When news reached the Oval Office that a U.S. Navy electronic surveillance aircraft flying over international waters had been intentionally damaged by one of a pair of escorting Chinese F-8 fighters, it was the newly minted Bush administration’s first major foreign-policy crisis. The president and his advisers were told that the EP-3 aircraft had been forced to land at a Chinese military base on Hainan Island and that the 24-member crew of the aircraft had been taken into custody by Chinese military officials.
During that tense standoff last April, negotiators from Beijing and Washington haggled for the following 11 days over the fate of the 24 American crewmen before China, under U.S. and international pressure, finally agreed to release them.
Claiming its own fighter pilot had perished in the incident, China kept the aircraft for another month, blamed the United States for what had happened, and proceeded to strip the EP-3 of its remaining sensitive electronic surveillance equipment, hoping to salvage at least some sort of intelligence victory.
To make matters worse, the incident occurred at a time when the Bush administration was considering the annual “shopping list” of new and sophisticated weapons submitted by Taiwan, China’s primary Asia-Pacific rival and chief nemesis.
Since then, however, a host of other foreign and domestic policy matters have appeared on the administration’s radar screen. Besides having to manage a faltering economy and shepherd his agenda through Congress, President Bush now has a terrorist war on his hands. Since Sept. 11, Afghanistan, the terror war’s first retaliatory target, is falling – a punishing blow for harboring Osama bin Laden, thought responsible for the attacks. Yet, new threats of further terrorism at home continue to consume much of the administration’s time and energy.
With other seemingly more important issues to deal with, is the administration effectively tending to its prior security commitments in Asia, thought by many experts to be the most potentially volatile region Washington will have to deal with in the next decade? Yes, and no, depending on who is asked.
Advantage Beijing?
“China has certainly used the [U.S.] call for a war on terrorism to forward its military agenda in the northwest province of Xinjiang, closing the border with Afghanistan and stationing more troops in the province,” Adam Segal, a next generation fellow in Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, told WND.
Beijing “is especially interested in gaining international support for its battle against Uighur Muslim separatists and other groups that China calls ‘splittists,’ linking these groups to the Taliban and Al Qaida,” Segal said, but he added he hasn’t “seen any evidence that it has tried to press Taiwan into the South China Sea.”
However, according to Al Santoli, an aide to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., and editor of the China Reform Monitor, a publication of the American Foreign Policy Council, China has – since the Sept. 11 attacks – continued its military modernization and buildup of missiles at bases opposite Taiwan.
“The first batch of [38] advanced Russian-built Su-30 MKK fighters will be delivered to China by the end of this year,” Santoli wrote in the Oct. 31 issue of China Reform Monitor. “The main force of those fighters will be deployed at Wuhu Air Base in Anhui Province and a part of those fighters will be deployed at four bases in Fujian Province early next year. The deployment could alter the air superiority situation over the Taiwan Strait.”
Fujian is the province closest to Taiwan.
“In addition, [China] is strengthening the deployment of medium- and short-range missiles in Fujian and southeast coastal areas,” Santoli said. “A well-informed source said the total number [of deployed missiles] is currently around 300, while missile production is actually increasing.”
In the past, Beijing has said it wants eventually to deploy anywhere from 500 to 600 ballistic missiles opposite Taiwan; experts believe China could then use them in a saturation attack against the island, virtually destroying Taipei’s air and naval capability in a single devastating blow.
“China is, in many ways, the most important long-term security threat to the United States,” said Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at The Cato Institute and an Asian expert.
True, says Bandow, the Chinese have “formally endorsed the [U.S.] war on terrorism, but that’s essentially for their own reasons. They’re quite concerned about Muslim separatists in their own country.”
Lost focus?
Some analysts believe the United States remains focused on its priorities and commitments in the Asia-Pacific region, but other experts say Washington’s policymakers are missing the bigger picture where China is concerned.
“I think both China and the U.S. have had a change in focus,” said Segal. “China is happy to draw attention to its own problems in Xinjiang, and there is an overlap now with U.S. and Chinese support for Pakistan.”
Santoli agreed that Bejing is using the current U.S.-led terror war to address its own problems with Muslim separatists. But he adds that as Washington’s attention is diverted, Beijing’s original plans to expand its military power and reach are continuing apace.
“There is no indication that China has stopped strategic weapons build-up,” he told WND, “and we know Beijing is continuing to augment its nuclear forces. Also, China is continuing to have a military presence in the South China Sea.”
Nevertheless, the United States remains constantly vigilant for changes in threat conditions in Asia and elsewhere, a State Department spokesman said.
“Chinese military modernization is something that’s been going on a long time, and it’s not something that started on Sept. 11,” said the official, who requested anonymity. “The U.S. government monitors Chinese military modernization. In fact, the Pentagon reports fairly regularly on that.”
He added that Beijing was “currently cooperating” with the United States in its war against terrorism. “The Chinese have even indicated they’re interested in increasing that cooperation.”
Other analysts worry that such cooperation and an apparent re-focus of attention away from its traditional nemesis, Taiwan, doesn’t mean China has stopped forwarding its own nationalist agenda.
In fact, at present, “China’s South China Sea focus has been primarily on the Philippines,” not the Taiwan Straits, Santoli said. “Right now, Manila is – like Washington – focused almost entirely on bin Laden-supported terrorism,” which has been occurring in the country’s southern provinces.
“That has enabled China to continue its military build-up and presence there,” Santoli said, “to include areas within the Philippines’ Economic Exclusion Zone,” which is within 200 miles of the Philippine coastline.
The State Department official acknowledged China’s interest in the South China Sea – particularly claims it has made to the Spratley Islands, a small island chain claimed by several countries that may contain natural resource deposits.
But he added that in any event, “Americans and American installations and officials are on a heightened state of alert in terms of anything that might be contrary to our interests” since the attacks.
Regarding the Philippines, “There’s nothing significant that’s happened … in that area since Sept. 11,” the official said.
“China, right now, doesn’t even have the military capability to invade Taiwan,” Bandow said. “They don’t have the amphibious or naval capacity” to do that.
“Over the next few years, the difficulties with China are far more political than military,” he added.
“You get hit on Sept. 11 like we did, you have to focus on that,” he said. “So I don’t think there’s a problem with the notion we’re kind of averting our gaze” from China for the short term.
Security alliances holding up?
In fact, Bandow said, “China remains a very poor country. Their military buildup has been measured … in terms of retiring an awful lot of old quantity and put in some quality.”
But, he said, he believes the terrorist attacks and the resultant U.S. response to them may have helped strengthen American alliances in the region.
“Nothing has changed with U.S. security alliances,” Bandow said, “but for the most part, the terrorist incidents have moved the Japanese to a point where it appears they are willing to take a somewhat more aggressive role in using their military” in regional security affairs. “That’s a step forward.”
In terms of South Korea, “For the most part our relationship with [Seoul] hasn’t changed much. The South Koreans, for the most part, want a more open course” of action in future talks with North Korea.
The U.S. alliance with Taiwan, however, has been shaken somewhat in the past few months. Santoli said Taipei has been unable to get Washington to commit on paper to its promise earlier this year to sell Taiwan eight modern diesel-electric submarines, as part of America’s longstanding pledge to help defend the island democracy.
He said Taiwanese navy representatives have been to the United States twice in an effort to get a signed commitment and contract for the subs, which Taipei desperately needs to replace aging World War II-era subs originally acquired from the United States.
Taiwan has some 1980s-era diesel subs built by a Dutch firm, but the Netherlands government has since refused to sell Taiwan more, bowing to Chinese pressure. Germany – another leading diesel sub maker – has also refused to sell to Taiwan.
In May, WorldNetDaily reported that Washington had assurances from an unidentified third country that it would help President Bush fulfill his promise to provide Taiwan with the subs.
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