Not Good News On the Intelligence Front

[Annie]

http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050609-120336-4092r

Analysts missed Chinese buildup

By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 9, 2005

A highly classified intelligence report produced for the new director of national intelligence concludes that U.S. spy agencies failed to recognize several key military developments in China in the past decade, The Washington Times has learned.
The report was created by several current and former intelligence officials and concludes that U.S. agencies missed more than a dozen Chinese military developments, according to officials familiar with the report.
The report blames excessive secrecy on China's part for the failures, but critics say intelligence specialists are to blame for playing down or dismissing evidence of growing Chinese military capabilities.
The report comes as the Bush administration appears to have become more critical of China's military buildup.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said in Singapore over the weekend that China has hidden its defense spending and is expanding its missile forces despite facing no threats. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also expressed worries this week about China's expanding military capabilities.
Among the failures highlighted in the study are:
• China's development of a new long-range cruise missile.
• The deployment of a new warship equipped with a stolen Chinese version of the U.S. Aegis battle management technology.
• Deployment of a new attack submarine known as the Yuan class that was missed by U.S. intelligence until photos of the submarine appeared on the Internet.
• Development of precision-guided munitions, including new air-to-ground missiles and new, more accurate warheads.
• China's development of surface-to-surface missiles for targeting U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups.
• The importation of advanced weaponry, including Russian submarines, warships and fighter-bombers.
According to officials familiar with the intelligence report, the word "surprise" is used more than a dozen times to describe U.S. failures to anticipate or discover Chinese arms development.
Many of the missed military developments will be contained in the Pentagon's annual report to Congress on the Chinese military, which was due out March 1 but delayed by interagency disputes over its contents.
Critics of the study say the report unfairly blames intelligence collectors for not gathering solid information on the Chinese military and for failing to plant agents in the communist government.
Instead, these officials said, the report looks like a bid to exonerate analysts within the close-knit fraternity of government China specialists, who for the past 10 years dismissed or played down intelligence showing that Beijing was engaged in a major military buildup.
"This report conceals the efforts of dissenting analysts [in the intelligence community] who argued that China was a threat," one official said, adding that covering up the failure of intelligence analysts on China would prevent a major reorganization of the system.
A former U.S. official said the report should help expose a "self-selected group" of specialists who fooled the U.S. government on China for 10 years.
"This group's desire to have good relations with China has prevented them from highlighting how little they know and suppressing occasional evidence that China views the United States as its main enemy."...

 

[onedomino]

The Chinese are looking to displace America as the preeminent Pacific economic and military power. China's military provocations demand a response. If the Chinese want an arms race with the US, they will not do any better than the defunct Soviet Union. America should deploy more Air Force and Navy assets to Japan and South Korea. Recently, fifteen F117 stealth aircraft were deployed to South Korea. In the current US competition vs. the French and Russians to update the Indian Air Force, we should give the Indians an F18 deal they cannot refuse. Let's see how much the Chinese appreciate a highly capable Indian Air Force on their southern flank. It is time to talk to the Taiwanese about basing US ships and aircraft on the island. Further, America needs to make sure that the Europeans, particularly the French, clearly understand that there will be a termination of US to France military technology transfers, and other economic repercussions, if the EU decides to lift its high-tech arms embargo against China. The US Congress should enact legislation that automatically terminates US military technology transfers to the Europeans if the EU sells high-tech weapons to the Chinese. Moves similar to these should help the Chinese to realize that there is no winning an arms race with America. If in response Chinese behavior improves, then the actions listed above can be moderated.

 

[onedomino]

The Taiwanese are having a tough time deciding to defend themselves:

Taiwan Leader Calls for Arms Build-Up To Counter China Threat
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, TAIPEI

http://defensenews.com/story.php?F=900879&C=asiapac

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian called June 8 for an arms build-up after the United States warned of China’s growing military threat in the region.

”What we are facing is a regime which is not democratic in politics. Its decision-making process is not transparent, and uncertainty lies ahead of its future,” Chen said while inspecting a military base in southern Kaohsiung County.

As such, Taiwan must step up its defense capability, and if not, “the 23 million people in Taiwan and our children may have to pay dearly should a crisis happen,” Chen said, referring to the threat of invasion from China.

The pro-independence leader has repeatedly warned that China has at least 700 ballistic missiles ready for use against Taiwan if it moves toward formal independence.

Chen said he was deeply worried that the island’s multi-billion-dollar arms build-up plan could be stalled in the opposition-dominated parliament.

”We must build up a sufficient self-defense capability if we are to safeguard Taiwan’s sovereignty, dignity, democracy and economic achievements from China’s threat,” he said.

Taiwan’s defense ministry in March reintroduced a $15.2 billion arms bill in parliament after an initial $19.3 billion proposal was rejected by parliament. But the new bill has also failed to clear parliament.

The arms package, approved by Taiwan’s cabinet, calls for the purchase of six PAC-3 Patriot anti-missile systems, eight conventional submarines and a fleet of submarine-hunting P-3C aircraft from the U.S. over a 15-year period.

Some opposition lawmakers said Taiwan could not afford it while others said the time-period for the delivery of the equipment was too long to fend off any attack from China.

Chen’s remarks came after U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on a visit to Singapore warned that China was spending considerably more on its military than officially acknowledged and asked why it had so many missiles aimed at Taiwan.

China earlier this year announced a 12.6 percent increase in military spending to 244.65 billion yuan, or $29.5 billion. (I have read in several sources that this official Chinese defense spending figure is a flat out lie and that the real number is much higher. To reduce regional tension and uncertainty, Rumsfeld called for the Chinese to be more transparent regarding defense spending data, but he has been ignored.)

Though they are ruled separately, China considers the island part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary.

Tensions have risen since the pro-independence Chen won the presidency in 2000, ending the opposition Kuomintang’s 51-year grip on power. He was re-elected last year.

 

[ThomasPaine]

Instead, these officials said, the report looks like a bid to exonerate analysts within the close-knit fraternity of government China specialists, who for the past 10 years dismissed or played down intelligence showing that Beijing was engaged in a major military buildup.
"This report conceals the efforts of dissenting analysts [in the intelligence community] who argued that China was a threat," one official said, adding that covering up the failure of intelligence analysts on China would prevent a major reorganization of the system.
A former U.S. official said the report should help expose a "self-selected group" of specialists who fooled the U.S. government on China for 10 years.
"This group's desire to have good relations with China has prevented them from highlighting how little they know and suppressing occasional evidence that China views the United States as its main enemy."...


reports by dissenting analysts that argued China was a threat. Sounds like libs at CIA,NSA, or the DIA, were hiding the bad news about China? Why? Bolton in reverse?

 

[Annie]

Instead, these officials said, the report looks like a bid to exonerate analysts within the close-knit fraternity of government China specialists, who for the past 10 years dismissed or played down intelligence showing that Beijing was engaged in a major military buildup.
"This report conceals the efforts of dissenting analysts [in the intelligence community] who argued that China was a threat," one official said, adding that covering up the failure of intelligence analysts on China would prevent a major reorganization of the system.
A former U.S. official said the report should help expose a "self-selected group" of specialists who fooled the U.S. government on China for 10 years.
"This group's desire to have good relations with China has prevented them from highlighting how little they know and suppressing occasional evidence that China views the United States as its main enemy."...


reports by dissenting analysts that argued China was a threat. Sounds like libs at CIA,NSA, or the DIA, were hiding the bad news about China? Why? Bolton in reverse?

Well if it's the same thinking as at State, same schools and bloodlines, would make sense.

 

[onedomino]

Gathering Storm Over China
By Suzanne Fields
Published June 9, 2005

http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20050608-093559-7151r

You don't need a fortune cookie to learn that China isn't playing straight with the rest of the world. The men in Beijing may be taking some of their clues from the most important page of Mao Tse-tung's Little Red Book: "Every Communist must grasp the truth, 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' "

We've been lulled into thinking the Chinese brand of "free markets" will move that country toward democracy. Maybe someday, eventually, it will. But free markets must be accompanied by personal freedoms and representative government, and that isn't happening. In fact, there are disturbing signs of a military build-up and deception about it at the highest levels of the Chinese government today.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld went to Singapore where he delivered the keynote address to a conference of defense ministers and military analysts in Asia, and noted that China's military budget ranks behind only that of the United States and Russia. "Since no nation threatens China, one must wonder," he said. "Why these continuing large and expanding arms purchases?"

This was new from an administration that until now criticized, mildly, China's human-rights violations while urging China to prod North Korea back to the six-party talks about what to do about its nuclear weapons program. But it's the Chinese armory that concerns the defense secretary. "I just look at the significant rollout of ballistic missiles opposite Taiwan, and I have to ask the question: 'If everyone agrees the question of Taiwan is going to be settled in a peaceful way, why this increase in ballistic missiles opposite Taiwan?' " Newly purchased submarines, fighter jets, assault ships and missiles not only pose a threat to Taiwan, but to the United States if we honor our treaty commitments to go to the aid of our old friends there. (And the EU, especially France, wants to sell high-tech weapons to the PRC.)

The Rumsfeld speech reflects the buzz of the China watchers in Washington, where the publication of a new book expands the latest thinking. "China: The Gathering Threat," by Constantine Menges, takes its title from Winston Churchill's famous warning about the lessons of World War II: "There never was a war in all history easier to prevent by timely action ... but no one would listen. We surely must not let that happen again."

Mr. Menges worked inside the White House and at the CIA for many years, and was something like an Old Testament prophet, with prescient pronouncements of bad things to come. In 1977 he warned President Carter that Iran was in imminent danger of being transformed from a friendly country to unfriendly Islamic state. The president didn't listen, and two years later that happened. Mr. Menges died last year and the book, published posthumously, brought reporters, policy-makers and friends (like myself) together at the Hudson Institute to consider the way China's rapid economic growth supports cynical military ambitions in a nation that describes the United States as its "main enemy."

The discussion by China watchers was chilling, taking its theme from the Constantine concern that we're naively allowing businessmen to dictate a China policy of "unconditional commercial relations." A pure business model is concerned only with how to make a buck, which is a legitimate enough concern, but political leaders who govern from a business plan are fools. Economic engagement is not a substitute for political engagement. He left the prescription to do more to promote democracy inside China, work with political reform groups (such as Solidarity, which we supported in Poland) and offer greater support to pro-democracy Chinese exiles in this country.

William Hawkins, who studies national security issues at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, argues that China has learned from Russia's mistakes, dumping Marxism, but merely moved from "communism to fascism," using the energy of capitalism to animate the ambitions of a tyranny.

The heads of corporations and heads of state met last month in Beijing under the auspices of Fortune magazine's Global Forum to talk about the most pressing issues facing world business. They concluded that "China will overtake the United States to become the world's largest economy by mid-century."

The panelists at the Hudson Institute forum last week noted that China controls more than $200 billion of the U.S. national debt. Al Santoli, president of the Asia America Initiative, suggested that the Chinese have a master plan that the United States becomes "a vassal state, as China buys up our debt."

Mr. Rumsfeld wants to visit China next year. If he does, he should take two books with him, Mr. Menges' "China: The Gathering Threat" and Chairman Mao's Little Red Book. Mao warned his followers not to wait "until problems pile up and cause a lot of trouble before trying to solve them." He didn't always follow his own advice, but we should if we know what's good for us.

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