Author: Daria Novak

The West just celebrated the 2022 New Year. China will celebrate its Lunar New Year Festival on February 1 this year. In between are a few weeks where no one knows if the world will become embroiled in conflicts ranging from Russian military intrusions in the Ukraine to Chinese naval activity near Taiwan. The political machinations of world leaders of late increases the risk of a regional war with the potential to morph into a global conflagration. The end game may be decided by which political leader has the political willpower to end it.

Not one to be left out of global leadership discussions, Chinese President Xi Jinping has added to the risk level recently with renewed demands that Indonesia, with the 7^th largest GDP in the world, halt all oil and natural gas development around the Natuna Islands in the South China Sea. China also is claiming the Japanese-owned Senkaku Islands as its own. What is China planning in its political and military maneuvering throughout the Asian waters? Depending on the military analyst asked it spans the spectrum from Chinese blustering for international prestige to an expanded attempt by the CCP leadership for global hegemony.

According to the publication Nikkei Asia, China is claiming Indonesia is infringing on its territorial waters by drilling in the South China Sea around the Natuna Islands. In response, China has sent Coast Guard vessels into the area to intimidate Indonesia. Tensions around these atolls has been escalating over the last two years. Indonesia sought the assistance of the UN in May 2020 to refute Beijing’s illegitimate claims. China then demanded Indonesia negotiate the issue. Jakarta refused to comply with Xi Jinping’s summons. The UN has defined China’s claim of the “9-dash line” demarcating its coastal territory as invalid under international law. China doesn’t recognize the UN determination and continues to threaten Indonesia and other countries in the region.

The United States supports Indonesia’s claim and is working with the government to build a coast guard training facility near the disputed islands. The two countries held their largest-ever joint military exercise simulating island defenses last summer. Although Indonesian officials are concerned about China’s future intensions in the area, it leadership is attempting to restrain its response to lower tensions between the two nations. 

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Tensions between China and Japan also are on the rise. “From the beginning of the year through Sunday, Chinese Coast Guard vessels have entered Japan’s territorial waters near the Senkakus in the East China Sea a total of 40 days,” according to the Japan Coast Guard. China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency pointed out that in November President Xi Jinping became personally involved in what it calls an “arbitration” over the Japanese islands. Xinhua stated: “”Xi has spearheaded strategic and tactical planning and, if necessary, [is] personally intervened.” It appears China is not willing to back away from its aggressive behavior anywhere in Asia.

Michael Auslin, of the Hoover Institution, warns that the United States and other countries should not back down in the face of Chinese adventurism or its domestic human rights abuses in 2022. In a December article he says: “The 428-1 vote on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, the second in as many years, is the clearest indicator yet of how a new era in American relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is developing.”  The current public-private sector divide over Chinese foreign policy is a challenge for American corporations and the government. It “reveals a larger fracture in American society. It’s one that presages an ongoing battle between those who seek to reduce the threat to US interests posed by our half-century-old China policy and those who are too deeply embedded with the PRC to easily extricate themselves or who continue to benefit from unlimited engagement with China,” according to Auslin. American companies profiting from China may be hard-pressed to pull out of the country even with its aggression toward American friends and allies in the region. Austin says that “In the topsy-turvy world of US-China relations… even a commonsense attempt to deny Beijing its blood profits becomes entangled in quarterly bottom lines and distasteful horse trading.” At some point the US will have to decide the importance of its Asian alliances and business profits in comparison to curtailing to rise of an anti-democratic Chinese hegemon.

Photo: China Defence Ministry

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. 

Is Putin hiding his plans in plain sight? According to Niall Ferguson, Putin is going to war in the Ukraine. He calls it the opposite of a surprise attack. Last July in an extensive essay covering the topic, Putin wrote that there is a unity between the Ukrainians and Russian people and that any independence was an unsustainable anomaly. In recent months Putin has written and spoken about crossing “red lines” and the implication for the Ukrainian people. As recently as the end of November Putin declared that “if some kind of strike systems appear on the territory of Ukraine … we will have to then create something similar in relation to those who threaten us.” Last month Putin made six demands of the West, including a requirement that NATO must not accept new members and that the US stay out of Russia’s way.

Ferguson suggests that Putin’s demands, in aggregate, equate to a new Yalta-style agreement and erode the security of the former Warsaw Pact countries. During Putin’s traditional end of the year press conference, he was asked by a reporter if he was angry. Putin quoted the 19th-century tsarist foreign minister Prince Gorchakov by saying: “Russia is not angry, it is concentrating” — as in “concentrating its forces.” The question some in Washington are asking is how far is Putin willing to go. Is the Russian leader intent on reinventing a Soviet style state or does he see himself as a modern day Peter the Great. Indications are that Putin is following in the footsteps of the 17^th century Tzarist leader. 

“Putin does not need to go to war in the style of 1939, with columns of tanks rumbling across the Ukrainian fields. A full-scale land invasion is just one of his options. He could also launch an amphibious assault on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, or a precision bombing and missile campaign against key Ukrainian targets. He could seize additional territory in Ukraine’s eastern region by ramping up the weaponry of its militias in the region. Or he could launch large-scale cyberattacks, crippling Ukrainian communications and infrastructure,” according to Ferguson. 

If recent military actions in 2014 in Ukraine and 20215 in Syria are any indication of Russian modus operandi, then the world can expect to see a slow and steady increase in its miliary activity, not a large-scale invasion. In August and December 2021, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba sought to join the EU and NATO as a Member country. No one in the West responded with an invitation. As long as Russia occupies Ukrainian territory Kiev, despite its desire, cannot qualify for NATO membership.

