Sunday, October 24, 2010
(JDW) Japan considers extra submarines in defence review
I wrote a story for Jane's Defence Weekly about Japan's plan to boost the size of its submarine force, which is only available to subscribers. My colleague at JDW also wrote about it. Cheers, Kosuke
(My story)
*Japan to boost submarine fleet in response to China moves
By Kosuke Takahashi
22-Oct-2010
The Japanese Ministry of Defense (MoD) plans to increase the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) submarine fleet to more than 20 from the current ...
(My colleague's story)
Non-Subscriber Extract
Japan considers extra submarines in defence review
By Jon Grevatt
22 October 2010
China's increasing maritime activities in waters off Japan may prompt Tokyo to procure additional diesel-electric attack submarines or extend the life of existing platforms.
The moves are being considered as part of the Japanese Ministry of Defence's (MoD's) continuing review of its National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG), which is scheduled to be completed towards the end of this year.
A spokeswoman from the MoD told Jane's on 21 October: "Whether the number of submarines will be increased or not will be considered as part of the deliberations [over the NDPG]. The revision of the submarine force by life extension could be considered as one of the options."
The MoD spokeswoman did not confirm or deny reports by Japanese news agency Kyodo that the MoD plans to increase the size of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force's (JMSDF's) fleet of submarines from 16 to 22. Citing MoD officials, the news agency said that the NDPG review had determined that a bigger submarine fleet was necessary to reinforce vigilance in nearby waters.
167 of 389 words
Copyright © IHS (Global) Limited, 2010
End of non-subscriber extract
Here is also a nice blog article on this topic.
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&newspaperUserId=27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3af69cd6f7-b8ac-4630-a720-d5b4a1e35e25&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest
(My story)
*Japan to boost submarine fleet in response to China moves
By Kosuke Takahashi
22-Oct-2010
The Japanese Ministry of Defense (MoD) plans to increase the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) submarine fleet to more than 20 from the current ...
(My colleague's story)
Non-Subscriber Extract
Japan considers extra submarines in defence review
By Jon Grevatt
22 October 2010
China's increasing maritime activities in waters off Japan may prompt Tokyo to procure additional diesel-electric attack submarines or extend the life of existing platforms.
The moves are being considered as part of the Japanese Ministry of Defence's (MoD's) continuing review of its National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG), which is scheduled to be completed towards the end of this year.
A spokeswoman from the MoD told Jane's on 21 October: "Whether the number of submarines will be increased or not will be considered as part of the deliberations [over the NDPG]. The revision of the submarine force by life extension could be considered as one of the options."
The MoD spokeswoman did not confirm or deny reports by Japanese news agency Kyodo that the MoD plans to increase the size of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force's (JMSDF's) fleet of submarines from 16 to 22. Citing MoD officials, the news agency said that the NDPG review had determined that a bigger submarine fleet was necessary to reinforce vigilance in nearby waters.
167 of 389 words
Copyright © IHS (Global) Limited, 2010
End of non-subscriber extract
Here is also a nice blog article on this topic.
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&newspaperUserId=27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3af69cd6f7-b8ac-4630-a720-d5b4a1e35e25&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest
Friday, October 22, 2010
My latest story for Asia Times Online: China scholars enter Okinawa fray
More than a few Chinese scholars and anti-Japanese protesters are beginning to claim Okinawa as Chinese land. I wrote about it. Cheers, Kosuke
China scholars enter Okinawa fray
By Kosuke Takahashi
TOKYO - To much of the world, the Japanese island of Okinawa is synonymous with vast United States military bases and the troubled relationship between servicemen and locals who want the Americans out. In recent years, however, the specter of anti-Chinese sentiment is also in the air.
Powerful Chinese interests now laying claim to sovereignty of the Okanawa islands - which is located halfway between Kyushu and Taiwan - may increase the antagonism over the disputed Senkaku Islands (known by China as the Diaoyu Islands), which are also administered as part of Okinawa prefecture.
Anti-Chinese sentiment in Japan is high after Beijing's recent display of territorial belligerence over the sovereignty of the islands in the East China Sea spooked Tokyo. Neighboring nations, especially South Korea and Vietnam - once China's tribute states - have already been made to feel more nervous in their disputes with China over island territories. This is because Beijing has expressed Asian waters as a "core interest" to counter United States moves to gain more influence in the region as a counter to China's rise. China's claims of primacy over the sovereignty of its near waters are encouraging increased discussion among its neighbors regarding naval collaboration.
