Posts Tagged ‘China’

Associated Press

By Nirmala George

NEW DELHI (AP) – The platoon of Chinese soldiers slipped across the boundary into India in the middle of the night, according to Indian officials. They were ferried across the bitterly cold moonscape in Chinese army vehicles, then got out to traverse a dry creek bed with a helicopter hovering overhead for protection.

They finally reached their destination and pitched a tent in the barren Depsang Valley in the Ladakh region, a symbolic claim of sovereignty deep inside Indian-held territory. So stealthy was the operation that India did not discover the incursion until a day later, Indian officials said.

China denies any incursion, but Indian officials say that for two weeks, the soldiers have refused to move back over the so-called Line of Actual Control that divides Indian-ruled territory from Chinese-run land, leaving the government on the verge of a crisis with its powerful northeastern neighbor.

Indian officials fear that if they react with force, the face-off could escalate into a battle with the powerful People’s Liberation Army. But doing nothing would leave a Chinese outpost deep in territory India has ruled since independence.

“If they have come 19 kilometers into India, it is not a minor LAC violation. It is a deliberate military operation. And even as India protests, more tents have come up,” said Sujit Dutta, a China specialist at the Jamia Milia Islamia university in New Delhi.

“Clearly, the Chinese are testing India to see how far they can go,” he said.

That is not China’s stated view.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Thursday that Chinese troops had been carrying out normal patrols and had not crossed the boundary.

“China is firmly opposed to any acts that involve crossing the Line of Actual Control and sabotaging the status quo,” she said at a daily briefing in Beijing as she was repeatedly questioned about the dispute.

Hua said talks to defuse the dispute were ongoing and that it should not affect relations. “As we pointed out many times, the China-India border issue is one which was left over from the past. The two sides reached important consensus that this issue should not affect the overall bilateral relations,” Hua said.

Local army commanders from both sides have held three meetings over the crisis, according to Indian officials. India’s foreign secretary called in the Chinese ambassador to register a strong protest. Yet the troops did not move, and even pitched a second tent, Indian officials said.

The timing of the crisis, weeks before Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is to visit India, has surprised many here. The Chinese leader’s decision to make India his first trip abroad since taking office two months ago had been seen as an important gesture toward strengthening ties between rival powers that have longstanding border disputes but also growing trade relations.

Manoj Joshi, a defense analyst at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, said the timing of the incursion raises questions about “whether there is infighting within the Chinese leadership, or whether someone is trying to upstage Li.”

Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said Wednesday that while he had no plans to cancel a trip to Beijing next week to prepare for Li’s visit, the government could reconsider in the coming week.

“A week is a long time in politics,” he told reporters.

Indian politicians accused the scandal-plagued government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of floundering in fear before China.

“China realizes that India has a weak government, and a prime minister who is powerless,” said Yashwant Sinha, a former foreign minister from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.

He demanded a stronger response. “A bully will back off the moment it realizes that it’s dealing with a country which will not submit to its will,” Sinha said.

Former Defense Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav called the government “cowardly and incompetent.” He warned that China was trying to annex more territory to add to the spoils it took following its victory over India in a brief 1962 border war.

Defense Minister A.K. Antony countered that India is “united in its commitment to take every possible step to safeguard our interests.”

Supporters of the right-wing Shiv Sena party burned effigies of Singh, Antony and other top officials Wednesday, demanding India retaliate by barring Chinese imports.

China is India’s biggest trading partner, with bilateral trade, heavily skewed in China’s favor, crossing $75 billion in 2011.

Analysts feel linking a troop withdrawal to continued trade could work.

“The Chinese have to learn that such aggression cannot be delinked from trade,” said Dutta.

Though the two countries have held 15 rounds of talks, their border disputes remain unresolved. India says China is occupying 38,000 square kilometers (15,000 square miles) in the Aksai Chin plateau in the western Himalayas, while China claims around 90,000 square kilometers (35,000 square miles) in India’s northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh.

Analysts said they were baffled by Beijing’s motives, since its actions could force India to move closer to Beijing’s biggest rival, the United States.

“The Chinese for some reason don’t seem able to see that,” said Joshi.

