By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 8, 1999; Page A01

BEIJING—In 1996, Colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui were in Fujian province for military exercises aimed at threatening the island of Taiwan. As Chinese M9 intermediate-range missiles splashed into waters off two main southern Taiwanese ports, the United States dispatched two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region.

Like most Chinese officers, the colonels were furious at the U.S. move, seeing it as another sign of American interference in China's internal affairs.

[Editor: poor babies =o(..they can't go around slaughtering people any time they please...Taiwan is NOT a part of Red china, its its own free country, boo hoo.]

But to Qiao and Wang, the first crisis in the Taiwan Strait was also a lesson.

"We realized that if China's military was to face off against the United States, we would not be sufficient," said Wang, an air force colonel in the Guangzhou military district's political department. "So we realized that China needs a new strategy to right the balance of power."

[Editor: why don't you start acting like human beings and stop worrying about your bruised egos]

Their response was to write a book called "Unrestricted War," which has become one of the hottest of a new series of military publications that haunt China's strategic planners, as well as many average citizens, with these questions:

How does a relatively weak country like China stand up to a powerful nation like the United States?

[Editor: why don't you stop being evil communist bastards and stop worrying about who is the biggest military power and the block and try COOPERATING with the U.S. the people around the world and the CITIZENS in your own country?]

How should China's military modernization program be modified to ensure that China gets the biggest bang for the yuan?

[Editor: by stop trying to confront your neighbors by being a regional bully]

And how can China, which dreams of reuniting with Taiwan, ensure that the United States, which is legally bound to protect the island, thinks twice about getting militarily involved in any showdown across the Taiwan Strait?

[Editor: by stop being a communist dictatorship.]

Among their sometimes creative and sometimes shocking proposals for dealing with a powerful adversary are terrorism, drug trafficking, environmental degradation and computer virus propagation.

[Editor: we have a more shocking and creative proposal: STOP BEING COMMUNIST! Try friendship.]

The authors include a flow chart of 24 different types of war and argue that the more complicated the combination -- for example, terrorism plus a media war plus a financial war -- the better the results. From that perspective, "Unrestricted War" marries the Chinese classic, "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu, with modern military technology and economic globalization.

[Editor: Actually it doesn't. if they actually READ sun Tzu they'd see he advocates winning WITHOUT FIGHTING. But a bruised ego is too blinded by pride/weakness to see this.]

"Unrestricted War is a war that surpasses all boundaries and restrictions," they write at one point. "It takes nonmilitary forms and military forms and creates a war on many fronts. It is the war of the future."

[Editor: It is EVIL of the future. They haven't a clue about what Sun Tzu wrote about war thousands of years ago. They are petty egotists in search of an excuse to further themselves at the expense of thousands of war dead. Sun Tzu called these types of people ENEMIES of the nation]

The book is an important expression of China's feelings of powerlessness when confronted by U.S. might.

[Editor: Boo Hoo! Maybe if you were not so bent on subjigating people around the world you wouldn't have people standimng in your way...]

By discussing terrorism and other controversial methods of waging war, the pair illustrates China's deep discomfort with a global system in which the United States seems to dictate all the rules -- even the rules of war.

"We are a weak country," Wang said, "so do we need to fight according to your rules? No."

[Editor: Read sun Tzu, if you are weak war is the LAST thing you need]

"War has rules, but those rules are set by the West," continued the 45-year-old son of a military officer. "But if you use those rules, then weak countries have no chance. But if you use nontraditional means to fight, like those employed by financiers to bring down financial systems, then you have a chance."

[Editor: A chance for what? This isn't a sports contest or academic exercise.]

It is extremely rare for Chinese military officers to speak with a Western reporter. The pair agreed to do that after they were encountered accidentally during a visit to a Beijing office complex. One of their reasons for agreeing seemed to be an attempt to counter reports in the Chinese press that they were emphasizing terrorism as a way to do battle without consideration of the full range of methods they describe.

[Editor: they ARE irresponsible war mongers]

Another reason they agreed to speak may be that there is a heated but hidden debate among China's strategic planners on how China's military should modernize. Some advocate a wholesale adoption of Western styles of warfare; others, such as Qiao and Wang, feel that China needs a new approach.

[Editor: that approach would be to stop seeing war as a solution to ANY human problem]

"Take theater missile defense, for example," said Qiao, referring to the U.S. program to create an anti-missile defense system in Asia. "It's obviously part of a U.S. plan to pull China into an expensive trap. We don't want China to fall into that trap because all Chinese military officers know that we don't possess the resources to compete in an arms race."

Qiao and Wang's book is an important indication of the concern felt by the People's Liberation Army about its country's power, its strategic place in the world and especially its ability to counter overwhelming U.S. force. These concerns have become all the more urgent following the war against Yugoslavia and the May 7 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by NATO warplanes -- two events that prompted nationwide hand-wringing at China's weakness. They received a further boost during the latest crisis with Taiwan, which began July 9 when President Lee Teng-hui announced he wanted China to treat Taiwan's government as an equal.

