Chinese dragon awakens (prompting fears that Beijing will attack Taiwan)

China is building its military forces faster than U.S. intelligence and military analysts expected, prompting fears that Beijing will attack Taiwan in the next two years, according to Pentagon officials. U.S. defense and intelligence officials say all the signs point in one troubling direction: Beijing then will be forced to go to war with the United States, which has vowed to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack. China's military buildup includes an array of new high-technology weapons, such as warships, submarines, missiles and a maneuverable warhead designed to defeat U.S. missile defenses. Recent intelligence reports also show that China has stepped up military exercises involving amphibious assaults, viewed as another sign that it is preparing for an attack on Taiwan. "There's a growing consensus that at some point in the mid-to-late '90s, there was a fundamental shift in the sophistication, breadth and re-sorting of Chinese defense planning," said Richard Lawless, a senior China-policy maker in the Pentagon. "And what we're seeing now is a manifestation of that change in the number of new systems that are being deployed, the sophistication of those systems and the interoperability of the systems." China's economy has been growing at a rate of at least 10 percent for each of the past 10 years, providing the country's military with the needed funds for modernization. The combination of a vibrant centralized economy, growing military and increasingly fervent nationalism has transformed China into what many defense officials view as a fascist state.

Energy supply a factor For China, Taiwan is not the only issue behind the buildup of military forces. Beijing also is facing a major energy shortage that, according to one Pentagon study, could lead it to use military force to seize territory with oil and gas resources.

http://www9.sbs.com.au/theworldnews/region.php?id=115317&region=2

?"US TOLD TO LEAVE CENTRAL ASIA"
6.7.2005. 10:03:51

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "?Leaders of a six-nation security bloc led by Beijing and Moscow called for a deadline to be set for the withdrawal of US forces from bases in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

The presidents of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which comprises Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and China, signed a declaration calling for deadlines to be set on the closure of airbases used by US forces in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

"Considering that the active phase of the military anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan has finished, member states... consider it essential that the relevant participants in the anti-terrorist coalition set deadlines on the temporary use" of bases in the SCO area, the declaration read.

The two main coalition bases, one at Karshi-Khanabad in Uzbekistan, the other at Manas in Kyrgyzstan, have each been used to support US-led operations in Afghanistan since 2001.

Germany also has a few hundred military personnel, most of them engineering and medical staff, at a separate base in Uzbekistan, Termez, while a few hundred French forces work from Tajikistan's main airport in Dushanbe.

The declaration also included a call for "non-interference in the internal afairs of sovereign states," seemingly a swipe at growing Western influence in Central Asia, which Moscow has long considered its sphere of influence."

http://www.inatoday.com/china%20threat%207605.htm

"THE CHINA THREAT --
WHERE'S THE RESPONSE?"

JULY 7, 2005
By Toby Westerman
Copyright 2005 International News Analysis Today
www.inatoday.com

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "As the threat of China's power grows, the U.S. cannot depend on help from Russia to act as a counterbalance against Beijing. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the idea was advanced that Moscow would need American assistance in halting China's expansion into Russian territory. The belief was that the "new" Russia would gladly join with the United States against a projected expansion of Chinese power into Russian territory.

This optimistic foreign policy assessment was shattered when Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao met in Moscow in late June. Not only did Putin and Hu settle old border disputes, but also proclaimed their mutual cooperation in regional and international affairs, and prepared the way for the upcoming Sino-Russian military exercises."

http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=\ForeignBureaus\archive\200507\FOR20050715d.html

"Chinese General Warns of Nuclear Conflict Over Taiwan"
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
July 15, 2005

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "(CNSNews.com) - China is prepared to use nuclear weapons against the United States in the event of a conflict over Taiwan, Western newspapers quoted a senior Chinese military officer as saying Thursday.

Stressing that he was giving his personal views, not official policy, Gen. Zhu Chenghu said that "if the Americans are determined to interfere ... we will be determined to respond."

Zhu said China would prepare itself for the destruction of all of its cities east of Xian - a city in central China - while "the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds ... of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese."

His comments, delivered at a briefing arranged by a Hong Kong foundation, were reported by the Asian Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and International Herald Tribune.

