotating B-52s through Tindal, although there have been hints in recent years.
Equally important to the growing US presence in northern Australia is the construction of 11-giant jet fuel storage tanks in Darwin.
Some of this fuel reserve was previously located at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii, but is now being dispersed across the region.
"Without that kind of assurance of jet fuel in this country, the US simply wouldn't be able to treat Australia as a location from which it can stage military exercises and operations with confidence," says Ashley Townshend from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Mr Townshend says the B-52s at Tindal are just the start.
"We will see much greater numbers of US military personnel forward located in Australia. That will include personnel from all three services, navy, air force and army, as well as the marines in Darwin, which are likely to be expanded," he says.
In the AUSMIN communique, this was flagged as part of efforts to "advance … force posture co-operation" to "deter our adversaries".

Spy base expands​

While both governments have signalled the growing US military presence in Australia, the expansion of one site is veiled in secrecy. There has been very little said about Pine Gap.
The joint US and Australian spy base near Alice Springs is undergoing a major upgrade, according to Richard Tanter.

Powerful antennas eavesdropping on foreign satellites and detecting missile launches sit under Pine Gap's domes.(Four Corners)
He's spent months poring over satellite images of Pine Gap and estimates the number of giant antennas has grown by more than a third over the past seven years.
"This is at a time when the Australian Parliament has been informed of none of this, no statements by ministers no questions by politicians," he says.
Mr Tanter says Pine Gap's powerful "ears and eyes" are now heavily focused on China.
"The searching for Chinese missile sites, the searching for Chinese command sites, in a preparatory way, is absolutely on high priority at Pine Gap now," he says.
"This indicates the extraordinary importance and the increasing importance to the US at a time of potential war with China."

Mr Tanter has observed the expansion of the spy base over a number of years.(Google/Maxar Technologies)
If a conflict broke out between the US and China, Mr Tanter says Pine Gap would play a hugely significant role, particularly around missile defence systems.
"Pine Gap would be detecting the launch of the missile … it would be queuing US missile defence systems to find that missile in mid-flight and attack it with their own missiles," he says.

Pine Gap's geo-location technology would then be used to find and destroy the missile launch site.
Paul Dibb, who held a high-level security clearance at Pine Gap for 30 years, says "it is the most potent intelligence collection facility that America has" outside of the US.
Mr Dibb says this put Pine Gap on targeting lists for the former Soviet Union during the Cold War, and it would be on those same lists for China in any conflict with the US.
"If it looked as though that crisis was going nuclear, China may want to take out Pine Gap as being the ears and eyes of America's capability," he says.
Watch tonight on ABC TV or ABC iview as Four Corners explores what conflict with China would mean for Australia.
Read the story in Chinese: 阅读中文版
Posted 7 hours agoSun 30 Oct 2022 at 1:29pm, updated 2 hours agoSun 30 Oct 2022 at 6:35pm

A 'strong message to our adversaries': US prepares to deploy B-52 bombers to Top End

A Four Corners investigation can reveal the US Air Force is planning to deploy up to six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to Tindal air base near Darwin, as fears grow that China is preparing for an assault on Taiwan.

www.abc.net.au

 

[jward]

EU lawmakers sanctioned by Beijing are due to visit Taiwan

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1587164755956989952

View: https://twitter.com/EndGameWW3/status/1587164755956989952?s=20&t=cLk4CaP0TGj0aXi0yHbsig

 

[jward]

China has no time frame for Taiwan reunification, even if US says so: envoy​

Washington-based diplomat’s take follows remarks by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying Beijing keen to hasten plan to seize self-ruled island
‘We don’t want to use force, but … we should have the capability to deter and prevent the worst-case scenario’ of Taiwan independence, says Jing Quan

Robert Delaney

Published: 6:30am, 3 Nov, 2022

A Chinese diplomat on Wednesday said Beijing had no time frame for the unification of Taiwan with the mainland, refuting recent assessments by US government officials that the mainland’s government had sped up plans for a military seizure across the Taiwan Strait.
“I don’t think there’s any so-called timeline over the Taiwan issue,” Jing Quan, a minister at China’s embassy in Washington, said in a discussion with Susan Thornton, a former senior US State Department official, organised by the Institute for China-America Studies, a think tank.
Jing made the remarks days after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Beijing was trying to “speed up” a plan to seize the self-ruled island, based on comments by officials in Beijing during China’s 20th Communist Party congress, which wrapped up last week.
“Some people are talking about five years, 10 years, 2035, 2049. I don’t think so,” Jing said. “We want to get united as soon as possible, but we don’t have any timeline.

“Here, the interpretation, and the media’s interpretation about the party congress is not correct – to say it’s more tough and it’s focused on the use of force,” he added.




“We don’t want to use force, but at least that we should have the capability to deter and prevent the worst-case scenario, that is Taiwan independence.”
As is the case with many Western countries, the US does not recognise the island as an independent state. But Washington is committed by law to support Taiwan’s military defence capability – a stance Beijing strongly opposes.

Taiwan to build lighter frigates to cut cost of shadowing PLA warships​

Washington also pursues a policy of “strategic ambiguity” on Taiwan, which leaves unclear whether it would defend the island in the event of an attack by China.

Blinken, who said in an interview with Bloomberg that Beijing “wanted to speed up the process by which they would pursue reunification”, is not the only US government official to warn of a near-term military takeover of Taiwan by the People’s Liberation Army.
Admiral Michael Gilday, chief of US naval operations, said last week that a mainland Chinese invasion of Taiwan could take place as soon as this year, based partly on comments by officials at the twice-a-decade political meeting.

Beijing will do its utmost for peaceful reunification with Taiwan, Xi says​

“What we’ve seen over the past 20 years is that they have delivered on every promise they’ve made earlier than they said they were going to deliver on it,” Gilday said in a discussion hosted by the Atlantic Council. “So when we talk about the 2027 window, in my mind, that has to be a 2022 window or potentially a 2023 window.”
Thornton defended the US government’s strategic ambiguity policy against growing calls among some US policymakers for a switch to strategic clarity, or an explicit pledge to defend Taiwan. The policy has been in place since Washington switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing from Taipei in 1979.

China has no time frame for Taiwan reunification, even if US says so: envoy

Washington-based diplomat’s take follows remarks by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying Beijing keen to hasten plan to seize self-ruled island.

www.scmp.com

 

[danielboon]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1588923594536587265

View: https://twitter.com/Apex_WW/status/1588923594536587265

 

[danielboon]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1589529090897641477

View: https://twitter.com/EndGameWW3/status/1589529090897641477

 

[jward]

Smartphone chip firm MediaTek CEO sees 'incremental' move away from Taiwan​

November 13, 2022
7:53 PM
Updated 16 min ago

3 minutes

---

Nov 13 (Reuters) - Tensions between China and the United States are pushing some manufacturer companies to talk about moving some of their supply chain away from Taiwan as well, although it’s “incremental,” the head of Taiwan’s most important smartphone chip design firm told Reuters over the weekend.
Some of the "very large (equipment manufacturers) will require their chip suppliers to have multiple sources, like from Taiwan and from U.S., or from Germany or from Europe," said MediaTek Inc (2454.TW) Chief Executive Rick Tsai. "I think in those cases, we will have to find multiple sources for the same chip if the business warrants that."
It’s happening already but not at large scale, he added.

Register for free to Reuters and know the full story​

Tsai and senior executives talked to Reuters on the sidelines of a media and analyst event the company was hosting in California’s wine valley Sonoma Valley on Friday. The company has been pushing to grow its U.S. business, and Tsai said the goal was to triple or quadruple sales, although he didn’t give a time frame.

Latest Updates​

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While MediaTek's most advanced smartphone chips are made at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (2330.TW) in Taiwan, Tsai said some older smartphone chips are made by GlobalFoundries Inc (GFS.O), which has factories in places like the U.S. and Singapore, and pointed to an announcement earlier this year to make its chips at Intel Corp’s (INTC.O) fabrication facilities.
Tsai said the "Intel 16" chip manufacturing technology that MediaTek has committed to use fits well for producing MediaTek chips for smart TVs and Wi-Fi. “It’s a big business segment for us. So we're not joking. And I'm supervising that progress myself every month,” said Tsai adding that its chips will be made by Intel’s Ireland fabrication facility from the second half of 2024.
He said that MediaTek will also be producing chips in TSMC’s Arizona’s fab when that is up and running, but cautioned that it wasn't realistic for the chip industry to completely move away from Taiwan, the world's most important region for advanced chip making.
“But is that going to be enough? No. Not by far,” he said.

Register for free to Reuters and know the full story​

Reporting By Jane Lanhee Lee
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Smartphone chip firm MediaTek CEO sees 'incremental' move away from Taiwan

Tensions between China and the United States are pushing some manufacturer companies to talk about moving some of their supply chain away from Taiwan as well, although it’s “incremental,” the head of Taiwan’s most important smartphone chip design firm told Reuters over the weekend.

www.reuters.com

 

[jward]

Taiwan tracks 5 Chinese military planes, 3 naval ships around country​

Taiwan News

2 minutes

---

Taiwan sent aircraft, naval ships, and used land-based missile systems to monitor PLA aircraft and vessels​

Chinese Y-8 ASW plane. (MND photo)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Ministry of National Defense (MND) tracked five Chinese military planes and three naval vessels around Taiwan as of 5 p.m. on Sunday (Nov. 13).

In response, Taiwan sent aircraft, naval ships, and used land-based missile systems to monitor the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft and vessels, according to the MND. No PLA aircraft crossed the Taiwan Strait median line on Sunday.

So far this month, Beijing has sent 288 military aircraft and 44 naval ships around Taiwan. Since September 2020, China has increased its use of gray zone tactics by routinely sending aircraft into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone.

