china confidential
Monday, May 11, 2009
Shocking but True: Castro Had 100 Nukes in 1962
Food for thought....
Official estimates of North Korean and Pakistani nuclear arsenals can be dangerously misleading.
The hidden history of the Cuban Missile Crisis--kept from U.S. intelligence and the public for 30 years--proves the point.
It was learned in 1992 that the Soviet Union had smuggled about 100 small nuclear weapons into Cuba at the time of the October 1962 crisis in addition to more powerful strategic missiles.
Cuban President Fidel Castro wanted to keep the tactical weapons--nuclear warheads for artillery and IL-28 jet bombers--even after the crisis, and Moscow's defense minister initially agreed and ordered his troops to train Cubans in their use.
But Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, shocked that Castro had urged him to attack the United States with strategic nuclear missiles at the height of the crisis, ordered his commanders to swiftly remove all the tactical weapons.
The crisis ended in October and the last of the tactical warheads was reported returned to the Soviet Union on Christmas Day in December 1962, according to documents found decades later by Western and Russian researchers in once-secret Soviet archives.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Newt Gingrich Condemns Obama Betrayal of Israel
On Sunday, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich again showed that he is one of Israel's best friends in the United States.
He called for sanctions to be imposed against Iran and its access to gasoline imports during his address at the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference in Washington, D.C.
Gingrich condemned the Obama administration’s diplomatic overtures to Iran, saying that the country is led by theocrats who threaten the security of Israel, and in turn that of the United States.
“We need to recognize that there are some regimes we will never be able to cut a deal with because they are in fact evil,” he said.
Call for Regime Change in Iran
The Republican leader called for “enforcing the disruption of gasoline supplies until the Iranian economy broke, the ayatollahs were ousted and a new regime was in place, without a single shot fired.”
The Obama administration has given up on regime change in Iran. In fact, the administration is ready to offer the mullahocracy security guarantees as part of a "Grand Bargain" to counter the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to China Confidential analysts.
Gingrich said that cutting off Iran’s access to international oil markets would take away their ability to “subsidize terrorism around the world.” [China Confidential analysts say the Islamist regime needs a minimum $80 oil price to supports its ailing economy and nuclear program and imperialist projects.]
Gingrich also called for military strikes, if necessary, to destroy missile sites in Iran and North Korea.
In an interview with the Jerusalem Post on Sunday, Gingrich described Obama’s policy of engaging Iran a “fantasy” and his policies in the region “very dangerous for Israel.”
Iran Aiming for $80 Oil
Iran will make every effort this summer to ratchet up tensions in the Middle East in order to raise the price of oil to over $70 a barrel, according to China Confidential analysts. They say Iran's Islamist regime needs a minimum $80-per-barrel price to support its economy, nuclear and missile programs, and terrorist proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah.
Hamas Confirms Opposition to Two-State Solution
For those who misinterpreted his interview with The New York Times last week, Hamas leader Khaled Mashal on Saturday clarified that he never said he supports the two-state solution for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Mashal told Germany's DPA news service the he and Hamas categorically reject any solution to the conflict that does not end with Israel's destruction.
He pointed out that he told the Times that he agreed to a 10-year truce in exchange for the creation of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria, but gave no guarantee that the war to extend "Palestine" into the rest of Israel wouldn't resume after that.
The Times and many other news outlets covered the interview as though Hamas had finally come on board with the terms of the land-for-peace process, indirectly suggesting that the only obstacle remaining to peace was Israeli intransigence.
-Israel Today
N. Korean Military Controls Criminal Spy Agency
More proof that North Korea uniquely combines features of totalitarian and criminal states....
AFP reports:
North Korea's military now controls a state intelligence body involved in illicit operations to generate funds through money counterfeiting and weapons exports, a report said Sunday.
In a recent shakeup, the ruling communist party put a key organisation responsible for overseas espionage under the purview of the military, Yonhap news agency said.
The body has been involved in various illegal operations to earn hard currency, including drug trafficking, counterfeiting and weapons exports, it said.
Seoul also holds the organisation responsible for the 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner which killed all 115 people on board and prompted the United States to put Pyongyang on a list of states sponsoring terrorism.
China Confidential analysts say the North Korean military is supplanting the communist party. The only potentially positive aspect to this, analysts say, is that this could pave the way for the so-called "Chinese solution" to the North Korean problem--i.e. a Chinese-sponsored military coup.
China's Influence Over North Korea Questioned
By Andre de Nesnera
EDITOR'S NOTE: As China Confidential readers well know, we believe that China can moderate or even replace the North Korean regime but chooses not to do so for strategic reasons having to do with countering the United States, keeping it off balance, and eventually driving it from Asia. In the interest of further stimulating debate and discussion of this important issue, however, we present the following article, originally published by Voice of America.
For more than five years, China has been a major player in the six-party talks aimed at persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.
The conventional wisdom is that China is North Korea's staunchest ally and greatest source of support in the international community.
Economically, Beijing is Pyongyang's major supplier of food and energy. Roughly 80 percent of consumer goods found in North Korea are made in China. Beijing is interested in North Korea's raw materials such as coal, iron ore and limestone as well as its precious metals such as gold.
Diplomatically, for the past several years, China has been the host of the six-party talks bringing together in addition to Beijing, the United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea and North Korea.
The aim of these negotiations is to persuade Pyongyang to eliminate its nuclear weapons capabilities. However, North Korea has withdrawn from those talks after strong international criticism of its recent [April 5th] test launch of a long range ballistic missile.
Analysts say despite strong political, economic and historical ties, the relationship between China and North Korea is far from cordial. One of those analysts is James Walsh, nuclear and security expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT, Cambridge, Mass.] who has traveled to North Korea on several occasions. "It has been a rocky relationship. Because North Korea, on the one hand, feels emotional ties to China, but on the other hand is scared to death that China, a great power, is going to overwhelm it economically--or worse, cut a deal with the Americans, leaving it out in the cold. So North Korea is of two minds when it comes to China: it welcomes China's support, but is also fearful. It is fearful of the great powers, it's fearful that it's going to be stomped on when these giants - United States, China, Japan--are making their back room [ie. secret] deals. That's what North Korean officials tell me," he says.
Debating Chinese Leverage
Analysts say there is a lot of debate as to how much leverage China can exert on North Korea and whether Beijing could persuade Pyongyang to rejoin the six-party talks.
Drew Thompson is a China expert with the Nixon Center, a non partisan, public policy institution. "China definitely has influence and it has leverage. Often U.S. officials have stated that China is not using all of its leverage. And sometimes that simply refers to China's essential delivery of aid shipments, of food and energy, whereas the U.S. officials have stated in the past that if China would just turn off the oil and energy going into North Korea, then North Korea would have to respond. The Chinese are very reluctant to use that opportunity to really apply coercive pressure on North Korea because they believe that North Korea would not respond kindly and it would basically ruin or undermine the existing China-North Korea relationship and take away the ability that China currently has to communicate with Pyongyang fairly effectively. So China does have leverage, but they also, at the same time, feel a little bit helpless," he says.
David Kay is the former chief nuclear weapons inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency. He also believes China has leverage over North Korea - but he says it is hard to use. "Theoretically, the Chinese could tap down on [reduce] their fuel and food supplies to North Korea. But the Chinese will tell you--and I think it's a legitimate response--that look, what they're afraid of is a rapid collapse in North Korea, which would lead to an influx of Koreans into Manchuria across the Yalu River, destabilizing that area. So they are reluctant to use the power they have - but they have far more influence than anyone else with North Korea," he says.
Drew Thompson from the Nixon Center says China would prefer to have a stable and economically viable North Korea on its border. "The Chinese preference for North Korean future scenarios would very much look like a smaller model of China, or China's north-east region, with privatization and slow, incremental reform of the economic sectors and gradual opening of social rights and freedoms for individual citizens - but maintaining its authoritarian political structure, very much as China has done over the last 30 years. And I think there's a great deal of frustration that North Korea has not followed that Chinese model for economic reform," he says.
Regarding the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program, Thompson and others say China does have some leverage over North Korea. Analysts say if anyone can persuade Pyongyang to go back to the negotiating table, it is Beijing. But experts also say the Chinese government must figure out how much pressure it can exert and how far it can push before instability is triggered in North Korea, bringing about potentially, an even greater crisis.
Iran Turning to China for Air Defense System
Frustrated by Russia's refusal to go ahead with the arms sale, Iran is turning to China for an advanced air-defense system that will make Israeli air raids against Iranian nuclear and missile installations practically impossible. Read about it here.
China Confidential expects China to sell the system to Iran.
China Confidential analysts have repeatedly said that China will make every effort possible to strengthen its alliance with non-Arab, Islamist Iran and its Arab proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, and ally, Syria, and other Arab countries.
China's Special EnvoyIn addition, China will move aggressively to counter U.S. efforts to enter into a "Grand Bargain" with Iran--an Obama administration project that China Confidential was among the first media outlets to report.
China Confidential analysts say China's special envoy to the Middle East, Wu Sike, is deeply involved in deliberations over the strategically important weapons system. Click here for our recent article about his activities.
The combination of Chinese arms and American appeasement will assure Iran ample time to develop--and deploy--nuclear weapons.
Israel is being painted into a corner, increasingly isolated, demonized and delegitimized. This is an extremely dangerous development--for the world. Anyone who has ever spent time in Israel would advise the so-called international community that there is a high degree of risk in assuming that Israel will allow itself to be ghettoized ahead of a planned new Holocaust. Unlike the Jewish communities of Europe, who blindly trusted in their governments to protect them, the Jewish State is independent and armed to the teeth--a presumed nuclear power capable of delivering mass death to those who dream of delivering mass death to Israel.
Obama Advisor Links Iran Issue to Palestinian State
President Obama's National Security Advisor strongly signaled Sunday that Israel had to withdraw to indefensible borders--the pre-1967 armistice lines that the late Israeli foreign minister, Abba Eban, referred to as "Auschwitz borders"--and agree to the creation of an Iran-backed, Hamas-ruled terrorist state in the disputed lands of the so-called West Bank in order to expect even a modicum of U.S. support with respect to the Iranian nuclear issue. Click here for the story--further proof that the Obama administration aims to appease Iran and abandon and betray Israel. An excerpt follows:
The US government agrees that Iran's nuclear ambitions pose an "existential threat" to Israel but that only reinforces the need for Middle East peace, a top official said Sunday.
General James Jones, President Barack Obama's national security advisor, said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would hear the US message on the need for a "two-state" solution first-hand when he comes here soon.
"We understand Israel's preoccupation with Iran as an existential threat. We agree with that," he said on ABC television.
"And by the same token, there are a lot of things that you can do to diminish that existential threat by working hard towards achieving a two-state solution," he said.
"This is a very strategic issue. It's extremely important. And we're looking forward to having a good, constructive dialogue with our Israeli friends when they visit Washington in the next seven or eight days."
The Long Email: a Short Story About How China's Real Rulers Really See the US and President Obama
By Andre Pachter
Being a Fictional Work Inspired by and with Apologies
to a Diplomatic Cable from a Different Time and Place
[X] to the Secretary of State
SECRET
BEIJING, May 1, 2009
___ Answer to Dept's _ involves questions so intricate, so delicate, so strange to our form of thought, and so important to analysis of our international environment that I cannot compress answers into single brief message without yielding to what I feel would be dangerous degree of over-simplification. I hope, therefore, Dept will bear with me with respect to the length of this reply.
(1) The men who really rule the PRC--men who wear military uniforms--still live in antagonistic "U.S. encirclement" with which in the long run there can be no permanent peaceful coexistence. They believe that the U.S. intends to encircle, destabilize, and dismantle China--break it apart by secretly supporting separatist tendencies among restive Tibetans and Muslims. As a Chinese official recently told me: "Your overt policy is to compete with China. But your covert policy, in Cold War terms, is containment and rollback. You want China to crack up from within."
In the eyes of the Chinese leadership, the new U.S. doctrine of encirclement and containment was spelled out by the Bush administration--specifically, during a visit by Secretary of State Rice to Tokyo, part of a tour across Asia. The Secretary of State said in a speech that "even China must eventually embrace some form of open, genuinely representative government." And she suggested that the U.S. would somehow bring about a democratic China through joint actions with its Asian allies. "I really do believe the U.S.-Japan relationship, the U.S.-South Korea relationship, the U.S.-India relationship – all are important in creating an environment where China is more likely to play a positive role than a negative role," she said.
Fueling fears of encirclement, the Secretary of State singled out the father of U.S. anti-Soviet containment policy, George Kennan, who had just passed away, as one of the "great architects of American foreign policy." The PRC is keenly aware of recent historical research that shows that Kennan's overt containment policy covered his covert policy of active confrontation with the Soviet Union that included espionage, sabotage, and subversion.
(2) The PRC's really ruling elite believe that the Obama administration is also committed to the above policies. In fact, the PRC view is that the present administration is actually accelerating and intensifying the strategy of encirclement and dismantlement. Correction: The PRC's real rulers believe that the real rulers of the U.S.--the men who selected and installed President Obama in the White House--are accelerating and intensifying the U.S. strategy. I will elaborate on this below. First, however, I would like to briefly discuss the PRC's two-pronged, political and military strategy, which aims to counteract the U.S.
I will begin with the military strategy, which itself can be divided into two parts. The PRC is pursuing an overt new strategy in Southeast Asia oriented around the Strait of Malacca in an effort to secure its access to oil. There is simultaneously a covert effort underway to expand Chinese influence in Asia with the goal of it eventually becoming the primary Pacific power displacing the US. As China’s power grows over the next 15-25 years, US economic, political and military interests will be increasingly challenged by it in the region. Japan's defense specialists seem to agree. They are convinced that China intends to establish itself as the world’s second superpower and are concerned that domination of Japan will be part of the process.
The second part of the PRC's military strategy centers around its efforts to transform its air and ground forces--a "revolution in military affairs." The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is developing a capability to project power throughout Asia and to deny the U.S. access to Central Asia. The PLA is also investing in a range of new weapons systems including short and medium-range ballistic missiles, advanced strike aircraft, airborne surveillance and even unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The PLA land forces are being restructured to increase their mobility, flexibility and combined arms capability. In addition to its power projection capabilities, the PLA is also investing in capabilities intended to exploit potential vulnerabilities in U.S. forces, while developing the means to hold at risk U.S. C4ISR systems, particularly those in space.
The PRC's political strategy can also be divided into covert and overt efforts or centerpieces. The former revolves around support for the DPRK; the latter, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). DPRK nuclear and missile programs distract the U.S. and could deter it from intervening in a cross-Strait conflict. The DPRK could also serve as a PRC club for driving the U.S. out of the Korean Peninsula and hastening the departure of the U.S. hegemon from Asia and PRC dominance of Japan. The SCO normalizes relations with China’s neighbors, functions as a major instrument of its diplomacy and defense policy, and as a forum for coordinating economic issues involving it, Russia, and the Central Asian states. The PLA has conducted joint exercises with other SCO members.
(3) The PRC is inviting Iran into the SCO in line with an ongoing effort to strengthen relations with Muslim and Arab nations, about which I have previously written. Suffice it to say, The PRC believes that a U.S.-Iran war or an Israel-Iran war would have a devastating impact on the PRC's national interests. In order to prevent such a war, the PRC has worked and continues to work to delegitimize the case for military action against Iran via the U.N. and to deter the U.S. via close China-Iran ties.
PRC leaders believe that an attack on Iran will devastate Iran’s economic infrastructure, even if its main targets are nuclear and missile facilities. The leadership draws comparisons with World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the First Gulf War, Serbia, and the U.S.-backed Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006. They believe that Iran’s oil industry will be hit hard. They believe that the Persian Gulf could be temporarily shut down, that without oil revenues, Iran will not be able to maintain buying Chinese imports, and, finally, that the U.S. dollar could drop in value and the PRC could see its currency reserves plummet in value.
The beneficiaries of this devastation, according to the PRC, would be Washington's ruling elite, as mentioned above--meaning, a super-secret society that has chosen the present U.S. President as its tool. As absurd as this belief may seem, the PRC seems to believe in it--from the top down to the Internet bloggers who regularly rant against U.S. "imperialism."
(4) The PRC leadership is obsessed with and actively encourages conspiracy theories. A Chinese bestseller entitled The Currency War, which is read in the highest government circles, accuses "the Jews" of planning to rule the world by manipulating the international financial system. Many Chinese believe the U.S. deceived China into buying "bad" Treasury bonds. Tibetan and Muslim rights and separatist movements are seen as instruments of a U.S. conspiracy aimed at dismembering China in order to create a theocratic state--part of a U.S. plot to avoid paying their debt to China.
Much is made of President Obama's Muslim heritage and third world roots--that his father was an African Muslim and that the President was educated as a child in Indonesia, where he was introduced to Islam by his Indonesian Muslim stepfather, etc. The PRC believes the U.S. ruling elite put the President in power, or, at the very least, allowed him to come to power, in order to revive and revamp a U.S. Cold War strategy that seeks to use political Islam against China and Russia.
The PRC regards the Sept. 11 attacks and the global jihad as a case of blowback--the U.S. losing control of its own monstrous creation. At the very top, there is/was no genuine sympathy toward the U.S. for the losses it suffered. On the contrary, the books and videos that were published by state-owned firms reflect the super-elite consensus that the U.S. got its comeuppance on that awful day.
PRC leaders place great significance in what they see as the Bush administration's unwillingness to reach out to China and Russia in the aftermath of Sept. 11. The Obama administration's outreach to Iran and the Muslim world further encourages the PRC view that the U.S. intends to use Islam against China and Russia. Instead of aiming for a "Grand Bargain" with Beijing and Moscow, PRC leaders believe, Washington is seeking such an arrangement with Islamic nations--at the expense of both China and Russia.
In this context, the PRC puts great emphasis on the President's early emphasis on and approach to Pakistan, which the PRC sees as a plot to break up, balkanise, and de-nuclearize the country to make it easier to control in keeping with a broader plot to remap the Muslim world. Important PRC analysts assert the U.S. plans to partition Pakistan along ethnic lines: Pashtunistan (comprising Pashtuns of NWFP and Afghanistan); Free Baluchistan (a federation comprising Sindh and Baluchistan); and Pakistan, comprising a Punjabi rump state cleansed of nuclear weapons.
In PRC eyes, Baluchistan, the center of Taliban activity, became a high priority target for India and the U.S. due to overtures to the PRC on the part of Pakistan's former president, General Pervez Musharraf. The Chinese-built port in geo-strategic, resource-rich Gawadar, which is located at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, promised to provide the PRC with access to the Indian Ocean. This is believed by the PRC to be unacceptable to India and the U.S., which, according to the PRC, has designated Gawadar as the next Dubai.
To be continued....
Copyright 2009 China Confidential
Posts
