China Takes Aim at Philippines, Australia – and the U.S.
NewsMax.com
Thursday, Oct. 19, 2000
Communist China plans to build a so-called blue-water navy capable of putting its armed forces as far away as what its military calls "first island-chain" by 2010 and to the "second island-chain" by 2040.
In Chinese military planning, the first and second island-chains describe the sphere of influence that China expects to achieve in the Pacific Ocean. The first island-chain includes Japan, Okinawa, Taiwan, the Philippines and Brunei. The second island-chain extends to Australia’s doorsteps.
But Taiwanese military officials warn that these island chains are only preliminary targets.
"China's intensive military buildup in recent years is certainly not targeted only at Taiwan. China's real target is the U.S.," said Taiwanese National Defense University lecturer Colonel Jen Yi-ming.
Despite the belligerence inherent in the exercise, some Western observers saw Beijing’s release of a white paper purporting to lay bare the state of China’s military machine and its operations as a sign that China – one of the most secretive military powers in the world – may be trying to ease international concerns about its military ambitions.
Beijing’s recent large-scale maneuvers in Northern China, however, were intended to remind the world, especially Washington and Taipei, of China's growing military strength, a top Taiwanese military official warned.
"The Chinese exercise carries the message to the U.S., Japan and Taiwan that China has the capability to keep Taiwan under its influence through military means," said Colonel Tan Hsi-chun, a lecturer at Taiwan’s National Defense University.
"The thinking behind the move is that the Chinese military leadership is worried that people in Taiwan are becoming less scared of China because Taiwan's military has been able to acquire and absorb quite a number of advanced weapons from abroad in recent years," Tan said.
"Chinese military leaders certainly do not want to see this sentiment grow stronger in Taiwan," Tan explained. "They want to demonstrate through the recent large-scale military exercise that they are quite capable of overpowering Taiwan militarily," he said.
Tan made the remarks yesterday after he delivered a speech to the press at the Taoyuan campus of the National Defense University on the military balance in the East and Southeast Asian regions.
Lt. Gen. Chang Chien-chung , director of the university's army college, agreed with Tan, saying China's recent military exercise has certainly been held with a particular audience in mind.
"China wants its message to be understood by the U.S., Japan and Taiwan. But it does not wish to go too far," Jen added. "That's why Chinese Premier Zhu Rongi visited Japan around the same time of the military exercise in northern China," Jen added.
"China still needs financial aid from Japan to promote its national development plans, such as the cultivation of the western interior. Its ultimate goal is first to become the super power in Asia and then a world power," he said.
On Tuesday, China released a white paper describing the state of Beijing’s military and offering some details of its current operations.
According to the Washington Post, the document "provides more detail than China has ever allowed about the structure of the 2.5 million-member People's Liberation Army, as well as a blueprint of government efforts to turn it into a leaner, more versatile fighting force by demobilizing troops, stepping up training, improving command and control, selling 6,000 military-owned commercial enterprises and establishing a military judicial system."
The White Paper claimed that China is "endeavoring to transform its armed forces from a numerically superior to a qualitatively superior type, and from a manpower-intensive to a technology-intensive type," and added that the army has been downsized by a half-million over the last three years.
The document gave no information about the numbers or types of weapons and equipment in use. But budget data showed that equipment costs continued to account for less than a third of military expenditures. The paper attributed increases in announced military spending – from $11.3 billion in 1998 to $14.8 billion last year – almost entirely to higher personnel costs.
Incredibly, the saber-rattling document, which some U.S. military experts saw as a companion piece to the recent military exercises most viewed as a warning to Taiwan that Beijing intends to attack Taiwan when it believes it is ready, was viewed by others as a sign that China wants to be seen as peaceful and cooperative despite the fact that the white paper clearly states that Chinese leaders see the United States as a threat to stability in Asia.
"This is a phenomenal document. It goes far further than anything they've ever done before," gushed David Shambaugh, director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University, who was meeting with Chinese military officials in the eastern city of Suzhou yesterday.
"With a couple of exceptions, mainly their refusal to provide information about weapons and deployment of forces, this is exactly the kind of thing we've been calling for, and it puts China on par with Japan, Taiwan and South Korea as far as transparency of its military," Shambaugh told the Washington Post.
While most experts believe China's military budget is actually two to three times greater than the document indicates, Shambaugh said the paper's figures still suggest China "hasn't been able to spend much on modernizing hardware. ... Weapons is their major weakness across all services."
Military sources, however, point to China’s massive purchases of aircraft and ships and other costly high-tech military gear from Russia as proof that Beijing is spending large sums to beef up its offensive capabilities. They say it is the height of naivete to believe that the release of the white paper is nothing more than a smoke screen meant to convey an openness that is in reality an illusion.
Moreover, the paper’s acknowledgment of the existence of the Second Artillery Force, a service branch independent of the army, navy and air force that controls the nation's nuclear missile units, was seen by some as a veiled threat to Taiwan and the U.S.
Finally, the document reiterated previous threats to use force if Taiwan formally declares independence or indefinitely delays reunification.
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