Pakistan MIRV test heats up South Asia’s arms race

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Pakistan’s recent missile technology advancement, shown by the Ababeel medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) test launch with multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV) capabilities, signifies a pivotal development in South Asia’s strategic balance and defense capabilities.

The International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) reports that Pakistan last month conducted its second test launch of the Ababeel MRBM designed to carry MIRVs, moving a step closer to achieving the enhanced capability to penetrate India’s nascent missile defenses.

IISS says that the recent test at Sakhi Sarwar range in Punjab province followed the 2005 India-Pakistan agreement on pre-notification for ballistic-missile tests, which included seven Notice to Air Missions issued by Pakistan. It mentions the test was conducted to revalidate various design and technical parameters and evaluate the performance of different subsystems.

IISS notes that the Ababeel is one of two nuclear-capable MRBMs that Pakistan is developing, with the main difference being its MIRV capability, which increases deterrence by increasing the chances of penetrating India’s emergent ballistic-missile defenses.

The institute says that India is also preparing its own MIRV capability, linked to its Agni VI intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that is designed primarily to penetrate Chinese missile defenses and not for use against Pakistan.

MIRVs were first developed in the 1960s to enable a missile to deliver multiple nuclear warheads to different targets, in contrast to traditional missiles that carry one warhead. While the original MIRVs were not designed to penetrate missile defenses, they are much harder to intercept than the traditional missile type.

For instance, the US LGM-30G Minuteman III, the main component of the US ground-based nuclear deterrent, can carry three Mk 21 MIRVs, each with a W87 thermonuclear warhead with a 375 to 475 kiloton yield. MIRVs can also be launched from an ICBM at different speeds and directions, and some MIRV-capable missiles can hit targets 1,500 kilometers apart.

However, MIRVs have their strategic pitfalls. In a 2014 article for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Zachary Keck mentions that MIRVs can destabilize since they emphasize first strikes, as one missile can hit multiple targets.

In connection with that, Keck says MIRVs enable countries to launch various warheads at a single target, with numerous lower-yield warheads being more destructive than a single warhead with an equivalent yield. He also notes that MIRVs make it easier to defeat missile defense systems.

Keck says for all those reasons MIRVs make small and medium-sized nuclear arsenals highly vulnerable to a decapitation first strike, presenting significant capability loss with each launch platform destroyed.

He says that a rival’s acquisition of MIRV capability forces nuclear states to significantly expand and disperse their arsenals to maintain a secure second-strike capability. In addition, he notes that MIRVs create the need to build more nuclear weapons to arm missiles.

In line with those reasons, Pakistan has a multifaceted rationale for acquiring MIRVs. Missile Threat noted in July 2022 that Pakistan’s strategic forces, consisting mainly of short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) and MRBMs, allow it to target almost any point in India, offsetting the significant conventional military asymmetry between the two rivals.

Response to ‘Cold Start’?

Islamabad’s MIRV program may be a response to New Delhi’s “Cold Start” military doctrine, formulated in response to past border conflicts with Pakistan and to alleged Pakistan state-sponsored terrorism.

Indian military exercises, 2004-2010, testing the Cold Start doctrine. Map: ResearchGate

In a December 2022 article in the peer-reviewed BTTN Research Journal, Saba Hanif explains that India developed its Cold Start doctrine in 2004 to swiftly capture small parts of Pakistani territory around 50 to 60 kilometers deep to use as leverage in post-conflict negotiations, prevent an international response and avoid Pakistani nuclear retaliation.

Hanif says that Cold Start involves using eight division-sized integrated battle groups with mechanized infantry, artillery and tanks working with the Indian Air Force to achieve rapid mobilization and shallow territorial gains.

Given Pakistan’s smaller military and limited nuclear arsenal of approximately 165 warheads, it may opt to use MIRVs as tactical battlefield weapons against India’s superior conventional military.

Pakistan may also be concerned about the survivability of its relatively small nuclear force, with MIRVs maximizing retaliation capability for every launch platform and missile that survives initial Indian strikes. 

However, Pakistan’s MIRV developments may complicate South Asia’s nuclear triangle dynamics involving Pakistan, India, and China.

In a June 2020 Stimson article, Monish Tourangbam says that the proximity of these nuclear-armed countries raises the risk of nuclear warfare or a two-front war for India in the event of a military standoff.

Tourangbam characterizes this triangle as Pakistan’s efforts to bridge its power asymmetry with India through nuclear deterrence, Chinese support and India’s concerns over China’s growing military capabilities and influence in the region.

However, he notes that the strategic alliance between China and Pakistan is more implicit than explicit, with no clear commitment to mutual defense in case of a war involving either country.

Given that, a May 2022 report by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) highlights that China, India and Pakistan have increased their nuclear arsenal and military technologies, leading to a security dilemma and a higher risk of nuclear conflict.

The report mentions that the 2019 Pulwama-Balakot crisis highlighted the future of India-Pakistan strife, with both nations drawing lessons that could escalate future concerns. It also notes the 2020-2021 Ladakh border clashes between India and China marked a significant deterioration in India-China ties.

An Indian soldier on a vehicle in Ganderbal district after border clashes with China in Ladakh. Photo: Asia Times Files / NurPhoto / Muzamil Mattoo

In line with that, Daniel Markey notes in a February 2023 USIP article that South Asia’s strategic stability is increasingly precarious due to geopolitical changes and evolving military technologies, including expanding nuclear arsenals and advanced delivery systems.

Markey notes several risks to the region’s strategic stability, such as nuclear escalation from accidents like India’s March 2022 Brahmos missile misfire into Pakistan, the potential for crisis escalation from terrorism or border disputes and deteriorating India-Pakistan relations exacerbated by domestic politics and external factors like the Taliban’s influence in Afghanistan.

He notes that heightened India-China border tensions and their growing military capabilities create fears of conventional and nuclear escalation, contributing to a “cascading security dilemma” where defensive measures by one state spur insecurities and arms advancements in others, potentially leading to an unpredictable and dangerous South Asia arms race.

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Fusion power planners must allow for tech changes

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This is the fifth installment in Asia Times Science Editor Jonathan Tennenbaum’s series “Fusion Diary.” Read a series introduction, part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4. Part 5 is a continuation of an August 22, 2023, interview with Paul Methven, director of Great Britain’s Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) program.

Jonathan Tennenbaum: What are the most important decisions that you’re facing right now?

Paul Methven: I think some of the most critical decisions we will make are around the selection of our partners. Because, by definition, trying to get a fusion energy plant designed is an extreme example of a complex major program. In any such endeavor, you’re going to face a myriad of things you can’t predict, a myriad of problems and twists and turns.

If you are not organized and don’t have the right culture and the right partners in place, you will be far less able to navigate through those challenges as they arise. There’s no point in pretending that things won’t be difficult. You have to know that they will be difficult and then get the capability and the organization and the behaviors in place to deal with that difficulty. So, actually, partner selection and organization of the program is the number one set of decisions that we need to deal with.

The STEP program comprises three main phases. Image: STEP / UK Atomic Energy Authority

There are a myriad of technical decisions that arise. Some of those are around the basic architecture to enable maintenance. A number of them are material selection choices, balancing between something that’s optimal but doesn’t quite exist yet, versus something that’s probably suboptimal, but is here today, and that we know we can build from.

Across the whole program, there is balance of risk between do we go with something that’s more established technology, but maybe lower performance, or do we go with not yet established technology, but which might just give us that performance leap that we need to make the whole integrated design work.

Those decisions are day in, day out and sometimes when you make them, you have to go right back down around your design loop again, because the problem is so integrated.

JT: During the time between now and planned operation a number of technological breakthroughs are sure to happen.

PM: Yes, absolutely. So some of this is about determining which things you’re going to deliberately leave as choices to be made later. And there’s some attendant risk with that, but also you’re banking on an opportunity arising later on, versus some things where you think, I just have to cement this now because the whole problem is too uncertain unless I actually make a decision on something.

And the whole program is a balance of those things. Understanding the nature of each of the decisions you have to make and sequencing them is in itself quite a tricky thing to do. But we are trying our best to work through that.

Paul Methven speaking to prospective suppliers at the STEP Whole Plant Partner Event at Sheffield United Conference Centre, Yorkshire. The event was part of STEP’s program to find construction and engineering partners to design and build the UK’s prototype fusion energy powerplant. Photo: UK Atomic Energy Authority

High-temperature superconductors are a key issue

JT: Speaking of technological breakthroughs that might occur along the way, obviously one area is high-temperature superconductors, which are essential to the STEP reactor. It’s hard for me to believe that there won’t be a great deal of progress in that area in the coming period. Are you anticipating that, in your design work?

PM: We are anticipating some improvement. Well, let me rephrase. We would hope, and I think you’re right, there will be really considerable improvement in HTS magnets across the next 20 or so years. What we’re doing at the moment is anticipating some pretty modest improvements, and using that as the basis for design. Any subsequent improvement becomes upside.

Left: High-temperature superconductor tape is a revolutionary breakthrough on the way to fusion power. Photo: Tokamak Energy. Right: The production of high-temperature superconducting wire and tapes has grown exponentially over the last few years, as exemplified by production figures of the world’s leading manufacturer, the SuperOx Group. Graph: SuperOX

With a number of technologies, not just HTS magnets, we’re being not super-conservative but relatively conservative and making sure that in our calculation we can get a positive estimated net power. If we have subsequent efficiency improvements and cost improvements, for example as the demand for high-temperature superconductor tape and so forth goes up, that would be an upside on the project.

STEP targets

JT: Do you regard STEP to be a prototype, so that you could move to an commercialization with a similar design, for example in terms of the size of the reactor?

PM: I would think that a few things would change. There would probably be an increase in scale. This is just the point we’ve been discussing, that efficiency improvements in each of the underpinning systems might actually limit the necessity to increase scale greatly. At the moment we have an energy balance which shows us in design as positive net energy out. But that could get better for two reasons.

One, if you increase the physical scale of the machine. But more particularly if you drive efficiency improvements in the key systems. You might not actually have to grow your size that much, if you make significant efficiency improvements in the underpinning technology.

JT: How much electric power do you expect to get out of STEP?

PM: At the moment we’re looking for a thermal power something on the order of 1.8 – 2 gigawatts. In terms of electrical power — and this sounds relatively unambitious – the prototype would be anywhere from about 100 MW to about 400 MW. We may well do better than that. Our baseline intent is to get at least 100 MW electric out. But if we have plasma performance improvements and underpinning system efficiency improvements, then you get better and better beyond that. But we’ve got to break the back of it first.

JT: I understand that you have set 2040 as a target date for an actual operating system.

PM: For getting to what we would call first plasma. We wouldn’t be at power generation operations in 2040. You have to have the majority of your systems in place in order to deliver a plasma. But we are working on a staged series of operations which would go from plasma demonstration, then probably a maintenance demonstration prior to significant activation of the machine and then into a DT*campaign where you would demonstrate your power operations and your tritium self-sufficiency.

*Note from JT for the reader: A major challenge for utilizing deuterium-tritium (DT) fuel is the supply of tritium, which is present on the Earth only in minute quantities. In order to ensure self-sufficiency in fuel, a favored solution for future fusion power plants is to “breed” tritium in the reactor itself.

This can be done by introducing the element lithium into the “blanket” of material surrounding the reactor chamber. When a neutron generated by DT fusion is absorbed by a lithium nucleus, this triggers a nuclear reaction whose products are tritium and helium.

Next: From submarines to fusion reactors

Jonathan Tennenbaum, PhD (mathematics), is a former editor of FUSION magazine and has written on a wide variety of topics in science and technology, including several books on nuclear energy.

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CIA boss heads for Z-Day in Kyiv as Ukraine falters

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Wednesday, November 15th is Z-Day for the War in Ukraine. CIA Chief William Burns will arrive in Kiev for urgent, secret meetings with Zelensky. It is worth asking: How come Burns is on an urgent mission to Ukraine?

The answer to the question is that Ukraine is imploding. The crumbling of the Zelensky regime is unsurprising: Ukraine has been sustaining far too many casualties to survive for much longer. Ukraine either must find a way to make a deal with Russia or face an internal rebellion.

Zelensky is setting the stage to have Ukrainian General Valerii Zaluzhny arrested and purged. He’s likely to prepare the ground by firing three generals tied to Zaluzhny. (Zaluzhny’s top aide has already died in what’s described as an accident.)

Naev, Tarnavsky, Ostaschenko

The three are Commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Sergei Naev, Commander of the Operational-Strategic Group of Troops “Tavria” Alexander Tarnavsky and Commander of the Medical Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Tatyana Ostashchenko.

Russia’s bleed-down strategy

Ukraine has gone through three armies, and most of the current army is made up of older men, some women, and boys with no training. They become bodies to fill the fox holes and revetments trying to hold up the Russians. Russia itself is in no particular hurry. The Russian strategy is to bleed-down Ukraine’s armed forces and create a political crisis in Kyiv. The Russian effort is ahead of schedule, which has surprised Moscow as much as Washington.

In Kyiv an internal war has broken out between Zelensky and his thugocracy, on the one hand, and the Ukrainian army leadership.

As General Valerii Zaluzhny made clear  in his writings in the London-based Economist, Ukraine’s war needs a pause or ceasefire. That would allow time for the army to be rebuilt and stocked with new weapons that are not yet in either the American or European inventory. Zelensky, however, opposes any pause in the fighting and wants his army to hold onto key territories such as Avdiivka and to retake important cities including Bakhmut.

There is no incentive for the Russians to agree to a ceasefire or, indeed, for them to accede to any interim solution that would result in NATO staying in Ukraine. The bottom line issue for Moscow is NATO, which Russia sees as a threat if NATO builds air, land and naval bases on Ukrainian territory.  

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Kyrylo Budanov

One of the key mistakes of Zelensky and the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, was to attack Russian territory, blow up critical infrastructure, destroy airfields with nuclear bombers and send kamikaze drones to hit the Kremlin.

Not only has this been costly to Russia in terms of physical losses, but it has brought home to Russian leaders just how dangerous Ukraine is to Russian national security. These attacks have made it almost impossible to reach a modus vivendi between Ukraine and Russia unless, as the Russian’s demand, NATO is out and Ukraine is demilitarized.

It is quite true that such attacks were justified, in a sense, by Russian attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure. Indeed, there will be more and heavier attacks ahead. The Ukrainians are reporting that Russia has amassed 1,000 or more rockets to fire at Ukraine’s infrastructure.  Depending on what happens in the days ahead in Kyiv, Russia is likely to use infrastructure attacks to squeeze Ukraine even more.

But, it is also true that sometimes bombings have the reverse effect: the public rallies to the government. The British learned this after the Nazis bombed London and other British cities. The Germans learned this after Dresden. Even the Japanese stayed in the fight after the massive firebombing of Tokyo, until the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki told them that the game was over. 

While Burns will try to persuade Zelensky to behave, there are already enough moving parts in the mess between the army and Zelensky that Zelensky will have trouble backing off. If he decides to remain quiet (especially while Congress is taking up giving billions of dollars more to Ukraine), he will not necessarily find his opponents quiet.

