China

[Petronas]

Bus explosion kills 17 in China
Thursday, February 24, 2005

SHANGHAI: An explosion on a bus in eastern China has killed 17 people and wounded five, state media said on Wednesday. The bus, carrying 51 people, was travelling between the provinces of Anhui and Zhejiang and had just crossed into Jiangsu province when it exploded, the semi-official China News Service said. The cause was under investigation, it added, although it called the blast an accident. Every year, dozens of people are killed or injured during the Chinese Lunar New Year period, which has just ended, in accidental firework and other explosions.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_24-2-2005_pg4_15

[NYC]

WASHINGTON, March 1 - Senior members of Congress from both parties emerged from a meeting with President Bush on Tuesday warning Europe that if it lifts its ban on arms sales to China, the United States may retaliate with severe restrictions on technology sales to European companies.

The warning came after Mr. Bush, on his trip to Europe last week, twice cautioned the Europeans not to lift the restrictions, in place for 15 years. His insistence was based, at least in part, on a new American intelligence assessment that Beijing is rapidly becoming better equipped to carry out a sophisticated invasion of Taiwan and to counter any effort by the United States to react to such an attack, administration officials and intelligence analysts say.

After the White House meeting on Tuesday, Senator Richard G. Lugar, the Indiana Republican who is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said that if the ban is lifted - as European leaders have said they plan to do in coming months - Congress could react with "a prohibition on a great number of technical skills and materials, or products, being available to Europeans." The ranking Democrat on the committee, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, called a lifting of the ban "a nonstarter with Congress."

Their statements reinforce warnings that Mr. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made in meetings with Europeans over the past several weeks that the weapons sales would amount to a transfer of even more sophisticated military technology to China. But European officials say that the concerns are overstated, and that they are considering a compromise proposal that would keep advanced technologies from being exported.

Although Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice have spoken publicly about the sale of heavy weapons, Pentagon officials say the biggest concern is the technology that goes with it, including radar and battlefield communication systems that could take China's rapid military buildup to a new level. And to make their case, the officials have begun to discuss how such technology would give China an increased ability to intimidate Taiwan with the threat of invasion if it moves too aggressively toward independence.

The motivations for the officials to discuss this intelligence in interviews over the past two weeks are varied, and certainly include concerns about how the Chinese buildup could affect American security interests. But the discussion also comes as Congress takes up Mr. Bush's new spending proposals, which devote a majority of supplemental funding to land forces and the war in Iraq, while missions related to perceived threats from China fall mainly to the Navy and the Air Force.

In addition, some administration hawks are concerned about China's rapid growth as a military power in the Pacific at a time that American attention is focused on the Middle East.

The new intelligence reports indicate that since Mr. Bush came to office, China has raced ahead with one of the most ambitious military buildups in the world - including building 23 new amphibious assault ships that could ferry tanks, armored vehicles and troops across the 100 miles to Taiwan, and 13 new attack submarines.

"Their amphibious assault shipbuilding alone equals the entire U.S. Navy shipbuilding since 2002," one intelligence official said.

The official said Chinese military purchases abroad and domestic production of ships and warplanes "definitely represents a significant increase in overall capacity." At the same time, any advances in radar and communications ability would improve how rapidly and effectively those ships and planes could support an invasion or counter American moves in the region.

Military experts in European capitals and in Washington say they do not dispute the American intelligence reports on the growth in quality and quantity of Chinese arms. But European political leaders argue that the sanctions were placed to punish China because of its killing of pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square 16 years ago, not because of its military power.

Now that a new generation of leaders has taken over in Beijing, they say, the specific cause of the sanctions is removed.

In contrast, Japan has sided with the United States in asserting a growing Chinese threat to Taiwan, publicly inserting those concerns for the first time into a joint security statement issued in recent days.

The latest intelligence reports give the fullest sense to date of what China has actually fielded in the past several years, and how, as the new director of central intelligence, Porter J. Goss, recently told Congress, the weaponry could "tilt the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait."

The United States has deliberately left vague whether or how it would defend Taiwan in the event of invasion. The last time a crisis erupted in the region, President Clinton put a carrier near the Taiwan Strait - but not inside it - as a caution to Beijing.

That event prompted a rethinking of military strategy in Beijing, China experts say. One intelligence official noted that China's military expansion has tried to fill gaps that have been identified in a range of Pentagon reports and public American intelligence estimates.

The intelligence official said: "What the Chinese have systematically done is look at what other people have said about them, and said, 'Fine. I don't have a credible amphibious capability. Well, I'm going to build one. I don't have a credible surface force that can provide adequate air cover and surface-to-surface strike capability against incoming fleets. Fine, I'll build that. Submarines worry you? Fine, I'll buy them or I'll build them.' "

"It's a modernization across the force," the official added.

China's growing submarine fleet, which includes new nuclear- and conventional-powered vessels, helps China patch a major vulnerability: an inability until now to control the Taiwan Strait. This larger submarine fleet, even if less effective than its American counterpart, would vastly complicate any effort by Washington to intervene. Past calculations of how quickly the American aircraft carrier fleet could safely move into the area are even now being rewritten to include new estimates of the patrolling range of the new Chinese submarine fleet.

In a written statement on "Current and Projected National Security Threats to the United States" submitted to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence earlier this month, Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, discussed an even broader nature of the Pentagon's concern.

"In addition to key Taiwanese military and civilian facilities," Admiral Jacoby said, "Chinese missiles will be capable of targeting U.S. and allied military installations in the region to either deter outside intervention in a Taiwan crisis or attack those installations if deterrent efforts fail."

Admiral Jacoby, in unclassified testimony, predicted that by 2015, the number of Chinese nuclear warheads "capable of targeting the continental United States will increase severalfold."

For now, though, China's capabilities are not considered a threat to the United States mainland; China still lacks an oceangoing navy that could rival America's presence in the Pacific, while America has no lack of nuclear missiles that can strike China from land or from submarines.

Experts also say it is clear that China will be able to proceed with its modernization plans with or without European weapons, though its progress may be slower. China has purchased destroyers, as well as many other weapons, from Russia, its main supplier. At the same time, it is modernizing its fleet of warships, built at a rapidly growing chain of domestic shipyards that is financing its own expansion by taking an increasing share of commercial shipbuilding contracts in Asia, according to United States government assessments.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/02/international/asia/02china.html?pagewanted=print&position=

[Ono]

China's president tells army to be prepared for war

BEIJING (AP) — China's national legislature on Monday overwhelmingly approved a law authorizing a military attack to stop Taiwan from pursuing formal independence, a day after President Hu Jintao told the 2.5 million-member People's Liberation Army to be prepared for war.

The measure was approved by a vote of 2,896 to zero, with two abstentions on the last day of the figurehead National People's Congress' annual session.

"We shall step up preparations for possible military struggle and enhance our capabilities to cope with crises, safeguard peace, prevent wars and win the wars if any," the official Xinhua News Agency quoted Hu as saying Sunday.

Hu's comments, made to military delegates at the national legislature, appeared aimed at underlining Beijing's determination to unify with democratically ruled Taiwan, which split from the Chinese mainland in 1949. Delegates to the NPC burst into applause after the approval of the law, shown live on national television.

"This law ... represents the people's determination not to allow Taiwan to be separated from China by any means or any excuses," said Wu Bangguo, China's No. 2 leader and chairman of the parliament.

On Sunday, Hu was appointed as chairman of the government's Central Military Commission, a largely symbolic move that capped a generational transfer of power. He already heads a parallel party commission that runs China's military.

Hu, 62, has shown no sign of diverging from former President Jiang Zemin's hard-line stance toward Taiwan, a democratically ruled island that Beijing insists is part of the communist mainland.

The two sides split in a civil war more than 50 years ago, and Beijing has long threatened to invade if Taipei takes formal steps toward independence.

The anti-secession law passed Monday is aimed at discouraging self-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory, from making its de facto independence permanent.

"We must ... always place the task of defending national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity and safeguarding the interests of national development above anything else," Xinhua quoted Hu as telling military delegates to the congress.

Taiwan's government has condemned the law, saying it risks raising tensions. The United States also appealed to China not to enact the measure.

At a news conference after the measure passed, however, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao denied it was a war bill.

"This is a law advancing peaceful unification between the sides. It is not targeted at the people of Taiwan, nor is it a war bill," Wen said.

Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian has said it "enables China to unilaterally decide Taiwan's future and ignore that Taiwanese have the right to choose a democratic and free lifestyle."

After the bill passed Monday, the Japanese government's top spokesman said it could dangerously raise regional tensions.

"We are concerned about negative effects of the bill on the peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits and the relationship between the two sides, which had been improving," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda.

The United States would be Taiwan's most likely defender if China attacked. Washington is lobbying strongly against European Union plans to lift a 15-year-old arms embargo against China, arguing that high-tech European weapons might be used against Taiwanese or U.S. forces.

Hu replaced Jiang as Communist Party leader in 2002 and as president the next year, as power passed to a new generation of Chinese leaders. He succeeded Jiang as head of the party's military commission in September.

Analysts say Jiang, 78, still exerts influence, but not to the extent that his predecessor, Deng Xiaoping, did after retiring from his government posts. Deng was considered China's paramount leader until his death in 1997.

Unlike earlier Chinese leaders who were revered as heroes of the 1949 communist revolution, neither Hu nor Jiang has military experience.

The Communist Party newspaper People's Daily said Sunday that the anti-secession law "shows the Chinese people's common will and firm determination of safeguarding territorial integrity and sovereignty and absolutely does not allow Taiwan independence forces to separate Taiwan from China by any name or by any means."

Jiang, a former Shanghai mayor, was chosen to head the party in 1989 in the tumult that followed the military crackdown on pro-democracy protests centered on Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

He served as president from 1993-2003. During his leadership, China boomed economically even as it remained an authoritarian one-party political system.

http://usatoday.printthis.clickabil...&partnerID=1660

[Petronas]

China (Country threat level - 3): Thousands of villagers clashed with anti-riot police officers in Huankantou village near Dongyang city, located in the province of Zhejiang in eastern China, on 10 April 2005. The villagers threw rocks, overturned approximately 10 police cars, and broke the windows of approximately 50 buses that were transporting more than 3,000 police officers to the area. Reports indicate that as many as 50 police officers sustained injuries. The fray began after police officers reportedly killed two people while attempting to disperse approximately 200 protesters who were conducting a two-week roadblock outside of a nearby industrial park.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 4/11/2005

[Petronas]

China activates bomb shelters
Posted: June 28, 2005

China's decision to open up massive bomb shelters to the public, ostensibly to provide a respite from summer heat, has U.S. intelligence analysts concerned about a possible strategic deception by Beijing, reports Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin. The government made a high-profile public announcement, carried by the official Xinhua news agency, this week that bomb shelters in central Chongqing would be opened to the public to allow residents to cool off during a heat wave in which temperatures are reaching into the 90s. Specifically, the announcement said, the government had decided to open 24 cool, underground air-raid shelters, most of them built in the 1960s and 1970s.

"A heat wave with high humidity has hit Chongqing since last week, making life unbearable to residents, many of whom only have electric or palm-leaf fans to cool off," the Xinhua report explained. The government even planned to equip the shelters with free tea, chairs, books and newspapers for those trying to escape the heat.

The bomb shelters, the report said, covered an area of more than 70,000 square meters – or some 17.3 acres – and could accommodate tens of thousands of people. While "civil defense" fallout shelters may sound like an anachronism to many in the West, the Chinese have maintained an elaborate, large and sophisticated system, as the size of the Chongquin facility suggests. The shelters are built for quick and easy access to the public from home or work.

But some Western intelligence analysts believe there is more to this official announcement by the Chinese than public relations, reports Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin. "I don't think the Chinese leadership is only interested in appearing beneficent and caring toward its people," one well-placed intelligence source told the premium online intelligence newsletter. "That might be a side benefit to this announcement, but I strongly suspect there is much more to this story than meets the eye."

The Chinese specialist agreed with others knowledgeable about nuclear arms that such a maneuver – opening up large fallout shelters to the public on a regular basis would serve two strategic purposes for Beijing:

- It would familiarize the Chinese people to the shelters, making it easier to evacuate the public in times of potential nuclear attack;
- It would confuse Western intelligence analysts who monitor movements of the Chinese public by satellite as evidence of the government's intentions;
- In addition to monitoring missile launches, U.S. national security officials keep an eye on large-scale public movements in countries like China. If, for instance, city residents were seen moving in large numbers into fallout shelters, it would be a sign the government might be preparing for an attack of some kind.

But if such massive movements became routine – because shelters are opened up in the heat of summer and in the cold of winter to provide shelters from the elements – then such movements would more likely be disregarded as militarily insignificant in the West. "Think about it," said one U.S. intelligence source. "If you were planning, at some point in the future, to launch a pre-emptive first strike on some enemy, wouldn't it make sense to do what the Chinese are doing?"

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45001

[NYer]

Top Chinese general warns US over attack
By Alexandra Harney in Beijing and Demetri Sevastopulo and Edward Alden in Washington
Published: July 14 2005 21:59 | Last updated: July 15 2005 00:03

China is prepared to use nuclear weapons against the US if it is attacked by Washington during a confrontation over Taiwan, a Chinese general said on Thursday.

“If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons,” said General Zhu Chenghu.

Gen Zhu was speaking at a function for foreign journalists organised, in part, by the Chinese government. He added that China's definition of its territory included warships and aircraft.

“If the Americans are determined to interfere [then] we will be determined to respond,” said Gen Zhu, who is also a professor at China's National Defence University.

“We . . . will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds . . . of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese.”

Gen Zhu is a self-acknowledged “hawk” who has warned that China could strike the US with long-range missiles. But his threat to use nuclear weapons in a conflict over Taiwan is the most specific by a senior Chinese official in nearly a decade.

However, some US-based China experts cautioned that Gen Zhu probably did not represent the mainstream People's Liberation Army view.

“He is running way beyond his brief on what China might do in relation to the US if push comes to shove,” said one expert with knowledge of Gen Zhu. “Nobody who is cleared for information on Chinese war scenarios is going to talk like this,” he added.

Gen Zhu's comments come as the Pentagon prepares to brief Congress next Monday on its annual report on the Chinese military, which is expected to take a harder line than previous years. They are also likely to fuel the mounting anti-China sentiment on Capitol Hill.

In recent months, a string of US officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, have raised concerns about China's military rise. The Pentagon on Thursday declined to comment on “hypothetical scenarios”.

Rick Fisher, a former senior US congressional official and an authority on the Chinese military, said the specific nature of the threat “is a new addition to China's public discourse”. China's official doctrine has called for no first use of nuclear weapons since its first atomic test in 1964. But Gen Zhu is not the first Chinese official to refer to the possibility of using such weapons first in a conflict over Taiwan.

Chas Freeman, a former US assistant secretary of defence, said in 1996 that a PLA official had told him China could respond in kind to a nuclear strike by the US in the event of a conflict with Taiwan. The official is believed to have been Xiong Guangkai, now the PLA's deputy chief of general staff.

Gen Zhu said his views did not represent official Chinese policy and he did not anticipate war with the US.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/28cfe55a-f4a7-11d9-9dd1-00000e2511c8.html

[Ono]

Well, THIS is comforting!

[Atlas]

Well, THIS is comforting!

I keep saying we'll be in a conflict with these folks, the question is when, not if, and believe me, they're good at preparation

[NYer]

While a Chinese general threatens nuclear war, the US media worry about ... Karl Rove.

[Klaus]

China is our biggest threat, but NOBODY talks about it.


http://stevequayle.com/News.alert/05_Unrest/050923.CH_war.html

Most all China experts agree that the Marxist government in Beijing is planning to attack Taiwan and is preparing to take on the United States if we interfere. It has more than doubled its fleet of amphibious landing and troop-carrying ships. It has entered into an agreement with Russia which guarantees Russia will not help the United States should conflict erupt between the U.S. and China.

Furthermore, a World Net Daily report dated Tuesday, September 13, 2005, quotes a Chinese dissident as stating unequivocally that Beijing is planning nuclear war. The WND report states, "Wei Jingsheng, who spent 18 years in detention for his pro-democracy activism, told a forum at the National Press Club in Washington that China needs the distraction of a war with Taiwan to turn attention away from the people's frustration with rampant corruption and failed policies at home."

The WND report also quoted Jingsheng as saying, "The Chinese Communist Party is considering nuclear war, because it is not afraid to sacrifice China's people." Jingsheng cited Chinese general Zhu Chenghu's recent public declaration that "we [China] will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all the cities east of Xian" which would include Shanghai and Beijing. When one considers that China could lose the equivalent of the entire U.S. population and still have over 700 million people left, General Chengu's threat cannot be taken lightly.

[Atlas]

I pay close attention to the china issue, but I still think Steve Quayle is a nut job

[NYer]

Uighurs to Declare War against Chinese Government (Uighur Jihad against China)
Daily China ^ | 09/30/05

Posted on 09/30/2005 6:11:55 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster



09/30/05

The members of 'East Turkestan Liberation Organization(ETLO)' making the declaration via a video (from BBC)



'East Turkestan Liberation Organization(ETLO)', a radical Uighur organization, declared publicly war against Chinese government for the first time, via videotaped statements, BBC reported on Sept. 30th (in its Chinese edition.)

According to BBC, 'East Turkestan Information Center' located in Munich, Germany, provided the link to the web site containing this video(made by Tianshan branch of ETLO), and apparently it was announced via overseas Wanwei free server, fhreactor.com.

In the video, three ETLO masked members carrying an assault rifle announced the declaration in Uighur language, with the organization's banner(crescent Moon flag with stars) as a backdrop.

In their statements, they appealed to Uighurs to resist the activities celebrating the 50th anniversary of Xinjiang Autonomous District on Oct. 1, and declared that they will prosecute armed revolt against Chinese government, with all possible means.

Chinese government classifies ETLO, which demands Uighur independence, as a terrorist organization, and in particular, after 9/11 incident, tightened the control over Uighurs in the name of anti-terror (campaign), causing international condemnations.

On Sept. 23rd, in Kuerlei, one of three major cities in Xinjiang, its Uighur mayor, Mutalifu(?) Yusuf(age:43) reportedly killed himself, but Chinese government is clamping down the coverage of this incident, prompting suspicion on the nature of his (alleged) suicide.

