Chinese aerospace firms have developed dozens of drones, known also as unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. Many have appeared at air shows and military parades, including some that bear an uncanny resemblance to the Predator, Global Hawk and Reaper models used with deadly effect by the U.S. Air Force and CIA. Analysts say that although China still trails the U.S. and Israel, the industry leaders, its technology is maturing rapidly and on the cusp of widespread use for surveillance and combat strikes.

[...]“China is following the precedent set by the U.S. The thinking is that, `If the U.S. can do it, so can we. They’re a big country with security interests and so are we’,” said Siemon Wezeman, a senior fellow at the arms transfers program at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in Sweden, or SIPRI..

[...]Further developments could see China competing with world’s two major drone producers, the United States and Israel, for markets in close ally Pakistan, Myanmar and other developing nations. Customers might even include Russia, which is the world’s No. 2 arms exporter but has had little success making UAVs.

Defense News covers the U.S. military’s anxiety, knowledge, and possible misunderstanding of China’s rapidly developing drone programs, which seem to have “emerged out of a fog”:

The Pentagon’s Defense Science Board (DSB) issued a “wakeup call” over Chinese UAV development. The report, “The Role of Autonomy in DoD Systems,” issued in October, said the military significance of China’s move into unmanned systems is “alarming” and China has a “great deal of technology, seemingly unlimited resources and clearly is leveraging all available information on Western unmanned systems development.” This might allow China to “match or outpace U.S. spending on unmanned systems, rapidly close the technology gaps and become a formidable global competitor in unmanned systems.”Due to transparency and language hurdles, many of China’s UAV programs remain unidentified. Chinese UAV manufacturers are not shy from showing off their equipment at aviation shows and on company websites. Once again due to language issues, China’s UAVs developments are widely misunderstood in the West.

While no international standards for the military use of drones currently exist, the UN Human Rights Commission will be debating a proposed moratorium on the use and development of drones at the end of the month.

For more details on China’s drone development, see CDT coverage of the considered use of drones to target a drug lord in Myanmar, who was later captured and sentenced to death. Also see CDT coverage of maritime disputes in the South China and East China Seas, where the usage of drones is expected to increase.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: drones, military, military expansion, military technology, U.S military, United States
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The United States imposed the sanctions according to its domestic laws, an act that has seriously violated norms governing international relations and harmed China’s interests, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday.

China is strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposed to the act, and it has lodged a solemn representation to the U.S. side, spokesperson Hua Chunying said in a statement.

“We urge the United States to immediately correct the wrongdoing, lift the groundlesssanctions on this company and its individuals, and stop actions that will hurt China’s interests and Sino-U.S. relations,” the spokesperson said.

China is committed to upholding the international non-proliferation regime, according to Hua, who added that the country has in place a set of export control laws and measures that fit in with international standards and with strict and effective law enforcement.

According to AP, the Chinese arms companies allegedly had deals with Iran, North Korea, and Syria. These sanctions come amid tensions with North Korea over the recent underground nuclear test as well as the violence in Syria:

The U.S. State Department on Monday said that Poly Technologies Inc. is among companies barred from dealing with the U.S. government or purchasing U.S. military hardware for two years. The company is part of a massive state-owned conglomerate.

“The U.S. should work together with China under the principle of ‘equality, mutual benefit and concerted efforts’ to promote practical cooperation on non-proliferation, instead of threatening sanctions at will or undermining the interests of the other side,” the ministry said in a statement on its website.

“We have never helped any countries or regions develop any banned weapons, nor have we exported or promised to export weapons or technologies to any countries or regions that are under United Nations Security Council Resolutions Sanctions. We hereby demand the U.S. side to respect the fact and immediately lift the sanctions,” Xinhua quoted the unnamed spokesman as saying.

The State Department notice said Poly Technologies was in violation of the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act that sanctions persons and companies that transfer or sell those nations goods, services or technology related to weapons of mass destruction or ballistic and cruise missiles. The law cites items banned under international agreements such as the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime.

Poly Technologies Inc. has denied these claims saying it has never helped any countries or regions develop banned weapons. Aside from Poly Technologies Inc., the US has also imposed sanctions on several other Chinese firms, from Reuters:

A notice published on the Federal Register website marks at least the third time since 2006 that Li Fangwei, also known as Karl Lee, has faced U.S. penalties for supplying material and support to Iran’s missile development.

The notice said Li and a firm called Dalian Sunny Industries “have engaged in missile technology proliferation activities that require the imposition of missile sanctions” under the U.S. Arms Control Act and the Export Administration Act.

The other two Chinese firms, BST Technology and Trade Company andChina Precision Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CPMIEC), were on a list that also included companies from Belarus, Iran, Sudan, Syria andVenezuela.

A U.S. State Department official told Reuters Li and Dalian Sunny were being sanctioned “for proliferation to Iran.”

© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Iran, military, North Korea, Syria, U.S. relations
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

On July 9, 2008, Rao Wenwei, the young secretary of the Politics and Law Committee in Wushan County, Chongqing was sequestered in a hotel by local authorities. He was detained a week later, then formally arrested on August 15 under suspicion of “inciting subversion of state power and the overthrow of the socialist system and conspiring to overthrow the authority of the people’s democracy” [zh]. Convicted in November of that year for bribery and inciting subversion, Rao is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence and faces an additional three years without political rights.

Earlier in 2008, Bo Xilai, the infamous former party secretary of Chongqing, ordered an investigation into a series of 52 essays published overseas decrying the Chinese Communist Party and Bo in particular. Authorship was traced to Rao. Writing under the pen name Mao.2W (毛.2W), Rao’s essays made their way onto the website of the Epoch Times under the title “A Short Critique of the Communist Party—‘Reactionary’ Notes from a Chinese Man” (短评共产党——一个中国男人的“反动”手记). Zhang Qi, an old colleague of Rao’s, told Radio Free Asia that Bo gave instructions to the investigative team to “deal harshly” with the author [zh] and to charge him with bribery, claiming “officials of your rank can’t say you haven’t accepted hundreds of thousands [of RMB].”

Rao’s case remained hidden until this summer, when Bo’s removal from office and detention brought to light a multitude of claims of wrongful arrest and conviction in this southwestern metropolis. Bo’s anti-corruption campaign ran on the “presumption of guilt,” Zou Zhiyong, whose father-in-law is currently serving a life sentence, told Reuters. Zou, Rao’s family and many others intend to seek redress for these convictions after the leadership transition at this October’s National People’s Congress.

Rao is recognized by the Independent Chinese PEN Center as a writer in prison (he is number 140 on their list). “We will offer assistance to his family in finding a lawyer and will support his appeal,” says Assistant Secretary-General Zhang Yu [zh]. The organization will raise his case at the PEN International Congress, which begins September 9.

CDT’s Little Bluegill has translated essays 13 through 15. The entire series is available from CDT Chinese: read essays 1-9, 10-20, 21-31, 32-44, 45-52 and epilogue.

Essay 13

What should the Communist Party give back to the people?

The Party furthers its own interests in the name of the nation and demands a permanent, invincible position. Yet this in itself violates the laws of history and the very theories held by the Communist Party’s forefathers!

Just how many of the rights and interests of those living in China today have been confiscated by the Party? Just who is the greatest usurper of the state, the greatest bearer of calamity and misfortune to the Chinese people? The most frightening aspect of the Party is the “big stick” it so tightly grasps in its hands—the military. This is the only “talisman” that the Party has, over the past few decades, so willingly unleashed on the people of China. To take back their rights, the people must grab this weapon out of the Party’s hands. In actuality, this “talisman” belongs to the people and to the nation; it should not belong to this faction or that party. The military should only serve the interests of the nation, protecting the country as its own family. It should never aim its guns at its own people!

The true portrait of the Communist Party of the last few decades is one of flip-flopping and destruction of order. The system is seemingly devoid of moral standards. The “boss” always calls the shots. There is a system [the law] but it’s never used. The Party’s shamelessness knows no bounds!

There are three rights that the Party has taken away from the people and must return:

Number One: Freedom of speech and freedom of religion, without the constitutional regulation which enables the restrictions on freedom of the press, assembly and belief imposed by various government departments. For example, if I wanted to establish a “People’s Free System Party,” would that be possible?

Number Two: The right to elect one’s own leaders, instead of leaders being appointed by the Communist Party.

Number Three: The military belongs to the nation and to the people. Its duties are simply to remain loyal to and fight for the interests of the nation. The military must never participate in any domestic conflict between political factions or in politics of any kind. It must never aim its guns at its own people. With the exception of disaster relief, the military must never participate in national or local affairs! The military’s deployment should be controlled by an organization of democratically elected officials. Significant military decisions should be made by the nation as a whole.

