China Digital Times

China news tagged with: PLA (63)

• Mao’s Grandson, Promoted to Major General, Faces Ridicule

  

  From the Los Angeles Times:

  For many Chinese, he’s a curious conundrum, an emerging national figure with some serious public relations issues.

  The only grandson of Mao Tse-tung, the Great Helmsman himself, Mao Xinyu’s bloodlines ooze political royalty. Yet instead of praise, the 40-year-old faces ridicule as a pudgy underachiever shamelessly riding the coattails of the relative many consider this nation’s greatest statesmen.

  When state media reported this week that the younger Mao had become the youngest officer to reach the rank of major general in the army his grandfather co-founded eight decades ago, critics unleashed another barrage of vitriol.

  Get dispatches from Times correspondents around the globe delivered to your inbox with our daily World newsletter. Sign up »

  Many claim one Mao in a leadership role was more than enough for China and that the military historian’s rise to public prominence carries a grim foreboding. Others decry what they call state-sponsored nepotism run amok.

  » Read more
  • August 3, 2010 7:39 PM

• China PLA Officer Urges Challenging U.S. Dominance

  

  A new book by a senior PLA officer calls on China to overtake the U.S. and the “global champion,” Reuters reports:

  The call for China to abandon modesty about its global goals and “sprint to become world number one” comes from a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Senior Colonel, Liu Mingfu, who warns that his nation’s ascent will alarm Washington, risking war despite Beijing’s hopes for a “peaceful rise.”

  “China’s big goal in the 21st century is to become world number one, the top power,” Liu writes in his newly published Chinese-language book, “The China Dream.”

  “If China in the 21st century cannot become world number one, cannot become the top power, then inevitably it will become a straggler that is cast aside,” writes Liu, a professor at the elite National Defense University, which trains rising officers.

  His 303-page book stands out for its boldness even in a recent chorus of strident Chinese voices demanding a hard shove back against Washington over trade, Tibet, human rights, and arms sales to Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own.

  » Read more
  • February 28, 2010 10:13 PM

• Think Again: China’s Military

  

  An article in Foreign Policy looks at whether recent alarmist reactions to China’s rising military might are warranted:

  From the early 1990s, China’s defense planners began intensively studying doctrine and sought to acquire superior foreign technologies for their People’s Liberation Army (PLA). They also made a major strategic shift by cutting the size of their force to emphasize new technologies that would enable them to catch up with the United States and other possible foes.

  Should the rest of the world be worried? Taiwan, long claimed as Chinese territory and well within range of Chinese ballistic missiles and conventional forces, certainly has cause to feel threatened. Even as cross-strait relations have warmed in recent years, Beijing has positioned more medium-range missiles facing Taiwan than ever. When asked why, Beijing demurs. India, Asia’s other would-be superpower, also seems increasingly on edge. Last September, Indian analysts and media loudly worried over the publication of an article by Chinese analyst Li Qiulin in a prominent Communist Party organ that urged the PLA to bolster its ability to project force in South Asia.

  But it’s probably too soon for Americans to panic. Many experts who’ve looked closely at the matter agree that China today simply does not have the military capability to challenge the United States in the Pacific, though its modernization program has increased its ability to engage the United States close to Chinese shores. And the U.S. military is still, for all its troubles in Iraq and Afghanistan, the most capable fighting force on the planet.

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  • February 23, 2010 12:23 PM

• Photo: Chinese Viagra: Recommended by the General Logistics Department of PLA

  

  One never know what kind of “military secrets” will be found when you Google around in Chinese cyberspace. The following photo shows a package for “Wan Aike” (Chinese translation of Viagra). The characters on the box read:
  

  

  Translation: The General Logistics Department of the People’s Liberation Army Recommends to Chief Officers and Senior Cardres Only:

  Wan Ai Ke (Internal Special Supplies)

  6 tablets per box,  Produced by Ruihui Group, Dalian.

  » Read more
  • February 21, 2010 3:22 PM

• More English Needed as China Steps Up Peacekeeping

  

  The People’s Liberation Army has been more active in peacekeeping missions around the world, and is now finding a need for more English training for their troops to communicate more effectively with U.N. personnel, Reuters reports:

  China has sent more than 14,000 peacekeepers, mostly military observers, engineers and medics, to U.N. peacekeeping operations in the last 20 years. About 2,000 Chinese are currently serving, Senior Colonel Kui Yanwei told reporters.

  “The relatively low English standards of peacekeepers” ranks after general security issues and a lack of trained teachers with peacekeeping experience among the challenges they face, Kui said.

  “We need English for better communications with the other U.N. personnel and teams,” peacekeeping veteran Liu Zhao said, in fluent English, as he showed reporters around a compound modeled on the Chinese camp in Darfur.

  As China’s economic muscle has given it greater clout in the United Nations, it has experimented with peacekeeping activities.

  » Read more
  • November 19, 2009 12:13 PM

• Huang Zhangjin (黄章晋)：The Tale of Eight Thousand Hunan Maidens Going Up Tian Mountain (2/2)

  

  Born and raised in Xinjiang, Huang Zhangjin (黄章晋) has worked as a journalist for several media organizations and is also a longtime blogger. Huang was also an editor of online forum, Uighur Online. The following post “Please Tell Them, Yahximusiz” was published on his Sohu blog on December 31, 2005, but has also recently been recirculated in the Chinese blogsphere following the violence in Urumqi on July 5. In the post, Huang tells about his experience reporting on a commemoration for the so-called “Eight Thousand Hunan Maidens Going Up Tian Mountain,” women from Hunan who were recruited by the People’s Liberation Army to go to Xinjiang in the early 1950s after being falsely promised a place in a Russian language school or better jobs.

  In this second part of the post, Huang brings the story into the present with a discussion of relations between ethnic groups in China. Translated by CDT’s E Shih; Part One of the translation can be read here.

  One of my family’s old neighbors was a soldier under the leadership of Wang Zhen at the end of the war against the Japanese who entered Xinjiang with Wang. When he has spoken of the past, he would tell us how some soldiers would look upon a life of emptiness and loneliness stretch out before them and choose suicide out of despair. When the first group of female soldiers arrived, it was as if there was a whole pack of wolves fighting over scraps of meat. The middle and lower level officers didn’t see so much as the shadow of a woman, and this made them even more desperate than before. So, there was a large assembly, during which a high level officer—a new groom himself—made a grand promise: The Central Party Committee and Chairman Mao will do what they said they would do. Some revolutionary soldiers say, mistakenly, that only the Headman gets a wife, and that simply isn’t true! Chairman Mao will make good on his word, you can be sure of that. Everyone will certainly be distributed a wife!

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  • August 17, 2009 1:51 PM

• China’s Military Launches Long-range War Games

  

  From AP:

  China’s military launched war games Tuesday aimed at deploying forces at long distances, reflecting moves to ensure security in the restive western regions of Tibet and Xinjiang.

  The exercises will send 50,000 armored troops — the People’s Liberation Army’s “largest-ever tactical military exercise” — to unfamiliar areas far from their bases for two months of live-fire drills, state media reported.

  The exercises involve four brigades from the major military regions of Shenyang, Lanzhou, Jinan and Guangzhou, which all will be deployed at least 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) from their bases, the reports said.

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  • August 12, 2009 1:33 AM

• China Army Called On To Keep Order On Anniversary

  

  From AP:

  China’s military celebrated its 82nd anniversary Saturday, with an editorial in the official paper calling on the armed forces to maintain social stability in the wake of unrest on the fringes of its territory.

  The People’s Liberation Army, the world’s largest with 2.3 million members, should strengthen coordination with local governments to prepare to deal with all kinds of “unexpected” incidents, a front-page editorial in the official People’s Liberation Daily said.

  “We must closely pay attention to developments in the domestic and international situation … and firmly oppose all violent criminal activities and attempts to split the country,” it said.

  » Read more
  • August 1, 2009 6:03 AM

• Huang Zhangjin (黄章晋)：The Tale of Eight Thousand Hunan Maidens Going Up Tian Mountain (1/2)

  

  Born and raised in Xinjiang, Huang Zhangjin (黄章晋) has worked as a journalist for several media organizations and is also a longtime blogger. Huang was also an editor of online forum, Uighur Online. The following post “Please Tell Them, Yahximusiz” was published on his Sohu blog on December 31, 2005, but has also recently been recirculated in the Chinese blogsphere following the violence in Urumqi on July 5. In the post, Huang tells about his experience reporting on a commemoration for the so-called “Eight Thousand Hunan Maidens Going Up Tian Mountain,” women from Hunan who were recruited by the People’s Liberation Army to go to Xinjiang in the early 1950s after being falsely promised a place in a Russian language school or better jobs. Translated by CDT’s E Shih.

  The print version of the article on the Hunan maidens will be ready tomorrow, perhaps. Since I conceived a plan to go until the draft was written, something has been constantly bugging me, and I’m experiencing a strange feeling over and over. As the boss patiently tried to convince me that I could not go to Xinjiang, I would let out secret deep breaths. I was afraid that if I let my apprehensions accumulate, that once I sat down to write down the details in earnest, my mind would be blank. I would not be able to write anything.

  » Read more
  • July 21, 2009 10:40 PM

• Beijing Throngs Again Thwart Advances by Troops Amid Signs Military Balks at Crackdown

  

  This year marks the 20th anniversary of the nationwide, student-led democracy movement in China, and the subsequent June 4th military crackdown in Beijing. To commemorate the student movement, CDT is posting a series of original news articles from 1989, beginning with the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15 and continuing through the tumultuous spring. The full series can be read at Twenty Years Ago Today: Tiananmen Square Student Movement..

  From the May 22, 1989 New York Times:

  Workers and students blocked new advances by army convoys today, preventing a military crackdown on China’s democracy movement from taking effect, and several dozen top legislators quietly began preparing a strategy to revoke martial law.

  There was exhilaration as well as exhaustion on central Tiananmen Square as dawn broke this morning, for many of the tens of thousands of students occupying the square had earlier written their wills after widespread rumors that brutal repression would begin during the night.

  While many still fear that there will be violence, there is a sense of triumph in the capital that ordinary citizens have been able to prevent the Government from carrying out martial law more than two days after Prime Minister Li Peng ordered it. Uncertainty About Army

  It is not clear why the troops have not moved more aggressively to put martial law into effect. Several knowledgeable Chinese said the army did indeed plan a crackdown on Sunday night, and there are growing suspicions that the army’s slowness has more to do with its own reluctance than with Prime Minister Li’s.

  Students camping on Tiananmen Square pass the time with a lively dance on the morning of May 22 (via CND).

  Also from the same day’s NYT:

  With their cameras shut down by Government decree, television news organizations struggled to keep information flowing from Beijing over the weekend, sometimes at the risk of violating orders from Chinese officials.

  ”We’re doing a lot of work over the telephone and keeping our fingers crossed,” Eason Jordan, the acting international editor of the Cable News Network, said yesterday in an interview from the CNN headquarters in Atlanta. Bernard Shaw of CNN is the last American television anchor to remain in Beijing. He will stay there, along with five other CNN correspondents, at least until tomorrow, Mr. Jordan said. Dan Rather, anchor of ”The CBS Evening News” and the only other news anchor in Beijing, returned to New York over the weekend after on-air confrontations with Chinese officials Friday night. Three CBS News correspondents remain in Beijing.

  From an interview with Orville Schell from the PBS documentary Tank Man:

  For 15 days following the declaration of martial law, the army was kept at bay. It never reached the square until the night of June 3 and 4. You were there in the early days of it. How did the citizens, largely the citizens, keep the army at bay?

  When the army first came in, the citizens simply swarmed, but they swarmed somewhat fearfully, and they were very, almost innocent, as if the righteousness of their cause would be sufficient to stop this military force. And indeed it was. So you got these very curious situations where in some cases citizens would harangue the military, but very quickly they would be sympathizing with them, feeding them, sort of begging them to come over to the virtuous side from the dark side. …

  And “Yearnings of Youth: An Old Pattern“, and “The 8 Disparate Decision Makers: Will They Be Able to Restore Calm?“, from the NYT, and “Communism Confronts Its Children” from Time.

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  • May 22, 2009 12:01 AM

• China To Hold Massive Military Drill In Second Half Of 2009

  

  From Xinhua:

  The Chinese People’s Liberation Army(PLA) has started preparations for a massive military drill in the second half of this year that involves as many as 50,000 troops, sources from the Headquarters of General Staff said here Tuesday.

  The drill, dubbed Kuayue-2009, will be undertaken by troops from four military command areas, namely, Shenyang, Lanzhou, Jinan and Guangzhou.

  This is the first time in the history of the PLA that four divisions from four military command areas are taking part in a drill that involves the deployment of troops across different military command areas, the sources said.

  » Read more
  • May 5, 2009 7:53 PM

• Three Armadas, Three Strategies

  

  The Global Times is owned by People’s Daily, but focused on international issues. Recently, it started its English version, and here is an example:

  When Xiao Jin’guang, the former naval commander of the People’s Liberation Army, wanted to inspect a fleet base on an island 59 years ago, he could only find a fishery ship.

  With a stern expression on his face, he told his entourage, “Remember, Navy Commander Xiao Jinguang took a fishery boat on his inspection tour on March 17, 1950.”

  The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy was founded on April 23, 1949, in Taizhou, eastern Jiangsu Province, with just nine warships and 17 boats obtained after a unit of the Kuomintang’s second coastal defense fleet defected to the PLA. In its early stages, the PLA fleet was mainly composed of wooden ships and sailing boats.

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  • April 26, 2009 3:02 PM

• Senior Navy Officer Says China Fleet Review Aimed to “Promote Understandings”

  

  China will be holding a naval show in order to give the world a better glimpse of its military development and “promote understanding.” From Xinhua:

  China’s senior navy officer said here Monday that the international fleet review to be held in east port city Qingdao on Thursday is aimed at promoting understanding about China’s military development.

  Ding Yiping, deputy commander of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview that the review would serve as a platform for navies from other countries to increase their understanding about China and the Chinese navy.

  “Suspicions about China being a ‘threat’ to world security are mostly because of misunderstandings and lack of understandings about China,” Ding said.

  “The suspicions would disappear if foreign counterparts could visit the Chinese navy and know about the true situations.”

  » Read more
  • April 21, 2009 9:39 PM

• China General Tells Troops Party Trumps State

  

  A senior Chinese general published an article today stressing that military troops’ first priority should be loyalty to the Communist Party. From Reuters:

  Li Jinai, a member of the powerful Central Military Commission and head of the People’s Liberation Army’s General Political Department, wrote in April’s Party journal Seeking Truth that politics would not be sacrificed to modernization.

  “Following the profound reforms our country’s economy and society have been experiencing and our continued opening up to the outside, every type of thinking and culture has surged in,” Li wrote, using the ponderous prose typical of Chinese officials.

  “Inevitably, some mistaken, backward things have also seeped in to influence the military,” he added, without elaborating.

  “The Chinese Communist Party is the leadership core of the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and maintaining the Party’s absolute leadership is our military’s political priority,” Li said.

  » Read more
  • April 1, 2009 9:26 AM

• U.S. Sees Chinese Military Rise, and a Need for More Contact

  

  Chinese military modernization has increased within the past year, according to a Pentagon report. In addition, U.S. Defense officials stress the need for more transparency in China’s military affairs. From Thom Shanker of the New York Times:

  The report describes how China’s military modernization has continued over the past year, with a particular focus on Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province. China has built up short-range missiles across from Taiwan, even though the report concludes that relations between the two have relaxed over the past year.

  Even so, the study said China could not deploy and sustain even small military units far beyond its borders before 2015. Further, China would not be able to deploy and sustain large forces in combat operations far from China until well into the following decade, the report states.

  Instead, the Chinese military appears to have embarked on modernization programs that would allow it to fight and win short conflicts fought with new weapons along its periphery.

  To blunt traditional advantages of the United States, China has invested in new technologies for cyber- and space warfare, in addition to sustaining and modernizing its nuclear arsenal, the report said. The Chinese military also is expanding and improving its fleet of submarines, and hopes to build a number of new aircraft carriers, the report said.

  Cyber attacks are one particular concern. From Paul Eckert of Reuters:

  The Pentagon analysis said China is developing weapons that would disable its enemies’ space technology such as satellites, and boosting its electromagnetic warfare and cyber-warfare capabilities.

  [...]The United States was increasingly concerned about “computer network intrusions that appear to originate in China,” said the defense official, who pointed to a focus on computer defense and computer attack in Chinese doctrine.

  “Some of these intrusions for the acquisition of data would involve the same types of skills, applications and capabilities that would be consistent with a computer network attack,” the official said.

  The report, “Military Power of the People’s Republic of China 2009,” can be read here. Excerpted:

  The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is pursuing comprehensive transformation from a mass army designed for protracted wars of attrition on its territory to one capable of fighting and winning short-duration, high-intensity conflicts along its periphery against high-tech adversaries – an approach that China refers to as preparing for “local wars under conditions of informatization.” The pace and scope of China’s military transformation have increased in recent years, fueled by acquisition of advanced foreign weapons, continued high rates of investment in its domestic defense and science and technology industries, and far-reaching organizational and doctrinal reforms of the armed forces. China’s ability to sustain military power at a distance remains limited, but its armed forces continue to develop and field disruptive military technologies, including those for anti-access/area-denial, as well as for nuclear, space, and cyber warfare, that are changing regional military balances and that have implications beyond the Asia-Pacific region.

  » Read more
  • March 25, 2009 9:04 PM

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