La Cina cerca di battere sul tempo
– Il 10 gennaio 2011 leader militari cinesi hanno voluto presentare sulla scena internazionale il primo aereo da guerra cinese Stealth, il Chengdu J-20, in occasione della visita del segretario americano alla Difesa, Gates,
o un cambio di strategia rispetto alle direttive in vigore con Deng Xiaoping,
o che rispecchia la cultura dei nuovi ricchi cinesi, desiderosi di dimostrare quanto sono in grado di fare, non di nasconderlo.
– Il J-20, considerato l’emblema dell’ascesa della potenza cinese e del declino di quella USA,
o che hanno avuto intoppi tecnici e sovrapprezzi nello sviluppo del proprio stealth F35, e si ritiene che riducano la produzione dell’altro stealth, l’F-22 Raptor.
– La presentazione del J-20 è stata poco più di una trovata pubblicitaria; si tratterebbe di un miscuglio di progetti americani e russi, con scarsa innovazione cinese;
o e non potrebbe entrare in servizio prima di un decennio.
– Il J-20 è un grande aereo che in futuro potrebbe essere usato come intercettore di ampio raggio o come arma anti-accesso, in grado di operare oltre la seconda catena di isole, comprendente Guam, sede i di un’importante base aerea americana.
o Per operazioni di questo tipo il rifornimento aria-aria cinese non è ancora adeguato.
o Un analista dell’aviazione militare americana: i cinesi non sono assolutamente alla pari con l’Occidente; il J-20 rappresenta un miglioramento, ma è lungi dall’assomigliare alla attuale generazione di aerei Usa; è sovradimensionato, la sua forma ricorda gli aerei progettati negli anni 1980.
o La vera sfida è l’avere tutte le industrie capaci di fornire tutte le capacità chiave; non si ritiene che la Cina abbia sviluppato le varie industrie di supporto – che forniscano tecnologie come motori, sistemi di guerra elettronica, radar avanzati, collegamenti dati, sistemi di comando e controllo, etc. – che renderebbero il J-20 una minaccia reale per gli Usa.
o Anche se il J-20 entrasse in produzione fra 7-10 anni non è probabile che rientri nella stessa classe tecnologica degli F-22, F-35 o del russo T-50.
– C’è chi non concorda su queste critiche, e valuta che il J-20 rappresenta una importante sfida; l’F-35 o l’F/A-18E/F Super Hornet non sarebbero in grado di competere con esso, per non parlare di penetrare in un’area da esso difesa.
– La lobby americana della Difesa lo ha interpretato come minaccia alla sicurezza Usa, ed ha cercato senza riuscirci di far proseguire la produzione dell’F-22, da essa considerato ultima garanzia del controllo dei cieli: Gates, che ha interrotto il programma dell’F-22, sta per dimettersi, e chi lo sostituirà ne farà probabilmente continuare la produzione.
La fiducia è un dovere per un vertice tra superpotenze
– Tesi Asia Times: Per dialogo e cooperazione Usa-Cina. Occorrono idee “rivoluzionarie” per un modo rivoluzionato, niente pregiudizi sulla forma democratica di Stato:
o India: negli ultimi 70 anni la politica indiana è stata controllata dalla famiglia Nehru/Gandhi;
o Giappone: da 150 è al potere lo stesso gruppo di samurai cha avviò la riforma Meiji a metà XIX secolo;
o Per la non democratica Cina, la democrazia è vista solo come strumento; d’altro canto i leader non sono tratti solo da un numero ristretto di famiglie; e la più stabile istituzione dell’Occidente, la Santa Sede, non è una democrazia.
o Aumenterà la competizione per il potere ma non necessariamente con scontri bellici,
o se Usa e Cina si assumeranno assieme la leadership, costruendo tra essi una relazione di fiducia, una possibilità che sembra indicata da una serie di contrastanti segnali che la Cina sta inviando.
● Per gli Usa di Obama la sfida non è solo la Cina, nuova superpotenza in ascesa, ma il nuovo scenario internazionale costellato da diversi e ampi centri di potere.
o Alla fine della crisi americana la sua quota sul PIL mondiale sarà minore di quanto lo era agli inizi della crisi nel 2008.
– La Cina non desidera assumersi da sola il ruolo di potenza mondiale con le responsabilità che comprende, e neppure il Giappone o uno dei paesi europei concentrati sui problemi all’interno.
o La Russia potrebbe desiderarlo, ma non sarebbe accettata da diversi paesi.
– Secondo rapporti americani i più alti leader civili cinesi non erano a conoscenza dimostrazione di potenza rappresentata dal test sul nuovo aereo da guerra stealth della Cina, durante la visita del ministro Difesa Usa; il che suscita una serie di domande:
o le forze armate cinesi stanno prendendo il controllo della politica estera?
o la Cina sta programmando una corsa agli armamenti con gli Usa, al di là la delle dichiarazioni ufficiali di sviluppo pacifico?
o O fa solo parte della enorme confusione nelle comunicazioni di politica estera?
– 18 gennaio 2011, a Washington vertice Usa-Cina, la prima e seconda potenza economica mondiale; in declino relativo il peso relativo di Europa, Giappone e Usa,
o mentre aumenta quello di Cina, India, Brasile, Sud Africa ed Arabia Saudita,
o in 10 anni il loro PIL complessivo potrebbe superare la quota di quello USA sul Pil mondiale.
– Gli Usa hanno il vantaggio di essere un paese di immigranti, in grado di importare le migliori menti del mondo, anche dai paesi emergenti Cina, India, Brasile, Sud Africa, con tensioni relativamente minori rispetto a paesi con maggiore uniformità etnica. Questi immigrati potrebbero servire a creare legami e stabilizzare le relazioni con i loro paesi di origine.
– Impantanati ad inizio secolo nelle due guerre minori di Irak e Afghanistan, gli Usa non sono in grado di controllare da soli – ed è improbabile che intendano risolvere con la guerra – una serie di contese in paesi molto più grandi e con questioni più importanti che non l’Irak o l’Afghanistan:
o nell’Africa Occidentale, tra le aree più infiammabili del mondo, la Nigeria, 160mn. di abitanti, circa il 42% dei quali sotto i 14 anni, che potrebbe in dieci anni divenire più popolosa degli Usa; una bomba demografica poggiante su importanti riserve petrolifere;
o In Medio Oriente l’Iran che, con o senza la bomba atomica, vuole riacquistare lo status di potenza regionale,
o cosa che finirà per scatenare attriti con l’Arabia Saudita, il cui sistema di governo è ancora semifeudale;
o o con la Turchia, una delle poche democrazie del mondo musulmano.
– Non sono da escludere futuri conflitti tra le medie potenze in MO e in Africa tra Nigeria e Stati confinanti; come pure attorno a Cina e India.
o Il Pakistan sta balcanizzandosi …
Tensioni che potrebbero presto divenire di importanza mondiale, dato che poggiano su riserve energetiche sensibili, che decidono il prezzo e la base degli scambi commerciali mondiali.
– Former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping once advised his future successors to bide their time and hide their capabilities, but China’s military leadership has this month done precisely the opposite, appearing in a big hurry to show the world exactly what they are capable of. It is as though China’s first working stealth jet was just too exciting a development to be left sitting unsung in the hangar – especially with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates about to come calling.
– The story of the Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter, whose existence was revealed at the turn of the year, is perhaps more remarkable for what it says about the bravura of China’s rulers – and about the West’s reactions – than for what it reveals about the future capability of the Chinese air force.
– Beijing’s decision to trumpet the J-20’s development resides within the culture of conspicuous wealth which China’s urban residents will recognize as a trait of the country’s moneyed elite. This is a generation that flaunts its capabilities, not hides them; and as the newest, flashiest expression of China’s wealth and vigor the stealth plane simply had to be put on parade where the whole world could see it. The big question is whether we are right to be impressed by their technological achievement.
– On January 10, the J-20 prototype took its first flight above Chengdu, provincial capital of Sichuan, but amid the media sensation it was unclear how best to interpret the aircraft’s emergence, with the J-20 having become central to two contrasting narratives about the nature and implications of China’s military modernization.
