China’s Military Power Lags U.S. Despite Spy Fears

The finger-pointing surrounding a House report that alleges massive Chinese spying obscures a simple irony: Even if all the report’s allegations of Chinese espionage are true, the balance of military power between the United States and China has not been affected, American and Chinese analysts say.

But within Beijing, the report will probably strengthen the political influence of military leaders and hard-liners at a time when the government is setting policy for the next five years.

What may be one of the lowest moments in China-U.S. relations coincides with preparations for the 2001-2005 “Five Year Plan,” when the Chinese government determines budgets, as well as foreign and military policy.

“It is clear that some people in Washington want to drag China and the U.S. back into a Cold War, to make China the enemy,” said Yan Xuetong, a security specialist at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, a government think tank. “That report helps those who think that there’s no reason to talk to America anymore.”

The Cox committee report, coming on the heels of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s mistaken bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia, has fueled anti-U.S. sentiment in Beijing’s leadership and the long-simmering sense that the United States is trying to “contain” China.

On Monday, in China’s strongest public reaction yet to the Cox report, Cabinet spokesman Zhao Qizheng denounced the committee’s accusations of spying. “Their purpose is to divert public attention, fan anti-China feelings, defame China’s image and try to hold back Sino-U.S. relations so as to stop China’s development,” he said.

Many in the Chinese military believe the next step for the U.S. is a NATO-like intervention in China’s struggles with independence-minded Taiwan and Tibet--or even North Korea. The situation “creates an urgent desire to purchase advanced military equipment as soon as possible,” said Gen. Wang Zuxun, head of the military science academy of the People’s Liberation Army.

As a result, China’s military budget will get a boost this year for high-tech research and development and weapon purchases, said another Chinese defense analyst close to the leadership.

The army has outlined three basic goals to upgrade its nuclear missile capability: to replace liquid-fuel missiles with solid-fuel ones, to replace silo-based rockets with hard-to-target mobile missiles and to enhance nuclear submarine survivability. The technology allegedly taken from the United States is in line with those goals.

But even so, said the Chinese analyst, “any Chinese improvements in modernization can still not close the gap or affect the imbalance of power with the United States.”

China has fewer than two dozen nuclear missiles, in contrast with America’s 6,000-plus warheads, and has pledged not to strike first, mainly because it cannot afford to do so militarily. The U.S. maintains a first-strike option, but during President Clinton’s visit to China last June, both countries agreed not to point their nuclear weapons at each other.

But conservatives in Beijing and Washington are certainly pointing fingers at each other. The war in Yugoslavia, combined with security fears heightened by the Cox report, will mean increased defense budgets for both sides.

China, which has sought for 20 years to modernize its military, increased defense spending by 10% last year. Even so, Beijing’s military budget--declared to be $12.7 billion, although U.S. estimates put it at closer to $35 billion when off-budget items are included--is still dwarfed by the $278-billion U.S. military budget.

The U.S. Senate voted Thursday to authorize an increase in defense spending for the first time in 15 years. On the same day in Beijing, the state-run People’s Daily newspaper highlighted top Chinese military officials pressing for a stronger, higher-tech fighting force, a reaction that sent Cold War shivers down the spines of some observers.

“China can’t compete in an arms race,” said the Chinese defense analyst, especially now, since government money needs to be directed toward creating a social safety net as millions lose their jobs in the transition to a market economy. “We learned a lesson from Russia.”

Leaders in Beijing and Washington are spinning the report, which was written by a special committee chaired by Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), to achieve domestic political goals, American and Chinese analysts say. But the conclusions about damage done by the alleged espionage may be overblown.

“The U.S. is no more at threat now than before this alleged espionage,” said James Mulvenon, a Rand Corp. military expert who testified before the committee and was visiting China when the report came out. “It’s only half the battle to steal technology,” he said; the hard part is to make it work. “China has not fielded any weapon--and does not appear to be planning to--that has any technology said to be stolen.”

An independent review of the Cox report led by retired Adm. David Jeremiah concluded that espionage accelerated China’s nuclear weapon program and helped Chinese scientists avoid costly dead-ends in research. But the acquired information “has not resulted in any apparent modernization of their deployed strategic force or any new nuclear weapons deployment,” said the damage assessment released April 21.

Also at stake in the short term is Chinese support of a Kosovo peace plan--important because of China’s veto power on the U.N. Security Council--along with talks of the nation joining the World Trade Organization and cooperation on human rights. But the worst damage, if China has indeed gained new nuclear weapon capability and lost the inclination to engage with the United States, would be the abrogation of its agreement not to sell or give nuclear technology to rogue states.

“Proliferation is a key concern,” said a Western diplomat in China. “Stealing secrets is not the real danger as much as passing on what they found. That’s when the nightmare begins.”

The Chinese State Council spokesman on Monday, while insisting that China has independently developed its own nuclear technology, brandished color pictures and information about the seven nuclear warhead designs allegedly stolen from the U.S. He said the details of the weapons are available on the Internet. “They are no longer secrets, so there is nothing to ‘steal.’ ”

The biggest gains for the Chinese military, then, may come in terms of influence.

The report’s recommendations to control technology exports and tighten checks on Chinese visitors are viewed by many Chinese as more evidence that the United States considers China a potential enemy. President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji have staked their foreign policy agenda and their domestic credibility on “strategic partnership” with the United States. Now that effort to reach out is being attacked as selling out to a power that wants to keep China down.

“The next move depends on Clinton’s administration,” said security specialist Yan. “If it adopts those recommendations, there is no doubt the relationship will go right down to hell.”

After the fatal bombing of the embassy in Belgrade on May 7, Beijing suspended high-level contacts and meetings with the U.S., including military exchanges, until Washington delivers an explanation and an apology. A U.S. delegation is scheduled to go to Beijing in the next week or two to discuss the bombing.

The relationship showed more strain Thursday, as the Senate condemned China’s human rights performance and four members of Congress asked Clinton to “set aside” trade talks--the one avenue still open between Washington and Beijing. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen canceled a trip to China arranged for this month, and Frank Kramer, the assistant secretary of Defense, said that the United States eventually may need to reassess its military ties with China.

“If in three months there is still a relative freeze, we will have to ask whether we should continue business as usual or change our policy,” he told a Senate panel.