[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 206 (Thursday, December 21, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S19133-S19135]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        THE REAL CHINESE THREAT

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, this past summer's military 
exercises by China 

[[Page S19134]]
near Taiwan were part of a worrisome trend in East Asia--Chinese 
military expansion. China has been rapidly modernizing its armed 
forces, allegedly transferring missiles to Pakistan, flexing its muscle 
in the South China Sea, and continuing to test nuclear weapons under 
ground. Such actions raise concerns for regional stability, and for our 
interests in promoting economic prosperity and democracy in the region.
  In the following article from the New York Times Magazine, Nicholas 
Kristof points out the growing Chinese power in East Asia and the 
increasing displays of nationalism. He concludes that United States 
policy should pay more attention to China's military expansion and the 
potential threats it brings. This seems to me like a good place to 
start.
  I ask that the article be printed in the Record.
  The article follows:

           [From the New York Times Magazine, Aug. 27, 1995]

                        The Real Chinese Threat

                        (By Nicholas D. Kristof)

       Almost no one noticed, but this summer the Pentagon drew a 
     line in the sand. Washington committed itself to using 
     American military force, it necessary, to keep international 
     shipping lanes open in the South China Sea.
       International, at least, in American eyes. But Beijing's 
     maps put the entire area within China's territorial waters. 
     If a stronger China eventually tries to enforce its national 
     law, which governs shipping in the area, then American forces 
     could be called upon to confront a China that has developed 
     enormously since its troops battled ours to a stalemate in 
     Korea.
       The underlying problem is the oldest one in diplomacy: how 
     the international community can manage the ambitions of a 
     rising power--and there has never been a rising power quite 
     like China. It has 1.2 billion people; it has a nuclear 
     arsenal; it has an army of 3.2 million, the world's largest; 
     and now it has what may be the world's fastest-growing 
     military budget.
       For now, China's conventional forces are no match for 
     America's. One of my Chinese friends, the son of a general, 
     attended a meeting in which a group of senior Chinese 
     military officials reviewed films of the American air war 
     against Iraq. ``They sat around the room, moaning about 
     China's lack of preparation, asking what we could possibly do 
     to modernize,'' he reported. ``I felt like piping us and 
     saying there was one thing we could do: go capitalist.''
       Yet given the rate at which China is pouring money into its 
     armed forces, the situation may eventually be different. The 
     United States Naval War College conducted computer 
     simulations last year and again this year of battles in Asia 
     between China and the United States in the year 2010. To 
     everyone's surprise, China defeated the United States in 
     both. It is said that the Central Intelligence Agency 
     recently conducted its own simulation of such a battle, set 
     in the year 2005, and China won that, too.
       Simulations don't prove anything. Still, China and Vietnam 
     have both showed, in Korea and Vietnam, how much damage even 
     a backward army can do, particularly when fighting on its own 
     turf. And unlike Vietnam, China has nuclear warheads aimed at 
     the United States. (The United States has stopped targeting 
     China with nuclear missiles, but China has refused to stop 
     targeting America.) China is also believed to be developing 
     biological warfare agents.
       In Asia, there is now a real fear about what the rise of 
     China will mean. ``The immense presence of China is itself a 
     threat-- whether the Chinese are conscious of it or not--that 
     certainly Japan cannot deal with alone,'' Morihiro Hosokawa, 
     the former Prime Minister, said recently.
       In the United States, the expression ``containment'' is 
     applied increasingly to China. The Administration's position 
     is that it wants to engage China, rather than contain it, but 
     that if necessary in the future it can switch to a 
     containment policy. ``We're not naive,'' Winston Lord, the 
     Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific 
     Affairs, told a congressional committee in June. ``We cannot 
     predict what kind of power China will be in the 21st century. 
     God forbid, we may have to turn with others to a policy of 
     containment. I would hope not.''
       In the meantime, there is growing alarm in Washington and 
     other capitals at China's military spending and policies. 
     While most countries in the world have been cutting back, 
     China has raised its published military budget by 75 percent 
     since 1988, after adjusting for inflation. And the published 
     budget vastly understates reality. It does not even include 
     weapons procurement. The real figure is probably something 
     like $20 billion, which, when adjusted for purchasing power, 
     may buy as much as $100 billion defense budget in the West.
       Most disturbing, China is pouring money into those 
     activities that allow it to project power beyond its 
     traditional borders. In particular, it is building a blue-
     water navy and developing an air-to-air refueling capability. 
     China is also becoming more aggressive in the South China Sea 
     and even in the Indian Ocean--far from its traditional sphere 
     of influence.
       All of this notwithstanding, it would be a mistake to think 
     that China is somehow a ferocious aggressor. It is not. It 
     shows no interest in seizing areas that it never controlled, 
     like Nepal or Indonesia, and its claims to disputed areas 
     like some islands in the South China Sea do have some merit 
     to them. The risk of conflict arises in part because of 
     stirrings of Chinese nationalism. Nobody believes in 
     Communism anymore, so the Communist Party is trying to use 
     nationalism as the new glue. To some extent, it is working. 
     In five years of living and traveling in China, I met 
     innumerable ordinary people who didn't give two yuan for 
     Communism but who argued passionately that China needed to 
     reclaim its territories.
       Just a couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with an elderly 
     woman from Shanghai--not a Communist by any means--and I 
     asked her what she thought of Mao. ``You know what his 
     biggest mistake was?'' she asked, and I thought of the Great 
     Leap Forward, which led to the deaths of 30 million people. 
     ``It was giving up Mongolia. That's our land, that's part of 
     China! And he allowed Stalin to take it. What we need to do 
     is get Mongolia back.''
       I can't say that this woman is representative, although I 
     have occasionally heard other Chinese say they want to 
     recover Mongolia, which is now an independent country. But I 
     have heard many Chinese say that they want their navy to 
     control the entire South China Sea, to seize the Diaoyu 
     Islands from Japan, even to recover Taiwan.
       Moreover, the likely successor to the present regime in 
     Beijing is not a democracy but a military government. 
     President Jiang Zemin is terrified of a coup d'etat--he has 
     appeared before military units behind a bulletproof shield. 
     If the generals take over in the years following Deng 
     Xiaoping's death, they may be more aggressive than any 
     Communists.
       The placid waters and palmlined islets of the South China 
     Sea may be the site of Asia's next war. The Government in 
     China refuses to clarify whether it claims the entire South 
     China Sea or just the islands in the sea. But in any case, 
     some of the islands are also claimed by five other countries.
       China erected a permanent fortress on a reef near the 
     Philippines earlier this year, leading to a tense 
     confrontation at sea between naval vessels for the two sides. 
     Now Americans are training Philippine naval commandos. And 
     Vietnam and China are jostling each other over rival oil 
     exploration programs, by American oil companies, in the 
     disputed area.
       The worst nightmare in Asia is a Chinese invasion of 
     Taiwan. China regards Taiwan as a renegade province, while 
     many Taiwanese now hope for a country of their own. The 
     authorities in Beijing repeatedly warn that they reserve the 
     right to use force to recover Taiwan. China underlined its 
     threats in July when it conducted missile tests in the open 
     sea 80 miles from Taiwan, forcing the closure of fisheries 
     and the diversion of commercial flights. The Taiwan stock 
     market promptly plunged 6.8 percent amid jitters about a 
     Chinese attack.
       In any case, the possibility of clashes in the Taiwan 
     Strait may be increasing rather than decreasing. For now, it 
     is not clear that China would win if it attacked Taiwan, but 
     the odds will change as China upgrades its forces. It is 
     impossible to imagine that an island of 20 million could 
     indefinitely defend itself against a country of 1.2 billion.
       There is, in short, a potential Chinese threat and that 
     drives the question: How should America deal with it?
       The first step is simply to acknowledge that threat and to 
     pay far more attention to China. America also needs to expand 
     conversations with Chinese leaders, even if that means 
     boosting their legitimacy at times. President Clinton has 
     been reluctant to meet with President Jiang because of 
     Chinese human rights abuses and other problems. But it would 
     be more effective to invite Jiang to Washington and have him 
     listen to hundreds of demonstrators screaming outside his 
     hotel all night. This would convey not only America's 
     willingness to discuss problems but also the seriousness with 
     which Americans take China's misconduct.
       Washington's aim in such talks should be to promote 
     American interests, and that is not necessarily the same as 
     creating a good relationship with China. There is no reason 
     to provoke a dispute just for the sake of being surly. But 
     the White House has to be willing to risk a dispute when 
     China tests its resolve. For example, China has repeatedly 
     promised not to sell M-11 missiles, which are capable of 
     carrying nuclear warheads, to Pakistan. Each time China makes 
     such a formal pledge, Washington claims credit for a major 
     breakthrough. And each time, China has apparently gone ahead 
     and sold M-11's to Pakistan anyway.
       These days, the Administration is reluctant to acknowledge 
     what appears to be the latest sale--despite satellite 
     evidence and the best judgments of intelligence analysts--
     because it is reluctant to worsen relations. The lesson 
     Beijing draws from this is that it can continue violating its 
     pledges as long as it acts greatly offended when someone 
     complains. It would be better to risk a deeper chill in 
     relations than to keep on backing down.
       America also needs to work with Asian countries to apply 
     joint restraints on China. The Asian group of Southeast Asian 
     countries, for example, has become increasingly effective in 
     pressuring China to go slow in 

[[Page S19135]]
     the South China Sea. And whatever the risks of confrontation, I think 
     the United States was right to declare its willingness to use 
     military force to escort shipping in the South China Sea. If 
     China were to interfere with those shipping lanes--blocking 
     the flow of oil to Japan, for example--the global economy 
     would be thrown into crisis.
       Americans also need to use the right historical model. 
     China is not bent on international conquest. Beijing may wish 
     to dominate the region, but it does not wish to raise the 
     Chinese flag over Jakarta or Tokyo. Rather, it is like 
     Germany in the run-up to World War I, yearning for greater 
     importance and testing to see what it can get away with. 
     There could be a major war with China, but if so, it will be 
     because of ignorance and miscalculation--in substantial part 
     on the western rim of the Pacific.

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