China's Emergence as a Superpower (till 2014)

[Adam L]

Good thing nobody's planning on invading the sovereign space of China, and of course they only want this capability for defensive and not expeditionary purposes.

At least that's what you hear all the time. Call me silly but I still think something's funny and I haven't figured out what the joke is yet.

Ron, take it from me that the only way it'll end up seeming funny is after the water torture is over.

It's nice to know I'm not alone in that thought.

Adam L

[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.

[Norfolk]

"New Facility Offers Carrier Building Capability", at Chinese Defence Today.

Even comes with a pic of a model of the new Changxing Shipyard with an aircraft carrier in drydock.

Basically, the article is describing how the relocation of the original (and historic) Jiangnan Shipyard in central Shanghai to Changxing Island at the mouth of the Yangtze River will not only result in an increase in shipbuilding capacity to some 12 million dwt by 2015 (some 50% of China's anticipated total capacity), but will also provide the facilities to construct one or two new 50-60,000 ton CVs. Not quite news, but rather a progress report.

[davidbfpo]

From IISS:

The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has in 2010 taken part in numerous exercises, experimented with long-range force projection and represented China abroad in a number of diplomatic visits. This heightened level of activity results from an ambitious naval strategy which seeks to secure China's access to energy resources and to give it more diplomatic leverage in territorial disputes with its neighbours.

Link:http://www.iiss.org/publications/str...aval-strategy/

I have added a link to the comments on their role in the Gulf of Aden on the Somali piracy thread too.

[davidbfpo]

I know there is a threat on China as a super power, but this article is about the naval aspects:

China's growing naval prowess is not so much an exercise in belligerence but an effort to shake off the shackles that have long confined its strategic reach. Nevertheless, there is reason for concern: Any China-related military conflict is most likely to be triggered and fought at sea.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/opensec...nas-navy-reach

Other threads, the long running China's Emergence as a Superpower:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=4366 and China's Emergence as Military Power Splits Strategists: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...read.php?t=493

[AdamG]

TOKYO – Japan's Defense Ministry said Thursday 11 Chinese warships were spotted in international waters off the country's southern island of Okinawa.

No territorial violations were claimed by Japan, but the movements are sensitive because Japan and China have a dispute over small islands in the East China Sea.

The ministry on Thursday said the Chinese warships were monitored passing from the Pacific Ocean into the East China Sea.

Ministry spokesman Shuichi Fukuya said they were believed to be returning from target practice and refueling exercises in waters about 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) south of Okinawa.

He said the Japanese military saw the Chinese warships heading out to the area June 8-9.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110623/...hpbmVzZXdhcnNo

[Ray]

Is China Trying to Bankrupt US?

June 09, 2011

Does a cash-strapped US face a Cold War redux as China encourages it to ramp up defence spending? Boosting alliances is the way to respond, says Brad Glosserman.

One popular narrative credits the end of the Cold War to a US strategy to bankrupt the Soviet Union. Well aware of the advantage conferred by its superior economic performance, Washington pushed Moscow into a military competition that drained the USSR of its resources. In this narrative, US President Ronald Reagan’s push to create a missile defence system – realistic or not – was the straw that broke the Soviet back.

Are Chinese strategists pursuing a similar approach to the United States? Is Beijing pushing US buttons, forcing it to spend increasingly scarce resources on defence assets and diverting them from other more productive uses? Far-fetched though it may seem – and the reasons to be sceptical are pretty compelling – there is evidence that China is doing just that: ringing American alarm bells, forcing the US to respond, and compounding fiscal dilemmas within the United States. Call it Cold War redux....

China is trying to shape that strategy – not just by playing down its potential to threaten the United States but by playing up some of its capabilities. That’s one way to read China’s January 2007 anti-satellite test or the test of the stealth fighter in January of this year just as Gates was visiting China. China is trying to make its capabilities, no matter how nascent or premature, the focus of US planning and forcing the US to respond.

While this theory – that China would highlight its own threat to force a US response – sounds far-fetched, it seems to be working. There’s mounting concern in the defence community over China’s deployment of an aircraft carrier and its anti-access area denial strategy. That’s reasonable: hysteria and dire warnings about a transformation of the regional balance of power are not....................

Most important, the United States must better leverage its strengths, in particular its relationships with allies, friends and partners.

