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Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread
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Although the streets of London are filled with civil rights protesters, the Queen welcomes Paramount Leader Xi Jinping with the mix of informality and pomp and
circumstance that the Brits carry off so well
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The Financial Times, in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from that newspaper, says that Washington and London are "diverging" on how to deal with China ... and Washington is not amused:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/69c2c230-76dd-11e5-a95a-27d368e1ddf7.html?ftcamp=social/free_to_read/uk_china_us/twitter/awareness/editorial&segid=0100320#axzz3p74B4mIH
I'm pretty certain that the USA, official Washington (the government: White House, State Department, Pentagon and the Congress) and the government in waiting ('unofficial Washington:' the Congress (again) K Street (the lobbyists) and the think tanks) has its collective head up its ass regarding China.
China is not "rising" any more; it has risen; it's here as a great, soon to be global power with its own vital interests which it will promote and protect, as all nations, great and small, should.
The US, including the American people, are still caught up in the myth of American exceptionalism, special providence, call it what you will. America is exceptional, as Rome was, as Spain and Britain were; great powers, generally, get one chance, only at being great ... China might be the exception, it was a superpower 2,000 years ago and, again, 1,000+ years ago (Tang Dynasty) and 500 years ago (Ming Dynasty), too, but it's status went unnoticed because the world was not integrated. Rome was not less because ~ too far away to be noticed ~ China was also a great imperial power (Qin Dynasty). America, and the world, needs to 'accommodate' China as a competitor, not as an enemy.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/69c2c230-76dd-11e5-a95a-27d368e1ddf7.html?ftcamp=social/free_to_read/uk_china_us/twitter/awareness/editorial&segid=0100320#axzz3p74B4mIH
US takes stern line on UK’s shift to China
Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
October 20, 2015
Just before Xi Jinping visited the US last month, President Barack Obama warned that he was prepared to sanction China over cyber crime. His stern message stood in contrast to the stance in the UK ahead of the Chinese leader’s visit this week, which saw officials haggle over whether the Sino-British relationship had entered a “golden decade” or a “golden era”.
The US and UK both lined up suitable pomp for Chinese leader. Mr Xi was feted with a 21-gun salute at the White House and a state banquet. In Britain, he will dine at Buckingham Palace and address parliament.
But China experts in Washington say that in almost every other way, the two Atlantic allies have diverged in the way they treat the rising Pacific power.
Evan Medeiros, head of the Asia practice at Eurasia Group and a former top Asia adviser to Mr Obama, says Britain is misguided in its China approach.
“If there is one truism in managing relations with a rising China, it is that if you give in to Chinese pressure, it will inevitably lead to more Chinese pressure,” he says.
“London is playing a dangerous game of tactical accommodation in the hopes of economic benefits, which could lead to more problems down the line.”
While the US tries to strike a balance between pushing for a constructive relationship and chastising China over issues from human rights to cyber espionage to aggressive action in the South China Sea, David Cameron, the UK prime minister, and George Osborne, his chancellor, have been accused of selling out to boost trade and win Chinese investment.
During a much criticised recent visit to Xinjiang, the Chinese province where the Communist party has persecuted the ethnic locals, Mr Osborne said he wanted to “take a risk” with the China relationship, in an approach that Washington sees as appeasing China for economic advantage.
“What is concerning is the message that has been sent that commerce and economic co-operation is the only metric that will guide the UK’s policy towards China,” says Tom Wright, a foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution.
While the US is worried about the “Hollandisation” of Britain — abandoning the pursuit of power as it spends less on defence and steps back from playing a role on the international stage — officials are particularly disconcerted with its stance on China.
The British Foreign Office rejected suggestions the UK was sacrificing its principles for trade, saying the government was “committed to engaging with China on human rights and ministers will continue to raise our human rights concerns with counterparts”.
US-UK ties suffered in March when the Obama administration lambasted Britain’s “constant accommodation” of China. The rebuke came after the UK gave the White House little notice that it would become the first G7 country to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a $50bn lending institution that China founded to counter the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
“The thing that upset us was that it was done in almost zero consultation with the US,” says a former administration official. “Britain didn’t just undermine the US. It undermined the entire G7.”
