China Military Expansion Could Have Global Implications says US US report
China not only is a rising international economic power, but also is a rising military power with new and developing capabilities that have global implications, according to the 2008 China Military Power Report released yesterday.
The annual report mandated by Congress analyzes China’s military development and strategy and says that the country spent as much as $139 billion, more than three times its announced defense budget, modernizing its military forces last year.
That amount dwarfs the military budgets of Russia, Japan and South Korea, and has been the driving force behind the country’s military transformation, fueled by the acquisition of advanced foreign weapons and far-reaching organizational and doctrinal reforms.
Combined with what Defense Department officials call a lack of transparency, the military development poses risks to stability by increasing the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation, the report concludes.
“China’s military buildup has been characterized by opacity, but (there is an) inability by both people in the region and people around the world to really know what ties together the capabilities that China’s acquiring with the intentions it has,” said David Sedney, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia. “So there are a lot of areas where there is misunderstanding. There are a lot of areas where there is lack of knowledge.”
The Chinese government generally protests the report, said Sedney, but this year the two sides have agreed to talk about their objections and officials hope to get more answers to their questions. This is the first time this has been done, he said.
To date, the Chinese have invested in new generations of survivable nuclear missiles, capable of targeting the United States as well as regional powers; advanced short- and medium-range ballistic missiles; advanced attack and ballistic missile submarines; Russian aircraft and precision weaponry; multi-mission F-10 fighter aircraft; Russian guided missile destroyers; and modern, long-range, mobile air defense systems.
China’s near-term focus appears to be on Taiwan, but long-term trends suggest China is building a force scoped for operations beyond Taiwan, according to the report. China continues to deploy its most advanced weapons systems to the military regions opposite Taiwan. China’s military is developing capabilities for a number of different military options against Taiwan, including coercion, an air and missile campaign, blockade, and amphibious invasion, according to the report.
Of particular concern to Defense Department officials is the country’s ability to use cyberspace to attack computer networks. Several “intrusions” around the world in which a computer network is infiltrated and information gathered, Sedney said, have been sourced back to China. None of the intrusions were into classified material, Sedney said.
“While we are not able to definitively label them as the work of the (People’s Liberation Army) or the Chinese government, the techniques that were used, the way these intrusions are conducted are certainly very consistent with what you would need if you were going to actually carry out cyber warfare,” Sedney said.
You must be logged in to post a comment.