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?
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 <<
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 8, 1999; Page A01
BEIJINGIn 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."