This is bizarre. Todays Chosun Ilbo NK section relayed a report (English/Korean) from a certain Hong Kong paper that cited a claim by Canada’s Kanwa Intelligence Review that Kim Jong-il attempted to arrange the import of Chinese fourth generation F-16 ripoffs J-10A fighter aircraft — a damn fine looking bird, if I may say so.
Yes, I chose that piece for translation. And yes, I translated it myself.
Now, Kanwa Intelligence is saying that they made no such claim involving Kim and J-10s:
(Kanwa news) Korean Chosun Daily reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il attempted to negotiate the import of J10 from China during his recent visit to Beijing. The daily said the source was Kanwa Information Center via HK news paper. However, Kanwa has never reported J10 relations with Kim Jong-il. HK press might have mixed Kanwa’s J10A report quoted by Russian TACC news agency with other Kim Jong-il story.
Kanwa
What’s up with that? For the Chinese literate, here’s the Chinese-language version of the Chosun piece, with name of the HK paper in question. If anyone can dredge up the original article, maybe we can get to the bottom of the caper.
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UPDATE: Deflet did a seriously sweet job of getting some answers — check out his work in the comments section.
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Here is a translation of the first paragraph of the Sing Pao report of April 23:
Kim Jong-Il wants to purchase J-10 warplane but Beijing tactfully refuses
Sing Pao Report - According to sources, recently in Beijing the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il expressed to China his desire to purchase the J-10 joint strike multi-functional fighter-bomber. China, however, in consideration of the expanding relationship of economic cooperation between China and South Korea, tactfully declined their guest’s request for this military purchase. Nevertheless, North Korea may still be able to acquire the FC-1 single-seated attack aircraft jointly developed by China and Pakistan.
The second paragrpah of the Sing Pao report is just about the capabilities of the aircraft. Iterestingly, the third paragraph here reads a little like the fourth paragraph of the Chosun Ilbo report. Where has the Chosun’s man in Beijing been getting his stuff? The Sing Pao just says “sources”. So who screwed up and where does that dodgy-looking Kanwa come into it?
I give up. For the moment at least. I have spent some time looking through the online version of
Xianggang Shangbao and have not been able to find anything related to the report in question. This leads me to the following theories.
1. I am stupid.
2. I was looking at the wrong site.
3. The print edition and the internet edition are different.
4. Somebody told somebody else to remove the report. It is pretty obvious that although this is a “Hong Kong” newspaper, its reporting is in the best tradtions of the PRC. It actually belongs to a group of publications in Shenzhen ie. Mainland. If you do a google search you will find that reports lifted from this paper are widely used in other mainland Chinese sites.
Random quote: “Everybody knows that the US does not want to see a unified China.” (from April 1, 2004). Plus lots of pictures of Chinese leaders sipping tea with foreign dignitaries.
If anybody has anything to add, let me know.
Well, OK, maybe I am stupid, but I am not the only one.
Maybe the Xianggang Shangbao did report it, or maybe I misread the Chinese, or whatever, but the article was in the
Sing Pao on April 23
.
This should be my last comment on this for the moment. The name of the newspaper mentioned in the Chinese-language Chosun report (Xianggang Shangbao) and the paper in which I actually found what looks like the original report (Sing Pao, or Cheng Bao in Mandarin) are similar when using Korean pronounciation, ????쨀쨈 and ??짹?쨀쨈. Hong Kong (Xianggang) in the former is part of the name of the newspaper, while in the latter it just would refer to the location of the newspaper and would be put before its name in Chinese and this might have led to the confusion. But then the dates don’t match either, so who knows.
But of course the Sing Pao is a famous Hong Kong daily and the other seems to be the Hong Kong branch of Shenzhen junk.
OK. I think I have cracked it. Here we have this:
Wanwei Reader’s Net: April 28, 2004
Canada’s Kanwa says China to buy engines from Russia for the J-10
(Wanwei Reader’s Net) According to Canada’s Kanwa Intelligence Review, Russia and China this year signed an agreement for the supply of airforce equipment. Russia is to supply China with new AL-31 series engines as well as missiles and weapons systems used by the Su-30MKK. Later Russia will supply China with the Kh31 air-to-sea missile.
According to Xianggang Shangbao, Kanwa said that production of the PLA J-10 will reach a standard production ouptut of 50 planes per year after entering regular production this year. However, due to design problems, installation in the J-10 of the AL31F engine led to an increase in size and weight, resulting in an insufficiency in the strength of the air-intake. Because of this, the joints between the engine and the fuselage needed to be strengthened. Work on this redesign has already started, and the dimensions of the AL31FN has been reduced and the transmission removed.
The J-10A has been developed by Factory 132 in Chengdu, and is considered to have capabilties comparable to those of the F-16 fighters Taiwan purchased from the United States. It has been said that recently when North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was visiting China, he expressed that he wanted to purchase the J-10 but was tactfully refused by China.
All the suspects are here.
According to this report, Kanwa is indeed quoted by Xianggang Shangbao, but with regard to Russian airforce sales to China, including an engine for the J-10.
Further down we just get “it has been reported/said” Kim Jong-Il tried to buy J-10s, but no source is given. That would probably be the Sing Pao report of a few days before.
And then, if someone is not paying attention, it is only a short hop to incorrectly attributing the latter info to the source of the former info.
I am not saying that this particular site is involved, just that the problem probably arose from a report like this.
Convinced?
And for anyone who cares, here is a Chinese report quoting a Russian news service quoting Kanwa on April 27. This is probably what Kanwa was referring to in their little message.
Awesome sleuthing and translating, Deflet.
Chinese papers are browsable via this nifty little online translation tool.
Fascinating. I love it when readers rise to the occassion.
The J-10 isn’t really altogether that hot. It suffers from many of the same problems that a number of Chinese jet knockoffs have - they suck.
For Kim Jong-Il they might be hot enough.