A Russian view of China’s development: An interview with the country’s first deputy foreign
minister Andrey Denisov
Yermolai Solzhenitsyn
McKinsey Quarterly, July 2011
Andrey Denisov has spent much of his career studying China. The economist and diplomat discusses the keys to China’s social and economic success.
The last three decades have brought visible changes in every aspect of Chinese life. Andrey Denisov, Russia’s first deputy foreign minister, former minister-counselor of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in the People’s Republic of China, and Russian ambassador to the United Nations, has spent years inside and outside China studying the country’s astonishing ascent. “I entered the economics department of university and began to learn Chinese in 1969. It was the worst year in the whole history of relations between the two countries,” Denisov recalled in a recent interview. “Thus, if anyone told me at that moment what China would become 40 years later, and that I would experience it with my own eyes, I would have refused to believe them.”
In this excerpt from an interview conducted by McKinsey’s Yermolai Solzhenitsyn, Denisov discusses China’s socioeconomic reforms and potential lessons for Russia. The complete interview was published this year in the 22nd edition of Vestnik McKinsey.1
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McKinsey: What is the secret of China’s successful economic reforms?
Andrey Denisov: In China, they have carefully studied various models of economic growth, various economic theories and doctrines, and examples of successful industrialization and modernization. But most important is that they have adapted the approaches they select to their own realities. It is safe to say that China’s reforms owe their success to the combination of the best international practices and the national Chinese specificity, with due consideration of local conditions.
McKinsey: Can you give us an example of something that China borrowed from other countries and adapted for its own use?
Andrey Denisov: China began to establish special economic zones along its coastal belt, making good use of a big, hardworking, disciplined, and unpretentious population—in terms of wages and salaries—and a convenient location at the crossroads of global trade routes. Special economic zones were not invented in China; it is an international practice. But in China, they have become a driver of reforms, while in other countries, including Russia, they actually stagnate.
McKinsey: What are some other reasons why economic reform has succeeded in China, whereas others have failed?
Andrey Denisov: I have already mentioned the labor force and the beneficial geographic location with regard to the global markets. The third factor is the existence of the immense internal market. The fourth aspect is the Chinese expatriate community, which is committed, as they say, to “the rejuvenation of their motherland.” Chinese populations abroad remain Chinese. They are citizens of their country—if not in their passports, then in their souls. They possess vast financial resources, and these resources have been funneled to China. The country retains strong governmental power and efficient management, which helped to build a mighty, open economy literally from scratch.
Take another feature of China’s way. Amid revolutionary enthusiasm, the Chinese did not slacken managerial discipline and did not throw the baby out with the bathwater. We can argue about correctness or faultiness of this or that ideological course or political model, but it is absolutely obvious that in China the ideology was totally subordinated to the objectives of economic performance. And this ideology has become a framework of the management model rather than a set of dogmas never to be questioned by anyone.
Generally speaking, the Chinese mentality presumes consistent and gradual actions, the lack of haste, or, to put it simpler, no hustle and bustle when it comes to transformations. Therefore, in any aspect of China’s reform, the most important constituent is common sense. It is the ability to take a practical view of your needs and opportunities, to act not with haste but step by step, and to pursue the decision once it is already made.
McKinsey: What is unique about China’s experience?
Andrey Denisov: I would point out a rather interesting aspect, which is sometimes overlooked when studying China’s reforms. The leaders of China, Deng Xiaoping in the first place, made good use of the purely political factors related to the world alignment of forces. Those were the days of the Cold War, which was rather violent, for that matter. But China managed to position itself in such a way that it became of interest to the American leadership that Chinese–American tensions relax, and the relations between the two countries then began to normalize. The United States offered China vast opportunities, in terms of both technological resources and trade prospects. China got access to the immense American market. And I think you will agree that in the shortest possible time, China managed to oust everybody from this market, including the American manufacturers themselves. Anything you buy in a supermarket in the United States—be it clothes, household appliances, or domestic articles—bears a label “Made in China.”
Hence, the West, and the United States in the first place, helped China’s integration into the global economy. Not only did they open their markets and provide technologies, but they really helped China become a part of the world’s economy. It is quite obvious that such factors come together very seldom, if ever at all.
That is why the Chinese experience is so unique. But most important has been China’s ability to sustain national specificity: their nonadmittance of a purely mechanical application of any foreign practices; their common sense; their consistent and gradual approach to transformations; their patience; and, maybe, the fact that at all stages of the reforms, all layers of China’s society benefited from these reforms in their everyday life. Some of the Chinese—for example, residents of the maritime cities—benefited more, some less, but nobody, or almost nobody, lost. There are no socially important groups in the country that would have been driven by the reforms to the sidelines of social progress.
McKinsey: What are the weaknesses in the Chinese development model?
Andrey Denisov: The country’s political leaders clearly understand that, along with unquestionable successes and achievements, China still has weak points, and many of them. Despite all its merits, China’s development model involves taking over existing processes. China is very capable of copying, adjusting, adapting, and borrowing the experiences of others. But it has not yet delivered its own breakthrough technologies. Chinese exports, including high-tech products, are the result of utilizing imported modern technologies rather than proprietary solutions. One way or another, China will definitely face the necessity to upgrade to a new scientific and technological level.
McKinsey: Does modernization of the Chinese economy have a downside?
Andrey Denisov: Yes, certainly. Sometimes it results in increased social tensions; indeed, the urban territories differ greatly from the rural ones, and coastal regions are absolutely distinct from the inland. The country suffers from acute environmental problems, from the lack of arable land and water. Social problems also exist, such as high levels of corruption. The authorities realize it perfectly. And it is not by mere chance that they punish corruption so severely in China: even high-ranking officials have no guarantee against lengthy terms of imprisonment or even the death penalty.
McKinsey: More than a few people in eastern Russia are afraid that millions of Chinese will cross the border. How real is this notion? And how will relations with China develop in the border regions of Siberia and the Far East?
Andrey Denisov: Naturally, I am not a supporter of apocalyptic scenarios, which are based on superficial perceptions of some external indicators rather than on a thorough analysis of the situation. If China had designs on these lands, we would have known of this for centuries already. But the Chinese state has always existed within the same borders it currently holds. Siberia and the Far East are not quite fit for China’s economic and social model. Until recently, it was rather hard to develop agriculture in these regions due to harsh natural and climatic conditions. And agriculture was the foundation of the Chinese economy for ages. So it pays to look first at history.
Now let’s shift to modern times. In 2004, China and Russia displayed sufficient political wisdom to finally settle the border issue which, like a thorn, still remained in the flesh of our relations. To secure its interests, China has found it much more advantageous to have a prosperous, reliable, and useful neighbor nearby than a target for expansion. Russia’s situation is completely different, with its boundless spaces and scarce population—not growing, at best, or even reducing—of Siberia and the Far East. But these regions are attractive in terms of mineral reserves and transportation opportunities. In Russia, we must make all possible efforts to speed up the development of these areas. The summit of the Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation countries, which is scheduled to take place in 2012 in Vladivostok, is being viewed primarily as an opportunity to discuss the development of these regions.
In this respect, China is an extremely valuable partner. China mainly purchases raw materials, lumber, and mineral products from Russia, while selling us finished goods and food. But it is up to Russia to change this equation. The Chinese partners are ready to build mutually beneficial relations, not unilateral ones. Not so long ago, the program of Russian–Chinese economic cooperation in Siberia and the Far East was adopted. Now that the framework is in place, everything depends on what we will do to fulfill this program. So, apocalyptic scenarios might be best kept for the movies, not for objective political analysis.
McKinsey: Since Russia’s population is declining, should it encourage immigration from China, to help these regions’ development?
