Jon E. Dougherty, NewsMax.com
Thursday, June 3, 2004

And, in new war games scheduled later this month, Beijing is putting muscle behind its threats.

The exercises are part of China's annual military maneuvers. They will involve large numbers of troops, ships, aircraft and missile forces. But, the Washington Times reported Wednesday, there is an underlying message in this year's exercises.

"It isn't just a training exercise," a senior U.S. official told the paper. "It's also intended to send a political message [to Taiwan]."

The official, who requested anonymity, said politically the message was one of "military readiness." And, said the U.S. official, China's exercises would signal that Beijing was ready to use force if need be to keep Taiwan from pursuing independence.

The timing is also bad: The exercises come amid accusations by both Taiwan and mainland China over the past week that warplanes from each nation crossed the dividing line in the Taiwan Strait between Chinese- and Taiwanese-controlled waters.

The war games will take place on Dongshan, site of amphibious assault exercises in the past. Before, China has utilized anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000 troops in the exercises, including many warships, submarines and fighter planes.

Taiwan the Target?

The Ta Kung Pao, a government-owned Hong Kong newspaper, reported China would utilize about 18,000 troops for the exercises, which are expected to last through July.

The paper said the objective of the games is to practice "seizing control of the air over the Taiwan Strait."

In recent weeks, the Chinese government has expressed public dipleasure with Taiwan's leader, President Chen Shui-bian, over the latter's plans for a referendum on updating Taiwan's constitution in 2006, as a move towards independence.

For its part, Taiwan is badly outnumbered by China in terms of military personnel and equipment. Taiwan's navy is much smaller, and its air force cannot match China plane-for-plane.

But, in demonstrations held for the BBC in 2001, Taiwan demonstrated it can rely heavily on the fact that the equipment it possesses — much of it supplied by the U.S. — is superior in terms of technology.

Taiwanese forces largely focus on resisting an invasion by China during their war games.

Iraq Teaches Lessons

China's leaders likely expect the United States to intervene in any conflict with Taiwan and is using Iraq and the ongoing war on terror as models to improve its chances in such a conflict, a Pentagon report warned this week.

"Authoritative commentary and speeches by senior officials suggest that U.S. actions over the past decade ... have reinforced fears within the Chinese leadership that the United States would appeal to human rights and humanitarian concerns to intervene, either overtly or covertly," the report said.

That assessment comes from the Pentagon's annual report on Chinese military power to Congress. Defense analysts who authored the report say "the speed of coalition ground force advances and the role of special forces in [Iraq] have caused [China's] People's Liberation Army theorists to rethink their assumptions about the value of long-range precision strikes, independent of ground forces, in any Taiwan conflict scenario."

The U.S.-led global war on terror, which now finds its battlegrounds in Iraq and Afghanistan, have led Beijing to believe America has a long-term goal of dominating Asia. To bolster these claims, Chinese leaders say that's why the United States military moved long-range bombers, nuclear attack subs and cruise missiles to Guam, though Pentagon officials have said the move was to accommodate U.S. forces in Iraq.

"China's leaders appear to have concluded that the net effect of the U.S.-led campaign [against terrorism] has been further encirclement of China," specifically by placing U.S. military forces in Uzbekistan and other Central Asian nations, and strengthening relations with Pakistan and India, said the report.

The Final Frontier

The Pentagon assessment also said Beijing is making great strides in improving its space-based warfare capabilities.

Indeed, the Department of Defense and U.S. intelligence say, in the report, that China is developing on perfecting space warfare methods against American space-based military assets.

The Chinese are considering ways of "blinding" U.S. surveillance in space before launching any attack against Taiwan.

Those aspects of the report coincide with warnings published by Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., in findings by a congressional commission in 1999 that said China was developing space-based weapons.

Among them:

· Small anti-satellite weapons capable of disabling or destroying U.S. military satellites, which now provide real-time battlefield information to ground commanders as well as guide warplanes and munitions to their intended targets · Infrared cameras that conduct photographic spying, launched under the auspices of China's fledgling manned space program · China's own military intelligence-gathering satellites · Lasers capable of blinding or destroying U.S. satellites

"[China's] space assets will play a major role in any use of force against Taiwan and in preventing foreign intervention," Lt. Col. Mark Stokes, director of the Taiwan desk at the Pentagon, predicted in a Sept. 30, 2003 speech.

Preparations

In the near-term, believes Al Santoli, Asia expert and editor of the China Reform Monitor – an occasional electronic newsletter published by the American Foreign Policy Council – "concern is focused on the impact of rising oil prices and the need to build up a strategic oil reserve.

"Of more concern, as People's Daily commentator Huang Peizhao pointed out, is the view that U.S. moves in the Middle East 'have served the goal of seeking worldwide domination.' Chinese strategists think if the U.S. can score a relatively quick victory over Baghdad, it will soon turn to Asia," Santoli wrote in April 2003.

"Until late [2002], Beijing believed a confrontation with the U.S. could be delayed and China could concentrate almost exclusively on economic development," he said.

"China is preparing for a number of possible military scenarios that it may have to confront in the coming five to 20 years," says Richard Fisher, a China expert for the Jamestown Foundation. "These would definitely include, first and foremost, a possible conflict with the United States."

Editor's note: