Impacts- Econ Bad- A2: China Arms I/L

Impacts- Econ Bad- A2: China Arms I/L

Thus, in recent years China has built up its nuclear weapons and missile potential in the Taiwan Straits; by 2005 the number of systems it has in this area will have risen from 650 to 800. Beijing is also accelerating the development of land- and sea-launched cruise missiles, which will be available for the army in just a few years. At the same time, it has stationed long-range anti-aircraft missiles of the Russian type S-300 PMU1 in the region, with the intent of severely restricting Taiwanese and American air operations during any conflict.

In the global arena, too, China is trying to change the strategic military balance in coming years, and to this end has given priority to the expansion of its nuclear-strike capability. At present China has only 300 strategic and 150 tactical nuclear warheads, but in the next decade the number of strategic nuclear warheads could rise to between 600 and 900. While the other four declared nuclear powers have either frozen nuclear-weapons programs at their current level (Great Britain and France), or, like the US and Russia, have contractually undertaken to reduce their strategic nuclear arms potential to fewer than 1500 warheads each in the third Strategic Arms Reductions Talks (START III), China is so far not party to any START or Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) agreement and can therefore continue to expand its nuclear weapons arsenal both qualitatively and quantitatively, with virtually no restrictions. An increase to between 600 and 900 warheads would by the year 2010 dramatically change the ratio of China’s warheads, especially to the nuclear arsenal of Russia. As Russia may have only 800 to 900 warheads after 2007, military and strategic parity in the nuclear weapons arsenal is now only a question of time. Russia would then have made a considerable contribution itself to the shift in the balance of military power in Asia and the world through its own armaments exports and, in particular, through technology transfer to China. This could negatively influence Russia’s own mid- and long-term security above all–a consequence that many Russian security experts are still unwilling to acknowledge at present.

As China is also increasingly linking nuclear and conventional strike options in its own nuclear doctrine of “flexible response,” its nuclear-weapons capability acts primarily as a deterrent in regional high-tech wars. It is thus intended to deter external powers like the US from military intervention, while enabling China to use its superior conventional forces effectively in the pursuit of its political goals. The development of the nuclear-weapons arsenal therefore also has high relevance to the security of China’s smaller neighbors. The People’s Republic is less interested in creating a true military balance than in building up effective military deterrent capabilities against the United States, in order to increase sharply the US vulnerability and thus raise the threshold of American intervention through a scenario of “asymmetric warfare.” Against this background of antagonistic security perceptions and concepts, the security dilemmas in East Asia could be further aggravated.

Impacts- Econ Bad- China - US/ China Rel

The Chinese have been driving a very hard bargain with the rest of the world with their managed currency policy. China has benefitted tremendously from joining the open world economy. However, free trade is not an inalienable sovereign right. China's growing economic power comes with the role of being a responsible global actor by playing by the same rules as its trading partners. The U.S. has grown weary of waiting for the Chinese government to come around at a time when it is also economically weakened. In short, the time has come for the renminbi to be revalued upward or U.S. action will occur. What is China's realpolitik calculation? China's leadership, emboldened for example by the failure of the U.S. to navigate the world away from a near financial collapse and Google's recent blink, is growing more confident. It is reasonable to assume that China will increasingly flex its economic muscles and may reject the U.S.'s request for a change in its currency policy. The Chinese government stubbornly detests public pressure from foreign government officials. Yet the Chinese leadership appears to only move when they are forced to do so. And often when they do finally make a change, as with the most recent renminbi move, they barely budge. At the same time, it is highly unlikely the U.S. will quietly surrender its role as the world's dominant superpower. And the pressure is growing to take swift, assertive action on the renminbi as calls to "do something" grow louder in the face of a deteriorating domestic economy.