October 16, 2015 1:00 pm JST
China military buildup
Think tank warns of threat to US forces in Asia
HIROYUKI AKITA, Nikkei senior staff writer
The USS Ronald Reagan at the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, Japan
TOKYO -- An influential U.S. think tank recently issued a report that warns of the danger of U.S. forces in Japan being crippled by China, which is beefing up its military capabilities.
"The U.S.-China Military Scorecard: Forces, Geography, and the Evolving Balance of Power, 1996-2017," was released by Rand Corp., which has close ties with the U.S. Department of Defense. The report projects how U.S. military activities in Asia will be affected by China's military buildup based on publicly available information.
The report assumes two scenarios -- a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and a Spratly Islands campaign -- and carefully analyzes what will happen if U.S. forces intervene. It also divides the forces into 10 categories, such as air superiority, attacks on air bases and anti-surface warfare, and compares them in four years -- 1996, 2003, 2010 and 2017.
The report notes that the military power gap is still significant between the U.S. and China, but that the Chinese military is quickly strengthening its ability to prevent the U.S. from intervening.
What is particularly serious for Japan is the fact that China's increasing offensive power is posing a growing threat to U.S. military bases in Japan and U.S. naval fleets centered on aircraft carriers.
For example, as of 1996, even if the U.S. military steps in the conflict between China and Taiwan, the Chinese military did not have missiles capable of attacking U.S. bases in Japan. But the Chinese military had got the power to force Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, the main hub of U.S. Air Force, to close for four to 10 days by missile attack by 2010. The report also says that the Chinese military is expected to be able to force the air base to close for 16-43 days in 2017.
The report also warns that the risk of U.S. aircraft carriers being detected and attacked by Chinese submarines is rapidly increasing. The risk is attributable to the Chinese military strengthening abilities to find targets over the horizon by using reconnaissance satellites, even as it streamlines its submarine fleet.
The report says that the deployment of aircraft carriers in waters away from China may be considered at the early phase of a conflict, implying that carriers should be moved from the waters near Japan to the southern Pacific Ocean if the U.S. military cannot prevail over China in the early phase of a conflict.
The suggestion is tantamount to admitting that the U.S. can no longer freely deploy aircraft carriers in the East China Sea due to the Chinese military buildup.
Since the end of World War II, Japan's defense has been built upon the premise that the U.S. military maintains overwhelming power and acts as the police in Asia. Particularly, the existence of aircraft carriers, which are often called "moving bases," has been a symbol of U.S. military power. The collapse of this premise will greatly affect Japan as well.
READ MORE: http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/International-Relations/Think-tank-warns-of-threat-to-US-forces-in-Asia
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