Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu, missing for more than two weeks, is believed to have been placed under investigation, according to US officials.
Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu believed to have been placed under investigation (Credits: AP)
Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu, who has not been seen in public for over two weeks, has been placed under investigation, the US government believes.
According to the US, Shangfu has also been stripped of his responsibilities as defence minister, the Financial Times reported.
Taking to X, Rahm Emanuel, the US envoy to Japan, wrote, “President Xi’s cabinet lineup is now resembling Agatha Christie’s novel ‘And Then There Were None’.”
“First, foreign minister Qin Gang goes missing, then the rocket force commanders go missing and now defence minister Li Shangfu hasn’t been seen in public for two weeks,” he wrote.
“Who’s going to win this unemployment race? China’s youth or Xi’s cabinet?” Emanuel said.
He further quoted Shakespeare in Hamlet and wrote, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” 1st: Defense Minister Li Shangfu hasn’t been seen or heard from in 3 weeks. 2nd: He was a no-show for his trip to Vietnam. Now: He’s absent from his scheduled meeting with the Singaporean Chief of Navy because he was placed on house arrest???…Might be getting crowded in there. Good news is I heard he’s paid off his mortgage with the Country Garden real estate developers.”
Shangfu’s supposed disappearance came after Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang went missing in July.
A report has said that Pakistan has continued to “expand its nuclear arsenal with more warheads” even as its citizens suffer through a cash-strapped economy.
Pakistan continues to expand its nuclear arsenal with more warheads even as the nation’s citizens suffer in a broken economy amid cash woes, reveals a report | Image: X/AP
Despite its dire economic circumstances, cash-strapped Pakistan continues to pursue its ambitions of expanding its nuclear arsenal. A recent research report by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists raises alarms about this development, stating, “Pakistan continues to gradually expand its nuclear arsenal with more warheads, more delivery systems, and a growing fissile material production industry.”
Pakistan, a nation grappling with a severe economic downturn, is facing widespread protests driven by soaring fuel prices and exorbitant power bills. The situation has reached a critical point, with petrol prices reaching an all-time high of PKR 300 per litre, and many cities experiencing prolonged power outages.
Desperate for financial relief, Pakistan sought assistance from China and Gulf nations on multiple occasions. However, in a significant turn of events, Pakistan reluctantly agreed to stringent conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in exchange for a bailout.
Arms negotiations between Russia and North Korea are actively advancing, a U.S. official said on Tuesday and warned leader Kim Jong Un that his country would pay a price for supplying Russia with weapons to use in Ukraine.
Providing weapons to Russia “is not going to reflect well on North Korea and they will pay a price for this in the international community,” U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters at the White House.
The Kremlin said earlier on Tuesday it had “nothing to say” about statements by U.S. officials that Kim planned to travel to Russia this month to meet President Vladimir Putin and discuss weapons supplies to Moscow.
Kim expects discussions about weapons to continue, Sullivan said, including at leader level and “perhaps even in person”.
“We have continued to squeeze Russia’s defense industrial base,” Sullivan said, and Moscow is now “looking to whatever source they can find” for goods like ammunition.
“We will continue to call on North Korea to abide by its public commitments not to supply weapons to Russia that will end up killing Ukrainians,” Sullivan said.
On Monday, U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said Kim and Putin could be planning to meet, and the New York Times cited unnamed U.S. and allied officials as saying Kim plans to travel to Russia as soon as next week to meet Putin.
Asked if he could confirm the talks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “No, I can’t. There’s nothing to say.”
As Russia’s isolation over its war in Ukraine has grown, it has seen increasing value in North Korea, according to political analysts. For North Korea’s part, relations with Russia have not always been as warm as they were at the height of the Soviet Union, but now the country is reaping clear benefits from Moscow’s need for friends.
MOSCOW-PYONGYANG DEFENSE COOPERATION
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un pose for a photo during their meeting in Vladivostok, Russia, April 25, 2019. Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool via REUTERS//File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights
A North Korean defense ministry official in November said Pyongyang has “never had ‘arms dealings’ with Russia” and has “no plan to do so in the future.”
Moscow and Pyongyang have promised to boost defense cooperation.
Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, who visited Pyongyang in July to attend weapons displays that included North Korea’s banned ballistic missiles, said on Monday the two countries are discussing the possibility of joint military exercises.
“Just as you can tell a person by their friends, you can tell a country by the company it keeps,” said Keir Giles, Senior Consulting Fellow with Chatham House’s Russia & Eurasia Programme. “In Russia’s case, that company now consists largely of fellow rogue states.”
The trip would be Kim’s first visit abroad in more than four years and the first since the coronavirus pandemic.
While he made more trips abroad than his father as leader, Kim’s travel is often shrouded in secrecy and heavy security. Unlike his father who was said to be averse to flying, Kim has flown his personal Russian-made jet for some of his trips but U.S. officials told the New York Times that he may take an armored train across the land border North Korea shares with Russia.
Beijing sees forces bent on weakening it everywhere: embedded in multinational companies, infiltrating social media, circling naïve students. And it wants its people to see them, too.
