Alarming congressional China commission report details shifting balance of power in Asia

Special to WorldTribune.com

Bill Gertz, Washington Free Beacon

China’s decades-long buildup of strategic and conventional military forces is shifting the balance of power in Asia in Beijing’s favor and increasing the risk of a conflict, according to a forthcoming report by a congressional China commission. …

People's Liberation Army troops in northeast China's Jilin province. / AP
People’s Liberation Army troops in northeast China’s Jilin province. / AP

The report paints an alarming picture of China’s growing aggressiveness and expanding power, including development of two new stealth jets, the first deployment of a naval expeditionary amphibious group to the Indian Ocean, and aerial bombing exercises held in Kazakhstan. …

“China’s rapid military modernization is altering the military balance of power in the Asia Pacific in ways that could engender destabilizing security competition between other major nearby countries, such as Japan and India, and exacerbate regional hotspots such as Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea,” the report concludes in a section on military developments….

The report also confirms that China twice this year tested a new, ultra-high speed strategic strike vehicle called the Wu-14. When deployed, the Wu-14 will give the Chinese military the capability of attacking any target on earth in as little as “minutes to hours,” the report says. … A super fast strike vehicle that glides to its targets of speeds of up to nearly 8,000 miles per hour could be deployed by 2020 and a similar high-speed scramjet powered hypersonic attack vehicle could be fielded before 2025, the report says. …

The Pentagon after 2010 halted releasing annual assessments of Chinese missile forces that one expert said undercuts the Obama administration’s policy of seeking a more open Chinese military by “indirectly assisting Chinese secrecy.” … The Pentagon has not released an assessment of Chinese nuclear forces since 2006 when it said China had more than 100 warheads. Current estimates by non-government analysts place the number of Chinese nuclear warheads as from 250 to as many as 3,000. …

The network of some 3,000 miles of underground nuclear facilities is also being expanded, the report states. … The newest system is the DF-41 ICBM that is expected to be deployed as early as next year with up to 10 multiple nuclear warheads. The DF-41’s range of about 7,456 miles is sufficient “to target the entire continental United States,” the report states.

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