China | Boots & Sabers

U.S. Auto Makers Losing in China After Radical Shift to EVs

by Owen | 0748, 17 Dec 2424 | Economy, Foreign Affairs | 1 Comment

When the CCP pushes Chinese people to use EVs, they do so. This is not a story of the success of EVs. It a story of the power of totalitarian government. This is the kind of power that makes America’s environuts envious.

The biggest problem is China’s shift from traditional gasoline-powered cars in recent years to electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids, which now make up a majority of its market. The country had introduced policies and incentives that pushed buyers towards EVs, where they found better cars and better values in the Chinese brands.

“Ten years ago, President Xi Jinping and the Chinese automakers decided: ‘We have been chasing global automakers in internal combustion engine vehicles, and we’re not catching up. We’re going whole hog into electric,’” said Dunne.

Western automakers tried to stay the course with gasoline-powered cars, and for the most part, so did their JV partners. Now those companies — other than Tesla, which has a factory in Shanghai — are trailing far behind in an effort to keep up with lower priced EVs and hybrids from Chinese automakers, such as BYD.

It was a massive miscalculation by Western automakers, said Bill Russo, head of Shanghai-based investment advisory firm Automobility and head of Chrysler’s Northeast Asia operations from 2004 to 2008.

Massive Chinese Hack of Networks Threatens National Security

by Owen | 1622, 23 Nov 2424 | Crime, Foreign Affairs, Technology | 1 Comment

We shouldn’t have to say it, but China is not our friend.

(CNN) — Top telecom executives met with US national security officials at the White House on Friday as concerns mount over a long-running Chinese cyber-espionage campaign that has targeted some of the most senior US political figures in the country.

The hackers burrowed deep into some major US telecom providers to spy on phone calls and text messages and have proved difficult to kick out of some networks, people briefed on the matter said.

[…]

The hack is shaping up to be one of the biggest cyber and national security challenges facing the incoming Trump administration.

It is “by far” the “worst telecom hack in our nation’s history,” Sen. Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia and chairman of the intelligence committee, told CNN.

But the full scope of the hack, who it affects and its impact on national security are still being investigated.

The FBI has notified fewer than 150 victims, most in the Washington, DC, area, according to Warner. But all of those victims have likely called or sent texts to numerous people, meaning the number of records accessed by the hackers is likely far greater. The hackers could listen to the calls of specific targets for certain periods of time, according to Warner.

US officials and private cyber experts are keeping a running tally of the number of telecom firms breached. US broadband and internet providers AT&T, Verizon and Lumen have all been targeted in the hacking effort, CNN previously reported.

U.S. to Ban Russian and Chinese Parts in Cars

by Owen | 2035, 23 Sep 2424 | Foreign Affairs, Technology | 1 Comment

There are many lessons to be learned from the beeper and radio explosions in Lebanon. One of them is that it is possible – probable – that hostile foreign actors are willing and able to infiltrate tech on a widescale basis for evil intent.

The US is planning to ban certain hardware and software made in China and Russia from cars, trucks and buses in the US due to security risks.

Officials said they were worried that the technology in question, used for autonomous driving and to connect cars to other networks, could allow enemies to “remotely manipulate cars on American roads”.

There is currently minimal use of Chinese or Russia-made software in American cars.

China Successfully Woos African Nations Into Orbit

by Owen | 0759, 4 Sep 2424 | Foreign Affairs | 0 Comments

We are losing the world through weak leadership.

With pomp and splendour, China has welcomed more than 50 Africans leaders to Beijing this week for a summit to strengthen ties at a time of increasing political and economic turmoil around the world.

“It appeals to their vanities,” Macharia Munene, a Kenya-based professor of international relations tells the BBC, referring to the red carpet welcome – spiced up with entertainment by dancers in colourful costumes – that the leaders received.

The optics were carefully choreographed to make the leaders feel that it is a meeting of equals.

Many of them – including South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa and Kenya’s William Ruto – held one-to-one meetings with their Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and were given tours of Beijing and other cities at the heart of China’s development ahead of the summit.

As Prof Munene puts it, China’s aim is to show African leaders that “we are in the same boat, we are all victims of Western imperialism”.

China Cracks Down in Hong Kong

by Owen | 0704, 30 May 2424 | Foreign Affairs, Law | 1 Comment

Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, we see the full expression of the logic of using government force to “preserve Democracy.” They just convicted people in a political party for campaigning saying that they would use a constitutional power to veto budgets they didn’t support. In order to prevent a “constitutional crisis,” they silenced, arrested, and now convicted politicians. If you think that this would never happen in America, you haven’t been paying attention.

HONG KONG — Fourteen pro-democracy activists were convicted in Hong Kong’s biggest national security case on Thursday by a court that said their plan to effect change through an unofficial primary election would have undermined the government’s authority and created a constitutional crisis.

After a 2019 protest movement that filled the city’s streets with demonstrators, authorities have all but silenced dissent in Hong Kong through reduced public choice in elections, crackdowns on media and the Beijing-imposed security law under which the activists were convicted.

[…]

In a summary of the verdict distributed to media, the court said the election participants had declared they would use their legislative power to veto the budgets.

Putin and Xi

by Owen | 0635, 18 May 2424 | Foreign Affairs | 0 Comments

I think this story is a bit optimistic from a Westerner’s perspective, but the relationship surely has changed.

Mr Putin came to China cap in hand, eager for Beijing to continue trading with a heavily sanctioned and isolated Russia. His statements were filled with honeyed tones and flattering phrases.

He said that his family were learning Mandarin – this was particularly noteworthy because he very rarely talks about his children in public.

He declared that he and Mr Xi were “as close as brothers” and went on to praise China’s economy, saying it was “developing in leaps and bounds, at a fast pace”. This will likely play well with Beijing officials worried by a sluggish economy.

But Mr Xi himself did not echo the tone of these lofty compliments. Instead, his remarks were more perfunctory – even bland. Mr Putin, he said, was a “good friend and a good neighbour”. For China, the welcome ceremony and show of unity is in its interests, but lavishing its guest with praise is not.

The costly war in Ukraine, which shows no signs of ending, has changed their relationship, exposing the weaknesses in Russia’s army and its economy. Mr Xi will know that he is now in charge.

The war has isolated Russia. China’s ties with the West may be tense, but Beijing has not cut itself off from the world like Russia, nor does it want to.

China is the Green Energy Giant

by Owen | 0753, 18 Apr 2424 | Economy, Foreign Affairs, Politics | 0 Comments

The “green” energy push from the Biden Administration is a lifeline to China’s economy at the expense of the American consumer.

But now the old industrial pillars of furniture, clothing and electrical goods are struggling, Beijing is looking to its “new productive forces”: solar panels, lithium batteries and electric cars.

“We are exporting to the UK, Belgium, Germany, mostly European countries, but also to Africa, Australia, South America, North America and also South East Asia,” salesperson Yan Mu says as he shows off the company’s storage batteries.

His is one of the stalls at an exhibition held by hundreds of green energy storage companies in a refurbished and repurposed steel plant on the edge of Beijing.

Chinese Nationals Flooding Border

by Owen | 1006, 30 Mar 2424 | Foreign Affairs, Politics | 0 Comments

China has one of the most ubiquitous and aggressive surveillance machines in the world. There is no way this is happening without the support of the CCP.

There have been more than 22,000 encounters of Chinese nationals at the southern border since Oct. 1, a massive increase from the 2,176 encountered in federal fiscal year 2022 and the 450 encountered in fiscal year 2021.

[…]

The man’s account on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, shows his family in China on the way to the airport. He said he collected information from online sources to learn how to make it to the U.S., including information about routes, border navigation and ways to dispose of information to avoid having your origin traced. Additionally, many people “vlog” about their journey on Chinese social media apps to get in contact with other Chinese nationals already in the U.S. who can help find them jobs and a place to live.

He said his family left China in January and traveled first to Thailand (with a transfer in Bahrain) before going through Morocco (with a transfer in Spain), Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico.

Biden Gives China Green Light to Take Taiwan

by Owen | 1003, 13 Jan 2424 | Politics | 2 Comments

FFS

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden said on Saturday the United States does not support the independence of Taiwan, after Taiwanese voters rebuffed China and gave the ruling party a third presidential term.

