Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Beijing has also embarked on a serious effort to acquire capabilities that
could increase the risks accruing to any U.S. attempts at armed diplo-
macy or outright intervention. These efforts have focused principally
on improving China's ability to detect, track, and target U.S. carrier bat-
tle groups by multiple means as far away as possible from the Mainland.
This includes developing air- and ground-launched cruise missile sys-
tems for standoff attack, sea denial capabilities centered on subsurface
platforms as well as anti-surface attack and mine warfare systems, and
information attack capabilities, centered on anti-satellite warfare, elec-
tronic warfare, and deception and denial operations. (126)
Does this mean that China is now preparing for war with the United
States at some future date? Perhaps. (It would, in fact, be surprising if
China did not envision possible wars or battles with the United States
in at least some of its war-planning scenarios. All major militaries have
these scenarios.)
In Chinese studies in the West and particularly in the United States,
there exists something of a dichotomy between Sinophiles on the one
hand and Sinophobes or on the other. The former supposedly lap up
at face value the Pablum the Party and its newspaper (the People's
Daily) dish out to them.
Sinophobes, on the other hand, are now legion, as an online search
of the offerings of any major booksellers will indicate. They tend to
be suspicious of Chinese motives, be wary of Chinese nationalism,
and see the devil in every Chinese detail. At this, the end of the first
decade of the twenty-first century, China threat topics and blogs are a
dime a dozen. Such authors think they see in China another incipient
Soviet Union or Nazi Germany and write alarmist diatribes predicting
doom and destruction for the free world unless the United States
wakes up quickly to the threat of the restive dragon.
Most China threat topics are sensationalist and irrelevant, but a few
do stand out for the depth of their research, knowledge, rigorous schol-
arship, and fully demonstrated competency with the written and
spoken Chinese language. Among such are those by Arthur Waldron,
Ralph D. Sawyer, and Michael Pillsbury.
Every year the U.S. Department of Defense, as required by law,
issues a report on the military capabilities of the People's Republic of
China, and every year Beijing issues a retort claiming that U.S. esti-
mates of China's military might and intentions are distorted and
inflated. The People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist
Party, reports dutifully on this in Chinese and English in both its
printed and electronic editions.