The UK stance marks a turning point from 2012 when Mr Cameron met the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, prompting China to freeze out British officials for more than a year.
“The Chinese very effectively played hardball against the British,” says one former senior US official. “There was a major rethink at the highest levels of the UK government that we were going to fall over ourselves to send a signal that we want a good relationship with China. It’s a pretty un-British thing to do.”
Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch, says Mr Cameron looks weak in comparison to Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, who has been more willing to raise human rights issues with Beijing.
“She started early on, she was unapologetic, and the Chinese got used to it,” says Ms Richardson.
Chris Johnson, a former top China analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, also questions the UK approach but says Britain is at a disadvantage compared with the US when dealing with China because while
“Barack Obama can stand next to Xi Jinping and tell him the ways in which he sucks, UK leaders cannot do that”.
But he adds Britain needs to be careful about the investments it seeks from China. He says China is engaging in what Mao Zedong described as “capture the countryside and then take the cities,”, referring to the way Chinese companies are making inroads into critical sectors.
Huawei this year got the green light to invest in Britain after a panel concluded it did not pose a security risk, a different situation from the US where it faces huge mistrust.
China and the UK will this week announce that Chinese companies will take a one-third stake in a UK nuclear project.
Patrick Cronin, an Asia expert at the Center for a New American Security, says the UK needs to be careful to maintain a balance between national security and economic interests, particularly as China targets areas such as energy, telecoms and finance.
“There is a growing concern in Washington about China’s intentions with respect to deepening ties with our key ally in Britain,” says Mr Cronin. “The Chinese are definitely insinuating themselves way into the inner sanctum of the British national security [world] through these investments.”
One congressional staffer says the US is concerned that the UK is not acting as a strong ally in terms of sticking up for international norms, something that is particularly pertinent as the US prepares to challenge Chinese claims to sovereignty in disputed waters in the South China Sea.
“I don’t think there are any immediate consequences even if you buy into the view that Cameron is bringing the UK into an era of golden irrelevance,” he says. “But if this is a glide path over the next decade towards the Hollandisation of the UK, then that will have implications and we will have to reassess not just on Asia but on a number of areas.”
I'm pretty certain that the USA, official Washington (the government: White House, State Department, Pentagon and the Congress) and the government in waiting ('unofficial Washington:' the Congress (again) K Street (the lobbyists) and the think tanks) has its collective head up its ass regarding China.
China is not "rising" any more; it has risen; it's here as a great, soon to be global power with its own vital interests which it will promote and protect, as all nations, great and small, should.
The US, including the American people, are still caught up in the myth of American exceptionalism, special providence, call it what you will. America is exceptional, as Rome was, as Spain and Britain were; great powers, generally, get one chance, only at being great ... China might be the exception, it was a superpower 2,000 years ago and, again, 1,000+ years ago (Tang Dynasty) and 500 years ago (Ming Dynasty), too, but it's status went unnoticed because the world was not integrated. Rome was not less because ~ too far away to be noticed ~ China was also a great imperial power (Qin Dynasty). America, and the world, needs to 'accommodate' China as a competitor, not as an enemy.
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Considering Obama's constant snubs against the UK, I'm not surprised HM's government is choosing to go their own course without too much reference to the Administration. Of course, a great deal of the world is no longer paying attention to official Washington any more (historians will probably mark the "Red Line" pronouncement against Syria as the official "best before" date).
The unravelling of the Liberal world order (Individual freedom, unfettered use of property, Rule of Law; initially created by the British Empire and handed off the the United States in the aftermath of WWII) may well be looked at as one of history's great tragedies.
The unravelling of the Liberal world order (Individual freedom, unfettered use of property, Rule of Law; initially created by the British Empire and handed off the the United States in the aftermath of WWII) may well be looked at as one of history's great tragedies.
