China's Emergence as a Superpower (till 2014)

[Jedburgh]

ASPI, 28 Apr 10: China's Maritime Strategic Agenda

This Policy Analysis makes the following arguments about China’s maritime strategic agenda:

1. China has legitimate and growing maritime interests, and increasingly will plan to safeguard those interests independently.

2. The PLA Navy aspires to the ability to undertake operations far from home, but bluewater capabilities are not the main focus for China’s naval development.

3. China’s maritime strategic focus remains on the semi-enclosed and other narrow seas of East Asia.

4. China’s East Asian maritime preoccupations, not its occasional bluewater forays, are of greatest strategic significance. They pose direct challenges to the US sea‑based alliance system and the regional order that the system underpins.

[GI Zhou]

Thre biggest issue on many of these papers is a lack of referencing. There is a serious lack of translation of open source Chinese defence material so most of these reports tend to rehash the same material. The US Navy War College being the exception.