BEIJING, April 17 (ChinaMil) --Lt. Gen. John Wissler, commander of the U.S. Marine Corps Forces in Okinawa, Japan, and commanding general of the III Marine Expeditionary Force (III MEF), recently claimed that: "If we take the order to seize back the Diaoyu Islands, can we take it? Of course, we can. We won't need to land on the islands. It needs only maritime and aerial attack to dismiss the threat (from the PLA).”
It has never happened in recent years that such an ultra vires and rant statement from a U.S. regional commander under the Headquarters of the United States Pacific Command (USPACOM) would clearly pose the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) as an enemy.
Is this war scare made by the commander of U.S. Forces in Okinawa intended to scare Chinese people, government or military? It is probably overestimated.
The PLA counterpart of Wissler feels it improper to directly address Wissler's provocative speech due to observance of the foreign affairs discipline demanded by the PLA. As a retired commander of the theater, I would like to express our stance to Wissler as follows:
First of all, Chang Wanquan, minister of national defense of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), stated in a joint press conference with Defense Secretary Hagel of your country that the Chinese armed forces shoulder the mission of safeguarding national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, and are well-prepared to cope with any kind of threats and challenges. As long as it is needed by the Party and the people, the Chinese armed forces will always be ready when called upon, be able to fight on arrival and be capable of winning battles.
Therefore, no matter how wildly you clamor, China’s policy on the issue of the Diaoyu Islands will never change. The operational direction and mission of our armed forces will never change either.
Second, the Diaoyu Islands face the East China and are subject to the jurisdiction of the Nanjing Theater under the PLA in terms of national defense and security. They are situated in the East China Sea and are overlapped with the range of your "jurisdiction". The Diaoyu Islands are less than 400 kilometers from our coast. In terms of military geography, they are within China’s offshore range.
I can tell you in a very responsible way that the mere armed forces in the Nanjing Theater are more than enough to control the Diaoyu Islands. The battle fire of the theater is enough to cover the maritime and aerial area of the Diaoyu Islands.
As servicemen, we all know the military term of "escort". Now that it has developed from the old troops escort to the current fire escort, so don't try to pose any threat to Chinese public service vessels or aircraft while they are performing tasks in the maritime and aerial areas of the Diaoyu Islands. Otherwise, your own safety will be jeopardized too.
We shall remind you that before you use forces, please have a good study of the strength comparison and battlefield environment, then do some simulated war games or computerized simulation to calculate how much is your probability to win. Otherwise, once you start, you may not be able to conclude.
Third, it is reported that the Diaoyu Islands used to serve as the target range for the U.S. aviation forces stationed in Japan. It happens that the aviation forces and other forces of long-range fire arms in the Nanjing Theater are also in need of a target range at exactly the same distance. The good point is that the three military services in the Nanjing Theater don't have to push forward in deployment. We need only to readjust the firing direction at the same place and modify the shooting data and firing parameters. That's it. Some day, if our armed forces declare the Diaoyu Islands to be the target range, you should get yourself ready for that.
Fourth, please try to understand that our armed forces know about the military geography and the environment of the Diaoyu Islands so well that once the islands become a battlefield, no survival will be secured for the defenders there. Therefore, our military operation for the Diaoyu Islands is somewhat similar to your stance that "there is no need to land on the islands in order to dismiss the threat". So, please pass the message to the Japanese side: Don't rush to any actions.
By the way, I'd like to take this chance to remind you that: Don't you think your troop units are deployed too far ahead? If you want to make sure that your forces are within the safety distance, I would advise you to back to the second island chain because it is still safe for the time being.
Last but not the least, I want to explain to you that I am a retired commander of the Nanjing Theater, so I am supposed to hold an equivalent talk with your superior, the commander of the headquarters of the USPACOM. This talk made to you is to show you my respect.
I used to have talks with your old superiors, Gen. Peter Pace, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), and Adm. Timothy J. Keating, former commander of the USPACOM, on topics of common interests to the Chinese military and the U.S. military. We left ourselves good memories of that.
Please learn lessons from your old superiors. Don't be so ready to make threats with forces. Please pay some respect to Chinese armed forces, which defeated your armed forces in the Korean War.
I also want to advise you to have a good study of history. Please study hard on those lessons of the Pacific War between Japan and the U.S. and the China's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression so that you can truly understand what Japanese militarism really is.
(By Wang Hongguang, former deputy commander of the Nanjing Theater of the PLA)
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