Would China Attack US Bases In Response to A Taiwan Contingency?

That is what the Hankyoreh is claiming that Chinese military planners are planning for:

China is ratcheting up the tenor of its opposition to the possible deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system on the Korean peninsula in the wake of a recent visit by Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Liu Jianchao. Meanwhile, South Korea and the US are responding on increasingly firm notes. After previously sending the cautious message that nothing had been decided or discussed, they are now bluntly insisting that Beijing keep out the matter. US Forces Korea also looks to be speeding up its preparations, delivering its first confirmation of recent surveys of THAAD candidate sites. It is still too early to tell what the specifics of Beijing’s response will be. But it appears unlikely to remain passive if the US deploys THAAD, a missile interception system, on the Korean Peninsula, as China sees it as a threat to key military security interests.

Beijing has yet to speak publicly about the specific reasons for its opposition. But its concern appears to be that the USFK system is a response to its own A2/AD strategy for preventing the introduction of US troops in the event of an emergency. A2/AD, which stands for “anti-access/area denial,” is a strategy for preventing US troops from accessing sites like Taiwan or the Senkaku Islands (called Diaoyu in China) under an emergency scenario (anti-access) and preventing effective mobile operations by US forces (area denial). As part of the strategy, China has reportedly developed and deployed the Dong-Feng 21 (DF-21) ballistic missile, new anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs), and nuclear-power submarines and drafted scenarios for preventing US naval and air forces from reaching a second island chain (maritime defense line) and first island chain.

The focus of attention for many is the inclusion of both US bases in South Korea and Japan as targets for A2/AD strikes. China is also reportedly working on a strategy for potentially ambushing and knocking out Air Force bases in Osan, Gyeonggi Province and Gunsan, North Jeolla Province, which it fears could be used as scrambling bases for US aircrafts. China’s concern has long been that USFK bases could be used against it, rather than simply as deterrents against North Korea. Its fears were fanned after South Korea and the US reached a “strategic flexibility” agreement in Jan. 2006 that guaranteed free access to the peninsula for USFK. The move was an official signal that USFK was not just a fixture of the peninsula, but a force that could be deployed anywhere to suit US needs.  [Hankyoreh]

You can read more at the link, but if China is planning to attack USFK bases in a Taiwan contingency it seems it would further justify why additional missile defense assets are needed on the peninsula, not less.

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BenjoDitch
BenjoDitch
9 years ago

I see China as picking an opportune time to make their move, in which the U.S. would not have a legitimate excuse to intervene, based on current treaties/MDTs. Then China could claim that the U.S. is the aggressor & activate the own MDT agreements with Russia, etc. putting the U.S. on the defensive, both militarily & in public opinion on the world stage…we are not smart enough to avoid a trap like that…

tbonetylr
tbonetylr
9 years ago

If that’s what it takes for USA Military Industrial Complex/Military Industrial Congressional Complex to back off then I’m all in. USA needs to get out of the 150 or so countries it has refused to leave after decades upon decades. American citizens don’t need to continue funding this socialist jobs paradise any longer where servicethemselfmembers do/use drugs against host country laws.

ChickenHead
ChickenHead
9 years ago

“where servicethemselfmembers do/use drugs against host country laws”

Tbone complaining about GIs using drugs in a foreign country is like the pot calling the kettle whatever the pot would have called the kettle if Tbone hadn’t smoked it first.

The military seems to be the first socialiist program Tbone was ever against.

Leon LaPorte
9 years ago

What Sino-Russian MDT? The only active MDT Russia currently has is from 1992, The Collective Security Treaty – – Collective Security Treaty Organisation with Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.

Russia and China have never gotten along although they sometimes use each other to thumb their nose at the US.

Besides, ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!

tbonetylr
tbonetylr
9 years ago

GOP Giuliani & Co. have claimed Obama is to blame for anti-police Ferguson, MO agenda/cop killings aye? Well then EGGHEAD & Co. are slimy like the conservative leaning guy below…
http://www.salon.com/2015/03/18/i_wish_i_could_kill_some_of_these_cops_james_okeefes_plan_to_infiltrate_anti_police_protesters/
“A former top staffer at Project Veritas, a conservative-leaning “investigative journalism” organization run by notoriously slimy James O’Keefe, has recently admitted that he was pressured to oversee an operative, charged with embedding with anti-police protest groups and influencing demonstrators to say violent statements on camera, according to the New York Post.
The staffer, Richard Valdes, said that O’Keefe fired him after the operative refused to complete the assignment and Valdes refused to punish him for it. Valdes said that O’Keefe was “unhappy with me for being unwilling to strong-arm the guy to do his dirty work.”
The operative reportedly emailed Valdes and O’Keefe: “I will not say words that will jeopardize my entity, especially when they involve an illegal act of ‘murdering police.’”

setnaffa
setnaffa
9 years ago

tbone, can’t you ever stay on subject? This one is about China, not a former NY politician or raaaaaacism in how Missouri hands out traffic tickets…

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