The Communist Party must also remove the language it has so shamelessly written into the “constitution” that demands generation after generation support the leadership of the Communist Party (the so-called Four Cardinal Principles). Restore the purity of the constitution! The constitution is the highest law of the land. The people have no responsibility to uphold the leadership of the “Communist Party.” To take a step back: if you do well at leading the country, then the people will naturally support you. But if you’re no good, the people have the right to cast you out. Why must you be enshrined in the “constitution?” Is it because you believe that if you are squeezed in there, you will be able to exist forever?

There are two important “stolen” powers that the Party clenches in its fist: the so-called right to cadre appointment and the so-called right to absolute control of the military. The Party clearly understands that without these two powers, it is finished. Yet it must relinquish them.

If the Party is just, then it must relinquish these powers which do not belong to them!

If the Party strives for permanence, then it must relinquish these powers which do not belong to them!

If the Party truly wants to realize its own goals, then it must relinquish these powers which do not belong to them!

But will they? What is the answer?

The Communist Party continues with its lies. From its objectives to “letting some people people get rich first,” from the “Three Represents” to harmonious society and the Scientific Development Concept; which of these is based on serving the people? Which of these ideas has served or is capable of serving the people? In which does the Communist Party even believe? Let us take, for example, the ideology of “wholehearted and enthusiastic” [service to the people]. This in itself is biggest lie in the world. Is it possible for one person or one party to wholeheartedly, completely and unselfishly serve the interests of another? If one does not serve his own interests, how can he proceed to serve others? By the deceitful nature of this phrase, we can recognize just how horribly we have been swindled, we can finally understand what it means to say one thing and do another! Take, also, the example of the policy by which only “some people get rich first.” Why should these privileged people be allowed to get rich first? Why should they enjoy more “privilege” than others? Will those who get rich first actively initiate the trickle-down of wealth? If not, how else is this supposed to work? In reality, the disparity in wealth between different people and locales confirms the deceit of this policy.

Take, also, the example of the “Three Represents” [Jiang Zemin’s theory that the Party represents China economically, culturally and politically]. If the Communist Party is a political entity, can it then represent economic production? It just doesn’t make sense. But, fine, let us ignore for a moment that it doesn’t make sense. What happens if the Party is unable to represent the country’s economic production? Does it really represent it now? The answer is no. One can see that the “Three Represents” is craven nonsense!

The largest disaster caused by the decades of Communist Party rule is the people’s total loss of their natural harmonious way of thinking. Instead, the people now unquestionably pursue their own selfish interests. The terrible truth is that they lack a sense of law and order. They pursue their own interests to the detriment of others; they lie; they lack morals and principles. They place no trust in each other. Instead, greed and jealousy abound. As this vicious cycle continues, human conscience dies out, and as a result, the people will hurt themselves, destroying this ancient civilization!

The most destructive part of the decades of Communist Party rule has been the destruction of social institutions. The Party smashed them into oblivion, only to then smash those they put in their place. Those which, against the odds, were left untouched cannot be practiced either openly or in secret.* What prevents society from providing equal opportunity for everyone? Why is the legal system unjust? Why is development uneven? Why is this unfair, that unfair?

Why is it that the greatest skill of Communist Party officials is toadying and currying the favor of those in power? Because to live under the system of the Communist Party, you must do this. If you don’t, you will have no opportunity, you will not develop. But if you do, you inevitably will be without a conscience, without humanity, without dignity. Can you keep your integrity as you shamelessly flatter your superiors? As you falsely agree with this and agree with that, can you still retain your conscience? And yet, if you were to not flatter your superiors, would you garner the attention of the Party authorities? If you failed to endorse the Party, if you didn’t agree with the Party, would you still have any chance for advancement? This paradox defines the lives of Chinese people today. And it is a choice that must be made. If you do not make your choice, you will grow old in hardship! I dare say with absolute certainty that many Communist Party members lead split lives, and both of these lives are rife with hardship. They live between farce and reality, switching their conscience on and off at a moment’s notice.

Since this life is so painful, what else are you waiting for?

Can it be that life truly could not go on without the Party? That the country would fall into chaos?

No, no!

Let me make my choice. I choose to restore our nation to greatness through order and democracy!

Communist Party: Give me back my freedom and my democracy!

A Brief Critique of the Communist Party’s “Three Mosts” (Essay 14)

The most rotten institution of the Communist Party is the cadre system. In actuality, it’s a classic centralized system of concentrated money and power. It is the most rotten because the entirety of corruption and evil in China since the beginning of Communist Party rule all stems from the “cadre” system.

The Communist Party relies most on the institution of “propaganda.” In actuality, this institution does nothing but work to fool the public, numb the masses and keep freedom under lock and key. This propaganda is the very reason why the people are so ignorant, apathetic and immoral. The Party deprives the people of their rights by propagating this culture of reliance.

The Communist Party’s most detestable institution is “Party leaders’ absolute control of the military.” In truth, this institution usurps the people’s rights through intimidation and repression. One uses the word “detestable” because it is the Party that controls which way the guns point. It does not matter whether you are a good person or an enemy of the state. Who would dare disobey “his” Party?

Establishing a “harmonious society” is of course a positive goal for governing the country. But if you wish to grow “harmony” on top of the “current system,” then you are wishing for the impossible. The flower of “harmony” cannot bloom on the tree of the Party’s evils!

I assert: Without changing the current system, China will never know harmony!

 

 

The Evil Nature of the Communist Party’s Cadre System (Essay 15)

The “management of cadres” is one of the fundamental principles of the Party. Former Organizational Department Head Zhang Quanjing has said, “If the Party did not manage its cadres, it would give up its right to lead.” The essence of this statement is that the Communist Party depends on its control over cadres to exercise its right to lead—and this is precisely where the evil lies. “Cadres” are actually “officials.” I never understood why the Party insists on calling them “cadres.” However, after much thought, I realized that this is just another deceitful invention of the Communist Party. In all, cadres probably number in the hundreds of thousands. But no matter how you look at it, the number of “official positions” shrinks as one moves up in the system. At the same time, the Party must rely on “offering posts” to maintain its right to lead and to realize its position of power. In that case, the party secretary and the Standing Committee represent the very top, and from there it goes down through the secretaries of each level of government. This system is unable to solve a fundamental problem: many want to move up, but only a few can. Because of this, those who wish to move up all work in their own self-interest, and those in higher positions all work to protect their seats. The authority to decide who moves up or down always remains one level higher than the last, straight up to the Central Politburo. Top officials will surely never relinquish their authority over the management of cadres, so a cadre then has no choice but to scheme his way up the ladder, making an utter mess in the process!

This system, in which all decisions are top-down, is necessarily profuse with evil. At the highest levels, the Party plays some “democratic” charades, but everyone knows that decisions over who is above whom will forever remain firmly in the grasp of the very few.

As a result, the numbers of officials and special interest groups continue to grow. Their selfish in-fighting intensifies. The evilest part of this system is that it takes a person’s humanity and turns it into boundless evil. There’s no need for me to list them one by one. Just tune in to any Party-sanctioned media outlet and ask yourself: which of these evil phenomena are not caused by the “cadre system”?!

* Rao refers to three epochs in China’s recent history. In the early communist period, intellectuals were rooted out and persecuted in the Anti-Rightist Campaign; the Great Leap Forward, intended to industrialize the country and institute collectivism, caused millions of people to starve to death. The country had a short reprieve from upheaval before the Cultural Revolution tore families apart and nearly destroyed tradition. Despite the openness of post-Mao China, many social institutions are still tightly controlled, from family size to religious belief. Back to essay.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: beat black, Bo Xilai, bribery, cadres, CCP, Chongqing, constitution, Epoch Times, essays, harmonious society, Jiang Zemin, leadership transition, military, official corruption, Politburo, Politburo Standing Committee, Politics and Law Committee, propaganda, Rao Wenwei, rule of law, Three Represents, Zhang Qi, Zhang Quanjing, Zou Zhiyong
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Protesters in Qidong.

Qidong Protests: Protests over the weekend lead to the cancellation of a planned pipeline for waste water from the Oji Paper plant. Production at the plant resumed yesterday. See also the July 29 list of sensitive words.

• Qidong (启冬): The second character in the city’s name, “east” (东), is replaced with the homophone “winter” (冬).
• QiWest (启西): QiSouth (启南) and QiNorth (启北) are still searchable.
• qiEast (qi东)
• Qidong (起东): The first character (启) is replaced with the homophone “rise” (起).
• Oji Paper (王子纸业)

Hong Kong Protests: Students and activists are demonstrating against compulsory patriotism classes to be introduced in the fall, denouncing the curriculum as “red brainwashing education” [zh].

• brainwashing (洗脑)

Other:

• country + army (国家+军队): Wang Yongsheng, an officer in the General Political Department of the PLA, asserted that “our army belongs to the Party” at a press conference yesterday.

