The D Brief: Sullivan in China; SecNav’s spicy message to industry; Ukrainian F-16 crash?; Fire on the Red Sea; And a bit more.

President Biden’s national security advisor met with China’s leader in Beijing Thursday as the final portion of Jake Sullivan’s 14 hours of talks with top Chinese officials on their home field, as it were, over the past three days. 

Sullivan and Xi Jinping discussed “counternarcotics, military-to-military communications, and AI safety and risk,” as well as “cross-Strait issues [read: Taiwan], Russia’s war against Ukraine, and the South China Sea,” according to the White House. 

From Beijing’s POV, Xi is said to have emphasized “that in this changing and turbulent world, countries need solidarity and coordination, not division or confrontation.”

After the meeting, Xi’s military said in a statement, “China urges the US side to stop military collusion with Taiwan, stop arming Taiwan, and stop spreading false narratives on Taiwan.” It’s unclear what the defense ministry meant with the last allegation about false narratives, and Chinese officials did not publicly elaborate. 

Beijing’s military also said its “mission and duty” is “to resolutely oppose ‘Taiwan independence’ and promote reunification,” vowing to “definitely take countermeasures” against Taiwan independence. Those pushing for independence in Taiwan, the defense ministry said, “are as incompatible with peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait as fire with water.” 

One takeaway from three days of talks: “U.S. Indo-Pacific command leaders would soon speak by phone to their counterparts in China's southern theatre command, which covers its southern seas,” Reuters reports. However, the two sides reached “no new agreements on the South China Sea,” Reuters writes, and “We didn't discuss the American election,” Sullivan told reporters. 

Update: China still has not cleaned up its abusive act in the western Xinjiang region, the UN says. “In particular,” a spokesman for the UN’s human rights chief said this week, “we understand that many problematic laws and policies remain in place [in Xinjiang], and we have called again on the authorities to undertake a full review, from the human rights perspective, of the legal framework governing national security and counter-terrorism and to strengthen the protection of minorities against discrimination.”

“Allegations of human rights violations, including torture, need to be fully investigated,” the spokesperson said in a statement Tuesday, two years after their most recent assessment of China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region—where thousands of Muslim Uyghur people have been subjected to discrimination, torture and worse at the hands of Chinese authorities. 

Around the Pacific: 

• “Japan coast guard plans to build its largest patrol vessel,” though it wouldn’t be commissioned for another five years, Kyodo news reported Tuesday; 
• “Japanese mayor supports plan to deploy Ospreys to adjacent Marine Corps base” at Iwakuni, Stars and Stripes reported Thursday; 
• And “Indonesia, Australia to Hold Largest Joint Defense Drills in November,” Bloomberg reported Thursday.

Welcome to this Thursday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 2005, Hurricane Katrina made its second and most devastating landfall in the U.S. when it crossed from the Gulf of Mexico and over Mississippi and southeast Louisiana.

Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro issues an invitation—and a warning—to industry. In an op-ed for Defense One, Del Toro said Department of Navy contracts are being written to guarantee access to program data, and that officials would use all legal means to make vendors adhere to them.

More steps: He added that Navy Department acquisition officials would pay closer attention to vendors’ record of living up to their contracts in general. He announced a new initiative, dubbed PINACL, that would go after individual employees of contractors who engage in fraud or poor performance in connection with DON contracts.

And echoing a recurring concern, he said the Navy would “question the wisdom of prioritizing shareholder dividends and stock buybacks over necessary investments in underfunded shipyards and delayed shipbuilding programs.” Read all that, here.

Developing: A U.S.-made F-16 has reportedly crashed inside Ukraine, with the outcome likely the result of pilot error, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing a U.S. official. However, “The Ukrainian Air Force wouldn’t confirm the crash or the status of the pilot.” 

Catch a glimpse of Ukraine’s homemade wooden drones, some of which have a range of more than 450 miles, in a new BBC report published Thursday. “We assemble [the drones] like Ikea,” said a co-founder who is a former engineer in the Australian army. The drones are “basically flying furniture,” he said. Read on, here. 

New: Up to $1B for Switchblades. AeroVironment, maker of Switchblade loitering munitions, announced on Wednesday that the Army has issued a 5-year contract to buy up to $1 billion worth of the weapons under its Directed Requirement for Lethal Unmanned Systems. The press release did not specify which Switchblade variant is at issue, nor their cost. 

And Booz Allen Hamilton was just awarded a three-year contract with the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency for about $421 million. It concerns CISA’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program, which reaches “13 government agencies, including NASA, IRS, and the Department of Health and Human Services,” BAH said in a news release Thursday. More info, here. 

Fire on the Red Sea: After a Houthi attack last week, the oil tanker M/V Sounion has been alight now for seven consecutive days, the European Union’s naval mission to the Red Sea said Wednesday. Earlier this week, the Pentagon told reporters the vessel appears to be leaking some of the one million barrels of crude oil it was carrying when attacked on August 21 traveling from Iraq to Greece.

“These are simply reckless acts of terrorism which continue to destabilize global and regional commerce, put the lives of innocent civilian mariners at risk, and imperil the vibrant maritime ecosystem in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the Houthis own backyard,” said Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder. 

According to the EU on Wednesday, “There’s no oil spill, and the ship is still anchored and not drifting.” Still, “All passing vessels in the vicinity are required to proceed with utmost caution” since the anchored tanker “poses both a navigational risk and a serious and imminent threat of regional pollution.” 

Expert reax: “The environmental impact is potentially huge, multiples of what occurred with Exxon Valdez,” said former NATO commander retired Navy Adm. Jim Stavridis. 

Lastly: “The cost of insurance for ships sailing through the Red Sea has nearly doubled” since that Houthi attack on the M/V Sounion, Reuters reported Wednesday from Aden. 

By the numbers: “Additional war risk premiums, paid when vessels sail through the Red Sea, were quoted up to 0.75% of the vessel from 0.4% before the attack, although they were higher at 1% in February.” Read more, here.