After WWII, Uighurs in Xinjiang set up independent 'East Turkestan Republic' just like five other countries in West Turkestan, but it was forcibly annexed to China by (Chinese) communists in 1949.

Currently, many Uighurs rather want to exercise the right of full ethnic autonomy guaranteed in Chinese law rather than independence, and oppose nuclear test (in their territory,) one-child policy, and religious persecution. However, they are now all branded as 'separatists.'

/end my translation
Link in Chinese

http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese/simp/hi/newsid_4290000/newsid_4295900/4295912.stm

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1494157/posts

[Naqsh]

S'up my China?

[Petronas]

China (Country threat level - 3): Reports issued on 30 September 2005 indicate that the U.S. government has warned its citizens against traveling to the northwestern Xinjiang region of China. Although the exact text of the warning is not available, the message reportedly states in part: "Americans considering travel to the region and those already there should review their plans carefully, remain vigilant with regard to their personal security and exercise caution." The statement comes after Chinese government officials warned that there may be attacks in the Xinjiang region during the 1 October anniversary of the establishment of the autonomous region. Government officials previously stated that more than 250 terrorist attacks have been committed in the region in the past 20 years. It should be noted, however, that bombings in the area do not appear to be perpetrated by organized terrorist groups and that the Chinese government has previously been accused of cloaking suppression of minority groups in Xinjiang as an anti-terror crackdown.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 9/30/2005

[uchiuke123]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4420590.stm

China 'warning of hotel attacks'

Expensive hotels in Beijing could be at risk
Chinese police have warned that Islamic militants could be planning an attack on luxury hotels in Beijing in the coming week, the US embassy has said.
The authorities pledged to investigate the threat and take appropriate action, the embassy said in a statement.

The warning comes 10 days before US President George Bush visits Beijing.

China is often accused of exaggerating the threat of Islamic militancy to justify its crackdown on groups such as its Uighur minority.

"The embassy has learned that Chinese police advised hotels that Islamic extremist elements could be planning to attack four- and five-star hotels in China some time over the course of the next week," the statement from the US embassy in Beijing said.

"American citizens visiting Chinese four- and five-star hotels should review their plans carefully, remain vigilant with regard to their personal security, and exercise caution," it added.

The statement did not specify whether the threat came from extremists inside or outside China.

Uighurs

But Beijing has often warned of a threat from the Muslim Uighur community in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang.

Many Uighurs campaign for an independent homeland in the region, which they would call East Turkestan, and resent the recent and large-scale influx into the region of Han Chinese settlers.

China brands these separatists as terrorists and said in September that more than 260 terrorist acts had been committed in Xinjiang in the past two decades.

Critics say China has been using its support for the US-led war on terrorism to justify a crackdown on the Uighurs.

Human rights groups cite arbitrary arrests, closed trials and the use of the death penalty against alleged militants in Xinjiang.

uchiuke123

[uchiuke123]

Let's play flip flop.....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4424134.stm

China denies hotel attack warning

Expensive hotels in Beijing could be at risk, the US statement said
China has denied issuing a warning that Islamic militants were planning attacks on luxury hotels in the country.
A spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Public Security said the report was a "sham" fabricated by a foreign citizen.

The US embassy in Beijing said on Wednesday that Chinese police had warned hotels of possible attacks.

The embassy retracted the statement on Thursday, saying Chinese authorities had found that the source of the threat was "not credible".

The warning came at a particularly sensitive time, as US President George is due to visit China later this month.

A spokesman for China's foreign ministry, Liu Jianchao, said on Thursday that the American report was a result of "false information".

"China's Ministry of Public Security has never issued any such warning to China's hotels, so it's safe to stay in China's hotels," Mr Liu told reporters.

He said security officials had informed him that an anonymous foreigner had issued a false report.

China is often accused of exaggerating the threat of Islamic militancy to justify its crackdown on groups such as its Uighur minority in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang.


uchiuke123

[Petronas]

TERRORISM: HIGH ALERT IN CHINA AND PAKISTAN AFTER FAX THREAT
Rawalpindi, 23 Nov.

Law enforcement agencies and immigration authorities have been put on high alert in Pakistan and China after a fax message was received by the consulate-general of China in Karachi, saying that terrorists were planning to strike hotels in Hong Kong and China in the near future. An official source said the security agencies had also been directed to inform the respective visa and immigration departments in both countries to be vigilant. The source said the embassy of China told the Pakistani government that their consulate-general in Karachi had received an anonymous fax message which said: “Ali Rizvi, keeping extreme fundamentalist/religious views, possibly members (sic) of some radical religious group and Islamic terrorist network in China, with the help of some US financiers, possibly plan to bomb some hotels in Hong Kong and in China in coming days.”

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.232065872&par=0

[Petronas]

Pakistan Investigates Terror Threats to China
By VOA News
24 November 2005

Pakistan says it is investigating a message, sent to the Chinese consulate in Karachi, which threatens terror attacks in mainland China and Hong Kong ahead of next month's World Trade Organization conference. A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Tasnim Aslam, says the message was anonymous and the threat was not supported by evidence. A Chinese embassy official in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, says the consulate in Karachi received a fax written in Pakistan's main Urdu language saying unidentified hotels in China and Hong Kong would be targeted.

Pakistani intelligence is investigating whether the threat is linked to a small, militant Muslim separatist group called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, based in China's western Xinjiang province. Two years ago, Pakistani troops killed a leader of that movement in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal region during a campaign against al-Qaida-linked militants.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/news/2005/11/sec-051124-voa01.htm

[uchiuke123]

http://debka.com/article.php?aid=1118

Al Qaeda’s Passage to China

Exclusively from DEBKA-Net-Weekly 230

December 6, 2005, 10:26 PM (GMT+02:00)



In mid-September, Al Qaeda diverted a small but potent force from Iraq to a new mission: the opening of a new front in China. The unit was smuggled into the Chinese border town of Kushi in the Xinjiang Uygur province in November, after a meandering journey traced by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s counter-terror sources. There, the terrorists were quickly absorbed by the al Qaeda infrastructure of local Uygur Muslim extremist cells.

(See DEBKA Exclusive Map attached to this article.)

Their plan of campaign in the first stage was to reach Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai for strikes against US embassies and consulates, American firms operating in China and American tourists.

To subscribe to DEBKA-Net-Weekly click HERE .


(This al Qaeda group was previously revealed by DEBKA-Net-Weekly 229 on Nov. 11 [A Jihadist Airlift] as having set out from Baghdad between mid-September and early October, stopping over in Qatar and proceeding to Konduz in northern Afghanistan for special training.)

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources report the terrorists slipped north from Konduz into Tajikistan and onto the Kyrgyz section of the strategic Fergana Valley which straddles Central Asia. There, they rendezvoused at two places, Osh and Jalal-Abad close to the Kyrgyz-Uzbekistan border, establishing jumping-off points for both China and Central Asia.

The Islamist terrorists were guided from Konduz into Kyrgyzstan by armed men of al Qaeda’s operational arm in Uzbekistan, the MUI, which also has tentacles in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, as well as training camps in the Fergana Valley. The commander of these cells is Tahir Yuldashev, an old comrade of Osama bin Laden who fought alongside him in Afghanistan. In 2004, Yuldashev returned to Tashkent from the badlands of Pakistan’s South Waziristan and was ordered to prepare facilities in Osh and Jalal-Abad for the incoming terrorist unit. His payment was a section of the force to boost his campaign against Uzbek president Karimov.

The unit from Konduz accordingly divided into two heads – the largest proceeding from Osh into China and fetching up in Kushi, while the second group assembled in Jalal-Abad, turned west and crossed into Uzbekistan to set up base in the Fergana town of Andijon.

American and British military and intelligence officials picked up the group’s arrival at the Konduz training facility, but decided after consultation that the large-scale forces needed to eradicate the facility would be hard to muster. They therefore resolved to await events and meanwhile find out where the mysterious al Qaeda force was heading.

According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources, Washington reported the arrival to Moscow, hoping the counter-terror-trained Russian Motorized Rifle Division 201 stationed in Uzbekistan would step in to wipe out the al Qaeda intruders. The Russians declined to take action, but said they would not object to Beijing sending Chinese troops over the border to tackle the incoming terrorists.

This was the first time Moscow had ever consented to the Chinese military stepping into Central Asian soil and joining the war on terror in that region.

Clearly, the Kremlin, which frowns on American military bases and movements in Central Asia, was not eager to pull American chestnuts out of the fire

The skirmishing between Washington, Moscow and Beijing over who should tackle the al Qaeda menace – if anyone – had the result of opening the door for al Qaeda to move a force across half the globe from Iraq to the Far East unhindered and plant it in western China and eastern Uzbekistan.

The Chinese government was caught totally unprepared and did its best to tune out the loud alarums sounded by Chinese military and security chiefs.

However, on November 9, the Chinese police alerted the US embassy in Beijing to a possible attack by Islamic rebels on luxury hotels throughout China. The US embassy accordingly advised American visitors to “review their plans” to stay at four- and five-star hotels in China over the coming week.

A sharper notice was issued in the southern Chinese town of Guangzhou relaying “credible information” that a terrorist threat may exist against official US government facilities in the city. American citizens in south China were advised to remain alert to possible threats.

China’s Ministry of Public Security responded to these warnings, which were obviously sourced in Chinese police circles, with anger. A statement accused an unnamed “foreign citizen” of fabricating the so-called attack on four- and five-star hotels in China. The Chinese foreign ministry chipped in with, “Chinese public security has never issued such a warning for foreigners on the hotel issue,” its spokesman told reporters. “Chinese hotels are safe!” he added.

US officials diplomatically withdrew their terror alert notice.

However, while Chinese officials are doing their utmost to calm fears that could affect the tourist industry, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s counter-terror sources affirm that a terror alert is indeed in force in Chinese cities.

uchiuke123

[Petronas]

China’s New Great Leap Forward: High Technology and Military Power in the Next Half-Century
Hudson Institute, 2005

http://www.hudson.org/files/publications/China_Great_Leap_Forward.pdf

[al-Canine]

20 Reported Killed as Chinese Unrest Escalates

By HOWARD W. FRENCH

SHANGHAI, Dec. 9 - Residents of a fishing village near Hong Kong said that as many as 20 people had been killed by paramilitary police in an unusually violent clash that marked an escalation in the widespread social protests that have roiled the Chinese countryside. Villagers said that as many as 50 other residents remain unaccounted for since the shooting. It is the largest known use of force by security forces against ordinary citizens since the killings around Tiananmen Square in 1989. That death toll remains unknown, but is estimated to be in the hundreds.

The violence began after dark in the town of Dongzhou on Tuesday evening. Terrified residents said their hamlet has remained occupied by thousands of security forces, who have blocked off all access roads and are reportedly arresting residents who attempt to leave the area in the wake of the heavily armed assault.

"From about 7 p.m. the police started firing tear gas into the crowd, but this failed to scare people," said a resident who gave his name only as Li and claimed to have been at the scene, where a relative of his was killed. "Later, we heard more than 10 explosions, and thought they were just detonators, so nobody was scared. At about 8 p.m. they started using guns, shooting bullets into the ground, but not really targeting anybody.

"Finally, at about 10 p.m. they started killing people."

The use of live ammunition to put down a protest is almost unheard of in China, where the authorities have come to rely on rapid deployment of huge numbers of security forces, tear gas, water cannons and other non-lethal measures. But Chinese authorities have become increasingly nervous in recent months over the proliferation of demonstrations across the countryside, particularly in heavily industrialized eastern provinces like Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiansu. By the government's tally there were 74,000 riots or other significant public disturbances in 2004, a big jump from previous years.

The villagers in Dongzhou said their dispute with the authorities had begun with a conflict over plans by a power company to build a coal-fired generator in their area, which they feared would cause heavy pollution. Farmers said they had not been compensated for the use of the land for the plant. Others said plans to reclaim land by filling in a local bay as part of the power plant project were unacceptable because people have made their livelihoods there as fishermen for generations. Already, villagers complained, work crews have been blasting a nearby mountainside for rubble for the landfill.

A small group of villagers was delegated to complain to the authorities about the plant in July, but they were arrested, infuriating other residents and encouraging others to join the protest movement. On Dec. 6, while villagers were mounting a sit-in demonstration, police made a number of arrests, bringing lots of people out into the streets, where they managed to detain several officers. In response, hundreds of law enforcement agents were rushed to the scene. Everybody, young and old, "went out to watch," said one man who claimed his cousin had been killed by a police officer's bullet in the forehead. "We didn't expect they were so evil. The farmers had no means to resist them."

Early reports from the village said the police opened fire only after villagers began throwing homemade bombs and other missiles, but villagers reached by telephone today denied this, saying that a few farmers had launched ordinary fireworks at the police as part of their protest. "Those were not bombs, they were fireworks, the kind that fly up into the sky," said one witness reached by telephone. "The organizers didn't have any money, so someone bought fireworks and placed them there. At the moment the trouble started many of the demonstrators were holding them, and of those who held fireworks, almost everyone was killed."

Other witnesses estimated that 10 people were killed immediately in the first volley of automatic gunfire. "I live not far from the scene, and I was running as fast as I could," said one witness, who declined to give his name. "I dragged one of the people they killed, a man in his 30's who was shot in his chest. Initially I thought he might survive, because he was still breathing, but he was panting heavily, and as soon as I pulled him aside, he died."

The witness said that he, too, had come under fire when the police saw him coming to the aid of the dying man. The Chinese government has yet to issue a statement about the incident, nor has it been reported in the state media. Reached by telephone, an official in the city of Shanwei, which has jurisdiction over the village, said, "Yes, there was an incident, but we don't know the details." The official said an official announcement would be made on Saturday.

Villagers said that in addition to the regular security forces, the authorities had enlisted thugs from local organized crime groups to help put down the demonstration. "They had knives and sticks in their hands, and they were two or three layers thick, lining the road," one man said. "They stood in front of the armed police, and when the tear gas was launched, the thugs were all ducking."

Like the Dongzhou incident itself, most of the thousands of riots and public disturbances recorded in China this year have involved environmental, property rights and land use issues. Among other problems, in trying to come to grips with the growing rural unrest, the Chinese government is wrestling with a yawning gap in incomes between farmers and urban dwellers, and rampant corruption in local government, where unaccountable officials deal away communal property rights, often for their own profit.

Finally, mobile telephone technology has made it easier for people in rural China to organize, communicating news to one another by short messages, and increasingly allowing them to stay in touch with members of non-governmental organizations in big cities who are eager to advise them or provide legal help.

Over the last three days, residents of the village say that other than people looking for their missing relatives, few people have dared go outside. Meanwhile, the police and other security forces have reportedly combed the village house by house, looking for leaders of the demonstration and making arrests.

Residents said that after the villagers' demonstration was suppressed a senior Communist Party official came to the hamlet from the nearby city of Shanwei and addressed residents with a megaphone. "Shanwei and Dongzhou are still good friends," the party official said. "We're not here against you. We are here to make the construction of the Red Sea Bay better. Later, the official reportedly told visitors, "all of the families who have people who died must send a representative to the police for a solution."

Today, a group of 100 or so bereaved villagers gathered at a bridge leading into the town, briefly blocking access to security forces hoisting a white banner whose black-ink characters read: "The dead suffered a wrong. Uphold justice."

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/international/asia/09cnd-china.html?

[NYer]

Hacker attacks in US linked to Chinese military: researchers



Dec 12 5:56 PM US/Eastern

A systematic effort by hackers to penetrate US government and industry computer networks stems most likely from the Chinese military, the head of a leading security institute said. The attacks have been traced to the Chinese province of Guangdong, and the techniques used make it appear unlikely to come from any other source than the military, said Alan Paller, the director of the SANS Institute, an education and research organization focusing on cybersecurity.

"These attacks come from someone with intense discipline. No other organization could do this if they were not a military organization," Paller said in a conference call to announced a new cybersecurity education program.

In the attacks, Paller said, the perpetrators "were in and out with no keystroke errors and left no fingerprints, and created a backdoor in less than 30 minutes. How can this be done by anyone other than a military organization?"

Paller said that despite what appears to be a systematic effort to target government agencies and defense contractors, defenses have remained weak in many areas.

"We know about major penetrations of defense contractors," he said.

Security among private-sector Pentagon contractors may not be as robust, said Paller, because "they are less willing to make it hard for mobile people to get their work done."

Paller said the US government strategy appears to be to downplay the attacks, which has not helped the situation.

"We have a problem that our computer networks have been terribly and deeply penetrated throughout the United States ... and we've been keeping it secret," he said.

"The people who benefit from keeping it secret are the attackers."

Although Paller said the hackers probably have not obtained classified documents from the Pentagon, which uses a more secure network, it is possible they stole "extremely sensitive" information.

He said it has been documented that US military flight planning software from its Redstone Arsenal was stolen.

Pentagon officials confirmed earlier this year that US Defense Department websites are probed hundreds of times a day by hackers, but maintained that no classified site is known to have been penetrated by hackers.

The US military has code-named the recent hacker effort "Titan Rain" and has made some strides in counter-hacking to identify the attackers, Paller said. This was first reported by Time magazine.

Paller said a series of attacks on British computer networks reported earlier this year may have similar goals, but seems to use different techniques.

In the United States, he said there are some areas of improvement such as the case of the Air Force, which has been insisting on better security from its IT vendors. But he argued that "the fundamental error is that America's security strategy relies on writing reports rather than hardening systems."

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/12/051212224756.jwmkvntb.html

[NYer]

Taiwan Holds Massive Democracy Rally (http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2006/03/taiwan-holds-massive-democracy-rally.html)

http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/67/2145/320/taiwan.0.jpg

More than 100,000 Taiwanese people march through the streets in an anti-China rally in Taipei March 18, 2006. Organisers estimated 100,000 people joined the march to mark the first anniversary of China's passage of the Anti-Secession Law that authorizes war if Taiwan declares formal independence.