Along with running a blatantly dictatorial operation from Kyiv, Zelensky’s success is built on a base of graft and theft. He finances his support by allowing officials to steal as much as they can. That way they stay loyal.

Luckily for him, the US (and its allies) have refused to stop the disappearance of billions of dollars of US and European aid. But the US Congress is increasingly under pressure for accountability for money and weapons sent to Ukraine. It will be hard to move money to Ukraine without provisions that put in place independent audits.

Meanwhile, Zelensky’s political opponents are well aware of the corruption in Kyiv and are saying so. It is anyone’s guess whether that information gets to Congress, but it may.

Burns won’t be suggesting Zelensky talk to the Russians or even change his tune on demanding that Russian forces leave Ukraine. Burns can’t go against Washington’s policy, which is to drag out the Ukraine war until Biden is reelected.

Furthermore, Washington wants NATO in Ukraine. While Washington knows it can’t get Ukraine into NATO until Ukraine wins the war, after Biden is reelected the US can begin putting in actual NATO fighting forces, starting with air power. Thus Washington is willing to risk NATO’s long term stability and viability in the name of trying to put NATO bases in Ukraine in an area Russia sees of utmost sensitivity.  

NATO expansion is running its full course, changing NATO into an offensive, not a defensive, alliance. It was never intended thus.

Washington’s policy is a fantasy. A NATO war with Russia, if that is where we are headed, will destroy Europe. NATO is not prepared for such a war now, or in the next five years. Moreover it isn’t clear that Washington’s policy has any support among NATO member countries.  

The Russians probably don’t want a war in Europe since a conflict on that scale could easily involve tactical nuclear weapons. Given the timetable Washington has in mind, Russia will be under pressure to wrap up the Ukraine war within one year. That could lead Russia to focus its attacks on Kyiv or, alternatively, other important Ukrainian cities, with Odesa and Kharkiv heading the list of targets.

It is doubtful Burns gets it, or even wants to understand the consequences of Washington’s policy.

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Turkey’s Erdogan in a realpolitik flip-flop on Gaza

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pulled his ambassador from Israel on November 4, 2023. Less than a month earlier, he was offering diplomatic assistance to calm the situation in the Middle East.

That diplomatic shift is indicative of how in just a few short weeks, Turkey has recalibrated its stance on the escalating violence in Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Erdogan’s initial reaction following the October 7 Hamas-led massacre in Israel was a carefully balanced one, calling for restraint and an end to “aggressive acts.” But amid an escalating death toll in Gaza, he quickly tilted toward a pro-Hamas and seemingly anti-Israel position.

By October 25, the Turkish leader was accusing Israel of “one of the bloodiest and most savage attacks in history,” while defending Hamas as a “liberation group.”

As an expert on Turkish politics and international affairs, I believe Erdogan’s evolving rhetoric cannot be understood without considering the domestic and international constraints surrounding Turkey’s leader.

In responding to the crisis in the Middle East, Erdogan faces a significant dilemma: He needs to appease his political base at home – which has Islamist, strong pro-Palestinian sympathies – while not totally alienating Israel, with whom Turkey has significant geopolitical and economic ties and, until now, warming relations.

At the same time, Erdogan is eyeing an opportunity to project himself as a key regional player in Middle East politics – and a potential mediator in the current crisis. And to understand how he intends to do all this, you need to look beyond rhetoric and diplomatic gestures alone.

Politics vs realpolitik

Erdogan’s reaction to the conflict reflects an attempt to strike a balance between two forces: domestic politics and realpolitik on the international stage.

Since the renewal of conflict in Gaza, Erdogan has faced pressure from various quarters in Turkey. His initial response drew extensive ire among the country’s Islamist circles, who have long shared deep sympathy for Hamas – leading members of whom Turkey has been offering a safe harbor.

Ahmet Davutoglu, formerly a prime minister and a minister of foreign affairs under Erdogan, condemned the Turkish president for hesitance and called on him to align with his Islamist base. Leaders of other Islamist parties and Erdogan coalition partner Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party, likewise called on the government for a stronger anti-Israeli positioning.

Growing anti-Israeli sentiment in the international arena also encouraged Erdogan to take an openly pro-Hamas stance. On October 26, 120 countries in the United Nations General Assembly voted in favor of a resolution calling for an “immediate, durable, and sustained humanitarian truce.”

Meanwhile, protests on the streets of Western capitals have put further pressure on governments there to soften support for Israel. They have also facilitated Erdogan’s repositioning.

Erdogan is aware that his criticism can’t go too far and risk a complete severing of ties with Tel Aviv. Israel is an important partner for Turkey. The two countries have seen growing trade relations, with Turkish exports to Israel doubling from 2017 to 2022.

This includes extensive arms trade, with Israeli and Turkish arms producers seeing the highest growth in weapons sales worldwide in 2021.

Two men in suits and red ties sit at a table.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet in New York on September 19, 2023 – days before the Hamas attack. Photo: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images / Handout / Murat Cetinmuhurdar / The Conversation

Meanwhile, regional geopolitical dynamics have shifted to put Israel and Turkey in greater alignments. Recently, the Azerbaijan-Nagorno Karabakh conflict has drawn Ankara and Tel-Aviv closer – with both backing the Azerbaijani government with weapons.

And in its own fight against Kurdish separatists, Turkey deployed Israeli surveillance drones in the late 1990s and 2000s before developing its own drones.

Erdogan as peacemaker?

There is another critical factor at play as Erdogan’s stance has developed. From the beginning of the crisis, Erdogan has sought to assert himself as a mediator.

To that end, he has held talks with regional leaders in which he signaled an intention to act as a peace broker. Senior Turkish officials have also revealed negotiation attempts over hostages being held in Gaza by Hamas.

This approach echoes Erdogan’s strategy in Ukraine, where he likewise put himself forward as a potential mediator.

In some ways, the challenges of balancing these domestic and regional concerns is what makes Erdogan uniquely suited as a potential mediator: He has maintained ties with Hamas while also recently deepening a relationship with Israel.

But for Erdogan to pull off the role of mediator, he will need to manage those links well. Initial proposals for Turkish mediation over the crisis were reportedly turned down by Hamas.

If Erdogan’s harsher rhetoric on Israel was aimed at alluring Hamas to a negotiation table, then there is a case to be made that he went too far. Calling Hamas a freedom-fighting group and accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza has harmed relations with Israel. It may be the case that Erdogan may have already squandered the opportunity for an arbitrator role.

But go beyond the words and you see something else at play. While talking tough on Israel, Erdogan has taken concrete steps to prevent a complete souring of strained relations with the West and Israel.

On October 23, he signed Sweden’s NATO accession protocol, increasing the hopes for an end to an at-times tense standoff between Turkey and its NATO allies. On the same day, Turkish law enforcement arrested 33 ISIS members in Ankara, potentially to preempt Western criticism for Erdogan’s support of radical Islamist networks.

Meanwhile, Turkish media circulated reports of Hamas leadership leaving Turkey around the same time.

Notable too is what Turkey hasn’t done. It hasn’t tried to stop shipments of Azeri oil through Turkey to Israel, and continues to allows the US to use its Incirlik Air Base in Turkey despite increasing public pressure. Police had to disperse pro-Palestine crowds intending to storm the base on November 5.

Becoming unbalanced?

This may explain the relatively muted reaction by Washington and Tel Aviv thus far to Erdogan’s statements. The US Department of Treasury was content with sanctioning a few Turkish entities for trade links to Hamas.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Ankara as part of his recent Middle East trip, and US administration officials have been at pains to stress Turkey’s value as an ally despite disagreements over Erdogan’s comments on Hamas.

Israel responded to those remarks by pulling its diplomatic mission back to Tel Aviv, prompting reciprocal moves from Turkey.

But there are reports that the tit-for-tat was more for appearances and that Israeli diplomats had already been recalled out of concern for their safety.

In fact, there are reasons to suggest that Erdogan’s strategy is working – despite the shift in tone, Ankara has kept its communication channels open with both Israel and Hamas throughout the crisis.

But balancing domestic support for Hamas and geopolitical reliance on Israel means walking a very fine line for Erdogan – and some of his most recent statements suggest he is beginning to teeter.

Ozgur Ozkan is Visiting Scholar at the Fletcher School’s Russia and Eurasia Program, Tufts University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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China pouring billions into new memory chip production

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China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) and Yangtze Memory Technologies Co Ltd (YMTC) have raised billions of dollars in new capital to finance the continued expansion of their memory chip operations in defiance of US sanctions on the sector.

CXMT has reportedly received 39 billion yuan (US$5.4 billion) in funds to complete the construction of a new DRAM factory whose total cost is expected to exceed four times that amount.

YMTC, China’s heavily-sanctioned NAND flash memory maker, has also apparently raised several billion dollars to develop and purchase alternatives to the US, Japanese and European equipment it is currently denied under US-led sanctions. YMTC’s capital raising follows $7 billion in financing announced last year.

The state-run China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund is a key source of funding for both semiconductor firms. The capital raising reports are consistent with China’s efforts to build a more autonomous semiconductor industry in response to US sanctions that seek to cripple the crucial industry.

CXMT is China’s largest DRAM maker and fourth-largest supplier of DRAM in China after South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, and Japan’s Micron Technology.

Established in 2016, CXMT is headquartered in the city of Hefei and has factories there and in Beijing. CXMT’s customers include makers of mobile phones, computers, servers, consumer devices and Internet of Things-related equipment.

The US Commerce Department has not yet put CXMT on its Entity List, though until July of this year, US export restrictions on US production equipment caused delays in its new factory’s construction. After a clarification of the regulations in CXMT’s favor, it is back on track with mass production expected to begin by 2026.

CXMT is now ramping up what it calls a 17nm process but what industry analysts say is actually closer to 19nm and therefore outside the 18nm boundary set by US sanctions. CXMT’s technology is believed to be three or four generations behind Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron.

CXMT is one of China’s leading manufacturers of DRAM memory chips. Photo: CXMT

YMTC is the leading Chinese maker of NAND flash memory. Also established in 2016, its headquarters and factories are located in Wuhan.

To the surprise of most observers and its competitors, YMTC developed its own unique 3D NAND architecture called Xtacking. Put into mass production in 2019, the technology turned out to be good enough for Apple to consider using YMTC’s NAND flash memory chips in the iPhone.

That set alarm bells ringing in Washington, DC, and under intense political pressure Apple abandoned plans to use YMTC chips in October 2022. Two months later, the Chinese company was added to the Entity List.

Deliveries of equipment from key US suppliers including Applied Materials, Lam Research and KLA were stopped, as were service and support of machines already installed. Engineers with US citizenship were forced to resign from the company.

That all caused YMTC’s operations to grind to a halt, forcing it to fall back on its own resources. Recovery from the sanctions hit has reportedly been slow.

YMTC was put on the Entity List shortly after launching its fourth generation 3D NAND flash product, a 232-layer chip that set a new record for data storage density.

Far beyond the 128-layer limit set by the Commerce Department, it poses a serious challenge to NAND flash industry leaders Samsung, Kioxia, SK Hynix and Micron.

YMTC supplies 3D NAND flash memory to makers of embedded memory and consumer and enterprise solid state drives (SSDs) used in mobile devices, consumer electronics, computers, servers and data centers.

Recently, TechInsights reported that it had found YMTC’s latest 232-layer NAND flash chips in SSDs. In a blog entitled “China Does It Again: A NAND Memory Market First,” the market research company wrote:

“TechInsights has discovered the world’s most advanced 3D NAND memory chip in a consumer device, and in a surprise technology leap, it comes from YMTC – China’s top 3D NAND manufacturer. 3D NAND memory is an essential component for high-performance computing (HPC) such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning. 3D NAND memory represents the bleeding edge of memory chip design, and is critical for high-performance, high-bandwidth computing such as AI…

“Like the innovation revealed by TechInsights in the Huawei Mate 60 Pro’s HiSilicon Kirin 9000s processor (which used SMIC 7nm (N+2) process), evidence is mounting that China’s momentum to overcome trade restrictions and build its own domestic semiconductor supply chain is more successful than expected.”

Both CXMT and YMTC are working with Chinese equipment makers, which are developing a complete range of machines to replace imported equipment, sanctioned or not. These include lithography (SMEE), photoresist processing (Kingsemi), deposition (Naura), etching (AMEC, Naura), chemical-mechanical planarization (Hwatsing, Sizone), cleaning (ACM, Naura) and inspection (Skyverse).

One Chinese industry source told Reuters “Before the sanctions, top Chinese foundries would use a small amount of machines from Chinese suppliers, but they would really only experiment with new equipment when they would add new capacity. Now, foundries are testing out Chinese-made equipment for every foreign machine they own and if they find that it meets their needs, they replace all of them. They want as few foreign machines as feasible.”

This appears to be true for Chinese memory chip makers and other integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) that, unlike foundries, design their own products as well. How much progress they can make and how quickly remains to be seen.

In 2022, China accounted for about 30% of global DRAM sales and 33% of global NAND flash memory sales, according to Yole technology market research. China’s self-sufficiency in memory chips is estimated at no more than 15%, but Samsung and SK Hynix have huge NAND flash memory and DRAM factories in the country.

China relies on South Korea’s Samsung for NAND and DRAM production Image: Asia Times Files / AFP

In October, the US Commerce Department granted the two Korean companies “validated end-user” status, which allows them to ship US semiconductor production equipment to their factories in China indefinitely without an export license.

This should ensure that China has a sufficient supply of memory chips while keeping the competitive pressure on CXMT and YMTC.

On November 9, YMTC filed a lawsuit against Micron Technologies in the US District Court for the Northern District of California for allegedly infringing on its patents related to the design, manufacture and operation of its 3D NAND flash memory technology.

In a statement, YMTC said, “We are confident that this matter will be resolved swiftly.” It will be interesting to see how it will be resolved.

Follow this writer on Twitter: @ScottFo83517667

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Moody’s casts a pall over Biden-Xi tete-a-tete

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The 800-pound gorilla in the room when Joe Biden goes toe-to-toe with Xi Jinping on November 15 will be the extreme political dysfunction in Washington that is threatening America’s last AAA credit rating.

As US President Biden angles to remind Chinese leader Xi who’s boss in San Francisco, partisan brinkmanship 3,000 miles away in Washington is reminding global markets that the world’s biggest economy is in a rather bad place.

The threat Biden faces is less from Asia’s top trading power than lawmakers on Capitol Hill in burn-it-all-down mode.

Moody’s Investors Service just reminded Biden’s White House that the stakes are rising, and fast. On November 10, the last credit rating company to grade Washington AAA warned a downgrade is coming, and perhaps soon. Moody’s cited the US debt topping US$33 trillion and political polarization throwing fiscal management into chaos.

This adds an awkward subplot to the Biden-Xi tete-a-tete on the sidelines of this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. For all the challenges Xi faces in Beijing — slowing growth, property sector defaults, deflation, aging demographics — Biden faces his own daunting odds in stopping Moody’s from dealing his administration a humiliating blow.

And at a time when global financial markets were just warming to the idea that the US Federal Reserve might be done tightening this inflation-curbing cycle. A downgrade would take the “higher-for-longer” yield era to entirely new heights of economic damage and disorientation.

White House officials claim, somehow with straight faces, that this drama isn’t casting a pall over US-China dynamics in San Francisco. “We don’t have any changes to his schedule,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters this week. “This is something that Congress can get done very easily. This is their job, right? Their job is to keep the government open.”

But tell that to officials at Xi’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) managing China’s $860 billion worth of US Treasury holdings. Though this is Beijing’s lowest exposure to US political shenanigans in 14 years, it entrusts a sizable block of state savings to Washington lawmakers acting rationally.

Photo: Reuters/Jason Lee
China could consider offloading more of its US debt if dysfunction prevails in Washington. Photo: Asia Times Files / Agencies

This year’s surge in US yields to 17-year highs is disproportionately affecting China’s investment and trade-reliant economy. The 5.7% drop in the yuan this year raises the risk of more property developers defaulting on overseas debt dominated in dollars.

The US economy, meanwhile, is buckling under the weight of 11 Fed rate hikes in less than 20 months. Germany is fending off chatter that it’s the “sick man” of Europe as the rest of the continent loses economic altitude. Economists forecast that Japan’s economy shrank in the July-September period.

This global backdrop adds pressure on Xi’s team to support demand in the short run, while also stepping up structural reforms to improve the quality of China’s long-term growth. A fresh surge in US yields, particularly if Moody’s pulls the trigger, could slam global markets in the homestretch of 2023.

In this sense, political dysfunction in the US is emerging as the biggest threat to Asia’s 2024. “In Moody’s view, such political polarization is likely to continue,” the agency said. “As a result, building political consensus around a comprehensive, credible multi-year plan to arrest and reverse widening fiscal deficits through measures that would increase government revenue or reform entitlement spending appears extremely difficult.”

Analysts at Moody’s cited a number of recent standoffs that augur poorly for Republicans and Democrats coming together to address Washington’s fiscal challenges. They include a near-default earlier this year as Republicans refused, for a time, to raise the statutory debt limit.

That clash led to the ouster of Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, as speaker of the House of Representatives, the first such stunt by Congress in history. It left the House leaderless and rudderless for weeks, feeding into the negative sentiment at Moody’s on US fiscal vulnerabilities. It also upped the odds of yet another government shutdown.

The specter of lawmakers effectively shuttering Washington prompted Fitch Ratings to downgrade the US in August. Fitch cut America’s rating to AA+, 12 years after S&P Global yanked away its AAA status amid an earlier budget showdown.

The days since Moody’s fired its bow shot at Capitol Hill haven’t been promising. New House Speaker Mike Johnson has yet to outline a path forward for avoiding another shutdown. One will indeed occur if Congress fails to pass a budget or stopgap-funding bill by November 17.

Troubling, too, is the gimmicky ways in which Johnson is looking to paper over Washington’s dysfunction. One is passing a “laddered continuing resolution.” This would only extend funding for certain government agencies and programs until January 19, and for others until February 2.

New US House Speaker Mike Johnson isn’t apparently listening to credit rating agencies. Image: YouTube screengrab

Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, speaks for many when he calls the strategy “extreme” and “just a recipe for more Republican chaos and more shutdowns.”

Proceeding this way, Murphy warns, means “that the House process requires you to come back and deal with half the budget on one date and half the budget on another date.” Murphy dismisses it as “a little bit of a recipe for failure.”

Nor are close observers of Washington’s fiscal mechanics impressed. “This punt delays [progress] until the first quarter of 2024, rather than resolves, the standoff over spending levels and priorities,” says Benjamin Salisbury, director of research at Height Capital Markets.

Analyst Chris Krueger at TD Cowen Washington Research calls the contours and effectiveness of such a plan a “total mystery.” What’s more, he says, credit rating companies understand that hardline Republicans have made passing 12 different funding bills to keep the government open, rather than an omnibus spending measure, a “cause celebre” this year.

As global markets hang in the balance, this “overly-complex” answer to a simple problem is likely to face strong pushback in the Senate, says Isaac Boltansky, strategist at BTIG Research.

“All said,” Boltansky notes, “the new Speaker is facing the same complicated calculus as the old Speaker and the only thing that has changed is that more than a month of the legislative calendar has been wasted.”

Xi would be wise to broach the issue with Biden. Though Japan has the biggest stockpile of US government debt at $1.1 trillion, China’s huge $860 billion exposure has to worry Communist Party bigwigs in Beijing.

Raising such concerns is also a way for Xi to remind Biden that China has unique leverage over Washington. It’s unlikely that Beijing would dump its dollars wholesale as the resulting panic in global markets would quickly boomerang back on China’s economy. Surging yields would hurt American consumers’ finances, reducing demand for Chinese goods. Still, it’s an option.

Another reason to worry: Donald Trump’s attempt to win back the White House. Should Trump win a second term in November 2024, hitting China with fresh trade sanctions would likely be a top priority. Trump and his inner circle have in the past threatened to default on US debt to hurt Beijing.

This works both ways, of course. A Moody’s downgrade might trigger Asian policymakers’ PTSD. Back in August, Fitch’s downgrade sent ripples through markets but not quite shockwaves.

At the time, Fitch said: “The rating downgrade of the United States reflects the expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years, a high and growing general government debt burden, and the erosion of governance relative to ‘AA’ and ‘AAA’ rated peers over the last two decades that has manifested in repeated debt limit standoffs and last-minute resolutions.”

The message clearly wasn’t received on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are still playing games with America’s status as defender of the global reserve currency. Yet the specter of Moody’s piling on could shake markets. Might it also have S&P wondering if it’s time to give a second look at the AA+ rating at which it has held the US since 2011?

Additional turmoil emanating from the US is the last thing North Asia’s newish central bank leaders need. Governor Kazuo Ueda only took the helm at the Bank of Japan in April; People’s Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng in July. For both, 2024 is looking more precarious by the day.

Right out of the gate, Pan has had to confront a worsening economic slowdown, a slip back to deflation, a property sector in crisis, record youth unemployment and foreign capital fleeing at record speed.

China’s Country Garden is among the property developers that can’t pay its debts. Image: Screengrab / CNN

Tumbling home sales are adding to already extreme pressures on developers grappling with a multi-year credit crisis. On November 13, Fitch said it was withdrawing all ratings on China’s Country Garden Services Holding. Fears of a Country Garden default in recent months have #ChinaEvergrande trending on global search engines and social media again.

Moody’s economist Madhavi Bokil warns that “we see downside risks to China’s trend growth on account of structural factors.” In the shorter run, Bokil thinks Beijing’s stimulus efforts to date could help China grow 5% this year.

“Third quarter data shows a modest improvement in economic activity that was helped by policy support, including infrastructure spending, interest rate cuts, stimulus directed at the property sector and some stabilization on the external front,” he says.

Bokil’s team sees China growing at a roughly 4% pace in both 2024 and 2025. Yet as US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said after discussions with APEC finance ministers, China’s troubles present a “downside risk” to the region. Yet so is the US, as Moody’s is reminding a global economy on edge.

Follow William Pesek on X, formerly Twitter, at @WilliamPesek

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The morality and immorality of Gaza war reporting

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Who would want to be a journalist covering the conflict in Gaza? It seems that every day a new accusation of bias surfaces on social media. Live reporting is prone to the dangers of speculation, mistakes and disinformation traps for the unwary.

If you add in the most explosive dateline in the world, then the accusations of bias come thick and fast. On the other hand, Phil Chetwynd, global news director at AFP, a French news agency, says: “Our work has never felt more important.”

In this conflict, most of the dangerous reporting has been done by Palestinian journalists living inside Gaza, with foreign correspondents limited to coverage from inside Israel and the West Bank. To date, 40 journalists are reported to have been killed in the fighting, 35 of them Palestinian.

Jon Donnison, a BBC correspondent, was accused of anti-Israel bias when reporting in the immediate aftermath of the explosion at the Al-Ahli Hospital on October 17.

Donnison said that the Israeli military had been contacted for comment and was still investigating: “But it is hard to see what else this could be really given the size of the explosion other than an Israeli air strike or several air strikes.”

Following Israel’s denial, the deputy chief executive of BBC News Jonathan Munro said the “language wasn’t quite right” but that “at no stage did we actually say it was caused by the Israelis.”

The BBC has also been under fire for not using the word “terrorists” to describe Hamas militants. This long-standing BBC tradition of not labeling one side or the other in a conflict as terrorists, has been condemned in some media and at Westminster but has been rigorously defended by veteran correspondents, including John Simpson:

We don’t take sides. We don’t use loaded words like “evil” or “cowardly.” We don’t talk about “terrorists”. And we’re not the only ones to follow this line. Some of the world’s most respected news organisations have exactly the same policy.

Embedded with antagonists

A month after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, several of these respected news organizations also came under attack for allegedly being at the locations suspiciously quickly.

The US-based pro-Israeli website Honest Reporting named the news organizations as The New York Times, CNN, AP and Reuters. They have all vehemently denied the accusations.

AFP, which was also later accused on social media of being suspiciously early to the locations where the attacks took place, denied it had been somehow “embedded” with Hamas. AFP’s Phil Chetwynd threatened possible legal action for defamation, saying about his photographers in Gaza:

They were woken by the sound of artillery and rocket fire and headed towards the fence between Gaza and Israel. Each one was clearly identified as a journalist, on their helmet and bulletproof vest. The first photos near the Gaza fence were taken more than an hour after the attack started … We covered it as we would cover any major news story.

Nonetheless, after the event both AP and CNN did “sever ties” with a “freelance journalist” called Hassan Eslayeh who was at the site of the killings and was not wearing a press jacket.

CNN and AP have severed connections with Palestinian photojournalist Hassan Eslayeh whose previous credits indicate he worked with Quds Net News, a Palestinian media organization. Screenshot from X (formerly Twitter)

A picture of this man being embraced by Hamas leader Yahia Sinwar was circulated on social media platforms. AP’s media relations director, Lauren Easton, said: “We are no longer working with Hassan Eslaiah, who had been an occasional freelancer for AP and other news organizations in Gaza.”

Another kind of “embedding” has also been under scrutiny, following press trips with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) into Gaza on November 9. This trip included reporters from CNN, the Daily Mail, and the BBC (who sent Jeremy Bowen). Channel 4 News went subsequently.

On “X” this decision was widely criticized, with Rohan Talbot, the director of advocacy and campaigns for Medical Aid for Palestinians, saying this was tantamount to senior journalists “effectively acting as stenographers for Israel’s military comms machine.”

When I put this to Bowen at the weekend, he replied: “Nonsense. The question is what you do with the material and how you challenge the speakers they put up. It’s also important in the script to provide context. We had a choice – to stay out of Gaza or to accept some restrictions in return for access.”

While the IDF checked the video to make sure no military operational details were disclosed, neither the BBC nor Channel 4 News had to show their scripts in advance.

Time-honored practice

These kinds of embedding practices are common when covering wars. From the Boer war to the Gulf wars of 1991 and 2003, international journalists and photographers have been embedded with troops and have had their material censored if it might have given away operational information, but also sometimes if it might show troops in a bad light.

The question of “ethical considerations” comes up more frequently if embedding with a country’s opponents in a war or interviewing those understood to be “the enemy.”

According to Christina Lamb, back in the Spanish Civil War, US reporter Virginia Cowles was regarded as “particularly suspect” by her fellow journalists Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn for interviewing leaders on both sides of the conflict.

Two journalists and a US pilot stand by a heicopter in Cambodia, 1971.
Australian cameraman Neil Davis while working in Cambodia, 1971. Photo: Australian War Memoria, CC BY-NC

Media history is full of cases of journalists, photographers and camera operators covering the other side. During the 1960s war in Indochina, Visnews cameraman Neil Davies filmed from the South Vietnamese side and later with the Vietcong.

In the 1980s, ITN’s Sandy Gall regularly embedded with the Afghan Northern Alliance, and during the Gulf war of 1991, the CNN team was criticized for staying behind enemy lines during the allied bombing of Baghdad.

While media companies can hold meetings to thrash out the ethical implications of embedding decisions, the problem today is how to know anything of substance about the activity and connections of the many freelancers who often now stand in for staff employees on the frontline.

Colleen Murrell is Full Professor in Journalism, Dublin City University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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West to blame for mass Afghan refugee deportations

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On November 1, Pakistan began a nationwide operation to deport over 1.7 million Afghans it says are living in the country illegally. There are now an estimated 10,000 people returning to Afghanistan each day.

Pakistan has indicated the deportations are designed to reduce cross-border incursions from Taliban fighters based in Afghanistan. But it is more likely the interim military government is succumbing to populist politics around inflation, housing shortages and cost of living pressures in the country.

There were already over a million Afghans living in Pakistan before the Taliban came back into power in Afghanistan in August 2021. But the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been unable to process all of the estimated 600,000 to 800,000 Afghans who have fled to Pakistan since then.

It is estimated only about a third of Afghan refugees in Pakistan are registered with the refugee agency.

The level of documentation that Afghans in Pakistan have varies extensively. Some entered the country without visas and passports. Some entered on visas and have been waiting indefinitely for renewal, others are on expired visas.

The UNHCR has subcontracted much of the registration of refugees to other organizations in Pakistan. Often, payment to a local broker is the only way refugees are able to get an appointment. This is entirely unreasonable when countries like Australia require UNHCR registration of refugees to facilitate priority processing.

Many refugees experience lengthy waiting periods to be registered, formally recognized as refugees and then issued an ID card, let alone referred for onward resettlement. Shelter, food and medical assistance are not even considered.

Refugee identity documents are not even enough to protect people from deportation. There have been reports of police detaining and threatening people with valid Pakistani visas. Activists told me of incidents in which police have torn up valid visas and Afghan passports.

Many Afghans have applied for resettlement in countries that were members of the NATO-led force that maintained security in Afghanistan, such as the US, Canada, Australia and countries in the European Union.

But as the world has turned its eye to other conflicts, those countries have fallen drastically short of their promises to Afghan refugees. It is estimated only 200,000 Afghans have been resettled globally since August 2021.

Trickle of visas

Human Rights Watch has also highlighted the unreasonably slow processing times for Afghan refugees in resettlement countries, such as the US, UK, Germany, Australia and other EU countries. This is particularly true for women and girls, the organization says:

Afghan women and girls have often faced greater barriers to obtaining asylum, as destination countries have often prioritised assisting Afghans – overwhelmingly men – who contributed to their military efforts.

Since the Taliban returned to power, only 12,200 Afghan applicants have received a humanitarian visa to enter Australia. During the 2022 federal election campaign, Labor promised to increase the total refugee and humanitarian intake to 27,000 people annually. But this hasn’t happened.

Australia has promised just 26,500 humanitarian and 5,000 family places for Afghans from 2021-26.

