The Official Chinese 🇨🇳 Espionage & Cold War Thread

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businessinsider.com
China sent 52 warplanes into Taiwan's air defense zone in its largest show of force yet
Ryan Pickrell
4-5 minutes

• China sent a record-breaking force of military aircraft into Taiwan's air defense identification zone Monday.
• In a display of military might, China sent 52 military aircraft flying past Taiwan.
• Taiwan's military says it scrambled patrol aircraft, issued radio warnings, and monitored the situation via air defense units.

In a massive show of force following a US warning about Chinese military activity near Taiwan, China sent 52 warplanes into Taiwan's air defense identification zone on Monday, forcing the self-ruled island to scramble patrol aircraft in response, according to the Republic of China Air Force.

The Chinese military aircraft group, the largest China has sent since Taiwan's defense ministry began keeping records last year, included 34 J-16 fighter jets, two Su-30 fighters, two Y-8 anti-submarine warfare aircraft, two KJ-500 early warning aircraft, and 12 H-6 bombers.

—國防部 Ministry of National Defense, R.O.C. (@MoNDefense) October 4, 2021
The Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force aircraft entered the southwest corner of Taiwan's ADIZ but did not enter Taiwan's territorial airspace.

Patrol aircraft were dispatched to respond to the Chinese military aircraft group, which was monitored by air defense missile units. Radio warnings were issued to the intruding planes.

China, which considers Taiwan an inseparable part of its territory, a critical national interest, and an important sovereignty issue, has never renounced force as a tool for reunification and routinely flies military aircraft near Taiwan, but sorties have traditionally been much smaller, with larger displays of Chinese military might occurring less frequently.

Until last week, the largest recorded fly-by was 28 Chinese aircraft, but on Friday, as China celebrated the founding of the People's Republic of China under the authority of the Chinese Community Party, the country flew a record-breaking 38 aircraft through Taiwan's ADIZ in two waves.

The PRC was founded on Oct. 1, 1949 following the Communist defeat of the Nationalists, who fled the mainland to Taiwan. Though hostilities ended decades ago, a formal peace treaty officially ending the civil war was never signed.

On Saturday, China broke the record from the day before, sending 39 military aircraft in two waves into the zone.

Monday's activities involved a single wave of Chinese military aircraft significantly larger than any seen previously.

This display of Chinese military power comes just one day after the US Department of State issued a statement on Chinese military activities near Taiwan. In the latest four days, China has sent nearly 150 aircraft into Taiwan's air defense zone.

"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," department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.

"We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure and coercion against Taiwan," he said.

China has not yet commented on the latest activity.

 

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WSJ News Exclusive | U.S. Troops Have Been Deployed in Taiwan for at Least a Year


wsj.com
WSJ News Exclusive | U.S. Troops Have Been Deployed in Taiwan for at Least a Year
Gordon Lubold
9-11 minutes
WASHINGTON—A U.S. special-operations unit and a contingent of Marines have been secretly operating in Taiwan to train military forces there, U.S. officials said, part of efforts to shore up the island’s defenses as concern regarding potential Chinese aggression mounts.

About two dozen members of U.S. special-operations and support troops are conducting training for small units of Taiwan’s ground forces, the officials said. The U.S. Marines are working with local maritime forces on small-boat training. The American forces have been operating in Taiwan for at least a year, the officials said.

The U.S. special-operations deployment is a sign of concern within the Pentagon over Taiwan’s tactical capabilities in light of Beijing’s yearslong military buildup and recent threatening moves against the island.

Taiwan and U.S. officials have expressed alarm over nearly 150 flights near Taiwan in the past week by Chinese military aircraft. The Chinese aircraft have included J-16 jet fighters, H-6 strategic bombers and Y-8 submarine-spotting aircraft and have set a record for such sorties, according to the Taiwan government.

The Chinese flights, while not entering the area Taiwan defines as its airspace, have been a reminder of the Communist Party’s view of Taiwan as a part of China. Beijing has vowed to take control of the island by force if necessary. Top U.S. military officials testified earlier this year that Beijing is likely to try to use force in its designs on Taiwan within the next six years. Other officials have said China’s timeline could be sooner than that.

Taiwan’s defense minister, Chiu Kuo-cheng, warned Wednesday that China would be able to launch a full-scale attack on Taiwan with minimal losses by 2025.

Fears of Chinese Move on Taiwan Weigh on U.S.-China Relations


0:00 / 1:57

Fears of Chinese Move on Taiwan Weigh on U.S.-China Relations

Taiwan and China have had an unstable coexistence for more than seven decades, and concerns are rising that China might move against Taiwan to force a unification. WSJ’s Gerald F. Seib explains some of the causes for worry. Photo illustration: Laura Kammermann
White House and Pentagon officials declined to comment on the deployment of the U.S. military force. There was no immediate response to requests for comment from Taipei. The deployment is rotational, the U.S. officials said, meaning that members of the U.S. units serve on a variable schedule.

