Daily Times

“US fears over China long-range missiles”, ran The Financial Times’ front-page headline last week and an eight-column spread rammed the message home, that Washington is becoming worried that China is deploying mobile land- and sea-based missiles that have the range to hit the United States.
How is it that an otherwise sober newspaper chooses to make ballyhoo out of old news, and misleading news at that? Other papers chose not to address the subject in detail, apart from the Washington Post, which a day before ran a short story on page 17, noting that Congress was about to receive the administration’s annual report on China’s military power. But it also observed that “China’s current ability to sustain military power over long distances is limited.”
The military-industrial complex is one thing. At least we know what it is. But the military-academic-journalistic complex is another. We don’t know what it is or how exactly is works, except that Pentagon contracts for universities are ubiquitous and “freebies” for journalists, even if it is merely an all expenses paid trip to a prestigious conference, are an art form for the organisers.
Besides, most newspapers are riven in their security and military affairs departments with a macho culture — how rare it is for a woman to be writing about the critical security issues of the day. And how rare it is for a paper, as did the New York Times after the Iraq invasion went bad, to admit that it did an inadequate job of reporting the war’s run-up. How rare is it too for a senior politician to criticise television reporting, as does former US vice president, Al Gore in his new book. “If it bleeds it leads, if it thinks, it stinks”, he says of the networks’ cynical maxims. Or for former West German chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, to say, “It is very difficult as a reader or consumer of television to distinguish by one’s own judgement what is led by [lobbying] interests and what is led by rational conclusion.”
In July 2005 the Pentagon released a similar alarmist report to Congress, arguing that China has been raising its defence budget and modernising its military. But the truth is in recent decades China’s relative military power has actually declined. Its military effort peaked in 1971 at the end of the Cold War. From then on until rather recently deep cuts in military expenditure were the order of the day. It has reduced its army from five million to two. As for modernising it is procuring new weapons at a far slower rate than the old ones wear out.
For many decades China’s air force was the world’s largest. But today it has shrunk and more than a thousand (nearly half) of its combat aircraft are types long considered obsolete by other major air forces. Even Taiwan outnumbers China two to one in fourth-generation fighters. As for China’s navy, it is remarkably small.
The press often, as does the Pentagon, highlights China’s missile threat to Taiwan, reporting that it now has over 750 missiles pointing at the offshore island. But it has so few launchers it could only launch 100 at a time. Moreover, they are relatively inaccurate, easy to intercept and only a threat to cities, not to military targets. Taiwan, with its superior attack aircraft, could easily win an air war, even if some small parts of its major cities were destroyed by a missile attack. No wonder that the Taiwanese legislature keeps balking at legislation to finance the up to date military equipment that the Pentagon keeps telling it it must buy.
China would have to divert vast sums from economic development to defence if it wanted to even begin to catch up with the US. And the US would see it coming, giving it ample time to match it. Neither is going to happen. China is increasingly tied to the American economy and Taiwan is the source of much of its foreign investment and high-tech expertise. It would not make sense to China’s present leadership to push for a rapid increase in defence spending when the need is not apparent, the opportunities for military play so few and far between and calls on government spending for development and social purposes so intense. It is most unlikely that a country embarking on adding 10,000 kilometres of railway lines, including 2000 kilometres capable of taking 300 kilometres an hour German trains, is much interested in the unsettling and economically debilitating prospects of war.
Walter Lippmann reminded us that news and truth are not the same thing. “The function of news is to signalise an event; the function of truth is bring to light the hidden facts.” The press has to keep relearning this piece of wisdom.

The writer is a leading columnist on international affairs, human rights and peace issues. This column is based on his book, “Conundrums of Humanity”, published by Brill