Chinese war games leave US unfazed

The Bush administration has described a planned joint Chinese-Russian military exercise in the Yellow Sea north of Taiwan as one that could advance the "mutual goal of regional stability" in East Asia, despite some reports that paint the exercise as being eerily similar to a rehearsal for a joint invasion of Taiwan.

The exercise, prominently reported in the Washington Post Monday morning, is to start Thursday near the Russian city of Vladivostok, before moving to the Yellow Sea and China's Shandong Province.

The simulated land, sea and air operation would "seize a beachhead on China's Shandong peninsula in advance of an inland offensive" according to a senior Russian military official quoted by the Post.

INTERDICTION

The Russians would "deploy strategic, long-range bombers, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, which will fire cruise missiles at targets," on the surface of the sea, the report says.

As part of the strategy, the exercise would try to "prevent the vessels of any other countries from approaching the area" of the operations, the Post quoted a Russian military official as saying.

The Pentagon, in its recent annual report on Chinese military modernization, has painted a picture of a Chinese attack on Taiwan in similar terms to the description of the joint Russian-Chinese exercised planned for next week.

Most Washington academics and other China specialists agree that such plans would be elements in any Chinese attack on Taiwan, including efforts to prevent the US from coming to Taiwan's aid militarily and the reliance on some 700 ballistic missiles deployed against Taiwan.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters that the US has been "advised" about the Chinese-Russian exercises and "we are following the exercises."

But he said that the US would not be observing the joint Chinese-Russian exercises.

He asserted that the White House expects the exercises "will be conducted in a manner that supports the mutual goal of regional stability shared by the US, Russia and China."

Asked whether the US is concerned about the planned exercise in view of Russia's increasing supply of sophisticated weapons to China, McCormack said only, "we would hope that anything they do is not something that would be disruptive to the current atmosphere in the region."

McCormack did not mention Taiwan in his remarks.

TAIWAN FACTOR

The planned operation is well north of Taiwan, because Beijing was unsuccessful in efforts to get Russia to agree to hold it closer to the country, the Post cites Russian reports as saying.

"China tries to put the Taiwan question into every issue, but for Russia that was never the purpose of the exercises," the Post quotes a Moscow think tank analyst, Dmitry Kormilitsyn, as saying.

The exercise will simulate a mission to aid a state where law and order has broken down because of terrorist violence, the report said.

However, Beijing's official Xinhua news agency painted the joint exercise as strengthening China and Russia's capabilities in "jointly striking international terrorism, extremism or separatism."

The use of the word, "separatism," indicated Beijing might try to enlist Moscow's support through the joint military exercises in its effort to retake Taiwan, the Post report noted.

UNCONCERNED

Meanwhile, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) played down the joint exercise, saying only that it wasn't "real."

MND Spokesman Rear Admiral Liu Chih-chien (劉志堅) yesterday said the China-Russia joint drill is not really a "joint drill" because the two countries hadn't formed a joint command for the exercise. As a result, the two militaries would operate independently in the drill, Liu added.

Liu said that since Russia proposed using strategic bombers to join the drill, the MND thinks the purpose of Russia joining the military exercise is to promote its advanced strategic arms to China, one of its biggest arms markets.

Liu said the MND would closely follow the exercise.

Additional reporting by Rich Chang