China's rapid military buildup makes U.S. more watchful -- Ascending Light

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Date Posted: 13:09:42 10/03/05 Mon
Author: Weird_Enigma
Author Host/IP: 172.150.255.11
Subject: China's rapid military buildup makes U.S. more watchful
In reply to: Weird_Enigma 's message, "Three Gorges dam forces water to fill with sewage, junk, chemicals" on 12:36:11 05/03/04 Mon

Asia: Security in the cross hairs

China's rapid military buildup makes U.S. more watchful, fuels fears about conflict

TIM JOHNSON
Knight Ridder

DALIAN, China - If the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet one day sails to Taiwan's defense, China's large fleet of submarines could be lurking with a lethal surprise.

The submarines, waiting along Taiwan's Pacific coast, could fire a barrage of "Sizzlers," devastating anti-ship weapons that pop out of the water, spot aircraft carriers or escort ships, then drop near the water's surface, accelerating to supersonic speeds for the kill. Little can be done to defend against a "Sizzler" attack.

"You're pretty much a sitting duck," said Larry Wortzel, a former U.S. military attache in Beijing who's now an analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington.

The course of the 21st century will be determined in part by the relationship between China and the United States. In many ways, relations are healthier than ever. But the two nations remain potential adversaries, plotting in war games how to thwart each other. While always cautious of nuclear-armed China, the United States has become even more watchful.

U.S. strategists say the People's Liberation Army has made huge strides in modernization. China now has a submarine fleet that rivals the Pentagon's in numbers, if not in weaponry. Air bases bristle with new Russian-built fighter jets. At testing sites, military engineers toil over anti-satellite lasers and "bolt-out-of-the-blue" weapons systems.

And the buildup is far from over. Shipyards churn out frigates and new vessels by the month, and China fine-tunes a sea-based nuclear missile delivery system designed to keep the White House wary of tangling with a rising dragon in the East.

"It's a military that isn't looking for a fight but wants to have sharper teeth," said James Mulvenon, a China military expert at the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis in Washington.

China enjoys nowhere near the overall strength of U.S. forces, now tested by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But its analysts are scrutinizing U.S. deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan and on the high seas for signs of weakness and are seeking to exploit them in any clash over Taiwan or elsewhere.

Washington and regional capitals, particularly Tokyo, view the cumulative effect of China's military buildup with concern, even alarm. In pointed remarks on June 4 in Singapore, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked: "Since no nation threatens China, one must wonder: Why this growing investment?"

Defense analysts say the answer is evident: China wants its armed forces to be able to thwart the U.S. Pacific Command from intervening if Beijing orders an invasion of Taiwan, a self-governing democratic island that China claims as its own.

"It's clear that the systems they've acquired and the systems they are developing are designed to ... deny the U.S. the abilities to move in the Western Pacific," Wortzel said.

Some U.S. military analysts, though, are wary of overemphasizing China's military strength, saying the issue has become politicized. The U.S. Navy and Air Force are "looking for a traditional enemy" in the wake of the global war on terror, which has better suited the Marine Corps and Army, said Mulvenon, the Washington-based China analyst.

For their part, senior PLA officers rarely talk about China's strength, heeding Sun Tzu, the ancient general and author of "The Art of War," who advised: "Although you are capable, feign incapability."

Restraint may be advisable, given the lack of combat experience of PLA officers and rank-and-file alike since a short war with Vietnam in 1979. Moreover, training of conscripts and soldiers, while improving, still trails that of the U.S. military.

Even so, some of China's top officers seem to be feeling emboldened.

In remarks that sent ripples across the Pacific, Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu said in July that China should be ready to attack the United States with nuclear weapons if it intervenes in a confrontation over Taiwan.

China's Foreign Ministry later brushed aside his remarks as personal reflections.

Pentagon's View

In an annual report on China's military released in mid-July, the Pentagon said that China's real defense spending may be "two to three times" the $30 billion budget stated by Beijing -- still less than a quarter of the $455 billion that Congress allots the Pentagon.

� China by late this year will have as many as 300 Russian-built SU-27 jetfighters and SU-30MKK fighter-bombers, and is acquiring aerial refueling aircraft from Russia. It also is converting older aircraft into unmanned aerial drones.

� Space-based and over-the-horizon radar and weapons could enable China "to identify, target and track foreign military activities deep into the western Pacific," according to the Pentagon annual report. By 2010, China expects to have some 100 surveillance and communications satellites, and it's working on micro- and nano-satellites.

� China is reportedly probing the use of ballistic missiles against U.S. naval carrier groups -- either by arming them with maneuverable warheads that can home in on ships or through electronic "pulse" weapons that explode in the air and knock out communications, rendering a carrier effectively inoperable.

� Even as shipyards churn out new vessels, an increasing number of shipyards are building everything from diesel-electric submarines to frigates. The nation has built 10 destroyers in the past decade, gaining new ability to project naval power.

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knight ridder

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