The United States, Taiwan, and the U.S. Arms are Fighting Cosmic Arms: After Nancy Pelosi and the Obama-Biden Term in November

The Taiwan military has responded by using combat air patrol aircrafts, navy vessels, and land-based missile systems.

The Chinese military, in response to the provocations of Taiwan and the United States, conducted joint combat readiness patrol and “strike drills” around the island.

The Taiwanese defense ministry said in a statement Sunday night that it has faith in defending its sovereignty. The actions of the Chinese Communist Party highlighted their mentality of using force to resolve the differences that undermined regional peace and stability.

Taiwan has experienced increased tensions this year. The visit by Nancy Pelosi to the island caused fury from the Communist Party, as well as an immediate flurry of military exercises.

On Friday, US President Joe Biden signed a sweeping new defense bill into law that included the establishment of a defense modernization program for Taiwan to deter Chinese aggression.

“The cooperation between Taiwan and the United States will help safeguard a free, open and stable Indo-Pacific region. The military will continue to strengthen military preparedness based on enemy threats and self-defense needs,” it added.

Though still describing them as “infrequent actions,” the US Navy reported an uptick in unsafe intercepts by Chinese fighter jets last summer; in December 2022, a Chinese fighter jet flew just 20 feet in front of the nose of a US Air Force RC-135 surveillance plane carrying 30 crew over international waters in the South China Sea, forcing it to swerve to avoid a collision. Five weeks ago, President Biden and President Assad met at a G20 summit, in which they pledged new mechanisms for stabilizing the bilateral relationship.

China halted talks about climate cooperation due to Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, but is poised to resume the discussions as part of a larger set of agreements.

The China-US Air Force Interception of a Reconnaissance Jet: A Warning to the U.S. Navy and the Security Forces

Last Friday, China also conducted a series of military drills close to Japan’s southern Okinawa island in the Pacific Ocean, according to Japanese authorities.

The Japanese Joint Staff states that the Chinese navy sailed its Liaoning aircraft carrier and two destroyers east of Kitadaito Island on December 21. The vessels sailed east of Okinotorishima on December 22.

The defense ministry of Japan says that around 180 fighter jets and helicopter took off on Friday to land on the aircraft carrier.

Japan sent two escort ships to collect information and carry out warnings, the ministry said.

China claims almost all of the vast South China Sea as part of its territorial waters, including many of distant islands and inlets in the disputed body of water, many of which Beijing has militarized.

Japan has just announced a new national security plan that shows it has doubled defense spending and is changing its constitution to deal with threats from China, North Korea and Russia.

CNN published a version of the story in their Meanwhile in China newsletter which was about the rise of China and how it affects the world. Sign up here.

The interception of a United States Air Force reconnaissance jet by a Chinese fighter over the South China Sea last month should be seen as a potential warning of how easily, and quickly things can go terribly wrong – raising the risk of a deadly military confrontation between the two powers, analysts say.

It released a video of the incident showing the Chinese fighter flying to the left and slightly above the four engine US jet, similar to the Boeing 707 airliners of the 1960s and 70’s, and then closing closer to its nose before moving away.

The US pilots were able to maintain a safe distance between the US plane and Chinese plane, but experts agreed there was little room for error.

There is a large, slow, non-maneuverable aircraft in international airspace. It is the responsibility of the approaching smaller, fast, maneuverable aircraft to stay clear, not to cause a problem for both aircraft,” said Peter Layton, a former Royal Australian Air Force officer, now with the Griffith Asia Institute.

The fighter was only able to create an accident by flying so close, because his crew already had a high quality video camera that they could use. The incident seems to have been planned by the PLAN.

The Chinese response is a fiction and far from reality. A airliner-sized plane does not turn into a fighter plane.

But Hopkins also said the US military risked blowing the incident out of proportion in saying the US jet had to take “evasive maneuvers,” a term he described as “overly dramatic.”

“These are no different than a driver adjusting her position to avoid a temporary lane incursion by an adjacent driver,” Hopkins said. “The US response is pure theater and needlessly creates an exaggerated sense of danger.”

The danger of flying near each other at 500 miles per hour is usually not worth the risk, according to Herzinger.

What the Chinese Embassy has to say about the PLANckian Reactor and Embedded Airborne Attacks on the South China Sea

The PLA has ruined any kind of hotlines, or discussion forums for addressing potential incidents with the United States. There are more options for senior officers to limit potential escalation if an intercept goes wrong.

A spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a Friday press conference that the incident was only the latest in a series of US actions that threaten stability in the region.

The Chinese Southern Theater Command said the US reconnaissance jet was flying “in the vicinity of China’s southern coastline and the Xisha Islands” – known in the West as the Paracels – where Beijing has built up military installations.

The US routinely conducts freedom of navigation operations through the South China Sea, as it does not recognize these territorial claims.

In the most infamous incident in 2001, a Chinese fighter jet collided with a US reconnaissance plane near Hainan Island in the northern South China Sea, leading to a major crisis as the Chinese pilot was killed and the damaged US plane barely managed a safe landing on Chinese territory. The US crew was released after 11 days of intense negotiations.

It is hard to think the Chinese military would not shoot down a balloon or other aircraft over mainland China, regardless of the threat to the Chinese people or property. Beijing’s extensive global media apparatus would promote claims that the incursion exemplified US double standards regarding violations of sovereignty, with this narrative also seeded widely across Chinese social media channels. Secretary of State Antony had planned to go to Beijing, but his visit has been canceled.

In her position as deputy director of National Intelligence for mission integration, Beth Sanner oversaw elements that coordinate and lead collection, analysis, and program oversight in the Intelligence Community. She was also the president’s intelligence briefer. She is a professor at the University of Maryland and a CNN national security analyst. The opinions expressed in this commentary are her own. CNN has more opinion on it.

Since news broke last week about the Chinese balloon that was floating over US airspace, new details have emerged about what’s now understood to be a global surveillance operation by China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army.

The uncomfortable fact is that Biden Administration attempts to set “guardrails” on its relationship with China is not working that well. This is because China has failed to stop espionage, stealing, and exploiting vulnerabilities in the open-market system in the US, as well as becoming more aggressive. But it is also partly because actions undertaken by the administration to hold China accountable for this behavior have threatened core Chinese interests.

Chinese authorities would have placed blame and liability on the US if there were damages caused by the crash of the US craft. Protests would have erupted in front of the US Embassy and China’s Ambassador to the US swiftly withdrawn.

My first reaction to the Chinese balloon when it was identified floating over Montana was probably the same as yours: “Shoot it down, already!” In my decades as a senior intelligence official, I focused on facts, not outrage, highlighting the intelligence community’s knowledge and providing a measured, clear-headed assessment. In meetings probably held in the White House Situation Room multiple times over the past week, a senior intelligence official would have joined the US military, level-setting the discussion in this vein. So I’m inclined to buy the risk-benefit calculus that drove the decision to wait to shoot the balloon down until it was flying over shallow US waters where the risk posed by a large debris field was minimal.

If you listen closely, you can already hear the war drums beating, and I’m waiting for the hyperbole to reach new heights as we move closer to the 2024 election: who will be the toughest on China of them all? But let’s not let China-bashing become a new brand of McCarthyism, particularly when considering the already-dangerous rise in anti-Asian rhetoric and violence reported in the US in recent years.

The Shoot Down of a High-Energy Object by General Relativity and Its Disappearance in Alaska’s Regime

After the American national security officials disclosed that Biden gave the US military’s permission to shoot down the high altitude object, he told CNN that the shoot down was a success.

The object brought down over Alaska was much smaller than the Chinese surveillance balloon downed over territorial waters on Saturday. The object taken down on Friday has been described as a small car by US officials, whereas the balloon that was downed on Saturday was described by US officials as about the size of three buses. The second flying object was not given an attribute by the US.

It is believed that the increase in objects we detected over the past week is a result of increased scrutiny of our skies in the wake of the People’s Republic of China balloon that took down last Saturday.

It did, however, pose a risk to people and property on the ground if it were to be shot down, as officials said it was roughly 200 feet tall and the payload weighed more than a couple of thousand pounds.

There were two efforts to get closer to the object and evaluate it as it flew. The first engagement took place Thursday night and the second on Friday. Both engagements yielded “limited” information, Kirby told reporters.

“We were able to get some fighter aircrafts up and around it before the order to shoot it down, and the pilots assessment was this was not manned,” Kirby added.

Biden, at the recommendation of the Pentagon, ordered the military “to down the object and they did,” Kirby added. Fighter aircraft from US Northern Command brought down an object that came inside territorial airspace. It went down over frozen Arctic Ocean waters near the Canadian border and northeastern Alaska. The US expects to get the debris.

US Northern Command’s Alaska Command coordinated the operation with assistance from the Alaska Air National Guard, Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Ryder said.

The Xi Yao Long, the Yang-Mills Object, and China’s Dependence on the Military and State: What does China really do about it?

This is an object, because it is the best description we have right now. We don’t know who owns it – whether it’s state-owned or corporate-owned or privately-owned, we just don’t know,” Kirby said.

The object first came to the attention of the US government. Biden was first briefed Thursday night “as soon as the Pentagon had enough information,” Kirby said.

The object did not appear to bemaneuvering, and therefore, was at the mercy of prevailing winds, making it less predictable.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a temporary flight restriction Friday in the area around Deadhorse, Alaska, as the military took action against the object.

The Biden administration has faced questions over its handling of a suspected Chinese spy balloon that floated across the nation last week before being shot down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the Carolinas on Saturday.

While the president stood by how he and his administration handled that balloon, he faced opposition from Republicans for allowing the suspected spy balloon to travel throughout the country before being shot down.

However, a senior State Department official said the US believes the balloon was part of a “PRC fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance operations” and that these activities are “often undertaken at the direction of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).” The official added that China has “overflown these surveillance balloons over more than 40 countries across five continents” – without providing more detail.

If true, the assessment could point to a significant lack of coordination in the Chinese system at a time when US and Chinese relations have become strained.

The alternative in this scenario – that Xi was aware that a balloon was being dispatched over the United States ahead of a visit from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Beijing – would raise a separate set of concerns about China’s decision-making in relation to the US.

The Foreign Ministry was caught off-guard by the situation and did not inform the public until almost 13 hours after the Pentagon said it was looking for a balloon.

Beijing, in a statement last weekend, appeared to link the device to “companies,” rather than the government or military – though in China the prominence of state-owned enterprises and a robust military-industrial complex blurs the line between the two.

A lack of delegation of authority to lower levels is one of the obstacles to centralizing power under the leadership of Hu Jintao, according to Thompson.

It means lower-level officials who might be able to more closely watch such missions won’t have the freedom to do so or they will not be equipped to make political judgments about their impact. Power struggles between lower and higher ranking officials could also complicate communication, he said.

There is a tension in the Chinese system where lower levels fight for their own autonomy while upper levels fight for greater control, he said.

In the past, tensions have arisen in China as a result of the spread of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SRS) in 2002-2003, and the Covid-19 outbreak, which was seen by many as slowing the response and compounding the problem. Some blamed local officials who feared repercussions, or were accustomed to a system where information flows from the top down, not the bottom up.

The same could be said for balloon launches, in which operations were not managed or monitored the same way as space or other aircraft missions.

In this case, entities launching balloons may have received little or no opposition from other countries, including the U.S., as they increasingly see balloon launches as routine based on weather conditions and at modest costs.

He said that the leaders of the programs had become emboldened and have tested new routes, but that they didn’t get top priority attention from the perspective of political risk.

The shooting of a black hole over Canadian airspace by the Xi Jinping bungee-running event during the G20 summit

Alfred said that he wanted 100% control because of his personality. I don’t believe that Xi Jinping wants that kind of independence.

Instead, Xi may have been comfortable with an incident that diverted the attention of a public frustrated amid a faltering economy after years under the recently dismantled zero-Covid policy – but underestimated the US domestic response that resulted in the postponed talks, Wu said.

Meanwhile, Washington may be offering its message that Xi wasn’t aware of the situation as it seeks to “continue the dialogue” started during a meeting between Xi and US President Joe Biden at the G20 summit in Bali, according to Wu.

The object that was shot down over Canadian airspace was tracked since Friday evening, according to a Pentagon spokesman. The man is Patrick Ryder.

There’s no indication at this point that the unidentified objects have any connection to China’s surveillance balloon but it seems that national security officials across the continent remain on edge. After briefly closing air space over Montana after a radar anomaly, the airspace was re-opened on Saturday evening.

The Canadian Defense Minister said on Saturday at a news conference that there was a smaller object that was shot down than the Chinese balloon.

“Monitoring continued today as the object crossed into Canadian airspace, with Canadian CF-18 and CP-140 aircraft joining the formation to further assess the object,” Ryder’s statement said.

US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau both approved the shoot down on Saturday, according to a statement from the White House.

Observation of an unidentified flying object on Weibo: a heavy-matter impact on China’s maritime industry

Ryder’s statement said that while Canadian authorities conduct recovery operations, the FBI will be “working closely with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.”

A source briefed on intelligence said that pilots gave different accounts as to what they observed after coming near the object, some saying it interfered with their sensors but others saying they didn’t.

Maritime authorities in China’s Shandong province said they spotted an “unidentified flying object” in waters near the port city of Rizhao and were “preparing to shoot it down,” state-run news outlet The Paper reported.

In a text message to fishing vessels, maritime authorities in the neighboring port city of Qingdao told crews to be on alert to avoid danger and assist with debris recovery efforts if possible.

Please take photos of debris if it falls near your boat. If conditions allow, please help salvage it,” the marine development department of Qingdao’s Jimo district said in the message cited by The Paper.

As of Monday afternoon local time, Chinese authorities and state media had not provided any update, and it is unclear if the object has already been taken down.

Following the fallout, the US Commerce Department has restricted six Chinese companies tied to the Chinese military’s aerospace programs from obtaining US technology without government authorization.

On Monday morning, the object had become the top trending topic on Weibo with two related hashtags generating more than 900 million views. Many wondered – some with a sense of disappointment – why authorities had not released any update on the shoot down.