China - war and the West?

[Arie Dirkzwager]

>Delivered-To: aried
>MBOX-Line: From esperanto at home.com  Thu Aug 12 00:17:54 1999
>Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 17:20:00 -0700
>From: Wally Du Temple <esperanto at home.com>
>Organization: @Home Network
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.05C-AtHome0403 (Macintosh; U; PPC)
>To: post-gpty-intl <post-gpty-intl at greens.org>,
>        "post-gpty-canada at greens.org" <post-gpty-canada at greens.org>
>Subject: China - war and the West?
>Newsgroups: gpty.intl
>
>August 8, 1999
>
>China Ponders New Rules of 'Unrestricted War'
>
>By John Pomfret
>
>BEIJING-In 1996, colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui were in Fujian
>province for military exercises aimed at threatening the island of Taiwan.
>As Chinese M9 intermediate-range missiles splashed into waters off two main
>southern Taiwanese ports, the United States dispatched two aircraft carrier
>battle groups to the region.
>
>Like most Chinese officers, the colonels were furious at the U.S. move,
>seeing it as another sign of American interference in China's internal
>affairs. But to Qiao and Wang, the first crisis in the Taiwan Strait was
>also a lesson.
>
>"We realized that if China's military was to face off against the United
>States, we would not be sufficient," said Wang, an air force colonel in the
>Guangzhou military district's political department. "So we realized that
>China needs a new strategy to right the balance of power."
>
>Their response was to write a book called "Unrestricted War," which has
>become one of the hottest of a new series of military publications that
>haunt China's strategic planners, as well as many average citizens, with
>these questions:
>
>How does a relatively weak country like China stand up to a powerful nation
>like the United States? How should China's military modernization program
>be modified to ensure that China gets the biggest bang for the yuan? And
>how can China, which dreams of reuniting with Taiwan, ensure that the
>United States, which is legally bound to protect the island, thinks twice
>about getting militarily involved in any showdown across the Taiwan Strait?
>
>Among their sometimes creative and sometimes shocking proposals for dealing
>with a powerful adversary are terrorism, drug trafficking, environmental
>degradation and computer virus propagation. The authors include a flow
>chart of 24 different types of war and argue that the more complicated the
>combination -- for example, terrorism plus a media war plus a financial war
>-- the better the results. From that perspective, "Unrestricted War"
>marries the Chinese classic, "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu, with modern
>military technology and economic globalization.
>
>"Unrestricted War is a war that surpasses all boundaries and restrictions,"
>they write at one point. "It takes nonmilitary forms and military forms and
>creates a war on many fronts. It is the war of the future."
>
>The book is an important expression of China's feelings of powerlessness
>when confronted by U.S. might. By discussing terrorism and other
>controversial methods of waging war, the pair illustrates China's deep
>discomfort with a global system in which the United States seems to dictate
>all the rules -- even the rules of war.
>
>"We are a weak country," Wang said, "so do we need to fight according to
>your rules? No."
>
>"War has rules, but those rules are set by the West," continued the
>45-year-old son of a military officer. "But if you use those rules, then
>weak countries have no chance. But if you use nontraditional means to
>fight, like those employed by financiers to bring down financial systems,
>then you have a chance."
>
>It is extremely rare for Chinese military officers to speak with a Western
>reporter. The pair agreed to do that after they were encountered
>accidentally during a visit to a Beijing office complex. One of their
>reasons for agreeing seemed to be an attempt to counter reports in the
>Chinese press that they were emphasizing terrorism as a way to do battle
>without consideration of the full range of methods they describe.
>
>Another reason they agreed to speak may be that there is a heated but
>hidden debate among China's strategic planners on how China's military
>should modernize. Some advocate a wholesale adoption of Western styles of
>warfare; others, such as Qiao and Wang, feel that China needs a new
>approach.
>
>"Take theater missile defense, for example," said Qiao, referring to the
>U.S. program to create an antimissile defense system in Asia. "It's
>obviously part of a U.S. plan to pull China into an expensive trap. We
>don't want China to fall into that trap because all Chinese military
