First of all, let me admit that I have not read all 84 pages of the Pentagon’s annual report on China’s military in any detail. But judging by the summary and from press reports, none of its main conclusions surprise me. I suspect, however, it may miss a bigger perspective that also needs to be examined.
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Congress mandates the Pentagon to produce an annual report on the state of China’s military. China is offended that they are being judged by a foreign country – and that the U.S. has no right to judge them. China is wrong. All countries do net assessments of threats. In the U.S., its a more open process, given Congress’ own concern. At its core is a realization that China is a core challenger to the U.S. – a competition that could one day become military, especially over Taiwan. But it is more than that. China has been unusually secretive about its military, and prevents military to military contacts with the United States. In the lack of information, Congress is especially anxious to understand what is going on. By its own lack of transparency, China itself has added weight to the annual Pentagon report.
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From what it appears, there are a couple of key take-aways from the report, which i will be going through in the coming days
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1. The Chinese military budget is growing – China spends $160B in defense (vs $550B for us). Note that given China’s personnel costs are so much lower than ours, the “real” effective spending, is much higher. Add to the fact that defense budgets threaten to gut our spending while there’s is rising rapidly, parity in defense spending is a possibility in a decades time
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2. China is closing the technological gap – in reality, the Chinese are very far behind us. Most of their best developments have been gleaned from the Russians or stolen technology from the U.S. – whether through cyberespionage, or by getting hands on our equipment (including the stealth helicopter used in the Raid on Abbotabad, and passed along by our ostensible ally, Pakistan)
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3. China is growing its maritime profile – far in excess of anything required to mount an invasion of Taiwan. Of note is the launch of PLAN’s first aircraft carrier. In reality, the aircraft carrier is nothing but a test vehicle, and even when China does launch something more modern, they have no experience in carrier air combat. This will take decades to learn. Far more pressing is China’s land based anti-carrier missiles. These potentially threaten the US Navy’s entire approach of forward deployment in the Western Pacific and South China Sea. Its what is driving updates to the US AirSea Battle plan. More on this in future posts. Longer term, China wants carriers to project its power far from its shoreline. Most attention is being given to their intentions in the South China Sea. In fact, the Chinese have a clear intention of gaining mastery of the Indian Ocean, through which most of the world’s oil supply lines lie. Future U.S.-Chinese naval tensions are therefore as likely to be found in the Indian Ocean as much as the South China or Yellow Sea.
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4. China is advancing in asymmetric technologies. China has become adept in using low cost technologies to neutralize enormously expensive US platforms. China’s carrier busting missiles are an example of this. There are others. In the area of cyberwar, it is clear that China has mounted major espionage efforts against the United States, Europe and India. Not only are they looking for intellectual trade secrets, but they are trying to undermine our critical infrastructure and learn our military game plans. We are currently in the early stages of cyberwar – stay tuned. This is a problem that is only going to grow. The other area where China is using low cost technologies to hit us where it hurts is in space. Our entire military relies on space-based assets for command, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Knocking out our GPS satellites could have a major impact on us.
The Pentagon is right to focus on this.
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So far so good. The Pentagon paints a picture of a rising giant, developing a much larger military with an ability and intention to project power in the Western Pacific, South China Sea and Indian Ocean. It is also one that has invested in technologies to deny U.S. its traditional advantages. My concern is we may be missing another picture here. China is not projecting power for its own sake – they are doing so (understandably) to protect their natural resource supply chains. Hence the rise of their navy (and also its military links into resouce-rich Central Asia). But China now gets its resources from all parts of the world. Accordingly, it is only logical to assume that it ultimately plans to have a global military that would match our own. Perhaps the first place we will see this is in our own backyard of Latin America. Already, China is Brazil and Argentina’s #1 trading partner. China’s trade with the region will only grow as Brazil ramps up its oil production. Furthermore, food security will cause China to look further afield in Latin America for supplies. As it is, the Chinese have keen interests in Panama, and they have been known to be in discussions to build a canal across Mexico (to reduce reliance on the Panama Canal). They obviously have a friendly face in Venezuela, and are believed to have listening stations in Cuba. i do not want to be alarmist that there is a ‘Red Menace” threatening us from the South. But clearly, the trend lines are there.
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The Pentagon report looks like it covers all the main areas where we face a threat. i will be going through each of these, and writing on them over the coming days. But the overall framework of our analysis of China’s military must no longer be regional in nature or looking at US-China rivalries in space or cybertechnology. We now need to have a global perspective – not as a repeat of the US-Soviet Cold War but as a modern-day competition for resources, influence, and ultimately values.
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