Posted on 08/18/2005 8:30:58 AM PDT by Petey139
Geopolitics: As China cozies up to the world's dictators and our enemies, the first-ever bilateral military exercises between Russia and China are set to begin today. Are we ignoring our biggest threat?
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Simulated land, sea and air operations are to be conducted in the Russian Far East and continue on to the Chinese coastal province of Shandong and the Yellow Sea. The joint exercises between a former Communist giant with plenty of military hardware to sell and the current Communist giant with plenty of money to spend does not bode well for the United States.
Speaking of the exercises, dubbed Peace Mission 2005, China's official New China News Agency said they "will help strengthen the capability of the two armed forces in jointly striking international terrorism, extremism and separatism."
That last reference was to Taiwan, and the joint exercises are meant to (1) demonstrate China's expanding military capabilities and (2) send a message to the U.S. to keep off the grass.
The weeklong exercises will involve about 10,000 troops and various advanced weapons systems that Russia hopes to sell to its former understudy. The merchandise includes long-range TU-95 and supersonic TU-22 bombers, both cruise-missile-capable and advanced SU-27 fighters, and an assortment of submarines and amphibious and anti-submarine ships -- all useful in a Chinese blockade and/or an outright invasion of its "lost province" of Taiwan.
Jane's Defense Weekly reports that workers at China's Dalyan Shipyard have been busily repairing the former Soviet Kusnetsov-class aircraft carrier Varyag, purchased from Ukraine in 1998, painting it with the colors and markings of the People's Liberation Navy. This would represent a significant step towards China's goal of a blue-water fleet.
China is preparing to challenge our military supremacy in the Western Pacific while keeping us busy on the world stage. It is building alliances with thugs and dictators and locking up energy resources, guaranteeing a steady supply for its rapidly growing military-industrial complex.
Major energy deals have been signed with rogue regimes in Sudan and Iran. And while China has not deployed its military forces abroad in any significant way for five centuries, it did deploy 4,000 troops to Sudan five years ago to protect its investment in oil there and prop up the genocidal regime in Khartoum. Sudan exports 60% of its oil to China.
China, now the world's second-largest energy importer, receives an estimated 14% of its oil from Iran. Last November, China and Iran signed a 25-year energy deal worth an estimated $100 billion over the next decade alone.
Such huge deals are a direct challenge to U.S. efforts to isolate Iran and deny it the funds to finance a military buildup. The CIA, in a report to Congress, said Chinese firms "have helped Iran move towards its goal of becoming self-sufficient in the production of ballistic missiles."
Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe recently got a warm welcome in Beijing, where he sealed a deal for Chinese economic assistance and was hailed as "a man devoted to world peace and a good friend of the Chinese people." In Zimbabwe, China seeks mining rights.
China has been active in our own hemisphere with heavy investments planned or under way in Brazil and Argentina. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez also visited Beijing late last year and announced plans for China to invest in several of his country's oil fields and refineries.
China's getting ready for something, and it isn't the 2008 Olympics.
I don't know where he got this idea but can anyone comfirm this part.
China is getting stronger every day both economically and military. The giant is awakning after centuries of laying low. You have to remember that in the old days China was the center of the univers. It will probably become a super power faster than most people think. Its hard to stand up to country of 1,4 billion people when its on the role.
Resource Hungry China Makes Big Push Into Africa
China Expanding Political, Economic Reach Deep into East Africa
China and Sudan: Partners in oil -- and warfare? - 12/27/04 - China National Petroleum, still owned by the Communist Party government, bought into the Sudan consortium in 1996. It joined with Sudan's Energy Ministry to build the country's largest refinery, then last year invested in a $300 million expansion that nearly doubled production, according to a report in the Shenzhen Business Post.
The consortium's Heglig and Unity oil fields now produce 350,000 barrels per day, according to the U.S. Energy Department. Separately, China Petroleum owns most of a field in southern Darfur, which began trial production this year, and 41 percent of a field in the Melut Basin, which is expected to produce as much as 300,000 barrels per day by the end of 2006.
Another Chinese firm, Sinopec, is erecting a pipeline from that complex to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, where China's Petroleum Engineering Construction Group is building a tanker terminal.
