Surprisingly little storage on Taiwan - nearly as bad the UK

Not too worried about them being dropped by suppliers tho - the history of the last 80 years show there are always people ready to bust sanctions etc and supply oil & gas to anyone at a price

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/u...nese-ncntfzjqn

US navy sailors charged with selling defence secrets to Chinese

Two US navy sailors have been accused of selling sensitive military information to China, prosecutors in California said.

The suspects, whose cases are separate, are both alleged to have handed over national defence material to Chinese officials in exchange for thousands of dollars. The information the sailors are accused of selling includes details on naval operations, wartime exercises and critical technical material, according to federal prosecutors.

While the cases are separate, it is unclear if the accused had the same Chinese handler or if they were aware of each other’s actions.

Jinchao “Patrick” Wei, a 22-year-old petty officer 2nd class, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with espionage. He served as a machinist’s mate aboard the amphibious ship USS Essex, which is currently based in San Diego, officials said.

Wei, who was born in China, was approached by a Chinese intelligence officer while he was applying to become a naturalised US citizen, according to the indictment. He is alleged to have received $5,000 in June 2022 for passing sensitive documents to his handler.

Randy Grossman, US attorney of the southern district of California, said Wei “chose to turn his back on his newly adopted country” for greed.


Wenheng Zhao, a petty officer from Monterey Park, California, was also arrested on Wednesday, by agents from the FBI and Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS). The 26-year-old is charged with conspiracy and receipt of a bribe by a public official.

Zhao worked at Naval Base Ventura County in southern California and had access to classified information, officials said.

Zhao is alleged to have started working for the Chinese in August 2021 and to have passed on pictures and videos, as well as plans for US military exercises in the Pacific. He allegedly received $14,866 in payments from a Chinese intelligence officer.

Matthew Olsen, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for national security, said the alleged conduct “ represents a violation of the solemn obligation of members of our military to defend our country, to safeguard our secrets and to protect their fellow service members”.

$5k? must have been desperate..............

Or over a carefully pre arranged barrel.

M I C E.

N

China certainly has form for threatening relatives still living in China as a lever to force people into doing bad things. I bet that is what happened here. Still no excuse for traitorous actions but what a horrible dilemma, pass military secrets or see your beloved Aunt thrown in jail over some trumped up charge.

Not just in the South China sea. It appears that the old Cold War game of tag has resumed. The ships of the Seventh Fleet conduct exercises in the Southern Pacific, the Chinese fleet and Russian fleet conduct exercises off of the Alaskan Coast. Tit for Tat.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Int...acific-islands

Japan to set up cyberdefense network that includes Pacific islands

Information-sharing to be used to fend off attacks with eye on Russia and China


TOKYO -- The Japanese government plans to build an information network spanning the Indo-Pacific region to counter cyberattacks from such places as Russia and China, with a focus on providing support to Pacific island countries that have weak countermeasures, Nikkei has learned.

Signs of attacks and their methods would be shared on the network. Japan envisions being a bridge between the U.S., Australia, and other advanced regional countries on one side and emerging and developing countries on the other.

The Foreign Ministry has earmarked strengthening cyber capabilities overseas in the fiscal 2024 draft budget that will be presented this summer. The Indo-Pacific region, where China is building up its military presence, is positioned as a priority region. Southeast Asia and Pacific island nations will be supported through development assistance and other means.…..

Japan is already expanding cyber capabilities within the Quad framework, which also includes the U.S., Australia and India as members, and with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Incorporating Pacific island nations is seen as a way to strengthen the information sharing system.

It will also look at extending the so-called joint principles of cyberdefense in the Quad to other areas of the Indo-Pacific where the approach can be shared.

Japan has begun considering legislation that will allow it to engage in an active cyberdefense that would access an opponent's systems to prevent cyberattacks in advance. It expects that strengthening cooperation in Indo-Pacific will broaden the range of coping strategies.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...ost-to-vietnam

China Is Building A Runway On Its Closest Island Outpost To Vietnam

Triton is the westernmost island in the South China Sea’s strategic Paracel archipelago and added militarization of it has big implications.


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....92965cfadc.jpg

Amazing what can be built on reefs

If we go back to WW II, there were air strips build on a variety of Pacific Islands. :)

in a hot war they look like sitting ducks to me

Curious announcement today. Australia is considering a purchase of Chunmoos, depending on the delivery rate of himars and as an option to keep the Hanwha factory open after it completes production of k9/k10 and Redbacks


https://dtrsupplements.partica.onlin...t/flipbook/10/

South Korean.
Presumably effective against N Korean weaponry (which is largely of Chinese and/or Russian origin.)

watch this space, Vietnamese are excellent at building tunnels... !

There is little love lost between VN and PRC, VN is a refreshing place to visit nowdays, hope they object strongly to the imposition by the bullies.

https://streetwiseprofessor.com/why-...d-a-synthesis/

Why China is Shtupped - a Synthesis.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...ore-dangerous/

China’s property crash is becoming more dangerous by the day

The country’s ticking time bomb economy is nearing the point of detonation

(Can be read using https://12ft.io )

Yup. Xi's window of distraction just slammed shut, the last thing he needs now is the rest of the economy to collapse as a follow on to NeverGrande, which won't be #2's for a while until the next hundred odd bubble property developers collapse past their position in the drain. China needs foreign exports to maintain a stable social order, their nouveau riche middle class are in the process of being wiped out on their property investments. It will hit a lot of SEA and other regions of the world too, but the enormity of the irrational bubble development in China surpasses our previous exuberant excesses.

buckle up, they are in for a bumpy ride, the only obvious winners are... Taiwan, Mr Xi's is busy right now, he will get right back to harassing the SCS nations just as soon as he puts out the fire that 40 years of lunacy has torched.

notasmodnoradmin
China's economy is very large, and is a very important piece of the global economy.
If they crash, won't we all feel it?

Worryingly the Streetwise Professor feels otherwise….

https://streetwiseprofessor.com/breaking-china/

…Add to this Xi’s reading of the history of the Soviet Union. He–not wrongly–attributes the collapse of the USSR to Gorbachev’s attempt to loosen the grip of the state and the party over the economy. Xi is hell-bent on avoiding the same mistake. As a result he is consciously adopting an anti-Gorbachev strategy….

On the other hand, intractable domestic problems can lead a personalist system–and China is clearly that now, in contrast to the more collectivist leadership of the post-Mao, pre-Xi era–to ramp up the foreign adventurism.

This is particularly true when the personalist person is a seventy-something guy who wants to cement his place in history by, say, “liberating” Taiwan.

Prudence and an objective reading of Xi leads me to place greater weight on the latter possibility. Prudence, because it is the alternative that poses the greatest threat to the United States. Objective reading because of the Xi-as-anti-Gorbachev phenomenon discussed above.

Gorbachev’s rapprochement to the United States was driven in large part by his recognition of the strategic and geopolitical ramifications of the USSR’s deep structural economic problems. A player of the Gorbachev Opposite Game–a fair characterization of Xi–would ramp up tension, rather than attempt to ameliorate it….

I'll take SWP with a grain of salt.
But, if SWP is on the right track, the Taiwan factor begins to look a little like the Falklands factor was for Argentina in '82.
There is some talk about how far behind in deliveries various defense materials are for Taiwan (somewhere around $10 billion US worth) that are delayed due to deliveries to Ukraine, but I am not sure how much noise there is in that complaint, and how much substance.

One difference with the Falklands and Taiwan (besides sheer size and scale) is that there's a reasonably well equipped, and reasonably well trained, armed forces on hand.