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Some noteworthy developments from Xi's visit, including the first two which are security-related:
Diplomat
Philippine Star
And here's another on the economic front:
Shanghaiist
Diplomat
Philippine Star
And here's another on the economic front:
Shanghaiist
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There is another "Asian Pivot" underway as the UK tries to catch up with others according to this article which is reproduced under the the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from Ted Economist:
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21676773-america-not-only-country-can-pivot-british-government-makes-big-bet-asias
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21676773-america-not-only-country-can-pivot-british-government-makes-big-bet-asias
The British government makes a big bet on Asia’s rising power
America is not the only country that can pivot
Oct 22nd 2015 | Britain
TWO previous Chinese presidents have been granted state visits to Britain, in 1999 and 2005, but on neither occasion was the red carpet rolled out with quite so much gusto as it was for Xi Jinping this week. As well as the usual pomp, pageantry and banquets in white tie at Buckingham Palace and the Guildhall in the City of London, there was an almost bewildering variety of official visits to squeeze into the president’s four-day trip, from universities to football clubs, from London to Manchester. Mr Xi even addressed both houses of Parliament, a privilege reserved for very few dignitaries.
Rarely has a visiting head of state been granted such a tour—but then rarely has a British government staked so much on one relationship. While many Western countries, including America, still prefer to keep the people’s republic at arm’s length, ready to trade with the world’s second-largest economy but not much else, Britain is positively embracing China, hailing the start of a “golden era” in relations.
During Mr Xi’s visit the two countries announced a string of deals that aim to position Britain as China’s principal interlocutor with the West, adding a significant new dimension to Britain’s foreign policy. “This is a long-term strategic call,” argues Robin Niblett, head of Chatham House, a think-tank. If all goes well, Britain will certainly benefit, but it is already clear that those benefits will have to be considerable if they are to outweigh the scepticism—hostility, even—that Britain’s Asian pivot has provoked among the country’s allies. Even George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer and principal proponent of the pivot, has said it is a “risk”.
So what do the two former antagonists, on opposite sides of the cold war and imperial adversaries before that, hope to get out of this new golden era? The Chinese are not so much interested in Britain as an overseas market, with its relatively small population, but as a “great platform from which China can go global,” says Mr Niblett. In this respect, access to the City and its financial markets has become of critical importance to China’s thinking, particularly as it seeks to internationalise the yuan. As Mr Xi told Parliament, “the UK is the leading offshore trading centre outside Hong Kong,” and the City has already taken a lead with respect to offshore yuan trading. The Bank of England was the first G7 central bank to sign a swap agreement with China’s central bank; Chinese commercial banks recently sold offshore yuan-denominated bonds in the City; and on October 20th, the first full day of Mr Xi’s visit, China sold its first sovereign bond in London, worth over $4 billion.
As well as boosting Chinese liquidity, and hopes that the yuan will one day become an internationally traded currency to rival the dollar, dealing in the City will “give the Chinese enhanced credibility”, says Gary Campkin, a director of TheCityUK, a finance lobby group. That is also why the Chinese so valued Britain’s decision to become the first major Western power to join the new China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in March.
From Britain’s point of view, it is rather more simple. The cash-strapped chancellor needs all the inward investment he can get, particularly in infrastructure and energy, and China seems keen to oblige. Up to now, Chinese investment in Britain has been relatively modest, but this is set to change dramatically. On October 21st the government sanctioned a £6 billion ($9.3 billion) investment by a Chinese state power company in a nuclear plant being built at Hinkley Point in Somerset by the French company EDF, with the promise of more nuclear deals to come. Mr Osborne also hopes to secure Chinese money for several projects in the development of a “Northern Powerhouse” of English cities—hence Mr Xi’s side-trip to Manchester. In a further attempt to boost Chinese spending, the government has announced that it will cut the cost of two-year multiple-entry visas for Chinese tourists, who are particularly good at parting with their money in Britain.
In terms of exports to China, Britain has long lagged behind European rivals such as France and Germany (see chart), even if it has been doing considerably better with China than with other emerging markets. But, as Stephen Phillips of the China-Britain Business Council argues, as the Chinese try to rebalance their economy away from cheap manufacturing towards more sophisticated services, this might play to Britain’s competitive advantages in sectors like education, high-end engineering and scientific research. One stop on Mr Xi’s trip was Imperial College London, which announced a slew of new education and research collaborations with China.
