India – one; China – zero!
29/07/2013
Japan’s top diplomat heads for China seeking better ties | Reuters
Reuters: “Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Akitaka Saiki will visit China on Monday and Tuesday for talks with senior officials, the latest in a series of efforts by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to improve relations soured by a bitter territorial row.
The hawkish Abe, who cemented his grip on power in an upper house election last week, called on Friday for an unconditional meeting between Japanese and Chinese leaders.
On Sunday, Isao Iijima, an adviser to the premier, told reporters that Abe could soon hold a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Often fragile Sino-Japanese ties have been seriously strained since September, when a territorial row over tiny islands in the East China Sea flared following Japan’s nationalization of the uninhabited isles.
Concern that the conservative Japanese leader wants to recast Japan’s wartime history with a less apologetic tone has added to the tension.
“Vice Minister Saiki will visit China on July 29-30 and exchange views with Chinese officials,” a Japanese foreign ministry spokesman said. He did not give further details.
China’s Foreign Ministry responded to Abe’s overture on Friday by saying its door was always open for talks but that the problem lay in Japan’s attitude.”
via Japan’s top diplomat heads for China seeking better ties | Reuters.
26/07/2013
India, China trying to develop mechanism to prevent face-off: AK Antony
Daulat Beg Oldi is in northernmost Ladakh. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Times of India: “NEW DELHI: India and China are trying to develop effective mechanisms to prevent the “embarrassing” face-offs between their troops along the “disputed” points of the Line of Actual Control, defence minister AK Antony said here on Friday.
Terming the 21-day stand-off between the two sides in Depsang valley in Daulat Beg Oldi area as an “unusual” incident, the defence minister said the two countries will meet soon in Beijing to discuss issues and try to find a solution for such “unpleasant incidents”.
“Till the final settlement of the border issue, we are trying to find out more effective mechanisms to prevent occasional incidents. There are many points in the LAC that are disputed and they are patrolled by both sides. So, sometimes it leads to some face-off,” he told reporters on the 14th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas.”
via India, China trying to develop mechanism to prevent face-off: AK Antony – The Times of India.
Related articles
- Chinese troops crossed Line of Actual Control 150 times this year (dnaindia.com)
- India, China trying to find long-term solution to border dispute: Antony (indiavision.com)
- China defends latest Ladakh incursion, says PLA was patrolling its side of LAC (ibnlive.in.com)
- China shows off its horsepower: 50 Chinese soldiers enter Chumar on horseback and stake claim to it (dnaindia.com)
- Chinese general warns India against ‘new trouble’ as AK Antony visits Beijing (ndtv.com)
- Time to solve border dispute, says China premier Li Keqiang to AK Antony (ndtv.com)
- China & India: All Not Quiet on the Western Front (thediplomat.com)
- China plays down India’s strike corps move (thehindu.com)
23/07/2013
China to expand imports from ASEAN members
Is this action based on genuine economic reasons or is it partly to diffuse China‘s tension with many ASEAN countries involved with the on–going maritime territorial disputes?
China Daily: “China pledged to increase its imports from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as bilateral trade started to favor China in the second half of 2012, Vice-Minister of Commerce Gao Yan told a news briefing on Tuesday.
Emblem of ASEAN (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
China will enhance trade facilitation through cooperation with ASEAN members in areas including customs and quality checking while sending purchasing groups for agricultural products from ASEAN members, Gao said.
In addition, exhibitions, including the 10th CAEXPO to be held September 3-6 in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, will serve as opportunities for ASEAN exporters to expand their sales to China, she added.
China is the biggest trade partner of ASEAN and bilateral trade hit $400.1 billion in 2012, with Chinese exports totaling $204.3 billion and imports of $195.8 billion, leaving a trade surplus of $8.5 billion. China previously had a trade deficit with ASEAN, Gao said.”
via China to expand imports from ASEAN members |Economy |chinadaily.com.cn.
Related articles
- A Waiting Game – The Code of Conduct for the South China Sea (redoceans.com)
- Japan, ASEAN agree to discuss maritime security at Dec. summit (english.kyodonews.jp)
- China Agrees to Asean Talks on Sea Spat Amid Philippine Warning (bloomberg.com)
19/07/2013
Strike Force Would Allow ‘War on Two Fronts’
WSJ: “The Indian government this week reportedly paved the way for the creation of a new military corps of 50,000 troops near its border with China. If correct, analysts say this is a sign that New Delhi, which has been largely focused on its frontier with Pakistan, is now shifting its attention to the long, disputed Sino-Indian boundary.
Government sources were quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying a new mountain strike corps costing nearly $11 billion over seven years, was approved by India’s cabinet committee on security Wednesday. The committee is headed by India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The force will be headquartered at Panagarh, in the eastern state of West Bengal, the news agency reported. Attempts to confirm these reports with India’s ministries of defense and external affairs were not successful.
