China Military Watch - Sept' 2016

[JayS]

^^ Everytime some new Sci-fi types achievement is made somewhere in the West, always expect a news afer some time from China claiming Chinese achieved feat even bigger in the same field. This has become almost like a routine now.

[Liu]

At this rate we will soon hear that chinese have developed warp drives. Chinese sure read lots of science fiction.

The wonderful thing about China is that they have no technological difficulties. Everything they touch turns to gold and is rapidly turned from gold to platinum and diamonds

For example the wildly successful J-20 which closed the gap with the US after overtaking Europe and Russia is already getting superceded by the fighter J-31 and now a bomber will appear. All are successful and doing fine as per all reports.

Chinese abrupt accomplishments are based on their decades-long well-planned sustained hard work and heavy investment on their industrialization(industry-chains,infrastructures,labs,education...etc).

Any fruit nowdays (J20,J31...etc) was appoved and started one or two decades ago.
And the necesory R&D infrastructures(labs,wind tunnels ) and relative material/machining tech started even much more earlier (peharps 3 or 4 decades ago).


So, Chinese accomplishments seems quite "abrupt", but in fact they are not "abrupt" at all.


Instead, such decade-long sustains plans are not allowed in India's political/social system .

[sanjaykumar]

Yeah sure Mac, but you need to import radars from Little Britain. Yet you use your satellites to teleport Mao's quantum mechanics publications to parallel universes.


Save the BS for your adoring masses.

[shiv]

Any fruit nowdays (J20,J31...etc) was appoved and started one or two decades ago.
And the necesory R&D infrastructures(labs,wind tunnels ) and relative material/machining tech started even much more earlier (peharps 3 or 4 decades ago).

Of course. Of course, 4 decades ago was 1976 - in the middle your great leader Mao Tse Tung's cultural revolution where all Chinese development started. Surely J-20 and WS 10 came from back then, for who can deny the prescience of the father of the Chinese nation for wanting to catch up with the US that developed the SR-71 in 1964 . He must be doubly complimented because he did all this stealthily, invisible even to Chinese. But what is remarkable is that the Chinese development that has come in "one or two decades" has overtaken what has taken industrialized nations as many as 5 decades or more to develop. And what is so awesome about Chinese technology it is free from all failures. You never read about failures - unlike for example the USA which points out how the latest F-35 has been struggling in may ways and how the F-22 itself suffers from lack of cross platform standardization. China never has any such issues which is what makes me such an admirer. In Chinese tech it's all forward, full speed ahead.

But there is one thing that puzzles me about the Chinese. Despite their glorious and infallible technological achievements they show a sort of deep anxiety when people discuss China even with the utmost admiration and deepest respect as I have been doing here. Chinese seem to worry that someone will discover some weakness, some "ch!nk in the armour" so to speak about China which will make others collapse in a fit of laughter and tarnish the shining star that Chinese technological achievements collectively represent. So the Chinese seem extremely anxious to draw attention way from China's stupendous successes to other's failures. There is no need for that when we are discussing Chinese achievements. They don't need to be compared with India's failures.

Instead, such decade-long sustains plans are not allowed in India's political/social system .

Let us please stick to the Chinese military. on this thread. Please post this above sentence in one of many threads reserved for India and Indians and do not sully the greatness of the revolution and great leap forward by making odious comparisons. After all who can deny China's rapid rise to dizzying heights without the slightest hint of slowdown or failure?

[Liu]

Any fruit nowdays (J20,J31...etc) was appoved and started one or two decades ago.
And the necesory R&D infrastructures(labs,wind tunnels ) and relative material/machining tech started even much more earlier (peharps 3 or 4 decades ago).

Of course. Of course, 4 decades ago was 1976 - in the middle your great leader Mao Tse Tung's cultural revolution where all Chinese development started. Surely J-20 and WS 10 came from back then, for who can deny the prescience of the father of the Chinese nation for wanting to catch up with the US that developed the SR-71 in 1964 . He must be doubly complimented because he did all this stealthily, invisible even to Chinese. But what is remarkable is that the Chinese development that has come in "one or two decades" has overtaken what has taken industrialized nations as many as 5 decades or more to develop. And what is so awesome about Chinese technology it is free from all failures. You never read about failures - unlike for example the USA which points out how the latest F-35 has been struggling in may ways and how the F-22 itself suffers from lack of cross platform standardization. China never has any such issues which is what makes me such an admirer. In Chinese tech it's all forward, full speed ahead.

But there is one thing that puzzles me about the Chinese. Despite their glorious and infallible technological achievements they show a sort of deep anxiety when people discuss China even with the utmost admiration and deepest respect as I have been doing here. Chinese seem to worry that someone will discover some weakness, some "ch!nk in the armour" so to speak about China which will make others collapse in a fit of laughter and tarnish the shining star that Chinese technological achievements collectively represent. So the Chinese seem extremely anxious to draw attention way from China's stupendous successes to other's failures. There is no need for that when we are discussing Chinese achievements. They don't need to be compared with India's failures.

Instead, such decade-long sustains plans are not allowed in India's political/social system .

Let us please stick to the Chinese military. on this thread. Please post this above sentence in one of many threads reserved for India and Indians and do not sully the greatness of the revolution and great leap forward by making odious comparisons. After all who can deny China's rapid rise to dizzying heights without the slightest hint of slowdown or failure?

1.Of curse many faiures took pace,however they are Usually ignored……why?

First,Accidents Usually are not classified for a certain period.
Second, even After classified, few foreigners would know them,simply because few foreigners can read chinese.

For examle, ws10 once was rejected because some components were 'sprayed out of engine'.

Such accidents were reported long ago in Chinese medias.
But,until i told you,you knew littlle about it.


2.Chinese set up an consolidated industrybase ,world class infrastructure（Both for industry and r&d） and decent education system.

BUT forthem,Chinese paid high cost/sacrefice for them, Not every coutry can afford such high cost/sacrefice .



Thus,people had better stop soup gossip&jealous,because Chinese gained more simply for more pains

[sanjaykumar]

Chinese set up an consolidated industrybase ,world class infrastructure（Both for industry and r&d） and decent education system.

Then why is this world class infrastructure and R&D unable to produce diesel engines for Chinese submarines? Any hope of a Chinese actually being able to answer the question? Or is that culturally taboo in China? I can certainly understand that.

Decent education system indeed, learn to post uncensored messages on history, politics, pollution, riots, ethnic minorities, Tiananmen Square first. Then flaunt your decent education system.

[shiv]

1.Of curse many faiures took pace,however they are Usually ignored……why?

First,Accidents Usually are not classified for a certain period.
Second, even After classified, few foreigners would know them,simply because few foreigners can read chinese.

For examle, ws10 once was rejected because some components were 'sprayed out of engine'.

Such accidents were reported long ago in Chinese medias.
But,until i told you,you knew littlle about it.

There. You said it yourself. But I know everything about Chinese successes. And I don't read Chinese. Only successes are publicized, not failures and this makes people laugh - especially technical people who know the pitfalls of manufacturing and technology.

Thus,people had better stop soup gossip&jealous,because Chinese gained more simply for more pains

In this sentence you are trying to control other people's behaviour and statements by lecturing them about what to do. To non Chinese this sounds really funny and people laugh at the Chinese and say that they are talking like a junior communist party quisling trying to shut up protests. This is the same language that we used to hear from China in the 1960s when the Chinese communist revolutionaries were lecturing other Chinese people about what to say and what not to say as part of the cultural revolution and the "great leap forward". The language and the attitudes are the same that we used to hear- but you say that education and technology have moved forward. Attitudes of lecturing others and telling them not to ask difficult questions has obviously not changed.

[shiv]

This entire article from warisboring is a litany of scathing criticisms of the Chinese military - yes I was deliberately searching for something when I found it. I will post only some quotes
https://warisboring.com/the-chinese-mil ... .8rofxplpa

Museum pieces

Despite a growing defense budget, China’s arsenals still overflow with outdated equipment. The PLA possesses 7,580 main battle tanks—more than the U.S. Army. But only 450 of those tanks—the Type 98As and Type 99s—are anywhere near modern, with 125-millimeter guns, composite armor, modern suspension and advanced fire control systems.

All of America’s roughly 5,000 M-1 tanks are modern.

The other 7,130 Chinese tanks—some of which are pictured here—are the same descendants of Soviet T-55s that comprised Beijing’s armored force in the late 1980s … and were obsolete even then.

China also has a lot of fighter planes. Between the People’s Liberation Army Air Force and the air arm of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, China boasts no fewer than 1,321 fighter aircraft, an aerial armada only slightly smaller than America’s.

But China’s air forces likewise maintain mostly obsolete jets. Of 1,321 fighters, only 502 are modern—296 variants of the Russian Su-27 and 206 J-10s of an indigenous design. The remaining 819 fighters—mostly J-7s, J-8s and Q-5s—are 1960s designs built in the 1970s. They wouldn’t last long in a shooting war.

The navy is in the best shape, but that’s not saying much. The PLAN’s destroyers and frigates are fairly new, but its first aircraft carrier Liaoning is a rebuilt Soviet ship from the 1980s. After a nine-year refit, Liaoning started sea trials in 2011.

Liaoning is half the size of an American Nimitz-class supercarrier and carries half as many planes. As Liaoning lacks a catapult, China’s J-15 naval fighters must use a ski ramp to take off—and that limits their payload and range. Liaoning lacks the radar and refueling planes that give American flattops their long-range striking power.

Submarines are another problem area for the PLAN. Just over half of China’s 54 submarines are modern—that is, built within the last 20 years. Beijing’s modern undersea fleet includes the Shang, Han, Yuan and Song classes. All four classes are Chinese-built. All are markedly inferior to Western designs.

The rest of China’s submarines, especially its 1980s-vintage Mings, are totally obsolete.

The PLAN halted production of the nuclear-powered Shang class after only building just three boats—an ominous sign. Moreover, Beijing has placed an order with Russia for up to four Kalina-class subs, signalling a lack of faith in local designs.

But I was searching for information on the effect of China's one-child policy on the armed forces

Beijing’s “one-child” policy has sharpened the trend. Today China has 16 retirees per 100 workers. Projections see that increasing to 64 retirees per 100 workers by 2050, resulting a much grayer population than in America.

This has indirect—but serious—implications for China’s defense. Most Chinese do not have retirement benefits and in their old age must rely on personal savings or family … a difficult proposition when there is only one child to take care of two parents.

If Beijing wants to preserve household savings and productivity, it will have to build some kind of social welfare system. And that means making some difficult choices.

China’s borders are secure. The U.S., Japan and India cannot bring down the Chinese government. But tens of millions of desperate Chinese families could do so—and just might, if Beijing can’t find some way to care for them as they age.

[Liu]

1.Of curse many faiures took pace,however they are Usually ignored……why?

First,Accidents Usually are not classified for a certain period.
Second, even After classified, few foreigners would know them,simply because few foreigners can read chinese.

For examle, ws10 once was rejected because some components were 'sprayed out of engine'.

Such accidents were reported long ago in Chinese medias.
But,until i told you,you knew littlle about it.

There. You said it yourself. But I know everything about Chinese successes. And I don't read Chinese. Only successes are publicized, not failures and this makes people laugh - especially technical people who know the pitfalls of manufacturing and technology.

Thus,people had better stop soup gossip&jealous,because Chinese gained more simply for more pains

In this sentence you are trying to control other people's behaviour and statements by lecturing them about what to do. To non Chinese this sounds really funny and people laugh at the Chinese and say that they are talking like a junior communist party quisling trying to shut up protests. This is the same language that we used to hear from China in the 1960s when the Chinese communist revolutionaries were lecturing other Chinese people about what to say and what not to say as part of the cultural revolution and the "great leap forward". The language and the attitudes are the same that we used to hear- but you say that education and technology have moved forward. Attitudes of lecturing others and telling them not to ask difficult questions has obviously not changed.

