Consider this a follow-up to yesterday’s post. The Pentagon finally released its long awaited annual report on China’s growing military capabilities. The findings of which are not all that surprising. It only confirms the obvious — China’s ambition to expand its military posture beyond its territorial interests to that of regional dominance.
And it’s all happening as the US is thoroughly occupied in the Middle East and staggering through an onslaught of economic troubles.
Annual Report to Congress on the Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China.
The report also flagged China’s push into weapons technologies where the U.S. has long dominated, such as aircraft carriers and stealth fighters.
“The pace and scope of China’s sustained military investment have allowed China to pursue capabilities that we believe are potentially destabilizing to regional military balances, increase the risk of misunderstanding and miscalculation, and may contribute to regional tensions and anxieties,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia Michael Schiffer told reporters.
The Pentagon took special note of Beijing’s aspiration to project naval power beyond its territorial waters. In the past year, China has alarmed the U.S. and its neighbors with a more combative stance on territorial disputes in the East and South China seas. Earlier this month, China sent its first aircraft carrier on sea trials. While China’s navy “retains a decidedly regional focus,” the report said Chinese warships “will play a growing role in protecting China’s far-flung interests.”
Although the carrier, which isbased on an empty hull bought from Ukraine, doesn’t yet have aircraft, the Pentagon report said it “will likely serve initially as a training-and-evaluation platform.” And as early as this year, the report said, “China could begin construction of a fully indigenous carrier…which could achieve operational capability after 2015.” (WSJ)