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

[northern watch]

Russian fighter jets escorted US Air Force bomber after it reportedly approached Russian airspace
By Manveena Suri and Olga Pavlova, CNN
2 hrs ago
September 26 2021

Russian fighter jets were scrambled to escort a US Air Force plane that reportedly approached Russian airspace over the Pacific Ocean, Russian state news agency TASS said Sunday.

© Rob Edgcumbe/STKRF/AP Photo A file photo of a US Air Force B-52H Stratofortress on final approach to Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, after a Red Flag mission.

There were no violations of Russia's state border during the episode, according to TASS, which, citing Russia's National Defense Command Center, said "three Russian fighters Sukhoi-35S have been scrambled to escort a US strategic bomber B-52H, which approached Russia's airspace."

"The fighters' crews identified the target as a strategic B-52H bomber of the US Air Force and escorted it over the Pacific Ocean. There were no violations of Russia's state border or dangerous proximity of planes in the air," TASS added.

According to the state-owned news agency, Russia's Sukhoi-25S fighters "strictly followed" international rules and returned to base after the US plane moved away from the Russian border.

CNN has reached out to the Pentagon for comment.

The incident marks the latest salvo in recent years between Russian aircraft and either US or NATO aircraft. In March, NATO scrambled fighter jets 10 times to track and intercept an unusually "rare peak" of Russian bombers and fighters flying over the North Sea, Black Sea and Baltic Sea, a NATO official said at the time.

And in August 2020, two Russian aircraft made an "unsafe, unprofessional" intercept of a US Air Force B-52 bomber over the Black Sea and in international waters, causing turbulence to the B-52 that restricted its ability to maneuver.


Russian fighter jets escorted US Air Force bomber after it reportedly approached Russian airspace (msn.com)

 

[northern watch]

 

[jward]

China believes that America is forging alliances to stop its rise
Sep 25th 2021

6-8 minutes​

FOR CHINESE leaders, the rows about AUKUS, a new security pact between America, Australia and Britain, confirm cherished prejudices about the Western world. China has always believed that America’s network of global alliances is a cover for hegemony, even if American leaders offer warm words about defending universal values, standing up for friends and opposing “attempts by stronger countries to dominate weaker ones”, as President Joe Biden did at the UN on September 21st.

Chinese suspicions are, in this case, bolstered by French anger over AUKUS, which was born out of Australia’s decision to break a deal to buy diesel-electric submarines from France, in favour of buying nuclear-powered ones from America. When a French government minister accused Britain of returning to the American fold and “accepting a form of vassal status”, that was a vindication for China. Indeed, the Frenchman’s attack could be printed, without alteration, in the People’s Daily, a mouthpiece of China’s Communist Party. For all that, at least to date, the Chinese official response has been a study in caution, avoiding loud expressions of solidarity with France. That is revealing, because China normally praises French leaders when they call for Europe to pursue “strategic autonomy” in its foreign and security policies. Chinese diplomats know that France’s vision of autonomy is code for avoiding over-reliance on America.
Instead, China has so far pursued narrower, rather technical lines of attack on AUKUS, related to the eight nuclear-propelled submarines that Australia is to buy from America. China’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, a nuclear watchdog, accused America of undermining non-proliferation work by transferring nuclear know-how and weapons-grade uranium to Australia, saying this would make it harder to stop Iran and North Korea from seeking similar technologies. The foreign ministry in Beijing added some tut-tutting about countries forming small cliques. By the standards of recent America-bashing in China, such grumbles barely count as throat-clearing.

After speaking to various wise owls in Beijing, both Chinese and foreign, Chaguan has explanations to offer. It is true that AUKUS confirms prejudices dear to Chinese officials and scholars. The first of these is that power is the driver of geopolitics, even if smaller countries talk of putting their faith in multinational co-operation, the rules-based order and other pretty phrases. If Australia would rather be America’s vassal than France’s partner, that merely confirms China’s bleak, might-makes-right worldview. That view is reflected in lectures that China delivers to envoys in Beijing. With tiresome regularity, it is the lot of Western ambassadors to be informed that, if their small or midsized home country has dared to challenge China, it can only be because their government is foolishly trying to please America, whose hand is behind all of China’s troubles.

The AUKUS pact also reinforces a talking point that the Western world is far from united about China, especially when it comes to speaking out about questions of principle, such as the crushing of Hong Kong’s democratic opposition or the repression of Muslims in Xinjiang. These are mostly Anglo-Saxon obsessions, Chinese diplomats and scholars like to suggest. Alas, they sigh, Americans, the British and their friends in the Anglosphere think it is their birthright to run the world, like some gang of finger-wagging missionaries or sunburnt colonial administrators. Chinese officials praise leaders whom they see as more focused on business interests, such as Angela Merkel in Germany.

Still, China has not hastened to woo France in its hour of wrath. For one thing, China may see a benefit in letting Western powers feud, uninterrupted. For another, France’s furious response is a bit undignified. In Chinese culture, a public tantrum may signal nao xiu cheng nu, or “from shame to rage”, meaning the specific form of high-decibel meltdown staged by someone facing humiliation. Ticking off reasons why France might be cross, a Chinese scholar lists the cancelled contract worth tens of billions of dollars, and a “loss of face” caused by Australia’s hint that French submarines are not capable enough to deter China.
Nor is AUKUS hailed as a chance to divide the West. Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University in Beijing, notes China’s relatively weak anti-submarine capabilities. “For Australia to have nuclear submarines is very dangerous for China,” he says. “They are not needed for Australia’s national defence. This is about China.”

An arms race looms
Chinese leaders have a double view of America. They remain exceedingly wary of American areas of strength, from its armed forces to its high technology. Chinese leaders can see for themselves America’s robust economic growth, compared with Europe or Japan. Yet they increasingly believe that Western societies are growing decadent. “The key competition between China and the US is about domestic governance,” explains Professor Wang, before listing America’s failings, from economic and racial inequalities to its handling of covid-19. “In the view of the Chinese ruling elite, US domestic governance is in serious trouble,” he says.

In Beijing it is seen as enraging that this failing ex-hegemon remains strong enough to defy or dream of containing China. Mr Biden is called a weak, transitional figure. Chinese diplomats have treated his envoys, including his secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, and climate envoy, John Kerry, with studied belligerence. Under President Xi Jinping, a stern autocrat, China is impatient with being criticised. It rejects Mr Biden’s assertion that the relationship can be at once sharply competitive and co-operative when needed. Above all, China is sure that America is trying to create alliances to stop its rise. A cautious initial reaction to AUKUS should not be misread. Discretion is not the same as calm. ■
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline "How AUKUS is viewed from Beijing"

China believes that America is forging alliances to stop its rise

A new pact between America, Australia and Britain is seen as evidence

www.economist.com

 

[Housecarl]

China believes that America is forging alliances to stop its rise
Sep 25th 2021

6-8 minutes​

FOR CHINESE leaders, the rows about AUKUS, a new security pact between America, Australia and Britain, confirm cherished prejudices about the Western world. China has always believed that America’s network of global alliances is a cover for hegemony, even if American leaders offer warm words about defending universal values, standing up for friends and opposing “attempts by stronger countries to dominate weaker ones”, as President Joe Biden did at the UN on September 21st.

Chinese suspicions are, in this case, bolstered by French anger over AUKUS, which was born out of Australia’s decision to break a deal to buy diesel-electric submarines from France, in favour of buying nuclear-powered ones from America. When a French government minister accused Britain of returning to the American fold and “accepting a form of vassal status”, that was a vindication for China. Indeed, the Frenchman’s attack could be printed, without alteration, in the People’s Daily, a mouthpiece of China’s Communist Party. For all that, at least to date, the Chinese official response has been a study in caution, avoiding loud expressions of solidarity with France. That is revealing, because China normally praises French leaders when they call for Europe to pursue “strategic autonomy” in its foreign and security policies. Chinese diplomats know that France’s vision of autonomy is code for avoiding over-reliance on America.
Instead, China has so far pursued narrower, rather technical lines of attack on AUKUS, related to the eight nuclear-propelled submarines that Australia is to buy from America. China’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, a nuclear watchdog, accused America of undermining non-proliferation work by transferring nuclear know-how and weapons-grade uranium to Australia, saying this would make it harder to stop Iran and North Korea from seeking similar technologies. The foreign ministry in Beijing added some tut-tutting about countries forming small cliques. By the standards of recent America-bashing in China, such grumbles barely count as throat-clearing.

After speaking to various wise owls in Beijing, both Chinese and foreign, Chaguan has explanations to offer. It is true that AUKUS confirms prejudices dear to Chinese officials and scholars. The first of these is that power is the driver of geopolitics, even if smaller countries talk of putting their faith in multinational co-operation, the rules-based order and other pretty phrases. If Australia would rather be America’s vassal than France’s partner, that merely confirms China’s bleak, might-makes-right worldview. That view is reflected in lectures that China delivers to envoys in Beijing. With tiresome regularity, it is the lot of Western ambassadors to be informed that, if their small or midsized home country has dared to challenge China, it can only be because their government is foolishly trying to please America, whose hand is behind all of China’s troubles.

The AUKUS pact also reinforces a talking point that the Western world is far from united about China, especially when it comes to speaking out about questions of principle, such as the crushing of Hong Kong’s democratic opposition or the repression of Muslims in Xinjiang. These are mostly Anglo-Saxon obsessions, Chinese diplomats and scholars like to suggest. Alas, they sigh, Americans, the British and their friends in the Anglosphere think it is their birthright to run the world, like some gang of finger-wagging missionaries or sunburnt colonial administrators. Chinese officials praise leaders whom they see as more focused on business interests, such as Angela Merkel in Germany.

Still, China has not hastened to woo France in its hour of wrath. For one thing, China may see a benefit in letting Western powers feud, uninterrupted. For another, France’s furious response is a bit undignified. In Chinese culture, a public tantrum may signal nao xiu cheng nu, or “from shame to rage”, meaning the specific form of high-decibel meltdown staged by someone facing humiliation. Ticking off reasons why France might be cross, a Chinese scholar lists the cancelled contract worth tens of billions of dollars, and a “loss of face” caused by Australia’s hint that French submarines are not capable enough to deter China.
Nor is AUKUS hailed as a chance to divide the West. Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University in Beijing, notes China’s relatively weak anti-submarine capabilities. “For Australia to have nuclear submarines is very dangerous for China,” he says. “They are not needed for Australia’s national defence. This is about China.”

An arms race looms
Chinese leaders have a double view of America. They remain exceedingly wary of American areas of strength, from its armed forces to its high technology. Chinese leaders can see for themselves America’s robust economic growth, compared with Europe or Japan. Yet they increasingly believe that Western societies are growing decadent. “The key competition between China and the US is about domestic governance,” explains Professor Wang, before listing America’s failings, from economic and racial inequalities to its handling of covid-19. “In the view of the Chinese ruling elite, US domestic governance is in serious trouble,” he says.

In Beijing it is seen as enraging that this failing ex-hegemon remains strong enough to defy or dream of containing China. Mr Biden is called a weak, transitional figure. Chinese diplomats have treated his envoys, including his secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, and climate envoy, John Kerry, with studied belligerence. Under President Xi Jinping, a stern autocrat, China is impatient with being criticised. It rejects Mr Biden’s assertion that the relationship can be at once sharply competitive and co-operative when needed. Above all, China is sure that America is trying to create alliances to stop its rise. A cautious initial reaction to AUKUS should not be misread. Discretion is not the same as calm. ■
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline "How AUKUS is viewed from Beijing"

China believes that America is forging alliances to stop its rise

A new pact between America, Australia and Britain is seen as evidence

www.economist.com

November Sierra......If they weren't acting like a belligerent elementary school bully they wouldn't have a problem........

ETA: That the UK, the country that perfected incendiary saturation (AKA carpet) bombing, is openly planning to base it's SSN and possibly SSBN force in Australia should give Beijing some pause. If the Brits were willing to do that to the Germans, what do you think they'd possibly be willing to do to the Chinese if they get froggy? At least that's what Beijing should be considering....

