Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[CougarKing]

An update on the S400 SAM batteries ordered by China earlier this year:

Diplomat

China to Receive Russia’s S-400 Missile Defense Systems in 12-18 Months

With the exception of an approximate delivery date, details of the Sino-Russian weapons deal remain murky.
L1001025
By Franz-Stefan Gady
November 17, 2015

China will receive its first batch of S-400 Triumph long-range anti-aircraft missile systems within the next 12 to 18 months, TASS reports.

“Supplies are planned no earlier than in a year, or more likely, in a year-and-a-half,” a Russian defense industry source told TASS last Thursday.

The signing of the contract for four to six S-400 Triumph (NATO reporting name: SA-21 Growler) missile defense systems was officially announced this April, although the deal was likely already concluded in the first quarter of 2014. The contract value is estimated at about $3 billion.

Additional details on the Sino-Russia arms deal, however, are difficult to come by. Back in April, Director General of arms exporter Rosoboronexport Anatoly Isaykin merely told reporters that he “would not disclose the contract details, but yes, China has indeed become the first buyer of the Russian newest air defense system, which only emphasizes the strategic level of our relations.”

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[CougarKing]

Haven't tank destroyers been obsolete since the advent of the MBT, which essentially combines the agility/maneuverability of the pre-WW2 designations of medium tanks with the heavy armour and firepower of heavy tanks?

Diplomat

China to Retire Its Armored Tank Destroyers

The Chinese military is replacing its tank destroyers with anti-tank missiles and attack helicopters.
L1001025
By Franz-Stefan Gady
November 19, 2015

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will retire its armada of Type 89 (aka PTZ89) tank destroyers, Asia One reports based on information published in the PLA Daily, the official newspaper of the PLA.

The PLA Daily published a picture of 18 self-propelled guns that look like Type 89 tank destroyers departing a military base of the PLA Shenyang Military Command’s 39th Group Army.

The newspaper said that an official retirement ceremony for the obsolete armored vehicles was held on November 3.

The Type 89 tank destroyer entered the PLA’s service in 1989. From 1989 to 1995 around 100 vehicles were produced. The tank destroyer’s main armament is a 120-mm/L50 smoothbore gun, equipped with a semi-automatic gun loader.  Since the gun is not stabilized, the armored vehicle cannot fire accurately on the move.

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[CougarKing]

The local backlash in Australia over Chinese state firm's lease of the port of Darwin:

Diplomat

Yes, a Chinese Company Leased Darwin Port. So What?

The furor over Darwin Port exposes Australia’s anti-China impulses.
GA
By Greg Austin
November 19, 2015

In Australia, parts of the northern port of Darwin have been leased to a Chinese company for 99 years. This has sparked a firestorm of criticism in Australia media about the perceived security threat — a threat that is overblown and overhyped.

Two wharves in the port have been leased to a Chinese company called Landbridge. The company already operates widely in Australia, including Sydney. According to its website, “Landbridge Industry Australia Pty Ltd is a privately held Australian entity wholly owned by Landbridge Group Co., Ltd,” which is “a large scale privately owned enterprise based in Shandong Province of China.” It is hardly the most transparent company in Australia or the world.

Australia’s conservative print media outlet The Australian newspaper reported that “Landbridge is owned by Chinese billionaire Ye Cheng, who is a senior Communist Party official.” I would like to know which senior post he occupies in the Chinese Communist Party. He has acknowledged that he is a “National Committee Member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the Deputy of Shandong Provincial People’s Congress.” This does not equate to being a senior official of the Communist Party. Perhaps the newspaper has not noticed the anti-corruption campaign in China, which has seen the complete separation between billionaire status and holding a “senior position” in the Communist Party.

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[CougarKing]

China officially buys Su35s!

Reuters

World | Thu Nov 19, 2015 2:36am EST

Russia, China sign contract worth over $2 billion for Su-35 fighter jets
MOSCOW

China is to buy a batch of 24 Sukhoi-35 fighter jets from Russia in a deal worth more than $2 billion, an industry source told Reuters on Thursday, in a move that may help the Kremlin's strained finances.

A spokeswoman for Russian state holding Rostec confirmed a deal between the two countries had been signed involving Su-35 fighter jets, but declined to provide details.

The deal makes China the first foreign buyer of the Su-35, one of Russia's most advanced military aircraft, and is one of the largest contracts for military jets to have ever been signed between the two countries.

Russia and China have been in talks for several years over the Su-35s, and in 2012 the two sides signed a preliminary agreement for Beijing to buy some of the jets, the Kommersant newspaper reported.

