Posted on 06/24/2002 7:17:30 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
Step by step, China is upgrading the weapons systems it needs to attack Taiwan
Military ties between the United States and the People's Republic of China (PRC) came screeching to a halt in April 2001 when the Chinese air force attacked a U.S. Navy EP-3E surveillance aircraft in international airspace and forced it to land on Hainan Island in China. But now, 14 months later, the Bush administration has agreed to dispatch Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman to Beijing to revive those ties at a time when the PRC appears increasingly isolated and its much-touted strategic alliance with Russia may be on the rocks.
In remarks released prior to the trip, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Rodman was going "to talk about the principles on which we can get our military-to-military relationship on a more solid framework, which will be of mutual benefit." A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis, added that Rodman would be seeking Chinese assurances of "transparency, consistency and reciprocity" before the United States would consider restoring the military-exchange program.
The spark for the Rodman trip came during a sharp exchange at the Pentagon on May 1 between Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and visiting Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao over China's nuclear and missile proliferation. "Rumsfeld said we are perfectly willing to have contacts with you, but only if we get as much out of it as you do," a defense official tells Insight. Ultimately, the Rodman visit could lead to a restoration of the annual Defense Consultative Talks (DCT), a high-level meeting that formalizes a schedule of military-to-military exchanges for the coming year, if the Chinese agree to transparency and reciprocity. "But that's a big if — a huge if," the official says. "We hope the Chinese don't think Rodman is carrying the DCT in his hip pocket, because he's not."
U.S. critics question the timing of the announcement and its intent. "I'm not in favor of these contacts," defense consultant Stephen Bryen tells Insight. "The military exchanges with China are a one-way street. We give away stuff and the Chinese promise to behave, and these exchanges are being organized in the middle of a Chinese missile buildup that threatens Taiwan and the U.S. fleet. It's amazing to me that the Bush people, who know better, would pursue a course the Clinton people invented." Bryen is a former deputy undersecretary of defense and a member of the congressionally mandated U.S.-China Security Review Commission, which during the last 18 months has been assessing U.S. policy goals and options. The commission will release an 11-chapter report in July that will include a series of "concrete proposals" aimed at better controlling the sale of strategic technology, commission members tell Insight.
Larry Wortzel, Asia policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation and a commission member, tells Insight that he favors a military-to-military dialogue with Communist China as "a component of our foreign policy," but that the content needs to be closely focused. "We need to have exchanges on things such as freedom of navigation, international airspace, proliferation, China's military buildup against Taiwan and how the PRC might create a threat that under the Taiwan Relations Act could oblige the United States to get into a conflict against China to defend Taiwan."
Neither Wortzel nor Bryen believe the United States should engage in the type of open-door policy toward the Chinese military that became a hallmark of the Clinton administration, when PRC generals and intelligence officers were invited into the heart of the U.S. defense establishment. "The Clinton people took a hell of a risk by letting them into our military facilities and inviting them to participate in our military exercises," Bryen says. "The Chinese look at it as a spying operation, which I believe it was."
But inviting the PRC military to visit top-secret U.S. bases, ballistic-missile submarines and joint-forces operations does not appear to be the Bush administration's intent, at least for now. Indeed, administration envoy Rodman, who headed the State Department's Office of Policy Planning during the George H.W. Bush administration and has worked in White House jobs under four Republican presidents, was a stern critic of Beijing's aggressive behavior toward Taipei and of PRC weapons sales to Middle East trouble spots before returning to government last year from his position as head of strategic studies at the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom in Washington.
So why bother approaching the PRC at all? One reason may be to calm Chinese nerves as the United States gears up for a future battle with Iraq. "The Chinese responded very badly to Sept. 11," says professor Stephen Blank of the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. "The day of the attack on America, a Chinese delegation was in Kabul to sign a trade agreement with the Taliban. Afterward, they publicly expressed doubt at U.S. accusations that al-Qaeda was behind Sept. 11 and demanded that the U.S. refrain from any unilateral response that was not sanctioned by the United Nations."
Chinese Internet chat rooms exploded with anti-American comments on Sept. 11, and the Beijing government pointedly refused to order flags on government buildings to be flown at half-mast. "Our response wasn't even as warm as Cuba's," a Chinese government foreign-policy analyst told the Washington Post on Sept. 14. Beijing was hoping it could capitalize on Sept. 11 by winning U.S. backing for its own efforts to crush a growing Uighur Muslim separatist movement in East Turkistan (Xinjiang). That support never came. Instead, the Chinese were caught off-guard by the way nations around the world rallied behind President George W. Bush and felt increasingly isolated, Blank and other analysts believe.
