THE RISING EAST
Taiwan likely target of China's military growth
By Richard Halloran
China is proceeding apace to modernize its military forces, especially its missile brigades in what is known as the Second Artillery. Its targets include Taiwan, U.S. aircraft carriers and other warships in the western Pacific, Japan and U.S. bases in Okinawa, and South Korea and American troops there.
Advertiser library photo • Nov. 15, 2002
A task force at the Council on Foreign Relations, the prominent New York think tank, says in a new report that "China is pursuing a deliberate and focused course" to expand its military power. It adds, however, that China "is at least two decades behind the United States."
A surface-to-air missile is displayed at Beijing's military museum. China has been modernizing its missile brigades, which some analysts see as part of a psychological campaign against Taiwan.
Meanwhile, analysts at the Center for Naval Analysis in Washington say the Second Artillery is increasing its inventory of missiles, shifting from nuclear to conventional warheads because they have more uses, and making missile launchers mobile instead of fixed. It has begun to deploy missiles powered by solid fuel, which is easier and less dangerous to handle than liquid fuel, and is fielding reloadable launchers that don't burn out with a single shot.
In still another report, from the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu, a researcher asserts that Chinese missiles aimed at Taiwan are integral to a psychological campaign intended to coerce the Taiwanese into submitting to China. Beijing claims Taiwan is a province of China, while a majority on Taiwan prefer that the island remain independent from the mainland.
The task force at the Council on Foreign Relations, chaired by former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, contends that China's deployment of short- and medium-range missiles armed with conventional warheads is aimed primarily at Taiwan.
"These missiles offer China its most potent form of coercive capability against Taiwan," the task force reports.
The report says Chinese missiles would be an essential component of a campaign targeted at air, sea and information systems, "and would aim to have a larger psychological effect on the Taiwanese leadership and populace." China fired several missiles toward Taiwan in 1995 and 1996 in an attempt to influence elections there.
Since the United States most likely would help defend Taiwan in an attack, China's missile capabilities are of vital concern. Given U.S. technological superiority, the report said, Chinese strategists have suggested "expanding short-range ballistic missile forces to strike U.S. forces and bases in Asia."
The task force has as vice chairman the former ambassador to China and one-time head of the Pacific Command in Hawai'i, Joseph Prueher, and includes a bipartisan group of scholars, retired military officers and business executives.
Its assessment, written by Kenneth Allen and Maryanne Kivlehan of the Center for Naval Analysis, says the mission of the Second Artillery has changed. Founded in 1966 to deploy China's nuclear missiles, it shifted emphasis to conventional warheads after the end of the Cold War in 1990.
China has been adding about 50 conventional missiles a year to the Second Artillery, and is nearing its goal of 650 missiles at six bases. More than half are situated to fire across the 100-mile-wide Strait of Taiwan. Missiles from other bases could hit Japan and the Korean Peninsula.
As the Second Artillery's operations become more mobile, and launchers can be loaded for more than one shot, the tasks of its 100,000 soldiers have become more demanding. Allen and Kiveland note: "The methods Second Artillery employs to recruit, train, educate, and retain its personnel will play a large role in determining how close it will come to attaining its vision."
In a newly compressed training regime, they said, "brigades are able to launch their first missiles in about one year instead of three."
Seen from the other side of the strait, Denny Roy of the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies says, "the most fearsome Chinese weapons arrayed against Taiwan are (its) short-range ballistic missiles."
Although Taiwan seeks to deter a Chinese assault, Roy writes, it "has not settled on the best way to employ its own military resources." Some argue that building a retaliatory force would provoke China; others say controlling the strait and air space above it is more important. Some soldiers contend that their chief mission is fighting off an invasion on the beaches.
"Ultimately," Roy concludes, "much of Taiwan's insecurity stems from sources within Taiwan itself." Some analysts in Taiwan agree that political disunity is a greater danger than Chinese missiles, he said.
