But this is news to some of the Fox watching red neck members of TV, who wear their bias' so obviously on their sleeves

Let's face it its not the worse that has been done, inviting the Taliban to a Texas BBQ must rank far worse than involving commie Chinese in some military exercises

Congrats on the classy and intelligent forum behavior.

Recently Three Chinese Warships, a helicopter carrier and two frigates visited the Royal Navy's base at Portsmouth.

Whoa folks, please take a chill pill. This is not a surprise and NOT new. There is no conspiracy and was expected.

The Chinese had observer status last year. In 2014, the USA invited China to participate in the humanitarian and civil assistance (HCA) portion of the exercise, where 17 members of the PLA assisted in the building of a school in northern Thailand and participated in the exercises civic health engagement events.

Why this is a surprise is beyond me. The Chinese participated in the far more extensive and longer RIMPAC exercise in Hawaii last year.

Cobra Gold's 2015 focus will be on humanitarian relief preparation and to a lesser extent anti piracy training. It is to be expected that the Chinese would participate as the recent events involving the loss of the Air Asia and Malaysian airline airplanes underlined the need to co-ordinate search and rescue resources.

By the way, the US navy and Chinese navy have had a few joint anti piracy training exercises in the Gulf of Aden over the past few years.

Why is it such a shock when navies undertake peaceful training exercises? How else do people expect them to work together when a crisis arises?

Fair enough, but the timing is obviously political, the abrupt cancellation (above post), and Thailand and China already have separate training programs.

It's clearly a crude move to signal to the US that China is a suitor too, so they better shape up. Not a good move, and also the Japanese won't like it. The Africans also were happy to see the Chinese at first instead of having those European hypocrits lecture them. If you want business as usual where the rich get bribed to sell out their own countrymen, the Chinese will be great for that.

Having been involved with the Cobra Gold and Cope Tiger exercises for a number of years I know this not to be the case. Do you think a country has a quick get together and invites neighbors to a bbq or something? The exercise and participants have been scheduled since last year. At least a year prior to that the governments had to talk about the participation.

The US has held numerous exercise over the years with China and for that matter many other countries.

Not everything is a conspiracy theory guys.

Read my first post in this thread and the article "war games" in the news section of the BP. From the way it's written, they're certainly springing a surprise on the Americans, and of course it's meant to convey a message.

You are completely wrong. I guess you believe your assumptions and speculations trump my first hand experience in the military exercises in question. I also guess your assumptions trump my actual setup and participation in said events. I am wrong.

The reason it was advertised its current news taking place right now.

But please don't listen to me I just read news and speculate on conspiracies....

In which country don't have human rights, and US exits, China will make close friendship and they will enter. It is good time for Thailand to demand few billion $$$ and ditch Chinese later. China pumps money in the African countries in backdoor. They are funding the countries have natural resources which don't have any democracy and building palaces for the human right abusers and dictators and supplying arms to them keep the power. It is one of the Chinese tactics to keep their dominance. They are going to build a railway all the way from China to Thailand to pump their goods. They were good friends of Burma in the past, and after Burma waked up they are not friends of Chinese anymore. Because China wants failed states to improve their economy. If you are successful country they cannot make business with you, because people choose the government who create the local jobs for them, which reduced Chinese dependance. Pakistan takes $$$ billions from US for fighting against Taliban, but basically they are using it to pay for China bank dept they borrowed, because they don't produce anything in their country and fully dependent on China. And they have plenty of dept from China and paying back as interest amounts to borrow more goods. If coup Government continues here for 10 years, Thailand will face same fate, because China is planning to build ports and Railway in Thailand with the same type of financial mechanism which will trap any country in unrecoverable dept traps. It is one of their tactics in US dominance, because they have plenty of US$ in foreign reserves and they want to invest for the better fortune by making friends with human rights abused countries.

you got to be kidding right?

why don't we just invite the North Koreans while we are at it.

i wonder if the Thais cleared this with the US military before inviting the commies and their "disaster relief and peoples support exercises" bulls*it?

"we" ?

you hold Thai citizenship?

"We" in this case also refers to the United States, which is the major organizer behind Cobra Gold. So, yes, "we," meaning American citizens, certainly do have a right to question the appropriateness of Chinese participation--even if it was authorized by both the Thais and the US.

And this ^^^^^ in a nutshell lays out the tragic flaw inherent in American Exceptionalist geopolitical theory.

