Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

The Strategic Issues & International Relations Forum is a venue to discuss issues pertaining to India's security environment, her strategic outlook on global affairs and as well as the effect of international relations in the Indian Subcontinent. We request members to kindly stay within the mandate of this forum and keep their exchanges of views, on a civilised level, however vehemently any disagreement may be felt. All feedback regarding forum usage may be sent to the moderators using the Feedback Form or by clicking the Report Post Icon in any objectionable post for proper action. Please note that the views expressed by the Members and Moderators on these discussion boards are that of the individuals only and do not reflect the official policy or view of the Bharat-Rakshak.com Website. Copyright Violation is strictly prohibited and may result in revocation of your posting rights - please read the FAQ for full details. Users must also abide by the Forum Guidelines at all times.
Locked
Tuan
BRFite
Posts: 440
Joined: 16 Oct 2008 01:26

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Tuan »

The Coming War on China, from award winning journalist John Pilger, reveals what the news doesn’t – that the world’s greatest military power, the United States, and the world’s second economic power, China, both nuclear-armed, may well be on the road to war.

Philip
BRF Oldie
Posts: 21538
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: India

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Philip »

In an above post the phrase " market access..." is absolutely spot on.Wars are mostly economic by nature.Japan attacked the US in WW2 as it was being punished economically. Earlier we had the Opium war between Britain and China. China today has arrogantly and unilaterally decided that it is top dog in the world and the world must kowtow to it and only buy Chinese. The US and west made the biggest mistake by concentrating their industrial investments mainly in China, ignoring China's horrendous human rights record and allowing it to spend hundreds of billions on thd greatest military build up the world has seen since WW2 .Had they spread it around across ASEAN Asia, S.Asia, etc.,the Chinese military build up,would've been much smaller.

The Q is not whether a military clash will occur but when. India has to quickly ban Chinese goods while the opportunity exists before the Chinese military outclasses us in 5 to 10 years time.
We should demand $300+B from China as thf trade deficit owed to us before Chin goods can be imported again.This will be the massive boost that the economy needs , at the lowest level which is the most affected by the rising inflation, industrial shrinking, and huge unemployment. The GOI should seize the day and take the most severe action against China economically, encourage other smaller nations to do the same and band together economically without China while the opportunity exists.
In a decade's time China will have 100+ subs,4 to 6 carriers, several amphib. vessels and hundreds of destroyers,frigates and corvettes.In addition, its naval bases and logistic facilities in Pak, Djibouti, Sri Lanka , Burma,etc. will be up and running. It would've earned from India alone a staggering $750+ billion in that time to spend on military hardware.GOI, FM Seetharaman, FM Jaishankar, etc., are you listening?
kit
BRF Oldie
Posts: 6278
Joined: 13 Jul 2006 18:16

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by kit »

I think the Indian government will need to get out of a few FTAs ASAP especially those with South Asian countries. All consumer goods sold inside the country including electronics and electrical items MUST be made in India, can be done in a phased manner. A major chunk of imports are precisely these.
kit
BRF Oldie
Posts: 6278
Joined: 13 Jul 2006 18:16

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by kit »

Government and private sector contracts need to be coordinated to get more bang for the buck as in bringing in technology, say airline orders, if India buys 200 to 500 planes why can't Boeing or Airbus build them here in India?

India must NOT be content with building a few wings or landing gears or some assorted low tech items.
kit
BRF Oldie
Posts: 6278
Joined: 13 Jul 2006 18:16

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by kit »

I remember a Chinese official comment ( back in the 90's) about selling one plane was equivalent to selling a million bales of cotton or a million shirts !! , the former being easier .That they have done it is entirely another matter !
kit
BRF Oldie
Posts: 6278
Joined: 13 Jul 2006 18:16

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by kit »

Tuan wrote:The Coming War on China, from award winning journalist John Pilger, reveals what the news doesn’t – that the world’s greatest military power, the United States, and the world’s second economic power, China, both nuclear-armed, may well be on the road to war.
the only issue being china refuses to play second fiddle or "just a market (India)/manufacturer(Japan)" for Americas toys., does India care ?
Kati
BRFite
Posts: 1850
Joined: 27 Jun 1999 11:31
Location: The planet Earth

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Kati »

Chinese diplomats reportedly expelled from U.S. for first time in more than 30 years following suspected espionage
The Week December 15, 2019, 9:32 AM CST
Welcome to the new Cold War.

For the first time in more than 30 years, the United States secretly expelled two Chinese embassy officials on suspicion of espionage after they drove on to a sensitive military base in Norfolk, Virginia, in September, The New York Times reports. The State Department declined to comment and the Chinese Foreign Ministry and Chinese Embassy didn't reply to requests for comment, but six people with knowledge of the expulsions spoke to the Times about the incident.

The officials, who were with their wives, were reportedly told to go through the gate and turn around after they were denied access at the base's checkpoint, but they continued driving before being stopped. The officials reportedly said they didn't understand the English instructions and got lost, but American officials reportedly believe at least one of the officials was a Chinese intelligence officer operating under diplomatic cover.

The Trump administration reportedly fears China is ramping up its espionage in the U.S. as economic and geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing continue to simmer. The Times notes that so far China hasn't retaliated by expelling American diplomats or intelligence officers from Beijing, so it's possible the government understands the officials overstepped their boundaries in this case. Read more at The New York Times.
Kati
BRFite
Posts: 1850
Joined: 27 Jun 1999 11:31
Location: The planet Earth

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Kati »

Tuan
BRFite
Posts: 440
Joined: 16 Oct 2008 01:26

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Tuan »

Secretly Expelled Chinese Officials Suspected of Spying After Breach of Military Base - The New York Times

Chinese Embassy officials trespassed onto a Virginia base that is home to Special Operations forces. Their expulsions added to tensions between Washington and Beijing.
WASHINGTON — The American government secretly expelled two Chinese Embassy officials this fall after they drove on to a sensitive military base in Virginia, according to people with knowledge of the episode. The expulsions appear to be the first of Chinese diplomats suspected of espionage in more than 30 years.

American officials believe at least one of the Chinese officials was an intelligence officer operating under diplomatic cover, said six people with knowledge of the expulsions. The group, which included the officials’ wives, evaded military personnel pursuing them and stopped only after fire trucks blocked their path.

The episode in September, which neither Washington nor Beijing made public, has intensified concerns in the Trump administration that China is expanding its spying efforts in the United States as the two nations are increasingly locked in a geopolitical and economic rivalry. American intelligence officials say China poses a greater espionage threat than any other country.

In recent months, Chinese officials with diplomatic passports have become bolder about showing up unannounced at research or government facilities, American officials said, with the infiltration of the military base only the most remarkable instance
nam
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4712
Joined: 05 Jan 2017 20:48

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by nam »

There is no US-China war. Just like there was no US-Soviet war.

US already has the knowledge of how to fight another superpower, without a war. Like they did with the Soviets.

But yes, lot of people will die, when others will be fighting on behalf of these two powers.

