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American geopolitical expert sees South China Sea conflict

October 3, 2011 Comments off

philstar

Wikipedia

In his September-October 2011 Foreign Policy article (“The South China Sea is the future of conflict”) Robert D. Kaplan clearly outlined the importance of the South China Sea, which will make it the convergent point of conflict between the US and China.

A national security and geopolitics expert, Kaplan is the author of many books on these topics and is a member of the Defense Policy Board of the US Defense Department. The US Army’s Special Forces, the United States Marines, and the United States Air Force have tapped Kaplan as their consultant. Per Wikipedia, he also “lectured at the military war colleges, the FBI, the National Security Agency, the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, major universities, the CIA, and business forums, and has appeared on PBS, NPR, C-Span, and Fox News. He is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Kaplan explains: “Europe is a landscape; East Asia a Read more…

WHO reports polio outbreak in China, warns of spread

September 21, 2011 Comments off

reuters

Polio has broken out in China for the first time since 1999 after being imported from Pakistan, and there is a high risk of the crippling virus spreading further during the annual Haj pilgrimage, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.

Nine cases have been confirmed in China and polio is now considered to have spread nationwide in Pakistan, mainly due to insecurity that has halted vaccination campaigns in areas including the Khyber tribal region, a WHO spokesman said.

“The WHO rates as ‘high’ the risk of further international spread of wild polio virus from Pakistan, particularly given the expected large-scale population movements associated with Umra and the upcoming Haj…in the coming months,” the Geneva-based body said in a statement.

Haj is the main annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, which is due to start in November. Umra refers to other pilgrimages to Mecca, which can take place any time of the year.

MASS FISH DIE-OFF: Hundreds of Dead Fish in Pujiang, China!

September 16, 2011 Comments off

thealienproject

Two weeks ago, I told you about the death of millions of tons of fish in the river Min in China. A fish die-off that began on August 31 between the city of Huangton and Shuikou, culminating in early September along the Min River, where waves of dead fish turned up dead over hundreds of fish farms. Today, environmental watchdog groups began an investigation into a new case, after hundreds of dead fish were found floating in another local river.

A photograph, believed to have been uploaded online yesterday afternoon by a witness, showed the bodies of many small fish in Pujiang Town of Minhang District. This raised concerns of Read more…

Chinese troops land in frontier Kashmir region: report

September 15, 2011 Comments off

globalsecurity

IRNA – Islamic Republic News Agency

Srinagar, India, Sept 14, IRNA — A helicopter along with Chinese Frontier Guards has reportedly landed in a frontier region of Kashmir in what is seen by India as an offensive act and a possible case of intrusion.

Quoting sources, the CNN-IBN news channel reported on Tuesday night that Chinese helicopter landed in Chumur area near the Line of actual Control in Ladakh region of Kashmir.

The report further said that Chinese Frontier Guards who are known to have helicopters have also been seen in the area.

An unconfirmed report said two Chinese helicopters, along with seven to eight troopers on board, landed in the area and Read more…

Categories: China, India Tags: , ,

China: US Playing With Fire

September 12, 2011 2 comments

the-diplomat.com

China ramped up the pressure on the United States not to sell advanced arms to Taiwan, with the Communist Party’s official newspaper warning that US congressmen are ‘playing with fire’ over the issue.

The Obama administration is set to decide by the end of this month whether to agree to Taiwanese requests for upgraded versions of the F-16 fighter, which the island sees as essential for countering China’s military build-up across the Taiwan Strait. But China has objected strongly to previous sales, including one worth $6.4 billion in January last year that prompted Beijing to break off high-level military ties with Washington.
In a commentary written under the pen Read more…

China to build world’s biggest airport

September 10, 2011 Comments off

telegraph

Beijing has started construction on a new mega-airport that will be roughly the size of Bermuda and have nine runways.

 Beijing already has China’s largest airport, Beijing Capital International Airport Photo: ALAMY

When Beijing Daxing International airport opens in 2015, the Chinese capital will become the world’s busiest aviation hub, handling around 370,000 passengers a day.

It is only three years since the opening of Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital Airport, a sweeping structure designed by Sir Norman Foster that is far bigger than all of Heathrow’s five terminals combined.

But an enormous boom in China’s aviation industry has already left the capital’s existing facilities stretched to breaking point. “It is impossible to add even one more flight to the tight daily schedule of the Capital airport,” said Li Jiaxing, the minister in charge of China’s Civil Aviation Administration.

“The existing airport in Beijing has an annual capacity of Read more…

Wikileaks Discloses The Reason(s) Behind China’s Shadow Gold Buying Spree

September 4, 2011 3 comments

zerohedge.com

Wondering why gold at $1850 is cheap, or why gold at double that price will also be cheap, or frankly at any price? Because, as the following leaked cable explains, gold is, to China at least, nothing but the opportunity cost of destroying the dollar’s reserve status. Putting that into dollar terms is, therefore, impractical at best, and illogical at worst. We have a suspicion that the following cable from the US embassy in China is about to go not viral but very much global, and prompt all those mutual fund managers who are on the golden sidelines to dip a toe in the 24 karat pool. The only thing that matters from China’s perspective is that “suppressing the price of gold is very beneficial for the U.S. in maintaining the U.S. dollar’s role as the Read more…

Is China Planning a Surprise Missile Attack?

September 2, 2011 1 comment

worldaffairsjournal

A retired Chinese general recently revealed that his country might be planning a surprise missile attack on the United States. The public comment of Xu Guangyu came in response to WikiLeaks revelations that last year Washington had warned its allies beforehand of China’s test of a missile interceptor.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a classified cable sent last January 9th, instructed American embassies in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand to notify those countries of upcoming Chinese launches two days later. The cable included details of the launch sites for the interceptor and the target, the models of Read more…

Categories: China Tags: , ,

Chinese warship confronts Indian naval ship: Report

September 2, 2011 4 comments

ibnlive.in.com

New Delhi: The Indian and Chinese navies were involved in a face-off in the disputed South China Sea. A Chinese warship confronted an Indian naval vessel as it left Vietnamese waters in July but the Indian Navy has denied the reports.

According to reports a Chinese warship, which remains unidentified, confronted India’s INS Airawat, an amphibious assault vessel, and asked the ship to identify itself and explain its presence in the South China. London-based Financial Times reported that the Indian warship was in international waters after completing a scheduled port call in Vietnam.

Government sources told CNN-IBN that the incident took place on July 22 when INS Airavat ship was 45 nautical miles from the Read more…

Categories: China, India Tags: , , ,

China Analyst: U.S. Can’t Win in Space, So Why Bother Racing?

August 31, 2011 1 comment

wired.com

With access to more than 400 satellites plus at least two tiny, maneuverable robotic shuttles, the U.S. military is the clear leader in military spacecraft. But with 70 orbiters of its own, China is catching up fast. Last year, Beijing matched Washington in space launches for the first time, boosting no fewer than 15 satellites into orbit. It was the first time any nation kept a celestial pace with the U.S. since the height of the Cold War.

The new space race is on. But in the view of one influential analyst, the race isn’t worth the prize. Space “is expensive to enter, hard to sustain assets in, contains no defensive ground, and — barring energy-intensive maneuvering  – forces assets into predictable orbits,” Andrew Erickson, a Naval War College professor and editor of the new book Chinese Aerospace Power, told me as part of a longer interview over at AOL Defense.

No one disputes that China is gaining “ground” in space. The [People’s Liberation Army] is acquiring a range of Read more…