Zhu, who also teaches at China's National Defense University, is reputed to be a "hawk," the papers said, calling his warning the most specific by a senior Chinese official in nearly a decade.

They also quoted Zhu as saying he did not anticipate war with the U.S."

Note: The following text is an exact quote:
===

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jul2005/20050720_2171.html

China Investing in Information Warfare Technology, Doctrine

By Kathleen T. Rhem
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, July 20, 2005 – China appears to be taking a page from U.S. doctrine and working to improve its information warfare capabilities, according to a comprehensive DoD report on Chinese military power released July 19.
In 2004, China introduced a new term in the country's military doctrine: "local wars under conditions of informationalization."

In DoD's 2005 report to Congress on China's military power, defense officials explain this term refers to the People's Liberation Army's "emphasis on information technology as a force multiplier."

A senior defense official, speaking on background, said the Chinese watch advances in U.S. doctrine carefully. "Every time we're involved in a campaign, there's a spate of articles (in China) analyzing it," the official said. "Sometimes they put themselves in the shoes of our opponent; sometimes they try to see, 'What can we emulate that the Americans have done?'"

The official said the Chinese military has a long way to go in C4ISR -- command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance -- but they're clearly doing research and development into such capabilities.

China is also using advances in C4ISR to project military power farther from its own borders. Over the long term, the report states, China's advances in these areas "could enable Beijing to identify, target, and track foreign military activities deep into the western Pacific and provide, potentially, hemispheric coverage."

China introduced the term "local wars under conditions of informationalization" in its December 2004 Defense White Paper to describe the type of war the PLA must be prepared to fight and win.

U.S. defense officials are still working to understand the implications of the new concept. But the July 19 DoD report on China power states the term appears to sum up "China's experiences and assessments of the implications of the revolution in military affairs -- primarily the impact of information technology and knowledge-based warfare on the battlefield."

Through studying U.S. and other allied operations in the past decade, the PLA is beginning to understand the importance of joint development in C4ISR capabilities. The report states that such ambitions can be traced to lessons learned from U.S. and allied operations since the Persian Gulf War. Still, China is working to overcome an overall lack of joint operations and operational experience in general.

China's 2004 White Paper shows that Chinese officials understand they're on the short end of an expanding technology gap, according to the U.S. defense report. China's leaders, including President Hu Jintao, have ordered the PLA to pursue "leap ahead" technologies and "informationalized" capabilities to increase weapons' mobility, firepower and precision, the U.S. report states.

The report quotes from a May 2003 article by PLA Deputy Chief of the General Staff Xiong Guangkai, stating that the PLA should push forward "military reform with Chinese characteristics."

"We should study and draw on the experiences and lessons of various countries in making military changes, including all the local wars fought under high-tech conditions," Xiong reportedly wrote, "but we should not mechanically copy other countries' patterns of military changes."

Related Sites:
2005 China Military Power Report
Chinese Military Power Report Addresses U.S. Concerns

They want Taiwan, that is the publiccly believed thing, but China has a nasty habit of doing what the world least expects, and Russia I doubt expects that to happen, so I would put them and Mongolia on the likely ChiCom target list.

Likely scenario...

Red China will take the Spratly and Paracel Island chains for their oil resources (unless we take them first)..

Phillipines will protest, when they do the Chinese will rattle sabers at them, perhaps give aid to muslim insurgents there (more than already--perhaps to aid a takeover)... China will come in a police action to restore order..

They will then surprise the Russians by taking the "northeastern resource region" (Chicom codespeak for Siberia) from Vladivostok to as far west as the Kazakh border and Ural mtns, but more likely to the Lena river.

As a observer of the Partnership for Peace (an umbrella org for those not in NATO but wishing to lean westward), Russia will invoke the alliance, poising the USA to come to its aid...

now invasion of Taiwan.. circling the island now, any initial taking would be met valiantly, but in the end futilely by the Taiwanese government/military. The US will then invoke the Taiwan relations act, and we will be at war with China...

we clean china's clocks, shelves at wal mart grow empty, end of Chicoms, end of story...

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.