Like in Syria. Everyone is bombing, the Syrians to bring peace and democracy to Syria.
Tuan
BRFite
Posts: 440
Joined: 16 Oct 2008 01:26

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Tuan »

nam wrote:There is no US-China war. Just like there was no US-Soviet war.

US already has the knowledge of how to fight another superpower, without a war. Like they did with the Soviets.

But yes, lot of people will die, when others will be fighting on behalf of these two powers.

Like in Syria. Everyone is bombing, the Syrians to bring peace and democracy to Syria.
We should not forget the history. In 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt seized all Japanese assets in the United States in retaliation for the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China. Consequently, Tokyo decided to strengthen its position in terms of its invasion of China by moving through Southeast Asia. Roosevelt further swung into action by freezing all Japanese assets in America. Britain and the Dutch East Indies followed suit. The result: Japan lost access to three-fourths of its overseas trade and 88 percent of its imported oil. Japan was then faced with a dilemma: back off of its occupation of Southeast Asia and hope the oil embargo would be eased—or seize the oil and further antagonize the West, which eventually led to war.

Today China faces similar dilemma as Japan. The US is poking its nose into South China Sea while punishing China with a trade war. While the Murdoch press is framing China as aggressive in its neighborhood and beyond, nobody is reporting how China is being encircled by more than 400 American military bases in the Asia-Pacific alone. The question is how much more humiliation will China accept and how long it will be forbearing before it presses the magic button?
nam
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4712
Joined: 05 Jan 2017 20:48

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by nam »

Countries were all gung ho for "total war" before seeing the destruction in Ww2.

Why would chinese even get in to a fight with their ATM?

When the Soviets had nothing to loose, did not fight the US during cold War, why would chinese destroy a 15 trillion economy.
ArjunPandit
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4056
Joined: 29 Mar 2017 06:37

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by ArjunPandit »

Tuan wrote:nobody is reporting how China is being encircled by more than 400 American military bases in the Asia-Pacific alone. The question is how much more humiliation will China accept and how long it will be forbearing before it presses the magic button?
could you please give the list of 400 US bases? 200 or 100??
chetak
BRF Oldie
Posts: 32277
Joined: 16 May 2008 12:00

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by chetak »

The #CCP quietly published an updated code of conduct for journalists, with the passage below “Journalists should have a global perspective, explain China's path, theory and system, tell the Chinese story well and build a positive image of the country.” https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201912/ ... 7e5c6.html

10:41 PM - 15 Dec 2019 from Taipei City, Taiwan
SRajesh
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2069
Joined: 04 Aug 2019 22:03

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by SRajesh »

https://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/
Is this true, if so why do we pussy-foot with the Chinese and not call 'a spade a spade'.
There has been a diddly-squawk on : Uighur Detention, Hong Kong democracy demonstrations, BRI swindling , etc
We kept out RECP and let chin do the usual
When will we take a stand Hope the troika have a long term plan to fix the lizard!!!
Peregrine
BRF Oldie
Posts: 8441
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Peregrine »

MODS - PLEASE RE-POST IF NECESSARY TO A PERTINENT THREAD

X Posted on the Terroristan Thread.

China celebrates ‘very happy lives’ in Xinjiang, after detaining 1 million Uighurs - Anna Fifield

Beijing’s account of camps contrasts with those of detainees, their families

BEIJING — The Chinese government on Tuesday declared its campaign of control and repression in the majority-Muslim region of Xinjiang to be a resounding success, claiming that almost all of those detained in internment camps had been released and were now “living very happy lives.”

Signaling the start of a new phase in Xinjiang, officials quoted reams of figures to support their claims that life in Xinjiang had improved remarkably under 70 years of Communist rule and that the government’s “deradicalization” campaign had been effective.

“All ethnicities have worked together to make Xinjiang a beautiful place, Shohrat Zakir, deputy secretary of the Communist Party of China in Xinjiang and the highest-profile Uighur in the government, told reporters at a news conference organized by the State Council, or cabinet office, on Tuesday.

As if to show the harmony of Xinjiang, the State Council had organized Uighurs to sing and dance for reporters, and there were traditional handicrafts and dried fruit on display, along with signs saying, “Build a beautiful Xinjiang. Realize the Chinese Dream.”

The government’s portrayal of the situation in Xinjiang differs sharply from firsthand accounts of life there, with former inmates having described a systematic effort to rid the minority Uighurs of their culture and religion and make them assimilate into the Mandarin-speaking ethnic Han majority.

Some people who have emerged from the camps have managed to escape from China or at least get word to relatives, despite the Chinese government’s restrictions on international communication and heavy surveillance.

They describe camps of relentless indoctrination, where Muslim Uighurs are being forced to renounce their religion and instead swear allegiance to the ruling Communist Party.

There are about 11 million Uighurs living in the Xinjiang region of western China, and between 1 million and 3 million of them have been detained in camps since 2017, according to American government and human rights group estimates.

At the same time, Chinese authorities have razed mosques, forced men to shave their beards and women to leave their hair uncovered, and have instituted an all-encompassing surveillance system involving facial recognition cameras, ubiquitous checkpoints and placing ethnic majority Han Chinese in Uighur households to keep tabs on ethnic minority families.

‘Police cloud’: Chinese database tracks apps, car location and even electricity usage in Muslim region

The Chinese government, after long denying the existence of the camps, by the end of last year could no longer argue with the satellite imagery showing huge detention centers with barbed wire and watchtowers. It suddenly announced that the sites were “vocational training centers” designed to “deradicalize” extremists in the area.

Asked about the camps, Zakir and Alken Tuniaz, another senior Communist official in Xinjiang, said that they were aimed at the “deradicalization” of people who had been influenced by extremists from surrounding countries.

“We have taken measures to educate and save these people and help them see the real picture,” Zakir said. “For these people we have set up vocational education and training camps. They are not concentration camps as some people have said.”

Media reports about brainwashing at the camps were “fabricated” and “totally groundless,” he said, noting that the authorities had started to open the camps to visitors, including selected diplomats and journalists, last year.

Those who have been through the camps describe witnessing almost the exact same scenes, right down to the detainees singing “If You’re Happy and You Know It” in English.

Tuniaz said that people were not allowed to practice their religion in the camps — the first time a Chinese official has confirmed this — but said that their “freedom of religious beliefs is protected” in the centers.

“There was a man who hadn’t cut his beard,” said Tuniaz. “After the training at the center, he has the language skills to communicate and he can understand what is legal and illegal, and he has now started a business. His elderly father shook my hand and thanked the government for saving his son.”


The program had been successful and “most of the graduates have reintegrated into society,” Tuniaz said.

“More than 90 percent of the graduates have found satisfactory jobs and good incomes and have become positive members of society. They have also driven other people around them to get rich and work hard and live a better life,” he said.

The officials declined to say how many people had been through the camps, describing the number as “dynamic.”

But academics and activists monitoring the situation in Xinjiang say there have been no signs of mass liberations from the camp.

“I don’t see any evidence that large numbers are being released simultaneously,” said James Leibold, an expert on Xinjiang who teaches at La Trobe University in Australia. “If they were out, we would know.”

