Tag: Chinese aggression

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Just Trade or Just War?

President Xi Jinping and the CCP leadership act aggressively at home toward the Chinese people. China’s foreign policy also is more aggressive abroad. In response, the West finds itself playing “whack-a-mole” in an attempt to contain the communist giant, although few leaders publicly will employ the word “contain.” Is it solely about competition in trade or does the reality of a rising Chinese state expose far  more nefarious underpinnings? Does it bely an evil end game being played out inside the current rules-based international order? Is China already conducting global war by other means? These are only a few of the questions leaders from around East Asia grappled with this week virtually at the East Asian Summit 2020 Senior Officials Meeting. 

There are no outward signs that China’s offensive geostrategic strategy is receding in amplitude or breadth, according to US officials. David Stillwell, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs, reassured meeting participants that Washington stands resolutely with its friends in South East Asia, including to uphold rule of law and oppose China’s unlawful effort to bully and steal the offshore resources of its neighbors. What that resistance means in realist politique terms remains vague.

Seventy-five years ago, Word War II ended with regime change and moves toward democratization in parts of Germany. That July leaders met at the Potsdam Conference and Churchill was defeated in his reelection bid. The Labor Party came to power in Great Britain. All were classic democratic moments. China’s opening to the west 40 years ago shows no such signs of an evolution in governance. Instead its leadership calls for global transformative change, not of its own repressive policies, but for an end to western-style democracy in every nation. Xi Jinping and the CCP leadership intend to dominate globally using a Chinese communist model to assure its own hegemonic rule. Last week China’s WTO Ambassador Zhang Xiangchen derisively called those in the US who denounce China’s end goal “headless chickens.” 

American safetyism, a term first coined by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff in “The Coddling of the American Mind,” describes a moral culture in which a people are unwilling to make trade-offs demanded by other practical and moral concerns. Rather than viewing safety as one concern among many, it becomes a sacred value. The United States and other free nations aided China’s rise to power while ignoring Beijing’s unwillingness to play by the norms established in the modern nation-state system. Failing to hold China and the CCP leadership accountable for its behavior over the last four decades, due in part to a fear of global conflagration, allowed China to accelerate its plans to dominate the world order. Today China is one of the five main challenges listed in the current US National Defense Strategy. Safetyism, and decades of a lack in political will power, has made the US and the West less secure. The world faces an uncertain future due to the intrinsic evil posed by China.

It no longer is possible to hide, ignore it, or wish it away. China effectively is at war with the West, incrementally dismembering parts of the international rules-based system. The authority to decide for war or peace is a sovereign right of governments, as is the decision on what is the appropriate type of war and how much to conduct. China made its decision. Now it is up to western world leaders to hold it accountable and determine the most effective means to fight China.  Typical definitions of “just war” include the concepts that it must be for a just cause, have good intention behind it, and be in proportion to the end that the war seeks to achieve. It moves us beyond the realism of Thucydides. Have we arrived at a point of an economic jus ad bellum with China? 

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If world leaders apply the principle of proportionality toward China’s actions in the South China Sea, the answer becomes clearer. Beijing has seized territory and illegally declared ownership. It has defied international court rulings. It is stealing technology and intellectual property and employing it in its quest for global domination of 5G communications networks and global supply chains. Across the world from Africa to the Arctic, China is making political inroads with promises of economic assistance and infrastructure development. 

The fallacy is that just war, and that is what China is conducting from its perspective, trumps unjust means. In the post-1990 period international organizations began codifying war as a duty when there is a responsibility to people in danger. All war is evil; some are necessary. The time has come for  legitimate authorities in the West to consider seriously if China’s aggressive actions are “just” about commercial trade and if the free world is willing to accept becoming collateral damage in the communist giant’s ongoing reshaping of the global landscape. 

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.

Photo: Main battle tanks attached to a tank detachment with a brigade under the PLA 76th Group Army rumble through cobbled path during a long-distance maneuver to a designated field in plateau area on July 14, 2020. (eng.chinamil.com.cn/Photo by Cao Xuguang)

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China’s Escalating Aggression

What constitutes a strike force and when is it dangerous?

