US intelligence is following suit on US President Barack Obama’s “pivot” to Asia with the creation of a new clandestine intelligence service that is set to put greater emphasis on Asia — and China in particular.
Following a plan approved last week by US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, the new Defense Clandestine Service will cement cooperation between existing case officers from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) already operating outside war zones and those from the CIA, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
The new service, which is being touted as a “realignment” of human intelligence efforts, will grow “from several hundred to several more hundred” agents in the coming years as personnel and funding are redirected from current assignments, predominantly Iraq and Afghanistan, to Asia.
Its agents will be called upon to increase collection on “national intelligence” on a range of issues, from counterproliferation to new and emerging threats, reports said. The plan calls for military intelligence to focus beyond tactical theaters of operations, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and pay more attention to “ascendant powers,” which several experts interpret as meaning China, a move that would reflect a similar realignment of military forces under Obama’s “pivot.”
A senior Pentagon official told reporters in Washington on Monday that the new service would also ensure that intelligence officers “are in the right locations to pursue those requirements.”
The announcement came one week after Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, a former head of the US Joint Special Operations Command, was picked to head the DIA, which could presage a more prominent role for special forces in clandestine operations abroad.
Like CIA agents, DIA officers traditionally work out of US embassies and missions worldwide, either as declared military attaches or undercover. A number of DIA agents are known to operate in Taiwan.
Taiwan’s geographical proximity to China, as well as its close cultural and business ties with the emerging power, have proven attractive and convenient to US operatives over the years, as has the quality of the intelligence on China collected by Taiwan’s civilian and military intelligence agencies.
In addition to the DIA, the CIA and the US Department of Homeland Security, the ultra-secretive National Security Agency (NSA) has also been cooperating with Taiwan’s National Security Bureau in sharing communications intercepts from China. The NSA is also known to have helped Taiwan build a signals intelligence base on Yangmingshan (陽明山) in Taipei.
Although US officials have refused to comment on the specific targets of the new agency or where its agents will operate, the long history of cooperation between Taiwan and the US on intelligence about China suggests that some portion of the Defense Clandestine Service could eventually operate out of Taiwan.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS