NYT: Chinese Navy Buildup Gives Pentagon New Worries [View All]

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Chinese Navy Buildup Gives Pentagon New Worries
By JIM YARDLEY and THOM SHANKER

Published: April 8, 2005


ZHANJIANG, China - At a time when the American military is consumed with operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, global terrorism and the threat of nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran, China is presenting a new and strategically different security concern to America, as well as to Japan and Taiwan, in the western Pacific, Pentagon and military officials say.

China, these officials say, has smartly analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of the American military and has focused its growing defense spending on weapons systems that could exploit the perceived American weaknesses in case the United States ever needs to respond to fighting in Taiwan.

A decade ago, American military planners dismissed the threat of a Chinese attack against Taiwan as a 100-mile infantry swim. The Pentagon now believes that China has purchased or built enough amphibious assault ships, submarines, fighter jets and short-range missiles to pose an immediate threat to Taiwan and to any American force that might come to Taiwan's aid.

In the worst case in a Taiwan crisis, Pentagon officials say that any delay in American aircraft carriers reaching the island would mean that the United States would initially depend on fighter jets and bombers based on Guam and Okinawa, while Chinese forces could use their amphibious ships to go back and forth across the narrow Taiwan Strait.

Some American military analysts believe China could now defeat Taiwan before American forces could arrive at the scene, leaving a political decision about whether to attack, even though Taiwan would already be lost....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/08/international/asia/08china.html?hp&ex=1112932800&en=45e0b73ba7ac7c1c&ei=5094&partner=homepage