The camps have come in for sharp criticism from mostly Western countries, with more than 20 countries — including Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Japan — writing to the U.N. Human Rights Council to express concern “about credible reports of arbitrary detention” of Uighurs and other minorities in Xinjiang.

China sentences trailblazing online activist to 12 years in prison

China this week said that 50 countries — including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Pakistan — have written a joint letter commending Beijing for its counterterrorism and de-radicalization efforts and on the economic and social progress in Xinjiang.

The Foreign Ministry declined to supply the letter or the list of the 50 countries to The Washington Post, even though it has been all over state media this week, saying it was up to the Human Rights Council to release the information.

The Chinese authorities now seem to be turning to a new phase in their operation of the camps and their repression of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, experts say.

In a report published this month, German scholar Adrian Zenz wrote that growing numbers of detainees have been released from camps into forced labor.

“The state’s long-term stability maintenance strategy in Xinjiang is predicated upon a perverse and extremely intrusive combination of forced or at least involuntary training and labor,” he wrote, describing factory and other work as part of a supposed poverty-alleviation effort.

State newspapers and television channels this week have been full of reports about how happy and stable Xinjiang has become.

The Xinjiang Daily has constantly exhorted readers to “remain true to our original aspiration and keep our mission firmly in mind” — a phrase from the president about building a strong Communist Party. Almost every day, government officials and party cadres in Xinjiang are studying the Xi Jinping Thought doctrine and organizing self-reflection sessions, asking themselves: “Did we do things right?” the paper reported this week.

Separately, in a white paper titled “Historical Matters Concerning Xinjiang” released this month, the State Council said that the area had “ long been an inseparable part of Chinese territory.” It also said that the area had “never been the so-called ‘East Turkestan’ ” — referring to the name that many Uighur activists use for the area — and that Uighurs were not a Turkic group. Academics called this historical revisionism.

Question : Could India consider a similar procedure in respect of a "Certain Campaign" against "An Agitation"?

Cheers Image
chetak
BRF Oldie
Posts: 32277
Joined: 16 May 2008 12:00

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by chetak »

The empire strikes again :mrgreen:

even after everyone knows the dangers of dealing with the ever hungry han dragon, they all seem mesmerized and helpless in the face of the threat. Deal after deal is still being signed.

This is what happens when the countries' top leaders are bribed and blackmailed and they are forced to concede to the predatory terms of the financing deal "offered" by the hans.

I seriously wonder what would have been India's fate had the congis/naxals/comies been in the drivers seat.



China’s debt-trap diplomacy


China’s debt-trap diplomacy

Many countries have been pushed into indebtedness due to Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative. Kenya seems to be the latest victim


19th December,
Ashwani Mahajan

China is now going to occupy Kenya’s immensely profitable Mombasa port. Beijing had lent huge amounts for the development of Kenya’s railway network, which the African nation is not in a position to repay. Not only this, the inland container depot in Nairobi is also under threat of a Chinese takeover.

We must remember that the modus operandi is the same as was in Sri Lanka, when Colombo had to hand over the port of Hambantota to China on a 99-year lease due to non-payment of Chinese borrowings.

China had lent 550 billion Kenyan shillings for construction of Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway project. It is not fetching enough revenue and has lost 10 billion Kenyan shillings in the first year itself. China is going to acquire not only that project but also the Mombasa port to make up for the deficit. The auditor general of Kenya says that a one-sided agreement was reached with the Exim Bank of China, and even the arbitration of this agreement can only take place in China. Significantly, all the SGR receipts still go to the escrow account as per the unequal agreement favouring China.

The most dangerous clause in this agreement is that the Kenyan government has guaranteed a minimum occupation in the railway project to China. This is now leading to a situation of Kenya losing possession of its important public assets. In fact if we see it carefully, the whole Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that was rolled out by China is actually proving to be a part of its debt-trap diplomacy.

Significantly, BRI was being called a major infrastructure initiative, which by developing roads, railways and sea routes, would make the movement of goods between different countries easier and cheaper, thereby promoting international trade. China is trying to make the world embrace the argument that the BRI project will prove useful to developing countries in enhancing mutual trade, economic relations and connectivity. While explaining the benefits of BRI, efforts are being made in public discourse to hide its political, economic and geopolitical implications and threats.

The success of any scheme depends on its financing. This applies even more to infrastructure projects. When the Belt and Road Project was launched, all funding came from the Chinese government, the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and other institutions from Beijing. Since investment in BRI and other related infrastructure was coming from China, whether the Chinese government itself or financial institutions under the Chinese government, many countries got caught in a debt trap due to different reasons. In most of these cases funding was at an exorbitant rate of interest or it was made for non-viable projects or both. Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port became a startling example in this regard. Looking at this, many countries have started shying away from China’s infrastructure proposals. Similarly, another port in Djibouti, a country that has been the main military base of the US in Africa, is now on the verge of being taken over by a Chinese company due to heavy debt. Opposition to BRI is increasing due to the rising debt burden in many countries. In the last two years, not only opposition parties in BRI partner countries, social organisations too are strongly opposing the project.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is said to be the first project of BRI. Pakistan’s experience should be considered as a guide for the future. Four years ago, the then prime minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif had said that CPEC would prove to be a “game changer” for Pakistan and South Asia. But the way Pakistan has sunk into debt after four years shows that is not the case. Further, the growth there has come down from 5.8% in 2017-18 to 3.4% in 2018-19 and a projected 2.7% now. With the worsening economic condition of Pakistan, nobody in that nation is now calling CPEC a ‘game changer’.

Due to the high cost of infrastructure projects being built by China in Pakistan, the debt burden is increasing to unbearable levels and so is the repayment pressure on Pakistan. And the benefits from these infrastructure projects are very meagre and uncertain. Therefore, Pakistan is not very optimistic about CPEC any more.

It has to be understood that the World Bank also has many apprehensions about the BRI initiative. This has been discussed in detail in several World Bank reports, but so far there is a lack of concerted effort by international financial institutions to take over BRI projects. All kinds of contradictions of China and the clear expansionist policy of that nation can become an obstacle in solving these problems. Time will tell whether China will come out of its ‘monopolist’ policy and make elaborate efforts to push BRI through global forums. If China doesn’t mend its ways, it will create obstacles to its own plans. But whatever the case may be, the fact is today, around 10 countries have been trapped in China’s debt- trap diplomacy through BRI.

Ashwani Mahajan
Associate Professor, Department of Economics,PGDAV College (University of Delhi)
vishvak
BR Mainsite Crew
Posts: 5836
Joined: 12 Aug 2011 21:19

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by vishvak »

But the way Pakistan has sunk into debt after four years shows that is not the case. Further, the growth there has come down from 5.8% in 2017-18 to 3.4% in 2018-19 and a projected 2.7% now.
Not to forget pakilands is biggest 'beneficiary' of belt and road BRI game changer. Kenya didn't wait for 4 years to see effects on Pakis.
Tuan
BRFite
Posts: 440
Joined: 16 Oct 2008 01:26

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Tuan »

PLA Watching: A Beginner’s Guide to Analyzing China’s Military Tech - The Diplomat
The Chinese military (People’s Liberation Army, or PLA) has been receiving growing coverage and media interest over the past decade as China’s national profile has grown and as new weapons systems have progressively become unveiled. However, the nature of tracking new Chinese weapons developments – or “PLA watching” as it is sometimes called – is not a straightforward task for new military enthusiasts, and more than a handful of journalists and professional academics publish information on the PLA that may be out of date, or even outright false in some instances.

