Obama plans for leaner US military in historic strategy shift

Given the significance of this latest development in the US administration, a large number of outlets feature detailed summaries of announcements made yesterday by President Obama and Defense Secretary Panetta. The Guardian provides some of the best coverage from a UK perspective:

President Barack Obama has unveiled plans for America's military future, outlining a historic shift towards a smaller and leaner force that will focus on China and move away from large-scale ground warfare that has dominated the post-9/11 era.

Obama became the first president to announce a strategy change directly from inside the Pentagon – a theatrical gesture designed to underline the significance of the shift. Mindful of the dangers of displaying any weakness over national security in an election year, Obama said he was determined to maintain US military supremacy around the world, but he admitted that the review involved a move to "smaller conventional ground forces" and the removal of "outdated cold war-era systems".

The immediate incentive for the change in tack, set out in a Pentagon strategy paper, is the fiscal crisis and the Congress-led drive for spending cuts. Currently, the Pentagon is under orders to slash $487bn from the resources it had expected to receive over the next 10 years, and those cuts could rise to close to $1tn if Congress fails to reach agreement on alternative reductions by January next year.

Details of the impact of the cuts on military deployments and systems will gradually be rolled out in upcoming budget announcements. For now, Obama and his main advisers, the defence secretary Leon Panetta and general Martin Dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, stuck to the highlights.

Among the casualties of the new-look military will be the two elements of the military that have formed the kernel of American global might over the past decade: the army and the marine corps. But with the Iraq war over and US commanders struggling to draw back from Afghanistan, that emphasis on the long-term massive ground mission is seen as fading as a priority, and both will face reductions in personel likely to involve tens of thousands of troops from the current Army numbers of 570,000.

There will also be a move away from the decades-old mantra of US military planners that America must be capable of fighting two wars at any one time. "The two-war paradigm has been an anchor in the way we think about the future. That paradigm is a residual of the cold war," Dempsey said.

That is likely to be siezed upon by Republicans as evidence that the Obama administration is damaging US capability around the world. Obama anticipated that criticism, saying: "Yes our military will be leaner, but the world must know the United States is going to maintain our military superiority with armed forces that are agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies and threats."

For good measure, he added that the defence budget would continue to be larger than it was at the end of George Bush's term, and larger than the military spending of the next 10 countries put together.

"Make no mistake, we will have the capability to defeat more than one force at any time," Panetta concurred.

The dream of a modern military based on speed and stealth rather than overwhelming ground force has long been desired by military strategists. Donald Rumsfeld made a move towards it in the opening months of the Bush era, but was thrown off course by the 9/11 attacks and the angry US reaction to them in Afghanistan and then Iraq.

Now the Pentagon hopes to get back on that track, with new strategic goals and ambitions. Top of that list, the review has concluded, will be the emerging powers of the Asia-Pacific region amid mounting Pentagon concern about China's growing naval power and investment in high-tech weaponry.

"All trends are shifting to the Pacific. Our strategic challenges will largely emanate out of the Pacific region," Dempsey said.

In terms of the fighting force itself, the increasing reliance on technological warfare is certain to be extended, with the unmanned drone as its centrepiece. Critics on the left are likely to focus on that aspect as evidence of the Obama administration's disrespect for international law and civilian lives.

Panetta said: "As we reduce the overall defence budget, we will protect and in some cases increase our investments in special operations forces, new technologies like unmanned systems, space and in particular cyberspace capabilities and in the capacity to quickly mobilise."

Panetta and Dempsey both recognised that cuts in the strength of US troops would carry security risks. But they said the risks were preferable to doing nothing.

Panetta issued a clear and yet unspoken challenge to the Republican majority in the House of Representatives that has led resistance to the administration's budget plans. He said that if Congress continued along its path towards a further $500bn in defence cuts in January, the country's national security would be in jeopardy and there would be demoralisation within what he called a "hollowed" military force.

FP: The South China Sea Is the Future of Conflict

Robert Kaplan has published an article in the Special Report section of the current edition of Foreign Policy magazine, exploring the potential for conflict within the South China Sea...

A far-reaching, determinedly Realist overview of the developing situation.

This issue of Foreign Policy also includes a link to an evocative photo-essay entitled "Tour the South China Sea". Take a look!

US War with China "Inevitable", Author Glain Says

Yahoo! Finance's Daily Ticker segment today features an interview with political author Stephen Glaiser, who posits a fairly pessimistic mid- to long-term view of Sino-American relations:

Outside of the market madness, the biggest global news this week might be China sending its first aircraft carrier to sea. The launch was not unexpected and China sought to downplay its significance, saying "it will not pose a threat to other countries."

Still, "it is the most potent symbol yet of China's desire to develop the power both to deny U.S. naval access to Asian waters and to protect its global economic interests, including shipping lanes," The WSJ reports.

Like many others, Stephen Glain, author of State vs. Defense, believes the U.S. and China are, indeed, on a collision course. "Absent a good faith attempt to negotiate this thicket of disputes between China and Taiwan and the Philippines and Brunei and others, I think it's inevitable," he says. "The Chinese are not going to back down."

Just as America adopted the Monroe Doctrine to project power in the Western Hemisphere, the Chinese believe they have a right to their own sphere of influence in the Asia-Pacific region. "China is after all a 3000-year old country; Asia has been throughout most of that history Sino-centric," he says.

But to those who believe the U.S. and its allies must "bottle up" China, Glain says "there's nothing in those 3000 years of Chinese history" to suggest China's intentions are to militarily dominate the region. "On the contrary, they've always remained close to their own territory," he notes. "They have always been the Middle Kingdom between heaven and earth."

However, Glain fears the U.S. and its allies might provoke China into a war that might otherwise be avoidable. "Arms races tend to develop their own immutable momentum," he says, noting the Pentagon is embarking on an "enormous military buildup" in the region.

In his new book, Glain laments the rise of the "military industrial complex" President Eisenhower warned about 50 years ago, suggesting defense contractors and their patrons in Congress and the Pentagon have an undue influence on U.S. foreign policy. American hubris is also playing a role in the march to war, he says.

"Without an admission by the U.S. of its limitations, both fiscal and militarily…I think some kind of conflict between the U.S. and China is inevitable, probably in our lifetime," he says.

BBC News: China's first aircraft carrier 'starts sea trials'

BBC News reports today on the 'unveiling' of China's worst kept secret of the last ten years:

The Chinese navy's first aircraft carrier has begun its sea trials, the state-run Xinhua news agency has said. It quoted military sources as saying that the refitted former Soviet warship left its shipyard in the north-east and the trial "would not take a long time".

The move is likely to raise fresh concerns over China's rapid military build-up. Beijing is currently involved in several maritime territorial disputes, particularly in the South China Sea.

The aircraft carrier left its shipyard at Dalian Port in northeast Liaoning Province on Wednesday morning, Xinhua reported.

"Military sources said that the first sea trial was in line with the schedule of the carrier refitting project," it said. "After returning from the sea trial, the aircraft carrier will continue refit and test work." Xinhua did not provide any further details.

The BBC's Michael Bristow in Beijing says China is years away from being able to deploy this carrier as a potent military tool. Even so, the country's neighbours will be worried.

Many are involved in disputes with China over maritime borders - and they will be looking anxiously at Beijing's naval build-up, our correspondent says.

The article continues, as does other analysis worth checking:

Aircraft carrier symbol of China's naval ambitions

China extending military reach

Viewpoint: A new Sino-US high-tech arms race?

The Guardian offers an alternative to the US-centric analysis of rising Chinese military power, focusing instead on the (potential) naval rivalry with India:

China's first aircraft carrier launches with pride amid regional tensions

Last week, Japan's annual defence report said the Chinese navy were likely to increase activities around Japan and warned that China had acted "in a way seen as coercive" in conflicts. Beijing responded by accusing Tokyo of irresponsible exaggeration. The test is a small step in the long journey towards building a viable carrier group, but it is already stoking unease in India, and prompting fears of an arms race between Asia's two emerging powers.

The Indian Ocean is fast becoming a zone of contested influence between Beijing and Delhi. Indian strategists have been particularly worried by a string of ports constructed with Chinese assistance in Burma, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

"The carrier will add a new dimension to the burgeoning Chinese navy which could provide a major challenge to India in its backyard, the Indian Ocean," the Times of India commented on Wednesday.

Despite a £10bn modernisation programme, much of the Indian armed forces' on equipment is outdated, and efforts to build or buy aircraft carriers have been hampered by political wrangling and red tape.

The Indian navy has a small 50-year old 28,000-tonne carrier, which it bought from the UK in 1987, but it aims to have at least two aircraft carrier battle groups in operation by 2015.

The ongoing refit of the 44,570-tonne Admiral Gorshkov, purchased from Russia in 2005, and the construction in India of a new 40,000-tonne carrier are expected to be completed in the coming three to four years."We are definitely looking at deploying two aircraft carriers by the middle of this decade,'' assistant chief of naval staff (foreign cooperation and intelligence) Rear Admiral Anil Chawla said earlier this year.

Defence analyst Ajaj Shukla said that India retains the lead in naval aviation, but that there was a clear fear of "the projection of Chinese power into the northern Indian Ocean in a new way".

"The Chinese are at an earlier stage but once they set their minds to operating a naval air arm they will catch up pretty fast so it is being carefully watched," he said.

China’s Plan to Beat USA: Missiles, Missiles and More Missiles

Wired's Danger Room series carried an interesting article yesterday, revealing the weaknesses not-so-immediately apparent in China's developing military strength—as well as the Chinese attempts to 'plug the gaps':

China is militarily weaker than many people think, especially compared to the United States. This, despite lots of showy jet prototypes and plenty of other factory-fresh equipment.

But Beijing has a brutally simple — if risky — plan to compensate for this relative weakness: buy missiles. And then, buy more of them. All kinds of missiles: short-range and long-range; land-based, air-launched and sea-launched; ballistic and cruise; guided and “dumb.”

Those are the two striking themes that emerge from Chinese Aerospace Power, a new collection of essays edited by Andrew Erickson, an influential China analyst with the U.S. Naval War College.

