REFLECTIONS IN A CHINESE EYE

China's Vietnam Gamble..... Newsweek March 5, 1979

A Nervous China Invades Vietnam

By TERRY MCCARTHY

Early in the morning of Feb. 17, 1979, Chinese artillery batteries and multiple rocket launchers opened fire all along the Vietnamese border with protracted barrages that shook the earth for miles around. Then 85,000 troops surged across the frontier in human-wave attacks like those China had used in Korea nearly three decades before. They were decimated: the well-dug-in Vietnamese cut down the Chinese troops with machine guns, while mines and booby traps did the rest. Horrified by their losses, the Chinese quickly replaced the general in charge of the invasion that was meant, in Beijing's words, to teach Vietnam a lesson, and concentrated their attack on neighboring provincial capitals. Using tanks and artillery, they quickly overran most of the desired towns: by March 5, after fierce house-to-house fighting, they captured the last one, Lang Son, across the border from Pingxiang. Then they began their withdrawal, proclaiming victory over the Cubans of the Orient, as Chinese propaganda had dubbed them. By China's own estimate, some 20,000 soldiers and civilians from both sides died in the 17-day war. Who learned the bigger lesson? The invasion demonstrated a contradiction that has forever bedeviled China's military and political leaders:
Read more: Time

Chinese Soldiers Pass Around LIVE GRENADE In Military Training Exercise

THROWING OFF ASIA II - WOODBLOCK PRINTS OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR (1894-95

Prints & Propaganda

The Sino-Japanese War began in July 1894 and ended in China’s shattering defeat in April 1895. It involved battles on land and sea; began with fighting in Korea that spilled over the Yalu River into Manchuria; witnessed the opening of a second front on the Liaotung (Liaodong) Japanese lines of attack in the Sino-Japanese War (July 1894–April 1895) Peninsula and against Chinese fortifications at Weihaiwei as well as Port Arthur; and eventually involved a Japanese assault on the distant Chinese island of Formosa (Taiwan). On the Japanese side, approximately 240,000 fighting men were mobilized for the campaigns in Korea and China proper, along with another 154,000 behind-the-lines laborers. Battlefield fatalities were surprisingly low, numbering only around 1,400; additionally, many died of illnesses, particularly those caused by severe winter conditions. Another 50,000 troops and 26,000 laborers were deployed in the relatively ignored Formosa campaign, where Japanese losses were actually higher. Overall Chinese casualties were much greater. In the battle for Port Arthur alone, for example, it is estimated that as many as 60,000 Chinese, including civilians, may have been killed. In this moment of heady triumph, Japan did indeed seem to have “thrown off Asia” and gained recognition as a modern power, just as Fukuzawa had urged more than a decade earlier. This great demonstration of military prowess not only hastened the end of the unequal treaties that the foreign powers had saddled Japan with ever since the 1850s. It also opened the door to an extraordinary, almost unimaginable prize: the conclusion (in 1902) of a bilateral military alliance with Great Britain. As time would show, however, this proved a costly triumph for everyone involved. In taking the imperialist powers as a model even while condemning their arrogance and aggression, the Japanese had adopted an inherently ambiguous and contradictory role. And in “throwing off” China as they did—not merely decisively but also derisively—they exhibited a racist contempt for other Asians that, even today, can take one’s breath away. Lafcadio Hearn, the distinguished writer and long-time resident of Japan, immediately recognized the perilous nature of the new world Japan had entered. In 1896, the year after the war ended, he wrote this:

The real birthday of the new Japan … began with the conquest of China. The war is ended; the future, though clouded, seems big with promise; and, however grim the obstacles to loftier and more enduring achievements, Japan has neither fears nor doubts. Perhaps the future danger is just in this immense self-confidence. It is not a new feeling created by victory. It is a race feeling, which repeated triumphs have served only to strengthen. (Quoted from Hearn’s book Kokoro by Shumpei Okamoto in Impressions of the Front.)