China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it urged the U.S. to adhere to prior agreements and to cease military aid to Taiwan. “China will take all necessary steps to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” it said.

Asian media reports last year suggesting a possible U.S. Marine deployment in Taiwan were never confirmed by U.S. officials. The presence of U.S. special operations forces hasn’t been previously reported.

The special-operations unit and the Marine contingent are a small but symbolic effort by the U.S. to increase Taipei’s confidence in building its defenses against potential Chinese aggression. Current and former U.S. government officials and military experts believe that deepening ties between U.S. and Taiwan military units is better than simply selling Taiwan military equipment.

The U.S. has sold Taiwan billions of dollars of military hardware in recent years, but current and former officials believe Taiwan must begin to invest in its defense more heavily, and smartly.


“Taiwan badly neglected its national defense for the first 15 years or so of this century, buying too much expensive equipment that will get destroyed in the first hours of a conflict, and too little in the way of cheaper but lethal systems—antiship missiles, smart sea mines and well-trained reserve and auxiliary forces—that could seriously complicate Beijing’s war plans,” said Matt Pottinger, a distinguished visiting fellow at Stanford University’s conservative Hoover Institution who served as a deputy national security adviser during the Trump administration.

Chinese military aircraft that have flown near Taiwan include H-6 bombers like this one, according to authorities in Taipei.
Photo: Taiwan Ministry of National Defense/Shutterstock
Mr. Pottinger said Taiwan’s overall military spending was similar to that of Singapore, which has a quarter of Taiwan’s population and “doesn’t have China breathing down its neck.” Mr. Pottinger said he was unaware of any American troop deployment to Taiwan.

In May, Christopher Maier, who later became assistant secretary of defense for special operations, told the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing that the U.S. should be considering strongly such a deployment of forces to help Taiwan strengthen its capabilities. Mr. Maier, who worked at the Pentagon under the Trump administration, didn’t say that special-operations forces already were operating there.

Mr. Maier told senators in May that American special-operations units could show forces in Taiwan how to defend against an amphibious landing or train for dozens of other operations needed to defend the island.

“I do think that is something that we should be considering strongly as we think about competition across the span of different capabilities we can apply,” he said then, referring to special-operations units.

While some aspects of the U.S. deployment might be classified, it is also considered politically sensitive given the tense relations between the U.S. and China, according to U.S. officials.

U.S.-China ties are strained over trade, the Covid-19 pandemic, human rights and regional security, including in the South China Sea. National-security adviser Jake Sullivan met in Zurich on Wednesday with Yang Jiechi, China’s top diplomat.

China is likely to view the presence of the U.S. military forces as a violation of commitments made by Washington in past agreements. In one establishing formal relations between the U.S. and China in 1979, Washington agreed to sever formal ties with Taiwan, terminate a defense agreement and withdraw its forces from the island. The U.S. later said it would reduce arms sales to Taiwan

A Pentagon spokesman pointed to the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act passed by Congress and said that law provides for assessments of Taiwan’s defense needs and the threat posed by the People’s Republic of China, or PRC.

“I would note the PRC has stepped up efforts to intimidate and pressure Taiwan, including increasing military activities conducted in the vicinity of Taiwan, which we believe are destabilizing and increase the risk of miscalculation,” the spokesman, John Supple, said in a statement.

The Trump administration loosened rules that restricted contacts with Taiwan by U.S. officials, in a move that was applauded at the time by Taiwan officials. The restrictions limited U.S.-Taiwan exchanges to avoid provoking China.

The Biden administration has continued with some of its predecessor’s moves, sending a U.S. delegation to Taipei in April.

Before leaving office, the Trump administration declassified the U.S. Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific, a 10-page document broadly outlining objectives for the region.

A section on Taiwan says that China will take “increasingly assertive steps to compel unification with Taiwan” and recommends that the U.S. “enable Taiwan to develop an effective asymmetric defense strategy and capabilities that will help ensure its security, freedom from coercion, resilience and ability to engage China on its own terms.”

The strategy also calls for a “combat-credible” U.S. military presence to prevent Chinese dominance in the area that includes Taiwan.

The document hasn’t been supplanted by a new Biden administration strategy, nor is it technically being implemented. Biden administration officials have acknowledged that there are areas of continuity between the two administrations on China policies.

