There's no better example of President Trump's trade fight with China than Lockheed Martin's crown jewel

• White House trade advisor Peter Navarro on Tuesday tore into Chinese trade practices aimed at stealing American companies' intellectual property.
• The Chinese J-31 fighter jet is believed to be a knockoff of Lockheed Martin's F-35.
• The F-35, a fifth-generation stealth fighter, is the Pentagon's most expensive weapons system.

By Amanda Macias 

As the world's largest economies threaten tit-for-tat tariffs, White House trade advisor Peter Navarro tore into Chinese trade practices aimed at stealing American companies' intellectual property.
U.S. officials have long complained that intellectual property theft has cost the economy billions of dollars in revenue and thousands of jobs.
"China has targeted America's industries of the future," Navarro said Tuesday citing aerospace, robotics and artificial intelligence as technologies threatened by Chinese cybertheft.
"If China successfully captures these emerging industries of the future, America will have no economic future and its national security will be severely compromised," he said adding that "economic security is national security."
For the Pentagon, there is no better example of Navarro's comments than the most expensive U.S. weapons system: the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
On Oct. 26, 2001, the Pentagon awarded Lockheed Martin a contract worth more than $200 billion to build the next-generation stealth strike fighter.
The Pentagon's request was colossal: Develop a fifth-generation aircraft capable of replacing four existing kinds of U.S. military aircraft that also satisfies the needs of international partners.
What's more, design three variants of the fighter in order to accommodate the unique missions of each sister-service branch: the F-35A for the Air Force, F-35B for the Marine Corps, and F-35C for the Navy.

Lockheed Martin's F-35A Lightning II fighter jet for the Israeli Air Force.
As America's next fighter jet came to life, some of its sensitive design and electronics data were believed to be compromised in 2009. 

Chinese hackers were believed to be behind the cyber-intrusion since its stealth Shenyang J-31 jet bears a remarkably striking resemblance to the F-35.
And before the J-31 mimicked the F-35, there was the curious case of the J-20 and the F-22.
In another instance of alleged industrial espionage, the prototypes of China's Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter jet looked suspiciously similar to the sleek design of Lockheed's F-22 Raptor.
While the U.S.-made Lockheed Martin jets are believed to have better computer software, more sophisticated sensors and sensitive stealth coating, the theft of intellectual property gives adversaries the opportunity to avoid the expense and delays involved with research and development.

Marillyn Hewson, the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Lockheed Martin.
In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive memorandum that penalized China for trade practices such as industrial espionage.
The measures impose retaliatory tariffs on about $60 billion in Chinese imports.
On hand for the signing was Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson, who oversees the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
"We buy billions and billions of dollars worth of that beautiful F-35," Trump said before asking Hewson to say a few words.
Hewson said intellectual property is the "lifeblood" of the defense industry and welcomed the action taken by the Trump administration.
"This is a very important moment for our country, in that we are addressing a critical area for the aerospace and defense industry and that is protecting our intellectual property," she said.

China Is Rushing Its Stealth Fighter into the Sky

The U.S. Air Force has not fully developed a plan to protect its tanker, ISR and command and control assets from Chinese air attacks.

