News Analysis
President Obama’s former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates could very likely give the president some insight into what is happening this week in China as the world’s political leaders meet in Beijing, while representatives of the world’s militaries gather in the southeastern city of Zhuhai.
Gates met with military leaders in China in January 2010 for what he believed would be a friendly and necessary dialogue. Close to six months prior to his trip, he had played down the threat of China’s J-20 stealth fighter jet, saying it would not be in Chinese service until the 2020s.
While Gates was in China in 2010, the Chinese regime ran its first test-flight of the J-20.
The defense community perceived this as a message, one not meant for the public, but with a clear and aggressive purpose.
The Chinese regime is again playing the same game. While the attention of the public and the global media is on the 2014 Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit meeting in Beijing, the Chinese regime is hosting an arms show in Zhuhai that has the attention of global military and security leaders.
China’s state-run media is touting a common line that this APEC summit represents a milestone: the APEC meeting heralds a larger Chinese role in global politics. From Xinhua to People’s Daily to China’s Global Times, the Chinese regime is portrayed as a powerful country ready to expand its influence.
While the state-run media portrays China as a peaceful country taking its rightful place in global politics, the United States is described as a troublemaker trying to prevent China from achieving its legitimate goals.
So, as the Chinese regime uses APEC to present an image of global peace and prosperity, it simultaneously uses the Zhuhai Air Show China 2014 to project louder than ever a message of aggression and military power.
“You don’t put that much new stuff on display unless you’re trying to make a huge statement,” said William Triplett, former chief counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and an expert on national security, in a phone interview.
At Zhuhai, the Chinese regime seems to be holding nothing back. It has unveiled more than a dozen cutting-edge weapons systems that could challenge U.S. military dominance, including weapons that defense experts had believed China was far from completing.
Among the new weapons are a supersonic anti-ship missile, new GPS-guided artillery shells, new tactical kill lasers, a new export version of its stealth fighter jet, and its Y-20 heavy freighter, which could help the regime extend its military reach.
“I go to arms shows around the world, and you don’t have that type of splash across the board,” Triplett said. “That doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen that way normally. I’ve been to all these things.”
