The Chinese army is still an oversized，outdated Maoist guerrilla army withinsuffi-cient airlift，logistics，engineering，and med-ical capabilities toproject power very far.In fact ，most of the Chinese army is good only for internalsecurity purposes.The forces equipment is antiquatedfor example，most tanks incorporatetechnology from the 1950s.Because of nepotism，party favoritism ，and poor paycompared to that in the boom-ing private sector，the army does not get the bestrecruits from Chinese society ，and morale of existing troops is bad.In contrast，the United States has the most potent and technologically sophisticated army inthe worldwith the best tank in the world（the M-1），the potent Apache anti-tankhelicopter，and future plans to add the Comanche reconnaissance helicopter.
According to DoD，the Chinese navy appears to have postponed indefinitely plansto buy an aircraft carrier.In addition ，DoD notes that the Chinese navys airdefense against enemy aircraft，precision-guided munitions ，and cruise missilesis limited by short-range weapons （only a few of Chinas ships have longer-rangesurface-to-air mis-siles ）and a lack of modern air surveillance systems and advanceddata links to commu-nicate that air picture to other ships in the fleet.22The purchaseof a few SOVREMEN-NYY-class destroyers from Russia will not alter that state ofaffairs significantly.In modern war，ships are vulnerable to attack from the air，and those limitations make the Chinese navy a sitting duck in any conflict.In contrast，the U.S.fleet has global dominance with 12large aircraft carriers （Russia isthe only other nation with a large aircraft carrier ，which is confined to portmost of the time），the best submarines in the world，and the most sophisticatedair defense capabilities afloat （Aegis destroyers and cruisers ）。
The Chinese are slowly modernizing their small strategic nuclear arsenal tomake it less vul-nerable to a preemptive attack from the worlds most potent nuclearforcethe U.S.strategic arsenal of thousands of warheads.But even with such modernization，Chinas nuclear arsenal will pale in comparison with the robust U.S.nuclear force.The Chinese currently have only about 20long-range missileshoused in fixed silosthatcan reach the United States.The missiles ，their liq-uid fuel，and their warheadsare stored separately ，making them very vulnerable to a preemptive strike beforethey could be assembled and launched.23During the Cold War，analysts saw as destabilizinga situation in which one side had vulnerable nuclear weapons.That nation mightuse the weapons in haste to avoid losing them during an opponents first strike.So，as long as the Chinese do not undertake a massive nuclear buildup to achieveparity with the United States （which they cannot afford and have shown no inclinationto do ），the modernization of Chinas nuclear weapons by the fielding of more invul-nerable road-mobile missiles could actually increase the nuclear stability betweenChina and the United States.China has not yet fielded a mis-sile with multiplewarheads，but it could in the futureespecially if the United States deployed missiledefenses that needed to be countered and the Chinese mastered the technology oflight-weight warheads similar to the U.S.W-88war-head.But because Chinese missileswith multiple warheads would be mobile，and thus survivable，they would be lesslikely to be a lucrative，destabi-lizing target than the Cold War situation ofmul-tiple warheads per fixed silo.
The Chinese have only one ballistic mis-sile submarine ，which usually remainsat the dock for repairs.Even at sea，to fire its mis-siles ，the submarine mustoperate fairly close to the United Stateswhere it would be more vulnerable to attack.In contrast ，the United States has 14ballistic missile submarines that are themost powerful weapon systems ever built and can launch their missiles at a targetfrom across the ocean.The Chinese have a successor ballistic missile submarinein development，but they have never had much luck perfecting the technology.Theonly time Chinas small nuclear arsenal could become a problem for the United Stateswould be in an emotional Chinese reaction to U.S.intervention in a crisis betweenChina and Taiwan.