Alliances and relationships are force multipliers. The more tightly integrated the US and its allies, the more convincing the signal to potential adversaries that the United States is committed to the defence of those partners – in other words, it strengthens our deterrent. And that is the most important element of our security strategy in the Asia Pacific.

http://the-diplomat.com/2011/06/09/i...o-bankrupt-us/


The Chinese modernisation of its armed forces and it growing economic clout indeed places China in a comfortable position.

The provocations in the South China Seas maybe for genuine economic reasons, as also to send alarm bells ringing with its consequences.

The current economic state of the US does not encourage a 'race' and yet the US interests has to remain shored up.

Alliances and relationships have to be organised so that the responsibility is shared, but such alliances and relationship should have a sound footing and not be applicable on merits on a 'case by case' basis.

[jcustis]

It is interesting that you posted this up. I can't recall the article, but there was something recently that Chinese business interests want to open an economic zone with the US.

Moderator adds: It was Boise, Idaho in Post 37. in the China & South China Sea thread.

I think we would be wise to look back a little bit at our own history towards the tail end of the Cold War, with the old nemesis Soviets,

[Fuchs]

I don't think that the Chinese are that aggressive towards the US.
They would have many better approaches available, and there's little to no evidence that they're using them:

# covertly lobby in the U.S. congress for additional expenses (not for public infrastructure investments or DoD, of course)
# push the U.S. into another war like Iraq
# attempt to break up U.S.-Japanese cooperation to the point that Marines withdraw from Okinawa
# attempt to have the U.S. give up Taiwan (which is after all quite irrelevant unless you really, really want to have a good Taiwanese graphics card in your PC)
# increase Chinese cultural influence and perception in the U.S. to a point where Taiwan and Tibet become invisible

So far the F-22 export ban and end of production, small wars focus, low U.S. savings rate and overemphasis of private consumption, budget-breaking tax cuts, Iraq War and Taiwanese economic integration with Chinese mainland seem to be the only major actions that play into the PRC's hand.
All of them can be explained without PRC influence in the shadows.

[AdamG]

A very knowledgeable colleague – Michael Richardson – published this article in several Asian and Australian publications. An interesting twist in the “energy race”, which is maybe more interesting than the often cited but never materialized “arms race”

http://hdff.org/2011/06/01/beijing-b...n-energy-race/

[Ray]

China tells navy to prepare for combat

Chinese President Hu Jintao has urged the country's navy to prepare for military combat and advance naval modernisation as part of efforts to safeguard world peace.

The navy should "accelerate its transformation and modernisation in a sturdy way, and make extended preparations for military combat in order to make greater contributions to safeguard national security and world peace", Hu said in a speech on Tuesday that comes amid US and regional concerns over China's naval ambitions.................

China, which publicly announced around 50 separate naval exercises in the seas off its coast over the past two years, usually after the event, says its military is only focused on defending the country's territory.

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news...207-1ohm4.html

The various exercises carried out by navies around the South China Sea, the clashes therein earlier, the proactive 'cocking a snoot' at China by Vietnam and the explorations by foreign oil consortium in the SCS, seems to have irked China.

All these activities seem to have angered China to openly state and expose the real intent of rapid naval modernisation, till now cloaked with pacifist idiomatic flourishes.

For long, the Chinese Govt controlled media has been speculating of the US intent to 'encircle' China.

The 'Peaceful Rise of China' seems to have been adequate a soother to disarm other countries wherein China has been able to become a superpower in the making, near capable of challenging the position of the US as the sole superpower.

[AdamG]

Gonna need some reading music

[davidbfpo]

What I found of note was the timing, not the content.

One, the statement came into the public domain on the 7th December 2011, the anniversary of Pearl Harbour; a day likely to have a naval focus in the USA (although perhaps not the main target). I expect the actual speech was yesterday, but have not searched for the original reporting.

Second, as the BBC report:

Senior US and Chinese officials are currently holding talks on military issues. The one-day meeting takes place every year, with the stated aim of ensuring there are no misunderstandings between the two nations.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-16063607

[Ray]

Defensive Realism in the Indian Ocean: Oil, Sea Lanes and the Security Dilemma


http://www.chinasecurity.us/index.ph...d=304&Itemid=8

Dated but worth a read.

[Ray]

China’s Indian Ocean ‘String of Pearls’ Is No Military Threat — At Least for Now
Ashley S. Townshend | September 20, 2011

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/opini...for-now/466367

Has the statement from China herald the 'Now' and the threat that was imagined as exaggerated has finally arrived on the horizon?

[carl]

Empire may or may not be the right word. But we are doing something that may edge close to it. The question is why are those places important enough to fight for. Some of them aren't really allies in the two way street sense of the word but they are still important. There may not be a continuous perimeter on land but if you look at it from the ocean there may be something approaching one.

There isn't a potential enemy out there that has unfettered access to the oceans. Japan was one but we turned them into a friend that holds part of a perimeter. China may or may not become one but they are hemmed in by islands that are friendly to us. Even the former enemy communist Vietnam may end up back on or in the perimeter depending on what happens in the next 20-30 years.

I don't know if we have an empire or not but we support and maintain what looks like a perimeter manned by allies whose primary value is they stay friends.

[Dayuhan]

If China is "hemmed in", why are so many people so concerned over what China is up to in Africa, or Central Asia?

I'd suggest that the traditional idea of geographical containment is no longer particularly relevant, and neither is the idea of a sort of physical "perimeter" on a global scale.

The question of why we would or would not fight in any given place or case is always interesting, especially since it largely depends on domestic politics at any given moment. Again, though, I don't see how it relates to this idea of an empire, nor have I seen any credible definition of "empire" that would accommodate the US.

[carl]

If China is "hemmed in", why are so many people so concerned over what China is up to in Africa, or Central Asia?

I'd suggest that the traditional idea of geographical containment is no longer particularly relevant, and neither is the idea of a sort of physical "perimeter" on a global scale.

The question of why we would or would not fight in any given place or case is always interesting, especially since it largely depends on domestic politics at any given moment. Again, though, I don't see how it relates to this idea of an empire, nor have I seen any credible definition of "empire" that would accommodate the US.

Excitable I guess. I don't see what the big deal is about the Chinese in Africa. China has a land border with Central Asia. They are hemmed in by islands seaward, not landward. One reason people are concerned about Chinese activity in the South China Sea, I think, is that is a push against the perimeter. (Alert for David, this may call for another thread jump.)

Why is the idea of containment no longer relevant? Why is not a global perimeter relevant?

Maybe it has nothing to do with what an empire is or isn't. It is interesting though. It looks a little like a grand strategy.

[carl]

It's been a long time since we were seriously worried about anybody's navy.

That is the whole point.

I think we were worried about the Russian Navy during the Cold War, judging by the ink spilled writing about it, the steel fabricated and the oil burned in various exercises conducted. And it takes a long time to build up a big proficient navy with all the things that go with it, to the point where it can can fight another big proficient navy. All kinds of things can affect that so it just doesn't happen very often in history.

Is anyone, anywhere, trying to "penetrate our perimeter"? For that matter, what is our perimeter?

The Chinese may be. That is what worries people.

I already said what appears to be driving much of our definition of the perimeter: making sure that no potentially hostile nation has free access to the oceans. So if China were to become seriously hostile, the perimeter might be South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, then the Malaysian peninsula and the Indonesian islands.

Possibly that was the intention, but American economic hegemony has substantially declined since that time. Economic hegemony is seldom a product of conscious choice or intent: it emerges from superior economic performance.

Economic hegemony also has to do with history. Everybody but us was thoroughly wrecked by WWII. All that destructive fighting was well away from our shores and we tried hard to keep it over there.

[Bob's World]

The purpose of the first assertion shared here is to establish perspective. Yes, as American Pride points out, many agonize over ability of the US to maintain its Cold War position regarding Taiwan in the face of a rising China, just as many Britains certainly agonized over their ability to retain effective control over Suez. Of the two, I would posit that Britain's concerns then were far more rational than our own now. Britain's were along the line of "we must have access to the canal for our economy to function"; while the most honest assertions regarding Taiwan are so some form of "we can't allow China to do something we don't want them to do."

To me that always sounds a bit like a petulant child. Yes, the Asia-Pacific region is vital to the US economy, but a reunified China is logical, probably inevitable, and in no way offers the same type of show-stopping issue envisioned by the Brits. And even the Brits were wrong about the loss of canal control being a showstopper.

Control is hard to relinquish, but at a certain point many issues long managed through control are better managed by a transition to influence. The more we focus on the former, the less we possess of the latter. Better to transition on ones own terms, and not cling so long as to have transition forced upon you.