Today, the PLA possesses as many as 2,000 non-nuclear ballistic and cruise missiles, according to Chinese Aerospace Power. This “growing arsenal of increasingly accurate and lethal conventional ballistic and land-attack cruise missiles has rapidly emerged as a cornerstone of PLA warfighting capability,” Mark Stokes and Ian Easton wrote. For every category of weaponry where the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) lags behind the Pentagon, there’s a Chinese missile to help make up the difference.


The need is clear. Despite introducing a wide range of new hardware in recent years, including jet fighters, helicopters, destroyers, submarines and a refurbished Russian aircraft carrier, China still lacks many of the basic systems, organizations and procedures necessary to defeat a determined, well-equipped foe.

Take, for example, aerial refueling. To deploy large numbers of effective aerial tankers requires the ability to build and support large jet engines — something China cannot yet do. In-air refueling also demands planning and coordination beyond anything the PLA has ever pulled off. As a result, “tanker aircraft are in short supply” in the PLA, Wayne Ulman explained.

That’s putting it lightly. According to Chinese Aerospace Power, the entire PLA operates just 14 H-6U tankers, each carrying 17,000 kilograms of off-loadable fuel. (The U.S. Air Force alone possesses more than 500 tankers, each off-loading around 100,000 kilograms of fuel.) So while the PLA in theory boasts more than 1,500 jet fighters, in reality it can refuel only 50 or 60 at a time, assuming all the H-6 tankers are working perfectly.

In an air war over Taiwan, hundreds of miles from most Chinese bases, only those 50 fighters would be able to spend more than a few minutes’ flight time over the battlefield. Factoring in tankers, China’s 4–1 advantage in jet fighters compared to Taiwan actually shrinks to a roughly 7&ndash1 disadvantage. The gap only grows when you add U.S. fighters to the mix.

The PLA’s solution? Missiles, of course. Up to a thousand ballistic and cruise missiles, most of them fired by land-based launchers, “would likely comprise the initial strike” against Taiwan or U.S. Pacific bases, Ulman wrote. The goal would be to take out as many of an opponent’s aircraft as possible before the dogfighting even begins.

The PLA could take a similar approach to leveling its current disadvantage at sea. Submarines have always been the most potent ship-killers in any nation’s inventory, but China’s subs are too few, too noisy and their crews too inexperienced to take on the U.S. Navy. Once the shooting started, the “Chinese submarine force would be highly vulnerable,” Jeff Hagen predicted.

And forget using jet fighters armed with short-range weapons to attack the American navy. One Chinese analyst referenced in Chinese Aerospace Power estimated it would take between 150 and 200 Su-27-class fighters to destroy one U.S. Ticonderoga-class cruiser. The entire PLA operates only around 300 Su-27s and derivatives. The U.S. Navy has 22 Ticonderoga cruisers.

Again, missiles would compensate. A “supersaturation” attack by scores or hundreds of ballistic missiles has the potential of “instantly rendering the Ticonderoga’s air defenses useless,” Toshi Yoshihara wrote. Close to shore, China could use the older, less-precise, shorter-range missiles it already possesses in abundance. For longer-range strikes, the PLA is developing the DF-21D “carrier-killer” missile that uses satellites and aerial drones for precision targeting.

The downside to China’s missile-centric strategy is that it could represent a “single point of failure.” Over-relying on one weapon could render the PLA highly vulnerable to one kind of countermeasure. In this case, that’s the Pentagon’s anti-ballistic-missile systems, including warships carrying SM-3 missiles and land-based U.S. Army Patriot and Terminal High-Altitude Air-Defense batteries.

Plus, missiles are one-shot weapons. You don’t get to reuse them the way you would a jet fighter or a destroyer. That means, in wartime, China has to win fast — or lose. “China’s entire inventory of conventional ballistic missiles, for example, could deliver about a thousand tons of high explosives on their targets,” Roger Cliff explained. “The U.S. Air Force’s aircraft, by comparison, could deliver several times that amount of high explosives every day for an indefinite period.”

IHT Opinion: Great Party, But Where's the Communism?

Minxin Pei, Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College, California, writes today in the New York Times on the state of communism in present-day China—useful in providing perspective on how far the 'nascent superpower' has come in recent decades, as well as where it may be heading...

There is little question that the Chinese Communist Party has come a long way since it was founded 90 years ago by 12 delegates representing roughly 50 members.

Yet however insignificant it may have seemed back then, there was no question about its ideology, identity and mission. Inspired by utopian Marxism, the party represented China’s idealist leftists, nationalists and the downtrodden. Its mission was to end social injustice and Western colonialism.

Today the party is a political behemoth, with 80 million members and control of the world’s second-largest economy. At home its grip on power faces no organized challenge; abroad its leaders are accorded a respect Mao and Zhou Enlai could not have dreamed of.

Indeed, we should give the party its due for having abandoned the Maoist madness of its first three decades in power — the mass terror, famine, brutal political campaigns and vicious power struggles — and for radically improving the material lives of China’s 1.3 billion people.

Yet if asked, “What does the Communist Party stand for,” few Chinese leaders today could give a coherent or honest answer.

This much we know: It no longer stands for a utopian ideology. If there is one ideology that the party represents, it is the ideology of power. The sole justification for the party’s rule is the imperative to stay in power.

Nor does the party stand for China’s masses. Despite efforts to broaden its social base and make it more connected with China’s dynamic and diverse society, the party today has evolved into a self-serving, bureaucratized political patronage machine. It is undeniably an elitist party, with more than 70 percent of its members recruited from government officials, the military, college graduates, businessmen and professionals.

So for all its apparent power, the party is in fact facing an existential crisis and an uncertain future. Apart from staying in power, it has no public purpose. The crisis is not only ideological, but also political; it explains much of the cynicism, corruption and insecurity of the party and its elites.

As the party has firmly rejected democratization, its only strategy for survival is to maintain the course it has embarked on since the Tiananmen crackdown in June 1989: drawing political legitimacy from economic growth but relying on repression to crush challenges to its monopoly of power. Although this strategy has worked well since Tiananmen, its effectiveness and sustainability are increasingly in doubt.

On the economic front, growth is about to slow down. Demographic aging, resource constraints, stalled economic reforms and environmental degradation are almost certain to depress China’s growth potential. An optimistic World Bank forecast predicts a growth rate from 2016-2020 of about 7 percent annually — a respectable number, but a 30 percent drop from today’s rate.

China’s economic revolution is also unleashing powerful social forces that will make maintaining a one-party state more tenuous. The party’s governing philosophy and organizational structure make it difficult to incorporate China’s growing middle-class politically. The convergence of an economic slowdown and rising political activism will challenge the party’s rule from several directions.

Now that the Chinese Communist Party has been in power for 62 years, its leaders might also want to note that the record for one-party rule is 74 years, held by the Soviet party, followed by the 71-year rein of Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party.

So when Chinese leaders toast their party’s 90th birthday, they should harbor no illusions that the party can beat history’s odds forever.

BBC News: China extending military reach

As part of their "Power of Asia" series of reports, BBC News has published an article on Beijing's growing military power and reach:

Global carbon emissions reach record, says IAE

BBC News has a brief summary of a worrying report from the International Energy Agency:

Global carbon emissions reached a record level last year, according to the International Energy Agency (IAE). The watchdog says emissions rose again after a dip caused by the financial crisis in 2009, and ended 5% up from the previous record in 2008. China and India account for most of the rise, though emissions have also grown in developed countries.

The increase raises doubts over whether planned curbs on greenhouse emissions will be achieved, the group says. At a meeting last year in Cancun, Mexico, world leaders agreed that deep cuts were needed to limit the rise in global temperature to 2C above pre-industrial levels. But according to the IAE's estimate, CO2 emissions reached a record 30.6 gigatonnes in 2010.

The IEA's Fatih Birol said the finding was "another wake-up call".

"The world has edged incredibly close to the level of emissions that should not be reached until 2020 if the 2C target is to be attained," he added.

"Unless bold and decisive decisions are made very soon, it will be extremely challenging to succeed in achieving this global goal agreed in Cancun."

Chinese general: we 'will not match' US military power

BBC News reports comments made yesterday by Chinese General Chen Bingde, currently touring the USA:

China has no intention to match US military power, a top Chinese general has said. Speaking in Washington, Gen Chen Bingde said America's armed forces remained far more advanced than China's despite considerable progress by China in recent years.

But Gen Chen warned that further US arms sales to Taiwan could damage US-China military relations. China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that must be reunited.

"China never intends to challenge the US," Gen Chen, chief of the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army, said at the National Defense University during his week-long visit to the US.

"Although China's defence and military development has come a long way in recent years, a gaping gap between you and us remains."

 But Gen Chen warned that US-Chinese relations would suffer if Washington again sold weapons to Taiwan.

"As to how bad the impact will be, it will depend on the nature of the weapons sold to Taiwan," he said.

Last year, Beijing cut off most military-to-military contacts with the US after Washington announced more than $6bn (£4bn) arms sales to Taipei.

Gen Chen's visit to the US has drawn a strongly favourable press in China - a signal of the importance that the Chinese authorities are now placing on better military ties, the BBC's defence correspondent Jonathan Marcus says. But there should be no illusions, our correspondent says, as superficial harmony inevitably masks significant underlying tensions. The aim of China's extensive military modernisation, he adds, is to extend its military reach well beyond its own shores and to potentially neutralise weapons systems where the US has a dominant advantage.

As you might expect, these comments have significant bearing on the question of China as a superpower, and the nature of American decline (if in fact it exists!)

China: a force fit for a superpower

The technology and firepower of the People’s Liberation Army are growing so fast that observers are no longer curious but concerned, says Malcolm Moore in The Telegraph today:

Chinese navy vessel live firing in the East China Sea

It has been a month to remember for the top brass of China’s People’s Liberation Army. While other armies fret about their funding, China’s generals have unveiled three major new weapons that could challenge the military supremacy of the United States and provide the firepower to underline China’s superpower status.

In a dry dock in the northern city of Dalian, smoke has begun to billow from the chimneys of the Shi Lang, a hulking Soviet-era ship that China bought from Russia and has refitted to become its first aircraft carrier. Named after a Qing dynasty admiral, the carrier is slated to make its maiden voyage later this year, four years ahead of schedule. Five more aircraft carriers could bolster the Chinese fleet further over the next decade.

Meanwhile, at an air base in the central city of Chengdu, China’s first stealth fighter jet has been spotted taxiing along a runway. It has yet to take off, but American plane-spotters have already begun speculating that it might be able to beat an F-22 in a dogfight. Finally, at a command bunker in the north of Beijing, the Chinese Second Artillery Corps controls the jewel in the crown – a new missile that could sink a US aircraft carrier, the first such weapon in the world. The Dong Feng (or East Wind) 21D missile is now “operational”, according to Admiral Robert Willard of the US Pacific Command, which will now have to think twice before committing a $20 billion (£12.8 billion) aircraft carrier and its 6,000 crew anywhere within 900 miles of the Chinese coast.

The unveiling of the new weapons could not have been better timed. Tomorrow, the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, is due to visit the tall white skyscraper that serves as the Second Artillery’s headquarters. Mr Gates, who has admitted that US intelligence has underestimated the speed of China’s progress, will be able to see the PLA’s array of nuclear and ballistic missile options for himself.

The transformation of the PLA, from Chairman Mao’s Red Army into a modern fighting force, began in the wake of the first Gulf War, when America’s precision missiles impressed upon Beijing that modern warfare no longer depended on having the biggest army. Ever since then, the PLA has been shedding troops, from some three million during the 1990s to 2.3 million currently. Xu Guangyu, a senior military analyst, predicted that troop numbers would keep falling, to 1.5 million – “Around the same size as the US and Russian armies,” he said.

But while troop numbers have fallen, the quality of the soldiers has risen, said Mr Xu. Almost 80 per cent of officers are now graduates, and a full two-thirds of China’s defence budget is spent on salaries and training. Meanwhile, a stinging submission at the hands of the US in 1996, when Bill Clinton sent two aircraft carrier strike groups into the East China Sea to support Taiwan during a regional spat, has provoked the PLA into upping its firepower. According to the Pentagon, China has the world’s “most active land-based ballistic and cruise missile programme”. A battery of more than 1,100 short-range missiles faces Taiwan, while medium and longer-range missiles, many bought from Russia, can carry nuclear or conventional warheads to anywhere within 4,000 miles of China, giving Beijing the ability to knock out every US air base in the Pacific.

China’s economic miracle has paid for the munitions, with the PLA’s official budget increasing more than fivefold from $14.6 billion in 2000 to $78.6 billion this year. Unofficially, the spending is thought to be far higher, at $150 billion, with China’s leaders keeping many of the PLA’s deals off the books in order to avoid alarming the rest of the world. And while the sum is still just a fraction of the US budget – Mr Gates has allocated $588 billion for “non-war” military spending this year, after trimming $78 billion of cuts – China has spent the money prudently, focusing on areas of US weakness.

China’s submarine fleet now boasts 65 vessels, and by 2030, according to the Kokoda Foundation, an Australian think tank, the total could rise to between 85 and 100, more than the US and enough to establish an edge in the Pacific. China has also integrated the skills of its military and civilian computer hackers, launched several reconnaissance and guidance satellites, and installed arrays of new radars and underwater sensors to ring its territory.

“There are a number of areas where the PLA has adopted approaches that differ significantly from the US’s approach,” said a Pentagon report to Congress last month. “Examples include the heavy reliance on ballistic and cruise missiles, rather than stealth aircraft, to attack ground targets inside heavily defended airspace; an array of systems to attack intelligence, communications and navigation satellites [and] an emphasis on offensive and defensive electronic warfare.”

While the PLA’s generals have been careful to tone down their nationalistic rhetoric in recent years, dropping the suggestion of an imminent invasion of Taiwan, the army is behaving with more swagger, at least in its own backyard. China insists its only goal is to safeguard “regional peace and stability”, but it has dramatically increased its penetrations of Japanese airspace, resulting in Japanese fighter jets being scrambled 44 times in the past year, double the total for 2006, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.
Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: “A gap as wide as what seems to be forming between China’s stated intent and its military programmes leaves me more than curious about the end result. Indeed, I have moved from being curious to being genuinely concerned.”

The PLA does, however, have a long list of fundamental weaknesses that have been pointed out by critics both in China and abroad. Its biggest failing is that it cannot, yet, produce the reliable jet engines it needs for its fighters, having to rely on Russia. That relationship was strained, in 2004, when Moscow discovered that China had copied one of the jets it had advance-ordered and put it into production. “China’s army should not have to rely on others or have to buy its equipment,” said Liang Guanglie, the defence minister, despairingly.

Meanwhile, the PLA’s Jin-class nuclear submarine is said, by the US Office of Naval Intelligence, to be noisier than the submarines built by the Soviets 30 years ago. China’s fighter pilots are no match for US Top Guns. A shortage of foreign naval bases makes it difficult for China to maintain ships on long missions. Sailors who took part in exercises against Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden were reported to have run short of water and fresh food.

