Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[retiredgrunt45]

Who said the cold war was over?

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9dba9ba2-5a3b-11dc-9bcd-0000779fd2ac.html

By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington

Published: September 3 2007 19:00 | Last updated: September 3 2007 20:53

The Chinese military hacked into a Pentagon computer network in June in the most successful cyber attack on the US defence department, say American ­officials.

The Pentagon acknowledged shutting down part of a computer system serving the office of Robert Gates, defence secretary, but declined to say who it believed was behind the attack.

Current and former officials have told the Financial Times an internal investigation has revealed that the incursion came from the People’s Liberation Army.

One senior US official said the Pentagon had pinpointed the exact origins of the attack. Another person familiar with the event said there was a “very high level of confidence...trending towards total certainty” that the PLA was responsible. The defence ministry in Beijing declined to comment on Monday.

Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, raised reports of Chinese infiltration of German government computers with Wen Jiabao, China’s premier, in a visit to Beijing, after which the Chinese foreign ministry said the government opposed and forbade “any criminal acts undermining computer systems, including hacking”.

“We have explicit laws and regulations in this regard,” said Jiang Yu, from the ministry. “Hacking is a global issue and China is frequently a victim.”

George W. Bush, US president, is due to meet Hu Jintao, China’s president, on Thursday in Australia prior to the Apec summit.

The PLA regularly probes US military networks – and the Pentagon is widely assumed to scan Chinese networks – but US officials said the penetration in June raised concerns to a new level because of fears that China had shown it could disrupt  systems at critical times.

“The PLA has demonstrated the ability to conduct attacks that disable our system...and the ability in a conflict situation to re-enter and disrupt on a very large scale,” said a former official, who said the PLA had penetrated the networks of US defence companies and think-tanks.

Hackers from numerous locations in China spent several months probing the Pentagon system before overcoming its defences, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Pentagon took down the network for more than a week while the attacks continued, and is to conduct a comprehensive diagnosis. “These are multiple wake-up calls stirring us to levels of more aggressive vigilance,” said Richard Lawless, the Pentagon’s top Asia official at the time of the attacks.

The Pentagon is still investigating how much data was downloaded, but one person with knowledge of the attack said most of the information was probably “unclassified”. He said the event had forced officials to reconsider the kind of information they send over unsecured e-mail systems.

John Hamre, a Clinton-era deputy defence secretary involved with cyber security, said that while he had no knowledge of the June attack, criminal groups sometimes masked cyber attacks to make it appear they came from government computers in a particular country.

The National Security Council said the White House had created a team of experts to consider whether the administration needed to restrict the use of BlackBerries because of concerns about cyber espionage.

Additional reporting by Richard McGregor in Beijing

To contact the reporter email demetri.sevastopulo@ft.com

 

[LakeSup]

"The National Security Council said the White House had created a team of experts to consider whether the administration needed to restrict the use of BlackBerries because of concerns about cyber espionage"
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

That's one I have never been able to figure out:  Why the US Govt and Armed Forces, police, politicians, bureaucrats..everyone uses Rim Blackberry service with servers in Waterloo Ont.  If you've ever been to U of W, which is basically a campus of Rim as far as the engineering Dept goes,  there are a lot of foreign national students working there......I'm just sayin'

 

[a_majoor]

Chinese work on space weaponry continues. Just as in the past when the USSR tested weapons in space, there is silence from the Left:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8SETSN80&show_article=1

China to test space weapon in launching moon satellite: rights group+  

Oct 23 07:41 AM US/Eastern
 
HONG KONG, Oct. 23 (AP) - (Kyodo)—A Chinese submarine will send test signals that could change the course of a satellite when China launches its first moon orbiter, as part of the country's effort to develop space war technology, a human rights watchdog said Tuesday.

The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said two survey ships are deployed in the South Pacific Ocean and South Atlantic Ocean to send signals to maneuver the lunar exploration satellite, expected to be launched Wednesday. At the same time, a nuclear-powered submarine will send simulated signals to the satellite as a test, it said in a statement.

Once the satellite-maneuvering technology matures, the group said, China would have the know-how to destroy other satellites in space in wartime. China could launch cheaply-made weapon-carrying objects into space and change their courses to destroy or damage satellites of other countries by sending signals from submarines, the center said.

China shocked the world in January by firing a missile at an old weather satellite without notifying anyone in advance, showing off its anti-satellite weaponry and its ability to shoot down satellites without being immediately noticed.

Hong Kong's media reported that a rocket that will carry the satellite was being fueled up, banners of greetings on the successful launch were prepared and farmers living near the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, in mid-western China's Sichuan Province, will be evicted one hour ahead of the launch.

China plans to launch the satellite around 6 p.m. Wednesday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Monday, quoting a spokesman of the China National Space Administration. The satellite is named Chang'e I after the legendary Chinese goddess who, according to legend, flew to the moon.

China's space industry enjoyed its first major success after astronaut Yang Liwei reentered Earth after 21 hours in space in 2003 in the spacecraft Shenzhou 5, marking China's first successful manned space mission.

A second manned space mission was successfully concluded in 2005 after astronauts Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng finished orbiting the Earth for five days in the spacecraft Shenzhou 6.

 

[Greymatters]

Cougarshark, excellent article on dysfunction in China, nice find!

 

[MarkOttawa]

Gates in Beijing for Talks on Military Buildup
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/world/asia/05gates.html?ref=todayspaper

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived Sunday in Beijing to begin two days of talks with senior leaders, and Pentagon officials said he planned to press for a more open dialogue on China’s military while discussing ways to build trust and cooperation.

