Asian Security & Democracy Project

Japanese Military Technology Advances
by Richard Fisher, Jr.

Published on December 6th, 2007
While Japan has remained largely dependent on imported American technology for major weapon systems since the 1950s, through the work of the Japanese Defense Ministry’s Technical Research and Development Institute (TRDI) has also succeeded in building a modern domestic defense industry dedicated to meeting Japan’s specific requirements.  Recent TRDI successes include the new Kawasaki-built P-X four-turbofan engine maritime patrol aircraft with a TRDI designed high-bypass turbofan engine, and the new 30-ton capacity C-X twin-turbofan military transport.  While the TRDI-designed  “indigenous” Mitsubishi F-2 fighter has been marred by controversy, issues of U.S. intervention and a reduced purchase order, it did demonstrate TRDI’s capacity to design a 4th generation fighter and develop new technologies like advanced composite structures and active phased array radar.

Shenlong Space Plane Advances China’s Military Space Potential
by Richard Fisher, Jr.

Published on December 17th, 2007
A chance December 11, 2007 release of a photo on a Chinese website has led to a rare unofficial “declassification” of a new Chinese unmanned test space plane.   Designated the “Shenlong,” or Divine Dragon, this small aircraft was shown suspended from the fuselage of a Xian H-6 bomber and launch aircraft.  So far there has been no official Chinese government, PLA or Chinese corporate or space program related disclosure about this program.  However, from this photo and other Chinese sources, it is possible to conclude that the Shenlong constitutes a second Chinese air-launched space-launch vehicle (SLV) program, but for the purposes of testing technologies for a future re-usable unmanned or manned space shuttle or other trans-atmospheric vehicle.  While both unmanned and manned space planes could serve a range of scientific and commercial missions, it is also clear that the PLA envisions such vehicles to perform military missions.

A New Era in Sino-Indian Relations or Deja-vu All Over Again?
by June Teufel Dreyer, Ph.D

Published on January 19th, 2008
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s mid-January visit to Beijing produced the standard cant of high level diplomatic exchanges, dutifully repeated by the media and several Western analysts.  Singh, who received a red carpet welcome at the Beijing airport, said that bilateral ties were now poised to enter a “vibrant and dynamic phase,” and that India attached high priority to strengthening its relations with China, which was a focal point in its Look East policy. Disputes, said Singh, could be solved in the Asian way of avoiding confrontation while building trust, confidence, and consensus. China and India, echoed India’s minister of trade and industry, were now seen as the engines of economic growth by the rest of the world.  Particularly since the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States and other factors engendered fear of an economic recession in the west, investors’ hopes had turned to Asia.

China’s Emerging 5th Generation Air-to-Air Missiles
by Richard Fisher, Jr.

Published on February 2nd, 2008
Internet source imagery from January 4 has offered the first glimpses of what may be China’s emerging 5th generation air-to-air missiles (AAM).  One missile, called the PL-ASR or PL-10, shows a very close resemblance to the South African Denel A-Darter AAM.  A second image, discovered on a China’s Northwestern University web site in mid-December, shows another missile similar to the radar-guided South African Denel R-Darter, designed in cooperation with Israel.  Both of these missiles are likely designed for use with modern Helmet-Mounted Displays (HMD), which enable pilots to “look to kill” their targets.  But there is more: additional imagery suggests that a previously reported ramjet powered development of the Chinese Luoyang PL-12 active-radar guided AAM, called the PL-13, could give the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) an AAM that could out-range existing U.S. AAMs.

It Is Time for the Pentagon’s PLA Report to Grow Up
by Richard Fisher, Jr.

Published on March 22nd, 2008
For the first time in many years, on March 3 the Pentagon issued its annual China Military Power report prior to the March 15 deadline called for by the 1997 Congressional authorization language. One apparent reason for the early delivery was to use the report as part of an intensified effort to convince China to relax its deeply ingrained resistance to “military transparency.”  However, the key requirement for this annual report as mandated by the Congress was that the Department of Defense report “on the future pattern of military modernization of the People's Republic of China.” The 2008 report offers some interesting new data,  even as it prompts new and old questions.  Responding fully to its Congressional mandate and serving better to convince China to reveal more about its capabilities and intents will require more. The time has come to greatly expand and upgrade the China Military Power report.

China’s Views of Sovereignty and Methods of Access Control
Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission
by June Teufel Dreyer, Ph.D

Published on February 27th, 2008
Traditionally China did not recognize the concept of sovereignty, defined as the exclusive right to complete control over an area of governance or people. It functioned under principles more akin to what is known in the western world as suzerainty: a government that controls other governments but allows them considerable autonomy over their domestic affairs. Often the mechanism through which this was effected was the swearing of an oath of fealty from vassal to the feudal lord to whom allegiance would henceforth be due.

What Is Happening In China?
by Arthur Waldron, Ph.D

Published on March 25th, 2008
Posed at this time, the question is enormous. Washington is singularly ill-prepared to address it, for what is happening, bluntly speaking, is that the interlocking set of hopes and assumptions about China that for thirty years have ruled policy, is being tested as never before and may not survive.

China's Naval Secrets
Asian Wall Street Journal
by Richard Fisher, Jr.

Published on May 5th, 2008
Experts attempting to understand the strategic aims behind China's aggressive military expansion have generally focused on Taiwan. But a new naval base points at Beijing's significant and growing interest in projecting power into waters far from the Taiwan Strait. China, in fact, is equipping itself to assert its longstanding and expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea, and this plan could raise tensions well beyond the region.

Chinese Arms Cost American Lives
Far Eastern Economic Review (July/August 2008)
by Richard Fisher, Jr.

Published on July 1st, 2008
For over a year, U.S. officials have been complaining to their Chinese counterparts about the shipment of Chinese-made or Chinese coproduced weapons to Iraqi insurgents and to the Taliban in Afghanistan, largely via Iran. The requests to stop the flow of arms into the hands of insurgents who are killing U.S. and coalition troops has fallen on deaf ears. Far more than just the latest irritant in U.S.-China relations, Beijing’s arming of these insurgencies fits into the long-term trend dating back to the Korean and Vietnam Wars of using proxy conflicts to bleed the American superpower.

China’s Military Employment of American Dual-Use Technologies
by Richard Fisher, Jr.

Published on August 1st, 2008
On June 5, 1989 President George H.W. Bush announced the United States suspension of sales of items on the U.S. munitions list, or an arms embargo, in response to the June 3-4 Tiananmen Massacre in Beijing, China. In 1990 this policy was codified by the U.S. Congress. But almost from its inception successive American presidents have made exceptions to this law, primarily by issuing wavers to allow the purchase of Chinese satellite launch services. In addition, by the mid-1990s the U.S. Commerce Department has allowed a growing trade in so-called "dual-use" items that may have a military use but are not weapons in and of themselves.