A Massive Military Buildup？
David Shambaugh maintains that the Chinese are not engaged in a massive Soviet-stylemilitary buildup.24Even the Defense Intelligence Agency and high-ranking U.S.militaryofficials seem to agree with that assessment.According to the Defense IntelligenceAgency，by 2010，even the best 10percent of the Chinese military will have equipmentthat is more than 20years behind the capabilities of the U.S.military （equivalentto U.S.equipment in the late 1980s ）。The other 90percent of the Chinese militarywill have even more outdated equipment.25Gen.William J.Begert ，the commanderof U.S.Pacific Air Forces，asserted that Chinese military modern-ization wasa matter of concern but not alarm-ing.26His boss ，Adm.Dennis Blair，the com-mander of all U.S.forces in the Pacific，noted in 1999that China would not posea serious strate-gic threat to the United States for at least two decades.27OHanlonand Gill also conclude that the Chinese military lags behind U.S.forces by at least20years and that it will be that long before Chinas armed forces could significantlychal-lenge the United States and allied nations in East Asia.28Even DoD has admittedthat the PLA [Peoples Liberation Army]is still decades from possessing a comprehensivecapability to engage and defeat a modern adversary beyond Chinas boundaries.29
The assessments of DoD，Blair，and OHanlon and Gill are most likely predicatedon the excessively expansive conception of U.S.interests in East Asia that currentlyholds sway in U.S.foreign policy circles.If a more restrained view of U.S.interestsin the region were adopted，the slow Chinese mili-tary modernization would beeven less threatening to the United States.Chinese leaders have clearly learneda les-son from the implosion of the Soviet regime，which was largely caused bythe dysfunction-al socialist economy sagging under the weight of excessive militaryspending.Even the Pentagon admits that the Chinese leader-ship is focused primarilyon economic devel-opment and has given the modernization of Chinas military a prioritybelow develop-ment in industry ，agriculture，and science and technology.30DoDacknowledges that the Chinese military is modernizing selec-tively rather thanmassively ：
Rather than shifting priority resources from civil infrastructure and economicreform programs to an across-the-board modernization of the PLA ，Beijing is focusedon those programs and assets which will give China the most effective means forexploiting vulnerabilities in an adversarys military capabilities.31The Pentagonhas also conceded that the additional funding the Chinese leadership provided tothe military for modernization accelerated after the U.S.-led attack in Kosovo in1999.32Thus ，provocative U.S.actions lead to precisely the Chinese response thatthe United States would most like to avoid.Although in the last few years the Chinesehave been modernizing their military more rapidly than in the past，recent hikesin the U.S.budget for national defense have been extraordinary.The increase inthe U.S.bud-get for national defense in 2003alone is of approximately the samemagnitude as the entire Chinese defense budget（if the most probable estimates areaccepted）。And much of the increase in official Chinese defense spending is allocatedto maintaining a bloat-ed Chinese military until it can be trans-formed ，escalatingpayroll requirements to attempt to stay apace with the salaries in the booming Chineseprivate sector，and com-pensating the Chinese armed forces for off-the-booksrevenues lost when the Chinese leadership forced the divestiture of military holdingsin private businessesrather than to new weapons research，development，and production.The United States spends more than $40billion a year on research and devel-opmentfor weapons （again ，roughly equal to total annual Chinese defense spending ）and more than $60billion yearly on weapons pro-curement.33Thus，the speed ofU.S.military modernization dwarfs the pace of improve-ments in parts of the antiquatedChinese forces.In fact ，U.S.military modernization is outpacing even that ofwealthy NATO allies the next most capable militaries on the plan-et.In the warin Afghanistan，U.S.military commanders were reluctant to operate with alliedmilitaries because of the disparity in capabilities.
In conclusion ，even though the Chinese military is modernizing more rapidlythan in the past，the speed of the modernization is less than that of the modernizationof the already vastlysuperior U.S.force.In other words ，despite all of theclamor in the press and in the U.S.government about Chinese military modernization，the U.S.military is way ahead and the gap is actually widening （the same situationholds when U.S.armed forces are compared with all of the other mil-itaries inthe world ）。When pressed ，even anti-China hawks admit that Chinese militarycapabilities are far behind those of the United States.34
Of course ，the Chinese military is also often compared with the armed forcesof Taiwan because that is the most likely arena for an East Asian war.The usualimplication of such comparisons is that the capabilities of the Chinese militarymadepossible by Chinas larger and seemingly faster-growing economywill eventually outpacethose of Taiwan and threaten the islands security.That conclusion is overly simplistic.
Is Chinese Military Modernization a Threat to the Un
Is Chinese Military Modernization a Threat to the Un