Chinese Navy New JL-9 Trainer

Chinese Navy New JL-9 Trainer

                                    

Chinese Navy New JL-9 Trainer

Partnership With Pakistan To Be Enhanced Says China

China would continue to develop its strategic partnership with Pakistan, said Chinese Foreign Ministry.

No matter how the international situation changes, this policy will not be shaken,` said the spokesman for the ministry, Hong Lei. 

He said Chinese State Councillor Dai Bingguo, who recently visited Pakistan as a representative of President Hu Jintao, met President AsifAli Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar and Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to discuss the state of relations between the two countries.

The future prospects in ties were also discussed.

At the meetings, the Pakistani leaders described the ties with China as a cornerstone of Pakistan’s foreign policy, said Hong.

He said China firmly sup-ported Pakistan’s efforts to safeguard its sovereignty, security, independence and territorial integrity and also its endeavours to improve the lives of its people.

JF-17 Thunder Fighter Jet To Get Block-2 Upgrades From 2012

The JF-17 Thunder fighter, co-developed by China’s Avic and the Pakistan Air Force (PAF), is to receive improvements that will start being produced with the Block-2 version from next year.

The enhancements will effect the data link and electronic warfare capabilities. An air-to-air re refueling capability will be added, as will be new guided weapons. A two-seat variant is being developed, too. The current program schedule calls for the Pakistan-based factory to deliver the JF-17 Block-2 to the PAF from mid-2012 to 2015. Then, a Block-3 version is planned from 2016. Block-1 aircraft are being delivered until the middle of next year.

PAF Air Chief Marshall Rao Qamar Suleiman said marketing efforts focus on those countries needing to replace old fighters such as the MiG-21, early Mirage, F-5 and Phantom types. The program’s target export countries can be found in Latin America, Africa and Asia. “We offer performance comparable to U.S. and European fighters when it comes to radar, dogfight missile, range and BVR [beyond visual range] capabilities, for one third of the cost,” Suleiman claimed.

So far, five countries are said to have taken a close look at the aircraft. China itself is currently evaluating the JF-17 and a decision is expected “shortly.” Avic and the PAF expect to sell “between 300 and 500 JF-17s” over the next 10 years.

How Downed U.S RQ-170 Stealth Drone Can Help China?

By Joshua Wiseman

 The loss of a U.S. RQ-170 stealth drone over eastern Iran has led to speculation that the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) will eventually find its way into Chinese hands. Access to the drone could allow China to use reverse engineering to incorporate key technologies into its own indigenous aerospace systems and to develop countermeasures that would make it harder for U.S. stealth UAVs and aircraft to operate near China. Iran has significant political, military, and financial incentives to provide such access, reversing the usual flow of technology from China to Iran.

Despite the claims of some Iranian officials, Iran lacks the technical capacity to exploit and duplicate the advanced technologies in the RQ-170 on its own. Providing access to China could therefore generate benefits in terms of expanded Iranian access to Chinese military technologies, potential future access to UAV countermeasures, and Chinese diplomatic support in Iran’s confrontation with the West over its nuclear program.

A robust arms sales relationship has existed between China and Iran since the early 1980s. China has supplied Iran with military hardware including fighter aircraft (F-7), fast-attack patrol vessels, anti-ship cruise missiles, and guidance technologies for use in Iran’s ballistic missile program. The dollar amount of official arms transfers in the decade 2000-2010 decreased from previous decades, but China continues to help Iran develop critical weapons programs. According to Iran’s semiofficial Mehr News agency, both Chinese and Russian officials have already made requests to inspect the RQ-170.

China’s Spies Are Catching Up

By DAVID WISE 

IN 1995, a middle-aged Chinese man walked into a C.I.A. station in Southeast Asia and offered up a trove of secret Chinese documents. Among them was a file containing the top-secret design of the American W-88 nuclear warhead that sits atop the missiles carried by Trident submarines. 

He told a story to the C.I.A. that was so bizarre it might just be true. He said that he worked in China’s nuclear program and had access to the archive where classified documents were stored. He went there after hours one night, scooped up hundreds of documents and stuffed them into a duffel bag, which he then tossed out a second-story window to evade security guards. Unfortunately, the bag broke and the papers scattered.

Outside, he collected the files and stuffed them back into the torn bag. Although many of the documents were of interest for their intelligence content, it was the one about the W-88 that roiled American counterintelligence most because it contained highly classified details about a cutting-edge warhead design. 

The United States had been producing small nuclear warheads for decades, and the Chinese were desperate to find out how to build miniaturized warheads themselves. China’s military was, and still is, playing catch-up to the United States. 

China’s success in obtaining the secret design of the W-88 is the most dramatic example of a fact that United States counterintelligence agencies have been slow to recognize: just as China has become a global economic power, it has developed a world-class espionage service — one that rivals the C.I.A. 

During the cold war, dozens of counterintelligence agents in the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. pursued Soviet and then Russian spies. The K.G.B. was seen as the enemy; China took a back seat. Only a handful of F.B.I. agents specialized in Chinese spy cases, and their work was not regarded as career-enhancing. Washington’s ongoing failure to make Chinese espionage a priority has allowed China to score a number of successes in its espionage efforts against the United States. 

Russia Ranked 2nd Biggest Global Arms Exporter

Russia became the world’s second largest arms exporter in 2011 after the United States, the head of the Moscow-based arms think tank Centre for Analysis of World Arms Trade (CAWAT), Igor Korotchenko said on Friday.

The CAWAT ranking revealed that Russia occupied the second position for world arms sales in 2011 with $11.29 billion in revenues, which accounts for 16.1 percent of all international arms supplies, Korotchenko said. “The forecast for 2012 is $11.3 billion or 17.3 percent of global arms sales.”

The Unitied States, however, dominates world arms exports, with over 40 percent of trade globally, or $28.76 billion.

Korotchenko also said that Russia had scored high records on arms exports despite the fact that it had lost the Iranian market because of the arms embargos imposed on Tehran by Washington. Moscow also supported arms sanctions against Libya, suspending all contracts for the supply of military hardware to the country.

The top ten biggest arms suppliers include France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Israel, Spain, Sweden and China, according to the CAWAT ranking.

Indian Air Force Third Crashed Su-30MKI

The two-person crew of an Indian air force Sukhoi Su-30MKI ejected safely before the strike aircraft crashed near Pune in western India on 13 December.

Sources have said initial indications point to a failure involving the aircraft's fly-by-wire flight control system. The air force has established a court of inquiry to investigate the factors behind the accident.