Wanderlust

Tag: China

  • Karachi assault: China consulate attack leaves 4 useless

    People console an unidentified relative of one of the victims of the attack on Chinese consulate Symbol copyright EPA Image caption Two cops were killed in the assault

    Gunmen have killed no less than four other folks in an assault at the Chinese Language consulate within the Pakistani port town of Karachi.

    Gunshots were heard at about 09:30 native time (04:30 GMT) outside the consulate in the upmarket Clifton area. Police shot lifeless 3 attackers.

    Separatist militants who oppose Chinese investment tasks in western Pakistan say they carried out the assault.

    In any other incident on Friday, a minimum of 30 other people were killed in a bomb attack in north-west Pakistan.

    The blast befell in a most commonly Shia neighbourhood in Orakzai district. Police say a suicide bomber on a bike drove right into a crowded marketplace.

    Symbol copyright Xinhua Image caption A burning vehicle near the assault web site

    Eyewitnesses mentioned seeing a blast, and local TELEVISION channels broadcast pictures of a plume of smoke. there may be a heavy police presence in the area which has been cordoned off.

    Is Chinese an official language in Pakistan? The Opposite Balochistan: Existence in a war zone

    the entire staff inside the consulate are secure, China said. the government condemned the attack on its project and the overseas ministry in Beijing referred to as for additonal measures to protect Chinese citizens in Pakistan.

    “at the similar time we mourn the deaths of the Pakistani police and bring to mind their households at this time,” a spokesman mentioned.

    but the spokesman used to be willing to praise Pakistani security forces for its efforts to protect the consulate.

    A separatist crew, the Balochistan Liberation Army, stated it had performed the assault. it is one in all a host of separatist groups working in the province, which has observed an extended-running nationalist insurgency.

    “we’ve been seeing the Chinese as an oppressor, along with Pakistani forces,” a spokesman for the gang told the AFP news agency.

    Over the years, building tasks and Chinese Language workers in Balochistan were time and again targeted by means of militants. Most just lately, a suicide bombing in August injured a host of Chinese Language engineers.

    thus far, none of the incidents has been big enough in scale to truly threaten the viability of Chinese funding in the country. But this is one in all the most distinguished attacks thus far.

    Officials instructed the BBC’s Stephen McDonell in Beijing they had been confident the Pakistani executive was once capable of take care of the security scenario to guarantee Chinese funding.

    a feminine police officer, Suhai Talpur, who led the security operation throughout the consulate attack is being showered with reward, BBC Tracking experiences.

    “Suhai Aziz, you’ve gotten set an instance of bravery. These are the ladies who’re sooner than everybody,” Sindh provincial leader Murad Ali Shah was quoted as announcing via Pakistan Today.

    “They Are Saying ladies belong within the kitchen. Except while everybody needs a saviour,” columnist Aisha Sarwari tweeted.

    Symbol Copyright @sherryrehman @sherryrehman

  • CROSSTALK: Trump hitting reset buttons on Russia, China

    There are some truths that I strive to preach, for lack of a better word, in today’s information-culture wars propagated in our corrupt mainstream media. Here are a few: Nationalism is not racism, adh

    ANALYSIS/OPINION:

    There are some truths that I strive to preach, for lack of a better word, in today’s information culture wars propagated in our corrupt mainstream media. Here are a few: Nationalism is not racism, adherence to principles is not hate, masculinity is not toxic and there are only two sexes.

    However, there are obvious truths in geopolitics as well. Chief among these is the fact that standing up to tyranny is not an attempt to maintain “unipolar world” or “dominance.”

    Here are a few facts. The South China Sea is an international waterway that a large part of the world relies on for commerce. There are treaties that China has signed to protect right of passage in that area. However, China has decided to militarize it and seize that region of the world for itself.

    The United States will stand up for these rights of passage. The United States will stand up for our ally, Taiwan. These two facts have nothing to do with an “aggressive” United States that wants to take over the world.

    China wants to take over and be dominant in the world, not America.

    Michael Pillsbury, in his eye-opening book “The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy,” talks of China’s long-term strategy to achieve dominance over the West. “‘The Hundred-Year Marathon’ reveals China’s secret strategy to supplant the United States as the world’s dominant power, and to do so by 2049, the one-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic,” reads the intro. He also discusses in-depth the deceit and treachery China has used to achieve its goals in its relations with the United States over the decades.

    President Trump is the first American president to get this obvious fact, and has decided to confront China. He is the first president to use the full weight of American power to achieve this end — economic, military and political — to level the playing field with Beijing, to stop China from cheating on trade, forcing technology transfers and stealing intellectual property from American companies.

    China signed trade agreements, and entered the World Trade Organization, only to cheat.

    Mr. Trump is calling them out. That is not an attempt at American dominance; it is protecting American interests and national security.

