Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[CougarKing]

An update on the ROCAF:

link

Taiwan air force drill highlights US dilemma over long-pending F-16 fighter sale to Taipei

TAINAN COUNTY, Taiwan - Taiwan's equipment-challenged air force demonstrated its improvisational skills Tuesday, landing six war planes on a normally busy highway to simulate a response to a Chinese attack on its air fields.

The early morning exercise came amid persistent warnings that the Taiwanese air force — long considered the key to the island's defences against China — is losing its qualitative edge because of U.S. reluctance to supply it with modern warplanes and avionics.

Earlier this month, Sen. Richard Lugar told Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that unless Washington supplied Taipei with relatively advanced F-16 jet fighters and upgraded Taiwan's existing F-16 fleet, the island could be left "with no credible air-to-air deterrent."

The comments by Lugar, a Republican from Indiana, followed last year's publication of a Pentagon report saying that Taiwan's aging fleet of combat aircraft was falling far behind the potential of the modern jet fighters China has at its disposal.

Taiwanese requests for the F-16 hardware have been pending since the administration of President George W. Bush. The Obama administration has refused to make a decision, caught between its strong desire not to anger China — with which it maintains a complex and wide-ranging relationship — and its equally strong commitment to provide Taiwan the means to defend itself from possible Chinese attack.
Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949. The mainland still claims the island as part of its territory and sees foreign military sales there as interference in its internal affairs. While relations between Taipei and Beijing have improved substantially since Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou came to power three years ago, China's Communist leaders still threaten to invade across the 100-mile-wide (160-kilometre-wide) Taiwan Strait if democratic Taiwan moves to make its de facto independence permanent.

In Tuesday's air force exercise, streaking pairs of F-16s, French-built Mirages and Taiwanese-made Indigenous Defence Fighters swooped down to land on the Madou Highway in the southern county of Tainan, as a single OH-58D helicopter hovered overhead to provide security.

Under the conditions of the exercise, the highway landing was made necessary because a simulated Chinese attack had already taken out nearby Taiwanese air fields.

Within minutes, AH1W and CH-47 helicopters joined the waiting fighters, and resupplied them with Harpoon and other missiles so they could continue their missions against the attacking Chinese.

Even though the exercise went off without a hitch, a real combat situation might not be bring such impressive results, said military expert Wang Kun-yi of Taipei's Tamkang University.

"While today's exercise was smooth, our fighter jets are much older than those in the Chinese inventory," Wang said. "If you look at the Pentagon report, you see the gap is wide and getting even wider."

Despite its improving relations with China, Ma's government has continued to press for 66 American-made F-16 C/Ds — considered far more advanced than the 145 F-16 A/Bs currently in its inventory. It also has pushed for a $4.5 billion program to upgrade the A/Bs.

But the U.S. has not responded, mindful that a "yes" would infuriate China, while a "no" could be construed as undermining its commitment to provide Taiwan the means to defend itself under the terms of the Taiwan Relations Act, passed by Congress in 1979 when the U.S. transferred its relations from Taipei to Beijing.

Complicating arms sales to Taiwan for the Obama administration is the recent emergence of a powerful American lobby calling for their end. The lobby, which includes a number of retired senior military officers, prominent academics and former State Department officials, believes that China's growing economic and strategic clout has turned Taiwan into a political liability it can ill afford to indulge over the long term.

 

[CougarKing]

DATE:29/03/11

SOURCE:Flight International

Chinese air force bomber blitzes river ice
By Craig Hoyle

Images have emerged showing a Chinese air force bomber performing an unusual strike mission earlier this month.

After being loaded with unguided glide bombs, the venerable H-6 bomber is shown dropping three as part of a military effort to clear a 2km (1.2 miles)-long build-up of ice on the Yellow river near Ordos, Inner Mongolia.

Three of the twin-engined aircraft were used to release 24 of the 500kg (1,100lb) weapons during the activity, according to a report by the Strategy Page website.

  China's air force has an active fleet of around 120 of the Xian-built bombers, says Flightglobal's MiliCAS database, with around 30 also in use with the nation's naval aviation wing. The type is a locally built version of the Soviet-era Tupolev Tu-16, which was first flown in the early 1950s.

link

 

[CougarKing]

While all the mainland's recent conciliatory gestures toward Taiwan are a needed step toward better economic (and political) integration, some Guo Min Dang officials and the Guo Min Jun's officers are not taking their chances...

Taiwan To Build New 'Stealth' Warship
TAIPEI - Taiwan plans to build a new 'stealth' warship armed with guided-missiles next year in response to China's naval build-up, a top military officer and a lawmaker said Monday.

Construction of the prototype of the 500-ton corvette is due to start in 2012 for completion in 2014, deputy defense minister Lin Yu-pao said in answer to a question by Kuomintang party legislator Lin Yu-fang at parliament.

The warship, which the navy says is harder to detect on radar, is expected to emerge after China puts into service its first battle carrier group, the legislator said.

The twin-hulled boat will be armed with up to eight home-grown Hsiung-feng II ship-to-ship missiles and eight other more lethal Hsiung-feng III anti-ship supersonic missiles.

more:

link

This coincides with the entry into service of a new unit of smaller warships. (from: Singapore's Straits Times link)

 

[CougarKing]

The new Chinese carrier SHI LANG/施琅 inches closer to completion:

Chinese Carrier Defenses Installed

April 18, 2011: The new Chinese aircraft carrier, the Shi Lang (formerly Varyag) has had its first weapons installed. These were easily identified as FL-3000N anti-missile systems. These are similar to the American RAM anti-missile missile system, except that they come in a 24 missile launcher and are less accurate. FL-3000N was only introduced three years ago, and uses smaller missiles than RAM. The two meter long FL-3000N missiles have a max range of nine kilometers (about half that for very fast incoming missiles). The 120mm, two meter long missiles now use a similar guidance system to RAM, but are not as agile in flight.

