China has no intention of fully complying with UN sanctions to force N Korea to dismantle its nuclear missiles program, Bill Gertz of the Washington Free Press reports, citing a secret plan adopted in September by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee. The CCP has denounced Western publication of the plan as “fake news,” Gertz continues, but China experts interviewed found the document credible and consistent with what has actually been happening. The CCP directive also states that if the US attacks North Korea, China and its ally Russia would respond militarily, possibly in other theaters. Gertz adds:
“Former State Department intelligence official John Tkacik, a China affairs specialist…told the Free Beacon the document may be ‘evidence that China…sees North Korean nuclear arms as an additional strategic threat to the United States, one that China can claim no influence over.’
“‘Reading between the lines, it is clear that China views North Korea as giving it leverage with the U.S., so long as the U.S. believes that China is doing all it can do,’ Tkacik said.
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said if the document is authentic, ‘it reveals China’s policy to be completely cynical and utterly detached from its publicly stated position'”
Chinese President Xi orders army to prepare for war
“Chinese President Xi Jinping orders army to prepare for WAR in chilling footage,” the Daily Star, a UK newspaper, reports.
Part of the concerted Chinese-North Korean CP plan unfolded on New Year’s Day is for North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un to put further missile tests on hold for the moment in the hope of forestalling US action on either the financial or military front, while simultaneously making lovey-dovey with South Korea, to distant it from its US alliance. Kim re-opened cross-border communications with South Korea, proposed high-level talks between the two countries.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in responded with a suggestion of cooperation in the Winter Olympics to be held next month in South Korea.
“China hails easing of tensions between Pyongyang and Seoul,” Asia Times reports. It’s likely, however, that the North Korean initiatives were coordinated ahead of time with Beijing, as outlined in the secret Chinese CP directive.
Today’s RealClearDefense blog warns that the US hasn’t yet come to grips that by one measure, China has already passed the US in size of economy, with all that implies for its future military relation with the US and the rest of the world.
Gordon Chang, a prominent specialist in Chinese and North Korean affairs, says that just as China has enormous leverage over North Korea, so does the US have leverage over China, leverage that neither President Trump nor any of his predecessors have dared to use — but should.
Mark Helprin, however, warns that the US deterrent capability has greatly deteriorated, but this urgent need hasn’t been addressed yet (Wall Street Journal, but behind a paywall):
“National survival depends on many factors…Alone of all crucial elements, the failure of America’s nuclear deterrent is capable of bringing instant destruction or unavoidable subjugation….The Obama administration understood nuclear rejuvenation to mean merely updating old systems rather than changing the architecture of the deterrent to match Russia’s and China’s programs, as well as advances in technology. Given that short of abject surrender the sole means of preventing nuclear war is maintaining the potential to inflict unacceptable damage upon an enemy and/or shield one’s country from such damage, what are our resources, and against what are they arrayed?
“The ‘nuclear triad’ commonly referred to is rather a pentad, its land, air, and sea legs joined by missile defense and the survivability of national infrastructure.
Russian Civil Defense drill
“America’s land leg comprises static, silo-based missiles…The U.S. air leg consists of ancient bombers and outdated standoff cruise missiles, both vulnerable to Russian and Chinese air defense…Our sea-based nuclear force, the least-vulnerable leg, for many years included 41 ballistic-missile submarines, SSBNs. These [have been dwindling] to…a planned 12….American ballistic-missile defense is severely underdeveloped due to ideological opposition and the misunderstanding of its purpose, which is to protect population and infrastructure as much as possible but…primarily to shield retaliatory capacity so as to make a successful enemy first strike impossible….As for national resilience, the U.S. long ago gave up any form of civil defense, while Russia and China have not.” [emphasis added -ed.]
Click here for an important discussion of missile defense and here for Founders Broadsheet‘s early exposé of North Korea as a Chinese proxy.
Click here to go to the previous Founders Broadsheet post (“Are protesters inside Iran receiving President’s Trump’s Twitter posts?”)
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