Putin knows that according to NATO rules, to join the Alliance, nations are expected to respect the values of the North Atlantic Treaty, and to meet certain political, economic and military criteria, set out in the Alliance’s 1995 Study on Enlargement. These criteria include a functioning democratic political system based on a market economy; fair treatment of minority populations; a commitment to resolve conflicts peacefully; an ability and willingness to make a military contribution to NATO operations; and a commitment to democratic civil-military relations and institutions.

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Exactly four weeks ago, President Biden publicly admitted that the United States will not send troops to back up the Ukrainian government should Russia decide to invade. According to a senior State Department official testifying in a vaguely worded statement before Congress in December, the US would use sanctions to isolate “Russia completely from the global financial system.” Left unanswered was how the US would go about the task. Sanctions would impact the US as well as Russia. Ferguson points out that “Russia is aware of this, particularly after 2018 sanctions on the aluminum company United Co. Rusal International PJSC shocked global aluminum markets and forced the U.S. to backtrack.” While the US and Europe make bold statements about potential actions should Putin make moves on Ukraine “The weakest link in the West’s strategy is, of course, the dependence of the European Union on Russian natural gas shipments, which accounted for 43% of the EU’s total gas imports in 2020,” according to Ferguson. 

President Biden’s New Year’s Eve call with Putin did little to quash fears of future Russian military action against Ukraine. With 100,000 Russian troops forward-based at the border, there is little doubt as we enter 2022 that Putin is not going to heed Biden’s suggestion that he deescalate the tense situation. According to Joseph Clark and Ben Wolfgang, writing in the Washington Times, “U.S. officials acknowledged late Thursday that there may be “areas where agreements may be impossible,” but they held out hope that the Jan. 10 talks in Geneva could produce a resolution.”

That hope looks as bleak as a Moscow winter.

Photo: Russian Defence Ministry

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. 

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government concludes its presentation of the Department of Defense Report on China’s military power.

THE PLA’S GROWING GLOBAL PRESENCE

• CCP leaders believe that the PRC’s global activities, including the PLA’s growing global presence, are necessary to create an international environment conducive to China’s national rejuvenation.
•  The CCP has tasked the PLA to develop the capability to project power outside China’s borders and immediate periphery to secure the PRC’s growing overseas interests and advance its foreign policy goals.

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China’s Global Military Activities

• The PRC has increasingly determined that its armed forces should take a more active role in advancing its foreign policy goals. In 2020, a revision to the National Defense Law tasked the PLA with defending “overseas development interests,” further cementing the PLA’s involvement in the PRC’s global economic and diplomatic activities.
• As the PRC’s overseas interests have grown over the past two decades, the Party’s leaders have increasingly pushed the PLA to think about how it will develop the capabilities to operate beyond China’s borders and its immediate periphery to advance and defend these interests. This has led to the PRC’s greater willingness to use military coercion—and inducements—to advance its global security and development interests.
• In 2020, the PLA continued to normalize its presence overseas and build closer ties to foreign militaries, primarily through COVID-19 related aid.

                                                      PLA’s Overseas Basing and Access

•  The PRC is seeking to establish a more robust overseas logistics and basing infrastructure to allow the PLA to project and sustain military power at greater distances.
•  Beyond its base in Djibouti, the PRC is pursuing additional military facilities to support naval, air, ground, cyber, and space power projection. The PRC has likely considered a number of countries, including Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates, Kenya, Seychelles, Tanzania, Angola, and Tajikistan, as locations for PLA facilities.
•   A global PLA military logistics network and PLA military facilities could both interfere with U.S. military operations and support offensive operations against the United States as the PRC’s global military objectives evolve.

The PRC’s Influence Operations

• The PRC conducts influence operations, which target cultural institutions, media organizations, business, academic, and policy communities in the United States, other countries, and international institutions, to achieve outcomes favorable to its strategic objectives.
•  The CCP seeks to condition domestic, foreign, and multilateral political establishments and public opinion to accept Beijing’s narratives and remove obstacles preventing attainment of goals.
•  CCP leaders probably consider open democracies, including the United States, as more susceptible to influence operations than other types of governments.
•  The PLA has emphasized the development of its “Three Warfares” concept— comprised of psychological warfare, public opinion warfare, and legal warfare—in its operational planning since at least 2003. The PLA will likely continue to develop its digital influence capabilities by incorporating advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the quality and deniability of its messaging

RESOURCES AND TECHNOLOGY FOR FORCE MODERNIZATION

•  The PRC’s long-term goal is to create an entirely self-reliant defense-industrial sector—fused with a strong civilian industrial and technology sector—that can meet the PLA’s needs for modern military capabilities.
•  The PRC has mobilized vast resources in support of its defense modernization, including the implementation of its Military-Civil Fusion (MCF) Development Strategy, as well as espionage activities to acquire sensitive, dual-use, and military grade equipment. The PRC has substantially reorganized its defense-industrial sector to improve weapon system research, development, acquisition, testing, evaluation, and production.
• In 2021, the PRC announced its annual military budget would increase by 6.8 percent, continuing more than 20 years of annual defense spending increases and sustaining its position as the second-largest military spender in the world. The PRC’s published military budget omits several major categories of expenditures and its actual militaryrelated spending is higher than what it states in its official budget.

