Russia Helping China Build Systems for Taiwan Assault

DEBKAfile Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism Security Newsletter ^ | May 25, 2002 | Giora Shamis and Diane Shalem

[A. Pole]

This corruption is the essences of Marxist/Leninist ideology.

Hmm, as I saw in Poland, the corruption was increasing with the decrease of Marxist/Leninist ideology. You can have corruption in either system, but corrupt people do not take ideology seriously.

[DarkWaters]

...but corrupt people do not take ideology seriously

Unless there is something to gain from the corruption, i.e. power, control, money, you name it. However, you do raise a serious point in that what happens when there is no longer any gains to be made. In the end, by taking on the corruption, one becomes corrupt. So when there are no longer any gain to be made, the system set up for the power grab will inevitably collapse in on itself since on one will take ideology seriously. Again, the brothers will be fighting each other until no one is left or they grow tired of such things.

[DAnconia55]

Isn't that what capitalism is all about?

Government spending isn't capitalism. It's socialism/communism.

[Stavka2]

Hmmm, this is the same paper that reported 1 million Russian soldiers invading into Afghanistan and Iraqi divisions filtering through Jordan towards Isreal...yup, very credible.

[Paul Ross]

Bump. Excellent analysis. Remember Anatoly Golitsyn?

[Stavka2]

And Bush senior was head of the CIA...what exactly is your point?

[Polybius]

The Chinese did get one aircraft carrier from the Russians. One that hadn't been completely finished in the Soviet day's, and a Chinese firm with heavy ties to the PLA said they would convert it into a 'floating hotel', yea right. I would imagine the Chinese will use the plans for this carrier to build their own style of carriers that suite them.

The carrier in question, the Varyag, is a ski-jump type carrier such as the Brits had in the Falklands where they could not maintain adequate fleet air defense even against antiquated Argentinian 1960's era Skyhawks.

In any encounter with the U.S. Navy, such a carrier would have an extremely short and violent battle history.

[Southack]

Sell 'em all the carriers that they want to throw their money at. Taiwan is within shore range from China, so PLA carriers don't change the power equation in the least. Ground-based Chinese fighters can already reach Taiwan, after all.

Silent subs, which the Chinese do NOT have, would be a development worth watching, as would be the construction of landing craft in large-enough numbers to support an invasion of the size required to make some level of credible challenge to Taiwan's forces.

And of course, the chinese still need to figure out a way to gain air superiority over Taiwan's F-16's, something that they are nowhere close to achieving.

Destroyers, cruisers, loud submarines, and carriers are mere targets if they don't have air superiority. That's a long 80+ miles across the Taiwan Straight in a slow landing craft if one can't neutralize the Taiwanese air force, helicopters, anti-ship missiles, and submarines...

And remember, Taiwan was the third partner developing the Israeli/South African nuclear bomb. Chiang Ki Shek's forces would not hesitate to go nuclear if they thought that they were about to lose their island. Kiss the ships in the Straight goodbye. Kiss the Three Gorges Dam goodbye. Kiss Beijing and Shanghai goodbye.

And then after that pounding, the Indian Army is going to reclaim its Kashmiri territory that China is still occupying, and India has about as many people as does China, in addition to a nuclear strategic force of comparable size.

Considering that China lost its last GROUND war to Vietnam in 1979, the thought of taking on first Taiwan and then later India probably does not please the leadership chain in Beijing in the least.

[borghead]

In terms of airforce I think you're more or less correct, but they do seem to be mass producing J-11s and buying SU-30s in larges numbers, plust the J-10s are rolling off the production lines, still even if they get 300(about 150 right now) 4th generation aircrafts, with about 800 third generation planes(mig21, 23m F8s) and 1000-2000 mig 19s it would still be a hard fight for air superiority over the Taiwan straits. As for the silent subs, China already has them I think, it has 4 Kilos, 3 Songs, a new Nuke sub which is supposed to be a knockoff of the 1980s russian Victor III only quieter and capable of launching cruise missles underwater. Now add about 50 upgraded ming class subs(also capable of launching cruise missles) and half a dozen older Han class nuke subs, the PLAN has a pretty good sub force, compared to Taiwan's 4 subs(2 modern, 2 WWII vintage). So overall, I think the PLA only has to focus on air superiorty and transport, logistics for the near term. So you're right aircraft carriers really have no utility in a war to conquor Taiwan.

[Southack]

If you were Taiwan, would you have planted at least one nuclear mine in the Taiwan Straight already?

How difficult would that make planning for an amphibious invasion??

[Logician]

We Supply for others demands even though they don't need it... This time around it seems we lost the sell.

[DarkWaters]

Yes I do remember him and his books "New Lies for Old" and "The Perestroika Deception" by Anatoly Golitsyn. This is some scary stuff given how much he predicted has now come true. Yet he never gets at least an unbiased look into what he has said. This is just confirmation that our intelligence services are and will remain unable to deal with even the smallest of threats until we can at least discuss all possibilities of the geopolitical landscape. In the end, I truly fear for the future of our country if we are unable to even deal with a rag tag bunch.

[DarkWaters]

I don't think the Chinese would even use the carriers against us in a one on one fight. They know they would lose. I think they plan to use these to project power with in this region and the other areas of the world where they have personnel. Also I read somewhere that they were buying it to develop the necessary techniques to build such ships of what ever design they wish to employ. You could also use one as a bait and decoy maneuver and thus give time to your Soveriegnmini(sp?) class destroyers to destroy the American fleet(s) in a regional battle. I suspect that is why this particular destroyer was bought with the Sunburn nuclear tip missile.

[A. Pole]

I don't think the Chinese would even use the carriers against us in a one on one fight. They know they would lose. I think they plan to use these to project power with in this region and the other areas of the world where they have personnel.

Exactly. Imagine if Chinese had an aircraft carrrier near the coast of Yugoslavia (with the access to the port) before NATO attack. It would complicate the situation for NATO planners and maybe it would prevent the war. Even if much weaker than American aircraft carriers such a ship is much harder (politically and otherwise) to get rid of than an embassy.

On the other hand Chinese navy would not a factor for Russia which is a land based power.