Should anti-Imperialists oppose only US imperialism?

[The world imperialist system today has entered a period of crisis, internal instability and disarray, growing internal conflict and inter-imperialist contention, conflict, and the beginnings of opposing bloc formations. It is a far-from-healthy and broadly discredited system, forcing the costs of its desperate wars and troubled (and false) bourgeois “recoveries” on the masses of people worldwide. Wave upon wave of resistance and rebellion has begun, sometimes toppling old imperialist puppets, though finding the path to create liberated societies very difficult. Fantasies that the US had, since WW2, successfully formed a system of efficient and unchallengable control of world imperialist domination, have fallen on hard times. Imperialist Russia and imperialist China have grown from the defeat of socialism and the seizure of power by capitalists, and have set upon an assertion of power and authority in regional, economic, political, military, monetary and financial affairs (though each is struggling to contain growing internal discontent). Anti-imperialists and revolutionaries who only think in the framework of decades-long opposition to US hegemony in the world system will look in vain, and to their own discredit, for friends or allies among the contending imperialists. The only path forward is to build revolutionary proletarian class-conscious parties and mass-based political forces with eyes wide open, independent of ties and influence by any and all imperialists.
Revolutionary Frontlines has recently received a new study from redpath.net, which examines the shape of the imperialist system today, with special emphasis on the still-debated role of China and Chinese imperialism. The introduction to this path-breaking study and analysis is posted here below. The entire document can be viewed at the website of http://www.red-path.net, where the document (produced by an independent research and writing group) was first posted. It can also be viewed and downloaded at http://www.mlmrsg.com/79-statements/82-is-china-an-imperialist-country-considerations-and-evidence. — Revolutionary Frontlines]

IS CHINA AN IMPERIALIST COUNTRY?  by NB Turner, et al.

It has long been known and understood that the entire world has been under the control of capitalist-imperialism. For a time, a section of this world broke from it, beginning with the victory of socialism in Russia and continuing through the Chinese Revolution, constituting a socialist world. Yet, in time, the socialist countries, through internal class struggles in politics and economics, were seized by capitalist conciliators and advocates, and then by capitalists themselves, who were largely within the ruling communist parties themselves. First in Russia, and later in China, when these counter-revolutions and coups took place, there ensued a period of entry and integration into the world imperialist system. The Soviet Union, at first under the existing signboard of socialism, continued much of its established national and economic power relations into a new social-imperialist bloc (socialist in name, imperialist in reality). The Russian capitalist-imperialist attempt to maintain this bloc, or important sections of what had been part of this bloc, and its historic allies, has continued in the years since the “socialist” signboard was discarded. In China, the defeat of the proletariat and the capitalist capture of state power, after the death of the great revolutionary Mao Zedong, have also led to a period of integration into the world imperialist system. China still operates under a “socialist” signboard, but has conducted itself unambiguously as a capitalist power.
Before the last decade, especially since the demise of the “socialist bloc,” the US was commonly seen as the sole Superpower, to which all other powers had to defer. The system which the US had designed, at the end of WW2, was global in scope, and to some more “democratic” in appearance than the old colonial empires. But it was built around the elitist privilege of power and authority, meaning the US as Superpower was at the centerpiece of the controls.
But in the last decade the imperialist world system is not what it used to be. Throughout the world, corrupt and comprador regimes have faced significant and often unprecedented mass popular opposition movements which have revealed the deep instability of the old neo-colonial arrangements.

Capitalist China rapidly expanding its share of inter-imperialist contention and rivalry

[After Mao Zedong died 35 years ago, bourgeois forces within the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party led by the opportunist (revisionist or false-Marxist) Teng Hsiao-Ping seized power and began a ruthless period of destroying socialism and of capitalist profiteering and accumulation (under false banners of “market socialism”,  “development” and “modernization”).  After re-organizing the Chinese workers to serve, for several years, the established Western imperialists as a “cheap labor” resource, the Chinese bourgeoisie, concentrated in both “state-owned” enterprises and private corporations,  launched a more open imperialist drive with foreign investments, global resource acquisition, military force expansion, expanded trade relations, and corollary  diplomatic, media, educational, cultural, and joint-venture monetary and finance-credit initiatives.  The following article details one area of this expansion — arms exports — which inevitably creates new deals for parts supplies, operational training, logistical integration, joint military training exercises, and other aspects of new alliance formation.

All who oppose imperialism, and who have learned so much from the oppression of many imperialist powers such as the British Empire and US imperialism, must take note of this development of Chinese Social-Imperialism (socialist in words, imperialist in deeds).  While China is not the largest, and there are certainly many smaller, imperialist powers within the single imperialist world system, the people have no interest in taking the side of one imperialist versus another.  Only when the people’s revolution destroys and banishes imperialism on a world scale will creative history on human terms truly begin. — Frontlines ed.]

China’s Arms Industry Makes Global Inroads

October 20, 2013

By EDWARD WONG and NICOLA CLARK, New York Times

BEIJING — From the moment Turkey announced plans two years ago to acquire a long-range missile defense system, the multibillion-dollar contract from a key NATO member appeared to be an American company’s to lose.

Members of Aviation Industry Corporation of China displayed a model of the JF-17 jet at an exposition in Beijing last month.

For years, Turkey’s military had relied on NATO-supplied Patriot missiles, built by the American companies Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, to defend its skies, and the system was fully compatible with the air-defense platforms operated by other members of the alliance.

There were other contenders for the deal, of course. Rival manufacturers in Russia and Europe made bids. Turkey rejected those — but not in favor of the American companies. Its selection last month of a little-known Chinese defense company, China Precision Machinery Export-Import Corp oration, stunned the military-industrial establishment in Washington and Brussels.

The sale was especially unusual because the Chinese missile defense system, known as the HQ-9, would be difficult to integrate with existing NATO equipment. China Precision is also subject to sanctions from the United States for selling technologies that the United States says could help Iran, Syria and North Korea develop unconventional weapons. A State Department spokeswoman said this month that American officials had expressed to the Turkish government “serious concerns” about the deal, which has not yet been signed.

Industry executives and arms-sales analysts say the Chinese probably beat out their more established rivals by significantly undercutting them on price, offering their system at $3 billion. Nonetheless, Turkey’s selection of a Chinese state-owned manufacturer is a breakthrough for China, a nation that has set its sights on moving up the value chain in arms technology and establishing itself as a credible competitor in the global weapons market.

Charting The Growth of China’s Military Capability

[A website devoted to “military education” has developed a graphic presentation on China’s program to develop their military capability.  While it certainly falls short of the ability to challenge the US/NATO force, they are certainly developing into a competitive world-class power within the world imperialist system.  Together with their expanding economic power, this deserves serious attention.  — Frontlines ed.]Source:  http://www.militaryeducation.org/chinese-military-growth/

China Is Seen Nearing U.S.’s Military Power in Region

[Petar Kujundzic/Reuters–A Chinese commander adjusts the cap of a soldier in Beijing, ahead of a visit by President François Hollande of France in April.]

By MARTIN FACKLER, New York Times,  May 1, 2013

TOKYO — China’s growing industrial might is likely to allow it to mount an increasingly formidable challenge to the military supremacy of the United States in the waters around China that include Japan and Taiwan, though it will probably seek to avoid an outright armed conflict, according to a detailed new report by a group of American researchers.

The report by the nine researchers, published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the most likely outcome for the next two decades showed China narrowing the gap with the United States in military abilities, in areas including building aircraft carriers and stealth fighter jets. At the same time, the report, to be released Friday, said China’s economic interdependence with the United States and the rest of Asia would probably prevent it from becoming a full-blown, cold-war-style foe, or from using military force to try to drive the United States from the region.

One of the authors, Michael D. Swaine, an expert on Chinese defense policy, called the report one of the first attempts to predict the longer-term consequences of China’s rise for a region whose growing economic prosperity has been largely a result of the peace and stability brought by American military hegemony. He said one conclusion was that the appearance of a new rival meant that, for better or for worse, the current American-dominated status quo might not last much longer.

“We wanted to ask, how should the United States deal with this possibility?” said Mr. Swaine, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment, based in Washington. “Can the United States continue with business as usual in the western Pacific, or must it start thinking of alternative ways to reassure the region about security?”

Israeli defense minister pledges closer ties with China’s military

[While some may blather about “politics makes strange bedfellows”, and others will urge turning a blind eye to such things and “pretend there’s nothing wrong”–in an imperialist world where both China and Israel partake and maneuver for powerful imperialist relations, this is only another step in the direction of “making things perfectly clear.”  — Frontlines ed.]

——————————————

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak speaks at a press conference held in the Embassy of Israel in Beijing on June 15. (Chen Lele/People's Daily Online)

Beijing, June 15, 2011–Israel expects to consolidate partnership with China’s military as well as to promote cooperation in technology and economy, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said during a press conference held in the Israeli Embassy in Beijing on June 14.

