China Buildup Seen Destabilizing Region

[Ryan Ruck]

China Buildup Seen Destabilizing Region

By Bill Gertz, The Washington Times



China is continuing an aggressive military buildup in secret and deploying missiles near Taiwan that are increasing instability in the region, a State Department official told Congress on March 28.

Thomas Christensen, deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said China has made multibillion-dollar increases in defense spending each year for the past decade but has not explained to the United States where the arms buildup is headed.

“These are increases in real terms, and what we would like to know [. . . ] where are these trend lines leading?” Mr. Christensen said.

China’s defense spending has tripled since 1999 and “we would like to know more about where China is heading; what the purposes of this modernization are,” he said.

U.S. defense officials have said China’s military and Communist Party leaders have refused to answer U.S. government officials’ questions about the goals and targets of China’s military buildup.

The secrecy surrounding the buildup is raising fears among China’s neighbors, he told a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the global environment.

Mr. Christensen said estimates of China’s real defense budget vary widely but that the latest announced spending increase for this year is 18 percent, and the equivalent of about $44 billion.

However, U.S. government and private specialists say China’s real annual defense spending is between $130 billion and $200 billion when foreign weapons purchases, the military-run space program and other costs are factored into the estimates.

“This gets at the core issue of lack of transparency,” Mr. Christensen said. “So we think it’s in both of our interests for China to be more transparent about what it’s doing with its military modernization, how much money it’s spending, where it’s spending that money for what purposes, what sort of doctrinal shifts might be going on within the Chinese military as it attains some of the new capabilities.”

He called on China to “engage the world more clearly about what it’s doing in its defense modernization.”

The Jan. 11 anti-satellite weapons test by China, which destroyed a weather satellite in space, “underscores the lack of transparency in that military modernization process.”

“The development and deployment of such an offensive system appears inconsistent with China’s stated goal of ‘peaceful rise,’ ” he said in a prepared statement for the committee.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, who was visiting China for talks, told reporters two weeks ago that China’s military leaders refused to discuss the anti-satellite weapons program.

The main security worry is the “the near to medium term [. . . ] very fast-paced military buildup across from Taiwan, which we see as a force for instability and cross-strait relations,” Mr. Christensen said.

Pentagon officials estimate that China has 900 to 1,000 short-range missiles deployed within firing range of Taiwan that could be used in a lightning, leadership decapitation strike on the island that Beijing regards as its territory.

[Jag]

U.S. military buildup urged to counter China

By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
April 11, 2007


The United States should build up military forces in Asia to counter China's military expansion, according to a report on U.S.-China relations by a blue-ribbon panel.

"The United States should sustain and selectively enhance its force posture in East Asia, ensuring it has capabilities commensurate with the region's growing importance to the U.S. economy and other vital national interests," the report by a task force of the Council on Foreign Relations stated.

The task force, whose report was made public yesterday, was led by retired Pacific Command chief Adm. Dennis Blair and former U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills.

"We believe that the United States should maintain the air, maritime and space superiority that we have in the Western Pacific that's been the basis of a lot of Western Pacific/East Asian development ever since the end of the Second World War. And we need to maintain that position," Adm. Blair said.

The report stated that upgrades to the U.S. military base on the Pacific island of Guam should continue and that the U.S. military should "invest broadly" in next-generation technologies that are appropriate for the Pacific, such as advanced naval and air forces.

The Pentagon also should consider "shifting the balance of its naval forces toward the Pacific from the Atlantic," the report stated.

"The maritime interests of the United States in the future are increasingly in the Asia-Pacific region, and the stationing of its naval forces should be aligned with this trend," it stated.

The buildup and shift of forces to the Pacific is part of what the Pentagon calls its "hedge" strategy of being ready to defeat China swiftly in any military conflict.

The report also stated that the United States needs to improve its intelligence-gathering and analysis of the Chinese military, including training more intelligence specialists with Chinese language skills.

The task force disagrees with part of the Pentagon's four-year strategy, stating that it does not think China will become a "peer competitor" of the U.S. military in the near future.

"We don't see it becoming a peer competitor, but we think the United States needs to maintain its capability that it's had," Adm. Blair said.

Richard Fisher, a specialist on China's military, said he disagrees strongly with that assessment.

"By 2010, most of China's anti-access forces will be in place, making it very difficult to use Pacific forces to help Taiwan," Mr. Fisher said. "Unless we double the number of our aircraft carriers and triple our bomber fleet, China is going to be a peer competitor by 2030."

The 30-member task force included former government officials, business specialists and academics, most of whom are known to favor conciliatory policies toward Beijing.

They include former Defense Secretary Harold Brown, defense officials Ashton B. Carter and Charles Freeman, and former State Department officials Winston Lord, Wendy Sherman and Randy Schriver.

Arthur Waldron, a task force member and University of Pennsylvania professor, said the report accurately highlights the many problems and issues facing China at home and abroad but fails to recognize that they could lead to a rapid and spontaneous change that "is more risky and volatile than anything we have seen to date in China."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/natio...4611-3664r.htm

Jag

[American Patriot]

Too many eyes are on places like Iraq and Afghanastan for any real urgency to build up troop/military strength in response to China.

The Democrats are making the war on terror into a circus, and trying to force Bush to remove troops, instead of looking at the BIG PICTURE.

Just remember this, Presidents do not lose wars, American loses wars.

Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford didn't lose the Vietnam war, AMERICA lost that war. Why? Because we let Congress do precisely what it is again trying to do, control the war effort.

So, the self-fulfilling prophecy coming from the Liberal side of the house, i.e. "It's Vietnam all over again" is coming true because they want it too. The liberals WANT us to lose. It's something they want to have happen. That way they can BLAME President Bush.