    The Kremlin has also completely embraced the new information hybrid warfare. Russian generals have openly discussed using disinformation as the vanguard to kinetic conflict.

    Moscow has also signed agreements, like the INF treaty, the Chemical Warfare treaty and a promise to protect Ukraine’s integrity. They have broken all of them.

    Mr. Trump standing up to Russian deceit is not an attempt at world dominance either; it is protecting American national security.

    As far as a nuclear war goes; Russia does not have the conventional forces to match the U.S. in a sustained conflict outside its borders. No one believes NATO is going to invade the Russian Federation. The only card Moscow has to play therefore is the nuclear card, which it has begun to play often, to maintain its prominence on the world stage.

    We are not going to have a nuclear war. It was possible under President Obama as he was so weak. However, Mr. Trump is rapidly rebuilding our armed forces after the Obama capitulation. He is focusing on modernizing our nuclear deterrent.

    China and Russia have already militarized space. America protecting itself in this arena is again, not an agenda of world dominance; it is protecting American national security.

    The one thing I do agree with Ed Lozansky on is NATO enlargement. I have written about this subject on these pages. Pushing the alliance to Russia’s borders is madness and serves no purpose but to give President Putin an enemy for political use.

    No, President Trump doesn’t need to or will play the “China Card” in an attempt to split Moscow and Beijing. However, he can, and will, continue to confront China in its attempt to dominate the world economically and militarily. That does not mean to say he is reckless; he simply will put America’s interests first.

    The world is simply getting used to this new, real, “reset.”

    Thank God for Donald J. Trump.

    ⦁ L. Todd Wood is a former special operations helicopter pilot and Wall Street debt trader, and has contributed to Fox Business, The Moscow Times, National Review, The New York Post and many other publications.

  • U.S, Chinese officials spar over South China Sea engagements

    Top U.S. and Chinese defense officials and diplomats traded rhetorical barbs over ongoing American and allied military operations in the South China Sea, undercutting the message of cooperation and un

    Top U.S. and Chinese defense officials and diplomats traded rhetorical barbs over ongoing American and allied military operations in the South China Sea, undercutting the message of cooperation and unity between the two world powers during bilateral talks held in Washington on Friday.

    Defense Secretary James N. Mattis reiterated Washington’s stance that U.S. fighters, bombers and warships would “continue to fly and sail wherever international law allows” in the South China Sea and elsewhere in the Pacific.

    “We continue to operate in international waters and airspace as all nations are entitled to,” Mr. Mattis said during a press conference at the State Department alongside Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Director of the Office of Foreign Affairs of the Central Commission of the Communist Party of China Yang Jiechi and Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe.

    His comments came after Mr. Yang claimed freedom of navigation through the contested waterways of the South China Sea, or or overflight across its airspace, is not being contested by Beijing, adding that any claim to the contrary and to use such claims as a reason for military action is “unacceptable”

    For his part, Mr. Wei said Washington and Beijing “stand to gain from cooperation and stand to lose from confrontation” in the South China Sea. “Confrontation and conflict … spells disaster for all,” he added.

    “The situation in the South China Sea is trending toward greater stability,” Mr. Wei noted, adding that Beijing continues to “urge the U.S. to play a constructive role” in maintaining that stability.

    Aside from Friday’s press conference at the State Department, Mr. Mattis and Mr. Wei are also scheduled to hold one-on-one talks Friday afternoon at the Pentagon.

    Discussions over a possible meeting between the two defense leaders had been percolating since October, when they held a sideline meeting during a regional national security conference in Singapore. But U.S.-China military relations quickly soured thereafter. Tensions reached a head when the White House nixed a previously scheduled visit by Mr. Mattis to Beijing that month.

    Friday’s meetings at the State Department and Pentagon were part of the second annual U.S.-China Diplomatic and Security Dialogue. Aside from the South China Sea, both sides sought to reinforce the notion of increasingly positive ties between the two countries.

    “The U.S. is not pursuing a Cold War or containment policy with China,” Mr. Pompeo said, adding “cooperation remains essential on many, many issues” ranging from a denuclearized North Korea to curbing Iranian influence across the globe.

    “The military-to-military relationship is moving forward and maintaining growth, despite some problems” between the U.S. and China, Mr. Wei said. China’s military buildup in the South China Sea “represents a growing force for world peace … and is transparent and for the protection of the Chinese people,” and is not a threat to the interests of the U.S. and its Pacific allies, he added.

  • Mike Pence outlines China’s election meddling strategy

    Vice President Mike Pence announced earlier this month that China is working to unseat President Trump and meddle in U.S. elections, revealing what he said was Beijing’s plan as outlined in an interna

    Vice President Mike Pence announced earlier this month that China is working to unseat President Trump and meddle in U.S. elections, revealing what he said was Beijing’s plan as outlined in an internal government propaganda directive.

