Brian M Downing
China has been building up its navy for many years. Army budgets are relatively static but naval vessels continue to roll into the sea from bustling shipyards. Amid rising tensions with Washington, Beijing is hastening construction of its third and fourth aircraft carriers, at least one of which will have a sophisticated electro-magnetic launch system. It’s also manufacturing the J-15, a copy of the Russian SU-33, which is designed for carrier service.
What does this mean for the US rivalry and regional security?
Sea lanes
The purpose of a powerful navy is usually to secure trade routes. China depends on oil from the Persian Gulf and commodities from Africa and South America. This is a tall order as the country is ringed by adversaries in S Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam. All of them are aligned with the US; two of them are home to large US military installations.
An airfield in the southern tip of Vietnam could menace Chinese ships transiting the Strait of Malacca from Iran and Saudi Arabia. The far more formidable Indian military could pose an even more effective danger. Could China defend its ships as they near South America?
Paradoxically, China has developed, with Russian help, military hardware that underscores the vulnerability of aircraft carriers. Supersonic cruise missiles pose such severe threats that the US navy is revising its war plans and not developing new carriers as aggressively as once thought. The US has its own ship-killers which if deployed to East Asian allies and Vietnam, would imperil Chinese carriers hundreds of miles away.
Mastery of sea lanes is unlikely for many decades, if then.
Power prestige
Blue water navies have long been symbols of national greatness. Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands built powerful navies and vied with each other from Europe to Asia. When the US became a world power at the end of the the 19th century, it defeated Spain in short order, seized some of its colonies, and sent its battleships to ports around the world.
China’s naval program may be aimed more at power prestige than at defending long sea lanes. The Chinese people look upon their cities, factories, and engineering feats as signs of their government’s vision and legitimacy. The sight of large carrier groups plying the Pacific, Indian, and perhaps one day the Atlantic and the Persian Gulf will strengthen the public’s conviction that its government is restoring China’s preeminence in the world.
The fleets will underscore, to the region and much of the world, that China is a rising power. It will inevitably take its place as the most important power in the world, economically and militarily. Countries around the world, in Beijing’s estimation, will better recognize that they must come to terms with a new economic center. In Chinese thought, it would be a return to the nation’s dominance which stretches back to ancient times, interrupted only by the 19th and 20th centuries – an historical aberration to be corrected in the 21st.
Countries from the Persian Gulf to East Asia will sooner or later realize, again in Beijing’s estimation, that the Chinese military can better handle regional security. They will eventually be pressed to close foreign bases and rely on China rather than on a distant, faltering country.
Part two; arms race and regional response.
© 2020 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.