By Fawzia Sheikh
As officials in Tokyo grow increasingly wary that China is aggressively acquiring aircraft and expanding naval operations, critics charge that Japan and its longstanding ally, the United States, have yet to craft a robust defense strategy to address China's actions.
Japanese Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma raised the military buildup issue at the bilateral "2+2" meeting held in Washington on May 1, his spokesman, Mitsuo Sakaba, told Inside the Pentagon at a press briefing following the gathering.
The consultative meetings began in 2005 as a mechanism for dealing with security threats following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and involve the Japanese defense and foreign ministers and the U.S. defense secretary and secretary of state.
"The Japanese defense minister referred to the very impressive modernization of the Chinese air force, [the fact they have been] multiplying their air fighters" with the latest fourth-generation models, Sakaba said.
The spokesman said the total number of China's most sophisticated aircraft exceeds the number of similar Japanese fighter aircraft. He predicted that soon China's modern fleet will dwarf the combined number of top-level aircraft owned by Japan and U.S. forces based in Japan.
Another Japanese concern is that China is boosting naval activities in the East China Sea and "expanding a range of operations geographically speaking," he told ITP.
According to figures from the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies, China's aviation assets include: 792 combat-capable naval aircraft and 2,643 combat-capable aircraft for its air force.
China's inventory consists of assorted aircraft stemming back to the Korean War and fighter jets that have been upgraded with Russian help, said Larry Wortzel, a commissioner on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission and a retired Army colonel who served two tours of duty as a military attaché in China.
China's navy, moreover, fares "pretty well" in its range of anti-submarine warfare aircraft and attack aircraft, notably about 300 upgraded third-generation combat aircraft equipped with modern avionics and missiles, Wortzel said.
Combined, he said, China's air-based military strength is more considerable than Japan's (175 combat-capable aircraft) and those of U.S. forces in Japan (two carrier air wings and about 400 combat aircraft).
But China's acquisition of fourth-generation fighter jets over the last few years (including 60 to 70 Jian-10s, more than 140 Russian-made Su-30s and roughly 120 Su-27s) has raised Japanese fears that China's more modern fleet will one day surpass its own capability, he said.
"I think that's one of the reasons [Japanese officials] want F-22s," he said, referring to the Air Force's Raptor, billed as the most-advanced fighter ever built. However, current U.S. law would prohibit an F-22 sale to Japan.
At the latest 2+2 meeting, Kyuma and Defense Secretary Robert Gates agreed to continue pressing the Chinese government to be forthcoming about efforts to bolster its military power, according to Sakaba.
Some, however, argue such statements are naive.
"All I can say is we've got enough damn transparency with the Chinese," John Tkacik, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, told ITP. "You can see transparently enough what the Chinese are doing."
The United States and Japan must consult at, "if not the highest levels, the second-highest levels," and outline scenarios defining the violation of Japanese-administered waters, including its exclusive economic zone, Tkacik advised. These discussions must include "what they should do about it [and] what the sequence of deployments should be. [If] a Chinese vessel comes into the area, how do we watch it? How do we track it?"
The second priority is to explain to the American public that there is a "gathering challenge from China," which has not been candid about whether it has "benign" intentions to increase the size and power of its military. In the absence of such indications, he recommended that Japan and the United States consider China a threat.
"U.S. leaders and military commanders who go in front of congressional committees and subcommittees should not be afraid to say, 'The Chinese are behaving in a very aggressive way in Japanese waters and as a result we are adjusting our deployments to meet this challenge,'" he explained. "But at this time they're not doing that."
Instead, U.S. and Japanese inaction on the subject merely sends a message that they are unprepared to deal with China's new assertiveness in the western Pacific Ocean, said Tkacik. This confidence stems back to 2004 when a Chinese Han-class nuclear attack submarine made its way to Guam, carried out hydrographic surveillance to develop submarine navigation charts and traveled through Japanese island possessions and Okinawa, he said.
He noted other incursions that have taken place over the years, including one last October involving a Chinese submarine turning up at a joint military exercise between the United States and Japan.
Wortzel argued the Defense Department is aware of China's military pursuits and includes these observations in annual reports to Congress. The latest, published in 2006, discusses everything from Chinese military budget trends and foreign weapons, to space-related developments and aircraft buildup.
China's sheer number of aircraft, a deepening source of friction with the Japanese, can overcome the technological edge of Japan and the United States, Wortzel warned.
The Chinese "can mobilize so many more aircraft, all armed with multiple missiles," he continued.
To combat this threat, he said, Japan and the United States must introduce better electronic warfare mechanisms, more stealthy aircraft and aircraft that can "fire smarter missiles."
Still, the chances are slim for the Chinese to launch a major air or naval attack against Japan or the United States, Wortzel and other experts say.
A more likely scenario is conflict taking shape over China's territorial claims on Taiwan that inevitably draws in the United States and Japan.
Although China may be a growing threat, concluded Wortzel, "I don't think that they're coming over the wall [and will be] in Tokyo tomorrow." -- Fawzia Sheikh
