Posted on 2/8/2005, 8:56:39 PM by Tailgunner Joe
Quietly, with almost no notice taken in the U.S. media, Russia and China have just stepped up their military cooperation to a level not seen in half a century since the end of the Korean War.
The exercises will be on a vast scale and will also involve air force and navy units of both nations, including submarines.
The large scale of conventional forces involved suggests that international terrorism may not be the only hypothetical enemy the Russian and Chinese forces will practice deploying against. While not a single statement about the exercises mentioned the United States, U.S. policy in recent months has increasingly alarmed both Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Hu Jintao of China and appears to be drawing them more closely together.
Putin and Hu have been equally alarmed by the spectacular success of President Viktor Yushchenko's "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine from November to January. As reported last week in these columns, Hu has authorized a revival of the study of Mao Zedong's Thought among the entire 68 million members of China's ruling Communist Party, an ideological campaign the likes of which has not been seen in the 29 years since Mao died.
Articles in the official Chinese press have explicitly explained the campaign as a response to the threat that China may be destabilized and ultimately splintered by a wave of democratic activism from Ukraine spreading across eastwards across Eurasia through the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
At the time Chinese President Jiang Zemin insisted the SCO be referred to informally as "The Shanghai Pact," a deliberate echo of the Warsaw Pact organization that kept all the Soviet Union's Central European satellite nations in line from its foundation in 1955 to the collapse of communism in the region in the fall of 1989.
Significantly, the Sino-Russian military exercises now planned for August and September do not appear to involve the deployment of any Chinese troops into Russian territory to help Russia against any international terrorist threat, even though Russia has suffered far more grievously than China form such attacks in recent years. Instead, they envisage Russian forces being deployed in China to help protect it as an ally. The only conceivable military scenario that could possibly require such a deployment would be if China felt itself threatened by the United States in some future clash over Taiwan.
Yes--China began to fear the possibility of a "Chinese Gorbachev" after Tianamen Square and started seeking renewed military ties with Russia against the US in 1992-1993, which led to the signing of a strategic partnership in 1996 and a formal aliance in 1998.
Fair play to them. Both know the US could wipe the floor with them (Albeit at a heavy cost depending on where the war is fought, what weapons and what limits each side observes).
An alliance like that is a reasonable booster against eachone becoming the victim of US unilateralism. I don't think a US attack is likely against either, but nations that don't plan for the worst will reap it....
I also doubt Russia would allow itself to get drawn intoi Taiwan at a shooting level rather than an obstructionist level. That said, if such a conflict escalated to US or other troops entering China, Russia would be in. They couldn't permit potential hostiles to determine the fate of their most significant neighbour any more than the US could let someone meddle with Chanada/Mexico in similar circumstances.
To say that we could wipe the floor with both of them, as we are right now...really, really depends on a lot of things in our favor.
Russia and China putting the boot back on?
Here is something to ponder. We all now know just how extensively the PRC have built themselves up as the contract manufacturer for the world. Now, let us take a page from history, and examine the way the Germans circumvented the Treaties of Versailles and Locarno by doing foreign development and manufacturing of defense systems. Now, we must ask ourselves, given the PRC's known abilities to joint develop increasingly complex products, what are the chances that there is covert development and incipient serial production of MRBMs and IRBMs, which would be out of compliance with the INF, were they developed and made in Russia? Is it possible that such missiles are being secretly ammased, pending a surprise deployment to locations in both the PRC and Russia?
Oh, absolutely. I should have been more specific. My meaning was that the US could defeat them overall. I certainly don't mean Iraq-style or WW2-style invasions. I simply mean knock them out of the war. My bracketed point re escalation and costs was recognition of the fact that the prices might be massive (ie nuclear damage to both sides or worse), the battlefield would be a large one (After all, if I was Chinese or Russian and drawn into a conflict with the US, I would make damn sure there were as many attacks, diversions and assaults on a worldwide footing as I could manage aganist both the US and critical pathways).
No, I completely agree with you on the need for luck otherwise!
That is highly possible. From their point of view the only way to avoid having their nukes become irrelevant is to return to a swamp any defence grid capacity and that means big numbers. Of course, if they build them openly, that just makes it more likely for Bush to get support for an Defence matrix as well as the additional scientific research cash needed if the damn thing is ever to have a vague chance of working.
Heh sounds like this little deal...
Hitler-Stalin Pact ...
And the Navy fleet is going be cut even more when it is already in bad sahpe thanks to Klintoon. What is this nation coming to?
Honestly I m scared if you are right... Cause I think this is total nonsense. People remember the Chinese incursions in 61-62 and 67-69 into Russian territory and trust is thin with resource value in western sibir being more necessary and vital in the global market scene. The relationship between Russia and China is more like arms seller to a growing gang... It isn't one of mutual trust where there are joint defense plans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_border_conflict%2C_1969
I tried to find the Russian memorial site but this will have to do. Russia gave the islands part of one and all of another to China last year and people were very upset...
Russia and China in fact have been military allies for almost all of the last decade, ==
I think you exagerate. On the long border of Far East there are still standing "anti-chinese' fortifications. Nothing deinstalled even more fortified.
Russia I think will never go against United States. She would be neutral so.
After all United States is only one who can help Russia if China decides to took away Far East from her.
Of cause I cann't be sure that there may happen crazy and stupid things in russian politics. But to ally with China it is too much.
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