Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[CougarKing]

It seems that Pres. Ma may not want to irk Beijing further especially after what transpired during the Dalai Lama's visit.

Agence France-Presse - 9/25/2009 10:55 AM GMT
Taiwan will not allow Uighur leader visit: official
Taiwan has decided not to allow Rebiya Kadeer to visit, an official said Friday, two days after the exiled Uighur leader, branded a "separatist" by Beijing, expressed a wish to travel to the island.

"We have decided not to allow Kadeer entry considering that her visit could affect national interest and social order," Interior Minister Jiang Yi-huah said, according to an official with the Government Information Office.

"We don't wish to see the shadow of terrorism fall on Taiwan," he said in response to a lawmaker's question. He did not elaborate.

Kadeer said this week in Washington she planned to visit Taiwan in December following an invitation by groups advocating independence for the island.

If Taiwan's government had granted Kadeer a visa, it would in all likelihood have infuriated Beijing, which says she is a "criminal" who orchestrated ethnic violence in her home region of Xinjiang in northwest China in July.
Beijing is already angered by the screening this week in Taiwan's second-largest city Kaohsiung of a biopic about Kadeer, "The 10 Conditions of Love".

The Kadeer film and a recent visit by exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama to Taiwan have strained cross-strait ties, which have otherwise improved markedly since President Ma Ying-jeou came to power here in 2008.

 

[CougarKing]

It seems that Japanese report that the PLA-N's plans to refurbish the "Varyag" and rename her as the "Shi Lang" are edging closer to reality:

Her superstructure appears to have been cut open and been worked on.

 

[tomahawk6]

What better way to learn how to make a carrier ?

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from yesterday’s Globe and Mail is a report on Red China at 60:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/maos-revolution-at-60-he-wouldnt-recognize-it/article1302241/

Mao's revolution at 60: He wouldn't recognize it
After decades of brutal struggle and civil war, China's economic progress outstrips its political reforms

Mark MacKinnon

Hangzhou, China

Saturday, Sep. 26, 2009

This Thursday, as tanks and missiles roll through Tiananmen Square in Beijing and fireworks explode overhead to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of Communist China, a retired factory worker will gather with her children and grandchildren in this historic city on China's booming east coast, and sigh a little – regret mixed with relief – at what those six decades have brought them.

Ms. Wu, the factory worker, was a 13-year-old girl listening to the radio with her schoolmates when Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic on Oct. 1, 1949. She and the others cheered at the time, because it meant the long war between the Communists and the Kuomintang was finally over.

She soon got caught up in the fervour of those early days of the revolution, sporting a red scarf and leading a youth group as landlords were evicted from their plots. A decade later, she wound up on the other side of that political divide when her husband – a professor at Beijing University – was denounced as a “rightist” and sent to the countryside for three years of re-education-through-labour.

“I was left to raise four children by myself,” Ms. Wu, 73, says matter-of-factly. More than three decades on, she won't let her full name be used, still trained to be worried that just telling her story could land her in trouble. “It's not good to publicize some things.”

The carefully orchestrated pageantry of this week will portray the Communist Party as having made this country of 1.3 billion into an economic and military superpower over the past 60 years. There's truth in that, but the story of the past six decades is also one of a strikingly resilient people who endured one of history's cruellest regimes for the first 30 years of Communist rule, then sprinted forward as soon as their shackles were loosened.

“ This forgetting will have terrible results. It will make us weak to prevent the same things from happening again ”— Dissident Chinese lawyer Zhuang Daohe

How China grew from a backwards country of 540 million people in 1949 to the rapidly modernizing, third-largest economy in the world is a story that – for all the recent success – pitted a paranoid and murderous regime against its own people for long periods. Much of that history was written on the shores of West Lake, the graceful heart of this little-known city. It was here that Mao worked on the constitution of his People's Republic and conjured up the purges of the Cultural Revolution. Former U.S. president Richard Nixon visited West Lake during his breakthrough visit to China in 1972.

But it's a past that remains largely buried and unaddressed, forgotten by all sides in the name of letting the country carry on its current upward trajectory.