Write to Gordon Lubold at Gordon.Lubold@wsj.com

 

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washingtonpost.com
CIA creates new ‘mission center’ to counter China
Shane Harris
6-8 minutes
The CIA is creating a new center focused exclusively on gathering intelligence about China and countering its espionage against the United States, another sign that senior U.S. officials are preparing for an all-encompassing, years-long struggle with Beijing.

In remarks to agency personnel on Wednesday, CIA Director William J. Burns characterized the new China Mission Center as an effort to “further strengthen our collective work on the most important geopolitical threat we face in the 21st century, an increasingly adversarial Chinese government.”

Describing an effort that will enlist every corner of the spy agency, a senior CIA official drew comparisons to the Cold War fight against the Soviet Union, but said China was a more formidable and complicated rival given the size of its economy, which is completely entwined with that of the United States, and its own global reach.

Just as it did against the Soviets, the CIA will deploy more officers, linguists, technicians and specialists in countries around the world to gather intelligence and counter China’s interests, said the senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to more fully describe Burns’s remarks.

The agency will also recruit and train more Mandarin speakers, the official said. He added that Burns would now meet weekly with the head of the mission center, as well as other top leaders from across the agency, to develop a cohesive strategy.

Former director John O. Brennan, who oversaw a sweeping reorganization of the CIA during the Obama administration, credited Burns for the new approach on China.

“If there is any country that deserves its own mission center, it is China, which has global ambitions and presents the greatest challenge to U.S. interests and to international order,” Brennan said.

Under Burns’s predecessor, Gina Haspel, the CIA began to come down from a wartime footing in which it was principally focused on penetrating and dismantling terrorist networks and began to return its focus to so-called hard targets, chiefly China, but also Russia, Iran and North Korea.

Burns said the focus on those other countries would not diminish and the CIA would continue a counterterrorism mission. But the creation of the new China center was a clear indication that the country is and will probably remain the agency’s No. 1 target.

Four years ago, the CIA set up new centers to consolidate its work on Iran and North Korea. But those modifications of an already vast bureaucracy may have proved too narrow.

The senior official said that the Iran and Korea mission centers would now be absorbed by larger components focused on whole regions, the Near East and East Asia, respectively.

Former CIA director Mike Pompeo, a longtime Iran hawk, had set up both the Iran and Korea centers in 2017, when the Trump administration increased pressure to deter Iran’s nuclear weapons program and force North Korea to negotiate over its own nuclear arsenal.

The senior CIA official said that in countering Iran and North Korea, the CIA thought it was crucial to work with allies across their respective regions and not isolate efforts in separate centers.

Asked why agency leaders believed China needed its own mission center when they were effectively shutting them down for two other hard targets, the senior official described China as unique, because no other single country requires work that stretches across all of the agency’s mission areas, from intelligence collectors to analysts to linguists and technologists.

Burns is also enacting other changes to the CIA’s structure and hiring process, designed in part to make the agency more competitive as an employer.

Today, it can take up to two years for applicants to wind their way through interviews and the lengthy process of being approved for a security clearance. The senior official said the agency will endeavor to shorten that timeline to six months.

The CIA will create a new technology fellows program to allow private-sector experts to work for a year or two at the agency and appoint a new chief technology officer, the senior official said.

While the CIA has excelled throughout its history at crafting technology to spy on its adversaries, the rapid evolution of commercial technology has put the agency at a disadvantage. Today, through simple Internet searches, a rival intelligence service can sometimes identify CIA officers in their country and discover who they might be trying to recruit as spies, current and former officials have said.

At the same time, the agency’s reliance on technology to communicate with its foreign sources may have helped identify them. About 10 years ago, Chinese and Iranian authorities penetrated the CIA’s covert communications system and managed to identify and round up agents in their countries, according to people familiar with the debacles.

Acknowledging past security failures, without commenting on them directly, the senior official said the agency was establishing another center to develop technology that would strengthen its tradecraft, a reference to espionage tools and techniques.

That new center will also encompass transnational threats such as climate change, disease outbreaks and humanitarian crises.

The focus on tradecraft comes amid warnings from CIA counterintelligence officials. In a cable dispatched to personnel around the world last week, the agency pointed out the number of agents who had been executed by foreign governments to persuade CIA officers to work harder to protect their sources from being discovered, according to people familiar with the matter.

Since taking over as CIA director in March, Burns has made China a priority, as well as caring for personnel who have been afflicted with what the agency calls “anomalous health incidents,” which include headaches, persistent dizziness and nausea that some officers believe are the result of a deliberate attack by a foreign government, possibly via a directed-energy weapon using something like lasers or microwaves.

The senior official said the agency continued to look for the source of the illnesses and the potential culprit. While investigators have developed what the official described as “some interesting leads,” he said they have yet to come to a conclusion.

