China « Feral Jundi

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Kidnap And Ransom: Chinese Seek Anti-Terrorism Training For Work Abroad

Filed under: Afghanistan,Africa,China,Kidnap And Ransom — Tags: Afghanistan, Africa, anti-terrorism, China, CNPC, Iraq, Kidnap And Ransom, private military company, private security company, Training — Matt @ 12:59 AM

More and more Chinese workers head to places like Iraq, Nigeria and Pakistan to work in mining, oil-drilling and the sale of all things “Made in China.” But there is an underbelly to this economic growth.

Increasingly, Chinese workers abroad are being confronted with the security risks in these turbulent countries. Chinese topped the list of kidnapped foreign nationals in 2008, followed by French and Germans, according to Special Contingency Risks, a British kidnap insurance firm.

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The quote up top really caught my eye for several reasons. The Chinese are everywhere out there, and they are sending folks into some dangerous places. I have talked about their ventures into Iraq, Afghanistan, and Africa in the past, and I am always on the look out for any information about their PSC or PMC related activities.

Although with this story, it looks to me like these Chinese companies are dependent upon foreign training companies to increase their worker’s survivability out there. But as demand increase, so will the amount of companies able to provide such services. More than likely, it will be Chinese companies who will continue to grow and probably with the assistance of foreign advisors. At least until Chinese folks get their own industry expertise, and go it alone.

But what intrigues me is that once a training industry takes hold, it usually evolves. Will the next step for these companies be actually providing security services? Much like how the US market evolved with some of it’s training companies (Xe started as a training company for example).

The other question is would the Chinese even allow a training company to evolve to that level? I think the answers to those questions will be how wars and regional instability will impact all of these really risky ventures they have taken on out there. The Chinese are not immune to the ‘foreigner’ label, and a Somali pirate or a jihadist will find value in attacking them, just like they do with all other countries and their private ventures. The article made this point pretty clearly with the statistics presented.

The article also mentioned the oil giant CNPC. I would be very curious to read a briefing on any security issues they have come across. According to the report below, they have operations in ’19 high risk regions’. I have to think that out of all of those operations, they must have some sort of Chinese security firm tasked with force protection? And yet we hear nothing about this security? Maybe they are using all local military forces or local national PSC companies? Who knows, and that is the kind of stuff I would like to read more about. –Matt

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Chinese seek anti-terrorism training for work abroad

By Coco Liu

August 10, 2010

SHANGHAI, China — Hired by Chinese businesses, Adi Talmor robs, kidnaps and does his general best to make thousands of workers suffer.

But Talmor isn’t a criminal; he’s a consultant. The 38-year-old former Israeli paratrooper instructs Chinese workers in what he calls personal security training. It’s a field that has recently emerged across China, mirroring the country’s expansion into some of the world’s more perilous markets.

In accordance with Beijing’s “go-global” strategy, state-owned enterprises have signed multibillion-dollar deals in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. Meanwhile, trade has flourished. In 2008, China bypassed the United States to become Africa’s top trade partner.

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Sunday, July 11, 2010

Funny Stuff: Chinese Reporters Uncover Taliban Secret Weapon–Monkey Soldiers!

Filed under: Afghanistan,China,Funny Stuff — Tags: Afghanistan, China, Funny Stuff, monkeys, Taliban — Matt @ 9:51 AM

Michael Yon posted this on his Facebook page and I had to put this up on the blog. This story is straight out of China, and I have no clue what they were trying to do here. They certainly succeeded in giving us all a good chuckle. I don’t know if PETA has made a statement yet, but I certainly hope they will protest monkeys being used by the Taliban for war fighting. lol –Matt

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Monkey Soldiers

Monkeys trained as battlefield killers in Afghanistan

July 09, 2010

Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents are training monkeys to use weapons to attack American troops, according to a recent report by a British-based media agency.

Reporters from the media agency spotted and took photos of a few “monkey soldiers” holding AK-47 rifles and Bren light machine guns in the Waziristan tribal region near the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The report and photos have been widely spread by media agencies and Web sites across the world.

According to the report, American military experts call them “monkey terrorists.”

As a form of cruel political means, wars are launched to meet political goals through conquest, devastation, assaults and other means.

In a sense, the emergence of “monkey soldiers” is the result of asymmetrical warfare. The United States launched the war in Afghanistan using the world’s most advanced weapons such as highly-intelligent robots to detect bombs on roadsides and unmanned aerial vehicles to attack major Taliban targets. In response, the Taliban forces have tried any possible means and figured out a method to train monkeys as “replacement killers” against American troops.