And perhaps most reassuringly, the new Dong Feng “carrier killer” missile is impaired by China’s undeveloped missile guidance system. While Beijing can launch the deadly missile, it is not clear it can actually hit a ship. Since US satellites would detect the missile upon launch, an aircraft carrier would have enough warning to move several miles out of the way.

For now, Beijing wields enough power to keep the US in check in the Pacific and to discourage Taiwan from relying too heavily on American support. In the future, the Pentagon believes that the PLA could extend further into the Pacific, using its fleet to control shipping lines and oil concessions. The “pace and scale” of the PLA’s modernisation has been “broad and sweeping”, the Pentagon said. But, for now, China’s modern army “remains untested”.

 A balanced article, then: sounding a warning, but noting several important caveats... While aspiring to superpower status, China is not quite there—yet—at least in terms of military power... A highly useful article in any current attempt to assess China's superpower status (as at least one exam question asked students to do previously).

BBC News: Beijing 'back-sliding on rights'

BBC News brings news that a top US diplomat has accused China of "back-sliding" on human rights, after two days of dialogue in Beijing....

Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner said he had raised the subject of the recent crackdown on dissidents and lawyers in China. But he said that no headway was made when specific cases such as that of detained artist Ai Weiwei were raised.

A Chinese spokesman said that US should not use human rights issues to interfere in China's internal affairs. Rights groups say the most extensive government crackdown on dissent in years is taking place. Government critics including lawyers, bloggers and activists have been targeted.

The BBC's Michael Bristow, in Beijing, says that some believe China has launched this crackdown because it fears unrest similar to that taking place in the Middle East and North Africa. Others believe that politicians looking to be promoted in next year's leadership reshuffle are trying to show how tough they are.

Mr Posner said that the two sides had "tough" discussions about issues "deeply" concerning to the highest levels of the US government. "In recent months we've seen a serious back-sliding on human rights, and a discussion of these negative trends dominated the human rights dialogue," he said.

He said that he had raised cases of several prominent dissidents, such as artist Ai Weiwei - a government critic who has not been seen since his arrest as he tried to board a plane to Hong Kong. The authorities say they are investigating him for "economic crimes".

"On that case, we certainly did not get an answer that satisfies," he said. "There was no sense of comfort from the response or the lack of response." He also raised cases including that of missing lawyer Gao Zhisheng and Liu Xia, the wife of imprisoned Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, who is under house arrest.

The two sides also discussed the issues of Tibet and Xinjiang, both areas where minority groups seeking greater autonomy from China exist.

Mr Posner said the issue could harm bilateral ties. "Human rights is an essential feature of what we do, and so to the extent that there are serious human rights problems, those problems become an impediment to the relationship," he said.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said both sides "had frank and thorough exchanges on issues of mutual concern." "At the same time we oppose the United States using human rights to interfere in China's internal affairs," he added.

BBC News: China tops global clean energy table

BBC News has the report:

China remains the world's leading investor in low-carbon energy technology, a global study has shown.

The table, published by the US Pew Environment Group, showed that the Chinese invested $54.4bn (£34.1bn) in 2010, up from $39.1bn in 2009. While the US saw investment increase by 51% to $34bn, it still slipped from 2nd to 3rd in the ranking, behind Germany's $41.2bn.

However, the UK slipped outside the top 10 as investment fell by 70% in 2010.

Globally, the sector - which does not include nuclear power - attracted $243bn of investment, a 30% increase from 2009 and a whopping 630% rise since 2004. The authors also said that 40 gigawatts (GW) of wind and 17GW of solar energy were installed during 2010, taking the global clean power capacity to 388GW.

The report Who's Winning the Clean Energy Race (link), using data compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, examined the clean energy sector's investment and technological trends in the G20 leading economies.

Read the rest—a good example of how economic demand is driving investment within the 'clean energy' sector, a positive development vis à vis our environmental future. Interesting that recent concerns with Japanese nuclear reactors is touted to stoke demand for other energy sources even more. Let's just hope that the UK gets back on track with this approach!

China and US among top punishers but death penalty in decline

The Guardian has a summary today of the latest report regarding global use of capital punishment (the death penalty) by the human rights watchdog Amnesty International:

China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen and the US carried out the most executions last year, bucking a global trends towards abolition of the death penalty, a report has said.

China again was by far the world's most prolific executioner in putting to death thousands, said Amnesty International in its report on the death penalty worldwide. Amnesty does not provide a precise figure of executions in China as Beijing keeps such figures secret.

Instead, it has challenged the Chinese authorities to publish figures for the number of people sentenced to death and executed each year to confirm claims of a reduction in the use of the death penalty.

China, however, last year did move to cut down the number of offences that carry the death penalty, which applies to no less than 68 crimes. If the changes go through, the death penalty would be removed for such crimes as tax fraud, and for smuggling valuables and cultural relics. Amendments to the criminal code may also remove it as a punishment for those over 75. In all, the changes would affect 13 death penalty offences.

Setting China aside, Amnesty said at least 527 executions were carried out last year. Almost half of those took place in Iran (252). North Korea executed 60, Yemen 53 and the US 46. The minimum number of executions was down from at least 714 in 2009.

