What will China Do?

[Fusioner]

As far as long term conflict is concerned... I see issues with the Chinese, it has already started economically...

We spend a lot of money in China because their production quality has improved and labor is cheap. There are signs all over of a robust economy in China.

The Chinese want to buy up strategic resources, and we have told them no. So there is a clear conflict of intentions. These recent decisions reflect long term conflicts of interest.

China has been spending money on it's military. It is a nuclear power, and recently a space power with a manned flight program. And it is looking all over the world at strategic resources, at a time when there is no global surplus of those resources. The Chinese have dammed their major rivers to generate power, they are planning new nuclear reactors at a rate and scale that exceeds the building surge in the US in the 1970s.

The western world almost looks tired by comparison...

fusioner.proboards60.com/index.cgi?board=news&action=display&thread=1122965368 Oil Thread, sources

www.spacedaily.com/news/china-05zzzzzj.html - Chinese space program notes

au.biz.yahoo.com/050728/17/6b2b.html
CHINA EMBARKS ON AMBITIOUS PLAN TO BUILD 30 REACTORS

www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050729-024940-1553r
U.S. lawmakers expressed concern over Beijing's growing influence in Africa

[Fusioner]

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8797856/

Unocal tussle puts China oilman on global stage

Fu Chengyu personifies Beijing’s global ambitions

[gypsy]

The China syndrome

Top Chinese general warns US over attack
By Alexandra Harney in Beijing and Demetri Sevastopulo and Edward Alden in Washington
Published: July 14 2005 21:59 | Last updated: July 15 2005 00:03

china us troubleChina is prepared to use nuclear weapons against the US if it is attacked by Washington during a confrontation over Taiwan, a Chinese general said on Thursday.

“If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons,” said General Zhu Chenghu.

Gen Zhu was speaking at a function for foreign journalists organised, in part, by the Chinese government. He added that China's definition of its territory included warships and aircraft.

“If the Americans are determined to interfere [then] we will be determined to respond,” said Gen Zhu, who is also a professor at China's National Defence University.

“We . . . will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds . . . of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese.”

Gen Zhu is a self-acknowledged “hawk” who has warned that China could strike the US with long-range missiles. But his threat to use nuclear weapons in a conflict over Taiwan is the most specific by a senior Chinese official in nearly a decade.

However, some US-based China experts cautioned that Gen Zhu probably did not represent the mainstream People's Liberation Army view.

“He is running way beyond his brief on what China might do in relation to the US if push comes to shove,” said one expert with knowledge of Gen Zhu. “Nobody who is cleared for information on Chinese war scenarios is going to talk like this,” he added.

Gen Zhu's comments come as the Pentagon prepares to brief Congress next Monday on its annual report on the Chinese military, which is expected to take a harder line than previous years. They are also likely to fuel the mounting anti-China sentiment on Capitol Hill.

In recent months, a string of US officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, have raised concerns about China's military rise. The Pentagon on Thursday declined to comment on “hypothetical scenarios”.

Rick Fisher, a former senior US congressional official and an authority on the Chinese military, said the specific nature of the threat “is a new addition to China's public discourse”. China's official doctrine has called for no first use of nuclear weapons since its first atomic test in 1964. But Gen Zhu is not the first Chinese official to refer to the possibility of using such weapons first in a conflict over Taiwan.

Chas Freeman, a former US assistant secretary of defence, said in 1996 that a PLA official had told him China could respond in kind to a nuclear strike by the US in the event of a conflict with Taiwan. The official is believed to have been Xiong Guangkai, now the PLA's deputy chief of general staff.

Gen Zhu said his views did not represent official Chinese policy and he did not anticipate war with the US.

Additional reporting by Richard McGregor in Beijing

news.ft.com/cms/s/28cfe55a-f4a7-11d...000e2511c8.html

BBC NEWS
US reports China missile build-up

China has increased the number of short-range ballistic missiles on its coast opposite Taiwan, the US has said.

In an annual report to Congress, the Pentagon claimed there were now up to 730 such missiles in place. Last year's report found only 500.

The Pentagon said China could now be spending up to $90bn a year on defence, and that its military build-up put regional balances at risk.

But China has dismissed the claims, insisting its rise would be peaceful.

"Not only is China not a threat to anyone, but we would also like to make friends with people in every country, work together and develop mutually beneficial co-operation in order to facilitate everyone's progress," Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said on Wednesday.

'Credible threat'

The Pentagon report said that China did not face a threat from any other nation.

Yet it found that Beijing continued to invest heavily in its military, and its modernisation plans are aimed primarily at winning a war with Taiwan.


REPORT'S KEY FINDINGS
Build-up of short-range missiles opposite Taiwan
Increase in long-range missiles and hardware from Russia
Military spending could be up to $90bn - the highest in Asia
But the US is the top military spender, with an estimated $399bn annual defence budget

According to the American findings, there are now between 650 and 730 short-range ballistic missiles in position opposite Taiwan, with 100 more being deployed every year.

China is also developing the capability to launch air strikes and mount a blockade against the island, the report said.

In the past, the US has cautioned both China and Taiwan not to change the status quo.

Washington is Taiwan's main arms supplier and could be drawn into any conflict.

Broader ambitions

But the Pentagon also believes that China's strategic planners are looking beyond Taiwan.

The report points to China's growing missile capability and the imminent deployment of mobile, long-range ballistic missiles, known as DF31s, which could hit targets worldwide with nuclear warheads.

The Pentagon report says Chinese defence spending could be up to $90bn this year, more than twice the estimated figure given by Beijing.

This would make it the largest military spender in Asia - and third in the world after the US and Russia.

The US itself is thought to have an approximate annual defence budget of almost $400bn, according to World Bank figures.

The Chinese navy has bought into service advanced guided missile destroyers, submarines and fighter aircraft, bought from Russia.

Over the long term, says the Pentagon, if current trends persist, the Chinese military could pose a credible threat to other modern militaries operating in the region.

According to the BBC's Pentagon correspondent Adam Brookes, this is code for American forces in Asia.

The drafting of this report has been a contentious process, reflecting divisions in Washington between those who view Chinese power as a serious emerging threat and those who take a more benign view, our correspondent says.

But the final product is a document tough in substance and in tone, which will do little or nothing to reassure those Americans who worry about China's intentions, he says.
Story from BBC NEWS:
news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia...fic/4698655.stm

Published: 2005/07/20 09:53:37 GMT

© BBC MMV

"Not only is China not a threat to anyone, but we would also like to make friends with people in every country, work together and develop mutually beneficial co-operation in order to facilitate everyone's progress," Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said on Wednesday.

Did you hear that everybody? Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing say's there is nothing to worry about and that China just wants to be friends with everyone...

Beware of crooked-smile kisses.

[Fusioner]

The Pentagon report said that China did not face a threat from any other nation.

It's not a military threat the Chinese are really worried about... It's a strategic resources threat.

The Japanese before WWII were not worried about being invaded... What sent them to war was being cut off of their supplies of strategic resources like oil, rubber, and scrap metals... One reason they were cut off was because they were sounding belligerant, and they were using their imports to develop their military.

The Chinese have always been a little slanted when it comes to the US and nuclear weapons... At the height of the Korean war, McArthur publically announced he was strongly in favor of nuking China back to the stone age, and asked for permission. Truman fired him... But that kind of talk stuck in the minds of the Chinese...

