Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

U.S. Assesses China's Military Might

In a section titled "Shaping the choices of countries at strategic crossroads," the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), released last month, identified China as a country that could "compete militarily" with the United States and "field disruptive military technologies," which might "offset traditional U.S. military advantages".

This is an important admission and rectifies a common misconception that China although behind in the quantity of weapons is not a real threat.

The important admission is that China’s ‘assassin's mace’ and ‘asymmetrical warfare’ might offset the traditional advantages of the United States Military.

ASSASSIN'S MACE

The Chinese cannot match us yet but have instead put emphasis on how to effectively prevent intervention by superior US forces.

Michael Pillsbury, a Chinese linguist and defense analyst who has compiled two books of Chinese military writings for the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, told the U.S.-China Commission last year that senior Beijing strategists, including Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin, believe they can create secret weapons known as the "assassin's mace" to give themselves a decisive advantage over the United States during any PRC assault on Taiwan.

"An assassin's mace weapon is something that is designed based on American vulnerabilities," Pillsbury said. "You study what would bring the Americans to their knees in a specific conflict, such as the American effort to … perhaps to defend Taiwan, and you make a list of the American strengths and weaknesses and you focus on the weaknesses in an attempt to develop so-called assassin's-mace weapons that will penalize the Americans at a key moment, and you, by the way, conceal these weapons. That's the heart of the assassin's-mace idea. It's not exposed until it's needed at a key moment on the battlefield."

Pillsbury found references to 15 such weapons in Chinese military writings. "They focus a great deal on aircraft carriers," he says. "It's a big topic in China. There's even an Internet Website where people put up suggestions about good ways to attack American aircraft carriers." Pillsbury then described a conversation he had with a Chinese general at a conference in the PRC in late 2000. "'You know, this is like James Bond.' I said, 'Really? What are you talking about? I don't understand.' He said, 'You know, in the James Bond movies, just when James Bond is almost dead, he pulls something out of his pocket and it kills "Odd Job" or someone. That's assassin's mace. That's a sha sho jian.'"
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ASYMMETRCAL WARFARE

China is using asymmetrical warfare.

Most analysts make the grave error of comparing China’s armed forces with those of the United States on an item per item basis.

While the following excerpt was written using a comparative analysis of India and China, the same may be said of the United States and China.

A country’s military potential must be viewed against the backdrop of its military ethos, its determination to win, its ability to take and absorb ‘punishment’, and the ingenuity / innovativeness of its military leadership. In the last aspect in particular, the keen interest of Chinese strategists in ways of waging asymmetric warfare must be borne in mind. Damage far out of proportion to the simplistic military capabilities of a battle group can be achieved by using asymmetric techniques.

“In their book Unrestricted Warfare, [iii] the senior Colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, have proposed various methods of non-military warfare including inter-alia hacking into websites, targeting financial institutions, engaging in terrorism, and using the media. In an interview with Zhongguo Qingnian Bao, Qiao stated that “the first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules, with nothing forbidden.”

The evolution of Chinese strategy can be traced back to its written history itself. The military strategy of China is identified with its pre-eminent military strategists like Sun Tzu, Sun Bin and others. However, later Chinese writings do not restrict this to a narrow military dimension only. They trace their strategic heritage to a very broad spectrum of ancient Chinese thinkers and scholars, starting from Confucius. The Chinese are a very traditional people. Their traditional roots are very deep and an integral part of their lore is the treatise on military strategy, The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Sun Tzu was a great proponent of asymmetrical war, as were other strategists like Sun Bin and Mao Zedong.

“China’s history of war is replete with examples of the successful use of asymmetrical war, where wisdom rather than valor was used to subdue the opposing forces. In particular one finds great use of D-3 viz. diversionary tactics, deception and disinformation.
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-Am


U.S. Assesses China's Military Might
Oxford Analytica 03.16.06, 6:00 AM ET


The head of the U.S. Southern Command, Gen. Bantz Craddock, on March 14, told the Senate that China is training increasing numbers of Latin American soldiers and exporting more military equipment to the region.

In a section titled "Shaping the choices of countries at strategic crossroads," the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), released last month, identified China as a country that could "compete militarily" with the United States and "field disruptive military technologies," which might "offset traditional U.S. military advantages".

Although it reiterated the administration position that U.S. policy toward China remains focused on cooperation, partnership and the joint pursuit of common interests, the QDR expressed concern regarding three specific trends in China's military development:

--A 10% year-on-year increase in Chinese military spending since 1996.

--A lack of "transparency" regarding China's military development programs, new capabilities and the strategic objectives (which Beijing strongly denies).

--A military posture geared toward operations against Taiwan.

The passages in the 2005 QDR dealing with China have attracted considerable media attention and, viewed in isolation, may appear somewhat provocative. However, they should be considered in the context of the entire QDR document, of which they formed only a relatively small part. The sections of the QDR dealing with the perceived Chinese threat are significant less because they say anything new about U.S. policy toward Beijing, and more because they point to an underlying tension between U.S. defense planning priorities.

The principal focus of the 2005 QDR is the so-called "Long War," against a dispersed, principally Islamic terrorist network. This war is considered to be "irregular" in nature and to require the development of a range of new and enhanced military capabilities. In contrast, the potential threat from China represents a more conventional, "peer competitor" challenge. The 2005 QDR makes it clear that the Pentagon means to develop and maintain supremacy in both of these areas. However, broader fiscal trends indicate that a continuation of recent year-on-year defense budget increases is unlikely.

A major theme of the 2005 QDR is the importance for the Defense Department, and the government more broadly, of working in partnership with international allies to defeat and deter common threats. This is less a platitude than part of a Pentagon effort to refute post-Iraq war perceptions of Washington as a unilateralist global hegemon. Moreover, in the context of "shaping the choices of countries at strategic crossroads," it represents a call to international allies to meet their own "responsibilities."

The 2005 QDR challenges U.S. allies as well as potential military adversaries, such as China. The Pentagon has signaled that it is committed to multilateralism in its approach to emerging threats. However, this commitment is not unconditional and is likely to demand a similar effort by European allies.

To read an extended version of this article, log on to Oxford Analytica's Web site.

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http://www.forbes.com/business/2006/03/15/china-pentagon-challenge_cx_0316oxford.html