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Obama Silences Pentagon Orders Them To Stop Talking About Threat From Chinese Military

The Obama White House has barred Pentagon leaders from a key talking point when it comes to publicly describing the military challenges posed by China.

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The Obama White House has barred Pentagon leaders from a key talking point when it comes to publicly describing the military challenges posed by China.

In February, Defense Secretary Ash Carter cited the “return to great power of competition” in the Asia-Pacific, “where China is rising.” Similarly, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson characterized China and Russia as rivals in this “great power competition” in his maritime strategy.

But a recent directive from the National Security Council ordered Pentagon leaders to strike out that phrase and find something less inflammatory, according to four officials familiar with the classified document, revealed here for the first time by Navy Times. Obama administration officials and some experts say “great power competition” inaccurately frames the U.S. and China as on a collision course, but other experts warn that China’s ship building, man-made islands and expansive claims in the South and East China seas are hostile to U.S. interests. This needlessly muddies leaders’ efforts to explain the tough measures needed to contain China’s rise, these critics say.

China threat to USA with New advanced ballistic missiles:

“Their explanation is an exercise in nuance and complexity, purposely chosen by the administration to provide maximum flexibility, to prevent  them from committing to a real structural approach to the most important national security challenge of our time,” said Bryan McGrath, a naval expert and retired destroyer skipper.

The Obama administration, however, believes that the term “great power competition” oversimplifies a complicated relationship with a rising superpower.

“Nothing is preordained about this relationship,” said a senior administration  official in a Sunday phone call. “We don’t buy into the notion that an established and rising power are destined for conflict.”

Top Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook declined to comment on the NSC directive.

“As I am sure you know, we don’t comment on internal policy documents or discussions, especially ones that may be incomplete, and so we will decline to comment here as well,” Cook said.

The Pentagon and the White House have grappled with how to engage with China while confronting their expansive military moves. Early this year, some Pentagon leaders urged tough responses to China’s island building, which threatens allies like the Philippines. In March, the White House similarly dissuaded military leaders from airing differences over the Chinese moves in the South China Sea so as not to complicate a high-level meeting between the the U.S. and Chinese presidents.

Japan expresses concern over “China Threat”:

The U.S. later adopted more muscular moves, like sending destroyers on close passes of China’s fake islands and sending more ships, troops and aircraft to rotate through the Philippines — a neighbor at odds with China over its claims.

‘High-end enemy’

The confrontational rhetoric has at times upset the White House as it pursues agenda items beyond security challenges. The latest directive comes after a September state trip by President Obama and National Security Advisor Susan Rice to the Group of 20 summit in Hangzhou, China.

“Great power competition” has been at the core of Carter’s message, as the services reinvest in the state-of-the-art weapons needed to deter sophisticated opponents like Russia and China.

“We will be prepared for a high-end enemy,” Carter said in February  talk to the Economic Forum. “That’s what we call full spectrum. In our budget, our plans, our capabilities and our actions, we must demonstrate to potential foes, that if they start a war, we have the capability to win. … In this context, Russia and China are our most stressing competitors. They have developed and are continuing to advance military systems that seek to threaten our advantages in specific areas. And in some case, they are developing weapons and ways of wars that seek to achieve their objectives rapidly, before they hope, we can respond.”

Great power competition was also the central idea of the CNO’s strategic guidance, which said Russia and China have “a growing arsenal of high-end war-fighting capabilities, many of which are focused specifically on our vulnerabilities.”

Rumors of the directive also rankled some on Capitol Hill. During a recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., asked Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joe Dunford to comment.

“Gen. Dunford, are we in great power competition with China?” Cotton asked, to which Dunford replied: “We are, senator.”

When Cotton asked Carter, the secretary replied: “We are. Absolutely right.”

A complex relationship

The back-and-forth comes amid debate about how to confront China’s increasingly aggressive behavior in the South and East China seas. China’s land reclamation projects in the vicinity of the Spratly Islands have been the focus of rising tensions between China and the United States and its regional allies like the Philippines.

In July, an international tribunal dealt a legal blow to China. The panel in The Hague, Netherlands, dismissed China’s attempt to create legal rights for features in the Spratly Islands chain by constructing air strips and bases there. The ruling states that piling dirt and sand on rocky outcroppings and reefs doesn’t confer additional resource rights to the waters around it.

Despite the ruling, China has not vacated its islands and is currently threatening to expand its claims with a new island-building project near Scarborough Shoal, less than 140 miles from the Philippines’ capital and well within the Philippines’ 200-mile exclusive economic zone. A military base on Scarborough would threaten U.S. troops and aircraft in that country.

China has also edged in on Japanese claims in the East China Sea, which has prompted the pacifist nation to increase its military activities and spending. In 2015, Japan passed a record defense spending bill, largely in response to the Chinese threat.

For its part, the Obama administration insists it’s not blind to the threat China’s activities pose to American interests.

“We always talk about maximizing cooperation to the extent possible,” the senior administration official said. “But we are very clear-eyed and candid about the differences and that there is competition between us. … There is no question that some of China’s activities in the maritime realm are generating significant tension, but there are other areas where developments have been extremely positive.”

The official went on to say that using a “slogan” to describe a complicated relationship is unhelpful, pointing to progress on a climate change pact and global health programs.

Several leading experts have called for precisely that kind of nuanced approach to the world’s most populous country.

“My view is that it’s unhelpful to describe a very complex relationship in a simple phrase, regardless of whether it is positive or negative,” said Bonnie Glaser, the director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Michael O’Hanlon, an influential security policy expert at the Brookings Institution, said that focusing solely on the positive or the negative aspects of the relationship isn’t good policy.

“To oversimplify in either direction is not only analytically inaccurate, but consequential for the tone and substance of the relationship,” he said. “The White House really does have it right, I strongly believe.”

A Pentagon spokesman said the U.S. relationship with China focuses on competition and cooperation.

“The US-China relationship is composed of competitive and cooperative elements,” said Navy Cmdr. Gary Ross in an email. “It is only natural that, as the deterrent arm of the United States government, the Defense Department is prepared for the possibility of conflict with any potential aggressor.”

“At the same time, we have worked hard at reducing tensions and increasing transparency with China by implementing confidence building measures in both the maritime and air domains. We also have a long-standing military to military relationship. We will continue to engage with China as appropriate, while being open and clear about our differences.”

The NSC’s directive is unsettling for those who view China’s military buildup as the key driver of the U.S.-China relationship — and a threat to the post-World War II world order.

“This kind of lawyerly nuancing is not what the American people need,” said McGrath, who leads the consulting firm The FerryBridge Group. “They don’t need nationalism or jingoism, they need a restatement of the role the U.S. plays in the proper function, security and prosperity of the world. To actually contend in great power competition, you have to identify for the American people what is the problem. The problem with this administrations’ insistence in avoiding terms that the American people understand is it lacks clarity.

“What this means is we will spend at least the next 90 days with an administration that’s just trying to tread water.” source

China

The People’s Liberation Army Of China Mobilized Aircraft From Different Theatre Commands Taking Part In An ‘Island Encirclement Patrol’ Near Taiwan

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China tracks at least 143 warplanes and 56 warships entering air defence zone in four days as part of Beijing’s ‘island encirclement patrol’ near Taiwan

Over in Communist China, the People’s Liberation Army has been conducting called an ‘island encirclement patrol’ over by Taiwan, a country that they claim sovereignty over. The citizens of Taiwan do not see themselves as belonging to China, and that subject has been and remains a topic of much discussion. At some point, it is expected that mainland China will, according to their ‘One China Principle’, make a military move against them. Things like the island encirclement patrol and cross-theatre drills speak to that.

“And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.” Revelation 16:12 (KJB)

China right now is a nation that is ‘still percolating’, but according to scripture they’ll likely cause quite the dust-up in the great Tribulation. Together with Russia and Iran, China fills out the ‘unholy trio’ of end times nations that are waiting in the wings, listening for the sound of a trumpet that’ scheduled to blow shortly. In the meantime, China prepares for war over Taiwan.

PLA’s latest air and sea drills near Taiwan could signal surprise attack strategy, analysts say

FROM THE SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST: The People’s Liberation Army has mobilized aircraft from different theatre commands to take part in an “island encirclement patrol” near Taiwan, which experts said could signal a new strategy to prepare for regional military conflicts. The aircraft drills coincided with joint sea and air training conducted by the PLA’s Shandong aircraft carrier in the western Pacific Ocean since early this week. According to earlier reports it involved a total of 42 naval ships from the Eastern and Southern Theatre Commands.

A post on the Eastern Theatre Command’s WeChat account said its pilots and ground crews were taking part in long-distance, cross-theatre exercises to practice landing and taking off from unfamiliar airports.

Without saying when the drills took place, the post said the pilots had spent more than 10 hours conducting non-stop flights.

Pictures on the social media platform showed fighter jets such as the J-10, J-16 and Su-30 flying at night and during the day, while drills covered operations such as repairs, refueling, weapon replacement and emergency response.

Zhou Chenming, a researcher from the Beijing-based Yuan Wang military science and technology think tank, said the fighter jets involved in the drill would also take part in Beijing’s regular ‘island encirclement patrol’ near Taiwan.

“Like the island encirclement patrol, cross-theatre drills have become routine, taking place in the Taiwan Strait and western Pacific, which is part of combat-readiness training to prepare for the outbreak of a Taiwan contingency,” Zhou said.

Zhou said mobilizing different forces from its theatre commands would put the PLA at an advantage when dealing with potential challenges from joint US-Japan forces. READ MORE

China is staging three days of “combat readiness” patrols around Taiwan – sending military resources towards the island to practice encircling it. Beijing, which claims Taiwan is a breakway province – staged the drills after the Taiwanese president promised to continue working with the United States and other democracies following a meeting with the speaker of the House of Representatives.

Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church

Please continue to pray for us, and for wisdom for me especially, as we continue taking steps to print the NTEB branded King James Bible for our free Bible and Bibles Behind Bars program. It is exciting and intimidating at the same time. If the Lord has prospered your financially, we ask you to donate to help us continue to send out free Bibles at this level, and even higher than we are at the moment. It takes a lot of prayer, and a lot of resources to do all this. Praise the Lord we are doing it, all of us together, labouring in the Lord’s harvest field. TO THE FIGHT!!!

When you contribute to this fundraising effort, you are helping us to do what the Lord called us to do. The money you send in goes primarily to the overall daily operations of this site. When people ask for Bibles, we send them out at no charge. When people write in and say how much they would like gospel tracts but cannot afford them, we send them a box at no cost to them for either the tracts or the shipping, no matter where they are in the world. We have a Gospel Billboard program. We are now broadcasting Bible studies, Podcasts and a Sunday Service 5 times a week, thanks to your generous donations. All this is possible because YOU pray for us, YOU support us, and YOU give so we can continue growing.

But whatever you do, don’t do nothing. Time is short and we need your help right now. The Lord has given us an open door with a tremendous ‘course’ for us to fulfill that will create an excellent experience at the Judgement Seat of Christ. Please pray for our efforts, and if the Lord leads you to donate, be as generous as possible. The war is REAL, the battle HOT and the time is SHORTTO THE FIGHT!!!

“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)

“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB

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China

The Biden Administration Has No Answer For Communist China Setting Up A Military Base In Cuba 90 Miles Off The Coast Of The United States

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China and Cuba are negotiating to establish a new joint military training facility on the island, sparking alarm in Washington that it could lead to the stationing of Chinese troops and other security and intelligence operations just 100 miles off Florida’s coast, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Back in the early 1960’s, there was an incident called the Cuban Missile Crisis where the Kennedy administration brought the world to the edge of nuclear war with the Russians who had made an encampment in Cuba, a mere 90 miles from the US mainland. History would seem to be repeating itself as another Democrat, Joe Biden, is in office as Communist China announces plans for a military base in Cuba. Unlike Kennedy, the Joe Biden White House had no response when asked about this precarious situation earlier.

“And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.” Revelation 16:12 (KJB)

One of the hallmarks of the Biden administration is an absolutely terrible foreign policy, perhaps the worst we’ve seen since the Jimmy Carter years. Speaking of that, did you know that the Biden administration is, right now, engaged is secret talks with Iran? The Gatestone Institute recently said “Nothing seems to stop the Biden administration from wanting to reward the ruling mullahs of Iran with a nuclear deal that will pave the way for the Islamist regime of Iran legally to obtain as many nuclear weapons as it likes, empower the ruling mullahs with billions of dollars, lift sanctions against their theocratic regime, allow them to rejoin the global financial system and enhance their legitimacy on the global stage.” Now you know their ‘plan’ for how to deal with Communist China in Cuba. Yikes.

Beijing Plans a New Training Facility in Cuba, Raising Prospect of Chinese Troops on America’s Doorstep

FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Discussions for the facility on Cuba’s northern coast are at an advanced stage but not concluded, U.S. intelligence reports suggest. The Biden administration has contacted Cuban officials to try to forestall the deal, seeking to tap in to what it thinks might be Cuban concerns about ceding sovereignty. Beijing’s effort to establish a military training facility in Cuba hasn’t been previously reported.

The White House declined to comment.

The heightened anxiety in Washington over China’s ambitions in the Caribbean and Latin America comes as the administration is seeking to tamp down broader tensions with Beijing that have been stoked by a host of other issues, including U.S. support for Taiwan. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was on a high-profile visit to China these past few days, meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

The trip appeared to halt a downward spiral in relations. But Blinken failed to secure China’s agreement to a U.S. proposal that the two countries resume military-to-military communications to avoid misunderstandings. He also raised U.S. concerns about Chinese intelligence activities in Cuba, according to a State Department statement.

U.S. officials said reference to the proposed new training facility in Cuba is contained in highly classified new U.S. intelligence, which they described as convincing but fragmentary. It is being interpreted with different levels of alarm among policy makers and intelligence analysts. The Wall Street Journal reported on June 8 that China and Cuba had reached an agreement in principle for a new eavesdropping site in Cuba; the White House characterized that reporting as inaccurate but didn’t elaborate. Two days later, the White House declassified intelligence to confirm publicly that Chinese intelligence collection facilities have existed in Cuba since at least 2019.

Current and former U.S. officials said a new military facility could provide China with a platform to potentially house troops permanently on the island and broaden its intelligence gathering, including electronic eavesdropping, against the U.S. READ MORE

Beijing has refuted a report by Wall Street Journal that claimed China and Cuba are negotiating to establish a new joint military training facility on the island located in United States’ backyard. This had sparked concerns in the oval office.

Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church

Please continue to pray for us, and for wisdom for me especially, as we continue taking steps to print the NTEB branded King James Bible for our free Bible and Bibles Behind Bars program. It is exciting and intimidating at the same time. If the Lord has prospered your financially, we ask you to donate to help us continue to send out free Bibles at this level, and even higher than we are at the moment. It takes a lot of prayer, and a lot of resources to do all this. Praise the Lord we are doing it, all of us together, labouring in the Lord’s harvest field. TO THE FIGHT!!!

When you contribute to this fundraising effort, you are helping us to do what the Lord called us to do. The money you send in goes primarily to the overall daily operations of this site. When people ask for Bibles, we send them out at no charge. When people write in and say how much they would like gospel tracts but cannot afford them, we send them a box at no cost to them for either the tracts or the shipping, no matter where they are in the world. We have a Gospel Billboard program. We are now broadcasting Bible studies, Podcasts and a Sunday Service 5 times a week, thanks to your generous donations. All this is possible because YOU pray for us, YOU support us, and YOU give so we can continue growing.

But whatever you do, don’t do nothing. Time is short and we need your help right now. The Lord has given us an open door with a tremendous ‘course’ for us to fulfill that will create an excellent experience at the Judgement Seat of Christ. Please pray for our efforts, and if the Lord leads you to donate, be as generous as possible. The war is REAL, the battle HOT and the time is SHORTTO THE FIGHT!!!

“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)

“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB

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China

China Begins Drilling A 32,000-Foot Deep Hole Into The Earth’s Crust Ostensibly Looking For Oil But More Likely Has Sinister Intentions Behind It

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Communist China is drilling a hole measuring 32,800 feet deep into the Earth’s crust in the Xinjiang region, prompting suspicion of their motives.