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[a_majoor]

More on Chinese "Ghost cities". Using social media and internet tracking of users to identify where there are empty cities is an interesting twist, and the description of buildings being essentially empty shells makes the idea these were mostly Keynesian sinkholes for investment monies somewhat more realistic. If these places really are essentially uninhabitable, then the popping of the housing bubble in China will be very ugly indeed:

http://www.newser.com/story/216295/chinas-ghost-cities-were-hidden-until-now.html

China's 'Ghost Cities' Were Hidden Until Now
MASSIVE EMPTY HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS FEEL LIKE 'AN ABANDONED MOVIE SET'
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 18, 2015 6:21 PM CST | Updated Nov 21, 2015 5:00 PM CST

(NEWSER) – People have known about China's "ghost cities" for years, but it turns out finding and tracking these massive, mostly empty housing developments is pretty much as difficult as hunting an actual ghost. That is, until China's largest search engine got involved, Quartz reports. Tech company Baidu was able to identify 50 ghost cities by spending months studying data from 770 million users. Any residential areas with less than a quarter the number of expected Baidu users were classified as a ghost city. It's thought to be the most accurate image of these empty towns ever created. "Now that we know where the ghost areas are, we can try to identify why these areas are 'ghostly' and do something about it," Baidu researcher Haishan Wu tells NPR.

China's ghost cities sprang up in the past decade through a combination of a housing shortage, a real estate boom, and laws that allow cities to buy cheap rural land and sell it to developers for huge profits, NPR reports. But some developers misjudged demand in certain areas, leaving housing empty and feeling like—in the words of one NPR staffer who visited a ghost city—"an abandoned movie set." Part of the problem is that a lot of the housing consists of just concrete walls, often lacking even a toilet. And the surrounding neighborhoods don't boast much in the way of amenities, either. Wu tells NPR people probably don't want to live in places without schools, hospitals, or malls. However, urban planning experts believe China's ghost cities can be returned to the land of the living with a little time and effort. (China, meanwhile, found a vast gold deposit—but there's a catch.)

 

[Edward Campbell]

One picture, of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (left) and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, sums up the strained but "correct" relations
between China and Japan and, indeed, between China and all of Asia, right now.

 

[jollyjacktar]

I see China isn't pussy footing around when dealing with little Johnny Jihad. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3330368/Chinese-police-use-FLAMETHROWER-terror-suspects-grenades-tear-gas-fail.html

 

[CougarKing]

The USN's next FONOP in the South China Sea.

Diplomat

Next US Navy South China Sea Freedom of Navigation Operation: Mischief Reef

The U.S. Navy will likely sail within 12 nautical miles of Mischief Reef soon.

By Ankit Panda
November 23, 2015

The U.S. Navy may be gearing up for its second freedom of navigation operation in the South China Sea within 12 nautical miles of a Chinese artificial island. Bill Gertz, at the Washington Free Beacon, citing U.S. officials with knowledge of matter, reports that two U.S. Navy warships will sail within 12 nautical miles of Mischief Reef. The operation is expected to take place in “several weeks.” The U.S. Navy carried out its first freedom of navigation operation within 12 nautical miles of a Chinese artificial island on October 27, when an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the USS Lassen, sailed past Subi Reef.

The choice of Mischief Reef for a second freedom of navigation operation makes sense and should help the Obama administration assert that it does not recognize any territorial sea claim around these features in the Spratly Islands. As I wrote recently, the October 27 operation left matters ambiguous, causing considerable disagreement among many well-informed South China Sea experts about what precisely the United States asserted with its freedom of navigation operation there. The United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea (UNCLOS) determines the conditions under which certain features generated maritime entitlements, including 12 nautical mile territorial seas and 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zones.

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[Edward Campbell]

Is this (a Chinese company takes a very long term lease on two warves in the Norther Australian port of Darwin) another step in China's "string of pearls" strategy or just a normal business deal by a billionaire Chinese entrepreneur?

My suspicion is that almost all Chinese billionaires, and Forbes says there are 335 of them are, somehow, tied to the Xi Jinping and the men in the Zhongnanhai. Even if they are not, in any way, agents of the Chinese government those billionaires are conscious of the fact that their financial base is subject to interference from the Chinese government, and they are, by and large, just like American or British or Canadian billionaires (and Forbes says we have nearly 40 of them), they are, by and large, patriots, too.

So my guess: it is a normal business deal, Ye Cheng has the kinds of corporate interests that make it a sensible deal, that China will exploit for its own purposes, too.

 

[CougarKing]

Bo Guagua, the playboy dilettante son of former rising star and fallen Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai, probably ranks pretty low on this list.

Diplomat

Who Are China's 'Princelings'?

Princelings are often talked about as a bloc, but in truth there are several different kinds.
Professor Bo Zhiyue
By Bo Zhiyue
November 24, 2015

The children of veteran communists who held high-ranking offices in China before 1966, the first year of the Cultural Revolution, are commonly called “princelings.” There are princelings by birth — sons and daughters of former high ranking officers and officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — and princelings by marriage.