However, the plethora of deals was accompanied by plenty of complaints about the consequences of cosying up so warmly to the authoritarian Mr Xi. Many parliamentarians are aggrieved at how far trade has come to trump any official concerns over human rights in places like Hong Kong, let alone within mainland China, including Tibet. It was left to John Bercow, the speaker of the House of Commons, to talk about the importance of civil rights, pointedly referring to the last Asian leader to address both houses of Parliament: Aung San Suu Kyi, a campaigner for democracy in Myanmar. One Labour MP remarked that Britain was behaving “like a supplicant fawning spaniel that licks the hand that beats it.” More ominous was a drumbeat of criticism from Washington, where there are grave worries that Britain’s kowtow is separating it from America and undermining Western resolve to stand up to China in regions like the South China Sea, and on questions of human rights.
Even on the economic front, Mr Xi’s visit attracted plenty of controversy, coinciding with the announcement of painful job losses in Britain’s steel industry that are blamed on a flood of cheap Chinese imports. Nor is everyone completely comfortable with the role that China will now play in Britain’s nuclear industry. As Mr Osborne concedes, it is a pivot with risks.
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Xi Jinping is going "all out" on his UK trip, and it's for british not Chinese domestic consumption ...
These are the sorts of images that dominate Chinese (state run) media:
The Chinese are wooing the Brits who they seem to see as their most likely entrée before they tackle the full European banquet.
These are the sorts of images that dominate Chinese (state run) media:
The Chinese are wooing the Brits who they seem to see as their most likely entrée before they tackle the full European banquet.
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China unveils its latest reversed-engineered copy (COUGH!) I mean unlicensed variant, of the Russian Su27 Flanker:
Defence Aviation
Defence Aviation
S.M.A. said:
Article is date-stamped early-2012. Also, all other images of the J-16 show a twin-seat aircraft in the same configuration as the Su-30. The image used in the article looks like a photoshop someone did for a RIFTS game (the result pulled by Google reverse-image search).
The photoshopper appears to have started with this image of a J-11B and trimmed the nose and fins, while adding in the dorsal spine and cockpit of a Mig-29
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Chinese political dissident and artist Ai Wei Wei is asking the public around the world for Legos after the Lego maker refused his bulk order: 
Source:NPR
Source:NPR
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S.M.A. said:Chinese political dissident and artist Ai Wei Wei is asking the public around the world for Legos after the Lego maker refused his bulk order:
Source:NPR
So it's Australia and Denmark, not China, that are involved, right?
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The Economist looks at sea power in Asia in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from that newspaper:
http://www.economist.com/news/international/21674648-china-no-longer-accepts-america-should-be-asia-pacifics-dominant-naval-power-who-rules
I remain convinced that China's strategic aims are to:
1. Be the undisputed "great power" in Asia ~ all of Asia;
2. Persuade (or, perhaps, just wait patiently for) America to remove all it's military presence from the Asian mainland; and
3. Secure the sort of global prestige that being a major naval power (being able to "project power") confers.
http://www.economist.com/news/international/21674648-china-no-longer-accepts-america-should-be-asia-pacifics-dominant-naval-power-who-rules
Sea power
Who rules the waves?
China no longer accepts that America should be Asia-Pacific’s dominant naval power
Oct 17th 2015 | From the print edition
IN THE next few days, out of sight of much of the world, the American navy will test the growing naval power of China. It will do so by conducting patrols within the putative 12-mile territorial zone around artificial islands that China is building in the disputed Spratly archipelago. Not since 2012 has America’s navy asserted its right under international rules to sail so close to features claimed by China. The return to such “freedom of navigation” patrolling comes after a visit to Washington by Xi Jinping, China’s president, that failed to allay concerns about the aggressive island-building in the South China Sea.
China will protest, but for now that is probably all it will do. The manoeuvres are a clear assertion of America’s sea power, which remains supreme—but no longer unchallenged. The very notion of “sea power” has a 19th-century ring to it, summoning up Nelson, imperial ambition and gunboat diplomacy. Yet the great exponent of sea power, the American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, who died in 1914, is still read with attention by political leaders and their military advisers today. “Control of the sea,” he wrote in 1890, “by maritime commerce and naval supremacy, means predominant influence in the world; because, however great the wealth product of the land, nothing facilitates the necessary exchanges as does the sea.”
Sea power of both the hard, naval kind and the softer kind that involves trade and exploitation of the ocean’s resources is as vital as ever. Bits and bytes move digitally, and people by air. Physical goods, though, still overwhelmingly go by sea: a whopping 90% of global trade by weight and volume. But the sea’s freedom and connectivity are not inevitable. They rely on a rules-based international system to which almost all states subscribe for their own benefit, but which in recent decades only America, in partnership with close allies, has had the means and will to police.
Since the second world war, America’s hegemonic power to maintain access to the global maritime commons has been challenged only once, and briefly. In the 1970s the Soviet Union developed an impressive-looking blue-water navy—but at a cost so huge that some historians regard it as among the factors that brought the Soviet system to collapse less than two decades later. When the cold war ended, most of that expensively acquired fleet was left to rust, abandoned in its Arctic bases.
That may now be changing. On October 7th Russia ostentatiously fired 26 cruise missiles from warships in the Caspian Sea at targets in Syria (it denied American claims that some fell in Iran). Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, milked the propaganda value: “It is one thing for the experts to be aware that Russia supposedly has these weapons, and another thing for them to see for the first time that they really do exist.” Western military planners must now contend with Russia’s demonstrated ability to hit much of Europe with low-flying cruise missiles from its own waters.
But by far the more serious naval challenger is China. From modest beginnings it has created a navy that has grown from a purely coastal outfit to a potent force in its “near-seas”, ie, within the first island chain from Japan to the Philippines (see map). It is now evolving again, into something even more ambitious. Over the past decade, long-distance operations by the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) have become more frequent and technically demanding. As well as maintaining a permanent counter-piracy flotilla in the Indian Ocean, China conducts naval exercises far out in the western Pacific. Last month a group of five Chinese naval vessels passed close to the Aleutian Islands after a Russian-Chinese military exercise.
The sea’s the thing
In May China issued a military white paper that formalised the addition of what it calls “open-seas protection” to the PLAN’s “offshore-waters defence” role. A strategy that used to put local sea control first now emphasises China’s expanding economic and diplomatic influence. The primacy China once gave its land forces has ended.
The traditional mentality that land outweighs the sea must be abandoned, and great importance has to be attached to managing the seas and oceans and protecting maritime rights and interests. It is necessary for China to develop a modern maritime force structure commensurate with its national security.
Taiwan remains at the centre of these military concerns. China seeks to develop not only the means to recover the renegade province (as it sees it), by military means if necessary, but also to fend off Taiwan’s main protector, America. China has not forgotten its humiliation in 1996 when America sent two carrier battle groups, one through the Taiwan Strait, to deter Chinese missile tests aimed at intimidating the Taiwanese government. America’s then-defence secretary, William Perry, crowed that, although China was a great military power, “the strongest military power in the western Pacific is the United States.”
China is determined to change the balance. It has invested heavily in everything from shore-based anti-ship missiles to submarines, modern maritime patrol and fighter aircraft, to try to keep America beyond the first and, ultimately, second island chains. China is also seeking the ability to patrol the choke points that give access to the Indian Ocean, through which most of its oil imports enter. About 40% comes through the Strait of Hormuz and over 80% through the Malacca Strait. Among the goals it appears to have set itself are to protect economically vital sea lanes; to constitute a dominating presence in the South and East China Seas; and to be able to intervene wherever its expanding presence abroad, whether in terms of investment or of people, may be threatened.
In August the Pentagon announced a new Asia-Pacific Maritime Security Strategy. It stresses three objectives: to “safeguard the freedom of the seas; deter conflict and coercion; and promote adherence to international law and standards”. It confirmed that America was on schedule to “rebalance” its resources by deploying at least 60% of its naval and air forces to the Asia-Pacific by 2020, a target announced in 2012. Ray Mabus, the navy secretary, has asked Congress for an 8% increase in his budget, to $161 billion for the next fiscal year; he wants the navy to grow from 273 ships to at least 300. Some Republicans say that 350 is the right number.