Gray zone tactics are defined as “an effort or series of efforts beyond steady-state deterrence and assurance that attempts to achieve one’s security objectives without resort to direct and sizable use of force.”

Taiwan tracks 5 Chinese military planes, 3 naval ships around country | Taiwan News | 2022-11-14 10:29:00

Taiwan sent aircraft, naval ships, and used land-based missile systems to monitor PLA aircraft and vessels | 2022-11-14 10:29:00

www.taiwannews.com.tw

 

[vector7]

President Biden: "I do not think there's any imminent intent on the part of China to invade Taiwan."

How much did this speech cost?
RT 30secs

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1592158898307608577

View: https://twitter.com/YWNReporter/status/1592158898307608577?s=20&t=Dd8ZKJMWjhdJJ5Y8ipV04g

 

[jward]

Our First Full Look At China's Own 'Mother Of All Bombs'​

Joseph Trevithick​

---

A new, more complete look at China's mysterious very large air-dropped bomb has emerged. Past reports have said that this could be a thermobaric type that is very roughly analogous to the U.S. Air Force's GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, better known as the "Mother of All Bombs," or the reported Russian Father of All Bombs.
The new view of the bomb is seen in a video clip that is part of a larger montage that was recently uploaded on the Chinese social media website Weibo by the official account for the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) component of the PLA's Central Theater Command. The complete video was contained in a post marking the 73rd anniversary of the founding of the PLAAF on November 11, 1949.
The video does not include any specific details about the bomb or its nomenclature, but shows it falling from what appears to be the bomb bay of a Xian H-6-series bomber. Whether or not the video clip showing a munition hitting a training or test range that follows the footage of the weapon being released is in any way related is unknown.

A screengrab from a clip showing a munition impacting a training or testing range, which appears to have been taken with an infrared sensor system. This immediately follows the clip of the large bomb being dropped in the recently released PLA Central Theater Command video montage. PLA capture
Externally, the weapon is unremarkable. Its overall shape and outward features do not offer any strong indications of what might be contained inside. There is what appears to be some kind of fuze in the nose and it has a tail assembly with what looks to be six fins connected together at the very rear by a ring. There are no indications that the weapon has a guidance package and the general design of the tail is something that is commonly seen on older Chinese unguided bombs, as well as Soviet-designed types that remain in service in Russia and elsewhere.

A screen grab from another clip in the recently released PLA video montage that shows unguided bombs falling from an H-6's bomb bay. Note the tail assemblies with the fins joined together at the very rear by a ring. PLA capture
The existence of this bomb first emerged in 2019 in a promotional video montage, seen below, from the Chinese state-run defense conglomerate China North Industries Group Corporation Limited, or NORINCO.

"This is the first time the new bomb's destructive powers have been shown in public, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Wednesday on its mobile application," Global Times, a newspaper run by the Chinese Communist Party reported at that time, citing a story from a different state-run news agency, Xinhua. "Calling the several-ton-weapon a Chinese version of the 'Mother of All Bombs,' the [Xinhua] report said that it is China's most powerful non-nuclear bomb, and that the H-6K bomber could only carry one at a time due to its size."
The Global Times report has since been taken offline, though a copy remains available via the Internet Archive. It's not immediately clear whether the original Xinhua piece, which may have been in Chinese only, is available online.
To date, neither NORINCO nor the PLA appears to have released any official information about this bomb.
"Judging from the video and the size of the H-6K's bomb bay, this bomb is approximately five to six meters long," Global Times reported in 2019, citing Wei Dongxu, an independent military analyst in Beijing.

The more limited view of the bomb from the 2019 NORINCO video. NORINCO
"The massive blast can easily and completely wipe out fortified ground targets such as reinforced buildings, bastions, and defense shelters," Wei reportedly also told the outlet. He added that it could "be used to clear a landing zone for troops on helicopters to rappel down, in case the area is covered by obstacles such as forests" and "spread fear among enemies."
What Wei here is describing are the capabilities of large thermobaric weapons, in general. Weapons in this broad category, whether they be aerial bombs like the American GBU-43/B or some other type of thermobaric munition, like the 220mm rockets fired by Russia's TOS-1A, are designed to engage targets through a combination of a massive high-pressure blast wave and very high heat.
As noted, those effects can be devastating against structures and fortifications, above and below ground, to include caves complexes, as well as targets in the open. Since the Vietnam War, the U.S. military has demonstrated the ability of weapons like this, including the MOAB's predecessor, the BLU-82/B "Daisy Cutter," to be able to quickly clear trees and other foliage to create space for helicopters to land and to seal or otherwise neutralize caves and tunnels, among other things. Studies have shown that the blast wave could be usable as a tool for clearing minefields, too. The potential psychological impact of these terrifying weapons has also been noted.

Historically, when it comes to large air-dropped thermobaric bombs, their massive size has been a key limiting factor. The U.S. Air Force is currently only capable of employing the GBU-43/B via cargo aircraft, such as the C-130 Hercules, something that was similarly true of the BLU-82/B. The same issue applies to very large conventional bunker-buster bombs, like the GBU-57/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), which has only ever been dropped by B-52 and B-2 bombers.

This all, in turn, imposes its own operational limits on these weapons, especially if they have to be delivered onto the target by non-stealthy aircraft, such as the H-6K. For instance, while the U.S. Air Force has demonstrated the B-52 can drop the MOP, the weapon is only currently approved for operational use on the stealthy B-2. As it stands now, the C-130-dropped GBU-43/B is largely intended for use in more permissive environments. It has only ever been used once, to date, in Afghanistan in 2017, where American forces enjoyed total air superiority.

If this mystery Chinese bomb is indeed a thermobaric design, it can only raise questions about how the PLAAF might envision employing it. The H-6K, an evolution of Xian's H-6 design, itself originally derived from the Soviet-era Tu-16 Badger, does retain an ability to drop conventional bombs, including from its bomb bay, but is primarily viewed today as a stand-off missile carrier aircraft given its vulnerability to more modern air defenses.

A PLAAF H-6K. Russian Ministry of Defense
One possibility could be that NORINCO and the PLAAF have been using the H-6-series to test the bomb because of the availability of the aircraft – akin to using the B-52 during the development of the MOP – but that it is actually intended to arm a more survivable future design. The U.S. military has assessed in the past that China is developing two stealthy bomber-type aircraft, the H-20, believed to be a strategic-focused stealthy flying wing design similar in broad strokes to the B-2, and a stealthy "regional" type sometimes referred to as the JH-XX.

The PLAAF could also plan to use stealthy and otherwise advanced crewed and uncrewed combat aircraft, along with other capabilities, such as electronic warfare systems, to help clear routes to key targets for H-6s carrying these bombs, although that is an increasingly unrealistic proposition against a peer competitor.
However they might be delivered, large thermobaric bombs could offer the PLAAF a useful non-nuclear option for engaging various kinds of targets, such as enemy forces entrenched in fortified positions. These are target sets that PLA, overall, could easily be presented with during any future large-scale conflict, such as ones against the United States in the Western Pacific or with India in the Himalayan Plateau.

This is, of course, all based on the limited information available now. It is possible that the PLAAF has other plans for these bombs, which could turn out to be not thermobaric in nature at all. What is clear is that the service still has an interest in the bomb, whatever its internal design might be, if it hasn't already been fielded at least on some limited level.
Whether or not the bomb's inclusion in the recently released PLA Central Theater Command video means that more information about the weapon may now emerge remains to be seen.
Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com

Our First Full Look At China's Own 'Mother Of All Bombs'

It could be a thermobaric weapon, like the GBU-43/B 'Mother of All Bombs' used to destroy targets with devastating blast waves and heat.

www.thedrive.com

 

[northern watch]

 

[jward]

Hill panel sees China already preparing for war on Taiwan​

Bill Gertz

18-23 minutes

---

China is increasing plans for military, economic and political warfare against Taiwan, and the U.S. government needs to step up preparations and planning to respond to a future war across the Taiwan Strait, according to a report by a congressional China commission.

The report from the bipartisan panel argues that China under President Xi Jinping this year has “adopted a significantly more aggressive stance toward Taiwan, ramping up displays of military force in addition to diplomatic and economic coercion.”

Beijing also is drawing lessons from Russia’s war in Ukraine, with an eye toward the forcible unification of Taiwan with the mainland.

“Russia’s war against Ukraine has galvanized the international community and heightened concerns over a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan,” states the annual report of the U.S.-China Economic Security Review Commission made public Tuesday.

The commission called on Congress to create an executive branch panel to prepare economic sanctions that can be imposed on China in response to military action against the democratic-ruled island state. The congressionally chartered panel also wants Congress to require the Pentagon to produce a classified report on the U.S. military forces needed to resist a Chinese attack on Taiwan.

Money will also matter. Congress should also authorize “significant additional multi-year defense funds” so the military is better prepared for a future China-Taiwan war, the 12-member commission of experts said.

Commission member Randy Schriver said the report details China’s growing capabilities and more aggressive activities toward Taiwan and the need for an expedited American response.

“While not addressing a specific timeline for a potential Chinese invasion attempt, the report certainly underscores the need for urgent action,” said Mr. Schriver, a former Pentagon and State Department China policymaker. “We therefore recommend ways to support [U.S. forces] through multi-year funding for the most applicable capabilities and expedited joint planning to optimize a potential U.S.-Taiwan response to [People’s Liberation Army] threats,” he said.

Asked about the report, Chinese Embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu said the congressional commission “has long been biased against China.”

