September 25:
Russia’s latest tactical missile, the Iskander-M, has successfully been tested at Kapustin Yar rocket development range in Astrakhan Oblast. “China possesses a vast quantity of tactical missiles and we simply have nothing to counter it with today. Missiles capable of delivering a lethal load over a distance of 500 km will be a serious deterrent. In the Far East we need to arm at least five or six brigades with Iskanders,” said Aleksandr Khramchikhin, deputy head of Russia’s Institute of Political and Military Analysis. Iskanders capable of firing 500-600 km will also be able to reach American missile defense complexes in Poland and Romania. During the test a “combined-arms engagement” two Iskander-M missiles, Tochka-U tactical missiles and Smerch multiple rockets scored a “precision hit” on an “enemy bunker” reducing it to “craters and liquefied earth” according to eyewitness accounts in the Russian newspaper Izvestiya.
[Editor’s Note: It is rare for Russian officials or military experts to publicly acknowledge that they are monitoring and responding China’s military buildup. However, a recent report by the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College concluded that Russia’s expansion of its military activities in the Far East is aimed at China. Russia is also planning a major upgrading of cruisers that will be equipped with ship-to-ship missiles and deployed with the Pacific Fleet.]
September 26:
China is ready to build a deep sea port in Bangladesh, but “needs Bangladesh’s go-ahead,” before getting started, China’s Ambassador in Dhaka, Zhang Xianyi, said in comments carried by Bangladesh’s bdnews24 website. He said: “Two Chinese companies have expressed their desire to develop the port but the ball is now not in the court of the Chinese side.” To boost trade and investment China is supporting infrastructure projects to connect India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Bangladesh. Zhang also added that over the next 15 months, Bangladesh will purchase 44 military armored vehicles from China at a cost of $200 million, but would not give the total amount of Bangladesh’s military hardware purchases from China. China is one of Bangladesh’s largest military suppliers according to the United News of Bangladesh.
September 29:
Two Taiwanese businessmen scammed by their Chinese partners and collaborators in the Chinese judiciary have accused the authorities in Fujian Province of using threats to stop a demonstration in Taipei against such practices. Huang Hsi-tsung, one of the organizers of the demonstration, said he’d received threatening phone calls from officials in Fujian asking him not to go ahead with the protest, which is scheduled for October 31. Huang said the mainland officials plan to investigate the demonstration and collect evidence against him if he did not cancel. Meanwhile, Shen Po-sheng, another Taiwanese businessman who operates in China, claims he lost 190 million yuan when the government illegally seized his factory and provided only 16 million yuan in compensation. To protest, Shen burned a PRC flag at a demonstration in Tainan, Taiwan in early this month. The two businessmen urged the Taiwan government to protect Taiwanese investors in China, Taiwan’s official Central News Agency reports.
September 30:
China’s answer to the Nobel Peace Prize, the Confucius Peace Prize, has been scrapped after a year and its organizers, the so-called “cultural protection department,” have been reprimanded and disbanded, the South China Morning Post reports. The controversial prize was unveiled last year after jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize amid furious protests from Beijing. The Confucius award was cancelled for “violating relevant regulations,” according to a posting on the Ministry of Culture’s website. It said the department was not authorized to stage such an event and had “severely breached regulations on social organizations.” Two weeks ago, the organizers announced candidates including Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the 21-year-old 11th Panchen Lama hand-picked by Beijing, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, South African President Jacob Zuma, Yuan Longping, a Chinese agricultural scientist called “the father of hybrid rice,” and Taiwanese politician James Soong Chu-yu. The first Confucius prize went to Taiwan’s former vice-president Lien Chan, but when Lien did not claim it, the prize and its 100,000 yuan award were given to an anonymous little girl.