Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[MarkOttawa]

Growing CCP China threat--excerpts from piece at Macdonald-Laurier Institute:

Disruptive innovation in China’s military modernization: Preston Lim for Inside Policy

At the end of August, China’s second aircraft carrier sailed from its shipyard in Dalian, in northeastern China, to commence final sea trials. The 65,000-tonne vessel is China’s first domestically-built carrier and could be fully operational as early as October 2019.  Some have identified technological issues with the ship, but most analysts agree that the PLA Navy (PLAN) is entering a new era: one characterized by force projection rather than mere regional defence.

Many of those writers, while essentially correct, have missed an important point: the aircraft carrier is far from the most important tool in China’s growing armoury. This article applies the theory of disruptive innovation to examine some of the ways in which the Chinese are transforming naval warfare – most notably, through investment in anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities.

China’s military build-up – symbolized most boldly by the carrier construction program – is part and parcel of President Xi Jinping’s articulation of a new “Chinese Dream.” At the 19th Communist Party Congress, held in October 2017, Xi promised to achieve the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” with plans to boast a “world-class army by 2050.” To understand President Xi’s focus on the military, it is important to revisit China’s modern history.

President Xi and other Chinese leaders have tended to see China’s recent record as one of national humiliation. The 19th and 20th centuries were defined by foreign colonial intervention in Chinese domestic affairs, with calamity following calamity: the Opium Wars, the failed Boxer Rebellion, and the Sino-Japanese War, which became part of the Second World War. As late as 1996, the Chinese government was left helpless when American aircraft carriers sailed through the Taiwan Strait with impunity during a spat between China and Taiwan.

Now, the long “century of humiliation” is over. And despite slowing economic growth, caused only in part by the ongoing trade war with America, President Xi remains intent on building a Chinese dream undergirded at least in part by military muscle.

China’s military rejuvenation has, on one hand, come in the form of increased spending, with Beijing boasting a defence budget of $227 billion. Indeed, the sheer number of new naval platforms, with 18 ships commissioned in 2016 alone, is nothing short of incredible. Though naval analysts continue to debate whether or not the PLAN is a “blue-water navy” – i.e., capable of exercising “sea control at long ranges” – China’s force projection capabilities will only improve in coming years.

Yet perhaps a more important criterion of China’s growing military clout is investment in technological development. In other words, to focus on traditional terms of comparison, such as total defence outlays or number of aircraft carriers, would be to obscure a critical aspect of China’s military ascendance. While China has proven capable of domestically producing traditional weapons systems – the J-20 “Chengdu” fifth-generation stealth aircraft, for example, or the Type 001A aircraft carrier currently undergoing sea trials – its real genius lies in its embrace of disruptive innovation...

China has in recent years developed an array of anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles, which would render American operations in the South China Sea difficult in the event of hostilities. Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles, such as the DF-21D or the DF-26, are capable of at least disabling (if not destroying) a super-carrier or its escorts. The recently-commissioned DF-26 has a range of 3000-4000 kilometers and can even reach as far away as US facilities on Guam, making it an ideal weapon to forestall American naval entry into the Western Pacific.

The Chinese have creatively deployed shorter-range anti-ship missiles that would reduce America’s ability to operate freely in the littoral zone...

Anti-ship missiles and a growing submarine fleet are but the most conspicuous items on a long list of A2/AD competencies. The Chinese are developing lasers to disrupt enemy aerial operations, unmanned vehicles, and a range of other complementary capabilities. Such technologies will allow the Chinese military to at least partially offset American military dominance...

Responding to the Chinese missile threat means meeting innovation with innovation. The American military has already pioneered a repertoire of counter-A2/AD systems, including “long-range strike vehicles, hyper-sonic weapons…and submarine launched cruise missiles.”..

...Western analysts will need to pay attention to the right metrics. While China’s capital ships are certainly important, China’s embrace of disruptive innovation will prove far more consequential in the long term. To ensure continued relevance, the United States and its alliance partners will likewise need to prioritize continual and disruptive innovation.

Preston Lim is a graduate of the Schwarzman Scholars program and received his Master’s in Global Affairs from Tsinghua University.
https://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/disruptive-innovation-chinas-military-modernization-preston-lim-inside-policy/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Excerpts from very cogent piece:

Is China Waiting Us Out?
While the U.S. bombs, Xi Jinping is building—one power play at a time.

The one constant in recent U.S. foreign policy—regardless of which party occupies the White House or controls Congress—is that it prioritizes military intervention, both covert and overt, to advance its interests overseas.

...With a continued troop presence in Afghanistan and Syria, a looming conflict with Iran, and even talk of an intervention in Venezuela, Trump is keeping the U.S. on its perpetual wartime footing.

This is good news for Beijing, whose own foreign policy could not be more different. Rather than embracing a reactive and short-sighted approach that all too often ignores second- and third-order consequences, the Chinese strategy appears cautious and long-ranging. Its policymakers and technocrats think and plan in terms of decades, not months. And those plans, for now, are focused more on building than bombing.

This is not to say that China’s foreign policy is altruistic—it is certainly not. It is designed to cement China’s role as a great power by ensnaring as many countries as possible in its economic web. China is playing the long game while Washington expends resources and global political capital on wars it cannot win...

While the Chinese have been in a hurry to rebuild and modernize their country, they seem content to wait out foreign policy problems even if it takes a generation or two. One can see how this approach worked with Hong Kong and may in time ensure an upper hand with Taiwan. Sometimes doing nothing equates to doing more. In America it’s the opposite: both Republican and Democratic administrations have let present domestic problems fester while pursuing expensive, reactionary military policies abroad.

In contrast to Washington’s military-first approach, China’s signature foreign policy project today is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a critical component of its decades-long effort to restore its global power status. The BRI, which is well underway, is an attempt to spread China’s influence through investment projects in upwards of 68 counties along the old Silk Road connecting Europe to Asia by land and by sea via the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” component...