''It is a bit surprising to see such a move,'' Kurayoshi Takara, professor of the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, told Asia Times Online. ''Those who claim Okinawa land may reflect increased national prestige and chauvinistic voices in China. Or they may see their chance to claim it, as Japan-US relations have been strained by a row over the relocation of a US Marine base in Okinawa.''
Beijing's recent diplomacy against Norway over the Nobel committee awarding the 2010 Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, shows signs of Beijing further asserting itself on the world stage. China's control of the distribution of rare-earth minerals that play essential roles in numerous industrial processes, including high-technology and military industries, presents another reason why Japan is leery - even as Beijing denied a New York Times report that it was halting exports of the minerals to Japan, the United States and Europe.
Japan-China relations deteriorated to their lowest point in years in the wake of a dispute over Japan's arrest of a Chinese fishing boat captain in early September over a collision with the Japanese Coast Guard near the Senkaku islands. Chinese media reported last week that a fisheries patrol boat set sail for waters near the islands to protect Chinese fishing boats.
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who was damaged politically by his handling of the detention of the trawler skipper, came to power this year after his predecessor, Yukio Hatoyama, reneged on an election promise to enter negotiations with the United States to move the American bases off Okinawa.
Chinese scholar affirms Okinawa claim
More than a few Chinese scholars are beginning to claim Okinawa as Chinese land by writing numerous academic papers in Chinese journals, though they are still in a minority among historians.
Xu Yong, noted professor of history at the Beijing University, is among scholars whose work presents the Chinese case. Xu was a member of the Japan-China Joint History Research Committee, set up in 2006 under an agreement between then-prime minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Hu Jintao. This was an attempt to salvage bilateral relations that dived during the time of Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, and his regular visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine memorializing Japan's war dead (including Class A war criminals such as Hideki Tojo).
Xu has said in research papers and recent symposiums that the issue of sovereignty over Okinawa is unsettled because the Qing Dynasty of China did not approve when Japan abolished the Kingdom of Ryukyu and set up Okinawa Prefecture in 1879.
The US put Okinawa under its control after World War II on the Potsdam Declaration without any legitimate basis in international law, Xu has said. He has claimed that the abolition of the kingdom by the Meiji government in 1879, US control over Okinawa even after the war and Okinawa's reversion to Japanese sovereignty from US occupation in 1972, were all illegitimate, which in return affirmed China's right to claim Okinawa.
Anti-Japan protesters also claim Okinawa
Chinese scholars are not alone in staking claims for Okinawa. Recent anti-Japan protesters in Chinese cities have made the same claim. For example, a Reuters photo taken on September 16 in Chengdu showed that young anti-Japanese marchers brandished a big Chinese-language banner reading ''Restore Ryukyu! Liberate Okinawa''.
Most Japanese experts on China see the Chinese authorities approval of anti-Japanese protests as an outlet for Chinese people's frustrations toward their society, as they struggle to express freedom of speech, find jobs and buy affordable homes.
A common view of the modern history of Okinawa among Japanese scholars goes like this: Okinawa flourished as an independent trading nation, the Kingdom of Ryukyu, over several centuries, until 1609, when the Shimazu family, feudal lords of the Satsuma domain - today's Kagoshima Prefecture of Kyushu Island - conquered the Ryukyus.
But the Edo government allowed the Ryukyus to trade with the Qing Dynasty of China for its own profit and to collect information on China. In this sense, the Ryukyus were tribute states towards both Japan and China.
But in 1879, the Meiji government formally abolished the Ryukyus and established Okinawa Prefecture, sending a big shock to the Qing Dynasty. Fifteen years later, Japan was victorious in the Sino-Japanese War, and gained control over the Korean Peninsula. Towards the end of World War II, Okinawa became the biggest and most crucial battlefield between the US and Japan.
In his Pulitzer-prize-winning book Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, American scholar Herbert Bix wrote that the Okinawa battle "cost an estimated 94,000 to 120,000 Japanese combatants and 150,000 to 170,000 non-combatants, including more than 700 Okinawans whom the Japanese army forced to commit collective suicide. American combat losses were approximately 12,500 killed and more than 33,000 wounded; among these casualties were more than 7,000 sailors, reflecting the toll taken by kamikaze [airplane suicide] attacks."
''If the claims by anti-Japanese protesters were justified, the whole modern world order would collapse,'' Takara of the University of the Ryukyus said. ''They have no legitimate argument. And most of all, unlike Tibetans and people in the Hsinchiang Uighur Autonomous Region, we Okinawans have never asserted our independence from Japan. It's really strange to see Chinese people discussing Okinawa independence by ignoring our own opinions.''