Over the last decade, the U.S. Navy Phalanx 20mm autocannon anti-missile system has been more frequently replaced by SeaRAM. What's interesting about this is that SeaRAM is basically the Phalanx system, with the 20mm gun replaced with a box of eleven RAM (RIM-116 "Rolling Air Frame") missiles. The Phalanx was developed in the 1970s, and entered service in 1977. RAM was developed in the 1980s, and didn't enter service until 1993. RAM has a longer range (7.5 kilometers) than the Phalanx (two kilometers) and was originally designed to be aimed using the ships fire control systems. Phalanx, on the other hand, has its own radar and fire control system and, once turned on, will automatically fire at any incoming missiles. This was necessary, as some anti-ship missiles travel at over a 500 meters a second. With SeaRAM, you've got a little more time, and can knock down the incoming missile farther from the ship. This is important, because it was feared that a large, very fast anti-ship missile (which the Russians prefer, and sell to foreigners), even when shot up by Phalanx, might still end up having parts of it slam into the target ship. Since SeaRAM has eleven missiles ready to fire, it can also engage several targets at once, something the Phalanx could not do.

The RAM missiles are 127mm in diameter, three meters (9.3 feet) long and weigh 73.6 kg (162 pounds) each. The terminal guidance system is heat seeking. Basically, it uses the rocket motor and warhead from the Sidewinder air-to-air missile, and the guidance system from the Stinger shoulder fired anti-aircraft missile. SeaRAM missiles cost about $450,000 each, which is probably at least 50 percent more than the FL-3000N missiles. SeaRAM is meant to provide combat support ships that normally have no defenses, or at least no combat radars and fire control system. The new LCS will use the SeaRAM as well.

The Shi Lang/Varyag is one of the Kuznetsov class carriers that Russia began building in the 1980s. Originally the Kuznetsovs were to be 90,000 ton, nuclear powered ships, similar to American carriers (complete with steam catapults). Instead, because of the high cost, and the complexity of modern (American style) carriers, the Russians were forced to scale back their plans, and ended up with the 65,000 ton (full load ) ships that lacked steam catapults, and used a ski jump type flight deck instead. Nuclear power was dropped, but the Kuznetsov class was still a formidable design. The 323 meter (thousand foot) long ship normally carries a dozen navalized Su-27s (called Su-33s), 14 Ka-27PL anti-submarine helicopters, two electronic warfare helicopters and two search and rescue helicopters. But the ship was meant to regularly carry 36 Su-33s and sixteen helicopters. The ship carries 2,500 tons of aviation fuel, allowing it to generate 500-1,000 aircraft and helicopter sorties. Crew size is 2,500 (or 3,000 with a full aircraft load.) Only two ships of this class exist; the original Kuznetsov, which is in Russian service, and the Varyag. Like most modern carriers, the only weapons carried are anti-missile systems like Phalanx and FL-3000N, plus some heavy machine-guns (which are often kept inside the ship, and mounted outside only when needed.)

link

 

[a_majoor]

Looking ahead:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/04/chinas-military-now-to-2020.html

China's Military now to 2020

Rand - Shaking the Heavens and Splitting the Earth (308 pages)

    By 2015 or so, the weapon systems and platforms China is acquiring will potentially enable it to effectively implement the four types of air force campaigns described in the next section. The significant numbers of modern fighter aircraft and SAMs, as well as the long range early warning radars and secure data and voice communication links China is likely to have by 2015, for example, coupled with the hardening and camouflage measures China has already taken, would make a Chinese air defense campaign, if conducted according to the principles described in Chinese military publications, highly challenging for U.S. air forces. Similarly, those same modern fighters, along with ground-launched conventional ballistic and cruise missiles, cruise missile–carrying medium bombers, and aerial refueling aircraft, will enable China to conduct offensive operations far into the western Pacific. Whether China will actually be able to fully exploit its air force doctrine and capabilities, however, is less clear. Much will depend on the quality of the training and leadership of China’s air force, and it should be pointed out that the PLAAF last engaged in major combat operations in the Jinmen campaign of 1958, more than 50 years ago.

Types of Air Campaigns

    Air defense campaigns are said to entail three types of operations: resistance, counterattack, and close protection.

    * Resistance operations are actions to intercept, disrupt, and destroy attacking aircraft.
    * Counterattack operations are attacks on enemy air bases (including aircraft carriers).
    * Close protection operations are passive defense measures, such as fortification, concealment, camouflage, and mobility. China’s overall approach to air defense is to combine the early interception of enemy attacks with full-depth, layered resistance to protect targets and forces while gradually increasing the tempo of
    counter attacks on enemy bases
    * Air blockade campaigns are operations to prevent an adversary from conducting air operations and to cut off its economic and military links with the outside world. Some Chinese sources describe them as simply a special variety of air offensive campaign, but most authoritative sources regard them as a distinct type of campaign

    Although any of these four types of air force campaigns can be conducted as an independent single-service campaign, they are more likely to be conducted as part of a broader joint campaign, such as an island-landing campaign or a joint blockade campaign.

    Rand recommends - The United States should nonetheless deploy active missile defenses, construct aircraft shelters, harden runways and facilities, and increase rapid runway repair capabilities at these bases. In either case, the USAF will need to continue to invest in fighter aircraft technology and pilot skill to ensure that it maintains its advantage in the face of rapid Chinese improvements in these areas

China Today and to 2020

    As of 2010, the PLAAF has retired many of its older aircraft and is operating more than 300 modern fighter aircraft, with more in production. These include Russian-designed Su-27s and Su-30s but also China’s own domestically developed J-10, which is assessed to be comparable in capability to the U.S. F-16. Many PLAAF fighters now carry beyond–visual range air-to-air missiles and PGMs, and the PLAAF possesses a first generation air-launched cruise missile (ALCM), carried on the H-6 medium bomber. Chinese pilots now average well over 100 hours of flight time per year, and the pilots of the most-advanced fighters are believed to receive close to 200 hours per year. China is experimenting with domestically produced airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft, and PLAAF aircraft now routinely operate at low level, over water, in bad weather, and at night (sometimes all at once).

    Meanwhile, the PLAAF’s SAM forces have purchased the modern S-300 series of SAMs (North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] designators SA-10 and SA-20) from Russia and have fielded a domestic system (the HQ-9) of comparable capability.

    Based on recent trends, these changes are likely to accelerate in the future, so that, within another decade, the capabilities of China’s air force could begin to approach those of the U.S. Air Force (USAF) today. USAF capabilities will continue to improve as well, of course, so that it will still enjoy a significant qualitative advantage, but a conflict with China might not be the lopsided contest it likely would have been in the late 1990s. And, even today, the emerging capabilities of the PLAAF are such that, combined with the geographic and other advantages China would enjoy in the most likely conflict scenario—a war over Taiwan—the USAF could find itself challenged in its ability to achieve air dominance over its adversary, a prospect that the USAF has not had to seriously consider for nearly two decades

Aviation Week - Sizing Up China's military

The elements of China's military capability include:

    •Information exploitation. Digital connectivity, now available from troops to top command levels, has helped implement and refine new joint force operations, especially between the second artillery missile force, the PLA air force and the PLA navy (PLAN). Networks of optical, radar and electronic surveillance satellites, new over-the-horizon (OTH) radar, AWACS and electronic intelligence aircraft plus new passive counter-stealth radar and soon, a 30-plus navigation satellite constellation, enable precision targeting at increasing distances.

    •Information attack. In the mid-2000s, U.S. intelligence agencies identified the Advanced Persistent Threat (APT), a pattern of cyberespionage largely traceable to China and aimed mainly at the U.S. defense industry and armed forces.

    •Precision air and missile attack. China is developing (and offering for export) an expanding range of guided rockets conforming to the range limits of the Missile Technology Control Regime, while domestically producing guided air-launched weapons—bombs and cruise missiles—and ballistic missiles capable of threatening U.S. bases and naval forces.

    •Growing sea denial. PLAN has Asia’s most formidable sea-denial capability built around a growing force of 50-80 conventional submarines (SSKs). Soviet-era boats are being replaced by the Song and Yuan classes and imported Russian Kilos. A yet-undesignated new SSK similar in shape to the Kilo was revealed in September. The Songs and Kilos carry sub-launched YJ-82 antiship cruise missiles and the Kilos carry the formidable Novator 3M-54 Club cruise missile family.

    If it is indeed the case that China’s technology is advancing more quickly than the West expects, there is a chance of technological surprise.

    Chinese sources have referred to future DF-25/26/27 missiles: One may be the new 4,000-km missile. Future PLA medium- and short-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles will be faster and more maneuverable to counter defenses. A new air- and missile-defense interceptor family, sometimes called the HQ-19 (HHQ-26 for the naval version), reportedly has performance goals similar to the 400-km Russian S-400.

    By the 2020s the U.S. hopes to resolve technology challenges for deployment of energy weapons. Indicators point to the possibility that the PLA is not far behind in development of tactical lasers, high-power microwave weapons and rail guns. There is also heavy Chinese investment in research centers for electromagnetic launch technology, the basis for rail guns, electromagnetic aircraft catapults and spacecraft launchers.

    China is working on counter-stealth and counter-network technology. At IDEX in February, China released details of the meter-wave (VHF) HK-JM and HK-JM2 radars, both mobile and with detection ranges of 330 and 500 km, respectively. The radars could cue more accurate tracking systems. China also unveiled the DWL002 ground-based electronic surveillance measure system, which could be deployed as a passive coherent-location radar, using long-range broadcast signals to detect non-emitting targets.

    But these newer trends in Chinese power are not sufficiently reflected in U.S. government documents—like the annual China Military Power report—that influence debate over strategy and spending priorities. One possible result is that U.S. weapons timelines will increasingly trail rather than lead PLA developments.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Looking ahead:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/04/chinas-military-now-to-2020.html

Looking at the "Implications" section of the RAND Report (p. 235 and following) I conclude that the report aims to justify the USAF's various programmes. The report suggests that the USA must intervene to defend Taiwan - something that I doubt any US administration that is not led by a complete, blithering idiot would ever contemplate.

There is only one reason for China to attack Taiwan: a declaration of independence. The Chines response will be swift and overwhelming - everyone in Beijing, Taipei and Washington know that. The USA cannot win a war with China; it is probably true that China cannot defeat the USA, either but the USA cannot win. Only an idiot - and I'm prepared to agree that Washington is full of 'em, in and out of the corridors of power - would want such a war.

The USAF doesn't want the war but it does want the budget appropriations and this long bit of nonsense is designed to facilitate more and more airplanes and more and more air force generals - neither of which the US can afford.

 

[CougarKing]

Looking at the "Implications" section of the RAND Report (p. 235 and following) I conclude that the report aims to justify the USAF's various programmes. The report suggests that the USA must intervene to defend Taiwan - something that I doubt any US administration that is not led by a complete, blithering idiot would ever contemplate.

even with the Taiwan Relations Act?!

quote from the TRA:

The act stipulates that the United States will "consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States".

 

[Edward Campbell]

even with the Taiwan Relations Act?!

quote from the TRA:

Yep; for the strategic reasons I stated. America cannot afford to lose not win yet another war. (And, by the way, I do not count Iraq as a "win," not yet, anyway.) It will start to look like a habit.

 

[a_majoor]

More on Chinese military upgrades:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/04/pictures-of-chinas-new-submarines-tanks.html

Pictures of China's new submarines, tanks, stealth planes and railgun development

Previously we had reviewed the RAND and aviation week analysis of China's current military and projections that China would mostly catch up to the current level of the United States military by about 2020.

