Category Archives: China

New Sanctions Confirm Iran/China/North Korea Missile Partners

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The State Department knew it, the White House knew it, the National Security Council knew it, the CIA knew it and yet, Barack Obama approved the Iran deal even while China, North Korea and Iran collaborated on missile construction, materials, tests and scientists.

Going back to 2007, even Condoleeza Rice earnestly challenged China on the matter.

The Keys to Iran’s Missiles are in China and North Korea

The latest revelations about Iran’s ballistic missile program make it clear that sanctions on Tehran are pointless unless they’re imposed on China and the DPRK, too.
On Monday, Tehran condemned sanctions imposed by the U.S. Treasury Department over the weekend. “The U.S. sanctions against Iran’s ballistic missile program,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari, “have no legal or moral legitimacy.”

Gordon Chang, DailyBeast:

Earlier, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani issued a threat: “Any action will be met by a reaction.”

In fact, action and reaction—sequencing, in diplomatic speak—was always part of the picture.

The Obama administration undoubtedly knew of Iranian violations before signing the landmark nuclear arrangement with Tehran in July.

Treasury’s measures follow by more than three months Iran’s Oct. 10 launch of a nuclear-capable ballistic missile in violation of Security Council Resolution 1929.

On Sunday, a prisoner “swap” was announced by Tehran, then confirmed by Washington, in which four Iranian-Americans including Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian were let out of Iran’s prisons. Hours later, Treasury imposed its measures on 11 designated entities and individuals “involved in procurement on behalf of Iran’s ballistic missile program.”

The sanctions, delayed from the end of December to facilitate the prisoner swap, prohibit Americans and others from engaging in business dealings with the named entities and individuals, and orders U.S. banks to freeze their assets.

The U.S. prohibitions target two Iranian procurement networks, one based in China and the United Arab Emirates and the other involving Pyongyang’s notorious Korea Mining Development Trading Corp, better known as KOMID.

The dealings between Iran and North Korea, as The Daily Beast has noted, have been extensive and spanned three decades.

Several Iranian officials vowed on Friday to expand Tehran’s missile capabilities, a direct challenge to the United States which has threatened to impose new sanctions even as the vast bulk of its measures against Iran are due to be lifted under a nuclear deal. “As long as the United States supports Israel we will expand our missile capabilities,” Brigadier General Hossein Salami,second-in-command of the Revolutionary Guards, was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency. “We don’t have enough space to store our missiles. All our depots and underground facilities are full,” he added.
Several Iranian officials vowed on Friday to expand Tehran’s missile capabilities, a direct challenge to the United States which has threatened to impose new sanctions even as the vast bulk of its measures against Iran are due to be lifted under a nuclear deal. “As long as the United States supports Israel we will expand our missile capabilities,” Brigadier General Hossein Salami,second-in-command of the Revolutionary Guards, was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency. “We don’t have enough space to store our missiles. All our depots and underground facilities are full,” he added.
Several Iranian officials vowed on Friday to expand Tehran’s missile capabilities, a direct challenge to the United States which has threatened to impose new sanctions even as the vast bulk of its measures against Iran are due to be lifted under a nuclear deal. “As long as the United States supports Israel we will expand our missile capabilities,” Brigadier General Hossein Salami,second-in-command of the Revolutionary Guards, was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency. “We don’t have enough space to store our missiles. All our depots and underground facilities are full,” he added.

Some analysts believe that during this time there have been significant contributions of Iranian technology, but Bruce Bechtol, author of North Korea and Regional Security in the Kim Jong-un Era, disagrees. “The North Koreans are providing the expertise, the components, and the on-site development,” he told The Daily Beast over the weekend. “The Iranians are providing the money.”

Treasury’s explanatory comments tend to confirm the view that the transfer of technology has been one-way, noting that technicians from Iran’s Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group “traveled to North Korea to work on an 80-ton rocket booster being developed by the North Korean government.”