[Editor: good for Taiwan!]

Last week the United States announced a $550 million weapons sale to Taiwan, further infuriating China.

[Editor: 1-800-WAA]

To military men such as Qiao and Wang, there is a direct connection between Kosovo and Taiwan and Tibet. "If today you impose your value systems on a European country, tomorrow you can do the same to Taiwan or Tibet," Wang said.

[Editor: values like not slaughtering your neighbor are not "Western" values they are HUMAN values]

The roots of some of these concerns can be traced to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when Chinese officers were shocked at the gap between Western -- particularly American -- and Chinese military technology.

"The country that studied the Persian Gulf War the most was not America, but China," Wang said. "The military studied all the weapons systems and all the strategy, but we two think that China cannot follow the U.S. model.

We are much poorer than the United States. So we think China needs to begin to adjust the way it makes war. It's like Mao[Zedong] said to the Japanese: 'You fight your war and I'll fight mine.' "

China has had problems when it has tried to embrace some weapons systems -- for example, submarines. A report in May by the Washington-based Natural Resources Defense Council said China has had great difficulty developing submarine-launched ballistic missiles and nuclear-powered submarines.

China has only one operational Xia-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile sub because technical difficulties with solid fuel for the missiles and nuclear reactors for the submarines curtailed full development. This submarine was built in 1981 but it took China's navy eight years to deploy it. It is believed that the Xia-class vessel -- along with China's five Han-class nuclear attack submarines -- have never sailed beyond China's regional waters.

In other areas, such as missiles, China appears to have done a better job at turning a weapons system into a ticket to big power status and thereby causing the United States to ponder a military engagement in the Taiwan Strait.

Two recent developments illustrate this point. Days after Taiwan's Lee announced the new policy, China declared it had mastered the technology to manufacture a neutron bomb and miniaturize nuclear weapons.

[Editor: you mean you STOLE it from the U.S.]

Then on Aug. 3, China announced that it had tested a new long-range ballistic missile, believed to be the Dongfeng 31. Western military experts say both weapons systems could be used against U.S. forces in Asia if Washington should come to Taiwan's aid. In addition, Russian media have reported that a Russian factory has started production of 30 Sunburn anti-ship missiles for China. The Sunburn is one of the only missiles that can travel at twice the speed of sound while skimming the ocean's surface. Once deployed, it would constitute a significant threat to U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups.

[Editor: that's why we need to re-activate the 4 Iowa class battleships]

Qiao, 44 and also an officer's son, raised eyebrows in Beijing a few weeks ago when, in an interview with the China Youth Daily, he suggested that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic should have attempted to deal with NATO attacks by slipping a terrorist group into Italy and attacking NATO air bases. Terrorist bands also could have attacked population centers in Germany, France and Belgium, he said.

"I am not a terrorist and have always opposed terrorism," he said in response to a question about the article.

[Editor: but you ARE a liar and a war monger, because you state you would do terrorist acts in time of war]

"But war is not a foot race; it's more like a soccer game. If it was a foot race, China would never be able to catch up to the United States. But it's a soccer game and the goal is to win. It doesn't matter how you kick the ball into the net."

[Editor: this guy needs to get a human life and stop thinking about wars and conquests of glory while attending his son's soccer games. War is NOT a soccer game. He must have no combat experience, this is just an ego-academic political exercise with other men's lives to him]

Associated Press photo

JASPER BECKER in Beijing

Mainland state media have heralded a crack commando unit in a sign that Beijing is upping the ante in its psychological warfare against Taipei.

People's Daily described the Flying Dragons as a "mysterious" force set up seven years ago by the Nanjing Military Region.

The paper described them as "tigers on land, dragons in the sea and hawks in the air" for their ability to carry out combined operations. The rapid reaction force was formed by officer Jiang Jianxiong, a veteran described as having 26 years' experience of special operations warfare.

"Jiang Jianxiong was recently praised for being a commander with a forward-looking mind, able to command parachute operations, infiltration warfare and sea reconnaissance," the paper said.

He modelled the force on crack outfits in other countries, apparently a reference to such units as Britain's Special Air Service and the United States' Delta Forces.

The Dragons' training features intensive, high-risk and high-endurance exercises, including survival training.

Troops are parachuted on to islands where they have to survive without adequate supplies of food or water.

In August last year, some unit members swam 12km. All are trained sharpshooters.

Two years ago, a large-scale manoeuvre in the Nanjing region involved the troops seizing control of an "enemy" airport.

