China Archives
Big Bump in Russia-Chinese Military Exercises
By John
Via the esteemable Small Wars Journal, a new spirit of cooperation between two near-peer competitors who hate our guts.
Miscellaneous Monday
By Lt Col P
First two items are from The Tank:
Possible Living MoH Recipient-- Stunning news. True combat heroes are, of course, a dime a dozen in the Marines (and the other services too), but this is something else entirely. Most notably the Commandant himself has weighed in. We should follow this carefully.
Yep, It's All Part of the P.L.A.N.-- I hate to say I told you so, but... This reminds me of something I read in Keegan's The Price of Admiralty, about the young fire-eaters in the German High Seas Fleet looking forward with great expectation to "Der Tag," The Day on which they would put the Royal Navy to the test. I wonder how many young Red Chinese naval officers think along the same lines about us??
The last from the DC Examiner-- Making War With Words. Who is this David Freddoso and how did he get that assignment?? CURSES UPON HIM! Good article though.
Chinese getting frisky
By Bull Nav
Well, it looks like the Chinese don't want us watching them.
The Defense Department said in a statement that a Chinese intelligence ship and several others surrounded the USNS Impeccable, an unarmed vessel with a civilian merchant marine crew. The U.S. vessel was conducting ocean surveys Sunday in international waters in the South China Sea.
I will be interested to see what our response is.
Sounds Like a P.L.A.N.
By Lt Col P
A Red Chinese naval squadron is mounting out for the Gulf of Aden to add its weight to the fight against rampant piracy. I have little doubt that they are sending their varsity squad, and I don't think we should view this as a good thing.
The three vessels — two destroyers and a supply ship — may increase worries about growing Chinese military power. The mission will also challenge China's ability to cooperate [who says they're going to cooperate?] with other naval forces patrolling the Gulf of Aden, one of the world's busiest sea lanes.
I think that the Western allies' lack of decisive operations against these barbarians has opened the door to the Chinese. After all, nature abhors a vaccuum. This is a tailor-made for the P.R.C. to step in, and do what the traditional naval powers have been unwilling or incapable of doing. If they can pull it off, this will greatly enhance their prestige on the international scene, and will provide significant justification for nations whose vessels have to ply those waters to view the Chinese as a benevolent power. All of that will be to our detriment.
Oh, and I do expect they'll have some growing pains with both tactics and sustainment. But don't you think for a minute that they won't learn their lessons, and prepare diligently for greater things to come.
Deploying ships to the Gulf of Aden marks a significant step in the evolution of China's navy, according to a report by Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based intelligence company. The mission will be complicated, offering vital on-the-job training in refueling, resupply and repairs far from home as well as patrolling for pirates, Stratfor said.
All of the foregoing will be to our detriment. We have only ourselves to blame.
Shock: China still communist despite olympics
By Charlie
Yes, I am shocked *shocked* that gambling is allowed at this bar:
China breaks Olympic promises on rights, media, pollutionWith four days left before the start of the 2008 Summer Games, Chinese officials have not lived up to key promises they made to win the right to host the Olympics, including widening press freedoms, cleaning up their capital city's polluted air and respecting human rights.
Really? The communists lied? This has obviously never happened before, right?
When they applied to host the games, Beijing officials also had completed a Candidature File, in which they agreed to meet specific requirements. Although the International Olympic Committee said the file is a public document, Beijing Olympics officials didn't follow through Monday on a request by McClatchy to see the Candidature File they completed.Reached by phone, the Beijing Olympic organizing committee's head of media operations, Sun Weijia, declined to comment.
Ahh, the openness and honesty of China, paragon of freedom and liberty throughout the world. Did we expect any difference?
Pro-China changes in Democratic Taiwan?
By Charlie
The opposition party in Taiwan, the KMT, just won in a landslide, which may warm relations with China.
During this election cycle in Taiwan, Beijing has taken a subtle approach. Last year Taiwan's President Chen announced plans for a referendum that would ask voters whether the island should seek to join the United Nations under the name "Taiwan." The island, which lost its U.N. representation in 1971 when its seat was switched to Beijing, has been blocked in several attempts to re-join the body under its formal name of "Republic of China." While the referendum will have little practical effect — the island doesn't have the support to enter the U.N. under any name — it was the sort of move that once would have sent Beijing into a frenzy. While the Chinese government has said it would not tolerate the referendum, it has toned down its rhetoric and instead relied on pressure from the U.S., Taiwan's biggest ally, to discourage the move. In December U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the move was "a provocative policy." The fate of two referendum issues in Saturday's ballot (both failed to garner enough votes — or voter interest — to be seriously considered) would also make the controversial U.N. referendum in March unlikely to pass.
Furthermore, China's ability to use military force to prevent Taiwan from declaring independence grows along with the budget for the People's Liberation Army, which has increased by more than 10% annually for the past 10 years. Chen says that there are now more than 1,300 missiles stationed on the Chinese mainland direct across the Taiwan Strait, up from the 200 when he became president in 2000. But these days Beijing has shown it can better influence events without firing them.
Meanwhile, it seems that the US military is also working to improve relations with the ChiComs after November's ship-docking incident:
WASHINGTON - US military officials are in China this week for their first high-level visit there since an international flap in November in which Beijing refused to allow US warships into a port for a long-planned Thanksgiving visit.The incident baffled Washington and further complicated US relations with the Chinese military, the People's Liberation Army (PLA). But that's only one of many issues for military officials as they work to create clearer lines of communication between the two militaries – generally perceived to be a weaker relationship than the diplomatic or the economic ones.
Mr. Shinn, a China expert who was sworn in to his new post Thursday, told Congress last month he is as perplexed by China's military actions as anyone. "The problem that we have is divining their intent," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "That's one of the reasons for the great ... care and vigilance with which we have to deal with the Chinese military."
China… Cyberattack…Didn’t I Just Post on This?
By Charlie
China Link Suspected in Lab Hacking
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 8 — A cyber attack reported last week by one of the federal government’s nuclear weapons laboratories may have originated in China, according to a confidential memorandum distributed Wednesday to public and private security officials by the Department of Homeland Security.Security researchers said the memorandum, which was obtained by The New York Times from an executive at a private company, included a list of Web and Internet addresses that were linked to locations in China. However, they noted that such links did not prove that the Chinese government or Chinese citizens were involved in the attacks. In the past, intruders have compromised computers in China and then used them to disguise their true location.
Officials at the lab, Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, said the attacks did not compromise classified information, though they acknowledged that they were still working to understand the full extent of the intrusion.
Two things here:
Legally, cyber-attacks are in the same category as electronic attack, which is the same as firing off a cruise missile. Just because cyber attacks have no causalities, they can still cause damage to critical systems.
Technically, we have to figure out how to “connect the dots” and figure out exactly where these attacks originated from.
China Identified as Source of World Cyber-Attacks
By Charlie
America has become an information society, and is dependent on a variety of networks to support day-to-day economic and social demands. Cell phone, internet, power, water, road, and flight networks are all essential to the economic engine that powers America. Many of these systems are dependent on information technology to operate, which places them in danger of being susceptible to cyber attack. Like a bomb on a bridge, malicious code uploaded to an infrastructure network could have the same disastrous effect: off-lining a critical system and causing millions of dollars of damage. Concerns over cyber terrorism have been around for years, but recently, the US and British governments identified a source of world-wide cyber attacks: China.
U.S., British officials target Chinese as source of cyberattacks
High-ranking officials in the United Kingdom and the United States have for the first time publicly identified the Chinese government as the source of cyberattacks, warning that China has penetrated both government and business networks with potentially disastrous consequences.Jonathan Evans, director-general of MI5, the U.K.'s counterintelligence and security service, told British companies last week that they were under attack by "Chinese state organizations," The Times of London reported Saturday.
Marine Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chefs of Staff, has portrayed the effects of large-scale Chinese-backed denial-of-service attacks against U.S systems and networks as potentially having an effect equal to "the magnitude of a weapon of mass destruction." The characterization came in a little-noticed report to Congress released by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission late last month.
Is it state supported terrorism? or an act of war?
Read More »
ChiCom Spying Continues
By Charlie
SAN JOSE - A Cupertino man has been sentenced to two years in federal prison for illegally exporting night-vision technology to China that could be used for military purposes.Philip Cheng, 60, was also ordered to pay a $50,000 fine in a hearing Monday before U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte in San Jose. Cheng will begin serving his sentence Feb. 12.
Cheng, who operated a San Jose company called SPCTEK, pleaded guilty in October 2006 to brokering the sale of a thermal-imaging infrared camera called Panther I without the approval of the State Department. He pleaded guilty after a trial last year ended in a hung jury.
Isn’t there worse charge that spies, defectors, and traitors should receive for selling out their country, and giving sensitive defense technology to China, or any other country?