Nothing reveals this “race feeling” more graphically than the lively woodblock prints through which Japanese on the home front visualized—and grew rapturous over—what was taking place. Although the Sino-Japanese War lasted less than a year, woodblock artists churned out around 3,000 works of ostensible battlefront “reportage”—amounting, as Donald Keene has pointed out, to an amazing ten new images every day.

“Our Forces’ Great Victory and Occupation of Jiuliancheng”
by Watanabe Nobukazu, November 1894

[2000.380.37] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

This was not “high art.” The woodblock print itself was a popular art form that dated back only to the 17th century and found its audience in an emerging class of ordinary city dwellers. The prints were neither costly nor meant to be cherished and preserved as timeless creations. They were designed to amuse and entertain—and to introduce an untidy mass audience to worlds of hitherto unimagined beauty and fascination, whether this be courtesans and actors in the pleasure quarters, or places the print viewer might never personally see, or purely imagined realms of heroes, villains, ghosts, grotesqueries, and erotic indulgence. In subject, style, and audience, the exuberant woodblock prints were the antithesis of most things associated with tasteful upper-class classical art.

What we now regard as the great flowering of the woodblock-print tradition ended at the very end of the feudal era with artists of surpassing genius such as Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) and Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858). The “Meiji prints” that followed were less esteemed. Even generations later, after collectors and connoisseurs had belatedly come to recognize the enormous creativity and enduring value of the feudal-era prints—had accorded them, as it were, a kind of “classic” stature of their own—the prints of the modern era were generally held in low regard.

It is only in recent decades that the Meiji prints have drawn serious attention. Partly, it must be acknowledged, this came about because they were lying around in considerable quantity and much less expensive to collect than the suddenly pricey feudal prints. Partly, too, this rise in interest occurred because these later prints were belatedly seen to have a distinctive vigor all their own.

There was, however, a third factor behind the rediscovery of Meiji prints. As historians began to turn increasing attention to “popular” culture (beginning around the 1960s), and to place more weight on studying “texts” that went beyond written documents per se, graphics and images of every sort were suddenly recognized to be a vivacious way of visualizing the past. One could, in effect, literally see what people in other times and places were themselves actually seeing—and then try to make sense of this. One could “read” visual images much as one might read the written word—not simply as art, but also as social and cultural documents.

READ MORE AT MIT VISUALIZATION

 

China, Russia Could Make U.S. Stealth Tech Obsolete

 

It’s been a pillar of the U.S. military’s approach to high-tech warfare for decades. And now, it could become obsolete in just a few years.

Stealth technology — which today gives U.S. jets the nearly unparalleled ability to slip past hostile radar — may soon be unable to keep American aircraft cloaked. That’s the potentially startling conclusion of a new report from Barry Watts, a former member of the Pentagon’s crystal-ball-gazing Office of Net Assessment and current analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.

“The advantages of stealth … may be eroded by advances in sensors and surface-to-air missile systems, especially for manned strike platforms operating inside defended airspace,” Watts cautions in his 43-page report The Maturing Revolution in Military Affairs (.pdf), published last week.

That could come as a big shock to the U.S. Air Force, which has bet its future on radar-dodging technology, to the tune of half-a-trillion dollars over the next 30 years. The Navy, on the other hand, might have reason to say, “I told you so.”

That is, if Watts’ prediction comes true — and that’s a big “if,” the analyst admits.

 “In recent years there has been speculation that ongoing advances in radar detection and tracking will, in the near future, obviate the ability of all-aspect, low-observable aircraft such as the B-2, F-22 and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, aka JSF, to survive inside denied airspace,” Watts writes, referring to America’s stealth bombers and fighter jets.

Read more at WIRED

Chinese bid to set up East Timor spy base

Strategic threat' ... Chinese officials approached East Timorese authorities about installing a surveillance radar in 2007. Photo: Fiona-Lee Quimby

CHINA failed in its attempt to establish a spy base in East Timor, according to leaked United States diplomatic cables.