China rumored to be working on Railguns
A picture of a chinese railgun facility is apparently a fake

The United States has been working to develop railguns for Navy ships in the 2020s and there is an image that claims to show a similar railgun development program in China

China's Tanks

The Type 99 tank, also known as ZTZ-99 and WZ-123, developed from the Type 98G (in turn, a development of the Type 98), is a third generation main battle tank (MBT) fielded by the Chinese People's Liberation Army. It is made to compete with other modern tanks. China has about 500. The US has over 9000 M1 Abrams tanks. China has about 3000 T96 tanks. The Type 99 costs about US$2.5 million and the M1 Abrams about US$8 million.

Type 99A2

The much-improved Type 99 variant, with many major upgrades and improvements. Some of the improvement and upgrades include a reaction improved aiming system, a digital battlefield information terminal, a newly designed arrow-shaped armor, a larger turret, an expanded tail chamber, an Active Protection System mounted on the turret with millimeter-wave radar, a new commander's periscope and an Integrated Propulsion System.

Type 99KM

The newest and much-improved variant, with newer modular active protection system, JD-4 active laser defense system, more powerful 2100-hp engine, and more. It is also equipped with a 155 mm gun capable of firing missiles and next-generation kinetic rounds. (interpolation. sounds a bit like the mythical Russian T-95, especially the gun...)

The Type 99 is powered by a liquid cooled, turbocharged 1,500 hp diesel derived from the German MB871ka501 diesel technology. At its current battle weight of 54 tons, this gives a power-to-weight ratio of about 27.78 hp/ton. The maximum speed on road is 80 km/h and 65 km/h cross country. Acceleration from 0 to 32 km/h only takes 12 seconds. The transmission provides seven forward and one reverse gears.

China also has a new tank under development called the CSU 152. There is not much known about it but would likely have improvements over the Type 99KM. It would probably have an autoloader and a lower profile. It is expected that the baseline chassis will be of all-welded steel armor to which an advanced armor package will be fitted over the frontal arc for a higher level of survivability. This could include depleted uranium (as fitted to some late production US General Dynamics Land Systems M1A1/M1A2 MBT), ceramic armor and/or various types of combination armor.

M1 Abrams -
The M1 Abrams entered U.S. service in 1980 and has been upgraded over time. The M1A3 is currently under development. The Army aims to build prototypes by 2014 and to begin to field the first combat-ready M1A3s by 2017.
67.6 short tons
Road: 45 mph (72 km/h) (Governed)
Off-road: 33 mph (52.8 km/h)
120 mm L44 M256 smooth bore cannon (M1A1, M1A2, M1A2SEP)42 rounds
24.5 hp/metric ton

China newest Diesel and nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers

China has a growing force of 50-80 conventional submarines (SSKs).

The Type 094 is a new class of ballistic missile submarine developed by the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy. The first-of-class was constructed at Huludao Shipyard in Huludao, Liaoning Province and launched in July 2004. At least two are confirmed to have been launched and China could have about five as of 2010. The Type 094 submarine is capable of carrying 12 of the more modern JL-2s with a range of approximately 8,000 km, and is capable of targeting some of the Western Hemisphere from close to the Chinese coast.

The Type 096 submarine is a new class of SSBN rumored to be in development for the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). Little information exits about the project. Some sources suggests that the new submarine will carry 24 SLBMs.

In late 2008, and through early 2009, there have been foreign reports that China will start building two 50,000-60,000 ton aircraft carriers that may be finished early 2012 (other reports say 2015). Whether the two ships will be similar to the Varyag (ski jump) or American carriers (catapult) is not yet known. Since sea trials of the Shi Lang (Varyag) will probably start in 2011, it seems likely that they are similar.

Since 1985, China has acquired four retired aircraft carriers for study: the Australian HMAS Melbourne and the ex-Soviet carriers Minsk, Kiev and Varyag. Reports state that two 50,000-60,000 ton Type 089 aircraft carriers based on the Varyag, are due to be finished by 2015. Sukhoi Su-33s (navalized Flankers) are the aircraft most likely to be flown from these carriers, but China is also developing its own version of the Sukhoi 33, the J-15 Flying Shark.

It is reported that China will likely have five 60,000 ton nuclear powered aircraft carriers by 2020.

The US has 11 aircraft carrier groups and will have 13 in 2023. The US will start deploying the new Gerald Ford class aircraft carriers.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Unlike the USA, China can afford to enhance its military. Our Americans friends can thank themselves, individual by individual, for their current financial predicament and for its strategic consequences.

The Chinese goal, as I understand it, is to project its power, mainly soft power, which requires a hard power base (iron fist in a velvet glove sort of thing), on a global basis and to displace the USA and the only significant military power in East Asia.

 

[a_majoor]

High speed trains fall off the rails:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/chinas-train-wreck/2011/04/21/AFqjRWRE_story.html

Opinions
China’s train wreck

Video: Is China’s high-speed rail a model for U.S. transportation? Based on his travels in China, Washington Post editorial writer Charles Lane thinks not.
 
By CHARLES LANE, Friday, April 22, 8:05 PM
For the past eight years, Liu Zhijun was one of the most influential people in China. As minister of railways, Liu ran China’s $300 billion high-speed rail project. U.S., European and Japanese contractors jostled for a piece of the business while foreign journalists gushed over China’s latest high-tech marvel.

Today, Liu Zhijun is ruined, and his high-speed rail project is in trouble. On Feb. 25, he was fired for “severe violations of discipline” — code for embezzling tens of millions of dollars. Seems his ministry has run up $271 billion in debt — roughly five times the level that bankrupted General Motors. But ticket sales can’t cover debt service that will total $27.7 billion in 2011 alone. Safety concerns also are cropping up.

Faced with a financial and public relations disaster, China put the brakes on Liu’s program. On April 13, the government cut bullet-train speeds 30 mph to improve safety, energy efficiency and affordability. The Railway Ministry’s tangled finances are being audited. Construction plans, too, are being reviewed.

Liu’s legacy, in short, is a system that could drain China’s economic resources for years. So much for the grand project that Thomas Friedman of the New York Times likened to a “moon shot” and that President Obama held up as a model for the United States.

