May 19, 2008 • Vol. 13, No. 34
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Main
Once you put it together with Jennifer Chou's details about the religious crackdown in China in advance of the Olympics, does this mean Beijing is pursuing a 'good cop/bad cop' strategy?
A senior Chinese official has asked whether Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama would agree to attend the Beijing Olympics to ease recent tensions, a Tibet government-in-exile legislator said on Monday.
Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, would consider going to Beijing for the Summer Olympics if an invitation were to be extended, according to a Tibetan legislator.
The Dalai Lama would consider going, the lawmaker said.
A leader of Tibet's parliament-in-exile suggests that the overture is probably nothing but a feint on the part of the Chinese government. I fail to see what Beijing gains from the move, however. If the Dalai Lama makes clear that he would attend, then doesn't Beijing look worse if they don't ultimately extend an invite?
And does he know that golf -- one of his favorite sports -- is again not being played at the Olympic games this year.
The prejudice against Tibetans that has been exhibited by Chinese people living in America has been startling. Not only did college students bussed to San Francisco to see the Olympic torch literally attack pro-Tibet protesters, many seem perfectly willing to deny or downplay their country's vicious record on human rights. An especially alarming example of slander recently appeared in the Columbia Daily Spectator, where a student majoring in American Studies alleged,
One Dalai Lama has admitted to having sex with a hundred men and women, knowing all the while that he had AIDS. His predecessor was abusive, forcing his students to perform acts against their will. The public praise and the private follies of the Dalai Lamas of the past and present construct a troublesome and hypocritical image of the Tibetan leader.
This would be amusing if it were not completely crackpot. The Spectator has since issued a correction, which will surely go down in the history of journalism as among the greats:
This submission misstates that one Dalai Lama admitted to having sex with hundreds of men and women while knowing that he had AIDS. Additionally, the submission misstates that many monks participated in the dismemberment of female bodies. In fact, there is no factual evidence to substantiate either of these claims....
Needless to say, the "Spectator regrets the error."
Glenn links this BBC report that China is now the world's 'top carbon polluter.'
The Onion broke this story a few weeks back:
Those Chinese guys accompanying the Olympic Torch (Codename: Flambeaux Keep-away) are actually paramilitary police who have developed quite the reputation for bullying even non-Tibetans. Track star Lord Coe had this to say:
The Olympic medallist and organiser of the 2012 Games was overheard saying that the officials had pushed him around as the torch made its way through the capital on Sunday. He added that other countries on the route should "get rid of those guys".
"They tried to punch me out of the way three times. They are horrible. They did not speak English . . . I think they were thugs."
In more democratic countries, we dress our Secret Service agents in suits and ties instead of blue tracksuits. That is, we make them look like Secret Service agents, not Olympians, unless it’s absolutely necessary for them to be undercover. But perhaps we should give China the benefit of the doubt and assume these thugs are actually Olympians. Maybe they’re competing in one of the new sports China added to this year’s Olympics. Panda wrestling? The summer biathlon that involves cross-country running (after Tibetans) and shooting (at Tibetans)?
Armed Forces Journal reports:
It might be tempting to dismiss the U.S. Navy’s potential focus on China as a passing fad — part of the now-familiar phenomena of “China fever.” Another perspective holds that this focus can best be explained by a simple case of enemy deprivation syndrome. While there is a kernel of truth in both of these intellectual approaches, facts on, above and especially under the water increasingly belie these conclusions and demand serious attention from American strategists.
China has launched more than 36 new submarines since 1995 — far outpacing U.S. intelligence estimates from a decade ago. Additionally, supersonic indigenous cruise missiles, rumored development of an anti-ship ballistic missile, dynamic mine warfare and amphibious warfare programs, invigorated aerial maritime strike capabilities, as well as a variety of new, sleek and modern surface combatants, suggest a broad front effort by the People’s Liberation Army Navy.
This is slowly becoming a dangerous situation.
Not because I think that we'll be at war with China anytime in the near future, but rather that the rapidly shrinking gap between China's military capabilities and our own makes a quick localized war over Taiwan or the Spratley Islands more likely.
This is precisely the reason that we need to retask the Air Force and Navy with their old primary mission as our principle strategic warfighting services. Back during the Cold War, the Air Force's Strategic Air Command had a great motto: Peace is our profession. That eventually blossomed into Reagan's peace through strength (or my favorite, peace through superior firepower), but the message was clear: the power of America's strategic forces assured the world that the Cold War would never go hot.
The same applies to China. The more we weaken our strategic forces, refuse to modernize the Air Force and bolster the size of the Navy, the higher the probability of war in the Far East. The Army and Marines--properly equipped and sized--can handle counterinsurgencies and low-level conflict, while a powerful Air Force and Navy will ensure that America's wars are contained and statistically small.
China seems determined to ascribe the unrest in Tibet to a concerted effort aimed at sabotaging the Beijing Olympics.
The world community, meanwhile, has demonstrated that it has little appetite for a boycott. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) clearly prefers "silent diplomacy." None of the 27 foreign ministers of the EU, meeting in Slovenia this past weekend, favored a boycott of the Games as a whole and none even "wished to speak about" boycotting the opening ceremony.
Not without irony, the handful of world leaders who have so far declined invitations to attend the opening ceremony--German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Czech president Vaclav Klaus, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves and prime minister Andrus Ansip--are all from former Eastern bloc countries that experienced life under communist rule.
That sports and politics should not mix was a theme voiced frequently by Beijing even before Tibet focused world attention on the Games. This past February, for example, after Steven Spielberg cut ties with the Beijing Olympics over the Darfur crisis, China criticized the famed director’s decision as "naïve and simple-minded," adding that it was "unacceptable" to link politics to sports.
The Save Darfur Coalition has noted how China itself has had a long history of politicizing the Olympics--from its bullying of Taiwan within the IOC to its own participation in the boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
For decades, China used the Olympics as a political weapon against Taiwan. In 1956, it pulled out of the Melbourne Games one day before they were to start to protest the presence of the Taiwan delegation. It was not until 1979 that the "two-China problem" was settled by the IOC and Beijing agreed to participate.
In February 1980, China took part in the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid. In May that year, it joined the U.S.-led boycott of the Moscow Summer Olympics to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In July 1980, Chinese athletes, along with those from 28 other nations, took part in the Liberty Bell Classic in Philadelphia, organized as an alternative to the Moscow Games.
Reasonable people can disagree as to whether China’s crackdown in Tibet merits an Olympic boycott of any kind. Indeed, even the Dalai Lama has said that a boycott is not the answer. Beijing’s righteous indignation in suggesting that the Olympic Games should not be linked to politics, however, is clearly disingenuous, if not outright hypocritical.
China’s brutal crackdown on Buddhist protesters in its annexed Tibet province has sparked a heated discussion in Europe about whether or not to boycott (at least parts of) the upcoming Beijing Olympics, which are set to begin with a grandiose opening ceremony on August 8. So far, the 27 EU countries currently meeting at the foreign minister level in Slovenia have failed to agree on a common approach on how to deal with this thorny issue.
Among the big three EU powers, French President Nicolas Sarkozy seems to be most open towards considering various potential Olympic boycott options. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in contrast, has already announced his intention to participate at the games. Finally, Germany just announced today that President Horst Koehler, Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier will not be attending the games. However, Merkel’s spokesman was eager to stress that this was nothing unusual and that none of the three had ever planned to go to the Olympics in the first place. Foreign minister Steinmeier also reiterated his government’s view that a complete boycott of the games should be avoided. Germany is certainly treading very carefully as it just weathered a dramatic deterioration in its bilateral relations with Beijing following Chancellor Merkel’s controversial meeting with the Dalai Lama at her official residence in Berlin last September.
France is already emerging as a key player in shaping Europe’s response to the Tibet crackdown. President Sarkozy, after all, will hold the rotating EU-presidency at the time of the Olympics this summer. Political leaders in Poland and the Czech Republic, for their part, have already announced that they will personally boycott the games and are urging other European politicians to do the same.
In this context it is interesting to draw a comparison between Europe’s response to developments in Tibet and Darfur. For example, previous attempts by U.S. human rights activists like Mia Farrow and others to effectively bill the Beijing games as "The Genocide Olympics." (because of "China’s role as business partner, diplomatic protector and underwriter of Sudan’s campaign of ethnic destruction in Darfur") have had only a very limited if negligible effect on international public opinion. For sure, the U.S. human rights campaigners scored some relatively minor points back home, as evidenced by Steven Spielberg’s recent resignation as an artistic director of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
Continue reading "Europe's Olympic Problem" »
In a bold challenge to the Chinese government's crackdown in Tibet, nearly 30 dissidents have circulated an open letter titled "Twelve Suggestions for Dealing with the Tibetan Situation." The dissidents' letter contrasts with the Communist government's arrest of hundreds of Tibetans and official propaganda to "resolutely crush" the protests that have since spread east beyond the Tibetan Autonomous Region, to western provinces where Tibetans also live.
In their letter, the dissidents call for a dialogue between Chinese officials and the Dalai Lama, an international investigation into the events, an end to "Cultural Revolution-like" propaganda against the Dalai Lama, freedom of religion and speech for Tibetans, and access to the region for journalists. (See the letter at Chinese Human Rights Defenders)
Among the letter's signers is Teng Biao, a lawyer and human rights activist who only a couple of weeks ago was picked up by Chinese authorities, held for a few days and, before being released, warned to keep quiet about human rights abuses. Teng is also the co-author with Hu Jia of another open letter, "The Real China and the Olympics," which criticizes abuses committed in preparation for the games. (See the letter at Human Rights Watch) Arrested at the end of 2007, Hu was tried on March 18 on subversion charges and currently awaits sentencing. Wang Lixiong, an outspoken Chinese critic of Beijing's Tibet policy, who is married to Tibetan blogger Woeser, also signed the letter. Others who signed: Ding Zilin, a leader of the Tiananmen Mothers organization, and her husband Jiang Peikun. The two have waged a long campaign for justice for the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, who include their son.
The letter belies the idea, reinforced and spread by official propaganda and often accepted abroad, that Chinese opinion on Tibet reflects an innate and monolithic Chinese Han chauvinism. (So does a blog post by Lian Yue, criticizing official censorship for stoking the emotion on which ultra-nationalistic extremism is based.)
Nationalistic, territorial, and racist views about Tibet may be common and deep-seated, but it is not possible in China to accurately gauge public opinion. Nor are intellectuals and writers like Teng, Wang, and the others who signed this letter free to persuade their fellow citizens to adopt views contrary to the Communist party line.
Tibet is one of the most sensitive issues in China and these dissidents will no doubt face retaliation for openly challenging the party. According to reports, Wang and Woeser have been held under house arrest in Beijing since the protests first started.
When it won the honor of hosting this summer's Olympic games, the PRC made no binding commitments on human rights and the international community failed to extract any. Still, it is not too late for the international community, which grants legitimacy to Beijing by participating in the games, to give just as much legitimacy to the courageous Chinese dissidents who speak out now.
As was noted here the other day, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in India this week, meeting with the Dalai Lama to express support for human rights in Tibet. The Telegraph provides this video of Pelosi's appearance, in which she called for an independent investigation into allegations that the Dalai Lama is encouraging violence against China:
I've made much of the low approval ratings that this Congress has earned, but there's a healthy appetite in the U.S. for criticism of China's human rights violations. It seems to be an annual tradition for criticism of China to ramp up in the House during the summer, and this year Speaker Pelosi is likely to ensure that such criticism has a somewhat higher profile, particularly in the run-up to the Beijing Olympic games. We're all for it.
Anyone remember a few years back when "Free Tibet!" was all the rage among the kids? They must’ve gotten lost on a side-trip to the nearest "Recreate ‘68" rally or something. That’s the only thing I can think of, what with not a peep of protest from the usual suspects (i.e., people who memorize dialogue and lyrics for a living) regarding the photos of Tibetan monks getting their skulls cracked open on the order of Chinese authorities.
There was a time when this kind of foul behavior was good for at least a shout-out to the Dalai Lama from the red carpet. Even better, of course, would be a call to boycott the Olympics. (I’m not a sports fan, you see, and I really, really dislike totalitarian governments, so it’s a win-win.) Al Gore would be the perfect cheerleader for such a cause; his followers hang to his every word the same way a dipso does to a flask of Thunderbird. But considering his track record (Howard Dean, global warming, bragging about his skills as a tobacco farmer), maybe he’s the last guy Tibet needs in its corner. Hope those people in Darfur aren’t expecting any long-term support from their protectors in Hollywood--pretty soon, they’re going to be way un-cool.
And speaking of the Olympics, if there are any doubts that there are payoffs involved in choosing the host country, China should allay them pronto. Forget about the politics. Look at the smog. My wife spent a couple of weeks there and was utterly appalled by the brown sludge that passes for air in Beijing. I mean, she saw trucks running on coal, for God’s sakes. And as for the tap water: she was instructed to keep her mouth tightly shut in the shower, brush her teeth using bottled water, and not eat fresh fruits because they’d been cleaned under faucets. At least one runner has already dropped out due to the smog.
The air’s unbreatheable, the water undrinkable, the regime unconscionable--this is the right country for a major sporting event?
The long fight over Tibetan independence has gotten hotter recently:
Protests spread from Tibet into three neighboring provinces Sunday as Tibetans defied a Chinese government crackdown, while the Dalai Lama decried what he called the "cultural genocide" taking place in his homeland.
Demonstrations widened to Tibetan communities in Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu provinces, forcing authorities to mobilize security forces across a broad expanse of western China...
In a sign that authorities were preparing for trouble, AP and other foreign journalists were ordered out of the Tibetan parts of Gansu and Qinghai provinces by police who told them it was for their "safety."
This fighting is about to take on a much higher profile, as Speaker Pelosi will travel this week to Dharamsala, India, (home of Tibet's 'government-in-exile') to meet with the Dalai Lama. She will be joined by there Richard Gere. The two will reportedly 'express solidarity' over the Tibetan cause.
Pelosi's arrival is sure to make waves in Beijing, which is already smarting from protests over the decision of the Bush administration to remove China from its human rights 'blacklist.' With the House likely to vote to on legislation to slap China's wrists in advance of the Olympic games (perhaps on a measure sponsored by Frank Wolf), Beijing is only ikely to experience more agita in advance of the games.
Exit question: Is the Bush administration really going to get out-hawked on China by Pelosi (and Richard Gere!)?
HT: Instapundit
The Pentagon hosted a conference call today with bloggers in order to promote the Defense Department's latest report to Congress on the military power of China. When the DoD first started this outreach program, there was a great deal of criticism--the Pentagon was spoon feeding administration talking points to conservative bloggers, they said. Well, that was never quite the case, the Pentagon has allowed any and all bloggers to participate in these calls. The effect: today's call was dominated by lefty bloggers explaining to the Pentagon why the United States shouldn't concern itself with China's build-up, and why Beijing's bulking-up is entirely reasonable. Take my friend David Axe, for example:
Axe: Can I follow up on that? It seems that it might be possible that the increase in China's defense investment is actually perfectly consistent with their economic growth, in that what we're seeing is not anything that's unreasonable or out of proportion to China's means, especially in light of just how impoverished, in a sense, China's military was for so long. Couldn't we see this as just reasonable investment to somewhat modernize a vast, creaky, out of date military?
DoD: [silence]...that's a good question. In fact, if you look at the Xinhua press reports today on their announcing the 17.6 percent increase in their defense budget, that is something that we do hear...
Translation: yeah, that is the Chinese government's talking point.
But the most remarkable moment came in this exchange between Defense officials and Atlantic correspondent James Fallows, who was calling in from Beijing:
Fallows: I have two question about the transparency theme of your report, which I have not yet seen myself. One involves a comment one of you made a few minutes ago saying there needs to be more explanation from the Chinese about why they are increasing their budget so much when there was no threat to their territory. I just wanted to raise a question about that because, of course, from the Chinese point of view, Taiwan is their territory. And so I'm just wondering how you deal with that part of their perspective that they view Taiwan as part of their territory. More broadly, is there a way that you've been able to assess or interpret some of the more disturbing and non-transparent moves of the last few months, that is the antisatellite test and the problems with naval port calls?
DoD: Yes we do address both of those issues, we talk specifically to the Taiwan Strait situation in Chapter 6 of the report. That continues to be--preparing for potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait continues to be one of the primary drivers of China's military build-up. China continues to deploy some of the most advanced equipment to the three military regions opposite Taiwan. They continue to increase the numbers of short range ballistic missiles deployed to garrisons opposite Taiwan. So from that perspective, we do see the PLA focusing on really developing the capacity to use military force in the Taiwan Strait, if they're called upon by the senior party leadership in Beijing.
Fallows: I wonder if I could interrupt. I may have explained myself poorly. I'm just [inaudible] the premise of the question, which is why are they spending more money when there's no threat to their territory; from their point view, there is a threat to their territory.
DoD: Okay. I understand that's their position....I can articulate what U.S. policy is, and I understand what Beijing's argument is...
It was sort of stunning to listen to, and the response from the Defense official was not unlike Tony Snow's famous quip to Helen Thomas, "Well, thank you for the Hezbollah view." Whatever angst the left once had about these calls, they can rest assured that the propaganda isn't going from the Pentagon to the bloggers, but vice versa.
The BBC reports:
China says it plans to increase military spending by nearly 18% this year to 417.8bn yuan ($59bn; £30bn)....
But experts believe the actual amount allocated to the Chinese military is two to three times larger than the published figure.
There was a huge fuss last year over an increase of 17.8 percent, for a total of $44.94 billion. And you'll note that last year's increase was, at the time, the largest on record.
