Chinese military strategist proposes forces be projected into space

PLA should play role in space: Strategist

6.16.09 / China Daily

A military strategist has proposed the Chinese army to set up its own space forces in the future to protect China’s growing extraterrestrial assets.

Space forces, often portrayed in the realms of science fiction as having fleets of spaceships equipped with lasers, are being developed by countries including the US and Russia to protect their off-world interests.

Wang Fa’an, a senior researcher on the construction of armed forces with the Academy of Military Sciences, said his call for China to develop its own space forces is not necessary for the time being, but may become pressing after the country carries out more space missions.

“Hi-tech military corps, including space forces, need to be considered in the future development plan of the Chinese Army,” the expert told China Daily.

Wang said the People’s Liberation Army will not pursue a strong fleet in space, saying the world does not need another arms race.

Russian armed forces established their space contingent in August 1992, while the US air force planned to include lasers, missiles and space-based energy weapons in its Transformation Flight Plan released in 2004.

Other military powers including India are also contemplating developing space forces, say analysts.

Among the more than 900 satellites orbiting the Earth, nearly half belong to the US, while Russia and China have 91 and 54 respectively, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Massachusetts-based research body.

On Feb 10, a privately-owned US communications spacecraft collided with a defunct Russian military satellite about 800 km above northern Siberia causing wide debate about security in space.

Conflict feared as USGS says a third of world’s remaining gas deposits in Arctic

Tensions feared as a THIRD of world’s gas reserves found beneath the Arctic

5.31.09 / Cher Thornhill / Daily Mail

Tensions over the Arctic’s untapped energy reserves are expected to build after a survey has found substantial mineral riches under the ice.

The analysis, by researchers at the U.S. Geologic Survey, found that a third of world’s remaining natural gas and 13 per cent of its oil are trapped beneath the oceans of the North Pole.

The precious supply has remained largely untouched until now because of the impenetrable ice sheets.

Untapped: A third of the world’s remaining natural gas and 13 per cent of its oil is trapped beneath the Arctic, a survey shows

The study’s lead author Donald Gautier predicts that the findings will spur Russia to strengthen its control over the gas resources.

Already the world’s leading natural gas producer, Russia has previously actively asserted its claim to parts of the Arctic.

Two-thirds of the undiscovered gas is in just four areas – South Kara Sea, North Barents Basin, South Barents Basin and the Alaska Platform. And a substantial 39 per cent of this is in the South Kara Sea off Siberia, according to the report.

Russia first submitted a claim to the Arctic to the United Nations in 2001, but was rejected for lack of evidence. The United States, Canada, Denmark and Norway have also tried asserting jurisdiction over parts.

Now, Russia is working to prove that an underwater mountain range crossing the polar region is part of its continental shelf.

In 2007, two Russian civilian mini-submarines descended to the seabed to collect geological and water samples and drop a titanium canister containing the Russian flag.

Arctic oil reserves are significantly smaller than those of natural gas and are unlikely to lead to any shift in world oil balance, Gautier said.

But they could be of importance locally if developed by individual countries, in particular the United States and Greenland, he said.

However, Gautier pointed out that the study looked only at the geological setting and the chance that energy resources are present.

‘If these resources were to be found they would not be found all at once. They would be found incrementally, and they would be produced incrementally,’ he said.

He also urged people not to assume that the oil would significantly extend world production.

Because so much of this territory is unexplored and data is so limited the researchers developed a new method to do assessments.

For the study, the team focused on geological conditions in the Arctic and how they compared to other parts of the world where oil and gas have been found.

They collected the best information available for the region and then subdivided it into geological areas.

These were then compared with geological regions around the world where gas or oil have already been found.

He said that gas and oil tend to be found in sedimentary basins, and ‘each one… has a story, a geologic story.’

‘As new data become available, our understanding of the resources in the Arctic will change.’

Now the US military’s officially hooked into Africa, with its new $6 billion AFRICOM Djibouti headquarters

AFRICOM’s $6 billion fiasco in Djibouti

5.15.09 / Thomas C. Mountain / Online Journal

ASMARA, Eritrea — The USA African Command (AFRICOM) is building their new African megabase in the tiny Horn of African country of Djibouti. The first phase is costing $2 billion, according to reports, and eventually another $4 billion will be spent. This latest expansion of USA imperial might, this time on African soil, is turning into a fiasco for the Pentagon and US State Department.

To understand why one must review the recent history in the region. Djibouti is and has been little more than a province of Ethiopia. It was a French colony and continues to host a significant French military base. Since 9-11, the USA military has been feverishly trying to find a site for a major military presence in a strategic place in Africa. Unfortunately for the Pentagon, no African country with a suitable site will allow the USA to set up shop there.

So enter Djibouti. With a population of about 500,000, and one of the poorest countries on the planet, Djibouti sits at the entrance to the Red Sea, through which passes much of the world’s shipping, including a sizable portion of the oil used in Europe and Asia. The USA made the Djiboutian president an offer he couldn’t refuse and now the concrete is being poured and the new runways and docks are growing out of the sand and desert of the North African coastline of the Indian Ocean.

Most of Djibouti’s income is a result of almost all of Ethiopia’s imports passing through Djibouti’s port. Ethiopia used to use the port of Assab, part of its colony of Eritrea. In 1991. after a 30-year independence war, Eritrea won its independence from Ethiopia by defeating the Ethiopian army and chasing out of Ethiopia the former Soviet client regime of Haile Mengistu Mariam. With independence, the port of Assab, Ethiopia’s main access to the ocean, became part of the newly independent country of Eritrea.

Now many of Online Journal’s readers may be aware that Ethiopia, with the USA’s instigation and funding, invaded Somalia in Dec 2006 after the Union of Islamic Courts began to defeat the Ethiopian/USA-backed Somali warlords and started to build a new government is Somalia for the first time since 1991.

What almost no one in the West seems to know is that Ethiopia, instigated and funded by the USA and other Western countries, started a war with Eritrea in 1998 and carried out an invasion of Eritrea in 2000 in an attempt to regain their former colony (see Antiwar.com, US Behind Invasion of Eritrea, June 2000, Thomas C Mountain).

The deal the USA made with Ethiopia was that Ethiopia would destroy Eritrea with the West’s help and the USA would get a major port and international airport in Assab, strategically situated very near to the entrance to the Red Sea. Ethiopia would regain use of the Port of Assab, something dear to the heart of Ethiopian chauvinists.

After some desperate fighting in May and June of 2000, the Eritrean army crushed the Ethiopian invasion and was about to launch a counter offensive that could very likely have seen Eritrean tanks once again rolling through the streets of Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, when the USA sent an aircraft carrier task force to the Red Sea and told Eritrea if they did so, the USA would attack them.

Since June of 2000, there has existed a no war no peace situation (something fostered by the USA) between Ethiopia and Eritrea while the West and the USA, in particular, continues to allow the diversion of billions of dollars in supposedly humanitarian aid to the Ethiopian military, the largest and best equipped in Africa.

Coming back to the Africom fiasco in Djibouti, when the Eritreans found out that the USA was building a major military base in Djibouti the Eritreans did what was prudent and made sure their military secured Eritrean high ground overlooking Djibouti.

It must have come as an unpleasant surprise for the USA military to find the entire AFRICOM base within potential range of Eritrean artillery, some 60 miles or so. One can only imagine the red-faced rage experienced by the generals in the Pentagon when they arrived at work one morning and were given the satellite images of Eritrean troops looking down from Eritrean soil on AFRICOM’s spanking new base being built on the Djiboutian coast. The Eritreans could, if they so desire, bring their artillery up onto the mountain tops and shut down the new AFRICOM base on a moment’s notice.

