Dossiê Temático Nº02/2009

China: desafios estratégicos

Bolsista responsável:

Felipe Machado

Porto Alegre, Agosto/2009

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Sumário

1. Clipping de Notícias ........................................................................................ 3

2. Documentos Acadêmicos ............................................................................... 62

3. Leituras Indicadas ......................................................................................... 67

4. Anexos ............................................................................................................ 69

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1. Clipping de Notícias

Sumário de Notícias:

13/08/2009 - China Holds Massive Long-Range Military Exercises - Voice of America 06/08/2009 - China and the Enduring Uighurs – Stratfor 22/07/2009 - China's top brass concerned over N.Korea nuclear weapons – RIA Novosti 09/07/2009 – Geopolitical Diary: China and the Importance of Xinjiang - Stratfor 03/06/2009 - China: Oil Stockpiling and Energy Security - Stratfor 14/05/2009 - New challenges of Chinese foreign and security policy – People´s Daily 12/05/2009 - China: Beijing Strengthens its Claims in the South China Sea - Stratfor 21/04/2009 - Russia, China sign oil deal, start new pipeline branch – RIA Novosti 13/03/2009 - Russia shows concern over Chinese weapons piracy – RIA Novosti 02/03/2009 - China: Pushing Ahead of the Cyberwarfare Pack - Stratfor 19/02/2009 - Construction of ESPO Chinese pipeline leg could begin in April – RIA Novosti 04/02/2009 - China to double nuclear power plants in 10 years - RIA Novosti 23/01/2009 - China: The White Paper and Military Operations Abroad - Stratfor 11/12/2008 - Taiwan stresses China's growing offensive options – Jane’s Intelligence Review 23/10/2008 - The Asian space race – Jane’s Defense Weekly

10/07/2008 - China, Taiwan and Tibet: Fraying at the Edges - The Economist 02/06/2008 - China: The Challenges of a 'Defensive' Nuclear Arsenal - Stratfor 27/05/2008 - China: Of Salt Domes and Strategic Reserves - Stratfor 13/05/2008 - China: The Evolution of ETIM – Stratfor 02/11/2007 - The Future of Missile Defense in East Asia - Stratfor 07/08/2007 - China: The Deceptive Logic for a Carrier Fleet - Stratfor 24/04/2007 - Ballistic Missile Submarines: The Only Way to Go - Stratfor 16/04/2007 - Measure of success - Analysing the results of China's ASAT test – Jane’s Intelligence Review 05/02/2007 - Sea change - Resolving East Asia's maritime disputes – Jane’s Intelligence Review 19/01/2007 - China's Offensive Space Capability - Stratfor 26/01/2000 - China's New Naval Strategy - Stratfor ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

13/08/2009 - China Holds Massive Long-Range Military Exercises - Voice of America

China began holding a massive military exercise this week, deploying 50,000 troops to areas far from their bases for live-fire drills. Military analysts say the exercises are not only meant to show the world how China's military is developing, but also to show it is ready to respond to unrest, be it in Xinjiang, Tibet or other parts of the country.

The two-month long exercise, called "Stride 2009" began earlier this week and will last through the 60th anniversary of the creation of the People's Republic of China on October 1. State media have trumpeted the exercise, calling it the largest ever and unprecedented.

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Reports say the exercise will involve troops from China's major military regions of Shenyang, Lanzhou, Jinan and Guangzhou.

China's force of 2.3 million troops is the world's largest standing military.

June Dreyer, a China military analyst and professor at the University of Miami in the U.S. state of Florida says the exercise is both an international and domestic show of force.

"I think this is a demonstration affect, not only to the rest of the world, 'look we are coming along here do not mess with us', but also really internally because of the problems they have had in Tibet and Xinjiang, and also with Han Chinese who are very unhappy with the way things have been going," she said.

As the 60th anniversary nears, and in the wake of last month's riots in Xinjiang, Chinese authorities appear to be clamping down harder than ever on any form of criticism.

In recent weeks, China has put on trial activists who have fought for the rights of victims of the Sichuan earthquake, revoked the licenses of more than 50 lawyers and banned two groups that fight for human rights and against discrimination.

Authorities have also recently made it difficult for reporters, including those from Voice of America, to get visas to work in China.

As it tightens control, China says its anti-terror security forces are stepping up efforts to ensure a safe National Day this year.

Late last month, China gave foreign journalists a rare glimpse of the army at a base on the outskirts of Beijing.

At the gathering, Leng Jiesong, a senior colonel at China's Ministry of Defense, told reporters that to beef up security for October 1, the military was building on experience gained from its Olympic security work last year.

Leng says the military is taking measures similar to those used during the Olympics last year. Leng says the military is doing its best to maintain the safety of the capital during its October celebrations.

Military officials say security will be even more challenging for National Day celebrations because unlike the Olympics the celebrations will take place at numerous locations.

China's soaring annual defense budget has prompted worried calls from the United States and other countries for Beijing to explain more clearly how and why it is spending defense funds.

Earlier this year, Beijing said it would increase its defense budget this year by almost 18 percent to $58 billion. China notes at that amount its defense spending is still far beneath that of the United States.

Andrew Yang, a Chinese military expert in Taiwan, says China is holding the two-month exercise to show the world and its own people that the military meets Beijing's needs.

"They have to show that they are actually living up to the expectations of the country. And also at the same time, send a message abroad into the international community, that do not mess with the Chinese, they possess the capability to defend their own territorial integrity and sovereignty if they want to do so," he said.

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Yang adds that the long-range exercises will not only highlight the military's ability to ensure security within China's borders, but beyond them as well.

Professor Dreyer says that while the military is rightfully proud of the progress it has made and wants to show that off, she does not see why China feels a need for such displays of force.

Especially, she adds, given the ease with which security forces have handled unrest in the past.

"I do not strictly understand why because it seems to me that they were able to handle the problems in Tibet and Xinjiang very quickly," she said.

Dreyer says that while China is clearly capable of squelching unrest, the government has yet to address the underlying problems that trigger instability. They include poverty, income inequality, pollution and corruption. And until it does, she says, unrest will continue to flare up.

06/08/2009 - China and the Enduring Uighurs – Stratfor

On Aug. 4, four days before the start of the Beijing Olympics, two ethnic Uighurs drove a stolen dump truck into a group of some 70 Chinese border police in the town of Kashi in Xinjiang, killing at least 16 of the officers. The attackers carried knives and home-made explosive devices and had also written manifestos in which they expressed their commitment to jihad in Xinjiang. The incident occurred just days after a group calling itself the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) claimed responsibility for a series of recent attacks and security incidents in China and warned of further attacks targeting the Olympics.Chinese authorities linked the Aug. 4 attack to transnational jihadists, suggesting the involvement of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which Beijing has warned is the biggest terrorist threat to China and the Olympics.

Despite the Chinese warnings and TIP claims and the intensified focus on the Uighurs because of the Aug. 4 attack, there is still much confusion over just who these Uighur or Turkistani militants are.

The Uighurs, a predominately Muslim Turkic ethnic group largely centered in China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, have their own culture, language and written script distinct from their Han Chinese counterparts. Uighur ethnic nationalists and Islamist separatists have risen several times to challenge Chinese control over Xinjiang, but the Uighur independence movement remains fractured and frequently at odds with itself. However, recent evolutions within the Islamist militant Uighur movement, including growing links with transnational jihadist groups in Central and Southwest Asia, may represent a renewed threat to security in China.

Origins in Xinjiang

Uighur nationalism traces its origins back to a broader Turkistan, stretching through much of modern day Xinjiang (so-called “East Turkistan”) and into Central Asia. East Turkistan was conquered by the Manchus in the mid-1700s and, after decades of struggle, the territory was annexed by China, which later renamed it Xinjiang, or “New Territories.” A modern nation-state calling itself East Turkistan arose in Xinjiang in the chaotic transition from imperial China to Communist China, lasting for two brief periods from 1933 to 1934 and from 1944 to 1949. Since that time,

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“East Turkistan” has been, more or less, an integral part of the People’s Republic of China.

The evolution of militant Uighur separatism — and particularly Islamist-based separatism — has been shaped over time by both domestic and foreign developments. In 1940, Hizbul Islam Li-Turkistan (Islamic Party of Turkistan or Turkistan Islamic Movement ) emerged in Xinjiang, spearheading a series of unsuccessful uprisings from the 1940s through 1952, first against local warlords and later against the Communist Chinese.

In 1956, as the “Hundred Flowers” was blooming in China’s eastern cities, and intellectuals were (very briefly) allowed to air their complaints and suggestions for China’s political and social development, a new leadership emerged among the Uighur Islamist nationalists, changing the focus from “Turkistan” to the more specific “East Turkistan,” or Xinjiang. Following another failed uprising, the Islamist Uighur movement faded away for several decades, with only minor sparks flaring during the chaos of the Cultural Revolution.

In 1979, as Deng Xiaoping was launching China’s economic opening and reform, there was a coinciding period of Islamic and ethnic revival in Xinjiang, reflecting the relative openness of China at the time. During this time, one of the original founders of Hizbul Islam Li-Turkistan, Abdul Hakeem, was released from prison and set up underground religious schools. Among his pupils in the 1980s was Hasan Mahsum, who would go on to found ETIM.

The 1980s were a chaotic period in Xinjiang, with ethnic and religious revivalism, a growing student movement, and public opposition to China’s nuclear testing at Lop Nor. Uighur student protests were more a reflection of the growing student activism in China as a whole (culminating in the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident) than a resurgence of Uighur separatism, but they coincided with a general movement in Xinjiang to promote literacy and to refocus on religious and ethnic heritage. Amid this revival, several Uighur separatist or Islamist militant movements emerged.

A critical moment occurred in April 1990, when an offshoot of the Uighur Islamist militant movement was discovered plotting an uprising in Xinjiang. The April 5 so-called “Baren Incident” (named for the city where militants and their supporters faced off against Chinese security forces) led Beijing to launch dragnet operations in the region, arresting known, suspected or potential troublemakers — a pattern that would be repeated through the “Strike Hard” campaigns of the 1990s. Many of the Uighurs caught up in these security campaigns, including Mahsum, began to share, refine and shape their ideology in prisons, taking on more radical tendencies and creating networks of relations that could be called upon later. From 1995 to 1997, the struggle in Xinjiang reached its peak, with increasingly frequent attacks by militants in Xinjiang and equally intensified security countermeasures by Beijing.

It was also at this time that China formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), enlisting Central Asian assistance in cracking down on Uighur militants, many of whom had fled China. In some ways this plan backfired, as it provided common cause between the Uighurs and Central Asian militants, and forced some Uighur Islamist militants further west, to Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they would link up with the Taliban, al Qaeda, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), among others.

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Among those leaving China was Mahsum, who tried to rally support from the Uighur diaspora in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey but was rebuffed. Mahsum and a small group of followers headed to Central Asia and ultimately Afghanistan, where he established ETIM as a direct successor to his former teacher’s Hizbul Islam Li-Turkistan. By 1998, Kabul-based ETIM began recruiting and training Uighur militants while expanding ties with the emerging jihadist movement in the region, dropping the “East” from its name to reflect these deepening ties. Until the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, ETIM focused on recruiting and training Uighur militants at a camp run by Mahsum and Abdul Haq, who is cited by TIP now as its spiritual leader.

With the U.S. attack on Afghanistan in October 2001, ETIM was routed and its remnants fled to Central Asia and Pakistan. In January 2002, Mahsum tried to distance ETIM from al Qaeda in an attempt to avoid having the Uighur movement come under U.S. guns. It did not work. In September 2002, the United States declared ETIM a terrorist organization at the behest of China. A year later, ETIM experienced what seemed to be its last gasps, with a joint U.S.-Pakistani operation in South Waziristan in October 2003 killing Hasan Mahsum.

A Movement Reborn?

Following Mahsum’s death, a leaderless ETIM continued to interact with the Taliban and various Central Asian militants, particularly Uzbeks, and slowly reformed into a more coherent core in the Pakistan/Afghanistan frontier. In 2005, there were stirrings of this new Uighur Islamist militant group, the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), which established a robust presence on the Internet, posting histories of the Uighur/Turkistan people in western China and Central Asia and inspirational videos featuring Mahsum. In 2006, a new video surfaced calling for jihad in Xinjiang, and later that year there were reports that remnants of ETIM had begun re-forming and moving back into far western Xinjiang.

It was also around this time that Beijing began raising the specter of ETIM targeting the Olympics — a move seen at the time as primarily an excuse for stricter security controls. In early January 2007, Beijing raided a camp of suspected ETIM militants near the Xinjiang border with Tajikistan, and a year later raided another suspected camp in Urumchi, uncovering a plot to carry out attacks during the Olympics. This was followed in March by a reported attempt by Uighur militants to down a Chinese airliner with gasoline smuggled aboard in soda cans.

Publicly, the Uighur militant issue was quickly swept aside by the Tibetan uprising in March, leaving nearly unnoticed an anti-government protest in Hotan and a series of counterterrorism raids by Chinese security forces in late March and early April that reportedly found evidence of more specific plots to attack Beijing and Shanghai during the Olympics.

In the midst of this security campaign, TIP released a video, not disseminated widely until late June, in which spokesman Commander Seyfullah laid out a list of grievances against Beijing and cited Abdul Haq as calling on Uighur Islamist militants to begin strikes against China. The video also complained that the “U.S.-led Western countries listed the Turkistan Islamic Party as one of the international terrorist organizations,” an apparent reference to the United States’ 2002 listing of the ETIM on the terrorist exclusion list.

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In addition to linking the TIP to the ETIM, the April video also revealed some elements of the movement’s evolution since the death of Mahsum. Rather than the typical rhetoric of groups closely linked to the Wahabi ideology of al Qaeda, TIP listed its grievances against Beijing in an almost lawyer-like fashion, following more closely the pattern of Hizb al-Tahrir (HT), a movement active in Central Asia advocating nonviolent struggle against corrupt regimes and promoting the return of Islamic rule. Although HT officially renounces violence as a tool of political change, it has provided an abundance of zealous and impatient idealists who are often recruited by more active militant organizations.

The blending of the HT ideologies with the underlying principles of Turkistan independence reflects the melding of the Uighur Islamist militancy with wider Central Asian Islamist movements. Fractures in HT, emerging in 2005 and expanding thereafter, may also have contributed to the evolution of TIP’s ideology; breakaway elements of HT argued that the nonviolent methods espoused by HT were no longer effective.

What appears to be emerging is a Turkistan Islamist movement with links in Central Asia, stretching back to Afghanistan and Pakistan, blending Taliban training, transnational jihadist experiential learning, HT frameworks and recruiting, and Central Asian ties for support and shelter. This is a very different entity than China has faced in the past. If the TIP follows the examples set by the global jihadist movement, it will become an entity with a small core leadership based far from its primary field of operations guiding (ideologically but not necessarily operationally) a number of small grassroots militant cells.

The network will be diffuse, with cells operating relatively independently with minimal knowledge or communication among them and focused on localized goals based on their training, skills and commitment. This would make the TIP less of a strategic threat, since it would be unable to rally large numbers of fighters in a single or sustained operation, but it would also be more difficult to fight, since Beijing would be unable to use information from raiding one cell to find another.

This appears to be exactly what we are seeing now. The central TIP core uses the Internet and videos as psychological tools to trigger a reaction from Beijing and inspire militants without exposing itself to detection or capture. On July 25, TIP released a video claiming responsibility for a series of attacks in China, including bus bombings in Kunming, a bus fire in Shanghai and a tractor bombing in Wenzhou. While these claims were almost certainly exaggerated, the Aug. 4 attack in Xinjiang suddenly refocused attention on the TIP and its earlier threats.

Further complicating things for Beijing are the transnational linkages ETIM forged and TIP has maintained. The Turkistan movement includes not only China’s Uighurs but also crosses into Uzbekistan, parts of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and spreads back through Central Asia all the way to Turkey. These linkages may have been the focus of quiet security warnings beginning around March that Afghan, Middle Eastern and Central Asian migrants and tourists were spotted carrying out surveillance of schools, hotels and government buildings in Beijing and Shanghai — possibly part of an attack cycle.

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The alleged activities seem to fit a pattern within the international jihadist movement of paying more attention to China. Islamists have considered China something less imperialistic, and thus less threatening, than the United States and European powers, but this began changing with the launch of the SCO, and the trend has been accelerating with China’s expanded involvement in Africa and Central Asia and its continued support for Pakistan’s government. China’s rising profile among Islamists has coincided with the rebirth of the Uighur Islamist militant movement just as Beijing embarks on one of its most significant security events: the Summer Olympics.

Whatever name it may go by today — be it Hizbul Islam Li-Turkistan, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement or the Turkistan Islamic Party — the Uighur Islamist militant movement remains a security threat to Beijing. And in its current incarnation, drawing on internationalist resources and experiences and sporting a more diffuse structure, the Uighur militancy may well be getting a second wind.

22/07/2009 - China's top brass concerned over N.Korea nuclear weapons – RIA

Novosti

China is concerned that the development of nuclear weapons by North Korea could lead to South Korea acquiring its own nuclear arsenal, a senior chief military official said on Wednesday.

"North Korea's recent nuclear test and missile launches are of great concern. The development of nuclear weapons by North Korea is unacceptable as it will seriously complicate the situation on the Korean Peninsula and provide good reason for South Korea to acquire its own nuclear weapons," China's chief of the General Staff Gen. Chen Bingde said.

North Korea test launched seven ballistic missiles on July 4 from its eastern coast. The South Korean Defense Ministry said the missiles were Scud-type and had flown up to 500 kilometers (300 miles) before falling into the Sea of Japan. The tests followed an underground nuclear test in May.

North Korea is banned from conducting nuclear tests or launching ballistic missiles under UN Resolution 1718, which was adopted following the country's first nuclear test on October 9, 2006. Pyongyang is also subject to a series of UN sanctions aimed at forcing it to terminate its controversial nuclear program.

The statement by Bingde was delivered shortly before the start of Peace Mission 2009 antiterrorism drills that are due to take place in Russia and China on July 22-26.

The first stage of the exercises - military and political consultations - will be held in Khabarovsk in Russia's Far East, while the second and third phases will take place outside Baichen in northern China.

The first Peace Mission exercises were held in Russia and the eastern Chinese province of Shandong in August 2005, involving warships, aircraft and over 10,000 service personnel including naval infantry and paratroopers.

09/07/2009 - Geopolitical Diary: China and the Importance of Xinjiang - Stratfor

Chinese President Hu Jintao bailed out of the G-8 summit on Wednesday to return to China, in order to deal with the continued unrest and security crackdown in the

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northwestern Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. While the unrest there is a major security concern, China is not necessarily worried about the Xinjiang violence spreading like wildfire across the country, or even jumping provincial borders like the 2008 Tibet protests did.

If there is one thing Beijing is adept at, it is quashing local unrest — particularly unrest in far-off provinces populated with ethnic minorities who, at least according to some Chinese reporting, have links to international terrorists and are being instigated and manipulated by outside “splittist” forces.

Xinjiang, like its neighbor Tibet, is one of China’s ethnic “autonomous” regions; a province that officially allows special social, religious and even political rights for the ethnic minorities native to the region. However, in both Xinjiang and Tibet, these privileges are not always evenly applied, if they are applied at all. As a way to prevent these ethnic communities from attempting true autonomy or even secession, Beijing has followed a policy of internal migration, moving the majority Han Chinese into these ethnic regions to dilute the population — a tactic first seen four decades ago. These Han settlers are given economic incentives and at times come to dominate certain segments of the local economy and political machinery. In addition, they begin to change the ethnic balance of the region over time.

In Xinjiang, for example, Han Chinese now make up some 39 percent of the total population (which includes ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and Tajiks, among others). Compared to the Uighurs, however, there are now nearly as many Han, and in the capital Urumqi, Han outnumber Uighurs by nearly 3 to 1. This reality has created its own tensions, as the Uighurs feel discriminated against in their own homeland. Elsewhere in China, however, Uighurs (along with other ethnic minorities) are given other privileges, and recent government attempts to deal with economic disparities by moving the Uighurs to jobs in eastern China — where the economic downturn is cutting into existing work — are exacerbating existing antipathy by the Han toward the Uighurs. These social tensions usually remain beneath the surface, or at least relatively under control, until something sparks the latent uneasiness and clashes break out.

Despite the immediate sense of crisis, Beijing has shown itself quite capable, through the use of overwhelming force if necessary, of dealing with isolated or localized crises. Tibet was calm by the time the Olympics rolled around last year. Xinjiang likely will be pacified in the next few weeks as well, placing a lid back on the boiling cauldron.

China has strategic issues at stake in Xinjiang. The province, like Tibet, is one of the vast buffer zones shielding the core of China from an invasion by foreign hordes — or their ideas. But Xinjiang also has long served as a key route for Chinese commerce: the Silk Road. Throughout Chinese history, various dynasties have reached out west, seeking to maintain a grip over the dusty trails between cities and oases linking China to Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe. China defended these routes from the Mongols in the north, the Central Asians and even the Tibetans, who would occasionally ride down from the plateau to seize the profitable passages. These trade routes, in fact, were so useful in supplying China with anything it could not find or produce at home that China’s history is often lacking in any major naval presence — there just wasn’t a pressing economic need for a navy when western land routes were so vibrant.

