By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
Two modern navies have been known in English as the Chinese Navy:* People's Liberation Army Navy* Republic of China Navy - Source: Wikipedia
China's defense minister and the U.S. Navy secretary on Tuesday discussed security at sea and plans to bolster the U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific region that have been sharply criticized by Beijing.
Japanese military officials said they were closely watching seven Chinese warships spotted Tuesday in waters off a southern island.
China celebrated the commissioning this week of its first aircraft carrier with blustering statements and warnings to neighbors in Asia that the warship will help China settle its numerous maritime disputes.
Rear Adm. Yin Zhuo, a leading Chinese navy official, told his nation Aug. 24 that plans to boost U.S. missile defenses in Asia are a strategic conspiracy to trick other nations in the region into investing vast resources to develop nuclear and ballistic weapons.
"China is a country with fertile soil to produce traitors. There were over 1 million Chinese traitors during the Resisting the Japanese War [World War II]. In today's China, there are more traitors than that number," said Rear Adm. Zhang Zhaozhong of the Chinese navy, who is the most well-known and most senior military commentator on China's state television. He is one of the most outspoken, hard core anti-American spokesmen. The revealing remarks were made June 7 in the online edition of the official Chinese newspaper the Global Times.
The Navy's next-generation warship, the 15,000-ton Zumwalt-class destroyer, is no good and can be destroyed by Chinese fishing boats armed with explosives, according to a leading Chinese military commentator, People's Liberation Army Rear Adm. Zhang Zhaozhong.
At the recent U.S.-Chinese defense talks in Beijing, the subject of the Pentagon's new Air Sea Battle Concept, a program to counter China's growing anti-access and area denial weapons, was not discussed.
For the past several months, China's largest naval hospital ship, the 14,000-ton Type 920 vessel Daishandao, also known as "Peace Ark," has taken part in a Beijing charm offensive throughout the Caribbean region, an area traditionally considered the United States' strategic backyard.
A typhoon blew down power lines and billboards in the Chinese financial hub of Shanghai on Sunday and aimed at a northeast port city where beaches were closed and sandbags were piled on the waterfront.
A senior House Republican on Tuesday challenged the Obama administration on what he said were shortfalls in funding the Navy's programs to maintain the fleet.
For those who may have doubted the Chinese government's commitment to communist ideology, the current core leadership in Beijing is turning increasingly to the staging of regular mass performances of so-called "red songs" across the nation.
A classified State Department cable made public recently finally has shed some light on persistent Chinese military secrecy and its refusal to hold nuclear talks with the United States: China fears discussing its nuclear arsenal will weaken the deterrent value.
The United States and Vietnam demonstrated their blossoming military relations Sunday as a U.S. nuclear supercarrier cruised in waters off the Southeast Asian nation's coast — sending a message that China is not the region's only big player.
U.S. naval planners are scrambling to deal with what analysts say is a game-changing weapon being developed by China: an unprecedented carrier-killing missile called the Dong Feng 21D that could be launched from land with enough accuracy to penetrate the defenses of even the most advanced moving aircraft carrier at a distance of more than 900 miles.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's thinly veiled criticism of Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea has angered Beijing's leadership and quietly pleased Asian countries concerned about China's expanding military power.