Eritrea, of course, is not stupid, and has no desire to start any war with the USA. Eritrea is not about to wave a red flag in the face of the USA military bull and there is no evidence or even suggestion that Eritrea has stationed any artillery overlooking Djibouti. On the other hand, Eritrea has lost a lot of blood winning its independence, something the USA was bitterly against from the very beginning, and very prudently made sure that its territory bordering Djibouti, very strategic high ground, was secure. Ethiopia has already occupied Eritrean territory on the Eritrean/Ethiopian/Djibouti border and continues to occupy Eritrean territory captured during the 2000 invasion. Eritrea, a fiercely proud and independent country, is not about to sit back and allow any further violation of its national territory.

To put it mildly, the USA is very unhappy having Eritrean troops in such a strategic position vis–vis their new base, which explains why the Djiboutian army attempted to capture the Eritrean military positions overlooking the new AFRICOM base last year. In short order, the battle hardened veterans of the Eritrean Defense Forces destroyed the Djiboutian invasion attempt and Eritrean boys still sit in their trenches overlooking the AFRICOM megabase in Djibouti.

What the generals in the Pentagon plan to do about this is anyone’s guess. The quick manner in which the Eritrean army crushed the Djiboutian incursion and the near mutinies reportedly taking place in the Djiboutian military over having to attack their former colleagues from Eritrea on behalf of the USA has left the USA with little room to maneuver.

The USA has tried bluffing Eritrea by ramming through a resolution in the UN Security Council demanding, in violation of international law and the UN’s own charter, that Eritrea withdraw its troops from its own territory. Eritrea has quite rightly denounced such demands and ,with its bluff called, the USA is left with egg on its face.

One thing for sure is that the USA is not going to find it easy to swallow that fact that their new AFRICOM base in Djibouti has become a 6 billion dollar fiasco and made the USA military look like fools.

For more of the real deal stay tuned to Online Journal, the only place for news about the Horn of Africa that the so-called ‘Free Press’ in the West has failed to cover.

Joe Biden to Israel: Military strike on Iran would be ill advised

Biden warns Israel off any attack on Iran

Vice President Joe Biden tells CNN that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be ‘ill advised’ to try to strike Iranian nuclear facilities.

4.8.09 / Paul Richter / LA Times

Reporting from Washington — Vice President Joe Biden issued a high-level admonishment to Israel’s new government Tuesday that it would be “ill advised” to launch a military strike against Iran.

Biden said in a CNN interview that he does not believe newly installed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would take such a step. Even so, his comment underscored a gap between the conservative new Israeli government and the Obama White House on a series of questions, including the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and Iran.

While the Obama administration has made a series of recent overtures to Tehran, the Israelis have grown more confrontational out of concern that the Islamic Republic’s increasing nuclear know-how could one day become an existential threat.

Netanyahu signaled several times during his election campaign that he would not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran. “I promise that if I am elected, Iran will not acquire nuclear arms,” he said in one appearance, “and this implies everything necessary to carry this out.”

With his brief comment Tuesday, Biden became the highest-ranking administration official to caution the Jewish state against a military strike. In the interview, Biden was asked whether he was concerned that Netanyahu might strike Iranian nuclear facilities.

“I don’t believe Prime Minister Netanyahu would do that. I think he would be ill advised to do that,” Biden said.

“And so my level of concern is no different than it was a year ago.”

But many U.S. officials believe Israel is serious. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of U.S. forces in the Middle East, told senators this month that the Israeli government may be “so threatened by the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon that it would take preemptive military action to derail or delay it.”

Other U.S. officials have made it clear in the past that they would prefer that Israel not carry out a strike against Iran. Navy Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cautioned last summer against military action.

“This is a very unstable part of the world,” he said then. “And I don’t need it to be more unstable.”

Among other concerns, U.S. Defense Department officials worry that Iran might retaliate by striking at U.S. troops in neighboring Iraq.

Differences between U.S. and Israeli officials also are emerging on key issues involving the Palestinians. Netanyahu has not embraced Washington’s goal of an independent Palestinian state, and some of his key supporters favor expanded Jewish settlements in the West Bank, an idea criticized by President Obama.