[NYer]

Beijing Blogger Held By Chinese Security Bureau. (http://www.pekingduck.org/archives/003548.php)

Hao Wu (Chinese name: �皓), a Chinese documentary filmmaker who lived in the U.S. between 1992 and 2004, was detained by the Beijing division of China's State Security Bureau on the afternoon of Wednesday, Febuary 22, 2006. On that afternoon, Hao had met in Beijing with a congregation of a Christian church not recognized by the Chinese government, as part of the filming of his next documentary.

Hao had also been in phone contact with Gao Zhisheng, a lawyer specializing in human rights cases. Gao confirmed to one of Hao’s friends that the two had been in phone contact and planned to meet on Feb. 22, but that their meeting never took place after Gao advised against it. On Friday, Feb. 24, Hao's editing equipment and several videotapes were removed from the apartment where he had been staying. Hao has been in touch his family since Feb. 22, but judging from the tone of the conversations, he wasn’t able to speak freely. One of Haoss friends has been interrogated twice since his detention. Beijing’s Public Security Bureau (the police) has confirmed that Hao has been detained, but have declined to specify the charges against him.

Glenn Reynolds points to the Chinese Embassy (http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/sgxx/dfzygy/t44338.htm) web page.

[keith]

China's Trade Safari in Africa

By Rodrick Mukumbira**
May. 02, 2006

President Hu, currently on an African tour, said China was seeking a "strategic partnership" with Africa.

The Chinese economic juggernaut and its thirst for minerals and markets have increasingly brought China to Africa.

The Asian giant is guzzling the continent's vast oil supply in Sudan, Angola, and along the Gulf of Guinea.

Like the United States, it is looking to diversify its oil supplies away from the Middle East and now gets between 25 and 30 percent of its oil from Africa, mainly from Sudan, Angola, and Congo-Brazzaville.

Between 1995 and 2005, the number of licenses held by national oil companies in Africa more than doubled, from 95 to 216.

Chinese state oil companies' exploration includes deals with Angola, Nigeria, Sudan, Algeria, Gabon, Niger, and Chad.

Last year, China bought 38.47 million tons of African oil, about 30 percent of total imports and nine percent more than in 2004.

Although its interest in Africa is energy, China has major interests in other natural resources, particularly metals, food, and timber.

In January, a Chinese government white paper on Sino-African trade called for greater military cooperation with the continent, and trade agreements "when conditions are ripe."

China is increasingly making its presence felt on the continent — from building roads in Kenya and Rwanda to increasing trade with Uganda and South Africa.

The West-isolated Zimbabwe, whose hills are rich with gold and the world's second-largest platinum reserves, has not escaped its interest.

Trade between China and Africa has quadrupled since the beginning of this decade.

Chinese exports to Africa hit US$13.8 billion in 2004, up 36 percent over the previous year.

It exports textiles and low-cost consumer goods, primarily electronic and high-technology products, and invests in infrastructure.

Chinese imports from the African continent also surged 81 percent to hit US$15.65 billion of mostly raw materials.

The Asian giant is now Africa's third largest commercial partner after the United States and France, and second largest exporter after France.

It is notably ahead of ex-colonial power Britain in both categories.

Strategic

Incentives

Unlike the West

Politics

Neocolonialism

Strategic

During a recent visit to Nigeria, Chinese President Hu Jintao said his country was seeking a "strategic partnership" with Africa.

The two countries signed a deal whereby China will buy into northern Nigeria's Kaduna refinery for US$4 billion and, in exchange, it will be given drilling rights to four oil exploration blocks.

China's offshore operator, CNOOC, signed a US$2.7 billion deal to buy a 45 percent stake in Nigeria's off-shore Akpo field, the firm's largest-ever foreign investment.

China signed an US$800 million oil deal with Nigeria last year to purchase 30,000 bpd for five years.

In total, China is considering some US$7 billion of investment in Nigeria across a wide range of sectors.

The Asian giant is also making strategic trade deals with other African partners.

It gets copper from Zambia; cobalt and copper from the Democratic Republic of Congo; timber and oil from Congo-Brazzaville; iron-ore from South Africa; and food from Tanzania, to name but a few.

It is now the world's largest consumer of copper, ahead of the United States and the worldwide rise in many commodity prices is largely driven by Chinese demand.

Chinese investments have an advantage over the West in that most are made through state-owned companies whose individual investments do not have to make a profit so long as they serve overall Chinese objectives.

In Ethiopia, China's state-owned construction company was instructed by Beijing to bid low on various tenders, since its objective is to gain favor with the regime.

In the case of Zimbabwe, China now has stakes in electricity production and supply, mobile phones, and transport.

Its reported plans include a joint coal venture, a glass factory, telephone assembly, and beef production on vast tracts of acquired land following the regime's land redistribution policy.

Incentives

Like the former colonial countries, China backs its trading relations with aid, debt relief, scholarships, training, and the provision of specialists.

Like the former colonial countries, China backs its trading relations with aid, debt relief, scholarships, training, and the provision of specialists.

During his visit, President Hu agreed to US$500 million in export credits on concessionary terms to Nigeria.

China has extended a US$2 billion soft loan to Angola, for example, which Africa Confidential believes may increase to US$6 billion, in exchange for favorable oil contracts.

Some argue that China's methods are cutting across the interests of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

"The Chinese are offering the loan as an alternative to working with the IMF," points out Princeton Lyman from the Washington-based Council of Foreign Relations think tank.

The loan has given Angola the ability to ignore the IMF's demand for an agreement on accountability and to delay indefinitely an international donors' conference.

About half of Angola's US$9.7 billion foreign debt is owed to the Paris Club of nations, which according to Africa Confidential is divided over their negotiating strategy, largely because of China's incursions.

Paris Club rules dictate that creditor countries cannot reschedule debts without an IMF imprimatur, but Spain, Germany, Italy, and Japan want negotiations to speed up so that they can expand their operations in Angola.

In Ethiopia, China has offered to make good any shortfall in assistance following the suspension of European Union aid over human rights abuses.

The Asian giant has also donated three commercial aircrafts to Air Zimbabwe, which offers direct flights from Harare to Beijing.

In Equatorial Guinea, China is trying to gain influence in the US-dominated oil sector by providing military training and specialists to the country, with the president now describing China as his country's main development partner.

Equatorial Guinea has approximately 1.28 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.

Beijing is a major supplier of military hardware, like the West, and has supplied peacekeepers to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia.

Unlike the West

"They are also prepared to put more on the table. For instance, the Western world is never prepared to transfer technology — but the Chinese do."

In its thrust into Africa, China is seen as willing to give the continent more than the West is ready to offer.

"The perception is that China is catching up with the level of engagement that Western governments have," a senior Nigerian foreign affairs official said.

"They are also prepared to put more on the table. For instance, the Western world is never prepared to transfer technology — but the Chinese do."

Nigeria has approached a Chinese company, Great Wall Industry Corporation, to launch a satellite for it this year.

This is despite the fact that the United States has applied sanctions against this company for allegedly supplying Iran with technology that could be used for a nuclear weapons program.

Nigeria has recently criticized the United States for failing to help it protect the country's oil assets and forcing it to turn to China for military support.

When talks with the United States were not progressing fast enough to stop the insurgency in the south of the country, Nigeria sourced dozens of patrol boats from China to secure the swamps and creeks that are at the centre of insurgent attacks on oil facilities.

"Common sense about human rights and sovereignty is only one of the common values shared by China and Africa," believes He Wenping, deputy director of the Department of International Relations in the African Studies Section of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.

"There is no doubt that China's success in Africa has partly benefited from it, and those common values have laid solid foundations for further promoting bilateral relations in future."

Politics

But lately, the Chinese have been digging on a different front, African politics.

In 2004, Beijing, one of the UN Security Council permanent five, stymied US efforts to levy sanctions on Sudan over the troubled region of Darfur.

Khartoum supplies nearly five percent of China's oil.

And as Zimbabwe becomes more and more isolated from the West, China is now its second largest trade partner after South Africa, up from being the eleventh in just three years.

China has also began to deliver 12 fighter jets and 100 trucks to Zimbabwe's army amid a Western arms embargo and designed President Robert Mugabe's new 25-bedroom mansion, complete with a helipad.

The cobalt-blue tiles for its swooping roof, which echoes Beijing's Forbidden City, were gift from the Chinese.

In addition, China and its businesses have reportedly provided a radio-jamming device for a military base outside the capital, preventing independent stations from broadcasting.

China's links with Zimbabwe go back to when it supported the ZANU liberation movement of Robert Mugabe, while the Soviet Union backed his rival Joshua Nkomo's ZAPU.

Mugabe, who has been isolated by the West, recently indicated that Zimbabwe was "returning to the days when our greatest friends were the Chinese."

He told supporters somewhat cryptically, "We look again to the East, where the sun rises, and no longer to the West, where it sets."

China is interested in Zimbabwe's tobacco as well as platinum and other mineral reserves which are currently dominated by South African and British companies.

"They've said, 'If you agree to privatize and sell to us your railways, your electricity generation, etc. — we will come in with capital," says John Robertson, an economist based in Harare.

With an economy that has shrunk as much as 40 percent in five years, Zimbabwe's government uses these promises to put off critics.

"The government says, 'The Chinese are coming, and they'll bring in billions of dollars in investment, and soon everything will be fully restored,'" Robertson says.

Critics say China's involvement in politics could help prop up questionable regimes, like Mugabe's increasingly autocratic 25-year reign.

Neocolonialism

"The Chinese are very competitive players and we have to come to terms with that. They are going to places that really do matter."

But what the Chinese see as a win-win situation — a new economic game in which neither partner can lose — is seen by some as fresh neocolonialism disguised as South-South development.

"We sell them raw materials and they sell us manufactured goods with a predictable result — an unfavorable trade balance against South Africa," said Moeletsi Mbeki, deputy chairman of the South African Institute of International Affairs.

He believes China now represents "both a tantalizing opportunity and a terrifying threat."

Some African analysts are wondering about the limits of Chinese trade policy and the direct competition to Africa's economy from specific Asian products, from textiles to steel.

Garment factories across Africa have been shutting down since the ending of the Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA), which allowed Western countries to place quotas on clothing and textile imports from certain countries, such as China.

When the MFA ended in January 2005, Chinese exports to the United States soared and African exports could not compete.

Over 10 textile factories in Lesotho alone closed in 2005, resulting in the loss of 10,000 jobs.

Even larger economies like Nigeria and South Africa have seen their textile sectors largely devastated.

China is also stepping up exports to Africa, especially in textiles.

Clothing exports from China to South Africa rose by 40 percent in the last nine months of 2005 and after protests from the South African government China has now claimed it will limit the amount to prevent further job losses.

Chinese aid and business do not come price-free, even politically.

The key demand which China impresses upon its African trading partners is its "one-China" policy, which insists on non-recognition of Taiwan.

South Africa was China's first African partner and, as a gesture of solidarity, broke off relations with Taiwan in 1997.

Today, all but six of Africa's 53 nations maintain relations with Beijing.

Senegal was the last to transfer allegiance from Taipei last year, leading to Senegal being included on Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing's recent six-nation diplomatic visit, and the offer of debt elimination and infrastructure funding.

Stephen Morrison of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies sums the Chinese strategy by saying, "The Chinese are very competitive players and we have to come to terms with that. They are going to places that really do matter."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

** Rodrick Mukumbira is a Namibian journalist. He is a Foster Davies fellow at the Poynter Institute in Florida, United States.

Please feel free to contact News editor at:
Englishnews@islam-online.net

[keith]

THE PLA’S NEW CALCULUS FOR FORCE POSTURE


By Martin Andrew


“All warfare is based on deception,” Sun Tzu declared. Historically, China has faithfully adopted this maxim by launching a diplomatic offensive prior to military action either to deceive other countries of its true intentions or to justify its actions. Chinese Defense Minister and Vice Chairman of the Central Military Command (CMC) General Cao Gangchun’s visit to five Asian states this past April is a case in point. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is going on a peace offensive in order to disguise its subtle change from a defensive force to one that is overtly offensive.

Organizational Changes to Units Deployed on China’s Borders

Like other militaries, the PLA calculates force posture based upon geography as well as the force’s role. For the most part, China’s security center of gravity has not shifted from the north, northwest or southwest of China. China’s deployment of forces on its land borders has almost always been defensive. Since the 1950s, forces in the southwest have been composed of light units due to the tropical swamps and jungles in the region. Likewise, due to Tibet’s high altitude, PLA units have been structured to operate as mountain units. Only on the east coast, due to the issue of Taiwan as well as China’s fear of attack by the United States, has China deployed offensively oriented units.

While there has not been a huge project of capability redeployment, there have been notable organizational changes. China’s offensive mechanized forces are now more heavily focused in the northwest due to Xinjiang’s critical role in China’s energy needs. In addition, China, like other naval powers in the Asia Pacific, has enlarged and updated its amphibious capability as part of the modernization of the PLA Navy (PLAN). Most prominently, the PLA has engaged in the worrisome accelerated deployment of short-range and theater ballistic missiles opposite Taiwan by initially redeploying remnant Cold War forces from the Sino-Russian border.

Training for Conflict

To ensure that the PLA is able to perform under informatized conditions, the PLA has invested in realistic training. Nevertheless, considerable resources to improve command and control (C2) have yet to bear fruit due to problems that have been exposed during training. The recent joint C2 exercise linked command centers and units from Beijing with those in the Guangzhou, Shengyang and Chengdu Military Regions (MRs). The exercise was commanded from the Guangzhou MR headquarters “to work out the deployment and cooperation between the Army, Navy and Air Force when ‘separated by hundreds of kilometers’ in the Guangzhou region” (Krasnaya Zvezda, March 10). “To ensure the joint training command is up to speed,” another article noted about the exercise, “various arms and services and various units are linked to each other via networks with their equipment capable of effective coordinated operation.” Based on the principle of “integrating military with locality and field locations with fixed locations,” the article continued, “they set up multiple sets of fiber optic transmission systems and used the method of integrated platforms, integrated networks and integrated applications to connect the major command systems in the cooperation zone, thus ensuring that commanders at all levels are able to transmit and receive telegrams, data and images real-time at their levels of command” (Renmin Wang, March 2).

The importance of training the C2 systems in the Guangzhou MR cannot be underestimated as the MR headquarters is responsible for the South China Sea and for Taiwan. The C2 exercise demonstrated that the different commands were not using the same standard operating procedures, thereby creating a major problem for C2 in potential scenarios. In response, Hu Jintao and the CMC have reinforced the need for standard operating procedures and have called for all headquarters units to read and adopt the new regulations for operation (PLA Daily, March 30). This exercise exposed flaws that previous artificial command post exercises did not. In the past, a simulated enemy’s victory would have caused problems for the losing command staff’s promotion prospects. For instance, the Peace Mission 2005 exercise held with the Russians last year was stage managed to the extent that the exercise lost any relevance for operational training except for the TU-95MS cruise missile carriers, and the continued training of airdropping procedures.

Realistic and Joint Training Emphasized

With the PLA starting to develop their own version of the 1980s Soviet Operational Maneuver Groups and the U.S. Army’s mechanized and armored divisions in Desert Storm, training in command and control and battle management systems will be intensified (GI Zhou Newsletter, November 11, 2005). The structure of the PLA’s new self-propelled gun (SPG) battalion, itself a copy of the US Army’s Paladin SPG battalion, is an indication of the PLA’s increasing reliance on automated fire control systems linked with signals intelligence and unmanned air vehicles (Bingqi Zhishi, January 2006). This will not only require additional specified training but also the extension of the length of military service, an ever increasing reliance on volunteers or an increase in personnel wages. This informationalized training is now being emphasized with four integrations—Goal Orientated Integration, Integrate Peacetime and Wartime Needs, Integrate High and Low Technologies and Integrate Military and Local Resources (Qianwei Bao, January 18). Joint training is the priority emphasis for the PLA in 2006 to enable force modularization—the building of battle groups.

Trials of New Structures and Command and Control for Joint Operations

In the Chengdu MR, the PLA for the past two years has been developing joint operational training to develop new methods of fighting under informationalized conditions. The commander of the program admits there is still a long way to go, though these methods have created a structure to push further developments. Many units in the PLA do not have the new organizational structures or equipment to exploit these new systems as they are “in a mechanized or semi-mechanized state with low informatized systems” (Zhangqi Bao, February 16). This statement reveals that the new brigade structures have not yet been fully implemented throughout the PLA.

In Sichuan, part of the Chengdu MR, a “light mechanized infantry experimental group,” known as an airmobile trials unit in Western terminology, has been developed to test these new joint concepts. Eighty percent of the unit's equipment is new or modernized and is not available to other PLA units. This unit has quadrupled the firepower of the unit it was formed from, with only 30 percent of the original personnel. The unit is entirely airmobile—all vehicles are able to be slung underneath or stored inside the unit’s helicopters. Unless the PLA Air Force’s (PLAAF) heavy-lift helicopters were transferred to the PLA’s army aviation force, this implies that the unit is a joint PLA/PLAAF unit (Zhanqi Bao, February 16). New equipment includes a high mobility amphibious vehicle with an automated fire control system equipped with cannons and missiles. The unit therefore relies on maneuverability, surprise and advanced fire control systems to bring its firepower to bear. The unit appears to be a larger version of the PLA airmobile unit stationed in Xinjiang, which tested air mobile operations as well.

Mobilization Issues

The PLA, like the late Soviet army, keeps the majority of its most modern equipment in store for use in a potential war; earlier versions and only small amounts of the more recent equipment are utilized in training. Although this ensures new equipment during times of mobilization, it also leads to problems of personnel unfamiliarity with the modernized equipment and breakdowns due to poor maintenance. Furthermore, the mass mobilization of modernized military equipment alerts an opponent to one’s intentions. The PLA is aware of these problems and in the last three months of 2005, the State National Defense Mobilization Committee issued a series of proposals to incorporate the four integrations in wartime manpower mobilization and to improve upon rapid manpower mobilization systems (Zhongguo Guofang Bao, November 21, 2005; Zhongguo Guofang Bao, December 12, 2005).