Rather than demonstrating the advantages of centrally planned long-term investment, as its foreign admirers sometimes suggested, China’s bullet-train experience shows what can go wrong when an unelected elite, influenced by corrupt opportunists, gives orders that all must follow — without the robust public discussion we would have in the states.

The fact is that China’s train wreck was eminently foreseeable. High-speed rail is a capital-intensive undertaking that requires huge borrowing upfront to finance tracks, locomotives and cars, followed by years in which ticket revenue covers debt service — if all goes well. “Any . . . shortfall in ridership or yield, can quickly create financial stress,” warns a 2010 World Bank staff report.

Such “shortfalls” are all too common. Japan’s bullet trains needed a bailout in 1987. Taiwan’s line opened in 2007 and needed a government rescue in 2009. In France, only the Paris-Lyon high-speed line is in the black.

This history counseled caution about introducing bullet trains in China, where the typical passenger was still a migrant worker, not a businessman rushing to a meeting. To be sure, there was an economic case to be made for upgrading China’s lumbering rail system: It would free up limited rail capacity for freight trains, thus reducing truck traffic on congested roads. Beijing’s initial feasibility studies envisioned the gradual introduction of trains that would move at a maximum 125 mph, according to Caixin, the Chinese economic magazine.

But Liu Zhijun — part Cornelius Vanderbilt, part Sammy Glick — took over the rail ministry in March 2003 and urged officials to aim for speeds above 200 mph. “Seize the opportunity, build more railways, and build them fast,” he wrote.

 

[a_majoor]

The censors release what they don't want the press to talk about (circular logic):

http://volokh.com/2011/04/24/all-the-news-thats-not-fit-to-print-in-china/

All the News That’s Not Fit to Print, in China

Stewart Baker • April 24, 2011 8:25 am

The press guidance provided by China’s censors is so voluminous and detailed that leaked copies of the guidance are now available on a regular basis.  China Digital Times publishes a weekly list of what China’s censors tell their journalists not to report or hype. It’s a remarkable glimpse into the dark soul of Chinese bureaucracy, a guide to what really scares China’s rulers.  But there’s irony there as well.  I mean, why read Chinese papers when we can get all the juiciest bits from the censors themselves?

And juicy they are.  The censors’ guidance is a kind of Drudge Report for China.  Take the story about the music student who was out driving his Cruze one night and hit a mother bicycling home from her job?  Fearing that she’d gotten his license plate and would make him pay for her broken leg, he stabbed her to death in the street.  Now he too is facing the death penalty.  It’s an irresistible tale of wealth, entitlement and tragedy in modern China.

How did I find the story? Thanks to China’s State Council Information Office, which instructed Chinese websites to cover it only by reprinting copy from the Xinhua News Agency.  “Do not conduct follow-up reports,” the censors warned, “and do not repost stories related to this case.”

But my favorite in recent weeks is the guidance issued by the Central Propaganda Bureau about Liu Zhijun, 58, the recently disgraced transportation minister who ran up nearly $300 billion in debt creating China’s bullet train bubb...er...network.  The propaganda bureau has issued this frustratingly brief guidance:  “All media are not to report or hype the news that Liu Zhijun had 18 mistresses.”

Really?  How can you not hype that news?  He’s the same age as George Tenet, for God’s sake.  I want to know what he was eating.

Heck, you could fill an entire week speculating just on the logistics of the thing. Is it any wonder the guy needed to travel between cities at 200 mph?

 

[sean m]

http://www.youtube.com/user/journeymanpictures#p/u

Here is a documentary about the chinese government building these cities yet barely any people are there to live. This leads to very very little currency returning to the government. Even though the chinese have a very strong economy does anyone think that if this ridiculous building campaign continues that it could translate into what happened to the U.S. on a smaller scale?

 

[CougarKing]

link

..WASHINGTON - A top Chinese general says his country has no intention of trying to match U.S. military power.

Speaking Wednesday at the National Defence University, Gen. Chen Bingde said the U.S. is far more advanced militarily. He cited a "gaping gap" in American and Chinese capabilities. He said it is at least a 20-year gap.

Chen is chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army. He is on a weeklong visit to the United States.

Chen said his visit has made even clearer to him that China's navy, for example, is relatively underdeveloped and must keep building more ships.
...

link

Taiwan to hold elections in January 2012
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 17, 2011 10:36 p.m.
Last modified: May 17, 2011 10:43 p.m.
 
      TAIPEI, Taiwan - Taiwan's Central Election Commission says the island will hold legislative and presidential elections together on January 14, 2012, the first time the polls have coincided since direct presidential elections began in 1996.

In a statement released late Tuesday the commission said it was combining the ballots to be more efficient.

Taiwan's presidential elections usually fall in March, while legislative elections are held either in December or January.

In the upcoming presidential poll, ruling Nationalist Ma Ying-jeou will face Democratic Progressive Party Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen. Tsai has criticized Ma's signature policy of engaging China economically as undermining Taiwan's sovereignty.

The island and the mainland split amid civil war in 1949.

 

[Edward Campbell]

This is in the China thread because Singapore and the PAP have been a model for how the Chinese want to develop; Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew makes regular (twice yearly?) visits to Bejing where he usually spends a full day closeted with Hu Jintao (consider that Obama spends 40 to 90 minutes with a visiting Israeli PM – Hu is just as busy running China as Obama is running America). The  most senior Chinese officials and leadership aspirants are also regular visitors to Singapore - to meet with the Mentor.

   

Chinese President Hu Jintao meets with visiting Singaporean                    2011 年 5 16, Lee Kuan Yew (right) and China's Defence Minister Liang Guanglie (left)
Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew in Beijing Nov. 16, 2007. (Xinhua Photo)    Tang Zhi Wei photo

The article is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, is big news from Asia:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/asia-pacific/singapores-minister-mentor-steps-down-but-not-out/article2030582/

Singapore’s Minister Mentor steps down but not out

MARK MACKINNON
SINGAPORE— From Saturday's Globe and Mail

Published Friday, May. 20, 2011

After five decades as the unrivalled centre of Singapore’s tiny political universe, Lee Kuan Yew tried to cast his decision to step out of the limelight as another one of his characteristically forward-thinking manoeuvres.