But U.S. views are important to the Israelis. Steven J. Rosen, a former policy director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, an influential lobbying group, said a decision by Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities “depends to a large extent on the impact such a strike might have on the United States.” He made the comment in a blog, the Obama Mideast Monitor.

Many top officials in the Obama administration have said they believe the costs of a U.S. attack on Iran would outweigh any benefits, and they are considered less likely to favor military action than the Bush administration.

One hint of the Obama administration’s intentions may lie in its choice of top experts.

Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration’s representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has hired longtime Iran expert Vali Nasr. Dennis Ross, senior administration advisor for Southwest Asia, has hired Ray Takeyh, another veteran Iran expert.

Both Nasr and Takeyh have advocated diplomatic engagement with Tehran.

US to now talk it over with Iran on nuclear program

In Shift, U.S. To Engage In Iran Nuclear Talks

4.8.09 / AP

The Obama administration said Wednesday that it will participate directly in group talks with Iran over its suspect nuclear program, marking another significant shift from former President George W. Bush’s policy toward a nation he labeled a member of the “Axis of Evil.”

The State Department said the United States would be at the table “from now on” when senior diplomats from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany meet with Iranian officials to discuss the nuclear issue. The Bush administration had generally shunned such meetings, although it attended one last year.

“We believe that pursuing very careful engagement on a range of issues that affect our interests and the interests of the world with Iran makes sense,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters. “There is nothing more important than trying to convince Iran to cease its efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon.”

State Department spokesman Robert Wood said the decision was conveyed to representatives of Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia by third-ranking U.S. diplomat William Burns at a Wednesday meeting in London. That group, known as the “P5+1,” announced earlier that it would invite Iran to attend a new session aimed at breaking a deadlock in the talks.

“The U.S. remains committed to the P5+1 process; what is different is that the U.S. will join P5+1 discussions with Iran from now on,” Wood told reporters, adding that Washington was hopeful that Iran would attend.

“If Iran accepts, we hope this will be the occasion to seriously engage Iran on how to break the logjam of recent years and work in a cooperative manner to resolve the outstanding international concerns about its nuclear program,” he said. “Any breakthrough will be the result of the collective efforts of all the parties, including Iran.”

Wood said the administration wants a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear issue and believes that requires “a willingness to engage directly with each other on the basis of mutual respect and mutual interests.”

“We hope that the government of Iran chooses to reciprocate,” he added.

The invitation is to be sent to the Iranians by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana. In a statement, the group said it welcomed the “new direction” of U.S. policy toward Iran. No time frame was given for a date of the meeting.

Prior to word from the State Department, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s hard-line president, said that his country welcomes talks with the United States should it prove to be “honest” in extending its hand toward Iran, one of the strongest signals yet that Tehran welcomes Obama’s calls for dialogue.

“The Iranian nation welcomes a hand extended to it should it really and truly be based on honesty, justice and respect,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech broadcast live on state television.

The United States and some of its allies accuse Iran of seeking to build a nuclear weapon, a claim that Iran denies. Tehran argues that it has the right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to develop reactor fuel using enrichment for civilian energy purposes.

Through the negotiations, the P5+1 group has offered Iran a package of incentives to stop enriching and reprocessing uranium. Tehran has thus far rebuffed the offer despite the fact that its refusal has led to the imposition of three rounds of economic, trade and financial sanctions by the U.N. Security Council.

Individual countries, led by the United States and members of the European Union, have also imposed their own sanctions on Iran.

The United States and Iran have not had diplomatic relations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and subsequent hostage-taking at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and official exchanges between the two nations have largely been limited to talks over security in Iraq and the situation in Afghanistan.

The Bush administration had pursued a policy of isolating Iran and not attending the P5+1 group’s meetings with Iranian officials on the nuclear issue. In a brief break with that, however, the administration sent Burns, a career diplomat, to one such meeting in Geneva last July.

After that, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Iran had not been serious at the meeting, and such contact ceased.

