The Pentagon is to host Chinese Defense Minister General Chang Wanquan (常萬全) for talks tomorrow at a time of “positive momentum” in military relations between the two countries, a US official said.
Chang was due to start his visit on Friday in Hawaii, where he was scheduled to meet the head of US Pacific Command, before heading to Colorado to the headquarters for Northern Command, which oversees forces in North America, officials said.
US military officials have touted progress in the defense dialogue with China after years of false starts and say a counter-piracy exercise next week in the Gulf of Aden will see unprecedented cooperation between the two countries’ naval forces.
US concerns over Chinese cyberespionage are expected to feature high on the agenda when Chang meets his US counterpart, US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in Washington tomorrow.
At a security conference in Singapore in June, Hagel blamed the Chinese government and armed forces for snooping on sensitive US computer networks.
Some cyberintrusions “appear to be tied to the Chinese government and military,” Hagel said in the speech.
However, revelations about US electronic surveillance of Internet traffic and telephone records, leaked by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, have made it more difficult for Washington to level accusations against Beijing.
Chang’s meeting with Hagel and other senior officials and officers will allow “the two leaders an opportunity to have a robust exchange of views on a variety of issues in the US-China relationship,” including cybersecurity, the defense official said.
The talks are also likely to cover North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, territorial disputes in the South China Sea between China and neighboring nations and rival claims between Japan and China over islands in the East China Sea.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS