Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[Kirkhill]

Well, I think they are behind the US in all categories, as well as the West generally.  Which fields they choose to emphasize in their growth programme is pretty much the crux of the matter.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Catch up as in; socially, economically, militarily, or politically?

Go back to Lampton (bottom of the 1st page of this thread) and note:

Power is the ability to define and achieve one's goals, especially relative to the capacity of others to define and achieve their own. Over 40 years ago, the sociologist Amitai Etzioni broke down the concept of power according to the means employed to exercise it: coercion, material inducement, or intellectual motivation. Power can be constraining, remunerative, or normative -- expressing, to put it crudely, guns, money, or ideas.

I think the Chinese are aiming to catch up in all three but, in my opinion, normative (idea) power is at the top of the list because it is, ultimately, the key to the CCP retaining control/management of China.  If the CCP loses the battle of ideas inside China - and such a battle is going on, right now -  then all bets are off.  Another revolution, even a democratic one, is the last thing China (or the West) needs, now.

 

[CrazyCanuck]

Thanks for the clarification

 

[a_majoor]

Although the thread is drifting away from strictly naval matters (heh) this is an interesting discussion. Here is some longer term demographic and economic predictions about China's future. As Mark Styne points out, demography really is key:

http://www.autonomoussource.com/2007/01/the_second_biggest_issue_of_th.html

The second biggest issue of the 21st century
The Chinese state media agency Xinhua has admitted that China gender imbalance is growing deeper:

A report released here Thursday said there will be 30 million more males of marriageable age in China than females by the year 2020, which will make it difficult for men to find wives.

The report, issued by the State Population and Family Planning Commission, said China's sex ratio for newborn babies in 2005 was 118 boys to 100 girls, compared with 110:100 in 2000. In some regions, the sex ratio has reached 130:100.

The Chinese Communist government has decided this is a bad thing, but that their brutal family planning policies had nothing to do with it.
The report predicted that in the year 2020, Chinese men of marriageable age will find it difficult to find wives, especially those with low income or little education. This will create social instability.

Liu said the sex ratio imbalance was not connected to China's family planning policy. "It is more a result of the deep-rooted notion in Chinese culture that men are superior to women," she said.

It's hard to imagine what China will be like when there are four men to every three women. I'm very pro-woman myself; I believe that those of the female gender contribute much more to the 'glue' that binds civilization together. Single men are capable of all kinds of trouble -- especially in groups -- but when matched with women they become contributing members of society. Without women, these unmatched Chinese men will be attracted to gangs or aggressive political movements.

I'm also of the opinion that the booming Chinese economy is due to throw a piston in the next five years. Too much of the business of the country is driven by state-managed industry and financing, and not enough by real demand. It will run into trouble for the same reasons that Japan's government-managed economy fell flat fifteen years ago. Will Hutton summarizes it like this:

China's economic growth is based on the state channelling vast under-priced savings into huge investment projects driven by cheap labour. Some 200m of China's 760m workforce are migrant peasants employed in factories, construction sites and offices in its new towns and cities—the biggest migration in history. The Communist party has permitted free movement of prices, encourages profit-seeking and has sharply lowered tariffs on imports and obstacles to inward investment. Its success in creating annual growth of some 9.5 per cent for a generation, lifting 400m people out of poverty, is widely acknowledged. But the party keeps firm control of ownership, wages and company strategies—and of the state. In other words, China occupies an uneasy halfway house between socialism and capitalism; its private sector, although growing, is still puny. It is a system of Leninist corporatism—and it is this that is breaking down. (Interpolation: this halfway house is known in correctly political terms as Fascism)

The breaches in the model are all around. How much longer can China's state-owned banks carry on directing billions of dollars of savings into investments that produce tiny or even negative returns and on which interest is irregularly paid? Poor peasants' ability to create the savings needed to fuel growth is reaching its limits. And in any case, for how long can a $2 trillion economy save at more than 40 per cent of GDP? It is reaching the limit of its capacity to increase exports (which in 2007 will surpass $1 trillion) by 25 per cent a year; at this rate of growth they will reach $5 trillion by 2020 or sooner, representing more than half of today's world trade. Is that likely? Are there sufficient ships and ports to move such volumes—and will western markets stay open without real reciprocity on trade? Every year China acquires $200bn of foreign exchange reserves, mainly dollars, as it rigs its currency to keep its exports competitive. It is absurd for a poor country like China to be lending to a rich one like the US; in fact, it is unsustainable, and the financial markets seem to agree.