China’s aggressive posture could also force India to accelerate its own military modernization program, analysts said.

The stand-off may eventually be resolved diplomatically, “but what it really shows is the PLA’s contempt for our military capability,” former Indian navy chief, Sushil Kumar, wrote in The Indian Express newspaper.

It could also push the government to agree to the army’s longstanding demand to create its own strike corps on the border.

“By needling the Indians, they are helping us to accelerate our modernization,” Joshi said.

I know there’s not much funny about North Korea, but this is too good not to share. I guess they need smaller medals or bigger officers.

When you consider their Army last saw combat in 1953, 60 years ago, these guys must be some kind of good staff officers?

North Korean officers… Could be easily defeated with a giant magnet…

Reuters

BEIJING/SEOUL (Reuters) - China warned against "troublemaking" on its doorstep, in an apparent rebuke to North Korea, and the United States said it was postponing a missile test to help calm high tension on the divided Korean peninsula.

The North, led by 30-year-old Kim Jong-un, has been issuing vitriolic threats of war against the United States and U.S.-backed South Korea since the United Nations imposed sanctions in response to its third nuclear weapon test in February.

Pyongyang's anger appears heightened by U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises. But most analysts say it has no intention of starting a conflict that would bring its own destruction and instead is out to wring concessions from a nervous international community.

The North told diplomats late last week to consider leaving Pyongyang because of the tension, but embassies appeared to view the appeal as more rhetoric and staff have stayed put.

South Korea said it was ready for any kind of action that the North's unpredictable leaders might make - including a possible missile launch - by Wednesday, after which the North said it could not guarantee diplomats' safety.

China, North Korea's sole financial and diplomatic backer, has shown growing irritation with Pyongyang's warnings of nuclear war.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, addressing a forum on the southern island of Hainan, did not name North Korea but said no country "should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain".

Stability in Asia, he said, "faces new challenges, as hot spot issues keep emerging and both traditional and non-traditional security threats exist".

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed similar frustration in a statement late on Saturday, relating a telephone conversation with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

"We oppose provocative words and actions from any party in the region and do not allow trouble making on China's doorstep," Wang said, according to a ministry statement on its website.

On Sunday, the ministry expressed "grave concern" at rising tension and said China had asked North Korea to "ensure the safety of Chinese diplomats in North Korea, in accordance with the Vienna Convention and international laws and norms".

China's embassy, it said, was "understood" to be operating normally in Pyongyang.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, addressing the Hainan forum, said avoiding conflict on the peninsula was vital. "There, any aggression is a threat to the interests of every country in the region," she said.

British Foreign Minister William Hague said North Korea's nuclear ambitions had to be taken seriously.

Interviewed by Sky News, he said the international response "should also be very clear, very united and calm at all times because it's important not to feed that frenetic rhetoric that we've seen over the last few weeks".

Switzerland's Foreign Ministry offered to mediate, saying it was "always willing to help find a solution, if this is the wish of the parties, such as hosting meetings between them".

Kim, the third member of his dynasty to rule North Korea, is thought to have spent several years in Switzerland being educated under a pseudonym. He took over in December 2011 after the death of his father Kim Jong-il, who confronted South Korea and the United States throughout his 17-year rule.

FEAR OF "MISCALCULATION"

In Washington, a defense official said a long-scheduled test of the Minuteman III intercontinental missile, due to take place at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, would be postponed.

"This test ... has been delayed to avoid any misperception or miscalculation in light of recent tensions on the Korean peninsula," the official said on Saturday. "This is the logical, prudent and responsible course of action to take."

He said the test had been unconnected to "anything related to North Korea" and added that another test launch could be expected next month. The United States remained fully prepared to respond to any North Korean threat, the official said.

The South Korean president's office said the country had a "firm military readiness" for any eventuality. It described as "planned behavior" the North's call for South Korean workers to leave the Kaesong joint industrial park, just inside North Korea, and for diplomats to evacuate Pyongyang by Wednesday.

"Ahead of that time, a situation like a North Korean missile launch could occur," Kim Haing, a spokeswoman for the presidential Blue House, quoted the chief of the National Security office as saying. "As of now, there are no signs of all-out war, but if a local conflict breaks out, North Korea should be aware that it will pay the price."

