fulltimestudent

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Posts by fulltimestudent

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  17

  Ad Gefrin - The Ancient Capital of Northumbria

  by cofty in

  1. social
  2. physical

  last sunday my wife and i went walking in the cheviot hills in the beautiful northumberland national park not far from our home.

  we have walked a lot of the cheviots in recent months and intend to get around a lot more over the summer.. this week we decided to go up a few of the smaller hills in the north of the park so we headed for a peak known as yeavering bell.

  it was used as a hill fort since the iron age.

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  fulltimestudent

  And, Hortensia also - another favourite,

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hwUrBgZeUA
• 
  17

  Ad Gefrin - The Ancient Capital of Northumbria

  by cofty in

  1. social
  2. physical

  last sunday my wife and i went walking in the cheviot hills in the beautiful northumberland national park not far from our home.

  we have walked a lot of the cheviots in recent months and intend to get around a lot more over the summer.. this week we decided to go up a few of the smaller hills in the north of the park so we headed for a peak known as yeavering bell.

  it was used as a hill fort since the iron age.

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• 

  fulltimestudent

  Now you've done it, Cofty.

  You've unlolcked my memory bank - and one of my favourite poems shows up on the screen - Kipling's, There was Once a Road through the Woods.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hwUrBgZeUA
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  15

  The Chinese Military

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. social
  2. current

  every year since i started my china studies program, i've noted western pollies asking for the chinese government to be more transparent in regard to the chinese military.. i'm not quite sure what 'being transparent' means, does it mean giving the west access to all military secrets?

  during my recent visit to china i can't recall seeing one soldier.. but, due to the cica - asian security conference, held in shanghai while i was in china, there were lots of extra police on the streets, maybe because the russian president putin attended.

  but the most exciting thing to happen was (apparently) the finalisation of negotiations on the supply of russian energy to china.

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  fulltimestudent

  Vidqun:

  Perhaps this is what they mean for the PLA to be more transparent. How do they fit into the (Chinese) scheme of things? Who controls China’s arsenal, the politicians or the military? Fact of the matter is: China’s nine-man Politburo Standing Committee, the nation’s top political body, is staffed with technocrats, and has no military representative. The Americans coined the phrase “the Chinese civilian-military disconnect”.

  The theoretical situation is that the PLA (the Chinese Army) is controlled by the Central Military Commission of the CPC. The Chinese President is Chairman of that body. The President has the power to proclaim a state of war and to issue mobilisation order, but theoretically exercises that power in accord with the National People's Congress (NPC),

  Historically, the memory of the Warlord era (after the breakdown of the Qing regime) is so strong that civilian control (in the form of the CPC) will be the norm in the foreseeable future, in my view.

  Having said that, the practical picture is more complicated. The People' Republic proclaimed by Mao Zedong in front of the Forbidden City on October, 1 - 1949

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJcol3SJ6ww

  was the outcome of victory in the civil war with Chiang Kaishek's GMD - so all members of the victorious CPC had been essentially involved in the PLA in some way. (Deng Xiaoping had proven his organising ability by raising and training two divisions of peasant soldiers.) Even so, the CPC attached political cadres to army units), but the links between the civilian government and the PLA must have been very close.

  It is is my opinion that there was only one specific occasion when military intervention decided civilian control, and that was when Mao died. His wife (widow) attempted to take control of the government and the army supported the dissenting Party faction in arresting her and her supporters. Clearly, the leadership of the PLA is close to the government, just as it is in the USA.

  I'm interested in your comment on the fact that control of the Chinese government is in the hands of technocrats. Did you mean to imply that that is not a good thing?

  If so, I'd argue that its a good thing. The CPC works hard to increase the professional skills of the goverment leaders, as explained in this Reuters report:

  Reference: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/28/us-china-education-idUSBRE91R1KW20130228

  Here's an extract:

  

  Sun Zhengcai, then party chief of Jilin province attends a meeting held on the sidelines of the 18th National Congress of the CPC, in Beijing, in this November 9, 2012 file photo. Sun earned his PhD from China Agricultural University in 1997, experimenting with different fertilizers for crop rotation in northern China, according to his doctoral thesis. Sun represents one of the more far reaching changes in Chinese politics. Highly educated leaders in a broad range of disciplines are rising to the top of the ruling Communist Party, according to data from Connected China, a Reuters database application that tracks the connections and careers of China's leaders.

