"They are building their force to deter and delay our ability to intervene in a Taiwan crisis," said Eric McVadon, a former military attaché at the United States Embassy in Beijing. "What they have done is cleverly develop some capabilities that have the prospect of attacking our niche vulnerabilities."
The reality is that McVadon is confirming that the Chinese do in fact have an 'assassin's mace'.
Nor do analysts believe China is any match for the United States military.
This is ludicrous, this is what will defeat the United States. China in using strategically placed weapons, intervention and the ability to attack niche vulnerabilities does not have to match the United States. If we have 20 missiles and China has only 10 missiles but those 10 are used more effectively the victory goes to China. The American mindset that overwhelming firepower is all will not serve us well.
-Am
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.'" #msg-3267895
Jun 17 2005, 08:00 AM China impact China, the submarine discharge long distance ballistic missile of new model (the SLBM) discharge experiment doing to 16 day evening it was understood in the desert ahead new model SLBM experimenting and several thousand kilometers. Government source on the 17th, made clear. Inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM)" easterly wind (DF) 31 types " (range = presumption 8000 kilometer 2539; Meter) it improved to submarine discharge type as " the large 浪 (JL) it is seen 2 types ". To be discharged from the atomic submarine of the Chinto open sea, several thousand kilometers 25 39; It seems that the impact is done in desert area of the same domestic land section which meter leaves. Discharge experiment of the Chinese SLBM is verified to also 2001. China assumes, presently the ICBM is possessed approximately 30 bases, in order the American missile defense (the MD) to oppose, is advancing research such as multi warhead conversions. Simultaneously, the atomic submarine of Chinese type 1 lap doing Guam in the November last year, activity at the ocean of the navy has been strengthened e.g., the Japanese territorial waters are violated. If development of the SLBM advances, it becomes possible the U.S. mainland all to store to the range. The case of the Taiwan strait emergency when there is the aim pick-off of doing the American intervention, there is also a viewpoint in the latest experiment. As for the United States, China easterly wind 31 type it is disposition possible, as for the number for of American warheads it reaches to 100 shots in 2015, it estimates and the て is. As for ラムズフェルド American anti director in the lecture in Singapore June 4th, " as for China, in order to have expanded also the missile war potential which stores the many places of the world the offshore to the range in addition to the ability improvement of the missile which disposes the Asia Pacific region to the target, it can see ", you expressed, you had shown the anxiety which is strong in the development of the Chinese ICBM.
ON a press confernce held yesterday,MR. ZHANG KUANQIN ,the deputy director of chinese CDTI (COMMITTEE OF DEFENCE TECH& INDUSTRY) revealed that the deplacement of warship that started be building last year for PLAN is 0.8 million tons ,and that being building this year will reach 1 million tons .
MR ZHANG also revealed that chinese ship-manufacturing industry finished producing 8 million tons of ships altogether last year,and the displacement of ships that will be finished this year will reached 10 million tons.One tenth of total ships displacment Chinese ship-manufacturing industry is producing is for PLAN.
MR Zhangkuanqin said that chinese ship-manufacturing industry is developing quite fast,and now haS the third powerful ship-manufacturing capacity that follows JAPAN AND SOUTH KOREA. He anticipated that with the completion of CHANGXIN ship-manufatuing base,CHINA will surpass JAPAN and S.KOREA in 5 years and become top ship-manufacturing country in the world.
China determined to become world shipbuilding force
By Tim Johnson
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Posted on Thu, Jun. 16, 2005
DALIAN, China - China, once a global maritime power, is rushing headlong to capture a prized spot as the world's largest shipbuilder.
At vast shipyards such as one here in northeast China, thousands of workers weld steel plates that form the hulls of ships for export to dozens of countries around the globe.
"We believe, in 10 years' time, shipbuilding in China will jump up to a new level," Zhang Guangqin, a vice minister whose portfolio includes shipbuilding, told a news conference Thursday in Beijing.
China now ranks No. 3 in the world in shipbuilding after nearby Japan and South Korea, but it's plowing colossal investment into its shipyards and plans to seize the No. 1 ranking by 2015. Earlier this month, workers broke ground on a project near Shanghai that will turn an island in the Yangtze River into the world's largest shipbuilding base.
China's growing maritime industrial clout is another sign of its expanding global reach. As China's exports soar, its largest companies, now competing on a global scale, hunt even in the United States to buy up onetime competitors. Chinese diplomats are signing agreements with far-flung nations to ensure access to raw materials, such as oil.
At the Dalian New Shipyard, China is building five supertankers - known as very large crude carriers - for oil-rich Iran, with which it's forging a robust energy alliance to fuel its own deepening appetite for crude.
Most Chinese shipyards have order books that are filled for three or four years.
"Eighty-five percent of the new ships in the order books in China are for export," Zhang said, noting that buyers include companies in the United States, Japan, Germany, France and Canada.
China is using an annual investment of some $1.2 billion in shipbuilding to leverage other industries, such as steel making and machinery building. Shipbuilding is one of the few sectors in which China doesn't accept joint-venture agreements with foreign companies, so it isn't gaining access to foreign technology.
Even so, just about every type of ship imaginable - except for ocean liners - is coming out of dry dock along China's eastern shipyards, including bulk carriers to haul raw materials, container ships and liquid natural gas carriers.
"The amount of investment China is putting in is huge. Nobody else can afford it. It's greater than anywhere else," said Peter Cheng, a naval architect and consultant based in Hong Kong.
For many Chinese, the shipbuilding boom is a throwback to the nation's glorious past. Historians say Chinese shipbuilders were the best in the world for more than a millennium, culminating in the years 1405 to 1433, when seafarer Zheng He carried out seven epic voyages to the South Pacific, Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and Africa.
Zheng's largest ship was far larger than the tiny vessels Christopher Columbus used to make his way to the New World in the late 1400s.
Experts in the field say China's growth in shipbuilding is preventing a pinch in global cargo movement as shipyards elsewhere are stretched to near capacity.
From 2000 to 2004, China's average growth rate for shipbuilding was 26 percent a year, Zhang said. It reached 14 percent of the world market in tonnage last year. By the end of this year, its production should climb to 18 percent of the world market, he added. By 2010, it will reach 25 percent, he said.
On June 3, workers broke ground on the $3.6 billion Changxing shipyard at the mouth of the Yangtze River, a project that will triple Shanghai's shipbuilding capacity in the next decade.
"With the construction of Changxing, we are breathing down the necks of Japan and South Korea," Xu Lunfang, an engineer at China State Shipbuilding Corp., told the state Xinhua News Agency. "The market competition is set to intensify."
The ambitious naval fleet-building efforts of the People's Liberation Army, which is beefing up its submarine fleet, are helping China's state-owned shipbuilders.
About 10 percent of shipbuilding activity is for military purposes, Zhang said, though he declined twice to respond to questions about whether China intends to build its first aircraft carrier.
Not all maritime consultants think China will coast to capture the No. 1 spot in shipbuilding.
"It's not an easy industry, and it has a history of devouring the players that are in it," said Matthew Flynn, a maritime consultant in Hong Kong.
While China is adding huge shipyard capacity, Flynn said, it lacks highly skilled management that can allow those shipyards to increase productivity.
"Most of these Chinese shipyards don't yet have that information flow-management capability," Flynn said.
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