From Newsgroup: aus.tv

Funny that in this day and age the ABC still aren't setting up
websites for their new programmes. I watched China Tonight last
night to see what was said about the submarine deal, and wasn't
disappointed with a long and very agressive interview with some
(presumably) Chinese man speaking over video link from a very
exuberantly decorated room (gramaphone in the background on the
left!?).

I missed the introduction and the host didn't mention who the
bloke was at the end, nor did I see it pop up on the screen. So
today I try to look up who it was (probably nobody important, but
the interview and the gramaphone both made me curious) and the
best I can find is the iView page to watch it all again (with no
decent description). Other shows have full transcripts available,
you'd think they'd at least summarise the content of each episode
somewhere online.


While I'm here - the Chinese man was going on about how Australia
would be a target for a nuclear strike (he wasn't saying who from,
of course) once we have nuclear subs. He determinedly ignored the
point that they would be nuclear powered, not nuclear armed. Still
I do suspect that Australia maintaining its own nuclear subs would
make it a quick decision down the track (such as if hostilities
with China increase further) for the US and the UK to base similar
models of their own subs here, but with nukes.

But the main point of nuclear subs is actually a deterrent anyway.
They lurk around the enemy's coastline undetectably so that when
that enemy launches a nuclear strike and sends lot of ICBMs to
knock out all your land-based missile bases at once, because they
know exactly where they are, you can still launch nukes from the
subs in order to hit them back. Properly armed nuclear subs are
supposed to deter the exact threat that bloke was proposing.

He's accidentally making the point that we should be trying to get
Trident nuclear missiles thrown in with the deal. In fact China
is curently working on a new model of its equivalent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JL-3
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