from 'Illustrations of China and its people' by J. Thompson, published in London, 1873
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Chinese people smoking opium
from 'Illustrations of China and its people' by J. Thompson, published in London, 1873
Nervous Dictators from Riyadh to Havana Rushing Out Populist Concessions while Quietly Preparing for the Worst...
Recent developments in North Africa
have tyrants spooked worldwide
have tyrants spooked worldwide
Saudi Arabia (FT):
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia announced financial support measures, worth an estimated $36B US in a bid to avert the kind of popular unrest that has toppled leaders across the region and is now closing in on Libya’s Muammer Gaddafi.
The measures include a 15% salary rise for public employees to offset inflation, reprieves for imprisoned debtors, and financial aid for students and the unemployed.
Saudi Arabia’s ruling family has thus far been spared the type of popular discontent that has toppled presidents in Tunisia and Egypt and brought Libya to the brink of civil war.
The measures include a 15% salary rise for public employees to offset inflation, reprieves for imprisoned debtors, and financial aid for students and the unemployed.
Saudi Arabia’s ruling family has thus far been spared the type of popular discontent that has toppled presidents in Tunisia and Egypt and brought Libya to the brink of civil war.
.......
The cash-rich Saudi government has pledged to spend $400bn by the end of 2014 to improve education, infrastructure and healthcare. “The king is trying to create wider trickle- down of wealth in the shape of social welfare,’’ said John Sfakianakis, chief economist at Banque Saudi Fransi.
“The budget can handle that, but it is an aspirin to ease medium-term pain, not a solution for the long-term housing, and unemployment issue.”
“The budget can handle that, but it is an aspirin to ease medium-term pain, not a solution for the long-term housing, and unemployment issue.”
Here we go. The dissidents.... In jail since 2003, 75 of them in total, serving decade-long prison sentences for expressing their opinions. But now they're set free.
.......
For years dissident bloggers and journalists like Yoani Sánchez were blocked by Cuba and could only be read abroad. Now, with the snap of a finger, they're back! Give Raúl Castro a hand! Say what you like, surf where you like...
We've seen it in Egypt - social media chase away dictators. Soon Cuba will be Twittering and Facebooking too.
Just a pity there are no Cubans in the audience, they couldn't afford the tickets. No one has internet at home and in the hotels it costs six dollars an hour... a week's wages for a Cuban.
Just a pity there are no Cubans in the audience, they couldn't afford the tickets. No one has internet at home and in the hotels it costs six dollars an hour... a week's wages for a Cuban.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pulling out all the stops to prevent a Chinese-style 'Jasmine Revolution'.
Dissidents, energised by the success of the public revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, used the Internet to mobilise peaceful demonstrations in a dozen major Chinese cities on Sunday (February 20). On Wednesday (23 February 2011), they called for these protests to continue.
At a meeting of top officials held on the eve of the rallies, Chinese President Hu Jintao urged tighter control of cyberspace and "specific groups of people", a term used to refer to dissidents, rights defenders and the disenfranchised.
Provincial heads, ministry chiefs and senior military officials were summoned to attend the meeting, according to the official Xinhua news agency. All nine members of the powerful CCP Politburo Standing Committee, which includes Hu, were present.
Hu made it clear that the session was meant to unify the minds of senior CCP cadres in the light of the "new changes in domestic and foreign situations", an oblique reference to the upheavals in the Arab world and their repercussions on China.
He stressed that social management must be strengthened in order to ensure the CCP stays in power.
Hu defined social management, for the first time, as "managing the people as well as serving them". Traditional communist-speak usually mentions only "serving the people".
According to Hu, the overall objective of social management is to "maximise harmonious factors and minimise non-harmonious ones".
He outlined several ways in which this could be achieved, including:
-- Strengthening control of Internet-transmitted information and management of cyberspace, and improving guidance of public opinion over the Internet.
-- Strengthening management of the migrant population and specific groups of people, and keeping data on them at the national level.
-- Strengthening control of non-public economic and social entities.
-- Nipping social unrest in the bud.
Dissidents, energised by the success of the public revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, used the Internet to mobilise peaceful demonstrations in a dozen major Chinese cities on Sunday (February 20). On Wednesday (23 February 2011), they called for these protests to continue.
At a meeting of top officials held on the eve of the rallies, Chinese President Hu Jintao urged tighter control of cyberspace and "specific groups of people", a term used to refer to dissidents, rights defenders and the disenfranchised.