Andrey Denisov: We already have enough Chinese labor force there. But it is just a labor force. The Chinese are indisposed to take roots and settle down in these territories. They still view the bilateral economic cooperation as seasonal work. I mean, people arrive, work, earn money, and go back to China. These are mainly construction and agricultural workers. Of course, many Chinese are doing some commerce as well. The Chinese are good at that, really.
McKinsey: But Russia also buys what they sell.
Andrey Denisov: Exactly. I do remember those times when they were buying from us. For instance, they were buying buckets and woolen coats. They were buying, ridiculous as it may seem, felt hats in large quantities. It was not so long ago, just in the late 1980s. At that time, we were buying less from them than they from us. In the 1950s, the Soviet Union was an economic sponsor. We assisted China in restoring its economy at that period. And they remember it.
But today the situation has changed. Yet, until recently, in some areas such as equipment and technology, we were selling more to China than China was selling to us. The share of machinery and equipment in our imports from China already exceeds the same share in our exports to China. In this category of goods, we are now approximately on par, but the balance is gradually shifting to the Chinese side.
McKinsey: In the decades to come, will Russia abandon its generally Europe-oriented political and economic model and turn to Asia, and China, in particular?
Andrey Denisov: I am deeply convinced that Russia’s civilization as such is Europe-oriented. And this is a natural aspect of our development. But our turning to Asia is nonetheless natural. Why so? Because we are physically present there. I remember the time—the 1970s and the 1980s—when the sole sign of Russia’s presence in Asia was its Pacific fleet. It was very powerful and was sailing with its firepower for all to see.
Today the situation has changed. We need an economic presence in this region in the first place; we need to become necessary for this region. Russia is still not recognized as an Asian country, despite all its Asian associations. We even became an ASEM2 member, which gathers the leaders of European and Asian countries. For a long time, we held off from ASEM, because we ourselves do not always know who we are.
We should look at Australia, and especially New Zealand, and how these Anglo-Saxon countries searched out their Asian-Pacific identities. I believe that these conscious spiritual efforts deserve deep respect and attention, and we should follow this example. Turning our face to Asia must not be a political move, but an inherent natural act.
People who live in Siberia, in Eastern Siberia, in the Far East, perceive themselves as residents of Russia, but of this part of Russia. They are not temporary dwellers, they do not think, “OK, we will live here for some time, work here, and then we’ll leave for Saint Petersburg, and our children will study there.” We must cultivate the sentiments of permanence, of better conditions for a better life in the Far East. And much depends on ourselves here. But I do not believe that artificial models can be implemented. It must be a natural process.
For historical reasons, since the 16th century, Russians have found their way to the far-distant Pacific coast, to Kamchatka, to Chukotka. This migration grew from some inner flame, some impulse. And only afterwards, the purposeful actions followed. One of the outstanding Russian economic projects of the 19th century, of course, was the Trans-Siberian Railway, which was laid in the territory of both Russia and China. The Chinese Eastern Railway is also part of this story. We have really good examples, and we should remember them.
McKinsey: Still, Russia and the Asian countries would seem to have limited knowledge of one another. What do you think?
Andrey Denisov: I agree. In the field of economic cooperation, we are looking to achieve more but must put up with what we’ve got, since our ambitions are out of sync with our capabilities. This is also true for cultural cooperation. This is a point of mutual interest, mutual attraction.
I am very pleased that interest in China—Chinese culture, language, medicine, philosophy—is rising around the world. For example, we have discussed that the Chinese might lack creative potential when it comes to technology, but when it comes to filmmaking, for example, creativity abounds. Chinese film directors gather awards at many international film festivals as their motion pictures reflect a unique outlook on the world around them.
It is crucial that the governments of China and Russia have a good understanding of this. Hence the focused effort, the “Year of Russia” in China, followed by the “Year of China” in Russia. This is a program including more than 300 important events—exhibitions, tours, concerts, festivals, public meetings—that funds are allocated for. This is not manna falling from the sky.
I see, with great pleasure, interest in the Chinese language awakening in Russia. The very process of learning Chinese is fascinating. And it is quite distinctive, by the way, that universities in the Russian Far East and Eastern Siberia teach Chinese. Young people choose this language and go to China with pleasure. There are many people already who live in China who are like expats, like Englishmen who live in Hong Kong, because they connect their future with this country. They get married, have children, work—and very often work for Russia, thus helping it to implement various cooperation projects. And nobody in China is afraid of it. Our fellow countrymen like to live and work there, and this is good. The Chinese culture is extremely deep. And I believe that this interest will only grow.
We know that the culture and spirit of a people is transferred through their language. There are many translators of Russian literature in China, Chinese people who connected their lives with Russia. And this is also very good!
About the Author
Yermolai Solzhenitsyn is a director in McKinsey’s Moscow office.
Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Saturday, December 25, 2010
China-Russia military cooperation - Washington Post
Military strength eludes China, which looks overseas for arms
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 25, 2010; 12:00 AM
MOSCOW - The Moscow Machine-Building Enterprise Salyut on the east side of town has put up a massive Soviet-style poster advertising its need for skilled workers. The New Year's party at the Chernyshev plant in a northwest suburb featured ballet dancers twirling on the stage of its Soviet-era Palace of Culture.
The reason for the economic and seasonal cheer is that these factories produce fighter-jet engines for a wealthy and voracious customer: China. After years of trying, Chinese engineers still can't make a reliable engine for a military plane.
The country's demands for weapons systems go much further. Chinese officials last month told Russian Defense Minister Anatoly E. Serdyukov that they may resume buying major Russian weapons systems after a several-year break. On their wish list are the Su-35 fighter, for a planned Chinese aircraft carrier; IL-476 military transport planes; IL-478 air refueling tankers and the S-400 air defense system, according to Russian news reports and weapons experts.
This persistent dependence on Russian arms suppliers demonstrates a central truth about the Chinese military: The bluster about the emergence of a superpower is undermined by national defense industries that can't produce what China needs. Although the United States is making changes in response to China's growing military power, experts and officials believe it will be years, if not decades, before China will be able to produce a much-feared ballistic missile capable of striking a warship or overcome weaknesses that keep it from projecting power far from its shores.
"They've made remarkable progress in the development of their arms industry, but this progress shouldn't be overstated," said Vasily Kashin, a Beijing-based expert on China's defense industry. "They have a long tradition of overestimating their capabilities."
Ruslan Pukhov, the director of the Center for Analysis of Strategic Technologies and an adviser to Russia's ministry of defense, predicted that China would need a decade to perfect a jet engine, among other key weapons technologies. "China is still dependent on us and will stay that way for some time to come," he said.
Indeed, China has ordered scores of engines from the Salyut and Chernyshev factories for three of its new fighters - the J11B, a Chinese knock-off of the Russian Su-27; the J10, which China is believed to have developed with Israeli help; and the FC1, which China modeled on an aborted Soviet design. It also told Russia that it wants a third engine from another factory for the Su-35.
How China's military is modernizing is important for the United States and the world. Apart from the conflict with radical Islamism, the United States views China's growing military strength as the most serious potential threat to U.S. interests around the world.
Speaking in 2009, Liang Guanglie, China's minister of defense, laid out a hugely ambitious plan to modernize the People's Liberation Army, committing China to forging a navy that would push past the islands that ring China's coasts, an air force capable of "a combination of offensive and defensive operations," and rocket forces of both "nuclear and conventional striking power."
The Pentagon, in a report to Congress this year, said that that the pace and scale of China's military reform "are broad and sweeping." But, the report noted, "the PLA remains untested in modern combat," thus making transformation difficult to assess.
'Could be sitting ducks'
One area in which China is thought to have made the greatest advances is in its submarines, part of what is now the largest fleet of naval vessels in Asia. In October 2006, a Chinese Song-class diesel-powered attack submarine reportedly shadowed the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier and surfaced undetected four miles from the ship. Although the Pentagon never confirmed the report, it sparked concern that China could threaten the carriers that are at the heart of the U.S. Navy's ability to project power.
China tried to buy Russian nuclear submarines but was rebuffed, so it launched a program to make its own. Over the past two years, it has deployed at least one of a new type of nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarine called the Jin class and it may deploy as many as five more.
The Office of Naval Intelligence said the Jin gives China's navy its first credible second-strike nuclear capability; its missiles have a range of 4,000 miles. But in a report last year, the ONI also noted that the Jin is noisier than nuclear submarines built by the Soviets 30 years ago, leading experts to conclude that it would be detected as soon as it left port.
"There's a tendency to talk about China as a great new military threat that's coming," said Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. But, when it comes to Chinese submarines carrying ballistic missiles, he said, "they could be sitting ducks."
Another problem is that China's submariners don't train very much.
China's entire fleet of 63 subs conducted only a dozen patrols in 2009, according to U.S. Navy data Kristensen obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, about a tenth of the U.S. Navy's pace. In addition, Kristensen said there is no record of a Chinese ballistic-missile sub going out on patrol. "You learn how to use your systems on patrol," he said. "If you don't patrol, how can you fight?"
Anti-ship capabilities
China's missile technology has always been the pointy edge of its spear, ever since Qian Xuesen, the gifted rocket scientist who was kicked out of the United States during the McCarthy period in the 1950s, returned to China.
U.S. government scientists have been impressed by China's capabilities. On Jan. 11, 2007, a Chinese missile traveling at more than four miles a second hit a satellite that was basically a box with three-foot sides, one U.S. government weapons expert said. Over the past several years, China has put into orbit 11 of what are believed to be its first military-only satellites, called Yaogan, which could provide China with the ability to track targets for its rockets.
China is also trying to fashion an anti-ship ballistic missile by taking a short-range rocket, the DF-21, and turning it into what could become an aircraft-carrier killing weapon.
Even though it has yet to be deployed, the system has already sparked changes in the United States. In September, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said China's "investments in anti-ship weaponry and ballistic missiles could threaten America's primary way to project power and help allies in the Pacific - particularly our forward bases and carrier strike groups." The U.S. Navy in 2008 cut the DDG-1000 destroyer program from eight ships to three because the vessels lack a missile-defense capability.
But the challenge for China is that an anti-ship ballistic missile is extremely hard to make. The Russians worked on one for decades and failed. The United States never tried, preferring to rely on cruise missiles and attack submarines to do the job of threatening an opposing navy.
U.S. satellites would detect an ASBM as soon as it was launched, providing a carrier enough warning to move several miles before the missile could reach its target. To hit a moving carrier, a U.S. government weapons specialist said, China's targeting systems would have to be "better than world-class."
Wu Riqiang, who worked for six years at the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation as a missile designer, said that while he could not confirm that such a missile existed, he believed weapons such as these were essentially "political chips," the mere mention of which had already achieved the goal of making U.S. warships think twice about operating near China's shores.
"It's an open question how these missiles will do in a conflict situation," said Wu, who is now studying in the United States. "But the threat - that's what's most important about them."
Morale trouble
The deployment of a naval task force to the Gulf of Aden last year as part of the international operation against pirates was seen as a huge step forward for China. The implication was that China's military doctrine had shifted from defending China's borders to protecting China's interests, which span the globe. But the expeditionary force has also provided a window into weaknesses of the People's Liberation Army, according to a new report by Christopher Yung, a former Pentagon official now at the National Defense University.
China's lack of foreign military bases - it has insisted that it won't station troops abroad - limits its capacity to maintain its ships on long-term missions. A shortage of helicopters - the workhorses of a naval expeditionary force - makes it hard for the ships to operate with one another. China's tiny fleet of replenishment ships - it has only three - doesn't give it enough capacity to do more than one such operation at a time.
China's navy, according to Yung, also has difficulty maintaining a fresh water supply for its sailors. And poor refrigeration on its ships makes it hard to preserve fruit and vegetables, something that makes for griping on board.
"The sailors during the first deployment had a real morale problem," Yung said, adding that following their mission, they were taken on a beach vacation "to get morale back up."
Empowering local commanders, considered key to a successful fighting force, is something that Beijing clearly has yet to embrace. British Royal Navy Commodore Tim Lowe, who commanded the Gulf of Aden operation for the U.S. 5th Fleet up until May, noted that while other navies would send operations officers to multinational meetings to discuss how to fight pirates, China would dispatch a political officer who often lacked expertise. The concept of sharing intelligence among partner countries was also tough for the Chinese to fathom. To the Chinese, he said, "that was an unusual point."
Tension with the Kremlin
China's military relations with Russia reveal further weaknesses. Between 1992 and 2006, the total value of Russia's arms exports to China was $26 billion - almost half of all the weapons Russia sold abroad.
But tensions arose in 2004 over two issues, Russian experts said. Russia was outraged when it discovered that China, which had licensed to produce the Su-27 fighter jet from Russian kits, had actually copied the plane. China was furious that after it signed a contract for a batch of IL-76 military transport planes it discovered that Russia had no way to make them. After receiving 105 out of a contracted 200 Su-27s, China canceled the deal and weapons negotiations were not held for several years.
Purchases of some items continued - S-300 air defense systems and billions of dollars worth of jet engines. An engine China made for its Su-27 knock-off would routinely conk out after 30 hours whereas the Russian engines would need refurbishing after 400, Russian and Chinese experts said.
"Engine systems are the heart disease of our whole military industry," a Chinese defense publication quoted Wang Tianmin, a military engine designer, as saying in its March issue. "From aircraft production to shipbuilding and the armored vehicles industry, there are no exceptions."
When weapons talks resumed with Russia in 2008, China found the Russians were driving a harder bargain. For one, it wasn't offering to let China produce Russian fighters in China. And in November, the Russians said they would only provide the Su-35 for China's aircraft carrier program if China bought 48 - enough to ensure Russian firms a handsome profit before China's engineers attempted to copy the technology. Russia also announced that the Russian military would buy the S-400 air defense system first and that China could get in line.
"We, too, have learned a few things," said Vladimir Portyakov, a former Russian diplomat twice posted to Beijing.
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 25, 2010; 12:00 AM
MOSCOW - The Moscow Machine-Building Enterprise Salyut on the east side of town has put up a massive Soviet-style poster advertising its need for skilled workers. The New Year's party at the Chernyshev plant in a northwest suburb featured ballet dancers twirling on the stage of its Soviet-era Palace of Culture.
The reason for the economic and seasonal cheer is that these factories produce fighter-jet engines for a wealthy and voracious customer: China. After years of trying, Chinese engineers still can't make a reliable engine for a military plane.
The country's demands for weapons systems go much further. Chinese officials last month told Russian Defense Minister Anatoly E. Serdyukov that they may resume buying major Russian weapons systems after a several-year break. On their wish list are the Su-35 fighter, for a planned Chinese aircraft carrier; IL-476 military transport planes; IL-478 air refueling tankers and the S-400 air defense system, according to Russian news reports and weapons experts.
This persistent dependence on Russian arms suppliers demonstrates a central truth about the Chinese military: The bluster about the emergence of a superpower is undermined by national defense industries that can't produce what China needs. Although the United States is making changes in response to China's growing military power, experts and officials believe it will be years, if not decades, before China will be able to produce a much-feared ballistic missile capable of striking a warship or overcome weaknesses that keep it from projecting power far from its shores.
"They've made remarkable progress in the development of their arms industry, but this progress shouldn't be overstated," said Vasily Kashin, a Beijing-based expert on China's defense industry. "They have a long tradition of overestimating their capabilities."
Ruslan Pukhov, the director of the Center for Analysis of Strategic Technologies and an adviser to Russia's ministry of defense, predicted that China would need a decade to perfect a jet engine, among other key weapons technologies. "China is still dependent on us and will stay that way for some time to come," he said.
Indeed, China has ordered scores of engines from the Salyut and Chernyshev factories for three of its new fighters - the J11B, a Chinese knock-off of the Russian Su-27; the J10, which China is believed to have developed with Israeli help; and the FC1, which China modeled on an aborted Soviet design. It also told Russia that it wants a third engine from another factory for the Su-35.
How China's military is modernizing is important for the United States and the world. Apart from the conflict with radical Islamism, the United States views China's growing military strength as the most serious potential threat to U.S. interests around the world.
Speaking in 2009, Liang Guanglie, China's minister of defense, laid out a hugely ambitious plan to modernize the People's Liberation Army, committing China to forging a navy that would push past the islands that ring China's coasts, an air force capable of "a combination of offensive and defensive operations," and rocket forces of both "nuclear and conventional striking power."
The Pentagon, in a report to Congress this year, said that that the pace and scale of China's military reform "are broad and sweeping." But, the report noted, "the PLA remains untested in modern combat," thus making transformation difficult to assess.
'Could be sitting ducks'
One area in which China is thought to have made the greatest advances is in its submarines, part of what is now the largest fleet of naval vessels in Asia. In October 2006, a Chinese Song-class diesel-powered attack submarine reportedly shadowed the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier and surfaced undetected four miles from the ship. Although the Pentagon never confirmed the report, it sparked concern that China could threaten the carriers that are at the heart of the U.S. Navy's ability to project power.
China tried to buy Russian nuclear submarines but was rebuffed, so it launched a program to make its own. Over the past two years, it has deployed at least one of a new type of nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarine called the Jin class and it may deploy as many as five more.
The Office of Naval Intelligence said the Jin gives China's navy its first credible second-strike nuclear capability; its missiles have a range of 4,000 miles. But in a report last year, the ONI also noted that the Jin is noisier than nuclear submarines built by the Soviets 30 years ago, leading experts to conclude that it would be detected as soon as it left port.
"There's a tendency to talk about China as a great new military threat that's coming," said Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. But, when it comes to Chinese submarines carrying ballistic missiles, he said, "they could be sitting ducks."
Another problem is that China's submariners don't train very much.
China's entire fleet of 63 subs conducted only a dozen patrols in 2009, according to U.S. Navy data Kristensen obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, about a tenth of the U.S. Navy's pace. In addition, Kristensen said there is no record of a Chinese ballistic-missile sub going out on patrol. "You learn how to use your systems on patrol," he said. "If you don't patrol, how can you fight?"
Anti-ship capabilities
China's missile technology has always been the pointy edge of its spear, ever since Qian Xuesen, the gifted rocket scientist who was kicked out of the United States during the McCarthy period in the 1950s, returned to China.
U.S. government scientists have been impressed by China's capabilities. On Jan. 11, 2007, a Chinese missile traveling at more than four miles a second hit a satellite that was basically a box with three-foot sides, one U.S. government weapons expert said. Over the past several years, China has put into orbit 11 of what are believed to be its first military-only satellites, called Yaogan, which could provide China with the ability to track targets for its rockets.
China is also trying to fashion an anti-ship ballistic missile by taking a short-range rocket, the DF-21, and turning it into what could become an aircraft-carrier killing weapon.
Even though it has yet to be deployed, the system has already sparked changes in the United States. In September, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said China's "investments in anti-ship weaponry and ballistic missiles could threaten America's primary way to project power and help allies in the Pacific - particularly our forward bases and carrier strike groups." The U.S. Navy in 2008 cut the DDG-1000 destroyer program from eight ships to three because the vessels lack a missile-defense capability.
But the challenge for China is that an anti-ship ballistic missile is extremely hard to make. The Russians worked on one for decades and failed. The United States never tried, preferring to rely on cruise missiles and attack submarines to do the job of threatening an opposing navy.
U.S. satellites would detect an ASBM as soon as it was launched, providing a carrier enough warning to move several miles before the missile could reach its target. To hit a moving carrier, a U.S. government weapons specialist said, China's targeting systems would have to be "better than world-class."
Wu Riqiang, who worked for six years at the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation as a missile designer, said that while he could not confirm that such a missile existed, he believed weapons such as these were essentially "political chips," the mere mention of which had already achieved the goal of making U.S. warships think twice about operating near China's shores.
"It's an open question how these missiles will do in a conflict situation," said Wu, who is now studying in the United States. "But the threat - that's what's most important about them."
Morale trouble
The deployment of a naval task force to the Gulf of Aden last year as part of the international operation against pirates was seen as a huge step forward for China. The implication was that China's military doctrine had shifted from defending China's borders to protecting China's interests, which span the globe. But the expeditionary force has also provided a window into weaknesses of the People's Liberation Army, according to a new report by Christopher Yung, a former Pentagon official now at the National Defense University.
China's lack of foreign military bases - it has insisted that it won't station troops abroad - limits its capacity to maintain its ships on long-term missions. A shortage of helicopters - the workhorses of a naval expeditionary force - makes it hard for the ships to operate with one another. China's tiny fleet of replenishment ships - it has only three - doesn't give it enough capacity to do more than one such operation at a time.
China's navy, according to Yung, also has difficulty maintaining a fresh water supply for its sailors. And poor refrigeration on its ships makes it hard to preserve fruit and vegetables, something that makes for griping on board.
"The sailors during the first deployment had a real morale problem," Yung said, adding that following their mission, they were taken on a beach vacation "to get morale back up."
Empowering local commanders, considered key to a successful fighting force, is something that Beijing clearly has yet to embrace. British Royal Navy Commodore Tim Lowe, who commanded the Gulf of Aden operation for the U.S. 5th Fleet up until May, noted that while other navies would send operations officers to multinational meetings to discuss how to fight pirates, China would dispatch a political officer who often lacked expertise. The concept of sharing intelligence among partner countries was also tough for the Chinese to fathom. To the Chinese, he said, "that was an unusual point."
Tension with the Kremlin
China's military relations with Russia reveal further weaknesses. Between 1992 and 2006, the total value of Russia's arms exports to China was $26 billion - almost half of all the weapons Russia sold abroad.
But tensions arose in 2004 over two issues, Russian experts said. Russia was outraged when it discovered that China, which had licensed to produce the Su-27 fighter jet from Russian kits, had actually copied the plane. China was furious that after it signed a contract for a batch of IL-76 military transport planes it discovered that Russia had no way to make them. After receiving 105 out of a contracted 200 Su-27s, China canceled the deal and weapons negotiations were not held for several years.
Purchases of some items continued - S-300 air defense systems and billions of dollars worth of jet engines. An engine China made for its Su-27 knock-off would routinely conk out after 30 hours whereas the Russian engines would need refurbishing after 400, Russian and Chinese experts said.
"Engine systems are the heart disease of our whole military industry," a Chinese defense publication quoted Wang Tianmin, a military engine designer, as saying in its March issue. "From aircraft production to shipbuilding and the armored vehicles industry, there are no exceptions."
When weapons talks resumed with Russia in 2008, China found the Russians were driving a harder bargain. For one, it wasn't offering to let China produce Russian fighters in China. And in November, the Russians said they would only provide the Su-35 for China's aircraft carrier program if China bought 48 - enough to ensure Russian firms a handsome profit before China's engineers attempted to copy the technology. Russia also announced that the Russian military would buy the S-400 air defense system first and that China could get in line.
"We, too, have learned a few things," said Vladimir Portyakov, a former Russian diplomat twice posted to Beijing.
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