As Bechtol predicts, “The Iranians, of course, will insist that this is an ‘Iranian developed system,’” but it is not. The booster, he notes, looks like it is for the Taepodong series, the North’s longest-range launchers, or more ominously, a new family of missiles. The Taepodong missile, repainted, is the Unha-3 rocket.

This launcher “could allow Iran to achieve accurate global targeting of U.S. and Western military facilities in addition to large cities.”

Rick Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center told The Daily Beast that this launcher “could allow Iran to achieve accurate global targeting of U.S. and Western military facilities in addition to large cities.” Bechtol thinks it won’t be long before the “rocket booster”—actually the first stage of an intercontinental missile—will be produced both in North Korea and Iran.

That missile, in short, will pose a grave threat to the American homeland.

Treasury’s sanctions might slow North Korea-Iran missile cooperation, but as former Pentagon analyst Robert Collins, who is based in South Korea, suggests, Pyongyang has already figured out ways around obstacles like this. “The North Koreans have become experts at planning alternative routes for moving monies, moving equipment, and moving contacts,” he told The Daily Beast after the Treasury imposed the measures. They employ “a ‘dumping Peter to use Paul’ system designed to circumvent anticipated sanctions.” Pyongyang has become “very adept at counter-sanction planning.”

Henry Sokolski of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center believes Sunday’s measures will not be the last, as he noted in an email to The Daily Beast.

What is surprising is that Treasury essentially admitted that it was aware of proscribed Iranian activities before both the signing, on July 14, of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iranian nuclear deal, and its Oct. 18 “Adoption Day.” The 80-ton booster, after all, is designed for a missile useful only for carrying a nuclear warhead.

“The newest sanctions from the Treasury Department prove—without a doubt—that the State Department and the Treasury Department knew, as the agreement with Iran was in negotiation, that the North Koreans and Iranians were cooperating on new, advanced ballistic missile technology,” Bechtol writes.

In fact, work on the 80-ton booster has been publicly known for more than two years.

Treasury’s statement declares that “Iranian missile technicians” had gone to North Korea “within the past several years” in connection with the big booster.

The sanctions, therefore, look like an afterthought, and Washington appears unserious. If the U.S. really wants to end the missile threat, it will have to impose much more severe measures not just on Iran and North Korea but also on parties helping them.

Who is helping the two rogue states? WikiLeaks released an American cable showing that Chinese officials, despite pleas from then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, refused to stop shipments of North Korean missile parts passing through the Beijing Capital International Airport on their way to Iran.

That was 2007. Fisher, in his message to The Daily Beast on Monday, points out that Chinese entities are still involved in this deadly trade.

And so, it appears, is the Chinese central government. In all probability, the Iranian technicians in the last two years reached Pyongyang using the same route Tehran’s nuclear staff have routinely taken on their way to North Korea, through the airport in Beijing.

GATES: Don’t expect the nuclear agreement to lead to a more moderate Iran

Former US defense secretary Robert Gates isn’t optimistic that the landmark July 2015 nuclear deal with Iran will lead the country to halt any of its disruptive policies in the Middle East or its support for terrorist groups.
In an interview with Business Insider, Gates, who spent nearly 27 years in the CIA and was the only cabinet secretary to have served under Barack Obama and George W. Bush, said that he didn’t believe the nuclear deal would have a moderating impact on Iranian behavior or lead Tehran to become a more responsible international actor.
“The notion that betting that this regime is going to temper its behavior in the region because of this nuclear deal I think is mistaken,” Gates told Business Insider. “I think that will not happen.”

In the six months since the nuclear deal was reached, Iran has tested two nuclear-capable ballistic missiles in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, fired live missiles within 1,500 yards of a US aircraft carrier, and continued its support for the Assad regime in Syria and for Shiite militia groups in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Full story here.

China: Needy and More Provocative

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Now China Wants Okinawa, Site of U.S. Bases in Japan

DailyBeast: Beijing is pushing out in all directions, from the South China Sea to several Japanese islands, with an eye on the eastern Pacific that laps American shores.

On the day after Christmas, three Chinese boats, one modified to carry four cannons, entered Japan’s territorial waters surrounding the Senkaku Islands in the southern portion of the East China Sea. The move, a dangerous escalation, is the first time the People’s Republic of China sent an armed vessel into an area that Tokyo claims as its own.

The sending of the three Chinese vessels on Dec. 26 appears to signal a new phase of incursions to grab not just the Senkaku Islands but the nearby—and far more important—Ryukyu Islands. Those include Okinawa, which hosts more than half of the 54,000 American military personnel in Japan, including those at Kadena Air Force Base, the Army’s Fort Buckner and Torii Station, eight Marine Corps camps, as well as Air Station Futenma and Yontan Airfield, and the Navy’s Fleet Activities Okinawa.

Geopolitically, Okinawa is key to the American-Japanese alliance and the heart of America’s military presence in Japan. But if Beijing gets its way, U.S. military bases will be off Okinawa soon. And Japan will be out of Okinawa, too.

Chinese authorities in the spring of 2013 brazenly challenged Japan’s sovereignty of the islands with a concerted campaign that included an article in a magazine associated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; a widely publicized commentary in People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper and therefore China’s most authoritative publication; two pieces in the Global Times, the tabloid controlled by People’s Daily; an interview of Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan in the state-run China News Service; and a seminar held at prestigious Renmin University in Beijing. Much more here.

South China Sea tensions surge as China lands plane on artificial island

Reuters: China’s first landing of a plane on one of its new island runways in the South China Sea shows Beijing’s facilities in the disputed region are being completed on schedule and military flights will inevitably follow, foreign officials and analysts said.

China’s increasing military presence in the disputed sea could effectively lead to a Beijing-controlled air defense zone, they said, ratcheting up tensions with other claimants and with the United States in one of the world’s most volatile areas.

Chinese foreign ministry officials confirmed on Saturday that a test flight by a civilian plane landed on an artificial island built in the Spratlys, the first time Beijing has used a runway in the area.

Vietnam launched a formal diplomatic protest while Philippines Foreign Ministry spokesman Charles Jose said Manila was planning to do the same. Both have claims to the area that overlap with China.

“That’s the fear, that China will be able take control of the South China Sea and it will affect the freedom of navigation and freedom of overflight,” Jose told reporters.

China has been building runways on the artificial islands for over a year, and the plane’s landing was not a surprise, although it will almost certainly increase tensions.

The runway at the Fiery Cross Reef is 3,000 meters (10,000 feet) long and is one of three China was constructing on artificial islands built up from seven reefs and atolls in the Spratlys archipelago.

The runways would be long enough to handle long-range bombers and transport craft as well as China’s best jet fighters, giving them a presence deep into the maritime heart of Southeast Asia that they have lacked until now.

Work is well underway to complete a range of port, storage and personnel facilities on the new islands, U.S. and regional officials have said.

Fiery Cross is also expected to house advanced early warning radars and military communications facilities, they said.

Chinese officials have repeatedly stressed that the new islands would be mostly for civilian use, such as coast guard activity and fishing research.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at the weekend that the test flight was intended to check whether the runway met civilian aviation standards and fell “completely within China’s sovereignty”.

Leszek Buszynski, a visiting fellow at the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, said he believed military landings on the islands were now “inevitable”.

An air defense zone, while unlikely soon, was feasible and possible in future once China’s built up its air strength.

“The next step will be, once they’ve tested it with several flights, they will bring down some of their fighter air power – SU-27s and SU-33’s – and they will station them there permanently. That’s what they’re likely to do.”

DE FACTO DEFENCE ZONE

Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at Singapore’s ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, said he expected tensions to worsen as China used its new facilities to project power deeper into the South China Sea.