The creation of a strike corps would give India thousands of war-ready soldiers, trained and equipped to respond rapidly to a military threat, stationed close to the border between India and China, known as the Line of Actual Control.
Analysts say it would take five to seven years for such a force to be formed fully, as large numbers of soldiers would need to be recruited and trained for combat at high altitudes and in mountainous terrains.
“The process will be incremental,” said Srikanth Kondapalli, a professor in Chinese studies at the New-Delhi based Jawaharlal Nehru University. “There won’t be large-scale training, because there is no immediate threat.”
For decades, relations between India and China have been characterized by mistrust. The tensions boiled over into a war between the two in 1962, which China won by gaining control over a large swathe of Indian territory known as Aksai China.
Beijing is still in control of the 38,000 square kilometers of land, but Indian maps show Aksai Chin as a part of Jammu and Kashmir, it’s northernmost state. China also claims 90,000 square kilometers of land in Arunachal Pradesh, a state in India’s northeast.
Neither nation has shown any inclination to return to armed conflict since, but India’s decision to create a strike corps – which analysts say has been in the offing for over two years – reflects New Delhi’s growing concern that Beijing is becoming increasingly assertive in its territorial claims.
via Strike Force Would Allow ‘War on Two Fronts’ – India Real Time – WSJ.
Related articles
- China-India Relations: The Geopolitics Of Aksai Chin – Analysis (eurasiareview.com)
- China & India: All Not Quiet on the Western Front (thediplomat.com)
- Government clears posting of 40,000 soldiers along China border (ndtv.com)
- China Welcomes Indian Defense Minister With Warning: ‘Don’t Provoke Us With New Trouble’ (hngn.com)
09/07/2013
Newly discovered ancient maps support Chinese territorial claims
It’s a dangerous precedent to rely on ancient maps. The reason is that unless one goes back far enough, there is always the chance there is another set of older maps that refute the ones you think have the final word on your claims.
28/06/2013
Confrontation over the South China Sea ‘doomed’, China tells claimants
Reuters: “Countries with territorial claims in the South China Sea that look for help from third parties will find their efforts “futile”, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned on Thursday, adding that the path of confrontation would be “doomed”.
Beijing’s assertion of sovereignty over a vast stretch of the South China Sea has set it directly against Vietnam and the Philippines, while Brunei, Taiwan and Malaysia also lay claim to other parts of the sea, making it Asia’s biggest potential military troublespot.
At stake are potentially massive offshore oil reserves. The seas also lie on shipping lanes and fishing grounds.
Wang didn’t name any third countries, but the United States is a close ally of Taiwan and the Philippines, and has good or improving relations with the other nations laying claim to all or part of the South China Sea.
“If certain claimant countries choose confrontation, that path will be doomed,” Wang said after a speech at the annual Tsinghua World Peace Forum.
“If such countries try to reinforce their poorly grounded claims through the help of external forces, that will be futile and will eventually prove to be a strategic miscalculation not worth the effort.”
The Philippine military said this week it had revived plans to build new air and naval bases at Subic Bay, a former U.S. naval base that American forces could use to counter China’s creeping presence in the South China Sea.
Wang’s comments came days before the minister is due to attend a meeting of foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations grouping in Brunei from Saturday to Tuesday.
The 10-member ASEAN hopes to reach a legally binding Code of Conduct to manage maritime conduct in disputed areas. For now a watered-down “Declaration of Conduct” is in place.
The path to a Code of Conduct will be slow and deliberate, Wang said, adding that the Declaration of Conduct was a commitment made by China and the 10 ASEAN countries and China would continue to abide by it.
“The right way is to fully implement the Declaration, and in this process, move forward with the Code in a gradual way,” Wang said.”
via Confrontation over the South China Sea ‘doomed’, China tells claimants | Reuters.
See also:
- https://chindia-alert.org/political-factors/geopolitics-chinese/
- https://chindia-alert.org/2013/05/07/thunder-out-of-china/
- https://chindia-alert.org/2013/04/03/china-asean-agree-to-develop-code-of-conduct-in-south-china-sea/
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03/06/2013
China not disputing Japan sovereignty over Okinawa
Reuters: “China does not dispute Japanese sovereignty over Okinawa and recent comments in Chinese newspapers merely reflects the views of some academics, a senior Chinese military leader said on Sunday.
“China’s position has not changed… Scholars can put forth any idea they want and they do not represent the views of the Chinese government,” the deputy chief of general staff of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Lieutenant General Qi Jianguo, told delegates at a security conference in Singapore.