“I don’t consider China at this point a military threat to the United States,” Mr. Gates said before he left for China.

“I have concerns with a variety of military programs that they have under way,” he added. “I have concern with the lack of transparency. And those are the kinds of issues that we will be talking about, in addition to how we can strengthen the relationship.”

Senior Defense Department officials say China has undertaken an aggressive military modernization campaign that will result in more submarines, surface warships and combat aircraft able to challenge foreign armed forces across the region.

But the Chinese military operates in ways that are far more opaque than Western armed forces, Pentagon officials say, leaving the United States uncertain about the exact size of China’s military budget or its long-range military goals.

“What does the military buildup mean for us and the rest of the region?” a senior Defense Department official said, speaking anonymously because he was commenting in advance on high-level meetings, as he described issues Mr. Gates planned to discuss with his hosts.

According to Pentagon statistics, the official Chinese military budget grew by almost 18 percent this year. But Pentagon officials say that figure does not represent the nation’s entire spending on national security...

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived Sunday in Beijing to begin two days of talks with senior leaders, and Pentagon officials said he planned to press for a more open dialogue on China’s military while discussing ways to build trust and cooperation.

“I don’t consider China at this point a military threat to the United States,” Mr. Gates said before he left for China.

“I have concerns with a variety of military programs that they have under way,” he added. “I have concern with the lack of transparency. And those are the kinds of issues that we will be talking about, in addition to how we can strengthen the relationship.”

Senior Defense Department officials say China has undertaken an aggressive military modernization campaign that will result in more submarines, surface warships and combat aircraft able to challenge foreign armed forces across the region.

But the Chinese military operates in ways that are far more opaque than Western armed forces, Pentagon officials say, leaving the United States uncertain about the exact size of China’s military budget or its long-range military goals.

“What does the military buildup mean for us and the rest of the region?” a senior Defense Department official said, speaking anonymously because he was commenting in advance on high-level meetings, as he described issues Mr. Gates planned to discuss with his hosts.

According to Pentagon statistics, the official Chinese military budget grew by almost 18 percent this year. But Pentagon officials say that figure does not represent the nation’s entire spending on national security...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[CougarKing]

Mainland China/the PRC's being able to put a man on the Moon is closer than you think. Placing a Taikonaut (the PRC term, as opposed to Astronauts or Cosmonauts) on the moon will, in the eyes of the CCP, help solidify/symbolize to the whole world that China is not only a superpower, but one almost on par with the United States, since the Russians have not reached the moon, placing the Chinese one notch higher.

China One Step Closer to Planting Flag on Moon
It’s kind of funny that on the same day we posted a piece on the pros and cons of American space weapons, the Chinese flew its first survey satellite of the moon into lunar orbit.


From the AP:

A Chinese satellite successfully entered lunar orbit Monday, a month after rival Japan put its own probe into orbit around the moon, but Chinese officials denied there was any competition between the two nations.

Chinese space officials said the Chang'e 1 satellite, part of the country's ambitious space exploration plans, entered lunar orbit after completing a planned braking operation.

China plans to keep the Chang'e 1 — named after a mythical Chinese goddess who flew to the moon — there for one year, about the same length of time as Japan's probe. China launched its satellite late last month, while Japan put its into space in September.

The timing of the launches raises the prospect of a space rivalry between the two Asian nations, with India possibly joining in if it carries through on a plan to send its own lunar probe into space in April.

But Long Jiang, deputy commander of spacecraft systems of China's lunar exploration program, said Beijing wanted to use its space program to work with other countries.

It also was perfectly timed to coincide with a visit by U.S. defense chief Robert Gates, who was forced to be conciliatory in his remarks on the development. According to the AP he congratulated China’s achievement, saying “it’s a clear credit to Chinese industry and innovation” (as long as they’re not using lead paint).

More AP:

"We are willing to cooperate with the rest of the world to the benefit of humankind, but as to what kind of cooperation, it depends on specific circumstances," Long told a news conference.

The Chang'e 1 blasted off on top of a Long March 3A rocket on Oct. 24 from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province in southwestern China.

"All of the subsystems of the Chang'e 1 are in normal operation so far," said Pei Zhaoyu, spokesman for the China National Space Administration.

The Chang'e 1 has survived the most critical part of its journey, Pei said. It had to enter the moon's orbit at the right time and speed, otherwise it could have hit the moon or flown by it.

He said the satellite's success was a sign of China's advanced engineering. "The project is a comprehensive demonstration of China's economic, scientific and technological power."

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is on a two-day visit to China, commended China's Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan over the lunar mission.

"I congratulate him and the people of China on this achievement. It's clearly a credit to Chinese industry and innovation," Gates said.

The lunar mission adds depth to a Chinese space program that has sent astronauts orbiting the Earth twice in the past four years.

Chang'e 1 is the first step of a three-stage moon mission. In about 2012 China plans an unmanned lunar landing with a rover. In the third phase, about five years later, another rover is to land on the moon and be returned to Earth with lunar soil and stone samples.

China plans a new generation of more powerful Long March 5 rockets able to lift more weight to the moon — and possibly a manned mission — but Pei told the news conference these wouldn't be used until after 2012, missing the second phase.

According to Japanese news reports last week, Japan plans to send an unmanned probe to land on the moon by 2015.

It would cost about $437 million and consist of an unmanned lander, a rover to study the lunar surface and a small satellite to transfer data, according to the Asahi and Mainichi newspapers.

Chang'e 1's goal is to analyze the chemical and mineral composition of the lunar surface. It will use stereo cameras and X-ray spectrometers to map three-dimensional images of the surface and study the moon's dust.

