Rice Visit Aimed at Pacifying Edgy Beijing over US Pacific Buildup

China is getting edgy over a new US military strategy aimed at projecting force around the globe and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice's visit last week was an attempt to calm Beijing down, analysts said.

Rice's trip on Thursday and Friday came as the US military was rolling out an unprecedented deployment of naval power to the Pacific Ocean in what is officially being termed a military exercise, they said.

"It is an unprecedented show of force and a return to gun boat diplomacy," Andrew Tam, a security expert at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore, told AFP.

"The US is sending the message that any threat to peace and stability in Northeast Asia will not be tolerated.

"It is a signal to North Korea, but particularly to the Chinese. The carrier groups are sent as an affirmation of the US support of the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and the current status of Taiwan."

The US navy announced in June that three aircraft carrier battle groups were already in the Pacific and four others were being deployed for the war games called "Summer Pulse 2004."

According to US naval websites, the deployment is a part of the Fleet Response Plan, which is aimed at increasing force preparedness and establishing the ability to immediately provide significant combat power in a crisis anywhere in the world.

It comes with Beijing rattling sabers over Taiwan since pro-independence President Chen Shui-bian was inaugurated for his second term on May 20, and with China due to start this month massive amphibious military exercises on mainland-ruled islands in the Taiwan Straits.

During her visit, Rice reiterated Washington's respect for Beijing's "one China policy" and its opposition to Taiwan independence, while urging China to push forward efforts at resolving the simmering issue over North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

In 1996, the US sent two aircraft carrier groups to the Taiwan Strait after China tested ballistic missiles by lobbing them off shore from Taiwan's major ports.

In the past week, the Chinese press has slammed the US military exercises, with the leading People's Daily outlining a preceived US plan to build up a line of defense in the Western Pacific that starts with Japan and extends down China's coastline through Taiwan and the Philippines.

"The US global strategic review not only again fully exposes a wild ambition for world domination, but at the same time also shows its intent on taking unilateral actions in every part of the world," the paper said.

The China Daily called the US forward deployment in Asia "a hidden menance to peace and stability in the region."

"The US factor in the region will complicate relations between Asia-Pacific powers," it said.

The editorials couple with Beijing demanding an end to US high-tech weapons sales to Taiwan as US concerns over the build up of some 500 ballistic missiles on China's southeastern Fujian province across from Taiwan appear to have fallen on deaf ears.

"Clearly the problem for China is that they have backed themselves in a corner on the Taiwan issue, their strategy on Taiwan has failed (and) they have not been able to isolate Chen Shui-bian," Brad Glosserman, research director of the Pacific Forum of the Center for International Strategic Studies, told AFP.

Beijing's increasingly belligerent attitude toward Taiwan over the last decade has not only been ineffective in bringing the island closer to peaceful reunification, but has pushed it farther toward independence, he said.

"Condoleezza Rice went to assure them that the US policy remains the same, that the United States is against any unilateral change of the status quo in the Taiwan Straits," Glosserman said.

"She also probably told them that they need not be so worried about this (deployment) issue and that they need to come up with a more creative solution on the Taiwan issue."

Seven Carrier Strike Groups Underway for Exercise “Summer Pulse 04”
Story Number: NNS040603-02
Release Date: 6/3/2004 11:40:00 AM

Special release from the U.S. Department of Defense

WASHINGTON (NNS) -- The Department of Defense announced June 2 that this summer, simultaneous deployment of seven aircraft carrier strike groups (CSGs) will demonstrate the ability of the Navy to provide credible combat power across the globe by operating in five theaters with other U.S., allied and coalition military forces.

“Summer Pulse 04” will be the Navy’s first exercise of its new operational construct, the Fleet Response Plan (FRP). FRP is about new ways of operating, training, manning, and maintaining the fleet that results in increased force readiness and the ability to provide significant combat power to the President in response to a national emergency or crisis.

Beginning this week and continuing through August, the Navy will exercise the full range of skills involved in simultaneously deploying and employing carrier strike groups around the world. Summer Pulse 04 will include scheduled deployments, surge operations, joint and international exercises, and other advanced training and port visits.

Under the FRP construct, the Navy can provide six CSGs in less than 30 days to support contingency operations around the globe, and two more CSGs can be ready in three months to reinforce or rotate with initially responding forces, to continue presence operations in other parts of the world, or to support military action in another crisis. Summer Pulse 04 will exercise the logistics and shore infrastructure necessary to execute a large scale surge operation, stress the operational concepts in the Navy’s Sea Power 21 strategy, and improve Navy interoperability with numerous allies and coalition partners, as well as other U.S. military forces.

The seven aircraft carriers involved in Summer Pulse 04 will include: the Norfolk-based USS George Washington (CVN 73) CSG and the San Diego-based USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) CSG, both currently deployed, and Yokosuka, Japan-based USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63). The Mayport, Fla.-based USS John F Kennedy (CV 67) CSG will begin a combined and joint exercise early this month, followed by a scheduled overseas deployment. The Norfolk-based USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) CSG will conduct a scheduled training exercise followed by overseas pulse operations with the Norfolk-based USS Enterprise (CVN 65) CSG, beginning early this month. USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) will conduct operations in the U.S. Northern Command and U.S. Southern Command theaters during the ship’s interfleet transfer from Norfolk, Va., to its Pacific Fleet homeport of San Diego.

The near-simultaneous deployment of seven carrier strike groups provides the Navy and the joint combatant commanders an opportunity to exercise the FRP while maintaining the ability to respond to crises around the globe, enhance regional security and relationships, meet combatant commander requirements including forward presence, and demonstrate a commitment to allies and coalition partners. Summer Pulse 04 is scheduled to conclude in August.

Here's the problem with Taiwan.

We can go to war with seven CBG's attached to the Third and Seventh Fleets.

But we can't get these assets close in to Taiwan because that enters China's littoral area, and Chicom aircraft will be buzzing around like several thousand hornets. They don't have to be the best aircraft on earth, but they do have to have numerical superiority.

What wasn't talked about was the increase in the number of attack subs.

Now that's what makes news. Attack subs could play hell with Chinese convoys.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

Will someone explain why China's two buddies are so often in touch?

Solidarity Message to Cuba

Pyongyang, July 12 (KCNA) -- Choe Thae Bok, chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK, sent a message to Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada, president of the National Assembly of People's Power of Cuba, expressing solidarity with the Cuban people in their struggle against the new sanctions of the U.S. administration against Cuba that have entered into the stage of implementation. Fully supporting the July 1 statement of the National Assembly of People's Power of Cuba, the message strongly denounced once again the U.S. blockade aimed to stifle the Cuban revolution.

With no tough sanctions can the U.S. deter the Cuban people from dynamically advancing along the road of socialism with the firm conviction of victory, rallied close around respected Fidel Castro and the Communist Party of Cuba, the message stressed.

Reiterating full support and invariable solidarity with the Cuban people in their struggle to decisively shatter the new sanctions of the U.S. and defend the cause of socialism to the last, the message reaffirmed that the Korean people would as ever stand firm on the side of the fraternal Cuban people.

DPRK Military Delegation Leaves for China

Pyongyang, July 12 (KCNA) --

A DPRK military delegation led by Vice-Marshal of the Korean People's Army Kim Il Chol, member of the DPRK National Defense Commission and minister of the People's Armed Forces, left here Monday to visit the People's Republic of China. It was seen off at the airport by Vice-Minister of the PAF Kim Sang Ik, KPA Colonel General Pak Sung Won, Lieutenant General Han Tong Gun, and Chinese Ambassador to the DPRK Wu Donghe and staff members of the military attaches office of his embassy.

http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm

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