Saturday, February 18, 2023

Stealth fully exposed.

"President Joe Biden defended his decision to shoot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that spent nearly a week flying over US territory..., and said the three other objects shot down over North America in recent weeks likely weren't spy balloons, amid escalating tensions with the Chinese government and criticism from some lawmakers." Forbes. The US has understood at last. "In 2015, the US acknowledged that China had hacked into the security files in the US Office of Personnel Management, accessing over 21 million records," providing the Chinese with "access to the security files of every retired, current and prospective American federal employee including military personnel," wrote Prashant Jha. Also, "China stole trillions of dollars of intellectual property, including terabytes of data and schematics for the F-35 and F-22 stealth fighter jet programs." China's threat to its neighbors has multiplied manifold because of US gullibility. "China's emerging 'B-2 copycat' H-20 stealth bomber is expected to introduce an entirely new sphere of threat dynamics to the US," and "While the exact composition of its stealth properties or radar-signature reducing technologies may not be fully known, available photos and renderings reveal an aircraft which one could say seems in some respects to be indistinguishable from a US B-2." Warrior Maven. "In recent years, under autocratic top leader Xi Jinping, China has increasingly tried to meddle in Indian politics and society, using disinformation on social media platforms to potentially try and wield influence directly and indirectly," wrote Joshua Kurlantzick. Not just fake news, China has grabbed Indian territory. Villagers in Ladakh "claimed that the Indian government 'ceded' land to China after both sides agreed to withdraw troops from contentious areas..., The Guardian reported." Dawn. Around 41 km of grazing land in Kugrang Valley has become the buffer zone which means that the Indian Army has retreated from the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The Hindu. While China continues to flex its muscles with impunity, "Around $300 billion of Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves are frozen by sanctions," wrote prof Nilanjan Banik. "Russia can survive this war economically thanks to China and India. What seems to be a zero-sum game for Europe is proving to be a positive-sum game for Russia, China and India." The US cannot impose sanctions on China, as it has on Russia, despite the dollar being the world's reserve currency, wrote Prof Arvind Panagariya. "True, it has the ability to block China's official foreign exchange reserves of which two-thirds or approximately $2.1 trillion are held in Western government bonds. But, the catch is that such an action would invite China to seize $3.6 trillion in direct investment and $2.2 trillion in portfolio investment by foreigners in China." "Keep your enemies closer" said Sun Tzu. It means, keep them under surveillance. The US seems to have turned it around.

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