Riding the Red Horse (32 page)

The government is trying to reduce the corruption and make the government more effective, but that has been the goal of Chinese leaders for thousands of years and has never been easy to achieve. To thoughtful Chinese their current government is simply another imperial dynasty pretending to be something new and different. But it’s the same old collection of wealthy, corrupt, and inept aristocrats doing whatever it takes to hang onto their wealth and power. Democracy might change that. However, the Chinese people have seen democracy work its magic in Taiwan and Singapore, so the old “democracy won’t work for Chinese” attitude is no longer very convincing. The imperial forms of government are not working in the 21st century and few Chinese are willing to go through another revolution to get a democracy. But the memory of what happened to the Russian communist empire in 1989-91 haunts the communist bureaucrats who run China. Mindful of Chinese history, they know very well that spontaneous mass uprisings can overthrow imperial rule. The people may not want a revolution but the people may, like the communist subjects of Eastern Europe and Russia did starting in 1989, start by saying “enough” and end up doing the unthinkable.

A similar scenario is threatening to play out in neighboring North Korea. There, an even harsher socialist dictatorship has threatened a key portion of China’s defensive strategy by coming closer to collapse. China wants buffer states on its borders to keep potential foes as far as possible from the heartland, the vast river valleys on the east coast of Asia that contain most of China’s agriculture, population, and industrial wealth. If North Korea collapses, China has a problem, and North Korea gets more unstable with every passing year. The most recent problem was the very public dismissal and execution of the uncle of 30 year-old North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The uncle, Jang Sung Taek, who is married to the sister of Kim Jong Uns father, was formally purged for corruption, but also because Jang was seen as being too cozy with China. He was a key Chinese asset in its attempt to get the North Koreans to reform their economy. But Jang overplayed his hand and was executed in December 2013, followed by all of his direct relatives and 200 of his supporters.

China is not happy and may push back by ending its cooperation in trying to reduce the number of people escaping from North Korea via China. North Korean secret police and intelligence agencies have been ordered to do more to prevent people from fleeing the country. This time around more attention is being paid to families that have a member who is missing and believed to be in China. There are over half a million of these missing North Koreans, and the intelligence services have done the math. They realize that once a family loses one member to the lures of China or South Korea, more tend to follow. The government is particularly keen to halt people from going to South Korea. North Korea asked China to crack down on such defections and the Chinese have been cooperating. That may stop and China may cancel permission for North Korean secret police to operate on the Chinese side of the border. But then North Korea might go after the large network of Chinese sympathizers in North Korea. There are no good options in North Korea, just less bad ones.

Meanwhile, China is trying to reduce tensions with India, at least temporarily. This is aided by the fact that Indian military analysts, especially those working for the media, are openly admitting that India is at a disadvantage versus China when it comes to military power. Indians admit that the Chinese forces are better equipped and that the situation is getting worse for India. This is a bitter new reality for Indians to deal with. For decades, when Pakistan was the main foe, India always had the technological edge, in addition to spending more than five times as much on defense and having nearly twice as many troops as Pakistan. But in the last decade the Pakistani threat has declined and China has become the main antagonist. China has about as many troops as India, but spends more than three times as much on defense. Chinese forces are increasingly equipped with more modern gear and more of it than their Indian counterparts. Now India knows how Pakistan has felt for so many years.

Western irritation with China goes beyond Chinese expansionism. Earlier this year it was revealed by Western Internet security researchers that a specific Chinese military organization, Unit 61398, has been responsible for over a thousand attacks on foreign government organizations and commercial firms since 2006. After Chinese denials, some Unit 61398 attacks ceased and others became more discreet for a month or so. But since, then Unit 61398 has apparently returned to business as usual. The Chinese found that, as usual, even when one of their Cyber War organizations was identified by name and described in detail there was little anyone would or could do about it. There was obviously a Chinese reaction when the initial news became headlines, but after a month or so it was realized that it didn’t make any difference and the Chinese crackers went back to making war on the rest of the world with their usual reckless abandon. Unit 61398 is believed to consist of several thousand full time military and civilian personnel as well as part-time civilians brought in for a specific project.

China's Cyber War crackers have become easier to identify because they have been getting cocky and careless. Internet security researchers have found identical bits of code and the techniques for using it in some of the hacking software used in commercial software sold by firms known to work for the Chinese military. Similar patterns have been found in code left behind during attacks on American military and corporate networks. The best crackers hide their tracks better than this, but the Chinese crackers have found that it doesn’t matter and their government will protect them. Chinese information-war operations are being tracked down and examined in detail in the West, but apparently Chinese leaders have decided to continue these operations and not make any serious efforts to conceal them.

In another first, China has found its first customer for its locally made submarines. Bangladesh has ordered two submarines from China. The specific type of sub was not mentioned but it was probably the Type 39 class, which is relatively modern and very similar to the Russian Kilo class that is a popular export item for Russia. The Type 39 is the first successful Chinese-designed, Chinese-built submarine. China currently has 13 Song class, 12 Kilo class, 7 Yuan class, and 18 Ming (improved Russian Romeo) class diesel-electric boats. The Song/Yuan class subs are meant to replace the elderly Mings. China is in the process of buying even more advanced diesel-electric submarine technology from Russia for a new class of boats. This may change if Russia gets upset about China exporting cloned Kilos, which is what the Songs appear to be. There are only 4 Shang class and 3 Han class SSNs, as the Chinese are still having a lot of problems with nuclear power in their subs.

India is alarmed that neighboring Bangladesh is planning to buy Chinese submarines, especially since Bangladesh has never had subs before. Bangladesh is the largest customer for Chinese arms exports. India also suspects that Chinese subs have been operating in the Bay of Bengal. While China and India have been talking for months about reducing tension on their common border, China continues to claim Indian territory and establish bases in the Indian Ocean and Bay Of Bengal.

All this Chinese activity with its neighbors also includes Central Asia. To that end China has been enthusiastically pushing the activities of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). This is a regional security forum founded in Shanghai in 2001 by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Russia, and China. The main purpose of the SCO was originally fighting Islamic terrorism. Russia, however, hoped to build the SCO into a counterbalance against NATO. SCO members conduct joint military exercises, mostly for show. They also share intel on terrorists, which is often useful. Iran, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mongolia, and Turkey also want to join the SCO. These nations are allowed to send observers to meetings. China has put more emphasis on economic cooperation because greater Chinese economic power means that China is replacing Russia as the principal investor and trading partner throughout the region. Russia does not like to dwell on this, because it means China is expanding its economic and political power at Russian expense. On paper China is now the dominant military power in Eurasia, a fact that Russia likes to downplay. Many Russians fear that the aggression China is demonstrating with India and everyone bordering the South China Sea will eventually be turned towards Russia.

Despite the increasing tensions with Russia, Japan, India, Taiwan, and the Phillipines, the primary Chinese naval challenge remains the U.S. Navy, which has asked missile manufacturers to quickly design and build a target drone that will simulate sub-sonic Chinese anti-ship missiles. Previously the U.S. Navy had spent a lot of effort developing and building similar drones to simulate super-sonic anti-ship missiles. Apparently someone did the math and realized that the most likely near-term opponents (China, North Korea, or Iran) all had a lot of Chinese sub-sonic missiles. China sells a lot of these C-801 and C-802 anti-ship missiles. The C-801 is 5.81 meters long, 360mm in diameter, has a max range of 42 kilometers, and weighs 636 kg. The C-801 is similar to the French Exocet and is believed to have been based on that design. An improved C0801 is the C802A which is 6.8m long, 360mm in diameter, and 682 kg with a 165 kg warhead. The C802 has a max range of 120 kilometers and flies at about 250 meters a second.

The French Exocet missile is the same size and performance of the Chinese missiles but costs twice as much, being over a million dollars apiece. At 180 kilometers, the new Exocet MM Block 3 has greater range because of its turbojet engine. Exocet is a 670 kg missile that has been around for over three decades, has been proven in combat, and is known to be reliable. The C802 is less capable than the Exocet but it looks similar and the Chinese continue to improve their Exocet clones.

The U.S. Navy has requested a sub-sonic reusable target drone that has a top speed of about 900 kilometers an hour, comes in about a meter above the water, can pull 8 Gs while maneuvering, and has a max range of 700 kilometers. The target drone must float, last about for 20 flights, and cost less than $200,000. This missile would carry electronics to enable it to be maneuvered by a remote operator and monitor jamming efforts as well as flight information.

The Navy hopes to repeat an earlier success. Three years ago, after nearly a decade of development effort, it put its high-speed anti-ship missile simulator into service. This was the GQM-163A Coyote SSST (Supersonic Sea-Skimming Target), which is a 9.45 meter, 800 kg (1700 pound) missile with a combination solid fuel rocket and ramjet propulsion. It has a range of 110 kilometers, and a top speed of over 2,600 kilometers an hour. The Coyote is meant to give U.S. warships a realistic simulation of an attack by similar Russian cruise missiles like the 3M54 Klub. At least 39 GQM-163As are to be built at a cost of $515,000 each. The GQM-163A is the first U.S. missile to successfully use ramjet engines, and this technology can be now utilized in other missiles.

Coyote was developed in response to more countries arming themselves with high-speed anti-ship missiles. In particular, there is fear that the 3M54 (also known as the SS-N-27 or Sizzler) anti-ship missiles used on Chinese subs are unstoppable. But this is not necessarily true. India, a major customer for the Klub, has feuded with the Russians over repeated failures of the Klub during six test firings three years ago. The missiles were fired off the Russian coast using an Indian Kilo class submarine, the INS Sindhuvijay. That boat went to Russia in 2006 for upgrades. India refused to pay for the upgrades, or take back the sub, until Russia finally fixed the problems with the missiles.

Weighing two tons and fired from a 533mm torpedo tube on a Kilo class sub, the 3M54 has a 200 kg warhead. The anti-ship version has a range of 300 kilometers but speeds up to 3,000 kilometers an hour during its last minute of flight. There are also air-launched and ship-launched versions. A land-attack version does away with the high-speed final approach feature and has a 400 kg warhead. What makes the 3M54 particularly dangerous is its final approach, which begins when the missile is about 15 kilometers from its target. Up to that point, the missile travels at an altitude of about a hundred feet, which makes the missile more difficult to detect. The high-speed approach means that it covers the final fifteen kilometers in less than twenty seconds. This makes it difficult for current anti-missile weapons to take it down.

The 3M54 is similar to Cold War-era Russian anti-ship missiles, like the 3M80 Sunburn, which has a larger, 300 kg warhead, but a shorter 120-kilometer range. The 3M80 was still in development at the end of the Cold War and was finally put into service about a decade ago. Even older is the P700 Shipwreck, with a 550 kilometer-range and 750 kg warhead. The Shipwreeck entered service in the 1980s.

These missiles are considered carrier killers, but it is unknown how many of them would have to hit a carrier in order to knock it out of action, much less sink it. Moreover, Russian missiles have little combat experience and a reputation for erratic performance. Quality control was never a Soviet strength, but the Russians are getting better, at least in the civilian sector. However, the military manufacturers appear to have been slower to adapt.

It is feared that the U.S. Navy has no defense against missile like the Klub, and China is likely attempting to clone them just as they have attempted to clone other Russian technology. But the U.S. investment in target drones indicates the Navy is attempting to develop such defenses, assuming that it does not already possess them.

Commander Thomas A. Mays is on active-duty in the US Navy's surface fleet, and has served for nearly twenty years. Over the course of his career, he’s garnered experience in destroyers, frigates, carriers, and amphibious ships. He has been everything from a Chief Engineer and a Navigator, to a tactical instructor and a Range Operations Officer testing lasers, ballistic missile defenses, and anti-submarine tactics. He also has two degrees in Applied Physics, but tries not to let what he knows get in the way of a good story. Tom’s written a number of short stories such as “Strategic Deployment” and “The Rememberists”. Five other shorts, dealing heavily with human-AI interactions, are compiled in his anthology
REMO
. He’s also written a popular and very good mil-SF novel,
A Sword Into Darkness
. Check them out.