Posted on 07/19/2005 8:30:49 PM PDT by Flavius
China's rapidly modernising military could pose a long-term threat to other regional armed forces but its ability to project conventional power beyond its borders remains limited, the Pentagon said.
In its long-awaited annual report, the Pentagon said Beijing's military build-up has already begun to put the regional balance at risk.
It also concluded that China does not now possess the military capability to attack Taiwan.
It described China as being at a strategic crossroads that could lead down three paths but "not yet set immutably on one course or another".
One path is peaceful integration and benign competition in the world or China would exert dominant influence in an expanding sphere.
A third path sees China as a less confident, inward-looking state focused on challenges to national unity and the Chinese Communist Party's claim to legitimacy.
"Questions remain about the basic choices China's leaders will make as China's power and influence grow, particularly its military power," the report said.
The Pentagon has been raising alarms over China's military modernisation for several years.
The annual report, always controversial, is the focus of even more attention this year because of increasingly vocal concerns in Washington over China's trade, currency and proliferation trends, as well as the military build-up.
It went through considerable vetting by US agencies besides the Pentagon and included the personal involvement of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who in the past often left the task to his deputy, a former administration official said.
"As I see it, China is on a path where they are determined to increase their economy, the opportunities for their people and to enter the world community," Mr Rumsfeld told a news briefing before the report was released.
"They want the (2008) Olympics to go well. They are doing a number of things to leave the world with the impression that they are a good place for investment and a good economic partner."
While US-China ties have improved since 2001 - when a US surveillance plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet off the Chinese coast - the military build-up underscores why Washington opposes European Union military sales to Beijing, he said.
Asked if he saw "gathering clouds" and a threat similar to what Europe faced from Germany in the 1930s, Rumsfeld replied: "I guess the short answer is no."
Could China nuke us?
Not with a missile - but how about with one concealed in a shipping container?
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