 

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U.S. Set Out to Hobble China’s Huawei, and So It Has

 

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US nuclear-powered submarine hits submerged object in South China Sea

US nuclear-powered submarine hits submerged object in South China Sea
Attack class submarine USS Connecticut hit an unknown object on routine operations and is in a ‘safe and stable’ condition, US navy says

The nuclear powered USS Connecticut leaving port in May this year. The submarine struck an unknown submerged object in the South China Sea but remains operational. Photograph: Lt. Mack Jamieson/US Navy/AFP/Getty Images
A nuclear powered US navy attack submarine has struck an object while submerged in international waters in the South China Sea, officials have said.

Eleven sailors were hurt – two suffered moderate injuries and the rest had minor scrapes and bruises, officials said. All were treated on the sub.

In a brief statement on Thursday that provided few details of the incident, which happened five days ago, US Pacific Fleet said the USS Connecticut remained in a “safe and stable condition”, that there were no life-threatening injuries and the sub was still fully operational.

The Seawolf-class submarine’s nuclear propulsion plant was not affected, it added. “The extent of damage to the remainder of the submarine is being assessed,” the statement said, adding that the incident will be investigated.

The collision comes amid escalating tensions in the region, and the same weekend that US and UK aircraft carriers conducted military exercises with Japan, Canada, the Netherlands and New Zealand just north of Taiwan.

The United Kingdom Carrier Strike Group 21 has since travelled down to the South China Sea, pointing to its vital importance as a maritime trade route.


The statement did not specify the location of the incident, but two navy officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss details not announced publicly, said it happened in the South China Sea while the Connecticut was conducting routine operations.

The officials said the sub then headed toward port at Guam. They said the incident was not announced before Thursday in order to maintain operational security.

Navy officials told the Washington Post it is not believed that China caused the collision and that the vessel was monitored by other US vessels in the region as it moved to Guam.

The officials said it was not yet clear what object the sub had struck but that it was not another submarine. One official said it could have been a sunken vessel, a sunken container or other uncharted object.

The 107-metre (353ft) multi-billion-dollar USS Connecticut was commissioned in the cold war era and is one of three Sea Wolf-class boats. It carries more than 100 personnel.

In 2005, submarine the USS San Francisco struck a seamount near Guam at full speed, killing one sailor and injuring 24 others.

China claims almost all of the resource-rich South China Sea, through which trillions of dollars in shipping trade passes annually, with competing claims from four south-east Asian states as well as Taiwan.

Beijing has been accused of deploying a range of military hardware there, including anti-ship and surface-to-air missiles, and ignored a 2016 international tribunal decision that declared its historical claim over most of the waters to be without basis.

Tensions have escalated in recent months between Beijing and rival claimants.

With Associated Press

 

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Subscribe to read | Financial Times
China tests new space capability with hypersonic missile
Launch in August of nuclear-capable rocket that circled the globe took US intelligence by surprise
2 hours ago

The new hypersonic glide vehicle was launched with a “Long March” rocket, seen here carrying China’s Chang’e-5 lunar probe for its space programme. © AFP via Getty Images
China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in August that circled the globe before speeding towards its target, demonstrating an advanced space capability that caught US intelligence by surprise.

Five people familiar with the test said the Chinese military launched a rocket that carried a hypersonic glide vehicle which flew through low-orbit space before cruising down towards its target.

The missile missed its target by about two-dozen miles, according to three people briefed on the intelligence. But two said the test showed that China had made astounding progress on hypersonic weapons and was far more advanced than US officials realised.

The test has raised new questions about why the US often underestimated China’s military modernisation.

“We have no idea how they did this,” said a fourth person.


The US, Russia and China are all developing hypersonic weapons, including glide vehicles that are launched into space on a rocket but orbit the earth under their own momentum. They fly at five times the speed of sound, slower than a ballistic missile. But they do not follow the fixed parabolic trajectory of a ballistic missile and are manoeuvrable, making them harder to track.

Taylor Fravel, an expert on Chinese nuclear weapons policy who was unaware of the test, said a hypersonic glide vehicle armed with a nuclear warhead could help China “negate” US missile defence systems which are designed to destroy incoming ballistic missiles.

“Hypersonic glide vehicles . . . fly at lower trajectories and can manoeuvre in flight, which makes them hard to track and destroy,” said Fravel, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Fravel added that it would be “destabilising” if China fully developed and deployed such a weapon, but he cautioned that a test did not necessarily mean that Beijing would deploy the capability.

Mounting concern about China’s nuclear capabilities comes as Beijing continues to build up its conventional military forces and engages in increasingly assertive military activity near Taiwan.

