Taiwan Alert To China Fighter Deployment

SINO DAILY

The Jian-10 jet fighter. Photo courtesy AFP.

by Staff Writers
Taipei (AFP) Jan 21, 2007
China has deployed new war planes that could target Taiwan as part of a continuing arms build up, according to a media report Sunday. A batch of the domestically developed Jian-10 -- or J-10 -- jets were deployed at a Chinese base beyond the range of Taiwanese fighters according to Taiwanese intelligence, a report in the Taipei-based China Times said.

"The first 12 J-10s have been deployed at the Zhejiang airbase according to intelligence gathered by Taiwan," the paper said.

The airbase is beyond the 350-mile (560-kilometre) combat range of Taiwan's US-made F-16 and French-made Mirage 2000 war planes, it said.

Taiwan's defense ministry declined to comment on the report.

China unveiled the J-10 last month but did not say how many would be produced or where they would be deployed, the report said.

The country has deployed some 850 jets at airbases located from 150 miles to 600 miles off Taiwan, according to the report.

Taipei plans to purchase an additional 66 F-16 fighters from the United States in response to China's persistent arms buildup, and may scrap a plan to update domestically developed Taiwanese fighters, the paper said.

Taiwan on Saturday voiced serious concern after China reportedly shot down a space satellite, saying the act would negatively affect peace between them and in the region.

"We urge the international community to express their concerns over China's move, which would have negative impact on peace in the Taiwan Strait and in the region," said cabinet spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang.

"The shooting down of the satellite showed that China has expanded its arms race to space and that its so-called 'peaceful rise' is merely an illusion," he said.

Washington said China had fired a missile to destroy an orbiting weather satellite, making it only the third country after the former Soviet Union and the United States to shoot down an object in space.

China declined to confirm the incident Friday but foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told journalists "there's no need to feel threatened about this", adding that China was "not going to get into any arms race in space".

Source: Agence France-Presse

SINO DAILY

Civil Servants In Polluted Chinese City Urged To Walk To Work

Beijing (AFP) Jan 17, 2007
Civil servants in a Chinese city that is listed as one of the 10 most polluted in the world have been asked to walk to work in a bid to ease the environmental woes, state press reported Wednesday. Lanzhou, the capital of China's northwest Gansu province, has notoriously bad pollution due to high coal use for energy, heavy industrial emissions and its position in a valley that traps air, but also because of rising car use.

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