Communist China is a rogue nation that likes to pretend that they are civilized, but in reality are not, they are always up to some sort of scheme. Because of their large size and their economy, most nations and nearly all corporations turn the other way in order to keep doing business with them. In 2021, we reported to you on the concentration camps active in China for the purpose of enslaving the Uighur Muslims. Nike profits handsomely by using this slave labor pool to make their trendy sneakers, and radical Leftists like Colin Kaepernick, Lebron James and nearly the entire NBA, just to name a few, lose no sleep over this arrangement. Walt Disney as well has no guilt or remorse filming movies within a mile of the concentration camps. So when China wants to ‘drill a hole’ that extends 32,800 feet into the earth you just know something shady is going on.

“And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.” Revelation 16:12 (KJB)

Aside from being eminently untrustworthy, Communist China is also a highly dangerous nation as well. China owns the largest share of rare earth minerals that are required to run all the technology this world run on. And then there’s Taiwan. Just 11 hours ago, The United States military released video Monday of what it called an “unsafe” Chinese maneuver in the Taiwan Strait on the weekend, in which a Chinese navy ship cut sharply across the path of an American destroyer, forcing the U.S. vessel to slow to avoid a collision. China provokes the United States on a regular basis, and that’s a battle that will absolutely be fought sooner rather than later. China is an end times force to be reckoned with.

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China Drilling 32,800-Foot Hole into Earth’s Crust

FROM BREITBART NEWS: The drilling began Tuesday and is part of a “research project” in the oil-rich area, the New York Post reported Thursday, citing state media. “The venture is being led by state scientists as a means to further China’s deep Earth exploration venture launched by President Xi Jinping in 2021, the Xinhua News Agency reported,” the outlet said, adding the work was happening in the Tarim Basin.

An image shows what is reportedly the site:

Britannica describes the Tarim Basin as a “vast depression drained by the Tarim River in the Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang,” noting it covers approximately 350,000 square miles.

The area is “enclosed by the Tien Shan mountains to the north, the Pamirs to the west, the Kunlun Mountains to the south, and the Altun Mountains to the east,” the site said, adding it is an extremely dry area.

Meanwhile, Chinese Academy of Engineering scientist Sun Jinsheng said drillers will go down in more than 10 layers of rock during the project. “The drilling is expected to take about 457 days and is being led by the China National Petroleum Corp, which will use the project to test underground drilling machines and gather data on the Earth’s interior,” the Post article said. READ MORE

The drilling of China’s first borehole over 10,000 meters deep for scientific exploration began on Tuesday in the Tarim Basin in the country’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church

Please continue to pray for us, and for wisdom for me especially, as we continue taking steps to print the NTEB branded King James Bible for our free Bible and Bibles Behind Bars program. It is exciting and intimidating at the same time. If the Lord has prospered your financially, we ask you to donate to help us continue to send out free Bibles at this level, and even higher than we are at the moment. It takes a lot of prayer, and a lot of resources to do all this. Praise the Lord we are doing it, all of us together, labouring in the Lord’s harvest field. TO THE FIGHT!!!

When you contribute to this fundraising effort, you are helping us to do what the Lord called us to do. The money you send in goes primarily to the overall daily operations of this site. When people ask for Bibles, we send them out at no charge. When people write in and say how much they would like gospel tracts but cannot afford them, we send them a box at no cost to them for either the tracts or the shipping, no matter where they are in the world. We have a Gospel Billboard program. We are now broadcasting Bible studies, Podcasts and a Sunday Service 5 times a week, thanks to your generous donations. All this is possible because YOU pray for us, YOU support us, and YOU give so we can continue growing.

But whatever you do, don’t do nothing. Time is short and we need your help right now. The Lord has given us an open door with a tremendous ‘course’ for us to fulfill that will create an excellent experience at the Judgement Seat of Christ. Please pray for our efforts, and if the Lord leads you to donate, be as generous as possible. The war is REAL, the battle HOT and the time is SHORTTO THE FIGHT!!!

“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)

“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB

Continue Reading

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