Kosuke Takahashi is a Tokyo-based journalist. Besides Asia Times Online, he also writes for Jane's Defence Weekly as Tokyo correspondent.
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
China scholars enter Okinawa fray
By Kosuke Takahashi
TOKYO - To much of the world, the Japanese island of Okinawa is synonymous with vast United States military bases and the troubled relationship between servicemen and locals who want the Americans out. In recent years, however, the specter of anti-Chinese sentiment is also in the air.
Powerful Chinese interests now laying claim to sovereignty of the Okanawa islands - which is located halfway between Kyushu and Taiwan - may increase the antagonism over the disputed Senkaku Islands (known by China as the Diaoyu Islands), which are also administered as part of Okinawa prefecture.
Anti-Chinese sentiment in Japan is high after Beijing's recent display of territorial belligerence over the sovereignty of the islands in the East China Sea spooked Tokyo. Neighboring nations, especially South Korea and Vietnam - once China's tribute states - have already been made to feel more nervous in their disputes with China over island territories. This is because Beijing has expressed Asian waters as a "core interest" to counter United States moves to gain more influence in the region as a counter to China's rise. China's claims of primacy over the sovereignty of its near waters are encouraging increased discussion among its neighbors regarding naval collaboration.
''It is a bit surprising to see such a move,'' Kurayoshi Takara, professor of the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, told Asia Times Online. ''Those who claim Okinawa land may reflect increased national prestige and chauvinistic voices in China. Or they may see their chance to claim it, as Japan-US relations have been strained by a row over the relocation of a US Marine base in Okinawa.''
Beijing's recent diplomacy against Norway over the Nobel committee awarding the 2010 Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, shows signs of Beijing further asserting itself on the world stage. China's control of the distribution of rare-earth minerals that play essential roles in numerous industrial processes, including high-technology and military industries, presents another reason why Japan is leery - even as Beijing denied a New York Times report that it was halting exports of the minerals to Japan, the United States and Europe.
Japan-China relations deteriorated to their lowest point in years in the wake of a dispute over Japan's arrest of a Chinese fishing boat captain in early September over a collision with the Japanese Coast Guard near the Senkaku islands. Chinese media reported last week that a fisheries patrol boat set sail for waters near the islands to protect Chinese fishing boats.
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who was damaged politically by his handling of the detention of the trawler skipper, came to power this year after his predecessor, Yukio Hatoyama, reneged on an election promise to enter negotiations with the United States to move the American bases off Okinawa.
Chinese scholar affirms Okinawa claim
More than a few Chinese scholars are beginning to claim Okinawa as Chinese land by writing numerous academic papers in Chinese journals, though they are still in a minority among historians.
Xu Yong, noted professor of history at the Beijing University, is among scholars whose work presents the Chinese case. Xu was a member of the Japan-China Joint History Research Committee, set up in 2006 under an agreement between then-prime minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Hu Jintao. This was an attempt to salvage bilateral relations that dived during the time of Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, and his regular visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine memorializing Japan's war dead (including Class A war criminals such as Hideki Tojo).
Xu has said in research papers and recent symposiums that the issue of sovereignty over Okinawa is unsettled because the Qing Dynasty of China did not approve when Japan abolished the Kingdom of Ryukyu and set up Okinawa Prefecture in 1879.
The US put Okinawa under its control after World War II on the Potsdam Declaration without any legitimate basis in international law, Xu has said. He has claimed that the abolition of the kingdom by the Meiji government in 1879, US control over Okinawa even after the war and Okinawa's reversion to Japanese sovereignty from US occupation in 1972, were all illegitimate, which in return affirmed China's right to claim Okinawa.
Anti-Japan protesters also claim Okinawa
Chinese scholars are not alone in staking claims for Okinawa. Recent anti-Japan protesters in Chinese cities have made the same claim. For example, a Reuters photo taken on September 16 in Chengdu showed that young anti-Japanese marchers brandished a big Chinese-language banner reading ''Restore Ryukyu! Liberate Okinawa''.
Most Japanese experts on China see the Chinese authorities approval of anti-Japanese protests as an outlet for Chinese people's frustrations toward their society, as they struggle to express freedom of speech, find jobs and buy affordable homes.
A common view of the modern history of Okinawa among Japanese scholars goes like this: Okinawa flourished as an independent trading nation, the Kingdom of Ryukyu, over several centuries, until 1609, when the Shimazu family, feudal lords of the Satsuma domain - today's Kagoshima Prefecture of Kyushu Island - conquered the Ryukyus.
But the Edo government allowed the Ryukyus to trade with the Qing Dynasty of China for its own profit and to collect information on China. In this sense, the Ryukyus were tribute states towards both Japan and China.
But in 1879, the Meiji government formally abolished the Ryukyus and established Okinawa Prefecture, sending a big shock to the Qing Dynasty. Fifteen years later, Japan was victorious in the Sino-Japanese War, and gained control over the Korean Peninsula. Towards the end of World War II, Okinawa became the biggest and most crucial battlefield between the US and Japan.
In his Pulitzer-prize-winning book Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, American scholar Herbert Bix wrote that the Okinawa battle "cost an estimated 94,000 to 120,000 Japanese combatants and 150,000 to 170,000 non-combatants, including more than 700 Okinawans whom the Japanese army forced to commit collective suicide. American combat losses were approximately 12,500 killed and more than 33,000 wounded; among these casualties were more than 7,000 sailors, reflecting the toll taken by kamikaze [airplane suicide] attacks."
''If the claims by anti-Japanese protesters were justified, the whole modern world order would collapse,'' Takara of the University of the Ryukyus said. ''They have no legitimate argument. And most of all, unlike Tibetans and people in the Hsinchiang Uighur Autonomous Region, we Okinawans have never asserted our independence from Japan. It's really strange to see Chinese people discussing Okinawa independence by ignoring our own opinions.''
Kosuke Takahashi is a Tokyo-based journalist. Besides Asia Times Online, he also writes for Jane's Defence Weekly as Tokyo correspondent.
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
The Australian, Australia's national daily newspaper, quoted me again.
Thanks much, Rick Wallace-san! Cheers, Kosuke
China fear sees Japan rush for submarines
Rick Wallace, Tokyo correspondent
The Australian October 22, 2010 12:00AM
SPOOKED by China's recent territorial belligerence, Tokyo plans to increase the size of its submarine fleet by six to 22.
Japanese Defence Ministry officials detailed the plans yesterday, saying their defence forces should have a greater capacity for vigilance in nearby waters, especially the East China Sea.
The recent dispute between Beijing and Tokyo was sparked by the arrest of a Chinese trawler skipper who Japan suspected of fishing illegally near the disputed Senkaku Islands last month.
The two Asian powers have been squabbling over these East China Sea islands for decades, after China tried to claim them when a substantial oil and gas reserve was found in nearby waters.
Japan's plan to expand the submarine fleet is expected to be included in the country's new defence program running from next year to 2015.
It has a huge public sector debt level, and will continue buying submarines at the rate of about one a year while delaying the decommissioning of existing subs in order to build the fleet.
Local media reported the ministry was considering eliminating some minesweepers and other vessels to save money.
Kosuke Takahashi, a Tokyo correspondent for Jane's Defence Weekly, told The Australian the bigger fleet was about providing insurance in case China developed an aircraft carrier.
It was also designed to stop (or at least keep track of) increasing incursions into Japanese waters by Chinese submarines.
The Chinese navy is also reported to be expanding its 60-strong submarine fleet.
China fear sees Japan rush for submarines
Rick Wallace, Tokyo correspondent
The Australian October 22, 2010 12:00AM
SPOOKED by China's recent territorial belligerence, Tokyo plans to increase the size of its submarine fleet by six to 22.
Japanese Defence Ministry officials detailed the plans yesterday, saying their defence forces should have a greater capacity for vigilance in nearby waters, especially the East China Sea.
The recent dispute between Beijing and Tokyo was sparked by the arrest of a Chinese trawler skipper who Japan suspected of fishing illegally near the disputed Senkaku Islands last month.
The two Asian powers have been squabbling over these East China Sea islands for decades, after China tried to claim them when a substantial oil and gas reserve was found in nearby waters.
Japan's plan to expand the submarine fleet is expected to be included in the country's new defence program running from next year to 2015.
It has a huge public sector debt level, and will continue buying submarines at the rate of about one a year while delaying the decommissioning of existing subs in order to build the fleet.
Local media reported the ministry was considering eliminating some minesweepers and other vessels to save money.
Kosuke Takahashi, a Tokyo correspondent for Jane's Defence Weekly, told The Australian the bigger fleet was about providing insurance in case China developed an aircraft carrier.
It was also designed to stop (or at least keep track of) increasing incursions into Japanese waters by Chinese submarines.
The Chinese navy is also reported to be expanding its 60-strong submarine fleet.
Friday, October 8, 2010
(AP) US, China defense chiefs to meet amid thaw in ties
U.S.-Chinese relations are already inescapably-tied to each other. Cheers, Kosuke
US, China defense chiefs to meet amid thaw in ties
The Associated Press
BEIJING -- China's defense minister will meet his U.S. counterpart at an international gathering in Vietnam next week as the two nations move to end an eight-month freeze on military exchanges, state media said Wednesday.
