Pentagon Tracks Global Buildup In China's Military

[Ryan Ruck]

Pentagon Tracks Global Buildup In China's Military

China's military buildup is moving beyond countering Taiwan to global operations from the Middle East through Southeast Asia, according to the Pentagon's annual assessment of Chinese military power.

"China's military acquisitions and strategic thinking suggests Beijing is also generating capabilities for other regional contingencies, such as conflict over resources or territory," the report to Congress said.

The statement, released yesterday, contradicts assessments of some pro-China analysts and intelligence officials who have said the nation's military buildup is relatively benign and limited to resolving the sovereignty issue of Taiwan, which was separated from China in 1949 during a civil war.

China has said it is prepared to use force to retake Taiwan, and the United States is committed to defending the democratically ruled island from an attack by Beijing.

A defense official briefing reporters on the report said the Chinese buildup is showing "the beginnings of a power-projection capability that has ramifications well beyond a potential Taiwan crisis."

Chinese efforts to develop an aircraft carrier and other power-projection forces are based on concerns that sea lanes used to transport oil to China are vulnerable to disruption, the official said. China is dependent on the sea lanes for its oil imports -- about 80 percent of which travel through the Straits of Malacca.

The Pentagon report, "Military Power of the People's Republic of China 2007," contains new information on the nation's weapons and military strategy, including development of space weapons. In January, it successfully tested an anti-satellite missile against a Chinese satellite.

The report said the test "poses dangers to human space flight and puts at risk the assets of all space-faring nations." It said China appears to be working on an "information blockade" of space through missiles, lasers and electromagnetic anti-satellite missiles and jammers.

"China's continued pursuit of area denial and anti-access strategies is expanding from the traditional land, air and sea dimensions of the modern battlefield to include space and cyberspace."

China also is adopting a doctrine of military pre-emption. Its military views "pre-emption as necessary and logical when confronting a more powerful enemy," the report said.

The Pentagon warned that China's rapid and broad military modernization is "impressive" but that a lack of military experience on the part of Chinese leaders could lead to "a greater potential for miscalculations in crises."

"Such miscalculations would be equally catastrophic whether based on advice from operationally inexperienced commanders or from 'scientific' combat models divorced from the realities of the modern battlefield," the report said.

The buildup of China's forces includes an array of high-technology arms, including new long-range ballistic and cruise missiles, anti-satellite attack weapons, computer warfare troops, intelligence satellites, and airborne and sealift forces that can be deployed over long distances, the report stated.

The report said that the military buildup is being carried out in secret and that the nation's spending on weapons is as much as $141 billion a year, far more than the official Chinese government claim of $45 billion.

China's U.N. ambassador in Geneva is quoted in the report responding to U.S. concerns about Beijing's military spending by saying, "It's better for the U.S. to shut up and keep quiet" about it.

Regarding Taiwan, the Chinese military is developing long-range, precision-guided missiles that can target U.S. aircraft carriers and warships, which Beijing thinks would intervene in any China-Taiwan conflict, the report said.

In a blunt warning to China, the report stated that Beijing would face enormous costs for using military force to try to reunite the island with the mainland.

A war would leave China fighting an insurgency in Taiwan and facing "U.S. intervention," as well an undermining of the Chinese economic modernization.

"A conflict would also severely damage the image that Beijing has sought to project in the post-Tiananmen years and would taint Beijing's hosting of the 2008 Olympics, for which China's leaders would almost certainly face boycotts and possibly a loss of the games," the report said.

Domestic unrest in China also could be set off by a Taiwan conflict, "a contingency that Beijing appears to have factored into its planning," the report stated.

An appendix to the report discloses for the first time the locations of Chinese military units, including ground forces, air bases and naval forces.

On China's nuclear forces, the report states that China is adding to its relatively small nuclear arsenal and may be exploring "new options."

[Brian Baldwin]

Chinese general says build-up purely defensive. (Yeah Right)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1843525/posts

SINGAPORE (AFP) - China's military build-up is purely defensive, the deputy chief of the world's biggest standing army said Saturday, amid US concerns over Beijing's intentions.
"Strategically, we adhere to self-defence and would win only by striking after the enemy has struck," Lieutenant General Zhang Qinsheng, deputy chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), told an international defence forum in Singapore.
"China shall never fire the first shot. Such an approach is consistent with the ancient Chinese thought to use caution before getting into a war, use force only for a just cause, put people first and cherish life."
Zhang was speaking to an audience that included US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, US Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace and the head of the US Pacific command, Admiral Timothy Keating.
His remarks followed a recent Pentagon report on Chinese military power which detailed Beijing's drive to acquire modern warships, aircraft and missiles in what appeared to be part of a longer-term strategy to deny US forces access to the region.
Although Taiwan is the immediate focus of China's overhaul of its military, Beijing appears to be amassing military capabilities to project power well beyond the nationalist-ruled island, driven in part by a desire to protect energy supply lines, the report said.
China considers Taiwan part of its territory awaiting reunification.
But General Zhang, the most senior Chinese official ever to attend the annual Shangri-La Dialogue gathering of analysts, defence and national security officials, emphasised the defensive nature of the build-up.
China's defence budget is small given the size of the country and the geopolitical environment in which it has to operate, he pointed out.
The world's most populous nation has no intention of joining an arms race, he said, adding that despite possessing nuclear weapons, Beijing will not be the first to use them.
"We develop but only limited nuclear capabilities, adhere to no-first-use policy, and will not use, or threaten to use, nuclear weapons against nuclear weapons-free countries and zones," he said.
China's military modernisation is designed to "achieve limited military power" and Beijing is committed to "developing a smaller but highly capable military force in a unique Chinese way," he added.
US defence chief Gates, in a speech to the Singapore conference earlier Saturday, expressed optimism about relations between the two nations.
He downplayed past US rhetoric on China's military might, alluding only in passing to the recent Pentagon report on Beijing's drive to reshape its armed forces.
"We are concerned about the opaqueness of Beijing's military spending and modernisation programmes -- issues described in the annual report on the Chinese armed forces recently released by the US government," he said.
"But as General Pete Pace, our Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointed out, there is some difference between 'capacity' and 'intent.' And I believe there is reason to be optimistic about the US-China relationship." The conference, organised by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, an independent think tank, is taking place at a hotel surrounded by concrete barricades and guarded by special Nepalese Gurkha police armed with shotguns and submachine guns.