Bharat Rakshak

Kolas Yotaka @Kolas_Yotaka {Verified Account | Taiwan Presidential Office Spokesperson. Former journalist, Legislator, Cabinet Spokesperson. Personal account.}

50% -> TSMC share of world semiconductor market
20% -> TSMC revenue from Huawei in 2019
0% -> TSMC sales to Huawei going forward
100% -> How much I support this

Taiwan's TSMC officially announced yesterday it will stop supplying Huawei. Key moments call for clear decisions.

pankajs wrote:https://twitter.com/Kolas_Yotaka/status ... 9867542528

Kolas Yotaka @Kolas_Yotaka {Verified Account | Taiwan Presidential Office Spokesperson. Former journalist, Legislator, Cabinet Spokesperson. Personal account.}

50% -> TSMC share of world semiconductor market
20% -> TSMC revenue from Huawei in 2019
0% -> TSMC sales to Huawei going forward
100% -> How much I support this

Taiwan's TSMC officially announced yesterday it will stop supplying Huawei. Key moments call for clear decisions.

The security risks – and costs – of Belt and Road Initiative projects in Pakistan are rising amid a resurgence of deadly attacks by separatists in southwest Balochistan province, home to the Chinese-operated port of Gwadar.

In the third such attack since May, militant separatists opened fire on a patrolling paramilitary convoy in Panjgur district on Tuesday, killing three soldiers and wounding eight others, including an army colonel, the military said.

Militant ethnic Baloch factions have also recently expanded their range of operations to adjoining Sindh province and its port city of Karachi.

Beijing’s stakes in Sindh are as high as they are in Balochistan. Its state-owned enterprises run container terminals at Karachi port, Pakistan’s busiest, and are invested in nuclear and coal power projects established both under the umbrella of the US$60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and in partnership with local corporations.

On June 29, four militants were killed by police commandos when they tried to shoot their way into the Karachi Stock Exchange, which is 40 per cent owned by a consortium of three Chinese bourses.

“Baloch groups have not only intensified their attacks but also expanded the outreach of their terrorist violence beyond Balochistan, but it is hard to predict whether this trend will persist,” said Mohammad Amir Rana, director of the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, an Islamabad-based think tank.

He said Baloch insurgent factions had historically preferred to conduct low-intensity attacks, while their high-intensity attacks had tended to come in waves lasting “only for a few weeks”

Rana said CPEC projects and Chinese personnel remained well protected by the dedicated 13,700-strong Special Security Division, led by a two-star Pakistani army general, established in 2017.

“Only low-intensity attacks have been reported around CPEC project sites, but the financial cost of the security [to Pakistan] is high,” he said.

The attack on Karachi’s stock market was claimed by the Majeed Fidayeen Brigade (MFB) of the Baloch Liberation Army, which emerged as a serious security threat to Beijing’s interests in southern Pakistan two years ago.

In August 2018, MFB militants killed three Chinese engineers and wounded five others travelling in a bus in the town of Dalbadin, 930km north of Gwadar – to date, the most lethal attack on Chinese personnel since CPEC was launched in 2015.

The MFB subsequently carried out a foiled attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi in November 2018.

RISING ANGER

Beijing’s political risks are also escalating because of a renewed wave of public anger in many parts of Balochistan against human rights
abuses by Pakistani troops deployed to crush the low-intensity insurgency in the province.

It began in 2006 after Nawab Akbar Bugti, a rebellious former provincial chief minister and senior tribal chief, was killed in an operation ordered by military dictator General Pervez Musharraf.

The alleged abuses included the “enforced disappearances” of hundreds of people suspected of being involved in the insurgency.

In June, Akhtar Mengal, leader of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal, parted ways with the ruling coalition led by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, citing the government’s failure to bring a halt to state-enforced disappearances.

In a subsequent interview with the BBC’s Urdu-language service, Mengal said more than 1,500 Baloch had “disappeared” since Khan took office in 2018, and claimed that he had personally secured the release of nearly 500 people from the custody of the security forces.

