| Submit your comments on this article |
| Europe |
| Bush To Seek EU Support Against China's Rising Military Might: Analysts |
| 2005-02-22 |
| US President George W. Bush is expected to use his visit to Europe this week to seek more support in his administration's bid to keep China's growing military might in check, analysts said. Bush departed for Europe on Sunday, a day after the United States and Japan declared Taiwan was a common security issue amid the concerns about China's threat to invade the island if it declares independence. Washington and Tokyo also urged China "to improve transparency of its military affairs" in a joint statement Saturday amid concerns an EU plan to lift an arms embargo against Beijing could upset the region's military balance. The European Union imposed the arms embargo after China's military crushed the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests. By removing it, the US fears Beijing will have greater access to high-tech weapons systems that could be used to thwart any US intervention in the Taiwan issue, said Richard Fisher, deputy head of the Washington-based International Assessment and Strategy Center. "As both Japan and the US begin to seriously prepare for a real war on the Taiwan Strait, it is simply sickening that European leaders are proposing to take any steps that would help to enable (China's) dictatorship kill (Taiwan's) democracy," Fisher told AFP. Despite the embargo, EU companies were already involved in China's military modernization and lifting the embargo would only heighten existing cooperation, he said. While Britain's Surrey Satellite Technologies was enabling new Chinese military anti-satellite capabilities, advanced Rolls Royce turbo engines were powering China's homemade JH-7A fighter bomber and Eurocopter was helping China build combat and transport helicopters, Fisher said. German diesel engines were outfitted on China's fleet of conventional "Song" class stealth submarines, while French engines power China's new naval frigate. Both could be used in an potential naval blockade of Taiwan, he said. "As such, European companies have a presence in all PLA (People's Liberation Army) military industrial sectors," Fisher said. "Even if the EU Code of Conduct is modified after discussion with Washington to continue denying the sale of full EU-made weapon systems to China, a very likely increase in the sale of military technologies will serve to accelerate PLA modernization." Although much of China's efforts to modernize its military have come from Russia, there was still a lot of European technology China would want, said Ellis Joffee, an expert on the People's Liberation Army at Hebrew University in Israel. Since the 1990s, Beijing has purchased about 20 billion dollars worth of Russian military hardware, including advanced Sukhoi SU-27 and SU-30 fighter jets, modern Russian destroyers and submarines, with about 12 billion dollars of weapons already delivered, he said. "What is driving China to develop is their desire to have a capability to deter or defeat US intervention in the Taiwan Strait and deter Taiwan from extreme provocation," Joffee told AFP. "The acquisition of the Russian weaponry and the ongoing training by the military, is constantly raising the price for any US intervention." If the arms embargo was lifted, it was unlikely China would rush to Europe to begin a buying spree, but by lifting the embargo greater exchanges with EU military industries would likely increase, he said. "I'm sure that there are some systems out there that they will want to buy from EU countries. There are a wide range of weapons sytsems to choose from, like ship-to-ship missiles, airborne warning and control systems and radars," he said. David Shambaugh, a leading expert on the Chinese military at George Washington University, further dismissed notions in Europe that it was better to sell weapons to Beijing now as it would only be a matter of time before China would be capable of producing its own high-tech weapons. "Without access to Western defense tech or end-use weapons, China's indigenous defense capacity will remain quite handicapped," Shambaugh told AFP. "There is broad consensus in the PLA watching community in the US that, with a few exceptions (like ballistic missiles and missile guidance systems), all other conventional weapons indigenously produced in China's military industrial complex are 10-20 or more years behind the state of the art." |
| Posted by:ed |
| #2 this is nothing new, folks without a stake in a given conflict will make any money they can. for historical proof, look to the hitler, his military build up was largly financed by American and British companies (including, a great irony, one Jewish banking company) |
| Posted by: Dcreeper 2005-02-22 11:08:14 PM |
| #1 Letting China in the WTO was a big mistake. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-02-22 5:16:31 PM |