By Liu Xuanzun
Following the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine deal, a senior US official reportedly said recently that the US would consider providing Australia with B-21 bombers, the in-development successor to the B-2 stealth bomber that experts said on Wednesday would enable Australia to launch long-range strikes against China, thus posing serious threats to China.
US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall made the remark at a media briefing after meeting with newly minted Royal Australian Air Force chief Air Marshal Robert Chipman on August 22 in Canberra, The Strategist, a website affiliated with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, reported on Tuesday.
Kendall again hyped the "China threat" theory, claiming the US and its allies were "concerned about Chinese behavior" in the South China Sea as well as China's military modernization program.
"We are in what I consider to be a race for military technological superiority with the Chinese," Kendall said.
Chipman underscored the importance of AUKUS, "where we work together to collaboratively develop and research and engineer new technologies so that we can stay abreast and competitive."
The US has been for years reluctant to equip its allies with the most cutting-edge military technologies and weapons of strategic significance, including strategic bombers, nuclear-powered submarines and the F-22 stealth fighter jets, but a deal under the framework of AUKUS would see Australia receiving nuclear-powered submarines, setting a dangerous precedent for such transfers, observers said.
While the B-21 can carry both nuclear and conventional munitions, the US could equip Australia with a version only capable of conventional strikes and make it an exportable, tactical weapon, Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
Since the B-21 is a long-range stealth bomber capable of intercontinental flight, it could pose serious threats to China, Song said. If Australia obtains the B-21, the country would essentially become an overseas bomber base of the US, he said.
But as long as China modernizes its military step by step according to schedule, such threats can be dealt with, Song said.
This could include enhanced anti-stealth and air defense capabilities, asymmetric weapons such as missiles that could reach Australian bomber bases, as well as China's strategic stealth bomber of its own, analysts said.
By selling extra B-21s to Australia, the US can not only lower the overall production cost of the aircraft, but also make money for its arms dealers, Song said.
The US Air Force is expected to eventually operate at least 100 B-21s, at an average unit procurement cost of $550 million, according to the website of the US Air Force. The first aircraft is scheduled to become operational in the mid-2020s.
China has suspended several 2025 export controls on strategic materials — including rare earths, superhard materials, and lithium batteries – for a year. Is this a concession to the US, or a move in a far more complex game?
"The first aim of China’s export controls was to consolidate its leverage in negotiations. The second was to establish a long-term framework for managing such controls," says Yana Leksyutina, deputy director at the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS).
Сhina could activate this mechanism at any moment, and now everyone knows it’s a lever it holds, she explains to Sputnik.
Balancing the Mineral Market
"The moratorium on export bans to the US essentially resets the rare earth market to where it was previously," Jeff J. Brown, author of 'The China Trilogy' and founder of Seek Truth From Facts Foundation, tells Sputnik.
In the meantime, there will be a global rush by the US and its NATO allies to acquire as many rare earth ...
The Israeli regime has reportedly signed contracts worth millions of dollars in recent months to sway American public opinion as part of attempts to launder the occupying entity’s genocidal war crimes against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Friday that the multimillion-dollar campaign aimed to reshape US public opinion, both online and offline, through coordinated influence operations combining digital marketing, AI, geotagging, and religious messaging.
The contracts, signed between the Israeli regime and firms linked to US President Donald Trump, reveal a “hasbara [propaganda] campaign” and schemes to target millions of US churchgoers, deploy bots, hire influencers, and try to make ChatGPT more pro-Israel.
The largest contract, worth $6 million, was signed with Clock Tower X, owned by Trump’s former digital campaign chief Brad Parscale, to produce and distribute roughly 100 core pieces of pro-Israel content per month and thousands......