The Chinese proposal to build and operate a surveillance radar facility on East Timor's north coast was made in December 2007, but was viewed with suspicion by senior East Timorese officials who consulted the United States and Australia before rejecting the project.

The Chinese initiative, described as "a strategic threat", is revealed for the first time in US embassy cables leaked to WikiLeaks and provided exclusively to the Herald.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/chinese-bid-to-set-up-east-timor-spy-base-20110509-1efwo.html#ixzz1LrqJejCS

Call it Communist China, and not just the communists know that the country should be war ready!

The world today is getting too paranoid about the China Threat in its military sense. I just got tired of so much pointless speculation as to China’s motivation in going to war with this and that country in the foreseeable future. For one thing, I sure will live to see whether China will be attacking India or not in 2014.

On one hand, some argue that one day the Chinese communists may move to strike one foreign nation to divert their people’s attention from internal upheavals, only by which they will be able to continue to keep its hold on China. On the other, some believe the communist China, when at some point confronted with challenges from overseas, will have to pitch itself into a war to appease overwhelming nationalism. In either case, there is the same fear that very soon the Chinese communists are to find themselves in a situation where they are likely to wage a war to avoid being toppled by subversive forces from within.

Like I said in one of my previous posts, however, it’s wishful thinking that another China, similarly powerful yet a communist-free democracy, would have behaved less aggressively than the real China today. I’m thinking back to the 1940s. Suppose that the Nationalist Government had won the civil war and the country had evolved to be a democracy. A lot of people assume a China like that would have been even more prosperous, resilient. But, would any such elected Chinese government in our time have appeared tamer and more inclined to make concessions?

So again, the Sinofear thing is fundamentally not a debate on whether the communists can be opportunistic war mongers or not. As a matter of fact, my personal view is that the communists can actually be more stoic about swallowing their pride and backing down from impending military confrontations. They may not fear a war, but they certainly fear losing a war, which could yield consequences too devastating for their rule.

Read more at JianFeng

China’s Rise = Remilitarizing Japan?

Last year was a bad one for China’s soft power. Will Japan’s response prompt a dangerous spiral of arms spending—and spark conflict?

Saying publicly for the first time what they’ve thought privately for years, Japanese defence planners in December announced a new defence posture that fingered China’s military rise as justification for a new, more proactive approach, including a refocusing of forces from Japan’s north to its southernmost islands.

Unfortunately, China’s response was as predictable as it was unhelpful: it issued a blunt statement saying that no country had the right to make irresponsible comments about its development.

From a distance, it’s hard not to be alarmed at the three trends that have dominated the region over the last decade: the growth of Chinese power, the relative decline of US power and the resulting remilitarisation of Japanese power. Indeed, given the growth in importance of the region to the global economy, these trends are as alarming as they are dangerous since they have the capacity to be self-fulfilling, driving a cycle of mistrust and spiralling arms spending. And, since Japan’s defence posture automatically includes the United States (which is obliged by treaty to come to Japan’s defence) any potential conflict has all the ingredients for a ‘great power war.’

How did this happen to a China that seemed intent on managing a history defying ‘peaceful rise’? How did this happen to a United States that has sought to reassure China and give Beijing a seat at the table? And how did it happen to a pacifist Japan, led by a newly-elected political party that looked intent on building closer ties with China? A complicated mix of security dynamics, historical grievances and major shifts in aggregated power mean there’s no easy answer.

The relationship between Japan and China has long been complex. Traditionally, the junior partner and recipient of culture, religion and writing from the 19^th century on, Japan developed more quickly the tools, institutions and weapons that ultimately felled its giant neighbour. Following the 1853 US intrusion on its sleepy isolation, Japan began its rise as a great power by focusing on economic and military power.

Using the slogan Fukokyu Kohei, ‘rich country, strong military,’ Japan emulated the strategic thinking of the West, with particular focus on the kind of naval power projection discussed by Alfred Thayer Mahan. Japan’s quicker development reversed its historic relationship with China, and by the time of the Boxer Rebellion in 1899, Japan was fighting alongside British, French and German forces and carving out its own trade empire on the Chinese mainland.