On the evening of April 11, 2020, while the world sat transfixed over the climbing death tally from the Covid-19 virus, its latest unseen enemy, the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning along with two guided-missile destroyers, two guided-missile frigates, and a combat support ship sailed through the Miyako Strait near Okinawa. The carrier strike group came within 205 miles of Taiwan. Just 48 hours earlier the PLAF flew a J-11 fighter, H-6 bomber, and a KJ-500 reconnaissance plane past the southwestern tip of the island. 

That group then moved on to track a US R-135 electronic surveillance aircraft in international airspace in the western Pacific. At a time when the United States’ two aircraft carriers in the region, the USS Roosevelt and USS Reagan, are docked tending to Covid-19 cases on board, the question arises as to why China decided to push forward with a show of force. 

The Liaoning hasn’t visited these waters since June 2019. In the months preceding the global onset of the Covid-19 virus the PLAF and PLAN ramped up China’s aggressive behavior offshore. Was this latest event by a strike force intent only on testing Taiwan’s preparedness and response? Or, does it portend a future fraught with more negative challenges for the rest of the world? Have the major nations lost their vigilance in tracking China’s long-term grand strategy to emerge as a global power and regional hegemon inside of the next two decades? These are questions western military planners and American politicians need to be asking now while viable options still exist. It also should be of concern to the American public as China is not above using whatever type power it can wield to bully and inflict damage on nation-states it views as competitors or enemies. 

At the same time as Beijing is claiming ignorance over the origin of the pandemic, or blaming it on the United States, its leaders are implementing faux export restrictions to withhold US-bound medical supplies needed to combat the virus. These include large quantities of test kits already FDA approved, N-95 face masks, personal protective equipment, and other types of critical medical goods stuck in warehouses and at Chinese airports. China’s new regulations, established this month, come down from high-ranking officials in Beijing as Covid-19 cases pass the two million mark worldwide. 

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The extra 10 days needed to meet these new rules means lives lost overseas. The world can be certain President Xi Jinping is aware of the impact. In March, on a phone call with President Trump, President Xi promised to help with the pandemic. It is yet another example of China’s devious version of using its growing power to strike out at the world. This is the real China western governments must face, and come to terms with, in 2020 and beyond. The veil has lifted. The values and goals of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its leadership do not align with those of western nations. 

China’s strategic behavior often belies its true militaristic goals. Intentional or not, Beijing’s handling of the current crisis has opened to the world a brief window into the inner workings of CCP planners. President Xi, who also is Chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, is an authoritarian leader determined to undermine Western liberal values. Whether it is the export of G-5 network technologies, which in effect restrict individual freedom by acting as an artificial intelligence-based surveillance system,  or nationalized internet services with the ability to restrict political dissent and discourse across the developing world, China is determined to woo the world, defy conventional behavior and overtake the United States as the global hegemon. Whether recognized or not, be it through a traditional strike force group on the high seas, a cyber force in space, or outright physical bullying, the world is engaged in a total, protracted struggle with China. Two years ago, Rick Fisher, a China military expert, warned the US Congress that the United States has about ten years to take action to counter the Chinese threat. We have eight left. The Covid-19 virus might be the lynchpin that seals China’s fate. The lovefest with China will dissipate only if world leaders are vigilant and recognize the global domination plans of the government of the People’s Republic of China and act.

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.

Photo:China’s first home-built aircraft carrier leaves Dalian in Northeast China’s Liaoning province for sea trials on May 13, 2018. [Photo/Xinhua]

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The Deafening Silence

The extraordinary crises in U.S. foreign affairs, and the plight of human rights throughout the world, have failed to gain attention in much of the media.

The reasons are clear.  It is the mantra of much of the political left that America is in no military danger from abroad, freedom is not imperiled, and that whatever global challenges Washington must deal with are the products of its own prior actions. That has been the guiding principle of the Obama Administration. Whatever inconvenient facts depart from that narrative are wholly disregarded because much of the media shares that viewpoint.

