Category: China

I think this makes clear that something I said before wasn’t going to happen, is in fact not going to happen; South Korea is not getting a second THAAD battery:

The top diplomats of South Korea and China agreed during their talks Tuesday that disputes over the issue of an advanced U.S. missile defense system should no longer hamper Seoul-Beijing relations, a South Korean official said.

In his first trip to China since taking office in May, Foreign Minister Park Jin held the meeting with his counterpart, Wang Yi, in the eastern port city of Qingdao.

It was widely viewed as crucial in setting the tone for Seoul-Beijing relations under the conservative Yoon Suk-yeol administration.

During the talks, both Park and Wang “clearly expressed their positions on THAAD, and at the same time, they shared the same view that the matter should not be an obstacle to the development of South Korea-China relations, going forward,” the official told reporters on the customary condition of anonymity.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

If anyone was wondering why President Yoon snubbed Nancy Pelosi during her visit to South Korea, here is the reason:

The top South Korean and Chinese diplomats pledged Thursday to develop closer relations and maintain stable industrial supply chains at a time of deepening rivalry between Beijing and Washington.

South Korea, a longtime U.S. ally, is struggling to strike a balance between Washington and the increasingly assertive foreign policy of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government. U.S.-Chinese conflict over Taiwan has added to complications for governments that want amicable ties with both sides.

Foreign Ministers Park Jin and Wang Yi, in separate statements, called for the development of relations based on successful three-decade-old commercial ties. They were meeting in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This could have gone bad very easily if one of these missiles had a malfunction and hit Taiwanese territory forcing them to respond in some way:

China fired multiple missiles toward waters near northeastern and southwestern Taiwan on Thursday, the island’s Defense Ministry said, as Beijing makes good on its promise that Taipei will pay a price for hosting US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The Chinese military’s Eastern Theater Command said in a statement that multiple missiles had been fired into the sea off the eastern part of Taiwan. It said all the missiles hit their target accurately.

“The entire live-fire training mission has been successfully completed and the relevant air and sea area control is now lifted,” China’s statement said. Earlier, the Eastern Theater Command said it had conducted long-range, live-fire training in the Taiwan Strait, state broadcaster CCTV reported, as part of planned military exercises around the island.

Taiwan reported Chinese long-range rockets had fallen near its islands of Matsu, Wuqiu and Dongyin, which are in the Taiwan Strait, but located closer to the mainland than the main island of Taiwan. It later said a total of 11 Dongfeng (DF) missiles were fired to the waters north, south and east of the island between 1:56 p.m. and 4 p.m. local time (from 1:56 a.m. ET to 4 a.m. ET) on Thursday. 

The Chinese missiles flew over Taiwan Island for the first time, a Chinese military expert said on state television channel CCTV on Thursday, representing a major escalation of China’s military intimidation against Taiwan.

CNN

According to Taiwan the missiles were flying exoatmospheric and thus was not a threat to Taiwan:

The conventional missiles flew over airspace covered by Taiwanese defense missiles, said Maj. Gen. Meng Xiangqing, a professor of strategy at the National Defense University in Beijing.

“We hit the targets under the observation of US Aegis combat system, which means the Chinese military has solved the difficulties of hitting long-range targets on waters,” Meng said on CCTV.

The Taiwanese Defense Ministry said in a statement late Thursday night that the trajectory of the missiles was above the atmosphere and therefore posed no risk to Taiwan.

“Using the surveillance and reconnaissance systems, our military can accurately calculate the trajectory of the Dong Feng-series missiles fired by the Chinese Communist Party,” it said.

You can read more at the link, but fortunately the Taiwanese are keeping a cool head about this and not responding with test firing missiles back towards China in response.

Here is what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to say during her visit to Taiwan:

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi landed in Taiwan Tuesday evening, marking a significant show of support for Taiwan despite China’s threats of retaliation over the visit.

Pelosi’s stop in Taipei is the first time that a US House speaker has visited Taiwan in 25 years. Her trip comes at a low point in US-China relations and despite warnings from the Biden administration against a stop in Taiwan. 

The California Democrat is leading a congressional delegation on a tour in Asia this week, which includes stops in Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, and Japan. Although not included in her official itinerary, expectations that she was planning a visit to Taiwan have fuelled US-China tensions since reports of a potential trip emerged last month.

In a statement after landing, Pelosi and the congressional delegation that accompanied her said the visit “honors America’s unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant democracy.

Pelosi, a forthright critic of Beijing, has previously said it is important for the US to show support for Taiwan. 

CNN

Here is China’s response to the visit:

China has lashed out at the visit. In a statement following Pelosi’s arrival, China’s Foreign Ministry said the trip would have a “severe impact on the political foundation of China-US relations.”

“China will definitely take all necessary measures to resolutely safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity in response to the US Speaker’s visit,” the statement said. 

A spokesman for China’s Ministry of Defense said the People’s Liberation Army was “on high alert” and would launch “a series of targeted military operations to counteract the situation, resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and resolutely thwart the interference of external forces and ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionist schemes.”

You can read more at the link, but the Chinese military says it will conduct air and sea exercises and live fires in the Taiwan straight in response. Has there ever been a military more scared of a 82 year old woman?

The Chinese are making threats against South Korea again:

South Korea must “act prudently” and preserve the status quo rather than deploy a second U.S.-made missile defense system, a Chinese diplomat said Wednesday on Twitter.

The United States, not South Korea, has a “malicious intention to deliberately undermine” Beijing’s security by deploying another Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system in South Korea, Liu Xiaoming, China’s special envoy to the two Koreas, said in a tweet.

Stars & Stripes

First of all the U.S. has never offered to deploy a 2nd THAAD battery to South Korea. These batteries are very limited and it is doubtful the U.S. would want two of them on the peninsula at the same time. Secondly the Yoon administration during the campaign said they wanted South Korea to purchase its own THAAD battery.

However, they have already backtracked on this because a THAAD is not something you just go to a car dealership and buy. This is a multi-year long acquisitions process to purchase, build the battery, and train personnel for billions of dollars.  This acquisition would take longer than the 5 years Yoon has in office and likely not worth the political capital to make it happen.

The details of why the U.S. government has black listed Chinese owned Huawei telecom equipment has finally leaked out and it worse than I expected it to be:

On paper, it looked like a fantastic deal. In 2017, the Chinese government was offering to spend $100 million to build an ornate Chinese garden at the National Arboretum in Washington DC. Complete with temples, pavilions and a 70-foot white pagoda, the project thrilled local officials, who hoped it would attract thousands of tourists every year.      

But when US counterintelligence officials began digging into the details, they found numerous red flags. The pagoda, they noted, would have been strategically placed on one of the highest points in Washington DC, just two miles from the US Capitol, a perfect spot for signals intelligence collection, multiple sources familiar with the episode told CNN.  

Also alarming was that Chinese officials wanted to build the pagoda with materials shipped to the US in diplomatic pouches, which US Customs officials are barred from examining, the sources said.     

Federal officials quietly killed the project before construction was underway.       

The canceled garden is part of a frenzy of counterintelligence activity by the FBI and other federal agencies focused on what career US security officials say has been a dramatic escalation of Chinese espionage on US soil over the past decade.         

Since at least 2017, federal officials have investigated Chinese land purchases near critical infrastructure, shut down a high-profile regional consulate believed by the US government to be a hotbed of Chinese spies and stonewalled what they saw as clear efforts to plant listening devices near sensitive military and government facilities.    

CNN

You can read more at the link, but the Chinese government is blatantly trying to stop the U.S. military’s ability to respond to a nuclear attack. The obvious conclusion is that the Chinese government must be considering a first strike option with nuclear weapons to put this much effort into preventing a U.S. response. According to the article the Chinese government is playing the race card and blaming all this on xenophobia.

Reading the article had me thinking of the book Ghost Fleet and wondering what other Chinese made technology is out there that could interfere with U.S. military operations during a contingency?