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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

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China’s Drive Towards Military Supremacy and Global Influence Part 2

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government continues 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.

Captain James Fanell, a retired Naval Intelligence officer, testified that China’s military forces, “particularly its navy, air and missile forces, and rapidly expanding marine corps, [are positioned] as the arbiters of a new global order–one that stands opposed to U.S. national interests and values, and those of our friends and allies. China has spent billions of dollars on a military that can achieve the Chinese Communist Party’s dreams…The Chinese Communist Party is engaged in a total, protracted struggle for regional and global supremacy. This supremacy is the heart of the ‘China Dream’. China’s arsenal in this campaign for supremacy includes economic, informational, political, and military warfare. The campaign at its heart is opportunistic; we have already witnessed them expand into the vacuum of a diminishing United States in East Asia.

“…in spite of having a GDP per capita on a par with the Dominican Republic, China’s leadership has invested staggering amounts of national treasure in a world-leading complex of ballistic missiles, satellites, and fiber-linked command centers with little utility but to destroy U.S. aircraft carriers on demand. With China’s children kept indoors because of hazardous levels of pollution, a health care system in crisis, toxic rivers, a demographic time bomb caused by government-directed population expansion and then forced contraction, and only one third the GDP per 4 capita of the United States, Beijing chooses to spend its precious resources on better ways to kill Americans and her allies…

“The PLA Navy is China’s point of the spear in its quest for global hegemony. As I speak to you today, the PLA Navy consists of over 330 surface ships and 66 submarines, nearly 400 combatants. As of 4 May 2018, the U.S. Navy consists of 283 battle force ships: 211 surface ships and 72 submarines.3 By 2030, it is estimated the PLA Navy will consist of some 550 ships: 450 surface ships and 99 submarines.4 As currently debated in the halls of the Congress and Pentagon, it remains unclear if the U.S. Navy of 2030 will even reach a total of 355 ships and submarines…From a technological standpoint, the PRC has quickly achieved parity with U.S. Navy standards and capacities for warship and submarine production.

“[the U.S. must take timely steps] to avoid geopolitical defeat globally and a likely naval disaster, the likes of which we have not experienced since the early, dark days of World War II.”
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Dan Blumenthal, the Director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Asian Studies section   noted:

“China’s boom in wealth over the past four decades has provided the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with means to implement a large-scale military modernization initiative that will allow China to power project far beyond China’s borders. Second, China has begun using this newfound military power to engage in campaigns in the Asia-Pacific to coerce regional neighbors into accepting China’s territorial claims and, over time, its dominance. Beijing has changed the regional balance of power by undermining the United States’ historical ability to operate freely in the region. Third, through increasingly sophisticated military exercises, ‘defense diplomacy’, and targeted investment and construction projects, the CCP is demonstrating its desire to operate further afield in what we call the ‘second island chain’ that is closer to our homeland, as well as through the Indian Ocean.

“The Chinese Communist Party aims to achieve the ‘China Dream’ of ‘Great National Rejuvenation,’ which means reordering the Asia-Pacific with China at its center as the “Middle Kingdom.” China has always been a continental empire and remains one to this day. However, now it is a continental empire ‘going to sea.’ At first this was driven by the desire to recapture one of the last remaining parts of the Qing empire not currently under CCP control: Taiwan. But now its ambitions have grown beyond that as we see from its actions in the South and East China Seas and in the Indian Ocean…

The Report Concludes Tomorrow

Photo: China’s People’s Liberation Army

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America’s Sinking Navy: The Chinese Threat

Part 2 of The New York Analysis of Policy and Government’s three-part series on the growing danger from a weakened American Navy, at a time when Russia and China have dramatically strengthened their fleets. 

GROWING THREATS

The perilous and diminished condition of the U.S. Navy must be contrasted with the rapidly growing strength of its Russian and Chinese adversaries.