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As China entered the modern era, the importance of the Silk Road routes faded as sea commerce became the dominant form of its economic intercourse with the world. From the foreign treaty ports to the booming coastal cities like Shanghai and Qingdao or manufacturing hubs in Guangdong, China now looks more and more to the seas for its economic lifelines — and, by extension, is beginning to put more emphasis on its naval development. But this is also exposing China’s weakness: The seas are vast, and U.S. forces patrol them. In theory, at least, China’s maritime trade routes are rather vulnerable, and Beijing has grown more dependent upon these sea routes for vital commodities (energy not the least among them) and export markets.

This had led Chinese strategists to look back to the old days, to the old Silk Road routes, as a way to preserve economic security. Central Asia has vast energy resources, and the oil and natural gas doesn’t have to be loaded into tankers and shipped by sea. Instead, it is moved by pipeline in a steady flow to China’s booming coast. And the gateway to Central Asia is Xinjiang. This reinforces Beijing’s perceived need to keep the Uighurs and other ethnic minorities under control.

03/06/2009 - China: Oil Stockpiling and Energy Security - Stratfor

Summary

China has announced that it is suspending its oil stockpiling program until new storage facilities are in place. Beijing puts a premium on energy security to protect its growth, and hence its stability. Its oil stockpiling program is an integral part of guaranteeing this security.

Analysis

China will suspend oil stockpiling until new storage facilities are constructed to provide for the second phase of the country’s strategic oil reserves plan, Vice Chief of the Policy and Regulation Department at China’s National Energy Administration Zeng Yachuan said June 3. Zeng’s statements followed a rare tour of China’s strategic oil storage sites in Zhoushan and Zhenhai, Zhejiang province, given to foreign and Chinese reporters June 3. Effectively, China is claiming that the first phase of its strategic oil storage program — which called for 100 million barrels, or about 30 days worth of imports, to be stockpiled in case of emergencies — is complete.

Energy security is a high priority for the Chinese leadership given that China’s economic growth, and in turn its socio-political stability, depends on a steady stream of energy supplies. Beijing is interested in having a strategic cache of oil to resort to in case of a crisis scenario, such as a disruption in supply from the Middle East or Africa. But it is also interested in gaining the ability to use its weight in commodity markets to affect global prices, perhaps to attempt to mitigate the negative domestic effects that could result from soaring oil prices like those seen in early 2008. Throughout the global financial and economic crisis, low global oil prices have enabled the cash-rich Chinese to pursue their plans for bulking up oil reserves more aggressively than they had previously (though admittedly, they also were purchasing oil for stockpiles while prices were high in the first half of 2008).

China’s strategic oil stockpiling plan consists of three phases, with the ultimate goal of stocking 90-100 days worth of China’s total oil demand — or about 730 million barrels, roughly equivalent to the capacity of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The first phase, now allegedly complete, consisted of filling existing storage facilities at four different locations, reaching the goal of about 100 million barrels. But the actual tally of

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oil currently stored is roughly 87 million barrels, including Zhoushan, reportedly full with 31.45 million barrels; Zhenhai, reportedly half full with 16.35 million barrels; and Hungdao, Shandong province, and Dalian, Liaoning province, reportedly together holding 38.99 million barrels out of a capacity of 21.9 million barrels apiece.

If 87 million barrels currently in storage is an accurate count, then China has amassed something in the vicinity of 60 million barrels since May 2008, making for a relatively rapid fill-rate of roughly 165,000 barrels per day during that time. This corresponds with estimates that China funneled about 25 million barrels into its reserves between August and January. This estimated filling rate is considerably higher than the various rates at which the United States filled the SPR. The actual filling rate may have been a bit slower, as perhaps suggested by the fact that the Huangdao storage site was filled at an average rate of about 27,700 barrels per day since April 2007. But the estimate reflects how during the period of low global demand for oil caused by the recession, China has been taking advantage of its cash flow — and much of the rest of the world’s need for cash — to buy oil at bargain prices. Flagging Chinese oil consumption also has helped make more oil available for reserves.

Beijing hopes to add another 169 million barrels in 2009 for the second phase of its oil stockpile program, but the announcement today that purchases will stop raises questions as to how that plan will be affected. The Chinese may feel that oil prices, which surged in May back above $60 per barrel, are getting a bit too high to maintain purchases at the rapid clip possible when demand was lower in past months. Because China’s suspension of purchases of well more than 100,000 barrels per day could have a mild downward effect on global prices, Beijing may also be testing its ability to affect global oil prices by ramping up, or ramping down, its imports.

But ultimately, the decision to halt or continue purchases is up to the central government. The more fundamental challenge facing Beijing in the second phase of its oil stockpiling program will be the attempt to create underground storage facilities. Phase one of China’s strategic reserve has depended entirely on steel storage tanks that are expensive to build and maintain; the subsequent two phases also are likely to depend mostly on steel tanks. Relying on these tanks is certainly feasible, as Japan with its 320 million barrels of stockpiled oil has shown. But it is costly, and doing so creates problems with finding space to build new ones — something Chinese officials pointed out during the media tour on June 3 — and can lead to the corrosion of crude supplies due to chemical reactions with the metal in the tanks themselves.

Beijing also hopes to make use of mined rock caverns, and reportedly salt domes such as those used for strategic oil reserves in the United States, in the second and third phase of the Chinese stockpiling program. While mined caverns have been converted to oil storage sites before — South Korea has sheltered about 59 million barrels of its 74 million barrel of total petroleum reserves in such mines — the mines suffer from a high degree of cracking that can lead to loss of oil and an array of environmental problems like groundwater pollution. The United States was forced to close its only rock mine storage site in 1994 due to the risk that it would flood local water supplies. As for salt domes, the gift from heaven for the U.S. strategic reserves, China will run up against geological and geographical limitations. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Jianghan Basin is China’s only salt deposit suitable for oil storage. But it is located in Hubei province, hundreds of miles from China’s manufacturing (and oil-consuming) bases along the coast.

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14/05/2009 - New challenges of Chinese foreign and security policy – People´s Daily

The North Korean and Iranian nuclear issue poses great challenge for China, said Professor Jia Qingguo, Associate Dean of School of International Studies of Beijing University at a recent seminar on the future directions of Chinese foreign and security policy in Stockholm.

He said that Beijing was dismayed at the decision made by North Korea to withdraw from the six-party talks recently. China's basic stand on the North Korea and Iranian nuclear issues are still against North Korea to have nuclear weapons, against resort of force and to solve the problem through peaceful means. China doesn't support sanctions because sanctions cannot solve the problem. China holds that the North Korean nuke issue must be solved through dialogue and negotiations. China will try to mediate, but both the US and North Korea must make necessary concessions.

Professor Jia held that if North Korea owns nuclear weapons, it is likely that South Korea and Japan will follow suit. Then it will be difficult to guarantee the security in East Asia because the more countries own nuclear, the greater the possibility of having a nuclear war. If one uses force against North Korea, it will lead to war and humanitarian disaster, and harm China's security and economic development. "Both scenarios are unacceptable for China”, said Professor Jia.

Thus, North Korean and Iranian nuclear issue poses huge challenges for China. How to solve these problems will have a great impact on China, said Professor Jia.

"There is no alternative but peaceful means in how to handle this problem. The key is how to bring North Korea back to the six-party talks. I think Beijing still wants to get North Korea back and make parties keep their promise. The only option for China is to urge both sides to cool down and try to reach agreements on both sides."

Professor Jia said although the US was not very ‘excited' about North Korea's recent test , it can still do something for resuming the six-party talks, for example to normalize relations with North Korea and abandon the use of force against it. China will try to urge North Korea not to develop nuclear weapons because it is in the best interest of North Korea.

"If North Korea wants to survive as a regime, it has to develop its economy. If it pursues nuclear weapons, in the long run, it will make the regime unsustainable. I think the North Korean leaders understand this."

Professor Jia said that China welcomes Japan to join in the six-party talks. But it shouldn't use the six-party talks to solve the abduction problem between North Korea and Japan. Six-party talks is designed for solving the North Korean nuclear issue.

He suggests that Japan can put up forward specific conditions to North Korea so that they can normalize relations. Japan can negotiate with North Korea about the abduction issue and be more specific about what kind of concessions Japan expects from North Korea. North Korea has apologized by coming up with the ashes of the alleged victims. What else should it do? "Of course, North Korea should do its own homework too,"said Professor Jia.

On the Iranian issue, Professor Jia thinks that China welcomes Obama administration's new approach towards Iran and is happy to help solve the problem. But the prospect of solving the Iranian nuclear issue is still uncertain. China doesn't believe that sanctions can solve the problem.

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Because China has economic and strategic interests in Iran, it hopes to solve the problem through peaceful means. China won't support sanctions unless one can prove that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. Also because China's interest in and influence on Iran are limited, China will not take the lead to solve the problem. This is different from the North Korea nuclear issue which concerns China's security interest. But China can play a mediating role, analyzed Professor Jia.

Professor Jia said that China believes that every country has its legitimate concerns.

"We have to take other country's legitimate concern into serious consideration. Iran has its own legitimate concerns. It has been under threat for a long time, both military and political threat. If you want to discourage Iran from developing military capacity, you have to make assurance to its security. "

Professor Jia suggests that the US do more work on policy, but not just threat to impose sanctions or use force. In terms of nuclear program, one can get experts to set criteria for nuclear weapons.

Therefore, Professor Jia said even though there are new challenges in the nuclear issue, China will continue to use those effective ways to push for peaceful solutions to the North Korea and Iranian issues.

Professor Jia said that there is a gap in expectations from the international community about ‘what China should do' and ‘what China can do'. The international community hopes China can help solve the Sudan issue, Iranian issue and other issues, but in reality, China's not ready and not experienced enough to shoulder too much responsibility in the short period of time.

On the issue of foreign aid to Africa, Professor Jia said Chinese way of helping Africa faced a lot of criticism from the west, although a lot of them were full of prejudice and misunderstanding, there could be this or that problems in Chinese way of assisting Africa. But at least one point was certain, that it caused reflection on western way of assistance to Africa. Why after so many years of assistance from the west, the situation in Africa is still so difficult? It's time to have a reflection on western assisting model.

12/05/2009 - China: Beijing Strengthens its Claims in the South China Sea - Stratfor

Summary

In response to evolving economic conditions, growing international involvement and anticipated legal battles over control of several contested island groups and reefs in the South China Sea, Beijing has established a Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs, enhanced the capabilities and number of patrols by the Fisheries Administration Bureau and planned shifts in the disposition of its naval forces. China’s more aggressive attempts to assert its sovereignty in the South China Sea will lead to increased friction with its neighbors and the United States — something that could easily escalate if there are miscalculations or accidents at sea.

Analysis

As part of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS), for states that joined the UNCLOS by 1999, May 13 is the deadline to submit to the U.N. Commission

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on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) supplementary claims to economic rights beyond the standard limit of 200 nautical miles. At stake is access to subsea mineral and energy resources, rights to fisheries and influence over maritime boundaries and activity. In the South China Sea, competing claims for sovereignty over various island and reef groups — including the Spratly Islands (called Nansha by China) and the Paracel Islands (called Xisha by China) — are shaped in part by China’s assertion of sovereignty over the entire South China Sea.

While the Chinese have long claimed authority over the contested waters, changes in recent years in China’s international economic and political involvement, as well as anticipated formal challenges to China’s claims amid the ongoing U.N. process, have caused Beijing to accelerate actions reasserting its authority over the South China Sea. As China grows more active in establishing its authority in the region, it is likely to trigger more aggressive actions by its neighbors with competing claims, and increase friction with the United States — all of which may make maritime accidents and incidents more likely.

On March 10 — two days after a confrontation between Chinese patrol, fishing and intelligence collections vessels and the USNS Impeccable 75 miles south of China’s Hainan Island — the South China Sea Fisheries Administration Bureau, part of the Ministry of Agriculture, dispatched the China Yuzheng 311 on its maiden voyage. The ship, a 4,450-ton former navy support vessel, is China’s largest nonmilitary ocean surveillance vessel, and is tasked with patrolling the South China Sea to assert China’s claims to the territory. A second vessel, a 2,500-ton ship that will carry a helicopter, is expected to join the China Yuzheng 311 in 2010 as part of an expanding patrol operation in the South China Sea.

In late March, The Chinese Foreign Ministry set up the Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs, consolidating in a single department the responsibility for Chinese border disputes, competing territorial claims and joint development at sea (likely including projects like joint natural gas exploration with Japan in the East China Sea). The department, which began operations in April, will be headed by Ning Fukai, a Chinese diplomat who has worked in Chinese-Asian affairs for several decades, in recent years dealing primarily with the Korean Peninsula. Ning’s deputies are Wang Zonglai, who studied international law at Peking University and is considered an expert on maritime law, and Ouyang Yujing, who has been active in border negotiations and demarcations.

The focus on specialists rather than political appointments suggests that Beijing will continue trying to shape the regional understanding of the UNCLOS to fit its own interpretation — which includes limiting U.S. Navy research operations in the region. These research activities, by sea and air, are designed in large part to map out the undersea terrain and identify Chinese submarine operations, patterns and capabilities in waters that are vital not only to international shipping but also to U.S. Navy transit from the West Coast to the Indian Ocean and Middle East.

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In addition to increased fisheries patrols and greater legal efforts inside and outside the United Nations, Beijing is considering revising the distribution of ships among its three fleets. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) comprises three fleets: the North Sea (Beihai) Fleet, East Sea (Donghai) Fleet and South Sea (Nanhai) Fleet. The North Sea Fleet, headquartered in Qingdao in Shandong province, is responsible for operations from Shandong province to the Korean border, the Yellow Sea and maritime activity in Northeast Asia. The East Sea Fleet, with its headquarters in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, is responsible for operations from Jiangsu to Fujian province, the East China Sea and issues relating to Taiwan. The South Sea Fleet, with its headquarters in Zhanjiang, Guangdong province, covers Guangdong to the Vietnamese border and operations in the South China Sea.

Traditionally, the North Sea Fleet took precedence, serving to protect the Bohai Gulf and the old core of Chinese industrial power, as well as the approaches to Beijing. The East Sea Fleet, with responsibility for Taiwan, was also strong, though backed heavily by land-based assets including missiles and air power. As China’s economy began to expand and its international trade grew, Beijing began to shift additional attention to the South Sea Fleet in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

In recent years, this shift in attention has accelerated, and Beijing now is considering shifting its largest destroyers from the North Sea Fleet to the South Sea Fleet to allow for more active operations. In addition, while the North Sea Fleet is expected to become the home of the former Soviet carrier Varyag, which will be used as a training platform for Chinese carrier operation, new aircraft carriers China plans to build will be assigned

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to the South Sea Fleet, to allow more regular air patrol over the South China Sea. The South Sea Fleet will also be given greater responsibility for expanded operations, through the Strait of Malacca to the Indian Ocean and on to the African coastline.

Overall, China intends to take a more active approach, diplomatically and militarily, to assert its claims on the South China Sea in the coming years. This will include contesting competing claims in the United Nations, accelerating moves to create joint exploration and exploitation of various resources in the South and East China Seas to gain political backing in international forums, and wider-ranging and more-frequent patrols of the South China Sea. This latter point, in particular, has the potential to create additional friction in the area. Already this year, China has had several encounters with U.S. Navy vessels traversing or conducting research in the area. And these U.S. operations will only accelerate as China’s PLAN becomes more active, particularly with its submarine patrols.

The South China Sea is a shallow, contested and highly traversed body of water, and the area is going to become rather crowded quickly as the United States and China expand their naval activities and as other countries — from Japan to Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam or Indonesia, among others — also step up operations to keep an eye on the increasing activity. With the growing crowd, the chances for accidents, miscalculations and other unfortunate incidents also grow. And, as was seen in the 2001 collision between a Chinese Jian-8 and a U.S. EP-3E surveillance aircraft, such occurrences can quickly escalate from a local collision to an international security incident.

21/04/2009 - Russia, China sign oil deal, start new pipeline branch – RIA Novosti

Russia and China signed an intergovernmental agreement on oil cooperation in Beijing on Tuesday, under which a new branch from the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline will be built toward China.

The agreement sets out terms for oil cooperation between the countries, in particular on the laying of a pipeline from the Skovorodino refinery in Russia's Far East to Mohe County in China's Heilongjiang province. Under the deal, the pipeline must be completed by the end of next year.

After signing the deal, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who chairs the state oil company Rosneft, said the agreement "creates a new foundation for developing our energy cooperation."

"This is a unique agreement of a long-term nature, which is accompanied by financial agreements, and to implement it we have already begun building a branch from the main pipeline toward China," he said.

Vice Premier Wang Qishan, who signed the deal on behalf of China, said the deal brings into force "a packet of agreements and contracts on building the pipeline, buying and selling crude, and providing of credit between the companies of our two countries, which represents a significant breakthrough in bilateral energy relations."

The Skovorodino-Mohe pipeline will pass under the Amur River, and will have throughput capacity of 15 million metric tons of oil per year. The pipeline is part of Russian efforts to diversify export routes from Western and East Siberia.

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The deal was signed after the fourth round of Russian Chinese energy dialogue meetings. Under the intergovernmental deal, China agreed to provide $25 billion in loans to Rosneft and pipeline operator Transneft.

13/03/2009 - Russia shows concern over Chinese weapons piracy – RIA Novosti

Several years ago, the media reported plans to sell between 30 and 50 Russian-made Sukhoi Su-33 Flanker-D carrier-borne fighters to China, which in turn planned to deploy them aboard its advanced aircraft carriers.

Subsequent media reports mentioned only 14 Su-33s and the mandatory purchase of two fighters for "familiarization" purposes.

But several wire services recently said the Su-33 deal did not go through.

China has already copied the hard-hitting Su-27 Flanker fighter and its engine parts, re-designating the plane as the Shenyang J-11 (JianJi-11), an advanced fourth-generation fighter now serving with the Chinese Air Force.

Russia was not very happy about such developments and probably got the impression that Beijing could copy the Su-33 after comparing its specifications with those of the T-10 prototype version.

After it had been receiving stockpiles of Soviet weapons and production equipment from the 1940s and until the 1960s, Beijing continued to manufacture their own technologically Soviet weaponry and equipment even after its relations with Moscow had gone sour in the 1960s.

China produced and upgraded all types of weapons, namely, firearms, mortars, artillery systems, armored fighting vehicles (including tanks), air defense systems and aircraft (including the famous Tupolev Tu-16 Badger intermediate-range bombers, which were re-designated as the Xian H-6s).

Beijing actively exported copies of Soviet weapons to the Third World, Albania, the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia and to other countries that were unable to buy Soviet or Western weaponry for political reasons. These types of weapons are still in use today.

From 1979 to 1989, China supplied 90% of mortars to Mujahedin insurgents battling Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

However, Beijing continued to copy Soviet weaponry even after relations with Moscow had normalized in the late 1980s. China displayed copies of modern cruise missiles, aircraft engines, the aforesaid Su-27 fighter and many other military-equipment models.

The signing of contracts for the delivery of large weapon batches that would meet Chinese demand in specific areas could serve as a guarantee against unauthorized copying. However, Beijing is no longer interested in such purchases. What's more, this

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option does not rule out the copying of previously supplied weapon systems and their subsequent exports to third countries.

Such exports can only be prevented by signing a legally binding Russian-Chinese intellectual property protection agreement.

But the experience of the last few years shows that very few countries pirating Russian weapons are inclined to respect Moscow's copyright.

02/03/2009 - China: Pushing Ahead of the Cyberwarfare Pack - Stratfor

With its vast population and internal-security concerns, China could well have the most extensive and aggressive cyberwarfare capability in the world. This may bode well for China as it strives to become a global power, but it does not engender a business-friendly environment for foreign companies and individuals in China, where there is no such thing as proprietary information. From within or without, defending against China’s cyberwarfare capability is a daunting task.

In late 2008, rumors began circulating that the Chinese government, beginning in May 2009, would require foreign companies operating in China to submit their computer security technology for government approval. Details were vague, but the implication was that computer encryption inside China would become essentially useless. By giving away such information — the type of encryption systems they use and how they are implemented — companies would be showing the Chinese government how to penetrate their computer systems. It is not uncommon for governments and militaries operating on foreign soil to be required to do this, but it is unusual for private companies. (Of course, many governments, such as the United States, refuse to relinquish secure communications even when they have a diplomatic presence in a friendly nation, such as the United Kingdom.) There is nothing sacred about information in China, where the cyberwarfare capability is deep, pervasive and a threat not only to foreign governments and militaries but also foreign corporations and individuals. STRATFOR sources tell us that the Chinese government already has pertinent information on all Taiwanese citizens of interest to China, a database that could easily be expanded to include other foreign nationals. The Chinese government can decipher most types of encrypted e-mails and documents, and China’s Internet spy network is thought to be the most extensive — if not the most creative — in the world. The government’s strongest tactic is a vast network of “bots” — parasitic software programs that allow their users to hijack networked computers. Individual bots can be building blocks for powerful conglomerations known as “botnets” or “bot armies,” which are fairly conventional formations engaged in a game of numbers not unlike traditional Chinese espionage. It is not the most innovative form of cyberwarfare, but China wields this relatively blunt instrument very effectively.

