Here be dragons: is China a military threat? Myth.

• Author: Ross, Robert S.
• Position: Essay

After more than thirty years of post-Mao economic reforms and average annual economic growth rates of approximately 10 percent, China has begun to develop a new generation of military technologies that significantly advance its strategic capabilities. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is developing a wide range of weaponry that enables it to project power off of the Asian mainland and into new theaters, including the high seas and space. These advances underscore the potential challenge China poses to U.S. security and the importance of paying vigilant attention to the developments in the U.S.-China balance of power.

Yet China does not pose a threat to America's vital security interests today, tomorrow or at any time in the near future. Neither alarm nor exaggerated assessments of contemporary China's relative capabilities and the impact of Chinese defense modernization on U.S. security interests in East Asia is needed because, despite Chinas military advances, it has not developed the necessary technologies to constitute a grave threat. Beijing's strategic advances do not require a major change in Washington's defense or regional security policy, or in U.S. policy toward China. Rather, ongoing American confidence in its capabilities and in the strength of its regional partnerships allows the United States to enjoy both extensive military and diplomatic cooperation with China while it consolidates its regional security interests. The China threat is simply vastly overrated.

America's vital security interests, including in East Asia, are all in the maritime regions. With superior maritime power, the United States can not only dominate regional sea-lanes but also guarantee a favorable balance of power that prevents the emergence of a regional hegemon. And despite Chinas military advances and its challenge to America's ability to project its power in the region, the United States can be confident in its ability to retain maritime dominance well into the twenty-first century.

East Asia possesses plentiful offshore assets that enable the United States to maintain a robust military presence, to contend with a rising China and to maintain a favorable balance of power. The U.S. alliance with Japan and its close strategic partnership with Singapore provide Washington with key naval and air facilities essential to regional power projection. The United States also has developed strategic cooperation with Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Each country possesses significant port facilities that can contribute to U.S. capabilities during periods of heightened tension, whether it be over Taiwan or North Korea.

The United States developed and sustained its strategic partnerships with East Asia's maritime countries and maintained the balance of power both during and after the cold war because of its overwhelming naval superiority. America's power-projection capability has assured U.S. strategic partners that they can depend on the United States to deter another great power from attacking them; and, should war ensue, that they would incur minimal costs. This American security guarantee is as robust and credible as ever.

The critical factor in assessing the modernization of the PLA's military forces is thus whether China is on the verge of challenging U.S. deterrence and developing war-winning capabilities to such a degree that East Asia's maritime countries would question the value of their strategic alignment with the United States. But, though China's capabilities are increasing, in no way do they challenge U.S. supremacy. America's maritime security is based not only on its superior surface fleet, which enables it to project airpower into distant regions, but also on its subsurface ships, which provide secure "stealth" platforms for retaliatory strikes, and its advanced command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance ([C.sup.4]ISR) capabilities. In each of these areas, China is far from successfully posing any kind of serious immediate challenge.

China is buying and building a better maritime capability. However, the net effect of Chinas naval advances on U.S. maritime superiority is negligible.

Since the early 1990s--especially later in the decade as the Taiwan conflict escalated and following the 1996 U.S.-China Taiwan Strait confrontation--Beijing focused its maritime-acquisitions program primarily on the purchase of modern submarines to contribute to an access-denial capability that could limit U.S. operations in a Taiwan contingency. It purchased twelve Kilo-class submarines from Russia and it has developed its own Song-class and Yuan-class models. These highly capable diesel submarines are difficult to detect. In addition, China complemented its submarine capability with a coastal deployment of Russian Su-27 and Su-30 aircraft and over one thousand five hundred Russian surface-to-air missiles. The combined effect of these deployments has been greater Chinese ability to target an American aircraft carrier and an improved ability to deny U.S. ships and aircraft access to Chinese coastal waters.

Indeed, American power-projection capabilities in East Asia are more vulnerable now than at any time since the end of the cold war. We can no longer guarantee the security of a carrier. Nevertheless, the U.S. Navy is...