China's changing nuclear posture

Defying long-standing conventional wisdom in the US that China lacks the wherewithal to formulate a long-term national policy on nuclear weapons, a new report on China's nuclear forces presents convincing evidence about its gradual move away from its "minimal deterrent" nuclear posture.

Even a cursory reading of world politics would suggest that as a nation's capabilities rise, so does its ambitions to play a larger role in global affairs. For long, China watchers have been arguing that the country's minimal deterrence nuclear posture goes against this thinking and therefore, the argument went, China did not seem very interested in challenging US global dominance.

But as the latest report from the US Army War College reveals, the Chinese political and military leadership is gradually revising its nuclear posture and even preparing for the possibility of using nuclear weapons in a pre-emptive counter attack should the need arise.

Some time back, Beijing had disclosed that its defense spending in the forthcoming year would rise by nearly 18 percent, to almost US$45 billion, the biggest increase since 2002 when military spending rose by 19.4 percent.

Ordinarily, this should not come as a surprise as China's massive rates of economic growth in the last decade and a half do give it enough resources to spend on its military modernization. China has announced double digit military spending increases nearly every year since the early 1990s and its defense expenditure has increased by an average of about 15 percent a year from 1990 to 2005. Moreover, the US, whose global supremacy China wants to counter eventually, is projected to spend US$620 billion on defense in 2008 - a sum that is more than what the world's 10 largest military powers collectively spend on defense.

In its latest report to US Congress, the Pentagon focuses on China's ongoing military build-up, which, while aimed at preventing Taiwan's independence, is also expanding to include other regional military goals, including securing the flow of oil from overseas.

The report also claims that Beijing's investment in military modernization - which may have reached US$125 billion last year, or nearly triple the official US$45 billion declared by Beijing - has produced military systems that enable the PRC to project force well beyond its shores.

Sino-US ties have been rather turbulent in recent times as US Congress has repeatedly expressed its concerns about the growing US trade deficit with China. The latest disclosures about China's expanding capabilities and ambitions come at a time when the Bush administration has been making a concerted bid to engage China on military issues so as to remove the veil of secrecy that surrounds Beijing's military plans and spending.

The declared military spending by China only represents about one-third of its actual military spending if equipment purchases are taken into account. The US would like China to open its ultra-secretive military to greater scrutiny and share its strategic outlook to avoid misunderstandings and miscalculations. Moreover, this is not something that only Americans are worried about. China's neighbors, including Japan and India, are also wary of these trends and would like China to be more forthcoming.

Earlier this year, China successfully tested an anti-satellite missile and then decided not to reveal any information about it to the outside world. Approximately three months before, the People's Liberation Army began deploying the country's first state-of-the-art jet fighter, the J-10. It is clear that China's primary military objective is to build a force that would prevail in any conflict with Taiwan and be capable of creating a deterrent to American military intervention. Defending its recent increase, China argues that it would go toward increasing salaries and benefits for soldiers and to the overall modernization and technological upgrade