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**CHINESE LEADERS QUIETLY TOURING ARAB STATES**
World Tribune.com and Geo Strategy Direct ^ | April 23, 2002 | Bill Gertz- Washington Times Military Reporter

Posted on 04/17/2002 8:46:42 AM PDT by codebreaker

GeoStrategy Direct Intelligence Briefing Headline Index April 23, 2002 (Some text subscriber only)

FOCUS ON IRAN:U.S. Sees Iran Behind Anti-American violence in Bahrain

BACKGROUNDER COLUMN:Russia Modernizing It's ABM System, Al Qaeda in Canada..., and in Singapore.., Russian Intellligence Says Chechen Commander Dead

DOSSIER: Marwan Barghouti-Documents Captured by Israel Detail Chaotic Regieme of Yasser Arafat and his Key Terrorist

FOCUS ON CHINA:Chinese Leaders Quietly Touring Arab Region

NORTHEAST ASIA REPORT:Japan's Nuclear Talk Rattles China, Taiwan Develops New Air Defense System, PLA Bans Cell Phones and Pagers, North Korea Helped Cuba in 1962

MIDDLE EAST REPORT:Deep divisions within Bush White House on Mideast Policy, Israel's Military Performs Poorly in Jenin, Big Break in Greece Probe of Terror Group

LATIN AMERICAN REPORT:Venezuela-Colombia Tensions Mounting Over Charges That Chavez Regieme Aiding FARC Guerillas, U.S. Sucess of Winning Mild Rebuke from Latin Neighbors Infuriates Cuba

MILITARY TECHNOLOGY: U.S. To Sell Jordan Early Warning Radar That Could Detect Iraqi Missile Launch, Syria Wants to Spend Its New Oil Money on Russian Tanks, Israeli Firm to Offer Upgrades of Russian Made Helicopter Fleets


TOPICS: Breaking News; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: arabs; asiasinouswatch; china; chinastuff; clashofcivilizatio; geopolitics; tour; washingtontimes; zanupf; zionist
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To: codebreaker


somebody else can put together the "Axis" flags.

21 posted on 04/17/2002 9:17:22 AM PDT by phasma proeliator
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To: codebreaker
In a few years they could...

BWAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA!

Try 20 years, if ever. And it's rather dubious whether the Chicom leadership survives that long before collapsing in a civil war.

And, BTW, NOTHING that "Clinton may have given them" will allow China to magically create a fleet of amphibious shipping larger than that used by the Allies to invade Normandy in 1944 (which is what would be needed to invade and conquer Taiwan); their current amphibious capability is such that the number of troops they could land could probably be ARRESTED by the Taiwanese police.

The Chinese also would have great difficulty gaining air supremacy over Taiwan (again, even ABSENT any US help at all) given the very limited #s of advanced fighters they have, and the poor level of training of their pilots.

Look, I don't like military technology transfer to the PRC, or Bill Clinton himself, any more than anyone else on FR. But people are getting so obsessive on bashing Clinton over this that the PRC military, which is an inexperienced force with very limited power projection capability, is getting ridiculously overrated on FR....and their ability to quickly improve is also ridculously overrated.

People need to objectively look at the WHOLE CURRENT PRC military, WITHOUT the bias of trying to make them look like supermen to make Clinton look bad, and IGNORING worthless hype articles about PRC superweapons from the likes of World Net Daily and Newsmax, who know less about things military than a retarded hamster.

22 posted on 04/17/2002 9:19:30 AM PDT by John H K
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To: caa26
Cuba --- Just kidding -- Free Trade can't be stopped.
23 posted on 04/17/2002 9:20:22 AM PDT by KSCITYBOY
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To: codebreaker
Nelson Mandela just visited Omar, Kuwait and Bahrain. He blasted the US and UK as imperalists out to create havoic. Many of those 50,000 demonstrators in Bahrain waved the yellow flag of the Shi'ite Hezbollah. Same group active in Iran and southern Lebanon. The ruling class in Bahrain is Shia Muslim and edgy over being a minority in their own country. Bush called up the King of Bahrain last Thursady. We need the airfield and naval pier in Bahrain.
24 posted on 04/17/2002 9:22:04 AM PDT by LarryLied
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To: codebreaker
May the Bird of Paradise lure them to the wrong place (= target) at the wrong time....
25 posted on 04/17/2002 9:23:18 AM PDT by tracer
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To: John H K
China will try to get the Island back, they are very adamant about it...
26 posted on 04/17/2002 9:23:46 AM PDT by codebreaker
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To: LarryLied
"We need the airfield and naval pier in Bahrain>"

It would be nice but we don't need it.

27 posted on 04/17/2002 9:23:53 AM PDT by phasma proeliator
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To: Q6-God
Why do you say that China CAN'T invade Taiwan?

Because they can't.

1) Taiwan is a VERY big island. One thing about America is we often see foreign countries on large-scale world maps and don't get a sense of just how BIG some places are that look small on maps.

2) The Taiwanese Army has more troops, and is FAR better armed, than the German forces defending Nortwestern France in WWII.

3) Taiwan has very few good landing beaches, fewer than France did, and weather in the Taiwan Strait is often bad. And the Taiwan Strait is over twice as wide as the English Channel.

4) A large scale amphibious landing against defended beaches is the most difficult thing to do of ANYTHING, militarily. The US and Britain have done it a lot from WWII to today, giving the impression it's easy. It required huge amounts of practice and planning, and gradual buildup to larger and larger invasions.

5) A successful invasion and conquest of Taiwan would likely require the largest invasion force ever mounted..larger than Normandy, larger than the US invasion of Leyte and Luzon in WWII.

6) The Chinese have NEVER mounted an amphibious invasion of ANYWHERE in modern military history.

7) The Chinese miltary is one of the most completely inexperienced in the world. Last major war was Korea, and pretty much everyone with experience in that war is dead or long retired. Other than brief border clashes with the Soviets in the late 1960s, the (successful) war with India in the early 1960s, and the brief invasion of Vietnam in 1979 (where the Vietnamese really kicked the crap out of them) the Chinese military is totally inexperienced. Basically no military operations of any kind for 20 years. And many of their generals have been more busy running factories than training troops.

8) The United States has BY FAR the largest amphibious shipping capacity in the world...and if we got ALL of what we have, we could MAYBE land one division of troops simultaneously...about 15,000-20,000 guys. WE woudn't have enough amphib shipping to invade Taiwan. China has a TINY fraction of our shipping. People have come up with Rube Goldberg theories about having Container ships secretly filled with troops enter Taiwanese ports, etc, but you not only have to get troops ashore, you've got to keep them SUPPLIED afterwards.

9)You need COMPLETE air supremacy over the beaches for an invasion to succeed. The PRC air force, while large on paper, is overwhelmingly comprised of VERY obsolete aircraft, and there isn't room to base most of them in range of Taiwan, anyway. The Taiwanese have a reasonable number of modern fighter aircraft, and they'll be on the defense, giving them an advantage. I'm dubious the PRC can get air supremacy, even WITHOUT US aid. Even ONE US Carrier makes it COMPLETELY hopeless for the PRC in the air.

10) The PRC Navy is really a pretty sad force. Most of their subs are inoperable, most of the surface vessels are small and obsolete. Their few nuc subs leak radiation and are VERY noisy. VERY few modern forces and most of the hype stuff you hear about are ex-Russian carriers that will never see service again, and stuff the Chinese have paid the Russians to build them but that hasn't entered service yet.

11) A failed invasion likely means the collapse of the PRC government completely, as was the case with Argentina and its military junta and the Falklands...they can't survive the loss of face. They wouldn't try it unless they were SURE of success, and realistically they have about a .001% chance of success. That's why they haven't done it...they can't.

28 posted on 04/17/2002 9:35:36 AM PDT by John H K
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To: ChaseR
Always sneaking around, lurking in the shadows, aren't they?
29 posted on 04/17/2002 9:36:08 AM PDT by b4its2late
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To: John H K
The ChiComs could go for a submarine blockade.
30 posted on 04/17/2002 9:36:45 AM PDT by hchutch
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To: codebreaker
Every large nation has economic customers. Generally speaking, those nearby are the best. You shop around for business with your neighbors. Russia and China are far closer to the mideast than the US. If the situation were reverse, the US would likely do a lot more business with the mideast than they currently do. This might be all thats happening. Then again, it might not.
31 posted on 04/17/2002 9:42:38 AM PDT by mikhailovich
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To: phasma proeliator
Yes, we can win no matter what. But it will be more costly in American lives if we lose bases such as the ones in Bahrain. I don't think it will happen but some people are trying very hard to see that it does.
32 posted on 04/17/2002 10:00:23 AM PDT by LarryLied
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To: Q6-God
China cannot invade by sea, because they do not have enough landing craft. (Think D-Day.) Also, they don't have enough paratroopers if they wanted to invade by air. Between the Taiwan Air Force and the US Navy, what Air Forces and Navy China now has would be at the bottom of the Taiwan Straits looking up before they got halfway there.

Militarily, there are only two options. Come into the beaches or parachute in, take the airports, and then bring im large troop planes. Only about 15% of Taiwan's shoreline is capable of sea launched assault. And you'd better believe that is well defended. Same goes for the Taiwan airports which are large enough to land large troop planes and are also heavily defended.

Last possible option is gluiders, which could land anywhere. (Recall A Bridge Too Far.) China doesn't have the gliders, but even if they did, it's technically much harder to cross the Striats of Taiwan, than the English Channel.

Bottom line: China cannot take Taiwan now. I assume, however, that they have plans and developments in the works so they could take it in a few years. In the meantime, they have already positioned medium-range missiles on the coast so they could give Taiwan a hell of a pounding that way, without an invasion.

Congressman Billybob

Click here to fight Campaign Finance "Reform/".

Click here for next column: "Why Are We Here?" - the Prequel.

33 posted on 04/17/2002 10:04:08 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob
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To: codebreaker
>**CHINESE LEADERS QUIETLY TOURING ARAB STATES**

1) Wasn't the missile that exploded killing a bunch of US military people a Chinese-made missile?

2) Right after that, didn't China have two airline crashes?

3) Now we have China leaders touring Arab states...

4) Could Black Jade have picked a worse time to get kicked off FR?!

Mark W.

34 posted on 04/17/2002 10:05:16 AM PDT by MarkWar
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To: codebreaker
Wait'll the Arabs find out that the Chinese are really the missing 12th Tribe of Israel!
35 posted on 04/17/2002 10:11:35 AM PDT by Redleg Duke
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To: MarkWar
Who is Black Jade?
36 posted on 04/17/2002 10:11:52 AM PDT by goldylight
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To: goldylight
>Who is Black Jade?

Black Jade was a wonderful Freeper who kept a very careful eye on the goings-on involving China. She had details going back for years about people and businesses and events that always shed an interesting light on range-of-the-moment news stories... Sadly, something happened, and BJ, apparently, was told to go away...

Mark W.

37 posted on 04/17/2002 10:16:23 AM PDT by MarkWar
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To: Redleg Duke
Wait'll the Arabs find out that the Chinese are really the missing 12th Tribe of Israel!

That would be hilarious : Muslims 1.1 billion, Israel +12 tribe : 1.4 billion

38 posted on 04/17/2002 10:17:15 AM PDT by Centurion2000
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To: John H K
I put up my post before I had read yours. You have much more detail. Obviously you're studied the PRC situation more than I have.

Bottom line: we agree. They CAN't do it now. And I agree with your conclusion that a failed attempt will topple the PRC government. China could fragment back to regional warlords, per about 1,000 years of its history. Shanghia and Hong Kong would tell Bejiing where to get off, and the PRC, as they say, would be history.

Billybob

39 posted on 04/17/2002 10:18:00 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob
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To: MarkWar
does anyone know if "black jade" has a website with a repository of knowledge\articles?
40 posted on 04/17/2002 10:19:50 AM PDT by goldylight
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