There is clear precedence to this from the last presidential election. During a televised debate, Republican challenger Mitt Romney noted that Russian belligerence was a key problem. He was mocked not just by rival candidate Barack Obama, but also by the moderator of the debate, who abandoned all pretense of impartiality.  Despite the clear, overt and overwhelming evidence during the past several years proving Romney correct, there has been no admission of being drastically incorrect either by the President or the many journalists who joined him in mocking Romney’s statement.

While international affairs can sometimes be nebulous, the poor results from the foreign policy actions of President Obama and Secretaries Clinton and Kerry are crystal clear.

Russia and China have found that aggressive use of force achieves results, and comes at almost no cost.  Iran has found that it can be financially rewarded for holding Americans for ransom. Evildoers such as Syria’s Bashar al-Assad have learned that there is no such thing as a “Red Line” beyond which they dare not go. Afghanistan’s Taliban knows that all it has to do is wait out the clock for American forces to leave.

Consider:

When the Chinese Navy infringed upon the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone, Obama did nothing.  The White House didn’t even lodge a diplomatic protest.  Even after the World Tribunal at The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines, the White House remained largely on the sidelines.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, the only Obama/Clinton response was a weak set of sanctions. A simple, nonviolent, and extremely effective response would have been to open up federal lands to energy exploitation, in order to eventually bring down the cost of energy. This would have bankrupted Moscow, which is heavily dependent on energy sales to finance its military. It would also have reassured European allies of future access to energy without kowtowing to Russia. But the policy was ignored by the White House.

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On the flip side, America’s friends, allies, or simply those who happen to be on the same side of a controversy as the U.S. have found that Washington is neither reliable as a partner nor even committed to protecting its own shared self-interest. Ask the Israelis or Egypt’s former President Hosni Mubarak about that.

The utter failure of the Administration to enforce its own “Red Line” in Syria, or to respond in any meaningful way to the Benghazi attack, and to give the Taliban high status by negotiating with it, allowed depraved forces both in power in the Middle East and around the world seeking to gain dominance all the encouragement they needed to stay their course.

The Obama-Clinton foreign policy is not the product of dedication to non-violence or human rights, reasons often given for President Carter’s unsuccessful foreign policy moves. This White House and its supporters have turned their backs on atrocities whenever convenient.

Just one example: Vice News reports that “human rights groups, Malaysian activists, and a number of US Senators accuse Barack Obama’s administration of manipulating [that nation’s record on human trafficking] to allow the Southeast Asian country to join the president’s massive free trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership… Many anti-human trafficking advocates are crying foul.  ‘The State Department has sold out human rights to corporate and regional interests,’ David Abramowitz, the former chief counsel to the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a member of the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking, told Vice News.”

The number of humans in slavery has grown during the Obama-Clinton-Kerry tenure. The California Department of Justice reports that “Human trafficking is the world’s fastest growing criminal enterprise and is an estimated $32 billion-a-year global industry.”

Shoebat  reports that “In Saudi Arabia, (A major contributor to the Clinton Foundation) and other Gulf States, there are around over a million slaves. Obama has never mentioned this…These are deprived of food, adequate living conditions and are many times abused.”

The consistent record of foreign policy failure by Obama, Clinton and Kerry should not be overlooked or ignored.  However, that is precisely what America’s highly biased media is doing.

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Ignoring Catastrophe

Russian and Chinese activities correspond precisely to those that would be undertaken in preparation for the initiation of a major war. The two nations have dramatically and rapidly upgraded their militaries, trained together, expanded their overseas bases, insured access to raw materials, and conducted probing operations to test the responses of their foes.

President Obama appears oblivious, as does his two Democrat would-be successors. All three advocate continuing the addiction to transferring funds from defense to vote-buying social welfare programs. They continue to alienate U.S. allies. They adhere to tax and environmental policies that deteriorate the U.S. defense industrial base, and refuse to acknowledge the dramatic increase in the armaments and aggressive actions of Moscow and Beijing.

The deterioration of both the current arsenal of the U.S. armed forces, as well as funding for future replacements, is not limited to weapons.  Oval Office policies which have encouraged the retirement or outright dismissal of experienced military personnel play a large role in the downward trajectory of America’s defense infrastructure.