Right now the biggest threat to that [China's] success is internal. Endemic corruption, insufficient rule of law, environmental destruction, a looming demographic shift, and ever-increasing economic inequality are all serious issues. In a country of 1.4 billion people, any one of those problems, much less all of them combined, could scuttle China’s rise. Its leadership, most especially Xi, appears to comprehend the gravity of these issues...

Even if the U.S. lurches to the left in the coming election cycles, the Chinese have little to fear. Interventionism is likely to remain the default response of U.S. policymakers, regardless of which party occupies the White House. And, it may just be its Achilles heel...

Michael Horton is a foreign policy analyst who has written for numerous publications, including Intelligence Review, West Point CTC Sentinel, The Economist, The National Interest, and The Christian Science Monitor.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/is-china-waiting-us-out/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Journeyman]

Excerpts from very cogent piece:

Is China Waiting Us Out?
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/is-china-waiting-us-out/

The entire article is very much worth reading  :nod:

Thank you.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Wake up, Canadians:

Learning from Australia about China’s Influence Activities: New MLI Commentary

For over a decade, Australia has been in the Chinese Communist Party’s crosshairs in the form of political influence activities. The Australian public is becoming more aware of this reality in large part due to the work of Clive Hamilton – author of the best-selling book Silent Invasion: China’s Influence in Australia.

However, Canadians remain largely ignorant to the fact that Beijing is increasingly attempting to infiltrate and influence our political, social, and economic systems. What should we be doing to prevent and protect against these sorts of operations?

To shed light on this issue, MLI has released a new commentary titled "China’s Influence Activities: What Canada can learn from Australia" ( https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/files/pdf/201801026_Commentary_Hamilton_FWeb.pdf ). Based on remarks by Clive Hamilton at an MLI panel event, this commentary examines the strategy, tactics, and reasons behind China’s influence operations. It offers a compelling and sobering analysis of the Australian experience and provides lessons for Canada as we begin to face similar challenges.

“Canada’s place in the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) strategic map of the world is as important as Australia’s in its own way,” writes Hamilton. “It too has been subject to a ‘full court press’ of influence operations.”

The main threat identified in the commentary is that Beijing has been working to sway elite opinion, attempting to get decision-makers in Western countries to conform with the Communist Party’s agenda.

“The CCP has built a complex network of agencies tasked with exerting influence abroad. The agencies deploy sophisticated techniques to influence, persuade, and coerce others to act in ways approved by Beijing. The techniques have been refined over decades and are far more extensive, intrusive, and secretive than those used by other nations.”

Through front groups, business associations, cultural and religious groups, and much more, Beijing works to influence the Chinese diaspora community and the target country’s opinion leaders. The CCP’s influence campaign has yielded dividends for Beijing, although Australia is pushing back.

Hamilton identifies new laws against foreign interference as a useful first step. Other measures, such as tighter rules on foreign investment into critical infrastructure like 5G telecommunications technology, are needed to counter future threats.

However, Hamilton argues that Australia and indeed much of the West are still far away from an institutionalized mindset of “China-vigilance,” which is necessary to rebuff the CCP’s sustained attempts to influence, interfere, and subdue.

“There is much work [to do] before we can be confident that our sovereignty and democratic processes are no longer subject to unwelcome foreign influence.”

To learn more about Chinese influence operations in Australia and what Canada can learn from Australia’s experience, read Clive Hamilton’s full commentary here.

***
Clive Hamilton is an Australian author and public intellectual. Since 2008, he has been Professor of Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University in Canberra.
https://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/learning-australia-chinas-influence-activities-mli-commentary/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

More:

China threatens the democratic world order—and Canada can’t be a weak link
Opinion: Despite our allies’ warnings, Ottawa isn’t taking the threat of authoritarian China seriously. That could be disastrous.
https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/china-poses-a-challenge-to-the-democratic-world-order-and-canada-cant-be-a-weak-link/

China’s silent invasion of Western universities: Christian Leuprecht in the Toronto Star
https://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/china-silent-invasion-universities-leuprecht-star/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Quite a few people are now saying China has already effectively won control of South China Sea:

China Has Built ‘Great Wall of SAMs’ In Pacific: US Adm. Davidson
From militarized atolls in the South China Sea to a growing Chinese navy looking increasingly aggressive, the head of the Indo-Pacom command lays out his needs and concerns.

HALIFAX: By turning reefs and atolls in the disputed South China Sea into fortified artificial islands, complete with anti-aircraft Surface-to-Air Missiles, China has transformed “what was a great wall of sand just three years ago [into] a great wall of SAMs,” the US commander in the Pacific said here today.

The militarization of the vital waterway for commercial shipping has been a major concern of Washington and its Asian neighbors for the past several years. But China’s increasingly aggressive challenges of American naval vessels operating in what the US and its allies consider international waters — including a near collision of two ships in September — raises the specter of a deadly accident that might escalate into war. And if a war breaks out, the island bases become a strategic southward extension of China’s land-based defense against US ships and planes, known in the trade as Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD).

As China builds more warships for its navy and continues to militarize its coast guard, Beijing has already dwarfed the fleet the United States can commit to the region, at least if you’re counting the number of hulls in the water. (Many of the Chinese ships are smaller, shorter-range coastal vessels, however). So, after the chief of Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), Adm. Philip Davidson, spoke to the annual Halifax Security Conference here, I asked him how he plans to keep up.

“We need a bigger Navy,” he said, noting how Navy leaders have repeatedly called for growing the fleet from 286 ships today to a 355-ship fleet. As the Chinese fleet continues to grow, he told me, “the capacity concern is going to become a greater concern in years to come.”..
https://breakingdefense.com/2018/11/china-has-built-great-wall-of-sams-in-pacific-us-adm-davidson/

Good luck with the funding.