Gen. Liang Guanglie will meet Defense Secretary Robert Gates at a gathering of defense chiefs from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations that starts Tuesday in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, Xinhua News Agency quoted Defense Ministry spokesman Guan Youfei as saying.
Xinhua quoted Guan as saying the meeting between the two men would be "short but significant."
China suspended such contacts in January to protest a $6.4 billion U.S. arms package for Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims as its own territory. Beijing pointedly refused to invite Gates to visit during his trip to the region in June, leading U.S. officials to complain that the Chinese military was ignoring the importance of such contacts.
China signaled an end to the freeze last week when the Defense Ministry's head of foreign affairs, Maj. Gen. Qian Lihua, told visiting U.S. Assistant Deputy Defense Secretary Michael Schiffer that regular dialogue and exchanges on military safety at sea and other issues would be resumed.
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Tuesday the two nations are looking for a mutually convenient time for Gates' long-delayed visit - probably early in 2011.
The last significant exchange took place late last year when Gates invited Gen. Xu Caihou to the United States for a tour of the Pentagon and U.S. military installations. As one of two vice chairmen of the Communist Party committee that controls the military, Xu technically ranks higher than Liang, who is merely one of the 11-strong committee's eight ordinary members.
Regional tensions and heated rhetoric have underscored the importance of regular contacts between the two militaries, much to the frustration of U.S. officers who complain of the lack of access to their Chinese counterparts.
China has been especially strident about U.S. involvement in territorial disputes in the South China Sea - which Beijing claims in its entirety - along with joint U.S.-South Korean anti-submarine drills in the Yellow Sea, part of which lies within Chinese sovereign waters.
Beijing has also angered Seoul by refusing to verify the findings of a study blaming North Korea for the sinking a South Korean navy ship in March that ratcheted up tensions across northeast Asia.
While U.S.-China military exchanges appear to be on the mend, they could soon face further Taiwan-related challenges.
A Taiwanese Defense Ministry spokesman said Wednesday the island was allocating money for possible U.S. help to upgrade its fleet of F-16 fighter jets. The statement came amid Taiwanese media reports that the Obama administration has agreed to upgrade the island's fleet of American-made 146 F-16A/Bs, which it received more than a decade ago.
Taiwan is also hoping to buy an entirely new version of the F-16, the more advanced C/Ds, because the aircraft better suits Taiwan's strategy for defending against Chinese threats to use force if necessary to bring the island under its control.
US, China defense chiefs to meet amid thaw in ties
The Associated Press
BEIJING -- China's defense minister will meet his U.S. counterpart at an international gathering in Vietnam next week as the two nations move to end an eight-month freeze on military exchanges, state media said Wednesday.
Gen. Liang Guanglie will meet Defense Secretary Robert Gates at a gathering of defense chiefs from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations that starts Tuesday in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, Xinhua News Agency quoted Defense Ministry spokesman Guan Youfei as saying.
Xinhua quoted Guan as saying the meeting between the two men would be "short but significant."
China suspended such contacts in January to protest a $6.4 billion U.S. arms package for Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims as its own territory. Beijing pointedly refused to invite Gates to visit during his trip to the region in June, leading U.S. officials to complain that the Chinese military was ignoring the importance of such contacts.
China signaled an end to the freeze last week when the Defense Ministry's head of foreign affairs, Maj. Gen. Qian Lihua, told visiting U.S. Assistant Deputy Defense Secretary Michael Schiffer that regular dialogue and exchanges on military safety at sea and other issues would be resumed.
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Tuesday the two nations are looking for a mutually convenient time for Gates' long-delayed visit - probably early in 2011.
The last significant exchange took place late last year when Gates invited Gen. Xu Caihou to the United States for a tour of the Pentagon and U.S. military installations. As one of two vice chairmen of the Communist Party committee that controls the military, Xu technically ranks higher than Liang, who is merely one of the 11-strong committee's eight ordinary members.
Regional tensions and heated rhetoric have underscored the importance of regular contacts between the two militaries, much to the frustration of U.S. officers who complain of the lack of access to their Chinese counterparts.
China has been especially strident about U.S. involvement in territorial disputes in the South China Sea - which Beijing claims in its entirety - along with joint U.S.-South Korean anti-submarine drills in the Yellow Sea, part of which lies within Chinese sovereign waters.
Beijing has also angered Seoul by refusing to verify the findings of a study blaming North Korea for the sinking a South Korean navy ship in March that ratcheted up tensions across northeast Asia.