A “younger team of ministers [should] connect to, and engage with, this younger generation in shaping the future of Singapore,” he said last week as he stepped down from his omnipotent-sounding post of Minister Mentor.

But it would be closer to the truth to say that – for one of few times since he pulled Singapore out of its brief union with Malaysia in 1965 – Mr. Lee wasn’t in full control of events. It was Singapore, the city-state he helped turn into one of the most affluent societies in the world, that had left Mr. Lee behind, not the other way around.

The 87-year-old’s resignation came on the heels of an election result that – although it returned the governing People’s Action Party with another massive majority – marked a watershed in Singapore’s history. While the PAP still won a convincing 60 per cent of the vote, that was down from 67 per cent in the 2006 election and 75 per cent in 2001. Mr. Lee personally helped turn voters away from the PAP by warning they would “have five years to live and repent” if they elected opposition members to parliament.

Singaporeans responded to that threat by turning to opposition parties in unprecedented numbers. Though the campaign period (the only time when political demonstrations are allowed) was just nine days long, rallies by the Workers’ Party and Singapore Democratic Party attracted enthusiastic crowds of thousands, while the PAP gatherings were far smaller and quieter affairs.

Now that opposition groups such as the Workers’ Party and the Singapore Democratic Party have finally established themselves as viable alternatives in the minds of voters, many expect an even more hotly contested vote the next time out.

“Politics in Singapore tends to change incrementally. But since the elections on May 7, politics will never be the same again,” said Eugene Tan, an assistant law professor at Singapore Management University. “One issue that arose was the question of what style of political system we should have. Behind the figures was a strong unhappiness. As the Prime Minister said, Singaporeans felt the PAP – the only government they’ve ever had – was out of touch.”

The “Singapore model” that Mr. Lee designed – an authoritarian government presiding over one of the most open economies on Earth – seems to have come to the crossroads that many predicted it must eventually reach. In pushing globalization, Mr. Lee encouraged Singaporeans to be innovative and to interact as much as possible with the outside world. The young people who followed his advice often returned to Singapore wondering why their government tried too hard to control what they said and thought.

“Lee Kuan Yew, I won’t say lost touch, but did not fully appreciate the things that came with globalization, the democratic ideas that would infuse the young,” said Allan Chong, an associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Prof. Chong said he could see the change happening among his graduating students, who once sought positions in the PAP but more and more often started their own businesses and openly supported opposition parties.

It was youths – mobilizing themselves online, largely over Twitter – who played the biggest part in Singapore’s tiny electoral uprising. “I voted for the first time today. I am also proud to be Singaporean for the very first time,” Melody Chia, a 23-year-old Singaporean living in Beijing, wrote on her blog after casting her ballot at the embassy there.

Globalization also brought with it a flood of foreign workers, following Mr. Lee’s assertion that Singapore needed to attract as much outside talent as possible to remain competitive. But the sight of outsiders snapping up desirable jobs and university placements – in addition to rising living costs and a widening gap between rich and poor– turned into a wellspring of support for the opposition.

The opposition charge was led by the centre-left Workers’ Party, which won 12 per cent of the vote, and six of 87 parliament seats. It campaigned on the slogan “towards a First World parliament,” a deliberate play on the greatest achievement of Mr. Lee and the PAP, who are credited with lifting Singapore’s economy from the Third World to the First World.

While he will no longer be in cabinet, Mr. Lee retained his seat in parliament and will likely continue to have the ear of his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, even as the latter seeks to stand fully outside his father’s shadow for the first time. The elder Mr. Lee will also remain a senior adviser to the Government Investment Corporation, a role that gives him wide influence over the economic side of Singapore’s development, where his greatest achievements lie.

But it will now be the younger Mr. Lee who will be the new face of Singapore, along with an almost completely new cabinet that he will swear in on Saturday. The Minister Mentor’s retirement from cabinet was matched by that of his successor as prime minister, Goh Chok Tong (who like Mr. Lee had lingered in his own ill-defined post of “Senior Minister”). Three other veteran cabinet ministers were left out of the new cabinet.

Suddenly, the average age of Singapore’s cabinet has dropped to 53 from 59. The 59-year-old Lee Hsien Loong has gone from the fresh face surrounded by elders, to the oldest and most experienced person at the table.

But many Singaporeans doubt whether the retiring Minister Mentor will really be able to stay away from the politics of a state he has spent his life constructing.

“Everybody says [Lee Kuan Yew] is still going to be the power behind the throne. He’s still going to have that clout, that influence,” said Chee Soon Juan, leader of the Singapore Democratic Party, who has been repeatedly jailed for his outspoken opposition to the ruling party and was barred from standing as a candidate in the election because he declared bankruptcy after being convicted of libeling Mr. Lee and his son in a magazine interview. “Nobody expects he’s really going to go away.”

But to the other 60 per cent of Singaporeans, that’s likely fine for now. On the streets, in cafés and on subways, there’s a bit of swagger to the citizens of this tiny country that long lived in an atmosphere of silent fear and compliance. In Mr. Lee’s sterile and orderly Singapore, you couldn’t spit on the streets, let alone speak your mind.

The $300 fine for spitting remains in place, but most here have lost their worries about saying what they think. “We still prefer the ruling party, but in a true democracy you need some opposition,” said Patrick Lee, a retired communications consultant. “Lee Kuan Yew did a very good job in the past. But there comes a time when everybody outlives their usefulness.”

Singapore is a complex society: it is about 85% ethnic Chinese which helps explain the extraordinary entrepreneurial spirit that is coupled with deeply ingrained Confucian (very conservative0 social values. It has the political and legal system to which many educated Chinese aspire and which those same Chinese believe must come in lock-step – increased protection for fundamental rights (life, liberty, property) must come with increased respect for an defernce to elders and governors.

