China could build a modern military by 2020, says Pentagon

US report revealing fears over military growth is dismissed by Chinese officials as ‘cold war mentality’

China’s People’s Liberation Army marches in Beijing.

China appears on track to forge a modern military by 2020, a rapid buildup that could be potentially destabilising to the Asia-Pacific region, the Pentagon has said.

Fuelled by its booming economy, China’s military growth in the past decade has exceeded most US forecasts. Its aircraft carrier programme, cyberwarfare capabilities and anti-satellite missiles have alarmed neighbours and Washington.

Some China watchers, including members of the US Congress, note with apprehension that rising Chinese defence spending coincides with Washington’s plans for defence cuts.

“China clearly believes that it can capitalise on the global financial crisis,” said the house armed services committee chairman, Howard McKeon, adding that the US military presence in the Pacific must not be sacrificed in an attempt to control US spending.

The US defence department‘s annual assessment to Congress on the Chinese military flagged all the major concerns about China’s growing military might, including Beijing’s widening edge over Taiwan. It also noted cyber-attacks in 2010 – including those on US government computers – that appeared to have originated in China.

“We have some concerns [on cyber] about some of the things that we’ve seen. And we want to be able to work through that with China,” said Michael Schiffer, a deputy assistant secretary of defence.

The report focused on 2010, a year when the Pentagon said China’s military modernisation programme paid “visible dividends”. It cited China’s fielding of an operational anti-ship ballistic missile, continued work on its aircraft carrier programme and the completion of a prototype of China’s first stealth fighter jet, the J-20.

The J-20 programme, the Pentagon report said, would not achieve “effective operational capability” before 2018.

“Despite continued gaps in some key areas, large quantities of antiquated hardware and a lack of operational experience, the PLA [China's People's Liberation Army] is steadily closing the technological gap with modern armed forces,” the report said.

A spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington said the report was “a reflection of cold war mentality” and would be used as a tool to depict China as a threat.

“We hope the US will take practical steps to work with China for stable and healthy military ties by following the spirit of mutual respect, mutual trust, reciprocity and mutual benefit,” the embassy spokesman Wang Baodong said in an email.

The military buildup could have a destabilising effect on the region, Schiffer said, calling for greater openness by the PLA and more bilateral military dialogue.

“The pace and scope of China’s sustained military investments have allowed China to pursue capabilities that we believe are potentially destabilising to regional military balances,” Schiffer said.

The Pentagon said that despite its progress at becoming a more potent regional military power, Beijing was not expected to be able to project and sustain large forces in high-intensity combat operations far from China before 2020.

That is something the United States, still the predominant military power in the Pacific, has been able to do throughout the world for decades.

One of the best ways for a military to project power is with aircraft carriers and China launched its first carrier – a refitted former Soviet craft – for a maiden run earlier this month. Schiffer said he believed Beijing was working towards building its own domestically produced aircraft carriers and sources told Reuters China was building two carriers.

Still, the report said any domestically produced Chinese aircraft carrier would not be operational until at least 2015 if construction were to start this year.

“Whether or not this [China's carrier programme] proves to be a net plus for the region or for the globe or proves to be something that has destabilising effects and raises blood pressure in various regional capitals I think remains to be seen,” Schiffer said.

One of the biggest irritants in the US-Chinese relationship is Taiwan. The PLA suspended military ties with the United States for most of 2010 over US arms sales to Taiwan and warned that a renewed flurry of engagement could again be jeopardised by new arms sales to an island China sees as a renegade province.

Schiffer said the US government had not yet made a decision on any new arms sales to Taiwan, comments echoed at the state department.

A Reuters report this month said the US sale of 66 new Lockheed Martin F-16 C/D fighter jets to Taiwan appeared unlikely.

China could build a modern military by 2020, says Pentagon | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Google reveals Gmail hacking, says likely from China

Image via CrunchBase

Sui-Lee Wee and Alexei Oreskovic, Reuters June 2, 2011

 

BEIJING/SAN FRANCISCO — Suspected Chinese hackers tried to steal the passwords of hundreds of Google email account holders, including those of senior U.S. government officials, Chinese activists and journalists, the Internet company said.

The perpetrators appeared to originate from Jinan, the capital of China’s eastern Shandong province, Google said. Jinan is home to one of six technical reconnaissance bureaus belonging to the People’s Liberation Army and a technical college that U.S. investigators last year linked to a previous attack on Google.