Even if China stopped short of formally declaring an Air Defence Identification Zone, known as an ADIZ, Beijing’s need to protect its new airstrips and other facilities could see it effectively operating one.

“As these facilities become operational, Chinese warnings to both military and civilian aircraft will become routine,” Storey said.

“These events are a precursor to an ADIZ, or an undeclared but de facto ADIZ, and one has to expect tensions to rise.”

Hua, the Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, said on Monday that there were no immediate plans for an ADIZ in the South China Sea.

“As for whether China will establish an ADIZ, the decision will be based on our judgment of the situation and our needs,” she aid, adding that Beijing respected other nations’ rights to international freedoms of navigation and overflight.

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of world trade ships every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims.

The United States has no claim in the South China Sea, but has been highly critical of China’s assertiveness and says it will protect freedom of navigation.

China sparked condemnation from the United States and Japan in late 2013 when it declared an ADIZ over the East China Sea, covering uninhabited islands disputed with Tokyo.

Chinese officials have reserved their right to do the same in the South China Sea but have said the conditions do not warrant one yet.

However, regional military officials say they are logging increased warnings to aircraft from Chinese radio operators, including some from ground stations on Fiery Cross reef.

ISIS Moves on China

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As posted on this website on December 8th, Islamic State is aggressively recruiting in China.

The methods and objectives:

ISIS is now recruiting in China

CNBC: Terrorist group Islamic State (ISIS) is now recruiting in China, expanding its drive to attract fighters from all over the world, according to media reports.

According to terrorism monitoring website SITE intelligence Group, ISIS published a four-minute propaganda song or chant – called a “nashid” — in Mandarin to attract Chinese Muslims to Jihad, or so-called holy war.

Expanding on the languages it offers, al-Hayat Media Center of released a chant in Chinese entitled, “Mujahid”

The following media may contain sensitive material.

 

Embedded image permalink

The song, entitled “I am Mujahid” (someone engaged in holy war), features a single male voice calling for “Muslims brothers to awaken” and take up weapons. “To die fighting on the battlefield is my dream,” and “No force can stop our advance” were other lines in the song, according to Reuters.

The chant was posted online on Monday by Al Hayat Media Center, the foreign-language media division of the Islamic State, SITE Intelligence said in a Tweet Monday.

It is unknown how many Chinese Muslims have joined ISIS, but the treatment of Muslims in China – notably, Muslim Uighers in western China who are often discriminated against – has been criticized in the past.

As such, ISIS could be trying to attract disaffected Chinese Muslims to the group which is primarily based in Syria and Iraq and is trying to expand its self-proclaimed caliphate.

China has criticized Western airstrikes in Syria, saying a political solution was the only way to resolve the country’s civil war, but has become indirectly involved in the conflict. Last week, ISIS executed a Chinese hostage along with a Norwegian, according to various news reports, after it said no one had come forward to pay the ransom for their release.

Responding to the recording, China’s Foreign Ministry said that it highlighted the need for closer global cooperation against terrorism.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she could not comment on whether the recording was issued by ISIS, but said it showed that “terrorism is the common enemy of mankind” and the need to stop extremists using the internet, Reuters reported.

***

In part from ChinaDigitalTimes: The recording comes only weeks after the Islamic State executed Fan Jinghui, a Chinese national who had been held by the terrorist group for ransom. The following is an excerpt of the chant translated by Josh Chin at China Real Time:

A century of slavery, leaving that shameful memory.
Deep in ignorant slumber, the nightmare continues on.
A century of slavery, leaving that shameful memory.
Deep in ignorant slumber, the nightmare continues on.
Wake up! Muslim brother, now is the time to awaken
Take up your faith and courage, fulfill the lost doctrine.
Wake up! Muslim brother, now is the time to awaken
Take up your faith and courage, fulfill the lost doctrine.
We are Mujahid, our shameless enemy panics before us
To die fighting on this battlefield is our dream.