[Fusioner]

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050808/ap_on_bi_ge/china_boeing

China Airlines Sign $5 Billion Boeing Deal

SHANGHAI, China - Four Chinese airline companies have agreed to buy 42 Boeing 787 jets for a total $5.04 billion, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Monday.

In January, six Chinese airlines signed an agreement with Boeing to order 60 of its new fuel-efficient 787 Dreamliners for $7.2 billion.

Boeing says it expects China's airlines to spend $183 billion on aircraft over the next two decades as its 1.3 billion increasingly prosperous citizens take to air travel.

[Fusioner]

Retreat in China

A very good op/ed article, well researched:

www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-08-10-forum-china_x.htm


BEIJING — An intensifying crackdown on domestic dissent is dashing hopes that China's economic opening will produce greater democracy anytime soon.
Chinese authorities in recent weeks have arrested prominent intellectuals and foreign journalists. They have tightened restrictions on Web sites and praised the killing of anti-government protesters in nearby Uzbekistan, which Human Rights Watch labeled a "massacre." And they've rounded up the leaders of unapproved religious observances.

[Fusioner]

www.nytimes.com/2005/08/11/opinion/11thu1.html

When analysts and economic historians look back, this summer may well prove to be the turning point in Chinese-American relations, the time when America chose short-range paranoia over rational behavior. From the dozen or so proposals in Congress for across-the-board tariffs against Chinese imports to the Pentagon's rumblings about Chinese military buildups, the rhetoric from Washington keeps escalating. America seems to be on the run, fueled by the false perception that China's rapid economic rise poses an inevitable threat to the United States. By repeatedly demonizing China, Washington risks creating the hostility it fears.

The Chinese economic surge has been awesome. If America is going to respond to it reasonably, its leaders - and the public - will have to acknowledge the obvious: China is no longer a second-level economic power that can be bullied around. America's financial stability rests in no small way on the continued Chinese purchase of the government's debt. And in foreign affairs, China's concerns will have to be part of almost every calculation. Congress had the power to insert a clause in the energy bill that would make it all but impossible for the Chinese to buy Unocal. But Congress cannot stop China's thirst for oil. Its energy consumption has increased phenomenally, up 65 percent between 2002 and 2004. It is now the second-largest oil market in the world, behind the United States. Among the places it has been shopping are Iran and Sudan.

Those oil-market relationships have already created considerable problems for the United States. Part of the reason it was so hard for America and Britain to get the humanitarian crisis in Darfur onto the United Nations' Security Council agenda last year was because China resisted calls to pressure the Sudanese government. Similarly, any attempt to impose United Nations economic sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program now risks running into opposition from Beijing.

The scheduled visit of China's president, Hu Jintao, to Washington next month is a chance to put Chinese-American relations on a sounder footing. President Bush should seize the opportunity to muzzle the anti-China crowd who are putting flashy sound bites ahead of America's greater global interests.

[Fusioner]

U.S. report warns of China sub threat

news.yahoo.com/s/chitribts/usreportwarnsofchinasubthreat

Little noticed by the public, a just-released Pentagon report to Congress carries a strong warning that China's rapidly expanding and improving submarine fleet poses a mounting military threat to the United States.

The end of the Cold War left the United States the world's supreme naval power, and the Pentagon, occupied with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has shifted its priorities away from seaborne threats in recent years.

The Pentagon has even diverted components of its anti-submarine warfare arm to other purposes.

China, though still well behind the U.S. in terms of the strength of its submarine fleet, has turned to an undersea vessel that American planners had considered largely obsolete--the diesel-electric attack submarine--to boost its arsenal. And it is equipping its submarines with new technology from Germany and elsewhere to make the craft harder to detect and more lethal than ever before.

Experts predict that China's submarine fleet will substantially outnumber that of the U.S. within the next 15 years.

As the Pentagon report, delivered to Congress last month, says, the new Chinese navy is a force designed mostly to prevent or dissuade the U.S. from intervening in a conflict between China and Taiwan. But it also is giving China the capability of menacing Japan and striking U.S. cities with submarine-launched nuclear missiles from far out in the Pacific.

"China is in the midst of perhaps the largest military buildup the world has witnessed since the end of the Cold War," Richard Fisher, vice president of Washington's International Assessment and Strategy Center, a national security think tank, said at a recent hearing of the House Armed Services Committee.

John Tkacik Jr., a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, raised a similar alarm.

"China's ambitious weapons modernization and reforms in military doctrine are aimed at promoting vast increases in its comprehensive national power," Tkacik told the House committee. He said the Pentagon report is "a wake-up call to the administration, to Congress, to the Taiwan government and to our friends and allies in the Asia-Pacific region that . . . China stands poised to assert itself as the pre-eminent power in the Asia-Pacific region."

China appears to be strengthening all branches of its military--improving training and weaponry for its huge army, increasing its short- and long-range ballistic missiles, adding new aircraft and precision munitions to its air force and developing unmanned aircraft, the report said.

But submarines have become a high priority. China has about 64 surface warships in its navy and 55 or more attack submarines, designed for use against enemy surface ships and submarines as well as ground targets.

These not only include its current Song-class sub, armed with anti-ship cruise missiles that can be launched underwater, but a new Yuan diesel-electric attack sub as well. China also is expected to introduce a nuclear attack submarine this year and has bought four highly capable Russian Kilo-class attack submarines with eight more on order from the Russian military.

In contrast, Taiwan has just 27 surface warships and four submarines.

U.S. fleet of 59 attack subs

The U.S. has a fleet of 59 attack submarines of all classes but, as experts have noted, has commitments for them all over the world.

At current attrition and replacement rates, experts estimate the U.S. attack fleet will be down to 40 submarines or fewer within the next 15 years, while China expands its fleet by perhaps 35 modern subs.

Another great leap forward in Chinese attack submarine capability has been the introduction of "air-independent propulsion" technology to its attack force.

According to Lt. Cmdr. Bill Murray, a veteran submarine officer now serving as an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College, AIP technology has transformed the diesel-electric sub into an ultrastealthy, state-of-the-art ship-killing weapon.

Nuclear subs are quieter than diesels, but attack subs running on batteries are quieter still.

"When they're on battery, they're incredibly difficult to find," Murray said. "So, unless you know where they are, they could be anywhere, which complicates the United States' or any opposing navy's ability to operate on the surface."

According to Lyle Goldstein, another Naval War College expert, diesel-electric subs have been able to operate for only two or three days on batteries, having to resurface to recharge them. With AIP, the submarine carries its own air supply, as it might extra fuel, and can recharge its batteries while deep underwater and stay submerged for two or more weeks.

"I don't think anybody really knows how far the Chinese are along with it, but we've found some very disturbing signs," Goldstein said.

According to Goldstein and Murray, the Chinese acquired much of their AIP technology from Germany. They emphasized that their assessments are their own and not official views of the Naval War College or the Navy.

All American submarines are nuclear; the Navy has no diesel-electric attack craft. Last fall, the Swedish government leased the Navy the use of one of its AIP-equipped diesel-electric vessels and crew so American anti-submarine warfare forces could train against the wider-ranging submarine tactics AIP makes possible.

As the Pentagon report on China observed, the U.S. has emphasized capability over quantity in maintaining its submarine fleet. But numbers give the Chinese certain advantages.

"Numbers matter," Murray said. "The Chinese obviously believe that numbers matter because they're turning out submarines like sausages. The Chinese are definitely on the winning end of an arms race."

Though the collapse of the Soviet Union decreased the need for the nuclear submarine as a globally deployed, second-strike nuclear deterrent, the U.S. underwater fleet still is spread worldwide as part of a strategy of projecting force on all oceans and major seas. That mission includes protection of the United States' wide-ranging carrier battle groups.

China is showing its new emphasis in other ways. It traditionally has been so focused on its army and ground warfare that for decades it had army generals commanding both its air force and navy. The new navy commander, Zhang Dingfa, is a navy admiral and veteran submarine officer.

Capitol Hill reaction

Alarm over the Chinese buildup is spreading on Capitol Hill. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) argued that this was no time to cut back the size of the U.S. attack sub fleet or to close the Navy submarine base at Groton, Conn., as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has recommended.

"The best anti-submarine weapon is another submarine," Hunter said.

The Pentagon report on Chinese military power assessed its submarine buildup as part of a coercive effort to persuade Taiwan that "the price of declaring independence is too high" and that naval action against Taiwan might include a blockade or outright attack.

"They want to deter us from interfering if they feel they have to use force to deter Taiwan [from independence], raising the potential cost [in sunk ships and casualties] of U.S. intervention to such a high degree that they think we will calculate we can't defend Taiwan without paying an exorbitant cost," Murray said.

Although Rumsfeld has raised concerns about China's military buildup, he has continued to state publicly that he believes the Taiwan dispute will be settled through peaceful negotiation.

"Our position with respect to Taiwan and the People's Republic of China hasn't changed in years," he said at a news briefing last month. "Our view is that whatever changes are to be made in that connection should be made on a peaceful basis by both countries."

"You judge military threat in two ways," said Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, who becomes chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff next month. "There're lots of countries in the world that have the capacity to wage war. Very few have the intent to do so. And clearly, we have a complex but good relationship with China. So there's absolutely no reason for us to believe there's any intent on their part."

"On the contrary," Tkacik said. "The Pentagon report shows that there is every reason to believe that China intends either to coerce Taiwan or to attack it. There is no third option."

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[e-mail]

[Fusioner]

China, Russia Conduct Military Exercises

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050817/ap_on_re_eu/russia_china

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia - Russian navy ships and long-range bombers headed Wednesday to a Chinese peninsula jutting into the Yellow Sea for the first-ever joint military exercises between the two nations.

Moscow and Beijing will stage a mock intervention to stabilize an imaginary country riven by ethnic strife. But they insist the "Peace Mission 2005" exercises — which were to start Thursday and include some 10,000 troops from land, sea and air forces — aren't aimed at a third country.

And analysts agree Russia and China are unlikely to team up against a common foe. They say the maneuvers are more of an exhibition of Russian arms — including its long-range strategic bombers, which can carry nuclear weapons — in the hope of luring Chinese buyers.

Still, both countries will be looking to prove their military might during the eight days of war games on the Shandong peninsula.

The U.S. Defense Department said last month that China's military was increasingly seeking to modernize and could become a threat in the Asia-Pacific region as it looked to spread its influence.

The Russian military is also eager to show it still has muscle despite much-publicized woes. Its weaknesses were highlighted again earlier this month when Russia had to call for outside help to rescue seven men stranded in a mini-submarine off its Pacific coast.

The exercises come amid warming ties between the countries since the end of the Cold War, driven by mutual concerns about the United States' dominance in world affairs and a shared interest in combating extremism in Central Asia.

[Fusioner]

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9373194/

Shifts in Pacific force U.S. to adapt thinking

New plans reflect reaction to China's growing power

ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam - A dull-gray B-2 bomber sat poised in a typhoon-proof air-conditioned hangar, its bat wings stretching 172 feet across. The bomb bay was fitted for 80 GPS-guided bombs, at 500 pounds each, that could be delivered to any target in Asia within a few hours.

The hulking stealth aircraft is a symbol of new times in the Pacific.

"Having this airplane in theater sends a message to the world," said Air Force Lt. Col. Tom Bussiere, of St. Johnsbury, Vt., who arrived at Andersen last February with four of the boomerang-shaped strategic warplanes.

The deployment of Bussiere's squadron, replacing a contingent of aging B-52s, marked part of a broad U.S. military realignment in the fast-changing Pacific. The reposturing, scheduled to run over several years, has been designed to strengthen U.S. military forces in Asia and usher them into a new era, reacting primarily to China's expanding diplomatic, economic and military power.

The rise of China as a regional force has shaken assumptions that had governed this vast region since the end of World War II, including that of uncontested U.S. naval and air power from California to the Chinese coast. With those days soon to end, senior officers said, the U.S. military in Asia is retooling to reflect new war-making technology, better prepare for military crises and counter any future threat from the emergent Chinese navy and air force.

Asian Cold War?
Some U.S. specialists have predicted an Asian Cold War or outright conflict as a newly muscular China gets ready to project power beyond its shores. But U.S. military planners in the region have a different interpretation of the Chinese challenge. The goal, they said in interviews, is to maximize U.S. forces here -- as demonstrated by the B-2 deployment. However, the planners also said the United States was seeking to build a network of contacts with the Chinese government and military through which the power overlap could be managed rather than fought over.

"Do we have to have conflict because of the rise of China? I don't believe so," said Adm. William J. Fallon, who heads the Hawaii-based Pacific Command from an office with a sweeping view of Pearl Harbor and the vast ocean beyond.

"As they grow, there's going to be an inevitable push as they take advantage of their economic ability to improve their military capabilities," he said of the Chinese. "We ought to recognize that as a reality. This is not a zero-sum game.

"I do not buy the program," he said, referring to the presumption that conflict cannot be avoided. "I just don't buy it."

Fallon said he had received a clear mandate in this regard from Washington, despite widely noticed remarks in June from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld questioning China's motives in modernizing its military forces. In addition, Fallon said in an interview, this approach means China's cultivation of stronger diplomatic and military ties with other Asian nations does not have to compete with U.S. changes in the Pacific.

"A rising China that is actively engaged in helping the countries of the region maintain security and stability can be a very good thing," he explained.

The admiral, who has led the Pacific Command for six months, got his start building military ties with China during a maiden visit there Sept. 5-9. Although he and his 300,000 troops have responsibility for 43 countries and more than 100 million square miles, Fallon said China's size and growth make it the center of his network-building efforts.

Eventually, he said during a stop in Beijing, he would like military-to-military contacts to grow to the point where he could invite Chinese officers to observe U.S.-South Korean military exercises. But, he acknowledged, there is a long path ahead before that would be possible.

The Taiwan Factor
Despite the resolve to get along, the U.S. military in Asia has long faced off with China as part of the struggle over Taiwan. Many of the U.S. moves underway in Asia have been designed to better counter the improving Chinese military in any conflict over Taiwan. Similarly, many of China's weapons acquisitions and other improvements have been made with a view to the possibility of fighting the United States over Taiwan.

This uneasy equation, Fallon said, is "a fact of life."

Under the Taiwan Relations Act, the United States has pledged to assist Taiwan in its defense. Whether this would mean military intervention in the event of a Chinese attack would be up to the leadership in Washington. But conversations with U.S. military planners in the region made it clear they feel mandated to be ready if it comes to that.

In his confirmation hearing to become Air Force chief of staff, Gen. T. Michael Moseley told the Senate Armed Services Committee in June that calculating the right mix of U.S. air power in Asia to defeat China in case of conflict was "at the top of my list." Fallon, in hearings several months earlier, expressed concern that recent Chinese military improvements, particularly in submarines, should not be allowed to alter the balance against Taiwan and, in case of conflict, U.S. forces that could be sent in to help.

The two were referring to the fruits of China's two-decade-old military modernization program. After years as the world's largest military reliant chiefly on masses of soldiers, the Chinese armed forces have sought to leap into the age of electronic warfare. Through acquisitions from Russia and elsewhere, along with developments in their own defense industry, they have laid the groundwork for a newly potent navy and air force, equipped with modern missiles able for the first time to pose a threat to U.S. forces in the region.

The long-standing danger of Taiwan becoming a reason to go to war against China has been part of the broader military realignment, contributing to concern over the extent to which China's rise changes the environment for U.S. military forces.

"China is a huge piece of the puzzle right now, and the military certainly recognizes it," said Col. Michael Boera, who commands the 36th Air Expeditionary Wing at Andersen.

Part 2

Shifting Japan
Another part of the U.S. military's new environment is a shifting Japan, which has moved away from postwar pacifism and tightened strategic ties with the United States. One clear sign of the evolution was Japan's decision to buy PAC-3 and Aegis anti-missile systems from the United States. The layered defense system, Japanese and U.S. officials noted, was designed to protect Japan -- and U.S. forces based in Japan -- against any threat from Chinese medium-range missiles as well as any North Korean attack.

Some Taiwanese officials have suggested the possibility of an integrated U.S., Japanese and Taiwanese missile defense system based on PAC-3 and Aegis. Fallon noted, however, that Taiwan's defense spending was nowhere near the level needed for that; the Taipei government has still not decided whether to finance purchase of a PAC-3 system on offer from Washington for the last four years.

Nonetheless, Japan and the United States for the first time last February identified stability around Taiwan as a "common strategic objective." Although China complained, Japanese officials called the decision a logical response to China's expanding missile arsenal. Southern Japanese islands, including Okinawa and its many U.S. forces, fall well within Chinese missile range, they noted.

"Japan is very close to Taiwan," said a senior Japanese official involved in defense policy. "And if something happened in this area, it will undoubtedly affect Japanese security. It is naive to suggest that a cross-strait conflict would not affect Japan."

Japan's growing assertiveness and willingness to work militarily with the United States, although a boon in planning for Taiwan, has also raised the prospect of U.S. involvement in other quarrels with China. Long prickly because of the legacy of Japanese occupation during World War II, Japanese-Chinese relations have grown more tense in recent months over competing claims to several islands and petroleum exploration rights in the East China Sea.

The Japanese government recently complained that for the first time it had observed several Chinese warships, including a guided-missile destroyer, patrolling in the vicinity of the disputed petroleum deposits.

The United States has been careful to avoid taking sides in either set of disputes, officers noted. But as the U.S.-Japanese military alliance has strengthened, so has the danger that an unforeseen clash in the East China Sea could end up involving the United States.

An Indonesian shift
Indonesia, a longtime U.S. ally, has recently become another example of the new environment for U.S. military forces operating in Asia. After years of caution and even enmity toward the Chinese government, Indonesia in April concluded a strategic partnership with Beijing, with President Hu Jintao proclaiming a "new era" in relations between the two nations.

Since then, talks have opened on the sale and technology transfer of Chinese surface-to-surface missiles, according to Maj. Gen. Dadi Susanto, director general for defense strategy at the Indonesian Defense Department.

During a visit to Beijing in July, Susanto said, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono signed an agreement specifying Chinese assistance in a broad range of military production, including aircraft and ships, small arms and ammunition as well as the missiles.

"It's everything," Susanto said in an interview. "Whatever we would want to have from them, they would support."

During the same period, the United States has debated lifting restrictions on U.S. cooperation with the Indonesian military that were imposed five years ago over army abuses during the East Timor secession. Since U.S. forces mounted a prominent rescue operation in January after the Dec. 26 tsunami hit Indonesia, chances for agreement on loosening the restrictions have improved, U.S. officers said. Some spare parts have already been provided and International Military Training exchanges have resumed. But Congress has not yet changed the rules on sales or grants of lethal weapons and major equipment such as aircraft.

Susanto said Indonesia's military wanted to retain its ties to the United States but could not wait too long for resumption of sales and grants because its equipment was aging. "The enhancement of relations between China and Indonesia is not because we hate the United States, but just for our legitimate needs," he said, adding, "Our principle is we're open to everybody."

The Role of Guam
Although repositioning in the Pacific is part of Rumsfeld's order to make the military more agile, it has also resulted in the deployment of more modern forces close to Asia's likely trouble spots. Nowhere is that more visible than at Andersen, a 21,000-acre base where a permanent bomber presence and a regular rotation of fighter planes have been ordered since last year, along with the stationing of KC-135 tanker aircraft.

A second submarine, the USS Houston, was assigned to Guam's naval base in December, joining the USS City of Corpus Christi, which arrived in 2002. A third submarine is planned soon.

Officers pointed out that using Guam, a U.S. territory, frees the U.S. military from restraints imposed by basing in foreign countries, such as Japan or South Korea. Japanese sensitivities over nuclear power, for instances, do not apply on this 200-square-mile island surrounded by the broad Pacific.

Although the realignment is still being worked out, a sketch of what Fallon has in mind was offered in a recent solicitation for comment on the environmental impact of Andersen's expansion plans. When the realignment is complete, according to the document, Andersen could be hosting three Global Hawk unmanned aerial reconnaissance aircraft and 12 KC-135 aerial refueling tankers, along with 48 fighter planes and six strategic bombers on regular rotation from the United States.

[Fusioner]

english1.peopledaily.com.cn/200509/16/eng20050916_208986.html
Three Gorges Project makes China No. 1 in DC power transmission



Source text: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8758393/

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8745767/ - Graphic's Show, first rate

China’s great cloud of construction dust

Cash, desperation, vanity fuel some of the world’s most ambitious projects

Kari Huus Reporter

Chinese leaders have a tradition of ambitious schemes — Great Leaps, Great Walls, Long Marches and the like — but never before has the world seen a bricks-and-mortar transformation of the nation like the one now under way.

In Western China, workers are boring through the Himalayan peaks to bring the first trains to Lhasa, Tibet. In Shanghai, engineers are racing to build the world's tallest building. Chinese engineers are working on the world's largest river diversion project, expected to displace 400,000 people, and building shopping malls that dwarf the Pentagon. But even these projects, huge by any measure, are eclipsed by China's mega work-in-progress, the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River.

The building is changing the face of China with a reach that goes well beyond its shores, driving up the price of steel, copper and concrete around the world.

To some extent, thinking big is natural in China — it's a big country, and it's part of Chinese tradition, from the emperors who ordered the construction of the Great Wall, the Grand Canal and the Forbidden City, to the megalomania of Communist leader Mao Zedong. But now the massive building projects are fueled by demand in the most populous nation in the world, by the ready cash generated by a decade-long capitalist boom and in some cases by desperation.

