Geo Political Risk

[Davexl]

U.S. visit to Taiwan begins, adding to escalating China tensions

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...-taiwan-china/

excerpt:
Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry hit back at China’s criticism of the visit on Thursday, calling Beijing a “global troublemaker.”


“What the Chinese government can do is stop making irresponsible remarks on the international stage and
stop interfering with Taiwan’s foreign exchanges,” ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou said at a briefing Thursday.

“What the Chinese government can do is ‘return politics to the people, listen to the voices of the people, and
understand the needs of the people’ because the 1.4 billion people of China and Hong Kong deserve freedom.”

[macduffy]

That would be my concern, as South East Asia and Australasia would be collateral damage...and NZ is totally & utterly unprepared to defend its area of interest...

Suggestions?

[Davexl]

Suggestions?

Rebuild our Airforce strike wing, perhaps with the Gripen Fighter. After discussion in the Facebook group 'Friends of the RAN / RNZAF A-4 Skyhawk' group. there seems to be a consensus forming that the Swedish Gripen aircraft would be a good replacement fit for NZ if it rearmed. Better for warfighting in the S/W Pacific domain, using short runways and fast turnaround to rearm and re engine if necessary and fully net-workable.

Ron Mark, our Defence minister is doing his best to at least upgrade our obsolete equipment, but having no AirStrike wing and only 2 frigates in our "Navy" doesn't cut it in my view anyway, or in the view of some people within NZ's own Defence Community. Ron briefly commented to me that as NZ First, the junior MMP coalition partner, has only 7% of the vote, it doesn't have the leverage to demand a serious level of Defence expenditure within the caucus.

Traditionally in my memory, NZ maintained 4 frigates as well as the Air Strike Wing. It was a total travesty for Helen Clark, our Prime Minister of the time to dispand our Skyhawks and cancel the F16 deal with the US. Almost treasonous in my personal view. There are repercussions even to this day.

This is what should be exercising New Zealanders' minds right now IMO:

There could be an existential threat to NZ within the next 5 - 10 years - I hope that's wrong...

New-Zealands Dangerous Strategic Apathy in an Uncertain Age

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/ne...uncertain-age/

If you love your country, please read this article - these issues cannot be ignored any longer...

There is still time for New Zealand's Defence establishment to respond - they are fully aware of this situation but are doing next to nothing to upgrade our actual combat capability.

Australia has upped their 10-year Defence expenditure by 40% - When is New Zealand going to respond ? - It takes political pressure from ALL of us...

[GTM 3442]

Rebuild our Airforce strike wing, perhaps with the Gripen Fighter. After discussion in the Facebook group 'Friends of the RAN / RNZAF A-4 Skyhawk' group. there seems to be a consensus forming that the Swedish Gripen aircraft would be a good replacement fit for NZ if it rearmed. Better for warfighting in the S/W Pacific domain, using short runways and fast turnaround to rearm and re engine if necessary and fully net-workable.

Ron Mark, our Defence minister is doing his best to at least upgrade our obsolete equipment, but having no AirStrike wing and only 2 frigates in our "Navy" doesn't cut it in my view anyway, or in the view of some people within NZ's own Defence Community. Ron briefly commented to me that as NZ First, the junior MMP coalition partner, has only 7% of the vote, it doesn't have the leverage to demand a serious level of Defence expenditure within the caucus.

Traditionally in my memory, NZ maintained 4 frigates as well as the Air Strike Wing. It was a total travesty for Helen Clark, our Prime Minister of the time to dispand our Skyhawks and cancel the F16 deal with the US. Almost treasonous in my personal view. There are repercussions even to this day.

This is what should be exercising New Zealanders' minds right now IMO:

There could be an existential threat to NZ within the next 5 - 10 years - I hope that's wrong...

New-Zealands Dangerous Strategic Apathy in an Uncertain Age

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/ne...uncertain-age/

If you love your country, please read this article - these issues cannot be ignored any longer...

There is still time for New Zealand's Defence establishment to respond - they are fully aware of this situation but are doing next to nothing to upgrade our actual combat capability.

Australia has upped their 10-year Defence expenditure by 40% - When is New Zealand going to respond ? - It takes political pressure from ALL of us...

Strike wing? The Gripen?

New Zealand is a nation which relies on imports and exports, carried over the sea on ships. So what New Zealand needs isn a way to protect the ships which carry its imports and exports.

How to do that?

In the air, range maritime reconnaissance capability and capacity. Something which can stay in the air for a long time, something which can see for a long way, and something which can drop the odd piece of ordnance as and if required.

