The Pentagon and China are at odds over China’s military and what it means not just to Taiwan but to Asia in general.
At issue is a report from the Pentagon with a notably tougher sound to it than in recent years. The Washington Post:
China is building up its military for the long-term goal of projecting its power well beyond Taiwan, the self-governing island that draws most of the mainland’s attention today, a Pentagon report says.
The Chinese military is buying new weapon systems _ including important purchases from Russia _ while developing new doctrine for modern warfare and improving training standards, the report released Tuesday says.
Still, the Pentagon rates China’s current ability to project power beyond its periphery as “limited.” And, it says, China cannot yet be certain that its military, while steadily strengthening, is capable of conquering Taiwan.
“Current trends in China’s military modernization could provide China with a force capable of prosecuting a range of military operations in Asia _ well beyond Taiwan _ potentially posing a credible threat to modern militaries operating in the region,” the report stated. “Some of China’s military planners are surveying the strategic landscape beyond Taiwan.”
The report details some factors such as improvement in missles that could be potent enough to pose a threat to the United States; air and naval force improvements; and short range ballistic missles:
Kurt Campbell, who was a senior Asia specialist at the Pentagon during the Clinton administration, said in an interview that the report is “slightly more alarmist” than previous Pentagon assessments of China’s military. He noted that the report focuses on a number of new Chinese capabilities, including a naval buildup.
China has not been happy about this report, as Bloomberg notes:
“The report unreasonably attacks the modernization of Chinese national defense and rudely castigates China’s normal national defense constructions and military deployment,” Vice Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said in a statement posted on the ministry’s Web site.
And there’s this:
“China, remember, will continue to pursue a path of peaceful development,” said foreign minister Li Zhaoxing….”China not only poses no threat to anyone, we also are willing to establish friendship and all kinds of win-win co-operation with other countries to push forward co-operative development.”
But the report’s message has not been lost elsewhere in Asia. Note this report from the Indian site sify.com:
Washington: The US Government says that the Chinese military build-up poses a direct threat to India.
According to the assessment by the Pentagon appearing in Wednesday’s Washington Post, the Chinese military build-up is not only targeted at India, but also at Taiwan, Japan and Russia.
Avoiding inflammatory rhetoric, the 45-page factual report based on American intelligence inputs, warns that Beijing could use its new advanced nuclear missile arsenal to “strike India, Russia and virtually all of the United States” at any given time in the future.
It further warns that China’s defence spending could go up to 90 billion dollars in 2005, three times more than what it has officially projected, making it the world’s third largest military budget after the US and Russia, and the largest in Asia.
Indeed, if you look at the U.S. alliances in recent years plus the political sword of Damacles known as Taiwan it would seem that the the stage is set for more friction between the U.S. and China. Stay tuned.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.