South Korean media said on Friday the North had moved two medium-range missiles to the country's east coast, but there has been no confirmation of such a move.

The North has always condemned joint exercises off the South Korean coast, but its rhetoric has been especially furious this year as the United States sent nuclear-capable stealth bombers from their home bases.

North Korean state television showed a military training session, with soldiers putting dogs through their paces, including one seen tearing to pieces an effigy of South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin. Soldiers were shown firing at pictures of the minister and a depiction of a U.S. serviceman.

"As you all know, on the Korean peninsula, it is not a matter of whether we will have a war or not, but whether it will take place today or tomorrow," an unidentified soldier said.

"This is a situation like being on the eve of a big explosion. Every minute, every second counts. We are right now set to march, once the order is given."

There was no evidence of any tension in the South Korean capital, Seoul, with residents strolling in the city center on a chilly spring day.

Nobel Peace Prize Nominee: Obama Asks Military Leaders If They Will “Fire On US Citizens”

2009 Nobel Peace Prize nominee Jim Garrow shockingly claims he was told
by a top military veteran that the Obama administration’s “litmus test”
for new military leaders is whether or not they will obey an order to
fire on U.S. citizens.

Garrow was nominated three years ago for the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize and is the founder of The Pink Pagoda Girls,
an organization dedicated to rescuing baby girls from “gendercide” in
China. Garrow has been personally involved in “helping rescue more than
36,000 Chinese baby girls from death.” He is a public figure, not an
anonymous voice on the Internet, which makes his claim all the more
disturbing.

“I have just been informed by a former senior military leader that
Obama is using a new “litmus test” in determining who will stay and who
must go in his military leaders. Get ready to explode folks. “The new
litmus test of leadership in the military is if they will fire on US
citizens or not”. Those who will not are being removed,” Garrow wrote on his Facebook page,
later following up the post by adding the man who told him is, “one of
America’s foremost military heroes,” whose goal in divulging the
information was to “sound the alarm.”

Garrow’s claim is even more explosive given that the country is in the
throes of a national debate about gun control, with gun rights advocates
keen to insist that the founders put the second amendment in the
Constitution primarily as a defense against government tyranny.

It also follows reports on Sunday that
General James Mattis, head of the United States Central Command, “is
being told to vacate his office several months earlier than planned.”

Concerns over US troops being given orders to fire on American citizens
in the event of mass gun confiscation first arose in 1995 when hundreds
of Marines at 29 Palms, California were given a survey as part of an academic project
by Navy Lieutenant Commander Ernest Guy Cunningham which asked the
Marines if they would, “Fire upon U.S. citizens who refuse or resist
confiscation of firearms banned by the United States government.”

The survey was subsequently leaked because many of the Marines who took it were shocked by the tone of the question.

The US Military has clearly outlined innumerable civil emergency
scenarios under which troops would be authorized to fire on U.S.
citizens.

In July 2012, the process by which this could take place was made clear
in a leaked US Army Military Police training manual for “Civil
Disturbance Operations” (PDF) dating from 2006. Similar plans were also outlined in an updated manual released in 2010 entitled FM 3-39.40 Internment and Resettlement Operations.

The 2006 document outlines how military assets will be used to “help
local and state authorities to restore and maintain law and order” in
the event of mass riots, civil unrest or a declaration of martial law.

On page 20 of the manual, rules regarding the use of “deadly force” in
confronting “dissidents” on American soil are made disturbingly clear
with the directive that a, “Warning shot will not be fired.”

Given that second amendment advocates are now being depicted as dangerous terrorists by
the federal government and local law enforcement, Garrow’s claim is
sure to stoke controversy given that Americans are seeing their gun
rights eviscerated while the federal government itself stockpiles billions of bullets.