 

[jward]

Breaking Market News
@FinancialJuice
13m

NORTH KOREA LAUNCHES AN UNIDENTIFIED MISSILE INTO THE EAST SEA - YONHAP.


North Korea launches ‘short-range’ missile toward East Sea, Seoul says
Test comes days after DPRK floated inter-Korean summit, as Japan says projectile was potential ballistic missile
Chaewon Chung | Jeongmin Kim September 27, 2021

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Image: KCNA | North Korean missile test, Sept. 2019 (file photo)
This is a developing story, please check back for further updates. Last updated at 11:14 KST.
North Korea launched what appears to be a “short-range” missile on Tuesday morning, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, with Japan’s Ministry of Defense calling it a potential ballistic missile.
North Korea appears to have launched the missile eastward from an area near Jagang Province, Mupyong-ni, according to the JCS, adding that the South Korean military detected the launch around 6:40 a.m. Earlier in the morning, the JCS said North Korea fired the projectile toward the East Sea.

This marks the second time this month that North Korea tested a missile from an inland area that then flew over DPRK territory, following its Sept. 15 test of a train-launched ballistic missile.
“The members of the National Security Council (NSC) standing committee … expressed regrets on the launch that was conducted during the time when the stabilization of the situation on the Korean Peninsula is essential,” the Blue House said after an emergency NSC standing committee meeting held a few hours after the reported launch.
Top South Korean officials attended the event, including JCS chairman Won In-choul, National Security Office director Suh Hoon, as well as the defense, foreign and unification ministers.
President Moon Jae-in was briefed about the meeting afterward and ordered officials to “come up with a corresponding measure through comprehensively and closely analyzing North Korea’s recent statement and the missile launch situation,” according to Blue House spokesperson Park Kyung-mi.
In a statement, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) said the missile launch does not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to U.S. allies.

North Korea has munitions facilities in Mupyong-ni, Jagang Province. Although South Korea has defined the latest missile as “short-range,” the DPRK previously fired a Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) from a nearby area on the night of July 28, 2017 using a transporter erector launcher (TEL).
Tuesday’s missile launch comes after Kim Yo Jong, sister of Kim Jong Un, once again accused South Korean authorities of “double-standards” for framing North Korean missile tests as “provocations” when Seoul is testing its own weapons. The ROK recently tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), as well as revealed the development of other missiles and solid-fuel propulsion engines for space launch vehicles.

In the statement issued over the weekend, Kim Yo Jong also hinted that the North Korean leader may engage in an inter-Korean summit in the future and choose to reopen the inter-Korean liaison office that Pyongyang blew up last year.
Tuesday’s North Korean missile launch falls on the same day that the country is scheduled to hold a meeting of the Supreme People’s Assembly, the country’s rubber-stamp parliament.
The South Korean military said it is closely monitoring the situation in close cooperation with the United States in preparation for further launches.

North Korea has tested multiple weapons this month, including a long-range cruise missile on Sept. 11 and 12 and a train-launched ballistic missile on Sept. 15. that landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
The DPRK also hosted a large military parade on Thursday, Sept. 9, but did not use the occasion to show off any new missiles.

North Korea launches ‘short-range’ missile toward East Sea, Seoul says | NK News

North Korea launched what appears to be a “short-range” missile on Tuesday morning, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, with Japan’s Ministry of Defense calling it a potential ballistic missile. North Korea appears to have launched the missile eastward from an area near Jagang...

www.nknews.org

 

[jward]

China's Massive 11-Barrel Naval Gatling Gun Has Been Adapted For Close-In Defense On Land
The trailer-mounted gun could give Chinese land units a fearsome defense against low-flying aircraft, cruise missiles, and even possibly artillery.

By Thomas Newdick September 27, 2021



China has unveiled a new 11-barrel version of its ground-based 30mm air-defense system, with a trailer-mounted adaptation seemingly optimized for the point-defense of key installations. The new weapon, and its seven-barrel predecessor, are both based on existing shipborne anti-aircraft artillery systems. Although the exact capabilities of the new weapon are unconfirmed, the 11-barrel mobile Gatling-style cannon would be effective against low-flying helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, and cruise missiles, as well as offering a powerful counter to the growing threat posed by small drones. Furthermore, it could even fulfill a role similar to the U.S.-developed Centurion Counter-Rocket, Artillery, Mortar (C-RAM) system.

NORINCO Group ground-based version of Chinese 30-mm shipborne anti-aircraft artillery system Type 1130 (30-mm, 11 barrels) #aviation Вестник ПВО pic.twitter.com/Z6OWqcUR8N
— The Shadow of the Eagle (@clemente3000) September 27, 2021​

Video footage of the trailer-mounted gun appeared in the run-up to Airshow China in the southern city of Zhuhai, which formally opens tomorrow and runs until October 3. The system has been developed by the NORINCO Group, a Chinese state-owned defense corporation that produces a wide array of artillery and small arms, as well as various types of munitions.

VIA TWITTER




The new ground-based system, the designation of which is not currently known, has been developed from the Type 1130 shipborne anti-aircraft artillery mounting, itself apparently inspired by the Dutch Goalkeeper close-in weapon system (CIWS, pronounced “sea-whizz”), which uses the same size ammunition as the A-10 Warthog's GAU-8 Avenger cannon. The Type 1130 is one of several types of gun-based naval CIWS developed by China. Others include the smaller Type 730 that features a seven-barrel 30mm cannon as well as an enormous 20-barrel weapon that appeared earlier this year and which is apparently still in the developmental phase.

Rhk111/Wikimedia Commons

An example of the Type 1130 CIWS aboard the Chinese frigate Wuhu.


The Type 1130 was first seen on China’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, and has also been installed on other Chinese warships, providing a last line of defense, primarily against incoming anti-ship missiles. These same capabilities lend the Type 1130 gun to various land-based roles, too.
The previous seven-barrel Type 730 has also been adapted as a truck-mounted version, known as the LD-2000, another NORINCO product. Primarily intended to destroy cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs, the LD-2000 is fielded by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) as the last line of defense for key installations, such as command posts and radar sites. Some versions of the system also add six TY-90 infrared-guided missiles to provide another means of prosecuting aerial targets. A fire-control radar and electro-optical sensor are included on the truck, which can operate independently or as part of a group.

Tyg728/Wikimedia Commons

The LD-2000 ground-based air defense system.


The Type 730 weapon used in the LD-2000 has a reported rate of fire of around 4,000 rounds per minute and a maximum range of about 1.8 miles, although targets are more likely to be engaged at between 0.6 miles and 1 mile.
In comparison, the 11-barrel Type 1130 offers a similar engagement range but is credited with a rate of fire of 10,000 rounds per minute, according to local media accounts, meaning it should provide a significantly greater destructive effect or better sustained fire.






A degree of commonality between a naval CIWS and a ground-based air-defense system is not without precedent, of course. The ubiquitous six-barrel 20mm Vulcan employed in the Phalanx naval CIWS was also used in the Vulcan Air Defense System (VADS) that was introduced into U.S. Army service as long ago as 1967. More recently, the same basic gun was adopted under the Counter-Rocket, Artillery, Mortar (C-RAM) program that created the aforementioned Centurion, although this is a very different concept and yielded a much more cumbersome and complex system than VADS. In Taiwan, meanwhile, thought has been given to adapting Phalanx to defend against potential Chinese attacks, with a land-based version to protect its airbases, as you can read about here.
It’s unclear whether the new ground-based version of the Type 1130 is intended to perform a similar role to the existing LD-2000, which is primarily concerned with destroying air-launched weapons, and other cruise missiles, or if it’s intended to have a broader mission spectrum, encompassing the C-RAM mission. The latter is at least a possibility, which could make the new system something like an equivalent to the U.S.-designed Centurion system.
The Centurion C-RAM system:






In the past, The War Zone has looked in detail at the Centurion, and you can read more about it, and see it in action, here. The Centurion was rushed into service after a crash development program in 2004, to meet an urgent need to defeat rockets and other projectiles during the insurgency in Iraq.
As a point-defense weapon, Centurion is employed in close proximity to friendly forces, typically defending fixed installations such as military bases or even the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Another role is to provide a lower tier of defense to protect more advanced and longer-range air-defense systems, such as the Patriot.
Employing a version of the well-known 20mm Vulcan cannon, which is used in numerous American fighters built over the decades from the F-104 to the F-22 Raptor, the Centurion puts up a wall of fire to swat lower-end artillery shells, mortar rounds, and rockets.
While a 30mm cannon, as used in the Chinese CIWS offers greater destructive power and range than the 20mm ammunition used in the Phalanx and its land-based iterations, regardless of caliber, these kinds of weapons all have a fairly limited radius. But when fielded as part of a multi-layered air-defense system, or as a point-defense solution for a particular installation, then that’s not necessarily a problem. Having radar and electro-optical sensors on the same truck chassis means the Chinese system is self-contained and doesn’t have to be plugged into a larger network, although that could be advantageous in some scenarios.
The particular ammunition used in the new Chinese system would also help determine its lethal radius. To ensure that the Centurion’s own fire doesn’t cause destruction to the surrounding area, a special Multipurpose Tracer-Self Destruct (MPT-SD) round is used, which lack the range and ‘stopping power’ of the tungsten-cored armored piercing discarding-sabot (APDS) round used in the naval Phalanx. It could be that the Chinese system makes a similar tradeoff, or it may be that the original non-self-destructing ammunition is retained.

VIA TWITTER

A close-up of the 11-barrel cannon in its truck-mounted form.


The proliferation of drones is also a likely driver behind the development of the new 11-barrel system. The threat posed by swarming drones is one that has not gone unnoticed by China, which is one of the leading players in that field. Loitering munitions are in the ascendancy in the Asia Pacific region, with the Israeli-made Harop, in particular, proliferating there in both land and sea domains, and with Taiwan also developing loitering munitions of its own. Moreover, the hurdles to exporting a counter-drone system are likely fairly low and, especially after the experience of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict last year, this is a threat that is fast becoming a high priority outside of China, too.
Whatever role the new Chinese truck-mounted system is intended to fulfill, it’s clear that, if adopted for service, it would offer capabilities in excess of those of the current LD-2000, at least as far as the gun armament is concerned. Equally, there is no reason why short-range surface-to-air missiles couldn’t be added, as on the earlier system, to provide another option against low-level aerial threats.
In fact, the continuing Chinese focus on short-range air defense (SHORAD) systems that can detect, track, and engage smaller targets in all weathers, is in stark contrast to the U.S. approach, where this class of weapon has been neglected since the end of the Cold War. This is of particular concern as the drone threat continues to proliferate and it’s a topic that we have discussed in depth in the past.
Meanwhile, there is a growing interest in C-RAM solutions, which could have prompted NORINCO to market this system now. As well as Centurion, solutions include other larger caliber automated gun systems, as well as new directed energy (laser) C-RAM systems, and the missile-based Israeli Iron Dome. As far as laser air-defense systems are concerned, NORINCO also offers a truck-based solution — in this case, intended primarily to destroy low-flying drones:

#Zhuhai2021 NORINCO continue à développer ses solutions anti-drone, ici un système laser sur camion. pic.twitter.com/dNHgq5hoRB
— East Pendulum (@HenriKenhmann) September 24, 2021​

For now, it’s not certain whether the new ground-based 11-barrel 30mm weapon will enter PLA service, or if it’s actually aimed primarily at the export market, but a system like this makes perfect sense as a rapid means of countering a variety of low-altitude threats in the region, as well as being broadly applicable in other potential conflict zones, too.
Ultimately, it is another indication of the seriousness with which Beijing takes the proliferation of aerial threats, with an impressive arsenal of air-defense systems that can address threats ranging from high-speed, high-altitude air-breathing aircraft, all the way down to air-launched missiles, drones, and potentially now also low-end threats like shells, mortar rounds, and rockets.
Contact the author: thomas@thedrive.com


Please see source for additional videos
Posted for fair use

China's Massive 11-Barrel Naval Gatling Gun Has Been Adapted For Close-In Defense On Land

The trailer-mounted gun could give Chinese land units a fearsome defense against low-flying aircraft, cruise missiles, and even possibly artillery.

www.thedrive.com

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.......

