Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[a_majoor]

The former Soviet Union actually had made detailed plans for diverting these rivers for their use (watering the Steppe and turning it into something like the American praries and the breadbasket of Asia, and giant shipping canals). Of course the astronomical costs put those plans in the recycle bin. In many ways these water diversion megaprojects fall under a category of Fantasy literature which might be called engineering porn:

NAWPA (North American Water and Power Alliance: divert the arctic watershed and reverse the flow of the rivers. Use central BC as the water reservoir. It would only take about 30 years to fill...)

Atlantropa. German idea to dam Straights of Gibralter, lover the  Mediterranean Sea by 200m and colonize the newly exposed sea floor.

Willy Ley, whose book Engineers' Dreams outlined a project to dam the Congo river and create an inland sea in Africa. Given the events in the Congo since the 1960's, this might not have been a bad idea after all....

Belo Monte Dam. An actual megaproject under way in Brazil, oddly the designers and backers did not seem to understand the water flow is seasonal and erratic, leaving the project only capable of producing about 40% of the projected energy output. Building huge dams in the Amazon rainforest also excites conservationists, who have much more influence in Brazil than in China (see the Three Gorges Dam project...)

James Bay project. One of the few projects which has actually gotten built, although certainly not all the projected dams were completed (and some ideas like building a dam across the mouth of James Bay didn't pass the sniff test).

And this interesting link has a list of many proposals to divert Canadian rivers either to create an east-west waterway or export water to the US (or both):
http://environment.probeinternational.org/1997/08/18/sale-canadian-water-united-states-review-proposals-agreements-and-policies/

 

[CougarKing]

President Xi's anti-corruption crackdown continues:

Reuters

China says investigating powerful former security chief for graft
BY BENJAMIN KANG LIM AND BEN BLANCHARD

(Reuters) - China's Communist Party said on Tuesday it had launched a corruption investigation into former domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang, one of the country's most influential politicians of the last decade, in a case that has its origins in a party power struggle.

Zhou, 71, is by far the highest-profile figure caught up in President Xi Jinping's crackdown on corruption. Indeed, Zhou is the most senior Chinese official to be ensnared in a graft scandal since the party swept to power in 1949.

He was a member of the Politburo Standing Committee - China's apex of power - and held the post of security tsar until he retired in 2012.

(...EDITED)

 

[Martin111]

Taiwan continues to prepare for this scenario even if cross-strait relations have been more conciliatory under Taiwan's current President Ma Ying Jieou.

link

The military communication radios industrial develop fast today.
Like the military communication radios and  its accessories need.
As i know Sonetronics in US and Power-Time in China are manufacturer of the accessories.Harries in US is the radio supplier. What anyone else ?

 

[RADOPSIGOPACCISOP]

The military communication radios industrial develop fast today.
Like the military communication radios and  its accessories need.
As i know Sonetronics in US and Power-Time in China are manufacturer of the accessories.Harries in US is the radio supplier. What anyone else ?

Most respected Sir,

Please let me know personally forthwith and I will tell you the secrets of military communications radios industrial commercial and the accessories.

 

[Brasidas]

Most respected Sir,

Please let me know personally forthwith and I will tell you the secrets of military communications radios industrial commercial and the accessories.

Somebody set us up the bomb. Make your time. All your base are belong to us.

In other news, I'm curious about the shakeup in China.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Good news, from my perspective, anyway, in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/world-insider/zhous-fall-has-china-cheering-but-xi-gets-the-last-laugh/article19842170/#dashboard/follows/

Zhou’s fall has China cheering, but Xi gets the last laugh

SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

NATHAN VANDERKLIPPE
BEIJING — The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Jul. 30 2014

There was glee in the wake of China’s official confirmation of an investigation into Zhou Yongkang, once one of the country’s most powerful men. On the Internet, where discussion of his downfall was heavily censored until the investigation was confirmed by state media Tuesday evening, a flood of giddy talk came rushing forward.

“Great job, Xi Jinping!!!” wrote one user on Weibo, one of the most popular Chinese social media sites. “A serious penalty against corruption! What good fortune for the country!” wrote another. (The coincidence with World Wildlife Fund’s International Tiger Day Tuesday added to the fun, as China’s leadership has called its biggest corruption quarry, like Mr. Zhou, “tigers.”)

More cheering came from the country’s state press, with the Xinhua news agency, in a self-congratulatory commentary, saying the investigation “has revealed the courage and resolution of the Communist Party of China (CPC) to purify itself and run itself with strict discipline.” It said 40 high-ranking officials have been dragged down on corruption and other serious charges since November, 2012, when President Xi Jinping took the reins of the Communist Party.

