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White paper orders huge military build-up Patrick Walters, National security editor | April 25, 2009 KEVIN Rudd is set to announce Australia's biggest military build-up since World War II, led by a multi-billion-dollar investment in maritime defence, including 100 new F-35 fighters, a doubling of the submarine fleet, and powerful new surface warships. Kevin Rudd is set to roll out the biggest military build-up since World War II. 04/09 Sky News Views today: 21Sorry, this video is no longer available.The new defence white paper will outline plans for a fundamental shake-up of Australia's defence organisation to ensure that the nation...

Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, is the author of seven books on international affairs, including America's Coming War with China: A Collision Course over Taiwan (2006). The People's Republic of China continues to send worrisome signals about its security strategy. As the tone of cross-straits relations grows increasingly strident, China's latest military reshuffle and ongoing lack of transparency about its military budget are creating new tensions with both the United States and its neighbors in East Asia. In the lead-up to the opening of the Communists' 17th National Party Congress...

China's leadership makes show of unity ahead of key Communist Party congress The Associated Press Wednesday, August 1, 2007 BEIJING: Past and present Chinese leaders appeared together on army day Wednesday in a striking show of unity ahead of a key Communist Party congress later this year. Former President and party chief Jiang Zemin, seldom seen in public since giving up his last official title in 2004, joined current top leader Hu Jintao on stage at a ceremony celebrating the 80th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army. The appearance of Jiang and former premiers Zhu Rongji and...

Show News has learned that Russia's Rosoboronexport (ROE) is close to signing a defense order with Iran that may be the largest in more than three decades.

Russia must strengthen its military and step up spying on the west in response to US plans to site parts of a missile defence shield in eastern Europe, President Vladimir Putin warned on Wednesday. Addressing newly-promoted military and security officers, Mr Putin said new US military bases in eastern Europe and the failure of Nato countries to ratify an updated version of a Cold War treaty capping levels of conventional forces in Europe were threats to Russian security. “One of our absolute priorities is an all-round strengthening of the armed forces,” Mr Putin told the Kremlin gathering. He listed not...

Orders for two new Royal Navy aircraft carriers have been confirmed by Defence Secretary Des Browne. He said the £3.8bn contract would lead to the construction of the largest vessels ever sailed by the Royal Navy. The new 65,000-tonne carriers - HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales - will enter service in 2014 and 2016. Mr Browne said the work would support and create 10,000 jobs across the UK, including those at yards on the Clyde, Rosyth, Portsmouth and Barrow.

China's military buildup is moving beyond countering Taiwan to global operations from the Middle East through Southeast Asia, according to the Pentagon's annual assessment of Chinese military power. "China's military acquisitions and strategic thinking suggests Beijing is also generating capabilities for other regional contingencies, such as conflict over resources or territory," the report to Congress said. The statement, released yesterday, contradicts assessments of some pro-China analysts and intelligence officials who have said the nation's military buildup is relatively benign and limited to resolving the sovereignty issue of Taiwan, which was separated from China in 1949 during a civil war. China...

Russian military intelligence services are reporting a flurry of activity by U.S. Armed Forces near Iran's borders, a high-ranking security source said Tuesday. "The latest military intelligence data point to heightened U.S. military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran," the official said. He also said the U.S. Naval presence in the Persian Gulf has for the first time in the past four years reached the level that existed shortly before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003...

Despite the Chinese Communist Party leadership's espousal of China's "peaceful rise," the unprecedented peacetime expansion of China's military capabilities betrays a clear intent to challenge the United States in the Western Pacific and establish itself as the region's predominant military power. With China's massive gross domestic product and military spending at an estimated 4? percent of GDP, the resources Beijing now devotes to its armed forces surely make it a top global power. U.S. intelligence agencies can plainly see where the money is going. China is assembling a blue-water navy, with a fleet of 29 modern submarines, including 13 super-quiet...

Cheney warns on Chinese military rise by Olivier Knox 1 hour, 33 minutes ago US Vice President Dick Cheney has warned China Friday that its swift military build-up worried the world and said Washington was not blindly trusting North Korea to implement a landmark nuclear deal. On the first full day of an official visit, Cheney also used a speech to a group of prominent US and Australian citizens to assail unnamed critics who he said want the allies to "turn our backs" on places like Afghanistan or Iraq. But his visit, aimed at thanking staunch US ally Australia for...