Many projects failed or aborted,such as j9（an aborted fighter left J10 many knowhows such as canards）,Q6（an aborted striking bird to replace Q5）,ws6（a aborted engine）etc……

Those projects failed or aborted,BUT they helped Chinese accumulate Enough knowhows and set up necessary industrybase ,r&d infrastructure and tech teams.

Those were publicized long ago in Chinese medias,but most west guys and indians insist all made~in~china are copies and are not interested in reporting them.


Since you trust west/india mediasonly and distrust Chinese medias,(unfortunately west/india medias are more interested in china's copyrats than china's valuable tries such as aborted projects),of course you mistakenly feel that 'china rarely failed','china~made are all copies','Chinese covered all failures....

[shiv]

From http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a495052.pdf

[JayS]

^^Note the Loyalty ladder. PLA is Communist Party's Army not China's. Perhaps only country in the world with such peculiarity.

[Austin]

India’s Deployment of BrahMos Supersonic Stealth Missile is Making China Nervous

Read more: https://en.ria.ru/asia/20160925/1045688 ... adesh.html

The BrahMos "missile with updated capabilities for stealth and mountain warfare could threaten Yunnan and Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) provinces, located across the border from Arunachal Pradesh," said the People’s Liberation Army in a statement while a state-run media editorial said the move was "beyond India’s ‘normal need for self-defense.’ Playing tricks, they are bound to suffer the consequences."

China’s concern does not appear to be with the BrahMos in its current form with a maximum range of only 180 miles (290km) limiting the potential area of danger across the Chinese border, but Beijing worries that with certain modifications the stealth-capable missile could pose a greater threat.

The state-of-the-art hypersonic missile’s kinetic energy makes increases the stealth profile and target penetration characteristic of the weapon constructed jointly with Russia. The missile boasts a max speed of 2,113 MPH (3400kmh), but a hypersonic variant of the BrahMos traveling at nearly twice the speed is expected to be prepared in the next 5 to 7 years with a longer range.

The upgraded BrahMos potentially provides India with a major strategic advantage in mountain warfare with the missile specially designed to select targets hidden behind a mountain range and with the potential for longer range, hypersonic qualities the missile would likely pass through Beijing’s defense systems like a knife through butter.

Most concerning, with China’s own forays into hypersonic weapons technology, it appears that defense practices of the future are tilted towards offensive rather than defensive capabilities raising the stakes in the event that even a conventional war breaks out.

Read more: https://en.ria.ru/asia/20160925/1045688 ... adesh.html

[Liu]

Well,one yellow~painted j20 appeared .


People believe It is One of The first batch into service of PLAAF.

It is reported that J20a is to enter into service in several months,if It has not entered into service yet,because president Xi attended a certain ceremony of j20 weeks ago.


J20 now might still use old engines( improved mod of al31/ws10),and can not supersonic cruize as f22 Until ws15 is finished .

http://photo.sina.cn/album_8_193_45554. ... m=wap&vt=4

[shiv]

http://photo.sina.cn/album_8_193_45554. ... m=wap&vt=4

There was a beautiful pic on Twitter - but I can't find it now

[Austin]

We have yet to see even their J-10 perform , their greater than mountain friend has yet to get one inspite of umpteen promises to deliver it

[DavidD]

National day in China, a lot of official LRIP J-20 pics:




There are many more, but don't wanna clog up the board. Here's some amateur footage of the J-20 flight testing as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Qymg6iZk4

Excuse the annoying music

[shiv]

New radome

[Karan M]

We have yet to see even their J-10 perform , their greater than mountain friend has yet to get one inspite of umpteen promises to deliver it

some chap put up non sanitized pics from an official airfield visit. its real specs were a gen behind an upg MiG-29.
PRC has a whole "dont lose face" subculture going on. the stories i have heard about their fakery - oh my.

[Liu]

Well,j20 and t50 appeared Almost at The same time,but j20 seems to enter into service sooner than t50.

China can afford more prototypes and testing infrstructures than russia. That might be why j20 is advancing faster than t50.i think.

[shiv]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Qymg6iZk4

I have a small problem with this video

From 6 sec to 10 sec the plane does a half loop. Impressively fast - translates to about 7 RPM (7 plus) actually. In other videos I have seen aircraft doing 8 G loops where they reach the top of loop in about 8 seconds. this video shows it in 4 seconds

Google results for climb rate of J-20 is about 300 m/sec. Assume that the plane climbs 1200 meters in 4 sec of that loop (half circumference of circle) - giving a radius of circle of 380 meters

Formula of converting RPM to G force is here: http://clinfield.com/2012/07/how-to-con ... r-g-force/

RCF or G-force= 1.12 x R x (RPM/1000)²

That gives a value of about 21 G felt by the pilot for over 4 seconds. This is a rough but conservative estimate. 21 G fr 4 plus seconds is guaranteed loss of cosnciousness

[Indranil]

David, that video is sped up. Even the birds look supersonic in that video. This seems like a real one. It is still a very impressive display.

[chola]

PRC has a whole "dont lose face" subculture going on

That is a horribly bad assessment of the chinis mindset and tactics, and would put you at an extreme disadvantage when competing or negotiating with them.

Talk to any one on international trade or on Wall Street.

They place competitive advantage over any "face", pride or even basic dignity at every juncture.

As individuals in business negotiations, you can't count on basic pride to prevent them from weaseling extra concessions even when were dealing with peer MNCs. "We're poor, we're underdeveloped, gave us a break on IP even though we're Huawei."

As a nation, they ALWAYS push for third world status in the WTO and every other trade regime. "We're piss-poor, we deserve the same breaks as Haiti."

Think about it, if they worry about "face" would they copy? If they cared about "face" they would stay away from copying. No, they copy because it gives them a competitive advantage so face goes out the window.

The thing to remember is they will do what it takes to gain an advantage and you can't count on face or even basic human dignity to stop them. This is what makes them vicious competition in the business world and it would be stupid to think it is not the same with their military. Spy, steal, cheat, copy and don't care what it does to your reputation so as long as it is a real advantage on the ground.

[kit]

PRC has a whole "dont lose face" subculture going on

That is a horribly bad assessment of the chinis mindset and tactics, and would put you at an extreme disadvantage when competing or negotiating with them.

Talk to any one on international trade or on Wall Street.

They place competitive advantage over any "face", pride or even basic dignity at every juncture.

As individuals in business negotiations, you can't count on basic pride to prevent them from weaseling extra concessions even when were dealing with peer MNCs. "We're poor, we're underdeveloped, gave us a break on IP even though we're Huawei."

As a nation, they ALWAYS push for third world status in the WTO and every other trade regime. "We're piss-poor, we deserve the same breaks as Haiti."

Think about it, if they worry about "face" would they copy? If they cared about "face" they would stay away from copying. No, they copy because it gives them a competitive advantage so face goes out the window.

The thing to remember is they will do what it takes to gain an advantage and you can't count on face or even basic human dignity to stop them. This is what makes them vicious competition in the business world and it would be stupid to think it is not the same with their military. Spy, steal, cheat, copy and don't care what it does to your reputation so as long as it is a real advantage on the ground.

+ 1 .. well said ..thats the truth ..they will lie steal copy whatever needed to win

[Liu]

PRC has a whole "dont lose face" subculture going on

That is a horribly bad assessment of the chinis mindset and tactics, and would put you at an extreme disadvantage when competing or negotiating with them.

Talk to any one on international trade or on Wall Street.

They place competitive advantage over any "face", pride or even basic dignity at every juncture.

As individuals in business negotiations, you can't count on basic pride to prevent them from weaseling extra concessions even when were dealing with peer MNCs. "We're poor, we're underdeveloped, gave us a break on IP even though we're Huawei."

As a nation, they ALWAYS push for third world status in the WTO and every other trade regime. "We're piss-poor, we deserve the same breaks as Haiti."

Think about it, if they worry about "face" would they copy? If they cared about "face" they would stay away from copying. No, they copy because it gives them a competitive advantage so face goes out the window.

The thing to remember is they will do what it takes to gain an advantage and you can't count on face or even basic human dignity to stop them. This is what makes them vicious competition in the business world and it would be stupid to think it is not the same with their military. Spy, steal, cheat, copy and don't care what it does to your reputation so as long as it is a real advantage on the ground.

Well said.
It is stupid to risk youself for 'face'.

Dignity can not help you defeat you enemies,but Good weapons can.
It is a quite old Chinese saying.

[shiv]

"Losing face" is a slightly outdated expression for "shame avoidance" behaviour commonly displayed by the Chinese. Competitiveness can be a consequence of not wanting to lose face, so Chinese skill and competitiveness are fully compatible with the urge to not lose face. No contradiction there.

However the latter tendency does show up when it comes to admitting failures, and it is my personal belief that while we stand in dumbstruck awe of all the stupendous Chinese successes, it is necessary and instructive (and entertaining to me) to highlight Chinese failures and watch the "Let's not lose face" excuses kick in

[hnair]

chola, your views on this topic is based on their trade negotiations that you track.

But the comments here on "Saving face" are more their public posturing as a national establishment. From an Indian POV, they love their "we are almost west" facade. That includes a fear for not loosing any wars in a visible fashion, instant theatrically-angry responses to any thing resembling a lowering of chinese state power, dressing up like the western leaders or their armed forces, flying look-alike drones off a tiny carrier model, "Shanghai downtown" etc

Behind all this window dressing, they will haggle, plead and whine like a disadvantaged country coming out of long standing poverty. That no one is denying here. They still have millions in poverty and an army that seems to be timid enough to publicly fight even a minor skirmish with their neighbours in decades or deal decisively with Uighurs (which is at best a law and order grade problem at this point).

This is despite the deep appreciation I have for their car sales figures and assembly of airbus narrowbodies.

btw, I see that the Flying Breadbox has a EOTS in its chin, that resembles the F35's shiny piece. I am not underestimating here, because I know for a fact that Kay-ban is as good as Ray-ban

[Austin]

‘Playing With Fire’: Chinese General Blasts Singapore for Role in S China Sea

Read more: https://en.ria.ru/asia/20161002/1045913 ... a-sea.html

[DavidD]

David, that video is sped up. Even the birds look supersonic in that video. This seems like a real one. It is still a very impressive display.

Yea, it does look abnormally fast, still a tight turn though, must be a pretty fast loop with that small of a radius.

As for for the Singapore thing, I'm not sure it belong on the military thread, but it seems like China is all of a sudden putting a lot of pressure on Singapore re: their SCS stance. Although it started with what seems like a silly war of words between the tabloid Global Times and Singapore's embassy in Beijing, now People's Daily, the Chinese foreign policy establishment, and a general involved in diplomacy have chimed in as well. I think China is sensing the American weakness particularly in Obama's last days and is turning up the pressure on traditional American allies in ASEAN. With the turnaround in the Philippines, I suppose Singapore is the next target.

[shiv]

Yea, it does look abnormally fast, still a tight turn though, must be a pretty fast loop with that small of a radius.

Small radius means slow speed or else insanely high G in this case 25 plus G. Slow speed loop is not a bad thing though - it means good low speed hi AoA control, but speeding it up is a stupid ham-fisted act of an ignoramus. Hence the subject of needlessly trying to garner extra admiration per second of video.

That said barrel rolls also look like very fast loops and it is very difficult to tell in videos when both camera and aircraft are moving

[Liu]

David, that video is sped up. Even the birds look supersonic in that video. This seems like a real one. It is still a very impressive display.

Yea, it does look abnormally fast, still a tight turn though, must be a pretty fast loop with that small of a radius.

As for for the Singapore thing, I'm not sure it belong on the military thread, but it seems like China is all of a sudden putting a lot of pressure on Singapore re: their SCS stance. Although it started with what seems like a silly war of words between the tabloid Global Times and Singapore's embassy in Beijing, now People's Daily, the Chinese foreign policy establishment, and a general involved in diplomacy have chimed in as well. I think China is sensing the American weakness particularly in Obama's last days and is turning up the pressure on traditional American allies in ASEAN. With the turnaround in the Philippines, I suppose Singapore is the next target.

The video proves The case,that j20 has quite Good performance ,even with old engines like al31/ws10.

