By Manoj Joshi
Last week, two events focused the attention of China
watchers. The first was the test flight of the second copy of the Chinese fifth
generation fighter, the J 20.
The second was the release of the latest version
of the Pentagon's annual report that tracks the rise of Chinese military power.
While releasing this report, a US official
confirmed that the Chinese fifth generation programme was not only on track,
but was likely to deliver its product by 2018, two years in advance of the
originally estimated date.
The reports in the series have noted the
disconcerting rise of Chinese power, fuelled by the massive resources and
effort that China
has put into its defence sector.
Danger In March, in his report on the work of the
government, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao noted that China's defence budget was of the
order of 670 billion yuan, which was about $106 billion, the second largest in
the world.
Since the mid-1990s, Chinese defence budgets have
increased by double digits, and even so, they do not tell the whole story.
US
specialists say that China's
defence spending is as much as 50 per cent higher than the official figure
since it does not include R&D and foreign procurement costs.
The Chinese, by their own account, are preparing
their armed forces to fight and win 'local wars under conditions of
informationisation'; in simple terms, this means short, high-intensity regional
wars where information technology will be a key factor.
Almost all foreign analyses of Chinese intentions
say that their focus is on a cross-strait war against Taiwan, or the need to enforce claims in the South China Sea.
But the description of the kind of war the
Chinese are readying for-a sharp, short 'local' conflict- could also fit India in
relation to the dispute over our border.
All this is bad news for us because we are
unprepared. Almost any close observer of the situation knows that the Indian
Army and Air Force, the two key forces that may have to face the situation on
the northern borders, are not ready and are plagued with huge gaps in their
critical holdings.
Efforts are being made to fill them, but looked
at any way, there seems to be a ten to fifteen year window of vulnerability
before the gaps can be plugged.
And if the situation today is any indication,
there is nothing to guarantee that even the self set goals will be met.
The DRDO continues with its eccentric ways,
mistaking its self-generated hype for achievement, while the defence public
sector units and ordnance factories act as milch cows for corrupt officials and
complacent trade unions.
The revelations from the BEML scandals are only
the tip of the iceberg; almost all defence public sector units have been
working more as representatives of the foreign companies that provide knocked
down kits for them to make, rather than original equipment manufacturers.
Pakistan As for the ordnance factories, their
situation is worse, as testified to by the scandal that has led to its former
Director General being charged by the CBI and six prominent companies,
including Singapore Technologies and Israel Military Industries being
blacklisted.
As if this were not enough, the government's
worst fear-that of increasing Pakistan-China military cooperation-is becoming a
reality.
According to recent reports, Islamabad
may also receive the J-10 fighter, Beijing's
most advanced home-made machine, in addition to the 50 JF-17 fighters already
contracted for.
China
has supplied Pakistan
with AWACS aircraft, as well as the Babur cruise missile.
Cooperation in the area of strategic
weapons-nuclear reactors, ballistic missiles and so on is ongoing and now there
are indications that Beijing may provide Pakistan with a
nuclear propelled submarine.
This seems to be the import of the recent
announcement that the Pakistan Navy had established a new Naval Strategic
Forces Command, an event attended by the chief custodian of Pakistani nuclear
weapons, Lt Gen (retd) Khalid Kidwai.
At the event, Vice Admiral Tanveer Faiz who is
the commander of the NSFC said that they were 'the custodian of the nation's
second strike capability' - as broad a hint as you would want for a
submarine-based nuclear capability.
There is no need to get into a moral high dudgeon
over this. If the Russians can assist us with our nuclear propelled ballistic
missile submarine, the Arihant, so can the Chinese help the Pakistanis. And you
can be sure that they are doing so.
Reform The secret of the Chinese success has been
to act in the areas which are our notable weakness- the defence R&D and
manufacturing sector.
Pentagon study of 2011 noted that since the late
1990s, 'China's
state and defense related companies have undergone a broad based
transformation.
'Beijing
continues to improve its business practices, streamline bureaucracy, broaden
incentives for its factory workers, shorten developmental timelines, improve
quality control and increase overall defense industrial production capacity.'
Equally important, as another report noted, the
Chinese defence sector has achieved 'relative integration into the globalised
production and R&D chain'.
These paragraphs succinctly sum up what India needs to
do to get out of its present rut where it remains dangerously vulnerable, even
while it has become one of the largest importers of armaments in the world.
In the coming decades, New Delhi needs to fix its defence R&D
and production sector and encourage its integration with the civilian
manufacturing establishment.
And, since it does not have its big guns quite
ready, it needs to undertake some smart diplomacy as well. The worst response
to the situation would be to do nothing. (May 24, 2012)
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