Posted on 05/30/2004 6:41:42 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
WASHINGTON -- The speed with which U.S. ground forces captured Baghdad and the prominent role played in Iraq by U.S. commandos, have led China to rethink how it could counteract the American military in the event of a confrontation over Taiwan, the Pentagon says.
The Chinese also believe, partly from its assessment of the Bush administration's declared war on terrorism, that the United States is increasingly likely to intervene in a conflict over Taiwan or other Chinese interests, according to the Pentagon analysis.
"Authoritative commentary and speeches by senior officials suggest that U.S. actions over the past decade ... have reinforced fears within the Chinese leadership that the United States would appeal to human rights and humanitarian concerns to intervene, either overtly or covertly," said the Pentagon..
The assessments are in an annual Defense Department report to Congress on Chinese military power. The Pentagon took the unusual step of releasing the report late Saturday night.
The report said China is rethinking the concept that U.S. airpower alone is sufficient to prevail in a conflict - a concept it inferred from the 1999 air war over Kosovo, which involved no U.S. ground forces.
"The speed of coalition ground force advances and the role of special forces in (Iraq) have caused the People's Liberation Army theorists to rethink their assumptions about the value of long-range precision strikes, independent of ground forces, in any Taiwan conflict scenario," the report said.
Other aspects of the Iraq war have reinforced the Chinese belief that the United States' long-range strategy is to dominate Asia by containing the growth of Chinese power, the report said. These include recent Pentagon decisions to base long-range bombers, cruise missiles and nuclear attack submarines to the Pacific island of Guam - moves related in part to the Iraq conflict.
"China's leaders appear to have concluded that the net effect of the U.S.-led campaign (against terrorism) has been further encirclement of China," specifically by placing U.S. military forces in Uzbekistan and other Central Asian nations, and strengthening relations with Pakistan and India, concluded the Pentagon analysis.
Because China's leaders believe their military forces are not yet strong enough to compete directly with the American military, they are putting more emphasis on preventing U.S. intervention first. This includes development of what the Chinese call "assassin's mace" weapons, the Pentagon said.
The report said U.S. officials are not sure what "assassin's mace" is.
"However, the concept appears to include a range of weapon systems and technologies related to information warfare, ballistic and anti-ship cruise missiles, advanced fighters and submarines, counterspace system and air defense," according to the Pentagon.
The report said that while the concept of "assassin's mace" is not new in China, it has appeared more frequently in Chinese professional journals since 1999, particularly in the context of Taiwan, the U.S.-supported island which split from China after its communist takeover in 1949.
Beijing considers Taiwan to be Chinese territory and has threatened to take it by force.
In Beijing on Sunday, officials said President Bush had reassured Chinese officials that Washington will stick to its "one-China policy" toward Taiwan. That long-standing policy says the American government recognizes Beijing as the only legitimate Chinese government, although the United States also has pledged to provide enough defensive equipment to Taiwan to assure its security.
Bush's comments to Chinese President Hu Jintao, released by China's Foreign Ministry, appeared to be an attempt to soothe Beijing's anger over Washington's decision to permit Taiwanese Vice President Annette Lu to stop in two U.S. cities before and after a Latin America tour.
The Pentagon for several years has expressed concern at China's military modernization, especially its emphasis on deploying more shorter-range ballistic missiles that can strike Taiwan.
The latest Pentagon report also said that since it last reported to Congress a year ago, China's imports of armaments have increase by 7 percent in value. These include a $1 billion deal for 24 Russian Su-30 fighter aircraft and $500 million for Russian SA-20 surface-to-air missile systems.
Aaawww, the poor ChiComs feel a bit threatened. Now, they have decided to enter into an arms race with the US. It seems that another communist country tried that and collapsed. I hope that we have the resolve to win another cold war.
Recall, that as you read this MIRVed intercontinental ballistic missiles are aimed at the west coast of the United States - compliments of the First Pervert.
Recall again a famous Communist saying, " The Capitalists will sell us the rope that we will use to hang them."
Have a happy Memorial Day.
Mr. Jiang is reported to have pounded on the table during a New Year's address to the Central Military Commission and demanded that the military provide him with a surprise weapon—"assassin's mace," he called it—to gain an edge over the competition.
http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/09-06-03/international_4.asp
Actually, our long range strategy is to dominate the world, not Asia, by keeping Eurasia divided among numerous important regional powers. The EU, Russia, India, China, and Japan serve nicely. We just don't want any of them to take over any of the others. That is sufficient to make us the "offshore balancer", keep control of the oceans, and basically ensure our security in conventional great power terms. At any given time, we'd like to have 2 of those as allies, as well.
Preventing China from becoming significantly more powerful than Japan, India, or Russia is certainly part of that. Since those other powers also don't want to see themselves eclipsed by China, it is a reasonably popular policy and one we don't exactly have to bend over backwards to impliment. We have no long term strategic interest in China being weaker than any of those three. But if they consistently act in a more hostile manner than all the others, we can certainly develop one.
Hmmm . . . Assassin's mace? . . . A metaphor for sneaky, short, swift -- but conventional -- blows aimed at our own command and control centers . . . Or a reference to some kind of CBR attack? Can't see them succeeding with either, at least in the short term.
the next war ping
or perhaps hiring a "hitter" to engage us elsewhere, making effective interference in ChiCom manoeuvers impossible...?
This is good news. No rational person wants to see a war over Taiwan, with possible use of nuclear weapons against our carrier groups in the area, and before Bush came into office there was a growing likelihood that China was planning exactly that, and in the near future.
I'll bet they're kicking themselves they didn't do it before their pal clinton left office.
It seems to be working pretty well for Iran and Syria at the moment.
As usual, the Chinese Communists' desire to subjugate democratic Taiwan by force, and possibly causea World War in the process, is presented as reasonable. Also, we are evilly trying to "contain China." Just what parts of Asia is China supposed to be allowed to attack? Taiwan has been independent for almost 60 years and the World has done just fine, but we're supposed to understand some despicable commies' desire to launch a war of aggression.
Perhaps this is why they have scaled back their space program a bit.
I did not think we had rattled them, but it appears we have.
A good thing, IMO. They have really become cock sure of themselves, and that was worrisome. They should be a bit more sober now, as this story appears to indicate.
I dontthinkso, for one we were not buying soviet goods at walmart in the 70's and 80's.. The only power the Chinese have (for now) is the money we send them for cheap VCR's hail free trade..
Peter Zhang
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 31 May 2004
Four years ago I predicted that Beijing would grind its teeth if Bush won. Well, it did more than that: it threw a "right tantrum" as my old English teacher used to say. (He was full of delightful and colourful sayings). Even as I wrote party hacks busily churned out anti-American and anti-NMD propaganda.
The party line was the predictable one of arguing that the proposed missile defence system is hostile in intent and is meant to target Russia and China. (Democrats, Kerry among them, basically push the same line).
But by the same logic, the Nazi's would have been justified at levelling the same accusation against Britain's pre-war radar installations.
Beijing said that "Some Americans do not want to give up the Cold War mentality and retain a fierce hostility to the rise of China." This was truly rich coming from a mob that sanctioned an article in a Chinese military paper that threatened a loss of 200 million Americans as the price of defending 20 million Taiwanese (sic).
It should be clear as the nose on one's face that any country that does not take defensive measures against this kind of threat needs its collective head examined. Moreover, Americans should not forget the Chinese general who threatened to incinerate Los Angeles.
But no one ever accused our militarists and their politburo allies of having much in the way of brains. Theirs is the way of the jackboot, the club and the blackjack, as Tiananmen Square amply demonstrated.
Even these largely witless thugs feel the need, as the Nazis and Soviets did, to justify their threats. And as always, it comes down to the bully boy, the uniformed thug being the victim. Yes, those wilting flowers in Beijing were victims of American aggression and that's why Bush should have abandoned the NMD. One can now understand their enthusiasm for a Kerry and his merry band of appeasers.
Beijing's line that America was redeploying forces from Europe to the Asia region in an attempt to intimidate and contain China was such an obvious crock that it was quickly dropped, even though it was mainly used for internal consumption in a crude attempt to rouse nationalist feelings.
However, one should never underestimate a potential enemy's paranoia. When the US held a five-day war game in Colorado nearly four years ago Chinese militarists asserted that it proved America was plotting war against China.
Setting the war in Asia was, in the opinion of these militarists, the clincher that persuaded them that China was the target and that the NMD system was part of a long-term plan to annihilate China.
If this sounds paranoid, that's because it is. Why do these militarists think like this? Because that's what they would do if they had America's resources and technology, so they naturally assume America is as thuggish and as aggressive as they are.
They're also a touch schizoid. One minute America is a "paper tiger," a country in an advanced state of moral decay. The next minute she's a psychotic thug intent on world domination, a favourite lefty trope.
So what's the good news for the US? That's it. Make no mistake about it, these militarists' shrill cries contained a genuine note of apprehension. Motivating them is the fear that a successful NMD system (and our militarists don't doubt America's ability to build one) would turn China's expensive missile arsenal into a heap of scrap and render North Korean threats useless.
Unlike half-witted leftwing journalists, they know the "arms race" argument is hollow because attempting to breach such a system would require a horrendously expensive programme of trying to develop technologies to penetrate the shield, knowing that the shield itself was being continuously refined.
Beijing does not want to get caught up in the kind of technological race that finally broke the Soviet empire. Her only hope was to intimidate, by whatever means, President Bush into abandoning the project. This failed tactic mercifully failed. Her last hope is a Kerry victory.
In the meantime, their stupid support for the North Korea's loony dictator has backfired. Instead of Kim successfully frightening Japan into jettisoning her reliance on American military might by firing off missiles in the direction of Tokyo he persuaded her Government to invest in America's missile defence system. Given enough time these geniuses might even outwit themselves into extinction.
The secret to defeating the US military is to be found in Washington DC. The secret weapon is bags of money to DC PR firms, and well connected DC law firms, and bags of money delivered to political parties, and think tanks, and the occasional senator and congressman and future cabinet members and future presidents as well.
The Chinese already know how to play this game, and are playing it very well. This is how the Panama Canal was delivered to them, the law was voted in over the weekend and announced in the Panamanian press the Monday afterward.
Anyone who was paying attention during the Long Beach Naval Shipyard episode could have seen the exposed tip of Chinese political influence in the US; the whole 8 years of Clinton's administration would be instructive to anyone with an interest in how it gets done.
Why would the do this? According to all the 'free'traders china is just a great big puppydog that would not think of hurting the USA.
Are the wrong? ;->
I think that this Chinese manuever is designed to scare American's into electing John Kerry, knowing that Kerry would never come to Taiwan's defense.
I wouldn't doubt that Chinese eyes see Kerry as even weaker than Clinton.
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