Conventional and Irregular Warfare:
The Soviets learned this the hard way during the Cuban missile crisis. In comparison to the U.S., they had effectively no global military power projection capability – neither conventional nor non-conventional.
This being one of the principal reasons for their embarrassing withdrawal/retreat from Cuba. The Chinese learned this firsthand during the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, triggered by Chinese missile testing, and successfully counter-challenged by the U.S. Navy. The next time the Chinese challenge Taiwan will be when they have the military power projection wherewithal to need not back down.
In addition to modernizing, restructuring and upgrading their sizeable land, air and special forces, the Chinese, as did the Soviets post Cuban missile crisis, have embarked on an ambitious and aggressive naval build-up plan. They are creating a true blue water Navy designed to confront and effectively challenge the U.S. on all global sea lanes, with the first phase and priority being dominance of the Asia-Pacific region. That military projection capability providing the catalyst to create a modern version of the ancient Tributary State System.
Evidence this major development, the Dec. 28, 2006 Voice of America article titled “Chinese President Calls for Strong Navy”, notes “Chinese President Hu Jintao says his country needs a powerful navy that is prepared to carry out missions at any time. Speaking at a Communist Party meeting on Wednesday, Mr. Hu urged the navy to continue its efforts to build a "blue water" or deep sea fleet that can adapt to the navy's historic mission.”
As for specific naval strategy for example, unlike the US Navy which is designed, built, structured and operated to “protect” sea lanes, evidence its aircraft carrier-centric strategy, the Chinese instead are pursuing a much easier yet very potent “denial” of sea lanes strategy. In other words, a Navy (U.S.) versus anti-Navy (Chinese) strategy. This in conjunction with an overall “anti-access” strategy – to deny U.S. access at critical points required to support any conflict. Their naval ship building and acquisition emphasis being not on carrier construction and/or purchase, and itself evolving away from easily targeted surface ships such as destroyers and cruisers, but instead towards the carriers’ biggest threat – advanced cruise missile equipped submarines and air power.
Asymmetric Warfare:
Martin Walker, in his Associated Press article of March 16, 2006 titled “China Boosts Defense Spending Another 15 Percent” notes “…U.S. officials are paying particular concern to China's suspected capabilities in unconventional (asymmetric context) warfare, particularly in cyber-warfare and information warfare, attacking the computer networks on which advanced military forces increasingly depend. The U.S. concerns were first made public by U.S. Air Force General Ralph Eberhart, Commander of U.S. Space Command, who noted in 2001 that, "We see this (cyber-warfare) in terms of capabilities we know they have, we see this written in their doctrine, we see this espoused by their leadership."
Bottom line:
The Chinese, vis-à-vis the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), which includes the PRC's Army, Navy, and Air Force, as well as supporting espionage operations, are evolving and aggressively moving in a (robust) military force/power projection direction. That requires a collective force upgrade in make-up and doctrine, and a supporting, significant and growing defense budget, one tied to sustained economic growth. Interestingly, GlobalSecurity.org highlights this important symbiotic relationship between economic growth and defense budget increase, noting “The Information Office of China's State Council having issued on 27 December 2004 a white paper titled China's National Defense in 2004. Pursuant to the National Defense Law, the Chinese government follows the guiding principle of the coordinated development of national defense and economy.”
One can then readily understand the precipitous rise in the Chinese defense budget over the last 10-15 years, which in lock step fashion, precisely mirrors the exploding economic situation, borne out in its ballooning foreign exchange reserves. Again note the key contrast to the old Soviet Union however, which while having an exploding defense budget, suffered from an imploding economy, the now proven “pure communism” recipe for economic collapse. The Chinese defense budget continues in healthy fashion to grow as it has throughout this period in substantive double digits. For 2007, the Chinese “officially” reported $45 billion, however it is readily noted and accepted by military analysts and the Department of Defense as a non-comprehensive budget, excluding key costs such as weapons procurement, military research and development budget, military construction and pension and medical bills to name but a few.
When employing “Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)” methodology however, and factoring in the cost areas the U.S. defense budget includes which the Chinese defense budget apparently fails to, Wikipedia notes the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) estimating the “real” 2007 Chinese defense budget to be upwards of $125 billion. This estimate is quite likely conservative when considering other respected estimates also noted in Wikipedia, e.g. the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which in 2003 on a PPP basis estimated the Chinese Defense budget at $140 billion.
Whether the Chinese annual defense budget is $45 billion “official” or “$125 billion “real”, the point is that with foreign exchange reserves surging at $1+ billion per day, and at an accelerating rate, the economic growth can quickly support a doubling or tripling of the defense budget – overnight. The U.S. and WEAST are wrongly thinking in their own metrics world, planning on China’s defense budget following a more accustomed 5-10% in annual increases. They will soon be shock and awed to learn a difficult lesson, that China does not live in or by that “traditional” mindset/world view and 5-10% expectation will likely become an order of magnitude more. 50 to 100% increases for a period of time should not be unexpected under the compressed buildup timeline in place. Again, with the economy (foreign exchange reserves) growth linkage to driving the defense budget, explosion in the former will fully support explosion (not inflationary adjustments) in the latter.
While uncertainty swirls about the absolute real defense budget number, one thing is certain. That is the Chinese defense budget on a PPP basis is head and shoulders the number 2 defense budget in the world, exceeded only by the U.S., and growing by leaps and bounds. One can only ask - why?.....if indeed there is no direct conventional offensive military threat, and they certainly do not take a $100 billion per year irregular warfare burden as does the U.S. in Iraq. That certainly does not say the Chinese are not beefing up their capabilities in non-conventional too as part of their buildup.
C) SOCIAL - STABILITY/ORDER:
Lesson – For a regime and/or ideology to survive, a minimally stable, non-rebellious populace is a must. In other words, Commulism seeks to aggressively manage what the Analyst will coin, the citizenry “rebellion edge”, i.e. the tipping point between order and anarchy.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