Plus:

The End of U.S. Naval Dominance in [East] Asia
...
The rapid rise of the Chinese Navy has challenged U.S. maritime dominance throughout East Asian waters. The United States, though, has not been able to fund a robust shipbuilding plan that could maintain the regional security order and compete effectively with China’s naval build-up. The resulting transformation of the balance of power has led to fundamental changes in U.S. acquisitions and defense strategy. Nonetheless, the United States has yet to come to terms with its diminished influence in East Asia.

The New Balance of Power in East Asia

In early 2017, the Chinese Navy had 328 ships. It now possesses nearly 350 ships and is already larger than the U.S. Navy. China is the largest ship-producing country in the world and at current production rates could soon operate 400 ships. It commissions nearly three submarines each year, and in two years will have more than 70 in its fleet. The Chinese Navy also operates growing numbers of cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and corvettes, all equipped with long-range anti-ship cruise missiles. Between 2013 and 2016, China commissioned more than 30 modern corvettes. At current rates, China could have 430 surface ships and 100 submarines within the next 15 years.

According to the RAND Corporation, China’s fleet is also now more modern, based on contemporary standards of ship production. In 2010, less than 50 percent of Chinese ships were “modern;” in 2017, over 70 percent were modern. China’s diesel submarines are increasingly quiet and challenge U.S. anti-submarine capabilities. China’s ship-launched and air-launched anti-ship cruise missiles possess significant range and stealth and are guided by increasingly sophisticated targeting technologies. China’s Navy now poses a significant challenge to the U.S. surface fleet. Moreover, its DF21C and DF26 conventional intermediate-range ballistic missiles also pose a challenge to U.S. assets in the region, and can target U.S. maritime facilities in South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, and Guam.

Despite the growth of the Chinese Navy, the United States retains maritime superiority throughout East Asia. But the trend is what matters and the trend is less rosy. In early 2018, the size of the active U.S. fleet was 280 ships. Going forward, according to the Congressional Budget Office, if the Navy’s budget is the average of its budget over the prior 30 years in real dollars and it maintains its aircraft carrier and ballistic submarine construction schedules, in 12 years the active naval fleet will decline to 237 ships. In six years, the U.S. submarine fleet will decline to 48 ships, and in eleven years the number of U.S. attack submarines will decline to 41 ships.

Both the Navy and the White House have pushed to grow the U.S. fleet, but budgets have not kept pace with their plans...

The combination of China’s rising naval capabilities, the PLA’s ability to target U.S. naval access to regional maritime facilities, and declining alliance cooperation has compelled the United States to adjust its security policy to contend with emerging Chinese war-fighting capabilities within East Asian seas—the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea.

The U.S. Navy is relying on technology to compensate for declining ship numbers. It is developing longer-range anti-ship cruise missiles to contend with China’s anti-ship cruise missiles, and longer-range torpedoes to contend with China’s submarine fleet. It is developing “dispersed lethality” capabilities to contend with the quantity of Chinese ships and their ability to “swarm” against U.S. ships. It is also developing directed energy and long-range hypersonic railgun technologies. Most significant, the Navy is focused on developing large quantities of drones as its long-term solution to declining ship numbers. It is developing and testing undersea anti-submarine and anti-mine drones, miniature reconnaissance drones that can operate in large numbers to allow simultaneous targeting of multiple Chinese platforms, carrier-based attack drones and refueling drones, air-launched electronic warfare drones, and unmanned surface vessels for minesweeping operations and anti-submarine warfare.

The United States now faces a future without assured access to the South China Sea and U.S. naval facilities in the region...
https://www.lawfareblog.com/end-us-naval-dominance-asia

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

From 2016, USN's Boeing MQ-25 Stingray aerial tanker drone--not/not strike UCAC--is supposed to alleviate range problem (when it gets into service https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/08/30/us-navy-selects-builder-for-new-mq-25-stingray-aerial-refueling-drone/)

War Between the Dragon and the Eagle: USN Carriers up to It?

Further to this post (note “Comments”),

    RAND on War Between the Dragon and the Eagle https://mark3ds.wordpress.com/2016/08/02/mark-collins-rand-on-war-between-the-dragon-and-the-eagle/


the carriers’ future capabilities are questioned (both the people quoted are retired naval officers):

    'The US Navy Is Now Facing Its Greatest Fear: Obsolete Aircraft Carriers?

    If the United States Navy is either unwilling or unable to conceptualize a carrier air wing that can fight on the first day of a high-end conflict, then the question becomes: Why should the American taxpayer shell out $13 billion for a Ford-class carrier?

    That’s the potent question being raised by naval analysts in Washington—noting that there are many options that the Navy could pursue including a stealthy new long-range, carrier-based unmanned combat aircraft or a much heavier investment in submarines [emphasis added]. However, the current short-range Boeing F/A-18 Hornet-based air wing is not likely to be sufficient in the 2030s even with the addition of the longer ranged Lockheed Martin F-35C Joint Strike Fighter.

    “If these carriers can’t do that first day lethal strike mission inside an A2/AD bubble, why are we paying $13 billion dollars for them?” asks Jerry Hendrix [see here], director of the Defense Strategies and Assessments Program at the Center for a New American Security [see here], during an interview with The National Interest. “There are people making that statement: ‘it’s not our job on day one’—they can say there are all these other missions—presence and show-the-flag—but if that’s where they fit, their price ought to be scaled to that.”

    To justify the expense of the carrier, and to keep them relevant, the U.S. Navy needs to revamp the composition of the carrier air wing so that it can participate in countering anti-access/area denial bubbles on the first day of combat, Hendrix said. The Navy must develop a new, long-range, unmanned strike aircraft that can counter those emerging threats, “Otherwise, what’s the point?” Hendrix asked. “If you’re not willing to make the shift in investment to have an asset that can do long-range strike from the carrier, perhaps we need to look at investing elsewhere [see “New US Navy Drones: UCLASS to be Tankers Not Recon/Strike?“].”