Affordable and common-sense precautions, such as protecting key assets from electromagnetic pulse destruction, have not been taken. It has been estimated that it would cost just a few billion dollars to accomplish this, yet it was wholly excluded from Mr. Obama’s $800 billion “stimulus” package.

The mass media’s lack of interest in military matters combined with its ideological inclination to favor domestic programs over national security prevents the citizenry from getting a clear picture of how hazardous the current global situation truly is.

There are salient facts that rarely get discussed:

For the first time in history, Russia has a lead in strategic nuclear weapons, a result of the 2009 New Start Treaty. Moscow also possesses a ten-to-one lead in tactical atomic weapons. China’s known nuclear force is powerful, and intelligence sources believe that many more weapons may have been built, deployed, and hidden in a vast network of tunnels. Both are more modern than America’s increasingly obsolete deterrent. Added together, the U.S. is overmatched.

China already has more submarines than the United States, and by 2020, its navy will be larger than its American counterpart. The lead will not be merely quantitative.  The ships Beijing is building are every bit as capable as any in the world. With the loss of senior personnel, the American “experience advantage” is rapidly becoming ancient history. China has also developed an extraordinarily advanced shore to ship missile that dramatically changes the dynamic in sea power. Basing that missile both on mainland China and on the new island it has constructed in the South China Sea will establish regional dominance.

Russia, too, has engaged in a significant naval buildup, and has taken steps to provide its ready-for-war fleet with expanded basing infrastructure. Moscow’s actions in invading the Ukraine to insure control of its Black Sea naval base, its support of Syria’s Assad to protect its Tartus naval base, its extraordinary Arctic Sea buildup, and its return to Cuba are all clear examples.

The combined actions of the two nations along with the reduced size of the American Navy, which has shrunk from 600 ships to less than 274, present a potentially catastrophic challenge.
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The U.S. defense strategy is heavily invested in space, far more so than any potential adversary. However, China has developed and demonstrated the capability of destroying American satellites. If they are destroyed, replacement will not be easy.  Remember, the U.S. is dependent on Russian rocket engines to put many payloads in orbit.  In the conflict that may soon come, the Pentagon will rapidly become deaf and blind.

The 21st Century presents a far different world than that of the 1940’s.  The oceans that insulated the U.S. and gave it time to build an armed force sufficient to counter any foes no longer provide a barrier.

The once-mighty American industrial base has been reduced to a shadow of itself, and lacks the capability to rapidly build quantities of weapons as it did in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor.  Just one example: there is only one plant in the entire U.S. that can manufacture tanks—and President Obama has repeatedly attempted to put it out of business.  In what can only be described as an act of insanity, some U.S. weapons systems depend on China for key components.  The military Washington has on hand is the only force it will have to depend on in the event of hostilities.

While Russia and China have fielded advanced new weapons systems on land, air, and sea, many of the Pentagon’s advanced weapons programs have been cut back, delayed, or eliminated.

The United States no longer is secure within its own hemisphere.  The Russian Navy has started to return to Cuba, and its nuclear bombers are being refueled in Nicaragua. China has infrastructure on both sides of the Panama Canal. Both Moscow and Beijing have established military-to-military ties with several Latin American and Caribbean nations.

For over half a century, the West had been secure in the knowledge that the U.S.-NATO alliance was the strongest military force on the planet.  That is no longer the case. The U.S. has decreased its conventional military strength and has failed to modernize its nuclear weapons, but Europe continues to act as if nothing has changed.  Since the end of the Second World War, it has largely depended on America for the bulk of its defense, and still does so. Freed of the burden of defense spending, it developed politically popular but extraordinarily expensive entitlement programs. European politicians lack the will to divert funds to their national security needs.

