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Cantina virtual de los COLombianos en el EXTerior
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Dice Stratfor:
China's acquisition of a U.S. Navy EP-3E surveillance plane could help
Beijing develop a more modern military, capable of projecting force in Asia.
With a successful reverse engineering effort, the plane could provide
Beijing clues on how to advance its naval capabilities - the key thrust of
its modernization - without the knowledge of Western intelligence.
Analysis
A U.S. EP-3E Aries II signals intelligence (SIGINT) aircraft - likely
searching for signs of Chinese submarine activities by monitoring military
communications traffic in the area -remains in Chinese military hands. What
was on board could help speed up that modernization because electronic
warfare (EW) skills, including protecting and intercepting military
communications and radar traffic, have been a major deficiency that Beijing
has been working to overcome.
Depending on how much the American crew disabled or destroyed its sensitive
components, the American spy plane on Hainan Island could provide Beijing
not only with technology and information to help hide its military
activities from the United States and others, but also with critical
knowledge of how to monitor other militaries' movements and gauge their
motives. Although an increasingly difficult task, technological know-how
gained from reverse engineering the electronic components and other
high-tech eavesdropping devices could propel China, and the People's
Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in particular, further toward its long-term goal
of being a major conventional military power in the region.
The U.S. spy, plane, according to Chinese sources and a series of incidents
in recent months and years, was gathering intelligence on a new, very quiet
version of the Kilo class diesel submarine completed a year ago as well as a
new Chinese version of the Russian Victor III attack submarine, set to be
outfitted with anti-ship missiles that can target American aircraft
carriers, surface ships and submarines for the first time. The Victor III,
according to open source materials, was to be completed in late 2000 or
early 2001.
Meanwhile, the PLAN has been working overtime to hide its activities from
the United States and other Western militaries as it aggressively pursues
what it calls "information dominance." In May 1996, the People's Liberation
Army Daily published an article calling for greater attention to radar and
communications emission security.
China is likely to use one of its primary strengths to help achieve these
goals: reverse engineering foreign technology. This has come in handy in the
past, most recently when it reportedly pilfered U.S. nuclear weapons
secrets.
The extent to which China can reverse engineer the EP-3E's onboard systems
will depend on two factors: how much the crew destroyed before landing and
the how much of the aircraft's high-tech systems are software-based versus
hardware-based. The software is the prize because it is computer code that
allows the aircraft to process what it is listening to.
Pentagon sources say the pilot was ordered before taking off from Japan to
put the safety of the crew first and to make all else secondary, including
protecting the plane's secrets. The short duration between the plane's
collision with a Chinese fighter jet and its landing makes it likely that
only some of the precautions were taken.
Meanwhile, military sources familiar with the EP-3E contend that while it is
the most advanced aircraft of its kind, much of its technology dates back
several decades. While the fleet of 11 Aires planes has gone through
subsequent upgrades to introduce the latest in digital processing
capabilities, it still depends highly on more conventional, even analog,
eavesdropping technologies that are much easier to reverse engineer.
According to a 1998 Pentagon report, the Chinese are expected to produce the
majority of the naval EW systems; however, some foreign systems or
components are imported from various sources, most likely from Europe and
Russia. Significantly, the report notes: "The performance of Chinese naval
EW systems probably will continue to lag behind state-of-the-art Western EW
systems."
Now, with the EP-3E, the Chinese may not be lagging as much for long.
The technology on board, including systems designed to detect and classify a
wide range of electronic signals, from satellite transmissions to radar
waves, could help China block its emissions so that the United States and
others cannot listen in. By knowing the frequencies the U.S. hones in on and
how they are processed, Beijing could develop effective countermeasures.
Perhaps more importantly, the EP-3E could improve China's ability to monitor
and identify military forces in the region. "The PLAN's major combatants are
expected to have an extensive EW suite," the Pentagon told Congress in 1998.
Its naval forces "will have intercept systems designed to detect and locate
enemy radar and communications signals."
China has a piece of intelligence-gathering equipment that could, if the
conditions are right, go a long way in helping it speed up its efforts to
develop and equip a high-tech naval force that can operate more freely in
Chinese territorial waters and well beyond, particularly in the South China
Sea.
Relying on its experience in reverse engineering foreign technologies, the
Chinese will try and glean as much as they can from the American spy plane
in their possession. If successful, the Chinese naval capabilities and
intensions that the United States has been so keen to uncover may become all
that much harder to gauge.
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