China's PLA Sees Value in Pre-emptive Strike Strategy

Department of Defense ^ | Aug. 11, 2003 | Sgt. 1st Class Doug Sample

[Arkinsaw]

They still have to somehow get a large army across the straits and supply them during the campaign. This is something that they really have no capability to accomplish.

[July 4th]

They're both huge US trade partners, and we're selling hardware to Taiwan. Either way, if the "stuff" ever hits the fan, it puts us in one heck of a bad position.

[Batrachian]

The only hope for Taiwan is to go nuclear. They need to aquire a credible nuclear deterrent, maybe a triad like the U.S. used to have, and to announce with no ambiguity that they have the means and the determination to destroy China in case of aggression.

Credible nuclear deterrence works. We saw it in the cold war, and there is no reason to doubt that it would work in this case. Taiwan has the technological base to rapidly develop a powerful nuclear force, which they should do in secret, and then announce it to a surprised world.

I don't think they should rely on the U.S. to defend them. You can't take chances when faced with a huge, evil, and implacable enemy like communist China. They're fools not to have done it already.

[lelio]

I don't think they should rely on the U.S. to defend them.

Based on the past 3 administrations I think our response would be "We're working with the Chinese government to open up trade between our two countries" no matter what they do.

[onedoug]

Right. What's their "gator navy" up to these days?

[Spruce]

I forgot to fix the link to The Annual Report on the Military Power of the People's Republic of China

an excerpt re: maritime forces...

New amphibious ships are being produced in China to replace aging bottoms. The PLAN also has hundreds of smaller landing craft, barges, and troop transports, all of which could be used together with fishing boats, trawlers, and civilian merchant ships to augment the naval amphibious fleet for follow-on forces and materiel after a port has been secured or beachhead established.

[Filibuster_60]

Unfortunately Taiwan's getting nukes is one of the conditions that may well trigger a preemptive strike by China, so even if Taiwan chooses to develop a deterrent, it must do so very secretively, without revealing the location of its nuclear facilities.

[America's Resolve]

Just because you can steal an idea like shock and awe, doesn't mean you can make it work. There's an incredible amount of communication and coordination between disparate forces that have to go into the mix as well.

They grasp the idea but we grasp the concept.

[Kadric]

The military strategy of "shock and awe" used to stun the Iraqi military in the opening campaign of Operation Iraqi Freedom might be used by the Chinese if military force is needed to bring Taiwan back under communist control.


Taiwan has never been under communist control.

[HighRoadToChina]

PING!

Some very good and current info on Communist China's military capabilities and intent.

If you off my Communist China ping list or would like to be added to my list, please FRemail me.

[HighRoadToChina]

See Post #7 above for link to report.

[PhilDragoo]

Kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

Another brilliant plan in the tradition of The Great Leap Forward and The Cultural Revolution.

Stick to beating Falun Gong women--if the PLA thinks it can kill U.S. forces without paying a price it confirms tertiary syphilis.

All well and good to possess Sovremenny destroyers--using them indicates a death wish.

Gen. Xiong Guangkai was warned by Condoleezza Rice against irresponsible threats.

Apparently the PRC believes it can install an administration which will not honor the Bush statement that "we will do whatever's necessary to defend Taiwan".

[bulldogs]

Yeah, the surprise may be that they hit us first with North Korea

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

"Over the course of the next decade the country will spend billions to counter U.S. advances in warfare technology, the report states."

From all that I've read lately, I had the impression that from high quality magnets to steel to semiconductors, they pretty much are supplying DoD.
Rumsfeld told Bush to veto the 65% Buy American bill that Duncan Hunter proposed.
Even if China has only 2nd and 3rd generation stuff, it is still effective.
We seem to be making it easy for them to keep up, even paying them to catch up.

[Dr. Marten]

"Taiwan, located off the coast of mainland China, claimed independence from the communist country in 1949"

Now there is a line of B.S. that runs a mile long.

I trust that I don't need to repeat the fact that Taiwan has never belonged to Mainland China at any moment during modern times. How does one sovereign country declare independence from a nation that it never belonged to?

[Steel and Fire and Stone]

Furthermore, the report states that Beijing believes that "surprise is crucial" for the success of any military campaign.

..or in other words, they know darn well that if they can't make their invasion fait a complete within about 30 days, they're toast against a U.S. lead retaliation effort.

On the other hand, their pre-emption doctrine provides a solid basis for future friendly relations with both Taiwan and the U.S.A.. < /end sarcasm >

It explains their continuing interest in acquiring operational footholds in stragetic locations in our (U.S.A.'s) backyard. Never trust a Commie or Democrat; lying is what they're all about.

SFS

[Filibuster_60]

I trust that I don't need to repeat the fact that Taiwan has never belonged to Mainland China at any moment during modern times. How does one sovereign country declare independence from a nation that it never belonged to?