CHINA

Andrew Erickson, writing for the National Interest, notes that “ China has parlayed the world’s second-largest economy and second-largest defense budget into the world’s largest ongoing comprehensive naval buildup, which has already yielded the world’s second-largest navy China may assemble a combat fleet that in overall order of battle (hardware only) is quantitatively, and perhaps even qualitatively, in the same league as the USN. In my personal opinion, even the perception that China was on track to achieve such parity would have grave consequences for America’s standing and influence across the Asia-Pacific and around the world.

The ANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2016” notes that “Over the past 15 years, China’s ambitious naval modernization program has produced a more technologically advanced and flexible force. The PLAN now possesses the largest number of vessels in Asia, with more than 300 surface ships, submarines, amphibious ships, and patrol craft. China is rapidly retiring legacy combatants in favor of larger, multi-mission ships equipped with advanced anti-ship, antiair, and anti-submarine weapons and sensors. China continues its gradual shift from “near sea” defense to “far seas” protection.”…China is expanding its access to foreign ports to pre-position the necessary logistics support to regularize and sustain deployments in the “far seas,” waters as distant as the Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Atlantic Ocean. In late November, China publicly confirmed its intention to build military supporting facilities in Djibouti…This Chinese initiative both reflects and amplifies China’s growing geopolitical clout, extending the reach of its influence and armed forces…

Admiral Harris, the U.S. Navy Pacific Commander, has told the U.S. Senate that China’s Navy is increasing its routine operations in the Indian Ocean, expanding the area and duration of operations and exercises in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean, and is beginning to act as a global navy – venturing into other areas, including Europe, North America, South America, Africa, and the Middle East.

The Congressional Research Service has released its analysis of the challenge. The New York Analysis of Policy and Government provides this summary:

China is building a modern and regionally powerful navy with a limited but growing capability for conducting operations beyond China’s near-seas region. Observers of Chinese and U.S. military forces view China’s improving naval capabilities as posing a potential challenge in the Western Pacific to the U.S. Navy’s ability to achieve and maintain control of blue-water ocean areas in wartime—the first such challenge the U.S. Navy has faced since the end of the Cold War. More broadly, these observers view China’s naval capabilities as a key element of an emerging broader Chinese military challenge to the long-standing status of the United States as the leading military power in the Western Pacific. The question of how the United States should respond to China’s military modernization effort, including its naval modernization effort, is a key issue in U.S. defense planning.

China’s naval modernization effort encompasses a broad array of platform and weapon acquisition programs, including anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs), anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs), submarines, surface ships, aircraft, and supporting C4ISR (command and control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) systems. China’s naval modernization effort also includes improvements in maintenance and logistics, doctrine, personnel quality, education and training, and exercises…

Potential oversight issues for Congress include the following:

  • whether the U.S. Navy in coming years will be large enough and capable enough to adequately counter improved Chinese maritime A2/AD forces while also adequately performing other missions around the world;
  • whether the Navy’s plans for developing and procuring long-range carrier-based aircraft and long-range ship-and aircraft-launched weapons are appropriate;
  • whether the Navy can effectively counter Chinese ASBMs and submarines; and
  • whether the Navy, in response to China’s maritime A2/AD capabilities, should shift over time to a more distributed fleet architecture.

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The Report concludes tomorrow

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Crisis at Sea

Perhaps it is a problem considered too unpleasant to report, but the reality of America losing its crucially  required lead in sea power is one of the most important, and under-reported, news stories of our time.

While both American and its NATO partners have engaged in significant underfunding of their fleets, Russia and China have moved forcefully to upgrade their equivalents in both quantity and quality. As firm allies  the two are rapidly moving into a position to dominate the oceans.

As the New York Analysis has previously reported  China already has more submarines than the U.S., and its navy will be larger than America’s within four years.

A National Interest review  adds these factors: “A not-so-fun fact you may not know: China has the world’s largest collection of sea mines. Just how many you ask? Estimates vary; however, some see Beijing holding 80,000-100,000 sea mines.” China also the ability to unleash vast amounts of missiles at American ships, whose ability to deter that attack would be overwhelmed both by the sheer numbers of the weapons launched, as well as by the fact that Beijing’s use of anti-satellite weapons would leave the U.S incapable of sensing and preparing for attacks.