In an attempt to bring Mengal back into the fold, the government has since reactivated a parliamentary committee tasked with reaching out to disgruntled Baloch leaders.

However, a veteran politician in the Balochistan provincial coalition government said the military was calling the shots, and even oversees most civilian development projects.

“Every two years, a new general is sent to Balochistan to take charge of Southern Command. But when they get here, they seek advice from other soldiers who are also from outside the province, rather than consulting pro-federation local politicians who are in a position to negotiate with insurgency leaders,” said the politician, who sought anonymity because he was contradicting the government’s policies.

“By the time the corps commander gets to grips with Balochistan, he is rotated out and replaced, and the cycle is repeated,” the politician said.

The military continues to push a security-heavy, economy-driven policy reliant on CPEC connectivity projects.

This month, the CPEC Authority chairman, retired lieutenant general Asim Bajwa – who served as corps commander in Balochistan from 2017 to 2019 – said the beginning of construction work on a motorway across the width of Balochistan – from Gwadar to the junction of Pakistan’s national motorway network in eastern Pakistan – would “act as a beacon light for southern Balochistan and change lives”.

While Bajwa was serving in Balochistan, Chinese diplomats met Akhtar Mengal and another nationalist politician to gauge their sentiments towards CPEC and pitch its benefits to them.

Because of the political and security situation in Balochistan, China’s CPEC investments in the province have hitherto been limited to the development of Gwadar port and a road linking it to the coastal highway to Karachi.

The port is not yet fully operational and only recently handled its Afghan transshipment cargo. The city continues to suffer severe power and water shortages.

WEB OF ESPIONAGE

Meanwhile, Chinese geopolitical interests at Gwadar, the Arabian Sea outlet of the corridor running overland from Xinjiang, have become caught up in a web of espionage and proxy warfare involving Pakistan and neighbouring Iran, which has been dealing with an ethnic Baloch insurgency of its own since the early 2000s.

Rather than working together against the rebels as they did during a 1970s uprising backed by a Soviet-supported government in Afghanistan
, Pakistan and Iran have accused each other of allying with each other’s nemeses, India and Saudi Arabia respectively, to support cross-border attacks.

After joining forces under a new umbrella group, Baloch Raji Aajoi Saangar (Bras), militant separatists launched their bloodiest attack in April last year, kidnapping and executing 14 Pakistani servicemen from a bus travelling from Karachi to coastguard and navy bases in Balochistan.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Bras staged the attack from bases in the adjoining Iranian province of Sistan Baluchestan and subsequently “conveyed the anger of the Pakistani nation” to his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif in a telephone conversation.

The bloody incident followed the October 2018 kidnapping of 14 Iranian paramilitary soldiers by Jaish ul-Adl, an affiliate of al-Qaeda waging a separatist campaign in southeastern Iran from bases on the Pakistani side of the porous 959km border.

Pakistan’s security agencies have secured the release of 12 of the Iranian soldiers, while two are still being held hostage.

In February last year, a Jaish ul-Adl suicide bomber rammed a bus carrying members of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps near the border with Pakistan, killing 27 soldiers.

Iran is highly suspicious of Pakistan and its relationship with Saudi Arabia, especially since Riyadh was invited in late 2018 to establish a US$10 billion oil refinery and storage facility at Gwadar.

“The Iranians feel that Pakistan is not doing enough to secure the border on its side,” said Seyed Mohammed Marandi, a professor of English literature and oriental studies at the University of Tehran and renowned political commentator.

“A lot of Saudi money has gone to extremist groups in this region and the Saudis have funded these [Jaish ul-Adl] terrorists,” he said.

Similarly, Pakistan is deeply concerned about India’s involvement at Chabahar port, which is competing with Gwadar for transit cargoes heading to landlocked Afghanistan.