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Indeed, China may well have the most extensive cyberwarfare capability in the world and the willingness to use it more aggressively than any other country. Such capability and intent are based on two key factors. One is the sheer size of China’s population, which is large enough to apply capable manpower to such a pervasive, people-intensive undertaking. In other words, one reason they do it is because they can.

Another is the Chinese government’s innate paranoia about internal security, born of the constant challenge of extending central rule over a vast territory. This paranoia drove Beijing to build the “Great Firewall,” an ability to control Internet activity inside the country. (Virtually all information coming into and out of China is filtered and can be cut off by the flip of a switch.) This amount of control over the information infrastructure far surpasses the control that the United States and other Western countries — or even Russia — can wield over their infrastructures.

While much of China’s Internet spying is aimed at Taiwan, it is also driven by Beijing’s desire for global-power status. With the United States and Russia both investing in offensive and defensive cyberwarfare capability, China has a vested interest in applying its strengths and devoting its resources to staying ahead of the pack and not being caught in the middle. With its information infrastructure under tight governmental control, China can leverage its massive manpower resources in a manner that allows it to conduct far more direct and holistic cyberwarfare operations than any other country.

Today, with current technology, the Chinese government can hack into most anything, even without information on specific encryption programs. It can do this not only by breaking codes but also through less elaborate means, such as capturing information upstream on Internet servers, which, in China, are all controlled by the government and its security apparatus. If a foreign company is operating in China, it is almost a given that its entire computer system is or will be compromised. If companies or individuals are using the Internet in China, there is an extremely strong possibility that several extensive bots have already infiltrated their systems. STRATFOR sources in the Chinese hotel industry tell of extensive Internet networks in hotels that are tied directly to the Public Security Bureau (PSB, the Chinese version of the FBI). During the 2008 Olympics, Western hotel chains were asked to install special Internet monitoring devices thatwould give the PSB even more access to Internet activities.

The Chinese Internet spy network relies heavily on bots. Many Chinese Web sites have these embedded bots, and simply logging on to a Web site could trigger the download of a bot onto the host computer. Given that the Internet in China is centrally controlled by the government, these bots likely are on many common Web sites, including English-language news sites and expatriate blogs. It is important to note that the Chinese cyberwarfare capability is not limited by geography. The government can break into Web sites anywhere in the world to install bots.

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China has invested considerable time and resources to developing its bot armies, focusing on quantity rather than quality and shying away from more creative forms of hacking such as SQL injections (injecting code to exploit a security vulnerability) and next-generation remote exploits (in such features as chat software and online games). The best thing about bots is that they are easy to spread. An extensive bot army, for example, can be employed both externally and internally, which puts China at a distinct advantage. If Beijing wanted to cut its Internet access to the rest of the world in a crisis scenario, it could still spy on computers beyond its national boundaries, with bots installed on computers around the world. The upkeep of the spy network could easily be accomplished by a few people operating outside of China. By comparison, according to STRATFOR Internet security sources, the United States does not have the ability to shut down its Internet network in a time of crisis, nor could it get into China’s network if it were shut down.

A bot army might be a large, blunt instrument, but finding a bot on a computer can be a Herculean task, beyond the capabilities of some of the most Internet-savvy people. Moreover, the Chinese have started to make their bots “user-friendly.” When bots were first introduced, they could slow down computer operating systems, eventually leading the computer user to reinstall the hard drive (and thus killing the bot). Sources say that Chinese bots now can be so efficient they actually make many computers run better by cleaning up the hard drive, trying to resolve conflicts and so on. They are like invisible computer housecleaners tidying things up and keeping users satisfied. The payment for this housecleaning, of course, is intelligence.

In addition to bots and other malware, the Chinese have many other ways to expand their Internet spy network. A great deal of the computer chips and other hardware used in manufacturing computers for Western companies and governments are made in China; and these components often come from the factory loaded with malware. It is also common for USB flash drives to come from the factory infected. These components make their way into all manner of computers operating in major Western companies and governments, even the Pentagon (which recently was forced to ban the use of USB thumb drives because of a computer security incident).

Recently, a STRATFOR source who formerly worked in Australia’s government was surprised that the Australian government was considering giving a national broadband contract to the Chinese telecommunications equipment maker Huawei Technologies, which is known to have ties to the Chinese government and military. Huawei was the subject of a U.S. investigation that eventually led it to withdraw a joint $2.2 billion bid to buy a stake in 3Com, a U.S. Internet router and networking company. Other STRATFOR sources are wary of Huawei’s relationship with the U.S. company Symantec, maker of popular anti-virus and anti-spyware programs.

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For companies operating in China, the best course of action is simply to leave any sensitive materials outside of China and not allow computer networks inside China to come into contact with sensitive materials. A satellite connection would help mitigate the possibility of intrusion from targeted direct hacking, but such networks are not extensive in China and move data fairly slowly. It is really not a matter of what kind of network to use. Although there have been no reports of a next-generation 3G network being hacked in any country, the Chinese government can still access the traffic on the network because it owns the physical infrastructure — telephone wires and poles, fiber optics, switching stations — and maintains tight control over it. Moreover, most 3G-enabled devices also use Bluetooth, which is extremely vulnerable to attack. And neither 3G nor satellite connections necessarily reduce the threat from bots that are propagated over e-mail or by Web-browser exploits. In the end, if your computer or other data device is infected with malware, a secure network provides very little solace.

Even when a foreign traveler leaves sensitive materials at home, there is no guarantee of their safety. The pervasive Chinese bot armies are a formidable foe, and they frequently attack networks and systems in almost every part of the world (the Pentagon defends against thousands of such attacks every day). Although China lacks a certain innovative finesse when it comes to cyberwarfare, it has a massive program with a wide reach. Combating it, from within or without, is a daunting task for any individual, company or superpower.

19/02/2009 - Construction of ESPO Chinese pipeline leg could begin in April – RIA Novosti

The construction of the Chinese section of the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline could begin in April, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said on Thursday.

"The construction will begin as soon as China starts transferring [its $25 billion loan to Russian state-controlled crude producer Rosneft and pipeline operator Transneft]" Sechin, who is responsible for the fuel and energy sector in the Russian government, said. "Probably, in April if everything goes as scheduled."

Transneft head Nikolai Tokarev confirmed that the construction would begin in April saying that "the funds are available."

On Tuesday Russia and China signed an intergovernmental agreement on the construction of a branch of the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) oil pipeline toward China and long-term Russian oil supplies.

Under the agreement, Russia will supply 15 million metric tons (110 million barrels) of crude annually for 20 years to China. China, in turn, will provide $25 billion in loans to Rosneft and Transneft.

Sechin praised the deals as a "breakthrough," saying that "$25 billion is a unique deal in the history of the global economy."

The ESPO pipeline is currently under construction and expected to start pumping its first oil in late 2009.

04/02/2009 - China to double nuclear power plants in 10 years - RIA Novosti

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China intends to double the number of nuclear power plants in the next decade, The China Daily reported on Wednesday, citing government sources.

There are currently 11 nuclear power plants operational in the country with combined capacity of about 9 GW, supplying just 1.3% of the country's energy needs, the paper said.

"China currently relies on coal power plants to supply about 80% of its total energy needs... The need to combat carbon emissions means that the country has to increase its nuclear power generation," Fu Manchang, secretary general of the Chinese Nuclear Society, was quoted by China Daily as saying.

According to the paper, China intends to raise the share of nuclear power in the national energy mix to around 5% by 2020.

This year alone, the Chinese authorities will begin the construction of nuclear power plants with total capacity of 8.4 GW, the paper said.

23/01/2009 - China: The White Paper and Military Operations Abroad - Stratfor

Summary

The most important aspect of the recently released sixth biennial White Paper on China’s National Defense is the intellectual groundwork and justification it offers for the expansion of Chinese military operations abroad.

Analysis

Beijing released its sixth biennial White Paper on China’s National Defense Jan. 20 (not by accident on the day of U.S. President Barack Obama’s inauguration). More than any one development or thrust, China’s White Papers serve as mileposts tracking the modernization and reform of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Taken as a whole, the single most important milepost in the 2008 paper is the intellectual groundwork and justification for the expansion of Chinese military operations abroad.

The white papers are qualitatively different from the Pentagon’s “Annual Report to Congress: Military Power of the People’s Republic of China,” in which the Pentagon articulates its own perceptions of Chinese military development (and whole sections that are often carried over verbatim from one year to the next). Given their publication in English, the white papers in part clearly serve as a message to the international community — especially the United States — signaling Beijing’s intentions. They also serve to mold international perceptions of the PLA. Regardless of whether this white paper is widely read within the PLA as a guiding policy document, over the years white papers have proven to convey accurately many of the main thrusts of PLA development.

Of particular note is the shift from the 2006 white paper, in which the emphasis was placed on cultural and educational reform within the military while improving the quality of personnel and their standard of living. These areas were then, and have continued to be, major areas of effort and reform. While the 2006 white paper was about more than that, the 2008 release shifts the emphasis in many ways to international involvement and operational experience. STRATFOR has been monitoring this development for some time, which fits squarely with the document’s prolific use of

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MOOTW (an acronym for Military Operations Other Than War, encompassing everything from peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance to maritime security and counterpiracy operations).

These two thrusts are deeply interrelated. This paper suggests that Beijing sees MOOTW as the avenue for international engagement through the exercise of its military abroad. Multinational and U.N.-authorized operations like the counterpiracy efforts off the coast of Somalia offer the PLA opportunities to deploy military force, enjoy the increased leverage and weight that such deployments offer and increase their perception not as a menacing force, but as a “responsible stakeholder.”

At the same time, it takes the PLA’s development beyond the Chinese mainland and its territorial waters in a comprehensive way for the first time. The naval deployment to Somalia should be seen not as a publicity stunt or a one-off operation, but as a sign of things to come. In the years ahead, the PLA intends to be every bit as global in its operations as other world powers. Though Beijing is hardly equipped to compete directly with the United States in this regard, it can certainly aspire to match Russia’s recent global presence.

In doing so, it also integrates firsthand operational experience into PLA modernization. Simply put, the new white paper brings the last decade of deliberate and concerted military reform within the PLA into the open. There, amid real-world multinational operations, other powers will see firsthand what China has accomplished. Perhaps more important, the PLA will begin to refine and tailor the equipment and doctrines it has crafted behind closed doors to function in real-world situations. Its ships should therefore no longer be expected to spend quite so much time tied up in port.

11/12/2008 - Taiwan stresses China's growing offensive options – Jane’s Intelligence Review

A report by the Taiwanese government has highlighted the threat to the island's security posed by China's ever-increasing military capability. John Hill investigates Taiwan's chief concerns and examines the political tensions arising from a lack of a coherent security policy

The epic story of Taiwan's special arms procurement package from the US, first agreed in 2001, continues. Vice-Minister of National Defence Vice-Admiral Kao Kuang-hsi told a press conference on 29 August that part of the budget to purchase 66 F-16C/D fighter jets from the US would be included in the 2007 military budget. However, in early October the Ministry of National Defence (MND) stated that President George Bush had suspended the aircraft purchase owing to delays to the overall arms deal. The dominant party in the legislature, Kuomintang (KMT), objects to the arms procurement because of its potential for provoking China.

Nonetheless, the 2006 National Defence Report released by the government in late August warned of the threat from Beijing and called once again for the purchase of eight diesel submarines, 12 P-3C anti-submarine warfare aircraft, and six PAC-3 Patriot anti-ballistic missile systems for USD10.8 billion, as originally proposed in the 2001 deal.

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This followed the issuance of a comprehensive National Security Report by Taiwan's National Security Council in May. The document, expressive as it is of the island's security concerns chiefly regarding China, met with opprobrium in Beijing. According to China Daily, Li Weiyi, spokesman of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said: "With slanderous attacks against the mainland the report attempts to alienate compatriots across the Straits and provoke confrontation."

China's strategy

President Chen Shui-bian's foreword to the report includes "ensuring national security" against two kinds of challenge, namely conventional military threats, for which Taiwan is urged to possess "sufficient self-defence capabilities and remain united", and unconventional military threats, for which the island "must develop crisis-response capabilities that are flexible, swift and precise". The first issue for Taiwan is clearly related to China, although the report acknowledges the impact on Taiwan's security environment of Japan's increasing desire for militarisation, not least with regard to the tensions this has generated with China. The second issue is the expression of Taiwan's recognition of the global security environment regarding North Korea's nuclear status and the current war on terrorism.

Yet the report is interesting not only for publishing Taiwan's security concerns, but also for revealing Taipei's view of China's strategic vision. Two key developments the document identifies are China's maritime strategy and its role in East Asia's integration process. Concerning the maritime issue, Taiwan sees China using its "newly strengthened naval force" to push wartime operations out to the North Pacific and the second island chain (the first island chain includes the Aleutian islands, Kuril islands, Ryukyu islands, Taiwan, the Philippines and the Greater Sunda islands).

Taipei believes that Taiwan is of significant strategic importance, although the report's claim that Taiwan is needed as a "springboard from which China could carry out its external expansion strategy", is somewhat far fetched as the island's proximity to the Chinese coastline means that little advantage is offered by being based in Taiwan. Rather, China may wish to control Taiwan to prevent potential opponents from doing so since the occupation of Taiwan would allow a potential adversary to threaten China's entire southeast coast.

Concerning China's role in East Asian integration, the document notes Beijing's agreement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to launch a China/ASEAN free-trade area by 2010 as well is its signing of the Treaty of Amity and Co-operation in Southeast Asia in 2003. China's increasing influence in East Asia is undermining Taiwanese efforts to expand its economic and political reach, and as a result such events are viewed as potentially negative for Taiwan's own development.

China's developing offensive options

Nonetheless, the report is unequivocal in stating that the largest security threat facing Taiwan is the increasing capability of China's military. Among the key elements of the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) development regarding the increasing precision strike capability and mobility of the conventional and nuclear missiles is its Second Artillery force. Six ballistic missile brigades are based along China's southeast coast with the

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range to strike any part of Taiwan. Taipei believes that they will have over 800 such missiles by the end of 2006. The report suggests that the PLA would launch the missiles on Taiwan in a six-wave, 12-hour-long saturation missile attack.

These improving missile capabilities are reinforced by the air force (PLAAF), which, according to Taipei, will field over 500 next-generation aircraft with new airborne early warning systems, electronic warfare aircraft and 10 types of precision stand-off weapons by the end of 2006, allowing long-range precision strikes on Taiwan and its air defences.

The navy (PLAN), meanwhile, will field 1,500 vessels by the end of 2006, including more than 50 new surface warships and nearly 40 new submarines. Importantly, the report views these naval assets, in combination with new C4ISR capabilities, as providing China with the capability to gain an advantage in controlling the Taiwan Strait.

With regard to ground forces, the report stresses a new emphasis on interoperability among the different units of the PLA. According to Taipei, the PLA now has 180,000 soldiers in 14 brigade-size units of "contingent mobile forces", which are "capable of engaging in war against Taiwan at any time" and which, along with the amphibious troops among the 400,000 troops in the Nanjing and Guangzhou military regions, will significantly increase the number of soldiers capable of participating in an attack on Taiwan.

As accounts of the PLA's development frequently emphasise, in the event of war across the strait, China will use information operations and electronic warfare to infiltrate Taiwan's computer networks and disrupt Taiwan's infrastructure. The report also suggests electromagnetic pulse weapons might be used against Taiwan's command, control and computer networks, in addition to attacks against information networks, as well as the "three warfares" (media, psychological and legal warfare) to mislead the Taiwanese people. The report also states that China has organised a 'cyber army' to attack opponents' computer operations as well as recruiting up to 50,000 professional internet commentators able to pose as regular users and so manage public discourse on the web. These Taiwanese claims of extensive personnel and capabilities to disrupt electronic equipment have not been verified, and doubts remain over the extent and ability of China to undertake these supposed operations.

The report suggests that the most likely strategic option for China to use in its goal of unifying Taiwan with the mainland is "coercion by force", or using methods that fall short of invasion or full-scale war. These include a "decapitation strike" against the national and military leadership, and assaults on basic infrastructure to undermine Taiwanese political and military resistance. Taiwan also perceives the PLA as stressing the use of special operations forces by attacking Taiwan's key facilities and transport and communication nodes as key to any partial campaign or during the first stages of a longer campaign.

Taiwan's security strategy

This perceived threat is compounded in the report by a concern over the declining proportion of gross domestic product spent on defence (from 3.8 per cent in 1994 to

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2.54 per cent currently), and therefore a recommendation is made to raise spending to three per cent by 2008. Simultaneously, it indicates a desire to reduce military tensions across the strait by a number of measures, including shortening the term of mandatory military service to 12 months; reducing the total number of the armed services to 100,000 by the end of 2008; forswearing the development and use of unconventional weapons; creating military buffer zones to be observed by both sides; and establishing a Taiwan Strait consultation mechanism for military security.

This dichotomy between the call for military development and measures to reduce military tension reflects the wider division within Taiwan's political elite and the population. Political differences over how to proceed in its current security environment have prevented the production of a consistent and effective security strategy. These divisions stem from the crucial turning point in cross-strait relations as Taipei begins to perceive China's military power as nearly equal to or better than that of the island's. The danger for Taiwan is that this stalemate will further delay improvements in its ability to deter China while Beijing's ability to coerce Taiwanese policy increases.

23/10/2008 - The Asian space race – Jane’s Defense Weekly

Asian nation that can now consider itself to be a space power. Trefor Moss examines Asia's dash for space - and its military implications

When the United States put a man on the moon in July 1969, President Richard Nixon said it was the "greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation". Whether you agree probably depends - today more than ever - on which part of world you happen to be in.

Nearly 40 years on, it was China's turn to celebrate the glamour and glory of its own space programme as the latest Chinese mission, the Shenzhou 7, passed off without a hitch in September 2008.

Five years after China put its first man into space, this latest effort - hailed by President Hu Jintao as an "historical breakthrough" - sent three astronauts into space for 68 hours and included the successful execution of China's first space walk. Above all, it was testament to the enduring power of space to fire the imagination - and make grand political statements - that only weeks after the end of the Beijing Olympics the Chinese space walk had captivated the nation and caught the world's attention.

Images of a Chinese flag being waved 340 km above the surface of the Earth were widely interpreted as yet one more indication of the growth of Chinese power.

Yet more broadly, the story of Asia's rise, not just China's, is reflected in the achievements of space programmes across the continent. India and Japan have programmes that in many ways rival China's; tech-savvy South Korea is not all that far behind; and other Asian nations, including Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan, have impressive satellite, if not launch, capabilities of their own, with even Vietnam launching its first communications satellite in April 2008.

Furthermore, Asia's assertive space ambitions are coinciding with an uncharacteristic period of self-doubt in the once pioneering US. The space shuttle, limping towards

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retirement in 2010, will not be replaced until 2015 at the earliest by the Ares I rocket and the Orion spacecraft, both of which NASA is still developing, prompting fears that the hiatus will give the likes of China - never mind Russia or the Europeans - a window of opportunity in which to overhaul the US dominance of space.

Apart from issues of prestige, this fear centres on the fact that the world's militaries, if not yet positioning weapons in space, have come to rely on space as an enabler for many of their core capabilities. The fear carries with it a question: does competition among the rising Asian powers and, perhaps more importantly, with an insecure US threaten a new space race that could snowball into space's militarisation?

In his book Failed States, Noam Chomsky portrays a military space race that has already begun, warning that "China and others may develop low-cost space weapons in reaction" to the US deploying its own space-based weaponry. While not going quite so far, Brigadier General John Hyten, director of requirements for the US Air Force's Space Command, impressed upon an audience at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in September that "space is a contested environment - though many people still don't believe this".

A now notorious escalation of that contest came in the form of China's anti-satellite (ASAT) missile test in January 2007. An ASAT missile is arguably not a space weapon, depending on your definition, and clearly not a space-based one.

However, it is hard not to see the ASAT as an offensive weapon aimed at crippling foreign countries' (in essence US) satellites; and the successful shootdown focused the minds of users of space-based systems, not least the world's militaries, on their considerable reliance on technologies, which are quite evidently vulnerable.

Dual-use potential

The civilian applications of space are as responsible for driving this contest as the military's C4ISR interests; but, as Dean Cheng, senior Asia analyst at the not-for-profit research organisation CNA, pointed out, "it's hard to say anything a nation does in space does not have military connotations". Few technology fields have space's dual-use potential.

Nowhere is the contest between the main Asian players more fierce than in the race to the moon. Japan launched its first lunar probe, Kaguya, using the indigenous H-2A rocket, in September 2007 - narrowly ahead of China, which sent up its own lunar probe, the Chang'e 1, a month later. Most recently India launched its first lunar probe, the Chandrayaan 1, on 22 October.

For all three countries, these were just early stages in ambitious lunar programmes.

The goals of the main Asian players are not guided solely by one another's progress, however. "Japan and India aren't developing their own space programmes because the Chinese are developing theirs," said Cheng. "Both want to move further up the technological food chain." Japan's space programme has been given impetus by North Korean missile launches and nuclear weapons development, for example - as has South Korea's.

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Spurred on by North Korean instability as well as the technological advances of old foe Japan, Seoul expects the launch of its first indigenous rocket, the Korea Launch Vehicle System 1 (KLVS-1), to take place in early 2009, having pressed ahead with Russian assistance after its usual go-to ally, the US, declined to get involved. This will make South Korea a member of the exclusive club of countries with their own launch capability and help Seoul achieve its own lunar ambitions.

Gopal Raj, the author of Reach for the Stars: The Evolution of India's Rocket Programme, said that "China is a factor but not the factor" in India's pursuit of space.

"The Chinese programme is predicated on an idea that you need to have independent access to space," Raj explained. "India sees the same logic - we need the option to use space on our own terms."

India is not there yet. Despite garnering its own headlines by successfully launching 10 satellites from one rocket in April 2008, India is not yet a fully independent member of the space club.

"India still uses [Europe's] Ariane 5 to launch its heavier satellites," Raj said.

India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), used to launch the 10 (mainly nano) satellites, can carry little more than a one-tonne payload; the larger Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) can manage over two tonnes.

"The big upcoming project for India is the next generation of launch vehicle," Raj continued. "The GSLV Mk 3, which should launch in around 2012, will have a payload of 3.5 tonnes."

Even that will not be enough for the largest satellites and, as Raj pointed out, satellites are getting heavier and heavier. By way of comparison, China's Long March 4B rocket, which took the Shenzhou 7 into orbit, can manage around 4 to 5 tonnes. Its successor, the Long March 5, due in around 2013, should be able to manage around eight.

While total independence may not yet be within India's grasp, the country has long been the "silent giant" of the space community, according to Elliot Pulham, the president and chief executive officer of the Space Foundation.

The Indian Space Research Agency (ISRO) is a "long-time champion of technology innovation", he said, whose "remote sensing satellites have been among the very best in the world".

The latest of these is the high-resolution Cartosat-2 imaging satellite, launched in April 2008. Its 1 m resolution has obvious military, as well as civil, applications; India has also been involved in the development of Russia's answer to GPS, the GLONASS global satellite navigation system, another dual-use capability available to the Indian government and hence the military. As the race to the moon shows, India's ambition is outgrowing even this kind of unmanned capability.

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Manned missions

"There is now an element of 'we must do a manned mission' in Indian thinking," Raj said - something spurred by Chinese success.

In 2006, ISRO suggested that India might use the GSLV Mk 3 to put a man into space by 2014; Raj thinks it unlikely to happen before 2018, pushing a moon landing into the 2020s. In the meantime, ISRO is readying the Chandrayaan 2 lunar probe, which will feature a lander and moon rover, for launch in around 2011.

The Indian space community is right to feel encouraged by its commercial competitiveness, after EADS-owned Astrium signed a deal with ISRO in September for use of the PSLV for the launch of earth observation satellites, building on an existing relationship. The main threat to further progress, Raj said, despite the government budgeting ISRO around USD840 million for 2007-08, is a shortage of cash in a contracting global economy. "There are economic problems," he said. "The government will not be in a hurry to sanction a manned mission right now."

Internationally, attitudes to space are hardening: fewer and fewer countries are content to sit back and regard space technology as something exotic for rich countries to waste their money on.

The recognition of space's military importance is part of this process - as is the need to allay fears about your intentions.

As the Shenzhou 7 blasted off, Cui Jijun, the director of the Jiuquan satellite launch centre where the launch took place, was at pains to downplay the mission's military links, insisting that "China's manned space programme has not carried out a single military task".

However, Chinese military doctrine identifies space as one of five warfare domains - alongside land, sea, air and electronic/electromagnetic - and, as Cheng observed: "China's space programme has always been tied to defence; the military aspect has always been in the background as a minimum."

No Chinese military space doctrine has ever been published, although the country's drive to 'informationalise' warfare, partly by using space assets, is well known. China has also been actively developing counterspace systems: not only the ASAT missile, but also jammers and lasers that can blind satellite optics.

A September 2008 report by the Council of Foreign Relations, a US think-tank, on 'China, Space Weapons and US Security' noted that "it is unclear whether China's offensive counterspace capabilities are intended for deterrence or as usable weapons of war".

China's approach has been overtly contradictory, although Cheng defends this position insofar as "most nations' foreign policies are inconsistent".

However, China sent out confusing messages by pressing for a new treaty along with Russia for the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) while seeming to

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foment just this kind of competition with its ASAT test and other counterspace technologies.

China-phobes have suggested that the PAROS proposal - which the US has rejected - is merely a ruse designed to hinder US projects and buy China time to narrow the technology gap. In its latest Space White Paper, at any rate, China talks only of space's peaceful exploitation and of the benefits to mankind.

India, although wary of Chinese activities, does not seem to rank Beijing's space programme among its main concerns. "I don't feel that anyone is aiming to place weapons in outer space," said Raj. "I don't think China or India would start that kind of thing off - as long as the US doesn't do something rash."

Low-cost space lab

It is perhaps the scale of China's space ambitions, rather than any military strategy, that underpins other countries' unease.

The next stage of the Shenzhou mission series promises another leap in capability, with Shenzhou 8, 9 and 10 set to launch within days of each another, probably in 2010, according to Cui Jijun.

They will then be linked in orbit to form what Cheng describes as "a space laboratory on the cheap". Cheng is also "cautious about assuming that China will do this", although he said that if the plan succeeds "it will not be significant militarily but hugely significant politically", and "give [China] a permanent presence in space".

Pulham is surer of the mission's chances. "China has great discipline, political will, financial underpinning and sheer manpower to throw at the space challenge," he explained. "In my experience, if the Chinese say they are going to do something like this, you can depend upon it."

The induction of the Long March 5 rocket with its increased payload will enable China to begin construction of a full-scale space station, which will replace the Shenzhou space lab by around 2020, a Chinese spokesman said after the Shenzhou 7 mission. Looking over the horizon, a Chinese astronaut will then walk on the moon in around 2024 and on Mars, the Party line goes, by 2050.

Whatever the prime motivation for the ambitious lunar programme - be it simply national pride or, as has been speculated, a scheme to mine Helium-3 and corner a new, abundant energy source - China has the wherewithal to succeed.

It has three launch facilities and around 14 Long March 4s. A reorganisation of China's aerospace industry in 1999 helped the new China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), which oversees the space programme, to give the Shenzhou missions fresh impetus.

The Chinese space programme is thought to have a budget of around USD2 billion a year - the same as Japan's (although just one tenth of that of the US). China is also at the heart of the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization, a collaboration of countries

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ranging from Pakistan to Mongolia and Bangladesh through which China offers space leadership to Asian nations with relatively little capability - an approach reminiscent of China's 'String of Pearls' strategy for extending its maritime influence.

In a further significant advance, China is set to join another exclusive group: that of nations operating a network of global positioning satellites. Only the US and Russia have these systems so far, with Europe's Galileo system expected to be fully online by 2013. The Chinese system, Beidou 2, is working to a similar timeframe, although, according to the government, it was used in a limited, flag-waving capacity to direct traffic during the Beijing Olympics. Intriguingly, China's involvement in Galileo appears to have informed the development of the Beidou constellation, leading critics of China to ask whether the Europeans were naïve to allow the Chinese access to the programme given China's well-known strategy of acquiring new technology through any available means - particularly the kind dual-use technology used in Galileo - and also given the obvious military uses of such an accurate positioning capability.

However, Pulham thinks that the Europeans would have been wrong if they had excluded China from the Galileo project.

"I believe that engagement is more constructive than isolationism," he said, "and the more intricately interwoven our space programmes become, the more difficult it becomes for any one player to become belligerent without placing their own resources and capabilities at risk."

In this way, it is hoped that the interoperability of the different satellite positioning systems could be one of the main barriers to hostilities in space.

Separately, China is taking significant strides towards achieving 'informationalised' military capability with the launch in 2006 and 2007 of the Yaogan 1 and 2 reconnaissance satellites (ZY-1-01 and ZY-1-02). The third satellite in the series (ZY-1-02B) was added in August.

Although China had already launched several generations of spy satellites, these were the first of a new modern breed of synthetic-aperture radar reconnaissance satellites offering 2 m resolution. A fourth satellite is due for launch in 2009, with an updated generation of reconnaissance satellites expected to be introduced in around 2010.

While China strides ahead at a pace that some find alarming, Japan is still considering its interpretation of this new 'space race'.

10/07/2008 - China, Taiwan and Tibet: Fraying at the Edges - The Economist

In neither Tibet nor Taiwan are things going as well for China as its leaders would like

IT HAS been a good few days for the self-esteem of China’s leaders. Their hopes of winning acceptance for their view of Tibet and of coaxing Taiwan into the embrace of the “motherland” both seem to have become a little more likely. But look closer. In fact both remain distant dreams.

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As President Hu Jintao was feted at the G8 summit in Japan, China secured two important affirmative RSVPs to the opening of the Olympic games in Beijing next month. George Bush was never likely to be a party-pooper. But France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, had suggested his attendance hinged on China’s behaviour in Tibet. He, too, will turn up, bearing tribute to China’s growing sporting, commercial and diplomatic clout. Over Taiwan, the progress is more than symbolic. The opening of regular charter flights across the Taiwan Strait, allowing thousands of mainland tourists to visit the island, is the most important of a number of confidence-building measures since the victory of Ma Ying-jeou and his China-leaning party, the Kuomintang (KMT), in the presidential election in March (see article and article). After the bellicose sniping at the pro-independence administration of Chen Shui-bian, China seems positively lovey-dovey towards his successor.

On Tibet, China appears to have won over foreign governments by making only the most token of concessions. It has reopened low-level talks with representatives of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader. But it has barely even pretended that these might lead to a political settlement. At the latest round it refused even to issue an anodyne joint statement, lest this be deemed to accord its Tibetan interlocutors some sort of official status. In Tibet it has quelled unrest and dissent with the time-honoured repression it knows best: mass detention, heavy security and “patriotic education campaigns” (see article). China can boast that “calm” has returnedThe calm of the prison yard, however, is no long-term solution to the Tibet problem, which is that large numbers of Tibetans feel economically disadvantaged and politically ignored. Order imposed through violence, or the threat of violence, will only heighten pro-independence sentiment.

The same holds true for Taiwan, even during the present honeymoon. China has never renounced what it says is its right to take Taiwan by force if peaceful blandishments fail. Adding weight to the threat are hundreds of missiles trained on Taiwan. Such bullying helps ensure that a huge majority in Taiwan opposes imminent unification. The vote in March was indeed partly a reaction to the recent cross-strait tensions, and an endorsement of closer economic ties with the mainland at a time of faltering growth. But the KMT won not because it was promising unification, but because it seemed to have the better tactics for perpetuating Taiwan’s de facto independence.

Sovereign remedies

Chinese officials understand that well enough. But in helping generate popular euphoria around the latest “breakthroughs” with Taiwan, they are taking a risk. Taiwan is a big unfinished nationalist project at a time when Chinese nationalism is gaining potency. The anger recently directed at foreigners over their criticism of China’s behaviour in Tibet could turn on China’s own government. Its present policy relies on Taiwan’s refraining from any “provocation”. This is dangerously fragile: better to make clear that “reunification” is a long-term goal, to be achieved, if at all, through peaceful means. As with Tibet, that means being ready to show a little flexibility over that most sensitive of issues, sovereignty. China’s emergence, as symbolised by the Olympics, will otherwise continue to be hampered by the instability in its own backyard.

02/06/2008 - China: The Challenges of a 'Defensive' Nuclear Arsenal - Stratfor

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Summary

China continues to struggle to sell its nuclear arsenal as defensive in nature. While there is some credence to this, the dynamics of the nuclear balance are shifting against it and will have consequences for both the credibility of its deterrent and the survivability of its space-based assets.

Analysis

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, speaking at a regional security conference in Singapore on June 1, dismissed China’s claims that its intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) arsenal is for defensive purposes only. While this sort of political banter is not normally of much interest to STRATFOR — Beijing and Washington have long been at odds over defense-related issues — in this case, it is emblematic of the nuclear dynamic between the two countries.

In one sense, of course, Gates is correct: An ICBM is inherently an offensive weapon. China is indeed moving to modernize its arsenal with more capable solid-propellant missiles that can deliver more warheads more accurately to the continental United States.

But at the same time, China does not have anything close to the strategic force structure to pretend to a meaningful first-strike capability — the ability to attempt to conduct a debilitating surprise attack against U.S. nuclear forces. As it moves to modernize its arsenal, Beijing still has much ground to cover to ensure the survivability of its own second-strike or retaliatory capability. China’s work on its strategic deterrent, in other words, can hardly be termed provocative.

Ultimately, neither Beijing nor Washington is interested in any sort of escalating arms race; both have far more pressing problems, and neither has the resources right now to devote to an accelerated nuclear weapons acquisitions program (and, of course, the United States is well ahead of China in both qualitative and quantitative terms). However, each is forced to consider not just the other’s near-term intent, where the two can see eye-to-eye, but also long-term capabilities and the potential for the emergence of a strategic threat to national interests. Beijing especially is left hedging its bets while attempting to mold perceptions of its military prowess as both defensive and representative of a world-class military power (positions which are not exactly compatible).

While this diplomatic justification for a nuclear arsenal is of little more concern, strategically speaking, than a spat between two defense officials in Singapore, Beijing is edging its way into a very difficult corner.

China is continuing to modernize its intercontinental-range arsenal in order to ensure its nuclear deterrent’s long-term survivability and credibility (and not just with the United States, but also with China’s nuclear-armed neighbors Russia, Pakistan and India). Beyond the deployment of a small ballistic missile submarine fleet, however, much of China’s modernization has been one-for-one replacement of existing systems — essentially sustaining the arsenal rather than growing it. (Of course, Washington is not

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required to view it that way, and part of the problem with nuclear arsenals the world over is the lack of outward transparency.)

But the United States has its own “defensive” ploy: ballistic missile defense (BMD). The Pentagon’s deployment of both sea- and land-based BMD systems from California and Alaska to Japan will only continue. While all of this is ostensibly directed at North Korea’s extremely limited Taepodong arsenal, it will also affect China’s limited deterrent (China has as few as a couple of dozen missiles capable of targeting the U.S. eastern seaboard).

As more capable and more robust BMD systems are fielded by the United States (and thus by the Japanese Self Defense Force), they will begin to erode Chinese ICBMs’ ability to penetrate this nascent missile shield. Beijing will soon find itself forced either to expand its forces more meaningfully — both quantitatively and qualitatively — or to accept the slow marginalization of the currency of its deterrent in Washington. The former could easily be interpreted as a prelude to an arms race — one China knows it is all too likely to lose.

But this boxing in of the Chinese nuclear arsenal is only a side benefit of U.S. efforts in BMD, which will also begin to erode the survivability of Beijing’s space-based assets.

27/05/2008 - China: Of Salt Domes and Strategic Reserves - Stratfor

Summary

For several years, China has been trying to develop a strategic petroleum reserve program like the one the United States has in place. However, unlike the United States, China does not have naturally occurring salt domes in which to store its crude oil reserves. Without those underground salt domes, China will have to spend a lot of money to develop a strategic petroleum reserve that meets its domestic needs.

Analysis

For several years, China has followed in the footsteps of the United States, Japan and South Korea in developing a strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) program. Like Japan and South Korea — but unlike the United States — China does not have naturally formed salt domes in which to store its crude oil reserves. These subterranean geological formations provide the ideal location for crude stockpiles, and without them China’s attempt to build an SPR will be extremely expensive.

The United States’ SPR

In 1975, after the 1973-1974 oil embargo by leading Arab exporters, the U.S. Congress passed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act to establish an SPR. The goal was to provide the country with 750 million barrels of backup crude oil to be drawn down in the event of another embargo, crippling price hikes or a natural disaster. The Department of Energy chose several underground salt domes –- formations of salt that have risen above the sedimentary deposits surrounding them — to serve as storage facilities for the SPR.

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Today, there are five salt-dome storage sites in operation, each located along the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Texas, with a capacity of 727 million barrels of oil and under expansion toward a capacity of 1 billion barrels. In the event of a disaster, the U.S. president can order a complete drawdown of the SPR. The current reserve total of 702.7 million barrels would last about 51 days, though there are physical limitations on drawdown speed at each site, and it would be nearly impossible to conduct a total drawdown in such a short time. The president also has the authority to order a limited drawdown, as was done in 1991 during the global scare over oil prices surrounding the Gulf War and in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina disrupted oil production and refining in the United States.

The salt domes provided the United States with a cheap way to store large quantities of surplus crude in the event of an emergency. Today, the United States’ SPR is superior to the reserves of Japan, South Korea and China in its current storage, total capacity, low cost and strategic security.

Salt Domes

A salt dome is a type of diapir, a mass of low-density rock that rises above its denser surroundings and cuts into overlying rock layers, creating a particular formation. Salt, shale and magma are most frequently responsible for diapirs. In a salt diapir, salt buoys above surrounding sediment, taking the shape of sheets, pillars and especially mushrooms, often trapping hydrocarbons already in place. Eventually, the “stem” of a mushroom-shaped formation breaks off and the cap remains suspended among the higher layers of sediment. This cap is called the salt dome. Wherever there are low-density sedimentary deposits, the possibility of salt domes exists — hence their location near bodies of water, such as the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana and Texas, in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia in Canada, and near Germany’s Jade Bay on the North Sea (home of the enormous Etzel salt dome).

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The technique of preparing salt domes to store oil, called solution mining, is relatively simple. After drilling a well into the salt dome, technicians pump in fresh water according to their designs for how separate caverns should be shaped; the fresh water leaches out the salt and carves discrete caverns that will serve as oil storage units. Then the brine, or water saturated with salt, is pumped out of the newly formed cavern and sent to petrochemical disposers or pumped into the sea 8 or 9 miles offshore. The process of preparing salt-dome caverns can take several years and requires approximately seven barrels of water for each barrel of oil to be stored. When it is time to retrieve oil from a particular cavern, fresh water is pumped into the bottom of the cavern, forcing the oil to float to the top. From there, it is sent via pipeline to refineries.

The caverns in a salt dome have a great advantage over other crude-oil storage methods such as aboveground steel cylinders or tanks, offshore floating tanks or subterranean hard-rock mining caverns, which serve as SPRs in Japan and South Korea. Salt domes are naturally formed and are large enough to hold many man-made caverns; one of the United States’ salt caverns is large enough to contain the entire Sears Tower. Also, crude oil stored in salt domes does not suffer from the corrosion and deterioration common to oil stored in steel tanks. As a function of temperature variations at different depths, the oil inside a salt cavern is constantly circulating, which helps maintain its

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quality and consistency. Another major advantage of salt dome storage is that, lying from 2,000-7,000 feet underground, the salt dome reserves are highly secure from foreign attack or natural disaster — though Hurricane Katrina in 2005 disrupted the control system of the SPR both at the command center and at its backup location, revealing the mistake of stationing the two facilities close to each other.

But perhaps most importantly, salt-dome oil storage is relatively cheap. Both capital expenditures and operating costs for the salt domes are low, and the solution-mining technique of carving out different caverns within the dome to serve as individual storage units is relatively inexpensive. The total U.S. investment in its SPR is $22 billion, but $17 billion of that sum covers the cost of the oil, leaving only $5 billion invested in developing the facilities. This boils down to an average cost of $27 per barrel in the U.S. SPR, a remarkable example of the cost effectiveness of the salt-dome storage method.

China’s SPR

China began thinking about an SPR program in 1993 but did not act until Hu Jintao became president in 2003. Phase I of China’s SPR includes building stockpiles in Zhenhai and Aoshan in the Zheijiang province, as well as Qingdao in Shandong and Dalian in Liaoning. Total storage capacity at these sites is planned to reach 100 million barrels by the end of 2008. If this goal is met, it will provide China with about 20 days of forward coverage, based on its net imports of 3.3 million barrels per day. By mid-2007, China had filled the 52 storage tanks at Zhenhai with 12.4 million barrels, equal to three days of China’s imports; since then, the Chinese might have stored another 5-8 million barrels. China is using steel tanks at its Phase I SPR storage sites and for most of the sites it has planned for Phases II and III.

Thus, China’s SPR program has a major problem from the beginning. Steel tanks are expensive, take up large amounts of land, are open to attacks or natural disasters and can eventually corrupt the crude oil they hold. Japan and South Korea have both discovered the limitations of steel tanks, and South Korea in particular has turned to using complexes in mined rock caverns, which house about 59 million barrels of its 74 million barrel total petroleum reserves. China has begun planning its own underground storage facilities of this type in the city of Zhanjiang, with an estimated capacity of 44 million barrels and a projected price tag of $331.6 million.

But mining caverns, unlike salt domes, require high capital expenditure to begin with because they must undergo extensive reconstruction. They also have structural problems as oil-storage sites. The one cavern of this type that the United States used in its SPR — originally a room-and-pillar salt mine — at Weeks Island, La., had to be shut down in 1994 because of groundwater seepage that threatened to crack the top of the dome and its individual chambers, which could have caused a washout and flooded local water aquifers with crude. Aside from environmental concerns, a cracked storage facility could result in considerable losses of oil. Salt domes resist this kind of cracking, as geological pressures deep below the earth cause a “self-healing” effect that mends cracks before they spread.

But Beijing does have one potential candidate for a genuine salt-dome storage site. The Jianghan Basin near Wuhan has thick salt beds at 1,000-2,000 feet underground that are

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structurally fit to store millions of barrels of oil. Construction at the Jianghan Basin is still in the planning phases, but even if the project receives Beijing’s go-ahead, it will take many years before the site becomes operational. Moreover, Jianghan Basin is 600 miles from the ocean and far from China’s northeast, where consumer demand is highest and oil shortages would strike first and hardest.

