{"id":10020,"date":"2023-11-06T02:48:52","date_gmt":"2023-11-06T02:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inbudgetalerts.com\/business\/flights-tracking-north-korean-sanctions-busters-anger-china\/"},"modified":"2023-11-06T02:48:52","modified_gmt":"2023-11-06T02:48:52","slug":"flights-tracking-north-korean-sanctions-busters-anger-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inbudgetalerts.com\/?p=10020","title":{"rendered":"Flights tracking North Korean sanctions busters anger China"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

On a clear day over the East China Sea, the voice of a Chinese military official crackles over the radio of a Canadian military patrol plane to tell it to stay away from Pengjia, an islet controlled by Taiwan but claimed by Beijing. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were nowhere near [the islet],\u201d the flight\u2019s US crew commander told the Financial Times. \u201cClose is 12 miles \u2014 we were 35 to 40 miles away.\u201d<\/p>\n

The job of the Aurora CP-140 long-range surveillance aircraft is to \u201cdetect, deter and disrupt\u201d tankers carrying illicit shipments of oil and petroleum products to North Korea, often from Taiwan and China, in violation of UN sanctions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the mission, which feeds its findings to a US-led grouping that includes members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, has angered Beijing, which suspects western countries of using the pretext of North Korean sanctions violations to bulk up their military presence in the region. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not innocent passage but clearly provocative behaviour,\u201d said Cao Yanzhong, a research fellow at the People\u2019s Liberation Army\u2019s Academy of Military Sciences. \u201cChina\u2019s armed forces initiating surveillance against them is a natural reaction and an inevitable choice as we seek to safeguard our national security and sovereignty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under UN sanctions, transfers of refined oil and petroleum products to North Korea are capped at 500,000 barrels a year. This forces leader Kim Jong Un\u2019s regime to rely on a criminal network of brokers and smugglers to sustain its economy. <\/p>\n

The Aurora\u2019s flights are designed to assist enforcement of the sanctions regime, which the US has accused China of undermining.\u00a0But the mission has also become enmeshed in growing geopolitical tensions between China and the west in the strategically important Pacific region.<\/p>\n

With the FT on board one recent flight, the 35-metre Aurora takes off from the US Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, leaving the tropical beaches of the southern Japanese island behind and heading south-west across the East China Sea towards the Taiwan Strait, steering clear of Chinese and Taiwanese airspace.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe try not to poke the bear,\u201d said one of the Canadian pilots over the roar of the plane\u2019s turboprop engines. Members of the Aurora\u2019s crew declined to be named for security reasons. \u201cWe keep doing our jobs, but we do them in a way that won\u2019t make [the Chinese] too unhappy.\u201d <\/p>\n

China\u2019s opposition to the flights has grown increasingly assertive. The previous day, a Chinese fighter jet flew within 5 metres of the unarmed Canadian aircraft, releasing flares immediately in front of its nose.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were flying in international airspace,\u201d said Major General Iain Huddleston, commander of Canada\u2019s 1st Air Division, who was on board during the incident. \u201cThe proximity and the aggressive manoeuvring of the Chinese aircraft, and the firing of the flares in front to the point where they nearly hit us, was unnecessary and unsafe.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/source><\/source>\"Map<\/picture><\/figure>\n

While the FT was on board, a Chinese fighter pulled alongside the Aurora, backing off and climbing into the distance once the Canadian plane started to turn away from the mainland. It was also briefly intercepted by a Taiwanese jet after entering Taiwan\u2019s air defence identification zone.<\/p>\n

Both intercepts were \u201ctotally safe and professional\u201d, the Aurora\u2019s pilots said. But they confirmed the Canadian plane had been subjected to aggressive PLA Air Force manoeuvres in the past.<\/p>\n

Last month, the Pentagon accused Chinese fighter jets of conducting several hundred \u201crisky and coercive\u201d aerial intercepts against US and allied aircraft over the past two years. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey have every right to intercept us [while operating near their airspace], but they don\u2019t have the right to do it unsafely,\u201d said Huddleston.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in the area helping to enforce the UN resolution,\u201d he added. \u201c[China is] a signatory to that particular resolution, so I don\u2019t know why they would attempt to undermine our mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

He admitted the Aurora had \u201cmomentarily\u201d strayed into Chinese airspace \u201calmost two years ago\u201d, but stressed it was an isolated incident.<\/p>\n

Beijing has dismissed criticism of its air force\u2019s tactics, saying western militaries should keep their distance from China\u2019s borders. The flights \u201ccreate a sense of unacceptability or even a bit of humiliation for Chinese military elites because they regard these US military activities as a show of force,\u201d said Li Mingjiang a professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.<\/p>\n

<\/source><\/source>\"The<\/picture>
The Aurora CP-140 long-range surveillance aircraft which took off from Kadena Air Base on Japan\u2019s Okinawa island to patrol for tankers suspected of violating sanctions against North Korea<\/span> \u00a9 Christian Davies\/FT<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Aurora sends its findings to the Enforcement Coordination Cell, which in addition to the Five Eyes allies includes Japan, South Korea, France, Germany and Italy.<\/p>\n

US Navy Captain Jennifer Kidd, who oversees the ECC, told the FT in an interview at the US Yokosuka naval base outside Tokyo that \u201cNorth Korea has blown through\u201d the UN\u2019s energy import limit \u201cevery year, and it keeps getting earlier every year\u201d.<\/p>\n

Kidd said Beijing allows ships involved in North Korea\u2019s illicit oil trade to operate with \u201cimpunity\u201d along the border of China\u2019s maritime contiguous zone, an area up to 24 nautical miles off the coast, and to stop for repairs in Chinese ports. \u201cThe US provided over a hundred images of vessels\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. and said \u2018Look, here is your evidence, please take action.\u2019 But we have not seen them do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

China\u2019s foreign ministry said the UN resolutions did not authorise the deployment of military forces or surveillance \u201cunder the pretext of monitoring violations\u201d, and called on the US and its allies to \u201cimmediately cease any adventurous and provocative actions near China\u2019s coast\u201d.<\/p>\n

Kidd acknowledged that for the US, the ECC\u2019s role in co-ordinating allied intelligence gathering in east Asia offers \u201cintangible\u201d benefits beyond the North Korea issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf something bad were to happen\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. I don\u2019t want to use Taiwan as the example, but if we needed to do combined operations wherever it is, whether that is for disaster relief or an actual conflict scenario, the ability to work, communicate and operate together is the core of what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

But she added that \u201cif China were to actually enforce these sanctions, we\u2019d have much less of a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf China is not going to use its massive navy to interdict these vessels, if it\u2019s not going to stop them from going into and using its ports, my personal view is that they don\u2019t have a right to question our operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

On board the Aurora, its crew spots a Gabon-flagged vessel suspected of helping deliver oil to North Korea. The Canadian plane descends to an altitude of 500ft to investigate.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we are down at a low level, because we can get live imagery, and because we can talk to them on the radios, we can get high-fidelity information that is not available when tracking by satellite,\u201d said the Aurora\u2019s tactical co-ordinator.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The plane also acts as a deterrent, he added. \u201cWe stop people feeling comfortable when making these transfers, because they know we might suddenly sweep out of the clouds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Kathrin Hille in Taipei and Joe Leahy in Beijing<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
Video: North Korea and the triads: gangsters, ghost ships and spies | FT Film<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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