Ms. Wu's husband's name was eventually rehabilitated in 1978, but the damage was done. “He was affected physically. He was very healthy before,” Ms. Wu says, her voice drifting off. Her husband never fully recovered, and he died a decade ago.

Like many Chinese, times got better for the family after Mao died and was succeeded by the diminutive Deng Xiaoping. Mr. Deng irrevocably changed the direction of the country by opening it to the outside world and embracing the market economy. The silk factory where Ms. Wu worked in this scenic coastal town got busier, and wages gradually rose. She retired with a pension, and she and her husband had enough money to put all four of their children through university.

“In the beginning, we were short of money and couldn't even send the children to kindergarten,” she said, pride seeping into her voice as she neared the end of her tale. “Now they have several apartments each. Except for my son who moved to America.”

When the Red Army arrived in Hangzhou in early 1949, it entered a war-battered and predominantly agricultural city of 1.2 million people, situated around West Lake, a vast and placid body of water ringed by parklands and pagodas. In the new government's first five-year economic plan for the country – there have been 11 – it was decreed that Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, should be a “Geneva of the East.”

In a time of disastrous economic moves, the decision to spare Hangzhou the heavy industry that fouls the air of so many Chinese cities was a stroke of good fortune. Mao came to love the tranquillity of the place, and stayed here at the State Guesthouse on the shore of West Lake in 1953 as he went over his draft constitution for the People's Republic. In all, the chairman made more than 40 visits to the city, and Hangzhou is dotted with monuments to him.

But his affection for the place did not spare Hangzhou from the ravages of the Cultural Revolution, which he launched shortly after another of his sojourns on the shore of West Lake in December, 1965, where he met with his second-in-command and drew up a list of those they wanted to see purged first in the violence they were about to unleash.

Zhejiang province was in an effective state of civil war for much of the 1960s and 1970s, with competing factions that both claimed to be acting in Mao's name slaughtering each other and destroying farms and homes. Hangzhou's university campuses became centres of leftist extremism and Red Guard activity, and the scale of the purge of party ranks, combined with widespread labour unrest, led to a more dramatic economic collapse in Zhejiang than in other parts of the country.

It was a time of fear, disappearances and public executions. In all, Mao is blamed by some for more deaths than Stalin or Hitler. But at a 60th anniversary photo exhibit held this month in downtown Hangzhou, it is almost as if none of it ever happened.

Before-and-after photographs taken around the city emphasize how much it has changed and grown. Crumbling bridges and empty fields shown in black-and-white photographs from decades ago give way to multilane highways and forests of high-rise towers in the colour photos from 2009. Sometimes the gap is smaller, showing how entire developments have sprung from the ground in a matter of years, sometimes less. There's no hint of the famine and ruin of the Great Leap Forward, no evidence that the persecution and mass murder of the Cultural Revolution ever happened. Just 60 years of moving forward at breakneck speed.

“The policy of wiping out history has been successful,” said Zhuang Daohe, a dissident lawyer and signatory of Charter 08, a pro-democracy manifesto that calls for, among other things, a South Africa-style truth and reconciliation commission to address China's recent past. “This forgetting will have terrible results. It will make us weak to prevent the same things from happening again.”

Shortly after the interview, Mr. Zhuang and a colleague who took part in the interview were contacted by local security agents and warned not to speak to foreign media until after the anniversary. In the days that followed, several others in Hangzhou who had agreed to be interviewed by The Globe and Mail suddenly cancelled their appointments.

For all its suffering, Hangzhou was one of the first places where China started to emerge from the shadow of the Cultural Revolution. When Nixon visited the city, the document known as the Shanghai Communiqué – which for years formed the basis of the critical U.S.-China diplomatic relationship – was actually negotiated inside the same West Lake diplomatic compound where Mao wrote the constitution.

The city was among the first to benefit in the decades that followed from the “reform and opening” economic policies introduced by Deng Xiaoping. While retaining its laid-back feel and the idyllic scenery around West Lake, today's Hangzhou is a city of 6.4 million that has seen high-technology and auto parts industries grow alongside traditional specialties such as tea, silk and tourism.