The Future Costs of China’s SPR

China will press on with its SPR projects; lack of salt domes alone is not enough to discount the entire enterprise. Japan manages an effective SPR by relying mainly on steel tanks — aboveground, underground, inland and offshore — to store its 320 million barrels of crude, while South Korea has efficiently developed the rock mining caverns in lieu of salt domes. Neither Japan nor South Korea has salt domes at its disposal.

But the problem is one of cost. Seoul’s rock mining caverns have cost about the same to develop, in relative terms, as the United States’ salt domes. But without salt domes and with few rock mines available, Japan has relied on expensive steel tanks. China is likely to do the same. Meanwhile, the global price of steel is soaring, having doubled in the last year.

High oil prices also will cause China to expend billions more to stock its SPR than its rivals did when they began. Beijing began its stockpile only after oil hit $50 per barrel and did not make real progress until prices had started rising rapidly. It currently holds about 20 million barrels, less than a third of South Korea’s oil reserves. And with oil selling for $130 per barrel, its attempt to reach the 100 million barrel mark by the end of the year will be extremely expensive (and oil costs are likely to remain high).

China will also have to sock away oil for its SPR despite the world’s opposition. To meet its target for 2008, China will add about 100,000-150,000 barrels per day to global oil demand; subsequent SPR phases will require larger daily amounts. With oil supplies already tight, this added demand will have a considerable impact on global oil prices and will trigger international denunciations. Just as countries around the world criticized the United States in the 1970s for its SPR, so too will they criticize China for jacking up prices by buying oil that it does not immediately need. But in 2008, the stakes are even higher, and tensions will increase accordingly.

To develop its SPR, China will spend billions and billions of dollars buying expensive oil and constructing costly steel tanks, all the while wishing it had lower oil and steel prices — and geology — on its side.

13/05/2008 - China: The Evolution of ETIM - Stratfor

The East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) is at the top of China’s most-wanted list of terrorist organizations. The group has a long and varied history. Its most recent incarnation was in the late 1990s, when the group tried to gain the support of Uighur communities at home and abroad. Failing that, it turned first to the Taliban in Afghanistan and then to the jihadist movement in Pakistan. ETIM crumbled after its leader, Hasan Mahsum, was killed in Pakistan in 2003. There are indications today that a revived movement may be integrating into the broader international jihadist movement in Central and South Asia.

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Analysis

China repeatedly refers to the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) as the main militant Uighur Islamist threat; however, in many Chinese studies, a more general “East Turkistan Movement” is referred to rather than any specific group. When a specific group is mentioned regarding a militant action or government raid, Beijing usually cites ETIM or the related East Turkistan Liberation Organization (ETLO), which is also on China’s most-wanted list. This ambiguity, and the fact that there are numerous variations of the movement’s name, has led many foreign observers to simply credit ETIM with all militant attacks or plots in China. (When the U.S. State Department listed ETIM as a terrorist organization, it credited it with the complete laundry list of attacks, assassinations and plots China said were the work of the entire East Turkistan separatist movement.)

While most reports trace the ETIM back to its rebirth under Hasan Mahsum and Abudukadir Yapuquan in 1997, the organization traces its own lineage back to 1940, when the Hizbul Islam Li-Turkistan (Islamic Party of Turkistan or Turkistan Islamic Movement) was founded by Abdul Azeez Makhdoom (also transliterated as Mahsum), Abdul Hakeem and Abdul Hameed. From the 1940s through 1952, the three led the movement in a series of uprisings, first against local warlords and later against the Chinese Communists. During this time, Abdul Hakeem was imprisoned, Abdul Hameed was driven underground and later killed in 1955 and Abdul Azeez Makhdoom simply dropped out of sight (likely killed).

Around 1956, after Abdul Hameed’s death, the organization reformed as Hizbul Islam Li-Turkistan Ash-Sharqiyah (Islamic Party of East Turkistan or East Turkistan Islamic Movement) under the new leadership of Mullah Baquee and Mullah Muhammad. The two led an uprising that was quickly defeated, leading to a decline of the organization and its activity until the late 1970s or early 1980s. While there were some uprisings in Xinjiang in the 1960s and 1970s during the Cultural Revolution, these were less ethnically or religiously motivated than linked to the broader sense of instability in China during that period.

In 1979, as Deng Xiaoping was launching China’s economic opening and reform, Abdul Hakeem was released from prison and set up several underground schools for Islamic study (a slightly more open environment in China contributed to a decade-long Islamic and ethnic revival in Xinjiang). One of his students in Kargharlak from 1984 to 1989 was Mahsum, who would later reinvigorate the ETIM. The 1980s also saw a resurgence of activism among Uighurs in Xinjiang and elsewhere in China, triggered by calls for religious or ethnic rights, greater student freedoms and opposition to Chinese nuclear tests at Lop Nor in Xinjiang.

On Dec. 12, 1985, demonstrations broke out at Xinjiang University, led by a Uighur student organization, and quickly spread to universities and schools in other cities in Xinjiang. The December 12 Movement, as it was later called, was suppressed by Chinese security forces, but it did inspire a second movement in June 1988 triggered in part by leaflets found at the campus of Xinjiang University disparaging ethnic Uighurs. Once again, a Uighur student movement spearheaded the demonstrations, which spread beyond the Xinjiang University campus. A third student-led demonstration broke out in May 1989, when students marched in Urumchi to protest a

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book on ethnic sexual customs published earlier in Shanghai that allegedly insulted Muslims and Uighurs.

Many of these Xinjiang student protests in the 1980s were more a reflection of the growing student activism in China as a whole (culminating in the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident) than a resurgence of Uighur separatism. But there was also a movement in Xinjiang during the more open 1980s to promote literacy and to refocus on religious and ethnic heritage that saw a resurgence of Islamic schools and mosques. The movement was to take on a stronger role with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the independence of the Central Asian states and the broader Islamic revival in Central Asia.

In 1988 or 1989, the group Hizbul Islam Li-Turkistan Ash-Sharqiyah was revitalized once again under Dia Uddin, who planned a series of attacks in Xinjiang to push for independence from Beijing. The plots were discovered before they could be carried out, however, leading to a clash between government forces and Dia Uddin’s militants in Baren in 1990. The so-called “April 5 Baren Incident” involved some 200 Uighur demonstrators who fought back against government troops, though the core militants were only a dozen or less. After holding the town for nearly three weeks, most of the militants were either captured or killed in the city or in mopping-up operations in the countryside.

Prior to the Baren incident, a breakaway faction of the Hizbul Islam Li-Turkistan Ash-Sharqiyah, called Hizbul Islah Al-Islami (The Islamic Party of Reformation), led by Abdul Kareem and Shaheed Idris bin Omar, carried out several car and bus bombings in Urumchi in 1989 and early 1990. This was not the only small faction to rise up during this time; several smaller Islamist or ethnic militant groups were briefly formed, and Uighur organized-crime groups grew more active as well, making it difficult to determine whether various attacks, robberies and assassinations were the work of separatists, political opponents or criminals.

In the wide security sweep by Beijing following the Baren incident, Mahsum was detained and imprisoned from May 1990 to November 1991. Abdul Kareem was arrested around the same time and imprisoned for 15 years. Many other future leaders of Uighur/East Turkistan movements (political, militant and secular) fled China in the 1980s and 1990s, settling predominately in Central Asia, Turkey and Germany. Inspired by the newly independent Central Asian states, members of this Uighur diaspora held the first Uighur National Congress in Istanbul in December 1992. However, like most overseas and domestic attempts to unite the Uighurs under central coordination, this gathering failed to provide a center of gravity for the nascent Uighur movement.

In Xinjiang, the separatist movement continued to stumble along in the early 1990s, with a series of bus bombings in 1992 and a major demonstration against Chinese nuclear testing at Lop Nor, which degraded into a riot, clashes with security forces and the destruction of military equipment. There were several bombings in Xinjiang in 1993, some attributed by Beijing to the Eastern Turkistan Youths League or the World Uighur Youth Congress. In 1993, Hizbul Islam Li-Turkistan Ash-Sharqiyah founder Abdul Hakeem died, and the movement was briefly reborn under the leadership of Abudu Rehmen and Muhanmmed Tuhit, both from Hotan. (The

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Islamist factions of Uighur activists arose mostly in the southwestern part of the province, with the secular political movements coming primarily from the center and north.)

In July 1993, Mahsum was imprisoned again and held until February 1995, when he was transferred to a labor camp in which he was confined until April 1996. During this time in prison, Mahsum was one of many Uighurs who shifted from a political Islamic philosophy to a more militant one. The various students, militants, criminals and bystanders picked up in China’s broader sweeps following the 1990 Baren incident began to reshape the militant ideology in prison, which became perfect militant training grounds.

By the mid-1990s, several smaller militant and criminal groups were active in Xinjiang, with names, memberships and ideologies frequently shifting. In 1995, China began to crack down on Islamic teaching in Xinjiang. In July of that year, authorities arrested two imams in Hotan, which led to riots and clashes with security forces. China further intensified its efforts to stem the rise of Islamist and separatist militancy in Xinjiang in 1996 by forming the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (at the time referred to as the Shanghai Five), establishing new security arrangements with Russia and Central Asian states and encouraging Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to clamp down on the political and militant activities of the Uighur diaspora in Central Asia. This was followed by a series of so-called “strike hard” campaigns in Xinjiang by Chinese security forces. But rather than quell separatism and militancy, this move caused a flare-up in Xinjiang as Beijing tightened its grip. In 1996, Mehmet Emin Hazret founded the East Turkistan Liberation Organization (ETLO), and future members of ETIM started their own militant groups in Xinjiang, carrying out a series of armed attacks against political, religious and business leaders. That same year, a larger flood of Uighurs left China, seeking shelter in Central Asia and Afghanistan. During one of the “strike hard” campaigns in August 1996, Mahsum was again briefly detained. Upon his release, he traveled from Urumchi to Beijing to Malaysia and on to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

From January to March 1997, Mahsum stayed in Jeddah and tried to convince the local Uighur community, including wealthy businessmen, to fund or join a Uighur/East Turkistan Islamist militancy and challenge Beijing’s rule over Xinjiang. He received very little support, with many of the economically or socially influential in Jeddah calling militancy a lost cause and urging Mahsum to change his mind and simply settle overseas. This is a repeating theme in the timeline of Islamist militancy in Xinjiang — the near lack of support by the broader community, both domestic and abroad, and particularly the economic elite.

In March and April 1997, Mahsum took his cause to Pakistan, then on to Turkey in April and May. Both missions met with similar results as his Jeddah initiative, despite reports of another Uighur uprising in Xinjiang in February 1997, resulting in several days of clashes between Chinese security forces and Uighur protestors in Yining. Following the Hajj in Saudi Arabia in May, Mahsum and a small group of followers headed to Central Asia, likely Afghanistan, where they began to interact with the broader Islamist/jihadist movement.

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Around September 1997, Mahsum and Abudukadir Yapuquan reformed ETIM, the direct descendent of his former teacher Abdul Hakeem’s Hizbul Islam Li-Turkistan Ash-Sharqiyah. In March 1998, with about a dozen members present, ETIM formalized its ideology and mission, rejecting much of Dia Uddin’s ideas from the late 1980s and seeking broader regional ties. This new manifestation of ETIM sought closer cooperation with other Turkic peoples and non-Uighurs abroad and no longer focused on starting an uprising or holding territory in Xinjiang. In September 1998, ETIM moved its headquarters to Kabul, Afghanistan, taking shelter in the Taliban-controlled territory.

In 1997, while Mahsum was abroad seeking foreign support for the Uighur Islamist militancy, the movement was taking a different direction in Xinjiang. A series of bombings that year against buildings and transportation infrastructure in Xinjiang was credited to various small militant groups — some with evocative names like the “Wolves of Lop Nor.” In March 1997, a bus bombing in Beijing was credited by some to Uighur militants and was even claimed by at least one overseas Uighur movement. However, some Chinese reports played down the link, suggesting the bus attack was a purely criminal act. If the perpetrators were indeed Uighur militants, the bus bombing would be the farthest successful Uighur attack in China away from Xinjiang. ETLO also was blamed for a series of attacks and assassinations in Central Asia in 1998.

As the Uighur militancy was picking up steam, social and political movements also began expanding their activities and boldness. Several social movements emerged focusing on AIDS awareness and prevention, stemming illegal drug use, promoting literacy and empowering women. Among these was the Thousand Mothers Movement, started by Rebiya Kadeer, who, as one of Xinjiang’s wealthiest business leaders and a member of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC), had used the NPC session in Beijing in March 1997 to criticize China’s policies in Xinjiang. Kadeer was later arrested in 1999, and she eventually was released to the United States as a show of goodwill in March 2005, days before U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to arrive in China. Kadeer has since been characterized as the Uighur “Dalai Lama,” or the mother of the Uighur movement, and now lives in the United States.

Meanwhile, following the relocation of its headquarters to Kabul in late 1998, ETIM largely gave up on the wider overseas Uighur community (although it reportedly established an alliance with ETLO in March 1998) and began to take advantage of the regional jihadist movement, particularly in Afghanistan, for support and training. ETIM also began reaching back into Xinjiang, establishing contacts with criminal and militant 20 groups such as the hybrid Hotan Kulex, which manufactured explosives and carried out a series of robberies and assassinations in Xinjiang in 1999.

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On March 17, 1999, militants suspected of links to ETIM attacked a convoy of People’s Liberation Army trucks in the suburb of Changji City, some 50 miles from Urumchi. In less than a week, Chinese security forces issued a bulletin saying they had wiped out the militant cell responsible. In September 1999, police broke up a “political rebellion” in Hotan. Meanwhile, Mahsum and other ETIM leaders reportedly met in Afghanistan with Osama bin Laden and other leaders of al Qaeda, the Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) to coordinate actions. In response to this wider mandate, ETIM removed the “East” from its name, thus becoming the Turkistan Islamic Movement (not to be confused with the Islamic Movement of Turkistan, a name taken on by the IMU in 2003 as it sought to broaden its mandate beyond Uzbekistan).

Despite the name change, most analysts and even Islamists continue to refer to the group by its more common English abbreviation, ETIM, just as the Islamic Movement of Turkistan continued to go by IMU after it changed its name.

For much of 2000 and 2001, ETIM sought to recruit Uighurs heading to Central Asia, Afghanistan or the Middle East for Islamic training. In addition, Uighurs gained experience at training facilities in Afghanistan and on occasional operations with the Taliban. ETIM had minimal connections back in Xinjiang during this time, though Uighurs also joined individually with the IMU and other movements in Central Asia. In February 2001, bin Laden and Taliban leaders reportedly met to discuss further assistance to the various East Turkistan and Central Asian Islamist militant movements, including ETIM. But al Qaeda’s attention soon shifted to the upcoming attacks on the United States, and the Taliban prepared to strengthen its operations against the forces of the Northern Alliance in anticipation of the al Qaeda strike and repercussions from Washington.

With the U.S. attack on Afghanistan in October 2001, both ETIM and IMU were routed, along with Taliban and al Qaeda forces. The remnants of ETIM, including Mahsum, relocated to Central Asia and Pakistan, though there are suggestions that Yapuquan went to Saudi Arabia. In January 2002, Mahsum conducted an interview with Radio Free Asia, claiming that ETIM had no links to al Qaeda or the Taliban but admitting that some individual members may have fought alongside other militants in Afghanistan. With little international attention, sympathy or support for the Uighur movement anywhere (even among the Islamic community), Mahsum was seeking to avoid having the Uighur movement lumped in with the broader jihadist movement and coming under U.S. guns. It did not work.

In September 2002, the U.S. State Department listed ETIM as a terrorist organization, following an August warning that ETIM could be planning attacks against U.S. interests in Kyrgyzstan. While there were disagreements in the U.S. intelligence community at the time (with several arguing that ETIM was a fractured and largely defunct organization after it fled Afghanistan in 2001), the listing not only undermined any potential sympathy ETIM might have gained in its fight against Beijing, it also weakened the wider political Uighur movements, which had to fight an assumed link with international Islamist terrorism.

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In 2003, ETIM experienced what seemed to be its last gasps, with Beijing claiming to have cracked a small ETIM cell in Hebei province (which borders Beijing) and with Kazakhstan claiming to have dismantled another suspected ETIM cell. The biggest blow to the organization came in October, when Mahsum was one of several killed in a joint Pakistani-U.S. operation against multinational militant targets in Angoor Adda, South Waziristan. Mahsum’s death left an already-fractured ETIM largely leaderless. With the exception of ETIM’s being listed as one of China’s most-wanted terrorist organizations in December 2003, there was little mention of ETIM activity until 2007, when Beijing began ramping up security ahead of the Olympics.

In the latter half of 2006, a video was circulated on the Internet urging a new jihad in Xinjiang. Much of the media and literature that began readdressing the Uighur cause emanated from Pakistan, where some ETIM remnants and other militant Uighur Islamists had integrated with multinational jihadist forces. By late 2006, there were reports that ETIM remnants had begun reforming in the far western reaches of Xinjiang, preparing to take the fight back to Chinese territory.

In early January 2007, Beijing raided a camp of suspected ETIM militants in Akto County, which sits along the Chinese border with Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, killing 18 and capturing another 17, along with firearms and homemade grenades. By that time, Beijing started to grow worried that Uighur militants training in Pakistan were beginning to filter back into Xinjiang to recruit and plan attacks. In May, Beijing urged Pakistan to detain some 20 Uighurs linked to ETIM who Chinese intelligence thought were hiding in the Pakistani trial areas.

In January 2008, Chinese security forces carried out another raid on a suspected ETIM camp, this time in the Tianshan district of Urumchi, killing two and detaining 15, as well as uncovering a cache of knives and axes, “terrorist” literature and plans to carry out attacks during the Olympics. (Later reports suggested the plans were to carry out attacks to mark the anniversary of the February 1997 uprising in Yining.)

The January raids were discussed on the sidelines of the March NPC session in Beijing, when officials also reported an attempt by a Uighur militant to down a Chinese passenger jet on March 7. In that case, Turdi Guzalinur, a 19-year-old Uighur, allegedly smuggled two containers of gasoline aboard China Southern Airlines flight CZ6901 from Urumchi to Beijing and attempted to set a fire in the restroom in order to crash the aircraft. Chinese state security officials said she was trained by her husband, a Uighur from Central Asia, and was traveling on a Pakistani passport. Some reports suggested that as many as four individuals were involved in the plot, either directly or indirectly, and that the mastermind had fled China for Central Asia.

The attempted jetliner bombing triggered a series of changes in Chinese airline security to tighten up search and carry-on regulations already on the books but only sporadically enforced. The incident was quickly overshadowed just over a week later, however, when protests in Tibet broke into open riots and international attention shifted away from the Uighurs to the Tibetans. A March 23 anti-government protest in Hotan went nearly unnoticed, as did a series of counterterrorism raids by Chinese security forces between March 26 and April 6 that netted 45 alleged militants as well as explosives and jihadist literature. According to Chinese security officials, the raids also uncovered plots to attack Beijing and Shanghai during the Olympics.

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Following the raids, Beijing warned India of potential ETIM members infiltrating New Delhi to carry out terrorist acts coinciding with the Olympic torch run, and Beijing repeated its accusation that ETIM was still active and operating from Pakistani territory. At the same time, security forces in Beijing and Shanghai were also alerted to look for Muslims in Beijing and Shanghai who could be infiltrating schools and office buildings to survey them for possible attacks. In addition, there were increased warnings to be on alert for foreign Muslim women, who could be conducting surveillance of potential targets in Chinese cities or even preparing for attacks themselves. The focus on foreigners, rather than just Uighurs, was a further recognition of the internationalization of the jihadist movement against China.

There are indications that a small number of Uighur militants remain among groups of foreign militants in Pakistan, either in the tribal areas or in Kashmir, and occasionally travel back into Afghanistan and Xinjiang. If the March 7 airline incident is any indication, the foreign influence and connections in the Uighur movements in Xinjiang are continuing to expand, and the overseas training and study are facilitating the sharing of tactics, experiences and preferred target sets.

02/11/2007 - The Future of Missile Defense in East Asia - Stratfor

Summary

Despite all the controversy in Central Europe, developments in ballistic missile defense in East Asia have more potential to meaningfully alter strategic dynamics.

Analysis

Ballistic missile defense (BMD) has been a reality in East Asia for far longer than in Central Europe, even though the latter has dominated the headlines allocated to the topic. The ground-based midcourse defense (GMD) system slated to be built in Poland and the Czech Republic already is operational in Alaska and California, where the first interceptors were emplaced in late 2004. Moreover, the military reality around the Pacific Rim means the strategic dynamic there is more susceptible to meaningful shifts caused by BMD developments.

Iran provides the current justification for U.S. BMD efforts in Central Europe. In the near-term, the nascent GMD system there only will be capable of defending against such a limited threat. The viability of the long-standing nuclear deterrents in the region is utterly unaltered. But this is not entirely the case in East Asia.

On Oct. 24, Japan flatly rebuffed a Russian call to abandon its ballistic missile defense efforts. The Russian complaint to Japan about BMD came up in the course of the Kuril Islands dispute. Though Japan is of even more geographically oblique relevance to Moscow’s strategic balance with Washington than Poland and the Czech Republic, Russia remains strategically concerned not only about Japan, but also about the long-term implications of developments in missile defense.