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Sunday, June 13, 2010

Afghanistan: U.S. Identifies Vast Riches Of Minerals In Afghanistan

Filed under: Afghanistan,Cool Stuff — Tags: Afghanistan, China, Cool Stuff, copper, geologists, gold, lithium, mining — Matt @ 7:53 PM

Pentagon officials said that their initial analysis at one location in Ghazni Province showed the potential for lithium deposits as large of those of Bolivia, which now has the world’s largest known lithium reserves.

For the geologists who are now scouring some of the most remote stretches of Afghanistan to complete the technical studies necessary before the international bidding process is begun, there is a growing sense that they are in the midst of one of the great discoveries of their careers.

“On the ground, it’s very, very, promising,” Mr. Medlin said. “Actually, it’s pretty amazing.”

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The “Saudi Arabia of Lithium”? Now that makes Afghanistan interesting. I was aware of the copper deposits, and I have done a little research on gold and gems in Afghanistan, but this is new. This Lithium find is a big deal and if Afghanistan can get it’s business in order, and actually come up with some mining capability, then they could stand to make a lot of money. This could be their ‘oil’. It could also be their curse, but hey, at least it is something.

One other point I wanted to bring up was resource hungry China. These guys are doing all they can to snag as many oil contracts in Iraq, and snag as many mining contracts in Afghanistan(copper). I sure would like to see the West get into the mining game a little more aggressively there, seeing how we are the ones that have invested so much in this war. Interesting news. –Matt

Edit: 6/14/2010 – For a review on how important Lithium is, check out this story. The factors that will be driving Lithium demand, is our political relationship with Bolivia(which is sketchy at best), the Gulf oil spill and resulting energy policy focus on alternative energy, and our competition with China and the rest of the world over the stuff. That is what makes Afghanistan interesting right now.

Edit: 6/15/2010 – The plot thickens. It seems this news came out just before the mining auction for the Hajigak fields. The Asia Times story claims that the Pentagon wanted to drum up more competition for this auction, because China keeps winning mining contracts. Interesting.

Here is the piece of the story to look at:

The Pentagon memo may have been an effort to attract international interest in the mining sector before the auction in the next few weeks of the 1.8 billion-ton iron-ore field in Hajigak, which could be worth $5 billion to $6 billion, according to the British-based Times. The development of the country’s largest known iron deposit has been hampered by the war and weak institutions.

The memo coincided with a visit to India by Wahidullah Shahrani, the new Afghan minister of mines, to solicit bids for Hajigak after a planned tender was canceled last year because of a lack of international interest, the Times reported. Shahrani was appointed with US backing in January after his predecessor was sacked for allegedly taking bribes from a Chinese mining company – a charge he denies.

Afghan and Western officials want more companies to bid for Hajigak and other deposits to prevent China from gaining control over Afghanistan’s natural resources through bids subsidized heavily by Beijing, the Times said. American and European companies have alleged that underhand methods were used by Beijing to get contracts, it said.

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U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan

By JAMES RISEN

June 13, 2010

WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and Blackberries.

The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.

While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war.

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Saturday, March 13, 2010

Iraq: Here Comes China And Their ‘Astonishing’ Oil Demand

Filed under: Africa,China,Industry Talk,Iraq — Tags: China, Industry Talk, Iraq, oil, private military companies, security companies, security contractor — Matt @ 2:34 AM

China’s demand for oil jumped by an “astonishing” 28% in January compared with the same month a year earlier, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says.

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Here is a quick run down on what China is doing in Iraq, and it is all about oil. I find it interesting that China is getting more involved with really risky resource ventures in places like Iraq or the Congo. And what that means to this industry, is that the Chinese will find a way to secure these ventures and investments. You will either see Chinese security folks, or they will use local nationals for the work. But like with most security work, they tend to go with the kind of security they can really trust and depend upon for the most sensitive projects. Especially to guard oil executives.

The other thing about this that is frustrating, is that information about Chinese private security companies is very thin. Maybe there is tons of stuff on Chinese servers?. Who knows, but it is an area that I would like to learn more about as the fight for resources increases in the coming future. Our industry will only see more involvement in that resource war, and it is important to track this stuff.