Beijing's failure to back the United States also weakened PRC credibility in the eyes of the Russians, who were looking for a partner to help combat the Taliban because of its support for anti-Russian separatists in Chechnya. "Sept. 11 destroyed the deal between China and Russia," Blank argues, "by revealing the misgivings many Russians were already feeling toward Beijing. [Russian President Vladimir] Putin saw that he could not rely on the Chinese to fight terrorism. The Chinese exposed themselves as weak and unavailable. As the Chinese proverb has it: 'Distant water cannot quench nearby fire.'"
The recently signed Sino-Russian strategic-cooperation agreement called for the two sides to use military force to aid each other in the event one was attacked [see "China and Russia Align Against U.S.," Aug. 13, 2001]. "Even before the pact was signed, you had Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov publicly worrying that the PRC would use the mutual-assistance clause to start something in Taiwan to get Russia involved in a fight it doesn't want," Blank says. "Sept. 11 made it clear the Chinese had nothing concrete to offer Russia in Central Asia."
Another motivator for Rodman's trip is to calm Chinese fears of the dramatic U.S.-Russian rapprochement that has resulted from the Bush-Putin relationship. Contrary to the dire predictions of the arms-control lobby, which for decades has claimed that the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 was the "cornerstone" of strategic stability, President Bush demonstrated that the United States could withdraw from the treaty without starting a war. The decision actually has enhanced security, not reduced it. "Behind the scenes, the Bush administration told the Russians they could MIRV [multiple independent re-entry vehicle] their missiles if they felt uncomfortable with U.S. missile-defense plans," Blank tells Insight. "And so, in mid-June 2002, the Russians repudiated the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty [START II], which the U.S. never ratified. This allows them specifically to put multiple warheads on their strategic missiles."
The Russian decision, and the Bush administration's missile-defense plans, have left Beijing in the lurch. "They feel weakened and surrounded," Wortzel agrees.
Yet another reason to resume a dialogue with the PRC's military is to warn the Chinese of dangerous misconceptions that potentially could lead to conflict. Michael Pillsbury, a Chinese linguist and defense analyst who has compiled two books of Chinese military writings for the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, told the U.S.-China Commission last year that senior Beijing strategists, including Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin, believe they can create secret weapons known as the "assassin's mace" to give themselves a decisive advantage over the United States during any PRC assault on Taiwan.
"An assassin's mace weapon is something that is designed based on American vulnerabilities," Pillsbury said. "You study what would bring the Americans to their knees in a specific conflict, such as the American effort to … perhaps to defend Taiwan, and you make a list of the American strengths and weaknesses and you focus on the weaknesses in an attempt to develop so-called assassin's-mace weapons that will penalize the Americans at a key moment, and you, by the way, conceal these weapons. That's the heart of the assassin's-mace idea. It's not exposed until it's needed at a key moment on the battlefield."
Pillsbury found references to 15 such weapons in Chinese military writings. "They focus a great deal on aircraft carriers," he says. "It's a big topic in China. There's even an Internet Website where people put up suggestions about good ways to attack American aircraft carriers." Pillsbury then described a conversation he had with a Chinese general at a conference in the PRC in late 2000. "'You know, this is like James Bond.' I said, 'Really? What are you talking about? I don't understand.' He said, 'You know, in the James Bond movies, just when James Bond is almost dead, he pulls something out of his pocket and it kills "Odd Job" or someone. That's assassin's mace. That's a sha sho jian.'"
Also a potential assassin's mace are antisatellite weapons. Despite repeated warnings from the intelligence community during the Clinton administration that the PRC was seeking to acquire such weapons, the United States remained silent when a British company, Surrey Space Systems, signed a contract with the Beijing government in October 1998 to provide microsatellite technology.
"British Prime Minister Tony Blair even presided over the signing ceremony," says Richard Fisher, an analyst with the Jamestown Foundation who is completing a book-length study of Chinese military systems. "Less than two years later, in June 2000, the Chinese launched the first microsatellites built using this technology. When coupled to a mobile space-launch system, which they are in the process of developing, this gives them a potential antisatellite capability," Fisher tells Insight. The PRC unveiled the prototype of a solid-fuel mobile space-launch vehicle, the KT-1, at the Zhuhai Air Show in November 2000, Fisher added. (For more information on the air show, see www.stormpages.com/jetfight/airshow.htm.)
Beijing's ongoing military modernization and China's growing independence from its suppliers during the last two to three years is yet another cause of concern to the Bush administration. For Alexander Nemets, a Russian scholar who closely monitors Chinese-Russian military cooperation, there are increasing signs that the PRC has taken dramatic steps toward "technological independence" from Russia in several key areas, including military aircraft, jet engines, manned spacecraft and naval weaponry. "The Chinese are getting very close to independence in weapons production. If they succeed, China will be able to directly threaten the United States in just a few years," Nemets tells Insight.