The increasingly close-knit Russian, Chinese, and Iranian axis has a real advantage over the U.S., NATO, and Pacific allies.  The three nations are in close proximity (Russia and China share an extensive border) and need not worry about their lines of supply and communication being interrupted. Geographically, Russia has a dominant position in Eastern Europe, China is rapidly becoming a hegemon in Asia, and Iran, with Russia’s assistance, has become the force to be reckoned with in the strategically vital Middle East. With their vastly increased navies, Russia and China can wreak havoc with U.S. attempts to reinforce bases and allies spread across the planet.

Unlike Germany and Japan in the Second World War, the new axis of Russia and China will not be at a disadvantage when it comes to raw materials.  Russia has vast reserves of energy, and China has worked diligently to corner the market in vital minerals, particularly in Africa. Indeed, when it comes to those raw materials, it will be America and its allies that face a severe challenge.

Too many politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have apparently decided that it is far more personally profitable to pretend that this imminent crisis does not exist than to take the necessary and expensive steps to address it. But whether the bill comes due in the form of an actual attack or the threat of an attack to obtain a massive strategic goal, it will come.

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Understanding Putin, Understanding Obama

Putin follows a classic pattern

The deployment of Russian military power to the Middle East, in alliance with both Iran and the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, (who has committed massive human rights offenses and has violated international accords through his use of banned weaponry) provides conclusory evidence of Vladimir Putin’s worldview.

Simply put, it is unquestionably evident that the Russian President, who invaded Ukraine, dramatically ramped up his nation’s military spending, violated nuclear arms agreements, resumed nuclear bomber patrols along American coastlines, and is establishing bases in Cuba and Nicaragua, seeks to make his nation the world’s preeminent military power.

In his determined quest to attain his goal, Putin has ignored international opinion, arms treaties, and even the objections of several public figures within his own homeland.

He has succeeded. Despite the increasingly hollow sounding claims from the White House and politicians of both parties that America is the world’s strongest nation, the fact is that the Russian-Chinese-Iranian axis has supplanted the U.S.-NATO alliance as the globe’s most significant military.

That status is based both on the power of Putin’s armed forces and on his own steely determination. Unconstrained by public opinion, he has displayed no qualms about partnering with pariah states such as Iran and Syria.  He pays no political price for telling outrights lies, such as he told when he claimed he was going into Syria to fight ISIS, or that some of his new missiles do not defy treaty prohibitions, or that his claims to expanded Arctic territories are legal.  Indeed, he has unabashedly stifled dissent within Russia through physical, financial, and extralegal intimidation.

One of the key links in America’s victory in the first Cold War was the shared interest of Washington and Beijing in taming the Kremlin.  Putin has reversed all that, and the Chinese, with their booming economy and greatly expanded military, now are allied with Russia against the U.S.

In essence, Putin is the classic expansionist leader, not dissimilar from those that preceded him in Germany and Japan in World War II.  Indeed, it must be remembered that Russia began the Second World War in an alliance with the Nazis. Moscow only changed sides after Hitler invaded the USSR.

President Obama’s fundamental transformation

Putin, then, is not hard to understand. He is almost a stereotype.  But what about President Obama?

In the short span of his seven years in office, the United States has descended from the “world’s only superpower, the indispensable nation” to an increasingly irrelevant entity. This did not occur by accident, bad luck, inadvertence, or incompetence.

Almost immediately upon taking office, Mr. Obama began alienating America’s allies.  He gave up British nuclear secrets to Russia during arms negotiations. He backed away from agreements with Poland to base defensive missiles within its borders. He prematurely withdrew American forces from Iraq, which created the vacuum that gave rise to ISIS. He gave a departure date for the drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and opened negotiations with the Taliban in violation of a long-standing policy against speaking with terrorists.  He failed to lodge even a diplomatic protest when China stole offshore territory from the Philippines, and when Beijing intimidated Japan.  He utterly abandoned and even assisted in the elimination of the pro-western regime of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and the anti-al-Qaeda regime of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. He engaged in a unilateral withdrawal of American tanks from Europe.

In complete violation of U.S. treaty obligations to the Ukraine, the White House failed to take any serious steps, other than minor sanctions, against the Kremlin in response to its Ukrainian invasion.

