China is modernizing its military forces faster than anyone expected only a few years ago, escalating the potential danger to Taiwan, to US forces and bases in Asia, and to the overall balance of power in the region.
"China adheres to the military strategy of active defense and works to speed up the revolution of military affairs with Chinese characteristics," says the white paper that Beijing issued in December, pointing to "leapfrog development" in high-tech weapons for its missile units, navy and air force. Where many US and Asian analysts said before that China would be able to mount a credible threat between 2010 and 2015, now they are saying it will come earlier, perhaps by 2006 and certainly by 2012.
Beijing seems driven by a perception that Taiwan is drifting toward formal independence, that the US is becoming a greater menace as it realigns and strengthens its forces in Asia, and that, more distantly, Japan has begun to assert itself militarily.
Behind this military progress has been the rapid growth of the Chinese economy that pays for this growth in military power. China's defense budget is estimated to have ballooned to US$80 billion, the world's third-largest after the US and Russia, and almost double that of Japan, which has Asia's second-largest defense budget.
The Chinese, who had insisted on self-sufficiency, have bought weapons and technology from abroad, notably from Russia. China could afford those purchases because Beijing's foreign exchange reserves, the world's largest, rose to US$610 billion by the end of last year, more than 10 times their holdings of US$53 billion 10 years ago. To buy even more, China has been urging the EU to lift the arms embargo imposed after the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989. Washington and Taipei oppose easing the restriction.
US military officers contend that the US has sufficient combat power, at sea, in the sky, and with nuclear weapons, to defeat China if hostilities should break out. Said one, however: "It sure complicates our planning."
This assessment of Chinese military power was drawn from the Chinese white paper, a recent defense report published in Taiwan, a Pentagon report to Congress and conversations with US and Asian analysts with access to intelligence reports.
The vanguard of China's military advance has been hardware. Military education and training has been improved as have logistics, but integrating the forces to invade Taiwan or to challenge the US has lagged.
China's missile force, called the Second Artillery, had been deploying 50 to 75 short range missiles a year; that has increased to more than 100 and next year it will have 800 missiles aimed at Taiwan. Accuracy has been doubled so that most missiles would hit within 18m to 27m of their targets. The missiles have also been made mobile to make them less of a target. In a training drill, a brigade moved 580km and was ready to fire in two days.
In the Chinese navy, submarines are leading the way. In the event of hostilities, they would be tasked with gaining control of the Taiwan Strait and fending off the US Navy.
China has bought eight Kilo class diesel-electric submarines from Russia and is planning to buy four more. It is building its own Song class of diesel-electric boats. Although these boats lack the range of nuclear-powered submarines, they are quieter and more effective close to shore. For long-range operations, China is building several nuclear-powered attack submarines.
China, which has become the world's third largest shipbuilder, has produced about 100 amphibious ships and four tank landing ships are under construction. That appears to have obliterated a US Navy joke that, because the Chinese lacked amphibious ships, the only way they could invade Taiwan was by swimming.
Richard Halloran is a journalist based in Hawaii.
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US