Barak’s last visit to China was 17 years ago as Israel’s chief of general staff. He said what impressed him most is that there has been a huge leap forward in everything he could see in Beijing.

Barak arrived in Beijing for meetings with senior officials, including Gen. Liang Guanglie, the Chinese minister of defense; Gen. Chen Bingde, chief of the general staff of the People’s Liberation Army, and Vice Premier Li Keqiang.

“In all of our meetings, we looked for ways with people in uniforms to consolidate the relationship between our defense establishments with a variety of common interests, from fighting terrorism to exchanging visits of soldiers and officers. I invited both the defense minister and chief of general staff to visit Israel,” he said.

180,000 protests in 2010: China’s Spending on Internal Policing Outstrips Defense Budget

Chinese paramilitary police training

March 06, 2011

By Bloomberg News

March 6 (Bloomberg) — China spent more on its internal police force than on its armed forces in 2010, and plans to do the same this year, as the government deployed security forces around the country to control growing social unrest.

China spent 548.6 billion yuan ($83.5 billion) on internal security last year, 6.7 percent more than budgeted and a 15.6 percent increase over 2009, the Finance Ministry said in a report released yesterday. Last year China spent 533.5 billion yuan on national defense, or 0.3 percent more than budgeted, according to the Finance Ministry.

The surge in public security spending comes as so-called mass incidents, everything from strikes to riots and demonstrations, are on the rise. There were at least 180,000 such incidents in 2010, twice as many as in 2006, Sun Liping, a professor of sociology at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, said in a Feb. 25 article in the Economic Observer.

The Telegraph (UK): “China preparing for armed conflict ‘in every direction'”

[As China emerges as an imperialist power, it speaks in boastful, exaggerated terms, as imperialists do.  Nonetheless, its strategic direction is clearly sketched in this piece.–Frontlines ed.]

China is preparing for conflict ‘in every direction’, the defence minister said on Wednesday in remarks that threaten to overshadow a visit to Beijing by his US counterpart next month.

By Peter Foster, Beijing 29 Dec 2010

“In the coming five years, our military will push forward preparations for military conflict in every strategic direction,” said Liang Guanglie in an interview published by several state-backed newspapers in China. “We may be living in peaceful times, but we can never forget war, never send the horses south or put the bayonets and guns away,” Mr Liang added.

China repeatedly says it is planning a “peaceful rise” but the recent pace and scale of its military modernisation has alarmed many of its neighbours in the Asia-Pacific, including Japan which described China’s military build-up as a “global concern” this month.

Mr Liang’s remarks come at a time of increasingly difficult relations between the Chinese and US armed forces which a three-day visit by his counterpart Robert Gates is intended to address. A year ago China froze substantive military relations in protest at US arms sales to Taiwan and relations deteriorated further this summer when China objected to US plans to deploy one of its nuclear supercarriers, the USS George Washington, into the Yellow Sea off the Korean peninsula.

US military chief Gates warns China not to underestimate US power

[The US continues to reassert it’s #1 position in the world imperialist system, and China as the largest significant emerging imperialist power is asserting a greater regional hegemony in Asia. US military chief Robert Gates (mis-named “defence”  secretary) has been dispatched to China, speaking in arrogant, bullying, and condescending language against the “insolent upstart,” China.–Frontlines ed.]

US war chief Gates, being briefed on Afghanistan (file foto)

Michael Sainsbury, China Correspondent, The Australian
January 10, 2011

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has signalled his concern over China’s rapid military modernisation.

His move is highlighted by the latest picture of a Chinese stealth bomber, as he begins talks aimed at repairing security relations in Beijing today.

But Dr Gates warned China not to underestimate the US or the continuing power of its military.

“I’ve watched this sort of cyclical view of American decline come around two or three times, perhaps most dramatically in the latter half of the 1970s,” Dr Gates told reporters en route to China.

“And my general line for those both at home and around the world who think the US is in decline is that history’s dustbins are filled with countries that underestimated the resilience of the United States.”

Philippines, China sign military logistics deal

Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff General Ricardo David Jr. meets China's Defense Minister Liang Guanglie (right)

[In pursuit of its emerging imperialist interests and of Asian regional hegemony, post-socialist and now-capitalist China has no problem assisting reactionary regimes like the Philippines in their counter-insurgency campaigns against revolutionary forces.–Frontlines ed.]