– In the first, the J-20 has become an emblem of the rise of China and the decline of American power. With the US experiencing technical holdups and huge cost overruns in the development of its own stealth fighter, the F-35, and poised to axe production of its other stealthy jet, the F-22 Raptor, China has displayed its growing confidence and technical prowess by debuting the J-20 years earlier than Western analysts were predicting.
– In the second, the J-20’s unveiling was little more than a publicity stunt on the part of a government that would sooner try to stoke, rather than calm, American fears. A mishmash of outdated US and Russian design features, the aircraft displayed no signs of genuine Chinese innovation and remained a decade away from active service, its detractors have argued. As a weapon system, its primary role was as a pin with which to prick Gates, whose bridge-building trip to Beijing coincided with the aircraft’s appearance on the Chengdu tarmac.
– What’s clear from the pictures crowding the Chinese blogosphere is that the J-20 is a big aircraft, which may point to a future role as a long-range interceptor or as an anti-access weapon with the ability to operate beyond the second island chain, which includes Guam, home to an important US airbase.
– However, China’s air-to-air refueling capability is not yet mature enough to support this kind of long-range mission, and the J-20’s size may point to technical limitations – most likely with the plane’s engines, which Chinese industry is yet to build capably – rather than strategic choice.
– Whatever the case, the American defense lobby was always likely to interpret the J-20 as a severe threat to US security, having fought a long (and unsuccessful) campaign to keep building the F-22 – an air superiority fighter which they regard as the ultimate guarantor of America’s command of the skies.
– Indeed, the J-20 may have handed the F-22 one final lifeline. Gates, who killed the F-22 program, is about to step down, and his replacement could conceivably hand the Raptor an eleventh-hour reprieve and keep the production line turning.
However, any such a decision would be most wisely taken as a hedge against further pitfalls in the development path of the F-35, the aircraft selected as the mainstay of future US air power at the F-22’s expense – and not as a knee-jerk reaction to the J-20’s arrival.
– "This is a useful reminder that more F-22s would be good," says aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia, the vice president of analysis at the Teal Group and an advocate of the proven Raptor. "But any suggestion that the Chinese have reached parity with the West is absolutely ridiculous. It’s an awful lot of hysteria. The J-20 represents a certain degree of progress, but it is very far from being anything like a current-generation US aircraft."
– In Aboulafia’s estimation, the J-20 prototype "looked very unimpressive". He says that the aircraft is oversized and that its canards – the fins positioned between the cockpit and the wings – will reduce its stealth characteristics. Its shape is reminiscent of "how you designed planes in the 1980s", he suggests.
o The J-20’s front end does indeed look a lot like an F-22, which first flew in 1990, while its back end recalls an old Russian MiG prototype. So the J-20 does not, it seems, signify a breakthrough in indigenous Chinese innovation, instead splicing together used American and Russian ideas.
– In any case, "the real challenge isn’t building a prototype," Aboulafia continues. "It’s getting all the capable industries that give you the key enablers." His point is that while nobody knows what kind of systems are inside the machine that flew on January 10, China is believed not to have developed the many supporting industries – the providers of technologies such as engines, electronic warfare systems, advanced radar, data links, sensor fusion software, command and control systems – that would make the J-20 a true threat to the US military.
– As such, even if the J-20 does enter production seven to ten years from now, it is unlikely to be in the same technological class as the F-22, the F-35, or the T-50, a Russian stealth jet which had its first flight last year.
– Not all analysts agree with this downbeat assessment of the J-20’s capabilities, however. Writing on the Air Power Australia blog, Carlo Kopp and Peter Goon argue that the aircraft poses a formidable challenge. "Any notion that an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter or F/A-18E/F Super Hornet [an older, non-stealthy US fighter] will be capable of competing against this Chengdu design in air combat, let alone penetrate airspace defended by this fighter, would be simply absurd," they conclude.
This J-20 report card is far more glowing than most, and takes a lot for granted about what the untried jet will ultimately be capable of – if indeed it ever enters series production. Anyone confidently predicting that this plane will outgun the F-35 runs the risk of buying into the China mystique: that the all-conquering Chinese can accomplish anything they set their minds to.
