People's Liberation Army

While visiting Beihua University in Jilin City in the northeast of China in September 2006, I had the privilege of witnessing, on several occasions, some of the activities that freshmen students are routinely subjected to during their three-to-four-week military training that takes place at the beginning of the academic year all over the country.

Space warfare will be an integrated part of battle planning by the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) in any future conflict. One of the major proponents of integrated space power for the PLA, Major General Cai Fengzhen, believes that "control of portions of outer space is a natural extension of other forms of territorial control," such as sea or air control.[1] More seriously, because of American superiority in space, China's military theorists treat the United States as the most likely opponent in that domain of war.

The cyber attacks are part of what China believes will be the frontline of any attack against countries such as America, Britain and North Korea. Pentagon assessments believe that China’s race towards reaching “electronic dominance” over their rivals by 2050 is part of their view that such a dominance is “critical to seize the initiative” in the first stages of a war.

China has greatly expanded a youth military training program and will provide compulsory training this year to 50 million children as young as 9 years of age, an exclusive USA Today investigation reveals.

The Chinese military hacked into a Pentagon computer network in June in the most successful cyber attack on the US defence department, say American ­officials. The Pentagon acknowledged shutting down part of a computer system serving the office of Robert Gates, defence secretary, but declined to say who it believed was behind the attack. Current and former officials have told the Financial Times an internal investigation has revealed that the incursion came from the People’s Liberation Army.