    Bryan McGrath [see here], managing director of the naval consultancy FerryBridge Group, agreed with Hendrix. “The case for the carrier will suffer if the Navy drags its feet on what comes next in the air wing,” he told The National Interest—also advocating for the development of a new carrier-based long-range unmanned strike aircraft. “Always remember—the carrier doesn’t care what it launches and recovers. It is just a floating airport. The air wing is the key. Get the air wing wrong—or continue to—and yes, the CVN investment makes less sense.”

    While many within senior Navy leadership know and understand the problem—the protracted and expensive development of the Lockheed Martin F-35 has left the Navy gun-shy. “The plain truth is that the F-35 acquisition has negatively reinforced learned behavior in naval aviation acquisition. There is real fear in what you hear acquisition officials saying in why they want to slow-roll UCLASS into a tanker/ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] platform rather than a rangy, semi-stealthy, striker,” McGrath said. “Of course the tanking and the ISR are important… But they are additive to what is already in the Joint architecture. What the Joint architecture lacks is mobile, semi-stealthy, long-range strike. Utterly lacks it. But the technical challenges are judged to be more difficult than those associated with an ISR/Tanker bird, and there is no appetite or stomach—or any other appropriate noun—within the acquisition community to take on tough technical challenges.”..'
https://mark3ds.wordpress.com/2016/08/05/mark-collins-war-between-the-dragon-and-the-eagle-usn-carriers-up-to-it/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Half Full]

Here's an article on Chinese near monopoly on rare earth metals.  It would appear they are using their economic chessman-ship to screw the US militarily.
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/11/china-beating-us-rare-earths-game/152674/?oref=d-dontmiss

 

[MarkOttawa]

RAND on PLA aerospace vs US:

Defeat, Not Merely Compete
China's View of Its Military Aerospace Goals and Requirements in Relation to the United States

Over the past two decades, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) has made rapid advances in building up new capabilities and operational concepts. Aerospace power has been a core feature of the PLA's rapid modernization. In particular, since 2004, the PLA Air Force has pursued a service strategy aimed at developing the capacity to "simultaneously prosecute offensive and defensive integrated air and space operations." This report explores the extent to which the desire to "compete" with the U.S. Air Force (or other advanced air forces) shapes PLA thinking about the development of military aerospace power. It examines how China selects between the options of "copying" foreign powers and "innovating" its own solutions to various operational military problems, as well as which areas China chooses to not compete in at all.

Key Findings

PLA's goal is to defeat, not merely compete

    The main driver for Chinese military aerospace power development is the PLA's view that it needs to be prepared to deter and, if necessary, defeat the United States in a high-end clash.

    The PLA appears to copy foreign militaries when it can find low-cost hardware, organizational, or operational concepts that it can adapt from abroad to solve the operational challenges it confronts. In contrast, when foreign capabilities or organizational practices are irrelevant to Chinese military aerospace problem sets, the PLA either innovates its own solution or declines to replicate the foreign capability (although it does continue to track and study these).

    The PLA appears not to compete in certain areas because it does not need certain capabilities to accomplish its directed mission, or it has other means to address the military problem at hand.

Recommendations

    The USAF should understand the advances that China is making in specific domains related to ISR, strategic and tactical lift, and strike platforms and assets as well as power projection in and through space and against space-based satellite architectures.

    In addition, the USAF should monitor a range of other PLA investments and changes, including in the realms of doctrine, organization, training, manpower, logistics, procurement, and facilities.

Table of Contents
...
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2588.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[CBH99]

China doesn't need to compete head-to-head in all avenues of military projection, because they aren't the ones sailing to the other side of the world looking for a fight. 

They don't need to put the same emphasis on tanker support, long range airborne ISR, blue-water power projection, etc etc to the SAME EXTENT as the USA, because they are fighting from home.  Fighting from their own shores, or close to them.  Launching ships and aircraft from, at most, perhaps a few hundred miles away.


And in a military confrontation with China...who really wins, militarily? 

Let's say the US surges submarines, aircraft carriers, and high-end surface assets that quickly gain dominance in their area.  They take out Chinese fighter aircraft & ISR assets, sink enough of their subs that they gain undersea dominance, and sink enough PLAN surface vessels that the USN can operately relatively freely. 

They take out the artificial islands - which won't be hard at all, as a few well placed missile strikes against the airfields & offensive missile sites essentially make those islands fairly useless. 


Now what?  The USN is supposed to patrol there forever, to cement their global empire?  Prevent China from building new ships, and new aircraft, to replace their losses? 

And what happens when China (the world's most populous country) rebuilds some aircraft fleets & naval fleets...which, with their industrial base, doesn't take long.  Now what?  The whole thing kicks off again, because China still wants to control what amounts to their own Caribbean sea?  The South China Sea even has China in it's bloody name for crying out loud.


The PLAN doesn't need to compete in every avenue with the USN.  Or the USAF.  It has no need to, as it isn't trying to surge it's forces into the Gulf of Mexico.  It just needs to focus on long range weapon systems that keep the USN as far away as possible, and create enough of a brutal deterrent 'bubble' that any USN asset cursed enough to be ordered into the arena is promptly destroyed.

The PLAN and PLAAF know this.  The USN probably knows this too.  US politicians (in which I don't know of hardly any that are in favour/support of economic or military warfare against China) seem to be the ones who haven't figured out it's a losing war, even if you win a few opening battles.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Start of related earlier AvWeek article:

China’s Growing Ability To Drive Away U.S. Forces

If there is a theme to China’s military developments, it is pushing the adversary back. A vast and growing assembly of sensors and weapons is the modern expression of what the former Soviet Union called a reconnaissance-strike complex. The targets are ships, submarines and bases in the Western Pacific, most obviously the U.S. Navy’s ships, its base on Guam and the U.S. Air Force facilities on that Pacific island. The message: Go away.

The same idea of pushing back appears in the field of air combat, in which the PL-XX missile has such obviously long range that commanders may have to pull vulnerable support aircraft away from the enemy.

The Soviet Union could never focus like this. Warding off the seaward threat from the U.S. was only one major military task for Moscow in the Cold War. For China, intent on having a free hand in dealing with Taiwan, driving U.S. forces from the Western Pacific has become the core of strategy.

