Important Takeaways:
- A Chinese military surveillance plane breached Japanese airspace off the country’s southwestern coast on Monday, marking what Japan’s defense ministry described as the first known incursion by China’s military into its territorial airspace.
- According to a ministry official, a Chinese reconnaissance aircraft briefly entered Japanese territory near Nagasaki Prefecture around 11:30 a.m. on Monday. In response, Japan’s Self-Defense Force put fighter jets on high alert and issued a warning to the Chinese aircraft.
- While Chinese planes frequently appear in international airspace around Japan, this incident represents the first confirmed entry of a military aircraft into Japan’s territorial airspace.
- Over the past two decades, Japan has increasingly faced foreign aircraft encroachments. Last year, Japan’s Self-Defense Force scrambled fighter jets to intercept foreign planes on 669 occasions — more than three times the number of such responses two decades ago.
- Of these 669 cases, 479 were in response to Chinese aircraft sightings, according to Japan’s Ministry of Defense.
- Military analysts suggest that Monday’s airspace violation could be a message from China challenging Japan’s delineation of its territorial border. China asserts control over a large continental shelf in the East China Sea, with its outer edge extending close to the Danjo Islands area, where the Chinese plane was spotted.
- The airspace violation is the latest in a series of recent events heightening tensions between Japan and China.
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Important Takeaways:
- Panama’s government announced on Thursday additional deportation flights for migrants apprehended in the Central American nation to Ecuador, India and China, in a bid to reduce the flow of mostly U.S.-bound migration.
- Financed by Washington, the deportation flights kicked off earlier this week with a first planeload of Colombian migrants.
- The flights come less than three months before November’s U.S. presidential election, where unlawful migration has emerged as a major issue.
- Mulino did not specify the legal status of the migrants who will be flown to Ecuador or the two Asian countries, or if they have criminal records.
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Important Takeaways:
- This month, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that a Chinese military research team, led by assistant researcher Li Shibin from the National University of Defense Technology, has developed an innovative cooling device capable of managing the intense heat generated during hypersonic flight.
- The SCMP report says that the device operates for up to 2.5 hours and is a crucial advancement for long-duration, high-speed missions, allowing for journeys from one side of the Earth to the other. The team’s invention is detailed in the Journal of National University of Defense Technology.
- SCMP says that the cylindrical cooling system utilizes the thermal energy from aerodynamic heating to drive an active cooling cycle, ensuring the proper functioning of critical components under strenuous flight conditions.
- SCMP reported that Chinese scientists are advancing hypersonic weapon technology with a new HGV capable of exceeding Mach 15 speeds. This vehicle utilizes a “skipping stone” trajectory for extended range and maneuverability.
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Important Takeaways:
- The U.S. Navy maintains carrier superiority over China, but Beijing has demonstrated its ability to track American carriers, raising concerns. In 2015, a Chinese Kilo-class submarine shadowed the USS Ronald Reagan for over 12 hours near Japan, highlighting China’s growing submarine capabilities.
- While China’s naval modernization is significant, the defensive architecture of U.S. carriers ensures robust protection against potential threats in the Western Pacific.
- The U.S. retains carrier superiority over its adversaries, both in the size and capabilities of its fleet.
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Important Takeaways:
- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Iranian counterpart Ali Bagheri Kani on Sunday that the Chinese Communist Party supports Iran “defending its sovereignty, security and national dignity” prior to an expected Iranian attack on Israel.
- In the context of highly elevated tensions between Israel and Iran, exacerbated by Iran’s belligerent remarks, the Chinese government moved to lend its support to the world’s premier sponsor of terrorism, which is believed to spend $100 million a year on Palestinian terrorists such as Hamas.
- “China supports Iran in defending its sovereignty, security and national dignity in accordance with the law, and supports the Iranian side in its efforts to maintain regional peace and stability,” Wang reportedly told Bagheri, according to the Chinese government newspaper Global Times.
- “Wang said that China has always upheld justice in Middle East affairs and supported all parties in safeguarding their legitimate rights and interests,” the newspaper continued, “especially in supporting the restoration of the legitimate national rights of the Palestinians.”
- On Haniyeh’s killing, Wang reportedly said that China “firmly opposes and strongly condemns the act of assassination and considers it a serious violation of the basic norms of international relations.”
- Wang further described the incident with Haniyeh as “a grave infringement on Iran’s sovereignty, security and dignity, and a direct undermining of the cease-fire negotiation process in Gaza, as well as an impact on regional peace and stability.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Iran is accelerating online activity that appears intended to influence the U.S. election, in one case targeting a presidential campaign with an email phishing attack, Microsoft said Friday.
- Iranian actors also have spent recent months creating fake news sites and impersonating activists, laying the groundwork to stoke division and potentially sway American voters this fall, especially in swing states, the technology giant found.
- The findings in Microsoft’s newest threat intelligence report show how Iran, which has been active in recent U.S. elections, is evolving its tactics for another election that’s likely to have global implications. The report goes a step beyond anything U.S. intelligence officials have disclosed, giving specific examples of Iranian groups and the actions they have taken so far.
- The report also reveals how Russia and China are exploiting U.S. political polarization to advance their own divisive messaging in a consequential election year.
- Iran’s U.N. mission sent The Associated Press an emailed statement: “Iran has been the victim of numerous offensive cyber operations targeting its infrastructure, public service centers, and industries. Iran’s cyber capabilities are defensive and proportionate to the threats it faces. Iran has neither the intention nor plans to launch cyber attacks. The U.S. presidential election is an internal matter in which Iran does not interfere.”
- Microsoft’s report aligns with recent warnings from U.S. intelligence officials, who say America’s adversaries appear determined to seed the internet with false and incendiary claims ahead of November’s vote.
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Important Takeaways:
- United States and Canadian fighter jets intercepted four Russian and Chinese bombers that were flying in international airspace near Alaska on Wednesday, officials said.
- Wednesday’s joint Russian and Chinese flight was…notable for being the first intercept of Chinese military aircraft near Alaska
- The joint Russian and Chinese flight reflects the growing military ties between the two nations.
- NORAD stressed that the flight “is not seen as a threat” and that it will continue to monitor activity near North America “and meet presence with presence.”
- “We’re keeping a watchful eye on how they’re developing their capacity for operating in the region,” Iris Ferguson, deputy assistant Secretary of Defense for Arctic and Global Resilience, told reporters Monday.
- “As we say in the department, you know, they are our long-term pacing challenge. And I think that includes in the Arctic.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Senior Hamas terrorist Musa Abu Marzouk announced on Tuesday the signing of a Palestinian unity agreement that includes Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction, which rules areas of Judea and Samaria.
- “Today, we sign an agreement, and we say that the path to completing this journey is national unity. We are committed to national unity, and we call for it,” said Abu Marzouk.
- The “Beijing declaration” was signed by 14 Palestinian factions that took part in negotiations hosted by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
- The Islamist group reportedly also gave its blessing to P.A. chief Abbas’s proposal to establish a “government of technocrats” whose primary purpose would be the reconstruction of Gaza after the war prompted by Hamas’s murder of some 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7.
- Hamas is an “essential part of the Palestinian political mosaic,” then-P.A. Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh told world leaders gathered in Qatar in December.
- “We want a situation in which Palestinians are united. … I think it is time that Hamas call the Palestinian president and tell him we’re all united behind you, and you are the legitimate authority of the Palestinian people and we are ready to engage,” Shtayyeh stated at the Doha Forum.
- Amid the unity talks, Shtayyeh submitted the collective resignation of his government last month. Abbas then appointed Fatah loyalist Mohammad Mustafa to fill the prime minister’s role.
- U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has insisted that an “effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority” should ultimately govern Gaza.
- The Biden administration wants the P.A. to assume control of the Strip after Israel’s war against Hamas ends, a move that Jerusalem rejects because of Ramallah’s overt support for terrorism.
- According to recent polls, 89% of Palestinians support establishing a government that includes or is led by Hamas. Only around 8.5% said they favor one controlled exclusively by Fatah.
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Important Takeaways:
- Here are a few examples, laid bare at last week’s conference, where the U.S. and its allies are being challenged:
- In space, China aims to “displace the United States as the global leader” and exploit it “in a way that is to our detriment,” said Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, the Defense Intelligence Agency director.
- When China blew up a satellite in 2007, “they put us on notice,” and “we have only seen their development of counter-space weapons just rapidly, breathtakingly, increase,” said U.S. Space Command boss Gen. Stephen Whiting.
- Online, Russia peddles disinformation that influences elections. China absconds with sensitive information that springboards its weapons development and broader economy.
- “If Xi Jinping were sitting on this stage, he would say, ‘Thank you very much for allowing us to cherry-pick, to pick your pocket, of leading technologies and IP,'” said Jon Huntsman Jr., a former U.S. ambassador to China and Russia.
- On the ground and at sea, Russia and China use their troops to muddle borders. Those nearby document the belligerence, but denunciations have done little to stop them.
- “If we allow it to become the norm, that a larger state can change its smaller neighbors’ borders with force, then which border remains secure?” said Jonatan Vseviov, the secretary general of Estonia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
- “I think it’s underappreciated in our country, in the United States, just how much our European allies have awakened to the fact that the house is on fire,” said Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the head of U.S. European Command.
- “This is not a show, and this is not just rhetoric. This is true concern about the stability of their continent and the survival of their states.”
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Important Takeaways:
- The Chinese defense ministry said in a statement that forces from both sides recently patrolled the western and northern Pacific Ocean and that the operation had nothing to do with international and regional situations and didn’t target any third party.
- The exercise aimed to demonstrate the capabilities of the navies in addressing security threats and preserving peace and stability globally and regionally
- NATO’s European and North American members and their partners in the Indo-Pacific increasingly see shared security concerns coming from Russia and its Asian supporters, especially China.
- In response, China accused NATO of seeking security at the expense of others and told the alliance not to bring the same “chaos” to Asia. Its foreign ministry maintained that China has a fair and objective stance on the war in Ukraine.
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