11-19-99 USA Today

China's miliary upgrade may raise stakes in Taiwan.

Sometime around Christmas, China is expected to take delivery of a Russian destroyer that could raise the stakes for U.S. intervension in any future crisis over Taiwan, arms experts say.

The 7,300-ton ship is the first of the Sovremenny (Russian for "contemporary") class ever exported. It is equipped with powerful cruise missles that can carry nuclear warerheads and are designed to menace other ships.

Coupled with the anticipated delivery next year of anti-submarine helicopters and a hybrid Israeli-Russian airborne early-warning system, the destroyer could begin to alter the strategic equation in the Taiwan Strait, experts say.

The scariest scenario is the first-shot theory," retired Admiral Eric McVadon says. "If Beijing decided to take a potshot at a (U.S. aircraft) carrier, this missile would give us something to worry about."

The deal, which includes one more destroyer and is believed to be worth $1 billion to Russia, has been known to the Pentagon for some time. But the Clinton administration has not urged the Russians to refrain from the sale, a White House official said.

"The two ships are capable," says Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman. "The missle systems are very good." But Quigley says it is unclear how well Chinese crews would be trained and how well the ships -- introduced into the Soviet navy in 1981 -- have been maintained.

However, a statement from the Office of Naval Intelligence, in response to the query from USA TODAY, raises concern about the missiles the ship carries. Code-named Sunburns, the missiles travel at twice the speed of sound and can be equipped with nuclear or 500-pound high-explosive warheads. The sunburn, the office said, "provides more of everything: greater speed, more range, better accuracy, greater punch and higher maneuverability."

At his confirmation hearing Oct. 28 to be the next U.S. ambassador to China, retired Admiral Joseph Prueher sidestepped a question about whether the missiles would be nuclear-tipped. Prueher, former chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific, said that the United States has developed ways of dealing with the ship but conceded that U.S. and Taiwanese forces would have "to adjust their tactile thinking" if it was introduced into the Chinese fleet.

Some arms experts question whether Taiwan's defenses could shoot down the supersonic Sunburn. Prueher said that "under some circumstances it is possible" for Taiwan to do so -- suggesting that under other cicumstances it could not.

As always in the debate over China, much depends on how experts interpret the intentions of the world's most populous nation, an emerging economic power characterized by uneven development and internal challenges to authoritarian rule.

China has been seeking to improve its armed forces for years. The question is what it tends to do with these forces, in particular toward Taiwan, which the Communist government regards as a renegade province.

Those who believe that China will eventually try to take over the island say the new destroyer might make the United States hesitate about responding to a Chinese attack.

"The whole idea is to use it as a deterrent to us in Taiwan," says William Triplett, co-author of a new book, Red Dragon Rising. Triplett asserts that the Chinese will equip the destroyer with nuclear cruise missiles, "raising the stakes enormously."

Others believe that in a period when China's economy is slowing and the government has put so much emphasis on joint the World Trade Organization, it is not about to do anything that would jeopardize its economic relations with the West.

"The Chinese have discovered that their real strength is in their economic progress, not modernization of the Peoples Liberation Army," McVadon says. Even after it acquires the two destroyers, McVadon says, the Chinese navy will have only about a half-dozen relatively modern ships and will remain dependent on the Russians for spare parts.

-- claurann (claurann@aol.com), November 19, 1999

Answers

No good will come of this

Mark my words....

-- Billy-Boy (Rakkasan@yahoo.com), November 19, 1999.

Although it was mentioned that there was some concern about the Chinese shooting at, say, an American aircraft carrier, there was no mention of whether or not the US Navy could shoot down a mach 2 anti-ship missile. I suspect that the navy could (most of the time), IF they get enough warning...(someone with access to Jane's might be able to check further on this...) This might mean that the US navy has to spend more time protecting Taiwanese ships. More deployment for a navy already spread too thin.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), November 19, 1999.