Note: All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results.

CDT Chinese runs a project that crowd-sources filtered keywords on Sina Weibo search. CDT independently tests the keywords before posting them, but some searches later become accessible again. We welcome readers to contribute to this project so that we can include the most up-to-date information. To add words, check out the form at the bottom of CDT Chinese’s latest sensitive words post.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: army, education, education reform, environmental protests, Hong Kong, Hong Kong education, military, Oji Paper, patriotic education, patriotism, PLA, Qidong, Sensitive Words Series, Wang Yongsheng, water pollution
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Chinese media described Major Liu Yang, from Henan, as a “hero pilot” who achieved a successful emergency landing after a dramatic birdstrike incident spattered the windshield of her plane with blood.

Meanwhile, her rival, Captain Wang Yaping, from Shandong, is said to have flown rescue missions during the Sichuan earthquake and piloted a cloud-seeding plane to help clear the skies of rain for the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

Liu and Wang face very strict standards:

“They even must not have decayed teeth because any small flaw might cause great trouble or a disaster in space,” said Pan Zhihao of Space International, published by the China Academy of Space Technology.

The Guardian suggests that Chinese officials are concerned about space travel’s effects on a woman’s fertility, and that the female astronauts must therefore already be mothers. But Wang Xianmin, an official with China’s space program, insisted that there is no such requirement, according to Jinghua Times.

Compared to the first Russian and American female astronauts’ high profiles, Wang and Liu are more mysterious. Mark McDonald described their limited media exposure at the International Herald Tribune’s Rendezvous blog:

Their names were only confirmed last year when it was discovered they had autographed an envelope (along with their five male colleagues) featuring a postage stamp commemorating their astronaut class. They are rarely profiled in the Chinese media, and they make no public appearances, whether at local science fairs or international air shows.

Some suitably heroic details have emerged, however. From Damien Grammaticas’ BBC report on ’China’s female astronaut quandary‘:

The Shenzhen Special Zone Daily says [Liu] is an only child with a penchant for making patriotic speeches.

In a letter home after her first parachute jump, she explained why she never let her parents visit her during her four years in pilot training.

“Baby eagles”, she explained, “can never soar under their family’s wing”.

© Wendy Qian for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: astronauts, military, physics, pilots, women
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Coupled with China’s earlier vows to build a space station and put an astronaut on the moon, the plan conjured up memories of the cold-war-era space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States, which has de-emphasized manned spaceflight in recent years, is now dependent on Russia for transporting its astronauts to the International Space Station. Russia, for its part, has suffered an embarrassing string of failed satellite launchings.

China has been looking for ways to exert its growing economic strength and to demonstrate that its technological mastery and scientific achievements can approach those of any global power. The plan announced Thursday calls for launching a space lab and collecting samples from the moon, all by 2016, along with a more powerful manned spaceship and space freighters.

…

The plan shows how the government intends to draw on military and civilian resources to meet the goals, which the government is betting will also produce benefits for the Chinese economy. “This approach offers lessons for other advanced space powers, including the U.S., which needs to make sure it sustains its high-level investment in various aspects of space development across the board,” said Andrew S. Erickson, a professor at the United States Naval War College who has studied the Chinese space program.

China had already announced plans for up to two manned space missions in 2012 following the successful November docking exercise between the unmanned Shenzhou 8 spacecraft and the Tiangong 1 module, which was also launched in October. Forbes notes that the white paper, published in full by China Daily, reveals an ambitious focus on pointing China beyond the accomplishments of Shenzhou 8 and Tiangong 1:

Of particular interest about this white paper is a definite focus on moving the Chinese space program past just orbital concerns. Already, the Chinese have suffered a setback because their first satellite intended to orbit Mars was part of the payload of the Russian Phobos-Grunt probe, which failed to leave Earth’s orbit.

However, the white paper is clearly indicative of a desire for more ambitious deep space missions, with a goal towards pushing forward “its exploration of planets, asteroids and the sun of the solar system.” A demonstration of such a project is on the agenda for the next five years.

The next five years will also see China paving the way towards putting a human being on the Moon, making it only the second country to have done so. China has already successfully launched two lunar orbiters in 2007 and 2010. For its next phase, China plans to put rovers on the Moon to collect samples. After that, during this five year period China also plans to send a rover to the Moon, collect samples, and then return to Earth.

The Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time Blog claims that the white paper is an attempt by the Chinese government to confirm its peaceful intentions to a global community which fears that China’s space program is motivated by military priorities. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei confirmed such a stance in a daily press briefing in Beijing following the release of the white paper, according to The People’s Daily.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: China's rise, military, Shenzhou 8, space exploration, space program, Tiangong-1
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Did Hu urge war? No.

To start, a literal and more accurate translation of junshi douzheng would be “military struggle” or, simply, “warfare.” In the phrase “preparations for military struggle,” the term refers to the characteristics of future wars that China may have to fight and the implications for the development of operational doctrine and training. It’s similar to the concept of operational readiness. Nevertheless, it does not refer to a desire to go war, much less preparations for specific combat operations.

By using this phrase, Hu was highlighting the importance of continued naval modernization to ensure that the PLAN would be prepared to fight in conflicts in the future, a goal shared by all military organizations. The U.S. military, for example, uses similar language to describe its force development goals. The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review described the objectives of America’s defense strategy as follows: “prevail in today’s wars, prevent and deter conflict, prepare to defeat adversaries and succeed in a wide range of contingencies, and preserve and enhance the All-Volunteer Force.”

More generally, the phrase “preparations for military struggle” is a standard, boilerplate formula used in Chinese military writings and speeches by Chinese leaders on military affairs. The phrase appears frequently in articles in the print edition of the Jiefangjun Bao, the PLA’s official newspaper (though, interestingly, its use has been decreasing since 2005).
s
In addition, the AFP report missed the broader context in which this routine phrase was used. In particular, Hu urged the PLAN to deepen preparations for military struggle within the broader context of “closely focusing on the main theme of national defense and army-building.”

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Hu Jintao, military, South China Sea
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Addressing the powerful Central Military Commission, Hu said: “Our work must closely encircle the main theme of national defence and military building.”

His comments, which were posted in a statement on a government website, come as the United States and Beijing’s neighbours have expressed concerns over its naval ambitions, particularly in the South China Sea.

Several Asian nations have competing claims over parts of the South China Sea, believed to encompass huge oil and gas reserves, while China claims it all. One-third of global seaborne trade passes through the region.

Vietnam and the Philippines have accused Chinese forces of increasing aggression there.

In a translation of Hu’s comments, the official Xinhua news agency quoted the president as saying China’s navy should “make extended preparations for warfare.”

UPDATE: On Twitter, @fravel points out that AFP originally mistranslated the key phrase in Hu’s speech as “military combat” instead of warfare.

Read more about China, the U.S. and the South China Sea from CDT, including an analysis from our contributor Scott Greene.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: military, navy, South China Sea
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The United States faces at least two challenges as it ”returns” to Asia.

First, it should learn to get along with China. Its “return” to Asia has drawn people’s attention back to a possible confrontation between itself and China. Many Western scholars believe that the reassertion of the leading U.S. role in Asia is directed against China because only China’s rise can pose a potential challenge to its hegemony. Furthermore, a few Asian countries hope to take advantage of the United States, especially its military power, to strike a so-called strategic balance with China. If the United States adopts this mentality in “returning” to Asia, it will face a zero-sum game with China, and will neither benefit from Asia’s development nor play a positive role in promoting th regional security.

Second, a leading role requires more than ambition. The United States’ status in Asia ultimately depends on its input. It should play a more constructive role in promoting the regional economic development and cooperation in multiple fields, instead of expanding its military presence to show off its irreplaceability because it has proven to be a dead end. Certain Asian scholars are worried that once the United States finds itself unable to maintain its leading role, it may extort more money from Asian countries in the name of protection and even stir up trouble by playing dirty tricks.

Asia’s development is an unstoppable trend, and Asian countries will get closer and closer to one another during the process of development. Asia is a big stage and has enough space for the “return” of the United States. In this regard, the superpower’s priority should be putting itself in the right place and working out an appropriate and practical strategy.

Another editorial in The People’s Daily responded further to Clinton on Friday, accusing the U.S. of pursuing dominance in the face of a global power shift and challenging Clinton on economic issues:

Clinton has admitted that in terms of the economic sector, the United States and China must closely cooperate with each other to ensure strong, dynamic and balanced development of the world in the future. She also said that the United States has effectively worked with China through the G20 to save the world from the verge of collapse and “we have to build on that cooperation.”

However, it was groundless for her to claim that U.S. firms want “fair opportunities” to export to China’s growing market and urge China to end “unfair discrimination” against U.S. companies or against their innovative technologies. It is simply the United States that is embracing protectionism and has discriminated and hindered Chinese firms from investing in the country under the cover of “national security.”

