Author: Frank V. Vernuccio, Jr.

The same media, and the same politicians, that hid Biden’s incapacity and ignored evidence of his corruption are now seeking to portray any inquest into those crimes as nothing more than revenge. It is part of a pattern of Democratic Party hyper-partisanship and cover-ups that has, for decades, harmed America.

Much of the media and academia casts the Democratic Party and its leaders in a soft glow of praise and nostalgia. But the facts have become too vast to ignore. The organization’s history of endorsing slavery, segregation, (did you know that a higher percentage of Republicans voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than Democrats?) socialism, open borders, and now, antisemitism (In 2023, a significant number of Democrat representatives refused to vote for a House resolution condemning antisemitism voting “present” instead of supporting it.) has been swept under the rug.

While individual politicians on both sides have committed electoral misdeeds, it is the Democrats who have institutionalized it and made it a key part of their campaign strategies. The use of Covid as an excuse to ignore ballot safeguards was the latest iteration, but it follows in the footsteps of Democrat foul play involving ballot harvesting, fighting against voter ID, preserving inaccurate registration rolls, and casting ballots for the dead. The expulsion of reporters and poll watchers from key precincts in the 2020 election followed by the “discovery” of boxes of ballots in the dark of night (supporting Biden) in that election was a violation the media refused to cover, and ridiculing those that discussed it.  It is similar to the aspersions cast on the few sources, led by the New York Post, that reported on the Hunter Biden laptop story.  

Unsavory tactics have been a hallmark of the party. Democratic leadership has condoned or ignored the aggressive tactics of pro-Hamas demonstrators, in much the same way they did with Antifa and Black Lives Matter. Having failed to forcefully condemn the use of violence as a political tool, and having welcomed hard-core socialists into their ranks, they have encouraged the growth of unlawful tactics and the rise to power of those who use them. Democrat leadership has engaged in verbal threats against free speech (Senator Schumer has stated that “I believe there ought to be limits because the First Amendment is not absolute. …We have libel laws. We have anti-pornography laws. All of those are limits on the First Amendment. Well, what could be more important than the wellspring of our democracy? And certain limits on First Amendment rights that if left unfettered, destroy the equality — any semblance of equality in our democracy — of course would be allowed by the Constitution. And the new theorists on the Supreme Court who don’t believe that, I am not sure where their motivation comes from, but they are just so wrong. They are just so wrong.”

Notably, that same Senator Schumer issued verbal threats against Supreme Court Justices who considering voting against his position on a legal issue. As noted in Scotusblog, “Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., turned and gestured toward the court building. He said, “I want to tell you, Gorsuch; I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind. And you will pay the price.”

Concerns regarding the ethics of the Biden White House, and Biden himself, significantly predate the latest revelations about his medical concerns. The Biden family’s financial relationship with China goes back as far as his vice-presidency, and included significant financial gain in return for no discernable service (other than influence peddling.) It is remarkable to realize that one of the Trump impeachment trials was based, during his first term in office, on his attempt to research Biden corruption in Ukraine. It remains to be seen whether the latest revelations about Biden, and Democratic Party, corruption will lead to reforms.

Illustration: Pixabay

Iran’s nuclear weapons program has met face-to-face with Israel’s Operation rising Lion as well as America’s B2 bombers.

In an aerial bombardment campaign, not seen since the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988, Israel took over command of the skies above Iran in just under two days and left the country weaker. It was a well-planned operation that earned Israel air superiority with Iran exhibiting military underperformance. Zohar Palti, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy says that the strike’s success presented a “profound shock to the [Iranian] regime and its public.”

Members of the intelligence community in Washington say it is understandable that Israel could no longer tolerate Iran’s growing stockpile of fissile material. With Iran’s April 2024 attack, Palti says “Iran crossed a major threshold by directly attacking Israel. That strike shattered a psychological barrier, intensified Israeli fears, and ultimately led Jerusalem to conclude that it had to take action against Iran’s nuclear progress.”