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/12/06/10/philippines-china-sign-military-logistics-deal

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines, a long-time US ally and former colony, said it will sign a logistics supply deal with China to source military equipment to combat domestic security threats, including from Maoist rebels.

General Ricardo David, Chief of Staff of the 130,000-member Armed Forces of the Philippines, will fly on Tuesday to Beijing, where he will meet senior defense and army officials and also tour military facilities, the Philippine military said.

David will sign a defense logistics deal with his counterpart in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), with talks expected to cover regional security concerns, including tensions in the Korean peninsula and the peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea, where Beijing and Manila have competing claims.

US Navy steps up pressure on China to bring North Korea to the negotiating table

USS George Washington, a floating airbase aimed at North Korea and China

[Commander-in-Chief Obama’s decision to send the USS George Washington and  supporting warships to the North China Sea is a full-court military press aimed at intimidating North Korea and putting greater pressure on China to bring North Korea back to the 6 country talks that have been suspended for months.  North Korea’s willingness to strike back at military provocations by South Korea (such as South Korea’s continual military exercises along the border), and its willingness to expend enormous economic resources on its military and nuclear program are not simply “defensive.”  The North Korean government hopes to use the threat of its powerful military to South Korea to extract substantial economic aid and investments (such as the South Korean export zones that already exist in the North) from South Korea and the US in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons program. It remains to be seen how successful tthe US political/military strategy will be.–Frontlines ed.]

BEIJING – China expressed concern about South Korea’s planned joint military exercise with the United States and said it was maintaining contact with Washington over tensions on the Korean peninsula, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. “We have noted the relevant reports and express our concern about this,” a spokesman for the ministry, Hong Lei, told a regular news conference.

South Korea’s foreign ministry said on Thursday a joint military exercise with the United States due later this month will send a clear message to North Korea. The resumption of stalled six-party talks to persuade Pyongyang to abandon nuclear disarmament  [sic] was “urgently” needed, Hong said, adding that all parties in the dispute in the Korean peninsula should “do more to ease” the situation.

China has been urged by the United States and its regional allies, South Korea and Japan, to help rein in Pyongyang after North Korea shelled a South Korean island on Tuesday, killing four people and triggering a confrontation. Beijing was angered earlier this year by joint U.S.-South Korea naval exercises off the South Korean coast that those two nations said were meant to warn North Korea. Beijing said such exercises could threaten its security and regional stability.

South Korea (backed by the US) clashes with North Korea (backed by China)

[Based on our present knowledge, the latest armed clash between North and South Korea is based on this sequence of events: Tens of thousands of South Korean forces were conducting military exercises near the border with North Korea;  South Korean forces fired their artillery into waters near Yeonpyeong island that are claimed by both the North and the South;  North Korean artillery fire hit a South Korean marine installation on the island; and South Korea returned artillery fire. The US and Western imperialist press immediately charged that this was an “unprovoked attack” by North Korea.  Obama then ordered the USS George Washington aircraft carrier to South Korea to conduct “joint exercises” in a show of solidarity with the South Korean government.

As the article posted below points out, the dispatch of the USS George Washington to the Yellow Sea is also meant to send a message to the Chinese government to place more pressure on North Korea to back off militarily. The US imperialists are well aware that China is the only country with any leverage over North Korea, since it supplies most of North Korea’s energy and food.  China does this not out of “socialist solidarity” (neither of them are socialist), but to keep North Korea from collapsing, generating a flood of refugees into China. Even more importantly, a disintegrating North Korea could lead to a unified Korea, with a US military presence on China’s border.

The South Korean government claimed that it was the victim of North Korean “aggression,” and threatened to launch air strikes on North Korean artillery bases. It also received assistance from the bourgeois media in ensuring that its responsibility for the armed clash would not be subject to public scrutiny. This response points to the “carrot and stick” approach of the South Korean government and the US imperialists to the North Korean government. The “stick” has consisted of tight economic sanctions and constant military pressure (including initiating some of these armed clashes) that force the North Korean government to match South Korean military spending. The “carrot” is the offer of substantial economic aid and investments (in export processing zones) if North Korea agrees to discontinue its nuclear weapons program.