More to come, I expect.

you got to be kidding right?

why don't we just invite the North Koreans while we are at it.

i wonder if the Thais cleared this with the US military before inviting the commies and their "disaster relief and peoples support exercises" bulls*it?

"we" ?

you hold Thai citizenship?

"We" in this case also refers to the United States, which is the major organizer behind Cobra Gold. So, yes, "we," meaning American citizens, certainly do have a right to question the appropriateness of Chinese participation--even if it was authorized by both the Thais and the US.

Didn't realise that The US now had sovereignty over Thailand.

But this is news to some of the Fox watching red neck members of TV, who wear their bias' so obviously on their sleeves

Let's face it its not the worse that has been done, inviting the Taliban to a Texas BBQ must rank far worse than involving commie Chinese in some military exercises

Congrats on the classy and intelligent forum behavior.

But it is a valid point.

Whoa folks, please take a chill pill. This is not a surprise and NOT new. There is no conspiracy and was expected.

The Chinese had observer status last year. In 2014, the USA invited China to participate in the humanitarian and civil assistance (HCA) portion of the exercise, where 17 members of the PLA assisted in the building of a school in northern Thailand and participated in the exercises civic health engagement events.

Why this is a surprise is beyond me. The Chinese participated in the far more extensive and longer RIMPAC exercise in Hawaii last year.

Cobra Gold's 2015 focus will be on humanitarian relief preparation and to a lesser extent anti piracy training. It is to be expected that the Chinese would participate as the recent events involving the loss of the Air Asia and Malaysian airline airplanes underlined the need to co-ordinate search and rescue resources.

By the way, the US navy and Chinese navy have had a few joint anti piracy training exercises in the Gulf of Aden over the past few years.

Why is it such a shock when navies undertake peaceful training exercises? How else do people expect them to work together when a crisis arises?

Fair enough, but the timing is obviously political, the abrupt cancellation (above post), and Thailand and China already have separate training programs.

It's clearly a crude move to signal to the US that China is a suitor too, so they better shape up. Not a good move, and also the Japanese won't like it. The Africans also were happy to see the Chinese at first instead of having those European hypocrits lecture them. If you want business as usual where the rich get bribed to sell out their own countrymen, the Chinese will be great for that.

Having been involved with the Cobra Gold and Cope Tiger exercises for a number of years I know this not to be the case. Do you think a country has a quick get together and invites neighbors to a bbq or something? The exercise and participants have been scheduled since last year. At least a year prior to that the governments had to talk about the participation.

The US has held numerous exercise over the years with China and for that matter many other countries.

Not everything is a conspiracy theory guys.

But this is news to some of the Fox watching red neck members of TV, who wear their bias' so obviously on their sleeves

Let's face it its not the worse that has been done, inviting the Taliban to a Texas BBQ must rank far worse than involving commie Chinese in some military exercises

It would be more likely that American diplomats would invite them to a nice Southern US barbecue with slow bbq pork.

An off topic post has been removed.

Whoa folks, please take a chill pill. This is not a surprise and NOT new. There is no conspiracy and was expected.

The Chinese had observer status last year. In 2014, the USA invited China to participate in the humanitarian and civil assistance (HCA) portion of the exercise, where 17 members of the PLA assisted in the building of a school in northern Thailand and participated in the exercises civic health engagement events.

Why this is a surprise is beyond me. The Chinese participated in the far more extensive and longer RIMPAC exercise in Hawaii last year.
Cobra Gold's 2015 focus will be on humanitarian relief preparation and to a lesser extent anti piracy training. It is to be expected that the Chinese would participate as the recent events involving the loss of the Air Asia and Malaysian airline airplanes underlined the need to co-ordinate search and rescue resources.

By the way, the US navy and Chinese navy have had a few joint anti piracy training exercises in the Gulf of Aden over the past few years.
Why is it such a shock when navies undertake peaceful training exercises? How else do people expect them to work together when a crisis arises?

Fair enough, but the timing is obviously political, the abrupt cancellation (above post), and Thailand and China already have separate training programs.

It's clearly a crude move to signal to the US that China is a suitor too, so they better shape up. Not a good move, and also the Japanese won't like it. The Africans also were happy to see the Chinese at first instead of having those European hypocrits lecture them. If you want business as usual where the rich get bribed to sell out their own countrymen, the Chinese will be great for that.

