Free Republic

SAN FRANCISCO – Song Chen has been charged in a criminal complaint with visa fraud in connection with a scheme to lie about her status as an active member of the People’s Republic of China’s military forces while in the United States conducting research at Stanford University, announced United States Attorney David L. Anderson and Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge John L. Bennett.  Song made her initial federal court appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim this morning to face the charge. The allegations describing the crime appear in an affidavit supporting the complaint filed on July...

The Global Times' correspondent, Sun Wei, conducted a question-and-answer session by e-mail Wednesday with Craig Caffrey (Caffrey), the author of "Chinese military aircraft: Up and coming." GT: Why are you concerned about the Chinese air force in particular? The Diplomat magazine said China is "building a force that will be without rival in the Asia-Pacific." What do you think of such a comment? Caffrey: China's emergence as a global power is one of the most important geo-political issues at present, and this process has a number of significant implications in the defense and security sector. The modernization of the Chinese...

China’s Shenyang Aircraft Corporation created a copy of a Russian deck-based Su-33 fighter jet. The Chinese model of the aircraft was called J-15, Interfax reports with reference to the May issue of the Kanwa Asian Defence military publication. The Chinese fighter jet is based on the Soviet T10K training aircraft, which China received from Ukraine. Chinese engineers found it very difficult to solve the problem of folding wings of deck-based fighter jets. Now the problem has been solved. It is not clear yet, if the new plane has performed its first flight yet: the Chinese Air Force does not have...

The Chinese Air Force is satisfied enough with its locally made WS10A jet engine, to put it into production. This can be seen from that fact that the WS10A is now powering some of their J-11B fighters. Originally, the J-11 used a Russian AL-31F engine, but China has been working for a decade to manufacture their own version of this, the WS10A. The WS10A is something of an acid test for China, as it is a powerful military engine, and a complex piece of work. Russia refused to license China to produce the AL-31F, so the Chinese stole as much...

Chinese stealth fighter plans revealed By Will Knight China has begun developing a stealth fighter aircraft, according to a defence industry report published on Wednesday. The stealth technology planned for the plane has not been revealed but one expert suggests the aircraft will be considerably less sophisticated than the latest US stealth aircraft. The plane is in early stages of development with engineers considering a number of different potential designs, according to the report in the Jane's Defence Weekly. The US Nighthawk's angular features help it evade radar detection Development of the fighter's engines and weapons systems has begun at...