As expected, the Chinese Ministry of National Defense earlier this week reacted with indignation at the contents of the Pentagon’s latest report on the Chinese military, released last week.
Like in previous years, Chinese officials deplored what they saw as a misrepresentation and unfair depiction of China’s military development, adding that US officials were “deliberately playing up the imbalance” of military power in the Taiwan Strait to justify arms sales to Taiwan.
At a press conference on Monday, Defense Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng (耿雁生) assured the world that, contrary to what the Pentagon report suggested, the Chinese military is developing “for the exclusive purpose of safeguarding the country’s sovereignty, security and developmental interests,” and that Beijing has “firmly adhered to a peaceful development path and adopted a defense policy that is wholly defensive in nature.”
There is no denying that China is a rising power and that it should be allowed to develop a military that is commensurate with its economic might and growing role internationally. As such, a large share of the billions of dollars it has injected into the military in the past decade has gone toward revamping what not so long ago was a ramshackle army that could no longer meet the requirements of a major regional — and increasingly global — player.
What undercuts Geng’s reassurances is the fact that this development is showing signs that it is going well beyond a purely defensive posture. News that the People’s Liberation Army has embarked on a program to build at least three aircraft carriers over the next seven years — a hugely expensive endeavor, especially as China has no experience building such platforms — raises the specter of a navy that intends to exert its influence well beyond China’s shores. To this we add a growing fleet of modern destroyers, nuclear submarines and an arsenal of conventional and ballistic missiles of various ranges.
Again, critics of the Pentagon report could resort to moral equivalence by pointing out that other countries, such as the US and Russia, have similar — in fact, far greater — military capabilities, and that China is entitled to have those as well.
However, the problem with that line of argument derives from how one defines China’s “defensive policy.” While it is normal for countries to feel jittery whenever a new regional hegemon arises, such apprehensions can usually be assuaged through political signaling and self-restraint on the part of the mightier party.
For the good part of the first decade of the 21st century, China did remarkably well in that regard, behavior that in part was the result of knowledge on Beijing’s part that it had yet to develop a military capable of taking on regional competitors.
This has since changed, especially in terms of naval capabilities, and countries like Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam are now aware that should it decide to do so, China could fight a war with them and expect to win. Consequently, long-simmering disputes over contested islets in the South China Sea and exclusive economic zones, which in the past could not escalate beyond the occasional skirmish, could now be resolved once and for all through military means.
And as a rising power that has observed how other great powers have behaved in the past, China could very well reach the conclusion that it, too, is entitled to use force to achieve desired political outcomes. After all, the US in 2003 launched a “defensive”— or “pre-emptive” — war against Iraq, while Russia did much the same in its war on “terrorism” in Chechnya, or “separatism” in Georgia.
When China’s regional claims encompass pretty much the entire South China Sea, countries with interests in the area can be forgiven for having doubts about what Beijing means when it says “purely defensive.”
China badly misread Japan. It sought to intimidate Tokyo into silence on Taiwan. Instead, it has achieved the opposite by hardening Japanese resolve. By trying to bludgeon a major power like Japan into accepting its “red lines” — above all on Taiwan — China laid bare the raw coercive logic of compellence now driving its foreign policy toward Asian states. From the Taiwan Strait and the East and South China Seas to the Himalayan frontier, Beijing has increasingly relied on economic warfare, diplomatic intimidation and military pressure to bend neighbors to its will. Confident in its growing power, China appeared to believe
After more than three weeks since the Honduran elections took place, its National Electoral Council finally certified the new president of Honduras. During the campaign, the two leading contenders, Nasry Asfura and Salvador Nasralla, who according to the council were separated by 27,026 votes in the final tally, promised to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan if elected. Nasralla refused to accept the result and said that he would challenge all the irregularities in court. However, with formal recognition from the US and rapid acknowledgment from key regional governments, including Argentina and Panama, a reversal of the results appears institutionally and politically
In 2009, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) made a welcome move to offer in-house contracts to all outsourced employees. It was a step forward for labor relations and the enterprise facing long-standing issues around outsourcing. TSMC founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) once said: “Anything that goes against basic values and principles must be reformed regardless of the cost — on this, there can be no compromise.” The quote is a testament to a core belief of the company’s culture: Injustices must be faced head-on and set right. If TSMC can be clear on its convictions, then should the Ministry of Education
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) provided several reasons for military drills it conducted in five zones around Taiwan on Monday and yesterday. The first was as a warning to “Taiwanese independence forces” to cease and desist. This is a consistent line from the Chinese authorities. The second was that the drills were aimed at “deterrence” of outside military intervention. Monday’s announcement of the drills was the first time that Beijing has publicly used the second reason for conducting such drills. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership is clearly rattled by “external forces” apparently consolidating around an intention to intervene. The targets of
RSS