Science and Technology Goals Supporting Military Modernization

• The PRC has continued its aggressive, top-level push to master advanced technologies and become a global innovation superpower. The PRC seeks to dominate technologies associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution; this push directly supports the PLA’s ambitious modernization efforts and its goal of becoming a “world-class” military capable of “intelligentized” warfare.
•  The PRC continues its pursuit of leadership in key technologies with significant military potential, such as AI, autonomous systems, advanced computing, quantum information sciences, biotechnology, and advanced materials and manufacturing. As evidenced by the country’s recent accomplishments in space exploration and other fields, China stands at, or near, the frontier of numerous advanced technologies.
•  The 14th Five-Year Plan maintains the PRC’s focus on technological independence and indigenous innovation in fields associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
• As of 2020, the PLA has funded multiple AI projects that focus on applications including machine learning for strategic and tactical recommendations, AI-enabled wargaming for training, and social media analysis.

Foreign Technology Acquisition

• The PRC uses imports, foreign investments, commercial joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, and industrial and technical espionage to help achieve its military modernization goals.
•  The PRC is investing in and seeking to acquire technologies that will be foundational for future commercial and military innovations including AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles, quantum information sciences, augmented and virtual reality, financial technology, and biotechnology. These technologies blur the line demarcating commercial versus military use.

U.S.-PRC DEFENSE CONTACTS AND EXCHANGES IN 2020

• DoD’s defense contacts and exchanges with the PRC in 2020 prioritized crisis prevention and management, risk reduction, and limited cooperation in areas where national interests aligned.
•  In 2020, U.S.-PRC defense relations focused on building a framework with the PLA to advance DoD’s objective to build a constructive, stable, and results-oriented defense relationship with the PLA. The Policy Dialogue System framework sought greater stability by prioritizing policy dialogue channels and strengthening mechanisms to prevent and manage crisis and reduce operational risk. Chinese Rocket Forces (Chinese Defence Ministry photo)

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government continues its presentation of the Pentagon report on China’s military power

MISSIONS AND TASKS OF CHINA’S ARMED FORCES IN THE “NEW ERA”

• With a force that totals approximately two million personnel in the regular forces, the PLA has sought to modernize its capabilities and improve its proficiencies across all warfare domains so that as a joint force it can conduct the range of land, air, and maritime operations as well as space, counterspace, electronic warfare (EW), and cyber operations.
• The PLA’s evolving capabilities and concepts continue to strengthen the PRC’s ability to “fight and win wars” against a “strong enemy (强敌)” [a likely euphemism for the United States], coerce Taiwan and rival claimants in territorial disputes, counter an intervention by a third party in a conflict along the PRC’s periphery, and project power globally.
• In 2020, the PLA continued to make progress implementing major structural reforms, fielding modern indigenous systems, building readiness, and strengthening its competency to conduct joint operations.

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Developments in the PLA’s Modernization and Reform

• In November 2020, a PRC Defense Ministry spokesperson stated that the PLA accomplished its modernization milestone to “generally achieve mechanization” in 2020 that was previously set by CCP leadership. The goal of mechanization can be broadly understood as the PLA seeking to modernize its weapons and equipment so they can be networked into “systems of systems” and utilize more advanced technologies suitable for “informatized” and “intelligentized” warfare.
• The People’s Liberation Army Army (PLAA) has approximately 975,000 activeduty personnel in combat units. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, border clashes with India, and other significant events in 2020, the PLAA accelerated its training and fielding of equipment from the already fast pace of recent years. The PLAA also strove to increase the realism of its training and the effectiveness of Opposition Force (OPFOR) units.
• The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has numerically the largest navy in the world with an overall battle force of approximately 355 ships and submarines, including approximately more than 145 major surface combatants. As of 2020, the PLAN is largely composed of modern multi-role platforms. In the near-term, the PLAN will have the capability to conduct long-range precision strikes against land targets from its submarine and surface combatants using land-attack cruise missiles, notably enhancing the PRC’s global power projection capabilities. The PRC is enhancing its anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities and competencies to protect the PLAN’s aircraft carriers and ballistic missile submarines.
• The People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and PLAN Aviation together constitute the largest aviation force in the region and the third largest in the world, with over 2,800 total aircraft (not including trainer variants or UAVs) of which approximately 2,250 are combat aircraft (including fighters, strategic bombers, tactical bombers, multi-mission tactical, and attack aircraft).In October 2019, the PRC signaled the return of the airborne leg of its nuclear triad after the PLAAF publicly revealed the H-6N as its first nuclear-capable air-to-air refuelable bomber.
• The People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) organizes, mans, trains, and equips the PRC’s strategic land-based nuclear and conventional missile forces as well as associated support forces and missile bases. In 2020, the PLARF advanced its longterm modernization plans to enhance its “strategic deterrence” capabilities.
• ‒ The PRC is developing new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that will significantly improve its nuclear-capable missile forces and will require increased nuclear warhead production, partially due to the incorporation of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) capabilities. The PRC has commenced building at least three solid-fueled ICBM silo fields, which will cumulatively contain hundreds of new ICBM silos.
• ‒ The PLARF continues to grow its inventory of road-mobile DF-26 intermediaterange ballistic missiles (IRBMs), which are capable of conducting both conventional and nuclear precision strikes against ground targets as well as conventional strikes against naval targets.
•  ‒ In 2020, the PLARF began to field its first operational hypersonic weapons system, the DF-17 hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) capable medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM).
• The PLA Strategic Support Force (SSF) is a theater command-level organization established to centralize the PLA’s strategic space, cyber, electronic, information, communications, and psychological warfare missions and capabilities. The SSF oversees two deputy theater command-level departments: the Space Systems Department responsible for military space operations, and the Network Systems Department responsible for information operations (IO), which includes technical reconnaissance, EW, cyber warfare, and psychological operations.
• ‒ PRC continues to develop counterspace capabilities—including direct ascent, coorbital, electronic warfare, and directed energy capabilities—that can contest or deny an adversary’s access to and operations in the space domain during a crisis or conflict.
•  ‒ The PRC’s space enterprise continues to mature rapidly and Beijing has devoted significant resources to growing all aspects of its space program, from military space applications to civil applications such as profit-generating launches, scientific endeavors, and space exploration. The PRC is employing more sophisticated satellite operations and is probably testing dual-use technologies in space that could be applied to counterspace missions.
• Military Readiness: The CMC’s focus is on improving the PLA’s combat readiness and the guidance issued by senior leaders is increasingly evident in the PLA’s training and exercises. The PLA is training to “fight and win” through increasingly realistic combat training that uses dedicated “blue force” opponents and other elements to improve realism. Despite initial delays and cancellations in military training, exercises, research, and recruitment in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, impact to the overall readiness of the PLA remains minimal.

