China's Emergence as a Superpower (till 2014)
7 Feb Washington Times - China's Emergence as Military Power Splits Strategists on Threat to U.S..
Quote:
A new Pentagon strategy report and recent congressional testimony by the director of national intelligence show the Bush administration remains divided on the threat posed by China's rise.
The Quadrennial Defense Review report made public last week bluntly states that China is the greatest potential challenge to the U.S. military and is rapidly building up its military.
John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, by contrast, stated in an annual intelligence threat briefing for Congress that China's rise is similar to that of democratic India. He left out any reference to the threat to Asia or the United States posed by the military buildup...
Some officials -- who dominate the State Department and the intelligence agencies -- consider China a nonthreatening state that will evolve into a benign power through trade and other global economic interaction.
Other officials, however, view China as a growing potential danger, engaged in strategic deception to mask hidden goals and objectives...
Commercial Photos Show Chinese Nuke Buildup
16 Feb. Washington Times - Commercial Photos Show Chinese Nuke Buildup.
Quote:
Commercial satellite photos made public recently provide a new look at China's nuclear forces and bases images that include the first view of a secret underwater submarine tunnel.
A Pentagon official said the photograph of the tunnel entrance reveals for the first time a key element of China's hidden military buildup. Similar but more detailed intelligence photos of the entrance are highly classified within the U.S. government, the official said.
"The Chinese have a whole network of secret facilities that the U.S. government understands but cannot make public," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "This is the first public revelation of China's secret buildup."
The photographs, taken from 2000 to 2004, show China's Xia-class ballistic missile submarine docked at the Jianggezhuang base, located on the Yellow Sea in Shandong province.
Nuclear warheads for the submarine's 12 JL-1 missiles are thought to be stored inside an underwater tunnel that was photographed about 450 meters to the northwest of the submarine. The high-resolution satellite photo shows a waterway leading to a ground-covered facility.
Other photographs show additional underground military facilities, including the Feidong air base in Anhui province with a runway built into a nearby hill...
Chinese Response to US Military Transformation
From RAND: Chinese Responses to US Military Transformation and Implications for the DoD
Quote:
Chinese strategists have avidly consumed U.S. Department of Defense writings over the past 10 years and have keenly observed the changing nature of U.S. national strategy and military transformation. Commentary by People’s Liberation Army (PLA) experts on Operation Iraqi Freedom suggests that Beijing believes the Pentagon’s efforts at achieving a Revolution in Military Affairs are not just succeeding, but accelerating. Yet the concomitant acceleration of the pace of Chinese military modernization also suggests that the Chinese are not dissuaded by U.S. military prowess, but instead are driven by a range of strategic and military motivations to continue their efforts apace. This report examines potential Chinese responses to U.S. transformation efforts and offers possible U.S. counterresponses. It should be of interest to analysts, warfighters, and policymakers who seek to better understand the modernization trajectory of the Chinese military, and the potential implications of PLA efforts for U.S. military capabilities in a potential China-Taiwan scenario...
Military Power of the People's Republic of China
Released yesterday - DoD's Annual Report to Congress: Military Power of the People's Republic of China.
Quote:
The FY2000 National Defense Authorization Act (Section 1202) directs the Secretary of Defense to submit a report "…on the current and future military strategy of the People’s Republic of China. The report shall address the current and probable future course of military-technological development on the People’s Liberation Army and the tenets and probable development of Chinese grand strategy, security strategy, and military strategy, and of the military organizations and operational concepts, through the next 20 years."
This report, submitted in response to the FY2000 National Defense Authorization Act, addresses (1) China’s grand strategy, security strategy, and military strategy; (2) developments in China’s military doctrine and force structure, to include developments in advanced technologies which would enhance China’s military capabilities; and, (3) the security situation in the Taiwan Strait.
The link contains five reports, 2002 through 2006.
I have also placed links to all the MSM buzz about the report on today's SWJ Daily News page
Oppression does not make a Country Great
Goesh, the ability to exterminate opposition and to stifle freedom does not make China great or even a powerhouse. If it did the Soviets would have won the Cold War. Repression works in the short term no the long. The Chinese are good at business true but they are sacrificing a lot to get there. All those organizations and peculiarities of American Society that you listed as bad things, they exist because they can, because the free people of this Country want them too, and to be extreme, a Government crack down of frivilous pet grooming would be even more wasteful than the activity itself. And while you may disagree with the ACLU and NAACP, you have to give them credit for defending the inalienable rights garaunteed by the Constitution. In China you and they would have no choice but to follow the party line. China is heading for some big shake ups, I believe she is like a big fat duck on a pond, you just don't see its legs spinning underwater.
China's Emergence as a Superpower
I don't know how many of the posters here subscribe to John McCreary's NightWatch newsletter, but as a free resource I find its contents preferable to most of the more mainstream outlets. Here's the relevant bit:
Quote:
China-Central Asia: Yesterday the Ministry of Foreign Affairs summarized the results of Premier Wen Jiabao's swing through central Asia and Russia between 2 and 6 November. Wen paid official visits to Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Belarus and Russia; attended the sixth meeting of the Prime Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Tashkent; and led the Chinese delegation to the 12th China-Russia Prime Ministers’ regular meeting, where he attended the closing ceremony for the “China Year “in Moscow.
It is no accident that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization members were the first to be visited after the 17th National Congress approved the latest leadership lineup. China’s turn to the countries in the Asian landmass is historic and strategic because these are the barbarian lands in antiquity and more recently they were hostile as members of the Soviet Union. After years of meetings that achieved little, they are now becoming the centerpiece of a non-western strategic economic center. High oil and natural gas prices are reshaping trade and development patterns faster.
The level of interaction seems to be gathering momentum as patterns of trade shift. For example, in Uzbekistan, China promised to buy more cotton, as part of the ten cooperation agreements signed last week in Tashkent. To ensure the cotton reaches China, China has agreed to accelerate transit road construction across Kyrgyzstan. China also intends to continue to expand the railroads that will link to the Chinese system. The Chinese quest for resources is accelerating the development of the continent.
Older maps show China’s railroad west of Urumqi ending at the Chinese border so that invaders from the Soviet Union could not use it. Now it is a 32 hour train trip from Urumqi to Almaty, Kazakhstan and costs $63. Many readers will not know there are two rail systems from Moscow to the Far East: the well-known Trans-Siberian Railway and the newer Silk Road route that links all the central Asian states and terminates in Beijing.
As a visual aid, McCreary includes a map displaying the growth of the two railroad lines, and when you add that to the existing transportation hubs that tie into Moscow, you can clearly see the potential for a game-changing shift of power from the Western hemisphere to the Far East, driven by the rapid technological development of a nation that contains 20% of the world's population.
China's Emergence as a Superpower
I just wrote an analysis entitled "Divine Manipulation of the Threads: China's Certain Rise to World Dominance in the 21st Century" that's available for download at IntelFusion. I'd love to hear any comments on it.
Looks like China's going to have to wait a little longer....
Quote:
The great fall of China - Revised GDP calculations show that Beijing isn't the giant we thought it was
By Walter Russell Mead; December 30, 2007
The most important story to come out of Washington recently had nothing to do with the endless presidential campaign. And although the media largely ignored it, the story changes the world.
The story's unlikely source was the staid World Bank, which published updated statistics on the economic output of 146 countries. China's economy, said the bank, is smaller than it thought.
About 40% smaller.
China, it turns out, isn't a $10-trillion economy on the brink of catching up with the United States. It is a $6-trillion economy, less than half our size. For the foreseeable future, China will have far less money to spend on its military and will face much deeper social and economic problems at home than experts previously believed.
What happened to $4 trillion in Chinese gross domestic product?
Statistics. When economists calculate a country's gross domestic product, they add up the prices of the goods and services its economy produces and get a total -- in dollars for the United States, euros for such countries as Germany and France and yuan for China. To compare countries' GDP, they typically convert each country's product into dollars.
The simplest way to do this is to use exchange rates. In 2006, the World Bank calculated that China produced 21 trillion yuan worth of goods and services. Using the market exchange rate of 7.8 yuan to the dollar, the bank pegged China's GDP at $2.7 trillion.
That number is too low. For one thing, like many countries, China artificially manipulates the value of its currency. For another, many goods in less developed economies such as China and Mexico are much cheaper than they are in countries such as the United States.
To take these factors into account, economists compare prices from one economy to another and compute an adjusted GDP figure based on "purchasing-power parity." The idea is that a country's GDP adjusted for purchasing-power parity provides a more realistic measure of relative economic strength and of living standards than the unadjusted GDP numbers.
Unfortunately, comparing hundreds and even thousands of prices in almost 150 economies all over the world is a difficult thing to do. Concerned that its purchasing-power-parity numbers were out of whack, the World Bank went back to the drawing board and, with help from such countries as India and China, reviewed the data behind its GDP adjustments.
It learned that there is less difference between China's domestic prices and those in such countries as the United States than previously thought. So the new purchasing-power-parity adjustment is smaller than the old one -- and $4 trillion in Chinese GDP melts into air.
Link
As the article (Editorial) points out, this has serious implications for a whole host of players. If the numbers are correct, there's been a whole lot of economic assumptions being made that really aren't justifiable, and could easily come back to haunt the entities making those decisions.