Just in case you didnt see it already, the Pentagon released its annual Chinese Military Power report Friday.
One of the best China reporters in the country, Bill Gertz, wrote in the Washington Times that the report shows a robust effort by the PRC to develop anti-satellite weapons that can deliver a knockout blow to many U.S. military satellites.
Gertz writes:
According to defense officials familiar with the report, it also highlights new strategic missile developments, including China’s five new Jin-class submarines, and states that Beijing continues to hide the true level of its military spending.
The officials also said that the report will detail how China is developing two new types of strategic forces that go beyond what nations have done traditionally using air, sea and land forces by aiming to knock out modern communications methods on which the U.S. military relies for advanced warfighting techniques.
China also is training large numbers of military computer hackers to deliver crippling electronic attacks on U.S. military and civilian computer networks.
Christian,
I enjoy this website tremendously and, for the most part, the information is accurate and thoughtful. However, I have to disagree with the notion that Bill Gertz is one of the best China reporters. He is definitely, one of the most prolific reporters on the threat (real and imagined) of China and he has never met a China threat (again real or imagined) that he didn’t embrace fully. Mr. Gertz (and the Washington Times in general) is one of the most shamelessy biased (right up there with Fox News) media outlets in the country. Just my two cents.
Bill,
Glad you enjoy the site.
Gertz is one of the best sourced on China military buildup. I was not making a political argument for or against the “threat” posed by China (I’ve learned that the hard way over here at DT).
The guy digs up stuff on China not reported anywhere else.
The army from the east is coming. We need not to depend on Our technology. Always have backup. A slip
up on a computer can make us vulnerable. It will
probably create another cold war. We will have to stay ahead. When it comes down to the battlefield we have to remember what the Native Americans taught Our forefathers. Learn from your enemy.
Christian — Gertz doesn’t necessarily “dig” up news about the Chinese military. More likely, he’s the favored recipient of leaks from well placed individuals in the government. The leaks all paint a very scary picture of the Chinese threat which naturally calls for more money to be spent to counter the threat.
Then the sixth [angel] emptied his bowl on the mighty river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to make ready a road for [the coming of] the kings of the east (from the rising sun). Rev. 16:12
It is crucial that we (the U.S) start understanding the importance of asymmetric warfare and act accordingly.
I
TECHNOLOGY IS NOT EVERYTHING.I strongly agree.All of us have seen and seeing what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan.Well,techology have saved many lives but it is not everything.United States should take strong measures to solidify its troops more accurately to prevent its loss.
My feeling is China is way more scared of the USA than the other way around. A Chinese arms buildup is a natural response to aggressive American foreign intervention policy. But I don’t belive they will take the bait, diverting billions to weapons is such a waste.
We have become addicted to our own technology. Are we sure we can still fight in the mud with sticks and stones? “Stand off” or “Over the horizon” is no longer an option for any of us. Do we have the fortitude to get our hands dirty in real warfare Just asking some hard questions.
I think it’s a given that no sane person is planning on invading mainland China anytime soon. In that case, isn’t being able to fight in the mud irrelevant (in regards to preparing to fight China)?
Say that this report is true and China is developing tech to neutralize our satellite advantage and take down our infrastructure via the Internet. In such a scenario, conventional forces are impotent — or in other words — technology is indeed everything — technology to counteract this assymetric type of war. (I hope that made sense)
If it’s not true, eh, well a few billion dollars down the drain and a lot of employment for some computer programmers. I remember reading an earlier post — I think it was about justifying the cost of the Raptor — we are so bad at predicting and preparing for the next war, so in that case, why not be ready for all of them? It’s not like we can’t afford to. I mean, for instance despite all the stories about how much the Iraq war is costing us, we are still in a peacetime economic posture so it’s not costing us THAT much. If we really are that stressed by the military expenditures, raise taxes a few points and poof, budget surplus.
The problem is we sold a few or a lot of our bonds to china. So if we go against them they might withdraw that bonds and cripple our economy, which will ultimately affect our war fighting capability. As of now we’re losing money a lot in WOT.
For years the chinese of course has lied about there military spending!! But millions of Americans dont realize, if not care about this issue.…They feel that they are safe at home, lests not forget about pear harbor and 9/11.…But as normal many are aware, including the President of the United States, George Bush.… But he takes little notice with his “fast track trade agreements” and “NAFTA”, and cares little if not at all with the recent scandal with the spying some Chinese Americans have done lately.…so give it time and the most powerful nation in the world, the United States will no longer be the most powerful and hold the status as the worlds last standing “Super Power”.…The Chinese will soon walk right over us …
Sorry, for clarification — WOT = War on Terror I assume? I’m not saying we aren’t spending a lot of money, but the $200 billion+ is a relatively small amount when your economy is over $10 trillion and growing at a healthy pace. We spend far more keeping fat alcoholic smokers alive — which of course leads to the logical conclusion that fat alcoholic smokers must be terrorists.
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True, they have us by the balls on the bonds thing…but ultimately we have them by the heart (and the purse-strings). It’s the 21st century MAD! But you can live without balls.
WHAT ELSE IS NEW THE US. IS LIKE A TROUBLED HUSBAND LOOKING FOR A QUICK LOAN AFTER SQUANDERING HIS PAY CHECK. CHINA IS NOT THE ONLY COUNTRY THAT ARE HOLDING “BONDS” AGAINST THE US.
As memory recalls, I believe China has already tested an anti-sat weapon last year…successfully I might add.
As for shutting down the internet…I’m not even sure that possible, hackers in other countries have tried before…I believe its happen twice (that I know of)…obviously, failed both times.
Is China a threat.…absolutely…but we already out gun them in every scenario…they are not a current threat…maybe in 20+ years…but currently we need to stay focused on smaller countries like Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc. There’s certainly no shortage of enemies out there.
To Bill: Yes, Fox News is slightly biased towards the right wing…but lets be serious…the left wing media dominates the net, newspapers, & tv (CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, ect.).
Good Morning Folks,
It’s Federal budget time again I see and the Taiwan lobby is back. What is it now, more Destroyers, F-16’s or to make good on the Clinton era promise of five non nuclear submarines (the Clintons were not aware that the last non nuclear submsrine was built in 1958. While many of them were still sh**ting in diapers).
It is a fools folly to try and guess the intent of any country, reference England in 1911, when war with germany was impossable because there was just to much German investment in the Great Britain and the Kaiser was family to King George V.
China has many domestic as well as regional problems to deal with. A build up of or a shifting of millitary assets of the military such as what it is, is not unreasonable. If you are really concerned about China’s intentions watch where the 2ed. Artillery Corp. is. The new budget has 400K more troops and 100 more missiles allocated to that command but the HQ elimate is still 500Km. inland, when it moves again to the coast Chia is trying to make a statement. But before you get exited there is no increase in the 1.4 million PLA or in the size of the PLA Missile Force.
Again this appears to be all about money, U.S. tax payers money to prop up Taiwan, the same story has been being told since 1949.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Thank God they have most favored nation status. I need to run down to Wal-Mart and send them some more money so they can do us in a few years down the road.
I have yet to read entirely or to fully ingest the current DOD report on Chinas Milatary Power. However, there never seems to be any mention of a little device called a “Sun-Burn Missle” that the Chicoms cooked up a few years back to defeat an entire carrier battle group with one shot. It is suppose to be a nuke tipped skimmer with lots and lots of range.
Supposedly, when we were getting pretty close to confirming its actual existence we seem to have lost a snooper P-3 in an airel “accident” with a Chicom Mig-21.
How much of this is true? I must admit that I do not know. I only know that the story has had long legs and that I say an extensive prayer for our sea service people every single day on the chance that even 1% of it has some merit!
Whoever has the most money wins, and China has been buying up most of ours. We need to hold them to their part of the bargain on economic agreements. Clinton’s administration initiated new economic development for China in the interest of peace, but we see now the consequences of “our” naivety. Legislative action to bring their currency to fair-market-value is long overdue.
I never thought for one minute that the Dragon was asleep. There has been enough articles to confirm a pre-war, or pre-strike stance and they are getting closer everyday. I believe in the carrier strike groups, but as it’s predessor the battleship, I see the carrier becoming more vurnable every day. It has not been long since the surprise of a chinese sub came close enough to the carrier group to have destroyed half of it before they even knew what hit them. Years ago our forefathers took steps to keep wars from space, but I am affraid it is already here, and it is only logical. Aircraft and surface ships are in there twilight, as more powerful, unstoppable, space launched weapons become more available every day, with the Russians anouncing their unstoppable penetrating missle just yesterday. It is time the American people wake up, and realize the a pre-empted strike of some sort is just across the horizon.
How soon we react may be the balance of power and freedom. I can see so clearly as though it has already happened, and feel helpless to stop it. Not an alarmist, just a realist.
Ladies and gentleman make no mistake the Dragon and the Bear are looking to partner up in the very,very near future to strike America and her interests world-wide. Play this out.……Iran doesn’t use the Bomb in Isreal, but on our 180,000 plus troops in the region.….immediately The Dragon puts its FULL Navy on “alert” but in actually they are steaming east.…1 of the 87 missing suitcase nukes from the bear then goes off in LA because we have the most open border in the World.…OPEC suspends all oil trade with US.….hackers hit our computer systems.…and you can see where this is going. Folks they will try and invade us…question is how far will we go to stop them?????
Whats wrong with Fox News Bill ? lol The truth hurt ?
THANK GOD! Finally, someone’s saying SOMETHING about our real enemies!
Is there any group anyone knows of that I could join to address alerting Americans to Chinas imminent War on America?
Secondly, does anyone know of ANY Presidential Candidate willing to stand up to these rats?
If you really want some interesting reading try a book titled, Unrestricted Warfare. I was written by two of China’s Col. Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui of the People’s Liberation Army. It is boaring as hell but has a lot of interesting ideas for screwing up the world of the US.
The above repo0rt even falls into one of the catagories covered in this book. READ IT.
Ah what can I say? Another heart breaking truth to the sad reality that the people in Washington and the Idiot liberals who support them, don’t give a crap about the real dangers that we face. We are too busy making sure that Illegel immergents are getting good if not better privilages than citizens, Making sure that Imams are not offended when they do their prayers on a public airplane, and cutting of the funding for troops in the middle of a war. Yup those are the more important things to worry about. Lets just have peace. Yea thats the answer peace not war. why don’t we just wave the white flag and hand over our nation to the first taker: oh yea that is what we’re doing.
Historically, once again, the prophecies of the bible are about to come true. In all of the future prophecies discussing the end times, America is NOT mentioned because there is NO America to speak of. This is not a doomsday scream, but a wake up call. In the final minutes of history, we as a people, not just Americans, but the whole human race, need to evaluate our spiritual bankruptcy and turn to the one true God who will bring us triumphantly through this mess we have created. It will be China and Russia combined who will deal America it’s death blow as foretold in the old testament of the bible, Ezekiel 38,39 written in 587 b.c.
You could call this “Awakening USA” also. For years we have been asleep, had our head in the sand, to many powerful figures focused on personal greed, or just dead heads. The old USSR was a limited threat, but they knew war was unwinable suiside. Since 1954 the PRIMARY THREAT has been Communist China, I prefer calling it “Occupied China” (criple their police state and see how long they last). Why is it so important for them to eliminate Formosa and the Chiness Government. We have been at war with them since they invaded Korea and the cease fire in Korea. Year after year they have practiced “War with the United States.” Our government just pretends they’re not… and never ceases to play the fool who provides them technology and information. THINK! What one country in the world is capable of engaging in thermonucular war? Who can loose hundreds of millions of people and comeout ahead? There was never a time when that answer was the now defunct USSR. Why are they now going for “Boomers” and “Super Carriers?” AND WE ARE FUNDING IT! Lets get some chatter going and see if we can get our leaders to smell the roses.