High-tech China-US arms race threatens to destabilise East Asia

After decades of peace, East Asia is racked with tension – and its two dominant military powers are jostling for supremacy in an extremely alarming way.

The US and China are accumulating increasingly advanced military systems to enable and enhance the assets they already have. With the Trump administration’s foreign policy still unclear and China’s aspirations to regional supremacy as ambitious as ever, they are racing to denyeach other the upper hand by rolling out new military assets. 

The result is a dangerous spiral of destabilisation and escalation. If there’s a major conflict or crisis in the region – whether over North Korea, the South China Sea, or something else – this obsession will give both sides an incentive to strike first so as to protect their vulnerable battlefield assets.

This is especially true on the Chinese side. While there’s been plenty of coverage of China’s traditional warfighting capabilities, including its “carrier killer” anti-ship missiles, far less ink has been spilt examining Chinese thinking on the high-tech systems that enable and enhance these advanced weapons. 

These systems expand the range, accuracy, and lethality of Beijing’s military power projection. This warfighting toolkit includes long-range precision strike missiles for use in early and preemptive strikes; stealth jet fighters to bypass enemy air defences and destroy its command and control centres; anti-satellite missiles to take out critical space-basedintelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems; and other emerging technologies such as railguns, “stealth-defeating” quantum radar, and autonomous systems.

If China can integrate these cutting-edge technologies with the conventional forces it already has, it could fundamentally alter the regional military balance – which is already rapidly moving in Beijing’s favour. 

According to one Chinese military magazine, China must be prepared to fight to safeguard and secure its “central leadership” in the South China Sea. 

It remains to be seen whether the People’s Liberation Army can overcome its deep-seated inter-service factionalism, endemic bureaucratic problems, and minimal combat experience with modern military hardware. But if it can, it could prove highly effective in a future amphibious assault on the contested Senkaku Islands, a blockade against Taiwan, or an action to control critical trading sea lanes in the South China Sea – and China’s neighbours probably couldn’t do much to resist.

The first ‘quantum power’?

In 2016, China launched the world’s first quantum satellite, Micius. Its communications experiments will showcase China’s rapid advances in quantum information science. Beijing clearly understands the strategic implications quantum technologies hold for future warfare. Indeed, some Chinese analysts have even compared the strategic impact of quantum power with nuclear weapons.

Worryingly for the Pentagon, Chinese strategists seem confident that their quantum communications capabilities are already fit to deploy in hypothetical “local wars”. If China can leapfrog the US to become the world’s first “quantum power”, it will pose a serious challenge to American military-technological superiority, especially in military stealth and intelligence-gathering capabilities.

To underline the gravity of this challenge, a White House official recently warned that the US’s information-centric ways of waging war are increasingly under siege from Chinese quantum technology. China has reportedly already developed a range of disruptive quantum technologies with military applications: “unhackable” quantum cryptography, sophisticated tools to decrypt military communications, and next generation stealth quantum radar.

Despite these challenges, the Pentagon has yet to commit meaningful resources to the development of quantum technologies. Apparently, the policy wonks have concluded that these systems would not significantly enhance military communication security. Instead of taking on this challenge head on, the evidence suggests that over the past five years, US funding for critical high-tech military technologies has actually decreased.

Conversely, even if China’s quantum technologies have only limited military utility, they could nonetheless radically and irreversibly shift the future military balance in Asia.

First strike

Washington’s main fear is that once Beijing overcomes various technical and organisational shortcomings, it will have lethally effective new tools to deploy in future preemptive and coercive missions in Asia. Specifically, it might be able to challenge US carrier strike groups and bases in the Western Pacific.

Equally worryingly, these capabilities could embolden Chinese leaders to behave more assertively and aggressively as they defend and expand their unresolved (and widely disputed) sovereignty claims – especially in the South China Sea.

As if further proof were needed, the Chinese Ministry of Defence responded to reports that the Trump administration is crafting a new arms package for Taiwan by asserting it would be “futile” for Taiwan to use military force to avoid unification with mainland China – speaking with exactly the confidence and resolve one might expect from a government equipped with a newly formidable military force.

