China is no 2 to US in economic terms. Soon (if not already) it will be no 2 in military terms as well.
04/01/2014
Chinese warship in Cyprus to aid Syrian chemical weapons removal | Reuters
A Chinese frigate which will help escort Syria\’s stockpile of chemical weapons out of the country docked in Cyprus on Saturday as part of a delayed international mission.
The Yancheng, a missile frigate, will accompany a Norwegian-Danish convoy which is in international waters off Syria, waiting for the go-ahead from international watchdogs overseeing the removal of the chemical arsenal.
The mission to ship chemicals from Syria has missed its December 31 target date and Chinese and Cypriot officials said it was unclear exactly when it would begin.
via Chinese warship in Cyprus to aid Syrian chemical weapons removal | Reuters.
26/12/2013
Navy lauded for foiling pirates[1]- Chinadaily.com.cn
Commander-in-chief calls missions in gulf a success ahead of anniversary
In his 201-day stint fighting pirates in the Gulf of Aden in 2012, Cheng Wengang said the most intense mission was picking up 26 hostages who were released after being kidnapped for 19 months.
English: Map showing the location of the Gulf of Aden, located between Yemen and Somalia. Nearby bodies of water include the Indian Ocean, Red Sea, Arabian Sea, and the Bab-el-Mandeb strait. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
\”I could see they were terrified from their eyes when we finally met at the beach on the Somali coast,\” said Cheng, a 34-year-old helicopter pilot on the 12th Chinese naval escort flotilla.
\”They were skinny with scraggly beards and long, tousled hair. They were barefoot as the pirates took away their shoes in case they escaped.\”
Most of the hostages burst into tears after they boarded the Chinese frigate. Some of them kneeled down and kissed the deck, said Cheng.
\”Two sailors from Vietnam said, \’Thank you, Chinese navy,\’ again and again in Chinese,\” Cheng said.
What Cheng described is just one accomplishment of the Chinese navy during its five-year escort mission in the Gulf of Aden.
Dec 26 is the fifth anniversary of the Chinese fleets\’ escort mission in the Gulf of Aden.
Since 2008, authorized by the United Nations, the navy of the People\’s Liberation Army has sent 16 escort flotillas, including 42 frigates and destroyers, to the gulf. More than 15,000 soldiers and officers have participated in the missions.
21/11/2013
After Stingy Aid to Typhoon Haiyan Victims, China Tries Damage Control – Businessweek
With a relief team finally on its way to the Philippines, China is trying to control the damage from its petty response to the Typhoon Haiyan tragedy.
The Chinese group is getting there late because of political differences between the two governments. The storm may have killed thousands of people and brought to a halt a large swath of China’s neighbor to the south, but since the world’s new economic giant is feuding with the Philippines about disputed islands in the South China Sea, the leadership in Beijing decided to take advantage of a humanitarian catastrophe to teach President Benigno Aquino who’s boss.
China initially offered a paltry $100,000 in aid and, after an international outcry, raised that figure to $1.6 million. It’s as if Dr. Evil decided to go into the disaster-relief business: “One point six million dollars!” Hence the headlines worldwide expressing outrage that China, the world’s second-largest economy, was offering less money than do-it-yourself furniture maker Ikea.
Not the ideal message for a country trying to persuade its neighbors of its trustworthiness. China’s ham-fisted response to Haiyan is a welcome gift for Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe, who has spent much of his first year in office touring countries in the region that have good reason to worry about China’s intentions.
That’s probably why China’s officials and media are trying to change the narrative. Chinese relief workers are on their way to the Philippines now, China’s Foreign Ministry announced today—a week and a half after Haiyan hit. But not to worry, some Chinese blankets and tents started arriving on Monday and Tuesday. “China will also send a medical boat Peace Ark, which belongs to the Chinese navy, to the Philippines,” the Xinhua news agency reported today. “The boat, which has good medical rescue capability and maneuverability, will depart soon.”
Even as the Chinese relief effort finally gets underway, there’s a new message: China is actually the victim here, hurt by Philippine bureaucrats. According to Xinhua, China was slow because the Philippine government hadn’t given its blessing. Indeed, the state-run news agency reported yesterday the emergency medical team was “ready to go” and would “depart for the disaster areas immediately, once China gets permission from the Philippines.”
via After Stingy Aid to Typhoon Haiyan Victims, China Tries Damage Control – Businessweek.
