The Foreign Service Journal, May 2005

ing over water or far from China’s shores is minimal; no long-range bombers are being manufactured; and no airborne command and control aircraft have been deployed (although negotiations are under way with Russia to acquire four Beriev A-50 radar planes and, apparently, an indige- nous AWACS plane is being flight- tested). Nor is it clear whether the PLA Air Force has mastered in- flight refueling for its fighters, a necessary capability for the projection of sustained air- power, although its J-10 and Su-30MKK fighters are out- fitted for this task (the problem, however, is that the PLAAF does not possess adequate tankers and has not yet mastered the complicated aspects of airborne hookups). Although the PLA Navy has about 60 surface combat- ants and more than 70 operational submarines, they gen- erally do not operate beyond China’s territorial waters. Finally, the PLA has not adopted a doctrine that would guide such a forward force projection capability — the PLA’s doctrine of peripheral defense is not one of forward projection. Thus, there is scant, if any, evidence of the PLA developing capabilities to project power beyond China’s immediate periphery. What the PLA has done, and it is of considerable con- cern to China’s neighbors, is to build up a variety of mili- tary capabilities for the potential use of force against Taiwan involving a number of different contingencies, including: the deployment of approximately 600 short- range ballistic missiles opposite Taiwan (the PLA’s Second Artillery is also modernizing its intermediate- and inter- continental-range missile forces); the deployment of large numbers of attack fighters opposite Taiwan; the buildup of surface ships, submarines, and amphibious landing craft within range of Taiwan; periodic large-scale military exercises around Taiwan; and refusal to forswear the pos- sible use of force against Taiwan. ... Confidence-Building Measures To a significant extent, though, China has been able to offset concerns about its buildup against Taiwan with a series of confidence-building measures aimed at the rest of the region. These have come in the form of both bilat- eral and multilateral measures of four principal types. The first type is bilateral gov- ernmental security dialogues with several neighboring countries — Australia, India, Japan, Kazakh- stan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakis- tan, Russia and Thailand. These occur once a year, in alternating capitals, with participation of both civilian foreign ministry and mili- tary personnel. China is also involved in a number of unofficial “Track Two” security dialogues, usually undertaken by the China Institute of International Strategic Studies or the China Foundation for International Strategic Studies, both of which are affiliated with the Second Department of the PLA General Staff. The second type of engagement involves official mili- tary-military exchanges, which China has stepped up in recent years. The PLA currently engages in a number of exchanges with neighboring countries. ... In addition, the PLA Navy has begun to increase its number of regional port calls. A particularly important departure is China’s new willingness to engage in bilateral military exercises, breaking its 54-year, self-imposed prohibition on such efforts. Joint exercises were held in 2003 with India, Kazakhstan and Pakistan (as well as with France and the United Kingdom). The Indian and Pakistani navies undertook joint search-and-rescue exercises off of China’s coast; the exercises with Kazakhstan involved cross-border counterterrorism drills. Of even greater importance, China and Russia plan unprecedented, large-scale joint military exercises on Chinese territory in 2005. The exer- cises will involve ground forces, air forces, command and control units, and possibly strategic missile forces. The third type of activity is China’s increased participa- tion in the Asian Regional Forum, which the Chinese gov- ernment sees as a potential catalyst for establishing a regional cooperative security community. President Hu recently asserted that China “will give full play to existing multilateral security mechanisms and is ready to set up a security dialogue mechanism with other Asian countries to actively promote confidence-building cooperation in the military field.” At the 2003 ARF Inter-Sessional Group and ARF for- eign ministers’ meetings, China startled other members F O C U S M A Y 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 37 China startled other members by introducing a concept paper that included a wide-ranging set of proposals for increasing regional military exchanges.