深仇大恨 ?

The PLAN

"... As a great power that feels wronged by recent history, Beijing seeks space to rise again and reassert control of previous claims by carving out a Near Seas zone of exceptionalism in which established global maritime norms do not apply.... "

冤冤何时了 ? [Link]

30 August 2012

Red Haired Chinese ?

You'll never be Chinese

By Mark Kitto aka Ang Moh Chinese :-))

Death and taxes. You know how the saying goes. I would like to add a third certainty: You'll never become Chinese, no matter how hard you try, or want to, or think you ought to.

I wanted to be Chinese, once. I wanted China to be the place where I made a career and lived my life. For the past 16 years it has been precisely that. But now I will be leaving. 

I have fallen out of love, woken from my China Dream. "But China is an economic miracle: A record number of people lifted out of poverty in record time ... year on year 10-per-cent growth ... exports ... imports ... infrastructure ... investment." The superlatives roll on. 

But don't you think, with all the growth and infrastructure, that China would be a happier, healthier country? At least better than the country emerging from decades of stultifying state control that I met and fell in love with in 1986 when I first came here as a student? I do not think it is. 


DENG'S LEGACY

When I arrived in Beijing for the second year of my Chinese degree course, from the London University's School of Oriental and African Studies, China was communist. Compared with the West, it was backward. There were few cars on the streets and scant streetlights. The necessities of daily life: Food, drink, clothes and a bicycle, cost peanuts.


We had the time of our lives, as students do, but it is not the adventures I remember most fondly, not from my current viewpoint, the top of a mountain called Moganshan, 161 kilometres west of Shanghai, where I have lived for the past seven years.

If I had to choose one word to describe China in the mid-1980s it would be optimistic. A free market of sorts was in its early stages. With it came the first inflation China had experienced in 35 years. People were actually excited by that. It was a sign of progress. 

One man was largely responsible for the optimism of those heady days: Deng Xiaoping, rightly known as the architect of modern China.

Deng made China what it is today. He also ordered the tanks into Beijing on June 4, 1989, of course, and left a legacy that will haunt the Chinese Communist Party to its dying day. 

It did not take long for Deng to put his country back on the road he had chosen. He persuaded the world that it would be beneficial to forgive him for the Tiananmen "incident", as the Chinese people call it, and engage with China, rather than treat her like a pariah.

The world obliged and the Chinese people took what he offered. Both have benefited financially. 

When I returned to China in 1996, to begin the life and career I had long dreamed about, I found that familiar air of optimism, but there was a subtle difference: A distinct whiff of commerce in place of community.

The excitement was more like the eager anticipation I felt once I had signed a deal (I began my China career as a metals trader), sure that I was going to bank a profit, rather than the thrill that something truly big was about to happen. 

A deal had been struck. Deng had promised the Chinese people material wealth they had not known for centuries on the condition that they never again asked for political change. The party said: "Trust us and everything will be all right." 

MONEY TRUMPS ALL

Twenty years later, everything is not all right. I must stress that this indictment has nothing to do with the trajectory of my own China career, which went from metal trading to building a multi-million-dollar magazine publishing business that was seized by the government in 2004, followed by retreat to this mountain hideaway of Moganshan, where my Chinese wife and I have built a small business centred on a coffee shop and three guesthouses. 

That our current business could suffer the same fate as my magazines if the local government decides not to renew our short-term leases (for which we have to beg every three years) does, however, contribute to my decision not to remain in China. 

Modern day mainland Chinese society is focused on one object: Money and the acquisition thereof. The politically correct term in China is "economic benefit". 

The country and its people, on average, are far wealthier than they were 25 years ago. Traditional family culture, thanks to 60 years of self-serving socialism followed by another 30 of the "one child policy", has become a "me" culture.

Except where there is economic benefit to be had, communities do not act together, and when they do, it is only to ensure equal financial compensation for the pollution or the poisoned children. Social status, so important in Chinese culture and, more so, thanks to those 60 years of communism, is defined by the display of wealth.

Once you have purchased the necessary baubles, you will want to invest the rest somewhere safe, preferably with a decent return - all the more important because one day you will have to pay your own medical bills and pension. But there is nowhere to put it except into property or under the mattress. 

The stock markets are rigged, the banks operate in a way that is noncommercial and the yuan is still nonconvertible. While the well-connected transfer their wealth overseas via legally questionable channels, the remainder can only buy more apartments or thicker mattresses. The result is the biggest property bubble in history. 