Princelings by birth could also be further divided into subcategories: princeling politicians, princeling generals, and princeling entrepreneurs. President Xi Jinping, for instance, is a typical example of a princeling politician. Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun, was a veteran communist who served as secretary general and vice premier of the State Council in the 1950s and the 1960s and as a Politburo member in the 1980s. Yu Zhengsheng, the No. 4 ranking Politburo Standing Committee member and chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, is also a princeling politician whose father, Huang Jing (Yu Qiwei), was the first communist mayor of Tianjin and the first minister of No. 1 Machine Building Industry. Huang was once married to Li Yunhe (i.e., Jiang Qing), who later married Mao Zedong.

Examples of princeling generals include General Zhang Youxia, director of the General Armaments Department; Admiral Wu Shengli, commander of the PLA Navy; and General Liu Yuan, political commissar of the General Logistics Department. Zhang’s father was General Zhang Zongxun, former deputy chief of staff and director of the General Logistics Department of the People’s Liberation Army. Wu’s father, Wu Xian, was former vice governor of Zhejiang. Liu’s father, Liu Shaoqi, was former president of the People’s Republic of China.

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[a_majoor]

Long article in the WSJ on how demographic changes in China could affect the global economy. Other technological and social changes will also have a great impact on China (the ide of "customizable" products and 3D printing favours short production runs and having the manufactuing close to the point of consumption rather than factories shipping around the world). And of course, the lifting of the one child policy won't result in new workers arriving for another 16+ years (and this also assumes people are going to have lots of children once the restriction is lifted, an assumption which might not to be proved true):

http://www.wsj.com/articles/as-chinas-workforce-dwindles-the-world-scrambles-for-alternatives-1448293942?tesla=y

 

[CougarKing]

The PLA-Navy gets to use this base for 10 years:

Diplomat

US General: China Has 10 Year Contract for First Overseas Military Base

A U.S. general confirms China will open a base in Djibouti. Here’s why that shouldn’t be taken as a threat.
shannon-tiezzi
By Shannon Tiezzi
November 26, 2015

China has signed a ten-year contract to open up its first military base overseas – in Djibouti, at the intersection of the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea – according to a U.S. military official. Kristina Wong of The Hill cited U.S. General David Rodriguez, the commander of U.S. Africa Command, confirming the news to defense reporters.

China is “going to build a base in Djibouti, so that will be their first military location in Africa,” Rodriguez said. He described the base as a logistics hub that China would use to “extend their reach.”

Though China has consistently refused to confirm reports that it will establish a military presence anywhere overseas, the government of Djibouti has talked openly about the prospect. Back in May, President Ismail Omar Guelleh told AFP that China and Djibouti were in talks about opening up a Chinese military base. A Chinese military presence would be “welcome,” he added.

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[Edward Campbell]

This report is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/27/world/asia/xi-jinping-china-military-peoples-liberation-army.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share&_r=0

Xi Jinping Announces Overhaul of China’s Military Forces

By CHRIS BUCKLEY

NOV. 26, 2015

BEIJING — President Xi Jinping of China has announced a major reorganization of the nation’s military, state-backed news media reported on Thursday, laying out plans to create new command systems intended to integrate and rebalance land, air and sea forces into a more nimble People’s Liberation Army.

Mr. Xi told a meeting of more than 200 senior military officers that the changes would take years and were essential to ensuring that the People’s Liberation Army could shoulder its increasingly complex and broad responsibilities, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

“National defense and military development are at a new and historic starting point,” said Mr. Xi, who also serves as chairman of the Central Military Commission, which oversees the armed forces.

“Encourage the composition of forces to become broader, more integrated, multifunctional and flexible,” he was quoted as saying. “Focus on seizing the high ground of future strategy for military competition.”

Mr. Xi presided over the three-day meeting that opened on Tuesday to discuss the military overhauls, signaling a major step forward in his program to shift the focus of China’s military from traditional land armies and military regions to a more flexible, cohesive set of forces that can advance the country’s maritime claims and external interests. China’s military planning and spending have increasingly focused on territorial disputes in the South China Sea and in waters near Japan.

At a military parade in Beijing on Sep. 3, Mr. Xi announced that the People’s Liberation Army, which includes naval, air force and ballistic missile forces, would reduce its number of personnel by 300,000 in coming years, bringing the total to a little under two million. Currently, about 1.4 million members of the military are land forces.

In November 2013, Communist Party leaders approved a program of changes that included restructuring the military.

In my opinion this is just another step in a long process that started over 30 years ago. The process of reorienting the PLA away from Mao's vision to something like the one shared by Deng Xiaoping, Yang Shangkun, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and now by Xi Jinping, himself, is long, slow and difficult but undoubtedly necessary if China wants to be more than just master of its own territory.

 

[CougarKing]

While the oral hearings at The Hague between China and the Philippines continue for the 3rd Day, meanwhile the PLA continues resupplying its Sourh China Sea possessions with this vessel:

IHS Jane's 360 - 25 November 2015
Chinese army commissions new logistics ship to bolster South China Sea presence
Photos taken from China Defense Blog
Army's new LSM to support South China Sea Garrisons

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[CougarKing]

Another prototype makes a test flight:

J20 prototype 2017 conducts its maiden flight

- November 24, 2015

China Defense Blog

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[The Bread Guy]

On the more "social" end of the spectrum ....

Canada's China-born Miss World contestant was stopped in Hong Kong on Thursday and denied permission to board a flight to the beauty pageant finals in China, a move she said was punishment for speaking out against human rights abuses in the country.

Anastasia Lin, a 25-year-old Toronto actress who was crowned Miss World Canada in May, was unable to obtain a visa in advance of her arrival for the contest finals this week in Sanya, on the southern Chinese resort island of Hainan.

But she said she attempted to enter the country anyway based on a rule that allows Canadian citizens to obtain a landing visa upon arrival in Sanya.

Lin, who is a practitioner of Falun Gong, a religious group that says it is repressed in China, told reporters at Hong Kong's international airport that she was prevented from boarding a Dragonair flight to Sanya. She said there has been no response from the Chinese authorities so far.

"There's no comment from the Chinese embassy ... so I realize that's the tactics they're using, they just want to let it die down," said Lin, who was wheeling a silver suitcase and dressed in a long brown trench coat ....

 

[tomahawk6]

With the US all but pulling out of the Azores,the Chinese came calling offering to take over Lajes Airfield and of course contribute to the local economy.A big mistake for Washington.

http://portuguese-american-journal.com/terceira-u-s-to-reduce-military-presence-in-lajes-air-field-azores/

 

[Bearpaw]

One has to wonder what mischief the Chinese are up to when they are seeking bases in the Azores or in Greenland.

"Lately, China has been actively looking at securing military facilities much closer to the United States, namely in Greenland and the Caribbean, and more frequent exploratory Chinese missions in the Atlantic, near the Azores, are expected in the near future, it has been reported." --- from article cited by T6.

Bearpaw

 

[tomahawk6]

I expect that it is in response to the presence of the USN in the South China Sea.

 

[a_majoor]

More on the social aspect: millions of Chinese are experiencing the world, which should cause some changes to the Chinese mind set as they encounter different cultures:

http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/11/30/the-big-china-story-nobodys-really-covering/

The Big China Story Nobody’s Really Covering

The Chinese Discovery of the World is one of major stories of our age: For the first time in China’s 2,500 years of history, millions of its citizens are venturing beyond their home towns and cities and out beyond the boundaries of the Middle Kingdom itself. According to the Wall Street Journal, economic troubles mean that fewer Chinese have been traveling abroad this year. Yet despite the tourist slowdown, a large number of Chinese citizens are still going abroad:


Spending on travel abroad fell to $19 billion in October, a chunky drop from the $25 billion spent in September, according to services trade data published Monday. The level is still above the $16 billion spent a year ago in October, but the year-over-year growth rate is ebbing to around 20% from more than 60% in the first half.

The least adventurous of these travelers go with tour companies of the “if today is Tuesday, this must be Belgium” variety. But more and more are coming for longer stays, getting an appreciation for cultures and civilizations very different from their own.

This matters. China has always been the most insular of the world’s great civilizations. At one end of the Silk Road, and cut off by geography from the other great centers of civilization, China never experienced the constant interplay between high civilizations and great empires that characterized, for example, both European and Middle Eastern history from ancient times. China never lived in the presence of the Other, sometimes admired, sometimes feared, in the formative way that German, Latin, Greek, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Iranian, and Indian civilizations did.

When the outside world burst into Chinese awareness in the 19th century, it came as a horror show. Weakened by isolation and introspection, China struggled for 150 years to adapt and to maintain its independence and dignity. Now, thanks to China’s economic development and the technological progress that allows human beings to travel the world, millions of Chinese people are immersing themselves in other cultures and civilizations.

This encounter will change China and it will change the world. Understanding how the new awareness of other countries and cultures is affecting the way people in China view their own history and way of life is critical for anybody who wants to see where the 21st century is headed. The great surge of Chinese tourists to sample the wider world’s restaurants, museums, cultural monuments, and natural wonders is one of the forces that is transforming the world as the first global civilization takes shape. Sadly, too many journalists and media outlets seem more interested in fact-checking Donald Trump than in getting their fingers on the pulse of world history. The press lavishes ink on relatively small bore events as one of the most consequential events in our time pass almost unnoticed.