China’s armed forces have already developed a fourth--generation diesel-electric submarine, and their first aircraft carrier, the Soviet-made Varyag, will finally be ready at the end of the year, when it is due to take part in exercises.
Now we have caught a glimpse of a photo, leaked a few days ago, of what appears to be the prototype of China’s first fifth-generation — meaning it is capable of evading radar even when carrying weapons — stealth fighter plane, the J-20. The photo of the fighter during its first runway taxiing tests in southwest China has provoked much speculation and debate both in Taiwan and abroad, with some doubts being expressed over whether it is what it seems.
Many experts have expressed doubts about the authenticity of the photo, but some have said such a thing is only 10 to 15 years down the road. However, as early as the second half of 2009, He Weirong (何為榮), deputy commander of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, said Beijing hoped a stealth fighter could be operational by between 2017 and 2019.
Rick Fisher, an expert on the Chinese military at the US think tank International Assessment and Strategy Center, says that by the end of 2019 the J-20 being developed by China will become fully competitive with the US Air Force’s F-22 (Raptor) fighter planes in terms of capabilities and numbers. The latest annual report from the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, published in November, also says that the fifth-generation fighters China is working on — which will have a combination of stealth, high altitude, maneuverability, advanced radar, high-capacity data links, “plug-and-play” avionics and super-cruise capabilities — are expected to be deployed by 2018.
According to Dennis Blasko, a specialist in Chinese military affairs, the timeline for the development of the J-20 stealth fighter was “probably considerably longer than what most outside observers would estimate.” However, over the past decade the US military has found that its intelligence on China has, on several occasions, been inaccurate, something the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment warned about in 2000. In 2001 a research unit headed by John Tilelli Jr, a retired US Army four-star general, discovered flaws in the way the US was gathering intelligence on China, and in 2006 former US assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs Peter Rodman told reporters that gaps in US intelligence frequently led to surprises.
Two years prior to this, civilian experts and academics stumbled upon a photo of a new type of “Yuan-class” submarine. Until then, the US Army was unaware that China had successfully developed such a submarine. Then, on Jan. 11, 2007, China launched a missile to destroy a faulty weather satellite, one of its own, confirming it as one of the three countries in the world, together with the US and Russia, with the capability to destroy satellites. This incident had governments all over the world sitting up and paying attention.
China launched another missile about this time last year, again targeting one of its own satellites. Then, on June 15, China launched its SJ-12 satellite into an orbit about 600km above the Earth’s surface, where it undertook a series of maneuvers. On Aug. 16 the satellite passed close to another Chinese satellite that China had launched previously, the SJ-06F, bumping it off orbit and causing some alarm in the US intelligence community.
As a result of this, after -assuming his position as -commander of US Pacific Command, Robert Willard set about reinforcing the US’ intelligence surveillance and analysis capabilities, ordering the organization of five focus groups to undertake strategic research, the first topic being the phenomenon of the rapid modernization of China’s armed forces. According to Willard, the Chinese military has expanded year-on-year at a faster pace than that supposed by the US intelligence machine for more than a decade.
In response to this, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, answering queries on the subject by legislators, said that the details of the capabilities of the J-20 stealth fighter were as yet unknown and there was consequently no way to make an accurate assessment of how it would change the situation. Deputy Minister of National Defense Andrew Yang (楊念祖) said the ministry was looking into how to respond, and trying to get as much information about the fighter in the leaked photo as it could.
People are now wary of the speed at which China’s military is expanding, in both size and quality. The US and Japan, in particular, are concerned that this will soon eliminate their own military superiority. Taiwan has neither the wherewithal nor the need to enter into an arms race with China, but since the advent of more peaceful cross-strait exchanges, the US is prevaricating on selling even F-16C/D fighters to Taiwan, still not approving that sale, let alone the more advanced — and therefore more sensitive for US-Sino relations — F-22 or F-35 fighters.
A research paper was presented in October at a Republic of China (ROC) Air Force academic conference on the development and construction of asymmetric military air capabilities on the very subject of the sale of the F-22 or F-35 fighters. According to this paper, judging from past experience on US arms sales to Taiwan, Taiwan would not be expected to get the F-35 until 2030. Also, given the size of the annual budget over the past decade, Taiwan would only be able to afford 260 F-35As, and if it were allowed to purchase the F-35B model, with vertical take-off and landing capability, that number would go down to 200. As a result, the “innovative and asymmetric” approach is Taiwan’s only real option for national defense, and it would be best for investment in this to start as soon as possible.
Ever since he took office, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has consistently maintained the need for the military to follow the three “S” strategy: to be “superb, strong and smart.” He has emphasized that Taiwan cannot hope to compete with China in terms of military superiority, and that for there to be any semblance of military balance in the Taiwan Strait, we must take the innovative and asymmetric approach. This, he has said, will be a sufficient deterrence against military force from China.
However, if I were to use one word to describe Taiwan’s national defense over the past few years, it would be “flaccid.”
Vacuous, meaningless slogans and impractical innovation programs will only weaken Taiwan’s national defense, because time is not on Taiwan’s side. That China’s military seems to have discarded its previous cautious approach, the so-called “concealing one’s ability and biding one’s time” policy, and is starting to become more brazen about its development, betrays a high degree of confidence and strength. Even if the chances of an impending war are very low, Taiwan cannot allow itself to slacken when it comes to national defense.
Wang Jyh-perng is an associate research fellow at the Association for Managing Defense and Strategies.
TRANSLATED BY PAUL COOPER
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