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| July 7, 2000 | atimes.com | ||
|  | China China's military brings up the rear By Xu Yufan The Taiwan authorities can take a breath in the face of military threats from across the strait, and rest a little easier for at least 10 years. China's weapons are only on par with world standards of the 1960s and '70s, according to a top soldier trainer. General Xing Shizhong, the president of China's University of National Defense, says in an internal document that it will take at least a decade for China's military to start to catch up with the weaponry of the developed world. And to match the big powers will take a further 40 years. Contrary to recent official propaganda from Beijing boasting about its military capabilities - obviously to intimidate Taiwan - the internal document, circulated to both military and civilian cadres, confesses that China's real weapons strength is quite inferior. "One low and five fews" is the phrase adopted by General Xing to describe China's current weaponry. "One low" means that the degree of modernization and advanced technology for China's weaponry is low. "Most of our main combat equipment is still at the level of the 60s and 70s. We are about one to two generations behind, when compared with developed countries," remarked Xing in a recorded speech made to cadres attending the Central Party School, which grooms cadres for the posts of minister, provincial governor and above. The "five fews" refers to the shortage of high-performance weapons, assault weapons, precision weapons, surveillance and scouting equipment and electronic equipment. Xing revealed that China laid down a plan of action to update its arsenal only in late 1997, after the 15th congress of the Chinese Communist Party. The action plan was labeled "Three-Step March". "The first step is to lay down a good foundation. The second step is to speed up construction. The third is to achieve the target. In a word, struggle for 50 years, march well the three steps and realize modernization," said Xing. He also revealed that the first step alone, that is, to lay the foundation, was targeted at the year 2010. To lay a good foundation, Xing listed six priorities. First, he called for a harmonization between building national defense and the state economy. In his plea for a balance between military and civilian development, he was in fact complaining about the lag on the military front. He cited these figures: 1. The national defense budget in the years from 1982 to 1995 suffered a real decrease of 1.08 percent, and the percentage within the entire state finances dropped from 15.3 to 9.9. 2. From 1995 to 1997, although defense expenditure had risen from 63.6 billion renminbi (US$7.7 billion) to 81.2 billion, the percentage within the entire state expenditure had dropped from 9.3 to 8.8. Xing concluded that while China's economy had doubled in the last two decades of the 20th century, the military's share of the pie had dwindled. Second, he asked for a comprehensive reform of policies and their implementation by local governments. He urged local governments and Party branches to cooperate with the military. Though he did not elaborate, it is understood he was asking for local civilian authorities to give preferential treatment to retrenched soldiers and bargain terms to logistics suppliers. Third, he asked the military to finalize internal structural reform to cope with the downsizing of soldier numbers. Fourth, he appealed for scientific research on advanced weaponry to be made a prority, to tackle head-on the "one low and five fews" situation. He asked that special attention be paid to nuclear strength, command, control, communications, intelligence and electronic warfare, precision attacking strength and aerospace support and defense. Fifth, he called for a strengthening of education and training, especially the science and technology education of military cadres. He also asked local educational institutes to contribute to training military cadres. Lastly, he called for the whole nation to pay attention to the need for building national defense. The public should constantly be given national defense education, he said. Civilian industries should take into consideration national defense needs when developing their own products. Immediate measures must also be taken to smooth the relations between local civilian authorities and the military, so as to improve the capability of mobilizing the whole nation to prepare for wars. (Special to Asia Times Online) | |||||||||
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