China's Emergence as a Superpower (2015 onwards)

[AdamG]

(CNN)China's first domestically built aircraft carrier began sea trials on Sunday, a historic step in the country's mission to build a navy capable of rivaling the world's leading maritime powers.

The new aircraft carrier, temporarily named Type 001A, sailed out at around 7 a.m. in Dalian, in the northeast province of Liaoning, according to reports in Chinese state media.
The 50,000-tonne ship will become the country's second aircraft carrier, and the first to be entirely built and designed inside of China, when it joins the navy sometime before 2020.
The carrier's maiden sea trial follows a speech given by Chinese President Xi Jinping on April 12, in which he announced plans to build a "world-class" navy under the banner of the Chinese Communist Party.
China's first carrier, the Liaoning, a retrofitted Soviet-era vessel bought from the Ukraine, was hailed as the fulfillment of a "70-year dream" of the Chinese nation when it launched to much celebration in 2012.
But experts said while the new aircraft carrier will dramatically boost China's military power in the Asia region, its technology was still outdated and lagged far behind the world's naval superpower, the United States.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/12/asia/...ntl/index.html

[AdamG]

The escalating territorial disputes in the Pacific between China and America’s allies create an ever-more-urgent need for U.S. sea power. But even as China rapidly expands and modernizes its navy, the Trump administration has not proposed enough funds to maintain America’s maritime advantage. Beginning with the coming 2019 federal budget, the president and Congress must commit to funding a full, modern fleet—or risk ceding essential U.S. and allied interests.

Adm. Phil Davidson, nominated to lead the U.S. Pacific Command, told the Senate in April: China “is no longer a rising power but an arrived great power and peer competitor.” He added that “China has undergone a rapid military modernization over the last three decades and is approaching parity in a number of critical areas; there is no guarantee that the United States would win a future conflict with China.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/america...eas-1526338043

[davidbfpo]

An opinion piece by the Australian commentator, Hugh White, that opens with:

Australia’s problem with China is bigger and simpler than we think, and thus harder to solve. It isn’t that Beijing doesn’t like Julie Bishop, or that it’s offended by our new political interference legislation, or that it’s building impressive new armed forces, or staking claims in the South China Sea. It’s that China wants to replace the United States as the primary power in East Asia, and we don’t want that to happen. We want America to remain the primary power because we don’t want to live under China’s shadow.

Other nations in the region and beyond have to make choices; which the author writes as - near the end:

....what price are we willing to pay to resist it, and how far are we prepared to go? Those choices must be based on a realistic assessment of China’s power and ambitions, and of the cost we will incur by opposing them.

Link:https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/au...e-about-china/

[davidbfpo]

This popped up via Twitter thanks to a "lurker" and has yet to be read fully. I am sure this capability has appeared here before. The author's introduction:

Rarely is a topic so little recognized and so little understood, yet so important and so amenable to research using Chinese-language open sources… To increase awareness and understanding of this important subject, here is a convenient compendium of major publications and other documents available on the matter thus far.

Link:http://www.andrewerickson.com/2018/06/the-complete-china-maritime-militia-bookshelf-fully-updated-just-now/?

[davidbfpo]

An un-read IISS blog article that is sub-titled:

Chinese private security companies are going global to protect the country's assets and citizens, in the sometimes unstable countries linked to Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative.

Link:https://www.iiss.org/blogs/analysis/2018/08/guardians-belt-and-road?

[Bill Moore]

China’s Growing Power Is Bringing Military Drills Center Stage in Asia

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2.../?oref=d-river

China will soon take part in unprecedented joint military exercises in Russia, sending 30 aircraft, 900 tanks, and 3,200 personnel to its neighbor’s far east.

Russia’s drills, held every four years, are the largest since the early 1980s, and the inclusion of Chinese troops, a first, is seen as a major geopolitical shift. Moscow and Beijing each want to send a signal to the Washington with military cooperation—though it’s China, not Russia, that the U.S. now considers its main threat.

More concerning than the upcoming exercise with Russia are the other combined exercises mentioned in the article. China conducting a limited military land exercise on its border with Russia in a strategically insignificant region doesn't demonstrate the ability to project power beyond its borders in a meaningful way like true great powers. I have a feeling we'll start hearing stories leak out after the exercise about PLA land force incompetence, and a large number of their vehicles breaking down.

[davidbfpo]

Bill,

Thanks for the above post.

In my reading list and it is a very short article is this:https://nationalinterest.org/blog/bu...angerous-29352

All very impressive, except as one comment in the PMC article remarked the PLA's last combat operation was in 1979.

A "lurker" suggested we examine this short PLA video of an amphibious operation. One response:

You don't just "walk through" on landings like this,there'll be a lot of obstacles, boobie traps , bad weather and blood bath before most of these armor vehicles get to reach the beaches.

Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us4805xdhy8