The 5,070-pound satellite is expected to transmit its first photo back to China late this month.

China sent its first satellite into Earth orbit in the 1970s but the space program only seriously took off in the 1980s, growing apace with the country's booming economy.

In 2003, China became only the third country in the world after the United States and Russia to put its own astronauts into space.

But China also alarmed the international community in January when it destroyed an old satellite with a land-based anti-satellite missile.

I tend to think it’s kind of cute that the Chinese are just now getting into lunar exploration. I’ve been watching the Discovery Channel special on the upcoming mission to Mars, and the challenges are so far beyond what the Chinese are now attempting, it’s staggering.

And the specter of some Chinese military moon base, bristling with laser weapons and nukes pointed at New York is at best far fetched.

America’s space race and launch to the moon was an amazingly maturing phenomenon for the country, maybe it can do the same for China ... and India.

-- Christian

 

[MarkOttawa]

Result:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2007/11/06/2003386411

China and the US agreed yesterday to open a military hotline as US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates held talks in Beijing that aimed to strengthen ties overshadowed by distrust...

Forty-four years ago:
http://www.state.gov/t/ac/trt/4785.htm

Mark
Ottawa

 

[a_majoor]

The technology to fly to the moon is pretty straight forward, although the scale is quite large (watch "Apollo 13"  to see the size of the Saturn V launch vehicle, or consider a Space Shuttle stack is putting out Gigawatts of energy as it lifts off the pad). Robert A Heinlein was writing about moon landings in the 1950's using known technologies of that time, and Werner Von Braun had a plausible Mars mission mapped out in the 1950's as well.

The real issue isn't technological prowess; Indian engineers are pretty sharp and I am pretty sure they will be able to reach the moon with their probe as well; rather it is political will. Since the amount of energy needed to reach the moon is so immense, the problem does not scale down very well (even the tiny US Clementine probe needed a Titan 23B booster to get there), so it will be a long time before private operators will be able to launch probes (much less men) to the Moon. Only governments have the resources to do this sort of thing on the scale required.

Given the fleet of ships heading to the Moon, American pride might demand they join in, or even accelerate current plans to put the ARES into production. On the other hand, without strong public support, the American civilian space effort will wither on the vine and we may end up seeing the only US manned space presence being USMC "SUSTAIN" units on their way to some hot spot.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The thing about space is that making the first step is what takes all the energy, breaking free of the atmosphere and gravity of Earth is what takes all the power. Once you are out there, the amount of power required is fairly minimal. Depending on the timeframe for the trip from point A-B, you can use a low power constant source engine like the Ion drive. Of course for manned space flight, time is of the essence, time equals, fuel, food, water, O2, waste and radiation/low gravity effects.

If some of the ideas like the space elevator or magnetic rail launcher become feasible then the major obstacle to space will be overcome. Both of these technologies require positioning near the equator, so certain countries might do very well out of this new space age.

 

[CougarKing]

Before taikonaut PLAAF Colonel Yang Liwei can go back into space and perhaps plant the PRC flag on the moon, perhaps the US will get there first. Here's an article describing the possible American plan(s) for a settlement/permanent base.

http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,157069,00.html?wh=wh

The Lunar Base: How to Settle the Moon
Popular Mechanics | Thomas D. Jones | November 27, 2007
     
Moderate temperatures, nearly perpetual sunshine, flat landing areas and subterranean resources make the rim of the Shackleton Crater -- situated within the solar system's largest impact crater -- an ideal location for a lunar homestead, down near the moon's south pole. NASA hopes to send the first pioneers there by 2020.

"Hardscrabble" was what future president Ulysses S. Grant named his ramshackle homestead on the pre-Civil War Missouri frontier. That might be an apt title for NASA's planned lunar outpost, for its residents will find the moon a harsh place to settle. Survival will depend on their ability to evade micrometeoroids, extract oxygen from rocks and even, like Grant, grow wheat.

The space agency announced its strategy to return to the moon last December. Instead of emulating the series of six Apollo landings, it chose as its initial goal the establishment of a single lunar outpost. Using the new crew exploration vehicle, Orion, NASA plans to send four astronauts to the moon as early as 2020 ("Mission: Moon," March '07). Eventually, four-man crews will rotate home every six months. Their goal will be to live off the land, extend scientific exploration and practice for an eventual leap to Mars.

The moon, says NASA, is the place to get our space-suited hands dirty. "The lunar base is part of an overall plan that has legs, that makes sense," says Wendell Mendell, chief of the Office of Lunar and Planetary Exploration at Johnson Space Center. "We're moving the human species out into the solar system."

Choosing a Homestead

The Apollo landings from 1969 to 1972 were restricted by fuel limitations to destinations fairly close to the lunar equator. This time, NASA is drawn to the practical and scientific attractions of the lunar poles. Temperature is one factor: At the poles, the sun's slanting rays produce a moderate daylight range of minus 22 to minus 58 F, compared to the equatorial high of 270 F.

But the real advantage of the poles is access to resources. Near the south pole, for example, some high crater rims are bathed in nearly constant sunshine. Sun-tracking solar arrays placed there would provide steady power and charge storage batteries to supply electricity during the brief periods of darkness.

An even more valuable resource may lie in the craters' depths. Spacecraft data suggest they could harbor hundreds of millions of metric tons of water ice, accumulated from billions of years of comet impacts. Using a simple electric heater, robot ice miners could free water for drinking and agriculture. Electrolysis could break it down further, supplying oxygen for breathing and hydrogen fuel for moon-to-Earth transportation.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, to be launched late next year, will search for ice just beneath the moon’s surface. Another mission, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, will crash a spacecraft into one of the lunar poles in early 2009 and analyze the debris plume for water and other chemical compounds.

