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China Military Spotlighted in National Day Parade

From the Associated Press:

China’s biggest military parade in a decade will show off an army bristling with formidable new capabilities and deliver a potent message to the U.S. and others not to underestimate Beijing’s determination to defend its interests at home and abroad.

The military display is expected to be the centerpiece of a grandiose parade through Beijing on Oct. 1 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic. A preview rumbled through the Chinese capital a week ago, giving an excited citizenry and foreign military analysts a first-time glimpse at some cutting-edge weaponry…

“The exercise is aimed at not only showing the Chinese people some of the symbols of China’s new great power status, but also showing foreigners that policies based on the presumption of Chinese weakness must be changed,” said Denny Roy, an expert on the Chinese military at Hawaii’s East-West Center… Officially, Beijing says the parade is nothing more than a move to boost patriotism and showcase the PLA’s modernization drive — an explanation that fits with the oft-repeated government line that the Chinese military buildup poses no threat to others. Chinese defense spending officially reached $71 billion this year, though analysts believe the actual figure is much higher. The spending is second to the U.S. but a fraction of American defense spending.

See also past CDT posts on National Day.
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- September 13, 2009 10:40 AM
Richard D. Fisher Jr.: China Puts Up a Fighter

Mr. Fisher is a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center and is the author of “China’s Military Modernization: Building for Regional and Global Reach” (Preager, 2008). He writes on the Wall Street Journal:

With few exceptions, Beijing rarely says much of substance about its ongoing military build-up or its strategic thinking. But the overriding message from the recent Moscow Airshow and other airshows, plus occasional interviews with Chinese and Russian engineers, is that Beijing is not conceding next-generation air superiority to anyone, least of all the United States.

Exhibit A is Beijing’s long-running effort to build a fifth-generation fighter plane equivalent to the U.S. F-22 and F-35. Such planes use extensive stealth and advanced radar and can usually “supercruise,” or fly supersonically for extended periods without using fuel-guzzling afterburners. In what may be the only public reference to the program by a Chinese official, the Commander of the People’s Liberation Army Navy mentioned their requirement for a fighter capable of “supersonic cruise” during 60th anniversary celebrations in April. Today this can only be achieved by the U.S. F-22A Raptor, the world’s only operational fifth-generation fighter.

To be sure, China faces many technical obstacles. Development of advanced engines capable of 15-ton thrust levels is a particularly serious bottleneck. But China’s fifth-generation efforts date back to the early 1990s and will start with two heavy fighters from China’s two main fighter companies.
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- September 1, 2009 10:21 PM
China’s Military Machine Launches Website

The Times Online reports that the Chinese Ministry of National Defence have launched their first website, in both Chinese and English:

A military analyst, Song Xiaojun, says the site will offer more detail on that spending and on general defence policy.

“The Defence Ministry is a special organisation. In principle it should be in the system of the State Council,” said Song, referring to China’s cabinet. “In fact, it is more like a window of the army toward the outside world. The current chinamil site is mainly about life in the army. It doesn’t have much on the policy level.”… In keeping with Beijing’s desire to control all information–both internal and international–about the image of the Communist Party, the new military web site already presents one face in Chinese and another one in English.

Chinese site headlines are uniformly mundane, such as “Jiaoliu Train Line Derailed, Soldiers Perform Urgent Rescue,” whereas the site’s English avatar features items such as “U.S. May OK High-tech Exports to China.”

A military analyst, Song Xiaojun, says the site will offer more detail on that spending and on general defence policy.

“The Defence Ministry is a special organisation. In principle it should be in the system of the State Council,” said Song, referring to China’s cabinet. “In fact, it is more like a window of the army toward the outside world. The current chinamil site is mainly about life in the army. It doesn’t have much on the policy level.”… In keeping with Beijing’s desire to control all information–both internal and international–about the image of the Communist Party, the new military web site already presents one face in Chinese and another one in English.

Chinese site headlines are uniformly mundane, such as “Jiaoliu Train Line Derailed, Soldiers Perform Urgent Rescue,” whereas the site’s English avatar features items such as “U.S. May OK High-tech Exports to China

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- July 31, 2009 2:36 PM
China is Now World No. 2 Arms Spender, Report Says

From the AP:

China has become the world’s second biggest military spender behind the United States, a Swedish peace research group said Monday.

Global arms spending rose 4 percent last year, but China increased its spending by 10 percent to an estimated $84.9 billion last year, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said in its annual report on world arms transfers.

“China is continuing to acquire both domestic and foreign arms as it seeks to equip its armed forces for conditions of modern ‘informationalized’ warfare,” it said. Such warfare involves the use of precision weapons and high-tech information and communications technology.

“They are the second biggest military spender now, that does not mean they are the second strongest military power, because a lot of other countries have been at this game for a lot longer than China,” Perlo-Freeman said.
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- June 8, 2009 11:22 AM
China, Friend or Foe?

Andrew Browne and Gordon Fairclough write on China’s military modernization and its implication for U.S.-China relations. From the Wall Street Journal:

The Pentagon views China as the country most likely, at some point down the road, to acquire the capacity to challenge the U.S. military on a global scale. The U.S. in recent years has moved to strengthen its forces in the Pacific and urged its ally Japan to do the same. Washington and Tokyo are working together to boost anti-missile defenses, to defend against threats from both North Korea and China. And some in the Defense Department talk up the “China threat” to justify greater spending on new weapons systems.

[...] However, many observers, both in China and the U.S., say that fear of China is exaggerated. China’s armed forces are still no match for U.S. firepower at sea, on land or in space. Many American security analysts — including former senior military officers — do not believe that China intends to take on the U.S., as the former Soviet Union once did. For now, China’s military falls back on a mix of high-tech weaponry, such as its new Jin-class nuclear-missile submarines, and low-tech stealth and cunning.
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- April 17, 2009 6:48 PM
China Military Trains First Public Relations Team

Christopher Bodeen of the Associated Press reports that Chinese officers are being trained in public relations as the military has more global engagements:

An initial class of 51 officers graduated this week in an effort to “raise the opinion-forming ability of the force’s foreign propaganda team and advance the innovation and development of the military propaganda work,” the official People’s Liberation Army Daily reported Friday.

The two-week training course included classes dealing with China’s recent dispatch of ships to carry out anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden, as well as joint China-India anti-terror drills and other international missions, it said.

Course work included mock news conferences with reporters from the PLA Daily and the official Xinhua News Agency, the PLA Daily said.

See here for more information on the U.S. Impeccable incident, see here for more information on the Somalia anti-piracy expedition.
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- March 20, 2009 7:35 PM
China Sends Patrol Ship to South China Sea

Tensions continue to rachet up from the March 9 naval standoff between five Chinese ships and the US surveillance vessel Impeccable in the South China Sea. Beijing has sent its most powerful patrol ship to protect fishing boats and transport vessels, just a day after Barack Obama dispatched the destroyer USS Chung-Hoon to escort the Impeccable in what the US claims are international waters but which China claims as its territory. From The Times Online:

Beijing has increased tension in a disputed part of the South China Sea by sending a patrol ship to protect fishing boats after the United States deployed a destroyer in the area. The American move was in response to alleged Chinese harassment of one of its surveillance vessels.

The Yuzheng 311, a converted naval rescue vessel, is the largest and most modern patrol ship in the Chinese Navy, the Beijing News said. It was expected to arrive in the Paracel Islands today to patrol China’s exclusive economic zone and to “strengthen fishery administration” in the South China Sea. It will patrol the waters around the Paracels and the Spratly Islands, protecting Chinese fishing boats and transport vessels.

[...]The timing of the deployment of the patrol vessel appeared to be a response to a build-up of American might in the region. The United States dispatched a destroyer armed with torpedoes and missiles to escort its surveillance ships after harassment earlier this month by the Chinese Navy.

See more CDT coverage of the South China Sea naval standoff.
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- March 15, 2009 4:57 PM