/newbrit/ - /brit//politics/

China slashes ground troops by half, boosts strategic force

>China has slashed the size of its Army by about 50% and boosted other units like strategic support force responsible for cyber warfare, according to the country's official news agency Xinhua

>"this new data is unprecedented in the history of the PLA (People's Liberation Army) - the army now accounts for less than 50% of the total number of PLA troops; almost half of our non-combatant units have been made redundant, and the number of officers in the PLA has been reduced by 30%," the news agency said

>it said the four other branches of the PLA - the navy, air force, rocket force and strategic support force, which is responsible for areas such as cyberwarfare - now jointly make up more than half of the Chinese military, overtaking the army

https://wap.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/china-slashes-ground-troops-by-half-boosts-strategic-force-119012201156_1.html

Chinese Christian details indoctrination camps, being forced to blaspheme Christ

>a Chinese Christian woman revealed the mental abuse she endured at a Chinese “indoctrination camp,” including how police withheld sleep after she refused to blaspheme the name of Jesus Christ

>Jian Yongjiu, a member of The Church of Almighty God, told Bitter Winter magazine that after she was arrested for “organizing and using an organization to undermine state law enforcement," she was sent to a “legal education center” in Hangzhou city, in China’s eastern coastal province of Zhejiang

>while presented as “educational” facilities, inmates are routinely submitted to an “inhuman regime of labor and indoctrination and to strong pressure to renounce their religious faith, with instances of torture and suspicious deaths frequently reported,” according to Bitter Winter

https://www.christianpost.com/news/chinese-christian-details-indoctrination-camps-being-forced-to-blaspheme-christ.html

Britain is right to send its navy to the South China Sea

>the Royal Navy and US Navy held joint exercises in the South China Sea last week, for the first time since China began building new military bases in those waters; the exercises sent a message to Beijing that it faces an evolving united front of nations committed to maintaining freedom of navigation in some of the world’s most vital waterways

>London has repeatedly stated that the United Kingdom will increase its activities in Asian waters, in large measure as a response to the threat posed by China’s growing strength and militarisation of man-made islands in the region

>Teaming up British ships with the US Navy sends a strong signal that Beijing is increasingly alienating the world’s more powerful nations; it is also a significant boon to Asian nations who have felt trapped between America and China; the more that a community of maritime interests develops in Asia, the more that smaller nations will feel they are able to resist Beijing’s demands over territorial issues and blandishments which pull them to China’s side

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/01/britain-is-right-to-send-its-navy-to-the-south-china-sea/

How Britain's Ministry of Defence is playing for time (and money) in a dangerous world

>December 2018, just before policymakers and pundits escaped their besieged bunkers for Christmas, the UK government published the long-awaited final report on its Modernising Defence Programme; this programme was meant to update the military commitments made in the last full-blown Strategic Defence and Security Review of 2015

>revising 2015’s review became necessary thanks to a marked change in circumstances. Partly, those changes are strategic; relations with Russia have deteriorated even further since 2015, Islamic State (IS) is much diminished, and new military technologies and tactics are advancing

>the Treasury, for its part, recognises that Britain’s security environment has deteriorated to a worse condition than at any point since the Cold War. Yet it is still attempting to avoid major new spending commitments until the full fiscal shock of Brexit becomes clear. It has also long been sceptical of the MOD’s budgetary requests, viewing the department as a perennial financial black hole

https://theconversation.com/amp/how-britains-ministry-of-defence-is-playing-for-time-and-money-in-a-dangerous-world-109155?