The Pakistani authorities arrested an alleged Chabahar-based Indian spy and naval officer, Kulbushan Jadhav, as he entered Balochistan from Iran in March 2016.

After a series of top-level meetings stretching back last year, Pakistan agreed in April to fence its side of the border and in mid-May quietly launched a mopping up operation in adjacent areas, reportedly resulting in the deaths of more than 20 insurgents.

But the operation has also sparked a surge of complaints on social media about human rights abuses from Baloch living in affected areas, particularly after three women were killed in Turbat, Zamuran and Harnai.

Politicians have warned that popular resentment towards federal government policies in Balochistan is dangerously close to igniting a wider uprising.

Former president Asif Ali Zardari last month said the state needed “to be more careful in Balochistan”.

“If another Akbar Bugti-like incident happens, it will be difficult to handle the situation,” he said.

Journalist Kiyya Baloch said Chinese security concerns would continue to drag on the pace at which CPEC projects in Gwadar have been developed.

“Despite increasing diplomatic engagement, it is highly unlikely Beijing will make any significant further investment in Gwadar until security is improved,” Baloch said.

Barr Blasts Hollywood, Big Tech For 'Kowtowing' To China
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/16/89197732 ... g-to-china
Attorney General William Barr took aim at U.S. tech companies and Hollywood on Thursday over their relationship with China, accusing them of "kowtowing" to the Chinese government for the sake of profits.

In a nearly 45-minute speech on U.S.-China relations, Barr presented America's response to Beijing's global ambitions as a generational struggle that will define the political future of the world.

He railed against the Chinese Communist Party, calling it authoritarian, corrupt and bent on overturning the U.S.-led liberal democratic order to "make the world safe for dictatorship."

But the attorney general directed some of his sharpest criticism not at China's rulers, but at U.S. businesses that he says jettison American values to chase the lucrative Chinese market.

China is aiming to expand its influence internationally, Barr said, including on U.S. soil via what he called American dupes.

"All too often, for the sake of short-term profits, American companies have succumbed to that influence — even at the expense of freedom and openness in the United States," he said. "Sadly, examples of American business bowing to Beijing are legion."

Barr's first target was Hollywood and the actors, producers and directors whom, he said, "pride themselves on celebrating freedom and the human spirit."

"Every year at the Academy Awards, Americans are lectured about how this country falls short of Hollywood's ideals of social justice. But Hollywood now regularly censors its own movies to appease the Chinese Communist Party, the world's most powerful violator of human rights," Barr said.

"This censorship infects not only versions of movies that are released in China but also many that are shown in American theaters to American audiences."

The attorney general cited a decision by Marvel Studios to change the origins of a key character in the film "Doctor Strange."

In the comic book source material, the character is Tibetan, while in the film version the character is Celtic — a change the screenwriter has said was made to avoid offending China's government and possibly losing access to the country's massive movie market.

America's film industry "is far from alone in kowtowing" to the Chinese government, Barr said, adding that U.S. tech companies "have also allowed themselves to become pawns of Chinese influence."

He pointed to a recent decision by Apple to remove the news app Quartz from its app store in China after Beijing voiced concerns about its coverage of protests in Hong Kong.

Barr also has said business executives need to be aware of what he said were the Chinese government's efforts to use them to further its political interests.

Recently, he said, China has stepped up behind-the-scenes attempts "to cultivate and coerce" U.S. business executives to advance Beijing's own political objectives.

He described a move by Chinese authorities to push American corporate executives to promote — publicly and in conversations with political leaders — policies and actions that benefit China.

"Privately pressuring or courting American corporate leaders to promote policies or U.S. politicians presents a significant threat, because hiding behind American voices allows the Chinese government to elevate its influence and put a 'friendly face' on pro-regime policies," Barr said.

It is unusual for an attorney general to weigh in like this on U.S. relations with a foreign country. But Barr has a particular interest in the U.S.-China relationship dating back to the 1970s when he was an analyst at the CIA on China matters.

His remarks Thursday, though, also fit into a string of recent speeches from senior U.S. officials, including national security adviser Robert O'Brien and FBI Director Christopher Wray, that took aim at China.

Nikki Haley
@NikkiHaley
If this were any other country but China, the world would be up in arms. Where is the UN now? You will blame Israel 10x over but when it’s China....silence.
https://mobile.twitter.com/NikkiHaley/s ... 2735106048

darshan wrote:

Nikki Haley
@NikkiHaley
If this were any other country but China, the world would be up in arms. Where is the UN now? You will blame Israel 10x over but when it’s China....silence.
https://mobile.twitter.com/NikkiHaley/s ... 2735106048

Vatican agreement with China likely to be renewed, archbishop says
https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2020/06/vat ... shop-says/
ROME – Italian Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli said in a recent interview that while the Vatican’s relationship with China is complex, a 2018 provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops will likely be renewed.

“The provisional agreement with China expires in September of this year and we must find a formula, we must see what to do,” Celli said in a recent interview with the Stanze Vaticane program of Italian television network, TGCOM24.

Amit Gupta is an Associate Professor at the USAF Air War College.

The coronavirus and the economic downturn caused by currency demonetization, when coupled with an expensive war, however, limited the latter might be, could lead to a serious downturn in an economy that is already bleeding. The problem gets compounded by the fact that unlike the aging populations of Europe, India is a young nation with a median age of twenty-seven. Employment, therefore, becomes important for the prevention of large-scale unrest and a war that further weakens the economy would not help.

China, however, is not going to fight a 1962-like war and will, instead, depend on increased mobility and better fire-power to inflict casualties on India. The fear then is that the Indians would achieve marginal gains at severe economic costs or get a bloodied nose and have little to show for it. No one in India seriously believes that the Indian military could get back the land it lost to China in the 1962 war.

Further, the Chinese have a $14 trillion economy compared to India’s $2.9 trillion economy and could, therefore, sustain a conflict over a longer period of time. The Indian estimates on a war are based on a rosy picture where it goes on for a couple of weeks and then there is diplomatic intervention by the international community. But things may not go according to Indian calculations and there are doubts about how long India could sustain a war effort.

To sum up, why fight an economically draining conflict to achieve what are at best-limited objectives?

Thirdly, the international community is not going to give substantial support to India and, instead, likely to adopt a neutral position in the conflict particularly since the Chinese now have created economic interdependencies around the world that are making other countries less willing to challenge China’s perceptions and actions in world affairs.

Economically speaking, the Indians cannot compete with the Chinese in terms of providing alternative supply chains to western manufacturers but they can provide a prize that the west would find hard to resist—and that is the award of contracts for India’s 5G network to western companies. For India, it would help send a message to China that it does have other economic alternatives and that it can piggyback off the West’s technological prowess to launch its own future economic and technological growth which will depend on the successful adaptation of 5G and artificial intelligence (AI) into different parts of the Indian economy.

While making the economy more open to global investment is a first step, the real shift may have to come in a reorientation of Indian foreign policy with a hard look at the policy of nonalignment

India needs to reconsider the policy and take a side in the international power rivalry—and that side means a closer link to the United States. Such a closer link may take the form of giving the U.S. Navy a strategic base along the Indian coast or in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands since would give the United States a strategic chokepoint to the Strait of Malacca.Giving the United States a base on Indian territory, however, raises the costs for both Pakistan and China of waging a war—whether limited or full-blown—because it would raise the ire of Washington and that is something that Islamabad certainly does not want while Beijing would have to reconsider its strategy.

The current Indian government has been pressing for a “Make in India” policy, especially for modern weapons systems. The problem with implementing this objective has been two-fold. As seen in the case of the recent Rafale purchase, where India wanted to build the plane at home, the country lacked the trained scientific personnel, infrastructure, and machine tools to do the job so the cost of the project ballooned. The bigger problem, however, which led to a choice of a French airplane over an American one, was that there were questions about India safeguarding American supplied technology. A formal alliance would go a long way to removing such concerns in Washington.

The current Indian government has been pressing for a “Make in India” policy, especially for modern weapons systems. The problem with implementing this objective has been two-fold. As seen in the case of the recent Rafale purchase, where India wanted to build the plane at home, the country lacked the trained scientific personnel, infrastructure, and machine tools to do the job so the cost of the project ballooned. The bigger problem, however, which led to a choice of a French airplane over an American one, was that there were questions about India safeguarding American supplied technology. A formal alliance would go a long way to removing such concerns in Washington.

Amit Gupta is an Associate Professor at the USAF Air War College

Y I Patel wrote:How do such morons become professors?

pankajs wrote:
This is not a serious piece. Either he hasen't studied the subject or he is trying to impress his gora paymasters and public.

Y I Patel wrote:How do such morons become professors?

Four Chinese Companies In India May Be Sharing Intel With PLA; Centre Traces Links With Chinese Military
https://swarajyamag.com/insta/four-chin ... e-military
According to the report, a 2017 Chinese Intelligence Law empowers government authorities to conduct raid on suspects while companies like Huawei, ZTE and TikTok provide intelligence for such raids. The companies are reportedly obliged to share information and cooperate with Chinese intel agencies irrespective of where they operate from.

"Any organisation or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work in accordance with the law. The state protects individuals and organisations that support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence work," Article 7 of the law reads.

The four identified companies are -- Xindia Steels, Xinxing Cathay International Group, China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), and Huawei.

Xindia Steels is a joint venture between India and China and has recently established an iron ore pelletisation unit in Karnataka.

Xinxing Cathay International Group, which is the main shareholder in Xindia Steels, also has its own manufacturing plant in Chhattisgarh.

While mobile phone giant Huawei has large sales operations in India, the CETC is going to invest $46 million in a 200 megawatt PV facility in Andhra Pradesh.

It is worth mentioning an interesting piece of information, that Huawei's founder Ren Zhengfei was earlier a deputy director of the PLA's engineering corps. The CETC too has been a major military electronics maker for the PLA.

“With South Korea and Japan and the United States, we’re doing enough. That trilateral arrangement, that agreement between those three countries, that is one of the strongest relationships in national security.”

“Are we doing enough with Taiwan? No. Since Henry Kissinger’s days and forward, there’s been strategic ambiguity about our policies between Taiwan and China.”

“We are introducing a bill next week, and it’s going to be called the Taiwan Invasion Prevention Act, and this is something that’s going to lay very clear what our intent is. In fact, it’ll go to the point where it authorizes an AUMF (Authorization for Use of Military Force) if China invades Taiwan, and it’ll be a sunset for five years, that AUMF, that would authorize the president to use force”.

Michael Pillsbury @mikepillsbury

UK-China relations: from ‘golden era’ to the deep freeze https://ft.com/content/804175d0-8b47-44 ... ded76f48e4 via @financialtimes

Peter Navarro @PeterNavarro45

REQUIRED READING: Another pandemic or biowarfare attack disguised as viral contagion, could paralyze U.S. economically and militarily. Reducing American dependence on China-sourced pharmaceuticals and health-care products should therefore be a PRIORITY.

This plane is equipped with a cardiogram monitor, respirator and other devices.

Top military sources say Beijing is wary of Indian Army’s preparations and the move is aimed at saving the lives of PLA soldiers in a Galwan-like violent face-off in future.

July 21, 2020,
Rakesh Kumar Singh


China, frightened by the vigorous preparations of the Indian Army in Ladakh and after the retort in the Galwan Valley, has now deployed its first ever “flying hospital” in the high-altitude area of Tibet. According to sources, the Chinese military has taken this step to save the lives of soldiers during any possible conflicts with India. With the help of this “flying hospital”, China will be able to transport its wounded soldiers to hospitals located thousands of kilometres away. China fears that if there is a conflict with India, it may urgently need medical help.

