Turning Wal-Mart Plowshares into Chinese Swords
China has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States and field disruptive military technologies that could over time offset traditional U.S. military advantages.
—U.S. Department of Defense
The godfather of Communism—Vladimir Lenin—once famously remarked that a capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him with. As an ironic variation on that theme, America is now financing China’s massive military buildup by running equally massive trade deficits with China.
The primary “financiers” of China’s military buildup are American consumers who continue to load up on all things made in China. The resultant billions of “Wal-Mart dollars” sent off to China are now being used to radically modernize the People’s Liberation Army, buy lethal nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers for the Chinese navy, and finance the purchase of sophisticated Russian aircraft for the Chinese air force.
Consider the People’s Liberation Army. It features the largest ground force in the world—about 1.6 million personnel. In times of crisis, China can mobilize an additional 1.5 million reservists as well as the 1.1 million personnel now serving in the People’s Armed Police. This all adds up to a very significant troop strength advantage over the United States.
This U.S.-China troop imbalance has very real strategic implications. For example, the failure of the American military to quickly “win the peace” after invading Iraq was the direct result of its inability to provide adequate troop strength in the days and months following the crushing military defeat of Saddam Hussein’s forces. Whereas U.S. military commanders would have preferred as many as half a million troops to keep the peace and rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure, these commanders had to settle for less than 200,000 troops to police a country of almost 30 million citizens. The results of America’s inadequate troop strength have been a disastrous insurgency, an exceedingly bloody vulnerability to foreign provocateurs such as Al Qaeda, and the steady and disturbing drift towards an Iraqi civil war. Chinese military commanders will never face any such manpower problem as they prepare to militarily engage worldwide.
As for the Chinese navy, it has a fleet of almost 100 ships and more than 50 submarines. This includes a new generation of high-tech nuclear subs that have significantly extended China’s ballistic missile range from 1,000 miles to 5,000 miles. Running silent and deep, China’s latest subs can now “nuke” American cities—from Los Angeles and San Francisco to Chicago and Detroit. China’s new subs are also heavily armed with Russian-built cruise missiles specifically designed to attack and sink U.S. aircraft carriers—from the Taiwan Strait and Strait of Malacca to the Strait of Hormuz.
China’s navy has also invested heavily in Russian-made cruise missile-equipped destroyers. These ships have already bullied Japanese civilian ships in the East China Sea and Sea of Japan in a dispute over oil and represent an important intimidating force in the region. At the same time, China is developing a significant “deepwater navy” capability replete with aircraft carriers to challenge the only other deepwater navy on the planet, that of the United States. This deepwater navy will ultimately be capable of projecting power around the world—from the coasts of Venezuela and Cuba to the Horn of Africa and beyond.
Complementing these army and navy forces is an increasingly potent Chinese air force. It now boasts more than 2,000 combat aircraft, including a growing number of highly sophisticated Russian jet fighters that strongly rival the performance of their American counterparts. At the same time, China is rapidly modernizing its ballistic missile program. Old technology, difficult-to-handle, liquid-propelled missiles are quickly giving way to more sophisticated solid fuel rockets which are much more mobile and easier to conceal.
Finally, as the centerpiece of its electronic warfare capabilities, China is rapidly developing an extensive capability to intercept and jam military intelligence and communications. To this end, and as I discuss in more detail in the next chapter, China has put into orbit several spacecrafts to support its military missions and is rapidly developing a sophisticated anti-satellite strike capability to render U.S. military systems “deaf, dumb, and blind” in time of war.
Clearly, the picture now emerging from China is not one of a country intent on a peaceful rise, but rather a budding military power clearly on the strategic prowl. At this point, it is useful to ask: Just what is motivating China’s military buildup?