There are two reasons underlying North Korea’s policy of engaging South Korean forces in “lightning” military actions (see the history of armed actions from 1999 to the present below): First, these continual armed clashes maintain political legitimacy and stability for a weak North Korean regime by raising the level of nationalism and reinforcing the official line that North Korea is under perpetual siege from the US and South Korea. Second, the hereditary “communist” dynasty that has ruled North Korea for decades is in a desperate economic situation, and is having great difficulty maintaining its huge military forces. To handle this situation, the North Korean government has been expanding its nuclear weapons program and engaging the South Korean military in small actions as bargaining chips to extract the largest amount of economic aid as possible from South Korea and the US.  This is a high-stakes gamble. The recent actions of the North Korean government will more likely lead to tighter Western sanctions and increased US pressure on China to force North Korea to back off from its military/nuclear ambitions–and come to terms with South Korea and US imperialism.–Frontlines ed]

New York Times, November 23, 2010

U.S. to Send Carrier for Joint Exercises Off Korea

Smoke on Yeonpyeong island after the artillery attack

WASHINGTON — President Obama and South Korea’s president agreed Tuesday night to hold joint military exercises as a first response to North Korea’s deadly shelling of a South Korean military installation, as both countries struggled for the second time this year to keep a North Korean provocation from escalating into war.

What steps should the U.S. take after the artillery attack on a South Korean island?

The exercise will include sending the aircraft carrier George Washington and a number of accompanying ships into the region, both to deter further attacks by the North and to signal to China that unless it reins in its unruly ally it will see an even larger American presence in the vicinity.

The decision came after Mr. Obama attended the end of an emergency session in the White House Situation Room and then emerged to call President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea to express American solidarity and talk about a coordinated response. But as a former national security official who dealt frequently with North Korea in the Bush administration, Victor Cha, said just a few hours before the attack began, North Korea is “the land of lousy options.”

Mr. Obama is once again forced to choose among unpalatable choices: responding with verbal condemnations and a modest tightening of sanctions, which has done little to halt new attacks; starting military exercises that are largely symbolic; or reacting strongly, which could risk a broad war in which South Korea’s capital, Seoul, would be the first target.

Inter-imperialist rivalry in Asia heats up between US and China

Obama and Hu Jintao make nice for public consumption

 

[This article provides a useful overview of the current state of economic, political and military contention between the US and China in Asia. However, it does not not identify China as an imperialist power in its own right, and it one-sidely portrays the US imperialists as “encircling” China. This makes it impossible to understand the capitalist/imperialist nature of China’s growing economic investments in Asia, as well as China’s development of military ties with Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. This not a “defensive” reaction to pressure from US imperialism, but is a calculated strategy of a newly emerged imperialist power that is trying to break into the US’ traditional spheres of influence in Asia, and elsewhere in the world.–Frontlines ed]

World Socialist Web Site, 13 November 2010

US diplomatic offensive tightens strategic encirclement of China

Washington’s aggressive diplomatic campaign in Asia over the past two weeks has amounted, in the words of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to “a full court press” against China, with the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean emerging as potential future theatres of war.

President Barack Obama’s visits to India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan, and Clinton’s trips to Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia, sought to either strengthen existing alliances or create new partnerships for a US-led strategic encirclement of China.

Obama fervently courted India, China’s regional nuclear-armed rival. He urged New Delhi to become a “world power” and backed its bid to become a UN Security Council permanent member. Clinton twice reiterated that Washington could invoke the US-Japan Security Treaty to militarily support Japan against China in the conflict over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands in the East China Sea. Vietnam announced it was ready to hire out its strategic Cam Ranh Bay port in the South China Sea “to naval ships from all countries”—with Washington the most likely client. Canberra agreed to provide greater US access to its military facilities, especially those in northern Australia.

US-Chinese rivalry looms over Hillary Clinton’s visit to Vietnam

[The two articles that follow (promoting American interests) paint a detailed picture of the growing rivalry in Southeast Asia between US imperialism and China, which has emerged as an imperialist power in its own right.  While Vietnam like China is a thoroughly capitalist country with a one-party state that masquerades as “communist”, and has been propped up by billions of dollars in foreign investment in all areas of its economy, it is worried about its big northern neighbor.  Now the Vietnamese government is being courted aggressively by the US in order to counter China’s growing economic and military power. This will be a bitter experience for many Vietnamese who experienced the US war that killed upwards of 2 million soldiers and civilians and ravaged their country from 1965-75.  A US-Vietnam alliance may sail into some rough waters in the years ahead.-ed]

US Secretary of State Clinton appearing in Hanoi with Vietnamese general

 

China’s rise prompts Vietnam to strengthen ties to other nations

Washington Post, October 30, 2010

HANOI – Three weeks ago, an exhibition opened at the Vietnam Military History Museum. On one side of a long hall, the mementos of Vietnam’s 25 years of war against the United States and France – letters of surrender, quotations from Ho Chi Minh, hand grenades and AK-47 rifles – lined the walls. Nothing new there.

