CIAO DATE: 04/02

Chinese Military Modernization and Asian Security

I'll speak on the question of Chinese military defense modernization and its implications for the Asian security environment. I'll try to keep my remarks at a level where we can talk about broader issues and concepts, and the implications of all this for regional evolution in the security environment, U.S. security interests, U.S.-Japan relations, etc. I want to cover four different areas in my remarks.

First, I'll speak a little bit about the logic, as I see it, behind Chinese military modernization. What drives it and what are some of its objectives? Second, what can we say about the kinds of capabilities that will likely result from China's military modernization effort? I will look out roughly ten years and then as far as twenty years. Keep in mind that the longer you get out on this timeline, the more everything becomes informed speculation and subject to enormous caveats of various types. But I'll nonetheless try to assess capabilities from a reasonably long-term perspective. Then I'll address the implications of what I see in these capabilities for the Asian security environment–what do they imply for specific issues of interest for the United States and its allies? Finally, I'll say something about how to respond to all this. What sorts of things could be done today in the near term to deal with Chinese military modernization and its implications?

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