Chinese universities require faculty to take courses on protecting state secrets, even in departments like veterinary medicine. A kindergarten in the eastern city of Tianjin organized a meeting to teach staffers how to “understand and use” China’s anti-espionage law.
China’s Ministry of State Security, a usually covert department that oversees the secret police and intelligence services, has even opened its first social media account, as part of what official news media described as an effort at increasing public engagement. Its first post: a call for a “whole of society mobilization” against espionage.
“The participation of the masses,” the post said, should be “normalized.”
China’s ruling Communist Party is enlisting ordinary people to guard against perceived threats to the country, in a campaign that blurs the line between vigilance and paranoia. The country’s economy is facing its worst slowdown in years, but China’s authoritarian leader, Xi Jinping, appears more fixated on national security and preventing threats to the party’s control.
“We must be prepared for worst-case and extreme scenarios,” Mr. Xi told China’s National Security Commission in May. He called on officials to “enhance real-time monitoring” and “get prepared for actual combat.”
The sense of urgency may be heightened by the fact that Beijing is confronting some of its biggest challenges since Mr. Xi’s ascension more than a decade ago. Beyond the economic gloom, China’s relations with the West are increasingly tense. And unexplained personnel changes at the highest tiers of power — including the sudden removal in July of China’s foreign minister and two high-ranking generals — suggest that Mr. Xi may have feared threats to his control.
In July, China revised its anti-espionage law to broaden an already sweeping scope of activities that it regards as spying. It is offering rewards of tens of thousands of dollars to people who report spies.
While the call for mass vigilance has inspired widespread caution, it is unclear to what extent that is translating to action on the ground. In the last month, the authorities have announced the capture of at least four spies, including two men recruited by the C.I.A., but some of the cases appeared to be old ones belatedly announced, such as a married couple arrested in 2019.
The authorities also said earlier this year that they had sentenced an American citizen to life in prison for espionage, and they arrested a high-ranking Chinese newspaper editor while he was dining with a Japanese diplomat. (The editor’s family has called the charges trumped up.)
“The push reflects the profound legitimacy challenges and crisis that the regime is facing,” said Chen Jian, a professor of modern Chinese history at New York University. Professor Chen said the call to mass action bore echoes of the sweeping campaigns that Mao Zedong unleashed in part to consolidate his own power. The most notable was the Cultural Revolution, a decade-long period of chaos and bloodshed when Chinese leaders urged people to report on their teachers, neighbors or even families as “counterrevolutionaries.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects the Pukjung Machine Complex and a major munitions factory in an undisclosed location in North Korea in this picture released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and obtained by Reuters on Sep 3, 2023. (Photo: KCNA via REUTERS)
North Korea conducted a simulated “tactical nuclear attack” drill early on Saturday (Sep 2) that included two long-range cruise missiles carrying mock nuclear warheads, in response to allied exercises by the US and South Korea, state media reported on Sunday.
The KCNA news agency said the drill was carried out to “warn the enemies of the actual nuclear war danger” as Pyongyang again vowed to bolster military deterrence against Washington and Seoul.
The two cruise missiles carrying mock nuclear warheads were fired towards the West Sea of the peninsula and flew 1,500km at a preset altitude of 150m.
A separate statement said Kim visited Pukjung Machine Complex, which produces marine engines, and a major munitions factory to stress the importance of strengthening Pyongyang’s naval forces.
“He affirmed that a future plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the WPK (Worker’s Party of Korea) would set forth an important modernization of the complex and the development direction of the shipbuilding industry,” the KCNA statement said.
The statement did not specify the date of his visit.
The latest missile test came just after the joint annual summertime exercises between South Korea and the US, known as Ulchi Freedom Shield, came to a close on Thursday after an 11-day run, featuring air drills with B-1B bombers.
The White House says Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un exchanged letters about working together.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Un pose for a photo prior to their talks in Vladivostok, Russia, on April 25, 2019. | Pool Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko
New U.S. intelligence shows North Korea and Russia are “actively advancing” high-level talks for additional weapons and other materials to assist Moscow’s brutal war in Ukraine, the Biden administration disclosed on Wednesday.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu recently traveled to North Korea to try to secure additional artillery ammunition, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. Since that visit, Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un have exchanged letters pledging to increase their cooperation.
Also after Shoigu’s visit, another group of Russian officials traveled to Pyongyang for follow-up discussions about potential arms deals between the two nations, Kirby said. Under the potential agreements, North Korea would ship Russia “significant quantities and multiple types” of weapons for use in Ukraine, he said.
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The potential deals also include the provision of raw materials that could help boost Russia’s military manufacturing capability, Kirby said.
“Any arms deal between the DPRK and Russia would directly violate a number of U.N. Security Council resolutions,” Kirby said, referring to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the country’s official name. “We’re continuing to monitor this situation closely. And we urge the DPRK to cease its arms negotiations with Russia and abide by the public commitments that Pyongyang has made to not provide or sell arms to Russia.”