The United States has played up the RMB exchange rate and trade deficit issues on the one hand and has restricted high-tech exports to China in many ways on the other hand. Does China need only soybeans and corn from the United States? The economic win-win cooperation must be two-way and “sanctions” will not always remain unilateral.

The late U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan once said that the world would never accept a single leadership center. What people need is the democratization international relations as well as equality and win-win cooperation. It is hoped that Clinton and U.S. leaders further adapt to the transition of the times and are actually aware that the Pacific should be the ocean of the people living within and around the Pacific and will never become a “monopolized ocean” of the United States.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: asia economy, China's rise, currency valuation, economic reform, Hillary Clinton, Human Rights, military, United States
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Like so many other countries before it, China has prospered as part of the open and rules-based system that the United States helped to build and works to sustain. And today, China represents one of the most challenging and consequential bilateral relationships the United States has ever had to manage. This calls for careful, steady, dynamic stewardship, an approach to China on our part that is grounded in reality, focused on results, and true to our principles and interests.

We all know that fears and misperceptions linger on both sides of the Pacific. Some in our country see China’s progress as a threat to the United States; some in China worry that America seeks to constrain China’s growth. We reject both those views. The fact is that a thriving America is good for China and a thriving China is good for America. We both have much more to gain from cooperation than from conflict. But you cannot build a relationship on aspirations alone. It is up to both of us to more consistently translate positive words into effective cooperation — and, crucially, to meet our respective global responsibilities and obligations. These are the things that will determine whether our relationship delivers on its potential in the years to come. We also have to be honest about our differences. We will address them firmly and decisively as we pursue the urgent work we have to do together. And we have to avoid unrealistic expectations.

…

At the end of the day, there is no handbook for the evolving U.S.-China relationship. But the stakes are much too high for us to fail. As we proceed, we will continue to embed our relationship with China in a broader regional framework of security alliances, economic networks, and social connections.

In The Diplomat, Minxin Pei writes that while Beijing has many reasons to like the Clinton statement, including the constructive tone used to describe U.S.-China relations, other components of the United States’ Asia strategy may cause concern:

In particular, they will be unnerved by those policy actions – strengthening bilateral security alliances (identified as the most important component of US policy), forging a broad-based military presence (which essentially means further upgrading and expanding US military capabilities in the Western Pacific), and advancing democracy and human rights. In Beijing’s eyes, these measures are part of a subtle framework of strategic containment and can harm Chinese security interests and undermine the Chinese Communist Party’s rule.

…

Taken together, at the strategic level, the Clinton statement will be seen in Beijing simply as another declaration that the United States is determined to remain as Asia-Pacific’s pre-eminent power. That is probably why the essay is titled ‘America’s Pacific Century.’ The strategic message to every country in the region, particularly China, is crystal clear: don’t count us out and don’t even think about pushing us out.

Seeing itself as the inevitable regional hegemon, and the United States a declining superpower, China can’t be pleased by this bold assertion of American resolve. But in reality, there’s little China can do, either today or in the foreseeable future, to change this strategic reality. The staying power of US pre-eminence in Asia doesn’t solely depend on Washington’s absolute or even relative capabilities (which are declining). It is derived from the United States’ unique role as Asia’s strategic balancer. Elsewhere in the world, the United States may be deeply resented for its power and imperial overreach. In Asia, the American presence is welcomed with open arms. The reason is simple: However unpleasant US hegemony may be, Asians would pick it over Chinese hegemony at any time.

Unless China can do something to transform this geopolitical reality in Asia, it will have no choice but to learn to co-exist and thrive under the shadow of enduring American pre-eminence.

See also CDT coverage of a September New York Times Op-Ed piece by Vice President Joe Biden and related commentary on the implications of China’s rise for the United States.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: asia economy, CCP, China's rise, economic reform, Hillary Clinton, Human Rights, Joe Biden, military, United States
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Anyone who needs convincing that China’s military trajectory is cause for alarm should take a look at “Asian Alliances in the 21st Century,” a new report co-authored by several well-known Asia security experts, including Dan Blumenthal, Randall Schriver, Mark Stokes, L.C. Russell Hsiao and Michael Mazza. The report details the rapid modernization of China’s military capabilities and claims that Beijing is interested neither in benign hegemonic rule nor in helping Washington address global challenges. Rather, China’s leaders are ultimately concerned only with maintaining their power and expanding their maritime reach.