China is now developing the infrastructure to support its global maritime ambitions. In addition to engaging in joint maneuvers with Moscow in the Mediterranean, building offshore facilities in the South China Sea, and developing allegedly civilian bases on both sides of the Panama Canal, it is now breaking ground on a naval base in Africa.  According to an NPR report  “The location is Djibouti, on the coast of Africa, at the mouth of the Red Sea, looking across at the Arabian Peninsula. – in other words, a very strategic location.

China’s axis partner Moscow has been diligent and ambitious in its naval efforts as well, both in returning to its cold war base in Cuba, spending more—a lot more—on its navy, and in developing cutting-edge vessels.

The Sputnik News service reports that “Russia’s Severnoye Design Bureau has started working on the Project 23560 Leader-class destroyer that will combine the features of a destroyer, large antisubmarine warship and guided missile cruiser. The ship will most likely be nuclear powered. It will be capable of spending up to 90 days offshore without additional refueling or support.”
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Moscow has asserted its power below the waves. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)  reveals that “Russia is expanding its undersea operations as part of a broader strategy of coercion aimed at its neighbors, NATO, and the United States. Russia has a long history of emphasizing its maritime capabilities for the purpose of strategic signaling, including the use of targeted provocations. Suspected territorial incursions in the Baltic Sea and provocative patrols in the North Atlantic have caused alarm among NATO and partner nations, in part because they have underscored the extent to which NATO and regional partner antisubmarine warfare (ASW) capabilities have atrophied since the end of the Cold War. … Moscow has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the development and maintenance of its submarine-based strategic deterrent and has emphasized nonnuclear submarine capabilities, certain surface warfare capabilities, and long-range antiship missiles over carrier battle groups… In Northern Europe, the Russian Navy’s use of submarines to signal presence, reach, and power achieves an effect that is disproportionate to the resources committed. NATO and partner nations do not currently possess the ability to quickly counter the Russian undersea challenge in much of the North Atlantic and Baltic Sea.”

The United States Naval Institute outlines how, since 2008, Russia has asserted itself at sea:
“Russia’s two showcase ships, the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsovand nuclear-powered cruiser Pyotr Veliki ( Peter the Great ), deployed to the Mediterranean and Caribbean in flamboyant fashion, operating with former Cold War allies and adversaries alike. Russian naval aviation began flying patrols in the Norwegian Sea and off Alaska with regularity. In effect, Moscow was announcing that the Russian navy was back. … The most publicized project is the development of the new Borey-class nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarine (SSBN), planned to initiate eight hulls by 2017. The class leader, the Yuri Dolgorukiy , was commissioned in 2009 in St. Petersburg, following 25 years of sporadic construction, but follow-on building is adhering closely to original schedule. …The Yasen class of up to ten nuclear-powered guided-missile submarines (SSGNs) is led by the Severodvinsk , which was commissioned in 2010 after a 16-year building process. ..Surface-combatant construction is following the same trend. The 2007 launching of the Steregushchiy , a 2,100-ton corvette touted for her low-observable design along with a high degree of automation and combat-systems integration, signaled Russia’s return to developing its own surface-warfare fleet. …The Russian icebreaker inventory is a special case, dwarfing the rest of the world’s fleets. Her six nuclear icebreakers (four oceanic, two coastal) are designed to maintain the Northern Sea Route for commercial as well as military purposes. The aging Russian fleet will be augmented by a third-generation nuclear-powered vessel, capable of operating near the coast as well in the deep waters of the Arctic Ocean. “

While not making headlines in America, Europe has taken notice. An article in the British newspaper, The Sun,  recently worried that “Vladimir Putin is assembling a secret fleet of super submarines which could topple NATO and plunge the world into war. A report by naval experts warns that Russia already has a small but sophisticated army of subs which are capable of launching missile strikes across the globe…The deadly group of stealthy underwater weapons are currently patrolling the world and have already reportedly breached UK waters having approached the Royal Navy’s base in Faslane, Scotland. Russia is stepping up its secret submarine programme to ‘Cold War’ levels and experts warn NATO members “no longer” have the defences to stop the aquatic death machines. Andrew Metrick, who co-wrote the report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said: ‘Russia operates a small number of very small, nuclear powered submarines that are capable of diving in excess of several thousand meters.”

