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30 January 2010 By Rick Rozoff Vice Foreign
Minister He Yafei urged the United States to
reconsider the Taiwan arms package in the sixth
official Chinese warning in a week earlier this month,
telling his nation's Xinhua News Agency that "China
had strongly protested the U.S. government's recent
decision to allow Raytheon Company and Lockheed Martin
Corp. to sell weapons to Taiwan" and "The U.S. arms
sales to Taiwan undermine China's national
security."...Later information added to the inventory
and to China's ire when it was revealed that "the
Obama Administration would soon announce the sale to
Taiwan of a package worth billions of U.S. dollars
including Black Hawk helicopters, anti-missile systems
and plans for diesel-powered submarines in a move
likely to anger China."
Even though the U.S. military budget is almost ten
times that of China's (with a population more than
four times as large) and Washington plans a record
$708 billion defense budget for next year compared to
Russia spending less than $40 billion last year for
the same, China and Russia are portrayed as threats to
the U.S. and its allies. China has no troops outside
its borders; Russia has a small handful in its former
territories in Abkhazia, Armenia, South Ossetia and
Transdniester. The U.S. has hundreds of thousands of
troops stationed in six continents.
While Gates was in charge of the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq and responsible for almost half
of international military spending he was offended
that the world's most populous nation might desire to
"deny others countries the ability to threaten it."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
On December 23 of last year Raytheon Company
announced that it had received a $1.1 billion contact
with Taiwan for the purchase of 200 Patriot
anti-ballistic missiles. In early January the U.S.
Defense Department cleared the transaction "despite
opposition from rival China, where a military official
proposed sanctioning U.S. firms that sell arms to the
island." [1]
The sale completes a $6.5 billion weapons package
approved by the previous George W. Bush administration
at the end of 2008. In the words of the Asia bureau
chief of Defense News, "This is the last piece that
Taiwan has been waiting on." [2]
Defense News first reported on the agreement and
reminded its readers that "Raytheon already won
smaller contracts for Taiwan in January 2009 and in
2008 for upgrades to the Patriot systems the country
already had. Those contracts were to upgrade the
systems to Configuration 3, the same upgrade the
company is completing for the U.S. Army."
The source also described what the enhanced Patriot
capacity consisted of: "Configuration 3 is Raytheon's
most advanced Patriot system and allows the use of
Lockheed Martin's Patriot Advanced Capability-3
(PAC-3) missiles [and] Raytheon's Guidance Enhanced
Missile-Tactical [Patriot-2 upgrade] missiles...." [3]
The PAC-3 is the latest, most advanced Patriot
missile design and the first capable of shooting down
tactical ballistic missiles. It is the initial tier of
a layered missile shield system which also includes
Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), Ground
Based Interceptor (GBI), Ground-Based Midcourse
Defense (GMD), Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD),
ship-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense equipped
with Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors, Forward
Based X-Band Radar (FBXB) and Exoatmospheric Kill
Vehicle (EKV) components. An integrated network that
ranges from the battlefield to the heavens.
The system is modular and highly mobile and its
batteries are thus more easily able to evade detection
and attack. It also extends the range of previous
Patriot versions several fold.
"[T]he PAC-3 interceptors, enhanced by [an]
advanced radar and command center, are capable of
protecting an area approximately seven times greater
than the original Patriot system." [4]
If like the rest of the world Chinese authorities
anticipated a reduction if not halt in the pace of
American global military expansion with the advent of
a new administration in Washington a year ago, like
everyone they else have been rudely disabused of the
notion.
Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei urged the United
States to reconsider the Taiwan arms package in the
sixth official Chinese warning in a week earlier this
month, telling his nation's Xinhua News Agency that
"China had strongly protested the U.S. government's
recent decision to allow Raytheon Company and Lockheed
Martin Corp. to sell weapons to Taiwan" and "The U.S.
arms sales to Taiwan undermine China's national
security." [5]
Later information added to the inventory and to
China's ire when it was revealed that "the Obama
Administration would soon announce the sale to Taiwan
of a package worth billions of U.S. dollars including
Black Hawk helicopters, anti-missile systems and plans
for diesel-powered submarines in a move likely to
anger China." [6]
In addition, the China Times reported that Taiwan
was to obtain eight second-hand Oliver Hazard
Perry-class frigates from the U.S. in addition to the
200 Patriot missiles. The warships were designed in
the 1970s as comparatively inexpensive alternatives to
World War II-era destroyers. The new deal will double
the amount of U.S. Perry-class frigates that Taiwan
already possesses to 16.
They will also factor into missile defense and at a
higher level, as "The island hopes to arm them with a
version of the advanced Aegis Combat System (see
above), which uses computers and radar to take out
multiple targets, as well as sophisticated missile
launch technology...." [7]
While both Washington and Taipei will present the
weapons transactions as strictly defensive in nature,
it is worth recalling that last autumn Taiwan
conducted its "largest-ever missile test...launched
from a secretive and tightly guarded base in southern
Taiwan" with missiles "capable of reaching major
Chinese cities." [8]
President Ma Ying-jeou observed the missile
launches which "included the test-firing of a top
secret, newly developed medium-range
surface-to-surface missile with a range of 3,000
kilometres, capable of striking major cities in
central, northern and southern China." [9]
The Patriot Advanced Capability and SM-3
interceptor missiles the U.S. is providing Taiwan
could well be employed to counter a mainland Chinese
counterattack or at the least protect the launch sites
of Taiwanese medium range missiles which, as noted
above, are capable of hitting most of China's major
cities.
Beijing responded on January 11 by conducting a
ground-based midcourse interceptor missile test over
its territory.
Professor Tan Kaijia of the People's Liberation
Army's (PLA) National Defense University told Xinhua
"If the ballistic missile is regarded as a spear, now
we have succeeded in building a shield for
self-defense." [10]
Time Magazine characterized the significance of the
test in writing: "There's no chance China's gambit
will deter the U.S. from backing Taiwan....But the
test does signal a ratcheting up of tensions between
Beijing and Washington...." [11]
Both China and the U.S., the first in 2007 and the
second the following year, with a Standard Missile-3
fired from an Aegis-class frigate in the Pacific Ocean
in the American case, destroyed satellites in orbit.
The dawn of space war had begun.
A January 15 feature on a Russian website titled
"Possible space wars in the near future" provided
background information. "It is hard to overestimate
the role played by military satellite systems. Since
the 1970s, an increasingly greater number of
troop-control, telecommunications, target-acquisition,
navigation and other processes depend on spacecraft
which are therefore becoming more important...The
space echelon's role is directly proportional to the
development level of any given nation and its armed
forces." [12]
China and Russia for years have been advocating a
ban on the use of space for military purposes,
annually raising the issue in the United Nations. The
U.S. has just as persistently opposed the initiatives.
To comprehend the context in which recent
developments have occurred, Washington has for three
years increasingly and tenaciously included China and
Russia with Iran and North Korea as belligerents in
prospective future conflicts.
The campaign began in earnest in February of 2007
when then and still Pentagon chief Robert Gates
testified before the U.S. House Armed Services
Committee on the Defense Department Fiscal Year 2008
Budget Request and said among other matters:
"In addition to fighting the global war on terror,
we also face the danger posed by Iran and North
Korea's nuclear ambitions and the threat they pose not
only to their neighbors, but globally because of their
record of proliferation; the uncertain paths of China
and Russia, which are both pursuing sophisticated
military modernization programs; and a range of other
flashpoints and challenges....We need both the ability
for regular force-on-force conflicts because we don't
know what's going to develop in places like Russia and
China, in North Korea, in Iran and elsewhere." [13]
If it be objected that Gates was only alluding to
general contingency plans, ones that could apply to
any major nation, neither his comments nor any by U.S.
defense officials since have mentioned fellow nuclear
powers Britain, France, India and Israel in a similar
vein, but have reiterated concerns about Russia and
China with an alarming consistency. In fact China and
Russia have been substituted for Iraq in the former
axis of evil category.