Provincial heads, ministry chiefs and senior military officials were summoned to attend the meeting, according to the official Xinhua news agency. All nine members of the powerful CCP Politburo Standing Committee, which includes Hu, were present.
Hu made it clear that the session was meant to unify the minds of senior CCP cadres in the light of the "new changes in domestic and foreign situations", an oblique reference to the upheavals in the Arab world and their repercussions on China.
He stressed that social management must be strengthened in order to ensure the CCP stays in power.
Hu defined social management, for the first time, as "managing the people as well as serving them". Traditional communist-speak usually mentions only "serving the people".
According to Hu, the overall objective of social management is to "maximise harmonious factors and minimise non-harmonious ones".
He outlined several ways in which this could be achieved, including:
-- Strengthening control of Internet-transmitted information and management of cyberspace, and improving guidance of public opinion over the Internet.
-- Strengthening management of the migrant population and specific groups of people, and keeping data on them at the national level.
-- Strengthening control of non-public economic and social entities.
-- Nipping social unrest in the bud.
Despite all the [West's] complicated and satanic designs ... a new Middle East is emerging without the Zionist regime and U.S. interference, a place where the arrogant powers will have no place," Ahmadinejad told the crowd.
He also urged Egyptian protesters to persevere until there is a regime change. "It's your right to be free. It's your right to exercise your will and sovereignty ... and choose the type of government and the rulers."
After his address, Ahmadinejad carried a placard reading, "Death to Israel."
The Iranian leadership's attempt to capitalize on the Egyptian uprising is underscored by its effort to deprive its own opposition of any chance to reinvigorate a movement swept from the streets in a heavy military crackdown in 2009.
Ahead of the anniversary, Iranian security forces arrested several opposition activists, including aides to Iran's opposition leaders.
Authorities also placed Mahdi Karroubi, one of Iran's opposition leaders, under house arrest, posting security officers at his door in response to his calls for an Iranian opposition rally in support of anti-government demonstrations in Egypt.
He also urged Egyptian protesters to persevere until there is a regime change. "It's your right to be free. It's your right to exercise your will and sovereignty ... and choose the type of government and the rulers."
After his address, Ahmadinejad carried a placard reading, "Death to Israel."
The Iranian leadership's attempt to capitalize on the Egyptian uprising is underscored by its effort to deprive its own opposition of any chance to reinvigorate a movement swept from the streets in a heavy military crackdown in 2009.
Ahead of the anniversary, Iranian security forces arrested several opposition activists, including aides to Iran's opposition leaders.
Authorities also placed Mahdi Karroubi, one of Iran's opposition leaders, under house arrest, posting security officers at his door in response to his calls for an Iranian opposition rally in support of anti-government demonstrations in Egypt.
Then you have to wonder if Putin hasn't a warehouse full of gift-wrapped fifths of Stoli ready to hand out on Red Square... as any good dictator who hasn't a populist 'Plan B' up his sleeve these days is skating on thin-ice.
That goes double for they guy with the funky Groucho (Marxist?) mustache in 'Putin's North Korea'...
That goes double for they guy with the funky Groucho (Marxist?) mustache in 'Putin's North Korea'...
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Chinese Industrial Espionage in 2010: Aggressive, Creative... and Relentless
While the recently flaunted Chinese J-20 stealth fighter prototype caught the world offguard with a seeming quantum-leap in technological prowess, it's similarities to the Russian T-50 made it appear to have been produced with the Kremlin's help- and indeed it was.But now we hear that back in the Balkans in 1999, when a USAF F-117 Nighthawk was downed by a SAM missile over Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic allowed Chinese agents to fan-out into the countryside to purchase or otherwise obtain pieces of the top-secret stealth fighter from villagers -some as large as a small car- to be sent back to China for reverse-engineering of the design and materials technology.
But military is not the primary focus for Beijing's spying activities, and the scale of the Chinese government's wide-ranging industrial espionage efforts are coming more apparent all the time. With the new French Renault case, three top executives of the company have been suspended for allegedly selling Renault/Nissan's electric car strategy to Chinese agents. Recruiting such foreign agents with no ethnic ties to China marks a change in their increasingly sophisticated and aggressive strategies- as does the large sums paid the French corporate traitors.
Beijing's protection of foreign intellectual property rights is notoriously lax, so maybe we shouldn't be surprised now that the government itself is involved in IP theft on a massive scale... not just for strategic applications, but to provide it's key export industries with competitive advantage. And as illustrated in the Google hacking, Chinese espionage also involves a mosaic of intelligence gleaned from the efforts of it's many cyber-savvy code-crackers.
