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China Rising, America Sleeping
Thomas Woodrow
August 1, 2002
The recent release of two U.S. government studies on
China--the Pentagon's annual report of Chinese
military strength, and the findings of the
Congressional U.S.-China Security Review
Commission--should come as a wake-up call to those who
craft U.S. China policy. Many of those who are engaged
in China policy or who invest there remain blithely
ignorant of Chinese goals to replace the United States
as the reigning world power. This is especially true
of those who continue to pour billions of dollars of
investment into the Chinese fata morgana of future
profit. These two studies make it quite clear that the
PRC is rapidly emerging as a future threat to U.S.
political and economic aspirations.
FROM THE PENTAGON
The Pentagon report, reportedly delayed for a year due
to concerns of "offending" the sensitivities of PRC
leadership, states that Chinese military doctrine has
been retooled to focus on surprise attack and "shock
effect in the opening phase of a campaign." Basically,
China is developing a blitzkrieg strategy to use
against Taiwan. Armed with state-of-the-art air, naval
and missile technology, Beijing hopes to take Taiwan
out of the fight before the United States can come to
Taipei's assistance, thereby in one fell swoop
irrevocably altering the balance of power in Asia. The
Chinese, after all, believe the twenty-first century
is theirs by right.
This report details how China is developing new
classes of long-range and regional nuclear missiles
and short-range conventional missiles. It is becoming
increasingly clear that all this development--the
long-range ICBMs, the medium-range nuclear missiles
and the hundreds of shorter-range conventional
missiles--is part of China's strategy as it seeks to
expand its sphere of influence in East and South Asia.
These missiles likely would be postured and/or used in
an effort to deter the United States from military
action to defend Taiwan, and, in the future, possibly
Japan. For example, the Pentagon notes that four new
classes of long-range nuclear ballistic missiles are
under development at a time when Russia and America
are drawing down their own nuclear forces.
Beijing is also deploying hundreds of shorter-range
conventional missiles--the CSS-6 and CSS-7 classes--on
the coasts opposite Taiwan. According to the Pentagon
report, the later versions of these are highly
accurate thanks to satellite-guidance improvements.
Such missiles could not only be used against Taiwan's
cities, ports and military installations in a leading
edge surprise attack, but conceivably could be
targeted against U.S. naval forces in the region.
These nonnuclear armed missiles also have the
capability to launch against American bases in
Okinawa. This is politically important in that it
undermines the U.S. regional nuclear deterrent in the
event of a Taiwan conflict. China is also developing
land-attack cruise missiles that theoretically would
be able to penetrate ballistic missile defenses.
China is also improving its capability to conduct
anticarrier warfare. The DoD report states that "Beijing's
military training exercises increasingly focus on the
United States as an adversary." The purchase of modern
Russian Kilo submarines and Sovremennyy destroyers
dramatically improves China's ability to fight a
modern high-tech war in a limited littoral area such
as the Taiwan Straits. Beijing plans to produce the
even more advanced Type 093 nuclear attack submarine.
China has also made rapid advances in land-based and
space surveillance systems: "Over-the-horizon radar
will enhance [China's] ability to detect, monitor and
target naval activity in the Western Pacific." In
other words, U.S. carrier battle groups.
Other PLA high-technology investments include laser
weapons, high-tech missiles and anti-aircraft missiles,
information, electronic warfare, and the internet as a
tool to sabotage enemy communications. The list of
Chinese military advances goes on and on. One can only
imagine what was included in the original draft.
FROM THE CONGRESSIONAL COMMISSION
The report of the Congressional Commission, by
contrast, examines overall Chinese strategic and
economic advances to the United States. Among other
things, it notes continuing Chinese exports of
missiles and nuclear materials to terrorist-sponsoring
nations as "an increasing threat to U.S. security
interests in the Middle East and Asia in particular."
Although China has promised time and time again to
halt such sales, "it has not kept its word." That is
putting it mildly. What in fact happens, and what has
occurred repeatedly over the past ten years, is that
when Beijing gets caught in a lie over exports of such
materials to Pakistan, Iran or other nations, U.S.
business groups put pressure on Washington not to
sanction China, and the administration issues a solemn
statement that, this time, Beijing really, really
promises to keep its word. Repeat as necessary. This
continuing lack of U.S. resolve and credibility in
Chinese eyes has allowed Beijing to turn Pakistan and
Iran into nuclear or near-nuclear states. Should
terror groups detonate a nuclear device on American
soil, that device will almost certainly have come from
Chinese technology fed through Pakistan or Iran.
The U.S.-China Security Review Commission also looked
at Chinese economic development as a strategic weapon.
America's huge trade deficit with China is unlikely to
ease and instead will get worse as China continues to
break the promises it made in order to enter the World
Trade Organization (WTO). No longer a producer of toys,
Chinese economic expansion is on the verge of
cornering the market in several critical segments,
especially computer technology. According to the study,
"the increasing transfers of U.S. research and
manufacturing facilities to China could have a
negative impact on the strength of our technological
and industrial base as well as the relative military
strengths of the two countries," and could "undermine
the U.S. defense industrial base."
Indeed, both Microsoft and Intel recently signed huge
deals to build cutting-edge facilities in China to
develop and produce advanced generation computer
technology. Microsoft and Intel won't really own these
plants. The Chinese government will. Beijing will have
the final say on what gets produced and whether the
plants remain operating under joint-venture auspices.
This grants the Communist leadership in Beijing
incredible leverage over multinationals, leverage that
can be, and has been, translated into intense lobbying
to appease China on a variety of issues.
China is already breaking its WTO promises barely
after the ink has dried on the pages. In the wake of
Chinese foot-dragging on allowing imports of U.S. corn,
wheat, cotton, rice, vegetable oil, pork, beef,
poultry and computer chips, among other things, chief
U.S. negotiator Allen Johnson was recently reduced to
stating the obvious: "There's a growing concern over
implementation of China's WTO obligations." In fact,
China may have no intention of abiding by many of its
WTO obligations. Beijing has progressed quite nicely
for years by promising Washington to abide by weapons
export agreements, only to break them time and again
without penalty, so why shouldn't China be able to
pull the same trick on WTO? By the time America wakes
up to the fact that it has been bamboozled, China will
have the world's most rapidly advancing economy, will
be able to hold trillions of dollars of U.S.
investment hostage, and won't really care what America
thinks. The long-term strategic impact of rebasing
U.S. technology development capability inside China
has yet to be appreciated by those rushing to invest
in China.
CARPE DIEM
Both the Pentagon and the Congressional Commission
reports signal that the days when America could look
condescendingly at China are long gone. American
policy toward China is still affected by the long out
of date anti-Soviet Cold War relationship and vain
lingering hopes that China will eventually transform
into a peaceful democracy and become a force for
stability in Asia. Unfortunately for America and much
of the world, Chinese economic growth is occurring
against the backdrop of a concomitant growth of
Chinese nationalism, while at the same time the
Communist Party is proving increasingly unable to
solve its own contradictions, like rampant corruption,
or provide real leadership to solve China's many
social ills. Both reports provide new details about
the degree to which China's leadership is masking its
weakness with recourse to military adventurism. As
such they have done a considerable service to inform a
realistic debate about U.S. relations with China.
Thomas Woodrow was a senior China analyst at the
Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington DC.
Copyright (c) 1983-2002 The Jamestown Foundation.
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