As a presidential candidate, Obama signaled a willingness to open direct talks with Iran, and Wednesday’s step is the latest in a series of moves that the administration has taken to reach out to Iran.

These initiatives have included inviting Tehran to an international meeting on Afghanistan late last month, at which U.S. officials in another break from Bush-era policy delivered a written message to Iranian diplomats politely asking for information about detained and missing Americans in the country.

Also last month, President Obama recorded a video addressed to the Iranian people, in which he said the U.S. is prepared to end years of strained relations if Tehran tones down its bellicose rhetoric.

Hugo Chavez: Two day trip to Beijing part of creation of New World Order

Chavez says world ‘center of gravity’ now Beijing

4.8.09 / Christopher Bodeen / AP

BEIJING —  The world’s center of gravity has moved to Beijing, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told his Chinese counterpart Wednesday during a visit focused on boosting Chinese oil purchases.

The frequent U.S. critic also praised China’s response to the global financial meltdown that has sent prices of his South American nation’s key export, oil, down sharply.

“No one can be ignorant that the center of gravity of the world has moved to Beijing,” Chavez told China’s president and Communist Party leader Hu Jintao.

“During the financial crisis, China’s actions have been highly positive for the world. Currently, China is the biggest motor driving the world amidst this crisis of international capitalism,” Chavez said in preliminary remarks before reporters were ushered from the meeting room at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.

Earlier, Chavez said he planned to review with Chinese leaders a goal of boosting exports of Venezuelan oil to China from 380,000 barrels last year to 1 million barrels by 2013 _ part of Venezuela’s strategy of diversifying oil sales away from the United States, which buys about half the South American nation’s heavy crude despite political tensions.

Included in that strategy are plans for China and Venezuela to build four oil tankers and three refineries in China capable of processing Venezuela’s heavy, sulfur-laden crude.

China and Venezuela have also invested in a $12 billion fund to finance joint development projects in areas including oil production, infrastructure and agriculture.

Chavez has made Beijing a frequent stop in his global travels to promote his agenda of anti-American world unity, stopping in the Chinese capital six times since taking power in 1998 elections.

His visit follows a sweep through the Middle East last week, including a stop in Iran where he said he has little hope of better relations with Washington under President Barack Obama because the United States was still acting like an “empire” in his eyes.

Following his arrival in Beijing on Tuesday night, Chavez said his two-day visit to Beijing this week is part of the creation of a “new world order.”

“We are creating a new world, a balanced world. A new world order, a multipolar world,” Chavez said. “The unipolar world has collapsed. The power of the U.S. empire has collapsed,” he said. “Everyday, the new poles of world power are becoming stronger. Beijing, Tokyo, Tehran … it’s moving toward the East and toward the South.”

While China’s Communist leaders have been low key in their response to Chavez’s political rhetoric, Beijing’s state-run industries have been eager to use Venezuela as a jumping-off point for their entry into South America. Chinese companies in the mining and petroleum sector have been especially eager to secure South American mineral resources for the fast-growing domestic economy.

China, with its $2 trillion in foreign reserves, has responded to the global crisis with a 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) plan to pump money into the economy through higher public works spending in hopes of boosting domestic consumption.

The crisis has dealt a harsh blow to the country’s crucial export industries, putting more than 20 million migrant workers out of work.

Wall Street Journal: Chinese and Russian cyberspies have penetrated US power grid

Cyberspies penetrate electrical grid: report

4.8.09 / Eric Beech / Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls, the newspaper said, citing current and former U.S. national security officials.

The intruders have not sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure but officials said they could try during a crisis or war, the paper said in a report on its website.

“The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid,” a senior intelligence official told the Journal. “So have the Russians.”

The espionage appeared pervasive across the United States and does not target a particular company or region, said a former Department of Homeland Security official.

“There are intrusions, and they are growing,” the former official told the paper, referring to electrical systems. “There were a lot last year.”

The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama was not immediately available for comment on the newspaper report.

Authorities investigating the intrusions have found software tools left behind that could be used to destroy infrastructure components, the senior intelligence official said. He added, “If we go to war with them, they will try to turn them on.”

