''It is not a question whether China will attack Russia but is when it is going to happen'', the Russians say

Alexander Khramchikhin, a Deputy Director of the Moscow-based Institute for Political and Military Analysis, says: if there will ever be a large-scale military aggression in the "classical" form against Russia, with 95% probability (if not 99.99%) the aggressor would be China.

"The tremendous overpopulation of China together with its rapid economic growth creates a complexity of issues for this country. China is objectively a non-viable in its current borders.

China must be a lot more if it does not want to be much less. It can not survive without expansion abroad to capture the resources and territories, this is a reality.

No need to explain that the main direction of China's expansion will be the South-Eastern Asia. It has a small territory and insignificant resources, with a lot of local people.

The opposite direction with a lot of territory, huge resources and few people are Kazakhstan and the Asian part of Russia. And it is there where China's expansion will go. Moreover, the Trans-Ural area of Russia is considered to be Chinese in China.

Certainly, China prefers a peaceful form of expansion (economical and demographical). But the military is not excluded completely.

Significantly, the Chinese army has been conducting in recent years exercises that simply could not be interpreted otherwise than as a preparation for an aggression against Russia, and the scale of these exercises (the territorial extent and the number of troops involved) is constantly growing, Khramchikhin alleges.

In this case, Moscow is apparently still not aware that Russia has long lost not only quantitative but also qualitative superiority over China in military technology.

In Soviet times, Moscow had both.

China has very long existed with what that it had been given by the Soviet Union in 1950's - early 1960's. However, after a warming of relations with the West, it gained access to some samples of American and European technology, and in late 1980's it began to acquire the latest technology in the USSR and then Russia, and thus "jumped" over generations on many areas.

In addition, China always had exceptional ability to steal technology_ the Russians say. In the 1980 Chinese intelligence even managed to get the latest US designs of W-88 ballistic missiles Trident-2 for submarines. Normal technologies China is stealing in large quantities.

For example, although there is no information that Russia sells PRC multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), "Smerch (Tornado)", or a license for their manufacture. Nevertheless, the First China's Army has MLRS A-100, very similar to the "Tornado", and then PHL-03 - its an exact copy. Self-propelled artillery installations 88 (PLZ-05) are very similar to our "Mstu" that we again did not sell to China, the Russian says.

Russia has never sold China a license for the production of anti-aircraft missile system S-300, which does not prevent the Chinese to copy it under the name HQ-9. However, the Chinese stole for example, an anti-aircraft missile complex "Krotal", anti-ship missile "Exocet", naval artillery installation M68 etc., the Russian alleges.

By introduction of foreign technology and adding something of their own, the Chinese military-industrial complex is beginning to create samples of the antiaircraft rocket-gun complex Toure 95 (PGZ-04), self-propelled PLL-05 and PTL-02, BMP ZBD-05 and others.

In general, as already mentioned, Russia is backward virtually on all direction of conventional weapons. A qualitative superiority of Russia remains in the past. In some areas, China has even bypassed Russia - for example, in the UAVs and small arms.

Some experts believe that China is in technological dependence on Russia as its main supplier of arms (hence, "they cannot attack us"), but it is a blank myth, the Russian expert says.

In Russia, China is acquiring in only such weapon that are intended for operations against Taiwan and the US (when Beijing seriously planned operation to seize the island). Obviously, a sea war between PRC and Russia is practically impossible, it is not needed for both parties. The war will be on the ground.

In this connection, it should be noted that the PRC did not purchase any equipment in Russia for its ground forces that could be used in war against Russia.

Even in the field of the Air Forces, China got rid of dependence from Russia. It bought a limited number of Su-27 - in total 76, of which 40 are Su-27UB.

It is obvious that Russia's Su-27 were purchased only for training flight crews. Then, as you know, China has refused to license production of Su-27 from Russian parts, built only 105 aircraft from the planned 200, the Russian says.

Simultaneously, China copied this fighter and began its production license free under the name J-11B with its own engines, weapons and avionics.