China’s state-owned People’s Daily last month published an article by two academics that said Okinawa was part of an island chain that used to be a vassal of imperial Chinese dynasties before it was annexed by Japan in the 19th century, implicitly asserting Chinese claims over the island.
Okinawa, host to the bulk of up to 50,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan, is the largest island in the Ryukyu chain, which extends south towards Taiwan.
China is already involved in a tense dispute with Japan over the latter’s move last year to nationalise the nearby Senkaku islets, which the Chinese call Diaoyu, which sits astride key shipping lanes and undersea energy resources.
That row has escalated in recent months to the point where both sides have scrambled fighter jets while patrol ships shadow each other in nearby seas, raising worry that an unintended collision or other incident could lead to a broader clash.”
via China not disputing Japan sovereignty over Okinawa | Reuters.
Related articles
- China Continues To Lay Claims To Okinawa (warnewsupdates.blogspot.com)
- Chinese general says Okinawa does not belong to Japan (japandailypress.com)
- * China mouthpiece claims rights over Okinawa (chindia-alert.org)
- Now China Says It Owns Okinawa, Too (businessinsider.com)
- People’s Daily hints Beijing may press claim to Okinawa (wantchinatimes.com)
- Japan Protests Chinese Report Questioning Sovereignty of Okinawa (voanews.com)
03/06/2013
Nuclear weapons: India keeps pace with Pakistan, but focuses on China
Times of India: “China, India, and Pakistan all added 10 to 20 nuclear weapons to their arsenal last year even as the top four nuclear nations — US, Russia, UK and France — appear determined to retain their nuclear arsenals indefinitely even if they didn’t add to their inventory, the Swedish arms watchdog Sipri said in its 2013 handbook released this weekend.
NPT Nuclear Weapon States (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, US) Non-NPT Nuclear Weapon States (India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan) States accused of having nuclear weapons programs (Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia) States formerly possessing nuclear weapons program (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Sipri’s world nuclear forces chart showed India bumping up its nuclear warheads from 80-100 in 2012 to 90-110 in 2013, keeping pace with Pakistan, which went from 90-110 weapons to 110-120. China meantime went from 240 nuclear weapons in 2012 to 250 in 2013, while France and UK froze their arsenals at 300 and 225 weapons respectively, as did Israel at 80 weapons.
Russia and the USA were the only two countries reducing their inventories of strategic nuclear weapons under the terms of the Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START) as well as retiring ageing and obsolescent weapons. However, Sipri said, they, along with the three other recognized nuclear powers, France, Britain and China, are either deploying new nuclear weapon delivery systems or have announced programs to do so, and appear determined to retain their nuclear arsenals indefinitely.
As a result, although the total number of nuclear weapons in the world dropped from approximately 19000 in 2012 to 17265 in 2013, there was little to inspire hope that the nuclear weapon-possessing states are genuinely willing to give up their nuclear arsenals, the Sipri report said.”
via Nuclear weapons: India keeps pace with Pakistan, but focuses on China – The Times of India.
09/05/2013
* China mouthpiece claims rights over Okinawa
This is most confusing. On the one hand China is proclaiming loud and clear that it will work with its neighbours and ASEAN nations to defuse conflicting territorial claims and to foster peace. Yet, on the other hand, pronouncements such as this works in the opposite direction. There must be something in Sun Tzu’s writings that will help to clarify this. Do any of my READERs know?
Bangkok Post: “The lengthy article in the People’s Daily, China’s most-circulated newspaper and the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist party, argued that China may have rights to the Ryukyu island chain, which includes Okinawa.
“Unresolved problems relating to the Ryukyu Islands have reached the time for reconsideration,” wrote Zhang Haipeng and Li Guoqiang, citing post World War II declarations which require Japan to return Chinese territory.
The authors are scholars at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, considered China’s top state-run think tank.
The article also repeated Chinese government arguments for China’s historical claims over a set of tiny uninhabited islets in the East China Sea known as Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese.
The two nations have stepped up a war of words over the dispute in recent months, with Beijing’s vessels regularly entering the waters around the Tokyo-controlled islands, stoking fears of armed conflict.
Okinawa is the biggest of the Ryukyu islands, which stretch for about 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from Japan’s mainland, and was the centre of the Ryukyuan kingdom which paid tribute to Chinese emperors until it was absorbed by Japan in 1879.
The island is home to major US air force and marine bases as well as 1.3 million people, who are considered more closely related to Japan in ethnic and linguistic terms than to China.
But some Chinese see historical ties as a basis for sovereignty and dismiss Japan’s possession of the islands as a legacy of its aggressive expansionism that ended in defeat at the end of the Second World War.
China’s government does not make such claims, but state media have from time to time carried articles and commentaries questioning Japan’s authority.”
via China mouthpiece claims rights over Okinawa | Bangkok Post: breakingnews.
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