    “In June, Beijing circulated a sensitive document, entitled ‘Propaganda and Censorship Notice,’ that laid out its strategy,” Mr. Pence said in an Oct. 4 speech outlining a tougher U.S. policy toward China.

    “It states that China must ‘strike accurately and carefully, splitting apart different domestic groups’ in the United States,” he noted.

    As part of the directive, “Beijing has mobilized covert actors, front groups and propaganda outlets to shift Americans’ perception of Chinese policies,” the vice president said, noting that a senior U.S. intelligence official told him that Russian election meddling “pales in comparison to what China is doing across this country.”

    White House officials said the document the vice president referred to is a confidential Chinese government directive that was published in the California-based China Digital Times.

    The censorship notice published online did not identify the government or Communist Party department that wrote the directive. But the notice directs China’s tightly controlled network of newspapers, television, radio and social media outlets to sharply restrict all reporting on the ongoing U.S.-Chinese trade dispute.

    The June 28 directive states that China’s most senior official in charge of the trade dispute, Vice Premier Liu He, has said that in the U.S.-Chinese “trade war,” the Chinese side must remain “calm and rational, strengthen interdepartmental coordination, [and] establish a coherent power in stabilizing market forecasts.”

    “We are done with talks, we must now not yield an inch, and formulate reciprocal measures,” the directive says, according to a translation different from the one the vice president used.

    “We must carefully control our propaganda tone, not to escalate, not to expand the scope. Instead, we must fire precision strikes, we must sow discord among different groups in the United States and make them collapse. Trade war is in reality a war against China’s rise. We must see who can last to the end, and we must never be weak and soft in action and in rhetoric.”

    In conducting trade war propaganda against the United States, Beijing created what it calls the Three Don’t Relays: “Don’t relay comments from Trump, from U.S. government spokespersons, or from U.S. officials,” according to the document.

    The notice also tells Chinese propaganda outlets not to “attack Trump’s vulgarity” and “Don’t make this a war of insults.”

    “All media should prepare well for protracted conflict,” the notice says. “Don’t follow the American side’s fluctuating declarations. Play down the correlations between the stock market and trade conflict.”

    The Chinese government is also ordering propaganda reports to play up “economic bright spots” that appear to show steadying improvements in the Chinese economy. Such stories are to be given “important page placement” in newspapers and timed to have maximum impact.

    “Interview experts recommended by each department; websites and Weibo and WeChat accounts must emphasize suitable forms of network propaganda,” said the directive, referring to two major Chinese microblogs.

    The document concludes with a warning not to mention China’s long-term strategy to corner world markets in high technology known as Made in China 2025, “or there will be consequences.”

    China is known to fire or imprison editors who fail to follow the directives of the Communist Party’s propaganda department, the likely origin of the directive.

    CHINA PROPAGANDA TARGETS HAWAII

    Two radio stations in Honolulu are broadcasting Chinese propaganda into Hawaii, location of the Pacific Command.

    The command views the two Chinese-language stations as supporting Beijing’s overall information operations against the United States that include “influence activities” in support of Beijing policies, espionage, identity theft and intellectual property theft.

    One of the stations was identified by military officials as KHCM, which broadcasts some programming directly supplied by China Radio International (CRI), the state-owned propaganda outlet for overseas broadcasts. CRI recently merged with China’s state television to create the China Media Group, also called the Voice of China.

    Disclosure of the Chinese radio propaganda in Hawaii comes as Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing Phoenix Television is seeking Federal Communications Commission approval to buy a radio station near Tijuana that critics say will be used to beam Chinese propaganda into Southern California, targeting the large Chinese-American community there.

    Radio Station XEWW-AM is being bought by the New York financial firm H&H Capital Partners, a firm that FCC documents indicate will shift the current Spanish-language radio station into a Mandarin broadcaster.

    “The Chinese Communist Party (CPC) is waging an information warfare campaign to undermine American democracy,” Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, said in a Sept. 11 letter opposing the sale to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

    “The decision before the commission risks allowing the CPC to broadcast government-approved propaganda into Southern California, one of the most densely populated regions in America of Mandarin speakers, to boost that warfare campaign.”

    Under an agreement with Mexico, the sale of any station in Mexico that broadcasts into the United States must be approved by the FCC.

    PENTAGON RAMPS UP HYPERSONIC MISSILE WORK

    The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency is joining efforts of the Army, Navy and Air Force to develop hypersonic missiles — ultra-high-speed weapons capable of maneuvering to avoid missile defenses.

    “MDA is actively participating in a department-wide Common Hypersonic Glide Body Memorandum of Agreement where we are participating in development efforts and leveraging investments in hypersonic technology across the department to advance our counter-hypersonic activities,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves, the MDA director, said in a statement to Inside the Ring.

    The Common Hypersonic Glide Body is the name being used by the military for a triad of high-speed missile variants for the Army, Navy and Air Force.

    The three versions will be designed for firing from Army ground-based missiles, from Navy ship and submarine missile-launch tubes, and from Air Force bombers.

