Quote:
Chinese warships trained weapons on Japanese surveillance aircraft monitoring a disputed Chinese gas field in the East China Sea in a weapons drill last fall, the U.S. Defense Department said Tuesday in an annual report on China's military capabilities.
The Pentagon said in the 50-page report that the incident was one of the key developments over the past year underscoring China's continuing activities to build up and modernize its military beyond its interests over Taiwan to secure its interests deeper into the Pacific.
The Chinese military expansion and modernization "is already such as to alter regional military balances," and has become a "credible threat to modern militaries operating in the region," the Pentagon said, reiterating concern expressed in past reports over opaque Chinese activities.
According to Japanese government sources last October, a Chinese military vessel pointed a gun at a Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force PC-3 surveillance plane in early September near the site of the Chinese Chunxiao gas field, the subject of a dispute with Japan.
The ship -- a missile frigate -- was one of the five Chinese naval vessels spotted by the MSDF aircraft, and it pointed a 100-milimeter coaxial gun placed at its bow toward the plane, the sources said, calling it an act of intimidation.
But the Pentagon report said Chinese Navy vessels "trained their weapons" on the aircraft last fall as part of a drill.
The report did not give any other details, but said the incident caused China-Japan tensions in the East China Sea stemming from Chinese resource concerns to flare.
The Pentagon also said Chinese forces have increased operations beyond China's borders and coastal waters, most notably in the 2004 intrusion of a nuclear submarine in Japanese territorial waters during operations far into the western Pacific.
While China's military buildup appears focused on preparing for Taiwan Strait contingencies, the report said, "Analysis of China's military acquisitions suggest that it also generating capabilities that could apply to other regional contingencies, such as conflicts over resources or territory."
"As China's capabilities grow, its leaders could consider using force or threats to achieve their strategic objectives," the Pentagon said.
Naval acquisitions, such as advanced destroyers and submarines, reflect Beijing's pursuit of capabilities to protect and advance its maritime interests, the report said.
China has also expressed its interest in developing capabilities to hold "risk maritime targets" out to the so-called "second island chain" defense line some 1,600 kilometers from the Chinese coast, it said.
Among related developments over the past year, the Pentagon said intelligence information indicated that China plans to organize a combat air wing for a future aircraft carrier.
China signed a contract in September to acquire about 40 military transport planes and eight air refueling aircraft from Russia and had deployed some about 710-790 mobile, short-range ballistic missiles to garrisons opposite Taiwan by late 2005, up from 650-730 estimated in the 2005 report.
To strengthen its nuclear deterrence, China "is fielding mobile, more survivable missiles capable of targeting the United States, Japan, India, Russia, and other targets in Asia and the rest or the world," the Pentagon said.
Over the long term, China's improvements in space-based and over-the-horizon sensors, "could enable Beijing to identify, track and target foreign military activities deep into the Western Pacific," it said.
"China's military expansion is already such as to alter regional military balances," the Pentagon said.
"Long-term trends in China's strategic nuclear forces modernization, land- and sea-based access denial capabilities, and emerging precision-strike weapons have the potential to pose credible threats to modern militaries operating in the region," it said.
In the Quadrennial Defense Review Report issued earlier this year to set a long-term strategy, the Pentagon said China has "the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States."
Against this backdrop, the QDR report hammered out new defense postures such as developing long-range weapons and positioning a greater military presence in the Pacific.
The United States, Japan and many other nations have been urging China to make its purposes for military expansion transparent.