Having been involved with the Cobra Gold and Cope Tiger exercises for a number of years I know this not to be the case. Do you think a country has a quick get together and invites neighbors to a bbq or something? The exercise and participants have been scheduled since last year. At least a year prior to that the governments had to talk about the participation.

The US has held numerous exercise over the years with China and for that matter many other countries.

Not everything is a conspiracy theory guys.

But this is news to some of the Fox watching red neck members of TV, who wear their bias' so obviously on their sleeves

Let's face it its not the worse that has been done, inviting the Taliban to a Texas BBQ must rank far worse than involving commie Chinese in some military exercises

It would be more likely that American diplomats would invite them to a nice Southern US barbecue with slow bbq pork.

Actually go and check your facts, what I stated was not a jest, it really happened, Unocal pipelines etc etc

Recently Three Chinese Warships, a helicopter carrier and two frigates visited the Royal Navy's base at Portsmouth.

. . . . and don't they have one of their diplomatic Panda shacked up somewhere in the London Zoo ;-?

"They work differently." would be an understatement.

The Dulles doctrine (just so, so . . . . I dunno so "Princeton 1955"?) and the USA's geopolitics still run on that plan.

Yes indeed. The Chinese DO work differently.

We might not like it but it's definitely time "we" got it:.

The Chinese DO work differently.

But this is news to some of the Fox watching red neck members of TV, who wear their bias' so obviously on their sleeves

Let's face it its not the worse that has been done, inviting the Taliban to a Texas BBQ must rank far worse than involving commie Chinese in some military exercises

Congrats on the classy and intelligent forum behavior.

Thanks very much, I am glad you seen the truth in the observations, although made very much in cheek the observations are drawn from reality as the FOX mindset is very prevalent on TV

But this is news to some of the Fox watching red neck members of TV, who wear their bias' so obviously on their sleeves

Let's face it its not the worse that has been done, inviting the Taliban to a Texas BBQ must rank far worse than involving commie Chinese in some military exercises

Congrats on the classy and intelligent forum behavior.

But it is a valid point.

There IS a point to that post? I mean in terms of actual substance? I honestly don't see it. He quotes me but doesn't address anything I said, it's just childish goading. As soon as you disagree with someone here, the baseless accusations and insults start flying.

But this is news to some of the Fox watching red neck members of TV, who wear their bias' so obviously on their sleeves

Let's face it its not the worse that has been done, inviting the Taliban to a Texas BBQ must rank far worse than involving commie Chinese in some military exercises

Congrats on the classy and intelligent forum behavior.

But it is a valid point.

There IS a point to that post? I mean in terms of actual substance? I honestly don't see it. He quotes me but doesn't address anything I said, it's just childish goading. As soon as you disagree with someone here, the baseless accusations and insults start flying.

What point where you trying to make ? All I saw in your post was a very poor attempt at sarcasm

I think the Chinese read the story about the Trojan horse.......

We in the West always want to be friends with our enemies , they just put out their hands and say "Thank You" as it makes it that much easier to steal our secrets......

I wonder what will "go missing" in this exercise ?

But this is news to some of the Fox watching red neck members of TV, who wear their bias' so obviously on their sleeves

Let's face it its not the worse that has been done, inviting the Taliban to a Texas BBQ must rank far worse than involving commie Chinese in some military exercises

Congrats on the classy and intelligent forum behavior.

But it is a valid point.

There IS a point to that post? I mean in terms of actual substance? I honestly don't see it. He quotes me but doesn't address anything I said, it's just childish goading. As soon as you disagree with someone here, the baseless accusations and insults start flying.

Yes there IS a point to this post.

And that point IS that "we" HAVE in the past and still DO use what we have to to get what we want at specific points in the course of the great chess game called geopolitics.

He pointed out an inconvenient truth.

There ARE photos and there IS a written, recorded record of these facts.

He's not necessarily disagreeing with you.

His FACTS are.

You seem to have a problem with FACTS.

I don't think it matters who is involved. The Chinese maybe flexing their muscles somewhat, but I think it will be constructing a school or something like that.

Take a chill pill folks!

Yeah, you know, like the Peace Corps does ;-)

But this is news to some of the Fox watching red neck members of TV, who wear their bias' so obviously on their sleeves

Let's face it its not the worse that has been done, inviting the Taliban to a Texas BBQ must rank far worse than involving commie Chinese in some military exercises

Congrats on the classy and intelligent forum behavior.

But it is a valid point.

There IS a point to that post? I mean in terms of actual substance? I honestly don't see it. He quotes me but doesn't address anything I said, it's just childish goading. As soon as you disagree with someone here, the baseless accusations and insults start flying.

Yes there IS a point to this post.
And that point IS that "we" HAVE in the past and still DO use what we have to to get what we want at specific points in the course of the great chess game called geopolitics.
He pointed out an inconvenient truth.
There ARE photos and there IS a written, recorded record of these facts.

He's not necessarily disagreeing with you.
His FACTS are.

You seem to have a problem with FACTS.

Probably a Huckabee supporter.

But this is news to some of the Fox watching red neck members of TV, who wear their bias' so obviously on their sleeves

Let's face it its not the worse that has been done, inviting the Taliban to a Texas BBQ must rank far worse than involving commie Chinese in some military exercises

Congrats on the classy and intelligent forum behavior.

But it is a valid point.

There IS a point to that post? I mean in terms of actual substance? I honestly don't see it. He quotes me but doesn't address anything I said, it's just childish goading. As soon as you disagree with someone here, the baseless accusations and insults start flying.

Yes there IS a point to this post.
And that point IS that "we" HAVE in the past and still DO use what we have to to get what we want at specific points in the course of the great chess game called geopolitics.
He pointed out an inconvenient truth.
There ARE photos and there IS a written, recorded record of these facts.

He's not necessarily disagreeing with you.
His FACTS are.

You seem to have a problem with FACTS.

Probably a Huckabee supporter.

The only facts are those things we find in scripture.

BTW, those of you familiar with my posts won't be one bit surprised to learn that I run with "those who think that the Son of Gawd" may have been closer to 13th disciple Mary Magdalene than it would be comfortable for Rome to admit.

Makes sense.
Charismatic politicos get a lot of (well) action.
Some even marry their "activists".

Or, maybe I'm wrong (it happens;-) and our Lord and Saviour just liked hanging out with the guys.

Kinda like "changing water into wine."

you got to be kidding right?

why don't we just invite the North Koreans while we are at it.

i wonder if the Thais cleared this with the US military before inviting the commies and their "disaster relief and people’s support exercises" bulls*it?

Commies?? Wow, someone grew up in the 50s, didn't they. If you knew anything about Marxism you'd know that the Chinese are communists in name only. In fact, they 'out-capitalist' the Americans in some ways. The US and China are not competing on ideological grounds: it's all about trade pacts, currency pegs, market subsidies, and other such less interesting stuff...

Whoa folks, please take a chill pill. This is not a surprise and NOT new. There is no conspiracy and was expected.

The Chinese had observer status last year. In 2014, the USA invited China to participate in the humanitarian and civil assistance (HCA) portion of the exercise, where 17 members of the PLA assisted in the building of a school in northern Thailand and participated in the exercises civic health engagement events.

Why this is a surprise is beyond me. The Chinese participated in the far more extensive and longer RIMPAC exercise in Hawaii last year.

Cobra Gold's 2015 focus will be on humanitarian relief preparation and to a lesser extent anti piracy training. It is to be expected that the Chinese would participate as the recent events involving the loss of the Air Asia and Malaysian airline airplanes underlined the need to co-ordinate search and rescue resources.

By the way, the US navy and Chinese navy have had a few joint anti piracy training exercises in the Gulf of Aden over the past few years.

Why is it such a shock when navies undertake peaceful training exercises? How else do people expect them to work together when a crisis arises?

Fair enough, but the timing is obviously political, the abrupt cancellation (above post), and Thailand and China already have separate training programs.

It's clearly a crude move to signal to the US that China is a suitor too, so they better shape up. Not a good move, and also the Japanese won't like it. The Africans also were happy to see the Chinese at first instead of having those European hypocrits lecture them. If you want business as usual where the rich get bribed to sell out their own countrymen, the Chinese will be great for that.

I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but as the USA is the underwriter of the event, i.e. is paying most of the expenses, the USA has the final say on who participates. It was the USA who invited China in 2014 and it again is the USA who formally invited China again this year. There is a strict US law governing US-Chinese military relations and the Chinese participation was planned long ago because permission had to be obtained within the US DoD to invite China.

How many times does it have to be said, the invitation came from the USA not Thailand.

Nation multimedia sure does like to see a crisis when there is none, even if it means spinning the facts. Let's go back to 2012. Remember this headline?

Thailand upstaged at Cobra Gold -The Nation October 24, 2012

By inviting Myanmar to join the annual military exercise, the US has signalled it has a new No 1 partner in Southeast Asia

you got to be kidding right?

why don't we just invite the North Koreans while we are at it.

i wonder if the Thais cleared this with the US military before inviting the commies and their "disaster relief and people’s support exercises" bulls*it?

Commies?? Wow, someone grew up in the 50s, didn't they. If you knew anything about Marxism you'd know that the Chinese are communists in name only. In fact, they 'out-capitalist' the Americans in some ways. The US and China are not competing on ideological grounds: it's all about trade pacts, currency pegs, market subsidies, and other such less interesting stuff...

Yeah. Don't you just love it ?

Another one I really like is Chicom (sounds like chai-calm)

The use of THIS term somehow implies intimate connections with US intelligence ;-)

Like some kind of insider term

Buddy of mine loves trying to squeeze this and other nut-bar agitprop shorthand into conversations as if they were household words.

They're NOT.

I will OPINE here that this whole jingoist, 'markin schtick emanates from an equally INTENDED confusion of the political system "Communism" (an ECONOMIC system) with "Capitalism" (a POLITICAL system)

The resultant confusion was further consecrated by econo-psychoths and Assbergers autistics like Milton Friedman.

The resultant Confusion was intended to polarize the geopolitical landscape.

For people incapable of independent thought it did just that.

Well when some of the armed factions that the U.S.A. has backed over the years that have subsequently later turned upon them having the Chinese armed forces at their elbow can't be such a novel idea.

At least they (the U.S.A. military) will know where they stand unlike experiences with other past alliances.

I think the Chinese read the story about the Trojan horse.......

We in the West always want to be friends with our enemies , they just put out their hands and say "Thank You" as it makes it that much easier to steal our secrets......

I wonder what will "go missing" in this exercise ?

Oh we needn't worry about the Chinese stealing any military secrets during Cobra Gold.

"Other" (cough) countries, one in particular seems to be in the news as regular" borrowers" of American technology. Well, actually they have been known to use their special relationship status to "buy" certain hardware with express purpose of flipping it over to China.

http://defensetech.org/2013/12/24/report-israel-passes-u-s-military-technology-to-china/

So it must be (like) ok.

The US should not join, stop this bullsh*t !

Send an email to Obama and complain then. You won't get far on Thai Visa.

If you missed it the Chinese have already participated in Cobra Gold.

See this thread post #14 by Geriatric Kid for information.

you got to be kidding right?

why don't we just invite the North Koreans while we are at it.

i wonder if the Thais cleared this with the US military before inviting the commies and their "disaster relief and people’s support exercises" bulls*it?

-----------------------------

Why do you suppose the Thais determine who participates in Cobra Gold?

And, for the U.S. it is an important thing to see the Chinese Army in action, and how they perform .... logistics, co-ordination. and overall efficency.

Believe me. Cobra Gold is not just about displaying the U.S. military, it's also about observing how the foriegn partners perform thier part in the exercise.

And I'm quite sure the U.S. will be quite interested in seeing how efficiently the Chinese army does or does not perform.

The exercise is held in Thailand so I am sure that Thailand can invite any of her friends she likes. Wasn't the U.S pulling out of the exercise anyway.

No, Thailand cannot do so. It is a US-Thai co-sponsored exercise with multinational participation. https://www.facebook.com/ExerciseCobraGold

you got to be kidding right?

why don't we just invite the North Koreans while we are at it.

i wonder if the Thais cleared this with the US military before inviting the commies and their "disaster relief and peoples support exercises" bulls*it?

"we" ?

you hold Thai citizenship?

"We" in this case also refers to the United States, which is the major organizer behind Cobra Gold. So, yes, "we," meaning American citizens, certainly do have a right to question the appropriateness of Chinese participation--even if it was authorized by both the Thais and the US.

Didn't realise that The US now had sovereignty over Thailand.

Not over Thailand but over Cobra Gold it most certainly does. Without the US, there is NO Cobra Gold. Remember, the Thais were worried that the US would move Cobra Gold to the Philippines or Australia. That tells you all you need to know about who is in charge.

So thanks to Obama the World loses another ally against Chinese expansion plans?

I LIKE IT !! All the hostile powers have a big practice fight and then plan one huge simulated fight each year and the winner gets to lord over all the others for a year. Winner gets to call others "anti democratic" or "anti Party" or "be pro sustainability" or whatever whole year.

In the world of strange, I vote this story near top for the new year, at least.