To this day we guard the Koran and the Sunnah.
No power can stop our progress.
To this day we guard the Koran and the Sunnah.
No power can stop our progress.
To fight against those who fight you is Great Allah’s command.
To take up weapons in rebellion is Muhammad’s order.
To fight against those who fight you is Great Allah’s command.
To take up weapons in rebellion is Prophet Muhammad’s order
We are Mujahid, our shameless enemy panics before us
To die fighting on this battlefield is our dream. [Source]

The Variable Terror, Red Flag and Embargo Lists

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It is admitted by the General Accounting Office that flaws in watch-lists DO exists as noted by this report titled: TERRORIST WATCH LIST SCREENING

Opportunities Exist to Enhance Management Oversight, Reduce Vulnerabilities in Agency Screening Processes, and Expand Use of the List

It appears this reported dated 2007, has not been updated, amended or reviewed by Congress which is in large part, the debate today given the San Bernardino massacre by a pair of militant Islamists.

 

No-Fly List Is Only One of Many U.S. Watchlists
Obama wants to deny those on list from buying guns; GOP objects and ACLU wants reforms
WSJ: WASHINGTON—Last week’s mass shooting in San Bernardino is sparking a renewed debate about one of the most controversial domestic aspects of the war on terror: The U.S. government’s watchlists.

The federal government maintains several databases of people suspected of links to terrorism, including a no-fly list barring certain individuals from boarding airplanes in the U.S.

Those databases, especially the no-fly list, long have been challenged by civil libertarians regarding the lack of transparency about how and why people are included. Most individuals in the databases have never been charged with a crime and are only suspected of being involved with terrorism.

The no-fly list itself is the smallest of all the government terrorism watchlists with about 16,000 names at last count, though it has attracted the most public criticism and legal challenges. A federal court this year declared the government’s system for dealing with appeals and challenges to inclusion on the no-fly list are unconstitutional.
Passengers on the no-fly list are denied the ability to board flights, but previously weren’t given an explanation why. In response to a lawsuit, the government said this year it would tell passengers if they were on the list and offer them an opportunity to provide additional information as part of an administrative appeals process to potentially be removed from the list.

In the wake of the California attack that killed 14 people and that investigators say may have been inspired by Islamic State, Democrats want people who are banned from air travel to also be prevented from buying weapons. Republicans say such a ban would be overly broad and may deprive some Americans of their constitutional right to bear arms.

The text of a Senate bill didn’t explicitly mention either the no-fly list or any other terrorism list, but Democratic sponsors said it would in practice ban those on the government lists from buying guns. The proposal, which would gave the attorney general the power to block gun sales, was defeated in the Senate last week.

Still, President Barack Obama continued to make the case for the proposal in a speech from the Oval Office Sunday night. “Congress should act to make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun. What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon?” he said.
Some Republicans and other gun rights supporters have pointed to the high error rates and false positives in the government’s terrorism databases. In one notable incident, the late Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, a Democratic Party icon, was singled out for special scrutiny at airports because his name matched an alias used by a terrorist suspect.

“These are everyday Americans that have nothing to do with terrorism, they wind up on the no-fly list, there’s no due process or any way to get your name removed from it in a timely fashion, and now they’re having their Second Amendment rights being impeded upon,” Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican presidential candidate, told CNN this week.

Various government agencies maintain databases on suspected terrorists, each with a different function. Most of those lists were either created or vastly expanded after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks under President George W. Bush’s administration.

The National Counterterrorism Center runs a central repository of more than 1 million people called Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE. The TIDE database, which includes about 25,000 Americans as of 2013, is drawn from intelligence community sources and is classified.

An unclassified subset of the TIDE database is made available to law enforcement as part of the Terrorist Screening Database. That database contains biographical and biometric information about potential terrorists and can be accessed by local, state and federal law enforcement officials who don’t have security clearances. As of 2011, that database was said to contain about 420,000 names, according to the FBI.

