Free Republic

The United States Navy is going to steam into the Yellow Sea and blow up some Korean warships. But friendly, like, and for fun. Points will be scored, and trophies (of a sort) will be awarded. Younger people might think of it as an Xbox simulation with live ammunition. These kinds of war games in the Northern Pacific and vicinity have been going on ever since Japan lost the war and the States has taken over funding their self defense. China, upon whom some of these waters in which the games occur impinge, has grumbled about the contests before, but...

Security: The Pentagon report warning that Beijing is amassing high-tech missiles leaves out another alarming domestic security issue: massive Chinese spying. Forget about the Russian spy ring the FBI broke up that stole mostly headlines (as opposed to U.S. secrets) for their amateurish methods. This is no joke. These Chinese moles mean business. And they're stealing highly sensitive military secrets. At least 44 of them have been quietly prosecuted in the last two years alone — a figure that dwarfs the number of Russian spies expelled last month. And those are just the ones we've caught. The Chinese agents are...

China has issued regulations banning its 2.3 million soldiers from creating web sites or writing web blogs, adding to the nation's existing Internet curbs, state press said Saturday. "Soldiers cannot open blogs on the Internet no matter (whether) he or she does it in the capacity of a soldier or not," Xinhua news agency quoted Wan Long, a political commissar of the People's Liberation Army, as saying. "The Internet is complicated and we should guard against online traps," it said, citing concerns about military "confidentiality". The new rules are laid out in revised PLA Internal Administration Regulations and went into...

Recent discourse concerning the Chinese People’s Liberation Army's (PLA) modernization has principally focused on technological advances and less on the human dimension of PLA force transformation. In particular, a review of these discussions revealed the absence of a publicly available database of Chinese military leaders with the rank of full general (shangjiang). Against the backdrop of the PLA’s stated intention to reorient the armed forces as part of its modernization efforts, an analysis of promotion patterns of the 118 PLA generals (1981 - 2009) may yield important insights into the foci of PLA force transformation. PLA to Build Up Navy...

I thought that Russian military official’s slapdown of the Chinese knock off of their Su-33 carried based fighter (Chinese designation J-15) was really interesting. Now, as I mentioned yesterday, this could all just be posturing for the global arms market, a bit of tainting the competition if you will. Or, it could just be public griping over the Chinese stealing intellectual property from Russian aircraft builder Sukhoi. But then again, there is not much of a global market for carrier based fighters. Also, what the Russian official said about shortcomings in China’s aerospace industry resonates with what I’ve seen from...

China's J-15 carrier-based fighter will not be able to compete with Russia's Su-33 fighter on global markets because it is inferior to the Russian aircraft, a Russian military analyst said on Friday. China since 2001 has been developing the J-15 naval fighter, which is believed to be a clone of Russia's Su-33 Falcon-D. China bought an Su-33 prototype earlier from Ukraine, and used it to develop the new aircraft. The J-15 is expected to be stationed initially onboard the Chinese Varyag aircraft carrier currently being fitted in the port of Dalian. China bought the unfinished Admiral Kuznetsov class aircraft carrier...

Egypt's Defense Ministry has approved plans to expand the production of joint weapons and aerospace projects with Beijing. They said both countries were discussing a draft agreement in which they would also jointly market combat platforms and weapons to Arab and African militaries. "Over the next few months, we will witness an announcement of new Egyptian-Chinese combat production that stems from joint cooperation," said Hamdi Waheiba, chairman of Egypt's Arab Organization for Industrialization (AOI). Waheiba said the cooperative effort would seek to meet the needs of the Egyptian Air Force as well as regional militaries. The two countries plan to...

A U.S. specialist on China's military testified recently that Beijing's development of aerospace capabilities is reaching world-class levels, and dismissed past notions of the Chinese military as a "junkyard army". “Since the beginning of the latest phase of China’s military modernization following the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, the Chinese Communist Party leadership has striven to build a world-class aerospace sector as a major element of increasing China’s comprehensive national power,” said Richard Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center in testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. “This goal has been pursued through enormous targeted investments in technology,...

New Chinese fighter jet expected by 2018: U.S. intelligence (Reuters) - China is building an advanced combat jet that may rival within eight years Lockheed Martin Corp's F-22 Raptor, the premier U.S. fighter, a U.S. intelligence official said. The date cited for the expected deployment is years ahead of previous Pentagon public forecasts and may be a sign that China's rapid military buildup is topping many experts' expectations. "We're anticipating China to have a fifth-generation fighter ... operational right around 2018," Wayne Ulman of the National Air and Space Intelligence Center testified on Thursday to a congressionally mandated group that...