Capabilities for Counter Intervention and Power Projection

• The PLA has fielded, and is further developing, capabilities to provide options for the PRC to attempt to dissuade, deter, or, if ordered, defeat third-party intervention during a large-scale, theater campaign such as a Taiwan contingency. U.S. defense planners often refer to these collective capabilities as anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities.
• The PLA’s A2/AD capabilities are to date the most robust within the First Island Chain, although the PRC is beginning to field significant capabilities capable of conducting operations out to the Second Island Chain and seeks to strengthen its capabilities to reach farther into the Pacific Ocean and throughout the globe.
• In addition to strike, air and missile defense, anti-surface and anti-submarine capabilities improvements, the PRC is focusing on information, cyber, and space and counterspace operations. The PLA’s focus on an integrated approach to the cyber domain using advanced technologies likely will lead to the PLA improving its ability to conduct cyber operations over the next several years.

Nuclear Capabilities

• Over the next decade, the PRC aims to modernize, diversify, and expand its nuclear forces.
•  The PRC is investing in, and expanding, the number of its land-, sea-, and air-based nuclear delivery platforms and constructing the infrastructure necessary to support this major expansion of its nuclear forces.
•  The PRC is also supporting this expansion by increasing its capacity to produce and separate plutonium by constructing fast breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities.
•  The accelerating pace of the PRC’s nuclear expansion may enable the PRC to have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027. The PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020.
•  The PRC has possibly already established a nascent “nuclear triad” with the development of a nuclear capable air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM) and improvement of its ground and sea-based nuclear capabilities.
•  New developments in 2020 further suggest that the PRC intends to increase the peacetime readiness of its nuclear forces by moving to a launch-on-warning (LOW) posture with an expanded silo-based force.

Chemical and Biological Research

• The PRC has engaged in biological activities with potential dual-use applications, which raise concerns regarding its compliance with the Biological and Toxins Weapons Convention (BWC) and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
•  Studies conducted at PRC military medical institutions discussed identifying, testing, and characterizing diverse families of potent toxins with dual-use applications.
•  Based on available information, the United States cannot certify that the PRC has met its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) due to concerns regarding the PRC’s research of pharmaceutical-based agents (PBAs) and toxins with potential dual-use applications.

Photo: China fighter plane (Chinese Defense Ministry photo)

The Report concludes tomorrow

The rapid rise of China’s military power, its alliance with Russia, and its aggressive use of its new found capabilities, renders it the most dangerous adversary America has ever faced. Over the next three days, the New York Analysis of Policy and Government will present the complete report by the U.S. Department of Defense on Beijing’s highly advanced armed forces.

The PRC’s national strategy to achieve “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by 2049 is deeply integrated with its ambitions to strengthen the PLA. In 2017, General Secretary Xi Jinping laid out two PLA modernization goals during his speech to the 19th Party Congress: to “basically complete” PLA modernization by 2035 and to transform the PLA into a “world class” military by 2049. Throughout 2020, the PLA continued to pursue its ambitious modernization objectives, refine major organizational reforms, and improve its combat readiness in line with those goals. This includes the PLA developing the capabilities to conduct joint long-range precision strikes across domains, increasingly sophisticated space, counterspace, and cyber capabilities, and accelerating the large-scale expansion of its nuclear forces. In 2020, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) announced a new milestone for PLA modernization in 2027 broadly understood as the modernization of the PLA’s capabilities to be networked into a system of systems for “intelligentized” warfare. If realized, the PLA’s 2027 modernization goals could provide Beijing with more credible military options in a Taiwan contingency.

As the PRC continues to marshal all elements of its national power toward its centenary goals in 2049, DoD’s annual report strives to provide an authoritative assessment of the PRC’s strategic objectives. The report highlights the comprehensive scale of the CCP’s governance system, whereby the PLA’s modernization serves as a crucial component of a national system galvanized to achieve the PRC’s national strategy. The PRC’s strategy to achieve “national rejuvenation” is not limited to domestic efforts. This strategy entails efforts to change international conditions to suit the CCP’s concept of a “community of common destiny.” This report illustrates the importance of meeting the pacing challenge presented by the PRC’s increasingly capable military and its global ambitions.

UNDERSTANDING CHINA’S STRATEGY

China’s National Strategy

• The PRC’s strategy aims to achieve “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by 2049 to match or surpass U.S. global influence and power, displace U.S. alliances and security partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region, and revise the international order to be more advantageous to Beijing’s authoritarian system and national interests. This strategy can be characterized as a determined pursuit of far-ranging efforts to expand the PRC’s national power.
• Despite challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Beijing continued its efforts to advance its overall development including steadying its economic growth, strengthening its armed forces, and taking a more assertive role in global affairs. In response to both long and short-term economic trends, the CCP unveiled a new economic strategic task, or a new “development pattern,” called “dual circulation (双 循环).”
• The PRC has characterized China’s view of strategic competition in terms of a rivalry among powerful nation states, as well as a clash of opposing ideological systems. Beijing views the United States as increasingly determined to contain the PRC, creating potential obstacles to its strategy. Additionally, the PRC’s leaders are increasingly willing to confront the United States and other countries in areas where interest diverge.