[JayS]

^ How do we know this video also not sped up by say 1.1x?? If I were a smart Chinese, I would speed it up only by a small amount so as to make it impressive but believable at the same time.

[chola]

chola, your views on this topic is based on their trade negotiations that you track.

But the comments here on "Saving face" are more their public posturing as a national establishment.

Wall Street studies policies too. You can't predict the market without knowing policies.

The chinis almost never "pose" as a great power in political treaties or negotiations. They rarely veto in the UN. They always take the poorer more aggrieved party for leverage.

Like my argument with Shivji earlier in this thread. What use is their "posturing" and "psy-ops" when in all practical situations they follow the opposite? And that includes politcal ones.

From an Indian POV, they love their "we are almost west" facade.

We imagine this facade. If it were real, we would have no worries. If it were fake and we know it is fake then they are no threat or competition.

The American, Japanese and indeed the global corporate POV is that China downplays with strengths to gain competitive advantage. It does so with its currency peg and it does so with military spying and outright IP stealing like the J-11B.

The danger is not this "facade or psy-op" of feigned equal-equal with the west. The real danger is their belief that China has a right to steal, chat and copy because it is poor.

[chola]

Dignity can not help you defeat you enemies,but Good weapons can.
It is a quite old Chinese saying.

There is no dignity in China. Not when your society will use melamine in baby formula.

Less so in chini societies like Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore where the concept of "face" puts brakes on the worst excesses.

Liu, since you have access to the chini webspace, give us more information on the stuff we don't usually see instead of posting a sped-up video of this enormously fat and slow J-20. I want to see some of the lesser known stuff like the L-15 copy of the Yak, the new copycat Aegis cruiser, the CopyHawk and maybe the new copy of the Varyag carrier.

And hurry up, I know there are lots during October 1st. Chop chop.

[Liu]

Dignity can not help you defeat you enemies,but Good weapons can.
It is a quite old Chinese saying.

There is no dignity in China. Not when your society will use melamine in baby formula.

Less so in chini societies like Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore where the concept of "face" puts brakes on the worst excesses.

Liu, since you have access to the chini webspace, give us more information on the stuff we don't usually see instead of posting a sped-up video of this enormously fat and slow J-20. I want to see some of the lesser known stuff like the L-15 copy of the Yak, the new copycat Aegis cruiser, the CopyHawk and maybe the new copy of the Varyag carrier.

And hurry up, I know there are lots during October 1st. Chop chop.

Well,some guys said that h20，plaaf's B2-like long~range stealth bomber is to roll out soon.

Its duty is to strike aims in north america.

[Karan M]

Well,j20 and t50 appeared Almost at The same time,but j20 seems to enter into service sooner than t50.

China can afford more prototypes and testing infrstructures than russia. That might be why j20 is advancing faster than t50.i think.

yes, yes, 9 women can deliver a baby in a month. china is unique in that regard.

ps: with super advanced j-20, why all the news about purchasing su-35? lolwa?

[Karan M]

PRC has a whole "dont lose face" subculture going on

That is a horribly bad assessment of the chinis mindset and tactics, and would put you at an extreme disadvantage when competing or negotiating with them.

Talk to any one on international trade or on Wall Street.

They place competitive advantage over any "face", pride or even basic dignity at every juncture.

As individuals in business negotiations, you can't count on basic pride to prevent them from weaseling extra concessions even when were dealing with peer MNCs. "We're poor, we're underdeveloped, gave us a break on IP even though we're Huawei."

lol, chola, s if nobody apart from you has ever met with chinese before.

i stand by what i said. they don't want to lose face & some go ape sh!t, trying to ensure subservience to hierarchy. not unique to them, but at least indians don't have the face thing going on to the extent chinese have.

chinese are as cr@p in many things as indians are.. the main issue we face is productivity challenges due to corruption & 3rd world infra & (previously) compromised leadership.

As a nation, they ALWAYS push for third world status in the WTO and every other trade regime. "We're piss-poor, we deserve the same breaks as Haiti."

no, they demand it as a right.

Think about it, if they worry about "face" would they copy? If they cared about "face" they would stay away from copying. No, they copy because it gives them a competitive advantage so face goes out the window.

they copy because they think it makes the world think they have advanced. and it works to a high degree. westerners and many folks suffer from confirmation bias.

dress like us, drink whisky like us, build buildings fast and everything seems to get done, heck they may be commies but they get us. err.. no they don't.

so if china puts out grainy photos of f-22 look alikes and prances around pretending its amreeka junior, amreekans start thinking heck yeah..

The thing to remember is they will do what it takes to gain an advantage and you can't count on face or even basic human dignity to stop them. This is what makes them vicious competition in the business world and it would be stupid to think it is not the same with their military. Spy, steal, cheat, copy and don't care what it does to your reputation so as long as it is a real advantage on the ground.

lol again.. get a look at the indian business market sometime before going so preachy..

their military is a political system and this is their reality, face apart.

https://aeon.co/essays/what-chinese-cor ... -modernity

Chabuduo! Close enough ...
Your balcony fell off? Chabuduo. Vaccines are overheated? Chabuduo. How China became the land of disastrous corner-cutting

In our apartment in central Beijing, we fight a daily rearguard action against entropy.The mirror on my wardrobe came off its hinges six months ago and is now propped up against the wall, one of many furnishing casualties. Each of our light fittings takes a different bulb, and a quarter of them are permanently broken. In the bedroom, the ceiling-high air-conditioning unit runs its moisture through a hole knocked in the wall, stuffed with an old cloth to avoid leakage, while the balcony door, its sealant rotted, has a towel handy to block the rain when it pours through. On the steps outside our door, I duck my head every day to avoid the thick tangle of hanging wires that brings power and the internet; when the wind is up, connections slow as cables swing.

The apartment is five years old. By Chinese standards, it’s far better than the average. Our toilet works, while in many of my friends’ houses, flushing the loo is a hydraulic operation akin to controlling the Nile floods. The sockets do not flash blue sparks when plugged in, and all but two work. None of the lightbulbs have ever exploded; and the mirror merely broke away, rather than falling spontaneously from the frame. The shower is not placed next to the apartment’s central wiring and protected by nothing more than rotting drywall.

I am a believer in Hilaire Belloc’s 1911 epigram:

It is the business of the wealthy man
To give employment to the artisan.

I barely qualify as wealthy, even in China, and artisans are few and preciously guarded. Most of the time, when I’ve called in help, I’ve been left standing in a flooded bathroom with a panicked 20-year-old assuring me that he thinks he can get the pipe back on.

My time in China has taught me the pleasure and value of craftsmanship, simply because it’s so rare. To see somebody doing a job well, not just for its own reward, but for the satisfaction of good work, thrills my heart; it doesn’t matter whether it’s cooking or candle-making or fixing a bike. When I moved house some years ago, I watched with genuine delight as three wiry men stripped my old apartment to the bone in 10 minutes, casually balancing sofas and desks on their backs and packing the van as tightly as a master Tetris player.

But such scenes are an unusual treat. (And, after losing the card for my master movers, the next time I shifted house, the moving team did a fine imitation of the Three Stooges.)

Instead, the prevailing attitude is chabuduo, or ‘close enough’. It’s a phrase you’ll hear with grating regularity, one that speaks to a job 70 per cent done, a plan sketched out but never completed, a gauge unchecked or a socket put in the wrong size. Chabuduo is the corrosive opposite of the impulse towards craftmanship, the desire, as the sociologist Richard Sennett writes in The Craftsman (2008), ‘to reject muddling through, to reject the job just good enough’. Chabuduo implies that to put any more time or effort into a piece of work would be the act of a fool. China is the land of the cut corner, of ‘good enough for government work’.

Yet sometimes there’s a brilliance to chabuduo. One of the daily necessities of life under Maoism was improvisation; finding ways to keep irreplaceable luxuries such as tractors or machine tools going, despite missing parts or broken supply chains. On occasion, it was applauded as ‘peasant’ science or Stakhanovite virtue, but more often it meant trouble if noticed by a superior, since Maoism often matched the call for revolution with a pedantic insistence on the correct routine, especially in the factory or the farm. Improvisation could get you accused of ‘sabotage’ – why were you fixing a problem you hadn’t caused? Besides, why would there be a problem in the first place, when things were so well-planned from the top?

But improvisation was a vitally needed talent, and a particular genius developed among some of the senior generation, now in their 60s and older: an ability to go beyond make-do-and-mend to the kind of skills displayed by the A-Team when they’re locked in a barn by villains and they construct an armoured vehicle out of nothing but gardening tools and old tyres. More usually, chabuduo is the domain of a village uncle who grew up with nothing and can whip up a solution to anything out of two bits of wire and some tape. Gate broken? Don’t worry about getting a new lock, we’ll fix it up with some wire, it’ll be chabuduo.

Today, the countryside is full of isolated inventors who build their own juddering planes or pond-going submarines from scratch, or craft full-scale catapults to resist demolition teams. Their mechanical genius has nowhere to go; they’re stuck in a world of farm repairs and lunatic projects. But on a small scale, it’s visible all over even the big cities, from the sidewalk salons assembled out of castaway furniture where layabouts and grandfathers play cards in the afternoon, to the numerous home-built roof shelters made by doting locals for Beijing’s stray cats.

Yet chabuduo is also the casual dismissal of problems. Oh, your door doesn’t fit the frame? Chabuduo, you’ll get used to kicking it open. We sent you a shirt two sizes too big? Chabuduo, what are you complaining about?

At my old compound, the entrance to the underground parking lot was covered by a 20-metre-long half-cylinder of heavy blue plastic. Nobody had noticed that this made a highly effective wind trap, and it had been only crudely nailed to the brick foundations. Chabuduo, what’s it going to matter? When a storm hit, the nails burst from the pressure and it was sent hurtling across the compound, smashing stone tables and trees; I came down in the morning to find it lying across the grass like a fallen jumbo jet’s wing.

We were lucky, nobody was killed. But behind China’s disasters, ‘good enough’ squats more often than actual malice: compromises that are mere annoyances in daily life become fatal when undertaken on an industrial scale. Problems that a keen eye or a daily routine can circumvent transform into deadly rifts when reproduced millions of times nationwide.

the deaths pile up: on construction sites where men dangle from tied-together lengths of old rope; from meat carried in unrefrigerated vans; from fires in badly wired apartments

Take the last year alone. You don’t have a proper cold-storage chain to send vaccines? Well, stick some ice in the parcels and put them in the post. Chabuduo, and children cough to death. Why take the sludge to a disposal site? Just pile it up here, where everyone else has been putting it. Chabuduo, and 91 people are crushed by a landslide in Guangdong. Separate out the dangerous materials? What does it matter, just stick that nitrate over there. Chabuduo, and a fireball goes up in Tianjin, north China’s chief port, incinerating 173 people.

‘There’s a Tianjin-level explosion every month,’ a staff member at a national-level work-safety programme told me, asking for anonymity. ‘But mostly they happen in places that nobody cares about.’ Careless disasters are buried all the time; when a chemical plant exploded in Tangshan in March 2014, a friend there told me of the management’s relief after the Malaysia Airlines flight 370 went missing the next day, swallowing up all other news and making sure nobody but them noticed, save for 13 widows.

But the small deaths pile up: on construction sites where men wield blowtorches without safety goggles, or dangle from tied-together lengths of old rope; from food poisoning from meat carried in unrefrigerated vans; from fires in badly wired apartments. The toll grows every day, especially among the poor, unnoticed and unrecorded by the institutions supposedly guarding them.

Many Chinese cities are half building site; I’ve gone on walks through back alleys that resembled Super Mario levels, full of grinding wheels shooting out flurries of super-heated sparks, bricks dropped from scaffolding above without warning and cords strung across the pavement. ‘Why don’t you put tape around that?’ I asked at one spot, pointing to a guttering pit next to the road, deep enough to break a neck. The migrant workers shrugged. ‘Nobody told us to.’

In a 1924 article, the critic Hu Shih turned chabuduo into an eponymous parable. ‘Mr Cha Buduo’, his protagonist, lives his life by the principle of ‘Close enough’. ‘Certainly you’ve heard people talk about him,’ wrote Hu. ‘So many people say his name every day.’

Mr Cha Buduo doesn’t understand why he misses trains by arriving at 8:32 instead of 8:30, or why his boss gets angry when he writes 1,000 instead of 10, or why Iceland is different from Ireland. He falls ill and sends for Dr Wāng, but ends up getting Mr Wáng, the veterinarian, by mistake. Yet as he slips away, he is consoled by the thought that life and death, after all, are close enough.

For Hu, the cure for this hazy malaise was modernity; the tick of the railway station’s clock, the carefully kept account book, the doctor’s prescribed remedy. He wanted an end to the veneration of fuzziness, mysticism and incompetence that, in his parable, eventually cause the public to pronounce Mr Cha Buduo a Buddhist saint and ‘Great Master of Flexibility’. Hu’s contemporaries, educated in Japan or the United States, longed to embrace the modernity of a new nation, and ditch the past and all its accumulated dust. But the flood of modernity, already lapping around China’s cities even before Hu Shih’s time, didn’t bring care and precision; it destroyed it.

Even before Hu’s day, overpopulation and globalisation were hitting China hard, driving huge migrations in the late 19th century. Chinese people were struggling with new technological and governmental norms with which they had no experience. The disasters of war and revolution cracked what traditions were left. Today, since China’s head-first dive into the modern world began in 1979, mass urbanisation, internal migration and the constant flux of change have eroded most traces of the skills for which the country was once renowned.

Earlier this year, in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, I feasted – visually – on the Ming-dynasty plates that 16th-century Ottoman sultans favoured, the glaze still preserved and each marked proudly with its makers’ stamp. Our sense of the material past might be biased toward the beautiful and the fine, purely because it’s more likely to be valued and thus to survive. But ample evidence speaks to pre-modern China’s skills, developed most particularly with the thriving commercial environment and rich merchant patrons of the Song (960-1279) and Ming (1368-1644) dynasties. The craftsmanship of China overwhelmed Europeans and Ottomans alike, sparking waves of awe and imitation.

Some arts, of course, have survived. Close to my home, a Manchu family still makes beautiful and funny scenes of Beijing life from tiny doll’s furniture, the posed bodies of cockroaches standing in for human beings. But there is so little left. Wood-workers, lute-makers, coopers, weavers of rare cloth: they remain only in pockets.

To some extent, this is a normal historical process. In 19th-century Paris, Hamburg and New York, writers complained of builders who didn’t know one end of a trowel from another, of plumbers more likely to smash your pipes than mend them, of glaziers whose frames would fall and shatter the next day. Rural migrants flooded the cities, looking for any day labour they could find, their own local skills useless in a new environment. In a generation or less, the rush of modernity invalidated talents developed over centuries.

But in much of the developed world, the sense of craftsmanship soon returned. There was the pleasure of invention, of the cutting edge, of developing new standards for a new trade. In late 18th-century England, brickmakers crafted their own rich metaphors, where, as Sennett notes, the invention of ‘honest’ brick (without any artificial colour added) reflected the manufacturers’ own pride. Ford workers in the 1930s envisioned a gleaming automated future made with their own tools. In contrast, Chinese workers have been stranded for four decades in a dead zone, where the old skills have been lost, but a new professionalism hasn’t evolved. And the era of quick-and-dirty shows no signs of disappearing any time soon.

If what you’re making represents a world utterly out of reach to you, why bother to do it well?

Why is China caught in this trap? In most industries here, vital feedback loops are severed. To understand how to make things, you have to use them. Ford’s workers in the US drove their own cars, and Western builders dwelt, or hoped to dwell, in homes like the ones they made. But the migrants lining factory belts in Guangdong make knick-knacks for US households thousands of miles away. The men and women who build China’s houses will never live in them.

The average price of a one-bedroom apartment in a Chinese second-tier city – a provincial town of a few million people, straining at its own geographical and environmental limits – is around $100,000; the average yearly salary for a migrant construction worker is around $3,500. Their future is shabby pre-fabricated workers’ dorms and old country shacks, not air conditioning and modern bathrooms. If what you’re making represents a world utterly out of reach to you, why bother to do it well?

The opacity of Chinese companies means it’s often hard to pin down the blame for even cataclysmic failure; the maker’s marks once inscribed on every brick in a city’s walls have been replaced with the mirages of holding companies and shell enterprises. Local governments fearful of higher unemployment and lower GDP work assiduously to shield their favoured businesses from any consequences for their actions.

The greatest gulf of all is between the planners in Beijing and the workers on the ground who implement their policies. Huge swathes of the country still operate under the logic of the planned economy, reacting to government quotas and guaranteed bailouts. Yet craft requires the feedback of users and the marketplace. The quota, set for everything from wordcounts for journalists to arrests for policemen, is a powerful spur to value nothing about the product except the speed of its production. Chabuduo: good enough for government work.

There is one glowing exception to the culture of chabuduo: China’s tech sector, perhaps because it developed near-simultaneously with the rest of the world’s. In other areas, Chinese factories and workshops weren’t developing new trades, but taking over ones the West needed done cheap. There was none of the pride or knowledge earned by problem-solving or invention. By contrast, the e-commerce giant Alibaba has honed the art of getting goods from buyer to seller in a vast country to levels still unknown in the West – albeit possibly through the use of the Hobbit-like founder Jack Ma’s network of magical fairy roads – while mobile payment, fierce and relatively open competition and the money that flowed from it have produced their own set of brilliant skills.

Yet tech can’t escape the curse altogether. Sloppy coding, broken apps and massive privacy failures are common, especially when China’s state industries are forced to develop internal programs rather than use commercial ones for ‘security’ reasons. China’s search engines are abysmal, simultaneously crippled by government censorship and protected from real competition. Baidu, the biggest, was struck by scandal earlier this year, after repeatedly promoting quack medical treatments in exchange for payment.

