Part VI in the Must Read Alaska series on former Gov. Bill Walker’s alliance with China during his years as governor
Former Gov. Bill Walker once promised Alaska he’d build a gasline to Nikiski. To fulfill that campaign promise, he signed agreements has would have had China pay for 75% of the cost of building the project, and Walker signed contracts giving China the advantages to build the components for the project. He signed agreements to give away contracts for 75% of the natural gas to China.
Downing: The loyalty pledge that Bill Walker made to Communist China in 2017
Alaskans showed Walker the door in 2018. He withdrew from his race for reelection on Oct. 19, 2018, but remained on the ballot, and limped to the finish with only 5,757 total votes, or 2% of the vote.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy let all those agreements with the communist Chinese expire.
Four years later, while Walker tries once again to get control of state strategic assets, the world power dynamic has changed dramatically. We’ve entered another Cold War with Russia and China allying against the United States.
At the U.S. Naval Academy this week, a security analyst on a discussion panel told the Academy audience that the Chinese are not only preparing for war with the United States, but are focusing on Alaska, where the published Chinese war plans show an intent to attack U.S. military bases as a way of interrupting a major military advantage the United States has that is closest to China.
At the same time, China and Russia are in an arms race with the United State to develop hypersonic, maneuverable glide missiles. These missiles can defeat traditional anti-missile systems in the U.S. because after they go up, they return to the atmosphere, where they are maneuverable at five to 10 times the speed of sound. The United States’ sophisticated missile deterrent systems don’t have time to figure out where a missile’s actual target is.
China has already tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic glide vehicle, carried on a rocket, that circled the globe and landed within 24 miles of its target in 2018.
From Science Magazine, comes a vivid description of how these hypersonic, maneuverable missiles would work against Alaska or other targets:
“High in the sky over northwestern China, a wedge-shaped unmanned vehicle separated from a rocket. Coasting along at up to Mach 6, or six times the speed of sound, the Xingkong-2 “waverider” hypersonic cruise missile (HCM) bobbed and weaved through the stratosphere, surfing on its own shock waves. At least that’s how the weapon’s developer, the China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics, described the August 2018 test. (China did not release any video footage.) The HCM’s speed and maneuverability, crowed the Communist Party’s Global Times, would enable the new weapon to ‘break through any current generation anti-missile defense system,'” writes Richard Stone for Science.
“For decades, the U.S. military—and its adversaries—have coveted missiles that travel at hypersonic speed, generally defined as Mach 5 or greater. Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) meet that definition when they re-enter the atmosphere from space. But because they arc along a predictable ballistic path, like a bullet, they lack the element of surprise. In contrast, hypersonic weapons such as China’s waverider maneuver aerodynamically, enabling them to dodge defenses and keep an adversary guessing about the target,” Stone explains.
The advent of maneuverable hypersonic missiles and the fact that the U.S. appears to be behind the curve may be a “Sputnik” moment for the country. Sputnik, the earth-orbiting satellite launched in 1957 by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, vividly demonstrated that the Soviets had outpaced the United States in space technology.
China is now considered the greatest security challenge for the United States, even more so than Russia, according to a Pentagon’s public version of the classified Nuclear Posture Review.
While the document, released on Thursday after a seven-month delay, says that conflict with China “is neither inevitable nor desirable,” it describes an effort to prevent China’s “dominance of key regions,” a reference to military dominance in the South China Sea and aggression against an independent Taiwan. The Pentagon warned that China is working to undermine American alliances in the Indo-Pacific and is using its growing military to coerce and threaten neighbors.
The Department of Defense’s National Defense Strategy directs the department to act urgently and says that China is “the pacing challenge for the Department.”
“The PRC remains our most consequential strategic competitor for the coming decades. I have reached this conclusion based on the PRC’s increasingly coercive actions to reshape the Indo- Pacific region and the international system to fit its authoritarian preferences, alongside a keen awareness of the PRC’s clearly stated intentions and the rapid modernization and expansion of its military. As President Biden’s National Security Strategy notes, the PRC is ‘the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order, and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do so,'” the report said.
The report also says Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Kremlin’s growing alliance with China are serious threats to the U.S. and her allies, with nuclear weapons, cyber operations, and long-range missiles.
Downing: Bill Walker’s alliance with Xi, who is now readying for war with the West
China and Russia as partners “now pose more dangerous challenges to safety and security at home, even as terrorist threats persist.”
Alaska dodged a bullet, by not allowing China to make it a “debt trap” province, as Bill Walker intended to do. Alaska is not selling natural gas to what has become the United States’ most worrisome enemy.
But, while former Gov. Walker was stopped in his tracks by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, it’s still not clear Alaska will dodge a missile in the coming decade of tension between major adversaries on the global stage. Alaska’s understanding of its military vulnerabilities will be a major focus for the next governor.
100k souls in the Interior… 300+K in the Anchorage Bowl… Not a worry for China. They have snuffed far more Falon Gong and Uyghur prison camp inhabitants than that for organ transplants and absolutely any other reason, probably in some cases annually, and they continue to do so with impunity.
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Keep in mind that China’s ICBMs typically have 10 warheads on each vehicle, and they could do nearly all the population centers of consequence with one missile. Should it come to pass, the lucky ones will be at or very close to the point of impact. In a way, it would be way worse if they released hordes of their soldiers on us…
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Also, it is looking like we will need Russia before they need us, but they WILL need us when the Chinese have no other need for them nor the desire to share control. Putin is keen enough to figure that out.
