Posted on 07/14/2005 2:39:38 PM PDT by Stellar Dendrite
China is prepared to use nuclear weapons against the US if it is attacked by Washington during a confrontation over Taiwan, according to a senior Chinese military official.
“If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons,” Zhu Chenghu, a major general in the People's Liberation Army, said at an official briefing.
Mr Zhu, who is also a professor at China's National Defence University, was speaking at a function for foreign journalists organised, in part, by the Chinese government. He added that China's definition of its territory includes warships and aircraft.
“If the Americans are determined to interfere [then] we will be determined to respond,” Mr Zhu said. “We Chinese will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds. . . of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese.” Mr Zhu is a self-acknowledged “hawk” who has warned previously that China could strike the US with long-range missiles. But his threat to use nuclear weapons in a conflict over Taiwan is the most specific by a senior Chinese official in nearly a decade.
Rick Fisher, a former senior US congressional official and an authority on the Chinese military, said the specific nature of the threat “is a new addition to China's public discourse”.
China's official doctrine has called for no first use of nuclear weapons since its first atomic test in 1964. But Mr Zhu is not the first Chinese official to refer to the possibility of using such weapons first in a conflict over Taiwan.
Chas Freeman, a former US assistant secretary of defence, said in 1999 that a PLA official had told him China could respond in kind to a nuclear strike by the US in the event of a conflict with Taiwan.
“In the end you care more about Los Angeles than you do about Taipei,” Mr Freeman quoted this official as saying. The official is believed to have been Xiong Guangkai, now the PLA's deputy chief of general staff.
The rationale for the new threats is unclear. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs could not be reached for comment.
Mr Zhu, who has risen from the rank of colonel over the past five years, insisted he was expressing his personal views, and that they did not represent the policy of the Chinese government. Nor was he anticipating war between China and the US.
But he said that, because China did not have the capability to fight a conventional war against the US, the threat to escalate might be the only way to stop a war.
His comments could provide insight into the thinking among some in the PLA amid growing anxiety in Washington about its capabilities. Last month, Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, voiced concern about China's military build-up.
Additional reporting by Edward Alden in Washington
Lord, where's Jeff Head when you need him?
Hey Jeff, China ain't no Dragon, she's just a pussycat!
Good to hear. You had me thrown for a loop. hehe.
You assume far too much about what the PRC's actual inventories really are. It is in their best interest for us to believe that their capabilities are lower than they actually are. We have far less access (both legit and covert) to do assessment than we did even during the worst days with the Soviets. It is an interesting thing. Whereas, I can (as I have done several times), of course with the appropriate visa, step off a plane in HK with almost no hassle, get on a ferry and step onto the soil of Guangdong Province at Shekou, grab a cab and go to visit certain factories in Dongguan, with no escort, the heck if I could ever get anywhere near where the nukes are deployed, built, conceived, hidden or whatever. It's a two tier system - openness in the SARs and a complete lockdown in vast "sensitive areas." Without a serious level of penetration by our intel assets, and, even more importantly, massive local recruiting of native assets, we've got no real info. The CIA have openly admitted their underfunding of PRC ops.
Such nice words from peacc-loving victims of belligerent U.S., who insists that they are "not so strong." :-)
They are extremely nationalistic, with almost bellicose fervor and extremism, with a total disguise with the west, and especially with the United States. They are willing, able and prepared to conduct a first strike against the United States, all it would take is a return of one their hardline Marxist waiting in the wings for the opportunity to seize power. They are aggressively developing a blue water naval capability and are increasing aggressive with other nations in the region. Japan, Philippines, Taiwan, and are making aggressive yet weak territorial claims in the region, with the lightly veiled threat of force if they are opposed. They have little if any regard for human life or rights, so they do not have a burdening humanity, morality or conscience to weigh the consequences of their actions. Mutually assured destruction is not a deterrent to them. One must remember who taught, supported and guided the North Koreans.
Kind of like the difference between a Howard Dean house party and a smoker at the Clinton headquarters.
One is for the gullible useful idiots, the other is
a cadre meeting.
Fine. Let them. I've always wondered what 1.2 billion glowing Chinese would look like. I wonder if it comes with egg rolls.
If only it was just trade. We've located all sorts of factories for US designed products there. In order to build a product, you need bills of material, assembly instructions, drawings and specs for all the parts, test software, fault trees for trouble shooting, and knowledgeable locals who understand the product deeply enough to be able to keep things running when is dark O'clock here in the states. In other words, you essentially need to give the Chinese who are running the plant the crown jewells. OF course, reverse engineering it all is a no brainer. We're not just talking cheap fans and christmas lights. We're talking jet engines, mainframe computer parts (the parts, of course, make up the whole), disk drives, lasers, and all but the highest end of the highest end stuff. Even for things that are proscribed by Export Control lists you can get exemptions. Plus, the gov ain't got diddly for enforcement or auditing so violations are happening, undiscovered, left and right. But it gets worse....
These days, the new fad is R&D in China. You see, of course, it is much cheaper to hire a new grad MSEE or PhD from a PRC university than one here in the states going to school on an F1 visa. Plus, if you set up a design center over there, when you hire, there will be no Feds poking around making sure that you created export control agreement with them or that they aren't active duty PLA. In fact, since they will be the ones doing the designing, on CAD tools located there, modelling it on mainframes located there (some of them not even American ones, but Chinese or Russian ones) and what not, there really is no concept of export control of the intellectual property. Because it WAS already exported the moment it was created! Imagine it all, US corporations funding the immediate creation of advanced intellectual property in the PRC!
In the most "advanced" incarnation of this model, you lay off most of the techies in the states, or at very least, completely overload them. That way, what you end up with is a situation where the only guy who really knows and understands the design is a Red Communist - who may well be active PLA. Cool, eh?
Yep!
Consider me..."Irritated".
:-)
The only Type 094 SSBN was launched in December and isn't yet declared operational. The Xia, which it replaced, was also a single unit and was taken off of operational status. The JL-2 missile has a 4500 mile range, which requires significant travel to hit the US. Very perilous with every US SSN looking for you as you leave port. Is this supposed to make us quiver when the Chinese rattle their sabres?
Generally speaking, someday means someday, not never. But you have to fight with what you have, and right now the Chinese don't have it.
No of course we could not walk around in the USSR. But we had more access then, than we do now with the PRC. Even beyond their Communist systems, the Chinese are innately the most secretive nation on Earth. They've been that way for a very long time.
Building missiles is not all that hard to conceal. They are built indoors, not in open shipyards. It is even easier to conceal it if you don't final assemble them and instead, kit the parts. They can be assembled rapidly, using demand flow manufacturing (e.g. Kanban system). Pardon the pun, but it's not rocket science.
More telltales than you think on missile production and deployment.
There won't be any overnight fielding of 500 ICBMs.
I'm not dismissing the Chinese, but I don't give them mythical abilities either.
Thanks for your posts Sampleman.
The only point of my posts has to do with our ignorant asses granting the enemy MFN status. By doing so we gave them a 'credit card' with a limit beyond their wildest imaginations (which are evil).
MFN status needs to be repealed now or within 15-20 years (at the most) we'll be dealing with an entirely different animal.
There are no red or blue states... there are only shades of purple you insensitive lout!
30 minutes, yes, if we use the land-based ICBM leg of our nuclear triad. Less than 5 minutes if launching SLBM's from our submarines.
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