>officers know that we don't possess the resources to compete in an arms
>race."
>
>Qiao and Wang's book is an important indication of the concern felt by the
>People's Liberation Army about its country's power, its strategic place in
>the world and especially its ability to counter overwhelming U.S. force.
>These concerns have become all the more urgent following the war against
>Yugoslavia and the May 7 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by NATO
>warplanes -- two events that prompted nationwide hand-wringing at China's
>weakness. They received a further boost during the latest crisis with
>Taiwan, which began July 9 when President Lee Teng-hui announced he wanted
>China to treat Taiwan's government as an equal.
>
>Last week the United States announced a $550 million weapons sale to
>Taiwan, further infuriating China.
>
>To military men such as Qiao and Wang, there is a direct connection between
>Kosovo and Taiwan and Tibet. "If today you impose your value systems on a
>European country, tomorrow you can do the same to Taiwan or Tibet," Wang
>said.
>
>The roots of some of these concerns can be traced to the 1991 Persian Gulf
>War, when Chinese officers were shocked at the gap between Western --
>particularly American -- and Chinese military technology.
>
>"The country that studied the Persian Gulf War the most was not America,
>but China," Wang said. "The military studied all the weapons systems and
>all the strategy, but we two think that China cannot follow the U.S. model.
>We are much poorer than the United States. So we think China needs to begin
>to adjust the way it makes war. It's like Mao [Zedong] said to the
>Japanese: 'You fight your war and I'll fight mine.' "
>
>China has had problems when it has tried to embrace some weapons systems --
>for example, submarines. A report in May by the Washington-based Natural
>Resources Defense Council said China has had great difficulty developing
>submarine-launched ballistic missiles and nuclear-powered submarines.
>
>China has only one operational Xia-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile
>sub because technical difficulties with solid fuel for the missiles and
>nuclear reactors for the submarines curtailed full development. This
>submarine was built in 1981 but it took China's navy eight years to deploy
>it. It is believed that the Xia-class vessel -- along with China's five
>Han-class nuclear attack submarines -- have never sailed beyond China's
>regional waters.
>
>In other areas, such as missiles, China appears to have done a better job
>at turning a weapons system into a ticket to big power status and thereby
>causing the United States to ponder a military engagement in the Taiwan
>Strait.
>
>Two recent developments illustrate this point. Days after Taiwan's Lee
>announced the new policy, China declared it had mastered the technology to
>manufacture a neutron bomb and miniaturize nuclear weapons. Then on Aug. 3,
>China announced that it had tested a new long-range ballistic missile,
>believed to be the Dongfeng 31.
>
>Western military experts say both weapons systems could be used against
>U.S. forces in Asia if Washington should come to Taiwan's aid. In addition,
>Russian media have reported that a Russian factory has started production
>of 30 Sunburn anti-ship missiles for China. The Sunburn is one of the only
>missiles that can travel at twice the speed of sound while skimming the
>ocean's surface. Once deployed, it would constitute a significant threat to
>U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups.
>
>Qiao, 44 and also an officer's son, raised eyebrows in Beijing a few weeks
>ago when, in an interview with the China Youth Daily, he suggested that
>Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic should have attempted to deal with
>NATO attacks by slipping a terrorist group into Italy and attacking NATO
>air bases. Terrorist bands also could have attacked population centers in
>Germany, France and Belgium, he said.
>
>"I am not a terrorist and have always opposed terrorism," he said in
>response to a question about the article. "But war is not a foot race; it's
>more like a soccer game. If it was a foot race, China would never be able
>to catch up to the United States. But it's a soccer game and the goal is to
>win. It doesn't matter how you kick the ball into the net."
>
>--
>
>Source:
>http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/08/154l-080899-idx.h
tml
>
>--
>
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BetterSystems,
Prof.Dr.A.Dirkzwager,
Educational Instrumentation Technology,
Computers in Education.
Huizerweg 62,
1402 AE Bussum,
The Netherlands.
voice: x31-35-6981676
E-mail: mailto:aried at xs4all.nl


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