The ominous chill which has set in between the United States and China over nuclear missile secrets allegedly stolen from Los Alamos has raised an important question: is China poised to become America's new Cold War adversary in the 21st century?
If one thinks in terms of a struggle for world domination, the answer is no. But in terms of an arms race . . . well the race is on with a vengeance.
China's view of the United States as an adversary is heavily influenced by history. In the 19th century America seized trading concessions, and in this century the US outfitted the Chinese nationalist army during its war against the communists and poured troops into Korea to halt a communist Chinese army. Today US military might prevents China from taking Taiwan, the island to which the nationalists fled and which Beijing regards as a breakaway province. Whatever victories the Chinese won during this period were through sheer force of numbers and human endurance. But the days of epic feats such as Mao's Long March of 1935 are gone. They ended in 1991 when Chinese generals saw on television a US-led force destroy a numerically superior Iraqi army, using high-tech weapons.
This was an epiphany for China, where military thinking was always dominated by numbers. Beijing is now slimming down the People's Liberation Army from three to 2.5 million and striving to replace old equipment with precision, long-range weapons and sophisticated command and control technologies to match those in the West. China's goal, according to a US State Department analysis, is to field forces that can deploy rapidly and win a future regional war along its periphery under high-technology conditions.
To build a modern, integrated air-defence system, China has already purchased two variants of Russian long-range surface-to-air missile systems and a short-range tactical air-defence system, and is developing several indigenous air-defence systems for use against aircraft and cruise missiles. Jane's Defence Weekly reports that China is also working on a powerful system able to destroy low-orbit satellites. This year both sides have upped the ante. The Pentagon claimed in January that the Chinese military had stationed between 150 and 200 M-9 and M-11 missiles in southern China, opposite Taiwan, and planned to deploy 650 in all in the next few years, something Beijing hotly denied. Then Washington disclosed it was considering a star wars-type anti-missile shield in the Asia pacific region, known as a Theatre Missile Defence system (TMD), to protect its allies from attack. The Americans cited concerns about the threat posed to South Korea and Japan by communist North Korea's firing in August of a long-range Taepo Dong missile.
The Chinese were quick to respond. Beijing's top arms negotiator, Mr Sha Zukang, was sent to Washington to warn that if a country sought to develop advanced missile defence to attain absolute security and unilateral strategic advantage, other countries would be forced to develop more advanced offensive missiles, and a new arms race would begin. Chinese leaders have said bluntly that any extension of TMD to Taiwan would have serious consequences. It would give the pro-independence forces a false sense of security, and incite them to "reckless moves," i.e. to declare independence, and destabilise the whole region. Taiwan is the number one issue with China's communist leaders. It is the country's unfinished business, and force is not ruled out. In March 1996 the PLA fired four Dong Feng-15 short-range ballistic missiles into the waters off Taiwan to warn electors not to favour independence in a presidential poll. In a Defence White Paper last year, Beijing stated bluntly: "Directly or indirectly incorporating the Taiwan Straits into the security and co-operation sphere of any country or any military alliance is an infringement upon and interference in China's sovereignty." Recent high-level talks between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits have raised hopes of a peaceful solution but most Chinese are pessimistic.
Only a change of system - from communist to democratic - will encourage Taiwan to reunite voluntarily, said one Chinese analyst. No one dares propose publicly the alternative - that Beijing drop its threat to use force, and seek an end to US arms supplies to Taiwan as a quid pro quo. In America, politicians fear the question "Who lost China?" In China it would be the end for anyone who "lost" Taiwan. The installation of a US star wars shield - supported on Thursday by the US House of Representatives - would precipitate a new arms race in two directions. Beijing would retaliate by making Chinese-made modern weapons more readily available on the international military market, arming potential foes of the US. But above all, China would seek to raise the quality of its own systems. TMD would undermine the military and political potential of its nuclear missile force.
Enter Russia. Moscow also objects to a TMD system on its eastern borders. It has plenty of advanced weaponry but needs cash and China has lots of cash. The two old comrades of the 1950s are now getting cosy again. The Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported in October that "Moscow has considered the risk and decided to help China become a first-class military power, particularly since China is prepared to pay with hard currency." That month Marshal Igor Sergeev visited Beijing to involve the Russian military-industrial complex more fully in the modernisation of the PLA.
In December, the first two Su27s, state-of-the-art Russian fighter jets, took off from an airfield near Shenyang in north-eastern China, having been assembled in China with the help of 100 resident Russian engineers. The PLA Air Force is said to be aiming to acquire 250 advanced Russian fighters in the coming decade. The PLA Navy has also purchased two Russian Sovremenny class destroyers with highly effective ship-to-ship missiles.
Of particular importance to the Chinese is Russian help in implementing programmes for a Chinese air-to-air homing missile. Taiwan's Defence Minister, Mr Tang Fay, has alleged that China's successful manufacture of winged missiles was made possible only by Russian-supplied technology, and that they pose a greater threat to Taiwan than ballistic missiles. He warned that by 2005 China's combat potential will exceed that of Taiwan. The State Department echoed these concerns, saying Taiwan will soon lose the edge it has over mainland China through the purchase of US and French fighter planes. The PLA modernisation efforts also focus on a second theatre, the South China Sea, where China claims the half-submerged Spratley Islands off the Philippines as part of its national territory. China has recently built structures on (aptly-named) Mischief Reef which appear to have anti-aircraft installations. It has also made a pitch for an underwater gas field claimed by Vietnam.
Beijing faces daunting obstacles in modernising its defence forces. It has to struggle with a culture of inefficiency. It has no aircraft carriers, nor does it expect to have one in operation before 2018. Its military spending is estimated at a third of Russia's and almost one tenth of America's. The State Department believes the ultimate goal of China is "parity in economic, political and military strength with the world's leading powers by the middle of the next century". The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies believes that "even when China becomes strong and powerful in the future, it will by no means take to the road of foreign aggression and expansion".
In other words, the world's largest communist country will not directly confront the world's most powerful democracy, and a global Cold War like that of 1945-1991 is unlikely in the coming century. Barring a declaration of independence by Taiwan, the chance of a large-scale war is almost negligible.
But no one underestimates China's capacity, whether by fair means of foul, to obtain and develop new technologies in a modern arms race. The deprived generation of the Cultural Revolution is giving way to the first full generation of highly educated Chinese scientists in modern history. "Don't forget," said the Chinese analyst, "it was we who invented gunpowder."