Current Events in Asia-Pacific

From Stratfor Chinese Geopolitics and the Significance of Tibet April 15, 2008 By George Friedman China is an island. We do not mean it is surrounded by water; we mean China is surrounded by territory that is difficult to traverse. Therefore, China is hard to invade; given its size and population, it is even harder to occupy. This also makes it hard for the Chinese to invade others; not utterly impossible, but quite difficult. Containing a fifth of the world’s population, China can wall itself off from the world, as it did prior to the United Kingdom’s forced entry in the 19th century and under Mao Zedong. All of this means China is a great power, but one that h…

Washington Times April 17, 2008 Pg. 1 Taiwan Strait Tension Cools Off China issued warning to U.S. By Bill Gertz, The Washington Times The United States sent three aircraft carrier strike groups to waters around Taiwan after China told U.S. officials last year there was high risk of a military incident after Taiwan's March 22 presidential election, according to Pentagon and military officials. One strike group has been redeployed to the Persian Gulf since the failure of an election-day referendum strongly opposed by Beijing, but two groups remain near the island, the officials said. The Chinese warning, described in a March 31 Pentagon report to Con…

From DefenseNews Indian Party Wants To End Military Ties With U.S. By vivek raghuvanshi Published: 1 Apr 12:58 EDT (08:58 GMT) NEW DELHI -Increasing defense cooperation with the United States is likely to shorten the life of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government here as its main supporter on the left, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM), has resolved to end India's military relationship with the United States. Without the support of India's Communist parties, the alliance government will find it difficult to remain in power until its term ends in mid-2009. Meeting March 29, the CPM's 19th Congress called for ending the Indo-U.S. …

From Jane's Ma's victory eases tension across Taiwan Strait 01 April 2008 When Ma Ying-jeou is asked how his China-friendly attitude will play out in practice, he flinches. Although Ma just won Taiwan's presidential election in a landslide on an agenda of closer links with the island's economically attractive but politically hostile neighbour, he is very cautious. Welcome to political reality in Taiwan. While Ma has pledged not to move towards independence during his term in office, he has also committed himself not to negotiate unification. This sets a tight framework for what Ma can achieve. He has made clear that he will not try to resolve the conflict onc…

From Aviation Week's ARES Blog There's Life In The Old Girl Yet Posted by Bill Sweetman at 3/23/2008 11:24 AM CDT Via the invaluable Secret Projects site comes a brochure on Lockheed Martin's F-16IN proposal to India. The options list is a mixture of features from the United Arab Emirates' F-16E/F and the Advanced Block 50 that is standard for other export customers. The active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar is the Northrop Grumman APG-80 from the F-16E/F; the company's newly announced Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) is optimized for retrofits, and unlike the APG-80 does not need added power and cooling. Also from the E/F are the big-screen gl…

From Flight International DATE: 21/03/08 SOURCE: Flightglobal.com Russia flies first production MiG-29 for Indian navy By Graham Warwick RSK MiG has flown the first production MiG-29K/KUB carrier-based multi-role combat aircraft for the Indian navy. The two-seat MiG-29KUB flew on 18 March from the company's Lukhovitsky test centre near Moscow. MiG is producing 12 single-seat MiG-29Ks and four tandem-seat MiG-29KUBs under a contract signed in January 2004. The aircraft are to equip the former Soviet navy aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov, which is being refitted in Russia for delivery to the Indian navy as the INS Vikramaditya. The first of two pre-pr…

From Navy Times 2 carriers in W. Pacific ahead of Taiwan vote Kyodo News Service Posted : Thursday Mar 20, 2008 8:07:03 EDT TAIPEI, Taiwan — Two U.S. aircraft carriers and accompanying vessels have been deployed to the Western Pacific just days before Taiwan’s presidential election amid heightened regional tensions, a U.S. military spokesman told Kyodo News on Thursday. Aircraft carriers Kitty Hawk and Nimitz are both “conducting scheduled, routine operations in the Western Pacific,” said Master Chief Shane Tuck, a spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii. “With the Nimitz, that carrier’s deployment includes its entire carrier strike group. For t…

From DefenseNews Australia Cancels Seasprite Contract AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Published: 4 Mar 22:13 EST (17:13 GMT) SYDNEY - Australia on March 5 cancelled a $1 billion (930 million U.S.) contract for U.S.-made Seasprite helicopters following a review of the troubled project. The Australian navy ordered 11 of the anti-submarine and anti-shipping helicopters in 1997 but technical problems meant they were never fully operational and the fleet was indefinitely grounded in 2006. Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon ordered a review of the project after the center-left Labor Party won office last November as part of a wider examination of a series of controversial …

From Flight International DATE: 04/01/08 SOURCE: Flight International Australia to review Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet purchase By Emma Kelly Australia's newly elected Labor government is to review the country's air power capability, in a controversial move that could see the previous administration's A$6.6 billion ($5.8 billion) order for 24 Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornets dumped, and the planned purchase of up to 100 Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighters also face a fresh assessment. Australia became the first export customer for the Super Hornet (US Navy F/A-18F pictured below) last March, with its two-seat fighters scheduled for delivery from 2010 a…

From Aviation Week Australia Eyes E/A-18Gs, Confirms F/A-18Fs Mar 17, 2008 Bradley Perrett Australia will consider buying Boeing E/A-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft following confirmation of its order for 24 of the standard two-seat version of the Super Hornet, the F/A-18F. In a review of air combat requirements, the Labor government now endorses the Super Hornet as “an excellent aircraft capable of meeting any known threat in the region,” even though Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has spent months criticizing the hasty process in which the former Liberal National administration decided to buy it last year. Fitzgibbon has implied, but never spe…

From Defense Aerospace China's Defense Budget to grow 17.6% in 2008 (Source: Chinese Government Portal; issued March 4, 2008) China plans to increase its defense budget by 17.6 percent in 2008, a parliament spokesperson said in Beijing on Tuesday. The planned defense budget for 2008 was 417.769 billion yuan, a rise of 62.379 billion yuan from last year, Jiang Enzhu, spokesman for China's top legislature's annual session, told a press conference. (ends) China Military Expansion Could Have Global Implications (Source: US Department of Defense; issued March 3, 2008) WASHINGTON --- China not only is a rising international economic power, but also …

From Flight International DATE: 25/02/08 SOURCE: Flight International Boeing expects to seal Seoul deal for F-15Ks By Craig Hoyle South Korea should conclude a deal on a follow-on batch of 20 Boeing F-15K multirole fighters within the next month, says F-15 programme director Steve Winkler. The manufacturer also believes other potential fresh orders from existing Eagle users Japan, Saudi Arabia and Singapore could extend production of the type beyond 2012. Boeing has now delivered 32 F-15Ks from South Korea's 40-strong order worth $4.2 billion, with the rest to follow by late this year. Although Seoul held an original requirement for 120 F-X fighters, Win…

Ohio sub a new twist on underwater warfare By Eric Talmadge - The Associated Press Posted : Friday Feb 15, 2008 17:17:15 EST ABOARD THE USS OHIO, SOMEWHERE IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN — Capt. Andy Hale has just worked out and is still in a sweaty T-shirt and shorts as he stands in the battle command center. He watches a flat screen display that shows what’s happening outside on the bow and the aft. His billion-dollar submarine — the Navy’s newest twist on underwater warfare — is hovering just below the surface off the Pacific island of Guam as a submersible disappears into the dark waters, carrying a team of commandos. The Ohio is the first of a new class of sub…

F/A-18s intercept Russian bombers near carrier By Lolita C. Baldor - The Associated Press Posted : Monday Feb 11, 2008 17:08:47 EST WASHINGTO — U.S. fighter planes intercepted two Russian bombers flying unusually close to an American aircraft carrier in the western Pacific during the weekend, The Associated Press has learned. A U.S. military official says that one Russian Tupolev 95 buzzed the aircraft carrier Nimitz twice, at a low altitude of about 2,000 feet, while another bomber circled about 50 nautical miles out. The official was speaking on condition of anonymity because the reports on the flights were classified as secret. The Saturday incident, w…

From Jane's Clock ticking for Kim's Korea By Reuben F Johnson 24 January 2008 Kim Jong-Il's regime could collapse within six months, bringing chaos to North Korea, observers and intelligence sources in Asia have told Jane's. A joint United States report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the US Institute for Peace has also revealed that China has "contingency plans" in the event of North Korea's implosion. The report, entitled 'Keeping an Eye on an Unruly Neighbor', said that China was prepared to "take the initiative" and had a military strategy for securing North Korea's "loose nukes" should Kim Jong-Il's rule fail. Any apocalypt…

From Air Force Times Hypothetical attack on U.S. outlined by China By Patrick Winn - Staff writer Posted : Monday Jan 21, 2008 11:51:13 EST In a hypothetical future scenario, the U.S. and China are poised to clash — likely over Taiwan. The democratic Republic of China, commonly called Taiwan — which America backs and the communist People’s Republic of China considers part of its territory — frequently irritates Chinese leaders with calls for greater independence from the mainland. But while the American military mulls its options, Chinese missiles hit runways, fuel lines, barracks and supply depots at U.S. Air Force bases in Japan and South Korea. Long-range…

From Navy Times Report: Chinese ships confronted Kitty Hawk Kyodo News Service Posted : Tuesday Jan 15, 2008 16:08:22 EST TAIPEI — A Chinese attack submarine and destroyer shadowed U.S. warships in November in the Taiwan Strait, sparking a 28-hour standoff that brought the group to a battle-ready halt in the tense waters, a report in a Taiwan daily said Tuesday. The confrontation occurred as the Navy aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk and other ships in its battle group were heading back to Japan following China’s sudden cancellation of a long-scheduled holiday port call in Hong Kong, the China Times said, citing U.S. military sources. The carrier strike group …

From Navy Times Group: Pirate attacks up 10 percent in 2007 The Associated Press Posted : Wednesday Jan 9, 2008 7:17:27 EST KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Global pirate attacks rose by 10 percent in 2007, marking the first increase in three years as sea robbers made a strong comeback in Nigeria and Somalia, an international maritime watchdog said Wednesday. Last year, there were 269 attacks on ships, up from 239 in 2006 and reversing a downtrend seen since 2003, the International Maritime Bureau said in its annual report released by its piracy reporting center in Malaysia. “The significant increase in the [2007] numbers can be directly attributed to the increa…

From DefenseNews Posted 01/02/08 11:04 Analyst: Kim Jong-Il Still Undecided on Giving up Nukes AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, SEOUL North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has still not decided whether to give up his nuclear weapons despite a disarmament pledge under an international deal, a senior analyst said Jan. 2. Nam Sung-Wook, a North Korea expert at Korea University who advises South Korean President-elect Lee Myung-Bak, said he expects Pyongyang to stall on the disarmament deal after missing a year-end deadline. “National Defense Commission Chairman Kim Jong-Il seems not to have made a decision yet to abandon nuclear weapons,” Nam told SBS radio. Pyongyang will “drag…

Dud frigates are an inherited nightmare: Fitzgibbon By Alexandra Kirk and staff Posted Wed Jan 2, 2008 4:31pm AEDT ABC News A Navy whistleblower says the frigates' anti-missile and anti-torpedo systems could not be integrated. (Department of Defence) Australia's front line guided missile frigates are still not able to be sent into battle, despite a $1.5 billion upgrade. The project to modernise the 1970's ships is running four years late, and according to News Limited papers this morning, sailors are quitting because their ships can not be deployed in the Middle East or any other conflict zone. In the report a Navy whistleblower says the frigates'…