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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Chinese build a high-tech army within an army |
| 2005-11-17 |
| Chinese build a high-tech army within an army By Robert Marquand, Staff writer of The Christian Science MonitorThu Nov 17, 3:00 AM ET Shi Jin wears a jean jacket, has razor-cropped hair, and seems gravely earnest. An officer in the People's Liberation Army, he was wooed from a Beijing vocational college three years ago by recruiters who talked up his technical aptitude - and his patriotism. In the past decade, China has undergone two military high-tech reforms designed to give the country a modern fighting force. To sustain that progress, it must attract many more gung-ho young engineers like Shi, who spends most of his time working on an "informational" revolution that planners hope will one day allow them to "see" a battlefield with the same depth as the US military. "I will not do any direct fighting if there is a war, but I am contributing on the technical side," he says. "We are all needed in the new Army." China's desire, often stated, is to be a great nation. Many in Beijing feel that the country's natural right is to be the major power in Asia. But China has rarely been given high marks in global military annals. It has a "brown water" Navy that doesn't navigate open seas. It can't project power by sending forces abroad. It has relied on states like Russia for jet fighters, cruise missiles, and other advanced weapons. Yet it now appears China is methodically changing this equation. and painting a big red America please destroy us sign across their country In a surprisingly short time, China has accomplished two feats. One, it has focused its energy and wealth on creating an army within an army. It has devoted huge amounts of capital to create a small high-tech army within its old 2.2 million-member rifle and shoe-leather force. The specialty of this modern force, about 15 percent of the PLA, is to conduct lightning attacks on smaller foes, using an all-out missile attack designed to paralyze, and a modern sea and air attack coordinated by high-tech communications. In other words, this new modern force is designed to attack Taiwan. Who's taking bets on a timetable? |
| Posted by:ElvisHasLeftTheBuilding |
| #6 self-sufficient huh? What's with teh purchasing of steel, concrete, and oil in such huge quantities abroad? a head fake? Jeebus |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-11-17 22:43 |
| #5 besoeker: It has devoted huge amounts of capital, thanks to a staqggering US trade deficit to create a small high-tech army using students educated in the US within its old 2.2 million-member rifle and shoe-leather force China developed its A-bomb and ballistic missiles before the era of Chinese trade surpluses. China is a more or less self-sufficient continental-sized power like Russia. Even if a US embargo were still in place, China would be developing its military rapidly - it is essentially a political rather than an economic decision. The key to rapid Chinese growth in recent years has been the government's abandonment of communist economic principles, combined with relative Chinese backwardness compared to its East Asian neighbors. American imports of Chinese goods have been important, but not essential to Chinese economic growth. Bright Chinese college graduates don't join the Chinese military - in China, they are considered dead end jobs that pay very little - unless they're connected, in which case the opportunities for graft are quite lucrative. But corrupt recruits who get in via nepotism don't exactly help China build a modern military, do they? As to US-educated Chinese college grads, the vast majority of them stay in the US. The minority who return to China certainly wouldn't do anything as gauche as join the military, where a lifetime's pay wouldn't earn back the cost of their expensive foreign educations. |
| Posted by: Elmenter Snineque1852 2005-11-17 22:07 |
| #4 It has devoted huge amounts of capital, thanks to a staqggering US trade deficit to create a small high-tech army using students educated in the US within its old 2.2 million-member rifle and shoe-leather force |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2005-11-17 20:24 |
| #3 Article: Historically, in fact, China is not an aggressor. It rarely attacks. CSM is peddling an academic shibboleth that happens to be patently untrue. You do not become the third largest country in the world by not being an aggressor. Besides, in the past 60 years alone, China has initiated border conflicts with India, the Soviet Union, Vietnam and the Philippines, not to mention attacked Korea right as UN forces were about to unify all of it. If China is not an aggressor, the Ottoman and Spanish empires weren't aggressors either, since they spent most of the last 2 centuries falling apart. But how did those empires get built? China acquired Tibet in the 20th century - a territory that is fully 1/6 of total Chinese land holdings - but China is not an aggressor? Gimme a break. |
| Posted by: Elmenter Snineque1852 2005-11-17 20:19 |
| #2 Article: "We [the US] spend $400 billion on defense. We don't have the right to decide other nations' threats," commented a career defense official in Washington. I guess this must be CSM's pet liberal in the Pentagon talking. Other countries routinely criticize us for having a presence in their region, despite the fact that we've never attacked a country that didn't threaten American interests. What Rumsfeld said about the Chinese is no different from what the Chinese are saying about the US. |
| Posted by: Elmenter Snineque1852 2005-11-17 20:08 |
| #1 Shi, who spends most of his time working on an "informational" revolution that planners hope will one day allow them to "see" a battlefield with the same depth as the US military. Won't make a bit of difference. The Americans do this so that they can support the guy on the end of the bayonet. They give the authority to act to the sergeant on the ground kicking in the door. The Chinese are doing this because they think it will allow them to micro-manage the battlefield. Its all cultural. Their sergeant will be just waiting to be ordered what to do next like a thousand other ones. That's when the system collapses. Too many decision points, too faster overwhelm the decision makers at the higher level trying to extend their personal control on the battlefield. Its the nature of the beast. You think the ComChi's are going to give thousands of sergeants authority? Heh. |
| Posted by: Snineper Hupereck1825 2005-11-17 16:10 |