In retrospect, the underlying purpose of General Cao’s trip to ensure that “everything is well and we are no threat” was to misdirect China-watchers. While observers were fixated upon Cao’s every word, the PLA quietly restructured its organization and improved upon its C2 and joint training. These changes may not indicate that Beijing is preparing for war, though they certainly do allow the PLA to operate as a far more lethal fighting force.

http://jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=415&issue_id=3756&article_id=2371161

[Petronas]

China blasts Nobel Peace Prize candidate for terrorist links
Tue Sep 12, 7:55 AM ET

China has accused a candidate for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize of maintaining links with terrorist organizations and attempting to undermine China. The Chinese government said Tuesday that the exiled politician Rebiya Kadeer, a member of the Turkic-speaking Uighur minority, was attempting to split the westernmost Xinjiang region from China by colluding with known terrorist organizations.

"She was arrested for endangering national security and sentenced," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at a routine briefing. "At present, she connives with terrorist forces abroad and engages in anti-Chinese secessionist movements that are attempting to separate Xinjiang from China."

Kadeer, who was released from five years in a Chinese prison and exiled to the United States in March 2005, has been nominated for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize that will be announced on October 13. She was sentenced for leaking state secrets in late 1999. The release of the 59-year-old mother of 11 came after a tremendous human rights campaign aimed at securing her freedom.

She was once a prominent Xinjiang businesswoman who served the Chinese-backed government of the region before her arrest and imprisonment. Her philanthropic work included setting up women's associations in Xinjiang and providing women with start up loans to begin local businesses. She is one of a total of 191 people and organizations in the running for the Nobel Peace Prize this year.

China's rule over Xinjiang is controversial, with Uighurs and other groups accusing the government of suppressing religious and cultural freedom in the name of fighting separatism.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060912/wl_asia_afp/nobelpeacechinaxinjiang

[Petronas]

Military Matters: Navy dreams
11/20/2006 5:21:00 PM -0500

Last week, for three days running, the Washington Times carried front-page stories about the interception of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, the Kitty Hawk, by a Chinese submarine. The submarine, a Song-class diesel-electric boat, popped up undetected in the middle of a carrier battle group, which was operating in deep water off Okinawa. Armed with Russian-made wake-homing torpedo's that can ruin a carrier's day, the sub was well within range of the Kitty Hawk when it surfaced.

While the Washington Times headline read "Admiral says sub risked a shootout," the incident meant little in itself. Navies play these kinds of "Gotcha!" games with each other all the time; both U.S. and Soviet subs were quite good at it during the Cold War. Since neither the United States nor China are seeking war, there was no danger of a naval version of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident that set off the Sino-Japanese war in 1937. The paper quoted an unidentified U.S. Navy official as saying, correctly, "We were operating in international waters, and they were operating in international waters. From that standpoint, nobody was endangering anybody. Nobody felt threatened."

There are, still, some lessons here. One is that, contrary to the U.S. Navy's fervent belief, the aircraft carrier is no longer the capital ship. It ceded that role long ago to the submarine. ...

http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20061120-052042-1144r

[keith]

BEIJING’S STRATEGY OF SEA DENIAL

By Bernard D. Cole

In October 1994, the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk was operating with its battle group in the Yellow Sea when it detected an underwater contact. Battle group aircraft began tracking the contact, which turned out to be a Chinese Han-class nuclear powered attack submarine (SSN) returning to its homeport in northern China [1]. Neither the captain of the submarine nor, apparently, higher authorities ashore knew how to respond to the situation; what would have been an accepted practice between U.S. and Soviet naval forces during the Cold War was completely unfamiliar to the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). Almost precisely 12 years later, the USS Kitty Hawk was again at sea when a Chinese Song-class diesel-electric submarine that had been shadowing the carrier surfaced approximately five miles away, where it was spotted by one of the carrier’s aircraft (AP, November 14).

The difference in the two submarine encounters provides strong evidence of the maturation of the PLAN submarine force, an undertaking that was triggered by Washington’s response to the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis. At the time, two U.S. carrier battle groups were deployed to the waters around Taiwan in response to Beijing’s coercive use of military pressure—ballistic missile tests and live-fire amphibious exercises—against the island. Forced to recognize just how inadequate the PLAN would be in the face of U.S. naval intervention, Chinese civilian and naval leaders reacted by pursuing a carefully chosen path to develop the capabilities necessary to challenge such an intervention: a submarine force capable of deterring, if not defeating a U.S. carrier battle group. Rather than attempt to match U.S. naval strength ship-for-ship, China opted to build a navy capable of achieving specific national security objectives, none of which is more important than ensuring that Taiwan does not achieve de jure independence.

PLAN strategists believe that aircraft carriers are both the strength and the weakness of the U.S. Navy, the “mainstay of the military power by which the United States maintains its worldwide presence” [2]. They recognize the firepower that a carrier is capable of wielding, but also understand that with just 11 deployable carriers, the United States cannot afford to lose even one to hostile action. Hence, in addition to its frequent anti-carrier exercises, China has focused on the development of submarines—the platform that it believes is the most effective measure to counter aircraft carriers [3]. During the past decade, Beijing has purchased new Kilo-class submarines from Russia, while also building five classes of new submarines. This decision is further animated by the understanding that while U.S. anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities—tactics, technology and equipment—had become extremely proficient at finding and tracking Soviet submarines, by the end of the Cold War, these capabilities were allowed to atrophy in the absence of an opposing submarine force. This understandable yet regrettable decline has been halted, though recovery of the previous level of ASW capabilities, especially for carriers, continues to be seriously hampered by the number of shrinking submarines, ASW ships and aircraft, as well as by the conflicting missions conducted for the global war on terrorism.

Chinese naval commanders hope to take advantage of the perceived weakness of U.S. aircraft carriers; their submarines are beginning to deploy further from China’s coast, undertaking survey, reconnaissance and anti-carrier missions much closer to U.S. and Japanese naval forces than ever before. These leaders also recognize that any large-scale Chinese military action against Taiwan would likely draw a U.S. military response that would center on the deployment of aircraft carrier battle groups to the region. The PLAN’s primary mission in such a situation would be that of “sea denial” through an “active offshore defense.” Such a strategy calls for submarines to be deployed and maintained on station in the East China Sea so as to delay, or prevent, the carriers’ advance. U.S. naval commanders, wary of the threat posed by the submarines, would be forced to conduct time-intensive ASW operations to ensure the safe transit of their ships into the operating areas around Taiwan and the safe operation of their ships once on station.

The PLAN is divided into the North Sea, East Sea and South Sea fleets, and all have been assigned the newer submarines. The nuclear powered submarines are all assigned to the North Sea Fleet, however, probably reflecting Beijing’s intention to have these boats—its most capable and far ranging—able to quickly deploy into the East China Sea and assume station against a potential U.S. aircraft carrier intrusion. The five nuclear powered Han-class submarines operated by the PLAN are old and noisy; they will probably be decommissioned on a one-for-one basis as the newly constructed Shang-class SSNs become operational. Two of these new submarines are presently in the water and others are under construction. These and China’s other new submarines will be armed with state-of-the-art torpedoes acquired from Russia and anti-ship cruise missiles that are launched from the submerged position. These Russian-designed SS-N-27B “Sizzler” missiles are armed with a 70-kilogram (kg) high explosive warhead and can reach a target 16 nautical miles away [4]. The missile flies near the surface of the ocean at subsonic speed until it nears its target, when it becomes supersonic and flies in an evasive flight path specifically designed to defeat the Aegis weapons systems that the aircraft carrier’s escorting ships are equipped [5].

This focus on surface ship attacks indicates that the PLAN does not plan to employ its new submarines as “sub killers,” tasked with locating and attacking U.S. or other opposing submarines, but instead intends to use its new submarine force to focus on U.S. surface ships in general and aircraft carriers in particular as their primary targets. This decision would also reflect China’s appreciation of the greater capabilities of U.S. Seawolf- and Virginia-class SSNs.

In addition to the two encounters noted above—the 1994 Han¬¬-class submarine encounter with the USS Kitty Hawk and the 2006 Song encounter with the USS Kitty Hawk—a third incident took place in November 2004. This occasion may be even more indicative of the PLAN submarine force’s newfound confidence and capability. In 2004, a Han-class submarine apparently cruised all the way to Guam, circumnavigated the island and then deliberately violated Japanese territorial waters and surfaced on its return voyage to China [6].

Were any of these events—1994, 2004, 2006—the result of deliberate action by China’s leaders or by the PLAN? The 1994 incident clearly was not, although Beijing’s scrambling of fighters to “defend” the submarine certainly demonstrated a lack of understanding about naval encounters on the high seas. The 2004 and 2006 incidents, however, may indeed have resulted from a deliberate Chinese decision to “send a message” to the United States and perhaps to Japan about the capability of PLAN submarines to track opposing surface ships. Indeed, Beijing may be using these encounters to send a signal to Washington, cautioning it against intervening in a Taiwan scenario.

Did one or more of these incidents create a dangerous situation for either PLAN or USN ships or submarines? No direct danger developed in any of these incidents; certainly, nothing akin to China’s physical harassment of the U.S. hydrographic survey ship, USNS Bowditch, in 2002 while the ship was steaming in international waters. In addition, none of these three incidents involving Chinese submarines resulted in the actual collision and loss of life that resulted from the Chinese fighter pilot’s collision with the U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft in international air space in March 2001.

The three submarine encounters, however, do emphasize the necessity for more progress in the U.S.-China Military Maritime Consultative Agreement (MMCA) discussions, which began in 1995 and have been relatively unproductive since. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Incidents at Sea (IncSea) agreement, which was quite successful in minimizing the number of incidents between ships and aircraft of the two navies, thus reducing the danger of the inadvertent escalation of a minor incident at sea into something far more serious. The MMCA should establish similar criteria and measures between the USN and the PLAN, but Beijing has refused to agree to an IncSea-type program; until it does so, the danger of unintended escalation will remain.

If China was trying to “send a message” by having the Han surface in 2004, and the Song surface in 2006, it may not have understood its own “lesson,” assuming an unjustified level of confidence in its submariners’ abilities. Yet this does not discount the significantly increased professionalism and capability of China’s submarine force, demonstrated in the 2004 and 2006 incidents nor Beijing’s seriousness about employing that force as the primary instrument for pursuing a strategy of sea denial. In a potential Taiwan scenario, China clearly believes that submarines offer it the most efficacious means of confronting U.S. (or other opposing) naval strength when issues of vital national security are at issue.

Notes

1. The first incident is reported in Charles A. Meconis, Global Beat Issue Brief No. 39 (July 14, 1998), available online at: http://www.bu.edu/globalbeat/pubs/ib39.html
2. Wang Jiasuo, “Aircraft Carriers: Suggest You Keep Out of the Taiwan Strait!,” Junshi Wenzhai (Beijing), April 1, 2001), pp. 58-59, in FBIS-CPP20020326000218.
3. For instance, see Hsiao Peng, “PLA to Conduct Landing Exercises and Attack Foreign Military Assistance,” Sing Tao Jih Pao (Hong Kong), November 14, 2001, in FBIS-CPP20011114000090; Liu Dingping, Junshi Wenzhai (Beijing), July 1, 2004, p. 19-22, in FBIS-CPP20040722000215.
4. Missile parameters are in E.R. Hooton (ed.), Jane’s Naval Weapon Systems: Issue 37 (Coulsdon, Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group, 2002), p. 400. A nautical mile equals approximately 1.2 statute miles.
5. PLAN submarine modernization is discussed by Eric A. McVadon, “China’s Maturing Navy,” U.S. Naval War College Review (Spring 2006).
6. “Chinese Submarines Can Tail US Aircraft Carriers,” Hsiang Kang Shang Pao (Hong Kong), May 30, 2004, in FBIS-CPP20040531000053.
7. See Qiu Yongzheng, “Chinese Submarines: Fighting for 500 Nautical Miles of Absolute Sea Superiority,” Qingnian Cankao (Beijing), June 30, 2004, in FBIS-CPP20040630000074. The history of U.S.-China “signaling” is not reassuring; see Allen Whiting, The Chinese Calculus of Deterrence (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1975) for instance, or Cole, Taiwan’s Security: History and Prospects (London: Routledge, 2006), Ch. 2.

http://jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=415&issue_id=3933&article_id=2371669

[keith]

BEIJING’S NEW GRAND STRATEGY: AN OFFENSIVE WITH EXTRA-MILITARY INSTRUMENTS


By Chong-pin Lin


As the United States hedges against a potential military confrontation with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Beijing has opted to circumvent Washington’s preparations by adopting a grand strategy that utilizes “extra-military instruments” to gradually diminish the preponderant influence of the United States. These instruments—economic aid, cultural contributions, legal compulsion and diplomatic coercion—transcend, but certainly do not exclude the use of military force. Indeed, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is, borrowing from the PLA’s descriptions of itself, “prepared but preferably unused” (bei er bu yong), and serves as the backbone of China’s extra-military instruments. While these instruments are primarily “soft,” their effects can often be “hard,” as illustrated by Beijing’s aggressive international strangulation of Taiwan’s “lebensraum” [1]. In constructing its new grand strategy, China appears to have infused elements of realpolitik into a number of its traditional objectives, with its priorities as follows: (1) maintain domestic stability at all cost; (2) cooperate with, rather than contradict the United States; (3) assist the growth and development of China’s neighbors, assure them of their security and win their friendship (fulin mulin anlin); (4) reunify Taiwan without war, reserving the use of force as a last resort; (5) cultivate Europe and Russia to serve as counterweights to the United States; and (6) fill in the post-Cold War power vacuums in Latin America and Africa.

Guiding Principles

Beijing’s grand strategy is based on the belief that time is on China’s side, and at present, it is unwise to confront the United States militarily or to force unification with Taiwan. The following internally circulated statement from its Ministry of Foreign Affairs typifies such a calculation: “In the next eight to ten years, it is highly possible that the momentum of U.S. strategic expansion will slow down after reaching its peak, the international environment will shift from one of a U.S. strategic offensive to one of strategic stalemate. Hence, the rise of China’s strategic opportunities and the subsidence of U.S. strategic expansion will occur at the same time, but not at the same pace” [2]. Given this reality, China should utilize its current status as a rising power to strengthen its position both internally and externally.

This strategic decision was first dictated in the summer of 2002, when Beijing, after years of internal debate, reached a milestone consensus comprised of two interrelated principles. The first, which had been internally suggested no later than January 2001 by then-Vice Premier Qian Qichen, stipulated that cooperation with the United States should take precedence over competition, even though elements of the latter would remain in bilateral relations. The second stipulated that China’s national economic development is more important than “the unification of the motherland.” Although the April 1, 2001 EP-3 Incident threatened to derail the former principle, Qian remained insistent, refused to compromise and reiterated his proposal a year later. In October 2002, Qian explained his concept in an interview: “It is insufficient to have only the hand for struggles. The hand for developing cooperation is equally important. Cooperation itself is an important constraint on the anti-China forces in the United States…When we handle Sino-American relations….we must make it a contest of wits and courage, not that of temper, seek not the gratification of a moment, and pursue not the victory of a day” [3]. It seemed that Qian was successful in convincing his skeptics, and within a month, China, eager to demonstrate its willingness to cooperate with the United States, made a dramatic reversal in its position on the UN Security Council and approved the U.S.-led resolution on Iraq.

Implementing the Instruments

Beijing’s adroit use of its economic power as an instrument of foreign policy has already been recognized in both academic and policy circles. Yet, an equally critical instrument—China’s cultural power—has widely been underappreciated. Beijing has been actively expanding the scope of China’s cultural activities with the goal of shaping itself into a cultural hub, which the world would eventually, and perhaps unconsciously, view as an international Mecca. These international activities run from large-scale annual academic conferences, like the Beijing Forum, to the ever-growing numbers of beauty contests and high-profile sporting events, such as Formula One races and Real Madrid football games [4]. Recognizing the growing appeal of the Chinese culture and language, Beijing has also sought to turn it into an international export. By November 2006, more than 70 Confucius Institutes had already been established throughout the world, making the goal of 100 by 2010 seem assuredly within reach (South China Morning Post, November 14; China Brief, November 8).

While still adhering to its atheist Marxist-Leninist state doctrine, China has impressively co-opted Buddhist conceptions into its strategic rhetoric to enhance its international status as a peaceful nation, promoting peace (heping), reconciliation (hejie) with Taiwan and harmony (hexie) within. In January 2006, Hu Jintao even allowed traveling permits to be issued to some 170 Chinese citizens to attend a mass empowerment ceremony in southern India, presided over by the Dalai Lama [5]. In April, China held the first international Buddhist forum in Hangzhou, which more than 1,000 delegates from 34 countries participated (Reuters, April 13).

Besides its extra-military emphasis, China’s new grand strategy is integrated and dissembled. For decades, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ pursuit of better international relations and the PLA’s pursuit of winning a war were at odds with each other. Such a lack of coordination has now been markedly reduced, at least in official rhetoric and overt behavior. In January 2003, General Xiong Guangkai, then-deputy chief of the PLA General Staff Department, echoed Qian Qichen by voicing the importance of improving Sino-American relations as the highest priority of the PLA’s work on foreign relations [6]. Far from being an isolated statement, at the May 2006 “International Conference on Sun Zi’s Art of War” in Hangzhou, Major General Zhang Shiping of the PLA Academy of Military Science went so far as to argue, “[We should] avoid confrontation with the United States…Although the United States has had hegemonic desires for quite some time, it would not be a bad thing if the United States were to shoulder additional burdens and perform more duties for the world” [7].

In its efforts to demonstrate China’s willingness to act as a responsible stakeholder, the PLA has selected elites from its engineering corps to serve as peacekeepers abroad. By mid-2006, China had deployed more personnel to UN peacekeeping operations than any other permanent members of the Security Council (International Herald Tribune, August 24). This illustrates China’s internal integration of strategies—engaging military forces in international cooperative missions.

Beijing’s current foreign policy appears to be characterized by ever-changing alliances that dissemble China’s long-term foreign policy goals. For example, in June 2005, China joined the United States in rejecting the addition of new members, including Japan, to the UN Security Council. The reason for the Bush administration’s objection was of course not Tokyo, a close diplomatic ally but Berlin, who was in the same package of applicants. In the next month, however, China quickly shifted alliances and joined Russia in demanding that the United States withdraw its troops stationed in Central Asia after the U.S. forces entered Afghanistan in 2001. In mid-2003, the United States, through Singapore, offered to patrol the Strait of Malacca. China feared that its energy supply route might be choked by U.S. forces, yet said nothing directly to Singapore or the United States. Instead, it quietly approached Malaysia and Indonesia, who then raised a strong objection to U.S. involvement. In April 2004, Washington formally dropped the idea, and instead adopted the multilateral Regional Maritime Security Initiative.

