China's military intentions still unclear
By Richard Halloran Michael Reynolds | Associated Press
Surely the most pressing security question confronting the United States in Asia and the nations of Asia themselves is: "Will China become a serious military threat in the western Pacific?"
The search for an answer has lately picked up steam. Rand researchers have issued a study assessing China's considerable financial resources devoted to its military power. The Pentagon says "China is facing a strategic crossroads." A new Japanese Self Defense Agency white paper contends that China's military modernization needs to be closely monitored.
A book, "China's Rise in Asia," by a former senior analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, Robert G. Sutter, reports that many Americans are wary of China's military intentions. Even business writer Ted C. Fishman worries in a volume on economics, "China Inc.," that Beijing seeks to "expand the country's military ambitions."
Regrettably, no one seems to have a nice, neat appraisal of the potential threat. Maybe Chinese leaders themselves don't know what that might be because they are challenged by so many domestic troubles such as corruption, uneven economic growth, unemployment, political dissent, and demands for energy and raw materials.
Nonetheless, spokesmen for China have objected vigorously to these evaluations. The vice foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, was quoted in Xinhua, the official news agency, as asserting that the U.S. was not "qualified to carp and cavil on China's defensive defense policy." The China Daily, an official newspaper, called the Japanese white paper "impertinent."
The review by Rand, the California research institute funded by the U.S. Air Force, recited a familiar litany of the reasons for China's military modernization: to conquer Taiwan, to persuade or force the U.S. to withdraw its armed forces from Asia, to ward off a possible rebirth of Japanese militarism, and to project power into the sea, particularly the South China Sea.
The Rand study, "Modernizing China's Military," focuses on the connection between China's surging economy and its improving military forces. The researchers estimated that in 2025, "China's economy would be about half the size of the U.S. economy."
They further estimated that the maximum Chinese military expenditure 20 years from now would be the second-largest in the world, surpassing that of Russia, Japan and the major European nations. At nearly $200 billion a year, however, China's military budget would still be only one-third of U.S. defense spending.
Rand posits four factors bearing on China's ability to finance the expansion of its military forces:
The Rand researchers note a change in the information available from Chinese sources: "In contrast to the 1960s and 1970s, when China was a closed society and information was very limited, U.S. military planners now face the task of absorbing and interpreting a flood of information concerning the Chinese military and Chinese society." That makes accurate assessments difficult, they said.
The Pentagon's recent report on Chinese military power had a somewhat different tone but came to a similar conclusion: "Secrecy envelops most aspects of Chinese security affairs. The outside world has little knowledge of Chinese motivations and decision-making and of key capabilities" in the Peoples Liberation Army, or PLA.
Even so, the writers of the Pentagon report asserted that, for now: "China's ability to project conventional military power beyond its periphery remains limited." They continued, however, to say: "Over the long term, if current trends persist, PLA capabilities could pose a credible threat to other modern militaries operating in the region."
Richard Halloran is a Honolulu-based journalist and former New York Times correspondent in Asia.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, left, met with Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing on Tuesday in Beijing during talks aimed at defusing trade and military tensions. The United States and Asian nations are watching China's military grow and trying to determine its objectives.
