Important Takeaways:
- A mobile communications system that can move through complex terrains has been developed by Chinese scientists
- China has unveiled the world’s first mobile 5G base station, which, after passing rigorous tests, is now poised for deployment on the battlefield.
- Jointly developed by China Mobile Communications Group and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), it can provide unprecedented high-speed, low-latency and extremely secure and reliable data exchange services to at least 10,000 users within a 3km (1.8 mile) radius.
- Even when PLA troops are advancing at 80km/h (50mph) in complex terrains, such as mountains or cities, and are subjected to electromagnetic interference, the system can still maintain an uninterrupted total throughput of 10 gigabits per second and a latency of less than 15 milliseconds.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Treasury Department said Monday China hackers broke into its systems earlier this month.
- In a letter informing lawmakers of the breach, the department said Chinese hackers remotely accessed Treasury workstations and stole unclassified documents.
- The hack is being treated as a “major cybersecurity incident.”
- The Foreign Ministry in Beijing said China “has always opposed all forms of hacker attacks, and we are even more opposed to the spread of false information against China for political purposes.
- “We have stated our position many times regarding such groundless accusations that lack evidence,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said.
- The department said it was working with the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to assess the exact scope of the hack.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Chinese People’s Liberation Army has added hundreds of new missiles and 100 more nuclear warheads as part of a military buildup designed for a future war with the United States, according to a Pentagon report made public Wednesday.
- The latest survey of Chinese military power also for the first time reveals extensive PLA preparations for sophisticated information warfare operations against the United States, including the use of “deep fake” online posts and cyber-enabled psychological warfare. The goal is to target U.S. military leaders’ decision making in a regional conflict and to demoralize troops and sow divisions in U.S. society, Pentagon analysts said.
- The latest report provides new details on extensive PLA advances in weapons systems, doctrine and training. The efforts include practice missile strikes against U.S. aircraft carriers and warships during operations against Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing has vowed to annex as early as 2027.
- “The PLA increasingly views warfare as a confrontation between opposing operational systems, rather than annihilation of opposing mechanized military forces,” the report said. “Following this logic, PLA writings refer to systems destruction warfare as the next way of war, transforming from mechanized warfare to an informatized and intelligentized style.”
- On the information warfare front, the PLA calls its activities “cognitive domain operations” described in the report as “an asymmetric capability to deter U.S. or third-party entry into a future conflict, or as an offensive capability to shape perceptions or polarize a society,” the report said.
- The operations target the U.S. government and military, media organizations, businesses, academic and cultural institutions and policy communities.
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Important Takeaways:
- Key U.S. air bases in Japan and elsewhere in the region until recently were safe havens from enemy attack and provided rapid power projection with airstrikes for more than three decades, the report by the Stimson Center said.
- “That sanctuary age has now ended, and nowhere more than in the Indo-Pacific,” the report warns. “China has invested heavily in building a large and sophisticated arsenal of ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles that can reach U.S. bases across the region.”
- Chinese military strategists view American air power as weakest in forward air bases and, in particular, they understand that runways cratered from missile strikes would prevent warplanes and support aircraft from taking off and landing during critical time periods in a conflict. The report concludes that People’s Liberation Army (PLA) precision missile strikes on runways and taxiways in the region would allow the Chinese military to gain air superiority, a key advantage in war.
- The Air Force has adopted a new operating strategy called agile combat employment the seeks to disperse forces from main operating bases “for survival.”
- “We then quickly reaggregate our forces for lethality, in the time and place of our choosing, and deliver effects,” Gen. Schneider said. Adm. Sam Paparo, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, has said delaying a rapid Chinese attack on Taiwan is a key priority.
- He has adopted what is called a “hellscape” strategy of using thousands of uncrewed weapons — both aerial and maritime — to delay Chinese forces until reinforcements arrive.
- “Above all, American political and military leaders — as well as the American public — should be under no illusions: there will be no refuge or rest from the long reach of Chinese missiles for U.S. air bases in a war,” the report said.
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Important Takeaways:
- China has been supporting Russia’s economy since the start of the Ukraine war by buying its oil while supplying it with everything from microelectronics to washing machines.
- Meanwhile, Beijing has been getting its own strategic benefit: a real-world case study in how to circumvent Western sanctions.
- Russia’s economy has been surprisingly resilient throughout the Ukraine war, but it has shown fresh signs of cracking under Western pressure recently. In the past week, the Russian ruble plunged to its lowest point since the early days of the conflict after the U.S. imposed new banking sanctions.
- Moscow owes much of its economic durability to its oil exports and its cooperation with Beijing, as the leaders of both countries seek to challenge the U.S.-led world order.
- “Sanctions can be really disruptive for any production sector that is enmeshed in global supply chains,” Fishman said. “That makes China highly vulnerable.”
- While the U.S. has already imposed sanctions on China, including export restrictions on advanced semiconductors and measures against telecommunications giant Huawei, a crisis over Taiwan could lead to an economic war of a different magnitude.
- Full-scale financial sanctions by the West would disrupt the country’s financial system, interrupt trade and put $3.7 trillion in Chinese overseas bank assets and reserves at risk, according to a report last year by the Atlantic Council and Rhodium Group think tanks.