“In the report, it made false comments on the [Chinese Communist Party’s] domestic and foreign policies in disregard of the facts, fingered China’s internal affairs such as Taiwan and Hong Kong, and continued to repeat the same old rhetoric and advocate the economic and trade decoupling between China and the U.S.,” he said.

Despite the panel’s dire warnings, President Biden said this week after meeting with Mr. Xi that there are no signs China is preparing for an immediate attack on Taiwan. He appeared intent on lowering the friction in the U.S.-Chinese relationship.

Mr. Biden had vowed on four occasions that the United States would defend Taiwan with military force in the event of a Chinese attack. The White House later said the comments reflected long-standing U.S. policy toward Taiwan outlined in the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.

The administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy explicitly states that the United States will “defend our interests, deter military aggression against our own country and our allies and partners — including across the Taiwan Strait.”

U.S. military commanders and intelligence officials warned in recent congressional testimony and speeches that China is preparing for war against Taiwan — either a military invasion or naval blockade — by the end of the decade. Last month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said China’s plans for taking over Taiwan are advancing on “a much faster timeline” than earlier projections.

Taiwan, formally known as the Republic of China, is an island nation located about 100 miles off the southeastern Chinese coast. It broke with the mainland in 1949 after Nationalist forces fled there during a civil war.

Mr. Xi has pledged that China will soon retake the island as part of his policy of national rejuvenation, and he does not rule out military action if necessary.

Preparing for war

The 630-page report includes new details of military preparations for what Beijing is calling the central element of national rejuvenation for the Chinese Communist Party. Chinese leaders, the commission said, are closely studying the Russia-Ukraine war for lessons that can apply to an assault on Taiwan.

The U.S. government is strengthening economic and security ties with Taiwan in an effort to bolster its defenses to discourage an attack. The Biden administration is also seeking to shape Taiwan’s defenses with asymmetric warfare arms that would allow a weaker military to better confront a massively expanding People’s Liberation Army.

China is also accelerating a multipronged campaign of coercion against Taiwan diplomatically, the report said. Beijing sharply increased its military and economic coercion after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August. She was the first sitting U.S. House speaker to visit the island in 25 years.

China responded with large-scale war games that encircled the island and missile firings over the island. Some of the missiles landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone. The report described the war games as “unprecedented in scale and proximity” to Taiwan, with combat drills that could be used in a blockade or invasion in six zones around the island.

“The PLA also continued to train its force for a wartime campaign against Taiwan, though U.S. officials assessed there were no indications of an imminent attack,” the report said.

The August war games included the use of DF-15 short-range ballistic missiles, which are optimized for land targets rather than the use of anti-ship missiles in simulating attacks on ships. Another key indicator of a coming conflict outlined in the report involves strategic messaging by the Chinese Communist Party that was increasingly bellicose and uncompromising.

“Chinese officials’ international messaging asserted China’s ownership of the entire Taiwan Strait and conveyed their disdain for international norms,” the report said.

The U.S. government rejected the statement and said the strait remains international waters.

Qin Gang, Chinese ambassador to the United States, told NPR in January that if Taiwan’s government continues down a path of independence, “it most likely will involve China and the United States, the two big countries, in a military conflict.”

The Biden administration is seeking to deter a Chinese attack through increased engagement that Mr. Biden announced this week. Key U.S. allies, including Australia, Japan, South Korea and Britain, have indicated that they would join a U.S. military defense of Taiwan.

Taiwan is also stepping up purchases of U.S. defensive arms, boosting defense spending and civil defenses, and working to curb Taiwanese business investment on the mainland.

Other signs of concern are recent statements by Chinese officials that hardened Beijing’s posture toward a peaceful unification, the report said.

A Chinese government white paper made public in August said Beijing’s plan for unification under the “one country, two systems” no longer includes offers of government autonomy, the report said.

“The omission of the promise not to dispatch mainland troops leaves open the possibility that the PLA might occupy Taiwan for an extended period of time as Beijing roots out those it deems separatists who cannot be brought into the fold of a unified society,” the report said.

Frequent intimidating PLA operations around Taiwan increased sharply after the Pelosi visit with 1,286 warplane flights near the island from January to Oct. 6, the report said. The largest number, 339 flights, took place in early August.

Taipei is seeking to enhance military readiness by shifting to an all-volunteer force. However, the Taiwan military readiness problems include a 60% shortage in front-line, active-duty troops.

Taiwan is sharply increasing defense spending with supplements of $8.6 billion to buy precision missiles, drones, missile corvettes and naval weapons for coastal patrol boats.

The State Department approved $1.5 billion in arms sales to Taiwan after an estimated $16 billion in previous years.

The report warned that many of the weapons purchased or sought by Taipei were delayed. Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and other weapons have been sent to Ukraine.

“The diversion of existing stocks of weapons and munitions to Ukraine and pandemic-related supply chain issues has exacerbated a sizable backlog in the delivery of weapons already approved for sale to Taiwan, undermining the island’s readiness,” the report said.

Commission report reveals China’s plan for war on Taiwan

China is increasing plans for military, economic and political warfare against Taiwan, and the U.S. government needs to step up preparations and planning to respond to a future war across the Taiwan Strait, according to a report by a congressional China commission.

www.washingtontimes.com

 

[TFergeson]

Taiwan readies missile defenses after Chinese military vessels cross ADIZ: report​

China continues to conduct wargames in the region near Taiwan to test its latest military technologies​

WORLD

Published November 16, 2022 3:53am EST

Several Chinese aircraft and naval vessels entered the Taiwan Strait, crossing into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone, its government announced early Wednesday morning.

"16 PLA aircraft and 3 PLAN vessels around Taiwan were detected by 6 a.m.," its government said, prompting them to send naval vessels of their own in response.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is China’s official designation for the military forces, including naval forces (PLAN) controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

A US-made CH-47 helicopter flies an 18-meter by 12-meter national flag at a military base in Taoyuan. (SAM YEH/AFP via Getty Images)
"[The Republic of China’s Armed Forces] have monitored the situation and responded to these activities with aircraft in CAP, naval vessels, and land-based missile systems," the Taiwanese government added.

TAIWAN SCRAMBLES JETS, MISSILE SYSTEMS AFTER DETECTING 11 CHINESE AIRCRAFT, VESSELS NEAR ISLAND

Taipei’s defense ministry also provided flight paths for the Chinese military vessels, including the identification of the aircraft.

"5 of the detected aircraft (J-10*2, Y-8 EW, BZK-005 UAV RECCE and Y-8 ASW) had crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and entered Taiwan’s SW ADIZ, flight paths as illustrated," the government wrote with a photo of the Nov. 15 flight paths.


On Monday, President Joe Biden told reporters he did "not think there's any imminent attempt on the part of China to invade Taiwan," following a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Biden also said a new Cold War with China would not be happening as the U.S. continues communicating with its leaders.

"I absolutely believe there's need not be a new Cold War," Biden said. "I've met many times with Xi Jinping and we were candid and clear with one another across the board. And I do not think there's any imminent attempt on the part of China to invade Taiwan."


BIDEN SAYS AFTER XI MEETING HE DOESN’T BELIEVE THERE IS ‘IMMINENT ATTEMPT’ FROM CHINA TO INVADE TAIWAN

He added: "And I made it clear that our policy on Taiwan has not changed at all. It's the same exact position we've had. I made it clear that we want to see cross-trade issues peacefully resolved and so it never has to come to that."

Taiwan's precautionary discovery on Wednesday come as China continues to conduct wargames in the region to test its latest military technologies.

Chinese military helicopters fly past Pingtan island, one of mainland China's closest point from Taiwan, in Fujian province on August 4, 2022. (HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images)
Earlier this month, Taiwan was forced to scramble jets and its military defense system after it similarly detected 11 Chinese aircraft near its island.

US TO SEND B-52 BOMBERS TO AUSTRALIA IN MOVE CHINA WARNS COULD 'TRIGGER' ARMS RACE

The Nov. 5 sighting came just days after senior PLA officers said its military was "on full-time standby" for a potential war in the Strait.

U.S. officials and its international partners have cautioned the Chinese government against military escalation and some have vowed to intervene, should China invade.


G7 TAKES AIM AT CHIEF ADVERSARIES AND URGES PEACE FROM UN LEADERS RUSSIA, CHINA

In October, Jinping said he would continue to "fully enhance training and preparation for war."

"We must be fully prepared to respond to external interference and major incidents relating to Taiwan independence through non-peaceful means and other necessary measures, always maintain a high state of readiness, and be ready for war at all times," Major General Liu Yantong, the head of the Central Military Commission’s research bureau, added at the time.

A Chinese military jet flies over Pingtan island, one of mainland China's closest points to Taiwan, in Fujian province on August 6, 2022. (HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images)
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Taiwan identifies itself as a sovereign nation with democratic values. This prioritization on democracy sets itself apart from mainland China, which is communist-ruled, and has allowed Taiwan to attract international partnerships.

Most of these partners though, including the U.S., officially recognized Taiwan as a territory of China. The U.S. and the United Nations and both agree to the one-China policy.

Fox News' Caitlin McFall contributed to this report.

Taiwan readies missile defenses after Chinese military vessels cross ADIZ: report

The Taiwanese government reported several Chinese aircraft and naval vessels crossed into their air defense identification zone, prompting them to monitor and respond.

www.foxnews.com

 

[jward]

Biden, Xi focus on Taiwan and forget about Ukraine​

Alicia Garcia Herrero

---

It is hard to imagine a more momentous meeting than the one Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping just held on the sidelines of the Group of Twenty meeting in Bali.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s absence certainly made things easier, as it opened the door for the G20 communiqué to address the Ukraine war, but it is not going to go beyond a compromise solution because China is acting as a bastion of Russian interests.
In fact, Biden has made it easy for Putin because the Ukraine war does not seem to have been the focus of his meeting with Xi, but rather Taiwan.
This fact in itself should raise alarm bells for Europeans about what really matters to the US. Indeed, even if Biden’s Democratic Party narrowly managed to hold control of the Senate in the US midterm elections, this does not mean that US support for Ukraine will continue unchanged.

In fact, US support for Ukraine becomes much more complicated with a Republican-held House of Representatives, which undoubtedly weakens Biden’s position vis-à-vis Xi when it comes to the outcome of the Ukrainian war.
Beyond the joint denunciation of the potential use of nuclear weapons, which Xi had already promised German Chancellor Olof Scholz during his recent trip to Beijing, the Ukraine issue does not seem to have been the subject of much more in the Biden-Xi meeting.
Instead, what has become clear to the world is that Taiwan has become the flashpoint in the strategic competition between the US and China.

Indeed, the most important objective of the meeting between Biden and Xi was to dampen the tension in the Taiwan Strait that has increased in recent years, especially since the visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in August.
Some important messages can be distilled from the communiqués from both sides following the meeting between Biden and Xi. Beginning with the positive, President Xi has been much more condescending compared with his statements at the Communist Party Congress and on a more recent visit to the National Military Commission.

In particular, Xi appears to have assured Biden that China has no intention of wresting global leadership from the US or of engaging in military conflict over Taiwan in the short term.
These signs of détente are undoubtedly good news for the world, but the key question is to understand what lies behind them.
The most plausible explanation is that Xi wanted to lay the groundwork for Biden to accept China’s red lines on Taiwan more favorably. For China those red lines have never changed, and it is the US that has moved away from its historic position, known as the “one China policy.”

It is true that Biden, on no fewer than four occasions, has reiterated that the US will support Taiwan should China decide to attack the island. On the other hand, it is also true that the white paper that China released after Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan modified the proposals of previous white papers published by Beijing regarding Taiwan’s reunification with the mainland.
More specifically, the solution China proposed in the white paper was less generous in terms of the areas that China would delegate to the Taiwanese authorities. In that sense, China seems to have learned from the Hong Kong case and wants to avoid problems with a “one country, two systems” model that leaves too much room for self-rule.

In other words, not only is China’s approach to Taiwan reunification changing, adapting to new circumstances in a world dominated by strategic competition between the US and China, but also its red lines on Taiwan are shifting. Indeed, the Chinese government’s reaction to any official or semi-official visit to Taiwan has never been harsher, and there is no prospect of this changing.
In short, what seems to have come out of the meeting between Biden and Xi is that neither seems very willing to engage in a military conflict over Taiwan, at least in the short term, which is great news for the world. On the other hand, Xi may have gotten a lot in return for this promise to avoid a military conflict and for not wanting to take global leadership away from the US.
In particular, Xi could have obtained the approval, probably implicit, of red lines that, in practice, further tighten the siege on Taiwan, further isolating the island.

Given this situation, it seems important to ask a number of questions.
The first is how much Biden is aware of Xi’s Taiwan strategy, that is, to appease the US while tightening the circle.
In that sense, and linking back to Ukraine, Biden has not obtained any bargaining chips from China on what might be a tougher stance toward Russia, beyond the extreme case of nuclear-weapons use.
Thus, while the meeting between Biden and Xi was undoubtedly important and surely helps to reduce the tension in US-China relations, at least temporarily, it did not seem to offer solutions to the two most pressing problems for the international order, namely the war in Ukraine and tensions in the Taiwan Strait.

In sum, while it is true that the resumption of face-to-face dialogue between the two leaders is excellent news for the world, the fruits of this dialogue are scarce and, in Biden’s favor, practically non-existent, which is not going to be an easy political message for Biden once he returns to the US.
Alicia García Herrero is chief Asia economist at the investment bank Natixis and senior research fellow at the think-tank Bruegel.

Biden, Xi focus on Taiwan and forget about Ukraine

It is hard to imagine a more momentous meeting than the one Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping just held on the sidelines of the Group of Twenty meeting in Bali. Russian President Vladimir Putin&#…

asiatimes.com

 

[jward]

North Korea missile launch did not pose threat to US homeland: White House - Insider Paper​

AFP​

---

The White House said Friday that a long-range missile launched by North Korea and thought to have the possible range to cross the Pacific did not threaten the United States.
“As concerning as this launch was, we did not deem it a threat to homeland,” said White House national security spokesman John Kirby.
However, Kirby expressed strong concern about Pyongyang’s surge in test launches of short and long-range missiles that have the potential to carry nuclear warheads.
“Every single time they launch, they learn. That’s concerning. Even if the launch is a failure or only partially successful, they still learn,” Kirby told reporters.
“That’s destabilizing, not just to the peninsula but to the region itself,” he said.
The United States has repeatedly offered talks with North Korea over its denuclearizing the Korean peninsula without preconditions, he said.
Still, Kirby added, the United States as well as South Korea and Japan were “working very hard to make sure we have in place adequate defensive capabilities.

North Korea missile launch did not pose threat to US homeland: White House - Insider Paper

The White House said Friday that a long-range missile launched by North Korea and thought to have the potential range to cross the Pacific.

insiderpaper.com

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

Pentagon's Top General Says China Attacking Taiwan Would Be Like Russia Invading Ukraine

The Pentagon's top general has said that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would be comparable to Russia's invasion of Ukraine ...

www.theepochtimes.com

(fair use applies)


Pentagon’s Top General Says China Attacking Taiwan Would Be Like Russia Invading Ukraine
Would be 'very difficult military task'
By Katabella Roberts
November 21, 2022

The Pentagon’s top general has said that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would be comparable to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a significant “strategic mistake.”

U.S. Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley made the remarks at a joint Pentagon press briefing with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Wednesday.

The meeting came shortly after Chinese leader Xi Jinping secured a third term as head of the ruling Communist Party.

During the press briefing, Milley was asked if he was at all concerned that Xi might make an “ill-advised or ill-informed decision” to take Taiwan by force, given that the liberal democratic island views itself as its own independent entity, whereas the CCP views it as part of its territory.

Milley responded that while he does not personally know the Chinese leader, he believes Xi is a “rational actor” who will “make decisions based on what he thinks is in his national interest” and who “evaluates things on cost, benefit, and risk.”

“I think that he would conclude that an attack on Taiwan in the near future would be an excessive amount of risk, and it would end in a strategic, really, debacle for the Chinese military. And I think it would throw off their China dream of being the number one economic and military power and so on,” he said.

‘A Political Mistake’

“I think it would be unwise, it would be a political mistake, a geopolitical mistake, a strategic mistake, similar to what the strategic mistake is that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has made in Ukraine,” he added.

Milley also noted that the Chinese military had not fought in combat since fighting with the communist north Vietnamese in 1979 against the south, and that crossing the straits and invading Taiwan would be a “very dangerous game” and a “very difficult military task.”

However, Milley stressed that ultimately the United States does not know if China will attempt to take Taiwan but that officials continue to monitor the situation closely and are ” militarily prepared.”

“One of the keys now is to make sure that Taiwan can defend itself, and there are a lot of lessons learned coming out of the Ukrainian war,” he added.

Tensions in the region have steadily grown this year due to increasing military pressure from Beijing on U.S. ally Taiwan, which further escalated following U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) visit to the self-ruled island in August.

The Chinese regime said it strongly opposed Pelosi’s visit and other governments or international organizations forming ties with Taiwanese officials.

Following the Democrat’s trip, Beijing ramped up military activity near Taiwan, launching live fire drills and 11 ballistic missiles into the waters around the island.

On Nov. 12, Taiwan’s defense military announced that 36 Chinese military fighter jets and bombers had flown near the island and its surrounding region.

Despite this, Biden and Xi Jinping this month met for the first time since the former took office in 2021.

The two leaders spoke candidly and positively about bilateral ties, and their “respective priorities and intentions across a range of issues” on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, according to a White House press statement.

On Taiwan, Biden “laid out in detail that our ‘One China’ policy has not changed, the United States opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo by either side, and the world has an interest in the maintenance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” according to the statement.

The U.S. president also “raised objections to the PRC’s coercive and increasingly aggressive actions toward Taiwan, which undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the broader region, and jeopardize global prosperity.”

 

[jward]

國防部 Ministry of National Defense, R.O.C.
@MoNDefense
9m

17 PLA aircraft and 4 PLAN vessels around Taiwan were detected by 6 a.m.(UTC+8) today. R.O.C. Armed Forces have monitored the situation and tasked CAP aircraft, Navy vessels, and land-based missile systems to respond these activities.

 

[OldArcher]

國防部 Ministry of National Defense, R.O.C.
@MoNDefense
9m

17 PLA aircraft and 4 PLAN vessels around Taiwan were detected by 6 a.m.(UTC+8) today. R.O.C. Armed Forces have monitored the situation and tasked CAP aircraft, Navy vessels, and land-based missile systems to respond these activities.

Wonder how long, before someone scratches the inevitable wild hair?

OA

 

[jward]

“Reunification” with Taiwan through Force Would Be a Pyrrhic Victory for China​

Freeman Chair in China Studies

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November 22, 2022

The Issue​

Many commentators and officials speculate about Beijing’s plans to compel “reunification” with Taiwan. Much of the existing commentary focuses on how or when a Chinese attack on Taiwan could occur, but there is little discussion of the nonmilitary consequences of such a scenario for China and the world. This brief explores the implications of a Chinese attack on Taiwan based on reasonable, albeit speculative, assumptions.
When considered more holistically, the implications of an attack on Taiwan would be grim for Beijing, even if Chinese forces “successfully” capture the island. China would probably be diplomatically and economically isolated from key advanced economies, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping would have to tread a narrow path to avoid dire consequences for China and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a whole. This analysis helps clarify what could be at stake for the world and reaffirms the importance of deterring Beijing from contemplating such an attack on Taiwan.