“Before the Party discipline, all members are equal and nobody will be made an exception,” Xinhua boasted.

Even though the specific charges against Mr. Zhou are not yet public – he has been the target of a longstanding corruption probe, but officially he is under investigation for “serious disciplinary violation” – the online commentary underscored the mastery President Xi Jinping has shown in manipulating public opinion.

There is a danger implicit in China’s Communist Party unmasking the wrongdoing of one of its most senior members, since it is an acknowledgment that there is rot throughout the ranks of the party’s 86 million members.

But Mr. Xi has sought – in part through calibrated public appearances that have seen him dine at a low-brow restaurant and walk about in bad smog without a mask – to cast himself as a man on the side of the people. That skill that has again come through in the campaign against Mr. Zhou, who is believed to have overseen a corrupt network of friends, family and proteges that amassed billions of dollars worth of illicit gains.

“The message that no one is above the law, not even top Party elites, is designed to assuage some of the anger that regular people feel” toward official corruption, said Jonathan Sullivan, deputy director of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham. Mr. Xi still holds tight control of information on the Internet, which will allow the party to keep the most salacious details far from public view.

That will allow Mr. Zhou’s fall to “be spun to the Party’s advantage and the propaganda function,” Mr. Sullivan said. “Although Mr. Xi’s pursuit of Mr. Zhou is partly politically motivated, bringing down this behemoth and nearly 500 of his associates is an incredible play for public approval.”

That’s not to say that Mr. Xi’s anti-corruption campaign hasn’t exposed him to certain risks, particularly inside his own party. Alienate too many party members by cutting off their access to luxury goods and the lucrative perks of membership, and there is a chance they will gang up against you.

“Those people involved in corruption are threatened by this kind of action from the top leaders, and they may form some kind of force to fight back,” said Li Xigen, an associate professor of media and communication at City University of Hong Kong.

The stakes flashed into public view this spring, when former presidents Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin both reportedly warned Mr. Xi not to take his anti-corruption campaign too far, for fear of destabilizing the party. Internal disagreements may also explain the length of time it took for the investigation against Mr. Zhou to be announced, nearly 10 months after he was placed under virtual house arrest.

But Mr. Xi seems to be betting that he can outrun internal opposition by getting the public on his side, even if the fight against corruption is often a simple mask for a bid to weed out political rivals – a distinction that is often lost on the public, or merely disregarded. As rumours swirled about even bigger figures in the corruption crosshairs, with talk about Mr. Zemin censored on social media Wednesday amid speculation he too faces scrutiny, The Global Times, a Communist Party mouthpiece, suggested the tiger hunt was not over.

“The campaign will definitely be deepened with no limit in levels or numbers, especially in fields including energy, land, major construction and civil affairs,” the paper cited a source close to the anti-graft campaign as saying.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I've mentioned Jiang Zemin and the 'tooth and claw' capitalism of his so called Shanghai Gang political wing, but it now appears, according to this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisons of the Copyright Act from the Financial Times, that Shanghai politicians are squarely in Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign's sights:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0fbd483e-17dc-11e4-b842-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz38sJO8wag

Shanghai to feel full force of Xi’s anti-corruption onslaught

By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing

July 30, 2014

The most extensive anti-corruption campaign in modern Chinese history is about to be unleashed on Shanghai, the country’s commercial capital and the stronghold of former president Jiang Zemin.

Until now, China’s most populous city has been left largely unscathed in a campaign that has been the centrepiece policy of President Xi Jinping’s 20-month-old administration and has placed hundreds of thousands of officials under investigation.

However, a large task force from the Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the body investigating allegations of crimes or wrongdoing committed by party members, has arrived in Shanghai and will remain there until the end of September.

The news comes one day after the party formally launched a corruption investigation into Zhou Yongkang, former head of the secret police and the most senior figure to be accused of corruption in the history of the People’s Republic of China.

Many political analysts believe the investigation into Mr Zhou, who has been in detention since the end of last year, will be a high water mark in Mr Xi’s anti-corruption campaign. They argue that further escalation targeting more senior retired party officials would destabilise the authoritarian state.

But by turning the anti-corruption campaign on Shanghai, Mr Xi is directly threatening the legacy of Mr Jiang, 87, who retains enormous influence in the Party despite not having held an official title since he retired from the presidency in 2003.

Of the seven members of the Politburo’s Standing Committee, the body that in effect rules China, four or five of are considered close to Mr Jiang, who appeared in public in Shanghai in late May with visiting Russian president Vladimir Putin, an unusual breach of protocol.

