The US must prepare an effective strategy to face China's rising military power and not freeze at the Asian giant "like a deer in the proverbial headlights," a new study warned on Wednesday.
Beijing's rapid technological advances mean that the US "must plan seriously" for its development of weapons of greater complexity and power, said the study by the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based conservative think tank.
The report, entitled China's New Great Leap Forward: High Technology and Military Power in the Next Half-Century, warned that the US government is too preoccupied with its "war on terror" and democratization of the Middle East and Central Asia.
Meanwhile, Washington is ignoring China's emergence as a top competitor to US technological leadership. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaeda attacks, the US has largely focused on the "cunning, soul-less but essentially low-tech predator: the terrorist," the study said.
"Yet those other realms of warfare that occupied us prior to 9/11 -- information, naval, and above all aerospace -- still constitute the nucleus of the new RMA [revolution in military affairs]," it said.
"If we neglect the timely development of weaponry in these arenas, then China could catch America like a deer in the proverbial headlights -- precisely where we caught them after the 1991 victory in Desert Storm."
The use of surgical bombing and electromagnetic warfare in the Gulf War in 1991 "dramatically demonstrated" the huge chasm between China and the US in modern weapons systems, the report said.
The gap was further displayed in 1996 when two US aircraft carrier battle groups off the coast of Taiwan upstaged Chinese missile exercises with flight combat maneuvers and the monitoring of Chinese military activities on the ground, it said.
The report was unveiled at the US Congress on Wednesday, with a Republican lawmaker warning that the US could not afford to shrug off China's military threat.
Senator Norm Coleman said China's "proliferation of massive numbers of scientists, mathematicians and engineers will have major impact on lessening America's edge in high technology, telecommunications, computing and weaponry, and this challenge cannot be ignored."
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