It may be noted that the recent military-technical cooperation between China and Russia is disappearing. This can partly be explained by the rapidly degraded Russian military-industrial complex is no longer able to offer China those weapons and equipment it needs. Another explanation is that Beijing is seriously considering in foreseeable future the possibility of conducting combat operations against Russian armed forces.

Since the J-11B in its tactical and technical characteristics is approximately equal to the Su-27 created on the basis of the Israeli "Lavi", but using Russian and their own technology, and the J-10 is comparable with MiG-29, Russia does not have any qualitative superiority in the air.

A quantitative superiority is obviously in favor of China, especially due to an almost complete collapse of Russian air defense system (primarily just in the Far East).

China has more than 120 Su-30, and we have only 4, the Russian says. The main drawback of the Chinese aviation is the lack of normal ground attack aircrafts and attack helicopters, but it would not be a big trouble for them, since the situation in Russia is even worse.

Best Chinese tanks - Type 96 and Type 99 (also known as Type 98G) - are not worse than the best Russian tanks - T-72B, T-80U, T-90. Actually, they are all "close relatives", and therefore their performance characteristics are very similar.

Thus Russian defense ministry has already announced its de facto elimination of Russian armored troops. There should remain 2000 tanks to all of Russia. China now already has modern tanks approximately as much.

There are far more numerous (at least 6000) the old tanks (from the Type 59 to Type 80), created on the basis of T-54. They are quite effective against infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, and they are needed to create a "mass effect".

It is likely that the Chinese command would use these vehicles for the first attack. They will still cause some Russian losses, and most important, they would attract Russian antitank weapons, after that, the Russian exhausted and weakened defense would be attacked by using modern technology, the Russian expert fears.

By the way, similar "mass effect" in the air can be created by older fighters types J-7 and J-8.

The armed forces of Russia and the Chinese army have approximately the same equality (qualitative and quantitative) of modern arms, which becomes a military advantage of the Chinese army.

Thus the last one has a huge "overhang" from old, but is still "good" samples, which is perfect as a "consumable" material for wearing down the defense of Russian troops.

Because of China "lack of brides", the loss of several hundreds of thousands of young males for the Chinese leadership is not a problem, but a blessing. And certainly the use several thousand units of out-of-date armored vehicles in a battle is also not a problem.

Already, two of seven military districts of the Chinese army - Beijing and Shenyang, near the border with Russia - are stronger than the whole Russian armed forces (from Kaliningrad to Kamchatka). The forces on both sides are just not comparable on the potential theater of military operations (Transbaikalia and Far East). China surpasses Russia not dozen-fold.

Thus redeployment of troops from the west in the event of a real war would be practically impossible, since the Chinese saboteurs would cut the Trans-Siberian Railway once in many places along its entire length, and Russia does other communications to the east, (you can transport people, but not heavy equipment though the air).

At the same time for military training, particularly in units and formations, equipped with the most modern equipment, army of China has long bypassed Russia. Thus, in the 38-th army of Beijing Military Area artillery is fully automated, it is still inferior to the accuracy of the US, but has already surpassed Russia. Rate of onset of 38-th army reaches 1000 km per week (150 miles per day).

Accordingly, Russia has no chance in conventional war. Nuclear weapons also do not guarantee rescue, and, since China has them too.

Yes, Russia still has superiority in strategic nuclear forces, but they are rapidly declining. At the same time Russia does not has intermediate range ballistic missiles, while China has them that almost eliminates its backlog of intercontinental ballistic missiles (which are also declining).

The parity of the tactical nuclear weapons is unknown, but one should understand that Russia will have to use them on its own territory.

As to an exchange of blows of strategic nuclear forces, Chinese potential is more than enough to destroy the main cities in the European Russia, which they don't need (there are many people and few resources there).

There is a strong suspicion that, knowing this, the Kremlin would not dare to use nuclear weapons. Therefore, nuclear deterrence against China is the same myth, as its technological dependence on us.

So, learn Chinese", the Russian expert advises to his countrymen.

Alexander Khramchikhin

Department of Cooperation and Media,
Kavkaz Center

Source: Kavkaz Center.
Link: http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2010/03/15/11632.shtml.