China Rapidly Modernizes for War With U.S.

During the last several months, there have been numerous hints in the Chinese and Taiwanese media indicating that war is more likely than believed here in the West.

Some strategists suggest that the 2008 Olympics scheduled for Beijing constitute a key benchmark, after which a war may be possible. However, it is clear that both nations are preparing for a conflict in the near term, and that 2008 may not be as pivotal as some experts believe.

In fact, China’s media have been repeating the mantra in their news reports that the People’s Liberation Army is preparing to gain a victory in this “internal military conflict in a high-tech environment.”

Chinese war planners have studied carefully the recent U.S.-Iraq War, a war that demonstrated to PLA strategists that U.S. military might is derived from its technological superiority.

China’s military experts conducted similar studies after America’s first Gulf War. One military study written by two Chinese colonels entitled “Unrestricted Warfare” suggested that China could not compete with America’s technological prowess.

Instead, China had to develop “asymmetrical” warfare to defeat the U.S. in any conflict.

Interestingly, “Unrestricted Warfare” became an instant best seller in China after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In the 1998 book, the Chinese colonels suggested that a successful bombing by Osama bin Laden of the World Trade Center would be an example of this new “unrestricted warfare” concept.

Apparently, China feels much better positioned after the recent Iraq War and wants to challenge the U.S. on a technological level.

Almost instantly after the Iraq War, in May 2003, China’s President and Communist Party General Secretary Hu Jintao declared at the party’s Politburo meeting the necessity of “active support of national defense and modernization of the army.”

Hu emphasized the need for further integrating information technology (IT) into the PLA and mobilizing China’s entire scientific and technological potential for PLA’s needs.

As a result, the PLA’s modernization in these areas has accelerated significantly.

Since the second half of 2003, the PLA has been engaged in the latest stage of its RMA – Revolution in Military Affairs – program, which was officially announced by the chairman of China Central Military Commission, Jiang Zemin, in his speech on Sept. 1, 2003.

He emphasized that that PLA should transform itself into a “smaller and much smarter science- and technology-based army.”

Maximizing IT and other advanced technologies – including nanotechnologies, space technologies, electromagnetic weapons, etc.

Transforming the PLA into an “army of one” that is comparatively smaller and of very high quality, similar to the U.S. Army.

During 2003 and 2004, Russia – jointly with Belarus and Ukraine – has been a major source of advanced weapons for the PLA.

According to official figures from Russia’s weapons export state monopoly, Rosoboronexport, Russia’s total weapons export in 2003 approached $5.7 billion, making Russia the second largest arms exporter after the U.S. (Please note that China is arguably the leading arms exporter in quantity of arms transported, as its weaponry is considerably less expensive than that of the U.S.)

If one takes into account the weapons deliveries from Belarus and Ukraine to China, along with “double use” nuclear and space technologies supplied by Russia to China, then Chinese real arms imports from greater Russia would, in my estimation, be $4 billion.

Clearly, Russia and her allies have been a huge factor supporting the PLA in its rapid modernization and planned confrontation with the U.S.

The PLA has been following its “three-way policy” of advanced weapons acquisition.

This three-pronged strategy calls for China to gain technologically advanced weaponry through (1) imports, (2) joint (Chinese-foreign) weapons R&D, and (3) independent weapons R&D within China.

The details of this mechanism were given in the article “China’s military affairs in 2003,” published by the Taiwanese journal Zhonggong yanjiu (China Communism Research) in February 2004.

According to Taiwanese experts, though weapons import and joint R&D still play the major role in PLA modernization, the role of “independent R&D” has been increasing gradually.

Appointed in March 2003, new Chinese Defense Minister (former chief of Defense Ministry’s Armament Division) Col.-Gen. Cao Gangchuan was personally in charge of this work.

He has tried to decrease China’s dependence on Russian arms and increase the share of advanced weapons imports from Germany, France and Israel.

China also is engaged in joint weapons R&D projects with EU and NATO countries, including R&D of mid-range air-to-air missiles and highly precise satellite positioning (Galileo project).

China believes that in a conflict with Taiwan, air dominance will be key to a quick victory.

The PLA has been beefing up its PLA Air Force (PLAAF) and aircraft troops of the PLA Navy (PLAN).

Reportedly, by the end of February 2004, the PLAAF purchased from Russia 76 SU-30 MKK fighters belonging to the advanced “4 plus” generation.

There is no data regarding future deliveries of the “finished” SU-30 from Russia to China; however, the Chinese aircraft industry is more or less capable now of producing the SU-30 as well as other fighters belonging to the fourth generation, or close to this level.

Dramatic modernization of China’s First Aviation Industry Corp., or AVIC-1, from 2001 to 2004, is of principal importance here (the data in this account are given in the above-mentioned article in the Zhonggong yanjiu journal).

Four major companies are developing China’s jet-manufacturing capability. Interestingly, each of these companies recently underwent radical modernization and upgrading, including advanced equipment obtained from Europe’s Airbus, claiming the help is for “cooperation in passenger aircraft production.”

Shenyang Aircraft Corp. continued, in the past year, to produce SU-27 SK (J-11) heavy fighters from Russian kits at a rate of at least 25 units annually, and the share of Chinese-made components surpassed 70 percent.

In the frame of “independent R&D” within China, the Chengdu Aircraft Corp. has mastered the serial production of medium J-10 fighters and FC-1 light fighters. These planes reportedly can match the U.S. F-16 fighter.

Guizhou Aircraft Corp. developed the advanced Shanying fighter-trainer, while Xian Aircraft Corp. mostly finished developing the new generation of FBC-1 (JH-7) long-range fighter-bomber, which became known as JH-7A.

Other enterprises, belonging to AVIC-1, mastered production of KAB-500 guided bombs and several kinds of air-to-air and air-to ground missiles.

By the end of 2003, the new generation of Flying Leopard, i.e., JH-7A, was being tested. This fighter-bomber’s weapons include new air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles of beyond-vision range, guided bombs, etc. This aircraft is adapted for anti-radar reconnaissance, effective low-altitude strikes against large naval vessels, and general strikes of ground-based and naval targets.

By the end of 2004, as a result of supply from Russia and increased fighter production at AVIC-1 subsidiaries, the number of advanced fighters of various kinds in PLAN air troops and the PLAAF – including SU-27 (J-11), SU-30 (J-11A), J-10, FC-1, Shanying, FBC-1 (JH-7) and JH-7A – could surpass an estimated 400 units. The Sea Component

The PLA Navy (PLAN) has numerous Chinese-Russian projects under way this year and next, including:

Purchase of two Russian Sovremenny destroyers, equipped with improved ship-to-ship supersonic cruise missiles (SSM) Sunburn 3M80MBE of 240 km range. Initially, Sunburn had a range of 160 km. However, in 2001-2003, Raduga Design Bureau in Dubna (about 150 km north of Moscow) designed, under PLAN’s orders, a much more lethal version of SSM.

Very probably, serial production of new SSM would be mastered in China, so it would be installed on two Sovremenny destroyers, purchased by PLAN in 1999-2000, on Chinese-built Luhu- and Luhai-class destroyers as well as Jiangwei-class frigates. According to media reports in the Hong Kong and Taiwan media, two new Sovremenny destroyers could be transferred to PLAN before the end of 2005.

Purchase of eight Kilo submarines, equipped by “super-advanced” 3M54E (CLUB-S) submarine-launched anti-ship missiles. In 2003, China already obtained 50 missiles of this kind, which would greatly improve PLAN’s striking capacity. China intends to organize production of these missiles. They probably also could be used on Chinese-built conventional submarines of the Song class.

New Kilo submarines could enter PLAN service in 2005 or the first half of 2006. (Information regarding destroyers and conventional submarines was repeated in several articles in Zhonggong yanjiu in January 2003 through February 2004 and in multiple media reports from Hong Kong during the same period.)

Construction of “093 project” nuclear attack submarines and the “094 project” strategic nuclear submarine, using Russian plans and technology, at Huludao (a port city in northeast Liaoning province) military shipbuilding plant. By the end of 2005, PLAN would have in its service at least two “093 project” and at least one “094 project” nuclear submarines. Reportedly, Russia had to make significant improvements in design and weapons of these submarines, in accordance with Chinese customers’ requirements.

Along with Russian contracts is the construction of a new generation of destroyers, frigates and conventional submarines at modernized shipbuilding plants in Dalian, Shanghai, Qingdao and Wuhan cities. An upgraded PLA could be capable pf establishing sea control around Taiwan in 2008.

Aso important is the fact that both the PLAAF and PLAN would be equipped, by 2008, with perfect military information technology systems, more precisely by C4ISR (command, control, computers, communication, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) systems, which would make the use of the listed weapon systems much more effective.