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Foreign Policy

• The PRC’s foreign policy seeks to build a “community of common destiny” that supports its strategy to realize “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” Beijing’s revisionist ambition for the international order derives from the objectives of its national strategy and the Party’s political and governing systems.
• In 2019, the PRC recognized that its armed forces should take a more active role in advancing its foreign policy, highlighting the increasingly global character that Beijing ascribes to its military power.
• In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was a driving force behind the PRC’s foreign policy efforts, as Beijing sought to deflect any culpability for the virus and its initial spread, and to capitalize on its narrative of domestic success and foreign assistance.

Economic Policy

• The PRC’s military modernization objectives are commensurate with, and part of, Beijing’s broader national development aspirations. The PRC’s economic, technological, political, social, and security development efforts are mutually reinforcing and support Beijing’s strategy to shape international and regional environments that accept and facilitate Beijing’s interests.
• The PRC’s economic development supports its military modernization not only by providing the means for larger defense budgets, but through deliberate Party-led initiatives such as Made in China 2025 and China Standards 2035, as well as the systemic benefits of the PRC’s growing national industrial and technological base.
•  In the rollout of the PRC’s 14th Five Year Plan (2021-2025), the Party announced a shift to a new “development pattern” of “dual circulation (双循环).” Dual circulation is focused on accelerating domestic consumption as a driver of economic growth, shifting to higher-end manufacturing, and creating “breakthroughs” in key technologies along critical high-end global supply chains, all while emphasizing “mutually reinforcing” foreign investment in these key technologies to provide the capital and technology necessary to advance domestic technological innovation in support of the PRC’s security and development objectives

Military-Civil Fusion Development Strategy

• The PRC pursues its Military-Civil Fusion (MCF; 军民融合) Development Strategy to fuse its economic, social, and security development strategies to build an integrated national strategic system and capabilities in support of the PRC’s national rejuvenation goals.
• Beijing’s MCF strategy includes objectives to develop and acquire advanced dual-use technology for military purposes and deepen reform of the national defense science and technology industries, and serves a broader purpose to strengthen all of the PRC’s instruments of national power.
• The PRC’s MCF development strategy encompasses six interrelated efforts: (1) fusing China’s defense industrial base and its civilian technology and industrial base; (2) integrating and leveraging science and technology innovations across military and civilian sectors; (3) cultivating talent and blending military and civilian expertise and knowledge; (4) building military requirements into civilian infrastructure and leveraging civilian construction for military purposes; (5) leveraging civilian service and logistics capabilities for military purposes; and, (6) expanding and deepening China’s national defense mobilization system to include all relevant aspects of its society and economy for use in competition and war.

Defense Policy and Military Strategy

• The PRC has stated its defense policy aims to safeguard its sovereignty, security, and development interests. The PRC’s military strategy remains based on the concept of “active defense.”
• The PRC’s leaders stress the imperative of strengthening the PLA into a “world-class” military by the end of 2049 as an essential element of its strategy to rejuvenate the PRC into a “great modern socialist country.” In 2020, the PLA added a new milestone for modernization in 2027, to accelerate the integrated development of mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization of the PRC’s armed forces, which if realized would provide Beijing with more credible military options in a Taiwan contingency.
• In November 2020, the CMC issued the “Chinese People’s Liberation Army Joint Operations Outline (trial) (中国人民解放军联合作战纲要(试行)” described as the “top-level law” of the PLA’s combat doctrine system in the “new era” that would strengthen the requirements and procedures for joint operations, combat support, national defense mobilization, and political work, among others.
• In 2020, the PLA remained primarily oriented toward “safeguarding” its perceived “sovereignty and security” interests in the region, while emphasizing a greater global role for itself, such as through delivering COVID-19 aid abroad and the pursuit of overseas military facilities, in accordance with the PRC’s defense policy and military strategy.

The report continues tomorrow

IRAN

US Special Envoy Malley is currently leading an interagency delegation to the eighth round of talks in Vienna. According to Ned Price, US State Department spokesman, it is too early “to say how substantive that progress may have been. At a minimum, any progress, we believe, is falling short of Iran’s accelerating nuclear steps and is far too slow.” In contrast to Washington’s appraisal, both Iran and Russia have stated in positive terms that the talks are going at the right speed. Iran has yet to return to talks with a more constructive approach for this week’s talks although Tehran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian claimed Iran showed “good faith” in renegotiating the 2015 nuclear agreement. In response to a reporter’s question about why the Biden Administration continues to state it is “too soon” to expect progress, Price said that President Biden “will not allow Iran to possess a nuclear weapon.” He did not provide any details about how the Administration planned to accomplish the goal other than for Iran to comply before lifting sanctions.

RUSSIA-UKRAINE

The Biden administration says its diplomatic approach on Ukraine has been “clear and consistent” between two tracks: deterrence and diplomacy. “We are unified as a NATO Alliance on the consequences Russia would face if it moves on Ukraine, but we’re also unified in our willingness to engage in principled diplomacy with Russia,” according to a State Department official. The US will begin talk with Russia in the Strategic Stability Dialogue on January 10^th followed by Russia and NATO discussions under a Russia-NATO – NATO-Russia Council meeting on the 12th and an OSCE meeting a day later. 