Washington said it was investigating Google’s claims while the FBI said it was working with Google following the attacks — the latest computer-based invasions directed at multinational companies that have raised global alarm about Internet security.

The hackers recently tried to crack and monitor email accounts by stealing passwords, but Google detected and “disrupted” their campaign, the world’s largest Web search company said on its official blog.

The revelation comes more than a year after Google disclosed a cyberattack on its systems that it said it traced to China, and could further strain an already tense relationship between the Web giant and Beijing.

Google partially pulled out of China, the world’s largest Internet market by users, last year after a tussle with the government over censorship and a serious hacking episode.

“We recently uncovered a campaign to collect user passwords, likely through phishing,” Google said, referring to the practice where computer users are tricked into giving up sensitive information.

“The goal of this effort seems to have been to monitor the contents of these users’ emails.”

It “affected what seem to be the personal Gmail accounts of hundreds of users, including among others, senior U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries (predominantly South Korea), military personnel and journalists.”

Google did not say the Chinese government was behind the attacks or say what might have motivated them.

But cyberattacks originating in China have become common in recent years, said Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer at telecommunications company BT.

“It’s not just the Chinese government. It’s independent actors within China who are working with the tacit approval of the government,” he said.

The United States has warned that a cyberattack — presumably if it is devastating enough — could result in real-world military retaliation, although analysts say it could be difficult to detect its origin with full accuracy.

Lockheed Martin Corp. , the U.S. government’s top information technology provider, said last week it had thwarted “a significant and tenacious attack” on its information systems network, though the company and government officials have not yet said where they think the attack originated.

“We have no reason to believe that any official U.S. government email accounts were accessed,” said White House spokesman Tommy Vietor.

A spokesman at South Korea’s presidential office said the Blue House had not been affected, but added they did not use Gmail. South Korea’s Ministry of Strategy and Finance said it had warned all staff “not to use, send or receive any official information through private emails such as Gmail.”

Technical reconnaissance bureaus, including the one in Jinan, oversee China’s electronic eavesdropping, according to an October 2009 report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Commission, a panel created by Congress to monitor potential national security issues related to U.S- China relations.

The bureaus “are likely focused on defense or exploitation of foreign networks”, the commission report states.

Last year, U.S. investigators said there was evidence suggesting a link between the Lanxiang Vocational School in Jinan and the hacking attacks on Google and over 20 other firms, the New York Times reported. The school denied the report.

China’s foreign ministry and its state council information office did not respond to faxed inquiries.

China has said repeatedly it does not condone hacking, which remains a popular hobby in the country, with numerous websites offering cheap courses to learn the basics.

Three Chinese dissidents told Reuters their accounts had been infiltrated, although eight others who were contacted said they had had no problems.

Google’s security team on Thursday sent an email to dissident Jiang Qisheng, who was a student negotiator jailed for years for his role in the June 4, 1989 pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, that it “recently detected suspicious activity” on his account.

“The suspicious activity appears to have originated in China as an attempt to establish and maintain access to your account without your knowledge,” said the email, which was forwarded to Reuters.

Cui Weiping, a professor at the Beijing Film Academy who has called for ending the official silence about the Tiananmen crackdown, said she could not open her Gmail account this morning and believed it had been hacked into.

“My Gmail account is suddenly inaccessible, because my password has been changed by someone and then I can’t open it,” she said.

While Google said last year’s attack was aimed at its corporate infrastructure, the latest incident appears to have relied on tricking email users into revealing passwords, based on Google’s description in its blog post.

It said the perpetrators changed the victims’ email forwarding settings, presumably secretly sending the victims’ personal emails to other recipients.

“Yesterday, when I opened my inbox, there was a prompt telling me to enter my personal information for safety purposes and to change my password and to fill in a forwarding email address. I ignored it,” said a Chinese activist, who declined to be identified, in emailed comments.

The events leading to Google’s withdrawal from China exacerbated an often difficult relationship between Washington and Beijing, with disputes ranging from human rights to trade.

In January 2010, Google announced it was the target of a sophisticated cyberattack using malicious code dubbed “Aurora”, which compromised the Gmail accounts of human rights activists and succeeded in accessing Google source code repositories.