Military Advantage: Our defense secretary proposes doing what no other foreign adversary has done: sink the U.S. Navy. We don't need those billion-dollar destroyers, he says. Meanwhile, the Chinese navy rushes to fill the vacuum. Once Britannia ruled the waves, later to be replaced by America and its Navy. From the Battle of Midway to President Reagan's 600-ship fleet that helped win the Cold War, naval supremacy has been critical to the protection and survival of our nation. Which is why we find the recent remarks of Defense Secretary Robert Gates to the Navy League at the Sea-Air-Space expo so...

As America unilaterally disarms, a Chinese officer in a new book touts a new reality — that China is prepared to rule the roost, and the U.S. better keep off the grass.

China's military buildup opposite Taiwan has continued despite improved relations between Beijing and Taipei, a congressional report made public last week stated. “As people on both sides of the Strait consider future economic steps, strong concerns remain on both sides of the Pacific about PRC military modernization and deployments,” the report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission stated. “The PRC refused to renounce the use of force regarding Taiwan,” it said. “PRC leaders have stated in explicit terms that Beijing considers Taiwan’s future a ‘core’ national interest and the PRC would take military action in the event Taiwan...

YALONG BAY, China — The Chinese military is seeking to project naval power well beyond the Chinese coast, from the oil ports of the Middle East to the shipping lanes of the Pacific, where the United States Navy has long reigned as the dominant force, military officials and analysts say. China calls the new strategy “far sea defense,” and the speed with which it is building long-range capabilities has surprised foreign military officials... --snip-- A 2009 Pentagon report estimated Chinese naval forces at 260 vessels, including 75 “principal combatants” — major warships — and more than 60 submarines. The report...

About 25 years ago, an American intelligence officer was asked how far the Chinese could project military power. His terse answer: “About as far as their army can walk.” Today, that statement is most assuredly no longer true. China has accomplished perhaps the most remarkable expansion of military power since the US geared up for World War II. In the last 15 years it has deployed nuclear and conventional missiles that can reach US forces from the western Pacific to Washington, D.C. China’s military is also assembling a set of capabilities designed to avoid or offset traditional US advantages. This...

National Security: On the eve of a visit by China's No. 2 ranking military officer, the Obama administration loosens export controls on technology that will benefit Chinese missile development. It's deja vu all over again. The Pentagon has announced that Chinese Gen. Xu Caihou will visit the United States and meet with Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Oct. 26. Xu is vice chairman of the People's Liberation Army Central Military Commission. While here, Xu will visit American military installations around the U.S., including the U.S. Pacific Command. Perhaps Xu will bring with him a note of thanks for the administration's...

Geopolitics: As America unilaterally disarms, a Chinese officer in a new book touts a new reality — that China is prepared to rule the roost, and the U.S. better keep off the grass. On April 5, 2009, in Prague, President Obama gave a speech in which he pledged America would work toward a "world without nuclear weapons." Almost a year later, it seems we are moving toward a world without American nuclear weapons. "To put an end to Cold War thinking," the president said, "we will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy and urge others...

BEIJING, March 4 (Xinhua) -- China plans to increase its defense budget by 7.5 percent in 2010, only about half of last year's planned growth of 14.9 percent, a parliament spokesman said here on Thursday. The planned defense budget is 532.115 billion yuan (about 78 billion U.S. dollars), a rise of about 37 billion yuan from last year's defense expenditure, Li Zhaoxing, spokesman for the annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC), told a press conference. Defense spending would account for 6.4 percent of the country's total fiscal expenditure in 2010, the same with last year, he said. However,...

Updated February 18, 2010 Cyberattacks Reportedly Traced to Computers in Chinese Schools" FOXNews.com SNIPPET: "The recent cyberattacks on Google and other American companies have been traced by investigators to computers at two schools in China, including one with ties to the Chinese military, according to a New York Times report citing unnamed inside sources. The Times report also says that the attacks began much earlier than first thought, as far back as April..."

Military leaders in China called for the sale of U.S. debt securities on Monday, February 8, 2010 in response to arms sales recently made to Taiwan.

The Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) annual threat assessment on China finds that the country is strengthening its ability to conduct military operations along its periphery on its own terms. According to the report, which was published in March, 2009, but was just declassified in Jan. 2010: “(China) is building and fielding sophisticated weapon systems and testing new doctrines that it believes will allow it to prevail in regional conflicts and also counter traditional U.S. military advantages. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is increasingly building its own sophisticated aircraft, surface combatants, submarines and weapon systems while still purchasing select systems from...