Posted for fair use.....

Succeeding Xi Jinping - War on the Rocks

Does Xi Jinping’s China face a looming succession crisis? Some analysts argue that it does because Xi’s elimination of the term limit on his leadership

warontherocks.com

SUCCEEDING XI JINPING
NAN LI
SEPTEMBER 28, 2021
COMMENTARY

Does Xi Jinping’s China face a looming succession crisis? Some analysts argue that it does because Xi’s elimination of the term limit on his leadership position and the concentration of power therein would precipitate such a crisis. Others are more skeptical, pointing out that the political significance of Xi’s moves is exaggerated.

The ultimate benchmark of any succession crisis is whether the military gets involved. Consequently, examining the possible role of the People’s Liberation Army in China’s leadership succession may help us to understand whether a crisis is looming.

Since the Communist Party came to power in 1949, two critical instances stand out in China when the military became heavily involved in domestic politics, including in leadership successions. The People’s Liberation Army played a crucial role in the Cultural Revolution (1966 to 1976) under Mao Zedong. It also massively intervened to quell the popular rebellion in 1989 under Deng Xiaoping.

Certain institutional conditions incentivized the involvement of the military in domestic politics in those instances. The first was the “symbiotic” relations between the Communist Party and the army. Top leaders such as Mao and Deng possessed extensive and entrenched personal networks or factions within the People’s Liberation Army, and they counted on them for support in political crises. The second condition was the civilian governance failures that caused severe political divisions among the ruling civilian elite. The ensuing political crises drove the top leaders to mobilize the military to intervene.

China is not now facing a succession crisis because the military is unlikely to intervene in deciding who replaces Xi whenever he leaves office. More effective civilian governance in China since Deng has disincentivized the military from intervening in elite politics. Moreover, senior party leaders no longer enjoy the deep personal networks within the People’s Liberation Army that would allow them to use the army for their own domestic political purposes. Xi’s successor will likely come from the ranks of the Politburo Standing Committee members, and will be approved by the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee through voting. Simply put, it will be a big deal when Xi leaves office, but it won’t be a crisis.

From Symbiosis to Institutionalization
China does not currently face a succession crisis because the country’s top leaders do not possess their own extensive and entrenched personal networks or factions within the People’s Liberation Army, a result of the change of Chinese civil-military relations from “symbiosis” to institutionalization. For symbiotic political-military factions to solidify, top leaders must spend a substantial part of their careers in the military so that personal networks can form and grow. Unlike Mao and Deng, who founded the People’s Liberation Army and spent a major part of their careers therein, post-Deng top leaders such as Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao never served in the army, while Xi served for only three years, from 1979 to 1982. Similarly, unlike the eras of Mao and Deng when China was run by “dual-role” elites or revolutionary veterans who were experienced in both civilian governance and military operations, post-Deng China is managed by technocrats who specialize either in civilian governance or in the military profession, with minimal circulation of elites across civil-military institutional boundaries. Military officers do not have experience of working in civilian institutions, and few civilian officials have had military service experience.

This post-Deng development toward civil-military bifurcation has clearly fostered an environment that prevents the formation of symbiotic political-military factions. It may explain why the informal networks that post-Deng leaders have assembled to support themselves, such as Jiang’s Shanghai network, Hu Jintao’s Communist Youth League network, and Xi’s Zhejiang network, are made up of civilian officials.

Top leaders in the post-Deng era have been highly insecure about their lack of personal networks within the People’s Liberation Army. It is accepted as conventional wisdom that they attempt to buy off the military with higher ranks and more money to cultivate such networks, which can then be used in power struggles against their political opponents. However, this conventional wisdom is flawed for two reasons.

First, all leaders after Deng have regularly promoted senior officers in the People’s Liberation Army and have increased the defense budget to fulfill their responsibility as chair of the Central Military Commission. However, candidates for promotion are mostly recommended by military professionals in the commission, not picked by top leaders. Top leaders would interview the most senior candidates, but their knowledge of these officers is limited since they have not worked together before. Moreover, evidence to show that military officers are mobilized for intra-leadership power struggles is sketchy in the post-Deng era, but military modernization has nonetheless accelerated during this period. Officer promotion and budget increases can thus be explained better by functional and professional reasons than by personal and factional ones.

Second, top leaders are careful not to depend on the military for political support and survival. Such dependence would suggest a failure of civilian governance and incompetence on the part of these leaders to resolve major political and social crises. This kind of vulnerability could be exploited by the military for political advantage. Furthermore, any expansion of the military’s political role also makes it difficult to reestablish effective civilian control of the military. In the end, a new threat may emerge against these leaders: a military that is itself politically ambitious. In this regard, leaders have inevitably learned the lessons from the Lin Biao incident under Mao and the Yang brothers incident under Deng.

Chinese leaders in the post-Deng era thus have adopted a two-pronged policy toward the military. First, rather than employing the military to engage in power struggles, they confine the People’s Liberation Army to perfecting its functional and technical expertise and fulfilling its external missions. And second, they adopt a policy that stresses effective civilian governance to prevent and preempt the major political and social upheavals that may incentivize the intervention of the military in politics.

Xi and Civilian Governance
China also does not face a succession crisis because civilian governance in the post-Deng era has become more effective, which has disincentivized the military from intervening in elite politics. Post-Deng top leaders have all endorsed Deng’s basic line (基本路线) of “upholding economic development as the central task of the party,” which was codified in the Party Constitution in 1992. Civilian governance that promotes economic development along with political and social stability has thus become the main priority of the post-Deng top leaders. Effective civilian governance is critical to the party’s survival and legitimacy to rule. Equally importantly, it prevents major political and social crises that may trigger the military’s intervention in domestic politics, which these leaders may find difficult to control and manage. Xi thus is no exception from his post-Deng predecessors in promoting effective civilian governance.

Besides fighting official corruption — which he believes would “doom the party and state” (亡党亡国) — Xi has attempted to restructure the economy for high-quality growth, promote poverty reduction to narrow down the wealth gap, and endorse measures to reduce environmental pollution. He has also tightened control to achieve political and social stability, including promoting ideological and political education, strengthening media and internet control and censorship, and intensifying social surveillance by leveraging new technologies.

Recently, Xi has strengthened regulations on technology monopolies such as Alibaba, and has imposed restrictions on online video gaming and private tutoring. The motivations driving these policies are complex and multifaceted, including helping small and medium-sized companies and narrowing down the wealth gap, rechanneling investment capital to the “real economy” (实体经济) such as manufacturing or “hard” technologies, lowering the cost of raising kids to encourage parents to have more children, and more effective social control. These policies are generally in line with the enhancement of civilian governance by promoting economic development along with political and social stability.

Xi stands out from his post-Deng predecessors, however, in that he has also centralized power in meaningful ways. He abolished the two-term limit for the state president position, which was first codified in the 1982 State Constitution. He has also strengthened the authority of the Chinese Communist Party general secretary at the expense of collective leadership and intra-party democracy. The “succession crisis” argument particularly highlights the political uncertainty brought up by Xi’s “unrivaled power within the CCP … as untouchable as Stalin or Mao” as the primary source of a “looming crisis.”

Xi’s elimination of the term limit increases the probability of failed civilian governance. Unlimited tenure may incentivize the emergence of an unaccountable and arbitrary dictator who will not tolerate any “checks and balances,” not even in the minimal terms of intra-leadership debates and criticisms intended to correct policy mistakes and avert policy failures. A case in point is Mao, who ruled China from 1949 to 1976 and was generally regarded as a dictator. His disastrous policies of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution are clear examples of the abject failure of civilian governance.

The political implications of removing the term limit and centralizing power, however, may be overstated. The position of state president is largely ceremonial. By comparison, the top positions that carry real power are the party general secretary and the Central Military Commission chair. The norm of a limit of two five-year terms for holding these two positions simultaneously has been informal and never institutionalized — following this norm is thus an exception. Deng, for instance, served as the commission chair from 1982 to 1989, while Hu Yaobang served as the party general secretary from 1982 to 1987 and Zhao Ziyang from 1987 to 1989. Similarly, Jiang served as the party general secretary for two and a half terms, from 1989 to 2002, and commission chair for the length of three terms, from 1989 to 2004. In comparison, Hu Jintao is an exception by serving as the party general secretary for exactly the two five-year terms, from 2002 to 2012, but he served as the commission chair for only about one and a half terms, from 2004 to 2012.

Also, Xi’s presumed unlimited tenure does not have to cause the failure of civilian governance. There are major examples where top leaders served for unlimited tenure but delivered impressive governance success. Lee Kuan Yew, serving as Singapore’s prime minister from 1965 to 1990, transformed Singapore from a colonial backwater trading post to an economic powerhouse. In this instance, unlimited tenure becomes an asset because it extends the office of a competent top leader and ensures the continuity of sound policies. Leonid Brezhnev, often seen as not as competent as Lee but not as incompetent as Mao, served as the top leader of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982. With a mediocre governance record, Brezhnev was largely responsible for presiding over a country and an economy that remained stagnant.

Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

Moreover, Xi’s concentration of power is not absolute. Such a concentration is specifically driven by Xi’s attempt to manage the downsides of collective leadership, such as rampant corruption sustained by powerful oligarchies within the party leadership. More than half of the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee of the 19th Party Congress cannot be counted as Xi’s protégés. Li Keqiang and Wang Yang are identified with Hu Jintao’s Communist Youth League network and Han Zheng and Wang Huning with Jiang’s Shanghai network. Age and term limits have also been enforced in appointing senior civilian officials and military officers to critically important positions. Xi has seemingly created a system like the Soviet Union where the Leninist party-state, including party-army relations, is quite institutionalized, but substantial discretion is allowed for the top leadership succession.

The limits of Xi’s power are also reflected in personnel appointments and the counter-corruption drive. Zhang Yang and Fang Fenghui were appointed to direct the People’s Liberation Army General Political Department and head the People’s Liberation Army General Staff respectively in 2012 when Xi became the top leader, but both were investigated for corruption by the end of 2017. The fact that corrupt officers held the most important positions of the PLA for five years under Xi shows that Xi did not have a network of officers who he could trust when he became the top leader. An alleged member of Xi’s Zhejiang network was also investigated for corruption. Both examples show the limit of Xi’s control over the military and civilian bureaucracy.

Finally, Xi — unlike Mao — has not behaved like an impulsive and irrational leader. Xi’s policies are consistent with Deng’s “basic line” of upholding economic development as the central task of the party, which was reiterated in the report of the 19th Party Congress. Xi even borrowed the term of “common prosperity” from Deng. Xi promotes common prosperity in order to gradually transform China into an “olive-shaped” society to prevent a class revolution. His evolving policy to contain COVID-19 also reflects quick learning and adaptation. After bungling the response for about three weeks in January 2020, Xi followed the assessment of public health professionals and shifted to a more effective containment policy. This policy has resulted in a relatively successful curb of the virus’ spread in China. Similarly, there were extensive consultations and discussions about major party and state documents before they were issued, including the 19th Party Congress Report and the 14th Five-Year Plan. Drafting of the latter reportedly involved input from over 70,000 functional and technical experts.

A Likely Scenario of Succession
For the remainder of his time in office, Xi might actually deliver good civilian governance on issues related to economic development and political and social stability (notwithstanding his policies toward Uighurs). In this scenario, Xi may extend his tenure for a third term and remain as the top leader until the 21st Party Congress in 2027. By then, he would have completed the complex processes of the party, government, military, economic, and social reforms that he has initiated. Moreover, Xi’s governance would have presumably achieved moderate (albeit better-quality) economic growth, a low level of official corruption, successful poverty reduction, a much larger middle-income population, a better environment, and overall political and social stability. Also, Xi would have effectively managed Sino-American relations by de-escalating the trade dispute and preventing bilateral security competition from escalating into a military conflict.

In such a scenario, civilian governance success would lower the probability of the army’s involvement in elite politics. By the 20th Party Congress in 2022, taking into consideration the party constitution’s clause against lifelong tenure for top leaders, Xi would have designated a successor. This successor may become a Central Military Commission vice-chair in 2024 to gain experience in managing military affairs, and then succeed Xi at the 21st Party Congress in 2027. As the heir-apparent may lack sufficient military credentials and personal networks in the military to take full charge of it, Xi may possibly remain as the commission chair for some extra time beyond 2027. Xi’s extended tenure in this position would allow time for the successor to gain governing experience.

Another scenario sets a context in which a limited policy failure, such as a severe economic recession caused by mismanagement, may trigger an intra-leadership debate. The dissenting voices within the ruling civilian elite may attribute such a policy failure to Xi’s centralization of authority. Xi’s alleged mistakes may include eliminating the term limit, abandoning the principles of collective leadership and intra-party democracy, and creating a personality cult around himself, all of which could have discouraged and prevented debates and criticisms intended to correct policy mistakes. Xi’s behavior, according to these voices, would have constituted a serious violation of the norms established by Deng in order to avoid another governance failure like the Cultural Revolution.

Xi’s anti-corruption drive may also face criticisms for its worst excesses, including the lack of due process, unchecked power of the supervision agencies, and dereliction of duty (不作为) of officials for fear of making mistakes. In this scenario, the possible outcome of the power struggle may be similar to what had happened to former top leader Hua Guofeng from 1978 to 1980. Hua was criticized for making “serious mistakes,” but the People’s Liberation Army played a minimal role in the struggle. As Hua’s mistakes were regarded as “contradictions among the people,” the issue was resolved through an intra-leadership debate rather than via the barrel of a gun. The fact that Hua served as the Central Military Commission chair and Wang Dongxing, a close ally of Hua, commanded the central guard unit did not gain any advantage for Hua against his opponents.

Rather than a zero-sum game where “winner takes all,” the outcome of this power struggle resembles a variable-sum game where “there are gains for losers.” Although Hua lost the top leader position, he continued his leadership role as a party vice-chair and a member of the Politburo Standing Committee for more than a year, and as a party Central Committee member until his death in 2002. This scenario is less likely since an opposing coalition consisting of powerful personalities like Deng, Hu Yaobang, and Chen Yun does not exist among the ruling civilian elite in today’s China.

There are no examples of blatant military coups in Leninist regimes such as China and the Soviet Union, but analysts disagree on why that has been the case. Some argue that tight control of the military and security bureaucracy by these leaders accounts for this rarity. In my view, the insecurity stemming from leaders’ limited ability to control the military motivates them to adopt a policy that stresses effective civilian governance. Effective governance helps to prevent major political and social crises that may incentivize the military’s intervention in domestic politics, which they may find difficult to control and manage. Meanwhile, they promote what Samuel Huntington calls “objective control” by confining the military to perfecting its functional and technical expertise and fulfilling its external missions.

Some also suggest that Xi’s sudden death or incapacitation may trigger a succession crisis similar to the one following Mao’s death in 1976. But the limits on Xi’s power concentration, including his inability to monopolize the appointment of Politburo Standing Committee members and his limited ability to control the military and civilian bureaucracy, show that Xi is not comparable to Mao in terms of revolutionary and military credentials, political capital and influence, charisma, or entrenched personal networks in the party and the army. Xi’s sudden death or incapacitation would be a big deal, but it should not be exaggerated. The successor to Xi should be produced based on the pecking order of the incumbent Politburo Standing Committee members, and the candidate should nominally be approved by the party Central Committee through voting. The process may involve leadership politics but it would not be as tumultuous and militarized as in 1976.

Xi will likely govern effectively on issues related to economic development and political and social stability, and designate a successor in due course. The People’s Liberation Army will likely play a minimal role in the succession. Xi is one of the most powerful Chinese leaders in decades, and his ability to centralize power is remarkable. However, warnings that China faces a looming succession crisis are overstated.

BECOME A MEMBER

Nan Li is visiting senior research fellow at the East Asian Institute of National University of Singapore.

 

[jward]

Rajeev Mantri
@RMantri

“Officials in New Delhi and Taipei have met in recent weeks to discuss a deal that would bring a chip plant worth an estimated $7.5 billion to India to supply everything from 5G devices to electric cars.”

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1442812855774969856

View: https://twitter.com/RMantri/status/1442812855774969856?s=20

 

[jward]

Masao Dahlgren
@masao_dahlgren
37m

Airtime given to Japanese missile strike capability in recent election debate. Kishida and Takaichi question frontrunner Kono's opposition to "enemy base attack capability." Kono: "it's a Showa-era debate;" cites difficulty targeting mobile missiles and use-or-lose risks.
(paraphrased)
Takaichi: DPRK's saturation capability, seen in recent tests, means we must embrace "enemy base attack," not missile defense alone. Kono: DPRK's mobile missile capability, seen in recent tests, make "enemy base attack" unfeasible. Next few days will be interesting.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1442837968339668995

View: https://twitter.com/masao_dahlgren/status/1442837968339668995?s=20

 

[jward]

Global: MilitaryInfo
@Global_Mil_Info
2m

North Korea is calling this the Hwasong-8. They also stated that this is a strategic weapon which also means this is likely nuclear/conventional capable.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1442971069355335680

View: https://twitter.com/Global_Mil_Info/status/1442971069355335680?s=20

 

[Housecarl]

Masao Dahlgren
@masao_dahlgren
37m

Airtime given to Japanese missile strike capability in recent election debate. Kishida and Takaichi question frontrunner Kono's opposition to "enemy base attack capability." Kono: "it's a Showa-era debate;" cites difficulty targeting mobile missiles and use-or-lose risks.
(paraphrased)
Takaichi: DPRK's saturation capability, seen in recent tests, means we must embrace "enemy base attack," not missile defense alone. Kono: DPRK's mobile missile capability, seen in recent tests, make "enemy base attack" unfeasible. Next few days will be interesting.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1442837968339668995

View: https://twitter.com/masao_dahlgren/status/1442837968339668995?s=20

Wow......

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

Posted for fair use.....

Japan can Only Succeed in Self-Defense if it’s Prepared to Help Defend Taiwan

Ex-JFSDF fleet commander Yoji Koda examines the issue of China’s possible use of military means in an attempt to force unification with Taiwan, and the risks if Japan is unprepared.

japan-forward.com

POLITICS & SECURITY
Japan can Only Succeed in Self-Defense if it’s Prepared to Help Defend Taiwan

Ex-JFSDF fleet commander Yoji Koda examines the issue of China’s possible use of military means in an attempt to force unification with Taiwan, and the risks if Japan is unprepared.

Published 3 hours ago
on September 29, 2021
By Yoji Koda

It would seem that Japanese people are not very good at thinking about crises.

Although there have been discussions recently in Japan about Chinese military aggression and a possible emergency situation in Taiwan, many experts play down the threat, stating: “Yes, it could happen in theory, but it is least likely in the real-world.”

I can understand when people say, “I don’t want an emergency to arise.” However, if you settle for an overly optimistic stance and refuse to think about potential emergencies, then security is not covered.

China sees Taiwan as an integral part of its territory and has referred to it as a core interest. In other words, the Chinese Communist Party is determined to put Taiwan under its rule by whatever means necessary.

For purposes of comparison, let’s look at what has been happening in Hong Kong – a region that China considers to be part of its inherent territory.

Although it’s difficult to make a full one-on-one comparison as Hong Kong was returned to China by the United Kingdom in 1997 and has long held a different status, nevertheless China has ignored stern criticism from the global community. It has cracked down in Hong Kong, making it “more Chinese,” inserting a strong People’s Liberation Army (PLA) presence as a backup force there.

Regarding Taiwan, China is trying to make it more pro-Chinese, luring it with economic benefits. But beyond that, I can see China pushing for military unification there. And of course, if the PLA moves into Taiwan, it will be easy for them to crack down against any resisting factions who are against unification.

In the military world, one can predict any number of possible scenarios, even thought it is not definite that China will pursue the military unification route. Nevertheless, there is no excuse for completely closing one’s eyes as to what might happen. We should not forget that China’s use of force in a Taiwan invasion is one of the more convincing options in some circumstances from a military perspective.

RELATED: China Expands Missile Arsenal as Japan, U.S. Stand Ready to Defend Taiwan

China’s Lawless Expansionism
What is important is that we assess calmly and without prejudice what kind of nation China is right now, and prepare ourselves for every scenario.

When the Xi Jinping administration was inaugurated, China was merely looking to expand its power within the confines of existing international rules and norms. However, over the past 10 years, it has changed drastically, reinforcing its military power, becoming stronger economically, and vying to become a hegemony that can challenge the United States.

As symbolized by its man-made islands in the South China Sea, it has become difficult to stop China’s hegemonistic activity solely through diplomacy. The country does not adhere to existing international norms, instead making its own rules and trying to impose those as the new international standard. Firmer deterrence, e.g., diplomacy backed up by military capability, is needed to stop this kind of aggression.

At the very least, we must face up to reality.

The U.S. and Japan
It goes without saying that the only power capable of preventing an emergency in Taiwan, such as a Chinese attempt at unification by military force, is the U.S. But as one of its allies, Japan can also play an important role.

This role is not simply to hold discussions on such topics as “Japan must strengthen its defense capability in order to defend Taiwan.” Of course, such discussions are important and necessary, but there are more pressing matters to act upon. And they concern the problem that, if an emergency were to arise, Japan – which serves as the U.S. military’s vanguard base – would be totally unprepared.

It is fair to say that if the PLA were to land in Taiwan, or even if it looks obvious that it is about to do so, the PLA would need to employ an extremely large number of units for the invasion. The U.S. would then need to deploy a considerably larger number of troops to Japan and its surrounding waters in response. Yet, such a scenario is probably beyond the imagination of most Japanese people.

RELATED: [Bookmark] With Okinawa’s Anti-U.S. Base Stand, How Can Japan Defend the Senkakus?

If we were to make predictions based on the 1990-91 Gulf War, the U.S. Navy would probably deploy five or six aircraft carrier units, called carrier strike groups, to the region. The U.S. Air Force would send about 800 combat planes plus a large number of support aircraft, and III MEF (Marine Expeditionary Force) in Okinawa and I MEF in California would also be deployed.

There are several key strategic islands controlled by China that would be targets for U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) operations, including China’s artificial islands in the South China Sea and a robust naval base complex on one big island.

Japan would be asked to provide, stock and distribute all kinds of logistical and rear area support for the U.S. troops. The U.S. military would initially cover items such as food, fuel, and ammunition. However, if the deployment were to become prolonged, Japan would need to step in and supply these war-consumption items on an unprecedented scale.

This would be a very challenging task. A significant amount of food would need to be prepared, as would huge amounts of fuel and ammunition together with other consumables. Serious and detailed discussions with senior counterparts in the U.S. would need to be held in advance in order to meet such demands.

U.S. combat ships would mainly be deployed at sea, which is not an issue in terms of operational area. However, Japan’s Self-Defense Force bases would not have enough space for 800 U.S. planes, meaning commercial airfields would have to be employed.

If you bear in mind that the basing of V-22 Osprey aircraft is enough to trigger protests in Japan, it will be difficult to convince the public of the need to accommodate 800-plus U.S. Air Force planes. My current question is: are there any politicians or bureaucrats in present-day Japan who are giving serious thought to this issue?

Unprepared for a Taiwan Emergency
When it comes to precombat military confrontation or war, preparation is often a decisive factor. In the case of the Gulf War, the U.S. succeeded mainly because of careful and ample logistic preparations at bases in neighboring countries in the area.

