The U.S. national security community is increasingly focused on threats emanating from the Indo-Pacific. Threat Status at The Washington Times delivers daily and big-picture coverage of the region — from China's expanding military to high-stakes economic and technology developments and the plight of democracy among America's allies.
A South Korean court on Monday sentenced ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol to two years in prison for illegally receiving manipulated opinion polls for free from a political broker, potentially helping him secure his party’s 2022 presidential bid, in return for political favors.
The United States, the United Kingdom and a dozen other Western and Asian countries reasserted on Sunday that China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea are illegal based on a 2016 arbitration ruling.
President Trump appeared to mix up Iran and Japan Wednesday while describing a missile attack on a U.S. aircraft carrier, telling reporters at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, that 111 missiles had been fired at the USS Abraham Lincoln by the “Islamic Republic of Japan.”
China allocated millions of dollars in additional relief funding for disaster-hit areas Wednesday after severe storms destroyed homes and displaced thousands of people and a landslide killed 21 forestry workers.
At the Karansky Quarry in occupied Donetsk, Chinese machinery has helped revive an industrial site that had been idle for more than a decade.
China’s military recently built two new multiple missile launch systems that appear capable of firing massive numbers of ballistic and cruise missiles at Taiwan or against regional U.S. and allied forces, according to a new Air Force think tank report.
Congressional Republicans are celebrating Christian pastor Ezra Jin Mingri’s release from a Chinese prison just weeks after Mr. Trump brought up his case when meeting Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing.
In 2019, a bipartisan Senate investigation of “Confucius Institutes” exposed policymakers to China’s pervasive use of America’s world-renowned higher education to promote false narratives.
A spirited South Korean bid to supply 12 Arctic-capable diesel-electric submarines for the Royal Canadian Navy lost out to a German pitch Monday, as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney prioritizes links with NATO over ties to Indo-Pacific partners.
Sen. Rick Scott is lobbying the Trump administration to reverse forced-labor tariff carve-outs for pharmaceuticals, proposing placing duties on drugs linked to China’s use of Uyghur forced labor.
The Trump administration on Monday criticized China for conducting a test launch of a provocative submarine-launched, nuclear-capable missile that the State Department called a sign of Beijing’s continuing arms buildup.
In a political-legal battle that is consuming the Philippines — and likely being closely watched by the U.S. State Department — the impeachment trial of Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte got underway in Manila on Monday.
China’s navy test-launched a long-range ballistic missile Monday from one of its nuclear-powered submarines in the South Pacific in a rare move that drew protest and concerns from countries in the region.
Indonesian security forces recovered the body of an American pilot killed by rebels last week in the restive province of West Papua, according to footage posted online by Jakarta.
A Tibetan died late Thursday after setting himself on fire outside the U.N. Headquarters in New York in a dramatic act of protest against a new Chinese law stressing ethnic unity.
Air CEO Tara Murphy Dougherty joined Washington Times Threat Status Director Jason Sickels to break down how AI-driven platforms are already buying back hundreds of days of equipment downtime across the Navy, Army, and Air Force.
America’s shipbuilding capacity has collapsed — and China knows it. Sen. Todd Young lays out why rebuilding the industry isn’t just about commerce, but about national security and deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.
Several months ago, I began studying artificial intelligence at Florida Atlantic University’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Overseas opposition to China’s new “Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law” took off Thursday after Beijing made the act official a day earlier.
The Pentagon is moving nearly every unmanned and autonomous systems program into a new office, in a bid to catch up in a global production race the U.S. is currently losing by volume.
President Xi Jinping said Wednesday that the ruling Chinese Communist Party must strengthen and further modernize its military forces and continue to embrace Marxist ideology.
American warfighters equipped with the latest technology increasingly find themselves grappling with an endless sea of information — so much so that the U.S. military needs new tools to cut through and make sense of the data overload.
Congress is wading into a federal grand jury investigation into alleged financial crimes committed by China-based businessman Neville Roy Singham, a U.S. citizen, and his connections to left-wing activist groups.
The European Union rolled out two measures to protect its steel industry and limit e-commerce small parcels on Wednesday as the 27-nation bloc grapples with its staggering trade imbalance with China.
Watching the war in Ukraine, it feels as if drones have rewritten warfare.
A China-based American tycoon is funding a Beijing-backed influence campaign in the U.S. to block construction of large computer data centers, according to a new think tank report.
President Trump on Tuesday congratulated China on its “massive … win” after the Supreme Court shot down his executive order trying to restrict birthright citizenship in the U.S.
A self-exiled billionaire Chinese business tycoon once believed to be among China’s wealthiest men was sentenced Monday to 30 years in a U.S. prison for a massive financial fraud.
Balancing fleet readiness with long-term modernization is one of the central challenges facing the U.S. Navy. North Carolina Representative Pat Harrigan explains why over-indexing on either side could undermine America’s ability to deter or defeat China.
The U.S. faces two peer nuclear competitors for the first time in history — and Sen. Deb Fischer says America is not keeping pace. From 200 bombers to new nuclear shipyards, she lays out what it will take to deter China and defend the Indo-Pacific.
The Washington Times obtained a previously undisclosed congressional assessment by Indo-Pacific Command chief Adm. Samuel Paparo calling for $122 billion in new military spending — the minimum he says is needed to deter China.
Justin Fanelli, Chief Technology Officer of the Department of the Navy, makes the case that commercial-first acquisition and modular ship capabilities are closing the gap with China — and says the service is finally moving fast enough to prove it.
Strategic bombers and warplanes from China and Russia conducted a joint strategic patrol over the Sea of Japan, East China Sea and western Pacific on Saturday, drawing scrambled U.S. and allied intercepts and protests from Japan and South Korea.
A roughly 40-hour sea journey on a dinghy with a dying phone. Detention in South Korea. That’s just part of what Chinese dissident Dong Guangping endured to escape his native country. He arrived late last week in Canada, a destination he had eyed for more than a decade.
The U.S. Navy and its defense industry partners are moving beyond the prototyping phase and toward production of cutting-edge drone boats, a key Pentagon official said this week, with expected increases in defense budgets set to help fund a revolution in unmanned maritime technology.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un observed major weapons tests and called for the military’s “deadly and destructive offensive posture” to be bolstered, state media reported Friday, as South Korea announced it would drastically boost its drone warfare capabilities.
North Korea has commissioned a 5,000-ton destroyer that leader Kim Jong-un touts as a symbol of the country’s growing naval and nuclear capabilities, state media reported Wednesday, as Pyongyang seeks to expand its ability to project military power at sea.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry announced Friday that it would train 500,000 “drone warriors” in a major shift into the asset class that is dominating warfare in Ukraine.
Ben recaps the Threat Status IndoPac 2026 event at the U.S. Navy Memorial in Washington.
The Energy Department is urgently working to strengthen U.S. nuclear weapons capabilities as dual threats from China and Russia mount, according to the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Taipei welcomed Western statements of support Thursday after Beijing reiterated its intent “to exercise China’s jurisdiction” in waters east of the democratic island in what alarmed overseas capitals called “novel” offshore actions.
If my relatives who fought in World War II were alive today, they would admonish elected U.S. officials about this century’s axis of dictatorships.
Chinese-Philippine tensions were raised over China’s recent placement of some type of floating platform near the Scarborough Shoal, a resource-rich islet claimed by both Beijing and Manila.
President Trump’s proposed “Golden Fleet,” a major modernization and expansion initiative that he announced in December 2025, aims to aggressively scale up American naval dominance and reinvigorate the country’s domestic shipbuilding industry. Analysts say the maritime transformation will be crucial in the event of hostilities with China.