When that bubble pops, or in the remote chance that it deflates gradually, the wealth the party gave the people will deflate too. But there will still be the medical bills and pensions. The people will want their money back, or a say in their future, which amounts to a political voice. If they are denied, they will cease to be harmonious. 

FORGOTTEN HOW TO LEAD

Meanwhile, what of the ethnic minorities and the factory workers, the people on whom it is more convenient for the government to dispense overwhelming force rather than largesse? 

If an outburst of ethnic or labour discontent coincides with the collapse of the property market, and you throw in a scandal like the melamine tainted milk of 2008, and suddenly the harmonious society is likely to become a chorus of discontent. 

How will the party deal with that? How will it lead? Unfortunately, it has forgotten. The government is so scared of the people it prefers not to lead them.

In rural China, village level decisions that require higher authorisation are passed up the chain of command, sometimes all the way to Beijing, and returned with the note attached: "You decide." The party only steps to the fore where its power or personal wealth is under direct threat. 

"China is the next superpower," we are told. "Accept it. Deal with it." How do you deal with a faceless leader, who when called upon to adjudicate in an international dispute sends the message: "You decide"? 

It is often argued that China led the world once before, so we have nothing to fear. While there is no dispute that China was once a world superpower, there are two fundamental problems with the idea that it should therefore regain that position. 

A key reason China achieved primacy was its size. As it is today, China was, and always will be, big. If you are the biggest you tend to dominate. Once in charge, the Chinese people sat back and accepted tribute from their suzerain and vassal states. If trouble was brewing beyond China's borders, that might threaten its interests, the troublemakers were set against each other or paid off. 

INWARD LOOKING,

ANTI-FOREIGN


The second reason the rightful position idea is misguided is that the world in which China was the superpower did not include the Americas, an enlightened Europe or a modern Africa. The world does not want to live in a Chinese century, just as much of it does not like living in an American one. 

China, politically and culturally, is inward looking. All non-Chinese are, to the Chinese people, aliens, in a mildly derogatory sense. The polite word is "Outsider."

The Chinese themselves are on "The Inside." And like anyone who does not like what is going on outside - a loud argument, a natural disaster - the Chinese people can shut the door. 

There is one final reason why the world does not want to be led by China in the 21st century. The Communist Party has, from its very inception, encouraged strong anti-foreign sentiment. Fevered nationalism is one of its cornerstones.

To award a Nobel Prize to a Chinese intellectual is to "interfere in China's internal affairs" and "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people". China's citizens are told on a regular basis to feel aggrieved at what foreigners have done to them, and the party vows to exact vengeance on their behalf. 

Fear of violent revolution or domestic upheaval, with a significant proportion of that violence sure to be directed at foreigners, is not the main reason I am leaving China, though I will not deny it is one of them. 

Apart from what I hope is a justifiable human desire to be part of a community and no longer be treated as an outsider, to run my own business in a regulated environment and not live in fear of it being taken away from me, and not to concern myself unduly that the air my family breathes and the food we eat is doing us physical harm, there is one overriding reason I must leave China. 

I want to give my children a decent education.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

The domestic Chinese lower education system does not educate. It is a test centre. The curriculum is designed to teach children how to pass them.

In rural China, where we have lived for seven years, it is also an elevation system. Success in exams offers a passport to a better life in the big city. Schools do not produce self-reliant young people with inquiring minds. They produce winners and losers. Winners go on to college or university to take "business studies". Losers go back to the farm or the local factory their parents were hoping they could escape. 

There is little, if any, extra-curricular activity. Athletic children are extracted and sent to special schools to learn how to win Olympic gold medals. Musically-gifted children are rammed into the conservatories, where they have all the joy in their talent drilled out of them. (My wife was one of the latter.) 

The pressure makes children sick. I speak from personal experience. To score under 95 per cent is considered a failure. Bad performance is punished. Homework, which consists mostly of practice test papers, takes up at least one day of every weekend. Many children go to school to do it in the classroom. I have seen them trooping in at 6am on Sundays. 

China does not educate its youth in a way that will allow them to become the leaders, inventors and innovators of tomorrow, but that is the intention. The party does not want freethinkers who can solve its problems. It still believes it can solve them itself, if it ever admits it has a problem in the first place. 

The only one it openly acknowledges, ironically, is its corruption. To deny that would be impossible. 

The party does include millions of enlightened officials who understand that something must be done to avert a crisis. I have met some of them. If China is to avoid upheaval then it is up to them to change the party from within, but they face a long uphill struggle, and time is short. 

I have also encountered hundreds of Chinese people with a modern world view. People who could, and would willingly, help their motherland face the issues that are growing into state-shaking problems. But it is unlikely that they will be given the chance, and I fear for some of them who might ask for it. 

I read about Ai Weiwei, Chen Guangchen and Liu Xiaobo on Weibo, the closely monitored Chinese equivalent of Twitter and Facebook, where a post only has to be up for a few minutes to go viral. There are tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of mainland Chinese citizens who "follow" such people too, and there must be countless more like them in person, trying in their small way to make China a better place. One day they will prevail. 

That will be a good time to become Chinese. It might even be possible.  NYT.

21 August 2012

Hobby - Battle Ship ! (Landing Vessel Combatant)



Air - Sea Integration

Variant of RSN Landing Vessel Combatant - approx. 20,000 ton displacement
trimaran supporting a 120m V-shape twin deck (Overall length: ~200m)

Will some talented souls do a perspective render of the LVC with trimaran ?

Armament:

1) 127mm (64 cal.) Naval Gun Anti-surface and shore bombardment. Fire conventional unguided 127mm munition out to 70km range against ship and land targets. Utilizing of GPS guided, rocket motor assist, servo actuated, fin stabilized type munition for precision targeting out to 120km range. Configured for MRSI (Multiple Round Simultaneous Impact) and Air-Burst targeting. Enabled for secondary short range anti-air and anti-missile defence.

127mm Naval Gun

2) Anti-Ship Missile 8 re-loadable surface launch anti-ship missiles hitting target in excess of 300Km.

3) VLS Long Range Anti-Surface Missile 8 anti-surface missile fired from vertical launch system. Stealth, flying at supersonic speed and attacking from a dive profile. Hitting ships or land target in excess of 800Km.

4) VLS Anti-Air /  Anti-Missile Missile 32 anti-air and anti-missile missiles fired from vertical launch system affording all round local and area defence up to 120Km.

5) CIWS missile system 2 close-in weapon system missile tracking and rocket launching platform, independent from main VLS radar tracking and guidance gives close-in protection from missile and missile debris up to 7Km. A complement of 11 x 2 anti-missile rockets. Independent object identification algorithm connected to ship mainframe for IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) double verification.

11 anti-missile missiles per system
gives close-in protection out to 7Km range

6) VLS Anti-Submarine Rocket 8 vertical launch anti-submarine rocket deployed to a range in excess of 20Km.

ASROC !

7) Anti-Submarine Torpedo 6 re-loadable anti-submarine torpedos complement the VLS anti-submarine rockets in neutralizing undersea threat.

8) Anti-Torpedo Torpedoes 6 re-loadable anti-torpedo torpedoes provide a hard kill option for active anti-torpedo defence.

9) CIWS 30mm Gatling Gun 3 close-in weapon system missile tracking and gun fire platform, independent from main VLS radar tracking and guidance gives close-in protection from missile and missile debris up to 2Km. Also providing ship defence against small / fast attack craft asymmetric threat. Independent object identification algorithm connected to ship mainframe for IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) double verification.

30mm GAU 8 Avenger gatling gun
firing 70 tungsten warhead rounds
per second up to 2Km range

10) 30mm Unmanned Gun System 2 gun remotely controlled day/night typhoon mount providing ship defence against small / fast attack craft asymmetric threat. Independent object identification algorithm connected to weapons station for double verification.

30mm Bush Master II Mk44 mounted on the
Typhoon stabilized day/night gun system

11) 50cal Manned Machine Gun 4 HMG manned weapon station providing sentry round the clock security and defending against asymmetric threat.


Decoys:

1) Anti-Ship Missile Decoy System Controlled by the ship EW (Electronic Warefare) / ECM (Electronic Counter Measure) system. 24 launchers installed each on starboard and port firing blooming chaff creating an instantenous ship size "target". Depending on lock-on phase of incoming missile, decoy can be activated from a mere 50m or up to 14Km.

 2) Anti-Torpedoes Decoy System Employing a combination of distraction and seduction cheff launching decoys. Controlled by the ship EW (Electronic Warefare) / ECM (Electronic Counter Measure) system. 24 launchers installed each on starboard and port firing 130mm decoy chaff afford a soft kill 360 degree protection.


Pay Load:

1) F35B STOVL JSF 4 Joint Strike Fighter (Short Take Off Vertical Landing) stealth combatant. Equipped for reconnaissance, interception and interdiction mission. Neutralized air threat to stealth UCAV enroute to mission. Manned combat strike fighter adds complexity in the calculus to the adversarial satellite-drone-cyber space warfare domain.

2) UCAV Stealth 4 Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle deployed for round the clock reconaissance and surveillance. Loiter and striking target of opportunity in combat area of operation. Tasked for interdiction against ship and land base target. Achieved munition platform commonality with the ship VLS long range stealth anti-surface missile and anti-ship missiles.

3) UUV Stealth 2 Unmanned Underwater Vehicle deployed for surveillance and EW (Electronic Warefare) / ECM (Electronic Counter Measure) from approaching undersea threat. Employing passive/deception sonar decoys and Active hard kill anti-torpedo torpedoes and anti-submarine torpedoes. Fully autonomous utilizing ANN (Artificial Neural Network) algorithm with inputs from onboard sensors, data feed from planted decoys,satellite intelligence and various friendly ASW (Anti Submarine Warfare) assets to form an evolving picture. Sensor shooter loop can be manually overide and authenticated before trigger. Adaptive ANN is capable of mimicking sonar signatures of other submarine types or even undersea live stock by learning its environ sonar signature of fishes,etc., signal processed with add on "imperfection" to deceive adversarial anti-ANN algorithm.

4) ASW Helicopter 1 or 2 Anti-Submarine Helicopter forward deploy with dipping sonar, feeding data to friendly assets. Armed with anti-submarine torpedoes and anti-ship missiles.

5) Attack Helicopter 1 or 2 Stealth profiled attack helicopter depolyed for surveillance and security. Policing of vincinity and neutralizing asymmetric threats. Providing CAS (Close Air Support) for amphibious operations. Armed with anti-ship missile platform.

6) VTOL Utility and SAR 1 Vertical Take Off Landing utility and Search & Rescue providing airlift capability to special operations unit. Perform SAR function for civilian in distress and CSAR (Combat Search And Rescue) for combatants.


Amphibious Loading:

Well Deck

1) LCAC 1 Landing Craft Air Cushion with maximum load out at 75 ton. Carrying an assortment of combat and logistic vehicles and troops on amphibious entry. Can load one Leopard MBT (Main Battle Tank) for combat ground support operation.

2) 30T FLC 1 thirty ton Fast Landing Craft in well deck for ferrying of troops and vehicles. Can load one Bionix Armoured Fighting Vehicle (optional) for combat ground support operation. Tasked for disaster relieve cargo loading, civilian rescue and evacuation.


3) 18T FLC 1 eighteen ton Fast Landing Craft in well deck for ferrying of troops and vehicles. Tasked for disaster relieve cargo loading, civilian rescue and evacuation.

4) 4T FLC 1 four ton Fast Landing Craft in well deck for ferrying of troops. Tasked for disaster relieve cargo loading, civilian rescue and evacuation.

Dry Deck (Maximum Load Out)

5) Armoured Amphibious Assault Vehicle 8 AAAV loaded onto dry deck. During operation the AAAV is guided into submerged well deck for floatation deployment.

6) UL 155mm Howitzer 4 Ultra-Light 155mm Howitzer parked on dry deck for ground support operation. Can be transported either by LCAC, 30T FLC amphibious landing or CH47D Chinook airlift.

7) Leopard MBT 2 Main Battle Tank parked on dry deck for ground support operation. Transported by LCAC amphibious landing.

8) 'B' Vehicle 8 assortment of light weight wheeled vehicle can be parked on the dry deck.


Accommodation:

1) Ship + Air Wing + UUV :  78 + 98 + 22 (total : 198)

2) Troops: 300

3) Resuscitation / Minor Operating Theatre: 2

4) High Dependency / Recovery room: 4

5) Sick Bay (Bed): 12

21 August 2012

Hobby - Battle Ship ! (Economy of Scale)



Naval Assets  -  Air-Sea Integration



19 August 2012

RIMPAC

Should China fear RIMPAC ?

by Robert Farley

"... Look forward to the day China can join RIMPAC ..."

13 August 2012

Hobby - Battle Ship ! (Expanded Version)

88 Ships Navy ~ "Huat Ah !" 





07 August 2012