This article first appeared in Defense Technology International.
China has been developing and purchasing weapons for precision-strike warfare. This is the hard edge of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) doctrinal drive toward using increasingly sophisticated information technologies such as C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) to improve the capabilities of weapon systems. The PLA’s near-term goals appear to be greater asymmetric capabilities to target U.S. naval assets in the western Pacific and in space as part of an anti-access strategy. Long-term, however, greater precision will be a feature of most new weapon systems.
China’s growing C4ISR capabilities were demonstrated in March by its coordinated two-fleet operation to intercept two U.S. Navy ocean survey vessels. Chinese ships found and harassed the USNS Victorious, operating in the Yellow Sea, and USNS Impeccable, which was about 75 mi. south of Hainan Island. The fallout was diplomatic, as Washington and Beijing clashed over interpretations of the Law of the Sea Treaty, which Beijing contends gives it rights to deny access to military survey missions. This incident, though, was reminiscent in timing and scope to the April 2001 clash that saw China “capture” a U.S. Navy EP-3 electronic intelligence aircraft off Hainan.
China’s aggressive challenge of Japanese claims in the East China Sea, plus Washington’s refusal to cease its survey missions could be flashpoints. In February, a provincial Communist Party newspaper contained a threat to sink U.S. survey ships.
In this second of three articles on China’s growing regional power, DTI examines the country’s efforts to improve its ability to target and destroy threats.
Since the early 1990s, Chinese military scholars have been warning of the need for China to prepare to defend against, and if necessary, conduct military operations in space. In late 2006 reports emerged of China’s use of high-power ground-based lasers to “dazzle” U.S. surveillance satellites. On Feb. 11, 2007, China launched the first successful intercept by its SC-19 direct-ascent antisatellite (ASAT) system, derived from its KT-1 solid-fuel space-launch vehicle, with an interceptor stage whose development was likely aided by China’s micro-satellite programs. A target FY-2 weather satellite was probably illuminated by large phased-array radar developed for tracking Shenzhou manned space capsules. A far less-noted potential co-orbital ASAT demonstration occurred on Sept. 27, 2008, when the Shenzhou-7 manned spacecraft, which had just launched a BX-1 nanosatellite, passed within 45 km. (28 mi.) of the International Space Station. Following the U.S. Navy’s shootdown of an errant satellite on Feb. 21, 2008, and a Mar. 5, 2008, announcement that Russia would resume ASAT development, it is likely that China will continue ASAT testing.
China’s direct-ascent ASAT also proves that it is capable of developing a long-range antiballistic missile (ABM) system, a U.S. pursuit that China has opposed. China had an ABM program from 1963–80 that produced a short-range interceptor prototype and long-range radar. Chinese sources told DTI at the recent IDEX expo in Abu Dhabi that they have tested the new FD-2000 surface-to-air missile (SAM) in an antitactical ballistic missile (ATBM) mode. Developed with help from Russia’s Almaz-Antey Co., the FD-2000 also draws from the earlier passive-guided FT-2000 SAM, which reportedly benefited from U.S. Patriot SAM technology. These indigenous SAMs are entering PLA service, and will complement about 1,000 Almaz-Antey S-300/PMU-1/PMU-2 SAMs purchased since the early 1990s, giving the PLA air force the most formidable air-defense network in Asia. The PLA has also developed short-range SAM systems — including man-portable air-defense systems — for tracked vehicles and trucks. Among these is the TY-90 Yitian for trucks and armored personnel carriers that was disclosed in 2005, but displayed for the first time at IDEX this year.
Read the rest of this story and see how Inhofe blasts the NLOS-C cuts from our friends at Aviation Week, exclusively on Military.com.
– Christian
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
The UAV in the picture looks like a Rutan VariEze. D’ya think Bert’s getting royalties for that?
Good Morning Christian,
Spring has finally come and now it’s budget time again in Washington and the lobbyists are in bloom. I have read this story every Spring since the 1950′s. Big bad China, poor little Taiwan, it pulls at the heart strings. The window for China to invade a take over Taiwan has long passed. The current economic ties and the U.S. one china policy and a seat in the U.N all say this is not going to happen.
