The U.S. Department of Defense 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report directly identified the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the foreign country with “the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States,” and the threat to Taiwan is specifically mentioned (pp. 29 – 30). Beijing formally complained to Washington immediately, yet the U.S. Navy is right now starting to swing more of its operational strength to the Pacific.

Meanwhile, President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan just declared by executive order that the National Unification Council (unification meaning with the PRC) and the Guidelines for National Unification have “ceased to exist,” labeling them “products of absurdity.” Not only did Beijing take rather sharp exception to this action, but the main opposition party in Taiwan itself has called for Chen’s impeachment. Chen went as far as using the word “independent” to describe Taiwan, something that Beijing has long warned would amount to a conclusive casus belli (cause for war).

What does all this mean? Will missiles soon start flying across the narrow Strait of Taiwan, instead of mere angry rhetoric? Will tension over the QDR escalate, soon, from hostile diplomatic notes to actual armed hostilites between opposing U.S. and Chinese naval units?

Though making predictions is always risky, I think the answer to both these questions is No, at least in the short-term. Beijing holds the initiative to open any sort of shooting war. (Taiwan lacks the strength to achieve even a meaningful beachhead on the mainland, and the U.S. certainly seems unlikely to unleash a surprise attack.) More importantly, Beijing knows that the PRC military isn’t ready and won’t be for as long as 20 more years.

I had my say on possible scenarios covering that timeframe in a public talk I gave at the New York State Military Museum on 3 December 2005, “Will China Rule the Waves?” Those comments, with the same title, were written up as a lead feature in the January, 2006 issue of The Submarine Review. I won’t repeat what I said there, but I will offer some further food for thought.

First of all, I think that anyone pondering the PRC’s long-term goals and intentions simply must read the new book Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. Reviews by professional historians consider Mao to be rather accurate. And reading it will likely curdle your blood. If half of what Chang and Halliday say is true, Chairman Mao and his successors, ever since, have had global (not regional) domination as one of their prime objectives. The PRC’s ruthless techniques of internal repression, and incredibly callous methods of external manipulation, make Machiavelli, Hitler, and Stalin combined look like an understrength Boy Scout troop. To those who’d argue that Maoism died with Mao, and the PRC is now an emergent democracy, I’d point out something by way of a very disillusioning caution: In 1989, that wonderful year when the Berlin Wall came down, machine guns on tanks opened fire on civilian demonstrators in Tianenmen Square. The death toll from that government-ordered massacre of innocents is difficult to learn, but has been described by some sources as running into the thousands. The liberalization that started after Mao passed away in 1976 didn’t last long at all. By 1980, a new generation of totalitarian leaders launched their own crackdown. That decade ended with a tragedy, a travesty, that Beijing has not apologized for to its own people or to the world up to this day.

The PRC’s record of despicable contempt for basic human rights, freedom of speech and religion, and rule of law continues unbroken. Don’t let all those newly constructed high-rise apartment complexes next to ample parking, well-equipped health clubs, and huge shopping malls fool you, either. As devil’s advocate, I’d label them a sort of dual-use technology. Think instantly available barracks, parade grounds, arsenals, all-weather training facilities, and who-knows-what hardened bunkers hidden under those widely-dispersed, nearly nationwide malls.

Reliable sources, including for-the-record comments made at the Naval War College’s 2005 Current Strategy Forum by U.S. flag officers on the program, indicate that China is hell bent on acquiring a submarine fleet that by 2025 will outnumber America’s by 3 to 1 or even (some more recent sources say) by even 5 to 1. I’m hardly the first person to pose the question, What could China possibly need with all those submarines? Remember, in the 21st century, subs are most definitely offensive weapons, especially when armed with supersonic anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles, and with rocket-propelled torpedoes that do upwards of 250 knots underwater -- all of which Beijing is busy acquiring. (Here I must pause to correct a misnomer seen on a recent non-fiction TV documentary: Rocket-propelled torpedoes are not “undetectable to their targets because they travel faster than their own noise.” The speed of sound in water is about 3,000 knots. Deafeningly loud weapons moving at barely Mach 0.1 within the same medium as a submarine would easily be heard on passive sonar long before possible warhead impact.)

Ask yourself another question: If conquering Taiwan by force is really China’s purpose, in case seduction or negotiation for a “One Country, Two Systems” arrangement ultimately fails, could China, from the perspective of global grand military strategy, possibly stop at just holding Taiwan (an island half the size of Maine) and then go on the defensive? History would teach us otherwise, that you can’t do “just a little” aggressive expansionism, and China is a superb student of world history. With Taiwan in its grip, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) could surge those hundreds of subs into the Pacific for a massive confrontation with the U.S. Navy. Even if we won militarily, the very fact of the contest occurring would mean that we’d lost big-time politically, at home and on the world stage. And the naval campaign would be a horrendous slaughter. American nuclear subs might be sunk in combat for the first time. Punishing China afterward, by force or economic sanctions, might hurt them but it wouldn’t help us or our widows and orphans resulting from war.

The admiral who commands the PLAN must be chortling in his office that on the floor of the United States Congress, only the other day, the idea was seriously discussed of further cutting back the already paltry Virginia-class build rate in favor of more Air Force mid-air refueling planes!

It’s my deeply considered opinion that, like a magician playing sleight of hand, China wants us to fixate on Taiwan and only Taiwan, wants us to believe that nuclear subs are Cold War relics, even wants us to start questioning whether SSNs and SSGNs can really survive in the littorals. The People’s Republic seems to be doing a good job of all that, via their usual mix of opportunism, deceit, deception, propaganda, media exploitation, and espionage. It’s up to America to see through this act, counter these odious tactics, and sustain the naval superiority needed to compel Beijing, out of its own self-interest in avoiding a coup or regime change, to adhere to the path of peace.

JoeBuff.Com / Joe Buff Inc. Joe Buff, President Dutchess County, New York E-Mail readermail@JoeBuff.Com