Earlier in the day, the Taiwanese ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential candidate Lai Ching-te came to power, strongly rejecting Chinese pressure to spurn him, and pledged both to stand up to Beijing and seek talks.

“We do not support independence…” Biden said, when asked for reaction to Saturday’s elections.

Hours ahead of the polls opening, Washington had warned “it would be unacceptable” for “any” country to interfere in the election.

Taiwan, a neighbouring island China claims as its own, has been a democratic success story since holding its first direct presidential election in 1996, the culmination of decades of struggle against authoritarian rule and martial law.

Xi Plans to Take Over Taiwan

by Owen | 1623, 20 Dec 2323 | Foreign Affairs, Politics | 1 Comment

Sure… he would PREFER not to use force to take over Taiwan… but he will. Interestingly, the story does not document Biden’s response. Did Biden reassert our long-standing intent to support Taiwan?

Xi told Biden in a group meeting attended by a dozen American and Chinese officials that China’s preference is to take Taiwan peacefully, not by force, the officials said.

The Chinese leader also referenced public predictions by U.S. military leaders who say that Xi plans to take Taiwan in 2025 or 2027, telling Biden that they were wrong because he has not set a time frame, according to the two current and one former official briefed on the meeting.

Chinese officials also asked in advance of the summit that Biden make a public statement after the meeting saying that the United States supports China’s goal of peaceful unification with Taiwan and does not support Taiwanese independence, they said. The White House rejected the Chinese request.

A spokesperson for the National Security Council declined to comment.

The revelations provide previously unreported details about a critical meeting between the two leaders that was intended to reduce tensions between their countries.

Xi’s private warning to Biden, while not markedly different from his past public comments on reunifying Taiwan, got the attention of U.S. officials because it was delivered at a time when China’s behavior toward Taiwan is seen as increasingly aggressive and ahead of a potentially pivotal presidential election in the self-governing democratic island next month.

China Fading

by Owen | 0855, 24 Nov 2323 | Economy, Foreign Affairs | 1 Comment

While it is good that China’s economic prowess may be waning, it is also destabilizing if Communist China seek to replace their economic might with military might.

The Chinese economy’s decades-long run of tremendous growth has finally found its end, Ruchir Sharma wrote in the Financial Times.

Now, the world’s second-largest economy accounts for a smaller share of global GDP.

“In a historic turn, China’s rise as an economic superpower is reversing. The biggest global story of the past half century may be over,” the Rockefeller International chairman said.

In nominal dollar terms — which Sharma argues is the most accurate measure of an economy’s relative strength — China’s share of world GDP began slipping in 2022 as strict zero-COVID measures remained in place for most of the year.

Despite expectations for a blowout rebound, China’s share will fall further in 2023, hitting 17%. That puts China on pace for a two-year drop of 1.4 percentage points, a slide not seen since the 1960s and 1970s, when Mao Zedong presided over a weak economy, he added.

Newsom Gets Direction From Xi Before Election

by Owen | 1801, 26 Oct 2323 | Foreign Affairs, Politics | 0 Comments

This is the surest sign yet that Xi is going to swap out Newsom for Biden before the election.

BANGKOK (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom had a surprise meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing on Wednesday after being warmly welcomed by other senior leaders in a display of friendliness that stands in sharp contrast to the dialogue between the United States and China in recent years.

The governor is on a weeklong tour of China, where he plans to push for climate cooperation. Newsom’s trip as governor, once considered routine, is drawing attention as it comes after years of heightening tensions between the U.S. and China.

“I’m here in expectation, as you suggest, of turning the page, of renewing our friendship and reengaging (on) foundational and fundamental issues that will determine our collective faith in the future,” Newsom said in brief opening remarks ahead of his meeting with Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat, earlier in the day.

Chinese Police Enforcers Arrested in Manhattan

by Owen | 2007, 17 Apr 2323 | Crime, Foreign Affairs | 0 Comments

Concerned yet?

US prosecutors have arrested two men in New York for allegedly operating a Chinese “secret police station” in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighbourhood.

Lu Jianwang, 61, and Chen Jinping, 59, both New York City residents, face charges of conspiring to act as agents for China and obstruction of justice.