Anyone who takes the time to look into China “military build up(s)” of recent years will see at best a feeble effort, designed for domestic consumption to maintain political control by the Communist Party and the weapons export business, to which China has only mixed success. It’s main paying client Pakistan opted to “buy” Russian T 80UD tanks instead off the Chinese Type 090 Tank.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
China’s biggest threat come from an emerging middle class and the developing ties of international trade with the west that is providing a growing internal demand by putting pressure on the Communist Party for democratic institution. In short change the message that is emerging from the Chinese people policies, keep the name if you like.
If China can do precise guidance then we’re all Doomed.
Good Bye Pearl?
Or anyplace in CONUS.
Time to send in Recon spy subs & UAVs
& undercover Intel units who know Chinese culture & customs.
One has to wonder whether the 5-boat swarm that mobbed USS Impeccable at close quarters might have deteriorated into a replay of the USS Pueblo incident (in the ’60s she was captured by the DPRK and her crew held for more than a year), had the Arleigh Burke DDG USS Bainbridge not been dispatched to the scene. If a handful of modern pirates in speedboats can board and temporarily capture M/V Maersk Alabama, despite her having U.S. Merchant Marine Academy-educated officers aboard with advanced anti-pirate training, what could armed Chinese in patrol boats do to an unarmed T-AGOS SURTASS anti-submarine surveillance ship? According to academic studies I’ve read, the PRC has a long and consistent history of meaning what they say in their militaristic announcements to other countries regarding lines Beijing draws in the sand — or on the waves, as the case may be. Will there be a “next time” soon where things get a whole lot uglier?
I have been reading big dad China stories since the end of the Soviets, and I am still reading this garbage. People really need to get out more.
Inflammatory rhetoric from some circles of the Chinese military establishemnt, and similar rhetoric from some circles in the US defense community. Each of course needs the other to justify themselves, their pet projects, and their myopia. Good thing the vast majority of each’s government and private sectors have not gone off the deep end. I guess that is the problem of military only perspectives without the context of political and economic considerations.
Never underestimate a potential enemy. We shouldn’t back off from any of our international rights, but we’d better have a good plan and deveop contingencies in a realistic vein.
Byron: Interesting ideas! I agree with you re China’s conduct in the Yulin Island incident. Restraint is the very essence of soft power. The Navy SEALs do have the twin-diesel Mark V Special Operations Boat, which can do 50 knots, carry a crew plus about 18 combat-equipped commandos, deploy/recover a Zodiac RBI, and mount heavy machine guns — plus some missiles or recoilless rifles in a pinch. They’re impressive craft, I’ve been on them at the pier at Coronado and Virginia Beach, but they might be too light to engage a pirate mother ship as you say. On the other hand the Mark Vs work in pairs and more then one pair could make a USN swarm, if there were enough of them to go around. The LCS would be nice to have too, a lot more powerful and there could even be an anti-pirate mission module, but how long till there are enough of them built?… Happy Easter to you as well!
Good Afternoon Joe,
I had a pin in calling the WWII German S-Boot as the ideal pirate chasing boat. It’s made of wood.
Thinking like a pirate, is rather easy, he’s in the trade for the money. Right now is dealing with a super power that is stupid enough to refuse to pay a modest $2 million ransom. I wonder how far $2 million goes in covering the DAILY overhead for two Burkes, a LAH, P-3 over flights as well as making opportunities for brother pirates to make a score. Joe thing about how dumb what we re doing is?
Now you are a pirate and lets just say that the $50 million you scored in 2008 wasn’t really enough to be a gentleman pirate, so who has the deepest pockets, well no question here the United States. So how do you take down a Burke destroyer valued at $2 billion, why plant some sea mines of course. The pirates know the only way our navy can clear mines is to run expensive warship over a mine field.
The pirates have what economists call a comparative advantage over the USN. The have shredded the Navy’s C4ISR, they know the location of all the war ships in the area, in short they know where the Navy is not.
Another interesting thing the pirates might do is close down a port and lock several USN ship in port. This is easier then most people think.
Now can you see the advantage of wooden hull?
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Apparently, China has purchased the Rutan designed LongEZ.
Byron said: “Also the crew over General Atomic has figured out how to make a Predator C, capable of taking off and landing on a LHD with only minor changes….”
Byron, are you sure about that??? The Pred C is jet powered and carries it’s weapons internally so it likely needs a looong runway to get sufficent airpseeed to develop the apropriate amount of lift.
Were you thinking of the Pred A? That seems muchmore likely….