China’s New Stealth Bomber a Game Changer in South China Sea

New pilots of Chinese air force attends the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) air force aviation open day at PLA Air Force Aviation University on August 30, 2018 in Changchun, Jilin Province of China. (Getty Images)

 

‘Shockwaves throughout the U.S. military and the American defense industry’

China’s Hong-20 nuclear stealth bomber is near to making its first flight, military experts told the government-run Global Times on October 9.

“The trial flight will come soon,” military analyst Song Zhongping was quoted as saying. Song said the avionics systems and hydraulics of the revolutionary Hong-20 bombers have apparently passed inspections, which will let the project advance to the next phase of testing.

Nuclear Submarines and Hypersonic Missiles: China Is Making Game-Changing Weapons Advances

Caption: Chinese navy formation during military drills in the South China Sea on January 2, 2017. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

 

The United States military could be in “serious trouble” in a face-off against Chinese forces in the South China Sea, according to analyses published this week. China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is making massive gains in its development of two key areas of advanced weaponry: Nuclear submarines and hypersonic missiles.

Alongside these advances, the PLA is demonstrating ever more willingness and resolve to use its military might. Analysts believe these factors could eventually tip the scales of a regional conflict in Beijing’s favor.

China Develops Fourth-Generation Nuclear Sub

China completed the development of its fourth-generation nuclear submarine, media reports said late last week. At a recent meeting in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, Tan Zuojun, vice governor of Liaoning Province and former general manager of China State Shipbuilding Corporation, said that development of China’s fourth-generation nuclear submarines and other high-tech weapons had been completed.

PLA may have 600 nuclear warheads in 10 years: Russian expert

 

While claiming that the People’s Liberation Army is unable to compete against the United States in a full-scale nuclear war, Vasiliy Kashin from the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies stated that China has the ability to wipe Japan from the face of the Earth with its projected arsenal of at least 600 nuclear warheads in ten years’ time, reports the Voice of Russia.

China submarines to soon carry nukes, draft U.S. report says

China in the meantime remains “the most threatening” power in cyberspace and presents the largest challenge to U.S. supply chain integrity, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in a draft of its 2012 report to the U.S. Congress.

…

Beijing is “on the cusp of attaining a credible nuclear triad of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and air-dropped nuclear bombs,” the report says.

Security backdoor found in China-made US military chip

As discussed in numerous previous posts, China (and Russia) has made it known that they can toy with our electrical grid, nuclear deterrent, water/sewage systems via SCADAs, infiltrate government and military computers at will and pop nuclear submarines up in the middle of US Navy exercises… undetected. The “manchurian microchip” is nothing new, but this nevertheless adds credibility to how dire the situation is — yet the public is too busy paying attention the non-news of the day in ‘keeping up’ with the Kardashians. The implanting of such devices is no accident as it takes time and technological know-how, thus readers should take caution when whitewashing attempts continuously downplay the threat as evidenced in this article. This has gone on for decades and sooner rather than later America might see itself hit with One Clenched Fist. Sleep tight.

A microchip used by the US military and manufactured in China contains a secret “backdoor” that means it can be shut off or reprogrammed without the user knowing, according to researchers at Cambridge University’s Computing Laboratory.

…

The discovery was made during testing of a new technique to extract the encryption key from chips, developed by Cambridge spin-off Quo Vadis Labs. The “bug” is in the actual chip itself, Skorobogatov wrote, rather than the firmware installed on the devices that use it, meaning there is no way to fix it than to replace the chip altogether.

“The discovery of a backdoor in a military grade chip raises some serious questions about hardware assurance in the semiconductor industry,” wrote Skorobogatov.

However, Robert Graham, of US security consultancy Errata Security, wrote yesterday that the backdoor is unlikely to have been added maliciously. He claims that the entry route discovered by Skorobogotov is likely to be a debugging tool deliberately installed by the manufacturer.

“It’s remotely possible that the Chinese manufacturer added the functionality, but highly improbable. It’s prohibitively difficult to change a chip design to add functionality of this complexity.”

He also questioned the description of the chip as “military grade”. “The military uses a lot of commercial, off-the-shelf products. That doesn’t mean there is anything special about it.”

Graham writes that the backdoor could pose a security threat, however. “It not only allows the original manufacturer to steal intellectual-property, but any other secrets you tried to protect with the original [encryption] key.”

Full article: Security backdoor found in China-made US military chip (Information Age)

REPORT: China Is Selling Tons Of Counterfeit Military Equipment To The Department Of Defense

A fictitious company set up by U.S. government investigators bought 16 electronic parts for weapons from China online and every single item was counterfeit, according to a Government Accountability Office investigation as reported by Reuters.

The congressional Government Accountability Office (GAO) published the report at the behest of the Department of Defense (DOD) because “counterfeit parts—generally the misrepresentation of parts’ identity or pedigree—can seriously disrupt the DOD supply chain, harm weapon systems integrity, and endanger troops’ lives.”

…

To investigate the practice, GAO created a fictitious company and gained membership to two Internet platforms providing access to vendors selling military-grade electronic parts.

The company requested quotes from numerous vendors to purchase parts (“new in original packaging, not refurbished”) from three categories: (1) authentic part numbers for obsolete and rare parts; (2) authentic part numbers with postproduction date codes (date codes after the last date the part was  manufactured); and (3) bogus, or fictitious, part numbers that are not  associated with any authentic parts.

It turned out that 334 of 396 vendors who offered to sell parts to the fictitious company were from China. All 16 parts eventually purchased came from 13 China-based vendors and all were determined by an independent testing laboratory to be counterfeit.

From Reuters:

It said it bought seven parts with authentic part numbers that were out of production, including parts used on the Air Force’s F-15 fighters, the Marine Corps’ V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft and the Navy’s nuclear submarines. All of those parts failed inspection and were determined to be counterfeit.

It also purchased five parts with authentic part numbers that were stamped with date codes beyond the item’s last actual production date and all of those were determined to be counterfeit as well.

The agency also bought four parts with made-up numbers that are not associated with any authentic parts, which it said showed the willingness of the vendors “to supply parts that do not technically exist.”

The report noted that all 40 of the responses it received for the bogus part numbers also came from China, the GAO said.

Full article: REPORT: China Is Selling Tons Of Counterfeit Military Equipment To The Department Of Defense (Business Insider)

Russia to resume SSBN patrols of worldwide strategic waterways

In a throwback to the Cold War, Russia announced plans to beef up its submarine patrols of strategic waters around the world.

“On June 1 or a bit later we will resume constant patrolling of the world’s oceans by strategic nuclear submarines,” Russian Navy Commander Adm. Vladimir Vysotsky announced Feb. 3.

Global patrols by nuclear-powered, ballistic missile-carrying submarines or SSBNs were a hallmark of the Soviet Union’s nuclear deterrence strategy.

Full article: Russia to resume SSBN patrols of worldwide strategic waterways (World Tribune)