As for defending Taiwan, it is vital that the logistical support mentioned above is prepared in advance.
Regarding tactical positions in East Asia, South Korea and the Philippines are also options. But when you consider Japan’s proximity to Taiwan, close U.S.-Japan relationship, and political stability, Japan is the obvious and only choice.

Therefore, Japan is very much involved in protecting the freedom of people in Taiwan. Japan should not take a passive stance and just step up reluctantly, especially because the U.S. tells it to. As an independent nation, Japan needs to be more proactive.

Moreover, Japan’s role is not just to provide logistical and rear support. The JSDF has treaty responsibilities to protect the U.S. military from any Chinese attacks in Japan and near the archipelago.

I don’t have enough space in the column to discuss whether an emergency in Taiwan is enough for Japan to exercise its right of collective self-defense. However, the act of defending bases with U.S. troops as well as Japan’s surrounding waters is the same as defending Japanese territory and its people. In other words, an emergency in Taiwan is also an emergency for Japan.

RELATED: In Our Region: A Taiwan Contingency is a Japan Contingency

By saying this, I can already hear critical voices saying, “why are you putting Japan forward for war?” But if U.S. troops can be deployed to Japan and operate in this region smoothly, China might think twice about military aggression. So, in other words, it is not an exaggeration to say that Japan is very much involved in the attempt to deter China.

Yet, at the moment, Japan is completely unprepared. Exercising the right of collective self-defense may have become possible in Japan, thanks to new security legislation in 2015, but preparation for a potential crisis out of or near-by areas of Japan is lacking. COVID-19 and the vote on who should succeed Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga are factors, but politicians and bureaucrats cannot afford to ignore this issue.

I want people to think. Look at what has happened recently in Afghanistan. The Japanese government sent out the JSDF to help 500 Japanese people and their associates evacuate from Afghanistan, but in the end, they only rescued 15 people because they arrived a day late.

Responding to a crisis a day late equates to full failure. If a similar mistake is made in the event of a Taiwan emergency, the consequences could be devastating.

We may not know when China will take the next step toward forced unification with Taiwan. However, time is not on our side. Preparations must be made sooner rather than later.

RELATED

• Shift in Japan’s Defense Posturing Signals Taiwan is Now a Core Concern
• U.S.-Taiwan Planning for a Taiwan Contingency is Good, but Japan, Too, Must Prepare
• Irregular Face of China’s Maritime Militia Creates Extra Challenges for Defending Japan

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

https://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0007822835

North Korea says it tested new hypersonic missile

9:28 am, September 29, 2021

The Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said Wednesday it successfully tested a new hypersonic missile it implied was being developed as nuclear capable as it continues to expand its military capabilities while pressuring Washington and Seoul over long-stalled negotiations over its nuclear weapons.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said the missile during its first flight test on Tuesday met key technical requirements set out by defense scientists, including launch stability and the maneuverability and gliding flight characteristics of the “detached hypersonic gliding warhead.” State media released a photo of a missile mounted with a finned, cone-shaped payload soaring into the air while leaving a trial of bright orange flames.

The latest launch, which came after two rounds of missile tests this month, was shortly before North Korea’s U.N. envoy accused the United States of hostility and demanded the Biden administration permanently end joint military exercises with rival South Korea and the deployment of strategic assets in the region. The North has also offered to improve relations with the South if certain conditions are met, apparently returning to its pattern of mixing weapons demonstrations with peace overtures to wrest outside concessions.

The North’s announcement came a day after the South Korean and Japanese militaries said they detected North Korea firing a ballistic missile into sea. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said the launch didn’t pose an immediate threat but highlighted “the destabilizing impact of (North Korea’s) illicit weapons program.

Nuclear negotiations have stalled since the collapse of a meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and former U.S. President Donald Trump in February 2019, when the Americans rejected the North’s demands for a major removal of U.S.-led sanctions over its nuclear weapons program in exchange for dismantling an aging nuclear facility. That would have amounted to only a partial surrender of its nuclear capabilities.

Kim in recent political speeches has vowed to bolster his nuclear deterrent in face of U.S. pressure. His government has so far rejected the Biden administration’s offer to resume talks without preconditions, saying that Washington must abandon its “hostile policy” first, a term North Korea mainly uses to refer to U.S.-led sanctions over its nuclear weapons program and the joint U.S.-South Korea military drills.

Hypersonic glide vehicles, which are launched from a rocket before gliding into a target, were among a wish-list of sophisticated military assets Kim issued during a ruling party meeting in January. He has also called for more longer-range intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear-powered submarines, and tactical nuclear arms.

The KCNA described the new missile as an important addition to the country’s “strategic” weaponry, implying that the system is being developed to deliver nuclear weapons. The agency also said the test confirmed the stability of the missile’s “fuel ampoule,” indicating a technology to pre-fuel the liquid propellant missile and seal it in a canister so that it could stay launch-ready for years.

Pak Jong Chon, a senior official who observed the test, said the North plans to expand the ampoule system to all of its liquid-fuel missiles. Kim Dong-yub, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said North Korea is trying to improve the mobility of its liquid-fuel missiles. These weapons have been seen as more vulnerable than solid-fuel missiles because they need to be fueled separately and transported to launch sites using trucks that can be seen by enemy satellites or other military assets.

The North’s latest launch came after Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of Kim Jong Un, reached out to Seoul twice on Friday and Saturday, saying her country was open to resuming talks and reconciliatory steps if conditions are met. She criticized Seoul for calling Pyongyang’s previous missile tests a provocation and demanded it abandon “unfair double-dealing standards” and “hostile policies.”

Her overture came after the North tested a new cruise missile it intends to arm with nuclear warheads and fired ballistic missiles from a train, experimenting with a new launch platform. Those launches demonstrated North Korea’s ability to attack targets in South Korea and Japan, both key U.S. allies where a total of 80,000 American troops are stationed.

Analysts say North Korea is using the South’s desire for inter-Korean engagement to pressure Seoul to extract concessions from the Biden administration on his behalf as he renews an attempt to leverage his nuclear weapons for badly needed economic benefits.

North Korea’s weapons displays could also be aimed at shoring up domestic unity as Kim Jong Un faces perhaps his toughest moment nearing a decade in rule, with pandemic border closures unleashing further shock on an economy battered by sanctions and decades of mismanagement.

Experts say the North will likely continue its testing activity in the coming months as it gradually dials up its pressure campaign, at least until China begins pushing for calm ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics early next year.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

Posted for fair use.....

North Korea’s wake-up call on cruise missile risks

On Sept. 12, North Korea announced it had successfully launched its first “strategic” long range cruise missile.

thehill.com

North Korea's wake-up call on cruise missile risks

BY CHRISTINE PARTHEMORE AND REAR ADM. JOHN GOWER, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS — 09/27/21 11:00 AM EDT 142 Comments
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

On Sept. 12, North Korea announced it had successfully launched its first “strategic” long range cruise missile as part of a series of tests. The missiles hit targets at a distance of 1,500km (930 miles), according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency — a range that would make it capable of hitting much of Japan and all of South Korea.

Many analysts have linked the North Korean use of “strategic” in the announcement to an intent to arm this weapon with a nuclear warhead in the future. If so, it would advance what is already the most destabilizing component of 21st century nuclear realpolitik: the nuclear cruise missile arms race.

Currently at least three nuclear powers have nuclear armed cruise missiles: the United States, Russia, and France. At least two of these (the United States and Russia) — as well as other nations such as Pakistan and India that today have nuclear warheads solely on ballistic missiles — are eyeing an expansion of nuclear cruise missile capabilities. These weapons are taking on an increasing role in their views of national security.

While Pyongyang is solely responsible for its actions, these trends by other nations are making it easier for North Korea to hedge in the direction of nuclear cruise missiles, which carry unique dangers even compared to the ballistic missile-based systems North Korea already has.

These dual-use weapons have clear utility at the operational and tactical levels during a conflict. Whether delivered by sea, ground, or air launches, they can avert defenses more effectively than ballistic missiles. A nuclear payload is indistinguishable from a conventional one until detonation. Miscalculation on launch is inevitable.

In countries that possess them, they are often discussed by defense and high-political leaders as the most usable type of nuclear weapon in warfare. Indeed, this is why world leaders in the past worked for decades to reduce the presence of nuclear-armed cruise missiles.

A ballistic missile, on the other hand, is instantly recognizable on launch, whether from a land or sea-based location, and numerous nations arm these missiles with nuclear warheads. Launched by a state owning nuclear weapons, such a launch will be classified immediately as a nuclear attack. The risk of miscalculation is reduced. The certainty and implacability of a nuclear response delivers strategic deterrence.

Given that they leave such situations ambiguous, nuclear cruise missiles weaken deterrence, risk lowering the threshold of using nuclear weapons, and heighten the risk of countries misinterpreting one another’s actions in ways that may escalate an otherwise conventional conflict to the use of nuclear weapons.

As such, owning nuclear cruise missiles immediately signals that the state is contemplating the employment of these nuclear weapons at a less than strategic level — in other words, for uses in actual warfighting, beyond deterrence or retaliation to nuclear attacks.

Additionally, nuclear cruise missiles pose a setback to non-proliferation efforts, as seen by North Korea’s new test (if, indeed, the regime intends to make these missiles nuclear). Several nuclear-armed nations, including Russia and the United States, have sufficiently robust nuclear arsenals with solely ballistic missiles. Their increased focus on nuclear arming of cruise missiles — a type of nuclear weapon that in decades past was a focus of arms control measures and reductions — signals an increasing reliance on nuclear weapons in these nations’ security strategies.

There is much the international community can do to change course, which may help to avoid signaling the wrong lessons to Pyongyang.

To start, leaders of nuclear-armed nations and their allies should look to replicate the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in its focus on nuclear risk reduction — not just reducing numbers of warheads and delivery systems.

This treaty removed shorter-range (and therefore lower-threshold-for-use) nuclear missiles from an entire continent. Its chief benefit among many was that it focused on the characteristics of nuclear systems and aimed to reduce the specific aspects that made these systems so incredibly destabilizing, in particular that they were seen as more “usable” within Europe.

The international community should now double down on work toward the end of nuclear cruise missiles. Rhetoric and even sanctions will not prove sufficient. It is time to signal through the actions of world leaders that the international community will work together, even across significant differences, to bring an end to the most destabilizing type of nuclear weapons.

• North Korea fires missile as its UN envoy condemns 'hostile' US policy
• House Democrats call on Labor secretary to regulate internships

As Presidents Biden and Putin reiterated on June 16, 2021, “A nuclear war cannot be won,” so why continue with weapons optimized for fighting one?

Christine Parthemore is the Chief Executive Officer of the Council on Strategic Risks. She was formerly senior advisor for countering weapons of mass destruction at the Pentagon.

Rear Admiral John Gower, CB OBE, is a senior advisor with the Council on Strategic Risks. He formerly served as Assistant Chief of Defence Staff (Nuclear & Chemical, Biological) in the UK Ministry of Defence.

 

[jward]

Tokyo Official: Japan, US May Lose Military Edge Over China


2 minutes




A Japanese defense official warned on Monday that countries such as Japan and the United States should start to enhance bilateral defense cooperation or risk losing their military-technological edge over China.
In a report by South China Morning Post, Japan’s MoD minister for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Suzuki Atsuo, warned of losing supremacy to China as superpowers begin to strengthen bilateral pacts on both sides.
“China’s emergence as a tech giant means that democratic countries such as Japan and the US are on the verge of losing technological predominance,” Suzuki said.

Suzuki described China’s current military capabilities as a “technological revolution,” crediting its advances to making use of civilian technology, the acquisition of foreign engineers and scientists, as well as the alleged theft of technology.
With this in mind, Suzuki called for Japan and the US to invest more in research and development and to strengthen their cooperation in building better defense technologies.

The US and AUKUS Alliance
Just this month, the US announced a new alliance with Australia and Britain to build a nuclear-powered submarine for Australia in just such a move as Suzuki is calling for.
US President Joe Biden asserted that the alliance was built upon the idea of strengthening the participating nations’ power “to maneuver and defend against rapidly evolving threats.”
President Biden also explained that the AUKUS alliance will cover “cyber, AI — particularly applied AI — quantum technologies and some undersea capabilities as well.”

Tokyo Official: Japan, US May Lose Military Edge Over China

 

[jward]

Indo-Pacific News - Watching the CCP-China Threat
@IndoPac_Info
57m

‘Hidden debt’ on #China’s Belt & Road tops $385bn, says new study More than 40 countries have debt exposure to Beijing greater than 10% of their GDP. And the average government is under-reporting repayment obligations to China by nearly 6% of GDP.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1443229175360360448

View: https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1443229175360360448?s=20

 

[jward]

NK NEWS
@nknewsorg

BREAKING: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's sister, Kim Yo Jong, has been promoted as one of the members of the State Affairs Commission (SAC). More soon @nknewsorg

BREAKING: Kim Jong Un says he is willing to restore the inter-Korean hotlines again starting in early October. While stressing North Korea has no reason to "provoke" the South, Kim also criticizes US and ROK for "excessive arms buildup"

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

China preps rollout of a new carrier-based fighter jet

The announcement comes as China has demonstrated a pair of its land-based J-20 stealth fighters powered by indigenous engines at the ongoing Zhuhai airshow.

www.defensenews.com

Asia Pacific
China preps rollout of a new carrier-based fighter jet

By Mike Yeo
Sep 29, 11:12 AM

MELBOURNE, Australia – China will debut its next-generation, carrier-borne fighter jet later this year, according to the country’s main state-owned aerospace conglomerate and the chief designer of its current carrier-based fighter jet.

This comes as China has demonstrated a pair of its land-based J-20 stealth fighters powered by indigenous engines at the ongoing Zhuhai airshow.

Speaking at a press conference at the airshow, Sun Cong, the chief designer of the mainstay jet fighter of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy, or PLAN, carrier air wings, said that “people should be able to see good news on the next-generation aircraft carrier-based fighter jet” later this year.

Sun led the design of the Shenyang J-15 Flying Shark. He said more will be revealed about the new program when the time is right, according to remarks carried by the nationalist tabloid Global Times.

Similarly, state-owned aerospace and defense conglomerate Aviation Industry Corporation of China, or AVIC, said on its account on Chinese social media app Weibo that a new carrier-borne aircraft would be revealed before the end of 2021, although it is not clear if it was making its own announcement or just echoing Sun’s remarks.

Neither Sun nor AVIC revealed more details about the program, although the social media post included a graphic showing what appeared to be a stealthy twin-tailed design under wraps.

It has been speculated in recent years that China is developing a new carrier-based fighter jet based on the Shenyang J-31 as the next-generation combat aircraft to equip China’s growing fleet of aircraft carriers.

China has two carriers in service and is building a third, significantly larger carrier. The first two ships are equipped with a ski-jump to assist aircraft in taking off, while the latest vessel being constructed in Shanghai will be equipped with catapults to launch heavier aircraft and conduct operations more quickly.

The J-31 is a twin-tailed, twin-engine, mid-wing design that incorporates some low-observable features and bears a passing resemblance to the Lockheed-Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. It first flew in October 2012 and was present at the 2014 Zhuhai airshow.

 

[northern watch]

North Korea says it has test-fired an anti-aircraft missile
North Korea says it has test-fired a newly developed anti-aircraft missile in the fourth round of weapons launches in recent weeks
By HYUNG-JIN KIM Associated Press
30 September 2021, 16:09

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea said Friday it had test-fired a newly developed anti-aircraft missile in the fourth round of weapons firings in recent weeks, even as it pushes to reopen stalled communication channels with rival South Korea in a small reconciliation step.

In September, North Korea resumed its first missile tests in six months but still offered conditional talks with Seoul in what some experts say is an attempt to extract outside concessions. Earlier this week, North Korea leader Kim Jong Un expressed his willingness to restore communication hotlines with South Korea in coming days to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula.

The Korean Central News Agency said the anti-aircraft missile test is “of very practical significance in studying and developing various prospective anti-aircraft missile system.”

It said the test was aimed at confirming the practicality of operation of the launcher, radar and comprehensive battle command vehicle as well as the comprehensive combat performance of the missile.

South Korea, Japan and the United States typically publicly confirm soon after North Korea carry out missile tests. But the North’s neighboring countries didn’t report its Thursday test, suggesting it may not be a major weapons test.

While announcing his intentions to reopen the hotlines during his speech at parliament, Kim still shrugged off U.S. offers for dialogue as “cunning ways” to conceal its hostility against the North and defending his country’s latest weapons tests.

Kim also echoed his powerful sister Kim Yo Jong’s demand that South Korea abandon “double-dealing attitude” and “hostile viewpoint” over the North’s missile tests and other developments if it wants to see the resumption of talks and major stalled reconciliation steps.

Some experts say North Korea is pressuring South Korea not to criticize its ballistic missile tests, which are banned by U.N. Security Council resolutions, as part of its quest to receive an international recognition as a nuclear power. Others say North Korea wants South Korea to persuade the United States to ease punishing economic international sanctions on it.

Ahead of Thursday's launch, North Korea also test-fired a hypersonic missile for the first time, a newly developed cruise missile and a ballistic missile from a train, a new launch platform. South Korea’s military assessed the hypersonic missile to be at an early stage of development, but experts say the two previous missile tests displayed the North’s ability to attack targets in South Korea and Japan, both key U.S. allies in the region.

North Korea hasn’t tested a long-range missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland for about four years, an indication it wants to keep the chances for future diplomacy with the U.S. alive.

North Korea says it has test-fired an anti-aircraft missile - ABC News (go.com)

 

[jward]

Colin Zwirko
@ColinZwirko
·

First image of North Korea's reported "anti-air missile" tested on Sept. 30. Will post a better quality image soon. And watch @nknewsorg for more

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1443702337537658880

View: https://twitter.com/ColinZwirko/status/1443702337537658880?s=20

 

[jward]

Nathan J Hunt
@ISNJH

In just a short mater of weeks we have had KN-23 test, Hypersonic missile test and now DPRK has conducted test firing of surface to air missile system, they are going through their list of planned systems to be tested, we be seeing a ICBM test if going by their stated goals.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Meet Japan’s new PM

Asia’s oldest democracy looks for a steady hand on the tiller in a time of regional flux.

www.lowyinstitute.org

Meet Japan’s new PM

Purnendra Jain

Asia’s oldest democracy looks for a steady hand on the tiller in a time of regional flux.
Published 30 Sep 2021 12:00   2 Comments  

• Japan

In a fiercely contested vote on Wednesday, Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) chose Fumio Kishida as party president. He is now set to form government as Japan’s next prime minister. In the runoff vote, former foreign minister Kishida comprehensively defeated his nearest rival Taro Kono, a senior minister in the Suga cabinet and former foreign and defence minister.


Early next week, Japan’s parliament will formally endorse Kishida as the new prime minister because the LDP with its junior partner – the Komeito – holds a sizeable majority in the lower house.


Kishida was the first to announce his candidacy for LDP president. Later, Taro Kono, and two female candidates, Sanae Takaichi and Seiko Noda, both former ministers of internal affairs, joined the race.


Kishida is a veteran LDP politician who has been elected nine times to the lower house from his electoral district in Hiroshima.

It was a complex and unusual contest: complex because a rare runoff vote became necessary when none of the four candidates was able to secure a majority in the first round – in a break with tradition, faction leaders allowed fellow parliamentarians to vote freely rather than as a bloc in support of a chosen candidate. And unusual, in that it was the first time in the party’s history that two female candidates contested the presidency.


Kishida is a veteran LDP politician who has been elected nine times to the lower house from his electoral district in Hiroshima. He is the head of his own faction with some 46 members, and has served in senior positions both in the party and government. He was Japan’s longest-serving foreign minister (2012-2017) under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. As with many LDP politicians, Kishida also comes from a political family; both his father and grandfather were parliamentarians.


Kishida is a soft-spoken, conventional and moderate politician whose preferred leadership style would be to work with colleagues through consensus and consultation. While Kono commanded much greater public support and higher numbers of party rank-and-file votes, Kishida won the race on the solid support of LDP parliamentarians at both the first and runoff ballots – 249 votes to Kono’s 131.

While Suga continued in the footsteps of his immediate predecessor by following most of Abe’s domestic and international policy orientations, Kishida is likely to take a different path. He is unlikely to follow the constitutional amendment agenda, a pet project of Abe’s. Favouring an economic stimulus package worth billions of dollars, he will move away from “Abenomics”, a growth strategy based on government spending promoted by Abe. Kishida strongly favours boosting household wealth and delivering the benefits of economic growth to a wider population. His preference is to “create a virtual cycle of growth and distribution” of wealth, and not follow the neo-liberal agenda.


Although no major shifts are expected in Japan’s foreign policy, there exist possibilities of some new policy orientations. The United States is sure to remain the key security ally, the hard-line policy on China will continue, the free and open Indo-Pacific narrative will be strengthened and closer relationships with key partners such as Australia and India will be maintained with ASEAN centrality. Kishida prefers greater spending on defence in order to increase Japan’s capability, such as its missile strike ability. He also supports Taiwan’s membership in the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) – a stance sure to irritate China.


While a clear strategy to deal with the coronavirus and a blueprint for his economic plan must be presented soon after he forms government, Kishida’s immediate policy plans will be driven mainly with an eye on the forthcoming general election, which must be held by the end of November. His leadership skills and performance, both within the party and in government, will be under the microscope.


It is likely Kishida will have an initial honeymoon period like most of his predecessors, but he will need to make sure that he maintains a reasonably high popularity rate to continue in the post.

Last year, Abe abruptly stepped down, citing health reasons, after being Japan’s longest-serving prime minister. He handpicked Suga as his successor, but Suga only lasted a year, announcing his exit after intense public criticism of his government’s poor management of the coronavirus pandemic.


It is likely Kishida will have an initial honeymoon period like most of his predecessors, but he will need to make sure that he maintains a reasonably high popularity rate to continue in the post. Even though he received a greater number of parliamentary votes than his competitors, he faired rather poorly when it came to rank-and-file and prefectural votes (eight votes to Kono’s 39).


For Japan and for the world, it is crucial that Asia’s oldest and most stable democracy is able to lead the region. Time will tell whether Kishida skilfully leads Japan through this next period of uncertainty in the Indo-Pacific, or whether he is relegated to the age of revolving door prime ministers.

 

[northern watch]

U.S. Marine F-35Bs to Embark on Japan’s Largest Warship in October
By: Dzirhan Mahadzir
USNI News
September 30, 2021 2:00 PM

Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force helicopter destroyer JS Izumo (DDH-183) steams during a ship maneuvering exercise for Malabar 2017. US Navy Photo

KUALA LUMPUR – U.S Marine F-35Bs from Iwakuni will support the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s post refit trials of the destroyer helicopter carrier JS Izumo (DDH183) next month.

The Marine Corps aircraft will work with the JMSDF in the Pacific Ocean from Oct. 3 through Oct. 7, according to a Thursday news release from the Japan Defense Ministry. Izumo in June completed the first of a two-stage modification that will enable it to operate the F-35, with the first stage adding heat resistant coating to the flight deck and flight line markings for F-35 operations.

The release did not say which squadron the aircraft would come from or how many USMC F-35Bs will be embarked for the trials. The U.S. Marines have two F-35B squadrons operating from Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, with the “Bats” of Marine Corps Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 242 declaring initial operating capability on Sept. 9. The other squadron – the “Green Knights” of VMFA-121 – reached IOC in July 2015, before deploying to Japan in January 2017.

MCAS Iwakuni detailed Izumo arriving to the base’s harbour in a Thursday new release, though it did not state the purpose of the ship’s arrival.

USNI News reported on Sept. 1 that Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger said U.S Marine F-35s would operate off a Japanese warship later this year, though it is unclear whether he meant the trials or a later operational or exercise deployment on Izumo.

Izumo’s final conversion work will be carried out in Fiscal Year 2025, while its sister ship – JS Kaga (DDH184) – will be fully modified in FY 2022. The second stage of Izumo’s conversion and the full stage of Kaga’s conversion will involve a change of the shape of the ships’ bows along with interior reconfiguration allowing them to embark and fully operate F-35s.


F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter aircraft from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) prepare to launch from the flight deck of the forward-deployed amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA-6) on Aug, 25, 2021. US Navy Photo

The modification of Izumo and Kaga are paired with a planned Japan Self-Defense Forces buy of 42 F-35Bs to operate from the two ships. The first of the JSDF F-35Bs are set to arrive in FY 2023 and the U.S. Marine F-35s are expected to continue operating off the two ships as Japan acclimates itself to operating F-35Bs. The JMSDF has already conducted a series of engagements and exchanges in relation to F-35B operations with the U.K. Royal Navy’s Carrier Strike Group 21 (CSG21) while it was in Japan in early September.

A JMSDF submarine carried out a series of anti-submarine warfare training from Sept. 14 to 15 with a Royal Navy submarine near Japan, the JMSDF said in news release earlier this week. The release noted that this was the first occasion in which a JMSDF submarine trained with a Royal Navy submarine. A U.K.’s Astute-class submarine is currently operating in the region as part of the CSG21 deployment. The U.K. and Japan have also agreed to commence formal negotiations on a Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) to deepen the defense relationship between the two countries, the U.K. Defense Ministry announced on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Izumo’s sister ship – Kaga – and destroyer JS Murasame (DD101) are making their way across the Indian Ocean to Colombo, Sri Lanka for a port visit from Oct. 2 to 4 as part of the JMSDF Indo-Pacific Deployment 2021 (IPD21) task group. The two ships conducted an exercise in the Indian Ocean with the German Navy frigate FGS Bayern (F217) last week. The exercise included Bayern’s embarked Super Lynx helicopter conducting a landing on Kaga and one of Kaga’s SH-60 helicopters doing the same on Bayern.

The two JMSDF ships also conducted an exercise with USNS Yukon (T-AO-202) on Wednesday.

Bayern, which left Germany in August for a seven-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific, docked in Fremantle, Western Australia on Tuesday for a week-long visit following an anti-submarine warfare exercise with a Royal Australian Air Force P-8. The frigate will be berthed at Fremantle Harbour from Sept. 28 through Oct. 5.

Meanwhile the main body of the U.K. CSG21 left Guam on Tuesday. The U.K. CSG consists of aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08) and embarked aircraft, which include the “Wake Island Avengers” of VMFA-211 and the Royal Air Force 617 Squadron “The Dambusters.” The two squadrons are integrated for operations on the carrier.

The CSG also includes frigates HMS Kent (F78) and HMS Richmond (F239), Royal Fleet Auxiliary’s RFA Fort Victoria (A387) and RFA Tidespring (A136), destroyer HMS Defender (D36), and an Astute-class submarine. Dutch frigate HNLMS Evertsen (F805), U.S. destroyer USS The Sullivans (DDG68) are also part of the CSG. Some elements of the group are in separate locations, with The Sullivans last seen docked in Yokosuka. Richmond – having been deployed in the East China Sea while taking part in United Nations sanctions enforcement operations against North Korea – posted on social media on Monday that it transited the Taiwan Strait while en route to Vietnam.

The transit has prompted a rebuke from the People’s Liberation Army, with a PLA Eastern Theater Command spokesman saying the move was a publicity stunt and evidence of the U.K.’s “bad intentions” and “opportunism.”

Meanwhile, destroyer HMS Diamond (D34) which was forced to drop out of CSG21 in July due to engine problems, reached Diego Garcia on Monday as it heads to rejoin the group.

While CSG21 is in Guam, the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) task group that includes frigate HMNZS Te Kaha (F77) and replenishment tanker HMNZS Aotearoa (A11) Aotearoa drilled with Queen Elizabeth on Tuesday as a prelude to a more extensive serial later on. Te Kaha last week drilled with Littoral Combat Ship USS Charleston (LCS-18) in the Philippine Sea. The RNZN task group set out on in early September for a two- to three-month deployment to the Asia-Pacific, which would include participation in the Five Power Defense Arrangement (FPDA) exercise Bersama Gold 21, which will take place from Oct. 8 to 18 off Malaysia and Singapore.

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) Indo-Pacific Endeavour Deployment 21 (IPE21) task group – comprised of the Royal Australian Navy LPD HMAS Canberra (L02), frigate HMAS Anzac (FFH150) and replenishment ship HMAS Sirius (O266) – are also scheduled to take part in the Bersama Gold exercise. The task group is now wrapping up a three-day port call in Manila following an exercise with Philippine Navy frigate BRP Antonio Luna (FF151) near Cabra Island on Sept. 25. The ADF also announced on Monday that destroyer HMAS Brisbane (D41) and frigate HMAS Ballarat (FFH155) had left their home ports the previous week for a deployment which will see the ships conducting engagements with regional partners in Southeast and Northeast Asia.


U.S. Marine F-35Bs to Embark on Japan's Largest Warship in October - USNI News

 

[jward]

How Does China’s Military View India?

By Adhiraaj Anand for The Diplomat​

China Power | Security
The PLA views India’s growing military cooperation with the United States with some concern but generally does not consider India a major threat.

Chinese and Indian troops receive a briefing before the joint India-China military training exercise Hand-in-Hand 2019.
Credit: Indian Army via special arrangement

The Indian military sees China as its biggest threat, as Chief of Defense Staff Bipin Rawat made clear in an interview in June 2021. The Indian Army has moved 50,000 troops to its border with China in 2021, with about 20,000 troops in the Ladakh sector. So how does the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) view India? The PLA’s media, including the newspaper PLA Daily and the TV program “Defense Review,” offer some insights. It views India’s growing military cooperation with the United States with some concern but generally does not consider India a major threat.
Since 2018, in its articles and videos about India, the PLA’s online media have focused mainly on India’s partnership with the U.S., discussing the topic 23 times. It has featured India’s defense industry and arms purchases, discussed 21 times. India’s growing ties with the U.S. have often been juxtaposed with its relations with Russia, which have been discussed 13 times. By contrast, there were surprisingly few in-depth analyses or opinion pieces about the Sino-Indian border dispute, even during the Ladakh skirmish in 2020, with most articles about the issue being brief press releases about meetings to resolve the issue and using language such as “easing tensions,” “maintaining communication,” and “avoiding misunderstandings.”

Overall, we can conclude that the PLA does not consider India one of its primary security challenges and emphasizes maintaining peace on the border. It perceives India to still be attached to its long-running non-alignment philosophy in its relations with the United States. While the PLA sees India as behaving in an increasingly aggressive and expansionist manner in South Asia and the Indian Ocean, it downplays how far India’s actions in these latter theaters could go.
A 2013 book by the PLA Academy of Military Science in Beijing titled “Science of Military Strategy,” translated into English by the U.S.-based China Aerospace Studies Institute in 2021, covered India in greater depth than any other recent PLA publication. In its view, India’s post-Cold War military strategy has been mainly about establishing and maintaining hegemony and absolute military superiority over other countries in South Asia, keeping China and other major powers out of its sphere of influence. Though written in 2013, the book also foresaw increasing strategic cooperation between the United States and India and something akin to the United States’ “Indo-Pacific” strategy. It predicted that this would accelerate India’s eastward advance, which would link up with Japan’s southward advance, to form “dual arcs” in the Indian and Pacific Oceans that intersect in the South China Sea.

More recently, writers and experts in PLA media have reaffirmed the view that India is linking its Act East policy with the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy, seeing an opportunity to consolidate its dominance in South Asia and increase its control over the Indian Ocean. This explains why India has set up a network of bases and stations around the Indian Ocean in countries and territories including Madagascar, the Seychelles, Mauritius, the Maldives and India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and has conducted exercises with the United States near the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Wang Xiaopeng, an expert from the Ocean University of China, stated on “Defense Review” that in addition to its Act East policy, India under Narendra Modi also maintains a “Southward” policy, whose goal is to gradually control the Indian Ocean: up to 500 nautical miles beyond its shores should be under India’s “absolute” control, 500-1000 miles under “medium” control, and beyond 1,000 miles under “mild” control. Increasing strategic cooperation with the United States not only allows India to achieve these aims; according to Wang, it also means that India “clears the way” for the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific.

Chinese military experts also see India’s closeness with the United States and other powers as a means for India to upgrade its weapons and defense systems and realize its goals on land. On the two countries’ intelligence cooperation, PLA Military Strategist Du Wenlong said on “Defense Review” that India could become “American Eye” a dangerous move with “sinister intentions.” However, experts on “Defense Review” are also of the opinion that recent Indian arms purchases from the United States do not actually give India a significant advantage and are mostly aimed at “buying American support” as well as domestic media consumption. Moreover, Chinese military analysts argues that progress implementing defense agreements between the United States and India, such as the four foundational agreements, has been slow, mostly talk with little action. Thus, any “alliance” between the U.S. and India is unlikely to last.

Some Chinese military experts use the term “strategic mutual utilization” – as opposed to genuine alliances – to describe India’s recent cooperation with the United States and United Kingdom. India has been using closer cooperation with these powers to gain access to technical knowledge so that it could improve its own production of defense equipment. A key move in this respect was the signing of the Industrial Security Annex with the United States, which allows U.S. companies to share sensitive technology with private Indian companies. It is a common Chinese viewpoint that it is mainly the United States that pushes cooperation with India, based on its own interests such as selling arms to India (outcompeting Russia) and containing China. One article argues that the United States will want to “constrain India’s military development to a track that it can control.”
Chinese experts nevertheless recognize that India would not let itself be manipulated. New Delhi regards itself as a major power and wants to use its relationship with the U.S. to accelerate its own growth as a military and economic power while maintaining its strategic autonomy. As India becomes more powerful, the partnership could face challenges. Above all, the prospects of a true “alliance” between the United States and India are held back by a long-running philosophy of non-alignment in India’s foreign policy.

India-Russia relations are also often cited in PLA media as a factor preventing India from forming a true alliance with the U.S. Lou Chunhao, a professor at the China Institutes for Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), notes that New Delhi and Moscow have diverged on China-U.S. relations as well as the Indo-Pacific strategy and that as a result their ties are bound be less close than they were previously. Nevertheless, they are unlikely to part ways completely, due to their lack of historical animosity and the fact that they do not pose any security threats to each other. Moreover, there is still great potential for cooperation in military and other domains that the two countries would not want to waste – for example, Russia will want to compete with the United States for the Indian arms market. As one expert put it in “Defense Review,” Russia’s recent strategy has been to “both beat and pull India,” to warn it from getting too close to the United States while also offering opportunities for economic and military cooperation.

Furthermore, PLA media view India’s recent military exercises along its borders and coastline as reflective of a trend to “provoke bigger countries and suppress smaller countries” in its neighborhood. Certain purchases and tests of weaponry (such as Agni-5 missiles in 2021) are seen to be aimed more at politics and domestic consumption, to hype India’s big power status. Surprise attack drills near the Sino-Indian border in 2021 in particular were derided by Wang Xiaopeng and Du Wenlong on “Defense Review,” where they pointed out that with the unfavorable conditions on India’s borders, launching such attacks would be a foolish move. Such exercises, they argued, are thus meant primarily to divert domestic attention away from other issues including India’s struggles in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

For its part, the PLA emphasizes a need to maintain friendly relations with India. A 2017 article in the journal China Military Science, published by the PLA Academy of Military Science, stated that while the border dispute between the two countries is complex, they should be guided by the idea of “maintaining the status quo and joint management and control.” A 2019 article in National Defense, another journal published by the PLA Academy of Military Science, discusses the importance of maintaining the security of a maritime supply line that passes through the Strait of Malacca and, by extension, of maintaining friendly relations with India and other countries that border these water bodies.
As a corollary, PLA media (and Chinese media more broadly) didn’t cover the 2020-21 confrontation in Ladakh as extensively as did Indian media. Articles on the matter on the website of PLA Daily are limited to statements made by Chinese military leaders following talks with or statements by their Indian counterparts, with one article admonishing Indian media for increasing tensions.

Overall, PLA media portray India’s recent moves as reflective of a binary “either non-alignment or alliance” trap. While the PLA has since 2013 perceived India to be moving away from non-alignment and entering a quasi-alliance with the United States, China’s military thinkers are now of the view that this is partnership unlikely to last long. Although India’s recent actions at both land and sea are viewed as provocative and reflective of an expansionist trend, the PLA and its media generally downplay the threat India poses to China.

How Does China’s Military View India?

The PLA views India’s growing military cooperation with the United States with some concern but generally does not consider India a major threat.

thediplomat.com

 

[jward]

EndGameWW3
@EndGameWW3

(URGENT) N. Korea says all inter-Korean hotlines to be restored starting at 9 a.m. Monday

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1444774579952656384

View: https://twitter.com/EndGameWW3/status/1444774579952656384?s=20


TheWarOfNow
@TheWarOfNow
10m

Replying to @EndGameWW3
I'd say they're doing this as they are going to ramp up testing and want a channel of communication

 

[northern watch]

 

[northern watch]

 

[jward]

EndGameWW3
@EndGameWW3


Update: Chinese Foreign Ministry: The US statement sent a very wrong and irresponsible signal, and China will take all measures necessary to crush any “Taiwan independence” attempts.

 

[jward]

I wonder if modern war fare would make efforts to shut down Social media sites, like oh- I dunno- facebook and instagram- as a prelude to a serious war effort

 

[jward]

Drums' a beatin n clocks a tickin : (

Apex
@Apex_WW
4m

‘India fully ready to deal with ‘two front’ war scenario involving China and Pakistan’: IAF Chief

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1445421256560594949

View: https://twitter.com/Apex_WW/status/1445421256560594949?s=20

 

[jward]

Indo-Pacific News - Watching the CCP-China Threat
@IndoPac_Info
28s

#China blinked, unloads #Australian coal despite import ban amid power shortage China started to unload a small number of Australian coal shipments despite an unofficial import ban, in a move underscoring the intensity of the power crunch."

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1445425678904561664

View: https://twitter.com/IndoPac_Info/status/1445425678904561664?s=20

 

[northern watch]

I wonder if modern war fare would make efforts to shut down Social media sites, like oh- I dunno- facebook and instagram- as a prelude to a serious war effort

Yes

 

[jward]

I have two conflicting thoughts: One, this is mercury retrograde till the 17th or so, so new phases (such as a war going uber hot) are not likely. On the other hand, mistakes and miscommunications (that so often r the genesis of wars going hot) are MORE likely...

:: shrug :: I'm inching towards thinking this, or another of the hot spots, will actually pop before the champagne corks do to herald in the New Year ::

Yes

 

[OldArcher]

Yes

Facebook and Instagram? No, for they are the lapdogs and heralds of the enemy, the “Liberal Left.” Communism has always had its organs of propaganda…. Think of diluted, watered-down Izvestia, Pravda, and Russian Television. The FSB has its useful idiots everywhere, and most television organizations, here in the US and elsewhere, are bought and paid for, to the Russians, Chinese, and radical Muslims.

There are but a very few members of the Old Free Press extent today…

Anything that is not rabidly like Beijing, Moscow, or Tehran, will be closed down…

OA

 

[northern watch]

China sharply escalates warplane provocations near Taiwan
Fresh sortie Monday; exercises include nuclear-capable bombers


n this photo released by the Taiwan Presidential Office, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, center, speaks with military personnel near aircraft parked on a highway in Jiadong, Taiwan, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. Four military aircraft landed on the highway and took off again on Wednesday as part of Taiwan's five-day Han Guang military exercise designed to prepare the island's forces for an attack by China, which claims Taiwan as part of its own territory. (Taiwan Presidential Office via AP) ** FILE **

By Bill Gertz - The Washington Times - Monday, October 4, 2021

China’s military stepped up provocative aerial incursions near Taiwan on Monday with its biggest sortie to date, sending 58 warplanes, including 12 nuclear-capable bombers, inside the island’s air defense zone, the Taiwanese Defense Ministry said.

Flights on Friday and Saturday traveled into the same southern air defense zone in what Chinese state media called practice for a military assault on Taiwan, an island state 100 miles off the southern Chinese coast. Beijing considers Taiwan to be part of its sovereign territory.

The incursions Monday, in two waves, were the largest so far in what appears to be a Beijing-directed campaign of coercion. The flights bring the total aircraft flying into the air defense zone since late last week to 136 and represent a People’s Liberation Army escalation of tension.

“The United States is very concerned by the People’s Republic of China’s provocative military activity near Taiwan, which is destabilizing, risks miscalculations, and undermines regional peace and stability,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement Saturday. “We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure and coercion against Taiwan.”

The Taiwanese ministry said the flights Monday included 52 aircraft during the day and four J-16 jets during the evening. In addition to 12 H-6 bombers, the daytime flights included 34 J-16s, two Su-30 jets, two Y-8 anti-submarine warfare aircraft and two KJ-500 airborne warning and control aircraft, the ministry said on its website.

In response, Taiwanese interceptor jets were scrambled and air defense missile systems were deployed. The Taiwanese military also warned the Chinese aircraft to leave the area.

In saber-rattling incursions Sunday, 16 jets — eight J-16 and four Su-30 fighters, two Y-8 anti-submarine warfare planes and two KJ-500 airborne warning and control aircraft — flew close to the island, the Taiwanese Defense Ministry said in a post on Twitter.

That mass incursion followed a total of 38 PLA aircraft on Friday and 39 aircraft on Saturday, also a mix of fighters and electronic warfare and monitoring aircraft.

Chinese state media have said the chaotic U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan is a sign that the Biden administration would not come to the aid of its unofficial ally. China has told Taiwanese leaders that the United States would abandon them in ways similar to the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan, which fell to the Taliban militia in 11 days.

The increased air incursions are part of what Chinese state media called routine and normal military exercises aimed at deterring Taiwanese forces and “foreign interference,” the nationalist, state-controlled Global Times newspaper said. The record-breaking number of aircraft incursions also was a response to the dispatch of U.S. and allied aircraft carriers near the island.

The USS Ronald Reagan and USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike groups sailed near Taiwan on Sept. 27, according to news reports.

Menacing messaging

“Flying these high-risk sorties near Taiwan is just another way of dictating terms, contrary to all their commitments to resolve the Taiwan question peacefully through dialogue,” said David Stilwell, a former assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs. “This mode of messaging is especially dangerous because the people making these decisions in Beijing think in terrestrial terms. They think these actions are slow-moving and reversible.”

The danger of a conflict breaking out is greater when aircraft are used in messaging, he said. Unlike ships, planes are fragile. Even small collisions with intercepting Taiwanese aircraft could lead to disastrous outcomes.

“Intercepts are dicey things. Determining what constitutes a hostile act is never easy,” said Mr. Stilwell, a former Air Force F-16 pilot. “And flying armed combat aircraft at Taiwan, which is obligated to intercept inbound PLA aircraft with armed combat aircraft of its own, is downright reckless.”

Most of the earlier Chinese aerial incursions involved reconnaissance jets or bombers.
“Pointing combat aircraft with forward-firing ordnance at each other is a great way to send the wrong message,” Mr. Stilwell said.

Rick Fisher, a Chinese military affairs expert with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, said the communist regime in Beijing is in its fourth year of escalating military pressure to demoralize and coerce 23 million people in Taiwan.

“The Chinese Communist Party is using this crude military pressure as part of an orchestra of coercion, [one] that includes a massive insidious propaganda global political campaign to erase any recognition of a free Taiwan and the weaponization of its political, economic and cultural relations with Taiwan,” Mr. Fisher said.

The stepped-up flights also are designed to improve the PLA’s joint war-fighting operations and strategies.

Mr. Fisher said he thinks Beijing’s intimidation efforts will only increase.

“The PLA is barely getting started with its military coercion,” he said. “It should be expected that future exercises will include multiple aircraft carriers supporting simultaneous amphibious assaults, to include use of anti-ship ballistic missiles and perhaps anti-satellite demonstrations.”

The United States should consider a closer relationship with Taiwan to deter military aggression, Mr. Fisher said.

China’s leadership is “clearly preparing to wage war to destroy the democratic future chosen by the vast majority of Taiwanese,” Mr. Fisher said. “It is overdue for the United States to consider a new relationship with Taiwan that will allow for a revival of Taiwan-U.S. military cooperation sufficient to defeat and thus deter a Chinese invasion.”

A ‘declaration of sovereignty’

The Global Times, the Chinese Communist Party newspaper, said the aerial effort is “a clear and unmistakable declaration of China’s sovereignty over the island.”

The warplanes “were not a guard of honor,” the newspaper said.

“They are fighting forces aimed at actual combat,” the newspaper stated. “The warplanes that gathered over the [Taiwan Strait] were possibly dispatched from different airports, showing the strong ability of the PLA to form a wartime air attack.”
The mass air incursions amount to a major increase in the number of flights into the air defense zone.

Until last week, the PLA was conducting incursions on a near-daily basis using one or two aircraft.

“The PLA is forming a siege of Taiwan with a show of strength as it did in Beijing in 1949,” said the Global Times, referring to the civil war that ended with Chinese Nationalist Party forces ousted from the mainland and taking refuge on Taiwan.

Retired Gen. H.R. McMaster, for a time President Trump’s national security adviser, warned Monday that the U.S. and its allies are entering a “very dangerous time” in their relations with China.

In a roundtable with reporters hosted by the Hudson Institute, Mr. McMaster said the flights align with China’s long-standing campaign of coercion against Taiwan, but he would not rule out the advent of a more belligerent approach.

“I wouldn’t discount it,” he said. “I think that it’s really important for the United States, for Japan, the free world, the European Union to make clear to China that this kind of aggression is unacceptable.”

He said Chinese President Xi Jinping has become emboldened after sustaining few international consequences over his aggressive clampdown in Hong Kong and other internal places.

Mr. Price, the State Department spokesman, said the United States has an abiding interest in peace and stability across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait.

“We will continue to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability,” he said, noting the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which calls for selling defensive arms to Taiwan and U.S.-Chinese communiques and agreements.

“The U.S. commitment to Taiwan is rock solid and contributes to the maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and within the region,” Mr. Price said. “We will continue to stand with friends and allies to advance our shared prosperity, security and values and deepen our ties with democratic Taiwan.”

• Joseph Clark contributed to this report.

China sharply escalates warplane provocations near Taiwan - Washington Times

 

[northern watch]

I have two conflicting thoughts: One, this is mercury retrograde till the 17th or so, so new phases (such as a war going uber hot) are not likely. On the other hand, mistakes and miscommunications (that so often r the genesis of wars going hot) are MORE likely...

:: shrug :: I'm inching towards thinking this, or another of the hot spots, will actually pop before the champagne corks do to herald in the New Year ::

I listened to a youtube presentation on how China will invade Taiwan. What got my attention the most was when it was said that the month of October is an ideal month for invading Taiwan.

 

[northern watch]

 

[Housecarl]

Drums' a beatin n clocks a tickin : (

Apex
@Apex_WW
4m

‘India fully ready to deal with ‘two front’ war scenario involving China and Pakistan’: IAF Chief

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1445421256560594949

View: https://twitter.com/Apex_WW/status/1445421256560594949?s=20

Otherwise known as "glass making".....

 

[northern watch]