"I think the building ... is just the tip of the iceberg of what is going on in China," says Eva Lerner-Lam, president of the Palisades Consulting Group, a New Jersey-based firm that works on transportation projects in the United States and China. "The Chinese have the world’s cash, and they are investing it domestically in their own research, development, education and training, and they are using it to buy capital, which we told them to do."

Now, however, the central government — once the main proponent of BIG — is trying to slow the building, concerned about an overheating economy, environmental problems and the social unrest created by the dislocation of whole villages.

But with wealth in the hands of provinces and Chinese businesses, ruling by diktat is no longer as easy as it once was.

Race to the skies
Chinese and foreign investors are enthusiastically competing for superlatives. The 101-story Shanghai World Financial Center, scheduled for completion in 2007, is designed to be 20 meters higher than the world's current tallest building, the Taipei Financial Center.

China has competition, however, from builders in New York and Dubai, who aim to surpass Shanghai's skyscraper in 2009.

When it comes to shopping malls, though, it will be hard to outdo China, home to 1.2 billion consumers. Counting on continued retail sales, which grew 13.3 percent in 2004, outpacing economic growth of 9.5 percent, China now has several of the largest shopping malls on Earth, and they keep coming.

The South China Mall in Dongguan will mix miles of shopping with amusement park features a la Las Vegas and Hollywood, Amsterdam and Paris cityscapes, including a replica of the Arc de Triomphe. At 6.5 million square feet, the complex will cover an area equal to 150 football fields, or about twice the area of the Pentagon. That compares with shopping paradises like Minnesota's Mall of America, which is 4.2 million square feet, and the West Edmonton Mall in Canada, even bigger at 5.3 million square feet

Granddaddy project


• Artist Conception of China's Three Gorges Dam



China's biggest project, the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, is a holdover from the era of old-style communism and by several measures the biggest hydropower project in the world.

Critics of the $25 billion project, which was a dream of China's leaders for decades, say it was finally pushed through by then-Premier Li Peng in 1992 as a monument to himself. More charitably, the project is sometimes compared to the Tennessee Valley Authority, a massive dam project in the 1930s that was ordered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide power to seven states and control deadly floods.

Three Gorges will create a 400-mile-long reservoir, swamping more than a thousand villages, as well as ancient temples and other relics. Many of the estimated 1.2 million people in its path have already been relocated.



Slide show of the Three Gorges project: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8916742

Controversy has always dogged the project, so much so that in the 1990s even the World Bank shied away from financing it. But heading into the 1990s, it became evident that China could fund the project without World Bank help.

Without seeing the monolith, it's hard to imagine: a concrete structure roughly 40 stories high and a mile across, so large that cement and steel factories were built along the Yangtze solely to supply builders.

Three Gorges is the poster-child of China's building boom, and one of the reasons builders cite for the rising prices of everything from copper to plywood. It is of course just one piece of the big picture — in fact, only a modest portion of planned dam construction.

"There are dozens of dams planned on the Yangtze River and its tributaries," says Susanne Wong, spokesperson for the International Rivers Network, which opposes China.

With 22,000 dams already built — about half the world's total — the Chinese government has set hydropower goals of 150,000 megawatts by 2010 and 250,000 megawatts by 2020 — all told, an increase of 150 percent over the current level. The Three Gorges is designed to produce 18,000 megawatts.

Civil or social engineering?
The power of Beijing's central government is one reason that some projects don't falter under public opposition as they likely would if there were greater freedoms. Beijing's 670-mile "roof-of-the-world" railway, for one, raises troubling questions for the minority Tibetan population.

The railroad is an engineering feat, starting in the western military town of Golmud and running hundreds of miles through the rugged terrain of the Himalayas, mostly at an altitude over 12,000 feet and carving its way through seven mountains. The $3 billion Qinghai-Tibet line will allow mass travel to Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan autonomous region, which is now reachable only by a handful of airline flights and a hazardous mountain road.

While the government argues that the rail line will help Tibet by creating a link to the modern world, detractors say it will facilitate mass migration of Chinese, greater military control, and more mining, all to the detriment of indigenous Tibetans.

But opposition to the railroad — as with all opposition to Beijing's Tibet policy — is voiced outside of China, by Tibetan exiles, advocates for indigenous cultures and Tibetan independence activists — and mostly aims to pressure foreign companies bidding for the project. Beijing may be loosening up, but dissent on Tibet policy remains off limits.



Desperate situation, desperate measures
While the railway project reflects strategic ambitions, others suggest something closer to desperation on Beijing's part. An example: the world's largest water diversion project, which will move water from the Yangtze and other rivers in the south to Beijing and elsewhere in the parched northeast.

The three 700-mile-long aqueducts are designed to move water through mountains and uphill through some parts of China, displacing 400,000 people — more than the population of Miami — at a cost of $60 billion. The easternmost line is expected to deliver water to Beijing by 2007.

The Northeast used to draw much of its water from the Yellow River, but farmers and factories siphon so much water now that the river frequently doesn't reach the sea.

But Beijing needs the water now more than ever. The nation's gross domestic product has grown by as much as 9 percent a year for the last decade, and that has meant new homes for many of the city's 13 million residents. People who used to live without showers and flush toilets now have access to both, and have cars to wash to boot. Booming, inefficient factories also gobble up water, and pollution from them worsens the water shortage, which in turn causes social conflict, a strong motivator for Chinese policymakers.

This summer, plans to build yet another ski resort in the Beijing area, where at least 13 had already been constructed, prompted protest from rural residents.

"(Beijing) is talking about needing water rationing during the Olympics, so there’s no doubt of feeling extreme water scarcity," says Elizabeth Economy, director of Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Provinces flex their muscles
Since the start of the year, the government has tried to rein in the construction boom.

In a move seen as significant by environmentalists, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in January threw his support behind an environmental agency order to halt construction of 30 large projects, including dams and coal-fired power plants, after the initial order was ignored by several builders.

Wen, a technocrat who became premier in 2003, may have been weighing peasant protests that have erupted over relocation and poor compensation for land seized for construction.

The current leadership inherited the daunting and expensive task of preparing for the 2008 Olympics and Wen has responded by ordering builders to scale back construction where possible to host what has since been dubbed a "frugal Olympics." The showcase stadium, known as the Bird's Nest for its steel lattice design, was redesigned without its sliding roof to cut costs. The swimming stadium and other venues are being reviewed.

In his annual work report in March, Wen called for the nation to "refrain from vanity projects that waste both money and manpower."

But, Economy notes, "most investment now takes place at local level, so there that kind of mentality prevails."

Big egos, along with a lot money sloshing around, add up to a lot of building to come.

"I think they’re going along their merry way," says consultant Lerner-Lam. "These companies have a lot of cash. They turn to their engineers and ask, 'OK, what can I build with this much cash?' And it turns out to be a 50-story building."

[Fusioner]

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9468700/site/newsweek/

North Korea Hold 'Em

Washington used to have most of the chips in six-party talks over Pyongyang's nuclear program. But Beijing is the key player now—for better and worse.


