China Reform Monitor: No. 772

June 23:

Beijing is expanding implementation of the “direct-administration-of-counties-by-provinces campaign” to 818 counties (40 percent of China’s total counties) in 24 provinces. The initiative to expand local powers is an effort to “reduce administrative layers and develop a system for provinces to govern counties directly,” Hong Kong’s Ta Kung Pao reports. The initiative, which was first tested in Hainan, Zhejiang, Hubei, and Jilin provinces, will be expanded to target agricultural provinces. Currently, most of China follows the "city overseeing county" system whereby a regional-level city administers several counties. Between city and county a variety of administrative layers can siphon off funds and distort instructions before they finally reach the county-level, this campaign seeks to cut out the unnecessary urban middlemen.

July 4:

China will extend its peacekeeping worldwide, said Ma Xiaotian, deputy chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), at the conclusion of China’s first joint military peacekeeping exercise with Mongolia codenamed "Peacekeeping Mission 2009." The small-scale six-day exercise, from June 28 to July 3, involved 45 soldiers from Mongolia and 46 from China and was conducted at a PLA base in northern Beijing. Over the last two decades China has contributed 13,000 personnel to UN peacekeeping missions. Currently almost 2,000 Chinese soldiers are serving in 14 nations, the China Daily reports.

July 7:

China has shipped over 500 military vehicles into North Korea over the past month, South Korea’s Choson Ilbo reports. Over 30 trucks without license plates crossed the border through Dandong on Saturday, July 4 – strange since Chinese customs officials do not work on weekends. In mid-June over 300 trucks and 50 jeeps were also seen crossing into the North. In poverty-stricken North Korea only the military can afford so many vehicles.

July 9:

China and Vietnam have signed a series of cooperation agreements and a Memorandum of Understanding in Hanoi. The agreements include a $70 million deal on autos, a 1 million ton coal contract worth $58 million, and a $60 million deal to import 500,000 tones of rubber into China. Luo Baoming, Governor of Hainan Province and head of the Chinese delegation, said that in 2008 cross-border trade increased 70 percent to over $84 million, a record high over the past 10 years. In the first five months of 2009 trade increased 28 percent year-on-year, he added. So far China has invested in 610 Vietnamese projects worth over $2.1 billion, Asia Pulse reports. China is Vietnam’s number one export partner and its number three import partner.

July 10:

Beijing's development of a blue-water Navy, missile and space-based assets, and upgrading infrastructure, surveillance and operational capabilities in border areas “will have an effect on the overall military environment” in South Asia, according to India’s Ministry of Defense annual report. The report said China’s “enhancing connectivity with Pakistan through the territory of Jammu and Kashmir, illegally occupied by China and Pakistan, and with other countries, will also have direct military implications for India.” China's military and infrastructure build-up along the 4,057-km Line of Actual Control affords it a strategic advantage in operations against India. In response New Delhi is deploying Sukhoi-30MKIs and two new infantry mountain divisions to the border region and is developing China-specific 3,500-km Agni-III and 5,000-km Agni-V ballistic missiles. “India is now imparting some muscle to its ‘active deterrence’ posture against China,” said the Times of India.

[Editor’s Note: Competing militarily with the PLA may not be possible for New Delhi. China’s military has a substantial missile arsenal, with both ICBMs (inter-continental ballistic missiles) and SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missiles), as well as 75 major warships and 62 submarines, 10 of them nuclear-powered. Its mobile DF-31A missile, for instance, can hit targets 11,200 km away, while the JL-2 SLBM can reach beyond 7,200 km. By contrast India has neither ICBMs nor SLBMs and has only 30 major warships and 16 ageing submarines, none of them nuclear-powered.]