China’s Rise Troubles World

For 10 days last October top US military athletes were in Wuhan, China competing in the 2019 Military World Games. How the world has changed in only a few short months. Or, has the military competition just gone unnoticed? Although the Covid-19 virus has garnered the world’s attention, and deservedly so, other important developments continue to emerge from China. One of the most significant may be recent reporting on the state of the increasing Chinese military threat. Only three decades ago Beijing commanded backward, ill-trained, and ill-equipped forces. The country lacked a blue water navy and had little chance of successfully extending its sphere of influence beyond its own shores.

In 2020 the world is witnessing an emerging global power whose aggressive and intimidating behavior no longer belies the long-term goals of President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). China blatantly announces and exerts its power across many parts of the globe from the depths of sub-Saharan Africa to the cold waters of the Arctic Ocean. While not yet officially a global military power the strategic threat it poses is real and not limited to its neighboring countries or even the Indo-Pacific region. Politically China is challenging the leadership of other major nations in international bodies in pursuit of its own self-interest, while repressing the freedom of its own people at home. Its goal: hegemonic military power and global political influence and prestige.

Western world leaders, since the opening of China, have softly encouraged Beijing to be a good actor and to participate in world affairs. Few nations, however, have exhibited the political willpower to stand up to the communist power’s belligerent behavior. In 2020 China analysts increasingly are questioning the long-term price to be paid for historically allowing China’s paramount leaders, including the current president Xi Jinping, to commandeer world opinion, rape large areas of Africa, exploit the developing world of its natural resources, impose the CCP’s will on the Arctic nations, and conduct influence-peddling in South America and Europe. This is all ongoing while much of the world ignores China’s human rights and other atrocities at home.

According to a recent Heritage Foundation report on great power competition, the Chinese threat since 2015 has increased dramatically although not evenly across all areas of the world. Xi Jinping has a better military capability in 2020 to carry out aggressive action far from the country’s shores than at any time in its modern history. Dedicated cyber warfare troops regularly attack other nations’ communications and information infrastructures. According to some computer analysts, China may have surpassed the United States’ technical capability, and its overall capacity, to eliminate the Chinese cyber threat.

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For the most part, at the moment, China is concentrating its military gains regionally by obtaining control over the air and sea spaces near the mainland. At the same time its economic policies and political ambitions are more global in nature. So, what should the West be most concerned about in the coming decades? The threats from China are varied and immense.

The US Department of Defense reports that China intends to be a world-class military power by 2049. Once devoid of a blue water navy China today is building its second aircraft carrier, sailing two new cruisers and has many more military ships under construction. The People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAN) which only three decades ago cannibalized plane parts to keep 50% of its air force in the air at any one time, now operates the fifth-generation J-20 aircraft. This plane has stealth characteristics, many of which appear to be stolen intellectual property from US manufacturers. Cyber theft also has enabled China to reduce the cost and skip the years of research and development it takes to create new military technologies.

China has claimed international territory and its navy operates freely throughout the South and East China Seas. It is capable of threatening freedom of navigation and effectively can deny, if it chooses, to provide access of ships and planes to 70% of the world’s oceanic commercial routes, which account for $3 trillion worth of global trade. China has militarized islands throughout the region, built runways capable of landing military jets, installed advanced missile launchers, and dredged lagoons to create ports to service its military ships far from its shores.

In recent years China has weaponized space and demonstrated it directed-energy weapons and satellite jammers. Today, there is the additional danger of China’s Huawei 5G network. The CCP requires it to provide the Chinese government all information off the network, when requested to do so, by Chinese law. In essence, Beijing has created a world-class espionage tool while the West watched.

With the world following daily updates on the Covid-19 virus there is little public discourse on China’s military advances and its near-peer status with many of the great powers. The Trump Administration is ramping up the United States’ defense and improving deterrence measures against a belligerent China. To safeguard the world the US and other western nations remain vigilant and not ignore China’s military during the current pandemic as it is not sitting idle while the virus spreads.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. Each Friday, she presents key updates on China.

Illustration: Wuhan, China (Pixabay)

Quick Analysis

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.