This piece will seek to provide a foundation and structure for beginners interested in testing the waters of PLA watching, and is primarily oriented for individuals with English as their primary language. The recommendations provided will reflect this author’s own experiences over the past decade of PLA watching, and in the absence of other similar guides, it will be significantly anecdotal in nature. While not exhaustive, the system described below is one that this author himself practices and has found great utility in.

Sources

The first question often posed by burgeoning PLA watchers is where to go for good quality sources.

Chinese weapons development is often notoriously opaque, and is far less transparent even compared to projects from Russia or India, let alone nations in Western Europe or North America. Nations with more transparent weapons development and procurement can often depend on a degree of official military or government disclosure for new systems. However, the Chinese government and Chinese military rarely even officially acknowledge the existence of new projects until they are approaching the later stages of development. When serious acknowledgement is made of a project known to be in the works, it is often interpreted with significant gravity.

It is worth noting that some Chinese language media and even some Chinese language state media will reference reports of PLA weapons development from foreign English language media. However, such articles should not be interpreted as an official government or military endorsement of the details of a project or even of a project’s existence, given Chinese state media range from official government mouthpieces (such as Xinhua or People’s Daily) to more casual tabloid-like outlets (such as Global Times) that tend to enjoy wider leeway in terms of content and credibility.

Generic, low barrier websites such as Wikipedia are often the go-to first port of call for beginners to PLA watching. While such “encyclopedia” sites can provide a generic understanding of which systems and weapons exist, they are often incorrect or out of date for details around capabilities, numbers, and sometimes even designations.

The sourcing of outlets like Wikipedia (or at least the English language version of Wikipedia) tends to draw on English language websites. For PLA related topics and weapons, these sources include large multinational English language news media companies, as well as English language defense news media, and sometimes national security/policy type outlets as well. These websites tend to be held up as “credible” or “reputable,” as many are longstanding, established publications or companies with a documented track record covering other types of news stories or defense stories.

Unfortunately, there are few established English language publications that are able to release leading edge updates of PLA weapons systems, primarily due to the language barrier. Unsurprisingly, the most demonstrably up-to-date and leading edge sources of PLA developments tend to be Chinese language sources, many of which exist on social media or internet forums. Therefore, access to that vital resource requires both an ability to read and understand the Chinese language, as well as an ability to discriminate reliable Chinese language sources and rumors from significant background noise.

Rumors and Rumors

The aforementioned opacity of Chinese weapons development and lack of disclosures via traditional means that are common in other countries leaves non-traditional sources as the only consistent producer of information. Chinese language internet forums and Chinese language social media are the primary venues to observe, usually acting as the first outlets to post pictures and information that later percolate down to the rest of the world’s media.

Information on new PLA developments is inevitably classified as rumors, as the veracity of said information is often impossible to confirm. However, the weight placed on some rumors versus others is significantly dependent on the individual user providing them. Users who have demonstrated a track record of providing exclusive new information that has later been confirmed are placed in much higher regard than random nobodies touting outlandish theories. Some established users may also provide evidence for their credentials, as there are also a handful of individuals who have been involved in PLA procurement or Chinese state aerospace firms and provided evidence of their role as well.

The ability to identify and discriminate credible rumors from background noise is vital to make PLA watching a viable process; however, the role of the PLA watching community is arguably just as important. PLA watching communities on Chinese language forums and social media as well as English language communities generally all share the same goal of seeking accurate and up-to-date information on PLA weapons developments. Therefore, as new rumors make their way through the grapevine, they are assessed by the collective skepticism and knowledge base of the PLA watching community.

While this process is not foolproof, it is relatively self-correcting as new hypotheses (rumors) must be tested against the preexisting base of knowledge in the community, allowing more credible rumors to continue to percolate while the less credible rumors are ignored. As new rumors emerge over months and years for a particular project, they can gradually coalesce into greater understanding for certain projects ranging from anything as rudimentary as confirmation of a new project’s existence to the key characteristics and parameters for new ship or aircraft.

This author has observed and participated in the community’s application of this process across many PLA weapons that have emerged from the mid-2000s to present, ranging from small arms to surface combatants to stealth aircraft. Indeed, when new weapons emerge and receive coverage by English language media, it is not uncommon to find information first established by the PLA watching community included in their content.

The Cycle

It is possible to envision a general cycle or timeline that most new PLA weapons undergo, from initial unsubstantiated rumors all the way to being confirmed projects with photo evidence of their existence and characteristics. The cycle below should be thought of as a continuum rather than well demarcated episodes; however, for the purposes of easy consumption, we can describe five general stages:

Pre-rumor: this stage often is the first and earliest circulation of a new weapon, and when it first emerges it is often difficult to separate from other unsubstantiated rumors. Pre-rumors often only describe a new weapon or system in very brief and vague terms, usually without a timeline and lacking well defined characteristics. If certain details are included in a pre-rumor, more often than not they will be refined and corrected in time with subsequent stages.

Pre-rumors are often difficult to substantiate when they first emerge. Only later, when a project’s existence is confirmed, is one able to retrospectively acknowledge the initial mutterings from prior years in the past. For the purpose of burgeoning new PLA watchers, the pre-rumor stage can be ignored, as it is included here more as a formality than as a practical stage to be actively in search of.

Rumor: this is the stage when a new weapon begins to receive traction, usually by the mention of one or more established insiders. At this stage, the rumors surrounding new weapons still lack significant detail. There is often no timeline for when a new project can be expected to emerge either. However being acknowledged by established insiders – even in passing – means a new weapon or project is placed on the community’s radar. Therefore, the rumor stage of the cycle can be thought of as the first true instance of being noticed by the community.

Credible Rumor: the difference between this stage and the prior is primarily one of magnitude. Credible rumors can generally emerge as a greater number of established insiders acknowledge the existence of a project over time, and continue to acknowledge the existence of a project. At this stage, new details of a project can emerge – for example, rough characteristics of a ship’s displacement and armament, or the general role and powerplant of an aircraft, or the weight of a main battle tank, or so on.

A limited number of leaked documents such as academic studies pertaining to a project may also emerge, as well as vague references in snippets of leaked official state documents that could relate to a particular project (terms such as “new type weapon” or “new type fighter aircraft”). Sometimes, blurry, low quality pictures of models or milestones may also be released, but cannot definitively be linked to a new weapon, yet add weight to the Credible Rumors that exist.

Near-confirmation: as credible rumors build up, eventually tangible evidence of a new project will begin to emerge in a more public way. Blurry satellite pictures of modules for a new ship under construction or poor quality photos of a new tank or rifle under testing may emerge. The community’s eyes will seek to verify whether a picture has been doctored or modified, and even if a picture is agreed to be authentic, the exact content of a picture is not always obvious. For example, an aircraft carrier’s first initial keel modules can be hard to discern from that of any other large ship in early stage of construction.

However, by this stage the established and credible insiders will often acknowledge (or deny) the contents depicted in a picture even if it is blurry or early stage. Near-confirmation is a stage where additional details, projected timelines for confirmation, and certain characteristics become more firm and concrete, such that it would be a surprise if any major details of a weapon or system ended up being demonstrably different to what is projected here. At this stage, the role of the community becomes one of expectation. English language defense and/or national security type outlets may begin to cover a new PLA project by this stage of the cycle.

Confirmation: there are various ways to define this stage depending on the weapon type, but generally speaking it relies on clear photographic or video evidence confirming the existence of a new weapons type. For an aircraft it can mean its first clear appearance taxiing and flying from a runway in images taken at multiple angles. For a ship it can mean multiple pictures confirming its key design characteristics in the late stages of assembly before launch. For a new rifle it can mean being fielded in some limited form by soldiers and documented by video or photo.

The key tenet of the confirmation stage is for the existence of a new weapons system to be confirmed beyond reasonable doubt. Occasionally, certain weapons systems will be officially covered by Chinese state or military media in a more open or transparent manner at its unveiling (such as a maiden flight or ship launch or parade appearance). But it is also common for a new weapons system’s existence to only be gradually confirmed over the course of days, weeks, or even months as new photos and videos are slowly released.

Usually, it is at this stage that mainstream English language news media will cover a weapon.

Conclusion

After a new weapons system is confirmed to exist, the cycle of tracking it becomes one of trying to document its various milestones in terms of testing, trials, and service activity. Keeping track of production numbers, weapons and sensor integration, and in-service bases is also part of the long post-confirmation period.

However, for the purposes of trying to identify new and upcoming PLA weapons prior to verifiable publicly available evidence, the PLA watching community can sometimes give advanced notification of a weapons systems’ existence, years in advance of that which traditional established English language media and defense media can provide.
chola
BRF Oldie
Posts: 5136
Joined: 16 Dec 2002 12:31
Location: USA

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by chola »

^^^ It is a fun hobby and a fun community to be honest. It is easy to get caught up in it because the reward cycle -- rumors, debate, leaks and finally confirmation -- is consistent.

Take their latest Type 002 carrier, since the first satellite photos in 2015, there were weekly if not daily updates in form of pictures, rumors and community contributed debate and research. A lot of data was gathered simply by watchers poring over Google Earth, for example.

The PLA watchers community itself is very international with a German and Frenchman being among the most respected members that I follow. There are many good Japanese ones (as expected.) A few desis too, retired IA intelligence Raj47 is probably most prominent among ours.

Sometimes, I imagine it would be nice to have an international following for Indian mil systems (beyond the NRIs) but the reward cycle would probably discourage watchers. In contrast to the Type 002, we can go for months on end without news on the Vikrant. Hardly any pictures.

But probably a good thing. Having a global network of firangis digging up information on your military can't be all that good for security. lol
SRajesh
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2069
Joined: 04 Aug 2019 22:03

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by SRajesh »

https://t.co/UFqHHAbuYs?amp=1
So much for the Human rights 'C' -Upholder Chin :lol: :lol:
darshan
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4018
Joined: 28 Jan 2008 04:16

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by darshan »

Chinese apps are losing their hold on India to local developers
https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/24/chine ... evelopers/
kit
BRF Oldie
Posts: 6278
Joined: 13 Jul 2006 18:16

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by kit »

chola wrote:^^^ It is a fun hobby and a fun community to be honest. It is easy to get caught up in it because the reward cycle -- rumors, debate, leaks and finally confirmation -- is consistent.

Take their latest Type 002 carrier, since the first satellite photos in 2015, there were weekly if not daily updates in form of pictures, rumors and community contributed debate and research. A lot of data was gathered simply by watchers poring over Google Earth, for example.

The PLA watchers community itself is very international with a German and Frenchman being among the most respected members that I follow. There are many good Japanese ones (as expected.) A few desis too, retired IA intelligence Raj47 is probably most prominent among ours.

Sometimes, I imagine it would be nice to have an international following for Indian mil systems (beyond the NRIs) but the reward cycle would probably discourage watchers. In contrast to the Type 002, we can go for months on end without news on the Vikrant. Hardly any pictures.

But probably a good thing. Having a global network of firangis digging up information on your military can't be all that good for security. lol
Indian military watchers would probably go crazy watching ..and waiting ..(repeat) :mrgreen:
sudarshan
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3018
Joined: 09 Aug 2008 08:56

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by sudarshan »

China will rewrite Koran (and Bible)

Now why didn't anybody think of this before :eek: :shock: .

Couldn't find a better thread, will move as appropriate, open to suggestions.
Peregrine
BRF Oldie
Posts: 8441
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Peregrine »

China sends 5 lakh Muslim kids to boarding schools - NYT News Service

HOTAN: The first grader was a good student and beloved by her classmates, but she was inconsolable, and it was no mystery to her teacher why. “The girl is often slumped over on the table alone and crying, ” he wrote on his blog.

“When I asked around, I learned that it was because she missed her mother.” The mother, he noted, had been sent to a detention camp for Muslim ethnic minorities. The girl’s father had passed away, he added. But instead of letting other relatives raise her, the authorities put her in a state-run boarding school — one of hundreds of such facilities that have opened in China’s Xinjiang region.

As many as a million ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and others have been sent to internment camps and prisons in Xinjiang over the past three years, a clampdown aimed at weakening the population’s devotion to Islam. The Chinese government is pressing ahead with a parallel effort targeting the region’s children.

Nearly a half million children have been separated from their families and placed in boarding schools so far, according to a planning document published on a government website, and the ruling Communist Party has set a goal of operating one to two such schools in each of Xinjiang’s 800-plus townships by the end of next year.

The party has presented the schools as a way to fight poverty, arguing that they make it easier for kids to attend classes if their parents live or work in remote areas or are unable to care for them. But the schools are also designed to assimilate and indoctrinate kids at an early age, away from the influence of families, according to the document, published in 2017.

The schools are off limits to outsiders and tightly guarded. State media and official documents describe education as a key component of President Xi Jinping’s campaign to wipe out extremist violence in Xinjiang. The idea is to use the boarding schools as incubators of a new generation of Uighurs who are secular and more loyal to the party and the nation.

“The long-term strategy is to conquer, to captivate, to win over the young generation from the beginning, ” said Adrian Zenz, a researcher at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington who has studied Chinese policies that break up Uighur families.

To carry out the assimilation campaign, authorities in Xinjiang have recruited thousands of teachers from across China, often Han Chinese, the nation’s dominant ethnic group. At the same time, prominent Uighur educators have been imprisoned. Children in the boarding schools are only allowed visits with family once every week or two.

