Deborah Haynes
INCREASINGLY sophisticated warships, submarines, jets and missiles will make China more willing to use force to protect its interests in the Asia-Pacific.
Increased investment in hardware and training by Beijing is designed to dissuade the US from interfering in problems such as the dispute over Taiwan, said Jonathan Holslag, the Belgian author of Trapped Giant: China’s Military Rise.
The evolving situation is keeping others alert, with India putting more troops along its border with China, Japan describing China as a “key security challenge” and South Korea and Australia increasingly cautious, the author says.
“For financial and strategic reasons, China has restrained its military modernisation during the first decades of its economic take-off, but in the second decade of the 21st century it will almost certainly shift its military build-up into a higher gear,” he writes in the book, published for the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Commentators have in the past played down the significance of China’s military, which has been huge but lacking quality. Increased prosperity, however, has led to a cut in the size of the People’s Liberation Army, a boost in the skills of soldiers, sailors and airmen, and a desire to use state-of-the-art equipment.
“China will not outstrip US military preponderance in Asia any time soon, but it has started to modernise its armed forces in a way that will significantly reduce America’s manoeuvrability in the Pacific,” Holslag writes.
“Certainly, it has been struggling to translate its newly gained technological capabilities into tangible operational capacity, but it is learning fast.”
Holslag, the head of research at the Brussels Institute of Contemporary China Studies, found the Chinese navy and air force had been encouraged to procure weapons with a greater combat range and firepower.
Beijing has also developed anti-satellite missiles, a missile capable of taking out an aircraft carrier, and a laser that is able to disrupt a satellite. “In terms of technological edge the Americans are still way ahead . . . but the Chinese are certainly, in a very clever way, making it more difficult for the Americans to intervene if something went wrong in eastern Asia,” Holslag said.
“They are not doing that by matching an aircraft carrier with an aircraft carrier and a cruiser with a cruiser. They are trying to find asymmetric ways of boosting their deterrence.”
Cyberwarfare is a key area, with China increasing its capacity to gather electronic intelligence and jam communications.
Source: www.theaustralian.com.au
