FILE PHOTO -- The RC-135U Combat Sent, located at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., provides strategic electronic reconnaissance information to the president, secretary of defense, Department of Defense leaders and theater commanders. (U.S. Air Force photo) US President Barack Obama delivers remarks at the National Convention Center in Hanoi on May 24, 2016. Obama, currently on a visit to Vietnam, met with civil society leaders including some of the country's long-harassed critics on May 24. The visit is Obama's first to the country -- and the third by a sitting president since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. / AFP / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images) Can China help the US deal with North Korea? 160612-N-BL637-685 PACIFIC OCEAN (June 12, 2016) A MV-22B Osprey, from Marine Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron 1, lifts off from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70). The V-22 Osprey is being tested, evaluated and is slated to be planned replacement for the C-2Q Greyhound as the singular logistics platform on an aircraft carrier for future carrier on-board delivery operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Sean Castellano/Released) James Mattis, US Secretary of Defense, speaks during the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue Asia Security Summit in Singapore, on Saturday, June 2, 2018. Mattis blasted Chinas deployment of military assets in the South China Sea, expanding the Trump administrations criticism of the country amid a continued dispute over trade. Photographer: Paul Miller/Bloomberg via Getty Images Why it's so tense in the South China Sea (2018) A US Navy ship had an "unsafe" interaction with a Chinese warship September 30 while the US vessel was conducting a freedom of navigation operation near the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, causing the US ship to maneuver "to prevent a collision," according to US defense officials. CNN gets rare access on board a US military surveillance flight over the hotly-disputed islands in the South China Sea. A US Navy ship had an "unsafe" interaction with a Chinese warship September 30 while the US vessel was conducting a freedom of navigation operation near the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, causing the US ship to maneuver "to prevent a collision," according to US defense officials. (CNN) — Vice President Mike Pence launched a broad attack against Beijing Thursday, accusing China of “predatory” economic practices, military aggression against the US and of trying to undermine President Donald Trump and harm his chances of winning re-election. Citing Trump’s move to levy tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese imports and threatening to “levy even more, with the possibility of substantially more than doubling that number,” Pence said that “the American people deserve to know that, in response to the strong stand that President Trump has taken, Beijing is pursuing a comprehensive and coordinated campaign to undermine support for the President.” The vice president cited US intelligence agencies but offered no evidence to back up his claims, which are likely to inflame relations between Washington and Beijing, already at their lowest point in years thanks to the burgeoning trade war, policy differences and US allegations of political interference. ’To put it bluntly’ “To put it bluntly, President Trump’s leadership is working. China wants a different American President,” Pence said. The intervention by the vice president marks a significant broadening in the rhetoric used by the Trump administration to confront China, linking issues around military, trade and domestic politics. The speech reflects a decision by the Trump administration to make a deliberate pivot on China policy, a senior administration official told reporters. The long held expectation that China’s behavior would be tempered as the world lowered trade barriers and offered greater political engagement has not come to pass, this official said, prompting the re-evaluation. There hasn’t been a greater respect for human rights, reciprocity on markets and intellectual property, the official said, so Trump is building a “constructive and results oriented” policy toward China. “There are many avenues for cooperation, but the administration doesn’t shy from calling out China as a competitor,” the official said. ’Unparalleled surveillance’ Pence accused the Chinese of suppressing its citizens at home with the creation of “an unparalleled surveillance state,” of brutally repressing religious minorities and of oppressing countries abroad through loan programs that favor Beijing and leave those nations beholden to China. The vice president said that Chinese security agencies have masterminded “the wholesale theft of American technology.” The vice president delivered his speech as Bloomberg News reported that during their construction in China, tiny microchips were hidden in computer motherboards sold to major US companies such as Amazon and Apple that allowed hackers to access any network that included the altered equipment. The article said US officials are describing the operation as the most significant supply chain attack known to have been carried out against American companies. Pence didn’t mention that revelation, but he said that Beijing works to steal US intellectual property, leading to a “new consensus” among US businesses about investing there. 