 By Dave Majumdar

China’s first fifth-generation stealth fighter, the Chengdu J-20, has entered operational service with the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) in limited numbers.
While the new fighter is technically operational, the J-20 must still overcome technical hurdles before it enters service in large numbers.
According to CCTV—China’s state television network—the J-20 participated in exercises with other People’s Liberation Army (PLA) assets including ground, air, naval and rocketry forces.
However, the J-20 is only in service in very limited numbers because China is unable to mass-produce the aircraft’s indigenous WS-15 engines.
Indeed, most western analysts had believed the J-20 was powered by Russian-made Salyut AL-31FN motors, but sources told the South China Morning Post (SCMP) that was not the case for production aircraft.
“There are still a series of technical problems that need to be tackled [on the J-20], including the reliability of its WS-15 engines, [and the plane’s] control system, stealth coat and hull materials and infrared sensor,” a Chinese source close to the PLA told SCMP.
China made the decision to operationally deploy the J-20 despite its technical problems because of the threat posed the by Lockheed Martin F-35, according to the SCMP’s source.
Indeed, more of the stealth fighters are scheduled to join the PLAAF later this year.
“It’s urgent for China to show off its achievements as soon as possible,” the source said.
However, while Beijing is trying to rush the J-20 into service to counter the F-35, the Chinese machine is not likely to be a directly analogue to the American jet or its stablemate, the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor.
The J-20—which appears to be larger than Raptor—is more likely designed to attack the support elements that hold American air operations together such as tankers, AWACS and JSTARs radar planes.
Over the vast reaches of the Pacific, where fuel is at a premium, destroying a tanker could achieve the same result as shooting down an enemy fighter.
China is developing the ramjet-powered PL-15 that could have a range as great as 120 miles.
The PL-15 weapon has caused consternation within the top-ranks of the U.S. Air Force with Air Combat Command commander Gen. Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle citing the Chinese weapon as one of the pressing reasons for the United States to develop a next-generation replacement for the decades-old AIM-120 AMRAAM.
“How do we counter that and what are we going to do to continue to meet that threat?” Carlisle asked during a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in 2015.
Later, during an interview with Flightglobal, Carlisle said that countering the new Chinese missile was an “exceedingly high priority” for the U.S. Air Force.
“The PL-15 and the range of that missile, we’ve got to be able to out-stick that missile,” Carlisle said.
Indeed, the problem is not just that the PL-15 would out-range the AMRAAM, when coupled with the J-20, the Chinese could attack the tankers and ISR aircraft that would be the key enablers during any air campaign over the Pacific. 
A 2008 RAND briefing suggested that in order to sustain F-22 operations over Taiwan from Guam, the U.S. Air Force would need to launch three to four tanker sorties per hour to deliver 2.6 million gallons of fuel.
That’s a fact that has not likely escaped Beijing’s notice.
While there is not much concrete data available about the J-20, the aircraft appears to have been optimized to high-speeds, long-range, stealth and a heavy internal payload.
With a combination of reduced radar cross-section and high supersonic speed—armed with internally carried PL-15 missiles—it is possible that the J-20 could be used to threaten U.S. Air Force tankers and ISR assets in the Pacific theatre.
As pointed out in the 2008 RAND study—Chinese derivatives of the Su-27 Flanker all but annihilated U.S. tanker, ISR, maritime patrol and command and control aircraft during a simulation using long-range air-to-air missiles.
The U.S. Air Force has looked at dispersed basing and developing robust logical trains to supply those austere airstrips to counter China's A2/AD capabilities in the Pacific theatre.
However, the Air Force does not appear to have fully developed a plan to protect its tanker, ISR and command and control assets from Chinese air attacks. 
The only answer the service has to the problem is that those aircraft will have to be pulled back to safety outside the effective range of the Chinese threat.
However, that would also shorten the effective range of the Pentagon’s short-range tactical fighters—reducing their ability to strike deep inside Chinese territory.
Air Combat Command acknowledges the problem and is designing its forthcoming Penetrating Counter Air sixth-generation replacement for the F-22 to operate at extreme long ranges.
“That is a strategy others have advertised and we’re familiar with,” Col. Tom Coglitore, chief of Air Combat Command’s Air Superiority Core Function, told me last year.
“We’re analyzing what Chinese have indicated they would do and then we obviously have to come up with our own capability to make sure we can still conduct the mission and create the effects desired. So, we’re aware is the short answer and we will be prepared to counter it.”

Sina Delenda Est

US Flexes Its Military Muscle Off China

By Robert Windrem

As China flexes its military muscle in the South China Sea, the U.S. is responding with its own show of force that includes ships, fighter jets and submarines, as well as the test launch of nuclear-capable missiles.
According to internal military reports reviewed by NBC News, almost every week brings another display of U.S. hardware in the waters off China, in a response that has only grown more aggressive since the inauguration of President Trump.
A U.S. Navy carrier battle group centered on the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson is now moving through the South China Sea, the stretch of Pacific bounded by China, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Three attack submarines, the USS Alexandria, USS Chicago and USS Louisville, have deployed in the Western Pacific in the past month, and at least one has entered the South China Sea.
Also in February, the U.S. sent a dozen F-22 Raptor stealth fighters to Tindal AB in northern Australia, the closest Australian military airbase to China, for coalition training and exercises.
It's the first deployment of that many F-22s in the Pacific.
And if that didn't get the attention of the Chinese government, the U.S. just tested four Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missiles during a nuclear war exercise, sending the simulated weapons 4,200 miles from the coast of California into the mid-Pacific.
It's the first time in three years the U.S. has conducted tests in the Pacific, and the first four-missile salvo since the end of the Cold War.
The U.S. effort is deliberately broad and overt, according to Pentagon officials, and is meant to be obvious to the Chinese government.
U.S. ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert fafter a meeting with South Korean officials at the Foreign Ministry in Seoul on March 17, 2015.

Mark Lippert, the former U.S. ambassador to South Korea and deputy national security advisor during the Obama administration, said America is trying to send a message about freedom of navigation, "free and open commerce and [the] rule of law."
"You have to remember what is stake here is principles," Lippert told NBC in an interview. "Adhering to those principles has led to the unprecedented economic and democratic growth in the region. The Chinese are challenging our freedom of navigation."
In the last decade, China has converted dozens of tiny islands and coral outcroppings -- many claimed by other countries — into forward military bases, adding airfields, piers and other facilities.
The new bases range from the Paracel Islands in the northern part of the sea, claimed by Vietnam, to the Spratlys in the south near the Philippines and Malaysia.
The construction, sometimes on reclaimed land, has extended China's defensive perimeter hundreds of miles from the mainland.

A satellite image shows what CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative says appears to be anti-aircraft guns and what are likely to be close-in weapons systems.

In January, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said during his confirmation hearings that the U.S. would block China's access to the disputed islands, and send a "clear signal" that "island-building stops."
Lippert says the Pentagon's recent actions are meant to checkmate any attempt by the Chinese to exploit any turmoil from the U.S. presidential transition, particularly one as dramatic as that from Obama to Trump.
"During a transition," he explained, "the Chinese and United States will test each other, feeling around a bit".
"Is the Obama policy, which has been fairly aggressive on protecting these principles, going to continue, or is there going to be change?
"What this says is that, for now, nothing has changed."
Two U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor stealth jet fighters fly near Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, in this handout photo dated August 4, 2010. 

The recent operations are just the tip of the spear.
An NBC News analysis of military movements in the region notes other major operations and basing decisions, including:
-- A new, continual bomber presence at Andersen AFB in Guam, after two decades of absence. Last fall, in fact, the U.S. deployed all three of its strategic bombers - the B-52, B-1 and B-2 - at Andersen. It was the first time all three were deployed to the Pacific.
-- Other transits of the South China Sea by U.S. warships and submarines, culminating with this winter's Vinson transit;
-- The build-up of modernized ballistic missile defense systems in South Korea and Japan as well as increased integration with the militaries of Japan and South Korea.
-- Increased port calls in Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and Brunei, all countries that have challenged Chinese sovereignty over the islands and outcroppings in the region. The U.S. military presence in the Philippines is now bigger than it's been in 25 years.
-- An almost continual air and naval presence in Singapore, increasingly a major U.S. ally. The littoral combat ship USS Coronado has spent all of 2017 in and out of Singapore. It's the only forward-deployed ship of this new, futuristic class.
-- Deployment of the new F-35B Lightning II fifth-generation fighters at Iwakuni AB on the Japanese island of Okinawa. It's the first permanent deployment of the aircraft overseas.
Birds fly by a U.S. Naval littoral combat ship docked on the Mobile River in Mobile, Ala., on Nov. 30, 2016.

While some of the operations are primarily prompted by North Korea's nuclear saber-rattling, all of them are meant to be noticed by Chinese authorities.
A senior Navy officer told NBC News that the Trump administration had inherited the Obama "pivot" to Asia.
"This is a perfect example of how routine can stay routine or be a flash point for greater tension," the officer said.
New satellite images show structures built by the Chinese military on islands in the South China Sea. Analysts believe they can house surface-to-air missiles.

The Chinese, of course, have not been inactive.
On February 10, U.S. and Chinese military planes had what the Pentagon describes as "an unsafe close encounter" near Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea.
A war of words ensued.
There have also been joint Chinese-Russian naval exercises in recent months.
On Tuesday, Reuters reported that the People's Liberation Army has nearly finished building two dozen structures on three atolls in the Spratly Islands that U.S. military analysts believe could house surface-to-air missiles, a dramatic uptick in capability.

Sina Delenda Est

The US is 'ready to confront' China in the Pacific with the world's most lethal combat plane

By Alex Lockie 

Adm. Harry Harris Jr., the head of US Pacific Command. 

Adm. Harry Harris, the head of the US Pacific Command, told reporters in Sydney on Wednesday that the US was "ready to confront" China should it continue its aggressive course in the South China Sea.
China has spent years building artificial islands to bolster its territorial claims in the South China Sea, a resource-rich area through which about $5 trillion in shipping flows each year.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies' Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative has recently observed, via satellite imagery, China placing radar outposts and weapons, including antiaircraft and antimissile systems, on the islands in international waters.
In the past, China has unilaterally declared "no sail" and "no-fly zones" in the region, despite a ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague that its claims to the South China Sea, based on old maps, lacked merit.
Reuters
China flouting international law has strained relations with the US.
Those ties took another big hit when President Donald Trump broke with decades of US foreign-policy tradition and accepted a call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and later tweeted about China's "massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea."
In response, China flew bombers along the perimeter of its contentious claims in the South China Sea in what it intended as a "message" to Trump, though it has flown the same bombers in a similar fashion before.
Harris characterized Beijing's activity as "aggressive" and vowed to act against it if needed, Reuters reports.
The US has repeatedly challenged China's claims in the region with freedom-of-navigation patrols, in which guided-missile destroyers sail near the disputed islands.
In July, Chinese officials warned that these patrols could end in "disaster."
"We will not allow a shared domain to be closed down unilaterally no matter how many bases are built on artificial features in the South China Sea," Harris said. 

"We will cooperate when we can, but we will be ready to confront when we must."
The USS Lassen (DDG 82) patrolling the eastern Pacific Ocean. 

These statements coincide with Harris making public a deployment of F-22 Raptors to Australia. 

The F-22, a very low observable aircraft, has unique features that make it ideal for piercing through and operating inside heavily contested airspace, like the skies above China's military installations in the South China Sea.
While Harris maintained that diplomacy was the best way to reach China, he stressed "the absolute necessity to maintain credible combat power," according to Breakingdefense.com.
An F-22 deploys flares.

In August, the US deployed nuclear-capable bombers to Guam in an effort to deter aggression in the region and to demonstrate its commitment to stability and freedom of navigation in the Pacific.
"The US fought its first war following our independence to ensure freedom of navigation," Harris said. 

"This is an enduring principle and one of the reasons our forces stand ready to fight tonight."