Sino-American Cold War Watch Thread

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Yuli Ban
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Sino-American Cold War Watch Thread

Post by Yuli Ban »

We're currently in the early days of a new cold war between the USA and our allies vs. China, who largely stands alone though they do have some allies of their own. There's certainly no modern Warsaw Pact, and even NATO isn't quite as unified as it once was, post Trump, in the era of Erdogan and post-2010s nationalism. Plus Chinese communism is far more capitalistic than the Soviet Union ever was, even in the era of perestroika, and if they ever shift back to socialistic economics, it'll be due to the natural pressures of automation rather than any policy shifts. So it's not an existential showdown of ideologies as much as it is two empires competing. But just because we call the Cold War the cold war doesn't mean it was the only one in history. Nor is the current one even the only one, considering the current ongoing Saudi-Iranian Cold War, India and Pakistan, and the Korean conflict.
Heck, there's even a massive nuclear imbalance, rendering MAD tenuous between us— the US still has ~6,000 nuclear warheads, while China has only 350.

But only a fool would deny the tensions, espionage, and sabre rattling between us.
We may be heading for a Thucydides Trap situation.

Second Cold War



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caltrek
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Re: Sino-American Cold War Watch Thread

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Biden Revokes, Replaces Trump Executive Orders on Chinese-owned Apps

https://www.axios.com/biden-tiktok-ban- ... 91601.html

Introduction:
(Axios) President Biden signed an executive order Wednesday on ensuring the security of American user data in regard to foreign-owned apps such as TikTok, revoking and replacing three Trump-era executive orders to impose a more structured "criteria-based decision framework" for potential bans.

Driving the news: It's the latest in a series of China-related steps Biden is taking ahead of his first overseas trip to Europe, where curtailing Beijing's abuses will be a top agenda item in meetings with G7 and NATO leaders.
From the Executive Order:
I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, find that it is appropriate to elaborate upon measures to address the national emergency with respect to the information and communications technology and services supply chain that was declared in Executive Order 13873 of May 15, 2019 (Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain). Specifically, the increased use in the United States of certain connected software applications designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by persons owned or controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of, a foreign adversary, which the Secretary of Commerce acting pursuant to Executive Order 13873 has defined to include the People’s Republic of China, among others, continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. The Federal Government should evaluate these threats through rigorous, evidence-based analysis and should address any unacceptable or undue risks consistent with overall national security, foreign policy, and economic objectives, including the preservation and demonstration of America’s core values and fundamental freedoms.

By operating on United States information and communications technology devices, including personal electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, and computers, connected software applications can access and capture vast swaths of information from users, including United States persons’ personal information and proprietary business information. This data collection threatens to provide foreign adversaries with access to that information. Foreign adversary access to large repositories of United States persons’ data also presents a significant risk.

In evaluating the risks of a connected software application, several factors should be considered....potential indicators of risk relating to connected software applications include: ownership, control, or management by persons that support a foreign adversary’s military, intelligence, or proliferation activities; use of the connected software application to conduct surveillance that enables espionage, including through a foreign adversary’s access to sensitive or confidential government or business information, or sensitive personal data; ownership, control, or management of connected software applications by persons subject to coercion or cooption by a foreign adversary; ownership, control, or management of connected software applications by persons involved in malicious cyber activities; a lack of thorough and reliable third-party auditing of connected software applications; the scope and sensitivity of the data collected; the number and sensitivity of the users of the connected software application; and the extent to which identified risks have been or can be addressed by independently verifiable measures.

The ongoing emergency...arises from a variety of factors, including the continuing effort of foreign adversaries to steal or otherwise obtain United States persons’ data. That continuing effort by foreign adversaries constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.
Link to Executive Order: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-roo ... versaries/
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caltrek
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Re: Sino-American Cold War Watch Thread

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^^^Of course, the U.S. itself plays a variation of this data collection game. Some would say for good reason.

Global Police Sting Raises Questions on Surveillance and Privacy

https://www.pri.org/stories/2021-06-08/ ... nd-privacy

Extract:
A police sting led by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, in coordination with other law enforcement agencies around the world, has resulted in the arrests of more than 800 people suspected of involvement in criminal activities.

The operation known as Trojan Shield led to police raids in at least 16 nations. More than 32 tons of drugs — including cocaine, cannabis, amphetamines and methamphetamines — were seized, along with 250 firearms, 55 luxury cars and more than $148 million in cash and cryptocurrencies.

...

(Marco Werman): So, the authorities clearly rounded up a lot of bad people in this operation. At the same time, on some kind of gut level, the whole thing sounds kind of, for lack of a better word, creepy, right?

(John-Scott Railton): Well, it does sound creepy. And I think the way that we should think about this, according to the Justice Department, all of the people who use this word "criminals." The message I think to take away, though, is, OK, this shows what happens when law enforcement gains access to a so-called encrypted chat tool, which is, they use it and they will use it profligately. Now, people are going to say, "Well, OK, look, criminals doing criminal business tricked by criminal influencers into using backdoored phones, this doesn't sound like it's a net-bad for society." In fact, this is thousands of tons of cocaine intercepted, criminals put in jail, murder plots disrupted. Whatever your views about encryption, it's hard not to see that as a kind of a win for law enforcement. But the really big question here remains, which is what happens next? Criminals are not going to trust, presumably, the next bespoke encryption app that is pitched to them. They may try to use the same apps that you or I use. Are we going to see an even greater law enforcement push now to gain access to our private communications in order to chase these criminals to where they go next?
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Yuli Ban
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Re: Sino-American Cold War Watch Thread

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Nato warns of military challenge posed by China
Nato leaders meeting for a summit in Brussels have warned of the military threat posed by China, saying its behaviour is a "systemic challenge".