Oct. 3, 2005 issue - High-stakes diplomacy is not unlike "Celebrity Poker." In both there is a big stage, a rapt audience and swift reversals of fortune. And in diplomacy as in poker, the best players can sense when their opponents are bluffing, wavering—or holding a winning hand. That certainly seemed to be the game that Wu Dawei, China's chief negotiator, was playing last week during the six-party talks in Beijing over North Korea's nuclear-arms program.

For two years the Americans were thought to control most of the chips. The Chinese hosts often fretted about American intransigence—Washington's blunt willingness to walk away if it did not get what it wanted. But this time a subtle shift in psychology occurred at the table. When Wu presented a draft accord on Sept. 16—the fifth the Chinese team had painstakingly drawn up—the U.S. reaction was typical: we can't accept this. The draft alluded to the delivery of a civilian light-water nuclear reactor as one of the rewards Pyongyang would get if it dismantled its nuclear weapons. For the Americans, such a gift to a rogue tyrant like North Korean leader Kim Jong Il had always been a nonstarter (not least because Bill Clinton had once promised him the same thing). And for Washington, the "sequencing"—when the North might get a nuclear reactor—was far too vague.

But then the Chinese pushed back—and hard. "This is the final draft," Wu told the Americans, according to a senior U.S. official who briefed the media only on condition of anonymity. "Take it or leave it." When the chief U.S. negotiator, Christopher Hill, consulted his superiors back in Washington the next day, they again balked at the draft language. But the Chinese simply reiterated their firm stand, the official said. It was no bluff.

Faced with a Chinese wall, the Americans agonized over a threat that usually doesn't faze them: isolation. The U.S. team realized they no longer had South Korea, once a devoted ally, on their side. In a symbolic move, Seoul's delegates even stayed in a different Beijing hotel than the Americans and Japanese did, and Hill was stunned when South Korea took the Chinese line, officially raising the light-water-reactor issue. Nor could the Americans claim an ally in Russia, which was going its own way here and in nuclear talks with Iran. Only Japan remained loyal. "We said if we reject [the draft], we could find ourselves completely isolated or in a minority," said the U.S. official. "We could get blamed for the talks' breaking down."

After a frenzied weekend of consultations, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice found a way out. She agreed to accept the draft as long as each party could issue separate statements clearly laying out how they wanted to sequence steps. That way Hill could state unambiguously that the North would have to completely dismantle before the other parties would discuss the reactor "at an appropriate time." Although most details are to be negotiated in November—and North Korean or U.S. second thoughts could upset a deal—President George W. Bush signed off on the tentative pact.

Hailed as a "wonderful" breakthrough by Bush, the North Korean nuclear agreement was also evidence of a perceptible shift in power balances, both in Asia and around the world. For the first time, America hewed to the Chinese line, not the other way around. China, once a timid and indecisive giant—the Baby Huey of nations—was at last asserting itself like a great power. And the Bush administration, weakened by Iraq, hurricane damage (both real and political) and plummeting poll numbers, was more willing to compromise. "The Chinese understand they hold more cards here," says Jonathan Pollack of the U.S. Naval War College. "America is a little distracted these days and China knows that."

Beijing has been exploiting its power advantage in other ways. The People's Liberation Army is building up parts of its military capability faster than Washington expected—especially its rapidly expanding fleet of submarines and naval vessels. And it has pointedly kept Washington from participating in the inaugural East Asia Summit—where officials will discuss an Asian regional trading bloc—being held in Malaysia in December. "China made clear it didn't want the U.S. invited, and it discouraged Japan's efforts to let Washington in as an observer," said an Asian diplomat who would speak only if he were not further identified. In response, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick last week warned Beijing not to seek "to maneuver toward a predominance of power" in the region.

China's growing sway at the bargaining table extends beyond Asia, and Washington finds itself in the uncomfortable position of having to work harder to influence nations than it once did. That was the case last week in Vienna, when the United States and its European partners had to lobby intensively for a resolution at the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency to refer Iran's nuclear program to the U.N. Security Council. China, a board member, decided to abstain along with Russia. But a whole new round of globo-poker will be played out at the Security Council, where Beijing bears a critical veto.

Beijing's new assertiveness is also a reflection of its own fears. America is still the lone superpower, while China remains a developing country. Washington, aware that some of its old allies aren't as chummy, is trolling for new partners on China's borders. When Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Washington in July, he was treated to a state dinner in celebration of his new strategic alliance with America. Chinese President Hu Jintao, meanwhile, was penciled in for lunch (it was postponed by Hurricane Katrina).

Of course, there's a big difference between poker and diplomacy. Among nations, everybody around the table can win. If North Korea does de-nuclearize, it will go down as a triumph of Chinese mediation. But America will come out ahead, too.

With Sarah Schafer in Beijing and B. J. Lee in Seoul

[Fusioner]

For background on this see todays post in Oil: fusioner.proboards60.com/index.cgi?board=news&action=display&thread=1122965368&page=3

Chinese refiners seek versatility
By Nesa Subrahmaniyan Bloomberg News
TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 2005

www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/06/20/bloomberg/sxrefine.php

China, the world's second-biggest oil consumer, plans to spend $3 billion on refinery units able to process cheaper, lower-quality Middle East crude oil to cut the nation's annual import bill by as much as 20 percent.

The investments over the next two years are expected to increase the profit on each barrel processed by China Petroleum & Chemical, Asia's biggest refiner, and PetroChina.

The expansion may help ease a global shortage of capacity to handle oil from Saudi Arabia, the world's No. 1 exporter, and other producers of so-called heavy, sour oil that is high in sulfur.

China's oil import costs rose 86 percent to $4.66 billion in May because of higher prices and increased purchases. Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi of Saudi Arabia said last week that prices might stay high until consuming countries built more refineries to absorb the kingdom's surplus oil.

"You have no option but to invest because of the incremental growth in heavy crude supply," said Colin Tang, head of energy trading at Calyon's Singapore unit.

Chinese oil demand last year grew six times faster than that of the United States, and a lack of refining units to increase the yield of cleaner-burning fuels from processing high-sulfur crude oil helped push prices to records.

New sources of oil supply are heavier varieties, which make up about 70 percent of global oil output, according to data compiled by Eni in June 2004.

Almost 25 percent of the increase in world oil demand between 2004 and 2030 will come from China, the International Monetary Fund said in April. Saudi Arabia is raising production capacity by 14 percent by 2009.

Middle East crude oil accounted for 46 percent of China's imports last year, down from 51 percent in 2003, according to China Oil & Gas Petrochemicals, a newsletter. Angola, Sudan, Congo and other African producers increased market share last year to 35.3 million tons from 22.1 million tons in 2003.

OPEC members including the four biggest, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait and Venezuela, pump mostly heavy crude oil. The group has urged refiners to invest in conversion units that will lead to higher demand for heavy oil.

"Chinese demand is growing, their refining capability is moving towards more sour crude," said Jamal al-Nouri, managing director of international marketing at Kuwait Petroleum. "That's the type of crude we have."

Sour crude sells at a discount to low-sulfur, or sweet crude, because it is heavier and yields less light fuel such as gasoline.

Oil fields that are producing sweet crude, such as those in Texas and the North Sea, are peaking or have peaked, the International Monetary Fund said in April. Replacement fields are generally smaller, harder to access and produce heavier crude, it said.

China Petroleum, PetroChina and West Pacific Petrochemical, a venture between Total, PetroChina and the chemical trader Sinochem, are building at least 10 sulfur-reducing units known as hydrocrackers and cokers.

The plants are scheduled to begin operating in the next two years, Purvin & Gertz, an energy consultant, said in an e-mail message. The new units would have the capacity to process about 330,000 barrels of oil a day.

"The need for cokers, hydrocrackers and visbreakers is from both the Chinese side and the Arabian Gulf producers' side," al-Nouri at Kuwait Petroleum said.


Refiners can increase profit by building the refinery units to maximize gasoline and diesel output. A hydrocracker can raise the profit from refining a barrel of crude oil by as much as 20 cents a barrel, according to the consultant Aspen Technology.

A shortage of capacity to refine sour crude and soaring demand for gasoline and diesel raised the premium for low-sulfur varieties such as Brent to as much as $15.10 a barrel on Oct. 26.

Heavy, sour varieties include Dubai, the Asian benchmark, and Arab Heavy, produced in Saudi Arabia.

Dubai crude oil was 23 percent lower than Malaysia's Asian benchmark Tapis and 15 percent cheaper than Europe's benchmark Brent last year. Dubai crude oil for July traded at a discount of $5.09 a barrel to Brent on June 17, according to Amerex Petroleum, an oil broker.

Most oil sold by African producers is priced in relation to Brent crude oil, which is more expensive than Dubai, pumped in the United Arab Emirates.

China Petroleum & Chemical, or Sinopec, will raise imports of high-sulfur crude this year by 23 percent to 34 million metric tons, the Chinese State Council's State Assets Supervision and Administration Commission said in April. Sinopec bought 27.64 million tons of high-sulfur crude oil last year.

"We're increasing the capacity to refine high-sulfur, sour crude oil to cut costs and still meet rising demand," Zhang Jiaren, Sinopec's chief financial officer, said that month.

In the first quarter, Sinopec processed 28 percent more high-sulfur crude oil from a year ago, he said. Sinopec's Qingdao refinery, which will start operating by 2007, will process only high-sulfur crude.

To secure supply outlets for rising production, Kuwait Petroleum and Saudi Aramco are seeking to invest in refineries in China.

Saudi Aramco has invested in oil refineries in the Philippines, South Korea and Japan, and may invest in projects worth $4.7 billion in the Chinese provinces of Fujian and Qingdao. Both projects would have refining units that can process Arab Heavy crude oil.

[Fusioner]

news.yahoo.com/s/krwashbureau/20050927/ts_krwashbureau/_china_military_buying

China turns to Russia for big-ticket military items

BEIJING - Reaching into its deepening pockets, China has gone shopping for new weapons in Russia and, to a lesser extent, in Israel and Ukraine.

Russia has been delivering an average of $2 billion a year worth of equipment to China since 2000, handing over fighter jets, missile systems, submarines and destroyers.

China accounts for 30 percent to 50 percent of Russia's weapons exports, keeping its arms industry healthy, and it has attempted to leverage that clout to extract new military technologies from Moscow.

"The Russians held the line at the beginning. But as they get deeper in with the Chinese, they are finding the Chinese pressing for the good stuff," said James Mulvenon, a specialist on the Chinese military at the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis, a Washington consultancy.

Two new Kilo-class fleet attack submarines are now piggy-backed on ships sailing from a St. Petersburg shipyard to China, joining four already delivered, Mulvenon said. The Kilo class is one of the most advanced and quietest diesel-battery submarines in the world, likely equipped with supersonic anti-ship missiles.

Like much of Russia's arms exports to China, "nothing is dumbed down," Mulvenon said.

Russian collaboration has allowed China to amass a fleet of fighter aircraft able to fly longer range in worse weather and carry more lethal weapons, totaling some 200 Russian Su-27 and Su-30 jet fighters and bombers. China is shopping now for Russian aerial refueling tankers and aircraft for surveillance and target detection, as well as strategic bombers.

Russia showed off the aircraft, as well as long-range TU-95MS and TU-23M3 bombers, during unprecedented joint Sino-Russian war games in late August near the Yellow Sea. Some 10,000 troops from both nations were deployed in the exercises.

"There is no better advertisement for our arms and military hardware than a real demonstration of their capabilities in the course of practical exercises," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said as the exercises unfolded.

China's navy already is equipped with several Sovremenny-class guided missile destroyers, which Russian defense firms outfitted with sophisticated radar systems.

For its part, Ukraine has sold China gas turbine power plants used in destroyers and is in talks on offering heavy-transport aircraft and aerospace technology.

China's arms-buying relationship with Israel dates to the early 1980s. Israel began selling arms to Beijing in a bid to limit Chinese assistance to its foes in the Middle East.

"Israel does not sell any platforms, like aircraft or ships. It basically sells avionics, upgrading, (and) electronic surveillance," said P.R. Kumaraswamy, an expert on Israeli military industries at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.

The relationship has proved thorny, straining Israel's relationship with Washington. U.S. officials first grew angry when Israel helped China develop its F-10 fighter jet, almost identical to the Israeli Lavi fighter, which was designed with more than $1 billion in U.S. aid.

In 2000, an angry White House thwarted Israel's plans to go through with a potential $1 billion deal to equip China with the Phalcon radar system.

A new crisis erupted this year in April. Washington grew angry that Israel appeared to be responding to a Chinese request to upgrade Israeli-made Harpy attack drones. The Harpy drones, first sold in 1997, can destroy enemy radar transmitters. The Pentagon subsequently announced restrictions on sharing information with Israel.

After months of wrangling, the Pentagon said Aug. 16 that Israel had pledged to consult more closely with Washington on military sales to China.

[Fusioner]

news.yahoo.com/s/krwashbureau/20050927/ts_krwashbureau/_china_military

China's military buildup shakes up East Asia

DALIAN, China - If the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet one day sails to Taiwan's defense, China's large fleet of submarines could be lurking with a lethal surprise.

The submarines, waiting along Taiwan's Pacific coast, could fire a barrage of "Sizzlers," devastating anti-ship weapons that pop out of the water, spot aircraft carriers or escort ships, then drop near the water's surface, accelerating to supersonic speeds for the kill. Little can be done to defend against a "Sizzler" attack.

"You're pretty much a sitting duck," said Larry M. Wortzel, a former U.S. military attache in Beijing who's now an analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington.

The course of the 21st century will be determined in part by the relationship between China and the United States. In many ways, relations are healthier than ever. But the two nations remain potential adversaries, plotting in war games how to thwart each other. While always cautious of nuclear-armed China, the United States has become even more watchful.

U.S. strategists say the People's Liberation Army has made huge strides in modernization. China now has a submarine fleet that rivals the Pentagon's in numbers, if not in weaponry. Air bases bristle with new Russian-built fighter jets. At testing sites, military engineers toil over anti-satellite lasers and "bolt-out-of-the-blue" weapons systems.

And the buildup is far from over. Shipyards churn out frigates and new vessels by the month, and China fine-tunes a sea-based nuclear missile delivery system designed to keep the White House wary of tangling with a rising dragon in the East.

"It's a military that isn't looking for a fight but wants to have sharper teeth," said James Mulvenon, a China military expert at the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis in Washington.

China enjoys nowhere near the overall strength of U.S. forces, now tested by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But its analysts are scrutinizing U.S. deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan and on the high seas for signs of weakness and are seeking to exploit them in any clash over Taiwan or elsewhere. Moreover, as China modernizes its military forces, it's reshaping military balances in the region.

Washington and regional capitals, particularly Tokyo, view the cumulative effect of China's military buildup with concern, even alarm. In pointed remarks on June 4 in Singapore, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld asked: "Since no nation threatens China, one must wonder: Why this growing investment? Why these continuing large and expanding arms purchases? Why these continuing robust deployments?"

Defense analysts say the answer is evident: China wants its armed forces to be able to thwart the U.S. Pacific Command from intervening if Beijing orders an invasion of Taiwan, a self-governing democratic island that China claims as its own.

"It's clear that the systems they've acquired and the systems they are developing are designed to ... deny the U.S. the abilities to move in the Western Pacific," Wortzel said.

Those paid to observe the world's largest army, with 2.3 million soldiers, report across-the-board improvements. The PLA has toughened training and now conducts exercises in more realistic fighting conditions. The military also has steadily purchased modern weapons systems from cash-strapped Russian defense industries.

"In every area of capability, the Chinese are modernizing like there's no tomorrow," said Richard D. Fisher, a specialist on China's military at the International Assessment and Strategy Center in Washington.

Average Chinese swell with pride at the buildup, viewing it as the entitlement of a once-poor country gaining global stature. They see no contradiction between building a brawny military and Beijing's claim that its "peaceful rise" threatens no one. History largely backs China's contention that it isn't an aggressor.

China's military improvements are hard to observe. A visitor who approached a public Navy Museum in nearby Lushun, the site of a base at the entrance to the Bohai Sea in northeast China, found himself detained, fined for "illegal tourism" and told that the area is off-limits to foreigners.

Yet it's here, anchored along China's 9,000-mile coastline, where the nation's military power is growing with the greatest vigor.

In mid-June, China offered an offshore exhibition of its military prowess in the silty Bohai Sea. A submarine fired one - and perhaps two - missiles that soared all the way to deserts in Central Asia. The test showed that China may soon be able to launch nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles not just from landlocked silos but also from nuclear attack submarines anywhere in the Pacific Ocean.

"They are on the verge of acquiring a survivable nuclear deterrent," said Lin Chong-pin, a former deputy defense minister in Taiwan.

If a confrontation between Chinese and U.S. military forces were to erupt, Lin said China's ability to maintain an undersea nuclear missile platform would "throw a monkey wrench into the thinking at the White House." If the two nations exchanged nuclear strikes, China would retain the ability to launch a second strike.

Cooler heads in Beijing and Washington flinch at the prospect of any sort of military clash. The two nations have vast common economic interests, and relations remain constructive. While no military hotline exists between Beijing and Washington, Cabinet-level contacts occur nearly monthly.

For two decades, China's economy has grown at a torrid pace, and military spending has chalked up a double-digit increase for each of 17 straight years.

In an annual report on China's military released in mid-July, the Pentagon said that China's real defense spending may be "two to three times" the $30 billion budget stated by Beijing - still less than a quarter of the $455 billion that Congress allots the Pentagon.

The defense spending has brought a qualitative change to China's military:

- China by late this year will have as many as 300 Russian-built SU-27 jetfighters and SU-30MKK fighter-bombers, and is acquiring aerial refueling aircraft from Russia. It also is converting older aircraft into unmanned aerial drones.

- Space-based and over-the-horizon radar and weapons could enable China "to identify, target and track foreign military activities deep into the western Pacific ..." according to the Pentagon annual report. By 2010, China expects to have some 100 surveillance and communications satellites, and it's working on micro and nano-satellites.

- China is reportedly probing the use of ballistic missiles against U.S. naval carrier groups - either by arming them with maneuverable warheads that can home in on ships or through electronic "pulse" weapons that explode in the air and knock out communications, rendering a carrier effectively inoperable.

- Even as shipyards churn out new vessels, an increasing number of shipyards are building everything from diesel-electric submarines to frigates. The nation has built 10 destroyers in the past decade, gaining new ability to project naval power.

"They are doing something like 37 vessels in 25 yards at once," said a U.S. official with access to intelligence reports who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It suggests that it is urgent."

At first blush, it would seem that China's lack of an aircraft carrier is a major weakness. Yet analysts say its submarine fleet of 50 to 60 vessels constitutes a surprisingly formidable force, even if some aging diesel-electric submarines date back decades. The U.S. Navy has only large nuclear-powered submarines.

China's older submarines can turn off their noisy diesel engines and operate on battery fuel cell power, lurking quietly for days. Their home water - the Yellow, and East and South China seas - are turbid and shallow, with swiftly changing temperature and salinity levels that make sonar detection particularly challenging. Moreover, the seas above the submarines swarm with maritime traffic.

"They are outdated but very effective," said Andrew Yang, a military expert at the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies, a think tank in Taiwan.

Any U.S. naval commander sailing toward Taiwan might grow wary that old People's Liberation Army submarines, moving on battery power, are poised to fire wake-homing torpedoes.

"The American fleet commander, depending on how quickly he needs to get in there, is going to want to locate those submarines," said Bernard D. Cole, a China naval expert at the National Defense University in Washington.

That's no easy task. Since the end of the Cold War, and the demise of the Soviet Union, U.S. spending on anti-submarine detection has fallen sharply. An incident last November underscored China's efforts to gain from that shortfall. A Chinese Han-class nuclear submarine left its port of Ningbo and sailed all the way to Guam, the site of major U.S. naval and air bases, and was returning home before Japan detected it in its territorial waters.

"If they can go to Guam and nobody knows, why can't they go to Pearl Harbor?" asked retired Adm. Nelson Ku, a former commander of Taiwan's small navy.

China has leveraged its arms-buying relationship with Russia into bigger and higher-end purchases, spending at least $3 billion a year. In addition to four guided missile destroyers, China is buying eight new Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines, all equipped with "Sizzler" SS-N-27 missiles, the anti-ship weapons that can fly at Mach 2.3 as they ram ships.

Some U.S. military analysts, though, are wary of overemphasizing China's military strength, saying the issue has become politicized. The U.S. Navy and Air Force are "looking for a traditional enemy" in the wake of the global war on terror, which has better suited the Marine Corps and Army, said Mulvenon, the Washington-based China analyst.

For their part, senior PLA officers rarely talk about China's strength, heeding Sun Tzu, the ancient general and author of "The Art of War," who advised: "Although you are capable, feign incapability."

Restraint may be advisable, given the lack of combat experience of PLA officers and rank-and-file alike since a short war with Vietnam in 1979. Moreover, training of conscripts and soldiers, while improving, still trails that of the U.S. military.

"Everybody who comes into the U.S. military knows how to drive a car. They can drive a Humvee away. But I don't think that's true for the PLA," said Dennis J. Blasko, a former military attache in Beijing who is an author on Chinese military matters.

Even so, some of China's top officers seem to be feeling emboldened.

In remarks that sent ripples across the Pacific, Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu told foreign journalists in Beijing in mid-July that China should be ready to attack the United States with nuclear weapons if U.S. forces intervene in a confrontation over Taiwan.

"We Chinese will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian. Of course, the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds ... of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese," said Zhu, a "hawk" who teaches at China's National Defense University.

China's Foreign Ministry later brushed aside his remarks as personal reflections.