From:    <ZQH@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
Subject: What an `expansionist Mainland China (PROC)'
Organization: NCR Corporation - Law Department
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 14:46:16 GMT


From    <ZQH@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>

To sci.military moderator:

There are some articles on sci.military about the `Expansionist China'
recently.  Since I am a Chinese, and it is weekend today  :-) ,
I just feel compelled to make some clarifications.  I hope my
article will be accepted for sci.military.  Thanks.

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 Subject: What an `expansionist Mainland China (PROC)'
Summary: China historically has been an isolationism country

1. about NanSha/Spratly Islands in the South China Sea

In <BuDFCG.G8K@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM>
spencer@swanee.ee.uwa.oz.au (Greg Spencer) writes:
>Also the is a land dispute
>over some small island between china Taiwan and Indinesia.  China has
>allready stationed troops on them and claiming ownership and the dispute
>could quite easily esculate!
>  [some paranoia thoughts deleted]
>

The islands Greg referred here are Nan-Sha/Spratly Islands in the South
China Sea.  There are about 100 isles/shoals in the island group, most
of them are inhabited because of their small sizes (most of them are
no bigger than a tennis court at high tide) and lack of fresh water
except the biggest one --- Tai-Ping Island (about one square mile) held
by Taiwan/ROC (the Republic of China), which has fresh water wells and
has been used as an anchoring/supply station for Chinese fishermen.

Currently, 21 isles/shoals are occupied by Vietnamese troop, and
the Philippines holds 8, Malaysia 5(?), while Taiwan/ROC has only
one island but the biggest one --- Tai-Ping Island, and Mainland
China/PROC (the People's Republic of China) gets 8 isles/shoals.
Indonesia has nothing to do with NanSha/Spratly Islands, neither
presence nor claim.

For a long time, the only country having any real presence there
was China (the Republic of China), which has been stationing troops
on the biggest Tai-Ping Island.  When the Chinese Nationalist government
was fighting the bloody civil war with the Communist and after it lost
the Mainland and retreated to Taiwan in 1949, other countries started
sending troops to occupy islands of Spratly Islands.  Since Chinese
themselves were busy at fighting each other, no one cared/had the
abilities to care those far-and-away small islands.

In March 1988, after Mainland China/PROC woke up from the nightmare
of the notorious 10-years-long Culture Revolution and had conducted
the economic reform toward the free-market capitalist economy,
Mainland China/PROC sent a convoy of nearly a dozen destroyers,
frigates and tank-landing ships (LST) to Nan-Sha/Spratly Islands
and set up troop posts on several UNOCCUPIED isles/shoals.
Then Vietnamese troops tried to storm those islands but was
driven back with several of their ships sunk.

It is obvious that China was restraining herself (how stupid!!)
from launching a counter-attack to take back all isles occupied
by Vietnamese troops there, given the fact that China had the
ability to do so and no one would give a damn about it.
What an `expansionist China'!!


2. about the Sino-Soviet land dispute and 1969 conflict

In <BuF3CD.8ML@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM>
DEICHMAN@cisco.nosc.mil (shane) writes:
>  In 1969, during the peak of the Sino-Soviet split, Red
>Chinese troops marched into Russia to take back some dirt they
>felt was rightfully theirs.
>

The `dirt' is a football-field-size island in Wu-Su-Li/Ussuri River,
which is the current border between China and Russia.  Actually,
the far-east part of Russia (about half million square miles),
including the port city Vladivostok, was taken from China (then
under the Chin/Qing Dynasty) in 1860 after China became internally
rotten with drug/opium imposed on us by the British Empire after
the 1839 Opium War (before that, China had been a prosperous society
for thousands of years; watch out Americans, be aware of drugs!),
and all Chinese then in that part of territory were forced to move
back to China.  There were some unclear details in the 1860 unfair
treaty between then Russian Empire and Chin/Qing Dynasty, and that
island in Ussuri River was one of them.

During the winter of 1968/69, when Mainland China was in the peak
of fever/chaos induced by the Culture Revolution, some local military
commanders in that part of Sino-Soviet border wanted to play tough
guy and ordered some Chinese troops to march toward that island
(during the winter, Ussuri River is always frozen).  This resulted
months-long literally physical push back and forward (body-contacts
between Chinese and Russian soldiers) on the frozen river surface.
Finally, things went out of control, someone fired the shot and
then that's it.  In fact, despite the ideological (stupid!) difference
then, China was buying helicopters (Mi-8) from then Soviet Union.
All of that was because of some fanatic local military commanders
who took the ideology too seriously and then total chaos situation
in China (there were violent power struggles in every level of
the government).

Early this year, China and Russia signed a treaty to settle those
border disputes, and that island was given to China according to
the principle of dividing Ussuri River along the central-line.