The thrust of the report has merit. China’s assertiveness in the East and South China Seas, as well as its increasingly unattractive foreign policy rhetoric, gives significant reason for concern and little reason for optimism about China’s real interest in strengthening regional security cooperation in the near term.

There are no shades of gray in the report, however, and the lack of nuance can be disconcerting. Oddly enough, it may even lead the authors to be a bit too optimistic. In the “what do we do about it” section, for example, the report calls for a far more deeply integrated U.S.-led alliance system in Asia. This proposal, however, raises a few additional issues that the report does not fully address.

James Traub has also written about the report at Foreign Policy (via CDT), warning that its recommendations could make war with China a self-fulfilling prophecy.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: China's rise, military, military buildup, PLA
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Despotic rulers stay in power by rewarding a small group of loyal supporters, often composed of key military officers, senior civil servants and family members or clansmen. A central responsibility of these loyalists is to suppress opposition to the regime. But they only carry out this messy, unpleasant task if they are well rewarded. Autocrats therefore need to ensure a continuing flow of benefits to their cronies.

If the dictator’s backers refuse to suppress mass uprisings or if they defect to a rival, then he is in real trouble. That is why successful autocrats reward their cronies first, and the people last. As long as their cronies are assured of reliable access to lavish benefits, protest will be severely suppressed. Once the masses suspect that crony loyalty is faltering, there is an opportunity for successful revolt. Three types of rulers are especially susceptible to desertion by their backers: new, decrepit and bankrupt leaders.

From The Useless Tree:

This sentence is especially important: “That is why successful autocrats reward their cronies first, and the people last.” It brings a rather famous passage from Mencius to mind:

Mencius said: “The people are the most precious of all things. Next come the gods of soil and grain. The sovereign matters least.” (14.14/7B.14)

Indeed, throughout the book that bears his name, Mencius is constantly presented as challenging rulers to share their wealth with the people, to ensure that economic inequalities do not grow too onerous, and to limit their personal consumption, as well as that of their families and immediate political supporters, all in the interest in preserving “the most precious of all things.” We can read this as a kind of socio-economic welfarism but, as De Mesquita and Smith suggest, it also has profound political implications. If taken seriously, and actually implemented, serving the people would limit an autocrats capacity to pay off the military, the bureaucracy and other key political supporters. From the Menican point of view, a ruler has to be willing to weaken his own political base, in order to create the conditions for longer term political stability, on the belief that when people can see that their material conditions are improving they will continue to support the leader who has contributed to their prosperity.

For a glaring contrast with this Mencian approach, see The Dui Hua Foundation’s detailed description of China’s current stability management machinery.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: civil service, inequality, mass protests, mencius, military, stability
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The reports on Chinese blog and media sites, including at least one hosted by a state-run newspaper, could not be verified by Reuters.

They showed pictures of a fighter plane in flight, and some offered what were cast as running accounts of the J-20 stealth jet fighter taking off after midday local time for a short flight from an airport in Chengdu in southwestern China.

The website of the Global Times, a popular Chinese newspaper owned by the People’s Daily — the ruling Communist Party’s main paper — featured a brief report headlined, “J-20 first flight successful”, with a link to what it said were pictures of the flight (here).

The claims of a successful test flight for the advanced fighter come while U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visits Beijing, seeking to improve often tense military ties.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: j-20, military, stealth
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

China must have a limited nuclear “second strike” force to deter foes from threatening it with atomic weapons, the nation’s main military newspaper said on Thursday, in a rare account of Beijing’s nuclear strategy.

The commentary in the official Liberation Army Daily comes during intensifying atomic diplomacy — after a nuclear security summit hosted by U.S. President Barack Obama and before an international conference in May about the future of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

China has been gradually modernizing its relatively small nuclear arsenal and some critics of proposals to cut dramatically Western nuclear forces have said uncertainty about Beijing’s plans should deter such proposals.

© cctvcctv for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: military, nuclear weapons
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Japan is boosting its intelligence resources devoted to China’s growing military, which it considers the top national security concern, the business daily Nikkei reported Sunday.

The defence ministry-affiliated National Institute for Defence Studies (NIDS) has established a task force of six researchers to examine China’s national security strategy, the daily said.

It will study the strategic thinking guiding the People’s Liberation Army, the purpose of its recent military buildup and its relationship with the Chinese Communist Party, the daily said.

© cctvcctv for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Japan, military
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall