The South China Sea's Gathering Storm
With the West fully engaged with the Ukraine and the Middle East, I am not surprised China is willing to push boundaries. The world is becoming a very dangerous place....
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The new missile gap has arisen: China announces that their hypersonic missiles work.
China Makes Hypersonic Technology Breakthrough as US Lags Behind (newsweek.com)
China Makes Hypersonic Technology Breakthrough as US Lags Behind (newsweek.com)
They always claim everything works - and of course there are a lot of people in the USA who are looking for a slug of govt cash to spend on "catching up" - Sputnik, the Blinder, various 1980's Russian missiles, Russian super-subs........... the list is long
I understood, perhaps wrongly, that a missile travelling at hypersonic speed became significantly warm and generated a plasma around it that interfered with control signals directed at same, Has this problem been solved or is hypersonic slower than it used to be?
Trouble in the cabinet in Beijing.
.
TAIPEI. Taiwan (AP) — China has replaced Defense Minister Gen. Li Shangfu, who has been out of public view for almost two months, state media reported Tuesday. No further information was given. Li is the second senior Chinese official to disappear this year, following former Foreign Minister Qin Gang, who was removed from office in July with no explanation offered
that's more a Russian HR tactic
It will get interesting if they are able to take Taiwan like they took Hong Kong without a shot being fired . How close they are to achieving that objective might be closer than many think .
The British has to hand back the lease on most of HK after 99 years - both sides agreed on that and more or less never wavered over the years - I don't think either side really liked the idea either way but a deal was a deal
Taiwan is different
Taiwan is different
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity”
― Sun-Tzu, A Arte da Guerra
They will succeed in Taiwan, without a shot being fired in anger . Different but same .
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity”
― Sun-Tzu, A Arte da Guerra
They will succeed in Taiwan, without a shot being fired in anger . Different but same .
Exclusive: Chinese jet fired flares close to submarine-hunting helicopter in South China Sea, Canadian Navy says (msn.com)
“The risk to a helicopter in that instance is the flares moving into the rotor blades or the engines so this was categorized as both unsafe and non-standard, unprofessional,” said Maj. Rob Millen, air officer aboard the Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Ottawa, the warship from which the Sikorsky Cyclone helicopter was flying.
The incident was the second of two encounters the Ottawa’s helicopter had with Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy J-11 fighter jets over international waters on October 29, which saw the fighters get as close as 100 feet from the helicopter, Millen told CNN in an interview aboard the warship.
He said that Canada and other nations have seen Chinese aircraft get close to fixed-wing aircraft on numerous occasions, but it was rare to see such action taken against a helicopter.
The first incident was over international waters outside of 34 miles from the Paracel Island chain in the northern part of the South China Sea. The second was also over international waters outside of 23 miles from the Paracels. The warship was operating in international waters 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of the Paracels at the time.
The Canadian helicopter was searching for a previously detected submarine when the incidents occurred, officers aboard the Ottawa said.
Millen said he was piloting the Canadian helicopter earlier in the day, when Chinese J-11s intercepted it at close range while it flew straight and level at 3,000 feet above the water back toward the Ottawa, a signal to that it had no hostile intent.
In that earlier encounter, Millen said the Chinese fighters flew in circles around his helicopter.
“When the intercepting aircraft was closer and closer, at a certain point it became unsafe,” he said.
His helicopter experienced turbulence coming off the Chinese jets, also posing a danger to the copter, Millen said.
“I certainly am not as comfortable as you can be based on the fragility of the rotor system,” he said.
Millen said he ended that encounter by descending to 200 feet, an area where the helicopter can operate but is “very uncomfortable for fast air fighter jets.”
The Canadian air force major said his military’s air crews train on how to respond to such intercepts as occurred on Sunday and will continue to fly over the international waters of the South China Sea.
Asked about the interception at a regular press briefing on Friday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin replied: “I’m not aware of the situation you mentioned.”
“We have reiterated many times our firm position on Canadian warplanes conducting reconnaissance near China’s territorial airspace,” he told reporters. “We hope Canada will refrain from its inappropriate behavior to avoid the situation from becoming more complicated.”
CNN has also reached to China’s Defense Ministry for comment.
China claims historic jurisdiction over almost the entirety of the vast South China Sea, and since 2014 has built up tiny reefs and sandbars into artificial islands heavily fortified with missiles, runways and weapons systems – sparking outcry from the other claimants. The Paracels, called the Xisha Islands by China, are in the northern part of the South China Sea, east of Da Nang, Vietnam, and south of China’s Hainan Island.