Is America right to be worried? The way China is going about becoming a global maritime power differs somewhat from the Soviet Union’s great period of naval expansion. Apart from the powerful Soviet submarine fleet, the main purpose of which was strategic nuclear strike and stopping American reinforcements crossing the Atlantic to come to Europe’s aid, the Soviet navy was mostly concerned with expressing great-power status and extending Soviet influence around the world through “presence” missions that impressed allies and deterred enemies.
Power plays
These matter to China, too: a central element of what Mr Xi calls the “China dream” is its transformation into a military power that can cut a dash on the world stage. When large naval vessels exercise or enter port far from home they can be used to influence and coerce. It is understandable that a country of China’s size, history and economic clout should want some of that. Nor is it strange that China should want to prevent a possible adversary (ie, America) from operating with impunity near its own shores.
What makes China’s rise as a sea power troubling for the countries that rely on America to maintain the rules-based international order and the freedom of the seas are its behaviour and where it lies. The Indian Ocean, South China Sea and East China Sea are vital transit routes for the world economy. Eight out of ten of the world’s busiest container ports are in the region. Two-thirds of the world’s oil shipments travel across the Indian Ocean on their way to the Pacific, with 15m barrels passing through the Malacca Strait daily. Almost 30% of maritime trade goes across the South China Sea, $1.2 trillion of which is bound for America. That sea accounts for over 10% of world fisheries production and is thought to have oil and natural-gas deposits beneath its floor.
Much of this is contested, with China the biggest and most aggressive of the claimants. In the South China Sea Beijing’s territorial disputes include the Paracel Islands (with Taiwan and Vietnam); the Spratlys (with Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei) and Scarborough Shoal (with the Philippines and Taiwan). China vaguely claims sovereignty within its so-called nine-dash line over more than 90% of the South China Sea (see map). The claim was inherited from the Kuomintang government that fled to Taiwan in 1949; whether this applies only to the islands and reefs, or to all the waters within it, has never been properly explained. In the East China Sea a dispute with Japan over the Senkaku Islands (which Japan controls) rumbles on, though the mutual circling of coastguard vessels has become more ritualised of late.
America takes no position on these disputes, insisting only that they should be resolved through international arbitration rather than force, and that all sovereignty claims should be based on natural land features. Yet China is using its growing sea power coercively, carrying out invasive patrols, encroaching on other claimants’ waters and, most recently, creating five artificial islands in vast land-reclamation projects on previously submerged features (which, under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, do not grant entitlement to the 12-mile territorial waters). These are being equipped as advanced listening posts and three are getting runways and hangars, meaning they can rapidly be put to military use.
China is not the first to build in the area. But in less than two years it has reclaimed nearly 20 times as much artificial land as rival claimants together have in the past 40. Its bases would be easy for America to neutralise; but, short of war, they allow China to project military power much farther than hitherto. No wonder America’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, recently vowed that American forces will “sail, fly and operate anywhere that international law permits”, and that those “freedom of navigation” patrols would resume.
The Pentagon document notes that the PLAN now has the largest number of vessels in Asia, with more than 300 warships, submarines, amphibious ships and patrol craft. Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam can muster only about 200 between them, many of those older and less powerful than China’s (see table). This preponderance is hardly less daunting when it comes to maritime law-enforcement vessels: it has 205 compared with 147 operated by those five countries, which it often uses to stake its territorial claims while more lethal naval forces lurk over the horizon. Although nearly all the countries in dispute with China are trying to buy or build new ships, the capability gap continues to widen.
On the horizon
China could therefore threaten, if so minded, the rules and norms governing maritime boundaries and resources, freedom of navigation and the peaceful resolution of disputes. Would America be ready to face that challenge? Those who fear that America’s ultimate retreat is inevitable are almost certainly wrong. Although growing fast, China’s entire (official) defence budget is not much more than that of America’s navy alone. America has ten nuclear-powered supercarriers, one of which is permanently based in Japan. China has just one, a small, refurbished Soviet-era affair, and two more under construction. All three of America’s latest Zumwalt-class stealth destroyers (pictured), the world’s most advanced surface warships, will be deployed in the Asia-Pacific region along with other new ships and aircraft. Chinese military experts believe that the PLAN will take another 30 years to match the efficiency of the American navy.
America also has the advantage of having other navies to work with and alongside, both in the region and globally. Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Force lacks power-projection, but is regarded as the fifth-best navy in the world and is used to exercising with the American navy. The relaxation of national-security laws last month, allowing the Japanese navy to co-operate much more closely with allies on a greater range of missions, went down badly in Beijing. And Japan is working hard with regional neighbours who are in territorial disputes with China. It has made soft loans to the Philippines and Vietnam for new patrol vessels and older destroyers.
The Indian navy is another powerful ally. As concern about China has grown, it has started to drill with Western navies, who rate its competence highly. The annual Malabar exercise with the American navy now also includes ships from Australia, Singapore and, this year for the first time, Japan. The newish government of Narendra Modi is aiming for a 200-ship navy by 2027, with three carrier task groups and nuclear-powered submarines.
Catching up with the PLAN is impossible, but the Indian navy is determined to stop the Indian Ocean becoming a “Chinese lake”. Indian strategists have long believed that China is establishing a network of civilian port facilities and underwriting littoral infrastructure projects to boost its vessels’ ability to operate in waters which the Indian government thinks should be under its dominion. China now often sends its nuclear-powered submarines into the Indian Ocean.
China has benefited as much as any other country from the hegemonic power of the American navy to preserve peace in the Asia-Pacific region. This has helped its remarkable growth. Yet it seems determined to challenge that order. It is understandable that China should want to make it riskier for the American navy to operate close to its own littoral. And for a country that wants a “new type of great power relationship”, relying on America to police the seas is demeaning, though the notion that America and its allies are threatening to blockade the sea lanes of communication that are the arteries of China’s, and the world’s, trade is fanciful in any scenario short of war. But should it ever come to war over, say, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, China will want to deny America the ability to come to Taiwan’s aid, or at least delay it. The flip-side is that by developing a navy which intimidates its neighbours, China is driving them ever more closely into America’s embrace.
Moreover, being a strong but still second-best sea power can result in disastrous miscalculation. Germany challenged British naval supremacy early in the 20th century by provoking ruinously expensive competition in battleship construction. But it was still powerless to break Britain’s blockade during the first world war. As for Japan, six months after its surprise attack on Pearl Harbour during the second world war, it lost the decisive battle of Midway and with it a large part of the fleet it had built with such hubris.
There is nothing wrong with China regarding a powerful blue-water navy as essential to its prestige and self-image, particularly if it eventually concludes that it should be used to reinforce international rules rather than undermine them. The worry is that China itself may not know what it will do, and that the temptation to use it for more than flag-waving, diplomatic signalling and discreet bullying will become hard to resist. As Mahan observed: “The history of sea power is largely, though by no means solely, a narrative of contests between nations, of mutual rivalries, of violence frequently culminating in war.” It does not have to be like that, but America must prepare for the worst.
From the print edition: International
I remain convinced that China's strategic aims are to:
1. Be the undisputed "great power" in Asia ~ all of Asia;
2. Persuade (or, perhaps, just wait patiently for) America to remove all it's military presence from the Asian mainland; and
3. Secure the sort of global prestige that being a major naval power (being able to "project power") confers.
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Ian Bremmer, CEO of the Eurasia Group has posted a little map showing the contested islands (and islets and rocks) in just one group, the Spratlys, which lie just off the Philippines island of Palawan:
You can see that five counties have, in some way or another, occupied some of the "islands," and three countries, China, Taiwan and Vietnam have "developed" some of the islands, while the Philippines have an old construction airfield on an island in the Subi Reef group.
You can see that five counties have, in some way or another, occupied some of the "islands," and three countries, China, Taiwan and Vietnam have "developed" some of the islands, while the Philippines have an old construction airfield on an island in the Subi Reef group.
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As expected:
Philippine Star
Philippine Star
Plus more, reposted from another forum:
The US flags on this map point to the location where the US Navy warship USS Lassen passed within 12 miles of the artificial islands re Subi Reef (Zamora Reef) and Mischief Reef (Panganiban Reef)
Plus here's a disposition of which nations occupy and claim which islets/atolls:
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- Reaction score
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