Early Successes

As a result of Beijing’s cooperation primacy with Washington, the official interactions between the two countries have reached an unprecedented magnitude, unseen since China first came into contact with the United States during the Qing Dynasty. This “cooperative” relationship manifests itself in four dimensions: (1) the growing frequency of interactions has surpassed all previous scales; (2) a number of key official meetings, such as those between the Chinese foreign minister and the U.S. secretary of state, have been institutionalized; (3) the levels of officials meeting their counterparts have expanded downward from the symbolic summits between presidents to the substantive working consultations between the U.S. deputy assistant secretaries and their Chinese equivalents; (4) the varieties of offices meeting their counterparts have diversified from trade and commerce to defense and even space agencies. Consequently, Beijing is now capable of indirectly containing any perceived moves of Taiwan toward de jure independence by raising its objections directly with Washington.

Beijing’s overtures of cooperation have not only—as Qian predicted in his 2002 interview—successfully constrained the “containment school” of the U.S. foreign policy community, but also, have given rise to a new “accommodation school” that believes that China is already an established power to which the United States must conform its behavior. In October 2004, Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek opined: “And to continue thriving, it [the United States] will have to adjust to the rise of Asia...led by China” [8]. Zakaria’s musing soon entered into official policy discourse as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill testified in May 2005: “One of the key challenges before us—and especially before the nations of the Asia-Pacific—is how to adapt to China’s emergence as a regional and global power” [9]. U.S. policy options on China formerly consisted of engagement, containment and even “congagement.” In the scenarios of all three, Washington played the lead. Yet in the scenario of accommodation, which has been added to the list of policy options, Washington co-leads if not takes a lesser role.

The unexpected recent thaw of Sino-Japanese relations illustrates again China’s success in its policy of dissembled cooperation as applied to the thorniest of relations with its neighbors. Even the severe deterioration of bilateral relations in 2005 did not prevent Beijing from erecting a second Confucius Institute in Japan (Zhongguo Xinwenshe, November 2, 2005). During the spring of 2005 when anti-Japanese riots appeared in Chinese cities, public security and PAP personnel mingled with the crowd to contain the damages and to photograph the controlled scenes for news released abroad but not domestically [10]. Japan’s dependence upon China for its continued economic growth has only increased as Sino-Japanese trade surpassed U.S.-Japanese trade in 2004. This newfound dependency was reflected in June 2005 when Nippon Izokukai, the organization representing the families of those interred at the Yasukuni Shrine, plead with then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to stop visiting the shrine because national interests were being damaged. Ironically, they were the same organization during Koizumi’s 2001 election campaign that demanded that he promise to visit the shrine. Others, including media leaders such as Tsuneo Watanabe of Yomiuri Shimbun, business groups such as Kezai Douyukai, and eventually Koizumi’s own lieutenants such as Yasuo Fukuda, followed suit, objecting to Koizumi’s shrine visits altogether. By September 2006, various opinion polls in Japan had shown that a growing percentage of the Japanese public wanted the next prime minister to improve relations with China [11].

Implications

Beijing seems to have achieved a number of initial successes in the implementation of its new grand strategy, though not without some setbacks. Among them, the most obvious was the EU’s abrupt alteration of its plan to lift the arms embargo in 2005, owing largely to the passage of Beijing’s Anti-Secession Law (ASL). Beijing has increasingly integrated the components of its new grand strategy, making it more resilient in recovering from its tactical blunders. Since the passage of the ASL, Beijing has proactively launched more than 30 goodwill measures toward Taiwan, which served to repair Beijing’s international image. Beijing also recovered from its loss of face after North Korea exploded a quasi-nuclear device on October 8, by strengthening its relations with the United States and Japan, reining in Pyongyang afterwards and continuing its pivotal role in the Six Party Talks.

China’s new grand strategy has brought forth not only challenges but also opportunities for the rest of the world. Because of its seemingly unstoppable rise, China is fast becoming a status quo power despite its own wish to “forever remain a third-world country,” as pronounced by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s. Its new place in the spotlight has made the PRC more susceptible to outside pressure and criticism. For instance, Beijing passed a law in late October forbidding provinces to deliver death sentences without first trying the cases before China’s Supreme Court, a direct result of continuous protests launched by the Amnesty International (International Herald Tribune, November 1). The United States should take advantage of China’s desires for international legitimacy and consult with its allies to establish a coordinated approach to China’s new grand strategy.

Notes

1. The term “soft power,” as famously expounded upon by Joseph S. Nye, Jr., falls short of accurately describing China’s tactics. Using exclusively “extra-military instruments,” China has been able to reap hard results; Taiwan remains excluded from key regional international rule-making bodies, and in the last three years, six of its 30 diplomatic allies have switched diplomatic recognition to China.
2. Think tank affiliated with PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “The Factors, Characteristics, and Potential Problems of Our Country’s Strategic Opportunities,” an internal document, June 2003.
3. Qian Qichen, “The Post-September 11 International Situation and Sino-American Relations,” Xuexi Shibao, (Beijing: The Central Party School) October, p.8.
4. The Beijing Forum, officially organized by Peking University with governmental backing, was held in August 2004, and November 2005. Hundreds of international scholars attended, including such luminaries as former President Bill Clinton. The first Forum had 14 panels covering subjects ranging from economics to ecology and from politics to philosophy. Personal communication with an attendee to both occasions, San Francisco, August 2006.
5. Personal and telephone communications with attendees in Taipei and Beijing, April 2006.
6. Xiong Guangkai, “Sanda guanxi jiao1zhi tiaozhan jiyu bingcun” [Three Main Relations Intertwines: Coexistence of Challenges and Opportunities], Xuexi Shibao, January 2003.
7. Zhang Shiping, “Zhongguo jueqi yu Zhong-Mei guanxi” (The Rise of China and Sino-American Relations], a speech delivered at the International Conference on Sun Zi’s The Art of War” in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province PRC.
8. Fareed Zakaria, “What Bush and Kerry Missed,” Newsweek, October 25, 2004, p.13.
9. Christopher R. Hill, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, “North East Asia : A Region of Vital Concern to the United States,” Testimony before the House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, Washington, D.C., May 26, 2005.
10. It was first reported by Taiyang Bao [Sun News] in Hong Kong and mentioned in “Zhongguo fan Ri shiwei jingguo caipai,” [Chinese Anti-Japanese Demonstrations were Rehearsed], Liberty Times (Taipei), April 12, 2004, p.7.
11. Testimony by Yuki Tatsumi, Research Fellow, The Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington, D.C. Congressional hearing on “Japan’s Relationship with Its Neighbors: Back to the Future?” House Committee on International Relations, U.S House of Representatives, September 14, 2006; “Anbei biaotai dang shouziang bu bai Qingguo,” [Abe Announced Not to Visit the Yasukuni Shrine], Apple Daily (Taipei), September 12, 2006.

http://jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=415&issue_id=3951&article_id=2371724

[Vancouver]

Chinese police have killed 18, captured 17, and lost one of their own in a raid against the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, "close to the Afghan and Pakistani borders".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6241073.stm

[Petronas]

China says terror raid finds ties abroad
Tue Jan 9, 2:50 PM ET

Police found links to international terrorist groups during a raid on an alleged terror camp in China's restive western Muslim region last week, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. Police said they raided a training camp run by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, or ETIM, in the mountainous Xinjiang region on Friday, killing 18 suspects and arresting 17 others.

"There is a large amount of evidence that shows, including evidence we got from this raid, that the ETIM is associated with international terrorist forces," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao. He also said that the group "planned, organized and carried out a series of violent terrorist activities in China." Liu gave no specific details about the alleged evidence or attacks and did not say which overseas terror groups those arrested were linked to. China has said before that ETIM has links to al-Qaida. China labels ETIM as a terrorist organization, as does the United States.

Song Hongli, director of the general office of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau, said Monday that one police officer was killed and another was wounded during the raid. The official China News Service reported the raid occurred in Akto County — an area about 120 miles east of China's border with Kyrgyzstan. Police seized 22 grenades, parts for 1,500 more grenades as well as guns and handmade explosives, the Xinhua News Agency said. The report cited Xinjiang police spokeswoman Ba Yan as saying that the suspects operated mines near the camp to raise funds, but did not specify what sort of mines. ...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070109/ap_on_re_as/china_terror_camp

[Petronas]

Year of the bleep
January 26, 2007 - 7:31PM

China's ruling Communist Party has banned images and mention of pigs in TV advertisements airing over the lunar new year to avoid offending the country's Muslims, an advertising agency said on Friday. "We were told by the CCTV (China Central Television) censorship team that the CCTV advertising department announced a new regulation on pigs in its internal document," an executive at the Shanghai-based Mindshare agency said.

The ban also applies to cartoons and traditional paper-cut images of pigs, and to slogans such as "golden pig brings you fortune" and "wish you a happy pig year", the executive said. He said the decision was taken "in order to avoid nationality conflicts" and issued by Li Changchun, a top party propaganda official and a member of the party's elite Politburo. "The regulation only applies to advertisements," a staff member in the CCTV advertising department said, refusing to answer further questions. CCTV and other state broadcasters normally run dozens of popular variety shows and other special programs before and during the one-week national holiday to mark the lunar new year.

The Year of the Pig begins on February 18.

China officially has 21 million Muslims among its 1.3 billion people ...

http://www.smh.com.au/news/unusual-tales/year-of-the-bleep/2007/01/26/1169788689280.html

[keith]

High Noon in China's Far West
By Wieland Wagner

China is sending more troops to the mostly Muslim province of Xinjiang in the far west of the country. Concerns are rising in Beijing of ethnic unrest in the border region. Its plans for economic development there may be in trouble.

Mao Tse Tung defies the icy wind blowing from the Pamir Mountains across the city of Kashgar. Beijing is worlds away from this spot on the historic Silk Road, not far from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Which is perhaps why the Chairman Mao needs such a tall base for his statue, perched 24 meters (79 feet) above the "Square of the People." But Mao is strikingly alone -- the square is practically devoid of people.

It is time for prayer. A few blocks away, locals are streaming into the Id-Kah Mosque, the largest Muslim house of worship in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, home to the Uighur minority in northwestern China.

The faithful wear their fur turbans pulled down over their faces. It's bitterly cold, but it is also to disguise their identities. Many are afraid of being recognized.

Muslims are the majority in Kashgar, giving this ancient city bordering the Tarim Basin the air of an Arabian oasis. Uighurs, Kyrgyz and Tajiks bring their dates, nuts and pomegranates to the market on donkey carts. Instead of Peking Duck, the air smells of roast lamb and flatbread.

Veil of suspicion

But a veil of suspicion hangs over the region. Unlike in other parts of Central Asia, the muezzin in Kashgar is not permitted to use a loudspeaker to call the faithful to prayer from the minaret. His voice sounds muffled as it emerges from the interior of the mosque. Civil servants are essentially barred from taking part in Muslim prayers, evidence of fears among China's atheist leadership that Islam could develop into the core of an independence movement.

In January Chinese police attacked a base used by fighters of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) in western Xinjiang. The organization supposedly has ties to the al-Qaida terrorist network. It was the bloodiest battle between Chinese government forces and Uighur resistance fighters in a decade. A Chinese police officer was killed, and Beijing has since celebrated the man as a martyr of the revolution. The police shot and killed 18 of the alleged terrorists and arrested 17 suspects.

Since then military transport aircraft and helicopters have been making regular landings at the Kashgar airport, as China builds up its forces in its mountainous border regions. Neighboring Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan are seen as the principal hideouts for the region's Islamists.

Since the battle at the ETIM camp, anyone in Kashgar who is unable to show identification is considered a suspect. The police search vehicles on arterial roads and security forces, uniformed or in civilian clothing, lurk in the city. "We stay home at night," says Mohammed, a 26-year-old Uighur who operates a clothing stand near the "Street of the Liberation." The police keep a watchful eye on Kashgar's crowds, even at events as seemingly harmless as the opening of a new supermarket across the street from the mosque.

Massacre in the mountains

In some ways the heightened surveillance runs counter to the Chinese government's aims in the region, where it welcomes every new business, factory or apartment building -- any building to displace the city's traditional earthen structures. Beijing is spending billions of Yuan to develop a modern- day Silk Road in this border region, complete with new pipelines, railroad lines and roads. China plans to use the new infrastructure to bring oil and natural gas from Central Asia to the Chinese heartland and export its electronics and textiles in the other direction.

Beijing's strategists are pinning their hopes on new wealth to pacify the troubled Xinjiang region. But the recent massacre in the mountains could scare away investors, as China wages its own war on Islamist terrorists.

Chinese President Hu Jintao has long believed that his country is already a "victim of terrorism." He is referring primarily, though, to forces fighting for regional independence, or at least for greater autonomy from the central government far to the east.

The government has charged Uighur dissident Rebiya Kadeer with "violent terrorist activities." Two years ago Beijing forced the prominent local businesswoman to emigrate to the United States and imposed prison sentences on her sons in Xinjiang for alleged tax evasion. In quoting an angry Internet user who called Kadeer a "separatist monster," the official China Daily expressed one of Beijing's greatest fears: that the dissident, who was elected president of the World Uighur Congress last year, could be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The "war on terror" doubles as a convenient fig leaf for the Chinese leadership. In 2001 Beijing used its concerns over alleged terrorist activities as the impetus to establish the Shanghai Organization for Cooperation, which also counts Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as members. The dangers of terrorism were also used to justify joint military exercises with the Russians in 2005. Three years earlier China gained US support for its campaign to have the United Nations classify the Islam independence movement ETIM as a terrorist organization. But little in fact is known about ETIM's goals, and Beijing has yet to produce clear evidence of the organization's alleged ties to al-Qaida.

"Robbing us of our livelihood"

Despite its successes, the Chinese leadership remains seriously concerned, fearing a reprise of the bloody unrest of recent decades in Xinjiang. According to official figures, the resistance movement's activities cost 162 lives and caused 400 injuries between 1990 and 2001. Out of an apparent fear of attacks, China imposed restrictions on passengers carrying liquids onto airplanes as far back as 2003 -- well before similar rules were enacted in Europe and the United States. With a view toward the 2008 Olympic Games, security has already been tightened in and around the capital.

China's strategy of using the blessings of capitalism as one of its tools in fighting terrorism tends to have the opposite effect among Uighurs. More and more ethnic Chinese are immigrating into Xinjiang; their share of the population has grown to at least 40 percent since 1949.

The change in the region's ethnic makeup has widened the gap between rich and poor, and social decline tends to affect Uighurs like textile vendor Mohammed first. "The Chinese are the ones running businesses here today," he says angrily. "They are robbing us of our livelihood."

In addition, with Xinjiang having evolved into a virtual military base, even the most peaceful of Uighurs are deterred from staging demonstrations. Tens of thousands of Chinese troops, for example, are stationed in Shule, a garrison town near Kashgar.

Fighting, though, isn't the only reason the soldiers are there. Many have also been sent to the region to develop their own farms and factories. According to one soldier, whenever they encounter unrest the troops simply change into the uniforms of the armed People's Police.

As if that weren't enough, the Chinese government also controls the clocks in Xinjiang. Although the capital is almost 3,000 kilometers (1,865 miles) away, Xinjiang runs on Beijing time.

Despite the official mandate, clocks at the mosque in Kashgar are set, in quiet protest, to the real local time, which is two hours earlier than Beijing time -- exactly the way nature would have it in Xinjiang.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

SPIEGEL ONLINE - February 22, 2007, 04:34 PM
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,467931,00.html

GUNS AND STEEL ON THE SILK ROAD

[Petronas]

Al-Qaida's China problem
07/03/07

Al-Qaida has a China problem, and no one is watching. Despite al-Qaida's significant efforts to support Muslim insurgents in China, the Chinese government has succeeded in limiting popular support for anti-government violence.

The latest evidence came on 5 January when China raided an alleged terrorist facility in the country's Xinjiang region, near borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. According to reports, 18 terrorists were killed and 17 were captured, along with 22 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and material for thousands more. Chinese reportage on terrorism is notoriously problematic, at times imprecise, or simply fabricated. For the skeptics, photos of the policeman killed in the raid were also released, showing emotional relatives amid a sea of People's Armed Police paying their final respects. Ironically, China's ability to successfully kill or capture militants without social blowback demonstrates the significant degree to which China has won the population's "hearts and minds," however begrudgingly.

China's successful efforts to keep the global jihad from spreading into its territory present a real challenge for al-Qaida. The organization reportedly trained more than 1,000 Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group that is predominantly Muslim, in camps in Afghanistan prior to 11 September. In late December, al-Qaida's number two, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, called for action against "occupation" governments ruling over Muslims, including reference to the plight of Uyghurs in western China. Yet despite this commitment of resources and rhetorical energy, Uyghurs across Xinjiang's social spectrum explain that violent resistance is no longer a viable path. Many Uyghurs in Xinjiang believe that insurgents worsen Uyghurs' plight by making the Chinese more fearful, thereby more repressive. Uyghurs today increasingly participate in the Chinese system as local government and Party officials, educators, informants, and police.

Since the end of the Soviet-Afghan war, China has been confronting the self-described threats of "extremism, separatism and terrorism" in its Alaska-sized Xinjiang region in the country's far northwest. Where the region was once predominantly populated by Uyghurs, this group is now a minority in its own "autonomous region." The perception of economic discrimination as well as resentment at Chinese rule have helped fuel a low level insurgency in Xinjiang for nearly two decades. Local men who traveled to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets returned home with new skills and attempted to ply their trade. Young Uyghurs were inspired by the power of men, armed with Allah and AK-47s, to defeat a superpower.

Political challenges in Xinjiang took many forms: some Uyghurs worked for greater autonomy, others for greater political freedom or democracy, and still others sought secession from China. As in many similar situations with Muslims fighting against local regimes, al-Qaida reportedly attempted to lend support by training fighters and funding a local affiliate, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Uyghur groups fighting against Chinese rule assassinated local officials and engaged in bombing campaigns that reportedly included a 1997 explosion outside Zhongnanhai, the enclosed compound in Beijing where China's top leaders work. This period was separatism's high-water mark. The massive 1997 Yining riot involving over 1,000 Uyghurs, in which over 150 reportedly died from security force excesses, has not been repeated. While there has been ongoing low-level violence in Xinjiang since 11 September, Chinese government claims that this is the result of Uyghur separatists are suspect.

China's initial actions were brutal, and credible reports of security force excesses and torture persist. However, success came as China reduced the brutality of its repression and pulled the military out of direct confrontation with society. China built up more restrained, effective and specialized police forces and tactics and reinvigorated political and educational projects in Xinjiang. The Chinese government purged separatist sympathizers from local governments and attempted to remove political dissent from religious worship. At the same time, availability of Uyghur language education was broadened and Beijing sought to expand economic development in Xinjiang, which was viewed as the key to success. Uyghurs in Xinjiang repeatedly explained in interviews that these changes made participation in the Chinese state more attractive, despite perceptions that economic opportunities primarily benefited the Chinese.

After an initial period of repression, China has used political means to keep the insurgency in Xinjiang to a remarkably low level. Beyond simply killing or capturing suspected insurgents, China has created a path for young Uyghurs - one achieved through participation in the system rather than fighting it. China's proactive approach, reshaping society from the bottom up, has been so successful that much of the current debate centers on whether China really confronts a serious threat of terrorism in Xinjiang. Zawahiri's call to arms in late December and the People's Armed Police raid in early January highlight what some China-watchers miss in reading the latest Chinese defense White Paper: despite China's more confident role on the world stage, its primary concern is still internal security. The English language China Daily argued that the January raid in Xinjiang is a "wake-up call that the threat of terror is not only clear and present but more dangerous than ever."

The raid in Xinjiang upon a group taking mining explosives and building IEDs represents a threat similar to the attacks of Madrid and London: home-grown individuals, radicalizing, building weapons with supplies at-hand. Yet the most important fact is that China was able to stop this group before it acted. According to government reporting, security forces have repeatedly interdicted arms and disrupted plots in this county, while insurgents have not recently been able to carry a single plot to fruition. This success is partly due to China's ability to provide an alternative path for Uyghurs which limits their willingness to support or tolerate violence.

The contrast between China's project in Xinjiang and US' actions in Iraq is stark: where China realized that local politics was a key factor for strategic effectiveness, the US has focused on targeting an ever-growing pool of insurgents and terrorists. China's ultimate success in frustrating al-Qaida's designs on Xinjiang rests upon its recognizing and responding to the political nature of the threat.

Dr Martin I Wayne is the China Security Fellow at the National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies. The opinions expressed in this article are his own and do not represent the views of National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the United States government. In 2005, Dr. Wayne conducted extensive fieldwork in Xinjiang; his book, "Understanding China's War on Terrorism" is forthcoming.

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=17329

[keith]

While AQ and various other terrorist networks are a nuisence, our true threats are biding time.

A mystery in Beijing: Who runs the military?
By David Lague

Friday, June 22, 2007

BEIJING: As China converts its growing economic power into military muscle, a lack of transparency and a habit of secrecy pose formidable challenges in assessing the country's long-term ambitions, according to defense experts.

For foreign governments and analysts monitoring the Chinese military, one of the biggest mysteries is who is actually in charge.

Nominally, President Hu Jintao, who is also chairman of the Central Military Commission, the top military command body, is head of the armed forces, but there is considerable doubt among experts about the extent of the authority that he and his fellow civilian leaders exert over the 2.3 million-strong People's Liberation Army.

"I think Hu Jintao is still facing some challenges from top generals," said Philip Yang, an expert on the Chinese military and a professor of international relations at the National Taiwan University. "Especially those with their own agenda from the different services and others with their own agenda and perceptions about changes in the outside world, particularly in East Asia."

For China's neighbors and regional military powers, including the United States, this lack of knowledge about China's military decision-making is frustrating attempts to understand a buildup that could shift the balance of power in Asia.

Some of China's broad goals are clear from military publications, the speeches of senior leaders and the type and numbers of new weapons deployed.

The army's primary mission remains preserving the Communist Party's monopoly on power and protecting senior leaders.

In addition to defending Chinese territory, most Chinese and foreign analysts agree that Beijing aims to build a force capable of enforcing its claim of sovereignty over Taiwan.

But China's current thinking about when force is justified or what perceived threats are driving its accumulation of firepower remains unclear for most foreign governments and analysts.

Some foreign military analysts believe that there is now considerable debate under way in the Chinese military about the role of pre-emptive force in some circumstances including the use of nuclear weapons.

The Bush administration has repeatedly complained about this lack of transparency and called for increased military exchanges with Beijing.

"The outside world has limited knowledge of the motivations, decision making and key capabilities supporting China's military modernization," the Pentagon said in its annual report on China's military power released late last month. "China's leaders have yet to explain adequately the purposes or desired end-states of the PLA's expanding military capabilities."

Senior Chinese officials reject suggestions that a stronger army poses a threat to regional stability and insist that defense spending is strictly tailored to the country's needs.

Some influential Chinese analysts say that the PLA has made considerable strides in recent years in explaining its doctrine and spending plans, and they expect this trend to continue.

But they argue that Washington's military support for Taiwan makes it impossible for China to reveal more about its strategic thinking and force structure.

"We have to keep certain secrets in order to have a war-fighting capability," said Shen Dingli, a security expert at Fudan University in Shanghai. "We can't let Taiwan and the U.S. know how we are going to defeat them if the U.S. decides to send forces to intervene in a conflict over Taiwan."

Doubts about the chain of command in China were heightened in the aftermath of the PLA's successful test of an antisatellite missile on Jan. 11 when most analysts concluded that top officials from the Foreign Ministry and civilian bureaucracy were clearly in the dark about the military's plan to shoot down an obsolete weather satellite.

Despite widespread protest from the international community, it took almost two weeks before the Foreign Ministry confirmed the test.

Other analysts point to an incident in October when one of China's newest conventional submarines approached the U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk and its battle group in international waters off Okinawa and was only detected when it surfaced near the American ships.

U.S. officials played down the incident, but some experts questioned whether China's civilian leadership would have sanctioned what could be seen as a highly provocative move.

For some analysts, both incidents could be interpreted as a clear demonstration for Washington of China's growing military capabilities and perhaps evidence that elements in the PLA leadership were less concerned about the diplomatic consequences than their civilian counterparts.

There is also evidence that some military officers enjoy far more leeway for criticizing or contradicting official policy in a country where dissent remains tightly controlled.

Major General Zhu Chenghu escaped serious censure, according to Chinese officials, after he said in July 2005 that China would respond with nuclear weapons if the United States intervened in a conflict over Taiwan.

Amid an international outcry over Zhu's remarks, top civilian bureaucrats were extremely reluctant to criticize him or even comment on his views.

Tolerance has also been extended to another senior officer and influential thinker, Lieutenant General Liu Yazhou, who has publicly called for political reform in China, a move that would be dangerous for most senior Chinese officials.

To some observers, it is to be expected that Hu lacks the authority that revolutionary leaders like Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping exerted over the military after establishing their credentials in resisting the Japanese invasion and then winning the civil war.

"Since Deng Xiaoping, no one has had that kind of control or legitimacy," said Yang.

When Hu succeeded former President Jiang Zemin in 2003 as leader of the state, party and military, most analysts speculated that it would take time for him to match his predecessors' hold over the armed forces and begin building his own power base.

There were signs that Hu is attempting to assert his authority through the promotion of loyal senior officers, a crackdown on corruption in the armed forces and the tough disciplinary action against senior officers held responsible for two accidents last year in which about 90 troops were killed.
Hu is also expected to use the 17th party congress expected to be held in October to promote more of his supporters in the military to top posts.

From speeches and reports in military newspapers and magazines, it also appears that Hu has been attempting to demonstrate his credentials as a military leader and thinker.

In these speeches, Hu has exhorted the military to accelerate preparations to fight high technology wars in an age where the use of information is crucial on the battlefield.

Analysts say that his references in these speeches to the military and political thinking of former leaders Mao, Deng and Jiang is an attempt to portray himself as part of a tradition that has directed the modernization of the PLA from a mass, peasant army to a modern, high technology force.

Under Hu, the military has continued to enjoy double-digit annual budget increases to pay for increasingly sophisticated weapons and improved lifestyles for senior officers.

Despite his background as an engineer and civilian bureaucrat, Hu wears an olive green style military tunic - although without badges or insignia - when meeting senior officers or attending parades and functions.

In what is seen by some analysts as an attempt to consolidate his control, Hu has ruled out suggestions from some younger officers that the Chinese military should become a fully professional force that owes its loyalty to the state rather than the ruling party.

In a speech to military delegates to China's annual parliamentary session in March, Hu called for tighter political discipline.

This view was reinforced in an April edition of the party magazine, Qiushi (Seeking Truth), where General Zhao Keming, the political commissar of China's National Defense University, wrote that the military must resist pressure to distance itself from politics.

"We must uphold the Chinese Communist Party's absolute leadership over the army from beginning to end," Zhao wrote.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/22/asia/china.php

[keith]

Pope urges Catholics in China to unite

The Associated Press
Saturday, June 30, 2007

VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI urged all Roman Catholics in China on Saturday to unite under his authority, praising the underground faithful for their loyalty to Rome but saying they should reconcile with Catholics of the official state-run church.

At the same time, Benedict called the state-run China Patriotic Catholic Association "incompatible" with Catholic doctrine. He lamented the lack of religious freedom in China and insisted on his right to appoint bishops, although he said he hoped an agreement could be reached with the government on nominations.

In an unprecedented overture to the official church, he revoked previous Vatican regulations that had called for limiting contact with official clergy and for excommunicating bishops consecrated without his consent.

Benedict issued his comments in an eagerly awaited letter to the faithful in China that represented his most significant effort to date to unify the nearly 12 million Chinese Catholics and restore diplomatic relations with Beijing — key priorities of his papacy.

China did not immediately respond directly to the letter's contents, but the Foreign Ministry in Beijing called on the Vatican to sever ties with rival Taiwan and not interfere in Beijing's internal affairs in the name of religion. Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said it had "taken note" of the letter and that China would "continue to have a frank, constructive dialogue with the Vatican in order to resolve differences between the two sides."

China forced its Roman Catholics to cut ties with the Vatican in 1951, shortly after the officially atheist Communist Party took power. Worship is allowed only in the government-controlled churches, which recognize the pope as a spiritual leader but appoint their own priests and bishops.

Millions of Chinese, however, belong to unofficial congregations that are not registered with the authorities and have remained loyal to Rome.

On several occasions in the letter, Benedict praised the Catholics who had resisted pressure to join the official church and paid a price for it "with the shedding of their blood."

But he urged them to forgive and reconcile with others for the sake of unifying the church.

"Indeed, the purification of memory, the pardoning of wrongdoers, the forgetting of injustices suffered and the loving restoration to serenity of troubled hearts ... can require moving beyond personal positions or viewpoints, born of painful or difficult experiences," he wrote.

Benedict referred repeatedly to the "Catholic Church in China" without distinguishing between the divisions — an indication of his aim to see the two united and in communion with Rome.

"He underlines the unity of the church, which is fundamental because with this affirmation reconciliation becomes possible," said the Rev. Bernardo Cervellera, director of AsiaNews, a missionary news agency close to the Vatican.

The Vatican's release of the 55-page letter showed it was eager for it to be widely read: It translated the letter into five languages — including Mandarin in both traditional and simplified characters. It issued two accompanying documents highlighting key points as well as a prepared statement by the Vatican spokesman. It posted the letter in Chinese on the Vatican home page.

The Vatican said it was prepared "at any time" to move its diplomatic representation from Taiwan — which split from China in 1949 — to Beijing, as soon as an agreement with the government was reached.

The Cardinal Kung Foundation, a U.S.-based foundation that supports the underground church, said the clandestine priests "will follow the pope's guidelines and instructions."

In an e-mail to The Associated Press, the foundation relayed what it said was the initial opinion of some underground clergy in China who highlighted the pope's emphasis that the underground church does not interfere with government policy.

"He truly respects and hopes for total, genuine religious freedom in China and views it as essential for the normalization of relations," the clergy said. "We hope and pray that the Chinese government will understand these very important points."

On several occasions, Benedict called the Patriotic Association "incompatible with Catholic doctrine" because it named its own bishops and sought to guide the life of the church.

But he welcomed the fact that most bishops of the official church had reconciled with Rome and urged them to make public their reconciliation so the faithful know.

Benedict stressed that he alone must appoint bishops and said his right to do so was an example of religious freedom that he said was lacking in China. But he said he trusted that an agreement on nominations could be reached.

The Vatican would like to have a formula similar to the one it has with Vietnam, another communist country, where the Vatican proposes a few names and the government selects one.

Vatican analysts have said a key indication of China's reaction to the letter will be how the next bishop of Beijing is selected following the death in April of Bishop Fu Tieshan, the hard-line chairman of the Patriotic Association.

Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen, an outspoken advocate of freedom of worship and a critic of Beijing, said he hoped the Chinese bishops and priests could use the letter as a "common starting point for dialogue" with the Vatican.

In a statement, he said the pope had no secret political agenda or intention of attacking anyone.

"My hope is that the leaders of our country (China) would read the pope's letter from this perspective and understand the true unchangeable nature of the Catholic Church," he said.

___

Associated Press reporter Alexa Olesen in Beijing contributed to this report.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/30/europe/EU-GEN-Vatican-China.php?page=2

[Alli]

Niger rebels say to release Chinese uranium hostage
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L10234255.htm
Then...

China firm suspends Niger uranium activities-source
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1014845.htm

[NYer]

China executes head of its FDA. (http://blog.wired.com/sterling/2007/07/head-of-the-fda.html)

[Alli]

China executes head of its FDA. (http://blog.wired.com/sterling/2007/07/head-of-the-fda.html)

Geese, talk about Hell's Kitchen.

[NYer]

Chinese Troops Clash with Tibetan demonstrators. (http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5haEuqwb8IRQv39KQo7wNTTRUu7WA)

Dalai Lama: "Cultural Genocide." (http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/16/tibet.unrest/index.html?eref=rss_topstories)

Protests Spread. (http://breakingnews.nypost.com/dynamic/stories/C/CHINA_TIBET?SITE=NYNYP&SECTION=HOME)

[NYer]

Chinese seal Tibetan capital. (http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8VEV31O0&show_article=1)

Blocks You-Tube. (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080316/D8VEIL4O0.html)

[NYer]

China's Great Firewall. (http://pajamasmedia.com/2008/03/tibet_protests_controlling_the.php)

Yet despite the central government’s intensive censoring, Chinese “net bugs” have been engaging in vibrant online discussions, sharing cellphone videos, and accessing foreign sites carrying news of Tibet. Therefore, Beijing’s blocking of sites has only been partially successful in controlling the news. And by being only partially successful, the Chinese government has put itself in the worst possible position. It has irritated its online community and created an odious reputation for itself outside China while permitting news to spread inside its borders. To the extent that people believe they are not getting the entire story, they think the worst about the authorities as wild rumors pass as fact. In short, the Communist Party is delegitimizing itself at an important moment.

In the partial vacuum Beijing has created, others are stepping in to provide their version of events. “The violent crackdown by Chinese authorities in Tibet compels us to increase our broadcasts,” said James Glassman, chairman of the American government’s Broadcasting Board of Governors, on Monday. “Our audience clearly will benefit from these trustworthy sources of news and information, which differ sharply from Chinese government sanctioned broadcasts.” Both Radio Free Asia and Voice of America will increase daily radio transmissions. The latter will add to its television programming.

China can of course block YouTube, but it cannot completely seal off its borders. By trying to control the dissemination of news, it is playing a game it will ultimately lose. We have always known that the modern Chinese state is ugly and repressive, but now it looks incompetent and vulnerable.

One can only hope.

[NYer]

China admits protests have spread. (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080320/D8VH3P500.html)

http://ak.imgfarm.com/images/ap/CHINA_TIBET.sff_GFX155_20080317100743.jpg

[NYer]

From Instapundit -

Cyberattacks against Tibetan Communities. (http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=4177)

Here's a sample attachment and its AV coverage at the time it was distributed:

reports_of_violence_in_tibet.ppt
MD5 977a4ac91acf5d88044a68f828154155

AhnLab-V3 2008.3.20.2 2008.03.20 -
AntiVir 7.6.0.75 2008.03.20 EXP/Office.Dropper.Gen
Authentium 4.93.8 2008.03.20 -
Avast 4.7.1098.0 2008.03.20 MPPT97:CVE-2006-3590
AVG 7.5.0.516 2008.03.20 -
BitDefender 7.2 2008.03.20 Exploit.PPT.Gen
CAT-QuickHeal 9.50 2008.03.20 -
ClamAV 0.92.1 2008.03.20 -
DrWeb 4.44.0.09170 2008.03.20 -
eSafe 7.0.15.0 2008.03.18 -
eTrust-Vet 31.3.5629 2008.03.20 -
Ewido 4.0 2008.03.20 -
F-Prot 4.4.2.54 2008.03.19 File is damaged
F-Secure 6.70.13260.0 2008.03.20 -
FileAdvisor 1 2008.03.20 -
Fortinet 3.14.0.0 2008.03.20 -
Ikarus T3.1.1.20 2008.03.20 -
Kaspersky 7.0.0.125 2008.03.20 -
McAfee 5256 2008.03.20 -
Microsoft 1.3301 2008.03.20 -
NOD32v2 2964 2008.03.20 PP97M/TrojanDropper.Agent.NAI
Norman 5.80.02 2008.03.20 -
Panda 9.0.0.4 2008.03.20 -
Prevx1 V2 2008.03.20 -
Rising 20.36.32.00 2008.03.20 -
Sophos 4.27.0 2008.03.20 -
Sunbelt 3.0.978.0 2008.03.18 -
Symantec 10 2008.03.20 -
TheHacker 6.2.92.250 2008.03.19 -
VBA32 3.12.6.3 2008.03.17 -
VirusBuster 4.3.26:9 2008.03.20 -
Webwasher-Gateway 6.6.2 2008.03.20 Exploit.Office.Dropper.Gen

China to Tibet - Hu me?

[Casey]

UYGUR GIRL TRIES TO BLOW UP BEIJING-BOUND JET, SAYS CHINA
Bernama - Friday, March 28BEIJING, March 27 (Bernama) --

China said Thursday that a 19-year-old ethnic Uygur girl had confessed to an attempt to blow up a passenger plane bound for Beijing from Urumqi, the capital of Muslim-dominated Xinjiang region, on March 7. The Public Security Ministry labelled the attempt a "terrorist attack" and identified the girl as Guzalinur Turdi. "On March 7, she boarded the plane with a camouflaged destructive device after deceiving airport security personnel. She went ahead with her terrorist sabotage activity but was foiled. She fully admitted her crime," the ministry said in a statement on its website.

"Police investigation shows that this was an organised and pre-meditated terrorist attack targeting the aircraft," it added. The statement said Turdi and "other people involved" had been arrested but did not provide details on the rest. It added that China police were fully prepared for security threats from any side and were fully capable of foiling any acts of terrorism. -- MORE CHINA-TERRORISM 2 (last) BEIJING The China Southern Airlines flight CZ6901 with over 200 passengers made an emergency landing in Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province neighbouring Xinjiang. Local media reported earlier that an air stewardess detected a gasoline odour and traced it to a teenage girl passenger who tried to ignite the fuel inside the toilet.

Aviation authorities banned passengers from taking liquids onboard domestic flights after that. The Southern Metropolitan Daily reported today that the plane's crew was awarded with 400,000 yuan (RM200,000) for foiling the attack and the stewardess was rewarded with 120,000 yuan (RM60,000). The host of the summer Olympics in August has singled out terrorism as the biggest threat to the Games. China said recently it had smashed a terrorist group in Xinjiang which is linked to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, listed a terrorist organisation by the United Nations.

The official Xinhua News Agency said effective Wednesday, the ruling for air passengers to remove their shoes for safety checks was enforced as part of tightened security checks ahead of the Olympics.

-- BERNAMA TCL TCL MO

http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/bnm/20080327/tts-china-terrorism-993ba14.html?printer=1

[NYer]

New Protests (http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/30/china.tibet.ap/index.html) in Tibet.

A radio broadcaster and Tibetan activists have reported fresh protests in the Tibetan capital Lhasa as foreign diplomats wrapped up a tightly controlled visit organized by Beijing.

[American_Jihad]

16 Policemen Killed in Attack in Muslim Region, China Says
8/4/08

KASHGAR, China _ China said Monday that two assailants in a truck mowed down a group of jogging policemen, then tossed grenades and slashed gasping survivors with knives in an attack that left 16 officers dead in this restive Muslim region in the nation's far west.
It was the bloodiest such attack in recent times in China, and it sent trepidation through the country just four days before the Summer Olympic Games open.

The state news agency, Xinhua, said the policemen were jogging at about 8 a.m. in this westernmost desert outpost on the old Silk Road when the truck plowed into them and the two assailants jumped out.

The assailants later were arrested, Xinhua said, but the agency didn't identify them or say whether they were ethnic Muslim Uighurs, a minority that chafes deeply at majority Han Chinese control of its religious and cultural lives. The assailants didn't attempt to commit suicide before they were overpowered. No group took immediate responsibility for the attack.

Residents near the site on a main thoroughfare pointed out a damaged electrical pole and other signs of the attack, although blood already had been washed away.

The policemen were on a daily morning jog, heading east on Seman Road in front of the Talimu Petroleum Hotel, residents said.

"Every morning, they run along this street," said a man who identified himself only by the surname Xia. "They were hit by the truck. The two people used knives and killed some of them."

Another 16 officers were injured, Xinhua said, some of them from knife wounds.

"This is the most serious incident of anti-state violence publicly recorded in more than a decade," said Nicholas Bequelin, a senior researcher based in Hong Kong for Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group. "This is very serious, especially at a time when security is at an all-time high in Kashgar."

The attack is certain to heighten China's security measures during the games. Already, surface-to-air missile batteries have been installed around some Olympic venues in Beijing, and some 100,000 security forces stand on alert around the capital.

President Bush, who'll arrive in Beijing on Thursday to attend the opening of the games, met last week in the White House with five dissidents, including Rebiya Kadeer, a Uighur businesswoman living in exile in the United States whom many Uighurs revere.

Beijing reviles her as a separatist, and rejects her denials that she's linked to the outlawed East Turkistan Islamic Movement, which seeks to sever Muslim Xinjiang from China and create an independent state called East Turkistan. The group, which Washington listed as a terrorist organization in 2002, is thought to have ties to al-Qaida.

After the meeting, Kadeer said Bush had asked after her sons, Alim and Ablikim Abdureyim, who're serving lengthy prison sentences in China, and that she'd voiced concerns that Beijing was repressing peaceful Uighur dissent in the name of anti-terrorism.

The Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs) speak a Turkic language and have strong links to ethnic groups in Central Asia and even as far as Turkey. Many Uighurs don't know how to speak Chinese or decline to do so.

Concerns that Uighur militants might try to disrupt the Olympic Games grew July 23 with the release of a three-minute video from a Uighur militant identified by the single name of Sayfullah. He said he belonged to the Turkistan Islamic Party, and claimed that the group was responsible for explosions in May on a bus in Shanghai that killed three people and on two buses in Kunming in southern China on July 21 that killed two people.

"This is our last warning to China and the rest of the world. The viewers and athletes, especially those who are Muslim, who plan to go to the Olympics should change their plans and not go to China," Sayfullah said on the videotape. "The Turkistan Islamic Party plans military attacks on people, offices, arenas and other activities that are connected to the Chinese Olympic Games."

A terrorism analyst in India, Bahukutumbi Raman, of the Chennai Center for China Studies, said the Turkistan Islamic Party could be linked to the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, which is training militants in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan. Raman said the East Turkistan Islamic Movement was allied with other militant groups, including the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Islamic Jihad Union, the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaida.

Raman said Uighur militants hadn't been known to attempt to slit the throats of their victims as in Monday's attack, adding that such a method was more common of Uzbek terrorist groups or the Taliban and al-Qaida. But he said that some Uighurs appeared to be allying more closely with radical Uzbeks.

"Recent reports from the tribal areas of Pakistan speak of the arrival of some Uighurs from Turkey in the (Islamic Jihad Union) camps to undergo training," Raman said.

Earlier this year, China said it had arrested 82 "suspected terrorists" in Xinjiang for plotting against the games.

On March 7, authorities said they'd foiled an attempted attack onboard a flight to Beijing from Urumqi, the regional capital of gas-rich Xinjiang, by a Uighur man and woman who'd traveled from Pakistan. The woman reportedly was trying to set fire to a flammable substance that had been syringed into a beverage can.

On July 8, authorities said they'd killed five people in a raid on a "holy war training group" in Urumqi. A day later, two terrorists reportedly were executed near Kashgar on charges of separatist activities, attending a terrorist training camp and manufacturing explosives.

http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews+articleid_2472262&title=16_Policemen_Killed_in.html

[American_Jihad]

Terrorists issue new Olympic threat, US analysts say
Aug 8, 2008, 4:05 GMT

Beijing - A little-known Islamic group has issued a new terrorist threat against the Beijing Olympics, US intelligence analysts said Friday.

The Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) issued the threat Wednesday in a video posted on the internet, urging Muslims 'not to attend the games or be within the vicinity,' the SITE Intelligence Group reported on its website.

The six-minute video 'Call to the Global Muslim Ummah' had a production date of August 1 and similar graphics to a previous video purporting to be from the same group, SITE said.

'The speaker identifies himself as a representative of TIP and urges Muslims to 'choose your side,'' SITE said.

'Do not stay on the same bus, on the same train, on the same plane, in the same buildings or any place the Chinese are,' it quoted the speaker as saying.

The video also urged Muslims to give financial, physical and spiritual support to the group, SITE said.

A similar TIP video, distributed online from July 24, showed the Beijing Olympics logo in flames.

China has identified independence-seeking Uighur groups from its central Asian region of Xinjiang as the biggest potential terrorist threat during the Olympics.

China has said the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a militant Uighur group, has plotted to sabotage the Olympics by trying to blow up a domestic airliner, kidnap foreigners and cause explosions at Olympics venues.

Uighur and human rights groups have accused China of exaggerating the threat from a group, whose actual strength is unclear.

Some Chinese officials in Xinjiang also played down the threat of terrorism.

But Shi Dagang, the Communist Party secretary of Xinjiang's Kashgar city, said an attack Monday in the city was linked to ETIM.

The attack against a group of armed police jogging outside their barracks left 16 officers dead and 16 injured, state media said.

Reacting to the latest threat in the video on Friday, Wang Wei, the general secretary of the Beijing Olympic organizers, said China would 'spare no effort' in securing the games.

'Security is always a top job,' Wang said. 'We spare no efforts in making a safe games.'

'Security has been reinforced, but we also want to have a relaxed atmosphere at the games,' Wang told reporters. 'We need to strike a balance.'

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/sport/olympics2008/news/article_1422277.php/Terrorists_issue_new_Olympic_threat_US_analysts_sa y

[Atlas]

From The Times

March 9, 2009


Monks taken for 're-education' before Tibet uprising anniversary



Jane Macartney in Beijing



div#related-article-links p a, div#related-article-links p a:visited {color:#06c;}Police will take away more than 100 monks for political re-education today on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising that led to the flight of the Dalai Lama.

The rounding up of 109 monks from Lutsang monastery in Qinghai province, western China, is one of a series of extraordinary security measures being implemented to prevent restive Tibetans from commemorating the anniversary with protests against Chinese rule.

About a quarter of China’s territory, an area the size of Western Europe, has been closed off to foreigners. Thousands of troops and paramilitary police have been deployed in Tibetan-populated regions amid fears of a renewed outburst of the anti-Chinese violence that rocked the region a year ago. Winding mountain roads have been clogged for days with convoys of armoured military trucks and coaches bringing in reinforcements.

Two counties of western Sichuan province, where some of the biggest demonstrations erupted last year, have been virtually cut off already from the outside world. Their internet and mobile phone systems have been blocked. From tomorrow, mobile phone users in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, will find that they are virtually unable to communicate.
Related Links



Invisible Tibet: keep on blogging to the free world (http://www.wincoast.com/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article5703536.ece)


Defiant Tibetans mark New Year with mourning (http://www.wincoast.com/tol/news/world/asia/article5806015.ece)





A message sent out by the mobile telephone company in the city late last week notified subscribers that the system would be undergoing maintenance from March 10 to April 1. “Please forgive any inconvenience caused,” it said.

The authorities are fearful of a repeat of the unrest last year when Tibetans used text messages to communicate details of new demonstrations against Chinese rule in the vast and sparsely populated Himalayan region. Protests spread swiftly among distant Tibetan communities on a scale unseen since the 1959 uprising.

A Chinese-language website catering for Tibetans closed for repairs on Friday. The popular website featured news from China's state-run media and Government, as well as cultural and Buddhist content.

A military lockdown has been in place across Tibet for several weeks. The authorities clearly do not want to be taken by surprise, as they were on March 14 last year when hundreds of Tibetans rampaged through the streets of Lhasa, setting fire to shops and offices, hurling stones and attacking ethnic Han Chinese and Hui Muslim residents. The Government says that 22 people died before paramilitary police moved in to restore order many hours after the violence had erupted.

The Dalai Lama, from his base in the northern Indian town of Dharamsala where he has lived in exile for half a century, has said that as many as 200 people may have died in the ensuing crackdown. He has warned of a renewed explosion of violence.

So anxious is the Chinese Government that the Communist Party chief of Tibet, Zhang Qingli, has remained in Lhasa rather than attend the annual session of the National People’s Congress, the ceremonial parliament. A photograph of him on the official China Tibet News website showed him inspecting the city’s riot police and urging them to be vigilant in stopping plots by the “Dalai Lama clique” to split China.

Qinghai provincial officials did not say where the monks who took part in the 30-minute candle-light vigil on February 25 would be taken or for how long. It is common for government teams to enter Tibetan monasteries to carry out “patriotic education” in which lamas are required to pledge their allegiance to Beijing and to denounce the Dalai Lama.

The Government has mounted a propaganda campaign to defend Beijing’s administration of Tibet. This year the Government has announced the first “Serf Emancipation Day” for March 28 — the 50th anniversary of Beijing’s declaration of the end of the Dalai Lama’s administration.

50 years in exile

— The uprising began on March 10, when the Dalai Lama had been due to watch a play at the Chinese military barracks in Lhasa but had been told not to bring bodyguards
— Fearing an abduction, a 300,000-strong crowd surrounded their leader’s palace
— The People’s Liberation Army surrounded Lhasa and trained artillery guns on the palace
— On March 17 the Dalai Lama fled the city and crossed the Himalayas into India. The PLA reasserted control over Lhasa within days but took months to crush the uprising
— About 87,000 Tibetans died and a further 80,000 fled to neighbouring countries
Source: About.com (http://www.About.com)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5870898.ece

[Atlas]

Seeking justice, Chinese land in secret jails
By Andrew Jacobs

Monday, March 9, 2009

BEIJING: They are often tucked away in the rough-and-tumble sections of the city's south side, hidden beneath dingy hotels and guarded by men in dark coats. Known as "black houses," they are unofficial jails for the pesky hordes of petitioners who flock to the capital seeking justice.

This month, Wang Shixiang, a 48-year-old businessman from Heilongjong Province, came to Beijing to agitate for the prosecution of corrupt policemen. Instead, he was seized and confined to a dank room underneath the Juyuan Hotel with 40 other abducted petitioners.

During his two days in captivity, Wang said, he was beaten and deprived of food, and then bundled onto an overnight train. Guards who were paid with government money, he said, made sure he arrived at his front door.
As Beijing hosts 10 days of political pageantry known as the National People's Congress, tens of thousands of desperate citizens are trying to seek redress by lodging formal complaints at petition offices. A few, when hope is lost, go to extremes, as a couple from the Xinjiang region did last week: they set their car afire on the city's best-known shopping street, injuring themselves critically.

In his annual report to the legislature on Thursday, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said China should use its petition system to head off social unrest in the face of a worsening economy. "We should improve the mechanism to resolve social conflicts, and guide the public to express their requests and interests through legal channels," he said.

According to the state media, 10 million petitions have been filed in the last five years on complaints as diverse as illegal land seizures and unpaid wages. The numbers would be far higher but for the black houses, also called black jails, the newest weapon local officials use to prevent these aggrieved citizens from embarrassing them in front of central government superiors. Officially, these jails do not exist.

In China's authoritarian state, senior officials tally petitions to get a rough sense of social order around the country. A successfully filed petition — however illusory the prospect of justice — is considered a black mark on the bureaucratic record of the local officials accused of wrongdoing.

So the game, sometimes deadly, is to prevent a filing. The cat-and-mouse contest has created a sizable underground economy that enriches the interceptors, the police and those who run the city's ad hoc detention centers.

Human rights activists and petitioners say plainclothes security officers and hired thugs grab the aggrieved off the streets and hide them in a growing constellation of unmarked detention centers. There, the activists say, the aggrieved will be insulted, roughed up and then escorted back to their home provinces. Some are held for weeks and months without charge, activists say, and in a few cases, the beatings are fatal.

The police in Beijing have done little to prevent such abuses. They are regularly accused of turning a blind eye or even helping local thugs round up petitioners. That raises suspicions that the central government is not especially upset about efforts to undermine the integrity of the petition system.

The petition system provides people with the semblance of an appeals process that top leaders hope will keep them off the streets. But for officials at all levels, it seems, the appearance of order — measured by reducing the number of petitions — is an acceptable approximation of actual order.

Rights advocates say that black houses have sprouted in recent years partly because top leaders have put more pressure on local leaders to reduce the number of petitioners reaching Beijing. Two of the largest holding pens, Majialou and Jiujingzhuang, can handle thousands of detainees who are funneled to the smaller detention centers, where cellphones and identification cards are confiscated.

China's petition system originated in the Ming Dynasty, from the 14th to the 17th centuries AD, when commoners wronged by local officials sought the intervention of the imperial court. Since the Communist Party came to power, the right to petition the central government has been enshrined in the Constitution.

With few legal channels available, petitioners come to Beijing, saying it is their only hope for resolving grievances.

"I know my life is in danger, but I just can't swallow this injustice," said Wang, explaining why he has made 10 trips to Beijing in recent years, each ending in detention.

Chinese Human Rights Defenders, an organization in Hong Kong that recently interviewed more than 3,000 petitioners, has documented what it says is the lucrative business of abduction and repatriation. "When you're taken to a black jail, no one knows where you are and you are totally vulnerable," said Wang Songlian, a researcher.

The authorities insist that there is no such system. During testimony to the United Nations Rights Council last month, Song Hansong, a representative of China's Supreme People's Procurate, said, "There are no such things as black jails in our country."

But over the past year, rights workers have been gathering evidence of what they say is an underground network of jails, first established in 2005, that was aggressively expanded in the months leading up the Olympics.
Alarmed by their unchecked spread, a group of lawyers has taken to organizing citizen raids that seek to free detainees through a show of force. Although they say instances of extralegal detention dropped after the Summer Games, one of the lawyers, Xu Zhiyou, said they had risen sharply in recent days, coinciding with the start of the annual legislative session.

He and other advocates say that armies of paid retrievers, euphemistically known as "liberators," have been roaming the city in pursuit of as many as 40,000 petitioners, many of whom swarmed the entrances to the city's main petition centers during much of the week.

By Friday, however, the tough-looking throngs of retrievers outside the State Council and supreme court petition offices appeared to outnumber would-be petitioners, whose worn shoes and sacks of paperwork make them easy prey.

Wu Lijuan, a seasoned petitioner from Hubei Province, said she helped coordinate more than 10,000 former bank employees who came to Beijing from across the nation last week. She said most of the petitioners, middle-aged women seeking greater compensation for their dismissals, were rounded up outside the main petition office and loaded onto buses.
Those who escape the dragnets are often betrayed by employees at the very offices designed to process petitions. Sun Lixiu, 51, a farmer from Sichuan Province, said a clerk at the State Council petition office asked for her ID card, handed back an application form and then tipped off retrievers, who took her to a black jail.

