Rumsfeld demands China reciprocity: as Beijing builds forces for attacks against Taiwan, the Pentagon sends Peter Rodman to talk sense to the hard-line Maoists of the People's Liberation Army

0 Comments | Insight on the News, July 15, 2002 | by Kenneth R. Timmerman

"An assassin's mace weapon is something that is designed based on American vulnerabilities," Pillsbury said. "You study what would bring the Americans to their knees in a specific conflict, such as the American effort to ... perhaps to defend Taiwan, and you make a list of the American strengths and weaknesses and you focus on the weaknesses in an attempt to develop so-called assassin's mace weapons that will penalize the Americans at a key moment, and you, by the way, conceal these weapons. That's the heart of the assassin's-mace idea. It's not exposed until it's needed at a key moment on the battlefield."

Pillsbury found references to 15 such weapons in Chinese military writings. "They focus a great deal on aircraft carriers," he says. "It's a big topic in China. There's even an Internet Website where people put up suggestions about good ways to attack American aircraft carriers." Pillsbury then described a conversation he had with a Chinese general at a conference in the PRC in late 2000. "`You know, this is like James Bond.' I said, `Really? What are you talking about? I don't understand.' He said, `You know, in the James Bond movies, just when James Bond is almost dead, he pulls something out of his pocket and it kills "Odd Job" or someone. That's assassin's mace. That's a sha sho jian.'"

Also a potential assassin's mace are antisatellite weapons. Despite repeated warnings from the intelligence community during the Clinton administration that the PRC was seeking to acquire such weapons, the United States remained silent when a British company, Surrey Space Systems, signed a contract with the Beijing government in October 1998 to provide microsatellite technology.

"British Prime Minister Tony Blair even presided over the signing ceremony," says Richard Fisher, an analyst with the Jamestown Foundation who is completing a book-length study of Chinese military systems. "Less than two years later, in June 2000, the Chinese launched the first microsatellites built using this technology. When coupled to a mobile space-launch system, which they are in the process of developing, this gives them a potential antisatellite capability," Fisher tells INSIGHT. The PRC unveiled the prototype of a solid-fuel mobile space-launch vehicle, the KT-1, at the Zhuhai Air Show in November 2000, Fisher added. (For more information on the air show, see www.stormpages.com/ jetfight/airshow.htm.)

Beijing's ongoing military modernization and China's growing independence from its suppliers during the last two to three years is yet another cause of concern to the Bush administration. For Alexander Nemets, a Russian scholar who closely monitors Chinese-Russian military cooperation, there are increasing signs that the PRC has taken dramatic steps toward "technological independence" from Russia in several key areas, including military aircraft, jet engines, manned spacecraft and naval weaponry. "The Chinese are getting very close to independence in weapons production. If they succeed, China will be able to directly threaten the United States in just a few years," Nemets tells INSIGHT.