CHINA THREAT RISING?

“A decade ago, American mil­i­tary plan­ners dis­missed the threat of a Chinese attack against Taiwan as a 100-​​mile infantry swim,” the New York Times says. “The Pentagon now believes that China has pur­chased or built enough amphibi­ous assault ships, sub­marines, fighter jets and short-​​range mis­siles to pose an imme­di­ate threat to Taiwan and to any American force that might come to Taiwan’s aid.”

In 1996, when China fired warning-​​shot mis­siles across the Taiwan Strait before the Taiwanese elec­tions, President Clinton responded by send­ing a car­rier bat­tle group to a posi­tion near Taiwan. Then, China could do noth­ing about it, Now, ana­lysts say, it can.
In fact, American car­ri­ers respond­ing to a cri­sis would now ini­tially have to oper­ate at least 500 miles from Taiwan, which would reduce the num­ber of fighter sor­ties they could launch. This is because China now has a mod­ern fleet of sub­marines, includ­ing new Russian-​​made nuclear subs that can fire mis­siles from a sub­merged posi­tion. America would first need to sub­due these sub­marines.
China launched 13 attack sub­marines between 2002 and 2004, a period when it also built 23 ships that can ferry tanks, armored vehi­cles and troops across the 100-​​mile strait. Tomohide Murai, an expert on the Chinese mil­i­tary at the National Defense Academy in Tokyo, said that China’s buildup is intended to focus on an American response, but he is skep­ti­cal that China already has the naval and air supe­ri­or­ity over Taiwan to dom­i­nate the strait. 

April 8th, 2005 | Strategery | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.