During his visit Tuesday to the Kazakh capital of Nur-Sultan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared Moscow’s stance on the issue.

“Russia, like the overwhelming majority of other countries, considers Taiwan to be part of the People’s Republic of China,” Lavrov said. “We have proceeded and will proceed from this premise in our foreign policy.”

Only 14 countries today, along with the Vatican, have diplomatic relations with Taipei. Even the U.S. maintains only informal relations with the island nation since recognizing Beijing in 1979, three decades after the Communist victory in a civil war drove nationalists into exile across the Taiwan Strait. The Soviet Union quickly sided with the new fellow Communist power, though Moscow and Beijing would soon develop their own feud that lasted the remainder of the Cold War.

But today, China and Russia are closer than ever, and this year celebrated the 20th anniversary of their 2001 Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation that redefined their relationship. These ties have grown especially warm in recent years as both found common ground in countering a mutual rival: the United States.

As the U.S. has turned its sights toward the Asia-Pacific region, especially since former President Donald Trump’s administration, Lavrov and other Russian officials have more readily criticized U.S. coalition-building with Australia, India and Japan under the banner of a “free and open Indo-Pacific.”

Lavrov has recently been voicing his opposition to those efforts.

“The Indo-Pacific concept is aimed at breaking up this system that relied on the need to respect the indivisibility of security,” Lavrov told a defense and foreign policy conference last week, “and has openly proclaimed that its chief objective is containing China.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian praised Lavrov’s remarks days later, and on Monday also lauded Russian military expert Ivan Konovalov’s criticism over the behavior of U.S. and partnered navies in the Asia-Pacific region after a U.S. submarine collided with a still-unidentified object in the South China Sea.

During that same press briefing, Zhao shared his position on what he saw as Washington’s unhelpful actions targeting Moscow in Europe, where a new Russia-Germany gas pipeline known as Nord Stream 2 has drawn criticism from U.S. officials concerned about energy independence.

Over the weekend, Lavrov said the U.S. “is not hiding it and is straightforward” about pitting Russia and European powers against one another, and Zhao took the opportunity to support Moscow’s stance on Monday.

“It is well-known that the Nord Stream 2 project shows energy complementarity between Russia and Europe, and would help resolve the European energy crisis,” Zhao said. “The U.S., however, to serve its own geopolitical interests and monopolize the European energy market, spares no effort in disrupting and hobbling relevant projects to undermine the interests of Russia and Europe and their cooperation. This wins no support.”

He then linked the U.S. approach on the pipeline with that which it took in the Asia-Pacific, saying “the U.S. is adept at politicizing issues in all means and would hurt others indiscriminately, including its allies and partners, for its own interests.”

He argued that more nations are beginning to share this perception.

“We believe more countries, with their eyes wide open, will oppose the U.S. hegemonic approach featuring politicization and a sense of supremacy in pursuit of self-interests at the expense of others,” Zhao said.

However, as both Beijing and Moscow’s relations with Washington have deteriorated, each has attempted to stabilize its ties with the top world power.

On Tuesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov met with U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland in Moscow, where an attempt by the Russians was said to have been made to roll back tit-for-tat sanctions targeting one another’s diplomatic missions.

“The officials discussed the status and prospects of bilateral relations,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a readout. “They paid special attention to the operation of the diplomatic missions on each other’s territory. Mr. Ryabkov emphasized that the hostile anti-Russian actions will not remain unanswered although Moscow does not seek to further escalate tensions. He suggested removing all restrictions that both sides have introduced in the past few years.”

And Ryabkov warned that continued tensions would only serve to make life more difficult for both parties.

“Ms. Nuland was told that the continuation of Washington’s line toward confrontation on the bilateral agenda and in the context of acute international and regional problems can only result in the further degradation of Russian-US relations,” according to the Russian side. “It is necessary to adopt a realistic approach and build bilateral ties on the principles of equality and mutual consideration of each other’s interests.”

When it comes to China, two notable interactions have occurred over the past month. Last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden spoke via telephone, and last Wednesday Chinese Communist Party Central Foreign Affairs Commission Director Yang Jiechi met virtually with U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

Tensions appear to have somewhat eased on the surface amid this communication, but core areas of contention exist, with Taiwan identified by both sides as the primary issue.

Under both Trump and Biden, the U.S. has gradually expanded its informal support for Taiwan, including in the security realm. Taipei officials, such as Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, have also increased their ambitions for challenging the “one-China” near-consensus that exists among the international community.

Responding to Wu’s arguments that United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 that passed Taipei’s U.N. seat to Beijing in 1971 does not preclude Taiwan from participating in the U.N, Zhao said during his daily press briefing on Friday “the remarks of some politician in Taiwan are just nonsense.”

