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Apr.26 (China Military News cited from IANS) — The US is the greatest “perceived threat” to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and cross-Straits relationship was the most likely subject to provoke a China-US war, a top Chinese military strategist has said.

“The US is the only country capable of threatening China’s national security interests in an all-round way,” Rear Admiral Yang Yi, former head of strategic studies at the PLA’s National Defence University, said last week to a group of visiting senior US officials.

“Japan has no such ability, while Russia has no such motivation and India is more worried about China,” Yang said while addressing delegates at the weeklong US-China Government Executive Global Leadership Course that concluded last Friday.

Yang said Beijing was hoping to maintain and develop a stable and healthy relationship with Washington but it also needed to make necessary preparations for any possible threat.

“Fortunately, the risk of a Sino-US confrontation is decreasing due to the relaxation of the Taiwan question,” China Daily reported Sunday quoting Yang.

He said the Taiwan question would be solved politically rather than militarily, adding the cross-Straits relationship would become even more stable and secure if it continued to develop positively over the next five to 10 years.

Talking about US arms sales to Taiwan, Yang said: “Those weapons will be ours sooner or later.”

The 17-member US group included directors of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Defence Department and Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

This is the first time that Washington has sent senior government officials to Beijing to engage their Chinese counterparts in a comparative educational dialogue.

Sun Zhe, director of Tsinghua University’s Centre for US-China Relations who planned the course two years ago, said Yang had answered the questions in a frank manner.

“A US navy official in charge of intelligence asked the question and he quickly responded that it was the same case for China about the US,” Sun said, adding it is very unique for naval officials from the two sides to exchange thoughts so honestly.

According to Sun, the frank communication was not intended as a threat, but that it would help the two powers to avoid strategically misjudging the other.

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By admin

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BEIJING, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) — China on Saturday decided to suspend scheduled visits between the Chinese and U.S. armed forces, in response to Washington’s plan to sell a package of arms worth about 6.4 billion U.S. dollars to Taiwan.

“We made the decision out of considerations on the severe harm of the U.S. arms sales to Taiwan,” said Defense Ministry spokesman Huang Xueping in a statement.

The U.S. government on Friday announced the plans to sell a package of arms to Taiwan, which include Patriot missiles, Black Hawk helicopters and minesweepers. China immediately expressed strong indignation about the sale after the U.S. government notified the U.S. Congress of the plans.

Qian Lihua, director of the Defense Ministry’s Foreign Affairs Office, on Saturday summoned the defense attache of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing to lodge a stern protest.

“The Chinese military expresses grave indignation and strongly condemns such a move to grossly interfere into China’s internal affairs and harm China’s national security interests,” Qian said in a press release of the office.

Taiwan issue is related to China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and concerns China’s core interests.

“The U.S. arms sales to Taiwan gravely violates the three joint communiques between China and the United States, and seriously endangers China’s national security and harms China’s reunification course,” Qian said.The U.S. such move also constitutes severe violation of the agreements reached by the top leaders of both sides on the China-U.S. relations in the new situation, he said.

Bayi-Building, the location of Chinese Defense Ministry

It runs counter to the principles of the joint statement issued during U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to China in November last year, said Qian.

The U.S. plan will definitely bring about serious negative impact on the relations between the two countries and militaries, and will to the end severely undermine the interests of the United States itself, he noted.

The United States have reiterated in many occasions that it will adhere to the one-China policy, abide by the three joint communiques and support the peaceful development of relations across the Taiwan Straits.

“However, the United States now takes faithless action to sell arms to Taiwan again,” Qian said such plans severely poison the political foundation of the relations between the two militaries, and produce grave obstacles to military exchanges between the two sides.

Qian urged the United States to respect China’s core interests and concerns, take practical actions to abide by its solemn commitments on Taiwan issue, withdraw its arms sales items to Taiwan, and stop military links with Taiwan, in order not to create further damage to the relations between the two countries and the two militaries and to the peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits.

“We reserve the right of taking further actions,” he noted.

According to Huang, the spokesman, “such a move is gravely against especially the ‘Aug. 17′ communique signed in 1982.”

The U.S. side states in the Communique that “it does not seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to Taiwan” and “intends to reduce gradually its sales of arms to Taiwan, leading over a period of time to a final resolution.”

“We will never give in or compromise in this issue,” the statement quoted Huang as saying, noting that the Chinese military will firmly fight against any move to destroy China’s national sovereignty security and territorial integrity.

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By admin

Is China Ready to Be a Global Power? Or Headed Toward Collapse?: ”

For Global Times, David Shambaugh writes a piece asking, “Is China ready to be a global power?”:

President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, and US Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman have all made speeches this year calling on China to be a greater global partner of the US. More could be done by China in some of the aforementioned areas. With respect to the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs, Beijing could use more of its influence and leverage behind the scenes to halt these programs.

Of course, Beijing is chronically adverse to using sanctions and other coercive measures, but it could still more clearly make the case to the governments in Pyongyang and Tehran that they will face ever-increasing international isolation unless they opt to trade their nuclear ambitions for normalizing their positions in regional and international affairs.

Then there is Afghanistan and Pakistan – two countries where China’s national security interests are directly affected and where the international community has a common mission to destroy Al Qaeda and the Taliban and bring stability and security to Afghanistan and the Pakistani border region. Yet where is China?

[...] The issue of China’s role in the global climate change negotiations is also an important opportunity for Beijing to show it is part of the solution and not just part to the problem.

Specific numbers on emissions caps need to be added to Hu Jintao’s positive speech to the UN in September, prior to the UN Climate Change Conference Copenhagen in December.

This is likely to be an issue high on the agenda in Obama’s discussions with Hu.

While Politico ponders, “Is China headed toward collapse?”:

But there’s a growing group of market professionals who see a different picture altogether. These self-styled China bears take the less popular view: that the much-vaunted Chinese economic miracle is nothing but a paper dragon. In fact, they argue that the Chinese have dangerously overheated their economy, building malls, luxury stores and infrastructure for which there is almost no demand, and that the entire system is teetering toward collapse.

A Chinese collapse, of course, would have profound effects on the United States, limiting China’s ability to buy U.S. debt and provoking unknown political changes inside the Chinese regime.

The China bears could be dismissed as a bunch of cranks and grumps except for one member of the group: hedge fund investor Jim Chanos.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009.