Before he was made president in 1989, Mr Jiang was Communist Party boss of Shanghai and his still-powerful faction is known as the “Shanghai Gang”.

Political insiders say Mr Xi is incensed by Mr Jiang’s pervasive lingering influence in both the party and the military.

Anti-corruption investigations have already targeted several people with close ties to the former president, including Xu Caihou, a former Military Commission vice-chairman and close ally of Mr Jiang. Mr Xu is almost certain to go on trial, making him the most senior military officer to face public charges in China in at least three decades.

The most recent example is Wang Zongnan, an acolyte of Mr Jiang and former chairman of Bright Food Co, which owns Weetabix breakfast cereal in the UK.

A corruption investigation was opened on Monday into Mr Wang, 59, who is suspected of accepting bribes and embezzling public funds, according to state media reports.

Although the allegations revealed so far relate to Mr Wang’s role as head of two other state-owned retail companies and not his leadership of Bright Food, the investigation is being interpreted as a clear warning to Mr Jiang. The former president worked at Bright Food’s predecessor company during the Korean war in the early 1950s and has maintained a close personal connection with it ever since.

On its website, Bright Food boasts that Mr Jiang is the “founder” of the company’s brand.

One Shanghai-based party member with knowledge of the matter said the head of the CCDI task force in the city was a Beijing native and his team was sent directly from the capital, an indication of the seriousness of their mission.

Additional reporting by Lucy Hornby

The right in China is still strong, so is the political left, but Xi Jinping believes (hopes?) that the centre is bigger and stronger and, above all, is tired of the corruption.

 

[CougarKing]

Considering how political dissidents exposed corruption in the shoddy construction that led to the collapse of many buildings in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, if I can recall correctly, I wonder how much will be exposed this time from Yunnan:

CBC

Updated: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 15:19:02 GMT | By The Associated Press, cbc.ca
China earthquake kills 367 in Yunnan province

A strong earthquake in southern China's Yunnan province toppled thousands of homes on Sunday, killing at least 367 people and injuring more than 1,800.

About 12,000 homes collapsed in Ludian, a densely populated county located around 366 kilometres northeast of Yunnan's capital, Kunming, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The magnitude-6.1 quake struck at 4:30 p.m. at a depth of 10 kilometres, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Its epicenter was in Longtoushan township, 23 kilometres southwest of the city of Zhaotong, the Ludian county seat.

Ma Liya, a resident of Zhaotong, told Xinhua that the streets there were like a "battlefield after bombardment." She added that her neighbour's house, a new two-story building, had toppled, and said the quake was far worse than one that struck the area in 2012 and killed 81 people.

(...EDITED)

 

[Edward Campbell]

One rather hates to capitalize on a human tragedy ... BUT this is pure GOLD for Xi Jinping: he can, and I expect will, lay blame on provincial, regional and local officials - party members - and heads will roll, or, more literally, heads will do whatever they do when bullets enter them from the back.

 

[CougarKing]

And speaking of heads rolling from gunfire...

While world news focuses on the earthquake in Yunnan province, across the country in restive Xinjiang, the unrest continues and seems to be escalating...

Wall Street Journal

China Says Violent Xinjiang Uprising Left Almost 100 Dead
In Addition to 59 Suspected Terrorists Killed by Police, 37 Civilians Died in Clashes

SHANGHAI—Chinese police gunned down 59 people and arrested 215 during a violent uprising last week in the Xinjiang region, the government said Sunday, in a statement that shed fresh light on what dissident groups had earlier described as a major clash in the area.

In coordinated predawn actions on July 28, unnamed assailants attacked civilians, state buildings and vehicles in two Xinjiang towns, including Elixhu, according to police descriptions reported by the government-run Xinhua news agency.

The agency said 37 civilians were among the 96 people who were killed during the attack. Sunday's statement called the assailants terrorists and said the attack had foreign support.

The new figures, which emerged from a high-level meeting of the Communist Party over the weekend in Xinjiang, according to Xinhua, illustrate the seriousness of continued violence in China's largely Muslim province of Xinjiang. The area abuts Central Asia and has seen minor clashes reported weekly.

(...EDITED)

 

[Edward Campbell]

According to what I'm hearing/reading here (Hong Kong) the Chinese are using different language about this event; they are talking about foreign controlled "terrorist groups" and so on. Apparently, according to the South China Morning Post, which is a pretty reputable source, jihadist flags were captured when the terrorists were killed.