The precipitous decline in PAP support will not, in itself, worry the Chinese leaders – what frightens them is the very sight of effective political opposition parties. There is still much for the Chinese to learn in Singapore.

 

[Edward Campbell]

More on this, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/asia-pacific/the-little-article-that-rocked-singapore/article2030575/

The little article that rocked Singapore

MARK MACKINNON
SINGAPORE— From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published Friday, May 20, 201

Catherine Lim still can’t believe the fuss she caused. The idea that she helped provoke a quiet revolution in this city-state – one that 17 years later has shaken the ruling People’s Action Party to its foundations – reduces the pixyish 68-year-old to shoulder-shaking giggles.

“Who says that?” she says in her breathlessly rapid-fire English when she stops laughing. She doesn’t wait for an answer. “Even today, I’m still trying to absorb the impact of that little article.”

That little article was published in the fall of 1994 in Singapore’s Straits-Times newspaper. In it, Ms. Lim – until then best known as a novelist – committed the shocking act of pointing out that while the long-ruling PAP had done a good job running Singapore’s economy, it had done little to endear itself to those it governed. “There is very little in the way of affectionate regard,” she wrote.

Catherine Lim, one of Singapore's most
outspoken novelists, poses in front of
a traditionalChinese painting in her home.
Luis D'Orey/Reuters

It was a truth the government didn’t want to hear. In the weeks that followed (and particularly after she wrote an equally blunt follow-up column), Ms. Lim was attacked in print and in person by the government of then-prime minister Goh Chok Tong, who accused her of “demolishing the respect for and standing of the Prime Minister and his government by systematic contempt and denigration in the media” – a serious accusation in a country where government critics often wound up defending themselves in court on charges of libel, or worse.

Suddenly, Ms. Lim’s columns weren’t welcomed by the Straits Times any more. She was told that she had angered the country’s paramount political figure, Lee Kuan Yew, the country’s authoritarian founder who once said “if you are a trouble maker … it’s our job to politically destroy you.”

“I understand [why the government was angry]. I knew that what I had done – which seemed innocuous to Western eyes – was to them a gross violation of the Confucianist ethos” of respecting your seniors and superiors, Ms. Lim explained in an interview Friday.

Flash forward to 2011, and Ms. Lim has reason for her good humour. The recent elections – which saw a best-ever result for the opposition – saw criticism of the government become commonplace on the Internet and particularly on social-media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. During the campaign, Ms. Lim, who now blogs on her own website (catherinelim.sg), saw her writing “go viral, I think that’s the word,” she says with another giggle. Political scientists credit her with helping get out the youth vote, which swung heavily behind the opposition.

In the aftermath of the election, Ms. Lim’s one-time nemesis, Mr. Lee, resigned from cabinet after more than five decades near the top of Singaporean politics.

Ms. Lim insists she has a lot of respect for the man credited as the founder of modern Singapore. In the days after the election, she wrote a one-person play based on Mr. Lee, thinly disguised as the character “Supremo.”

In the play, Supremo has gone into self-imposed isolation, disgusted at what has become of the country he once ruled. But Ms. Lim says it’s a sympathetic portrayal of a man who gave everything he had to Singapore. “Any extreme view of Lee Kuan Yew would be inaccurate. … [His record] is so nuanced, so ambiguous.”

But Supremo realized something Ms. Lim says Singaporeans are just discovering in the wake of the May 7 vote. “There is no way to go back to the Lee Kuan Yew period. It’s over, over, over.”

I'm not sure Ms. Lim is correct in saying things are "over, over, over," but they have, irrevocably, changed.

In many respects she is also describing the Chinese Communist Party: it has the respect and gratitude of the Chinese people for 60 years of radical, mostly beneficial change but “There is very little in the way of affectionate regard." People in China no longer dream of being Party members, in fact I know a lady (about 70 years old) who just recently declined a Party membership because she did not believe it would benefit her family - not as much as some other courses that were open to her. It is not just Singapore that is changing, albeit at a glacial pace. Changes in Singapore will resonate around East Asia, including in China.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, is an interesting opinion piece by a skilled observer:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/indias-and-chinas-uncomfortable-dance/article2046877/

India's and China’s uncomfortable dance

DAVID MALONE

From Monday's Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Jun. 06, 2011

Asia’s weight in the global economy is rising fast and military capabilities in the region are increasing too.

A poll of Canadians conducted in February of this year, on which The Globe and Mail reported extensively reveals most Canadians seemingly both disengaged from and cool toward much of Asia.

China, Japan and India are the heavy hitters. Indonesia and South Korea are also significant, as is, in the Pacific area, Australia. But given Japan’s economic stagnation over the past two decades and its unpromising demographic trends, most Asians see China and India as the principal rivals for influence in the region. The United States, through its unique geo-strategic reach, also remains a major actor in Asia.

India’s emergence from decades of disappointing economic performance following its independence, and the acceleration of its growth after liberalizing reforms in the early 1990s, adds an important new factor to the Asian equation.

Relevant also to all of Asia is India’s historic significance, imprinted across the continent through the spread of Buddhism, Hinduism, Indian trading communities and wider cultural influences, most evident in the dynamism of Bollywood. Its rambunctious democracy is widely admired, although questioning of the probity of some of its politicians is too frequently in the spotlight.

Its current demographics, with a population of 1.2 billion, most of it young, add to its potential. In spite of continuing widespread poverty, India, like China, had attained sufficient economic momentum and resiliency to breeze through the recent global economic crisis.

They are not equals: China launched economic reforms in the late 1970s following the death of Mao Zedong, more than a decade before India followed suit. It occupies territory three times the size of India’s and its economic wealth is over three times greater, both in absolute terms and per capita. But demographic factors and others may slow China somewhat in decades ahead while India could speed ahead.

China has been a much greater preoccupation for New Delhi than has any partner in the West, including the U.S., with which India has recently much improved its relationship through an agreement on nuclear co-operation. Although independent India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, cultivated the new Communist leadership of China in the early 1950s, the relationship soon soured. A brief border war in 1962, which India decisively lost, left New Delhi anxious about the future of its ties with a China then as now allied to India’s most constant regional antagonist, Pakistan.

Tibet overhangs the relationship just as it overhangs the map of India. New Delhi acquiesced in China’s military takeover of Tibet in 1950, but offered refuge to the Dalai Lama when he fled Tibet in 1959 and still does today. A previous Dalai Lama in 1913 returned to Lhasa from India after the collapse of the Qing dynasty, which had defeated him several years earlier. Beijing clearly does not discount the support the Dalai Lama still enjoys among Tibetans.

Although China provided strong military and economic support to Pakistan from the mid-1950s onwards, Pakistani adventurism (in triggering a controlled but dangerous border war at Kargil in 1999), and the presence of terrorists operating internationally out of its territory, have inspired a more prudent stance by Beijing that encourages negotiated solutions to the tensions between India and Pakistan.

Nevertheless, Indian unease about Chinese designs in its neighbourhood, fuelled by minor mutual provocations generally dispelled by the passage of time and by quiet diplomacy, remains strong in spite of rapidly expanding trade links, with China today India’s largest trading partner. China’s close ties with the Burmese junta and with resurgent Sri Lanka, its improving relations with Nepal and Bangladesh and its continuing close links with Pakistan create in India a sense of “encirclement.”

China, a much larger country with more neighbours, does not experience as much anxiety about India. But the regional influence and growing weight of India, together with the strong regional role of India’s new friend, the United States, could combine to create in Beijing a sense of vulnerability. Both China and India are investing heavily in their navies.

Thus, India and China are engaged in an uncomfortable dance with each other. Their economic interests, the strongest driver of the foreign policy of each, encourage co-operation, but a degree of competition is inevitable. Meanwhile, nervous countries in Southeast Asia, dismayed by China’s strong-arm tactics during a brief clash with Japan last year, are only too happy to see the rise of another Asian power that China cannot cow.

Both China and India have given priority to their struggle for economic development. Each has been a prudent regional actor over the past several decades, and a degree of strategic restraint by each seems likely, even though China’s recent sharper tone has disconcerted neighbours. The continent and the rest of the globe are large enough to accommodate the peaceful rise of both. And the military capacity of each, including nuclear weapons, diminishes the likelihood of serious aggression by the other.

What happens over coming decades in Asia, as its geopolitics undergo tectonic shifts, could affect us all, not least by either enhancing or disrupting international trade and hence our prosperity. And war in Asia, among nuclear-weapons states, would be catastrophic globally, for Canadians as for others. The continent will require close study and will reward serious engagement in decades to come.

David M. Malone, a former Canadian envoy to the UN and to India, is president of Canada’s International Development Research Centre. His book Does the Elephant Dance? Contemporary Indian Foreign Policy[/i] appears in Canada this month.[/i]

I agree, broadly, with David Malone. Asia, and therefore the outcome of the Chinese-Indian dance, matters to us. It matters infinitely more than anything and everything happening in Libya and Afghanistan, combined. The Arab Spring and, indeed, the Afro-Arab-Asian (except Indonesian) Islamic Crescent is a significant irritant but not of any real strategic significance. Yes, there will be more and more Islamic nukes, and yes, Islamists (religious terrorists) will use nukes against Israel and at least one Western country – possibly the USA – and yes, that will be a shame, but it will not be of any real historic importance. Asia, on the other, will write much of the world's history for the next 500 years, just as the Anglo-Americans did for the last 500 – we would do well to be ready for the change.

 

[FoverF]

The continent... will reward serious engagement in decades to come.

If you back the right horse.

 

[a_majoor]

This could be either a desire to build profile or trouble making, even if you believe in the message of this rating company:

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/china-ratings-house-says-us-defaulting-report-054309883.html

China ratings house says US defaulting: report

AFP – Fri, 10 Jun, 2011

A Chinese ratings house has accused the United States of defaulting on its massive debt, state media said Friday, a day after Beijing urged Washington to put its fiscal house in order.

"In our opinion, the United States has already been defaulting," Guan Jianzhong, president of Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. Ltd., the only Chinese agency that gives sovereign ratings, was quoted by the Global Times saying.

Washington had already defaulted on its loans by allowing the dollar to weaken against other currencies -- eroding the wealth of creditors including China, Guan said.

Guan did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment.

The US government will run out of room to spend more on August 2 unless Congress bumps up the borrowing limit beyond $14.29 trillion -- but Republicans are refusing to support such a move until a deficit cutting deal is reached.

Ratings agency Fitch on Wednesday joined Moody's and Standard & Poor's to warn the United States could lose its first-class credit rating if it fails to raise its debt ceiling to avoid defaulting on loans.

A downgrade could sharply raise US borrowing costs, worsening the country's already dire fiscal position, and send shock waves through the financial world, which has long considered US debt a benchmark among safe-haven investments.

China is by far the top holder of US debt and has in the past raised worries that the massive US stimulus effort launched to revive the economy would lead to mushrooming debt that erodes the value of the dollar and its Treasury holdings.

Beijing cut its holdings of US Treasury securities for the fifth month in a row to $1.145 trillion in March, down $9.2 billion from February and 2.6 percent less than October's peak of $1.175 trillion, US data showed last month.

Foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei on Thursday urged the United States to adopt "effective measures to improve its fiscal situation".
Dagong has made a name for itself by hitting out at its three Western rivals, saying they caused the financial crisis by failing to properly disclose risk.

The Chinese agency, which is trying to build an international profile, has given the United States and several other nations lower marks than they received from the the big three.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The USA is, de facto, already a deadbeat country - on a par with Greece. The US Treasury has used some procedural slight of hand to fed of de jure default until August.

This de facto default need not be a disaster, it may even make Americans, maybe a few tens of millions of Americans, wake up their own follies and, in 2012, elect responsible legislators - president, senators and representatives - to replace the current crop of clowns, Democrats, Republicans and Tea Partiers alike.