Don't Demonize China

Rhetoric About Its Military Might Doesn't Reflect Reality

By Michael D. Swaine

Sunday, May 18 1997; Page C01
The Washington Post

A disturbing trend has been building for several months in the world of China watching: a steady stream of articles, books and opinion pieces proclaiming that China is now the primary threat to peace in Asia. This viewpoint depicts a belligerent China engaged in a crash program of military expansion that is designed to coerce its neighbors into submission and eject the United States from the region. The implication is clear: America faces a new strategic foe similar to the former Soviet Union.

The problem with this analysis is that it's fundamentally wrong -- and ultimately dangerous to U.S. interests.

While it is true that growing Chinese military capabilities pose serious questions for U.S. security interests in Asia, the prevail ing commentary is most unhelpful in answering those questions. The analysts routinely employ distortions, half-truths and, in some cases, complete falsehoods to arrive at policy prescriptions. Far from aiding in the development of more effective U.S. policies for handling China's rise, the confrontational -- even interventionist -- stance advocated by purveyors of the China threat thesis would divide Asia and fuel destabilizing arms buildups. It would also likely bring about the very outcome they wish to avoid -- the erosion of regional peace and stability.

Five myths about Chinese military modernization, most often presented as essential "facts," require puncturing.

Myth No. 1: China's recent attempt to intimidate Taiwan through military force proves that it intends to threaten all of Asia.

For China, Taiwan is sui generis, that is, a one-of-a-kind issue linked to two vital interests: territorial sovereignty and domestic stability. For most Chinese, Taiwan is unambiguously part of China, more so than other claimed territories such as the many small, largely uninhabited islands of the South China Sea. Equally important, Taiwan's continued separation from mainland rule, which began when it was seized by Japan at the end of the 19th century, stands as the most visible reminder of past injustices wrought by imperial powers. The "loss" of Taiwan to independence would be seen as a severe blow to Chinese nationalism and any leadership that allowed this to happen would come under enormous criticism.

The fear of independence has grown markedly in the past few years, due to Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui's successful efforts to raise Taiwan's international stature as a separate state, and because of strong suspicions that the United States supports Lee's policy. As a result, Beijing has recently begun efforts to increase its military (and economic) leverage over the island.

But Taiwan is arguably the only area where China's military modernization presents a clear and present danger to regional stability and U.S. interests. It bears very close watching, but it does not support the overblown arguments of the China threat advocates.

In fact, China's increasingly demanding internal economic and social problems place an added emphasis on the need to avoid external confrontations. Contrary to those who view the country as aggressive, China continues longstanding efforts to improve relations with every Asian state, and to resolve its boundary disputes with former foes such as Russia and India.

Myth No. 2: China is pursuing a crash program of military modernization, spending, by various estimates, $80 billion to $150 billion per year on defense.

China's military modernization program began as an effort to upgrade what had become a hopelessly obsolete, poorly trained and largely ineffective army. But the military upgrade remains subordinate to China's primary goal of market-led civilian economic growth, deemed necessary to ensure social order and political stability and eventually to make China a great world power. Chinese spending on defense has increased only as economic capabilities have grown, and the overall pace and scale of the effort have remained modest. Moreover, most of the increased spending has been applied to basic improvements in living conditions, salaries and infrastructure, not weapons systems.

The best estimates developed by a majority of government and academic analysts, including intelligence agencies, state that China's total military spending is approximately $28 billion to $36 billion a year. While China's nominal defense spending has increased annually at double-digit rates since the late '80s (after a decade of negative growth), real spending (after inflation and currency devaluations are taken into consideration) has grown on average about 4 percent a year over the past decade, starting from a very low base.

As a portion of China's overall economy, this spending comprises about .8 percent to 1.5 percent of gross domestic product. The U.S. currently spends between 3 percent and 4 percent of its GDP on defense. True, China has spent money on several high-visibility purchases such as $6 billion over the past five years on a variety of foreign weapons systems. But Taiwan spent nearly the same amount on 150 F-16s alone. For China, this hardly constitutes a crash program.

Myth No. 3: China has already acquired advanced military systems that greatly augment its ability to project power beyond its borders and thereby alter the basic balance of power in Asia.

China is buying several modern weapons systems from Russia. Most notably, 72 fighters, four diesel submarines and two destroyers. However, these numbers are significantly below what is necessary to support credible power projection. And even these few systems will take several years to deploy in the field. Moreover, enduring deficiencies in China's military logistics system call into question its ability to operate such weapons over a sustained period, particularly outside China's borders.

Unfortunately, China's unwillingness to let outsiders verify its military equipment makes it inevitable that Western journalists will overstate acquisitions and capabilities. Such observers frequently use inflated reports found in the Hong Kong and Taiwan media. For instance, contrary to reports in papers such as the Eastern Express and the South China Morning Post, the Chinese are not about to acquire an aircraft carrier.

Even if they did, however, many years hence, it would likely serve more as an easy target rather than a threat to the U.S. Seventh Fleet. Mastering such a highly complex weapon requires a steep and long learning curve. In general, U.S. forces in Asia maintain an overwhelming superiority over China in every major area of air and naval power projection. Moreover, other Asian countries, such as Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Indonesia already possess or are now acquiring air and naval weapons equal or superior to anything in the Chinese inventory. For example, Japan has several U.S.-designed Aegis-class cruisers; South Korea has six advanced German-designed diesel submarines, and Malaysia has several advanced MiG-29 fighters. While those who stress the threat posed by China's military often focus on absolute gains in combat capabilities, the only effective measure is a relative one.

Myth No. 4: Even if China does not have potent offensive capabilities now, it surely will within a decade.

Rarely mentioned is that China's willingness and ability to some day use its military for aggression is not a certainty. It will depend greatly upon yet-to-be-determined domestic factors (for example, the centrality to future Chinese policies of a chauvinistic brand of nationalism that stresses the use of the military as an instrument of coercive diplomacy) as well as the political, economic and military behavior of other Asian powers, especially the United States.

It will also depend on China's ability to sustain high levels of development far into the future. Many economists believe that political and structural impediments will lead to lowered Chinese growth rates and increasing demands for investments in non-military areas. Where will this leave the China threat?

Most of China's major foreign weapons purchases result from the failure to produce similar systems at home, largely because of a decrepit defense industry. Because of this longstanding problem, many knowledgeable observers question whether China will be able to produce a significant number of advanced weapons systems over the next decade, even with assistance from Russia and other countries. No nation has attained a position of global or regional "peer competitor" status primarily by purchasing its military from other countries.

The only major exception to China's inability to manufacture advance weapons systems comes in short-range ballistic and cruise missiles. These largely home-grown weapons are quite capable and constitute a potential danger to regional stability, as suggested by their use against Taiwan last year. Yet such missiles, on their own, are limited as instruments of coercive diplomacy or for actual fighting. Their current importance largely reflects the fact that China has no other viable means of power projection.

Even if China is able to produce and deploy a few additional advanced weapons systems within the next decade (such as a Chinese-designed multi-role aircraft and a co-produced version of a Russian fighter), most analysts believe that such systems will at best incorporate '80s technologies. That is to say that China will remain at least a full generation behind the world's leading military powers.

Myth No. 5: China's modernization effort is primarily intended to challenge U.S. capabilities across Asia.

China's modernization program resulted from a radically revised national defense strategy. Far from being hinged, as in the past, to a defense against a massive Soviet invasion, or to a coming conflict with the United States, this new strategy assumes a lessened likelihood of any major conflagration involving China. It focuses instead on handling possible, limited, short duration conflicts along China's periphery, including economically important maritime areas. Such concerns call for a smaller, more versatile and mobile military, with a markedly improved yet limited capability to operate beyond China's territorial boundaries.

Defense modernization is also motivated, in the broadest sense, by Beijing's longstanding desire to attain military capabilities commensurate with its Great Power ambitions. But the implications of this general goal have yet to be determined in any detail. Chinese defense planners are far more focused on the next decade or so.

Recently, some Chinese leaders and strategists have begun to argue that the United States poses a growing military threat to China's interests. However, this viewpoint has gained support largely as a result of increased Sino-American tensions arising from the recent crisis over Taiwan, and not as part of a longstanding strategy of confrontation. More importantly, this view has not produced a fundamental shift in China's defense strategy and limited force modernization program. Most Chinese leaders fully realize the difficulties and dangers involved in adopting a strategy keyed to confronting the U.S. militarily across Asia.

U.S. policy toward China should be designed to ensure that this mainstream perspective continues to prevail. We can do this by maintaining a strong military presence in the region at the same time we expand efforts at bilateral and multilateral dialogue designed to lower threat perceptions, avoid miscalculations and ultimately reach some level of strategic understanding with Beijing.

This does not mean that China's growing military power should be viewed with indifference. Beijing has often used force in the past, albeit primarily to counter perceived threats to territorial borders. We cannot deny that China's growing military power could one day present a threat to Asian stability and U.S. interests. But the nature and scope of this threat, the manner in which it might emerge, and the most effective means of dealing with it cannot be accurately ascertained on the basis of the faulty data, political rhetoric and simplistic assumptions presented as "analysis" by the proponents of the China threat thesis.

China is unlike any power to emerge in the modern era, and the complexity of its interdependencies with the United States and many Asian countries will require a flexible, focused, patient, creative and multilateral U.S. policy, sustained for the next two or three decades. With regard to the military component, the challenge for the United States and other countries in the Pacific region is to develop more effective means to maximize restraint in defense modernization among all parties concerned, not to accelerate the process, and thereby destabilize the region.

Michael Swaine is research director of the RAND Center for Asia-Pacific Policy.

THE RHETORIC HEATS UP

We will never tame the Chinese dragon . . . with the policies of appeasement. The way to bring China into the community of nations . . . is to talk truthfully and forcefully about the evils found there.

-- Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.), member Foreign Relations Committee

China's lips say they have no expansionist ambitions. But their body language says `Get out of the way.'

-- Douglas Paal, president of the Asia Pacific Policy Centre

ON DOMINATION

China is laying the foundations for an aggressive claim to preeminence in the Pacific. It ought to be very clear that this is a catastrophe for all of us, and could foreshadow a Cold War as bad as the last.

-- Richard Perle, former assistant secretary of defense

Chinese leaders have said that we are the enemy and stand as the major roadblock checking their desire to dominate East Asia.

-- U.S. Rep. Floyd D. Spence, (R-S.C.), House National Security Committee chairman

ON DEFENSE

It's absolutely delusionary to think [China] can achieve [reclaiming the South China Sea] by military force, but for us not to take China's military seriously is extremely dangerous.

-- Arthur Waldron, strategy expert at the U.S. Naval War College

China is one of the few powers with the potential -- political, economic and military -- to emerge as a large-scale threat to U.S. interests within the next 10 to 20 years.

-- Lt. Gen. Patrick M. Hughes, director of Defense Intelligence Agency

THE BOTTOM LINE

Chinese defense spending is . . . around $87 billion per year.

Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, authors, "The Coming Conflict With China"

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