The Defense of Taiwan During the Cold War: US Intelligence Gathering on its Key Partners, Adversaries and Competing Forces

President Joe Biden stated that the US would defend Taiwan if China attacked the island, even though administration officials insisted that the US remained committed to its “one China” policy.

Beijing launched the drills on Saturday, a day after Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen returned from a 10-day visit to Central America and the United States where she met US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other US lawmakers.

When CNN asked if the costs of the visit were too high, Wu told them that China cannot dictate how Taiwan makes friends. China cannot dictate how friends show their support for Taiwan.

Since the end of the civil war in Taiwan in 1945, China and Taiwan have been governed in separate ways. Taiwan is ranked as one of the freest countries in Asia by the US based non-profit organization Freedom House for transitioning into a democracy in the 1990s.

However, China’s ruling Communist Party claims the self-governing island as its territory, and in recent years, as his power has grown, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made clear his ambitions to “reunify” with the island – by force if necessary.

The French government has been showing support to Taiwan, as Wu pointed out, though they were still trying to figure it out.

The US, through the Taiwan Relations Act, is legally obligated to provide Taiwan with defensive weaponry, but officials typically remain deliberately vague on whether the US would defend Taiwan in the event of an attempted Chinese attack.

A set of highly classified Pentagon documents leaked online recently in an apparent security hack, and show US intelligence gathering on its key partners, adversaries and competitors.

Some of the documents show the degree to which the United States has penetrated the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Russian mercenary organization with the goal of establishing a foothold in that country.

Many of the documents, US officials say are authentic, had markings indicating they were made by the Joint Staff’s intelligence arm, known as J2, and appear to be briefings.

China pentagon fails to respond to public criticism of the US sanctions against Ukraine in the early epoch of separatist-military war

An entry says that China could use Ukrainian strikes on targets in Russia as an opportunity to portray NATO as the aggressor and increase its aid to Russia, if it deems the attacks were significant.

The US warned China against providing aid to Russia while China said they were considering giving the Kremlin lethal aid.

US officials have previously commented about not wanting to give Ukraine long-range missile systems over fears that Kyiv will use them to strike inside Russia. Ukraine has pledged not to use US-provided weapons to do so.

Ukraine typically does not comment on questions about its involvement in the limited number of attacks that have taken place inside Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea since the start of the war.

Beijing has yet to comment on the document leak in public, but there has been some coverage in its domestic media of it, including an article by the overseas edition of the Party paper.

The article said the US is still not stopping even though there have been several instances of international public uproar.

A February 25 flight test of a multi-role hypersonic glide vehicle, which is described by one as an intermediate range missile class, was noted by one. The document says that the weapon has a high chance of penetrating US missile defense.

Missiles with hypersonic glide vehicles are designed to fly more than five times the speed of sound and can maneuver in flight, making them almost impossible to shoot down, according to experts. China is thought to have one of the most advanced hypersonic weapon development programs.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/11/china/china-pentagon-documents-leak-ukraine-intl-hnk-mic/index.html

World War II: The Last Cold War in the Uyghur Regime: Is It Really Far From Home? Comments on an Army Deployment and Military Intelligence

Another entry includes notes on a recent People’s Liberation Army Navy deployment, which the document notes was the first time the Yushen LHA-31 helicopter-carrying assault ship was included in an extended area deployment.

Signals intelligence includes intercepted communications and is broadly defined by the National Security Agency as “intelligence derived from electronic signals and systems used by foreign targets, such as communications systems, radars, and weapons systems.”

One document attributed to a signals intelligence report said that Jordan’s Foreign Ministry in late February planned to assure Beijing about its interest in a continued economic relationship, after Beijing reportedly complained that Chinese companies were not involved in the country’s 5G network rollout.

The brief mentioned that Nicaragua probably would consider offering Beijing naval access in exchange for economic investment. China has not stated aspirations to acquire overseas basing or military access in the country, it added.

While standing up an interagency effort, the US Department of Defense in a statement said they continued to review and assess the validity of the documents.

In my opinion, the risks of conflict are driven by a number of things, from his brutal oppression of the people of the Uyghur region, to the enormous expansion of his nuclear arsenal, and now even the fact that he will give Russia some kind of weaponry. American domestic politics are steering a collision course and that could get worse as Republicans and Democrats try to get rid of China.

From an American vantage point, another cold war may not seem so terrible, since we and the Russians managed to avoid incinerating each other in the last one. But millions died in the last cold war in proxy war zones from Vietnam to Angola. The United States and Russia avoided a nuclear war in part because of the memories of World War II that both sides had; I worry that today, as in 1914, overconfidence and political pressure on each side may lead to further escalation.

The United States Shouldn’t Disturbate China: Sensitive Measures against Chinese-Origin Pentanyl

I think the United States should press China harder on some issues, such as the reckless way Chinese companies export chemicals to Mexico that are turned into fentanyl. That Chinese-origin fentanyl kills many thousands of Americans each year, and it’s hard to see why the deaths of so many aren’t higher on the bilateral agenda.

I am not downplaying American concerns when I say that we must talk to each other. I have a fear of TikTok because of potential for it to be used for espionage. But I also know that the United States has similarly used private businesses to spy on China. When China purchased a new Boeing 767 in 2000 to be the Chinese equivalent of Air Force One, American officials planted at least 27 bugs in it.