There were twelve Chinese spy cases uncovered in the US last year... most involving commercial technology. But here in the dark, deep depths of the grim Obammunist era -where the president allowed a Chinese anti-American propaganda song to be played at a WH state dinner- it was probably too much to ask Barack Obama to bring up these illegal, bad-faith attacks on the United States with Hu Jintao... even between bows.
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The Russians Provided China with Stealth Technology Employed in the J-20 Fighter
How's that reset button working-out, Barry?
According to a senior US lawmaker, the Russians provided China with the stealth technology they're now rolling-out for all the world to see... great. Add this to their new anti carrier missiles, and it's just like Dick Cheney warned us about... they're plainly going after the pillars of US military superiority, namely stealth aircraft and a blue-water Navy. This is the same Kremlin that Obama is so anxious to do arms deals with... in the name of bringing us peace!
Instead of viewing China as the enemy they clearly see themselves as -how else to explain firing missiles off the California coast- Obama has basically surrendered already, financially and otherwise... and really for no reason but the Dems' profligate spending habits that most Americans reject.
Some already consider the J-20 superior to the single engine F-35 we're developing... the more competitive F-22 has already been cancelled by Obama because it had "no peers"... like you'd want that, good grief. And what possible excuse for denying Israel... who were ready to order dozens on the plane... proliferation? Too late now...
And well done, because now we've got one... with the Russian T-50 also on the way. For these and other reasons, the House Armed Services Committee is more than a little bit worried about Obama's ongoing defense cuts...
And well done, because now we've got one... with the Russian T-50 also on the way. For these and other reasons, the House Armed Services Committee is more than a little bit worried about Obama's ongoing defense cuts...
China got the technology for its first stealth fighter jet from Russia, a senior US lawmaker said Tuesday, one week after the airplane apparently made its maiden flight.
"My understanding is that they built it on information that they received from Russia, from a Russian plane, that they were able to copy," House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon told reporters. McKeon, a Republican, said he hoped to "hear more" on the issue from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was on a visit to Beijing when Chinese state media published photographs of the J-20 fighter in the skies over southwestern China.
According to the reports, which cited witnesses, the next-generation war jet -- the existence of which highlights China's drive to modernize its military -- made a 15-minute test flight before landing. The lawmaker, who had been asked whether Beijing had obtained the technology needed to build such an advanced fighter from cyber-espionage, also stressed that "China's a concern" for US national security.
"We need to be looking at China, we need to be looking at North Korea, we need to be looking at Iran," said McKeon, who has given a skeptical greeting to Gates' plans for reductions in US military spending.
"That's what really concerns me when I look at the cuts, the potential cuts, that they're talking about for the defense budget. This is not a safe world," said the lawmaker.
...experts say that the pictures were in the neighborhood development center in western China taken in stages, which they consider one of the last steps before the first flight of the machine....
So far the only fully operational "invisible" fighter in the world belongs to the U.S. Air Force, and the machine's the F-22. Daily also noted that the images leaked just days before the planned visit of U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in Beijing...
Chinese prototype according to the Washington expert on the Chinese military, Richard Fisher looks "superior to an American F-35", which the U.S. decided to give priority to the F-22, which is larger and more expensive. J-20 aircraft as the F-22, two engines and is roughly the same size. F-35 has only one engine.F-35, Americans should have out around 2014.
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Chinese J-20 Stealth Fighter Testing (photos)
An unofficial Chinese site has pictures of a Chinese stealth fighter said to be as invisible to radar and/or infrared sensors as an American F-22 Raptor...
...there are also opinions that it is just a dummy.
But other experts say that the pictures were in the neighborhood development center in western China taken in stages, which they consider one of the last steps before the first flight of the machine....
So far the only fully operational "invisible" fighter in the world belongs to the U.S. Air Force, and the machine's the F-22. Daily also noted that the images leaked just days before the planned visit of U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in Beijing...
Chinese prototype according to the Washington expert on the Chinese military, Richard Fisher looks "superior to an American F-35", which the U.S. decided to give priority to the F-22, which is larger and more expensive. J-20 aircraft as the F-22, two engines and is roughly the same size. F-35 has only one engine.F-35, Americans should have out around 2014.
... interested in all this is Japan, who's considering buying F-35s and India, which last month the Russians agreed to the joint development of "invisible" airplane.
However, the Russians already have such a machine. Sukhoi T-50, which Russian engineers have developed since the 90s, made its first flight a year ago.The operation is to be the fifth-generation Sukhoi deployed within four years, will replace the MiG-29 and dry Su-27. Russian Air Force is currently preparing a second prototype test flights...