While China’s rise over the last 20 years has done much to restore the historic balance between the two states, it’s more than possible this historical experience continues to shape current Chinese policy and the attitudes of policy-making elites. Defence spending, for example, has surged—doubling every five years—with much going into developing China’s blue-water naval capabilities. (When pressed on this issue, Chinese diplomats tend to point to China’s past vulnerability to naval-borne threats).

Read more at The Diplomat

 

 

New Taiwanese missiles could reach China

Taiwan is building missiles capable of hitting the Chinese mainland as Beijing continues to deploy more weapons aimed at Taiwan in spite of a recent thaw in ties.

Taiwan’s deputy defence minister this week confirmed that the island was developing two cruise missile systems, which were previously the subject of speculation.

On Friday, a government spokesman said Chao Shih-chang, the deputy defence minister, told parliament that the programmes were making “smooth progress”.

Taiwanese officials describe the Chuifeng and Chichun missiles – Chinese for “chasing the wind” and “lance hawk”, respectively – as the island’s response to the hostile build-up of Chinese missiles aimed across the Taiwan Strait.

Analysts say the missiles could hit targets in south-eastern China. People close to the government say the island started developing the missiles at least a year ago.

Taiwan’s defence ministry estimates that China has as many as 1,900 missiles aimed at Taiwan, up from about 1,500 two years ago. The Pentagon said in August that China’s military was pulling further ahead from Taiwan’s. It cited more weapons aimed at the island, deadlier missiles and a greater risk of accidental conflict between the two sides.

Read more at The Financial Times

China's New Drones Raise Eyebrows

The Wall Street Journal

The jet-powered WJ600, for reconnaissance and attacks.

ZHUHAI, China—China is ramping up production of unmanned aerial vehicles in an apparent bid to catch up with the U.S. and Israel in developing technology that is considered the future of military aviation.

Western defense officials and experts were surprised to see more than 25 different Chinese models of the unmanned aircraft, known as UAVs, on display at this week's Zhuhai air show in this southern Chinese city. It was a record number for a country that unveiled its first concept UAVs at the same air show only four years ago, and put a handful on display at the last one in 2008.

The apparent progress in UAVs is a stark sign of China's ambition to upgrade its massive military as its global political and economic clout grows.

The U.S. and Israel are currently the world leaders in developing such pilotless drones, which have played a major role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and which analysts say could one day replace the fighter jet.

This year's models in Zhuhai included several designed to fire missiles, and one powered by a jet engine, meaning it could—in theory—fly faster than the propeller-powered Predator and Reaper drones that the U.S. has used in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal

Chinese military drones pose Western challenge

Partnerships with foreign companies help disseminate UAV technology

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — China’s pilotless technology for the military is catching up with designs from the U.S. and Israel and may soon pose a challenge in the international marketplace, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

The U.S. and Israel are currently the world’s leaders in drone technology and unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. But austerity measures in the U.S. and among its European allies have contractors such as Northrop Grumman Corp. /quotes/comstock/13*!noc/quotes/nls/noc (NOC 63.26, +0.19, +0.30%)  and Boeing Co. /quotes/comstock/13*!ba/quotes/nls/ba (BA 63.59, -1.02, -1.58%)  looking overseas to expand their sales.

Ironically, it’s the Chinese joint ventures with foreign aerospace companies that have given the Communist state the know-how to quickly develop its rival technology, the Journal reported.

China bank move weighs on stocks

Paul Vigna discusses Friday's market outlook, which is likely to be impacted by a move by China to tighten bank credit rules.

Chinese companies displayed 25 different unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, at this week’s Zhuhai air show, hosted across the bay from Hong Kong. Designs included a jet-powered reconnaissance and attack model with a radius of 1,250 miles, and a duck-sized spy drone with flapping wings.

According to experts, China’s UAV technology is still several years behind that of the U.S. and Israel, but development has been rapid since the country introduced its first UAV four years ago, the newspaper said.

China Aerospace Science & Industry, which claims to control 90% of the country’s domestic UAV market, said it has begun tapping markets overseas.

“I can’t tell you which models we have sold overseas, a that’s a secret, but of course we’re very interested in exporting them,” said one company official, according to the report.

Read more about Chinese drones on WSJ.com

US military moves in Asia not aimed at China: Gates

MELBOURNE - United States military efforts to strengthen its presence in Asia are not aimed at countering China, Defence Secretary Robert Gates said yesterday, ahead of talks on deepening defence ties with regional ally Australia.

An Australian newspaper published a report saying Australia would grant the US military expanded use of its bases but a US defence official cautioned that any decision on such a possibility was months away at least.

Mr Gates said a strategic review of US military posture would not include any new bases in Asia.

Washington and its Asia-Pacific allies have grown increasingly wary of China's intentions as it spends heavily to modernise its military, sends its navy further afield and asserts sovereignty over the contested South China Sea.

Read more at TODAY ONLINE

China Stages Naval Exercises

BEIJING — China’s Marine Corps held a major naval exercise on Tuesday in the South China Sea, state-run media reported on Wednesday, massing 1,800 troops and more than 100 ships, submarines and aircraft for a live-fire display of the nation’s growing military power.

The waters have been the scene of increased tensions between China and its neighbors this year over competing claims to islands and seabed mineral rights. But one prominent Chinese military analyst called the war games a routine annual event that was unrelated to those claims or recent American moves to shore up diplomatic ties with nations in the region.

Read more at the New York Times

China is on path to 'militarization of space'

The Asian space race is moving along slowly, but steadily – and China is in the lead, with technology that could give it a military advantage over the US.

• 

In this photo released by China's official Xinhua news agency, a Long March 3C rocket carrying China's second unmanned lunar probe Chang'e II is launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan province on Oct. 1.

Newscom

Taipei, Taiwan

China looks set to pull ahead in the Asian space race to the moon, putting a spacecraft into lunar orbit Oct. 6 in a preparatory mission for an unmanned moon landing in two or three years.

Chinese engineers will maneuver the craft into an extremely low orbit, 9.5 miles above the moon's surface, so it can take high-resolution photos of a possible landing site.

Basically, China is looking for a good "parking space" for a moon lander, in a less-known area of the moon known as the Bay of Rainbows.

The mission, called Chang'e 2 after a heroine from Chinese folklore who goes to the moon with a rabbit, highlights China's rapidly growing technological prowess, as well as its keen desire for prestige on the world stage. If successful, it will put China a nose ahead of its Asian rivals with similar lunar ambitions – India and Japan – and signal a challenge to the American post-cold-war domination in space.

Read more at The Christian Science Monitor

Turkey invited China to join NATO air exercise after U.S. withdrew

ANKARA — China was secretly allowed to participate in a Turkish-sponsored combat air exercise reserved for NATO allies.

Turkish sources said the Chinese Air Force sent several Russian-origin Su-27 fighter-jets to participate in the semi-annual Anatolian Eagle air combat exercise. They said the Chinese were invited after the United States and other NATO members had turned down an invitation to participate in Anatolian Eagle in the late summer of 2010. "The United States immediately expressed its displeasure in private," a Turkish source said.

Read more at World Tribune

China’s Carrier Killers

Taiwanese naval vessels conduct exercises off the coast of Taiwan last month.

China’s fiercest anti-ship missile, designed by Russia and dubbed the Sizzler by NATO, has a 300-kilometer range and accelerates to roughly three times the speed of sound as it nears its target. The Sizzler can reach farther and fly faster than the West’s top anti-ship missiles, America’s Harpoon and France’s Exocet. Russia has also sold Sizzlers to India and possibly Iran, and Syria and Algeria have expressed interest, widening the threat. “Everyone in the Western world is wondering how you defeat it,” says John Patch, a professor at the U.S. Army War College.

China sees missiles such as the Sizzler—and a missile currently in development known as the Dong Feng (DF)-21D—as key to its growing naval power in Asia. The Sizzler can be launched from submarines even when submerged, which could turn part of China’s sub fleet from a manageable threat to a “very problematic” one, says Patch. The DF-21D, a ground-launched ballistic missile with a 1,500-kilometer range—is being redesigned by China to dive from space, traveling at about two kilometers per second, to cripple an aircraft carrier. As of today, the U.S. has no reliable countermeasures. With the DF-21D likely to be ready for a flight test in two years or less, the West is suddenly regarding China’s anti-ship capabilities as “pretty daunting,” says Eric McVadon, a former U.S. Navy rear admiral and defense attaché to Beijing.

Read more at NEWSWEEK

ANALASIS: Politics and the military blur in China

RISING POWER:The eyes of the world are on China as it continues its rise, however, analysts are divided on whether the military is becoming more or less powerful

The rise of China’s power is not limited to its economy: It also involves its military, with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) making significant advances in the past decade in technology, training and strategic planning.

These developments include a massive buildup of missiles across the Taiwan Strait designed to discourage any move toward de jure independence for Taiwan. They also include the expansion of the Pacific Fleet, complete with new operation bases, aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines with first-strike capabilities.

All this raises concerns about Beijing’s true intentions as it tries to reassure the international community that it’s rise is peaceful. However, these concerns have been heightened by two recent developments.

One is China’s growing aggressiveness in pressing territorial disputes with neighbors such as Japan and India.

The other is emerging signs that the PLA may be increasing its influence over state affairs. When US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was denied a request to visit Beijing in June, he blamed elements within the PLA for blocking the invitation, which he said the civilian leadership had likely wanted to make.

The Gates snub also followed a three-minute “rant” in May by Rear Admiral Guan Youfei (關友飛) to 65 visiting US officials in Beijing, in which he said that US arms sales to Taiwan proved that Washington viewed China as an enemy.

US diplomats attempted to portray Guan’s remarks as at odds with the thinking of the rest of the Chinese government. However, some said his comments represented mainstream views within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

What, then, lies behind the mixed signals from the Chinese military and civilian leadership?

One thing commentators agree on when discussing the often -mysterious relations between the CCP and one of the world’s largest military forces is that they exhibit none of the instability witnessed in Latin American and Africa in the last century as authoritarian regimes repeatedly fell victim to military coups. Indeed, the CCP and the PLA have shown a remarkable similarity of purpose over the years.

Read more at Taipei Times

The Philippines–South/North Korea-ASEAN—Within Orbit of US–China Power Rivalry

LOOKING at US-China political-diplomatic-military maneuverings in East Asia in past months, it is logical to conclude that both are playing a subtle, yet deadly, power game to gain new areas of influence and enhance their socio-economic leverage. This global contest is taking place on many fronts, in particular:

(1) Intensified confrontations between South and North Korea.
(2) Claims over the Spratly and Paracel Islands.
(3) Control of the China Sea for "innocent passage" of commercial shipping.
(4) Non-proliferation and/or control of nuclear weapons.
(5) Defense of Taiwan.
(6) Contest for untapped oil/gas/energy resources.
(7) Access to seaports/logistics hubs in the Indian Ocean.
(8) Valuation of the yuan versus the US dollar.
(9) Disputes between China and India re nuclear capabilities, maritime security, and border confrontations where the US has vital interests.
(10) Market share of exports.

Pivotal roles of US and China

With the suspension of the "Six-Party Talks" on North Korea in which US and China play pivotal roles, the uncertainties (read deterioration) of Asia-Pacific stability and a final peaceful settlement on the Korean peninsula may be seen to have exacerbated.

Given the long-lasting, unsettled Korean conflicts as being within the top priorities of American, South/North Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian leaders (who are all represented in the "Six-Party Talks"), we are seeing at this time the moves of the US and China to strengthen their respective positions.

Of special significance to Asia-Pacific observers is the on-going visitations of high officials. In Beijing, President Hu Jintao was reported by Associated Press (09 September) as: "Trying to smooth over recently rocky relations before he visits Washington.

Read more at MB

Japan starts destroying chemical weapons abandoned in China during WWII

NANJING (Xinhua) - The Japanese government announced Wednesday that it had started to destroy chemical weapons abandoned in China during WWII.

Hideo Hiraoka, senior vice minister of Japan's cabinet office, made the announcement on behalf of the Japanese government at a ceremony marking the start of the destruction work in the suburbs of the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing.

He said the Japanese government had been working to remove the abandoned chemical weapons in light of the Chemical Weapons Convention and relevant memorandum signed between the Japanese and Chinese governments.

"Today's move marks a new phase in the disposal of abandoned chemical weapons in China, in which the work has shifted from excavation and recovery to destruction," he said.

"This is the result of years of efforts made by Japanese and Chinese authorities, and will have far-reaching consequences on the bilateral relationship," he said.

"The Japanese government will continue to take measures to speed up the destruction process," he added.

Zhang Zhijun, the representative of the Chinese government and vice foreign minister, said at the ceremony that Japanese troops had committed a serious crime by abandoning chemical weapons in China during WWII.

"To destroy the abandoned chemical weapons as soon as possible will help eliminate their threat to the lives and properties of Chinese people and ecological environment in certain regions, heal the trauma for Chinese people in war-inflicted regions, and promote a healthy and stable development of China-Japan relations," he said.

Read more at philSTAR

No Chinese troops in Gilgit-Baltistan region: Pakistan

Pakistan today dismissed as a "figment of imagination" a media report that the Gilgit-Baltistan region of the country had been handed over to China and that 10,000 Chinese troops had moved into the area. Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit rejected assertions made in this regard in an article

 

written by Selig Harrison in The New York Times on August 26.

The writer, a south Asia expert, had claimed that troops of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have moved into the area and a geo-political crisis was unfolding in the region.

"Given Selig Harrison's well-known anti-Pakistan mindset, his gross misrepresentation of facts is hardly surprising. Nor is it unexpected of India to create unnecessary hype using Mr Harrison's tendentious article," the spokesman said.

"The fact of the matter is that China, at our request, is helping us in repairing the Karakoram highway, which has been severely damaged by the recent floods and landslides. Anything beyond this is one's figment of imagination," Basit said.

Parts of Gilgit-Baltistan, earlier known as the Northern Areas, have been hit hard by recent flash floods triggered by torrential monsoon rains.

Over 100 people were killed by floods and landslides in the region.

President Asif Ali Zardari recently said that Pakistan had requested China to provide supplies to 25,000 people in Gilgit-Baltistan after they were cut off due to the flooding and landslides.

The Hindustan Times

The economic miracle falls behind

This month, we've had a mix of intriguing and disturbing news out of Japan, a nation on which we now depend mightily - as a trade, investment and strategic partner - but take for granted.

In the April-June quarter the Japanese economy showed growth barely above zero, against expectations of healthy expansion. ''The risk of deflation is intensifying,'' says Junko Nishioka, from the Royal Bank of Scotland, amid a wave of gloomy speculation Japan's two decades of stagnation was set to continue and even worsen

Partly as a result of Japan stalling, China surged ahead to become the world's second-largest national economy after the US. Two decades ago books were written forecasting ''Japan as No. 1'' - now it's No. 3, and slipping.

This week, the ''shadow shogun'' of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, Ichiro Ozawa, announced he would challenge the Prime Minister of just two months, Naoto Kan, on September 14. If successful, he would be Japan's third leader in just over a year, an ominous acceleration in the one-a-year rotating premiership that has been the norm since 2006.

Then there was the news that one Yoshifumi Takabe, 30, burnt down the family home because his mother threw away some of his hundreds of Gundam robot toys. ''The Gundam figures are like the partners I spend my life with,'' he was reported telling a court. ''I wanted to die with them in a fire if they were to be thrown out.''

Obsessive, anomic young people like Takabe are one of the many bizarre or sad trends in the flat-economy Japan that emerged after the heady boom or ''bubble economy'' of the 1980s, which ended coincidentally with the death of Emperor Hirohito in 1989 and the start of Emperor Akihito's reign, officially known as the Heisei (Universal Peace) era.

Just how hollow was the system that underpinned the boom, and how counter-productive Tokyo's efforts since then to restore it, is brilliantly portrayed in a new book, Contemporary Japan, by Jeff Kingston, a professor of Asian politics at Temple University in Tokyo. Japan is in a ''deep hole'' dug by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party in its half-century of rule, he says. A generation ago the Japanese took comfort in a low-risk, egalitarian society; now risk and inequality are all around.

Read more at The Sydney Morning Herald

 

China warns US against selling Taiwan radars

BEIJING—China objected Friday to a U.S. plan to supply radar equipment to Taiwan's air force, even though the sale was far short of the F-16 fighter jets the island's president urged Washington to provide last week.

U.S. State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said earlier this week that the U.S. sale includes "defense services, technical data, and defense articles" for Taiwan's air defense system, and radar equipment for the island's Indigenous Defense Fighter jets.

Crowley did not put a monetary figure on the deal or identify the American companies involved. The U.S. is obligated by its own laws to provide Taiwan defensive weapons.

Beijing opposes any military sales to Taiwan as interference in its internal affairs, and the issue has often strained U.S.-China relations.

"China resolutely opposes the United States selling weapons and relevant technical assistance to Taiwan," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in a statement.

"We urge the United States to ... put an end to arms sales to Taiwan and military ties with Taiwan to avoid causing new harm to Sino-U.S. relations."

Taiwan's Defense Ministry has not commented

Read more at Mercury News

US to supply Taiwan radar equipment for air defense system and fighter jets

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - The United States said it will supply radar equipment to Taiwan's air force, an approval of a relatively marginal item less likely to anger China than the F-16 fighter jets the island's president urged Washington to provide last week.

U.S. State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said Tuesday that the U.S. sale includes "defense services, technical data, and defense articles" for Taiwan's air defense system, and radar equipment for the island's Indigenous Defense Fighter jets.

Crowley did not put a monetary figure on the deal or identify the American companies involved.

The U.S. is obligated by law to provide Taiwan defensive weapons.

Taiwan's Defense Ministry did not comment immediately on the transaction, but the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, a private advocacy group based in suburban Washington, called it "a small move."

Read more at Canadian Business

The China challenge

The Pentagon's just-released report to Congress on Chinese military power is alarming for two reasons: First, Beijing's military buildup continues; second, the modernization of our armed forces may come up short of what's needed to meet the China challenge.

While the outcome of these troubling trends can't be foretold, there are solid reasons for worry about America's power and position in the Pacific Ocean in the years to come.

The People's Liberation Army clearly is developing doctrines and deploying capabilities for throwing its weight around in the Pacific and beyond. The Pentagon paper talks of Chinese "power-projection," "anti-access" and "area-denial" strategies and forces, all aimed at keeping America at bay in Asia, should Beijing decide to do so.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_china_challenge_HNC58WQsJqm4JNjoD8XRuN#ixzz0xSF47dvL

China firmly opposes U.S. military report on China

BEIJING, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) -- China on Wednesday denied claims in a U.S. government report, saying it exaggerated China's military strength.

"We firmly oppose this report," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in a press release when asked to comment on the annual report by the U.S. Defense Department.

She said the report exaggerated China's military strength, and unfairly blamed China for some problems that exist in the bilateral military relationship.

"China unswervingly sticks to a path of peaceful development and pursues a national defense policy which is defensive in nature," Jiang said, noting that China is devoted to safeguarding peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region and the world at large.

"We urge the U.S side to respect this fact," she said.

Jiang also urged the United States to stop issuing such reports on China's military, and work towards improving relations between the two militaries and the two nations, instead of working against China

XINHUANET