Yet, there are more than 147,000 Afghan applicants still in the queue waiting to be processed from the 189,000 applications received since August 2021. And earlier this year, the Department of Home Affairs quietly removed human rights defenders from its list of groups to receive priority visa processing from Afghanistan.

Former US president George W Bush said in the early 2000s that the US went to Afghanistan to liberate the country’s women, but those women have been forgotten now.

Today, Afghanistan remains in one of the world’s most dire humanitarian crises.

Taliban fighters stand guard as Afghan refugees wait to register in a camp near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Photo: AP via The Conversation / Ebrahim Noroozi

The United Nations has described a system of gender apartheid under Taliban rule, in which women are prevented from participating in any public life, education or economic activity outside the home.

Infant and maternal mortality rates have skyrocketed because women are not allowed to travel to seek medical attention, female doctors are not allowed to work and male doctors are not allowed to treat female patients.

Leaders of NGOs that work on women’s education and other women’s rights continue to be disappeared. Women who are brave enough to protest on the street are beaten. Journalists are routinely detained for covering such issues.

Last year, the UN Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund launched a new program dedicated to supporting women’s human rights defenders around the world. However, I’ve been told this program is now facing a US$14 million funding shortfall.

This fund provides small grants to a number of Afghan women’s human rights defenders to fund their ongoing advocacy work and relocate them or help them flee when their lives are in danger.

Often, these women need this money to pay exorbitant prices for visa extensions to stay in Pakistan, or for exit permits to leave the country if they are given a resettlement place elsewhere.

If countries like Australia and the US help make up this shortfall, more women will have access to these grants and be able to escape extreme security risks.

Afghans in limbo

Western countries must keep their promises to process refugee visa applications for Afghans in a timely fashion.

Australia refuses to grant refugee visas to people currently in Afghanistan. Yet, the government is still taking years to process the claims of incredibly high-risk individuals outside the country who meet several priority processing criteria. Those people fled to countries like Pakistan and Iran and are now being deported because the process has taken so long.

Similarly, Afghans who are eligible for special immigrant visas to the US can also wait for years. Even if they get an appointment with the US Embassy in Islamabad, there is no guarantee of a timeline for when they will be sent to the US.

These timelines have to change. Globally, poorer countries shoulder the burden as the hosts of the overwhelming majority of refugees. Pakistan is now deporting Afghans. Iran, host to more than three million Afghan refugees, will likely follow soon.

Susan Hutchinson is PhD Candidate, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Where Biden and Netanyahu don’t see eye to eye

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to bar the Palestine Authority, which now governs parts of the West Bank, from administering the Gaza Strip after the war on Hamas ends is aimed at sinking a revived “two-state solution” peace plan to end the Middle East’s longest-running conflict. 

Formulated back in 1991 and favored by Israel’s chief ally, the United States, the two-state initiative was meant to create a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip at peace with Israel. Though long dormant, the formula is considered the region’s most viable path to peace.  

US President Joe Biden’s administration has indicated that the future state ought to be midwifed, if not ruled indefinitely, by the PA. Since the Gaza war began on October 7, Biden has frequently laid out a generalized vision for the solution, though without a roadmap to getting there.

“When this crisis is over, there has to be a vision of what comes next, and in our view, it has to be a two-state solution,” Biden recently said.

On November 8, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken not only repeated the administration’s endorsement of the two-state solution but added that Gaza should be “unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.”

Netanyahu, however, rejects both outcomes. He has opposed the two-state solution since its inception, though he appears reluctant to state so directly while Biden is supporting his war effort.

Instead, the Israeli leader is trying to preempt it by opposing a key element: a role for the PA, which happens to be the descendant of the Palestine Liberation Front that negotiated the original two-state plan with Israel.

Over the weekend, Netanyahu said the PA is unfit to govern even the West Bank, much less Gaza. “I think so far we haven’t seen any Palestinian force, including the Palestinian Authority, that is able to do it,” he said, attributing his veto to the PA’s unrelenting “hate” of Israel.

Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is an architect of the moribund two-state solution. Photo: Asia Times Files / AFP / Alex Brandon / Pool

He went on to finger PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who negotiated accords designed to make the two-state formula a reality, as a key reason for eliminating the PA.

“After the worst savagery perpetrated on the Jewish people since the Holocaust, the Palestinian Authority president has yet – refuses to condemn the savagery. So, we need a different authority,” Netanyahu said. “We need a different administration.”

Netanyahu later expanded his objection. “We need to see the following two things: Gaza has to be demilitarized and Gaza has to be de-radicalized. And I think, so far, we haven’t seen any Palestinian force, including the Palestinian Authority, that is able to do it.”

Israel Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich elaborated on the sentiment, asserting that, “The Palestinian Authority is a body that supports and encourages terrorism and we will never again abandon the security of our citizens to the hands of our enemies.”

The veto raised the question of whether Biden is determined to revive a dormant two-state plan that for 22 years has crashed on the shoals of violence, suspicion and abandonment. He has yet to lay out a concrete path to making negotiations a reality, preferring to speak of a non-specific “horizon” lying somewhere in the distance as Gaza burns.

Biden’s sincerity has come into question. He has made no effort to actually institute a diplomatic formula to bring Israel and the Palestinians together during his 22 months in office. Indeed, the Palestinian issue seemed relegated to a diplomatic back-burner with no flame in sight.

Weeks before Hamas invaded southern Israel and massacred about 1,200 civilians, Biden’s chief security advisor, Jake Sullivan, published a paean to Biden in Foreign Affairs that declared the president’s Middle East policy as both easing tensions and “integrating the region through joint infrastructure projects and new partnerships, including between Israel and its Arab neighbors.”

He mentioned neither chronic Palestinian-Israeli disputes and violence nor the dormant two-state remedy. When war broke out in the Gaza Strip, Sullivan reworked part of his paean, suggesting that Biden’s policies “always included significant proposals for the Palestinians. If agreed, this component would ensure that a path to two states remains viable.”

Despite the apparent policy differences, Biden and Netanyahu share one political instinct: Both defended their pre-war expectations of Hamas’ deadly capabilities.

A Hamas member stands next to a missile on World Quds Day in May 2020. Photo: Twitter

In an October 15 television interview, Sullivan insisted the US government had in no way ignored possible danger from Hamas. “At no point did the Biden administration take its eye off the ball of the threats to Israel,” he claimed.

Netanyahu, too, is trying to fend off accusations – from Israelis – that he had ignored Hamas’ activities that suggested violence was pending. Instead, he focused on expanding Israeli settlements on West Bank land, turning a blind eye to violence perpetrated by Israeli nationalist settlers and dispatching soldiers to quash armed Palestinian insurgents.

On October 29, Netanyahu argued that he was not responsible for failing to perceive possible threats posed by Hamas. Rather, he blamed the country’s security and intelligence establishments.

“The assessment of the entire security echelon, including the head of military intelligence and the head of Shin Bet, was that Hamas was deterred and was seeking an arrangement,” he wrote on social media.

A torrent of criticism greeted Netanyahu’s self-defense and he quickly retracted the post. “The things I said…should not have been said and I apologize for that,” he wrote in a follow-up mea culpa.

Netanyahu later said holding officialdom to account for its failings, including his own, will take place after the war ends, a time frame nowhere in sight.

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Think China’s PLA is a paper tiger? Think again

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I keep hearing these days that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is a “paper tiger,” and thus there’s no need to worry about an attack on Taiwan.

And anyway, I also keep hearing, the United States has plenty of time to get ready before the PLA is a real threat – rather than just a “near-peer competitor.”