Focus brings results. Year after year, China introduces new systems to find, track and attack U.S. targets beyond the first chain of islands to its east; year after year, the deployed numbers rise. The resources China spends facing other directions are modest by comparison. The U.S., like the former Soviet Union, has other priorities; it cannot put the bulk of its military effort into dealing with the one problem of maintaining access to East Asia.

“China is developing a dense, overlapping set of strike capabilities, including anti-ship ballistic missiles, anti-ship and land-attack cruise missiles, strike aircraft, surface combatants, submarines, aircraft carriers, etc., etc.” says analyst Dean Cheng of the Heritage Foundation in Washington. The overlapping of capabilities is important: China is generally not relying on any one method to deal with any one kind of target.

- The effort is broad and deep, not based on any one system
- Reconnaissance systems and weapons advance together

The strike capabilities are complemented by an equally dense and overlapping intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance network. Cheng says this could allow China to monitor the air, sea, sub-surface and space domains out to the second island chain: Guam, the Marianas and Australia. The ability to do so within the first island chain—Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia—is already in place.

If all this keeps the U.S. at bay, not only will Taiwan’s freedom be imperiled. Other neighbors of China may have to bend to the will of the nationalist, authoritarian government in Beijing. Excluding the U.S. from the Western Pacific would also prevent it from fulfilling treaty obligations to protect Japan...

http://www.thefifthcolumn.xyz/Forum/viewthread.php?tid=32&page=10#pid12727

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Parts of our government being more forthright than others:

Agencies cite spy threat to crucial networks

Canadian companies should watch out when they use technology supplied by state-owned companies from countries that want to steal corporate secrets, the country's security agencies have warned them.

The RCMP organized two workshops last March — one in Calgary, the other in Toronto — to raise awareness about threats to critical systems, including espionage and foreign interference, cyberattacks, terrorism and sabotage, newly disclosed documents show.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service materials prepared for the workshops advise that "non-likeminded countries," state-owned enterprises and affiliated companies are engaged in a global pursuit of technology and know-how driven by economic and military ambitions.

The materials were released to The Canadian Press in response to an access-to-information request.

The heavily censored records do not go into detail about specific countries. But the presentation does include a passage from a 2017 U.S. government report saying competitors such as China steal American intellectual property valued at hundreds of billions of dollars every year.

In addition, CSIS openly warned in 2016 that Russia and China were targeting Canada's classified information and advanced technology, as well as government officials and systems.

The presentations to industry dissected techniques used by adversaries and offered advice on protecting confidential information and assets.

The intelligence community's concerns emerge as Canada considers allowing Chinese firm Huawei Technologies to take part in developing a 5G telecommunications network.

Former security officials in Canada and two members of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence have warned against such a move, saying the company's ties to Beijing could compromise the security of Canada and its closest allies. Huawei has denied engaging in intelligence work on behalf of any government.

The workshops led by the RCMP's critical infrastructure team highlighted the problem of "supply chain vulnerability" — a back-door tactic to infiltrate systems.

The RCMP did not respond to questions about the sessions. CSIS spokesman John Townsend said the concerns stem from cases where equipment and related computerized control systems and services are manufactured and installed by companies controlled by or affiliated with a foreign government.

"These foreign governments may pursue not only profitable commercial objectives but may also try to advance their own broader and potentially adverse strategic and economic interests," he said.

The tactics could include gaining influence and leverage over the host country, espionage, technology theft and malicious cyberactivities, Townsend added.

The security presentations also warned of "spear-phishing" attempts by hostile forces to gain access to computer systems through emails that fool employees into giving up passwords or other sensitive data.

The agencies encouraged companies working on leading-edge research to take stock of protective measures and develop a corporate security plan to manage risks. For instance, scientists should consult corporate security about precautions when outside delegations visit.

"If you detect suspicious activity, contact authorities," the presentation materials say. "All infrastructure sectors should remain engaged with RCMP and CSIS to share security intelligence."

Patrick Smyth, vice-president of performance at the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, said security is "top of mind" for member companies, which share information and help each other ensure they are prepared for emerging hazards and threats.

Cyberattacks are an evolving threat, but not a new one for pipeline operators, he said in an interview.

"They've been looking at it for a number of years and tracking the evolution around the sophistication of bad actors who might wish to find entry points into individual companies, and take over control of certain elements of the infrastructure and cause damage," he said.

If a state-owned enterprise is looking to acquire an asset, "these companies have programs, checks and balances in place to address that."

Pipeline operators receive intelligence from the RCMP, CSIS, the federal natural-resources and public-safety departments and U.S. agencies, Smyth added. However, he sees a place for the awareness workshops, saying any "additional source of information and intelligence is helpful."
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/agencies-cite-spy-threat-to-crucial-networks/ar-BBQ4F15?li=AA521o

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Where might China be watching (note Canadian angle near end)?

Stop China’s Infiltration of US Railroads

America shouldn’t be buying Chinese railcars, ceding control of its rail industry, or injecting spyware-laden rolling stock into its transportation network.

A myriad of problems has led to a “surprising level of foreign dependence on competitor nations,” according to the White House’s long-awaited report on the severe challenges facing our manufacturing and defense industrial base. A look at one field — manufacturing the railroad cars that carry America’s commuters and freight — reveals growing dangers that demand urgent action.

Transportation is among the priority sectors under the Made in China 2025 industrial policy, which aims to help Chinese firms in various sectors reach the highest levels of the global manufacturing chain. In the business of railcars, the banner is being carried by China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation, a massive state-owned conglomerate with deep ties to the Communist Party of China.

CRRC has set up two U.S. subsidiaries — CRRC MA in Massachusetts and CRRC Sifang Americas in Chicago — and pursues U.S. contracts with predatory zeal. Since 2014, the company has been awarded four contracts totaling $2.5 billion to build metro cars for the cities of Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles. In each case, CRRC used massive subsidies and other resources from the Chinese government to dramatically underbid its competitors —regularly by 20 percent or more. In one case, the Chinese bid was half as much as another competitor. To have any company consistently come in so low is unheard of.