SAUDI ARABIA

There have been more than 375 cross-border attacks 2021 by the Houthi that have endangered Saudi Arabians and the 70,000 U.S. citizens residing there. The Secretary of Defense said in December that with American support Saudi Arabia has been able to knock down 90 percent of those attacks. The US goal, according to Price, “is to see to it that that number rises to 100 percent.” He added that “… we will continue to hold the Houthis accountable for their reprehensible actions… [and] have taken an approach that is targeting those Houthi leaders who are responsible not only for these attacks but also the other malign activities for which the Houthis are responsible.” The Biden Administration condemned the recent escalation of Houthi attacks along the Saudi border. On Christmas Day an official from the Saudi-led coalition said the border town of Jizan was attacked, resulting in the death of two and injury to seven residents.

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NORTH KOREA

The Biden Administration has been accused of “strategic patience” when it comes to dealing with North Korea. In response a State Department official said the Administration “undertook a policy review of our approach to the DPRK.” According to the official, “We’ve made clear in recent months that we harbor no hostile intent toward the DPRK.” The current Administration has reached out to South Korean officials, Japan, and others to ask how to engage North Korea in what an official called a “calibrated, practical approach.” 

AFGHANISTAN

Secretary of State Tony Blinken in a press conference last week said: “The last time I was in this briefing room, I faced some appropriate questions about our ability to continue to facilitate the departure of American citizens and others [in Afghanistan] to whom we have a special commitment.” He suggested that since he last spoke to reporters the US has “made good” on its pledge to help any US citizens leave Afghanistan. He put the number receiving assistance since September 1 at close to 500 people. The State Department reports that US taxpayers will be paying to resettle 95,00 people in the US through at least September 2022. Since the end of August, the US has processed over 77,000 Afghans in various locations. Unlike those crossing the border illegally and being dispersed throughout the US, Afghan refugees must be vaccinated before leaving the port of entry.

Photo: Pixabay

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. 

If you were a participant in the January 6, 2021 action at the US Capitol, you are a “dangerous insurrectionist.”  If you participated in the riots of 2020 in cities like Portland, you are a “peaceful protestor.”

Need more proof?

“The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announced more charges will be dismissed against protesters arrested last year at social justice demonstrations. County Attorney Allister Adel made a video statement…announcing that charges against several defendants from an Aug. 9 event remembering Michael Brown’s killing will be dismissed…Some of the 17 defendants are leaders for The W.E. Rising Project, which helped lead organized demonstrations over the summer..On Aug. 9 (2020), demonstrators marched from Cesar Chavez Plaza near CityScape to Phoenix police headquarters. The march was in remembrance of Brown, who was killed by an officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Phoenix Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Margaret A. Cox said in a statement at the time that protesters pushed down the fences erected ‘to protect the building from damage’ and criminally trespassed into the area in front of the headquarters’ doors. She said objects were thrown at officers, and they responded with less-lethal rounds… Prosecutors accused protesters of a variety of charges including rioting, obstructing a public thoroughfare, unlawful assembly, aggravated assault and criminal trespassing.” 

“Federal prosecutors in the District filed a motion to dismiss charges against a protester who was identified using facial recognition technology and was accused of assaulting police officers as they swept demonstrators from Lafayette Square last summer. The case against Michael Peterson Jr. was one of a number in which authorities have used the controversial technology to identify protesters accused of violence during demonstrations over the murder of George Floyd… The U.S. attorney’s office in Washington did not give a reason for filing the motion to dismiss, and the office declined to comment… Peterson was accused of punching one U.S. Park Police officer in the face and wrestling another as law enforcement agencies forcefully cleared protesters from Lafayette Square on June 1, 2020…”

“The vast majority of citations and charges against George Floyd protesters were ultimately dropped, dismissed or otherwise not filed, according to a Guardian analysis of law enforcement records and media reports in a dozen jurisdictions around the nation… In most of a dozen jurisdictions examined, at least 90% of cases were dropped or dismissed. In some cities, like Dallas and Philadelphia, as many as 95% of citations were dropped or not prosecuted. In Houston, about 93% of citations were dropped; in Los Angeles, about 93% of citations were not filed. The prosecutor’s office in San Francisco dismissed all 127 cases related to ‘peaceful protest-related charges…'”

Meanwhile, “(t)he Department of Justice has arrested more than 535 people for taking part in the January 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol building. Some of those trials are months, possibly years away… several people are being held without bail in the D.C. Jail for crimes they allegedly committed during the Capitol riots… people like Julian Khater and George Tanios are still in jail on charges of Assault on Federal Officer with Dangerous Weapon and Conspiracy to Injure an Officer, among others, for allegedly spraying pepper spray into the faces of law enforcement like Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. Thomas Sibick is being held until his trial without bond on charges that include Assaulting, Resisting, or Impeding Certain Officers and Taking from a Person Anything of Value by Force and Violence, because he’s accused of being part of the savage attack on DC Police Officer Mike Fanone and ripping Fanone’s badge and radio right off his uniform..” 

How the actions of Thomas Sibick constitute a “savage attack,” while the actions of Michael Peterson Jr. do not, is unclear.  But sure, maybe the majority of the charges brought against last summer’s protestors should have been either dismissed, or reduced, and the defendants should have been required to perform community service, or pay restitution for the damage they caused.  

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But what of those who were present at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021?  Do they deserve to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, while the protestors of 2020, many with identical charges of assault on police officers, property damage, and conspiracy to riot, go free?

