China's military march is on

The growing expanse of China's military reach has firmly been demonstrated in 2011 with the successful testing of two weapon systems/facilitators in the realm of military hardware — the fifth-generation J-20 radar-evading stealth fighter rolled out in January 2011, followed by Beijing's first aircraft carrier, the Varyag, of Ukrainian origin in August 2011.

 

An assessment of China's military prowess during the next two decades makes it pertinent to state that Beijing's military strategy appears fixated on furtherance of "strategic opportunities" that it is presented with. The Chinese leadership is prioritising on fostering a positive external environment to facilitate economic growth by virtue of expanding its diplomatic influence to gain greater access to markets and resources, and simultaneously maintain stability along its periphery.

 

Terming the declassified report released by the Pentagon as a "Cold-war style practice", China's official Xinhua news agency rebuffed the findings as "speculative descriptions". However, as a matter of fact, amidst wide speculation that inherent economic pressures could become a primary driver for a slowdown of the PLA's modernisation campaign, China chose to signal its intent to the world by announcing a plan to boost defence spending to 11.2% in 2012. This implies that military spending shall cross the $100 billion mark officially for the first time to approximately 670 billion Yuan ($106.4 billion). At this rate it is estimated that China's defence budgetary investments will race ahead at 18.75%, likely touching $238.2 billion by 2015.

 

The outlook of the political and military elites in China appears to have been shaped with a view towards achieving comprehensive large-scale military reach and further cement its stake towards becoming a pre-eminent world power. In this reference, the military capabilities being accentuated include advancement of cruise missiles including the ground-launched CJ-10 land-attack cruise missile (LACM), and the ground- and ship-launched YJ-62 anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM). Besides, the focus on short- and medium-range conventional ballistic missiles (SRBMs and MRBMs), continues unabated, and this can be read in correlation to creating military pressure against regional players including India. The variants of China's DF-21(CSS-5) MRBM with a range of more than 1,750 km hold a potential to target India. Besides, China has also confirmed developing an anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM), based on a variant of the DF-21 MRBM.

 

China's Second Artillery Corps — the strategic missile force which controls both nuclear ballistic and conventional missiles — is modernizing the SRBMs by fielding advanced variants with improved ranges and payloads. The Pentagon has asserted that the PLA is fielding greater numbers of conventional MRBMs to conduct precision strikes against wider ranges on land targets, naval ships and aircraft carriers operating from beyond China's first island chain. This chain is an invisible line stretching from the Japanese Archipelago, Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, and the Philippines, stretching till the South China Sea. The PLA has chosen to use this distinctive perimeter to deny access to regional rivals militarily.

 

In this regard, China's emphasis on its missile force capable of launching standoff precision strikes will only get strengthened by 2015, when the PLA is expected to field additional road-mobile DF-31A inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and enhanced, silo-based DF-5 (CSS-4) ICBMs. China's nuclear arsenal currently consists of about 50-75 silo-based, liquid-fuelled and road-mobile, solid-fuelled ICBMs. Asia's geo-strategic paradigm would continue to get eclipsed by security dilemmas flowing out of lack of transparency and limited dissemination of military information by China. In light of the increased focus and investments in military capabilities by the PLA, interpretations of power projection capabilities that could depose any/all regional and global strategic calculations remain galore.

 

 

Courtesy: The Sunday Guardian, 17 June 2012.

http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/chinas-military-march-is-on