- One major lesson for China from Russia’s experience has been the importance of preparation, analysts say. Before the war, Russia had sought to diversify its foreign reserves, de-dollarize its economy and build domestic financial plumbing. Even though its success was mixed, those moves helped shield the Russian economy and buy it time to adapt.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Biden administration has secured the release of three Americans from detention in China in exchange for unnamed Chinese persons held in the U.S.
- China released Mark Swidan, Kai Li and John Leung after years of diplomatic negotiations between the administration and Chinese officials.
- The U.S. government considered the trio to be wrongfully detained on bogus charges. Mr. Swidan had been detained since 2012 on a drug conviction, while Mr. Li and Mr. Lueng were accused of espionage.
- Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said Wednesday he worked for years to release Mr. Li, a Long Island resident. He also credited President Biden for raising the detainees’ plight with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
- “For the families of those Americans newly freed by the Chinese government, this Thanksgiving there is so much to be thankful for,” Mr. Schumer said. “Soon, Kai Li will finally be reunited with his family because President Biden and his Administration also kept the faith and never stopped working to secure Mr. Li’s release and the release of other Americans wrongfully detained by the Chinese government.”
- The Congressional-Executive Commission on China in September said there are more Americans held in China than anywhere else in the world.
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Important Takeaways:
- A top NATO military official on Monday urged businesses to be prepared for a wartime scenario and adjust their production and distribution lines accordingly, in order to be less vulnerable to blackmail from countries such as Russia and China.
- “If we can make sure that all crucial services and goods can be delivered no matter what, then that is a key part of our deterrence,” the chair of NATO’s military committee, Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, said in Brussels.
- Speaking at an event of the European Policy Centre think tank, he described deterrence as going far beyond military capability alone, since all available instruments could and would be used in war.
- “We’re seeing that with the growing number of sabotage acts, and Europe has seen that with energy supply,” Bauer said.
- “We thought we had a deal with Gazprom, but we actually had a deal with Mr. Putin. And the same goes for Chinese-owned infrastructure and goods. We actually have a deal with (Chinese President) Xi (Jinping).”
- Bauer noted western dependencies on supplies from China, with 60% of all rare earth materials produced and 90% processed there. He said chemical ingredients for sedatives, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and low blood pressure medicines were also coming from China.
- “We are naive if we think the Communist Party will never use that power. Business leaders in Europe and America need to realize that the commercial decisions they make have strategic consequences for the security of their nation,” Bauer stressed.
- “Businesses need to be prepared for a wartime scenario and adjust their production and distribution lines accordingly. Because while it may be the military who wins battles, it’s the economies that win wars.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner says he’s stunned by the scope of China’s breach into the U.S. telecommunications system, which went further than was described by the Biden administration.
- “The barn door is still wide open, or mostly open,” the Virginia Democrat told The New York Times on Thursday. “We’ve not found everywhere they are.”
- The Chinese hackers, which Microsoft named Salt Typhoon, have been able to monitor Americans’ cell phone calls and texts, including those made by people such as President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance.
- Warner, a former telecommunications executive, said that it can’t be concluded that the hackers are now blocked from the nation’s systems or whether investigators know how deep the breach reached.
- Chinese hackers have been a concern for two decades, but their recent activity has taken the problem to new levels, Warner said.
- “This is far and away the most serious telecom hack in our history,” Warner said. “This makes Colonial Pipeline and SolarWinds look like small potatoes,” he added, referring to Russia’s intrusions into U.S. security.
- He added that investigators must be allowed to continue their work to learn the extent of the hacking, and that the public must understand that the Chinese were targeting far more than just Washington targets.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Chinese navy is hard at work on a huge new amphibious assault ship – a combination troop transport and aircraft carrier that could carry hundreds of troops toward Taiwan, and then launch helicopters to deposit those troops behind Taiwanese defenses.
- Why would the Chinese need a third type of big-deck amphibious ship?
- The most chilling answer is that Chinese officials anticipate losing a lot of ships in any attempt to land troops in Taiwan – and they’re planning in advance to replace sunk or damaged Type 075s and Type 076s with smaller assault ships they can build fast and cheap. Or they may want to add numbers to their invasion fleet as quickly as possible.
- Shugart noted it in satellite imagery going back “a few months” prior to October. In those few months, workers completed the ship’s hull and deck.
- In shipbuilding terms, that’s fast. It took Chinese shipbuilders a year to complete the first Type 075; construction of the Type 076 might also take a year.
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Important Takeaways:
- China’s air force announced it is about to unveil its newest stealth jet fighter, the J-35, which U.S. officials say was built with the help of stolen American military technology.
- The J-35 will be declassified and shown for the first time at the annual Zhuhai air show scheduled to begin Nov. 12, Chinese military officials announced Tuesday. The aircraft has been in development for more than 10 years.
- “For the first time, new equipment such as the medium-weight, stealth multi-role fighter J-35A, the HQ-19 surface-to-air missile and a new type of reconnaissance and strike unmanned aerial vehicle will be on display,” Col. Niu Wenbo, a military spokesman, told CCTV state television. A photo of the J-35 was released but no other details were provided.
- It is the second radar-evading stealth jet in the Chinese military arsenal, after the J-20.
- Both jets are viewed as an effort by China to match the U.S. military’s F-35 and F-22. The J-35 will also be used on China’s growing fleet of aircraft carriers. Two are deployed, and a third is being built.
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