For years, the government lacked the arms to vanquish the Sudan People's Liberation Army, the rebel group that controls much of the south. With the dawn of oil production in 1999, Sudan's government began collecting $500 million a year in revenue. About 80 percent went to buy weapons, said Lam Akol, who was Sudan's transportation minister from 1998 to 2002 and is now a rebel commander.
Sudan is China's largest overseas oil project. China is Sudan's largest supplier of arms, according to a former Sudan government minister. Chinese-made tanks, fighter planes, bombers, helicopters, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades have intensified Sudan's 2-decade-old north-south civil war. A cease-fire is in effect, and a peace agreement is scheduled to be signed. However, fighting in Sudan's Darfur region rages on, as government-backed Arab militias push African tribes off their land.
China in October signed a $70 billion oil deal with Iran, and the evolving ties between those two countries could complicate U.S. efforts to isolate Iran diplomatically or pressure it to give up its ambitions for nuclear weapons. China is also pursuing oil in Angola.
"Oil from Sudan makes up one-tenth of all of China's imported oil," said Zhu Weilie, director of Middle East and North African Studies at Shanghai International Studies University, who has links with the Foreign Affairs Ministry. "If we lose this source, how can we find another market to replace it? China has to balance its interests."
Petroleum Ethics: Britain and Canada turn a Blind Eye to Sino-Soviet Control of Sudan
Sudan And Russia Forging New Ties Around Oil And Arms - January 22, 2002 - "Moscow's funding injection is predicated on Khartoum's purchase of Russian arms. Construction of a factory to assemble Russian Tu-72 battle tanks began last year in Sudan. Khartoum will pay for the right to assemble the tanks, and in exchange Moscow will invest the proceeds in oil projects in Sudan, the Nairobi-based Sudanese Catholic Information Office reported in March 2001."
Russian MiGs in Sudan and Yemen - There is little debate that the MiG-29 purchase was financed by foreign oil sales. The long civil war in Sudan has claimed over a million lives in the last decade, spurred in part by disputes over oil reserves inside the poverty-stricken African state.
"The combat aircraft will be used for military purposes that certainly entail continued oil-related destruction in southern Sudan," noted Reeves.
"Though the MiG-29 is designed primarily for air-to-air combat, it has formidable air-to-ground capabilities. Depending upon the configuration of the jets actually purchased by Khartoum, these aircraft could be used with immensely deadly and destructive effect in southern Sudan," stated Reeves.
"They would likely be operationally deployed from El Obeid air base, the southernmost military air base that can be readily used by the Khartoum regime. All military aviation fuel for El Obeid is supplied by a nearby 10,000 barrel/day refinery that receives its entire crude oil supply from Talisman [Canada], Petronas [Malaysia] and China National Petroleum Corp.," said Reeves.
Oil revenues from sales to China enabled Sudan to purchase 34 new jet fighters from Chinese manufacturers. Since 2000, the Sudanese Air Force has acquired $100 million worth of Shenyang jet fighters. The Chinese jets sold to Sudan include a dozen Shenyang F-7 super-sonic fighters, highly improved versions of the famed Russian MiG-21 Fishbed.
Information provided by Aviation Week and Space Technology confirmed that Sudan has acquired 34 new fighters from China since 2000. The newly acquired Chinese jet fighters doubled the combat size of the tiny Sudan air force.
It is unlikely that the Sudanese air force can operate the advanced MiG-29 Fulcrums, raising the possibility that Moscow will also supply mercenary pilots to fly the fourth-generation fighter jets. Russia has frequently been accused of providing mercenary pilots to other nearby African client states.
In 2000, Eritrea stated that Moscow supplied a large number of mercenary pilots to neighboring rival Ethiopia. The Eritrean diplomatic complaint to Moscow included a list, naming the Russian mercenaries working for Ethiopia.
There is no question that Russia is committed to supplying the Khartoum regime with advanced hardware. Russia has already supplied a large number of MiG-24 Hind helicopter gunships to Sudan.
Libyan and Iraqi pilots working for the Sudanese air force reportedly man the Hind gunships. The helicopter gunships have been used by the Sudanese air force to attack unarmed refugee camps.
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