Even though the U.S. military budget is almost ten
times that of China's (with a population more than
four times as large) and Washington plans a record
$708 billion defense budget for next year compared to
Russia spending less than $40 billion last year for
the same, China and Russia are portrayed as threats to
the U.S. and its allies. China has no troops outside
its borders; Russia has a small handful in its former
territories in Abkhazia, Armenia, South Ossetia and
Transdniester. The U.S. has hundreds of thousands of
troops stationed in six continents.
Russia and China both reacted harshly to Gates'
statements in February of 2007 and only three days
afterward, with Gates in the audience, Russian
President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech at the
annual Munich Security Conference in which he warned:
"[W]hat is a unipolar world? However one might
embellish this term, at the end of the day it refers
to one type of situation, namely one centre of
authority, one centre of force, one centre of
decision-making.
"It is world in which there is one master, one
sovereign. And at the end of the day this is
pernicious not only for all those within this system,
but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys
itself from within."
"Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions
have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have
caused new human tragedies and created new centres of
tension. Judge for yourselves: wars as well as local
and regional conflicts have not diminished....And no
less people perish in these conflicts - even more are
dying than before. Significantly more, significantly
more!
"Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained
hyper use of force - military force - in international
relations, force that is plunging the world into an
abyss of permanent conflicts."
"One state and, of course, first and foremost the
United States, has overstepped its national borders in
every way. This is visible in the economic, political,
cultural and educational policies it imposes on other
nations...." [14]
The warning was not heeded in Washington.
Three months later the Pentagon chief resumed his
earlier accusations. In May of 2007 the Defense
Department issued its annual report on China’s
military capability, citing "continuing efforts to
project Chinese power beyond its immediate region and
to develop high-technology systems that can challenge
the best in the world."
"U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says some of
China’s efforts cause him concern."
The report said "China is pursuing long-term,
comprehensive transformation of its military forces”
to "enable it to project power and deny other
countries the ability to threaten it." [15] While
Gates was in charge of the wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq and responsible for almost half of international
military spending he was offended that the world's
most populous nation might desire to "deny others
countries the ability to threaten it."
A year after Gates linked China and Russia with
surviving "axis of evil" suspects Iran and North
Korea, National Director of Intelligence Michael
McConnell singled out China, Russia and the
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC) as the main threats to the United States, even
more than al-Qaeda.
The Voice of Russia responded to McDonnell's
accusations in a commentary that included these
excerpts:
"Russia has demanded an explanation from America
over a report by the Director of American national
intelligence in which Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, North
Korea and al-Qaida are described as sources of
strategic threats to the U.S....Quite possibly, the
report by the U.S intelligence community amounts to
accounting for the staggering sums of money that is
allocated yearly for its upkeep. There could be other
reasons to explain why Russia has been included among
states posing a threat to America." [16]
Gates has remained as defense secretary for the new
American administration and so has the anti-Chinese
and anti-Russian rhetoric.
On May 1 of last year Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton said that "The Obama administration is working
to improve deteriorating U.S. relations with a number
of Latin American nations to counter growing Iranian,
Chinese and Russian influence in the Western
Hemisphere...." [17] The month after she spoke those
words a military coup was staged in Honduras and two
weeks after that the U.S. secured the use of seven
military bases in Colombia.
In September Director of National Intelligence
Dennis Blair issued the U.S.'s quadrennial National
Intelligence Strategy report which said "Russia,
China, Iran, and North Korea pose the greatest
challenges to the United States' national interests.
[18]
Agence France-Presse said that "The United States
on [September 15] put emerging superpower China and
former Cold War foe Russia alongside Iran and North
Korea on a list of the four main nations challenging
American interests" and quoted from Blair's report:
China was fingered for its "increasing natural
resource-focused diplomacy and military
modernization."
"Russia is a US partner in important initiatives
such as securing fissile material and combating
nuclear terrorism, but it may continue to seek avenues
for reasserting power and influence in ways that
complicate US interests." [19]
China is not allowed to deny other nations the
ability to threaten it and Russia is not permitted to
complicate U.S. interests.
The trend, ominous in its relentlessness, continues
into this year.
The vice president of Lockheed Martin's Missile
Defense Systems, John Holly, touted his company's role
in the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System -
components of which are being delivered to Taiwan - as
"the shining star" of Lockheed's interceptor missile
portfolio, and according to a newspaper in the city
which hosts the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency
"Pointing to missile programs in North Korea, Iran,
Russia and China, Holly said, 'the world is not a very
safe world ... and it is incumbent upon us in industry
to provide [the Pentagon] with the best
capabilities.'" [20]
Three days afterward the Pentagon's Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security
Affairs Wallace Gregson "voiced doubts about China's
insistence that its use of space is for peaceful
means" and stated "The Chinese have stated that they
oppose the militarization of space. Their actions seem
to indicate the contrary intention." [21]
The next day Admiral Robert Willard, head of the
U.S. Pacific Command, stated in testimony before the
House Armed Services Committee that China's "powerful
economic engine is also funding a military
modernization program that has raised concerns in the
region — a concern also shared by the U.S. Pacific
Command." [22]
The U.S. Navy has six fleets and eleven aircraft
carrier strike groups in or available for deployment
to all parts of the world, but China with only a
"brown water" navy off its own coast is a cause for
concern to the U.S.
As Alan Mackinnon, the chairman of the Scottish
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, wrote last
September:
"The world of war is today dominated by a single
superpower. In military terms the United States sits
astride the world like a giant Colossus. As a country
with only five per cent of the world's population it
accounts for almost 50 per cent of global arms
spending.
"Its 11 naval carrier fleets patrol every ocean and
its 909 military bases are scattered strategically
across every continent. No other country has
reciprocal bases on US territory - it would be
unthinkable and unconstitutional. It is 20 years since
the end of the Cold War and the United States and its
allies face no significant military threat today. Why
then have we not had the hoped-for peace dividend? Why
does the world's most powerful nation continue to
increase its military budget, now over $1.2 trillion a
year in real terms? What threat is all this supposed
to counter?
"The US response has been largely military - the
expansion of NATO and the encirclement of Russia and
China in a ring of hostile bases and alliances. And
continuing pressure to isolate and weaken Iran." [23]
Observations to be kept in the forefront of
people's minds as China is increasingly presented as a
security challenge - and a strategic threat - to the
world's sole military superpower.
Notes:
[1]. Reuters, January 7, 2010
[2]. Ibid
[3]. Defense News, December 23, 2009
[4]. http://tinyurl.com/yj5rkqs
[5]. Russian Information Agency Novosti, January 9,
2010
[6]. Taiwan News, January 4, 2010
[7]. Agence France-Presse, January 11, 2010
[8]. Radio Taiwan International, October 14, 2009
[9]. Deutsche Presse-Agentur, October 14, 2009
[10]. Asian Times, January 20, 2010
[11]. Time, January 13, 2010
[12]. Russian Information Agency Novosti, January
15, 2010
[13]. http://tinyurl.com/yjyvw73
[14]. http://tinyurl.com/ykdrpbt
[15]. Voice of America News, May 26, 2007
[16]. Voice of Russia, February 8, 2008
[17]. Associated Press, May 1, 2009
[18]. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, September
16, 2009
[19]. Agence France-Presse, September 15, 2009
[20]. Huntsville Times, January 10, 2010
[21]. Agence France-Presse, January 13, 2010
[22]. Washington Post, January 14, 2010
[23]. Scottish Left Review, November 17, 2009
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