http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=china
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http://intelligence-summit.blogspot.com/2006/08/chinas-military-looks-to-outer-space.html
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
China’s Military Looks to Outer Space
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, BEIJING
Outer space is emerging as a possible theater of operations for China’s armed forces, an analysis published in the mass-circulation People’s Daily said Aug. 2.
The analysis, from a group of unidentified researchers at the National Defense University, listed space as an area where the People’s Liberation Army must be equipped and prepared to defend the nation’s interests.
”Our military should not only protect China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity, but should also protect the oceans and transport routes and other economic interests as well as ... the security of space,” it said.
Similar suggestions were put forward last month in the Study Times, a newspaper published by the Communist Party’s Central Party School.
”We should strive to develop coordinated land, sea, air and space systems,” the paper said.
This seemed to mark a departure from previous strategic literature in China, which has tended to give space a less prominent place in defense planning.
The most recent government white paper on defense published in late 2004 only made scattered references to space and did not characterize it as a possible theater of operations for its armed forces.
China instead used the white paper to urge efforts to prevent an expensive arms race in space. “Outer space is the common property of mankind,” it stated.
”China hopes that the international community would take action as soon as possible to conclude an international legal instrument on preventing the weaponization of, and arms race in, outer space through negotiations.”
Despite the frequent reassurances that China wants space to remain weapons-free, in reality its space program has to a large extent been a military undertaking from the very beginning.
In official chronologies, the start of China’s space endeavors is often taken to be almost exactly 50 years ago, on October 8, 1956, when it opened its first institute of missile and rocket research.
In a white paper on its space program published in August 2004, the government also acknowledged that national defense purposes were among the main objectives for the development of satellites.
And just like the first American and Soviet astronauts, all China’s men in space so far have been former fighter pilots.
Reports suggest that governments across the globe do pay attention to the defense implications of space flight, to the extent that fiscal and technical constrains make that possible.
Earlier this year The New York Times reported the U.S. government was conducting research into building a ground-based laser weapon that could destroy enemy satellites in orbit.
The secret project would use beams of concentrated light to destroy such satellites to disrupt enemy communications.
The weapon is part of a wide-ranging effort to develop defensive and offensive space weapons, the Times said, citing federal officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The weapon would use sensors, computers and flexible mirrors to counteract atmospheric turbulence.
posted by Marko at 8/02/2006 12:58:00 PM
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http://www.defenselink.mil/news/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=337
Coalition, Iraqi Soldiers Capture Kidnappers, Terrorists, Seize Weapons
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, August 2, 2006 – In separate operations throughout Iraq today and July 31, coalition and Iraqi forces foiled a kidnapping attempt, captured eight terrorists, and seized numerous weapons, U.S. military officials in Iraq reported.
Multinational Division Baghdad soldiers foiled a kidnapping attempt by four men disguised as Iraqi policemen in southeastern Baghdad early today.
Soldiers from Company C, 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, spotted four kidnappers dressed in Iraqi police uniforms attempting to abduct an Iraqi civilian. The four kidnappers were detained for questioning.
In another operation, Iraqi national police and soldiers from 1st Battalion, 35th Armor Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, captured eight suspected terrorists during a joint operation in the Doura neighborhood, near the center of Baghdad, at about 9:15 a.m. today.
The operation focused on locating and detaining suspected terrorists; soldiers searched seven houses in the area. The soldiers detained the suspected terrorists and seized weapons, various bomb-making materials, terrorist propaganda and two vehicles.
Elsewhere, soldiers of 1st Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division, and Multinational Division Baghdad soldiers from Battery B, 4th Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, located a munitions cache during a combined patrol in eastern Baghdad July 31.
A tip from an Iraqi citizen led the patrol to a location where they discovered 18 60 mm mortar rounds in two separate ammunition boxes; the rounds had fuses already installed.
It took the soldiers less than 15 minutes from the time the tip was called in to locate the cache, officials said. The ordnance was collected and removed to a secured location in less than an hour.
(Compiled from Multinational Corps Iraq news releases.)