Chinese Aggressions

Chinese lasers targeting US aircraft over the Pacific
By Euan McKirdy

A US Navy FA-18 Super Hornet, seen from a KC-135 air refueling tanker during a 2010 US-Japan military exercise above the South China Sea.

Lasers have been used to target US aerial operations in the Pacific, with 20 incidents recorded since September of last year, according to a US military official.
The military spokeswoman, who requested not to be named, told CNN that lasers had been flashed at US aircraft, and that the sources of these flashes are suspected to be Chinese.
The latest incident occurred within the last two weeks, the official said.
None of the incidents have resulted in any medical complaints or injuries, the spokeswoman said. 

The attacks appear similar to incidents that occurred in the East African country of Djibouti earlier in the year, when US military airmen were injured by lasers which originated from a nearby Chinese military base.

The latest round of suspected laser attacks have all occurred in and around the East China Sea, which is home to Japanese island chains, the Senkakus.
The area's waters are near heavy-traffic shipping lanes, and are used regularly by both Japanese and Chinese military and civilian ships, as well as a semi-autonomous "maritime militia" which defends China's territorial interests in the region.
The Wall Street Journal reported that military officials don't necessarily believe the attacks were initiated by official Chinese military sources, but would not rule out that those responsible were acting on behalf of the Chinese government.
Aviation Week & Space Technology, an industry publication, quoted a spokeswoman for the US Marines who said that the attacks had originated "from a range of different sources, both ashore and from fishing vessels."
As with Chinese territorial ambitions in the South China Sea, tensions to the north have flashed numerous times in recent years over the Senkaku islands, including face-offs between Japanese and Chinese air and naval forces that have been termed dangerous by both sides.
In February this year, US Defense Secretary James Mattis reaffirmed the US' treaty commitment to defending Japan and its disputed islands.

Similar incidents
The incidents in the region over the past several months echo similar tactics the Pentagon says were carried out by the Chinese military earlier this year, when personnel at the country's first overseas military base in Djibouti used military-grade lasers to interfere with US military aircraft from a nearby American base.
The official CNN spoke to would not confirm that the lasers used in the Pacific were military- or commercial-grade, but even off-the-shelf laser pointers can cause a hazard to pilots. 

Aiming a laser beam at an aircraft in the US is a federal crime.
In the Djibouti incident, the activity resulted in injuries to US pilots, and prompted the US to launch a formal diplomatic protest with Beijing, military officials told CNN.
Chinese state media denied the original claims by US defense officials, accusing them of "cooking up phony laser stories."
Following the East Africa incident, a US defense official told CNN that the military also believed the Chinese were using similar lasers to interfere with US aircraft in the South China Sea.
A 2015 report in the official Chinese military newspaper the PLA Daily noted that "China has been updating its home-made blinding laser weapons in recent years to meet the needs of different combat operations."
According to the report, Chinese forces have access to at least four different types of portable blinding laser weapons, all of which look like oversized modified assault rifles.
Both China and the US are signatories to the Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons, which prohibits the use of blinding laser weapons as a means or method of warfare.

Sonic attacks
The purported laser attacks come just after a number of US government personnel in China were sent back to the United States for further health screenings after concerns over reports of mysterious acoustic incidents similar to "sonic attacks" first encountered by diplomats at the US' embassy in Cuba.
The screenings came after a US government employee in Guangzhou fell ill in early 2018 after reporting "abnormal sensations of sound and pressure" which resulted in a mild brain injury.

China's Sonic War

U.S. Consulate under Chinese sonic attacks: More U.S. casualties have been evacuated from Guangzhou
BY C. DANIELLE BIZIER 

More U.S. citizens have been evacuated from a U.S. consulate in Guangzhou, China, after suffering what appears to be the same strange, sound-related illness that afflicted consulate workers in Cuba. The New York Times reported that consulate worker Mark Lenzi and his wife heard strange noises over the course of several months before falling ill with what they described as neurological symptoms. 

On Wednesday night they were flown to the U.S. with their children, including a three-year-old son who was also affected.
Speaking to The Washington Post that same day, Lenzi described the sound as being like “marbles bouncing and hitting a floor then rolling on an incline with a static sound.” 

The Lenzis reached out to their neighbors to see if the sound was coming from their home but the neighbor denied it. 

Several months after the sounds began, the Lenzis began to develop migraine like headaches and suffer from sleep deprivation. 

Medical professionals at the consulate prescribed sleeping pills to help with the insomnia.
In May, Lenzi found out that the same neighbor had been evacuated after exhibiting the same symptoms. 

He was checked and diagnosed with a “mild traumatic brain injury,” the State Department said in a statement. 

That statement also said the government did not know of any other cases — which according to Lenzi, was a lie. 