China would like to lower the current feverish growth rates, but the tools available in the west—raising taxes, cutting spending and lifting interest rates—are not available to China. The party dare not trigger protests by raising taxes; officials in state enterprises and provincial governments ignore orders to lower spending because their careers depend on generating growth and jobs. And raising interest rates could create a credit crunch as loans go sour.

Chinese history is remarkably consistent. China is always united under one dynasty, which grows corrupt and weak. Sparks erupt in the backwaters -- minor revolts against local rulers -- but most are snuffed out. But eventually one catches fire and starts to claim more territory until a new dynasty is founded. In this way the Ming were replaced by the Qing, who were replaced by the Kuomintang, who were replaced by the Communists. In each of those transitions, there was a huge loss of life.

With the growing gender imbalance and the teetering economy, the groundwork is definitely in place for a dynastic change. And it's not going to be pretty.

It is difficult to imagine a soft let down of the Chinese economy, and the social forces of millions of unattached males seeking soem sort of outlet will also be difficulot to deal with; the combination could become quite volitile as the article points out. Longer term, the mismatch between men and women could lead to a population crash, with China facing the same situation we are: fewer and fewer working age people relative to the number of retired people needing or wanting support.

 

[CougarKing]

I am aware this was obviously discussed before in this forum.  Just thought that this particular aspect of China's military-industrial "build-up" should also be examined on its own.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070126/ap_on_re_eu/world_forum_china_missile

China's WEF envoy sees space weaponizing

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer
Fri Jan 26, 1:47 PM ET

DAVOS, Switzerland - A senior Chinese military officer predicts that weapons will be deployed in outer space despite the government's long-standing desire to prevent an arms race in space.

Yao Yunzhu, a senior colonel in the People's Liberation Army, brought up China's recent successful test of an anti-satellite weapon during a        World Economic Forum dinner Thursday focusing on        North Korea.

"My wish is we really want to keep space as a peaceful place for human beings," she said, adding that China would like all countries to come to a consensus that space should be used only for peaceful purposes.

"But personally, I'm pessimistic about it," said Yao, 52, who directs the Asia-Pacific Office at the Academy of Military Science in Beijing. "My prediction: Outer space is going to be weaponized in our lifetime."

Yao's remarks were the first time a member of the Chinese military has commented on the test. The only other official comment, from the Foreign Ministry, offered the barest confirmation and repeated stock positions about China's wish to keep space free of weapons.

"This isn't the act of a country who remains fiercely committed to peace and harmony in the world," said Adm. Timothy Keating, commander of U.S. Northern Command. "This is a cause for concern ... In executing this test they have created potential significant problems for international space flight."

Keating told the Associated Press in an interview this week that there are ongoing worries that such tests have other consequences "intended or otherwise," that China must realize, including possible damage to other satellites or the Space Station by debris.

He added that the U.S. does not now plan a direct response to the test, but "there are a number of things that are on the list of potential military options" if it happens again.

The Jan. 11 test sparked criticism from the United States and Japan, and raised concerns over the rising militarization of space. Analysts said it also represented an indirect threat to U.S. efforts to remain predominant in space and on the ground — because it raised the possibility that the network of U.S. spy satellites could be shot down.

The U.S. military has had the capability to shoot down satellites since the 1980s. Russia has a similar capacity, and now China is the third potential military power in space.

China confirmed the test on Tuesday, but did not provide details — and neither did Yao. The magazine Aviation Week, which first reported the test, said the satellite was hit by a kinetic kill vehicle launched from a ballistic missile.

China's long-standing policy was to ban weapons in space, Yao said, noting that Russia and China presented a draft outline for a treaty to prevent the deployment of weapons in space to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva in June 2002.

The United States objected at the time, saying the 1967 Outer Space Treaty provided sufficient guarantees against the weaponization of space. The Russians countered that while the 1967 treaty banned weapons of mass destruction in space, it did not contain any legal barriers to putting other weapons in orbit around the Earth.

Without naming any country, but in an apparent reference to the United States, Yao said if there's going to be "a space superpower, it's not going to be alone, and China is not going to be the only one."

"It will have company," she said.

Her rank of senior colonel is equivalent to that of a brigadier or one-star general in the U.S. military. She belongs to a small group of fluent English speakers the usually secretive People's Liberation Army uses to deal with foreigners.

