[Watermoon]

If the Chinese Gucci ship is cheap and good quality, well, sorry, I'm not going to buy the Australian or Italian Gucci equipment。
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNew ... 44533.html

[Verv]

Interesting.

One thing that I have heard about is how a lot of Asian companies do anything they can to undercut their Western counterparts in price and promise more though it often ends up in delivering a less than desirable product.

Perhaps the Chinese are doing the same? Perhaps not?

[Igor Antunov]

The Type 062 Shanghai-III class are basic gun patrol boats, sufficient for coastal patrol duties only, as they can only carry enough fuel and supplies for 7 days out at sea. They are well armed for their small size.

Code: Select allType: Fast Attack Craft (Gun)
Displacement (Standard): 113 tons
Displacement (Fully Loaded): 134 tons
Length: 38.8 m
Beam: 5.4 m
Draught: 1.7 m
Main Machinery: 4 x Type L 12-180 diesels; 4,400 hp(m) (3.2 MW) sustained; 4 x shafts
Speed: 30 kt
Range: 800 n miles at 16.5 kt
Complement: 36 (4 officers)
Guns: 4 x 37 mm/Type 63 (2 x twin); 4 x 25 mm/Type 80 (2 x twin) anti-aircraft
Depth Charges: 2 x Throwers; 8 x DCs
Mines: 10
Surface Search: Skin Head/Pot Head; E-band
Sonar Systems: Hull-mounted; active; short range; high frequency. Some reported to have VDS

And he is correct, there is no sense in a fancy, overpriced gun boat, this class of fast attack craft are meant for basic coastal patrol. This is a no-frills, no-nonsense package, ideal for dealing with high-seas piracy, which is what East Timor is most at risk from. He got good bang for his buck.

In future, East Timor should seek to acquire a few anti-ship missile boats. There is talk of Corvette acquisition but I don't think East timor will be able to afford combat ships for some time yet.

[Scartol]

Because naval defense ships are the most important things East Timor needs right now..

[Potemkin]

If Chinese fountain pens are anything to go by, these ships will be cheap, effective and reliable. The Western equivalent of 'Gucci pens' - Montblanc for example - are overpriced pocket jewellery which write like shit. There's a famous incident of a Japanese diplomat taking out his brand new Montblanc pen to sign a document, and it didn't fucking work. His female German counterpart had to hand him her (much cheaper and uglier) Pelikan pen, which of course worked perfectly first time. All of it in front of the world's assembled press.

Chinese fountain pens are almost as good in functional terms as Pelikan pens and cost a fraction of the price. Montblanc pens cost a small fortune and don't fucking write. It's a no-brainer. The same logic undoubtedly applies to military hardware too.

[Scartol]

There's a famous incident of a Japanese diplomat taking out his brand new Montblanc pen to sign a document, and it didn't fucking work. His female German counterpart had to hand him her (much cheaper and uglier) Pelikan pen, which of course worked perfectly first time. All of it in front of the world's assembled press.

As I read this, I thought to myself "This sounds like hogwash and I bet it's a myth or legend and I won't be able to find any evidence of it online" and then a fraction of a second later I found this, mostly because I forgot to switch my Firefox search bar back to Google.

Well played, sir. (hat tip)

[Typhoon]

I like the analogy and for the level of technology Timor is going for it certainly applies since a point and shoot gun-boat from China is going to perform just as well as a point and shoot Gunboat from Europe only the European one will cost many times as much, come with losts of costly and hard to maintain assessories that are not needed and likely with some diplomatic baggage as well.

Chinease ship building has come a long way over the last 20 years and East Timor like Pakistan could happily shop for a competitive frigate or destroyer if it took their fancy, a sign of this confidence is China sending these vessels to the Aden show ground to play with the pirates.

ZHANJIANG, Guangdong, July 30 (Xinhua) -- China's sixth naval escort flotilla departed Wednesday for the Gulf of Aden and Somali waters.

The flotilla with more than 1,000 personnel, including Navy special forces troops, is to relieve the fifth flotilla, which has been cruising the waters off the Somalia coast for more than three months.

The amphibious landing ship Kunlunshan, destroyer Lanzhou, and supply ship Weishanhu of the fifth fleet, will escort vessels sailing through the region.

It is the first deployment of the amphibious landing ship Kunlunshan, with a displacement of 18,500 tonnes, on an escort mission.

The previous five Chinese fleets to the Gulf of Aden have escorted 2,248 Chinese and foreign ships in 213 batches in this region, which has been plagued by pirate attacks, since December 2008

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/c ... 377103.htm



Happy Shopping!

[Smilin' Dave]

Because naval defense ships are the most important things East Timor needs right now..

I vaguely remember reading that East Timor has a slight problem with smugglers, which has knock on effects in terms of law and order issues and the legitimate economy. So it's not a completely ridiculous idea.

[Scartol]

I vaguely remember reading that East Timor has a slight problem with smugglers, which has knock on effects in terms of law and order issues and the legitimate economy. So it's not a completely ridiculous idea.

The problem it has with smugglers isn't imaginary, but it's not 1/100th the problem they have with unemployment, wealth management, infrastructure, and education.

[Potemkin]

The problem it has with smugglers isn't imaginary, but it's not 1/100th the problem they have with unemployment, wealth management, infrastructure, and education.

Which is why they want a relatively cheap solution to their smuggling problem.

[Scartol]

Which is why they want a relatively cheap solution to their smuggling problem.

I suppose.. But I can't help feeling like it's analogous to buying a gun to prevent carjacking when your kid's starving..

[Smilin' Dave]

The problem it has with smugglers isn't imaginary, but it's not 1/100th the problem they have with unemployment, wealth management, infrastructure, and education.

I suppose.. But I can't help feeling like it's analogous to buying a gun to prevent carjacking when your kid's starving.

The child will be in even more dire straits if the father can't get to work because he car was stolen. Similarly the black market undercuts legitimate employers which drives unemployment. The existence of a black market probably boosts corruption, which harms infrastructure projects. Wealth management probably includes getting a square deal with the Australian government, which is hard when Australian naval units can still claim to be fighting smugglers on behalf of the East Timorese government. Speaking of wealth management, if the profits of the black market were used to fuel some of the less legitimate forms of political opposition in East Timor (like the gangs that participated in the 2006 crisis), cutting that off wouldn't be a bad thing either.

The purchase of the ships may also reflect a bit of power politics in itself. IIRC in 2006 one of the issues was political/power divisions between different arms of the military and the police. Perhaps the 'navy' is getting the upper hand, or the government is building up the naval arm to buy some loyalty?

[Scartol]

The child will be in even more dire straits if the father can't get to work because he car was stolen. Similarly the black market undercuts legitimate employers which drives unemployment. The existence of a black market probably boosts corruption, which harms infrastructure projects. Wealth management probably includes getting a square deal with the Australian government, which is hard when Australian naval units can still claim to be fighting smugglers on behalf of the East Timorese government. Speaking of wealth management, if the profits of the black market were used to fuel some of the less legitimate forms of political opposition in East Timor (like the gangs that participated in the 2006 crisis), cutting that off wouldn't be a bad thing either.

I'm sure some of these links exist, but I think the money would be better spent addressing these issues directly, rather than buying naval ships.

The purchase of the ships may also reflect a bit of power politics in itself. IIRC in 2006 one of the issues was political/power divisions between different arms of the military and the police. Perhaps the 'navy' is getting the upper hand, or the government is building up the naval arm to buy some loyalty?

Sure, this makes sense. I can't argue with this. (Although again, I would argue that a lot of the 2006 violence was more directly traceable to unemployment, which could be more effectively addressed through job creation, rather than the circuitous route of combating smuggling.)

[Zerogouki]

The paradox here is that nobody who knows what Gucci is will have ever heard of East Timor, and vice versa.

[Igor Antunov]

Then how is it most of us here know about both?

[Zerogouki]

So far, the OP and I are the only ones who have mentioned Gucci, and the OP doesn't really count because it was a quote from someone else. Your question fails.

[Igor Antunov]

You're the one assuming your so called paradox exists. The onus is on you to provide support for that paradox, your claim.

[Zerogouki]

Only wealthy, airheaded fashion whores like Paris Hilton know what Gucci is, and we all know how much attention they pay to geopolitics.

[Thunderhawk]

Gucci has entered the general vocabulary as meaning a luxury brand. I know of it as such, and I have seen some Gucci products a friend has. I also know of the formerly Portuguese colony of East Timor and their occupation and then independence from Indonesia too.

[Zerogouki]

Gucci has entered the general vocabulary as meaning a luxury brand.

Maybe in Canada... around here, Cadillac and Rolex are still the preferred terms. Fillet Mignon is also used, but less often.