October 19:
The South China Morning Post reports that three People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers were injured in Yulin, Guangxi after a fight with local police. A city government official confirmed that three drunken soldiers fought with three on-duty police officers. The three soldiers were then taken into custody where they were beaten for two hours and suffered several broken bones before more than 100 PLA soldiers with guns drawn surrounded the police bureau, demanded their release, and took the wounded soldiers to the hospital.
October 20:
A World War II-era Philippine warship collided with a Chinese fishing boat after challenging its presence in the South China Sea. Filipino officials said the patrol ship spotted a large Chinese vessel towing 35 smaller, unoccupied fishing boats near Reed Bank, an atoll 180 nautical miles off Palawan, the country’s main western island. It challenged the Chinese vessel but “incurred steering problems and got entangled in the tow lines,” a Philippine Navy spokesman said in comments carried by The Straits Times. The Chinese vessel cut the lines towing the unmanned boats and left the area so no major damage was done to either side. The incident appears to be an accident and nobody was hurt. Manila sent an apology to Beijing but is refusing to return the dozen or so dinghies recovered from the Chinese vessel.
[Editor’s Note: In March, two Chinese patrol boats harassed a seismic survey vessel in Reed Bank belonging to Britain’s Forum Energy, which is in a joint venture with a Philippine firm to search for gas and oil there. According to estimates Reed Bank has 3.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves worth nearly $20 billion.]
October 24:
China’s government has sponsored the first International Taoism Forum in an effort to expand the ancient religion’s global influence. The three-day event, held at Mt. Hengshan in Hunan, included 500 participants from more than 20 countries. Chinese politicians including Jia Qinglin, a member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, and Du Qinglin, head of the United Front Work Department, addressed participants. Ren Farong, president of the Chinese Taoist Association, said China has mapped out a strategy to reform its culture making Taoism an extension of Beijing’s soft power. “Lao Tze said that a ‘big country should keep itself in a humble position,’ but in the modern world, a number of powerful countries prefer to use violence to bully weak countries,” Ren said in comments carried by the official China Daily. China has nearly 100,000 Taoist priests and over 5,000 religious sites.
October 26:
To counter the activities of Uighur independence groups, particularly the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, China is considering setting up military bases in Pakistan’s volatile tribal area or the Northern Areas close to Xinjiang, India’s Economic Times reports. In recent months Beijing has become increasingly concerned that Pakistan’s tribal belt is serving as a haven for Uighur rebels and is hoping a formal military presence there will effectively counter the separatists.
October 27:
Japanese Self-Defense Forces’ (SDF) reconnaissance flights over waters near China have increased sharply. Japan’s SDF scrambled fighters 83 times in the first half of the year to investigate China’s military aircraft. During the first nine months of 2011 the number of such flights increased 44 percent from the same period last year, Yang Yujun, a spokesman at China’s National Defense Ministry said in comments carried by the official China Daily. SDF warships and planes are enhancing spy activities in the East China Sea, interfering with Chinese military exercises and pose a threat to China’s military ships and aircraft, he said. Yang called on Japan to stop scrambling fighters to intercept Chinese planes, warning that this was the cause of air and maritime safety problems, and had severely disturbed military drills.