The company, and subsequent public reports, blamed the attack on the Chinese government.

“We’ll certainly see more of this in the future, as Chinese hackers — independent and otherwise — target Google because of its global popularity and its decision to defy the Chinese government on censorship, which some hackers will misconstrue as being anti-Chinese,” said Michael Clendenin, managing director of RedTech Advisors, a technology consulting firm.

Google has lost share to rival Baidu Inc. in China’s Internet market, the world’s largest with more than 450 million users.

“Investors would like to see Google figure out a way to operate in China, and capitalize on the growth of the country,” said Cowen and Co analyst Jim Friedland.

“It’s been a tough relationship. And this highlights that it continues to be a tough relationship,” he said.

Google said it had notified the victims and relevant governments in the recent attacks.

“It’s important to stress that our internal systems have not been affected — these account hijackings were not the result of a security problem with Gmail itself,” Google said.

The company’s shares finished 0.7 per cent lower at $525.60.
© Copyright (c) Reuters

Google reveals Gmail hacking, says likely from China.

China says it will boost its defence budget in 2011

“China has been building up its military in recent years; the defence budget was increased by 7.5% in 2010, after double-digit jumps in previous years.”

Spending will increase by 12.7% to 601.1bn yuan ($91.5bn; £56.2bn) up from 532.1bn yuan last year, officials said.

Many analysts say China’s actual spending on defence is far higher than the government reports.

The announcement comes a day ahead of the annual National People’s Congress, at which the Communist Party will outline its five-year plan.

Military build-up

China has been building up its military in recent years; the defence budget was increased by 7.5% in 2010, after double-digit jumps in previous years.

Chinese parliamentary spokesman Li Zhaoxing said the increase was justified, and China posed no threat to anyone.

“China’s defence spending is relatively low by world standards,” Mr Li said, echoing previous assertions by Beijing that its defence budget was much smaller than that of the US.

“China has always paid attention to restraining defence spending,” he added.

There is no two ways about the fact that China’s military is getting much more powerful”

However, many observers believe that the real figure spent on defence is much higher.

Beijing insists that its military modernisation programme is entirely peaceful but the latest hike in defence spending to boost the 2.3m-strong People’s Liberation Army is likely to further stir regional unease.

China is developing stealth fighters and advanced missile systems, and also plans to launch its first aircraft carrier.

China’s neighbours say that Beijing is becoming more assertive as its military develops.

Relations have been strained between China and Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea, where there are large potential reserves of oil and gas.

On Thursday, Japan said it scrambled jets after two Chinese military aircraft flew close to the disputed chain.

“China’s modernisation of its military and increased activity is, along with insufficient transparency, a matter of concern,” Yukio Edano, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, said.

China has also laid claim to vast areas of water and mostly uninhabited islands in the South China Sea, angering several South East Asian nations.

On Friday, the Philippines demanded an explanation after it said two Chinese patrol boats threatened to ram one of its ships operating in the area.

Sovereignty in the South China Sea is important, not only because of suspected deposits of oil and gas.

More important is the fisheries industry and the vital issue of freedom for trade through some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world – 80% of China’s energy imports pass through these waters.

Regional conflict?

“There is no two ways about the fact that China’s military is getting much more powerful,” said Duncan Innes-Kerr of the Economist Intelligence Unit in Beijing.

“Its ability going forward to overwhelm opponents is clearly increasing,” he added.

However, analysts say there is a low chance of a military conflict over disputed territories in the region.

“Territorial claims are a secondary concern for China compared to domestic economic growth and stability,” said Mr Innes-Kerr.

That focus on the economy is expected to become evident as the National People’s Congress begins on Saturday.

While Friday is all about China’s growing military power, the annual meeting of policymakers is expected to be much more about China’s social and economic development.

The BBC’s Beijing correspondent, Martin Patience, says tackling inequality is expected to be a key focus of the new five-year plan.

New social service programmes and spending on education will also be some of the measures likely to be revealed.

via BBC News – China says it will boost its defence budget in 2011.

Related Articles

• China may be spending more on its military than it lets on (telegraph.co.uk)
• Fears over China’s military might (bbc.co.uk)

China: a force fit for a superpower

It has been a month to remember for the top brass of China’s People’s Liberation Army. While other armies fret about their funding, China’s generals have unveiled three major new weapons that could challenge the military supremacy of the United States and provide the firepower to underline China’s superpower status.

In a dry dock in the northern city of Dalian, smoke has begun to billow from the chimneys of the Shi Lang, a hulking Soviet-era ship that China bought from Russia and has refitted to become its first aircraft carrier. Named after a Qing dynasty admiral, the carrier is slated to make its maiden voyage later this year, four years ahead of schedule. Five more aircraft carriers could bolster the Chinese fleet further over the next decade.

Meanwhile, at an air base in the central city of Chengdu, China’s first stealth fighter jet has been spotted taxiing along a runway. It has yet to take off, but American plane-spotters have already begun speculating that it might be able to beat an F-22 in a dogfight. Finally, at a command bunker in the north of Beijing, the Chinese Second Artillery Corps controls the jewel in the crown – a new missile that could sink a US aircraft carrier, the first such weapon in the world. The Dong Feng (or East Wind) 21D missile is now “operational”, according to Admiral Robert Willard of the US Pacific Command, which will now have to think twice before committing a $20 billion (£12.8 billion) aircraft carrier and its 6,000 crew anywhere within 900 miles of the Chinese coast.

The unveiling of the new weapons could not have been better timed. Tomorrow, the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, is due to visit the tall white skyscraper that serves as the Second Artillery’s headquarters. Mr Gates, who has admitted that US intelligence has underestimated the speed of China’s progress, will be able to see the PLA’s array of nuclear and ballistic missile options for himself.

The transformation of the PLA, from Chairman Mao’s Red Army into a modern fighting force, began in the wake of the first Gulf War, when America’s precision missiles impressed upon Beijing that modern warfare no longer depended on having the biggest army. Ever since then, the PLA has been shedding troops, from some three million during the 1990s to 2.3 million currently. Xu Guangyu, a senior military analyst, predicted that troop numbers would keep falling, to 1.5 million – “Around the same size as the US and Russian armies,” he said.

But while troop numbers have fallen, the quality of the soldiers has risen, said Mr Xu. Almost 80 per cent of officers are now graduates, and a full two-thirds of China’s defence budget is spent on salaries and training. Meanwhile, a stinging submission at the hands of the US in 1996, when Bill Clinton sent two aircraft carrier strike groups into the East China Sea to support Taiwan during a regional spat, has provoked the PLA into upping its firepower. According to the Pentagon, China has the world’s “most active land-based ballistic and cruise missile programme”. A battery of more than 1,100 short-range missiles faces Taiwan, while medium and longer-range missiles, many bought from Russia, can carry nuclear or conventional warheads to anywhere within 4,000 miles of China, giving Beijing the ability to knock out every US air base in the Pacific.

China’s economic miracle has paid for the munitions, with the PLA’s official budget increasing more than fivefold from $14.6 billion in 2000 to $78.6 billion this year. Unofficially, the spending is thought to be far higher, at $150 billion, with China’s leaders keeping many of the PLA’s deals off the books in order to avoid alarming the rest of the world. And while the sum is still just a fraction of the US budget – Mr Gates has allocated $588 billion for “non-war” military spending this year, after trimming $78 billion of cuts – China has spent the money prudently, focusing on areas of US weakness.

China’s submarine fleet now boasts 65 vessels, and by 2030, according to the Kokoda Foundation, an Australian think tank, the total could rise to between 85 and 100, more than the US and enough to establish an edge in the Pacific. China has also integrated the skills of its military and civilian computer hackers, launched several reconnaissance and guidance satellites, and installed arrays of new radars and underwater sensors to ring its territory.

“There are a number of areas where the PLA has adopted approaches that differ significantly from the US’s approach,” said a Pentagon report to Congress last month. “Examples include the heavy reliance on ballistic and cruise missiles, rather than stealth aircraft, to attack ground targets inside heavily defended airspace; an array of systems to attack intelligence, communications and navigation satellites [and] an emphasis on offensive and defensive electronic warfare.”

While the PLA’s generals have been careful to tone down their nationalistic rhetoric in recent years, dropping the suggestion of an imminent invasion of Taiwan, the army is behaving with more swagger, at least in its own backyard. China insists its only goal is to safeguard “regional peace and stability”, but it has dramatically increased its penetrations of Japanese airspace, resulting in Japanese fighter jets being scrambled 44 times in the past year, double the total for 2006, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: “A gap as wide as what seems to be forming between China’s stated intent and its military programmes leaves me more than curious about the end result. Indeed, I have moved from being curious to being genuinely concerned.”

