"China's army conducted a military exercise last month with simulated
missile firings against Taiwan and also for the first time conducted mock
attacks on U.S. troops in the region ... "
That was the jolting lead of a Jan. 26 story by Bill Gertz of The
Washington Times. With those mock attacks, China is sending a message: We
will collar Taiwan and drag the renegade province back to the embrace of
the Motherland, even if it means war with America.
In 1996, Bill Clinton sent two carrier battle groups to respond to
China's
menacing of Taiwan. The confrontation dissolved. By practicing with
silo-housed missiles, and targeting U.S. troops in Korea, in Japan and on
Okinawa, China is saying: Next time, we do not back down.
China's imperial intentions are clear: Seize all the disputed islands off
Asia's coast, especially the Spratlys. Build up nuclear and conventional
missile forces to deter America. Put China at the center of a
Beijing-Moscow-Teheran axis to overturn U.S. hegemony in Asia.
Indispensable to the modernization of China's war arsenal are three
collaborators -- Israel, Russia and the U.S.A.
"The Defense Intelligence Agency suspects Israel shared with China
restricted U.S. weapons technology obtained during a joint U.S.-Israeli
effort to build a battlefield laser gun," writes Gertz on Jan. 27. U.S.
employees have twice "spotted Chinese technicians working secretly with
one of the Israeli companies involved in the laser weapon program." A
Chinese official in Israel exhibited hard knowledge of the super-secret
program to build lasers to shoot down the Katyusha rockets used by
Hezbollah on Israeli towns.
Israel has been charged before with betraying vital U.S. secrets. In
1992,
The Washington Times reported Israel had given Beijing the secret
technology of the U.S. Patriot missile. A U.S. investigation found that,
while Beijing had acquired the secrets of the Patriot, it could not say
for sure who gave them up.
According to Richard Fisher of the Heritage Foundation, Russia and Israel
have teamed up to build China an AWACS system, using Israel's Phalcon
radar.
Arms expert Duncan Clarke wrote in the July 22 Christian Science Monitor
that Israel has used "U.S. technology to assist China in developing its
next fighter aircraft -- the J-10 -- airborne radar systems, tank programs
and a variety of missiles. Over vigorous Pentagon objections, Israel has
apparently transferred to China the most lethal air-to-air missile in the
world: the Python 4. This system employs an advanced helmet-mounted sight,
developed together by American and Israeli firms."
China's J-10 is based on the Lavi, an Israeli plane subsidized with $1.4
billion in U.S. tax dollars. As ominous, writes Clarke, is "Israel's
transfer to China of its STAR-1 cruise missile technology (that) ...
incorporates U.S. stealth technology and is ... 'a growth version' of
Israel's Delilah-2 missile, which contains U.S. parts and technology."
Thus does critical U.S. weapons technology go into machines of war that
Beijing prepares for use on Americans. Israel is engaged in the moral
equivalent of America selling Stingers to Hezbollah.
Why is Israel doing this? "When the customer is interested," Israeli
scholar Yitzhak Shichor is quoted in Clarke's piece, "it (is) difficult
for the Ministry of Defense to abort or prevent an Israeli arms transfer
to whatever country for whatever reason." Adds Clarke: "Yet neither
President Clinton nor Congress will confront Israel and its most powerful
American partisans."
For such cowardice, U.S. Marines, airmen and sailors may one day pay with
their lives.
Russia's contribution? Moscow has sold China 48 SU-27 fighters with a
licensing deal for 200 more and hinted at selling the SU-30. This, says
Heritage's Fisher, would give Beijing "the basis of a modern strike
capability." Russia is also producing for China 30 Sunburn anti-ship
missiles that skim the ocean's surface at twice the speed of sound. Guess
whose ships they will be targeted on.
Why is Russia doing this? As one Russian newspaper put it, Moscow "is
ready
to assist China's transformation into a first-class military power.
Especially considering the fact that Beijing is ready to pay for that in
freely convertible currencies."
Where does China get the hard currency to pay the Israelis and Russians? From a $60 billion annual trade surplus with the United States.
When one considers that China covets Russia's Far East, sends missile
technology to Israel's mortal enemy, Iran, menaces our old ally, Taiwan,
and uses profits from its U.S. trade to buy weapons to target U.S. troops,
ships and planes, all three of us may one day come to rue our stupidity
and our greed.