    The inclusion of the MDA in the hypersonic missile program was confirmed by Gen. Greaves after Aviation Week first reported on the collaboration this week.

    A defense official said the group effort will include pooling the research of weapons engineers for both missiles and missile defenses.

    “We’re trying to come up with anti-missile missiles. We want to knock down things like that,” the official said.

    MDA is the lead Pentagon unit for defenses against hypersonic missiles and will be involved in developing hypersonic missile defense interceptors and hypersonic target missiles. Hypersonic missiles currently are being developed rapidly by both China and Russia as key asymmetric warfare capabilities designed to strike with both conventional and nuclear warheads through advanced missile defense systems.

    “So we’re interested in how the missiles are made, how they fly and, of course, we’ll need targets to shoot at,” the official said.

    Congress directed the MDA in 2016 to set up a program focused on hypersonic missile defense. Current efforts include setting up a space-based network of sensors capable of detecting and tracking hypersonic maneuvering missiles.

    The glide body is being developed from a three-stage booster prototype built several years ago by Sandia National Laboratories.

    The Air Force weapon is called the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon, and the Army missile is called the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon. Both could be fielded by 2022.

    The Navy conducted a test of its version of the hypersonic missile, described only as Intermediate Range Conventional Prompt Strike Flight Experiment-1, in October 2017. The test utilized what the Navy said were “hypersonic boost-glide technologies.”

    The hypersonic missiles can be either gliders that maneuver at speeds of over 7,000 miles per hour after being launched atop another missile or high-speed flight powered by engines using scramjet — supersonic combustion ramjet — technology.

    • Contact Bill Gertz on Twitter at @BillGertz.

  • Donald Trump threatens to pull out of Russia nuclear treaty

    Washington and Moscow returned to Cold War-style rhetoric Monday as President Trump ratcheted up his threat to unilaterally pull the U.S. out of a key agreement that has kept the nuclear arsenals of b

    Washington and Moscow returned to Cold War-style rhetoric Monday as President Trump ratcheted up his threat to unilaterally pull the U.S. out of a key agreement that has kept the nuclear arsenals of both sides in check since the Reagan era, as Russia demanded an explanation and analysts warned that the move could spur nuclear deployments around the globe.

    Mr. Trump revealed to reporters that he felt so strongly Russia was cheating on the deal that he didn’t bother to inform the Kremlin before making his decision.

    “Russia has not adhered to the agreement,” Mr. Trump said. “We have more money than anybody else by far. We’ll build it up until they come to their senses.”

    SEE ALSO: Trump promises nuclear buildup, warns Russia not to ‘play games’

    The high-stakes threats of a revived nuclear arms race were issued as White House National Security Adviser John R. Bolton prepares for a tense meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.

    Both sides have publicly declared that they will begin ramping up their missile capabilities. The meeting was scheduled before Mr. Trump said last week that he intended to withdraw the U.S. from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a deal designed to limit the U.S. and Russia from building or deploying any missiles and launch systems with an “intermediate” range of 300 to 3,400 miles.

    Signed in 1987 by President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the INF cooled fears that a “limited” nuclear war short of an all-out exchange could erupt in Europe. Both sides dismantled huge caches of missiles as part of the agreement, which remained in place after the fall of the Soviet Union.

    But the U.S. and international partners such as NATO now say Moscow is in clear violation of the deal, and Mr. Trump on Monday offered a stern warning that Washington won’t allow it.

    The president also stressed that no other nation — including China, which isn’t bound by the treaty and has been building up its own arsenal as its economy modernizes — can compete with the U.S.

    “It’s a threat to whoever you want, and [that] includes China,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he left for a campaign trip to Texas. “It includes anybody else that wants to play that game. You can’t play that game on me.”

    The Kremlin said earlier Monday that if the INF collapses, then Russia will have no choice but to “restore balance” in the global power structure.

    “This is a question of strategic security. Such measures can make the world more dangerous,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

    “It means that the United States is not disguising, but is openly starting to develop these systems in the future, and if these systems are being developed, then actions are necessary from other countries, in this case Russia, to restore balance in this sphere,” he added.

    Breaking the deal

    Moscow denies that it violated the deal, but both the Obama and Trump administrations have accused Russia of breaking its promises. U.S. and international observers cite in particular the Russian 9M729 cruise missile system as their chief concern.

    The system — a U.S. assessment of which has not been made available publicly — is rumored to have a range of about 1,250 miles or more — clearly within the limits covered by the INF. The Obama administration first objected to the missile system in 2014 but opted to retain the treaty.

    NATO officials also have said the missile system violates the INF, and Russian aggression in Ukraine in recent years has spurred fears that Moscow once again could be eyeing the deployment of nuclear weapons into Eastern Europe.