But though the scale of Russia’s strategic deterrent insulates it to some extent from these developments, China’s modest nuclear arsenal leaves it far more sensitive and

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vulnerable to the early stages of BMD development. With only some 100 missiles currently capable of reaching Tokyo and possibly fewer than 50 able to reach Washington, the dynamic is quantitatively different. Though doubts remain about their operational capabilities, a dozen GMD interceptors in Alaska and California could have a significant impact on such a small number of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The interceptors could more than double in number soon, and the United States retains the option of even more drastic increases.

In principle, ICBMs are simpler and consequently cheaper; it is less challenging, technically speaking, to build more ICBMs than it is to build more interceptors, giving the offensive weapon the advantage in this case. Beijing, however, has no interest (or bandwidth) for an arms race with the United States — a situation it intends to avoid because it is not in a position to win.

Nevertheless, new missiles — both ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) — have been in the works for some time, although the programs remain shrouded in secrecy. The DF-31 and DF-31A ICBMs and JL-2 SLBM promise to mark significant improvements in Beijing’s deterrent. The DF-31 will probably first replace aging DF-5 liquid-propellant ICBMs, which first flew more than 35 years ago. Though at least initially this is more a qualitative than a quantitative upgrade, this new design incorporates three multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles — significantly complicating the task of missile defense systems.

Recent months also have seen significant developments with the Jin-class (Type 094) nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine. At least two, and possibly three, ships of this new class are now in the water fitting out. The status of the JL-2 SLBM is unknown, but Beijing appears poised to deploy a regularly patrolling sea-based deterrent for the first time.

Both of these developments will keep China well ahead of an expanding U.S. BMD umbrella. But while unconstrained by a strategic-arms treaty structure, Beijing must avoid an arms race. Doing so means the strategic dynamic between Chinese offensive intercontinental reach and U.S. defensive capabilities will remain on far closer terms than is the case with the U.S.-Russian dynamic.

China’s more immediate concern is, of course, Japan.

Missile defense technology did not come cheap for the United States, and Tokyo will reap technological benefits from its close alliance with Washington in deployment of the technology. Though defensive in nature, the complexities of BMD require extensive advances in radar, targeting, command and control and missile guidance and maneuverability — advances that have extensive application across the entire military-industrial sector.

And though the alignment of U.S. and Japanese strategic interests might not last forever, their military cooperation — especially in terms of BMD — shows no sign of abating. The price of U.S. BMD technology will be a certain level of integration with the U.S. Pacific BMD system. The proximity of Japan to both North Korea (like Iran in the Central European case, the proximate justification for the U.S. GMD interceptors on the West Coast) and China will be leveraged, and Japan will be equipped not only to

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defend itself but to function as the leading edge of what will one day be the U.S. national missile defense (NMD) shield.

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On the other hand, the medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching Tokyo come significantly cheaper than ICBMs. They are thus the poor country’s strategic weapon of choice, providing regional offensive reach at a fraction of the cost. Given China’s production capacity, its ability to overwhelm the prospective Japanese BMD system — or even a full-fledged NMD shield — is likely. Yet, again, the same dynamic persists: China is not looking to provoke an arms race in that area, either.

So while in neither case is Beijing’s true hitting power negated, it is facing a very slow marginalization. The United States has committed itself to pursuing ever-more capable BMD technologies for reasons beyond Iran, China or even Russia. BMD is a new reality, and it will not stop with a dozen or two dozen crude interceptors on the U.S. West Coast.

Jeffery Lewis has termed China’s “restrained” strategic policy as providing “the minimal means of reprisal.” Beijing’s problem is that in order to ensure that minimal means, it will be forced to continue to expand (to quantitatively overwhelm) and modernize (to qualitatively penetrate) its nuclear arsenal — something that might look a lot like an offensive move and a prelude to an arms race.

07/08/2007 - China: The Deceptive Logic for a Carrier Fleet - Stratfor

Summary

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy continues to push for aircraft carrier capability, despite ongoing internal debate and dissent. While a carrier is a valuable naval asset, China’s pursuit must be understood as an expensive choice that entails considerable opportunity costs.

Analysis

China appears committed to deploying the Soviet-built Varyag aircraft carrier in at least a training role around or after 2010, with the potential for further pursuits, despite contradictory claims in recent weeks. The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) will have to sacrifice much to continue this costly endeavor.

The Chinese Logic

A carrier fleet substantially expands a country’s naval capability, so it is easy to understand China’s ambition. The British, for example, would never have been able to take back the Falkland Islands in 1982 without the HMS Invincible and the HMS Hermes. Furthermore, the Chinese have carefully noted the decisive role the U.S. Navy’s carrier fleet has played in Washington’s global naval dominance.

For the Chinese, a carrier fleet means several things. It is a mark of status as a great power, a massive and ambitious national undertaking, a way to alter the current dynamics of air power in the region, a tool to project force beyond the East and South China seas and a means of expanding China’s ability to protect ever-expanding import and export routes.

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There is logic to China’s view of carrier capability as a mark of great power, and the British operation to retake the Falklands is a perfect example: To have global influence, you must have global reach, which becomes a tool of foreign policy and affects the perception of a nation’s naval power. China is quite aware that it is the only permanent member of the U.N. Security Council to never deploy an operational carrier.

China also is the nation that built the Great Wall. More recently, China built the Three Gorges Dam to supply a full 10 percent of domestic electricity supply and now has plans to land on the moon. The Chinese have a certain penchant for massively ambitious projects, and the construction of a carrier fleet certainly falls into that category. But such plans have often been pursued with a consequences-be-damned determination — one that accepts enormous inefficiencies and the commitment of huge resources also needed elsewhere. The opportunity costs of this particular attempt at a great leap forward cannot be overestimated.

A desire for international recognition as a great power and a tendency to bite off more than one can chew hardly make for a prudent investment, and as much as 50 percent of China’s motivation to develop a carrier capability could fall into one of these categories.

Global Vulnerability

From a more strategic perspective, the Chinese are aware of their great vulnerability due to exposed import and export routes. With exports that reach nearly every corner of the globe and an already heavy reliance on Africa for energy resources (and ongoing pursuits of Latin American energy resources), China has the global vulnerabilities of an empire but not the naval ability to protect them. This is the core geopolitical weakness Beijing hopes a carrier fleet might solve. As Beijing becomes increasingly reliant on other countries for raw materials and trade endeavors, it faces a continued shift away from long traditions of being a land power to participating — and competing — in the maritime world.

The Situation Close to Home

This competition is a big part of the problem. Beijing is facing a serious expansion of military power in the region. All branches of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) already face technologically superior competition from some of China’s closest neighbors. The South Korean navy and the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Forces are now both equipped with domestic variants of the highly capable U.S. Arleigh Burke design (including the Aegis weapon system) in service. In 2004, Japan shifted F-15C fighter jets to Xaidi Island (Shimoji), uncomfortably close to Taiwan, adding to the complexity of any offensive across the Formosa Strait.

Because of this game of catch-up, Beijing has no shortage of military projects — especially naval projects — it could get more economical, near-term and effective results from. Consider the amphibious warfare pursuits of South Korea, Japan and Australia, which are much more manageable and realistic steps for each country. China has instead persisted along the carrier route, and is consequently behind the curve in its amphibious capability.

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The PLAN, along with the other branches of the PLA, has made admirable improvements in the last decade. There has been progress in areas such as missile technology and nuclear submarine propulsion — progress more realistically within China’s technological grasp than a meaningful carrier fleet — and it is precisely these more realistic, near-term pursuits and improvements that will suffer.

Carriers do not come cheap. The Varyag was originally purchased with more than $500 million in work still required. Carrier aircraft must then be acquired (talks are under way for the purchase of 50 Russian Su-33 navalized “Flankers” for something in the ballpark of $2.5 billion) and appropriate escorts and auxiliary ships dedicated or built. Even without start-up costs, the United States spends more than $1 billion annually simply to deploy, operate and maintain a single carrier strike group — and a meaningful carrier fleet requires not just one carrier, but three.

And for what?

Effective and meaningful carrier aviation is the product of decades of extensive first-hand experience at sea. The establishment of a trained cadre of naval aviators, efficient flight-deck operations and naval doctrine cannot be reverse engineered, and further investment will be necessary for China to even begin to adequately explore these core competencies. China is in effect neglecting its own current weaknesses in order to attempt to compete in one of the most technically demanding and certainly the most expensive naval pursuits there is — carrier aviation.

The deployment of a carrier will be seen as an unmistakable sign of Chinese ambitions and will draw even closer attention and more intense competition from not only the U.S. Navy, but also from Beijing’s regional competitors — something the PLAN simply does not need right now.

In other words, China will be stretching itself to build a rudimentary carrier fleet — a pursuit that will necessarily involve costly sacrifices elsewhere within the navy. Of all the things Beijing hopes to gain from that carrier fleet, more will be lost in the process of attaining it. It might be seen as a great leap forward, but it will ultimately represent movement in the opposite direction.

24/04/2007 - Ballistic Missile Submarines: The Only Way to Go - Stratfor

Summary

Russia and China are both in the process of fielding a new class of ballistic missile submarines. These submarines, longtime prudent investments for states with nuclear weapons, are becoming an essential -- and ultimately, the only -- option for a survivable nuclear deterrent.

Analysis

For the better part of a decade, four nations have maintained a regularly patrolling strategic deterrent at sea: the United States, France, the United Kingdom and Israel (whose use of nuclear warheads mounted on cruise missiles aboard its three Dolphin-class submarines is an open secret). However, that decade also has seen China and

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Russia complete nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) programs. This is particularly important because diving beneath the ocean's surface is quickly becoming the only way to hide.

Russia

At its peak, the Soviet navy operated more than 60 SSBNs. The fleet is now one-quarter that size, and most of the boats are in poor condition. In 2002, the Russian navy did not conduct a single strategic deterrence patrol. The current fleet of aging SSBNs can barely hold the line. Not only is Russia investing in the future of its SSBN program, but it also is essentially starting from scratch.

The Yuri Dolgoruky, the lead boat of Russia's newest Borei-class SSBN, has a troubled past. Laid down in 1996, the Yuri Dolgoruky was neglected and construction was held up because of economic troubles after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The parallel development of the SS-NX-28 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) failed, and the design had to be adjusted during construction to accommodate a different missile, the SS-NX-30 Bulava.

Although the Bulava has had several successful launches, three failures in the fourth quarter of 2006 demonstrated the missile was far from ready. Nevertheless, the Yuri Dolgoruky was launched April 15. (It will spend at least a year being fitted out.) Deputy Defense Minister Gen. Alexei Moskovsky has promised seven more by 2017.

Of course, Moskovsky's statements are nothing if not ambitious. A series of successful Bulava tests will be necessary. But the ultimate success of the Borei class is essential for Russia's ability to maintain its nuclear deterrent. It is perhaps the top defense priority, along with the continued fielding of the land-based Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). And it is something Russia can afford.

In recent years, Russia has politically and economically consolidated and has been fiscally conservative enough to keep a balanced budget. Russian President Vladimir Putin's policies, and a hefty windfall from high energy prices, have turned Russia's $160 billion debt in 2000 into $400 billion in currency reserves and surplus funds. In March, the Kremlin shed its fiscal conservatism with a new budget for 2007-2010 that dramatically increases spending in many sectors, including defense. The budget and economic conditions are reminiscent of the Soviet budgets of the 1970s, during which Moscow launched its last dramatic increase in defense spending.

China

For the Chinese People's Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN), nuclear-powered submarines have been a challenge. At times, the PLAN was an understudy of a less-than-perfect master: the Russian navy. Though the PLAN has made incremental improvements, its nuclear submarines reportedly have yet to attain modern standards of performance.

The PLAN's older Xia-class SSBN, though able to launch missiles, never made an official deterrence patrol. However, the new Jin-class SSBN (Type 094) reportedly is undergoing sea trials. It spent some five years under construction and sources indicate it was launched in mid-2004. It reportedly is not up to modern SSBN standards, and there

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are rumors of nuclear propulsion problems. However, the shift to sea trials suggests it will ultimately deploy. The JL-2 SLBM with which it is to be fitted appears to have had several successful trial launches. If the Jin class is deployable, the bulk of the continental United States -- now only vulnerable to a small arsenal of China's longest-range land-based missiles -- would be within reach of the JL-2 SLBM.

Though dozens of funding priorities compete for the money, China's military spending has continued to rise. China has a small nuclear deterrent, so it must ensure that the deterrent it has is mobile and survivable; thus, while Beijing's pocketbook is not bottomless, the SSBN program should continue receiving the funding it needs.

Implications

Both the Russian Borei and the Chinese Jin are still at least a year from operational capability, and their sister boats -- still under construction -- will need to be completed in the next few years in order to build to a constantly patrolling rotation. But in five to 10 years, Russia and China both intend to have such a rotation in place.

While the significance of a new SSBN is greater for China, which has yet to field a functioning sea-based deterrent, the decay of Russia's SSBN fleet is such that the Borei marks a new beginning there.

India could be working toward a missile submarine as well, but that development is 10-20 years away. Countries like Pakistan could one day follow the Israeli example -- diesel submarines armed with cruise missiles. Diesel boats lack the endurance of their nuclear-powered brethren, but can run even quieter for short periods. The cruise missiles have a shorter range than SLBMs, but are technically easier to launch and require no major modifications to a standard hull, since they can be launched horizontally like torpedoes.

While none of these developments fundamentally alters the strategic balance of a unipolar world, advances in Russia and China's SSBN programs mark the first time in a decade that nations other than traditional U.S. allies are building sea-based deterrents.

The Increasing Importance of the Sea-based Deterrent

Early in the Cold War, ICBMs were almost prohibitively large and expensive. The submarine was a way to move shorter-range missiles closer to one's adversary. But as missile accuracy improved (the dramatically increasing potential yield of strategic warheads did not hurt, either), the prospect of a successful "first strike" began to alter the role of the SSBN. It became a valuable "first strike" platform because it could move close to an adversary's coast, giving the enemy less time to react to a missile launch.

But its greatest value as the most survivable leg of a nuclear triad is its capacity for a "second," or retaliatory, strike. Much harder to keep track of than platforms in fixed positions, an SSBN lurking at sea is the ultimate wild card. Land-mobile missile systems (as opposed to fixed, silo-based missiles) are another way of accomplishing this, but technological advances will make them increasingly vulnerable.

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A joint U.S. program between the defense and intelligence communities is working to test space-based radar. Destined to succeed in one form or another, space-based radar will one day be able to track objects across the face of the Earth -- objects such as land-mobile launch vehicles -- and keep close enough tabs on them that their locations can be effectively targeted by strategic warheads.

In a unipolar world -- in which the United States will have the best intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities and weapons of increasing speed and accuracy -- the nuclear weapon is the only true guarantor of national independence. Even a minimal deterrent allows nations to focus on and confront regional disputes, as well as protect their interests abroad. An SSBN fleet is, of course, not absolutely necessary -- whether mounted on a land-based missile or a submarine, a nuclear weapon is a substantial bargaining chip -- but it is becoming increasingly difficult to hide anything from the United States. The U.S. military has a technological edge beneath the waves as well, but even a modestly well-built submarine traveling below 5 knots is hard to track, and it certainly has a better chance than a fixed concrete silo. Consequently, the sea-based leg of a nation's nuclear triad is evolving from a prudent choice for survivability to the most essential element of a meaningful nuclear deterrent.

16/04/2007 - Measure of success - Analysing the results of China's ASAT test – Jane’s Intelligence Review

• China's anti-satellite weapon, tested in January, was probably a hit-to-kill interceptor with an optical tracker.

• Military communications or early warning satellites in geostationary orbit would be easier to hit than the FY-1C satellite targeted in the test.

• US responses to China's ASAT test are limited, and hence further development is certain.

Following the completion of the first full test of China's kinetic input anti-satellite weapon system, Dr Geoffrey Forden reports on the possible motivations behind and repercussions of such a move.

In their first full test of an anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon system, Chinese scientists and engineers launched a specially modified DF-21 intermediate-range ballistic missile (NATO designation: CSS-5) from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre on 12 January, an hour before dawn local time.

The ASAT's target was the Fengyun 1C (FY-1C), a Chinese weather satellite that had outlived its peaceful uses. The target satellite followed the twin edges of dawn and sunset as it orbited from pole to pole, always illuminated by the sun because of its high altitude. Due to the interceptor's direct ascent from the Earth's surface and the fact that the collision was essentially head on, this test was far more impressive than Russia's co-orbiting anti-satellite tests carried out during the 1980s, proving China's sophistication in space operations.

Measuring the test

Two weeks after the test, and after the world had been tracking hundreds of pieces of space debris, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs finally acknowledged the test. However, circumstantial evidence suggests that the US government may have known about the test beforehand. In the hours before the launch, the orbital elements for the

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FY-1C satellite had been measured at least six times, when they are normally measured only once or twice. Each measurement presumably represents a check that the satellite was still intact.

If the US did know about the test beforehand, it may have been able to position some of the more mobile intelligence-gathering platforms near enough to observe the collision. For instance, the USNS Observation Island, code named Cobra Judy, could have been stationed east of India and observed the collision with its powerful AN/SPQ-11 phased array radar. Or the US Air Force could have used its airborne infrared telescopes, mounted on an RC-135 aircraft, code named Cobra Ball, to image the collision if it had been moved to South Korea. Such systems would have been required for the US to observe the actual collision, because none of the permanently stationed space-surveillance facilities are in positions that could have observed the interception.

The measurements, if any, from those platforms will presumably remain classified to protect their capabilities. The information that is publicly available consists of the orbital parameters for the resultant debris from the interception, and that will only be fully available after the pieces have separated enough to allow individual pieces to be unambiguously tracked over three successive observations.

Given that the number of pieces still in orbit probably numbers many thousands, and perhaps hundreds of thousands, separating and tracking this debris is a daunting task. Once catalogued and analysed, this information can be used to fully understand the capabilities of the Chinese ASAT.

ASAT specifics

Nonetheless, for the present, some conclusions can already be drawn. Some of the pieces catalogued so far have apogees (the height of the highest point in an orbit) greater than 3,600 km while others dip down to 160 km. Many other pieces, especially most of those from the interceptor, have certainly already re-entered the Earth's atmosphere. Since all the pieces converge to the same place in the original orbit where the interception occurred, this implies a considerable range of orbital velocities; some much greater than the original satellite's velocity. So far, the catalogued pieces have stayed in essentially the same plane. However, in a year's time, these will have spread over the entire surface of the Earth as the sun, moon and variations in the Earth's own gravitational field pull the pieces in different directions. North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) will have catalogued even more of the pieces by that time and the true magnitude of the danger to orbiting satellites will become apparent.

As is known from US missile defence tests, most of the pieces from a hypervelocity collision continue in roughly the same direction as their 'parent' satellite or interceptor. Some, however, can be bounced to some very high velocities and in surprising directions. For instance, the debris pieces that ended up in very high orbits almost certainly came from the interceptor, even though they bounced off in essentially the same direction as the original satellite. For this to happen they would have to be some of the lighter pieces of the interceptor, such as foil coverings, that collided with some of the heavier pieces of the satellite, perhaps the satellite's reaction wheels. It is unlikely that a chemical explosion on the ASAT's warhead could have produced such high-velocity pieces. Instead, they indicate that the Chinese weapon was a 'hit-to-kill' interceptor that ran bodily into its target at very high closing speeds.

The 40 pieces of debris that were originally catalogued can be traced back to the original interception point and help establish the closing speed between the ASAT and

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the target satellite. (Pieces catalogued later have errors, arising from extrapolating back over longer times, that are too large to make significant contributions to the reconstruction of the interception point.) They pinpoint the interception point as 700 km north-northwest of the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre at 22:26 GMT on 11 January. This ground range, and the target satellite's altitude, place constraints on the ASAT's mass and impact velocity. All together, the interceptor, the fairing used to protect it during the ascent through the atmosphere, and whatever structure held it in place on the DF-21 ballistic missile, must have weighed approximately 600 kg (larger masses, such as 1,000 kg, are ruled out). This weight is also consistent with the velocities imparted to the debris pieces transverse to the satellite's original direction.

The closing speed between ASAT and the target satellite was at least 8 km/s. This is a combination of the satellite's orbital velocity of 7.4 km/s and the ASAT's suborbital speed of 1.8 km/s, 30 degrees off head-on. To reach its altitude, the DF-21 must have been fired eight minutes before the interception; at a time when the target satellite was still below the launch site's horizon. China has a large phased array radar near the city of Xuan Hua, 140 km west of Beijing, and the target satellite would have been visible to this radar before the ASAT was launched, during its rise, the interception itself and for several minutes afterward. Information gathered would certainly have been useful for analysing the test and might have been used to cue the DF-21's launch. It could not have been used to guide the ASAT during the final approach since the required accuracies would be beyond the radar's capabilities. Instead, the ASAT must have had an onboard tracking and guidance capability that controlled the final approach.

