- Sep 26, 2000
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20051117/ts_csm/ochina_1
Chinese build a high-tech army within an army
China has taken painful but successful steps to create a "defense industrial base," or weapons-building capability. The PLA has improved its factory quality control and its ability to adapt foreign technology. It is bringing an indigenous small-wing F-10 fighter off the production line, and it is moving rapidly toward a "blue water" Navy with ships built in China.
Indeed, the past three years have yielded the impressive fruits of a modernization campaign started in the late 1990s: A nuclear attack submarine, the 093, launches in months; presumably it will be capable one day of firing satellite-guided cruise missiles that can blast a cruiser or carrier. China now has more accurate ICBMS, a host of land- and sea-based cruise missiles, and about 400 Su-27 and Su-30 Russian fighter jets it didn't have before.
"Do the old shibboleths still apply - that the Chinese defense industry is backward, poor, and low-quality?" asks Evan Medeiros, an analyst with the RAND Corp. in Washington, D.C.
"No," he says. "It seems China has turned the corner.... For the first time in 20 years, the PLA has adopted reforms that make sense. They adopted, and implemented, and are really learning quickly." Medeiros is lead author of a 300-page RAND study, "New Directions for China's Defense Industry," released this month.
"The PLA has undergone a revolution in communications," says James Mulvenon, of the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis in Washington, D.C. "They have gone from dirt to wireless in a generation."
A major moment came this July in a Defense Department review on the PLA. While criticized as soft by hawks, the report hit especially hard due to a comment that China's buildup now appears to go past just an effort to invade Taiwan. Rather, it stated that China was modernizing its forces with the intent of longer range operations and "regional contingencies."
Some Pentagon sources told the Monitor that the Defense Department report was toned down, basically "because you have to try and work with the Chinese."
The US response to China has shifted as well in the past half year. This spring, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Singapore that China's military rise was illegitimate because China faced no threats.
Mr. Rumsfeld's visit to Beijing, the defense chief had changed his public tune: China has the right to develop whatever military it wants, he said. But if China intends a long march to match US capability, more transparency is needed to avoid dangerous misunderstandings.
Chinese build a high-tech army within an army
China has taken painful but successful steps to create a "defense industrial base," or weapons-building capability. The PLA has improved its factory quality control and its ability to adapt foreign technology. It is bringing an indigenous small-wing F-10 fighter off the production line, and it is moving rapidly toward a "blue water" Navy with ships built in China.
Indeed, the past three years have yielded the impressive fruits of a modernization campaign started in the late 1990s: A nuclear attack submarine, the 093, launches in months; presumably it will be capable one day of firing satellite-guided cruise missiles that can blast a cruiser or carrier. China now has more accurate ICBMS, a host of land- and sea-based cruise missiles, and about 400 Su-27 and Su-30 Russian fighter jets it didn't have before.
"Do the old shibboleths still apply - that the Chinese defense industry is backward, poor, and low-quality?" asks Evan Medeiros, an analyst with the RAND Corp. in Washington, D.C.
"No," he says. "It seems China has turned the corner.... For the first time in 20 years, the PLA has adopted reforms that make sense. They adopted, and implemented, and are really learning quickly." Medeiros is lead author of a 300-page RAND study, "New Directions for China's Defense Industry," released this month.
"The PLA has undergone a revolution in communications," says James Mulvenon, of the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis in Washington, D.C. "They have gone from dirt to wireless in a generation."
A major moment came this July in a Defense Department review on the PLA. While criticized as soft by hawks, the report hit especially hard due to a comment that China's buildup now appears to go past just an effort to invade Taiwan. Rather, it stated that China was modernizing its forces with the intent of longer range operations and "regional contingencies."
Some Pentagon sources told the Monitor that the Defense Department report was toned down, basically "because you have to try and work with the Chinese."
The US response to China has shifted as well in the past half year. This spring, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Singapore that China's military rise was illegitimate because China faced no threats.
Mr. Rumsfeld's visit to Beijing, the defense chief had changed his public tune: China has the right to develop whatever military it wants, he said. But if China intends a long march to match US capability, more transparency is needed to avoid dangerous misunderstandings.
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