China Marches Forward

From Jane's Defence Weekly

19 April 2007

China marches forward

By Timothy Hu

The regeneration of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) is shifting into higher gear as it takes delivery of a new generation of home-grown arms and steps up the development of sophisticated asymmetric technologies designed to thwart more advanced adversaries.

Along with the continuing importation of Russian weapons, improved training and rising levels of professionalism, China is now firmly on track to become a credible regional military power.

An array of new indigenous weapon platforms has been unveiled in the past year that is at least a generation ahead of the PLA's existing arsenal. This includes the fourth-generation F-10 multirole combat aircraft, the WS-10 turbofan engine and a ballistic anti-satellite weapon system that destroyed a satellite at an altitude of more than 805 km in space in an unannounced test in January.

These demonstrations of Chinese high-tech military prowess, especially the anti-satellite hit, have sparked international unease and prompted calls for greater Chinese transparency towards its military activities and intentions.

However, even as its rearmament drive makes considerable progress, the PLA is being stretched to meet a growing array of responsibilities to safeguard the broadening global interests of the world's fourth largest economy. One glaring deficiency is a lack of long-range naval capabilities to secure China's sea lanes of communications, which carry more than 80 per cent of the country's external commerce.

This enormous task of remaking a defence establishment that is still more suited to fighting a Vietnam War-era conflict than a 21st century engagement means that PLA chiefs have to be selective even as they reap double-digit increases in annual defence spending. The air force, navy and strategic missile forces are at the front of the queue in equipment funding priorities, while the once dominant ground forces lag well behind.

The PLA was rewarded with a hefty 17.8 per cent increase in the 2007 official defence budget announced in March, which is one of the highest year-on-year increases in the past decade. Military officials point out that a major reason for this year's sharp jump is to cover a 60 per cent rise in salaries, cost of living subsidies and pensions implemented in the second half of 2006. These personnel outlays will swallow up nearly 60 per cent of this year's budget increase.

While outside experts regard the publicly disclosed budget of USD45 billion as representing between a third and two thirds of actual Chinese defence spending, as it does not include expenditure on weapon research and development or foreign arms purchases, the size of the increase is nonetheless a good barometer of leadership support and the largesse of the state. Moreover, as this latest defence budget is the second-year instalment of the 11th five-year defence programme that started in 2006 and runs to 2010, this could be a signal that the PLA may continue to enjoy this robust rate of budgetary growth until the end of this decade.

Some senior Chinese defence officials argue that military outlays should be lifted from the current level of 1.5 per cent of Gross Domestic Product to between two and three per cent, which would be comparable to advanced Western economies. However, this is unlikely in the near term as the leadership's priorities remain firmly focused on the country's economic development.

PLA chiefs are seeking to maintain a careful balance between the urgent and expensive near-term demands of recapitalising a vast inventory of outdated weapons with a more measured long-term approach towards transforming the armed forces into an information-age outfit. The latest Chinese defence white paper issued at the end of 2006 outlines a three-stage defence development strategy that extends to the middle of this century.

The goal of the first near-term phase is to "lay a solid foundation by 2010" for the country's military posture, in which the PLA will selectively replace only a limited proportion of its existing arsenal with new-generation naval, aviation and missile hardware. The remaining inventory will be upgraded cheaply through the addition of sensors, navigational positioning systems, infrared detectors, computers and other devices that will allow them, in theory at least, to conduct network-enabled operations.

The central objective of this near-term modernisation is to acquire the capabilities to allow the PLA to execute a quick and decisive victory against Taiwan while deterring US military intervention. The PLA's concentrated acquisition of precision strike assets suggests that its preferred military strategy would be a 'decapitation' strategy that would neutralise Taiwan's civilian and military command-and-control apparatuses and vital infrastructure and communication facilities in addition to key military capabilities. The centrepiece of this offensive capability is the PLA's potent missile force. The PLA has been engaged in a concerted buildup of its short-range ballistic missile force facing Taiwan since the mid-1990s.