The New York Times News Articles
Warily Watching China
February 23, 1999
Also available on the New York Times Website
ARLINGTON, Va. – An oddly nonlinear debate has emerged in
Washington regarding the implications of China's growing power.
Those who are concerned mainly with national defense measure
tangibles like China's leaps in military technology, its nuclear and
military assistance to other nations and its frequent saber-rattling
over various East Asian issues. For them, China is a serious and
looming threat. By contrast, those officials whose principal
concerns are improving American-Chinese relations and reciprocal
trade reason that the growth of Chinese power is to be expected,
that it is defensive rather than expansionist, and that China has no
intention of competing with the United States on a global scale.
But whether or not China becomes a global threat in the
future is irrelevant to its activities in Asia today. China is
definitely on the move, and its full intentions are far from clear.
Last month both The Guangming Daily, a Chinese newspaper, and
Taiwan's South China Morning Post reported that the Chinese air
force had altered its defensive posture to one focusing mainly on
attack readiness, including joint operations involving ground and
naval forces.
Having benefited from years of technology transfers, many
of them from American corporations, the Chinese air force now
possesses anti-electronic jamming and air-refueling capabilities as
well as greatly improved weapon systems that include air-to-air and
air-to-ground missiles, high-precision guided bombs and improved
firing control equipment.
As the news reports indicated, the Chinese have succeeded
in building the armed forces through science and technology, and are
ready to fight regional battles, including ground and sea assaults.
This change in strategy has been accompanied by concrete
military action. It has been widely reported that the Chinese are
dramatically increasing the number of short-range ballistic missiles
along the country's coastline near Taiwan, ostensibly in protest of
the American declaration that Taiwan would be included in a regional
antimissile system.
Over the past several months the Chinese have also stepped
up construction of a military base in the Paracel Islands, 260 miles
off the coast of DaNang, Vietnam. The base includes a 7,000-foot
runway capable of handling a wide array of combat and refueling
aircraft. In addition, the Chinese have expanded an installation in
the Spratly Islands off the coast of the Philippines. This
installation, according to the Philippine military, now appears to
hold a helipad, radar, gun emplacements and a four-story structure
whose size belies Chinese claims that they have built shelters for
fisherman there.
Both the Paracels and the Spratlys are contested
territories, neither of them recognized as Chinese under
international law. With respect to the most recent overt threat to
Taiwan, the Chinese protest is disingenuous on its face. The Chinese
Government knows that we should no more apologize for including
Taiwan in plans for missile defense than we did for including South
Korea in similar plans. Our having agreed in principle that Taiwan
might someday rejoin China does not mean that we would ever allow
such a unification to be coerced.
If the reports of bases in the Paracels and Spratlys are
accurate, they present a far more serious threat to regional
security. For one thing, they are on islands not recognized under
international law to be Chinese. Building military bases on foreign
territory, or on territory that is disputed under international law,
is a clear act of aggression. That these islands were uninhabited
before the appearance of the Chinese military does not lessen the
importance of this historic principle.
In addition, these particular islands sit athwart East
Asia's major sea lanes. This water route is a superhighway of
international commerce for China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, the
Philippines and the Russian port of Vladivostok. Japan, which
imports all its oil, is particularly vulnerable to the interdiction
of this maritime route, as it is a key leg for ships going through
the Malacca and Lombok Straits to and from the Indian Ocean and the
Persian Gulf.
Taiwan itself depends heavily on this sea passage. Coupled
with China's recent expansion of its navy, its military control of
the Paracels and the Spratlys would constitute a threat to most of
the ship-borne commerce moving into and out of east Asia. It could
also be used to threaten Japan, and as part of a larger effort to
cut off Taiwan.
Another concern is that China has been developing a
strategic axis with the Muslim world for more than a decade, as
evidenced most clearly by its continuing military assistance to Iran
and its role in helping Pakistan develop a nuclear capability. The
bases in the Spratlys and Paracels could permit swift military
intervention into regions of Southeast Asia that include
many heavily Muslim populations, particularly in Malaysia,
the southern Philippines (Mindanao is said by American intelligence
experts to rival Syria's Bekaa Valley as a training center for
Muslim terrorists) -- and in Indonesia, where memories still linger
of Chinese backing of an ill-fated coup d'etat in the 1960's.
China's actions in a region that has relied for decades on
a delicate balance of power should stir the United States to respond
immediately. With the reduced size of the American Navy, east Asia
has become more and more nervous in the face of China's growing
power.
This unease increased after President Clinton's puzzling
announcement during his visit last year that the Administration
viewed China as a strategic partner in the region. If Chinese
bases are left unchecked, the possibilities of misperceptions
regarding American intentions -- even by China itself -- will
multiply. These kinds of misperceptions can cause wars, as
when, during a January 1950 speech to the National Press Club,
Secretary of State Dean Acheson unwittingly encouraged the attack
that began the Korean War by failing to include South Korea inside
the American zone of interest. Only the United States can firmly
confront the Chinese on this issue. Contrary to internal issues like
human rights and gray areas like assisting Pakistan, Chinese bases
in the Paracels and the Spratlys are clearly matters with
international implications. The United States should lose no time in
examining China's expansion of its installations on these islands
and, if appropriate, questioning Chinese intentions. And the
American Government should keep in mind that the consequence of not
confronting China today might be a far more dangerous world in the
years to come.
UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS