China, Russia to 'rehearse invasion of Taiwan'

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CHINA, RUSSIA TO 'REHEARSE INVASION OF TAIWAN'

Thu Mar 17 2005 11:02:09 ET

MOSCOW, March 17. (RIA Novosti)-Yesterday, Chief of the Russian General Staff Yury Baluyevsky left for China to settle a scandal over the first Russian-Chinese military exercise, Commonwealth-2005, which is due to be held this fall off the Yellow Sea coast, writes Kommersant.

The initial plans were to practice operational teamwork in combating terrorism during the exercise. However, Beijing, skillfully changing the format of the exercise, has tried to re-orient the two countries' armies to practicing an invasion of Taiwan.

The choice of where the exercise will take place became a stumbling block. The Russian military selected the Xinjiang-Uigur autonomous region, basing their choice on the area's problematic nature due to Uigur separatists and its proximity to Central Asia, which has become an arena in the fight against international terrorism. However, Beijing flatly rejected the proposal. Instead, it suggested the Zhejiang province near Taiwan.

A joint exercise in this area would look too provocative and trigger a strong reaction not only from Taiwan but also America and Japan, which recently included the island in the zone of their common strategic interests.

Beijing is trying to use Russia as an additional lever of pressure on the disobedient island to show it that its policy is also causing dissatisfaction in Russia, from which the Taiwanese are expecting assistance in their dialogue with Beijing and bid to join the WTO and the UN.

On the Russian military's insistence, the exercise was shifted north to the Shangdong peninsula. However, the Chinese are trying to change the format of the exercise with proposals to enlarge the contingents with Marines and Pacific Fleet warships. Marine landings to seize the area will be practiced during the "antiterrorist" exercise.

Russia's agreement to hold the exercise will inevitably cause a furor in America, Japan and Taiwan. But a refusal will spoil relations with China, which three months ago courteously agreed to Russia's proposal to hold an exercise.

Source
 
Brilliant move by the Chinese, they've neatly boxed Russia into either participating in an exercise that will piss off the US and Japan (to say nothing of Taiwan), or looking like dorks on the international stage.

Uncle Duke was right - the Chinese are an especially tricky people.
 
This is great. With the Russians on China's side, they'll find a way to completely bungle their invasion and cause the collapse of the CCP.

Russia couldn't take a country of nomadic sheep herders, so why would they have us believe they could conquer an advanced fortress of an island? :lol: :D ;) :p
 
Only an idiot nation would go into an action that threatens to break relations between possible allies and trading powers, all though I'm definately not all too sure about Russia's abilility of being a serious military power. Just a trading power

All though, that was pretty much the belief during both pre-world wars...
 
rmsharpe said:
This is great. With the Russians on China's side, they'll find a way to completely bungle their invasion and cause the collapse of the CCP.

Russia couldn't take a country of nomadic sheep herders, so why would they have us believe they could conquer an advanced fortress of an island? :lol: :D ;) :p
Well those are the same sheep herders that were suppied by USA in their war 20 years ago. At least some of them (Afghanistan). The rest were supplied by other "civilized" allies... oh and some of those sheep herders knocked out the biggest trading center in the world. Perhaps you should think about that before calling them names :rolleyes:
 
According to my sources The Chinese Marine Corps only has 210 APCs



The thing is armed with only 1 12.7mm machine gun with no protection against anything larger then a M60.
 
Never underestimate China's abilities!
 
MarineCorps said:
According to my sources The Chinese Marine Corps only has 210 APCs



The thing is armed with only 1 12.7mm machine gun with no protection against anything larger then a M60.
And how many APCs does Taiwan have? Not much I would assume and don't expect the US to fight a world war over Taiwan.
 
King Alexander said:
Never underestimate China's abilities!

To be more precise that should be...

"Never underestimate the power of ant tactics"
 
rmsharpe said:
This is great. With the Russians on China's side, they'll find a way to completely bungle their invasion and cause the collapse of the CCP.

Russia couldn't take a country of nomadic sheep herders, so why would they have us believe they could conquer an advanced fortress of an island? :lol: :D ;) :p

The only way America could do it, was by buying of druglords.

Now there's a narco-state.
 
blindside said:
And how many APCs does Taiwan have? Not much I would assume and don't expect the US to fight a world war over Taiwan.
I don't know how many APCs they have, but they've got a big wellfounded army equipped with plenty of nifty toys. Technologically they've got the edge on the PLA in most respects.
 
Does this actually do anything though, it is pretty obvious from Russia's actions in the affair that they would not attack Taiwan, or participate in a joint invasion.
 
King Alexander said:
Never underestimate China's abilities!

Anyone who thinks China is being underestimated needs to read this. If anything thing they are being overestimated.

According to my sources The Chinese Marine Corps only has 210 APCs

I'm sure somebody will point out that China's army has many more APCs but only amphibious marine forces can take a fortified beach. They will need to control a port to use any of their mechanized forces. Thats why Britain and the US spend so much on amphibious assault carriers. Even if China magically did come up with an overwhelming amphibious forces they would need close air support to deal with armor and heavy weapons as well the amphibious apc that can deal with the terrain changes and beach fortifications.
 
h4ppy said:
Does this actually do anything though, it is pretty obvious from Russia's actions in the affair that they would not attack Taiwan, or participate in a joint invasion.

This gives China the oppertunity to use Russia as a test board, to test out different stradegies for attacking Taiwan. Russia would not participate in any Taiwan invasion, but with this they've been forced to "help China prepare." This way, China can devote a larger and more appropriate number of troops and materials for the war games. If they were doing it themselves, they'd have to provide both sides, which would shrink the size of both forces and skewer the results.
 
mrtn said:
Will Russia take being puppeteered like this?
If I was Russian (and had any say in the matter ;)) I'd cancel the whole thing.

I'm sure their getting something out of it. Exercises aren't always for the purpose of backing eachother. They are often used for intelligence purposes that can benefit other parties as well. Reluctant alliances are often used to size each other up. If China decides to use it for practice against Taiwan those exercises could be used against them. Thats why you usually do things like that in secret, but its hard with satellites.
 
The joint exercise is Russia's subtle way of saying "I support the anti-succession law." Unlike the smaller countries who publically applauded the law, Russia isn't able to do it because of it's close relations with Europe.

If they're really caught by surprised, they can call it off easily and attitude of America and Europe towards Russia wouldn't change for the worse. And China would have no bases or benefits in resenting Russia.

By making appear as if China changed the topic of exercise, Russia can shed off some scrutiny because she can claim that it would look bad to call off the exercise.
 
Are you saying that publicly applauding the law is more provacative then supporting it through military exercises? So instead of publicly showing concerns about the law the US would have been more subtle if it conducted a military exercise with Taiwan?
 
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