President Obama’s alienation of Israel has become so complete that, following Iran’s call for the elimination of the Jewish state, he ordered Secretary of State John Kerry and Ambassador Samantha Power to be absent when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke at the U.N. to condemn that despicable statement.

It wasn’t just nation-states that were abandoned. He failed to take into consideration the plight of Cuban dissidents when he opened relations with Cuba (a month after Havana agreed to let the Russian navy back in!) He failed to dwell on the oppression of dissidents in Iran and China in his discussions with the governments of those nations.
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Mr. Obama complemented his diplomatic withdrawal from the world and alienation of allies with his demoralization and defunding of the U.S. military. He signed an agreement with Moscow allowing it to gain, for the first time in history, superiority in strategic nuclear weapons. He has even floated a trial balloon about unilateral cuts in the already diminished American atomic deterrent.

The dire results of Mr. Obama’s actions are indisputably evident in the replacement of U.S. influence and power throughout the world with those who are antagonistic towards western interests. While there has always been a segment of the American political leadership and the general public that has sought to reduce defense spending and decrease overseas entanglements, the extreme degree of the current White House’s actions are far beyond any prior leanings in that direction.

The question that remains is why the President chose this course, particularly at a time when the expansionist actions of Russia, China, Iran, and Islamic terrorists render it a dangerous and clearly mistaken plan.

The answer lies in not in foreign policy, but in domestic spending programs. Mr. Obama’s desire to “fundamentally transform America” (which he stated explicitly in his October 2008 campaign stop in Columbia, Missouri, and implicitly in many other forums) requires vast funding. During his tenure in office, extraordinary increases in new and expanded entitlement programs have occurred as part of his transformation, and he seeks to do even more.

The U.S. already imposes the highest corporate taxes in the developed world, and individual income taxes are equally excessive. Increasing either is politically untenable.  Deficit spending has reached its limit with the U.S. already in an $18 trillion hole, and already threatens to institute a Greek-style meltdown even without further increases.

Defense spending, which accounts for about 18% of the U.S. budget, is seen by the current White House as a piggy bank to finance its goal of turning America into a European-style social welfare state.

There are two problems with that course of action. The first is purely economic.

In every instance where a social welfare-concentrated government has been attempted, the results have ranged from disappointing to absolutely disastrous.  Whether tried in the extreme, as in communist nations, or in moderation, such as the social democrat states of Europe, the concept has not produced a robust economy.  As Margaret Thatcher once said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

Two factors have allowed Europe’s social –spending oriented states to survive as long as they have: the defense of the continent was provided by the United States, virtually eliminating the lion’s share of that burden (the United Kingdom, for example, spends only 2% of its budget on defense) and the comparatively unfettered American economy continued to be the economic engine of the planet.

European populations and governments have not shown the political will to replace the American defense umbrella, and their social welfare economies do not possess the ability to do so, particularly with the weakened U.S. economy incapable of being a driving force for financial growth.

President Obama apparently recognizes this. He made a reckless calculation that the only means to finance his domestic spending programs was to retreat from the U.S. post-World War II role as the bulwark of the defense of what used to be called the “free world.”  His apparent hope was that if America retreated from international activities and slashed defense spending, Russia, China, and other forces would do the same.

Obviously, that hasn’t happened. The exact opposite occurred. A militarily and diplomatically weakened America encouraged aggression on the part of expansionist forces. However, despite the abundant and overwhelming evidence that his gamble has completely failed, Mr. Obama refuses to change course.

That leaves the world at a precipice last seen in the 1930’s.

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China’s warships near Alaska elicits White House yawn

The news of an unusual deployment of five Chinese vessels, including an amphibious attack ship near the coast of Alaska is the latest in a disturbing pattern of militarily aggressive moves by Beijing’s navy. As it has in the past, the White House continues to claim that these increasingly belligerent acts are of no concern.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest, in response to press questions, stated: “They [the Department of Defense] have positively identified a number of Chinese naval vessels in that region, but they have also — based on their analysis, they have not detected any sort of threat or threatening activities.”

The question is, when will the White House actually recognize that a threat exists?