What has been America’s reaction to this growing and very authentic threat?

As noted recently by Randy Forbes, the chair of Congress’s Subcommittee on Sea power, America’s 30-year shipbuilding plan forecasts a reduction in undersea force structure from 52 attack submarines today to 41 in the late 2020s, as well as the retirement without replacement of our 4 SSGN guided missile submarines and roughly 60 percent of our undersea payload capacity.  Forbes notes that “submarines are already in short supply.  A few months ago, Admiral Harris testified that the Navy could meet only 62% of his demand for attack submarines.  More recently, I have received data from the Navy showing that overall in FY17 we will be able to fulfill only 42 percent of our combatant commanders’ global demand for submarines.  I fear this shortfall will only grow more acute as our SSN force structure shrinks and the undersea domain continues to grow in importance…”

Forbes noted that Congress seeks to prevent the Obama Administration from inactivating half of the Navy’s cruisers and deactivating one of ten carrier air wings. The U.S. navy has already been reduced from a high of 600 ships to approximately 274.

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China’s Growing Naval Threat

One of the most important strategic developments in the 21st century has been the enormous growth of the Chinese Navy.  Beijing already has more submarines than the U.S., and by 2020, its navy will exceed America’s in size. The global implications are extraordinary and deeply troubling.

The Congressional Research Service has released its analysis of the challenge. The New York Analysis of Policy and Government provides this summary:

China is building a modern and regionally powerful navy with a limited but growing capability for conducting operations beyond China’s near-seas region. Observers of Chinese and U.S. military forces view China’s improving naval capabilities as posing a potential challenge in the Western Pacific to the U.S. Navy’s ability to achieve and maintain control of blue-water ocean areas in wartime—the first such challenge the U.S. Navy has faced since the end of the Cold War. More broadly, these observers view China’s naval capabilities as a key element of an emerging broader Chinese military challenge to the long-standing status of the United States as the leading military power in the Western Pacific. The question of how the United States should respond to China’s military modernization effort, including its naval modernization effort, is a key issue in U.S. defense planning.

China’s naval modernization effort encompasses a broad array of platform and weapon acquisition programs, including anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs), anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs), submarines, surface ships, aircraft, and supporting C4ISR (command and control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) systems. China’s naval modernization effort also includes improvements in maintenance and logistics, doctrine, personnel quality, education and training, and exercises.

Observers believe China’s naval modernization effort is oriented toward developing capabilities for doing the following: addressing the situation with Taiwan militarily, if need be; asserting or defending China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and East China Sea; enforcing China’s view that it has the right to regulate foreign military activities in its 200-mile maritime exclusive economic zone (EEZ); defending China’s commercial sea lines of communication (SLOCs); displacing U.S. influence in the Western Pacific; and asserting China’s status as a leading regional power and major world power.

Potential oversight issues for Congress include the following:

 whether the U.S. Navy in coming years will be large enough and capable enough to adequately counter improved Chinese maritime A2/AD forces while also adequately performing other missions around the world;

 whether the Navy’s plans for developing and procuring long-range carrier-based aircraft and long-range ship-and aircraft-launched weapons are appropriate;

 whether the Navy can effectively counter Chinese ASBMs and submarines; and

 whether the Navy, in response to China’s maritime A2/AD capabilities, should shift over time to a more distributed fleet architecture.