In the meantime, to make things further uneasy for the Dragon, American warship NIMITZ, which is also included in the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet, has arrived at the Andaman and Nicobar Islands on Sunday and will now patrol the Indian Ocean near the Indian islands.

Top sources say, the Chinese military’s health facilities in the area bordering India are very poor and it has been forced to deploy Y-9 medical aircraft. According to the South China Morning Post, three officers were seriously injured during a Chinese military exercise and the injured officer was sent to a hospital 5,200 km away for better treatment by a Y-9 medical aircraft. The officer was taken to Shijing Hospital later on.

According to experts associated with Chinese defence, lives have to be saved in a skirmish like Galwan and hence, the purpose of this plane is to improve the health facilities in the highaltitude areas, especially on the Indian border. India and China have thousands of kilometres long border, but without any clear border line.

On 15-16 June, 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a bloody clash in the Galwan Valley, while more than 40 Chinese soldiers were believed to be killed, although China has not disclosed any details about the exact numbers of casualties. International agencies also say that more than 40 Chinese soldiers were killed. Senior Chinese military officials believe that the lives of many Chinese soldiers could have been saved if medical facilities had been provided.

According to sources, in case of a clash like Galwan, it is necessary to improve the health facilities so that the death toll can be kept to a minimum. The senior Chinese official said, “Y-9 is a flying hospital and it will prove to be very helpful in saving the lives of seriously injured soldiers. In addition, several hospitals in the Himalayan region bordering India have been equipped with Hyperbaric Oxygen Chambers for first aid. China is modernising all its hospitals in the region. This plane is equipped with a cardiogram monitor, respirator and other devices.”

Michael Pillsbury @mikepillsbury

Winning The Spectrum: Pentagon Unveils New Strategy “The PLA’s reliance on pre-planned, static systems of systems and tactics could be a liability against highly dynamic and unpredictable U.S. spectrum operations. The EM Spectrum Superiority Strategy”
https://www.hudson.org/research/16045-w ... w-strategy

India's electrical and electronics equipment industry has started a mass-cancellation of import orders from Chinese companies. It is now seeking new markets to import raw materials regardless of higher cost, Economic Times has reported.

It has been speculated that Chinese companies keep the prices of their goods artificially low to beat the competition

US Blacklists 11 More Chinese Firms For Involvement In Uyghur Persecution In Xinjiang; 48 Companies Sanctioned So Far
https://swarajyamag.com/insta/us-blackl ... ned-so-far

The United States Department of Commerce on Monday (20 July) slapped sanctions on 11 Chinese companies for their involvement in human rights violations in connection with China's treatment of Uighurs Muslims in Xinjiang, reports Economic Times.

These 11 companies are the third such group of Chinese companies to have been added to the economic blacklist. The US has asserted that the companies were involved in using forced labor by Uighurs and the other minority Muslim groupings in China.

The blacklisted companies include several textile companies and two firms that, the US Commerce Department said, were conducting genetic analyses used to further the repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.

@AFP
#BREAKING Beijing says US ordered it to close Chinese consulate in Houston

@AFP
#UPDATE The United States has ordered China to close its Houston consulate, Beijing said Wednesday, in what it called a "political provocation" that will further harm diplomatic relations

@AFP
"China urges the US to immediately withdraw its wrong decision, or China will definitely take a proper and necessary response," said foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, adding they were told Tuesday the consulate would have to close

@Rosecomment
Replying to
@AFP
The CCP is burning Documents at the consulate— the Japanese did the same thing just before bombing Pearl Harbour!

chetak wrote:

Frightened by Galwan wounds China deploys ‘flying hospital’ in Tibet

In the meantime, to make things further uneasy for the Dragon, American warship NIMITZ, which is also included in the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet, has arrived at the Andaman and Nicobar Islands on Sunday and will now patrol the Indian Ocean near the Indian islands.