 

[tomahawk6]

The Chinese cannot win a "space race" with the US. The problem for the US and the west in general is that we are too reliant on space based systems from GPS to weather.To blind US satellites should be considered an act of war and cause an immediate launch of ICBM's. The Chinese know that this is the achilles heel of the US but we need to let our potential enemies know that to attack a US satellite should be cause for an immediate nuclear attack which hopefully would be a deterrant.

 

[tabernac]

The Chinese cannot win a "space race" with the US. The problem for the US and the west in general is that we are too reliant on space based systems from GPS to weather.To blind US satellites should be considered an act of war and cause an immediate launch of ICBM's. The Chinese know that this is the achilles heel of the US but we need to let our potential enemies know that to attack a US satellite should be cause for an immediate nuclear attack which hopefully would be a deterrant.

We can only hope China keeps it head in the right place, and never lets the situation deteriorate tat far. On another note, any chance that North Korea might be able to steal this technology via industrial espionage?

 

[CougarKing]

Cheeky Monkey,

How can be sure that China's state-owned NORINCO defense companies aren't already handing this information to their North Korean counterparts? After all, most DPRK equipment is either ex-PLA equipment or a North Korean copy of a Chinese copy of a Soviet design.

Take for the example, the PLA Type 59, tank, based on the T-54/55, which the North Korea People's Army has in considerable numbers as well.

 

[a_majoor]

The last military space race saw the United States coming up with all kinds of really exotic military concepts but very little real hardware, while the former USSR actually armed satellites and space stations, as well as tested ICBM based ASATS in the late 1970's and early 1980's.

I suspect the Chinese don't have enough "Long March" launch vehicles to do more than create a temporary "corridor" of cleared space to cover one activity. This should be enough to create a short window of uncertainty for a potential enemy (and it might not be the United States, India and Russia come to mind). As for North Korea, their last attempt at sub orbital launches was less than stellar so the Chinese might be advised to do this project on their own.

The best counter is to disperse space born assets and increase the number of operating platforms so it is difficult or impossible to blind or deny our space born assets. A small Canadian satellite called MOST http://www.astro.ubc.ca/MOST/ is an example of what can be done, it is the size of a barracks box and cost $10 million, which is peanuts for a hand built satellite. Since it is a space telescope, the implications of building them on an assembly line should be obvious. Launching these is easier since they are small, the Pegasus is a suitable launcher, and other small rockets will do as well.

Hey, we're the people who created the AVRO Arrow, and the Americans put men on the moon, so I think we have a few cards up our sleeves yet......

 

[Edward Campbell]

The Chinese cannot win a "space race" with the US.

Yet.

... The problem for the US and the west in general is that we are too reliant on space based systems from GPS to weather ...

But see a_majoor's comment, just above; and, faced with a major sea denial weapon system, one could say we are too reliant on the sea lanes for our commerce and resupply.  Space is excellent 'ground' and all nations need to find ways to coexist there and that may include using more complex orbital techniques, 'armouring' spacecraft and flooding 'areas' with cheap, redundant systems, much a we overwhelmed the U-boat threat in WWII with thousands of cheap 'Liberty Ships.'

... To blind US satellites should be considered an act of war and cause an immediate launch of ICBM's. The Chinese know that this is the achilles heel of the US but we need to let our potential enemies know that to attack a US satellite should be cause for an immediate nuclear attack which hopefully would be a deterrant.

And this gets us what, exactly?

My Opinion: The Chinese are not, I think, deterred because they do not believe that the USA (and certainly not the entire West) have either the will or the way to invade, much less conquer China.  The Chinese believe, I think, correctly that the USA cannot fight a land war on the East Asian mainland - not without suffering a catastrophic defeat.  They also believe, again, I think correctly, that the USA would be unable to organize a coalition for a war against China, based on any reasonable and probably Chinese offensive act, including an invasion of Taiwan.

 

[Bert]

There are a number of points made by the Chinese Senior Colonel that are simple and true
that everyone hopes space will not be weaponized but it will eventually.  The article is
is well done.

The US maintains a fair number of civilian and military communications, acquisition and sensing
satellites as well as command and control comms.  Unlike a sea lane that passes cargo, these
comms are critical.  Loss of US satellites means increasing the fog of war and reducing the
level of comms to deployed operations.  From a US perspective, no country can win a space-based
war.  Thats a statement of the times but not a fact in the future.

China's perspective is competitive and emergent.  They too seek space for tactical be netfit and
communications.  At this point, the American's have the ability to move and communicate with
their military effectively anywhere in the world.  China's ability is limited, they know it, and
are seeking ways to undermine American dominance.  Historically, the Americans have not
forgotten Pearl Harbour and the Chinese have not forgotten how they were treated by
European and Japan from the 1800's until the end of WW2.  This influences matters of defense.
A space race is on.

There are various methods the US can protect its satellite fleets in orbit.  Unfortunately, orbital space
is limited.  Injecting vast amounts of satellites will pollute the region and make it a nightmare for
navigation and potential collisions.  The space race is best done with international cooperation
but probably not as the article suggests.

Unlike the past, the US and China have a strong economic ties now, the populations seek the same
things, however they do not share political compatibility.  It is absurd on many levels to think the US
would want to invade China, yet if they could, China would like to control the US and the US would like
to control China (control in the respect of no political, military, or economic threat).  The political
well-being of their respective large and strong countries now resides the in protection, acquisition,
and continuity of resources that drives their economies. 

 

[Edward Campbell]

...
There are various methods the US can protect its satellite fleets in orbit.  Unfortunately, orbital space
is limited.  Injecting vast amounts of satellites will pollute the region and make it a nightmare for
navigation and potential collisions.  The space race is best done with international cooperation
but probably not as the article suggests.
...

But not as limited as some believe.  In the past 20 years (since 1989 when I was required to take notice of the matter, anyway) the "capacity" of the geostationary orbit has doubled and doubled again as nations (including China) "challenged" both the regulations and the science governing how close one spacecraft could be placed relative to another.  The use of non-geostationary orbits - including low earth orbit, medium earth orbit and, especially, highly elliptical orbit - also increase the "real estate" available.

The International Radio Regulations have been revised again and again to allow for more intensive use of the radio frequency spectrum to/from/within space and of the geostationary orbit itself.  Technology is anything but static.

 

[a_majoor]

The technology of spacecraft is evolving (and indeed there are many concepts "on the shelf" which are known but have never been deployed) so the idea of "us" or "them" being reliant on relatively dumb satellite vehicles based in fixed orbits is something we should start thinking about in historical terms.

I believe many military satellites are already capable of limited forms of manoeuvre, and American satellites are probably best able to take advantage of this since they are smaller and lighter than their competitors (small, light spacecraft are easier to manoeuvre in space; X-Wing fighters really can take on the Death Star). The Americans also have decades of experience with "Stealth" and other "Low Observable" technologies, and even spacecraft which can re enter the atmosphere in one piece (starting with film cannisters ejected from spy satellites back in the early 1960's).

Putting these trends together suggests that there are or soon will be satellite systems which can make large orbital changes, are very difficult to find and can even escape harm by "ducking" into the atmosphere (either a controlled descent into friendly territory or "bouncing" off the atmosphere to make a hard course correction which enemy ASATS will have difficulty following). In case anyone thinks I have read too much Science Fiction, I offer this: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/spauiser.htm, which was designed in the 1970's for use by the US Navy (to be launched on short notice from SLBM's). The state of the art is considerably improved since then.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Still drifting further away from the Chinese Navy, per se, here, reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act, is the reverse of the China coin in a column/book review by Doug Saunders from a recent (3 Feb 07) Globe And Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070203.DOUG03/TPStory/International/columnists

Underneath China's gold-lamé robes is a poor servant

DOUG SAUNDERS

LONDON -- We are living in the age of the heroic continent -- a time when enormous land masses, packed with hundreds of millions of people, are casually transformed into celebrities, major and minor. They are glamorous individuals, sometimes fabulous and sometimes dangerously flawed, imbued with human characteristics and superhuman powers.

In dinner conversations and opinion-page prognostications, we talk casually about India's courageous leap, South America's well-meaning error, Africa's fatal misstep. We collect them as if they were action figures, and play them off against each other.

All this metaphoric pressure makes it difficult to talk realistically about the actual state of life in the world's largest entities. Notably, when the word "China" is almost always preceded or followed by the word "rising," and often accompanied by the word "superpower," when we automatically assume that China is on the verge of becoming the world's mightiest power, for better or worse.

We make certain assumptions about China: Because it has seen an annual growth rate of more than 9 per cent for the past 30 years, because it has lifted 400 million of its citizens out of poverty and because it now exports a trillion dollars worth of products every year and owns the lion's share of America's consumer and mortgage debt, we assume that China must be following the path that Europe and then the United States once did: toward dominance of the world.

But a small circle of well-informed people are painting quite a different picture of China, stripping the gold-lamé robes away from its imperial figure and examining the actual decisions being made by the specific actors behind the curtain. China is not by any stretch a superpower, they argue -- it is a crude manufacturing economy built on monetary legerdemain, without any capability for economic or ideological leadership.