    Russia has denied that the missile system violates the deal, but critics say the Kremlin has been unwilling to provide answers about the 9M729, what its purpose is and whether it’s fully operational. Some Russian military strategists have argued that the 1987 deal benefits the U.S. more than Russia because the U.S. faces no real strategic threat from its near neighbors, Canada and Mexico, the way Russia does all along its perimeter.

    “In the absence of any credible answer from Russia on this new missile, allies believe that the most plausible assessment would be that Russia is in violation of the INF Treaty,” NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said Monday.

    Key U.S. allies, while divided over Mr. Trump’s decision to pull out of the deal entirely, were united in urging Russia to provide more answers. They said the burden lies with Mr. Putin to cool international tensions.

    “We of course want to see this treaty continue to stand, but it does require two parties to be committed to it, and at the moment you have one party that is ignoring it,” U.K. Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson told The Guardian newspaper. “It is Russia that is in breach, and it is Russia that needs to get its house in order.”

    The government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel took a more cautious stand, saying it regrets the U.S. decision while calling on Moscow to “dispel the serious doubts about its adherence to the treaty that had arisen as a result of a new type of Russian missile.”

    Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Mr. Trump’s move poses “difficult questions for us and for Europe.”

    European Union officials took a more measured approach, urging the U.S. and Russia to negotiate in the hopes of preserving the agreement.

    There is a six-month waiting period after notification before either party can formally exit the deal. Russian officials said Monday afternoon that they had not received formal notification, though that could come Tuesday when Mr. Bolton meets with Mr. Putin.

    Rising China

    While the INF applies only to the U.S. and Russia, Mr. Trump’s comments Monday made clear that the White House sees China as a key part of the equation.

    “China is not included in the agreement. They should be included in the agreement,” the president told reporters.

    Analysts and U.S. officials said there is good reason for questions about China in the context of the INF.

    As Beijing upgrades its military presence, particularly in the South China Sea, the administration fears that the U.S.-Russia deal is giving China a free pass, potentially allowing the rising superpower to get a leg up militarily.

    Retired Navy Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., formerly the head of U.S. forces in the Pacific and now the administration’s ambassador to South Korea, told lawmakers this year that the U.S. and Russia are limited by the deal, while China can essentially do whatever it wants.

    “Over 90 percent of China’s ground-based missiles would violate the treaty,” he told a House committee in February.

    Regional analysts say the Trump administration’s secondary motivation for scrapping the INF could be to give the Pentagon freedom to deploy missile systems to the Pacific to counter China.

    “Should Trump follow through on his threat to leave the INF, it would also open the door to potential nuclear build-up in East Asia, as Washington looks to counter growing Chinese presence. A deployment of missiles to Guam or allies Japan and Australia would not be out of the question, with uncertain consequences for the region,” David A. Wemer, an assistant director at the Atlantic Council, wrote Monday.

    The China state-controlled Global Times wrote a stinging editorial Monday condemning Mr. Trump’s INF decision, which it said was clearly made with Beijing in mind.

    “Although China has exercised restraint in developing strategic weaponry with no intention of nuclear power competition, the U.S. still fixes its eyes on China doubtfully …,” the editorial argued. “Military might and strategic nuclear power have never played an outstanding role in China’s foreign relations. But as the U.S. grows more skeptical about China, we face growing strategic risks and have become the main target of U.S. hegemony.”

    • Dave Boyer contributed to this report.

  • India-China rivalry looms over Bhutan election

    VARANASI, India | Bhutanese voters have already decided to oust their current leaders, voting out their prime minister and his political party in the first round of parliamentary elections last month.

    VARANASI, India | Bhutanese voters have already decided to oust their current leaders, voting out their prime minister and his political party in the first round of parliamentary elections last month.

    Now many voters of this tiny, ancient kingdom hope that whoever wins the second round Thursday will renegotiate their lopsided longtime alliance with India and make nice with rival China.

    “We love our sovereignty,” said Pawo Choyning Dorji, 35, a photographer in the capital of Thimphu. “We appreciate how India has helped in the development of Bhutan, but our relationship with India has cost us our sovereignty. India must know that someday Bhutan is going to establish a good relationship with China.”

    In modern “Great Game” playing out far from the focus of much U.S. and Western foreign policy these days, Bhutan is just one case study of China and India jockeying for influence across South Asia, a clash of interests that has been playing out in recent years in countries from Bangladesh and Nepal, to Sri Lanka, Myanmar and the Maldives.

    But it is the tiny country of Bhutan where the rivalry is hottest these days.

    “It’s a tiny speck of a country in South Asia, and it was only last summer’s standoff between India and China that brought Bhutan to the headlines,” said Faisel Pervaiz, South Asia analyst at the global think tank, Stratfor. “But now, what looks to be an election in a tiny, mountainous Himalayan kingdom actually has geopolitical implications between the world’s two most populous countries.”

    Both countries are closely watching the results, hoping for an advantage in the future. The ruling party had been very close to India, analysts said.