Further, is it just that so many of the January 6 defendants are held without bail, in solitary confinement, subject to the denial of their basic human rights, in violation of the 8th and 14th Amendments?  

“(D)uring the week of October 18, 2021, the U.S. Marshals for the District of Columbia ‘conducted an unannounced inspection of the District of Columbia Department of Corrections (DC DOC) facilities that house several hundred detainees who are facing charges in the U.S. District Courts for the District of Columbia and Maryland or are awaiting placement in a Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facility to serve their sentence.’ The Marshals inspected two D.C. Department of Corrections facilities, the Central Treatment Facility (CTF) and the Central Detention Facility (CDF).  The CTF, which houses approximately 120 detainees, passed inspection. However, the CDF, which houses approximately 400 detainees, did not pass...According to CNN, the Marshals found ‘horrible’ conditions, ‘like water being shutoff in many cells for several days, clogged toilets and an inmate who had been pepper sprayed and was unable to wash the spray off for days, leading to an infection.’ In addition, CNN reports that the Marshals ‘also observed DC Department of Corrections staff ‘antagonizing detainees’ and ‘directing detainees to not cooperate with’ the Marshals during their inspection. ’One DOC staffer was observed telling a detainee to ‘stop snitching,’ according to the report. In addition, the report noted ‘water to cells is routinely shut off for punitive reasons’ with many cells being ‘shut off for days, inhibiting detainees from drinking water, washing hands, or flushing toilets.’ 

“One detainee, Christopher Worrell, will be released instead, due to the work of a judge who has already taken action against the jail for its treatment of Worrell. On October 13, 2021…Judge Royce Lamberth referred the jail in Washington D.C. to the Department of Justice on the grounds of civil rights violations, for failing to obtain necessary medical treatment for Worrell. Lamberth also held Warden Wanda Patten and Department of Corrections Director Quincy Booth in contempt for not turning over medical records for Worrell. Worrell has pled not guilty to six charges stemming from the events of January 6, when he allegedly marched with the Proud Boys to the Capitol. Per CNN, he has also had to fight for access to medical care, having suffered a broken hand that needed surgical repair.  He also needs treatment for his cancer, Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Lamberth said of Worrell’s delays in treatment. ‘It is more than just inept and bureaucratic shuffling of papers…I find that the civil rights of the defendant have been abridged’… After the U.S. Marshals’ eye-opening inspection came to light, Judge Lamberth took things a step further and ‘ordered that defendant Christopher Worrell be transferred immediately to a different jail, and released on home detention as soon as possible to start chemotherapy.’ In a statement…Judge Lamberth called the jail conditions ‘deplorable’ and ‘beyond belief.’  CNN also reports that Lamberth noted ’This court has zero confidence that the DC jail’ will provide the treatment correctly and not retaliate against Worrell.” 

Whatever you may think of the people involved in the events of January 6, 2021 – whether you believe them to be “peaceful protestors” or “dangerous insurrectionists” – they are undeniably human beings, and your fellow citizens, the same as any other person accused of a crime.  To subject this class of criminal defendant to prosecution, as well as cruel and inhuman internment conditions, makes a mockery of the concept of equal treatment under the law, particularly when other arguably violent demonstrators, charged with similar crimes, are released without bond across the country, and their charges dismissed without explanation.

Photo: Pixabay

Judge John Wilson served on the bench in New York City

One of the hallmarks of the American legal system is the concept of equal treatment under the law for all those accused of a crime.  “Designed by famed architect Cass Gilbert, the U.S. Supreme Court Building’s west façade bears the phrase ‘Equal Justice Under Law’…(t)he phrase ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ traces its origins all the way back to the end of the Peloponnesian War at about 404 B.C.E. At the time, the renowned Greek general Pericles gave a famous speech in which he stated: ‘If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences’…(e)quality and justice should not only complement each other, but also serve the same purpose. Equality and justice both represent egalitarianism and fairness. Without equality, true justice cannot exist; and without a way to deliver just verdicts that ensure impartial treatment, the meaning of equality is nothing more than an unenforced altruism.” 

This concept was enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states that “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” 

It is also instructive to remind the reader of the wording of the 8th Amendment to the US Constitution; “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” 

Despite these noble sentiments, equal justice is not being administered to a particular group of citizens.  These persons do not receive impartial treatment, and are being deprived of their liberty without due process.  They have also been subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, in most cases, while they await trial in jail, without the ability to post bond.  

Meanwhile, another group facing similar charges has received favorable treatment under the law, their charges being dropped, in most cases, with these persons spending a minimum amount of time under incarceration.

To whom do I refer?

“A Portland Antifa rioter charged last year with assaulting police officers has had a federal case dropped after completing 30 hours of community service…Eva Warner of Beaverton, Oregon, who police said was also known as Joshua Warner, was charged in September 2020 with felony civil disorder… Portland Police said Warner directed a high-powered laser into the eyes of law enforcement officers trying to disperse the crowd. Warner resisted arrest, prompting officers to use force…(a) laser pointer was found on Warner.  Warner was booked into custody and charged with intentionally obstructing, impeding, interfering with law enforcement officers engaged in official duties but later released without bail. About a week later, Warner was arrested again and charged with second-degree criminal mischief in connection with another riot. Warner was again released from custody without bail. A week after that, Warner was arrested a third time in connection with yet another riot and charged with interfering with a peace officer and second-degree disorderly conduct. Warner was once again released without bail… Scott Erik Asphaug, acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon, filed a motion Dec. 21, asking the court to ‘dismiss with prejudice the indictment against (Warner), in the best interests of justice.’ The motion noted that the defendant had performed ‘at least 30 hours of community service.’  The next day, U.S. District Court Judge Michael H. Simon dismissed Warner’s indictment ‘with prejudice,’ according to court documents obtained by Fox News.”   