3. other China-bashings

>  During the course of that ill-fated campaign, the Chinese
>suffered over 60,000 casualties in the FIRST THREE DAYS.
>Fully one half of their mechanized units were incapacitated
>during that same time period.  To add insult to injury, the
>regular Vietnamese troops never even mobilized in any
>significant show of force -- most of the Chinese losses were
>at the hands of the local militia!
>

The objective of the ill-fated 1979 border campaign was to look
for the Vietnamese regular force and destroy them.  Unfortunately,
Chinese troops only captured one regiment of Vietnamese 306th
division plus maybe two regiments of 318A division.  Of course,
Chinese troops suffered heavy casualties, but I guess the American
troops didn't fare better earlier in that kind of guerrilla war,
even with the superior technology and awesome air power.  And it's
even harder for Chinese soldiers to tell who's enemy since a lot
of those Vietnamese guerillas had Chinese uniform, Chinese-supplied
infantry weapons, and spoke perfect Chinese.

(From what I know, the total number of Chinese force involved was
 about 200,000.  Your casualty figure is way too high).

Remember, in 1979, China just emerged from the nightmare of the
notorious ten-years-long Culture Revolution, during which soldiers
were not supposed to practice their trade but to study Chairman
Mao's Little Books, and military officials were promoted according
to how well he studied Chairman Mao's Little Books only and all
universities (including military schools) were closed down (what
a crazy ten years!).  Universities (and military schools) started
to reopen in 1978 after Deng re-emerged to power from the internal
exile and pushed for the economic reform towards the free-market
capitalist economy (well, the political reform towards the democracy
may have to be initiated later, when the economy becomes stronge
enough to support the democracy --- this is so-called `peaceful
evolution').

>  But wait!  China is a NUCLEAR power!  What about that?
>Well, the Chinese do indeed have nuclear know-how; they also
>have an ICBM force of less missiles that you have fingers.
>Their missile force is archaic, with 1950s-esque targeting
>systems and single warhead technology, not to mention unstable
>liquid propellants that have to be fueled on the pad.  Their
>medium range missile force would probably do more damage to
>China than to any adversary....
>

Why does China need a large number of ICBM's since China has no
conflict of strategic interests with U.S.???  How do you know
China has not upgraded its missiles' targeting techniques
(that must be TOP-SECRET) or tested MIRV???  If its intention
is to destroy enemy's cities if being attacked, I guess a megaton
single warhead surface blast can do the dirty job.  By the way,
have you heard about the solid-rocket-powered CSS-NX-3 and M-9,
M-11, plus the recent megaton underground test?  I guess each
CSS-2 IRBM have a throw-weight for a few 800-lb megaton warheads.
(MK-12A/W-78 warheads in Minuteman III have a weight of 200lb
 and an adjustable yield up to 335Kton, early-80's technology).

(BTW, Russia SS-18 and U.S. `Titan' also uses liquid propellants).

After all, China is focusing on the economic development now and
I don't think it wants to spend a lot of money on military.  If
being attacked, those mobile M-9's with megaton warhead can make
sure all enemy's airports becoming BIG craters on ground and M-11
can take care advancing enemy armors --- I forgot the neutral bombs,
plus C-801 (`Exocet') with 500Kton warhead to vaporize invading fleets.

>  The truth of the matter is that China, despite it's 1.2
>billion people, is a remarkably poor nation.  This fact is
>lost on many American businesspeople, who look to China and
>see 1.2 billion mouths yearning for mouthwash, or 2.4 billion
>yawning armpits eager for deodorant.
>

Yes, Mainland China is poor.  But just after a few years of economic
reform to convert the Stalinist economy into the free-market capitalist
economy, people's consuming power is being greatly increased.  If you
have chance to visit those coast developing areas (which was deliberately
ignored in past because of the fear of Soviet invasion), especially
Canton (near HongKong), then you will know.  And China's economy is
blooming at 12% this year.  I know some U.S. companies were disappointed
when they jumped into China at the beginning of economic reform when
Mainland Chinese was `remarkable poor' (before 1980, `making money'
was a forbidened concept).  But now, many of them are raking in money
e.g. contact-lense maker Bausch-Lamb, shampoo maker Proct-Gamble(?)
etc.  Well, it'll be a while when Mainland China becomes truely
the world largest consumer market.

The remarkable fact about Sino-U.S. trade is that the import from
Mainland China are mainly labor-intensive products which compete
with other 3rd world countries, while the export from U.S. are
technology-intensive products which generate a lot of high-pay
jobs.  Mainland China is the top customer of Boeing Co. with
US$4.6 billion outstanding order (US$1.0 billion with McDonnell
Douglas) and this year alone Mainland China will take delivery
of 24 Boeing passsenger planes.  Mainland China also had several
biggest company-history order of locomotives from GM in past few
years.  As Mainland China's economy develops, there are will be
more and more big orders of U.S. goods for China's infrastructure,
generating more high-pay U.S. jobs.

James Huang

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