Indian Tajik Airbase is Ready?

The "India Tajik air base" was reported again by Indian's indianexpress. The title is Tajik air base is ready, gives India its first footprint in strategic Central Asia.

The report says that:
Conceived in 2002 under the NDA regime, the Ayni air base allows India rapid response to any emerging threat from the volatile Afghanistan-Pakistan arc including a terrorist hijacking like the IC-814. It also gives New Delhi a limited yet significant capability to inject special forces into a hostile theatre as and when the situation demands.

The other aspect is India’s role in the energy security calculus in the region with prospects of Central Asian natural gas reaching the subcontinent and negotiations with energy-rich countries like Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Energy security is now a major concern with the Strategic Policy Group under Cabinet Secretary discussing the issue with the service chiefs, Home, Defence and Foreign Secretaries on February 7.

Lets talk about the geopilitics of Tajikistan first.

In geography, Tajikistan is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. It borders Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east. India does not share any border with Tajikistan at all.

Politically, Tajikistan is a member of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), an intergovernmental organization which was founded on June 14, 2001 by leaders of the China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The aim of the organization is the copperation on security, economy and culture.

Indian media have been bragging this air base for a long time, The base had been "ready" once in 2004 in Indian media . Ridiculously, As Indian newspapers continue to speculate that the country will secure a military base in Tajikistan, Officials in Tajikistan immediately denied the reports. A defence ministry source told NBCentralAsia that the Indian military has been providing training and technical assistance to the Tajik army for some years, but there is no agreement to set up an airbase. (Source)

No matter the "Indian airbase in Tajikistan" is real or not. But the Indian's bragging shows that India has no sense of diplomacy.

First of all, Tajikistan belongs to several regional security groupings including the Collective Security Treaty Organisation and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and it would need the approval of other member states - Russia, other former Soviet states, and China – which would be unlikely to give their assent to an Indian military presence in the region. Nor would the idea be favoured by the United States, which is currently promising to invest substantial funds in Tajikistan. (See the above link)

The second, If the airbase is true, it would be viewed as a very unfriendly act by Pakistan, an India's rival. Tajikistan also would run into the risk of becoming embroiled in the confrontation between these two countries.

The third, India does not border with Tajikistan. Does Pakistan or China allow India's fighters to fly over to Tajikistan? furthermore, It could be difficult for India to provide logistic support to the Indian airbase if it is true. This will limit the airbase's scale and capability. In other words, the airbase serves India nothing.

The fourth, the airbase is not Tajikistan's interest either. India is hostile to both Pakistan and China. Tajikistan has much closer relationships with China than with India geographically, politically and economically. Today, India's political influence is largely limited south Asia. Even in the south Asia, India has bad relationships with almost all of its neighbours. India's experience in the 13th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit proved that India's influence in south Asia is limited.

The Indian airbase in Tajikistan could be Indian's bragging and hype of a big power again.

China to build satellite navigation system

China has started to build its own satellite navigation system, called Compass.

The planned network, also referred to as Beidou in Chinese, entails the launching of five geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) and 30 medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellites, informed sources said here Thursday.

China plans to launch two Compass navigation satellites at the beginning of next year. The system is expected to cover China and parts of neighbouring countries by 2008 before being developed into a global constellation, according to the sources.

The system will provide two navigation services. The Open Service is designed to provide users with positioning accuracy within 10 meters, velocity accuracy with 0.2 meter per second and timing accuracy within 50 nanoseconds.

The Authorized Service will offer "safer" positioning, velocity, timing communications for authorized users.

More details can be found here.

Western Dual Standards: Both India and Korea Tested Their Missiles

What happened recently? Most of western people would know Korea's missile tests. Yes, Korea tested its missiles on July 5 and 6, and western media are continuously broadcasting and discussing the news worldwide even today. US and Japan governments even brought the issue into UN and asked for sanction on Korea.

The interesting happened. India tested its long-range missile couple of days later (July 9) and resulted in a big failure. According to the Indian news, US even approved Indian missile test. What a world joke? Ironically, the so-called speech-freedom western media is keeping silence on India's missile test. CNN is still bombing its viewers with Korea's test and totally forget India. Media’s responsibility is to tell their readers or viewers the truth with balanced coverage, so that their readers and viewers can have a fair big picture of what is happening in the world. Apparently, US media failed in this. These events fully prove US media's bias against some particular countries and mislead their readers and viewers intentionally by dirty tricks.

Both India and Korea have their nuclear weapon projects. But the western countries and governments are keeping eyes on Korea and turn their eyes away from India. US and India are even talking about cooperation on nuclear technology. Don’t forget: India does not sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a responsible country.

Who could be the bigger threat to the world? Korea or India?

The thread to the world can only be substantialized by power.

Korea with only around 20 million population and has been sanctioned by world powers for more than 50 years. Its economy is weak. India is a country of more than 1.1 billion people and has enjoying the assistance from both socialism and capitalism blocks for more than 50 years. India is stronger than Korea, its threat to the world is bigger.

The claim of threat can only be justified by the history.

Korea is generally a peaceful country since it was founded. The Korean War was only a civil war for Koreans. But outsiders got involved for that. That's a pity for all Koreans including both north and south sides. Even today, Koreans of both sides are all still thinking they are one nation but they were divided against their will by so-called world powers. Korea hasn’t been in war with any other countries.

On the contrary, India's foreign policy is badly aggressive. It had wars with Pakistan, China repeatly. India had violent wars against Pakistan in 1947–48, 1965, and 1971. It had a war against China in 1962. With India's aggressive foreign policy, it has very bad relationship with almost all of it neighbors. Even today India government is repeatly saying its nuclear weapons and missiles are targeting its neighbors.

The world should know: Comparing Korea with India, India is apparently a bigger threat to the world.

China Testing Three Kinds of Domestic AWACS

When Israel decided to cancel the contract for selling AWACS to China in late 1990s due to the political presure from US, China decided to develop our own AWACS system. China even declined the offer from Russia for its A50I AWACS.

In a short time, China has developed at least these three kinds of AWACS systems.