Tag: China

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Regional Stability

Taiwan’s Ten Thousand Double-Edged Swords

IDF F-CK-1A front view. Image: Chang-Song Wang/Wikimedia

This article was originally published by the East Asia Forum on 24 October, 2014.

Procuring the Ten Thousand Swords missile system is a blunder for Taiwan; it aggravates the security dilemma between it and the PRC. For its own security, Taiwan should deter threats from the PRC by manufacturing weapons with exclusively defensive capabilities.

The Ten Thousand Swords missile, or the ‘Wan Chien’ missile, is an aircraft-launched standoff missile that creates a barrage to destroy enemy facilities such as air bases, runways and missile launching sites. Its accuracy is enhanced by radars and GPS, with a striking range of 300 kilometres. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense has installed the missile in 40 Indigenous Defence Fighter (IDF) aircrafts to date and intends to complete installation on all 127 IDF aircraft by the end of 2016.

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Time to Start Thinking about Land-Based Anti-Ship Missiles

Soviet Anti-Ship Missile “Styx”. Image: Don S. Montgomery/Wikimedia

This article was originally published by the ASPI Strategist on 16 October 2014.

People’s Republic of China (PRC) has developed an impressive array of land-based anti-ship missile systems, which are part of a robust sea-denial capability. That growing capability is forcing the United States (US) and Australia to rethink Pacific strategy. Some are now asking why the US, and Australia for that matter, have no land-based anti-ship missile systems in their inventory. After all, we want to be able to do sea denial in Asia as well. So, should we be developing our own?

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Regional Stability

Hong Kong is not Tiananmen

Hong Kong Streets During Umbrella Revolution. Flickr/Pasu Au Yeung

This article was originally published by Russia Direct on 1 October 2014.

Hong Kong’s protests present a major problem for China’s leadership in Beijing. This is not 1989, when China used its army and tanks to dispel student protests in Tiananmen Square. Both China and the world have changed. And, most importantly, Hong Kong is not Beijing.

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Chinese Submarines Taste Indian Ocean

Flag of the Chinese Navy. Image: PhiLiP/Wikimedia

This article was originally published by the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC) on 1 October 2014.

A Chinese military website, ostensibly sponsored by the People’s Liberation Army, quoting Sri Lanka media has reported that a Chinese Type 039 diesel-electric Song-class submarine along with Changxing Dao, a submarine support ship from the North Sea Fleet was sighted berthed alongside at the Colombo International Container Terminal. Although the pictures of the submarine and the support vessel together in the port have not been published either by the Sri Lankan or the Chinese media, it is believed that the submarine arrived in early September just before the Chinese President Xi Jingping’s visit to Sri Lanka. The report also states that the submarine was on a routine deployment and had stopped over for replenishment. Further, a Chinese naval flotilla would call at a Sri Lankan port later in October and November.

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Regional Stability

Book Review: The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited by Louisa Lim

Image: Robert Croma/Flickr

This article was originally published by the LSE Review of Books on 15 September, 2014.

The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited. Louisa Lim. Oxford University Press. 2014.

It is astonishing that the 25th anniversary of one of the key events in China’s modern history has triggered comparatively little academic activity. The occupation of Tiananmen Square by student demonstrators in the spring of 1989 and the ensuing massacre in the streets of Beijing committed by the People’s Liberation Army was an event that brought many consequences for China. It thoroughly put an end to any reform of China’s political system while ensuring the continuation and indeed acceleration of the country’s economic transformation. It also ushered in a new era in which the history of class struggle has been turned into a history of China’s national humiliation. Finally, it made it possible to elevate nationalism and consumerism to core values supported by the party-state and to legitimate to a considerable extent the enormous effort and cost of the now most important task of ‘stability maintenance’.

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