Pentagon Faults China Military Secrecy

[Lt_Ripley]

Pentagon Faults China Military Secrecy

By ROBERT BURNS Associated Press Writer

Mar 3rd, 2008 | WASHINGTON -- In a report on China's military strategy and power, the Pentagon asserted Monday that Beijing's reluctance to share details about its military buildup poses a risk to stability in Asia.

The report said the international community has limited knowledge of the motivations, decision-making and capabilities of China's military modernization. This includes a lack of clarity about China's defense spending, which Washington contends China understates by the equivalent of tens of billions of dollars.

"The lack of transparency in China's military and security affairs poses risks to stability by increasing the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation," the report said. "This situation will naturally and understandably lead to hedging against the unknown."

The military buildup in China has increased in recent years, the Pentagon said.

"China's expanding and improving military capabilities are changing East Asian military balances; improvements in China's strategic capabilities have implications beyond the Asia-Pacific region.," the report said.

The main short-term focus of China's military buildup is the Taiwan Strait, the report said.

As of November 2007, the Chinese military had deployed between 990 and 1,070 short-range ballistic missiles to garrisons opposite Taiwan, according to the Pentagon's latest estimate. That compares with 900 such missiles reported in last year's Pentagon report.

Every spring, the Pentagon is required by Congress to provide a comprehensive assessment of China's security and military strategy, an analysis of developments in its military doctrine and capabilities, and an update on the security situation in the Taiwan Strait.

The reports have largely mirrored a consensus Bush administration view that China is rapidly modernizing its military, underreporting the extent of its defense investment and remaining deliberately oblique about its long-term intentions.

A prominent theme recently has been an assertion that the People's Liberation Army is transforming from an army designed for protracted wars of attrition on its territory to one capable of fighting short-duration, high-intensity conflicts against high-tech adversaries.

U.S.-China military relations have been strained in recent years over numerous issues, not limited to American concerns about the scope of Beijing's military buildup. But there also have been some positive moves, including a pair of agreements signed last week in Shanghai — one on installing a telephone hotline between the Chinese Ministry of Defense and the U.S. Defense Department, and the other on research in Chinese military archives related to U.S. MIAs from the Korean War.

http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/2008/03/03/D...hina/index.html

transparency ??? funny because for how long our country wouldn't even admit area 51 was there even though you could see it ! lol. and does anyone naively think our country is transparent ? come on now. grow up. this is like a kid crying that his sibling won't show him how much gum he's hiding while hiding his own.

who shows thier hand when playing poker ?? not smart.

Edited March 3, 2008 by Lt_Ripley

[Thanato]

Area 51 is an above Top Secret research and test facility. Of course the government wouldnt awknowledge its existance.

~Thanato

[stevewinn]

we have to keep an eye on China, and two on Russia, 20 years from now Russia will have regained its crown as the worlds super power, every ones watching India and China but in my view Russia is coming up on the rail. you only have to see their monthly output of military equipment, not including the suff their selling

[questionmark]

we have to keep an eye on China, and two on Russia, 20 years from now Russia will have regained its crown as the worlds super power, every ones watching India and China but in my view Russia is coming up on the rail. you only have to see their monthly output of military equipment, not including the suff their selling

20 years from now? Give it ten... at least long as everybody salivates over their oil and gas