A dismissal without prejudice means that the case against Warner cannot be restored.

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Contrast this lenient treatment of an individual arrested for rioting in the streets of Portland three times with this:

“’Capitol Punishment’ reveals the true story of Jan. 6, 2021, and the federal government’s stunning response…Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin describes his experience in prison…’They put me in a cell by myself, total solitary confinement in a cell not much bigger than a walk-in closet…I don’t know how many times I heard the chants, ‘F Trump, F Trump, F Trump!’ And these are by guards that work there.’ Griffin said he was called derogatory names like ‘f***ing white cracker.’ He only had one interaction with the prison’s deputy warden, and his recounting of the story was haunting. ‘She leaned down to my cell, and she spoke through the little slot that they were feeding me through’…(a)nd she said, ‘The only job these guards have is to keep your chest moving up and down.'”

And what crime was Couy Griffin arrested for? “(A) commissioner of Otero County in southern New Mexico… Griffin has been charged with participating in the Capitol incursion and was arrested on Jan. 17 after returning to Washington from New Mexico… A Justice Department affidavit said that in a since-deleted video posted to the Cowboys for Trump Facebook page, Griffin said that during the incursion he ‘climbed up on the top of the Capitol building and … had a first row seat.’  That video also contained comments about his plans for Inauguration Day, according to the affidavit. ‘You want to say that that was a mob? You want to say that was violence? No sir. No Ma’am. No we could have a 2nd Amendment rally on those same steps that we had that rally yesterday’… (h)e later told FBI agents that there was ‘no option that’s off the table for the sake of freedom.'”

For these actions, which appear to amount to a trespass, Federal Prosecutors asked that “‘Griffin (be) held without bail…The defendant has taken ‘nothing off the table’ in pursuit of his aims to ensure ‘Biden will never be president.’ The defendant’s inflammatory conduct, repeated threats, delusional worldview, and access to firearms makes him a danger to the community,’ they said in a filing.”  Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that Griffin is dangerous, and that he should be held without bail.  How is Warner any less dangerous?  Warner was arrested three times for rioting in the space of less than a month, yet each time he was released without bond.  Why is Warner treated one way and Griffin another?

The Report Concludes Tomorrow

Photo: Portland riots (Pixabay)

Judge John Wilson (ret.) served on the bench in New York City.

The Biden Administration’s response to the Covid pandemic is increasingly chaotic, perhaps causing more problems than it is solving.

It is a marked contrast to the Trump White Houses’ initial gains in fighting the pandemic, which included the development in record time of a vaccine, and the suspension of travel from affected nations, a move Democrats harshly criticized as being “xenophobic.”

As it became evident that the disease was developing new varieties that ended hopes the plague would burn itself out in a timely manner, the need for increased availability of testing was evident.  Predictions warn that up to 140 million Americans may be infected from January through March.

Noting that there were indications this was on the horizon, President Biden promised that up to 500 million tests would be made available. For reasons that remain unknown, this was not accomplished. As a result, across the nation, long lines have formed at medical facilities, spurred in part by an avalanche of state and local mandates demanding that proof of vaccination or negative tests are required for normal activities such as eating in restaurants, attending schools, and other activities.

Despite numerous warnings that crowds should be avoided, vast numbers of people who need to be tested for work, school, employment, travel, or dining mingle for hours in close contact on lines with those seeking testing based on suspicion of having the disease, a true and enhanced super-spreader event in and of itself.

As winter makes its annual impact, those long lines have produced new dangers. Waiting outside in frigid temperatures and inclement weather, even in normal times, gives rise to catching colds and flu infections. Even if a miracle occurred and COVID vanished, the resultant disorders caused by that activity would produce a variety of health issues. Adding to the vulnerability of the population is the effect of the lockdowns, particularly in “Blue” states, in lowering resistance to the more normal problems that occur each winter.

Far too often, COVID has been employed as an excuse to implement Progressive ideological goals. On December 21, the Bureau of Prisons decided that those incarcerated criminals temporarily released on the excuse of preventing the spread of COVID in the prison system may be allowed to continue their absence .  The irrational emptying out of prisons has long been a goal of the left.  

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Similarly, the distribution of funds from Washington for various purposes has been a policy strongly favored by Progressives. The very real economic problems brought about by COVID were, not always incorrectly, addressed by federal dollars distributed to those individuals, institutions and businesses in very real need.

Unfortunately, a portion of those dollars have been misused.  The U.S. Secret Service, in coordination with the Department of Labor and SBA Offices of Inspectors General (OIG), and the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) has had to respond to significant fraud regarding that funding. The Secret Service has named Assistant Special Agent in Charge Roy Dotson as the National Pandemic Fraud Recovery Coordinator. In this role, Dotson will coordinate efforts across multiple ongoing Secret Service investigations into the fraudulent use of COVID-19 relief applications, with potential fraudulent activity nearing $100 billion.

While fraud related to personal protective equipment was of primary concern to law enforcement, including the Secret Service, early in the pandemic, the release of federal funding through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act has attracted the attention of individuals and organized criminal networks worldwide.

Fraud aside, the chief concern of the American public is, justifiably, the failure of the Biden Administration to distribute the testing kits and facilities that clearly were needed to prevent the unnecessary long lines that are themselves super spreader events.

Ironically, President Biden, who continually pushed for more federal action as a candidate, told governors in a recent phone call that the problem was largely theirs to solve.

Illustration: Pixabay