A recent Defense Tech  article reported that the Chinese Navy will outnumber its U.S. counterpart by 2020. Combined with extraordinary new military technological developments, such as the Dong Feng 21 anti-ship ballistic missile, and the continuing weakened state of the U.S. Navy (which has shrunk from 600 ships to 254, and has also suffered personnel losses due to White House-encouraged retirements) America’s maritime power is in deep trouble.

The numbers tell their own story. China’s fleet will grow to 351 ships within five years. The imbalance in submarines is particularly acute. House Armed Services Committee member Randy Forbes says Beijing will have an 82 to 32 advantage in subs.

Any growth in the reduced U.S. Navy remains in doubt. President Obama’s proposal to redeploy ships from other parts of the world to the Pacific to counter the Chinese threat no longer appears viable for a number of reasons. These include the fact that the Navy simply doesn’t have sufficient numbers to make this effective, as well as the growing presence of other threats that will require those ships to be on station elsewhere. Russia is also enhancing its naval power, part of the massive growth in armed strength ordered by Vladimir Putin, and is also re-opening cold war era naval facilities in Latin America and the Arctic. Iran continues to threaten American vessels in the strategically vital Straits of Hormuz. (Al Jazeera Quotes an Iran commander saying that his fleet can destroy U.S. warship in 50 seconds) North Korea also continues to be a threat.
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China’s Dong Feng 21 missile,a land based weapon that destroy an aircraft carrier or other large ship from 900 miles away, is a major threat. The Naval Institute Blog, described the U.S. Navy’s reaction to this device  as a near-panic reaction:

“The Navy’s reaction is telling, because it essentially equals a radical change in direction based on information that has created a panic inside the bubble. For a major military service to panic due to a new weapon system, clearly a mission kill weapon system, either suggests the threat is legitimate or the leadership of the Navy is legitimately unqualified. There really aren’t many gray spaces in evaluating the reaction by the Navy…the data tends to support the legitimacy of the threat.” The land based missile can effectively destroy an aircraft carrier or other large warship from 900 miles away.

Concern over the existence of China’s increasingly large and highly capable fleet is matched by the use it has made of its growing power. Two salient examples exemplify the challenge.

Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., the commander of U.S. Pacific Command recently stated China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea is an issue the American public must know about and the United States must address. He noted that in an 18 month span, China has reclaimed almost 3,000 acres of rocky outcroppings in the vital South China Sea. Beijing intends to use the locations to assert control over vital shipping lanes. According to the Department of Defense, “more than $5.3 trillion in global sea-based trade relies on unimpeded sea lanes through the South China Sea, adding that the Strait of Malacca alone sees more than 25 percent of oil shipments and 50 percent of all natural gas transits each day. This is made possible through the regional countries’ adherence to longstanding customary international law, which protects freedom of navigation, he added.”

China’s  occupation of portions of the Philippines exclusive economic zone, (see the New York Analysis of Policy & Government’s full review of this issue) provides another example of Beijing’s vigorous use of its regional naval superiority. Its intimidation against Japan and Vietnam are other salient examples.  In each of these areas, the Unites States has failed to support the nations, some staunch allies, victimized by China.

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Quick Analysis

China takes more territory

As the U.S. Navy’s influence across the globe continues to dwindle due to inadequate resources, China is moving aggressively forward. As the New York Analysis of Policy & Government has previously noted, this January, for the first time since the end of World War 2, the U.S. does not have an aircraft carrier available for regular duty in the Eastern Pacific.

The latest example is the development of military facilities built on isolated reefs across the strategically located and intensely disputed Spratly Islands.  Beijing is expanding the reefs through landfill processes. Several other nations have claims to the reefs, and see China’s action as an invasion of their sovereign territory.

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A vast percentage of the world’s trade moves through the region, and establishing hegemony over the area would give Beijing a chokehold on the world economy. Establishing air or naval bases on the reefs also provides its armed forces with substantial strategic advantages, providing its naval forces with a dominating advantage. With each failure of the global community to respond to its moves, Beijing’s leadership is encouraged to engage in further aggression, noting that there is no cost to be paid for defying international laws and conventions.