Yang Liangen spent the 1970s trying to evade arrest as he moved through the countryside performing free magic shows and selling throat lozenges to the audience afterward. Such freelance performances, as well as the lozenges nicknamed Little Fuzzy Brains, have a nearly a century of history on Hangzhou street corners, with the shows often involving music, storytelling and funny anecdotes about the ruling classes of the day. They were banned during the Cultural Revolution, forcing entertainers like Mr. Yang underground. He kept on performing, but says he was arrested “tens” of times in that era.

But with the introduction of reform and opening in the 1980s, Mr. Yang suddenly found himself being sought out by the government in a very different way. Zhejiang province was one of the quickest to embrace the new economic openness, and thousands of businesses sprang up. The nearby city of Wenzhou was opened to overseas investment in 1984, a change that had dramatic effect on Hangzhou and the entire province.

Mr. Yang was contacted by the Hangzhou city government and asked to head up a new business that would manufacture and sell the same aniseed-flavoured lozenges that he had once sold by hand after his performances. There was very little money for the venture, but a small factory producing Little Fuzzy Brains opened in 1990, with six employees.

“In the beginning, we couldn't balance our costs, so we lost money,” Mr. Yang explained, shuffling papers around on a desk cluttered by two ashtrays, an abacus and an ancient Philips telephone. Even when he's trying to look important, the 70-year-old grandfather seems more like the charming travelling magician he was than the busy chief executive officer he became.

Business took off in 1996 after Beijing launched a privatization campaign and Mr. Yang was allowed to go it alone without a state partner. His company now employs 12 people, and produces 9,000 boxes of Little Fuzzy Brains a year for sale across the country and occasionally for export.

“If there was no reform and opening, this business would be impossible. We'd still be selling underground, in a secret way,” Mr. Yang said.

With his children grown and successful – and affluent enough to send his grandchildren to expensive universities – Mr. Yang is an optimist about where China is now headed. But instead of celebrating on Oct. 1, he says he'll be at his desk.

Like many in this country, where tens of millions are now lifting themselves out of poverty, it's as if he's still trying to make up for all the money he could have made had his early years gone differently.

For all China's recent economic progress, this still nominally socialist state has only rudimentary public health care and just the barest of pension programs, forcing people like Mr. Yang to worry about money at a time when someone like him in the West might be retired and enjoying his success. “I'd like to take the day off, but there's no time. I need to make more money. I need to save for my retirement.”

The bestselling novel Brothers begins during the Cultural Revolution when one of the two main characters is caught trying to catch a glimpse of women's bottoms inside the public latrine. In those puritanical times, the character, then a teenage boy, is marched through the town and he and his family are publicly shamed. By the end of the novel, set amid the anything-goes capitalism of today's China, the same character owns a gold-plated toilet seat and hosts a beauty contests for virgins.

The book was criticized in some circles for its vulgarity, but Yu Hua, the Hangzhou-born author of Brothers, says he used graphic and sexual scenes to both capture the wild changes China has gone through in the past six decades and to shock readers into contemplating subjects – such as recent history and today's political system – that are often not discussed. The tactic worked: The novel sold more than one million copies inside China (“Not including fakes,” Mr. Yu added proudly), while many others downloaded the book over the Internet, or directly onto their mobile phones.

“Many of my readers were shocked. But after the shock, they realized that yes, life really is like this,” the 49-year-old said, sipping an espresso in the lobby of a Beijing hotel.

Like his characters, Mr. Yu came of age during the Cultural Revolution. Later, while studying at Beijing University, he joined the student-led pro-democracy demonstrations on Tiananmen Square. Mr. Yu argues that the military crackdown on those demonstrations – ordered by Mr. Deng – was the most important moment in the past 60 years since it led to today's awkward hybrid of a relatively open market economy with a tightly controlled, one-party political system. It was only this year that Mr. Yu acknowledged publicly for the first time that he had taken part in the Tiananmen protests.

“Before 1989, China's economic and political reforms were both developing. The political reforms were not moving as fast as the economic ones, but they were happening. After 1989, political reform completely stopped,” he said. “This caused the social polarization and wide corruption in our society.”

As critical as he is of the China's political system, Mr. Yu acknowledges that the fact that Brothers was published at all inside China is yet another sign of how far things have come since the madness of the Mao era.

“There's a lot for China to be proud of. People are richer, we enjoy more freedom,” he conceded after some prodding. “For example, I'm talking to you right now, and I don't think I will get in a lot of trouble afterward, maybe just a warning. But if we had this conversation 30 years ago, I would be arrested right away.”

Mr. Yu adds some more caveats. China's breakneck economic growth of recent decades is unsustainable, he says, and the rapidly expanding gap between largely urban upper and middle classes and the predominantly rural poor will cause major problems. Like Mr. Zhuang, the dissident lawyer, he worries that the collective amnesia induced by the Communist Party about its past crimes will leave the door open for a slide back into extremism.

But there's one point on which Mr. Yu and Mr. Zhuang agree with optimists such as Mr. Yang and Ms. Wu: The country is heading somewhere completely new that couldn't have been predicted when Mao proclaimed the People's Republic back in 1949.

Mr. Yu chuckled at the thought. “If Chairman Mao were alive today and he saw what China has changed to, I think he'd request that his portrait be taken down from Tiananmen Square.”

Stories like those of Mrs. Wu and Mr. Yang abound. I, personally, a foreigner, have met several people with similar – some better, some worse – stories.

If you are interested in the history of part of that period but do not want to invest the time necessary to read all 600 pages of Brothers, get this movie, To Live, also based on a Yu Hua novel.


“If Chairman Mao were alive today and he saw what China has changed to, I think he'd request that his portrait be taken down from Tiananmen Square.”

Statues of Chairman Mao are disappearing. Chinese people who have lived away from China for several years express surprise at the “missing” statues. Twenty years ago he was everywhere, all pervasive; now, save for that huge monstrosity at Tiananmen, he is hard to find. I did manage, a couple of years ago, to find one on a Beijing university campus.

 

[CougarKing]

Just a picture of the ski jump used for training their soon-to-be carrier aviators:

And below is the previous article from last year that discusses their future carrier pilots:

"Chinese Navy begins training carrier aviators!"

 

[tomahawk6]

Chairman Mao's grandson Mao Xinyu at 39 was promoted to major General.

In this photo he is wearing the shoulder boards of a Senior Colonel

BEIJING - MAO Zedong's only grandson has become the youngest general in the People's Liberation Army at age 39, a Chinese newspaper said on Thursday.

Military historian Mao Xinyu is the son of Mao's second son Mao Anqing, who died in 2007 at the age of 84. The younger Mao is a member of the main advisory body to the country's rubber stamp parliament and a fierce defender of his grandfather's legacy.

The state-run Changjiang Daily reported that the promotion came 'recently' and said the move made Mao Xinyu the first PLA general born in the 1970s.

Known around the world as Chairman Mao, Mao Zedong led the bloody two decade-long revolution that overthrew Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists and established the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Mao retained an iron grip on power right up to his death in 1976, and his embalmed body continues to lie in state in a mausoleum on Tiananmen Square in the heart of the capital, Beijing.

Mao Zedong had a notoriously chaotic personal life, marrying four times and siring nine children, including a daughter by his last wife, Jiang Qing. His second wife, Mao Xinyu's grandmother, was executed by the Nationalists in 1930.

While Mao Zedong remains venerated in China, his offspring have played little role in affairs of state. First son Mao Anying was killed in action during the Korean War and Mao Anqing is believed to have suffered from mental illness for most of his adult life.

In recent years, Mao Xinyu has become best known for his considerable girth, and a photo of him taken on this year's Sept. 9 commemoration of Mao Zedong's death shows him bearing a strong resemblence to his famously pudgy grandfather.

Son Mao Dongdong, Mao Zedong's only great-grandson, was born on the 110th anniversary of Mao Zedong's birthday in 2003. -- AP

 

[Edward Campbell]

He's gonna have a bit of trouble with the BFT. But he'd "fit" in NDHQ, sadly.  :'(

 

[Edward Campbell]

This is the 60th anniversary (week) of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. There will me massive celebrations in Beijing tomorrow. It will be celebratory, I think. I doubt that anyone, save a few tens of thousands of old and rather feeble minded people in Lhasa (actually, mainly in Dharamshala (India) where the “government in exile) is headquartered), Taipei and Washington wish for a return of the Kuomintang or worse.

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail is a bit of précis of the celebrations:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/no-stone-unturned-in-preparations-for-beijing-celebration/article1306182/

No stone unturned in preparations for Beijing celebration
Even pigeons will be regulated during the festivities for the 60th anniversary of Mao's revolution

Mark MacKinnon

Beijing

Wednesday, Sep. 30, 2009 07:09AM EDT

One year after China wowed the world with the spectacular precision that marked the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, the government is seeking to put on an even bigger show Thursday as the Communist Party of China celebrates its 60 years in power.

The spectacle Planners are reportedly celebrating with twice the fireworks used ahead of the 2008 Games, and a new portrait of Mao Zedong was hoisted over the rostrum on Tiananmen Square, the same spot where he proclaimed the establishment of the Peoples Republic on Oct. 1, 1949.

The 187,000 soldiers and civilians who will take part in the parade have been training for weeks at a secret location outside the capital, separated from their families and barred from speaking to the press about their plans.

Female members of a Chinese militia march in formation during a training session for the 60th National Day Parade Village on the outskirts of Beijing on Sept. 15, 2009.
Photo Credit: Joe Chan/Reuters[size]
(This is the picture that appeared in the print edition of today’s Globe and mail.)

Nothing is being left to chance. Photographs posted online show sailors marching with their hats on upside down to correct posture. Officers were shown using rulers to make sure marchers didn’t step too high and to measure the distance between the noses of participants.

Beyond the goose-stepping, the parade is expected to offer observers a rare chance to see some of the most advanced weaponry possessed by the Chinese military. Media reports indicate that some 52 new weapons will be on public display for the first time, including intercontinental and anti-ship ballistic missiles, unmanned aerial drones and the Chinese-made J-10 fighter plane.

The weather

Even Mother Nature will be silenced for a day of admiring what Chairman Mao wrought. With rain threatening to dampen an anniversary parade that will showcase the pride and growing military prowess of this emerging superpower, Mao’s political heirs will send 18 converted transport planes into the air to bomb the clouds into submission with chemicals that will prompt an early downpour. Forty-eight other “fog-clearing vehicles” will be on standby, the China Daily newspaper reported.

Banned objects and activities

Carrier pigeons have been banned from the skies for the day, lest they interfere with the military jets that will roar over Beijing during the celebrations. Residents with apartments along the parade route have been instructed to stay inside and away from their windows and balconies, and not to put their pets outside either. Kites, blimps and model airplanes also made the holiday no-fly list, and Beijings busy main airport will also be shut for three hours during the parade.

Viewing protocol

While the parade will roll right through Tiananmen Square and the heart of the city, most Beijingers will only see the festivities on television. For several days before and after the celebration (many Beijingers fear it will be anything but a good time) Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City will be closed, as will dozens of hotels and businesses along the parade route.

Security measures

While Beijing is one of the safest cities anywhere, the government is on high alert for trouble following a summer of ethnic unrest in the western province of Xinjiang, where Muslim Uighurs native to the area clashed repeatedly with the growing number of Han Chinese who have settled in the region.

Tibet, another regular flashpoint that saw rioting last year, has been closed to all foreign tourists for the National Day celebration and the week-long autumn holiday that follows.

Heavily armed police wearing black vests and carrying automatic weapons have been deployed since last week throughout Beijing’s city centre. Snipers are reportedly stationed on rooftops around the downtown, and an armoured personnel was parked this week on Wangfujing Street, a pedestrian-only shopping area in the heart of the city.

In the wake of a recent stabbing incident around Tiananmen Square, department stores in the vicinity were instructed to remove all sharp kitchen utensils from their shelves until after the holiday. According to the state media, some 40,000 security cameras will keep an eye on the proceedings.

As many as 800,000 yellow-shirted citizens were stationed around the Beijing, sporting red armbands identifying them as public security volunteers. However, many of the volunteers were elderly, and seemed less concerned with the possibility of trouble than with catching a nap on a warm weekday afternoon.

Reactions

“The more serious the security efforts are, the more it proves that you are afraid.” – Anonymous commentator posting in a popular Chinese online forum“

I participate, I contribute, thus I feel honoured. I wish wealth and prosperity for our great motherland.” – Zhang Xiaojing, one of those setting up seats, speaking with the Associated Press

“The Air Force pays high attention to the artificial weather manipulation and we believe that the more equipment applied, the larger the area we can manipulate, and the better weather we can have.” – Cui Lianqing, deputy director of the Air Forces meteorological department

“The parade will embody China’s economic and technological progress with new achievements in the modernization of its national defence. Whether a country’s military power would raise threats to other nations depends on the nature of the [other] country’s defence policies.” – Major-General Gao Jianguo, military spokesman

“I don’t know what kind of stuff you have in New York. But people could strap all sorts of mini-bombs to pigeon legs.” – Dong Jingbei, president of the Dongcheng District Carrier Pigeon Association, speaking with The New York Times

Much is made of the security measures, but they are not unique. Every Canada Day we close downtown Ottawa – making it nearly impossible for anything but emergency vehicles to move anywhere within about 1 km of Parliament Hill.

I spent 4 Jul 09 in Washington, DC – right down on the Mall with hundreds of thousands of other happy, proud revellers. The downtown was, also, closed to most vehicles and I have never seen so many ”heavily armed police wearing black vests and carrying automatic weapons” anywhere, including Beijing at an important anniversary.

I’m not surprised that much of the Beijing security consists of senior citizen volunteers who ”seemed less concerned with the possibility of trouble than with catching a nap on a warm weekday afternoon”. It is always this was in China. Interestingly enough senior citizens are “good” at control: many seniors, especially older women, are natural bossy busybodies who believe that they should and will be obeyed; most 21st century Chinese are still accustomed to the idea that one should obey an elderly “auntie” when she tells you to move along or queue up or whatever – it worked during the Olympics.


And we (we serving and retired soldiers, anyway) have all been here, haven't we?

Instructor aligns the formation of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Airborne Corps during a training session at the 60th National Day Parade Village on the outskirts of Beijing
[size=8pt]Photo Credit: Joe Chan/Reuters

 

[tomahawk6]

I certainly never thought the US would be celebrating the PRC's 60th anniversary.I think its an affront to every veteran that fought the communists in Korea and Vitenam but in this new quasi-marxist America it must be ok.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I certainly never thought the US would be celebrating the PRC's 60th anniversary.I think its an affront to every veteran that fought the communists in Korea and Vitenam but in this new quasi-marxist America it must be ok.

But the US "celebrates" with Germany, Italy and Japan; what about the veterans of World Wars I and II? And the US "celebrates" with Spain; what about the Spanish American War? And the US "celebrates" with the UK and Canada: what about 1812 and 1776?

The gentleman "doth protest too much, methinks."

 

[CougarKing]

I take it no one else other than T6 is interested in those VARYAG updates I just posted? Or do the rest of you just think it's just being scrapped and studied as they figure out how to build a carrier themselves?

Furthermore, here's another article on the continuing PLA naval buildup:

BEIJING (Reuters) - China plans to cut back its army and boost the navy and air force, sources with ties to the People's Liberation Army said, extending its military reach and risking greater regional tensions.

China, which celebrates the 60th founding of the People's Republic on Thursday with a massive military parade, aims to cut its army by 700,000 troops over two to three years as part of its drive to modernize the world's biggest military into a leaner high-tech force, the two sources said.
The PLA also plans to boost navy and air force personnel over that period, the sources said. Both requested anonymity to avoid repercussions for speaking to foreign reporters without authorization.

Xu Guangyu, a former PLA officer now at the government-backed China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, said he had not heard of the 700,000 figure but was sure cuts were coming.

"After several years there will have to be more reductions so we can continue improving weapons and creating crack troops," Xu told Reuters. "The land forces will remain dominant, but the navy and air force will rise as a proportion of the PLA."

China watchers are monitoring international deployments for signs of China's rising global status translating into a more assertive foreign policy and presence. Chinese warships steamed to waters off Somalia in December to help in anti-piracy patrols.

Recently, Chinese vessels have become involved in jostling with U.S. surveillance vessels in seas off the Chinese coast that Beijing claims are in its exclusive economic zone.

And China has never renounced the use of force to bring self-ruled and democratic Taiwan, which it considers sovereign territory, under its rule. But ties have improved since the election of Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou last year.

Increased Chinese military activity around a series of disputed atolls and rocks in the South China Sea has worried Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines, which have their own territorial claims. Japan urged China this week to cut its nuclear arsenal, illustrating its wariness of China's might.

"Cutting the army doesn't affect the rest of Asia very much, what people are concerned about is boosting the air force and navy, such as by having aircraft carriers," said Ikuo Kayahara, professor of security studies at Takushoku University and a retired major general in Japan's ground forces.

"If they are increasing them by the same amount as they cut the army, this is a very big problem. But I do wonder if it's actually possible."

Uday Bhaskar, of the National Maritime Foundation in India, which has long-festering border disputes with China, said any large army should concentrate on technology over manpower.

"For India, I think if the Chinese are able to implement this particular policy that they're now articulating, it would heighten the asymmetry between India and China in terms of straight military capacity in China's favor," he said.

NUMBERS SHRINK, WEAPONS IMPROVE

The PLA was born out of the Red Army, a five-million-strong peasant army, and became the national armed force after Communist leader Mao Zedong swept to power 60 years ago
The cuts to land forces and additions to the other arms of the military would mean that PLA troop numbers shrink from 2.3 million, but the final tally is unclear.

China has cut troop numbers in recent years to free up cash for better training and conditions and more advanced weapons. The navy is considering building an aircraft carrier.

Neither source was sure when the planned reduction would be announced. It needs the approval of the Communist Party's Central Military Commission, which is headed by President Hu Jintao.

One of the sources said China plans to retire and replace aged aircraft over the next three to five years. The streamlining will also involve hiving off military hospital personnel and performing troupes, the sources said.

Xu, the former PLA officer, said that under Beijing's long-term plan for military modernisation, reductions could happen gradually over the coming decade.

"Costs are rising, so we have to keep military spending in line with budgetary capacity," he said.
China's armed forces are far bigger than the world's second-largest military, that of the United States, whose forces number around 1.5 million.

Thursday will be marked by a show of military force along the Avenue of Eternal Peace, which is expected to feature an array of new and improved weaponry, including missiles.

President Hu has made the navy's modernization his personal project, but it has far from erased a technological gap with the United States and other major powers. The PLA Navy has about 290,000 personnel, many on aged vessels.

China has become increasingly vocal about its ambition to become a deep-water power, concluding it must master the logistical and technological demands of a blue water navy.

China boasts the world's third-largest air force, with about 400,000 personnel and 2,000 combat aircraft.

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard, Chris Buckley and Emma Graham-Harrison in BEIJING and by Isabel Reynolds in TOKYO; Editing by Nick Macfie)

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsMaps/idUSTRE58T14T20090930

 

[Edward Campbell]

I take it no one else other than T6 is intersted in those VARYAG updates I just posted? Or do the rest of you just think its just being scrapped and studied as they figure out how to build a carrier themselves?

Furthermore, here's another article on the continuing PLA naval buildup:

That's my guess. My sense of the place is that China wants to do less and less dependent on buying and rebuilding and more and more on domestic design and build, thereby strengthening both capabilities.

I have no doubt that China wants aircraft carriers with all that implies for global power projection. They don't really need them for regional power projection - there are enough islands and friendly or client states on the territories of which (relatively) short range aircraft can be based and from which land forces can be "launched."

 

[CougarKing]

Was there not an earlier series of troop cuts to PLA ground forces earlier this decade or in the late 1990s, thus demonstrating the PLA's adherence to "People's War(人民战争) under modern conditions(现代情况)" adage uttered by the late Deng which called for leaner, more quickly deployable, as well as better equipped/trained units?

I think the last batch of cuts involved 500,000 and a great part of that group were actually transferred to the PAP(People's Armed Police), which is more of a "dissent-crushing second army" than a real police force, as some would argue.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Edward Campbell]

Was there not an earlier series of troop cuts to PLA ground forces earlier this decade or in the late 1990s, thus demonstrating the PLA's adherence to "People's War(人民战争) under modern conditions(现代情况)" adage uttered by the late Deng which called for leaner, more quickly deployable, as well as better equipped/trained units?

Yes, as far I recall.


I think the last batch of cuts involved 500,000 and a great part of that group were actually transferred to the PAP(People's Armed Police), which is more of a "dissent-crushing second army" than a real police force, as some would argue.

I don't know the numbers, but I agree with the "dissent-crushing second army" characterization.

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[tomahawk6]

Too bad we cant make a case for the PRC to join us in Afghanistan. An extra 20,000-30,000 troops would be super.

 

[CougarKing]

Too bad we cant make a case for the PRC to join us in Afghanistan. An extra 20,000-30,000 troops would be super.

Nothing did come out of the old article from below from last year, did it?

"NATO may ask for China's support in Afghanistan" army.ca thread

 

[a_majoor]

Unless China sees a compelling reason to get involved in Afghanistan, they will watch from the sidelines. As it stands right now, several of the powerful Western nations are embroiled militarily in a place they can't extract from quickly, and a nasty sapping of Western political and military will is also taking place, all which can be beneficial for the Middle Kingdom.

Better yet, these are "self inflicted" wounds; the Chinese are not and cannot be implicated for anything that happens there.

Long term, if the US and ISAF leave, the Chinese can walk in behind to "stabilize" Afghanistan and demonstrate to the world they are willing to do what the West cannot or will not do. This will also totally unravel the US policy of engageing in central Asia (the 'Stans) and deny a traditional ally in central Asia to India.

A pretty sweet deal, if they can swing it.

 

[Edward Campbell]

If you want to watch the celebrations, including the military parade, go to: CCTV9, the Chinese English service, in just a few minutes for live coverage.

 

[CougarKing]

An unmanned aircraft is seen during a parade to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China in Beijing October 1, 2009.
REUTERS/David Gray

In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, the phalanx of national flag receives inspection in a parade in Beijing of the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the founding of China on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2009. China celebrated its rise to a world power over 60 years of Communist rule Thursday, staging its biggest-ever parade of military hardware with over 100,000 marching masses in a display that stirred patriotism, and some unease. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Huang Jingwen

A Marine Corps vehicle receives inspection during a military parade to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, in central Beijing October 1, 2009. REUTERS/China Daily

A float depicting China's space achievements participates in a parade to mark the 60th China anniversary in Beijing, China, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2009. China celebrated its rise to a world power over 60 years of Communist rule Thursday, staging its biggest-ever parade of military hardware with over 100,000 marching masses in a display that stirred patriotism and some unease. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

 

[CougarKing]

Chinese People's Liberation Army missile carrier trucks drive past the Tiananmen Square during a military parade marking China's 60th anniversary in Beijing, China, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2009. To mark 60 years of communist rule China put together its biggest-ever military parade: hundreds of thousands of marchers, batteries of goose-stepping soldiers and weaponry from drone missiles to amphibious assault vehicles.
(AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

(AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

(AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

(AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

(AP Photo)

(AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

REUTERS/Jason Lee