Last week, Gloversville Mayor Dayton King warned that any federal gun confiscation program could lead to a “Waco-style standoff” in rural areas of America.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News…

Paul Joseph Watson

China’s New “Boat”




This is quantum leap above anything we have on the drawing board. They have thought “outside the box” on this one. Better speed, larger capacity, much more stable, etc. Definitely a “blue-water” long reach vessel. Plus they can service their nuke sub fleet in-between the twin hulls ( sight unseen ) or even launch amphibious opps from same. It will be launched in half the time it takes the USA at just one-third the cost. Add the new Chinese stealth fighter bomber (naval version already flight-testing) in the mix and you have the makings of a formidable weapons system indeed. Also look at that extra ”parking and readiness” station between both hull structures. And of course the launching and landing capabilities from the utilization of twin flight decks at once.

P.S. Some thought should be given to advising your grandchildren to learn to speak mandarin (forget Spanish). My very, very bright 15-year old cousin has already been advised to do so by people who know about such things.

P.S. Six of these vessels (two pacific, two Atlantic, one Indian ocean and one on the Mediterranean sea) would be a pretty good diplomatic “big stick.” Note : the Chinese are already drilling for oil off Cuba , Brazil and Venezuela. Can they build a fleet of these things?

A few facts: the Chinese have completed the world’s biggest dam (three gorges), the world’s longest over-water bridge (65 times as much steel as in the Eiffel tower), constructed a 15,000 ft. high railroad into Tibet (all considered major engineering feats).

China is the only nation other than Russia that can launch men into outer space (our capability ended with the last space shuttle launch this month) . They have also shot down a surveillance satellite (one of their own) from the ground. Plus, they “own our ass” in the international debt game.

China’s new carrier could be twice as fast as anything we have, plus the stability of a catamaran type hull will greatly reduce the pitching, yawing and swaying common to our present designs. Be afraid, be very afraid ….. !

BY CHELSEA SCHILLING

Why is China constructing large, well-designed “ghost cities” that are completely devoid of people?

Now, the BBC reports a giant new Chinese-built city has been spotted in Africa in the outskirts of Angola’s capital Luanda.

The city, Nova Cidade de Kilamba, was designed to hold up to a half million people and features 750 eight-story apartment buildings, 12 schools and more than 100 retail units, according to the report.

State-owned China International Trust and Investment Corporation reportedly took less than three years to build the city at a cost of $3.5 billion. It covers 12,355 acres.

BBC former Angola correspondent Louise Redvers reported that they discovered that the city’s buildings are completely empty.

The empty cities aren’t only in Africa.

WND and Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert reported just last year that Google Earth photographs of China depict city after city of vast complexes consisting of office skyscrapers, government buildings, apartment buildings, residential towers and homes, all connected by networks of empty roads – with some of the cities located in China’s truly most inhospitable locations.

Images of these “ghost cities” – after countless billions of dollars have been spent on the towns’ design and construction – reveal nobody lives in them.

Block after block of empty houses and apartment buildings, glamorous public buildings, magnificent public parks and sports complexes, even art museums, remain entirely empty.

“The photographs look like giant movie sets prepared to film apocalyptic motion pictures in which some sort of a neutron war or bizarre natural disaster has eliminated people from the face of the earth while leaving the skyscrapers, sports stadiums, parks and roads perfectly intact,” Corsi noted. “One of China’s ghost cities is actually built in the middle of a desert in Inner Mongolia.”

Business Insider ran a series of photos of these Chinese ghost cities. One showed no cars in the city except for approximately 100 parked in largely empty lots clustered around a government building, and another showed a beautiful wetland park with people added using Photoshop.

At the time, China had an estimated inventory of 64 million vacant homes and was building up to 20 new ghost cities a year on the country’s “vast swathes of free land.”
Business Insider speculated that the Chinese need to put their money somewhere, so developers have decided to build, as a place to store the wealth, even if the Chinese building these cities do not intend to live in them and there is no prospect they can find renters.

ScallyWagAndVagabond.com quoted Patrick Chovanec, a business teacher at Tsinghua University in Beijing, who explained, “Who wants to be the mayor who reports that he didn’t get 8 percent GDP growth this year? Nobody wants to come forward with that. So the incentives in the system are to build. And if that’s the easiest way to achieve growth, then you build.”

The following are some photos posted on Facebook of the Chinese “ghost city,” Nova Cidade de Kilamba, in Africa:






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