Current Events in Asia-Pacific

From DefenseNews China and Russia to Hold Joint Military Exercises Aug 18-26: Report By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, BEIJING China and Russia will hold rare joint military exercises involving up to 8,000 service personnel from August 18-26, a state newspaper reported July 6. ”Peace Mission 2005” will involve China’s army, navy and air force, while Russia will dispatch its navy and air force, said the Global Times, citing Russian press reports. China’s Defense Ministry has not announced the exercises. But Russian President Vladimir Putin said June 30 during a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao that joint exercises would take place later this year. …

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…

From BBC [excerpt]

From BBC News [excerpt]

From Aviation Week China Asat Test Called Worst Single Debris Event Ever By Frank Morring, Jr. Chinese delegates will have some explaining to do in Vienna later this month, when they sit down with representatives of other spacefaring nations to adopt international guidelines designed to mitigate the growing problem of man-made space debris in Earth orbit. The document drafted by a technical subcommittee of the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space is aimed at preventing the sort of accidental events that have gradually engulfed Earth in a cloud of potentially destructive high-speed debris since the flight of Sputnik 1 kicked off orbital spaceflig…

From DefenseNews China Builds First Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile Base? By WENDELL MINNICK Published: 5 Aug 2010 07:49 TAIPEI - China's new anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) will be deployed at the Second Artillery Corps' new missile base in Guangdong Province in southeastern China, if a new report issued by Washington-based Project 2049 Institute is correct. <snip for copyright>

BBC reporting escalating row between China and Vietnam in the South China Sea China 'cable' cutting angers Vietnam in Spratlys row

Thursday, February 19 09:31 am Reuters China called on Russia on Thursday to explain how a Chinese cargo ship sank in Russian waters after reports it was fired on by the Russian military. Skip related content Seven Chinese sailors were missing after the "New Star" sank on Saturday in stormy seas off Vladivostok and after a Russian warship shot at least 500 rounds into it, the official China Daily newspaper said, quoting a Chinese-language paper which in turned quoted a Russian newspaper. The "New Star" was held at the Russian port of Nakhodka earlier this month, suspected of involvement in smuggling, before it left without permission last week, the China D…

From Aviation Week China Close To Testing Next-Gen Fighter Nov 16, 2009 Bradley Perrett/Beijing A Chinese fighter of nominally the same technology generation as the Lockheed Martin F-22 will soon enter flight testing, while a jet airlifter larger than the Airbus A400M should be unveiled by year-end. Beijing’s fighter announcement suggests a serious failing in U.S. intelligence assessments, mocking a July 16 statement of U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates that China would have no fifth-generation fighters by 2020. Industrial competition looks more remote than strategic competition, however, since China will want to fill domestic requirements before offering …

China confirms hypersonic vehicle test (Jane's)

From Flight Global [excerpt]

China Confirms Y-7 for AEW for Carrier Ops (DefenseNews, Intercepts blog)

From Jane's China considers next-generation Su-33s for aircraft carrier programme By Reuben F Johnson 28 October 2008 China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is close to reaching a decision on the procurement of aircraft for its aircraft carrier programme, Russian industry sources have told Jane's. Negotiations between the PLAN and the Komsomolsk-na-Amure Aviation Production Association (KnAAPO) in Russia have been held intermittently for several years, with the Chinese military said to be unsure whether to purchase a version of the Sukhoi Su-33 carrier-capable fighter or develop its own carrier aircraft based on the Chengdu J-10. Russian sources ha…

From Defense Aerospace China Could Potentially Defeat U.S. In Conflict Over Taiwan By Limiting Military Access, Rand Study Finds (Source: Rand Corporation; issued Mar 29, 2007) China could potentially defeat the United States in a future military conflict over Taiwan by using strategies designed to limit U.S. military access to the area, according to a report issued today by the RAND Corporation. The report examines scenarios in which China might employ what are known as “antiaccess” strategies – actions that would impede the deployment of U.S. forces into a combat zone, limit the locations from which American forces could operate, or compel the U.S. milita…

From Aviation Week [excerpt]

China Deploys Advanced ASW Aircraft to South China Sea Air Base (The Diplomat)

Lots of details on the Type 052D China Destroyer Consolidates Innovations, Other Ship Advances (Signal)

China details performance of 'carrier killer' missile for JF-17 (Flight Global)

From Aviation Week China Developing Scramjet Propulsion Sep 2, 2007 By Craig Covault China is starting to ramp up its scramjet propulsion work—an initiative that will benefit high-speed missile programs while also helping the country to develop advanced aerospace materials, greater computational capabilities and a cadre of young engineers who have matured as a result of cutting-edge engine and aerodynamic challenges. Building on its ramjet experience, China is embracing the much more difficult task of developing Mach 5 air vehicle concepts in which propulsion and aerodynamics are highly coupled. As part of this effort, an integrated scramjet model is abo…

From Jane's Defence Weekly China develops anti-ship missile By Ted Parsons JDW Correspondent Virginia, US The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) is in the advanced stages of developing a revolutionary anti-ship ballistic missile to supplement its well known Ying-Ji family of anti-ship cruise missiles. The development programme has been confirmed by both US government and Asian military sources, with the latter estimating that the PLA may be able to deploy the space targeting systems needed to make its anti-ship ballistic missile operational by 2009. PLA efforts to provide terminal guidance capabilities to both its 600 km-range DF-15 (CSS-6) short-ran…