Officials said water, sewage and other infrastructure systems also were at risk.

Protecting the electrical grid and other infrastructure is a key part of the Obama administration’s cybersecurity review, which is to be completed next week.

The sophistication of the U.S. intrusions, which extend beyond electric to other key infrastructure systems, suggests that China and Russia are mainly responsible, according to intelligence officials and cybersecurity specialists.

While terrorist groups could develop the ability to penetrate U.S. infrastructure, they do not appear to have yet mounted attacks, these officials say.

Chinese military brass on computers and hacking: Anyone can be a soldier, anyone can be a fighter

China sees electronic spying as area where it can defeat America

China decided to focus its efforts on cyber intelligence and information warfare more than a decade ago, after it identified a key area where it could compete with America.

3.29.09 / Malcolm Moore / UK Telegraph

“Thanks to modern technology, such as the development of information carriers and the Internet, many can now take part in fighting without even having to step out of the door,” noted Wei Jincheng, a military strategist, in the Liberation Army Daily newspaper in 1996.

While China cannot compete with the US in defence technology or conventional warfare, Mr Wei foresaw that the country’s 300 million internet users could be marshalled into armies of hackers.

“The rapid development of networks has turned each automated system into a potential target of invasion. The fact that information technology is increasingly relevant to people’s lives means that those who take part in information war are not all soldiers and anybody who understands computers can become a ‘fighter’ on the network. The public can participate,” he said.

His idea was adopted by the highest levels of command. Major-General Wang Pufeng, the former director of strategy at Beijing’s military academy, noted: “In the near future, information warfare will control the form and future of war”.

In recent years, China has tried to spy on Pentagon computers, using a cyber-espionage ring codenamed Titan Rain and hackers have been active against computers from Britain to Japan and Taiwan. China has also tried to blind a US satellite using lasers.

“While it remains easy to measure the intent of troop deployments, the intent of a Chinese electron is harder to measure,” said Lt-Col Timothy Thomas, the author of a book on China’s use of cyber-warfare. “A weaker force can inflict much damage on a superior force with a properly timed and precisely defined information attack,” he added.

Chinese military capabilities shifting balance of power in Asia, says US Defense Department

China’s Arms Technologies Changing Balance in Asia (Update1)

3.26.09 / Tony Capaccio & Michael Forsythe / Bloomberg

March 26 (Bloomberg) — China is altering the balance of power in Asia by continuing to develop “disruptive” military capabilities, including cyber and anti-satellite technologies, the U.S. Defense Department said in a report to Congress.

“China’s ability to sustain military power at a distance remains limited, but its armed forces continue to develop and field disruptive military technologies” such as missiles that would hinder adversaries from entering a battle zone, the Defense Department said in the annual report, released yesterday.

The term disruptive technology describes products or processes that marginalize older technologies. In the military, cyber warfare can disable computer-based weapons systems. In 2007, China destroyed one of its weather satellites in space with a kinetic weapon, leading lawmakers to question the safety of U.S. surveillance and communications satellites. China is also developing anti-satellite lasers and has the ability to jam some satellite transmissions, the report said.

The report “provides a very professional, factual description of what we see with the Chinese military,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters. “It provides some new details, some additional specificity, but there are no new major strategic insights or capabilities revealed,” he said.

The report said China’s lack of transparency in detailing its military spending and capabilities “poses risks to stability by creating uncertainty and increasing the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation.”

Defense Spending

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang called the report a “gross intervention in China’s international affairs.”

The report “continues the play up the fallacy of the China threat,” Qin said at a press briefing in Beijing. He urged the U.S. to “stop making groundless accusations against China so as not to further damage the two countries’ military relations.”

China’s defense spending has increased by more than 16 percent a year for the past decade, according to Chinese government figures. The Pentagon report puts China’s defense spending at the second-highest in the world after the U.S., with total spending at between $105 billion and $150 billion in 2008. The U.S. military’s budget in 2008, not including supplemental spending for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was $488 billion.

