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Reply With QuoteA picnic? I think the Medina Division would strongly disagree with you.
Ooe sir, you know what, wars in East Asia used to be fierce, bloody and merciless, not like the war in Iraq, which is more like a picnic.Originally Posted by Officer of Engineers
A picnic? I think the Medina Division would strongly disagree with you.
Chimo
They may disagree, but I’m interested in learning their performance.
Chimo
Sorry OOE, I don't mean to "hijack this thread" ....
June 29, 2009
War Hero in Vietnam Forces Government to Listen
By SETH MYDANS
HANOI, VIETNAM — Vietnam’s great war hero, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, has stood up to defend his country once again, this time against what he says would be a huge mistake by the government — a vast mining operation run by a Chinese company.
Now 97, the commander who led his country to victory over both France and the United States has emerged as the most prominent voice in a broad popular protest that is challenging the secretive workings of the country’s Communist leaders.
In an unusual step, the government has taken note of the criticisms in recent weeks and appears to be making at least gestures of response, saying it will review the project’s environmental impact and slow its full implementation.
The project, approved by the Communist Party’s decision-making Politburo in late 2007, calls for an investment of $15 billion by 2025 to exploit reserves of bauxite — the key mineral in making aluminum — that by some estimates are the third largest in the world.
The state-owned Chinese mining group Chinalco has already put workers and equipment to work in the remote Central Highlands under contract to Vinacomin, the Vietnamese mining consortium that is aiming for up to 6.6 million tons of aluminum production by 2015.
General Giap and other opponents say the project will be ruinous to the environment, displace ethnic minority populations and threaten national security with an influx of Chinese workers and economic leverage.
The controversy draws together several issues in today’s Vietnam — its emulation of China’s environmentally destructive model of industrial development, a tentatively evolving relationship between the closed government system and its citizens, and a visceral distrust among many Vietnamese of their big neighbor to the north.
As the outlines of the project have emerged, a loose coalition of scientists, academics, environmentalists, war veterans and the leaders of unofficial Buddhist and Catholic groups have come together to challenge what Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has called “a major policy of the party and the state.” Their voices have been amplified in the echo chamber of political blogs, a new voice in public discourse here.
“There’s cross-fertilization and cross-cutting occurring on some of these issues,” said Carlyle A. Thayer, a specialist on Vietnam at the Australian Defense Force Academy in Canberra. “Groups that pushed a political agenda and got nowhere are now lending support for these things that are not political issues.”
Apart from environmentalism and economics, the theme that runs through the blogs and public opinion on the street is a deep-rooted fear of China. Vietnam was a tributary state of China for 1,000 years and was invaded by China in 1979, and the two countries continue to joust for sovereignty in the South China Sea.
In a petition to the National Assembly in April, 135 scholars and intellectuals opposed the plan, saying, “China has been notorious in the modern world as a country causing the greatest pollution and other problems.”
Reflecting the old school of those in power, the chairman of state-owned Vinacomin, Doan Van Kien, dismissed critics in an interview, saying they have “different opinions because they don’t have enough information.”
The comment clearly was meant as a criticism of the project’s opponents, not of the government that has withheld information from the public.
Mr. Kien insisted that any environmental damage would be contained, that the local population would be adequately cared for and that the Chinese would not be taking over the Central Highlands. Construction will end in two years, he said, and only a small number of Chinese workers will remain to run the operations.
With the pressure on, the government opened itself to its critics in April, convening a seminar at which scientists and economists voiced strong opposition to what one of them said could become a “major disaster.” Responding at the seminar, Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai assured critics that the government would not consider developing the mines without regard to the larger impact and would readjust the projects in an effort to protect the environment.
The government now says it will begin with only two of the four planned mining operations, and it is allowing a debate in the National Assembly.
“I think the Politburo is listening to ideas regarding a review of the bauxite project,” said Nguyen Trung, a former ambassador to Thailand. “The government should find another method of developing the Central Highlands. It should be green development.”