World events have led some observers, starting in late 2013, to conclude that the international security environment has undergone a shift from the familiar post-Cold War era of the last 20 to 25 years, also sometimes known as the unipolar moment (with the United States as the unipolar power), to a new and different situation that features, among other things, renewed great power competition with China and Russia and challenges by these two countries and others to elements of the U.S.-led international order that has operated since World War II.5 China’s improving naval capabilities can be viewed as one reflection of that shift.

 

Declining U.S. Technological and Qualitative Edge

DOD officials have expressed concern that the technological and qualitative edge that U.S. military forces have had relative to the military forces of other countries is being narrowed by improving military capabilities in other countries. China’s improving naval capabilities contribute to that concern.

Challenge to U.S. Sea Control and U.S. Position in Western Pacific

Observers of Chinese and U.S. military forces view China’s improving naval capabilities as posing a potential challenge in the Western Pacific to the U.S. Navy’s ability to achieve and maintain control of blue-water ocean areas in wartime—the first such challenge the U.S. Navy has faced since the end of the Cold War.8 More broadly, these observers view China’s naval capabilities as a key element of an emerging broader Chinese military challenge to the long-standing status of the United States as the leading military power in the Western Pacific.

Implications of Military Balance in Absence of a Conflict

Some observers consider a U.S.-Chinese military conflict in the Pacific over Taiwan or some other issue to be very unlikely because of significant U.S.-Chinese economic linkages and the tremendous damage that such a conflict could cause on both sides. In the absence of such a conflict, the U.S.-Chinese military balance in the Pacific could nevertheless influence day-to-day choices made by other Pacific countries on whether to align their policies more closely with China or the United States. In this sense, decisions that Congress and the executive branch make regarding U.S. Navy programs for countering improved Chinese maritime military forces could influence the political evolution of the Pacific and consequently the ability of the United States to pursue various policy goals.

A Broad-Based Modernization Effort

Although press reports on China’s naval modernization effort sometimes focus on a single element, such as China’s aircraft carrier program or its anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs), China’s naval modernization effort is a broad-based effort with many elements. China’s naval modernization effort includes a wide array of platform and weapon acquisition programs, including programs for ASBMs, anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs), land-attack cruise missiles (LACMs), surface-to-air missiles, mines, manned aircraft, unmanned aircraft, submarines, aircraft carriers, destroyers, frigates, corvettes, patrol craft, amphibious ships, mine countermeasures (MCM) ships, underway replenishment ships, hospital ships, and supporting C4ISR18 systems. Some of these acquisition programs are discussed in further detail below. China’s naval modernization effort also includes improvements in maintenance and logistics, doctrine, personnel quality, education and training, and exercises.

Over the past two decades, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has transformed itself from a large but antiquated force into a capable, modern military. In most areas, its technology and skill levels lag behind those of the United States, but it has narrowed the gap. Moreover, it enjoys the advantage of proximity in most plausible scenarios and has developed capabilities that capitalize on that advantage….

 Four broad trends emerge:

Since 1996, the PLA has made tremendous strides… the net change in capabilities is moving in favor of China. Some aspects of Chinese military modernization, such as improvements to PLA ballistic missiles, fighter aircraft, and attack submarines, have come extraordinarily quickly by any reasonable historical standard.

  • The trends vary by mission area, and relative Chinese gains have not been uniform across all areas. In some areas, U.S. improvements have given the United States new options, or at least mitigated the speed at which Chinese military modernization has shifted the relative balance.

