BREAKING

1/ The U.S. Army’s Typhon Missile System has been deployed to Japan for the first time.

Unveiled at Iwakuni base, Typhon can launch Tomahawk cruise missiles (range ~1,600 km) — enough to strike across the East China Sea and into parts of China.

This marks a major shift in U.S. deterrence posture in East Asia. 2/ Typhon, run by the Army’s Multi-Domain Task Force, can fire both Tomahawk cruise missiles and SM-6 interceptors.

It arrived in Japan during large-scale U.S.–Japan joint drills starting Sept 11, simulating defense of Kyushu, Okinawa, and remote islands.

This is the first-ever deployment of U.S. ground-launched mid-range missiles to a Japanese base since the end of the INF Treaty.

1/ Hu Shisheng, Deputy Secretary-General at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) has made a series of comments about India-Pakistan tensions.

What did Hu Shisheng say:

"India’s use of ‘hydrological deterrence’ this time is testing not only Pakistan’s response threshold, but also serves as a stress test for the risk resilience of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. When the floodwaters swept across the Karakorum Highway built with Chinese participation, Beijing effectively received an unexpected strategic assessment report — that compared to border conflicts, it is precisely these non-traditional security threats that constitute the true Achilles’ heel of the Belt and Road Initiative projects.” 2/ Hu Shisheng's comments about India-Pakistan tensions:

“India only controls 20% of the Indus River’s water flow and has limited water storage capacity; Pakistan’s downstream hydropower stations are still able to cope; and climate change further weakens the effectiveness of ‘water control.’ Ultimately, this is more like a ‘political performance’ by India aimed at its domestic audience.”

A graph that tells the story of India-China relations that no expert can capture.

Only 8% of Chinese consider India a favourable country, even lower than the US, which stands at 12.2% and Japan, which scored 13%.

From a new survey by Tsinghua University. I have argued, and some others have, the India-China military stand-off has left a profound impact on Chinese public views about India.

You can't make this up! The official account of the Ministry of Public Security (Chinese police) has used the video of blackfaced Chinese performers who make videos while dancing to Bollywood tunes to teach people about road safety.

https://twitter.com/aadilbrar/status/1654706129392513029

These videos of Chinese performers performing with a blackface have gone viral in China!

Bhutan: China has equal say in resolving Doklam issue - Times of India m.timesofindia.com/world/south-as… One wonders what has brought about this change of stance by the Bhutanese PM.

"The border issue should be placed in an appropriate place in bilateral relations, and the border situation should be brought under normal control as soon as possible" -- China's read out of the meeting between Qin Gang and Jaishankar. "China is willing to work with India to speed up the resumption of exchanges and cooperation in various fields, resume direct flights as soon as possible, and facilitate personnel exchanges" said Qin.