Methods of execution included beheading, electrocution, hanging, lethal injection and various kinds of shooting (by firing squad, and at close range to the heart or the head). No stonings were recorded in 2010, but stoning sentences were reported in Nigeria, Pakistan and Iran, where at least 10 women and four men remain under stoning sentences. At least 2,024 new death sentences were imposed during 2010 in 67 countries, including 365 in Pakistan alone, meaning it has some 8,000 people currently on death row. Amnesty expressed particular alarm that a significant proportion of executions or death sentences recorded in 2010 were for drug-related offences. They accounted for more than half of 114 sentences in Malaysia. Meanwhile, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates ignored international prohibitions and imposed death sentences on child offenders -people aged 17 or less when alleged crimes were committed, with Iran executing one such offender named as Mohammad A.

The underlying trend on the death penalty, however, is strongly toward abolition, Amnesty said, with 31 countries removing the punishment in law or in practice in the last 10 years. Last year, Gabon became the 139th country to either abolish the penalty outright or to cease to use it in practice.

"In spite of some setbacks, developments in 2010 brought us closer to global abolition," said Salil Shetty, Amnesty's secretary general. "The President of Mongolia announced a moratorium on the death penalty, an important first step as capital punishment is still classified as state secret. For the third time and with more support than ever before, the UN general assembly called for a global moratorium on executions. Any country that continues to execute is flying in the face of the fact that both human rights law and UN human rights bodies consistently hold that abolition should be the objective."

If you're interested (and you probably should be!), the original AI report can be found on their website for free download (PDF). Altogether, a timely report, considering that we are about to start examining Human Rights as a topic in class!

China overtakes Japan as world's second-biggest economy

BBC News Online presents the story (excerpts follow):

China has overtaken Japan as the world's second-biggest economy.

Japan's economy was worth $5.474 trillion (£3.414 trillion) at the end of 2010, figures from Tokyo have shown. China's economy was closer to $5.8 trillion in the same period.

Japan has been hit by a drop in exports and consumer demand, while China has enjoyed a manufacturing boom.

At its current rate of growth, analysts see China replacing the US as the world's top economy in about a decade.

"It's realistic to say that within 10 years China will be roughly the same size as the US economy," said Tom Miller of GK Dragonomics, a Beijing-based economic consultancy. ....

All well and good, but notice the caveats to this story at the end of the article, putting matters in important perspective:

Most economists agree that while China as a whole is growing, and the average person is getting wealthier, comparing only the size of its economy to Japan's does not paint an accurate enough picture.

"GDP per head in China is about $4,500, but in Japan it's about $40,000 per head," said Mr Miller of GK Dragonomics.

"Most people in China are still poor, more people live in the countryside than in cities. The average Japanese person is much much richer than the average Chinese person."

Do read in full: China's status as a superpower was a direct focus in one of the 45 mark examination questions asked last month for Unit 3.

Just yesterday, the BBC sounded warnings about the fragility of the Chinese economy, however impressive the "second biggest economy" news may be:

China could rue hasty dash for growth

As China has grown to become Asia's largest economy, its biggest achievement, most would agree, has been to raise hundreds of millions of its citizens out of poverty. But you don't have to walk far away from the main streets of Wuhan to find people who worry they are being left behind.

Xiong Qun Hui owns a small store she has to open 18 hours a day just to make ends meet. "The change is too fast," she complains. "Sometimes I stay at home to look after the shop, and if it's a while before I leave the neighbourhood, I get totally lost in the city."

Like Prof Wen, she questions whether the development going on in Wuhan, and the rising prices for real estate that come with it, will really benefit the majority of people who live here - especially those priced out of the housing market.

"This question is hard for the government as well as for the people," she says. "Why is it that those who can afford properties own many of them, when there are others who don't even have a place to live in. How can I put it? This is a problem with the system in this country - and what is wrong with the system. Well, I can't go into that."

For the government, that kind of comment is a worry, because it shows how easily complaints about the economy can turn into criticisms of the country's political system.

Imagine how much worse it would get if the asset prices - housing or land - were to collapse, as some fear could happen, leaving millions of disgruntled investors as unhappy as the poor. That could threaten the country's stability - and in China, that's always what policymakers are most afraid of.

As ever, read the whole article.

Observer: China's economic invasion of Africa

Xan Rice in the Observer speaks to a number of Chinese citizens who have made the move to Africa...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/06/chinas-economic-invasion-of-africa

Hague: Chinese cyber-spies penetrate Foreign Office computers

The Guardian newspaper last night detailed the announcement to a Munich security conference by UK Foreign Secretary William Hague that an attack on British interests was recently repelled from "a hostile state intelligence agency":

China has penetrated the Foreign Office's internal communications in the most audacious example yet of the growing threat posed by state-sponsored cyber-attacks, it emerged tonight.

William Hague told a security conference in Munich that the FO repelled the attack last month from "a hostile state intelligence agency". Although the foreign secretary did not name the country behind the attacks, intelligence sources familiar with the incidents made it clear he was referring to China. The sources did not want to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the issue.

In his speech Hague was reflecting growing anger and concern within the government about the increasing threat posed by cyber-espionage – states, as well as individuals, using cyberspace to steal defence, diplomatic and commercial secrets.

