– National Interest – Let’s refuse to let the Chinese Communists of the world use linguistic shenanigans to disguise their intentions. Make them communicate clearly. Make them defend the indefensible frankly, and we might yet shame them into humane conduct.

– War Zone – The vessels will give China a high-end amphibious assault capability that can be used both regionally and far from home.

– CIMSEC – CIMSEC had the opportunity to discuss the second edition of Red Star Over the Pacific with James Holmes, current J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College. In this conversation Holmes lays out how the theories of Alfred Thayer Mahan helped inform China’s maritime rise, how China built a formidable naval warfighting capability, and how the U.S. and its allies can more effectively deter China militarily.

– The Hill – It’s hard to drive China out of the headlines. Yet a dispute between Iran and Great Britain, each of which has seized a tanker ship belonging to the other, has managed it in recent weeks — eclipsing a running feud between Vietnam and China, whose ships have squared off at Vanguard Bank, the westernmost feature in the Spratly Islands. For all that, the South China Sea dispute entails consequences at least as severe as those in the Persian Gulf.

– The Atlantic – It’s not that the Chinese Communist Party would take over Washington. But in its own region, China has the advantage.

– Washington Free Beacon – China recently conducted the first test of a new anti-ship ballistic missile, firing a salvo of six missiles into the South China Sea in a threatening message to the United States, the commander of the Indo-Pacific Command said Thursday.

– USNI Blog – America’s Navy, You live in the land of the blind, comforted in the darkness by your weaponry, your history, and your hubris. You believe you understand the threat and that all your competitors in this new Great Power contest are enveloped in the same blinding fog of future war. But we are not equal: you are at a disadvantage in this game—you are beholden to a past age and must predict and anticipate changes as they proliferate and develop across a world system toeing the edge of collapse, as we rise on its demise.

– National Interest – What does that mean for Asia? America’s allies? How can Washington push back?

– War Zone – The test fits within a larger trend of increasingly provocative Chinese efforts to assert their authority in the disputed region.

– Washington Free Beacon – Carrier-killing anti-ship ballistic missile fired from disputed Spratly Islands.

– Washington Free Beacon – China’s Defense Ministry this week confirmed the test firing of a new submarine-launched ballistic missile the Pentagon regards as a strategic weapon capable of striking anywhere in the United States from underwater launch points.

– Washington Free Beacon – China conducted a flight test of its newest strategic submarine-launched missile, the JL-3, coinciding with the visit to Asia earlier this month by Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan.

– Breaking Defense – As it seeks to contain a rising China, America’s great advantage is its larger network of Asian friends and allies. Not all of these nations have the combat power to deter Chinese aggression, let alone fight alongside the US in the nightmare scenario of war. But even our smaller allies can play a vital role as what President Kennedy called “watchmen on the walls of world freedom” by using radar, drones and long-range networks to monitor Chinese moves.

– National Interest – Message to Beijing: you can try to deny U.S. and allied forces access to the Western Pacific or the freedom to move around within the theater, but you will see your access and freedom of movement curtailed if you do. Strewing missiles of various kinds along the island chain while deploying manned and unmanned aircraft and ships of war nearby would seal up the straits through which surface and air traffic must pass to reach the broad Pacific.

– USNI Proceedings – China’s actions in the South China Sea are a “maritime insurgency.” Counterinsurgency is the logical response, and history shows the way.

– National Interest – What once seemed completely farfetched has now evidently become a topic of semi-serious discussion.

– Defense News – China’s so-called maritime militia is believed to be behind a series of laser attacks against an Australian naval helicopter over the South China Sea, soon after a U.S. admiral warned that the paramilitary force could be treated as combatants.

– National Interest – The PLA Navy’s very first large helicopter carrier, the Type 075, will further tilt an already starkly lopsided imbalance across the Taiwan Strait.

– The Diplomat – How China thinks about and acts in the maritime gray zone, and what that means for the region’s future.

– USNI News – China’s rise as a naval power goes well beyond its growing number of ships and submarines but the People’s Liberation Army Navy growing capability to operate jointly with the Chinese air force and rocket corps.

– US Naval War College Review – As China’s sea services continue to expand, the consolidating China Coast Guard (CCG) has taken the lead as one of the premier sea forces in the region—giving China, in essence, a second navy. With 1,275 hulls and counting, the CCG carries out the maritime law-enforcement activities that dominate the South China Sea as the People’s Republic exerts its claims and postures for dominance.

– ChinaPower – The construction of a third aircraft carrier – the Type 002 – appears to be underway at China’s Jiangnan Shipyard. Commercial satellite imagery collected on April 17, 2019 shows significant new activity since ChinaPower first analyzed the shipyard in late 2018. At the new assembly facility to the southeast of the existing shipyard, there is evidence of a large vessel being assembled and a floodable basin being constructed.

– Office of the Secretary of Defense – A report to Congress pursuant to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, as amended

– Defense News – China has launched two more nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines and might fit anti-ship ballistic missiles on a new cruiser class on the verge of entering service, according to a new Pentagon report.

– USNI News – The Chinese military is reorganizing its land forces, but its moves do not increase its ability to mount a large-scale beach assault across the Taiwan Strait, according to a new Department of Defense report.