The Small News and the Big News

The small (read: good) news is that Israel has agreed to not serve as a technology conduit for China.

Israel has bowed to U.S. pressure to cancel an arms deal with China and will impose tighter controls on its weapons exports in general, Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported on Sunday.

The dispute with the United States centers on Israel's sale of Harpy attack drones and other advanced technology to China which the Pentagon fears could tilt the balance of power and make it difficult to defend Taiwan.

This will scupper future Israeli arms deals with China. But speaking of Taiwan....

The big, bad news is that military analysts are concerned that China will be able to invade Taiwan within the next couple of years, consistent with the low-end estimates of other doomsday scenarios I have mentioned here. A Bill Gertz article, which appears in the Washington Times, considers China's military buildup, not just from the standpoint of its obvious desire to annex Taiwan, but from its economic motivations.

I'll highlight a few key points.

China is building its military forces faster than U.S. intelligence and military analysts expected, prompting fears that Beijing will attack Taiwan in the next two years, according to Pentagon officials.

U.S. defense and intelligence officials say all the signs point in one troubling direction: Beijing then will be forced to go to war with the United States, which has vowed to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack.

China's military buildup includes an array of new high-technology weapons, such as warships, submarines, missiles and a maneuverable warhead designed to defeat U.S. missile defenses [italics mine]. Recent intelligence reports also show that China has stepped up military exercises involving amphibious assaults, viewed as another sign that it is preparing for an attack on Taiwan.

So they're good and ready. The bit about the maneuverable warheads really bothers me, given that China, with its huge American espionage operation (See PS.), might perhaps know exactly what they need to accomplish with such a design. On top of that, Gertz goes on to summarize in some detail how China has been modernizing its forces.

One thing, especially, underscores the fact that China does not "merely" want to annex Taiwan, but that she desires to become a world power: her commitment to building a "blue-water" Navy.

... China wants a "blue-water" navy capable of projecting power far beyond the two island chains.

"If you look at the technical capabilities of the weapons platforms that they're fielding, the sea-keeping capabilities, the size, sensors and weapons fit, this capability transcends the baseline that is required to deal with a Taiwan situation militarily," the intelligence official said.

"So they are positioned then, if [Taiwan is] resolved one way or the other, to really become a regional military power as well."

The dispatch of a Han-class submarine late last year to waters near Guam, Taiwan and Japan was an indication of the Chinese military's drive to expand its oceangoing capabilities, the officials said. The submarine surfaced in Japanese waters, triggering an emergency deployment of Japan's naval forces.

Recall that China is doing all this at a time when our own navy has already been gutted and, barring a drastic change in defense outlays, is about to be hung to dry.

Barring massive intensification of China's simmering internal unrest, Taiwan is in the crosshairs and another war is on the horizon. We seem remarkably ill-prepared.

-- CAV

PS: I missed this last night, but on the subject of espionage, Gertz has written another, companion piece.

Updates

6-27-05: Added PS.