The men were an elite force of soldiers from the Chinese People's Liberation Army deployed on a mission to undermine archrival Taiwan. They didn't come armed with missiles or tanks. Their weapon was water.
The 20 troops from a PLA water supply regiment were being dispatched to Liberia. In return, the West African nation was cutting diplomatic ties with Taiwan -- an illustration of how China's PLA is becoming an increasingly sophisticated tool of foreign policy.
PHOTO: EPA
The military and relations with Taiwan will be on the minds of China's leaders as they meet during the annual legislative session, the National People's Congress, which convened yesterday. The military budget is to be announced today, and further increases are expected.
"We will energetically carry forward military reforms with Chinese characteristics and work hard to modernize national defense and armed forces to a higher stage of development," Premier Wen Jiabao said at the opening session.
Also in the works is development of "new and high-technology weaponry and equipment" and the training of "a new type of highly competent military personnel," according to the government's Xinhua News Agency.
Military delegates to the NPC, a powerful lobby, expect adherence to dogma on Taiwan as well as a vigorous defense of China's international economic and military security.
At the top of their list: the well-being of the 2.5-million-strong PLA, a sprawling organization of low-paid and poorly-trained men, decrepit equipment and outdated philosophy.
Defense spending rose by 9.6 percent last year to US$22.4 billion, a slight slowing after 13 years of double-digit growth -- increases that have raised alarm abroad. Actual spending is believed higher -- as much as US$55 billion, foreign experts say -- because the total doesn't include weapons purchases.
But military spending is "still at a fairly low level -- barely enough to keep things going," the military's chief finance official, Major General Ding Jiye, said at last year's congress.
The generals may be in a position to make more demands following a year of spectacular triumphs and quiet developments.
In October, the military-backed space program successfully sent China's first astronaut into space -- a publicity triumph praised as a sign of the PLA's growing sophistication.
The military also edged toward greater cooperation. Land forces joined in combined exercises with five Central Asian nations. The navy held first-ever joint exercises separately off Shanghai with ships from India and Pakistan. And a visit by the US Pacific fleet flagship to Shanghai last month was reciprocated with rare tours of one of China's most sophisticated missile frigates.
China has tried to jump-start relations with the US military that were largely frozen after the April 2001 collision between an American spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet. Recent visits included a trip to Beijing by the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"Intensified military exchanges between the two countries ... not only are in the interests of the two countries, but also conform to and promote the trends of world peace and development," military writer Dai Er wrote in the official People's Liberation Army Daily last week.
But the PLA remains a nationalistic force suspicious of the US and Japan, which are seen as constraints on China's regional power and absorption of Taiwan.
Chinese generals have been quoted as saying China would "pay any price" to block Taiwan's independence.
"We are prepared to pay these costs to uphold national unity and territorial integrity," wrote Brigadier General Peng Guangqian of the Academy of Military Science.
Yet despite the occasional tough talk, the military has been restrained over the issue -- a far cry from eight years ago, when the PLA staged war games and fired missiles into the Taiwan Strait in an attempt to intimidate voters.
Nor are tensions with Taiwan likely to affect long-term planning goals, observers say.
"They might accelerate some programs due to Taiwan, but the PLA is really keeping to a long-term schedule for rise to power," said Robert Karniol, Asia-Pacific editor for Jane's Defense Weekly.
Meanwhile, the military continues efforts to shed fat and add muscle with plans to cut hundreds of thousands of troops over coming years.
China is also hoping to convince the EU to lift a 15-year-old ban on weapons sales -- over the objections of the US and several EU member states.
But while access to more sophisticated gear would have an impact, it's still a small part of the overall strategy of influence: As demonstrated in Liberia -- China's new ally as of last October -- clean drinking water may be as important as bombs.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
RSS