China, they said, was rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal, was "opaque" about its military modernisation and was co-operating militarily with Russia.

Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg warned China was "coming closer" to Nato in military and technological terms.

But he stressed the alliance did not want a new Cold War with China.

Nato is a powerful political and military alliance between 30 European and North American countries. It was established after World War Two in response to the threat of communist expansion.
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weatheriscool
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Re: Sino-American Cold War Watch Thread

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China condemns latest U.S. warship transit of Taiwan Strait
Source: Reuters
TAIPEI, June 23 (Reuters) - China condemned the United States on Wednesday as the region's greatest security "risk creator" after a U.S. warship again sailed through the sensitive waterway that separates Taiwan from China.

The U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet said the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Curtis Wilbur conducted a "routine Taiwan Strait transit" on Tuesday in accordance with international law.

"The ship's transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific."

The People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theatre Command said their forces monitored the vessel throughout its passage and warned it.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-paci ... 021-06-23/
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Satellite images show China building what appears to be over 100 new silos for its nuclear missiles
China appears to be building more than 100 new missile silos in the desert, according to an analysis of satellite imagery first reported by the Washington Post Wednesday.

Analyzing satellite images from Planet Labs, Jeffrey Lewis and Decker Eveleth, researchers at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, identified 119 apparent intercontinental ballistic missile silos under construction near Yumen in Gansu province.
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China will never allow foreign forces to bully or oppress it: Xi Jinping
Source: Straits Times
BEIJING - China will never allow any foreign force to bully, oppress or subjugate the Chinese people, and any attempt to divide the nation is bound to fail, said President Xi Jinping on Thursday (July 1), as he underpinned the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ruling legitimacy in a 70-minute speech marking its centenary.

Striking a defiant tone to sustained cheers and applause from a 70,000-strong crowd at Tiananmen Square, Mr Xi fanned the flames of nationalism, while emphasising the Communist Party’s role in China’s rise and its mission to achieve “national rejuvenation”.

The party has been on a campaign to reconstruct its history by focusing on its revolutionary spirit, downplaying past mistakes and drumming up its successes in improving the livelihoods of its people and transforming the country into a global power.

“We have never bullied, oppressed or subjugated the people of any other country, and we never will,” said the Chinese leader as he stood atop the Tiananmen gate to the Forbidden City.
Read more: https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east- ... in-content
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Re: Sino-American Cold War Watch Thread

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Taiwan: A War That Must Never Be Fought
by Joseph Gerson
July 9, 2021

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021 ... -be-fought

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) First Donald Trump and now Joe Biden have been playing with fire when it comes to policy with China.

Taiwan has become the most dangerous flashpoint of the emerging new Cold War between the U.S. and China. Neither side wants war, but accidents and miscalculations—like those that triggered the First World War—can happen.

Miscalculations being what they are, we now know with greater detail how in 1958 the Pentagon and President Dwight Eisenhower prepared for the possibility of nuclear attacks against China in response to its shelling of offshore islands, despite the fact that Mao Zedong had no intention of seizing Taiwan. Today, amidst the Pentagon's exaggerated claims that within five to six years Beijing will have the military capacity to reconquer its "renegade province," Daniel Ellsberg, who recently released a long-secret report on the 1958 nuclear crisis, has joined others in warning Taiwan cannot be militarily defended. Ellsberg stresses that, as in 1958, the received wisdom in Washington is that U.S. threats of a first strike nuclear attack remain the greatest disincentive for militarily enforced Chinese reunification.

Despite right-wing and Pentagon exaggeration of an impending Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the reality is that unless Taiwan crosses the red line of declaring de jure independence, China is unlikely to embrace the danger of a devastating—potentially nuclear—great power war. In addition to the immediate, unpredictable, and devastating costs of such a war, Beijing is not about to embrace the massive disruptions to its economy and armed resistance by Taiwanese that would inevitably follow an invasion of Taiwan.

But there is that red line, and Taiwanese support for independence is growing, especially among younger generations. First Donald Trump and now Joe Biden have been playing with fire. At the close of his disastrous reign, Donald Trump exacerbated U.S-Chinese tensions over Taiwan by approving more than $3 billion in new arms sales and sending high level administration officials to the quasi-independent Chinese entity which China sees as a last vestige of its century and a half of colonial humiliations.
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China has won AI battle with U.S., Pentagon's ex-software chief says
China has won the artificial intelligence battle with the United States and is heading towards global dominance because of its technological advances, the Pentagon's former software chief told the Financial Times.

China, the world’s second largest economy, is likely to dominate many of the key emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, synthetic biology and genetics within a decade or so, according to Western intelligence assessments.

Nicolas Chaillan, the Pentagon's first chief software officer who resigned in protest against the slow pace of technological transformation in the U.S. military, said the failure to respond was putting the United States at risk.

"We have no competing fighting chance against China in 15 to 20 years. Right now, it’s already a done deal; it is already over in my opinion," he told the newspaper. "Whether it takes a war or not is kind of anecdotal."
Image
An autonomous delivery vehicle by Damo is displayed at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, China July 8, 2021. REUTERS/Yilei Sun
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Yuli Ban
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China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in August that circled the globe before speeding towards its target, demonstrating an advanced space capability that caught US intelligence by surprise.

Five people familiar with the test said the Chinese military launched a rocket that carried a hypersonic glide vehicle which flew through low-orbit space before cruising down towards its target.

The missile missed its target by about two-dozen miles, according to three people briefed on the intelligence. But two said the test showed that China had made astounding progress on hypersonic weapons and was far more advanced than US officials realised.

The test has raised new questions about why the US often underestimated China’s military modernisation.

“We have no idea how they did this,” said a fourth person.
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