Beijing asserts Scarborough Shoal is Chinese territory
China’s plans to build up a disputed island near the Philippines could lead to a regional conflict, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told Congress on Thursday.
Carter was asked about the strategic significance of China’s plan to add military facilities to a disputed island known as Scarborough Shoal located about 120 miles—within missile range—of Subic Bay, Philippines, where U.S. warships will be based. Continue reading
Two F-35C Lightning II warplanes prepare to launch from the USS Nimitz. The U.S. Navy plans to buy dozens of the F-35C fighters, but their range is no more than 650 miles.Dane Wiedmann/Lockheed Martin/U.S. Navy
In late 1995, escalating Chinese threats against Taiwan prompted President Bill Clinton to stage a show of American support for the beleaguered island that Beijing’s leaders couldn’t ignore. Clinton sent two aircraft carrier battle groups steaming into the conflict zone, their heavily armed fighter jets poised on deck for takeoff. One battle group, led by the carrier USS Nimitz, sailed down the middle of the Taiwan Strait, less than 50 miles from the Chinese mainland, while the second stood in reserve off Taiwan’s eastern coast. Chinese officials decried what they called “foreign intervention” in their long-standing claim to Taiwan. But lacking the weapons to deter the American warships, they had little choice but to heed Clinton’s show of force and back away. Continue reading
An artistic rendering of a hypersonic aircraft / AP
Sixth flight of DF-ZF glide vehicle indicates weapon a high priority for Beijing
China carried out a sixth flight test of its new high-speed nuclear attack vehicle on Monday designed to defeat U.S. missile defenses or carry out global strikes.
The ultra-fast maneuvering strike weapon known as the DF-ZF hypersonic glide vehicle was launched atop a ballistic missile fired from the Wuzhai missile test center in central China’s Shanxi Province, according defense officials. Continue reading
Lin Yu-fang, a legislator for Taiwan’s ruling Kuomintang, said Monday that China poses an ever-growing threat to Taiwan and the Asia-Pacific region as a whole, as its Second Artillery Corps has been renovating weaponry and upgrading missile deployments. Continue reading
After all the technology the Clintons had given the Chinese during their tenure, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. America even trained the PLAAF for combat readiness on American soil, sold them super computer technology for nuclear weapons labs that has helped them build the nuclear weapons they have today.
Erich Shih, a military expert from Taiwan, says the United States may withdraw its forces from the Pacific First Island Chain–which stretches from Alaska to the Philippines–to the Second Island Chain in the central Pacific as China’s expands its force projection capability, according to the People’s Daily. Continue reading
Saudi Arabia became the first Middle East nation to publicly exhibit its nuclear-capable missiles. The long-range, liquid propellant DF-3 ballistic missile (NATO designated CSS-2), purchased from China 27 years ago, was displayed for the first time at a Saudi military parade Tuesday, April 29, in the eastern military town of Hafar Al-Batin, at the junction of the Saudi-Kuwaiti-Iraqi borders.
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Watched by a wide array of Saudi defense and military dignitaries, headed by Crown Prince and Deputy Prime Minister Salman bin Abdulaziz, the parade marked the end of the large-scale “Abdullah’s Sword” military war game.
Conspicuous on the saluting stand was the Pakistani Chief of Staff Gen. Raheel Sharif alongside eminent visitors, including King Hamad of Bahrain and Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi.
debkafile’s military and intelligence sources report the event was deliberately loaded with highly-significant messages, the foremost of which was that the Middle East is in the throes of a nuclear arms race in the wake of the Iranian program. Continue reading
An Iranian dhow seized off the Yemeni coast was carrying sophisticated Chinese antiaircraft missiles, a development that could signal an escalation of Iran’s support to its Middle Eastern proxies, alarming other countries in the region and renewing a diplomatic challenge to the United States.
Among the items aboard the dhow, according to a review of factory markings on weapons and their packing crates, were 10 Chinese heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles, most of them manufactured in 2005.
The missiles were labeled QW-1M and bore stencils suggesting that they had been assembled at a factory represented by the state-owned China National Precision Machinery Import and Export Corporation, sanctioned by the United States for transfers of missile technology to Pakistan and Iran. Continue reading
It might be time to sweep the cobwebs out of that old nuclear bunker at the bottom of the garden after reports in state-run Chinese media confirmed that the People’s Liberation Army is actively developing an intercontinental missile capable of penetrating US defences.
News first emerged of the planned ‘super missile’ from defence industry bible Jane’s Defence Weekly last week, according to South China Morning Post.
It apparently claimed that a Dongfeng-41 (DF-41) intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), had been fired in testing last month by the PLA’s Second Artillery Corps.This third-generation missile, US military sources told Jane’s, contain multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) – effectively multiple warheads – meaning they would be almost impossible for current US defences to take down.
A report in Global Times, the populist sister title of Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily, apparently confirmed such a rocket was in development, quoting local military expert Wei Guoan.
Full article: China could penetrate US with new huge missile (The Register)
Global Geopolitics 