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  • Distances, even relatively short distances, have a major impact on the two sides’ ability to achieve critical objectives. Chinese power projection capabilities are improving, but present limitations mean that the PLA’s ability to influence events and win battles diminishes rapidly beyond the unrefueled range of jet fighters and diesel submarines. This is likely to change in the years beyond those considered in this report, though operating at greater distances from China will always work, on balance, against China.
  • Over the next five to 15 years, if U.S. and PLA forces remain on roughly current trajectories, Asia will witness a progressively receding frontier of U.S. dominance. The United States would probably still prevail in a protracted war centered in virtually any area, and Beijing should not infer from the above generalization that it stands to gain from conflict. U.S. and Chinese forces would likely face losses on a scale that neither has suffered in recent decades. But PLA forces will become more capable of establishing temporary local air and naval superiority at the outset of a conflict. In certain regional contingencies, this temporal or local superiority might enable the PLA to achieve limited objectives without “defeating” U.S. forces. Perhaps even more worrisome from a military-political perspective, the ability to contest dominance might lead Chinese leaders to believe that they could deter U.S. intervention in a conflict between it and one or more of its neighbors. This, in turn, would undermine U.S. deterrence and could, in a crisis, tip the balance of debate in Beijing as to the advisability of using force….

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China’s new canal challenges U.S. security in Latin America

The dramatic transformation of Latin America from a relatively nonthreatening geographical region to one that presents a clear danger, harboring the U.S.’s most significant rivals, continues at a worrisome pace. China’s involvement in the Panama Canal, and its construction of its own canal across Nicaragua, is a prime example.

Strategically, the ability to travel through the Western Hemisphere, bypassing the need for the lengthy and dangerous passage at the extreme southern end of South America provides an enormous advantage to whichever nation controls the canal allowing this to occur. The Panama Canal has been a vital asset to the United States, allowing mobility for its fleet.  Its importance is understood by other nations as well, particularly China.

The Menges Project  reports that “Currently the Panama Ports Company, a subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., has exclusive and extensive rights to control both ends of the Panama Canal. Hutchison Whampoa is a Chinese company owned by Hong Kong billionaire, Li Ka-Shing, who has strong ties with Beijing. Considering Li’s close ties with the Chinese government, it is highly plausible that Hutchison Whampoa has the potential to act as Beijing’s political agent and that their possession of the ports at either end of the Panama Canal constitutes a serious U.S. national security issue.”

Richard A. Delgaudio, who authored a book on the issue, notes that “..the takeover of the Panama Canal by Red China is a serious security threat to the United States.”

Beijing has even larger goals. Initial work on a larger canal, dug through Nicaragua, was begun in December. The $70 billion dollar project will take 14 years to reach completion in 2029. It will serve China’s navy well. Beijing’s rapidly growing fleet will outnumber America’s navy by 2020.
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According to a report in The World, “Two years ago Nicaragua put its sovereignty in hock by giving a concession of up to 100 years for a canal that could cost $40 billion-50 billion to Wang Jing, a Chinese telecoms magnate. …The next step will be a port a few miles inland big enough to process 500-metre-long ships with five times the container-carrying capacity of those that currently traverse the Panama Canal.”

Reviewing the project, the Diplomat notes: “As for the geopolitical implications, there has been much speculation about China’s intentions with the canal. China has active in Central America for years (even decades). It has been selling arms to Western Hemisphere states, while pursuing other initiatives to build military and economic relations… Clearly, this is a challenge to traditional U.S. pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere…

“The canal may attract Chinese military vessels looking to protect Chinese commercial interests. China has recently published plans to grow its navy by 351 warships, surpassing the U.S. Navy in sheer numbers at least by 2020. Whether it plans to deploy its ships to waters around China or use them to expand its presence elsewhere, like Central America, is unclear. Still, combined with its infrastructure investment, traditional assumptions of U.S. primacy are facing their greatest challenge in decades – even in a region traditionally considered its backyard.”

Environmental objections to the Nicaraguan Canal project have also been raised. According to Matthew Shaer’s study reported in the Smithsonian  “A New canal through Central America could have devastating consequences. The ramifications of the proposed route have environmentalists worried, and for good reason…The new canal and its infrastructure, from roads to pipelines to power plants, will destroy or alter nearly one million acres of rainforest and wetlands. And that doesn’t include Lake Nicaragua, a beloved 3,191-square-mile inland reservoir that provides most Nicaraguans with drinking water.”