U.S. sees Chinese military rise
By Thom Shanker
copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: March 26, 2009
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/26/news/27military.php
WASHINGTON: China is seeking technology and weapons to disrupt the traditional advantages of American forces, and secrecy surrounding its military creates the potential for miscalculation on both sides, according to a Pentagon study released Wednesday.
The annual report from the Defense Department to Congress, "Military Power of the People's Republic of China 2009," catalogs efforts by China to supply its armed forces with weapons that can be used to intimidate and attack Taiwan and blunt the superiority of American naval and air power, at least near its territory.
"We have advocated time and again for more dialogue and transparency in our dealings with the Chinese government and military, all in an effort to reduce suspicions on both sides," said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary.
He said the report should be read as calling "for deeper, broader, more high-level contacts with the Chinese."
China's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, dismissed the Pentagon report on Thursday as "a gross distortion of the facts" and interference in China's internal affairs.
"This report issued by the U. S. side continues to play up the fallacy of China's military threat," he said at his regular news briefing in Beijing. He suggested that the Pentagon stop issuing the annual report to avoid "further damage to the two sides' military relations."
China suspended high-level contacts with the Pentagon last October in response to the Bush administration's decision to sell a record $6.5 billion in military equipment to Taiwan. But relations appeared to improve after the deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, David S. Sedney, held two days of talks with his Chinese counterparts last month.
Military relations between the United States and China have tended to crest and then fall over recent years, with ties having just recovered from Beijing's outrage over the sales to Taiwan.
But even the resumption of military-to-military talks was threatened this month after Chinese vessels shadowed and harassed an American surveillance ship in international waters of the South China Sea.
The Pentagon report describes how China's military modernization has continued over the past year, with a particular focus on Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province. China has built up short-range missiles across from Taiwan, even though the report concludes that relations between the two have relaxed over the past year.
Even so, the study said China could not deploy and sustain even small military units far beyond its borders before 2015. Further, China would not be able to deploy and sustain large forces in combat operations far from China until well into the following decade, the report states.
Instead, the Chinese military appears to have embarked on modernization programs that would allow it to fight and win short conflicts fought with new weapons along its periphery.
To blunt traditional advantages of the United States, China has invested in new technologies for cyber- and space warfare, in addition to sustaining and modernizing its nuclear arsenal, the report said. The Chinese military also is expanding and improving its fleet of submarines, and hopes to build a number of new aircraft carriers, the report said.
The report does single out acts by the Chinese military to participate in international relief and rescue missions. Between 2002 and 2007, the People's Liberation Army joined at least 14 search-and-rescue missions at sea, and was involved in 10 emergency relief missions in 14 countries.
Between 2003 and 2007, China also sold nearly $7 billion worth of conventional weapons around the world, mostly to Pakistan, the report said.
Rep. Ike Skelton, the Missouri Democrat who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, released a statement on Wednesday that expressed concern at "some of the continuing trends and ambiguities regarding China's military modernization, including China's missile buildup across from Taiwan and the steady increase of China's power projection capabilities."
He said that "China's military budget continues a trend of double-digit increases and questions remain about China's strategic intentions."
Michael Wines contributed reporting from Beijing.
Beijing’s naval harassment rouses US
By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington and Kathrin Hille in Beijing
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: March 25 2009 18:37 | Last updated: March 26 2009 03:23
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/38043386-196b-11de-9d34-0000779fd2ac.html
When Chinese ships recently harassed the Impeccable, a US navy surveillance ship, in the South China Sea, they shone the spotlight on brewing regional tensions that until that point were moving only slowly onto the US radar.
By surrounding, and then blocking, the Impeccable, the Chinese navy inadvertently succeeded in explaining what Robert Gates, US defence secretary, meant when he referred to “coercive diplomacy and other pressures” in a nuanced speech to Asian defence officials in Singapore last year.
“The Chinese are very sophisticated, but in this latest incident [in terms of harassing ships] I think they stepped in it,” says Marvin Ott, a south-east Asia expert at the US National War College.
“The Impeccable incident will cause the US to drop its lethargy and start to focus on the issue.”
The proximate cause of the incident may have been that the Impeccable was learning too much about Chinese submarines based at Hainan Island that were conducting exercises in the South China Sea.
“The Chinese have decided that one of their biggest naval facilities is going to be at Hainan, therefore the area is becoming more sensitive for the Chinese military,” said Dennis Wilder, a China military expert at the Brookings Institution who served as George W. Bush’s top Asia adviser until January.
“The Chinese goal is to have the US back away from sensitive areas.”
China is especially sensitive about US operations near Hainan because the island is being used to base a new sophisticated Jin-class submarine that will carry nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“It is well known that the submarine base was established [at Hainan], so it is unacceptable for China to have the US navy snooping around so close,” said Li Jinming, a South China Sea expert at Xiamen University.
The US has already made clear that it does not intend to stop surveillance missions just because of the Impeccable incident. The US navy has become more concerned about Chinese submarines since one vessel surfaced undetected by radar within firing range of a US aircraft carrier in 2006.
Michael Swaine, a China expert at the Carnegie Endowment, says China appears to be responding more aggressively as the US increases the frequency of its spying missions.
“They want to keep capable, advanced, foreign navies away from their shores…It is to reduce the ability of the US to operate freely along their coast.”
China has also signalled that it intends to build a “blue water” navy with aircraft carriers. While some China hawks in the US question Chinese intent, other defence officials see the growing Chinese naval presence as natural for a country that is growing into a superpower.
“There are legitimate reasons for them to grow a ‘blue water’ navy, mostly to help the rest of us to ensure the stability and prosperity of this globalised world of ours,” said one US defence official.
“We’re okay with that and we want to engage with them going forwards and partner [them] where it makes sense. It’s the other things that they are doing on the way that leave you baffled, like this incident with the Impeccable.”
Experts point to a range of other reasons for the increased aggressiveness in the South China Sea. The Chinese navy is expanding its reach beyond its coast as part of the country’s defence strategy.
David Finkelstein, director of China studies at CNA, a defence think-tank, says Beijing made clear for the first time in 2006 that the People’s Liberation Army navy would expand its “strategic depth” off the Chinese coast.
“As the PLA navy goes further out to sea it will certainly encounter the US navy, and it is not out of the question that a conscious decision has been made by Beijing to engage in the practice of periodically challenging the US navy’s ability to operate with impunity in China’s exclusive economic zone [EEZ], even though China’s EEZ constitutes waters in which all nations can exercise high seas freedom.”
The expansion of Chinese military activities in the area also comes as countries jostle over competing claims for maritime territory that may be energy-rich. Vietnam, in particular, has complained to the US about Chinese diplomatic and military aggressiveness.
“The tensions are flaring up because Vietnam is coming into its own, and inviting foreign companies to do energy deals,” says Mr Wilder. “China has told western companies not to contest the waters, and most companies have backed off.”
Michael Green, another former top Asia adviser to Mr Bush, says the Chinese are also tackling the Americans to send a signal to other countries.
“The Chinese are elbowing, seeing how far they can go before the referee blows the whistle on them and they get a yellow card,” says Mr Green. “This is also a signal to Vietnam, the Philippines, and the smaller countries in the region, that ‘look, if we can do this to the Americans, what chance do you think you have?’.”
James Clad, the top Pentagon official for south-east Asia until January, agrees that China is challenging the US navy partly to send a message to energy companies looking to operate in the region.
”Some analysts believe China increasingly is orienting itself to the south…China has been putting steadily increasing pressure on energy companies over the past several years in the South China Sea.”
Mr Clad says a number of Western firms, including Chevron, BP, and Exxon Mobil, have entered exploration and production (E&P) arrangements with PetroVietnam, ”none of which has pleased Beijing”.
”By crowding the USNS Impeccable, China is telegraphing without much ambiguity that it can easily treat energy company survey ships in the same manner,” he added.
Military experts in Beijing say another reason for the more aggressive behaviour from the PLA navy is the economic side of China’s sovereignty claim over most of the South China Sea.
Analysts agree that the moves earlier this year of Malaysia’s prime minister to renew the country’s claim over certain islands in the area and of the Philippine parliament to pass a law expanding its claimed continental shelf forced Beijing to decide it had to take a harder stance.
Beijing felt that it had become the only country still practicing restraint, and was losing out doing so, says Chinese scholars. The 2002 Asean Declaration on Conduct in the South China Sea under which all participants, including China, pledged to put aside controversy and tap resources together, had been “violated by everyone but China,” says Mr Li.