  There's more, if you care to check it out.
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  15

  The Chinese Military

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. social
  2. current

  every year since i started my china studies program, i've noted western pollies asking for the chinese government to be more transparent in regard to the chinese military.. i'm not quite sure what 'being transparent' means, does it mean giving the west access to all military secrets?

  during my recent visit to china i can't recall seeing one soldier.. but, due to the cica - asian security conference, held in shanghai while i was in china, there were lots of extra police on the streets, maybe because the russian president putin attended.

  but the most exciting thing to happen was (apparently) the finalisation of negotiations on the supply of russian energy to china.

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  fulltimestudent

  Apparently highly trained special operations soldiers are stationed on the western border regions of China. Recent photographs of these units in training were published in the Peoples Daily, issue date, April 29, 2014.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  It seems to me that the PLA is quite different to the PLA of the Korean war, in which their 'human wave' tactic shocked the US Military.
• 
  15

  The Chinese Military

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. social
  2. current

  every year since i started my china studies program, i've noted western pollies asking for the chinese government to be more transparent in regard to the chinese military.. i'm not quite sure what 'being transparent' means, does it mean giving the west access to all military secrets?

  during my recent visit to china i can't recall seeing one soldier.. but, due to the cica - asian security conference, held in shanghai while i was in china, there were lots of extra police on the streets, maybe because the russian president putin attended.

  but the most exciting thing to happen was (apparently) the finalisation of negotiations on the supply of russian energy to china.

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  fulltimestudent

  Scott77

  fulltimestudent,

  Thank for updates about china and its PLA. I think, China is getting modernized each day. Having one only aircraft carrier certainly makes it vulnerable to cruise missile attack. In my opinion, air superiority is the key to maintaining superpower status. China unfortunately, is still behind this game.

  Scott77

  Some observers no longer seem to think that carrier groups have the value that they did 20 years ago. Some modern developments may have made carriers much more vulnerable. I guess that opinion applies to full scale war. Still, I'd be inclined to think that the ability to sail a carrier group close to a target zone and have all the apparatus of a air base has advantages (as in Iraq at this moment).

  However, I'm not sure that such a move is what the Chinese have in mind. I suggest that the goal (at this stage) is being able to protect shipping routes over which Chinese commerce moves.

  It is rumoured that a second carrier is under construction at a shipyard in Shanghai. So far( as far as I know), no-one has come up with definitive images. (or, if they have - they are not sharing.)

  If that rumour turns out to be true, I would not be surprised if this second carrier turns out to be something like the Japanese Hyuga helicopter carriers.

  The Hyūga-class helicopter destroyer ( ひゅうが型護衛艦 Hyūga-gata-goei-kan ? ) is a type of helicopter carrier built for the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF). [1] [2] Two ships of the class were built to replace the two 7,000-ton Haruna-class helicopter destroyers. The new ships are the largest combatant ship operated by Japan since the Imperial Japanese Navy was superseded by the JMSDF. [1] The first ship in the class, Hyūga , was commissioned on March 18, 2009 and stationed in Yokosuka , near Tokyo . [3] The second ship, Ise , went into service on March 16, 2011 and is stationed at Kure . (Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hy%C5%ABga-class_helicopter_destroyer).

  

  Their function is anti-submarine warfare, which I think fits in more neatly with what the Chinese military goals may be at present.
• 
  15

  The Chinese Military

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. social
  2. current

  every year since i started my china studies program, i've noted western pollies asking for the chinese government to be more transparent in regard to the chinese military.. i'm not quite sure what 'being transparent' means, does it mean giving the west access to all military secrets?

  during my recent visit to china i can't recall seeing one soldier.. but, due to the cica - asian security conference, held in shanghai while i was in china, there were lots of extra police on the streets, maybe because the russian president putin attended.

  but the most exciting thing to happen was (apparently) the finalisation of negotiations on the supply of russian energy to china.

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  fulltimestudent

  prologos:

  fulltimestudent your map shows taiwan already as part of China, the big one? included in a new barrier reef shielding toward the west?