While U.S.-China military exchanges appear to be on the mend, they could soon face further Taiwan-related challenges.
A Taiwanese Defense Ministry spokesman said Wednesday the island was allocating money for possible U.S. help to upgrade its fleet of F-16 fighter jets. The statement came amid Taiwanese media reports that the Obama administration has agreed to upgrade the island's fleet of American-made 146 F-16A/Bs, which it received more than a decade ago.
Taiwan is also hoping to buy an entirely new version of the F-16, the more advanced C/Ds, because the aircraft better suits Taiwan's strategy for defending against Chinese threats to use force if necessary to bring the island under its control.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
(IHT) U.S. tries to forge closer military ties with China
The International Herald Tribune carried an excellent article on thaw in US-China military ties. Cheers, Kosuke
U.S. tries to forge closer military ties with China;
Pentagon reaching out to a generation of officers who see it as the enemy
BY MICHAEL WINES
BEIJING
(ABSTRACT)
One reason the Pentagon has persistently sought closer relations with the People's Liberation Army is that it does not want U.S. forces to remain unknown to their up-and-coming Chinese counterparts.
(FULL TEXT)
The United States pronounced its military relationship with China ''back on track'' last week after a meeting here between ranking officials of the Pentagon and the People's Liberation Army.
Tell that, however, to Lt. Cmdr. Tony Cao.
Commander Cao is an officer of the People's Liberation Army Navy. Days before the Pentagon's top Asia official arrived for talks last week in Beijing, Commander Cao was aboard a frigate in the Yellow Sea, conducting China's first-ever war games with the Australian Navy - and noting, pointedly, that the Americans were not invited. Nor are they likely to be, he told Australian journalists in slightly bent English, until ''the United States stops selling the weapons to Taiwan and stopping spying us with the air or the surface.''
As the often-frigid relations between the U.S. and Chinese militaries again warm ever so slightly, it is officers like Commander Cao, rising through the ranks of China's armed forces, who are drawing new attention from Washington.
While China's top military leaders are known quantities, its future leaders remain unknowns. One reason the Pentagon has persistently sought closer relations with the People's Liberation Army, often in the face of rebuffs, is that it does not want U.S. forces to remain unknown to their up-and-coming Chinese counterparts.
Older P.L.A. officers may remember a time, before the Tiananmen Square protests set relations back, when the U.S. and Chinese forces made common cause against the former Soviet Union. Younger officers have only known an anti-U.S. military.
''The P.L.A. combines an odd combination of deep admiration for the U.S. armed forces as a military, but equally harbors a deep suspicion of U.S. military deployments and intentions towards China,'' David Shambaugh, a leading expert on the Chinese military at George Washington University in Washington, said in an e-mail.
The stakes rise as China's armed forces, once a fairly ragtag group, steadily become more capable and take on bigger tasks. The navy, the centerpiece of China's military expansion, has added dozens of surface ships and submarines in the last decade and is widely reported to be planning construction of an aircraft carrier, the most potent weapon in the naval arsenal. The maneuvers with Australia in the Yellow Sea last month were but the most recent in a series of Chinese excursions to places as diverse as New Zealand, Britain and Spain.
China is also reported to be building an anti-ship ballistic missile base in the southern province of Guangdong, with missiles capable of reaching the Philippines and Vietnam. The base is regarded as an effort to enforce China's territorial claims to vast areas of the South China Sea claimed by other nations - and to threaten U.S. aircraft carriers that now patrol the area unmolested.
Even improved Chinese forces pose little threat to a far more capable U.S. military. But their increasing range and ability - and the certainty that they will strengthen further - make it crucial to help lower-level officers become more familiar with the Americans, experts say, before a chance encounter blossoms into a crisis.
''These past few years are part of a process where a group of young officers in China are beginning to rise up to a more senior position,'' said Huang Jing, a scholar of China's military and leadership at the National University of Singapore. ''All militaries need a straw man, a perceived enemy, for solidarity. And as a young officer or soldier, you always take the strongest of straw men to maximize the effect. Chinese military men, from the soldiers and platoon captains all the way up to the army commanders, were always taught that America would be their enemy.''
From the Chinese military's view, this year has offered ample evidence of the United States' ill will.
The Chinese effectively suspended official military relations early this year after President Barack Obama held a meeting with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan religious leader, and approved a $6.7 billion arms sale to Taiwan, which China regards as its territory.
Since then, the P.L.A. has bristled as the U.S. State Department offered to mediate disputes between China and its neighbors over ownership of Pacific islands and valuable seabed mineral rights. And when the U.S. Navy conducted war games with South Korea last month in the Yellow Sea, not 640 kilometers, or 400 miles, from Beijing, the rhetoric from senior Chinese officers was apoplectic.
The United States ''is engaging in an increasingly tight encirclement of China and constantly challenging China's core interests,'' Rear Adm. Yang Yi, a naval commander, wrote last month in two hawkish articles in The P.L.A. Daily, the military newspaper. ''Washington will inevitably pay a costly price for its muddled decision.''
In truth, little in the U.S. actions is new. Mr. Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, not only hosted the Dalai Lama, but awarded him Congress's highest civilian honor in 2007. U.S. arms sales to Taiwan were mandated by Congress in 1979 and were a fixture of U.S. policy for years before that. U.S. warships regularly ply the waters off China's coast and frequently practice with South Korean ships.
But a confluence of factors appears to be dictating the P.L.A.'s sharp response.
One is the impending change of China's government leaders in 2012. In the jockeying for advantage before that turnover, no politician is willing to be seen as weak, and the military has gained new leeway to publicly push its more aggressive views on foreign policy.
Another is the new assertiveness that has followed China's rise to global prominence.
''Why do you sell arms to Taiwan? We don't sell arms to Hawaii,'' said Liu Mingfu, a professor at National Defense University in Beijing and the author of ''The China Dream,'' a nationalistic call to succeed the United States as the world's leading power.
''In the past China simply tolerated this silently for the sake of the overall situation of U.S.-China relations,'' Mr. Liu said. ''But now times have moved on, the world is more civilized, and China is stronger. The Chinese people have a higher requirement for national dignity and demand more respect. Americans should understand this.''
That official military relations are resuming despite the P.L.A.'s sharp language is likely a function of international diplomacy. President Hu Jintao of China is scheduled to visit Washington soon, perhaps as early as January, and U.S. experts had predicted that China would resume military ties as part of a general effort to smooth over rough spots before the state visit.
Chinese military leaders, who earlier this year snubbed a proposal by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to visit Beijing, signaled last week that that visit would be scheduled soon. And Wednesday, the state-run news agency, Xinhua, said Defense Minister Liang Guanglie would meet with Mr. Gates next week at a security conference in Hanoi.
None of that seems to signal any basic change in the Chinese military view of the Pentagon.
A leading Chinese expert on international security, Zhu Feng of Peking University, said that the Chinese military's hostility toward the United States was not new, just more open. And that, he said, was not only the result of China's new assertiveness, but its military's inexperience on the world stage.
China's military has had a strictly domestic mission - until now. ''Chinese officers' international exposure remains very limited,'' Mr. Zhu said.
October 7, 2010
U.S. tries to forge closer military ties with China;
Pentagon reaching out to a generation of officers who see it as the enemy
BY MICHAEL WINES
BEIJING
(ABSTRACT)
One reason the Pentagon has persistently sought closer relations with the People's Liberation Army is that it does not want U.S. forces to remain unknown to their up-and-coming Chinese counterparts.
(FULL TEXT)
The United States pronounced its military relationship with China ''back on track'' last week after a meeting here between ranking officials of the Pentagon and the People's Liberation Army.
Tell that, however, to Lt. Cmdr. Tony Cao.
Commander Cao is an officer of the People's Liberation Army Navy. Days before the Pentagon's top Asia official arrived for talks last week in Beijing, Commander Cao was aboard a frigate in the Yellow Sea, conducting China's first-ever war games with the Australian Navy - and noting, pointedly, that the Americans were not invited. Nor are they likely to be, he told Australian journalists in slightly bent English, until ''the United States stops selling the weapons to Taiwan and stopping spying us with the air or the surface.''
As the often-frigid relations between the U.S. and Chinese militaries again warm ever so slightly, it is officers like Commander Cao, rising through the ranks of China's armed forces, who are drawing new attention from Washington.
While China's top military leaders are known quantities, its future leaders remain unknowns. One reason the Pentagon has persistently sought closer relations with the People's Liberation Army, often in the face of rebuffs, is that it does not want U.S. forces to remain unknown to their up-and-coming Chinese counterparts.
Older P.L.A. officers may remember a time, before the Tiananmen Square protests set relations back, when the U.S. and Chinese forces made common cause against the former Soviet Union. Younger officers have only known an anti-U.S. military.
''The P.L.A. combines an odd combination of deep admiration for the U.S. armed forces as a military, but equally harbors a deep suspicion of U.S. military deployments and intentions towards China,'' David Shambaugh, a leading expert on the Chinese military at George Washington University in Washington, said in an e-mail.
