Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Here are two interesting articles at the Middle East Forum that I finally got around to reading. They serve as a sort of point-counter-point to each other on the degree to which we need to be concerned about China as an increasingly engaged player.
The first, by AEI scholar Dan Blumenthal, Providing Arms, points up a number of disturbing data points, such as:
...Beijing considers its Achilles' heel to be a U.S. naval blockade. So far as Chinese tacticians are concerned, an Iranian anti-ship cruise missile capability able to erode U.S. naval superiority provides insurance. The naval facilities that China is constructing along the Straits of Malacca and Hormuz—and a well-equipped, compliant Iran—exploit the greatest weakness of the U.S. Navy: the challenge of operating in the littoral environment where large ships are especially vulnerable to missiles. Chinese efforts to bolster the Islamic Republic's anti-ship missile capability continue. Recently, Jane's Defence Weekly reported that China is producing several classes of tactical guided missiles – the JJ/TL-6b and 10A, the KJ/TL-10B and a new variant of the C-107 anti-ship missile, specifically for Iran.[7]...
Not comforting.
Then there's this, Energy First, by Jin Liangxiang - a research fellow at Shanghai Institute for International Studies who's theme seems to be, "No need to fear, China and America's interests are really one and the same." I somehow find it less than soothing, especially as it's emanating from a Chinese institution, but hey, worth consideration I guess.