  Interesting! the map came from google images for Hubei province. I checked back and found that the original website (that included the map) was from a agriculture page by the Department of Plant Nutrition, College of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences of China's, Agricultural University in Beijing (web reference: http://www2.dijon.inra.fr/mychintec/Target_Regions/Target1.html ).

  How it was included on the google images for Hubei is not clear (to me), unless google have some automated system that trawls for information on each topic.

  Anyway, all P.R. Chinese maps routinely include Taiwan as part of the P.R.C., as Taiwan is regarded as a renegade province. The R.O.C. (Taiwan) may still have Government departments that include responsibility for sections of the mainland. That's another result of the 'Cold War.'

  The 'reef' as you called it puzzled me at first, until I realised that it could be an attempt to reproduce the so-called 'nine-dash line., which more or less sets out the limits of Chinese influence prior to the first Opium war (1839-1842).
• 
  15

  The Chinese Military

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. social
  2. current

  every year since i started my china studies program, i've noted western pollies asking for the chinese government to be more transparent in regard to the chinese military.. i'm not quite sure what 'being transparent' means, does it mean giving the west access to all military secrets?

  during my recent visit to china i can't recall seeing one soldier.. but, due to the cica - asian security conference, held in shanghai while i was in china, there were lots of extra police on the streets, maybe because the russian president putin attended.

  but the most exciting thing to happen was (apparently) the finalisation of negotiations on the supply of russian energy to china.

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  fulltimestudent

  This next group is described as a training exercise for an airborne combat unit of the PLA. It was held in Hubei, central China.

  

  

  

  

  

  
• 
  15

  The Chinese Military

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. social
  2. current

  every year since i started my china studies program, i've noted western pollies asking for the chinese government to be more transparent in regard to the chinese military.. i'm not quite sure what 'being transparent' means, does it mean giving the west access to all military secrets?

  during my recent visit to china i can't recall seeing one soldier.. but, due to the cica - asian security conference, held in shanghai while i was in china, there were lots of extra police on the streets, maybe because the russian president putin attended.

  but the most exciting thing to happen was (apparently) the finalisation of negotiations on the supply of russian energy to china.

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• 

  fulltimestudent

  More piks from Inner Mongolia.

  

  

  
• 
  15

  The Chinese Military

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. social
  2. current

  every year since i started my china studies program, i've noted western pollies asking for the chinese government to be more transparent in regard to the chinese military.. i'm not quite sure what 'being transparent' means, does it mean giving the west access to all military secrets?

  during my recent visit to china i can't recall seeing one soldier.. but, due to the cica - asian security conference, held in shanghai while i was in china, there were lots of extra police on the streets, maybe because the russian president putin attended.

  but the most exciting thing to happen was (apparently) the finalisation of negotiations on the supply of russian energy to china.

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• 

  fulltimestudent

  In case you know nothing about the world's most populous nation, Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan Province right down in the south of China, not far from Myanmar and Bangladash.

  In these next piks we jump right up to the north of China, to the province known as Inner Mongolia, which shares a border with Russia and Mongolia. In the map, Inner Mongolia is shown in color.

  

  The next image speaks of tank training on the huge grasslands of this northern steppe area.

  

  The captions describe the exercise as:

  The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has carried out an integrated tank combat drill since the middle of May on grassland of Inner Mongolia to test its capabilities in complex hinterland terrain.

  

  

  
• 
  15

  The Chinese Military

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. social
  2. current

  every year since i started my china studies program, i've noted western pollies asking for the chinese government to be more transparent in regard to the chinese military.. i'm not quite sure what 'being transparent' means, does it mean giving the west access to all military secrets?

  during my recent visit to china i can't recall seeing one soldier.. but, due to the cica - asian security conference, held in shanghai while i was in china, there were lots of extra police on the streets, maybe because the russian president putin attended.

  but the most exciting thing to happen was (apparently) the finalisation of negotiations on the supply of russian energy to china.

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  fulltimestudent

  And some more female members of the PLA undergo training:

  

  

  These women soldiers were from a communication company under the command of 13th Combined Corps of the Chengdu Military Area Command (MAC) of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA)