November29, 2006:
China has spent $15.6 billion on Russian weapons during the last
seven years. That has proved to be a short time spurt, for there are no new
large orders. This is going to be missed in Russia, where Chinese orders
amounted to 45 percent of weapons exports last year. So Russian defense firms
are trying to interest the Chinese in joint venture projects. The Chinese are
particularly weak in developing complex military systems. Two major examples
have been problems developing jet engine and military electronics production
capabilities. Russia is farther ahead in both these categories, but still
behind European and American manufacturers. So Russia offers China a way to
advance their military production technology, so that both nations can jointly
take on Western weapons makers in areas like warplanes, missiles and
submarines.
China
has bought into the idea that, when it comes to military power, quality, not
quantity, counts. To that end, China has been shrinking its military manpower
over the last five years, and raising the quality of the troops still in service,
and equipping them with more modern weapons.
November
26, 2006: China has some 130 million Internet users, and about 18 percent of
them appear to be addicted to the Internet. The government, however, is more
concerned about the net being used to spread anti-government information, or
other illegal activities (espionage, rebellion). The net addiction is a much
larger problem than illegal operations. China, for example, has illegal net
activities (spam, creation and distribution of viruses) in proportion to its
share of the world Internet market. So the country is not becoming a haven for
Internet criminals. A growing problem for China is the growing dependence of
business and military organization on the net. China is more vulnerable to
Internet based attacks because of the wide scale use of pirated software, and
shortage of net security experts.
November
25, 2006: Economic and military trade deals have been signed with Pakistan. One
goal is to increase bilateral trade to $15 billion within five years. Pakistan
and China are working together on several weapons development projects. These
efforts seek to produce low cost, not-quite-cutting-edge weapons for the low
end of the market.