WikiLeaks: Chinese Government Organized 2009 Cyber-Attack on Google
Effort gathered Chinese government agents,
online security experts... even outlaw hackers
online security experts... even outlaw hackers
Items in the latest WikiLeaks document dump reveal that the 2009 hacking attack on Google, Adobe, and others -which led to the withdrawal of Google Search from the Chinese market- was conducted Chinese government cyber-operatives, private security experts, and even Internet criminal hackers recruited directly by the Chinese government...
A global computer hacking effort: China’s Politburo directed the intrusion into Google’s computer systems in that country, a Chinese contact told the American Embassy in Beijing in January, one cable reported.
The Google hacking was part of a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government. They have broken into American government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002, cables said. -NYT
The attacks on Google servers had come in the wake of differences over the communist Chinese forcing Google to filter/censor results. Subsequently, Google email accounts were hacked, IP theft was carried-out, and trojan-horse malware attacks arrived to Chinese dissidents and others in a Pdf file:
The "highly sophisticated and targeted attacks" - which Google said also affected 20 other large firms across a wide range of businesses - were traced to Chinese IP addresses. These hacking attacks also involved attempts to steal the search giant's intellectual property but the primary target appears to have been webmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.
-The Register (UK)
-The Register (UK)
Israel's Stuxnet has not only hit Iran hard, but arrived in China as well. This provides a lesson in the viability of "weaponized" computer viruses, and Beijing sees this as an opportunity to leapfrog the West's massive military advantages by implementing it on a grand scale -here-
China's Unsettling Fleet of New Drones a Wake-Up Call for The West (video)
Western defense experts surprised to see 25+ new Chinese drones on display at Air Show China 2010
 |
| WJ-600 jet-powered drone |
And just what does that say for our military intelligence, anyway...
China is ramping up production of unmanned aerial vehicles in an apparent bid to catch up with the U.S. and Israel in developing technology that is considered the future of military aviation.
Western defense officials and experts were surprised to see more than 25 different Chinese models of the unmanned aircraft, known as UAVs, on display at this week's Zhuhai air show in this southern Chinese city. It was a record number for a country that unveiled its first concept UAVs at the same air show only four years ago, and put a handful on display at the last one in 2008.
The apparent progress in UAVs is a stark sign of China's ambition to upgrade its massive military as its global political and economic clout grows. The U.S. and Israel are currently the world leaders in developing such pilotless drones, which have played a major role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and which analysts say could one day replace the fighter jet.
This year's models in Zhuhai included several designed to fire missiles, and one powered by a jet engine, meaning it could—in theory—fly faster than the propeller-powered Predator and Reaper drones that the U.S. has used in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Exhibitors didn't give precise details of which Chinese drones were fully operational, although one confirmed that the People's Liberation Army, or PLA, had deployed at least two propeller-powered reconnaissance UAVs, which featured in last year's 60th National Day parade.
But the large number of UAVs on display illustrates clearly that China is investing considerable time and money to develop drone technology, and is actively promoting its products on the international market...
Many are quick to always point-out how "far behind" the Chinese are in numerous areas... but with their focus on space travel and drone aircraft we underestimate them at our peril.
Proliferation is also a growing concern... if China can produce defense technology comparable to the best in the west with their low-cost export model they could wreak havoc upon not only our industries but any leverage we retain in limiting the spread of high-tech weaponry in these perilous times...
Proliferation is also a growing concern... if China can produce defense technology comparable to the best in the west with their low-cost export model they could wreak havoc upon not only our industries but any leverage we retain in limiting the spread of high-tech weaponry in these perilous times...
The Buzz on China's Drones: Still behind the U.S. and Israel, China is starting to catch up:
Jet Drone: The WJ600 from China Aerospace Science & Industry Corp. has several missiles and a jet engine and is the Chinese drone of greatest potential concern to the U.S.
Drone in Space: China Aerospace Science & Technology Corp., one of the main contractors in China's space program, displayed an attack drone, complete with air-to-ground missiles.
Largest Drone: ASN Technology's ASN-229A Reconnaissance and Precise Attack UAV, the largest drone at the show, carries air-to ground missiles and uses a satellite link to find targets over a radius of 2,000 kilometers 1,250 miles.
Avian Drone:The ASN-211, a model under development, is about the size of a large duck and has flapping wings. It is designed for reconnaissance behind enemy lines. -WSJ
I'm sure Iran would like to get their paws on some of these... better hurry up, they're already within Israeli drones' range -here-
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