FOX News = Fake News

Introduction

On 2 December 2015, then president-elect Donald Trump had a phone conversation with Tsai Ing-wen,
Taiwan's president, which marked the first time the leaders of the two nations were in contact since
1979. The phone call sparked a debate as to what Trump's motivations were in taking the call, what the
implications of it were regarding the US stance on the "One-China" policy, and what it might signal
regarding the US-China relationship under the upcoming Trump presidency.

China responded to the call by lodging a formal complaint with the US government. Although their
official reaction was reserved, a story emerged a week later that made it appear that China was much
more irate than they were letting on. The story, published on 9 December by FOX News, had the
following headline1:

China Flies Nuclear-Capable Bomber in South China Sea After Trump Taiwan Call, US Officials Say

The story discusses various issues, but the following is everything that was said about the bomber flight 2:

China flew a long-range nuclear-capable bomber outside China for the first time since President-elect
Donald Trump spoke with the president of Taiwan, two US officials told Fox News. The dramatic show of
force was meant to send a message to the new administration, according to the officials. It marks the
second time Beijing flew bombers in the region since Trump was elected...

The Chinese H-6 bomber flew along the disputed "Nine-Dash line" Thursday, which surrounds the South
China Sea and dozens of disputed Chinese islands, many claimed by other countries in the region. The
Pentagon was alerted to the Chinese flight Friday. It was the first long-range flight of a Chinese bomber
along the U-shaped line of demarcation since March 2015, according to the officials. Over the summer,
Chinese bombers flew over the South China Sea and the contested islands, but they did not fly nearly as
far as this one, the officials said.

This "nuclear message" to Trump became a very big story.

The only problem with the story is that the flight never happened. FOX News fabricated it as part of a
propaganda campaign designed to help delegitimize Trump. I realized that this story was a fake because
of an event that occurred the day after the fake story was published. On 10 December, China flew their
bombers into the Pacific Ocean. This flight actually happened, and this real flight helps to expose the
fabricated flight reported by FOX News.

This paper will show that the flight described in the 9 December FOX News article was fabricated.

The Beginning of the Campaign

1 We will pay particular attention to headlines in this paper, since most people only read headlines.
2 The story also said this: "At various points in recent long-range flights, Chinese fighter jets provided escorts to the
single Chinese bomber." The "recent" flights referred to here seem to be different flights than the one that is the
subject of this story, so I did not include it in the quoted text.

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In addition to the fabricated flight discussed in the 9 December FOX News article and the real flight that
happened the next day, there is a third flight that relates to our story. FOX News also ran a story about
this flight on 5 December, just 4 days before their story about the fake flight. This story had the following
title:

China Flew Nuclear-Capable Bombers Over Taiwan Before Trump Call with Taiwanese President

This story marks the beginning of the propaganda campaign. Although the flight reported on in this
article also happened in real life, the ridiculous manner in which FOX News presented the story, along
with the lies that they tell in doing so, will show how desperate they were to create this propaganda
campaign. After hearing the details of this story, the idea of FOX News fabricating a bomber flight out of
thin air 4 days later will sound less like a crazy conspiracy theory and more like standard FOX News
procedure.

Timeline

I've introduced three bomber flights and two stories by FOX News. In order to get a clearer picture of
when all these events occurred, along with their relationship to the phone call, let's put everything on a
timeline:

The FOX News story on 5 December covered a real bomber flight that occurred on 25 November. This is
the story that marks the beginning of the propaganda campaign. The FOX News story on 9 December
covered the fake bomber flight that supposedly occurred on 8 December. Finally, the other real flight,
the one that I said helps to expose the fake FOX News story, occurred on 10 December. This flight was
not covered by FOX News, or any other US mainstream media outlet. Finally, the phone call happened on
2 December.

FOX News Story #1

Looking at the timeline, you may be wondering why it took FOX News so long to report on the 25
November flight. I wondered that, too. Let's take a look at the FOX News story and see if we can figure it
out.

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It turns out that this story broke in the middle of a FOX News TV broadcast. Jennifer Griffin was hosting
the news when it was interrupted by a "FOX News Alert". Here's how Jennifer introduced the "breaking"
story:

We are learning that China has flown a pair of long range nuclear-capable bombers around Taiwan for the
very first time and it happened less than a week before president-elect Trump took that congratulatory
phone call that has been described from Taiwan's leader...

Oh boy! Isn't breaking news exciting! Here's a screen grab of Jennifer breaking the news to stunned
Americans:

Even Jennifer looks worried.

At this point, Jennifer cut to Lucas Tomlinson, who was at the Pentagon along with his "team" getting the
"breaking" story from two unnamed "US officials". Here's what Lucas and his "team" discovered at the
Pentagon3:

Well, Jenna, we know that the flight took place less than week before president-elect Donald Trump spoke
to the Taiwanese president. A pair of Chinese nuclear capable H-6 bombers flew from a base in mainland
China escorted by two other planes, they were doing surveillance, conducted a flight around the island of
Taiwan, as you said, for the first time, and it drew a response from the Japanese air force who scrambled
eight F-15 fighter jets to take a look at this unprecedented Chinese flight, and some would say
aggression...

How exciting! The "FOX News Alert" was relaying this up-to-the-second information as they received it
from the Pentagon! The alert was followed up with an online version of the story, where they repeated
what the "two U.S. officials" (presumably the Pentagon officials Lucas talked to during the TV report),
told FOX News about the Chinese bombers.
3 The news report is available here. It is also available on the webpage for the story, which I linked to above.

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After seeing this breaking news story (I hope you watched it!), I'll ask the question again: Why do you
think FOX News didn't report this story until 10 days after it happened?

Maybe you're thinking, "China ran this drill secretly, and the only reason anyone found out about it was
because the Pentagon used their worldwide surveillance apparatus to discover what happened, and they
leaked the story to FOX News. It took some time for this to occur. That's why we should allow the
government to spy on all of us! They need to spy on everyone in order to find out about what the evil
Chinese are doing!"

Another way to find out about these Chinese plane flights is to "follow" the People's Daily (the official
newspaper of China's communist party) on Twitter. The day after the flight, on 26 November, the
People's Daily sent out this tweet:

If you don't have a Twitter account, but have access to the internet, you could have watched a video of
the plane flight posted by the People's Daily on YouTube the same day as their Tweet (a screen grab of
the video is shown below):

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People around the world were watching a video of this flight on YouTube 9 days before the anonymous
Pentagon officials decided to give FOX News their top secret information!

Isn't that weird?

Maybe you're thinking, "China must have posted that stuff on the internet after the FOX News story
came out and backdated it (by hacking Twitter, of course), because they didn't want the world to know
that the Pentagon found out about their secret plane flight! They wanted to pretend that they already
notified the public!"

That's not the answer. Here is another version of my timeline: showing other articles that covered the
same flight that FOX News did:

Other news outlets covered the same flight that FOX News did, they just decided to cover it when it
happened. You know, right after China announced it in their media.

It turns out that China makes these planes flights routinely. They are called military drills, and every
country on the planet with an advanced military runs them all the time. When China runs their routine

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military drills, they announce them in their media. They are not secrets. Afterwards, the media in the
rest of the world publishes their stories.

So what is the real reason that FOX News didn't report this story until 10 days after it happened?

Because it's not really a news story, it's a propaganda story.

Initially, the mainstream media (from now on, MSM) in the US did not cover this drill. The MSM in the US
only covers these drills when there is a good propaganda story to attach to it. When the 25 November
drill happened, there was nothing going on to pin it to, so it was ignored.

Then Trump's phone call happened.

At this point, the MSM in the US knew immediately what to do. They know that countries, China
included, run military drills all the time, so all they had to do was wait for the next Chinese drill and claim
that it was a response to Trump's phone call. Throw in the word "nuclear", and you got a great little
propaganda story4.

The MSM waited a few days for the next Chinese drill, but FOX News got too anxious and said: "Hey!
Why do we have to wait until the next drill? After all, this phone call story is getting cold! Why not tie the
phone call to the drill than happened 10 days ago?"

So FOX News started their propaganda campaign on 5 December. The reason that they interrupted a
regular news program with a "FOX News alert" was to make Americans think that the story was
"breaking news", and not a 10-day-old story that everyone else in the world already heard about last
week. It is intentional deception, and it happens constantly.

And the deception worked perfectly. I read through the hundreds of comments that were posted after
FOX News story, and not a single person wondered why the story was being run so long after the drill,
and after the rest of the world already heard about it. Even though FOX News mentioned the date of the
flight in the story, nobody notices. People read too quickly to comprehend what they are reading.

Reflect on this a moment. Now that you know this story was 10 days old when FOX News reported it, and
was already reported on by the rest of the world over a week before, watch the "breaking news" alert
again with that in mind. This is the very definition of "fake news"! Do you really think Lucas Tomlinson
was at the Pentagon talking to two "US officials" who were revealing this top secret information live?
News about an event that was on YouTube 9 days ago? I hope not!

The whole thing is theater. It is fake. They are not reporting news, they are running a propaganda
campaign.

4 This type of thing is done routinely with military drills. Every time one happens, the MSM has the option of
saying, "country X flew their planes (or piloted their boats) to threaten country Y because of reason Z, because
country X is a bunch of aggressive, sabre-rattling, evil bastards". If you have a good "reason Z", then you run a
propaganda story. If there is not a good "reason Z" at the moment, then you ignore it. The "reason Z" is almost
always fabricated, because the real reason countries run these types of drills is to practice flying planes or piloting
boats. That's what militaries do.

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In addition to it being 10 days old, the other big problem with the FOX News story is that it insinuates
that the plane flight was a response to Trump's call. They do not say this explicitly, but merely
mentioning the plane flight and the phone call in the same sentence is all that is necessary. The reader
makes the connection on their own.

How do I know that the reader makes this connection? I read the comments section.

Here is an example:

This is a response to the above comment:

By "nonsense", Mg987 is talking about the Chinese flying their bomber in response to Trump's phone
call. Johnjohn987 makes the same assumption, adding that Trump's phone call might get us into a war
with China. Both commenters assume that the Chinese flew their bombers in response to the Trump
phone call.

Here's another comment:

Abstract11 also thinks that the flight was a response to the phone call, and that Taiwan "might have to
pay the price" for it.

Another comment:

WhomeverYouWantMeToBe also assumes the flight is a response to the phone call, but for him the flight
is a warning to the US, not Taiwan.

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Another comment:

Once again, the flight is a response to the phone call, and therefore a "direct provocation" towards
Trump.

There are many, many comments similar to these. Even though the article does not explicitly say the
flight was a response to the phone call, that is how it is perceived by the public. Do you think this was an
accident, and not what FOX News intended? If you do, then stop reading this and go watch FOX News.

The Wall Street Journal published an article the day after the FOX News article, and they were more
explicit, and clever, in their attempt to say that the plane flight was a response to the phone call. This is
the title and subtitle of their article 5:

Chinese Bombers Circled Taiwan a Week Before Trumps Phone Call

Taiwan defense spokesman says unprecedented move was nonoffensive, merely coincidental timing.

The article follows up the message in the subtitle with this:

[Chen Chung-chi, the same person mentioned in the subtitle] said there was no reason to think the timing
of the exercise so close to the call was anything but a coincidence: 'Both events have absolutely nothing to
do with each other.'

People read what Taiwan's defense spokesman said and think: "It's not surprising that Taiwan's
politicians would deny the link between the two events, because they are being diplomatic. But there is
obviously a link. It was no coincidence!" People know that politicians often deny obvious facts, and the
average reader assumes that the obvious fact in this story to is that the plane flight was a response to
the phone call.

The following day, an article in Foreign Policy mentioned a similar comment from Taiwan's defense
spokesman6:

Taiwans defense ministry also denies there was a connection between the phone call between Tsai and
Trump.

Once again, the automatic denial of a connection, when coming from a spokesman, implies that there
really is a connection.

5 http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-bombers-circled-taiwan-a-week-before-trumps-phone-call-1481037589
6 http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/12/07/situation-report-warnings-promises-in-obama-and-trump-speeches-china-
flies-nuclear-bombers-taiwan-aleppo-russia-putin-war/

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I haven't spelled it out yet, but I hope by now you see logical error in assuming that the plane flight is a
response to the phone call. The error is that the plane flight happened 10 days before the phone call!

China cannot respond to a triggering event that happens in the future.

Nearly every commenter in the FOX News story assumes that the flight was a response to the phone call,
even though this is impossible. The propaganda used in this country does not have to be sophisticated
when people think that a country can respond to an event from the future.

There were a grand total of three people in the comment section who saw the logical error with China
flying their bomber in response to a phone call that happened in the future. So how did they resolve this
in their minds? Do they ask themselves why FOX News is insinuating that this connection exists? Of
course not. This would involve facing the fact that they are being outright lied to by the people that
construct their entire worldview. That's too much to deal with, so two of them invent a conspiracy
theory to get around it. They say that China somehow knew about the phone call in advance:

SarcastoJones thinks that China knew about the phone call ahead of time, and wonders if the whole
event was been staged. I can't even imagine who the actors are that are doing the staging, and who the
audience is. It's too "conspiracy-theory-ish" for me to think about. All I know is that he's avoiding the fact
that he's being lied to.

Markjohnston111 also thinks that China knew about the phone call ahead of time, which makes them
even more of a "threat" (I assume he meant "threat", and not "treat"). Maybe he thinks China knew
about the phone call because they "hacked" someone and found out about it in advance. We all know
how gullible Americans are to conspiracy theories involving hacking.