The 1.3-million-square-mile waterway is vital to international trade, with an estimated third of global shipping worth trillions of dollars passing through each year. It’s also home to vast fertile fishing grounds upon which many lives and livelihoods depend.
In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague concluded that China has no legal basis to claim historic rights to the bulk of the South China Sea. China has ignored the ruling.
The Ottawa had been patrolling the waterway since last Monday, at times operating with United States, Australian, Japanese and New Zealand naval vessels and aircraft in a multinational exercise dubbed Noble Caribou. However, it was operating alone when the encounters with the Chinese jets.
The Ottawa and the US Navy destroyer USS Rafael Peralta overnight Wednesday into Thursday local time continued their deployment into the Taiwan Strait, another international waterway and vital shipping channel that has seen tense
encounters between PLA and allied vessels.
Last June, the US Navy reported a close encounter between the destroyer USS Chung-Hoon and a Chinese warship during a Taiwan Strait transit, in which the US warship slowed down to avoid colliding with the Chinese navy vessel that cut in front of it. The Canadian frigate HMCS Montreal was accompanying the US ship at the time, and a news crew aboard it recorded the incident.
Then Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu blamed the US for ratcheting up tensions in the region when questioned by reporters at a defense conference in Singapore.
“They are not here for innocent passage, they are here for provocation,” Li said of US warships.
Li said if the US and other foreign powers did not want confrontation, they should not send their military assets near China.
“Mind your own business,” Li said, adding, “Why did all these incidents happen in areas near China, not in areas near other countries?”
This week’s passage of the allied warships through the strait was uneventful, however, with no contact reported.
Sunday’s incidents come after other reports of unsafe intercepts of allied aircraft in the recent days.
On Tuesday, a PLA fighter jet came within 10 feet of a US Air Force B-52 bomber flying over the South China Sea, the US military said.
And earlier in October, a Chinese fighter jet came within five meters (16 feet) of a Canadian CP-140 reconnaissance and surveillance plane over the East China Sea.
That incident was recorded by news crews aboard the Canadian aircraft and witnessed by Maj. Gen. Iain Huddleston, the commander of Canada’s 1st Air Division, who was also on the plane.
Huddleston called the intercept “unprofessional” and “very aggressive” in a report from Radio Canada, which was on the plane.
“The Canadian aircraft was subject to multiple close-proximity manoeuvres by a PLAAF aircraft that put the safety of all personnel at risk,” Canada’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.
China’s Foreign Ministry said the Canadian plane illegally entered Chinese airspace and accused the Canadian military of sending “warplanes halfway around the world to stir up trouble and make provocations at China’s doorsteps.”
In February, in an incident witnessed by a CNN crew, a Chinese fighter jet came within 500 feet of a US Navy reconnaissance plane flying at 21,500 feet about 30 miles from the Paracels.
Earlier this month, the Pentagon’s top official in charge of security in the Indo-Pacific, Ely Ratner, said that the US has seen more instances of “coercive and risky” behavior from Chinese pilots against US aircraft in the last two years over the East and South China Seas than in the entire decade before that.
“Since the fall of 2021, we have seen more than 180 such incidents,” Ratner said. “It’s a centralized and concerted campaign to perform these risky behaviors in order to coerce a change in lawful US operational activity.”
Exclusive: Chinese jet fired flares close to submarine-hunting helicopter in South China Sea, Canadian Navy says
AChinese warplane fired flares in front of a Canadian military helicopter over international waters of the South China Sea last Sunday, an operation that Canadian military officers said was reckless and could have resulted in the downing of the aircraft.“The risk to a helicopter in that instance is the flares moving into the rotor blades or the engines so this was categorized as both unsafe and non-standard, unprofessional,” said Maj. Rob Millen, air officer aboard the Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Ottawa, the warship from which the Sikorsky Cyclone helicopter was flying.
The incident was the second of two encounters the Ottawa’s helicopter had with Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy J-11 fighter jets over international waters on October 29, which saw the fighters get as close as 100 feet from the helicopter, Millen told CNN in an interview aboard the warship.
He said that Canada and other nations have seen Chinese aircraft get close to fixed-wing aircraft on numerous occasions, but it was rare to see such action taken against a helicopter.
The first incident was over international waters outside of 34 miles from the Paracel Island chain in the northern part of the South China Sea. The second was also over international waters outside of 23 miles from the Paracels. The warship was operating in international waters 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of the Paracels at the time.
