Romanov Points

The main topic this week was the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China. At the congress, in addition to reports on the implementation and overfulfillment of plans, Xi Jinping will be re-elected as the leader of the PRC and the party.

Already today, even before the elections, President Xi said that by 2027 the country’s army would be modernized to the world level, in addition, he announced his readiness, including by military means, to return Taiwan to China.

Now, when the mandate to govern the country will be received for another 5 years, the PRC leadership can move from a policy of “endless concerns” to asymmetric responses to Western provocations, or maybe start provoking itself. At the same time, before the US elections, that is, until November 7, a window of opportunity will open before China. Democrats will experience the “Pelosi Syndrome” and will not be able to adequately respond to any actions of China, fearing not only to lose the elections to the Congress and the Senate, which is almost a foregone conclusion, but to lose them devastatingly.

Deliveries of weapons and dual-use items to Russia (which were already carried out, but covertly and in limited quantities), dispersal of global energy prices (while having access to cheap Russian fuel), aggressive work with the national governments of European countries aimed at destroying the EU as a pro-American organization, these are only the most obvious actions that will be available to Xi immediately after re-election.

A new revolution of the chessboard will take place after the Republicans come to power in the United States. In the reports of think tanks associated with US intelligence and the Republican Party, it is China that is indicated as the main “headache” of the United States and emphasizes the need to prevent Russia from finally leaving under Chinese influence. Albeit at the price of accepting its claims to Ukrainian territories.

The re-election of Xi, the rise to power of the right in European countries, the victory of the Republicans in the United States - all this will become key prerequisites for the conclusion of a new Yalta 2.0, which will fix the already happened fact of the transition from a unipolar world to a multipolar one.

The Government of India announced the successful launch of a missile from a nuclear submarine submerged in the Indian Ocean. The test is regarded as an obvious signal in the direction of China, which is pursuing a policy of actively expanding its presence in this region. It is possible that a missile was used that could potentially strike Beijing.

The launch, according to the Government of India, was carried out in the Bay of Bengal from the Indian-made Arihant nuclear submarine. Everything else is being kept under wraps, including the type of missile and the exact test area. It is not even reported that only such launches were carried out earlier.

Arihant (Sanskrit for Destroyer of Enemies) is the first Indian nuclear-powered strategic submarine of its own production, it entered the country’s Navy in 2016. Its displacement is 6 thousand tons, length is 111 meters, the crew is 95 people.

The submarine has four vertical launchers and can carry up to 12 K-12 ballistic missiles with a range of 750 km or four K-4 missiles with a range of up to 3,500 thousand km. At present, the second submarine of this class has already been tested, and in August it was introduced into the fleet. Two more submarines with a large displacement will be built. They will already have eight launchers and, accordingly, more missiles of the same types. But these submarines will operate only in the Indian Ocean - to the Pacific, closer to China, they will not be sent. Arihant-class submarines are too noisy, the enemy will notice them relatively easily.

Now attention: K-12 and K-4 missiles with nuclear warheads can strike all over Pakistan and parts of China. At the same time, K-4 is capable of hitting even the Beijing zone. However, for this, the rocket must be launched from the northern part of the Bay of Bengal. Apparently, it is precisely because of the delicacy of the topic that the Indian authorities are hiding the area where the current test is being conducted. By the way, this summer India introduced its first home-built attack aircraft carrier into the fleet.

New and not yet built ships of the Japanese Navy with an upgraded tracking and guidance system Aegis will be able not only to carry out missile defense tasks, but also to launch long-range missiles capable of attacking the territory of a potential enemy, being outside the zone of its destruction. In size, they will correspond to light aircraft carriers, which will soon enter service in the country’s naval forces.

Two of these new ships are planned to be transferred to the Navy in 2027 and 2028. They will have a displacement of approximately 20,000 tons and a length of 210 meters. For comparison, the Japanese Izumo helicopter carrier, which is currently being converted into a light aircraft carrier, has a displacement of 19.5 thousand tons and a length of 248 meters.

These two new and rather massive ships will be equipped with especially powerful radars for ground-based missile defense systems Aegis Ashore. Tokyo previously refused to place them on the territory of the country. The large size will make it possible to place numerous mines for various types of missiles on these ships. In addition to providing for the needs of missile defense, they will be able to launch missiles capable of delivering long-range strikes against land and sea targets while outside the enemy’s kill zone.

Their type has not yet been reported. However, in addition to strikes on missile bases in North Korea, Japanese experts also talk about the need to disable military airfields and missile facilities in China’s coastal regions in the event of a conflict over Taiwan.

The new ships, Tokyo believes, will be more efficient than its current eight Aegis-equipped ships. This will allow, according to the plan of the command, to more successfully redistribute the forces of the Navy to counter both the DPRK and China in the Sea of ​​Japan and the East China Sea.

Japan currently has a two-tier missile defense system. Ships equipped with Aegis systems are armed with SM-3 interceptor missiles, which are supposed to shoot down enemy ballistic missiles in the middle stage of the trajectory.

If this fails, a second level of missile defense will be activated using US-made Patriot PAC-3 mobile ground installations capable of intercepting the missile at the final stage of its flight. In addition, it is planned to use modernized Type-3 medium-range anti-aircraft missiles of our own design to combat cruise missiles.

At the same time, the Japanese armed forces do not yet have the means to combat hypersonic combat systems. To accelerate the development of means to intercept such weapons, the draft state budget for fiscal year 2023 is expected to allocate separate funds, the amounts of which have not yet been announced.

South Korea is actively increasing the export of weapons - in 2021 it delivered them abroad for $ 7 billion. Not so much like, but the amount has doubled in a year! This year, it is expected to reach 10 billion, i.e., it will almost triple compared to 2020.

Poland, in particular, announced its readiness to purchase about a thousand (!) South Korean K2 tanks and more than 600 South Korean K9 self-propelled guns. If the deal goes through, its price will reach at least $7 billion. In August, within the framework of this plan, the first bilateral contract was already signed.

K9 self-propelled guns go especially well - they praise their firing range, rate of fire, and speed of movement. Australia and Egypt have already decided to buy them. Next in line are Finland and Estonia.

The case is not limited to armored vehicles. The Emirates signed a contract for the purchase of South Korean surface-to-air missiles. Seoul is also developing its own combat aircraft, which it would like to produce together with Indonesia.

In short, in the list of arms trading countries, South Korea has now moved from 14th to 8th place. A very impressive result.

India has asked Iraq, the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to increase LNG supplies, Indian Business Standard reports, citing sources.

“India made the decision to increase LNG imports from these countries at affordable prices against the backdrop of a reduction in the supply of this energy carrier from Gazprom since the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine,” the newspaper cites sources.

The traditional supplier of Russian LNG to India is Gazprom Marketing and Trading Singapore (GMTS), a subsidiary of Gazprom. In 2018, it signed an agreement with India for the supply of 2.5 million tons of LNG over 20 years.

According to the interlocutors of Business Standard, GMTS, under pressure from Western restrictions, began to reduce LNG supplies to India since May, but the republic refused to apply penalties to the company. Efforts are now being made at the diplomatic level for Gazprom to resume LNG supplies in full.

In the current environment, given the increase in gas consumption in India, the government of the country decided to diversify the sources of gas and “acquire it wherever possible, at the most suitable prices.”

“At the moment, the problem is not the availability of gas, but the price of it,” the interlocutors stressed.

At present, TASS notes, natural gas provides 6.2% of India’s energy needs.

The government plans to increase gas consumption to 15% by 2030. India supplies 85% of its oil and 55% natural gas needs through imports.