    In fact, India has had a “hegemony by default” in the region for decades, being the largest country in terms of size and population with the strongest economy and military. And while it has strong cultural and linguistic ties to its neighbors, it is Bhutan where India has played the most dominant role, all but dictating its foreign and economic policy, and being its dominant benefactor and trade partner.

    Enter China with its Belt and Road initiative, it’s “Marshall Plan” to underwrite and build massive infrastructure projects across Asia, Africa and Europe. In South Asia, Beijing has been calling on governments with offers of investments, loans and economic partnerships, talking to countries who lack resources for roads, bridges and ports. As a result, they have been very receptive.

    India has been so concerned that it has tripled its foreign aid over the past seven years — the most going to what it sees as its buffer state of Bhutan — and upped its own offer of loans, infrastructure projects and other economic and military cooperation.

    Last year, the rivalry came to a head.

    New Delhi has long had an interest in protecting the so-called narrow “chicken neck” near Bhutan that connects northeastern India to the rest of the country. Last year, Indian troops stopped Chinese forces from building a road on Bhutanese-controlled land on the Doklam plateau that Beijing has long claimed, stoking fears of a repeat of the Sino-Indian border war of the early 1960s. Both sides stood down after talks.

    In Bhutan, many now see China as the future.

    “China is beneficial for us,” said Shyam Parajuli, 46, who sells gifts and knickknacks, often to Chinese tourists, in Thimphu. “They pay a good price for the goods they buy here. Indians don’t, because they know every inch of this country very well.”

    Some voters thought it would be a boon for local business.

    “We get most of the business-related items from India but recently China has started giving us cheap products which make the trade cheaper, and many people prefer cheap products here,” said Sangay Choden, a middle-aged teacher in Thimphu. “If we get more trade goods from China on regular basis, we may be able to do more business with more profit.”

    Other noted, however, that India provides Bhutan with crucial aid and the lion’s share of its commerce.

    “We enjoy Indian liquors in the bars here, thinking how to loosen the Indian hold around our neck,” said Pushpa Gurung, a 28-year-old aspiring fashion model.

    Many Bhutanese, resenting recent pressure by India to limit relations with Beijing, insist they are not worried of becoming another Tibet — the remote land incorporated into China after Mao’s takeover in the late 1940s. That development was one reason why Bhutan drew closer to India in the first place. The world has changed since then, said Thimphu-based political blogger Yeshey Dorji, 63.

    “We are not worried about China entering Bhutan — this is not the 1950s or 1970s,” Mr. Dorji said. “If China wants to enter Bhutan, they will employ economic means — as does India, to subjugate Bhutan. Once our boundary issues are sorted out, China will be as good a neighbor as any other country.”

    • Jabeen Bhatti reported from Berlin; John Dyer in Boston contributed to this report.

  • Inside the Ring: China’s ‘Belt and Road’ propaganda for U.S.

    The Pentagon’s Pacific Command is pushing back against China’s attempt to relabel its global infrastructure development initiative to make it more palatable for strategic messaging in support of Beiji

    The Pentagon’s Pacific Command is pushing back against China’s attempt to relabel its global infrastructure development initiative to make it more palatable for strategic messaging in support of Beijing’s drive for global hegemony.

    The initiative is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s $1 trillion infrastructure investment plan, mostly in the underdeveloped world, that U.S. officials have said is part of Beijing’s drive to expand global influence and military power-projection capabilities.

    The initiative until recently was known in English as the “One Belt, One Road Initiative.”

    However, when Chinese leaders realized use of the word “one” two times in the name might signal to international audiences that China is using the effort to supplant the United States around the world, the translation of the term was changed — but only in English.

    To make the initiative sound less threatening, China changed the name to the shorter “Belt and Road Initiative.”

    The Chinese government then set into motion a Mighty Wurlitzer of propaganda and media outlets — including the Xinhua News Agency internally and the Voice of China international cable and radio outlets — to erase all references to One Belt, One Road.

    After the English rebranding was revealed during a three-star Pacific Command briefing, the command and all U.S. government agencies were urged to stop assisting Chinese propaganda and strategic messaging by avoiding all use of the Beijing-authorized term Belt and Road Initiative.

    The concern is that using the term will fuel international support for Beijing’s narrative that China’s economic system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and its political ideology of one-party communist rule are preferred options for a China-led new world order.

    China’s infrastructure program, along with the Beijing-funded Confucius Institutes on American and foreign college campuses, are being used by Beijing to exploit and gain leverage over free nations.

    China continues to show its disregard for international rules by ignoring U.N. resolutions on North Korea and the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling denying Beijing’s sovereignty claims to own 90 percent of the South China Sea.

    Randy Schriver, assistant defense secretary for Asian and Pacific security affairs, said last month that China’s military is a key player in the Belt and Road Initiative.

    “The military is supportive of a comprehensive strategy that in many ways the leading edge is the predatory economics,” Mr. Schriver said in an interview. “And they’re supportive and complementary of one another. Where China is using economic tools, they’re often doing so in order to create access, potential bases and the like.”

    NORTH KOREA HYBRID WARFARE

    North Korea is engaged in low-intensity conflict that has been dubbed “gray zone” warfare that shifts between periods of virulent anti-U.S. hostility and charm offenses, according to military sources.

    The regime of Kim Jong-un has two overriding strategic goals that are the driving forces behind its hybrid warfare programs: keeping the regime in power and seeking international legitimacy for the regime.

    As part of this information warfare, North Korean operations swing like a pendulum between hostility and charm offensives.

    Two phases of the hybrid warfare were visible over the past several years, when North Korea targeted the United States and South Korea with cyberattacks and other covert efforts that the sources said ultimately led to the impeachment and imprisonment of conservative former South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

    Then after the election of President Trump in 2016 and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, North Korea launched a major charm offensive that is ongoing and seeks to exploit the Trump administration’s desire to negotiate the denuclearization of North Korea.

    “They have been able to go from the brink of war in 2017 with the U.S. and [South Korea] to four historic peace summits all within one year, with all the strategic players vying for their attention,” said one military source.

    The hostility phase, dubbed the “harm campaign,” stretched from 2014 to 2016 and involved antagonistic polices and rhetoric and confrontation, pushing the notion that the United States was preparing for a nuclear war against North Korea. A key characteristic of this phase was missile and nuclear testing.

    In South Korea, the North Koreans used information operations to portray the Park administration as corrupt and in league with a hostile United States and that the government in Seoul had pursued policies that harmed the South Korean people.

    Globally, North Korea stepped up cyberattacks against government and private institutions, notably spreading the WannaCry malware and stealing millions of dollars from banks. By March 2017, North Korea was linked to cyberattacks in 150 nations.

    “From the [North Korean] and Kim Jong-un’s perspective, the impeachment and imprisonment of President Park could be seen as the total success of the [information operations] campaign,” the source said.

    By late 2017, with the election of Mr. Trump and Mr. Moon, North Korea quickly shifted from hostility to engagement, promoting a new propaganda narrative using concepts of “peace, unification and economic cooperation.”

    The new charm campaign was kicked off by North Korea’s participation in the Winter Olympics in South Korea and reached a high point with the summit in Singapore between Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim.

    As a result of the new campaign, North Korea halted its virulent anti-America propaganda inside the country and began promoting closer economic ties with South Korea.

    Missile and nuclear tests also were halted, although cyberattacks, including those involving theft of funds from banks, are continuing.

    North Korea’s goals of regime survival and international acceptance remain unchanged by the shifting hybrid warfare approaches.

    MATTIS TALKS INF WITH NATO

    Defense Secretary Jim Mattis recently held discussions with NATO allies on what to do about Russia’s breaking of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty that bans medium-range nuclear missiles.

    Russia violated the INF treaty by building and deploying large numbers of a new intermediate-range ground-launched cruise missile designated the SSC-8.

    Moscow so far is refusing to give up the illegal missile, and Congress has mandated that the Pentagon begin research into new U.S. intermediate-range missiles that, if deployed, would violate INF limits.

    Mr. Mattis said in Paris earlier this month that for four years the U.S. government discussed the INF violation with Russia with the goal of bringing Moscow back into compliance.

    “This is a treaty that is only signed between Russia and the United States, but it has very, very strong links to the security of Europe and the security of NATO,” he said.

    Mr. Mattis said he sought advice while in Europe on “what do we do with a treaty that two nations entered into, one is still living by — that’s us, the United States — and Russia is not?”

    “I cannot forecast where it will go,” Mr. Mattis said. “It’s a decision for the president. But I can tell you that both on Capitol Hill and in the State Department, there’s a lot of concern about the situation. And I’ll return with the advice of our allies and engage that discussion to determine the way ahead.”

    There is mounting pressure on regional military commanders to jettison the INF treaty.

    In Asia, recently retired Pacific Command commander Adm. Harry Harris, now the U.S. ambassador to South Korea, said he favors getting rid of the INF treaty because of China’s large force of intermediate-range missiles.

    “We have no ground-based capability that can threaten China because of, among other things, our rigid adherence, and rightfully so, to the treaty that we signed onto, the INF treaty,” he said.

    Adm. Harris said the U.S. military is at a disadvantage because of the threat of Chinese missile attacks against both bases and ships.

    The military’s European Command could use new intermediate-range missiles to counter the threat posed by Russia’s illegal SSC-8.

    An administration official said that Mr. Mattis does not favor pulling out of the INF treaty.

    However, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is said to favor ending the INF treaty and moving ahead with building a new intermediate-range missile force.

    • Contact Bill Gertz on Twitter at @BillGertz.

