China And Their Growing Weapons Systems

Shenyang J-11
Photo Source: USAF

Its amazing, but you can almost bet with certainty that when a country's prosperity advances, that nation will begin to spend more on weapons. Let's look at China for example. No one can deny that their economy is on a roll right now. Other countries in that region are getting very nervous as China builds up its navy and air forces. These countries state that there have been more clashes than ever in places like disputed waters. I guess by now everyone knows that China has launched its first aircraft carrier. The carrier is not really a threat. It was an unfinished ship from Russia that China purchased. We have been told that the carrier doesn't have a battle group supporting it yet. None of this is the point however, the carrier was purchased to show that China is serious about getting control of the waters around its homeland and well beyond. We have to remember that there is something that China wants and the only thing standing in their way is the United States. That thing is Taiwan.

It is a sore point to China and will never go away until something changes. When the U.S. sold MIM-104 Patriot missiles to Taiwan, the Chinese began to test antiballistic missile systems. Taiwan, also known as the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China must come together in some agreement. If this doesn't happen it is just a matter of time as to when the People's Republic of China either thinks that they are strong enough to take the Republic of China or that we are too weak to defend it. You have to wonder how we got ourselves in such a position in the first place? The island of Taiwan would be quite a coup for the People's Republic of China since even though it only has a population of about 28,000,000 people, it has the 19th strongest economy in the world.

China is in a position where it has a glut of money and it is using some of these funds to create new infrastructure such as roads, streets and buildings, but it is also using some of the money to develop new weapons. One of the weapons that China is working on is a powerful laser. The U.S. has also been working on one for many years and if you believe what we have said, we have not been able to get it down to a usable size. The Chinese have thrown over 10,000 people into solving the problem. 3,000 of them are engineers and scientists and over 300 organizations in China are taking part in this weapons project. The laser development program is part of a directed energy project, which itself is also part of a larger New Concept Weapons Program. The Chinese are also trying to develop effective particle beam weapons.

Chinese Destroyer
Photo Source: Public Domain

One of the problems is that it seems that anything China wants to know about that this country has, it is able to get. Not only have Chinese spies been very successful lately, but much of the technology that China has gotten they have simply purchased from American companies, companies that were not supposed to sell certain items, but did anyway. We scream about China's weapons development and their growing military budget, but the fact that ours is much larger never seems to be mentioned. China has a nuclear arms program that has managed to keep their nuclear arsenal modern throughout the years and also develop new nuclear weapons including their new mobile missiles with miniature nuclear warheads. It is believed today that China has at least 6 different types of nuclear weapons. “A 15-40 Kt fission bomb; a 20 kt missile warhead; a 3 Mt thermonuclear missile warhead; a 3 Mt thermonuclear gravity bomb; a 4-5 Mt missile warhead; and a 200-300 Kt missile warhead. China may also posses some tactical nuclear weapons. The Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that China's current nuclear stockpile includes about 450 nuclear weapons.”

So far there has been no mention of some futuristic weapon that has been developed by China, but that doesn't mean that they don't have one. It is much harder for a democracy like the U.S. to keep weapons secrets than it is for a communist country like China. While there may not be any Flash Gordon type weapons in China yet, the U.S. is worried about some of the weapons that China has developed or has gotten from Russia. China is said to have developed a missile that can sink an aircraft carrier from 2,000 miles away. They are said to have new rocket torpedoes that currently travel at 300 miles per hour underwater, but are said to be capable of reaching at least 600 miles per hour underwater. Their new stealth plane looks an awful lot like one of ours. In this area we really don't have anything to worry about however since stealth is a fraud and there are now several way to detect them.

Shkrovel Rocket Torpedo From Russia, Used By Chinese
Photo Source: Public Domain

We are going to have to face a couple of facts, no matter how unpleasant they seem to us. The first is that we can not keep spending these huge amounts on military spending. We have a huge negative income while the Chinese have a huge positive one. Secondly we should be trying to help both Chinas negotiate some sort of settlement, perhaps based on the one that was made with Hong Kong. We can not protect Taiwan forever. The U.S. Should never be in a position that it has to protect another country, it is bad policy. Lastly, a country can maintain certain weapons that almost assure it of never being attacked by another country. These should be maintained and modernized first.

The next big thing that we can expect China to do down the road, is develop some sort of space defense umbrella. No treaties prevent this, as long as the weapons are not nukes. It is unfortunate when countries do this, and the talk is that the U.S. has already done this.