But on the other side, the History Museum was actually making history. Along those walls hung daggers, paintings and quotations from Vietnam’s struggle with another rival: imperial China.  Battles dating to 1077, 1258 and the 14th and 18th centuries were featured in intricate detail.

Putting China on a par with “Western aggressors” marks a psychological breakthrough for Vietnam’s military and is troubling news for Beijing. For years, China has tried to forge a special relationship with Vietnam’s Communist government. But China’s rise – and its increasingly aggressive posture toward Vietnam – has alarmed the leadership of this country of 90 million, prompting it to look differently at its neighbor.

Beijing risks losing its status here of a fraternal Communist partner and being relegated to its longtime place as the empire on Vietnam’s northern border that has shaped and bedeviled this country for centuries. That change of perception has led Vietnam to embark on an extraordinary undertaking to befriend the world as a hedge against China. And prominent among its new intimates is the United States, which is equally eager for partners to help it cope with Beijing.

US building huge military base on Guam to contain China’s military buildup

[Some of the information in this article is out of date; more recent material has been posted at https://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/philippines-us-wants-to-setup-a-mini-subic-to-accomodate-rotating-american-troops-cpp/ — Frontlines ed.]

The Telegraph UK, 25 Oct 2010

The US is building an £8 billion super military base on the Pacific island of Guam in an attempt to contain China’s military build-up.The expansion will include a dock for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, a missile defence system, live-fire training sites and the expansion of the island’s airbase. It will be the largest investment in a military base in the western Pacific since the Second World War, and the biggest spend on naval infrastructure in decades.

A B-1B Lancer takes off from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam

However, Guam residents fear the build-up could hurt their ecosystem and tourism-dependent economy. Estimates suggest that the island’s population will rise by almost 50 per cent from its current 173,000 at the peak of construction. It will eventually house 19,000 Marines who will be relocated from the Japanese island of Okinawa, where the US force has become unpopular.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said that this could trigger serious water shortages. The EPA said that dredging the harbour to allow an aircraft carrier to berth would damage 71 acres of pristine coral reefs.  The EPA’s report said the build-up would “exacerbate existing substandard environmental conditions on Guam”.

Local residents’ concerns, however, have been sidelined by the US-China strategic competition. China has significantly expanded its fleet during the past decade, seeking to deter the US from intervening militarily in any future conflict over Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own, and to project power across disputed territories in the gas and oil-rich South China Sea.

Beijing’s naval build-up is also intended secure the sea lanes from the Middle East, from where China will import an estimated 70-80 per cent of its oil needs by 2035 supplies it fears US could choke in the event of a conflict.  China has therefore invested in what are called its “string of pearls” a network of bases strung along the Indian Ocean rim, like Hambantota in Sri Lanka and Gwadar in Pakistan and in developing a navy which can operate far from home.

Experts agree China does not currently have the capability to challenge US supremacy in the Pacific and Indian Ocean. “China has a large appetite”, says Carl Ungerer, an analyst at Australian Strategic Policy Institute, “but it hasn’t got enough teeth”.

Top US admiral in New Delhi to strengthen US-India military ties, discuss countering China

Times of India

TNN, Sep 9, 2010

NEW DELHI: With a top US military general in town, India and US are likely to discuss China’s rapidly expanding military capabilities and its implications for the Asia-Pacific region, among other regional security issues.  The visit of Pacific Command chief Admiral Robert F Willard, who commands all US forces in the Asia-Pacific region, comes at a time when the diplomatic ties between India and China have taken a hit with Beijing denying a visa to Northern Army Command chief Lt-General B S Jaswal as well as describing Jammu and Kashmir as “India-controlled Kashmir”.

Admiral Willard is slated to hold talks with national security adviser Shivshankar Menon, foreign secretary Nirupama Rao and defence secretary Pradeep Kumar as well as the three Service chiefs, Air Chief Marshal P V Naik, Admiral Nirmal Verma and General V K Singh.  Incidentally, Admiral Willard’s visit also comes soon after the latest Pentagon report on the military capabilities of China, which held the 2.25-million strong People’s Liberation Army has moved “more advanced and survivable” solid-fuelled CSS-5 nuclear-capable ballistic missiles closer to the borders with India “to improve regional deterrence”. China is also developing contingency plans to move airborne troops into the region.