– To be sure, some of China’s recent industrial and technological achievements have been impressive. But getting a world-beating stealth fighter into active service within the next decade is a fearsome challenge, even by Chinese standards.
– Only one aspect of the J-20 saga appears beyond dispute: that the plane’s unveiling was carefully stage-managed to coincide with Gates’ visit. It is worrying that the Chinese should have sought to ruffle Gates at a time when he was visiting Beijing specifically to mend Sino-US military relations.
– But in the end, China’s shock tactics may have backfired: Gates’ Pentagon analysts most likely told him that the J-20 is nothing much to worry about. Maybe Beijing’s top brass should have listened to Deng after all.
Trefor Moss is a freelance journalist who covers Asian politics, in particular defense, security and economic issues. He is a former Asia-Pacific editor for Jane’s Defense Weekly.
– BEIJING – While the world’s number one and number two economic powers, the United States and China, meet in Washington on January 18, the rest of the world will be watching intently over a summit that will impact everybody. As many analysts [1] have pointed out, the success of American-led globalization has redefined the centers of power and wealth.
– The relative weight of old economic centers such as Europe, Japan and United States is relatively declining as new ones, collectively called emerging markets, are taking center stage in the global economy.
o Besides China, countries like India, Brazil, South Africa and even Saudi Arabia are gaining influence.
o Their collective gross domestic product (GDP) could, in just as little as 10 years, surpass the percentage of global GDP produced by the US, once the only the superpower on the planet.
– Since the fall of the Soviet empire two decades ago, the wave of unprecedented innovation in technology, finance and trade unleashed by the US has dramatically changed the face of the world. The combination of the Internet revolution, new frontiers of mobile telecommunications and financial instruments, and the and advances in trade has spread wealth that was once concentrated only in the United States and a few other developed countries.
– This has, first of all, made unprecedented fortunes in Wall Street, America’s financial heart. However, the spread of economic power to countries that used to be political dwarves has changed the balance of power in the world. America no longer monopolizes the supremacy it once had when its only super enemy, the Soviet Union, was defeated in 1989. Presently, it sees its clout under siege by a crowd of countries whose production has been delocalized by US industry and commerce. Now those countries have grown rapidly in relatively independent economic production centers no longer fully hooked on American control. It is a time of a new world order that will need new global architecture, and one which should take into account not simply what the situation is now, but what shape it could take in a few decades, if not years.
– Nigeria, for instance, now a country of 160 million people with about 42% of the population under 14 years of age, could within a decade grow to be more populous than the United States. This demographic bomb sits on very important oil reserves, is enveloped by West Africa, one of the most politically fractious areas in the world, and soon become one of its biggest trouble spots.
– Iran, with or without a nuclear head the fanatical mullah may now covet, wants to regain its status as a regional power, something that is bound to cause clashes or at least attrition with Saudi Arabia, a kingdom still stuck in the middle ages, or with Turkey, one of the few vibrant democracies in the Muslim world. These issues could soon become global as they stand on delicate energy reserves determining the price and the basis of trade of the world.
– It is impossible for the United States to single-handedly control all of these issues which are now far beyond its reach. In fact, the United States became bogged down at the beginning of this century, when it was at the height of its power and wealth, into two relatively minor wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
– So it is most unlikely that in the future, the United States could try to solve through recourse to war problems arising in Iran or Nigeria. These are much bigger countries with much bigger issues than Iraq or Afghanistan.
– The challenge facing US President Barack Obama now, a few days before meeting president Hu Jintao in Washington, is not simply how to deal with the new rising superpower, China, but it is how to start coping with a world in which there are too many, overly large centers of powers.
– It is a world where, as a 2003 book published in China claims (Xin Zhan Guo Shidai by Li Xiaoning, Qiao Liang, Wang Xiangsui, Wang Jian, Xinhua Publishing House), many states will be competing for power. In this situation, with a global fragmentation of power, diversifying agendas and priorities peppered by the rise of new extremists in the form of radical Islam, there could be global conflicts or major conflicts of global relevance in many parts of the world.