“There is only one China in the world, the Taiwan region is an inalienable part of the Chinese territory, and the government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China,” Zhao said. “This is a basic fact recognized by the international community. Our position of adhering to the one-China principle will remain unchanged; our attitude of rejecting ‘two Chinas’, ‘one China, one Taiwan’ and ‘Taiwan independence’ is not to be challenged, and our resolve of upholding national sovereignty and territorial integrity is unswerving.”

Zhao also emphasized that Taiwan was a province of China and therefore not qualified from participating independently in international organizations such as the U.N. And he reiterated Beijing’s commitment to reintegrating Taiwan under mainland rule, a pledge Xi has vowed to achieve through diplomacy or force, if neccesary.

“We believe that the just cause of the Chinese government and Chinese people to uphold national sovereignty and territorial integrity, oppose secession and achieve reunification will continue to win understanding and support of the U.N. and its member states,” Zhao said.

That same day, the Chinese military’s official online portal carried a commentary by the official military newspaper, the People’s Liberation Army Daily, underlining the need to achieve reunification.

“The Chinese People’s Liberation Army has firm will, full confidence, and sufficient capabilities to thwart all external interference and separatist acts of ‘Taiwan independence’ and resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the commentary read. “If the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces dared to split Taiwan from China in any name and by any means, the People’s Army will resolutely crush it at all costs.”

The commentary also argued for an even more urgent need to focus on this point.

“The officers and soldiers of the entire army must increase their sense of anxiety and responsibility for their missions, focus on fighting, focus on all tasks, and have the ambition to strengthen the army and rejuvenate the army,” the commentary read. “The high level of vigilance ensures that when the party and the people need it, they will come when they are called, they will be able to fight, and they will be victorious.”

Successive U.S. administrations have deliberately avoided making any overt pledges to defend Taiwan in the event of Chinese military action.

Asked about the U.S. planned response to a hypothetical Chinese incursion a day after his online talks with Jang, Sullivan replied, “Let me just say this, we are going to take action now to try to prevent that day from ever coming to pass.”

China and Russia have no formal military alliance, and both sides have said there were no plans to adopt such a framework, even as their defense ties continue to increase. But the two nations have pursued an increasing number of joint exercises, including large-scale drills in August focused on counterterrorism in northwestern China at a time of growing instability as U.S. troops left a two-decade conflict in neighboring Afghanistan, one of a number of regional and international issues on which Beijing and Moscow have stepped up collaboration.

And in yet another display of aligned interests, the two countries released a joint statement on the Biological Weapons Convention, in which “they emphasize that the United States’ and its allies’ overseas military biological activities (over 200 U.S. biological laboratories are deployed outside its national territory, which function in opaque and non-transparent manner) cause serious concerns and questions among the international community over its compliance with the BWC.”

This point has been especially promoted by China since the emergence of U.S. suspicions regarding a potential role played by the Wuhan Virological Institute in the outbreak of COVID-19, a disease first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan. A U.S. intelligence report commissioned by President Biden came to an inconclusive finding as to whether the pathogen may have appeared naturally or accidentally leaked out of the facility, but the probe has only further damaged U.S.-China relations.

As his first year in office draws to a close, Biden has already met with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a June bilateral summit Geneva, and discussions are underway for a potential virtual talk with Xi, though no official date has yet been confirmed.

“I don’t have any update at this point,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Tuesday. “It’s just something that we’re working through and in discussions about at a staff level.”

Source: https://www.newsweek.com/russia-taiwan-part-china-partners-align-around-world-1638170?piano_t=1

The post Russia Says Taiwan is Part of China as Two Powers Further Align Against U.S. first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

U.S. Marines participate in an amphibious assault exercise in Chonburi, Thailand, in February 2020: the Marines will be sea-based and able to sail into the waters of the South China Sea.   © Sipa/AP

Admiral James Stavridis was 16th Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and 12th Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He spent the bulk of his operational career in the Pacific, and is author of “2034: A Novel of the Next World War.”

The Atlantic Council’s publication of The Longer Telegram, which lays out a sweeping blueprint for a U.S. strategy to face China, provides significant clues about a new lay-down of American forces around east Asia.

Whether the new Biden administration fully embraces the paper’s aggressive stance remains to be seen, but elements are under serious consideration. Certainly, the new team at the National Security Council, led by highly respected Asia hand Kurt Campbell and a deep bench of Asia experts, will be looking at a wide variety of options for the military component of a new overall strategic posture.

One of the key elements in the military component is a series of “red lines” to which the U.S. would respond militarily.

These include “any nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons action by China against the U.S. or its allies or by North Korea; any Chinese military attack against Taiwan or its offshore islands, including an economic blockade or major cyberattack against Taiwanese public infrastructure and institutions; any Chinese attack against Japanese forces in their defense of Japanese sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands, which China claims as the Diaoyu, and their surrounding exclusive economic zone in the East China Sea; any major Chinese hostile action in the South China Sea to further reclaim and militarize islands, to deploy force against other claimant states, or to prevent full freedom of navigation operations by the U.S. and allied maritime forces; and any Chinese attack against the sovereign territory or military assets of U.S. treaty allies.”

At U.S. Indo-Pacific headquarters, strategic, operational, and tactical teams are putting together new approaches for deploying American forces. These new options will be sent back to the Pentagon as part of the overall “posture review” being undertaken by new Secretary of Defense General Lloyd Austin. What will emerge?

One option is an enhanced role for the U.S. Marine Corps, which traces so much of its pre-9/11 operational history to the Pacific going back to World War II. Under the dynamic intellectual leadership of Marine Corps Commandant Dave Berger, gone are the large troop formations, armored capability, and land-based Marine tactics of the “forever wars” in the Middle East.

Instead, in the context of a U.S.-China strategy, the Marines will be resolutely sea-based and able to sail into the waters of the South China Sea, well inside the island chains China relies on for defense. Once inside, they will use armed drones, offensive cyber capabilities, Marine Raiders — highly capable special forces — anti-air missiles, and even ship-killer strike weapons to attack Chinese maritime forces, and perhaps even their land bases of operations. The Chinese militarized artificial islands in the South China Sea would be juicy targets, for example. In essence, this will be guerrilla warfare from the sea.

An airstrip and buildings on China’s man-made Subi Reef in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, pictured in April 2017: juicy targets.   © AP

In addition to a new Marine tactical and operational approach, the U.S. Navy will be undertaking more aggressive patrols throughout the waters off China. Some will say this is merely the military equivalent of “driving doughnut holes in your neighbor’s lawn.” But the strategic concept is clever: to gradually include other allied warships in this aggressive freedom of navigation patrols. Doing so internationalizes the pushback on Chinese claims of sovereignty over the South China Sea.

In particular, the Pentagon is hoping to include British, French, and other NATO allies in the effort. Indeed the recent NATO defense ministerial in Brussels involved consultations over the alliance’s role in facing the rising military capability of China. Over time, the U.S. would like to convince Australia, New Zealand, India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Vietnam to participate in such deployments. The U.S. overall maritime strategic posture is predicated on creating a global maritime coalition to face the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s highly capable forces.

In addition to the sea service’s activities, the U.S. Air Force will likely be shifting additional long-range land-attack bombers and fighters to Pacific bases that are widely distributed across Asia, including some very remote sites on smaller islands. These so-called spokes will be supported from larger bases in Guam, Japan, Australia, and South Korea. The concept, dubbed Agile Combat Employment, adds a high degree of mobility to the currently concentrated combat power of both fighter and attack aircraft deployed in the region.

Finally, the U.S. Army will increase both combat power and mobility to deploy units forward in support of the red lines along those advocated in the telegram, including enhanced capability based in South Korea and Japan but easily capable of deploying to smaller islands throughout the region.

Both the Army and Air Force would be on the forward edge of additional training and exercises with the Taiwanese as well. Look for increased emphasis from the new American Space Force to focus intelligence and reconnaissance on the theater, as well as enhanced offensive cyber options from the U.S. Cyber Command, in coordination with the National Security Agency.

Taken together, it seems clear that the U.S. military is stepping up its presence and combat capability in the Western Pacific, and positioning for a conflict with China over the coming decades.

The Longer Telegram provides an important clue as to what options the Pentagon and the White House are considering as part of an expected new strategy to face the rise of China. Hopefully, skillful diplomacy and the intertwined economies of the two great powers will preclude the outbreak of war — but U.S. military planners are busy these days.

Source: https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/How-the-US-military-is-preparing-for-a-war-with-China

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Here’s What You Need To Remember: In the event of military conflict, most believe China would use the modern equivalent of the tactics used at Yijiangshan: a massive bombardment by long-range missile batteries and airpower well before any PLA troops hit the shore.

In 1955, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army embarked on a bloody amphibious landing to capture a fortified Nationalist island, only about twice the size of a typical golf course. Not only did the battle exhibit China’s growing naval capabilities, it was a pivotal moment in a chain of events that led Eisenhower to threaten a nuclear attack on China—and led Congress to pledge itself to the defense of Taiwan.

In 1949, Mao’s People’s Liberation Army succeeded in sweeping the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) government out of mainland China. However, the Nationalist navy allowed the KMT to maintain its hold on large islands such as Hainan and Formosa, as well as smaller islands only miles away from major mainland cities such as Kinmen and Matsu. These soon were heavily fortified with Nationalist troops and guns and engaged in protracted artillery duels with PLA guns on the mainland.

In 1950, the PLA launched a series of amphibious operations, most notably resulting in the capture of Hainan island in the South China Sea. However, a landing in Kinmen was bloodily repulsed by Nationalist tanks in the Battle of Guningtou, barring the way for a final assault on Taiwan itself. Then events intervened, as the outbreak of the Korean War caused President Truman to deploy the U.S. Seventh Fleet to defend Taiwan. However, the naval blockade cut both ways—Truman did not allow Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek to launch attacks on mainland China.

This policy changed with the presidency of Eisenhower in 1953, who withdrew the Seventh Fleet, allowing the Nationalists to build up troops on the forward islands and launch more guerilla raids on the mainland. However, the PLA was able to counter-escalate with new World War II surplus heavy artillery, warships, and aircraft it had acquired from Russia. The series of artillery duels, naval battles, and aerial bombardments that followed became known as the First Taiwan Strait Crisis.

On November 14, four PLA Navy torpedo boats laid a nighttime ambush for the KMT destroyer Tai-ping (formerly the USS Decker) which had been detected by shore-based radar. An ill-advised light onboard the destroyer gave the PLAN boats a target, and the 1,400-ton ship was struck by a torpedo and sank before it could be towed to safety. Later, Il-10 Sturmovik bombers of the PLA Naval Air Force hit Dachen Harbor, sinking the Landing Ship (Tank) Zhongquan. These episodes highlighted that the Nationalists could no longer rest assured of control of the sea, making maritime lines of supply to the more forward island garrisons progressively less secure.

While the PLA unleashed heavy artillery bombardments on the well-defended Kinmen Island east of the city of Xiamen, it more immediately planned on securing the Dachen Archipelago close to Taizhou in Zhejiang Province. However, the Yijiangshan Islands, a little further than ten miles off the Chinese coast, stood in the way. The two islands measured only two-thirds of a square mile together, but were garrisoned by over one thousand Nationalist troops from the Second and Fourth Assault Groups and the Fourth Assault Squadron, with over one hundred machine gun positions, as well as sixty guns in the Fourth Artillery Brigade. The garrison’s commander, Wang Shen-ming, had been awarded additional honors by Chiang Kai-shek before being dispatched to the post, to signal the importance placed on the island outpost.

Source: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/chinas-military-massive-can-taiwan-count-america-if-they-invade-179012

The post China’s Military is Massive: Can Taiwan Count On America If They Invade? first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The polls told America Joe Biden would win by 8 points. 10 points! The media used those polls as psychological operations to dispirit Donald Trump’s supporters into believing we were alone, destined to defeat, and had become outcasts in our own country. Those same information warfare tanks were used to crush a key challenge to Joe Biden’s legitimacy: the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop he had abandoned at a repair shop. The media openly declared that it was a non-story from the start, a waste of time, not even worth discussing—or that it was Russian disinformation. Biden himself said that one.

The so-called mainstream in the media has its own lucrative relationship with Beijing.

This was a huge story. Emails on that laptop provided conclusive proof that Hunter Biden, who will be the First Son if Joe Biden prevails in the presidential election, has a very cozy and very lucrative relationship with CEFC China Energy Co., a Chinese energy company with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party. This evidence reveals how Joe Biden himself makes millions selling his positions and influence to the Chinese through Hunter.

Now, that sounds like an important story worth reporting, right? But good luck finding it anywhere outside of the New York Post and conservative media. The so-called mainstream in the media has its own lucrative relationship with Beijing. The Eurasian Times reports that “The Los Angeles Times, The Seattle Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Chicago Tribune, The Houston Chronicle, and The Boston Globe are all listed as clients of China Daily. The Chinese outlet paid the Los Angeles Times $657,523 for printing services, according to the FARA filings.” These outlets join the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal at the communist feeding trough. Imagine the influence that money buys in a media industry that is always fighting to hold onto their audiences, and are one bad quarter away from mass layoffs like the ones ESPN is doing now.

China Daily is communist China’s number one propaganda outlet worldwide. Owned by the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party, it doesn’t quite own the media outlets named above, but it sure knows how to rent them, buying their silence about China—and, apparently, about Joe Biden.

China Daily is able to gain soft-focus coverage in the U.S, media by publishing its inserts, which look like news stories but are actually communist spin, and paying U.S. media to run them. The communists are using what’s left of the media’s capitalism against it, and more importantly, against the American people who never suspect they’re reading communist agitprop in the Houston Chronicle. According to Freedom House, China has bought and rented media worldwide to broadcast its propaganda—reportedly spending $1.3 billion per year. For his part, Joe Biden wins every time an edition of any paper comes off the presses that don’t mention the river of money flowing his way from China.

President Trump, meanwhile, has spent four years calling China out for this and its other sins and crimes against free and fair speech. He fought and won trade wars against them. He (and to be fair, the Chinese coronavirus pandemic) convinced our allies around the world to move their factories and other investments from China to other, more open countries. When the communists subsumed Hong Kong and destroyed its civil rights, President Trump publicly lambasted them, ending the special trade privileges the communists used to pass cash and investment back and forth.

If he takes the White House in January, Joe Biden will do none of that. Instead, he’s likely to go soft on China as his past comments indicate.

Chinese propaganda.

Joe Biden has consistently downplayed China and dismissed its intentions and goals. In May of 2019, Biden told supporters that China poses no economic threat to the United States, despite the fact that it has stolen American manufacturing jobs and intellectual property for decades, allowing it to become the world’s second-largest economy.

[E]ven if Russia did spend a few hundred thousand dollars on Facebook ads and trolls during that election, some of it after Election Day, China, through its China Daily media buys, has spent about $19 million to the same effect.

“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man. I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They’re not competition for us,” Biden told the audience in Iowa. Leaders in both parties found his comments appalling.

In September 2020, Biden again went to bat for China, boldly declaring that Russia, not China, is the greatest threat to U.S. elections and politics. As evidence, Biden repeated the discredited lie that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign to steal the 2016 election. “There are a lot of countries around the world I think would be happy to see our elections destabilized. But the one who has worked the hardest, most consistently, and never has let up is Russia,” Biden said.

Consider this: even if Russia did spend a few hundred thousand dollars on Facebook ads and trolls during that election, some of it after Election Day, China, through its China Daily media buys, has spent about $19 million to the same effect. Perhaps China’s spending dwarfs Russia’s, because it can afford to and Russia can’t—President Trump’s support for fracking made American energy cheaper and Russia’s less relevant. People like Joe Biden, meanwhile, keep selling American workers out to China. (Then again, Biden has declared his intention to ban fracking, too, so that pattern may not hold for much longer.)

In recent years, China has reached parity with the United States in its foreign aid spending. In 2017, NPR (which has also deep-sixed the facts about Hunter Biden’s corrupt relationship with Beijing) reported that China spent $354.3 billion on its foreign aid “Belt and Road” program from 2000 to 2014. The United States spent $394.6 billion on foreign aid during the same period. No other nation comes close to the U.S. and China in spending on projects and development in foreign countries. But throughout this ongoing cold war,  Biden says they’re no competition for the United States.

Like the U.S. media, China rents Biden to keep his mouth shut.

China’s “Belt and Road” is, in reality, a debt trap. China uses the wealth it generates from being the world’s manufacturing hub to loan money to cash-strapped countries, promising to build much-needed infrastructure, but the fine print reveals the heavy debt burden and unfair terms. Countries that accept Chinese funds find themselves under Beijing’s thumb—and out of the American sphere of influence. China’s financial web is meant to trap smaller countries and pull them into its sphere of influence, blocking America out. This is only good for China, no one else. But, again, you’ll never hear any of this from Joe Biden.

You’ll also never hear anything about the “Thousand Talents Plan” from Joe Biden. According to the U.S. Senate’s 2019 report, through that trillion-dollar plan—yes, trillion dollars—China buys some of America’s top researchers at some of our top universities and labs, so they’ll pass information to jump-start Chinese research in key cutting edge fields. It goes without saying that this research gets weaponized. The yields of this program go to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. President Trump’s administration was finding these traitors and prosecuting them. Biden will probably bring them into his administration, letting this theft of human and intellectual capital flourish under the new regime.

You’ll never hear Joe Biden address this industrial espionage, or the concentration camps China runs, or the threat it is now posing to its neighbors, including our ally India. Because China owns Joe Biden—as the emails on his son Hunter’s laptop reveal. Like the U.S. media, China rents Biden to keep his mouth shut.

Joe Biden is our first Chinese president. Or at the very least, he’s a wholly-owned subsidiary of China, Inc.

Source: https://humanevents.com/2020/11/16/joe-biden-our-first-chinese-president/

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