China's national defence: Danger of overspending
Lau Guan Kim  Updated: 2004-04-13 10:08

There were a number of well-intentioned China aficionados who out of concern, wanted the potential enemy of China to know it was folly to follow a 19th Century Western mindset that the Middle Kingdom is inherently weak, and would be a cakewalk if a push came to shove.

In that direction, by their attempt to dissuade China's potential enemy, principally here the US, among others, that China is no more the weakling and is militarily advancing to a stage it can, or already able to project its military might in defence of the nation and its interests, it has become an ogre in the eyes of her detractors.

By that action they unwittingly help those who demonise China that indeed this East Asian giant is out to conquer the world like the Mongol Genghis Khan. It is a wrong picture given of China and for that I would like to admonish these people lest they become bigots, zealots and jingoists, they can serve China much better.

Chinese chauvinism does harm to Sino-US relations and greatly misrepresents the legitimate needs and objectives of a vast country with potential contentious border problems with 14 other states.

To maintain the desired tranquillity and border harmony, China has done remarkably well with its present military build-up. It is this preoccupation with consolidating and galvanising the nation that endowed past traits of China looking inward to prevent further carving up of its territory. This concern is by no means unfounded, and a reference to the shrinking Chinese territories is mentioned in the work of Samuel P. Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order," where in the last 100 years, China has shrunk by 9%.

While China can adequately look after its national interest within the confine and proximity of the borders, it is obvious its ability to prevent covert and overt subversion, and a stark reality of a physical response from enemies beyond, is limited. What are more humiliating are the taunts by weaker and smaller nations that align with the US. One example was the audacity of the Philippines to sink Chinese fishing boat, while all China could do was make protests through diplomatic channels rather than alarm Asean states.

Two incidents showed how the US reacted to affronts to its power. The Japanese gave notice to the US not to interfere in China in November 1937 when it machine-gunned and sunk the US gunboat 'Panay' in the vicinity of Nanjing. As Japan was the strong regional power, the US downplayed the incident and accepted it as an 'accident' by agreeing to accept compensation.

In the '90s, the US reacted with cruise missiles against its enemies because there were no strong regional forces to deter it.

A replay of the 'Panay' incident was how the US treated China in the embassy bombing in Belgrade. It was probably motivated by the fear China was monitoring the electronic warfare in Yugoslavia, and hence many doubted the 'accident' to bomb the Chinese embassy to prevent any gathering of data that might help in China's military potential. The argument went that the US knew China could not make a credible military response, but was 'contrite' to make a pitiable compensation when it saw the mass reaction of the whole Chinese nation in the sacking of the US embassies on Chinese soil.

All these point to the glaring fact that China is unable to project its military response beyond its borders. Even puny nation such as the Philippines can cock a snoot at China with impunity.

The reference to Keynesian economic theory, based on the idea that increase in unemployment due to dismantling of SOEs can be relieved by government's increased spending or other related government-sponsored projects sounds logical. Since defence is of strategic importance, it thus makes sense to channel this to military spending.

But this can also be a trap against China, one set by it enemies applying Sun Tzu's teaching of winning a war without fighting one.

Look what happened to the defunct USSR.

But a word of caution here. Military spending is wasteful and the trade-off is less will be spent on other benefits for the Chinese people. There is a factor termed as the 'half-life', whereby the time taken for half the life of the radioactive materials in the missiles to undergo decay. The rogue solution, as held by the US about China, is either to sell off some of the less lethal ones to questionable 'terrorist' states, or recycle them to make smaller theatre nuclear weapons.

Another possible ploy is the enemy luring China to overspend militarily and hence overstretch its economic resources to cause a destabilising environment for the preservation of the enemy's Realpolitik.

Paradoxically, as someone argued, in a democracy the hoi polloi will question why China's leaders are making the nation weak militarily when it has enough resources to increase military spending from 1.6% to 5% of GNP. Had China been an entrenched democracy way back in 1962, its response to the Sino-India Border War would not be restrained and might have been an all-out war.

From the USSR's mistake, China cautiously avoids an arms race. It maintains sufficient qualitative nuclear missiles and other weaponry to present a credible deterrence and a second-strike capability. But elsewhere a strident voice that a stockpile of some MIRVed ICBMs with deterrence of 1000 warheads spread widely throughout China would be sufficient deterrence and also protect the missiles from being totally wiped out in the first strike by an enemy.

The three-fold increase from 1.6% to 5% of real GNP spending on arms is not excessive if compared to the US, Japan and other First World states, and is realisable. It would seem the conventional wisdom is towards the modernisation of the air force and the eventual acquisition of at least 4 aircraft carriers, with two on the sides to replace those that need servicing and training.

Already the US with 12 aircraft carriers finds it quite a drain on its defence budget, would one expect China to match this luxury when it at the moment cannot match the US economy? Prudently China frowns on this catching up with the US carriers for the simple reason the former has no ambition to project power beyond its maritime borders, and thus need much lesser carriers than the US.

China itself would be the biggest carrier group against any invading army.

But then a navy in the blue sea without aircraft carrier support is a sitting duck for the enemy's with one.

The projection of power is impossible without a blue water navy, and the military thinking would as a deterrence to carry that conflict to the enemy's turf as well.

There is revolutionary thinking to develop IW (information warfare) to a high pitch. The trend is to fight a modern war under high-tech conditions, and how to beat the US '15,000?foot war' and sink a US aircraft carrier in the Taiwan Straits, if the US makes Taiwan a US national interest.

Currently there is qualitative improvement of the arm forces, and more emphasis on R & D. The pilots in the air force have university degrees. This means that it is easier for the air force to absorb and learn advance techniques much faster.

At this moment, an invading army is no match for the land forces of China. It is reasonable to postulate China would never cut back to save on advanced weapons. Taking a lesson from the Cultural Revolution (1966 -1976), modernisation of the armed services has to be shielded from political uncertainties, as was done for the missile programmes.

Here the pragmatic thinking is for China to match the US in arms in terms of the deterrence it produces commensurate with its economic wherewithal.

The world expects China to play its responsible role in light of an existing unipolar superpower. Iraq is a lesson China must study assiduously and never for once be complacent.

Thus, prudently there is a phased improvement and no rushing pellmell into a self-destruct arms race.

China need only to take measured steps as its defence needs demand and not fall into a trap set by the enemy to overspend.

The above content represents the view of the author only.

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