August 5, 1999

Jacques deLisle is a Senior Fellow of FPRI and Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

WHO'S AFRAID OF FALUN GONG?

by Jacques deLisle

Why have China's rulers launched a crackdown on Falun Gong? Why did party chiefs declare the group a serious threat to the Communist Party and the most grave danger to the regime since the Tiananmen movement of 1989? Why has the leadership ordered a massive effort to denounce the group, destroy millions of its publications, detain thousands of its members, and seek the arrest and extradition of its leader from the United States? What was so troubling about a movement whose millions of devotees practice traditional qigong exercises at home and in public parks, whose leader preaches an eclectic blend of Buddhist-inspired and Taoist- influenced quasi-religious beliefs mixed with folk millenarianism, and whose proclaimed goal is improving followers' physical and moral health by channeling cosmic energy and leading ethical lives? Although hardly presenting an immediate or substantial challenge to the regime's ability to rule, Falun Gong conjures nearly all of the demons that haunt the PRC's leaders. The dangers that the group evokes strike at each major aspect of the contemporary Chinese Communist Party's identity and the bases for its authority. Indeed, a review of possible reasons for the current campaign provides an archaeological tour of the several-layered character of the reform-era party-state and the vulnerabilities its leaders perceive.

First, the PRC's rulers have enough of a sense of history to recognize that they are -- or at least that many of their people see them as -- the latest in a succession of dynasties to rule China. From that perspective, Falun Gong has looked uncomfortably like the sects that were major forces in past rebellions that shook the empire or ended imperial lines. For the keepers of the House of Mao, Falun Gong's qigong routines surely called up images of the turn- of-the-century Fists of Righteousness and Harmony, whose members believed that their pugilist-like calisthenics made them immune to bullets and whose failed Boxer Uprising marked the death throes of the Qing dynasty. The Falun Gong leader Li Hongzhi's reported claims to share a birthday with the Buddha Sakyamuni and to possess supernatural powers suggested parallels to the mid-nineteenth century Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, whose adherents followed the self- proclaimed younger brother of Jesus Christ in a vast revolt that severely damaged China's last imperial dynasty. Its blend of popular Chinese religious doctrines and declinist rhetoric likely seemed all too reminiscent of the Yellow Turbans, White Lotus and other colorfully named sects that had rallied awesome forces of discontent around religious beliefs during earlier dynasties. When Falun Gong's adherents massed outside the senior Chinese leaders' compound in April in silent protest over their treatment by a regime that denied them the protection and status generally accorded to law-abiding organizations, the denizens of Zhongnanhai doubtless heard echoes of the popular movements that challenged the emperors who once lived in the Imperial Palace next door (as well as the reverberations of the Tiananmen demonstrations of 1989).

For party leaders with an especially strong penchant for history and hyperbole, the repeated Falun Gong demonstrations in Beijing and many other cities this spring and summer, along with other signs of the group's widespread following, could set tongues wagging about signs of the loss of the mandate of heaven - the traditional Chinese moral right to rule, the forfeiture of which often presaged an imperial line-ending popular rebellion. Such fears would seem especially vivid for those in the elite who see their Communist "dynasty" plagued by corruption at lower levels and headed by a fourth emperor who appears not to be the equal of his predecessor or of the founding emperor.

Second, China's leaders also realize that they are, and that they need to remain, the heirs to the party of Yan'an and Civil War days - the populist and popular organization that rode to power on a wave of support from the masses, especially the peasantry. In this respect, Falun Gong and groups like it may be more disconcerting than pro-democracy dissidents and overtly political movements. The democracy and human rights activists of the 1970s and 1980s and the student-led demonstrations of the late 1980s may have been dangerous signals of discontent among China's rising generation of educated elites. But such movements appear to become most worrisome to party and government leaders when they link up with ordinary city-dwellers and unauthorized workers' organizations, as they did during the Tiananmen demonstrations and related pro-democracy drives in 1989. Falun Gong has shown that it holds considerable appeal for an urban mass base, with even official PRC sources' low-end estimates reporting millions of followers. While many of its adherents are relatively privileged white-collar and educated types, Falun Gong seems to be most attractive to those who have not fared especially well during the reform era, including the elderly, the unemployed and many people socialized under high socialism who have not managed a comfortable transition to a market-based order.

Although the evidence is far more sketchy, Falun Gong does have many adherents in China's villages as well. The kinds of ideas and practices associated with the group could be expected to resonate with the inhabitants of the vast countryside no less than with the urbanites who have been Falun Gong's core constituency. If they do catch on more widely, such teachings and activities could become ideological and organizational focal points for the widespread but still-diffuse resentment that rural residents feel about corruption, favoritism, taxes, fees, and a host of other issues of economics and fairness. Party leaders appear to have taken Falun Gong's demonstrated and prospective mass appeal seriously, and have sought to undermine it. In reports that often quote ordinary people who have renounced the group or claim to have been harmed by it, the official media have repeatedly attacked Li Hongzhi and Falun Gong's agents as liars and frauds who have duped common folk and ruined their health or even cost them their lives.