He told The Washington Post that he he’d filed several reports with both the consulate and the State Department.
Lenzi also contends that his security clearance was frozen after he attempted to bring attention to the issue, effectively barring him from work at the consulate, and that he is now calling for the resignation of the U.S. ambassador to China, who is based in Beijing.
The New York Times is also reporting that a State Department medical team flew to Guangzhou and is performing tests on other employees and their family members — some 170 workers in total at the site, plus their family members.
If this case sound eerily familiar, it should. 

In 2016, 24 people — all embassy workers and their families there – suffered the same symptoms at the U.S. embassy in Havana, Cuba. 

Those symptoms included dizziness, headaches, tinnitus, fatigue, cognitive issues, visual problems, ear complaints and hearing loss, and difficulty sleeping, the State Department said at the time. 

Tests concluded that they had suffered injuries consistent with concussion or minor brain injury.
In the wake of the initial illnesses, speculation on the cause included the possibility of targeted sonic attacks that might cause such disruption. 

The U.S., blaming Havana, expelled Cuban dignitaries following the incident. 

Additional theories include bacterial poisoning, neurotoxins, and surveillance devices that emit disabling sounds.
On Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the launch of The Health Incidents Response Task Force, which had been created to respond to the unexplained ailments, including testing workers and families at the Guangzhou consulate. 

The task force’s role includes “identification and treatment of affected personnel and family members, investigation and risk mitigation, messaging, and diplomatic outreach.”
On May 24, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said in a regular press briefing that China had investigated the initial May 16 case, but had not found a reason for the illness. 

The Russians have a history of using toxins against the foreign diplomatic corps, but the Chinese have stayed primarily in the lanes of active and aggressive surveillance. 

Some attachés tell stories of playing along with the status quo by asking aloud in their homes for help finding missing items such as car keys and glasses. 

They would leave the home after the request for a few moments and return to find the items placed conspicuously on their kitchen table. 

The Chinese have never been shy about making sure American diplomats knew they were under constant monitoring — though before now, the most aggressive tales involved State Department officials returning home to find someone had defected in their toilet and left it without flushing.
The potential sonic attacks we are now beginning to see are more reminiscent of Cold War era Soviet tactics — but perhaps par for the course of the ever-growing tensions.

Chinese sonic attacks: More US diplomats fall ill in China

Consular employees sent home from Guangzhou for medical checks as Mike Pompeo sets up new investigation

By Lily Kuo and agencies

The US employees were working at a consulate in Guangzhou, China, when they reported symptoms previous linked to sonic attacks.

More US citizens have been evacuated from China, reviving concerns that American government personnel and their families may be the target of “sonic attacks” by China.
US state department officials said on Wednesday it had sent “a number of individuals” from its consulate in Guangzhou back to the US for “further evaluation and a comprehensive assessment of their symptoms”. 

Last month, a consulate worker in Guangzhou was found to have suffered a traumatic brain injury after reporting “abnormal sensations of sound and pressure” from late 2017 through to April 2018.
The department sent a team to Guangzhou in late May to examine other US staff and their families, and investigate possible links between their symptoms and those of US diplomats in Cuba last year, an incident that prompted Washington to pull its staff from the country and expel Cuban diplomats from the US.
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, on Tuesday announced the formation of a task force to investigate unexplained health incidents among US government personnel and their families overseas.
The latest evacuation suggests what was previously described as an isolated case may turn into a wider diplomatic crisis, at a time when US-China ties are already at a low.
China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, described the incident in May involving the US consulate worker as an “individual case”, and one Beijing hoped would not be “magnified, complicated or even politicised”.
When the US issued a health alert in May to US citizens in China to report any “unusual acute auditory or sensory phenomena”, it said it was not aware of other similar cases within or outside of the US diplomatic community in China.
That has been disputed by Mark Lenzi, a security engineering officer at the consulate in Guangzhou, who, according to the New York Times, was among the personnel evacuated on Wednesday.
Lenzi, who lived in the same complex as the consulate worker who suffered brain trauma, said he had been hearing sounds like “marbles bouncing and hitting a floor” since April last year. 

That was followed by excruciating headaches and sleeplessness, symptoms his family also experienced. 

When he brought his concerns to his superiors, he was prescribed painkillers.
Lenzi sent an email to staff of the consulate criticising the fact that the first employee was evacuated in April, but US citizens weren’t alerted until a month later. 

The health alert suggested it was a single case. 

“They knew full well it wasn’t,” he told the paper.
The US embassy in Beijing did not respond to requests for comment on Lenzi’s allegations, but sent the government’s statement from Wednesday.
“The state department has been and will continue to be diligent and transparent in its response to our employees’ concerns,” departmental spokesperson Heather Nauert said.