In Iraq, you could very well see a situation where you see Chinese security contractors rolling down the highway in SUVs, or posted at some gate of some oil facility. If any readers have any stories about bumping into Chinese military or contractors in Iraq, please feel free to post away in the comments. Like I said, there is nothing written about Chinese PMC’s or PSC’s, and I would like to see Feral Jundi’s archives fill up with some more data about that. I will keep looking, and if anyone finds anything else, let me know. Especially for Africa, because China is really involved there. –Matt

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Chinese guards at the Ahdab field Thaier Al-Sudan/Reuters

Red Star Over Iraq

January 21, 2010

China’s ambitions in the Iraqi oil fields could change the landscape

By Stanley Reed and Dexter Roberts

It may be the start of the biggest oil job in the world. Each day, 20 workers from BP and China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) buckle down to the task of prepping the Rumaila oil field in southern Iraq for rapid development. In industry lingo, Rumaila is a “supergiant”—a 50-mile-long deposit of sweet crude with estimated reserves of 16 billion barrels, whose output may someday rank second only to Saudi Arabia’s vast Ghawar field. The Saudis, though, have carefully managed their oil assets for decades. In contrast, Rumaila, a lightly inhabited expanse of date groves and Bedouin encampments, has not had a proper upgrade since the 1970s. The Iraqis contracted with BP and CNPC last year (BP) to juice Rumaila’s production from 1.06 million barrels a day to 2.85 million, all in seven years. No one has ever tried such a ramp-up at a field as huge as this one. Putting Rumaila back in full working order will take tens of thousands of workers, 1,000 new wells, and billions in investment.

BP is the largest partner in the venture, but only by a dipstick: It has a 38% stake, while the Chinese hold 37% (the rest is owned by an Iraqi company). The media focus has been on BP’s decision to take up the Rumaila challenge for a low fee of only $2 for every barrel the venture produces. But the more important story could be China’s role. “CNPC’s involvement brings together the country with the most rapid growth in energy demand in history with the country that plans the greatest buildup of production capacity ever,” says Alex Munton, an Iraq specialist at Edinburgh-based oil consultants Wood Mackenzie.

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Wednesday, January 20, 2010

China: The Cyberwar Between Google and China

Filed under: China,Technology — Tags: China, cyberwar, Google, private military companies, security, Thomas Ricks — Matt @ 5:59 AM

Interesting deal between Google and China. Although the real winner here will be China’s search engine called Baidu. You can bet that any telecom stuff that Google was planning on doing in China, will probably suffer as well.

The real story though, is the whole concept of a mega corporation like Google, taking on a super power like China? Thomas Ricks was pretty intrigued by the concept as well. Time to break out the pre-Westphalia rule book, and start implementing cyber privateer hacking to go after these state sponsored hackers. –Matt

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Security specialist ‘has evidence of Chinese attack on Google’

A US computer expert says he has found the ‘digital fingerprints’ of Chinese authors on the tools used to launch recent attacks against Google

By Claudine Beaumont, Technology Editor20 Jan 2010

Joe Stewart, a security specialist with SecureWorks in the US, told the New York Times that he had analysed the software used to attack Google, and found that the main program used by the hackers contained a module based on an algorithm that appeared in a Chinese technical document that has been published exclusively on Chinese-language websites.

Google last week announced that the accounts of human rights activists and political dissidents had been hacked, and that it believed the attacks had originated from China. However, details about the precise nature of the attacks were not revealed, although security experts broadly agreed that Google was probably correct in its suspicions.

It is thought that a Trojan virus, known as Hydraq, was responsible for opening a “back door” in to compromised computers, which could then be used by hackers to access and take control of a machine without the owner’s permission or knowledge.

Stewart uses a method known as a “reverse engineering” to unravel malicious software, viruses and Trojans to identify how and where they originated. He looks for patterns in the code, and for unusual algorithms used by hackers to error-check transmitted data.

However, Stewart said that he could not rule out the possibility that the programmers behind the Google hack had laid a false trail that pointed to Chinese involvement in order to disguise the fact they originated from another country or government.

“But Occam’s Razor suggests that the simplest explanation is probably the best one,” he told the New York Times.

Story here.

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Hackers create opportunity for military firms

Attacks on Google boost the market for cyber-security just as government weapons spending is expected to slow. Military firms are retooling for rising demand by corporations as well as government.

By W.J. Hennigan

January 19, 2010

For U.S. military firms, the latest revelations of highly sophisticated hacker attacks on Google Inc. are highlighting a new reality, and a potentially lucrative business: The battlefield is shifting to cyberspace.

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