If the moon proves to be dry, which ground-based radar suggests, oxygen can still be pried out of lunar volcanic rock. Combining hydrogen gas brought from Earth with the mineral ilmenite, then heating the mixture to 1652 F, produces iron, titanium dioxide and water. Other chemical processes can also release oxygen from rocks, given enough heat and electricity. Lawrence Taylor, director of the Planetary Geosciences Institute at the University of Tennessee, is developing a magnetic "vacuum" hose, designed to suck lunar dirt into a dumptruck or pipeline leading to an oxygen extraction plant.

At first, the power for these industrial processes would come from lightweight solar arrays. A compact nuclear reactor, tucked safely into a shallow crater away from living quarters, might be needed later.

The south pole is also attractive scientifically. It lies within the South Pole-Aitken Basin, the largest impact crater in the solar system. This 7.5-mile-deep, 1500-mile-wide depression, gouged out by a titanic asteroid or comet impact, should harbor bedrock excavated from deep within the lunar crust. Mike Duke, a retired NASA scientist, suspects that it also holds samples of impact melts -- igneous rocks formed from the collision's molten splash. Examining those rocks would open a window into the moon’s ancient history.

Living on a Hostile Moon

How will residents cope with the hazards littering this airless, blasted body? Arriving crews will unload pressurized habitation modules, like those on the International Space Station (ISS), or perhaps inflate living spaces made of a tough, Kevlar-like fabric. For protection from cosmic rays and micrometeoroids, the pioneers could bury their habitats in trenches or heap lunar soil over them. With no atmosphere or magnetic field to shield them, as on Earth or Mars, lunar explorers will need to retreat to these shelters during a solar flare's deadly shower of charged protons. A lucky find might be a lava cave to insulate the living quarters.

Exploring the surface will require a better space suit than the one I used as an astronaut to help assemble the ISS in 2001. That suit was too stiff at the waist for easy walking or bending, and its fiberglass torso and bulky life-support backpack made it top-heavy. The old Apollo suits wouldn't cut it, either: The gloves were clumsy, even painful after prolonged use, and the suits so stiff in the waist and knees that crews found it nearly impossible to reach for a rock.

Dean Eppler, a senior scientist at Science Applications International, a private firm in Houston, has spent hundreds of hours in prototype space suits, working out the kinks. "The moon suit is a work in progress," Eppler says, but "compared to Apollo's, it will have more flexibility for walking, bending and grabbing stuff off the ground, and be much more intuitive to work in." Lighter electronics and improved life-support systems should keep the weight between 150 and 200 pounds, just 25 to 35 pounds in lunar one-sixth gravity.

Future explorers will also need an improved version of the Apollo lunar rover, which two astronauts could drive about 40 miles before its silver-zinc batteries were exhausted. A new model might use solar rechargeable batteries, or electricity from hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells.

Both space suits and machines will have to cope with lunar dust: gritty, sharp-edged, and murder on seals and bearings. Engineers hope to use electromagnetic filters and shielding systems to prevent dust from working into critical components. Taylor is also developing a microwave-powered paving machine capable of reducing damage by turning lunar soil into hard landing pads or roads.

To minimize the number of costly cargo shipments, the outpost will need efficient recycling technology.

Wastewater, including urine, will be returned to a drinkable state using systems soon to be tested on the ISS. Carbon dioxide will be removed from the atmosphere using a catalytic scrubber that recovers some oxygen. But a lunar greenhouse will offer the biggest benefit. A few plants have been grown experimentally on the ISS, but never on a scale large enough to produce usable oxygen or food. The moon’s steady polar sunlight would be ideal for greenhouse agriculture. Chris Brown, a plant biology professor at North Carolina State University, leads a group that has been experimenting with ways to grow lunar-ready white potatoes, soybeans and wheat.

"Plants doing photosynthesis are fundamental to life on Earth," Brown says. "That same system should enable us to colonize other worlds." The brightly lit greenhouse at the U.S. Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station is popular with those wintering over in Antarctica, providing humidity, fresh food and visual relief from the six-month-long night. A greenhouse, coupled with radio and TV contact with Earth, might be just the tonic for lunar pioneers living a quarter-million miles from home.

Big Plans, Tight Budgets

Congress has endorsed NASA's lunar goals, but has not provided much money to get the effort moving. The space station and Orion have taken priority over research for outpost technology, space agriculture, advanced life support, nuclear power, rovers and the crucial robot precursors. There's also no guarantee that Congress will approve NASA's big-ticket hardware: the Ares V heavy cargo rocket and the Orion lunar lander.

Funding may well prove the biggest hurdle. "We know how to explore the moon," says geologist and Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison H. Schmitt. "In fact, we are far, far better prepared to explore this nearby body … than were Lewis and Clark as they planned to head west into the new Louisiana Territory. We must go back."   

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The bright side of having the Chinese land on the moon is that very shortly thereafter they will open a restaurant on the moon and the US astronauts can eat there, just bring cash...... ;D

 

[CougarKing]

Thoughts of orange chicken and dumplings being served on the Sea of Tranquility on the Moon aside, here's a little update which states that the latest "cyberattack" on a US nuclear weapons lab may have originated in China.

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,157961,00.html?wh=news

China Tied to Cyberattack on U.S. Lab
International Herlad Tribune  |  December 11, 2007
A cyberattack reported last week by one of the U.S. government's nuclear weapons laboratories may have originated in China, according to a confidential memorandum distributed to public and private security officials by the Department of Homeland Security.

Security researchers said the memorandum, which was obtained by a reporter from an executive at a private company, included a list of Web and Internet addresses that were linked to locations in China.

But they noted that such links did not prove that the Chinese government or Chinese citizens were involved in the attacks. In the past, intruders have compromised computers in China and then used them to disguise their true location.

Officials at the lab, Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, said the attacks did not compromise classified information, though they acknowledged that they were still working to understand the full extent of the intrusion.

The Department of Homeland Security distributed the confidential warning to computer security officials on Wednesday after what it described as a set of "sophisticated attempts" to compromise computers used by the private sector and the government.

Government computer security officials said the warning, which was issued by the United States Computer Emergency Response Team, known as US-Cert, was related to an attack in October that was also disclosed last week by officials at the Oak Ridge laboratory.

According to a letter to employees written by the laboratory's director, Thom Mason, an unknown group of attackers sent targeted e- mail messages to roughly 1,100 employees as part of the ruse.

"At this point, we have determined that the thieves made approximately 1,100 attempts to steal data with a very sophisticated strategy that involved sending staff a total of seven 'phishing' e- mails, all of which at first glance appeared legitimate," he wrote in an e-mail message sent to employees last Monday.

"At present we believe that about 11 staff opened the attachments, which enabled the hackers to infiltrate the system and remove data."

In a statement posted on the laboratory's Web site, the agency stated: "The original e-mail and first potential corruption occurred on October 29, 2007. We have reason to believe that data was stolen from a database used for visitors to the Laboratory."

The laboratory said the attackers were able to gain access to a database containing personal information about visitors to the laboratory going back to 1990.

The US-Cert advisory, which was not made public, stated: "The level of sophistication and the scope of these cybersecurity incidents indicate that they are coordinated and targeted at private sector systems."

The US-Cert memo referred to the use of e-mail messages that fool employees into clicking on documents that then permit attackers to plant programs in their computers.

These programs are then able to copy and forward specific data - like passwords - to remote locations.

 

[Blackadder1916]

China Scouts Colleges to Fill Ranks of Modern Army
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/16/AR2007121602056_pf.html

By Maureen Fan Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, December 17, 2007

BEIJING -- The fliers circulating last month on the campuses of China's most prestigious universities showed three soldiers positioned against a Chinese flag and an appeal that read in part: "Carry Your Pen to the Army to Become More Accomplished."

In ancient times, the phrase was "Throw Away Your Pen and Join the Army," a challenge to China's intellectuals to stop wasting time and help defend the country. Now, the People's Liberation Army is recruiting college students in an ambitious modernization program designed to attract smart soldiers who can handle sophisticated equipment and transform the 2.3 million-strong force into a high-tech adversary.

"With the rise of China, China needs a powerful army," said Tan Zhenwen, a junior at Tsinghua University in Beijing who recently headed to Guangdong province to join the South China Sea Fleet. " . . . I don't worry about the low social status of soldiers. With more and more college students joining the army, the situation is changing and getting better."

While China's rising diplomatic power has helped fuel a desire for a more professional army, military commanders also need highly educated soldiers to maintain the "information-based" military power that has become increasingly important -- both internationally and as a means to dissuade Taiwan from declaring independence.

Domestically, the army already has come a long way. A military that 18 years ago was most readily associated with the shooting of protesters in Tiananmen Square is increasingly helping in relief efforts after floods and other natural disasters. The army has also been the driving force behind recent achievements in space exploration.

In a speech in August marking the 80th anniversary of the army, President Hu Jintao called for accelerated modernization of weapons and equipment, enhanced personnel training and strengthening of combat capabilities through technology.

One of the most important aspects of the modernization is a huge effort to shed the impoverished farmhands who have traditionally signed on as a way to ensure three solid meals a day. The once-bloated force had 4.2 million people two decades ago but has gradually reduced its infantry. It has, however, increased the number of personnel who serve in the navy, air force and Second Artillery Corps, which maintains China's nuclear missiles.

The army now advertises itself as an opportunity for young people to acquire technical skills and experience not easily attained in the private sector. This year, for the first time, the army took out full-page advertisements in newspapers. The ads featured an astronaut, a naval college professor and Peking University's first recruit since its students began signing up in 2005.

Six years ago, 26 universities produced roughly 1,400 army recruits through a special government program similar to the U.S. military's Reserve Officers' Training Corps, or ROTC. This year, the program has grown to include 110 universities, and officials hope to recruit 11,000 students, including some majoring in philosophy, law and medicine.

"Compared with the private sector, army salaries are not very high. But in recent years, the army has increased the salary for soldiers and officers," said Li Shengqiang, an officer at the army's Beijing Recruitment Office. "Because the army is trying to equip itself with advanced weapons and equipment, the quality and knowledge of soldiers has become correspondingly higher. . . . In the 1980s, primary school graduates could join the army. But now, no way."

Recruits are lured by financial incentives and programs that allow students to return to university after two years in the army with preferential standing for graduate school. Officials have introduced psychological tests to weed out unsuitable candidates and imposed penalties for ineligible applicants who try to bribe their way in. Also this year, for the first time candidates who want to be air force pilots must pass a language test in English or Russian.

Undergraduates from outside Beijing may be offered Beijing residency, an important perk, in exchange for two years of service, according to a proposal now under discussion, said another recruitment official who spoke on condition of anonymity because a decision has not been announced.

For Zhou Hao, 20, a third-year journalism student at Tsinghua University, joining the army had been a childhood dream. He was unaware that university students were eligible until he spotted a recruitment poster and discovered financial rewards for signing up. Last week he headed off to join the Second Artillery Group in Chuxiong city, Yunnan province.

