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Obama Rejected Tough Options For Countering Chinese Cyber Attacks Two Years Ago

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Photo Credit: Charles Dharapak

President Obama two years ago rejected a series of tough actions against China, including counter-cyber attacks and economic sanctions, for Beijing’s aggressive campaign of cyber espionage against the U.S. government and private businesses networks, according to administration officials.

Meanwhile, China recently issued a veiled threat to the United States about U.S. accusations of Chinese military cyber espionage. China told U.S. officials that continued U.S. public accusations of cyber espionage would render future bilateral discussions unproductive during recent U.S.-China talks following the release of a security firm’s report linking the Chinese military to cyber spying.

On plans to deter Chinese cyber attacks, senior administration officials turned down a series of tough options designed to dissuade China from further attacks that were developed over a three-month period beginning in August 2011.
According to administration officials familiar with internal discussions, the options were dismissed as too disruptive of U.S.-China relations.

The president’s closest advisers feared that taking action would potentially undermine U.S. relations with China, a major economic trading partner that currently has holdings of $1.2 trillion in Treasury debt, the officials told the Free Beacon. Government security and military officials under the White House Interagency Policy Committee, a working group directly supporting the National Security Council, developed the options.

The committee is made up of representatives from the Pentagon, intelligence community, law enforcement, homeland security, and foreign affairs agencies.

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Pyongyang Provocation: North Korea Set For Test Launch Of New Mobile ICBM With Upcoming Nuclear Test

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Photo Credit: APU.S. intelligence agencies monitoring North Korea for signs of a third underground nuclear test recently reported that the isolated communist state appears set to conduct the first test launch of a new road-mobile ICBM built with Chinese technology.

U.S. officials with access to intelligence reports said the North Koreans are expected to test fire either a new KN-08 road-mobile ICBM—capable of reaching parts of the United States—or a new medium-range advanced missile called the Musudan, also built on hard-to-detect mobile launchers.

New intelligence on the KN-08, which was showcased for the first time last April during a North Korean military parade atop a Chinese-made mobile transporter-launcher, indicates the North Koreans are preparing to launch one or more of the missiles around the time they conduct a future nuclear test.

Six of the missiles were shown during the parade. The range of the missile is not known because it has not yet been flight-tested. However, intelligence agencies believe it can range Alaska and Hawaii and possibly the U.S. West Coast.

The missile test preparations coincide with new intelligence indicating the North Koreans could conduct a third underground nuclear test at a remote facility in the northern part of the country called Kilju. Earlier nuclear tests were conducted in 2006 and 2009.

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Chinese Hackers Hit U.S. Media

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photo credit: Philip JägenstedtWASHINGTON—Chinese hackers believed to have government links have been conducting wide-ranging electronic surveillance of media companies including The Wall Street Journal, apparently to spy on reporters covering China and other issues, people familiar with the incidents said.

Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co. said Thursday that the paper’s computer systems had been infiltrated by Chinese hackers, apparently to monitor its China coverage. New York Times Co. NYT +2.19% disclosed Wednesday night that its flagship newspaper also had been the victim of cyberspying.

Chinese hackers for years have targeted major U.S. media companies with hacking that has penetrated inside newsgathering systems, several people familiar with the response to the cyberattacks said. Tapping reporters’ computers could allow Beijing to identify sources on articles and information about pending stories. Chinese authorities in the past have penalized Chinese nationals who have passed information to foreign reporters.

Journal sources on occasion have become hard to reach after information identifying them was included in emails. However, Western reporters in China long have assumed that authorities are monitoring their communications and act accordingly in sensitive cases.

Chinese Embassy spokesman Geng Shuang condemned allegations of Chinese cyberspying. “It is irresponsible to make such an allegation without solid proof and evidence,” he said. “The Chinese government prohibits cyberattacks and has done what it can to combat such activities in accordance with Chinese laws.” He said China has been a victim of cyberattacks but didn’t say from where.

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China Launches Its First Aircraft Carrier, Experts Doubt Its Strategic Value

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In a ceremony attended by the country’s top leaders, China put its first aircraft carrier into service on Tuesday, a move intended to signal its growing military might as tensions escalate between Beijing and its neighbors over islands in nearby seas.

Officials said the carrier, a discarded vessel bought from Ukraine in 1998 and refurbished by China, would protect national sovereignty, an issue that has become a touchstone of the government’s dispute with Japan over ownership of islands in the East China Sea.

But despite the triumphant tone of the launching, which was watched by President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, and despite rousing assessments by Chinese military experts about the importance of the carrier, the vessel will be used only for training and testing for the foreseeable future.

The mark “16” on the carrier’s side indicates that it is limited to training, Chinese and other military experts said. China does not have planes capable of landing on the carrier and so far training for such landings has been carried out on land, they said.

Even so, the public appearance of the carrier at the northeastern port of Dalian was used as an occasion to stir patriotic feelings, which have run at fever pitch in the last 10 days over the dispute between China and Japan over the East China Sea islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

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Mandarin Chinese Now Mandatory in U.S. Kindergartens

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Photo credit: storyvillegirl

Bibb County sits smack-dab in the center of Georgia, and 150 years ago it was at the very center of the Confederacy. Its foundries supplied weapons and ammunition to the rebel army, and no county supplied a larger percentage of its men to the cause. Toward the end of the Civil War, the only local men not carrying a musket for the South were elderly, blind or disabled.

Times are still tough in Bibb County. Some 20 percent of the residents live below the poverty line, and its public schools are among the lowest performing in the state. About half the kids don’t graduate from high school.

But the county has just embarked on a bold plan to have all its children fully bilingual — in English and Mandarin — by the time they graduate from high school. In recent weeks, children from pre-kindergarten through third grade began mandatory Mandarin classes, part of a curriculum that in three years will include middle school and high school students.

“Students who are in elementary school today, by 2050 they’ll be at the pinnacle of their career,” the school superintendent Romain Dallemand said in an interview that aired Saturday on NPR. “They will live in a world where China and India will have 50 percent of the world GDP. They will live in a world where, if they cannot function successfully in the Asian culture, they will pay a heavy price.”

The new curriculum has had some pushback, to say the least, and the word communism has often been raised. Jane Drennan, a deputy superintendent, told a TV station in Macon, the county seat, that she and other school officials had heard from many parents who said, “I don’t want my kid learning Chinese.”

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Once confident China, “rattled” by Europe’s debt crisis; Chinese exports plunge

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Premier Wen Jiabao told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that Europe must “strike a balance” between fiscal tightening and measures to promote growth. “Europe’s debt crisis has continued to worsen, giving rise to serious concerns in the international community. Frankly, I am also worried,” he said.

His comments mark a shift in Chinese policy. Beijing has until now backed austerity across Euroland, but the severity of China’s own downturn has begun to rattle policymakers.

Exports of electronic goods to Italy crashed 43pc in July from a year earlier, and sales to Germany fell 11pc. Caixin reported that processing trade to Europe fell 21pc.

The country’s two largest shipping groups COSCO and China Shipping both reported a drastic losses today. The Shanghai composite index of stocks threatened to break below 2000 today, the lowest since the Lehman crisis.

Mr Wen asked for clarification over whether Italy and Spain would adopt “comprehensive rescue measures” needed to unlock the EU bail-out machinery – and open the door to bond purchases by the European Central Bank.

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New Chinese nuclear missile will be able to penetrate US defenses

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Photo credit: An Honorable German

It might be time to sweep the cobwebs out of that old nuclear bunker at the bottom of the garden after reports in state-run Chinese media confirmed that the People’s Liberation Army is actively developing an intercontinental missile capable of penetrating US defences.

News first emerged of the planned ‘super missile’ from defence industry bible Jane’s Defence Weekly last week, according to South China Morning Post.

It apparently claimed that a Dongfeng-41 (DF-41) intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), had been fired in testing last month by the PLA’s Second Artillery Corps.

This third-generation missile, US military sources told Jane’s, contain multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) – effectively multiple warheads – meaning they would be almost impossible for current US defences to take down.

A report in Global Times, the populist sister title of Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily, apparently confirmed such a rocket was in development, quoting local military expert Wei Guoan.

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Video: Romney taunts China over moon landing, Olympic medals

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In this humorous speech at a campaign stop this week, Romney taunted China over the US’s medal count and moon landing.

Are the Chinese winning Olympic medals through child cruelty & torture? (+video)

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Photo credit: familymwr

By Matt Blake.  Her face etched with pain, a child trains for Olympic glory while her gymnastics trainer stands on her legs.

The cartoon space rockets and animal astronauts on her tiny red leotard are a stark and powerful reminder of this little girl’s tender age as she trains as hard as any adult athlete in the Western world.

Nanning Gymnasium in Nanning, China, is one of many ruthless training camps across the country to which parents send their children to learn how to be champions.

But while training techniques appear extreme to Western eyes, they provide an insight into why China’s athletes at London 2012 seem so easily able to swim, dive, lift and shoot their way to victory.

Gymnastic stars are known for starting at an incredibly early age, and this group of children appear no different as they battled to complete the demanding routines on bars, rings, and mats.  Read more from this story HERE.

Here is a video collage of Chinese children going through ruthless training, entitled “Chinese Olympics training or child cruelty?”:

 

Boehner refuses to go along with Romney’s plan to confront Chinese currency manipulation

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The top Republican in the U.S. Congress highlighted a policy rift Thursday with his party’s presidential hopeful when he reiterated his opposition to using legislation to press China to revalue its currency.

Staking out a position in contrast to the hawkish views of Mitt Romney, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, who has opposed repeated efforts in recent years to pass laws that would put tariffs on Chinese goods unless it allowed the yuan to appreciate, told reporters he still felt the same way.

“There’s a way to deal with this problem and a way not to deal with it. Congress passing a law outlining stringent requirements for dealing with the Chinese and the value of the currency, I think is inappropriate,” Boehner said.

Earlier this week, Lanhee Chen, the Romney campaign policy director, issued a blistering statement in which she said President Barack Obama, a Democrat, had “lost all credibility on China and trade” for among many things, failing to label China a currency manipulator despite his 2008 campaign pledge to do so.

“What message does it send the Chinese when President Obama refuses to even formally acknowledge that they are in fact manipulating their currency?” Chen wrote.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: jimmiehomeschoolmom