Tehran’s stockpile serves as the basis for a dangerous and large nuclear weapons arsenal that could rapidly add to the regime’s growing missile stocks. “Israel’s main goal is to inflict maximum damage on the Iranian nuclear and missile programs and the military-industrial infrastructure supporting them,” says Michael Eisenstadt, author of “Attacking Iran’s Nuclear Program: The Complex Calculus of Preventive Action.” Israel’s Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi recently pointed out that the Israeli leadership  recognizes that historical data suggest an air campaign alone cannot dismantle a dispersed, hardened and buried nuclear weapons program. It suggests his country’s intent may be, in part, to impose sufficient costs on Iran to induce a return to negotiations under more favorable terms. Tehran, Eisenstadt says, will be in even greater need of post-conflict sanctions relief to preserve regime stability and carry out reconstruction. 

One unanswered question is what will occur next – did the recent strike trigger an escalation or will Iran decide it has no choice but to sit down for talks with Israel. If Iran won’t negotiate, Israel’s “mowing the grass” efforts alone may not prove sufficient to stabilize the threat should Iran decide to rebuild its nuclear program. “Three distinct scenarios are possible: a tenuous ceasefire, likely followed by renewed Iranian efforts to rebuild its nuclear and missile programs, with Israel taking steps to disrupt these efforts; renewed nuclear negotiations as a result of Iranian military exhaustion, fear of domestic unrest, and/or fear of U.S. military intervention; or regime collapse,” says Eisenstadt. Although regime collapse is unlikely, events are unfolding among Iran’s citizenry that suggest the populace is not fully supportive of regime policies.

Military experts in Washington point out that Israel’s latest air campaign appears to have severely damaged Iran’s nuclear weapons program, with missile salvos aimed precisely at the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command centers, missile systems, nuclear facilities, and state broadcasting facilities, among other critical infrastructure. “Either Tehran accepts a ceasefire in the next couple days, or Israel will put all military options on the table, including energy infrastructure, political leadership, and military bases,” says Palti. Israel is prepared to conduct strikes on oil and natural gas sites, regime focal points in the provinces, and senior leadership, he adds, in an attempt to change Iran’s behavior across the region. One military analyst suggests that the Trump Administration, in an attempt to draw the conflict to a close, is considering backing a strike on Iran’s most fortified nuclear site, the Fordow enrichment plant. 

In recent days Iran has quietly approached its Arab neighbors suggesting it may be preparing to halt hostilities and is willing to negotiate if Israel agrees to cease aggressive action toward Iran. Officials in Tehran appear to be concluding that if it refuses to negotiate, Washington will be drawn into the conflict – a war it is not prepared to fight right now. Regime survival is at the center of a decision by Iran’s leadership. Since last spring, Israeli military leaders have expressed increased confidence that it could face off with Iran’s network of terrorist and nonstate actors, defend against future ballistic missile strikes and effectively attack inside Iran. Time is growing short for the regime to decide on a course of action that will guarantee regime survival. With domestic pressure rising inside the country it is a rare diplomatic opening that, hopefully, Iran will accept. Washington also needs to convince Israel that an immediate truce followed by negotiations could compel Iran to shutter its nuclear program, halt missile production, disassemble its proxy network. US priorities in the region this week are centered on protecting American personnel and preventing the expansion of the conflict. According to one analyst, “It is time to assess whether US red lines have already been crossed.” The US Embassy branch in Tel Aviv was damaged by an Iranian ballistic missile, and Iran sent drones on suicide missions in attempts to destroy the US Consulate in Erbil, Iraq and kill US service members at al-Asad Air Base. One more misstep by any party involved in the conflict could lead to widespread disaster. The options are narrowing for Iran.

Photo: Pixabay

The Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party has released a major new report exposing the CCP’s lates tool for spying, stealing, and subverting U.S. exports and control restrictions. We conclude our summary of that report.