 

[CougarKing]

ASAT weapons in the news again:

Defense News

China Developing Capability To Kill Satellites, Experts Say
Aug. 4, 2014 - 08:09AM  |  By WENDELL MINNICK

TAIPEI — US defense experts and the US State Department are describing China’s successful July 23 so-called “anti-missile test” as another anti-satellite test (ASAT). It is the third such kinetic strike ASAT launch by China and raises fears the US will be unable to protect its spy, navigation and communications satellites.

“This latest space interceptor test demonstrates a potential PLA [People’s Liberation Army] aspiration to restrict freedom of space flight over China,” said Mark Stokes, a China missile specialist at the Project 2049 Institute.

China’s first two anti-satellite tests, 2007 and 2010, involved the SC-19 (DF-21 ballistic missile variant) armed with a kinetic kill vehicle. Though the first two involved the SC-19, only the 2007 ASAT actually destroyed a space-based platform. The 2010 and July 23 test successfully struck a ballistic missile.

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

Retaliation for Canada's accusations of Chinese state-supported hackers infiltrating Canadian federal computer networks?

CBC

Updated: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 20:40:28 GMT | By The Canadian Press, cbc.ca

Canadians investigated in China for stealing state secrets, Chinese state media report

Chinese media say two Canadian nationals are being investigated for suspected theft of state secrets.

The allegations relate to China's military and defence research, but the reports gave no other details.

The suspects are identified in Chinese state media as Kevin Garratt and Julia Dawn Garratt.

Canada's Foreign Affairs Department said it's aware of reports two Canadians have been detained in China and is trying get more information. The department said consular officials are ready to provide assistance.

Last week, Canada blamed Chinese hackers for infiltrating computers at the National Research Council of Canada, something the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa denied.

(...EDITED)

 

[The Bread Guy]

What a co-incidence?

China is investigating a Canadian couple who ran a coffee shop on the Chinese border with North Korea for the suspected theft of military and intelligence information and for threatening national security, China's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

The official Xinhua news agency identified the two as Kevin Garratt and Julia Dawn Garratt. In a brief report, Xinhua said the State Security Bureau of Dandong city in northeast Liaoning province was investigating the case, adding it involved the stealing of state secrets.

Neither the Foreign Ministry nor Xinhua said if the couple had been detained, although the ministry said the Canadian embassy in Beijing was notified on Monday and that the couple's "various rights have been fully guaranteed" ....

More here and here.

 

[Dissident]

This article from Jane's reporting on recommendations that China should plan on purchasing 400 Y-20 Heavy Transport planes (65t cargo).

It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out what these planes could be used for.

http://www.janes.com/article/41251/china-s-ndu-recommends-400-strong-y-20-fleet

 

[CougarKing]

More on China's response to unrest in Xinjiang:

From Agence-France-Presse via Yahoo News Australia

PROFILING | China city bans 'large beards,' Muslim clothes from buses
By: Agence France-Presse
August 6, 2014 10:52 AM

BEIJING -- A city in China's mainly Muslim Xinjiang region has banned people with large beards or Islamic clothing from traveling on public buses, state media said, prompting outrage from an overseas rights group Wednesday.

Authorities in Karamay banned people wearing hijabs, niqabs, burkas, or clothing with the Islamic star and crescent symbol from taking local buses, the Karamay Daily reported.

The ban also covers "large beards," the paper said, adding: "Those who do not cooperate with inspection teams will be handled by police."

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

2 updates on the 2 Canadians investigated for spying in China:

Yahoo News

Simeon Garratt, son of Canadians accused of spying in China, shocked by allegations
By Steve Mertl | Daily Brew – 2 hours 36 minutes ago

Bewilderment. That's Simeon Garratt's central reaction to the arrest of his parents in China as alleged spies.
Kevin and Julia Dawn Garratt are being held in detention in the city of Dandong, on China's border with North Korea, accused of "suspected theft of state secrets about China's military and national defence research," according to a statement released through the Xinhua news service.
China's famously opaque justice system has released no details about how the longtime residents of China, who run a popular coffee shop that overlooks the main bridge between China and North Korea, could have led a secret life as spies.

(...EDITED)

Canadian Press via Yahoo News

Arrest of Canadians grabs the attention of China-watchers in U.S.

WASHINGTON - To Americans who watch China closely, the arrest of a coffee-shop-owning Canadian couple this week fits a familiar pattern.
They point to domestic Chinese politics to explain the openly Christian family's arrest on espionage charges.

China's new leaders have adopted a broad two-fold strategy for maintaining public support for the ruling party, they say: tighten discipline internally, and play the nationalist card against outside forces.

The detention of Kevin Garratt, 54, and Julia Dawn Garratt, 53, might serve both general objectives, they say. The case has received ample media attention in the United States and elsewhere in the world.

(...EDITED)

 

[The Bread Guy]

2 updates on the 2 Canadians investigated for spying in China:

Yahoo News

Canadian Press via Yahoo News

With a touch of back-story from April of last year here.

 

[CougarKing]

This article from Jane's reporting on recommendations that China should plan on purchasing 400 Y-20 Heavy Transport planes (65t cargo).

It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out what these planes could be used for.

http://www.janes.com/article/41251/china-s-ndu-recommends-400-strong-y-20-fleet

Speaking of the Y-20s mentioned above:

Second flying Y-20 heavy transport sporting CFTE prototype number of 783

[China Defense Blog]

 

[a_majoor]

Building a web of railways and relationships. This is similar to Robert Kaplan's observation of the "String of Pearls" port facilities across the Indian Ocean; China seeks to get a large foot in the door, but not with an overt presence like forward military bases. Of course, a string of deep water ports that have been engineered and built with Chinese capital and a web of high speed rail lines *could* be used for other purposes as well...

http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/08/chinas-offers-southeast-asian-countries.html#more

China's offers southeast asian countries Canada and Mexico deal with the USA - an economic boost in exchange for economic, cultural and political domination

China wants to build thousands of miles of high speed rail and cargo rail track that will loop through Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia and head south to Singapore as part of a grand trans-Asian rail accord signed by nearly 20 Asian countries in 2006.

When the people of the mainland [southeast asian] countries soon find through the convenience of high-speed rail that Kunming is their closest neighbor but a few hours away, the Yunnan capital will eventually become, in effect, the capital of mainland Southeast Asia,” said Geoff Wade, a visiting fellow at the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University.

The gravitational pull of Southeast Asia toward China through its well-developed and relatively inexpensive high-speed rail technology was almost inevitable, despite opposition in some places, Mr. Wade said.

The fear of Chinese domination [in Myanmar] is pervasive. “The China railway project is a national security issue,” said U Than Htut Aung, the chief executive of Eleven Media, a group that publishes newspapers that have campaigned against the project. “Through the Sino-Myanmar railway, China can easily access the Indian Ocean, and Myanmar’s security would be threatened. Because of the rail, Myanmar could become a second Crimea.”

Japan, concerned about the economic strength of its archrival, China, across Southeast Asia, is presenting itself as an alternative benefactor. It has increased its investment in the region and targeted Myanmar with its largess, particularly in the rail projects that are so dear to China.



So confident is China that Myanmar will eventually sign up for the project, plans are going ahead to gouge an 18-mile rail tunnel out of the rugged Gaoligong Mountains that straddle the border with Myanmar and serve as the entry point to Yunnan Province and Kunming.

The engineering challenge of constructing the tunnel through the mountain range is similar to building on the permafrost in Tibet, said Wang Mengshu, a tunnel expert at the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Conduit for low cost chinese goods, Chinese tourists and for China buying Commodities

Myanmar will inevitably come to its senses and agree to the Chinese railway, said Zhu Zhenming, a professor at the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, and an expert on Southeast Asia, for the simple reason that it will serve as a conduit for even more Chinese goods on the Myanmar market.

“Poorer people cannot buy American goods, or Japanese goods,” he said. “Chinese goods are cheaper.”

CLSA, Asia’s leading and longest-running independent brokerage and investment group estimates that by 2020 outbound mainland tourist numbers will reach 200 million, double the 100 million who left China in 2013, and tourist spend will triple.

Fuelled by a fast-growing monied middle class eager to experience new destinations, travel is one of the top aspirations for China’s Billion Boomer* generation. The key driver is US$8,000 per-capita GDP as well as more annual leave, visa relaxation, worsening mainland pollution, and an increasingly overloaded domestic tourism infrastructure.

Hong Kong and Macau should continue to be the top international travel destinations but visitor numbers are estimated to decline from 62% to 45% of total outbound Chinese tourists as holidaymakers seek more exotic destinations.

The USA and France received 1.5 and 1.3 million mainland Chinese visitors respectively in 2012, the largest number on record. Survey respondents site both countries as their dream destinations and CLSA expects travel numbers to reach 5.7 million to the US and 3.9 million to France by 2020.

The cost of long-haul travel and limited annual leave will ensure Asian countries continue to benefit the most from mainland tourism growth. Survey respondents who plan to travel stated, in order of preference, Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore as their top destinations in the next three years.

While sightseeing, experiencing different cultures and relaxing are the top three reasons to travel; shopping remains an important component of the travel itinerary. Local specialties, skincare/makeup/perfume and apparel are the most purchased items with 80% of tourists buying from local specialty shops and close to 60% at downtown or airport duty free stores.