After the scandal, the authorities announced that they would take hard measures to ensure that Baidu performed better. And where reputation can’t push responsibility, regulation can step in. But in practice, China’s regulatory authorities are a void. Although each disaster is ritually castigated in the press, any follow-up is rapidly killed; the average lifespan of coverage of even a massive disaster such as Tianjin is less than a week, before the mandates of the propaganda bureau go out and the story disappears from the papers.

Everyday regulation is even less efficient, bound by a set of perverse incentives that have persisted for decades. Regulators, under-funded and under-staffed, aren’t expected to cover every possible enterprise. Yet if they inspect a site or company, they’re deemed to be responsible for any future disasters there, which can cost them their jobs, Party membership or even potential jail time. The obvious solution is for regulators to cover few sites and concentrate on the least risky areas, thus minimising their personal risk. This failure is compounded by the absence of a functioning civil legal system, especially for collective action; mistakes that could mean massive lawsuits in the West can be papered over in China. Even the death of migrant workers can be paid off with as little as $5,000.

the Party no more wants hod-carriers or rail workers across the nation to come together than it does Christians, democrats or feminists

All these factors work against the Chinese developing pride in their own work. And if they do, they better keep it to themselves. In the West, unions (for manual labourers) and professional associations (for groups such as doctors and lawyers) played a critical role in setting national standards. They gave people an identity that depended, in part, on both mastery and morality, a group of peers to compete against, and to be held to account by.

But, as Adam Smith argued in The Wealth of Nations (1776), every profession ‘ends in a conspiracy against the public’ and the Chinese Communist Party tolerates no conspiracies except its own. Especially since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, any group that might represent a cross-national basis of resistance to the Party has been cut down. Unionisation, outside of the toothless and corrupt All-China Trade Union Federation, is a threat to the Party, which no more wants hod-carriers or rail workers across the nation to come together than it does Christians, democrats or feminists.

Under the Party umbrella, there is room for professional associations – but only at the top end of the scale. There’s a Chinese Medical Association, but no China Plumber’s Association. Even within those bodies, though, far more value is put on sticking to the official line than in creating a peer group. As the medical journalist Michael Woodhead has pointed out, in the West doctors have clear professional guidelines, and review bodies to keep them on the straight-and-narrow; in China they have only the flickering lamp of their own conscience.

In the end, what perpetuates China’s carelessness most might be sheer ubiquity. Craft inspires. A writer can be stirred to the page by hearing a song or watching a car being repaired, a carpenter revved up by a poem or a motorbike. But the opposite also holds true; when you’re surrounded by the cheaply done, the half-assed and the ugly, when failure is unpunished and dedication unrewarded all around, it’s hard not to think that close enough is good enough. Chabuduo.

Thing is in India, IAF has such standards it won't accept "jugaad" from HAL or ADA or any org.

It expects that the Jaguar built by HAL is down to the last screw same as what it got from BAe.

When it's not, CAG gets a missive. That goes public.

China is opaque.

Its military is led by politically connected fatcats who are selected on the basis of party loyalty.

The same party that runs the military factories.

The same party that runs the banks supplying to those factories and will do a nelsons eye when dividends don't appear or there is no concept of some basic auditing.

And so it goes..

India faces the same problem with one DPSU in particular, the OFB. In China, its all around.

Its the same reason while making a stealth J-20 and BRAGGING about it, non stop, we get to hear how desperate PRC is for 48 Su-35s of an earlier generation. Those 4.5 Gen Su-35s have better radar (even PESA) & engines & FBW than the so called 5Gen J-20.

Its the reason why even though PRC tanks appear with all sorts of US type fitments, at their core they are but bigger T-72 style designs.

So much for innovation in their public sector.

Yes, its in the US's interest to play up the PRC threat to justify their next MIC cycle, but not everyone has fallen for the charade.

[Karan M]

BTW, none of the above means the PRC isn't a threat. They have some really significant achievements in the military sector, but nowhere are they as much of a dominant force as you imply they are. With current GOI and another decade, then lets talk.

[Yagnasri]

^^Note the Loyalty ladder. PLA is Communist Party's Army not China's. Perhaps only country in the world with such peculiarity.

Wrong. Pakis has Jihad ahead of pakiland.

[JayS]

^^ Yeah, my bad. But one can say that Pakistan is not a country in true sense, just a safe heaven for rabid radical Islamist...

[chola]

they copy because they think it makes the world think they have advanced.

Again if that is the case, then there is nothing to worry about. The world operates on kinetics not ethereal hooha like psy-ops and propaganda.

westerners and many folks suffer from confirmation bias

Yes, Westerners dominate the world by making inaccurate asssessments.

Sahib, the West invented objective based research and use it to devastating effect over every non-white nation - including and perhaps especially Bharat.

I would always use Western research and assessment when it comes down to money. I would use desis but in western firms because of this objectiveness. They'll gather numbers while you'll put forth speculations about unmeasurable psy-ops and propaganda.

BTW, the fact that China copies comes from West articles and research anyways. They're the ones with thousands of people in the ground in China not us.

And anyways, how does it affect India even if the West does believe Chini propaganda?

No the danger is not in their propaganda and "face." It is in their self-righteous belief that they can cheat, steal and lie to advance what they truly believe is a poor nation deserving of playing outside the rules. We see this in the real world in their negotiations and contracts.

Now, this is less dangerous than a jihadi porki believing it is his right to blow up infidels but still dangerous in the competive sense for every other nation that is attempting to climb up the same path to world influence/affluence.

Yes, its in the US's interest to play up the PRC threat to justify their next MIC cycle, but not everyone has fallen for the charade.

If we don't fall for the charade then why is psy-ops even worth mentioning?

BTW, none of the above means the PRC isn't a threat. They have some really significant achievements in the military sector, but nowhere are they as much of a dominant force as you imply they are.

Nope, if all they are is psy-ops and propaganda then they are no threat.

Nope, as I mention before China cannot dominate with no forward bases and a military with no war experience in 5 decades.

There is one world domination blueprint and that is the one the US and the UK before it provided -- bases everywhere in the world and a military honed by constant little wars. The chinis don't have bases and their military don't fight.