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Beijing Preparing for War?

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Photo Credit: APUnited States intelligence agencies recently detected China’s military shifting road-mobile ballistic missiles closer to its southern coast near the disputed Senkaku Islands amid growing tensions between Beijing and Japan over the islands dispute.

U.S. defense officials said the movements are being watched closely as China’s military is also holding large-scale military exercises that some fear could be a trigger for a conflict with Japan that could involve U.S. forces. The officials did not provide details of the missile movements that were tracked by U.S. aircraft, ship-based, and satellite surveillance systems in the region.

Disclosure of the missile movements comes as White House national security adviser Tom Donilon on Monday met in Seoul with China’s state councilor Liu Yandong. The two were in South Korea to attend the inauguration of South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

Tensions remain high between Japan and China over Tokyo’s nationalization last year of several uninhabited islands between Okinawa and Taiwan called the Senkakus. China claims the islands as its territory. At issue are large undersea oil and gas deposits sought by both energy-poor countries.

The officials confirmed the missile movements near the provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian after Chinese press outlets first reported them.

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BBC Scandal: Transcripts Show Mark Thompson, Now NYT CEO, Said He ‘Never Heard’ Rumors About Molester

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Photo Credit: APNewly released transcripts from an inquiry into the BBC’s handling of the Jimmy Savile child sex scandal reveal more about the role played by the public service broadcaster’s then director-general, New York Times Co. CEO Mark Thompson.

The transcripts, published Friday, show that Thompson told the inquiry late last year that he had “never heard” rumors that Savile had a “dark side of any kind, sexual or otherwise.” Savile, a celebrity entertainer who died in 2011 at age 84, is alleged to have sexually abused hundreds of children over his long BBC career.

The same inquiry, chaired by former Sky News chief Nick Pollard, was told by one of the BBC’s most prominent journalists, Jeremy Paxman, that Savile’s liking for “young girls” was “common gossip” at the BBC. Other interviewees confirmed this, with one recalling have heard rumors even before she joined the BBC well over a decade earlier.

The Pollard transcripts also criticize the way the BBC was run while Thompson was at the helm, with claims he oversaw a Beijing-style, top-heavy management structure.

“[T]hey had more senior leaders than China,” BBC Trust chairman Chris Patten told Pollard. “The management team, the senior management team, that the previous director-general [Thompson] had was 27 – 25 or 27. They never met.” (Patten has first-hand experience of China’s leadership structure; he was Britain’s last governor of Hong Kong before it reverted to mainland control in 1997.)

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Video: Biden- Americans ‘No Longer Worried’ About Economy

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Photo Credit: marcn In remarks today at the White House, Vice President Joe Biden said that Americans don’t have the same economic worries they did when President Barack Obama came into office:

“The are no longer traumatized by what was a traumatizing event, the great collapse of 2008,” said Biden.

“They are no longer worried, I think, about our economy being overwhelmed either by Europe writ large, the EU, or China somehow swallowing up every bit of innovation that exists in the world.”

See video:

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China’s Xi Affirms Goal Of Unification With Taiwan In Meeting With Senior Island Politician

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Photo Credit: Andy Wong/APChinese leader Xi Jinping reaffirmed China’s desire to bring Taiwan under its control in a meeting Monday in Beijing with the honorary head of the island’s ruling party.

Xi told Nationalist Party honorary chairman Lien Chan that he and other Communist Party leaders who took office in November will continue developing ties and pushing for unification with the island, which China claims as part of its territory.

“The new Communist Party ruling collective will continue to push forward the peaceful development of relations between the two sides and advance the cause of peaceful unification,” Xi told Lien at their meeting at the Great Hall of the People, the seat of the legislature in downtown Beijing.

Xi promised to “pragmatically forge ahead” to achieve new achievements in relations that would enrich residents on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

The meeting is the first between Xi and a leading Taiwanese politician since Xi assumed the party leadership in November, and comes weeks before he assumes the title of state president at the legislature’s annual session.

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Senators Raise Alarm Over Another Possible Sale Of Taxpayer-Backed Firm To Chinese

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Photo Credit: ReutersRepublican senators complained Wednesday that U.S. taxpayer dollars could end up boosting the Chinese economy, following reports that a Chinese firm is leading the pack of companies bidding for a majority stake in government-backed Fisker Automotive.

The troubled California-based electric car maker, which was backed by U.S. taxpayers to the tune of nearly $530 million, for months has been looking for a financial partner. Reuters reported earlier this week that China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group is favored to take over, though Fisker is also reportedly weighing a bid from another Chinese auto maker.

The development comes after Fisker’s main battery supplier — U.S. government-backed A123 Systems — was recently purchased by a separate Chinese firm.

Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, voiced concern Wednesday that Chinese companies are benefiting from U.S. taxpayers’ investment.

“Obama’s green energy investments appear to be nothing more than venture capital for eventual Chinese acquisitions,” Thune said in a statement. “After stimulus-funded A123 was just acquired by a Chinese-based company, it’s troubling to see that yet another struggling taxpayer-backed company might be purchased under duress by a Chinese company.”

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China’s Hack Attack Revealed China’s Military Linked To Cyber Espionage

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Photo Credit: APA secret Chinese military unit is the major player in cyber espionage against an array of computer networks around the world, according to an intelligence report by a cyber security firm.

“Our research and observations indicate that the Communist Party of China is tasking the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to commit systematic cyber espionage and data theft against organizations around the world,” the report by the security firm Mandiant said.

Mandiant conducts cyber threat analyses for both government and industry clients. A threat intelligence report produced in 2010 by the company was unable to confirm Chinese military involvement in widespread cyber attacks that were suspected as originating in China. “Now, three years later, we have the evidence required to change our assessment,” the report said.

“The details we have analyzed during hundreds of investigations convince us that the groups conducting these activities are based primarily in China and that the Chinese government is aware of them.”

Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Mich.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said the Chinese government plays a direct role in cyber theft that is “rampant,” and a problem growing “exponentially.”

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China Takes Control of Strategic Pakistani Port

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Photo Credit: Shakil Adil ISLAMABAD (AP) — China took over operational control of a strategic deep-water Pakistani seaport Monday that could serve as a vital economic hub for Beijing and perhaps a key military outpost.

Control of Gwadar port on Pakistan’s southwestern coast was transferred to a state-owned Chinese company, China Overseas Ports Holding Company Ltd., in a signing ceremony in Islamabad that was broadcast on TV.

Gwadar will soon be a “hub of trade and commerce in the region,” Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said at the ceremony. “It holds the key to bring together the countries of Central Asia” and will further improve Pakistan-China relations, he said.

China paid much of the $250 million originally needed to construct the port, which was previously run by Port of Singapore Authority. It has been a commercial failure since it opened in 2007 because Pakistan never completed the road network to link Gwadar to the rest of the country.

The port on the Arabian Sea occupies a strategic location between South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. It lies near the Strait of Hormuz, gateway for about 20 percent of the world’s oil.

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Iceland Considers Pornography Ban

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Photo Credit: AlamyThe government is considering introducing internet filters, such as those used to block China off form the worldwide web, in order to stop Icelanders downloading or viewing pornography on the internet.

The unprecedented censorship is justified by fears about damaging effects of the internet on children and women.

Ogmundur Jonasson, Iceland’s interior minister, is drafting legislation to stop the access of online pornographic images and videos by young people through computers, games consoles and smartphones.

“We have to be able to discuss a ban on violent pornography, which we all agree has a very harmful effects on young people and can have a clear link to incidences of violent crime,” he said.

Methods under consideration include blocking access to pornographic website addresses and making it illegal to use Icelandic credit cards to access pay-per-view pornography. A law forbidding the printing and distribution of pornography is already in force in Iceland but it has yet to be updated to cover the internet.

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Are China And Japan Moving Closer To War? Japan Proposes Military Hotline With China (+video)

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Photo Credit: extinctionprotocal.comTanks, one by one, moving along a main road in China’s coastal Fujian province. Driving up speculations that the Chinese military may be warming up for war. Local residents took these pictures between February 3 to February 6. At times, the line of tanks and artillery blocked traffic for several miles. And it wasn’t just in Fujian province.

These military vehicles were spotted further up the coast, in neighboring Zhejiang province. According to dissident website, molihua.org, these tanks in Hubei province are being transported from a military base to the coast. The troop movements come after months of escalating tensions between China and Japan over the disputed territory of the Diaoyun, or Senkaku islands and they’re known in Japan. It’s caused international worries that the two countries may be on the cusp of war.

Both sides have scrambled jets and warships in the region. In January, during naval exercise near the disputed waters, Chinese warships reportedly directed their targeting radar at a Japanese vessel. On February 7, State-run Global Times published this article saying there is a “serious possibility” a military conflict may flare up between China and Japan. It continues to say that fewer and fewer people are hopeful for a peaceful resolution to the Diaoyu Island crisis. Are we in a countdown to war between China and Japan? NTD will continue to keep you posted as the situation develops.

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North Korea Conducts Third Nuclear Test, Drawing New Sanctions Threat

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North Korea conducted its third nuclear test on Tuesday in defiance of U.N. resolutions, angering the United States and Japan and likely to infuriate its only major ally, China, and increase penalties against Pyongyang.

The North said the test had “greater explosive force” than the 2006 and 2009 tests that were widely seen as small-scale. Its KCNA news agency said it had used a “miniaturized” and lighter nuclear device, indicating that it had again used plutonium which is more suitable for use as a missile warhead.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the third of his line to rule the country, has now presided over two long-range rocket launches and a nuclear test during his first a year in power, pushing policies that have propelled his impoverished and malnourished country ever closer to becoming a nuclear weapons power.

U.S. President Barack Obama said the test was a “highly provocative act” that hurt stability in the region and called its nuclear program a threat to U.S. and international security.

“The danger posed by North Korea’s threatening activities warrants further swift and credible action by the international community. The United States will also continue to take steps necessary to defend ourselves and our allies,” Obama said in a statement.

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