The Transportation Security Administration receives an even smaller list of people subject to travel restrictions drawn from the Terrorist Screening Database. In addition to the 16,000 names on the no-fly list in 2011, another 16,000 were on the selectee list. The selectee list doesn’t prevent individuals from flying but subjects them to extra scrutiny.

Critics say that banning suspected terrorists from buying guns poses the same problems as banning them from traveling: namely, the lack of transparency around the process used and concern of depriving individuals of their rights over the mere suspicion of terrorism.

“There is no constitutional bar to reasonable regulation of guns and the no-fly list could serve as a tool for it—but only with major reform,” said Hina Shamsi, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project.

Ms. Shamsi litigated the ACLU’s ongoing challenge to the no-fly list in federal court, winning a victory for several of her clients who were denied the right to travel. Several plaintiffs in the lawsuit were removed from the no-fly list and the government has made some modifications

“These lists are compiled on the basis of mere suspicions,” said Bruce Ackerman, a constitutional law scholar and professor at Yale University. “What we need is a system in which defense lawyers who have received security clearances can effectively challenge the government’s evidence.”

Per the U.S. State Department, there are several other lists.

Red Flags and Watch Lists

Red Flags

 

These links, and subsequent links found on these web pages, describe the efforts of the U.S. federal government in the area of export control through Project Shield America. The Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement office takes a proactive stance on the prevention of illegal export of sensitive U.S. munitions and strategic technology. Through the inspection of outbound shipments at high-threat ports and border crossings, educational outreach to industry leaders, and international cooperation with foreign governments, Project Shield America endeavors to protect American technological accomplishment from adversaries. These links also inform the public about the effective role that it can play in deterring illegal export activity. “Red Flag Indicators,” from the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, encourage citizens to play an active role in the fight against proliferation and highlights specific activity indicative of potential export violations.

 

 

U.S. Department of Homeland Security – Shield America Brochure
U.S. Department of Commerce – Red Flag Indicators
 

Watch Lists

The following links provide information on countries, companies, and individuals that the U.S. Departments of State, Commerce, and Treasury have determined constitute a potential threat to domestic export control initiatives. Additionally, summary information about embargoes and sanctions imposed by the United States, United Kingdom, and the United Nations can be found below.

AECA Debarred List – Entities and individuals prohibited from participating directly or indirectly in the export of defense articles, including technical data and defense services.  Pursuant to the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), the AECA Debarred List includes persons convicted in court of violating or conspiring to violate the AECA and subject to “statutory debarment” or persons established to have violated the AECA in an administrative proceeding and subject to “administrative debarment.”

U.S. Denied Persons List – Individuals and entities that have been denied export privileges. Any dealings with a party on this list that would violate the terms of its denial order are prohibited.

U.S. Unverified List – The Unverified List includes names and countries of foreign persons who in the past were parties to a transaction with respect to which the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) could not conduct a pre-license check (PLC) or a post-shipment verification (PSV) for reasons outside of the U.S. Government’s control. Any transaction to which a listed person is a party will be deemed by BIS to raise a Red Flag.

U.S. Specially Designated Nationals Lists – OFAC publishes a list of individuals and companies owned or controlled by, or acting for or on behalf of, targeted countries. It also lists individuals, groups, and entities, such as terrorists and narcotics traffickers designated under programs that are not country-specific. Collectively, such individuals and companies are called “Specially Designated Nationals” or “SDNs.” Their assets are blocked and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from dealing with them.

Entity List –  Parties whose presence in a transaction can trigger a license requirement supplemental to those elsewhere in the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). The list specifies the license requirements and policy that apply to each listed party.

U.S. Embargo Reference Chart – Foreign countries against which the United States federal government has imposed controls for the export of defense articles and services.

Consolidated Screening List – Link to a downloadable file that consolidates export screening lists of the Departments of Commerce, State and the Treasury into one spreadsheet as an aide to industry in conducting electronic screens of potential parties to regulated transactions. UK Embargoes – A reference point for lists of UN, EU, OSCE, and UK sanctions.

 

China Aggression, Nuclear Missiles and Conditions in Libya

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Pentagon confirms patrols of Chinese nuclear missile submarines
WashingtonTimes: China has begun patrols with nuclear missile submarines for the first time, giving Beijing a new strategic nuclear strike capability, according to the U.S. Strategic Command and Defense Intelligence Agency.

U.S. intelligence and strategic nuclear officials, however, remain uncertain whether China’s four Jin-class missile submarine patrols are being carried out with nuclear-tipped JL-2 missiles on board.
DIA and Strategic Command representatives said this week that there were no changes to DIA’s assessment earlier this year that China would begin the nuclear missile submarine patrols this year.

The problem for officials in declaring the Jin-class submarines a new Chinese strategic nuclear threat is a lack of certainty that Chinese Communist Party leaders have agreed to the unprecedented step of trusting operational submarine commanders with control over the launching of nuclear missiles.

Navy Capt. Pamela S. Kunze, Strategic Command spokeswoman, elaborated on comments by Adm. Cecil Haney, the Strategic Command commander, and confirmed that the nuclear submarine patrols were taking place.
She told Inside the Ring: “Given China’s known capabilities and their efforts to develop a sea-based deterrent, in absence of indicators to the contrary, it is prudent to assume that patrols are occurring.”
Adm. Haney said in October that he was not waiting for China to announce its first nuclear missile patrols because, as with most other issues related to Chinese nuclear forces, the capabilities of the submarines remain hidden by military secrecy.

“The Chinese have had these submarines at sea this year, so I have to look at it as operational capability today,” the four-star admiral said. “And [I] can’t think that when those submarines are at sea that they aren’t on patrol.”

The real question, the Stratcom leader said, is: “Have they put the missile we’ve seen them test, the JL-2, in for a package that is doing strategic deterrent patrols? I have to consider them today that they are on strategic patrol,” he said, meaning the submarines were equipped with nuclear missiles.

For the U.S., that means “there’s another capability that’s out there having nuclear capability of ranges that can strike the United States of America,” the admiral said.
The patrols mark a significant turning point for the Chinese. In the past, Beijing stored all nuclear warheads separately from its missiles, in part to demonstrate what China calls its policy of “no first use” — that it would not be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict and would use them only in retaliation for hostile nuclear attacks.

Another reason warheads are kept separate is the Communist Party’s near-paranoid obsession with political control. Separating warheads from missiles allows for a greater centralized control over the nuclear arsenal, which is estimated to be 300 warheads but is likely far larger.

Chinese authorities fear giving a submarine commander control over the launch of nuclear missiles and worry that one of the military’s hawks could ignore the party’s nuclear chain of command and order a nuclear strike on his own.
Patrols by Jin-class submarines with nuclear-armed JL-2s, if confirmed, mark a new stage in Communist Party trust with the People’s Liberation Army.

Sending the Jin submarines on patrol without nuclear missiles or warheads would be viewed as a hollow gesture and undermine the intended message behind the capability to launch stealthy underwater missile attacks.


China is extremely secret about its nuclear forces. However, PLA missile submarines appear to be different. In 2013, state-run Chinese media published details on contingency plans to attack the western United States with submarine-launched missiles, an attack that would kill what the Global Times newspaper estimated would be up to 12 million Americans.

The congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, in its annual report made public last month, said the missile submarine patrols will mark China’s “first credible at-sea second-strike nuclear capability.” The Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao reported in September that the first nuclear submarine patrols had taken place.

The commission report quoted PLA Navy Commander Adm. Wu Shengli as saying: “This is a trump card that makes our motherland proud and our adversaries terrified. It is a strategic force symbolizing our great-power status and supporting national security.”