This case is strongly argued in a new book by British economic writer Will Hutton. The Writing on the Wall: China and the West in the Twenty-First Century offers a fascinating antidote to all those magazine cover stories about the Next Great Superpower and the Emerging Colossus. In an extremely detailed scrutiny of the Chinese corporation, he finds almost nothing that could be described as a sustainable economy. "There are no Chinese brands in the world's top hundred; and so far only two Chinese companies -- Huawei and Lenovo -- both very small -- can be called genuine multinationals," writes Mr. Hutton, a respected former editor of the Observer newspaper and head of the Work Foundation think tank.

China, he observes, has failed to develop a genuine entrepreneurial economy -- all but 15 per cent of its firms are state-controlled, and even the "private" firms are prisoners of the state; it relies on the West for inventiveness and entrepreneurship, largely because it "has developed neither a viable concept of the company nor the institutional network to support a company."

This is not an argument for simple free-market economics; Mr. Hutton is a left-wing economist, one of the authors of Britain's social-democratic transformation under the Labour Party. The most impressive thing about his book is that he proves, using a huge weight of evidence, that China's authoritarian government and state-run economy are not just annoying carbuncles on the side of a booming economy -- or, as some on the far left would argue, necessary tools for the growth of capital in the early stages of development. Rather, they are the specific impediments that prevent China from becoming anything more than a poor servant of the world's economy.

"Some people have called me a monotheist, Western, Anglo-Saxon liberal forcing my views on China, but that's not it -- these are basic facts of the economy," Mr. Hutton said in an interview this week. "China will fail unless it develops civil rights, guarantees of minimum living standards through a universalistic welfare state, property rights, education. These are what you have to endow individual citizens with in a functioning capitalist liberal democracy. Some say, 'You're trying to thrust Western values on China.' And I would say that I regard pluralism, justification and investment in human capabilities as universal human appetites."

His argument is drawn from the fundamentals of China's success story. Its industry is almost entirely dependent on two things: an artificially undervalued currency driving vast export sales, and finance from state-run banks, which draw their funds from the enormous savings of 900 million Chinese peasants, who rarely buy anything and put away most of their earnings.

Those bank loans are a disaster waiting to happen: A third or more of them, valued at $900-billion, have been deemed non-performing -- in other words, they won't be repaid. This is one element in a market-like economy burdened by all the worst features of a government-run system: From 13 to 17 per cent of the country's gross domestic product each year is lost to corruption; it takes $4 in investment to create $1 in return (many times higher than the rate in any other industrialized country).

The rural economy is shrinking, and the artificially low currency combined with the complete lack of a domestic economy is going to create enormous inflation. The only way to prevent this is to shift the country's savings abroad -- which would collapse the finance system -- or allow the currency to reflect its actual value. This is the disaster that beset Japan in the 1980s, and it has taken 15 years to recover.

Japan's recovery was a result of its strong domestic economy: People started buying things, and companies started making money. But China can't seem to break through that wall. This is where Mr. Hutton's argument is strongest. China's peasants and poor workers don't buy things, he demonstrates, because their country offers no pensions, hardly any public medical care, very little free education, and no welfare protections. That, combined with the disastrous one-child-per-family policy, means that Chinese use their earnings to protect themselves against future risk. They don't dare spend, because they don't have the basic guarantees and social protections that are the backbone of a functioning market.

"In order to lower the savings rate, you've got to do two things: You've got to provide a cradle-to-grave welfare state, and you've got to provide property rights," he says "In other words, you've got to give people capabilities. And you've got to have pensions and free health care for your kids and free education until you're 16. Otherwise, people will just save, colossally, and they won't create a domestic consumer market."

This should be no source of relief, since so much of our well-being is tied up with China's success (and we sure don't want the place to become an angry nationalist closed economy, as it was under Mao). But I'm persuaded by Mr. Hutton's argument: If this century is actually going to be China's century, then China is going to have to become a lot less like China, and a lot more like the rest of us. If you're one of the country's billion poor, harassed people, that should be welcome news.

I have not yet read Hutton’s book and I am unlikely to get to it until the Spring, at the earliest, so I don’t know if Hutton failed to make the argument or Saunders failed to report on the restlessness (I guess that’s the right word) of the emerging middle class.  There is considerable concern, I saw/heard during my last visit and I hear, again, from friends and acquaintances amongst the young (40 something) prosperous urban middle class about the safety of their property and investments.  They are pressing the government apparatus for a ‘rule based’ system in which there is equality at law.  They are getting tired of corruption and favouritism in the investment and real estate domains.  This is, purely, selfishness, of course but it is almost identical to Magna Carta 800 years ago – the rich will, inevitably, help the poor when they help themselves.

