信与不信，强大的中国就在这里！Sizing Up China's Military Capabilities

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Sizing Up China's Military Capabilities

It is no secret that long-term U.S. Air Force and Navy planning is focused on China. This alone is straining U.S.-China relations, as well as triggering U.S. domestic criticism from those who regard war with China as inconceivable, and an internal squabble between China-focused planners and “boot-centric” Army and Marine Corps leaders.

The U.S. focus on China—and from all outward signs, China’s military focus on the U.S.—has been driven by several factors since the mid-1990s. China’s rapid economic and technological progress gives it the resources to compete militarily with the U.S. The Taiwan Strait crisis of 1995-96—in which China’s apparent goal of persuading Taiwanese voters to reject its pro-independence government was frustrated, in part, by a U.S. show of force—was one factor that triggered drastic reforms and modernization of China’s non-nuclear forces. The Taiwan issue, and the broader concern of military power in what Chinese leaders have historically considered home waters, have led to a visible direction in China’s military modernization toward changing the balance in the Western Pacific.

A decade ago, many U.S. analysts were unimpressed by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). One heard snickers about the “million-man swim” required to invade Taiwan. By 2011, such hubris has given way to palpable concern: The PLA has made great strides toward implementing a strategy described in Pentagon documents since 2005 as “anti-access” or “area denial,” or the shorthand “A2/AD,” to deter or defeat U.S. forces in the Western Pacific.

The elements of this capability include:

•Information exploitation. Digital connectivity, now available from troops to top command levels, has helped implement and refine new joint force operations, especially between the second artillery missile force, the PLA air force and the PLA navy (PLAN). Networks of optical, radar and electronic surveillance satellites, new over-the-horizon (OTH) radar, AWACS and electronic intelligence aircraft plus new passive counter-stealth radar and soon, a 30-plus navigation satellite constellation, enable precision targeting at increasing distances.

•Information attack. In the mid-2000s, U.S. intelligence agencies identified the Advanced Persistent Threat (APT), a pattern of cyberespionage largely traceable to China and aimed mainly at the U.S. defense industry and armed forces.

•Precision air and missile attack. China is developing (and offering for export) an expanding range of guided rockets conforming to the range limits of the Missile Technology Control Regime, while domestically producing guided air-launched weapons—bombs and cruise missiles—and ballistic missiles capable of threatening U.S. bases and naval forces.

•Growing sea denial. PLAN has Asia’s most formidable sea-denial capability built around a growing force of 50-80 conventional submarines (SSKs). Soviet-era boats are being replaced by the Song and Yuan classes and imported Russian Kilos (see p. 15). A yet-undesignated new SSK similar in shape to the Kilo was revealed in September. The Songs and Kilos carry sub-launched YJ-82 antiship cruise missiles and the Kilos carry the formidable Novator 3M-54 Club cruise missile family.

In the Soviet era, it was commonplace for U.S. intelligence agencies to exaggerate Soviet capabilities and predict that new systems would enter service sooner and in larger numbers than actually happened. A consistent trend in analysis of China’s military capabilities is to do the reverse. The emergence of the DF‑21D antiship ballistic missile (ASBM) program (around 2007) startled the U.S. Navy, triggering a crash program to retrieve SM-2 Block IV missiles from storage to establish an initial terminal ballistic missile defense (BMD) capability (for a report on antiship missiles, see p. 41).

Late in 2010, U.S. Pacific Command leader Adm. Robert F. Willard made the surprise declaration that the DF-21D had reached initial operational capability, indicating not only that the missile and its guided reentry vehicle had been tested but were ready to be used with targeting systems such as OTH radar and ocean reconnaissance satellites. (Around the same time, Chinese documents emerged describing the use of submunitions to disable a carrier and damage its aircraft.)
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