China Reform Monitor: No. 1201
China testing carrier-based fighter jets;
Xi visits PLA Daily, demands party loyalty
China testing carrier-based fighter jets;
Xi visits PLA Daily, demands party loyalty
North Korea made international news last week when it declared that it had successfully carried out an underground test of a hydrogen bomb. The announcement touched off fevered speculation in Washington about the nature of the test itself (among other things, the yield is believed to have been to small to have been a thermonuclear device), as well as its larger geopolitical significance.
Iran's cyberwarriors are back in action. Late last fall, The New York Times reported that Iranian hackers had carried out an extensive hack on U.S. State Department employees. Among the victims were U.S. diplomats working on the Middle East and on Iran specifically, who had their email compromised and their social media accounts infiltrated. The hack was the latest in what U.S. officials say are increasingly aggressive attempts to glean information about U.S. policies toward Iran in the wake of this summer's P5+1 nuclear deal.
European sanctions... and a trade war with Ukraine;
The FSB, unleashed
Moscow rails against NATO expansion;
Yearning for stability increasingly rehabilitates Stalin