MARITIME ISSUES/CONFLICT IN ASIA PACIFIC REGION

The PLA has been largely preoccupied with maintaining inwrought order, but its influence within the government is still in truth strong. Since the mid-1980s, as China's economy has expanded so have expenditures on the PLA, the rate of gain which Bernstein and Munro (1997) estimated was about 160 portion between 1986 and 1994 and 12.7 percent in 1996-1997 (pp. 70 and xviii). Most of that increase has been devoted to the modernization and expansion of naval and air forces. As the world's third largest atomic author, the PRC had in 1995 about 225-300 nuclear weapons, including about 450 nuclear warheads deliverable by land-based missiles, bombers and a a few(prenominal) dozen intercontinental ballistic missiles which were described by Caldwell and Lennon (1995, Fall) as a "credible, minimum deterrent nuclear force" (p. 28).

Until the 1990s, the Chinese had a third class airforce, consisting largely of obsolete fifties and 1960s designed Soviet bombers, transports and older MIG class wiz planes. Since then, the Chinese have purchased 72 Russian modern SU-27s, and new(prenominal) modern supersonic aircraft. Their anti-aircraft defenses have been strengthened through the psychiatric hospital of electronic countermeasures and $250 million of AWACs type early warning microwave radar systems purchased from the Israelis (Crock, 1999, December 20, 1999, p. 68). However, Dobson and Fravel said in 1997: "most of China's aircraft cannot thus far reach the reciprocal ohm China Sea" (1997, September, 261). The basic restricting factors are

Causing offence. (1999, February 20). Economist, pp. 17-18.

2.

southern China Sea -The Spratley Islands Issue

Dobson, W. J., and M. Y. Fravel. (1997, September). Red herring hegemon: China in the South China Sea. Current History, 96, 258-263.

The peace and stability of the Asia pacific region could be upset by the outbreak of candid hostilities over any of the above situations. The least predictable power is North Korea. Some observers, such as German Maass (1999, June 17), deal that North Korea is playing a desperate form of diplomatic brinksmanship. He said "in order to generate the extract of its people, Pyongyang urgently needs assistance from the West. But in order to get this support, North Korea must present itself as a possible danger" (p. 11). Neither the United States, South Korea, the PRC nor Japan, which was greatly alarmed by the 1998 missile firing, is probable to permit North Korea to start or win a major war, but tensions are likely to remain graduate(prenominal) for the foreseeable future.

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