US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that he could not discuss — in open session — Chinese military expansion and its impact on Taiwan.
He offered to give some details at a future meeting to be held in secret.
Clapper and US Defense Intelligence Agency Director-General Vincent Stewart were testifying on worldwide security threats.
Photo: AFP
Democratic Senator Joe Manchin said that the US’ partners in the Asia-Pacific region, “especially Taiwan,” were growing uneasy about China’s anti-access and area denial strategies, and he asked for an update.
“I can’t go into a great deal of detail here, but the Chinese embarked on an extremely impressive military modernization program across the board,” Clapper said. “Their modernization program is deliberately designed to counteract or thwart what they feel are our strengths. I can certainly go into more detail, if you like, in a classified setting.”
Manchin said he understood that China was quickly expanding its military modernization.
“They are, and they also are getting more and more into the realm of indigenously designing and producing things rather than relying on others, notably the Russians,” Clapper said.
The US Senate hearing was called in part to discuss a Worldwide Threat Assessment for this year, released by the Defense Intelligence Agency.
That document said that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is building a modern military capable of defending China’s “core interests.”
“China views these to include Taiwan, and other contested claims to land and water,” it said. “They are also augmenting more than 1,200 conventional short-range ballistic missiles deployed opposite Taiwan with a limited, but growing number of conventionally armed, medium-range ballistic missiles, including the DF-16, which will improve China’s ability to strike regional targets.”
It said China is deploying growing numbers of DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles and developing a tiered ballistic missile defense system, having successfully tested the upper-tier capability on two occasions.
The assessment said that the South China Sea remains a potential flashpoint and that large-scale Chinese construction there had increased tensions.
China also twice deployed submarines to the Indian Ocean last year, it said.
“The submarines probably conducted area familiarization to form a baseline for increasing China’s power projection,” it said. “China continues production of JIN-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. We expect China to conduct its first nuclear deterrence patrols this year.”
In his opening statement to the committee, Clapper said that “unpredictable instability” is the new normal.
“The year 2014 saw the highest rate of political instability since 1992, the most deaths as a result of state sponsored mass killing since the early 1990s, and the highest number of refugees and internally displaced persons since World War II,” Clapper said.
He said that roughly half of the world’s stable countries are at some risk of instability over the next two years.
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