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

Recommendation I: Take swift action to expand export controls, improve export control enforcement, and address risks from PRC artificial intelligence models.

1. Increase the effectiveness of U.S. export control policy by providing increased funding to the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) to expand export control analysis, techniques, and enforcement. BIS’s budget, and therefore its personnel and analytic capabilities, have not kept pace with the increase in export control requirements.
2. Further restrict the PRC’s capability to develop and deploy advanced AI models that threaten our national security by: a. Maintaining existing export controls and expanding such controls to include additional chips that perform well in inference or training (e.g. the Nvidia H20); b. Maintaining and expanding exports controls on semiconductor manufacturing equipment that can be used to produce such chips, including through enhanced cooperation with Japanese and Dutch authorities.
3. Impose remote access controls on all data center, compute clusters, and models trained with the use of US-origin GPUs and other U.S.-origin data center accelerants, including but not limited to TPUs.
4. Improve the ability of U.S. export controls to keep pace with technology developments by directing BIS to create additional definitions beyond computational operations, such as descriptions of the capability (e.g. “capable of assisting in the creation of weapons”), that can be used to describe AI models with national security significance.
5. Improve enforcement of export controls by creating incentives for industry insiders and external parties to report export control violations. Congress should establish a whistleblower incentive program. Individuals who report export control violations could receive whistleblower protections, as well as some monetary value of any sanctions that result from their report.
6. Consider requiring chipmakers and semiconductor manufacturing equipment firms to track end-users of appropriate chips and equipment, including by filing reports with BIS regarding end-users of designated products and equipment, including servicing support contracts.
7. Prevent export control circumvention and chip smuggling by scrutinizing chip exports to jurisdictions with a high risk of diversion to the PRC, such as Singapore, including by establishing bilateral and multilateral law enforcement partnerships and increasing prosecutions.
8. Improve enforcement of export controls by directing BIS to require companies to install on-chip location verification capabilities in order to receive an export license for chips restricted from export to any country with a high risk of diversion to the PRC
9. Ensure the secure and safe use of AI systems by directing a federal agency (e.g., NIST and AISI, CISA, NSA) to develop physical and cybersecurity standards and benchmarks for frontier AI developers to protect against model distillation, exfiltration, and other risks.
10. Address national security risks and the PRC’s strategy to capture AI market share with low-cost, open-source models by placing a federal procurement prohibition on PRC-origin AI models, including a prohibition on the use of such models on government devices.

Recommendation II: Prevent and prepare for strategic surprise related to advanced AI.

1. The emergence of DeepSeek is a warning to U.S. policy makers that the PRC remains capable of rapidly innovating in today’s most advanced technologies despite U.S. efforts to stop them. As AI continues to advance in capability, U.S. departments and agencies must improve their piecemeal approach to prevent strategic surprises that may prove destabilizing. AI will affect many aspects of government functioning, including aspects relating to defense and national security. Effective interagency coordination is required across relevant departments and agencies to promote AI innovation and adoption, monitor adversarial progress in AI, prepare for the use of AI capabilities by adversaries, examine how the U.S. can leverage AI defensively, coordinate with U.S. commercial AI companies on developing standardized benchmarks and evaluate frontier AI models for safety and security, and perform other relevant tasks.
2. The potential for AI strategic surprise is most acute in the national security space. An AI weaponized and deployed by a U.S. adversary may prove to be a decisive advantage before a conflict starts. Therefore, we recommend that the national security agencies:
3. Monitor, through the Commerce Department and other appropriate departments and agencies, PRC AI progress toward highly advanced AI systems (such as artificial general intelligence). This work could involve identifying entities, researchers, data centers, energy projects, and chip smuggling networks that are most critical to PRC progress toward highly advanced AI. b. Incorporate AI as a factor into operational planning activities, such as educational gaming, that focuses on US-PRC competition in order to prepare for and anticipate the use of advanced AI by both U.S. and adversaries within and to deter a future conflict. c. Elevate the weight of national security considerations within interagency export control deliberations by changing the DoD’s Defense Technology Security Administration (DTSA) director from a career SES position to a Senate-confirmed position equivalent to an Under Secretary of Defense, while maintaining its field component status. d. Identify plausible national security challenges that could emerge relating to US-PRC AI competition toward advanced AI systems (such as artificial general intelligence) and prepare contingency plans for how to address such challenges

Illustration: Pixabay

DeepSeek Manipulates Information Pursuant to Chinese Law

It has been reported that the DeepSeek chatbot alters or suppresses responses to topics deemed politically sensitive by the CCP in 85% of cases, directly aligning outputs with Beijing’s censorship directives. This is not an accident—it is a calculated effort to expand the PRC’s control over global information. Moreover, it does this without any disclosure to users regarding how specific outputs have been altered pursuant to PRC law. Unlike American AI companies, which impose safeguards to limit genuinely harmful content, DeepSeek functions as a digital enforcer of the CCP, suppressing discussions on topics such as democracy, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and PRC human rights abuses. The model’s responses do not just echo Beijing’s messaging—they actively erase dissent, ensuring that only Party-approved narratives reach users.

Deepseek’s censorship operates on two levels: automated filtering erases responses before they even appear, while built-in biases systematically distort the AI’s overall behavior. The platform is designed to ensure the AI aligns with the CCP’s ideological and political objectives. PRC laws mandate that AI-generated content must reflect “core socialist values,” support “correct political direction,” and avoid material that could “incite subversion of state power.

Beijing also actively shapes how AI systems interpret, generate, and distribute information. Chinese regulations require firms to ensure algorithm “controllability” to give the PRC government direct influence over AI decisionmaking and allow authorities to modify AI behavior as needed. DeepSeek’s structure makes it inherently vulnerable to state manipulation, and without transparency into the extent of control exercised, its outputs must be assumed to serve Beijing’s strategic interests. Unlike AI models in open societies, DeepSeek exists in an ecosystem where compliance with state ideology is a prerequisite for survival. The result is an AI chatbot that cannot be trusted to provide an unbiased or unfiltered perspective, making it fundamentally compromised from its inception. To be clear, congressional efforts to date have focused on the data and security vulnerabilities associated with this app. However, it is important for the American people to also be aware of other challenges posed by the emergence of DeepSeek, such as its operator’s mandated compliance with PRC laws regarding covert information manipulation.

The danger is clear: millions of Americans are now using an AI system designed to serve the CCP. Beijing is not just censoring the internet at home. It is embedding its Great Firewall into platforms Americans use every day.

1. DeepSeek’s Potential Unauthorized Distillation of U.S. AI Models

In the leadup to the release of its R1 model, there were allegations that DeepSeek engaged in a practice called “model distillation,” which involves the systematic extraction and replication of the reasoning capabilities of existing AI models to expedite their own development at reduced costs. The Select Committee—following meetings with a number of U.S. industry leaders—has determined that it is highly likely that DeepSeek used model distillation techniques to create an imitation AI model, copying leading U.S. AI models’ capabilities and violating U.S. companies’ terms of service.

Specifically, DeepSeek personnel infiltrated U.S. AI models and fraudulently evaded protective measures under aliases and purchased dozens of accounts using a sophisticated network of international banking channels. This allowed DeepSeek personnel to mask their identities, conceal their transactions, and avoid detection.

U.S. industry leaders told the Select Committee that they had “high confidence” that this has occurred. In one case, OpenAI wrote to the Select Committee that:

Through our review, we found that DeepSeek employees circumvented guardrails in OpenAI’s models to extract reasoning outputs, which can be used in a technique known as ‘distillation’ to accelerate the development of advanced model reasoning capabilities at a lower cost. Observations of DeepSeek’s R1 model also indicate instances of reasoning structures and phrase patterns that align with the behavior of OpenAI’s models. Additionally, we found that DeepSeek employees used OpenAI models to grade model responses and filter and transform training data, which are key steps in the AI development process. DeepSeek likely also used leading open-source AI models to create high-quality synthetic data.

Indeed, under Section 2—Usage Requirements—of OpenAI’s Terms of Use, the company expressly prohibits the use of its service to develop or improve competing modules. It states:

(f) You may not (i) use output from the Services to develop models that compete with OpenAI; (ii) use automated or programmatic methods to extract data from the Services; or (iii) use the Services to discover information about the models underlying the Services

OpenAI told the Select Committee that the first company to deploy a model replicating OpenAI’s o-series reasoning models was not a U.S. lab—it was DeepSeek

• DeepSeek’s Use of Export Controlled Nvidia Chips to Power its Model

DeepSeek’s AI model appears to be powered by advanced chips provided by American semiconductor giant Nvidia and reportedly utilizes tens of thousands of chips that are currently restricted from export to the PRC. Analytics firm SemiAnalysis has estimated that DeepSeek has at least 60,000 Nvidia chips, with orders for thousands more Nvidia H20 chips. The company estimates that DeepSeek is likely to have current access to the following Nvidia chips

• A100: 10,000

• H20: 30,000

• H800: 10,000

• H100: 10,000

Nvidia designed and manufactured many of these chips to create the most sophisticated possible chip while skirting U.S. export controls. This has allowed these chips to be exported to China as the U.S. government develops stricter restrictions. Since March 2024, it is estimated that Nvidia has produced over 1 million chips for the Chinese market

Setting aside the troubling practice of American companies deliberately and knowingly supplying the most advanced chips permissible under the U.S. export control regime to a foreign adversary, there is growing evidence of a coordinated effort by DeepSeek and other Chinese companies to violate U.S. law by illicitly importing banned chips into the PRC

In 2022, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security announced sweeping export controls on advanced computing chips, looking to curb China’s access to the cutting-edge semiconductors crucial for artificial intelligence and military applications. Anticipating these new restrictions, Nvidia’s Chief Executive Officer, Jensen Huang, directed the company’s Head of Engineering for Graphics Processing to design a chip that would allow Nvidia to avoid the export control ban. Within a month of the export control announcement, Nvidia had successfully developed a modified chip that, according to analysts, was nearly as powerful as its top-tier processors at the time—undermining the intent of U.S. policy.

Another avenue in which DeepSeek and other Chinese firms gain access to highly sensitive chips is through intermediary countries that do not face the same export control restrictions as the PRC. These intermediary nations can serve as transshipment points, where companies can illegally purchase restricted chips before rerouting them to their final destinations.

Following DeepSeek’s release, Singaporean authorities charged three individuals—including one Chinese national—in connection with the illegal export of advanced Nvidia chips to DeepSeek in China in violation of U.S. export controls. Reports indicate that Singaporean law enforcement raided 22 locations and arrested at least nine individuals involved in the illicit network. These arrests occurred immediately after Chairman Moolenaar and Ranking Member Krishnamoorthi sent a bipartisan letter in January highlighting, among other matters, the threat of chip smuggling via Singapore

The Wall Street Journal further reported that “Chinese buyers are circumventing U.S. export controls to order Nvidia’s latest artificial-intelligence chips.” This aligns with growing concerns that Chinese companies, often with state backing, are systematically working to evade U.S. restrictions and continue acquiring advanced semiconductor technology. The U.S. Department of Commerce is currently investigating whether DeepSeek illegally imported exportcontrolled Nvidia chips from Singapore.

The Report concludes tomorrow

Illustration: Pixabay

The Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party has released a major new report exposing the CCP’s lates tool for spying, stealing, and subverting U.S. exports and control restrictions.  We continue our summary of that report.

“Some in the industry have claimed that the U.S. holds an 18-month AI lead, but that obfuscates reality—it’s closer to three months.”

DeepSeek represents a profound threat to our nation’s security. Although it presents itself as just another AI chatbot, offering users a way to generate text and answer questions, closer inspection reveals that the app siphons data back to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), creates security vulnerabilities for its users, and relies on a model that covertly censors and manipulates information pursuant to Chinese law. Equally troubling, the model appears to have been built using stolen U.S. technology on the back of U.S. semiconductor chips that are prohibited from sale to China without an export license and when it was released, PRC-affiliated social media accounts amplified and celebrated the model, according to Graphika research. This report documents some of the risks DeepSeek poses and explains how its development is based on common Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tactics designed to unlawfully undermine U.S. technological leadership and critical American policies to protect national security.

The Committee’s investigation found:

 1. DeepSeek funnels Americans’ data to the PRC through backend infrastructure connected to a U.S. government-designated Chinese military company.

 2. DeepSeek covertly manipulates the results it presents to align with CCP propaganda, as required by Chinese law.

 3. It is highly likely that DeepSeek used unlawful model distillation techniques to create its model, stealing from leading U.S. AI models.

 4. DeepSeek’s AI model appears to be powered by advanced chips provided by American semiconductor giant Nvidia and reportedly utilizes tens of thousands of chips that are currently restricted from export to the PRC

The Committee therefore makes the following recommendations:

1. Take swift action to expand export controls, improve export control enforcement, and address risks from PRC AI models.

 2. Prevent and prepare for strategic surprise related to advanced AI.

KEY FINDINGS

1. Spying: DeepSeek App Funnels Americans’ Data to China

DeepSeek collects detailed user data, which it transmits via backend infrastructure that is connected to China Mobile, a U.S. government-designated Chinese Military Company.

DeepSeek acquires extensive personal data on the Americans who use the chatbot, including chat history, device details, and even the way a person types. It then, by its own admission, funnels the data directly back to China, creating a pipeline of problematic foreign data access

All data uploaded to servers in the PRC is subject to the country’s sweeping cybersecurity and intelligence laws, which compel companies to share data with state authorities.

DeepSeek also integrates tracking tools from Chinese tech giants, including ByteDance, Baidu, and Tencent, some of which have been red-flagged by the U.S. Government for serious national security concerns. This entangles DeepSeek’s data harvesting architecture with PRC companies known for their roles in surveillance and CCP control, heightening the risk that foreign adversary entities could gain access to Americans’ private information. ByteDance has been caught tracking journalists and deemed a foreign adversary-controlled entity after a multi-year investigatory effort by multiple branches of government; Baidu has played a central role in the PRC’s censorship regime; and Tencent has been deemed a Chinese military company by the Department of Defense. Together, these firms constitute a well-documented apparatus of surveillance, censorship, and data exploitation—which DeepSeek reinforces.

Moreover, cybersecurity researchers at Feroot Security uncovered hardcoded links in DeepSeek’s web login page that directly connect it to China Mobile, a state-owned telecommunications company also designated as a Chinese military company by the U.S. Department of Defense, as mentioned. China Mobile is explicitly tasked by the CCP with supporting China’s broader information control and intelligence objectives. While the extent of data transmission remains unconfirmed, DeepSeek’s integration with China Mobile infrastructure raises serious concerns about potential foreign access to Americans’ private information.

China Mobile’s threat to Americans’ privacy and national security has been clear for years. In 2019, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) banned China Mobile from operating in the United States, warning that “unauthorized access to customer…data could create irreparable damage to U.S. national security.” It was subsequently delisted from the New York Stock Exchange in 2021 and officially designated a national security threat in 2022.21 By relying on China Mobile’s infrastructure, DeepSeek ensures that Americans’ data is stored and transmitted through networks controlled by the Chinese government.

Making matters worse, researchers have found that DeepSeek does little to protect the information it collects. Unlike most platforms that encrypt sensitive transmissions, DeepSeek sends much of its data without meaningful security measures, exposing it to interception before it even reaches the PRC. That practice not only increases the risk of foreign exploitation but also raises questions about why such an application would be designed this way in the first place.

For these reasons, it is evident that the DeepSeek website and app acts as a direct channel for foreign intelligence gathering on Americans’ private data. With its direct ties to China’s security and surveillance infrastructure and its unchecked data collection practices, it can function as an open-source intelligence asset feeding American user data into an adversarial system.

The Report continues tomorrow.

Illustration: Pixabay

Many analysts believe that within the next two years, China’s unprecedented military buildup will have reached a point where it no longer worries about American interference in its attempt to conquer Taiwan.

John Noh, performing the duties of assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, described Beijing’s unprecedented military buildup, developing a large and advanced arsenal of nuclear, conventional, cyber and space capabilities.

Appearing before tbe House Armed Services Committee, Noh warned that “China aims to dominate the Indo-Pacific region and displace the United States as the world’s most powerful nation,” noting that Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027.

Noh said to counter this growing threat, the U.S. must reestablish deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region with combat-credible military forces, rebalance burden sharing with allies and partners and invest in the U.S. defense industrial base. 

“Stronger allies lead to stronger alliances, and stronger alliances deter aggression and create dilemmas for our adversaries,” he said. 

Navy Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said Indo-Pacom faces a confluence of challenges. 

“Foremost among them is China’s increasingly aggressive and assertive behavior. Their unprecedented military modernization encompassing advancements in artificial intelligence, [hypersonic missiles], space-based capabilities, among others, poses a real and serious threat to our homeland, to our allies and to our partners,” he said. 

In 2024, the PLA demonstrated growing capabilities through persistent operations against Taiwan, escalating by 300%, Paparo said. China’s aggressive military actions near Taiwan are not just exercises; they are rehearsals.  

While the PLA attempts to intimidate the people of Taiwan and demonstrate coercive capability, these actions can backfire, drawing increased global attention and accelerating Taiwan’s own defensive preparations, Paparo said.

China is outproducing the United States in air, maritime and missile capability while also accelerating its space and counter-space capabilities, he said, adding that it poses real and serious challenges to U.S. military superiority but also presents opportunities for reform and for establishing enduring advantage. 

There are also other threats in the region, Paparo said. 

“North Korea’s development of advanced nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles — including a new intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States — poses a direct threat to our homeland and to our allies,” he said. 

Regarding Russia’s influence in the region, Paparo noted that North Korea is receiving military support and assistance to advance its own military capabilities, and the growing military cooperation between Russia and China has added another layer of complexity and created a compounding challenge. 

He said that Indo-Pacom is tasked with deterring threats and aiding regional stability while ensuring the ability to prevail in conflict. Last year, the command conducted 120 joint exercises, 20 of which were significant exercises with allies and partners. 

“Though we face serious challenges, the joint force remains confident, resolute and determined to prevail. Deterrence remains our highest duty,” Paparo said.

Noh’s comments were echoed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who warned that China poses a threat to people and peace in the Americas as well. At a meeting with Peruvian officials.

“Beijing is investing and operating in the region for unfair economic gain, and together, in order to prevent conflict, we need to robustly deter China’s potential threats in the hemisphere. So we look forward to being partners with you in that regard,” Hegseth said.  

Reuters reports that in early May,  U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Doug Wickert told civic leaders in the vicinity of  Edwards Air Force Base in California that if China attacks Taiwan in the coming years, they should be prepared for their immediate region to suffer potentially massive disruption from the very start.

“If this war happens, it’s going to happen here,” Wickert told them, suggesting attacks could include a cyber offensive that included long-term disruption to power supplies and other national infrastructure. “It’s going to come to us. That is why we are having this conversation… The more ready we are, the more likely to change Chairman Xi’s calculus.”

Photo: U.S. Department of Defense