00:50 - Source: CNN Trump accuses China of meddling in midterms Pence called on one firm in particular to stop cooperating with China. Google, Pence said, “should immediately end development of the ‘Dragonfly’ app that will strengthen Communist Party censorship and compromise the privacy of Chinese customers,” he said. “Worst of all, China has initiated an unprecedented effort to influence American public opinion, the 2018 elections, and the environment leading into the 2020 presidential elections,” Pence said. Part of the administration’s new strategy to counter China involves public education. They believe it’s important that Americans understand and are aware of the malign activities of China that have gathered in intensity. “A lot of these activities are going to be dealt with if people know about them. In the political realm, strengthening election security,” the official said. “But what we’re really counting on is our fellow citizens to stand up for their convictions and to recognize when they’re being taken advantage of.” The official said the White House expects American institutions to “not accept money from China, which is legal, with clear strings attached.” “Understanding the Chinese propaganda efforts is going to be key,” the official said. Pence also accused Beijing of military aggression, saying that “Beijing is also using its power like never before.” “Chinese ships routinely patrol around the Senkaku Islands, which are administered by Japan,” Pence said. “And while China’s leader stood in the Rose Garden of the White House in 2015 and said that his country had, and I quote, ‘no intention to militarize the South China Sea,’ today, Beijing has deployed advanced anti-ship and anti-air missiles atop an archipelago of military bases constructed on artificial islands,” Pence said. He said that China now spends as much on its military as the rest of Asia combined, and is prioritizing capabilities to erode US military advantages “on land, at sea, in the air, and in space.” “China wants nothing less than to push the United States of America from the Western Pacific and attempt to prevent us from coming to the aid of our allies,” Pence said. “But they will fail.” The speech, which will likely strain relations further, came days after a Chinese military vessel nearly collided with a US Navy ship in the waters around the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. Pence described the encounter in which a Chinese naval vessel came within 45 yards (41 meters) of the USS Decatur as “reckless harassment,” and repeated a US refrain: that the United States Navy “will continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows and our national interests demand. We will not be intimidated; we will not stand down.” Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian defended the naval maneuver on Tuesday, accusing the US of threatening China’s sovereignty and safety by repeatedly sending warships to disputed areas of the South China Sea. “The Chinese military will resolutely perform its defense duties and continue to take all necessary measures to safeguard our sovereignty and the regional peace and stability,” Wu said.<doc-sep>He criticized China for its militarization of the South China Sea. Vice President Mike Pence fired off a strong warning to China on Thursday, saying in a fiery speech, “We will not be intimidated, and we will not stand down.” He criticized China on several fronts, portraying the country as the foremost threat to the U.S., its interests around the world and even its politics at home. He accused the growing Asian economic power of trying to undermine President Trump. “As we speak, Beijing is employing a whole-of-government approach, using political, economic and military tools, as well as propaganda, to advance its influence and benefit its interests in the United States,” he said at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., adding that China was doing so in “more proactive ways than ever before.” In particular, he went after China’s growing military and militarization of islands in the South China Sea, its trade practices and intellectual property theft, its increasing control of the Chinese public and crackdown on religious groups at home, its pressure campaign against political opposition or criticism in academia and entertainment and its political interference in the U.S. and around the world. Most of all, he blamed this new campaign on Chinese opposition to Trump. “President Trump’s leadership is working and China wants a different American president,” he said. The aggressive tone comes amid deteriorating military relations between the two countries, including a Chinese ship's unsafe maneuver near the USS Decatur. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis recently canceled a trip to China although Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will meet with Chinese officials over the weekend. Last week at the United Nations Security Council, President Trump first said that China is interfering in the 2018 midterm elections. Pence followed that up, saying that intelligence assessments found that China is targeting U.S. state and local governments to exploit divisions between federal and local levels on Trump’s policy. By using covert actors, front groups and propaganda outlets, he said, China is trying to create divisions and shift Americans’ views to favor Beijing. While most of the public’s attention has focused on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its continued cyber and disinformation operations, Pence said for the first time that “what the Russians are doing pales in comparison to what China is doing across this country,” citing a senior intelligence official. But he did not provide specific examples beyond quoting the administration’s own officials, even on the same day that the Department of Justice announced new indictments of Russian intelligence officers for their cyber-attacks. He also didn’t detail how the administration plans to push back on this influence campaign. Beyond politics, Pence rehashed many of the economic grievances both U.S. political parties have had with China, including “tariffs, quotas, currency manipulation, forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and industrial subsidies that are handed out like candy to foreign investment.” But those economic thefts are becoming military threats, he warned in some stark new language. “Chinese security agencies have masterminded the wholesale theft of American technology, including cutting-edge military blueprints, and using that stolen technology. The Chinese Communist Party is turning plowshares into swords on a massive scale,” Pence said. At the end, he tried to strike a conciliatory tone, saying the U.S. only wants a relationship with China “grounded in fairness, reciprocity and respect for our sovereignty.” “Today, America is reaching out our hand to China and we hope that soon Beijing will reach back with deeds, not words, and with renewed respect for America,” he said. But he added that the administration would not relent until then.