Communist China is expected to step up intelligence analysis of President Trump and U.S. military strike capabilities after the Pentagon’s dispatch of B-2 bombers to Guam in a deception operation designed to keep the secrecy of Saturday’s B-2 raid on Iran.
“Xi Jinping is now demanding his intelligence services provide a whole new assessment of Donald Trump’s statements on nuclear weapons from the Trump 45 administration and even before,” said former State Department China hand John Tkacik.
Increased intelligence collection by the Ministry of State Security likely will include questioning North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for new details of his past exchanges with Mr. Trump during meetings in Singapore in 2018 and Hanoi in 2019.
The Chinese will also want to know if Mr. Trump has a sophisticated grasp of strike weaponry.
China also will try to determine if the U.S. under Mr. Trump has updated the use of B-2s in the single integrated operational plan, or SIOP, the pre-determined nuclear war plan for China, Mr. Tkacik said.
“The bottom line is the deployment of B-2s, their support and logistical infrastructure to Guam gives Xi Jinping considerable pause — not just with his Taiwan planning but with the Philippines, South China Sea, and Japan,” he said.
Mr. Tkacik said China’s advanced satellite reconnaissance and surveillance network had early warning of several B-2s deployed to Diego Garcia last month. “So they went hunting around for the air mobile B-2 support units for an idea of how the Air Force plans and organizes strategic bombing campaigns for this never-before-used system,” he said.
People’s Liberation Army units charged with monitoring B-2 bombers were probably surprised by the Iran raid because no one knew what Mr. Trump was planning. The PLA also probably was fooled by his announced plan that a decision on any bombing of Iran was two weeks away.
After the Iran strikes, PLA intelligence likely searched for indicators and telemetry from command and control systems of the bombers by working backward from imagery at the U.S. bomber base, deployment of air refueling units and ground preparations.
China views Guam as closer to strategic targets in China and North Korea than Iran, and PLA analysts probably think the U.S. island requires a major upgrade to support B-2 combat operations in the western Pacific, Mr. Tkacik said.
If the Pentagon is considering attacks on hardened missile and nuclear sites in China during a future Taiwan conflict, that would pose an entirely new strategic environment for the PLA, he said.
“The PLA air force is now scratching its collective head asking, ‘What on Earth would a couple of B-2s strikes do in China?’ A B-2 strike on China would escalate in a nanosecond,” Mr. Tkacik said.
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.