China Reform Monitor: No. 753

March 5:

Lin Xianshun, Assistant to the Chief of Staff of the China’s People's Liberation Army’s (PLA) Beijing Military Region Air Force and member of the Committee of the All-China Friendship Federation of Taiwan Compatriots has told the Hong Kong-based Ta Kung Pao that “there is practically no danger of cross-strait military conflict at present” and said “military interaction and cooperation across the Strait can be put on the agenda.” Specifically, he called on the PLA and Taiwan’s armed forces “to protect the common interests of the Chinese people, and join hands to protect the Diaoyu [Senkaku] Islands and the Nansha [Spratly] Archipelago which other countries covet.”

[Editor’s Note: Lin Xianshun is something of a legend. Born in Taiwan, he served for a long time in Taiwan’s armed forces as a lieutenant colonel and a squadron commander. On February 11, 1989, while piloting an F-5E fighter jet during an aerial reconnaissance flight, he defected to mainland China, and joined the PLA.]

March 12:

In response to reports that the PLA Navy “harassed” a U.S. Navy ship in international waters in the South China Sea Hong Kong’s official Zhongguo Tongxun She reports that the confrontation' was “sensationalized by U.S. hawks” and was in response to “U.S. spying on China's nuclear submarines.” The report said the U.S. ship, the Impeccable, is one of five that conduct underwater surveillance with the help of “high-performance towed acoustic array sonar that can detect and judge a submarine's coordinates and model in waters 150-450 meters deep. The print-out information is collected and transmitted via a satellite to warships and a land-based antisubmarine center for analysis or guidance for carrying out antisubmarine strikes.”

[Editor’s Note: Since the relaxation of tensions in the Taiwan Straits the U.S. Navy has moved its surveillance targets from the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea where the PLA Navy is building a nuclear submarine base in Sanya's Yalong Bay and made detecting Chinese nuclear submarines “a priority mission.”]

March 18:

Chen Bingde, Chief of General Staff (PLA), is in the new Burmese capital, Nay Pyi Taw, for talks with the country’s ruling military junta. Chen’s delegation held meetings with Than Shwe, Chairman of the Myanmar [Burma] State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), Maung Aye, Vice-Chairman of the SPDC and Thura Shwe Mann, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Services and the Army. Both militaries said they would continue their relationship based on “equality and mutual benefit, and non-interference in each other's internal affairs,” the official Xinhua News Agency reports. They also agreed to expand “cooperative ties between the two armed forces [on] matters of common concern.” Burma is the first stop of Chen's tour which will also include stops in Vietnam and South Korea.

March 19:

China has tightened controls on it domestic media and created a journalists "black list," the Associated Press reports. Li Dongdong, deputy director of the General Administration of Press and Publication, said the blacklist was needed to "prevent fake reporting." Indeed, journalists have demanded bribes in return for not reporting negative news and accredited journalists routinely accept cash or guaranteed advertising in return for positive coverage. The New York-based Human Rights Watch said fake reporting was a "widespread" problem in China but that it was concerned that the government has not defined what constitutes illegal reporting thus increasing the risk that reporters will be punished for "independent reporting on subjects the government deems sensitive." China's domestic reporters are strictly monitored and censored and have been imprisoned for aggressive reporting on government corruption.