Category Archives: China

China, Research, Science, Technology

A quantum leap in the pursuit of a secure and new type of internet

QUANTUM SCIENCE

Quantum

China’s quantum satellite, Micius. The satellite has beamed entangled particles of light to ground stations more than 700 miles apart.

Scientists have taken a major step towards building a global quantum internet by beaming “entangled” particles of light from a satellite to ground stations more than 700 miles apart.

The feat paves the way for a new kind of internet which draws on the curious ability for subatomic particles to be connected to one another despite being far apart and even on opposite sides of the planet.

Researchers believe that by linking particles together in this way, encrypted information could be sent from place to place across a quantum network with no danger of it being decrypted and read by others, as can be done on the existing internet.

Jian-Wei Pan, who led the research at the University of Science and Technology in Hefei in China, said the demonstration was a moment he had been dreaming of since 2003. “Many people thought it was a crazy idea, because it was very challenging,” he said.

The work obliterates the previous world record for sending pairs of photons that are connected to one another by a strange rule of quantum physics first spotted by Einstein. Until now, the farthest researchers had ever sent entangled photons stood at a mere 65 miles, less than one tenth of the distance achieved in the satellite experiment.

“It’s a first step, and a major step, toward creating a global quantum network,” said Pan. “All the previous methods are limited to about 100km so can only work within a city.”

The experiment relied on the world’s first quantum-enabled spacecraft: a Chinese satellite called Micius. As it soared over China, the satellite created pairs of photons with properties that were linked through quantum entanglement. It then beamed these simultaneously to ground stations in Delingha, Lijiang and Nanshan. Each pair of particles travelled up to 1,240 miles before they reached their destinations. Details of the study are published in Science.

Pan said that the kind of cryptography used to keep data safe today relies on complex mathematics which can often be defeated by hackers. “If a future quantum network is established, the security is ensured by the laws of physics, which are unconditionally secure,” he said. “It will be beneficial for all human beings.”

Martin Stevens, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, said he was impressed with the work. “These types of experiments are not easy to do, even within the controlled confines of a laboratory environment. Doing them between two remote ground locations and a satellite flying overhead at a speed of thousands of kilometres per hour is mind-bogglingly difficult.”

In 2015, Stevens sent entangled photons down a 65-mile length of optical fibre. That is good enough for quantum communications between neighbouring towns, but it cannot work for much greater distances, because the signal is gradually lost the more optic fibre it travels down. The advantage of using a satellite is that the particles of light travel through space for much of their journey.

Anton Zeilinger at the Vienna Centre for Quantum Science also praised the work. “It’s an important step towards a worldwide quantum network. If you envisage a quantum network, the question is how to cover large distances and that cannot be done with glass fibres on the ground. You have to go into space, because in glass fibres you lose the signal. It’s very important to show that it works with satellites, so I’m very excited by this.”

Zeilinger is working with Pan on an intercontinental quantum network and hopes to have results to report before the end of the year.

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China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, United Nations, United States

The United States warns: ‘be prepared for military action against North Korea’

NORTH KOREA

south-korea-us-military-drill

The United States is prepared for military action against the threat posed by North Korea.

America’s National Security Adviser, Lieutenant General HR McMaster, has said America should be “prepared” to take military action against North Korea.

McMaster has called on other world powers to prevent the rebellious regime from developing a nuclear arsenal, saying the state was acting in “open defiance of the international community”.

Although he said the Trump administration would prefer to “work with others” to resolve the issue “short of military action”, he said the US must be prepared for its armed forces to intervene.

“North Korea poses a grave threat to the United States, our great allies in the region, South Korea and Japan … but also to China and others. And so, it’s important, I think, for all of us to confront this regime,” he said.

He added: “This regime is pursuing the weaponisation of a missile with a nuclear weapon. This is something that we know we cannot tolerate … The President has made clear that he is going to resolve this issue one way or another.”

“It may mean ratcheting up those sanctions even further and it also means being prepared for military operations if necessary.”

President Donald Trump has said he would “not be happy” if North Korea carried out another missile test, adding that his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping would likely feel the same.

He refused to say whether this meant military action, saying: “We shouldn’t be announcing all our moves. It is a chess game. I just don’t want people to know what my thinking is.”

Mr Trump also called the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un “a pretty smart cookie” for being able to hang onto power after taking over the isolationist state at a young age.

On Saturday, a North Korean mid-range ballistic missile appeared to fail shortly after launch, the third such failure this month.

North Korean ballistic missile tests are banned by the United Nations because they are seen as part of the North’s drive to produce a nuclear-armed missile that could reach the US mainland.

  • 02 May 2017

– Japan sends its biggest warship to defend U.S. supply vessel in the Korean peninsula

Japan is to deploy its biggest warship to help protect the threat posed by North Korea. It will accompany a U.S. supply vessel as tensions continue to mount in neighbouring waters over North Korea’s missile tests. This will be the first Japanese operation since the East Asian country relaxed laws limiting its military activity. Japan is at serious risk of being attacked by North Korea, not least because it is now a close US ally.

The U.S. supply vessel has been dispatched to refuel American naval forces in the region, including the Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group that North Korea has threatened to sink.

Under conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan has been gradually expanding the role of its heavily-regulated military. The country’s post-World War II constitution means it can only use force in cases of self-defence.