The alleged arms talks come as Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine drags on with no end in sight. A Ukrainian counteroffensive has failed to make major breakthroughs, despite ample military support from the West. Both Russia and Ukraine are burning through ammunition and seeking any edge they can in a bid to gain a permanent upper hand.
The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Kirby declined to describe how the United States had obtained the information, citing the importance of protecting sources and methods used. Still, it was the latest example of the Biden administration publicly disclosing intelligence in a bid to stay ahead of Moscow as it has pursued its war on Ukraine.
Kirby said the fact that Putin was approaching a country like North Korea, one of the most isolated on the planet, was a sign of Putin’s desperation, even as he acknowledged it was not clear how long Russia would continue to wage war.
Kyiv officials say 2 people killed, one wounded in largest Russian missile and drone raid on Ukraine’s capital in months.
An image from social media shows a large fire and billowing smoke in Pskov, Russia, on August 29, 2023 following a drone raid on an airport in the western Russian region [Ostorozhno Novosti via AP Photo]Russia said that Ukraine launched drones against targets in six Russian regions, including an attack on an airport in the western city of Pskov – located near the borders of Latvia and Estonia – where military transport aircraft were reported damaged amid explosions and a huge fire.
In what could be the biggest drone attack on Russian territory since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday morning that drones were also shot down over the regions of Orlov, Bryansk, Ryazan, Kaluga and the Moscow region surrounding the Russian capital.
Russian also launched a missile and drone attack against Kyiv on Wednesday morning that was described as the “most powerful strike” on the Ukrainian capital in months, leaving two people dead and one wounded, the city’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukrainian air defences destroyed more than 20 missiles and drones involved in the attack and two security guards were killed by falling debris, according to authorities.
“Kyiv had not experienced such a powerful attack since spring… In total, more than 20 enemy targets were destroyed by air defence forces,” the Kyiv City Military Administration wrote on Telegram.
Russian state news agency TASS, quoting emergency services, said earlier on Wednesday that four Il-76 heavy transport aircraft, which have long been the workhorse of the Russian military, were damaged at an airfield in Russia’s western Pskov region, located roughly 660km (some 411 miles) north of Ukrainian border.
In its charge sheet filed before a special court here last month, the CBI had named Raghuvanshi and Pathak as accused in the alleged violation of the Official Secrets Act and related offences, the officials said.
Image Source : LINKEDIN
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday arrested a Canada-based Indian businessman in connection with a defence espionage case in which a journalist and a former Navy commander were held in May, officials said on Tuesday.
Rahul Gaggal, a businessman who had taken permanent residency in Canada in 2019, was arrested in the case when he landed here on Monday, they said. The accused were produced before the Competent Court in Delhi and remanded to 4 days police custody.
Earlier, the agency had arrested freelance journalist Vivek Raghuvanshi and former Navy commander Ashish Pathak for allegedly collecting sensitive information on defence matters and passing them on to foreign intelligence agencies.
In its charge sheet filed before a special court here last month, the CBI had named Raghuvanshi and Pathak as accused in the alleged violation of the Official Secrets Act and related offences, the officials said. Raghuvanshi and Pathak were arrested on May 16.
What was the case?
RBI had registered the said case on December 9 last year against the accused on the allegations that the accused was involved in the illegal collection of sensitive information including the minute details of the DRDO defence projects & their progress, sensitive details about the future procurement of Indian armed forces which reveal the strategic preparedness of country’s classified communications and information relating to national security, details of the strategic and diplomatic talks of India with friendly countries and sharing such classified information with intelligence agencies of foreign countries.
Searches were earlier conducted around at 15 locations in Delhi-NCR and at Jaipur which led to the recovery of 48 electronic devices including laptops, tablets, mobile phones hard disks and pen drive etc belonging to the accused and others associated with the accused. Besides, a number of incriminating documents relating to Indian defence establishmentswere seized.
The data stored in cloud-based accounts, emails, social media accounts belonging to the accused have also been recovered by digital forensic experts of CBI. It was also alleged that the accused and his associate were in possession of classified secret document related to Indian defence establishments.
The ministry asserted it was not a surgical strike, as claimed (File PTI Photo)
Hours after a report said India made another surgical strike on Pakistan, the Ministry of Defence on Tuesday refuted the claims and said that Indian Army foiled an infiltration bid by Pakistan on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Balakote Sector. However, the ministry asserted it was not a surgical strike, as claimed.
Ministry, in an official statement, said that on Monday morning, two terrorists were detected by alert troops to be making attempts to cross the LoC onto the Indian side, “making use of inclement weather, dense fog, thick foliage, and undulating ground in Hamirpur area of Balakote Sector.”
Earlier today, a newspaper report claimed that Indian Army has once again carried out a surgical strike in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Quoting sources, the report claimed that Army destroyed four launching pads of Pakistani terrorists by entering 2.5 kilometers across the LoC on Saturday night.
It claimed that seven to eight terrorists were killed in India’s surgical strike and all the soldiers of the Indian Army returned safely after the mission.
WHAT MINISTRY SAID?
