China Reform Monitor: No. 849

September 2:

While leading a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) delegation to Pyongyang, PLA Lieutenant General Zhang Youxia has told Kim Yong Chun, vice-chairman of the DPRK’s National Defense Commission and minister of the People’s Armed Forces, that the PLA’s Shenyang Military Region, which adjoins the North, will expand bilateral military exchanges and cooperation with North Korea. Kim Yong-nam, North Korea's number two leader also vowed to deepen military ties with the PLA. The military talks followed North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's secretive five-day trip to China. During a summit with Kim, President Hu Jintao pledged to upgrade bilateral ties, while Kim expressed his willingness to rejoin the stalled Six-Party talks. Beijing also began live-fire naval exercises in the Yellow Sea ahead of joint U.S.-South Korean naval exercises, the Korea Times reports.

September 3:

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych is in Beijing expanding economic, political and military ties with China. Ukraine expects to attract $15 billion in Chinese investment in shipbuilding, development of seaports, roads and road infrastructure. “During the reign of the ‘Orange team,’ led by former Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko, Ukrainian-Sino relations had come to a standstill,” the official China Daily reports. By contrast, on the eve of Yanukovych's visit, Ukraine agreed to jointly develop gas fields offshore in the Black Sea with China. Both sides also pledged military-industrial cooperation. For instance, Ukraine wants to build the engines for the Chinese made L-15 training aircraft, Ukraine's Defense Minister Mykhaylo Yezhel said. "We have capacities for the licensed production of Chinese L-15 aircraft," Yezhel said in comments carried by the Russia’s Interfax-AVN military news agency.

September 4:

The Southern Metropolis News, known for its investigative reports and independent commentaries, has become a target for China’s censors. The Nanfang Presss Group, which owns the paper, has complied with the propaganda authorities and enhanced its self- censorship. One order from in-house censors bans the paper's most prominent commentator, former deputy editor Chang Ping, from writing, while another targets award-winning political cartoonist Kuang Biao. Kuang was fined and demoted after he drew an illustration that depicted Chang's hands tied and his throat squeezed. Entire pages of content have been removed at midnight because cautious internal censors fear the contents may irritate the authorities the next morning. Staff are also banned from airing their dissatisfaction over self-censorship on blogs or social networking websites and all employee accounts closely monitored, the South China Morning Post reports.

[Editor’s Note: The Southern Metropolis News is the largest and most expensive daily on the mainland. It publishes four editions for residents of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan and the Pearl River Delta region. Daily circulation in the past two years is at 1.5 million copies, with each edition exceeding 120 pages.]

The PLA Navy has responded to fresh Somali pirate attacks off the Horn of Africa with stun grenades and machine-gun fire. When pirate skiffs attempted to attack a convoy of 21 commercial ships under PLA guard, its large amphibious assault ship, the Kunlunshan, repelled them. The Kunlunshan is one of the most closely watched of China's new warships. State media and CCTV military report that during the thirty-minute-long battle, helicopters launched from the 17,600-tonne Kunlunshan and the destroyer Lanzhou helped repel the pirates. The 200-meter ship, which is able to carry large helicopters, patrol vessels and hovercraft, is the only one of its kind in the PLA fleet and is believed to be central to any plan to invade Taiwan. PLA soldiers fired stun grenades and heavy machine guns to scare off the pirates, who fled. While the PLA continues to escort convoys of Chinese ships it has yet to join international patrols. That move would force even closer cooperation with a range of international navies under American and European leadership. "We are in uncharted waters in terms of cooperation at this point," a European naval officer said in comments carried by the South China Morning Post. The attack comes after a busy week in which China's rapidly modernizing navy conducted exercises in the Mediterranean, sailed up the Irrawaddy River to Yangon, Myanmar, and crossed the Coral Sea to visit Vanuatu and Tonga as part of a Pacific tour.