China's Defense/Military Breaking News Thread

[crobato]

Russia, China Sign Intellectual Property Agreement
By NABI ABDULLAEV
Published: 15 Dec 20:13 EST (01:13 GMT)

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Russia and China have signed an agreement to protect intellectual property in the field of military technical cooperation, an act meant to stop China from copying Russian weapons designs.

The document was signed Dec. 11 during a visit by Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov to Beijing, the 13th meeting of the bilateral commission for technical and military cooperation and the first in three years.

A source in the Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow insisted on such a meeting during President Dmitry Medvedev's visit to China in May and the visit of Wen Jiabao, chairman of the Chinese State Council, to Moscow in October.

Russian officials have accused China, the biggest importer of Russian arms in the 1990s, of replicating the designs of Russian weapon systems and aircraft. The most prominent scandal unfolded over the Chinese analog of the Russian Su-27 fighter (NATO codename Flanker), called the J-11B.

In 1995, Russia and China signed a contract for the licensed assembly of 200 Su-27CK fighters under the codename J-11 in China. Russia supplied about half of the assembly kits between 1998 and 2004, when China refused the remaining ones. Chinese media have reported on the creation of the J-11B fighter with a locally developed engine and radar.

Russian defense analysts have warned that China may edge out Russia from the international arms market by offering cheaper versions of popular Russian defense systems. They also note that China is buying increasingly fewer Russian arms, yet consistently demanding to buy the more advanced weapons sold by Moscow.

It is unlikely that this intellectual property agreement will stop China from copying Russian arms, but Russia will have more leverage to demand that China stop re-exporting its copies to other countries, said Konstantin Makiyenko, a defense analyst with the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a think tank in Moscow.

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[crobato]

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Changed and unchanged: PLA 30 years after China's reform, opening-up

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2008-12-18 09:42:22 Print

Special report: 30 Years of Reform & Opening Up

WENSHAN, Yunnan, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- To 53-year-old Liu Zhihe, it is easy to grab a machine gun and fight on the battleground, but it is a big headache to press any button on a computer keyboard in the office.

"It's a tough job for me to learn new technologies such as office automation," he said. Liu has been on active service for 36 years and is now political commissar of the Wenshan Military Area Command of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) in southwestern Yunnan Province.

"In this regard, we cannot keep abreast of young soldiers who have relatively higher education, active thought, broad vision, abundant knowledge and better ability to study," he said.

Today's soldiers are under much greater study and training pressure than before against the backdrop of a globalization and information era, he said.

"So many things take place in the world every day and lots of new technologies are invented. But if you want to be a winner in hi-tech information warfare, you have to keep learning and updating your knowledge all the time," he said.

BETTER LIFE

Changes to the 2.3-million-servicemen-strong PLA over the past several decades are even more than those catalogued by Liu.

In addition to the three large-scale disarmaments in 1985, 1997and 2003 in which China announced a reduction of 1.7 million servicemen in total, the most visible changes can be found in the necessities of life: Dacron clothes were substituted by more comfortable wool-like uniforms; tents or makeshift houses were replaced by garden- and villa-like barracks; servicemen used to rely on their own feet or horses for transport while today, they have SUVs; eating one's fill was the ultimate goal in the past when the country was short of food, but nowadays, varieties and nutritive value of foods are stressed.

"We had no shooting range then," Liu recalled. "Now, a variety of training grounds and armaments are available. We also carry out exchanges with foreign militaries and draw on useful training experiences from them."

Another change that impressed Liu most was the marked increase of messing allowance for young soldiers.

"It was 12 yuan (1.8 U.S. dollars) for a soldier per month. Now, it is 18 yuan a day," he said.

Liu described the changes as "earth-shaking" and attributed them to the reform and opening-up policy initiated 30 years ago.

"The reform and opening-up brought about the rapid growth of China's economy and boosted the overall national strength, which laid a solid foundation for the building of national defense and army," he said. "As a result, the country can afford to raise the defense budget somewhat and help improve the life of army men."

"Simply speaking, we officers and soldiers are beneficiaries of the policy."

 

[kunmingren]

Sorry Bad Posting

 

[kunmingren]

I m surprised that I havent seen anyone posting this news on the thread:

China confirms its navy will fight Somali pirates

By Mark McDonald Published: December 18, 2008


HONG KONG: The Chinese government confirmed Thursday that it would send naval ships to the Gulf of Aden to help in the fight against piracy there. The mission, which is expected to begin in about two weeks, would be first modern deployment of Chinese warships outside the Pacific.

The announcement came as the captain of a Chinese cargo ship that was attacked Wednesday in the gulf said his crew had used beer bottles, fire hoses and homemade incendiary bombs to battle a gang of pirates that had boarded his vessel.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, said Thursday that 1,265 Chinese merchant ships had passed through the gulf this year. Seven have been attacked.

"Piracy has become a serious threat to shipping, trade and safety on the seas," Liu said at a news briefing in Beijing. "That's why we decided to send naval ships to crack down on piracy."

He gave no details about the size of the naval mission, but a Beijing newspaper, The Global Times, reported that the navy was likely to deploy two destroyers and a supply ship.

Today in Africa & Middle East

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"We absolutely welcome all nations, because as we've said all along, piracy is an international problem that requires an international solution," Lieutenant Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the U.S. Fifth Fleet, said Thursday from Bahrain.

Cyrus Mody, a spokesman for the International Maritime Bureau in London, a clearinghouse for piracy information and maritime-safety issues, also welcomed the news of the Chinese mission when told about it.

"It's definitely a positive development, and it will be welcomed," he said. "The sea area being threatened there is vast, and the number of assets from the international navies is not sufficient."

The maritime bureau said 109 ships had been attacked in the gulf this year and 42 had been hijacked. Fourteen ships are currently being held for ransom, including the Sirius Star, a Saudi supertanker, and the Faina, a Ukrainian cargo ship carrying 32 armored tanks and other heavy weapons.

Mody said Thursday that negotiations with the hijackers were continuing for the release of the ships. "But the owners don't like to talk about that, for the safety of the crew members," he said.

The Chinese Navy, officially known as the People's Liberation Army Navy, has long concentrated on coastal defense and regional maneuvers. But in recent years it has embarked on an ambitious modernization plan.

The principal mission for Chinese naval vessels in the Gulf of Aden would presumably be the escorting of Chinese cargo ships and oil tankers from the Middle East bound for Chinese ports. Policing patrols, some maritime experts suggested, would be secondary.

But Mody said Thursday it would be important for the Chinese effort to be melded "on an operational level" with other navies already patrolling in the gulf. The European Union recently began an anti-piracy operation in the gulf, and several other nations have a naval presence there, including India, the United States and Russia. "We would like to see cooperation so everyone is in the loop," Mody said. When a hijacking attempt occurs, "whoever's closest can respond as fast as possible."

Peng Weiyuan, the captain of the Chinese cargo ship that was attacked Wednesday in the gulf, gave a harrowing account of his crew's battle on deck with the Somali pirates. His remarks came in an interview with China Central Television.

After seven pirates managed to board his vessel, the Zhenhua 4, Peng said his crew fought the gang to a standstill using whatever was at hand until the pirates "gestured to us for a cease-fire." The crew then retreated to a locked area on the boat and sent a distress signal.

According to a duty officer at the Piracy Reporting Center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a nearby Malaysian warship was alerted and sent a helicopter to the scene. When the helicopter fired around the Chinese boat, the pirates panicked and fled in a speedboat.

The Malaysian warship did not apprehend the pirates, Mody said, because international rules are still unclear about where the pirates could be detained and how they could be tried.

Mody said the Zhenhua 4 operates under the flag of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. At 26,000 tons, it is an average-size cargo vessel that might have been carrying machinery.

I wonder which ship they will send

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[crobato]

You can direct the question to the Naval Forums, where there is a thread on this. To make it short in my opinion, the ships that would go would be DDG 167 Shenzhen, DDG 168 Guangzhou, and either 887 or 888 as the replenishment ship.

 

[snoreta]

Hi,
In my point of view Government of any country prevail military for the protection of country people. Chinese Military works are very different from the work of general public.They planned everything before doing some work or we can say before attack on any country.