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Speculation has increased over the past several years that Beijing is accelerating plans for an invasion of Taiwan. While there is little doubt that Beijing seeks to fully annex Taiwan into the People’s Republic of China (PRC) one day, questions remain about the timing and methods that China might use to achieve this goal.1

There are several reasons Beijing might undertake a military campaign against Taiwan:
1. Long-standing territorial and national identity aspirations
2. Xi’s own personal ambitions and sense of legacy
3. Addressing a perceived threat to its own security stemming from deepening U.S.-Taiwan defense cooperation
4. Responding to perceived provocations from Taiwan, specifically a formal declaration of de jure and permanent independence from the PRC

While a great deal of commentary and analysis has explored how the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might undertake a military campaign to annex Taiwan, a critical—yet underemphasized—question remains regarding the types and magnitudes of costs Beijing would pay for such actions. Nearly all discussions of China’s potential invasion of Taiwan ignore the economic and diplomatic costs of such a move, make unrealistic assumptions about what China could achieve (including technological and economic gains), or otherwise minimize the challenges that China would face if an invasion of Taiwan were successful.

The below analysis is an initial exploration into some of these potential nonmilitary consequences for China. It does not seek to prove or disprove Beijing’s true intentions and timelines toward Taiwan, nor does it claim to know how Chinese leader Xi Jinping is assessing the risks and rewards of an invasion. Rather, it highlights costs that Beijing would likely face if it successfully invaded Taiwan, based on plausible assumptions of how China, Taiwan, the United States, the international community, and global investors would react.

Specifically, this brief looks at three distinct phases of a possible Chinese attack:
1. The period leading up to an attack
2. The period between the initial phase of an attack and the end of major conflict
3. The period following a successful PLA invasion

To keep the analysis focused on how a successful invasion by the PLA would impact China’s economic, diplomatic, and political circumstances, this brief intentionally remains nonspecific about the type of attack or invasion it might launch. At a minimum, this analysis assumes that it would include the direct use of lethal force by the PLA’s air, land, and sea capabilities to defeat and subdue Taiwan’s military and to depose the civilian political leadership on the island. It also assumes that the U.S. military would intervene, but its actions would be limited and ultimately unsuccessful in halting the Chinese invasion. And it further assumes that no nuclear weapons would be used. Such assumptions are not predictions of actual outcomes, but rather necessary simplifications adopted so this brief can focus on the issue of costs associated with a relatively smooth path to military victory for Beijing.

Any conflict in and around Taiwan would entail major economic, financial, diplomatic, and reputational costs for Beijing, both directly and indirectly. Even if China “won” in the military domain and thus accrued additional regional military benefits, its economic and diplomatic position would likely be substantially worse off. Simply put, China would have gained Taiwan but sacrificed its larger ambition of becoming a global and comprehensive superpower. This is the very definition of a Pyrrhic victory:

• Even absent U.S. intervention, any conflict initiated by the PRC would have immediate and dramatically negative effects on China’s ability to import and export goods, on its domestic financial markets, on business sentiment, and on the exchange rate of its currency.
• China’s costs would significantly increase if the U.S. military intervenes meaningfully, even if delayed by several days or even weeks. The blunt geographic truth for China is that conflict in the Taiwan Strait would occur directly off the shore of its most economically important and populated provinces.
• Even supposing Chinese troops could overcome Taiwan’s defenses, they would then occupy an island inhabited by a hostile population with a shattered local economy, including its semiconductor sector, while China itself would face severe economic and diplomatic repercussions.

This exercise is necessarily speculative and requires many assumptions. Perhaps the most important ones are that Taiwan offers at least some resistance and that U.S. leadership can effectively organize some semblance of an anti-China coalition among advanced economies. In addition, forecasting the effects of major discontinuities requires considerations for societies’ potential reactions under stress rather than under normal conditions. History suggests that major crises can trigger or inspire rapid shifts in consensuses based on reevaluations of national, political, or cultural priorities that can supersede economic logic.

The United States has compelling strategic reasons for deterring China from attacking Taiwan. This exercise is not intended to suggest that losing Taiwan to the PRC would be a positive outcome for Washington. Rather, the key point is that even in this dire scenario, China would still likely be the country that most suffers diplomatically and economically.
Estimating the effects of such a conflict with any precision is extremely difficult, in part because there is no analogous historical case upon which to draw. The world’s two largest economies might be at war with each other. Global supply chains are far more integrated now than before World War II—or even World War I, which ended the first era of globalization.2 The disruptions from the Russia-Ukraine war are not a good proxy because Russia’s economy is far smaller than China’s, the conflict and Western response have not stopped key Russian exports, and Western powers are not directly engaged in combat.

Nonetheless, this brief concludes that the implications of a PRC attack on Taiwan would be cataclysmic for China, the United States, and the world. Simply put, any attempt to achieve “reunification” through force is likely to fracture global geopolitics and economies far beyond today’s “partial decoupling” trends and preclude any long-term “national rejuvenation” for China’s economy.

Phase One: Pending Chinese Attack on Taiwan​

Beijing’s preparation for an attack on Taiwan would likely alert foreign governments and investors to the impending conflict, but the signals would not be entirely clear. These actions would include measures to mobilize its forces, insulate its economy and financial system, ready its population, and prepare the diplomatic space for a conflict that Chinese leaders might assume will entail enormous costs for the Chinese Communist Party. While Beijing would strive to obscure its intentions in some scenarios, the required military, economic, and political preparations would be at least partially detectable to the international community. Such observable signals might include stockpiling of munitions, a freeze on military demobilizations, and an intensification of bellicose propaganda.

• The United States would warn of China’s military intentions, hoping to rally allies and deter Beijing. The effectiveness of such warnings would depend on the strength of U.S. leadership, the state of Washington’s diplomatic relations with third countries, and the credibility of U.S. intelligence. Beijing would likely proceed toward an attack in a manner that clouds or frustrates U.S. efforts to assign blame to China, such as by claiming that Taiwan provoked Beijing by crossing red lines or even that Taiwan’s military attacked Chinese territory or a Chinese asset.
• Some U.S. allies and partners would join Washington in warning of Beijing’s intentions. U.S. allies—most likely including Australia, Japan, and the United Kingdom—would coordinate planning for steps that could deter China. However, even among allies, the bar for assuming an attack on Taiwan is imminent would be high. The intensity of allied responses would thus largely depend on the credibility of U.S. intelligence, the strength of U.S. government statements and actions, and Taiwan’s own demonstrations that it took the threat seriously. This would include military preparations and the threat—or perhaps use of—economic sanctions on China to deter military action. On the other hand, the United States and its allies would be wary of acting too drastically, which might escalate the crisis, including by triggering responses from Beijing, precluding off-ramps for China, or damaging the global economy.
• Other governments would be slow to respond. Some might believe Beijing’s actions are mere saber rattling, as some Western governments did ahead of Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine despite clear warnings from Washington. Some leaders would hesitate because they want to avoid taking disruptive emergency measures not yet seen as justified by their uncertain or oblivious polities. Other leaders would try to avoid committing themselves to either side in a conflict. Behind the scenes, Beijing would likely be using all its diplomatic channels to pressure third countries to remain on the sidelines.

International firms and investors would need to make important early decisions in an environment of extreme uncertainty. Financial markets would be the first to respond, with strong downward pressure on Chinese assets and the renminbi’s exchange rate. Many foreign investors would assume the crisis will harm business sentiment in China and, even if resolved, at least incrementally slow the economy. Direct investors would be slower to respond than portfolio investors.

• Because Beijing’s true intentions, including the scope and scale of a possible attack, would not yet be entirely clear, many firms operating in China, Taiwan, or the broader region would adopt a “wait and see” approach. Global headquarters would be looking to in-country staff for information and updates—though even staff in China and Taiwan would be struggling to interpret events. Because the costs of shifting supply chains or divesting from China could be substantial, many companies would delay making drastic decisions in the hope that a crisis never materializes.

Phase Two: Period of Conflict ​

A conflict over Taiwan would devastate the global economy, but the costs would be especially high for China. The negative economic impact would be felt as soon as hostilities begin. Commercial shipping through the war zone and nearby ports would collapse, supply chains for many goods would seize up, and financial markets would panic—potentially even more so than during the 2008 global financial crisis. Beijing would likely impose emergency economic measures such as even stronger capital controls, selling Chinese assets abroad, stockpiling emergency supplies, suspending critical exports, rationing key imported goods, or restricting foreign travel.3 Early resistance by Taiwan’s military would compel China to take economically disruptive measures to protect its military assets in its eastern provinces and population centers from air or missile attacks from Taiwan or U.S. forces. Even a minimal level of U.S. military involvement would significantly disrupt this vital region.

• The two most important determinants of the war’s intensity and duration—and thus economic impact—would be the degree to which Taiwan resists and whether the United States is engaged militarily. Neither condition is certain, but both are probable. To assume Taiwan would not resist, one must have a bleak view of Taiwan’s civil society. To assume the United States would not engage militarily, one needs to at least assume that Beijing’s military operations would be extremely effective and quick while also not targeting U.S. forces in the region. Beijing would have an official pretense for any military action, but unless Taiwan took reckless actions, such as declaring independence, it is unlikely that leaders in Washington and other Western capitals would find them convincing. In the early days of the conflict, global firms and investors would assume that U.S. military intervention and general escalation pose high risks, absent extremely unlikely statements by Washington that explicitly disavow Taiwan.
• A 2016 study by the RAND Corporation estimated that a year-long war between the United States and China would reduce China’s GDP by 25–35 percent and U.S. GDP by 5–10 percent. However, the study did not examine the implications for global supply chains or estimate effects from sanctions, infrastructure damage, or cyberattacks.4 Given China’s subsequent economic growth, the economic damage ratios now are probably somewhat more in China’s favor, but the overall costs (considering all factors) could be considerably higher. A war would have an immediate impact on the three Chinese provinces nearest to Taiwan—Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang—which together account for 22 percent of China’s GDP and 17 percent of its population. Damage would not be limited to coastal provinces, however, because interior provinces are part of an intricate network of domestic supply chains.
• Most maritime trade and air freight within range of the war zone would be disrupted. International shipping and logistics firms would try to reroute traffic around the conflict zone and would avoid entering ports in or near Taiwan. Shipping insurance premiums would surge. Chinese ports accounted for roughly 40 percent of shipping volume among the world’s 100 largest ports in 2020; six of China’s largest ports are near Taiwan and would likely be directly impacted by a Chinese attack. Nearly half of the global container fleet and five-sixths of the largest ships transit through the Taiwan Strait, most of which would be rerouted.5 A complete disruption of China’s trade would reduce global trade in added value by $2.6 trillion, or 3 percent of world GDP—and this figure, based on peacetime valuations of global supply chains, only captures the first-order effect on trade.6 In the short term, however, existing inventories of goods or supplies would mitigate the effect on global firms and consumers.
• Even in the early stages of a conflict, multinational corporations (MNCs) would face significant pressure to begin unwinding operations in China. Managers’ foremost consideration in the hours and days after a Chinese attack would be employee safety, and many foreign MNCs would seek to exfiltrate foreign passport holders. Companies operating near the eastern coastline would likely halt operations even if they encounter no supply chain disruptions. MNCs exporting from or sourcing parts from China might try to shift production or inputs to other locations, although this would be expensive, and there would be competition from other firms doing the same thing with limited alternative capacity. MNCs operating in China for access to its domestic market would be the least likely to try to pull out because direct investments, such as factories and retail locations, are difficult to liquidate in a crisis. Such firms might conclude that even in dire scenarios, the Chinese market would still be enormous—at least after the conflict. However, they would fear the appropriation of their assets by Chinese authorities and the reputational costs in other markets if they remain in a China hostile to the West.
• China would face significant capital-flight pressures and a massive selloff of Chinese assets. Chinese citizens, companies, and investors—as well as foreign firms—would seek to jump the queue and avoid having their international capital ensnared by Western sanctions. While China already maintains stringent capital controls, the central bank would likely issue additional unofficial “window guidance” to China’s major state banks, directing them to halt outgoing transfers. Unofficial and illicit channels exist for motivated parties, but they are relatively narrow owing to regulators’ efforts to diminish their effectiveness. In addition to selling off onshore Chinese stocks, many investors would also dump their holdings of Chinese stocks listed on overseas exchanges. The exchange rate of the onshore and offshore renminbi would plunge, necessitating heavy interventions by the central bank to arrest the slide. As during other periods of heightened risk, global investors would flee to assets perceived as safe, especially U.S. Treasury securities and U.S. bank deposits.

 

[jward]

The United States would impose at least some economic sanctions on China in any scenario. But if U.S. forces were engaged, the sanctions would be severe, and Washington would probably coordinate with—or even compel—major allies to join such sanctions. U.S. politicians and the public would likely not tolerate continued direct trade or investment with China if U.S. forces suffer even a low number of casualties fighting Chinese forces, although indirect economic linkages would remain. Financial sanctions on major Chinese banks would have a devastating economic impact, including for U.S. firms and consumers. The expected costs of such actions suggest they would only be used in full once a conflict breaks out and the United States becomes militarily involved. If U.S. personnel start dying and the public sees bloody images of China’s attack on Taiwan, Western sentiment would likely turn swiftly and decidedly against China. A Western sanctions coalition could coalesce quickly, as happened after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in part because of lessons learned and coordination mechanisms established in response to the sanctions against Russia.

• Major U.S. allies, even if not engaged militarily, would likely support Washington’s efforts to punish China economically. While China’s market and supply chains are critical for many international firms, overall, the United States is even more important as a consumer market, investment destination, and financial market. The European Union’s—even just Germany’s—economic and financial ties to the United States are far deeper than those with China. Perhaps more importantly, Europe’s political, cultural, and security ties with the United States would present European leaders with a binary choice they might otherwise hope to avoid. Washington would exert significant pressure on its allies to join its sanctions efforts; if the United States were engaged militarily, those requests might become ultimatums, which Western leaders would need to weigh against the expectation that China’s economic growth and liberalization has peaked.

Taiwan’s economy would be shattered and cut off from most trade, losing the ability to export the majority of the world’s semiconductors and microchips. Much of its infrastructure would be damaged during combat or from sabotage by local actors, and Taiwan’s ports would be well within the combat zone. This would halt Taiwan’s microchip exports, of which roughly 60 percent go to China as inputs into electronics that are then exported to the rest of the world.7

• Global supply chains for consumer electronics would be particularly damaged. China’s exports of consumer electronics, such as smartphones and laptops, have accounted for nearly 40 percent of the global total since 2014.8 Because of shipping disruptions and possible suspensions of trade with advanced economies, China’s domestically produced microchips would also probably not be exported.

Phase Three: The World After​

Even if the PLA were successful in seizing and holding Taiwan, Beijing would still face enormous economic, diplomatic, and political challenges. The only plausible pathway to mitigating these challenges would be for China’s military operations in Taiwan to be quick (to shorten the window Washington has to respond) and clean (to minimize fighting and damage, including civilian casualties in Taiwan), as well as avoid triggering an international backlash, particularly from advanced economies. More realistically, an attack on Taiwan—even a successful one—would result in some level of U.S. military involvement, a direct response from Taiwan’s military and people, and international outrage.

Taiwanese military personnel drove a CM-25 armored vehicle across the street during the Han Kuang military exercise, which simulated China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) invading the island on July 27, 2022, in New Taipei City, Taiwan.
Photo: Annabelle Chih/Stringer/GettyImages

• China would occupy a new but significantly damaged and isolated “special administrative region,” which would face a severe economic contraction and be expensive to subdue, police, and rebuild. Chinese military and security forces would contend with a restive population, even assuming local resistance is not prolonged. Reconstruction costs would be high and absorb much of Taiwan’s remaining fiscal capacity. The public on the mainland might object to spending Chinese resources to occupy and rebuild Taiwan, given that the island is nominally more developed than most of the mainland and its people are considered hostile. Chinese leaders probably would have planned for the post-war environment based on optimistic assumptions, in part because experts and planners would have been reluctant to suggest that Taiwan’s population is sincerely opposed to “reunification.”
• Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, including the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (TSMC), would be severely damaged and unable to resume production of cutting-edge microchips. Assuming TSMC is not affected during combat or destroyed by saboteurs, its seizure by Chinese forces would only give China a snapshot of its technology in an otherwise fast-moving global industry. Beijing would also need to coopt or compel TSMC’s employees to continue working for the firm. Furthermore, TSMC relies on foreign inputs, including for chip designs and chip-manufacturing equipment. The governments of key advanced economies would likely impose export controls on those inputs, even if this means losing access to leading-edge fabrication capabilities. Foreign firms reliant on TSMC for production would no longer consider its Taiwan facilities reliable even after reconstruction. However, TSMC’s overseas assets might continue operating, assisted by TSMC staff who escape Taiwan and perhaps after being acquired by other firms.
• China’s economic and diplomatic relations with advanced economies would significantly deteriorate. Western sanctions and export controls on China would probably persist for months or perhaps years after a conflict, even if U.S. military forces are defeated. In Washington, Tokyo, and some European capitals, there would be little to no political appetite to resume normal economic relations with a belligerent China. Both sides would suffer, but China would suffer more. In 2021, the Group of Seven (G7) economies—a reasonable proxy for the U.S. alliance network—had a collective GDP 65 percent larger than China’s, even at purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates favorable to China, and directly absorbed 41 percent of China’s exports.9 China has little prospect of eliminating its key external economic dependences—technology, commodities, and the U.S. dollar—in the medium term. After a conflict, China would largely maintain access to commodities from emerging markets and developing countries. However, China would struggle to overcome technology export controls and sanctions based on the global dollar network, upon which its remaining trading partners would also remain reliant.
• China’s periphery would become increasingly hostile. Any Chinese attack on Taiwan would provoke significant anxiety among China’s neighbors. If the United States were perceived to have intervened aggressively, even if ultimately unsuccessfully, U.S. credibility as a security partner would largely remain intact, if somewhat bruised. On the other hand, if U.S. intervention were seen as halfhearted, countries might put less stock in Washington as a security guarantor, and some might develop their own capabilities, including nuclear weapons, to deter China. Either way, China’s aggression would likely galvanize a surge in military spending and pronounced bandwagoning against Beijing by Japan, South Korea, Australia, and India, but also Vietnam and the Philippines. Most other emerging markets or developing countries, however, would probably try to remain neutral.
• Annexing Taiwan would likely give Xi Jinping an initial bump in public approval, but the mounting costs of “state-building” would erode overall domestic confidence in the CCP. Propaganda organs would seek to contain criticisms of the invasion, but the proximity of the conflict would make it difficult to obscure the likely military casualties. Such efforts would be further undermined by the vast network of overseas Chinese nationals with unfettered access to information on the invasion’s course and consequences. Beijing would probably feel forced to use terror and repression to subdue pockets of resistance (real or imagined) in Taiwan, and reports of such atrocities would inevitably filter through to the mainland population. An invasion of Taiwan and the associated occupation phase would also distract Beijing from addressing China’s pressing domestic agenda and economic headwinds. To take control of the narrative and tamp down on any domestic unrest (again, real or imagined), the CCP would feel compelled to flex all its coercive muscles, and thus China would enter a new and more protracted phase of its police state.
• China’s economy would be on a wartime footing, and its hope of achieving high-income status would be severely diminished. Beijing would struggle with China’s overburdened fiscal system and state-sector debts amid capital outflows—and could face a systemic financial crisis. MNCs would expect Western sanctions and export controls to persist, while also forecasting far less potential from the Chinese market, and thus would generally maintain lower exposure to China. Foreign MNCs operating in China would fear asset nationalization, and even MNCs who want to remain or reinvest in China would face a Chinese government that scrutinizes companies representing “hostile” Western countries. China’s outbound investments and lending would be constrained. Amid draconian capital controls and a loss of foreign investor confidence in China’s trajectory and reforms, the renminbi would not substantially internationalize.

