Posted on 07/23/2002 8:33:25 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
Osama bin Laden has done Communist China a favor. Because the minds of President Bush and congressional leaders are so concentrated on the war on terrorism, they have all but ignored Beijing's aggressive military buildup.Two new reports, one by the congressionally appointed, bipartisan U.S.-China Security Commission, the other a congressionally mandated annual assessment by the Pentagon, reveal China's hostile intentions toward the United States and its sworn ally Taiwan.
Taken together, the reports suggest that Washington's longstanding policy of "constructive engagement" with Beijing has borne little fruit. And that the United States ought to develop some sort of containment policy toward the Communists.
"We are concerned," said Michael Ledeen, the commission's vice chair, "when we see constant rhetorical attacks on the United States, constant warnings to the United States, that if push comes to shove, China is perfectly happy to fight a war against us.
"And then," he added, "to see a strategic doctrine from the Chinese military that lays out the ways in which they propose to win that war."
The Pentagon report says that China's military training exercises "increasingly focus on the United States as an adversary."
It estimates that Beijing spends $65 billion a year on defense, the largest military budget in Asia and the second largest in the world behind the United States.
Clearly, the Communists aim to expand their influence in the Asia-Pacific region. And they view the United States as an impediment.
So China is busily replacing its current arsenal of liquid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are targeted at the United States, which are capable of delivering nuclear payloads to San Diego and other West Coast targets.
It's new solid-fueled ICBMs, which, according to the Pentagon report, will be deployed in a mere matter of years, will have a strike range that includes most of the United States.
Meanwhile, China continues its buildup of short-range ballistic missiles in Fujian province, opposite Taiwan. The missiles currently number 350 and are increasing by 50 a year.
Beijing also has purchased Kilo-class submarines, Sovremenny-class destroyers and other advanced weaponry from Russia and other former Soviet states "to intimidate or actually attack" Taipei, according to the Pentagon report.
"China's ambitious military modernization casts a cloud," it said, "over its declared preference for resolving differences over Taiwan through peaceful means."
The aim of the buildup, it added, is "to deter, deny or complicate the ability of foreign forces to intervene on Taiwan's behalf" in the event of a Communist surprise attack.
And free and democratic Taiwan is not the only U.S. ally threatened by China's military aspirations.
A Philippine military report this past March said that the Communists are building up their strength in the South China Sea, where China, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam all claim title to parts of the Spratly Islands.
The Spratlys, an archipelago of islands, islets and reefs, are thought to sit atop a great undersea deposit of oil and gas. The area also happens to straddle one the world's busiest shipping routes.
The Philippine military report said that Beijing's military aggressiveness in the South China Sea – it has built 20 to 24 navy vessels, fitted with 30 mm guns for patrols – "has stirred apprehensions in Southeast Asia about China's intentions."
It also warned that the continuing disputes over the Spratlys represent the "greatest potential flashpoint for conflict in Southeast Asia."
Then there's China's growing belligerence toward Japan, which it views as a potential military rival in the Asian Pacific region.
To dissuade Tokyo (and send a message to the United States as well), Beijing is developing a variant of the mobile CSS-6 missile that could reach Okinawa, the Japanese island where thousands of U.S. military personnel are based.
Finally, the Communists continue to export arms and materiel to terror-supporting states, like Iraq and Iran. Despite China's pledge to the United States to desist with such proliferation.
The commission report said Beijing is a leading source of ballistic missiles and nuclear materials, as well as technology and components for weapons of mass destruction.
President Bush and congressional leaders need to take seriously the clear and present danger posed by China's growing militarism.
For Beijing's Communists are no less a threat to the safety and security of the American people than Osama bin Laden's terrorists.
Been there, done that. This isn't 1950.
The PRC isn't likely to use client states
to foment world revolution. Please stop
planning to fight the last war.
The real danger with China is an attack
on Taiwan followed by destabilizing
Korea, the Phillipines, and Japan.
Japan needs to militarize, the Phillipines
need to ask the US back into the bases
they kicked us out of, and Korea needs
to dampen its (according to the Honolulu
Advertiser) growing anti-Americanism.
But most and soonest, Taiwan needs
to be allowed to acquire the means to
repel any PRC attack. Bush is coming
around to that viewpoint none too soon.
I do not think it beyond reason, when the time was right from their perspective, for the PRC to help forment such engagements to distract us and lay the ground work for their own ultimate move.
It is (among other things) a central premise of my fictional series.
FRegards.
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