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Report debunks 'China
threat'
By David Isenberg
In
recent years the United States, in its role as global
super-nanny, has expressed concern about other states'
potential aggression. One of them was China. Though that
country never made President George W Bush's "axis of
evil", it was seen as a rising potential threat,
especially with regard to a possible invasion of Taiwan.
But such a scenario has been over-hyped and is very
unlikely, according to a newly released report.
"Taiwan Strait II: The Risk of War", released on
June 6 by the International Crisis Group (ICG), a
Brussels-based non-profit organization, finds that
"there is still some way to go before China would feel
itself ready to launch a major military assault. China
is operating very much at the psychological or
political, rather than military, level of conflict." In
fact, the most important conclusion is that "China has
since 1995 displayed a clear preference for use of
military coercion against Taiwan only in a very limited,
modulated and non-lethal fashion".
This policy
was reflected in then president Jiang Zemin's report to
the 16th Communist Party Congress last November. In his
White Paper on National Defense, Zemin stated the view
that it would not be until the middle of the century
that China would be a "strong" and "prosperous" country,
thus China should, for the foreseeable future at least,
avoid a direct and large-scale military confrontation
with the United States over Taiwan.
The White
Paper's conclusions are similar to those of a report
released on May 22 by the Council on Foreign Relations
Independent Task Force on Chinese Military Power, whose
central finding was that China was at least two decades
behind the United States in terms of military technology
and capability.
Similarly, the ICG report
concluded that "if China did launch an invasion it might
well, whatever its ballistic-missile capability, lack
the military capability to succeed, particularly if the
US intervened, and even in the best-case scenario would
not be able to subjugate Taiwan without large loss of
life".
Even if China did manage to occupy
Taiwan it would be a Pyrrhic victory, a case of being
careful what you wish for, the report states. "Such use
of force could certainly be expected to lead to
recognition of Taiwan, even an occupied Taiwan, as an
independent sovereign country by major powers such as
the US and EU. The subsequent domestic repression in
Taiwan over a protracted period under a China-installed
regime would ensure a total breach between China and the
developed world. Such a breach would bring a near total
end to China's substantial exports to the developed
world and produce massive unemployment in its costal
cites at a time when domestic political stability is
under severe strain."
Another sign that the
China "threat" may be less than advertised can be found
in Taiwan itself. As it turns out, the Taiwanese
apparently have better things to do than worry about an
imminent invasion. According to the report, "In 1991,
Taiwan formally dropped its policy of armed
confrontation with China, and it has continued to lower
its defense burden accordingly. Even though the military
threat from China resurfaced prominently in 1995, Taiwan
has not made the sort of massive new investment in
defense capability and defense mobilization that this
might have suggested." In fact, despite increased
military spending by China, Taiwan is not responding in
kind. Last July it issued a White Paper on national
defense that details a decade-long decline in military
budgets as a share of government spending.
There
are sound reasons why Taiwan does not have to worry
about mainland China, according to the report. One is
that China's forces remain technologically backward,
despite acquisition of some advanced weapons systems
from Russia, which, ironically, became a significant
supplier after the United States and the West imposed
sanctions following events in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
For example, China does not produce modern
combat aircraft comparable to those of major foreign
producers. While its conventional forces are large, they
are characterized by relatively low technology;
certainly nothing equivalent to the "netcentric" warfare
demonstrated by the United States in Iraq. Thus, Chinese
modernization is not very threatening given the age of
many of its systems.
An example is China's air
force, an indispensable tool for power projection.
Acquisitions over the next decade will remain
incremental.
China's submarine force, which
would be critical for any blockade of Taiwan, had
previously shown rapid growth, doubling in size from
1975-91, from 51 to 99 boats. But the size has now
shrunk dramatically, as many of the original 51 boats
have been decommissioned. The current size is only 69
boats, and this will shrink further, since the
replacement rate of about three per year will not keep
up with decommissioning. And the newer submarines, such
as Kilos from Russia, will add only a modest capability.
And when it comes to importing weapons, Taiwan
clearly outclasses China. From 1992-99 Taiwan imported
more than three times what China imported, US$20.6
billion vs $5.9 billion.
The only category of
weaponry in which China is clearly superior is its
nuclear-weapons capability and the hundreds of
short-range ballistic missiles it deploys opposite
Taiwan, which could be fitted with nuclear warheads,
though they are currently armed with conventional
warheads. But according to ICG, the deployment of these
missiles is actually a sign of how few military options
China considers it has available for use against Taiwan.
It is estimated that China currently has about
350 missiles and 50 launchers, with about 50 new
missiles added annually. About half are M-11s, with a
range of 120-300 kilometers, and half are M-9s, with a
range of 600km. Given disagreements over their accuracy,
it is unclear how well they might be used against
military targets. But if their CEP (circular error
probable) is small, the missiles are of little military
value, except as a terror weapon against cities, similar
to German V missiles against England in World War II.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
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