Free Republic

Australia is conducting the biggest expansion of its navy since the Second World War and will spend an extra £35 billion on the armed forces over the next 20 years. The latest defence White Paper recommends buying 100 advanced F-35 jet fighters and 12 powerful submarines equipped with cruise missiles, a capability which no other country in the region is believed to possess. The "potential instability" caused by the emergence of China and India as major world powers was cited as the most pressing reason for this military build-up. In particular, Australian defence planners are believed to be concerned about...

/begin my translationThe Crashed Plane Was a Brand-new AWACS Plane China Developed A Chinese air force plane, which recently crashed in Anhui Province, killing all crews, turned out to be 'Gongjing-2000,' a brand-new AWACS plane China recently developed. According to June 6th report of Hong Kong's Dai-gong-bao, the crashed plane is 'Gongjing-2000,' which China developed using a Russian AWACS plane as its model, and the accident would be recorded as the worst disaster for Chinese air force.China produced four Gongjing-2000 AWACS planes, and assigned them to airforce unit under Nanjing Military District early this year. They were reportedly deployed at Wushi Air base in Jiang-su Province.The...