This is all extremely concerning. Washington and Beijing must find a way to temper these destabilising dynamics and eliminate the incentives to strike first; if they don’t, the implications for both their relationship and the stability of Asia will be huge. 

As things stand, the Pacific’s two major powers are caught in a trap of uncertainty, insecurity, and instability. This is just the sort of climate in which defensive actions and rethoric are interpreted as aggressive; the result could be an arms race, and ultimately, full-blown conflict.

经过数十年的和平, 东亚是机架式的紧张-和它的两个主要的军事大国的争霸的极其令人震惊的方式。

美国和中国都在积累越来越多的高级军事系统的启用和增强已拥有资产。 与王政府的对外政策仍不明朗, 中国的愿望的区域霸权的雄心, 他们都争先恐后地 denyeach 其他上风推出新的军事资产。

结果是一种危险的螺旋形的势力和升级。 如果有重大的冲突或危机的地区——无论是在北韩的南中国海, 或其他的东西——这种执着会给双方一种激励先罢工, 以保护其脆弱的战场上的资产。

尤其是在中国的一边。 虽然已有大量的报道, 中国的传统的作战能力, 包括其"承运人的杀手” 的反舰导弹、远墨少了研究中国思想的高技术系统, 使这些先进的武器。

这些系统的范围扩大、精度和杀伤力, 北京的军事实力的投影。 这种作战工具包包括远距离精确打击导弹用于早期和先发制人的打击; 隐形战斗机绕过敌方空防和摧毁其指挥和控制中心; 反卫星导弹采取了至关重要的空间 basedintelligence、监视和侦察系统; 和其他新兴技术如 railguns “隐形的脚"量子雷达、自治的系统。

如果中国能够把这些先进的技术与传统的力量它已有的, 它可以从根本上改变该区域军事平衡-已迅速在北京的赞成。

据一位中国军事杂志, 中国必须准备打赢来维护和保护它的 “中央领导” 在南中国海。

但是否人民解放军能够克服其深层次的服务主义、普遍存在的官僚作风的问题, 和最小的作战经验与现代军事硬件。 但如果可以, 可以证明它是非常有效的在未来的两栖攻击的有争议的钓鱼岛、封锁台湾, 或采取行动, 以控制至关重要的贸易航线的南中国海-和中国的邻国可能不很抗拒。

第一 “量子电” 吗?

在2016年, 中国推出了世界第一的量子卫星 Micius。 其通信实验将展示中国在迅速发展的量子信息科学。 北京明确理解的战略影响量子技术的未来战争。 事实上, 中国某些分析师甚至比 “战略影响量子电源和使用核武器。

令人担忧的是, 美国国防部、中国的战略家们似乎不相信它们的量子通信功能已经适合部署在假设的 “地方大战”。 如果中国可以超越美国成为世界第一的 “quantum 电源”, 它将构成严重的挑战, 美国的军事技术上的优势, 尤其是在军事隐形和收集情报的能力。

要强调的严重性, 这一挑战, 一位白宫官员最近警告说, 美国的以信息为中心的进行战争的方式的日益围攻中国量子技术。 中国据说已经开发了一系列的破坏性量子技术的军事应用: “unhackable "量子加密技术、复杂的工具来解密军事通信和下一代隐形轰炸机量子的雷达。

尽管有这些挑战, 美国国防部尚未提交有意义的资源, 发展了量子技术。 显然, 政策 wonks 得出的结论是这些系统不会显著提高军事通信的安全性。 而不是考虑在这一挑战, 但有证据表明, 在过去的五年中, 我们的资金至关重要的高技术军事技术实际上下降了。

反之, 即使中国的量子技术仅有有限的军事实用程序, 它们仍可彻底和不可逆转地改变未来的军事平衡, 亚洲。

第一次罢工

华盛顿的主要担心的是, 北京一次克服了各种技术人员