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US Pentagon: Europe Should Stand Firm on China Weapons Embargo

What keeps the leaders and officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) awake at night? According to the Pentagon’s annual report to Congress on China, it’s not military expansion for its own sake, but how to hold onto power. In October 2005, China’s leaders reaffirmed the “people’s democratic dictatorship,” and based their continuing legitimacy on the twin pillars of Chinese nationalism and economic performance. In military terms, this translates into stability along Chinese borders and assertion of territorial claims, above all in Taiwan, and in securing Chinese access to foreign markets and supplies.

Reasons For Military Advancement

Although the conflict with Taiwan remains the primary driver behind the modernization and expansion of China’s military force, the need for energy security is real and increasing. At the moment China can protect neither its foreign energy supplies nor the routes on which they travel. To better meet these challenges, China has engaged in a comprehensive overhaul of its military in order to:

1. Increase area-denial and anti-access capacity, particularly in the Straits of Taiwan
2. Be able to fight and win short-duration, high-intensity conflicts against high-tech adversaries, if necessary far away from Chinese mainland

The qualitative and quantitative improvement of Chinese nuclear strike capacity, the successful test of an anti-satellite (ASAT) missile in 2006, a noticeable expansion of its ballistic missile ranges, and improvements in reconnaissance and information warfare capabilities can all be seen as part of these overarching goals.

Predictably Unpredictable

These developments are natural and logical from a Chinese perspective. However, the international community views this, the greatest overhaul in Chinese military history, with marked discomfort. China remains an unpredictable actor because of a lack of transparency in various areas:

1. Spending. The official figure given by Beijing for 2007 for military spending was US$45B - independent estimates range from US$85B to US$125B.
2. Personnel. The current generation of Chinese military leaders has never seen active warfare, communication is based around maximizing deception and China’s internal power-structure remains opaque.
3. Communications. Should hostilities arise, bad news may be covered up internally. There is danger of facing an enemy that is not fully understood, who may not fully understand the requirements of war, and who may not even fully understand himself.
4. Casus belli. China’s “active defense” policy stipulates that it will not start wars and includes a “no first-use” policy of nuclear weapons, but remains vague on what would constitute an attack against its territory or interests. It also allows for military preemption when an attack is considered imminent. US behavior in Iraq has made such an exception less vulnerable to criticism by the international community.
   Further, China has begun looking into “non-war” uses of force – acts of aggression which it deems do not meet the threshold for an act of war. The options classified as such range from military exercises to missile strikes. China could be underestimating the potential for reactions by the international community and the targets of such exercises.

Leave the Embargo Where It Is

For all of these reasons, Europe should refrain from lifting any part of the weapons embargo it has currently placed on China. The Pentagon report warns that any action would raise the possibility of competitive pricing and give Beijing leverage to pressure its existing suppliers, Russia and Israel, to provide more advanced weapons systems and favorable terms of sale. Military-to-military exchanges could also give the Chinese access to critical military management practices, operational doctrine and training.


This summary was prepared by the Atlantic Community editorial team from the Annual Report to Congress on the Military Power of the People’s Republic of China, released by the Office of the US Secretary of Defense in May of 2007.


Related Materials from the Atlantic Community:

• Sonja Bonin says that Europe and America Too Divided Over China Policy
• The German Marshall Fund on The Rise of China: A Brief Review of the Implications on the Transatlantic Partnership
• Carnegie Debate Series Opens Discussion on Human Rights in China
• Brookings Institute on Chinese Energy
  
  
  

  Prepared by Niklas Keller