The PLA Daily carried on June 13, 2005 an article which analyzes the
American Annual Report on the Military Power of the People's Republic of China,
2005 that will soon come out. The article quotes experts as saying that the 2005
version of the report on Chinese military power to be published by the US
Department of Defense is permeated with "sensational expressions". The report
plays up the Chinese military as a force already beyond the third world military
power and has reached the level of the first world in some ways and thereby, the
United States will run into unprecedented challenges from China in the military
sector.
Based on this report, the Armed Service Committee of the US House of
Representatives claims that the Chinese military modernization has outgrown the
defense needs of China and might upset the military balance in the Asia Pacific
region that has remained unchanged for years and might very well has a bearing
on the military deterrent capability of the United States in the region.
Owing to the exaggerated and highly inflammatory contents, the report has
been questioned and criticized by some American professional research fellows.
Former US Ambassador to China James Lilley said that "China Threat" has been
ill-intentionally blown up by some people at the Pentagon.
Why then does the US Department of Defense play up Chinese military power
time and again? Yang Yi, director of the Institute for Strategic Studies of the
National Defense University, made the following observations in his analysis.
Firstly, the US military and the conservative forces need to make China a
strategic rival so as to realize their aim of securing the American peerless
position in the world. The US strategic philosophy does not allow another major
power to spring up to be the peer of the United States. As the war against
terrorism is drawing to an end, the US military needs desperately to "create" a
new strategic opponent to maintain its position and clout in the US politics.
Secondly, the US Department of Defense is the de facto advertising agent
and promoter of the products of the mammoth US war industry. If China is made a
strategic rival, it will energize the US war industry to intensify its effort in
the research and development, secure juicy orders for the American arms dealers
and make the US military and the conservative forces the biggest profit reapers.
Thirdly, they want to find an excuse for selling weapons to Taiwan. The
purpose of the US military in playing up the Chinese military power is both to
persuade related domestic sectors in the United States to sell more weapons to
Taiwan and to urge the Taiwan authority to make early decisions to buy a large
amount of US weapons. Otherwise, as the US military sees it, the security of
Taiwan cannot be guaranteed. However, selling weapons to Taiwan, too, benefits
the US war industry and the military.
Fourthly, they want to bear down on the countries that intend to strengthen
cooperation with China in military technology. The intentional exaggeration of
Chinese military power and playing up the image of China as a threat in East
Asia are designed to thwart the EU effort to lift the arms embargo on China.
Fifthly, they want to create a favorable atmosphere for the United States
to realign its global strategies. The so-called "new military strategy", to some
extent, is to gradually shift US defense focus in East Asia to China as part of
the US global strategic realignment. If established, this strategy will fully
justify their requests to the US Congress for increasing military spending.
As the American war against terrorism, which was set off by the "9.11"
event, is gradually coming to an end, the long-absent China Threat re-surfaced
in the United States. However, this is by no means accidental. As a matter of
fact, contest among major world powers will return to the spotlight once again
to become the main trend of the international relations as the war against
terrorism comes to an end, not to mention that finding strategic opponents has
long been a tradition of the US conservative and hawkish politicians.
Analysts believe that the only goal of the US military in taking pains to
play up the so-called "Chinese military threat" is to isolate China and
undermine the influence of the country in its neighboring areas and even the
whole of Asia.
Lies are lies after all. The China Threat built on lies will be proved to
be a soap bubble.
By Ding Zengyi
(June 15, PLA Daily)