"No one can be trusted," said Sun, who is seeking to free her husband from the local police station, where he has been held since July, after accusing town officials of embezzlement.

The financial rewards for apprehending petitioners can be irresistible. According to a directive obtained by Chinese Human Rights Defenders, the police in one Hunan Province county are authorized to spend nearly $300 for each successfully detained petitioner.

The money ends up in the pockets of the retrievers, corrupt petition clerks, and those who run the black jails. The organization said that officers in one Beijing police precinct demanded as much as $140 for each petitioner they turned over to provincial interceptors.

The story of Wu Bowen, 61, a retired shop clerk from Zhejiang Province, is typical. On Feb. 25 she came to the capital to file a petition seeking more compensation for the demolition of her home. The next day, as she sat on the curb, a policeman told her that as an out-of-towner, she had to register at the precinct.

Once there, however, the officer phoned the Zhejiang Province liaison office in Beijing. A short time later, a clutch of retrievers escorted her to a hotel not far from the city's main tourist attractions.

After nine days of confinement, Wu stole back her cellphone and revealed the hotel's address to her son, who called the offices of The New York Times.

When three men reluctantly opened the door to Room 208 at the Zhanle Hotel, Wu cried out for help. Confounded by the presence of foreign journalists, the men seemed unable to prevent Wu from escaping, although they begged her to stay, saying she could not leave until a local county official arrived with their reward money.

Out on the street, Wu was shaken but undeterred. Asked if she wanted to be taken to the train station so she could return home, she shook her head. "No," she said. "I'm going to stay in Beijing until I get justice."

http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=20689075

[Atlas]

Pentagon says Chinese vessels harassed U.S. ship


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Pentagon said Monday that Chinese ships harassed a U.S. surveillance ship Sunday in the South China Sea in the latest of several instances of "increasingly aggressive conduct."
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/POLITICS/03/09/us.navy.china/art.impeccable.usnavy.jpg The Pentagon says the USNS Impeccable, a surveillance ship, was on routine patrol in the South China Sea.


http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/img/2.0/mosaic/base_skins/baseplate/corner_wire_BL.gif


During the incident, five Chinese vessels "shadowed and aggressively maneuvered in dangerously close proximity to USNS Impeccable, in an apparent coordinated effort to harass the U.S. ocean surveillance ship while it was conducting routine operations in international waters," the Pentagon said in a written statement.

The crew members aboard the vessels, two of which were within 50 feet, waved Chinese flags and told the U.S. ship to leave the area, the statement said.

"Because the vessels' intentions were not known, Impeccable sprayed its fire hoses at one of the vessels in order to protect itself," the statement said. "The Chinese (http://topics.cnn.com/topics/china) crewmembers disrobed to their underwear and continued closing to within 25 feet."

After the Impeccable alerted the Chinese ships "in a friendly manner" that it was seeking a safe path to depart the area, two of the Chinese ships stopped "directly ahead of USNS Impeccable, forcing Impeccable to conduct an emergency 'all stop' in order to avoid collision," the statement said.

"They dropped pieces of wood in the water directly in front of Impeccable's path."

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/09/us.navy.china/index.html

[Atlas]

http://in.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20090309&t=2&i=8559245&w=155&r=img-2009-03-09T113340Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_India-384127-1 (javascript:launchArticleSlideshow();)
China's Navy expansion "no threat to others" - paper

Mon Mar 9, 2009 11:32am IST


(javascript:launchArticleSlideshow();)
By Emma Graham-Harrison

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's plans to add aircraft carriers to its fleet and an historic long-distance mission by its navy are aimed only at protecting the country and its trade interests, senior officials were quoted as saying on Monday.

A long coastline, and high dependence on seaborne trade, meant China needed to have a strong presence at sea, but its growing confidence should not be misread as a "China threat", the Navy's deputy chief of staff told the official China Daily.

"Even when the navy has its aircraft carriers one day, our national defence strategy will remain purely defensive," Major General Zhang Deshun told the paper in a story splashed across its front page.
Beijing has been keen to emphasise its case that its growing economic and political might is not a threat to other nations, even downgrading a doctrine of "peaceful rise" to "peaceful development" over worries the former might sound aggressive.

But long-term plans to add an aircraft carrier to its fleet, and the unprecedented deployment of its navy to fight pirates in waters off Somalia late last year have sparked discussion in the West about Beijing's ultimate goals.

Zhang said any worries were misplaced.

Aircraft carriers are "strategically very common" for big countries with long coastlines and the "historic" mission to join an anti-piracy campaign in the waters off Somalia was no different from those of other nations, he added.

"China is doing exactly what other countries are doing, sending ships there: To protect national interests," the English-language report quoted Zhang saying.

However, in a sign of how a stronger fleet might affect the regional balance of power, Zhang said China was keen to resolve disputes through negotiation, but stressed its forces were capable of protecting its maritime territory.

There are several disputed islets in waters near China, potentially key to seabed deposits of oil and gas.

China, Japan and Taiwan all lay claim to the Diaoyu islands, known as the Senkakus in Japanese and Tiaoyutai in Taiwan. Further south, the Spratley islands are claimed by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia.

The vulnerability of China's supply lines for vital commodities like oil, and shipments from its thousands of factories, was mentioned as a key concern by academics and officials interviewed by the China Daily.

A stronger navy was needed to protect increasing shipments on the open seas, the China Daily quoted Rear Admiral Yang Yi saying. He also said the navy would always be a peaceful force committed to regional security.

http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-38412720090309?sp=true

[Atlas]

China says U.S. navy ship was breaking law: HK website

Mon Mar 9, 2009 9:29pm EDT
By Ian Ransom

BEIJING (Reuters) - China said a U.S. naval vessel was conducting illegal surveying off its southern island of Hainan, a Hong Kong television website reported on Tuesday, after the Pentagon said Chinese ships had harassed the vessel in international waters.

Global oil prices rose 3 percent on Monday, partly driven by market concerns over tensions between the world's top oil consumers.
The United States on Monday urged China to observe international maritime rules after the Pentagon said five Chinese ships, including a naval vessel, harassed a U.S. Navy ship in international waters.

The Chinese vessels "shadowed and aggressively maneuvered in dangerously close proximity" to the USNS Impeccable, an unarmed ocean surveillance vessel, on Sunday, with one ship coming within 25 feet, a U.S. Defense Department statement said.

An unnamed spokesman from the Chinese embassy in Washington denied the Chinese ships had violated maritime rules, and said U.S. ships had been conducting illegal surveying, the website of Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television (news.ifeng.com) reported.

"The U.S. claim about operating in high seas is out of step with the facts," the report quoted the spokesman as saying. "The U.S. navy vessel concerned has been consistently conducting illegal surveying in China's special economic zone," the station quoted the spokesman as saying.
"China believes this contravenes international laws of the sea and China's relevant laws."

Chinese authorities had "repeatedly used diplomatic channels to demand that the U.S. side cease unlawful activities in China's special economic zone," the report added.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry was unavailable for comment.
U.S. defense officials said the incident followed days of increasingly aggressive Chinese conduct in the area, including fly-bys of two U.S. Navy ships by Chinese maritime surveillance planes.

It echoes a tense stand-off in 2001 between U.S. and Chinese military forces after a U.S. spy plane made an emergency landing on Hainan after a collision with a Chinese fighter jet. China released 24 crew after a U.S. apology.

The Impeccable is one of five ocean surveillance ships that serve with the U.S. 7th Fleet, which is based Yokosuka, Japan. The ships use low-frequency sound to search for undersea threats including submarines, a U.S. military official said.

Hainan Island is the site of a Chinese naval base that houses ballistic missile submarines, according to independent analysts.
A U.S. Defense Department spokesman said the Chinese vessels had surrounded the Impeccable, waving Chinese flags and telling the U.S. ship to leave.

The Pentagon also described accounts of half a dozen other incidents dating back to March 4, in which the Impeccable and its sister vessel, USNS Victorious, were subjected to aggressive behavior.

Oil jumped more than 3 percent to $47 a barrel amid the naval incident between China and the United States and as dealers pondered the possibility of deeper production cuts by OPEC.

(Additional reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Nick Macfie and Dean Yates)

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSPEK9458120090310?sp=true

[Atlas]

China Demands U.S. Navy End Surveillance Missions

Wednesday, March 11, 2009


http://www.foxnews.com/images/519729/2_61_a320.jpg (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,508952,00.html#) AP/U.S. Navy

Mar. 8: Two Chinese trawlers stop directly in front of ocean surveillance ship USNS Impeccable in the South China Sea.


BEIJING — The Chinese Defense Ministry has demanded that the U.S. Navy end surveillance missions off China's southern coast following a weekend confrontation between an American vessel and Chinese ships.

In its first public comment on the Sunday episode, the ministry repeated earlier statements from the Foreign Ministry that the unarmed U.S. ship was operating illegally inside China's exclusive economic zone when it was challenged by three Chinese government ships and two Chinese-flagged trawlers.

"The Chinese side's carrying out of routine enforcement and safeguarding measures within its exclusive economic zone was entirely appropriate and legal," ministry spokesman Huang Xueping said in a statement faxed overnight to reporters.

"We demand the United States respect our legal interests and security concerns, and take effective measures to prevent a recurrence of such incidents," Huang said.

Despite the sharp remarks, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met in a private meeting Wednesday in Washington D.C. to say the countries agreed on the need to reduce tensions and avoid a repeat of the confrontation.
Related Stories

<LI _extended="true" itxtvisited="1">Officials Say U.S. Ship Harassed by China Was Hunting Submarine Threat (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,508805,00.html)
China: Activity by Confronted U.S. Ship Was Illegal (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,507591,00.html)

But neither side yielded in their conflicting versions of events, even as they prepare for a much-anticipated first meeting between Hu and President Barack Obama at next month's G20 summit in London.
The U.S. says that Navy mapping ship USNS Impeccable was operating legally when it was harassed by Chinese boats in international waters about 75 miles off China's southern island province of Hainan.

Defense Department officials say the Impeccable was on a mission to seek out threats such as submarines and was towing a sonar apparatus that scans and listens for subs, mines and torpedoes. With its numerous Chinese military installations, Hainan offers rich hunting for such surveillance.

Of particular interest is the new submarine base near the resort city of Sanya that is home to the Chinese navy's most sophisticated craft.
Satellite photographs of the base taken last year and posted on the Internet by the Federation of American Scientists show a submarine cave entrance and a pier, with a Chinese nuclear-powered Jin class sub docked there.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,508952,00.html

[Atlas]

MARCH 12, 2009, 11:09 P.M. ET

Chinese Premier Expresses Concern About Chinese Assets in U.S.


BEIJING -- China's Premier Wen Jiabao said he is somewhat worried about the safety of China's assets in the U.S. and repeated that he hopes the U.S. will ensure the safety of those assets.
Speaking at the closing news conference of the National People's Congress, the country's annual legislative session, Mr. Wen urged the U.S. to maintain its credit and keep its promises.
Massive purchase of U.S. Treasurys has made China the U.S.'s largest single creditor.
While repeating that China will keep the yuan exchange rate basically stable around reasonable levels, Mr. Wen said the Chinese currency has been appreciating in effective terms, given big falls in Asian and European currencies. The yuan's rise, he said, has pressured Chinese exports.
Mr. Wen also said China is prepared to launch new economic stimulus plans if necessary, and has enough tools in reserve to cope with the global financial crisis.
The central government lintroduced a 4 trillion yuan (around $585 billion) stimulus package in November.
—-- Victoria Ruan

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123691285879115803.html

[Orlok]

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/4896/strangeloveripper1.jpg

[Atlas]

MARCH 17, 2009

Taiwan Defense Plan Risks Roiling China

By TING-I TSAI (http://www.wincoast.com/search/search_center.html?KEYWORDS=TING-I+TSAI&ARTICLESEARCHQUERY_PARSER=bylineAND)

TAIPEI -- Taiwan issued a defense report that calls for the island to press for modern military equipment from the U.S. -- a move that could complicate the warming relations both Taiwan and the U.S. have been cultivating with China.

The quadrennial military review, issued Monday, runs counter to softer, more China-friendly draft versions that circulated in Taiwan over the past few months. Some officials said the harder line is a response to criticism in Taipei and Washington that the current administration in Taiwan had been making too many concessions to China without having received much in return.

"The report is tougher than I expected," said Alexander Huang, a strategic studies professor at Tamkang University in Taipei, who was involved in earlier versions of the paper.

http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-DH718_twdefe_D_20090316122615.jpg Associated Press In a file photo, Taiwanese soldiers stand at attention in front of one of Taiwan's many Patriot missile air defense systems near the northern coastal town of Wanli, Taiwan.

Taiwan and China have been ruled separately for more than 60 years, since China's civil war, and have become close trading partners. Under President Ma Ying-jeou, who was elected a year ago, the two sides have moved closer, setting up direct transport flights and shipping links and discussing a possible free-trade deal. On Monday, relations across the Taiwan Strait marked a new milestone when the Ocean Mystery, the first luxury cruise ship to sail directly from China, arrived in Taiwan with more than 1,000 Chinese tourists.

Perhaps the most notable sign of improving ties was a government defense paper endorsed by Mr. Ma that called for democratically governed Taiwan, a hub of the global high-tech industry, to give up its longtime strategy of preventing a Chinese attack by maintaining air and sea superiority. Instead, Taiwan would concentrate its defenses against a ground assault, according to the paper.

Supporters said the proposed strategy would be less costly for Taiwan and the weapons easier to obtain. In deference to China, few countries are willing to sell Taiwan weapons. Opponents said it would be nearly suicidal for the island of 23 million to fight a land war with its giant neighbor.

"Critics from the military and academia forced President Ma to emphasize that the navy and air force are both important," said a senior official from the Ministry of National Defense.

A presidential spokesman said: "President Ma fully respects professionals on this issue."

Under Monday's plan, Taiwan will try again to buy 66 F-16 C/D fighters from the U.S. These are more advanced versions of the F-16 that Taiwan has and would allow it to more effectively counter China's growing fleet of Russian-built warplanes. Last year, the Bush administration agreed to a US$6.43 billion arms package but excluded the fighters. China reacted by suspending military-to-military talks with the U.S., though they since have resumed.

Taiwan will formally request the fighters again, officials in Tapei said Monday, and in the long term try to buy "stealth" technology fighters. Taiwan also wants to buy submarines -- another item vetoed by the Bush administration. In an effort to balance this with more China-friendly policies, the paper calls for a "confidence-building mechanism" with China. Some officials have said this could involve officer exchanges.

Although the Obama administration is eager to improve relations with Beijing, some officials in Washington have implied that weapons sales are in the U.S.'s national interest. In testimony to Congress in February, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said the U.S. was the only outside power that could help Taiwan: "That means we're going to have to help them some more in order to maintain a balance."

Some U.S.-based analysts say sales would help maintain the balance of power in the region. That would reduce the need for American soldiers to defend Taiwan in case China tries to invade.

"If Taiwan is unable to deter attacks from China, it increases the probability of the U.S. having to confront China militarily should China make a mistake," said Rick Fisher, a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center in Washington.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123722682363644787.html

[Atlas]

March 18, 2009


Wily Tibetan messengers outfox censors of 'Great Firewall' of China

Jeremy Page in Dharamsala


In a simple office overlooking the Himalayan foothills of India a young Tibetan man sits at a computer, trying to succeed where the Dalai Lama has failed for 50 years — by talking to the Chinese. Every day, Sonam and ten other Tibetans — all fluent in Mandarin — surf social networking sites in search of Chinese people to talk to about their homeland. It can be painstaking work.

“Hi, want to chat?” Sonam, 32, asks one man from Beijing. “You male or female?” comes the reply. “Male.” “Not interested.” Like this one, many of the millions of Chinese in chat rooms are searching for love. Most do not want to talk politics. Some become abusive when they realise they are talking to Tibetan exiles.

Sonam contacts about fifty or so people every day and says that half are willing to chat and five or six want to talk in depth. He now has 200 “old friends” to whom he sends information on the Dalai Lama to circumvent China’s “Great Firewall”, which blocks websites about the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. “We don’t say this is right or wrong, or that the Chinese Government should be overthrown,” Sonam told The Times. “We just give people an alternative source of information.”

The aim of the project is bold: to change attitudes towards Tibet among ordinary Chinese in the hope that they will gradually shape Beijing’s policies. Sonam and his colleagues can talk to only a tiny fraction of China’s 300 million netizens — who are notoriously nationalistic. Arguably it offers better prospects, and more immediate results, than the failed negotiations between China and the Dalai Lama, who fled to India 50 years ago yesterday.
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The project is the brainchild of Thupten Samdup, a Tibetan based in Canada. He was born in Lhasa in 1951, and escaped soon after the Dalai Lama in 1959 and, after studying in India and the US, moved to Canada in 1980 and worked for a high-tech company.

He became the head of the Dalai Lama Foundation in Canada, and in 2004 led a campaign to get Canadian MPs to support the Tibetan movement. More than two thirds signed up but when that failed to influence Canadian policy he became frustrated, took a year out, and decided that he was lobbying the wrong people. “There’s huge support for the Tibet campaign internationally, but the people who really need to be educated are the Chinese — these are the only people who can deliver what we want,” he said.

He established his Online Outreach Office in 2006 and now employs 11 people at an annual cost of up to $60,000 (&#163;42,775), most of which comes from private donations.

Four or five similar projects have been set up since then, and Mr Samdup hopes to expand his to involve Chinese-speaking Tibetans throughout the 200,000-strong diaspora. His staff do not want to be identified because they have relatives in Tibet, but they all escaped recently and some are former government officials. That means they know how to talk to Chinese people and can outfox the censors. Mostly they use instant messaging services, running up to 20 chats at a time. They change avatars frequently because the censors block ones that discuss politics. If they want to send sensitive material they move to e-mail, which is harder to monitor.

The real art, however, lies in the pitch. Sometimes Sonam pretends that he is a woman to lure a Chinese man into conversation but mostly he just taps into China’s online political subculture. “You have to start with personal stuff, then move on to social problems and political problems, then Tibet,” he said. “It’s no use just quoting the BBC or CNN. You have to analyse China’s problems and show how it is violating its own laws and constitution. The best way is to ask questions, rather than to lecture.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5927557.ece