China’s new military ‘transparency’

When DoD’s top man on China, Michael Schiffer, rolled out this year’s China report not too long ago, he renewed a familiar American criticism: Beijing isn’t open and transparent about what weapons it’s building, and that ultimately is bad for everyone, because it forces the U.S. and commanders around the Western Pacific to assume the worst.

Sometimes this criticism gets taken a little too far, as when the State Department was widely mocked in August when it asked “why” China wanted its new aircraft carrier, the Shi Lang.

But fundamentally, transparency is a good thing for everyone, and it’s worth pointing out that anyone in the world can bring up almost any detail you can imagine about American ships, aircraft or weapons with a few mouse clicks. Doing anything about that information in a tactical situation is a whole other matter.

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