"I prefer to work for the government after I graduate, and I think my experience in the army will help me to get a position," Zhou said. "I don't think I really give up anything for the army. But one thing is that more eyes will look at you. So, there must be more pressure, which will force me to do my best."

China's growing military budget has generated intense debate in Washington, where some analysts believe China's defense spending is much higher than the $45.3 billion officially earmarked.

Whatever the amount, one Beijing-based military expert added that some of that money is going toward China's military education system.

"We didn't use all those funds just for missiles or defense" but also for "better welfare" for troops, the expert said, noting that more than $1 million has been spent recently on uniforms.

"Maybe five years ago IBM had the most advantage. Most students wouldn't have joined the army. But now the situation is different," he said. "The army now offers higher salaries, higher status than before and more opportunities for advancement. If you wore the uniform before, maybe you couldn't get a girlfriend. Now, even that's different."

In addition, with an increasingly competitive job market, a growing number of college graduates are finding it difficult to secure a stable job with a good salary. Many are beginning to think two years of army experience will give them advantages over other candidates. Others worry that their lives are too comfortable and that they're unprepared for the world.

"Most young people my age have only focused on their studies since childhood. We are relatively delicate and fragile," said Jia Na, 21, a journalism student at Tsinghua University. "When you enter society, there are even bigger hardships. If I join the army and experience hardship, I will be well-prepared to face challenges in society."

Jia, from Shanxi province, is the first from her peasant family to attend university. She signed up after speaking with another Tsinghua student who had returned to campus after two years in the army.

"A teacher who knew him before said he had changed a lot in two years. I found his attitude to be serious and precise and his stories about the army impressed me," Jia said. "He said the labor in the last two years was more than all the work he'd done in his first 18 years of life."

Last week she packed her bags and headed for an East China Sea Fleet base in Zhejiang province, taking jeans, a sweater and a few books. She left behind her makeup, most of her clothes, her computer and her MP3 player.

Researcher Zhang Jie contributed to this report.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The PLA has been undergoing its own transformation for several years. The ‘good old days’ of a mass, peasant army are gone and unlamented. China’s ‘new model army’ is small (by Chinese standards), sophisticated (technical) and professional.

But, there is an important, perceived by officialdom – even by ‘young’ (forty-something) officials – need to do one of the things the PLA did in the ‘good old days’: instil a sense of national pride and a memory of the ‘revolution’ in all Chinese, especially the young and the non-Han population.

With regard to the specific issue of recruiting on universities: I think the PLA has undergone some sorts of crises which have led the leadership to the same sorts of conclusions we came to circa 1997 in the wake of the Somalia Inquiry. 

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Hopefully they did not adopt the "Grandfather" traditions from the Russians. The Chinese are well on the way to moderizing their army, but I suspect the Russians are to hobbled by outdated methods to make much headway.

 

[CougarKing]

The PLA has been undergoing its own transformation for several years. The ‘good old days’ of a mass, peasant army are gone and unlamented. China’s ‘new model army’ is small (by Chinese standards), sophisticated (technical) and professional.

But, there is an important, perceived by officialdom – even by ‘young’ (forty-something) officials – need to do one of the things the PLA did in the ‘good old days’: instil a sense of national pride and a memory of the ‘revolution’ in all Chinese, especially the young and the non-Han population.

With regard to the specific issue of recruiting on universities: I think the PLA has undergone some sorts of crises which have led the leadership to the same sorts of conclusions we came to circa 1997 in the wake of the Somalia Inquiry. 

Campbell,
The "good old days" of the grassroots-based peasant guerrila army you mean is called "People's War" or Renmin de Zhan as explained in Mao's "red book"; Sinologists like David Shambaugh explain how the latest CMC and General Staff Department officers have reevaluated "People's War" and updated it to modern military methods, to the new doctrine of "Local War under High-tech conditions".

As for leadership crises, the PLA indeed has gone through crises in the past where it found itself sacrificing professionalism to satisfy the requirement of loyalty to the party.  If you read Shambaugh's work on the PLA, you will see that today the influence of the commissars of the General Political Department (GPD) has waned, with these commissars now focused on providing for the more practical needs of the troops such as on-base housing, as opposed to the weekly local party members' meetings.   :

An example of this is demonstrated during the harsh times of the "Great Leap Forward" which saw millions of Chinese people starved to death, PLA Marshal Peng De Huai, the battle-hardened-commander of PLA troops in the Korean War, was so appalled by the suffering he saw that he actually threatened Mao and the Politburo. Peng said that he would actually take his troops to the mountains and wage a guerrila war against Mao and the Party/State if he didn't do anything to alleviate the situation.

Yet another example is Marshal Lin Biao, one of the PLA's best tactical commanders during the guerrila war days against the Nationalist and the Japanese through the 30s and the 40s, as well as the continuation war of 1945-49 which saw the Reds overthrow the Nationalists. Lin Biao's story in some ways parallels that of German Wehrmacht General/Field Marshal Erwin Rommel of WW2 Nazi Germany, since official Chinese sources for many years put the blame of a possible attempted coup in the late 60s on Lin Biao. It was one way to explain why the Marshal and his family had been escaping aboard a plane to Soviet/Mongolian territory and were supposedly shot down by PLAAF planes or AA fire before they could escape.

Furthemore, even in the current generation of GSD and CMC leaders, political reliability is still one of the premier qualifications for promotion, since the membership of the most recent CMC included General Liang Guanglie, who commanded the 54th Group Army that helped suppress the Tiananmen Square student movement, along with the notorious 38th Group Army whose units led the assault. Another general named Liao Xilong commanded the forces that put down some Tibetan rebels in Lhasa between 1990-1992.; General Guo Boxiong also proved his political loyalty at the helm of the 47th Group Army by putting down some Uighur seperatists in Xinjiang. (43-65, Flanagan)

With all these examples in PLA history in mind, it would be premature to conclude that the PLA is now closer to the goal of satisfying the process of dang-jun fen kai or the process of making the PLA supposedly more professional through making the influence of the CCP on the PLA less potent than the influence of the State as a whole.


Sources: Flanagan, Stephen J. and Marti, Michael E., et al eds. The People s Liberation Army and China in Transition
              Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 2003 (.)

             Nathan, Andrew and Gilley, Bruce China s New Leaders: The Secret Files
             New York: New York Review Books, 2002 (.)

Colin P.,

By "Grandfather" traditions, do you mean retired leaders who control the current party, state and military leaders from behind the scenes? Then you are wrong. Deng Xiaoping exercised much influence and power over the Politburo over the 80s and 90s even after he supposedly retired; his influence on Jiang Zhemin was marked until Deng died before the Hong Kong handover. The fear and respect Deng inspired as a so called "paramount leader" on the level of Mao was such that during the Tiananmen Square incident of 1989, Deng had then Premier Zhao Ziyang- who was sympathetic to the student leaders in the protest- and another Politburo Standing Committee member purged, although Zhao was just put on house arrest for the rest of his life till he died not too long ago.

In the same fashion, Jiang Zhemin continues to exercise influence on his proteges in the current Politburo Standing Committee such as Zeng Qing Hong and  Wu Bangguo from the Shanghai clique of Jiang in the CCP, even if Jiang has officially stepped down as a PBSC member and CMC chairman and had given the reins to Pres. Hu Jintao.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Actually I was referring to the practices within the army structure that allows senior conscripts to prey upon the new ones.

Thanks for the backgrounds on the leadership in the PLA, I don't think that anyone expected loyalty to be removed from the table as a requirement within the leadership of the PLA. I suspect they like the idea of a "Republican Guard" to protect the leadership and to counter balance the other forces in the country.

The only difference for the West in regards to loyalty is that we demand totally loyalty to the country and it's laws rather than the party.

 

[CougarKing]

This article speaks for itself. All the more reason for the army.ca poster known as "Tingbudong" (which means "can't understand by hearing") to study his characters well.  ;D

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22362982/

MSNBC.com
China controlling more of U.S. economy
Country leads surge of foreign investments in Wall Street banks
The Associated Press
updated 2:21 p.m. PT, Fri., Dec. 21, 2007
NEW YORK - There's a good reason schools across the country are scrambling to find people who can teach Chinese: It's quickly becoming business' second language as Wall Street seeks to tap China's $1.3 trillion in foreign reserves.
China has been making increasingly aggressive investments in some of the world's most prestigious financial companies in recent months — most of them American. Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns, Blackstone Group, and Britain's Barclays have all negotiated major stakes by Chinese government-controlled investment funds.

Investment banks ailing from the subprime mortgage mess are looking for money to shore up their balance sheets. And China is leading a surge of strategic investments from Asia and the Middle East that so far have sunk about $25 billion into Wall Street banks.
That's just the start of what some believe is a dramatic reversal of financial power in the shadow of Wall Street's credit turmoil.

"Both Chinese private and government interests are controlling more and more of the U.S. economy, and this is a result of the big trade and budget deficits we have," said Alan Donziger, professor of economics at Villanova School of Business. "These investments will make the U.S. somewhat less independent, but this is inevitable when we live in a global economy."
To be sure, Wall Street's current predicament is "our own doing," he said. Turmoil in the credit markets have been fueled by defaults on subprime mortgages, and that's caused the Federal Reserve to attempt a bailout of the industry through interest rate cuts.

Lower interest rates have caused the dollar to slide in value against other major currencies. And, for foreign governments, the devalued dollar makes investments in these financial institutions cheap.

In the 1980s, Japanese investors snapped up real estate and invested in businesses across a number of sectors. This new wave of foreign investment is different because Asian and Middle Eastern governments are taking stakes in financial institutions — a cornerstone of the U.S. economy.

China agreed to pay $5 billion for a 9.9 percent stake in Morgan Stanley, and those securities pay 9 percent a year until they convert to shares in 2010. That translates to a gain of about $450 million of cash next year.
But, for Morgan Stanley investors, the infusion of new stock two years from now will dilute their shares — and potentially make owning Morgan Stanley's securities less valuable. The same can be said about other banks that receive foreign investments.

The deals have been structured so that the sovereign funds are passive investors with no seat on the board, and this escapes regulatory scrutiny. This week President Bush said Thursday he was "fine" with foreign investors snapping up big stakes in U.S. banks and financial firms.

By keeping investments under 10 percent, it does not trip an automatic review by the government. Bush, and others, believe the injection of foreign capital helps keep the banks competitive and restores faith in an industry beaten down this year.

"These are non-controlling investments, provides capital, and really is a statement of confidence," said John Douglas, a partner with law firm Paul Hastings who heads its global bank regulatory practice. "There's a lot of good things here."

But, some banking analysts believe these government-sponsored funds might get more say than the banks are admitting.

"The Chinese are putting $5 billion into Morgan Stanley without there being some kind of quid pro quo of what they're going to get other than interest on their investment," said Dick Bove, an analyst with Punk Ziegler & Co. "It's part of a major shift in the worldwide financial system that I think will be very negative to the U.S."


He said these kind of investments are not over, and expects to see others surface next year. In some cases, investment banks that have already received investments might strike other deals to increase capital.
Next up? Speculation swept through Wall Street on Friday that Merrill Lynch & Co. is on the hunt for a foreign investment to help cushion what could be a huge fourth-quarter writedown in January.