"It is a new development. The UK is prepared to admit the attacks were state-backed," said Alexander Neill, head of the Asia programme at the Royal United Services Institute thinktank.

The foreign secretary said the FO attack came in the form of an email sent to three of his staff "which claimed to be about a forthcoming visit to the region and looked quite innocent". In fact it was from a hostile state intelligence agency and contained computer code embedded in the attached document that would have attacked their machine. Luckily, our systems identified it and stopped it from ever reaching my staff," Hague said.

 As also outlined by Hague, this attack is but the latest of three recent attempts to penetrate UK security in cyberspace... The opinion of the Defence Chiefs regarding these developments is clear:

General Sir David Richards, chief of the defence staff, last month said the UK needed its own Cyber Command, similar to that set by by the US defence department. He said that the advance of cyber technology would lead to a "cultural change" in warfare which the UK must be prepared for."We must learn to defend, delay, attack and manoeuvre in cyberspace, just as we might on the land, sea or air and all together at the same time".

Wired: Iran, China Block Outside Sites to Muzzle Mideast News

Wired Magazine's Danger Room reports on somewhat predictable behaviour from two regimes peculiarly sensitive to public protest—even when it's not happening at home:

The authoritarian regimes in Iran and China are playing a double game, when it comes to the unrest in the Middle East. Tehran and Beijing are doing their best to spin the protests in their favor, when they talk to the world. But at home, they’re pursuing a different strategy: trying to muzzle anything but the official line on the upheaval


Commentators have been keen to liken the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia both to the 1979 revolution that brought the Iranian regime to power and the electoral protests of the Green Movement which tried to unseat it. Not surprisingly, the Iranian government has preferred to use the latter comparison. ....

.... With large economic interests in Egypt, China’s hopes for Egypt are decidedly less ideological. In public, Beijing is asking for just one thing: quiet.

“We hope Egypt will restore social stability and normal order as soon as possible.” That’s been the consistent refrain from China’s Foreign Ministry when quizzed on its reaction to the events.

At home, China has blocked internet searches for “Egypt” and reportedly ordered Chinese media to follow the state-run news service Xinhua’s line on the protest movements, which has emphasized the disturbance caused by the protests at the expense of explanations of their political grievances.

Worth reading the whole piece for yet another current example of state censorship, propaganda and manipulation of human rights.

Foreign Policy magazine: Think Again - American Decline

Gideon Rachman, chief foreign-affairs commentator for the Financial Times and author of Zero-Sum Future: American Power in an Age of Anxiety, weighs in with a reasoned article in Foreign Policy magazine outlining five reasons why American decline (and China's rise) is now really in the offing:

• Objections that we've heard about US decline repeatedly before ignore the fact that things are now fundamentally different
• The idea that China will implode under its own weight is ill-founded
• The comforting fact that America currently still "leads across the board" is not much more than ill-informed complacency
• The notion that globalization will always favour Western values is tenuous on current evidence
• Finally, the idea that "globalization is not a zero-sum game" is incorrect

Clearly there is much that could be said to counter these ideas—read the comments below the article. Nonetheless, an informed opinion from an experienced commentator / observer and one that should be read in a timely fashion.

David Cameron at Davos: Invest in China at your peril

The Daily Mail today highlights a warning issued by UK PM David Cameron against "authoritarian capitalism" (excerpts follow):

David Cameron last night launched an extraordinary attack on the ‘authoritarian capitalism’ of China and Russia as he warned businesses to invest there at their peril. ....

Mr Cameron poured scorn on those who see ‘political leaders with the powers of juggernauts’ forcing through decisions elsewhere in the world and believe that the democratic values of the West are ‘outdated, ineffective – even an obstacle to success’.

‘I passionately disagree. It’s these values that create the climate for innovation. Look at where the big ideas come from – the Facebooks and the Spotifys – and the vast majority are from open societies,’ the PM told businessmen, economists and world leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

‘That’s because good ideas come through freedom – free thinking and the free association of like-minded people. Our values create the right climate for business, too. If you’re looking to set up a headquarters abroad, are you going to invest where your premises can be taken away from you? Where contracts are routinely dishonoured? Where there’s the threat of political upheaval? Or are you going to invest where there are property rights, the rule of law, democratic accountability? These values aren’t some quaint constitutional add-on, they are an integral and irreducible part of our success today and tomorrow.’

Though he did not refer to China and Russia directly, observers were left in little doubt which countries he was referring to in his attack on ‘authoritarian capitalism’.

Mr Cameron’s remarks risk a row with China, which he has gone out of his way to court as an economic partner since winning power. Only last November, he led Britain’s largest-ever delegation to China with 50 top business leaders joining ministers on a trade mission.

Davos 2011: BBC Debate - The role of China?

Nik Gowing hosts the BBC World Debate on global leadership with leading figures from the United States, France, India and China.

He posed the question to China's Victor Chu: "Does China aspire to primacy in global leadership?"

Debate panel: Richard Haass, Council on Foreign Relations; Christine Lagarde, French Minister of Finance; Anand Sharma, Indian Minister of Commerce; Victor Chu, First Eastern Investment Group, China

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12298809

8 minutes worth watching!