Without specifying Islam by name, the policy document, characterised religion as a pernicious influence on kids. By early 2017, the document said, nearly 40% of all middle-school and elementary-school age kids in Xinjiang — or about 4,97,800 students — were boarding in schools. Visiting a kindergarten near the frontier city of Kashgar this month, Chen Quanguo, the party’s top official in Xinjiang, urged teachers to ensure children learn to “love the party, love the motherland and love the people”

Cheers Image
ArjunPandit
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4056
Joined: 29 Mar 2017 06:37

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by ArjunPandit »

Wisdom is to support China in this noble initiative.. Might help break commie peaceful alliance
chola
BRF Oldie
Posts: 5136
Joined: 16 Dec 2002 12:31
Location: USA

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by chola »

The chini and Burmese methods might be the only way to successfully deal with the peaceful.

It will be a massive advantage for the PRC in the future. The Jihadi is expanding in and undermining every advanced nation and great power on earth, including India. Cheen is the only major power where the peaceful are in full retreat.

The Chinese state is under no illusion, no obligation to human rights and no political correctness to allow this disease to survive within its body.

https://www.fpri.org/article/2019/12/ro ... terrorism/

Mendelsohn: Jihadi violence has affected Xinjiang but its scope was rather narrow, the attacks sporadic and the actors perpetrating them unsustainable in the face of the Chinese state’s repressive apparatus and surveillance might. Thus, whereas China offers an obvious case for jihadi mobilization, in reality operating within China is extremely difficult and the prospects of strategic success are too low to justify focusing energy on attempts to build a jihadi infrastructure. Jihadis may carry out some attacks, and even kill a bunch of people, but they cannot expect to produce strategic effects given China’s effective control over news reports and the Chinese public’s extremely limited power to shape regime’s policy. In fact, reflecting the sense of futility fighting the Chinese state – even years before technology significantly bolstered its surveillance apparatus – most Uyghur jihadis chose to leave China. It was not only because they sought to help their Muslim brothers in Afghanistan or Syria but primarily because they lacked the ability to operate in Xinjiang. It is unlikely that these volunteers will ever return home or successfully establish an active outfit to fight the Chinese authorities inside China.
Kati
BRFite
Posts: 1850
Joined: 27 Jun 1999 11:31
Location: The planet Earth

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Kati »

U.S.
US: Med student tried to smuggle cancer research to China
Associated PressDecember 31, 2019, 8:58 AM CST
BOSTON (AP) — A medical student from China who U.S. authorities say tried to smuggle cancer research material taken from a Boston hospital out of the country has been held without bail by a judge who ruled he was a flight risk.

Zaosong Zheng, 29, who last year earned a visa sponsored by Harvard University to study in the U.S., appeared Monday in U.S. District Court in Boston.

Magistrate Judge David Hennessy ruled that evidence suggested Zheng had tried to smuggle vials of research specimens in a sock in his suitcase bound for China and granted the prosecution's request to hold him without bail.

He was arrested Dec. 10 at Boston’s Logan Airport on a charge of making false statements.

Zheng stole the materials from his lab at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, authorities allege.

Some vials contained a colleague’s work he had replicated without the authorization or knowledge of the lab, Zheng told authorities, according to court documents.

Zheng was possibly acting on behalf of the Chinese government, the FBI said in affidavit included in court documents.

Zheng's federal public defender declined to comment outside court when questioned by the Boston Herald. A voicemail message was left with the defense attorney Tuesday.

Harvard officials told The Boston Globe that Zheng’s educational exchange visa had been revoked.

Beth Israel, a Harvard-affiliated teaching hospital, has fired Zheng and is cooperating with authorities, a spokeswoman said.

“We are deeply proud of the breadth and depth of our research programs,” Jennifer Kritz said. “Any efforts to compromise research undermine the hard work of our faculty and staff to advance patient care.”

The investigation is ongoing, and more charges are possible, prosecutors said.
Lisa
BRFite
Posts: 1718
Joined: 04 May 2008 11:25

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Lisa »

chola wrote:The chini and Burmese methods might be the only way to successfully deal with the peaceful.

It will be a massive advantage for the PRC in the future. The Jihadi is expanding in and undermining every advanced nation and great power on earth, including India. Cheen is the only major power where the peaceful are in full retreat.

The Chinese state is under no illusion, no obligation to human rights and no political correctness to allow this disease to survive within its body.

https://www.fpri.org/article/2019/12/ro ... terrorism/

Mendelsohn: Jihadi violence has affected Xinjiang but its scope was rather narrow, the attacks sporadic and the actors perpetrating them unsustainable in the face of the Chinese state’s repressive apparatus and surveillance might. Thus, whereas China offers an obvious case for jihadi mobilization, in reality operating within China is extremely difficult and the prospects of strategic success are too low to justify focusing energy on attempts to build a jihadi infrastructure. Jihadis may carry out some attacks, and even kill a bunch of people, but they cannot expect to produce strategic effects given China’s effective control over news reports and the Chinese public’s extremely limited power to shape regime’s policy. In fact, reflecting the sense of futility fighting the Chinese state – even years before technology significantly bolstered its surveillance apparatus – most Uyghur jihadis chose to leave China. It was not only because they sought to help their Muslim brothers in Afghanistan or Syria but primarily because they lacked the ability to operate in Xinjiang. It is unlikely that these volunteers will ever return home or successfully establish an active outfit to fight the Chinese authorities inside China.
Cholaji,

When you have time do read the following,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian ... am_Muslims

Remember, how much support and soucour the Chinese afforded the Khmer Rouge. What they currently do is simply a variant of a similar policy/solution. Also note how not ONE muslim nation has ever brought this incident up for discussion.
chola
BRF Oldie
Posts: 5136
Joined: 16 Dec 2002 12:31
Location: USA

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by chola »

Lisa, the Khmer Rouge were genocidal maniacs but the Khmer muslims were hardly less blood-thirsty when they saw any affront to their religion.

A muslim father killing his two sons?

As I said above, the chini and burmese way of doing things might be the only effective way of dealing with the peaceful.

From your link:

In 1975, upon the victory of the CPK over the Khmer Republic forces, two brothers of Cham descent who had joined the Khmer Rouge as soldiers returned home to Region 21 within the Kampong Cham province, where the largest Cham Muslim community could be found. The brothers then told their father of the adventures they had experienced being part of the revolution which included killing Khmers and consuming pork, in the hopes of convincing their father to join the communist cause. The father who had remained silent, was clearly not intrigued by the accounts related by his sons. Instead, he grabbed a cleaver, killed his sons, and told his fellow villagers that he had killed the enemy. When the villagers pointed out that he had indeed murdered his own sons, he recounted the stories he was told by his sons earlier, citing the Khmer Rouge’s hatred for Islam and the Cham people. This prompted a unanimous agreement amongst the villagers to kill all Khmer Rouge soldiers within the area on that night. The next morning, more Khmer Rouge forces descended the area with heavy weapons and surrounded the village, killing every single villager in it (Kiernan, 2002:263). Similarly in June or July 1975, the CPK authorities in Region 21 of the Eastern Zone tried to confiscate all copies of the Qur'an from the people, while at the same time impose a mandatory short haircut for Cham women. The authorities were met with mass demonstration staged by the local Cham community who were shot at by the regime soldiers. The Cham retaliated forcefully with swords and blades killing a few soldiers, only to be met with military reinforcement from the regime which annihilated the villagers and their properties (Kiernan, 2002:263–264).
mappunni
BRFite
Posts: 364
Joined: 14 Jul 2017 19:07

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by mappunni »

Not sure if this is the place to post the question if so Admins move to the appropriate place.