The Canadian helicopter was searching for a previously detected submarine when the incidents occurred, officers aboard the Ottawa said.
Millen said he was piloting the Canadian helicopter earlier in the day, when Chinese J-11s intercepted it at close range while it flew straight and level at 3,000 feet above the water back toward the Ottawa, a signal to that it had no hostile intent.
In that earlier encounter, Millen said the Chinese fighters flew in circles around his helicopter.
“When the intercepting aircraft was closer and closer, at a certain point it became unsafe,” he said.
His helicopter experienced turbulence coming off the Chinese jets, also posing a danger to the copter, Millen said.
“I certainly am not as comfortable as you can be based on the fragility of the rotor system,” he said.
Millen said he ended that encounter by descending to 200 feet, an area where the helicopter can operate but is “very uncomfortable for fast air fighter jets.”
The Canadian air force major said his military’s air crews train on how to respond to such intercepts as occurred on Sunday and will continue to fly over the international waters of the South China Sea.
Asked about the interception at a regular press briefing on Friday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin replied: “I’m not aware of the situation you mentioned.”
“We have reiterated many times our firm position on Canadian warplanes conducting reconnaissance near China’s territorial airspace,” he told reporters. “We hope Canada will refrain from its inappropriate behavior to avoid the situation from becoming more complicated.”
CNN has also reached to China’s Defense Ministry for comment.
China claims historic jurisdiction over almost the entirety of the vast South China Sea, and since 2014 has built up tiny reefs and sandbars into artificial islands heavily fortified with missiles, runways and weapons systems – sparking outcry from the other claimants. The Paracels, called the Xisha Islands by China, are in the northern part of the South China Sea, east of Da Nang, Vietnam, and south of China’s Hainan Island.
The 1.3-million-square-mile waterway is vital to international trade, with an estimated third of global shipping worth trillions of dollars passing through each year. It’s also home to vast fertile fishing grounds upon which many lives and livelihoods depend.
In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague concluded that China has no legal basis to claim historic rights to the bulk of the South China Sea. China has ignored the ruling.
Freedom of navigation
Major western powers frequently conduct passage across the sea in order to assert that the region is international waters, sparking Beijing’s ire.The Ottawa had been patrolling the waterway since last Monday, at times operating with United States, Australian, Japanese and New Zealand naval vessels and aircraft in a multinational exercise dubbed Noble Caribou. However, it was operating alone when the encounters with the Chinese jets.
The Ottawa and the US Navy destroyer USS Rafael Peralta overnight Wednesday into Thursday local time continued their deployment into the Taiwan Strait, another international waterway and vital shipping channel that has seen tense
encounters between PLA and allied vessels.
Last June, the US Navy reported a close encounter between the destroyer USS Chung-Hoon and a Chinese warship during a Taiwan Strait transit, in which the US warship slowed down to avoid colliding with the Chinese navy vessel that cut in front of it. The Canadian frigate HMCS Montreal was accompanying the US ship at the time, and a news crew aboard it recorded the incident.
Then Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu blamed the US for ratcheting up tensions in the region when questioned by reporters at a defense conference in Singapore.
“They are not here for innocent passage, they are here for provocation,” Li said of US warships.
Li said if the US and other foreign powers did not want confrontation, they should not send their military assets near China.
“Mind your own business,” Li said, adding, “Why did all these incidents happen in areas near China, not in areas near other countries?”
This week’s passage of the allied warships through the strait was uneventful, however, with no contact reported.
Sunday’s incidents come after other reports of unsafe intercepts of allied aircraft in the recent days.
On Tuesday, a PLA fighter jet came within 10 feet of a US Air Force B-52 bomber flying over the South China Sea, the US military said.
And earlier in October, a Chinese fighter jet came within five meters (16 feet) of a Canadian CP-140 reconnaissance and surveillance plane over the East China Sea.
That incident was recorded by news crews aboard the Canadian aircraft and witnessed by Maj. Gen. Iain Huddleston, the commander of Canada’s 1st Air Division, who was also on the plane.
Huddleston called the intercept “unprofessional” and “very aggressive” in a report from Radio Canada, which was on the plane.
“The Canadian aircraft was subject to multiple close-proximity manoeuvres by a PLAAF aircraft that put the safety of all personnel at risk,” Canada’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.
China’s Foreign Ministry said the Canadian plane illegally entered Chinese airspace and accused the Canadian military of sending “warplanes halfway around the world to stir up trouble and make provocations at China’s doorsteps.”
