{"id":8157,"date":"2013-08-06T06:00:11","date_gmt":"2013-08-05T20:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=8157"},"modified":"2013-08-07T14:10:42","modified_gmt":"2013-08-07T04:10:42","slug":"chinas-maritime-dilemmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/chinas-maritime-dilemmas\/","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s maritime dilemmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"<\/a>The strategy behind China\u2019s emerging naval capability is subject to considerable debate. Most of the commentary concentrates on the People\u2019s Liberation Army Navy\u2019s (PLAN) capability development. Some commentators argue<\/a> that the PLAN has shifted its focus towards developing a \u2018blue water navy\u2019 to contest America\u2019s maritime predominance in the Western Pacific. But, as David McDonough\u2019s recent post<\/a> on The Strategist<\/i> points out, the PLAN also continues to invest in defensive \u2018anti-access\/area-denial\u2019 (A2\/AD) for operations in its \u2018 First Island Chain\u2019. The common theme of these assessments is that China\u2019s growing naval power should have us worrying.<\/p>\n

However, while the PLAN\u2019s growing maritime capabilities potentially pose a challenge to the United States and countries in the Indo-Pacific region, it\u2019s also important to consider the weaknesses in China\u2019s maritime strategy. Indeed, I\u2019d argue that provided the US and its allies and partners invest in smart counter-strategies, China will find it very difficult to overcome its maritime dilemmas and to coerce regional countries in accepting Beijing\u2019s territorial claims.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with China\u2019s ‘Taiwan Dilemma’. The conventional wisdom is that China has already \u2018succeeded\u2019 in its A2\/AD strategy in the Taiwan Straits by raising the costs for third-party intervention prohibitively high, i.e. keeping US carrier battle groups at arms length. But even if the PLA manages to keep US forces out of a conflict through a \u2018sea denial strategy\u2019\u2014which in itself is a very risky assumption given the importance of Taiwan in US Pacific strategy<\/a>\u2014it faces serious political and operational challenges in invading Taiwan. As I\u2019ve argued elsewhere<\/a>, Taiwan is systematically investing in its own \u2018sea denial strategy\u2019 and the PLA would need to physically destroy most of the island’s infrastructure prior to invasion, with disastrous consequences for China\u2019s international and regional reputation. In short, the PLAN\u2019s A2\/AD approach in the Taiwan Straits might not translate into real political currency for Beijing\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n

Secondly, US naval strategists<\/a> argue that the PLAN faces a ‘strategic chokepoint dilemma’. The moment the PLAN sails through the Taiwan Straits into the wider Western Pacific Ocean, it faces the combined naval power of the US Navy and her allies, particularly Japan. It couldn’t hope to establish a significant level of \u2018sea control\u2019 in this area. Moreover, as soon as the PLAN projects maritime power out of Hainan Island into the South China Sea to assert its claims in the \u2018nine-dashed line<\/a>\u2019 it will face a reengaged US military<\/a> as well as A2\/AD \u2018pockets\u2019 of Southeast Asian countries. Just like the US Navy and other modern navies, the PLAN won\u2019t be immune from sea denial capabilities such as submarines, anti-submarine warfare and anti-ship missiles. Moreover, the Chinese Government has pointed to the country\u2019s \u2018Malacca Dilemma<\/a>\u2019\u2014the PLAN\u2019s inability to protect China\u2019s energy transport in this strategic chokepoint. But given the geostrategic characteristics of the Malacca Strait\u2014only 1.5 nm at its narrowest point and critical not just for China but the rest of Asia\u2014military options for China are also very limited. Any attempt to project naval power to control this area will automatically draw China into conflict with regional heavyweights such as India, Indonesia and Japan\u2014hardly a winning formula.<\/p>\n

Finally, Chinese strategists seem to be aware that the offensive use of naval power against its Asian neighbours will most likely not achieve any political objective; the opportunity costs of a war at sea are just too high. That\u2019s probably why the most significant recent development in China\u2019s maritime strategy has been the creation of a unified coast guard agency<\/a>. This step potentially strengthens China\u2019s capacity to use non-military vessels for coercive purposes in territorial disputes with Japan and Southeast Asian nations.<\/p>\n

But even this strategy has limits. Regional countries are upgrading their coast guards and other maritime agencies to level the playing field. They also cooperate, as in the case of Japan and The Philippines. In July, Tokyo announced it would provide Manila with 10 coast guard patrol boats<\/a> through a yen loan to help it to counter Beijing\u2019s maritime assertiveness. Regional countries are also increasing their maritime surveillance capabilities to monitor and expose Chinese maritime behaviour to a domestic, regional and global audience. This fundamentally undermines Beijing\u2019s attempt to restore its \u2018soft power deficit\u2019 accumulated over recent years.<\/p>\n

While China\u2019s naval power projection will certainly grow in the future, it\u2019s far from inevitable that the PLAN\u2019s coercive potential will increase commensurately. Indeed, the PLAN\u2019s current desire for big surface combatants and aircraft carriers runs counter to modern navies\u2019 recognition that the future lies in a greater number of smaller, more dispersed and less vulnerable ships which operate as part of a joint force. I\u2019m not yet convinced that China as a continental power<\/a> has much to gain politically by investing in a very expansive, offensive blue water navy. And even if it does, the good news is that there\u2019ll be lots of ways to offset the PLAN strategy.<\/p>\n

Benjamin Schreer is a senior analyst at ASPI.<\/em> Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The strategy behind China\u2019s emerging naval capability is subject to considerable debate. Most of the commentary concentrates on the People\u2019s Liberation Army Navy\u2019s (PLAN) capability development. Some commentators argue that the PLAN has shifted its …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":8169,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[477],"tags":[52,422],"class_list":["post-8157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-strategy","tag-china","tag-maritime-strategy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nChina\u2019s maritime dilemmas | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/chinas-maritime-dilemmas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"China\u2019s maritime dilemmas | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The strategy behind China\u2019s emerging naval capability is subject to considerable debate. 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