“Intelligence Inputs received from Multiple Intelligence agencies and Jammu and Kashmir Police revealed the presence of terrorists waiting to cross the LC from opposite own Balakote Sector. Based on these inputs own surveillance grid was placed on heightened alert and multiple ambushes were sited at suitable location,” the ministry’s statement read.
As the terrorists approached India’s ambush sites, they were challenged and then engaged with effective fire, the ministry said, adding that this forced the terrorists to flee from the ambush site by making use of weather and ground conditions.
“However effective fire resulted in one terrorist falling down on the ground near the LC. Additional troops were then moved into the area and search operations commenced in the afternoon after improvement of weather conditions and visibility,” it said.
During searches in the area, Indian Army recovered an AK 47 rifle with two magazines, 30 rounds, two grenades, and Pak-origin medicines.
More than 40 Chinese warplanes flew over Taiwan’s air defence zone on Saturday, as part of military drills that Taiwan called “irrational and provocative”.
About 26 Chinese aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan’s ministry of defence said.
It said Beijing was trying to influence Taiwan’s upcoming election.
China said the drills would test its forces’ ability to fight in “combat conditions”, state media reported.
The People’s Liberation Army “launched joint air and sea patrols and military exercises of the navy and air force around the island of Taiwan” on Saturday, military spokesperson Shi Yi is quoted by Xinhua as saying.
The exercises would serve as a “stern warning to the collusion of ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists with foreign elements and their provocations”, he added.
It follows Chinese anger at a recent stopover by Taiwan’s vice president, William Lai, in the United States. China previously launched major military exercises after Nancy Pelosi, then US House speaker, visited Taiwan last year and again when President Tsai Ing-wen met with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California.
Mr Lai, a frontrunner in Taiwan’s upcoming presidential election in January, was visiting the US on a trip to Paraguay.
China said Mr Lai was a “troublemaker” and that it would take “resolute measures” to “safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
Despite China’s claim to sovereignty over the island, Taiwan governs itself. It described China’s military exercise as “irrational and provocative behaviour”.
Taiwan said it would dispatch “appropriate forces” to respond “with practical actions” – adding that the national army was using reconnaissance methods to “strictly control” the situation.
“Conducting a military exercise this time under a pretext not only does not help the peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, but also highlights (China’s) militaristic mentality and confirms the hegemonic nature of its military expansion,” Taiwan’s defence ministry said.
Paramjit Singh Panjwar joined the Khalistan Commando Force in 1986. Photo : ANI
Wanted terrorist and chief of the Khalistan Commando Force (KCF-Panjwar group) Paramjit Singh Panjwar was shot dead in Pakistan’s Lahore on Saturday by unidentified assailants, sources said. He was gunned down this morning by two motorcycle-borne men near his residence in Lahore, they said.
Hailing from Punjab’s Tarn Taran district, Panjwar, 63 was involved in drug and weapons smuggling and was designated as a terrorist under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in July 2020.
A Chinese warship takes part in a military drill off the Chinese coast near Fuzhou, Fujian Province, across from the Taiwan-controlled Matsu Islands, on April 11. (Photo: Reuters)
A long-range Chinese combat drone capable of carrying a large weapons payload has circled Taiwan, the island’s defence ministry said on Friday.
Democratic Taiwan lives under constant threat of an attack by Beijing, which views the island as part of its territory.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said it detected 38 Chinese aircraft, including a TB-001 drone nicknamed the “twin-tailed scorpion”, around the island between 6am Thursday and 6am Friday.
The drone’s circling flight path took it across the median line — an unofficial boundary dividing the Taiwan Strait — to the island’s south before flying around its east coast and returning to China, a map released by the ministry showed.
Local media said it was the first time Taiwan’s defence ministry had reported a Chinese military aircraft circling the island from one end of the median line to the other.
The ministry added that 19 of the aircraft had “crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or entered Taiwan’s southwest, southeast, and northeast (air defence identification zone)”, or ADIZ, the highest number of incursions since China ended three days of war games earlier this month.
The zone is not the same as Taiwan’s territorial airspace and includes a far greater area that overlaps with part of China’s own ADIZ and even some of the mainland.
The TB-001 is one of the largest drones in China’s arsenal and boasts a flight range of 6,000 kilometres.
China previously deployed the drone during the military drills that ended on April 10 and involved simulating targeted strikes and a blockade of Taiwan.
The war games were a response to Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s visit to the United States, where she met Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.
Nancy Faeser, German Ministry of interior, attends the news conference following the refugee summit at the German ministry of interior in Berlin, Germany, February 16, 2023. REUTERS/Michele Tantussi
Germany’s Interior Ministry is examining all Chinese components that are already installed in the country’s 5G network, Minister Nancy Faeser was quoted as saying on Sunday, as Berlin re-evaluates its relationship with top trade partner China.
“We have to protect our communication networks,” Faeser told Bild am Sonntag newspaper, adding that the examination’s three priorities were identifying risks, averting dangers and avoiding dependencies.
“This is especially true for our critical infrastructure,” she said.
Germany has been considering banning certain components from Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE in its telecoms networks, a government source told Reuters last month, in a potentially significant move to address security concerns.
An aerial view of the Pentagon (lower left), Potomac River (C) and Washington Monument in Washington August 31, 2010. REUTERS/Jason Reed
Classified documents that appeared online, with details ranging from Ukraine’s air defenses to Israel’s Mossad spy agency, have U.S. officials scrambling to identify the leak’s source, with some experts saying it could be an American.
Officials say the breadth of topics addressed in the documents, which touch on the war in Ukraine, China, the Middle East and Africa, suggest they may have been leaked by an American rather than an ally.
“The focus now is on this being a U.S. leak, as many of the documents were only in U.S. hands,” Michael Mulroy, a former senior Pentagon official, told Reuters in an interview.
U.S. officials said the investigation is in its early stages and those running it have not ruled out the possibility that pro-Russian elements were behind the leak, which is seen as one of the most serious security breaches since more than 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables appeared on the WikiLeaks website in 2013.
The Russian embassy in Washington and the Kremlin did not respond to requests for comment.
Following disclosure of the leak, Reuters has reviewed more than 50 documents labeled “Secret” and “Top Secret” that first appeared last month on social media websites, beginning with Discord and 4Chan. While some of the documents were posted weeks ago, their existence was first reported on Friday by the New York Times.
Reuters has not independently verified the authenticity of the documents. Some giving battlefield casualty estimates from Ukraine appeared to have been altered to minimize Russian losses. It is not clear why at least one is marked unclassified but includes top secret information. Some documents are marked “NOFORN,” meaning they cannot be released to foreign nationals.
Two U.S. officials told Reuters on Sunday that they have not ruled out that the documents may have been doctored to mislead investigators as to their origin or to disseminate false information that may harm U.S. security interests.
The White House referred questions to the Pentagon.
In a statement on Sunday, the Pentagon said it was reviewing the validity of the photographed documents that “appear to contain sensitive and highly classified material.”
The Pentagon has referred the issue to the Department of Justice, which has opened a criminal investigation.
One of the documents, dated Feb. 23 and marked “Secret,” outlines in detail how Ukraine’s S-300 air defense systems would be depleted by May 2 at the current usage rate.
Such closely-guarded information could be of great use to Russian forces, and Ukraine said its president and top security officials met on Friday to discuss ways to prevent leaks.
WATCHING ALLIES
Another document, marked “Top Secret” and from a CIA Intel update from March 1, says the Mossad intelligence agency was encouraging protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to tighten controls on the Supreme Court.
The document said the U.S. learned this through signals intelligence, suggesting the United States had been spying on one of its most important allies in the Middle East.
In a statement on Sunday, Netanyahu’s office described the assertion as “mendacious and without any foundation whatsoever.”
Another document gave details of internal discussions among senior South Korean officials about U.S. pressure on Seoul to help supply weapons to Ukraine, and its policy of not doing so.
A South Korean presidential official said on Sunday the country was aware of news reports about the leaked documents and it plans to discuss “issues raised” with Washington.
South Korea’s opposition lawmakers expressed “strong regret” over the spying allegations, calling them a clear violation of the country’s sovereignty and a major security failure of the Yoon Suk Yeol administration.
“We strongly demand a thorough investigation and urge that similar incidents do not occur,” the lawmakers of the Democratic Party said in a joint statement.
The Pentagon has not addressed the contents of any specific documents, including the apparent surveillance of allies.
Two U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that while there was concern about the leak at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, the documents showed a snapshot in time from more than a month ago, rather than more recent assessments.
A Chinese aircraft takes part in a drill around Taiwan
China has simulated precision strikes against key targets on Taiwan and its surrounding waters during a second day of military drills.
The drills – which Beijing has called a “stern warning” to the self-governing island – are a response to Taiwan’s president visiting the US last week.
As the Chinese military simulated an encirclement of the island, the US urged China to show restraint.
Taiwan said about 70 Chinese aircraft flew around the island on Sunday.
Eleven Chinese ships were also spotted.
On Saturday, Taiwan said that 45 warplanes either crossed the Taiwan Strait median line – the unofficial dividing line between Taiwanese and Chinese territory – or flew into the south-western part of Taiwan’s air defence identification zone.
The operation, dubbed “Joint Sword” by Beijing, will continue until Monday. Taiwanese officials have been enraged by the operation.
On Saturday defence officials in Taipei accused Beijing of using President Tsai’s US visit as an “excuse to conduct military exercises, which has seriously undermined peace, stability and security in the region”.
On day one of the drills, one of China’s ships fired a round as it sailed near Pingtan island, China’s closest point to Taiwan.
Taiwan’s Ocean Affairs Council, which runs the Coast Guard, issued video footage showing one of its ships shadowing a Chinese warship, though did not provide a location.
In the footage a sailor can be heard telling the Chinese ship through a radio: “You are seriously harming regional peace, stability and security. Please immediately turn around and leave. If you continue to proceed we will take expulsion measures.”
Other footage showed a Taiwanese warship, the Di Hua, accompanying the Coast Guard ship in what the Coast Guard officer calls a “standoff” with the Chinese vessel.