In February, in an incident witnessed by a CNN crew, a Chinese fighter jet came within 500 feet of a US Navy reconnaissance plane flying at 21,500 feet about 30 miles from the Paracels.
Earlier this month, the Pentagon’s top official in charge of security in the Indo-Pacific, Ely Ratner, said that the US has seen more instances of “coercive and risky” behavior from Chinese pilots against US aircraft in the last two years over the East and South China Seas than in the entire decade before that.
“Since the fall of 2021, we have seen more than 180 such incidents,” Ratner said. “It’s a centralized and concerted campaign to perform these risky behaviors in order to coerce a change in lawful US operational activity.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-67282107
The US is quietly arming Taiwan to the teeth
a rather tendentious article eg:-
Ask the Ministry of National Defence in Taipei what US money will be used for, and the response is a knowing smile and tightly sealed lips. But Dr Lai says it's possible to make educated guesses: Javelin and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles - highly effective weapons that forces can learn to use quickly. "We don't have enough of them, and we need a lot," he says. "In Ukraine, the Stingers have run out very quickly, and the way Ukraine has been using them suggests we need maybe 10 times the number we currently have."
The assessment of long-time observers is blunt: the island is woefully under-prepared for a Chinese attack.
The list of problems is long. Taiwan's army has hundreds of ageing battle tanks, but too few modern, light missile systems. Its army command structure, tactics and doctrine haven't been updated in half a century. Many front-line units have only 60% of the manpower they should have. Taiwan's counter-intelligence operations in China are reportedly non-existent and its military conscription system is broken. In 2013 Taiwan reduced military service from one year to just four months, before reinstating it back to 12 months, a move that takes effect next year. But there are bigger challenges. It's jokingly referred to as a "summer camp" by the young men who go through it.
etc etc
The US is quietly arming Taiwan to the teeth
a rather tendentious article eg:-
Ask the Ministry of National Defence in Taipei what US money will be used for, and the response is a knowing smile and tightly sealed lips. But Dr Lai says it's possible to make educated guesses: Javelin and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles - highly effective weapons that forces can learn to use quickly. "We don't have enough of them, and we need a lot," he says. "In Ukraine, the Stingers have run out very quickly, and the way Ukraine has been using them suggests we need maybe 10 times the number we currently have."
The assessment of long-time observers is blunt: the island is woefully under-prepared for a Chinese attack.
The list of problems is long. Taiwan's army has hundreds of ageing battle tanks, but too few modern, light missile systems. Its army command structure, tactics and doctrine haven't been updated in half a century. Many front-line units have only 60% of the manpower they should have. Taiwan's counter-intelligence operations in China are reportedly non-existent and its military conscription system is broken. In 2013 Taiwan reduced military service from one year to just four months, before reinstating it back to 12 months, a move that takes effect next year. But there are bigger challenges. It's jokingly referred to as a "summer camp" by the young men who go through it.
etc etc
Indopacifc 2023 defence expo is on.
BAE really sharpened their pencil with their modified type-26 -> hunter -> airwarfare destroyer
Proposal is to remove all the ASW hardware and the multi mission bay, install a 64 cell MK-41 VLS and 16 NSM launches (4 * 4) in where the multi mission bay was. You can go up to 128 cell MK-41 if you are willing to lose the gun. The 64 cell VLS should be upgradable to the Mk-57 VLS, that proposed to go on zumwalts when the design is done
Their proposal is 6 hunter for multirole and 3 of these as AWD to join the hobarts
BAE really sharpened their pencil with their modified type-26 -> hunter -> airwarfare destroyer
Proposal is to remove all the ASW hardware and the multi mission bay, install a 64 cell MK-41 VLS and 16 NSM launches (4 * 4) in where the multi mission bay was. You can go up to 128 cell MK-41 if you are willing to lose the gun. The 64 cell VLS should be upgradable to the Mk-57 VLS, that proposed to go on zumwalts when the design is done
Their proposal is 6 hunter for multirole and 3 of these as AWD to join the hobarts
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Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Thread Starter
It would also give them a chokehold on oil exports from the Gulf….
Biden Briefed on Chinese Effort to Put Military Base in Oman
Biden has been briefed on what his advisers see as a Chinese plan to build a military facility in Oman, people familiar with the matter said, amid a broader effort by Beijing to deepen defense and diplomatic ties with the Middle East.
Biden was told that Chinese military officials discussed the matter last month with Omani counterparts, who were said to be amenable to such a deal, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.
