OPENING STATEMENT BY COMMISSIONER LARRY WORTZEL
U.S.-China Economic & Security Review Commission
Hearing on “China’s Military Modernization and the Cross-Strait Balance”
February 6, 2004
Room 1310, Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC
Today we will explore the issue of China’s military modernization and what it means to the security of the United States and its relations with Taiwan. Taiwan is a thriving democracy of more than 23 million people with a market economy. It is the seventh-largest trading partner of the United States. The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 mandates, that the president of the United States provide appropriate defensive services to Taiwan to meet the military threat from the PRC.
Fortunately, China is not, and is unlikely to be, a strategic military threat the way the Soviet Union once was. There is some encouraging evidence that the U.S. strategy of engagement and trade with China is working. A middle class is forming in the country and, as people begin to own homes and businesses and travel for pleasure, they increasingly are less supportive of Beijing's military policies, including the Chinese Communist Party's insistence that Taiwan be taken (by force, if necessary).
I would, however, like to mention one area of concern – that is the trade in sophisticated technologies. While these technologies are civilian in nature and have improved China’s standard of living -- elements of these technologies can be used against the United States. For example the issue of weapons in space -- for some time now, China has spearheaded an international movement to ban conventional weapons from space and has introduced a draft treaty at the United Nations to outlaw the deployment of space-based weapons. At the same time, Beijing quietly continues to develop its own space-based weapons and tactics to destroy American military assets. Its strategy is to blunt American military superiority by limiting and ultimately neutralizing its existing space-based defense assets, and to forestall deployment of new technology that many experts believe would provide the best protection from ballistic-missile attack.
These lessons have convinced PLA military planners that America's strength can become our Achilles heel. If they can neutralize or destroy our space assets, American forces will lose a critical advantage, leaving them far more vulnerable to China's larger but less-advanced military.