Third, the Chinese Communist Party remains a self- consciously Leninist institution. On this score, Falun Gong touched a pair of sensitive nerves. Its ability to enlist a significant number of party members indicated weaknesses in the party's internal discipline, which could put at risk the party-state's capacity to govern. One striking event early in the drive against Falun Gong was the publication of an almost Cultural Revolution-style confession by prominent Beijing adherent Li Qihua, a retired People's Liberation Army lieutenant general who had impeccable revolutionary credentials (having participated in the Long March of the 1930s, the epic journey that the CCP regards as its defining moment) and who had held extremely sensitive posts (including director of the medical center that treats China's top leaders). And there have been other revelations of senior cadres' and ordinary party members' and government officials' involvement in Falun Gong's activities, including the April demonstration outside Zhongnanhai. To deal with such problems, the party's central leadership issued the most heavily emphasized measure of the current campaign. It directed Communist Party members who had joined the "cult" to sever their ties and required participation in re- education sessions - exercises reminiscent of the pre-reform era that included criticism sessions and study of approved documents to reinstill the ideological rectitude expected of those who staff the party, state and army apparatuses.

Falun Gong represents a challenge to the party-state's Leninist monopoly of organization, especially political organization. The group's internal workings remain shadowy, perhaps even to those trying to crush it. Although official PRC sources have asserted that it is highly organized, most accounts indicate that Falun Gong does not have an elaborate command structure. But that fact, if true, may give little comfort to party officials who are worried about the political impact of Falun Gong and similar groups. The CCP itself, after all, spent many of its early years in scattered cells and fragmented revolutionary base areas, held together largely by a common set of values and goals and (at times) an acknowledged set of leaders. And the CCP did it without modern technology, such as the internet and cell phones, which Falun Gong and contemporary political dissidents have employed, or even faxes, which the pro-democracy activists of 1989 used effectively. The eerily spontaneous-seeming appearance of thousands of Falun Gong followers in central Beijing in April and in several cities on more recent occasions show, at the very least, an effective substitute for a strong, conventional organizational apparatus.

Whatever Falun Gong's institutional characteristics, party leaders have been determined to dismantle the organization, resorting to techniques reminiscent of the Mao era as well as the post-Tiananmen period. In addition to the traditional vehicle of a party-led, propaganda-laden campaign targeting the masses and study sessions for errant cadres, the regime has deployed the relatively new legal tools that are a much-touted hallmark of the reform era. Like many political dissident groups in recent years, Falun Gong and its umbrella entity, the Falun Dafa Research Institute, have been branded "illegal organizations." The authorities have condemned them for conducting public activities without having the proper permits and registration - approvals that were, at best, unlikely to have been granted once Falun Gong had begun to be identified as an unsavory association a few years ago. As has happened to participants in other unauthorized and semi-organized mass movements, many of the group's members have been arrested - or, more commonly, detained without arrest - and Li Hongzhi has been cited for offenses relating to the establishment and operation of an illegal organization. Chief among these is the innocuous-sounding but legally and politically significant crime of disturbing the public order. Claims in the press that Falun Gong's plans included challenging the party and government, and that participation in the sect had driven some members to murder or suicide, suggested that more serious criminal charges could follow. Fourth, the reform-era Chinese leadership has defined itself largely as directing a developmental state, thereby claiming legitimacy on the basis of the rising levels of material prosperity that have been the defining achievement of the Deng and post-Deng era. Groups like Falun Gong point unnervingly to two possible weaknesses in this strategy. Most simply, the group's popularity among those who have not done particularly well under the reforms underscores the perils of betting too heavily on economic growth. Falun Gong's rapid ascension suggests that mechanisms could emerge quickly to channel and amplify discontent arising from general or sectoral economic pain -- hardly an idle worry for generally pro-reform leaders facing problems that include the unresolved plight of the losers in previous rounds of reform, the current leveling off of growth rates in even the booming coastal cities, and the soon-unavoidable costs of restructuring state-owned industries and banks.

Falun Gong's appeal also suggests that, while "to get rich is glorious," it may not be enough for everyone. The rise of such a group (like the revival of more conventional religions) is a reminder of moral or spiritual needs, ones that the CCP's widely disdained Marxism-Leninism/Mao Zedong Thought/Deng Xiaoping Theory or its watered-down campaigns for "socialist spiritual civilization" have not been able to fill. Some proponents of the crackdown on Falun Gong may even have seen the movement's popularity as a sign that some of the theories of Western social science could be right - that the turn to markets in the economic realm leads to the emergence of a marketplace of ideas and pressures for democracy. If so, and despite the group's lack of affinity for contemporary Western-style political norms, the apparent popular demand for Falun Gong could indicate dangerous stresses in the structure of "market-Leninism." Whatever their particular analyses of the situation, conservative elements in the leadership appear to have seen in the Falun Gong controversy an opportunity to reinvigorate the party's ideological work through a mass campaign and intra-party rectification -- pursuits that have strikingly, and almost surely by design, slighted the reform era's dominant rhetoric of market-oriented growth.

Fifth, and partly reflecting a sense of the risks of relying on economic performance as the basis for the party's claim of a right to rule, China's post-Mao administration has recast itself as a nationalist regime. In doing so, the party has partly returned to its roots, evoking its role as the principal force fighting against the Japanese and for national unity in the 1930s and 1940s. The strategy also has stressed more recent goals and accomplishments, including the PRC's acknowledged rise as a world power and its related march toward redemption of the remaining humiliations of nineteenth-century colonialism by means of the reintegration of Hong Kong, Macau and, it hopes, Taiwan. In recent years, the regime has played the nationalism card as its ideological trump in attempting to undercut support for dissent. Time and again, from the Democracy Wall in 1979 through the democracy movement in 1989 to the China Democracy Party in 1998-99, official sources have vigorously denounced the regime's adversaries as the tools of foreign interests and, at least implicitly, as traitors to China. Both drawing upon and stirring up popular nativist sentiments, this approach seems to have had some success against those pro-democracy dissidents who have drawn inspiration from Western thinkers and developed contacts with like-minded foreigners and exiled dissidents.

This tactic has been largely unavailable, however, against so clearly home-grown a group as Falun Gong. Despite party spokesmen's best efforts, it appears that they cannot make much out of the fact that Falun Gong's leader now lives in New York or that some of its internet communications originate abroad. The official press has called the group a tool of behind-the-scenes foreign forces and a product of alien cultural infiltration. But those accusations seem to ring hollow when directed against a strikingly indigenous enterprise espousing heavily non-Western doctrines. Some of the claims are tortured indeed, blaming a hostile Western- dominated international environment for the party's vulnerability to the kinds of eruptions of feudal superstition manifested in Falun Gong.

Groups like Falun Gong put the party's nationalist recipe under considerable strain in a more general way as well. While the CCP's recent ideology has touted many aspects of Chinese values and has embraced wholeheartedly the goal of a rich and powerful China, it has been, at best, abidingly queasy about many elements of traditional Chinese culture, especially the more anarchistic and supernaturalist strains. Campaigns against Falun Gong or similar groups risk exposing a gap between such elite agendas and authentically Chinese popular proclivities. The official press's odd trotting out of eminent scientists to expose Li Hongzhi's superstitious nonsense and pseudo-science strikes a tinny note, more in tune with a stale Marxist or post-Mao technocratic faith in a simplistic form of scientific rationalism than with the kinds of sentiments at the grassroots that have provided fertile soil for Falun Gong. The shrill tone and scattershot approach of the broader campaign against the "cult" bespeak a high level of elite agitation or an attempt to convey the intensity of the authorities' opposition more than they suggest confidence that the denunciations will resonate with, or persuade, a Chinese mass audience.

Finally, China's leaders during the last two decades have abandoned pretensions to totalitarianism in favor of a more accommodating form of undemocratic rule. They have bound their party to an implicit social contract with their citizenry: Ordinary Chinese can enjoy spheres of autonomy and room for private pursuits, free from political scrutiny and ideological demands, so long as they do not use that "space" to engage in political activities that might challenge the regime. The PRC's rulers thus have permitted and, in return, demanded a "depoliticization" or "civilianization" of a wide range of social and economic activity.

The flap over Falun Gong has exposed some ambiguities in this contract's terms, and revealed a possible penchant among the leadership for narrowing, illiberal constructions. The issue has been how "political" an enterprise Falun Gong is or could become. The group's principal visible activities and its avowed aims are apolitical enough. The official account, of course, has painted a radically different picture of a megalomaniac and his followers plotting to overthrow the party and the law, and to take the place of the government.

There is a more subtle question here as well. At some point in the emergence of a civil society, initially non-political organizations typically begin to seek a voice in how they are governed, especially with respect to policies that directly affect the group and the issues it sees as important. Some of Falun Gong's activities might be perceived as scattered signs of that sort of development in Chinese society. This is particularly true of the mass gatherings at public buildings by members seeking official recognition for the group and protesting the escalating government-imposed restrictions on their activities. Although some of those acts were precipitated by the regime's own moves against Falun Gong, such modest signs of potential pressure from below for structural political change may be enough, in the eyes of some of China's top leaders, to have warranted a sharpening of the post-Mao era's blunted authoritarian edge. An apparent dip in the political fortunes of Premier Zhu Rongji and the agenda of bold reform presumably has meant stronger support for a hard line against Falun Gong. At the same time, the care taken to assuage the worries of practitioners of approved religions and ordinary qigong suggests that much of the leadership was ambivalent about, or at least aware of the delicacy of, undertakings that could appear to compromise some of the reform era's defining promises.

As has occurred regularly in the PRC's suppression of political dissent movements, the fear of chaos, luan, has been the subtext (and sometimes the text) of the call for repressive measures against Falun Gong. Ironically, such apprehension about the changes spawned by liberalization has sounded relatively plausible precisely because political reform in China has been so limited. What otherwise might be unremarkable features in the emergence of a robust civil society can seem to portend disarray where there are not adequate public institutions to channel and incorporate such demands and participation from below.

None of this, of course, means that Falun Gong really has imperiled Communist Party rule or that party leaders think it has - unless Jiang Zemin and his subordinates have information about the power of the group, or the weakness of the party, that differs wildly from what outside observers have seen or believed to be possible. While it is not inconceivable that Falun Gong will survive and will someday grow into a major danger in its own right, for now it has been more a Rorschach test for China's rulers. In Falun Gong, they can see traces of the traits that, if repeated on a much larger scale and sustained for a much longer period, could strike hard at the party's principal weak points and undermine each of the major pillars of its right and ability to rule. And the leadership in Beijing surely has recognized that there is little reason to believe that Falun Gong's particular organization and doctrines have had a unique and irreproducible appeal. To the extent that the drive against Falun Gong exceeds the usual harsh response meted out to groups posing similarly modest threats, the reason may well be that Chinese leaders have sensed that the group symbolizes or foreshadows more serious hazards.

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BAD ANALYSIS: CONVENTIONALIST WWII-LOGISTICS BY SEA MINDSET POOH-POOHs THE ENEMY LIKE WE DID BEFORE KOREA

We will not outline a better strategy for the evil CHICOMS but we will say that STRATFOR is underestimating the enemy by projecting their own lazy-American way of war biases.

STRATFOR's
Global Intelligence Update
Weekly Analysis August 9, 1999

China's Threat to Taiwan: The Strategy of Bluff

Summary:

China has taken to threatening Taiwan again, and people are asking what China will do. We have turned to the question of what China can achieve against Taiwan. In our view, it is not militarily capable of mounting a serious threat. Weaknesses in China's navy and air force mean that Taiwan is capable of defending itself quite readily. If the U.S. goes to Taiwan's aid, which we think it will, China will suffer a massive defeat in attempting to take Taiwan.

China knows it.

[Editor: do they? Read the jerks article at the top of this page]

Why is it mounting this challenge? Two reasons: First, to demonstrate Beijing's will against divisive forces inside of China; second, to create a sense of embattlement that justifies increased repression inside of China in the name of patriotism.

Analysis:

Tension between Beijing and Taipei has escalated to the point where Beijing is making military threats against Taiwan. Analysts generally have focused on what Beijing might choose to do. We think it is important to consider carefully what Beijing is actually capable of doing. Beijing's military options are more limited than its rhetoric, particularly if the United States is prepared to defend Taiwan. However, even if the United States were to abandon Taiwan and remain neutral in a Beijing-Taipei confrontation, it is our view that Beijing would face severe difficulties in mounting a serious threat against Taiwan.

Let us begin with the obvious. China is an enormous country with a large standing army. Taiwan is much smaller, an island separated from the mainland by the Taiwan Straits, which are less than 100 miles wide at the narrowest point. The western portion of Taiwan, the part facing China, is a relatively flat plain, while the eastern portion is more rugged. The island is several hundred miles long but less than one hundred miles wide. Thus, if the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) were able to cross the Taiwan Straits, they would find a terrain favorable to lodgment in the western half of the country, with harbors adequate for a build- up of men and materiel. This would allow for a campaign into the more rugged eastern portion; China could also isolate and conquer the capital of Taipei in the north. All of this is built around a huge "if" - if the PLA can mount a sustainable amphibious operation against Taiwan.

The geopolitics of the confrontation reflects, in some sense, the situation between Germany and Britain following the fall of France in 1940. If the Wehrmacht had been able to close with and engage the British army, they would certainly have defeated it. However, the Wehrmacht had to first cross the English Channel. No matter how powerful the Wehrmacht might have been, its strength was irrelevant to the prior task of forcing the channel. The Germans would have had to carry out an amphibious operation that would not only have to land troops on Britain's shore, but would also have to continue to supply and reinforce those troops. In order to do that, the Germans had to defeat the Royal Navy. Unable muster anywhere near the necessary naval forces to challenge the Royal Navy in the channel, the Germans attempted to first establish air superiority over the channel and southeastern England. The theory was that with air superiority over the Channel and the use of mines, the Royal Navy would be forced out of the Channel, opening the way for an invasion of Britain. The attempt to establish air superiority failed, which meant the basic theory was never tested.

The Germans abandoned the effort to invade Britain, substituting instead a submarine-based naval blockade designed to cut off British supply lines to the empire and the United States. The new goal was to shatter Britain's economy and force it to capitulate. That attempt failed as well.

Stratfor already addressed last week the question of an amphibious operation by the PLA against Taiwan, in http://www.stratfor.com/asia/specialreports/special40.htm ] If the United States were to side with Taiwan and send carrier battle groups to or near the Taiwan Straits, the Chinese would face the same problem the Germans faced with Britain. The Chinese navy would be unable to pose a direct challenge to combined U.S.-Taiwan naval forces. Its only option would be to try to establish air superiority over the Straits, posing an airborne threat against U.S.-Taiwan naval forces. This threat would drive them out of the Straits and allow Chinese amphibious forces to cross over. In short, China is in the same position as Germany in 1940. That is not a happy precedent for China.

China is not likely to achieve air superiority over the Taiwan Straits through a conventional air campaign. Taiwan currently has about 150 F-16s, over 250 F-15s, as well as 60 Mirage 2000s. These are backed up by four Hawkeye battle management platforms, used by he U.S. Navy for air-sea battle management. China's air force has arger numbers of aircraft, but none are as sophisticated as aiwan's. Taiwan would win any battle for air superiority and ould not require U.S. assistance, save possibly for the replacement of munitions. And even this may not be altogether necessary. Indeed, we could further argue that even if Taiwan naval forces were to face Chinese naval forces directly (without U.S. Naval assistance), Taiwan's naval forces, coupled with Taiwan's air force, would be sufficient to raise the risks of an attempted invasion enough to deter attack.

This leaves China with an unconventional option. To be more precise, China is left with a variation on the Luftwaffe strategy. Unable to invade until it achieves air superiority and unable to achieve air superiority using conventional aircraft, China could seek to suppress Taiwan's air defenses with cruise missile attacks on Taiwan's air fields. China could conduct a battle against Taiwan's air force, based on the following assumptions: It has developed cruise missiles with sufficient stealth to penetrate Taiwan air defenses; it has sufficient precision to strike targets as small as aircraft and command and communication nodes; it has sufficient explosive power to penetrate revetments; and it has sufficient numbers to be effective. The goal would be to render Taiwan's air forces inoperative by destroying the command, control and communications required for managing the air battle, while also destroying much of Taiwan's air force on the ground. Indeed, if China had anti-ship versions of such missiles, they could conduct a simultaneous campaign against Taiwan's navy.

There is every reason to believe that China has such missiles and in sufficient numbers to make a difference. Certainly, they have been working on such missiles for several years. But there is an inherent weakness in any over-the-horizon missile attack: intelligence. The foundation of U.S. cruise missile warfare has been superb intelligence. The Chinese clearly have reconnaissance satellites, but it is not clear that these satellites are sufficiently sophisticated to provide real time intelligence. Human intelligence could fill in some of the gaps, but ultimately, launching missiles against aircraft on the ground requires extremely tight time-lines to succeed. The attacker must know what aircraft is where within the time frame of the missile strike in order to be effective. This is a missing link in any Chinese missile attack, and it is not one that is easy to solve quickly. Space control is the key to sea-lane control in the age of cruise missiles.

It appears that China does not have sufficient satellites nor sufficiently robust communications links that the United States could not shut down. The U.S. must have developed anti-satellite capabilities in the past decade, and the ability of the U.S. to jam communications is second to none. That means the satellite-to- ground station link and the ability of the ground stations to disseminate information can be rendered useless. At the very least, the Chinese will have to assume so. Even more important, China is vulnerable to counter-strike. The American ability to identify Chinese launch facilities through use of U.S. satellites and other means would permit rapid counter-strikes on Chinese launchers. Now, the Chinese have been acquiring Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), which could be a useful substitute for satellites in this type of environment, save that the UAV is vulnerable to gunfire, jamming and, above all, mechanical failure. Were China to launch a missile based Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) campaign against Taiwan, they would quickly find themselves on the short end of the stick.

Thus, it appears to us that China cannot establish air superiority over the Straits even against Taiwan alone. If it has a mass of cruise missiles and reliable intelligence capabilities, then China could threaten Taiwan's air superiority with a concerted attack on its air fields. But even here, Taiwan could strike back at launchers with its air force and its own cruise missiles, assuming only that the United States were willing to share intelligence with Taiwan. If the United States becomes a combatant, China cannot succeed in invading Taiwan. If the United States merely provides Taiwan with real time intelligence, Taiwan can prevent China from achieving air superiority over the Straits.

This leaves us, using our 1940 scenario, with the final option: blockade. Here again, the air power factor comes into play. Using surface vessels close to Taiwan will not work. A deployment at a substantial distance from Taiwan would require a large number of surface vessels able to operate at great distances for an extended period of time. China's navy is primarily designed for coastal patrol. It has only a handful of destroyers and frigates, not nearly enough to conduct an extensive blockade. China has about five nuclear attack submarines and other conventional submarines, but Taiwan has some 18 anti-submarine warfare destroyers and 12 ASW frigates. Moreover, submarines are a poor choice of weapons for a blockade with political overtones. They are better at sinking ships than stopping them. Presumably, China would be looking to keep third parties out of the war rather than bringing them into it. If China were forced to declare, as Germany was, unlimited submarine warfare, striking all vessels within a very large battle area, it would generate support for Taiwan. This is especially true since the number of submarines available to China is insufficient for the creation of an effective cordon sanitaire.