In principle, there are two possible technologies that China could have used for this onboard tracking. It might have used an active radar similar to those carried by China's fighter jets or longer-range, anti-aircraft missiles. If so, it probably has a similar range, approximately 300 km. This range, together with an average closing speed of 8 km/s, would imply that the onboard active tracking could only start 37 seconds before the collision. If the tracker took 10 seconds to acquire the target satellite and determine a projected miss distance of, for instance, 10 km - a miss distance consistent with orbital parameters routinely determined by NORAD - then the ASAT would have sped up at approximately three times the acceleration of gravity to hit target (the acceleration of gravity is approximately 9.8 m/s2). This is certainly within the capability of a small, liquid-propellant rocket, but it would not have had another chance to make finer corrections.

If, however, the Chinese ASAT used an optical tracker (the target satellite was in full sun even though it was still night down below), it would first see the target at a distance of approximately 1,000 km. That would leave 125 seconds to track and manoeuvre before the collision. Therefore, the requirements on the ASAT's propulsion and guidance capabilities would be drastically reduced. For instance, a 10 km correction measured at 115 seconds before the collision would only require accelerations one tenth of that of gravity and afford plenty of opportunities for further corrections. These advantages are so great, it is highly probable that the ASAT used an optical tracker. However, China would need to have developed such a system prior to the January test and devoted previous space-based flight tests to that development. Those flight tests could, of course, have been performed on satellites during fly-bys as opposed to other dedicated suborbital missile launches or attempts to intercept anything. Such a long-term and purposeful development schedule is consistent with China's other space development programmes.

Strategic implications

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China's testing of a sophisticated ASAT against a satellite in low Earth orbit has significant strategic implications. The first and foremost point to take from the test was that the weapon system was used against a satellite that was much harder to hit than more strategically important target satellites such as communications and early warning satellites in geostationary orbits.

Given that orbital speeds decrease as the altitude of a satellite gets higher, the closing speed between an ASAT and a satellite will be lower, and the time for tracking and manoeuvring will increase, when the target satellite is at higher orbits. For example, the low-orbit FY-1C weather satellite had an orbital velocity of 7.4 km/s while a geostationary satellite has an orbital speed of 3 km/s. If the Chinese ASAT were placed in a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) for a head-on collision, then the closing speed would be approximately 4.5 km/s, almost half the approach speed of the January test. While reconnaissance satellites, which have altitudes equivalent to the weather satellite destroyed by China, are important military assets, much of their functions can be duplicated by other platforms such as U2 high-altitude, reconnaissance aircraft in regional conflicts such as might take place in the Taiwan Strait. Communications and early warning satellites at higher orbits are more valuable targets.

China has a well-developed capability to place objects into GTO, having orbited 27 geostationary satellites to date. In principle, they could mount the ASAT tested in early January onto one of their space launch vehicles and launch it at an existing communications satellite or other geostationary target. Given the low weight of the interceptor, it would not have to be one of their more powerful launch vehicles. In practice, however, China would undoubtedly prefer to test the ASAT again, perhaps on a higher orbit target, before declaring the weapon system operational. There will still be uncertainties associated with using the weapon, both at low and high orbits, that a single intercept test will not have resolved. It is not realistic to believe that China would attack another country's satellite with these uncertainties still unanswered.

Nevertheless, the possible US responses to the test are limited. Countermeasures, either active or passive, would be either useless or worse than not doing anything. For instance, an active defence that sought to destroy an interceptor approaching a geostationary satellite would only create a shotgun blast of debris that would continue on and destroy the original target.

The only possible effective measure for the US to undertake to prevent further such tests would be to form a treaty banning 'fly-bys' where the closing speed between any two objects in space closer than 100 km cannot exceed 100 m/s. This would be verifiable and would freeze China's ASAT development before they could eliminate the remaining uncertainties.

Of course, such a treaty would cause problems with US missile defence tests, as China could, correctly, claim that those tests were equivalent to anti-satellite development. The political will for such a treaty, therefore, is unlikely to exist in Washington, so China's ASAT development will continue apace.

1. China threatens US intelligence satellites

2. Space to manouevre - satellite attack upsets US space supremacy

3. Treaty status of ASATs

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05/02/2007 - Sea change - Resolving East Asia's maritime disputes – Jane’s Intelligence Review

• Recent discussions over the South China Sea maritime disputes have highlighted the issue of energy security in East Asia once again.

• Although recent agreements and discuss-ions have been superficial, they are positive signs of commitment to a collaborative, political solution to the disputes.

• A lack of recent violence furthers this trend, although any resolution remains distant given the complexity of the disputes.

Finding a collaborative, political solution to the disagreement over the South China Sea remains an uphill battle. Sam Bateman assesses the progress that has been made so far and the obstacles that remain.

International co-operation in East Asia is often superficial. The second East Asia Summit ( EAS), held from 14 to 15 January, was no different. The most substantial agreement of the meeting, the Cebu declaration on East Asian energy security, contained vague assurances of the commitment of the EAS' 16 states to energy efficiency. The declaration, which aims to lessen greenhouse gas emissions by improving energy efficiency and harnessing renewable energy, provided no definite targets for these goals and as such reads like a list of desirable outcomes rather than firm policy agreements.

Similar rhetoric rather than action was apparent in a discussion between Chinese and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders in late October and early November 2006, when they met to consider the possibility of a code of conduct to prevent conflict over the disputed sovereignty claims in the South China Sea. This code would aim to strengthen the earlier non-binding Declaration on the conduct of parties in the South China Sea, agreed between ASEAN countries and China in 2002.

Despite the lack of detail, the developments in international agreements and discussions are encouraging. Both the 2007 agreement and the 2006 discussions highlight that all the countries involved in the South China Sea disputes attach importance to energy security and the need to resolve disputes. Should the 2006 discussions lead to a written accord, such a code could be binding and include concrete assurances that would overcome some of the limitations of the 2002 declaration. While the outcomes of the 2006 meeting have not been released, the talks, combined with the EAS agreement, are nevertheless a positive step in the ongoing de-escalation of the South China Sea disputes.

The dispute

The disputes over the South China Sea have long been regarded as a potential source of tension and instability in East Asia. Virtually all the geographical features in the sea are subject to disputed sovereignty claims by various countries. In the Spratly group, various islands are occupied by Vietnam (currently about 22 islands), the Philippines (11), China (14), Malaysia (10) and Taiwan (one). Taiwan occupies Itu Aba, the largest island in the Spratlys.

There are several reasons for the disputes. In many ways, the South China Sea is the centre of economic growth in East Asia. It is the geographical link between Southeast and Northeast Asia and includes vital sea lines of communication between these two economically dynamic regions. The strategic significance of the sea has long been

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appreciated by the major powers in the region, as demonstrated by the secret hydrographic surveys of the area conducted by the UK, the US and Japan in the 1920s and 1930s. The surveys were not placed on international charts of the area until the 1960s and 1970s. Moreover, the sea's energy and fishing resources have heightened competition for the area.

Although there has been no violence recently, China has previously used force to establish sovereignty over parts of the South China Sea, including driving off the occupying forces of rival claimants. In January 1974, China took advantage of Vietnam's distraction with the Vietnam War to drive South Vietnamese forces from the Paracel Islands in the Battle of Hoang Sa. Chinese forces sank several Vietnamese warships and killed or took prisoner a significant number of Vietnamese personnel. The most serious recent outbreak of violence in the South China Sea disputes occurred in 1995 when China forcibly occupied Mischief Reef, which had previously been claimed by the Philippines. This followed China's seizure by force in 1988 of the islets on Fiery Cross Reef, which had been claimed by Vietnam. This included an engagement with Vietnamese forces near the reef in which three Vietnamese ships were sunk and around 75 Vietnamese killed.

Moreover, intermittent events have provoked stern rhetorical reactions from claimant states, particularly in disputes involving Vietnam and China. For instance, in late December 2006 a spokesman from Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that China's planting of markers on the baselines of the territorial sea in the South China Sea was a "violation of Vietnam's sovereignty". Similarly, Taiwan's announcement in December 2005 that it would build a runway on Itu Aba as a potential base for military aircraft to extend the island's strategic depth incited criticism from Vietnam. This censure was somewhat disingenuous given that Hanoi had announced the renovation of a 600 m runway on Big Spratly Island in April 2004.

As such, reducing the risks of possible conflict over these disputes has been a significant challenge for regional relations. This challenge is now being met, largely through the 2002 declaration by ASEAN and China, as well as a range of recent measures for functional co-operation, which have reduced the probability of future violence. For instance, the Workshops on Managing Potential Conflict in the South China Sea in the 1990s, hosted by Indonesia and sponsored by Canada, sought to extend dialogue between the various claimants and prevent further violence. It has been a long road of confidence-building and preventive diplomacy to reach the present situation of relative peace and co-operation.

Complex claims

While there appears to be a will to resolve the disputes, there are a variety of obstacles to reaching any final agreement. Among them is the Chinese position, which states that the disputes can be settled only on a bilateral basis - not regionally, multilaterally or internationally. If it were not for Vietnam's ambit claim, some form of accommodation on sovereignty might already have been reached between China and Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Indonesia also has an interest in the situation because it has sovereignty over the Natuna Islands and will have some involvement in maritime boundary agreements in the area.

A further problem is the sheer complexity of the various claims and current occupations. The Chinese claim to the Spratly Islands is based mainly on historical occupation and usage, despite a lack of continuity. In February 1992, China enacted a law to enable it to exercise sovereignty over its territorial sea and contiguous zone,

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which were defined in relation to its land territory. Article 2 of this law specifically defines the Paracel (Xisha) and Spratly (Nansha) Islands as Chinese territory, as well as the Pratas Islands (Dongsha) and Macclesfield Bank (Zhongsha). Chinese sovereignty over the Pratas Islands is not disputed by any other state, but Taiwan currently occupies the islands. The Macclesfield Bank consists entirely of submerged reefs and under most interpretations of international law should not be the subject of a claim to territorial sovereignty because it has no feature above water at high tide. Taiwan's claim over the South China Sea islands is similar to the mainland's, and under the 'one-China' principle is not opposed by China.

Both China and Vietnam claim the Paracels, but the Chinese claim is usually regarded as superior. Unlike the Spratlys with the claims of different countries to various islands, the Paracel Island group is usually considered as a whole. After a thorough analysis of the two claims, Dr Greg Austin reached the conclusion that North Vietnam's recognition of Chinese sovereignty over the Paracels in 1958 and its lack of protest between 1958 and 1975 create an estoppel in respect of South Vietnam's claim to the islands and this probably still stands against the current Vietnamese claim. Except for the dispute's impact on the South China Sea as a whole, the Paracels are generally regarded as a bilateral matter between China and Vietnam.

On the basis of historical usage, Vietnam claims the whole of the Spratly and Paracel groups and all its continental shelf, as well as an extensive area of the South China Sea, although the limits of the claim have not been clearly identified by co-ordinates. On balance, China's claim to the Spratly group (and the Paracels) usually finds considerable support in international law if the group is taken as a single territorial unit. Vietnam's claim is considerably weakened by consistent recognition of Chinese sovereignty over the Spratlys by North Vietnam between 1951 and 1975.

The Philippines' claim is based on the so-called proximity principle and on 'discovery' of the islands concerned by a Philippine explorer, Tomas Cloma, in the 1950s. In some ways, it is an unusual claim largely because of the bizarre nature of Cloma's 1956 proclamation of a new state of Freedomland (Kalayaan) on the Spratly Islands and the subsequent reaction of the Philippine government, which did not endorse Cloma's claim but officially incorporated Kalayaan into Palawan province in 1972.

The Malaysian claim, meanwhile, is clearly defined by co-ordinates showing the extent of its claim to continental shelf in accordance with international law. Malaysia claims the islands and reefs that it considers to be situated on its continental shelf. Brunei also claims an area of continental shelf, although its boundary lines are simply drawn perpendicular from the end of its land boundaries on the coast. The claims by the Philippines and Malaysia lack a historical basis and, according to Austin, are probably "too weak to have displaced Chinese title". They are also postulated on a basis of geographical contiguity but at present this is not recognised as a valid basis for a claim of sovereignty. Austin adds that China's claim to several features in the Spratly group is "probably superior to that of any other claimant".

With these conflicting claims, a system of maritime boundaries in the South China Sea cannot be established until sovereignty over the islands has been agreed. Victor Prescott, an Australian geographer and expert on maritime boundaries, has noted that four factors complicate the process of drawing maritime boundaries in the South China Sea. First, the peripheral states show considerable variations in size, political power and wealth. Second, there are many islands involved in the dispute and some are claimed by as many as six countries. Third, some of the claims are unilateral. Finally, political

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relations between some of the countries are poor. All these factors, along with the complex geography of the South China Sea, militate against the drawing of conventional straight-line maritime boundaries.

Sovereignty over the islands is a matter for political resolution and only then can maritime boundaries be negotiated. However, before decisions over island sovereignty can be made, it will have to be determined which of the features in the sea qualify as islands under the international law of the sea. Even if all these problems were resolved, it would still be an extraordinarily difficult process to establish a complete system of straight-line maritime boundaries.

Co-operation

The lack of agreed maritime jurisdiction has meant that it has not been possible to establish a management regime for the South China Sea that is based on customary principles of sovereign rights and obligations. It has also inhibited the development of effective co-operation between the littoral states bordering the area that would conform with Part IX of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This requires states bordering a sea, which qualifies under international law as an enclosed or semi-enclosed sea, to co-operate with each other in the performance of their rights and duties and to co-ordinate their activities with regard to resource management, marine environmental protection and marine scientific research.

The fulfilment of these obligations was a major objective of the Indonesian-hosted Workshops on Managing Potential Conflict in the South China Sea. UNCLOS Part IX remains the basic international legal framework for successful co-operation in managing the South China Sea and its resources.

Furthermore, contemporary concerns now dictate that such co-operation should also extend to environmental protection and to the maintenance of law and order at sea. The latter issue is necessary to prevent piracy, acts of maritime terrorism and illegal trafficking by sea in arms, drugs or people, and also to ensure the provision of the navigational aids, hydrographic surveys and search and rescue arrangements necessary for the safe and secure passage of shipping through the South China Sea.

Co-operative attempts are being made in these areas. Attempts are now being made through the UN Environment Programme/Global Environment Facility South China Sea project to develop regionally co-ordinated programmes of action designed to reverse environmental degradation, particularly to prevent coastal habitat degradation and loss, reduce land-based marine pollution and prevent over-exploitation and mismanagement of fisheries.

There are also signs China is prepared to enter into maritime co-operative activities in the disputed areas of the South China Sea, for example by contributing to the safety and security of the Strait of Malacca and Strait of Singapore. These developments demonstrate China's intentions to build maritime influence in Southeast Asia and secure its oil imports from the Middle East.

Such policy developments have led to a number of recent agreements which, although often vague, demonstrate at least a rhetorical commitment to co-operation in the South China Sea. Most significant was a March 2005 tripartite agreement between oil corporations from China, the Philippines and Vietnam for joint marine seismic research in the South China Sea.

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Further agreements have underlined this collaborative policy. In April 2005, China committed to a string of partnership agreements with Indonesia, including on maritime co-operation. In September 2005, China announced that it was donating six patrol vessels to Cambodia to help strengthen maritime security. In October 2005, Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo praised the momentum of development in relations between the Philippines and China as well as those between ASEAN and China to implement the ASEAN-China Declaration on the conduct of parties in the South China Sea. China has also recently been joining with ASEAN countries in a range of search and rescue and oil pollution clean-up exercises.

A possible solution?

These co-operative measures have increased the possibility of a firmer resolution on the South China Sea disputes. Such a resolution will most probably lie in the application of joint development and management concepts under UNCLOS Part IX, with possible zones of co-operation covering different geographical areas and for different functional purposes. However, the situation will be made more complex by the fact that some of the sea's islands and reefs will generate maritime zones (territorial sea, exclusive economic zone and continental shelf) as allowed under international law while others will not. As such, it may be necessary to incorporate some of these features and their zones as possible enclaves within the joint areas.

Developing alternative approaches to marine management and resource exploitation will require a different mindset to the present one, which is based on national jurisdiction, unilateral rights and sovereignty. Straight-line maritime boundaries are unlikely in the South China Sea and pressing problems of resource management, conservation and exploitation require resolution without the need to reach agreement on the underlying sovereignty and boundary issues.

Nonetheless, alternative approaches may be needed to reach a practical resolution to the disputes. Such a solution could include a functional approach to resource management whereby sovereignty is set aside and resources are shared, managed and exploited according to their individual demands, conservation needs and optimal use. There could be joint development of living and non-living resources of the South China Sea. Examples of such arrangements include the Vietnam-Malaysia joint development zone for developing the petroleum resources of a disputed area of continental shelf in the Gulf of Thailand, and the Japan-South Korea Dokdo/Takeshima joint fishing zone. Extending these joint resource zones to possible joint exclusive economic zones would allow each country to participate in the economic benefits while spreading the costs of environmental management. Finally, co-ordinated or joint patrols and resource protection operations by neighbouring countries in areas of overlapping or adjacent jurisdiction could lessen friction. Several such arrangements are already in place in the East Asian seas, such as the anti-piracy activities involving Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand in the Strait of Malacca, and fishery surveillance activities agreed between Vietnam and Thailand.

Such collaborative processes could produce a practical solution to the South China Sea disputes. Recent progress with co-operative management in the South China Sea provides a useful precedent, as well as examples of best practice for establishing effective co-operation in managing the other seas of East Asia, which are also subject to disputed maritime claims. While the situation in the South China Sea is potentially more complex than other East Asian maritime disputes because of the number of countries involved, it is also the situation where the most progress is being made on establishing

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effective co-operation. Confidence-building measures will continue to be important for building an atmosphere of co-operation and dialogue that will facilitate the necessary change of mindset and the development of co-operative arrangements.

There is still more work to be done to establish a comprehensive regime for managing the South China Sea. Such a resolution could be decades, rather than years, in the making. While it will be a long road towards peace and co-operation in the South China Sea, the 2007 EAS agreement and 2006 discussions demonstrate that the countries concerned are heading in the right direction.

19/01/2007 - China's Offensive Space Capability - Stratfor

Summary

A Jan. 17 report on the Aviation Week & Space Technology Web site says U.S. intelligence agencies believe China destroyed its aging Feng Yun 1C polar orbit weather satellite in a successful anti-satellite weapons test Jan. 11. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe expressed concern over the test Jan. 18, confirming China's new military capability.

Analysis

China appears to have destroyed its aging Feng Yun 1C polar orbit weather satellite in a successful anti-satellite weapons (ASAT) test Jan. 11, Aviation Week & Space Technology reported Jan. 17. This test makes China the third nation -- following the United States and the Soviet Union -- to have successfully destroyed a satellite in orbit. It is also the first such intercept in more than 20 years.

The report suggests that a ballistic missile launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center inserted a kinetic kill vehicle into orbit. Kinetic kill vehicles, using the energy of impact at thousands of miles per hour rather than explosive fragmentation, are also used in the U.S. ballistic missile defense program. This could be consistent with reports indicating that an extremely energetic event resulting in a massive breakup took place in low Earth orbit Jan. 11. Such an event seems unlikely to be anything other than a satellite breakup caused by a physical impact. Though a debris strike could certainly be responsible, the chances of a coincidental impact by random debris seem unlikely.

Past reports of Chinese attempts to blind U.S. spy satellites temporarily with ground-based lasers have not been publicly confirmed by the U.S. military, although it was certainly aware of the attempt. In this latest case, too, Space Command knew what happened. The U.S. 1st Command and Control Squadron at Cheyenne Mountain carefully tracks and monitors all orbiting satellites and space debris. The launch would have been detected and tracked by the 1st Space Operations Squadron. Any breakup would have been immediately noticed. Nevertheless, Washington offered no official response until after the release of the Aviation Week report.

Both Washington and Beijing are party to the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 (Beijing signed in 1983), although the treaty's vague wording fails even to define "outer space." Moreover, the treaty does not legally prohibit interference with other satellites or the use of non-nuclear ASATs.

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Because of a lack of accuracy, early U.S. and Soviet ASAT programs both used nuclear warheads, including a successful U.S. "intercept" in 1963 that used a 1-megaton warhead. The Air-Launched Miniature Vehicle used a two-stage rocket fired from an F-15 Eagle fighter to insert a Miniature Homing Vehicle (MHV) into orbit. The MHV conducted a successful heat-seeking intercept in 1985 before being canceled, although the remaining ordnance might have been retained in storage.

Legality aside, the increasing visibility and aggressiveness of China's pursuit of offensive space capability represents a potential future threat to U.S. military dominance in space. In December, Robert Joseph, U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, issued a public reminder of official U.S. Air Force doctrine: The United States opposes any further ban on the weaponization of space. Although the U.S. Air Force rightly considers itself the master of its domain in space operations, these developments halfway around the world are a painful reminder that such dominance will not go unchallenged.

The U.S. military's technological edge rests heavily in space. With the assets currently orbiting the Earth, U.S. communication, navigation and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities are unsurpassed. From GPS-guided munitions and MASINT to launch detection and links to strategic forces, space is vital to the modern U.S. military. One or two ASATs cannot change that. But in a major military confrontation over Taiwan, for instance, a successful strike by a dozen Chinese ASATs would be a significant blow to Washington's situational awareness in the region -- and would result in massive U.S. retaliation.

Prudence would suggest that if two Chinese programs to develop the capability to control space have recently come to light, at least several more are in the works. And this is not China's first foray into space.

The U.S. Air Force is certainly far ahead of China -- or any other nation, for that matter -- in what the 2004 Air Force Counterspace Operations doctrine calls the "five Ds" of targeting an adversary's space system: deception, disruption, denial, degradation and destruction. Nevertheless, China's rise as a competitor should be of particular concern to the United States. Beijing's first attempts to control space will not be an effort to match U.S. capabilities but rather to become master of its own domain above East Asia. Facing the major competitor in all of space, China will tailor its offensive space capability specifically toward countering U.S. dominance -- at least in part. Tokyo and other challengers to Beijing's regional hegemony, however, will not be far behind.

The new cloud of debris orbiting the Earth is an indication of things to come should two space-faring nations face off in a major conflict. Especially in the case of the United States, space-based assets have become too essential an operational tool to be ignored any longer in times of war.

26/01/2000 - China's New Naval Strategy - Stratfor

Summary

In the first exercise of its kind, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army/Navy (PLAN) conducted maneuvers involving several small missile craft more than 250 nautical miles

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from the Chinese mainland. Although the PLAN has openly aspired to develop an ocean-going capacity, most of its efforts have focused on acquiring a larger number of major surface vessels capable of long-range deployments. It seems that now, faced with an unstable security environment and an uncertain economy making it difficult to purchase new major surface combatants, the PLAN may have found a way to utilize its fleet of small attack craft as an effective and less costly — though less capable — interim solution

Analysis

A formation of Chinese light combat vessels recently engaged in a combined naval exercise more than 250 nautical miles from the country’s coast, reported the Jiefangjun Bao newspaper Jan. 17. It was the first time these types of vessels — including fast guided-missile ships, escort vessels, submarine chasers and corvettes — had conducted exercises outside coastal waters.

To understand Chinese naval strategy, it is important to have a general understanding of naval strategy. The primary strategic aim of a navy is to defend a nation’s shores. As economic and strategic interests increase, the navy’s role expands to include power projection capabilities. The evolution of the PLAN has followed this pattern almost exactly. It has been, and still is, limited to a coastal defense role. However, it has slowly enlarged its ocean-going capability. This is a function of a new strategic focus for the Chinese military.

In the late 1990s, the Chinese military shifted from a doctrine concerned with a defensive ground war to a doctrine based on a more balanced, flexible and smaller military able to operate outside of territorial waters. This new doctrine concentrates on force and force projection rather than simply on national defense. The centerpiece of this emerging doctrine has been the PLAN, which in the past had been regarded as the least important among all the services.

Several factors contributed to this strategic shift. Paramount among them is a sense of unease throughout region, including economic fluctuations, an unclear picture of the U.S. commitment to the area and uncertainty over the emerging Japanese role in the region. A second factor affecting China’s military strategy is energy security. China is the largest consumer of oil outside of the United States. China will need to rely more on imported oil to sustain its economic growth. Much of this oil is transported by sea, thus the increased importance of safeguarding sea lines of communication (SLOC). A third factor is an inherent need for China to achieve regional military supremacy to assert authority over neighboring states. Two classic examples are the breakaway province of Taiwan and the strategic and potentially mineral rich Spratly Islands.

China’s ability to address the above factors hinges on the PLAN’s force structure. The PLAN has over 1,100 warships, more than three times the number of ships in the U.S. Navy. However, unlike the U.S. Navy, the PLAN, aside from its submarine force, is more geared toward a coastal defensive role. It consists of only 54 major combatants, such as destroyers, frigates and submarines, accounting for only 5 percent of the total number of ships. The rest of the navy consists of patrol craft, mine-warfare vessels and a small amphibious force.

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In the short term, the PLAN is developing a green water capability, meaning the ability to operate out to the first island chain — all areas to the west of a line running from Japan, the Senkaku islands, Taiwan and the west coast of Borneo. By 2020, the PLAN aims to have the ability to expand this force into a blue water capable navy, a force able to assert control over the second island chain, including areas west of the Kuril Islands down to the Mariana islands and Papua New Guinea.

Inside the green water line, PLAN strategy would need to focus on controlling and interdicting sea lanes. Out to the blue water line, the PLAN would need to expand its air defense and anti-submarine capabilities as the capacity increases for the United States or another navy to concentrate and cut off the PLAN from the mainland.

To move from a green line to blue line strategy, the PLAN is procuring major surface combatants. It is steadily increasing domestic warship production and importing sophisticated vessels and armaments from Russia. China is constructing a new 6,000-ton destroyer to succeed its largest current warship. In November 1997, China signed a contract with Russia to purchase two Sovremenny-class destroyers with an option for a third. China has reportedly begun an aircraft carrier program. It could build its own carrier or modify two existing mothballed carriers, the Ukrainian Varyag carrier and the Russian Minsk bought by Chinese companies for non-military purposes.

However, with China’s uncertain financial situation, coupled with the rapidly deteriorating security situation in the region, China may not be able to wait until these new capital ships are fully mission capable. This may have been the main driving force behind the small vessel exercises. It gives China the ability to project forces out to the first island chain. In particular, most of the PLAN’s newest small attack craft are being assigned to the East Sea Fleet, which has operational responsibility for the seas around Taiwan. This means that not only does the PLAN demonstrate it has the ability to extend its reach, it also demonstrates that the PLAN is developing its sea interdiction in the event of future interventions by the U.S. Navy around Taiwan.

Still, for small warships to be effective in future wars at sea, they must have the logistical support to enable them to move to and sustain themselves in the open sea. This means that, as was the major focus of this recent exercise, the fast attack fleet needed to conduct re-supply, repair and refueling methods at sea. It leaves the fleet virtually anchored to the mainland by a long tether of extremely vulnerable lightly armed or unarmed re-supply vessels. In this scenario, the tactical realities of a long supply tail may outweigh the strategic necessity of the PLAN to extend its reach.

Nevertheless, in utilizing the small vessels, the PLAN has created a model for an interim solution to power projection. Even though the PLAN may have demonstrated its ability to operate out to the first island chain, it still lacks the ability to directly engage any sizable ocean-going force while operating at such a distance. Until its major warship production or procurement is increased, the PLAN is still tied to the mainland.

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2. Documentos Acadêmicos ASTARITA, Claudia. China and India: Rivals or Partners? An Analysis of the Background of the Interactions between the Two Major Emerging Asian Powers. Transition Studies Review. Vol.14 No.3 2007. pp. 545-561. Resumo

This paper focuses on the evolution of the relationship between China and India in Asia. Drawing on the theoretical tradition of regionalism and deepening this framework considering the impacts of interdependency, hegemonic stability theory, and equilibrium theory on it, the paper presents a model through which the dyadic evolution of the relationship and its possible influence on East Asia might be interpreted. It is suggested that both paradigms might be useful for interpreting how China and India will develop in the Asian scenario. Starting from the importance of the positions both countries have acquired within the region, it explores the potential for these two countries to play a leading role in Asia. I conclude by asserting that despite conflicting interests and competitive interactions frameworks currently characterize the region, a collaborative but still delicate scenario in which China and India play leading but concerted roles is more likely to happen. ÁVILA, Fabrício. Armas Estratégicas: O Impacto da Digitalização sobre a Guerra e a Distribuição de Poder no Sistema Internacional. Dissertação defendida em 11 de abril de 2008, no Programa de Pós-Graduação em Relações Internacionais da UFRGS.

Resumo

O pós-Guerra Fria (1991-2006) apresenta uma mudança significativa no cenário estratégico: a maior acessibilidade da tecnologia militar e o surgimento de novas armas capazes de modificar o poder coercitivo dos países – como as Armas de Energia Direta – acabam pondo em cheque a idéia de que a primazia nuclear é condição suficiente para garantir a unipolaridade. Focando-se no atual recrudescimento das tensões entre EUA com a Rússia – especialmente com a proposta estadunidense de implementação do Escudo Antimíssil no Leste Europeu – e com a China, e analisando as relações de poder entre os três países, procuramos revelar que tipo de competição ocorrerá no Sistema Internacional nas próximas décadas. A presente dissertação analisa as reais possibilidades de que a primazia nuclear estadunidense se torne efetiva, uma vez que para tanto é necessário o desarmamento estratégico das demais potências. Como uma guerra nuclear entre os três países possui um custo político muito elevado as disputas tendem a ser decididas na esfera das operações. Para ilustrar essa última afirmação usamos um cenário contrafactual de guerra nuclear limitada entre Estados Unidos, Rússia e China, por meio do qual tentamos evidenciar as pré-condições táticas e operacionais para uma eventual vitória da coalizão sino-russa. CHUNG, Chien-peng. The Shanghai Co-operation Organization: China’s Changing Influence in Central Asia. The China Quartely. 2004.

Resumo

China, Russia and the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan formed the Shanghai Co-operation Organization (SCO) in 2001. China’s backing for an SCO charter, permanent secretariat and anti-terrorism centre for the past

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three years reflects its desire to strengthen the SCO in countering United States influence in Central Asia. Diplomatically, China fears that the American presence means that regional states will be less accommodating to China’s political demands. Economically, China worries that the United States’ support for American petroleum companies will compromise Chinese efforts to wrest concessions from Central Asian governments. Security-wise, with bases close to China’s western borders, Washington can assist Beijing in flushing out Xinjiang separatists operating in Central Asia, or put military pressure on China, should it be perceived as a threat. The American presence and resurgent Russian involvement in Central Asia seem to have put China’s influence in the region on the defensive KO, Sangtu. Strategic Partnership in Unipolar System: The Sino-Russian Relationship. Issue & Study. Vol.42 No.3, 2006. pp. 203-225. Resumo

This paper examines post-ColdWar Sino-Russian cooperation to explain why strategic partnerships evolve within the current unipolar geopolitical system. In the process, it explores why China and Russia pursue not alliance, but partnership, and the difference between the two. Analysis shows that, primarily, the unipolar system created by the U.S. preponderance of power affects the pattern of cooperation, as China and Russia believe alliance against the only superpower would be ineffective and thus seek instead to enhance their political influence through a new model of cooperation — strategic partnership. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the U.N. Security Council are prominent examples of organizations in which the Sino-Russian partnership attempts to impact on international politics. MARTINS, José Miguel. Digitalização e Guerra Local: Como Fatores do Equilíbrio Internacional. Tese de doutorado defendida em abril de 2008, no Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciência Política da UFRGS. Resumo

Este trabalho é um estudo sobre o efeito da digitalização no equilíbrio da Ásia. Nele são examinados os efeitos da digitalização sobre a Estratégia, as Operações e a Doutrina (EOD) das Forças Armadas em seis países. Isto é feito tendo-se em vista a análise de três hipóteses de guerra local. Assim é examinada a situação entre a Coréia do Norte e a do Sul, China e Taiwan e China e Índia. A conclusão é que a digitalização conduziu a alterações na EOD dos países envolvidos, na correlação de forças na Ásia, e através do continente asiático, no próprio equilíbrio internacional. PAUTASSO & KERR. A Segurança Energética da China e e as Reações dos EUA. Contexto Internacional, mai/ago, v.30 n.2, 2008.

Resumo

O objetivo deste artigo é analisar a busca da China por segurança energéticae as reações dos EUA, bem como seus desdobramentos para a política inter-nacional. O argumento central é que a ascensão chinesa tem dependido do suprimento energético externo, que, por sua vez, revela o crescimento das disputas com os EUA em um cenário internacional de reorganização de forças.

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WORTZEL, Larry. China’s Nuclear Forces: Operations, Training, Doctrine, Command, Control, and Campaign Planning. Strategic Studies Institute. Maio, 2007. Disponível em http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/ Resumo

The major insights in this monograph come from exploiting sections of a doctrinal text published for People’s Liberation Army (PLA) institutions of higher military education by the Chinese National Defense University, A Guide to the Study of Campaign Theory (Zhanyi Lilun Xuexi Zhinan). This book is na unclassiied “study guide” for PLA oficers on how to understand and apply doctrine in a restricted PLA book on campaign doctrine in warfare, The Science of Campaigns. Other recent books by PLA or Chinese government controlled publishing houses validate the insights in the monograph and demonstrate how the PLA is going about achieving its vision for modern war ighting. These materials provide new insights into China’s Second Artillery Corps, the “Strategic Rocket Forces.” Chinese strategists believe that China must be prepared to ight in, and if necessary, control space; which explains the 2006 laser attack on a U.S. satellite from China and the 2007 anti-satellite missile test by the Chinese. PLA oficers also believe that U.S. satellite reconnaissance from space could constitute a threat to China’s nuclear deterrent. China’s leaders and military thinkers see the United States as a major potential threat to the PLAand China’s interests primarily because of American military capabilities, but also because of U.S. security relationships in Asia. To respond to these perceived threats, China’s military thinkers are examining the relationships between conventional and nuclear ballistic missile units in war and developing new doctrine for missile employment. There are explicit discussions viii in PLA military literature and scientiic journals on how to use ballistic missiles to attack deployed U.S. naval battle groups, particularly aircraft carriers. Indeed, the Second Artillery Corps is developing a new class of maneuvering reentry vehicles with this mission in mind. In addition, there is also more open information revealed in these documents about frontal and national-level command and control of missile units. The targets suggested for theater warfare and conventional guided missile campaigns at the operational level of war are designed to achieve battleield effects that will destroy an enemy’s ability to wage war effectively. Secondarily, the targets selected would disrupt the enemy’s economy, reconstitution and resupply capabilities: • Enemy political centers; • Economic centers; • Major enemy military bases and depots; • Enemy command centers; • Enemy communications and transportation networks; and, • Major troop concentrations. China’s strategic intercontinental ballistic missile force remains primarily retaliatory in nature. The PLA may employ theater and shorter-range ballistic missiles, however, as elements of a surprise attack or to preempt an enemy attack. PLA military thinkers recognize that long-range precision strike by conventional weapons is now an integral part of U.S. military doctrine. They fear that a conventional attack on China’s

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strategic missile forces could render China vulnerable and leave it without a deterrent. This has led to a debate in China among civilian strategic thinkers and military leaders on the viability of the announced “no-irst-ix use” policy on nuclear weapons. Some strategists advocate departing from the “no-irst-use” policy and responding to conventional attacks on strategic forces with nuclear missiles. The objectives for nuclear campaign planning are ambiguous enough to leave open the question of preemptive action by the PLA. According to A Guide to the Study of Campaign Theory, a major objective of Chinese nuclear planning is to “alter enemy intentions by causing the enemy’s will [to engage in war] to waver.” Preemption, therefore, would be a viable action that is consistent with the PLA’s history of “self-defensive counterattacks.” The PLA leadership has prioritized the objectives of nuclear counterattack campaigns as follows: • Cause the will of the enemy (and the populace) to waver; • Destroy the enemy’s command and control system; • Delay the enemy’s war (or combat) operations; • Reduce the enemy’s force generation and war-making potential; and, • Degrade the enemy’s ability to win a nuclear war. The decision by Beijing to put nuclear and conventional warheads on the same classes of ballistic missiles and colocate them near each other in iring units of the Second Artillery Corps also increases the risk of accidental nuclear conlict. A critical factor in any American decision will be the capabilities of American space-based sensor systems. Accurate sensors maybe able to determine whether C hina launched a conventional or nuclear-tipped missile, and such a determination could prevent immediate escalation of a crisis or conlict. These are serious matters for the American armed forces. China’s nuclear forces are evolving and the way they are used is under debate. The way that the PLA handles its commitment to dominating space and its commitment to being capable of attacking American command, control, communication, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems affects strategic warning, missile defenses, and command and control. For the Army, with the responsibility to defend the United States against missile attack, it means that watching the evolution of this debate in China is critical to success.

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3. Leituras Recomendadas

ARRIGHI, Giovanni. Adam Smith em Pequim: Origens e Fundamentos do Século

XXI. São Paulo, Boitempo Editorial, 2008.

ÁVILA, CEPIK e MARTINS. Armas Estratégicas e Distribuição de Capacidades no Sistema Internacional: o caso das armas de energia direta e a emerg~encia de uma ordem multipolar.

BLAIR, YALI e HAGT. The Oil Weapon: Myth of China’s Vulnerability. China Security, Summer 2006, pp. 32-63.

BLASKO, Dennis. Chinese Army Modernization: An Overview. Military Review.

Sep/Oct 2005.

BO, Kong. Instituional Insecurity. China Security, Summer 2006, pp. 64-88.

BUZAN e WAEVER. Regions and Powers: the Structure of International Security. Cambridge-UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Especialmente Cap. 5 – “Northeast and Southeast Asian RSCs during the Cold War” e Cap. 6 - “The 1990s and beyond: an emrgent East Asian Complex” pp. 128-171.

CHINA – 2008 – Defense White Paper of China. Disponível em http://www.china.org.cn

CHENGYU, Yang (Maj. Gen.) Logistics Support for Regional Warfare. In.: PILLSBURY, Michael. Chinese Views of Future Warfare. Washington: National Defense University Press, 1997. p. 179-186.

CORDESMAN, Anthony H. & KLEIBER, Martin. Chinese Military Modernization:

Force Development and Strategic Capabilities. Washington-D.C.: CSIS - Center for Strategic and International Studies Press, 2007.

CORDESMAN, Anthony H. & KLEIBER, Martin. The Asian Conventional Military

Balance in 2006 – Total and Sub-Regional Balances: Northeast Asia, Southeast

Asia, and South Asia. Washington-D.C.: CSIS - Center for Strategic and International Studies Press, 2006.

DAOJIONG, Zha. Energy Interdependence. China Security, Summer 2006, pp. 2-16.

HAGT, Eric. China’s ASAT Test: Strategic Response. China Security, Winter 2007, pp. 32-51.

HAOTIAN, Chi (Gen.) U. S. – China Military Ties.b In.: PILLSBURY, Michael. Chinese Views of Future Warfare. Washington: National Defense University Press, 1997. p. 61-68.

HUI, Zhang. Space Weaponization and Space Security: a Chinese Perspective. China Security, Winter 2006, pp. 24-36.

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KAMPHAUSEN e SCOBELL. Right Sizing the People’s Liberation Army: Exploring the Contours of China’s Militar. Setembro, 2007. Disponível em http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/ KOPP, Carlo. China’s Air Defense Missile Systems. Defense Focus. 2008.

LIEBER e PRESS. U.S. Nuclear Primacy and the Future of the Chinese Deterrent. China Security, Winter 2007, pp. 67-89.

MEDEIROS, CLIFF e CRANE. A New Direction for China’s Defensive Industry. 2005. Disponível em http://www.rand.org/

NORRIS e KRISTENSEN. Chinese Nuclear Forces, 2008. Nuclear Notebook, Vol.64 No.3, 2008. pp.42.45.

SHIXIU, Bao. Deterrence Revisited: Outer Space. China Security, Winter 2007, pp. 2-11.

STRATFOR. The Geopolitcs of China: A Great Power Enclosed. Stratfor Geopolitc

Diary, 15/06/2008. Disponível em http://www.stratfor.com

THOMAS, Timothy. The Internet in China: Civilian and Military Uses. Information and Security Vol. 7, 2001, pp. 159-173.

WENMU, Zhang. Sea Power and China’s Strategic Choice. China Security, Summer 2006, pp. 17-31.

XIANQI e JUNQIN. Active Exploration and Peaceful Use of Outer Space. China

Security, Winter 2006, pp. 16-23.

ZHONGCHUN, Wang. Nuclear Challenges and China’s Choice. China Security, Winter 2007, pp. 53-65.

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4. Anexos

4.1. Mapas

4.1.1. Planos de Projeção Naval da China

Fonte: Stratfor, 2009.

4.1.2. Disputas no Mar do Sul

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4.1.3. Zonas Navais

4.1.4. Províncias Chinesas

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4.1.5. Estreito de Taiwan: distâncias estratégicas

4.1.6. Geoestratégia do Petróleo da China

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4.1.7. Densidade Demográfica

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4.1.8. Bases dos Mísseis Chineses

4.2. Tabelas

4.2.1. Produção, Consumo e Importação de Petróleo pela China

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4.2.2. Tomada de Decisão no setor Energético Chinês

Fonte: BO, Kong. Institutional Insecurity. China Security, Summer, 2006.

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4.2.3. Changes in the Organizational Structure of China’s Defense Industry

4.2.4. China – Military Revenue 2005

Fonte: IISS, The Military Balance, 2008.

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4.2.5. Asian Military Forces in 2006

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4.2.6. Manpower in Key Asian Powers: 1999-2006 (in thousands)

4.2.7. Asian Military Manpower in Key Powers by Service: 2006 (in thousands)

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4.2.8. Main Battle Tanks in Key Asian Powers: 1999-2006 (in thousands)

4.2.9. Asian Armored Fighting Vehicles: 2006 (Number of MBTs, Lt Tanks,

RECCE, AIFVs, and APCs in active service)

4.2.10. Asian Land Weapons in Key Powers: 2006 (Number in active service)

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4.2.11. Asian Artillery Strength: 2006 (Number in active service)

4.2.12. Navios de Combate Asiáticos em Serviço: 2006

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4.2.13. Fixed Winged Combat Aircraft* in Key Asian Powers: 1999-2006 (in thousands)

4.2.14. Asian Rotary Wing Combat Aircraft: 2006 (Number in active service)

4.2.15. Asian Fixed Wing Combat Aircraft: 2006 (Number in active service)