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All that said, the worse thing anyone could do with knowledge of that sort, is to live in fear. We need to strive to visualize the future that we intend to encounter. May those visions and our future be filled with love and light.
“…….In a way, it would be way worse if they released hordes of their soldiers on us…….”
They don’t have the capability.
I’m still waiting for someone to cite a culture in the history of the world, whose largest trading partner was simultaneously its worst enemy. Ours is a unique circumstance.
China bill shows his true colors and his IQ
Yeah, but Brandon could just blow up the Alaska-China pipeline like they did with the Nord Stream I & II.
China is determined to be the great adversary of the USA for this century. Knowing this, why are the multinational corporations and universities permitted by DC politicians to continue technology and machinery transfers to China? The answer can only be a blinding – and ultimately self-consuming – greed, coupled with corruption in high office. The nation’s highest executive office is presently occupied by a corruptocrat, and there are many more like him in all branches of government.
The world is mocking our city, state, and country for hosting the communist party at the Captain Cook Hotel.
“Not arguing from a position of power.”
We have a lot of work to do. ?
Yes, but does Walker have an offshore bank account in China ? This pales in comparison to the compromised Donald John Trump, who stole highly sensitive government documents that did not belong to him. One has to wonder who he was going to sell them to. If I’d stolen secret or top secret documents from my job I would prosecuted
Allen, get a grip dude, pull back from the clap trap and seek help in logical thinking. To begin down this path pull the MSNBC I.V. out of your arm and start thinking.
Now do Hillary.
Just curious, how do you know exactly that President Trump “stole highly sensitive government documents that did not belong to him”? Were you an eye witness? I doubt it. Whose published claptrap are you believing and deceminating and why?
POTUS can’t steal documents. He has every right to them.
If you want to go down this road, one Barry Suweato (know as Barak Hussein Obama) should be under the jail awaiting a firing squad.
Civics. Get a textbook pre 1975 and read it.
I’m genuinely curious. Clearly Trump has broken you.
What will be good enough for you? Seeing him in GITMO? Executed by firing squad? Burned at the stake like a witch?
Your level of obsession leads to really bad places, and in the end you’re still gonna be empty and broken.
Really want to get even with the big bad Orange Man? Instead of stewing in anger and paranoia, go out and get involved in your community. Volunteer at a shelter. Drive the elderly to their doctors. Give blood.
Clean up the streets where you live.
You get the idea. Instead of obsessing on revenge on Orange Man, prove him to be everything you think he is by doing the things for others you know in your heart he’d never do for them.
But I’m betting hatred and obsession is more rewarding for you.
Old tailpipe Bill, the worst governor in Alaska’s history, would gladly have the Communist Chinese nuke Alaska as an act on behalf of Bill’s revenge on Alaskans. What else would you expect from an old man who hangs with pedophiles?
What does Must Read Ak say to ConocoPhillips, BP, and Exxon, all who do business with those evil communists?
And Walmart, and Home Depot, and Lowes…
And what about Alaska oil being shipped to China? Yikes.
M. Unfortunately doing business with China is hard to stop until our government allows factories to make products here. Too many regulations make it impossible to compete.
I’ll bet the computer or phone you use to complain about Walmart and Home Depot was made in China. Along with most electronics in your life. Don’t be a hypocrite.
Trudeau, our next door runt PM, has said he admires China’s efficiencies. How is this SUPPOSED to make the dumbed down invaded “feel”? How do you feel? Better see the doc.
Walker should be the subject of intense federal investigations. But the DOJ is too busy going after parents who protest at school board meetings to care.
Besides, he’s on their team.
Why would Alaskans vote for a traitor, to his country and his state? Reject Bill Walker.
Notice the messed up contract Walker had “negotiated” for our gas. Alaska should be first take, long term, low fixed cost contract ahead of any and all others. The US should be second. Any other remaining can be auctioned off at market prices.
China wouldn’t nuke Alaska.Do you think they would want it uninhabitable?They want everything Alaska has to offer…They will come slithering,sneaking,sea,boat military might.How the Chinese laugh at Walker seduced by a bowl of rice….
And China will get Red Dawned in a hot minute.
Applies to anyone thinking about slithering, and sneaking by sea, boat, military might to Alaska. You forget, we got the military in Alaska, flying in the air, all the time. And good luck in ground combat, between the vets, Natives, and citizens.
Get b—-slapped back and sent home in coffins.
Yeah but they would need to nuke Alaska to rid their new territory of the welfare seekers that live there. I don’t think they wouldn’t want to take over Alaska then immediately start paying out federal checks to 90 percent of the population.
China is incapable of doing anything more than throwing rocks for which it would suffer massive retaliation from not only the US, but Japan & Taiwan as well.
All the bluster from China is nothing but bluster. Their military has not seen combat except for a border skirmish with India using, I kid you not, sticks. It’s not even clear they won that one.
The anti-China rhetoric being fed to us by the government’s media wonks is meant to accomplish something. Maybe covering up hunter & joe biden’s corruption. Maybe to provide us yet another perpetual enemy… uncle sam needs his perpetual enemy’s to justify the feeding frenzy of the MIC.
Whatever the reason, China is no threat to anyone. That’s why they stomp their feet and bluster so much.
Keep infighting with one another and our chinese missile be gliding overheads shortly. Our local leaders fight over every bit of power and who gets what. While the people fight over who gets the last word, we won’t even know what hit us.
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