Chinese Influence on U.S. Foreign Policy Through U.S. Educational Institutions, Multilateral Organizations and Corporate America

SPEAKERS       CONTENTS       INSERTS    Tables

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26–076PDF
2006
CHINESE INFLUENCE ON U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
THROUGH U.S. EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS,
MULTILATERAL ORGANIZATIONS AND CORPORATE AMERICA

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

FEBRUARY 14, 2006

Serial No. 109–145

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Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international—relations

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey,
Vice Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
PETER T. KING, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado
RON PAUL, Texas
DARRELL ISSA, California
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia
MARK GREEN, Wisconsin

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JERRY WELLER, Illinois
MIKE PENCE, Indiana
THADDEUS G. McCOTTER, Michigan
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida
JOE WILSON, South Carolina
JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina
CONNIE MACK, Florida
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
MICHAEL McCAUL, Texas
TED POE, Texas

TOM LANTOS, California
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
BRAD SHERMAN, California
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
BARBARA LEE, California
JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York

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EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM SMITH, Washington
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California
Vacant

THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., Staff Director/General Counsel
ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Staff Director

Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
DANA ROHRABACHER, California, Chairman
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona, Vice Chairman
MARK GREEN, Wisconsin
MIKE PENCE, Indiana
JOE WILSON, South Carolina

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota

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ADAM B. SCHIFF, California

GREGG RICKMAN, Subcommittee Staff Director
GREGORY MCCARTHY, Professional Staff Member
CLIFF STAMMERMAN, Democratic Professional Staff Member
EMILY ANDERSON, Staff Associate

C O N T E N T S

WITNESSES

    Mr. Steven Mosher, President, Population Research Institute

    Mrs. Nancy Menges, Widow of Dr. Constantine Menges, Author of ''China: The Gathering Threat''

    Mr. Christopher Brown, Research Assistant, Hudson Institute, Washington, DC

    Perry Pickert, J.D., Ph.D., Faculty Member, Joint Military Intelligence College

    Mr. Alan Tonelson, Research Fellow, U.S. Business and Industry Council Educational Foundation

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    Ross Terrill, Ph.D., Research Associate, Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

    The Honorable Dana Rohrabacher, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations: Prepared statement

    Mr. Steven Mosher: Prepared statement

    Mrs. Nancy Menges: Prepared statement

    Mr. Christopher Brown: Prepared statement

    Perry Pickert, J.D., Ph.D.: Prepared statement

    Mr. Alan Tonelson: Prepared statement

    Ross Terrill, Ph.D.: Prepared statement

CHINESE INFLUENCE ON U.S. FOREIGN
POLICY THROUGH U.S. EDUCATIONAL
INSTITUTIONS, MULTILATERAL
ORGANIZATIONS AND CORPORATE AMERICA

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2006

House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations,
Committee on International Relations,
Washington, DC.

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:06 p.m., in room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dana Rohrabacher (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.

    Mr. ROHRABACHER. I call this meeting of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee to order.

    I would like to begin this hearing by honoring the late Constantine Menges for his deep love of freedom and his long, dedicated history of fighting dictatorships and totalitarian regimes around the globe. And of course, I met Constantine and worked very closely with him in the Reagan White House. And at that time no one could ever have believed that Communism would disintegrate in the Soviet Bloc; no one except Constantine Menges, and then, after I talked to him, myself, of course.

    It gives me a great deal of pleasure to welcome all of our expert witnesses here today. And again I want to especially thank Mrs. Nancy Menges for testifying today on behalf of Constantine, and to share with us the key points and recommendations contained in Constantine's last book, China: The Gathering Threat, which was researched and written just prior to his death. And the book was published after his death, and you might say it was Constantine's final warning. And, as was Constantine's way, it was also his final suggestions of how to alter course, establish a plan, and save human freedom.

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    Americans have heard the facts about China's ominous military build-up, its brutal repression of Christians, Buddhists, and Falun Gong practitioners. It is stuffed with some of our most powerful military technology. It is a flaunting violation of intellectual property rights. And its working relationship with the world's most deadly and dangerous rogue regimes, such as North Korea, Iran, Sudan, and Burma.

    Americans know about China's spread of nuclear weapons technology to Pakistan and to North Korea, its threat against democratic Japan and Taiwan, and its destabilizing territorial claims against our fellow democracies, such as India and the Philippines.

    But the American people and my colleagues have heard little about why, how, and in what context all of these unchallenged displays of arrogance and power are taking place.

    I believe that by the end of the hearing, it will be evident that the Chinese Government's aim is no less than establishing China as the most powerful force anywhere in the world. They call it hegemony.

    As with past evils, the United States is the only force able to thwart this megalomaniacal goal. You know, by the way, I wrote that into the speech myself, just so I would learn it, just so I would be able to say that word, megalomaniacal.

    They know that people in the United States are acting as if we don't know and we don't care about this great threat that we face. We need to acknowledge the basic nature of the threat that we are confronting, and that is what this hearing is about.

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    Let us remember China's middle-kingdom role serves as a unifying foundation and a powerful motivation behind Chinese foreign and domestic policy. And yet, if you are an American policymaker or an academic, and you refer to this extraordinary fact, you will be ridiculed by mainstream policymakers, academics, corporate leaders, and media representatives.

    Well, it is time to cut the obfuscation, and to face facts concerning this, the greatest long-term threat to the United States, and to the stability of the world.

    And with that, I would pass on to the Ranking Member, Mr. Delahunt, for any remarks he would like to make to open this hearing.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Rohrabacher follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DANA ROHRABACHER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, AND CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS

    I would like to begin this hearing by honoring the late Constantine Menges for his deep love of freedom and his long dedicated history of fighting dictatorships and totalitarian regimes around the globe.

    It gives me great pleasure to welcome all of our expert witnesses here today and I especially want to thank Ms. Nancy Menges for testifying today on behalf of Constantine to share with us the key points and recommendations contained in Constantine's last book, China: The Gathering Threat, researched and written prior to his death. The book was published after his death and you might say it was his final warning . . . and, as was Constantine's way, his final suggestions on how to alter course and save human freedom.

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    Americans have heard the facts about China's ominous military buildup, its brutal repression of Christians, Buddhists and Falun Gong practitioners, its theft of some of our most power military technology, its flaunting violation of intellectual property rights, and its working relationship with the world's most deadly and dangerous rouge states such as North Korea, Iran, Sudan and Burma. Americans know about China's spread of nuclear weapons technology to Pakistan and North Korea, its threats against democratic Japan, and Taiwan and its destabilizing territorial claims against fellow democracies such as India and the Philippines. But the American people and my colleagues have heard little about why, how and in what context all these unchallenged displays of arrogance and power are taking place.

    I believe that by the end of the hearing it will be evident that the Chinese government's aim is no less than establishing China as a powerful force anywhere in the world. They call it hegemony. As with past evils, the United States is the only force able to thwart their megalomaniacal goals. They know that. We act like we don't know or don't care. We need to acknowledge the basic nature of the threat we are confronting.

    China's ''Middle Kingdom'' role serves as the unifying, foundation and powerful motivation behind Chinese foreign and domestic policy. And yet if you are an American policy maker or academic and you refer to this extraordinary fact you will be ridiculed by main stream policy makers, academics, corporate leaders and media representatives.

    It's time to cut the obfuscation and face the facts concerning the greatest long term threat the United States and to the stability of the world.

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    Mr. DELAHUNT. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I am sure this will be a fascinating hearing. I have read some of the testimony, and have noted that the witnesses seem to echo similar themes. And maybe in future hearings there could be a more disparate variety of views represented.

    But I am looking forward to hearing from these particular witnesses. There is no doubt that the subject of China always provokes a passionate interest.

    But, Mr. Chairman, I can't help but believe that this subject matter is more properly before the Subcommittee with the relevant jurisdiction, the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific. This is the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. And we have very limited time and resources, with the responsibility of overseeing American foreign policy as executed by this Administration. And I would submit that we are not meeting that particular mandate.

    We have held numerous hearings on the United Nations. We have sent staff all over the world to investigate misdeeds by UN officials and others. We have gone to New York; we have had multiple meetings with United Nations officials. And we are just one of many Subcommittees that have focused on this particular issue.

    But when it comes to the Bush Administration and its conduct of American foreign policy, they seem to get a pass. I have sent numerous written requests to you and to Chairman Hyde on a variety of subjects, but have yet to receive a response.

    I happen to have a particular concern about the mismanagement of United States taxpayer dollars in the reconstruction of Iraq. The reports we get from a variety of sources indicate a level of fraud, mismanagement, and incompetence that is simply mind-boggling. Let me just recite a few examples that I gleaned from the newspaper and other media sources just this past week.

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    Sixty Minutes did a piece on this past Sunday about billions of dollars that have gone missing in Iraq. Billions. It detailed how a U.S. company with political connections got $100 million in contracts for doing little or no work.

    For example, they were supposed to provide security services for the Baghdad Airport. But an e-mail from the airport's security director said, and now I am quoting from that e-mail, ''Custer Battles,'' that is the name of the American Company, ''have shown themselves to be unresponsive, uncooperative, incompetent, deceitful, manipulative, and war profiteers. Other than that, they are swell fellows.'' That is the end of the e-mail.

    Then this from the New York Times. The headline is ''Wide Plot Seen in Guilty Plea in Iraq Project.'' Note, this is another American corporation. And again, I am quoting. ''Despite a prior conviction on felony fraud that his Pentagon background check apparently missed''—good job, Pentagon—''Mr. Stein was hired and put in charge of at least $82 million of reconstruction money by the Coalition Provisional Authority,'' which we know to be the American-led administration that was then running Iraq.

    Here is another one, folks. This story is entitled ''Audit Describes Misuse of Funds in Iraq Projects.'' Again I am quoting:

  ''A new audit of American financial practices in Iraq has uncovered irregularities including millions of reconstruction dollars stuffed casually into footlockers and filing cabinets, an American soldier in the Philippines who gambled away cash belonging to Iraq, and three Iraqis who plunged to their death in a rebuilt hospital elevator that had been improperly certified as safe.

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  ''The audit released yesterday by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction expands on its previous findings of fraud, incompetence, and confusion as the American occupation poured money into training and rebuilding programs.''

That is American taxpayer dollars, my friends.

  ''Agents from the Inspector General's Office found that the living and working quarters of American occupation officials were awash in shrink-wrapped stacks of hundred-dollar bills, colloquially known as bricks.''

It is my understanding that a brick was worth $100,000.

    Then one more. This is from a story entitled ''Iraq Utilities Are Falling Short of Pre-War Performance'':

  ''Virtually every measure of the performance of Iraq's oil, electricity, water, and sewage sectors have fallen below pre-invasion values, even though $16 billion of American taxpayer money has already been disbursed in the Iraq Reconstruction Program. Those that had slumped below those values were electrical generation capacity, hours of power available in a day in Baghdad, oil and heating oil production, and the number of Iraqis with drinkable water and sewage service.''

Billions of United States and Iraqi taxpayer dollars are being wasted and stolen in Iraq.

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    Incompetence and corruption are undermining our efforts there. And I don't care whether you supported the resolution to go into Iraq or not; this is separate and distinct from that particular issue. The damage it is doing to our international reputation is upsetting. And here we are holding a hearing—this Subcommittee is holding a hearing—on Chinese infiltration of the United States.

    With all due respect to my dear friend, the Chairman, I would suggest this is fiddling, if you will, while Rome burns. And I am not suggesting that the issue of China and our relationship with China should not be fully reviewed, but not by us. Not while these issues are dominating the news, and the American people are wondering what we are doing here in the United States Congress to serve as a check and a balance on the Executive.

    It saddens me. It embarrasses me, Mr. Chairman, because we should put aside partisan politics, and exercise our responsibility as institutionalists. Otherwise the credibility of the Committee and the House will erode in the eyes of the American people.

    With that, I yield back. And I look forward to hearing from this most distinguished panel.

    Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, thank you for your opening statement. The Chair feels compelled just to add a few thoughts.

    First of all, we will be hearing testimony shortly on our rebuilding effort in Afghanistan. And hopefully that will provide us a means to look at some of the issues that you have been bringing up about Iraq. That is the number one thing. And I appreciate the Ranking Member's diligence and energy and insistence that we at least look at these very poignant issues. And how we are faring in terms of corruption in the middle of a conflict as is going on in Iraq is certainly important.

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    I believe that by the end of this session, we will have had several hearings on that. We are starting with Afghanistan, and we have done some major research on that issue.

    Just to put things in perspective, I have found myself in chaotic situations during my life. And my father served in the Second World War and Korea, and a little bit in Vietnam. And it is my reading of history that during every conflict, there is a certain degree of corruption that goes with bloodshed and chaos. And whether or not what is going on in Iraq today goes beyond the threshold on which we would say is normally expected with such conflicts, you are right, that is something we should look at.

    I would have to say that, however, there are people who play—and I am not suggesting that the Ranking Member is doing this, but one of the reasons there is caution to jump into these type of investigations is that there has been political game-playing going on with this issue. And democracy and politics tend to go together, and there is no doubt about it.

    And so there has been some hesitation to perhaps look at some things that could be used, not as a means of strengthening America's position, but instead as a means of trying to undermine the war effort that is going on there.

    But I certainly agree with the fundamental idea that we need to make sure that we confront our defects as a society, and correct them, if we are going to be strong in the future.

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    And so with that said, some of the points you made hit home. And this Chairman will be moving forward with a hearing on Afghanistan that at least goes in the right direction from what your remarks were suggesting.

    And finally, I think we need to proceed with this hearing. And I would have to say that the reason we are having a hearing into this issue is that I happen to believe the greatest potential threat to the stability of the world, and our greatest potential enemy, is the dictatorship that now controls the mainland of China.

    And I don't believe that there are forces at play in our society—whether people in the government or people in the private sector, people who have their fortunes or their reputations or their careers tied to the status quo. And we are not doing those things which will lessen that threat. And I think what we have to discuss about China is vitally important to the future of our country and the future of the free world, and the future of peace on this planet.

    So with that said, Mr. Steven Mosher is the President of Population Research Institute, an anthropologist and a Sinologist, as we say, by training. Mosher was the first American social scientist to conduct extended field research in China. And he served as a Commissioner on the Commission on Broadcasting to the PRC from 1991 to 1992. And from 1968 to 1976, he served in the United States Navy.

    Before you begin your statement, Mr. Mosher, and if you could, we would appreciate all of the witnesses trying to condense their statements to about 5 minutes. Then we will have a dialogue. But during that time period from 1968 to 1976, did you serve in Vietnam at all? Were you in Vietnam at all while you were in the Navy?

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    Mr. MOSHER. No, I was with the Seventh Fleet. We were stationed in Japan.

    Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. Well, if you would proceed. And then we will follow with Mrs. Menges and Mr. Brown.

STATEMENT OF MR. STEVEN MOSHER, PRESIDENT, POPULATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE

    Mr. MOSHER. Mr. Chairman, I congratulate you on holding this critically important hearing on what I think is an issue whose importance is second to none for the long-term security of the United States.

    We have had senior officials in recent months repeatedly raising questions about the long-term strategic intentions of the People's Republic of China. Everyone from the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, and of course you, yourself, have asked what China is doing.

    No country that is not facing a serious military threat maintains a 3.2 million-man military, increases its military budget at a double-digit clip well in excess of GNP (Gross National Product), and vigorously upgrades its military technology and hardware, unless it intends to use force or the threat of force to accomplish certain domestic and international ends.

    I believe the PRC's military buildup is being undertaken with two overlapping strategic goals in mind. I do not anticipate anyone will question the first, which is to say the recapture, either by the direct application of force or by intimidation, of the Island of Taiwan.

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    But the second, larger goal that takes China beyond Taiwan affects, I believe, the whole world. The PRC itself says that it wants to emerge as a true great power during the 21st century, and to take its place as a player in a multi-polar world.

    We need to reflect on what that means, a multi-polar world. This is frequently found in the Chinese strategic literature, and it, itself, implies an end to United States primacy. It implies a major restructuring of the world order.

    Now, I have gathered together evidence from various sources as to what I think are China's long-term strategic intentions. And I realize that time is short, and growing shorter as I speak. I will just touch on the high points.

    We have new evidence that Chairman Mao Zedong, the long-time Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, did indeed have a grand strategy. Once in power, Chairman Mao, in the early fifties, launched a program to industrialize and secretly to militarize China. Spending on military and arms industries took up three-fifths of the budget; that is 60 percent of the PRC's budget. That was a ratio that even his chief arms supplier, Josef Stalin, who was not one to stint on military expenditures, criticized as ''very unbalanced.''

    Why was he in this head-long rush to build up China's military might? He reportedly said to his inner circle in 1956—this is Chairman Mao speaking to his leading officials—''We must control the earth.''

    In another meeting in 1958 with his leading admirals and generals, he said, ''Now the Pacific Ocean.'' In Chinese typing that means the Ocean of Peace, ''Now the Pacific Ocean is not peaceful. It can only be peaceful when we take it over.''

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    Lin Biao, who was Mao's closest ally in the military, then interjected, ''We must build big ships and be prepared to land in Japan, the Philippines, and San Francisco.''

    Mao continued, ''How many years before we can build such ships? In 1962, when we have enough tons of steel.''

    Later in 1958, he said, calling together his provincial chiefs, ''In the future we will set up an earth control committee, and make a uniform plan for the earth.'' He had made a plan for China, a plan, of course, that failed—the Great Leap Forward, taking with it the lives of tens of millions of Chinese peasants, mostly. But he was going beyond that. He was thinking of setting up an earth control committee.

    Now, it is tempting to dismiss such statements as the quixotic ravings of a known megalomaniac. I mean, the very idea of an impoverished and backward China in the 1950s setting up an earth control committee seems ludicrous. And yet, we are talking today about China's intention, and his remarks speak directly to Secretary Rice's and Secretary Rumsfeld's question of intent. Mao dominated China. He intended to dominate the world.

    We know that the character of a country's founder deeply influences its future course, even hundreds of years following his death. Mao passed from the scene less than 30 years ago. His portrait still dominates Tiananmen Square; his body lies embalmed there; his picture adorns the currency. His popular cult is thriving.

    And more to the point, his political legacy, not to be confused with his economic legacy, but his political legacy has been mostly affirmed. He was, in the definitive judgment of his successor, Deng Xiaoping, 70 percent good, 30 percent bad.

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    Is there evidence that his views on China's global role have been adopted by his successors? I believe there is. There is a patriotic education program today in China that runs from kindergarten through college, and it is filled with nationalist fervor, and indeed, xenophobia.

    This kindergarten-through-college curriculum has been custom-designed to breed young Chinese super-patriots. This was approved, of course, by Jiang Zemin, and now by Hu Jintao, China's third- and fourth-generation leaders, successively.

    Another point. We have the 16-character declaration from Deng Xiaoping in the early 1990s. It is usually translated along the lines of the following: Combine the military and the civil, combine peace and war, give priority to the military, and let the civil support the military.

    That translation, I believe, is not entirely accurate. American analysts take this 16-character declaration to be sort of an epigram, to be encapsulated bits of wisdom. And they take them collectively to mean something on the order of ''technological developments in the civilian economy directly support the strength of the military.''

    Well, of course that is true. That is true in the United States, it is true in Great Britain, and it is true in China. It is a truism. But it is a projection of our own beliefs and attitudes onto an alien cultural and political landscape. It badly mistakes Deng Xiaoping's meaning.

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    Deng was not minting epigrams. He was not engaging in Confucius-like wisdom-spouting, mouthing platitudes. He was issuing orders. Read these declarations again as they are read in China, as orders. My translation: Key sectors of the civilian economy must have a military purpose. Use the peace to prepare for war. Military technology and weapons production have economic priority. And finally, civilian production must support, technologically and economically, military production.

    Thus translated, it is clear that Deng's 16-character declaration puts the military industrial complex of China in the driver's seat of economic development. And the quest for a military second to none leads straight first to a multi-polar world, and then to Chinese hegemony.

    And the final point, I beg your indulgence here. A final point among many is to say that if you look around the world today, you see that China is engaging in many activities that weaken the international system currently dominated by the United States. That is, it isn't simply seeking to integrate itself quietly and respectfully into the existing world order, but it is, in concrete and important ways, undermining that world order.

    China's approach to international relations we often hear is described as value-neutral, not influenced by ideology, driven principally by a need for resources, especially oil. It seems to me to be rather too narrow a reading of the situation.

    China, at present, has close relationships with virtually every country of concern, whether or not they possess oil or mineral reserves. Countries that have earned international opprobrium for human rights violations, terrorism support, weapons of mass destruction proliferation, and other objectionable activities almost invariably find a friend in China.

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    Now, China explains away these relationships as the mere conduct of business. But the ideological ties that bind dictatorial regimes one to another transcend mere dollars and cents.

    Beijing shares with pariah and semi-pariah nations a common disdain for universally-accepted human rights, a propensity to use force against its own or neighboring populations, and a willingness to violate international agreements to which it is a signatory.

    These activities, by elevating and legitimating the governments of countries of concern, serve to undermine the international system dominated by the United States.

    A final point. China's diplomatic initiative—we call it the global diplomatic initiative, because China is now active in many parts of the world where it was formerly quiescent—is also worrisome. It is setting up Embassies in places like the West Indies, where it had no diplomatic representation before, and where we ourselves have a single Embassy in Barbados. China now has Embassies in many of those small island nations.

    For Beijing practices what might be called moneybags diplomacy, involving the corruption of the democratic process, as officials are bribed into taking a pro-Chinese, anti-Taiwan and anti-American line.

    I don't have time to go into the details here. But again, what we see here is not a value-neutral foreign policy, but the glimmering of an alternative world order; one that is made in China, not in the United States.

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    Thank you very much.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Mosher follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MR. STEVEN MOSHER, PRESIDENT, POPULATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE

    Both Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State have recently raised questions about the PRC's strategic intentions. Secretary Rumsfeld, attending an Asian security conference this past summer, put the issue as follows: ''Since no nation threatens China, why this growing investment [in the military]? Why these continuing large weapons purchases?'' More recently, on the occasion of President Bush's trip to China, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice remarked that ''one has to be concerned'' about China's modernization of its multi-million man army. ''There's a question of intent,'' she said.(see footnote 1)

    Precisely what are the People's Republic of China's intentions? In one sense, this question answers itself, of course. No country that is not facing a serious military threat maintains a 3.2 million man military,(see footnote 2) increases its military budget at a double-digit clip well in excess of growth in GNP, and vigorously upgrades its military technology and hardware—unless it intends to use force, or the threat of force, to accomplish certain domestic and international ends.

    But what ends? The PRC's military build-up, in my view, is being undertaken with two overlapping strategic goals in mind. The first is regional, limited, and narrowly conceived. The second—partially obscured by the first—is global, unlimited, and broadly conceived.

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    The immediate goal of the PRC's military build-up is the conquest of Taiwan, either through the direct application of force or by intimidating the island into preemptive surrender. The ranks of those who deny that the PRC would actually use force against Taiwan have been further thinned in the wake of the March 2005 passage of the Anti-Secession Law by China's rubberstamp parliament, the National People's Congress. This ''law,'' which is better understood as a formal statement of Chinese Communist Party policy, formally codifies the PRC's determination to exert control over Taiwan and its willingness to use military force to accomplish this end.

    It is beyond Taiwan that the waters of the PRC's intentions grow murky. Some deny that Beijing's ambitions extend beyond what it calls that ''renegade province'' and, perhaps, the South China Sea. Certainly the Chinese strategic literature contains nothing resembling a grand strategy, a lacuna that leads some analysts to deny that China has larger ambitions at all. In their view, all the PRC wants is to be ''a player'' in a multipolar world.

    I strongly disagree with this view. I am of the opinion, formed over 25 years of studying the PRC, that the CCP leadership has always had a grand strategy. Moreover, it is clear to me that they continue to have a grand strategy today. It is a strategy of intimidation, of expansion, of assertiveness, and of domination on a global scale. It is a strategy to overtake, surpass, and ultimately eclipse the reigning superpower, the United States of America. It is a strategy, in short, of Hegemony.

    The PRC is bent on becoming the Hegemon, the Ba in Chinese, defined by longstanding Chinese usage as a single, all-dominant power. A Hegemon, it should be understood, is more dominant than a mere superpower, more dominant even than a ''sole superpower,'' the international role that the U.S. currently occupies.(see footnote 3) The PRC accuses the U.S. of ''seeking Hegemony,'' but this should be understood as secret envy and hidden ambition: It is Hegemony that the PRC itself seeks.

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THE GRAND STRATEGY OF CHAIRMAN MAO ZEDONG

    The deliberations of China's senior leaders in camera are carefully guarded secrets. Recently, however, some statements made by the late Chairman Mao have come to light that indicate that the PRC had a strategy of global domination from the earliest days of its existence.(see footnote 4) The Founder of the People's Republic of China, it turns out, specifically and repeatedly enunciated a strategy of Hegemony.

    First, led me provide you with a little background. By October 1, 1949, when Chairman Mao announced the founding of the PRC, Mao controlled the heartland of China. But Tibet, Eastern Turkestan (Xinjiang), Taiwan, and parts of Mongolia and Manchuria remained outside of his grasp. The leader of the Chinese Communist Party believed that China's historical greatness, no less than Communism's universalism, demanded the reconstruction of the Qing empire that had collapsed nearly 40 years before.

    Lost territories must be recaptured, straying vassals must be recovered, and one-time tributary states must once again be forced to follow Beijing's lead. Military action—engaging the Japanese invaders, defeating the Nationalists, and capturing the cities—had delivered China into his hands. Now military action would restore the empire. For these reasons Mao intervened in Korea in the early years of his rule, invaded Tibet, bombarded Quemoy, continued to bluster over Taiwan, attacked India over Tibetan border questions, confronted the Soviet Union, and gave massive amounts of military assistance to Vietnam, including the introduction of an estimated 300,000 PLA troops.

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    Maps were drawn up showing China's borders extending far to the north, south and west of the area that the PLA actually controlled. Any territory that had been touched by China, however briefly, seems to have been regarded as rightfully Beijing's. Fr. Seamus O'Reilly, a Columban missionary who was one of the last foreign Catholic priests expelled from China in 1953, recalls seeing, in the office of the local Communist officials who interrogated him, a map of the PRC that included all of Southeast Asia-Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Thailand, and Singapore—within China's borders.(see footnote 5)

    But such maps were marked for internal distribution only. For Mao, although willing to go to war to restore China's imperium piecemeal, was characteristically coy about his overall imperial aims. Even as his troops were engaged in Korea or Tibet, he continually sought to reassure the world, in the policy equivalent of a Freudian slip, ''We will never seek hegemony.'' Mao may have been open about his dictatorial aims at home, but along his borders he still faced an array of powerful forces. The United States occupied Japan and South Korea, and had bases in the Philippines and Thailand. The British were in Hong Kong and Malaysia. Even his erstwhile ally, the Soviet Union, was occupying large swaths of Chinese territory in Manchuria, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang.

    Once in power, he launched a program to industrialize and (secretly) to militarize China. Spending of the military and its arms industries took up three-fifths of the budget, a ratio that even his chief arms supplier, Joseph Stalin, not one to stint on military expenditures, criticized as ''very unbalanced.''(see footnote 6) Nuclear-tipped ICBMs were a particular priority.

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    Why this headlong and, as history would reveal, economically bootless rush to build up China's military might? The Chairman was pursuing, it would appear, a grand strategy of Chinese Hegemony. As he bluntly put it to his inner circle in 1956, ''We must control the earth.''

    The disastrous Great Leap Forward—in which the peasants were dragooned into large, state-controlled communes—must be understood as an outgrowth of Mao's lust for Hegemony. The Chairman wanted steel not just ''to overtake Great Britain in steel production in three years,'' as the standard histories relate, but to build a blue water navy for conquest, expansion, and domination.

    ''Now the Pacific Ocean [in Chinese, Taiping Yang or ''The Ocean of Peace,''] is not peaceful,'' Mao told his leading generals and admirals on June 28, 1958. ''It can only be peaceful when we take it over.'' Lin Biao, Mao's closest ally in the military, then interjected: ''We must build big ships, and be prepared to land in [i.e., invade] Japan, the Philippines, and San Francisco.'' [Italics added]. Mao continued: ''How many years before we can build such ships? In 1962, when we have XX–XX tons of steel [figures concealed in original] . . .''(see footnote 7)

    Calling together his provincial chiefs later in 1958, Mao was even more expansive: ''In the future we will set up the Earth Control Committee, and make a uniform plan for the Earth.''

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    It is tempting to dismiss such comments as the quixotic ravings of a known megalomaniac. Indeed, the very idea of the isolated and impoverished China of the 1950s, with its miniscule industrial base, setting up an ''earth control committee'' seems ludicrous. Yet even though Chairman Mao's prospects of realizing his ''grand strategy'' were nil, his words are of more than historical interest. They speak directly and unequivocally to Condi Rice's question of intent. ''Mao dominated China,'' aptly summarize Chang and Halliday, whose access to Chinese Communist Party archives produced the above quotes. ''He intended to dominate the world.''

    As we know from our own history, the character of a country's founder deeply influences its future course, even hundreds of years following his death. Mao passed from the scene less than 30 years ago. His portrait still dominates Tiananmen Square, and his body lies embalmed there. More to the point, his political legacy has been mostly affirmed. He was, in the definitive judgment of his successor, Deng Xiaoping, ''70 percent good, 30 percent bad.''

    The question before us is this: Is Mao's grand strategy of Hegemony part of the ''30 percent bad'' that that has been discarded by the post-Mao leadership? Or is it included in the ''70 percent good''—the part of Mao's legacy that has been embraced by Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and now Hu Jintao?

    On balance, the evidence suggests that Mao's grand strategy of Hegemony has been vigorously embraced by his successors. At the same time, they have become enormously more sophisticated in acquiring the industrial, technological, and military means to realize such a strategy. Fifty years later, the thought of an ''Earth Control Committee''—based in Beijing and controlled by the CCP—does not amuse.

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FROM MAO ZEDONG TO HU JINTAO: THE PATRIOTIC EDUCATION PROGRAM

    Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong had a strong sense of historical grievance against the West in general—and the U.S. in particular. This accentuated his desire to recover what he saw as China's rightful place in the world—at its center. This is, after all, what the very name of the country means in Chinese: Zhongguo, or the Kingdom at the Center of the Earth. China's current leaders share these sinocentric and xenophobic views which form the conceptual basis for, and justification of, their drive for Hegemony.

    When, on October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong announced the founding of the People's Republic of China, his words suggested not merely wounded national pride but a thirst for revenge:

    The Chinese have always been a great, courageous and industrious nation; it is only in modern times that they have fallen behind. And that was due entirely to oppression and exploitation by foreign imperialism and domestic reactionary governments. . . . Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation. We have stood up.

    In the view of Chairman Mao, a cabal of Western and Western-oriented countries—Russia, Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan and America—had treacherously combined to attack the old Chinese empire, loosening China's grip on hundreds of thousands of square miles of territory and a dozen tributary states in the process.

    Mao reserved special rancor for the United States, fulminating in a bitterly sarcastic speech called '''Friendship' or Aggression'' in late 1949:

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    The history of the aggression against China by U.S. imperialism, from 1840 when it helped the British in the Opium War to the time it was thrown out of China by the Chinese people, should be written into a concise textbook for the education of Chinese youth. The United States was one of the first countries to force China to cede extraterritoriality. . . . All the 'friendship' shown to China by U.S. imperialism over the past 109 years, and especially the great act of 'friendship' in helping Chiang Kai-shek slaughter several million Chinese the last few years—all this had one purpose [according to the Americans] . . . first, to maintain the Open Door, second, to respect the administrative and territorial integrity of China and, third, to oppose any foreign domination of China. Today, the only doors still open to [U.S. Secretary of State] Acheson and his like are in small strips of land, such as Canton and Taiwan.(see footnote 8)

    Jumping ahead to the post-Mao period, when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Americans reacted with euphoria and expected China (remember the ''China card'') to do the same. But the steely-eyed heirs of a two-thousand-year tradition of hegemony had a far less happy view of the new world situation. To the dismay and consternation of many in Washington, Deng Xiaoping not only dissolved his country's de facto alliance with the United States, he went even further, declaring in September 1991 that ''a new cold war'' between China and the sole remaining superpower would now ensue.(see footnote 9)

    The pivotal moment in U.S.-China relations had actually occurred two years before, when millions of people took to the streets of China's cities to demand an end to corruption and bureaucracy. Many of the young people were even bolder, calling openly for democracy. The CCP put down this ''counterrevolutionary incident'' with deadly force—and belatedly realized that the battle for the hearts and minds of Chinese youth was close to being lost.

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    The Chinese Communist Party has always portrayed itself as the paramount patriotic force in the nation, but following the Tiananmen debacle it desperately sought to shore up its crumbling mythology by all the institutional means under its control. The educational system was mobilized to teach students about China's ''history of shame''; state-run factories required their workers to sit through patriotic indoctrination sessions; and the state-controlled media as well as the schools promoted Chinese exceptionalism through what is called ''state-of-the-nation education'' or guoqing jiaoyu. The message conveyed was that only the Chinese Communist Party could provide the strong central government required by China's unique guoqing and current national priorities, along with continued economic growth and the means to recover Chinese preponderance in Asia and accomplish the ''rectification of historical accounts'' (i.e., revenge on the imperialist powers).(see footnote 10)

    These efforts achieved a bureaucratic apogee in September 1994 with the publication of a sweeping Party directive, ''Policy Outline for Implementing Patriotic Education.''(see footnote 11) Within the schools, the Party ordered that ''Patriotic education shall run through the whole education process from kindergarten to university . . . and must penetrate classroom teaching of all related subjects.'' While PRC history textbooks have always stoked nationalist fervor and xenophobia, these same attitudes were now to be inserted into everything from beginning readers to junior high school social science textbooks to high school political education classes. The resulting kindergarten-through-college curriculum has been custom-designed to breed young superpatriots.

    The Patriotic Education policy is less about accurately depicting past events than about propagating a metanarrative designed to stir up the blood of young Chinese. Complex historical events are twisted to fit a simple morality tale of good Chinese Communist patriots versus evil foreign imperialists. The tale goes like this:

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    The Chinese are a great race which for millennia has rightly dominated its known world. The Middle Kingdom's centuries of national grandeur were ended by foreign imperialists, at whose hands the Chinese people suffered a hundred years of humiliation. They shamed us, tearing off and devouring living parts of the Chinese race and nation, even threatening the whole with disunity. But China has now stood up and is fighting back, determined to recover her lost grandeur no less than her lost territories. We must be wary of things foreign, absorbing only those that make us stronger and rejecting those, like Christianity and Western liberalism, that make us weaker. The first duty of the Chinese state is therefore to nationalize the masses and resist these foreign ideas. Only the Chinese Communist Party has the will and determination to lead the struggle. The new China must gather within its fold all the scattered Chinese elements in Asia. A people that has suffered a century and a half of Western humiliation can be rescued by reviving its self-confidence. To restore the Chinese nation, the PLA must become modernized and invincible. The world is now moving toward a new millennium, and the Chinese state must see to it that the Chinese race is ready to assume its proper place in the world—at its center.(see footnote 12)

    Note that the Patriotic Education Program, which comes straight out of the collected writings of Chairman Mao Zedong, was approved by the current leadership. This suggests that Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao are, like Mao, are consumed by atavistic fantasies of Great Han Hegemony and see the U.S. as the chief obstacle to the restoration of China's lost glories.

    In unguarded moments, members of the CCP elite have admitted as much. General Chi Haotian, the former vice chairman of the Communist Party's Central Military Commission, is among those who have spoken openly about the need to overtake and dethrone the United States. ''Viewed from the changes in the world situation and the hegemonic strategy of the United States to create monopolarity,'' General Chi said in December 1999, ''. . . war [between China and the U.S.] is inevitable.''(see footnote 13)

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''WE WILL NEVER SEEK HEGEMONY''

    The Great Wall of secrecy that surrounds Chinese security affairs suggests that the CCP sees that its interests and America's are in deep and fundamentally irreconcilable conflict. If this were not the case, it would presumably be in Beijing's interest to adopt a policy of transparency with regard to security affairs to reassure its largest trading partner.

    From time to time Beijing does issue blanket denials that it is seeking Hegemony. Indeed, the phrase ''We will never seek Hegemony'' has become a commonplace of Chinese diplomatic discourse. Such denials should, if anything, heighten U.S. concerns as to China's real intentions. Chairman Mao, whose frenetic preparations to achieve Hegemony we have already discussed, frequently issued similar denials. In my view, such denials were—and are—intended to mask China's hegemonic ambitions. After all, disinformation has been a part of Chinese statecraft for millennia. ''When seeking power,'' Chinese strategist Sun-tzu advised, ''make it appear that you are not doing so.''

    Beyond such blanket denials, secrecy reigns. The Pentagon's 2005 report to Congress on the military power of the PRC complains that ''secrecy envelops most aspects of Chinese security affairs. The outside world has little knowledge of Chinese motivations and decision-making and of key capabilities supporting PLA modernization.''(see footnote 14)

    This almost complete lack of transparency in military affairs concerning basic information on the quantity and quality of the Chinese armed forces cannot help but raise questions about China's ultimate intentions. Even such basic facts as the overall size of China's military budget remains a mystery. As the Department of Defense admits, we ''still do not know the full size and composition of Chinese government expenditures on national defense. Estimates put it at two to three times the officially published figures.''(see footnote 15)

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    Some might argue that this secrecy is merely an unintentional outcome of the conspiratorial character of the Chinese Communist Party, a character that it shares with all Communist parties. In fact, secrecy in security matters is the official and stated policy of the CCP leadership. In his ''24-character Admonition,'' Deng Xiaoping instructs his successors to ''bide their time, and hide their capabilities.''

    Such admonitions only make sense if the CCP leadership is engaged in a long-term struggle with the United States for world hegemony. Lieutenant General Mi Zhenyu, formerly vice-commandant of the Academy of Military Sciences, was speaking for the leadership of his country when he recently remarked, ''[As for the United States,] for a relatively long time it will be absolutely necessary that we quietly nurse our sense of vengeance. . . . We must conceal our abilities and bide our time.''(see footnote 16)

    Like Mao and Deng before him, Jiang remains wary of the ''imperialist-dominated'' world, and believes that armed conflict—sooner or later—is inevitable. ''We must prepare well for a military struggle'' against the ''neo-imperialists,'' Jiang said in 1997.(see footnote 17) The plots of the ''neo-imperialists'' to ''split up'' and ''westernize'' China, he continued, can only be stopped by a modern and robust PLA.

    I suppose that some may say that this secrecy does not mask imperial ambitions, but is merely a reflection of the nature of China's system of government. There is, as I remarked above, a natural tendency towards secretiveness on the part of one-party dictatorships. But this is hardly reassuring as to China's intentions given that it is China's system of government itself—a Leninist one-party dictatorship—that is the root of the problem.

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THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY, LIKE ALL COMMUNIST PARTIES, IS A WAR PARTY.

    Chairman Mao famously remarked that ''Political power comes from the barrel of a gun.'' This generalization was certainly true in the case of the Chinese Communist Party, which came to power via a bloody civil war, remained in power by continually purging real and potential enemies, and has frequently used force against neighboring countries.

    CCP rule has been characterized by high levels of state-sanctioned violence, even domestic terror campaigns, from the beginning. In recent years we have the examples of the violent response to the peaceful Tiananmen demonstrations, the ongoing violence against women in the one-child policy, and the continuing purge of the Falungong, a nonviolent Buddhist sect whose members are still being arrested, tortured, and sometimes killed today on the orders of first Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao.

    Internationally, China has bloody borders. Because of the PRC's peace-loving rhetoric, that country has largely avoided the reputation for bellicosity that its history of aggression against peoples on China's periphery deserves. During the 25 years that Mao ruled China, his armies intervened in Korea, assaulted and absorbed Tibet, supported guerilla movements throughout Southeast Asia, attacked India, fomented an insurrection in Indonesia, provoked border clashes with the Soviet Union, and instigated repeated crises vis-a-vis Taiwan. When an opportunity arose to send out China's legions, Mao generally did not hesitate—especially if the crises involved a former tributary state, which is to say almost all of the countries with which China has a common border. Under Mao, the would-be Hegemon, China had bloody borders.(see footnote 18)

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    In the decades since Mao, China has invaded Vietnam, attacked Philippine and Vietnamese naval units in the South China Sea, splashed down missiles adjacent to Taiwan, and continues its aggressive intrusions into Japanese territorial waters. The CCP today continues to exist in a state of partial mobilization, and has made it clear that it is prepared to use force to resolve both domestic crisis and external challenges.

''COMPREHENSIVE NATIONAL POWER'' AS THE BASIS FOR HEGEMONY

    Chinese strategists speak in terms of maximizing their country's ''Comprehensive National Power.'' This is a deliberate, rational effort to build up China's industrial base as the basis for future military production. Military production is not to be an accidental byproduct of other productive capacities, as it was, for example, in the U.S. during World War II, and is still to some extent today. Rather, it is a deliberate aim of the government's continuing Five Year Plans. The sobering implications of this fact need to be thought through.

    First, a little history. Mao was in a hurry to industrialize, build a first-class war machine, and become the Hegemon. Yet, virtually the only thing he had to sell to the Soviet Union in exchange for arms was food. Setting up large, centrally controlled people's communes allowed him to more efficiently extract food and work out of the peasantry. Loudspeakers were set up to urge the peasants to work longer and harder, and women were forced into the fields to work alongside the men for the first time. Most of the grain they produced was turned over by the Communist cadres in charge to local ''state collection stations.'' For there it was shipped to the cities—and to the Soviet Union.

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    As the Great Leap Forward picked up speed, senior officials kept increasing the quotas of grain to be delivered to the state collection stations. In response, commune-level cadres worked the peasants longer and longer hours on shorter and shorter rations. Mao, who saw people only as means to his ends, was unmoved by reports that millions of peasants were starving to death. Instead, this ruthless megalomaniac calmly declared that, to further his global ambitions, ''half of China may well have to die.''

    The people's communes were arguably the greatest instrument of state exploitation ever devised. They proved so efficient at squeezing the peasantry that tens of millions of villagers starved to death from 1960–62 as a result. Mao's efforts to build up his arsenal cost an estimated 42.5 million lives.

    This costly mistake has been rectified by Deng Xiaoping and subsequent leaders, who have ordered that civilian production keep pace with, and support, military production. This is not an abandonment of Hegemony, but merely a more rational approach to achieving it, and one that is in line with time-honored Chinese geopolitical goal of a ''rich country and a strong military.'' In short, China's current leaders have disavowed Mao's means as obviously faulty, but not his ends.

    One may accurately regard China's National High Technology Research and Development Program, or 863 Policy for short, as a more sophisticated outgrowth of Mao's crude efforts to build military strength. Deng Xiaoping's ''Sixteen character declaration'' makes the same point—that the primary purpose of economic development is to build a strong military:

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  ''Combine the Military and the Civil''
  ''Combine Peace and War''
  ''Give Priority to the Military''
  ''Let the Civil Support the Military.''

    American analysts, understanding these four sets of four characters each as epigrams—encapsulated bits of wisdom—usually take them together to mean something on the order of ''technological developments in the civilian economy directly support the strength of the military.''(see footnote 19) The above statement is true—indeed, it is a truism—but it is a projection of our own beliefs and attitudes onto a different cultural and political landscape. For this reason, it badly mistakes Deng Xiaoping's meaning.

    For Deng was not minting epigrams, he was issuing orders. Read them again as they are read in China—as orders:

  Key sectors of the civilian economy must have a military purpose
  Use the peace to prepare for war.
  Military technology and weapons production has economic priority
  Civilian production must support, technologically and financially, military production.

    The ruthless mercantilism practiced by the CCP is thus a form of economic warfare. China's rulers seek to move as much of the world's manufacturing base to their country as possible, thus increasing the PRC's ''comprehensive national strength'' at the same time that it undermines U.S. national security by hollowing out America's industrial base in general and key defense-related sectors of the economy in particular. China will not lightly abandon this policy, which strengthens China as it weakens the U.S., and is an integral part of China's drive for Hegemony.

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CHINA IS ACQUIRING THE MEANS TO PROJECT FORCE FAR BEYOND TAIWAN.

    Many of China's military modernization efforts—supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, stealthy submarines, theater based missiles with terminal guidance systems—are aimed specifically at U.S. forces and bases. By is acquiring weapons designed to exploit U.S. vulnerabilities, the PRC is clearly preparing for a contest with the United States.

    Beijing is interested in deterring, delaying, or complicating U.S. assistance to Taiwan in the event of an invasion, so as to force a quick capitulation by the democratically elected Taiwan government. But while the near-term focus is Taiwan, many of China's new lethal capabilities are applicable to a wide range of potential operations beyond the Taiwan Strait. As the 2005 Report to Congress of the USCC report notes, ''China is in the midst of an extensive force modernization program aimed at increasing its force projection capabilities and confronting U.S. and allied forces in the region.''(see footnote 20)

    The rapid growth in China's military power not only threatens Taiwan—and by implication the U.S.—but U.S. allies throughout the Asian Pacific region. China possesses regional, even global ambitions, and is building a first-rate military to realize those ambitions. It is naive to view the PRC's military build-up as ''merely'' part of the preparations for an invasion of Taiwan in which American military assets in the Asian-Pacific will have to be neutralized.

    China's construction of naval bases in the Indian Ocean, and its aggressive pursuit of territorial claims in the East and South China Seas point to its wider ambitions.

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    Finally, even a cursory reading of China's 2004 Defense White Paper suggests that it views U.S. power and military presence throughout the world with a jaundiced eye, and that it seeks to become, over the mid-term, the dominant power in Asia. This goal necessarily brings it into potential conflict with the U.S. and its allies, chiefly Japan.

CHINA IS PURSUING TERRITORIAL CLAIMS OTHER THAN TAIWAN.

    Additional evidence that China's territorial ambitions go well beyond Taiwan comes from its aggressive pursuit of territorial claims in the East China and South China seas.(see footnote 21)

    Since the early 1970s, Beijing has claimed the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands (or Tiaoyutai in Chinese) and the continental shelf that extends into Japanese territorial waters. China's increasingly aggressive intrusions into Japanese airspace and Japanese territorial waters has raise d eyebrows in Tokyo and Washington. In November 2004, for example, the Japanese navy chased a Han-class nuclear submarine away from the waters off Okinawa.

    China also orchestrated the removal of U.S. logistics forces from the Central Asian republics, demonstrating that its commitment to fighting terrorism was less important that its desire to reduce U.S. influence and presence in the region.

CHINA'S ACTIVITIES WEAKEN THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM DOMINATED BY THE U.S.

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    The PRC's approach to international relations is sometimes described as ''value-neutral,'' ''not influenced by ideology,'' and driven principally by a need for resources, especially oil. This seems to me to be a rather too narrow a reading of the situation.

    The PRC has close relationships with virtually every ''country of concern,'' whether or not they possess oil or mineral reserves. Many countries, ''orphaned'' internationally because of their human rights violations, terrorism support, WMD proliferation, and other objectionable activities have been ''adopted'' by China. Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Iran, Myanmar, and Sudan, among other countries, receive support from China in international forums, generous aid packages, and arms.

    While these relationships are driven by China's need for resources and are construed to advance its own interests, it is naiAE4ve to ignore the deeper commonalities that bind one dictatorial system to another. The CCP elite has much in common with the leadership of such countries, since it, too, engages in human rights violations, WMD proliferation, and other objectionable activities.

    The PRC, by elevating and legitimating the governments of ''countries of concern,'' undermines the international system dominated by the U.S. As the loss of the U.S. seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission demonstrates, China is effectively forming a system of competing alliances that will enable it to co-opt, undermine, or ignore the existing world order. What we see here is not a ''value-neutral'' foreign policy, as some aver, but the outlines of an alternative world order, one Made in China, not in the U.S.

HEGEMONY AND MAO'S HEIRS

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Unlike the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler or the Soviet Union of Joseph Stalin, the People's Republic of China of Mao Zedong survives to the present day, its ruling party intact, its system of government largely unchanged. The myths and lies that continue to prop up Mao's image also serve to bolster the political legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party itself. The current Communist leadership proudly declares itself to be Mao's heirs, maintains his Leninist dictatorship, continues his military build-up and, the evidence would seem to indicate, cherishes his grand ambitions.

All this suggests a PRC that has, in combination, the historical grievances of a Weimar Republic, the paranoid nationalism of a revolutionary Islamic state, and the Hegemonic ambitions of a Soviet Union at the height of its power. As China grows more powerful and attempts to rectify those grievances and act out those Hegemonic ambitions, it will cast an ever-lengthening shadow over Asia and the world.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. There is an urgent need to increase U.S. military capabilities in the Western Pacific to counter the Chinese military buildup there.

2. Congress should reaffirm that Taiwan's future should be decided by the people on Taiwan.

3. Congress should commission a study of how the projected 12 percent per year growth in China's military budget will enable it to increase its military capabilities in the years to come.

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4. Congress should encourage the creation of a program of military-to-military exchanges with Taiwan's military to facilitate contingency planning.

    Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much for your testimony. And we will have some further discussion after the other panel members have their testimony.

    Next is Mrs. Nancy Menges, wife of the late Dr. Constantine Menges, who authored the book, China: The Gathering Threat, before passing away in July 2004.

    Mrs. Menges has fought very hard to ensure the book was published following her husband's death. And since its publication, Mrs. Menges has been active in bringing the ideas of the proposals contained in that book to the attention of the public and policymakers, including yours truly.

    And so we welcome her today. We thank her very much for her dedication. And she was not just a wife, but a partner of Constantine Menges and the wonderful things that he did for the cause of human freedom. And we are very happy to have her testifying today.

    You may proceed.

STATEMENT OF MRS. NANCY MENGES, WIDOW OF DR. CONSTANTINE MENGES, AUTHOR OF ''CHINA: THE GATHERING THREAT''

    Mrs. MENGES. Thank you, Chairman Rohrabacher and Members of the Subcommittee. It is an honor and a privilege to be here today to discuss with you my late husband's book on China.

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    My husband, Constantine Menges, wrote China: The Gathering Threat prior to his death in July 2004. I know that some of you here today knew Constantine, worked with him on international issues, and shared many of the same concerns. For those of you who did not know Constantine, I would like to say a few words.

    Constantine was a man of extraordinary intellect who possessed a deep knowledge of many regions of the world. He used these attributes to analyze and assess the nature of regimes and their potential to threaten the national security of the United States.

    For example, he did everything he could to prevent the fall of the Shah in Iran, as well as the coming to power of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

    Constantine believed that China is our next biggest national security challenge, and that China alone is the one country that could threaten our way of life, our standard of living, and our freedom. He was hopeful that his book would provide the basis for our Government to develop more realistic policies toward China, as well as an overall strategy.

    Since no one could speak more eloquently about his ideas than the author himself, the following testimony is taken directly from the text of his book. And I am going to shorten my testimony just a little bit, because I know I don't have unlimited time.

    Mr. ROHRABACHER. I seem to remember that Constantine went on sometimes, so——[Laughter.]

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    Mrs. MENGES. Yes, I do recall.

    Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. If you can get to the most important points, thank you.

    Mrs. MENGES. I will try. As described in Chapter 18 of the book, China has a very definite strategy which it is now pursuing.

    Their strategy is to become dominant first in Asia, and eventually in the entire world. The Communist regime in China believes that it must either dominate the world, or be dominated by the United States and its allies.

    There are four reasons why the Chinese leadership believes it must follow this path. First and foremost is to preserve the power of the Communist Party. The mere existence of a democratic, prosperous, and powerful United States is seen as an intrinsic threat to the existence of the Communist regime. The same is true of democratic Taiwan and Japan, which show clearly that the peoples of Asia can establish democratic self-government.

    A major reason that the Chinese Communist regime wants to take control over Taiwan is to end the idea that there can be another democratic alternative for the people of China.

    The second reason China is seeking dominance is their concern regarding the military power of the United States, which they see as limiting their ability to take control of Taiwan and obtain its territorial aims in Asia. In addition, Chinese military writings indicate a deep concern about the potential military capacity of Japan, which their analysts believe could produce and deploy 1- or 2,000 nuclear warheads in a matter of months.

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    The third reason why China seeks dominance is to ensure its continued economic modernization and growth. The Chinese Government wants to make sure that it will not be denied access to economic, technological, and mineral resources necessary for its future success.

    China has proclaimed ever more clearly and frequently since the mid-1990s that it seeks a new international political and economic world order. What this means exactly is unclear, but is in keeping with the centuries-long tradition of China as the center of a world in which all other states either pay tribute and accept the dominance of the Chinese regime, or are viewed as hostile.

    There is a bipartisan consensus among many that the goal of United States policy in China should be to maintain normal relations with this important country, while encouraging its peaceful evolution into a political democracy that will respect the human rights of its citizens, and be peaceful internationally.

    There has also been a bipartisan assumption that continuing the pattern of unconditional economic and commercial relations which, since 1980, have been highly advantageous to China, will lead to political democracy. This assumption has been proven false by the history of the last two centuries, where economic modernization has at times increased the power of authoritarian states, and fueled their expansionist impulses. For example, in Imperial Germany and Imperial Japan.

    This is also true in post-Mao China, where the regime has kept its dictatorship intact, while the economy and certain aspects of society have changed dramatically.

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    To place this in perspective, I would like to quote from Deng Xiaoping, the post-Mao leader of China and the father of the Chinese economic strategy. He said, ''We will bide our time and hide our capabilities.'' How these capabilities will emerge is illustrated in the eight stages contained in my husband's book, which I have summarized in my written testimony for the benefit of the Members, but which I will not now enumerate.

    It should be understood that China is engaged in a political war against the United States. China is positioning itself strategically in all regions of the world, including in our hemisphere.

    They work to strengthen regimes unfriendly to the United States, such as Castro's Cuba and Chavez's Venezuela. They are well-positioned at most of the ports where the majority of the world's commerce passes, including their control of both ends of the Panama Canal.

    In addition, the Chinese Government is one of the world's major proliferators of ballistic-missile and weapons of mass destruction technology, and are engaged in massive espionage efforts to acquire our military, nuclear, and technological secrets, as well as our intellectual property.

    My husband's book connects all the dots, sounds the warning, and provides credible policy proposals. In this regard, the author lays out a strategy for democratization in China, and identifies four major groups that will be most important in the process of political liberalization in China. These include the hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens who want fair legal and effective government, elements favoring political reform within the Communist Party, pro-democratic citizens within China, and pro-democracy Chinese living in exile in the United States and other democratic countries.

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    The essence of a peaceful pro-democracy strategy involves giving the people and actual leaders in each of the four groups in China the information and encouragement that will lead them to take practical steps to bring the party first toward greater observance of its own laws, Constitution, and existing international human rights commitment; then to make changes in the direction of political liberalization. This requires the establishment of an organization to plan, coordinate, and implement these activities, which might be named the Program for Democracy in China. Had my husband lived, I know that he would be working to establish such a program.

    This book is part of my husband's legacy, and is based on his 40 years of experience in foreign policy and national security affairs. My only regret is that he is not here himself to express these ideas.

    Thank you so much.

    [The prepared statement of Mrs. Menges follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MRS. NANCY MENGES, WIDOW OF DR. CONSTANTINE MENGES, AUTHOR OF ''CHINA: THE GATHERING THREAT''

    Good Afternoon Chairman Rohrabacher and Members of the Committee

    It is an honor and a privilege to be here today to discuss with you my late husband's book on China. My husband, Constantine Menges wrote China, The Gathering Threat prior to his death in July, 2004. I know that some of you here today knew Constantine, worked with him on international issues and shared many of the same concerns. For those of you who did not know Constantine, I would like to say a few words. Constantine was a man of extraordinary intellect who possessed a deep knowledge of many regions of the world. He used these attributes to analyze and assess the nature of regimes and their potential to threaten the national security of the United States. For example, he did everything he could to prevent the fall of the Shah and the rise of the mullahs in Iran as well as the coming to power of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Constantine believed that China is our next biggest national security challenge and that china, alone, is the one country that could threaten our way of life, our standard of living and our freedom. He was hopeful that his book would provide the basis for our government to develop more realistic policies towards China as well as an overall strategy. Since no one could speak more eloquently about his ideas than the author himself, the following testimony is excerpted directly from the text of his book.

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    China is a country that has experienced enormous economic growth over the course of the last twenty years. Since the 1990's, as a result of its mostly one way access to the markets of the U.S. and other major countries, China has benefited from more than a trillion dollars of economic benefits, foreign direct investment, and foreign economic assistance. Taken together', these economic benefits have meant an enormous increase in the resources available to the Communist regime for its domestic and international purposes. The Chinese Government's purposes and strategy has four operational dimensions. The first is to establish a mood of friendly relations with neighboring states while making no concessions on existing disputes; secondly, to intensify military cooperation with states hostile to the U.S; thirdly to establish relations with a large number of developing countries in the hope of taking a leadership role among them in the United Nations, the WTO and other international forums; and fourth to prepare the conditions for future strategic denial by obtaining control over major sea lanes and having a monopoly of some key high technology inputs required by all advanced industrial countries. ''.

    As described in chapter 18 of the book, China has a very definite strategy which it is now pursuing. Their strategy is to become dominant first in Asia and eventually in the entire world. The Communist regime in China believes that it must either dominate the world or be dominated by the United States and its allies. As conceptualized by the author, China's pursuit of dominance will occur in eight phases and may overlap or continue in parallel. The timing of each new phase will depend, in part on decisions made by the Chinese regime as it resolves differences about strategy and tactics. There are four reasons why the Chinese leadership believes it must follow this path. First and foremost is to preserve the power of the Communist Party in China.

    The mere existence of a democratic, prosperous, and powerful United States is seen as an intrinsic threat to the existence of the Communist regime. The same is true of democratic Taiwan and Japan which show clearly that the peoples of Asia can establish democratic self-government. A major reason that the Chinese Communist regime wants to take control over Taiwan is to end the idea that there can be another democratic alternative for the people of China.

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    The second reason China is seeking dominance is their concern regarding the military power of the United States which they see as limiting their ability to take control of Taiwan and attain its territorial aims in Asia. In addition Chinese military writings indicate a deep concern about the potential military capacity of Japan which their analysts believe could produce and deploy one or two thousand nuclear warheads in a matter of months. The Chinese regime sees the U.S-Japan alliance as an obstacle to its international objectives and will seek the neutralization of Japan as one of their major objectives in the coming years.

    The third reason why China seeks dominance is to ensure its continued economic modernization and growth. The Chinese government wants to make sure that it will not be denied access to economic, technological, and mineral resources necessary for its future success. Oil imports are an example of China's inevitably growing dependence on resources from abroad. As China's economy continues to grow and expand, it will require greater quantities of oil, putting it in direct competition with other major oil importing countries such as Europe, the U.S. and Japan. Obtaining these imports means that China must have both the money to pay for them and access to them.

    China has proclaimed ever more clearly and frequently since the mid 1990's that it seeks a ''new international, political and economic world order''. What this means exactly is unclear but is in keeping with the centuries long tradition of China as the center of a world in which all other states either pay tribute and accept the dominance of the Chinese regime or are viewed as hostile. However China often speaks of the five principles of peaceful co-existence and professes that this new world order would be for the benefit of all reasonable countries. This is cast to be especially appealing to developing countries, which are a majority in the United Nations and World Trade Organization. China's methods of wooing these countries while deepening their economic dependence on China has been very effective. More importantly, China has accomplished the feat of linking Communist rule with many of the economic institutions of the industrial democracies. As a result, this linkage has led to the creation of vested interests within the democratic countries by large and powerful business organizations that lobby for the continuation of good relations with China and interpret all Chinese purposes and actions internationally as benign. This has already had a profound effect on the policies of the United States toward China and, in the view of the Chinese regime, will continue to help China accomplish its purposes in the years ahead.

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    There is a bi-partisan consensus among many that the goal of US policy in China should be to maintain normal relations with this important country while encouraging its peaceful evolution into a political democracy that will respect the human rights of its citizens and be peaceful internationally. There has also been a bi-partisan assumption that continuing the pattern of unconditional economic and commercial relations which since 1980 have been highly advantageous to China will lead to political democracy. This assumption has been proven false by the history of the last two centuries where economic modernization has at times increased the power of authoritarian states and fueled their expansionistic impulses i.e. imperial Germany and imperial Japan. This is also true in post Mao China where the regime has kept its dictatorship intact while the economy and certain aspects of society have changed dramatically.

    To place this in perspective I would like to quote from Deng Xi Ping the first post Mao leader of China and the father of the Chinese economic strategy—He said, ''We will bide our time and hide our capabilities.'' How these capabilities will emerge is illustrated in the eight stages contained in my husband's book and which I have provided summaries of as part of my written testimony for the benefit of the members.

    It should be understood that China is engaged in a political war against the Untied States China is positioning itself strategically in all regions of the world including in our hemisphere. They work to strengthen régimes unfriendly to the United States such as Castro's Cuba and Chavez in Venezuela. They are well positioned at most of the ports where the majority of the world's commerce passes including their control of both ends of the Panama Canal. In addition the Chinese governments is one of the world major proliferators of ballistic missile and weapons of mass destruction technology and are engaged in massive espionage efforts to acquire our military, including nuclear, secrets and technology as well as our intellectual property.

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    My husband's book connects all the dots, sounds the warning and provides credible policy proposals. In this regard the author lays out a strategy for democratization in China and identifies four major groups that will be most important in the process of political liberalization in China. These include the hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens who want fair, legal and effective government: elements favoring political reform within the Communist Party: pro-Democratic citizens within China: and pro-democracy Chinese living in exile in the US and other democratic countries.

    The essence of a peaceful pro-democracy strategy involves giving the people and natural leaders in each of the four groups in China the information and encouragement that will lead them to take practical steps to bring the Party first towards greater observance of its own laws, constitution, and existing international human rights commitments; then to make changes in the direction of political liberalization. This requires the establishment of an organization to plan coordinate, and implement these activities, which might be named the Program for Democracy in China (PDC).

    This book is part of my husband's legacy and is based on his forty years of experience in foreign policy national security affairs. My only regret is that he is not here himself to express his ideas.

    The following is a brief description of the eight-stage framework for a grand strategy China is pursuing in their efforts to achieve global dominance without actual war. It should be noted that these estimates are based on the author's judgment after spending in excess of thirty years working on these issues.

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CHINA'S EIGHT STAGES TOWARD GLOBAL DOMINATION

    There is no way to provide a proper and yet brief description of the intricacies of the eight-stage framework for a grand strategy, as described in chapter 18, that Dr. Menges saw China pursuing in their efforts to achieve global dominance without actual war. It is hoped that this outline provides enough details to encourage the reader to examine the contents of the book. As with all future analyses, the dates are more of a signpost than an actual prediction, and the events may occur in a different sequence than outlined here. It should be noted that these estimates are based on the author's judgment after spending in excess of thirty years working on these issues.

Normalization with the industrial democracies (1978–Present)

    This is a time in which the Chinese are seeking to establish political and economic relations with western countries in an effort to further their own development in economic and military terms.

Asian Regional Persuasion/Coercion (1980s–Present)

    As China began to emerge from its previous isolation and to look outward, it also sought to extend its influence and power. Part of this effort is a continuing effort to assert claims of sovereignty. This is a time of economic and military coercion in an effort to establish a position of strength regionally while extending its reach globally.

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Asian Preponderance: Taking Control of Taiwan (2005–2008?)

    China working to isolate Taiwan internationally while strengthening their regional position to a point where they are equal, in terms of regional power, to Japan and the US. During this time, China will seek to use a coercive mix of military threats and the promise of economic benefits to force Taiwan to accept the terms dictated by Beijing.

Asian Dominance: The End of the U.S. Alliance with Japan (2008–2012)

    Using the removal of Taiwan from the calculation, China will seek to neutralize the Korean peninsula. This can only be accomplished by ending the US-South Korean military alliance while using their own influence to secure stability between South Korea and North Korea and a normalization of relations under the guidance and guarantee of the Chinese. With the removal of these two potential flash points, the Chinese will increase their efforts to end the US-Japanese alliance on terms that maintain the relative pacifist nature of the Japanese Self-Defense forces. This will then precipitate the complete and final withdrawal of US forces from all bases not located on US territory in Northeast Asia.

The De Facto End of NATO: The Neutralization of Western Europe (2010–2014)

    Within Europe, the Chinese, together with the Russians, will begin to point to the ending of the 'Cold War era' security structures within Asia in order to argue for the final dismantlement of the NATO alliance. This combined with increased economic dependency by Europe, potentially in combination with those in Western-Europe who are seeking to establish a new security framework within the EU without US involvement could lead to the effective neutralization of Europe. This would likely be accompanied by a Chinese shift away from the dollar and towards to the Euro as an additional means of pressure. In addition, China will seek to encourage an international effort aimed at the limitation of US and Russian nuclear arsenals to a few hundred in the ''interests of world peace.'' The Russian portion of this agreement is meant to reduce the concerns of a potentially resurgent Russia in order to aid in the effective ending of the US-European Security relationship. After all, by this time China would only have a few hundred declared strategic weapons.

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China Obtains the Russian Far East, China Is Dominant Over Russia (2014–2020)

    With added economic and technological strength, in particular from the growing relations with the Japanese and Europeans, the Chinese make an offer to the Russian government that they cannot refuse. In effect, the Chinese will buy the Russian Far-East. The deal will have the added benefits of both bribing Russian officials and making a covert threat of an invasion of the region if the deal is not accepted. There would be a second covert agreement in which the Chinese would offer to purchase the remaining Russian strategic nuclear weapons, as well as any chemical and biological weapons within the region.

The United States is Geopolitically Isolated; China is Preponderant in the World (2020–2023)

    At this point, the Chinese will inform the United States of the new strategic reality of the Chinese Russian agreement. Without allies or forward bases, and in a weaker strategic position, the United States will be left with no choices for responding other than to accept the new strategic alignment, especially considering the stated and unstated threats including the potential use of nuclear weapons against the US homeland.

China is Dominant in the World (2025–?)

    In the final stages, the Chinese by using a mix of its economic and military power will seek to legitimize their position through a series of UN Security Council resolutions that will include the disarmament and neutralization of any potential rivals, including the United States, and provide the ability for the Chinese to enforce the resolutions at their discretion.

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    Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. And now Mr. Brown, who was also close to Dr. Menges. And in fact, you were involved with the updating and the preparation for publication of this book, China: The Gathering Threat.

    And if you would proceed for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF MR. CHRISTOPHER BROWN, RESEARCH ASSISTANT, HUDSON INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, DC

    Mr. BROWN. Thank you, Chairman Rohrabacher and Ranking Member Delahunt, staff members, fellow panelists, guests. It is a pleasure and honor to be here today.

    I would like to make a note, a little historical irony. Previously when this was scheduled to occur, the hearing today, was the day before the 64th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The reason that I want to make that note is much like the rise of Imperial Japan that preceded that unprecedented attack on America.

    The rise of Communist China is comparable, as both of these regimes were examples of rapidly-growing economic and military powers without the accompanying social developments needed to curb the associated and dangerous expansions of appetites and passions of an emerging power.

    Unfortunately, there is one very important and significant difference between the rise of these two powers. Whereas Japan pursued its expansionistic militarism without any real aid from allies, China has been very busy in a coordinated effort to develop and expand an international foundation on which its expansion will be based. This is being done for a multitude of reasons, which range from access to resources to political clout. However, I have been asked to limit my comments to what I researched on behalf of Dr. Menges within Central Asian regions.

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    In the months prior to the September 11 attack, two key treaties were signed by China and Russia. These agreements received little notice at the time, and have since been lost to the tides of history. However, the long-term implications of these documents have yet to be fully realized.

    China has been expanding its ties with nations such as Russia, and has created an organization that could, in the short term, have a geographical reach from the Pacific to the Mediterranean. This organization, which was first examined within China's larger strategic implications in Dr. Menges's book, China: The Gathering Threat, was the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

    The Shanghai Cooperation Organization was officially created in June 2001 and currently includes all members of Central Asia of the former Soviet Union, other than Turkministan. Observer nations include currently Mongolia, India, Pakistan, and Iran. Belarus recently announced just a few weeks ago that they would like to also join, and Russia has said that they are completely in favor of this.

    It is a little ironic that their regional antiterrorism structure, as they call it, which is the center they have established in Uzbekistan, goes by the acronym RATS.

    One of the key areas that Dr. Menges and I examined in the early emergence of the SCO on the world stage was how it sought to redefine itself in a post-9/11 world. The major theme behind this is fighting the three evils: Extremism, terrorism, and separatism.

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    This may sound like a wonderful thing, especially the extremism and terrorism, in conjunction with America's fight against the war on terror. However, it is interesting how these countries define it. For example, Taiwan is often defined as an extremist, separatist, and even terrorist state at times by Chinese officials.

    The color revolutions which brought such great democratic reform across the globe in the recent years have also been labeled as extremists and separatists. As a matter of fact, recently in Beijing, the Executive Secretary of the SCO, Zhang Deguang—sorry, I do not speak Chinese—announced that the time for color revolutions in the Central Asia Region has gone. That is, went away with last year's snow.

    He went on to label these peaceful outpourings on the part of the people of these nations seeking freedom to be unacceptable, useless, and harmful interventions into the region's domestic affairs.

    It should come as no surprise to someone who was trained and loyal to a regime based on oppressing 20 percent of the world's population should label peaceful, positive, and important expansions of freedom and human liberty as unacceptable, useless, and harmful.

    This is part of the reason why the United States may soon find itself in direct confrontation—not war, but direct confrontation—with organizations such as the SCO.

    The second of the two treaties I would like to discuss very briefly was signed in July 2001. It is called the Treaty of Good Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation. Nothing worrisome in the title. However, when you get into the treaty itself, Article IX, which is the centerpiece of cooperation, says, ''When a situation arises in which one of the contracting parties,'' meaning either China or Russia, ''deems that peace is being threatened and undermined, or security interests are involved, or when it is confronted with the threat of aggression, the contracting party shall immediately hold contacts and consultations in order to eliminate such threats.'' This is comparable to Article V of the NATO Treaty, and when compared to the Warsaw Pact Treaty, the Warsaw Pact Treaty comes across as a downright friendly document.

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    In conclusion, the increasing cooperation on military issues between China and Russia, including Peace Mission 2005, which was the recent war games exercises, operated under the bilateral treaty, and future exercises will be operated under the SCO. This cooperation has allowed China to leapfrog its technology and its ability of forced protection.

    Now, though many may scoff at what might be termed rhetoric from the Chinese Government, such as labeling all of our security relationships in the Asia Pacific Region as violations of their national sovereignty—the modern American and allies will scoff at this as ridiculous because of the qualitative and quantitative advantage that the United States military has over China. The truth is that although the perceptions may differ between ours and the Chinese, rhetoric has a tendency to create perceptions within China. Perceptions become reality with international relations.

    And as Winston Churchill said in the famous speech often titled The Iron Curtain, ''There was never a war in all of history easier to prevent by timely action, but no one would listen. We surely must not let that happen again.''

    This is the warning of the book, China: The Gathering Threat. This was the principle which Dr. Menges spent his whole life striving for. The color revolutions are perfect examples of the strategy he would employ. Reform from beneath. And it was an honor to work with him, and it is an honor to be here today. And I am open to any questions.

    Thank you.

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    [The prepared statement of Mr. Brown follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MR. CHRISTOPHER BROWN, RESEARCH ASSISTANT, HUDSON INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, DC

    Distinguished Chairman Rohrabacher; Members of the Committee; Fellow Panelist; Guests

    It is an honor and a pleasure to be here today to discuss these most important of issues that will have an enormous impact on the future vital security and interests of the United States of America. I wish to note with a bit of historical irony that the day after this hearing was originally scheduled to be held was the sixty-fourth anniversary of the surprise attack by the imperial Japanese force on Pearl Harbor.

    Much like the rise of imperial Japan that preceded this unprecedented attack on America; the rise of Communist China is comparable as both of these régimes were examples of rapidly growing economic and military powers without the accompanying social developments needed to curb the associated and dangerous expanding appetites and passions of an emerging power.

    Unfortunately, there is one very important and significant difference between the rise of these two powers. Whereas Japan pursued its expansionistic militarism without the any real direct aid of allies, China has been very busy in a coordinated effort to develop and expand an international foundation on which its expansion will be based. This is being done for a multitude of reasons ranging from access to resources and political clout to potentially more worrisome and even offensive reasons. However I have been asked to limit my remarks to those events in Central Asia in particular those which I researched for Dr. Menges in the preparation of his final book ''China the Gathering Threat'', which despite its title is as much about the role that the Russian régime under Putin plays in the rise and expansion of China as about China itself.

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    In the months prior to the September 11th attack two key treaties where signed between the governments of China and Russia. These agreements received little notice at the time and have since been lost to the tides of history for most observers. However, the long-term implications of these documents have yet to be fully realized.

    China has been expanding its ties with nations such as Russia and has created an organization that could in the near future have a geographical reach from the Pacific to the Mediterranean. This organization, which was first examined within a larger Chinese strategy by Dr. Menges book ''China the Gathering threat'', which I had the honor of working on for two years, is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization or the SCO.

THE SHANGHAI COOPERATION ORGANIZATION—

    The first of these treaties that I have mention was signed in June 2001 and created the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This organization, which is headquartered in Beijing, and its original membership was composed of China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Two years ago, they added Mongolia as an observer and invited Afghanistan to their annual meeting of Heads of State. Perhaps even more interestingly, is that in the past year they have added India, Pakistan and most worrisome of all Iran as observer states. This list in just the past few weeks was further expanded when Belarus officially applied for observer, which is Russia has said will be granted in the coming months.(see footnote 22) This organization also has a regional operations center in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. This is the headquarters of what they term their Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure which goes by the acronym RATS. That is the acronym of their choosing but might I say that I find it to be a mix of both potential irony and truth.

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    One of the key areas that I and Dr. Menges examined of the early days of the SCO's emergence on the world stage was how they sought to redefine themselves in a post 9–11 world. With the major focus of American and world attention on the fight against the sources of terrorism, the SCO found a way to both expand their military and security relations while placating any potential concerns by place the goals of the SCO under the Chinese inspired rubric of fighting the three evils of separatism, extremism and terrorism.(see footnote 23) Although the last two have a ring of common shared goals with America the devil is in the details. In particular, the question is what the nations of the SCO define as extremism or terrorism. For example, the communist government of Beijing views the very existence of a free and democratic system in Taiwan as an example of all three evils.

    Early last year the democratic revolution in Kyrgyzstan, which has resulted in a marked increase in freedom for the people of that land was labeled by some observers within the SCO as being a form of extremism. If America is serious about encouraging and furthering the spread of freedom within Central Asia and wherever else the SCO expands next, we are likely to find ourselves in confrontation with the SCO.

    There is also the risk that bad actors might use our own commitment to freedom in a way that works against our interests.(see footnote 24) In fact the use by what have since been revealed to be predominately Islamic extremists in Uzbekistan, who played on western ignorance of that nation, used the adulation surrounding such promising events as the November 2003 ''Rose Revolution'' in Georgia, the ''Orange Revolution'' in Ukraine in December 2004, and the ''Tulip Revolution'' in Kyrgyzstan in February–March 2005 as a means of gaining western sympathies which the Uzbek régime under the control of Islam Karimov saw as a potential threat to his control.(see footnote 25) While western nations, demanded negotiations and investigations the Chinese under the cover of the SCO offered unquestioned support for the Karimov directed crackdown. This combined with direct bi-lateral Chinese economic aid and diplomatic pressure culminating in a demand by the SCO on July 5th at the annual meeting of the leaders of the member states, for a timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from SCO member nations.(see footnote 26) That same day the United States Department of State responded by saying ''our presence [in the SCO member states] . . . is determined by the terms of our bilateral agreements''(see footnote 27)—in effect, ignoring the significance of the SCO and the joint statement signed by Mr. Karimov himself. Within 24 hours, the Uzbekistan foreign ministry reiterated that it was seriously reconsidering the presence of United States forces on Uzbek soil, and less than a month later we were given official notice that Uzbekistan was terminating our basing rights.(see footnote 28) In effect we were successfully out maneuvered by the Chinese and now Uzbekistan, which was originally viewed as one of the more hesitant members of the SCO is solidly on the side of China.(see footnote 29)

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Returning to the issue of the so called ''color revolutions'' which have been wonderful examples of the very power Dr. Menges spent his professional life trying to encourage and which plays a big role in the suggested counter-strategy America should pursue within his book. These internal movements of people seeking freedom and representative government, which demonstrate the true power of even the idea of freedom, have not escaped the attention of either the Chinese or SCO leadership. Just weeks ago at a press conference in Beijing the Executive Secretary of the SCO Zhang Deguang announced that ''The time for 'color revolutions' in the Central Asian region has gone . . . [that it] went away with last year's snow.''(see footnote 30) He went on to label these peaceful outpouring on the part of the people of these nations seeking freedom to be unacceptable, useless and harmful ''interventions into the region's domestic affairs.''(see footnote 31) It should come as no surprise that someone trained and loyal to a régime based on the oppressing over 20% of the worlds population should label such peaceful, positive and important expansions of freedom and human liberty as unacceptable, useless and harmful.

It is important to note that within the SCO structure that the most senior officials, equal to a cabinet level in our own government, of the every department of the respective member states meet at least once a year for the purpose of increased cooperation and integration of their various portfolios. In effect at least once every month there is a meeting going on within the SCO of cabinet level officials. Although some in the west may dismiss these as insignificant, when one considers the potential consequences of something as simple as the integration of their transportation networks. Consider these discussion in light of such issues in Central Asia ranging form smuggling narcotics and people to the possibility by either states or groups, interested in the proliferation of ballistic missile and weapons of mass destruction using this integration to ease the movement of these materials. With these issues in mind even a simple discussion on the integration of road networks takes on a much larger strategic significance. Especially when one considers that China, Russia, Iran, and Pakistan are all either members or observers of this organization. This is why I have on multiple occasions labeled the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as the most dangerous organization that Americans have never heard of. It is also why Dr. Menges viewed this development with such trepidation.

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THE CHINA RUSSIA PARTNERSHIP—

The Second treaty of significance that I and Dr. Menges examined was the bi-lateral treaty between Russia and China. This was signed the month after the SCO charter in July 2001.(see footnote 32) If one were to just go by the title of this treaty, which is the ''Treaty of Good Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation,'' than nothing would seem too worrisome about this development. After all why should anyone object to a treaty which on its face seems designed to sooth relations between to large nuclear armed nations. However once one examines both the actual wording of the treaty and recent events one begins to see the dangerous implications of the growing Sino-Russian relationship that is the centerpiece of the work I did with Dr. Menges. For example Article nine of the treaty states ''When a situation arises in which one of the contracting parties deems that peace is being threatened and undermined or its security interests are involved or when it is confronted with the threat of aggression, the contracting parties shall immediately hold contacts and consultations in order to eliminate such threats.''(see footnote 33) This language which is comparable to Article 5 of the NATO treaty has potentially broad reaching consequences, and is almost friendly when compared to similar wording in the now defunct ''Warsaw Pact'' that gave free nations nightmares for almost fifty years.

Although China and Russia have over the years provided assurances to the world and more to the point, the United States, that this is a treaty between China and Russia and is not directed outwardly, the truth was revealed late last year when these two nations held the first of what is going to be an annual war-game exercise. Many observers noted that this exercise, which was originally billed as a counter-terrorism operation, had a strikingly amphibious/airborne invasion characteristic to it that most obviously pointed to a potential operation against Taiwan as opposed to an operation aimed at any potential terrorists that either China or Russia may face.(see footnote 34)

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Even as this unprecedented exercise was ending, there were already announcements that there would be another large-scale joint war game between China and Russia in 2006.(see footnote 35) Interestingly China and Russia under the context of this massive operation invoked the need to combat the ''three evils'' of the SCO as the reason and the justification for this operation which was held under the authority of their supposedly non-military treaty of ''Good Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation.'' In addition to the 2006 bi-lateral exercises that are being planned between Russia and China there are multiple exercises that are already being scheduled for 2006 and 2007 within the SCO.(see footnote 36) It should be also be noted that Yury Baluyevsky Chief of Russia's General Staff said just last November that the 2007 China Russia Bi-lateral war games will be held under the SCO framework as opposed to the Bi-lateral treaty.(see footnote 37) This announcement coincided with a renewed Chinese effort to once again sought to assure the world that the SCO is not really a military organization.(see footnote 38)

CONCLUSION—

In conclusion, the increasing cooperation on military issues between Russia and China both bi-laterally and within the Chinese controlled SCO, which of course includes the sale of advanced Russian military equipment such as the ''Aegis/Carrier Killer'' Sunburn anti-ship cruise missile, has allowed China to advance their military and force projection capabilities considerably in the recent years. This is further illustrated in a number of charts that were prepared for the book but left out in the final version that I have submitted to be included in the written record for the committees benefit. This is of great concern given that as is pointed out in the book ''China the Gathering Threat'' that China has repeatedly called all American security relationship in the Asia Pacific region illegitimate and violations of Chinese national sovereignty.(see footnote 39) This military strength in turn is both a symptom and a cause behind Beijing's inc