Is China planning a Military Strike beyond its borders?

China slams US for violating 'national interests'

By DAVID WIVELL
Associated Press Writer


BEIJING (AP) -- A top Chinese general criticized the U.S. on Thursday for selling arms to Taiwan and accused Washington of only being cooperative when it needs help with international campaigns.

Relations between the countries are generally good, but Taiwan is a sensitive point. The two sides split during a civil war in 1949, and China sees the self-governing island as a renegade province. The Bush administration's approval last year of a major arms sale to Taiwan led China to break off military talks with the United States.

"You keep challenging and violating our core national interests, and we have to react," People's Liberation Army Chief of the General Staff Chen Bingde said at a meeting in Beijing with his U.S. counterpart, Gen. George Casey.

Chen said the United States has sought China's help in international operations such as the war in Afghanistan or in fighting piracy off Somalia but undermined the mutual trust needed for such cooperation with its arms sales to Taiwan.

"Once the United State needs us to cooperate, they are good to us, they are friendly to us. Otherwise, they can do anything they want, even to offend the Chinese people. But I don't think that kind of cooperation can continue," Chen said at the meeting, which was open to the media.

Casey, the Army chief of staff, said Washington understood Beijing's position on Taiwan, but that there needed to be understanding on both sides.

"It's difficult to build a lasting relationship when we start from a point that 'we have problem and it is you'," Casey said.

Nevertheless, Casey insisted the growing military ties between China and the U.S. would "withstand the vagaries of political turbulence."

U.S. officials say China suspended most military dialogue with Washington last year after the Bush administration approved a $6.5 billion arms package to Taiwan.

Relations improved this year, and military contacts resumed, but Taiwan has a number of weapons requests pending in Washington, including one for relatively advanced F-16 fighter jets.

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Chinese troops offer an Afghan solution
By Francesco Sisci

BEIJING - On August 11, China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) kicked off its largest military maneuver in decades. About 50,000 troops, drawn from each of the seven military commands, were deployed by "rail and air transport" to unfamiliar territories far from their garrison training bases. The goal of the exercise was "to improve [the PLA's] capacity of long-range projection", reported the official Chinese news agency Xinhua.

the PLA is thinking of long-range projection - that is, sending troops out of Chinese territory for special purposes. The one territory that needs troops and where Chinese soldiers could be deployed is Afghanistan.

With its latest exercises, China could be winking at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United States - both of which are presently engaged in Afghanistan - saying, we have troops, they are trained, and we could send them over.

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SampanViking said:

Well, what can I say?

Where the Viking leads, the Professional commentators will follow..... sort of.......eventually

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Or less politely, "if you continue to interfere in our internal affairs and fail to respect our core interests, we will send them over!!"

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Unsurprisingly, therefore, Washington has reached the conclusion that the only way left to stop Karzai from snatching victory will be by making the election process controversial. Washington has abruptly backed away from what President Barack Obama hailed as "this historic election". The emphasis is on running down the election process and to "delegitimize" the result. Every word spoken by Abdullah goes to build up a case to annul the election result.

The US is pinning hopes on the so-called Election Complaints Commission (ECC), which is stacked with its nominees, to decide "how substantive the election fraud was" - to quote New York Times. The ECC is a body appointed by the United Nations, but that's a fig leaf - just as the US-led foreign troops in Afghanistan operate under UN mandate. Given the ECC's composition, it will not disregard Abdullah's complaints.

A flashpoint could arise within the coming fortnight when the Independent Election Commission (IEC), an Afghan body, might declare Karzai as the outright winner and the ECC, which is dominated by the US, annuls the result on account of Abdullah's allegations. The US intention is to supersede the IEC and conduct the runoff under the supervision of the "international community" and the UN - that is, return to the 2004 mode and proceed to declare that "democracy" won in Afghanistan, while fixing the election result to ensure the Abdullah-Ghani tandem comes to power.

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