Print

Mail

wiki links

Beijing's new missiles go too far

China is close to deploying and test-firing a new conventionally armed strategic missile capable of hitting US aircraft carriers and other warships at sea. The missiles, all variants of the Dongfeng-21 intermediate range ballistic missiles, are said to have a range of up to 2,500km and are part of a developing campaign to “deny access” to US aircraft carriers in the event of a conflict across the Taiwan Strait.

China has continually asked the global community to cooperate with its “peaceful rise” to prominence.

Yet the testing of anti-access, anti-ship missiles and the continued expansion of its short-range ballistic missile arsenal reveals its unwillingness to cease its saber-rattling diplomacy toward Taiwan and its increased effort to challenge the US for regional dominance in East Asia.

Denying access to the US is a key component to the military strategy of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the aftermath of the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait Missile Crisis.

China’s strategy would be to utilize effective but relatively low-cost tactics such as media propaganda, psychological intimidation, and legal and diplomatic isolation, coupled with targeted missile attacks and electronic warfare to force Taiwan into a capitulation that the US would find hard to undo.

A successful “area denial” strategy based on these new missiles would play a key role of denying the US the ability to prevent attacks on Taiwan.

This scenario is exacerbated by the fact that the US Navy has nearly halved its fleet since its height under former US president Ronald Reagan during the Cold War.

In addition, despite US technological superiority in most areas, many of these carrier groups are not equipped with proper missile defense systems to shield against China’s area denial strategies, and are therefore highly vulnerable to the rapidly modernizing PLA navy.

As Richard Fisher, a specialist on China’s military at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, said: “By 2010, most of China’s anti-access forces will be in place, making it very difficult to use Pacific forces to help Taiwan.”

The timing of this announcement is also highly problematic for policy planners in Taipei and Washington. China’s continued development of anti-access technology comes at a time when both the US and Taipei have sought to reduce tensions with Beijing.

The administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has opened Taiwan up to cross-strait weekend flights for Chinese tourists for the first time, while relaxing several long-standing investment restrictions in China for Taiwanese businesspeople. Ma has furthermore called for a “diplomatic truce” between Taipei and Beijing to end decades of “checkbook diplomacy.”

The US, for its part, has imposed an unofficial arms sale freeze on Taiwan, at least until after the Olympics.

While US President George W. Bush and the State Department have been largely silent on the issue, their silence speaks volumes about the changing US relationship with China compared with Bush’s previous statements that he would do “whatever it takes” to protect Taiwan from aggression by China.

Beijing, on the other hand, has treated the US and Taiwan’s efforts toward a diplomatic thaw not as gestures of goodwill deserving of reciprocation, but as their responsibilities to “honor” commitments made to China.

Over and over again, both the state-owned media and government press statements have delivered a single party line: “China’s position on the Taiwan issue has not changed.”

Taking these various factors into consideration, it is evident that the latest round of missile deployment is yet another disturbing development in China’s efforts to ever more successfully challenge the US over Taiwan. It is important for policymakers in Washington and Taipei to recognize the potential threats arising from China’s advancing area-denial capabilities and preempt it by demanding that measures be taken to reduce the military build-up as a condition for future cooperation.




Stan Chiueh is assistant coordinator for programs at the Institute of National Policy Research in Taipei.
This story has been viewed 1798 times.