"The whole situation has changed with financial power moving dramatically toward China and the Middle East, and that will have significant impact over time," Bove said.


© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
© 2007 MSNBC.com

This second article below details a supposedly more realistic assesment of how big an economic powerhouse China is compared to other major economies.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22317937/

MSNBC.com
China's economy not that mighty
U.S. holds steady as world's economic power with 23 percent GDP
The Associated Press
updated 4:57 p.m. PT, Tues., Dec. 18, 2007
SHANGHAI, China - The World Bank said the economies of China and India are about 40 percent smaller than earlier estimates after it revised calcuations using consumers' relative purchasing power to measure economic might.The new figures released by the World Bank on Monday differ from conventional gross domestic product figures, which are calculated by simply converting local statistics into U.S. dollars — but don't take into account the wide variations in the purchasing power of a dollar from country to country.

A dollar converted into 7.4 yuan will generally buy more food in China, for example, than it would buy in the U.S.
The bank's latest revision under its purchasing power parity method, based on updated data, shows that India and China — two of Asia's fastest-growing economies — are about 40 percent smaller than originally thought.
"While PPP is not useful for commercial purposes, it is far and away the best measure of a country's standard of living," the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace commented on the report.

By the new figures, China is ranked the world's second-largest economy, with its gross domestic product accounting for 9.7 percent of the world total, behind the U.S., which accounts for 23 percent, it said. Earlier estimates based on older data said China's economy accounted for 14 percent of global GDP.
Japan was No. 3, Germany was ranked fourth, and India came in fifth, with more than 4 percent of total world output.
Together, those five countries account for half of world economic output, the Washington-based bank said.

"These results are more statistically reliable estimates," the World Bank said in a statement. "It was the most extensive and thorough effort ever to measure PPPs across countries."

Still, the report noted that PPP estimates, like all statistics, are subject to errors and should be treated as approximations.

Under the new estimates, the number of Chinese living on less than $1 a day — a widely used benchmark for poverty — is nearly 300 million, according to the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. The earlier estimates put that figure at 100 million.However, World Bank President Robert Zoellick, in Beijing as he wrapped up a visit to China, cautioned that the new estimate also may be flawed in that the price benchmarks were collected from urban areas.

"One has to be extremely careful about trying to draw judgements about poverty based on these statistics," Zoellick told reporters in Beijing on Tuesday.
He said even more accurate measures would be based on the kinds of goods that China's poor majority would buy, which would be weighted toward food.
"We're working with the Chinese government to refine that work and as I think that will be out some time next year," he said.

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
© 2007 MSNBC.com

Surprise, Surprise- the number of Chinese people living on less than a dollar a day is between $100 to 300 million people.  :

The latter figure is as large as the population of the United States, as some of you are well aware. There's a whole sea of people as large as the US population either wandering as part of China's recent wave of mostly unskilled, urban migrants or simply working in industries that have seen no increase of wages, while the sons and daughters of China's noveau rich wing it through Shanghai cram schools and get drunk at the bars of San Li Tun'er ("twer") all the more naive or indifferent to the fact that the gap between rich and poor there is widening daily.

 

[Kirkhill]

Meanwhile we can add direct PLA incursions into India to the list of interesting events.

China tries to sabotage border roads
22 Dec 2007, 0116 hrs IST,Amalendu Kundu,TNN

GANGTOK: The Kunming bonhomie notwithstanding, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China is undercutting Indian Army's efforts to strengthen its presence on the border. On November 23, a week before the visit of defence minister A K Antony and chief of army staff Gen Deepak Kapoor to Sikkim, PLA soldiers unloaded boulders in an effort to wreck the construction of a metalled road at Fingertips, a strategic spot near Gurudongmar in North Sikkim. The area is close to the Kangra La pass bordering south-west Tibet.

Indian troops, however, swung into action the next morning, and removed the obstruction. The road construction — at an altitude of 18,500 feet — was completed on November 27. Chinese representatives, however, did not speak about the offensive at Fingertips during a meeting between army representatives from both sides on November 23. They also kept quiet on the bunker dispute at the trijunction of Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet.

Significantly, prior to the Fingertips manoeuvre, Chinese troops had entered Indian territory and asked Indian Army personnel manning the border post there to stop construction of the road.

 

And...

TNN INDIA - China tries to sabotage border roads

"PLA soldiers unloaded boulders in an effort to wreck the construction of a metalled road at Fingertips, a strategic spot near Gurudongmar in North Sikkim"

"Significantly, prior to the Fingertips manoeuvre, Chinese troops had entered Indian territory and asked Indian Army personnel manning the border post there to stop construction of the road"

Add in this observation derived from the December 14th Global Incident Map:

China's proxies appear to be engaging the Indian and Bangladeshi railway system on the Sino-Indian border today....harassing fire.

And the ongoing turmoil in Assam, Nepal (with the Maoist rebels) and Kashmir, as well as Tibet,  and the Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran conflicts may be seen in a different light.








This follows on from

 

[CougarKing]

And the ongoing turmoil in Assam, Nepal (with the Maoist rebels) and Kashmir, as well as Tibet,  and the Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran conflicts may be seen in a different light.

I really don't think Beijing is supporting the Nepalese Maoists or any other Maoist/seperatist group in any nation that borders the PRC.    :

The CCP is more occupied with ensuring its own interests are not threatened- namely continued internal political stability and economic growth- that causing any unrest in neighboring nations by supporting those Maoist groups would go against these interests and might even threaten trade with these countries.