The PLA’s problems? To name a few: no recent combat experience, corruption, too many “only children” in the ranks. The Chinese Navy can’t conduct combat operations in distant seas and is not able to master “amphibious operations” – supposedly the most complex and hardest of all military operations. 

Even China’s leaders complain about “peace disease.” The PLA hasn’t fought a war for decades. And too many senior officers can’t manage the demands of modern high-tech warfare.

Maybe so. But in the last 30 years, the People’s Republic of China has pulled off the biggest, fastest military build-up seen anywhere since World War II. China’s defense budgets are much greater than the roughly US$220 billion it claims and possibly exceed US defense spending. 

The PLA Navy is already larger than the US Navy and the gap will widen. China is launching five ships for every one the USN puts in the water. It has put more tonnage and missiles to sea as well. 

Beijing lavishes similar attention upon its air force and ground forces and its cyber and electronic warfare. And its missile capabilities, including hypersonic weaponry, probably exceed US capabilities. Its nuclear weapons build-up has finally got even the China experts worried. They dismissed it for years.

‘Eyes wide open’

China knows its problems but it has clear objectives. Defeating US forces is objective number one. And it trains hard to achieve its goals. Its ships are not rust buckets. Nor do they collide with other ships or burn up pierside every so often.

Yes, the PLA would have a harder time attacking Des Moines, Iowa, but that’s not the point.

It’s true that Chinese conventional combat power – or “power projection” – drops off rapidly beyond, say, 1,000 miles from the Chinese border. But its land-based missiles easily range Guam and Hawaii. Plus, it is operating ships and aircraft more often and farther out into the Pacific and beyond. 

China is setting up a network of ports and airfields to which it has access worldwide. And it is building more of the refueling ships and aircraft and long-range transports needed for global power projection – akin to what the Americans can do.

Play this out five or ten years and it is hard to be sanguine. And somehow, the “paper tiger” took de facto control of the South China Sea six or seven years ago. 

The US Navy can transit the area – as can the US Air Force – and even conduct exercises. But it’s like the New York Police Department going through Times Square back in the bad old days before Mayor Giuliani cleaned things up. The cops controlled only the space they actually occupied, and when they left the “bad guys” filled in and took control. 

Even now the PLA is shadowing (“escorting”) US ships and aircraft through the South China Sea.

China televises the firing of ballistic missiles into ‘training’ areas around Taiwan and in Japan’s EEZ in Okinawa Prefecture, August 4, 2022. Photo: Weibo

It only has to be good once

Nothing to worry about? One of these days a US Navy destroyer skipper will have a dozen anti-ship missiles headed his way – at supersonic speed – and 12 seconds to respond. He might be forgiven for thinking the PLA is not a paper tiger and is more than just a “near-peer competitor.”

But here’s something to keep in mind when you consider the People’s Liberation Army: A military only has to be good enough to do a certain thing, at a certain place, at a certain time. 

Recall the Falklands War in 1982. The British outclassed the Argentinians in nearly every respect. Argentine hardware was often obsolete and many of the troops were “draftees.” 

Yet, the Argentines almost won. And they would have won if a few more 500-pound bombs and torpedoes detonated and sunk Royal Navy ships. 

Britain also had the good fortune that Margaret Thatcher was prime minister. The Falklands are about 200 miles from the Argentine coast at the closest point. Taiwan is only 90 miles from the Chinese mainland.

A Chinese newspaper reports on military exercises conducted by the Chinese military around Taiwan on April 10, 2023. Photo: Kyodo

China’s not going after Des Moines

If it’s just Taiwan you’re after – as opposed to Des Moines – it looks possible. 

And an attack on Taiwan won’t just be an amphibious assault. It will also include massive and accurate missile barrages, total air and sea control, aggressive electronic warfare and cyber warfare. And internet and comms links will be cut. Fifth columnists will be causing chaos. And it will include threatening the US with nuclear war. 

China has practiced and prepared for all of this – and for years.

Sure, Xi Jinping would rather get Taiwan by not fighting, but force is on the menu and Xi has said so. It’s comforting – but dangerous – to assume that Xi and the Chinese just aren’t good enough, or are too frightened, or are just bluffing – which is the most commonly held belief in DC and even in Taipei. 

One detects the same sort of condescension as in 1950 when the experts – not least in General Douglas MacArthur‘s headquarters – insisted: “They (the PLA) will never come across the Yalu.” 

But they did. And nobody has ever heard a Korean War veteran say he wanted to fight the Chinese again.

You’d think US Marines, of all people, would know better. This writer recalls them rolling their eyes circa 2016 at the idea that Chinese equivalents of US Marine and US Navy amphibious units (the MEU/ARGs) would be making the rounds in the Indo-Pacific before too long. Just not our equals, you know. 

The Chinese navy is turning out amphibious ships at a rapid clip and could deploy two or three similar amphibious task forces if they wanted to.

A Chinese naval vessel departs from Vladivostok in the Russian Far East for a joint patrol with the Russian Navy. Photo: TASS News Agency

As for the PLA’s lack of warfighting experience…

Proper training can also make up for that. 

And don’t forget that the US military has fewer and fewer combat veterans. And none of them have experience in high-end warfare against a high-end opponent in a largely maritime domain. Fighting Iraqis and the Taliban is not the same the same thing as going against a modern opponent. Nor were those campaigns huge successes.

It also helps to recognize that China has been conducting non-kinetic warfare against the United States and the West for decades. Political warfare, economic warfare, propaganda, elite capture, cyberattacks, espionage, chemical (fentanyl) and biological warfare (Covid?) are part of China’s “unrestricted warfare.” 

It is all intended to soften up the enemy and undermine his will and ability to resist. Kinetic warfare is only used if needed to finish things off.

But doesn’t the US have allies?

Yes, it does, and America’s allies are a huge benefit even if military capabilities are uneven and political interests are not always aligned.

But China also has allies: North Korea, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba. And much of the Global South is at least sympathetic to the People’s Republic of China. 

These may not be the most lovable countries, not always the best of friends – but together they can cause trouble for the United States and its partners.

And, for now, their strategic interests align. 

The Japanese, who are regularly harassed and circumnavigated by Russian and Chinese planes and aircraft, can tell you that. 

And recently the PRC, via Iran and its Hamas and Hezbollah proxies, got the United States and the US military wrapped around another Middle Eastern axle – at the expense of the Indo-Pacific.

The PLA has other things working in its favor:

The US won’t cut economic dependencies on the PRC, which include many required for defense production. And Wall Street and the American business class continue providing the Chinese Communist Party with a few hundred billions in convertible currency a year – effectively funding the country (and the military) that is looking to drive it out of the Indo-Pacific, for starters.

But back to the main point – don’t underestimate the Chinese or the People’s Liberation Army. 

They wouldn’t dare? A simulated Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Image: Facebook

It’s not the first time America has underestimated an enemy: 

“Saddam Hussein won’t attack Kuwait”

“Once we take Baghdad everything will be fine”

“Putin attack Ukraine? He won’t dare.”

“China doesn’t want a blue-water Navy.”

“The PRC just wants to do business and make money.”

Only Xi knows for sure

No one except Xi Jinping knows what he will do. But it’s best to prepare for the worst – and now. 

And remember that a military just has to be good enough to do a certain thing at a certain time at a certain place.

Its government just has to be willing to absorb some economic punishment and political blowback.

If that’s the case, the PRC only has to pick its spots and its timing – and hope the United States keeps convincing itself that China wouldn’t dare attack.

Grant Newsham is a retired US Marine officer and former US diplomat. He is the author of the book When China Attacks: A Warning To America.

This article was first published by JAPAN Forward and is republished with permission.

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