China’s Drive Towards Military Supremacy and Global Influence, Part 3

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government concludes its review of the extremely worrisome revelations about China’s military capabilities and its aggressive intentions that were revealed at a recent hearing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Dan Blumenthal, the Director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Asian Studies section discussed China’s ongoing and successful drive to project its military power:

“Since 2014, China has substantially expanded its ability to monitor and project power throughout the South China Sea via the construction of dual civilian-military bases and the placement of military assets at its outposts in the disputed Spratly and Paracel Islands. These include new radar and communications arrays, airstrips and hangars to accommodate combat aircraft, shelters likely meant to house missile platforms, and deployments of mobile surface-to-air and anti-ship cruise missile systems at Woody Island in the Paracels. On May 2, 2018, it was reported that China installed YJ-12B cruise missiles and HQ-9B long-range surface-to-air missiles (that have ranges of 295 and 160 nautical miles, respectively) on the Spratly Islands. This was the first Chinese missile deployment to Chinese reclaimed ‘islands.’ Some Chinese forward operating bases in the South China Sea are complete, giving China the capability to make costly third party intervention in the region. In April 2018, new satellite imagery suggested that China had deployed electronic warfare equipment to the Spratlys, and later reports revealed that U.S. Navy fighters had encountered some jamming problems as its Growlers patrolled the South China Sea. If China continues along this trajectory and deploys forces onto these reclaimed islands, then China will be able to ‘extend its influence thousands of miles to the South and power project deep into Oceania,’ as Admiral Philip Davidson noted…

With this newfound military power, China has also become more confident in engaging in coercion campaigns against regional states. (See New York Analysis of Policy & Government)Within in the South China Sea, China aims to limit other countries’ access to the waters through coercive tactics by the Chinese ‘maritime militia’ patrolling the waters and trailing U.S. patrols in the region. Against regional neighbors, the Chinese maritime militia, which is not officially part of the PLAN, consists of ‘fishing’ boats that are equipped with large steel rods and strong spray water hoses that ram against and spray Filipino and Vietnamese fishing boats that try to fish near the contested islands. Moreover, China continues to engage in unsafe intercepts of U.S. planes conducting routine surveillance flights around the South China Sea and Korean peninsula, sometimes coming within 1000 yards of U.S. Navy P-3s…

Driven by the need for resources, China has been more military active in the Indian Ocean, Eastern Africa and the Persian Gulf. Despite the challenges facing the Chinese economy, Xi Jinping has also aimed to project Chinese power worldwide through the Belt and Road initiative that aims to link China with Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The creation of a new ’Silk Road’ is highly unlikely. However, targeted investments and projects that aim to secure Chinese energy and oil supply lines are ongoing. Beijing has also deployed a toolkit of economic inducements to purchase the support of countries it has deemed strategically valuable – from the eastern coast of Africa, where it wants naval bases, to the Middle East, where it needs oil. In these cases, Beijing is trading money for access to ports and other potentially useful military facilities. If you carefully track the numbers as my colleague Derek Scissors does in his China Investment Tracker, you find that China has mass investment and construction projects in countries that offer potential access to the Indian Ocean, such as Pakistan and Bangladesh. In addition to infrastructure and capital investment, China has bought up many global ports around key trade routes and maritime chokepoints, usually first for commercial purposes and then sometimes transitioning their use for military assets as well.”

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In his testimony, Richard D. Fisher, Jr, Senior Fellow International Assessment and Strategy Center, emphasized that “Historically, China’s Communist Party would hide military goals such as becoming the world’s dominant power in any or all domains. It would not announce such goals in press conferences or White Papers. Instead it would ritually deny such goals so as to discourage the United States and its Allies from preparing sufficiently to defend themselves. However, China recently has begun to acknowledge in its official statements that it plans to project military power beyond Asia. But the Chinese leadership continues to ritually deny that it seeks ‘hegemony’ or ‘world domination.’ …China’s denials are undermined by China’s actions…

“Chinese actions suggesting larger goals include: budding Chinese strategic cooperation with Russia; China’s building of alternate institutions that challenge U.S. leadership; China’s ongoing attempt to change the Latin American balance of power by encouraging a second war over the Falklands Islands; and indications China will militarize the Moon.

“Furthermore, China’s two decades average of near double-digit growth in defense spending, growing PLA power projection forces, and China’s drive to create or obtain greater overseas military access combine to suggest the trajectory of China’s development toward global military power. China’s creation of new military bases in the Spratly Island group — and its potential creation of nuclear, naval and air bases on Taiwan, should that island democracy be conquered — point to an early objective of isolating and coercing Asian democracies such as Japan and the Philippines, leading to great pressure to end their alliances with the United States. China will also seek greater military access in the Indian Ocean to further contain India, while political influence, military engagement, and debt default acquisitions will accelerate PLA access in Latin America and Africa It can be expected that the actions of a globally powerful China toward the world’s free societies will be informed by the CCP’s pervasive domestic suppression of democratic impulses, freedom of expression, religion, and domestic dissent. A Chinese conquest of Taiwan could provide a stark demonstration of the CCP’s organized and brutal suppression of democracy. Today, China’s loud criticism of democracy, and its potential to promote a rebranded Marxism, suggest that overarching anti-democratic and anti-American ideological campaigns could underscore China’s drive for global power projection.”

Photo: China’s People’s Liberation Army

Quick Analysis

Judge Merchan continues to deny justice to Donald Trump

In August of 2024, we discussed the US Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States. We described the three tiered system enunciated by Chief Justice Roberts to determine whether or not the actions taken by the President of the United States are entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution or not. The first tier are acts within the President’s constitutionally mandated authority which are subject to “absolute immunity.” The next are acts that may have “presumptive immunity,” and are subject to examination with evidence that rebuts the presumption of immunity. The third are acts which are unofficial, and which enjoy no immunity. In September, we also discussed the effect this decision should have on the New York County criminal case currently pending against President-elect Trump before Judge Juan Merchan. We cited to a CNN report, which described the evidence used against Donald Trump at the trial of that matter: “Trump’s lawyers pointed to testimony at trial – including from White House officials Hope Hicks and Madeleine Westerhout – they argued should not have come before the jury…'[a]ll of Hicks’s testimony concerning events in 2018, when she was serving as the White House Communications Director, concerned official acts based on [Presidential] authority for which President Trump is entitled to absolute immunity,’ Trump’s attorneys argued. ‘[the Supreme Court’s ruling] specifically forbids prosecutors from offering ‘testimony’ from a President’s ‘advisers’ for the purpose of ‘probing the official act.’” Sure enough, as Chief Justice Roberts stated in the Presidential Immunity decision, “[a]llowing prosecutors to ask or suggest that the jury probe official acts for which the President is immune would thus raise a unique risk that the jurors’ deliberations will be prejudiced by their views of the President’s policies and performance while in office. The prosaic tools on which the Government would have courts rely are an inadequate safeguard against the peculiar constitutional concerns implicated in the prosecution of a former President.” At the time, we stated that “Judge Merchan allowed testimony regarding Donald Trump’s official acts as President, acts which enjoy absolute immunity and which cannot be used against him, or even be entered into evidence in a criminal trial, a situation which could have been avoided had Judge Merchan delayed the trial until he’d received the guidance of the US Supreme Court.” Nonetheless, we predicted that Judge Merchan “will find a way to justify his actions once again, and let stand the unlawful conviction of former President Donald Trump.” You know how much we hate to say we were right…but…we were right. “This Court…finds that the evidence related to the [President-elect’s] claims relate entirely to unofficial conduct and thus, receive no immunity protections,” Judge Merchan wrote in his December 16, 2024 decision. “Further, even if this Court were to deem all of the contested evidence…as official conduct falling within the outer perimeter of Defendant’s Presidential authority, it would still find that the People’s use of these acts as evidence of the decidedly personal acts of falsifying business records poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch, a conclusion amply supported by non-motive-related evidence.” In so ruling, the Court denied Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss his New York County conviction. Let us examine these findings, in light of the evidence admitted at the President-elect’s trial, and then compare that evidence to the acts granted absolute immunity by the US Supreme Court. In his decision, Judge Merchan discusses the testimony of Hope Hicks, who served as the Communications Director for the Trump White House. “Defendant argues that in her roles at the White House, any communications between Ms. Hicks and Defendant must receive absolute immunity…as Defendant’s ability to speak freely to Ms. Hicks was a core function of the Executive. According to Defendant, because Ms. Hicks wielded executive power on his behalf, authority that exists pursuant to Article II of the Constitution, any communications [President Trump] had with [Hicks] are subject to absolute immunity,” the Court wrote. Judge Merchan also noted that “[t]he People argue that the communications Defendant had with Ms. Hicks…constitute unofficial acts not entitled to any level of immunity.” In his inevitable agreement with the arguments presented by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office, Judge Merchan wrote “Defendant’s argument that any communication he had with Ms. Hicks is subject to absolute immunity by virtue of the position she held in the White House is mistaken…the President himself may speak in his unofficial capacity as a candidate or party leader, and certainly he can do so in his private capacity as well. Any argument that private conduct transforms into official conduct by communicating about the same to an individual with a particular title is without merit.” Thus, it is Judge Merchan’s position that the conversations Donald Trump had with his Communications Director are not entitled to immunity, even though those discussions were held at the White House, while Donald Trump was serving as President of the United States, merely because those discussions were not related to official Executive Branch activities. Sounds possibly reasonable – until you examine the Presidential Immunity decision more closely. In September, we wrote that “the statement made by Chief Justice Roberts in his majority opinion in the Presidential Immunity case [is significant]; ‘Presidents cannot be indicted based on conduct for which they are immune from prosecution…[t]estimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing such conduct may not be admitted as evidence at trial.’” This statement by Chief Justice Roberts points to a blanket immunity for ANY discussions had between the President and his advisors, regardless of the nature of those communications. Further, we noted that the Supreme Court issued the following warning: “[t]he government…contends that a jury could ‘consider’ evidence concerning the President’s official acts ‘for limited and specified purposes,’ and that such evidence would ‘be admissible.’” In rejecting that argument, Chief Justice Roberts states “[t]hat proposal threatens to eviscerate the immunity we have recognized. It would permit a prosecutor to do indirectly what he cannot do directly – invite the jury to examine acts for which a President is immune from prosecution […]