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[Rob <becidawa AT hctc.com>]

I wonder if anyone has been watching China? The bottom article was in the 
paper back in 1999. Things have changed since then...

Anyone remember hearing about the Chinese Moslems going into Afghanistan to 
fight the Americans? How about the Chinese govt wanting their 'criminals' 
back from the US after things were settled down?

The Chinese went big into nano technology about 2000:
>> http://news.nanoapex.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5005

Prior to 2000, the Chinese media made practically no mention of the concept 
of "nanotechnology" (nami jishu) or its potential for revolutionizing 
China's [profile] high tech industry. Today, however, dozens of major 
Chinese research centers and hundreds of enterprises engage in the 
production of nanotechnologies, which has quickly become a 
multibillion-Yuan industry. The rapid development of China's nanotech 
industry is due in large part to the intervention of the central 
government. Apparently added to a list of priority technologies at the end 
of the 1990s, nanotech has enjoyed state funding since then through 
National 863 Hi-Tech R&D Plan <<

The world is an always changing place.

Rob
becidawa AT hctc.com
`````````````
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/08/154l-080899-idx.html

China Ponders New Rules of 'Unrestricted War'

By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 8, 1999; Page A01

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."


© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company