The degree of official flexibility is not clear because details of the original plan have not been made public. But at a minimum, the government has conceded that public sentiment could not be ignored.
“They’ve had to retreat,” said Mr. Thayer. “The government has taken on board and had to react to these pressures. To me, this carries a hope that as the Vietnamese system evolves, it may have to take these kinds of coalitions more seriously.”
But, he said, “Vietnam has not yet reached the stage where independent groups and society can take a government decision and overturn it.”
The government might well have brushed off its critics if General Giap had not spoken up, first in January and twice afterward, saying the project “will cause serious consequences to the environment, society and national defense.”
The old campaigner now appeared to be rallying public opinion against the country’s leadership, calling on scientists, managers and social activists to “suggest to the party and the state to have a sound policy on the bauxite projects in the Central Highlands.”
General Giap is the last living comrade of the country’s founding father, Ho Chi Minh. Current leaders draw their legitimacy from their link to his generation, and they have responded to his statements with careful public deference.
Asked how it felt to find himself on the opposite side from the great general, Mr. Kien, the Vinacomin chairman, let slip a little of the impatience these leaders must be feeling.
“I don’t dare to comment,” he said. “General Giap is a national hero. But I have to tell you, the general is nearly 100 years old. We have to respect him, but now we are under the leadership of the present government and Communist Party.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/wo...gewanted=print
Hello,
I got to read this news in one of the leading newspapers of my country. I don't know how credible the expert is. But doesn't his views somewhat match with the topic of this post?
Is this scenario really posible?
Nervous China may attack India by 2012: Expert - India - NEWS - The Times of India
Nervous China may attack India by 2012: Expert
A leading defence expert has projected that China will attack India by 2012 to divert the attention of its own people from "unprecedented" internal dissent, growing nemployment and financial problems that are threatening the hold of Communists in that country.
"China will launch an attack on India before 2012. There are multiple reasons for a desperate Beijing to teach India the final lesson, thereby ensuring Chinese supremacy in Asia in this century," Bharat Verma, Editor of the Indian Defence Review, has said.
Verma said the recession has "shut the Chinese exports shop", creating an "unprecedented internal social unrest" which in turn, was severely threatening the grip of the Communists over the society.
Among other reasons for this assessment were rising unemployment, flight of capital worth billions of dollars, depletion of its foreign exchange reserves and growing internal dissent, Verma said in an editorial in the forthcoming issue of the premier defence journal. In addition to this, "The growing irrelevance of Pakistan, their right hand that operates against India on their behest, is increasing the Chinese nervousness," he said, adding that US President Barak Obama's Af-Pak policy was primarily Pak-Af policy that has "intelligently set the thief to catch the thief".
Verma said Beijing was "already rattled, with its proxy Pakistan now literally embroiled in a civil war, losing its sheen against India." "Above all, it is worried over the growing alliance of India with the US and the West, because the alliance has the potential to create a technologically superior counterpoise.
"All these three concerns of Chinese Communists are best addressed by waging a war against pacifist India to achieve multiple strategic objectives," he said.
While China "covertly allowed" North Korea to test underground nuclear explosion and carry out missile trials, it was also "increasing its naval presence in South China Sea to coerce into submission those opposing its claim on the Sprately Islands," the defence expert said. He said it would be "unwise" at this point of time for a recession-hit China to move against the Western interests, including Japan.
"Therefore, the most attractive option is to attack a soft target like India and forcibly occupy its territory in the Northeast," Verma said. But India is "least prepared" on ground to face the Chinese threat, he says and asks a series of questions on how will India respond to repulse the Chinese game plan or whether Indian leadership would be able to "take the heat of war".
"Is Indian military equipped to face the two-front wars by Beijing and Islamabad? Is the Indian civil administration geared to meet the internal security challenges that the external actors will sponsor simultaneously through their doctrine of unrestricted warfare? "The answers are an unequivocal 'no'. Pacifist India is not ready by a long shot either on the internal or the external front," the defence journal editor says. In view of the "imminent threat" posed by China, "the quickest way to swing out of pacifism to a state of assertion is by injecting military thinking in the civil administration to build the sinews. That will enormously increase the deliverables on ground – from Lalgarh to Tawang," he says.
written by Times of India which often spurts out rubbish and other fear mongering articles.
No, I'm afraid the article does not match the question posed by OOE.
In this scenario, China launches a war to divert attention from internal problems. Many countries have done that. The Falkland War was a good example of Argentinian government trying to divert people's attention away from internal problems by invading the Falklands, something Argentina has long laid claim to.
Attacking India does not stop another foreign power on the other side of China from invading.
Attacking Vietnam in 1979 was strategically designed to deter Soviet Union from attacking.
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
Impossible.
India is not soft at all. China has the card Pakistan, India has the card Tibet and Dalai Lama. India is a nuclear power and has modern armed forces too.
The disputed area is not rich with resources and not worth a war at the moment.
China can control its current internal problems without sacrificing the peaceful image and risking ties with other countries. Even if PRC government wants to drive the anger of their people to outside, there are still easier targets. In China, India is defenitely not in the top-hated countries.
I still don't agree with this. How could a few week "punishment" war prevent Soviet Union from attacking China? It even could not stop Vietnam from completing the invasion of Cambodia. While Chineses said they wanted to "teach Vietnam a lesson", why foreign scholars still want to intepret it as deterence something?
I don't quite understand this either. You will have to re-read the posts by the colonel. It had to do with a very complex geopolitical climate between the 2 super powers and the 3rd major player near the end of 1970s.
Put yourself in China's shoes and in Soviet Union's shoes, with NATO and the US on the sidelines. A 3 party cold war is much more fun than a 2 party cold war.)
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
It didn't. The Soviets were busy getting ready for Afghanistan but the point was that the encirclement of China that the Soviets were counting on could not and would not work. The Soviets could not rely on China's southern borders to draw away enough Chinese troops to make the Soviet's job in the north easier.
Not foreign scholars. It was the Chinese who 1st wrote about Active Defence, not us.
And do note, the entire concept has been written as a Chapter Study by the Chinese National Defence University, not us.
Chimo
see Bruce Elleman "Sino-Soviet Relations and the February 1979 Sino-Vietnamese Conflict" Texas Tech University :: Page Not Found (the paper is nolonger there). But Dr Elleman works for US naval war College, so, it is not only the PLA discussed this.
VietPhuong
There is also an lesson of economic, Vietnam just can't not keep place of military spending of 10to 15% of GDP after the 1979 and Deng cuts deep into defense spending after the war down to almost nothing and kick started the economy.
seriously? a year after the march riot, where is DL right now?India has the card Tibet and Dalai Lama
So now it is Vietnam's fault to draw Chinese troops into our country? Not they wanted to attack us? In the whole history of Vietnam, we invaded China only one time and it was a preemptive attack to destroy their warehouses. China knew that there would be no attack from Vietnam's side even if Soviet Union wanted. So let's say it clearly: who wanted to bring 200k of Chinese troops south? CHINA itself. That time Vietnam was busy in Cambodia. It doesn't make sense at all to say Vietnam is a threat to draw Chinese troops south.
If their purpose was to deter Soviet Union, why afer they captured the first major city of Lang Son, they declared "objective completed" and withdrew? Was it not true that after that Vietnam had become really a thread and a counter attack might occur from the second line of defense? And because of that they had to station a large amount of troops on Vietnam border?
Only point I can see is maybe China wanted to make allies with Western countries against Soviet Union. They had to do something to prove it. And as somebody said, attacking Vietnam is the same with attacking Soviet Union at that time. But it was more like to provoke Soviet Union to attack them than to deter.
Look at the logic: Vietnam attacked Cambodia, China attacked Vietnam and Soviet Union might attack China. What kind of deterence was that?
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