The Thirst for Freedom

Analysts say Beijing getting ready for ops
– beyond Far East
May 9, 2008

By Gordon Thomas
Reposted from the G2 Bulletin with permission – The G2 Bulletin is a subscription only news source.

Hainan Island

LONDON — Defense analysts for the British intelligence service MI6 believe China is preparing for the “eventuality of a nuclear war.” The conclusion follows evidence that Beijing has built secretly a major naval base deep inside caverns which even sophisticated satellites cannot penetrate.

In an unusual development, the analysts have provided details to the specialist defense periodical, Jane’s Intelligence Review, which published satellite images of the base location which is hidden beneath millions of tons of rock on the South China Sea island of Hainan.

The MI6 analysts have confirmed the submarine base hewn out of the rock will contain up to 20 of the latest C94 Jin-Class submarines, each capable of firing anti-satellite missiles and nuclear tipped rockets.

Knocking out the satellites would leave Taiwan, Japan and other countries around the Pacific Rim effectively without a key warning system. An attack also would disrupt vital communications between U.S. battle squadrons in the region and Washington.

Satellite images studied by GCHQ, Britain’s spy in the sky intelligence gathering organization based at Cheltenham that works closely with the U.S. National Security Agency, have confirmed the entrance to the base is through no fewer than 11 separate tunnel openings.

A Royal Navy nuclear submarine, one of those in the Typhoon Fleet, now has joined another from the U.S. Pacific Fleet to build up a clear image of what is happening inside the secret base which, as well as China’s nuclear subs, could house “a host of aircraft carriers.”

Naval intelligence officers in London and Washington have confirmed the discovery of the base will present “a significant challenge to U.S. naval dominance and protection to countries ringing the South China Sea.”

The base is sited at Sanya on the southern tip of Hainan island. The island came to the attention of Western intelligence in April 2001, when a U.S. EP-3 spy plane trying to test the island’s electronic defenses was forced to land there by Chinese fighters, one of which crashed in the sea killing the pilot.

The 24 U.S. crew on board, including specialist technicians, brought the first international crisis to the administration of George W. Bush.

The EP-3 was released two days later, gutted of all its secrets. Since then Beijing has secretly evacuated the base — an engineering feat that one of the MI6 analysts said took “even more skill than building the Great Wall of China.”

One of the advantages of the base is that submarines can sail from there already submerged into very deep Pacific water — exceeding 15,000 feet — making their detection that much harder.

In comparison, Britain’s Trident submarines have to remain on the surface when they leave their base in northwest Scotland and cannot submerge to patrol depth until they are beyond the Irish Sea.

Intelligence analyst Alex Neill at the Asia Security Program in London, which works closely with MI6, believes the secret base “is a clear indication that Beijing is preparing for wider operations in the Far East and very possibly beyond.”

Another Ministry of Defense analyst, who cannot be named for security reasons, believes “this could be the prelude to China preparing for a nuclear response.”

More certain is that Chinese defense spending could be as high as $200 billion. Kerry Brown, a China analyst at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, says the secret base is part of “a sea denial campaign which will prevent the United States intervening in any conflict with Taiwan. The base’s submarine fleet will use their anti-satellite missiles to ensure that U.S. satellites over the Pacific would be ‘blind’ and unable to keep the Pentagon in touch. The fact is that China is determined to challenge the power of the U.S. Pacific Command. The Sanya base is just a start.”

Gordon Thomas is the author of the newly published Secrets and Lies: A History of CIA Mind Control and Germ Warfare (Octavo Editions, USA) and the forthcoming Inside British Intelligence (JR Books, UK).

Chinese arms dispatched to Mugabe rejected by ports
– so far
April 24, 2008

By Gordon Thomas
Reposted from the G2 Bulletin with permission – The G2 Bulletin is a subscription only news source.

Robert Mugabe

LONDON – A floating arsenal of weapons and bombs dispatched by China in a rust-stained tramp freighter to the pariah state of President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe now is being shadowed by Britain’s most powerful submarine, a nuclear Trident.

Freighter officers are desperate to be allowed to unload their cargo of 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades, 2,500 mortar rounds and three million rounds of ammunition for Mugabe’s army, intended to be used to further cow the country’s starving population.

But it has been turned away by dockers in the South African port who branded it “a ship of shame,” as well as ports in Angola and Mozambique.

Now as it wanders around the South Atlantic, the An Yue Jiang, which began its voyage five weeks ago from the Chinese port of Ningbo southwards into the Pacific and across the Indian Ocean, the Beijing Ministry of Defense has been trying to find an African country which would allow it to unload the lethal cargo.

Intelligence sources in London have confirmed that secret approaches have been made to Equatorial Guinea, Benin and the Ivory Coast. But so far none has allowed the ship to dock and offload its weapons.