The third person who brought this up simply states it:

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This person doesn't say what he thinks the order of the phone call and plane flight means. Maybe he's
actually calling attention to the fact that FOX News is misleading (lying to) people. Maybe he should have
said so.

Let's go back to the Wall Street Journal article. They quoted the spokesman for Taiwan's defense
ministry, Chen Chung-chi, as saying "both events have absolutely nothing to do with each other". Chen
spoke to the media on 27 November and 6 December about this drill, and he does not say anything close
to this in any of these reports. Similar to the Wall Street Journal, NBC News quoted Chen as saying there
is "absolutely no relation at all" between the flight and the phone call, but they say that he "told NBC
News" this. Does that mean he told ABC News this privately, and did not say it to the rest of the media?
Is that why his comment does not appear in any media reports? ABC News quotes Chen saying other
things about the drill, but all the other things they quote him as saying are in the links I gave above. It is
only the part about the flight/phone call connection that is missing from the media. Weird.

Anyway, after quoting Chen saying that the two events have nothing to do with each other, the Wall
Street Journal says this:

Mr. Chen confirmed Tuesday what Taiwan's deputy defense minister, Lee Hsi-Ming, had said Monday when
he was questioned during a legislative session.

Luckily, Lee Hsi-Ming actually did say something about the flight/phone call connection in this legislative
session. Here is what he said:

There is no reason to think that there exists a problem merely on the basis of the two events happening so
closely to each other - this is just a coincidence. There is absolutely no causal link between the two events.
(Translation of:
)

That is the comment the Wall Street Journal was talking about when they say that Lee Hsi-Ming
"confirmed" what Chen had said. What is interesting is what the article said in the sentence directly
before what I quoted above:

The military aircraft of the Peoples Liberation Army, by coincidence, flew around Taiwan about a week
before local leader Tsai Ing-wen and US President-elect Donald Trump had a phone conversation,
prompting the outside world to speculate that Tsai Ing-wens phone call could have been a "cry for help."
(Translation of:
)

Most Americans believe it is possible for China to respond to an event from the future. The only logical
cause-effect relationship possible in this situation, however, is that Tsai Ing-wen called Trump in response
to the plane flights. This led some people outside the US to think that the phone call was a "cry for help"
from Tsai Ing-wen in response to the scary plane flights. This is almost as ridiculous as the reverse case
made by FOX News, but at least it makes logical sense. At least people outside the US realize that China
cannot fly their planes in response to a future event.

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It's interesting that the Wall Street Journal quotes Lee Hsi-Ming saying there was no link between the
two events, but they don't mention that the link he was talking about is Tsai Ing-wen responding to the
plane flight by calling Trump. They don't mention this, because they want you to assume the reverse
cause/effect relationship, because that is what their propaganda story calls for.

Summary of FOX News Story #1, so far

China did not respond to the Trump/Ing-wen phone call by flying their bombers around Taiwan, but FOX
News certainly did respond to the phone call by publishing this story. If the phone call had not happened,
this story would not have been published. The purpose of this story was not to report the news. This
flight was old news, and the rest of the world discussed it over a week before the FOX News story broke.
The purpose of this story was to start a propaganda campaign, one of countless over the past few
months, meant to delegitimize Trump. In this campaign, the message is that Trump's reckless actions
could get us into a nuclear war7.

The things we've discussed so far show how desperate FOX News was to start this propaganda campaign.
First of all, they tried to cover the fact that this was a 10-day-old story by presenting it as a "breaking
news" alert. Secondly, by using a bomber flight that occurred before the phone call, they implied a
cause/effect relationship that is completely impossible. Would a news outlet that conducts itself in this
manner hesitate to create a fake bomber flight a few days later? It's seems like part of the same pattern
to me.

Full timeline for FOX News Story #1

We're not done with this story yet. Before continuing with it, I'll show a complete timeline of all the
articles that reported on the 25 November flight. This timeline includes other articles that came out on
or after 5 December. Most of these8 are from Western MSM sources that tried to imply the logically
impossible Trump call/bomber flight connection that I already discussed:

7 The subject of these bombers being "nuclear capable", and the issue of the mainstream media constantly using
this term, will be discussed in a moment.
8The only exception being the Focus Taiwan article.

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Here are the titles of the articles, along with links:

Flight #1:

Chinese Warcraft Fly Over Bashi Channel, Miyako Strait in Drill, 26 Nov, Xinhua (China's official
press agency)

China Says Air Force Again Carries Out Drills in Pacific, 26 Nov, Reuters

Japan Scrambles Jet Fighters Amid Flight of Chinese Aircraft Near Okinawa, 26 Nov, Sputnik
(Russia)

China Again Sends Fighter Jets, Bombers Through Sensitive Strait South of Okinawa, 26 Nov, The
Japan Times

Japan Scrambles Jets as China Air Force Flies Bombers, Fighters Through Miyako Strait, 26 Nov,
The Diplomat

Taiwan On Top of China's Military Activity: MND, 27 Nov, Focus Taiwan

Red Dragon Rising: Chinese Jets Spark Tension with Japan and Taiwan by Flying Through Sensitive
Disputed Zone, 27 Nov, The Sun (UK)

Japan Scrambles out Defence Planes after Chinese Bombers Carry out Drill in Politically Sensitive
Passage in the Pacific, 27 Nov, The Daily Mail (UK)

Japan Scrambles Jets as Chinese Warplanes Fly Near Okinawa, 27 Nov, RT (Russia)

China's Aircraft Flights Near Japan's Okinawa Part of Planned Drills, 27 Nov, Sputnik

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 Taiwan On Top of China's Military Activity: MND, 28 Nov, The China Post (Taiwan)

MND Says Monitoring Chinese Activity, 28 Nov, Taipei Times

Initial title:

China Flew Nuclear-Capable Bombers Over Taiwan Before Trump Call with Taiwanese President

Changed to:

China Flew Nuclear-Capable Bombers Around Taiwan Before Trump Call with Taiwanese
President, 5 Dec, FOX News

China Flew Nuclear-Capable Bombers Around Taiwan in Tense Show of Power Before Trump's
Controversial Call with the Taiwanese President, 5 Dec, The Daily Mail

Taiwan Says China is Flexing its Muscles with Bomber Flight, 5 Dec, The Washington Examiner

Chinese Aircraft Circled Around Taiwan For First Time: MND, 5 Dec, Focus Taiwan

Chinese Bombers Circled Taiwan a Week Before Trump's Phone Call, 6 Dec, The Wall Street
Journal

China Flew Nuclear-Capable Bombers Near Taiwan Before Trump Call, 6 Dec, NBC News

SitRep: Obama and Trump Issue Warnings, Promises in New Speeches; China Flies Nuke-Capable
Bombers Around Taiwan, 7 Dec, Foreign Policy

Back to FOX News Story #1

There's a lot more to talk about from FOX News story #1, the one about the "breaking news" straight
from the Pentagon. Let's look at the title once again:

China Flew Nuclear-Capable Bombers Over Taiwan Before Trump Call with Taiwanese President

This is the initial title. The most obvious problem with it is the use of the word "over". As we will see
shortly, China did not fly their bombers over Taiwan. That is an outright lie. Soon after the article was
published online, a commenter pointed this out:

When "jerseypundit" says "false" headline, he means it is a lie. Fake News.

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This became a topic amongst a few people in the "comments" section:

As more commenters began discussing this, FOX News was forced to correct their lie. They changed the
title of the article to this (replacing the word "over" with "around"):

China Flew Nuclear-Capable Bombers Around Taiwan Before Trump Call with Taiwanese
President

By the time FOX News fixed their lie, 95% of the people who would ever read the article had already read
it. And the number of people who read the story online with the "over" lie is dwarfed by the number
who saw the same lie via Twitter9:

Some people will defend the MSM and say that using the word "over" was just a mistake. If this type of
thing happened rarely, they might have a point. But it happens constantly. The MSM routinely prints
these types of lies. (we'll find more in this title alone). Sometimes, if enough people call attention to a
particular lie, they will fix it. But the lies are read by tens of millions, and the corrections, if they are ever
made, are usually read by very few. This is all standard propaganda practice.

Airspace "mistake"

9 https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/805883194478313474

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Let's look at another change that was made to the article. Back when the commenters were discussing
the over/around issue, "TolerantLiberal" added this:

"TolerantLiberal" is correct, the original article said nothing about of the planes being in international
airspace or not, which is directly connected to the over/around issue. At the same time FOX News
changed the word in the title from "over" to "around", they also added this sentence (it was not in the
original)10:

"The Chinese bombers stayed in international airspace, according to officials."

After the outrageous lie in the title, FOX News felt obliged to come clean about the fact that the Chinese
planes stayed in international airspace at all times. Was the omission of this fact a "mistake" as well?
When the UK's Daily Mail reported on this story 8 days before the FOX News revealed their "breaking
news" story, they said right in the subtitle that the flights were "legal" (meaning they stayed in
international airspace).11 The Daily Mail is a tabloid similar to our National Enquirer, but they are still
more truthful than FOX News. But remember, FOX News is the "truth".

In addition, the FOX News print story refers to an article from Focus Taiwan, and they even provide a
hyperlink to it. If you go through the trouble to click on the link and read, you will see that the Focus
Taiwan story says this:

Lo also said it is publicly known that Chinese military planes have flown near Taiwan's intelligence
information region three times -- on Sept. 25, Oct. 27 and Nov. 25.

Chang Yuan-hsun...the deputy chief of the Ministry of National Defense's General Staff for Intelligence,
replied that the ministry is aware of more than three incidents but that in none of the cases did the planes
enter Taiwan's air defense identification zone. (emphasis added)

As we will discuss shortly, an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) extends much, much further out to
sea than a countries' territorial waters. If China stayed out of Taiwan's ADIZ, then they were very far
away from their territorial waters. It is not convincing to claim that FOX News would provide a direct link
to an article that says this, and then "forget" to mention that the bombers stayed out of Taiwan's
airspace.

10 A copy of the original article can be found here.

11 They said this: "Although legal, it happened in a politically sensitive area." We'll get to the "politically sensitive
area" BS later in the paper. Unlike FOX News, at least they said the flights were legal:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3976264/Japan-scrambles-defence-planes-Chinese-bombers-carry-drill-
politically-sensitive-passage-Pacific.html

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This is all deliberate. It is not a series of mistakes.

Nuclear bombers
Let's look once again at the revised title:

China Flew Nuclear-Capable Bombers Around Taiwan Before Trump Call with Taiwanese
President

FOX News changed "Over" to "Around". "Over" was a lie, but "around" is still a gross exaggeration (we'll
see why later).

The next issue is with the term "nuclear-capable bombers". This, sadly, is also a lie (not a mistake). The
second lie in the title alone.

The bombers China flew that day are Xian H-6K's, or, more commonly, H-6K's. If you do a Google search
to learn about this plane, you can find as many websites as you like that describe the H-6K as "nuclear-
capable". Some of these sites will even appear authoritative. They are not.

They are all lying.

Let's check a source that most will consider authoritative, and, in my view, would actually be biased
towards exaggerating China's weapons capability (in order to justify larger budgets for themselves).

The source is the US Department of Defense. The following is from their 2016 Annual Report to Congress
titled "Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2016" 12:

12 See p. 38 here: http://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2016%20China%20Military%20Power

%20Report.pdf

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The US Department of Defense says that China "might eventually develop a nuclear bomber capability",
and "if it does" (emphasis added), they would have three routes to deliver nukes. What that means is:

China does not have nuclear bombers.

Why does the media constantly describe the H6-K's as "nuclear capable"? Because it is scary, and it helps
to demonize China. It's propaganda. It's also a lie.

Maybe you are wondering how I found this information in the Defense Department report to Congress. I
discovered it through a "fake news" site called Moon of Alabama (which is "fake news" in the eyes of the
MSM because they tell the truth). That website published a thread on the fake Fox News story we are
discussing right now, and they discussed the "nuclear-capable" H-6K issue. The thread referred to a
Twitter stream written by Jeffrey Lewis, the founder of the website "Arms Control Wonk" (again, a
website that deals with facts, which is therefore "fake news" to the MSM). The website supplies Jeffrey's
bio:

[Jeffrey] is the Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for
Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. His also a non-
resident affiliate at Stanford's Center for Security and International Cooperation and a Contributing Editor
to Survival.

He is not a teenager in his parent's basement.

In his thread, Jeffrey references a quote that provides the only argument that exists in support of the
"nuclear-capable" H-6K theory. In 1965, an H-6 was "retrofitted" in order to carry nuclear weapons 13:
13 "China Today: Aviation Industry" (Beijing: China Aviation Industry Press, 1989), p. 144.

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This was the only H-6 that was ever able to carry a nuclear weapon, and it was for test purposes only.
China used this retrofitted plane from 1965 until 1979 14, which is when these tests ended. After that, the
H-6 has not been part of any nuclear weapon delivery program, as the US Defense Department now
confirms.

This thread by Jeffrey appeared on 12 December 2016, and it turned out to be very influential. It became
widely discussed on the internet very quickly. Later that very same day, Popular Mechanics (a
propaganda linchpin itself) published an article with the following title:

China's Flyover Message to Trump Wasn't Quite What It Seemed

Contrary to reports, bombers flown over the South China Sea can't actually launch

nuclear weapons, and that matters.

The article was a response to Jeffrey's tweet, and they acknowledge that the "nuclear-capable" claim is a
lie.

The next day, the US military newspaper Stars and Stripes also published an article that, reluctantly and
obliquely, also admits the "nuclear-capable" claim is a lie. Again, the article was a response to Jeffrey.
(This is the day after they published an article titled "China Reportedly Responds to Trumps Taiwan Call
by Flying Nuclear-Capable Bomber").

Finally, The Diplomat published a similar story a couple days later, once again responding to Jeffrey, that
had the following title:

"US Media Over-Hypes Chinese Bomber 'Warning' in South China Sea: The 'Nuclear-Capable'
Bomber Isnt, Highlighting the Danger of Misinterpreted Signals"

Misinterpreted?? The US media isn't "misinterpreting" anything. They are lying.

The Diplomat seems to think it is only the "US Media" that is guilty of this propaganda (The Diplomat is
based in Tokyo). The Diplomat is a good news source, and does contain much less propaganda than US
media, but they certainly are not immune to it. Here are quotes from three articles from The Diplomat
from 2016:

14 See: " Aircraft were used to deliver the nuclear weapon in at least 12 of Chinas nuclear test explosions
conducted between 1965 and 1979" in Kristensen, Hans M. and Norris, Robert S., "Chinese Nuclear Forces, 2016",
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 72, No. 4 (2016), pp. 205-211, p. 209, available here:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00963402.2016.1194054

18
 "It is unclear whether the bomber will be a based on a completely new design, or a further
development of the nuclear-capable H-6K..."

"The move comes after the Peoples Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) has increased its
operational tempo in the South China Sea, with a nuclear-capable long-range bomber
conducting patrols over disputed features."

"There are currently around 16 nuclear-capable H-6Ks in service with the PLAAF."

By the way, the MSM has been making this "nuclear-capable" comment for years. It was not new to this
FOX News story.

The 12 articles from my timeline that reported on this drill within the first few days after it happened
(most of these were from non-Western sources) associated China's H6-K bomber with nuclear weapons
a total of 0 times. At this point, the articles were reporting the news, and generally stayed away from the
more obnoxious propaganda. The 6 stories from the Western MSM that reported on the same drill after
the FOX News story, however, associated China's H6-K bomber with nuclear weapons a total of 13 times,
four of which were in the titles. These were the propaganda articles. See the difference?

In general, the US media, and their lackeys, intentionally use the "nuclear capable" term when other,
more respectable, news outlets don't. An interesting exception to this involves the UK's Daily Mail. They
published two articles about this flight. One was on 27 November, and was one of the initial set of
articles that reported on the flight when it happened. The other was published on 5 December, which
was one of the propaganda articles that followed the FOX News story. The first article was published as
part of the group of articles that was reporting the flight as a news story, and the second was part of the
propaganda campaign. Here is the wording used by the Daily Mail articles each time they referred to the
bombers:

It's easy to spot which story was part of the propaganda campaign.

An apologist for the MSM would say this: "maybe someone accidentally use the "nuclear capable" term
a long time ago without knowing the full story, and everyone since then just repeated the innocent
mistake". When the Washington Examiner used the word "nuclear", they illustrate that this is not true.
Here is what they said: "...two H-6K bombers that are technically capable of carrying nuclear
weapons...". Using the word "technically" is an admission that they are fully aware the H6-K is not really
a nuclear bomber. They use the word "technically" because they know that there was only one H6-K that

19
ever carried a nuclear weapon, and that that example no longer exists. The MSM knows that they are
lying. They are not making a series of mistakes.

Take home message about the "nuclear capable" bombers:

The "fake news" shamed the "real news" into telling the truth.

"Around" Taiwan : Part 1, Geography Lesson

The next lie concerns the use of the word "around" in the title. FOX News replaced the word "over"
which was a lie, with the word "around". Sadly, the word "around" is also a lie. Let's discuss that issue
now. This will take a little while, but the truth sometimes doesn't fit into a headline.

First, we need to discuss some geography.

FOX News says that China flew their bombers around Taiwan, implying that they were threatening
Taiwan. If both Japan and the Philippines did not exist, and the bomber flew nearby Taiwan (while
staying out of their 12 mile territorial boundary, of course), I would say that the statement was accurate.
Here's what the flight path would look like if this was the scenario:

This is likely how most people reading the FOX News story picture the event. If this was the truth, I would
agree that China flew their bombers around Taiwan as a threat. But this is not what happened.

20
In reality, both Japan and the Philippines do exist, and this complicates the situation greatly. Let's see
how.

Before we start with that, however, I would like to ask the reader a question. China's coastline measures
over 9,000 miles. Even considering the fact that the Japan and the Philippines exist, and therefore limits
access to the Pacific for the Chinese, this vast coastline is still connected to the Pacific Ocean. Question:
considering the fact that China has 9,000 miles of coastline in contact with the Pacific Ocean, is it
reasonable that they want to have the opportunity to fly their military planes over the Pacific? Every
other nation on the planet that has a coastline in contact with an Ocean does this. Should China be
allowed to as well? All reasonable people would answer yes. If you say no, you can stop reading this
(although the people who would answer "no" would not have read this far, anyway).

Anyway, here is how the real world looks, with Japan and the Philippines present:

You can't see it well on the above map, but both Japan and the Philippines have lots of islands that are
part of their countries. In order to stay out of the territorial boundaries of these nations, you have to stay
at least 12 nautical miles away from all of these islands, no matter how small.

First, let's look at what this means with respect to the Philippines. Between Taiwan and the Philippine
island of Luzon are many small islands. When you draw a line marking the territorial sea of the
Philippines in this area, you get something that looks like this.

21
The medium blue strip marks the territorial waters of the Philippines. See how close the Philippine
territorial water line is to Taiwan? Let's redraw the map, adding the (approximate) territorial waters of
Taiwan:

If you want to fly a plane (or pilot a boat) from the South China Sea to the Philippine Sea (=Pacific Ocean)
and stay out of the territorial waters of both Taiwan and the Philippines, you have to go through the
narrow strip shown with the red arrow. Not much space.

22
Let's look at the same situation with respect to Japan:

The territorial waters of Japan make a nearly continuous, impenetrable line. The red arrow marks the
only convenient, legal route from the East China Sea to the Pacific Ocean.

These two international passageways I have just described are called the Bashi Channel and the Miyako
strait. Here they are, to scale, draw on a Google map:

23
Even though China has 9,000 miles of coastline, if they want to fly a plane into the Pacific Ocean, they
need to go through one of these narrow straits 15.

Details of the straits

Miyako Strait
If you map out the Miyako Strait in detail16, you will find out that it is about 100 miles wide:

15 There are actually a few other ways, but they are impractical. These other routes are very narrow, and are only
available to international traffic because Japanese territorial waters in these straits extends only 3 miles from shore,
instead of 12. For the reasons why this is the case, see Elferink, Alex G., The Law of Maritime Boundary
Delimitation: A Case Study of the Russian Federation (Boston: Dordrecht, 1994), p. 307. See also here. In practice,
the Soyu (this strait has been used, but not often) and Tsugaru Straits (this has also been used, again, not often)
are too far north to be of much use. As for the Osumi Strait, although it is wide enough to be legal to use, it is still
too narrow to use routinely. The only time in the last 13 years that China has navigated this strait with military ships
was on 28 April 2012 (Ryall, Julian, "Tide Turns in Dangerous Waters; A Row Over Boundaries in the Pacific Will
Send a Message to Other Nations Embroiled in Disputes with China" South China Morning Post, 3 May 2012, p. 10.
The previous incident before this was in 2003). The Chinese passed through the Osumi strait on this occasion
because the UN had just sided with Japan to allow a 200 mile EEZ around Okinotori (Okinotorishima) island, and
they were pissed off. What Japan was allowed to do is exactly what China wants to do in the South China Sea, but
they are not allow to. Double standard. Anyway, although China did pass through the Osumi Strait in this instance,
it is not usable for routine passage. The Tsushima Strait is used slightly more often (see here and here).
16 I used Skyvector to do this.

24
See the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands on the map? Remember where those are in relation to the Miyako Strait
(the Miyako strait borders the territorial boundary of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands).

Bashi Channel /ADIZ

China's access to the Bashi Channel is complicated by something called an Air Defense Identification
Zone (ADIZ)17. An ADIZ is an area designated by a country in which any plane that enters must identify
itself to that country. These zones are declared unilaterally by any country that wants one. They are legal
under international law, but the law says nothing at all about the details, such as how large they can be,
where they can be, etc. Each country can draw their line on a map wherever the hell they want to. Only a
small number of countries have these, but there are many in southeast Asia that do, including Taiwan.
Here is a map of Taiwan's ADIZ (the eastern edge is the red line at 123 degrees east) 18:

17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Defense_Identification_Zone , Here's some more ADIZ reading from the "fake

news": http://www.unz.com/plee/topic/adiz/
18http://gate.sinovision.net:82/gate/big5/cdnwww.sinovision.net/data/attachment/album/201209/04/045319efw
pqruop8rd38dq.gif

25
When a country has an ADIZ and a military plane from another country enters it, that country will send
up a fighter jet to escort it. There is absolutely nothing wrong or illegal with a plane of one country
entering the ADIZ of another country, but if they do so, they will get an escort from that country.

Historically, China never enters Taiwan's ADIZ. They can if they want to, and it would be perfectly legal if
they did (as long as they didn't come within 12 miles of the coastline), but in practice they don't. The
likely reason is because, in the rare cases they do enter Taiwan's ADIZ, the propaganda machine goes
batshit crazy, and they likely prefer to avoid the headache.

This has implications for China when they pass through the Bashi Channel. Here's a map showing the
edges of the Bashi Channel, along with the limits of Taiwan's ADIZ:

26
Taiwan's ADIZ covers well over 90% of the Bashi Channel. When China wants to pass through the Bashi
Channel and avoid Taiwan's ADIZ at the same time, what is left is extremely narrow. Let's look at this in
detail using Skyvector:

The hashed blue line (labeled "Taiwan (RCAA)") corresponds to Taiwan's ADIZ (this is the portion where
the corner of the rectangle is cut off). The brown line shows the spots that mark the edges of the Bashi
Channel (which are 12 nautical miles from the closest islands of Taiwan and the Philippines). The
distance between these islands is about 60 miles. But remember, you cannot go within 12 nm, or 13.8
miles, of the coastline, so the actual distance for military planes from other nations have to pass through
is 60-(13.8*2) = 32.4 miles. That's about 3 times as narrow as the Miyako Strait. The worst part, from
China's point of view, is that Taiwan's ADIZ covers ~31.1 miles out of the 32.4 miles available for passage
(~96%!!). When China passes through the Bashi Channel, and wants to avoid Taiwan's ADIZ at the same
time, they have a passageway of about 1.2 miles in width!

Summary
China has over 9,000 miles of coastline that is connected to the Pacific Ocean. In practice, however, if
they want to send a military plane into the Pacific (which is a perfectly normal practice), their "effective"
coastline is 100 (Miyako) + 1 (Bashi) = 101 miles. Their "effective" coastline is about 1% of their actual
coastline. Despite all this, every time China (legally) passes through a piece of this 101 mile stretch, the
media in the rest of the world goes completely out of their fucking minds.

ADIZ

27
Let's talk more about ADIZ's. I showed Taiwan's. Here is a map that also shows the ADIZ's of Japan, South
Korea, and Vietnam (Taiwan's ADIZ is inaccurate in this picture - the corner is not cut off as I showed
above. The whole reason this corner is cut off is to make the Bashi Channel passable without entering
Taiwan's ADIZ)19:

(Notice that China also has an ADIZ. They just made that in 2013. Although it is completely legal to have
an ADIZ (yes, even for China), and even though everyone else in southeast Asia has one, guess what the
MSM did when China announced theirs? Correct. They went absolutely batshit crazy. This is especially
ridiculous when you look at Taiwan's ADIZ. There's one thing about Taiwan's ADIZ that is clear on this
map that wasn't on the others I showed already. Taiwan's ADIZ extends into mainland China!? Taiwan
puts their ADIZ over China's mainland, and nobody bats an eye. But if China puts one over the water in
the East China Sea, they are evil.)
19 http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/index.cfm/articles/A-Few-Questions-About-Chinas-Air-
Defense-Identification-Zone-and-Its-Aftermath/2014/03/21 the map itself is here:
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/img/articles/lai_figure1.jpg For an accurate map of
Taiwan's ADIZ in relationship to Japan's and South Korea's, see here:
http://www.worldculturepictorial.com/images/content_3/taiwan-speaks-up-japan.jpg

28
The Philippines also has an ADIZ.20 I'll add that manually to the above map (and fix Taiwan's ADIZ at the
same time). Here, then, is a map of all the ADIZ's in southeast Asia:

As you can see, the ADIZ's in this region of the world form a continuous chain. This means that it is
completely impossible for China to fly a plane over the ocean, even when going through a strait legally,
without having fighters from one country or another being scrambled to shadow them. Yet, every time
China does fly over the ocean (most of the jets that are scrambled are in response to China flying their
jets through the Miyako strait into the Pacific), and someone scrambles a jet in response, the MSM
portrays it as China doing something wrong, and they go batshit crazy. The country usually scrambling
fighters is Japan, and they do it every day. They complain about it almost as often:

"Japan scrambled fighter jets 464 times against Chinese aircraft in fiscal 2014, which ended on
March 31, up 49 times from a year earlier...but adding that none of the planes violated its
airspace."

Well, boo-fucking-hoo.

20 See here and here.

29
I know of two ways that this problem of Japan constantly scrambling jets to shadow Chinese planes can
be solved. One is completely insane, and one is completely rational.

The insane answer would be for China to never be allowed to fly a plane in Japan's ADIZ. This is insane. A
country can't just arbitrarily draw a line on a map and say nobody can fly there. A country can dry a line
and say if you fly there we will send up planes to follow you. Fine, then do that. But stop complaining
about it!

What's the rational way to solve this problem? What if Japan redrew their ADIZ to allow Chinese jets (or
anyone else's) to pass through the Miyako Strait without passing through their ADIZ? Taiwan did this
exact thing with the Bashi Channel. As I remarked above, Taiwan cut the corner off their otherwise
rectangular ADIZ specifically to allow jets to pass through the Bashi Channel without them having to
scramble jets. This is the adult thing to do. Japan can do the same thing if they wanted to, at any time.
They can simply redraw their ADIZ line to allow, say, a 30 mile corridor through the Miyako Strait that
anyone can pass through without triggering a Japanese response. Problem solved. But that will never
happen. It's very likely not Japan's fault, though. Japan's puppet masters (the US) would never allow it. It
would deprive them of a propaganda tool. As it is now, any time the US feels like demonizing China, they
can bring up how China flew a plane where they supposedly shouldn't have (since it happens nearly
every day), and that Japan had to scramble a fighter jet to "intercept" 21 it, and the people in the US are
left wondering why China is so evil.

Now, next time you read how Japan scrambled a jet to intercept a Chinese plane, you can wonder why
Japan doesn't act like adults and simply redraw their ADIZ line.

If China were to follow US orders and stop flying in other nation's ADIZ's, this is how the world would
look to them (red = "no go" zones):

21 By the way, the use of the word "intercept" is also propaganda. The word "intercept" is used to make people
think that the country being "intercepted" is doing something wrong. he correct word to use for this is "escort".
Military escorts happen all the time, and do not mean that anyone is doing anything wrong.

30
China wouldn't even be able to fly over their own fucking country, because Taiwan's ADIZ extends over
their mainland!

This is what the West wants. They are jackasses.

"Around" Taiwan : Part 2, History

Now it's time to discuss some history that is relevant to our story.

After looking at some of the geography just outside the coastline of China, it may be understandable that
China feels surrounded and trapped. The islands we just discussed (Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines)
are part of what is called the "First Island Chain" that surrounds China. Here is a picture of it:

31
China feels that the US has used the first island chain to contain them ever since WWII:

In the 1950s, the United States and its allies installed advanced weapons at bases along the
chain of islands, in a bid to maintain a strong military presence and contain China and other
countries governed by communist parties.

Ever since then, a major goal of the Chinese military has been to "break through" this barrier. The
Chinese Navy began doing this regularly nearly 15 years ago 22, and the goal since then has been to
increase the frequency of their military drills in the Pacific. Although these drills are becoming more and
more routine, the idea of "breaking through" the first island chain is always part of the mindset of their
military, and it is discussed routinely in their media.

Here is the first island chain from China's perspective:

22 "After decades confined to its coastal seas, the PLAN began regular voyages from the East China Sea into the
Pacific early last decade. At first, Chinese warships mostly used the wide Miyako Strait between Okinawa and
Miyako Island, according to statements from the Chinese and Japanese militaries. Since then, in a series of firsts,
they have transited all the other important channels between the Japanese islands..."
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-navy-specialreport-idUSBRE9AQ04220131127

32
It should be easy23 to understand that China feels trapped and threatened by US allies.

In addition to sailing their ships through straits in order to access the Pacific Ocean, China has also been
flying aircraft through them for a long time. Let's look at some examples 24.

The purpose of running through these examples is to 1) show that China announces these exercises in
their media - they are not secrets, 2) these drills were infrequent a few years ago, but the frequency
increases with time, 3) the media in southeast Asia always covers these drills - it is local news for them,
4) the MSM in the West covers the drills sporadically. Sometimes they are not written about at all,
sometimes there are many articles about a single drill, 5) to show where the planes are flying, to show
how the number of articles per flight is increasing with time, and 7) to make snide comments about the
media coverage.

8 September 2013: Miyako

On 8 September 2013, two H-6G bombers flew through the Miyako Strait. China discussed 25 the drill the
following day, and the drill was reported by The Diplomat, The Aviationist, the South China Morning Post
(this outlet is from Taiwan), the Japan Daily Press, and Bloomberg. When China flies through this strait,
the Japanese Defense Ministry issues a report that shows the routes the planes took. Here is the path
the bombers took in this case:

23 For an open-minded person.

24 This is not an exhaustive list. There are smaller drills that I did not include.
25 "China's Defence Ministry says two Chinese bomber aircraft that flew near Japanese islands in Okinawa
Prefecture on Sunday [8 September] were taking part in a planned exercise." "China Says Flight of Two Jets Near
Japanese islands Within Law" NHK World (Japan), BBC Monitoring, September 9, 2013

33
25-27 October 2013: Bashi/Osumi/Miyako

In late October of 2013, China's Navy conducted a major war games drill in the Pacific ocean for over two
weeks.26 They got there by crossing three straits at once (the Bashi Channel, the Osumi Strait and the
Miyako Strait). As part of this exercise, they sent planes (including H-6 bombers) through the Miyako
Strait 3 days in a row (on the 25th through the 27th). As the drill was happening, it received very little
attention in the MSM, usually just a line or two in articles discussing broader topics. Reuters had a
sentence about it here, the Financial Times has a sentence here, the BBC a few sentences here, and the
Telegraph had a few paragraphs about it here. The Kyodo News ran a short article about the flight 27,
while Reuters and the World Socialist Website covered the drill in more detail.

China's media, as usual, announced these drills when they started. China's media normally discusses
these drills in their media extensively. This is from the Reuters article above:

...it is difficult to accuse Beijing of secrecy when it comes to recent naval operations near Japan. The state-
run media and a stable of specialist military newspapers, journals, web-sites and television channels
devote blanket coverage to the deployment of warships, submarines, aircraft and patrol vessels on
missions near China's neighbor.

None of these drills are a secret. There is no need to know anonymous insiders at the Pentagon to hear
about them.

Here is the flight path that the planes took through the Miyako strait in this case:

26 The exercise was referred to as "Maneuver 5" in the Chinese press I have also seen it referred to as "Mobile 5",
"Mobilization 5", and "Jidong 5". A good summary is here:
27 Kyodo News Service, "Japan Scrambles Jets for Third Time as Chinese Aircraft Fly Near Okinawa", 27 October
2013, BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific - Political

34
6 December 2014: Miyako

On 6 December 2013, China's planes flew through the Miyako Strait again. There was a report of the
exercise in the Chinese media, which included a map of the path the planes took through the Miyako
Strait28:

Are the flight paths starting to look familiar?

28 See page 2

35
Later, the Chinese media explained why their coverage of this drill was not as comprehensive as it usually
is:

According to military experts, that China didnt report on the Western Pacific exercise is based on
diplomatic considerations. The surrounding situations around China have become increasingly
complicated, the China-Japan, China-Philippines and China-Vietnam relations are highly sensitive, and
there is also the more important U.S. factor behind them. Analysts held that Chinas decision to carry out
this exercise without publicity is based on considerations for national interests, so that there will be no
excuse for other countries to hype up the China threat theory...Japan did not hype up this exercise
either, and held a general election in the same period that the PLAN carried out trainings in the Western
Pacific. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won an overwhelming victory in the selection of the House of
Representatives on December 14.

China was getting sick of the propaganda that surrounds their drills, so they didn't advertize this one very
much. Japan, for their own reasons, did not propagandize the event, either. It is understandable that
China sometimes grows tired of the propaganda. To see why, let's look at the title of an article that
covered this drill:

Chinese Military Bomber Aircraft Fly Menacingly Near Japan Islands; Analysts Say Guam Base
Can Be Under Threat

Menacingly close to Japan? The planes flew the exact same route they always fly, which is through the
center of the Miyako Strait. It is impossible for China to fly into the Pacific and stay any further away
from Japan's islands. This title is pure propaganda nonsense. Let's look at the first paragraph of the
article:

An incident involving a slew of Chinese military aircraft, including bombers, trying to transgress Japan's air
space has been reported. The incident happened on Dec 6 and it is said that the aircraft were capable of
posing a threat to Guam military base of the U.S. army. The Chinese provocation was in the area between
Japan's Okinawa's island and Miyako island. The incident came up amidst some recent warmth in China-
Japan relations after the APEC summit in Beijing.

Maybe at this point you can start picking on the obnoxious statements on your own.

The Chinese planes were NOT "trying to transgress Japan's airspace". If they were trying to transgress
Japan's airspace, they would have done so. They know where Japan is. Instead, they flew right through
the middle of an international strait, legally, like. they. always. do.

Lie.
I like this line: "The incident happened on Dec 6 and it is said that the aircraft were capable of posing a
threat to Guam...". "It is said"? By who?? By nobody. This nonsense about Guam was made up, and they
tried to pretend like a real person said it 29.

29 Later in the story, there are a couple of general quotes from a "military analyst" named Li Xiaojian. Then, a new
paragraph started with this: "A military analyst, evaluating [sic] the pictures of the military exercise, said...". "A
military analyst" is the person who said that the Chinese bombers threaten Guam. "A military analyst" does not

36
Finally, they refer to the incident as a "provocation". Flying through an international strait, legally, in
order to conduct routine drills is not a provocation.

Jackasses.

Liars.

Let's fast forward to last year.

31 March 2015: Bashi

On 31 March 2015, China's Air Force flew several planes through the Bashi Channel and into the Pacific.
There was the usual whining about it from the MSM, but nothing close to the level you see today. In
addition to the normal announcements that are given about these drills from the Chinese Government,
the South China Morning Post, Business World Online (twice), AFP, (through Yahoo News), the Daily
Mail, Newsweek, and the Diplomat also had articles.

Although the propaganda at this time was nothing close to what it is today, China was still annoyed by it.
In response, they asked the West to start acting like adults. Here is a paragraph from an article on the
front page of the Chinese Communist Party newspaper on 1 April 2015 titled, "Japan Should Get Used to
Chinese Air Force Conducting Drills in Open Sea (translated by BBC Monitoring) 30:

It is normal for China to increase its defence and military strength at appropriate levels as they
are done in order to safeguard the country's sovereignty and security. For countries such as
Japan to continue to hype the so-called 'threats from China', they will fail to gain the world's
trust. The vast western Pacific Ocean has served as a natural training ground for many countries'
naval and air forces. All countries enjoy the freedom to navigate or to fly through areas such as
the Bashi Channel, the Miyako Strait and Osumi Strait, and it is in conformity with the United
Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea and other standards recognized in international law for
the Chinese air force to travel to the western Pacific Ocean to conduct drills via these areas.
Countries concerned should become accustomed of the Chinese navy and air force conducting
similar drills and refrain from creating hotspots in public commentaries by pointing fingers.

Junsche also wrote a similar article in their English press.

In response to China's pleas to act like adults, the US, of course, acted like a 5-year-old child by landing
an F-15 in Taiwan, which they had never done before. It's sad that the Chinese think they can reason
with Western governments.

refer to Li, or they would have just used his name. "A military analyst" is an imaginary person, and does not exist.
The crap about posing a threat to Guam is a fabrication. China is flying in the Pacific, period. They are not
threatening Guam.
30 Junsche, Zhang (researcher, People's Liberation Army Naval Studies Research Institute, Beijing, China), "Japan
Should Get Used to Chinese Air Force Conducting Drills in Open Sea", Beijing's People's Daily Overseas Edition
(Chinese Communist Party newspaper), p.1., as translated by BBC Monitoring quotes from China, Taiwan press 1
Apr 2015.

37
21 May 2015: Miyako

On 21 May 2015, China's Air Force flew over the Miyako Strait. The drill was, as usual, reported by
Chinese sources, along with the South China Morning Post (twice), Reuters, the National Interest31, and
the Japan Times.

14 Aug 2015: Bashi

On 14 August 2015, China's air force ran another drill into the Western Pacific Ocean via the Bashi
Channel. The drill was announced and discussed in the Chinese media, and was reported by the South
China Morning Post in Taiwan.32

27 Nov 2015: Miyako

On 27 November 2015, China's Air Force ran a drill in the Pacific Ocean via the Miyako Strait. Besides the
Chinese media, articles appeared in the South China Morning Post and the Business Insider.

Here's the flight paths:

31 Here's an exceptionally stupid line from the National Interest article:

"The location of the latest drill is almost certain to unnerve Japanese officials. To begin with, the flyover was near
the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands...".
Yes, EVERY SINLE FLIGHT through the Miyako Strait is near the Senkaku Islands, because the Senkaku Islands border
the Miyako Strait. It is completely impossible to fly through the Miyako Strait without coming close to the Senkaku
Islands. I shouldn't call the MSM stupid when they say things like this, though. They are not being stupid. They
know exactly what they are doing. It's just propaganda.
32 South China Morning Post, National China News, p.6

38
That's all for 201533.

12 September 2016

From what I can tell, the Chinese Air Force did not go into the Pacific for the first two-thirds of 2016.
There was a flight through the Miyako Strait in April, but I found no major drills involving bombers.

Drills in the Pacific resumed on 12 September 2016, when the Chinese Air Force flew through the Bashi
Channel once again. Chinese state media announce the drill, and it was covered by Reuters, The
Diplomat, the Straits Times, Popular Mechanics, and the Japan Times.

After the drill, China announced that it would be flying into the Pacific regularly. Their reason making this
announcement is likely an attempt to deter the obnoxious propaganda after every single drill.

Predictably, the propaganda ramped up sharply from this point on.

25 September 2016

China kept their word about regular drills, because just two weeks later they ran a large drill involving
over 40 planes. Most of the planes conducted drills in the East China Sea (within China's ADIZ), but 8 of
the planes also flew through the Miyako Strait into the Pacific 34, which prompted Japan to scramble a

33 Here's an article about the 2015 drills in general from Chinese media.
34 Some of the articles cited said that 40 planes flew through the strait, which is more likely an error than a
deliberate lie. The Agence France-Presse article (which was picked up by Asia Times) quoted Suga correctly:
"Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that the jets were sent up after eight Chinese military planes

39
fighter jet in response. This drill was widely covered. In addition to the Chinese media announcing the
drill, there were articles in CNN, Bloomberg, the Christian Science Monitor, Stars and Stripes, the Japan
Times, Jane's Defence Weekly, APDForum magazine (a military magazine published by the US Pacific
command), UPI, International Business Times (which was picked up by MSN), the South China Morning
Post, the Diplomat, the UK Times, Time magazine, Sputnik, Agence France-Presse (picked up by Asia
Times), and the World Socialist Website.

Japan's Ministry of Defense showed the flight path the planes took35:

Let's look for a moment how the propaganda started to escalate with this drill.

The planes flew down the center of the strait, staying as far away as possible from Japanese islands on
either side of the strait. Of course, this is not how the MSM sees it. Whenever Chinese planes fly through
the Miyako Strait, the MSM has a choice: do you say that the planes flew ______ close (fill in the blank
with a word like "menacingly" or "threateningly", etc.) to Okinawa, or _______close to the Senkakus?
Since these two islands are on opposite sides, you are free to pick either for your propaganda article.

In CNN's title, the planes flew "Near Disputed Islands", in the Christian Science Monitor's subtitle, it said
that the planes were "Too Close to Contested Islands" (flying directly down the middle of the strait = "too
close" to one side), and TIME magazine's title was: "Japan Warns China After Warplanes Were Spotted
Flying Close to Disputed Islands". UPI decided to focus on the other side of the strait: "Chinese Planes
Fly Just off Okinawa...", as did the International Business Times: "Japan Scrambles Fighter Jet Near

crossed between Okinawa and the Miyako islands near Taiwan. He said that two of the aircraft were thought to be
fighter jets."
35 http://www.mod.go.jp/js/Press/press2016/press_pdf/p20160925_01.pdf The Stars and Stripes article also
showed the map.

40
Okinawa..." and the South China Morning Post: "China Dispatches One of its Largest Air force Fleets Ever
Near Okinawa...".

It's good to have choices.36

Although, as we have seen, China has been flying planes through the Miyako Strait for years, this was the
first time fighter jets (SU-30's) went through the strait. Four of the stories above (Stars and Stripes,
Christian Science Monitor, CNN and ADPForum) made the "mistake" of saying that it was the first time
China flew any planes through the strait. Stars and Stripes even had a direct quote of Japan's Cabinet
Secretary saying this:

This is the first time that Chinese military aircraft flew over the area, Japans Chief Cabinet Secretary
Yoshihide Suga told reporters.

This is the first time Chinese aircraft flew through the Miyako Strait? Remember the other, earlier,
examples I showed? (There are others I did not mention, as well). I am sure this was just another
innocent mistake.

(As I will discuss later, the MSM always tries to make each drill a "first" in some category. They never
want to depict these drills as routine, normal events, which is what they are, so they instead say it is the
"first" time China did this or that, which makes it sound like China is continually doing new, evil things.
This time, the "first" was a first time for a fighter jet to fly through the strait).

Another observation: The Christian Science Monitor (CSM) article quoted University of Miami political
science professor June Teufel Dreyer saying that the Chinese drill was "a response to what Beijing will
allege is a provocation by Japan in joining the U.S. in South China Sea drills despite Beijing warning Tokyo
against participating"37. The last line of the article38, however, quotes an analyst saying that the
"Americans and Russians both routinely conduct this type of exercise". 39

Oh, really?

Then why is it that every single time China flies a military airplane anywhere, it is some type of
warning/sabre-rattling/aggression?? The CSM just finished saying that China ran their drill to send a
message to Japan, and then they turn around and say that other countries fly these types of drills
routinely. Could it be possible that China is simply practicing how to fly their planes like other countries
do??40 Russia and the US do this "routinely", so why can't China? As we will see, China will sometimes

36 To their credit, Agence France-Presse's "China Flies Military Planes Over Strait Near Japan" is accurate and not
inflammatory. Yay!
37 Several other articles (UPI, APDForum, the Japan Times, etc.) mentioned the same motivation for the Chinese
drill. (Another thing the MSM must do each time they report on a drill is to give some reason that China is running
the drill, instead of saying that it is just a routine, normal event. These motives that are given to each drill can be
different for each article, depending on which country the article comes from. If the article is from country X, the
drill is a warning to country X, if the article is from country Y, the same drill is a warning to country Y.)
38 Very often it is the last line of an article which will contain some truth - they know that few people read that far.
39 Bloomberg quoted this line as well.

41
"signal" a message by conducting a military exercise, but when they do this, they say in their media
exactly what their message is. Unlike the US, they act like adults. They use their words.

One more thing. The South China Morning Post and the International Business Times called the event
"sabre-rattling" by China. Conducting drills is not sabre-rattling. It is a drill. The US runs these types of
drills every fucking day, but nobody calls it "sabre-rattling", "aggression", or anything else. They don't
even report it. In fact, instead of flying their planes in international waters like China does, the US flies
their planes over other peoples countries, dropping bombs on them and killing millions of people,
injuring even more, and displacing more than that. But this is not "aggression". But if China flies their
planes through an international strait, it is sabre-rattling.

Assholes.

BTW, the articles by Jane's Defence Weekly, the Diplomat, Sputnik and AFP/Asia Times were not bad as
far as propaganda goes. This is another way that propaganda works. The widely read sources like the
Washington Post or the New York Times are packed with lies. Sources that are semi-accurate, however,
are also sources that few people read. The total number of Americans who read these articles in Jane's
Defence Weekly, the Diplomat, Sputnik and AFP/Asia Times is approximately 34.

25 Nov 2016
And now we arrive to the drill we were just discussing. This is the drill that FOX News interrupted their
regular news program to tell the American public about. The one that the rest of the world reported on a
week before, and had since forgot about.

On 26 November, China, as usual, announced the drill in their media, 9 days before FOX News and their
Pentagon insiders broke the story to Americans. As we have seen, whenever China runs a drill in the
Western Pacific Ocean, they use one of two routes to get there 41: the Bashi Channel or the Miyako Strait.
I showed the flight path for many of the drills already, but here's a map where many of the drills that
were run through the Miyako Strait are shown together 42:

40 I used to live near a US military base on the Pacific Ocean. US military planes flew over the ocean constantly.
Was every flight a "message" to this or that country, or were they just flying their planes around?
41 there are actually more than two routes, but the two being mentioned are the only convenient ones.
42 https://jamestown.org/programs/cb/resources/chinese-military-aviation-east-china-sea-database-sources/

42
As you can see, China generally does the same thing each time. There are maps like this for the Miyako
Strait, because Japan publishes reports on every drill that passes through the Miyako Strait. When
China's planes and ships pass through the Bashi Channel, however, no reports are made public that show
exactly where they went.43 Taiwan and the Philippines monitor where they go, they just don't publish
anything. If they did, the flight paths would look very similar to the above, in and out through the same
passageway.

43 (I said before that China almost always avoids flying through Taiwan's ADIZ. Because of this, they routinely fly
through Japan's ADIZ, because off the ADIZ are connected. When China flies through the Bashi Channel, they avoid
Taiwan's ADIZ, but that means they are flying through the ADIZ of the Philippines. This doesn't matter much,
because the Philippines doesn't have planes to scramble after them).

43
After doing this for several years, China got bored. I have a dog, and I don't like to walk down a path for a
while, then turn around and come back the way I came. It's better to find a loop to walk on. Guess what?
Some bored Chinese military guy said, "what if we go out to the Pacific via one passageway, then come
back home via the other one?"

Brilliant!!
Can you imagine that this might be a normal idea for someone to come up with, and if they do think of
it, it might not necessarily mean that they are evil?

This is what China did in this drill. They went out to the Pacific via the Bashi Channel, and then returned
via the Miyako Strait. Here is the flight path they took as they passed through the Miyako Strait44:

Flying Around Taiwan

44 http://www.mod.go.jp/js/Press/press2016/press_pdf/p20161125_02.pdf
http://world.huanqiu.com/exclusive/2016-11/9736084.html

44
Great. We are now ready to continue our discussion about the FOX News title. Here it is again:

China Flew Nuclear-Capable Bombers Around Taiwan Before Trump Call with Taiwanese
President

The current question is: did China fly their nuclear-capable bombers "around" Taiwan?

Let's try to determine the entre flight path as close as we can using the information we have. The FOX
News story says that the bombers took off and landed "from two separate Chinese military bases". If
only FOX News reported this, I would be skeptical, but this was reported by more trustworthy sources, so
we can assume it is accurate. The two closest military airports to Taiwan that fly bombers are in Leiyang
and Anqing45. I will discuss this further later on, but we also want to keep the flight as short as possible.
Finally, we know that the bombers went through the two straits, and also stayed out of Taiwan's ADIZ.

The following map, then, show the complete route that the bombers likely took:

45 There is also an airport at Shaodong, but this is very close to Anqing, and Anqing is closer, so we'll assume it was
that one. Leiyang is part of the 8th bomber division/23rd regiment, and Anqing is part of the 10th bomber
division/28th regiment. See: http://www.scramble.nl/orbats/china/airforce . Also, when reporting on the previous
drill (25 Sept), SCMP also mentioned Leiyang as being a likely base for the drill (for the bombers). See;
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2023085/china-air-force-drills-western-pacific-
aimed-sending

45
Did the bomber fly around Taiwan? Technically, yes. The obvious connotation of this statement as it was
presented by FOX News, however, is that China flew their bombers around Taiwan as a direct message to
them. Think for a moment about everything we have discussed so far.

Do you think this flight was meant to send a message to Taiwan because of Trump's phone call?

In case you have doubts, let's go over a couple of the problems with describing this drill as flying
"around" Taiwan, in the sense of sending a message to them:

1. The biggest problem, as we already discussed, is that China could not have made this flight "around"

Taiwan in response to Trump's phone call with Taiwan's president because this flight was made a
week before the fucking phone call!!
China cannot see into the future.

2. The other problem has to do with Taiwan's ADIZ. Like nearly every other drill that China runs, they did
not enter Taiwan's ADIZ during this drill. That is one very significant factor that determined the flight
path I drew above. The flight path above stays just outside of Taiwan's ADIZ. By staying out of Taiwan's

46
ADIZ, they automatically enter Japan's46, which is why Japan scrambled fighters in response. China did
not have to stay out of Taiwan's ADIZ. It would have been just as legal to take the following route
"around" Taiwan:

If China was sending Taiwan a message, why didn't they do something like this? Wouldn't that be a much
better message? How much of a message are you sending Taiwan when you fly hundreds of miles out of
your way just to stay out of their ADIZ? China sends Taiwan a message by flying through Japan's ADIZ so
Japan has to scramble jets? If you are sending a message to Taiwan, why not fly through Taiwan's ADIZ
and make them scramble jets?

Avoiding Taiwan's ADIZ does not send much of a message, if you ask me. If a bully is walking down a
hallway and wants to send a message to a guy standing in the middle, he'll walk close to the guy and
bump him on his way past. He won't hug the wall on one side, staying as far away from him as possible.

3. China has a long history over many years of flying through these two straits. Previously, they went out
and back in through the same strait. To make the inevitable decision to come back in through a different
strait than the one you left through does indeed mean that you will "circle" a number of things. If you
draw any circle on a map, there will be a number of things in the middle of it. That does not mean that
whatever was in the middle of your circle is the target of the drill 47.

46 And they also enter the Philippines ADIZ as well, but as I mentioned above, this doesn't matter because the
Philippines doesn't have jets to scramble after them.
47 China's navy also "circled" Japan a few years back. China was not sending a message to Japan. They ran a naval
exercise with Russia, then did some blue water sailing.

47
4. China said exactly what message they were sending after they ran this drill. As I said earlier, they use
their words. A few days after the drill, China's media released a story saying exactly what their drill was
meant to show. The title was "Rear Admiral: PLA Capable of Warfare in 2 Seas". Here is a clip:

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force is now capable of responding to warfare in two different
bodies of waters at the same time, as shown by its latest drill, said military expert Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo.
The Chinese Air Force made an unprecedented move to send military aircraft over the Bashi Strait and the
Miyako Strait at the same time for a routine drill in the western Pacific on Nov. 25.Yin said that the
synchronized flights over two straits means that the PLA Air Force is capable of combating in two seas at
the same time....'Flying over two straits at the same time is indeed a serious challenge for the PLA Air
Force,' said Yin, explaining that the Bashi Strait is up to 1,000 kilometers away from the closest Chinese
airport and the flight could encounter complicated weather and maritime conditions. 'Even if warfare
breaks out in the East China Sea and the South China Sea at the same time, the PLA Air Force is still
capable of responding.'

The message they were sending was not directed at Taiwan.

5. I cited 11 stories from outside China that were published within a few days of the drill. All these news
outlets knew where the planes flew, but 10 of them did not say anything about China flying "around"
Taiwan48. The only story who did say this was from the Taipei Times:

The four Chinese bombers and surveillance airplanes flew northwest over the Pacific Ocean before
traveling over the strait and heading toward the East China Sea, it said.