<doc-sep>WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence will signal a far tougher American line on China on Thursday, delivering a speech in which he is expected to accuse the Chinese of aggressive moves against American warships, of predatory behavior against their neighbors, and of a sophisticated influence campaign to tilt the midterms and 2020 elections against President Trump. “To put it bluntly, President Trump’s leadership is working,” Mr. Pence is to say, according to excerpts from his speech provided on Wednesday night. “China wants a different American president.” Mr. Trump accused China last week of meddling in the midterm elections, saying at the United Nations in New York that it was retaliating for his imposition of tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods. But the president was careful not to antagonize China’s president, Xi Jinping, with whom he has cultivated a personal relationship. Mr. Pence, however, will broaden the attack on China to encompass its rapid military buildup in its coastal waters; its use of debt financing to corrupt financially vulnerable countries; and its influence campaign in American news media, at think tanks and on college campuses, which he will claim is more extensive than that deployed by the Russians in 2016.<doc-sep>
WASHINGTON – Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday accused the Chinese government of orchestrating an aggressive military, economic and political campaign to expand its influence inside the United States and across other regions of the world. “China has initiated an unprecedented effort to influence American public opinion, the 2018 elections, and the environment leading into the 2020 presidential elections,” Pence said in a highly anticipated speech to the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think tank. President Donald Trump first charged the Chinese government with meddling in the U.S. election last week during a United Nations Security Council session. He offered no specific evidence at the time, and the Chinese government has sharply rejected the accusations. A spokeswoman for China's foreign ministry, Hua Chunying, called Pence's accusations "unwarranted" and a "malicious slander on China." "China always follows the principle of non-interference in others' internal affairs, and we have no interest in meddling in U.S. internal affairs and elections," Hua said Thursday evening. "The international community has already known fully well who wantonly infringes upon others' sovereignty, interferes in others' internal affairs and undermines others' interests." Pence offered a few additional details about what he said were the “proactive and coercive ways” China is trying to manipulate U.S. domestic policies and politics. “Beijing has mobilized covert actors, front groups, and propaganda outlets to shift Americans’ perception of Chinese policies,” Pence said. The vice president said a senior American intelligence official told him “what the Russians are doing pales in comparison to what … China is doing across this country.” Russia has engaged in a widespread disinformation campaign to sway American elections and divide the U.S. electorate, most notably in the 2016 presidential contest. After that election, the U.S. intelligence community issued a public report concluding that the Russian government had directed an effort to help elect Trump. Some skeptics have questioned the Trump administration's accusations against China, suggesting it is an effort to divert attention away from Russia's ongoing meddling in the 2018 midterm elections. "It's a distraction" and an effort to turn the GOP base against China, said Clint Watts, a research fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and author of "Messing with the Enemy: Surviving in a Social Media World of Hackers, Terrorists, Russians, and Fake News." Trump last week singled out a four-page advertising supplement that a Chinese-government media company placed in Iowa’s largest newspaper, the Des Moines Register, as evidence of the Asian country’s propaganda campaign. The president said China was trying to undermine him because of his aggressive stance on trade, including his decision to slap tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods shipped into the U.S. Pence also highlighted those advertisements in his speech Thursday. And he said China has tailored its retaliatory tariffs to hit states that will be pivotal to the outcome of the 2018 election. "By one estimate, more than 80% of U.S. counties targeted by China voted for President Trump and I in 2016," Pence said. "Now China wants to turn these voters against our administration." "... To put it bluntly, President Trump’s leadership is working; China wants a different American President," Pence told the audience Thursday. But Watts said the newspaper ads and tariffs cannot be compared to the secret disinformation campaign launched by the Russians in the 2016 election. The Chinese government, he said, is making an overt, public argument against Trump's trade policies to those most affected: American farmers. "It’s not even the same thing as the election interference," Watts said. "They’re wielding economic influence, and it just shows how fundamentally weak the Trump administration is at understanding the conflicts they’re in." As White House officials seek to highlight China's activities, Watts added, they have downplayed or even ignored Russia's ongoing meddling. In his speech Thursday, Pence also accused China's Communist Party of using rewards and coercion to influence American businesses, universities, and think tanks, and government officials. He said, for example, that China threatened to deny a business license for a major American corporation unless it spoke out against the Trump administration’s trade policies. "Beijing compelled Delta Airlines to publicly apologize for not calling Taiwan a 'province of China' on its website. It also pressured Marriott to fire a U.S. employee who liked a tweet about Tibet," the vice president said. He linked those alleged activities to China's broader effort to extend its military and economic power across Asia and Africa.