A 2015 update expanded this to cover some acts of “collective self-defence,” such as protecting the equipment of an ally who is defending Japan.

Japan’s helicopter carrier, the Izumo, is 249 meters long and can carry up to nine helicopters, according to military records.

It will depart from Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, to join the U.S. ship, and protect it on its journey to the sea off Shikoku in western Japan.

North Korea launched a missile test on Saturday. U.S. and South Korean officials said the test, from an area north of the North Korean capital Pyongyang, appeared to have failed, in what would be the North’s fourth consecutive unsuccessful missile test since March.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said he would not rule out the possibility of military action against the dictatorship. Mr Trump said Americans should not underestimate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s intelligence, and added: “We have a situation that we just cannot let — we cannot let what’s been going on for a long period of years continue.”

The Korean War between the capitalist South and communist North, which paused in 1953 with a ceasefire, has never formally ended. U.S. troops were embroiled in the conflict.

– North Korea warns of nuclear test ‘at any time’

North Korea Fifth Nuclear Test

Pyongyang has promised to test its nuclear and ballistic missile capability on a regular basis. The United States says it is ready to attack North Korea if it conducts another nuclear test.

North Korea has warned today that it will carry out a nuclear test “at any time and at any location” set by its leadership, in the latest rhetoric to fuel jitters in the region.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been running high for weeks, with signs that the North might be preparing a long-range missile launch or a sixth nuclear test – and with Washington refusing to rule out a military strike in response.

A spokesman for the North’s foreign ministry said Pyongyang was “fully ready to respond to any option taken by the US”.

The regime will continue bolstering its “pre-emptive nuclear attack” capabilities unless Washington scrapped its hostile policies, he said in a statement carried by the state-run KCNA news agency.

“The DPRK’s measures for bolstering the nuclear force to the maximum will be taken in a consecutive and successive way at any moment and any place decided by its supreme leadership,” the spokesman added, apparently referring to a sixth nuclear test and using the North’s official name, the Democratic Republic of Korea.

The North has carried out five nuclear tests in the last 11 years and is widely believed to be making progress towards its dream of building a missile capable of delivering a warhead to the continental United States.

It raises the tone of its warnings every spring, when Washington and Seoul carry out joint exercises it condemns as rehearsals for invasion, but this time fears of conflict have been fuelled by a cycle of threats from both sides.

The joint drills have just ended, but naval exercises are continuing in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) with a US strike group led by the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson.

The Pyongyang foreign ministry spokesman said if the North was not armed with “the powerful nuclear force”, Washington would have “committed without hesitation the same brigandish aggression act in Korea as what it committed against other countries”.

The statement reasserts the North’s long-running rhetoric on its military capabilities.

Seoul also regularly warns that Pyongyang can carry out a test whenever it decides to do so.

Pyongyang’s latest attempted show of force was a failed missile test on Saturday that came just hours after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pressed the UN Security Council to do more to push the North into abandoning its weapons programme.

Tillerson warned the UN Security Council last week of “catastrophic consequences” if the world does not act and said that military options for dealing with the North were still “on the table”.

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China, North Korea, United States

The United States should not act alone in dealing with North Korea

NORTH KOREA

While most Western political and diplomatic attention is currently focused on Syria, both in terms of the chemical weapons attack and in the aftermath of the U.S. missile strike, a potentially greater drama is taking place thousands of miles away in the East China Sea. A U.S. battle group, headed by the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, has arrived off the Korean peninsula in a show of military strength intended to warn Kim Jong-un of the consequences of his continued provocations and sabre-rattling.

President Donald Trump has indicated that Syria is less of an issue for the United States than North Korea, which continues to pose as a nemesis and direct threat to American allies in the region and even to the US west coast. In view of what transpired in Syria, the world needs to be prepared for the unexpected here, too. Mr Trump has hardly hidden his anger or intent in dealing with Pyongyang. Using his preferred vehicle for issuing executive statements – social media networking site Twitter – he stated: ‘North Korea is looking for trouble. If China decides to help, that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them.’

In another message, he appeared to link a trade rapprochement with China if Beijing were willing to help contain the threat posed by North Korea. Since Chinese president Xi Jinping was in America for trade talks with Mr Trump last week it must be assumed that part of their discussions involved tactics for dealing with North Korea. The U.S. have a clear national security interest in stopping further conflagration and proliferation of its nuclear weapons programme and China has a clear regional interest in averting the chaos that would be caused by a war on the peninsula.

A common approach, however, does appear to be developing: talks between Chinese and South Korean ministers have agreed ‘strong additional measures’ if Kim Jong-un conducts further nuclear or missile tests. China has already imposed economic sanctions including a ban of all imports of North Korean coal.

Pyongyang’s irrationality makes it essential that America does not act unilaterally. This cannot be allowed to happen. President Xi was sufficiently concerned to telephone the White House and assure Mr Trump that China was fully ‘committed to the goal of denuclearisation on the Korean peninsula’ but has also emphasised the need to resolve problems through peaceful means. A flashpoint could come within the next 48 hours, birthday of the state’s founder Kim Il-sung, or later this month when the ruling party celebrates its 85th anniversary. If the regime decides to fire missiles to mark one of these occasions, China and America must respond in concert.

Appendage:

North Korea Arsenal

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