CHINA'S PLANS TO SCARE AMERICA

CHINA’S PLANS
TO FRIGHTEN
AMERICA


China is convinced it will have the ability to strike and possibly destroy every American military base in the East China region within a decade. Its aim is to ensure America will not be able to come to the aid of allies like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
Chinese military strategists already have a plan to prove to Washington a conventional war with China would be unwinnable. Their overall objective is to shut the U.S. military out of East Asia by 2020.
If any of that seems far-fetched, or scare mongering, it certainly is not. Evidence now available to American military analysts confirms China is moving ahead quickly with the development of a powerful anti-ship ballistic missile with the potential to strike U.S. destroyers and more significantly aircraft carriers, which would be the floating platforms for an American military response should war break out between China and an American ally in East Asia.
The most obvious sign of China’s future intent is the rate at which it is building an offensive capability to threaten U.S. forward deployment forces and bases using massive quantities of conventional missiles of every kind. It already has a stockpile of missiles targeted at U.S. bases in Japan and South Korea. America’s two South Korean bases, Osan and Kusan, are only 250 miles from China. Presently, they have 1,000 theater ballistic missiles and 700 cruise missiles aimed at them. The American military also operates from three Japanese bases, Kadena, Misawa and Yakota. The Kadena base is approximately 400 miles from the Chinese mainland and the others two no more than 700 miles. China has 250 theater ballistic missiles and 1,000 cruise missiles targeted at those sites. While the Chinese lack theater ballistic missiles capable of striking Andersen air base on Guam, 3,000 miles away in the Pacific, within a few years that will change as China upgrades its bomber force and air-refueling abilities.
China’s near term strategy is a clever one fraught with risks. However, Peoples Liberation Army strategists believe it will succeed, if only because Washington will do everything to avoid a conventional war. In order to exploit what they see as Washington’s timidity, the Chinese have already begun to set in motion the creation of an area of denial. In other words, an area in which the Chinese will, over time, deny the U.S. military access. The steps to achieving that have begun and they involve several interlinking facets. First, China has moved ahead rapidly with a massive expansion of its convention missile arsenal. Those missiles, all of them with an offensive capability, will be aimed at U.S. bases. China is letting Washington know it is assembling its new strike potential in order to display what would happen in the event the American military coming to the aid of Japan or Taiwan. By making Washington nervous, China expects the Pentagon to situate its forces closer to Guam. That would then make it exceedingly difficult for those forces to be effective in a conflict.
Little attention has been paid to China’s expansion of its cruise missile arsenal, especially the land attack variety. The Department of Defense recently told Congress that it had suddenly discovered the Chinese had expanded its arsenal of land attack missiles with a 1,000 mile range by as much as 30% in one year. It had also increased the numbers of a new air-launched cruise missile, therefore giving jet fighters and bombers a stand-off strike capability. The Dept. of Defense was unable to confirm how many of the new cruise missiles were in service.
China has spent the past decade getting ready to fight a conventional war with America. According to the Department of Defense, China possesses the “world’s largest and most lethal short range ballistic missile force in the world.” Chinese military leaders know they would lose a conventional war were it to be fought today so they are working hard to change the balance of power. They feel sure by 2020 America will have no appetite for a war with China and will have been so convinced by then of that reality it will have reduced its military footprint in the region. That is a gamble the Chinese appear willing to take, including another that America will not go nuclear if Japan is on the verge of being overwhelmed by Chinas military.
A growing facet of China’s denial of area strategy, or as it could be defined, its setting of new boundaries, has been its belligerence on the high seas of the region. That too has been aimed at making America and its allies nervous and it has succeeded. In order to avoid conflict, the U.S. navy has begun retreating to areas China has determined are on the periphery of its area of denial.
The bottom line is China wants to be in a position to exercise total control of the seas around it by 2020. It hopes the more it builds an offensive capability threatening every U.S. military asset in the region the more America will back off, not wanting a conventional war it could easily lose. Chinese logic is that success will come from Washington accepting a conventional war with China would be unwinnable. Of course, China has not calculated on what it might lose in such a war or that America could prove to be more militarily resilient than China thinks.