Why is Huawei even allowed to participate in 5G trials? :evil: Why is the Indian government allowing Chinese automotive companies to set up shop in India when we have the best in the world? Chinese automotive companies are best known for copying designs and building vehicles that fall apart.
Guddu
BRFite
Posts: 1054
Joined: 01 Dec 2008 06:22

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Guddu »

Allowed to participate (probably for political reasons), but wont get the 5G contract.
chola
BRF Oldie
Posts: 5136
Joined: 16 Dec 2002 12:31
Location: USA

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by chola »

mappunni wrote:
Why is Huawei even allowed to participate in 5G trials? :evil:
To keep Nokia and Ericsson from charging us the leg -- they get the arm irregardless.
mappunni
BRFite
Posts: 364
Joined: 14 Jul 2017 19:07

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by mappunni »

chola wrote:
mappunni wrote:
Why is Huawei even allowed to participate in 5G trials? :evil:
To keep Nokia and Ericsson from charging us the leg -- they get the arm irregardless.
Will ask some friends who work in Ericsson.

What about the Chinese automotive companies? Read that AaEeThiMuKa government in TN is sending a delegation to get them setup the plant around Chennai automotive belt.
Prasad
BRF Oldie
Posts: 7793
Joined: 16 Nov 2007 00:53
Location: Chennai

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Prasad »

Not ro-dho but we have to realise we're behind the tech curve once again wrt electric buses. All stategovernments are starting to look at getting electric buses tu replace their ageing fleets. And we have pretty much zero domestic guys with any expertise in electric drive trains or batteries. Let alone mass manufacturing them. The Chinese makers like BYD have had a few run in China on the back of their strict localisation rules, theft of ip etc. More ruth the government relaxing local sourcing rules they're facing competition from players like LG & Panasonic. India is a huge market and they can tap it line they did with mobile phones by undercutting any upcoming domestic players who will need PMA to really fight against the Chinese in any bidding process.
mappunni
BRFite
Posts: 364
Joined: 14 Jul 2017 19:07

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by mappunni »

Prasad wrote:Not ro-dho but we have to realise we're behind the tech curve once again wrt electric buses. All stategovernments are starting to look at getting electric buses tu replace their ageing fleets. And we have pretty much zero domestic guys with any expertise in electric drive trains or batteries. Let alone mass manufacturing them. The Chinese makers like BYD have had a few run in China on the back of their strict localisation rules, theft of ip etc. More ruth the government relaxing local sourcing rules they're facing competition from players like LG & Panasonic. India is a huge market and they can tap it line they did with mobile phones by undercutting any upcoming domestic players who will need PMA to really fight against the Chinese in any bidding process.
Exactly can’t stress enough the need for government to squeeze the b@££$ of the Chinese players so that they do not have any fair chance of competing with Indian automotive companies. Let the Cheens invest and would gladly let them go bust should be the government motive.
Kati
BRFite
Posts: 1850
Joined: 27 Jun 1999 11:31
Location: The planet Earth

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Kati »

A Chinese tourist accused of espionage is the latest example of a growing threat to US security
By Justin Rohrlich
https://qz.com/1779627/chinese-tourists ... yptr=yahoo

On June 28, 2019, Qingshan Li landed in Southern California on a flight from China. Li, a Chinese national visiting the US on a tourist visa, was scheduled to return home 10 days later.

The day after he arrived, Li drove his rental car to a storage facility in the San Diego area. There, he met up with an unidentified person named in court filings only as “AB,” from whom Li had arranged to purchase several pieces of sensitive military gear.

Li’s case, which has not been previously reported and is described in a federal charging document obtained by Quartz, is among the most recent incidents of Chinese civilians accused of spying on behalf of Beijing. While Li was apprehended by authorities, he represents the immediate—and increasing—threat China poses to US national security, experts say.

One of the items Li was allegedly after, a Harris Falcon III AN/PRC 152A radio, is designated as a defense article on the United States Munitions List, and subject to international arms trafficking regulations. This means the Falcon III, which provides US troops in the field with National Security Agency-certified encrypted communications, cannot leave the country without a special license issued by the State Department.

Li had agreed to pay AB a total of 50,000 renminbi, or roughly $7,200, for the radio. He knew AB was already under investigation for export-related crimes and believed AB “was attempting to get rid of the radio in light of AB’s entanglement with law enforcement,” according to the charging document.

Li told AB he planned to drive with the Falcon III to Tijuana, Mexico—about 30 minutes by car from San Diego—and ship it to China from there. This, Li reportedly thought, would help him skirt American trafficking laws. He gave AB a $600 down payment for the radio, and left the storage facility carrying it in a shoulder bag.

It is unclear from the court record whether AB was cooperating with authorities, or if they had become aware of Li’s activities during their ongoing monitoring of AB’s conversations, but the FBI was waiting for Li outside the building. Agents intercepted him immediately after the transaction with AB was completed. Li, they soon discovered, had a second Harris Falcon III in his possession, several antennas, a digital memory card, and a map of the North Island Naval Air Station, a nearby military base home to two US aircraft carriers.


According to an FBI affidavit filed in the case, Li came clean during questioning, confessing he had been tasked with obtaining the Falcon III radio by a contact Li claimed was an officer in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). He told the agents the PLA officer had given him a list of US military items to procure on his trip to the US, including the Falcon III.

Li was indicted by a federal grand jury less than two weeks after his arrest, and in September pleaded guilty to attempting to export defense articles without a license. The charge carries a possible $1 million fine and 20 years in prison. Last month, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service seized everything Li had on him at the time he was caught, including an iPhone 10 XS Max, which Li said he used to set up the radio purchase, as well as $2,844 Li said was intended for further illegal buys. He remains in custody, pending a pre-sentencing hearing set for Feb. 7.


Jonathan Rapel, Li’s attorney, and assistant US attorney Alexandra Foster, the lead federal prosecutor on the case, both declined to comment on Li’s case.

Not the first attempt
Almost exactly a year ago, America’s top counterintelligence official sounded the alarm about Chinese espionage.

China’s spy services are more persistent than even Russia’s or Iran’s, with broader reach and a wider variety of operational techniques than any other US adversary, warned William Evanina, who has led the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, a government agency under the aegis of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, since 2014.

“China is number one,” Evanina said in a 2018 podcast interview with former deputy CIA director Michael Morell. “Existentially, long term, they’re the largest threat to our national security, bar none—it’s not even close.”

There has been a marked increase in non-traditional intelligence collection efforts, Evanina said. “Those out-of-embassy jobs where they send over engineers, businessmen, students to do the same type of collection, recruitment, co-opting of information…at mass scale,” he said.

The Chinese intelligence services possess practically unlimited financial resources, and use this wealth freely, said Janosh Neumann, a former counterintelligence officer with Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), which replaced the KGB at the end of the Cold War. The US, as the undisputed leader in innovation and advanced technology, is the world’s top target for scientific and technical espionage of foreign intelligence services.

Neumann, who defected to the US in 2008, describes the Li case as a “classic example” of the way China operates, using voluminous numbers of agreeable civilians as freelance agents, as well as private companies, to further its geopolitical aims. (In the espionage world, “officer” denotes a professional intelligence operative, while “agents” are roughly akin to confidential informants.)

“The standard scheme is when special services use agents—sources—for smuggling technical devices or technologies prohibited from export from the United States,” Neumann told Quartz. “Most likely, Li was one of several agents whom the Chinese side sent with a similar task. To perform such operations, several agents are used simultaneously, thereby increasing the chances of success.”

Documents filed in the Li case do not provide any details about his background. However, the circumstances do suggest he was a citizen agent.

The intelligence arm of the PLA, for whom Li said he was working, is tasked with obtaining military secrets and related foreign technology, mostly the illegal export of restricted military and dual-use technology, according to Nicholas Eftimiades, who spent 34 years as a senior official with, variously, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

Eftimiades, who is considered one of the country’s foremost experts on Chinese espionage, told Quartz that Li’s tasking from the PLA was a “very focused collection operation,” and said the objective for someone like Li is to get in and get out before US authorities can figure out what’s happening. In this instance, however, Li’s contact, AB, was already in the FBI’s sights. When Li suddenly appeared on their radar, Eftimiades said, he “walked right into a trap.”

The Li case does not mark the first time China has tried stealing the Harris Falcon III radio, Eftimiades said, pointing to a trio of Chinese agents prosecuted in 2009 for selling an earlier model of the Falcon III. There is a civilian version of the Falcon III, Eftimiades noted, but that has already been knocked off by the Chinese and is not of particular interest to its spy services.

A threat to US troops
Although China is known for knocking off pilfered technology through reverse engineering, that may not have been the primary goal here. If China were to successfully acquire a military-grade Falcon III, it could directly endanger US troops on the battlefield.

“What you’d want to do is take it apart and understand the guts of it,” Eftimiades said. “It also has uploadable software. Were I a bad guy, I would want to know exactly how and where the software is uploaded, because it’s probably done from some central point. If I can get into that supply chain, I could theoretically upload software that may allow me access to [encrypted top secret] communications.”

Dan Grazier, a former US Marine tank commander, relied on the Falcon III regularly during tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“This is the handheld unit used by our forward air controllers on the ground,” Grazier told Quartz. “I would have a forward air controller with my tank company, and he would use this kind of radio to talk to aircraft, to guide close air support missions. So, this is an important system. It’s certainly something that we would not want to fall in the hands of a potential adversary.”

Now a fellow at the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight, Grazier said he assumes the Falcon III Li attempted to buy from AB was smuggled off of a US base, where it was almost certainly kept under lock and key within a secure area.

“The military works hard to control these sensitive items,” Grazier continued. “When I was the officer of the day for the tank battalion, I had to check to make sure that the vaults were locked, I had to sign the sheet to show that I checked it. If it gets out and if it gets off base, then it becomes really difficult to keep track of these things.”

Li’s sloppy spycraft is another indication he was an asset recruited from outside of the official intelligence community. If Li were a full-time spy, speculated Eftimiades, everyone involved would have first, at minimum, been vetted thoroughly by the PLA, including his source for the illicit military equipment, and would have established a secure means of communication before anyone was dispatched abroad. The Li operation was “state-sponsored, clearly,” Eftimiades said, pointing out that Li told the FBI he was taking orders from the PLA, but fits into what Eftimiades described as China’s “whole-of-society approach” towards conducting espionage.

The “thousand grains of sand” method
In a 2018 op-ed for The New York Times, Paul Moore, a former China analyst for the FBI, explained the technique, which is also known as a “mosaic” or “thousand grains of sand” method:

“If a beach were a target, the Russians would send in a sub, frogmen would steal ashore in the dark of night and collect several buckets of sand and take them back to Moscow,” Moore wrote. “The US would send over satellites and produce reams of data. The Chinese would send in a thousand tourists, each assigned to collect a single grain of sand. When they returned, they would be asked to shake out their towels. And they would end up knowing more about the sand than anyone else.”

Chinese citizens benefit in two ways from this arrangement. Beijing’s spymasters pay well for valuable information, and a large number of individuals and companies are willing to work with the government. This has to do not only with any immediate financial rewards, but also the promise of increased future earnings in one’s regular life, as well.

“If you’re an individual or a company, you stand in very good stead with the Chinese government for doing these sorts of things, which of course raises your own guanxi, your own reputation, inside those circles, and your ability to do more business,” said Eftimiades.

Knowing your adversary is a concept “as old as time,” said Grazier. By the same token, it’s also incumbent upon US counterintelligence to protect the nation’s sensitive information and materiel as much as possible.

“We don’t want to make it easy for them, that’s the big thing,” Grazier said. “We know that they’re doing this, but the counterintelligence aspect of the military is to thwart their efforts as much as we possibly can, and not do their jobs for them.”

To that end, the American counterintelligence apparatus is overdue for an update, Eftimiades said. For starters, he believes the federal government must start partnering with industry much more closely than it does now. The FBI, as well as the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Commerce are making attempts to strengthen ties with the commercial sector, but this sort of outreach is expensive and time-consuming, said Eftimiades. Agents get taken off the street to conduct industry briefings, which Eftimiades says doesn’t typically impart much usable information, anyway.

Equally important, Eftimiades said, the US needs to strengthen laws on intellectual property and the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires anyone acting on behalf of a foreign government to register with the Department of Justice and disclose their affiliation. FARA became law in 1938 to counter Nazi propaganda, and experts say it hasn’t evolved with the times—the 82-year-old regulations obviously don’t cover things like social media, and didn’t anticipate how blurred the lines between private industry and government would eventually become in countries like China and Russia.

“I testified before Congress a couple of times in the 90s, and I told them, ‘Do something about this problem now, because if not, in 20 years, you’re going to be calling me back crying: How did it get this bad?’” Eftimiades said. “And you know what happened? They didn’t do anything about it.”
SRajesh
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2069
Joined: 04 Aug 2019 22:03

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by SRajesh »

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/wor ... 117354.cms
What's with the timing of this exercise!!
Is there a message being sent.
And if so are we ready?
What with the light weight tanks and new howitzers.
What would dharmic forces deploy against these:
Transportation of Arjun and Bhisma would be an issue.
Arty folks what is the answer??
Prasad
BRF Oldie
Posts: 7793
Joined: 16 Nov 2007 00:53
Location: Chennai

Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat (15-11-2017)

Post by Prasad »

That Harris Falcon iii is a software defined radio. The Chinese are going all out to get their hands on every bit of tech from everywhere.
Locked