The United States has some concerns about a rising China, including a military expansion that may be excessive, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday. Beijing has spent heavily in recent years on adding submarines, missiles, fighter planes and other high-tech weapons to its arsenal and extending the reach of the 2.3 million-member People's Liberation Army, the world's largest fighting force. Its reported military budget rose more than 14 percent this year to $35.3 billion, but outside estimates of China's true spending are up to three times that level. "There are concerns about China's military buildup," Rice told a television...

It may rarely come up in Political Science courses but the military threat to the United States from Communist China is real and growing. “This is a serious military build-up.” Daniel Blumenthal of the American Enterprise Institute remarked. “I think we are slow to come to terms with what we’re facing.” Blumenthal, who also serves on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, argued that “People have changed their tune,” when it comes to the current Chinese military. The Department of Defense recently released its report on the People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, of China. The findings were astonishing. The...

MOSCOW -- President Vladimir V. Putin, in a blunt response to U.S. criticism of his domestic and foreign policies, declared today that Russia will boost its military strength to ensure the ability to resist foreign pressure. In an annual address to parliament, Putin said new weapons will enable his country to maintain a strategic balance with the United States, which he compared to a wolf — the arch-villain in Russian fairy tales — doing as it pleases in the world. Despite the strong language on international and military issues, the bulk of the speech focused on domestic policies. Putin called...

The PLAN is readying the former Russian carrier Varyag for something. These pictures show the exterior painting now being completed in the standard PLAN surface combatant colors, with the superstructure preparing to be painted. They have been working on the project in their naval shipyards for over two year now.

Monday 11.07.2005, CET 16:50 July 10, 2005 10:50 AM U.S. concerned about China military buildup - RiceBEIJING (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday the U.S. government, not just the Pentagon, had concerns about China's military buildup, but that it did not necessarily constitute a threat. Rice also said she had prodded China to engage with the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader who lives in exile in India and who she said was not a threat. "There is no doubt that we have concerns about the size and pace of the Chinese military buildup and it's not...

China's nanotech revolution Alexandr Nemets 8/23/2004 Prior to 2000, the Chinese media made practically no mention of the concept of "nanotechnology" (nami jishu) or its potential for revolutionizing China's high tech industry. Today, however, dozens of major Chinese research centers and hundreds of enterprises engage in the production of nanotechnologies, which has quickly become a multibillion-Yuan industry. Concentrated in China's major economic centers such as Beijing, Shenyang, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Hong Kong, these urban hubs account for some 90 percent of all nanotech Research and Development. The rapid development of China's nanotech industry is due in large part to the...

HONG KONG (AP) - Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday China is not a military threat to the United States. He also urged Beijing to do a better job explaining the benefits of cheap Chinese imports to American consumers. Speaking to delegates at the Pacific Basin Economic Council business conference, Powell said China's increase in weapons spending does not make it a threat to the United States. "The threat comes from the capability to execute these plans and the intention to do so," he said. "My analysis in the last four years is that China has no...

Rumsfeld Issues a Sharp Rebuke to China on Arms By THOM SHANKER Published: June 4, 2005 SINGAPORE, Saturday, June 4 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in an unusually blunt public critique of China, said Saturday that Beijing's military spending threatened the delicate security balance in Asia and called for an emphasis instead on political freedom and open markets.   Luis Enrique Ascui/Reuters Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at an Asian security conference dinner Friday night in Singapore with Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's prime minister from 1965 to 1990, who now serves as "minister mentor." In a keynote address at...

Senator Inhofe was given 55 mintes for this speech, which started around 4 minutes ago; 2:14 PM EST.

China’s top offshore oil and gas producer, CNOOC Ltd., will begin operations this year at a gas field in the East China Sea despite a territorial dispute with Japan. ..CNOOC Chairman Fu Chengyu told reporters on Tuesday he expected the Chunxiao field, located south of Japan, to begin operations in August and September... ....On Monday Japanese media reported Japan had demanded that China halt construction at the Chunxiao natural gas field. Hydrocarbon deposits were found in the early 1970s... In 2004 China’s construction of the Chunxiao natural gas production plant 5 kilometres (3 miles) from the disputed area aggravated tensions...

THE RISING SEA DRAGON IN ASIA 2005 UpdateBy Jeff Head, February 2005 As an update to the original "Rising Sea Dragon in Asia", that I publiushed in January of 2004 (and have been writing and warning about since 2000), I offer this update, dated in February of 2005. This report is fairly short and broad, and I believe does not contain the detail necessary to reflect the true scope of the emerging threat. But it does clearly indicate the nature and size of the current Red Chinese buildup, and their is only one principle power that such a buildup...