It was assumed that the four aircraft flew over the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines and
circled around Taiwan, the report added.

The only story that described the flight as having "circled around Taiwan" did so merely as a descriptive
statement. There was no hint in the story that making this circle meant that China was sending Taiwan a
message. They certainly didn't say that China "circled around Taiwan" because Trump was going to talk
to Taiwan's president a week later.

Why is it that when the event happened, not one of the original 11 stories that reported the drill
mentioned that the purpose of it was to send a message to Taiwan? Three of these stories were from
Taiwan new sources. You would think they would have mentioned that China was targeting them. The
only story that mentioned a motive for this drill was the Japan Times, and they said the reason China ran
the drill was:

"apparently to send a message to Tokyo".

When this drill happened, the "purpose" of it, according to the MSM, was to send a message to Tokyo.
Then Trump's phone call happened, and suddenly the "purpose" of the drill changed. Now, the purpose
was to send a message to Taiwan.

48 The Focus Taiwan story on 5 December did make a point of flying around Taiwan. This article came out a week
after the rest of the articles from Asia. It is an outlier, and I will discuss it separately.

48
Conclusion

The planes did fly out one channel and back in another, and Taiwan was in the middle of this loop, but
China did not fly around Taiwan in the sense that FOX News presented it. The purpose of the flight was
not to relay a message to Taiwan, and it was not connected to any future event (!). FOX News replaced
the word "over", which was a lie, with the word "around", which, at best, is grossly misleading.

In my opinion, they replaced a bald-faced lie with a subtle lie.

Summary of FOX News 5 December story

Let's recap the lies we found in this story.

1) The very existence of the FOX News story was the first lie (running a story on a 10-day-old event is
deception to the point of lying).

2) Attempting to cover up the fact that the story is 10 days old by presenting it through a "breaking alert"
is also a lie.

3) Implicitly tying the plane flight to the Trump phone call is a lie.

4) Initially using the word "over" in the title is a lie.

5) Omitting the fact that the bombers were in international airspace during the entire flight is a lie.

6) Using the term "nuclear capable" is a lie.

7) Replacing the word "over" with "around" is still a lie.

I count seven lies. Not bad.

What if you were to strip all the lies, half-lies, distortions, and deceptions from this story? First of all,
there wouldn't have been a story published on 5 December at all, because it was old news by then. If
you published a story a day or two after the drill that had no propaganda in it, it would look something
like this:

49
This is what the Chinese government said when they announced the drill. It is accurate and propaganda
free. Maybe you should be reading Xinhua instead of FOX News.

Anything added in addition to what was said by Xinhua is likely propaganda. If you like, you could also
add something about Japan scrambling fighters in response to the drill, but in that case you should also
point out that China has no choice other than to have one country or another scramble jets whenever
they fly into the Pacific. You should also point out that Japan could stop scrambling their jets if they
redrew their ADIZ.

__________

This story was nothing but lies and deceptions, but it still wasn't enough for FOX News. After all, in this
story China's message seemed to be aimed at Taiwan. Most Americans probably wouldn't care much if
Taiwan got nuked, as long as the radiation doesn't affect the US. What FOX News wanted was a bomber
flight that could be described as a warning to the US. In addition, having the flight occur after the phone
call wouldn't hurt, either. Even though countries run these military drills routinely, FOX News didn't want
to wait around for the next one to happen, because the phone call story was getting cold. So what did
they do?

They fabricated a bomber flight out of thin air.

After what we've seen with the first story, it shouldn't sound too surprising that FOX News would do this.

Let's look at the fabricated story.

FOX News Story #2

FOX News published their story on the fake bomber flight on 9 December, four days after the story we
just discussed. This was the title:

China Flies Nuclear-Capable Bomber in South China Sea After Trump Taiwan Call, US officials Say

50
This flight supposedly occurred the day before the article was published, on 8 December. This time, the
flight was not over Taiwan, but instead followed the nine-dash line around the South China Sea, where
the US has been confronting China over its territorial claims in the area. The target of China's flight from
the first story to the second, then, switched from Taiwan to the US. This makes for a much scarier
propaganda story. Also, instead of just implying a connection between the flight and Trump's phone call,
this time they made the connection explicitly, saying that the flight was a "dramatic show of force was
meant to send a message to the new administration". Also very scary.

As I mentioned in the introduction, the day after this fake story appeared, China flew their bombers into
the Pacific Ocean again. As we will see, this flight was almost identical to the flight that happened on 25
November. FOX News was not expecting China to conduct a real drill the day after their story about the
fake drill, and their reaction to the real drill is one of the things that shows FOX News is guilty of making
shit up.

To start, let's look at a timeline for these two drills:

51
The stories about the fake drill are in blue, and the stories about the real drill are in green. Here are the
titles of the articles, color coded as above:

Flight #2 (fake):

China Flies Nuclear-Capable Bomber in South China Sea after Trump Taiwan Call, US officials Say,
9 Dec, FOX News

(Alternate title): Show of Power? China Flies Nuclear-Capable Bomber Around Taiwan

China 'Sends Message to Trump' by Flying Nuclear-Capable Bomber over South China Sea for the
First Time Since The Donald's Controversial Phone Call with Taiwan's Leader, 10 Dec, The Daily
Mail

China Flies Nuclear Bomber over South China Sea as a 'Message' to Donald Trump, 11 Dec, The
Independent

China Warns Trump With Nuclear Fly-By, 11 Dec, The Daily Beast

China Flies Nuclear Bomber Over South China Sea to 'Send a Message' to Donald Trump 49, 11
Dec, International Business Times

China Reportedly Responds to Trumps Taiwan Call by Flying Nuclear-Capable Bomber, 12 Dec,
Stars and Stripes

China Flies Nuclear Bomber over South China Sea to Send Message to Trump, 12 Dec, The Hill

Chinas nuclear bomber flying over South China Sea a message to Donald Trump?, 12 Dec, The
Daily Telegraph (Australia)

China Warns Trump With Nuclear Bomber Flyover50, 13 Dec, CNN: "The Situation Room"

China's Bomber Flight Seen as Challenge to US After Trump's Taiwan Phone Call, 13 Dec, The
New Zealand Herald

Trump's Swaggering Sparks War Talk From China, 16 Dec, Newsweek

Flight #3:

Japanese F-15 Jets Launch Decoy Flares at Chinese Military Aircraft, 10 Dec, The Global Times
(China)

China Lodges Solemn Representations Against Japan in Miyako Strait Incident, 10 Dec, China
Daily

49 This article was picked up by Yahoo.

50 Video is here, transcript is here.

52
 China Air Force Conducts Long-Range Drills Near Disputed Waterways, Says Taiwan, 10 Dec,
International Business Times

Chinese Aircraft Circle Near Taiwan Again: MND,10 Dec, Focus Taiwan

Chinese Jets in Exercise Close to Taiwan, 10 Dec, Taiwan News

Japanese, Chinese Military Aircraft Engage in Latest Tit-for-Tat Moves in Airspace Above Western
Pacific, 11 Dec, The Japan Times

MND Says China Skirted Air Defense Zone, 11 Dec, China Post

Taiwan Says China Air Force Conducts Long-Range Drills, 11 Dec, Reuters

China Conducts Flyover of Waterways Near Japan, Taiwan, 11 Dec, Associated Press

China's training missions near Taiwan a show of capability: experts, 11 Dec, Focus Taiwan

Chinese Aircraft Fly Around Taiwan, 11 Dec, Taipei Times

China Protests Japan Fighter Scramble Over Miyako Strait Exercise, 12 Dec, The Diplomat

Evidence for fake drill

The first strange thing about these two drills is how they were covered by the MSM. Here's a list of who
covered which drill:

(From now on, I will call the 8 December dill the "fake drill" and the 10 December drill the "real drill".
This will avoid having to constantly refer to them by their dates).

In general, the outlets that covered the fake drill are Western sources, and the outlets that covered the
real drill are from southeast Asia. The two exceptions to this are the International Business Times (IBT)
(who covered both drills), and Reuters51.

51 BTW, The Diplomat is based in Tokyo.

53
There is another way to categorize the outlets in each list. The sources on the left are "fake news", and
publish lies nearly non-stop. The outlets on the right, although not immune from propaganda, are
certainly a step up from those on the left. 52

Because of this difference in which outlets reported which drill, the vast majority of Americans read
about the fake drill, and never heard about the real drill. Conversely, the vast majority of non-Westerners
read about the real drill53, and did not hear about the fake drill. These two drills carried out 2 days apart
seem to have happened in different universes.

My question is: Why is this so? Even though the fake drill happened 2 days before the real drill, most of
the stories about the fake drill were published after the real drill had already happened. Out of the 19
stories (about both drills) that came from outlets outside China, 17 were published after both drills had
already occurred54. Out of 17 articles that were published after both drills had already occurred, a total
of zero mentioned the other drill that happened either 2 days before or 2 days after the one that they
were discussing. (This is even true for the IBT, which covered both drills. Neither article mentioned the
other drill). The news of these drills were kept completely separate, even by a source that wrote about
both of them.

Why would none of these stories mention the other drill?

If you read through all of the links I have provided in this paper that discuss drills from the last few years,
they routinely mention other drills that have taken place in the recent past. But in all of the articles that
covered either the fake or real drill, the drill that happened just 2 days away from the drill they are
discussing gets ignored.

Isn't that weird?

From a propaganda viewpoint, wouldn't you want to talk about how the Chinese are so evil that they are
now flying their "nuclear-capable" bombers every other day? Now that's "sabre-rattling"! It is
inconceivable that all the Western outlets would fail to mention the real drill that happened on the 10th.
It is just as inconceivable that the outlets in SE Asia would not be discussing a major drill in the South
China Sea.

Why
Why did this happen?

52 The one exception to this categorization, again, is IBT, which published articles on both drills.
53 The Reuters article was picked up by the Daily Mail and the Business Insider. The Daily Mail is not read by many
Americans. As for the Business Insider, their stories are tagged with an "engagement" number that lets you know
how popular that story is. The BI/Reuters story got an "engagement" score of 272 (as of 29 Jan 2017). For
comparison, a recent BI story about Trump setting up a task force to investigate Russian hacking got a score of
77,779 (as of 29 Jan 2017). Not many Americans read the BI/Reuters story, either.
54 Probably 18 - the Daily Mail article came out on 10 December, the same day as the real drill. I am assuming that
they did not know about the real drill at the time of publication, but they very well could have.

54
The outlets that reported on the fake drill did not want to mention the real drill that happened two days
later because the idea that China would run two major drills just two days apart is too unbelievable. If
the Western outlets mentioned the real drill, it would have drawn attention to their fake drill. People
would have started asking why China is running major drills every other day. That's why all the Western
MSM avoided this storyline. As a matter of fact, FOX News actually attempted to make their story about
the fake drill look like it was about the real drill, but we'll cover that later.

The outlets that reported on the real drill ignored the fake drill for one of two reasons. Either 1) they
have too much self respect to report on a story they knew was fake, or 2) they were planning on
reporting the fake drill, but then the real one happened, so they had to choose which one to cover.
Faced with a choice, they reported on the real drill instead of the fake one. 55

FOX News said it, not us

All of the other stories that reported on the fake drill other than FOX News repeatedly say that the story
is from FOX News. They clearly don't want to take responsibility for a fake story. This is not how the
media works. Every time an article is published on a particular story, they do not have to mention who
reported that story first. Maybe you're thinking that they are all referencing FOX News in this case
because they are the ones who got the story from their "anonymous" sources in the Pentagon. That was
the same situation with the first FOX News story on 5 December. That story came from the same
anonymous Pentagon sources. Even so, when NBC News and the Wall Street Journal ran their stories on
that flight, they did not mention that the story came from FOX News or their anonymous sources. They
did not have to reference FOX News in that case, because both NBC News and the Wall Street Journal
knew that that drill happened in real life, and they didn't need to cover themselves. Nobody, however,
wanted to report the 8 December drill with making damn sure everyone knows that the source is FOX
News.

Missing stories from SE Asia

If the fake drill really happened, it would have been the biggest story coming out of the SCS conflict in
many years. On 18 July 2016, China flew their bombers to the Scarborough Shoal and back, and it was a
huge story56. On 6 August 2016 China flew their bombers to the Spratly islands, and it was yet another
huge story. But on 8 December, China sends their bombers completely around the entire South China
Sea, something that was completely unprecedented57 but not a single news outlet in Southeast Asia
reports on it58? This is simply not possible.

55 A third choice would be to report on both drills in two separate stories, like the IBT did. The IBT likely did this by
accident, however. They covered the real drill before realizing that they should be covering the fake drill for
consumption by American readers.
56 Look at the Forbes story to see how insane their "nuclear bomber" talking point was getting. After calling China's
bombers "nuclear capable", they say how the US also sent "Warthogs" to the Scarborough Shoal, but they are not
"nuclear capable". That why when China sent their "nuclear capable" bomber to the Shoal, it was a "significant
escalation" in the "signalling war". They even go on to explicitly say that the H6-K is "capable of delivering a
nuclear-armed cruise missile to all major U.S. military bases in Asia", All this is, of course, one great big lie.
57 FOX News claims there was a precedent, but this was a lie. We will cover that in a moment.

55
In mid-July 2016, China announced that they would begin regularly patrolling the South China Sea, which
was a response to US activity in the area. After the announcement, they started running regular patrols,
and these were in the news constantly. These patrols are nothing compared to bombers circling the
entire SCS, but even they got more attention. The countries in southeast Asia are very interested in
reporting anything that happens in the South China Sea, but in response to the fake drill, they were
silent.

Missing quotes

Also, if you read the various stories I cited in this paper that discuss real drills, there are many
government officials, analysts, etc., that are quoted in them. In all the articles about the fake drill, there
isn't a single quote from anyone about it. Wouldn't government officials from the various countries in
southeast Asia want to talk about China's bombers flying completely around the South China Sea? When
China's bomber's actually do fly in the South China Sea, people everywhere want to discuss it. But not
this one.

Compare this to the real drill that happened on 10 December 59. In the days following the real drill, there
were comments about it from various government figures. There were even videos of the planes.

None of this happened with the fake drill.

Attempt to combine the FOX News story with the real drill

As I mentioned previously, FOX News and the other news outlets that reported the fake drill did not
mention the real drill, or run a new story about the real drill. They ignored the real drill even though it
would have made a great storyline to talk about China flying their nuclear bombers around every other
day.

They ignored the real drill because they had just run a story about a fictional plane flight, and publishing
another story the next day on a very similar subject would draw attention to their fake story from the
previous day. If this sounds too "conspiracy theory-ish" to you, then give me a better explanation why all
these news outlets would ignore this new, real drill.

Instead of publishing a new story about the real drill, what FOX News tried to do was make their old, fake
story look like the stories that starting coming out about the real drill. They did this by changing the title
of the old story. Here is the title of the original story from 9 December:

58 There were zero stories in the English-language press from SE Asia (there are dozens of English language
sources). There were a few stories in the Chinese language and Vietnamese language press about the flight, but all
of them simply said that FOX News reported the flight, and offered nothing beyond that.
59 This drill was not announced by China in a normal manner. In this case, the articles were not a simple
announcement of the drill, but were also a complaint against Japan. They claimed that when the Japanese fighters
went up to shadow the Chinese planes, they launched decoy flares at the Chinese planes to piss them off. Japan, of
course, denies this. I will not discuss this further, since it is not our subject, but it's hard for me to think of a reason
that China would fabricate this. In addition, Taiwan's Minister of National Defense, and no friend to China, said that
"it was likely that Japanese F-15s did fire 'jamming shells'".

56
 China Flies Nuclear-Capable Bomber in South China Sea After Trump Taiwan Call, US officials Say

The next day, after the real drill happened, FOX News changed the title of their fake story to this:

SHOW OF POWER? China Flies Nuclear-Capable Bomber Around Taiwan

Voila! Now the fake story looks like all the other stories that were coming out that day that talked about
the real drill!

(Remember the ridiculous "breaking news alert" video that FOX News used in their first story about the
25 November flight? They used this same video in their story about the fake flight! This fake flight
occurred over two weeks after the 25 November flight, was in a different geographical location, and was
a "warning" to a different party, yet they used the same video. The video for the fake story, then, talks
about Chinese planes flying around Taiwan before the phone call, so it doesn't match the new story at
all, but it has that great "breaking news" drama, so they just reused it anyway. Then, on top of all that,
they changed the title so it refers to the real flight of 10 December! At this point, then, the title of the
article referred to the real drill that happened on 10 December, the video referred to the real drill that
happened on 25 November, and the text referred to the fake drill that happened on 8 December. All in
the same story. It's fucking ridiculous.)

Then, on the same day, FOX News changed their mind, and changed the title back again to the original
one60.

The evidence of this title change is still all over the web. This is the URL that Megan Kelly from FOX News
used to show the fake FOX News story after the title change:

https://megynkelly.org/214364/show-of-power-china-flies-nuclear-capable-bomber-around-taiwan/

Even though that URL no longer works (it now goes to her home page), this is what it looked like (I saved
a picture of it):

60 Today, the URL of the article 9 December article still contains the following text: "china-flies-nuclear-capable-
bomber-in-south-china-sea-after-trump-taiwan-call-us-officials-say". When they changed the title to the "Show of
Power" version, the URL would have remained the same. This is similar to their first article we discussed (from 5
December). There, they changed the word in the title from "over" to "around", but the URL still shows "over". The
original title in the URL stays, regardless of any changes to the title or article.

57
There are still plenty of other working (as of now) links out there that show what the title was at one
point on 10 December. Here is the picture from one of them 61:

Another:

61 http://www.streetcurb.com/show-of-power-china-flies-nuclear-capable-bomber-around-taiwan/

58
And there are others62.

This new title appeared on 10 December, when the story of the real drill came out. But they changed it
back quickly.

When the story of the real drill broke, why would FOX News change the title of their article about the
8 December drill in a way that makes it sound like it is discussing the 10 December drill?? The only
logical explanation is that it was an attempt to cover their fake story. Instead of reporting on this new
story, which is what you would expect, they try to make their fake story look like the real one.

The flight paths

Let's talk about the flight paths for the real and fake flights.

The real flight that happened on 10 December flew the same route that the 25 November flight did.
Remember the map I drew for the 25 November flight? Here it is again:

62 https://thetruth24.net/2016/12/10/show-of-power-china-flies-nuclearcapable-bomber-around-taiwan/ or
http://knowterrorists.com/show-of-power-china-flies-nuclear-capable-bomber-around-taiwan/ or
http://www.jibimedia.com/en/component/k2/show-of-power-china-flies-nuclear-capable-bomber-around-
taiwan.html or http://www.thegazette24.com/show-of-power-china-flies-nuclear-capable-bomber-around-taiwan/
or http://www.latestnewshome.com/show-of-power-china-flies-nuclear-capable-bomber-around-taiwan/

59
All of the news reports for the real drill on 10 December described the flight path as being the same as
the one that happened on 25 November, the one we already discussed.

Here is one description:

It was the second such mission by China since Nov. 25...On both occasions, the planes flew around the
southern part of Taiwan and over the Bashi Channel, then to the Miyako Strait near Japan's Okinawa
Prefecture, before returning to China, according to the ministry.

The flight paths were the same on these two dates.

Here's another example:

It was the second time in two weeks that Chinese military aircraft have flown around Taiwan and passed
over the Miyako Strait between Japans Okinawa and Miyako islands... Two Xian H-6K bombers, a Tupolev
Tu-154 surveillance aircraft and a Shaanxi Y-8 tactical transport aircraft participated in the previous flight
on Nov. 25.

The only difference between the 25 November drill and the 10 December drill was the direction the
plane travelled:

The ministry said that the aircraft flew clockwise around Taiwan, whereas they flew counter-clockwise on
Nov. 25.

60
On 25 November, the bombers flew this route counterclockwise, and on 10 December, the bombers flew
the same route clockwise. The only difference was the direction. This makes perfect sense when you
recall the fact that in the 25 November drill, the bombers took off and landed from different bases. That
means at the end of the 25 November drill, the bomber was not at its home base. On 10 December, the
bomber simply went back to its home base following the same path it did previously, but in reverse.
When you deal with facts, everything seems to make sense.

This flight path also makes sense because the news outlets that reported the real drill mentioned the
length of the flight. The Taipei Times said this about the real drill:

Yesterdays flight launched at about 9am...They were similarly escorted after reaching airspace south of
Taiwan as they flew over the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines, before ending the
mission and returning to their bases at 1:10pm, according to military sources.

Reuters said this:

China's drills, lasting for about four hours...

The China Post:

The exercise on Saturday started at about 9 a.m. and finished at 1:10 p.m., the MND said.

Taiwan News:

The drills started at around 9 Saturday morning...The drills finished around 1 p.m.

The flight was 4 hours, 10 minutes long.

The cruising speed of the H6-K is 477 mph. In 4 hours and 10 minutes, it will travel:

1,988 miles
The path that I showed around Taiwan is 2,000 miles 63. The flight path that I drew is accurate.

What was the flight path for the fake drill?

The fake story says that the flight path was along the nine dash line. The nine dash line starts on the
Pacific Ocean side of Taiwan, so the impression given is that the Chinese bombers flew on the outside of
Taiwan, then along the nine dash line. Here is how the Daily Mail shows the flight path:

63 The distance is right on the picture I showed, which is 1,735 nautical miles. Convert that to miles.

61
The green line, which is also the supposed flight path, starts on the eastern side of Taiwan.

When CNN discussed the fake drill, they were more explicit about the flight path starting on the eastern
side of Taiwan. They showed a short video of the flight path: when the video starts, the plane is here:

62
The plane at this point had just passed through the Bashi Channel from the eastern side of Taiwan. Then
video continues, with the plane following the nine dash line until it reaches this point:

At this point, the video ends, but the impression given is that it continues to fly all the way around the
South China Sea along the dotted red line on the map.

This is the entire flight plan that the fake story is implying:

63
Using Skyvector, I measure this flight as approximately 3,300 nautical miles, or 3,800 miles.

The first problem with this route is that the range of a H6-K bomber is 3,700 miles, and this flight is
~3,800 miles. China risked the lives of their pilots and whatever the cost of a bomber is by flying it on
fumes just to get their message to the US? Doubtful. I guess it's possible that the bombers were refueled
in flight, but if there was a problem with the in-flight refueling, that would mean that the bomber would
have to ask permission to land in another country, or would crash. This, again, sounds doubtful.

There is another problem with this flight path. In order to get on the eastern edge of Taiwan, travelling
south, the bomber must have gone through the Miyako strait. Every time China's bombers go through
the Miyako strait, the Japanese scramble fighter jets. The following chart is from a Japanese government
report released on 20 January 2017 that lists all of the scrambles that occurred in the third quarter of
fiscal year 2016 (1 October through 31 December). Here is the part covering November through the end
of the year:

64
No Chinese bombers passed through the Miyako Strait on 8 December, or it would be in this chart 64.

The flight path suggested by the fake story is impossible for two reasons. That's because the flight never
happened.

Unprecedented?
Earlier, I said that the fake flight path around the South China Sea is unprecedented, and I wondered how
an unprecedented flight like this could be ignore by all of the press, government officials, and analysts in
southeast Asia. But how can I say that this flight is unprecedented? FOX News says that the flight on 8
December was "the first long-range flight of a Chinese bomber along the U-shaped line of demarcation

64 The chart does say that it contains a list of cases that were "made public" by their Defense Department. Maybe
you think the flight on the 8th was not made public, and that is why it is not on the list. These Japanese reports,
however, say that the cases that are made public are "unusual flights including long-range flights from the East
China Sea over to the Pacific". This means that any flight through the Miyako Strait is made public, which is clear
from the history of reporting these flights. No Chinese planes went through the Miyako Strait on the 8th. Besides, it
is ridiculous to think that Japan would not make a flight public that was already reported by FOX News.

65
since March 2015, according to the officials". The Independent, The Hill, The Daily Telegraph, and the
New Zealand Herald all make the same connection to a flight in March 2015.

The reason I said that the supposed flight around the South China Sea along the demarcation line would
have been unprecedented in spite of these news outlets saying that a similar flight happened in March
2015, is that this is also a lie. There was no flight along the nine dash line in March 2015, or any other
time in human history.

We covered the March, 2015 drill above. It happened on 31 March 2015 (that was the only drill that
month. Feel free to look for another one for as long as you like). Go back and read all the articles about
that drill. If the fake drill that flew along the nine dash line was the first since March 2015, then that drill
should obviously talk about the planes flying along the nine dash line. None of the stories about the
March 2015 drill, however, say a single word about planes flying along the nine dash line.

Reuters even has a video of where the planes flew in March 2015. They have the planes flying west to
east though the Bashi Channel, which is how all the other news outlets described it as well. Here are four
snapshots of the flight path they showed65:

This is how all these flight paths look, Here, I'll remind you:

65 https://fr.news.yahoo.com/video/china-air-force-conducts-first-141413808.html

66
This picture is for the Miyako Strait, but the flights through the Bashi Channel are the same; in and out
through the same channel, just like the Reuters video showed.

There was no flying along the nine dash line in the March 2015 drill. If this had happened, it would have
been the first time ever, and it would have been mentioned in the stories for that drill. It was not
mentioned in those stories, because it did not happen.

Every year, Japan's only national think tank dealing with defense, the National Institute for Defense
Studies (NIDS), publishes a review article titled East Asian Strategic Review. In their 2016 version
released in May of last year, they mention the March 2015 drill. The top military think tank in Japan had

67
over a year to analyze the March 2015 drill, and if it involved flying along the nine dash line, or anywhere
in the South China Sea, they would have realized it by then. This is what they say about that drill 66:

Starting in 2015, combat aircraft assigned to the PLAAF also began to conduct training in the Western
Pacific. In March, a PLAAF spokesman noted that PLAAF combat aircraft passed through the Bashi Strait for
the first time and conducted training in the Western Pacific. The spokesman pointed out that this training
was aimed at increasing the PLAAFs ability to conduct open seas mobile combat, and he also made the
point that the training was in keeping with international law and international practice and was not
directed at any specific country.

Nothing is said about the nine dash line or the South China Sea in relation to the March 2015 drill. Also,
they don't mention any other drill from March 2015 that flew along the nine-dash line, either. That's
because a drill involving a flight along the nine dash line did not happen in March 2015, just like it didn't
happen on 8 December 2016.

FOX News made up the 8 December drill, and they lied about where the planes flew in March 2015.

Associated Press
One last piece of proof. Every week, the Associated Press runs an article titled "Recent Developments
Surrounding the South China Sea". The article for 11 December, which was published three days after
China supposedly flew their bombers completely around the South China Sea, did not mention the flight.
They did mention that China is scheduling a cruise to the Paracel Islands with ticket prices ranging from
$580 to $1,450 per person. They'll mention this important news, but they won't mention a flight of a
Chinese bomber that went completely around the South China Sea? Maybe they didn't mention it
because it didn't happen. (It wasn't mentioned in the 18 December article, either.)