Several new PRC weapons systems developed initially with Russia now are reaching the production phase, Nemets and other analysts say. These include:
- The J-11 fighter-bomber, an improved version of the Sukhoi-27 SK, that now is being assembled under license by Shenyang Aircraft Corp. "By the end of 2001," Nemets says, "only engines, radar and some avionics were coming from Russia." According to some reports, the Chinese may be contemplating upgrading the Shenyang production line to assemble the Su-30, an all-weather attack aircraft that would present an even greater threat to Taiwan.
- The J-10 fighter, which resembles a cross between an F-16 and Israel's now-abandoned Lavi, is approaching serial production at the Chengdu Aircraft Corp. The PRC air force has selected this indigenous fighter to replace its obsolete J-7 (MiG-21) and Q-5 attack aircraft. Initially it will be powered by Russian-built AL-31F turbofan engines, but Nemets and other analysts say there is evidence that the PRC is trying to build an indigenous version, perhaps with help from Ukraine, known as the "Kunlun." In May 2002, Nemets says, the Shenyang Jet Engine Research Institute finished development of a Kunlun prototype.
- The JH-7/FBC-1 long-range strike aircraft, a two-seat fighter-bomber similar to the Su-24 or the British Tornado. According to some reports, the PRC air force has rejected full-scale production of this aircraft because of its 1970s design, preferring instead to purchase Su-30 MKK aircraft from Russia. But according to Nemets and other analysts, full-scale production of a naval-strike version for the PRC navy is under way at the Xian Aircraft Co. To power this indigenous aircraft, the Chinese purchased an estimated 70-80 used F-4 engines from Rolls-Royce two years ago. The first 10 production aircraft flew in September 2001.
The political chill between Moscow and Beijing has done little to slow the flow of strategic technologies into new Chinese weapons systems, all the analysts interviewed by Insight for this article agree. The Russians continue actively to assist the Chinese in developing the nuclear 093 attack submarine, a Chinese version of the S-300 PMU-1 long-range missile-defense interceptor, solid-fuel strategic missiles including the DF-31 and its submarine-launched version, the JL-2, and dozens of other weapons systems. "In a number of areas, the Chinese are developing systems specifically designed to attack U.S. forces," says Wortzel of the Heritage Foundation.
Pillsbury agrees. He believes Beijing may have initiated military cooperation with Moscow specifically with Taiwan in mind. "The Chinese saw the kind of package — force package, as we would say — they need to develop to 'liberate' Taiwan even if the Americans help Taiwan, and they've been assembling it piece by piece, very carefully, very slowly and in a very un-American way."
The Chinese military is "making dramatic progress across the board," says Fisher, who recently returned from Taipei, where he consulted with the Taiwan government on defense strategy. "By 2005, a window opens where the PRC will have superiority in enough categories of weapons, and the military doctrine to deploy them in combined-forces operations, to tempt the Beijing leadership to launch a quick military attack against Taiwan in the belief that they can present the United States with a fait accompli that will prevent the U.S. from intervening. Starting in 2005, we are heading into a real danger zone in the Taiwan Strait. This is a crisis, and it is beginning now."
If the Bush administration wants to put a cap on the PRC's aggressive ambitions, a hard-nosed dialogue with the Chinese military might be one way to start. "If anyone can make a college try, it's Peter Rodman," Fisher says. "But I have no faith that the Chinese will comply with any of our demands for reciprocity or transparency. They'll simply laugh at us — or cheat."
Kenneth R. Timmerman is a senior writer for Insight magazine.
We let them into the WTO.
We re-new their free trade status.
We allow American Corps. to export our Jobs to them.
We allow Human rights violations.
We know they export weapons to our enemy.
We allow them to tramp all over us.
Our government invites and encourages it all.
Our American Corps don't give a crap.
Will the Real Enemy Please Stand up?
Good article!
Rummy Bump!
Aside: Clinton squandered what he inherited in 1992.
Its not impossible, because I have done it for birthdays and Christmas for my two nieces and four nephews for the last four years. Two years I was so frustrates that I hand made their gifts. One year they really loved it, the next year I made a gift where their parents actually had to go out with them to use it (water rockets that shot 70 yards). That was a flop 'cause their parents would not get off their rear ends and do it with them. But I digress.
You can do it, if you are determined to. Make it a point to look in unusual places for toys. Look for things that are neat, but not technically toys, like a cool geode that has been sawed in half. If you get them hung up on mineral collecting, you can keep adding to their collection.
If their tastes are wholly driven by hollyweirds' mass marketing drivel that is pumped into their brains via the TV they sit in front of 10 hours a day you WILL NOT wind up with an independent thinker. Steer them away from pop culture crap and buying toys that are good for them will be a lot easier.
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.