  • IMF plans talks with Pakistan on debt help

    A team of experts from the International Monetary Fund will travel to Islamabad in the coming weeks to discuss a possible financial assistance package for Pakistan — despite warnings from U.S. lawmak

    A team of experts from the International Monetary Fund will travel to Islamabad in the coming weeks to discuss a possible financial assistance package for Pakistan — despite warnings from U.S. lawmakers and the Trump administration that the money would be used to pay off massive debts Pakistan has run up with China.

    IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said in a statement Thursday she had met with top officials of the new government of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, including Finance Minister Asad Umar, on the sidelines of the global finance body’s annual meeting now underway in Bali, Indonesia.

    The delegation “requested financial assistance from the IMF to help address Pakistan’s economic challenge,” Ms. Lagardesaid in a statement.

    “An IMF team will visit Islamabad in the coming weeks to initiate discussions for a possible IMF-supported economic program,” the IMF chief said, adding, “We look forward to our continuing partnership.”

    Pakistan has been a prime recipient of funds and infrastructure financing from China’s ambitious $1 trillion-plus “Belt and Road Initiative,” including the construction of highways, bridges and the strategically located port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea.

    Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on an Asian tour this summer said the Trump administration would “be watching” closely any IMF negotiation with Pakistan.

    “There’s no rationale for IMF tax dollars — and associated with that American dollars that are part of the IMF funding — … to go to bail out Chinese bondholders or China itself,” Mr. Pompeo told the financial network CNBC in July.

    Pakistan officials later claimed they had received assurances from Washington that the Trump administration would not veto an IMF financial package.

  • DHS says China-linked hackers behind active espionage campaign targeting critical U.S. sectors

    Critical infrastructure sectors in the U.S. and abroad have been targeted by an active cyber-espionage campaign previously traced by private security researchers to China, the Trump administration sai

    Critical infrastructure sectors in the U.S. and abroad have been targeted by an active cyber-espionage campaign previously traced by private security researchers to China, the Trump administration said Wednesday.

    The Department of Homeland Security warned that actors associated with an advanced persistent threat, or APT – a label applied to sophisticated, typically state-sponsored hacking groups – have set their sights on potential victims in the U.S. information technology, energy, healthcare, communications and critical manufacturing sectors.

    Known by names such as APT10 and “MenuPass,” the group was the subject of a previous alert issued by DHS in April 2017 that warned of an emerging, sophisticated hacking campaign that had compromised victims including IT service providers, putting its perpetrators in place to possible leverage that access for subsequent attacks.

    Eighteen months later, DHS said in a pair of advisories that the same hacking group is conducting an ongoing campaign specifically targeting global managed service providers (MSPs), or companies that offer online cloud-based services, and that it was actively using stolen credentials to “expand unauthorized access, maintain persistence and exfiltrate data from targeted organizations.”

    “Given the increasingly important role that managed services providers play in supporting business processes and operations in today’s business environment, a threat affecting one entity can have cascading effects across many sectors,” said Christopher Krebs, the National Protection and Programs Directorate undersecretary in charge of NCCIC.

    “These cyber threat actors are still active and we strongly encourage our partners in government and industry to work together to defend against this threat,” he said in a statement.

    The campaign is being conducted specifically for the purposes of cyber espionage and intellectual property theft, and DHS is aware of a limited number of U.S. victims, the agency said.

    According to DHS, APT10 hackers can remain undetected after breaching targets including global IT networks by using legitimate credentials to masquerade their activity. Once inside, the hackers can then implant malware or use other means to exfiltrate data.

    “By using compromised legitimate MSP credentials (e.g., administration, domain, user), APT actors can move bidirectionally between an MSP and its customers’ shared networks,” said one of the advisories. “Bidirectional movement between networks allows APT actors to easily obfuscate detection measures and maintain a presence on victims’ networks.”

    Following publication of the initial DHS report in 2017, security researchers for companies including Accenture, FireEye, PwC and BAE Systems connected the hacking group to China. CrowdStrike, a Silicon Valley company that reached a similar conclusion, previously linked APT10 to the Chinese Ministry of State Security, a foreign intelligence agency akin to the U.S. National Security Agency.

  • Meng Hongwei, Interpol president, reported missing after trip to China

    A French judicial official says the president of Interpol has been reported missing after traveling to China.

    PARIS (AP) — A French judicial official says the president of Interpol has been reported missing after traveling to China.

    The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for an ongoing investigation, said Meng Hongwei’s wife reported him missing on Friday.

    The official said the Interpol chief left France, where the international police organization is based, and arrived in China at the end of September. She said there had been no news of him since.

    The 64-year-old Meng Hongwei was elected president of Interpol in November 2016. His term is due to run until 2020.

    A vice minister of public security in China, he previously served as vice chairman of the national narcotics control commission and director of the National Counter-Terrorism Office for China.