Drone Surveillance of China's Coast: Made In Taiwan?

The apparent goal is to keep tabs on the 2000+ coastal missiles that China currently has aimed at Taiwan.

I am also bemused by this related note: "the U.S. has expressed concern to Taiwan over how its drones are being deployed."

O RLY?  Last I heard Taiwan hadn't used any of its drones to kill people and prompt a barnstorming filibuster by Rand Paul.

HE SAID XI SAID: Dangerous Brinkmanship in China’s Air Defense Zone

OK, I admit it: I first decided to link this story because I thought the headline was so clever.  Still, we would do well to keep an eye on the increasingly tense jockeying for position in East Asia:

Ships belonging to the various players in Asia’s game of thrones have been menacing, tailing, and ramming one another in the seas around China ... Now, things have taken an even more dangerous turn: China and Japan have started to do the same with aircraft.

Thoughts on Tiananmen and Taiwan

Food for thought.

Quirky Asia Files: China's "Top Gun"-Wannabe Propaganda

This is hysterical.  The New York Times says it's all supposed to be a tribute to China's new aircraft carrier, but whatever.  Watching those two Chinese knockoffs of Goose and Maverick gave me the best laugh I've had all day.

A River Runs Through It

Watch the Chinese Air Force bomb the iced-over Yellow River.  Note how the website filed this under the tag "WTF." 

"Does China Need or Want Taiwan?"

Dignified Rant has an interesting new post on the topic.  Needing and wanting can entail all sorts of definitions and motivations ... though the bottom line is, as I think we've all been saying for a long time, Taiwan needs to make the price of invasion too high for China to pay. 

You know, Taiwan may be losing the public relations war (if this incident is any indication of how otherwise perfectly intelligent and reasonable people will naively believe the stupidest propaganda about Taiwan).  You know what?  Fight the PR war better, Taiwan, but at the same, arm up in case the moment ever comes when we go past words to sticks and stones.

How About More Security Cooperation For Taiwan & Japan?

Something to think about. Note this observation too:

"Together or independently, both governments have an obligation to pursue domestic and international options to fill legitimate defense needs, if the U.S. is unwilling to provide."

High Noon in the Himalayas: the China-India Faceoff

Not good.

Taiwan: Security Issues Never Take a Holiday

While I've been obsessing about holiday recipes (naughty), Dignified Rant still has his eye on the ball (nice).

Japan, China, and Senkaku Airspace

News blurb:

Japan's defence ministry said it was the first intrusion into Japan's air space by a Chinese government aircraft since the military began keeping records in 1958.

Free Advice: Hey, Beijing, Bullying Is Not a Foreign Policy

In terms of looking at China's foreign policy, consider these also the quotes of the day:

“Chinese assertion has backfired,” says Andrew Carr, an expert on Asia-Pacific security at the Australian National University in Canberra.

“They don’t see the connection between upping the tempo on the maritime operations and the fact that so many countries in the region are moving towards the very counter-containment strategies Beijing doesn’t want,” says Michael Green, former Asia director at the National Security Council ...

Seriously, what do you say about a course of action that makes Japanese rearmament look great even to Japan's neighbors?

Meet Xi Jingping: China's New Leader

The CCP holds its Party Congress and picks a new leader. So neat, so orderly, so ... OPAQUE, OLIGARCHIC, AND UNFREE. 

Beginning Nov. 8, when the Communist Party convenes its 18th Party Congress, and continuing in March 2013, Beijing will in two steps replace about 70 percent of the incumbents in its top communist party, government, and military bodies. China watchers expect Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang to ascend to the most powerful two spots on the Politburo Standing Committee, the country's highest decision-making body, but nobody outside a small circle of insiders knows who will fill the other 5-7 spots -- let alone what those individuals think about how to run the world's second-biggest economy and one of its major military powers.

Romney and F-16s to Taiwan

The Romney campaign has declared its support for selling the fighter jets to Taiwan. Well, GOOD.  As Dignified Rant also just said, "Have no doubt that Taiwan needs the planes and that we need Taiwan to have the planes."  

What If? the Senkaku Scenario

Japan would have its work cut out for it?  As for the scenario itself as a possibility, you'll recall this recent cover of the Economist.  

Note too this precious line from the linked Foreign Policy piece: "And however sincere Washington's assurances about helping defend the archipelago, Tokyo should not bank on its doing so with any real enthusiasm."  Ya think?

The New Cover of "The Economist"

Yes, this is the actual forthcoming cover of The Economist.  I thought the turtle's comment was a nice touch.  The China-Japan dispute over the Senkaku Islands has been in the news a lot lately ...

In addition: Look at the small print in the upper right corner. Is this publication actually going to run an article about Kate Middleton/the Duchess of Cambridge's  ... uh ... huge tracts of land?  I mean, the paparazzi shots of her topless on a beach have been making all the celebrity gossip rags, but come on!  Then again, as California Dreamer and I were saying earlier today, plenty of publications that aspire to seriousness have been running pieces about that ... er ... royal real estate.  Methinks it's partly one big excuse for journalists and analysts to talk about, as this sarcastic British commentator says, "boobs, boobs, glorious boobs."  (Good Lord!  Did I just blog about huge tracts of land?)  If you ask me, the boobs that really need a closer look aren't the ones on the duchess, but the ones who are in office and completely botching it.  

Chinese Patrol Ships Into Japanese Waters

There's a new round of the China-Japan dispute over the Senkaku islands as two(?) six Chinese patrol boats entered Japanese territorial waters.  Oh, and there's also a China-Philippines dispute over a shoal in the South China Sea - to which Manila is ready to redeploy ships after reports of Chinese ships mucking about there.  

Heh, there seems to be something about little islands in that part of the Pacific that gives Beijing a case of the knee-jerk expansionist chest-thumping crazies, to the headache of the Asian democracies involved.  Nobody likes a bully.  (Besides, as one of my Nerd Lords recently said with surprising forthrightness for academia, Beijing is "a criminal regime.") Note how very little of this ever shows up in Western news media.

Plus this saying that it's also Washington's problem, though that thought just makes me want to smack my head on my desk right now.  Foreign policy - ah, how to say this politely? - isn't exactly this administration's strong suit.

UPDATE: Dignified Rant has thoughts on how the US can help Japan.

A Few Thoughts on Sino-American Relations

By Daniel Drezner, professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.  Here's a bit of them:

It is easy to look at China's military modernization and interpret it as a dagger placed against the throat of the U.S. and its allies.  It's worth remembering, however, that China currently spends more money on internal security than defense.  Their actual capabilities in the anti-access/anti-denial area are... let's say a bit exaggerated (though growing).  Sure, Beijing wants to expand its sphere of influence -- it's a rising great power -- but it sees its greatest threats as internal rather than external. 

Ave atque Vale, Sydney Wignall

This brief bio reads like one heck of a thriller.  Someone make a movie!  Blurb:

Sydney Wignall, who has died aged 89, was an adventurer who, in 1955, led the first Welsh Himalayan Expedition with the intention of climbing Gurla Mandhata, at 25,355ft the highest peak in Chinese-occupied Tibet; in his book Spy on the Roof of the World (1997), he recounted how he was captured by the Red Army and held in jail accused of being a CIA spy.

I just put that book on my to-read list.  Goodness, is it just me or do the Brits really publish some smashing obits?  Wignall then became a marine archaeologist excavating shipwrecks from the Spanish Armada.  Wow, what a glorious bad@$$!

Life Imitates The Onion: China, India, and Missiles

LOL!  Size does matter?

Fresh Thoughts on US-Taiwan Relations

Check out Michael Turton's latest round-up.  Apparently a lot of eggheads are reiterating that Taiwan is still a vital interest of the US.  Well, DUH, though of course one can never say the obvious clearly enough or often enough, especially when there is so much bad "analysis" of Taiwan out there.