The stakes rise as China's armed forces, once a fairly ragtag group, steadily become more capable and take on bigger tasks. The navy, the centerpiece of China's military expansion, has added dozens of surface ships and submarines in the last decade and is widely reported to be planning construction of an aircraft carrier, the most potent weapon in the naval arsenal. The maneuvers with Australia in the Yellow Sea last month were but the most recent in a series of Chinese excursions to places as diverse as New Zealand, Britain and Spain.
China is also reported to be building an anti-ship ballistic missile base in the southern province of Guangdong, with missiles capable of reaching the Philippines and Vietnam. The base is regarded as an effort to enforce China's territorial claims to vast areas of the South China Sea claimed by other nations - and to threaten U.S. aircraft carriers that now patrol the area unmolested.
Even improved Chinese forces pose little threat to a far more capable U.S. military. But their increasing range and ability - and the certainty that they will strengthen further - make it crucial to help lower-level officers become more familiar with the Americans, experts say, before a chance encounter blossoms into a crisis.
''These past few years are part of a process where a group of young officers in China are beginning to rise up to a more senior position,'' said Huang Jing, a scholar of China's military and leadership at the National University of Singapore. ''All militaries need a straw man, a perceived enemy, for solidarity. And as a young officer or soldier, you always take the strongest of straw men to maximize the effect. Chinese military men, from the soldiers and platoon captains all the way up to the army commanders, were always taught that America would be their enemy.''
From the Chinese military's view, this year has offered ample evidence of the United States' ill will.
The Chinese effectively suspended official military relations early this year after President Barack Obama held a meeting with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan religious leader, and approved a $6.7 billion arms sale to Taiwan, which China regards as its territory.
Since then, the P.L.A. has bristled as the U.S. State Department offered to mediate disputes between China and its neighbors over ownership of Pacific islands and valuable seabed mineral rights. And when the U.S. Navy conducted war games with South Korea last month in the Yellow Sea, not 640 kilometers, or 400 miles, from Beijing, the rhetoric from senior Chinese officers was apoplectic.
The United States ''is engaging in an increasingly tight encirclement of China and constantly challenging China's core interests,'' Rear Adm. Yang Yi, a naval commander, wrote last month in two hawkish articles in The P.L.A. Daily, the military newspaper. ''Washington will inevitably pay a costly price for its muddled decision.''
In truth, little in the U.S. actions is new. Mr. Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, not only hosted the Dalai Lama, but awarded him Congress's highest civilian honor in 2007. U.S. arms sales to Taiwan were mandated by Congress in 1979 and were a fixture of U.S. policy for years before that. U.S. warships regularly ply the waters off China's coast and frequently practice with South Korean ships.
But a confluence of factors appears to be dictating the P.L.A.'s sharp response.
One is the impending change of China's government leaders in 2012. In the jockeying for advantage before that turnover, no politician is willing to be seen as weak, and the military has gained new leeway to publicly push its more aggressive views on foreign policy.
Another is the new assertiveness that has followed China's rise to global prominence.
''Why do you sell arms to Taiwan? We don't sell arms to Hawaii,'' said Liu Mingfu, a professor at National Defense University in Beijing and the author of ''The China Dream,'' a nationalistic call to succeed the United States as the world's leading power.
''In the past China simply tolerated this silently for the sake of the overall situation of U.S.-China relations,'' Mr. Liu said. ''But now times have moved on, the world is more civilized, and China is stronger. The Chinese people have a higher requirement for national dignity and demand more respect. Americans should understand this.''
That official military relations are resuming despite the P.L.A.'s sharp language is likely a function of international diplomacy. President Hu Jintao of China is scheduled to visit Washington soon, perhaps as early as January, and U.S. experts had predicted that China would resume military ties as part of a general effort to smooth over rough spots before the state visit.
Chinese military leaders, who earlier this year snubbed a proposal by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to visit Beijing, signaled last week that that visit would be scheduled soon. And Wednesday, the state-run news agency, Xinhua, said Defense Minister Liang Guanglie would meet with Mr. Gates next week at a security conference in Hanoi.
None of that seems to signal any basic change in the Chinese military view of the Pentagon.
A leading Chinese expert on international security, Zhu Feng of Peking University, said that the Chinese military's hostility toward the United States was not new, just more open. And that, he said, was not only the result of China's new assertiveness, but its military's inexperience on the world stage.
China's military has had a strictly domestic mission - until now. ''Chinese officers' international exposure remains very limited,'' Mr. Zhu said.
October 7, 2010
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