Tom Casey, a State Department spokesman in Washington, said: “We think that under the present circumstances and the current political crisis in Zimbabwe, now is not the time for anyone to be increasing the number of weapons and armaments available to that country. We will press African nations to refuse the Yue Jiang docking rights or to face worsened relations with the United State.”

Naval intelligence sources in London have said the possibility “cannot be ruled out” that the ship could make the journey to Venezuela, whose maverick leader, President Hugo Chavez, has a good relationship with China and is an opponent of the United States.

“Chavez is a skilled player on the international stage and he could say he was offering to refuel the ship on humanitarian grounds. The weapons could then be transferred to a Venezuelan registered ship and repackaged for Zimbabwe,” said one ship’s broker at Lloyds, the world’s largest shipping broker.

Meantime, the Trident — one of four in the fleet which is based in Faslane on Scotland’s Clyde — is on patrol.

For three months, the black-hulled submarine will be at sea. At 450 feet long and weighing 16,000 tons, the leviathan hull is covered with sonar-absorbing anechoic tiles.

From the depths of the ocean it trails a 1,000-yard-long communications wire. That wire is used to receive and send short burst communications.

The Trident’s role is simply that of a watchdog. But its presence can only reinforce the mood in Washington and London that the shipment of arms must be recalled to China and plans to send further shipments abandoned by the Beijing regime.

Gordon Thomas is the author of the newly published Secrets and Lies: A History of CIA Mind Control and Germ Warfare (Octavo Editions, USA) and the forthcoming Inside British Intelligence (JR Books, UK).

Brit spies confirm Dalai Lama’s report of staged violence
March 20, 2008

By Gordon Thomas
Reposted from the G2 Bulletin with permission – The G2 Bulletin is a subscription only news source.

Dalai Lama

LONDON — Britain’s GCHQ, the government communications agency that electronically monitors half the world from space, has confirmed the claim by the Dalai Lama that agents of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the PLA, posing as monks, triggered the riots that have left hundreds of Tibetans dead or injured.

GCHQ analysts believe the decision was deliberately calculated by the Beijing leadership to provide an excuse to stamp out the simmering unrest in the region, which is already attracting unwelcome world attention in the run-up to the Olympic Games this summer.

For weeks there has been growing resentment in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, against minor actions taken by the Chinese authorities.

Increasingly, monks have led acts of civil disobedience, demanding the right to perform traditional incense burning rituals. With their demands go cries for the return of the Dalai Lama, the 14th to hold the high spiritual office.

Committed to teaching the tenets of his moral authority — peace and compassion — the Dalai Lama was 14 when the PLA invaded Tibet in 1950 and he was forced to flee to India from where he has run a relentless campaign against the harshness of Chinese rule.

He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

But critics have objected to his attraction to film stars. Newspaper magnate Rupert Murdoch has called him: “A very political monk in Gucci shoes.”

Discovering that his supporters inside Tibet and China would become even more active in the months approaching the Olympic Games this summer, British intelligence officers in Beijing learned the ruling regime would seek an excuse to move and crush the present unrest.

That fear was publicly expressed by the Dalai Lama. GCHQ’s satellites, geo-positioned in space, were tasked to closely monitor the situation.

The doughnut-shaped complex, near Cheltenham racecourse, is set in the pleasant Cotswolds in the west of England. Seven thousand employees include the best electronic experts and analysts in the world. Between them they speak more than 150 languages. At their disposal are 10,000 computers, many of which have been specially built for their work.

The images they downloaded from the satellites provided confirmation the Chinese used agent provocateurs to start riots, which gave the PLA the excuse to move on Lhasa to kill and wound over the past week.

What the Beijing regime had not expected was how the riots would spread, not only across Tibet, but also to Sichuan, Quighai and Gansu provinces, turning a large area of western China into a battle zone.

The Dalai Lama has called it “cultural genocide” and has offered to resign as head of the protests against Chinese rule in order to bring peace. The current unrest began on March 10, marking the anniversary of the 1959 Uprising against Chinese rule.

However, his followers are not listening to his “message of compassion.” Many of them are young, unemployed and dispossessed and reject his philosophy of non-violence, believing the only hope for change is the radical action they are now carrying out.

For Beijing, the urgent need to find a solution to the uprising is one of growing embarrassment. In two weeks time, the national celebrations for the Olympic Games start with the traditional torch relay. The torch bearers are scheduled to pass through Tibet. But the torch could find itself being carried by runners past burning buildings and temples.

A sign of this urgency is that the Chinese prime minister has now said he is prepared to hold talks with the Dalai Lama. Just before this announcement, Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown declared he would meet the Dalai Lama, who is to visit London next month. This is the first time either leader has proposed to meet the Dalai Lama.

Gordon Thomas is the author of the newly published Secrets and Lies: A History of CIA Mind Control and Germ Warfare (Octavo Editions, USA) and the forthcoming Inside British Intelligence (JR Books, UK).