The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute is an independent authority specializing in research into armed conflict, arms control and disarmament.
The institute recently published a report on the global arms market reminding the international community to take heed: Last year, China sold the second-largest share of military equipment, behind the US. It is China’s fifth consecutive year in second position, far ahead of Russia.
Due to the unavailability of sales data for Chinese guided-missile production and its shipbuilding industry, these numbers are not included in the data, making it impossible to pin down the extent of Chinese arms sales.
The same is true of China’s defense budget — nobody knows the precise figure, but we can say with confidence that it is higher than the official numbers.
China’s international arms sales are conducted in a similar fashion as its international trade: by cheating.
The US Department of State Policy Planning Staff last month published a report, titled The Elements of the China Challenge, which concluded that Beijing has “hegemonic ambitions” to supplant the US as the world’s pre-eminent power.
In 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) started comprehensive military reform. To modernize China’s People’s Liberation Army, Xi initiated a consolidation of China’s military industry.
Last year, eight of China’s defense manufacturers entered the ranking of the world’s 25 largest defense companies. Three of them — Aviation Industry Corp of China, China Electronics Technology Group and China North Industries Corp — entered the world’s top 10. This presents a significant threat to China’s neighbors and flies in the face of Xi’s assertion that the end goal of China’s military reforms is to “uphold peace.”
The three elements of Beijing’s Taiwan strategy are to increase the military imbalance between Taiwan and China, stop US arms sales to Taiwan and gradually alter the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait.
Xi has repeatedly rejected the use of force against Taiwan, and during a speech marking the 70th anniversary of the Korean War in October, in a thinly veiled warning to the US, Xi said: “Woe betide any country that invokes the wrath of the Chinese people.”
Xi has also threatened countries whose governments have supported human rights issues in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, and unleashed his “wolf warrior” diplomats, providing a vision of what the future would be like with China in charge.
Beijing believes that its regional anti-access capabilities are powerful enough to allow it to openly attack Taiwan and the US, put on ostentatious shows of military strength and whip the Chinese into a nationalistic fervor against the outside world.
These are indications that China is transforming itself into “global enemy No. 1” and that it is doing a good job at it.
Faced with an increasingly jittery and paranoid China, countries around the world are left with only one option, and that is to oppose the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the interest of their own self-preservation.
Neighboring countries, organizations, the US-led “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing network and NATO are designating China’s military rise as a threat to world peace, making it clear that Beijing’s aggression has resulted in the strengthening and expansion of the anti-CCP alliance.
All Taiwanese must resist the CCP and protect their country by supporting the government’s policy of defense autonomy through the buildup of asymmetric warfare capability to ensure that Taiwan will be able to defend itself and show the world that we have the resolve to protect our sovereignty.
Chang Ling-ling is a serving member of Taiwan’s armed forces.
Translated by Edward Jones
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