Tensions between the US and China have risen as the Biden administration has taken a tough tack on Beijing, which has accused Washington of being overly hostile.

US military officials in recent months have warned about China’s growing nuclear capabilities, particularly after the release of satellite imagery that showed it was building more than 200 intercontinental missile silos. China is not bound by any arms-control deals and has been unwilling to engage the US in talks about its nuclear arsenal and policy.

Last month, Frank Kendall, US air force secretary, hinted that Beijing was developing a new weapon. He said China had made huge advances, including the “potential for global strikes . . . from space”. He declined to provide details, but suggested that China was developing something akin to the “Fractional Orbital Bombardment System” that the USSR deployed for part of the Cold War, before abandoning it.

“If you use that kind of an approach, you don’t have to use a traditional ICBM trajectory. It’s a way to avoid defences and missile warning systems,” said Kendall.

In August, General Glen VanHerck, head of North American Aerospace Defense Command, told a conference that China had “recently demonstrated very advanced hypersonic glide vehicle capabilities”. He warned that the Chinese capability would “provide significant challenges to my Norad capability to provide threat warning and attack assessment”.

Two of the people familiar with the Chinese test said the weapon could, in theory, fly over the South Pole. That would pose a big challenge for the US military because its missiles defence systems are focused on the northern polar route.

The revelation comes as the Biden administration undertakes the Nuclear Posture Review, an analysis of policy and capabilities mandated by Congress that has pitted arms-control advocates against those who believe the US must do more to modernise its nuclear arsenal because of China.

The Pentagon did not comment on the report but expressed concern about China. “We have made clear our concerns about the military capabilities China continues to pursue, capabilities that only increase tensions in the region and beyond,” said John Kirby, spokesperson. “That is one reason why we hold China as our number one pacing challenge.”

The Chinese embassy declined to comment on the test, but Liu Pengyu, spokesperson, said China always pursued a military policy that was “defensive in nature” and its military development did not target any country.

“We don’t have a global strategy and plans of military operations like the US does. And we are not at all interested in having an arms race with other countries,” Liu said. “In contrast, the US has in recent years been fabricating excuses like ‘the China threat’ to justify its arms expansion and development of hypersonic weapons. This has directly intensified arms race in this category and severely undermined global strategic stability.”

One Asian national security official said the Chinese military conducted the test in August. China generally announces the launch of Long March rockets — the type used to launch the hypersonic glide vehicle into orbit — but it conspicuously concealed the August launch.

The security official, and another Chinese security expert close to the People’s Liberation Army, said the weapon was being developed by the China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics. CAAA is a research institute under China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the main state-owned firm that makes missile systems and rockets for China’s space programme. Both sources said the hypersonic glide vehicle was launched on a Long March rocket, which is used for the space programme.

The China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, which oversees launches, on July 19 said on an official social media account that it had launched a Long March 2C rocket, which it added was the 77th launch of that rocket. On August 24, it announced that it had conducted a 79th flight. But there was no announcement of a 78th launch, which sparked speculation among observers of its space programme about a secret launch. CAAA did not respond to requests for comment.

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telegraph.co.uk
'We have no idea how they did this': Secret hypersonic launch shows China streaking ahead in arms race
By Louise Watt and Marcus Parekh 17 October 2021 • 5:02pm
5-6 minutes
China’s test of a hypersonic missile in space is a “game-changer” that should fundamentally alter the US’s calculations about Beijing’s military leverage, experts have warned.

Over the weekend, it emerged that the Chinese military in August secretly launched a rocket carrying a hypersonic glide vehicle into space, which flew around the globe through low-orbit space before returning to Earth.

While the missile reportedly missed its target by about two dozen miles, the test shows China has made rapid progress on the lightning-fast weapons and is far more advanced than US intelligence officials had realised, according to the Financial Times, which broke the story.

“We have no idea how they did this,” the FT quoted one official as saying.

Countries including the US, UK, Russia and North Korea have all been working on developing hypersonic missiles, which have the advantages of fast flight – travelling at five times the speed of sound or more – and increased manoeuvrability that can make them very difficult to counter.

They also fly at lower altitudes than ballistic missiles, meaning they can potentially reach targets faster.

Drew Thompson, a former American defence department official with responsibility for China, said the test “really should change US calculations”.

“Especially if more tests improve the accuracy, establish its credibility, then I think it is a game changer in a way that little else has really shifted the balance,” said Mr Thompson, who is also a visiting research fellow at the National University of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

“Once it works, once it’s credible, it negates US missile defences and it makes the US vulnerable and that has to fundamentally change US strategic calculations about its leverage and China’s ability to hold at risk major cities throughout the United States.”

China’s ministry of defence did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.

Liu Pengyu, the spokesman at China’s embassy in Washington, told the FT that China always pursued a military policy that was “defensive in nature” and that its military development did not target any country.

“We don’t have a global strategy and plans of military operations like the US does. And we are not at all interested in having an arms race with other countries,” Mr Liu said.

“In contrast, the US has in recent years been fabricating excuses like ‘the China threat’ to justify its arms expansion and development of hypersonic weapons. This has directly intensified [the] arms race in this category and severely undermined global strategic stability.”

The US has recently pivoted its defence and intelligence operations to focus more on China. Earlier this month, the CIA announced the creation of a new China Mission Center that would bring more resources to studying the country and better position officers around the world to analyze its activities.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told the FT he would not comment on the specifics of the report but added: "We have made clear our concerns about the military capabilities China continues to pursue, capabilities that only increase tensions in the region and beyond. That is one reason why we hold China as our number one pacing challenge."

There is also an increased international emphasis on combatting China’s growing military might. Last month, the US, UK and Australia announced a new international security alliance, dubbed AUKUS. Although it did not mention China specifically, it was widely interpreted as being aimed at Beijing.

"If there was any doubt about the importance of #AUKUS and democratic nations other strategic alliances to counter a malign Communist #China, now equipped with globe circumnavigating hypersonic nuclear missile capabilities..." tweeted Henry Smith, the Conservative MP for Crawley.

Last month, Frank Kendall, the US air force secretary, warned that Beijing had made huge advances in hypersonic weapons, including the “potential for global strikes … from space”.

He suggested China was developing something along the lines of the USSR’s Soviet-era Fractional Orbital Bombardment System.

“If you use that kind of an approach, you don’t have to use a traditional ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] trajectory. It’s a way to avoid defences and missile warning systems,” said Mr Kendall.

The hypersonic test comes amid heightened tensions between Beijing and Washington, including over recent record intrusions by Chinese military planes into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone that the US has condemned as “provocative” and “destabilising” activity.

On Sunday, it emerged that the United States and Canada had sent warships through the Taiwan Strait last week, prompting a furious reaction from the Chinese military.

"The United States and Canada colluded to provoke and stir up trouble... seriously jeopardising peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait," said China's People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theatre Command.

"Taiwan is part of Chinese territory.”

 

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telegraph.co.uk
'We have no idea how they did this': Secret hypersonic launch shows China streaking ahead in arms race
By Louise Watt and Marcus Parekh 17 October 2021 • 5:02pm
5-6 minutes
China’s test of a hypersonic missile in space is a “game-changer” that should fundamentally alter the US’s calculations about Beijing’s military leverage, experts have warned.

Over the weekend, it emerged that the Chinese military in August secretly launched a rocket carrying a hypersonic glide vehicle into space, which flew around the globe through low-orbit space before returning to Earth.

While the missile reportedly missed its target by about two dozen miles, the test shows China has made rapid progress on the lightning-fast weapons and is far more advanced than US intelligence officials had realised, according to the Financial Times, which broke the story.

“We have no idea how they did this,” the FT quoted one official as saying.

Countries including the US, UK, Russia and North Korea have all been working on developing hypersonic missiles, which have the advantages of fast flight – travelling at five times the speed of sound or more – and increased manoeuvrability that can make them very difficult to counter.

They also fly at lower altitudes than ballistic missiles, meaning they can potentially reach targets faster.

Drew Thompson, a former American defence department official with responsibility for China, said the test “really should change US calculations”.

“Especially if more tests improve the accuracy, establish its credibility, then I think it is a game changer in a way that little else has really shifted the balance,” said Mr Thompson, who is also a visiting research fellow at the National University of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

“Once it works, once it’s credible, it negates US missile defences and it makes the US vulnerable and that has to fundamentally change US strategic calculations about its leverage and China’s ability to hold at risk major cities throughout the United States.”

China’s ministry of defence did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.

Liu Pengyu, the spokesman at China’s embassy in Washington, told the FT that China always pursued a military policy that was “defensive in nature” and that its military development did not target any country.

“We don’t have a global strategy and plans of military operations like the US does. And we are not at all interested in having an arms race with other countries,” Mr Liu said.

“In contrast, the US has in recent years been fabricating excuses like ‘the China threat’ to justify its arms expansion and development of hypersonic weapons. This has directly intensified [the] arms race in this category and severely undermined global strategic stability.”

The US has recently pivoted its defence and intelligence operations to focus more on China. Earlier this month, the CIA announced the creation of a new China Mission Center that would bring more resources to studying the country and better position officers around the world to analyze its activities.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told the FT he would not comment on the specifics of the report but added: "We have made clear our concerns about the military capabilities China continues to pursue, capabilities that only increase tensions in the region and beyond. That is one reason why we hold China as our number one pacing challenge."

There is also an increased international emphasis on combatting China’s growing military might. Last month, the US, UK and Australia announced a new international security alliance, dubbed AUKUS. Although it did not mention China specifically, it was widely interpreted as being aimed at Beijing.

"If there was any doubt about the importance of #AUKUS and democratic nations other strategic alliances to counter a malign Communist #China, now equipped with globe circumnavigating hypersonic nuclear missile capabilities..." tweeted Henry Smith, the Conservative MP for Crawley.

Last month, Frank Kendall, the US air force secretary, warned that Beijing had made huge advances in hypersonic weapons, including the “potential for global strikes … from space”.

He suggested China was developing something along the lines of the USSR’s Soviet-era Fractional Orbital Bombardment System.

“If you use that kind of an approach, you don’t have to use a traditional ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] trajectory. It’s a way to avoid defences and missile warning systems,” said Mr Kendall.

The hypersonic test comes amid heightened tensions between Beijing and Washington, including over recent record intrusions by Chinese military planes into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone that the US has condemned as “provocative” and “destabilising” activity.

On Sunday, it emerged that the United States and Canada had sent warships through the Taiwan Strait last week, prompting a furious reaction from the Chinese military.

"The United States and Canada colluded to provoke and stir up trouble... seriously jeopardising peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait," said China's People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theatre Command.

"Taiwan is part of Chinese territory.”

all over in 60 mins

 

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ft.com
Nato to expand focus to counter rising China
Roula Khalaf and Henry Foy in Brussels 58 minutes ago
5-6 minutes
Secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg reveals significant broadening of alliance’s objectives to include Beijing

A Chinese Long March-2F rocket launches. Beijing’s advanced long-range weapons capability has surprised the US and underscored the rapid military progress it has made on next-generation weapons © Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
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Countering the security threat from the rise of China will be an important part of Nato’s future rationale, the alliance’s head has said, marking a significant rethink of the western group’s objectives that reflects the US’s geostrategic pivot to Asia.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said China was already having an impact on European security through its cyber capabilities, new technologies and long-range missiles. How to defend Nato allies from those threats will be “thoroughly” addressed in the alliance’s new doctrine for the coming decade, he said.

The military alliance has spent decades focused on countering Russia and, since 2001, terrorism. The new focus on China comes amid a determined shift in the US’s geopolitical orientation away from Europe to a hegemonic conflict with Beijing.

“Nato is an alliance of North America and Europe. But this region faces global challenges: terrorism, cyber but also the rise of China. So when it comes to strengthening our collective defence, that’s also about how to address the rise of China,” Stoltenberg said. “What we can predict is that the rise of China will impact our security. It already has.”

Nato will adopt its new Strategic Concept at a summit next summer, which will outline the alliance’s purpose for the following 10 years. The current version, adopted in 2010, does not mention China.

Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg: ‘Nato is an alliance of North America and Europe. But this region faces global challenges’ © Virginia Mayo/Reuters
Nato is seeking a new direction following the end of its 20-year deployment in Afghanistan, while discussions over the future of the US military presence in Europe are ongoing.

Stoltenberg, the former Norwegian prime minister who is set to step down next year after almost eight years at the helm, said Nato allies would seek to “scale down” activities outside of their borders and “scale up” their domestic defensive resilience to better resist external threats.

“China is coming closer to us . . . We see them in the Arctic. We see them in cyber space. We see them investing heavily in critical infrastructure in our countries.

“And of course they have more and more high-range weapons that can reach all Nato allied countries. They are building many, many silos for long-range intercontinental missiles,” he said.

China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in August, the FT reported over the weekend, demonstrating an advanced long-range weapons capability that surprised US intelligence and underscored the rapid military progress Beijing has made on next-generation weapons.

But any suggestion of a shift away from deterring Russian aggression would meet protests from eastern European member states that view Moscow as an existential threat and the alliance as their sole security guarantor.

Stoltenberg said Russia and China should not be seen as separate threats. “First of all China and Russia work closely together,” he said. “Second, when we invest more in technology . . . that’s about both of them.”

“This whole idea of distinguishing so much between China, Russia, either the Asia-Pacific or Europe — it is one big security environment and we have to address it all together. What we do on readiness, on technology, on cyber, on resilience matters for all these threats. You don’t put a label,” he added.

Stoltenberg said the hasty withdrawal of Nato forces from Afghanistan in August was “an obvious choice” after the US decision to leave the country. He said that while European militaries might have been able to remain without US support, political leaders could not justify a continued presence.

“It was partly a military aspect: capabilities. But I think fundamentally more important was the political aspect: we went into Afghanistan after an attack on the United States,” he said. “Militarily it would have been possible [to stay]. But politically, I regard it as absolutely unrealistic . . . that was the main reason.”

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A Roaming Threat to Telecommunications Companies | CrowdStrike


theguardian.com
At least 13 phone firms hit by suspected Chinese hackers since 2019, say experts
Dan Sabbagh
3-4 minutes
At least 13 phone companies around the world have been compromised since 2019 by sophisticated hackers who are believed to come from China, a cybersecurity expert group has said.

The roaming hackers – known as LightBasin – were able to “search and find” individual mobile phones and “target accordingly”, according to CrowdStrike, a group regularly cited by western intelligence.

Hackers were also able to obtain personal subscriber information held by phone companies and metadata showing who made and received calls.

“Sophisticated signals intelligence activity” aimed at phone company networks has been considered a core function of western intelligence agencies such as the NSA in the US and GCHQ in the UK. But this is one of the first times its existence by groups linked to Beijing been publicly disclosed in the west.

CrowdStrike researchers indicated they believed LightBasin was a “Chinese state-sponsored” group gathering information “likely to be of significant interest to intelligence organizations”.

The attribution was not definitive but Adam Meyers, a senior vice-president at CrowdStrike, said there was also evidence that LightBasin was operating in support of other well-established Chinese groups, who typically carry out hacking activity at the ultimate direction of Beijing.

Meyers added that the research group “was able to uncover passwords used by the LightBasin cluster which were in Pinyin, romanised Chinese characters”.

Western experts have said Chinese hacking is running at record levels, describing it as a low-level form of cyberwarfare that has traditionally been focused on intellectual property but also includes classic espionage activity.

Worries about China’s influence in telecoms have also underpinned the decision by some western countries such as the US to exclude the supplier Huawei from their phone networks – although the company insists it never allows spying on its customers. Last year, the UK said it would strip out Huawei kit from 5G phone networks from 2027.

China has consistently denied being involved in hacking despite a number of attempts by the US and other western nations to call it out. In July, China’s foreign ministry accused Washington of “ganging up with its allies” and engaging in “smear and suppression out of political motives”.

That denial came after the US, the EU, Nato, the UK and four other countries accused Beijing of being behind a massive exploitation of vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s widely used Exchange company server software in March. It affected about 250,000 organisations worldwide, allowing hackers to siphon corporate emails for espionage.

Governments can be slower to attribute claims of hacking and other cyber-activity to a country, often waiting for tech companies or researchers to put the initial claims in the public domain.

 

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reuters.com
China-linked hacking group accessing calling records worldwide, CrowdStrike says
October 19, 202111:42 AM EDTLast Updated a day ago
3 minutes
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 19 (Reuters) - A hacking group with suspected ties to China burrowed into mobile telephone networks around the world and used specialized tools to grab calling records and text messages from telecommunication carriers, a U.S. cybersecurity company said on Tuesday.

CrowdStrike said the group, which it dubbed LightBasin, had been acting since at least 2016, but had more recently been detected wielding tools that are among the most sophisticated yet discovered.

Telecoms companies have long been a top target for nation-states, with attacks or attempts seen from China, Russia, Iran, and others. The United States also seeks access to calling records, which show which numbers called each other, how often and for how long.

CrowdStrike Senior Vice President Adam Meyers said his company gleaned the information by responding to incidents in multiple countries, which he declined to name. The company on Tuesday published technical details to let other companies check for similar attacks.

Meyers said the programs could retrieve specific data unobtrusively. "I've never seen this degree of purpose-built tools," he told Reuters.

Meyers said his team was not accusing the Chinese government of directing the attacks by the hacking group. But he said the attacks had connections to China including cryptography relying on Pinyin phonetic versions of Chinese language characters, as well as techniques that echoed previous attacks by the Chinese government.

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to questions from Reuters.

Asked for comment, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said it was aware of the CrowdStrike report and would continue to work closely with U.S. carriers.

"This report reflects the ongoing cybersecurity risks facing organizations large and small and the need to take concerted action," an official said through a spokesperson.

"Common sense steps include implementing multifactor authentication, patching, updating software, deploying threat detection capabilities, and maintaining an incident response plan."

The findings underscore the vulnerability of major networks providing the backbone for communications and help explain the increasing demand for strong, end-to-end encryption that the networks - and anyone with access to those networks - cannot decipher.

Reporting by Joseph Menn; editing by Richard Pullin

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

 

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