– Wars between Saudi Arabia and Iran, or between Nigeria and some of its neighbors, are not impossible, as there are not impossible wars around China and India.
o Meanwhile, Pakistan is becoming day by day a de facto balkanized state.
– In this situation, perhaps America has two important tasks: save itself from the present crisis and save the world from major conflicts. It is important that the United States saves itself and maintains a leadership role in the world because no other country is by any means ready to take the helm of this leadership.
– China, presently economy number two, is not eager to take over the role of global leader with all the responsibilities this role entails, neither is Japan or any European country, all of which are very inwardly focused.
– Only Putin’s Russia would possibly have the ambition and the mindset to lead the world, but not many countries would like Russia to take this lead.
– At the end of the American crisis there would be an important though relative difference – its relative GDP will be smaller in global terms than it was at the beginning of the crisis in 2008. But no matter how small its relative economic weight might be, it could still be the center of innovation and intelligence in the world, providing a standard, a point of reference, a moral guidance for all to follow.
– In all this, America has the immense advantage of being a country of immigrants, that is: it could import all the best talents in the world to try and provide solutions with relatively minor social tensions than countries with greater "ethnic" unity.
– America needs to import more bright foreigners who are first and foremost the students graduating in American universities and then possibly plan on importing the best minds from emerging markets – China, India, Brazil, South Africa. Those minds, once in America, on the one hand, could help America’s growth and on the other could help to link American development with the development and better understanding of their original motherland.
– In this way, millions of new young people coming to the United States to study and contribute to American global growth could provide an active stabilization pattern in ties between America and those other states. This wave of international students could dramatically change the social fabric of America.
But in this change, both America and the world could have a path for salvation. Moreover, the whole architecture of global institutions could be changed and also global issues of values could be reconsidered. A global process of political transparency and democratization in the main countries could be held together, but without simple preconceptions of old stereotypes.
– The Chinese are changing a political system that over the past 30 years has produced one of the most dramatic and successful transformations in the world. On the other hand, many Chinese are skeptical about the "democratic" system in countries like India or Japan.
– In India, the Nehru/Gandhi family has controlled national politics for the past seventy years, while in Japan the same group of samurai who started the Meiji reformation in the middle part of the 19th century have been in power for 150 years.
– In undemocratic China, top leaders are not selected exclusively from a tiny pool of revolutionary families.
– This is not to say that democracy shouldn’t be advocated and expanded in China and that Indian or Japanese democracies do not provide positive examples. But for pragmatic Chinese, "democracy" should not be considered as an absolute value, but rather an instrument, also because the oldest and most stable institution in the West, the Holy See, is not a democracy.
– In this way, we have to be ready to change much of our mindset. This is the task in which America, which has revolutionarily elected its first black president, symbolically the son of its former slaves, could make a breakthrough and point the way to the new rising power, Hu’s China. Perhaps this is something we should expect from this summit or the times following it: revolutionary ideas for a revolutionized world. Although competition for power may increase, we do not necessarily have to move to a new period of warring states.
– Still, we must be very much aware that this could be a real possibility in the future. The US and China have to take the lead to defuse most of the future tensions and build mutual trust, something that could be quite difficult, given what has happened between the two countries in the past year.
– However, the very next step of this trust could come from China, from where a bag of mixed signals are being sent. During the recent visit by US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates China test-flew its new stealth aircraft. According to American reports Chinese top civilian leadership was unaware of the test, which took place right when Gates was meeting with President Hu Jintao.
– This raises many questions. Is the Peoples’ Liberation Army taking over control of foreign policy?
– Is China deliberately planning an arms race with the US despite the official policy of peaceful development?
– Is it simply part of the grand confusion of foreign affairs brief in China? (see Too many cooks spoil foreign-policy stew Asia Times Online, January 7, 2011). Either signals are very worrying and would need major reconsideration by China’s top leadership.
Note 1. The United States, China and the New Global Geometry. Remarks at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center by Chas W Freeman Jr, November 10, 2010, Middle East Policy Council.
Francesco Sisci is the Asia Editor of La Stampa. His e-mail is fsisci@gmail.com