in memory of the american airman and their chinese allies who flew the hub in route from burma to china and also the american flying tigers who defended china we also received a briefing at the headquarters of china's opportunity for us to learn more about china strategic intentions it was an excellent excellent briefing let me courage by china's agreement to begin a millionaire new order board to the united nations on military expenditures as a positive but frankly china announced its military budget for two thousand and eight fifty eight point three billion dollars continuing its trend of double digit increases for the last decade our country continues to assess the real budget is due to three times greater than that of defenses two thousand a report on china's military power also note that china continues its missile build up across from taiwan and its power projection capabilities are deadly increasing secretary gates has called on china to increase its security cooperation with the united states in areas of common interest ranging from counterterrorism nonproliferation to energy security has also made significant progress in the ranging from meaningful military to military contacts between the two countries in compliance with the guidance on such contacts establish by this committee in law china defense hotline is now operational there's dialogue with china on nuclear strategy and policy there's continu agreement on korean war prisoner of war and matters continue to believe that china is not necessarily destined to be a threat to the united states there are trends  could concern us in today's hearing should help us better understand china's military development efforts but we must also a knowledge china's limitations and recognize that china's choices may well be shaped by our own actions there are also unique opportunities for progress with china on security matters this year given the two thousand and eight summer olympics in beijing new leadership in taiwan recent movement but taiwan in the mainland war and easing of tensions across the taiwan strait so gentlemen we thank you for being here we're very interested to hear your assessment of recent security developments  extend your welcome and words of appreciation the secretary general we look forward very much to your comments mr chairman i would ask that the ranking members statement be entered in its entirety to the  record and with that just let me they say if you are particularly do you mr chairman and in appreciation for holding the these hearings these these reports over the past seven years have become a critical important component of our nation's ability to judge the emerging chinese circumstance as the chairman noted all of us are excited and by and large optimistic about the opportunity to work with china partnership on issues that are of mutual concern to both nations the chinese people as we're all hopeful they demonstrate very very clearly in the upcoming olympics are  an important part of of world development and their partnership as the chairman noted and such things of the six party talks in other areas are absolutely essential however their military and mission still remain clouded i and i know others on this committee as well as many others and across the globe are concerned about their intentions and as much about what we don't know is what we do know and of course this report is very helpful and helping us fill in some of that with some of those blanks so with that word of appreciation and to the patient of your comments gentlemen again welcome on this german i'll yield back thank you so we'd appreciate it if they could be submitted for the record checks and if i may what i'd like to do is just briefly summarize those written remarks with around three of the key questions which concern us which i'm sure concern this committee regarding china's security developments i think the first question is what are the chinese doing in terms of their modernization and their buildup the second question is what does it mean what does it mean for us and for our allies in the region and the third for a practical question is what is the defense department in particular and the u government more broadly doing to react and deal with this this buildup with regard to the first question as mccue noted we have submitted the china military power report of which were quite proud and we hope that the members found it found it useful and to fulfill the mandate i think there's four key points about the facts of the build up that were highlighted in the report the first as you know is that the chinese have engaged in a sustained very sizable increase in their expenditure and they've done so over over quite a few years the official budget is about sixty billion dollars our estimates suggest it's perhaps twice that but we don't really know and that goes to previous comments about the importance of transparency the second major observation about the build up is that it is across all their services it's comprehensive in the sea land and air forces the p l a and it's also particularly certificate that it includes the nuclear as well as the conventional forces third point is that if you will it the chinese of investing heavily in what you might call the software of the p l o as well as the hardware assets and other words in personnel recruiting and training in the logistics and their command control apparatus we think this was to begin lee important that there's a special topic session in this year's power report to try and get get to the importance of this software investment and the fourth and final observation about the military buildup as as you know it reflects a what appears to be a deliberate and well thought through chinese strategy to invest in asymmetric warfare cyber warfare counter space capability very very sophisticated ballistic and cruise missile program and of course undersea warfare we tried to lay this out in chapter three of the report because we think it's so important move to the i mean move to the second question what what does this mean what does this bill that mean for us and for our allies in the region the for i think the first conclusion is that the cross straight military balance continues to shift in the mainland's favor as a result of this build up the there's an annex at the end the military power report that lays out in a couple of tables the results of the chinese mainland chinese military buildup and on the other column it's got the chinese forces and it's it's a pretty graphic piece of evidence for the shift in the military balance across the str the second observation about what it means is that it increasingly puts u s forces in the region and the forces of our allies in the region at risk again as as as the members know t invested heavily in what what they call anti access or area denial capabilities in particular the sophisticated for i os are required to track for example u s vessels at long distance and then i ship cruise missiles to threaten those forces once they're underway i think the third and final observation about what this means with this build up means for us is that this increasing capability may alter their intent in other words the with the increasing capacity of the p l a may present the chinese leadership with more options as the chairman mentioned in his comments this this this goes right to the heart of the issue what's the what's what's the intent of this buildup for example we don't know as as the chinese nuclear forces increase in their size in there so i have ability and in their perception we're not sure if this is going to walter there for example there no first use policy we are very careful about inferring intent based solely on expanding capability but as the members of this committee know in particular in the military in the absence of transparency one is one  forced to to plan for the worst case and that's part of the reason for the for the the deep seriousness with which we view the military build up as a chairman and members of i could finish very briefly on the third question which is what is the d o d of the u s government with the direction support of the congress doing about this chinese threat i think again there's probably four four principal lines of operation in response to it the first and in some respects the most pressing is to continue in the collection and analysis so we understand as much as possible not just about the contours of the the force buildup but also as much as possible trying to trying to divine the intent what is the leadership what is the leadership what is the party leadership intend to do with this increase in capability the second line of operation obviously is to continue to train equip and posture our forces in the pacific under the command of advocating and to do so in a way that responds to the the  the shifting capabilities of the p l a observation in it and it's consistent complimentary to the second is to work very closely with our alliance partners in the region to build their capacity and to make sure that these alliances are also modified over time to deal with and enhance chinese capability and finally the final area of focus is to engage the to keep going a couple of functional committees for example on on on cooperating on disaster relief i think i think the rationale for this is number one as you engage in this contact with the p l a or the chinese leadership you learn more about them you can also we can also signal our resolve in the pacific which reduces the chances of miscalculation on the other side and we can build both the confidence and the communication links such as the defense telephone like that was referred to earlier if  things go badly so in conclusion mr chairman and members china's rise certainly prevents us with a variety of opportunities and challenges as the chairman said just a few minutes ago the chinese are definitely not destined they're not destined to be an adversary china has a lot of choices to make and we have some capability to shape those choices as  my secretary said a few weeks ago we do not see china as a strategic adversary it's a competitor in some respects and a partner in others  already been briefing on it's been just a little over a year since i've had the last opportunity to talk about this important topic with you and while many of the same concerns about china remain from that discussion we have also seen some reasons for encouragement especially in regards to our relationship with the people's liberation army mr chairman as you mentioned we have had a series of bilateral dialogues on nuclear strategy and doctrine and we have established the phone link beyond that we've also another engagement delegations have seen a modest increase in exposure to facilities as you mentioned about your trip mr chairman we continue to see progress and cooperation in areas of common interest like humanitarian assistance disaster relief and military environmental protection another encouraging sign was china's reception of relief supplies during our military by our  military aircraft to the needy chinese during this past winter storms and the more most recent earthquake unfortunately as you mentioned many are some of our current concerns still  remain comes as no surprise that china is modern rising its military we have to expect that from a nation experiencing such impressive economic growth however much of the modernization program remains to china's neighbors we continue to communicate to china that our desire for greater transparency and openness is to gain a better understanding of their strategic intent as the secretary has mentioned we believe this is clearly in the interest of all concerned in order to avoid any misunderstanding or miscalculation we continue to watch the situation closely and respond in a matter that benefits peace is stability in this most important region the taiwan strait as been considered a very dangerous on our planet is it is dangerous today as it was two to three years ago in terms of the danger associated with the military balance across the straits mr chairman i think we have to conclude that as the balance has shifted towards the mainland that has materially increased the danger across the straits on the other hand as you know there have been some recent political developments across the straits in particular after the  probability of the use of force i'm not sure i'm not sure if you add these two together what the net effect is but there's definitely been some change general so if i could add i would i would agree with the secretary and i would say from a purely uniform military perspective clearly there are two sides to the answer i would pose first of all as you are well aware sir that the military capability that china has to put up on the straight in the form of increased air defense and other capabilities which might be better discussed in our our closed session later make it militarily a more challenging area i would also add however sir as we mentioned in the opening remarks we have had increased dialogue and we now have better forms of communication with our military counterparts which we would hope to be in some manner of diffusing capability to possible incidents across the strait mr make you t chairman gentleman as i briefly mentioned in my opening comments the concern is as much about what we don't know is what we know mr secretary you commented it's a matter of record that  estimates project that the actual military spending by the chinese may be at least two times what they what they publicly state and i don't know what you can say  open session i don't know what you can say about what you don't know it's a rather difficult challenge but i'm just curious do we have any estimates on where we are concerned they might be making these on and expenditures what kind of programs is this where the anti cyber is coming from or what are the kinds of things we're we're trying to find out as as you as you know from your previous comments there is this a there's a lot of black areas in their military expenditure that that that we just don't have much insight into to answer your question more specifically you know they don't they don't appear to include in the in the in the formal announce budget their weapons acquisitions from abroad for example a lot of these big ticket purchases from from the russians we really don't know where the r and d where the r and d for the nuclear program falls in fact we have very little visibility at all into their nuclear expenditure either the or the missiles the into the r and d the real underlying r and d particular the dual use r and d that may arise as a byproduct of the rapid economic industrialization that general breedlove referred to earlier and which the many of the members have observed firsthand on your on your trips for example so we have very little visibility into that general i don't know if you want to had i so you're nodding your head no sir i just know i agree with what sectors then let me let me just ask a follow up and then i'll be happy to yield to my colleagues  the secretary you mentioned foreign acquisitions in the report shows very clearly we're concerned about as you noted big ticket items particularly so on burn  threat to our ships etc such a and yet we've got data coming out of the stock own pieces to that suggests fact that said that china is purchases these items types of items from russia last year actually dropped seventy percent how do we reconcile that to i'm i'm a little pressed to make any a lot of sense out of those two conflicting data points i'm not sure we can reconcile them with a great deal of  congressman but i think i think one of the one of the likely explanations is that the chinese may well have either bought all of the initial systems that they wanted to and that's sort of just a function of of of their acquisition profile over time or they may have made more progress earlier on in terms of creating an addition its capability it's clear as you know that they never intended to become dependent upon foreign suppliers for a long time it was always a big technology transfer a composite of these deals with with the russians and elsewhere that's as afraid so they may have figured it out for themselves and are relying less upon  those kinds of purchases and can do them the indigenously we don't see any diplomatic parting of the ways between the russian and chinese partnership do we know no no surface  russians and the chinese cooperate in some areas they're a little they have somewhat brittle relationships and others it's hard it's hard to make out a distinct pattern that explains the t  know there are people who might not have the opportunity to go to china but my first trip back in one thousand nine hundred three and now you go to china and you see the investment that china h made it takes years to build and to construct but it only takes one crazy minute to destroy all that we have built asked to see if we could meet with their war college the dog to the students there and we were told that we couldn't do that anyway we went there and we asked and they were able to accommodate us and we met with the students most of them lieutenant colonels and colonels it was right after nine eleven we broke into groups and we had a very very constructive  discussion so i am elated that now we are reaching out and and this is very very important because i think that when we communicate with one another there's hope and that nothing crazy will happen i see where i think china has agreed to make a report to the united nations about their doing the buildup they have become more transparent is this something that we have not seen before the transparency that china now he's offering certainly there's been some progress mr t s and both the report to the u n although it's obviously glides over some important details are certainly a step to a step in the right direction  with regard to your initial comment about about  the fact that it takes a long time to build up these capabilities but they can they can be used very quickly this is this is one of the reasons that has animated the nuclear dialogue any time you deal with the question of nuclear weapons you have to take a deep breath and step back in fact the nuclear dialogue is an area where we have made steady progress since as you know secretary rumsfeld visited visited china in two thousand five and i believe chairman skelton and chairman skelton visited had one of the very first visits to the second artillery which is the nuclear the new nuclear force part of the p l a which was a significant breakthrough engagement of the chinese on the part of the members of this committee in congress we owe i think some of the progress on the defense telephone for example to advocacy by members of this committee in their discussions with the chinese and it's been very helpful and sir just to add in fact i'm a product of those exchanges which you talked about in my national war college experience in the mid ninety's i was one of the delegation received during a tumultuous period where that was year by year whether it was going or not because of that one moment of disagreement between our nations during that time but i was able to go and was afforded an in depth and unique experience with the for almost seventeen in the military sense this continues at a very brisk level and i think you would be encouraged by that later this year our vice chairman will it will entertain the gwangju military region commander and the commander of the air force we have a robust connection even below the war college level our command and staff college level meeting and talking and most recently we see quite improvement or increase in the number of what we would call functional exchanges changes exchanges on humanitarian assistance disaster really some pretty intricate meetings on influenza and disease maritime safety and military law in fact it was most fortuitous that one of our last engagements on humanitarian assistance was just before their recent disaster and we had a good insight into what their plans were and how they plan to respond to that and how we might couple to that so i don't want to take up too much of your time sir but i would say that we continue brisk interaction in the military to military arena just one last question if i may you know the olympics are coming up in less than a a month the first week i'm not mistaken august the thing that by working together we are prepared because i know  insight can you give me as for as being ready for the olympics because we're going to have our athletes there as well at least from around the world could you elaborate a little bit about that session we have worked we are working with the chinese principally in areas to provide as you suggested for the safety and security of our u s spectators and athletes the chinese have have not requested a great deal very much assistance at all in sharp contrast to for example the security that we've offered in previous olympics if i could add to i would echo that we would be happy to talk a little bit about pay comms plans in the closed session we do have some insight into china's preparation the secretary said there is they have made very little if almost no request from us however we have been briefed and had some insight into their preparation over one hundred thousand police officers dedicated six hundred thousand police volunteers  three hundred thousand surveyor lens camera as they've sort of laid out some of the extent of their preparations and again sir we'd be happy to talk a little bit more about they comms plans when we go to close session asymmetric attack on our country would be a country wide robust e m p lay down whether or not the chinese are anticipating this might be divine from what they are personally doing are there weapons systems e hardened do they have national plans which we do not have by the way for dealing with the eventuality of an e m p lay down over their country of course they are much less dependent than we are on an infrastructure powered by electricity what do we know of their weapons systems and the thank you congress we we don't know a great deal about the subject we'd be glad to share with you what we do know in the in a closed session and in more detail but it is it is extraordinarily important as you would you bring it because it is it is one of several examples of asymmetric warfare that that we need to deal with you i think referred to it in your in your remarks the consequence of e m p is that you you destroy the communications network and we are as you know and as the chinese also know heavily dependent upon sophisticated communications satellite communications in the conduct of of our forces and so whether it's from an e m p or it's some kind of a coordinated a fat effort we could be in a very bad place if if if the chinese enhanced the capability in this  ninety seven percent of all of our military communications move over non hardened satellite link so this is an enormous vulnerability the chinese are aggressively scholar in the world in buying oil we are not doing that and i suspect we're not doing that because in today's world it makes no difference who owns the oil he who comes with the dollars at the auction block buys the oil so why would the china be buying oil and they are very aggressively buying oil and not just buying oil they're buying goodwill would you like a soccer field hospitals maybe roads at the same time that they're doing that they are very aggressive of lee building a blue water navy and emphasizing submarines and last year and i get various numbers that they launch from from several to many times as many submarines as we launched last year that would be necessary of course to protect t sea lanes if you are going to claim your own oil and not share it with the rest of the world do you think that these two actions on the part of the chinese are linked there aggressively buying oil around the world and their aggressive pursuit of a blue water navy they may be linked although we don't know this comes to the capability and intent question in a in a pretty profound pretty profound way but your i mean your observations obviously are correct on both counts in the sense that the the the chinese government has pursued energy properties oil and gas with an emphasis on on direct investment and attempted control over those resources to a fairly fairly sustained degree and again in quite contrast to our reliance upon curious what is the bush administration's in and of our commitments to the nation of taiwan to defend it against a cross straight invasion should there be one is that policy ever been articulated by the bush administration i believe it's been articulated on arc on a couple of cases by our secretary  and most recently i think publicly by deputy secretary of state negroponte ok and what did he say which is that we we will fulfill our relate our obligations understand the taiwan relations act sir is to provide the taiwanese with such weapons systems as may be required to provide them with defensive capabilities in the face of the threat from the mainland is that a commitment of american troops american ships american aircraft or is that a commitment of equipment in this is really going to the what if category what if april gillespie had told saddam hussein the bush administration will defend the kuwaitis so very clear reason for this question so let's be real precise in your sir to be to be very precise and to be very clear congressman there has been no change on the part of this administration case over the no but for the benefit of the american people then what is this foreign policy to be to be to be very precise or is based upon the as you know the the one china policy the three communiques  secretary of state sector defense has been that our policy towards the defense of taiwan has not changed that we continue to fulfill our obligations under the taiwan relations act that we  efforts by parties on either side to change the status quo as as we define it it is a commitment of material is a commitment of american warships is a commitment of american troops what we have committed to as obliged by the taiwan relations act to provide the taiwanese with such weapons systems as may be required i'm trying to go back in history and you're going to have to refresh my recollection did we not at one time have our seventh fleet station or at least partially stationed in the taiwan strai knows us or historically when did that and i don't actually remember when when it ended sir and yes it might be only when that ended you remember anybody  treaty with taiwan and entered into into these relations with the p r c with reasonable confidence but well let's get the force mr jones  me how much does the fact that we borrow dollars from the chinese government to pay our bills how much in your opinion professionally and as an american citizen this has got to somehow damage whatever leverage leverage we have with the chinese simply because we have them over four hundred forty seven billion dollars and they are smart people we have a trade deficit with china with two hundred fifty billion dollars i cannot believe and i'm not a professional in anything but when you try to say at one time in the strongest economic nation in the world all about america and now we're having to borrow money from the chinese i have to believe that  somehow put us at a disadvantage when we're trying to build relationships with the chinese military and i right or  wrong congressman i'm a little bit outside my lane on the on the balance of payments and the chinese accumulation of surpluses area and i we would defer to the treasury department but you're clearly right that china has sustained economic growth has provided the wherewithal for this impressive military build up that i referred to in my opening remarks  so as long as we are a debtor nation then because of that weakness in our economy our government then for people like yourself the negotiators of the future both military and nonmilitary we are not the world that we can get back on our economic feet that we're going to be in a position where we can do much more no more than just talk to the chinese and hope they will work with us mr chairman i'm going to close by magnus one statement i don't think you did this is just to me is very simple because the chinese are not fearful of america because we are too dependent on them to pay our bills and mr chairman regret that and i hope that we as a congress of the future will do something about it thank you thank the gentleman mr larsen to be followed by mr four of us doing our best to keep some kind of track of the  approach to mainland china and if that changes our calculus at all in other words we can control things that we do but we can't necessarily control some things that mainland china does or or the  as i think i responded to the chairman's observation this point certainly been a positive political development that the taiwan taiwanese are engaged in what appears to be constructive discussions or negotiations with beijing from a from from what i do for a living from from a strictly of the in the military and defense side of the picture it doesn't alter our our focus on on our job with respect to both deterring coercion in that part of the world and responding to possible changes in chinese political intent over the longer run and i was not trying to be evasive to congressman taylor's question there is there is some built in ambiguity in saw before the elections there was an increase in sort of what i would call more bellicose exercising on the part of the chinese along the coast opposite taiwan and clearly since we have come  to governments now that are a little less attention those exercises have have tamped down and calmed down a little bit and this is this is good as the chairman has mentioned as others have mentioned  this transparency and understanding and dialogue is important in order that we don't have a miscalculation of a military manner that is more likely because of an exercise that is going on  think in terms of the communication aspect to that the establishment of the defense telephone link has been an important step it's it's one it's one small patch will step but part of a larger picture of engagement and a t i picked up in japan where their visit in january on a trip was and this is from some reporters japanese reporters is a term these hedge integrate which i thought might be an appropriate set of terms for us to use in our relationship with china that is we want to integrate we want to help trying to integrate into the international system be the responsible stakeholder that mr zoellick talked about but we need to hedge our bets so long as there is this opaqueness to intention and and military modernization on the part of china they may not it's government like that response but that is a rational response for us to have and speaking in japan today japanese destroyers visiting a chinese port for the first time since world war two and i think it underscores that although it's always all about us that it's  this bilateral relationship is also a set of multilateral relationships that we're merely a part of in that region should you can you talk about japan china relationship relative to the i think we'd agree with entirely with your your observation that the japanese are a critical piece of this puzzle and in particular the alliance relationship with the japanese is a key part deal with with the consequences if they make choices we don't like and the japanese are a critical part of that it's why we spend so much time on on the as i said earlier on trying larsen finished our mission mr forbes thank you mr chairman and general thank you for being here i'm going to talk with light is back on but i want to say there's some good things going on first of all your testimony today we appreciate we appreciate the good work admiral keating is doing and you mentioned the second i mean the chairman's visit to the second artillery unit we can't understate the importance of that he was the second american leader after secretary rumsfeld to go in that unit and i watched the discussions he had with their leadership they were very very good very productive and i think that was incredibly important my concern that i was we've been wrong a lot in the past we were wrong on their carrier program we were wrong on their sub program we consistently underestimated their capabilities and we've only recently really talked about a lot of their asymmetrical programs you mentioned the fact that they had a deliberate and well thought out asymmetrical warfare plan my concern is to make sure we have one that's at least looking at that and defending it and i know it's difficult when we go to china we know that even when we're not hotel rooms or filming everything we do i have no question everything we're discussing today they've got footage they've got everything else to know exactly what we talked about we don't have the same luxury back there but we know from their public documents that they have a strategy based on asymmetrical threats they've talked about assassin's mace publicly we know also their efforts are well developed and i've got three  and ship missiles we also know from the media that they have an underwater sound surveillance system that's been talked about publicly that helps them get fixed sensors and pinpoint where u s submarines are we know that they've also according to public documents have long range radar sites that are over the horizon capability so this helps them to know where our vessels are at any particular time i'm concerned about their and access space programs we know the ability to attack satellites operating in low earth orbit their ability to jam blind or otherwise disable our satellites was in the annual military power report all of this impacts our navigation capabilities and finally we've talked about many times or cyber capabilities to conduct military industrial espionage we know that their doctrine is to support for warfare against post civilian and military networks we know that they've got an ongoing program from inside the p r c so my question is based on all this just one can we be confident today in telling the american people that based on all these asymmetric threats and where they've developed that the american people today as well as our american children are growing up in the next decade we're going to have a country that's safe from these threats and if not what recommendations do you have for sector defense to address these threats but then the second question is this how do we ensure the needed investment and ability to make decisions on these challenges when so much of what we have to deal with is of a classified nature and yet it's important for us to have a public discussion and build public coalitions to put these kind of investments there thank you not just for those two questions to thank you for highlighting the cyber issue congressman forbes this is a this is a serious one and it's for that reason that we devoted a significant portion of the china military power report to that chapter chapter three in both the classified and the classified section spends a lot of time outlining just just the the the contours of that of that challenge and we'd be glad to discuss this in some more detail in a closed session we'll also have the close session my former colleague john landry general general landry the iowa for for military affairs and we would be able to get into some more detail on on your other point about which ones which aspects of chinese military modernization we correctly estimated which ones we fell short and which ones we which ones we were long actually we need to be concerned about but they still need to be able to train and have the tactics and techniques and procedures and experiences to use them i think the same sort of answer would come on the navy i think your concern is absolutely valid and they are purchasing a navy that will be very threatening at some point in the future but large portions of that now you don't you don't bring a navy to the water like our navy without three hundred years of that kind of experience so i think that your concern is very valid and that our concern about their neighbor capability will grow over time but right now they're still in sort of the baby step stages in some of these capabilities you're you're going to get a lot closer to us or i've had not turned the button on well sorry about that yes ma'am it has been resolved the sad news is the particular visit of the of the carrier was not resolved in time for to make that visit and meet our families we're very concerned about that and they humanitarian aspect of what happened to our families i would add though that probably more concerning in that episode was that two of our smaller ships were denied safe port in that very same storm just after that visit and this is very concerning because this is a law of the sea and humanity concerned that we should be able ford safe harbor to our ships when they need it as we would if the chinese fleet was sailing around america and the good news is we have entered into very specific discussions to address those concerns in the future thank  well thank you mr chairman mr chairman i'm always glad when general breedlove visits the committee i had a long close friendship with this man he's the only one that's ever had me in an f sixteen a three hundred sixty degree loop over the go water range and i'm so glad that he was at the controls or we might be the one to be here but appreciate him very much the air force is privileged to have such an officer and i understand he's up for another star here pretty soon so thank you for being here  general you know i think that first like to take up where my friend mr taylor left off i understand mr secretary shan that you're really an impossible situation to fully express either your own views or even  views on some of the questions he was asking but i think there were extremely well taken in that strategic ambiguity i believe is a very dangerous thing ultimately i understand that there are times that we can't you know show our cards completely but i think our experience and again using his example in iraq where saddam hussein was approaching it was a little unclear you know we said all options were on the table when it came to defending kuwait but we were a little and big us in our declaration and it's my opinion i could be completely wrong but if mister if saddam hussein had known what was going to follow and that he would be defeated in that situation that he probably may have found a way to try to prevent him from going into into to kuwait with that said for all the reasons that to mr forbes including those reasons it pointed out i believe that long term china represents one of the greatest challenges that we have where short term it might be another time in the near future when we will clarify exactly what our commitment is both the american people and to the world in terms of of preventing an attack by  the p r c on taiwan it seems to me that lack of clarity only increases that miscalculation the general spoke of and that transparency that he spoke of is critically important and i think that applies to what our own actions would be even forthcoming it's be difficult for me to predict what if any successive administration to this one would alter the policy toward china in taiwan or under under what circumstances we do take this very seriously and you're right deterrence is a delicate and and complicated business it's for that reason that i noted under the question of what are we doing about it what are we doing about modernization china's army armed forces that we continue to put such an emphasis on training equipping and posturing our forces in the pacific in response to emerging capabilities there that we continue to strengthen our alliances including with the japanese and the south koreans with our eyes wide the political but i do know that as a military man what i do understand is the direction from every administration i've served under is that the policy is that the question or any resolution of the taiwan question has to be peaceful means and that the united states would oppose any non peaceful resolution of the taiwan issue thank thank you mr chairman thank you thank you mr chairman thank you gentlemen for your service to our country and for being before our committee i think most of the questions that i have are really more of a classified type saw wait for that  and the largest one that i have is the one that deals with how we legitimately do assess the china's military capabilities and so i think that's probably within the context of the next the next he what extent they appear to be focused on domestic security or and stability for china itself as opposed to regional and more global security concerns because i agree with the general i don't think it's unusual for a country like china to want to modernize their fleet they're creating jobs in a country that has tremendous need so i'm wondering how we how we look at that and as i said the way you started out what are they doing and what does it mean to us so that would be my first question is do we know if this is domestic or do we know if this is more global that's good that's a good question and i think it's difficult to infer anything about trying to ease political intent without factoring into the equation how they view domestic unrest and challenges to their legitimacy from within their own borders to get into war detail as you know and it's there's some discussion of this in the military power report to the principal elements military elements that are used for domestic maintenance of order as they say is the people's armed police which has been separated now for some years from from the p l a but it is undoubtedly true that the enhanced capabilities of the p l a in terms of their logistics their their mobility and their command and control has probably probably given the leadership more confidence that they can they can react to more comprehensively whether that's whether that to what degree that is a motivator of the broader military buildup it's very hard to say which is your question the domestic focus or the international focus general i would just say that the secretary has it exactly right this is it's not mutually exclusive all of the improvement that they make in their military capability reflects directly back over into their capability to have the internal concerns and i think that was really reflected well in their response to the earthquake in which they actually did pretty well and part of that response was specifically due to the capability of their military and the planning of their military to to respond so i believe that the military improvement is clearly a part of their domestic agenda but one second question and then i'll yield back but on my trip to china in every meeting that i was in i asked the same question and i knew they knew to be prepared for it and in every meeting i didn't get an answer and the question was could they comment on the status of the contract to china has entered into with cuba for both natural gas and oil in cuban waters and they wouldn't answer that and i know congressman bartlett has asked a question about oil but i also wonder what what  driving a lot of what china is doing and if the need for energy in the future with the growth of their country isn't going to be a key component that we would need to look at in the future and all the more reason for america to develop our own resources to not be caught in that associated in some way with their growing demand for energy it's it's it's not clear to us general ma'am just like we built our navy hundreds of years ago to keep the sea lines open i believe there's a direct correlation to what you're seeing now i think a lot of the things you see happen china's plan to maintain access standard g like the chairman i've seen myself soccer fields in africa and my deployment to the darfur region and the way that the chinese get into these doors and their military capability in their navy i think thank you and thank you again for your service and coming is certainly a timely and important topic on everyone's mind just following up on mr forbes question when you were talking about cyber defense  cyber warfare cyber terrorism that i think the clock went off before you were able actually to get into that area what do we know about the cyber terrorism or the cyber warfare certainly our computers have been hacked into what are we doing about that if you could just expand on that i appreciate it it's an important topic a really important topic we we would be glad to discuss as much of that as we can in the closed session just because of the sensitivity the sensitivity of the information as well as the importance of this issue was congressman forbes pointed out association with china is that my dad served in the fourteenth air force the flying tigers during world war two it was life changing for him he truly appreciated and developed affection for the people of china american military is revered in china i dish and i had the opportunity to lead a delegation for the sixtieth anniversary of v j day where there were public celebrations the erection of monuments there were television programs and es mutually beneficial in my home state of south carolina recently we've had a number of manufacturing facilities being developed creating jobs in south carolina with investment coming from of all places the people's republic of china and so putting that in perspective though i am concerned china is the second largest energy consumer following united states in the world in the third largest i oil has this dependency affected their defense policy and planning for the future and has china used the sale of military technologies as incentives to secure energy deals  you will answer to the extent that this formal will allow i think certainly it has i think we see china making friends around the world in peaceful ways like soccer stadiums but also through arms sales maybe not even sophisticated arms sales but less sophisticated arms sales but they are making friends in many of the emerging areas of the world where energy is going to be big gulf of guinea and other places as an example and as we were talking before sir i think clearly there needs and their their vision to say that we're going to have to have a clear naval lines of communications to transport this energy translates into the development that of showing restraint for the sale of heavy arms and missile technology to iran so we're struggling because we don't know what we can say in this forum can we talk about that later this afternoon additionally it's my view that china as a modern nation now from my china being as helpful as they can be in the global again i think maybe we should go into the closed session on that i think generally speaking though we have we have broad and shared interests with the chinese with regard to terrorism they have exhibited considerable anxiety as you know about about not just the possible exposure of the olympics to terrorism but its involvement more generally in some other border areas so that is an area where we are as the secretary of said partners and not and not competitors in particular with the terrorist activity in the western provinces it would seem like so clear that they should be working with us and so thank you and you know the balance of my time mr johnson  chinese investment in defense capability or military capability that can be linked to the  invasion by this country of the sovereign nation of iraq mr johnson i don't i don't know of any any evidence that there's been a connection between those two i do know that the chinese have have studied u s military activity in the gulf over many years and have have tried to to emulate much of our military doctrine in their own in their own training and i believe we discussed this a little has watched every war or skirmish that we have fought in the last eighteen years and studied it and they have developed their own approach to warfare which they call fighting under in form war doesn't make good sense but what it means to them is nets and to rick highly informed intelligence czar another words all the things that we excel in america trying to tie all of those together into an ability to fight and so while i wouldn't say it's tied directly directly to iraq it's tied to every military endeavor we've had in the last say fifteen to eighteen years they are trying to emulate our ability to work this kind of warfare and they are investing heavily in trying to build their own capability to conduct that kind of warfare suggestion that if we had not been engaged in any conflicts around the world then they would not respond in the way that they have  i don't think i don't think so i don't think we can draw that connection congressman we do know that the chinese are vitally concerned about their energy supply as been noted by a few other members in their comments here and they do they do keep their eyes on the gulf do  its blue water navy is purely defensive or does it have some or are you concerned that perhaps there may be some offensive   to answer this as well we we have observed a definite trend long term trend of chinese investment and naval  expansion not just quantity but sophistication and quality it remains unclear to us why the long term intent of the use of that naval force would be we do not know if they intend or they might intend to use it in summers in some way to assure themselves of energy security that's a possibility but we just we just don't know sir in the little bit of time we have left i would say that it would be hard to construe an aircraft carrier as being a purely defensive weapon i believe that some of the things we see china doing like pursuing an aircraft carrier presuming some of the other  longer range capabilities that they have conventional capabilities clearly indicate that they have aspirations beyond the shores of taiwan i wouldn't use the terms at you did about the entire world i think they're very pragmatic and are looking at their economic zone that they consider thank you thank the gentleman we have three members who have not asked questions and we outbuilding us now three point four to one and you add the purchases from the russians it goes to over five to one we see an american plan on attack boats that takes us down to less than forty shows i think a military blueprint which is pretty aggressive and it also a hints at least that the chinese don't intend to be forced to build a navy that can compete with our navy but rather to stand the u s battleforce off hundreds of miles before it gets to the to the straits by by using their strong suit which will be land based ballistic missiles with an i ship guidance systems now against that backdrop and against the backdrop that you mentioned is manifested in this book or in the report the two thousand and eight report to congress on china's military capability the united states really hasn't changed  horizon with at least a potentially much more capable chinese military white why is it business as usual in our plans as this expansion takes place obviously the fact that our force is not growing what i would feel comfortable trying to articulate is what is the need and the in the plan for that requirements for recapitalization of the force it is clear that we have some tough decisions to make about both of those needs for our military services and i think that that is quite  subject of our current budget discussions inside our department and i think that's about as far as i feel qualified to speak to well let me just say this general  this this congress while we've had we've had great differences on on policy with respect to the war fighting theaters we're engaged in right now we have written some pretty large checks if you come forth with a with  required need to expand in given areas such as attack submarines and lord knows you don't need to go into classified material we've got on the record the us navy reporting that we that we failed to meet  in excess of thirty percent of high priority missions existant missions for attack because we didn't have enough submarines now that's with a force that's over fifty we get down to forty we're obviously going to expand that number dramatically and yet there's been there's been no leadership that i've seen in the pentagon saying that we need to expand that submarine force we've been we've tried to move a few puts and takes around on this committee to get to get a few more boats into the pipeline at an earlier time but but i think your position should be telling us what we need to do to deploy to build develop and deploy to defend this nation then if we have to make cuts at least we do it and informed manner and we can undertake the priorities but i and i see this trend we've turned a cutie are into rather than what do we need to defend america what do we think congress is going to give us and and we build the box and then we say this is what we need and we and we tend to cut back on what should be major priorities because you simply don't think the money's going to be there so my question to you is don't military capability personally what it what your what are your thoughts on th so i think that i think that i would answer in two ways first of all we have articulated capability we see a threat as capability and intent and i think that clearly you have made very wise and correct statements about increasing their capability i think part of what we need to do now is be much better and have a much better understanding of what their intent is for that capability and then we would be able to ascertain what the threat might be in order to shape our forces for that as we have discussed a little in this session today the capability of the chinese to to their power is still somewhat limited it is clearly increasing as you have articulated and i think that without getting outside the bounds of this discussion i think admiral keating and his his his capability in the pacific right now is well positioned and capable to meet the current threat but i think the discussion is clearly about what this capability intent and therefore threat might be in the future and that i think is what you're really driving at that's right and just to finish and i'd close down to other members can have their  opportunity to ask questions but my point is admiral this thing's moving pretty quickly i mean this is this deal the increase in steel production inches for china last year was greater than our entire steel  in and saying let's look over the horizon and large start doing some things now because as you know our programs are no longer one and two year programs when we ascertain intent as you said and if you're going to try to ascertain the intent of china i'd i would highly commend letters in the in the recommendations in the analysis we did just before about a million chinese came into into the korean theater when our experts were absolutely certain that they would not engage so you have to meet capability with the understanding that intent can change very quickly and that there are many voices in china and you don't know which way she's going to dominate a particular time but i think you folks need to weigh in to this over the horizon challenge that we're go just to follow up on mr hunter's questions general again you've number of times this morning talked about how the navy the chinese navy has limited capability because it's somewhat in its infancy i guess the best way to characterize it surface right near one of our aircraft carriers and actually got away undetected i'm just going to read very short excerpt the ease with which the summary manure maneuvered undetected into japanese waters and evaded us and j self defense for submarine sensors suggests that china's large submarine fleet in gauges and far more c patrols in the u s has any hope of tracking i mean that seems to suggest a capability that's a little bit more advanced i mean we heard a lot from mr hunter about the  size of the fleet growing which i completely concur and agree with him but it sounds like they're also learning how to drive these boats in a way that certainly caught us by surprise again an event which mr forbes described as happened to us a lot lately so i just wonder if you could comment on that incident in terms of your own analysis of their capability so i would agree with you fully in the fact that that was a surprise to us and i believe we as a military learned a lot of more about where the chinese military is in their capability through that incident and i would not argue in any way shape or form that that is not a huge concern to us and we have to adapt our tactics techniques and procedures to meet the fact that we now understand they may have this capability if i if i i i hope i have not overstated the fact that they are they have no capability they do they have some very sophisticated weaponry and i think that what i was trying to relate is this is a  military that has not gotten near the capability it can with its current equipment and processes when it gets to a level closer to ours  tactics training procedure and experience it will be a very formidable force and i think that was the comparison i was trying to draw thank you and i guess i would just echo mr hunter observation that the time line for us to be able to have a fleet that is even close to the size of the chinese navy is going to take some planning and last year this committee led the way in terms of forward to getting the support of the top level maybe in the pentagon to hit that goal quickly the election of a new time when he's president apparently put into abeyance the purchase of weapons systems by the  taiwanese government including diesel submarines and i was wondering secretary if you could sort of comment on the status of that issue we appear to have some movement from the time when he's parliament last year in terms of stepping up and appropriating for that effort and  where do you see that right now given the i guess they pretty much call a timeout in the wake of the election that that for a couple of years time when these defense expenditures actually decreased in the face of it in what in our view was a significantly expanding p l a force it appears that that's that's reversed that we have a the taiwanese national assembly has has passed this budget and they're going to be engaged in i think long overdue uptick in acquiring some additional systems so that the recent decision just sort of put this on hold is temporary is that your  view i don't believe that we made a decision to put things in abeyance this was this was driven as far as i understand by taiwanese domestic politics  shape order thank you mr sharon the question i have has to do with the economic development that we are seeing in china right now when i was there last summer there were signs of it all around and i would like to ask you are some of our trade policies and some of our economic decisions including our borrowing helping them to build up their forces and build up their security and our risk to our security are you addressing that in any ways is a conversation that you're having not simply with other people and in your particular realm but with the people who are responsible for economic decisions in this country again that's a little bit out of my lane since we do we do military stuff but i think maybe we should have a conversation where we talk about the impact that borrowing has and the impact of trade policies have and the ability for china to receive the money in order to build up their defense so i think we should be connecting the dots we are acutely aware of the relationship however between china's industrialization much of which is driven by the private sector  every administration does have a responsibility it's not just in the role of the private sector last summer i was talking to the chinese about steel dumping and i had heard from both the president of u s steel and the union that we had a problem there and so it's not simply the private sector there is a role and again i'll ask you is there a place where these two intersect the questions about our trade policy and in the inadvertent impact of building up china to the point where they if they chose to be could could build a military that could threaten us it's a very good question congresswoman for which i don't i don't have a good answer  what you know the world that i work in ok let me change it to personal do you make the connection stepping aside from your own professional role here i mean is this something americans should be talking i will tell you that you may not be talking about it you're talking about a main street in my town  i agree with you and back home back home where i come from i believe there is a clear impression among among my neighbors and my relatives that china's economic growth has clearly powered their military expansion and that the two are linked in some respect thank you i yelled back i think the journey of the no further questions for open the gentleman behind me assures you assures me that we will get you the detailed answer sir it's if we could do it in between this and the next session i'd be glad to to lecture the expert but you should know these things  that's not ancient history there's a big difference as to where our fleet is at any particular  fifty three that president eisenhower i lifted the seventh fleet blockade on the taiwan straits has it been has it been back since