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US must plan for Chinese military buildup: analysts

The US must keep watch over China's military buildup and plan its own defense strategy accordingly, analysts said Thursday at an event sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank.

China has been investing in aircraft, munitions and communications systems while also overhauling its military management and training policies, analysts on the panel said. The Pentagon must consider the ramifications of these changes as it plots its own 20-year strategy during this year's quadrennial defense review.

Dan Goure of the Lexington Institute, a Washington-area defense policy group, said the US needs to invest in enough new destroyers, submarines and stealth aircraft to hold its own against a modern Chinese military. He said the US runs the risk of losing sight of this need as it focuses on fighting terrorists and other rogue adversaries.

"We're going to have to balance that," Goure said.

China's new military might is probably aimed at protecting its coastline and also building strength in case of conflict in the Taiwan Strait, panelists said. China probably isn't directly planning to confront the US, but there could be a showdown if any of the principal players miscalculates and sparks a conflict, they said.

The Pentagon needs to revisit budget-driven cuts to its state-of-the-art programs, Goure said. Under current budget plans, the Defense Department plans to buy only about 180 F/A-22 stealth fighters, made by Lockheed Martin Corp, down from initial expectations of 750 new planes.

Ship purchases also have been slashed. The Navy now expects to buy only five DD(X) destroyers in the next six years, four fewer than previous plans called for, and it also has cut its expected purchases of Virginia-class submarines. Both types of vessel are made by Northrop Grumman Corp and General Dynamics Corp and carry multibillion-dollar price tags.

Budget concerns should be at the forefront of any consideration of China-related strategy issues, said Michael Krepon of the Henry L. Stimson Center, an independent policy group that studies peace and security issues. China owns more than US$230 billion in US government securities, meaning the US pays it billions of dollars in interest each year.

``When we talk about China's military modernization program, we also need to talk about our debt,'' Krepon said, saying the US is effectively subsidizing China's defense purchases.

Krepon and Heritage Foundation fellow Baker Spring squared off over whether the US should invest in space-based weapons. Krepon argued that the US could open itself to new vulnerabilities by escalating military conflict in space, while Spring said the US needs to invest now so that it will have ready defenses in the case of an attack.

Krepon and other analysts say that the US shouldn't focus on high-tech space weapons because there are so many low-tech ways to knock out a satellite.
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