Posted on 08/22/2002 9:38:31 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
Officially, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov's three-day visit to China, which began Wednesday, is about trade -- namely, energy, aviation, transportation, electronics, banking and telecommunications.But the item not on the public agenda is the one worrying Washington and Taipei the most: arms.
Since U.S. President George W. Bush came to power last year, the U.S. defense establishment has taken an increasingly alarmist approach to China's burgeoning defense procurement program, in which Russia, as its main supplier, is playing the leading role.
Washington's growing concern over Beijing's buildup -- and Russia's role in it -- is clearly spelled out in two recent reports, one from the Pentagon and the other sponsored by Congress.
"Despite overwhelming U.S. military and technological superiority, China can still defeat the United States by transforming its weakness into strength and exploiting U.S. vulnerabilities through asymmetric warfare ... deception, surprise and preemptive strikes," concluded the U.S.-China Security Review Commission, which is funded by Congress.
In the addendum to the report, one of the authors, Arthur Waldron, went even further, saying China's buildup is aimed at excluding the United States from Asia and establishing the ability to threaten and coerce neighboring states, ranging from Mongolia to Japan to India.
"With respect to China's proliferation behavior, we have all the evidence we need: China is a major source of advanced weapons to terrorist-sponsoring and other dangerous states. ... Far more work is required, both from the commission and the government on China's role (or lack of it) in international terrorism," Waldron wrote.
"Beijing's close connections to terrorist-sponsoring states provide ample reason for concern. ... Foreign companies helping China's military and security apparatus should be denied any participation in U.S. government procurement or development programs."
The main foreign company helping China's military and security apparatus is Rosoboronexport, which dismisses Washington's concerns.
"I think that Russia is not doing anything illegal by [selling arms to China]," Rosoboronexport chief Andrei Belyaninov said Wednesday. "We are acting within the framework of international law."
Part of the problem, U.S. officials admit, is that they do not have a precise picture of China's military program. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov reportedly signed a protocol with China during his visit there earlier this summer under which all arms deals between the two nations are classified as secret.
Earlier this year, Beijing announced that it would boost its defense spending in 2002 to $20 billion. However, the Pentagon believes that China's actual spending could be as high as $80 billion, which would give it the second largest military budget in the world after the United States.
"Chinese secrecy is extensive. China reveals little in its Defense White Paper about the quantity or quality of its military forces," the Pentagon said in its report, which was commissioned to address the gaps in knowledge about China's military power, its relations with the former Soviet Union, and security in the Taiwan Strait.
The most immediate issue is Taiwan, which China has vowed to bring back under its control since 1949, when 2 million nationalists fled to the island after the communists conquered the mainland.
However, the biggest obstacle to retaking Taiwan by force is the United States military, which China is actively seeking to redress.
The Pentagon report said China's modernization program is primarily in preparation for a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait and is heavily reliant upon Russia.
This year alone, China has ordered two new Project 956EM Sovremenny destroyers for $1.4 billion, eight Kilo submarines for $1.5 billion and S-300F naval air defense systems for $200 million, according to media reports. Also on the table are some 30 Su-30MK2 fighters equipped with X-31A anti-ship missiles.
And just this week, Russia delivered the first 10 of 40 Sukhoi Su-30MKK fighters that China ordered last summer and offered China a license to assemble military helicopters, news agencies said.
The report commissioned by Congress said the acquisition of Su-27s in the 1990s and the purchase of the more modern Su-30MKKs represent a quantum leap for China's air force: "The extended range of the Su-30MKKs would allow [China's] air force to circumnavigate Taiwan and strike lesser-defended facilities on the eastern side of the island. The Su-30MKKs can carry the X-31 supersonic anti-ship missile and pose a greater threat to U.S. vessels."
"What the Chinese military is driving toward is to have a credible deterrent ... to make the U.S. think twice about intervening on Taiwan's behalf," Ilan Berman, vice president for policy at the American Foreign Policy Council think tank in Washington, said by telephone.
"If there is a conflict over Taiwan, both Taiwanese and U.S. forces will be fighting against Russian weapons," said Richard Fisher, a China military expert with the Jamestown Foundation, a conservative think tank with close ties to the Bush administration. "Russia's arms sales to China amount to gasoline on smoking embers. This is simply unacceptable," he said.
"While the Clinton administration chose not to make a public issue of Russian military sales to China, there are some in the Bush administration, especially in the Pentagon, who now want to engage Moscow on the larger costs to Russian security and Asian stability of its military sales to China. This marks the beginning of a real change in U.S. policy," Fisher said.
Like Rosoboronexport, Konstantin Makiyenko, deputy head of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow, dismisses the idea that Russian weapon sales to China are a serious threat to the United States.
"The Chinese cannot threaten Taiwan, yet. ... The only thing [China] can do is pepper Taiwan's economic facilities with missiles," said Makiyenko, who has just completed a report for the U.S. Center for Defense Information on Chinese-Russian military-technical cooperation over the last decade.
"The United States has a problem: It is so far away from everyone else that if it doesn't create a virtual threat the army will be demoralized," Makiyenko said. Virtual or not, the Chinese threat is perceived as very real in the Pentagon and Congressional reports.
"It's very significant that both reports focus on the Russian aspect, because it indicates growing attention on the part of the Bush administration as to where exactly the Chinese are getting the fuel to feed their military fire," said Berman of the American Foreign Policy Council.
The Pentagon said in its report that despite closer ties between the United States and Russia since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Moscow cannot be persuaded to scale down its arms transfers to Beijing.
"It will take something as catastrophic as a Chinese attack on Russian territory before Russia's leaders wake up to the dangers they are creating," Jamestown's Fisher said.
Makiyenko said the government is fully aware of the dangers. "The Defense Ministry is watching closely what the Chinese want to buy and so far have blocked the sale of, for example, MiG-31 long-range interceptors, which China can use to attack us up to the Urals."
But for the United States to convince Russia to curb arms sales to China, "it would have to offer a colossal package of economic incentives, and that is unlikely," Makiyenko said.
Russia manages to engage all major players without antagonizing any at this time. Europe, U.S., Mid-East countries(Iraq, Syria, Iran), China, and probably India. Only Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan may have been alienated. Osama is really the savior of Russia and Putin.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.