They said the two sides agreed to more talks in the coming weeks.
China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment and the White House didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.
Oman’s embassy in the US also didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Opening a base in Oman would complement Beijing’s other overseas military facility, which it refers to as a “logistics center” in the East African nation of Djibouti.
But the Pentagon has been saying for years that China wants to build more overseas military logistics facilities in the region including the United Arab Emirates and other nations in Asia, including Thailand, Indonesia and Pakistan.
The precise location of the possible base or what it would house wasn’t immediately known.
Oman is sometimes referred to as the Switzerland of the Middle East given that it follows a policy of neutrality and regularly acts as a mediator, including between the US and Iran.
It’s also sought to balance between maintaining its partnership with the US and nurturing ties with China, which imports the bulk of its crude output.
China also invested in the first stage of Oman’s Duqm special economic zone, which will be the site of the Middle East’s biggest oil-storage facility.
A base in Oman would amount to a challenge to the US, whose Central Command oversees troops stationed around the region, including in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
According to the American Security Project, Oman was the first Persian Gulf country to partner militarily with the US, signing an access agreement in 1980.
Oman also sits near the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most vital shipping lanes for oil and liquefied natural gas. The strait becomes a focal point whenever tensions flare with Iran.
China has also stepped up its diplomatic involvement in the region, including well before the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel that killed some 1,400 people.
In March, it helped broker a tentative detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia, after years of diplomatic deadlock between the historic rivals.
China also held joint naval drills with Iran and Russia in the Gulf of Oman around the same time.
China has also pushed for a cease-fire in the days since the attack by Hamas, which is labeled a terrorist group by the US and the European Union, and Israel’s retaliatory response, which the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says has killed some 10,000 people.
Concern over China’s rising influence in the Middle East has helped spur US efforts to keep its historic allies on its side.
Plans for a trade corridor between India and Europe via the Middle East, unveiled at the Group of 20 summit, are part of that broader effort to create alternatives to China.
Biden Briefed on Chinese Effort to Put Military Base in Oman
Biden has been briefed on what his advisers see as a Chinese plan to build a military facility in Oman, people familiar with the matter said, amid a broader effort by Beijing to deepen defense and diplomatic ties with the Middle East.
Biden was told that Chinese military officials discussed the matter last month with Omani counterparts, who were said to be amenable to such a deal, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.
They said the two sides agreed to more talks in the coming weeks.
China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment and the White House didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.
Oman’s embassy in the US also didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Opening a base in Oman would complement Beijing’s other overseas military facility, which it refers to as a “logistics center” in the East African nation of Djibouti.
But the Pentagon has been saying for years that China wants to build more overseas military logistics facilities in the region including the United Arab Emirates and other nations in Asia, including Thailand, Indonesia and Pakistan.
The precise location of the possible base or what it would house wasn’t immediately known.
Oman is sometimes referred to as the Switzerland of the Middle East given that it follows a policy of neutrality and regularly acts as a mediator, including between the US and Iran.
It’s also sought to balance between maintaining its partnership with the US and nurturing ties with China, which imports the bulk of its crude output.
China also invested in the first stage of Oman’s Duqm special economic zone, which will be the site of the Middle East’s biggest oil-storage facility.
A base in Oman would amount to a challenge to the US, whose Central Command oversees troops stationed around the region, including in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
According to the American Security Project, Oman was the first Persian Gulf country to partner militarily with the US, signing an access agreement in 1980.
Oman also sits near the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most vital shipping lanes for oil and liquefied natural gas. The strait becomes a focal point whenever tensions flare with Iran.
China has also stepped up its diplomatic involvement in the region, including well before the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel that killed some 1,400 people.
In March, it helped broker a tentative detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia, after years of diplomatic deadlock between the historic rivals.
China also held joint naval drills with Iran and Russia in the Gulf of Oman around the same time.
China has also pushed for a cease-fire in the days since the attack by Hamas, which is labeled a terrorist group by the US and the European Union, and Israel’s retaliatory response, which the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says has killed some 10,000 people.
Concern over China’s rising influence in the Middle East has helped spur US efforts to keep its historic allies on its side.
Plans for a trade corridor between India and Europe via the Middle East, unveiled at the Group of 20 summit, are part of that broader effort to create alternatives to China.
Shock , panic horror 
Chinese to try and open 6th foreign base
USA has over a thousand
Chinese to try and open 6th foreign base
USA has over a thousand