Sound familiar???

The goals and methods of Communism

Yet it seems almost incredible that any ideology could lead to well-coordinated deception on such a huge scale. Whenever the word "Communism" is mentioned, most people think of a philosophy, a political theory, an economic system, or perhaps a political party. But Communism is none of these. Before we can understand the Communist role in strategic deception and terrorist warfare, we must answer one critical question: What is Communism?

Karl Marx and V.I. Lenin are widely known as the founders of Communism. However, not everyone who professes the ideology of Marx and Lenin is a true Communist. Lenin himself defined Communism as an international organization, akin to the Mafia, whose members would constitute an elite corps of professional revolutionaries.[40] As he described it in 1902, "In form such a strong revolutionary organization in an autocratic country may also be described as a 'conspiratorial' organization... such an organization must have the utmost secrecy."[41] Shortly after seizing control of Russia in 1917, Lenin revealed the secret of Communist success in a booklet, declaring that "The Bolsheviks could not have maintained themselves in power... unless the strictest, truly iron discipline prevailed in our Party."[42] Naive believers in Marxist ideology are constantly purged from the Party, for the organization can rely only on those people blindly willing to obey orders.[43] Communism explicitly disavows all moral rules, and its members must constantly shift tactics, sometimes even carry out seemingly anti-Marxist actions, as its leadership adapts the revolution to changing circumstances.[44] Thus Communists possess the fanatic discipline needed to carry out deception on a scale beyond the imagination of most outsiders, including staging their own alleged "collapse."

The ultimate goal has been stated openly by every major Communist leader since Karl Marx: a world government dominated by the Communists.[45] Lenin described how, to overthrow existing governments, the Communists organize parallel revolutions in each country. Most of the Communist Party structure must operate underground, invisible to the larger population, while it uses both legal and illegal methods, including deception and, in Lenin's own words, "terrorism."[46] Its secret members, operating under strict orders, infiltrate the highest levels of the target government and its military, as well as the labor unions and other popular movements, the communications media, and even the anti-Communist opposition itself.[47] From these positions, the Communists can orchestrate an apparently spontaneous, violent revolution, while paralyzing the efforts of the target government to respond effectively. The confused population, unaware of the well-organized forces behind the crisis, negotiates a series of compromises leading to further instability and finally to the victory of Communism.

As growing numbers of nations fall to the revolution, it becomes possible to reunite them under a Communist world regime.[48] This is being carried out in a two-stage process. The transition step to this "new world social order," as American Communist William Z. Foster called it,[49] involves merging the newly captive nations into regional governments.[50] The Communists have explicitly worked toward creating a united Europe,[51] a united American hemisphere,[52] a pan-African regional entity,[53] and, for the Middle East, a pan-Arab regime.[54]

Marxism-Leninism, then, is not an ideology, but a strategy for achieving world revolution. Communists are the disciplined members of an international organization that uses Marxist-Leninist techniques. And terrorism is a key ingredient in the success of such revolution. To see how the entire strategy works, we now turn to an overview of Communist revolutions in action.

Wars of national liberation

Because open warfare against target governments would simply lead to defeat, the Communists always disguise their revolutions as civil wars. They camouflage their intentions by pretending to fight for the liberation of one class of people from another, using a divide-and-conquer technique against a nation's social structure. This method is referred to as a "war of national liberation," and it adapts its tactics to the unique circumstances of each country. Such a war can pit industrial workers against capitalists, as in Russia, Catholics against Protestants, as in Northern Ireland, blacks against whites, as in South Africa--or Arabs against Jews, as in Israel. The Communists do not openly identify themselves, acting instead as representatives of the supposedly "oppressed" class of people.

By painting their revolution as a spontaneous uprising of "oppressed masses," the Communists hope to convince the target population that it faces an unwinnable war rooted in fundamental social tensions. If the government is also paralyzed and cannot stop the terrorism, public morale quickly drops and the weakening government loses popular support. Believing that the revolution must eventually win, the population abandons active opposition to the terrorists and instead sues for peace at any cost. The perception ultimately becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as the government collapses altogether.

Any "war of national liberation" can be divided into seven steps:

Step 1) To establish themselves in the minds of the target population as a force to be reckoned with, the revolutionaries must first force a heavy-handed reaction by the government. Their tactics are based on a 1969 book by Brazilian Communist Carlos Marighella, the Mini-Manual for Urban Guerrillas, which has been translated and distributed to terrorists throughout the world. Marighella explained how to use such frightening violence that "the government has no alternative except to intensify repression. The police roundups, house searches, arrests of innocent people, make life in the city unbearable... The political situation is transformed into a military situation, in which the militarists appear more and more responsible for errors and violence... The urban guerrilla must become more aggressive and violent, resorting without letup to sabotage, terrorism, expropriations, assaults, kidnappings and executions, heightening the disastrous situation in which the government must act."[55]

Step 2) Having provoked a harsh reaction by the target government, the Communists now flood the Western news media with stories of government atrocities, real or fabricated. The goal is to begin isolating the government from Western, primarily American, support. The revolutionaries label convicted terrorists as "political prisoners"; they invent elaborate stories of secret prisons and "death squads"; and they hide among civilians during fighting, causing the government to kill innocent people accidentally. Such heads of state as Chiang Kai-shek of China, Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua, and the Shah of Iran have been portrayed as corrupt and repressive. The South African government has been painted as being violently racist, while the French colonial administration in Algeria and the British rule in Northern Ireland have been labeled as undemocratic. Similar publicity attacks have been used against South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Rhodesia, El Salvador, Argentina, and dozens of other nations. The news media has always cooperated in these smear campaigns, never allowing the target regime a fair chance to respond to the charges.

Step 3) The Communists can now count on the U.S. State Department to pressure the target government to begin giving in to the revolutionaries, supposedly for the sake of "human rights." The regime offers compromises, including political reforms, the release of captured terrorists, and military cease-fires, which allow the terrorists to regroup and seize territory. But the revolutionaries also increase their demands, taking advantage of the government's weakened image.

Step 4) As the government loses prestige, the Communists escalate the revolutionary violence and general unrest. They organize mass demonstrations, which agitators turn into riots. Labor unions go on strike, building toward a general labor strike that cripples the entire economy. Marxist professors in the universities indoctrinate and recruit naive youth, who join the growing ranks of Communists and terrorists. And some Communist agents even infiltrate local religious organizations, masquerading as priests or other clergy so as to neutralize opposition and recruit more people into the revolution. This can be seen, for example, in the Liberation Theology movement in the Catholic and Protestant churches, which teaches that Jesus was a Marxist revolutionary. Liberation Theology is active today in many parts of Latin America, Africa, and the far East.

Step 5) Since the Communists are only a tiny minority of the population, they must create the illusion of popular support. By waging terrorist warfare against the very people they claim to be liberating, the revolutionaries can frighten the people into passive or even active support of the revolution. In China and Nicaragua, the Communists murdered peasant farmers in rural villages; in Algeria, they maimed and killed Arab muslims; in Northern Ireland, they have killed thousands of Catholics while "kneecapping" thousands more with guns and electric drills;[56] in South Africa, they have burned to death many hundreds of blacks with "necklaces"--tires soaked in gasoline, placed around the victim's neck, and lit on fire.[57] The revolutionaries accuse the victims of "collaborating" with the government, sending a powerful message to the rest of the population not to resist.

Step 6) Now the Communists are ready to enter the final phase of their revolution. With the target government steadily losing control over the country, the revolutionaries step up general terrorist violence while simultaneously negotiating for a new government. To accomplish this, the Communists often must split their revolutionary movement into two wings: an extremely violent faction pretending to oppose any peace agreement, and a more political faction that projects an image of pragmatism. The two factions secretly coordinate their activities, carrying out a "good cop/bad cop" scenario. Frightened by the escalating terrorism of the revolutionaries, the government makes concessions to the seemingly moderate faction, hoping to discourage the forces of violence. As the Communists tighten the vise, the government bargains away its remaining strength.

Step 7) Finally, in the name of democracy and "human rights," the U.S. State Department withdraws its support from the embattled regime, using diplomatic pressure to force out the old government entirely and replace it with another. The Communists have by this time maneuvered themselves into position to join the new coalition government. Because this new regime is weak and divided, the Communists quickly move to consolidate total power for themselves. Their naive liberal allies are executed, followed by systematic mass terror against the whole population. A Communist regime has been imposed.

These seven steps describe the pattern of a war of national liberation. This strategy has been used, with slight variations, against almost every nation now under Communism, and is well under way for many remaining non-Communist nations.[58] As we have seen, terrorism is a cornerstone of this strategy.

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