Conclusion​

The purpose of this initial exercise is to sketch out some of the likely responses to a Chinese attack on Taiwan and the associated political, economic, diplomatic, and strategic consequences Beijing would face. The conclusion reached is stark: China would court disaster if it launched an invasion across the Taiwan Strait. Even under optimistic assumptions about the combat performance of the PLA and the relatively muted or constrained military responses by Taiwan and the United States, there is a precariously narrow path Xi Jinping would need to follow to emerge from the gambit unscathed. Once more realistic assumptions begin to be layered in, the picture becomes dire for the CCP and China as a whole. Equally as significant, any Chinese attack on Taiwan would also have an extraordinary impact on the global economy, especially for U.S. partners and allies in the region.
The key strategic challenge for the United States remains to ensure Beijing never actively contemplates an attack on Taiwan. While it is likely Beijing broadly understands the costs associated with such an action, the increasing isolation of Chinese leader Xi Jinping and the concomitant rise in groupthink in Beijing’s policymaking circles means that one cannot assume Chinese leaders will continue to conduct a sound cost-benefit analysis. It thus remains critical to find direct and clear ways to communicate to Xi Jinping the costs he would face for undertaking any attack on Taiwan.
Jude Blanchette holds the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington D.C. Gerard DiPippo is a senior fellow with the Economics Program at CSIS.
This brief is made possible by general support to CSIS. No direct sponsorship contributed to this brief.
CSIS Briefs are produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).
© 2022 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved.
Please consult the PDF for references.

“Reunification” with Taiwan through Force Would Be a Pyrrhic Victory for China

Download the CSIS Brief The Issue Many commentators and officials speculate about Beijing’s plans to compel “reunification” with Taiwan. Much of the existing commentary focuses on how or when a Chinese attack on Taiwan could occur, but there is little discussion of the nonmilitary consequences...

www.csis.org

 

[danielboon]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1596583329511317504

View: https://twitter.com/EndGameWW3/status/1596583329511317504

 

[jward]

What Can Taiwan Learn From Ukraine’s Cyber Army?​

by Kyle Fendorf

8-10 minutes

---

Roskomnadzor, Russia's main telecommunications and mass media regulator, has long been opaque to outsiders. A recent New York Times report, however, has shed light on the agency's expansion into censorship and social repression. Roskomnadzor has grown from an agency largely devoted to regulating telecommunications companies, along the lines of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, to a critical piece of Russia’s state surveillance apparatus. The report from the Times describes Roskomnadzor’s attempts to catalog social media posts based on their political leaning, reports on prominent social media personalities, and even intimidation campaigns targeting “anti-government” individuals. The report relies almost entirely on approximately 160,000 files that were leaked by pro-Ukrainian hackers at the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It shows how Roskomnadzor has become a major instrument of social repression in Russia, as well as the effectiveness of pro-Ukrainian hack-and-leak campaigns at the beginning of the war.

Hack-and-leak operations, in which operators steal data from vulnerable organizations and make it publicly available, have become increasingly common in the last decade. Perhaps the most famous campaign was the leak of emails and documents from the Democratic National Committee by Russian state-sponsored hackers ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
The Times report is one of the most thorough public uses of leaked data to give further insight into Russian government operations. The documents used to create it are a small portion of the terabytes of data stolen from the Russian divisions of several multinational mining, manufacturing, and oil and gas firms in the first months of the war by pro-Ukrainian hackers. The implications for Russian government organizations are now clear in the wake of the Times report, and outsiders’ knowledge of how these organizations operate will only grow in the coming years as researchers sift through the enormous amount of data leaked.

The pace of the Ukrainian hack-and-leak campaign has slowed in recent months, likely because attackers have already hit many of the most vulnerable systems and the IT Army of Ukraine, an irregular hacking force coordinated by Ukrainian government officials through Telegram and other social media, and other coordinating mechanisms have shifted towards more disruptive attacks, including distributed denial of service attacks and wiper malware. The number of leaks by Ukrainians has declined since the start of the war, but they are still occurring, as evidenced by the October 17 leak of over one million files from Technoserv, a large Russian consulting firm with deep ties to the Russian government, including employees’ personal information, designs for IT systems, contracts with partners, and internal databases.
Still, while hack-and-leak operations may have faded, they could play a key role in another major geopolitical theater—the Taiwan Strait.

Cyber Parallels Between Ukraine and Taiwan
A hack-and-leak campaign could be a potential consequence of a Chinese assault on Taiwan. Several factors that enabled the Ukrainian hack-and-leak campaign would likely be present in the case of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The Ukrainian campaign has relied on overwhelming public support from the West, which, among other things, allowed groups like the IT Army of Ukraine and Anonymous, an independent, loosely coordinated group of hacktivists that intervenes in opposition to what members view as oppressive government action, to organize near-constant attacks. Ukrainian government officials possessed a keen understanding of how to mobilize these volunteers from the start and have steered attackers toward valuable targets in Russia using Telegram and other means of coordination. The Ukrainians also benefited from the fact that many Russian organizations had, like many organizations in other countries, left critical systems insecure, giving attackers means of access.

These and other conditions would likely apply to any civilian campaign against China in the wake of an invasion of Taiwan. Whether or not Taiwan would be able to garner sufficient public support is an open question, and likely depends on both the timing and manner of a hypothetical Chinese invasion. Likewise, any Taiwanese attempt to turn international support into a hack-and-leak campaign would depend on both the strength of Taiwanese institutions and coordination mechanisms. The Great Firewall, a series of policies and systems designed to regulate the flow of information into and out of China via the internet, could also have an effect on any campaign. While the previous three factors are likely to shift in the short term and would be influenced by events in the immediate run-up to a conflict, the Chinese cybersecurity environment offers a relatively static area for analysis.
Assuming a public backlash to an invasion occurs and Taiwanese authorities are able to marshal it as the Ukrainians have, how would Chinese cybersecurity stack up? The likely answer: not well.

There are several indications that China’s cybersecurity industry would face difficulties responding to an unsophisticated, large-scale campaign of the kind Ukraine has spearheaded against Russia. China is a hotbed of cybercriminal activity, despite making some progress in recent years in pushing cybercriminals out of the country and reforming the country’s privacy and cybersecurity laws. Major Chinese advanced persistent threats (APTs), including APT 41 and Webworm, which conduct many Chinese cyberattacks against foreign targets, also moonlight as criminal hackers and attack businesses in China. Outside of APTs, which are the most capable and well-resourced cyber attackers, China also plays host to a large cybercrime community, whose members operate on private criminal forums and frequently trade access to Chinese companies’ networks and data stolen from those networks. These lower-level forum-based hackers are similar to the kinds of hackers who could be expected to participate in a hacktivism campaign. The current vulnerability of Chinese businesses is not likely to improve in the coming years.
Businesses are not the only areas vulnerable to cyberattacks, however. The government itself has fallen victim to several major hacks in recent years. Earlier this year, a hacker stole twenty-three terabytes of data from the Shanghai National Police and posted it for sale on a cybercrime forum. The data included names, addresses, phone numbers, birthplaces, national ID numbers, and criminal case details for over a billion people, nearly 70 percent of China’s population. While this leak was unusually extreme, Chinese government documents appear to be leaked on the same forum several times a month. While the Chinese government has made steps toward improving cybersecurity within the country, it remains to be seen whether those changes will be applied in practice. Currently, there are significant vulnerabilities in Chinese government systems, which is especially troubling given the enormous amounts of personally identifiable information the Chinese government collects on its citizens. The capabilities of cybercriminals who share this government data are likely roughly on par with the hackers who could be expected to participate in an irregular cyber campaign.

Any potential hacktivist campaign in China would follow the existing contours of cybersecurity in the country. Previous attacks against both businesses and the government provide a view into the state of cybersecurity in China, areas of potential vulnerability, and what effects different categories of attackers would have. Furthermore, the hack-and-leak campaign against Russia has demonstrated how leaked documents can offer a window into a regime’s activities. A hack-and-leak campaign would have an even greater effect in China, given the larger size of the country and the government’s collection of massive amounts of personal information. Hack-and-leak operations have been shown to cause social instability, most notably following the Russian hack-and-leak campaigns during the 2016 U.S. election, and any potential instability could force the Chinese regime to respond to social instability at the same time it tries to take Taiwan.
Kyle Fendorf is the research associate for the Digital and Cyberspace Policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Image: Reuters

What Can Taiwan Learn From Ukraine’s Cyber Army?