China’s government said earlier this month that its military spending will rise to 480.6 billion yuan ($70.4 billion) this year, up 14.9 percent from 2008. The Pentagon report said the Chinese budget “does not include major categories of expenditure.”

Military Exercises

China’s military is increasingly taking part in military exercises with other countries, the report said. This year three Chinese navy ships participated in anti-piracy patrols off Somalia.

Earlier this month five Chinese vessels confronted a U.S. surveillance ship in the South China Sea.

Li Zhaoxing, the spokesman for China’s legislature and a former foreign minister, said March 4 that “China’s defense spending is relatively low in the world.”

“China’s limited military power will be used solely to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Li said.

The Pentagon report said China is continuing to pursue military capabilities aimed at deterring Taiwan from declaring formal independence from the mainland. China considers Taiwan to be a renegade province. The U.S. is required by law to sell the island weapons for its defense.

Warming relations

In the past year, China and Taiwan ended a six-decade ban on direct shipping, air and postal links following the election of Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, who abandoned his predecessor’s pro-independence stance.

“This modernization and the threat to Taiwan continue despite significant reduction in cross-Strait tension over the last year since Taiwan elected a new president,” the Pentagon report said.

“Tensions are reduced but they have not vanished,” Admiral Timothy Keating, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, told the House Armed Services Committee March 24. Talks between the countries are “richer today and more productive” than before the election of Ma, he said.

The report says that Taiwan no longer enjoys air superiority over the waters separating the mainland and the island, reversing a conclusion the Pentagon first voiced in 2002.

“Since 2000, the military balance in the Taiwan Strait has continued to shift in Beijing’s favor, marked by the sustained deployment of advanced military equipment to the regions opposite Taiwan,” the report said.

“In 2002, the department assessed that Taiwan ‘has enjoyed dominance of the airspace over the Taiwan Straits for many years.’ This conclusion no longer holds true,” the report said.

In particular, China has increased its force of mobile short-range missiles based in garrisons opposite Taiwan to as many as 1,150 in September from up to 790 in late 2005, the report said.

Cambridge University report accuses Chinese government of spying on nearly 1300 foriegn government computers

Snooping Dragon: Chinese govt behind global cyber-spy ring

3.30.09 / Chris Keall / The National Business Review

One new report bluntly accuses the Chinese government of cyber-snooping on Tibetan activists; another says China is the home base of a hacker ring that’s stolen online documents from foreign ministries in 103 countries.

The University of Toronto’s Munk Center for International Studies was asked to investigate the source of “malware” (malicious software) found spying on computers at the office of the Dalai Lama.

Working with the Ottawa-based Information Warfare Monitor, the Munk Center subsequently uncovered a massive international hacking ring it calls “GhostNet”.

In findings released over the weekend, the Munk Center says GhostNet has so far compromised more than 1295 foreign ministry, embassey, defence department and other government computers in 103 countries.

The center says there is no doubt that GhostNet is controlled from within Chinese territory, but hesitates to make any formal accusation against the Chinese government.

A parallel investigation, part-funded by the US Department of Homeland Security and carried out by researchers at the University of Cambridge, is less coy in its conclusions.

In a report titled Snooping Dragon, the Cambridge researchers say there is no doubt that the Chinese government is behind the hack attacks on the Dalai Lama’s office and, by implication, GhostNet’s activities worldwide.

In 2007, the SIS reported a cyber attack believed to have been carried out by a foreign government, but then-prime minster Helen Clark said no classified data was stolen.

New Zealand is not on the list of countries the Munk Center lists as GhostNet targets, which includes Pakistan, Germany, Iran, Taiwan and Indonesia, among many others.

The Munk Center has passed on its findings to the FBI, which as yet has no comment.

One associate professor at the Munk Center urges caution about how the reports results are interpreted. Ronald J Deibert told The New York Times: “This could well be the C.I.A. or the Russians. It’s a murky realm that we’re lifting the lid on.”