Tag: Bashi Channel

A Narrow Pacific Waterway is at the Heart of U.S. Plans to Choke China’s Vast Navy +

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Reuters reprint: A Narrow Pacific Waterway is at the Heart of U.S. Plans to Choke China’s Vast Navy

Until recently, locals say, this smallest and least populous province of the Philippines was a peaceful backwater. But geography dictates that it is now on the frontline of the great power competition between the United States and China for dominance in the Asia-Pacific region. The islands sit on the southern edge of the Bashi Channel, a major shipping lane between the Philippines and Taiwan that connects the South China Sea with the Western Pacific.

This year’s exercises revealed how the U.S. and its Philippine ally intend to use ground-based anti-ship missiles as part of efforts to deny the Chinese navy access to the Western Pacific by making this waterway impassable in a conflict, Reuters reporting shows. These missiles could also be used to attack a Chinese fleet attempting to invade Taiwan or mount a blockade against the democratically governed island.

…

Recent Chinese maneuvers show how access to the Bashi Channel is critical for Beijing’s plans in the Pacific. In June, a powerful Chinese navy aircraft carrier battle group used this passage to enter the Western Pacific before launching an extended series of exercises south of Japan, according to Japanese military tracking data.

Related:

Read More »

Pentagon Appointee Opposes ‘Belligerent Military Initiatives’ Aimed at China

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The Pentagon official tasked with overseeing U.S. defense policy toward Southeast Asia recently advised against pursuing hawkish defense policies and a major trade war against China, a marked contrast with top Trump appointees.

John Andrew Byers, a longtime history professor who oversaw the Charles Koch philanthropic network’s grants promoting libertarian foreign policy stances at universities, was sworn in this week as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia — a role that immediately thrusts him to the center of America’s response to China’s ongoing military pressure campaign targeting the Philippines, with which Washington holds a mutual defense treaty.

Pentagon Appointee Opposes ‘Belligerent Military Initiatives’ Aimed at China

Related:

Lowy Institute: Trump’s grand bargain? The Philippines caught between US and China by Richard Heydarian

CGS non-resident fellow Andrew Byers co-authors article with The American Conservative

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia: Andrew Byers

Lighting Up the Gray Zone: The Philippines-Taiwan Counter-Coercion Toolkit

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Perry World House’s Thomas Shattuck and Robin Garcia are out with an important new white paper which recommends the public release of visual information to counter China’s coercive activities, using the Philippines and Taiwan as examples. As the champions of “assertive transparency”, SeaLight enthusiastically welcomes this timely new scholarship!

Lighting Up the Gray Zone: The Philippines-Taiwan Counter-Coercion Toolkit

Perry World House is at the University of Pennsylvania, another university funded by the US government. I’ve updated my Project Myoushu document, to reflect the following:

The origin of Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation. It’s sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, an organization within the Department of Navy. I saw it over at the Asian Century Journal, yesterday.

From a previous post.

Related:

Documents

Japan, U.S. and Philippines to discuss stronger military ties & US, Philippines to expand strategic port

Japan, U.S. and Philippines to discuss stronger military ties & US, Philippines to expand strategic port

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Japan, U.S. and Philippines to discuss stronger military ties

The three foreign ministers will discuss ways to strengthen cooperation in the wake of increasing collisions in the South China Sea between ships from the Philippines and China.

…

They agreed to work toward signing a Reciprocal Access Agreement that would make it easier for members of the Self-Defense Forces and the Philippine military to engage in joint training exercises by simplifying procedures to obtain visas and bring weapons and ammunition into each other’s countries.

Japan will also provide funds for the Philippines to acquire a coastal surveillance radar system.

Related:

US, Philippines to expand strategic port

Read More »

Philippines Gunning For Fast And Massive Military Build-Up + More

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)
Full video.

MANILA –“We are not satisfied with minimum [deterrence capability alone]…movement is life, stagnation is death,” Colonel Micheal Logico, a top strategist at the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), recently told this reporter when asked about the country’s evolving defense strategy.“We [need] to elevate ourselves into a world-class armed forces,” he added.

Philippines Gunning For Fast And Massive Military Build-Up

Related:

De Facto American Military Forward Operating Base?

Hungry Pinoys highest so far under Marcos government

Philippines Conducts Joint Exercises With U.S. In S. China Sea

Batanes eyed for Balikatan military drills

Report: US Military Advisors Deployed to Taiwan-Controlled Islands on China’s Coast

An Incomplete Report on US Military Activities in the South China Sea in 2022

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

An Incomplete Report on US Military Activities in the South China Sea in 2022

In 2022, alongside the context of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the US military placed great emphasis on military deterrence against China in the South China Sea, maintaining high-intensity activities including close-in reconnaissance operations, Taiwan Strait transits, forward presence operations, strategic deterrence, freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs), military exercises and drills, and battlefield preparation.

An Incomplete Report on US Military Activities in the South China Sea in 2022 via SCSPI

Spy ships and Pine Gap

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Spy ships and Pine Gap

Peter Cronau, the author of a forthcoming book on Pine Gap, told The Saturday Paper that the facility’s primary function has expanded “from its early focus on passive surveillance gathering, such as collecting military communications, diplomatic traffic and mobile phone calls. It now plays a vital part in active war-fighting, such as providing targeting information for use by lethal drones, invasion forces and aerial bombing missions.”

He said the first hard evidence confirming Pine Gap’s additional role was found in secret US National Security Agency documents about Pine Gap, leaked by the American whistleblower Edward Snowden. In new research for his book, Cronau says he has found Pine Gap’s role in boosting US war-fighting capabilities is intensifying. He says there has been a rapid expansion in the capability of the US-built and -funded base, with the construction during the past year of four new satellite antennas covered by radomes. Preparations are under way for a massive new antenna that he says would amount to five new ones in a little over a year, making it the fastest period of expansion for the base, to a total of 41 satellite antennas. Cronau says three of the new antennas are designed to download data from powerful new-generation satellites that will collect information from distant war zones.