China from the Inside - Power and the People

China is rapidly becoming a world power, but much of the country and its people remain hidden to those outside its borders. China from the Inside, provides a rare insider's view of China, her institutions and people.

China is at a critical point in its history -- it is richer and stronger than ever, but the clash between economic policies and the Communist political agenda complicates the lives of many of its citizens. China from the Inside includes perspectives ranging from those of the powerful to the powerless, the scholars and the uneducated, and the supporters and detractors of today's China. It does not shy away from China's many contradictions, with scenes from some of the most breathtaking places on the planet as well as the most polluted.

Across four extraordinary hours, the series explores a country of 1.3 billion people undergoing astonishing growth while facing prodigious obstacles.

I found this documentary, you can downlaod it, let me know what you think?
http://rapidshare.com/files/265211045/PBS_-_China_From_The_Inside_-_1_of_4_-_Power_and_the_People.avi.001
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China Modernizes: Threat to the West or Model for the Rest?

NTRODUCTION

I am confused. I thought I knew China well. After all, I was born in China and lived there until I left my parents to come to the United States for college. My memories of nearly twenty years of living in China and the periodic visits since I left are mostly happy. My parents are middle-income state employees who lived in a government-issued, Soviet-style apartment for almost their entire adult lives. Recently, like many other middle-class Chinese families, they bought a small townhouse in a newly developed suburban community and rented out the old apartment in the city to supplement their income. They no longer fide bicycles to work. Instead they bought a small, underpowered Toyota for the now-longer daily commute and baby it like any sixteen-year-old American does her first car. And like many young Americans, my sixty-year-old father is thinking about getting a bigger car with more horsepower and perhaps upgrading to a single-family house at some later time. My mother, on the other hand, seems less enthusiastic about yet more upgrades and more excited about getting to know her new neighbors. My parents are optimistic about their future and looking forward to their retirement. They, and many ordinary Chinese citizens like them, seem happy.



But almost a decade of living in the United States has exposed me to another China that I hardly recognize. According to the U.S. government, the Chinese people are living under a repressive authoritarian regime with a deplorable human rights record. (1) We Chinese have a government that routinely commits serious abuses against its own citizens, and due to the tight control the Chinese Communist Party ("CCP") has on state organs and the military, there is very little that the oppressed masses can do about it. (2) Even the American media, typically skeptical of the U.S. government, join in condemning China for human rights violations and social and economic problems, and paint an overwhelmingly negative image of China. (3)

Thus, like many other Chinese students studying in the United States, I am torn between the conflicting views. Like my American classmates in law school, I study and support freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and human rights. But I also resent the implied suggestion that my fellow Chinese citizens--resilient, content, and optimistic as many of them seem--are ignorant about their own servitude and must somehow be enlightened and freed. I struggle to reconcile my two competing perceptions of China: one, acquired from having grown up there and from having witnessed its transformation, that China is finally headed in the right direction, despite its earlier missteps, and has much to contribute to the world community; the other, acquired during my stay here in the United States, that China is a stubborn authoritarian state with little regard for its own citizens or the established international order that is headed on a collision course with the United States and the West. Are we Chinese blissfully blind to our own perils? Should we fight for human rights, the rule of law, and democracy--and if so, when and how? Is China the worst offender or a strong contender?

These are the questions that Professor Randall Peerenboom (4) sets out to answer from an American legal scholar's perspective in China Modernizes: Threat to the West or Model for the Rest. Peerenboom advances three main arguments in China Modernizes. (5) First, to more accurately assess China's performance in its quest for modernization, one must "plac[e] China within a broader comparative context" (p. 10). Through a careful analysis of empirical data, Peerenboom observes that China outperforms many other countries at a similar income level on almost all key indicators of well-being and human rights, with the sole exception of civil and political rights (p. 20). Second, the United States employs a double standard towards China on human rights issues, and this double standard is likely due to the international human rights regime's unjustified bias against nondemocracies and an undue emphasis on civil and political rights over social and economic rights (Chapter Five). Third, China may be following the same path as other East Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea--China may eventually democratize, but not before it has reached a higher income level, and certainly not at the cost of jeopardizing social stability and economic growth (Chapters Seven through Nine). (6)

Peerenboom's comparative approach to evaluating China's human rights record exemplifies what I call the "contender" approach to human rights enforcement. Conceptualizing the more traditional approach to enforcement as the "offender" model, this Notice argues that the offender model should only be used to enforce jus cogens norms and that the overuse of the offender model enables the double standard in the enforcement of human rights that Peerenboom identifies. Part I first applauds Peerenboom's approach and his conclusion that China compares remarkably well with other countries in the same income class on most key indicators of human rights. Part I then develops the key principles of the offender and contender models. Drawing from the analogy between the offender model and the domestic criminal justice system, Part I concludes by suggesting that the offender model should be limited to only those well-defined and widely accepted core human rights, leaving other rights to be examined under the contender model. Part II shifts the focus to China's main accuser in the human rights context, the United States. Extending the analogy between the offender model and the criminal justice system, this Part supplies additional doctrinal support for Peerenboom's contention that the United States should abandon its double standard towards China and further suggests that the overbroad offender model currently used by the international human rights regime may have caused or exacerbated the problem of selective enforcement.

A few words on the purpose and relevance of this Notice may be in order here. As a Chinese who has spent a third of his life in the United States and appreciates all the hospitality, generosity, and education he has received during his stay in this country, I am perhaps among the most pro-American--and the most receptive to the liberal version of human rights, rule-of-law, and democracy ideals--of my generation. Yet as will be apparent from this Notice, I also question the desirability and feasibility of democracy in China in the immediate future, dispute that the liberal conception of human rights should be the universal standard, and remain critical of the continued hegemony and arrogance practiced by the U.S. government in international affairs. Thus, although the American political and human rights hardliners may be quick to dismiss Peerenboom's position as too sympathetic to the Chinese government and accuse him of being an "apologist[] for dictators," (7) remain skeptical of their cause and approach. I also wonder whether these hardliners will have an even more difficult time persuading the Chinese leadership or proving their case to the typical Chinese citizen.

I. ASSESSING CHINA'S HUMAN RIGHTS PERFORMANCE

Far from being a CCP apologist, Peerenboom does not gloss over China's problems; he spends a good bit of his book detailing the deficiencies in China's human rights record and its legal system. (8) But China Modernizes goes beyond the conventional criticism leveled against China by human rights activists and the U.S. government. Peerenboom critically analyzes some of these common accusations and argues that while some of them are justified, others may be exaggerated and unwarranted, especially when China's performance is compared to similar countries. Sections I.A and I.B discuss Peerenboom's assessment of China's human rights record in the stand-alone and comparative contexts respectively. Section I.C proposes two models, offender and contender, to characterize the dichotomous approaches to China's human rights performance and makes a preliminary inquiry into the proper balance between the two.

A. Critiquing the Critics: The Stand-Alone Context

From the start, Peerenboom takes a stance decidedly different from the prevailing skeptics of China's human rights policy. Instead of simply dismissing China's official statements as government propaganda, he contends that while these government statements and reports tend to be selective and biased, they nevertheless present one side of the picture (p. 82). The main tenets of China's official response to Western criticism on China's human rights record, Peerenboom argues, are normatively and factually defensible. For example, the government's position that interpretation and implementation of human rights depends on local circumstances is "unimpeachable as a descriptive claim and as a legal claim" (p. 85). Its insistence on prioritizing subsistence and stability over civil and political rights has popular support among Chinese citizens and among the majority of citizens in other developing countries (pp. 85-86). In addition, its objection to the interference in its domestic affairs and sovereignty in the name of human rights--often by countries with severe human rights problems of their own--is not without foundation and is shared by other countries (pp. 86-90).

As Peerenboom proceeds to examine China's human rights record in detail, he groups his analysis into two broad categories--physical integrity and civil and political rights (Chapter Three) and social and economic rights (Chapter Four)--that loosely track the first- and second-generation rights, respectively, under Karel Vasak's theory of three generations of human rights. (9) With respect to first-generation human rights, Peerenboom contends that China does not deserve the dismal rating it consistently receives on physical integrity (p. 83), although its low score on civil and political rights, reflected in its placement in the bottom tenth percentile of the World Bank's voice-and-accountability index, is accurate (p. 83). With respect to second-generation human rights, Peerenboom argues that in light of its limited resources, China does relatively well in most areas of social and economic rights (pp. 158-62): its standard of living has dramatically improved over the past decades (pp. 129-32), access to health care has broadened (p. 132), and the illiteracy rate has decreased (p. 133). Moreover, despite China's dramatic increase in wealth, its level of income disparity has remained virtually constant from 1995 to 2002 (p. 131). The "stunning rise in wealth that has lifted over 150 million people out of poverty" is remarkable in itself (p. 129), and even more so in the comparative context: Peerenboom notes that China outperforms India, another fast-growing, low-income country, on all measures of social and economic rights, including infant mortality, life expectancy, and primary-school enrollment (p. 130).

B. Comparing the Comparables: The Broader Comparative Context

The comparison between China and India is one example of the "broader comparative context" Peerenboom advocates in China Modernizes. In this "broader comparative context," he argues, one should compare China's human rights record primarily with those of countries at a similar income level. (10) Instead of comparing China's human rights record against "idealized accounts of good governance and rule of law that no country lives up to, or the normatively inspiring yet frequently violated idealistic standards championed by human rights activists"--which, as Peerenboom puts it, is akin to "compar[ing] apples and oranges"--China Modernizes focuses on "demonstrat[ing] how China does relative to the actual performance of other countries" (p. 10). Peerenboom argues that when comparing China with the actual performance of other countries, the proper benchmark is not "the record and performance of much wealthier countries" but rather that of "the average country in its income class" (p. 11). This is because "[p]erformance on human rights standards, including measures of civil and political rights, and other indicia of human well-being, is highly correlated with wealth"--a claim that Peerenboom convincingly establishes with empirical analysis. (11) Peerenboom concludes, "As countries become wealthier, they generally protect all rights better" (p. 40).

When examined in this new comparative context, China is a strong performer in its own income class in most areas of human rights, the rule of law, and quality of governance. Peerenboom observes, "China's performance across a range of variables.., is on the whole demonstrably superior to the performance of most African, Middle Eastern, and Latin American countries with which it is often lumped as a problem case" (p. 20). China's performance on economic rights is "particularly [impressive] in light of the disappointing performance of so many other developing countries" (p. 19). On most major indicators of human rights and well-being (except civil and political rights), "China outperforms the average country in its income class" (p. 20). China's quality of governance, as reflected in the World Bank good-governance indicators, is superior to, or at least as good as, the average country in its income class, including many democracies (p. 184).

In addition to a country's income level, there is a second dimension in Peerenboom's comparative context: cultural and regional influences. While income level alone does not explain China's low score on civil and political rights, cultural and regional influences help account for this anomaly. After comparing the East Asian region with other countries on a variety of rights indicators, Peerenboom concludes that "East Asian countries with a Confucian influence, even if democratic, tend to do poorly relative to income level on civil and political rights" (p. 43). Countries such as Japan, Singapore, and Vietnam "all underperform relative to income" (p. 43). China, where Confucianism originated and maintains a strong influence, is no exception. Viewed in this cultural-regional comparative context, China's poor performance on civil and political rights becomes more explainable, if not excusable.

C. Offender or Contender: The Competing Approaches

Peerenboom's generally positive assessment of China's human rights performance in the comparative context and the prevailing criticism leveled against China represent two competing approaches in measuring a country's performance on human rights issues: one is what I will call the offender model, used by the U.S. government and Western human rights activists; the other is the contender model, embodied in Peerenboom's "broader comparative context" (12) and advocated by China Modernizes.

The offender model compares a country's human rights performance with a fixed set of rules to determine whether the rules have been violated. This approach is analogous to the criminal justice system, which mandates a common set of minimum standards of conduct for all members of society and punishes those who fail to adhere to them. Many hallmarks of the domestic criminal justice system are also present in today's international human rights regime: international human rights are often regarded as "standards of conduct" for states with respect to their own citizens; (13) states that fall short of these standards will receive various "punishments," typically by way of an annual "name and shame" process in the United Nations Human Rights Commission or, in limited circumstances, economic sanctions. (14)

The contender model differs from the offender model in two significant ways. First, it does not prescribe a fixed set of standards of conduct that all must meet or be punished. Rather, it compares the performance of each participant against that of the others and rewards the superior performer. Second, it recognizes that performance is often critically affected by the characteristics of the contestants and accommodates this fact by grouping and comparing contestants only with others of similar attributes. An analogy for this approach is any kind of competitive sport in which contestants compete against others of similar age, gender, or weight and are rewarded for superior performance. Peerenboom's "broader comparative context," under which one assesses a country's human rights performance relative to that of countries at similar income levels, falls squarely within the contender model.

The offender-contender framework is critical to a proper understanding of Peerenboom's position and his arguments in China Modernizes. Without appreciating Peerenboom's implicit argument that China is better treated as a contender rather than an offender, a believer of the offender model will likely find Peerenboom's "broader comparative context" argument utterly unconvincing. Those who reject the contender model might ask why China's human rights record should be explainable or even excusable by its status as a low-income country or its cultural heritage. The analogy between the offender model and the criminal justice system appears to support their position: crime, like human rights violations, is also highly correlated with the offender's income, (15) but in the criminal justice system, wealth, or the lack thereof, is almost never an excuse for crime. (16) Just like the lack of any other means of income is never an excuse for one to engage in theft, robbery, or prostitution, a country's low-income status does not make human rights violations against its own citizens any less reprehensible or punishable. Similarly, an offender's cultural, regional, and political background, under this view, should have little bearing on the determination of its guilt or punishment because by definition, the minimum standards of conduct, both in the criminal-justice context and in the international human rights context, reflect universal values and must be observed by all members of the community regardless of their personal beliefs or practices. (17) Therefore, if Peerenboom's argument is only read to mean that China's human rights violations are no worse than many other low-income countries or countries with similar cultural backgrounds, appeals to proponents of the offender model are likely to fall on deaf ears.

Peerenboom's "broader comparative context" argument should be more appropriately understood, first and foremost, as a challenge to the international human rights regime's overreliance on the offender model. By criticizing the use of idealized accounts of human rights or the record of wealthier countries as the universal benchmark for human rights protection, Peerenboom questions whether the standards of conduct currently in use under the offender model, supposedly minimal in theory, have been stretched unrealistically broadly in practice. Using standard criminal law terminology, this amounts to a challenge to overcriminalization in the realm of international conduct regulation. This challenge to overcriminalization forms the basis of both Peerenboom's argument that China's human rights record is more properly assessed in comparison with countries at similar income levels and his conclusion that China is a strong contender in its own right when viewed in this "broader comparative context."

Thus the issue is not whether China is more properly examined in a stand-alone context or compared to countries of similar income. Rather, the debate is more properly understood as one between the offender model and the contender model. Both models have normative appeal and the ideal approach to dealing with human rights issues should probably be a combination of both. At one end of the spectrum lie certain violations of core human rights, such as genocide and torture, that offend the basic human dignity universally cherished by all nations and should be examined under the offender model. Toward the other end of the spectrum, however, are rights where performance is highly correlated with a country's wealth and affected by its cultural heritage and political institutions. (18) Performance in these areas of human rights should be examined under the contender model, which compares nations of comparable abilities and rewards leaders in each group instead of punishing or shaming those who fall behind.

In theory, it is easy to understand that at some point along the axis of conduct regulation, the offender model stops being a justifiable tool to deter violations and the contender model begins to be the preferred method to encourage compliance. But in practice it is difficult to determine where the stick should end and where the carrot should begin. The prevailing criticism that portrays China as the worst offender of human rights presupposes a broad definition of the core rights; it applies the offender model to almost all rights ranging from civil and political rights to social and economic rights and seeks to stigmatize those whose conduct falls short of "the normatively inspiring yet frequently violated idealistic standards"



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"China Threat" or a "Peaceful Rise of China"?

"China's rise" can be seen as a quintessentially political process—through which the ruling Communist Party has sought to shore up its legitimacy after the Cultural Revolution irreversibly changed the nation and caused three crises of ideological belief, faith in the CPC, and confidence in the future. As the Party realized that the performance-based legitimacy was the only hope for prolonging its rule, economic development became the highest politics. Consequentially, the success of economic development would have to cause political implications—the external ones are carefully monitored and evaluated by China's neighbors and the only superpower of the world—the United States.

Will China become a threat to the United States, Japan, and surrounding countries? The reason for American concern mainly arises from its hegemonic status in the world politics and the ideological incompatibility of China with the Western value system. China's stunning economic growth has convinced the West that it is just a matter of time until China becomes a world superpower. But its ideological orientation makes China a revolutionary power that is threatening both to the United States' status and global structure. Three different logics have been constructed to substantiate the "China threat" thesis. First, ideological and cultural factors make China a threat. For neo-conservatives in the Bush Administration, the mere factor that China still sticks to communism makes view it adversely. Samuel Huntington has added a cultural factor: in the clash of civilizations, the "unholy alliance between Islamic and Confucian civilizations" is the most fundamental threat to the West. For people using this logic, the sensible response from the U.S. is, in the short run, a containment policy, and confrontation is possible if needed; in the long run, the promotion of a peaceful transformation within China. Second, geopolitical and geoeconomic factors. For many realists, even China has shed off its ideological straitjacket, as a great power in size (territory, population, and economy), China has to pursue its own interest and respect. Nationalism may still drive China into a course of clash with the United States, if the latter refuses to accommodate or share the leadership with China as a rising power. Some scholars fear that democracy can unleash strong nationalism and popular nationalism can make China even more aggressive toward the United States. Third, the collapse of China. Opposed to the previous two perspectives, some people are concerned that if China suffers a Soviet-style sudden-death syndrome and spins out of control, it can create an even worse scenario. The sheer size of the population makes refuge problem, the failed state and the followed crises (warlordism, civil war, crime, proliferation of nuclear weapons, etc) impossible for the world to deal with. Due to these three different considerations, the United States often oscillates from demonization to romaticization of China, from containment to engagement. The U.S.-China relationship has shifted from conflict, to confrontation, to competition and back to conflict, but so rarely features with cooperation. One American China specialist characterizes the bilateral relationship as "the sweet-and-sour Sino-American relationship."

The Japanese have a different set of reasons to feel upset by China's rise. Although Japan has been culturally indebted to China since the Tang dynasty, somehow Japan has developed a strong Oedipus complex toward China—namely to commit patricide against its cultural patron. In the past century, China suffered several severe acts of aggression at the hands of the Japanese. The mutual animosity between these two countries has been strong. The Japanese deep involvement in Taiwan, its stubborn refusal to offer unequivocal apologies to the Asian neighboring countries over its aggressions, and American military alliance with Japan all have been irksome to the Chinese. The construction of Chinese nationalism by mainly relying on anti-Japanese sentiment among the Chinese turned Japan into an easy target. To some degree, the Chinese leadership has tried to release the popular anger against the regime by directing it either to the local tyrants or to the international bullies (U.S. and Japan are two natural candidates). Now Japan and China still have not developed any framework to resolve their territorial disputes and their relationship has reached a low point. The Chinese often suspect that U.S. and Japan are the originators of a variety of "China threat" arguments.

In addition to the ideological threat, many other neighboring countries have more stakes in China's new move. For Southeast Asian nations, the presence of a sizeable and extremely rich Chinese ethnic group and their increasing dependency upon China's economy for growth forced them to be very careful in handling their relationship with China. With a continental size (China has almost two times the territorial and population sizes of all other Asian Pacific countries combined), China consumes a tremendous amount of foreign direct investment and pops out huge volume of exports; other countries feel the competition from China. At this moment, no government in the Asian Pacific region has adopted a clear anti-China policy; but sporadic anti-Chinese riots have occurred in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines; and strong resentment against the Northern economic and cultural invasion has surfaced in Myanmar (former Burma), Thailand, Vietnam, and other countries. Even Singapore—the self-proclaimed third Chinese territory in addition to China and Taiwan—was upset by China's strong hand in 2004 after Lee Hsien Loong, the soon-to-be-inaugurated Prime Minister of Singapore, visited Taiwan.

The combination of stunning economic growth and unpredictable political governance causes deep concerns about China among the nations in the world. The Chinese leadership has realized the urgency to calm down these concerns and to build a supportive international environment for its ascendancy. To make its rise less a threat, the Chinese government has sponsored many PR events, such as exhibitions in foreign countries, promoting Chinese language programs, and so on. But most importantly, the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao put forward the thesis of "China's peaceful rise" in his speech to a Harvard University audience in December 2003. Under this thesis, there are several points: First, China's development depends upon and in return will contribute to the world peace; second, China will resort to peaceful means for development; third, China's development will rely more on its own resources and market; fourth, China is prepared for a long-term process of hard work, even several generations, for economic prosperity. Finally, even as China has achieved its economic development, it will not seek hegemony in the world or come out as a threat to any country.

Under the guiding principle of "China's peaceful rise," the Chinese government has conducted actively diplomacy at four (at least) different levels: (1) Creating strategic partnerships with the second-tier powers. China has signed strategic partnership treaties with the EU, Russia and India to strengthen their relationships as well as to balance the American power. (2) Promoting "good neighbor policy" in the Asian Pacific region. By increasing trade with the Asian-Pacific region and also let these countries enjoy trade surplus with China, China has positioned as an important trading partner with these countries. Besides, China has entered into various mechanisms of regional cooperation with these countries. During the 1997 Asian financial crises, that China refrained from devaluing its currency and helped stabilize the regional economy by mobilizing its foreign currency reserve won positive reactions from this region and the U.S. (3) Seeking cooperation and avoiding confrontation with the U.S. The Chinese side basically has sent to Washington a clear message that China is a conservative power and has no intention to upset the status quo—namely the U.S. as the sole superpower in the world. (4) Neglecting Japan. As China has successfully managed relationships with the sole superpower, the second-tier strategic partners, and neighboring countries, China is able to afford to ignore Japan and occasionally show some toughness.

For the past five years, the Chinese leadership has been cautious and successful in managing the internal nationalism and American unilateralism, to some degree, thanks to the anti-terror war. Now some signs have indicated that the honeymoon between the U.S. and China in the aftermath of Sept.11 attack and anti-terrorism coalition has arrived at its end. If the United States shifts its policy to a hard-line toward China, the cyclical turbulence in the Sino-American relationship may soon resurface. This might jeopardize China's plan of a peaceful rise. At the micro-level, the U.S. seems to have been more provocative toward China, the latter has been more on defensive; but if we look at the Sino-U.S. relationship from the macro-level, it seems that China can take back initiative if it can remove the thorn of communist ideology and authoritarianism, because the Americans tend to believe that under the doctrine of democratic peace, democratic countries do not fight war against each other. Therefore, to create long-term internal and external stability, the CPC has to learn how to play the card of democracy. Does this amount to ask a leopard to change its spots?

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US, China to Resume Military Contacts

A senior U.S. military commander has announced that the United States and China have agreed to resume routine military contacts and high-level visits by defense officials, and that he expects the process to begin within the next two months.

The commander of U.S. forces in Asia, Admiral Timothy Keating, told reporters the agreement was reached during the two-day U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue that ended Tuesday here in Washington.
"There was clear agreement on the need and the desire to resume those talks," he said. "There are several high-level military visits - from Beijing to Washington, Washington to Beijing - that are in their final stages of planning. I can't go into, I'd rather not go into the specifics as to when or who. But I can assure you they're in the very final stages of planning."

Admiral Keating said the renewed U.S.-China military talks will be highlighted by a meeting under the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement between the two countries. For two days this week, the admiral participated in the U.S.-China Dialogue, which was led by officials from the U.S. Departments of State and Treasury, and their Chinese counterparts. Keating also met with a rear admiral representing China's defense forces.

China suspended routine military contacts and high-level defense visits with the United States last October, after the announcement of a U.S. arms sale to Taiwan. Since then, there have been several incidents at sea, in which Chinese boats have harassed U.S. ships in international waters near the Chinese coast. In addition, China denied entry to Hong Kong to several U.S. Navy ships, including two that were low on fuel during a storm.

Last month, a senior Defense Department policy official visited Beijing to begin the process of mending military relations.

And Admiral Keating indicated that during Monday's Strategic and Economic Dialogue meeting, there was a considerably warmer atmosphere than had existed at the time of the maritime incidents a few months ago.

"A statement was made by a Chinese delegation official yesterday [Monday] that no country can develop sound policy if they try and do so in isolation," he said. "And I think that's a great way of addressing the sense all of us feel, the desire, to get back together again and discuss exercises, discuss personnel exchanges, discuss responses to humanitarian assistance crises and the provision of disaster relief."

The admiral said both the Chinese and U.S. presidents are committed to renewing bi-lateral military ties and that officials are working on the final details of how to do that as soon as possible.
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India vs China on Military Strength - Conventional and Nuclear

As two rising Asian powers, India and China are often predicted by analysts to be the future global superpowers based on their economic boom with double digit GDP growths and their rising politico-social influence in the third world since the last few years. In the myriad economic and political analyses, often overlooked is the military comparison of these two countries. It is a nation’s military strength which ensures its sovereignty and paves the way for economic stability and prosperity. A comparative analysis is therefore just, to see how India and China fare in military strengths against each other and in the global scene.


China’s military spending in 2008 is about $ 95 billion as estimated by the United States DoD (Department of Defense) reports while the official Chinese CPC government quote is a $30 billion military expenditure. The actual Chinese military capabilities and budget are shrouded in deep secrecy to prevent foreign countries having an idea of its military power…and perhaps to generate a lot of hype. Even if we were to go by the conservative official Chinese claims of $ 30 billion, it would put China second only to USA in global military spending - a very ambitious one at that. On the other side, India’s official military spending is quoted as $22 billion for 2007 by the Ministry of Finance (India) Budget (2007-2008) last April. India however, does not keep a level of secrecy as cloaked as China does, primarily because of its democratic government system and public accountability. By its official 2008 military budget figures, India stands at 9th position in global military spending.

In 2008 India’s active military personell numbered over 1,325,000 while China’s was significantly higher at 2,255,000. In the air defence area, China’s PLA (People’s Liberation Army) Air Force has 9,218 aircrafts of which about 2300 are combat aircrafts, operating from its 489+ air bases. The Indian Air Force has 3382 aircrafts which includes 1335 combat aircrafts operating from 334+ land bases and its sole aircraft carrier INS Viraat. The best combat aircrafts in China’s PLAAF are Russian Su-30 MK and indigenously built, 4th generation J-10 fighters. Indian Air Force, on the other hand has French built Dassault Mirage 2000s and Russian Su-30 MKI as the best aircrafts in its combat fleet (no indigenous fighters or aircrafts have been built by India so far). Indian Navy is the world’s eighth largest navy with a with a fleet of 145 vessels consisting of missile-capable warships, advanced submarines, the latest naval aircrafts and an aircraft carrier in its inventory. It is experienced both in combat and rescue operations during wartime and peace as seen from its wars with Pakistan in 1971, the December 2004 Tsunami, etc. On the other hand, China’s PLA Navy with its 284 fleet is quantitatively larger but primitive in actual experience and training as compared to the Indian Navy. China has no aircraft carriers in its naval fleet at present but is slated to build and induct an aircraft carrier by 2010.

In strategic nuclear defence and delivery systems China’s PLA is miles ahead of India’s nuclear forces. China’s nuclear arsenal which started stockpiling in 1964, contains more than 210 nuclear warheads. The most powerful ones among China’s nuclear arsenal have yields of over 4 megatons. In comparison, India’s strategic nuclear force which started stockpiling after the 1998 Shakti tests, has about 50-70 warheads at present. The most powerful among India’s nuclear warheads has an yield of 0.05 megatons which is minuscule, compared to China. India’s nuclear delivery system consists of bombers, supersonic cruise missiles and medium range ballistics missiles. Agni 2, India’s longest range, deployed ballistic missile is capable of a range of 2500 km, carrying a single nuclear warhead of 1000 kg. In stark contrast, China’s nuclear delivery system is far more advanced than India’s, with multi-warhead MIRV capable ICBMs like DF-5A [12000+ km] and DF-4 [7500+ km]. It also possesses submarine launched SLBMs like JL-1 [4500+ km] and strategic fighter bombers like Su-27 Flanker in its nuclear weapons delivery arsenal.

In economics we learn that incentives drive decision making both by a nation and by an individual. In case of India, a democracy with no serious military adversary, its militarisation drive is often overshadowed by internal militancy issues and political struggles. In case of a communist China, it has a powerful military adversary in USA; their conflicts over Taiwan issue giving China a strong incentive to beef up its military defence to counter the United States. The situation is much similar to that of USSR vs USA Cold War, albeit on a smaller scale. The end result is China walking far ahead of India in military power with overpowering superiority if both conventional and nuclear forces are taken into account. However for the next couple of years, India and Japan will continue to boast of the best and most capable conventional military forces in Asia…

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British Government Redefinition Could Re-Ignite China-India Border Dispute

A statement posted on the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office website last year could cause potential conflict over North-East India territories which are also claimed by China. Since the days of the British Raj, the historic border areas between Tibet, British India and China were usually coordinated by the three.

Although some conflicts remain in West China and India due to agreements made by Tibet and British India and not ratified by the Chinese, the new potential for dispute centers on the Eastern territories of India. These have based upon the Simla Accord, signed in 1913 and 1914 in which Britain only recognized the suzerainty of China over Tibet, and not sovereignty.

Suzerainty is a situation in which a region or people is a tributary to a more powerful entity which controls its foreign affairs while allowing the tributary some limited domestic autonomy. The superior entity in the suzerainty relationship, or the head of state of that more powerful entity, is called a suzerain.

The term suzerainty was originally used to describe the relationship between the Ottoman Empire and its surrounding regions. It differs from sovereignty in that the tributary has limited self-rule. This definition for Tibet has never been accepted by China.

The Simla Accord provided that the area referred to as “Outer Tibet” would “remain in the hands of the Tibetan government at Lhasa.” This region, approximately the covering today’s Tibet Autonomous Region, would be under Chinese suzerainty, but China could not interfere in its administration.

The accord with its annexes also defined lines which would designate the boundary between Tibet and China proper and between Tibet and British India, also known as the McMahon Line. However, China refused to accept the accord and their plenipotentiary, Ivan Chen, withdrew on July 3, 1914.

After his withdrawal the British and Tibetan plenipotentiaries attached a note denying China any privileges under the accord and sealed it as a bilateral agreement on the same day. This lack of a tri-party agreement is the root cause of the existing border disputes that now exist between India and China, and over which several border wars have flared.

This issue was visited again when the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, issued a ministerial statement on its website last October 29 that recognized Chinese claim over Tibet.

On the ministerial statement an Economist article published last year, reported that although the statement does explicitly recognize Chinese sovereignty, it does mean that as far as Britain is concerned: “Tibet is part of China. Full stop.”

This change in Britain’s position consequently affects India’s claim to the North Eastern territories which rely on the same Simla agreement that Britain’s prior position on Tibet’s sovereignty was based upon.

The diplomatic consequences mean that India’s claim over the state of Arunachal Pradesh is compromised, a situation that has already seen China refuse to grant a loan by the Asian Development Bank to India because of its sovereignty claims on the same territory.

The state has a population of over a million people and is agriculturally fertile. How the future of the state will be played out remains uncertain. China has a long history of being patient and is unlikely to repudiate its claims. India however views the state as historically part of India, however, any attempt to further development the state is likely to be met with strong opposition from China.

One hopes the present easing of diplomatic tensions between China and India, as demonstrated at the recent meeting of foreign ministers continues. However, the position that has now risen gives a stronger play to China’s claims and any dispute between the two nations is likely to focus on this region.

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India, China Resume Border Dispute Talks

NEW DELHI - India and China will resume their talks Aug. 7 and 8 here on their disputed border, with Dai Bingguo, Chinese vice minister for foreign affairs, meeting with Indian National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan.

India and China fought a brief battle in 1962 over border issues and have held a series of talks to resolve the disagreement. The dispute involves the longest contested boundary in the world. China claims 92,000 square kilometers of Indian territory, a senior Indian Foreign Ministry official said.

The border between India and China is defined by a 4,056-kilometer Line of Actual Control (LAC), which is neither marked on the ground nor on mutually acceptable maps. Efforts to have a recognized LAC since the mid-1980s have made little headway.

Of late, New Delhi has shown concern over China's increased defense spending. The latest report of the Indian Defence Ministry issued in early July says China's armed forces' modernization needs to be "monitored carefully" for implications on India's defense and security.

Indian Navy Chief Adm. Sureesh Mehta had earlier said that China was shaping the maritime battlefield in the region.

"They [Chinese] are looking 20 years ahead," Mehta had cautioned.

India has already begun raising infrastructure along the border with China and is building new roads. Special troops are being prepared for deployment along the Chinese border and tenders have been floated to buy ultralight 155mm guns and a variety of helicopters.

China has increased its nuclear submarines in the Indian Ocean, an Indian Navy official said.

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some more

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Some Chinese Military Gear

Personally I think It's Not Bad.
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Chinese Special Force

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A book by Bill Gertz

There's a book By : Bill Gertz if anybody want check it out.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/China-Threat-Peoples-Republic-Targets/dp/0895261871/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1250165519&sr=8-11

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Is China Threat a Hoax?

The Beijing Olympics has focused unprecedented world attention on China this year. Many people hail the Games as an occasion that showcases China's growing contribution to world development and harmony. But intent on politicizing this global event, a few modern Cassandras still cling to the flawed China Threat theory. In this paper, the author traces the origins of this fallacious theory. He sees it as a product of Western empiricism viewed through an historical and philosophical prism. He argues that the assertion of threat arises from a generalization of historical facts. The assertion links China's growing clout with declining Western dominance in international affairs. Starting with the myth that peace is possible only among democracies, the theory predicts the inevitability of conflict between the West and China, a country with an alleged expansionist tradition and under an authoritarian system.
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Over the years, the Peoples Republic of China has meant different things to different people and has at the same time evoked different emotions depending on where one stands on the ideological spectrum. As with people, the same with nation states in the international community. Confronted with the reality of a mega state, peopled by a sixth of the world population and whose accomplishments are confounding, friends and foes alike, talk of "The China Threat".

The question I will try to answer in this essay, is what is meant by the China threat and how did or could this scary term have emerged? Is China really a threat to anybody? Where Africa stands with China and what in relation to prevailing reality does the China threat mean.

Both in ancient and medieval times, China was a nation to be reckoned with all through the centuries. However it took the end of the Second World War and the emergence of communist China which in worldview was opposed to the then dominant western world for the term "The China Threat" to emerge.

After the Second World War, what became known as the China threat include the threat of Chinese political ideas embedded in communist thoughts and practices according to the teachings of the late Chinese Communists leader, Chairman Mao. Communist ideology was the opposite of capitalism and liberalism as practised by the West as both in their conception had different and competing ideas about how a state should be organised as well as the ultimate destiny of mankind.

Second, the Chinese threat referred to the huge Chinese population, which even by 1945 was still the largest in the world. Anyone aware of the relationship between a well educated or skilled and disciplined population and wealth creation would of course see the Chinese as a threat. In 1945, however the Chinese population as we know it today was not well educated and actually was a burden on China.

Third, the term meant the potential of the Chinese nation; with its huge natural resources and the use this could be put to by a focused, disciplined and responsible leadership
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Is China a threat to the world?

After 30 years of Economic booming, China achieved many considered a modern marvel of free market economy, from a country who could barely feed it's own people to the world's third largest economy. As the result of this, Since the early- to mid-1990s, China's military has started modernization, especially past 10 year, from weapon's technology to space program is catching up with incredible speed if not in some area has already caught up even bypassed the west. So the question has emerged, will China be a threat to the west?
The Yanks certainly prefer the threat theory. Under its "one China" policy, the United States recognizes that Taiwan is part of China. But at the same time American is selling weapons to Taiwan. what a hypercritic! So the "Chinese threat" is that China may be able to deter or counter American intervention in a Chinese civil war. Who is the attacker here? If Britain or France had intervened on behalf of the Confederacy after the American South declared its independence, would the Union have seen such action as defensive? I don's know. In a 21st century where the most important division will be between centers of order and centers or sources of disorder, it is vital to American interests that China remain a center of order. America needs to handle a rising China the way Britain handled a rising America, not a rising Germany.
Is china a threat? I personally think it's still to early to say. On this matter, EU is more calm than American's wishful thinking if I may say.

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