The PLA does, however, have a long list of fundamental weaknesses that have been pointed out by critics both in China and abroad. Its biggest failing is that it cannot, yet, produce the reliable jet engines it needs for its fighters, having to rely on Russia. That relationship was strained, in 2004, when Moscow discovered that China had copied one of the jets it had advance-ordered and put it into production. “China’s army should not have to rely on others or have to buy its equipment,” said Liang Guanglie, the defence minister, despairingly.

Meanwhile, the PLA’s Jin-class nuclear submarine is said, by the US Office of Naval Intelligence, to be noisier than the submarines built by the Soviets 30 years ago. China’s fighter pilots are no match for US Top Guns. A shortage of foreign naval bases makes it difficult for China to maintain ships on long missions. Sailors who took part in exercises against Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden were reported to have run short of water and fresh food.

And perhaps most reassuringly, the new Dong Feng “carrier killer” missile is impaired by China’s undeveloped missile guidance system. While Beijing can launch the deadly missile, it is not clear it can actually hit a ship. Since US satellites would detect the missile upon launch, an aircraft carrier would have enough warning to move several miles out of the way.

For now, Beijing wields enough power to keep the US in check in the Pacific and to discourage Taiwan from relying too heavily on American support. In the future, the Pentagon believes that the PLA could extend further into the Pacific, using its fleet to control shipping lines and oil concessions. The “pace and scale” of the PLA’s modernisation has been “broad and sweeping”, the Pentagon said. But, for now, China’s modern army “remains untested”.

China: a force fit for a superpower – Telegraph.

China preparing for armed conflict ‘in every direction’

No more crouching tiger.

By Peter Foster, Beijing 1:30PM GMT 29 Dec 2010

“In the coming five years, our military will push forward preparations for military conflict in every strategic direction,” said Liang Guanglie in an interview published by several state-backed newspapers in China. “We may be living in peaceful times, but we can never forget war, never send the horses south or put the bayonets and guns away,” Mr Liang added.

China repeatedly says it is planning a “peaceful rise” but the recent pace and scale of its military modernisation has alarmed many of its neighbours in the Asia-Pacific, including Japan which described China’s military build-up as a “global concern” this month.

Mr Liang’s remarks come at a time of increasingly difficult relations between the Chinese and US armed forces which a three-day visit by his counterpart Robert Gates is intended to address. A year ago China froze substantive military relations in protest at US arms sales to Taiwan and relations deteriorated further this summer when China objected to US plans to deploy one of its nuclear supercarriers, the USS George Washington, into the Yellow Sea off the Korean peninsula.

China also announced this month that it was preparing to launch its own aircraft carrier next year in a signal that China is determined to punch its weight as a rising superpower. The news came a year earlier than many US defence analysts had predicted.

China is also working on a “carrier-killing” ballistic missile that could sink US carriers from afar, fundamentally reordering the balance of power in a region that has been dominated by the US since the end of the Second World War.

A US Navy commander, Admiral Robert Willard, told Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper this week that he believes the Chinese anti-ship missile, the Dong Feng 21, has already achieved “initial operational capability”, although it would require years of testing.

Analysts remain divided over whether China is initiating an Asian arms race. Even allowing for undeclared spending, China’s annual defence budget is still less than one-sixth of America’s $663bn a year, or less than half the US figure when expressed as a percentage of GDP.

However in a speech earlier this year Mr Gates warned that China’s new weapons, including its carrier-killing missile, “threaten America’s primary way to project power and help allies in the Pacific”, underscoring the difficulties that lie ahead as China and the US seek to contain growing strategic frictions.

As China modernises, Mr Liang pledged that its armed forces would also increasingly use homegrown Chinese technology, which analysts say still lags behind Western technology even as China races to catch up.

“The modernisation of the Chinese military cannot depend on others, and cannot be bought,” Mr Liang added, “In the next five years, our economy and society will develop faster, boosting comprehensive national power. We will take the opportunity and speed up modernisation of the military.”

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8229789/China-preparing-for-armed-conflict-in-every-direction.html

Telegraph

China preparing for armed conflict ‘in every direction’ – Telegraph.