It is clear that these bids aim not for short-term profit, but medium-term market domination. The pattern was set in Australia, where it took less than a decade for China to gain control of the freight-railcar market. A recently deleted tweet by CRRC boasted that the company controls 83 percent of the global rail market and asked followers, “How long will it take for us conquering [sic] the remaining 17 percent?”

But the increasing presence of made-in-China rolling stock on North American rails means more than the loss of manufacturing jobs. Modern railcars are not just boxes on wheels, but full-fledged parts of the Internet of Things that soak up and transmit information.

The commuter trains manufactured by CRRC will contain Wi-Fi systems, automatic train control, automatic passenger counters, surveillance cameras and internet-of-things technology that will be deeply integrated into the information and communication technology infrastructure of transit authorities, all sole-sourced from a Chinese state-owned enterprise. Chinese surveillance cameras could track the movements and routines of passengers, searching for high-value targets from whose devices intelligence officials can vacuum data from using the train’s Wi-Fi systems. This is not an unrealistic prospect. Already, China is openly developing a system of “algorithmic surveillance” that uses advances in artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology to enable the Chinese Communist Party to monitor the movements and patterns of its own citizens, purportedly to fight crime.

The risks are even sharper in freight cars, whose onboard GPS systems and telematics monitor the contents and health of trains carrying sensitive cargo such as toxic chemicals and military equipment. If China is allowed to insert its railcars into U.S. freight networks, it could give Beijing early and reliable warning about U.S. military mobilization and logistical preparations for conflict. It could also give China a destabilizing economic competitive edge, by detecting, say, shortages of critical material such as oil or chlorine gas based on a change in their movements on freight railroads.

As well, Chinese internet-connected products on U.S. rails could be designed to be more susceptible to cyber-attack or hacking by third parties, as has been done with numerous other products.

While CRRC has yet to produce any freight railcars for the U.S. market, it is clearly on their radar. In 2014, CRRC launched a now-defunct joint venture with an American firm in Wilmington, North Carolina to build freight cars, but shuttered the facility before filling any orders following rounds of layoffs and a federal investigation into Vertex’s ties to the Chinese government. They have also already begun making inroads in Canada with the establishment of a freight railcar assembly facility in Moncton, New Brunswick [emphasis added]. Should CRRC shift its focus to freight in the United States, it is likely that CRRC would underbid any American competitors and quickly start to dominate the country’s freight railcar fleet.

U.S. lawmakers have recognized and taken steps to address similar threats to products such as computer chips, drones, and cellular technology, and indeed, both chambers of Congress recently passed a ban on federal funding from going to CRRC. Yet policymakers may not fully understand the scope or impact of China’s incursion into an increasingly digitized rail network. CRRC is likely to continue to win contracts without federal funding and the security of the trains already being built will continue to remain in question. There may not be a silver bullet to this problem, but it’s time for our nation’s leaders to put an end to CRRC’s infiltration of the U.S. rail manufacturing industry by developing comprehensive solutions to ensure the integrity of our nation’s transportation systems. Nothing stands in their way.
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/11/stop-chinas-infiltration-us-railroads/153025/

From 2016 on Canadian angle:

Moncton lands new rail car manufacturing plant
ARS Canada Rolling Stock will build rail cars at old Hump Yard, employ up to 700

News of a major influx of jobs for Moncton spilled out not from a government announcement but an exclusive report by Radio-Canada on Thursday, with an American-based company saying it will begin producing rail cars at the city's Hump Yard.

Radio-Canada reports Miami-based ARS Canada Rolling Stock plans to start production of grain hoppers, box cars and TC-117 rail cars in Moncton, saying it will create 200 jobs in the first phase of production.

TC-117 rail cars will replace the DOT-111s which were involved in the 2013 Lac-Mégantic disaster, and are being phased out of use by Nov. 1 because of regulations imposed by Transport Canada...

The company plans to produce 1,500 rail cars to be used in the Canadian and U.S. markets within the first year of production...

The province has not responded to questions about how much, if any, public money is being given to ARS.

Contreras told CBC details of its agreement with the Gallant government to bring ARS to Moncton will be revealed at an announcement in October [2016]...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/moncton-rail-car-train-jobs-1.3784247

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

This has been flying pretty much under, er, the aviation business rada--excerpts, note Canadian angle:

ANALYSIS: How China investment changes fortunes of Western firms

What do a pair of seating manufacturers, four light aircraft manufacturers, an aerostructures specialist, and one of Europe's top maintenance, repair and overhaul houses have in common? They are among around a dozen Western aerospace companies that now effectively have the name of a Chinese owner over the door.

China – the biggest emerging market for commercial aviation products and services – has been busily creating its own indigenous industry over the past 20 years, attracting investment from Airbus, Boeing, Embraer and others. However, at the same time, money has been flowing the other way in arguably even greater amounts, creating a mini Chinese aerospace empire in the USA and Europe.

Earlier this decade, Chinese entities bought US GA brands Cirrus Aviation, Enstrom Helicopter, and Mooney. In the past two years, the focus has switched to Europe, with Austria's Diamond Aircraft, Gardner Aerospace of the UK, and Switzerland's SR Technics all coming under Chinese control, together with UK cabin interiors specialists Acro, AIM Altitude, and Thompson Aero Seating.

The background to each of the acquisitions differs. Most of the Western firms have been family-owned or backed by equity holders keen to exit at a profit. The Chinese investors range from private entrepreneurs to state-backed conglomerates making strategic additions to their portfolios.

Their game plans differ too...

Another Chinese name better known in the aviation world has also been expanding its footprint in the cabin interiors market. Two years after buying Bournemouth-based premium cabin monuments specialist AIM Altitude and Northern Ireland's Thompson Aero Seating, AVIC announced at July's Farnborough air show that it is merging them into a new unit called AVIC Cabin Systems.