Recent Chinese military enthusiast websites have posted photographs of suspected Chinese submarine tunnels. One was shown Oct. 7 at a naval base on Shangchuan Island, along the southern Chinese coast near Hong Kong. In May, photos posted online showed the opening of a nuclear missile submarine cave at an undisclosed location.

ISLAMIC STATE EXPANDS IN LIBYA

The Islamic State terrorist group is expanding operations inside Libya, in addition to moving into other regions such as Afghanistan and Southeast Asia from Syria and Iraq, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

One alarming indicator of increased Islamic State activities is a slew of reports from Libya indicating that Islamic State terrorists are training to fly commercial airliners, raising fears that the group is planning high-profile suicide attacks using hijacked airliners.

U.S. intelligence estimates put the number of Islamic State jihadis in Libya at 4,000 to 5,000. Information on the use of a flight simulator in the Libyan city of Sirte was provided to U.S. intelligence agencies recently and triggered concerns that the group was preparing for attacks in Europe and elsewhere.

A CIA spokeswoman declined to comment.

Officials confirmed U.S. concerns about the flight training after details were disclosed in Arabic press reports. Libyan military sources told the Arabic-language British newspaper Alsharq al-Awsat last week that airstrikes were carried out by Libyan government forces to try to destroy the flight training facility near the Sirte airport.

Sirte, located on the Gulf of Sidra halfway between Tripoli and Benghazi, is under control of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, which is expanding its activities in the North African state.

The flight simulator was seized by Libyan terrorists who have conducted numerous attacks on airports in the war-torn country, which is battling several terrorist groups including the Islamic State and al Qaeda.

Last year, intelligence officials said there were reports that Islamist militias had seized nearly a dozen commercial jetliners in August following militia attacks on Tripoli’s international airport. Libya’s government, however, claimed that all commercial aircraft of the Libyan state airline were accounted for.

A Libyan military official told Alsharq al-Awsat that investigators initially suspected the simulator in Islamic State hands was stolen, but newer information indicated that the car-sized training simulator was new and had come from outside the country.

Reports also stated that the Islamic State had also obtained a military flight simulator recently.
Libyan government forces attempted to destroy the simulators in Sirte but were unable to succeed. As a result, the equipment was moved to another location.

The Islamic State training center was said to be near the Sirte international airport, about 20 miles south of the city in an area captured by Islamic State terrorists in May. Three damaged civilian aircraft and three helicopters are at the airport.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement Monday that a U.S. airstrike in Libya killed senior Islamic State leader Abu Nabil in Darnah, a town east of Benghazi, on Nov. 13.

“Nabil’s death will degrade ISIL’s ability to meet the group’s objectives in Libya, including recruiting new ISIL members, establishing bases in Libya, and planning external attacks on the United States,” Mr. Cook said in an earlier statement.

DUNFORD VS. CARTER

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, voted with his presence — or rather, his absence — in opposing the Obama administration’s decision to open military combat slots to women.

Defense officials said Gen. Dunford, who as Marine Corps commandant was opposed to women in front-line infantry combat units, was initially scheduled to appear at a news briefing with Defense Secretary Ashton Carter Dec. 3 to announce the policy.

However, when it came time for the briefing, Gen. Dunford declined to take part.

Asked why the chairman was not present, Mr. Carter provided his best spin for reporters: “I’m announcing my decision. I was the one who took this decision. I’m announcing my decision.”

Mr. Carter said he had “talked to [Gen. Dunford] extensively” about the issue and “he will be with me as we proceed with implementation.”

The secretary did not deny there was opposition from Gen. Dunford. He acknowledged that he drew “different conclusions” from studies about whether women in front-line combat units would harm war-fighting capabilities.

Capt. Greg Hicks, a spokesman for Gen. Dunford, said: “The decision and the announcement were ones the secretary made. The latter was an opportunity for him to express it.”

Capt. Hicks said Mr. Carter answered questions about the absence of Gen. Dunford. “The chairman’s responsibility now is to implement the decision,” he said.