While the Chinese exercises ended by sundown on Saturday evening, defence officials in Taipei said fighter jet sorties started again early on Sunday morning.
US state department officials have urged China not to exploit President Tsai’s US visit, and have called for “restraint and no change to the status quo”.
A state department spokesperson said the US was “monitoring Beijing’s actions closely” and insisted the US had “sufficient resources and capabilities in the region to ensure peace and stability and to meet our national security commitments”.
The US severed diplomatic ties with Taipei in favour of Beijing in 1979, but it is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.
US President Joe Biden has said on several occasion that the US would intervene if China attacked the island, but US messaging has been murky.
At Wednesday’s meeting in California, Ms Tsai thanked US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for America’s “unwavering support”, saying it helped “reassure the people of Taiwan that we are not isolated and we are not alone”.
Mr McCarthy had originally planned to go to Taiwan himself, but opted instead to hold the meeting in California to avoid inflaming tensions with China.
Chinese state media said the military drills, which are due to run until Monday, would “simultaneously organise patrols and advances around Taiwan island, shaping an all-round encirclement and deterrence posture”.
It added that “long-range rocket artillery, naval destroyers, missile boats, air force fighters, bombers, jammers and refuellers” had all been deployed by China’s military.
But in Taiwan’s capital Taipei, residents seemed unperturbed by China’s latest manoeuvres.
“I think many Taiwanese have gotten used to it by now, the feeling is like, here we go again!” Jim Tsai said on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Michael Chuang said: “They [China] seems to like doing it, circling Taiwan like it’s theirs. I am used to it now.
“If they invade we can’t escape anyway. We’ll see what the future holds and go from there.”
Taiwan’s status has been ambiguous since 1949, when the Chinese Civil War turned in favour of the Chinese Communist Party and the country’s old ruling government retreated to the island.
Taiwan has since considered itself a sovereign state, with its own constitution and leaders. China sees it as a breakaway province that will eventually be brought under Beijing’s control – by force if necessary.
Twitter and the social media platform Discord have various policies that might have prompted them to remove the leaked Pentagon documents that Biden administration officials say revealed key information about U.S. intelligence gathering operations.
But gray areas in those rules and uneven enforcement of them make it unclear how, or even if, executives at those companies would decide to remove them.
As of Saturday, Twitter continued to host tweets with the Pentagon’s documents, some of which had been up since at least Wednesday. There is no indication that Elon Musk, who bought Twitter nearly six months ago, will take any action against the tweets with the classified documents.
Two days earlier, Mr. Musk seemed to respond sarcastically to a tweet about the leaked material. “Yeah, you can totally delete things from the Internet — that works perfectly and doesn’t draw attention to whatever you were trying to hide at all,” he wrote.
On Discord, a messaging platform popular with video game players, the Pentagon documents may have been circulating as early as March. Since Discord chat groups — known as servers — are not directly managed by the company like a Facebook or Twitter feed, the distribution of the Pentagon documents would have been difficult to spot.
Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday, and Discord declined to comment. It is not known if the companies, which are both based in the United States, have been asked to remove the Pentagon material.
In the past, Twitter may have removed the material under rules that prohibit the publication and distribution of hacked materials, two former executives told The New York Times. Under this policy, Twitter would remove tweets with “real or synthesized hacked materials” or place warning labels on the material. Some of the Pentagon material circulating on social media may have been manipulated.
But there were caveats to Twitter’s rules, as they were described in a policy document, which was last updated in October 2020. The rules allowed for exceptions for material that forms the basis for reporting by news agencies. And debates inside social media companies about what to allow online have often been similar to discussions that traditional media have about whether leaked or hacked material is of enough public interest to justify publishing.
It was not clear on Saturday whether the Pentagon material was hacked or intentionally leaked — the images circulating appeared to be photographs of documents. The documents could fall into a gray area that, at least in the past, would have led to discussion among compliance officers inside the company about whether they qualified for a takedown.
Twitter used its hacked material policy to block the circulation of an article in October 2020 from the New York Post that said the F.B.I. had seized a computer that purportedly belonged to Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s son Hunter Biden. Twitter’s leaders, including then-chief executive Jack Dorsey, later called the decision a mistake.
The former executives, who spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from Mr. Musk, said that Twitter often received reports of potential violations of its polices from U.S. government organizations.
But since acquiring the company in October, Mr. Musk has shrunk the groups responsible for moderation and more than 75 percent of Twitter’s 7,500 employees have been fired or left. Ella Irwin, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Twitter has removed or prevented the circulation of content at the behest of governments like India and on Mr. Musk’s whims.
This past week, Twitter also began regulating the circulation and engagement of links to Substack, the newsletter platform, after the start-up unveiled a Twitter-like service. On Friday, many Substack writers found that tweets that had links to their Substack pages could not be liked or retweeted.
[1/6] A Chinese warship sails during a military drill near Fuzhou, Fujian Province, near the Taiwan-controlled Matsu Islands that are close to the Chinese coast, China, April 8, 2023. REUTERS/Thomas PeterChina began three days of military exercises around Taiwan on Saturday to express anger at Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s meeting with the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, as the island’s defence ministry said it would respond calmly.