The division will also include a Chinese seat-maker and cabin fixtures manufacturer FACC of Austria, which AVIC has owned for almost a decade. According to Richard Bower, chief executive of AIM Altitude, the combined entity will allow the companies to merge their capabilities.

Although each business will remain independent, there will be "some co-ordination" in terms of research and development and customer marketing...

Perhaps the most significant Chinese acquisition of the past 12 months has been the sale of a majority stake in Diamond Aircraft of Austria – a business that includes a sister company in Canada [emphasis added] and the Austro engine manufacturer – to Wanfeng Aviation by founder Christian Dries. Dries described Diamond – a small business that he bought in the early 1990s and turned into one of the world's biggest producers of training aircraft – as "my life’s work".

New chief executive Frank Zhang says Wanfeng did not "buy Diamond simply as an investment opportunity" but because it could develop the company into "the leading brand and producer of fixed-wing light aircraft in the general and business aviation market, but also in the fields of special mission".

Interestingly, Diamond’s strategy under Dries had been for the past few years to move steadily into the higher-margin special missions market, and away from the more price-sensitive flying school sector. Israel's Aeronautics, for instance, uses Diamond's DA42 platform as the platform for its Dominator unmanned surveillance air vehicle. At the Farnborough air show, Diamond debuted the latest version of its aerobatic trainer, the Dart 550.

Having a Chinese company owning a manufacturer of aircraft marketed to military customers has not met with any objections from the Austrian or Canadian governments, insists Wanfeng [emphasis added]. "Since the takeover, we have not experienced one single situation reflecting to the new ownership and can say that there is no impact on any business of Diamond," it says. All research and development activities will remain in Austria.

US AMBITIONS...
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/analysis-how-china-investment-changes-fortunes-of-w-452097/

Plane made by Diamond Aircraft of London, Ont.:

https://www.diamondaircraft.com/aircraft/special-mission-aircraft/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[dapaterson]

Canada has arrested the CFO of Huawei, who is the daughter of the founder.  She is facing extradition to the US.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4733360/huawei-cfo-wanzhou-meng-arrest-extradition/?utm_medium=Twitter&utm_source=%40globalbc

Wanzhou Meng, who also goes by Sabrina Meng, was arrested in Vancouver on Saturday, Dec. 1, Department of Justice Canada spokesperson Ian McLeod told Global News.

He said Meng faces extradition to the U.S., and that a bail hearing has been set for Friday.


“As there is a publication ban in effect, we cannot provide any further detail at this time,” McLeod said. He added that the publication ban was sought by Meng.

Huawei has not responded to Global News’ request for comment.

EDIT to add: The Guardian reports the arrest is associated with Huawei's alleged violation of US export restrictions to Iran. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/05/meng-wanzhou-huawei-cfo-arrested-vancouver

 

[MarkOttawa]

CSIS director goes very public on current threats, without naming China or Huawei (note naive universities):

CSIS director warns of state-sponsored espionage threat to 5G networks

Canada’s top spy used his first public speech to warn of increasing state-sponsored espionage through technology such as next-generation 5G mobile networks.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service director David Vigneault’s comments come as three of the country’s Five Eyes intelligence-sharing allies have barred wireless carriers from installing equipment made by China’s Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. in the 5G infrastructure they are building to provide an even-more-connected network for smartphone users.

The United States, Australia and New Zealand have taken steps to block the use of Huawei equipment in 5G networks. Neither Canada nor Britain has done so.

On Monday, the head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6, publicly raised security concerns about Huawei telecommunications being involved in his country’s communications infrastructure.

Both Canada and Britain are conducting security reviews of the Chinese company’s 5G technology.

Speaking Tuesday in Toronto at the Economic Club of Canada, CSIS’s Mr. Vigneault told a business audience that hostile states are targeting large companies and universities to obtain new technologies. He refrained from naming any particular country, company or university.

“Many of these advanced technologies are dual-use in nature in that they could advance a country’s economic, security and military interests,” he told an audience of about 100 people.

Mr. Vigneault said there are five potential growth areas in Canada that are being specifically threatened, including 5G mobile technology where Huawei has been making inroads.

“CSIS has seen a trend of state-sponsored espionage in fields that are crucial to Canada’s ability to build and sustain a prosperous, knowledge-based economy,” he said. “I’m talking about areas such as AI [artificial intelligence], quantum technology, 5G, biopharma and clean tech. In other words, the foundation of Canada’s future growth.”

Mr. Vigneault said large corporations typically hold the most valuable information but they try to put in state-of-the-art cyberdefences, while Canadian universities are largely unaware how they are vulnerable to economic espionage and the threat of infiltration by unnamed state actors who would use their expertise to gain an edge in military technologies. Huawei has developed research and development partnerships with many of Canada’s leading academic institutions [emphasis added]...

Canada and Britain have so far resisted the U.S. lobbying campaign and risk facing restrictions on what sensitive intelligence from allies is shared with them.

Speaking Monday in Scotland, MI6′s Alex Younger said Britain has to make a decision about Huawei after the United States, Australia and New Zealand acted against the Shenzhen-based company.

“We need to decide the extent to which we are going to be comfortable with Chinese ownership of these technologies and these platforms in an environment where some of our allies have taken very definite positions,” Mr. Younger told students at the University of St. Andrews...

Chinese law requires companies in China to “support, co-operate with and collaborate in national intelligence work” as requested by Beijing. Huawei Canada vice-president Scott Bradley has told The Globe and Mail that the company is not a national security threat and its “highest priority is – and always has been – the security and privacy of networks that we help to equip here in Canada.”

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told The Globe on Tuesday that officials are weighing “very carefully” the security challenges of safeguarding Canada’s telecommunications network from any potential threat from Huawei’s 5G technology...

A ban would come as a blow to Canada’s biggest telecom companies, including BCE Inc. and Telus, which have given Huawei an important role in their planned 5G networks. BCE and Telus have declined to comment on a Wall Street Journal report that the United States has asked telecom executives in allied countries to forgo Huawei 5G equipment...
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-canadas-spy-chief-warns-about-state-sponsored-espionage-through/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Getting ready for Weltmacht:

China says 8,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping standby force is ready

AP

BEIJING – China said Thursday it has assembled a standby force of thousands of United Nations peacekeepers, furthering its leading role in the global body’s efforts to tamp down conflicts worldwide.

Defense Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang told reporters at a monthly briefing that the 8,000-member force had passed an assessment last month approved by U.N. Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix. That fulfills a pledge made at the U.N. three years ago by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

China provides the most peacekeepers of any permanent U.N. Security Council member and is the second-largest contributor to the operations’ multibillion-dollar budget, at slightly over 10 percent. The United States is the largest contributor to peacekeeping, but deploys only 50 officers to U.N. missions.

China has also trained more than 1,500 peacekeepers from more than a dozen countries, Ren said.

“The Chinese military is fulfilling its responsibility to safeguard world peace and building a community of shared future for mankind with concrete actions,” Ren said. China was ready to both increase the number of peacekeepers it contributes as well as their particular skill sets, Ren said...

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/11/30/asia-pacific/china-says-8000-strong-u-n-peacekeeping-standby-force-ready/#.XAmR1-J7mM9

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Retired AF Guy]

From Politico, but originally posted in the South China Morning Post. Looks like Canada could be targeted by China because of he Wanzhou arrest.

Beijing threatens Canada with ‘grave consequences for hurting feelings of Chinese people’

By ZHOU XIN | SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST and KEEGAN ELMER | SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

12/09/2018 11:24 AM EST

This story is being published for POLITICO as part of a content partnership with the South China Morning Post. It originally appeared on scmp.com on Dec. 9, 2018.

China has ratcheted up the pressure on Canada to release the detained executive of Huawei Technologies over the weekend by threatening “grave consequences” and accusing Canada of “hurting the feelings of the Chinese people,” escalating the case into one of the worst diplomatic rows between Beijing and Ottawa.

Chinese foreign vice-minister Le Yucheng on Saturday summoned Canadian ambassador John McCallum to lodge a “strong protest” against the arrest of Sabrina Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver and urged Ottawa to release Meng immediately, according to a brief foreign ministry statement.

Meng, the chief financial officer at Huawei and a daughter of the Chinese telecom giant’s founder, was arrested in Vancouver on Dec. 1 and faces extradition to the United States, which alleges that she covered up her company’s links to a firm that tried to sell equipment to Iran in defiance of sanctions.

The arrest of Meng in Canada, which took place on the same night that Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump dined together in Buenos Aires, has infuriated Beijing.

The official Xinhua news agency published an editorial on Sunday morning condemning the arrest as an “extremely nasty” act that had caused “serious damage to Sino-Canada relations,”

“According to the words of the Canadian leader, he had known of the action in advance,” Xinhua said, referring to the fact that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — whom it did not did name directly — had a few days’ notice of the arrest.

“But he didn’t notify the Chinese side. Instead, he let this kind of nasty thing to happen and assisted the US side’s unilateral hegemonic behavior — this has hurt the feeling of Chinese people,” Xinhua added.

The last time that Beijing accused Canada of hurting the feelings of the Chinese people was more than a decade earlier in 2007, when then-prime minister Stephen Harper hosted the Dalai Lama.

People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, published a similarly strongly worded statement, condemning Canada for arresting Meng and threatening to take action against Ottawa if Meng is not released.

“The Canadian side must realize clearly that there’s no vagueness between justice and arbitrariness,” the People’s Daily editorial reads.

“The Canadian side must correct its wrongs and immediately stop its infringement of the legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese citizen to give the Chinese people a right answer so that it can avoid paying a dear price.”

The joint condemnation by China’s foreign ministry, Xinhua and the People’s Daily against Ottawa is an unusual step, reflecting how seriously Beijing is taking the case and its determination to set Meng free.

While China did not specify what action it would take to inflict pains on Canada, the harsh wording suggests that it has plans to retaliate.

These could range from the freezing of diplomatic exchanges to the suspension of trade and would be likely to be set in motion if Meng is extradited to the U.S.

David Mulroney, a former Canadian ambassador to China, told Reuters on Friday that there will probably be “a deep freeze with the Chinese in high-level visits and exchanges.”

“The ability to talk about free trade will be put in the ice box for a while. But we’re going to have to live with that. That’s the price of dealing with a country like China,” Mulroney was quoted as saying.

Shi Yinhong, director of Renmin University’s Center for American Studies and an adviser to the State Council, said that the Meng incident put China in a bind between the need to show it can protect its business people abroad without spooking other advanced industrial nations with a strong response against Canada.

“China is concerned that in the future more of its important people abroad will be seen as a threat, and that their safety will become an issue.”
Media wait outside of the British Columbia Supreme Court to cover the trial of Sabrina Meng Wanzhou.

“On the other hand, especially in the context of the comprehensive tension between Beijing and Washington, China has an interest to maintain and improve relations with other advanced industrial countries.

“If China takes a very strong revenge against Canada, it will hurt these relations. This is a dilemma, and it is difficult to predict what will happen.”

Adam Austen, a spokesman for Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, said Saturday there is “nothing to add beyond what the minister said yesterday”.

Freeland told reporters on Friday that the relationship with China was important and valued, and Canada’s ambassador in Beijing has assured the Chinese that consular access will be provided to Meng.

A court hearing over whether Meng should be bailed will continue on Monday.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Article Link

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Now that's a serious attack on Canada.

With the Liberal's "social justice" approach to everything, what could possibly be more devastating than being accused of hurting someone's feelings. ???


;D

 

[Cloud Cover]

Well, they’ve taken into custody one of Trudeau’s former advisors.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/former-canadian-diplomat-arrested-in-china-reports-1.4213122

They do not understand that at this point our courts and prosecutors are running with this, not the government.