16/04/2013
* China issues white paper on national defense
China Daily: “China on Tuesday issued a white paper on national defense elaborating its new security concept and peacetime employment of armed forces.
The document, the eighth of its kind issued by the Chinese government since 1998, says China advocates a new security concept featuring mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and coordination, and pursues comprehensive security, common security and cooperative security.
“China will never seek hegemony or behave in a hegemonic manner, nor will it engage in military expansion,” the white paper says.
According to the document, China will build a strong national defense and powerful armed forces which are “commensurate with China’s international standing and meet the needs of its security and development interests.”
The paper warns that China still faces multiple and complicated security threats and challenges.
The issues of subsistence and development security and traditional and non-traditional threats to security are interwoven, the document says.
“Therefore China has an arduous task to safeguard its national unification, territorial integrity and development interests,” it says.
The paper elaborates on the country’s diversified employment of the armed forces in peaceful times, saying that it responds to China’s core security needs and aims to maintain peace, contain crises and win wars.
Chinese armed forces are employed to safeguard borders, coastal and territorial air security and they will strengthen combat-readiness and combat-oriented exercises and drills, it says.
And they will readily respond to and resolutely deter any provocative action which undermines China’s sovereignty, security and territorial integrity.
Transparency move
In this paper, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) for the first time reveals the actual number of army, navy and air force servicemen, designations of its army combined corps and the main missile lineup.
China now has about 850,000 army servicemen in 18 combined corps and additional independent combined operational divisions (brigades), according to the paper.
The combined corps, composed of divisions and brigades, are respectively under seven military area commands.
Currently, the PLA Navy has a total strength of 235,000 officers and men, and commands three fleets — the Beihai Fleet, the Donghai Fleet and the Nanhai Fleet.
The PLA Air Force now has about 398,000 officers and men and an air command in each of the seven military area commands of Shenyang, Beijing, Lanzhou, Jinan, Nanjing, Guangzhou and Chengdu. In addition, it boasts one airborne corps.
The PLA Second Artillery Force, the country’s core force for strategic deterrence, is composed of nuclear and conventional missile forces and operational support units, according to the paper.
It is equipped with a series of “Dong Feng” ballistic missiles and “Chang Jian” cruise missiles.
It also has under its command missile bases, training bases, specialized support units, academies and research institutions.”
via China issues white paper on national defense |Politics |chinadaily.com.cn.
25/09/2012
* China carrier a show of force as Japan tension festers
Reuters: “China sent its first aircraft carrier into formal service on Tuesday amid a tense maritime dispute with Japan, a show of naval force that could worry its neighbors.
China’s Ministry of Defense said the newly named Liaoning aircraft carrier would “raise the overall operational strength of the Chinese navy” and help Beijing to “effectively protect national sovereignty, security and development interests”.
In fact, the aircraft carrier, refitted from a ship bought from Ukraine, will have a limited role, mostly for training and testing ahead of the possible launch of China’s first domestically built carriers after 2015, analysts say.
But China cast the formal handing over of the carrier to its navy as a triumphant show of national strength — at a time of bitter tensions with neighboring Japan over islands claimed by both sides.
Sino-Japanese relations deteriorated sharply this month after Japan bought the East China Sea islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, from their private owner, sparking anti-Japan protests across China.
“China will never tolerate any bilateral actions by Japan that harm Chinese territorial sovereignty,” Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun said on Tuesday. “Japan must banish illusions, undertake searching reflection and use concrete actions to amend its errors, returning to the consensus and understandings reached between our two countries’ leaders.”
The risks of military confrontation are scant, but political tensions between Asia’s two biggest economies could fester.
For the Chinese navy, the addition of carriers has been a priority as it builds a force capable of deploying far from the Chinese mainland.
China this month warned the United States, with President Barack Obama’s “pivot” to Asia, not to get involved in separate territorial disputes in the South China Sea between China and U.S. allies such as the Philippines.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in turn urged China and its Southeast Asian neighbors to resolve disputes “without coercion, without intimidation, without threats and certainly without the use of force”.
The timing of the carrier launch might be associated with China’s efforts to build up patriotic unity ahead of a Communist Party congress that will install a new generation of top leaders as early as next month.
Narushige Michishita, a security expert at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, said he thought the timing had nothing to do with the islands dispute.”
via China carrier a show of force as Japan tension festers | Reuters.
See also: https://chindia-alert.org/political-factors/chinese-tensions/
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