Well, since WWII nobody has ever recognized Taiwan as anything other than a part of the blurry notion of "China." When they had nation-state status from 1949 to 1971, it was only as "Republic of China" under Nationalist (KMT) rule - the Communists weren't recognized by the UN for those 22 years. Since then Taiwan's become an independent nation-state in all but name, though it's not likely it'll ever gain international recognition as such. So if we ask the Chinese "When was Taiwan ever part of China?" they'll simply respond "When was Taiwan ever recognized by the international community as a sovereign non-Chinese state?"

[Jack Black]

When should they be recognized as a nation? Now would be an excellent time. Perhaps the successor to the UN (which we badly need) will once again exclude China, and other totalitarian dictatorships. That would be a step forward. Taiwan proves that what is wrong with China, mostly, is it's evil form of government. Same people, same culture, much fewer natural resources and they have both democracy and about 20X the standard of living as Red China.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

SORRY STATE (Communist, Nationalist, and Dangerous)*** OBSTACLES TO EMPIRE The grand project of restoring and Sinifying the Manchu dominions has unfortunately met three stumbling blocks. The first was Outer Mongolia, from which the Chinese garrison was expelled following the collapse of Manchu rule. The country declared independence in 1921 under Soviet auspices, and that independence was recognized by Chiang Kai-shek's government in 1945, in return for Soviet recognition of themselves as the "the Central Government of China." Mao seems not to have been very happy about this. In 1954, he asked the Soviets to "return" Outer Mongolia. I do not know the position of China's current government towards Outer Mongolia, but I should not be surprised to learn that somewhere in the filling cabinets of China's defense ministry is a detailed plan for restoring Outer Mongolia to the warm embrace of the Motherland, as soon as a suitable opportunity presents itself.

The second is Taiwan. No Chinese Imperial dynasty paid the least attention to Taiwan, or bothered to claim it. The Manchus did, though, in 1683, and ruled it in a desultory way, as a prefecture of Fujian Province, until 1887, when it was upgraded to a province in its own right. Eight years later it was ceded to Japan, whose property it remained until 1945. In its entire history, it has been ruled by Chinese people seated in China's capital for less than four years. China's current attitudes to Taiwan are, I think, pretty well known.

And the third stumbling block to the restoration of China's greatness is…….the United States. To the modern Chinese way of thinking, China's proper sphere of influence encompasses all of East Asia and the western Pacific. This does not mean that they necessarily want to invade and subjugate all the nations of that region, though they certainly do want to do just that to Taiwan and some groups of smaller islands. For Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Micronesia, etc., the old imperial-suzerainty model would do well enough, at least in the short term. These places could conduct their own internal affairs, so long as they acknowledged the overlordship of Beijing, and, above all, did not enter into alliances, nor even close friendships, with other powers.

Which, of course, too many of them have done, the competitor power in every case being the U.S. It is impossible to overstate how angry it makes the Chinese to think about all those American troops in Japan, Korea, and Guam, together with the U.S. Seventh Fleet steaming up and down in "Chinese" waters, and electronic reconnaissance planes like the EP-3 brought down on April 1 operating within listening distance of the mainland. If you tackle Chinese people on this, they usually say: "How would you feel if there were Chinese troops in Mexico and Jamaica, and Chinese planes flying up and down your coasts?" Leaving aside the fact that front companies for the Beijing regime now control both ends of the Panama Canal, as well as Freeport in the Bahamas, the answer is that the United States is a democracy of free people, whose government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, so that the wider America's influence spreads, the better for humanity: while China is a corrupt, brutish, and lawless despotism, the close containment of which is a pressing interest for the whole human race. One cannot, of course, expect Chinese people to be very receptive to this answer.

Or, indeed, to anything much we have to say on the subject of their increasing militant and assertive nationalism. We simply have no leverage here. It is no use trying to pretend that this is the face-saving ideology of a small leadership group, forced on an unwilling populace at gunpoint. The Chinese people respond eagerly to these ultra-nationalist appeals: That is precisely why the leadership makes them. Resentment of the U.S., and a determination to enforce Chinese hegemony in Asia, are well-nigh universal among modern mainland Chinese. These emotions trump any desire for constitutional government, however much people dislike the current regime for its corruption and incompetence. Find a mainlander, preferably one under the age of thirty, and ask him which of the following he would prefer: for the Communists to stay in power indefinitely, unreformed, but in full control of the "three T's" (Tibet, Turkestan, Taiwan); or a democratic, constitutional government without the three T's. His answer will depress you. You can even try this unhappy little experiment with dissidents: same answer.

Is there anything we can do about all this? One thing only. We must understand clearly that there will be lasting peace in East Asia when, and only when, China abandons her atavistic fantasies of imperial hegemony, withdraws her armies from the 2 million square miles of other people's territory they currently occupy, and gets herself a democratic government under a rule of law. Until that day comes, if it ever does, the danger of war will be a constant in relations between China and the world beyond the Wall, as recent events in the South China Sea have illustrated. Free nations, under the indispensable leadership of the United States, must in the meantime struggle to maintain peace, using the one, single, and only method that wretched humanity, in all its millennia of experience, has so far been able to devise for that purpose: Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.***