Taiwan + Russia's Fighter Jet Engines

choi

(1) Hamish McDonald, Nobody Keen to Answer the Big Taiwan Question. Sydney Morning Herald, Dec 31, 2011 (available now).
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/po ... 20111230-1pfem.html

Quote:

(a) the former NSW (new South Wales) premier Bob "Carr recalled a session in 1999 of the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue, the closed-door private diplomatic initiative run by the then Melbourne businessman Phil Scanlan (now consult-general in New York).

"Richard Armitage, later to be George Bush's deputy secretary of state, talked about the prospect of war over Taiwan and demanded to know what would be Australia's role.

"'Are these people [Americans] nuts?' is how Carr remembers 'the whispered response of all the Australians.'

(b)"Armitage was not mollified. He [Hugh White, the Australian National University strategist] recalled that Armitage 'in his inimitable way literally, not just metaphorically, thumped the table and said that in the event of a US-China conflict over Taiwan we'd expect Australia to be there.' 'And there was a lot of ambivalence in the room amongst the Australians as to whether we would or not,' White said. 'That ambivalence included Coalition ministers.'

(c) "White worries that Julia Gillard's embrace of a tighter defence line-up against China removes a lot of that ambivalence. 'For a decade now Americans have been pressing Australia to clarify its commitment to strategic support for the United States in relation to China,' he said. Now they might assume we have.

Note:
(a) Il Sole 24 Ore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_Sole_24_Ore
(an Itlian business daily based in Milan; established in 1965 as a merger between Il Sole, founded in 1865, and 24 Ore, founded in 1946)

The two masculin nouns sole and ore mean sun and hour, respectively ("hour" in Spanish is "hora"). The 24 ore" means "24 hours."
(b) atmospherics (n):
"1: audible disturbances produced in radio receiving apparatus by atmospheric electrical phenomena (as lightning); also : the electrical phenomena causing these disturbances
2: actions (as official statements) intended to create or suggest a particular atmosphere or mood in politics and especially international relations; also : the mood so created or suggested"
(c) rundown (n): "an item-by-item report or review : SUMMARY")
(d) balloon goes up
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/balloon_goes_up


(2) Make It Work, Do It Fast, Or Else. Strategy Page, Dec 29, 2011.
http://strategypage.com/htmw/htatrit/articles/20111229.aspx

Quote:

"There are currently two Russian engines being built for fighter aircraft. The $3.5 million AL-31 (for the Su-27/30, and the Chinese J-11, and J-10) and the $2.5 million RD-33/93 for the MiG-29 and the Chinese JF-17 (a F-16 type aircraft developed in cooperation with Pakistan). India already assembles the AL-31 engine for the Su-30 and simpler engines for the older MiG-21 and MiG-27.

"So far, India has not been able to develop the technology to manufacture core components (that deal with very high pressures and temperatures) and buys these components from Russia. It is some of these components that are failing and India is telling the Russians that the problem must be fixed, soon, or Russia will lose more weapons export sales.