NATO bombing, US Spy Stories Reverberate Loudly in China Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Mon, 07 Jun 1999 18:06:45 source - "Henry C.K. Liu" Military voice grows louder in spat with US By Cary Huang - Hong Kong Standard. THE Cox Committee report and Nato's bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade will strengthen the military's political influence in Beijing. Both events have fuelled anti-US sentiments across the country and reinforced the belief that Washington is trying to contain China. Ten years after the tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square to crush the pro-democracy movement, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has lost much of its clout in domestic politics. The death of paramount leader Deng Xiaoping in 1997 marked the end of an era when leaders' political power came from their military background. And the death of military strongman and ex-president Yang Shangkun last year further weakened the PLA's sphere of influence. The civilian government led by President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji has, in the past few years, succeeded in reining in the army, as witnessed by Mr Jiang's order to scrap the army's huge business empire and the declining PLA representation in the decision-making process. Army representatives in the current Central Committee of the Communist Party have dwindled to 20 per cent from 33 per cent in 1992. And their seats in the all-powerful Politburo have diminished to only two against more than 50 per cent in the Maoist era. The PLA's only seat in the powerful standing committee was removed in the National Party Congress in 1997. Despite being kept out of the mainstream decision-making process, the army remains the most influential single constituency in Chinese politics. The high-tech wizardry of the West, demonstrated by Nato air strikes against Yugoslavia, has sparked fears among leaders that the last major socialist nation lags far behind its western rivals in combat. Nato's bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on 7 May has convinced the leadership that the next step for the United States is a Nato-like intervention in Beijing's struggles with an independence-minded Taiwan, or the ethnic minority-dominated Tibet and Xinjiang. The war in Yugoslavia, combined with antagonism heightened by the Cox report, has prompted calls from PLA officers to develop and acquire more sophisticated weaponry. Domestic credibility China, which has sought for 20 years to modernise its military, increased defence spending by 10 per cent last year. Even so, Beijing's military budget is still less than 5 per cent of that of the US. The US House of Representatives' select committee recommendation that it withhold the sale of military technology to China, and that it should lead the world in enforcing multinational export controls will force Beijing to become self-sufficient in arms development. Towards this end, more funds and resources will be diverted into research and development of its own home-made arms industry. In the past couple of weeks, top military officers and experts have pressed for more funds to be allocated to develop defence technology. They say Beijing should set up a fund-raising mechanism ``as a matter of urgency''. Though Mr Jiang has staked Beijing's foreign policy agenda and his domestic credibility on a ``strategic partnership'' with Washington, the recent developments have led to internal debate on foreign policy objectives. Mr Jiang, the PLA's commander-in-chief, has had to adjust somewhat his policy agenda to address the concerns of the powerful military constituency in order to maintain his status as the last arbiter in policy-setting. As a result of the tougher foreign policy, the government will have to make compromises to the army and increase the military budget in coming years. And, with the belief that the US considers China a potential enemy, the technocrat-led government would be forced to allow the military to move closer to centre-stage in both domestic and foreign affairs. [Cary Huang is Hong Kong Standard's China Editor.] ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytas-06.09.99-10:15:50-9023