headland

The border crisis between Venezuela and Columbia is the result of close coordination between Caracas and Tehran, according to a special report in Defense & Foreign Affairs (March 4, subscription only).

Analysis of relative combat capabilities between Ecuador and Venezuela on the one hand, and Colombia on the other, may be premature, but it is clear from a range of sources that there has been coordination on the issue between Caracas and Tehran, and Caracas and Quito, in order to "test the waters" as to how far the US can be pushed to support its ally, Colombia, during this "lame duck" political year. It is also known that the People's Republic of China (PRC), which has significant relations with Venezuela, and has worked discreetly with Pres. Chavez to help further PRC interests elsewhere in the region -- particularly Panama -- is taking a keen interest in monitoring the US response to the tri-nation border crisis.

UPDATE: On second thought ... the crisis appears to be over, at least for now....Reuters: Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela make peace

Labels: China, Columbia, Defense and Foreign Affairs Daily, Ecuador, Hugo Chávez, Iran, PRC, Venezuela

In "The Consequences of Perfidy," Headland reported on a Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily report that China and Pakistan had achieved performance levels on their fighter aircraft approaching those of the U.S. F-16A, thanks to the use of sensitive technologies transferred to China during the Clinton administration.

In today's Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily. Gregory R. Copley, an Editor of Global Information System, reports of a possible sale to Iran by China (PRC) of the new fighter aircraft built by China and Pakistan, the FC-1/JF-17 Thunder fighter. The fighter uses fly-by-wire systems that were transferred illegally to the PRC during the Clinton Administration.

Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily sees the sale as a likely consequence of a new accord between Iran and the PRC, formalized by the signing of a memorandum of understanding in Beijing on November 30, 2004. Under the agreement, the PRC will exchange expertise in the areas of satellites and aerospace technology.

The Bush administration responded to the memorandum of understanding by imposing additional sanctions on four organizations in the PRC and one in North Korea (DPRK). Though the Bush administration recognizes that the technology has already been lost to China and North Korea, it now sees the Iranian clerical Government as one of its most significant strategic concerns. The report claims that stolen technology, based upon a Global Positionining System, has already found its way into the guidance systems of Iranian Shabab 3D strategic ballistic missile systems that now target Israeli assets among others.

Labels: China, Defense and Foreign Affairs Daily, DPRK, FC-1/JF-17 Thunder fighter, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, PRC

The blogging revolution is spreading to China, according to the New Scientist (The 'blog' revolution sweeps across China" , 24 November 2004). From a start barely over two years ago, the blogosphere in China has grown to include at least 45 large blog-hosting services and two million blogs, or bo ke.

This growth has taken place under the watchful eye of a government that tries to maintain a high degree of control over online information. The most important component of this governmental control is the “Great Firewall”, which "protects the nine gateways connecting China to the global internet" to "prevent surfers in China from accessing 'undesirable' web content." In January 2003, the Chinese government abruptly blocked access, within China, to blogspot.com, ostensibly in response to a the publication of proxy server addresses that could permit users to bypass the Great Firewall. In response to the crackdown, Chinese bloggers started their own blog-hosting services, and Blogcn.com, Blogdriver.com and Blogbus.com were among the first sites to host blogs within the Great Firewall.

Last September, an influential bulletin board, Yitahutu, was closed down by the Chinese net police. The site had more than 300,000 registered users and 700 discussion forums for exchanging opinion and information on politically sensitive topics. After the closure, major university bulletin boards were told to delete any discussion of the event. Nonetheless, the discussion of the shutting down of Yitahutu continued within the blogosphere.

Despite the vigilant efforts of even the most restrictive regimes to contain and control the exchange of ideas, the blogosphere is emerging as a samizdat for the twenty-first century.

Labels: blogosphere, China, internet, Yitahutu

Fighter aircraft being produced in China and Pakistan have achieved performance approaching that of the U.S. Lockheed Martin F-16A Block 15 fighter, thanks to the use of sensitive U.S. technologies transferred to China during the Clinton administration. That is the conclusion of a special report published in today's Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily ("Advanced Chinese and Pakistani Fighter Utilizes Illegally -- or Accidentally -- Transferred Sensitive U.S. Technology," November 8, 2004).

The aircraft is the CF-1/JF-17 Thunder fighter [sic -- see Defense Talk and Global Security for more information on the FC-1 "Chao Qi" / JF-17 Thunder] that is being made at Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation in the PRC and Pakistan Aeronautical Complex in Kamra. China expects to deploy 200 of the fighters by 2006; Pakistan plans to deploy 150 beginning in 2005-6.

The details emerged in a just concluded Aerospace exhibition in Zhuhai. The restricted technology in the fighter is the quadruple-redundant fly-by-wire technology and the single-crystal jet engine fan blade technology. Global Information Service recognized the fly-by-wire system as the system produced by Honeywell. This technology was approved by the Clinton administration, but only for civil use. The single-crystal jet engine fan blade technology is unique to the U.S., and had been prohibited for export, though the finished product is used on exported U.S. jet engines.

The report concludes that these fighters highlight the extent that sensitive technology was transferred from the United States to China during the Clinton administration, thereby confirming the concerns voiced in the 1999 official report of the U.S. Congress's Cox Commission.

Labels: Bill Clinton, Chao Qi, China, Defense and Foreign Affairs Daily, F-16A Block 15 fighter, FC-1/JF-17 Thunder fighter, Pakistan, PRC

New information on how Saddam Hussein manipulated the oil-for-food program appears in today's Associated Press from Desmond Butler. Earlier this month the report of U.S. arms inspector Charles Duelfer revealed that various foreign companies and individuals from various countries, but predominantly from Russia, France and China, had received oil contracts from the former Iraqi government under the U.N. program.

Today's report is based on information from interviews with dozens of former and current iraqi officials by congressional investigators at the House International Relations Committee chaired by Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Illinois. The Iraqi officials were flown outside of Iraq for the interviews.

The need for protection of these witnesses became evident in late June, when an Iraqi official, Ehsan Karim, head of the Iraqi Finance Ministry's audit Board, was killed in a car bombing after having been interviewed in Amman, Jordan, on May 21.

The Iraqi officials provided lists of foreign companies favored by Saddam for import contracts under the oil-for-food program. They also revealed a parallel blacklist of companies disqualified from getting deals. Iraqi front companies that operated abroad to solicit and process bribes from foreign companies were identified.

The list of favored companies include some who appeared on Duelfer's report as getting oil vouchers, including Gazprom, Lukoil and Tatneft. There were also some obscure Western companies from Germany, Belgium, Cyprus, Italy and Switzerland appearing on the list. Various companies on the blacklist are censured for having done business with Israel.

Labels: China, Ehsan Karim, France, Iraq, Russia, Saddam Hussein, United Nations