Therefore, it appears to us that China, whatever it might wish to do, is incapable of mounting an amphibious operation against Taiwan. It could, of course, choose to launch nuclear missiles against Taiwan, obliterating it. But given the economic value of Taiwan to China even in its current political role, and given China's insistence that Taiwan is part of China, using nuclear weapons would not seem to be in China's best interest. When the threat, however indeterminate, of a U.S. response is factored in, it seems unlikely that China will bombard Taiwan with nuclear tipped missiles. It is uncertain that China would not use conventionally armed missiles to make a political point, but we doubt they would use weapons of mass destruction.

Taiwan by itself is a formidable foe. However, it is our view that the United States will participate in the defense of Taiwan. Taiwan is an essential link in any American global strategy. While the United States toys with its appropriate role on the mainland of Eurasia, there remains a fixed assumption that U.S. maritime supremacy, which is the foundation of U.S. national security, must be maintained. In order to continue this strategy, the United States has historically worked to sustain a presence in the waters off of Asia. This archipelago strategy, forged with the turn-of- the-century seizure of the Philippines, assumes the United States must maintain a blocking position on the north-south trade routes of Asia. It is a shield strategy to block Asian powers from breaking into the central Pacific and a strike strategy in which nearby bases are available for operations against Asia.

This archipelago strategy matured fully after World War II in a line of maritime relationships stretching from the Aleutians through Japan and Okinawa, Taiwan and Philippines to Singapore. Because this strategy is currently in tatters, with unrest in Indonesia, poor defense relations with the Philippines, and growing unease in Japan over its dependency on the U.S., abandoning Taiwan would be strategically demented. It is the perfect trade route blocker, shield and sword. Given how little Taiwan needs from the United States to secure it against China, it is unthinkable that the U.S. would not provide it.

Strategy aside, politics dictates a defense of Taiwan. Clinton is on the defensive over China. Between campaign finance, spy scandals and a general sense that U.S. policy on China was poorly implemented, the current administration would be placed in an impossible position should China attack Taiwan. Regardless of its intent, the failure of the administration to come to Taiwan's aid would be read as confirmation of the worst charges of its critics. Having aided Kosovo, whose strategic interest to the United States was dubious, the failure to defend Taiwan, whose strategic importance is manifest, would be politically impossible for the Clinton administration. This means that while Taiwan is formidable, we would expect the United States to participate in its defense as well. And China knows all this.

In short, for all of China's bluster, we do not see China as having the military capability, at this time, to threaten Taiwan. In order to develop this capability, it would have to move its reconnaissance satellite program ahead by several generations and undertake a naval construction program of substantial proportions. China knows all of this perfectly well. It knows that it is not going to invade Taiwan and it is not going to blockade Taiwan. It may fire a missile or two at Taiwan, but even that is unlikely.

Then why is China carrying on so? There are two reasons. First, Beijing is desperately trying to assert its authority throughout the country. It is terribly afraid of Tibetan and Xinjiang separatist, religious sects and party splits. It must show itself to be strong on Taiwan, because domestic factions could construe any sign of hesitation as a sign of weakness. When one is truly weak, one cannot afford to show it. Second, China needs something to rivet the nation's attention, create a sense of embattlement and justify the current enclosure as western investors turn away. A crisis with Taiwan and the United States is, like "wag the dog" scenarios in the United States, exactly what China's leadership needs at this moment.

Therefore, while China knows it does not have the wherewithal to invade Taiwan, its own people don't know and, quite possibly, the public in Taiwan and the United States don't know. Perhaps even Taiwan's leadership might be rattled by Chinese bluster. We doubt that though. The declaration of statehood was not the act of nervous men. Indeed, Taiwan seems intent on capitalizing on tension (see [ http://www.stratfor.com/asia/specialreports/special44.htm ] for a discussion of this). In our view, the threats against Taiwan tell us more about the current status of politics inside of China and the insecurities of the men around Jiang Zemin, than they tell us about geopolitical confrontations with Taiwan.

It does point out the need for the United States to clarify its maritime policy in Asia. The Taiwan issue is an opportunity to reexamine U.S. strategic relations with the rest of the Asian archipelago. This includes its relations with the Philippines and Singapore and careful consideration of what chaos in Indonesia would mean to the United States. The unintended consequence of China's threats against Taiwan will, we think, be a redefinition of U.S. Asian maritime strategy, if not by this administration, then by the next. Unwittingly, China is generating the force that will compel the U.S. to think through its post-cold war naval strategy in Asia.

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