Blinded by Beijing

Blinded by Beijing

Congressional report highlights U.S. intelligence failures regarding China military buildup

DF-21D / AP Images

BY: Bill Gertz - April 10, 2012 5:00 am

 

U.S. government and private analysts missed the emergence of significant military developments by China that caught intelligence agencies by surprise, according to a congressional commission report.

New Chinese military developments that caught the United States off guard included new attack submarines, an anti-satellite missile system, aircraft carrier-killing missiles, and a new stealth jet.

“A decade on, it is now clear that much of the conventional wisdom about China dating from the turn of the century has proven to be dramatically wrong,” says the staff report by the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission, a congressional group.

“These predictive errors carry with them serious geopolitical consequences,” said the report, made public April 5. “To avoid being similarly caught off-guard in 2022, U.S. analysts should carefully reexamine many of their widely-held assumptions about the Chinese government and its policy goals.”

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