Sinodefence.com cited on newspaper

Yes that's the one that called sinodefence.com a British military intelligence website on PLA matters. We're not going to get more mainland posters if the SDF gets included into the Great Firewall, kind of like the CMF (Chinese Military Forum) getting firewalled because it is believed to be a CIA sponsored site.

Originally Posted by crobato

Yes that's the one that called sinodefence.com a British military intelligence website on PLA matters. We're not going to get more mainland posters if the SDF gets included into the Great Firewall, kind of like the CMF (Chinese Military Forum) getting firewalled because it is believed to be a CIA sponsored site.

I can't see the MSS appreciating this site too much. It's much too open, and even doesn't have a pro-Chinese or massive pro-West bias. However we don't go into politics, so I think we'll survive.

Do you guys think that this forum is read by people at the CIA, State Depatment, Navy, etc. and their Chinese equivalents?

Originally Posted by crobato

Yes that's the one that called sinodefence.com a British military intelligence website on PLA matters. We're not going to get more mainland posters if the SDF gets included into the Great Firewall, kind of like the CMF (Chinese Military Forum) getting firewalled because it is believed to be a CIA sponsored site.

This is bad news indeed. Government scrutiny of a forum rarely contributes much to the content, quite the opposite in fact. It's too bad that Chinese mainland citizens will not be able to participate on this forum. Their valuable input will be sorely missed.

Originally Posted by Finn McCool

I can't see the MSS appreciating this site too much. It's much too open, and even doesn't have a pro-Chinese or massive pro-West bias. However we don't go into politics, so I think we'll survive.

Do you guys think that this forum is read by people at the CIA, State Depatment, Navy, etc. and their Chinese equivalents?

I I don't know who it's read by, but when I did a Google search with the words "military forum" (there were additional search terms but those are the only two I remember inputting that found this place) this site was one of the first four results as of last week. It's amazing this site has not been referenced in newspapers before given its very high ranking on Google. Quite literally you have an Internet search ranking that most Internet marketers would find extremely enviable.

Originally Posted by Finn McCool

I can't see the MSS appreciating this site too much. It's much too open, and even doesn't have a pro-Chinese or massive pro-West bias. However we don't go into politics, so I think we'll survive.

Do you guys think that this forum is read by people at the CIA, State Depatment, Navy, etc. and their Chinese equivalents?

Of course. Not to mention think tanks. Like you can see research papers that are footnoting sinodefence.com, as well as Hui Tong's Chinese Military Aviation. I shudder to think what deep profound political effects that independent, amateur sites like the CDF, SDF and the CMA can do to influence decision making.

If you like to understand the repurcussions, remember when Hui Tong posted that entry for that 737 modded for C3I on his site (and its there again), that almost sparked a US Senate or Congressional investigation.

Originally Posted by Raptoreyes

I I don't know who it's read by, but when I did a Google search with the words "military forum" (there were additional search terms but those are the only two I remember inputting that found this place) this site was one of the first four results as of last week. It's amazing this site has not been referenced in newspapers before given its very high ranking on Google. Quite literally you have an Internet search ranking that most Internet marketers would find extremely enviable.

There are ways to get around it. Basically, its the overseas forum members that are reading into the Chinese websites then posting the material here and on the SDF.

There are some really huge, very commercialized, very slick, military topic and enthusiast websites in China where you can get all sorts of military pics not just of the PLA but of around the world. Its been estimated that these sites are being followed by as many as half a million people.

AFAIK SDF can be accessed from mainland china. This has always been high priority for the whole team and in the very early days of this new forum (defencetalks co-operation) we agreed with Dongfeng that no such posting would be allwed that could harm the SDF accesability in mainland. Thats one of the reasons why we don't allow any political discussion.

We have had few posters from china but it isen't any "great firewall" or other sensorship that makes those posters a rarety. Its far more simple barrier: the language barrier. We are an international forum but due the lack of truly unbiased international language, we are forced to use the only availble language that is roughly speaken around the world, english. This naturally means that the forum is more visible in the areas where english language is predominant, mainly in the "west".
Correct me if i'm wrong but from what I've gathered, english language is not so well spread among the vast majority of the chinese people and that alone basicly narrows the possiple members to rather low numbers.

But to make it very clear to all our members and exspecially to other spectators, we are not linked to any governmental organisations in any country. The owners of this forum, Webmaster and Dongfeng are private indivuduals which both lives in different countries. Mister Dongfeng who also owns the mainsite sinodefence.com runs the site in his freetime and so does everyone else of the moderation/administration team. We are just bunch of military enthusiast who have set a forum to discuss with our interest with eahc others and with anyone that wishes to join us.

Both our main site and this forum are hardly security risks; Dongfeng clearly runs a very tight ship on his end, and on the Forum our biggest concerns are simply ensuring that politics is not discussed and that civility prevails. No one posts classified or even sensitive material, and we do our best to avoid copyright infringements and plagiarism. Quite a few websites in China (and other Asian countries) post material from us, and there have been no problems so far.

The sub photo has been dealt with thoroughly at IMINT and Analysis (http://geimint.blogspot.com/) - all open source - and we're not posting anything that hasn't been posted by dozens, if not hundreds of other sites at least at that. Nor does the Japanese paper AFAIK say that our main site is in any way connected with U.K. intelligence. It is unfortunate that the China Daily News appears to have stated that sinodefence.com is associated with British intelligence; clearly this is an error, and someone either made an error in the translation, or didn't check things properly before going to press.

Its truly a waste to have this fine forum firewalled. I think this website can help people around the world to understand chinese military and its intentions clearer. Many amateur and expat living in China like me rely on this site for daily military news. Has SDF been sited in other major media before these rescent ones?

Alot of Chinese can read english relatively well, especially simple english used in forums. However, they just prefer reading Chinese more than English.

Just curious...how many senior member here are actually mainlander living on the Chinese mainland?

ust curious...how many senior member here are actually mainlander living on the Chinese mainland?

Unfortnatelly none. Thats has been one big pain in our ass for quite while now. Reason is again simple; we hardly have any members from mainland alltogether and the change that some of them fits for the requirements of the "blue order" is even remote. Its just plain and harsh math.

Orginally the vip-membership was preserved for those who actually have had some militaryservice backround but it soon became evident that thohe would mainly be ex-western grunts and reservist like me, popeye, Norfolk, Rommel and so on...Its too homogenious lot so around year back we decided to give the status as "reward" to those who may not have been served but yet proven up to be good posters with good knowlidge and input to the discussions. I'm not entirely aware if there is any mainlanders included but as we attend to do the same thing this christmass also, I hope some one might squeeze in.

Originally Posted by Gollevainen

Unfortnatelly none. Thats has been one big pain [] for quite while now. Reason is again simple; we hardly have any members from mainland alltogether and the change that some of them fits for the requirements of the "blue order" is even remote. Its just plain and harsh math.

Orginally the vip-membership was preserved for those who actually have had some militaryservice backround but it soon became evident that thohe would mainly be ex-western grunts and reservist like me, popeye, Norfolk, Rommel and so on...Its too homogenious lot so around year back we decided to give the status as "reward" to those who may not have been served but yet proven up to be good posters with good knowlidge and input to the discussions. I'm not entirely aware if there is any mainlanders included but as we attend to do the same thing this christmass also, I hope some one might squeeze in.

We need all the fresh blood we can get, especially from China itself. Those of us who are Westerners with military experience or defence industry expertise, can see things that even Chinese cannot about the PLA because there are things that only military people or defence industry professionals can properly grasp or perceive; but we need more Chinese military/ex-military and defence industry types to speak up, when and where they are able to do so without compromising their lawful duties, to give as rounded a picture of the PLA and the world that it perceives around it as possible.

That said, there are some regular posters on this board who are neither current or former military or defence industry who have excellent sense and judgement; and giving them VIP-Status, especially if they are Chinese, may go some way to providing more balance and wider perspective in the Professional Discussion Forums, even on topics that they have no experience with. Some of us current VIP members could stand to learn a lot if challenged by those who do not share our assumptions and we have to explain them to others or re-examine them ourselves.

Your toughts are exactly what we have been thinking up here in the ivory tower

Originally Posted by Norfolk

We need all the fresh blood we can get, especially from China itself. Those of us who are Westerners with military experience or defence industry expertise, can see things that even Chinese cannot about the PLA because there are things that only military people or defence industry professionals can properly grasp or perceive; but we need more Chinese military/ex-military and defence industry types to speak up, when and where they are able to do so without compromising their lawful duties, to give as rounded a picture of the PLA and the world that it perceives around it as possible.

That said, there are some regular posters on this board who are neither current or former military or defence industry who have excellent sense and judgement; and giving them VIP-Status, especially if they are Chinese, may go some way to providing more balance and wider perspective in the Professional Discussion Forums, even on topics that they have no experience with. Some of us current VIP members could stand to learn a lot if challenged by those who do not share our assumptions and we have to explain them to others or re-examine them ourselves.

They also serve well as translators on important posts and topics.
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Nope, there are 3 international languages: Chinese (All dialects counted together), English, and Spanish. English just happen to cover the most area and the richest parts of the world.
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Which newspaper again? World News? (My family reads Singtao, I didn't catch it so far.)

Seems like sinodefence is mentioned on phoenix tv military show tonight, but i am not sure if the specifically say sinodefence forum name in it (i missed that part). anyways they are talking about the revelation of 094 photos and how japanese intelligence is trying to confirm it (old news). I am surprised that the tv show mentioned this so late. If i remember correctly, phoenix tv have shown the picture of 094 on earlier shows....but again i may be wrong.

Well, look at it from a Chinese netizen's point of view. What is the point of reading or posting to SDF? In terms of news, SDF is a secondary source and the primary sources are readily available in Chinese. So the reason to read SDF is for the analysis, if it is worth the extra hassle of reading the English. In terms of posting, what's the point of a Chinese netizen posting to SDF? He has ready access to a huge community of Chinese military fans. These peers are far more like-minded than the people who post on SDF. There are a few that drift by, they post less than a dozen times, get bombarded by opposition and a western worldview, and leave. There is no incentive for them to stay. They're not being paid to improve international understanding and friendship. To try to debate and reconcile fundamental differences in worldview, in a foreign language, with a huge crowd of foreigners is just not worth anything that may be gained from the exchange. Besides, a patriotic Chinese netizen might find it perfidious to provide foreigners with further insight into the Chinese military. Americans wanting to learn more about the US army aren't going to go to a Chinese langauge website to discuss.