 

[GAP]

What happens when all those people find out that they are living in a paper mache economy and their savings have been stolen by the government?

At some point the Chinese economy is going to have to come out and integrate with the rest of the world's economies, and it is going to find itself lacking in value and credibility.

 

[CougarKing]

Economics aside,

While some may think that the Chinese Navy/PLAN may not necessarily be much of a threat now, it will certainly be a growing threat in the coming decades- especially to Taiwan/the ROC. Regardless of whether the CCP/the state focuses on economic or military buildup or even political reform (more unlikely), the mainland Chinese economy will still grow as long as the govt.s keep some form of stability. But ensuring that stability calls for the threat of force, of which a larger military is what would make sure this is not an idle threat. Thus, a core part of China's naval build-up as mentioned earlier would be on the submarine front.

While Taiwan's surface fleet is of comparatively better quality  (including the French-built Lafayette/Kang Ding class as well as the US Kidd class DDGs and the US Perry Class Frigates leased/sold to the ROCN in recent years) than the Chinese destroyers and Frigates, its submarine force is still vastly outnumbered. Namely, it only has 2 Dutch-built Hai-Lung class subs and the two "Guppy"-type modernized WW2-era subs, which are all it has to face the more than 60 Chinese Submarines, including the 5 Han Class SSNs, a number of Kilo class SSKs bought from the Russians as well as the single Xia SSBN, not to mention the new Yuan class submarine.

I discused the possibility of Taiwan possibly buying the old USS Dolphin, a research submarine that is also the USN's last SSK, but those who responded to this other thread said it would be of "doubtful" value or use since it is not really in fighting shape.

http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/57053/post-522391.html#new

In my Mandarin language studies in Taipei for a semester in early 2006, I came across a China Post article that said that the ROC govt. had planned to buy 8 Diesel submarines from the US, but that the deal had not fallen through because of Chinese actions to block the sale. The Kidd class DDGs were recently leased to Taiwan by the US to help make up for the lack of submarines, though I'll leave it to the naval experts on this thread to confirm just how good an ASW capability these destroyers have- with or without an ASW chopper.

I think the ROCN should have found a way to acquire subs at all costs, instead of leasing those Kidds. Unfortunately, most of the prospective submarine vendors recognize Beijing as the "one China" and only have trade links with Taipei. That includes the Swedish with their AIP subs, as well as the Russians, French, Brits, Germans and Americans with their SSNs and SSKs. The lack of diplomatic recognition has always been a problem for the ROC, it did not prevent them from acquiring more defensive weapons from the US such as F-16 fighters and Mirage fighters from France; it is more offensive weapons like subs that can be a problem.

Of those 30 or UN member nations who still recognize the ROC as the "one China", none of them I think has a sub capability or are too poor to have much of a decent navy, such as Nicaragua, Guatemala and Liberia. The last nation to have a sub capability which recognized Taiwan as "China" was South Africa, but they recently switched recognition to Beijing back in 1999.

 

[karl28]

Maby  Taiwan should consider trying to by some of the US Los Angeles class attack subs when they are retired and phased out by the newer Virginia class subs

 

[tomahawk6]

Great article on PLAN shipbuilding.
http://www.freewebs.com/jeffhead/redseadragon/planbuildup.htm

 

[karl28]

tomahawk6  Thanks for posting  I just skimed over it briefly but will look more into it later on

 

[CougarKing]

Maby  Taiwan should consider trying to by some of the US Los Angeles class attack subs when they are retired and phased out by the newer Virginia class subs

I really doubt that the US govt. would be willing to sell any advanced attack subs to any ally, especially the Flight II and Flight III groups of the Los Angeles attack boats are still quite advanced with their BSY-1 systems, with the latter flight having the Tomahawk missile launch capability. The Flight I group of the class may be a possibility since they're older and less advanced, but they are still nuclear boats and I doubt they would like their nuclear propulsion technology to be shared as well to non-NATO allies like Taiwan.

The US hasn't sold any subs to any foreign ally/buyer since the 50s and 60s when a few modernized "Guppy" modified Gato/Balao class boats left over from WW2 were sold to a number of nations, including Pakistan and Taiwan (the ROC).