Snoreta

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[snoreta]

Hi,
Thanks for the information about the Chinese Military & Defense.

Snoreta

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[crobato]

Taiwan echos China's call for end to hostilities
by Staff Writers
Taipei (AFP) Jan 1, 2009

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Taiwan on Thursday reacted positively to Chinese President Hu Jintao's call for a truce with the island, in a further sign of rapidly improving ties between the formerly bitter foes.

"We're pleased to see cross-Strait ties developing on the axis of 'peaceful development,' under which the two sides can negotiate, launch exchanges and benefit each other," Taiwan's presidential office spokesman Wang Yu-chi said in a statement.

By calling a truce, the two sides "can terminate hostilities, further understanding of each other and bolster cooperation," he said.

The statement came a day after Hu called for military cooperation between the two sides in an address marking the 30th anniversary of a message from China to "compatriots in Taiwan" calling for peaceful reunification.

In his statement Thursday, Wang urged Beijing to take note of the differing views of Taiwan's people as its pro-China government pushes for detente.

Closer engagement with China "is the mainstream opinion here and has won comprehensive support from international community, but Taiwan is a democratic society whose people harbour different views towards the future of Taiwan... which we should respect," he said.

China and Taiwan have been governed separately since the end of a civil war in 1949 but Beijing considers the island part of its territory and is determined to get it back, by force if necessary.

But relations have improved dramatically since Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang party took office last May.

The two sides last month launched historic direct daily flights, postal and shipping services, in a move expected to boost trade ties.

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[crobato]

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Inside the Ring
Bill Gertz INSIDE THE RING (Contact)
Thursday, January 1, 2009


China's pearls

A recently published U.S. military report identifies China as the most significant potential threat for the U.S. military in the future and discloses new details of what it describes as Beijing's efforts to build political influence and military power along the strategic oil-shipping route from the Middle East to China -- a so-called "string of pearls" strategy.

The report, "Joint Operating Environment 2008," was produced by the Norfolk-based U.S. Joint Forces Command. It lists China as the main emerging nation-state threat that U.S. forces could confront in a future conflict, along with potential threats from Russia, the Middle East and other places in Asia. It was made public Nov. 25.

Of China, the report states that its current emergence from isolation is "the most significant single event on the international horizon since the collapse of the Cold War." China's buildup of large numbers of nuclear submarines and an increasingly global navy reflects "worries that the U.S. Navy possesses the ability to shut down China's energy imports of oil -- 80 percent of which go through the straits of Malacca," the report said. It quotes a Chinese naval strategist as saying: "the straits of Malacca are akin to breathing itself -- to life itself." According to the report, 15 million barrels of oil transit each day through the Strait of Malacca, and 17 million barrels pass daily through the Strait of Hormuz. The report includes a graphic showing China's political influence and military presence near oil-shipping lanes. Among them are the development of naval bases, overland supply routes, commercial port facilities, a planned canal through Thailand and two military bases in the South China Sea.

New details contained in the report about Chinese efforts toward greater influence and military bases in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia updates the "string of pearls" strategy that was first reported by The Washington Times in 2005 based on a Pentagon report.

The report lists Pakistan's Gwadar port, near the mouth of the Persian Gulf, as a naval base and surveillance facility for China, and also lists the commercial-shipping container port at Hambantota, Sri Lanka, and the Woody Island airfield as part of the Chinese shipping-lane-protection strategy. The report stated that China's military was given "considerable autonomy" for its buildup by ruling Communist Party political leaders. It said that China "is not yet strong enough militarily, and needs to become stronger over the long term." Chinese leaders' internal debate, however, is not settled on the question of whether military forces should be offensive or defensive, or should emphasize continental or maritime forces, or a mix of the two, the report said.

China's government insists its forces are defensive in nature, but the development of satellite weapons and cyberwarfare capabilities have raised concerns among Pentagon planners.

"The Sino-American relationship represents one of the great strategic question marks of the next twenty-five years," the report said. "Regardless of the outcome - cooperative or coercive, or both - China will become increasingly important in the considerations and strategic perceptions of joint force commanders," the report said.

Chinese Embassy spokesman Wang Baodong called the idea of China having a "string of pearls" strategy a "fantasy." "It's true that China is conducting cooperation with some Asian countries in various fields including ports developing, but it's justifiable business for China and the joint ventures are for commercial purposes only," Mr. Wang said. "People should see China's activities with a sensible and more balanced approach. As facts have proven, China's activities are for mutual benefit and peaceful purposes, constituting no threat to anyone else."

The report said the Chinese are studying the strategic and military thinking of the United States and in 2000 had more Chinese military students in U.S. graduate schools than the U.S. military, a practice that has helped China learn U.S. military war-fighting and strategy.

 

[pla101prc]

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Inside the Ring
Bill Gertz INSIDE THE RING (Contact)
Thursday, January 1, 2009


China's pearls

A recently published U.S. military report identifies China as the most significant potential threat for the U.S. military in the future and discloses new details of what it describes as Beijing's efforts to build political influence and military power along the strategic oil-shipping route from the Middle East to China -- a so-called "string of pearls" strategy.

The report, "Joint Operating Environment 2008," was produced by the Norfolk-based U.S. Joint Forces Command. It lists China as the main emerging nation-state threat that U.S. forces could confront in a future conflict, along with potential threats from Russia, the Middle East and other places in Asia. It was made public Nov. 25.

Of China, the report states that its current emergence from isolation is "the most significant single event on the international horizon since the collapse of the Cold War." China's buildup of large numbers of nuclear submarines and an increasingly global navy reflects "worries that the U.S. Navy possesses the ability to shut down China's energy imports of oil -- 80 percent of which go through the straits of Malacca," the report said. It quotes a Chinese naval strategist as saying: "the straits of Malacca are akin to breathing itself -- to life itself." According to the report, 15 million barrels of oil transit each day through the Strait of Malacca, and 17 million barrels pass daily through the Strait of Hormuz. The report includes a graphic showing China's political influence and military presence near oil-shipping lanes. Among them are the development of naval bases, overland supply routes, commercial port facilities, a planned canal through Thailand and two military bases in the South China Sea.

New details contained in the report about Chinese efforts toward greater influence and military bases in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia updates the "string of pearls" strategy that was first reported by The Washington Times in 2005 based on a Pentagon report.

The report lists Pakistan's Gwadar port, near the mouth of the Persian Gulf, as a naval base and surveillance facility for China, and also lists the commercial-shipping container port at Hambantota, Sri Lanka, and the Woody Island airfield as part of the Chinese shipping-lane-protection strategy. The report stated that China's military was given "considerable autonomy" for its buildup by ruling Communist Party political leaders. It said that China "is not yet strong enough militarily, and needs to become stronger over the long term." Chinese leaders' internal debate, however, is not settled on the question of whether military forces should be offensive or defensive, or should emphasize continental or maritime forces, or a mix of the two, the report said.

China's government insists its forces are defensive in nature, but the development of satellite weapons and cyberwarfare capabilities have raised concerns among Pentagon planners.

"The Sino-American relationship represents one of the great strategic question marks of the next twenty-five years," the report said. "Regardless of the outcome - cooperative or coercive, or both - China will become increasingly important in the considerations and strategic perceptions of joint force commanders," the report said.

Chinese Embassy spokesman Wang Baodong called the idea of China having a "string of pearls" strategy a "fantasy." "It's true that China is conducting cooperation with some Asian countries in various fields including ports developing, but it's justifiable business for China and the joint ventures are for commercial purposes only," Mr. Wang said. "People should see China's activities with a sensible and more balanced approach. As facts have proven, China's activities are for mutual benefit and peaceful purposes, constituting no threat to anyone else."

The report said the Chinese are studying the strategic and military thinking of the United States and in 2000 had more Chinese military students in U.S. graduate schools than the U.S. military, a practice that has helped China learn U.S. military war-fighting and strategy.

this report obviously is intended for obama to read. i wonder if obama wants to replicate the hardline approach that bush and clinton took at the beginning of their respective office terms, only to soften up later on upon the realization that they cant really tame China.