Hack-and-leak campaigns of the kind used by Ukraine may well be harnessed by the Taiwanese government during a Chinese invasion of the island.

nationalinterest.org

 

[jward]

Lucas Tomlinson
@LucasFoxNews

“Taiwan is going to be in real trouble,” if it doesn’t boost defense spending and take the threat of a Chinese invasion more seriously, says @DAlperovitch
https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews/status/1596968902646374402?s=20&t=7jvEEiJRiGm8xjzTOHtJow




Lucas Tomlinson
@LucasFoxNews
Nov 27

If the U.S. goes to war with China over Taiwan, “we’ll run out of things very, very quickly,” warns
@DAlperovitch, urges U.S. to ramp up production of weapon stockpiles now running low after arming Ukraine

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1596970847235117056

View: https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews/status/1596970847235117056?s=20&t=7jvEEiJRiGm8xjzTOHtJow

 

[Housecarl]

Lucas Tomlinson
@LucasFoxNews
“Taiwan is going to be in real trouble,” if it doesn’t boost defense spending and take the threat of a Chinese invasion more seriously, says @DAlperovitch
https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews/status/1596968902646374402?s=20&t=7jvEEiJRiGm8xjzTOHtJow

Lucas Tomlinson
@LucasFoxNews
Nov 27

If the U.S. goes to war with China over Taiwan, “we’ll run out of things very, very quickly,” warns
@DAlperovitch, urges U.S. to ramp up production of weapon stockpiles now running low after arming Ukraine

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1596970847235117056

View: https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews/status/1596970847235117056?s=20&t=7jvEEiJRiGm8xjzTOHtJow

Lucas assumes apparently that such a conflict would be "conventional" from the beginning....

 

[OldArcher]

Lucas assumes apparently that such a conflict would be "conventional" from the beginning....

The Chinese Communists still study Sun Tzu. Just when their enemies figure they know what they’ll do…


OA

 

[Housecarl]

The Chinese Communists still study Sun Tzu. Just when their enemies figure they know what they’ll do…


OA

Yeah, like their affinity for the "assassin's mace"....

 

[onetimer]

2 Chinese, 6 Russian warplanes enter S. Korea's air defense zone without notice: JCS


CHINA, RUSSIA WARPLANES TEMPORARILY ENTERED S.KOREA AIR DEFENCE ZONE -YONHAP

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1597824252329148417

View: https://twitter.com/FirstSquawk/status/1597824252329148417?t=fBTD1MQ9hw2k8haFiuf2lQ&s=19

 

[jward]

Nato holds first dedicated talks on China threat to Taiwan​

Henry Foy, Demetri Sevastopulo

---

Transatlantic security body discussed how to make Beijing aware of consequences of any military action

Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen holds an anti-tank weapon while visiting a military base on the island. The US is keen for its Nato allies to take a tougher stand on China’s increasingly assertive military posture © Taiwan's Presidential Office/AFP
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Nato members held their first dedicated debate on Taiwan in September, as the US encourages other members of the transatlantic security alliance to pay more attention to the rising threat of China to the island.
The talks were held by the North Atlantic Council, the alliance’s main political decision-making body, according to several people familiar with the matter. Nato members had discussed Taiwan in previous NAC meetings as China ratcheted up pressure on the country, over which it claims sovereignty, but the September session was the first dedicated debate.

The discussions came three months after Nato released a strategy that for the first time described China as a threat to the 30-member alliance and one month after Beijing launched large-scale military exercises in response to a visit by Nancy Pelosi to Taipei — the first by a US House Speaker in 25 years.
“It is notable and significant that, for the first time, the alliance is conducting discussions about the status of Taiwan, its democratic government and its critical role in the manufacture of microchips globally,” said James Stavridis, a retired US admiral and former Nato supreme allied commander.

One of the people familiar with the September debate said Nato ambassadors discussed the latest intelligence about the threat to Taiwan and the impact that any conflict there would have on the members.
“We did not talk about what Nato’s role would be in the event of any military action but discussed the variety of impacts that it could have on Euro-Atlantic security and wider implications for the alliance,” the person added.
They also discussed how Nato should make Beijing aware of the potential ramifications of any military action — a debate that has gained significance following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine amid questions about whether the west was tough enough in its warnings to Moscow.

The US has been urging allies, particularly in Europe, to focus more on the threat to Taiwan, as concerns mount that Chinese president Xi Jinping may order the use of force against the island.
Senior US military officers and officials have floated several possible timelines for military action, with some eager to increase the sense of urgency to ensure Washington and its allies are prepared.
As part of US efforts, the state department recently shared an economic analysis with allies that said a Chinese blockade of Taiwan would cost the global economy $2.5tn per year.
“If there is an issue that we are discussing inside out and upside down, it’s Taiwan and possible scenarios and essentially a sense of what would happen,” said a senior EU official.
Nato foreign ministers said they would discuss the “challenge” from China on Wednesday as part of meetings in Bucharest, Romania.

The US, citing its support for Ukraine and Europe this year, is pressing European allies to hew closer to its tougher stance on Beijing. While the Nato strategy document released in June mentioned China, it did not refer to Taiwan.
“People are moving at different paces on this, inevitably in an alliance of 30,” said one western official. “[But] we have made a lot of progress on China . . . We are moving from assessing the problems to addressing them.”
In a phone interview from Bucharest where she is attending the Nato meetings, Canadian foreign minister Mélanie Joly said there had been more discussion on Taiwan among G7 members, though China was watching closely how the Nato alliance was responding to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“I think the unity of the alliance is our strength, and we need to make sure that we reinforce it,” Joly said.
Canada last week unveiled its strategy for the Indo-Pacific, which described China as “an increasingly disruptive global power”.

One person familiar with discussions between the US and its Nato allies about Taiwan said it was important not to overestimate what Nato would do in a conflict.
“The most important implication for Nato of a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait is the likely need for European militaries to backfill US military assets in the north Atlantic in the event that the US has to redeploy some assets to the Indo-Pacific. Nato is unlikely to get involved directly into a Taiwan crisis or war,” the person said.

While the US presses allies, it is pleased that Europe is starting to take the issue more seriously, even if some nations are reluctant to take a tougher stand given their trade with China or unwillingness to divert attention from Ukraine.
The “fundamental principle” that Nato had shown in relation to the Ukraine war and to the challenges posed by China was that “we are doing it together, we’re doing it united”, Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, said on Tuesday. “That is Nato’s greatest strength.”
Nato did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House declined to comment.
Follow Henry Foy and Demetri Sevastopulo on Twitter

Latest on Nato​

• Nato holds first dedicated talks on China threat to Taiwan

 

[Walrus Whisperer]

Dunno. Assuming ours still work, and the American leadership has the will.
Seems like most top positions are held by traitors.

The problem is there's TOO DAMN MANY HANDs in the nations leaders, I see them fighting over what to do and then nothing is done and THEN our goose is cooked.
I've seen bam bam lurking, he would LOVE to grab the power away from the feeb.

 

[Walrus Whisperer]

Two of the most EVIL people on this planet.

 

[danielboon]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1598084426390700033

View: https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1598084426390700033

 

[jward]

Faytuks News Δ
@Faytuks
3h

US lawmakers are poised to back as much as $10 billion to bolster Taiwan’s defenses against growing tensions and threats from China - Bloomberg

 

[jward]

sorry for the Dup, Daniel. Too late for me to adjust it; sometimes tweets don't unfurl for me, again, and I don't catch what has been posted.

:: off to find a corner in this round room in which to stand ::

 

[jward]

China condemns British lawmakers' Taiwan visit​

By Kathryn Armstrong

3–4 minutes

---

Image source, Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Image caption,
UK MP Alicia Kearns and Joseph Wu, Taiwan's minister of foreign affairs, in Taiwan

China has accused British lawmakers of "gross interference" in its internal affairs as a group of MPs visit Taiwan.
Members of the Foreign Affairs Committee arrived on Tuesday and have met high-level officials, including Taiwan's foreign minister, Joseph Wu.

Taiwan is self-ruled - but China sees it as a breakaway province that will eventually unite with it.
A controversial visit in August by senior US politician Nancy Pelosi enraged Beijing.
China responded to that visit by holding their biggest-ever military exercises in the seas around Taiwan, and also blocked some trade with the island.
Mrs Pelosi is the US Speaker of the House of Representatives - second in like to the presidency - and was the most senior US politician to visit Taiwan in 25 years.
She said at the time that China couldn't "prevent world leaders or anyone from travelling to Taiwan".
On Thursday, the Chinese embassy in the UK said the MPs' visit to the "Taiwan region of China" took place despite Beijing's "firm opposition".

"This is a flagrant violation of the one-China principle and a gross interference in China's internal affairs," a spokesperson said.
The statement added that any moves to undermine China's interests would be met with "forceful responses".
The comments follow a speech by UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, earlier this week in which he said that the so-called "golden era" of relations with China was over.
Mr Sunak said the closer economic ties of the previous decade had been "naïve" - but added that China's global significance could not be ignored.
"We recognise China poses a systemic challenge to our values and interests, a challenge that grows more acute as it moves towards even greater authoritarianism," he said.

The MPs' visit is one of a number of recent incidents to cause friction in UK-Chinese relations.
The Foreign Affairs Committee - which is separate from the government and made up of politicians from different parties - has held discussions with their Taiwanese counterparts over issues including security.
Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweeted that Mr Wu held a banquet for the UK delegation and spoke about "increasing authoritarian threats" as well as "worrying issues at home and abroad".
Their visit is part of an investigation into Britain's shifting economic and political focus towards the Indo-Pacific region, following its exit from the European Union.
The committee met Taiwan's Premier Su Tseng-chang on Thursday and is due to see President Tsai Ing-Wen on Friday.

China condemns British lawmakers' Taiwan visit

"This is... a gross interference in China's internal affairs," a embassy spokesperson said.

www.bbc.com