The drills, announced the day after Tsai returned from the United States, had been widely expected after China condemned the meeting with Speaker Kevin McCarthy in Los Angeles.
China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control. Taiwan’s government strongly objects to China’s claims.
Beijing’s announcement also came just hours after China hosted a visit by senior European leaders.
The People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theatre Command said it had started the combat readiness patrols and “Joint Sword” exercises around Taiwan, having said earlier it would be holding them in the Taiwan Strait and to the north, south and east of Taiwan “as planned”.
“This is a serious warning to the Taiwan independence separatist forces and external forces’ collusion and provocation, and it is a necessary action to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” it said in a short statement.
Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said it was monitoring the situation, maintaining a high degree of vigilance and would respond appropriately to defend the island’s security.
China was using Tsai’s U.S. visit “as an excuse to carry out military exercises, which has seriously damaged regional peace, stability and security”, the ministry said in a statement.
“The military will respond with a calm, rational and serious attitude, and will stand guard and monitor in accordance with the principles of ‘not escalating nor disputes’ to defend national sovereignty and national security.”
The ministry said earlier on Saturday that in the previous 24 hours it had spotted four Chinese aircraft in Taiwan’s air defence zone, not an unusual number.
Reuters reporters in a seaside area near Fuzhou, which sits opposite the Taiwan-controlled Matsu islands, saw a Chinese warship firing shells onto a drill area on China’s coast, part of drills announced by China late on Friday.
Tsai will meet visiting U.S. lawmaker delegation, led by Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, later on Saturday.
DIPLOMACY AND DRILLS
The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party, said in a commentary on Saturday that the government has “a strong ability to thwart any form of Taiwan independence secession”.
“All countermeasures taken by the Chinese government belong to China’s legitimate and legal right to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” it said.
Tsai has repeatedly offered talks with China but has been rebuffed as the government views her as a separatist. She says only Taiwan’s people can decide their future.
China had threatened unspecified retaliation if the meeting with McCarthy – second in line to succeed the U.S. president, after the vice president – were to take place. Beijing staged war games around Taiwan, including live-fire missile launches, in August after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei.
However, unlike in August, China has yet to announce whether it will also stage missile drills. In the previous instance, China published a map at the time it announced the drills, showing which maritime areas near Taiwan it would be firing into.
Taiwanese officials had expected a less severe reaction to the McCarthy meeting, given it took place in the United States, but they had said they could not rule out the possibility of China staging more drills.
China’s announcement came hours after French President Emmanuel Macron left China, where he met President Xi Jinping and other senior leaders. Macron urged Beijing to talk sense to Russia over the war in Ukraine.
European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen, also in China this week to meet Xi, said stability in the Taiwan Strait was of paramount importance.
More than 100 classified documents detailing U.S. national security secrets have been leaked on social media, purportedly exposing crucial intelligence on Ukrainian military operations in a breach that could be a boon to Russia.
The documents, purported to have come from within U.S. military and intelligence agencies, have been circulated on Twitter, 4chan, and Telegram, where they were spread by pro-Kremlin commentators, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Pentagon acknowledged on Thursday that officials were looking into the leak, which experts say may be one of the most damaging breaches in decades.
The New York Times, which was the first to report on the leaks, says defense officials were already scrambling early Friday to determine the scale of the first batch of leaked documents when it was discovered that another batch had been released.
One unnamed official quoted by the Times called the breach “a nightmare for the Five Eyes,” as the documents concern secrets regarding not only Ukraine, but also the Middle East, and China.
“As many of these were pictures of documents, it appears that it was a deliberate leak done by someone that wished to damage the Ukraine, U.S., and NATO efforts,” Mick Mulroy, a former senior Pentagon official, was quoted saying.
Officials say the documents do appear to be authentic Defense Department documents, but they have been modified in some ways to show scenarios more beneficial to Russia, such as lower figures for the number of Russian troops killed and inflated numbers of Ukraine’s war dead.
Some of the documents show the purported locations of Ukrainian air-defense systems, the quantities of air-defense missiles, and sensitive information about U.S.-provided arms and supplies.
Military aid, delivered as part of the United States of America’s security assistance to Ukraine, is unloaded from a plane at the Boryspil International Airport outside Kyiv, Ukraine February 11, 2022. REUTERS/Serhiy Takhmazov/File Photo
The U.S. unveiled $2.6 billion worth of military assistance that includes three air surveillance radars, anti-tank rockets and fuel trucks, the Pentagon announced on Tuesday, as Ukraine prepares a spring offensive against invading Russian forces.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday told the U.S. National Governors Association that the United States could protect its values by helping Ukraine.
“Our cooperation will allow for the new enhancement of your security, for our economy and yours, for jobs in both our countries,” Zelenskiy said by video link.
“The main thing is not to lose time, not to lose the chance we have. Act now, help now. Ukrainians act so that Americans don’t have to fight – and together we gain new strength for our countries,” he continued.
The Russian embassy in Washington reacted to the announcement by accusing the United States of wanting to drag out the conflict as long as possible, Russian news agency TASS said.
