China's submarine deal could tip power balance

i posted it here after seein the offtopic thread on AFM..so….
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China’s submarine deal could tip power balance :

CHINA is negotiating with Russia to buy eight submarines equipped with long-range anti-ship missiles in a move which would enable it to blockade the Taiwan Straits in a crisis and pose a major threat to US naval power in the region.

The White House sent two carrier battlegroups into the area in 1996 to forestall a Chinese invasion of Taiwan after the island’s government toyed with the idea of formalising its independence from the mainland and Beijing responded with a military build-up.

The presence of the battlegroups forced China to back down, since its own largely coastal navy was outgunned and its air force, although strong in numbers, could not compete with the high-tech US fighters guarding the carriers.

Beijing immediately launched a modernisation programme for its armed forces and already has four Kilo-class Russian diesel-electric boats, two of which are missile-capable.

Its twin-track approach is to produce an amphibious force able to recover Taiwan by force if necessary and a navy which could make a US president think twice about the cost of defending Taiwanese sovereignty.

Bernard Cole, an expert on the Chinese navy at Washington’s national war college, said yesterday: “Acquiring eight more submarines would very significantly enhance China’s ability to influence events in the east China sea.

“If Beijing decides to enforce a blockade of Taiwan, that number of quiet, difficult-to-detect submarines with long-range missiles would pose a serious problem for opposing naval forces trying to operate in the area.”

The contract for the submarines is part of £3bn order which includes two Russian-designed missile destroyers, a batch of S300 long-range anti-aircraft missile batteries, and 40 Sukhoi-30 fighter-bombers.

A Pentagon spokesman said yesterday: “China still cannot find ships at sea. Over-the-horizon targeting escapes them.

“It would take several years after delivery for the new submarines to become fully operational, and without third-party help in locating targets, they would pose little more than a localised threat to something like a modern carrier battlegroup.”
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link: http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/26-6-19102-0-4-48.html
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