Summary/Questions
1) Why are there two completely different sets of stories for these two drills? And why are these stories
distributed as follows?:

2) Out of all of these stories that discuss either drill, why does not a single one mention the other drill
that happened only two days before/after the one they are discussing?

66 p. 129 here.

68
2a) With respect to the outlets in the West, why wouldn't they want to report on how the "evil" Chinese
are flying their nuclear-capable bombers around every other day?

2b) With respect to the sources from Southeast Asia, why would they not want to report on a story
about Chinese bombers flying completely around the South China Sea? This is an unprecedented event.
Why would they ignore it?

3) Why did not a single government official or analyst anywhere in southeast Asia have a single word to
say about Chinese bombers completely circling the South China Sea? Why would they ignore this
unprecedented event?

4) Why, as soon as the real drill happened, did FOX News change the title of their story in order to make
it appear like it was talking about the flight around Taiwan? Why the deception?

5) Why did FOX News lie about where the Chinese planes flew in the March 2015 drill?

Evidence for opposing side

The best evidence I found for claiming the 8 December drill happened comes from Geng Shuang, China's
Foreign Ministry spokesperson. On 12 December, the Monday following the FOX News story (which came
out the previous Friday), Geng was asked the following question67:

It is reported that after the phone call between Trump and Tsai, the People's Liberation Army of China sent
a bomber to fly over the South China Sea. What is the Foreign Ministry's response to this?

This was his answer:

You need to ask the competent authorities for the specifics.

China has indisputable sovereignty over islands in the South China Sea and the adjacent waters. There is
nothing wrong about carrying out normal activities within one's sovereignty.

A standard nonspecific response, but not a denial of the flight, either.

The next day, Geng was asked essentially the same question68:

...the US Defense Department said that China flew its H-6 bomber along the "Nine-Dash line" after Trump
spoke with Tsai Ing-wen by phone. It is interpreted by some people in the US as a warning in response to
Trump's remarks on China. What is your comment ?

Here was his answer this time:

... Chinese military aircrafts have been carrying out normal flight operations in the relevant airspace over
the South China Sea, which we hope can be perceived correctly by the relevant party.

67 http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/2511_665403/t1423512.shtml
68 http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/t1423851.shtml

69
Again, a generic answer, but no denial. Those who think the 8 December drill happened will point to
these answers as confirmation that China did fly the bomber over the South China Sea. These answers
from Geng, however, do not confirm anything. If the 8 December drill did not happen, Geng certainly
would not say "FOX News made this story up. We did not fly our bombers over the South China Sea on 8
December". This is not what a spokesperson would say, even if asked about something that never
happened. What he would do, is give some canned, non-specific response that basically says nothing,
which is what Geng did. If he did say that the fake drill never happened, then there would be articles
accusing China of being liars by denying a fact (the fact being a fact because it was reported by FOX
News).

Foreign Ministries never challenge propaganda nonsense. If they did, China could have came out any
time over the past few years and said "By the way, the international media constantly calls our bombers
"nuclear bombers", but our bombers are not capable of carrying nuclear weapons." This would have
ended that issue quicker than the Jerry's tweet from Arms Control Wonk, since the issue is
uncontroversial. But they never did that. Confronting propaganda is not usually something that is done
by foreign ministries.

Extras
Some extra information, if you're interested.

1) Remember the 25 November drill and how the US media reported on it 10 days later, saying that
China flew a plane around Taiwan a week before the phone call, wanting you to believe that they did so
in response to the call? The fake drill on 8 December happened 6 days after the phone call, so they didn't
have to make that stupid connection to a flight that happened in the past any more. Nevertheless, in the
Independent article about the fake drill, this is the first sentence 69:

China flew a nuclear-capable bomber outside its borders in a show of force less than a week before US
President-elect Donald Trumps phone call with the president of Taiwan, it has been reported. (emphasis
added)

They are still saying that the flight happened before the phone call, even when that is not the case
anymore. Making that stupid connection was so stressful that they continue to do it even after it's not
necessary anymore.

2) Look at this from the Daily Beast article70:

I want to stress that the Taiwan issue concerns Chinas sovereignty and territorial integrity, and involves
Chinas core interests, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said during a news briefing. Upholding
the One China principle is the political basis for developing China-U.S. ties. If this basis is interfered with
or damaged, then the healthy development of China-U.S. relations and bilateral cooperation in important
areas is out of the question. The warning comes hours after reports emerged indicating China flew a

69 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-bomber-flight-send-message-donald-trump-taiwan-
a7468021.html
70 http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/12/12/china-flies-nuclear-bomber-over-south-china-sea.html

70
 nuclear-capable bomber over a disputed part of the South China Sea, in a move U.S. officials say was
meant to send a message to Trump. The Xian H-6 bomber, at times accompanied by fighter jets, flew along
the demarcation line between China and disputed territories, including Taiwan, Fox News reported, citing
U.S. officials...

Earlier in the paper, I quoted Geng Shuang, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson. The website I linked
to contains the entire press conference that the Daily Beast is referring to. This is the part that the Daily
Beast quoted:

The Taiwan question bears on China's sovereignty and territorial integrity and touches our core interests.
Adherence to the one China principle serves as the political foundation for the development of China-US
ties. If this foundation is wobbled and weakened, then there is no possibility for the two countries to grow
their relations in a sound and steady way and cooperate on key areas.

The wording is different, but this is obviously what the Daily Beast is referring to.

According to the Daily Beast, Geng Shuang's "warning" came "hours" after the report of the fake drill. If
you go the website I cited, you will see that Geng's press conference was on 12 December. FOX News
reported the fake drill on 9 December.

Geng's "warning" came 3 days after the report of the fake drill, not "hours" after. But saying that Geng's
"warning" came "hours" after the reports of the Chinese flight of their "nuclear-capable" bomber, a flight
which was a "warning" to the US, sounds much scarier, doesn't it?

The passage above that I cited from Geng, which the Daily Beast quoted, is not the whole response that
he gave at that point in the press conference. Here was the rest of his response:

We urge the new US administration and leadership to be fully aware of the high sensitivity of the Taiwan
question, stick to the one China policy and the principles of the three joint communiqus, and approach
Taiwan-related issues with prudence so as to avoid any serious disruption and harm to the overall interests
of the China-US relationship.

The Daily Beast, and every other US-based MSM outlet, says that Trump's reckless remarks are going to
get us into a nuclear war with China. This is clear because China is warning the US by flying their
"nuclear-capable" bombers all over the damn world. But in the very next sentence after the one quoted
by the Daily Beast (and there are dozens of MSM outlets that quoted the same sentence the Daily Beast
did), Geng says exactly what will happen if Trump doesn't knock it off:

He says Trump's actions could cause "...serious disruption and harm to the overall interests of the China-
US relationship".

That doesn't sound very scary! The MSM couldn't say that China flew it's bombers as a warning to
Trump, and that if he doesn't knock it off, there could be a "serious disruption and harm to the overall
interests of the China-US relationship"! That certainly doesn't make the consequences of Trump's call
sound very scary. The MSM decided it was better to replace the explicitly stated consequence of a
"serious disruption" to the China/US relationship with the fabricated consequence of a nuclear war.

71
Interestingly, there is a news outlet in Singapore that said this 71:

His comments came hours after Fox News reported that China has reportedly flown a long-range nuclear-
capable bomber in the South China Sea last week, a move seen as sending a message to the incoming new
US administration.

The exact same lie about Geng's comments coming "hours" after the FOX News story is found in both the
Daily Beast and this outlet in Singapore. Two separate news outlets from opposite sides of the world tell
the exact same lie. Did these sources make the exact same "mistake", or is the MSM really just one
worldwide propaganda machine?

3) At the bottom of the Daily Mail article on 10 December, which covers the fake drill in the South China
Sea, they have a video "China and Russia Conduct Military Drills in South China Sea". Is their intent for
the reader to think that this is video from the fake drill? Probably. In reality, this video is from a drill on
28 September 2016.

Quick note on South China Sea Patrols

You hear a lot about China patrolling the South China Sea. In 2015, the US conducted 700 patrols of the
South China Sea, and were expected to have over a thousand in 2016. Those patrols by the US on the
other side of the globe are perfectly OK, but if China patrols the same area, which is just off their
coastline, they are "sabre rattling". Got it.

Left/Right
Let's look at the reaction to these stories from the left and right (I used to consider myself on the
"liberal" side of the political spectrum, until liberals started pissing me off even more than
conservatives).

In one article from the Daily Kos, they remark that "China has already sent a nuclear message to Trump"
(emphasis added). Liberals soak up the propaganda far easier than most.

In another way-over-the-top article from the same website, the author (Ursalafaw) refers to the fake 8
December drill by quoting from the Daily Beast, and highlights this passage in bold:

The warning comes hours after reports emerged indicating China flew a nuclear-capable bomber
over a disputed part of the South China Sea, in a move U.S. officials say was meant to send a
message to Trump.

Remember how we discussed this lie (in the "tangent" section), and found out that the "warning" came
3 days after the (fake) drill, and not hours after? "Ursalafaw" decided not only to quote from the most
obnoxious article that covered the fake drill, but then highlights the outright lie from that article. Typical
liberal imbecile.

71 http://www.todayonline.com/chinaindia/china/trump-questions-one-china-policy-without-beijing-concessions

72
The Daily Beast passage quoted by Ursala ends with this:

Officials have warned the flight was the first of its kind in more than 18 months.

Ursala responds to that sentence with this:

I take umbrage with the "first of its kind" statement, because in fact checking these quotes I
found this...

At this point, Ursala quotes a passage from the 5 December FOX News article that discussed the 25
November drill, the one that tried to link China's plane flight to a triggering event from the future. Ursala
thinks that by finding this article, she showed that the Daily Beast comment about the 8 December fake
drill being the "first of its kind in more than 18 months" was incorrect. She thinks her phenomenal "fact
checking" skills found this "error"! When the Daily Beast said that the 8 December flight was the "first of
its kind in more than 18 months", they meant the first time in 18 months a Chinese plane flew along the
nine dash line, not the first time a Chinese plane flew anywhere 72. She's a imbecile, and she thinks she's
a genius.

Then she says this:

The Japanese do not routinely scramble F-15 fighter jets, let alone eight of them, just to see how neat they
look flying in formation.

Yes, Ursala, the Japanese do routinely scramble their jets. In the 2016 calendar year, Japan scrambled
jets against the Chinese alone 842 times.73 The total number of scrambles in the 2016 calendar year for

all countries is 1,189 times. This works out to over 3 scrambles per day. Japan scrambles their
jets routinely, you fucking imbecile.

She blabbers on more after that, but you get the point.

Then there are the comments at the end of the article from the Dailykos snowflakes. Here are a few:

72 And we now know that this comparison to the 31 March 2015 drill is also a lie.
73 In this report from the Japanese government, they report that in the first 3 quarters of fiscal year 2016 (1 April
to 31 December), they scrambled their jets to escort Chinese planes 644 times. In this report from the Japanese
government, they report that in the last quarter of fiscal year 2015 (1 January to 31 March), they scrambled their
jets to escort Chinese planes 198 times. 644+198=842 times for the 2016 calendar year. I used the numbers from
the same charts to get the 1,189 number below.

73
We are in "deep shit" because China is running routine military drills, something that every military in
the world does.

The Chinese jets are escorted by Japanese jets, not American jets. Imbecile.

Excellent job of writing crap. This person is terrified of a routine military drill.

In this report from Japanese Defense Department, they document every intrusion into Japanese airspace
since 1967 (p. 6). During this period, China violated Japan's airspace one time, on 13 December 2012.
One time in the past 50 years. They do not violate neighboring countries airspace "rather frequently",
you fucking jackass.

Let's compare this liberal nonsense to an article on one of these drills from Hotair. That article linked to
the NBC News story that covered the 25 November drill (without providing any comment on it). This is
one of the top conservative blogs, yet only two people cared enough about this story to even comment
on it. Here were those two comments:

74
I am not a conservative, and I think most people that visit Hotair are complete jackasses, but at least on
some subjects they can think clearly and cut through the propaganda. These comments contain the
answer to this whole paper and all the nonstop MSM propaganda coverage about these Chinese military
drills:

So what.
China runs military drills, just like every other advanced country. So fucking what.

If you are open-minded, you should realize by now that MSM stories on regarding these two plane flights
(one real, one fake) are 100% propaganda nonsense. The next step is for you to realize that this story is
not unique in any way. Every single story in the MSM (at least every story covering politics) is complete
nonsense, just like these. A paper like this could be written about every one of them. I would do it, but
there are too many lies coming out every day to possibly keep up.

The worldview of Americans is based on hundreds of stories just like this - stories that are all lies. The
number of Americans that understand what is happening in the world is likely less than a few thousand.
If you strip away all the lies in the MSM, all you have left is the truth that there is one country rampaging
all over the world ever since WWII, killing millions of people. That is the US.

Maybe you're thinking: "I don't have time to research every story I read to this extent to find the truth!"
You don't have to. Other people are doing this. There is objective truth out there, and people are writing
about it. You can find the truth on websites that the MSM labels "fake news". 74 Or, you can continue to
read stories like what I talked about here and pretend like they are telling you the truth.

74 There is, of course, nonsense in the alternative media as well. It is up to you to find the truth. Most people that
have a mind open enough to look for the truth will end up coming to similar conclusions. The closed-minded
people will never look to begin with.

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