Defense News:
TAIPEI, Taiwan — China released its first white paper on military strategy Tuesday, just two weeks after the release of the Pentagon’s annual report to the US Congress on China’s military and security developments.
Neither report appears to take blame for the rising tensions in the South China and East China seas. The Chinese report, “China’s Military Strategy,” indicates “some of its offshore neighbors” have taken “provocative actions” and reinforced their military presence on China’s reefs and islands “illegally.”
Without mentioning the US, it says, “some external countries are also busy meddling in South China Sea affairs; a tiny few maintain constant close-in air and sea surveillance and reconnaissance against China.”
No mention is made of the recent warning to a US reconnaissance aircraft flying near Chinese controlled areas of the South China Sea. China has not fully explained massive land reclamation efforts that will turn some reefs and islets into airbases and port facilities.
The Pentagon’s “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2015” notes that officially China “seeks to ensure basic stability along its periphery and avoid direct confrontation with the United States in order to focus on domestic development and smooth China’s rise.” However, Chinese leaders in 2014 demonstrated “a willingness to tolerate a higher level of regional tension as China sought to advance its interests, such as in competing territorial claims in the East China Sea and South China Sea.”
Tolerating “higher levels of tension” includes the fact that “China’s military modernization has the potential to reduce core US military technological advantages.”
The Chinese government report does make it clear that the military is implementing strategic guidelines of “active defense” in new maritime scenarios.
“In line with the evolving form of war and national security situation, the basic point for PMS [preparation for military struggle] will be placed on winning informationized local wars, highlighting maritime military struggle and maritime PMS.”
The Chinese report states that the maritime environment is now a critical security domain. “The traditional mentality that land outweighs sea must be abandoned,” it says. China will develop a “modern maritime military force structure commensurate with its national security and development interests, safeguard its national sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, protect the security of strategic SLOCs [sea lines of communication] and overseas interests, and participate in international maritime cooperation, so as to provide strategic support for building itself into a maritime power.”
Taiwan appears doomed in both the Pentagon and Chinese report.
The Chinese report states that ” ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces and their activities are still the biggest threat to the peaceful development of cross-Straits relations … the root cause of instability has not yet been removed.”
The Pentagon report indicates that the primary driver of Chinese military modernization is a conflict over Taiwan. The self-ruled democratic island has resisted China’s threats since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. The report indicates that Taiwan’s multiple military variables to deter Chinese aggression are eroding. In the past, these have included China’s inability to project sufficient power across the Taiwan Strait, the Taiwan military’s technological superiority and the inherent geographic rewards of island defense…
