The Pentagon report noted that China has been rapidly expanding its naval forces. | REUTERS DOD report outlines China concerns

As the United States winds down its military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, a new threat looms on the horizon: China.

“Over the past decade, China’s military has benefited from robust investment in modern hardware and technology. Many modern systems have reached maturity and others will become operational in the next few years,” the Pentagon said in an annual report to Congress on the Chinese military released Wednesday, noting that “there remains uncertainty about how China will use its growing capabilities.”


The growth of Chinese power outlined in the report is only the latest expression of the concerns voiced in Congress and by China’s neighbors, who have been pushing Washington to be more assertive in providing a counterbalance at a time when the nation’s budget woes are threatening dramatic cutbacks in security spending.

Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) caused a stir in June when he said the situation is now fast approaching a “Munich moment,” when Washington must decide how to maintain a strategic balance. The term refers to the 1938 crisis over Czechoslovakia, during which the British and French had the opportunity to stop Nazi expansion but failed to do so.

“If you look at the last 10 years, the strategic winner has been China,” the former Navy secretary said in a recent interview. “Their position in the world is greatly enhanced.”

The Pentagon report noted that China has been rapidly expanding its naval forces, further rattling neighbors already concerned about Beijing’s aggressive actions over disputed territory in the South China Sea and afraid that Washington has lost interest in the region.

The Chinese navy shook the region earlier this month with sea trials of the nation’s first aircraft carrier, a former Soviet vessel refurbished with advanced radar and weapons control systems and the ability to carry 30 high-performance fighter-bombers. Official media described the sea trials as a step in China’s plans to bolster its ability to protect its territory and maritime supply routes, while Beijing’s neighbors and analysts saw them as the latest threat to regional rivals.

At the same time, the Chinese conducted further testing of their new J-20 stealth fighter, first unveiled during a visit in January by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The Chinese have sought to reassure their neighbors — and the United States — that the buildup is defensive in nature. “I can tell you that China does not have the capability to challenge the United States,” People’s Liberation Army Chief Gen. Chen Bingde told reporters during a visit to the Pentagon in May.

The official Xinhua news agency on Thursday said the 94-page report overlooked China’s “peaceful defense policy” and “has drawn protest from China over its interfering nature, distortion of facts and baseless speculations.”

But doubts remain. China is investing in capabilities that appear designed to counter the U.S. military’s freedom of movement in the western Pacific, said Mark Gunzinger, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments who has been studying China’s military.

“They’re not an open book, which is a cause of great concern,” he said.

The lack of transparency in China’s military buildup is the biggest destabilizing factor noted in the Pentagon report, Michael Schiffer, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia who oversaw production of the report, told reporters Wednesday. “That’s where you have the potential to run into situations where there can be misunderstandings.”

Schiffer noted that military-to-military contacts, which resumed this year with Chen’s visit and a return visit to China in July by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were important to promote a stable relationship.

Another concern is that nations in the region see the United States as having retreated from its commitment to regional security. “Are we giving people the impression of being wishy-washy and waffling and not standing by our commitments?” asked China analyst Dean Cheng of the Heritage Foundation.

U.S. allies “want more than just verbal assurances that we remain a Pacific nation,” Gunzinger said.

The last issue is also a crucial concern for Webb, who returned Wednesday from a two-week visit to confer with leaders in Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam — all countries which have been concerned about the rise of Chinese power in the region.

Webb sponsored a resolution adopted by the Senate in June that deplored Chinese actions in the South China Sea and called for a peaceful resolution to the disputes. Since then, he has pushed for greater clarity in U.S. policy toward the region.

The Pentagon hasn’t been idle in the face of China’s growing military power. Military planners are working on a strategy to counter Beijing’s moves, based on a plan first proposed by Gunzinger and others at CSBA last year.

The strategy involves modernizing and beefing up air and naval forces in the region to counter Chinese power and protect U.S. access to vital sea lanes. But right now, Pentagon planners are concentrating on reducing defense spending by as much as $850 billion over 10 years to ease the national debt, rather than building up to confront a new threat. And China holds a powerful card in that game — its central bank is the largest single holder of U.S. government debt.

“If the U.S. could reduce its military spending a bit and spend more on improving the livelihood of the American people and also do more good things for the people of the world, wouldn’t that be a better scenario?” Chen asked at a July 11 news conference in Beijing during Mullen’s visit.

China’s defense spending, meanwhile, is increasing by 12.7 percent this year. “That continues more than two decades of sustained budgetary growth,” Schiffer said.

Some in Congress believe the risks of deep cuts are too high given China’s rapid growth, and the issue is likely to figure prominently in the debate over defense spending.

“China clearly believes that it can capitalize on the global financial crisis, using the United States’s economic uncertainty as a window of opportunity to strengthen China’s economic, diplomatic and security interests,” said Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a leading opponent of deep defense spending cuts.

“Security in the Pacific could be further jeopardized if our regional allies also come to believe that the United States will sacrifice the presence and capability of the U.S. military in an attempt to control spending. This is an unacceptable outcome in such a vital region of the globe.”

Webb is among those in Congress who want to protect the Navy’s expansion from budget cuts, suggesting instead that land forces be trimmed because they are no longer needed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out in the budget. I think you can reconfigure the force structure in the Department of Defense in a way that would bring more ships to bear,” he said.

“This is the most vital region in the world to the future of the United States.”