China’s unmanned spacecraft Shenzhou-8 was successfully sent into space from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre on board a Long March-2F rocket on November 1, 2011. Shenzhou, which means ‘magic vessel,’ finally achieved a historic first by carrying out a rendezvous and docking maneuver with the Chinese orbiting space lab module Tiangong-1 at 1:35 AM (Chinese […]
Many an international eyebrow has been raised at the rapid pace of the Chinese defence modernisation over the last decade. The US has been an active proponent in questioning the Chinese ‘Peaceful Rise’, a term used for the very first time at the scenic beach resort town of Bo’ao in the tourist paradise of Hainan […]
The South China Sea and the issues of sovereign rights therein between China and Vietnam have again surfaced since the May 26, 2011 incident when the Chinese maritime patrol ships ventured into the Vietnamese Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and cut off the exploration cables of a Vietnamese seismic survey ship ‘Binh Minh 02’ engaged in […]
The ‘Jasmine Revolution’ that started in Tunisia on 17 December 2010 and resulted in the Regime change by peoples’ power, has also spread into the other regions in North Africa. Egypt followed suit thereafter and President Hosni Mubarak also had to demit office on 11 February 2011 after putting up a stiff but ineffectual resistance. […]
Towards the end of August, the US and South Korea on one hand and China on the other, have announced the conduct of naval exercises in the Yellow Sea and the adjoining waters, in assertion of their maritime rights and interests in the region. These US – China announcements are the logical follow up of […]
The PLA Navy’s first indigenous Landing Platform Dock (LPD) ship of Yuzhao class named ‘Kunlunshan’ arrived in the Gulf of Aden on Jul 13, 2010 for its maiden overseas deployment. The ship, along with another destroyer ‘Lanzhou’ forms part of the sixth anti-piracy task force off Somalia. Since the commencement of the anti-piracy mission in […]
China celebrated the 60th anniversary of its founding on October 01, 2009 with an awe-inspiring military parade, which set a record of sorts in the number and variety of parade elements, armaments and weapons systems that were put on display. The ‘once-in-a-decade’ military display involved about 8,000 military personnel, tanks, ballistic and cruise missiles and […]