“The decision to supply weapons to Kyiv is a step towards escalating the Ukrainian crisis and increasing the number of civilian casualties,” it cited an embassy statement as saying.
The weapons aid package was comprised of $2.1 billion from Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) funding which allows President Joe Biden’s administration to buy weapons from industry rather than from U.S. weapons stocks.
The USAI package included additional munitions for NASAMS air defenses that the U.S. and allies have given to Kyiv, precision aerial munitions, Soviet-era GRAD rockets, anti-tank rockets, armored bridging systems used in assaults, and 105 fuel trailers, along with funding for training and maintenance.
The remaining $500 million came from Presidential Drawdown Authority funds, which allows the president to take from current U.S. stocks in an emergency.
India will chair the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s National Security Advisors meetig today and Pakistan and China could also attend virtually.
India will today host the SCO Security Advisors’ Meet In Delhi Today ( Image Source : Getty )
As the current chair of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), India will today host the meeting of National Security Advisors (NSA) and top officials in New Delhi. Pakistan and China are likely to attend the SCO-NSA meeting virtually.
National Security Adviser Ajit Doval will make opening remarks at the meeting, news agency ANI reported.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an intergovernmental organization established in 2001 and it comprises eight member states, namely, India, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
In 2022, India assumed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Chairship for 2023. Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Nikolai Patrushev, will attend the annual meeting of the secretaries of security councils of SCO member states in New Delhi on Wednesday, according to a statement by Russian Security Council, a Russian embassy official confirmed to ANI.
India became a full member of SCO on June 9 in 2017. There are four Observer States viz Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia and six dialogue partners – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Turkey.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is a major regional powerhouse that was established over two decades ago with the aim of promoting economic, political, and military cooperation among its member nations. The eight-member countries of SCO represent around 42 per cent of the world’s total population and 25 per cent of the global GDP.
White House’s spending request includes plans for simulators, equipment to train Space Force members for battle
The Pentagon is gearing up for a future conflict in space as China and Russia deploy missiles and lasers that can take out satellites and disrupt military and civilian communications.
The U.S. military long ago dropped the notion of crewed, orbiting space weapons in favor of satellites because the logistics of supporting people outside of Earth’s atmosphere were formidable.
The physics of space also make it impossible to sneak up on an enemy or quickly change orbit or direction. And earthbound tactics don’t work in space, where the U.S., China and Russia are all turning to satellites and sensors to wage and win any conflict.
“You can’t dig trenches in space,” said Marty Whelan, senior vice president of the Defense Systems Group at The Aerospace Corp., a federally funded research group.
“If deterrence fails, you can’t wait until something bad happens to get ready. You have to have the full infrastructure together,” said Mr. Whelan, a former Air Force major general, who led a strategic review of space systems for the Pentagon and the intelligence community.
The White House this month proposed a $30 billion annual budget for the U.S. Space Force, almost $4 billion more than last year and a bigger jump than for other services including the Air Force and the Navy.
The Space Force was created in 2019 as the sixth arm of the military, carving out responsibilities once embedded in the Air Force. A key aim of a stand-alone force was to plan, equip and defend U.S. interests in space for all of the services and focus attention on the emerging threats.
For the first time, the spending request also includes plans for simulators and other equipment to train Guardians, as Space Force members are known, for potential battle. The 16,000 Guardians are charged with running rocket launches, satellites and ground-based communication and sensor equipment.
That training will be critical. The physics and the mechanics of steering objects through space at more than 17,000 miles an hour give attackers the advantage they lack on the ground.
Space is also becoming crowded, with the number of tracked objects in orbit now topping 48,000, more than doubling over the past four years.
The U.S., China and Russia are signatories to the United Nations’ Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, including scientific work. All three also have significant military assets in space.
He also accused the UK of not meeting the obligation of providing security to the diplomats of the Mission, which is expected of a country where a high commission or a consulate is located.
Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar speaks at the ‘Yuva Samvada’, organised by Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, in Bengaluru, Friday, March 24, 2023. (PTI Photo)
Taking a strong view of pro-Khalistan supporters pulling down the Indian tricolour at the Indian High Commission in the United Kingdom, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday said India would not accept differential standards of security.
He also accused the UK of not meeting the obligation of providing security to the diplomats of the Mission, which is expected of a country where a high commission or a consulate is located.
“On the flag and the security of the high commission, in this particular case in the UK – whenever any country sends an embassy anywhere abroad, it is the obligation of the receiving country to provide security for a diplomat to do his work.
“It is the obligation of the receiving country to ensure the embassy or the high commission or the consulate and their premises are respected. These obligations were not met,” Jaishankar said at an event organised here by Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya.
Replying to a question on the issue of threat to the diplomats and the Indian diaspora in the UK, the Minister said that on the day the vandals appeared before the high commission, the security at the high commission failed to meet expected standards.
“Many countries are very casual about it (security). They have a very different view about their own security and a different view about other people’s security, but I can tell you as a foreign minister that we are not going to accept this kind of differential standards,” the EAM said.