At sea, well the saga of the cruiser "Royalist" should provide a salutary lesson. Small but heavily armed, and lots of it. After all, what's the lead time for an AN frigate in years?

And for projecting power into the Pacific? Soft power or hard power? I think the jury might still be out on that one, but time will tell if it will turn out to be a hung jury followed by the traditional inertia.

[Davexl]

Strike wing? The Gripen?

New Zealand is a nation which relies on imports and exports, carried over the sea on ships. So what New Zealand needs isn a way to protect the ships which carry its imports and exports.

How to do that?

In the air, range maritime reconnaissance capability and capacity. Something which can stay in the air for a long time, something which can see for a long way, and something which can drop the odd piece of ordnance as and if required.

At sea, well the saga of the cruiser "Royalist" should provide a salutary lesson. Small but heavily armed, and lots of it. After all, what's the lead time for an AN frigate in years?

And for projecting power into the Pacific? Soft power or hard power? I think the jury might still be out on that one, but time will tell if it will turn out to be a hung jury followed by the traditional inertia.

Interesting points,

I guess the forthcoming P8 upgrades takes care of the first part of the equation, although if we had a bigger budget we would get a couple more, considering the rapidly increasing surveillance need over NZ's enormous maritime domain including the nation states of the SW Pacific.

Soft power vs hard power. I personally think we absolutely must do both as Australia is doing, considering the leadtimes right now. Soft power is irrelevant if push comes to shove, especially if we are to do our bit in the SW Pacific. Once China establishes a base there it's a serious problem.

There is a risk that unless Aust & NZ step up more, eg with Covid assistance should it hit the islands, China could move in with 'hard money' and establish a beachhead. The Pacific step-up should help but...

[GTM 3442]

Interesting points,

I guess the forthcoming P8 upgrades takes care of the first part of the equation, although if we had a bigger budget we would get a couple more, considering the rapidly increasing surveillance need over NZ's enormous maritime domain including the nation states of the SW Pacific.

Soft power vs hard power. I personally think we absolutely must do both as Australia is doing, considering the leadtimes right now. Soft power is irrelevant if push comes to shove, especially if we are to do our bit in the SW Pacific. Once China establishes a base there it's a serious problem.

There is a risk that unless Aust & NZ step up more, eg with Covid assistance should it hit the islands, China could move in with 'hard money' and establish a beachhead. The Pacific step-up should help but...

The purpose of soft power is to prevent push coming to shove.

So what can "hard money" buy in the Pacific? And could New Zealand compete with it? And how important is money in the scheme of things anyway?

What are the Pacific micro-states interested in? I would guess that at the moment they are interested in what's going on in their EEZs. And that they're looking very carefully at the saga of that Chinese fishing fleet which was working around the Galapagos, and wondering what it might mean for their interests.

I suspect they're also aware that there's no prospect of ongoing seasonal or agricultural work for their people in China.

So New Zealand has some levers to pull in the Pacific. As does Australia.

Perhaps it's worth teaming up with Australia to set up in-air refuelling capability for the P8s?

[Davexl]

How Huawei landed at the centre of global tech tussle

https://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/3...al-tech-tussle

Quite a good recap on the mega technology battle continuing between the US & China
(Background history up to most recent August supply-chain developments)

[peat]

prev post was from last night
just reading this mornings emails now and find more

The international cyberattack that took down the New Zealand stock exchange's public website and public announcements platform is thought to have come from China or Russia.
BusinessDesk understands the attack, which saw the NZX halt trading at 3.57pm yesterday afternoon – just over an hour before the market was due to stop trading for the day - is now the subject of an intensive response by NZ and its western allied intelligence agencies.
The Government Communications Securities Bureau swung into action as soon as the offshore attack occurred and will undoubtedly have involved counterpart agencies among the so-called Five Eyes intelligence grouping involving the US, UK, Australia and Canada, as well as NZ.
CERT NZ, which coordinates with other agencies to support those affected by cyber attacks, declined to comment on whether or not it was involved in the NZX response.
The attack itself, a so-called Distributed Denial of Service attack, was directed at telecommunications provider Spark, rather than directly at NZX.

[Davexl]

China leader Xi Jinping slammed for his 'wolf warrior' tactics

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/new...ectid=12355007

Excerpt:

"Xi has always had his critics among China's liberal scholars who blame him for provoking the US with his assertive diplomatic and military policies," he writes.
They prefer the "hide your strength, bide your time" policy enacted by Chairman Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s.

"But by citing the doctrine of a revered political leader like Deng, the liberals gave themselves political cover to criticise Xi, without mentioning him by name."

[greater fool]

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/polit...ian-businesses