They are expected to appear in federal court in Brooklyn on Monday.

China has previously denied operating the stations, calling them “service centres” for nationals overseas.

Mr Lu of the Bronx and Mr Chen of Manhattan worked together to establish the first overseas police station in the United States on behalf of China’s Ministry of Public Security, the US Department of Justice alleged on Monday.

The outpost was closed in autumn of 2022, the department said, after those involved became aware of an FBI investigation into the station.

“This prosecution reveals the Chinese government’s flagrant violation of our nation’s sovereignty by establishing a secret police station in the middle of New York City,” said Breon Pearce, the top prosecutor in Brooklyn.

[…]

According to prosecutors, Mr Lu was closely connected to Chinese law enforcement, and was enlisted to help China with “repressive activities” in the US beginning in 2015, including harassing Chinese dissidents.

In 2018, he allegedly participated in efforts to push a purported Chinese fugitive to return to China, including repeated harassment and threats to the individual and his family, living in China and the US. And prosecutors said he was also enlisted to locate a pro-democracy activist in China. Mr Lu denied these actions when confronted by US authorities.

Spy Balloon Carried Synthetic Aperture Radar

by Owen | 1740, 16 Apr 2323 | Military, Politics | 0 Comments

That was one sophisticated balloon that Biden let surveil our country for a week.

In February, a high-altitude balloon with surveillance capabilities connected to China flew over the continental US before being shot down over the Atlantic.

At the time, much about the balloon wasn’t known publicly, but a new trove of Pentagon documents leaked on Discord show it — and up to four other previously unknown spy balloons like it — could have had a feature known as “synthetic aperture radar” that can see through certain objects, the Washington Post reported.

Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old US National Guard airman, was arrested Thursday in connection to the leaks.

US intelligence agencies believed this because the balloon, which officials named Killeen-23 in an apparent reference to 1940s mobster Donald Killeen, was equipped with the ability to generate up to 10,000 watts of solar power — enough to power a typical home — which could support such abilities.

“The amount of solar power generated by the panels on the Chinese stratospheric balloon that NSA named Killeen-23 is excessive for a weather balloon,” the document reads.

Synthetic aperture radar is the solution to the problem with real aperture radar, which cannot create high-resolution images without an impractically large antenna. SAR “synthesizes” a large antenna, but the concept is the same — it releases bursts of electromagnetic energy to an object on Earth, and a sensor then records the wavelength of energy it receives back, according to NASA. These sensor readings then allow the radar to create a reconstruction of whatever objects are below the energy beam.

Because SAR isn’t taking photos and is instead using electromagnetic data to create a high-resolution image, the technology can “see” in the dark, as well as through clouds, smoke, soil, and rain. It can also help with three-dimensional reconstructions, unlike cameras, which can only capture what is openly visible from above.

China Encircles Taiwan

by Owen | 0739, 8 Apr 2323 | Foreign Affairs, Military | 0 Comments

Well, they practice it. Practice makes perfect, eh?

China’s military is rehearsing the encirclement of Taiwan during three days of military drills.

Beijing – which views Taiwan as a breakaway province of China – called the operation a “stern warning” to the island’s government.

The exercises began hours after President Tsai Ing-wen returned from a trip to the United States.

The Taiwanese Defence Ministry said 71 Chinese military planes and nine ships crossed the Taiwan Strait median line.

Spy Balloon Worked

by Owen | 1615, 3 Apr 2323 | Foreign Affairs, Politics | 11 Comments

I was assured that this wouldn’t happen.

The Chinese spy balloon that flew across the U.S. was able to gather intelligence from several sensitive American military sites, despite the Biden administration’s efforts to block it from doing so, according to two current senior U.S. officials and one former senior administration official.

China was able to control the balloon so it could make multiple passes over some of the sites (at times flying figure-eight formations) and transmit the information it collected back to Beijing in real time, the three officials said. The intelligence China collected was mostly from electronic signals, which can be picked up from weapons systems or include communications from base personnel, rather than images, the officials said.

The three officials said China could have gathered much more intelligence from sensitive sites if not for the administration’s efforts to move around potential targets and obscure the balloon’s ability to pick up their electronic signals by stopping them from broadcasting or emitting signals.

