Chinese military forces are said to have opened fire on a group of protesting Tibetans, killing one and wounding 30 others, according to Free Tibet, an activist group campaigning for self-determination by Tibetans. The incident happened after a large gathering in Draggo (also Drango, or Luhuo in Chinese), some 600km westwards of Chengdu. more ›

This one is for you ladies (and for some of you men)... more ›

Jennifer Gonnerman of New York magazine has a riveting account of the life and death of Private Danny Chen, a 19-year-old Chinese-American soldier who was found with a gunshot to his head in Afghanistan. The gunshot, as it turned out, was not inflicted by armed Afghan rebels, but by Chen himself. The abuse that he had to put up from his platoon mates for being the only Asian guy around was too much to bear. more ›

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Peter Enav of the Associated Press writes:

A survey published this week by Taiwan's Commonwealth Magazine appears to confirm that Taiwan's process of demilitarization is rapidly gaining steam. Based on a sample of students aged 12 to 17, it found only 38.7 percent would be ready to see either themselves or a family member fight if a new war broke out, while 44.3 percent would not. The remainder had no opinion. more ›

"We are in debt up to our ears to China. Well over $1 trillion we owe to them. That means we're making substantial interest payments to China. When we send our hard-earned money to China, that's our tax money. And what that means is we have less money for our military. And we just saw this year because of the failure of the Super Committee, $1 trillion less will be available for national defense. more ›

The strange and mysterious structures discovered on Google Maps lurking in remote regions of China actually have scientific uses, including satellite calibration, according to experts. more ›

Writing in the New York Times, former Harvard Kennedy School fellow Paul V. Kane argues that giving up military support of Taiwan will reduce American debt, make China happy, help Obama win re-election, and generally just make things peachy-effing-keen for all parties involved: more ›

A report released on Monday by the Senate Armed Services Committee revealed that the US military's ever expanding supply chain is rife with counterfeit parts, the majority of them coming from China. Fake parts were found installed on seven aircraft, on systems manufactured by Raytheon Co., L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., and Boeing Co. more ›

The Sichuanese city of Aba, home of the Kirti Monastery that's had 9 Tibetan monks self-immolate since March, is currently witnessing a huge show of police wearing riot gear, as seen in a new video from the AFP. more ›

So much has been happening here on the mainland that we haven't been keeping up with what's happening in Taiwan. But fortunately we've got our friends from Next Media Animation to get us up to speed. Here's the latest: Taiwan wants 66 new F16s, but the US has decided not to sell its new planes. more ›

Using one of the first info-gathering strategies taught in journalism schools, Graeme Smith of The Globe and Mail discovered documents hiding in a pile of street trash in the Bab Akkarah neighborhood of Tripoli, which allegedly detail China's recent offer to sell arms to Col. Gaddhafi, in violation of UN sanctions. more ›

Video has surfaced of a PLA General revealing information to an assembled audience on specific cases of espionage, in a frank and straightforward manner that one would expect in a private conversation taking place in a dark parking lot. Major General Jin Yinan (金一南), currently the academic head of the Strategy Institute at National Defense University in Beijing, revealed that the government will often give secret sentences to spies, or accuse them having 'economic' or 'financial' issues in the media, obfuscating the truth behind their treasonous acts in order to save face. more ›

On Tuesday, Moo Ko-suen (慕可舜) was finally deported back to Taiwan after being arrested in Miami on November 9th, 2005. Homeland Security agents found Moo attempting to purchase and export a variety of military parts on China's behalf, including a F-16 aircraft engine for the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation, and also an AGM-129 cruise missile. more ›

We welcome any explanation from China about why it needs this kind of equipment. This is part of our larger concern that China is not as transparent as other countries. It is not as transparent as the US about its military acquisitions or its military budget."

"Why, hello there handsome. How's about we discuss cross-strait relations and what it'll take for Chinese Taipei to drop this Republic of China charade and become the 23rd province? Maybe we'll even let you be a Special Administrative, rather than a Special Autonomous (HA!) Region, just like Hong Kong and Macau...Oh! Well, well. I can see the prospect of UN representation and legitimate pinyin is already turning you on, you renegade you! Let's you and I make this One China thing really happen...in bed." more ›

Hey, neat! Who doesn't get a little tingle in their loins at the thought of a new amphibious warship being declared battle-ready? "The Jinggangshan (井冈山) dock landing ship, which is the largest warship in the Chinese Navy, was officially launched in Shanghai, Monday's Jiangxi Daily reported. The report did not give the exact date of the launch. With a displacement of 19,000 tons, the amphibious warship is 210 meters long and 28 meters wide and can carry helicopters, armored fighting vehicles, boats and landing craft as well as nearly 1,000 soldiers, Jiangxi Daily said. The ship was christened the Jinggangshan last December 'to show the love for the revolutionary base area and inherit and carry forward its revolutionary spirit,' according to Jiangxi Daily and china.com's report. Jinggangshan, or Jinggang Mountains, is located in East China's Jiangxi province and is known as the birthplace of China's People's Liberation Army and the cradle of China's revolution." [China Daily] more ›

Take a look at the Economist's illustration of the world's standing military personnel by country. China boasts the largest numbers at over 2.25 million. Surprisingly (maybe?) China ties with the US on air force size and its navy isn't far behind (worth noting that China's air force alone dwarfs the size of Britain's entire military). But as far as who is most "heavily militarized", measured by personnel per 1,000 population, the USA is three times more militarized than China, and North Korea blows everybody else out of the water. And does that big grey "other" section of the Russian military make anybody else nervous? more ›

On May 26 a local official from Lichuan, Hubei named Ran Jianxin （冉建新） was taken into custody under suspicion of accepting bribes. A 49-year-old man in healthy condition, less than ten days after his arrest he was dead. From ESWN: more ›

Today a Chinese military official confirmed what everybody has known for at least a few months - if not years - already: China is nearing completion on its first aircraft carrier. more ›

A US stealth helicopter crash-landed in Pakistan during the commando raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, and there are now concerns that Pakistan may share the wreckage with its close ally, China, which may then be able to reverse engineer the technology that went into the stealth chopper. CNN's Brian Todd reports:
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Shanghaiist reader Matthew Elton responds to Sarah Palin's comments on China's military buildup, in a comment on our Facebook page:

‎"What's with the military buildup? China's military growth can't just be for defensive purposes." more ›

Only a few weeks after CCTV was caught trying to pass off Top Gun scenes as military footage, Russia has been caught in a blunder of their own. In preparation for Defenders of the Fatherland Day, hundreds of posters like the one above were printed and distributed throughout St. Petersburg sporting images of Russian military might. But instead of displaying Russian fighter jets alongside their tanks and ships, the plane pictured is the Chinese Chengdu J-10. Whoops! more ›

More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here). more ›

We posted shots of new army recruits training out in Xinjiang earlier and now we've got our hands on some more Xinjiang military photos -- this time of soldiers border patrolling 5492 meters above sea and at -37 degrees. more ›

Ministry of Tofu called our attention a few days ago to recent gaffe by the official Chinese media. On January 23, CCTV aired a special about military air force training, showing one clip supposedly of a J-20 stealth jet blowing up another aircraft with a missile. An astute netizen immediately pointed out similarities between the CCTV footage and that of a scene from Top Gun. WSJ Real Time Report has now provided a juxtaposition of the two videos, showing even more clearly than the screen shots that this was obviously a faked clip. more ›

One-month old recruits stationed in the Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang receive training at temperatures as low as minus 30℃. more ›

As part of their winter endurance training, cadets at the Second Artillery Command College and military police trainees based in Altay, Xinjiang train outdoors in temperatures as low as minus 35 degrees celsius and rub handfuls of snow on their bare chests. more ›

Sha Zukang, the same Chinese top UN official whose drunken rant against Ban Ki-moon and the United States a few weeks ago made headlines, has just given a "Global Harmony" award to Chi Haotian, the general in charge of the infamous crackdown on protesters in 1989. It remains unclear whether Sha gave the award as an acting UN official, and also whether he plans to continue doing/saying things his colleagues most definitely would not be fond of. more ›