Some US officials see a broader move by China to assert control over an area inside what the Chinese call the “six segment dotted line”, particularly as the Chinese navy develops increased capabilities to project power. Sometimes referred to the “cow’s tongue” outside China because of its shape, the boundary marks China’s definition of its maritime territory.
“China appears to have a long-term interest in gradually expanding ’sovereignty’ inside the six segment dotted line,” said one senior US defence official.
But the official said China may also see the lower tensions across the Taiwan Strait as an opportunity to shift their focus.
“Some in the Chinese military did not believe that the soft policy of [President] Hu Jintao would work, because they felt they needed Taiwan as a justification for continued military spending, but it is working and so now they need a new rationale.”
China hawks within the US military are often accused of using the rise of China as a pretext to justify increased funding for weapons such as the F-22 fighter jet. Much in the same manner, some US experts argue that the PLA navy has learned a trick from the Pentagon playbook, and is using the increased tensions in the South China Sea as justification for its own funding during a tight economic environment.
While lower tensions with Taiwan may have provided some space for the Chinese military, Mr Ott says the overall geopolitical landscape has shifted in a way that has prompted China to change its strategy. He says China has been playing “defence” in Northeast Asia, but now sees opportunity in south-east Asia which is the “soft underbelly”.
“The traditional historic strategic threats – Russia and Japan – are off the board so China is free for the first time since the Ming dynasty to be proactively assertive in terms of their interests and they see those interests primarily through to the south,” says Mr Ott.
“What the Chinese see in Southeast Asia is a natural sphere of influence,” says Mr Ott. “This is China’s Central America. They want to push US military power out of their backyard.”
To contact the reporter, email demetri.sevastopulo@ft.com
‘More Chinese missiles’ in Taiwan Strait
By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: March 25 2009 18:50 | Last updated: March 25 2009 23:19
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4a5104aa-196c-11de-9d34-0000779fd2ac.html
China deployed more missiles across the Taiwan Strait during the past year in spite of a decline in tensions since a new Taiwanese president was elected, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.
In its annual report on the Chinese military, the US defence department said China was “rapidly developing coercive capabilities” to deter Taiwan – which Beijing considers a renegade province – from seeking de jure independence.
“These same capabilities could in the future be used to pressure Taiwan toward a settlement of the cross-strait dispute on Beijing’s terms while simultaneously attempting to deter, delay or deny any possible US support for the island in case of conflict,” the report said.
“This modernisation and the threat to Taiwan continue despite significant reduction in cross-strait tension over the last year since Taiwan elected a new president.”
The report, mandated by the US Congress, comes just a few weeks after an incident in the South China Sea in which five Chinese naval, fisheries and fishing ships harassed the USNS Impeccable, a US navy ship used for detecting submarines. Defence experts say the Chinese navy is increasingly trying to challenge the US Seventh Fleet, which has long been the dominant naval power in the region.
Hawks in the US are concerned that China is expanding the capabilities of its military to become more aggressive in Asia and elsewhere.
Other officials say it is natural for China to develop its military as it grows into a big power, but they have concerns about a lack of transparency.
“There are legitimate reasons for them to grow a ‘blue water’ navy, mostly to help the rest of us to ensure the stability and prosperity of this globalised world of ours,” said one US defence official. “So we’re okay with that and we want to engage with them going forwards and partner [them] where it makes sense. It’s the other things that they are doing on the way that leaves you baffled, like this incident with the Impeccable.”
Following several days of heated rhetoric, the US and China have attempted to ratchet down the tensions. The US sent a destroyer to protect the Impeccable, but the White House was later annoyed that the Pentagon revealed the move to avoid the perception that the US was trying to escalate the incident.
While the Chinese military budget has benefited from double-digit growth for years, the Pentagon said the People’s Liberation Army still had “limited” ability to sustain military power at a distance. But it said the Chinese continued to develop “disruptive technologies”, such as missiles that would hinder adversaries from entering a battle zone, that “are changing regional military balances and that have implications beyond the Asia-Pacific region”.
Disruptive technologies are products or processes that marginalise older technologies. In the military, cyber warfare can disable computer-based weapons systems. In 2007, China destroyed one of its weather satellites in space with a kinetic weapon, leading to concerns in the US about the safety of its surveillance and communications satellites.
The Pentagon said China’s lack of transparency on its military spending and capabilities “poses risks to stability by creating uncertainty and increasing the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation”.
Additional reporting by agencies.
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