So… our president allowed the Chinese to spy on us. When caught, we didn’t do anything about it. Who is he working for?

Biden Says Relations With China Are Not Damaged By Balloon

by Owen | 2339, 8 Feb 2323 | Foreign Affairs | 0 Comments

Ask yourself… why aren’t relations damaged? Shouldn’t they be? They invaded our space with an intentionally provocative act? Why wouldn’t it damage relations?

President Joe Biden said in a new interview that the recently recovered Chinese spy balloon that traversed the continental US did not damage bilateral relations between the two countries.

“The idea shooting down a balloon that’s gathering information over America and that makes relations worse?” Biden told PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff in a wide-ranging interview a day after his second State of the Union address.

“I made it real clear to Xi Jinping that we’re going to compete fully with China, but we’re not looking for conflict. That’s been the case so far.”

Biden’s response marks the second time this week that he’s sought to downplay the effect of what US officials deemed a “brazen” act by Beijing to send an intelligence gathering balloon across several US states – with signs it loitered over key military installations.

Biden’s Balloon Finally Pops

by Owen | 1800, 4 Feb 2323 | Foreign Affairs, Military, Politics | 20 Comments

Oh, fer cripes’s sakes. He waits until it has traversed the entire nation collecting whatever data it could before doing anything. This isn’t the 1960s where a surveillance craft had to drop its payload to be retrieved and analyzed. Whatever it collected has already been transmitted. And while I have mad respect for our pilots, it’s not much of a brag to say that they shot it down with “one missile.” It’s a friggin’ balloon. This whole fiasco has been a national embarrassment and the world is laughing at us.

Joe Biden praised the Top Gun fighter jet pilot who shot down the Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina today after he vowed to ‘take care of it.’

An F-22 Raptor out of Langley Air Force base took the balloon down with a single AIM-9X sidewinder missile at 2.38pm, separating its surveillance payload and sending it plummeting towards the ocean off Myrtle Beach.

Footage showed the jet screaming towards the spy aircraft before firing the missile as stunned locals watched from the coast.

[…]

Biden first became aware of the balloon last Sunday, January 28, when it was spotted over Alaska. The US military tracked it over Canadian airspace and as it re-entered US territory on Tuesday.

The following day, Biden was given a detailed report on the aircraft and its course, attended by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley.

Chinese Spy Balloon Hovering Over the U.S.

by Owen | 2048, 2 Feb 2323 | Foreign Affairs, Military, Politics | 10 Comments

This is how wussy we have become. We are not willing to shoot down a spy baloon – both to remove it from spying and to make it clear to the Chinese that we will respond to their spying with force – because of the miniscule chance it will land on someone in one of the most sparsley populated states in out nation. We are failing as a nation

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is tracking a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that has been spotted over U.S. airspace for a couple days, but the Pentagon decided not to shoot it down due to the risk of harming people on the ground, officials said Thursday. The discovery of the balloon puts a further strain on U.S.-China relations at a time of heightened tensions.

A senior defense official told Pentagon reporters that the U.S. has “very high confidence” it is a Chinese high-altitude balloon and it was flying over sensitive sites to collect information. One of the places the balloon was spotted was Montana, which is home to one of the nation’s three nuclear missile silo fields at Malmstrom Air Force Base. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

U.K. P.M. Calls for Harder Stance Against China

by Owen | 2114, 29 Nov 2222 | Foreign Affairs | 1 Comment

Many years ago, Americans listened to Churchill speak with a conviction and moral clarity that we failed to find in our own leaders. We may be reliving that moment.

In his first foreign policy speech on Monday since taking office, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak declared that the country’s “golden era” of relations with China was over, saying it’s time for U.K.’s relations to “evolve.”

Sunak referred to the past decades of close economic ties as “naive,” calling China a “systemic challenge” to British interests.

“We recognize China poses a systemic challenge to our values and interests, a challenge that grows more acute as it moves toward even greater authoritarianism,” Sunak said at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in London.

He now wants to adopt an approach of “robust pragmatism” against close competitors, strengthening ties with allies including the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Japan. With geopolitical shifts underway, Sunak said, “short-termism or wishful thinking will not suffice” against Russia and China.

Boots & Sabers