June 2:
Defense Secretary Robert Gates dismissed the concerns of Lt. Gen. Ma Xiaotian, the deputy chief of the general staff of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA), about American missile defense plans and insisted that it is PLA missiles that represent the threat to the region. China has been investing heavily in missile technology, including the development of longer-range intercontinental ballistic missiles. The missiles are cause for concern in Japan and other U.S. allies across Asia, but Gen. Ma insisted in his remarks that the missiles weren't offensive in nature and shouldn't be seen as threatening. "I don't know what you use them for if it's not for offensive capability," Gates replied, in comments carried by the Wall Street Journal. "It's hard to see an intercontinental ballistic missile as a defensive weapon."
"Strategic confrontation in outer space is difficult to avoid. The development of outer space forces shows signs that a space arms race to seize the commanding heights is emerging," Wu Tianfu of the Second Artillery Corps Command College wrote in a recent official government report. The Corps controls China's nuclear arsenal. "We can say that weaponization of outer space is already unstoppable," Wu continued, claiming his country was the victim of “a major power making a big fuss about space domination, creating rivals and provoking confrontation." Beijing is "aggressively" honing its ability to shoot down satellites along with other space and counter-space capabilities, Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Horne of the U.S. Strategic Command told a Congressional panel last month in comments carried by Reuters.
June 3:
Nong Duc Manh, General Secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party, has completed a four-day visit to China, which included meetings with Hu Jintao, Chairman of the Communist Party of China. The two leaders released a joint statement describing the bilateral relationship for the first time as a “comprehensive and strategic cooperative partnership,” Vietnam’s official VNS News Agency reports. “The two sides agreed to build mechanisms for exchanges and cooperation between relevant Party agencies, particularly between the two Parties’ External Relations Commissions and Information and Education Commissions; enhance the provision of in-time information to each other through the Party channel, ” Director of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee’s Commission for External Relations, Tran Van Hang, told press in Hanoi.
June 9:
A European Union delegation lead by Dimitrij Rupel, current chair of the EU General Affairs and External Relations Council and Slovenian Foreign Minister, and Javier Solana, EU foreign policy chief, met with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Ljubljana Slovenia to discuss Myanmar, Iran, Africa and regional groupings in East Asia. Yang called for bolstering the China-EU strategic partnership and said the meeting would document progress made since the November 2007 EU-China Summit. Rupel said the EU was closely monitoring events in Tibet: "We issued a clear opinion stating that violent protests were not acceptable. We also stressed the need for substantive and constructive dialogue with regard to the concern expressed by the Tibet people,” he said in comments carried by the Slovene news agency STA.
June 10:
Approximately 1,000 baton-wielding armed police have used force to disperse a protest held by several hundred students at the People’s Liberation Army’s Artillery Corps Institute in Nanjing, Jiangsu. The over 1,000 civilian students who paid at least $7,232 each claimed they had been promised university degrees upon graduation from the institute, but instead were given college diplomas. The students, who despite the institute's military background were students of non-military subjects such as computer science, advertising and public administration, said they had protested after the institute’s administration had refused to meet with them. "They mercilessly beat the students," said one parent present during the clashes in comments carried by the Associated Press. In China, competition for jobs among university graduates is intense, and many employers consider a university degree far more valuable than a college diploma.