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Sabotage fear as China's secret weapon crashes
A DULL boom shook the misty bamboo forests of Guangde county, 200km southwest of Shanghai, last Sunday week and a plume of smoke rose in the sky.Within 24 hours, China admitted that a "military aircraft" had crashed, that President Hu Jintao had ordered an investigation and that state honours would be bestowed on the victims. Security teams sealed off the area, carting away the charred remains of 40 people and collecting wreckage with painstaking care. It looked like a routine military accident. In fact, the crash would reverberate through Washington and Tel Aviv, revealing details of a covert Chinese espionage effort to copy Israeli technology in an attempt to match the US in any future air and sea battle. The first clues were given by two Chinese-controlled newspapers in Hong Kong, Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po. On Monday, they printed articles disclosing that the plane was a Chinese version of the formidable Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft flown by the US to manage air, sea and land battles. They indicated it was a Russian Ilyushin cargo jet, rebuilt to house a conspicuous array of radars and codenamed KJ-2000. The doomed flight, they implied, had been a test mission. The disaster robbed China of 35 of its best electronic warfare technicians, according to sources in Hong Kong. There were also five crew on board. With memories fresh in Beijing that a Boeing 767 bought for the use of former president Jiang Zemin was found to be riddled with eavesdropping devices, there were suspicions of sabotage. The Communist Party showed how seriously it took the crash by entrusting the inquiry to Guo Boxiong, vice-chairman of its central military commission, who handles sensitive security matters. It was without question a calamity for the Chinese military. But for the Americans, who lost a spy plane forced down by a Chinese interceptor jet in 2000, it was not a cause for sincere mourning. The US Seventh Fleet is ranged off the Chinese coast, in constant contact with Chinese planes and submarines probing its readiness to defend the self-ruled democracy on Taiwan. The US and Taiwan spend undisclosed billions trying to penetrate the secrecy surrounding China's military build-up. Chinese spies in Taiwan are known to have scored remarkable successes. In one recent case reported by The Washington Post, they placed in their President's hands the proceedings of a secret standing committee meeting on Taiwan policy within days of its taking place. American intelligence, by contrast, concentrates on a war fought with science and stealth to preserve its technological advantage. For as long as the Chinese have tried to buy, steal or copy high-grade military technology -- at least since the early 1990s -- the CIA and the White House have sought to frustrate them. China relies on foreign know-how. British propellers from the Dowty company are fitted to its Y-8 early warning aircraft and radars made by Racal Electronics are installed on its naval surveillance planes. But the crown jewels of electronic warfare are made in the US, which means that China's hunger for secrets can be exploited by its foes. Late in the Cold War, the CIA supplied faulty computer items to the Soviets, which resulted in death and destruction. So, suspicions of treachery in Beijing are bound to be reinforced by the tale of intrigue and deception that unfolded on examination of what led to the KJ-2000 crash. Late last year, the local aviation authorities, which in China are controlled by the military, bought sophisticated Monopulse secondary surveillance radars from Telephonics Corp, a subsidiary of the Griffon Corporation, which supplies the US AWACS fleet. The radars were due for delivery early this year. Their purpose was stated to be civil aviation, but critics in US Congress say the Chinese buy such items for "dual use" in military systems. According to specifications published by the Federation of American Scientists, such radars can be closely integrated with an AWACS plane to enhance targets. There is now speculation among military attaches in the region that the KJ-2000 may have been testing an unproven capability of this nature when it crashed. That should provide more than enough for Mr Guo and his bloodhounds from the military commission to get their teeth into. Posted by: john 2006-06-12 |
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