Of course, I don't put any stock at all in these numbers. The actual number is certainly far higher, once unofficial programs (like a nuclear powered aircraft carrier, anti-sattelite weapons, and lord knows what else) are taken into account. Figure in the lies they're telling themselves about how much corruption and inefficiency is built into their own military-industrial complex, take account of purchasing power parity--you could be talking about a figure not unlike what the United States is spending every year, except without all the health care expenses, the two wars, the blue water Navy, the global commitments, etc. etc. Oh, and they also don't include procurement in the official budget. How much might production of six submarines a year cost (the U.S. builds one a year) or the new, indigenous J-10 multirole fighter? Nobody really knows.
So what are we doing different this year? Here's the story from March 4, 2007:
The United States is calling on China to be more transparent on its military buildup. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte made the call in Beijing Sunday after Chinese officials announced they plan to boost their military spending by nearly 18 percent to $45 billion this year..
And here's the story from March 3, 2008:
An annual Pentagon report on China on Monday said Beijing's lack of transparency posed risks to stability, voicing concern over how it would use expanding military power.
Seriously. The same exact story one year on. And could the Chinese be anymore transparent? They're building a war machine, they're going to seize Taiwan at the first hint of domestic instability or Taiwanese independence, and they're going to give the U.S. Navy and Air Force a hell of a bloody nose in the process.
Update: I forgot the cherry on top:
China Southern Airlines (CSA) announced on Monday that it will launch non-stop direct flights from Beijing to Tehran and double the frequency to four flights per week, starting on March 31.
If only we could discern their intentions...
China and the United States have agreed to establish a Cold War style hotline:
The U.S. and China aim to set up a telephone hot line between their militaries within a month after an agreement signed Feb. 29, the U.S. defense department said.
The deal was signed in Shanghai alongside a deal giving the U.S. access to China's military archives to search for missing servicemen from the Korean War and other conflicts, the official said.
"We welcome this important step forward in enhancing communication between our militaries," according to a U.S. defense department statement.
"The (hot line) will be a useful tool to make contact quickly, clarify issues and avoid miscalculations."
It added that the agreement allowed the two sides to move forward on installing the equipment over the next few weeks, meaning the hot line would probably become operational within a month.
A common misperception is that the hotline consisted of little red phones which sat on the desks of the Soviet Premier and POTUS. Not so (you can blame the movie Fail Safe for that particular urban legend). The Soviet hotline linked the Kremlin with the National Military Command Center, which in turn was able to summon the President at a moment's notice. The hotline was first used prior to the Six Day War, as Ivan was sweating the proximity of their Black Sea Fleet and the US Sixth Fleet in the eastern Med.
There have been more modern iterations of the hot line, which --I believe-- included satellite and fax technology, so who knows what communication equipment will be invoked to support a US-China link. I humbly suggest that President Bush and Wen Jiabo do it via AOL instant messenger, in the spirit of the digital age and all. There'd certainly be some cruel comedy in receiving a "nuKing u, lol!" text message just prior to Armageddon.
China Matters catalogues Chinese concerns regarding last night's satellite shoot-down:
1. Asserting China’s qualifications as a space power on par with Russia and the United States.
2. Imputing hidden motives to the US for conducting the operation
3. Expressing resentment that the US did a better PR job than the Chinese did with their test
4. Hoping that the US will screw up.
The post notes a Chinese "news report that the United States will call on fellow space powers Russia and China for assistance in tracking the hulk if the shootdown fails." The Chinese shouldn't believe everything they read in the paper. That never would have happened. And the Chinese can impute away, but whatever the reason for the shootdown, the administration effectively sold it as a public safety measure.
And it is the PR coup that most impresses. It's hard to see how this plays bad for the United States at home or abroad--though critics will surely take a different view (will Obama? doubtful). If the Russians and Chinese are convinced that this is evidence of some new capability, which it isn't, that's gravy. And our allies, especially those states who are collaborating with the United States on missile defense (Poland, Czech Republic, Japan), can only take this as evidence that the system is for real.
Leaving aside the left's criticism of the Bush administration as diplomatically-challenged, conservatives have long lamented the administration's inability to advocate on behalf of its own policies. But by taking this course of action, the Bush administration has done as much to assure future funding and allied support for missile defense as anyone could have hoped. Missile defense is one Reagan legacy that George W. Bush has safeguarded.
And, of course, we didn't screw up. The test was a complete and unvarnished success--assuming the plummeting debris doesn't destroy the island of Midway.
HT: China Rises
Slate explains "why the Air Force doesn’t need more F-22s":
On Feb. 13, according to today's issue of Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, Gen. Bruce Carlson, chief of the Air Force's materiel command, told a group of reporters, "We think that [187 planes] is the wrong number" and that the Air Force would find some way to build 380 before the program's done. He joked that 380 is a "compromise," since the original plan calls for 381.
Gen. Carlson's rationale for this expansion: "Most people say in the future there will be a China element to whatever we do." In plainer words: He says we need more than twice as many F-22s than the secretary of defense says we need because of the future military threat from China.
Two things should be noted about this claim. First, by the Pentagon's own measure, the Chinese military has a long way to go before it constitutes a threat to U.S. forces. Second, even if it does become a threat, it's not at all clear that the F-22 would be the best weapon to deal with it.
Disagree. The Raptor--poor, misunderstood soul that it is--isn't so much a means of winning a war against Red China as it is a tool for preventing one. China's subsidization of Russia's advanced defense sector has allowed the two nations to develop (and field) some particularly nasty fighter aircraft. With U.S. forces spread thin, allowing for Chinese air superiority over the straits of Taiwan would be bad news bears. Airpower is the cornerstone of our strategy to win any state v. state conflict; if China believes that we're no longer capable of controlling the air (or the sea), our strategy collapses, and we're up the Yangtze without a paddle.
Feel free to insert a "if you want peace, prepare for war" quote at your leisure.
The Raptor is expensive, true. It's a Cold War relic, also true. But if we're serious about fighting small wars, and remaining strong against peer competitors, we're going to need advanced platforms like the F-22. It's the "two-militaries" solution that's slowly evolving in the post-Rumsfeld Pentagon, a plan that hinges on modernizing the "geriatric" Air Force.
That according to Taiwanese Vice Defense Minister Ko Chen-heng as reported by Defense News. Ko made the statement while offering what is described as a rare public comment on a new land-attack cruise missile. The missile, he said, was developed by the Taiwanese for the express purpose of "allow[ing] time for U.S. forces to arrive to protect Taiwan from a Chinese attack."
“Since China lacks capability to cruise across the Taiwan Strait for a landing operation, China intends to fire missiles in the political and economic nerve centers of Taiwan to cause social paralysis, thereby forcing the U.S. to surrender.”
Ko said China is also working to turn the Taiwan Strait into an “internal sea of China.”
Militarily, this means building an aircraft carrier by 2015 and several more by 2020, and increasing submarine patrols in the area. But this also includes efforts to redefine the internationally recognized air defense identification zone to include what is now Taiwanese airspace. Ko said Chinese military aircraft are crossing the centerline of the Taiwan Strait more often — five or six times a year, up from once or twice annually in the late 1990s.
One should take such "rare" public comments with a grain of salt, but the message is clear. The Taiwanese are scared of China, they doubt the deterrent value of their current arsenal, and their only strategy in the event of attack is to wait until the U.S. Navy arrives. The reason? As the article notes, in 2005 U.S. officials denied Taiwanese "requests for Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) and AGM-88C High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles."Then in 2007, "U.S. officials declined four times . . . to accept Taiwan’s letter of request for price and availability for 66 F-16s." And now there are "indications that the U.S. government has been pressuring Taiwan to halt" production of this indigenous cruise missile system.
As far as the bit about the carriers, last year the South Korean newspaper Hankyoreh reported that China was "pushing ahead with construction of a mega-sized nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to be completed in 2020." This in addition to construction of a conventionally powered carrier.
If the Bush administration intends to restore and safeguard the balance of power in the Strait, it's running out of time, and it's moving in the wrong direction.
 The Russian carrier Varyag, which is being refitted in the port of Dalian by the Chinese.
When the Chinese bought the ship from the Ukraine, they claimed it would be used in Macau as a floating casino.
If you believe in that sort of thing. People's Daily reports:
The share price of China Coal Energy, the country's second largest coal producer, jumped more than 40 percent in a strong debut in Shanghai on Friday amid volatile trading....
The capital would be used for the construction of major coal projects in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Heilongjiang Province, and to supplement operating capital, according to the company.
China has a lot of coal. It's a cheap, efficient, and secure source of energy, so they aren't going to stop building coal-fired power plants any time soon--even if Obama hugs it out with them. Not only that, but much of the developing world, most notably Africa, will have to rely on affordable coal-fired power plants in order to lift themselves out of abject poverty. This type of thing puts the environmental movement at odds with efforts to eliminate global poverty--a conflict that Anne Applebaum captured well in her piece on India's Nano.
People's Daily reports:
China is expected to become the world's second largest power in terms of objective national strength by 2030, a top think tank reported on Tuesday.
In its report "China's Modernization 2008" that was released on Monday, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) said the country, currently number three globally in objective national strength, is expected to surpass Japan in 2030.
And earlier this week from the Strategy Page:
Expensive, and long term, efforts are being made to produce high tech items like jet engines, missiles and military electronics. At the current rate of progress, Chinese military technology will match that of the United States in a decade or so.
I think that second estimate is more than a little hysterical. The Chinese are putting Russian engines into fourth generation fighters while the United States operates the world's only fifth generation fighter, the F-22, and Boeing is even talking of a sixth generation fighter (though there's already some healthy skepticism at the Danger Room). Still, it sounds like the Chinese are doing a little sandbagging in the CASS study--it closes with this:
In its report, CASS also proposed the new concept of "Peace Dove Strategy" to stress its peaceful development policy.
The "Peace Dove, We Would Never Start a War Strategy"--who could worry?
Air Force Times:
The democratic Republic of China, commonly called Taiwan — which America backs and the communist People’s Republic of China considers part of its territory — frequently irritates Chinese leaders with calls for greater independence from the mainland. But while the American military mulls its options, Chinese missiles hit runways, fuel lines, barracks and supply depots at U.S. Air Force bases in Japan and South Korea. Long-range warheads destroy American satellites, crippling Air Force surveillance and communication networks. A nuclear fireball erupts high above the Pacific Ocean, ionizing the atmosphere and scrambling radars and radio feeds.
This is China’s anti-U.S. sucker punch strategy.
The scenario comes from a RAND report which drew on Chinese military journals and other unclassified documents to construct a best guess of how a conflict between the U.S. and China would kick off. It's a lot of asymmetric type stuff, but real heart of any Chinese first-strike would, according to the authors, be rather conventional: hitting runways and taking out aircraft at U.S. air bases in the region. To which they offer some simple solutions like adding an extra layer of concrete to all the runways and storing fuel underground. They also recommend keeping American aircraft, including larger aircraft, in hardened shelters, which the report says "would be expensive and difficult but likely worth the cost."
Another interesting item, straight from the report this time:
Chinese analysts assess that even a small number of casualties is sufficient to spark strong popular opposition and erode domestic support for U.S. participation in a conflict. The U.S. experience in Somalia is usually cited in support of this assertion.
It's hard to gauge just how damaging Somalia was to American credibility. It's been much discussed that al Qaeda interpreted that retreat as a sign of U.S. weakness. (And of course, bin Laden claimed that it was al Qaeda trained affiliates that shot down the American helicopters in the Battle of Mogadish.) It seems the Chinese drew the same conclusion--Americans don't have the stomach for a fight. Which leads to the obvious question: how would the Chinese interpret an American withdraw from Iraq?
Also, doesn't this sound an awful lot like the attack on Pearl Harbor? Strike at the U.S. ability to project power across the Pacific, inflict a maximum amount of damage and casualties in a very short period of time, convince the American people to abandon the fight. At the very least the parallels extend beyond the geography of the conflict (Taiwan=Philippines?). But that wasn't a good strategy then, and I don't buy it now. I'm thinking this type of attack ends more like Tora! Tora! Tora! than Black Hawk Down.
Apparently if you are, you're a coward:
"The distance between the Chinese and U.S. militaries is big. If you fear China's military build-up you don't have much courage," said Chen Bingde, chief of General Staff of the People's Liberation Army.
"We don't have the ability to make you afraid of us," he told reporters in Beijing, before meeting Timothy Keating, head of the U.S. Pacific Command.
At the same press conference, Chen rattled his saber on the issue of Taiwan:
"We have the ability and also relevant measures to resolve the Taiwan issue if the splittists dare to separate Taiwan from the motherland," Chen told reporters, without elaborating.
One can understand why there is some confusion about China's military "ability." And it is that confusion, perhaps more than anything else, that causes concern in Washington. As Sun Tzu said, "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a 100 battles." The problem is we don't know our enemy, and the Chinese continue to frustrate efforts to improve military to military relations (refusing to allow the Kitty Hawk to make a call at Hong Kong late last year is just one example).
But it goes both ways. The Chinese don't understand the U.S. military that well either, and they certainly don't understand what our red lines might be in the event of a conflict in the Strait. There's plenty of reason for both sides to be a bit fearful.
Hong Kong
Throughout my 25-year Army career, I usually focused on national security as a "blood-and-bullets" concern. So it feels odd to be spending so much of my time nowadays worrying about food security. But it’s just another side of the national security coin. You never know when terrorists might try to slip E. Coli into the spinach.
Now Congress too is starting to pay more attention to the security aspects of food and product safety--thanks in no small measure to a spate of recalls on toys made in China with lead paint and other toxic bits. Hearings will be held soon. And some lawmakers will doubtless use the opportunity to push for more non-tariff trade barriers--proposals based more on promoting protectionism than protecting us.
More trade barriers are a bad solution for making food safe. Hong Kong has a better idea.
Though America imports about $75 billion in fresh produce every year, most of what Americans eat is still grown or raised in America. Not so in Hong Kong. Here they import 95 percent of their food--90 percent of it from China. Yet, they do not have a food security import problem. Why? Because Hong Kong employs a layered system of safety measures from "farm to fork."
Hong Kong focuses its efforts not on companies or countries, but on "high risk" foods--those most likely to carry deadly pathogens or contamination from pesticides. (Example: Because of bird flu, they spend a lot of time worrying about chickens.) They also check at all three links in the food chain--import, wholesale, and retail. It is a system that makes sense, with inspections based on an unbiased, scientific-approach to food security.
But watch out for what Washington does in the wake of the China-toy scandal. Some lawmakers are bound to promote an overkill approach that will involve checking everything, everywhere, every step of the way. It’s the kind of woefully inefficient approach Hong Kong has wisely rejected.
Consider Chinese food exports, for example. China has approved 12,700 of its 450,000 food producers for export. Hong Kong accepts the certifications of the Chinese Inspection and Quarantine Agency as all that’s needed to OK importation. But FDA bureaucracy builders are making noises indicating that won’t be good enough. Rather, they may try to certify all 450,000 themselves. That’ll never happen--the FDA would have to cover hundreds of thousands of companies from more than 100 countries.
For its part, Congress is only likely to make things worse--restricting ports that can receive imports; requiring more U.S. certification before countries can send goods here; and imposing more inspection fees. All that would do is drive up food prices without adding much real security. At best the FDA can actually inspect only about 1 percent of the food we import anyway.
A recent Heritage Foundation paper by Danielle Markheim and Caroline Walsh offers much better answers. Their recommendations (e.g., that government work with industry to establish clear, practical, science-based regulations regarding food importation) track well with Hong Kong’s proven "farm to fork" strategy.
Hong Kong
Forget Will Smith. In his new movie a global plague kills off all but the tiniest percentage of people. If the setting had been Hong Kong instead of the Big Apple, the screen would still be crowded with people.
Here in Hong Kong I have plenty of company. But one fellow visitor really caught my eye: Adm. Tim Keating. Keating, head of U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii.
Keating’s area of responsibility covers most of Asia. Few people have more important jobs. A strong U.S. military presence in Asia is one of the most important factors promoting regional stability in the Pacific.
With a vigorous, vigilant U.S. presence in the region, nobody is capable of stealing a march on anybody else. That situation promotes peace and prosperity.
Asia also finds it good to have the United States around to help in combating piracy and terrorism, assisting in disaster response (like the 2004 tsunami); and thwarting trafficking in humans, drugs, and nuclear materials and technology.
And, of course, a safe and secure Asia is a better economic partner for the United States.
Keating is in Beijing for four days of talks. He is also going to visit military institutions in Shanghai and Guangzhou--and he will stop in Hong Kong.
There’s a lot to talk about. Last year the Chinese government forbade a port call in Hong Kong by the USS Kitty Hawk. Why? Beijing was miffed that President Bush had honored the Dali Lama and approved arms sales to Taiwan. But shutting out the Kitty Hawk was a big mistake. It made Beijing look petty and sent all the wrong messages to Washington.
Inviting the Kitty Hawk back would be a good first step. When militaries compete in Asia, everybody loses. When they start cooperating, everybody wins.
Editor’s note: The Heritage Foundation’s James Jay Carafano is in Hong Kong this week interviewing government officials and studying how they screen cargo and travelers for terrorist dangers. He will be filing reports for WWS.
Hong Kong
Lest we obsess over our presidential primaries, remember that keeping America safe, free and prosperous depends on far more than who occupies the Oval Office. How well we succeed as a nation will, in fact, be determined to a large degree by what happens overseas.
Homeland security does not begin at home. It is a global mission. From secur¬ing the border to protecting global supply chains that run from factories overseas to Wal-Mart shelves, virtu¬ally every aspect of preventing terrorist attacks has an international dimension that requires the United States to work effectively abroad. We can't make ourselves safe by sitting behind "Fortress America."
Ours is a “trading nation” and a “seafaring nation.” Global trade accounts for a full third of our economy. Virtually all of this trade--a whopping 99 percent--is conducted via the sea, where we move about 2.5 billion tons of goods, a year, worth about $10 trillion every year.
Ask most any American to name the one port in the world where a terrorist attack would have the most devastating impact on the U.S. economy and they will name one of the big three U.S. ports: New York, Los Angeles or Long Beach. And they’d be wrong. The answer is Hong Kong. It is the world’s leading international hub of global maritime shipping (and international passenger travel, as well). Should terrorists strike Hong Kong, the whole global conveyor belt of commerce would jerk.
And that would be horrible news for us. For American commerce is not only dependent on the sea, it is glued to the clock. Virtually every international business in the world today relies on “just-in-time” delivery. Rather than stockpile stuff in the storeroom, American business calculates what it needs and orders it from the factory just in time to put it in the assembly line or on the showroom floor or retail shelves. Mess with that system and you mess with every American.
Ports are also vital to defense. When the U.S. military goes overseas, 95 percent of the equipment and supplies go through ports.
Hong Kong sets the standard for port management, safety, and security for just about everybody--even the United States. As Hong Kong goes, so goes the world.
And that's why I'm here, and not in Michigan.
From Newsmax:
Santa Claus has been brought down somewhere over the South China Sea in an apparent collision with a Chinese fighter jet.
The collision occurred while St. Nick was flying his sleigh on a return trip from Hong Kong to the North Pole.
“Our pilots were flying within a reasonable distance when one of them was blinded by the lead reindeer’s nose. This caused him to lose control of his jet and accidentally fire two heat-seeking missiles that collided with the sleigh,” stated the Chinese foreign minister.
Very funny, worth reading the whole thing.
Update: Not funny: "Drug traffickers in a Rio slum opened fire on a helicopter carrying a Santa to a children's party, apparently mistaking it for a police helicopter." Via Danger Room.
"'Almost all enemies' of U.S. 'are China's friends'" says the report from East-Asia-Intel.com:
An official of the Chinese government last week confirmed that Beijing is supporting U.S. enemies around the world.
Yuan Peng, director of the Institute of American Studies, part of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said that "in the world, almost all enemies of the United States are China's friends."
The rare admission confirms the view of some critics who say China's arms sales to rogue states like Iran, Syria and North Korea are based on a deliberate strategy of indirectly confronting the United States.
Peng's institute, the CICIR, is an entity of the Ministry of State Security, China's main intelligence service. His remarks were included in a state-run media report.
Peng said long-term strategic stability between the U.S. and China "still remain[s] doubtful."
You have to wonder just how ugly things might get with the Chinese after the Olympics.
Update: As first reported in the November 5 issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...(click here for full view)
This isn't good:
France renewed its call for lifting the EU arms embargo against China on Tuesday, saying the punitive measure has long become obsolete and unable to reflect the current relationship between the European bloc and China....
In response to a question on French President Nicolas Sarkozy's demand for the removal during his recent visit to China, a Foreign Ministry official said that the embargo is out of date and does not conform to the EU's policy to build a full strategic partnership with China.
France stands for continued consultations among EU countries and will strive for the lifting of the arms embargo in light of a decision by the EU summit meeting in 2004, the official said....
The French Foreign Ministry official said the lifting of the embargo will be a "political message," which does not mean that France seeks a drastic increase in its arms export to China.
Chirac had angled for years to get out from under the EU-ban on arms exports to China. Not only was there money to be made in selling advanced military equipment, but lifting the ban almost guarantees the French increased access to China's rapidly expanding civil aviation market. Of course, the conditions that led to the ban--imposed after the Tienanmen Square massacre--have not changed in the least. The Chinese people have little more political freedom today than they did nearly 20 years ago, if any. What they have is economic freedom. And that economic freedom has apparently made China an irresistible market for European defense companies starved by declining national defense budgets throughout the EU.
If the Europeans are to lift this embargo without any concession or reform on the part of Beijing in return, it will put the lie to Sarkozy's oft repeated claim that his foreign policy would be a "moral foreign policy." There is no moral case for selling weapons to China, and neither does Europe have a strategic interest in lifting the ban. The motivation is purely economic--and decidedly amoral.
Yesterday it looked like the Chinese explanation for changing their minds about the Kitty Hawk's port call to Hong Kong was going to be nothing more than that it was a "misunderstanding."
Now, via Murdoc, they appear to be singing a different tune:
China hinted Thursday that Congress' honoring of the Dalai Lama and U.S. arms sales to Taiwan led it to cancel a U.S. Navy visit to Hong Kong, an incident that could open a new rift in military relations that had warmed in recent years.
That's pretty much what Tim Johnson had speculated, but I'm surprised the Chinese would be so straightforward about the whole thing. Of course, they aren't being straightforward at all. The Chinese now deny not only that the decision was the result of a misunderstanding, but that it was their decision at all:
"Reports that Foreign Minister Yang said in the United States that it was a misunderstanding do not accord with the facts," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a news conference.
"China approved the visit of the Kitty Hawk group to Hong Kong based on humanitarian reasons. The decision made by the U.S. later was up to them." He did not elaborate.
Rep. Randy Forbes put out a statement this morning in response to all these conflicting reports, and I think he pretty much nails it:
The duplicitous statements coming out of Beijing are emblematic of the way the Chinese conduct their brand of diplomacy and should serve as a cautionary statement to policymakers when dealing with Chinese leaders.
In other news from Red China:
Thousands of military academy students in central China’s Anhui province are rioting after news spread that the government wouldn’t recognize diplomas awarded to the fee-paying students, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reports....
A teacher at the academy, surnamed Ren, denied that rioting had occurred but added, “It could happen to any school. There are always some students who do not want to study. Right?”
“The majority of the students are good students. Those [who do not like to study] will be severely dealt with. What do the students know? Including the seniors. They have not even gotten their diplomas yet.”
“Only a small number of students with their own agenda were fanning the fire. I have told you too much already. If you are a reporter, I advise you not to touch things related to a military academy,” Ren said.
Can't wait for those Olympics...
WWS contributor Jennifer Chou sends along a link to this story that just hit the wires:
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told President George W. Bush on Wednesday that Beijing's refusal to let a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier into Hong Kong was a "misunderstanding," the White House said.
There's no additional explanation offered, but it strikes me that the Chinese are being more than a little reckless. "Misunderstandings" involving aircraft carriers are, by their nature, dangerous for all parties involved. At the beginning of the year, Bill Gertz reported on another Chinese "misunderstanding" that involved the Kitty Hawk:
The admiral in charge of the U.S. Pacific Fleet pressed Chinese military leaders to explain why an armed submarine challenged a U.S. aircraft carrier in the western Pacific by sailing within five miles of the warship, U.S. defense officials said.
The Chinese responded by claiming the Song-class submarine that surfaced near the USS Kitty Hawk on Oct. 27 was there by accident, and that it did not shadow the warship before making its presence known, the officials said.
Defense officials familiar with reports of closed-door military meetings in Beijing, Shanghai and Zhanjiang privately doubted the Chinese explanations and said it is more likely the Song-class diesel electric submarine was practicing anti-aircraft carrier operations.
A few months earlier, Larry Wortzel, chairman of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission and a leading expert on Chinese military policy, spoke on China's military ambitions in space at the National Press Club:
With respect to the goal the PLA has set of attacking a U.S. aircraft carrier battle group at sea, we don’t know, from their writings, whether their war plans--believe it or not, we all have war plans--are for a conventional, a nuclear or a high-altitude electro-magnetic pulse burst. But the PLA sees the goal of attacking a deployed American carrier battle group as realistic and achievable. Think of the implications of that! The Enterprise docked in Norfolk just before Thanksgiving and there are 5,000 people on the Enterprise alone. The casualties at Pearl Harbor reached only 2,400. The World Trade Center wasn’t much more than 2,400. Thus, when PLA officers routinely talk about being able to attack and sink an American aircraft carrier, they aren’t thinking really hard about what comes back at them after that.
I would argue that one of the implications of what seems to be serious research and writing in China is that the United States ought to be engaged in equally serious defense talks with the senior PLA leaders on what the red lines are in warfare. The anti-satellite programs that I talked about affect our strategic warning. The Chinese need to understand that we are very sensitive about interference with our strategic warning and about the ability of the United States to gather indications of hostility. When another nation interferes with that capability, we tend to take that as an indication that the nation may want to attack us. If you have been in the strategic warning system awhile, you know that the United States talked to the Soviets about this at great length. We still talk to the Russians about it. Senior American defense and foreign policy leaders have not had this dialogue with the Chinese. The PLA won’t even get serious about a dialogue with the Pacific commander about naval incidents at sea, to make sure that the next time a Song submarine broaches the surface, it doesn’t do it under the Kitty Hawk carrier battle group and bump into it. The PLA has avoided such discussions despite repeated requests from the U.S., and we need to talk to them about these matters.
The Chinese seem to think that putting these incidents off to mere "misunderstandings" is sufficient, but the behavior is in fact unbelievably reckless. They have no sense of what our red lines are, and this latest snub of the Kitty Hawk is unlikely to reduce the chance of escalation the next time we have a misunderstanding at sea.
 No General Tso for the crew of the Kitty Hawk. The USS Kitty Hawk and its task force were supposed to spend Thanksgiving in Hong Kong, at the invitation of the Chinese. Because the Kitty Hawk is the lone carrier stationed overseas, many of the families of the sailors and Marines on board took the relatively short trip from Japan to Hong Kong to spend the holiday with their active duty love ones. But the Chinese scuttled the visit, without any apparent reason, leaving families stranded in Hong Kong, and the sailors stuck aboard their ships in the South China Sea.
At FP Passport, Mike Boyer points to one possible reason for China's bad manners--a live-fire exercise off the Chinese coast that would have "have put U.S. ships (and their prying eyes) in a position that Beijing would consider too close for comfort." Boyer also links a piece by Tim Johnson, who speculates this may be payback for Bush's chummy visit with the Dalai Lama.
On Johnson's blog, China Rises (bookmark it!), he also posts a transcript of a press conference with Admiral Keating, which shows the level of frustration at the Pentagon with the Chinese decision:
ADM. KEATING: ...This is perplexing. It's not helpful. It is not, in our view, conduct that is indicative of a country who understands its obligations of a responsible nation. There is little strategic benefits to it. There's a lot more downside than upside. So it's hard to characterize it in anything but a at least perplexing, if not troublesome, light.
I have had no conversation with any Chinese officials. We are in dialogue with OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense) and State, and I've got a phone call in to our ambassador there. I've not yet been able to connect to Amb. Randt.
So, perplexing, troublesome. No direct contact with the Chinese. Would certainly hope that this is not indicative of future repeated denials. We'd like to get into Hong Kong. We want to engage in even discourse. I'm hoping to go to China in January. As you know, Secretary Gates was just there a couple of weeks ago. He had a good visit. So this denial in the very late stages of port visit planning is -- came as a surprise and it's of some concern to us.
Keating later complains of a Chinese affront to the Navy far worse than the Kitty Hawk fiasco--China's refusal to grant two U.S. minesweepers safe harbor in Hong Kong after being caught in a dangerous storm:
ADM KEATING:...Those two minesweepers were engaged in an operation, not against China but out in international water, and a storm blew up and they needed to get into a place of refuge. And, you know, Hong Kong's nearby and that's a great place to go. So for the Chinese to have denied those two ships, in particular, small though they may be, that is a different kettle of fish for us and is, in ways, more disturbing, more perplexing than the denial for the Kitty Hawk's port visit request.
As it turns out, both the Patriot and Guardian remained unaffected. They suffered no damage. But this is a kind of an unwritten law among seamen that if someone is in need, regardless of genus, phylum or species, you let them come in; you give them safe harbor. Jimmy Buffett has songs about it, for crying out loud.
Okay, so they're busting the Navy's chops a bit with the Kitty Hawk visit. It's bad form, but I suspect these are the kind of silly games that the Soviet and U.S. military played for decades. But rejecting a request for safe harbor in a storm--as Keating says, this pretty much destroys any good will or trust that has been built between the Navy and the Chinese since the 2001 | | | |
